"Where are we going?" Christopher asked her as he sat in the front of seat of the red convertible she rented on a whim. They'd be driving for over 12 hours and it was the first time he'd bothered asking.

"Los Angeles."

"Why?" he asked.

"Do you remember Maya and her parents?" Addison asked. "We're going to see them."

"What about Daddy? Is he coming later?"

"Daddy is not going to come."

"Why?" he asked again.

"Remember when he was living in Seattle while we were still living in New York? It's kind of like that. Except he'll be in Seattle and we'll be in LA for a while."

"Can I talk to him this time?" He asked, pushing up his kid sized Ray Ban aviator glasses to look at his mother.

"You can talk to him anytime you want, sweetheart."

He smiled contently, lowered his glasses and looked back at the road ahead. "Can I have animal fries when we get there?"

"Can you have what?" Addison asked with a quirked brow, taking her eyes off the road for a split second to look at him.

"Animal Fries." he repeated.

"What are animal fries?"

"From In N' Out. It's fries with stuff on it."

"You know about In N' Out?"

"A kid from my class talks about it all the time. He's from San Diego. That's somewhere in California, right?"

"It is," Addison confirmed.

"And Uncle Archie told me about it. He says it's better than Shake Shack."

"Well, Archer approves then we have to try it," Addison smiled at her son.

Christopher sat there quietly for a minute, trying to decide if he wants to push his luck. "Mom, you know what else is in California?"

"What?"

"Disneyland," He paused for a second before adding, "And Legoland."

Addison was in the bathroom of their hotel room. She was doing her making up, trying hard not to eavesdrop on the phone conversation her son was sharing with his father. It wasn't working too well and getting ready was taking her much longer than usual with the distraction.

"Mom?" she heard the little voice call her. "Daddy wants to talk to you."

She froze for a second when her son came over with her cell phone stuck out for her to take.

"Addie?" she heard Derek ask from the other end of the line. That's when she took the phone and held it to her ear.

"Hi," she said softly, before covering the bottom half of the phone. "Sweetie, can you lower the volume on the TV? We want to be able to hear the door when room service arrives.

Christopher nodded, effectively leaving the room to give her parents privacy.

"So Los Angeles, huh?"

"Yeah."

"You know, when one parents takes a child without the other parent's consent, it's called kidnapping."

"I didn't kidnap him. You can see him anytime you would like. I just couldn't leave my son and walk away like you did in New York."

He was silent for a few seconds, not prepared to her that response. He was just trying to make a joke, a crude joke, but a joke nonetheless. He didn't have any intention of starting a fight so he changed the conversation. "I haven't been to LA," Derek replied. "Do you like it?"

"I've only been here for a few hours. I haven't really seen much of it to have an answer for you."

"Well, Chris sounds like he loves it."

Addison laughed, "Yeah, he is very excited. Our hotel is beachfront and you know how he feels about the beach."

"Yeah, I do. I spent many millions on a house in the hamptons because of his affinity for the beach."

"And mine," Addison reminded. "And it wasn't just your money. It was ours."

"Right," he mumbled. He had been trying to avoid words like 'ours' and 'us.'

"When are you going to come back?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she admitted. "Derek, I had the rug pulled out from under me. The last third of my life has been a lie. You were never my husband."

"Does a piece of paper really change that much?"

"Yes! Yes, it does," she exclaimed. "And now you have Meredith, and you get a fresh start and I don't. For the rest of my life, I get to live with that fact that I spent 15 years total in love with a man I never really had. I need to get away from that and start over. So I don't know if I'll come back. I don't know what I'll do."

"What about Chris? You can't just take him and run."

"I'm not as strong as you, Derek. I can't leave him behind and run without him. He's my son."

"He's my son, too."

"I know. I'm not going to keep him from you. I just needed some space to figure things out for myself. You can call him anytime you want. I told him the same thing. But I've never been away from him by choice for longer than a couple of days. He's all I have."

"Okay."

"I gotta go, Derek," she said after a second of silence.

"Okay," Derek sighed. "Bye, Addie."

"I don't understand." His mother said to him over the phone. "What do you mean you were never married to begin with? I was at the wedding, Derek. I was also around for the storm after you two snuck away to elope with Elvis."

"We didn't elope with Elvis. All of the good chapels with interesting impersonators were taken. We ended up at a tiny shack like chapel and we were married by a drag queen."

"Whatever. Point is, you eloped."

