A/N: I should stop telling you in my author's notes that the story took a different turn than I expected, and just figure it's a given. Addison and Derek have minds of their own sometimes, what can I say? This popped into my head and forced me to write it. Please let me know what you think, and keep sending me prompts and ideas please!
So, this flip comes from an episode I love, Much Too Much, when the quints are born and, as someone noted, Derek watches Addison running the OR and delivering all the quints with a really lovely, even appreciative look on his face, and Addison seems to notice. This episode also comes between two key Addek episodes, 2.09 (Thanksgiving) and 2.12 (Christmas).
...and then the episode ends, of course. So here's a flip that takes place right after the surgery that closed out the episode...
Just Enough
(2.10, "Much Too Much")
"That was amazing," he says.
Addison's lips curl upwards. "It was?"
"Yeah, it was." Derek scrubs his hands at the sink, remembering the way she commanded the OR with precision and focus, all five color-coded teams waiting for her instruction and leadership. And now five tiny humans are breathing in the NICU because of her skills.
"Well … thanks," she says quietly, pressing the lever to rinse her own hands. It's just the two of them now; everyone else has scrubbed out and cleared off.
He glances at her. "What are you thinking for the other four?"
She considers the question. "Emily's going to have the hardest road, probably – but if anyone can help her, it's Preston."
"Preston," he repeats.
"…Burke," she finishes his name, seeming confused.
"Oh. That Preston. He makes me call him Dr. Burke."
"That is his name," she reminds him.
"But you call him Preston."
"Well, that's also his name." She pushes flyaway hair behind her ears.
"And he calls you Addison…?"
"…which is my name. Derek." She scans his face. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's okay."
"Okay," she says slowly. "Good."
In his head, he hears her uncertain tone as she trailed him down the hall that morning.
You're sure that's all? Nothing's wrong?
Then, with some shame tugging at the corners of his memory, he feels her lips on his, the softness of her body pressing into him, her almost-giddy tone. That was amazing, she said, and there was more than giddiness to her voice – there was relief too, and then he was the relieved one, because she couldn't see into his head and know that his mind had betrayed her.
"Addison…"
She reaches for the safety pin holding her rings to her scrub top. Just above the pocket, where they've always sat during surgery, ever since he first placed them on her finger.
Her voice is soft and a little anxious when she responds. "Yes?" Then her gaze shifts and she seems to see where he's looking. "Derek…"
..
"Derek!"
She's flying down the hall into his arms and he catches her automatically, lifting her off her feet with the force of her embrace.
"I did it!" she cries.
"You did it?" He sets her down to look at her face. "Really?"
"Really." She beams. "My first time flying solo."
"You're amazing." He kisses her. "Amazing," he repeats, kissing her again. "How did it feel?"
"It felt ... amazing," she giggles.
"Addie, I'm so disappointed I missed it. I wish I could have watched, but I was holding the retractor for McDonough for the last three hours." He sighs.
"I wish you could have too, but you'll get another chance."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." She links her arm through his as they walk down the hallway. "Lots of chances. After this it's all solo procedures, from now on."
"Really." He smiles at her. "So that's how it works?"
"Yup." She raises one of her hands to affirm her point. "First I fly solo and then you fly solo and we just get better and better until I get Chief Resident."
"You're getting Chief Resident?"
She nods. "Too much admin for you. You won't end up wanting it."
Interesting. "Go on," he says.
"Then our fellowships – the best ones, obviously, but they have to be at the same hospital, and I've already researched our options-"
Of course she has.
"-and then we'll set up our practices but we'll stay on faculty because teaching hospitals get all the coolest surgeries."
This is true.
"And then we'll each be the head of our own departments and then … "
"And then?"
"And then we'll be co-chiefs of surgery." She grins at him, pushing open the door to the locker room. "Which is when we get to run the whole hospital – or the important part of it, anyway."
"You have it all planned out, huh?"
She nods, opening her locker and fishing inside it for her street clothes. He just stands there for a moment, watching her.
"Addison…"
"Hm?" She turns to him, her scrub top halfway off.
"Marry me."
"What did you say?" She pulls her scrub top all the way off, getting slightly tangled in it and emerges a little breathless with flyaway hair.
"I said, marry me."
"Yeah, right…" She laughs a little reaches for the tie on her scrub pants.
"Addie." He covers her hands with his, stilling her fingers. "I mean it. Marry me."
