The chapters seem to get chunkier as we go along, but there's quite a bit of plot development in this one. There's stuff here that some reviewers have been waiting for, I think, and maybe a few surprises. As usual, I do appreciate the support you've given my fic—thank you!—whether that's a review, follow, or fav. The people who've been reviewing all along: I cannot express how much it means to me that you're still reading and liking it well enough to keep commenting.
— ·· —
CHAPTER 7:
"Queen of Mixed Signals"
— ·· —
There she was. Addison.
She was actually here. Standing in the parking lot outside Seattle Grace Hospital.
Tall. Blonde.
He'd expected to feel anger or disgust, or maybe emptiness, when he saw her. Not relief.
His wife was here. She was safe.
She hadn't seen him. It looked like she was involved in a lively discussion with Richard Webber. Addison was gesticulating with her whole arm and Richard was... very loud. Derek should probably walk over there and interrupt that. Webber looked like he might need rescuing before he had an aneurysm and Addison looked irritated. Irritated and beautiful.
Derek could tell when he entered his wife's field of vision because she just froze, mid-sentence by the looks of it. "Addison." He took a step forward, trying not to notice as she flinched. He didn't know if it was his unexpected appearance or the argument he'd interrupted, but the thought of his wife actually being afraid of him made him ache inside.
"Derek. What are you doing here?" She looked back and forth between him and Richard, chewing on her lip the way Addison always did when she was particularly anxious about something. Her makeup was stained and he was confused about what might have caused it.
"You didn't return my calls." Just standing here in front of her felt surreal, like the reality of it hadn't sunk in yet. How had they ever let things get to this point? Two months. He hadn't seen her or talked to her in two months. That was crazy.
"I'm just going..." Richard looked uncomfortable as he gestured towards the hospital. "Nice seeing you, Derek. We'll, um, talk later."
He beat a hasty retreat, so Derek just called out, "Nice hat!" before turning back towards Addison. "Your hair is different."
"A lot of things are different." Addison sighed, looking weary. "What are you doing here, Derek?"
So in all honesty, Derek didn't know what he was doing there. He'd thought he was getting a divorce, but maybe he was just a guy trying to get his wife to come home. "What are you doing here?" This place was so un-Addison that his mind couldn't even wrap around it. "You just pick up and leave everything? Your house, your practice, your friends." He left himself off the list, not sure how she'd react and not wanting to antagonize her, but my god, she had left him! "You have a life in Manhattan."
"Had."
Ouch. The look on his wife's face was decidedly unfriendly, which was fair enough. He must have done a real number on her to have driven her across the country and Derek didn't know where to begin picking up the pieces. "And now you have billboards in Seattle."
He'd meant the statement to be humorous, to inject some levity into the moment, but Addison's face darkened instead. Apparently the billboards were a sore point for his wife, which was understandable. Addison had always thought of herself as an ugly duckling and having her image plastered around the city almost certainly wasn't her idea.
"Derek, I have a long day ahead, so why don't you just tell me what you want?" Addison sighed heavily, leaning against her car. "I know you've hired Savvy."
How had she found out about that? Nancy couldn't have told her, he didn't think, but obviously someone had tattled. Someone had blabbed and now his wife was standing here looking like he'd bailed on their dinner plans, or forgotten their anniversary or signed up for a double shift on Thanksgiving when they'd had plans to go away together.
God, he was such an idiot.
"Look, Addie, I know I've been a lousy husband. I get that." He really did, even apart from his family spending the last eight weeks telling him what a moron he was. "Do you think Richard would give you the morning off? We could have breakfast and talk."
Addison shook her head. "I have work to do. I can't blow off my patients just because you happen to grace me with your presence, Derek. That's not how this works."
She was so closed off and guarded. "Okay, I'll wait for you. We can do lunch." She looked like she was going to say 'no' to that too, so he softened his voice, "Honey, we're going to have to talk." He reached for her hand, but she pulled away before he even got close.
"Don't call me that!"
Okay, so that was a bad move on his part. She was very skittish, which was understandable, but how could they fix anything if they didn't have a conversation? "We have to talk, Addison. Figure this out."
"Figure it out?" Addison looked angrier than he'd seen her in a long time, maybe ever. "Are you for real, Derek?! You threw me out of the house," she hissed, "I was half-naked and it was raining!"
He could feel his own anger rising, so he moved closer. Yes, he'd made plenty of mistakes, as his family had so helpfully pointed out, but Addison wasn't exactly blameless here either. "You wouldn't have been half-naked, if you hadn't been screwing my best friend!" Nobody else needed to hear what they were saying.
"Oh, so I brought it upon myself that you grabbed me by the arms, pulled me off the stairs and shoved me out the door?" Addison stared him in the eyes, her own betraying a glimmering of tears as Derek swallowed hard.
He looked away for a moment, uneasy at her words. He had done that. In his anger, Derek had pried her fingers off the banister and tugged her across the hallway before pushing her out the door. "I was angry. I didn't mean to do that, but you did sleep with Mark."
"Do you have any idea what I went through?" No, he hadn't and he was ashamed of that. It hadn't even occurred to him before now, which was really rather shameful when he thought about it. "Anything could have happened to me, Derek! Did you even bother to look for me? To make sure I was okay?"
"No, but–"
"I could have been run over by a car! Murdered! I could have been kidnapped and be locked in some madman's shed as we speak and nobody would ever know, because you were too busy being upset over Mark!" Addison shook her head. "I haven't mattered to you, Derek, not for years now."
···
"She erased me. And eleven years of marriage! She doesn't get to erase me from her life. I wasn't the one who had an affair!"
He paced back and forth across Webber's office, still filled with the nervous energy of seeing his wife for the first time in two months. Derek didn't know how he'd expected that to go, but it didn't go the way he'd expected. Addison had acted like she didn't even want to see him, like he'd been the one at fault that night.
Obviously, he shouldn't have pulled or pushed her, or closed the door in her face. That had been a horrible thing to do and it was her house too, but Derek hadn't been quite sane at the time. That night was as surreal in his memory as an out-of-body experience.
"Derek..." Richard massaged his temples. "I'm... sympathetic to your..." he sighed, "soul pain, but the topic of our conversation was the tumor that's probably growing inside my head."
"Well, we'll take that out," Derek shrugged. A tumor was simple. He knew how to deal with a little tumor. The tumor wasn't the problem here! "Her hair is different, she's not wearing her rings and she calls herself Montgomery!" Addison didn't get to cut him out of her life, like Derek was some malignant growth, not after what she'd done. She didn't get to move on.
He'd been in Seattle a grand total of six hours and he was already regretting coming. He'd had time on the plane to think, and he'd planned everything he wanted to say, but all of that vanished the moment he drove into Seattle from the airport and saw his estranged wife's face plastered on a billboard. He'd spent the last eight weeks getting interrogated by all his relatives. Told how he needed to work on his marriage, whereas Addison had simply run away and started a completely new life without him.
