A/N : Hi, beautiful Addek peeps. Back with another flip. A short one. JK, it's super long. Oops. This one was prompted by LS (hi, LS!) and derives inspiration from Emk8, who always makes me think. LS asked for a flip of the end of Into You Like a Train, where Addek leave the hospital together arm in arm ... Derek looking sort of reluctant. And the most gorgeous song plays us out of the episode.

So, I know I ask you guys to listen to music while you read a lot. Maybe too often. But this song is so beautiful. And so is the other one. And you should listen. I mean, a lot of Grey's music choices are amazing. But I especially loved the symmetry that Emiliana Torrini is singing when Derek takes Addison back ("Today Has Been Okay," at the end of Into You Like a Train), and also when we flash back to Derek leaving Addison ("Nothing Brings Me Down," during the Flashback That Destroyed All Our Hearts in Time Has Come Today).

This is a weird flip, picking up at the end of the previous episode in order to get us to the end of the next. I found myself wondering how and when Derek told Addison he wasn't signing, and how that played into their strangely sad and poignant hospital exit in the next episode.

Finally, hurricane-affected readers, we are all pulling for you. Stay safe.

All in all, revolutionaries, thank you for being such amazing readers. I hope you'll enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Here is Where You'll Stay
(2.06, "Into You Like a Train")

...

wind has burned your skin
the lovely air so thin
the salty water's underneath your feet
no one's gone in vain
here is where you'll stay
'cause life has been insane but
today has been ok

...

"So. Are you going to sign those divorce papers, or not?"

She's standing over him like a challenge – no surprise there, it's just not usually quite this literal.

He doesn't answer.

One hand is propped on her hip. "Well?"

Well? How about well, I don't know. Or well, I can't think when you're looming over me like that. Or well, you lost the right to be this demanding when you screwed my best friend.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

He stares at the linoleum floor.

"Derek, they're papers. You sign, I sign, we get a divorce. You don't sign, I don't sign ... we're still married. Doing nothing is still a choice here."

Doing nothing is still a choice. He ponders that for the millisecond she gives him to think before she starts in again. Is that what happened to their marriage? By choosing to do nothing, they did something after all?

"I need more time."

"You've had plenty of time."

"Addison." He stares at her for a moment. He'd be somewhat impressed with her outrageously presumptuous stance ... except he knows it's as much put on as the heavier-than-usual makeup.

She's been dressed for battle since she got here.

Well, with the exception of the NICU. But that was a moment of weakness on his part. Wasn't it? Late daylight shadowing the nursery as she leaned over the isolette, highlighting the gold in her red hair? She stood over him then, too, a challenge. But a different kind of challenge. Outwardly teasing and light, leaning over him with heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips. It was expectation.

This? Less expectation, more decimation.

He glances at his bag. "I need to go get some papers."

"What? No you don't." She looks annoyed. "You're just avoiding my question."

She's right, of course, which makes him annoyed.

"Derek ... we need to talk about this."

He massages the bridge of his nose. "I'll meet you back here," he says.

"When?" She calls the word after his retreating back.

"When I'm ready," he says, enjoying his own pettiness.

...

In his office he shoves a few papers into his briefcase - with no idea why, after what she's done, he still feels the need to maintain the illusion that he wasn't lying to her.

He stares at the empty space on his desk to the right of his telephone and the left of his oversized monitor. There's nothing there.

He's looking at nothing.

He's looking at the space where a sterling frame sat in his office in New York. The same frame in the same spot for the last eight years.

It's a candid shot. He was never sure if Addison approved, or would have preferred a wedding portrait or a step-and-repeat couple shot, at least. This picture is just Addison, and she takes up most of the frame in a simple white sleeveless shirt, one of her freckled shoulders raised to suggest she's either toasting him or throwing something at him.

He always liked the ambiguity.

And she's smiling, all the way through to her eyes, sunglasses propped on her head.

They were at the house in Amagansett when he snapped the picture - it was the year they bought it, and it was spring, not summer, the dogwood pink and white next to her ear bringing him instantly back to cocktails in the garden, the undisturbed blue jewel of a pool, the smell of freshly cut grass.

He wonders if Seattle will ever become a place he can recognize by the barest trace of a branch in a corner of a photograph.

He left the frame in New York, along with all his other things.

His secretary, Lynda, included it when she sent the box of his things from New York. She was organized to the point of obsession, always, which he liked, and the box was packed perfectly in reverse order so he could unpack and line his new desk from left to right.

