Hi. I'm back. Thank you so much to those of you who gave meaningful feedback on the last chapter. I want to hear from you and I hope I'll continue to do so. You'll hear from me too. Like this flip, which popped into my head last night as a bit of a self-challenge in two parts: write a fluffy FTS, and keep it under 2,000 words.
I failed in both respects.
So here we are at like ... 8,000 instead. And it's not exactly fluffy. It is hopeful, I think, like most if not all the FTS chapters. It's a little crack in the armor of Season 2, a chance for Addison and Derek to move toward each other instead of stalemate, or moving away. So there's that.
We're back in Episode 2.23. The one with the shower. I've flipped this before, twice: a lighthearted chapter (21) of this story, and then a darker piece in the standalone Just Another Story. This flip is a little different from both. In the actual episode, the scene fades out once they get in the shower, as we now. The last shot is Addison's hand on the glass. This scene extends before it flips, and started from the very simple premise of: what if she asked him to stop? The whole point of that scene, we're told, is that Derek is so raring to go with anger and jealousy after the McVet scene that everything just unfolds. Fast. And we don't see anything after the shower door closes.
I'm giving a content warning for discussion of past sexual assault (just to be very clear). It's not graphic, but it's present. This flip deals with some serious subject matter, but it's not all dark. Like all of these chapters, it's actually the opposite: a little break in the Addek arc, to let the light in.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Before
(Episode 2.23, "Blues For Sister Someone")
At first he doesn't hear anything, over the sound of the pounding water, his own staggered breaths and hers. His senses are full to overflowing, to bursting, to the rhythm of their coupling. He's gasping for air – that's what he hears. That's all he hears.
Then it's his name that he hears, and he absorbs it like another breath. She's soft against him, melting into him, the pulse that's driving him so strong he's not sure he can survive it. He has only one thing in mind, room in the primitive brain that takes over in moments like these only for one word: more.
He wants more. He needs more.
But then he hears it.
One word: stop.
There's one moment of blank confusion.
"Stop. Derek, stop."
Her fingers are gripping his arms; he thought she was holding on or pulling him closer, but now it's evident she's pushing him away.
Immediately, he freezes, his heartbeat so loud in his own ears that it sounds like the moment a jet touches down. A roar.
She's frozen too, under his hands.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"Stop," she whispers.
That's all.
"I did. I stopped." He's confused and alarmed all at once; he's still holding most of her up but he's not moving, not anymore. Is that the issue? Carefully, he sets her on her feet. He's deciding whether to let go of her entirely when he notices she's shaking and holds on instead. Just her hips, just his hands, and then he takes a half a step backwards – as much as he can, in this shower, to give both of them a little relief.
She's silent.
"What's wrong? Addison, what happened?"
She's not silent actually, she's breathing hard still, and so is he. Stopping in the middle isn't easy. It never is. And he's had to do it other times, for pages and phone calls and, more than once, being awkwardly walked in on. Not halfway, more like three quarters; he's pulsing like a heartbeat. He can feel that same pulse in his thumbs where they're pressing into her hips.
Stop, that's all she said. Of course, she's hissed at him to stop before, mainly when he's painfully trapped her long hair – but he figured out how to avoid that, for the most part, a few years into their relationship. She's readjusted his angle or directed him away from an unexpected bruise but – this feels different.
"Addison. What's going on?" Tentatively, he releases her hips. She's standing fine, though still trembling. He uses his freed hands to turn her face carefully toward him. Her hair is covering her expression, wet and disheveled; he pushes it back. Her face is white, her eyes huge. "Addison?" He moves one hand to shield her from the spray.
"I'm okay," she says, sounding dazed.
"Okay," he repeats. He cups her face a moment longer; her skin feels somehow cold and hot at once. "You sure?" he asks doubtfully.
"Yeah." She exhales harshly. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
Her gaze drifts downward. "Are you – "
"I'm fine," he assures her.
He's not.
He is, but he's not. He's actually throbbing almost painfully; he's a little confused and a little worried, but there are still too many points of contact with her body – her wet, naked body – to settle him down even though he's well aware, intellectually, that they're finished.
She looks up at him through wet, spiky lashes. "I'm sorry," she whispers again, barely audible over the sound of the shower.
"It's okay," he repeats.
He's still trying to get control of his breath; the shower is still pounding hot water around them. Addison is still just … standing there; her arms are limp at her sides and they're trembling. Carefully, he moves her so as much as possible of her body is under the warming spray. He can't help hissing a little at this change in position, though, as the most sensitive parts of him brush against soft bits of her; all he can do is hope she doesn't notice.
Directly under the shower, she shakes less, but she still just – stands there, water sluicing everywhere. He reaches around her to turn off the water. Ruefully, he thinks he could use a spray of pure cold water, but the cold air with the water off starts to work its magic, at least.