"Derek." Richard frowned at him. "I need the tumor taken out of my head, and for this to be done discreetly. You can be angry with Addison after the surgery all you want, but I need you focused right now."
"Why didn't you tell me that she was here?" Honestly, he'd expected more from Richard. His former mentor had been keeping a huge secret from him and a courtesy call would have been nice. "I've had my family hounding me for weeks about where she was, and you couldn't bother to tell me that you hired her?"
Webber stared at him, "I'm the Chief of Surgery at a hospital, not the host of a dinner party you've been invited to. Hiring Addie was business, and a very good move at that. It wasn't personal, that's between the two of you."
"You didn't think it was strange at all, her showing up on her own? She's my wife!" This was a bit much to take in, between Addison's new look and his former mentor thinking it was apparently no big deal that Addison had just ditched him after eleven years of marriage. "You could have called, you know. I could have come to work here too—you don't need neurosurgeons?"
Richard sighed. "Look, Derek, I need a neurosurgeon right now and I need one who's focused. Are you honestly up for this? Because now's the time to tell me if you're not."
"Of course I'm focused!" Derek let out a deep breath, trying to contain his frustration. "I know Addison's the better surgeon out of the two of us, but I am competent, Richard. I know what's at stake here."
His marriage was at stake, and Richard's eyesight, but also, apparently, his professional reputation. Derek might not be the all-star in the OR that Addison was, but he knew how to do his job, even if his boss back in New York didn't see any problems in finding a replacement and his old mentor not thinking he was worth the bother to begin with. To top it all off, his wife was just so... blonde, and what the hell had she done with her wedding band?
"Look, you're here now," Webber offered. "Once you take this tumor out of my head, then you should find Addison, have a proper conversation with her. I assume that's why you came here to begin with, isn't it?"
Derek stared sullenly at his shoe, not wanting to say the words out loud. He wanted to say that he'd just come to get everyone in New York off of his back, that his family would disown him if he didn't at least try, but now, being here and actually seeing Addison, he knew that it wasn't quite as simple as that.
"I've known you both for a long time, Derek." Richard's voice was softer now. "Since you were interns. I know you're angry and you're hurt right now, and you might need to yell, but that doesn't mean that there's not still something there between the two of you."
"Well, there's definitely adultery between us." Derek didn't know what he felt and Addison didn't even look like the same person. She also seemed to be flourishing here, without him. He'd been dumped. Unceremoniously and without much of a notice.
···
Alex walked into the NICU to find Montgomery checking up on one of the preemies. He hadn't seen her since the morning, when the Chief chased him away. She looked... like a surgeon, in dark blue scrubs with a stethoscope hanging around her neck as she adjusted the equipment attached to the baby.
"Hey..."
She turned to look at him and Alex found that he missed seeing her smile. "Karev?" She was all business.
"Burke has a patient who needs a consult," Alex handed over the tissue analysis. "Patient is male and presented with a mass in his bladder."
Montgomery scanned the paperwork before looking back up. "All right, tell Burke I'll stop by to speak with the patient once I finish up here." She handed the lab report back and finally made eye contact. "I'm sorry, Alex."
She did look sad. "Is he..." Alex had no idea what he wanted to ask.
"Yes." Addie went back to examining her patient and Karev assumed that he had been dismissed, but he didn't feel ready to leave. He needed... something. Anything.
"What...?"
"I don't know," she sighed and closed the door to the isolette. "He probably wants a divorce."
"Do you want to go to dinner tonight?" Alex had no idea what possessed him to ask. It didn't sound nice enough and Addie wasn't ready for romance, he knew that. He'd promised to be patient, not pushy. "It doesn't have to be a thing. We could bring Grey or Torres, if you like, whoever has the night off. Go to some all-night diner and have greasy food that we eat with our fingers."
"I don't know." Addie looked reluctant. "It's probably not the best idea right now, but it would be nice having a break from all of this."
"You can think about it, if you need to," Alex offered. She seemed skittish right now and the last thing he wanted was to put any more pressure on her. She had plenty already, with her estranged ex showing up out of the blue. "I'm an intern, I pretty much live at the hospital. You know where to find me."
Addie smiled as she touched his cheek gently. "You're a good guy, Karev. You sure you want to get involved in my messy affairs?"
Considering how he felt whenever she smiled at him, Alex would do messy for that. "He seems a bit hotheaded." Obviously, he was biased and probably not the best judge of the other guy's behavior, but from where Alex was sitting, the very public anger didn't feel right.
"He's..." she sighed, "He's sore. I didn't tell anyone I was moving here and... He's just mad."
This was starting to sound more and more like the kind of thing Alex Karev knew quite a bit about, men with anger issues and women who might potentially flee in the middle of the night. That this asshole might have hurt Addie set his blood boiling, but Alex knew he had to keep his own temper in check. He needed to be a guy who didn't think with his fists and he absolutely didn't want to give Addie something else to worry about.
"I want to be your McDreamy." The words escaped before Alex knew what he was saying and he could feel his face flush. Grey and her stupid drunken rambling.
Addie looked wistful. "I don't want to hurt you, Alex, although I feel like I've done plenty of that already."
"Your life's complicated right now, I get it." He wasn't so blind that he didn't see that she still had feelings for her ex, or that there was a very real chance that she might go back to the asshat. He was going into this with his eyes wide open. "I'm a big boy, I can handle disappointment if it comes to it."
Addie smiled. "I suppose you're right. I can't see you throwing a hissy fit when things don't go your way."
"Is that, um," Alex cleared his throat and shifted his weight, "Does your ex do that, when things don't go his way? Throw a hissy fit?" He could see the shutters come down and cursed inside his own head. He was so stupid. Why did he always run his mouth? Women with abusive men didn't admit to that if you prodded them. Alex knew that.
Addie stared at him, her expression unreadable. "You were watching us? In the parking lot?"
Shit, now he looked like a creepy stalker and that really wasn't his intention. "I wasn't spying, or anything. I was just waiting for you, to see if you were all right because you'd been upset and the Chief seemed mad. And then your ex showed up..." He really hadn't been trying to pry into her business, but now he'd made things awkward.
Addie sighed. "Derek's not violent, if that's what you're trying to ask. We fight, yes, he yells and I yell, but he's not a batterer."
That was what battered women always said, but Alex knew that this was his hot button issue and that if he wanted more with Addie, he would have to trust her. He would have to show her that he respected that she was strong and capable in her own right, and that she would ask for his help if she needed it. She needed to be able to trust him.
"Okay," Alex made himself nod. He would be supportive and not aggro over things she said she could handle herself. "Will you think about dinner? You do need to eat regardless."
"I'll think about it," Addie conceded. "I can't make any promises, but I'll definitely consider the offer."