He sent Lynda flowers to thank her and to apologize for leaving her abruptly - Cohen had been trying to poach her for years, she'll be well taken care of, but he still felt guilty.

And maybe a small part of him felt petty too ... because that part liked the idea that if Addison dropped by his office to pump Lynda for information on his whereabouts, she'd be confronted with a massive bouquet of flowers from her husband. He made sure they included several white peonies, Addison's favorite. And she would ask. Addison always asked. If Derek saw a bouquet of flowers on someone's desk, he'd take in the information like he did everything else: logically. Mechanically.

Addison, though? She'd squeal admiration, ask questions. From your boyfriend? Oh, he's a keeper! From your husband? Wow, he remembered, they're so beautiful.

So he knew she'd ask Lynda. Only if she went to his office.

But he knew she'd go to his office.

This would be easier if he didn't know as much as he did.

He didn't know she'd sleep with Mark. Not until he opened the front door, anyway.

And he didn't know she'd show up in Seattle. Not until he caught sight of her inimitable walk, the way the glass doors fell open so she could mark what should be his territory.

But Lynda included the frame. It looked just like it did in New York. Wasn't that strange? Shouldn't it have reflected the shattering of trust, the glass as fragmented as their marriage? Lynda was too precise not to include it. And he was too protective of his hands to smash it. He stared at it, that's all, the contours of it he'd memorized, so different from the tearful rain-soaked face he left behind in their brownstone.

He could throw it out.

He wanted to - god, he wanted to, but for some stupid reason he couldn't make himself do it. It was something about how Addison's parents threw out so many of her belongings when she went to boarding school and they redecorated her wing of the house. When she told the story she didn't even look upset about clothes - clothes were replaceable. It was the photographs. In 1982, they weren't so replaceable.

She had a thing about throwing out pictures. He never pressed her on it; they always had space, storage, and if his sweet wife was a little sentimental, maybe a little superstitious, was that such a bad thing?

Maybe.

Maybe it was.

Either way, the picture never made it onto the desk, just in it. Face down in a jumble of personnel forms and receipts in the right bottom drawer.

But the spot stayed empty.

The first few days in his new office he tried moving things into the gap, the pen set his mother bought for him when he graduated from medical school or a stack of embossed notes, or even a less dignified box of Kleenex.

Nothing stuck.

The space stayed open to the air, less a scar than a healing wound.

He traces his fingers over its surface now. It feels a little warm, like skin. Like something happened there. He closes his eyes briefly.

When I'm ready, he told her.

But will he ever be ready?

He fingers one of the heavy silver pens, testing his weight. All he has to do is sign his name. Derek Shepherd, M.D. How many times a day does he etch his signature? Every chart, every form. Every check he writes, deeds, bills - what's the saying? That most of being an adult is signing your name and trying to show up on time?

One more signature, that's all.

I'll sign and be on the next flight out of here, she assured him, the assurance a threat.

He could sign.

And she'll be gone like the picture frame, stuffed in an airplane instead of a junk drawer.

Doesn't she deserve to be thrown away, after everything she's done?

Meredith asked: is there anything to think about?

No, he said the first time.

if only that were true.

things would be a hell of a lot easier.

Like Bailey said ... he wouldn't be in this much pain.

...

She's sitting down in the waiting room chairs when he approaches, like he was when she approached. Taking turns. He walks softy and doesn't speak but he sees the change in her posture when she knows he's there, like a turtle ducking back into Iran protective shell.

She doesn't turn around.

"I'm not signing," he says.

She looks up, too quickly to hide the surprise in her eyes. Standing over her chair, he has the height advantage now. "You're not," she repeats.

"No. I'm not."

"Oh." Suspicion crosses her face. "Why not?"

"Do you want me to sign?"

"If that's what you want."

He drops into one of the chairs, exhausted. "What does that even mean?"

"I don't know." She smiles a little like it's just wordplay, the kind they've enjoyed for years, and he feels one quick flash of hatred.

What kind of man hates his wife?

One whose wife slept with his best friend – but she's given him an out, hasn't she?

He could sign.

He still could.

"So ... you're not signing."

"No, I guess I'm not."

"Okay, then." She pauses. "So what happens now?"

She hasn't thought past her next victory, he realizes.

"I don't know," he admits.

"Derek ... I want to go to marriage counseling." She raises her chin, as if she's expecting a fight.

"Fine."

She blinks. "Okay. What do you ... want?"

"What do I want?" He leans back in the chair. He's not sure what he wants. Isn't that the whole point? "For you not to screw other people, I guess, even though that ship has sailed."