"We thought we did. The place wasn't licensed to perform weddings. We never had a legal marriage license."

"Derek!" His mother exclaimed in disapproval. "How could you let that happen?"

"We didn't know!"

"You've been living with her out of wedlock for years." His mother told him in disapproval. What she didn't know is that they'd been living together, out of wedlock, for years before their wedding.

"We did a lot more than just living together, Mom," he chuckled.

"Oh, I know, trust me, you two have never been subtle with…" she paused, trying to filter her words. "That."

"Mom, that's the least of our problems, don't you think?"

"Living in sin is the least of your problems?" His mother replied. "Oh my god…"

"What? What now?"

"You have a child! You have a child with a woman you're not legally married to. He's an illegitimate child! He is literally a bastard. How could you do this?!"

"I didn't know! And don't call my kid a bastard. We didn't know. We were under the impression that we were married when he was conceived and when he was born."

"A child born out of wedlock…" his mother mumbled to herself.

"Mom, I think you're missing the bigger picture here."

"I don't think I am. This is unacceptable. What do you want me to do? Go back in time and go to a different chapel?"

"Do you finally see why you were wrong to elope in Las Vegas?"

"I don't think now is the time for a lesson, Mom," he sighed.

"Bizzy and I have never agreed on anything….except that. She was ready to kill the two of you and I would have been right beside her hiding the bodies."

"Addison! I need you down here to finalize the menu with the caterer. I heard Derek sneaking in there in the middle of the night so wake him up and get down here!" Bizzy called through the door of her daughter's bedroom. They had a few days off of work and Bizzy had occupied all of their time with wedding planning.

When Bizzy heard nothing in response she knocked on the door. Still nothing. "Fine, Addison, I'm coming in there and if I see anything that may cause temporary blindness, I'm cutting you off!" her mother threatened before opening the door and fine the room empty and the bed perfectly made.

Little did she know Derek and Addison had snuck off to Vegas on the family's private jet in the middle of the night. They had landed before dawn and were married in a tiny shack bearing the title of a chapel in the outskirts of downtown Las Vegas.

They were back in Connecticut by sunset that same day. The second they walked into the Montgomery estate, they were met with Bizzy, the Captain, Carolyn, and Archer (who had the world's biggest smirk on his face.)

"What's with the look?" Derek asked.

"I'm about to become the sole heir of all of this," he replied, vaguely gesturing around them.

"Addison Forbes- Montgomery," Bizzy began with a look that almost literally could shoot out daggers. "If you.."

"Shepherd." Derek added, interrupting Bizzy. He held up his left hand to reveal a platinum wedding band. They had purchased the band for their wedding ceremony, scheduled to take place in under a month.

"You got married," Carolyn stared at them blankly. "Oh my god, are you pregnant?!"

"What?" Addison's face turned red with embarrassment and Derek's eyes widened in shock. Neither of them were expecting that question and until that second, they didn't realize that was the impression people would get after hearing news of their surprise elopement.

"No. No, I'm not pregnant."

Carolyn ignored her and looked at her son, "Derek Christopher Shepherd, if you impregnated this poor girl out of wedlock I will castrate you."

"I did not!" He exclaimed loudly.

"If you're pregnant, you're getting an abortion. Shotgun wedding or not." Bizzy continued. "We are Forbes-Montgomerys. We do not birth bastard children. We uphold the highest morals and virtues and bastards are far from that!"

"Bizzy, I am not pregnant."

"Are you sure?" her father asked.

"We are sure." Derek responded, earning a glare from his mother-in-law and his mother.

"Addison, if you don't take that ring off and wait for the wedding, I will saw your finger off," her mother threatened. "I did not spend half a million dollars on my only daughter's wedding for her to run and elope in the middle of a desert with Elvis."

"It was actually a drag queen. All of the Elvis places were booked." Derek informed his mother-in-law. "Dressed as Cher. We thought it was pretty hilarious. I'm a low-key Cher fan."

Bizzy turned to her husband, "I think I'm going to kill them. If I kill them, you have to make it look like an accident. I won't survive in jail." She told her husband firmly. It was not a request. It was a command.

The Captain wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. They were rarely affectionate so both Archer and Addison knew he wasn't reassuring her, he was restraining her in a socially acceptable way. "They are not cancelling the wedding," he told her softly. Again, making it seem like a reassurance when it was really an order for her daughter.

"They're not?" Carolyn asked unsurely. She was far from fluent in WASP and had no idea what was going on.

