Sweet Derek, sweet, sweet, sometimes an asshole Derek but what if he's more asshole than sweet?

Warning. Domestic violence is the subject of this chapter.

I know Derek would (probably, because really anyone could be an abuser) never raise his hands on a woman but let's just say this is a what-if episode. . . .

He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss

Once, Derek beat Addison so bad she needed facial reconstruction surgery. Just once. Just one time he lost all control and everything went too far and it didn't stop until she was unconscious and Weiss had to pull him off and actually check her pulse because this time Derek might have gone all the way and wouldn't that be funny?

It was something about ... something she did? ... Or didn't do? Or, was it work related? That's all he can remember. Frustrated and needing to vent, needing to break something. And, as always, Addison was the first to volunteer.

Hindsight is 20/20 and now, as he sees it, the fact that he cannot even remember what he was so angry about, maybe, just maybe it shouldn't have mattered in the slightest. And maybe she didn't deserve what he did to her.

This was not the first time Derek had used his wife as a personal punching bag, not by a long shot. There are days when he returns to their home and just has to destroy. And Addison, like the good dog she is, takes it without protest.

It isn't abuse if it's consensual right?

Except it still kind of is when Derek cracks her ribs with a kick or knocks a few teeth out of place. He always take her to the same private doctor, who asks her the same questions once Derek is out of the room.

"Do you need me to call someone?"

"No."

"Addison, he's abusing you."

And it sounds so ridiculous that she can't help but burst out laughing.

"I know."

"Then, why aren't you doing anything about it?!"

She gives the doctor a smug smile, which catches the man off guard and he quickly scribbles something on his clipboard.

Not Stockholm, something different. Something … worse, somehow.

She likes it.

"You wouldn't get it." she mutters, suddenly annoyed.

Maybe Derek's mood swings are rubbing off on her. Maybe she's just tired of being the victim.

There's blood on both of their hands, it's not like she doesn't hit back, (Archer had taught her how to throw a punch in seventh grade) just not as hard, she doesn't want to break Derek. She is not as determined as he always is in breaking her. But it's not like she can, even if she tried. She is only but a woman.

She doesn't know what's going on in the other's head, and that scares her, even just a little bit.

Because today he's lovely but tomorrow, he's the man she did not marry.

The first time it happened, they were fighting about something ridiculous and she had honestly believed him when he said it was an accident. His hand had slammed backward across her face because they were both tired and bitching and he had said something so crazy she thought he was kidding, so she laughed. She had lost her balance, felt stupid strewn across the floor, his mortified face staring down at her in horror.

He had cried, honest to God cried, as he got ice for her jaw, apologising with such anguish that her gut had twisted as he held the ice to her face, and she had shook her head and brushed him off with laughter, because of course he hadn't meant it.

It was Derek - sweet, gentle, loving, funny Derek.

She didn't notice how and when it all started escalating because she's not smart enough, because she's too busy patching every rough edge of their relationship with great sex and little declarations of love that would fly right over his head.

When he'd be lovely, he would kiss her mouth slowly and tenderly, kissing a path to her jaw, and he'd say, "You make me crazy."

Addison would smiled, blinking slowly, never thinking those words will be used as an excuse next time.

And that next time had her hiding behind a medical journal, mechanically turning the pages and pretending to read as Derek walked back and forth, words tumbling from his mouth in apology, followed by excuses about how tired he was, how work was on his mind, had him so tense. The tension, he said, just builds and builds and he couldn't control it. He couldn't control it when Addison wouldn't back off.

Why couldn't she just back off? Why couldn't she just leave it alone? is what he'd scream at her and she'd too do the same to herself later.

Why couldn't she just back off? Why couldn't she just leave it alone?

Derek gritted his teeth, shaking his head. "Jesus. Why do you do this? Why do you have to make me so crazy?"