"Your ship too." She taps at the armrest.

"Not the same thing. And you know it."

"So the counselor..."

Of course she sidesteps his comment. He doesn't reward her by asking her to continue. Not like Addison has ever needed his permission.

"There's someone that Savvy recommends, a counselor I mean."

"How does Savvy know a marriage counselor in Seattle?"

She blinks. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Addison." He leans forward, not sure if she's feigning or just demonstrating confusion. "I'm not going back to New York."

"But you didn't sign." For just a second the artifice slips away and behind her confusion is something like vulnerability.

"No."

"So you don't want to get a divorce."

"I didn't sign," he repeats, rewarded by a brief flash of hurt in her eyes.

"How are we supposed to – " She looks at him, realizing what he means. "Oh, no."

He lifts an eyebrow.

"I'm not staying in this town any longer than I have to."

"Maybe you have to stay in town for a while," he says pointedly.

"Derek." She lowers her voice so it's cajoling, somewhere just north of a purr. "I know you're angry with me, I get it, but once we're actually home, we can start sorting through it."

"No."

"We need to move on with our lives like adults and this isn't where we're going to do it, in some mid-life crisis lumberjack fantasy-"

"No!" It's a shout this time and she flinches.

Just slightly, just enough to flash him straight back to shouting over her hunched body as she cowered on the staircase.

Get out of my house, now!

He can overpower her. Just not in the ways that matter.

"I'm not going back to New York," he says quietly, flexing one of the offending hands. "I'm staying here."

"Okay," she says, her voice calm, almost soothing. "Okay, Derek, we can stay in town for a while."

He recognizes that tone. He knows her tricks. Agree with him now, and then work it out later. Get her own way later. Addison doesn't drop fights because she's giving in; with her, it's the opposite. She only walks away from a fight when the walk is the fight.

And in his experience … she'll be back when she's reloaded.

She'll face a different opponent, does she know that? Has she realized he's a different person than he was in New York?

"You're living in a trailer," she points out.

"I'm aware."

"I'm not going to live in a trailer."

"I don't recall asking you to," he says and feels a mean bit of gladness when her cheeks flush.

"How are we supposed to …"

"Would you give it a damn minute, Addison, maybe a little break between seeing you screwing my best friend and you expecting me to jump back into bed with you?"

She draws back stiffly. "You didn't take a little break before you started sleeping with that intern."

"Don't even think about comparing what you did to what we had."

The different verbs aren't lost on her.

What she and Mark did.

What he and Meredith had.

Words are weapons to Addison; she's always paying attention.

"Derek," she says, condescension dripping from her smooth voice, "one more middle-aged attending sleeping with a starry-eyed intern is hardly the love story of the century."

"Would you shut up," he mutters tiredly. "You really want to make me regret this decision already?"

Her mouth opens, then closes. "It's your decision."

"Doesn't mean I can't regret it. Like I do the first one," and he throws the words out carelessly, still knowing they'll hit their target.

"Your first one." She sits up straighter, her eyes wide. "Marrying me? That's what you regret?"

"I didn't say that." He hates this feeling of being trapped, and she's so good at it. Only Addison could fuck his best friend and still somehow end up with the upper hand.

She makes a show of putting the divorce papers into her briefcase.

"So … we're not signing," he says numbly. Somehow the papers disappearing makes it seem more real.

"No, I guess we're not." Her lips quirk. "Do you … want to get a drink?"

I'm going to be at Joe's.

"No," he says hastily.

"So are you just going to go back to hating me? You don't want to sign the papers, but you don't want to talk to me?"

"Can you be patient for once in your life?"

He stands up.

"Where are you going?"

"You lost the right to ask me that when you screwed my best friend."

She's silent for a moment – victory personified – and then her tone softens.

"I was just asking."

"Fine."

"Derek, I want to … spend time together." Her voice shakes a little, probably imperceptible to anyone but him. They know each other too damned well, maybe that's the problem.

"It's not like I know anyone else in this town," she adds.

"I'm sorry your dance card isn't full yet, Addison, but I'm not getting a drink tonight. I'll just – see you tomorrow."

"You smiled at me," she says softly.

"Excuse me?"

"Before, when I was in the gallery … you looked up, and you smiled."

"I was wearing a mask."

"We've spent our entire surgical careers together, Derek, you think I don't know when you're smiling in a mask?"

Think, no.

Hoped? Maybe.

Of course he'd seen her, looking down on him with something like pride, folded arms and soft benevolent cast to her features.

She was surprised when he didn't sign the papers. Is that what the gallery was? A goodbye?