"I can live with that," Alex agreed. He'd asked her out on a date and she hadn't flat-out turned him down so in his book, this was a win.
···
The elevator doors opened to admit the stranger from the parking lot and Meredith Grey nodded in greeting when he smiled at her. "You're a surgical resident.." He got into the elevator next to her. "You wouldn't happen to be Dr. Bailey, by any chance?"
Meredith nearly choked on her own saliva. "No, I'm not Bailey." She held up her ID tag, "Meredith Grey."
His smile spread wider, "You're Meredith Grey!" He held out his hand to shake hers. "Derek Shepherd. I believe you met my sister, Nancy."
Oh yes, the woman who wasn't actually Addison's sister. Meredith tried to force a reciprocal smile onto her face as she nodded. She realized that probably meant that the man in front of her had been thanked for a consult he didn't actually do, but she was relieved that at least he didn't know about her mother's illness.
"You're Addison's friend. I could use your help." He looked at her with an earnest expression. "It's for the Chief."
"The Chief? What's wrong with the Chief?" He'd stormed into the hospital from the parking lot with a face like a thundercloud, but as far as Meredith was aware, being in a foul mood wasn't a surgical case.
Addison's ex-husband looked serious. "This is top secret, okay? Richard doesn't want it spreading around the hospital."
Meredith could understand that, given how gossipy the hospital staff were, and being part of a mystery surgery was definitely intriguing. She could also use a distraction from the fact that the woman she'd thought was her friend had kept a major secret from her. Not that Meredith was entitled to the details of Addison's personal life, but all the same, confiding in her housemate about her mother's illness had been a big deal and it stung that apparently Addison hadn't felt the same way.
"Okay." She nodded slowly. Getting OR time and getting on the Chief's good side seemed like a pretty good tradeoff for keeping her mouth shut, even if it did mean spending a few hours with Addison's...whatever he was.
"I need to put together a surgical team. Richard said that Miranda Bailey would know who to approach, so I have to find her."
Shepherd smiled at her again, focusing on her like Meredith was the only woman in the room which, considering they were the only two people in the elevator, she sort of was. But, there was a pull there and Meredith nearly rolled her eyes. She was not so lonely and desperate that her roommate's husband looked appealing. She was sad, not insipid, even if she was kind of angry at Addison.
"Sounds like a plan. You can page me when you need me." Was it just her or did this elevator ride feel like it was lasting forever? She had things to do and patients to treat, and she could definitely use a distraction from her hurt feelings over Addison. They were friends! Friends tell each other things. Important things, like being married. Divorced?
"Since you're friends with my wife..." Addison's ex was staring at her intently, and this whole conversation was giving her a creepy and inappropriate kind of feeling. "How's she been doing? Is she... doing all right?"
What was she supposed to say to that? Even if Addison had confided in her about her marriage, it wasn't like Meredith would be blabbing to anyone, let alone this guy. She might feel conflicted about her housemate, but regardless of hurt feelings or stepped on toes, Addison was still her... person. This man was just a guy in an elevator. Meredith didn't know him, or the first thing about him.
"Dr. Montgomery's a great teacher. I've learned a lot from her—all the interns have." Especially Alex Karev, but Meredith wasn't about to say that either. Poor Alex! He had just stalked off this morning, after the surprise husband revelation and she hadn't seen him since.
Shepherd tilted his head, looking at her with a dreamy expression, "So you're just her student? You don't know Addie socially?"
This was such a fishing expedition. He was trying to soften her up with the neurotic charm and the soulful looks, make her relax, and get her to reveal personal details. Meredith was beginning to wonder if perhaps Addison had a restraining order against this guy that he was violating by being in this hospital. He had that whole charismatic serial killer vibe to him. That would explain why Addison hadn't told her about him.
"Maybe you should talk to your wife, if you want to know how she's doing?"
He flinched slightly at this, but went right back to the dreamy gaze. "I know this must be strange, my showing up out of the blue like this, but I've been worried about her." The ex gave Meredith a sad expression. "She disappeared in the middle of the night, without saying a word to anyone."
Meredith didn't blame Addison, really, with how sketchy he was being. Her roommate might really have had to take off in the middle of the night. Addison had said as much, before Nancy showed up. Shepherd seemed like he could be a jerk, what if he was dangerous too? Addison hadn't mentioned him at all. She had left New York suddenly and Meredith really wanted to get off this elevator. She needed to talk to Addison.
The doors finally opened on her desired floor and Meredith tried to smile as she exited. "I'll, um, see you later, at the briefing." She spotted Yang further ahead in the hallway and made haste to catch up with her. "Cristina!"
···
"But he's my friend and patient, and you're a gynecological surgeon." Preston Burke looked very put out and Addison frowned. "You treat women and he's a man."
Well, he was a man who needed ovarian tissue removed from his bladder, which made Addison way more qualified than a cardio-thoracic surgeon. She wasn't happy with his attitude, but she also knew that Preston didn't have a hangup about female surgeons, so this... rudeness was probably more about the well-founded distrust the black community had for the medical establishment.
"Seeing as I'm the one who actually performed the surgery while you looked over my shoulder, that makes Bill Adams my patient and I'll brief him myself." Addison was astounded by his lack of professional distance. "You can be his friend, but you are not family, legally, even if he's your fraternity brother, so I will go in and talk to him." She gestured to the intern standing next to Burke, "Karev here can represent your service and testes in general, and you can visit the patient afterwards."
Preston looked decidedly unhappy. "He's going to think something's wrong, if I'm not in there. I was his doctor when he went under and now suddenly, I'm off the case? He's not stupid, Addison, he's going to feel that something is amiss. Is something amiss?"
"Look, he's not even awake yet, so he's not going to suspect anything right now," Karev jumped in. "Nobody's saying you're not a fantastic cardio surgeon, but the operation we did does fall under her area of expertise."
Addison could see Preston weakening under that argument. "I'll take good care of him, I promise, Preston. I know he's important to you and like I said before, you can visit him right after Karev and I are done."
"All right, I will concede," Preston nodded. "I would not like to defer my post-op visit to someone else either."
As the other attending walked away, Karev leaned in, close enough that Addison could feel his breath on her ear. "You don't want him to know about the blind vas deferens, do you?"
She could feel a smile threatening. Good boy, he was paying attention and he was discreet. Well, with their patient's personal business anyhow. Standing close enough that she could feel his body heat through her scrubs wasn't particularly circumspect. "You noticed."
"Well, I was trying to see what you were doing and those ducts were definitely obstructed," Karev shrugged. "One thing you've taught me is that a good surgeon is one who pays attention."
"In Cystic Fibrosis patients, you might see CAVD, where they're just not there." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Not all my patients are female. I did two years worth of research in CF, so I'm a pretty decent pediatric surgeon and the male body is not a foreign landscape."
Karev snorted. "Oh, I know."
