A/N: Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter. If you like a lot of Addison and Derek airtime, this chapter might be for you. I'm excited about the next few chapters, so I hope you're on board!

..
Optimism
..

So we're actually doing this.

We're actually going to talk.

I make myself start, before I lose my nerve.

"When we were talking, before – I asked you if you meant it. And you said yes."

Derek nods.

"You remember?"

He nods again.

"What did you mean when you said yes?" I ask him. I have a little thrill of adrenaline – excitement? Fear? I don't know – to actually say the words.

"What did you mean when you asked me if I meant it?" he counters.

It sounds like banter … but I'm starting to think they're both valid questions.

So I think about it before I answer.

"You were in my hotel," I say after a long pause. "You stayed, and you – said things."

He doesn't respond, but he's not looking away.

"Why?" I ask simply.

"I … don't know what to say."

"Oh."

"I could say that I care." His tone is tentative. "I would say that. But the last time I said that, you pretty much tried to kill me, so …"

Right.

That night.

He actually looks serious.

"Sorry about that."

"You don't need to be sorry." He pauses. "It's probably good for you to – never mind," he says, maybe off my expression, and his own face says that he gets it's not his business anymore.

"We should probably forget that night ever happened."

(That's me, painting over the problems. That much hasn't changed.)

He studies me for a moment. "Do you want to forget it happened?"

"No," I admit.

"Okay." He leans back in his chair.

"Well. Maybe we could just forget the part where I threw myself at you." I try to keep my tone light so he thinks I'm kidding, and not that even raising it is pretty much enough to make me die of shame.

"Which time?" he asks.

"Derek."

"Just trying to lighten the moment." He tilts his head, his eyes dangerously soft for a moment.

"Derek …"

"Addison, it's fine. Really."

Everything fine, Addie. We're fine.

God, I should have had that printed on t-shirts and we could have worn them to sign the divorce papers.

In the silence I take a moment to look around his office. It's sterile, clean, no sign of me. He removed me from his life with surgical precision when he moved here and even when we were playing at reconciliation he never bothered to pretend in his office. He let me move my things into the trailer – grudgingly, but he did let me – and share his tiny kitchen cabinets and his bed. But I never made inroads in his office.

Here, in the characterless guest chairs I didn't pick out, Derek might as well be a stranger. I wonder what happened to the pictures of me, of us, from his office in New York.

And then I have a slightly less drunk version of the feeling I can recall from that night in the hotel room. How crazy and how normal it is, all at once, to be in a room with him. To sit in his office. How often have we done that?

It's different here, though.

It's definitely different from his offices in New York.

When he got his first department head upgrade we celebrated in the ergonomic chair I painstakingly picked from a German catalogue and when we broke the damn thing, Derek comforted me by swearing it was worth it, and offering to write a letter to the CEO attesting to it in as much detail as I would let him. While picking tiny, vintage brass screws out of my hair.

That was a good day.

The thing is, even if Derek doesn't remember it, I know it's true: it was a good marriage.

Overall, it was a good marriage.

And I miss it.

I miss him. Sometimes … I miss him a lot.

"Addison."

I look up.

"Why did you kiss me?" he asks.

"Which time?" I ask in return, echoing his words.

"Medical school," he says sarcastically, his expression lightening the tone somewhat.

Okay, then. So he means my hotel room.

"I don't know," I tell him.

"Was it because I was just there?"

"What do you want me to say?" I ask.

"The truth might be a nice change," he says mildly.

I guess I walked into that one.

The thing is, there's no simple answer, is there?

"I was … sad," I tell him finally. I don't think I can meet his eyes right now.

"Because of me?"

I'm kind of shocked that he asked that.

"What do you want me to say?" I ask again, buying a little time.

"Addison."

I forgot he used to be really good at sussing out my time-buying strategies.

We used to be just plain really good at each other.

And he's still waiting for an answer.

"Because … because of a lot of things, Derek." He's still just looking at me, which is annoying. "Yes, including you. Divorce isn't exactly a walk in the park for most people – except in your case, that is."

"That's not fair," he says quietly.

"I know it's not fair. Why do you think it's so sad?"

"Addison."

"Derek. What do you want me to say?"