Addison ignored Derek, now the apology had turned into nothing more than accusations. She looked at the words on the page instead, as blurred as they were. She felt embarrassed. She should be angry, but mostly she felt humiliated by the shock of having someone lift a hand to strike her.

You don't expect it, for someone you love to hurt you in that way. How embarrassing it is to love them, still.

The magazine was pulled from her hand and thrown aside. Addison looked up at Derek, glaring with open hostility. Derek looked frustrated, contrite. He was waiting for her to absolve him without having to offer another word of explanation. He was hoping she would make it easy for him, the way she went out of her way to make everyone happy.

Derek kneeled down on the floor, taking her hands in his own. "I am so sorry. I was an ass. I ... there's no excuse."

Addison listened impassively. All she could think of was that moment when his hand came up, hard against her face. The moment of silent shock, shared by them both. Now Derek reached out with a hand to touch the two day old bruise. Addison flinched away, seeing the yellowing colours of her bruise vividly in her mind.

"It's getting late," she said. "I'm going to bed. Alone."

Derek nodded slowly, rising to his feet. Addison pointedly didn't watch him, looking at the fire instead. Though she heard when Derek spoke, still hovering nearby. "You know, sometimes I think if I didn't have you in my life, I'd be a totally different person. Someone I wouldn't like. I think you make me a better man, Addison. I don't know what I'd do if I ended up losing you."

Derek turned to sit back down on the sofa, but was stopped from going any further by her hand on his wrist. He looked down at her with a frown, seeing that she has finally decided to look him in the eyes. "Come," she said quietly. "Let's go to bed"

Derek puts his hand over hers, pulling him to his feet. She allowed him to pull her close, still not exactly as pliable as she usually might be. Derek is staring at the bruise on her face again. He reached out and gently traced his fingers around the swelling. Addison made a sound, grimacing when pain flared up like a live wire.

Derek withdrew his hand immediately. "I'm so sorry. God, Addie."

"It's fine," she said. "You already said sorry. Saying it again and again won't take back what you did. Just ... don't you ever dare do that again. I mean it." she stopped, her voice cracking.

That wasn't even the fourth time he had raised a hand on her.

She should be angry, and rightly embarrassed. It's this strange gripping grief she doesn't really understand, the way it has her heart in a clench.

Derek nodded. "It won't. I swear."

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. So very tight.

That was a lie.

Because it happens how it usually does, unexpected and with no inkling in the air or a heads up. Like when they were both watching television.

It was ... she had lost count after the eighth time.

She'd dodge or cover her face with her arms because she can't afford to get socked in the face often. It's a lot harder to cover a shiner and a split lip from coworkers, patients and the general public, than it is to cover up bruises on the rest of her body.

Because this particular time, he had grabbed the back of her neck and smashed her up against the wall. She didn't even know what she'd done wrong. He didn't even have to have a reason anymore.

"Let go," she said with a shudder, shocked, but not so shocked she won't try to regain some control. "Get your hands off me."

"Why do you do this? Why do you have to make me so crazy?"

"Derek! Stop!"

"I told you. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Please," she said quietly, trying reason as a tactic. "Derek. You're hurting me."

Derek frowned at her. Then, he suddenly let go, stepping backwards. Addison gripped her own wrist, shaking now that he wasn't in her space. She slipped down the wall, down into a crouch, holding herself, trying to tell herself what was happened and what she was supposed to do.

Derek was pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his hair. He kicked at an already fallen chair, which made her flinch and hate herself a little. She should be stronger than this. She should see it coming. She should fight back. But how could she when he had her pinned to the wall, wrist and all? She told herself. Derek walked back to her, who could do no more than stare at her past her new bruises.

He fell to his knees, reaching out but not touching. The apologies started early, with tears. She listened to them all night, not moving, not speaking, promising herself this will be the last time. Never again. She sat there against the wall and listened to Derek until she was tired and worn out. Until she couldn't fight Derek's hand when he helped up from the floor and up the stairs, limping into their bedroom. So tired that when Derek laid her down and spooned up behind her with tender promises of love and regretful apologies, she just drifted off to sleep, pretending the arms around her could only bring comfort.