"Derek." Her voice sounds a little shaky, her eyes lowered. "This isn't funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny. I'm trying to be married."
"But…"
"I know, I don't have a ring, I'm sorry. I'll get one. I'll get a big one." He considers the state of his bank account. "Or, you know, a small one and then I'll get you a big one when we take over the hospital because we are going to do that one day."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He lowers onto one knee on the floor. "Addison..."
"Derek!" She's laughing but she also sounds a little teary. She rests one of her hands on the top of his head, tangling gently in his hair.
"I feel like I'm knighting you," she giggles.
"Addie … I'm trying to be romantic here."
"Derek, we're in the locker room and I'm half-dressed and I've been running around all day and I smell."
"You never smell."
She smiles a little bit.
"But Derek, we've talked about this. We were going to wait until we were done with our internships, and then…"
"…and then wait until we're done with our residencies, and then wait until we're done with our fellowships? Wait, and wait, and wait? I know what we said, Addie, but I don't want to wait anymore. Not for you."
The smile spreads across her face.
"But I need a ring." He looks around the room for inspiration. "Hang on a second."
"Derek…"
He sits back on his heels for a moment, thinking, then sees the pile of papers sitting on the bench. Reminders to the interns about the new filing rules. But the pile is secured with …
"Aha! Perfect."
Carefully, he straightens out the paper clip he detached from the papers and then bends it slowly into a circle.
A big circle.
Addison is laughing a little, watching him. "That thing is huge."
"I know," he deadpans, "but let's focus on the ring right now."
She groans. "That was Mark-worthy."
"Sorry. You know he's a bad influence. Hold on," he realizes what to do, and gets back onto his feet. "Don't move," he points at her.
"Don't point at me," she protests, but she's smiling.
He fishes in the supply tub on the table for a moment and then holds his hand up victoriously.
"Surgical tape," she observes doubtfully.
"And scissors," he adds.
"What are you going to…"
"My father owned a jewelry store, remember?" Derek carefully unrolls a short strip of surgical tape and begins cutting thin strands. "I have skills you haven't even seen."
He sits down on the bench in front of the lockers, concentrating. It's like surgery: careful, precise, and – yes! He's got the paper clip carefully doubled now. He tests the size on his own finger; he can gauge hers from his, from all the times their hands have pressed against each others and he's marveled at the skill and strength in her fingers. The ring fits him fine, so it will need to be a little smaller for her – except that it's likely to break if he plays with it any more than he already has.
(And yes, he realizes that last part was also Mark-worthy.)
"Derek … can I move yet?"
"No," he says without looking up.
"Can I at least put on my shirt?"
Now he looks up, admiring the view. "Definitely not."
"Someone could walk in any time, you know."
"But they haven't yet, right? Because the fates are aligning for my proposal."
"The fates. That's what's making you put – surgical tape on a paper clip?"
"Don't question the fates," he scolds. "Just give me one more second and … there we go."
He folds back onto one knee and holds up the newly constructed ring. "Addison … now will you marry me?"
Her hands are propped on her hips. She looks away for a moment, then back at him, her eyes very blue in this light.
"Derek … are you asking me to marry you because you missed my solo surgery?"
"No." He shakes his head. "I'm asking you to marry me because I don't want to miss anything ever again."
"Then yes," she says, a smile spreading across her face, and he slides the ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand. "I'll marry you."
The ring fits perfectly.
..
"Derek? Were you going to…ask me something?" Her voice trails off. She's rubbing the back of her neck absently with one hand like she often does after surgery, stiff from the hours of tense focus.
He shakes his head. "It's nothing."
"Okay," she says uncertainly.
He could leave the scrub room, but something compels him to stay, hip propped against the sink, watching as she unpins her rings from her scrub top.
She looks up and sees him watching her.
"You know … superstition." She sounds a little embarrassed.
His hand moves seemingly of its own accord; suddenly, he's holding out an open palm.
She looks at his hand for a long moment, then carefully places her rings into it.
He remembers his three married sisters flocking around him, showing him how to place the wedding ring on Addison's finger. The engagement ring goes first, Nancy – always the bossy one – instructed firmly. That way you're protecting the stone, explained Kathleen, the logical one. And one day you might even be able to afford a stone that needs protection, added Liz, the blunt one.
Taking her left hand in his, he prepares to slide the engagement ring – the protection-worthy stone he was eventually able to afford, as Lizzie might say, but not until later – onto her fourth finger.