"You smiled," she says again and he responds to the accusatory push in her words.

"If I was smiling, it wasn't at you."

"Derek, I saw – "

"I was smiling at my wife," he says quietly, imbuing the rather depressing words with as much dignity as he can.

"I'm your wife."

"In a manner of speaking."

"Derek, where are you – look, you're not really giving me much hope here."

"Now you know how I felt when I left New York."

"Maybe so."

"You're really going?"

"I'm really going."

She touches his arm and he pulls back as if he's been burned.

"Don't."

"Derek," she pleads. "You won't get a drink, you won't touch me – "

"I'll see you in the morning."

"Can we at least have coffee in the morning? There's this little French bakery I found in – "

"Fine," he says, more to shut her up than out of any sense that he'll enjoy the activity. "We can have coffee here. In the cafeteria."

"Okay." Her mouth moves toward a smile, somewhere in between. She has such mobile lips they can form a hundred different expressions, sometimes at once.

The less he thinks about her lips right now, the better.

"Good night," she says softly. "I hope you get some sleep."

…

He doesn't.

He's paged back to the middle of a nightmare.

One that doesn't end until he's let the elevator take the brunt of his misery, of the hopelessness that comes when you just can't do enough.

He's grateful for the privacy of his office, weak sunrise light filtering through the window. He needs to leave before he can't anymore.

"We never had that coffee."

He looks up and she's standing in his doorway.

"Addison … can you just give it a rest?"

"No." She takes a few steps into the office and looks at him. "Not when you need me."

"Need you. That's what you think?" He shakes his head. "Look, Addie, I'm exhausted, and I'm not in the mood. You should probably go before I say something I don't mean."

"You say things you don't mean all the time. Say something you do mean for a change."

"I can't stand the sight of you right now."

He regrets the words instantly when her eyes fill with tears. She's always been able to manipulate him so well that he's almost forgotten what it looks like when an arrow actually hits its target.

"Then I'll just go."

"Addison, wait."

She turns around with a hand on the doorknob. Of course she turns around. If he'd let her go he probably would have found her outside his office door leaning against the wall. This is the same woman who'd storm out of their marital bed after a fight with the ostensible plan to sleep on the couch and end up curled on the oriental rug in the hallway feet from their bedroom instead.

He's the runner. The real one. Her steps? They've always been for show.

Except she's here, now.

"It was a hard night," he says quietly. It's not an apology, exactly, but her eyes soften just as if he'd said the word sorry.

"I know, Derek. Let's go get some breakfast … and you can tell me about it."

"I'm not sure I can talk about it," he says honestly.

"Then let's get some breakfast, and we can talk about something else."

"I'm not hungry. It's been a ... long night."

"I know it has." She turns toward his shelves, propping a hand on her hip, maybe thinking. She's wearing a high-waisted grey skirt that hugs her hips, making her look curvier than she actually is. Addison is all about illusion, maybe even more so these days.

"Let's just go," she says softly. "Outside, where there's light and air and … we can just get coffee, if you're not hungry."

"I'll just see you later."

"Derek, you need to get out of the hospital."

"Give it up, Addie."

"No. if you wanted me to give it up, you should have signed the papers."

For a moment her words hang in the air between them.

Then her voice softens. "Remember the building collapse in the east village?"

He nods automatically.

"I was up all night trying to save that baby."

"You did save him," he recalls.

"Yeah. But not his mother."

Derek presses his lips together. There's no upside to remembering that morning, sunrise burning their exhausted eyes, Addie in her damp wrinkled scrubs with shadows under her eyes.

"Anyway, I didn't want to leave the hospital. Remember? I didn't want to do anything except … mope, but it was ten a.m. by then and you dragged me out for dollar slices and …" Her voice trails off.

It was so many years ago.

They were so young.

"…and you felt better," he prompts, figuring it's the end of the story.

"No," she says. "Not really." She laughs a little, looking almost helpless. "But I did … feel less alone, I guess."

She moves close enough to rest a hand on his chest; he flinches slightly, his gaze drawn to the hand. She's wearing her rings; they look heavy, like armor.

"We've been alone for a long time, Derek. The last few months … the last few years. If I'm staying in town, let's at least not be alone this morning."

"Just breakfast," he confirms.

"Just breakfast."

He nods slowly.

She smiles and he tries hard to see it as loving ... and not just the cat that caught the canary. She waits for him to shrug into his jacket - he sees her hands hover in the air, maybe wondering if it's too intimate to help him into the jacket like she used to.

