Author's Note: Thank you to those of you who've followed up with me about this story. I'm still working on finishing it, and I will finish it, but it's a bear to edit, revise, and organize, so if you're still reading and interested, throw me a bone. I'll admit it - it really helps. After all these years, I still think things could have gone very differently for these two if they were forced to deal with their issues head on. So, I hope you'll enjoy and let me know what you think. Without further ado, let's transport ourselves back ten years to the middle of Season 2...
The Climbing Way
Chapter Fourteen
"Derek! Did you tell her?"
Derek has come to the merciful conclusion that Mark isn't his conscience, but the other man has retained his knack for raising exactly what Derek doesn't want to hear and somehow making it sound like a friendly greeting. He chooses to ignore his former best friend.
"So you didn't tell her…" Mark's tone is provocative now, but Derek can grudgingly admit it's within the tacit rules they seem to have developed for this new stage in whatever remains of their ruined friendship: the catwalk, the green zone, is for talking. In the rest of the hospital, it's unfortunately fair game.
"Don't talk about what you don't know," Derek retorts.
"Well, did you?" Mark has the gall to sound reasonable now.
"No," Derek admits.
"Did you want us to walk in on that?" Mark asks suddenly.
"I've walked in on worse." He's tired of Mark's misplaced moralizing.
"And when does your pity party end, Derek? How badly does she have to get hurt?"
"I'm not having this conversation."
"Fine." Mark raises both his hands – as if he even knows the concept of surrendering. "I'm operating again, by the way. Your chief seems to think I can bring him some notoriety."
"You do bring notoriety wherever you go," Derek doesn't meet his eye.
Mark shakes his head. "Still not happy I'm here? Not even a little, not even after I patched her-"
"Just go get published," Derek snaps. "Go get published and leave us alone."
The surprise on Mark's face at the word us isn't lost on him as he stalks away.
He meets Addison's team outside her room, listens to them tell him how important it is for her to transition to actual food.
"She says she's not hungry."
"The IV nutrition has been meeting her basic needs, but anything she can take in by mouth is going to be superior. She's losing weight, which means losing strength, which means losing ground."
He nods; he knows this.
They remind him that she's limited to soft foods, and he's forced to think about the stitches in her mouth, the ones on the inside of her lip from her initial injuries and the ones further back that lead to the plates and screws that are maintaining the shape of her face.
"And there's a psychological component; we find that the sooner patients can start eating again, it helps with the healing process. There are studies..." the other doctor trails off. "So, whatever you can do to encourage it."
Other than a nice red wine pairing?
Bearing in mind that Addison hasn't exactly been taking his advice for quite a while now, convincing her to eat sounds as impossible as everything else that's been required of him during this process. And like all the other steps, he knows, intellectually, that it's harder for her than for him. But in all the important ways things have always seemed easier for her.
That, or she's stronger than he is.
Addison and food, though. They were broke med students when they met – or at least Addison was living like a broke med student, her trust fund secreted in a bank he'd never heard of and her operating budget seemingly as pennywise as his own. So in medical school they survived on the same revolting trifecta as the rest of their classmates: bad Chinese, food truck falafel, and 50-cent ramen noodle packets. And coffee, always coffee.
As they started making more money and making time to eat outside the hospital cafeteria, there were real restaurants. Nice ones, and then nicer ones, and they were usually her idea. But they also usually had extensive wine lists, with words that remained unfamiliar to him, that seemed to be the bigger draw. Food-wise, she was just as likely to eat a salad from the cafeteria or find him in his office and snag bites of whatever he'd found for lunch or dinner.
He's seen her passionate about many things in the course of their decade and a half relationship – in no particular order: alarmingly expensive shoes, wine, sex, good coffee, better surgeries, and thousand count Egyptian cotton sheets – but not food. He's not actually sure she really likes consuming anything other than wine, coffee, and salad. Maybe gin. Certainly nothing that fits in the "soft food" category.
It was one of those little things that were difficult to explain and more difficult to watch unravel, those small divides that separated her from his mother's watchful eye. He remembers his mother's lips pursing with judgment one of her first Christmases, when Addison cheerfully replied, in response to an offer of mashed potatoes, that she'd rather save her calories for wine. "Or… dessert?" she'd added uncertainly off his mother's expression. It's not that I don't like her, that was his mother's patient refrain, it was just that she was - different from what Carolyn expected from her only daughter in law. She wasn't, for example, Derek's college girlfriend Laura, who was solidly middle class and studying for a teaching degree. She ended up marrying the local pharmacist, had two kids by thirty, baked an excellent peach pie, and knew enough about football to joke around with Derek's brothers-in-law at Thanksgiving. Derek knew his mother had been fond of Laura, who fit into her world like a puzzle piece where Addison broke the mold. Addison tumbled into his life in a whirlwind; they met in a late summer lab and were inseparable by spring. They learned each other as they went, her chilly moneyed upbringing and his chaotic but loving household. She remembered the birthdays of every single one of his nieces and nephews, and took over picking out their Christmas presents years before they married. She became, he can admit now, the thread that bound him to his family when he was too busy to deal with them himself - and now that he is here, across the country, there is nothing binding him to them at all.
"…Shepherd? Any ideas?"
It's Bailey frowning at him now.
"Not mashed potatoes," he says finally.
When he enters her room he sees an untouched tray of unappetizingly soft food on a rolling faux-wood table next to her bed.
