May 1 & 2, 2010

She's drinking an imported Coke, the carbonation burning her throat and formulating tears in her eyes, when it arrives. Two letters are not all that unusual, nobody writes as often as Derek but sometimes her friends' letters arrive at the same time as her ex-husband's. So she doesn't see it coming, merely continues to chug the dark amber liquid because she delivered three babies at the same time this morning and she's exhausted.

"You going to open those?" Cailen asks from his position beside her, his muscled forearm twitching as he tries to resist the can of Sprite the priest left covered in condensed moisture while he went to go resolve some domestic dispute.

She arches one eyebrow, pretending to just have noticed she has mail, nods, and manages to choke on her Coke. Cailen chuckles but his impossibly pale brown eyes narrow, watching her every move as she slips her fingers under the thick paper to tear the seal, she knows he's curious but this isn't a discussion she's ready to have.

But this thing Derek has flung halfway across the world for her is not, in fact, a letter, but instead embellished stationary from none other than the Archfield with only two sentences upon it.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't marry Meredith.

Her heart contracts in her chest and then plummets, causing her diaphragm to seize up and the air in her lungs to leave in one rattling breath. The sun is brilliant and insistent on her back, exponentially stronger than it was in Seattle or even LA, but Addison feels cold, and yes, those are goosebumps creeping up her arms.

She sits suspended in eternity as Cailen calls her name loudly and then shakes her shoulders, telling her things, to breathe, maybe, but she can't. And then the priest is back, his dry, cracked, mahogany hands on her forehead, and she manages a shuddering breath only to open her eyes and discover she's attracted a small crowd.

So she runs. Pulls away from helping hands and escapes into the burning sand, not stopping until the village is significantly smaller in the distance. She sinks against a palm tree, the rough trunk pushing her salmon tee shirt up her back and scratching the delicate skin underneath. She thinks she can sense a storm on the way, the sky is now pale grey instead of cerulean and a breeze teases the palm leaves but she heedlessly rips open the second letter, just as her ex-husband has ripped open her heart.

I'm sorry; I know that was a little abrupt. I was drunk and I wasn't really thinking and all I wanted to do was talk to you. That may be unfair, I realize that, but I've been talking to you for seven months now Addie. You're the person I tell everything to, even if it's that I can't marry the woman I left you for.

At least I'm fairly sure that you'll never have to hear the name McDreamy again because most of the hospital staff is calling me McBastard now. I finally know how you feel when you walked in here with a rightful claim to me as my wife and everyone sided with Meredith and called you Satan. I get that Meredith's friends are going to take her side, but Richard, Mark and Callie are the only ones who are speaking to me and, well, I underestimated how awful it must have felt for you. I'm sorry.

The truth is that I woke up that morning and everything just felt wrong. I don't know how else to explain it. It didn't feel anything like the day before I married you, when all I could think about was what you'd look like walking down that aisle. Instead I drove Mark so insane that he punched me and told me I was an idiot. And then somehow I just knew that it would never work when the only place I wanted to be was the airport, harassing them until they told me how I could get to Sudan fastest.

Meredith didn't take it well, obviously. Not that I'd expect anything less, but she threw one of the shots she'd been downing before the wedding at me. At least it's smaller than the stilettos you used to aim at me. She's resilient though, or so I keep telling myself because the last thing I need is a repeat of Elliot Bay. She thought she wanted this, but I don't think she did. After she was done being mad, she looked … relieved, although I doubt she'd ever admit it. And that's fine. I take full blame.

I guess what I've been trying to say is I couldn't marry Meredith because I was thinking about you, Addison. I see you, all the time. You're everywhere.

And really, it's time to stop beating around the bush. We slept together, Addison. Denying it or pretending it didn't happen isn't going to get us anywhere. I was planning on proposing to Meredith and you brought Archer to Seattle and took me out of the box and we had sex. We pretended it didn't mean anything but it turned out that it does, it means something to me.

I don't think you're ready to hear this, but I … care for you, Addison. In a more than friendly letters way. And we may have screwed everything up and gotten divorced and it may have taken months of letters and a whole new country to make me realize it, but I love you.

Derek

P.S. I think my mother's going to kill me.

The storm has settled in, wrapping the bare, sweeping desert in winds that reshaped the far-off dunes and causing scarlet tendrils to obscure her face as she walks quickly back to her hut. She settles onto her cot, pulling her sweat soaked salmon top up as far as is appropriate and lets her mind drift while she waits for the storm to wear itself out and smiles across the sweltering space tenderly. Then she drifts back to times when happiness equated pain but every drop of either was worth it …

It happened after Archer's surgery, after Jen's death. After their intense "you put the scalpel down" fight, and Jen's husband calling Derek a monster, she couldn't help but seek out Derek, even though he wasn't hers to help anymore. She had known that later Meredith would help him drown his sorrows in her signature tequila, but she'd found him first, head in hands in the on-call room farthest from the surgical floor. There were precious few times that she'd seen crystal tears fall from his sky blue eyes but that was one of them, and she cradled him as only she knew how, pulling him close to her chest and allowing tears to seep into silk.

The blame for what happened afterward could not fully be attributed to either of them, because he may have kissed her first but her hands were already fisted in his scrub top and yanking it over his head was only too easy. She hadn't kissed him since they were married and it showed, not in unfamiliarity but in desperation and longing, and by the time his open-mouthed kisses reached her neck she had been already too far gone to resist the crumb of salvation he offered. Afterward it was predictably awkward in a clichéd way and she swept her hair up into a mess ponytail as best she could while trying to will the rose flush away from her cheeks and then made her escape.

Whether she loved him, or loves him now, even, in this country burdened by death and disease isn't the question. He thinks he knows, but he doesn't. He can't just say that he loves her, not after he broke her, not after all that's happened, all the things he doesn't know about. He just can't.

He's pretty sure he's in a hotel. He's also equally almost sure that it is Mark snoring beside him, blonde head resting on the bedside table, tux jacket hanging off of one shoulder. He's not positive though. Every time he tries to open his eyes, the light pouring out in copious amounts from the bathroom blinds him.

He didn't drink tequila last night, as he's sure his almost-wife did, but enough scotch can have the same effect, causing his head to pound and his vision to blur as he wills himself not to throw up. It'll be inevitable at some point, he knows. There's no fighting nature.

But right now he just likes lying with his eyes closed, making Mark and the hotel room (supposing that's what he's seeing) disappear. Instead he sees Addison, sun beating down on her bronzed cheeks, perhaps with a nut-skinned baby on one shoulder. She's found her way back into his heart again, and really, this admission was months in the making. He knew what he was getting himself into when he sent that first letter last September, knew that his relationship with Meredith was teetering on the brink of failure unless something was done. And yet he let her in again, willingly, to his innermost thoughts, which she hasn't been privy to since he found her in bed with the man sleeping several feet away.

He doesn't know what a third go of Addison-and-Derek will bring, or even if there will be a third round, but he's certain, finally, beyond a doubt that he wants to try. He's been lost for years and yet his home resides across a peacock blue sea in a country he's never even visited.