This update took forever! I'm so sorry. Life got a bit busy and I couldn't keep up. Hopefully it won't be as long until the next update.

After an early morning surgery, Derek excused himself into an empty on-call room and dialed his ex-wife's number. As the thought crossed his mind, he paused, noting that Addison wasn't his ex-wife. Estranged wife? He asked himself. No, we were never really married so she can't be any kind of wife. Ex-fiance? Do we hold the record for world's longest engagment? He thought to himself as he waited for someone to answer the phone. After a few seconds, a little voice came onto the line.

"Daddy?" he sounded half asleep but as excited as possible.

"Hey!" he greeted enthusiastically. "Were you asleep?"

"Mhmm," he muttered groggily. "But I'm up now. I miss you."

"I miss you too, son. What about your mom? Is she still asleep?" Derek asked curiously.

Christopher sat up to peer into the other bed in the hotel room. "No, it sounds like she's in the shower."

"Oh," Derek mumbled. "So, uh, when are you two coming back? I can't wait to see you."

"Mommy says we're not," Chris answered.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked, thoroughly confused by the answer. "What do you mean you're not?"

"We're getting a house here! It's a really cool house."

Derek was silent for a while on the other end.

"Daddy?" Christopher asked, unsure if Derek had hung up on him.

"I'm here," Derek spoke up from his end of the line. "Is your mom out of the shower? Can I speak to her? If she's not out, tell her it's an emergency and have her get out."

Christopher groaned unhappily for being forced out of bed. He knocked on the bathroom door. "Mommy? Daddy's gotta talk to you! He says it's an emergecy."

A few seconds later the door opened, towel clad Addison on the other side. Steam spilled out of the bathroom as she opened the door to take the phone.

"What's wrong? What emergecy?" she asked into the phone.

"What the fuck, Addison?" Derek exclaimed into the phone.

"Excuse me?"

"You bought a house?!"

"That doesn't sound like a very emergent issue," Addison teased.

"Answer the question!"

"Yeah, I uh, bought a house. Well, I'm buying a house. They accepted the offer yesterday so we should be going into escrow."

"You bought a house?! You've been there four days and you bought a house? You know they have hotels for temporary lodging. You didn't need a house."

"Derek, I'm moving here," she told him softly. "I'm about to go sign paperwork to become an equal partner in Sam and Naomi's practice."

"A practice? You're a surgeon."

"I've already been granted rights at the local hospital to take on their advanced neonatal and OB cases, both surgical and not."

"Have you thought this through at all? What about Christopher?"

"He really likes it here. He loves the new house. It's right on the beach."

"Was it even for sale or did you just knock on the door, offer a few million and kick out the owners?"

"I've only done that once."

"Yeah, with the Brownstone," Derek recalled.

"Well, I wanted it and it wasn't for sale! And I'm Bizzy's daughter. She always said that there is no such thing as 'not for sale' when you offer enough money."

"200,000 over it's appraised value. That's a whole house in some places."

"Why are you complaining? It's not like I didn't pay it off. And it's not like it hasn't doubled in value since then," she sighed, realizing they were bickering like a married couple. "Derek, you didn't call to discuss my real estate investments."

"I was wondering when you'll be back but I guess I have my answer."

"I need to move on with my life," Addison told him. "And I can't do that around you. I'm sorry. We can figure out custody, okay?"

"We're not going to ship our son between states every other week. What about school?"

"I can send him every other weekend. And you can come in between, whenever you want. He can stay with you."

"Addison, that's ridiculous," he protested.

"That's the best I can offer. I'll have more time to focus on him here. He's better off here."

"Better off in the most superficial city on earth than with his father?"

"With parents who are happy and content with their lives rather than with parents who are close but miserable," Addison corrected. "I'd never take him away from you. I'll use my family jet to have him fly out every weekend, if that's what it takes but this is what I need for me, Derek. I need to do what's best for me for once."

"A good mother always puts her child before herself."

She was silent on her end of the line. A few seconds passed by, "Screw you, Derek," she barely managed to mutter before hanging up.