"Looks good," he says as heartily as he can, and her expression makes it clear she's not fooled.
"I'm not hungry."
"Okay. Can you think of anything else you might want to-"
"Please don't push me."
He sits down next to her. "You need to build up your strength."
She doesn't answer him.
"They're going to bring you food anyway, Addison, so if there's something that you-"
"Derek, what exactly do you see as the plan?" she interrupts him, but doesn't look at him. She doesn't have full motion of her head, so she's not looking away exactly, but not at him either.
"The plan?"
"Before this, we were..." she gestures with her good hand, though he's not sure at what. "And now we're here, and ... well?"
"The plan." He thumbs the blackberry in the pocket of his lab coat. "The plan is for you to get back on your feet and then we'll decide the plan."
"Well, when is that going to be?"
"It will be sooner when you start eating," he says practically, somewhat proud of himself for winning this round of verbal gymnastics and though she looks somewhat annoyed as he untangles himself from the visitor's chair and leaves with a quick kiss to her forehead, he thinks she might look a bit impressed as well.
Back in the welcome bustle of impersonal medicine, he talks briefly to Richard, reviews the charts he didn't complete yesterday. There's more than one case that looks interesting; he's added his name back to the board.
"Dr. Shepherd?"
He looks up from his chart.
"Dr. Stevens." The nervous blonde intern is leaning against the nurses' desk and holding a covered basket on her hip. Combined with her scrubs and lab coat, the effect is bizarre. Dr. Stevens, you should be a little embarrassed right now.
"Um, I was wondering how Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd is doing…." Her voice trails off at his lack of response.
He nods briefly, the kind of nod that should deliver go away if the listener is paying attention, but it doesn't work.
"Just because we, um, we were working together, before, and I - I bake. I mean, I bake and that's kind of what I do when things are ... so I baked these and I'm not sure if she-" she breaks off. "I bake," she says finally, unnecessarily, and thrusts the basket into his hands.
He places the chart on the desk just in time to accept her gift, gingerly lifting the gingham cotton covering the top to peer into the basket.
"Muffins?"
She looks just past him, nodding.
"Well. Thank you, uh, Dr. Stevens."
Eagerness and anxiety seem to rise off the intern, a flush creeping into her cheeks. He knows Addison said something to him about Stevens - that she's promising, maybe? That she – was it that she made a mistake? – it was definitely something, but he's ashamed to admit he wasn't really listening.
Still, Dr. Stevens reminds him of someone.
"Muffins."
He sits down at the side of her bed, placing the basket in a position of prominence on her rolling table. The untouched food has already been removed, and the private nurses are gone - perhaps Addison followed through on her desire to let them go.
"From Dr. Stevens," he adds.
She doesn't say anything.
"I tried one. They're surprisingly good, actually."
He roots in the basket, comes up with a muffin. Aware that she's still limited in terms of mouth movement, he chooses a soft and relatively unadorned golden muffin that could be corn, rips it in two.
"Try it?"
She shakes her head.
He sits back for a moment, then takes a bite himself. "It's delicious. And it's very soft."
"Don't you have patients to see?"
"I do." He takes another bite, chews, swallows, then indicates the pager at his hip. "I can multitask. I'm good like that."
He keeps his tone light.
He busies himself, mercifully, with charting, provides a few consults, checks an intern's work. Here, in the rest of the hospital, he can almost start to feel like himself. If he works enough. But, true to the strange rhythm they've developed over the past strange week, after enough time passes he feels compelled to check on Addison.
"Dr. Shepherd."
"Dr. Burke," he replies, somewhat bemused, as the other man exits his wife's room.
Addison is elevated in bed, holding a cup of rather violently colored purple liquid. "Smoothie," she responds to Derek's look, "which would be easier with a straw," and she grimaces slightly. "But it's … good. Preston had them double blend it."
Preston. It never fails to strike him how much more easily she gets people to take to her than he does. Really, he never stood a chance once she arrived in Seattle.
She holds the cup out to him with a half a smile, lips darker with berry juices, and for a moment he's transported somewhere else entirely. Those lips…
Then he shakes his head, back in the present. "You don't want my germs." He smiles at her. "Not while you're healing. But I'm glad to see you eating."
"They've pumped me full of so many antibiotics…" she looks at the port with annoyance.
"Still."
She's made it through less than a quarter of the small cup before she sets it down on the rolling table, leaning back against her pillows. Her eyes flutter, then open again.
"Get some rest," he starts to say, his automatic precursor to a farewell, and she glares at him with her good eye from under fluttering lashes.
"What?"
"I'm tired from … drinking a smoothie, Derek."
"It's normal."
"It's not normal."
"You know what I-"
"This is why I don't want to be overmedicated." She sounds annoyed and sluggish all at once, and he remembers this battle, within herself and with him, from years ago.
It's like walking through taffy, and don't tell me you understand because you don't. It's hard enough. It's already hard enough, Derek!
"I understand, but you also don't want to be undermedicated, Addie. Or you shouldn't want that," he adds.
"What I want…" she stops talking for a moment, wincing slightly, and he forces himself not to react since she's already annoyed with him. "What I want is to get out of here."
"I know." He sits back down heavily, takes her hand in his. He's admittedly stir crazy just from frequent, brief visits to her room. He can't imagine how she feels. Addison has always wanted to move, to do, to accomplish, she was always doing a hundred different things, making plans…
"You need to get stronger first-"
"My stitches should come out tomorrow. Will you check?"
