A/N - I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has commented. I really appreciate it, it makes writing this feel very worthwhile. Also, I think this chapter might be even more angsty then normal, sorry about that! But this story is all about adultery and a crumbling marriage with a bit of dead boyfriend grief on the side, so I've been feeling the need to pile on the angst. Hopefully you guys who've been kind enough to read don't mind. I promise it will at least have a somewhat happy ending...eventually!


Addison Shepherd lay on her bed, the covers thrown off to the side in a twisted jumbled mess. She was listening to the rain drilling against the roof of the trailer and the occasional bursts of low rumbling thunder that echoed down from the dark night sky. It felt weird to be back at home after spending a night wandering the quiet halls of the hospital in her red gown and high heels. Addison had thought it would feel fabulous to lay down beneath the familiar sheets on her own bed. The whole way home she had imagined her head falling back onto her pillow as she curled up into the sweet, dark, forgetfulness of sleep. Only that wasn't what was happening at all. It didn't matter how exhausted she felt. It didn't matter that she hadn't slept in two days. It didn't matter that her head ached and she felt as if she had rubbed sandpaper over her eyes. None of that mattered because Addison just could not fall sleep.

It's the storm, she thought to herself, rolling onto her side to glare at the raindrops streaking down the tiny window. Addison hadn't minded rain when she lived in New York, but there was something unnerving about the rain in Seattle. Not in general, but when it was dark outside and she was alone in the middle of freaking nowhere with nothing but the tin roof of a trailer between her and the storm, she hated it. Once Derek gets home, I'll be able to sleep, she promised herself. But she knew that was a lie even before she thought it. If Addison was honest with herself, she knew she had no idea if he was coming home at all, and if he did come, she knew the heavy silence that would then fill the trailer would seem even worse then the incessant patter of the rain. Because Derek didn't seem to be speaking to her. At work he had barely met her eyes. She'd had to ask questions twice to even get a one word response from him, and he hadn't bothered to ask her why she never came home after the prom.

Addison ran a hand over her eyes, feeling her finger graze away a single hot tear as she let her mind slip back to the night before. Back to Meredith Grey, that little wisp of a woman who had ran down the stairs and left two men gaping after her. Derek had finally looked up at Addison then, after the door slowly closed and Meredith disappeared from sight. It was a long and measured look, as full of things as the one she had just received from Meredith Grey. And Addison had stared back at him, trying to gauge what had happened by the set of his shoulders and the lines around his eyes. "What was that?" Finn had asked loudly, his voice equal parts confused and accusatory. Derek had looked away from Addison and shrugged casually, as if he had no idea. But she had seen the way his right hand had twitched, fingers clenching into a fist and then relaxing almost instantaneously at the sound of Finn's voice. There had been more in that tiny impulsive gesture then there had ever been in any of the scathing comments Derek had made about Mark. So Addison had turned around, and, without thinking, ran down the hall.

Staring now at the rain, she thought maybe she'd been hoping that Derek would chase after her. Of course he hadn't though. And when she'd stopped running and found herself alone in the middle of an empty waiting room, Addison couldn't bring herself to turn around and walk back yet again to find him. Somehow she had felt too proud for that, so instead she'd sat down and started to read the magazines on the waiting room table. There were three of them laying there and she read them all, every article, from cover to cover. Afterwards, she had wandered about and tried to find something to do, and eventually just gone and changed into scrubs and started rounding on patients three hours too early. When she had finally ran into Derek the next morning, she smiled at him like nothing had happened and he looked away as if he didn't even know her.

Addison sighed and thought it might be nice to cry, but before she could figure out how to start, she heard the gentle roar of a car pulling up outside. She sat up and flicked on the bedside lamp just as the door swung open and her husband walked in. Derek was soaking wet, his hair slicked back and streaming so much water that Addison would have thought he'd walked all the way home if she hadn't just heard his car outside the trailer. He turned to look at her, which Addison started to take as a good sign. She sat up a little straighter and tilted her head curiously towards him, but Derek just sighed and walked into the tiny bathroom, letting the door slam shut behind him. The loud thud of the door sent Addison falling back into the pillows. She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, pulling her long legs in their silk pajama pants up close to her chest. She pressed her face into her knees and didn't look up even when the muffled sounds of running water and cabinets being opened and closed had faded away. It wasn't until she heard the definite squeak of the bathroom door being pushed open, followed by the gentle shuffle of Derek's footsteps that she forced herself to open her eyes.

He was standing there at the foot of the bed, his hands jammed into the pockets of his navy blue sweatpants, his hair still wet and starting to curl again. "How was your day?" Addison whispered at last, scooting over to her side of the bed.

"Long." His voice sounded tired and softer then usual. She looked up at him, studying the face that she knew by memory, but Derek remained staring fixedly at the floor. The silence Addison had been dreading started to fill the trailer, and Derek standing still as a statue wasn't doing anything to help it.

"Derek…what's going on?" Addison wondered why she was asking. She knew what was going on, knew that her husband didn't love her anymore.