"Wait," she says.
He pauses and looks up.
"Do the other one first."
"This one?" He holds up her simple white gold wedding band; that one hasn't changed over the years.
She nods.
Carefully, he slides the wedding band onto her finger first, followed by the engagement ring, and then releases her hand.
Addison's smile is almost shy. "Thanks," she says softly.
"Addison…"
"Hm?" She's twisting the rings absently around her finger.
"Why are you wearing them like that?"
"Like what?"
"Wedding band there," he takes her left hand in his again and touches her skin lightly where the band sits, "and engagement ring there. I thought the engagement ring went below the band to protect the diamond."
"Who told you that, Nancy?"
"Maybe," he admits. "But why are you…"
"I always wear them like this." She holds her left hand out in front of her for a moment, studying it.
"No, you don't." He's confused. "Why did you want me to-"
"I don't know," she says abruptly.
"You always know."
She pauses and then continues when he's still waiting for an answer, sounding a little impatient. "I don't know, Derek, okay? I just … like having the band closer right now," she confesses finally.
"Closer to what?"
"Forget it. No reason."
"Addison." He touches her arm. "You're a surgeon. And I know you. You never do anything without a reason. Closer to what?"
"To my heart," she says finally, blushing visibly. "And Derek, if you tell anyone I said that, the interns are going to stop being afraid of me and my life here is going to get even worse."
"Even worse," he repeats her words.
She shrugs a little, and when she reaches up to untie her scrub cap he sees her hands shake just a little bit with exhaustion.
"I'm sorry your life here is … worse," he says quietly.
"Yeah, well. I'm sorry for a lot of things too." She shakes out her lucky scrub cap. "I really am, Derek, but … anyway, thanks for what you did in there, with Lucy."
"Just doing my job."
She smiles briefly and then shrugs into the lab coat she's left hanging on the hook, reaching into the pocket. Derek watches as she pulls out a jumble of keys – he used to tease her that she walked around like a custodian: there was no reason to carry her house keys, the keys to their summer house, the keys to the car she almost never drove, the keys to her office, the keys to his office, the keys to Savvy & Weiss's, the keys to Nancy's … and so on.
As she fiddles with her stack of keys he notices that she's using the same sterling half-circle to hold her keys she's always used, but he also notices that in between the copious different keys there's something dangling that is not a key.
It's a slightly misshapen little circle, small and easy to miss.
But he can see yellowing surgical tape wrapped around the rather lumpy shape that he knows to be … a paper clip. A paper clip bent double, covered in thin strips of tape, twelve years ago.
"Addison…"
She looks up at him, and he sees her fingers stroking the little circle dangling from her keychain.
"You hungry?"
"A little, I guess."
"We could-"
"The crusts are too thick," she responds before he can finish.
He presses his lips together. He could say I wasn't going to suggest pizza, but she can usually tell when he's lying.
"You pick, then," he challenges.
She doesn't say anything.
"… right, where's the fun in that," he teases her, "if you can't criticize the choice?"
She looks the slightest bit amused. "So … what do we do, then?"
"How about we get pizza, but you can criticize the crusts the whole time?"
"Okay." She nods slowly, a smile spreading across her face. "Okay. Let me just change and … I'll meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes?"
He watches her walk away, taking his rings with her.
All three of them.
Finis. Okay, I don't know what's gotten into me. Fluffy Fridays? (Ooh, anyone sense a new series idea?)
So, the nice thing about this chapter, IMO, is the choose your own ending aspect. These flips are, as many of you have noted, just steps toward each other. This one was a touch fluffy, but... you have options!
For angst lovers – Ianuaria, Msmiumiu, for example, imagine one of them gets a page after this, they don't get their pizza, and the step they took toward each other just kind of … fades out. ("That's why you always leave a note!")
If you want more steps, maybe a little sweetness: for you, xxLittleBlackDressesxx, maybe they totally shared that pizza. Derek obviously ate her overly thick crusts while she complained about missing New York slices.
Last thing ... I love reviews, I'm shameless, there, I said it. Picture me as Addison following you down you the hall of , asking: "Was the story okay? Are we okay?" Don't be the guy who says "yeah, we're fine, I'll see you in the next chapter." Or worse, "Not now, winter machine." And with that, I'm out 'til the next chapter. Thanks for being awesome readers and keeping the Addek Revolution alive!
