«Thanks, Addison!» Erica took charge of pouring her and Callie some wine, making sure Callie was served first. «For you, milady.»
Addison was convinced she could see Callie blush by Erica's gesture. This is fun. «I'm gonna get me something else to drink,» Addison said while leaning into Erica's left side. «Now behave, Casanova...», and pulling away from the two women, leaving one of them with a smirk on her face, and the other with somewhat of a puzzled look.
Addison walked back to the bar, and back to the intern that she for a long time blamed for all of her problems. She knew very well that her ex-husband was the one to blame for putting Meredith in that position, but obviously she was an easy target. It was easy to blame her, but not so easy to hate her.
She knew her marriage was over the second the neurosurgeon stood in the doorway of their bedroom in New York that night, but she wasn't going to give up without a fight. She had been raised to always fight for herself and what she thought was right, and didn't really know how not to. With that said, she was not always right, and she sure as hell made a lot of mistakes and stupid choices. Up until now, Mark was the perfect example of this, but as she approached the dirty blonde by the bar, and without hesitation took her coat off and sat down beside her, suddenly she was not so sure anymore. As of tonight, she might have reached a higher level of stupidity.
oOoOo
«What's your poison?» Meredith asked. She felt the redhead's presence before she saw her. She avoided eye contact, as they both probably on some level knew that the sight of the two of them voluntarily sitting alone together in a bar, as if they were old drinking buddies, did not make sense in this world. They did a pretty good job ignoring that fact though, cause it didn't really feel awkward at all, it just felt strangely… Strange.
«I think I'll go for a Dark & Stormy, to complement your sparkly mood tonight, Grey» she responded while lifting herself up from her seat and reached over the counter to grab a coaster. Meredith couldn't help noticing how the redhead's body covered the counter for a few seconds, her black perfectly ironed silk blouse shifted carefully on her torso with every small move she made. Her tight black skirt complimented every inch of her behind, and Meredith wondered how it was even possible to look so altogether and elegant while literally climbing over a bar counter. She took a moment to glance down at herself and her wrinkled white shirt covered in different shades of liquor, and her vest missing a button from when it got stuck in her locker at work this morning. Next to Addison Forbes Montgomery, a name that sounded like it should come with a fanfare behind it, she felt like a 12-year-old boy after a day in the park, really living up to her last name.
Addison shuffled a coaster over towards Meredith, and by taking in the scenery around where she had been seated the last couple of hours, it was obvious that she needed one. Addison smiled at her as if she had given her the Ferrari of coasters. «How about you, what do you want?»
Meredith inhaled, tilted her head upwards and spoke in a dramatic manner. «'The Things That I Want', by Meredith Grey. A break. A clean shirt. For the sun to shine. To sleep. My dog back. To not go to work tomorrow. To unsee every Tom Cruise movie I have ever endured. To change the past.» She exhaled. You.
«Joe! It's clearly tequila-o'clock, hit me up!» Meredith waved a napkin in the air to get the bartender's attention. Addison chuckled, and she didn't try to hide her amusement this time.
oOoOo
«So, Erica and Callie, eh? Isn't Erica just in town for the O'Malley consult?» Meredith asked, clearly a bit annoyed by her empty glass.
«What, you're thrown off by the one-night-stand part of the situation, or the two women part?» She couldn't help herself.
«Hey, I went to college.» Meredith casually replied while looking away and signaling Joe to hurry over with their liquids of choice. Addison felt a rush going through her body, trying not to picture the dirty blonde in relation to what she had just said, though failing miserably.
Joe put the well-needed drink of rum in front of Addison, before giving Meredith a final possibility to back out of her order. «There's no way I can stop you from going there, is it?» He raised his eyebrows at her, already knowing the answer to his question.
«Would you really want to go all Yoko Ono at our friendship, Joe?» A moment later, Meredith had the salt on one hand and the shot in the other.
She raised her glass. «To George, and his dad. Aaand his girlfriend, who is about to join the Scissor Sisters.»
«Dr. Meredith Grey! I will not drink to that, that is just... Poor George!» Addison whacked her upper arm while trying to hold back a chuckle, and looked around to make sure no one heard it.