Addison rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. "In any case, the way you handled Preston was well done. And most of all, you protected your patient's private medical information—I'm impressed, Karev."
"So if his wife's pregnant, then the baby can't be his." Karev glanced at her, and Addison wished she knew what he was thinking. "Not with his condition."
"Not biologically, no, but we don't know the whole story here." Addison glanced through the window into post-op where her patient was still sleeping off the anesthesia. "Maybe they couldn't get pregnant, so they used IVF. We don't know that his wife was necessarily unfaithful."
Karev shrugged, "IVF is expensive. She might have slept with the sperm donor because they couldn't afford the medical route, or her husband could be the kind who won't accept anything but a biological child. They could have been trying for years for all we know and the wife got fed up with waiting for him to agree to see a fertility specialist. She's in her thirties, she doesn't have forever."
Addison had realized before that Alex Karev was pretty insightful, but he was also not judgmental about how other people got themselves into trouble. The difference between the young doctor standing in front of her now and the cocky intern she'd first met eight weeks ago was massive. Addison wasn't naive enough to think that it was because of her mentoring, but it did go to show something about not judging a book by its cover.
"Very perceptive, Dr. Karev."
"Yeah, well, I have a good teacher." Karev looked embarrassed and pleased at the same time, which resulted in being very endearing. "Do we tell him? About his sterility? We have to, don't we?"
"I want to talk to the wife first. Not about his condition, but as an obstetrician, I have the perfect guise under which to take an interest in her pregnancy." Like Karev had just said, there could be any number of things going on and Addison wanted to talk directly to the wife instead of making assumptions and potentially doing catastrophic damage to their relationship.
Karev nodded, "You're going to find out if telling him will blow up their marriage." He smiled and Addison felt pleased that he was learning how to negotiate the personal side of working in her specialty. It required more social skills than most of the other surgical fields.
"I'd like to know if I'm stepping into a minefield and if at all possible, I'd like to avoid making that baby fatherless, but we are going to have to tell him."
···
Addison was standing outside a patient's room, surrounded by three male doctors, when Derek approached. It looked like she might have talked to the patient and was now briefing a fellow attending. They all turned their heads towards him as he got close enough to the group, but Derek was only interested in Addison.
"Juju," he said, holding out a cup of cocoa for her to take.
She looked at it for a moment, "What's this for?" before taking it from his hand. He didn't answer, not verbally, but he smiled when she took a sip from it. So far, so good.
"Derek Shepherd," he introduced himself to the other attending who shook his hand. He needed to please his wife and ingratiating himself with her coworkers might make that task easier. "Addison's husband."
"Preston Burke. So..." he smiled, looking slightly confused, "Addison has a husband."
"She does," Derek nodded and took the opportunity to place a kiss on her temple. It wasn't like she could protest in front of Preston Burke and his interns, and it felt surprisingly natural to do it. "Eleven years and counting," he beamed and could feel her eyes shoot up from her beverage at that.
One of the interns looked at him suspiciously, like Derek was some kind of creepy stalker instead of Addison's husband. "You were out in the parking lot this morning."
"Indeed I was," he agreed cheerfully, keeping his arm around his wife. Personally he found it strange that an intern would admit to spying on his boss during a private conversation, but maybe they did things very differently out here. "I wanted to steal her away for breakfast, but Addie insisted that she couldn't let her patients down."
"That's right, honey." Addison's smile looked extremely forced. "I appreciate the juju, but Dr. Burke was just about to fill me in on our patient's scans and I'm sure you have things to do too."
She called him 'honey.' Derek was relatively certain that Addison had no idea that she just did that, but it didn't matter. She couldn't be irrevocably angry with him if she subconsciously referred to him as her honey. "Nothing that can't wait," he shook his head and smiled at her for good measure.
"Well," Burke interrupted, "our patient can wait an hour while you have..." he looked down at the hot chocolate, "juju with your husband. He has come a long way, after all."
"Are you moving here too, Mr. Shepherd?" one of the interns asked and was elbowed by the other, bigger intern. "Ow!"
"It's Dr. Shepherd, actually," Derek shot off another amicable smile, more directed at Preston than the interns. "Addison and I met in med school. It was love at first sight." He could feel his wife staring daggers at him, but he didn't really care. "Well, it was for me, but I had to work on getting her to go out with me."
"I'm sure nobody's interested in our dating history," Addison gripped his arm, harder than she needed to. "We really do have a busy day here, Derek, if you don't mind?" He could tell she was dying to tell him off but wouldn't in front of her colleagues, which was really too bad. Fiery Addison was the best kind of Addison. They'd argue and make up, in the most delicious ways.
"Well, maybe we can have lunch after you're done," Derek agreed amenably, giving his wife his best dreamy smile. She glared back at him and he found himself thinking that maybe what they needed was some really good sex to get back on track. "Are there any good places around here, Dr. Burke?"
"Hey, she's said she's busy," the larger intern interrupted, stepping in closer to him and fixing Derek with his own stare. "Maybe you should respect what she's saying and let her tend to her patient."
Derek watched as Addison glared at the intern, expecting her to rip him a new one, but she just shook her head and the intern stepped back. He was clenching his jaw, but didn't speak out of turn again. Clearly, Addison was still just as scary to interns as she'd been in New York.
···
"So I understand that you are in fact married," Meredith leaned her hip against the sink in the scrub room, watching the other woman soap up her hands, "to Nancy's brother." Who just so happened to be a brain surgeon. No wonder Addison knew so much about neurosurgery.
Addison looked apologetic. "I should have told you, I know. I suppose I just didn't want to think about the fact that my marriage is a mess, but you deserved better."
Meredith tried to straighten her scrubs, not sure what to say to that. She didn't want to kick the other woman while she was down, but she wasn't yet at a place where she could say that Addison's omission didn't bother her. "I know it's none of my business. You have the right to decide what you want to tell people."
Addison grabbed a couple of paper towels, wiping her hands. "I came out here for a fresh start. I guess it felt like it wouldn't be a second chance, if people knew and I don't know... I hate feeling like a failure." The taller woman's eyes filled with tears. "And my marriage is definitely a failure. It's not about you, Meredith. I value your friendship and in hindsight, I wish I had shared."
Meredith couldn't help feeling bad for her. It couldn't be easy, having such high expectations for yourself—she would know, she was the princess of high expectations, after all—and even though Addison hadn't told Meredith that she was married, or divorced... separated, Addison had been there for her when Meredith had needed a friend.
"I don't know what's going on between you and your... husband, but I like to think that I've learned a few things about you in the last couple of months." Meredith handed her roommate another tissue. "And one of those things is that whatever you take on, you give it your all. I'm guessing that that might apply to your marriage too."
Addison offered her a shaky smile. "Derek and I met in med school, and got married right after we graduated. Things were always so easy with us, until one day they just weren't."