"Yes. Of course." He pats her hand, avoiding the stitches, glad to have a specific task, and one that seems relatively difficult to fail.
He should ask Bailey, who seems to know everything. A nurse directs him to the NICU, where Dr. Bailey is apparently checking on the four remaining quints. He runs into their mother first, outside the protective glass doors.
"Mrs. Russell." He nods in greeting.
"Dorie," she corrects him.
"Dorie." He smiles at her. "The girls are improving, I understand?"
"It's slow, but … they're getting better, I think." She gives him a weak smile. She still looks exhausted, not that he can blame her, but she seems stronger than the last time he saw her. Then again, that was a lifetime ago.
"How is she?" Dorie asks.
"Who?" he asks, thinking she wants to check on the progress of one of her daughters.
"The other Dr. Shepherd. Your, um, your wife. I…heard about what happened."
He frowns, not sure Addison would appreciate the news spreading as far as it has.
"She's improving too," he offers, figuring it's vague enough.
"She saved my daughters." Dorie blinks, and he sees tears in her eyes. "She – I had three different doctors tell me there was no way I'd deliver, that I was an idiot for not reducing, and she – she was the only one who didn't. Can you tell her that I'm naming one of them for her? Charlotte, actually. Now she'll be Charlotte Addison Russell."
"That's kind of you," he says neutrally, glancing at the door and wondering when he can make his escape.
"You two are such a perfect couple."
At her soft words, Derek sees Addison next to him in Dorie's sunny hospital room again, ponytail swinging merrily as she introduced him, beaming. She always loved what Mark called their Mutt and Jeff routine.
He's my husband, actually.
Wow, look at you! Everyone must hate you.
You have no idea.
"I'm just going to check on the girls," he tells Dorie, and she moves aside to let him pass.
He's planning to look at their charts, because it's not really a lie if you make up for it afterwards, or at least that's what he's been telling himself for years.
But Meredith is leaning over an incubator housing two of the quints, impossibly tiny and yet, based on their charts, improving almost miraculously. They are faced toward each other, each apparently drawing strength from the other's presence. For a brief, embarrassing moment, he envies them.
Meredith looks up at him, hair coming loose from her messy ponytail around her familiar face. "I heard Dorie is renaming one of the quints for Addison."
Derek smiles ruefully. "Just adding a middle name, I think, for Charlotte."
"Charlotte?" Her brow furrows. "That's my quint."
Derek shakes his head, not understanding.
"We each had a quint and - Charlotte's mine." Meredith pauses long enough for him to notice that she looks like she hasn't been sleeping much. "And now she's Addison's too. It's like your wife and I have a baby together. I mean ... oh, god, that must sound … insensitive. I'm sorry." She's half smiling and half horrified and he recognizes his own intern year – and Addison's – in her exhausted, wild-eyed expression.
"It's okay."
Addison is sitting most of the way up, talking to Dr. Burke again, when he walks in.
"Dr. Shepherd." Burke nods at him.
"Dr. Burke."
Addison looks more energized than when he saw her last.
"I'll see you soon. Keep it up, you're making great strides." Derek watches them exchange a smile and Burke nods briefly at him again on the way out.
Derek takes the vacant seat. "I don't know if I like that guy."
"Well, I do."
"What's that?" He gestures at the chart in her hand.
"Quints. Duplicate charts. Keeping up to date on their progress."
"I saw Dorie Russell," he offers. "She sent her best." He purposefully avoids any definitive statement as to whether Dorie knows anything about her condition. The private wing feels more insulated and he thinks that's probably good, that Addison won't want people to know what happened to her. Then again, she seems to feel comfortable with Preston Burke.
"How's Dr. Burke?" he asks, changing the subject, noting another untouched food tray on the table. "Twice in one day…."
"We walked." Addison moves her good shoulder slightly in a sort of half-shrug. "And … talked. He's had an interesting life," she adds.
Of course she already knows more about Burke than he does. Addison was always good at getting information. Giving it, not so much.
He keeps missing her walks. He doesn't think he needs to say it loud, but he also wants her to know that he's sorry.
I don't want to talk about it. Their family crest.
"Addison-"
"Bailey said my stitches are coming out very soon," she talks over him.
And he was supposed to get that information for her. Damn.
"And I - I'd like to be able to go - to get out of here, you know, as soon as I can."
This is something he hasn't exactly wanted to think about. "Addison-" he starts again.
"I know. The trailer isn't set up for recovery," she interrupts.
She's just barely moved in – interrupted might be a more accurate description, actually - still greeting him most mornings with I hate the trailer or her patented, arch really, Derek?. When he tried to draw her attention to the view from the trailer's porch, she complained that her neck was too stiff from sleeping in a glorified murphy bed to see that far.
"Addison," he begins, for the third time, hoping to redirect her, but she seems determined not to let him control the direction of their conversation, interrupting him right away.
"It's Monday?"
He nods.
"We have an appointment today."
His brow furrows as he tries to remember what she's talking about. "An appointment?"
"Dr. Saltzman."
He hears her voice in his ear as she kept stride with him down the catwalk, thrusting her rings in his face … here at work, where you won't talk to me, or on the ferry, where you pretend not to see me, or in couple's therapy three times a week, where we're arguing about whether or not we should be in couple's therapy!