When she makes no move to do so, he wrings her long hair out himself, so that it splashes audibly on the shower floor in the same sound pattern he can recall from every shower of hers he's overheard in their history, alone or together. When she showered first, that distinctive splash was the sound that meant she was finished and it was time for him to get up and get in the shower. An alarm clock of sorts. If he didn't heed it she'd climb on top of his supine body in their shared bed while he pretended to fend her off but actually enjoyed the feel of clean damp skin, the weight of her pressing him into the mattress.
Some mornings … she'd need a second shower.
That was a long time ago.
Now, in this life, tonight, he moves on autopilot, confusion giving way to routine. She's shivering in the cubicle of a shower. He's fetching her towel and holding it out for her – she walks straight into it, into his arms, surprising him a little; he thought she'd take the towel herself.
He closes his arms around her, flesh warm and damp through the terrycloth. She feels heavy and a little limp as she leans against him; he takes her weight, blotting some of the excess water from her skin with one hand while he supports her with the other.
Stop, she said, and he still has no idea why. Whatever it is, she's quiet – exhaustion, some lingering effect of the bad day she had that, he reminds himself with a flush of shame, she was trying to tell him about when he directed her into the shower? Or none of those; it was just – too much for her? But that doesn't seem right, not when it was nothing more than they've done hundreds of times. They've always had a shared affinity for showers; it was something of a joke between them, for years.
He was … enthusiastic tonight, fine. A little aggressive, maybe, but she's never complained about that before. And he was … distracted.
Maybe.
He might have been a little distracted.
He feels another warm flush of shame when he remembers the haze in front of his eyes when he walked in the door, heart still pounding from what he saw at the vet's office. He was angry, yes, but not at Addison, not this time. Angry, frustrated, maybe a little – distracted, too, but they were just talking about having better sex this morning, weren't they?
They, Derek and Addison. To be clear.
And this was better sex, wasn't it? Even if he was a little – distracted?
While she leans against him and shows no signs of wanting to move, and he holds her, swaying a bit unconsciously – like the only occupants of a strange sort of towel-wrapped dance floor – he revisits their time in the shower, searching for what went wrong.
He starts after the water did but before they got in. Thank you, that was what she said when he gave her his invitation – the verbal one, and the not-so-verbal one where his clothes were on the floor and her eyes were on … not the floor.
She was trying to talk to him when he walked in, he remembers that. That wasn't his best husbanding, fine, because he wasn't listening and he didn't bother to hide it. But that was before the shower, and she didn't tell him to stop then.
She told him to stop in the shower. She pushed him away in the shower.
They were – in the throes, there's no other way to put it. It was fast and frantic, electric the moment he touched her and then tumbled them both under the spray, barely remember to drag the door shut behind them. Then she was pressed against that same door, their hands clasped together over her head on the steamed-up glass door. It's a familiar position for them; they just … fit that way, all of them together, and he was caught up in the moment. That much he knows. They turned around at some point. She initiated it, he's fairly sure. Did she say something to him first? I want to see you, something like that. He can't remember; she may have, she certainly has in the past. She was frequently one to change horses mid-stream.
Then they were face to face, one of her long legs cradled in the crook of his elbow and both her hands on him, bracing herself. She was everywhere around him, warm velvet as the water pounded them both. He remembers her head against the wall of the shower and her long wet hair, the arched column of her neck, and not much else. Not until he heard her voice.
Stop. Derek, stop.
He heard her voice, telling him to stop. And then he stopped.
And that was it.
Were his eyes closed? Did he miss something?
"Addie."
She doesn't respond.
For a brief wild moment he wonders if she's fallen asleep on her feet. It wouldn't be the strangest thing, tonight.
Carefully, he peels her away from him. She's awake, though exhaustion is evidence in her face. The towel slips a little when he moves her and he helps her adjust it, and then his slips and she's smiling a little when he stands back up.
Which is nice.
"Tell me what happened," he suggests quietly.
The hint of a smile drops off her face.
"It was nothing." She wraps the towel a little tighter around herself.
"It wasn't nothing."
But the long moments of closeness, the dance that was just for them, is apparently over. Instead, she's getting ready for bed as if nothing actually happened.
He stands in the same spot while she moves around him, brushing her teeth – apparently not planning to finish the cocktail he interrupted her drinking, when he came home – sliding a nightgown over her head. She's plugging in her blackberry with methodical movements when he follows her and then covers one of her hands with his own.
"Addison."
"What?" She turns to look at him, long damp hair falling down her back. The nightgown is a slippery little silk thing, distracting, and he pauses for a moment.
Distracting.
Distracted.
"Addie, I need to know what happened in there."
She looks away, a little flushed where the bedside light illuminates her face. "I said I was sorry."
"And I said you don't need to be sorry," he reminds her. "It's not about that."
She's leaning away from him, not quite sitting on the bed but resting against it. "Then let it go."
"If I did something to upset you – "
"You didn't."
"Okay." He draws breath. "Did I – hurt you?"
