A/N: Thank you so much for your wonderful comments on the last chapter. I hate how hard things are for Addison, though that probably seems hard to believe considering what I put her through in many stories. She's just such a wonderfully layered character. And thank you to the brilliant Addison analyst emk8 for one of the pieces of imagery below. This is a chapter I've been looking forward to sharing with you, and I hope you enjoy it.

..
still here
..

It's dark.

It's dark, and my head is throbbing, and my throat feels raw.

Prying my eyes open hurts, so I close them again and open my mouth instead, with some effort.

"Why are you here?"

My tongue feels thick around the words; my voice sounds hoarse.

"I told you … I was worried about you."

I feel him inhale a little like he thinks his answer is going to anger me. I just shake my head, trying to make sense of it.

"No, I mean why are you … "

Still here.

I don't say that, though.

And he doesn't say anything.

"You don't get to worry about me anymore," I say finally.

"Then I guess you don't get to decide what I worry about."

His tone is light. But I don't want him to tease me.

I don't want him to hold me either, except I do, because right now he's stretched out full length on that big empty white hotel bed and the feel of his body against mine is so familiar and it's the least empty it's felt since I moved here.

And that's counting all the many and twisted ways Mark and I used the bed, too…

(It still felt empty, then.)

I don't remember how we got here. I don't remember when Mark left. I don't know if I could sort out the threads of who did what, when, in any way that makes sense.

I just know now, and now is the darkness of this room, two sets of audible inhales and exhales: mine are still husky from before. His are deeper and I can feel his diaphragm expand and contract with each breath.

"You should probably go," I mumble into his shirt.

"You want me to go?" His voice sounds far away.

"No," I admit.

"Okay."

He's quiet for a few minutes, and I feel his hands in my hair, just kind of stroking it with no real rhythm, playing with it, but the lack of pattern is making me hyper aware of his touch because my nerve endings don't know what to expect.

I put my hand up to stop him or guide his movement or something but then my hands are on his face instead, the scratch of his skin against my palms – he's turning, maybe surprised, and then I'm turning too … and then my lips are on his.

I can feel him start to protest right away and I'm the one saying no, but I don't mean no, stop.

I mean no, please don't stop me.

Because I need this.

God, do I need this.

He stops me anyway.

"Hey." He pushes me back, holding my arms. "You don't want to do this."

"How do you know that?" I sound pathetic and I realize that; my voice is still scratchy from crying so much and I can only imagine what my face looks like.

"Addison." He flops back down and I flop with him, giving up, but I'm not ready to let go so I let myself hang on. He tangles his hand in my hair again and I can feel him breathing.

I can't get over how it's so normal and so crazy all at once to have him in this room, on this bed.

Not talking.

Just breathing.

"You were about to have sex with Mark when I knocked on the door tonight," he says finally.

"Yeah … because he was here."

"Is that why?"

I nod against his shirt. "Right. He was just … here."

"That's what you said the first time I walked in on the two of you."

"That's because the first time you walked in on us … he was also just here."

"Maybe you need to find some better way to cope with your life than screwing whoever's just here," he says it mildly though.

"Some better way to cope, like offense instead of defense, you mean? Like turning it around … attacking you with everything I know about you?" I sit up a little. "All the worst things, all the things you – the things you were never going to tell anyone but then you did, you told the person who was supposed to be the one person who – and …. and then they just …"

They just get sharpened into arrowheads and you use them to pierce my armor.

I don't finish the sentence.

I can't finish.

I don't want to remember that supply closet. I don't ever want to remember the things he said to me.

I do, though. And not just the ones I threw in his face, earlier, when the three of us were in a standoff.

All of them.

And I know he does, too.

He actually looks a little sorry now, believe it or not. The lights are off in the room but the shades are open and the city lights are throwing geometric patterns across the white bedding, illuminating parts of his face, off and on.

I'm still pretty drunk, I guess … but I still see it.