He nods slowly, not sure why she's bringing it up. "I'll, uh, call his office to cancel," he says finally. Addison was their logistical manager in New York; she maintained their semi-shared calendar of dwindling couple's obligations, but under the circumstances-
"Don't cancel."
"Hm?"
"I don't think you should cancel."
"Addison." He cocks his head slightly, trying to figure out what she's getting at. "You're not exactly in shape to go across-"
"I know I can't go," she says impatiently, her voice still scratchy. "You can, though."
"Addie, that doesn't make-"
"Please?"
It's just one word but it hits him hard. There are so many things he could be doing, should be doing, would be doing, but somehow he finds himself driving across town to the office building he's come to dread. From the mirrored glass front doors to the faux-soothing plants along the interior walls, the whole space seems to mock him. Failure, it says.
"I didn't expect to see you." Dr. Saltzman is calm. He's always calm.
Derek sits down heavily in the unfortunately familiar chair, his fingers finding familiar fabric to worry. He wonders what the therapist knows, and how. "Did someone-"
"I put two and two together. How is she doing?"
He opens his mouth to respond with one of the patented phrases he's been using but finds, to his disturbed surprise, that his lips are trembling. He swallows hard and says nothing.
"I'm so sorry. This must be very difficult for both of you."
Derek nods mutely.
"And I'm sure it must be difficult for you to be away from the hospital now."
Derek nods again.
"And yet you came to our regular appointment. Why did you come to this appointment, do you know?"
He finally finds his voice, though it's shakier than he'd like. "She, uh, she asked me to."
Dr. Saltzman nods, writing something on his pad. There's a long silence.
A long expensive silence.
"Maybe you'd like to guide the session today, Derek-"
He shakes his head.
"All right then. Why don't you tell me how the process of –"
"We had a son."
From Dr. Saltzman's expression, he's not nearly as surprised as Derek himself to hear those words out loud. He takes it in stride, as if that's a normal interjection.
"All right. Tell me about your son." Dr. Saltzman's tone is completely neutral.
Derek focuses on the diplomas hanging twenty or so degrees to the left of the other man's shoulder, delivers his story in the clipped phrases he remembers distributing, as clinically as possible, years ago, when he couldn't avoid talking about it.
Pregnancy turned life-threatening. She had to deliver him too early. He lived for six days. No, we never tried again.
"That must have been extremely traumatic."
He moves his head enough to pass for a nod. He hopes.
"Some couples turn toward each other in situations like this, become codependent, and others, they turn away. They find it impossible to reconnect the way they used to, and –"
"I shouldn't be here," Derek interrupts, hating the desperation in his tone. He forces his voice to remain even. "I'm sorry, I need to be back at the hospital, I need-"
"But you came here." Dr. Saltzman's voice is kind and patient, which irks him. "You came here anyway."
She blamed me, and I blamed her for blaming me.
"Can you tell me, Derek, how you and Addison dealt with this loss?"
We didn't.
"Or maybe you can tell me what you talk about, when you talk about it with Addison?"
We don't.
"Derek?"
"We don't," he mumbles woodenly.
"You don't…"
"We don't talk about it."
"And did your marriage-"
He wants to cut him off, he wants to shout there is no marriage, he wants someone to page him, some tragedy more emergent than his own to keep him from this hell.
"Derek…"
We didn't talk. We fought.
About other things, or sometimes about nothing. Then we stopped fighting too.
And we never talked about that either.
But he can't form the words, not out loud, so instead he just focuses on the therapist's desk, where a miniature pine in a red ceramic pot reminds him they're somehow only a week out from Christmas.
Two Years Ago
He blinks awake to find her sitting on the side of the bed, already dressed in jeans and a sweater that feels soft against his wrist.
"You still have time to change your mind."
"Good morning to you too," he croaks. The illuminated dial of the nightstand clock tells him he's been asleep less than two hours. Out of the last forty-eight.
"I got coverage, Derek. It's doable. It's why we have residents."
"Addie-"
"Everyone's going to be disappointed if you don't show up."
"Even if I could get someone to cover - without any notice - I haven't slept in two days, Addison."
"You can sleep in the back seat. I'll drive; with traffic you'll get plenty of rest." The eager expression in her eyes as her voice speeds up hits him in the chest, sliding somewhere between guilt and annoyance.
"I can't, Addie." He works to keep his tone patient even though his eyes are aching with exhaustion. "If you can just please try to-"
"Forget it. I'll go alone." She starts to stand up, and he knots his fingers back in hers.
"You won't be alone. Mark's going, isn't he?"
"Yeah." She looks down. "He has to see his mother though, and-"
"So he'll still drive."
"He's a terrible driver."
"So are you," he says lightly and she swats at him with her free hand. They tussle for a moment, Addison even cracking a smile, and he's starting to think he'll be able to go back to sleep when her expression turns serious again.
"Derek, I just -" She's sitting still now, looking down at their joined hands. "I just like spending Christmas with you," she says softly.
He waits; it's the kind of opener she usually follows up with nagging, and sure enough -
"You could get someone to cover if you really-"
"Addison," he groans. "We've been through this. I'm barely conscious right now. I wouldn't be any fun at my mother's-"
She makes a small sound of protest and he cuts her off.
"-even if I could go. You go, have a good time, tell everyone I'm sorry."
"Derek..."
"I am sorry."