«Alrightalright, how about to…» Their eyes met. «Fraternizing with the enemy.» Their eyes locked. None of them knew for how long. Addison raised her glass in return.
The older woman finally broke the silence. «So where's the rest of your crew of rascals?»
Meredith signaled to Joe for more tequila. «Christina is still at the hospital with Burke - busy not talking to him, George is watching over his dad - busy not talking to Christina, and if there is any order left in the universe, Iz is home working on her Martha Stewart impersonation. Alex, though, is around here somewhere flashing his doctor title to the third girl of the last hour. I actually think I heard him use the I'm saving babies-line earlier. Freaking unbelievable. Then again, if that doesn't get him laid - what does...»
«Ah, yes, that line usually gets me going with the ladies too.» Addison quirked an eyebrow towards Meredith, who looked a bit put out by her bluntness, before narrowing her eyes and biting down on her lip, and oh my goodness, that face.
«I believe you.» Their eyes locked again, Addison could feel her cheeks blush and her stomach turn, and what the fuck, desperately needed to say something.
«Speaking of saving babies… Rough day today? I'm sorry if I forced you into a family reunion you didn't want to participate in. I just though yo-»
«They're not my family.» Meredith cut her off. The topic clearly made her uncomfortable.
Addison nodded. «I get that. But they don't have to be, to piss you off, you know. It's okay.»
Meredith shifted on her seat and opened her mouth, looking like she was about to spill her heart out. «Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectet-»
«Yeahyeah, you don't want to talk about it, fine.» Addison drowned out her rambling and swayed her body, giving Meredith a light push to her side. Their bodies touched. Even just for a second, she could feel Meredith's warmth radiate through the fabric of their clothes. She took a sip of her drink, feeling the rum slowly ease into her system. It felt good. Actually, this whole weird party of two felt good.
«I… I could move Laura on the other side of the NICU tomorrow, without telling Molly and Susan... Just so you can, you know, see them suffer a few seconds while desperately looking for her.» Meredith turned towards her with a serious look.
«That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me. Ever.»
After a few seconds of silence, they cracked up and burst into laughter.
«Thanks, Addison,» the younger woman suddenly got a friendly look.
«For what - offering to kidnap a baby for you? Sure, anytime.» Addison smirked.
«For involving me in the case today. You didn't have to do that.»
«Well, maybe I just wanted to see you get tortured by your not-family, ever think 'bout that?» Addison smirked again.
«Yeah… I thought about it.» Meredith fiddled with the napkin. «But then I thought about it again.»
And there was that look in her eyes again. There was just something about that look, as if there was something bothering her that didn't have anything to do with today's events, or her disaster of a family situation. A look that needed tending. A look that needed to be looked at. Addison could analyze that look all night, hell, people would write songs about that look. She wanted to inspect it, zoom in on it, and never stop researching it until she could figure it out. But for now, she just met it, accepted it, and appreciated its presence. Appreciated her presence.
While shaking her head and letting out a bothered sigh, Meredith prepared the salt for a new tequila shot. The way she maneuvered herself now revealed the state of her intoxication, which was somewhere between tipsy and drunk.
«Earlier today my mother literally said to my face that she never should have birthed me,»
Tequila consumed.
«And still, I came down here, feeling shit about not staying with her tonight. How the fuck is that even possible?»
A bite of lime.
«I mean, is there a joke here I'm not in on, or am I really that dense?»
Addison could see Meredith get stirred up, for obvious reasons, and searched for an appropriate response.
«You tell me, I'm sitting here enjoying the company of my ex-husband's hot dirty mistress. Like, really enjoying it. So if there was a joke somewhere, it definitely passed by me already...» And that was probably the opposite of an appropriate response, stupid.
Meredith didn't look up, she just gave a blank stare at the half-eaten lime in her hand.
«Sorry... Too soon.» Addison cringed on the inside, ready to give away a kidney to a stranger, in return of erasing those last 60 seconds of their conversation.
Meredith got Joe to pour her two more shots, but this time she skipped the salt and went straight for the liquid. She placed the other shot in front of the older woman and raised both her eyebrows and her shot towards her.
«So... Ya think I'm hot?»
«Dr. Montgomeryyy!» The interruption was world-shattering and life-saving at the same time.