After signing on to become a partner in Oceanside Wellness, Addison took her on to register him at a local private school near the practice. Afterward, she went back to the practice where everyone was sitting around in the kitchen waiting impatiently.

"What are you all waiting for?" she asked as she went to the fridge to get green juice. "This stuff is amazing. Why isn't this a thing anywhere else?"

"Dell is on an In N' Out run. But it's lunchtime so the wait is probably an hour at this point," Sam replied. "Naomi took the liberty of ordering for you and Chris."

"Thanks, Nai. Chris has been whining since we got here to try it. I don't even know how he knows about it. " she smiled as she took a sip of the juice.

"It's amazing and everyone should know about it. Shake Shack and SteakNShake can suck it." Cooper replied before noticing the child in the room. "Sorry, kid, don't repeat that."

Violet rolled her eyes at him, "Such a manchild."

"It's okay, he's heard worse. His father and I aren't too great at censoring ourselves sometimes. He knows not to repeat those things, right, Christopher?"

"Right," he mumbled as he sat quietly in the room full of strangers. "Can I go call Daddy?"

"Yeah, you can," his mother approved. "Naomi showed us my office this morning, remember? You can go in there and call him. There was a phone on the desk."

"How come they get to make long distance phone calls on the company line and I can't?" Cooper asked once Christopher left.

"Because he's calling his father, not a phone sex line," Violet mumbled under her breath as Dell walked in with many white, red and yellow bag.

"This bag is for you and Chris," Dell said as he handed one over. "Naomi order a plain for you two, but I had them give spread on the side if you guys wants to try it."

"Spread?" she repeated with a quirked brow.

"Yeah, that's their sauce. It's basically thousand island."

"They named their sauce Spread?" Addison asked judgmentally. That was a pretty pathetic name for a sauce. "At least Shake Shack calls theirs Shack Sauce. It's more creative than spread."

"Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it." Cooper commented, already half done with his Double Double.

"Oh, and someone sent you flowers. Congratulatory I assume, but the card said 'Sorry' on it. No name. I put them in your new office." Dell told her.

"Okay, thanks, Dell." She said as she took the bag of food to her office where her son was sitting on the chair behind the desk with the phone to his ear. There was an extravagant arrangement of flowers sitting on the corner of the desk. She reached for the card only to see the word "Sorry" typed onto it. There was no name, but she was pretty sure she knew who it was from.

"I brought you your burger, buddy," she told her son.

"Daddy's not answering."

"Maybe he's busy." she suggested.

"Maybe he doesn't want to talk to me like he didn't last time," Chris offered as an alternative theory.

Addison shook her head, dismissing that notion. "He spoke to you this morning. He does want to talk to you. I'm sure he's just busy. We'll try again later, okay?"

Chris nodded as he peaked into the bag of food. "Okay."

Addison spent the next few hours getting settled into her new office. At first, Christopher was excited to help her decide where her diploma would go, where the book shelf would look best, how to arrange her furniture; but all of that quickly got old. He ended up forcing himself to nap on the couch out of sheer boredom while his mother unpacked boxes and boxes of thick textbooks onto a new assembled shelf.

The phone on her desk rang and she rushed to get it before it could wake her son. She didn't officially have patients yet, and she doubted the possibly of drug reps chasing her so soon. She was sure it was one of her co-workers about something trivial so she answered with a casual, "Hello?"

The person on the other end didn't pay attention to the voice, he was too distracted trying to pour milk into his afternoon coffee. "I had a few missed calls from this number," he replied. "Just calling back."

"Derek?"

It took him a second to recognize the voice. "Addison?"

"Yeah," she confirmed. He already doesn't recognize my voice, she thought to herself. "This is the direct line to my office. Chris was calling you with my office phone earlier," she explained. "He's asleep now."

"Oh," he replied awkwardly. "Did you get the flowers?"

"I did. There was no name but I assumed they were from you."

"I'm sorry about this morning. I was out of line."

She remained silent, unsure of how to respond.

"It's your life and you need to do what makes you happy. We can figure out the custody issue later. We can be adult and amicable about this."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Derek."