"Yeah." She rests a hand on his chest. "Well. I was going to give you your present this morning but we can wait."
His present. Damn. "Addie-"
Her mouth twitches. "Don't worry, I already bought myself something from you."
"That's my enterprising wife." He smiles at her with relief. "Something nice, I hope."
"Somethings. And yes. Very nice."
"Good. I was going to..." he trails off lamely. He turns her hand over in his, checking for new jewelry bought in his name. "Are you wearing it?"
"Actually I am wearing one of the things I bought, but ... not on my hand." She leans in closer, her long hair tickling the bare skin of his chest.
"Oh, really." He's slightly more awake now at her playful tone. "Let me see," he teases, tugging at the hem of her sweater. "Addie, it's Christmas Eve morning-"
She looks sad again when he says that and he kicks himself.
"You'll show me when you get back?" he attempts.
"Maybe." She starts to stand and this time he pulls hard on their joined hands, tugs her down beside him.
"Derek-"
"Just stay a minute." She's warm and soft against him, impatient breath hot against his neck.
"I thought you had to sleep," she says grumpily.
"I do." He rolls onto his side, spooning against her, and kisses the back of her neck. Some of her hair tumbles over his face; it's soft and fragrant, and magnanimity rises within him. He pulls her closer, wanting to reassure her.
"Derek." She wriggles against him. "What are you doing?"
"Wishing my wife a merry Christmas." He kisses her again. "And wishing we could ... sleep in." He leans in to kiss her neck a third time and she twists in his arms to kiss him full on. She tastes minty and alert.
"Sleeping in - what's that like?" Addison's smile is wry.
"I'll remind you. We'll go somewhere no one will bother us - that place in Rhode Island, do you remember-"
"No, that's too close. Hawaii," she suggests, and her tone sounds only half-joking.
"Let's do it."
"Really?" The hope in her voice makes his throat tickle. He kisses her deeply instead of answering. For a moment he loses himself in her, remembering the feel of her, and then she pulls away.
"Mark's waiting."
"I know." He kisses her forehead and she stands up from the bed, straightening her clothes. "Go ahead."
He beats them home the day after Christmas by just about twenty minutes; he's still dogged by that combination of exhausted and charged up that always follows him back to the hospital when he hears her key turn in the lock. He gets to the foyer seconds too late to open the door for her; she brings a gust of cold air with her when she pushes it open herself. Her face is pink with chill, eyes very blue under the fur-trimmed hood of her long coat.
"How was it?" He leans in to kiss her and she turns her head slightly, bringing a cold rosy cheek into contact with his lips instead. She tastes faintly of salt, the flavor of his mistakes.
"Wonderful," she says woodenly. "Everyone missed you," she adds.
"I missed them. And you." He tilts his head, trying to catch her eye, but she's looking past him. Late afternoon is folding into evening just outside the door; the sky's a velvety color under the street lights. He thinks he might alert her to this, suggest a walk or something, but her shoulders are rigid with tension and he swallows his words. When she speaks her words are clipped.
"You could have called." She unwinds her long scarf in quick, sharp movements.
"I was in surgery. As you know," he can't resist adding, annoyed now.
"I'm a surgeon too, Derek, or did you forget? Do you want to pretend you didn't have ten minutes in the last thirty-six hours to pick up a god-"
"Are you going to help me or what?" Then Mark's on the doorstep, loaded down with packages, blocking the light.
Addison takes a deep breath, visibly gathering control. Derek walks past her to relieve Mark of some of his burden.
"Derek! You missed a good meal." Mark's tone is carefree. "Hey, Addison, where do you want me to put the-"
"My office, please. Next to the desk."
Mark nods obligingly and heads for the stairs; Addison busies herself removing her gloves with the utmost care. He's almost ready to believe the storm has passed when she turns on him again.
"A five-minute phone call might have made your mother happy, Derek, and by happy I mean not acting like your not being there was my fault."
"She doesn't think that." He massages the bridge of his nose tiredly.
"How would you know? Did you actually talk to her?"
"Addison-"
"Considering she already thinks I'm a failure for not being able to contribute to the freaking smorgasbord of dessert your sisters make. While raising her grandchildren, I should add."
It's the closest she's come to the subject in a while. He finds himself holding his breath for a moment but she blows right past it, back to nagging him. "I mean, she actually convinced herself you were going to drive up and surprise us even though I assured her it wasn't going to happen. So then she blamed me for that too. I swear that woman hates me, Derek."
"She doesn't hate you," he says automatically. It's not a lie, not really.
She hangs her coat in the foyer closet more loudly than necessary.
"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't go with you, Addison, but I did not have a free minute to call, or I would have."
Now that? That was a lie. And she knows it too, based on the scornful look she throws his way.
"I need a drink."
He follows her to the bar, watches her pour out a healthy amount of gin. She downs it straight, fast, then pours another. He waits for it to work its magic, but not quite -
Her voice is still cold when she snaps at him again. He hates that tone. "I am sick and tired of being the only one who keeps up with your family."
"It's not like you have to keep up with yours." He says it automatically and when her face freezes with pain he thinks he's as surprised as she is.
"Addison," he says quietly.
She sips her gin silently; her eyes, over the rim of the glass, are like ice.
"Come on, I wasn't trying to hurt you."
"Of course not," she spits. "The Great Derek Shepherd aces all his tests without even trying. No effort needed. It just comes naturally."