Thankfully, she doesn't try.

He walks ahead of her down the hall, into the elevator - where he studiously watches the floor numbers tick downward - and through the lobby.

Her long legs take correspondingly long strides, so keeping half a step ahead pretty much requires him to jog.

She catches up anyway, as he exits the hospital, tucking her hand through the crook of his elbow like she used to. Once again his eyes are drawn to that hand, magnetically, and for a moment he just stares.

She's smiling when he catches sight of her face.

She always liked leaving the hospital together.

She notices his expression and the smile drops off her face.

"Derek..."

"Let's just go."

Miraculously she shuts up.

"You're driving?" She looks doubtfully at his jeep.

Of course he's driving.

He always drives.

He has no idea where they're going.

But he gets into the driver's seat anyway.

"Derek..."

She's looking at him over the gearshift. Then she leans over and kisses him on the cheek; her lips leave two burning spots on his skin. "I'm glad you didn't sign," she whispers.

He sort of wants to be glad.

Maybe.

He says nothing.

She touches the side of his face, her fingers starting to play in his hair like they did the first night. He resists the urge to slap her hand down.

"Addie …"

"Yeah?" Her eyes brighten.

"Let's, uh, let's go get coffee."

"Right." She fastens her seatbelt, pulling it out and rearranging it so it doesn't wrinkle her top. She's always done it and he used to argue with her about it, insisting it affected the seat belt's utility. Wrinkles over head trauma, that was her calculus.

"There's this place not too far, the concierge at my hotel recommended it." She pauses. "Maybe afterwards, you could -"

He cuts off her eager offer before she can finish. "No. Not today."

"Right." She stares out the side window.

"We don't have to do everything today," he says, a little annoyed.

"We didn't do anything today."

"We're getting coffee."

"Breakfast," she corrects.

"Whatever." He sighs.

"I just want to do ... something."

"Something?"

"Move forward," she says, as the ignition turns over.

"We didn't sign the papers today," he reminds her. "Doing nothing is doing something, isn't that what you said?"

"Yes, but ... it means we're going to try," she says softly. 'That's what it means, not signing. Right? That you want to try to work on our marriage?"

"Yeah ... I guess it does."

"You don't sound very sure."

Is she serious?

"I'm not very sure," he admits, hearing her sharp indrawn breath. "I'm angry," he says honestly, "and I don't know if I can ever look at you the same way. But … you're my family. So yes, I'm giving you a chance to fix it."

"We can fix it together," she says tentatively.

"I hope so."

"You do?"

Truthfully, the words popped out before he could analyze them, but he'll take a chance. "Yeah, I guess I do."

She angles her long neck and leans her head against his shoulder – just briefly, just for a moment, before he can push her away, and he feels two things: sad that her first thought was probably that he'd push her away, and … sort of wanting to push her away.

What kind of man am I?

Forcing himself past the discomfort, he gives her hand a brief pat and she smiles at his touch.

"Derek..."

He feels emotion in his throat at the way she says his name. She has a thousand different ways, of course. But he can't. There's no elevator and no Bailey and he can't do this here.

"Where did you say the ... coffee place was?"

She gives him quick directions.

He looks over his shoulder, checking for cars, and then braces one hand on the headrest of the passenger seat as he prepares to back up; before his fingers make contact she's already leaned forward to keep him from pulling her hair. Lean, reach, grab. Every time, just one combination in the complex choreography of marriage.

She's looking at him, but it's ... naked, not really demanding, and he finds himself speaking.

"Last night was terrible," he says softly.

"I know. I'm so sorry." She touches him only with her eyes, and he appreciates it. "But maybe ... maybe today will be okay?"

He considers her question. "Maybe," he concedes, and then he twists his neck to see out the back window while she monitors the side, just like always.

End of flip. Oh. My babies.

I wanted an ambiguous end, a little progress but ambiguous bc that's what early season 2 Addek is, IMO, just like early season 3 Addek is brutal. This mix - which I realize could sort of be a deleted scene from The Climbing Way - felt right to me, bc those first few episodes of season two Derek was such a mix of vicious and rarely, surprisingly, tender ... part of what makes it so painful IMO.

It's not a perfect flip. It's more like a gentle push. It's early. It's scary. Maybe neither of them knows what they want. Addison's not far out from having an abortion and leaving Mark, even if we didn't know it then. And Addek are confused, hostile, and sad, all at once. God, I love them. They really needed more screentime. At least they can always find it in our stories.

Enjoy? More flip ideas? Addek ideas in general? Please review and let me know! Xoxo