His voice sounds uncertain because he feels uncertain. Neither of them has ever been one to have sex with gloves on. They've left marks, all kinds; she's always been vocal and responsive and let him know in no uncertain terms if something crossed the wrong border from pleasure to pain. The good kind of sore, she would tell him sometimes after they'd been energetic or creative, curling up against him the next morning. As long as it's the good kind. And she would give him that slow, lazy smile. The very good kind.
Was tonight different? Did he hurt her, tonight?
Mutely, she shakes her head. No.
"What was it, then?"
"Derek." She sighs a little. "I'm tired. Let's just go to bed."
He gives up.
..
Rain drums the trailer on all sides, reminiscent of the shower's spray. It makes the inside of the home he loves feel small and claustrophobic. He's shifting against the pillows, listening to her breathing and trying to settle, when he feels it.
At first she's just moving against him, her hand on his chest – it's cold, and he rests his warmer hand over it. She's shifting in a rustle of silk and then one of her thighs is brushing his, her cool hand sliding lower.
He lets her for a moment, more out of surprise than anything else.
"No." He takes her hand in his, stilling her movement. He feels her stiffen against him, hurt evidence in her voice when she responds.
"Why not?"
Now she's going to ask questions? Ones he's expected to answer, no doubt, even though she told him nothing.
"Because I'm not in the mood," he says shortly.
"You were in the mood before." She actually sounds – hurt? Disappointed? After he asked her so many time to explain, and she just –
He shakes his head.
"Derek – "
But his annoyance with her is making the throaty purr of her voice hit all the wrong keys. Irritated, he sits up in bed, pulling away from her, and flicks on the light.
She comes into full view then, squinting. "What are you doing?" she asks. One of her hands floats up to block the light.
"I don't know," he admits.
He tracks her gaze. She inches closer.
"No," he repeats. "I said no. Not tonight."
She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says.
"It's fine." His voice is tight.
"I'm – "
"Would you just stop apologizing!"
He's louder than he intends to be, surprising them both, and she's still close enough to him that he can feel her jump at his tone.
Then he's the one apologizing.
"I'm sorry," he mutters into her damp hair. "Okay? I'm sorry." He holds her for a moment, trying to recognize the shape of her under slippery silk, to figure out what went wrong. Just now, and before.
And before that.
Before all of that.
He frees a hand to stroke her hair.
"I couldn't see you."
She says the words so softly, into his shoulder, that he isn't quite sure he heard them.
"You what?" He shifts a little. "You couldn't see me?" he repeats, doubtfully.
He feels her nodding against him.
"When the lights were off, you mean? Before" He feels confused again. Clumsy.
"No. Before that." She pauses. "in the shower."
"In the – " Now he's even more confused. "Addie, can you just – okay," he says as he peels her off him carefully, enough so that he can see her face.
One second where he's falling into the depth of her eyes, they're bottomless in this light, all smoky iris, and then she's squinting again.
"Derek … turn out the light."
She can wrong foot him so easily and she's done it again with this request. "But we're talking," he says, hearing how stupid the words sound.
"Not with the light on, we're not."
Her voice shakes a little.
"Derek, please."
One flick of his hand and the trailer descends into darkness. He feels some of the tension drain out of her where her body rests against his. But she still doesn't speak.
"I turned off the light," he says after a few long moments of silence. "I followed your lead, I did what you wanted. Are you going to tell me what happened, now?"
..
She's toying with the hair on his chest; her fingers are cold.
He's waiting. He's still waiting.
"I couldn't see you," she repeats, finally.
He nods; something about the velvety darkness compels him to stop rushing her. That, and a growing sense of unease. "In the shower," he prompts her after a moment.
"Right." He feels her breathing against him, and then she pulls away; in the darkness, he can't see her: he has to follow her movements from sound and memory and touch. She's turned to her side, he feels the shape of it – the dip of her waist and the rise of her hip – under the silk that brushes his palm. He follows her lead and turns on his side too. They're facing each other now; he can feel the tail end of her exhales tickling the base of his throat.
There's space between them, but not too much to cross.
He stops trying to push her, but it's hard not to try to reconstruct.
I couldn't see you.
She couldn't see him, in the shower – she must mean the first round, then, when he had her pressed against the glass door. Their hands were folded together, a point of connection along with all the rest, but not their faces. A curl of guilt twists his stomach. Was she telling him to stop already at that point, and he missed it? Because she couldn't see him?
A cool hand on his chest stops his thoughts. "Not then," she says. In the dark it's just her voice, her very familiar and – right now – very soft voice. "After, when we were – I opened my eyes." She sounds almost shy. "I opened my eyes and I looked at you and your eyes … ."
Her voice trails off.
"Mine were closed?" he guesses.
"No. They were open."
He's lost.
"They were open, but you weren't – you weren't there."
"I don't understand."