"Stop, Addie. It was a slip of the tongue. Don't make it more than that."
"You think I want this, Derek? You think I want to beg people to cover my patients so I can drive to backwoods Connecticut alone while you blow it all off and make a hero of yourself in surgery yet again-"
"Don't be a snob." Backwoods annoyed him; now her cheeks flush at the word snob. Their triggers are too interconnected, that's the trouble. Among others.
"Don't be a workaholic ass."
They meet each other's eyes.
"I'm not discussing this anymore," he says finally.
"Famous last words." She slams her glass of gin onto the bar; what little is left in the glass sloshes dangerously.
"Just calm down, please" His tone is sharp. Who are they, these barking strangers angry at the prospect of spilled alcohol, of broken glass?
"Don't tell me to calm down." She doesn't raise her voice but her tone is furious enough to make him take a step back.
"Uh…George? Martha? Did you want me to show myself out, or..."
At the interruption, Addison and Derek turn to the stairs as one, and Derek takes a deep breath. He'd forgotten Mark was here.
"Stay," Derek says finally. "Have a beer, make yourself at home. I have some work to do."
"Walk away," Addison murmurs behind him, her tone softly mocking. "Quick, before you'd actually have to communicate."
He spins on his heel to face her, his back to Mark, and mouths the words thin ice. She narrows her eyes at him in response.
"We have leftovers," Mark's still smiling; Derek's not sure how much he overheard. "Everyone works better after some pie, Derek."
"Not now," he says as patiently as he can. "Maybe later, if-"
"Addison and I have to fill you in on everything you missed." He doesn't think Mark means it to sound accusatory but everything feels like an accusation right now.
"I said I have to work." He raises his voice slightly without realizing it and then Addison does too, an added quiver in hers.
"Don't yell at Mark!"
"I didn't, and it has nothing to do with you." He glares at her.
"It has everything to do with me! You're taking it out on him when I'm the one you're mad at even though you have no business being mad at me either, Derek, and - where are you going?" her voice trills out behind him, fading mercifully as turns the corner and closes the door of his office behind him.
It's not silent enough; he can hear their lowered voices outside the door, Addison's more tremulous, Mark's conciliatory. He switches on his computer, pulls up the draft of the article his resident sent him a few hours earlier. His nerves are jangling from espresso and the standard post-surgical high. He forces himself to breathe deeply, to block out his irritation. He focuses instead on the article, catching errors here and there and adding in notes to himself. Hours pass uninterrupted as he works and his anger recedes.
It's almost eleven when he closes the file of patient notes he picked up after revising the draft article. When he opens the door of his office the house has a late-night stillness feel, weighty with darkness and quiet. He wonders if Addison's gone to bed.
No - she's sitting at one of the stools at the marble kitchen island, a globe of red wine at her left hand. Her blackberry's next to her but she's not looking at it.
"Hi," he says quietly as he approaches, not wanting to startle her.
She doesn't look up. "Are you done yelling?"
"I wasn't - " he breaks off, deciding it's not worth it to defend himself. "Yeah," he says instead, defeated. "I'm done."
He pulls out the stool next to her and just sits, resting his elbows on the cold marble of the island. Instead of speaking he takes a sip from her wineglass, then makes a face.
"Lizzie's present?"
Addison's lips quirk into something that's almost a smile. "Well, you know, it's tradition."
"It's inhumane."
Lizzie and her husband were less-than-wise investors in an Oregon vineyard that, as far as Derek could tell, specialized in near poisonous reds. The first time they'd gifted the family with bottles at Christmas - years ago, right around the time Derek and Addison married - Addison was the only one polite enough to pretend to like the wine. As a result, she still got a case every Christmas while the rest of them got off scot free. Addison always drank one of the bottles - tradition - and then gave the rest to their gardener. He takes another sip now, then moves the glass as far away from him as possible.
"So, uh, Mark mentioned leftovers?"
"They're in the fridge." She's swirling the wine in the glass.
"Great. Thank you." He pulls open the door with some effort; Addison upgraded their appliances - again - last year and the Sub-Zero model she finally settled on is ridiculously enormous. He has the unfortunate sense memory of the morgue every time he slides out the massive freezer drawer. "What did you get?"
"Some of Nancy's pumpkin pie. Kath's cheesecake. Lizzie gave us brownies, but Mark ate most of them on the ride down."
He examines the carefully wrapped options.
"And Annie made gingersnaps - they're on the counter by the espresso machine."
"Did she wash her hands first?"
"Derek, she's fourteen, not four."
"I know that."
He didn't.
Fourteen. God. He feels old. He glances behind him. The open refrigerator is throwing its overly bright light across the room, illuminating Addison's face. Her chin rests in her hand. Her eyes look tired when they meet his. He should say something. He could-
"Are you going to pick something, or what?"
"Cheesecake."
He pulls the whole pie plate from the refrigerator, wincing - it's a heavy pink ceramic, nothing Addison would ever buy, and it's cold against his hands. He climbs back onto the stool.
He digs in. It's delicious, cold and creamy. He didn't even realize he was hungry. He spears another chunk and, with a sideways glance at Addison, offers her the fork.
After a moment of hesitation, she leans in and he eases the bite into her mouth. She swallows, purses her lips.
"It was better last night."
"It tastes good to me." He takes another bite, sets down the fork, and then helps himself to some more of Addison's wine, screwing his face up slightly at the bitterness.
