Christmas Eve 2002
He drove as fast as he could, heart clenching as he saw the time.
11:47 pm.
And in the busy streets of New York this Christmas season, there's no hope reaching the Brownstone in time.
He kept hearing vibrations from his phone with Mark's thousand missed calls…
… and none from Addie.
The moment he got home, his stomach dropped as he saw the dimly lit windows. The flickering Christmas lights were hunting him, like a Christmas nightmare.
He ran a hand through his hair and took in a deep breath, opening the doors. The temperature inside was lower than the normal Christmas cold, the frostbites much more hurtful this time around.
The silence had never been so loud, the moment his eyes landed on his wife, playing around a half-empty glass of wine, two empty bottles in front of her. She heard him enter for sure, yet she did not show any signs of acknowledging his presence.
"There's a pile—ah, emergencies… Sorry, Addie. It got so busy," He said, rushing out the words, an attempt to let her speak, not daring to breathe.
A moment's hesitation.
A five-second pause.
A barely lingering touch.
A tight-lipped smile.
He tried not to overthink things, tried not to put meanings in the littlest actions. He knows all too well that she's going to wrap her arms around him, and kiss him, and say—
"I understand, Derek." See? He held her tightly in his arms and they stayed there for a while, him relishing in the comfort of coming home to Addison.
"Happy Christmas."
The signs were there, pushed at the back of his mind, long forgotten. Yet now, as he drove around Seattle, everything he's ever known overturned, like a bus toppling over the edge. He kept remembering things he wished he didn't, all his lapses, his shortcomings.
I wished I never married you.
Suddenly, all those laughs from the recent years of their marriage paled in comparison to when she said yes, or when they spent their first night in the Brownstone… back when they were still happy.
The laughs, the touches that he held on to, now fake. The distant eyes, the half-hearted smile, all boiling down to the glaring fact that it was also his fault. The flashes of Addison's sadness from his fading presence fought with the memories of their genuine smiles.
I didn't notice, Addison.
He kept coming up with different words, different ways to approach, to demand more answers.
As he stalled going back to the trailer, the ball inside his chest grew, and he knew the only way to calm down was to go back and talk to her.
To tell her promises he will now keep.
… only, she wasn't there.
He kept looking around, inside the trailer, anywhere in the land, the emptiness making him feel lightheaded—
He let so much time fly by, inflicting the knife deeper in Addison's wounds and now she's gone.
She wasn't anywhere—her rented car and traveling bag nowhere to be seen.
She left some of her clothes, her shoes, her valuables...
She left her signature on the divorce papers.
And as he held the document with barely dried ink, all he could do was stare at the words "Montgomery-Shepherd", and how he wanted to keep seeing them, to keep hearing them, to keep saying them…
… because it was the only way things could make sense to him.
All he knew was what he's known since their eyes met over the cadaver, since he asked him to marry her: she is the love of his life and no matter how tainted their memories are now, he wanted her back.