"You were somewhere else." Her voice cracks. "You didn't see me and I couldn't see you and I just – "
Stop. Derek, stop.
She just stopped him.
I couldn't see you.
"I'm sorry," he says, "if I was – distracted."
There's that word again: distracted.
"That's not what I mean. Just forget it," she sighs – he feels the sigh, full force, hot breath against his skin and then feels her turning over.
Away from him.
"Wait." He grasps a handful of silk that slides between his fingers. "Addison, wait. You can't just – drop that and not explain it."
She ignores him.
"Addie … "
It's a tone that usually works on her, a soft entreaty, but it doesn't seem to be working tonight.
Finally, he takes the closer of her bare arms in his hand and pulls gently to turn her back toward him. She freezes in his grip, muscles so tense she's practically vibrating; he releases her automatically.
And turns on the light.
Then she's squinting again, half covering her eyes, half up on her elbows. She's caught between him and the wall of the trailer and she looks – uncomfortable. Even trapped.
What the hell is going on?
He speaks her name, letting his impatience creep into his tone.
"Now what?" In contrast, she sounds … weary.
Join the club.
"I'm not asking you anymore. I'm telling you. I need to know what happened. Stop playing games and just – "
"I'm not playing games!"
She's the one to raise her voice now.
He sits up, pushing the blankets to his waist.
"Derek? Where are you going?"
Her voice sounds high and thin now.
"I'm not going anywhere." He's not – he's just sitting there, trapped under the weight of the blankets.
"Oh." Is that surprise, in her voice? "Can you turn out the light, then?" she asks.
"No," he says, keeping his tone mild. He turns to her. "We need to talk."
"Now you want to talk." She glares at him, apparently adjusted to the light. Enough so to fight back, anyway, he can hear it in her tone before her words. "When I want to talk to you, Derek … you're busy. You're always busy."
"I'm not busy now."
"Maybe I'm busy now," she counters.
He looks from her slippery little nightgown to the bed itself. "You don't look busy."
She groans, flopping back onto the mattress with her face in her pillow. "Just leave it, Derek. Leave it alone."
He watches her breathe for a moment; half of her back is bared by her nightdress but her long damp hair covers swaths of her skin. He's not sure why he can't … how did she put it? Leave it alone.
Is it another power struggle? Like the shelves he never wanted to cede to her when she moved in, like the trailer itself?
"Look. Something happened," he says quietly. She doesn't react, but he can tell she's listening. "Something happened and I still don't understand what it was. But I was part of it, and if I was part of it then I need to know what it was. So if you know what it was … then you need to tell me."
She lifts her head marginally from the pillows. "I already told you."
"Then you need to tell me again. Because I didn't understand the first time."
There's a long moment of silence, and then she sits up. One of the straps of her nightgown has slipped off her shoulder; automatically, he hooks a finger in it to slide it back up. Her eyes are trained on his hand when he releases her.
" … I need a drink," she says.
Even though she's already brushed her teeth.
He was confused, earlier. Even worried.
But now, for the first time, he's actually frightened.
..
He fixes the drink, though, while she sits where he left her and watches, and makes himself one too. When he brings hers over she's sitting on the edge of the bed in much the same position he found her when he came home earlier tonight. She accepts the glass and takes a few long sips before she looks up at him again. He's still standing up, not for any particular reason, just –
"I need you to sit down," she says.
His heart thumps.
"Not like that," she says hurriedly. "Not like – bad news sit down. Just … regular sit down, because I have to tell you something and that's just not the right – just – thank you," she says, when he pushes the pillows back a little so he can sit down next to her.
She swishes her drink a little before she speaks.
Cautiously, he rests his free hand on her back; she doesn't protest.
Finally, he feels her indrawn breath against his palm.
"I didn't plan it," she says. "Before, in the shower, I didn't expect it. I just opened my eyes, that's all."
He nods. He's done pushing; he just waits for her to continue.
"Your eyes were open too. I looked at you. You weren't looking at me, though, you were looking – through me." Her voice cracks a little, again. "At something else – someone else – I don't know. But it wasn't me. Your eyes, they were just … ."
Her voice trails off.
Shame heats his cheeks once more. Does she know him that well, that she can – even when his arms were around her, her legs around him, they were as close as two people can be? She still saw through that enough to know he was distracted? To know that the frustration he was venting came from someone else entirely?
"I'm sorry," he says, not sure what else to say.
She waves her free hand dismissively. "You're allowed to think about someone else, Derek," she says. "I mean, I'd prefer Monica Bellucci or whoever to Meredith Grey, but … that's not really in my control."
He feels more naked than he was before. "Who's Monica Be – whatever?" he asks weakly.
"You know, she was in that movie."
"That movie," he repeats, then pauses. "Oh, is she the one with the – "
"No," Addison says patiently. "That's Liv Tyler. Monica Bellucci's eyes are brown."
"Oh." How does she keep track of this? But it's her job, the same way cleaning the grill at their summer house is his. Tasks divide like that, in a marriage. They just … split up.