Derek stopped studying the rug on the floor and turned to look at her. He rubbed his hands over his eyes and then roughly through his hair. It was a habit of his, a nervous gesture that Addison recognized instantly. What she wasn't prepared for was the fathomless well of guilt his eyes had become. He sat heavily down on the edge of the bed, and in the soft light of the lamp Addison could make out the worried creases around his eyes. He reached out and put his hand over hers. "Addison…" His voice cracked on the second syllable and by the time her name had died on his lips, Addison knew she couldn't let him finish his sentence. If she said yes, if she even simply sat there in willing silence, she knew her husband would confess to just what had happened between him and Meredith Grey. If she let him talk, their marriage would end, and suddenly that felt unbearable.

"I'm glad you're home," she stammered quickly. "I never liked the rain." Her words are rushed and she's not really sure why she's talking. She just knows that his hand is still covering hers and she doesn't want to lose the sweet, familiar normalcy of that gesture forever.

"Addison," said Derek again, insistently this time as if willing her to hear him out.

"We're trying aren't we?" she continues. "Everything's fine…I mean, as good as it can be, right?" Her voice had an almost desperate whine to it, and Derek looked at her helplessly. He could feel her hand trembling beneath his, the soft delicate flutterings of a butterfly caught in a fist, and it sucked away his resolve. Slowly, he nodded his head. "So lets just go to sleep Derek…please."

"Alright," he agreed at last. His voice was heavy and almost angry, and his hand fell away from Addison's as he got into bed. She sighed and started to speak, but thought better of it and simply laid down. Still, after a few minutes, Derek slipped his arm around her and Addison felt him begin to run his hand absently through her hair. As his fingers traced gentle paths along her scalp, Addison found herself thinking maybe… She cast a hopeful cautious glance over at Derek, but he was staring fixedly at the ceiling, his face perfectly expressionless. Addison knew he wasn't thinking of her, he was simply there. If he was thinking of anything at all, he would be wishing that the hair he was running his hand through wasn't deep red but dirty blonde. So Addison screwed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the knowledge that this was only prolonging the end, trying to force herself, like Derek, to think of absolutely nothing at all.

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Meredith trudged slowly up to her house, not really minding the pouring rain or the puddles of water that dripped off her clothes to pool on the hallway floor. "Meredith, that you?" came a disembodied voice calling from the kitchen that she recognized immediately as George's. Instead of answering, Meredith just walked down the hall to stand in the doorway. He was sitting at the table, with a giant pizza in front of him filling the room with the smell of cheese and grease and meat. "Finn was here," he announced without ceremony.

"Seriously?" Meredith dropped her bag on the floor, and walked over to sit down opposite George. He nodded.

"Gone now…" His voice was muffled as he talked around a mouthful of pizza. "He said he'd stop by tomorrow, wants to take you out to breakfast before work."

Meredith wasn't sure why exactly, but the idea annoyed her. "He's persistent," she muttered, absently twisting a stray napkin into a rope. George frowned at her, his eyes scanning her face intently, as if searching for something. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it, and closed it again with a shrug. "How's Izzie?" Meredith asked at last.

"Hasn't been out of her room all evening," he said softly, his voice sounding suddenly pained. "She said she wanted to be alone."

"Right…" Meredith nodded, smiling sadly, and got up to walk upstairs.

"So, you're sleeping with Shepherd?" The question came suddenly, bluntly, causing Meredith to freeze in the doorway, one foot raised halfway off the floor. "Callie told me," he added when Meredith continued to not move.

"Callie told you," she echoed, finally turning back around to look at George.

"Yeah…you were doing your thing where you go all twitchy, keep looking over your shoulder…" he had started rambling, his words rushing together nervously. "Staring at each other during rounds…and well, I mentioned it to Callie. And she said…" His voice trailed off, ending with an empty shrug of his hands and a look that said 'well, you know'.

Meredith didn't know how to answer him, so she repeated her earlier words to Christina. "It was a mistake. We didn't mean to, it just…" but she stopped talking abruptly, suddenly finding it too odd to be discussing sex with George after everything.

"Are you going to talk to Finn?" he asked in a voice that wasn't so much asking her but telling her to, heavy with the stinging knowledge of just what it was like to be the nice guy. She shrugged and stared down at her waterlogged shoes. "Meredith…"

"What George?" she snapped, glaring back up at him. Her voice, the hand she placed on her hip, the bright flash in her green eyes, everything about her was suddenly daring George to go ahead and offer the wrong bit of advice, to go ahead and destroy their fragilely repaired friendship. But George dropped the subject, and simply smiled at her with something resembling pity in his eyes.

"Want a slice?" he asked at last, brandishing a piece of pizza, so heavily laden with toppings that its crust was drooping dangerously, in her direction. She shrugged again, but this time in agreement and walked around the table towards him. "Just please Mer, promise you'll be careful…" He spoke quietly, holding off until she'd taken the pizza from him. Meredith hesitated, letting her head fall forward to rest on his shoulder while the pizza hung awkwardly between them. But then she straightened up and took a bite, her eyes looking at him both sad and smiling. She turned wordlessly to walk upstairs, and this time George didn't call her back because they both knew she couldn't promise him that.