"Of course not. My little girl's always wanted a lavish wedding. I'm sure they just got excited and didn't want to wait anymore," he turned to his daughter, meeting her eyes with a pointed look. "Right, Addison?"

"Right," she stuttered against her will. "We're not cancelling the wedding. Just got excited."

"But," Derek tried to interject when Addison shot him a look that caused his mouth to clamp shut.

"Right," she said again as verification.

"Good, because if you try to take this away from us, I will cut you off. No money to pay rent on that Manhattan penthouse. No money for the private chauffeur waiting on your beckon call. No private chef cooking you gourmet meals while you're off shoving your hands up women's…" she stopped herself. "Well, you know."

"Understood, Bizzy. We are not cancelling the wedding."

Bizzy gave her a curt nod. "Shall we get back to finalizing that guest list, Carolyn?" she asked.

Carolyn nodded and followed her back toward the living room. As they walked away they heard Carolyn say, "I would have gladly helped bury the bodies if you had killed them for this stunt."

"I'm uh.. Looking for Dr. Naomi Bennett."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I'm a friend. She is not expecting me." Addison told her young, blond receptionist.

"Addison?!" Naomi called out almost too loud when she came to leave a chart with the receptionist, Dell, she learns is his name. "What are you doing here?!"

"I uh…" She is speechless for a second but her son spoke up to help, "Mommy said she missed you and wanted to see you."

Naomi pulled the little boy into a hug, "Oh my god, when did this child grow up? This is why you keep in touch with people, Addie."

"I know, I'm sorry. I uh, it's just been a rough few months," Addison explained. "Can we talk?"

Naomi nodded, leaving Dell to entertain Christopher while she and Addison spoke in her office.

"Addison, what is going on with you? You've never been this impulsive. Except that time you flew to Vegas and got married in the middle of the night. Driving to LA without a call, randomly decided to have another baby... This isn't the Addison Shepherd I know."

"Montgomery."

"What?" Naomi asked, doing a double take.

"My name. It's Addison Montgomery."

"What happened to the Shepherd?"

"It was never legally there."

"What?" Naomi asked again, completely confused. "You've been publishing with it for years. Why would you publish under a name that's not legally yours?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time. What is going on with you? Start from the beginning and don't skip any details." Naomi replied, grabbing a box of chocolates from her desk drawer and going to sit on one of the couches in her spacious office. She propped her feet up on the table and bit into a chocolate.

"Derek and I were never legally married."

"What are you talking about? I was at the wedding."

"Do you remember that little chapel we went to in Vegas? They were not licensed to perform weddings. We had a fake marriage license. We found out while we were getting ready to file for divorce."

Naomi's eyes went wide and she coughed as she tried to swallow the chocolate in her mouth. Once she recovered from the shock and swallowed the chocolate, she looked over at Addison. "So that's why he's not here with you." she realized.

Addison nodded. "Not that he would be here with me if we were married and together. He lost interest in me a while ago."

"Oh," Naomi mumbled softly. "I never thought you two would get to this point. You were so disgustingly in love."

Addison nodded. "No one ever gets married thinking they'll get divorced, right?" she shrugged at the rhetorical question. "Actually, I can't say that because apparently we were never married to begin with. I just couldn't stay and be around him anymore. I needed space. I need to create a life apart from him."

"You know, we have an empty office and we've been looking to hire another ob/gyn." Naomi hinted.

"I'm a surgeon, Naomi."

"Yeah, and we have a great hospital that's basically down the street. You'd have privileges and we're close to the chief of staff, I'm sure she'd love to have a world renowned neonatologist on staff. We also have great schools for Christopher. Just think about it. It could be a great opportunity."

"Nai…"

"Your office would have an ocean view." Naomi added, as if to sweeten the deal. "And the best part, no Derek. You could be Addison Montgomery, you could be Montgomery-Shepherd, Forbes-Montgomery. Whatever. But you'd be just Addison, not Addison and Derek. Just Addison. Well, just Addison with Chris."

She nodded her head. "I don't even remember what it's like to be just Addison."

"We'll help you figure it out. Think about it, okay?"

Addison looked at her briefly before looking away and nodding her head. "I'll think about it."

A/N: Hi everyone! I'm so glad you guys are liking the story so far. I'm not done outlining it yet, so I'm not even sure how it ends but I'm excited to see where it goes. If you guys have any ideas I can incorperate into the story, let me know!

Thanks for reading!

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*Hint: Reviews are cool.