Addison is still talking, trying to orient him: "Remember, she was wearing that thing you liked with the – "
"I remember," he says, because they're getting off course and also, admittedly, because it's true.
He's not surprised; you can't have sex with the same person for sixteen years and never talk about fantasies, never pretend to be other people, never let your wife buy you a gladiator costume and – the point is, this is not surprising.
Naming Meredith … was a little more surprising.
You're allowed to think about someone else, Derek. But he certainly doesn't want to think of her picturing Mark. He doesn't want to think about Mark, period. It makes him queasy, even angry.
So that's why she pushed him off, why she stopped him? She thought he was thinking about Meredith, and she was angry?
But she didn't seem angry, before.
He's seen Addison angry, plenty of times. He flashes back without much effort to a fight in the brownstone when his gesture of frustration knocked a decorative china bowl to the ground. It shattered and she turned on him in a rage; he thought for a moment she was going to slap him but she didn't – she pushed him against the same shelves that once housed the now-shattered bowl and kissed him with a ferocity that left him unclear whether they were still fighting. As did the rest of that encounter, as he can recall; in the end, it was probably sixty-forty fight to making up, and they both walked away bruised. He cleaned up the shattered bowl himself; she sat on the edge of the dining table in her underwear and watched him, he remembers this, drinking a glass of wine. He's fairly certain when he'd cleaned to her satisfaction he cornered her on that same table and she wrapped her long bare legs around him, drawing him in. He could never escape her, back then. He could never imagine wanting to escape her.
She was angry, then.
But tonight, in the shower? That wasn't anger.
"Usually, I can see you," she says quietly. He studies her pensive face and says nothing. "If I open my eyes, you know? I can see you. But I couldn't, before."
"I'm sorry," he says again. The word has been batted about between them more tonight than he can remember. They keep passing it back and forth like a hot potato. Hers, his, hers again.
I couldn't see you.
Then he looks at her, really looks at her. He knows, maybe he's known from that moment in the shower and just didn't want to know. Maybe he thought he could ignore it and it would fade away.
"Who was he?"
..
The rain's stopped. It's so quiet, too quiet.
"Just some guy." She's looking at the lowball glass in her hands. "He was Archer's friend, older, I was flattered. It's not earth-shattering, it's just – it's idiotic."
"It's not idiotic."
She continues as if he never weighed in. "I, uh, I don't actually remember his name. I don't know, maybe I blocked it out or whatever." She pauses, her tone changing. "He … had a Corvette. That, I do remember. It was white. On the outside, I mean."
She takes a long sip of her drink. He's holding his, for something to do with his hands, really. They feel clumsy and oversized, like he'd hurt her if he tried to touch her. He keeps them to himself and just listens.
"I was fifteen and he was a college freshman. I didn't, uh, I wasn't getting a lot of attention from guys in those days."
This much, he knows. That she was a late bloomer. He always found it endearing, and in his experience she more than made up for it later, but this – this he doesn't know. This he hasn't heard, before tonight. He waits for her to start talking again.
"He didn't know me, he probably thought I was more … experienced than I was." The ice in her glass moves again.
Derek frowns. "It doesn't matter how experienced you were or weren't, Addison, if he – "
"I told him to stop. That I didn't want to." She looks up at him. "He didn't listen."
"I'm sorry." He's trying to focus on her and not on the anger that's coursing through his veins, blurring his vision. "I'm so sorry, Addison."
"He didn't rape me, if that's what you're thinking." Her words are clinical, even cold. All he can do is listen. "It wasn't like that." Her voice shakes a little. "I told him I was a virgin, which was an understatement at the time, and he was – he said I could make it up to him."
The words repulse him.
"I didn't want to. He just moved me around like I was a rag doll or something. I remember the gear shift digging in, right here." Her hand drifts, and the logistics fall into place with nauseating clarity.
"I froze, I guess. I didn't even try the door. Not before, just after, and it was – it wasn't even locked."
"Addison – "
"I was clueless. I had never even seen … ." She shakes her head a little. "He wouldn't let me up and I thought I couldn't breathe, you know, that I was choking. I couldn't move. He was holding my head and all I could move were my eyes. I remember I kept trying to look at him – I actually thought if I could catch his eyes, if he saw me, he would realize he was hurting me and let me go."
He doesn't want to hear any more. His stomach is in knots, his throat thick.
"And then he looked at me." She takes another long sip of her drink. "He was looking down at me except .. he wasn't. He looked right through me. Like I wasn't there. Like I didn't exist." She pauses. "I stopped fighting him after that and it actually – it made it easier – "
"That was smart," he says quietly. "Whatever got you through, was smart."
"Smart?" She looks at him, eyebrows raised. "Hardly. It was stupid. Everything about it was stupid. I was stupid."