The problem lies with his changeable moods. Because in one week, he has the ability to show several sides of himself.

On Monday, he had come back home with a smile and champagne. His kisses were tender, his words were softly spoken into her ear and across her mouth.

On Tuesday, he had phoned her at work and made her laugh, every word carefully chosen just to make her laugh. And later that evening, he had laughed when she pulled him inside the house and dragged him upstairs, straight to bed.

On Wednesday, he'd climbed into bed with her, holding her tight, holding her close, sighing with contentment and waking her with a kiss in the middle of the night.

On Thursday, they'd dined with Sam, a good friend of Addison from high school, whom she had bumped into one day at Dean DeLuca. The meal was pleasant as the conversation. Sam was his usual amiable self and Addison laughed at all things as she was prone to do. She was just being polite. Derek's smiles were tight. There was something dark lurking around his eyes. It made her worry, even as they lay in bed that night, Derek thrusting hard into her with a strange quiet determination.

On Friday, she mistakenly said, 'don't be stupid' about something that doesn't really matter and Derek flew into a rage that ended with obscene questions like whether she was fucking Sam. Whether she thought anyone would actually want her, as if she was the most awful person imaginable.

On Saturday, he returned for a drunken apology that went nowhere. He tried to kiss and cajole, Addison had to push him away. The punches was inevitable when it came, taking her down to the floor. Reeling as she was, she fought back, landing kicks and blows, screaming and crying and throwing anything she could get her hands on at him.

The one time she remembers to fight back again, she gets herself arrested. The neighbours had called the police and they had identified her as the 'primary aggressor' since Derek was the one on the floor, bleeding from where she had pitched a wine bottle at him.

That happened over five years ago.

Now, the thing that refrains her from fight back every time is the worry that she might hurt Derek.

Lying on the floor later, Addison wonders why Derek has never worried about hurting her.

So, it ends up being about her forgetting to mail in a stupid cheque for his gym membership (it's always something she did or didn't do! Why couldn't he have gone and mail it himself? She's busy too.) and Derek slams the door open, storms into their home, and grabs Addison by the neck. At first, she is aroused, thinking that she's getting some rough, hate sex in the next few minutes. But Derek quickly backhands her, hard, and wipes any hope of sex from her mind.

It starts as it always does, he punches her in the stomach, catching her off guard before kicking her feet out from under her. When she hits the floor, Derek kicks her again, this time in the back, which draws a howl from her chapped lips and a plea for him to stop.

He keeps kicking her for a while, making sure that she doesn't make any move to get up, fight back, no chance of escaping. When Derek thinks she's got the picture, he gets down and straddles her chest. That's about when the control starts to slip.

"Why do you do this? Why do you have to make me so crazy?"

It's always the same.

"Why do you have to embarrass me?"

He starts waling on her, punching her face over and over again, drawing blood and a few choked cries from the other.

He usually stops when he hears something crack, but not this time. Derek keeps hitting her, blood splattering on her shirt and Addison's hand comes up to stop him but he grabs and breaks the wrist before she has a chance.

Derek doesn't remember much after that, doesn't know how long he beat her for.

He vaguely remembers her best friend shouting, screaming, Weiss throwing him off of Addison - oh right, they were all supposed to go out on a double date - and grabbing at her, who has stopped moving at this point. Derek sits back against the wall, breathing heavily and staring at his work.

Savvy is yelling again, demanding that Derek call an ambulance, no more of this private doctor bullshit, and Derek does, even though he can't feel the mobile in his hands and doesn't hear anything the 911 operator says.

When the ambulance arrives, the paramedics quickly take note that Derek is covered in blood, his knuckles scarred and likely fractured. They say nothing though, leave that to whomever takes Addison's case - which no one will. He will make sure of that.

