A/N: Thank you for the awesome response. I am really excited about trying to pull together a reconciliation in Season 3. And I'm so excited that other people want to read it! Not gonna lie, it's gonna be rough, and things are probably going to get worse before they get better. Like in this chapter, for instance. But this stuff needs to come out, I think.

..

the end of something
..

"Okay," he says. He sounds calm. "You have my attention now."

I have his attention ... except now I'm not sure I wanted it in the first place.

Maybe Derek is right and I'm just incurably passive-aggressive.

I look up at him, trying to form the words. Any words.

He shakes his head. "Addison, don't do this. Don't drop a … don't say something like that and then stand there like you're the one who's surprised."

But I am surprised.

I'm surprised he's still in the supply closet, I'm surprised he's listening, I'm surprised he's here.

"Sorry."

He reaches for a white plastic bucket sitting a foot or so from him. Is he going to throw up?

"What are you doing?"

"Getting comfortable, since this is apparently going to take a while."

Only Derek can sound patient and irritated at once.

He turns the bucket over and sits down on it, resting his elbows on his thighs. His lab coat is dragging on the ground and I'm about to tell him when I remember that I'm not responsible for his appearance anymore. I shouldn't even be noticing it.

It feels strange to be standing when he's sitting; even in my tallest heels, he always made the effort to seem taller, even if it was just fluffing his hair and tipping his head back. I'm not judging; I'm a big fan of illusion too. It's certainly a lot easier than admission.

So … equality.

My eye falls on a sealed box of gauze and I use one pointed toe to kick it loose from the others. My shoes are useful for a lot of things, it turns out.

Finally, I'm seated, legs crossed, lab coat tucked up – some of us don't like dirt on our things – and then there's no more fussing to distract me.

(If you ever wonder why I needed a six-bedroom brownstone or a beachfront estate with separate pool house, keep in mind that … fussing distracts me.)

So I play with the catch on my bracelet and hope for a deus ex closet to keep me from finishing what I started.

...I never said I make good choices.

"Addison."

He's not really pretending to be patient anymore.

"What do you want to know?" I ask it innocently, trying to avoid eye contact.

"No. I'm not playing twenty questions with you."

"I already told you what I … what happened."

"You told me the end of the story," he corrects me coldly.

I could pretend I don't know what he's talking about, but I do. He wants to know if it's his. Derek starts any negotiation by figuring out his place in the puzzle. Overall it's not a bad strategy for the adversarial process, maybe a little less so for marriage.

Part of me wants to make him say it, ask the question. Saying it is like … well, it's like being. It's like showing up. Maybe some pitiful little part of me is still hoping for his crumbs.

He knows the end of the story. And he thinks he knows the beginning. What he wants is the climax, so here goes:

"It wasn't yours."

But I might as well have said nothing at all because that's what his face registers: absolutely nothing.

A few moments pass like that, Derek's expression as neutral as if I just told him that it wasn't yours referred the pen he'd been using to sign his charts.

(Which happened a lot, when we still spent time together. When we'd snatch moments in the hospital hallways between surgeries. Derek is a notorious pen stealer, always has been; I used to think he was just pretending so he could chat me up in medical school, but no. It's a thing.)

"Derek…?" I say tentatively. "It … wasn't your baby," I add, as if he needs clarification. I don't know, maybe he does. It's not like he listens to me very closely.

He doesn't say anything in response, just holds up a hand. Apparently I don't even warrant a verbal dismissal anymore.

After a moment he stands up, and then he speaks. "You aborted Mark's baby."

He has a half-smile on his face that's very disconcerting. It doesn't promise anything good.

Slowly, I nod, even as I feel I'm digging myself deeper. I stand up too, and face him.

"That was nice of you," he says.

He must see the confusion on my face. "I mean … Mark must have been very relieved," he adds coolly.

There's a funny feeling in my stomach like one of the annoying slow elevators in this hospital just missed a floor. Swoop. That kind of feeling.

"What do you mean?" My voice is shaking.