"You weren't stupid, Addison. You were fifteen. And even if you weren't, it was his fault. Not yours." He pauses, thinking of everything he knows of her teenaged years. "Did you tell anyone?"
"Then? No. Archie would have killed him and that would have been messy … and no one else would have believed me. Or cared, even if they did."
It's a bleak statement. To put it mildly.
"I told Savvy later, in college. Nai. Everyone has a story like that, Derek. It's not that big a deal."
"It's a big deal. How can you say it's not a big deal?" His voice is louder than he intends, and he forces it to quiet down. Everyone has a story like that. That can't be right – can it? It's Addison, minimizing her own pain. It has to be.
"The door wasn't even locked. I could have just reached out and opened it. I just … ." Her voice trails off.
"You just froze. It's a natural reaction."
"Yeah." She looks down at her hands. "I thought maybe someone would come out, or … but he had the lights off, and everyone must have been sleeping. It was late."
Sleeping. Late.
Confused, he tries to piece it together. Does that mean … ?
"Yeah," she says again. Her eyes are dark when she looks at him. "We were in my driveway."
Revulsion floods him once more, leaving his hands weak. All those years of Addison begging off visiting her parents' house, shuddering as they pulled onto the property, telling him how much she disliked it?
"That's not the only reason," she says quietly, looking at him, apparently knowing just what he's thinking. "But … yeah." She looks down at her hands again. "It didn't exactly help." She swipes at her eyes. "Anyway, it was dark and I – when he let me go I couldn't get the door open, my hands were shaking, and he opened it for me – he actually went to kiss me goodnight, before I got out of the car." Her voice is thin. "Which is – I was just on autopilot by then, I let him do whatever he wanted and then I got out of there and I threw up. He had his headlights off when he was driving away, I don't even – it was so dark I almost slipped in it. I left my shoes in the back garden. I never cleaned it up; I heard like – thirdhand that Bizzy blamed Archer and he never snitched. He must have thought I was just drunk."
It's the largest swath of words so far. She draws a long breath when she's finished, like it took a lot out of her.
"I'm sorry." The words feel meaningless, but they're the only ones he has. "Addie, I'm so sorry."
She's staring at the floor again. She looks up at him from under her lashes and it seems terribly important, what he says next, but he has no idea what it should be. I'm sorry. He already said that. I didn't mean to remind you – no, that's foolish, and it's not about him. I'm going to find out his name and track him down. That's foolish too; didn't he just say it wasn't about him, and his anger? Blindly, he searches for the right words.
Then she's crying, the first tears she's shed that night, and his words don't matter anymore. Carefully, he takes the drink out of her hand and sets it down on the floor before he pulls her into his arms. He's careful, even hesitant, but she goes willingly and her tears wet his neck while one of his palms cradles her still-damp head and the other traces patterns on the slippery silk over her back. He doesn't say much – nonsense words and sounds, the human equivalent of the soft rain that's started up once more against the tin trailer roof.
She slumps quietly against him after the storm and then, finally, with his help, sits up again.
"Sorry," she says.
That word is going to lose all meaning, tonight.
He just shakes his head. He brushes some damp hair away from her face, skims his thumb over the last of her tears.
She still seems to think he needs an explanation. "It's not something I – I didn't plan this," she says; presumably she means telling him at all.
"I'm … glad you told me."
That sounds wrong.
"I just mean – I wish you'd told me before," he says softly.
She shrugs a little. "It wasn't relevant. It wasn't something I talked about, not when we met, and then after that it wasn't relevant. It wasn't even something I thought about, you know, but I had a patient a few years ago who – but it doesn't matter."
"It matters." And then his heart is racing again. His stomach feels hollow with guilt; he's retracing every encounter he can remember – which he can't, because there are too many, but guilt crashes into the memories of his hands in her hair, cupping her skull, her eyes looking up at his. He didn't know, she didn't tell him, but he's sickened anyway. He wouldn't have –
"Stop it," she snaps. There are tears in her eyes again when he looks at her, her face tight. "See, this is why I didn't tell you. And I was right. I was right not to tell you."
"Addison – " He reaches for her, and she pushes his hands away.
"Stop it. Stop – feeling sorry for me or whatever." She glares at him.
"I'm not feeling sorry for you," he says helplessly. "I'm feeling … sorry, period. That's all. If I had known, if I knew, then I could have – "
"Could have what?" She raises her eyebrows, a challenge. "Cut that out of our sex life completely? Seriously? You want to take back every – give me a break."
"That's not what I meant."
"Sure it is. It was forever ago, Derek. It's barely a – barely a memory at this point. You think I can't enjoy myself, with you? Not ever? That I was, what, faking it all these years?" She sounds offended, even angry.
"No, Addison." He's distinctly uncomfortable now. "That's not what I meant," he repeats. "I just meant I would have – I don't know – "
"Thought about it," she finishes his sentence, annoyed. "You would have thought about it and you would have been all – hesitant and mopey and I didn't want that from you, Derek, I never wanted that from you. I didn't want kid gloves. I just wanted you."
