You Don't Really Care for Music, Do You?
They entered the trailer with as few words as they had exchanged on their drive home. Addison walked over and sat on the bed removing her jewelry. Derek stood at the front of trailer and ran his hands through his hair thinking about how exactly he was going to say what he needed to.
Finally he gathered the courage to speak.
"Addison, we need to talk."
"Ok" She sat up straight and looked at him, dreading what was coming next.
"I can't do this anymore." He took a breath and looked up to see Addison's shaken expression. "We keep saying that we're trying, but I haven't been honest, and I haven't been trying. We've both changed too much to go back to the way things were. I don't want to keep pretending that things are alright when they aren't and I don't want to hurt you anymore. Addison, I can't love you the way you need to be loved, the way you should be loved. Too much has happened."
Addison sat there quietly for a moment.
"Addison?"
"There was no patient you had to look in on tonight, was there?"
"What?" She knew.
"You were with her, tonight. You left me and you went to be with her." She stood up and swiped at her eyes and pulled a piece of hair behind her ear. "I am such an idiot."
Derek walked towards her.
"Addison, I am so-" She slapped his hand away and glared at him.
"Are you happy now Derek!" She shouted "Are we finally even, is this what you wanted, well congratulation, you win."
With that she grabbed her keys and ran out of the trailer to her car and sped off. Derek flopped down on the bed letting out the breath he didn't know he had been holding in since Addison had first arrived in Seattle and he had broken up with Meredith to try to make things work again. This hurt like hell, but it had to be done. He had finally ripped the band-aid off the wound that they had both been fighting like hell to cover-up with denial and small talk. The wound was raw and angry and finally exposed- but it could now begin to heal after years of festering.
Christina Yang didn't accept weakness. As she had told the Chief earlier, she had an edge. When she was little she had watched "The Philadelphia Story" with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Even now there was one line she still remembered and always liked to think that it applied to her.
Strength is her religion, Mr. Kittredge
Strength had been her religion, and it had served her well. She had earned a B.A from Smith and a PhD/MD from Stanford. But her religion hadn't prepared her for this. It hadn't prepared her for seeing her a friend distraught with grief or her boyfriend, a man she could honestly now say she loved, near death and with a possible career ending injury. She understood what if felt like now to be weak and realized that she and Burke needed each other more than ever. Burke was weak now too, and he needed her to be strong, to be there for him.
"Burke?"
"Hm?" His voice was groggy from the pain killers they had given him.
"I love you." There it was. She had said it to him before, but only when he was asleep and she was sure he couldn't hear her.
He looked at her slightly confused. This wasn't at all like Christina. But his mouth formed a smile.
"I love you too."
She leaned over and kissed him, a deeply felt kiss. Sitting back in the chair next to the bed she watched as he drifted into sleep. So much had changed since she had come here to Seattle Grace. Before coming here she could take people or leave them. She had "friends" before, but they were mainly study groups she had hung out with. She had also had the occasional boyfriend, even a girlfriend once. But those were less for companionship and more for the sake of having someone to screw. Now though, she had a family; a group of people who needed her and who she knew like it or not, she needed in equal measure. And Burke was more than just a casual fling. He was her hero, her mentor, and quite possibly the love of her life. She needed him to be ok, for both of them.