Wow, they'd been newly wed interns. Meredith couldn't quite fathom trying to incorporate another human into her very busy daily routine. Another intern might be easier, but you'd spend all your hours together, awake or asleep, and that sounded like it might just be too much for peaceful coexistence. And, they'd been married for quite a while too. That was... just wow.
"What made you decide to leave?"
Addison laughed, it was mirthless, and rolled her eyes. "I think I need alcohol for this part."
Meredith nodded. Some conversations were just too painful and hard, and maybe they weren't quite at a stage where this was a story that Meredith was due. Addison had shared things about her childhood and her mom, and it was a mutual thing. They understood the shorthand of having narcissist mothers, and feeling raw and inadequate. This other pain was newer and more acute, and Meredith could see how she might not have earned that confidence yet.
"It's all right. I'd offer to take you out for drinks tonight, but the nursing home has a family night thing that I," she made a face, "don't want to go to, but I can stop by the grocery store on the way home to buy some booze."
Addison smiled, her face losing a bit of the worry and stress. "That sounds perfect. We never did get to have that girls night, did we?" It never seemed to fit into their schedule. Meredith was working all the time and Addison was always on call. If it wasn't both, at least one of them were always at the hospital when they'd made plans and things got canceled.
"Should I buy nail polish too, then?" Meredith teased. Maybe Addison would want to talk and maybe she wouldn't, but Meredith could still be supportive, either way. "I really should practice my hair-braiding skills too, but I don't know how much time I'll have today."
"Ah, the life of a surgical intern." Addison nodded knowingly. "You know, I'm really glad that I met you, Meredith, and if you do get the nail polish, make it red." Pretty, red toe nails would make everything better, Meredith was sure. If she could only find free time to wear open-toed shoes.
···
Derek had been at the bar for almost an hour, but so far there was no sign of his wife. The cardio attending, Preston Burke, had assured him that this was the place where Seattle Grace staff gathered after work, and there were indeed plenty of people here. Addison, however, wasn't one of them.
Instead he'd found himself roped into a game of darts with two female residents who were currently kicking his ass. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, per se. If these women knew Addison, which they probably did, then he could work his charms and get information about his wife and what she'd been doing in Seattle in the last two months. He'd bought several rounds of drinks so far, but had yet to yield any useful information.
"So you're a neurosurgeon?" Yang stared intensely at him before throwing her dart at the board. "I looked for your publications but didn't find much out there." Bullseye. He hadn't had much time for research in recent years. His schedule had been too full to write articles and he knew he should have because it was part of the job, but the grind in New York was brutal.
"Um, you're doing a neuro residency?" She was unnerving and also, very good at darts. "I would have expected everybody here to do fetal surgery."
"They are trying," the taller resident, Torres, nodded. "Pretty much all of Bailey's interns, except Cristina here," she gestured to the other woman who was retrieving the darts off the board, "are competing for that coveted slot."
Of course they were, it was the same back in New York. At least these residents were bright enough to recognize that Addison was a talented surgeon, even if they hadn't qualified for a better hospital for their residency. If they could just uphold Addison's demanding standards, they'd be able to go anywhere, to an actual medical town, like St. Louis or Atlanta.
Yang shoved the darts into his hand. "Probably going to be Grey or Karev."
Well, he'd met Grey. She had been there for Richard's surgery and she seemed all right, except she kept stealing glances at him and he hadn't known what that was all about. Addison could potentially have told her something about him, or maybe she was just curious. Not that Derek had had time to focus on Grey while operating on his old mentor. It had felt good to be back in the OR again, though.
"Who's Karev? Is she here tonight?" He glanced around, although this was useless since he had no idea who he was looking for. Whoever this Karev was, she was probably determined and hard-working—two qualities Addison had always prized in her proteges.
Torres looked around the bar and shook her head before Yang interrupted, "So what brings you to Seattle?" She stared at him intently, making Derek feel decidedly uneasy. "You trying to win your wife back? Are you applying for a job?"
They were both staring at him now and he missed the board entirely when he threw his first dart. He hadn't even thought about staying in Seattle. There hadn't been a great plan to this trip. His female relatives, of which he had many, had run him out of town, basically telling Derek not to come back until he had resolved his issues. He didn't know what he wanted. Well, he might want to 'win his wife back,' maybe, but he definitely didn't want to stay in Seattle.
"If you stay, that would raise our ranking," Torres added, taking another swig from her bottle before making her throw.
Derek wasn't particularly bothered with Seattle Grace and its reputation, but he did need to talk to his wife and figure out what they wanted to do in regards to their marriage. He knew there was no one back home who'd be happy if they decided on divorce, but he couldn't let that be the deciding factor of what to do. Addison had just felt so foreign that morning, like he didn't even know her at all and he had no idea what she was thinking.
"Well, I'd like to talk to my wife, but it doesn't seem like she's going to show up." Addison had definitely left the hospital, but Derek didn't have a home address for her, so he'd taken a chance that she'd be at the bar, along with half the hospital.
"You're still married?" Yang raised an eyebrow and turned toward Torres, "Didn't you think Montgomery was divorced?"
The resident scoffed in reply, "Oh, I definitely thought she was single."
Yang nodded and drank from her glass. "She's been just Montgomery ever since she got out here."
Of course she had. It was clear that Addison had conveniently erased him from her life, just like she'd erased everything and everyone else too. "We're separated. Not divorced." It was beginning to feel like that was an important distinction. People needed to know that Addison was his wife. Until they—together, jointly—decided otherwise, Addison was his wife.
"Hey, I don't care what the two of you are." Yang grabbed another handful of darts. "Whatever she calls herself, Montgomery's a beast in the OR."
Derek nodded, "She is an extremely skilled surgeon." Also good at adultery, but that was beside the point right now. He really did need to find Addison, so he could decide on something productive. Two months of painful deliberation was enough procrastination—he wasn't Hamlet, but nothing useful was going to happen by hanging out in this bar. "Do either of you know where her house is?"
The women exchanged a look. "If you don't know, dude, it's probably because she doesn't want you to and we're not sending some stalker ex to her front door, even if we knew where she lives."
"But, I'm her husband!"
Torres looked at him like he was a particularly ugly bug she was itching to squash. "No offense, but it's not the nineteenth century. Being married doesn't make her your personal property. You're not entitled to her address, if she doesn't want you to have it."
Derek took a deep breath, trying to quell his mounting frustration. He felt like he was squaring off with Nancy's children all over again, only the stakes were much higher this time. It didn't matter if these women liked him or not, but he did need to talk to his wife and that wouldn't be happening if he didn't know where to find her.
"Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here," he offered, signaling to the bartender to bring over another round of drinks. "I get it. You've never heard anything about Addison being married and then, I show up out of the blue, claiming to be her husband."
"This here," Yang sort of waggles her finger in between the two of them, "is us circling the wagons."
