Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews for the last chapter, I love the idea that there are actually people out there who enjoy reading what I write. I always love that you tell me! I hope you continue to enjoy…
Disclaimer: As before. Particular disclaiming with regards to the rather obvious extract from Season 3 Episode 12.
Addison was sitting on a stool beside Sophia's cot, watching the little girl sleep and waiting for morning. She had heard her crying about an hour ago and not wanting to disturb Mark – or possessing the courage to face him – she had slipped away and gone to her before he stirred. Sophia hadn't taken long to settle, but Addison had continued to stay with her, telling herself that she wanted to be there in case she woke up again, that she didn't want the child to be alone. In truth, she didn't want to be alone.
The night had been terrible, terrible in that awful, horrific sort of way that left you cold to the bone and utterly traumatised. She almost thought she was shell-shocked. By the time a sickly grey dawn bled under the blinds, Addison felt as if every last iota of her strength had been sapped away.
They had stayed on the sofa for a very long time, and she cradled Mark in her arms until his sobs had gradually subsided and he had fallen asleep again. This time, she didn't have the heart to wake him and after a while of watching his anguished face in the dim lamplight, Addison slipped into her own troubled version of sleep.
Her dreams had been dark and confusing, full of the sound of crashing cars with crunching metal, screaming sirens and Sophia's wails building to a crescendo above it all. Then everything would fall silent, and flashes of memory would be dancing through her mind; memories of Seattle, of Derek, and of Mark. Arguments and cutting remarks, disappointment and humiliation. That gut wrenching addiction that she'd had to Mark – always the desperate want, followed by the desperate self loathing. And the good bits – Callie. Always Callie, or the sense of her, was on the edge of every fragment that passed through her head. Babies she saved, mothers she helped. Karev's smile.
Karev's smile. Such a smile. She remembered the way it used to come out of the blue and just change her whole day. She could be reeling from another of Derek's bitter barbs, or bubbling with fury at Mark, and then one of those smiles would sweep it all away. And in her dreams, she liked to forget what came after, and just cocoon herself in the memory of the kindness found in such an unexpected place.
She had found herself in that delicious state of dreaming just on the cusp between sleep and wakefulness when you're still in the dream but you know it's just a dream yet you find that you have the power, fleeting though it may be, to dictate events. And for once, instead of bringing down the shutter in her mind and banning herself from revisiting anything from that time, she used the dream to give herself a different ending.
'Hey.' He slid onto the stool next to her, his eyes exhausted.
She tapped at the rim of her glass pensively, and looked up at him. 'You got a dad?'
She'd always wondered why she had asked him that, but remembered at that moment, after that day, she'd really wanted to know.
'Not really. Not anymore.'
The monotone simplicity of his response told her far more than a blow-by-blow account ever could. She'd realised then that that look in his eyes, which until now she'd always mistaken for tiredness or cynicism or downright hostility depending on what mood he'd seemed to be in at the time, was in fact pain. The pain of a lingering damage to his soul.
Yet still he'd found it in his heart to be kind.
She'd sat there, fighting with her conscience, until the desire to try to mend his soul, and hers with it, overcame everything else, and when he gave her that sad smile she was lost. Gazing at him, she'd reached out and stroked his beautiful face.
Then slowly he leaned towards her with such a look of understanding in his deep brown eyes and she came forward to meet him and then there was this incredible, amazing, stunning kiss that both stopped her heart and jump started it at the same time. She could feel his lips on hers now, caressing, and the taste of him.
Eventually, they broke apart and she pulled her hands away from where they had been cradling his face.
'What now?' He had asked, and then she had realised that one of his hands, which she had thought had been resting resolutely on the top of the bar throughout the kiss, and was resting on her knee. His skin was cold, but she felt a warmth radiate out through her body.
And that was the moment where she took control of the dream. Instead of brushing his hand away and jumping to her feet, flustered and scared by just how right the last minute of her life had been, and muttering something about early rounds and too much alcohol, she didn't flee.
In the dream, she took his hand and carefully entwined her fingers with his. Looking up at him, she gave an uncertain little shrug. 'I don't want you to think –'
'I don't,' Dream-Alex cut across her. 'Trust me I don't.'
She let herself be pulled to her feet, and grabbed her purse while Alex took one last swig from the bottle of beer.
'Where do you live?' she asked him.
He shook his head. 'Not my place.'
Then, with that fabulous fluidity of time and space that dreams offered, they were in her hotel room at the Archfield, just as she remembered it. And Alex was lowering her onto the bed, and unbuttoning her blouse, kissing her all the while with the same tenderness and care as he had in the bar. Even now she could feel the ghost of his hands on her body.
She could feel his fingers skimming up her arms, knotting in her hair. She kissed him urgently, and she could taste the sadness on his lips: she wondered if hers tasted the same. His body was bearing down on hers and she arched into him, moaning. Almost frantically, she plucked his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and raked her nails across his back, clinging on to him tightly to save herself from drowning. Except she could quite happily die in his arms.
But as always with dreams, reality started to trickle in until the real world was back upon her in a flood, and she wasn't in bed with Alex. She wasn't anywhere with Alex, except his hands where still on her body, and his hot breath on her neck. For a moment, her mind was clouded with confusion, then 'Alex' moaned her name.
'Callie.'
Her brain cleared, and immediately she was struck with horror. She was still on the sofa with Mark, but he was as half asleep as she had been a moment ago, and he too was trying to chase ghosts from the past, although the past he was yearning for was rather more immediate.
She tried to wriggle out from underneath him, but he was a large man, and he had her pinned. 'Mark, wake up.'
He was kissing her throat, and for a fraction of a second, she was tempted to just go with it. She was still aroused from her dream about Alex, and God knows she could do with a release from the awful day she had endured, plus Mark was good at this. She might hate herself in the morning, but she'd sure as Hell have a good time tonight.
Then Callie's words echoed back at her – 'Now we have Sophia we're going to grow up and stop this whole sleeping with each other just because we can thing' – and Addison knew she couldn't do it.
More forcefully, she pushed Mark in the chest, and spoke louder. 'Mark, wake up.'
'Callie.' His voice was husky, full of desire. She had to stop him before this went too far.
'Mark. Mark.' She was almost shouting now. 'I'm not Callie. It's me, Addison. Wake up.'
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and recognition filtered in. He moved off her and sat up at the end of the couch, his head in his hands. She felt her entire body slacken in relief, and the true terribleness of their situation began to dawn on her. She began to cry.
'I'm not Callie,' she found herself repeating. 'I'm Addison. I'm not Callie. I'm not Callie.'
This time, it was Mark who held her until the tears dried.