Weiss and Savvy doesn't let Derek go to the hospital, which he would normally scoff at and remark with 'And who exactly are you to tell me what I can and can't do?' But this time … he feels his mind is too far from his body and doesn't trust himself. Savvy does call Mark though, who shows up at the brownstone to find Derek curled up in bed.

"It was an accident, wasn't it?" he says.

"I don't know." His voice is shaky and he still can't understand what just happened.

Mark sits on the edge of the bed, hand moving to touch Derek's hair. Not petting, just a comfortable pressure.

"You might've killed her." he says, voice dead.

"I know."

He doesn't kill her, but he gets damn close. Addison's jaw is near shattered, dislocated, and four of her teeth have been punched out, eight of them out of place. Her nose is broken and she has an optical fracture. That last one makes Derek freeze over.

He hit her hard enough to crack her skull. Her fucking eye socket is broken.

His wife doesn't wake up for three days, not dead, and her body is desperately trying to keep it that way. He starts making phone calls, determined to get Addison the best fucking plastics doctor money can buy. It doesn't matter what sort of hole it will put him in, he needs that face to be exactly how it was before he ... he ...

He ...

He doesn't show up at the hospital - half because her father and brother had vowed up and down to kill him if he ever showed his face. Or at the very least reciprocate the favour. Tit for tat. They've dug a hole for him already, they said, where he'd be buried alive. And it's not six feet deep.

Only his mother comes to see him, not his sisters, they're too ashamed to call him brother, tells him she doesn't know what she had done wrong, or who he is anymore.

He doesn't too.

His own mother couldn't even look at him.

Even when it's the day before surgery and even though it's plastics there's still that risk with every surgery, every anaesthesia. Mark asks why and is met with a startling but expected answer.

"I don't want to see what I've done."

The surgery goes as planned, successful, there would be heads on sticks if it hadn't, and Addison is given her face back but it's swollen and stitched together near crudely. Savvy supposes there is only so much you can do after your face is beaten into a wet, red mess. But the swelling will go down and some of the scars will heal.

Some of them.

The first thing Addison asks for when she wakes up is Derek. And really, no one is surprised. Her father sighed loudly, disappointed that she still hadn't learned her lesson. Her mother refrains from saying, 'I told you've was no good'. Archer does, scoffing before exiting the room with a resounding thud from slamming the door.

"You are not to see that monster, Addison. Ever." her mother says, voice shaking at the sight of her unrecognisable daughter, "You will come back home to Connecticut. We'll take care of you. You'll get a job. We'll help you with what you need. But you are never going back to him."

"I need to see him, mommy." she begs, words falling out of her mouth like sand and jaw hanging open a little. It's hard to talk with a healing jaw, she finds, and the morphine slurs her words too much.

In spite of the nature of her request, Addison is basically blind for the time being. There really is so much one can see with bandages and gauze covering half her face and her 'good' eye swollen shut.

"Did he ever come?" she asks Weiss, who holds her hand by the bed. Weiss is about Derek's size and height and that almost have the same curly hair, subtly hoping that Addison would not notice, and if he could just get his voice right then maybe … maybe she would be fall for it.

But of course she doesn't, even though she can't even see him. She knows, somehow. Of course, she knows.

"Weiss?"

He hesitates before answering. "N-no ... He never came."

Even with all the bandages and gauze, he can see Addison's face fall and his own heart breaks.

Savvy calls Archer the next morning, after Weiss told her of how Addison had exhaust herself by crying all night because Derek never, not even once, came by to see her.

"That bastard's a coward. He beat her to a pulp and now, you want me to talk him into seeing my sister. No. He beat her so bad she can't see -" Archer said into the phone before chuckling, "it's good, you know, she can't see yet because that is not her nose."

"Archer."

"My sister is stupid. She doesn't know what's good for her even if it's handed to her on a silver platter. I'm not handing her back to that sick bastard. How many times does he have to beat her for her ..." she can hear the crack in his voice, then. It takes about a minute before he speaks again. "She should have left him years ago."