Torres nodded, "We protect our own. Your reunion in the parking lot? Did not look like it was filled with joy and delight."
···
She'd insisted on them arriving separately, since it wasn't a date, so Alex stood outside waiting as her car pulled up. He was a bit nervous as it felt like this meant something, but he kept telling himself it wasn't a date.
They were just going to eat because he'd had a longass shift and she'd had a shitty day, but then Addie stepped out of her car and he could see that she'd changed from what she'd been wearing earlier in the day. She always looked sort of fancy, so it was hard to tell if she'd dressed up or not, but it wasn't a date, so that didn't matter, even if he'd put on an ironed shirt.
"This is not a diner," she smiled as she walked up to him and Alex was suddenly confused about what to do. It wasn't a date, so he probably shouldn't kiss her cheek, or anything else, because he wasn't French, but he also didn't want to greet her with a 'whassup?'
"I thought you might prefer a steak and a bottle of wine after today." No need to tell her that he'd asked Burke for suggestions of a restaurant that was nice but not overtly romantic. The attending had raised an eyebrow at that, but he'd patted Alex on the back and said he couldn't go wrong with this place.
She leaned in and kissed his cheek, solving his dilemma of what to do. "Steak sounds great. You look nice," she touched the collar of his shirt.
What she flirting with him? This was not a date, so Alex had thought he wasn't supposed to comment on her appearance, but now he just looked like an ass for saying nothing. "Uh, yeah, you too," he mumbled, wishing he felt less awkward. He held the door open and she gave him that dazzling smile which made him feel a bit weak at the knees.
It seemed surreal, somehow, that she was here with him, having dinner. It wasn't necessarily a date-date, but it was also more than two colleagues grabbing a bite to eat at the hospital. This wasn't a thing but it wasn't nothing either.
"This is exactly what I needed after today," Addie confided once they were seated at the table. "As much as I love my job, it's nice to get away every once in a while."
Karev barely had any free time, so he wouldn't know about getting away from it, and besides, he was hungry to get the practice, to move up the food chain. This night was his only night off, where he wasn't even on call, in weeks, so he was pleased that Addie had agreed to this. Even if it wasn't a date.
"This place is nice," she looked around the bistro and Alex nodded.
Burke had good taste. The restaurant was intimate, but didn't have a date night atmosphere, which had been Karev's main concern. He absolutely didn't want to spook Addie since she'd been so hesitant to agree, but Alex also wanted her to feel like he took care in picking where to take her.
"I'm happy you decided to come," he looked down at the open menu, not really caring what he ate.
"Mmm... Like you said, we both have to eat," her hair fell down and obscured her face as she studied the food options. "You want to share some hors d'oeuvre?" She looked up at him and smiled, "How hungry are you?"
"Famished." He wasn't sure if he was talking about the food or something else, seeing as her smile had distracted him completely. It wasn't a date.
"Maybe we could have escargots? They're garlicky though..." Addie mused as she pored over the menu, looking up every so often to give him a look that made Alex feel soft in all his squishy places inside. "We haven't really spent so much time together outside the hospital, have we?"
"Not so much, unless you count those nights at Joe's." He shrugged, trying to look casual although his heart was pounding inside his chest. "That, and the time I brought Grey home." Plus the time spent in her bed, but Alex definitely wasn't going to mention that because this still wasn't a date and even if it was, that would be a bad move. "I think they are supposed to have good seafood here, if you want scallops or maybe oysters?"
"Oh, yes!" Her eyes lit up, "Let's do oysters. And I want steak frites, I think. Their roasted chicken sounds lovely, but it takes an hour to prepare," not to mention that it was a dish for two. Definitely date food. She looked disappointed, though.
"If you're not on call, we could do the chicken," Alex suggested. "We'll have oysters while we wait." How was this not a date, with those food choices?
"You'd share with me?" She looked shy, her fingertips touching his across the table.
Of course. "Sure, ratatouille sounds good. Who doesn't like vegetable stew with Provencal herbs?" He was such a babbling idiot. Whatever the fuck happened to 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' like he'd told O'Malley to do around women?
"Well, aren't you full of surprises, Dr. Karev," she said, her lips curving up in a smile.
This wasn't a date, there was nothing wrong with colleagues splitting an entree, but that didn't seem to stop him from feeling giddy. He loved it when she called him 'Dr. Karev'—made him feel like he was someone, like he could amount to something. Like she saw the real him. The potential him. Now he was just rambling in his head while Addie was looking at him, expecting him to say something coherent.
"Well, you know, you deserve nice things," Alex managed to choke out, trying his very best to seem like he didn't feel like this was a date, which was somewhat difficult to do given that Addie was currently tracing light circles on the back of his hand. He turned his hand over, taking her hand in his. "So, do you want Champagne or Muscadet with those oysters?"
Her eyes grew large and Alex laughed, "I'm not a hick. Plus, I've waited a few tables in my day." He did want to give her the choice, though, because ordering Champagne seemed like overstepping the brief of this dinner: not a date.
Addie blushed, in a way that really was quite adorable. "Maybe the Champagne?" She was holding his hand, wanting to eat oysters together, but they were not on a date, which made this woman the Queen of Mixed Signals, but Alex didn't really care. After all, she was holding his hand and having dinner with him. She could call this whatever she liked.
···
"What are you doing?"
Derek looked up from his efforts to find the Chief's contacts—the man actually had a Rolodex—to find the diminutive resident who'd assisted at the Chief's surgery looking at him. "Um, nothing?"
"That don't look like nothing. Looks like you're going through a man's things while he's unconscious." She, clearly, was not impressed or amused and Derek felt relieved that she was not the boss of him. She did not look like someone whose bad side he wanted to get on.
He flashed his most disarming smile at the very short resident, hoping to work his charms. "I need to call his wife. Adele's his next of kin and she deserves to know that her husband just had brain surgery."
The resident rolled her eyes—apparently his charms were nonfunctional here in Seattle. "Are you dyslexic?"
"No?"
"If you're looking for Webber's wife, then why are you searching in the M's?" She propped her hands on her hips, reminding him of Nancy with her expression that clearly said she thought he was a first-rate moron.
Seriously, what was wrong with people at this hospital? He was actually trying to do the right thing and have a talk with his wife, like everyone had been pestering him to, but Derek couldn't exactly do that without Addison's address. He needed to find her.
"You know, I am sort of your boss. I outrank you," he told the resident as he tore off the card that said, 'Montgomery, Addison.'
"That's vandalizing private property," Bailey said, raising an eyebrow. "You came all the way out here, to visit your wife and you don't even know where she lives."
There hadn't exactly been time to ask Addison for her address. She'd just walked off, again, and once he'd gotten inside the hospital, he'd been busy preparing for the Chief's surgery and his wife had been in the OR most of the day. He'd tried to pin her in the hallway, elevator... doctors' lounge, but after bringing her the juju, she seemed to evade him.
