Another new fic! I'm sorry, but I had an Idea and it demanded to be let out.A short beginning of what I hope is a fic that hasn't already been done; in a fandom with this many stories so many years after both characters have left the screen, I'm not sure.Hope you like it!
She's late.
That's what he's thinking as he flips idly through an issue of Northwest Fly Fishing (this month's; the practice is clearly well managed), he's thinking that his wife is late to the counseling session she talked him into.
Which Savvy talked her into, and then she discussed it with Nancy because apparently she discusses everything with Nancy, who obviously immediately called Kathleen about it, who - of course - had the perfect recommendation for a therapist in Seattle, despite being on the opposite coast and never having been to Seattle. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if his Uncle Ron knew they were in couples therapy. And Addison's weird Aunt Bootsy. Amy. It might even have filtered through to his mother-in-law's lair.
He stretches his legs out (wall to wall navy carpeting, not like the tasteful, hardy rugs Addison chose for the hardwood floors in his practice; a fact he notes and then immediately dislikes himself for noticing). The receptionist looks up at him and smiles. She's smily, blonde and very young.
"Just your type." his wife says snidely, dropping into the wide chair beside him. She smooths back her hair - just this morning she treated him to a ten minute long lecture on frizz and humidity, like he doesn't already know - and turns to glare at him.
"Meredith isn't…smily," he replies in a low tone. Addison smiles sunnily at the receptionist, then releases a huff of air.
"What."
"You're not going to ask me why I'm late?"
"Why are you late."
"Don't ask me now, you're only asking me because I made you."
"I assumed you had a patient," he says evenly, closing his magazine. Even rainbow trout can't hold his attention when he can feel Addison working herself up into an argument.
He doesn't mention that he stopped outside her office to see if she was there, but then decided against it because then she might think he actually wanted to go this therapy thing, or that he was about to check the board for her surgical schedule but didn't because a gaggle of interns were standing there, bickering over the laminectomy he has at four today, or that he spent his usual five minutes wondering if she had an accident or slipped in her insane shoes and cracked her skull open or got kidnapped.
(It's just what he does when she's late, he always has. The last therapist he went to said it's because he hasn't recovered from the trauma of his father's death and expects tragedy. He was fourteen at the time and not inclined to believe the woman, but Kath says it's true.)
"I did." she says after a short pause. "But that's not the point."
"Aren't you going to ask her what the point is?" They both startle, Addison nearly dropping the blackberry she's typing furiously into. They turn in unison to see-
"Fintan McCarthy." he extends a hand to them both in turn, smiling widely. "Kathleen said you would be coming."
He's Irish. Very Irish, more Irish than -
"He's more Irish than your nanny," Derek says to her, sotto voce, as they follow Fintan McCarthy's glossy loafers down a short hallway into his office. "The one that-"
"Came to our wedding," she shudders. "Aisling."
Aisling's also the one who she walked in on with her legs wrapped around - never mind, they aren't here for childhood traumas. Just marital ones.
"Right then, please call me Fintan." He looks a little smug when she crosses her legs and Derek shifts away from her like he thinks her heel is going to stab him in the shin. (She'd like to, but felonies don't look good on surgeon's records and her CV has already taken a beating this year.)
"I thought we'd be seeing Dr. Cleary. " Derek says baldly. He's judging, he's so judging.
Just because he likes to go to work looking like Russell Crowe with a bad haircut ironically dressed as a fisherman, doesn't mean he gets to judge someone who actually makes an effort. Being well dressed doesn't signal that a physician has other priorities than their patients wellness (his response to her taking five minutes too long getting ready in the morning last week), it makes you feel confident. She tries to convey this to Derek via a subtle kick in the shin, but he can sense it coming and jerks further away from her.
Got his work cut out for him with these two, he can see. He almost wants to call Cleary and give out to her for saddling him with the Shepherds.
Derek - the neurosurgeon - is in a sweater and looks like he could do with a haircut, but his wife's dressed like she's stepped off a runway - those shoes - and her hair is glossy and perfect. She keeps tucking and untucking it behind her ear, kind of nervous. She's wearing a great bloody diamond on her finger, but Derek's got no ring.
They're both successful surgeons, he knows. Two raging egos and demanding careers in one marriage.
"So, ask her what the point is."
"Aren't you supposed to stop us from arguing?" Addison asks. She exchanges a look with her husband, a look that says he's nuts.
