Daddy's Little Girl

Hi! Okay, so here's another update and it's longer that the others but from now on there won't be too much from the old story in there.

I hope you like it anyway because I really don't want them to rush this, so, we're going slow. AND! I have absolutely no clue if it's just a certain scent that would attract a bear, but I did have to laugh when I read that cougars really are attracted by some Calvin Klein cologne :D


Chapter Six - Attracting Bears

"Go out with me," Derek stated simply and turned towards her, suddenly invading her personal space.

"I… uhm, whoa, what?" She took a step back, her eyes widened in shock. "I thought we were just talking."

"I like you," he sighed and looked right into her eyes.

Addison stood there, completely taken aback and too baffled to even answer him. He had asked her out and then he had told her that he liked her. It was just too much to comprehend at the moment. She knew that everyone must think that she was completely clueless about her own feelings but the truth was that she knew that she liked him too but she also knew that she felt guilty for moving on with her life so soon or for just moving on at all. Back in New York Addison had hated to be treated like the grieving widow who had lost the love of her life and needed to be pitied but even without anyone feeling sorry for her she just felt broken and like no one deserved being put through that.

"You don't even know me," she whispered and tried to avoid looking at him. They had just met and she was convinced that he had no idea what he was getting into. She had a daughter and had just lost her husband; this wasn't what anyone should burden themselves with.

"I want to get to know you. Give me a chance, Addison." He took another step towards her and tilted her chin up so that she was looking right into his eyes again. When Addison opened her mouth to speak Derek quickly cut her off before she could turn him down again. "We don't even have to go out on a date or anything. Just as friends." Of course she knew that there couldn't be anything like 'just friends' between them but it made her feel more at ease so she nodded her head in reply, still hardly able to form a sentence.

xxx

Derek was walking along the pale hospital halls, something that he really disliked about hospitals – the lack of color and life. Suddenly his musings were interrupted by a little girl tripped and then fell onto the floor in front of him so Derek rushed over to help her up when he saw that it was Grace.

"Thank you," she smoked at him once he had helped her up.

"You know, for someone named Grace, you're really not that graceful," Derek chuckled when Grace tripped again but this time didn't fall.

"And you really don't have enough sheep around to be named Shepherd," the little girl replied with a grin on her face because even she knew that this comeback had been pretty good.

"Touché," he admitted with a laugh. "Are you looking for your mom?"

"Well… Kind of… Auntie Adele and I are playing hide and seek."

"Oh, are you now?" He chuckled, not really able to picture Adele playing hide and seek.

Grace nodded her head before turning a little more serious, "so, did you ask my mommy out yet?"

"Wha-" Derek figured he now had the same shocked look on his face as Addison did earlier when he had tried to ask her out.

"She likes you and you like her. That means that you're supposed to ask her out and then kiss her on the porch when you bring her home on your third date." She saw the look on his face and continued, "I watch Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90120 and Dawson's Creek with mommy."

"Your mom watches that?" Derek didn't know whether he was surprised or amused because he never would have thought.

"Yes, she says that and Keeping up with the Kardashians is," She paused to think of the word her mother had used, "compensating her job." Grace shrugged her shoulders because she really had no clue what 'compensating really meant but if her mother said it then it had to make sense.

"Okay, that sounds reasonable," Derek tried to hide his chuckle when he pictured Addison Montgomery, one of the best neo natal surgeons of their time watching Keeping up with the Kardashians.

"Grace! There you are!" They turned around to see Adele coming up behind her, a relieved expression on her face.

"She didn't know you were playing hide and seek, did she?" Derek whispered so that Adele couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Not so much…" She looked at the ground before looking back at Adele. "Derek wants to ask mommy out!"

This was enough to change the expression on Adele's face and she now raised her eyebrows at Derek.

"I never said that," he told Adele quickly, the last thing he needed was Richard thinking that he not only wanted to date a colleague but also the very same colleague who was staying with their boss and had just lost her husband. "Your mommy and I are just good friends," Derek said softly when he had turned back towards Grace.

"But that's not true!" Grace protested and gave Derek a look. Why were grown ups so stupid some times?!

"Come on, Grace, Derek has to work," Adele said quickly and took the little girl's hand. "How about we have some lunch?"

Gracie nodded reluctantly and waved at Derek. "Bye!" She knew that there was no way she could argue with grown ups about this. Maybe she should just work out some sort of plan like those kids on 'The Parent Trap'.

"Dr. Montgomery," Derek had come up behind Addison who was standing in front of the OR board and he could see that she was off for lunch just like he was since they had just finished rounds. "How about a friendly lunch?" Maybe using the term 'friendly' had just made this anything but breezy but he really wanted to convince her that he wanted to get to know her.

"Oh, I'm all set." She held up a granola bar from the vending machine, still not turning around because he was standing so close to her.

"Come on, that's hardly lunch and I promise to leave you alone completely. Just want you to eat properly." Derek shrugged his shoulders and came to stand next to her, a grin on his face.

Addison hated that he made her feel like a silly schoolgirl with that smile of his. She was smart and a surgeon, for god's sakes! "Of course you are." She turned towards him and raised her eyebrows. "Where do you want to go?"

"I know just the place," he motioned for the door to the stairwell.