"Why do you drink it if you don't like it?" Addison asks practically, taking the fork from his fingers and dipping it back into the cheesecake dish.
"I guess I forget that I don't like it." He takes another sip. "And then it's not so bad."
She gives him a strange look. He pauses, forkful of cheesecake halfway to his mouth.
"What?"
"Nothing." She pulls the pie plate a bit closer to her, extending her hand. "Are we sharing or what?"
He passes her the fork.
"Unfortunately, we're out of time."
Dr. Saltzman's voice is gentle, and his words seem terribly appropriate – it's the theme of their marriage if he really thinks about it.
He starts to resent the spectacular waste of his time as he drives back to the hospital, resent the hard, knotted feeling in his chest that started building the moment the therapist started talking. He thinks about all the unfinished time of the last decade and a half, all the unchallenged assumptions in their marriage, the unanswered questions.
Past or present tense?
What?
You fell in love with her, Derek, past tense, or you're … still in love with her?
"You went?" There's genuine surprise in her tone.
"I went."
"What did he-"
He ignores the rest of her question, busies himself checking the readout on her machines, and when she says "Derek, stop," he ignores that too.
The result is what can only be called a scowl, even under the colorful bruises and stitches on her face.
Her gown has slipped a little in the front and the half-clavicle on view looks sharper than he remembers.
"You really need to try to eat." His voice is sharper too, and it's not lost on her.
"I'm not hungry."
He considers telling her that she's the classic terrible doctor-patient, wonders if it will make her smile even the tiniest bit, but decides it's too close to the thing they tacitly agreed not to talk about. He wonders what she would say if she knew he told the therapist. He's managing, now, to feel guilty about sharing their joint secret and at the same time angry with her for putting him in the position of having to tell the story alone.
"Addison-"
"I'm tired." He can tell by the set of her jaw, even under the swelling, that she's saying it to get rid of him, but he can also tell by the way the lid of her good eye keeps sliding toward her cheek that she's also truly exhausted. He still thinks she's undermedicated, the tension in her jaw that he associates with her in pain is a dead giveaway, but he decides not to say anything.
"Okay. Get some rest." But he doesn't move from the chair by her bed and sees her watching him with her good eye.
"Don't you have patients? A service to run?"
He holds up his blackberry. "It's the digital age, Addie. I'm fine."
She seems to be considering another protest; not really sure why, if it's to stem the protest or for some other reason, he takes her hand with the hand not holding his blackberry, carefully avoiding the stitches on her thumb. Her fingers feel stiff at first.
He moves his thumb across the back of her hand absently as he scrolls through his emails. There are plenty of responses to his group missive form earlier; he doesn't read them. What he'd like to do is operate; he feels impotent without surgical tools, loose and untethered. But he finds himself not quite able to leave even as long minutes pass. It's not conversation; Addison succumbed to sleep more than a few moments ago and is breathing evenly, if roughly.
He studies her sleeping form. There's something about the comparably minor bruising around her throat that bothers him, maybe more than it should, and he leans carefully across her just enough to grasp the collar of her hospital gown and tug it gently higher.
She wakes up with his hand at her throat and he's so startled to see one very blue eye on him that his hand jerks away, almost of its own accord, knocking into her jaw.
There follows a blur of moments starting with Addison's soft cry of pain and Derek's apologies, his attempt to look for damage that's met with her pushing him away with her good hand, accidentally jarring her stitches and causing her to cry out, louder this time, in frustration.
"Just go away!" she snaps finally, hoarsely. He can tell she's in pain but she hasn't shed a tear, high color on her undamaged cheekbone.
"Addie, I'm sorry, I was just trying to help."
"You're in love with another woman." Her voice is cold. "Go help her."
"Addison." He takes her hand again, holding her fingers in his firmly when she starts to pull away. She stops trying to extricate her hand and lets him hold it; he wonders just how much worse he is for trying to control her movements after what she's been through. But it seems suddenly, terribly important to get her to listen. "I'm sorry that we – that you –"
"You're not sorry you said it."
"You don't know-"
"I know you, Derek, even if you want to pretend we haven't known each other for fifteen years."
Her rapidly shifting moods leave him dizzy. And with the unfortunate memory of how unpredictable she was after their son's birth. Crying over the incubator one minute, snapping at him another.
"You're going to get better. You're going to be fine," he repeats it mechanically, not sure which one of them he's trying to soothe. One look at Addison's expression, though, and he sees his folly.
"I read my chart, Derek. Just because you don't want to talk about it doesn't mean it's not true."
Oh, but isn't that what they depended on for years, for their survival? Protecting each other, themselves, their marriage, by not talking about it?
He's not sure how he feels about this more direct version of her, this undermedicated – he's quite sure of it now – moody, angry version of her. He doesn't want to answer difficult questions but he also doesn't want to walk away. In short, he's torn, with one hand still holding hers but one foot tapping on the floor. And he doesn't like this remote room, with its quiet hallway and lack of sufficient noise. He needs the scheduling of the hospital to guide their time together, needs nurses to come in at frequent intervals to check on her, needs rounding and PT and everything that will demarcate her days. And he needs her not to look at him because he can see now, in the eye that's visible, that she read her chart and that she knows too much.
He opens his mouth and lets himself speak without planning it first. It's worked so well every other time.
"Mark said they did a good job with the reduction."
If she's surprised that he's falling back, ultimately, on talking about surgery, she doesn't show it. "It's going to be uneven."