It's the third time I've used that expression. I used to know, better, what he wanted me to say.

He just shakes his head. "It's been a … strange week," he says.

Okay, understatement of the month. The year.

When he doesn't continue, I take a deep breath. Apparently it's a Shepherd free-for-all in here.

"Derek?"

He looks at me.

"Why did Meredith break up with you?"

"She didn't break up with me," he says stiffly.

Oh, I forgot how my husband loves technicalities. I cut back in before he can regale me with a treatise on the unconventional status of his relationship with his mistress.

(A little uncharitable, I know. Sorry.)

"Okay, fine. Why did she … " I wave my hand as descriptively as possible. "Why aren't you together?" I ask finally.

Derek studies his hands for a moment. "I was distracted … that's what she said. Moody."

I swallow my automatic response; no use teasing him when he looks so down about it. But really, was that the first time she noticed? They can't have spent that much time together.

He looks up at me. "She told me that she ended things, with the vet. And I guess I didn't – react the way she wanted."

Interesting. I don't say anything.

"It was right after you told me you stayed with Mark, in New York," he says. "Actually right after."

Oh. Oh.

"So it was my fault."

"It was." He almost smiles, then pauses. "No. It's, uh, it was my fault too."

I'm pretty sure I can hear angels singing.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" I ask tentatively. "For her to break up with the vet?"

"Obviously it's what I wanted." He sounds a little impatient, but not angry. "I was just – caught off guard."

Right.

Because of me. Apparently I wrong-footed him right out of his dreamy relationship with his girlfriend, and that was before we even stepped into the supply closet. Before the strange week.

"Did you explain to her what had – "

"Seriously?" He cuts me off, raising an eyebrow. "You're going to give me relationship advice?"

"No." I feel defensive again.

"So you're just backseat driving, then."

"Forget it." Let him moody-and-preoccupied another relationship away. I don't care.

I don't.

(I don't want to, anyway. Which should count.)

"As long as we're on the topic of … dating," he says, "are you still sleeping with Mark?"

And we're off to the races again.

The seconds before I answer feel long and weighty.

"No." I pause. There's no reason to be honest, but something compels me to anyway. "Not since last night, anyway," I admit.

"Right." He looks down at the desk. "I hope you were less intoxicated than the night before, at least."

"I was."

With alcohol, anyway.

"Derek … ."

"Addison, it's fine. What you choose to do, and with whom, is your business … now that we're divorced, to be clear," he can't seem to help adding.

I don't know how to explain to him that I'm not choosing it. Not really. It's … choosing me.

"It's not like that," I say, for lack of any clearer explanation.

"Let me guess," he says drily. "He was just … there."

"You guessed it." I wonder if I sound amused instead of depressed.

Or if it's weird that I can be both, here in this room with Derek.

"Addison." He shakes his head a little.

"What?"

"Why did you drink so much, that night?"

He doesn't have to clarify which night.

"Why did you drink so much the night before that?"

"Answering a question with a question," he observes mildly.

"Isn't that better than dodging it altogether?"

"Another question." He tilts his head a little, looking at me.

"Another dodge." I pause the sparring. "Derek … how about answering it instead?" I dare myself to continue. "Why did you drink so much that night?"

"To forget?" he offers, the same joke from the bar. It makes me wonder how much else he remembers.

"To forget what?"

"Addison … it's an expression."

"I'm aware." I lean forward a little in my chair. I feel like we're close to … something. I don't know what. Actually talking? But actually … I think we're doing that already. "You were angry," I propose, "about the … procedure."

"About how you manipulated me, you mean?" He raises his eyebrows. "And Meredith … and Alex Karev."

"You're really concerned about Alex Karev?" It's my turn to raise an eyebrow.

He just looks at me for a minute.

Okay, fine, now I'm the one deflecting.

"I wasn't manipulating you," I tell him.

"You were."

"You were interfering – "

"I was trying to help, Addison."

"No, you weren't." I'm suddenly very tired. "I can tell when you're trying to help. Remember?" It's pretty much exactly what I told him when we talked about Baby C.

"Maybe." He studies my face. "Can you tell when you need help?"