"I didn't mean to do that," he says quietly.

"Yeah, you did." I sit up a little more but I don't want to let go; he sits up with me and kind of moves the pillows around behind him and then pulls me back into him with practiced ease. We used to do this all the time, like puzzle pieces, like puppies in a basket.

After all that's happened between us, somehow everything still feels easier with his arms around me.

Maybe we just didn't do this enough. Maybe if we'd done this more, before, we wouldn't be where we are now.

We wouldn't be … just here.

"You may not have meant to do that, but you meant to hurt me," I remind him.

"Yeah … I guess I did." He pauses. "What you told me, that day…"

He doesn't finish the sentence, but he doesn't have to.

The abortion.

Had I meant to shock him, when he confronted me in the supply closet? Was I sick of his expression, how he acted like he was so certain of everything, so satisfied with our outcome, while I was drowning?

And I may still be a little alcohol-soaked, but I do know that's sort of unfair when he didn't know everything, not until that day, and that was my fault. I doled out the information. I'm the liar, just like I'm the cheater. It doesn't matter what he does; it always ends up on me.

(Maybe I wanted him to disagree with that.)

He takes a while to finish the sentence.

"I wasn't expecting it," he says finally.

"Yeah, me neither, that's why they call it an unplanned pregnancy."

I sort of regret being so flippant once the words leave my mouth, but he doesn't get angry or pull away.

Maybe he's as exhausted as I am.

"I'm sorry," he says after another long silence.

"You're sorry I'm calling you out on it," I correct him, gently. "You're not sorry you basically told me I'm the worst person in the world."

"I don't remember saying that."

"I'm summarizing."

"Yeah?" He's running his fingers through my hair now. I've cried so much tonight my eyes feel stiff and swollen. His look soft when they focus on me. "You're not the worst person in the world," he says quietly.

"…thanks."

He actually smiles a little at my sarcastic tone. "You're not, though. I'm … I'm sorry, Addison. I'm sorry I said those things."

I don't want him to apologize anymore.

I don't want these feelings anymore.

I need to numb them.

"Derek…" I reach up to fit my fingers into his hair, those curls, and then I'm sitting up too and I swing one leg over his thighs and press my lips to his.

He kisses me back this time – just for a moment, a heartbeat, a habit, his hands moving around my hips and pulling me down and in the minute our bodies are flush I feel electricity and I want more.

I need more.

"No."

The word is a whisper very close to my mouth and I could pretend I didn't hear it…

"Addison … no."

I groan and sit up, shoving my hair back.

"Now why not?"

"Because you're drunk, first of all."

"Barely."

"Please, I saw what you drank," Derek scoffs.

"Yeah, but … I'm me."

He actually laughs a little, and not that sarcastic almost-laugh either. A real one.

"I can't argue with that," he says. "You are definitely you."

"So what's the rest of all?"

"Hm?"

"You said first of all, you're drunk. What's the rest of all?"

"The rest of all … ." He pauses. "Well, we're divorced. That's part of it."

I'm sitting up on his lap now, straddling him with one leg on either side of his, we've been in this position so many times that I can't help moving in small ways I barely even mean to and he can't exactly hide that his body is interested even if the rest of him isn't.

Maybe there's still …

"Addie." He moves my hand away. "I said no."

"Fine." I give up, starting to swing my leg off his lap but he holds onto me.

"Change your mind?" I ask hopefully. I'm not so far gone that I don't realize I'm done drinking for the night which means I'll need something else to numb the pain, so…

"No, I didn't change my mind."

Ugh.

"Then why-"

"You don't have to get up just because we're not going to have sex."

"Oh."

To be perfectly honest, the thought hadn't really occurred to me.

"But you're…"

"I can handle it," he says.

Now it's my turn to laugh a little. "Did you –"

"Yes, pun intended. It's okay," and he sounds like he means it so I let myself move back down against him, carefully.