"Maybe a millimeter, at most. It's fixable."
In sickness and in health…
"Addison – I … I'm … sorry ... about what I said to Mark." No need to remind her which that he means. "I'm sorry I said it. And I'm sorry you heard us. But I don't think it's so terrible to want to try." He finishes speaking with something between embarrassment and relief.
"Wanting to try and trying aren't the same thing."
"Addie." He runs his thumb across the top of her hand again. "I'm-"
"Dr. Shepherd?"
Vitals check, right on schedule. Perfect timing. She slides her hand out of his.
When he returns to her room later he finds Richard in his chair, visiting with her. He stands up when Derek arrives.
"You don't need to go," Addison protests, which is exactly what Derek was thinking.
"I'll let you two have some time together." Richard is smiling at Addison, a fatherly smile, and he thinks he can see in the inching of his wife's fingers toward the chief that she'd rather he didn't leave.
"Thank you," Derek says as Richard stands, not even sure why – it's just a pleasantry – and he's surprised by the vehemence in Addison's hoarse voice.
"You don't have to thank him for spending time with me, Derek. Just because it's a chore for you-"
"It's not," he cuts her off sharply, her words far too close to the truth, to her tradition of biting honesty with everyone except herself.
"Derek, I'm not an amnesiac. You never wanted me here and you don't now. Don't pretend just because-"
"Addison, stop." He casts a glance at Richard, who is tactfully gathering his things as unobtrusively as possible.
"If I could just get out of here, you'd be free to chase after your girlfriend in peace-"
"That's enough," he says sharply. He sees Richard's eyes widen, watches as he hastens to leave, giving Addison's good hand a final squeeze.
"I'll check on you tomorrow, Addie."
She smiles warmly at Richard, all the more contrast with the icy expression she turns on him when the door closes.
"Look, Addison, I know this is difficult for you-"
"Oh, you do? How very sympathetic of you. How ... dreamy."
"Stop it." He raises his voice.
She flinches and he feels guilty. Until her next words.
"Where's Mark?"
Oh, she has got to be kidding. "Probably making a hero of himself in surgery again."
"I want to see him."
"Addison, this is not the time to-"
"Go away." She fists her good hand over her good eye, hiccupping on tears suddenly, and his anger melts slightly.
"Addison, come on." He gentles his tone.
"Please just go away." She's declining fast, with very little warning, tears and shoulders shaking, and he struggles with the combination of guilt and annoyance he hasn't yet figured out how to manage. He knows her moodiness isn't all her fault, that it's a combination of oxy comedown and poorly managed pain and – well, other things he doesn't want to think about it. But still.
Dr. Bailey walks in before he can say anything else. "Time to check - Dr. Shepherd," she scolds him immediately. "What's going on in here?"
"Nothing, I-" he takes a helpless step back at her glare.
Dr. Bailey's brisk handling appears to be just what Addison needs; she gets control of herself quickly and shifts to the side, preparing to expose the bandages that need to be changed.
"What did you do?" Bailey hisses at him, glaring.
"Do you want him to stay?" She turns to Addison, raising an eyebrow, as several residents and a nurse rather ominously join the group.
Derek moves closer to the bed, ready to pay penance for his behavior earlier. "I'll stay."
"No." Addison's voice is slightly muffled by the pillow.
"Addison..."
"I said no." Her voice is like ice. Bailey gives him a shrug.
He leans against the wall outside her room. Cool plaster supports his head. He can't hear what's going on in there. He can only imagine the muffled sounds, haunted yet again by what it must have been like for her in the icy parking lot. Had she screamed out loud, then? A sound carries out, suddenly, and his ears prick. He hears the murmur of what's probably Dr. Bailey's voice rising and falling.
He closes his eyes, berates himself until Bailey arrives.
"Look Shepherd, whatever you did to her -"
"I didn't do anything!"
"Just don't do it again." Dr. Bailey shakes her head, judgment all over her face. "She needs you in there."
"I would have stayed," he protests.
"She needs to want you in there," she corrects herself, leaving him to ponder the difference.
Addison is reclining low on the bed, unmoving, when he opens the door. "Can I, uh, come in?"
He takes her silence as assent.
She's pale and listless against the pillows when he walks in. If he was hoping to avoid witnessing how painful this has been for her, he's quite aware that he can't. What he can do is see the perfect outline of her teeth on her lower lip, dark red. She didn't draw blood this time.
Past or present tense?
He doesn't ask how she is. It's a meaningless question. Perspiration darkens the hair around her temples and by her forehead. Carefully, he moves it away from her face. Her skin feels cool and clammy to the touch. Someone has replaced the covers, pulling them up nearly to her neck, so he can't see the new bandages.
He stands impotent by her side, listening for her breathing to even out. He draws deeper breaths of his own, either to model for her or because he needs the grounding himself. Or maybe it doesn't matter why.
"Better?" he asks when her breathing sounds regular.
She gives him a crooked half smile. "Better than what?" For just a moment, she looks like her old self.
Then a muscle flickers near her jaw and he can feel something in his own face tense in response. It suddenly seems very important to answer her question now – rather long after she asked it but maybe, possibly, not too late after all.
"Addison?" Her good eye meets his. "Past tense," he says, his voice steady.
"Past tense," she repeats slowly, and she doesn't protest when he sits down by her side, taking her hand in his.
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