Her words hang in the air for a moment.
"I haven't thought about that night in a long time," she says quietly. "I was just – I was on edge tonight, I had an awful day, and I was – it was fine in the shower, Derek, before. I know you were distracted but you're still – you," and she smiles a little, a soft lazy smile he knows all too well, and he manages to feel a little prickle of pride in all the confusion and distress of the rest of the evening. "It was just when I opened my eyes and I didn't see you. That's all."
"I was there." Tentatively, he reaches out a hand once more, and she lets him sweep her long hair away from her face, cup one damp cheek in his hand. "It was still – me, like you said," he continues.
"I know. It was just for a second. That's all." She looks down at her drink, then back up at him with her bottomless eyes. "Thank you for stopping."
"Don't thank me for stopping," he says shortly. "It's not a – it's not a favor. Anyone would have."
He hears his words as they leave his lips.
"Anyone should have," he corrects. "Anyone should."
"Maybe anyone should," she acknowledges, "but that doesn't mean anyone would have."
"Addie."
Her gaze turns far away. "There wasn't any word for it," she says quietly, sounding reminiscent again. "There would have been words, maybe, if I told someone, but just words about me. Like stupid." She pauses. "And a lot worse. I chose to be there. I chose to go out with him."
"Addison." He's disturbed that they're back to this.
"The point is, it was … a bad date." She shrugs a little. "In 1981, it was a bad date."
"It was a hell of a lot more than that," he says sharply. "Whatever year it was."
Addison at fifteen – hair she hadn't quite learned to tame, and a band uniform.
The same eyes though. Expressive, inescapable, the kind of eyes that track you and pin you in place. He knows what they look like when she's frightened and he knows what they look like when she pleads and his stomach turns over once again.
"Derek."
He looks up at his name. Her eyes are very soft, now. Familiar. "I'm okay," she says. "Really."
Slowly, he nods. "You're okay," he confirms.
She leans in, slowly, covering the distance between them to kiss his cheek. Her lips cool are still from her drink. She rests the palm of her hand over his heart and he feels, from the inside, what she must feel through his skin. One more glimpse of her hazy eyes with their indefinable color, and he closes his own. Her forehead rests against his now, her breath gentle across his lips.
Long moments pass in silence.
"I love you."
The words hang in the air for a moment, the shock of them enough to open both their eyes, apparently. The dark burst of those words, what's left after a flash photograph. Look too closely and you'll see stars for hours.
I love you.
It's the first time he's said those words, since her arrival in Seattle. She's said them, he hasn't.
I just know I still love you. That day, that was the first time … but not the last.
She's backed away enough now that he can see her eyebrows have lifted with genuine surprise, and then her eyes are shadowed again. "Don't say it if you don't mean it."
"I don't say things I don't mean."
She considers this. "Yeah, I guess you don't. Derek?"
He nods.
"Now can you turn the light off?"
..
They're lying in darkness, fingers entwined. It's a complicated dance with nothing touching except their hands, but it's electric enough to keep him awake. He's thinking and he knows she is too but it's that touch that's refusing sleep.
"Your day," he says.
"Hm?"
"You didn't tell me about your day."
He feels rather than sees him turn toward her. "My day," she repeats doubtfully.
"You said I wouldn't believe the day you had," he prompts her. "Remember?"
"I remember."
"So. Try me," he suggests. "Tell me about the day you had. Maybe I'll believe it."
She tells him.
He believes it.
..
They're still awake. Rain drums the trailer, steady and soothing; she's settled in his arms, but they're still awake.
He feels her shaking her head against him: exasperation. He doesn't have to see her face to know that.
"What is it?" Her head is resting on his chest just below his chin; his cheek brushes her skull when he speaks.
"Alex Karev," she says darkly, after a moment.
"Ah." He pauses. "I thought you didn't want me to get you started on him."
"I didn't. But I started anyway. That little – he's trying to ruin my reputation!"
"He'll fail," Derek says simply.
She doesn't respond.
"You want me to kill him for you?" he asks.
She actually laughs a little; it leaves a warm curl of hope within him. "Where did that come from?" she asks.
"I don't know." He considers the question. "I mean, I wasn't crazy about him to begin with."
And then … .
No need to finish that.
And just like that he's angry again; his heart is pumping as fast as it was the moment she pushed him off her in the shower, but for a very different reason. It was a long time ago, that's what she said, but adrenaline flows nonetheless.
It's not defensible.
It's not forgivable.
He'll find him, it can't be that hard, even without a name – Archer would help, if he asked, he's certain of it, and then he'll –
"Derek … ." She turns in his arms, and presses one of her hands to his cheek. "Don't," she says softly.
The palm of her hand grounds him.
"I can't help it," he mutters.
"Yes, you can." She leans her head against him again and he strokes her damp hair. "You can help it. You helped it before, in the shower. You're – " She stops.