"Conflict isn't always bad," he says easily. "Nothing like a good row to clear the air."
"A fight, he means a good fight-" Addison says.
"I know what a row is, Addison, just because I didn't spend a semester abroad getting drunk and -" Derek stops short and looks at him, uncomfortable. "I know what a row is, but I didn't think couples therapy involved having rows."
"It doesn't have to, communication can be in all sorts of ways." He digs into the desk drawer and produces a sheaf of questionnaires. They both reach eagerly for pens; outcome measures are something surgeons like.
"Clearly, we need to work on establishing lines of communication between you."
Addison lets out a snort. "Oh, Derek is great at communication. Except for the two months where he wouldn't return my calls, and sometimes he likes to pretend he didn't see me on the ferry, and don't even get me started on elevators-"
"I didn't return your calls because I'd just-" Derek cuts in, his voice icy.
"Walked in on her in bed with your best friend, yes, and then you moved to Seattle and began a sexual relationship with -"
"His twelve year old intern."
"It wasn't just sexual-"
"- which he keeps telling me is over." Addison finishes. "But he keeps making these dopy eyes at her all over the hospital, and -"
"It's over."
"Stop working with her, then."
"I can't stop working with her, I'm her teacher-"
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you stuck your-"
"I. Didn't. Know. She was an intern," Derek exhales. "When I met her."
"Oh, yeah, she was just some skan-" Addison falls silent at the thunderous look on Derek's face.
"No skankier than you when you got naked with my best friend."
Gah. Deadly. Addison's got a face on her like she's been slapped with a wet towel, and Derek looks triumphant but maybe a little guilty.
"Now, now. That's hardly constructive, is it?" he remonstrates. "Healthy communication, that's the trick. Derek, apologize."
"Sorry." Derek says humbly. He's still avoiding his wife's gaze; good, he really does feel awful.
"There's four things I need you to work on," he says sternly. "We like to call them the four horsemen of the divorce decree - that's contempt, stonewalling, criticism and getting defensive."
"You're not to do those four things to each other," he clarifies when they stare back at him like he's speaking Swahili.
"Okay." Addison nods, and Derek follows suit.
"Addison, fill this in for me -'Derek, when you slept with the girl from the bar, it made me feel…" he pauses, indicating that she finish the sentence.
"Replaceable." she says slowly. "Like I was … nothing to him anymore. Like I had just been wiped out of his memory."
"And Derek, finish this - 'Addison, when you slept with my best friend, I felt…"
"Betrayed." Derek says immediately. "By both of them."
"You see how easy that is? That's your homework for today. Instead of bellowing at each other, you're to tell each other your feelings, and the other's to listen - listenwell."
"That's…it?" Derek says skeptically.
"You just want us to fight ... politely?" Addison asks.
"No, that's just this session. You both need individual therapy sessions with me, clearly you've both got loads of trauma from when you were little." He tries not to smirk at the sight of their struck faces. "And tell me this, doctors - what's your sex life like?"
"Sex. Therapy." Derek says hollowly.
"We don't need sex therapy, do we?" Addison asks him anxiously, dropping her voice on the last two words. She stares at him over the top of her sleek rental car, and he pauses with his hand on the door of his jeep. "I mean - we're good at it, do you remember the place with the boat?" She looks a little dreamy for a second.
"And the place with the bed, and the sheets?" he supplies, relieved.
"And the third floor linen closet after your first solo craniotomy-"
"That time, in the car, after -"
"And the tent, you know, when we-" Addison nods. "Yeah. We don't need sex therapy."
"But also, the trailer," Derek says glumly, rosy memories of their greatest hits fading away into reminiscence of head-banging trailer sex, and not in the good way either.
"We could just try a session," Addison says tentatively.
"Maybe."
"I'm more worried about the individual sessions," Addison says. "Sure you're going to be okay with that?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because…" she gestures in way that's plainly supposed to mean isn't it obvious. "With that therapist, when you were younger?"
"Why don't you just worry about yourself, Addie." he snaps, slamming into the jeep. He reverses out only to get stuck behind her as she backs out, painfully slow, glaring at him in the rearview mirror.
His phone pings with a text as soon as they pull into the hospital parking lot.
You can take the first session, then.
And, cut!Inspired partly by how cute these two were in that episode where we see the couples therapy session, and Addison's therapy sessions from PP.Pretty please leave a review?