"Yeah, well I've been doing a lot of thinking since I spoke to you this morning. I was very out of line and I feel terrible about what I said. I was angry but that's not an excuse. I know things didn't work out with us, but you were my best friend for a really long time and I don't want to throw that away. I know it will never be the same but the least we can do is be respectful, at least for our son. I didn't do that this morning. I'm really sorry."

"Apology accepted," she replied, unsure of what else she could say.

"I gotta get back to work but I'll call Chris tonight before bed, okay?" he asked hopefully.

"Okay."

As days went on, Addison and Christopher created a new routine for themselves. He started school, while she started seeing patients and taking consults at the hospital. Derek would call Christopher daily, and he'd usually have brief conversation with Addison before or after those calls. She'd spend all day with her co-workers and they were quickly becoming family to them. When her cell phone rang, she reached for it assuming it was Cooper about food. She had already answered the call when she realized the name on her caller ID was not her co-worker, it was her mother. Would it be too obvious if she hung up now?

"California?!" Bizzy Forbes-Montgomery yelled as soon as Addison answered her cell phone. "Why would you move to California?! It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't Los Angeles! What is wrong with you, Addison?!"

"What is wrong with Los Angeles?"

"It's where starving actors go to feel relevant!" Bizzy exclaimed with judgement laced in her words.

"And New York isn't full of starving actors? LA is actually a great fit for me and Christopher."

"New York was a fine fit for you and Christopher."

"New York was home. It's not anymore. I needed something new," Addison explained to her mother. "How did you even find out about the move?"

"Archer mentioned it to me. Who would have thought Archer would be my more sane, logical child?" Bizzy asked rhetorically.

"Sane and logical are not words I would use to describe Archer."

"Well, he's not living in Los Angeles so…" she trailed off. "How's Christopher liking it? You took that poor New York born and bred child and plopped him down in that smog infested ghetto."

"He loves it. We are moving into a house on the beach and he loves the beach."

"Oh, goodness. You're turning the only name bearing heir to the Montgomery name into a beach going hippie. Is this because of the divorce? Is that why you're being so drastic and reckless?"

"Moving to Los Angeles hardly constitutes reckless and drastic," she defended herself. "And there was no divorce."

"I don't understand. You're still married to Derek?"

"No."

"So there was a divorce," Bizzy stated plainly.

"No."

"I don't understand," she repeated.

"Derek and I were never legally married so we didn't have to get a legal divorce."

"What?"

"Derek and I were…" Addison started but she was cut off by her mother.

"I heard you. I don't understand. How were you not legally married? Montgomerys don't do domestic partnership. I would have disowned you before allowing you to live with a man out of wedlock."

"We thought we were married but it turns out, our marriage license was invalid because it was not issued by an authorized agency."

"What was the issuing agen…" she paused and a second later Addison head a quiet chuckle from her mother. "The stupid chapel in Las Vegas…" she remembered. "I knew that would come back to haunt you one day."

"I really don't need a lecture right now, Bizzy."

"No lecture, just a simple 'I told you so.'" Bizzy replied smugly and then suddenly her smirk disappeared and her face paled. Her silence on the phone became deafening.

"Bizzy?" Addison asked, partially thinking she may have hung up on her.

"What about Christopher?" Bizzy finally asked after almost a full minute of silence.

"What about him?"

"You're not legally married," Bizzy stated obviously. "That means he…" she stopped and cringed. "He was born out of wedlock."

"I uh…" Addison hadn't thought about that. "I guess, yes, he legally is born out of wedlock. But uh, Derek and I had been under the assumption that we had been married for years when he was born."

"He was legally born out of wedlock," Bizzy repeated her daughter's words. "The only name bearing, blood relative of the Forbes-Montgomery legacy was born out of wedlock."

"Bizzy, no one has to know."

"The only name bearing, blood relative of the Forbes-Montgomery legacy was born out of wedlock," the older woman repeated quietly, mostly to herself. Her heart started pounding and she felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. "I uh…" she paused. "I need to go. I need a martini or six."

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