"Look, it's been a long day, okay? I operated on my mentor's brain." He tucked Addison's address safely in the pocket of his scrubs. Now he just needed to GPS himself over there.
"I know, I was there." Miranda Bailey was very opinionated and Derek didn't know if that was a Seattle thing or if residents these days just had no respect for their attendings. "What's so urgent that you had to break and enter?"
"I'm not breaking and entering, and I'm just borrowing this." The resident definitely wasn't going to make this easy on him. Maybe she was part of the conspiracy to 'circle the wagons,' as if Addison needed to be protected from her own husband. "Are you married, Dr. Bailey?"
"I am not interested, that's what I am." She stared at him, "Maybe you should have shown up here with flowers and you would have gotten the woman's address from her, or maybe you could have just refrained from fighting in the parking lot, outside her workplace where everybody knows her, and she would have told you herself."
She shook her head. "Those little concessions, they're what you need to be doing, if you want to make your wife happy, Dr. Shepherd."
···
"So..."
They were standing by her car, outside the restaurant. Alex looked awkward and it was, a little. Mostly because while they weren't on a date, it felt like a date. He'd insisted on paying their bill, which Addison felt bad about because she knew what an intern salary was like. But, Alex had said the dinner was his idea and he wanted to cheer her up, to treat her to something nice. And, it had been.
"Yeah," she sighed. She'd had a good time. A really good time, even. He was attentive and funny, and Addison felt alive, for the first time in a couple of years. "Thank you, for this." She gestured towards the restaurant. "I had a great time."
"Yeah?" He smiled, looking at her in a way that said he'd had a good time too and she brushed her hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling shy. It wasn't a date, even if he'd paid for the food and she'd dressed up for the occasion, but Addison still kind of wanted a goodnight kiss. "Does that mean we might do this again?"
She moved closer, looking into his eyes. "I'd like that." Her eyes flickered to his lips and back up to his eyes again. Alex smirked knowingly but moved his face closer to hers. It was slow—she had ample time to stop him, move away or tell him that this wasn't a date. Instead, she chose to close the gap.
Oh, yeah... It was soft and slow, and she remembered that she used to love kissing, in a life that felt like it was a million years ago.
Alex pulled away before Addison was ready to let go, "I'm glad you came tonight."
"Mmm... I'm glad I came too." There were so many reasons why what she was doing right now wasn't a good idea, but none of them seemed to matter. The man standing in front of her was sweet and attentive, and it had been so long since someone had looked at her like this, like she mattered. "You're a good date."
"Oh, so this is a date now?" Alex looked amused.
She laughed softly, "No...?" It wasn't supposed to be a date, but he'd made her feel like she was the most precious woman in the world. He was hard to resist. "Can I have one more?" She looked at him from underneath her lashes, feeling young and happy.
"One more date?" He was teasing her because he wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped her cheek in his other hand. "I'm beginning to think you were trying to get me drunk in there, so you could take advantage of me in a parking lot." He nipped at her bottom lip—once, twice—before he pressed his mouth more firmly against hers.
This kiss was even better than the first one. It had been so long since she'd been kissed like this, like nothing in the world mattered but the two of them. His body was firm and warm against hers and Addison decided that she would be perfectly happy if this moment lasted forever. She didn't want to go home yet.
He pressed his forehead against hers when the kiss ended, his breath still warm against her face. "This is the best non-date I've ever been on."
Addison smiled, brushing her fingertips against his cheek. "You know how to show a girl a good time, Dr. Karev."
"Oh, I do," he smirked, "but that's not going to be happening tonight." No, it wasn't. She needed to deal with her old life first and this... thing between them, it would have to be slow. For many reasons. "You smell good," he whispered against her hair and the soft rumble sent pleasant chills down her spine. The chemistry was strong, though.
···
The house was dark when she got home—Meredith must have gotten pulled onto a case. It was pouring outside, and Addison was just about to step outside her car to make the dash to the porch when she saw him there.
He was sitting on the porch swing, his eyes watching her car intently. Addison's heart began pounding in her chest and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths. She'd known this conversation was coming, ever since Derek had arrived in Seattle and at least here they had some privacy. She wouldn't have to deal with the humiliation of the entire hospital knowing that she'd been dumped.
The rain splashed her face as she made her way to the porch, trying to muster as much dignity as she could. This was the first time she'd been alone with Derek since he'd thrown her out of the brownstone, but at least that wouldn't be happening this time around. However unpleasant this conversation would get, she would pull through it.
"Derek," she greeted him. Obviously, someone at the hospital had given him her home address. Probably Richard.
He pointed to the bag next to him, "I brought food."
Addison was still full from her meal. She had not expected Alex Karev to pick a pretty fancy bistro, but dinner had been lovely. Easily the highlight of the last couple of weeks, and the kisses had her feeling giddy and giggly the whole drive home.
"You look nice." He tilted his head, like he had more to say on the topic, so she busied herself with finding the house key. Addison had expected Meredith to be home by now and for the door to be unlocked. "Have you been out?"
"I stopped for a bite to eat on the way home." She could feel his gaze on her as she rummaged in her purse for the key.
"Oh." He looked almost disappointed, except that couldn't possibly be right. It had been years since Derek had even noticed her so his being disappointed at missing out on her company wasn't exactly easy to believe. "I thought we could have Chinese food while we talk."
Addison swallowed past the unexpected lump in her throat. There was a time when she would have given anything for a quiet meal with her husband, but the thought of making polite conversation before he handed her the divorce papers was more than she could manage tonight.
"It's late, Derek, and I have an early surgery tomorrow." She stuck the key into the lock and turned the valve. "How about you just say what you came here to say and I can get to bed at a decent time?"
"So that's it? I come all the way across the country and you can't even have a conversation with me?" He ran his hand through his hair, looking frustrated, like he was the one who'd had his life upended out of the blue. Like he was the victim here. "I'm asking for five minutes, Addison. You owe me that, at least."
"Really? I owe you, Derek?" She whirled around, astounded at his audacity. Yes, she'd made mistakes but she'd left him to live his life and instead he'd come and was trying to destroy hers all over again. "I stopped owing you anything the moment you threw me out of our house!"
"You cheated on me! You didn't just cheat, you had a full-blown affair! And then after that, you run away without a word to anyone. My family's been on my case for months!"
Addison pushed her hair behind her ear. "And prior to that, how often did you talk to any of them? I'm the only who ever communicates with your family, so let's just call that you making up for lost time."
He didn't have any right to show up on her doorstep, ruining her evening. She'd managed to forget how petty he could be and she wanted to get inside before the glow from her date vanished completely.
"All right, fine." He flounced down onto the porch swing, crossing his arms as he gave her a petulant look. "You go inside, and I'll wait out here till you're ready to talk."