"I mean, I've known Mark Sloan a long time, and he's screwed a lot of women. You're hardly his first abortion."

Derek seems to have no problem with the word … or he's using it to wrong-foot me.

"Mark wanted me to keep it."

There, I said it. And when I say it that ridiculous Yankees onesie flashes through my mind, the calendar with the heart around the due date like the heart that constricted every time I thought about what I had done to my life. The same thing I did to Mark's baby: I terminated it.

(That's all termination means: an ending. A termination procedure just means a procedure to end something. Kind of like what Derek and I did in the lawyers' office when we signed our names to the divorce papers. And then he took the pen with him, of course.)

Derek makes that sort-of laugh sound he overuses, sometimes as a nervous tic but other times as mirthless annoyance. Now I'm guessing it's a little of both.

"Is that what Mark told you. That he wanted you to keep it?"

Derek has this way of imitating me where he repeats my words but he doesn't make his voice higher or anything amateur like that; it's the inflection that changes, so it sounds like me but … a more pathetic me. He's so damned good at it, or maybe I'm an easy target.

I don't want to talk about this anymore, and I tell Derek that.

(I don't know if I can take anymore. That's the part I don't say.)

He does the sort-of laugh again in response. "Really. You want to unring the bell? This chat was your idea."

"You followed me in here."

"You embarrassed yourself in front of a patient."

Ouch. Take it and move on, Addie.

"Well, you told me you never wanted to see me again."

"What does that have to with anything?"

"It just does."

He shakes his head. "I'm done listening to your rambling, Addison. That was a … perk … of marriage, and our marriage is over."

He says perk like it means the opposite. He's good at that, too.

"He did want the baby."

I have no idea why I just said that again. Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, that's the only reason I can think of.

Derek looks almost … amused. "Don't rewrite history to flatter yourself, Addison. Mark says a lot of things to the girls he screws."

He stops talking for a minute, presumably to let the insult land. That's all I am, a girl Mark screws.

Screwed, past tense.

Because last night was a slip and I'm not planning on doing it again.

"…including telling them what wonderful mothers they would make to his children."

You're just nervous because your mother sucked, I get it, but you're different, Addison. Kids love you! All Derek's sister's kids, come on, you're their favorite. Our kid will love you too.

"See, that way he gets to be the good guy and get the good result."

It's not true. Mark did want the baby. Derek didn't see the onesie. Or the calendar. And Derek didn't see Mark's face when-

"Hey, I'm not complaining." He holds his hands up in faux-surrender. "Leaving aside how grateful the world should be that the offspring of you and Mark won't have the opportunity to wreak havoc … you would have been a terrible mother."

For a minute time just stops and all I hear is my own audible breathing.

I'm reminded suddenly of those horror movie trailers that would play sometimes where all you can hear is breathing. Loud, scared breathing. Uneven, panting breathing. Just someone trying to stay alive at all costs.

(It was scary as shit then and it's not great now either.)

"Derek." I say just his name, willing him to stop or help or do something, because he did love me once. He did and I refuse to think anything else, because anything else isn't an option.

He just gives me that same dismissive stare. "What, does the truth hurt?"

"That's ... not fair."

"You and Mark are the two most self-centered people I've ever had the pleasure to meet. You know what happens when selfish people like you have kids? Especially if…" and he pauses for a second like he's considering whether he'll cross a line. Nothing he says after that pause is ever good, in my experience. "…the mother is a cold bitch and the father screws anything that moves?"

My hands are shaking a little bit now; I grab the sleeves of my lab coat to stop them.

Because there's no question what he meant by that. Bringing up my parents is a cheap shot: it was meant to hurt, and it worked.

Except then it gets worse, because he decides to answer his own rhetorical question. "The kids grow up to be adults who screw up everything they touch."

Okay, there's no wind in my sails anymore.

Game over, Derek won.

We just stand across from each other, breathing, for a little while.

"I'm sorry I lied to you." My voice is as small as I feel and I don't really know why I'm saying it. I guess I still have some compulsion to smooth things over.