"Oh, is Prince Charming really taking me to the stairwell for lunch?" She teased him and walked towards the heavy door that he held open for her. To be completely honest, she had not once used the stairs at Seattle Grace before.

"Nope, but you can't get where I want to take you when you use the elevator," he laughed and nudged her playfully, leading the way up to their destination.

"The roof?" Addison raised her eyebrows at him when he held the door open and she saw two deck chairs in a corner under a roofed part of building.

"Yes, mi lady, is that not to your liking?" He set the takeout containers down on the small table between them.

"So you already got enough food for both of us but how did you know I would even say yes?" She sat down in one of the chairs and tried to hide her smile when she realized that the view from up there was more than breath taking.

"Easy, no woman can resist me." When she turned towards him she could see the grin on his face, indicating that he was just joking.

"Of course," Addison had to laugh but knew that he probably had a point. He felt so familiar, as if she had known him all her life and as if he could make all her worries disappear magically.

"So, Dr. Montgomery, how are you liking Seattle so far?"

"Well, Dr. Shepherd," she chuckled and rolled her eyes, "I think I now actually like it better here." Addison gave him a smile. They had talked a little during lunch and she had admired Seattle from up on the roof.

"I'm glad, it really isn't so bad here. You can hike and camp just a little out of town," he stopped and looked the woman opposite from him up and down and had to laugh, "but I guess you're not really into that, are you?"

"Uhm… No." She had to laugh as well and blushed a little. Of course she didn't wear heels and pencil skirts at home but camping and hiking had never really been her favourite way to pass time. "My husband always took Grace camping, she loved it… Maybe I should have come with them," her voice sounded sad and broken and she looked back at the city.

"You can still take Grace now," Derek told her softly and rubbed her upper arm. He knew how much the death of someone you love could break a person and he knew that his mother had never been the same after his father had passed away.

"Oh, no, I would get eaten by a bear, a mountain lion," she had to laugh slightly and shook her head. "Chris went on and on about how my perfume attracted bears that one time I actually did agree to hiking and camping that one time…"

"You didn't know that before?"

"No! Well… I thought he was just teasing me with this list of stuff I couldn't bring and what I couldn't do and what not." She rolled her eyes at the memory. How was she supposed to know all of that was real?

"Okaaaay," Derek had to laugh, "so you really attracted a bear?"

"Yes and I thought it was going to kill us… But thankfully some ranger or whatever scared it off."

"Are you serious?" He was still laughing. "In all those years of camping and hiking I was only able to watch those animals from a distance and you go once and nearly die?"

"Shut up, it really wasn't funny." She tried her best not to laugh when she saw the look on his face. This had been one of Christopher's favourite stories to tell their friends even though he had not been too pleased when it happened.

"I hope you never wore perfume while hiking in the mountains again…"

"I never went with him again after he actually made me wash it off in this insanely cold creek."

By now Derek was laughing loudly when he saw that she was laughing as well. "Yeah, I probably would have done the same. You're a dangerous woman to be around."

"Oh, you two would have gotten along so well." She shook her head since Christopher had always told her the same.

"So, what else do you do when you're not playing the bear whisperer?"

"I work. And go wherever Grace wants to go, you know, sometimes I even get to watch some TV," she chuckled, it really wasn't often they had time away from work.

"Mhm, so, you preferred Dawson and Joey or Dawson and Jen?" He asked nonchalantly but had to laugh at the look she gave him. "Your daughter told me," he explained.

"I never really liked Dawson because he just always cries about everything but the more important question here is how you know that?"

"I have four sisters, I was always forced to watch stuff like that."

"The first season came out in 1998, there's no way you were still forced to watch that!" Addison laughed at the look on his face, just like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Well, you watch Keeping up with the Kardashians!" Yes, it really was all he could come up with but it would do to divert attention from his knowledge of Dawson's Creek.

"You really have to stop talking to my daughter without me…"

"Oh, someone is embarrassed, huh?" He teased her, glad to see her so completely relaxed.

"Don't say 'huh', I always tell Grace that," she started but was interrupted by Derek.

"That people who say 'huh' don't graduate high school, let alone university."

"Hmm, you've heard that too," Addison gave him a smile. Throughout their conversation she had kept inching just a little closer towards him and was now sitting right next to him.

"Yes, but gladly I did manage to graduate university, a good one, I might add, so we have to get back to work… As much as I hate to say it." His last sentence had caused another smile to appear on her beautiful face.

xxx

"So, I hear that I have to have a serious conversation with Shepherd?" Richard raised his eyebrows at Addison when they were standing in the kitchen after dinner that same night.

Addison blushed, her face now bright red. Oh no, Adele had told him what Grace had said earlier about Derek asking her out on a date. Of course Adele had asked her about it earlier and she had only rolled her eyes and brushed it off but of course Adele hadn't bought it.

"Because both of you were late for the staff meeting," Richard explained. He had seen both of them sneaking in and had intended on teasing Addison but maybe there was a little more to it?

"Oh, uhm, that, right, we were just having lunch. As friends." She cursed her rambling and how nervous this topic made her. She wasn't even ready to deal with the feelings she had for Derek so talking about it made her very uncomfortable.

"Must have been a very nice lunch." Richard only grinned at her and walked out of the kitchen again. He hadn't missed to notice her chipper mood after lunch.


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