"Archer." Savvy looks nervous, peering at Addison who sleeps in the hospital bed beside him, "I think ... I think she might check out."

"Check out of the hospital? Why?"

"No. I mean ... Have you ever seen someone with a thousand-mile stare?"

There is a short pause, Savvy can almost hear Archer's jaw tighten.

"I'll see what I can do." And he hangs up the phone.

Addison is in brutal, horrible pain. The doctors are worried that too much morphine will affect the healing of her concussion, so they lower the dosage. The result is mind splitting pain in her jaw and face. Addison can't even speak because it hurts to move her mouth even a fraction. She just moans and whines like a hound until she passes out from exhaustion. Bizzy is there with her every day, and Mark and Savvy comes when they can but ... some days it's too much. Seeing her in so much pain ... it starts to affect them in a bad way.

Archer goes to see his sister two days after Savvy's phone call, five days after he stormed out of her hospital room. Her face is wet with tears and has been reduced to a sobbing mess. She isn't coherent when he sees her and that's concerning.

"Addison, can you look at me?" the eldest Montgomery says, "Look here, Addie. It's me, Archie. You don't have to move your head, just your eyes. Can you see me?"

There is no response. She just stares straight ahead, lost and confused.

The doctors claim that it's due to the concussion, and that if it persists for too long, they'll do another MRI.

"It's been a month." Is what Archer says when he finally tracks Derek down. The criminal had disappeared not long after the surgery. He is hiding in a safe house in Brooklyn.

Yes, hiding.

The criminal is afraid.

"You have to go and see her."

The criminal glares at him.

"But you said -"

"I know what I said. But when did you start listening? Because I also said to never hurt my sister."

"You don't know anything, none of you do."

"I don't care. I don't want to know what it is. All I know is you put her in the hospital and you're going to go see her."

"I don't want to see her!"

"Addison is getting worse!" Archer shouts.

He hasn't shouted like that since he was just a child. Too many uncomfortable memories of his father forced him to keep an inside voice. But every once in a while, you need to be heard.

Right?

Derek flinches, staring at him with a wild expression, half angry, half surprised.

Archer continues. "She won't talk anymore. She just stares at the wall. Look, her last memory of you was you beating the shit out of her. Addison needs to know that she's safe and that you love her."

"I don't -"

"Okay! Fine, you don't want to see her. That's fine. All she needs to hear is your voice. Just make sure she knows that you love her and you're there for her. Because she's not going to get better if you keep hiding from her. You have to be there."

For a reason Archer doesn't quite understand.

Derek is silent for a long time.

"Well … What are you going to do?"

For the first time in a month, Derek knows.

Addison wakes up from another medication induced sleep to feel Derek's hand in hers. She can't really see him, but she knows that this time it's not Weiss. No more pretending.

"Took you long enough." she mutters in a gravely voice, raw from not speaking for days.

Derek almost feels like laughing, or crying. Because it's so like Addison to make a stupid joke out of her trauma. It's so like them.

"You look like shit." Derek tells her in a confident voice.

Addison works out a chuckle, but the pain starts to seep back in and it turns into a choked noise.

"Yeah, you should see me under the bandages. Some crazy asshole did a real number on me."

He worries for a millisecond that Addison has amnesia, but even behind the bandages he can make out that all knowing smirk.

"Must have been real crazy, scuffing up that pretty face of yours."

She squeezes his hand as the pain starts to come back in bigger waves, her face going red from trying to hold it in.

"Yeah ... real crazy."

Derek does not leave her, even with Archer watching him, he stays through the storm of pain and is still there in the calm. They are not okay, it would be stupid to assume that they would be. Addison is broken and it's Derek's fault. Neither of them are fine, even as they laugh about each other's misfortune.

But they will be, someday. Even if it's at the brink of their own demise, they'll be okay eventually.