He catches her drift, though.
"You don't scare me," she says quietly, after a moment of silence.
"Good," he says, a little hesitant.
"I scare me," she admits.
"You … scare yourself?" He asks, trying to sort it out.
She nods; he feels the moment of her damp hair against his bare skin. "I do things, that I don't … ." Her voice trails off. "You think I have bad judgment?" she asks abruptly.
"No," he says at once. He doesn't even have to think about it.
She sits up a little, and he lets her.
"What about Mark?" she asks in a small voice, not quite looking at him.
"Other than Mark, which was … spectacularly bad judgment … still no," he amends.
"My patient wanted that procedure, Derek."
"I know."
"She begged me to do it and I did what she wanted even though I knew it could backfire on me. And she's just – she's going to lie about it and Karev reported it and everyone is just – leaving me out there to deal with it, alone." She stops talking.
"You're not alone," he says.
"Tell that to my malpractice premiums." Her voice has that blustery air – like she's pretending it's a joke, but it's not.
"You're not," he repeats. "Hey," he adds when she doesn't respond. "I'm on your side."
"Yeah?" She looks up at him. Her expression is troubled. "You were tonight," she admits. "And I – appreciate it. I do."
"You don't have to thank me," he says patiently; he's said it so many times tonight, but he'll keep saying it if he needs to. "And I'm on your side with this case, too, Addie, whatever happens with it. Including legally speaking. Your bills are my bills," he reminds her. "We're married."
She seems to be considering this. "We're married," she repeats.
"We are. We have a piece of paper that says so."
"And we have one that says the opposite too." She leans back against him once more, and they settle into the pillows with a series of long-memorized movements. "But you didn't sign," she says.
"We're back to this?"
She hasn't mentioned the divorce papers in months.
"You never told me why you didn't sign."
He feels a headache growing behind his eyes – better than the priapism of earlier this evening and the twenty-five-years-too-late rage that followed, sure, but it's not exactly comfortable either. "Addison … ."
"What?"
Her tone is a challenge. So she's not backing down.
"I didn't sign because we decided to try." He's said these same words before, and they sound wooden, and she's not satisfied; he can tell just by the feel of her in his arms without her having to say anything. "Addison – what is it you want me to say?"
"I don't know," she admits.
"Then I'm not sure it's fair for you to expect me to know."
"I guess you're right," she says after a moment.
He blinks into the darkness. Addison, conceding a point to him? It's rare but it happens; he'll have to be extra cautious now. She'll get him at the net when he least expects it.
"Derek … there are things we should talk about." Her tone is hesitant.
"Yeah." In the darkness of his own memory he sees a flash of green eyes, the arc of a thrown stick, early light. Every other morning. Hears laughter. "I guess there are."
He can't see her expression. He doesn't know what she's picturing, and doesn't really want to know, but the ball is hers again. She's right. There are things that they should talk about.
"Not tonight, though." She decrees it quietly, leaning against him again, and he's relieved – both that she was the one to say it and that they can end the conversation now.
He finds himself holding her tightly for a moment, even if he's not quite sure why. She doesn't ask, but he feels her fingers tight on him like the moment she stopped him in the shower. Except this time he's not wondering whether she's pulling him or pushing him.
This time, he knows.
"Derek … ."
"Hm?" He's half asleep, one hand tangled in her hair, one of her bare arms across his ribs.
"Don't kill Alex Karev."
He laughs a little, feeling her move against him as he does. "Okay. If you insist, I won't kill him."
She rests quietly against him again as they listen to the rain outside.
"You could give him some scut work, though," she murmurs. "Bowel prep, that kind of thing. I mean, if you want to."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He feels her lips curving into a smile against the skin of his chest.
She doesn't say anything else.
He kisses the top of her head; her hair is almost dry now, but still fragrant. It smells – like his, which is what happens when they shower together, as he knows from years of experience. Like they're extensions of each other. It makes it hard to know where one person ends and the other begins, sometimes.
Like how he's not really sure who falls asleep first, to the sound of the rain outside and two heartbeats … only that they're breathing as one, either way.
And that's all she wrote. This was a free write without a lot of structure, something that felt like it could have happened, even if it didn't. Treating serious subject matter with respect is important to me, so I welcome your respectful comments and feedback, whether in review or PM form. This unpleasant aspect of Addison's past is one that unfortunately seems to fit with what we know of her on the show, which is probably why it pops up so much. I think Addison was vaguely hinting at it during the PP Archer crossover, and I wrote that scene in my story "Eleven" in 2011. I guess it stuck with me since then.
Okay, with all that said, I'm still open to fluff. I wanted to write fluff. I tried, really. I'm always open to prompts, but I'm especially open to happy prompts today. Script flippers, I love hearing your thoughts, your prompts, your words, so I hope you'll review and tell me what you think!
PS - I have updates of my other WIPs in progress, promise!