Only Alex Karev could sound as oily as Alex Karev. His attitude stepped into her personal space before his body did, and he leaned on the counter beside her. «Or maybe we could be on first-name basis now, eh?» He winked at her.
«Karev,» she faked a chipper high-pitched tone while emphasizing the use of his last name. «How nice of you to join us, anything I can do for you?» Dear lord, or whoever, please send him away. She should have predicted that sharing some 'moments' with him earlier this week would lead to him being a pain in the ass. Truth is, she was to blame as far as some subtle flirtation goes, but it had been a tough couple of weeks and she just needed to have some fun. He had lately shown himself to be a really good guy, with a bright future in obstetrics, and she just got a bit carried away with the flirting. It was never going anywhere further, but seems like she needed to make that clear.
«Well, I can think of a couple of things you could do for me…» Yep, she really needed to make that clear.
«Karev, I think you need to take your beer and get back to your lady friend over there,» she said as she nodded towards the woman he had left by the table, looking rather uncomfortable by being deserted.
«He-hey, feelin' a little jealous, are we?» he said with a smug face and an even more smug tone. «Catch ya later then, boss. You know where to find me...» he said while backing away from the two women at the bar. Addison rolled her eyes trying to hide her embarrassment, ready to spill out some sort of defense speech to the whole bar. He was pretty drunk, but the way he talked to her made it sound like they had already gone places, and she needed to kill that idea before it manifested as the latest rumor at the nurses' station. She turned over to the other woman, for whom she felt a sudden urge to explain, more than to anyone else at this time.
«Seriously?»
Addison was served with a sharp stare that lasted for about three seconds, but was loaded with the amount of energy that could bring someone back from the afterlife - or into it, for that matter. The overwhelming silence that came along with it, muted all other sounds from their surroundings before it was broken by a short exhale. The other woman was on her feet quicker than Addison could manage to read the instant change in atmosphere. She grabbed the shot from the counter and literally threw it inside her mouth. With the liquids burning its way down her throat, she slammed the empty glass onto the wooden surface before turning around and walking away. Addison was left confused and a bit put out, trying to react, but came up short. «Wha-» Out of sight. But definitely not out of mind.
oOoOo
With one hand on each side of the cold porcelain, head bowed in a mixture of shame and fury, Meredith tried to focus on the sanitary conditions - or lack thereof - of the bathroom sink at Joe's. Bacteria and their superior capabilities was a way more pleasant train of thought then rewinding the personal apocalypse that played itself out at the bar counter a few minutes ago. Regretting painfully to have escaped to the bathroom, and not through the front door, she was already considering her options on how to get out of the small window in one of the toilet stalls. She would easily have made herself a felon by breaking the glass, using only her bare hands, and desperate need of vanishing. Too bad the window was too far up to reach, and too small for huge morons to climb through, as there was this tiny little issue called laws of physics.
Her escape planning was interrupted by a small clicking sound, obviously from the door opening, and with it came an echo filling the room. Meredith tightened her grip on the dirty sink. «Go. Away.»
She was met with an unfamiliar voice. «Excuse me, I just need to use th-» Meredith looked up, shifted her head, and saw a young woman she had never seen before. «Sorry. My bad,» Oh, the embarrassment. «I thought you were someone else.» She immediately cursed the universe for once again making a fool out of her, letting her subconsciously believe that Addison actually would come after her. As if the neonatal surgeon would do anything but run in the opposite direction, freaked out by the intern's obvious mental and emotional instability. Universe: 37. Meredith: 0.
She turned the water on and observed it dancing its way into the drain, wanting only to disappear together with it. She could feel the alcohol ravage in her body, making her thoughts cloudy, and made her question her own ability to be rational. Hypnotized by the flowing water, she didn't notice anyone approaching until a hand came into her field of vision. As it turned off the water flow, she snapped back to reality.
Meredith lifted her heavy head with all the strength she had, and let her eyes eventually focus in the mirror reflection. Red. It was like all the world's colors had gone together and collectively decided to take a step back, just to let this one color shine alone. She was standing behind her, a little to the side, looking straight back at her in the mirror.
«Addison.»
«You okay?»
«You shouldn't be here.»
«Probably not. You okay?»
«I'm fine.»
«Riight.»
«You shouldn't be here.»