His arms come up around my back and after a few moments I feel my body soften a little until it's curled into his and then his arms move closer in response. I tilt my head to rest against the spot I like between neck and shoulder; he moves his hand into my hair. It's like we're dancing, one step following another.

Truthfully, it feels good.

Really good.

Good enough that I may not even hate myself until the morning.

It feels so good that I don't really understand why I start crying again, a little, or what he's saying quietly against my head, but at some point it feels like we're floating – I usually love that feeling, that right before sleep feeling, and with the last vestiges of strength before I'm dreaming I hold on a little tighter, even if he won't be there when I wake up.

Because he's here now.

..

Except he's still here in the morning.

If this counts as morning, because it's a dull blue-grey Seattle dawn when I manage to pry open my eyelids – they feel about four inches thick, swollen, heavy.

But whatever it is … he's still here.

He's sleeping next to me with one arm thrown up over his head like he does, in just an undershirt – at some point he must have stripped off his dress shirt – and it's so strange and so familiar all at once.

He's here, and I'm awake.

And I have a headache.

Shit. I have a serious headache.

I sit up slowly, which feels like trying to balance a bowling ball on popsicle stick – and then I'm dizzy, which makes me grab him because he's the realest thing in the room.

"I have a headache," I tell him when he looks at me.

(He wakes up so fast. Always has, even before internship drilled it into us.)

"You're lucky that's all you have," he says, sounding a little too judgmental for my tastes. "You drank most of a bottle of gin last night."

Child's play.

I wave a hand, but that might have been a mistake because it brings a corresponding wave of nausea.

"… and you're not exactly young anymore," he adds.

Ooh, cheap shot, and now I am definitely nauseous.

I feel bile rising in my throat, bitter and forecasting doom and – yup, there it is, then I'm gagging and throwing up all over the bed and my throat feels like someone's taken a hot rake to it. I feel his hands pulling my hair away from my face but not quite in time.

"Finished?" he asks, sounding a lot calmer than I feel.

"For now. I guess." My pulse is pounding through my temples but my headache is a little better, actually, like I've relieved some of the pressure.

"Good." He stands up, wrinkling his nose a little. "Go take a shower."

"What about …" I gesture toward the mess on the bed.

"I'll figure it out."

I spend a long time in the shower letting the hot water sluice through my hair and run down the drain, waiting to feel clean.

When I come out the sheets are gone; I don't know what he did but it worked; the bed is clean again.

I'm wearing the white hotel-issued robe, my hair is clean and free of vomit. I actually combed it and it's hanging straight down my back; when I sit down on the edge of the bed I can't help but notice it's right where I sat the night Derek found me here to apologize.

(Well. To pretend to apologize, at least.)

I don't think the similarity is lost on him either, based on his face when he walks toward me.

"What?" I ask warily.

(I know I sound suspicious, but can you blame me?)

"Addison … can we try again?"

He looks so young when he asks it, almost – innocent, reminding me of what he was like when we were residents, before everything got so complicated.

"You mean your apology?" I raise my eyes to meet his; I lean on the word apology a little and he doesn't miss it.

His gaze flickers away for a second. "Yeah …"

"Okay."

For a moment he just stands there. I think he's not going to be able to capture that night because he was so … smug, so happy while I just sat there and waited for the next breath to keep me alive.

He's different today.

Somehow, some way I can't exactly describe, he's different.

So I don't know if this is going to work.

"Addison," he says solemnly. "I'm sorry about what happened at the prom." He stops and draws breath.

I frown a little. "You can do better than that."

"I was just getting started," he says defensively.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. So would you just let me-"

"Yes. Sorry."

"Okay, then." He clears his throat. "I'm sorry about what happened at the prom," he says again. "I'm sorry that I … cheated on you, because I do know that that's what it was. And I'm sorry that I did it in that … way, in that public way, and I'm sorry that I let you find her panties. I should have talked to you before that happened. Addison …" he pauses. "I didn't mean to leave them there for you to find. Really."