"Are you serious?" She stalked over to him and jabbed her finger at his chest. "This is my home, Derek, not yours. Which means that if I want you to leave, you leave."
Her ex shrugged, seemingly indifferent to her threat. "So I'll sleep in my car. Look, Addie, I just want to talk. Can't we please do that?"
"What do you want to talk about? I'm sorry I cheated on you. I'm more sorry than you can ever imagine that I hurt you." She really was sorry about that, but as long as Derek was only interested in telling her off about all the things she'd done wrong, without addressing how he broke her first, they didn't really have much to discuss.
If he was going to serve her with a divorce, he should just get it over with already. "Where do you have the papers, Derek? Are they stowed in between the fried rice and the dumplings? Just hand me the damn thing and I'll sign it, so you can be on the first plane out of here."
Derek stared at her, seemingly caught off-balance. "How did you...?"
Addison rolled her eyes. "Contrary to what you might think, I'm not actually stupid, Derek. Give me the papers, I'll sign them and you can get on with your life. That's what you came out here for, isn't it?"
"No!" he blurted out, looking so upset that Addison wondered if he wasn't actually telling the truth. "Okay, yes, there are papers, but that's not why I came out here, Addie. I know I haven't been the greatest husband but we're Derek-and-Addison, remember? We don't quit."
"You threw me out of our home. We are definitely not Addison-and-Derek anymore. If you don't have anything for me to sign, then get the hell off my property." She turned around and walked over to the door, "Good night, Derek."
···
Meredith staggered into the house. It was an ungodly hour in the morning, but the Chief had come out of anesthesia just fine and his optic nerve was functional. She was ready to fall into her bed for a good snooze as soon as she gotten a drink from the fridge. Turning the corner, she realized there was a naked man in her kitchen.
Déjà vu. Meredith blinked once. Then, once again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Nope, he was still there, holding a pizza box in front of his junk and staring right back at her, as if she was the one who wasn't supposed to be there.
"Grey."
"You are naked," she was much less perturbed this time around at finding Addison's... something or other rummaging through their fridge. "You had better not eat my leftover pizza." Was that her roommate's type, men who'd clean the fridge out?
"What are you doing here?" He had a sort of amusing deer-in-headlights look to him, but Meredith was slightly too tired to appreciate it. She was just too exhausted for the naked men and cold pizza routine.
She sighed and put her bag down on a chair, "I live here. What's your excuse?"
"You live here?" He put the pizza box down on the counter and Meredith flinched a little. "Are you renting a room from Addison?" He looked utterly perplexed, and completely unaware of the fact that he was still naked.
"Addison lives here and I live here." Evidently, he was somewhat challenged, and Meredith found herself wondering, not for the first time that day, what Addison saw in the guy. Well, apart from the obvious thing. "You haven't explained what you're doing here."
"Hey, I'm just crashing on the couch, okay?" He shut the fridge door after retrieving two boxes of what looked like Chinese food. "Addison and I talked. She said I could stay over and I was going to have a snack before sleeping." He waved the cartons at her. "I did bring my own food, if that matters."
He was hanging out buck naked on her mom's couch? Oh-kay. Meredith felt like maybe she should have a little conversation with Addison about boundaries and appropriate dress code in communal areas. Not that Addison herself ran around the house naked. She wore a dressing gown—not a robe, mind you—expensive, silky and most importantly, decent. Her house guests, though... Why were they all nudists? Not that they weren't pleasant to look at, but it was late, she was tired and these naked men were Addison's, which made them off-limits and it was just weird.
"Maybe you can wear some clothes during this sleepover?" Meredith suggested hopefully. This was Addison's home too, she was allowed to have guests, but Meredith had seen more of this guy than she thought was appropriate. "I assume you were wearing clothing when you came over?"
When he turned his back to her, presumably to go retrieve said clothing, she could see that he had long red scratches down his back. Whatever he'd been doing earlier in the evening, he'd done it right. Interesting. Perhaps there was more to the guy than what he'd shown Meredith already? Scratch that, she'd seen pretty much everything he had to offer, but you didn't get those kinds of marks from being selfish in bed.
"All right, is this better?" He'd put on pants and tugged his shirt over his head. "Look, I'm sorry I startled you, Meredith. I don't want to make you uncomfortable in your home and if you're not okay with my being here, then I'll go."
Meredith suspected that speech was mostly an act to make him seem like he was caring and understanding, but the problem was that there wasn't a way she could say no without seeming like an ass. "Just keep clothed in the common areas and we'll be fine, okay?"
"Do you want some Chinese food?" Addison's ex gestured toward the containers on the table. "You've had a long day, you must be hungry."
She shook her head, "No thanks." What Meredith really needed was a sex life of her own, with someone who made her so happy she accidentally scratched up his back. "There's a spare bedroom. Addison's been using it for clothes storage, but there's a bed in there and it'll be more comfortable than the couch."
···
Derek opened the bedroom door and peered into the dimness inside. He'd gone into the spare room that Meredith had directed him to, but once the blonde had vanished into her bedroom, he'd crept out. Down the hallway, towards his wife's room. She was still asleep. One fist curled underneath her chin and her hair splayed out over the pillow, she looked peaceful.
He wasn't entirely sure what had happened earlier. One moment they'd been fighting and in the next, they were still fighting but also in the middle of having some seriously hot sex. It had been surprisingly easy, getting naked with Addison, finding her desirable. She was different. Obviously, still the same person, but yet something about her was so different. Exciting.
Tiptoeing into the room, Derek lifted the covers to get in next to her. He'd spent two months sleeping alone and it just wasn't very restful, not when you were used to another person occupying the space next to you. He slid closer, wrapping himself around her and found her mumbling something inaudible at him as she wiggled slightly. Probably to get comfortable.
"Derek?" She turned her face toward him, her eyelids heavy with sleep. He didn't see any sign of hostility or wariness in her expression and while he knew it was only because she was semi-conscious, it felt good to have his wife be his wife again, no matter how temporarily. "You're here?"
"I'm here." He ran his fingers through her hair as Addison sighed and scooted closer toward him. It was a familiar pattern, really—during their residency days one of them would often come home to find the other already asleep, just like this. Regardless, it felt surprisingly good to have his wife in his arms, where she was supposed to be.
"I missed you," Addison confessed, curling up against his chest. Her body was warm and soft, but solid against his and Derek wondered how he'd managed the past two months without getting to hold her. "I missed you so much."
He pressed his lips against her hair, "Yeah..." he whispered, "I missed you too." She wasn't lucid and she wouldn't remember any of this in the morning, but to his own surprise, Derek realized that he was honest. He had missed her. She was the other half of him.
— ·· —
Thanks for reading! I've probably pissed off half the audience by now, regardless of what you happen to 'ship here, but I do have a plan and there are certain things I wanted to explore in this story, so I'm not jerking you around for the sake of a plot twist.