"Maybe," I repeat. "Maybe not. But that doesn't change anything about Hannah Fowler's procedure."

He doesn't say anything.

"You thought I was going to get … Meredith, and Alex Karev, into trouble? That's why you drank so much? Because you didn't know I had sign-off?"

"Don't say I didn't know you had sign-off like it was an omission," Derek says, his voice clipped. "You chose to hide that fact. To manipulate me, to make me look foolish."

"That's not why." My voice is faint, and he ignores it and continues talking.

"You succeeded. You made me look foolish, and I was concerned about you, Addison. Before that, I was concerned. That's why I went to Richard. That's why I asked Meredith to …." He stops talking. "That was another mistake."

His voice is quiet enough on that last line that I almost miss it.

"But why were you concerned? Because of … what happened in New York?"

I don't want to say her name. I don't think I have, out loud, since that day. If we talked about it, when we were married – and we very rarely did – it was Vivian who we named. The day Vivian came over.

He's quiet.

"Derek. That was a long time ago."

His face looks closed, and he doesn't say anything.

"And it wasn't the same as … Hannah Fowler's situation. It was completely different."

"That's your story," he says.

"It is my story." I'm a little confused.

"No." He looks up at me. "Your story is your story."

I'm still trying to parse the words when he speaks again.

"You weren't the only one there," he says, his voice tight. "In the ER, in our … house. You weren't the only one there."

"I know that." I feel like I'm missing something, but there's something raw in his eyes that actually makes me feel a little frightened.

Not that he's going to hurt me, not that kind of frightened.

More frightened about how much we've both been hurt.

"Derek …. "

"You're still sleeping with Mark," he says, and I let him change the subject. God knows I don't like harping on things that make me uncomfortable either. And we're not married anymore, so we don't have to try to make each other have the hard conversations.

Right?

"When I can't avoid it," I tell him, wondering if it sounds like I'm kidding.

"Can't you use your … influence on him to get him to move back to New York?" Derek asks.

Oh, if only I could.

"I tried. Believe me."

"Maybe if you kept your clothes on?" he asks. His voice is relatively light but the words still sting.

I'm this close to deflecting with a crack about just how much damage Mark can do when everyone is still technically fully clothed.

"It doesn't matter what I do with my clothes," I tell Derek. "Mark isn't here for me."

"What does that mean?"

"He's here for you, Derek."

"For me."

He looks unimpressed, even a little nauseated.

"Unlike you, Addison, and probably most of the nurses here … I can resist Mark's charm, or what passes for charm anyway."

I can't argue with that.

"He misses you. Mark does. It's obvious."

Derek doesn't say anything.

"Mark thinks we can't be friends," I blurt.

"You and Mark?" Derek looks a little confused.

"No … you and me."

"Oh." He leans back in his chair, surveying me for a moment.

"You don't disagree?" I ask.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't say you didn't."

He frowns slightly. "I didn't say I didn't … not disagree? You might have lost me."

I know. That's the whole problem.

I take a deep breath. "Derek, I … want to be able to work together."

"Well, as long as you're staying in Seattle," and he pauses here as if to give me the opportunity to make his day by offering to go back to Manhattan, "we probably don't have a choice."

"I mean work together … well." I pause. "Work well together. Like we used to."

Used to is so dangerous, isn't it? With the two of us?

"We're working together now," he reminds me. He looks like he might have something else to say, but he doesn't say it.

"I know."

He glances at his watch. "We're meeting together, in fact, in … an hour," he says. "I have some things I need to do before then."

I'm dismissed. I get it.

"Right. So do I." I stand up, with a little extra effort due to skinny-skirt limitations. "So I guess I'll see you in – "

"I do care," he interrupts me. His voice is quiet, but he doesn't sound unsure. "In your story, where I'm the – bad guy, I don't. I'm just … I'm interfering, and I don't care. You've made that clear. But you asked me why I came to your hotel room, and why I stayed, and you haven't listened to my answer. You haven't heard my story at all."

I take a minute to take this in. Haven't heard his story – Derek has always been the architect of his own story. The narrator of our marriage, hasn't he? Certainly the end of it.

And anyway, everyone hears Derek.