He stops and looks at me.

"I know," I tell him. "I didn't mean to … leave Mark in our bed for you to find, either."

I've said it before, but the way he's looking at me now makes me think this might be the first time he actually believes it.

He exhales and starts talking again. "I'm sorry that after I punished you for cheating … in so many ways … I turned around and did the same thing. I'm sorry that … mostly, that when we were trying, I didn't try. Mostly, I wasn't trying," he says abruptly. "I wanted to try, I don't know, maybe I didn't, sometimes I did, but I didn't try."

It's convoluted but I get it, and I nod.

"I was wrong," he says. "I was wrong."

And when he repeats himself it's twice more than I ever expected him to say those words to me again.

…not that he said them so many times when we were married.

My instinct is to say it's okay because that's my job, to smooth things over, but the familiar phrase doesn't come.

"I was waiting for you," I say instead, hating the way my voice cracks a little. "At the prom, when you left me on the dance floor, you said you'd be right back."

(Actually, he asked it. Be right back, okay? I've been over that moment a lot of times since that unfortunate night. I also remember that I said okay. I okayed it. That alone was worth a few extra swigs of whatever alcohol was handy.)

"Yeah. I know." He looks down at his hands. "Not my finest moment. Addison … I'm sorry."

"I moved here for you," I say, because apparently we're just going to let it all hang out. "And now I'm stuck out here alone."

He mumbles something about Mark and I just shake my head; apparently he still doesn't get it: being with Mark is just … being alone, but in stereo.

"I am sorry."

I nod.

"Look, Addison, that night, after the prom, when I was here … I said you deserve better. I meant it."

"But I didn't want better, Derek. I wanted you."

I say it automatically, because it's true, and for a few moments we just look at each other while I silently thank my traitorous brain for managing the past tense.

(Wanted you. Wanted. That's what I said. Isn't it? God, I hope so.)

"This is the part where you say our marriage is over," I tell him, finally.

"Hm?"

"If we're doing a do-over," I remind him. "Then now's when you're supposed to tell me that our marriage is over."

"Oh. Right."

He pauses.

Like he's thinking about it.

Which doesn't make sense because unlike that night, when we actually were still married, now we're divorced.

And that night, he didn't seem like he had to think about it.

(What I can remember of it. I was pretty drunk, numb – that night, the alcohol did do the trick – and I remember the mattress dipping down when he sat next to me, uninvited, and the way his eyes searched my face for a minute before he said it. Our marriage is over.)

"Derek…"

"I know."

"You say our marriage is over, and I'll say…" I stop. What did I say after that? I can't remember.

In fairness … like I said, I was pretty wasted.

He sits down next to me, looking at my face. I have some sense memory of that night, whether it's our positions on the bed, my bathrobe, or the spreading numbness – so I guess he must be doing something right.

"You say yeah, I guess it is," he tells me.

"Oh."

Huh. I didn't remember that part, but it kind of makes sense. Like eleven years ago – well, almost twelve now – when he asked the question: will you marry me? And I said yes! – like that, with an exclamation point, I was so fucking young. Full circle: Our marriage is over. Yeah, I guess it is.

I consider this for a minute.

"Okay." I nod a little.

Then I sit there on the edge of the freshly-made bed, waiting for him to say his line so I can say mine.

But he's silent.

"Derek." I glance up at him. "You're supposed to go first. You have to say our marriage is over."

He still doesn't say it.

His head tilts a little to the side in that Derek way of his and he just looks at me.

Like he's the one waiting for something.

"Derek …?"

"I have to go," he says abruptly. "I'm sorry."

He turns on his heel and I don't even have time to call his name before he's gone.

The door closes behind him with a decisive click and I'm left sitting there alone.

Alone … and not a little confused.

To be continued. (And to those of you waiting for updates on other stories, like Some Bright Morning, I promise you they're in the queue.) I love hearing your thoughts, so I hope you will review. Thank you, as always!