A/N: Sorry for the wait. I don't usually write Derek/Addison, but it fitted well so I kept with it. Please review! I really appreciate them, thank you.

In memory of my dear departed sister. I miss you each and every day.

"I asked you. I asked you if it was a false alarm." He was surprised to hear his own voice responding to hers.

Silence overcame them. Derek realized that he had been holding his breath.

"You said you knew. I remember you sounded so sure, yet so scared at the same time. I remember, thinking, are you comfortable to keep it? Then my wish,"

He broke off, hurt and sadness filling him up, so rapidly he felt like a balloon about to burst with emotions, "came true."

Addison remained still. Her eyes welled with unshed tears. Slowly, she reached out and touched his hand with hers. She looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes, and she squeezed his hand, curled up in hers, tightly.

"We shouldn't blame ourselves, Derek. It wasn't meant to happen. It was fate. Fate is not a false alarm."

Then, he didn't know how or why, after so many years; but all his inner feelings, of anger and guilt and hurt, spilled out. Feelings that he'd kept buried deep inside of him were out in the open. It was like a wound that had not healed, but was soothed. Addison didn't talk, but she listened.

"Katie…she would have been so beautiful. Just like her mother." Derek managed to say with a twisted smile.

"I felt resentful. It was bitterly ironic. I resented her for existing, and then I resented her for dying. For leaving us behind, for causing that huge rift between us."

The harsh laugh tore his throat and he welcomed the pain. Turning from her, Derek coiled his hands into a fist.

"Don't you understand, Addie?" He asked tonelessly. His eyelids rubbed his eyes like sandpaper. He couldn't cry. He'd used up his quota of tears for Katie years ago. Blindly, he rubbed at his eyes.

Addison shook her head. "It wasn't – " She began.

"Mostly I resented her because I cared too much for her already. Her departure left such a great imprint in my heart. I couldn't rub it away, though I tried so desperately." He continued in despair. Derek finally looked her in the eye and something in his eyes destroyed her.

"I'm sorry, Addie." Derek said at last. "I'm sorry, I wasn't there. The truth is; I didn't know how to cope. And I thought I shouldn't try to consol you until I knew how to deal with everything. You thought you were the selfish one."

Addison smiled through the tears overflowing down her cheek. Derek leaned over and brushed them away.

"What I did – it's no worse than if I'd held a gun to her head and shot her." Derek said shakily.

"I know you. I know you would've loved her. You stopped yourself from falling down. I should've been the one to catch you. I should've known what to do." He said numbly. It was like he had been trying to put ice on his wound to heal the pain. It lessened the hurt, but time. Time had allowed him to understand his emotions.

"Derek," Addison whispered, "she's okay. I didn't want her either. Don't you think I haven't been feeling devastated all this time? I carried her inside of me for all of her life. I convinced myself I didn't love her. But it's over. She's gone. She wasn't meant to be."

Derek swallowed. It was still too much to bear. What could've been and what should've been – two very different possibilities. "I know." He said hoarsely.

"I believe in fate, Addison. What's meant to be will be. We have to remember that, and let it go, so we can both move on." Derek looked sadly at her. They both knew their fate was sealed. Fate. It had brought them together, and now would bring them back as one.

The wind howled. Addison Shepherd pulled her coat tighter around her body and glanced around at her surroundings.

Derek slowly reached for her hand and held it tenderly in his. He would never let go of her hand again.

"Are you ready?" He asked her nervously.

Addison exhaled slowly. "Yes," She said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Side by side, they walked past the gates of the cemetery and went to find her.

Addison's eyes welled as she read the inscription:

Wait for us there, Katie. We'll meet again in heaven.

Katie Rose Shepherd

Died August 17, 1999

Addison cried softly into Derek's shoulder. He stood there silently mourning, and then steadily wrapped his arms around a sobbing Addison. A moment of utter stillness drifted pass.

"I love you, Katie." He said at last, his voice strangly quiet.

"Do you think she knows, Derek?" Addison murmured.

Derek nodded, after a moment. "She knows, Addie. It wasn't goodbye."

That thought warmed Addison. Gone. She'd always hated that word. Gone meant never coming back. Katie wasn't gone. She was still alive in their thoughts and memories. A haunting flicker of a smile appeared on her delicately worn features, but it disappeared in a blink.

"Fate is not a false alarm." She repeated softly, to herself. It had gradually become her mantra.

Derek held her closer to him. Together, they walked out of the cemetery and into the real world.

They didn't speak. They didn't need to.Being in each other's presence was enough.Addison knew she'd always remember that day. Although Addison knew it wasn't the end, she still came back to Katie's 'resting place' for many years to come. She couldn't explain when, and shedidn't know how, but that hole inside of her– it was filled by the joy Derek had brought into her life. It had been filled knowing they both forgave and loved each other. It had been filled realising that goodbye is never the end.

It was filled by the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Rose Shepherd.

It was filled when she eventually, after such a long wait, understood that fate is not a false alarm.