I don't think it's occurred to me that Derek – Derek Shepherd, that Derek – could ever feel unheard.

"You told me you wanted me out of your life," I remind him.

"I know." His eyes look soft, worryingly so. "And you told me you wanted me out of yours," he reminds me in turn.

We both contemplate that.

And, I guess, how still in we seem to be.

"Being divorced is …" His voice trails off. "It's complicated. For most people, it's new, too. Why do they offer marriage counseling? Maybe divorce counseling makes more sense."

My eyes widen.

"As a concept," he says quickly, as if to make sure I didn't think he actually wanted to go to therapy with me.

God help the therapist subjected to the two of us. I'm pretty sure the guy we saw last year has retired and moved to Fiji – on our money alone, he could probably get a pretty nice place.

"Yeah." I look down at my hands. "Actually, that's not a bad idea."

I don't know what else to say. I wish I didn't worry that every conversation we have will be the last one.

I have an embarrassing sense memory of being little and following the nanny down the back staircase when she was trying to leave for her day off – I don't know what I was asking, probably for her to braid my hair or help me with something, just to get her to keep talking so she wouldn't leave.

(Remember that I never said I wasn't a cliché.)

Derek used to be someone I thought would never leave. He showed up, over and over. He was there. For so many things.

When he stopped, I had to get used to seeing him as … someone who left.

Seattle has messed with my head. Derek, in my hotel room, messed with my head. We're divorced and for the first time since before he left New York I'm starting to remember what it was like when he was actually there.

Which is messed up.

Very messed up.

Even for us.

He's looking up at me – still sitting down in his chair, but leaning back a little so he can see me now that I'm standing above him. His gaze is open, without hostility, and I see him.

I recognize him.

It leaves me feeling a little stripped down, raw, in a way that stings.

It's a little weird, isn't it? The two of us, talking like this.

No one's yelling.

No one's crying.

Maybe we can actually be friends.

Except I think if we were friends it wouldn't hurt so much to look into his eyes right now. Like I need those pinhole glasses to protect me from an eclipse.

"See you in the meeting," I tell him, and pretend that my racing heart as I close his office door behind me is relief that our conversation didn't break down.

..

"We're going out tonight," Callie announces without preamble, sliding her lunch tray next to mine.

I've been picking through a salad while I go over the events of this morning, from the conversation in Derek's office to the surprisingly uneventful meeting of Team Triplets. Wait another day, that's what we decided, the three of us.

Easily and agreeably. So I couldn't even get out my frustrations by fighting with either of them.

(Not like I think Walter would fight back. He'd probably just, like, defuse the situation. And do a pretty good job of it too.)

So yeah. Eleanor's holding steady, there's no fluid buildup in Baby C or weakening of Baby A or Baby B. We have another twenty-four hours until the next fetal MRI and I can't complain about that.

Buying time, punting decisions?

It's tricky in medicine, but it's more or less my calling card, otherwise.

"Addison. You in there?" Callie waves a hand in front of my face.

"Yes, sorry." I focus on her; it's grey and a little misty out here, of course, and some of the hair escaping her ponytail is starting to curl. "What were you saying?"

"I was saying that we should get that drink tonight. Remember? The one we keep postponing. Screw postponing. I'm not on call tonight, you're not – any late cases?"

I shake my head. "Unless something changes."

"The universal surgical disclaimer." She grins at me. "So it's a date, then?"

"Yeah, okay." I push a piece of green pepper to the side of my plate. "It's a date."

..

Mark corners me by the nurses' station as I'm trying to finalize my charts so I can actually leave – for all the world like a person with a life outside the hospital who has, like, plans and stuff.

"I have plans tonight," that's what I tell him with dignity when he reminds me that he drove me to work this morning and, in Mark Logic, that means he's driving me back to the hotel and presumably doing all sorts of unmentionable things to me once we get there.

"Plans?" Mark raises his eyebrows. "What kind of plans are those? And with who?"

I don't answer.

"With whom," he amends, giving me a little half a wink at whom like he thinks it will turn me on to hear a man correct his own grammar.

(No comment on whether he's right.)

"I'm getting a drink with Callie Torres," I tell him. "If that's all right with you."