"No, you're not. You're just sorry you got caught." He doesn't sound angry anymore; he sounds ... tired.

I guess that means he's done. Straightening my lab coat, I take a hesitant step forward. Time to walk past him with my head held high like every inch of me doesn't feel flayed from his words.

"Where are you going?"

I stop in my tracks.

"I'm going to go talk to my patient. And if she wants me to, I'm going to terminate her pregnancy. And it doesn't matter that I'm a … selfish bitch and it doesn't matter if it kills me to do it because it's what I signed up for and she needs someone to do it."

"It doesn't have to be you."

"Doesn't it?" I study him for a moment. "It must be nice never to have to worry about this."

"Don't make this about gender. You made a choice. You made a choice and then you lied about it."

"Why did you even need to know?"

"Because you asked me to take you back!"

He's so loud now that I actually jump – a little, just instinctually. People passing by must think we're crazy; I'm not sure I'm in any place to contradict them.

"You lied when you asked me to take you back," he says evenly. "You lied about Mark and you lied about … this. You wasted my time."

Wasted his time.

It's such an incredibly depressing way to look at our life together that for a moment I'm not sure I can breathe. "We were married for eleven years, Derek," I say finally, faintly.

"I meant this year in Seattle," he says coldly. "But I can see your point."

"I didn't have a point." My voice is shaking. "You - you think trying to fix our eleven-year marriage was a waste of time because … because it kept you from … screwing some girl you picked up in a bar…"

"Don't you dare," he says evenly, "judge her or me when you screwed my best friend in my bed for me to find."

"It wasn't for you to find!" I'm the one who's yelling now. "It wasn't about you, Derek, not everything is!"

He looks me up and down for a moment. "Funny," he says finally. "I seem to remember your showing up in Seattle saying you slept with him to get my attention. Were you lying about that too?"

Right.

See, it probably seems like I'm over a barrel right now, and I get it.

It must seem like that to him, too.

Because he doesn't get how both those things can be true, how sleeping with Mark could be about Derek and not about him all at the same time.

Derek has no idea what it's like to feel invisible. Derek is the most visible person I've ever met.

But he can only think in black and white. Something is, or it isn't. My affair with Mark was about Derek, or it wasn't.

The man is capable of more than most humans but he's never known how to handle the grey.

(Meredith Grey excepted, of course, presumably. Because Derek is very, very capable of that particular sort of handling.)

"You said you wanted to be civil," I say finally, hating the way my voice sounds. Hating that I keep crawling back for more like the kicked puppy still hoping he'll get an ear-scratching that'll make all the pain worth it. "That you liked that we were … mature. You said that, Derek."

"That ship sailed a long time ago, Addie. When you lied to me about Mark."

"Oh."

How's that for pathetic responses? But that's all I say until finally my lips form a question: "So, um … what do you want to do?"

It sounds so weak and so … casual, like we're back in New York debating Thai vs. Vietnamese takeout menus.

(Thai for him, Vietnamese for me, just to be clear.)

"What do I want to do?"

He manages to repeat my words and make me sound like a total idiot without actually adding anything to the conversation. Sometimes I think my husband's true gift is how absolutely shit he can make someone feel without trying to-

Ex-husband. Not husband. Damn it, that one's going to be a hard habit to break.

He's still waiting for me to clarify. I feel like I'm shrinking a little with every second those cold eyes are on me.

Do you remember that you used to love me? Even if you hate me now, I think I could handle it if you actually remembered. Hell, you don't have to remember you loved me, do you remember me at all? Because you walk around this hospital like you're the most loved-up sophomore on the quad and you've never even heard the word divorce.

"What do you want," I correct quietly, though there's no telling whether he'll like that version better.

"I want you you out of my life," he says simply.

It feels like he hit me with a softball bat – and I actually know what that feels like because Hadley Cabot once did that very thing at practice when she found out what I did with her boyfriend behind the chapel.

And just like I did when Hadley took her shot, all the air leaves my lungs but I pretend it didn't hurt.