It's none of his business, but saying it out loud makes it true and hell, if someone in Seattle thinks I have a friend … is that so bad?

"Oh, it's more than all right with me."

He's grinning at me, that slow smile that reminds me how little self-control I have around him. Which isn't an excuse for using him like a drug and failing to quit every time.

But it's a reason.

"In fact … I highly encourage it. Can I come along?"

"No."

"Oh, come on, Addison. You're always invited on my dates."

I wrinkle my nose. I don't really want to remember just how many dates Mark has had since coming to Seattle. It's not jealousy, exactly. It's also not purely concern for the kind of STIs that slither past the most religiously rolled condoms. It's … I don't know. Something in between.

"Leave me alone," I tell him, keeping my voice even. "I have things to do before I leave, Mark, and you're distracting me."

"So you admit that I'm distracting."

He grazes my hip, just barely, reaching past me to take a pen off the counter. I inhale a little at his touch, which he notices based on his smirk.

"I'd say give it up." His voice is very close to my ear, making me shiver in spite of myself at the warm puff of air from his lips. "But I think we can all agree that ship sailed a long time ago."

He's not wrong.

I gave up a lot.

I gave up everything. And looking at Mark's face just reminds me how much that was, and how much I miss it.

I stand very still, like I'm trying to trick a bee into leaving me alone. It works; he actually buzzes off, but not without leaving a sting behind.

..

"So … two crazy choices, and two … not-great ones?" Callie is looking at me over the rim of her glass. "That kind of sucks."

It's blunt, but not inaccurate. I've finished filling her in on the Rivers triplets to the extent ethics allows, and she's surprised me by listening and … getting it. Almost like she cares.

(This is how Derek and I used to talk about our cases. I'm not saying I want to marry Callie Torres, just that it's pretty damn nice to have someone actually care about what I'm doing for once. What I'm saying. And not just as a way to get me into bed.)

"Right," I tell her.

She props her elbows on the bar – it's kind of dark and sticky in here, it smells like well drinks and Barkeepers' Friend and someone's perfume that keeps wafting down the air whenever the door opens.

The door opens a lot – this place is a little more populous than I would have chosen. Plus, I'm pretty sure Mark and I dragged Derek off the stool that's currently empty next to me tonight, and I don't particularly want to think about that night, either.

But I do want to be here, I remind myself – I want to be friends with Callie. I want to talk to someone in Seattle who doesn't have a history with me.

Maybe I can actually be someone new.

"And your ex-husband is on the case, too," Callie observes.

… yeah, being someone new isn't likely.

I just nod. I'm sipping my drink, slowly.

(It's gin and soda. I know, I know. Even Callie looked unimpressed at my order, and suggested that I could use the calories in tonic. And I'm not going to lie, I'll take being called thin anytime, but G&Ts are my father's drink and that's not anything I can handle right now.)

"You know what, Addison? Your life is definitely not boring."

She's smiling at me and it's almost … a compliment. Maybe she's right.

My life here in Seattle, if you can call it that … well, it's definitely confusing.

Confusing, and lonely. A lot of the time, it's lonely. Painful, sometimes, and not just those damn shower bruises that I'm pretty sure are going to leave permanent marks at this point.

"Is that a good thing?" I hate how uncertain I sound.

"Life? Considering the alternative?" Callie raises her eyebrows. "Yeah, I'd say it's a pretty good thing."

I like her optimism.

I'm not sure I'm convinced … but I like it.

The door opens again – a gust of air, the perfume from the woman sitting down the bar.

It's Meredith Grey and her friends; she doesn't see me, not right away, and I'm half-turned toward Callie anyway. But then I see that it's not just a pack of interns, though I recognize Izzie Stevens – who hates me – and Alex Karev, who is probably in that club again too.

And behind them, propping the door with one hand so they can enter first, is Derek. Meredith turns back to say something to him and I see from my vantage point that he's smiling.

My stomach is hollow – for no reason, for a stupid reason – and all I can do is pray that he doesn't see me.

The thing is, I may have liked Callie's optimism … but there's a reason I'm not an optimist myself.

So what happens next shouldn't really surprise me.

To be continued, of course, picking right up from here. Thank you for reading!