"That's going to be hard since we both work here." I give him something between a sneer and a snarl. Can't hurt me, that's what it says.

And inwardly, I just curse the fact that he once knew me so well. I've handed him every weapon he uses against me. Hell, I'm still doing it right now! I didn't need to tell him about the abortion, or even about Mark.

I let Mark – fucking Mark, except of course fucking Mark is what got me into this mess in the first place – but I let Mark, of all people, convince me to come clean to Derek when it couldn't possibly accomplish anything other than making him hate me more.

…and Mark more. Right? But knowing Mark, he had something to gain from it. Mark is strategic. And hot. And that's about it.

(I know, I know, I threw away my marriage on him. Did I mention I was desperate?)

I was. I was desperate.

(And yes, I told him I loved him, and he told me, and I let him hold me after and even see me cry but just like every single other time I regretted it after. I always regret it after.)

See, none of that conflicts with the diagnosis of desperate.

So, just to be clear: I was desperate, now I'm pathetic, and I let the man who broke up my marriage, admittedly with some help from me, convince me to hand my ex-husband all the ammunition he needed to finish me off once and for all.

"You're not leaving Seattle," he repeats.

"I signed a contract."

"And you're clearly known for keeping your vows."

I walked right into that one, but does he really still get to insult me when he's washed his hands of me?

"I signed a contract," I repeat, with as much dignity as I can muster considering I'm standing in a half-dark supply closet that smells like sterile rubber and Lysol and Derek, of all people, just saw me lose it in front of a patient.

"Yeah? Too bad there was no morals clause in that contract."

Oh, that is low.

"Because of the abortion? Seriously?" I prop a hand on my hip. I'm not even angry; I want him to piss me off. The more pissed off I am, the less likely I'll be to break another vow.

(The one about not crying.)

"Please." Derek looks so dismissive, like he doesn't even care if he hurts me but it just comes naturally. "You know perfectly well I'm pro-choice. What I'm anti … is you."

Okay, that one hurt.

"We used to be friends, Derek," I bleat, hating my voice again. "Before we dated, before we got married. We were friends first."

"Were we?" There's that dismissive look again. "Or was I just trying to screw you? You probably thought Mark was your friend too."

And with that, I turn back around to the position he found me in, trying to get my diaphragm to move in some way that will let oxygen in.

Nothing like having someone who knows all the worst things about you suggest that the only reason the two closest people in your life for the last sixteen years kept you around was because of your fuckability.

I don't move, not in any way he can see, because I'm waiting for him to leave. I'm not going to break down – not here, and not in front of him. He doesn't get to see that, not anymore.

Neither of us speaks for a while.

"You need to go back in there and finish talking to Hannah Fowler," he says finally. All the aggression has drained out of his voice now and he sounds almost … sorry for me. I guess I'm just that pitiful; so much for the armor.

"Actually." I turn around. Thank you, mother-who-wouldn't-let-us-call-her-mother, for teaching me how to suck it up and pretend nothing hurts. I straighten my skirt and tug my lab coat a little. "We need to go back in there and finish talking to Hannah Fowler."

"You think I'm going to go back in there with you?"

I look at him for a moment. "Yes, I do."

And he will.

I know he will.

Not because of me, not to support me, and definitely not because he cares about me … but because he cares about Hannah Fowler. And Tad, her tattooed boyfriend. And the sad, sad baby Hannah's carrying. He cares about all of them and he only met them fifteen minutes ago.

Where was all that caring when I needed it?

TBC. I promise things will eventually get better, but let's be real - Derek has made very clear he's pissed about not knowing the whole Maddison story, and Derek was verbally eviscerating for all eleven years Shonda permitted him to live. And Addison's no saint. So why am I getting them back together? Because in their twisted, wonderful, marriage-of-equals way, they're perfect for each other. And I am going to force them to see it, in this story, if it's the last thing I do!

Oh, and Emk8, thank you for the weapons imagery.

So please keep reading and review, review, review, because nothing makes me a writing machine like reviews.