A/N: And so it continues. Faster update than usual 'cause I had a three-day weekend. To get continued inspiration for this, I watched the "proposal" scene multiple times. And then put Could Be Anything on repeat. It was a fun time. As always, continual love to the reviewers.
Addison was on edge. She was watching Preston's every move, trying to interpret its meaning, barely paying attention to her own food, putting it into her mouth without savoring its taste. He would ask her questions and she wouldn't notice, until he prompted her and then she would have to request him to repeat what he had just said.
"Am I not interesting you?" he asked finally after asking for the third time if she wanted to split an order of beignets.
"Hmm? What? No! I mean yes. You are absolutely interesting me. Definitely." She propped her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands, looking straight at Preston. "Now. One more time."
"Would…you…like…to…share…beignets?" he asked slowly, enunciating every word carefully, but with a smile on his face.
"Yes, yes I would," Addison said, in part because she actually wanted to and also because she didn't feel like she could turn him down after he had asked four times. The only problem with beignets was that she couldn't even remotely pretend they were healthy. Preston would see her gluttony and be absolutely repulsed by it.
It wasn't that she was self-conscious about her eating habits; it's just that she thought it was better if you waited a while before exposing people to them. She could eat and she wasn't ashamed of it.
Addison smiled as the waiter set down a plate of the warm pastries in front of them. She reached for her fork, but set it down as Preston picked one up in his hands. "I never found much use for silverware when beignets were involved," he said and then took a large bite, sending powder sugar into the air.
That was all the prompting Addison needed, and she took the other one. "Have you," she started, her mouth half full, "ever been to Café du Monde and eaten their beignets?"
Preston allowed himself to swallow before talking. "They do have world famous beignets there. You've been to New Orleans?"
"Just once. But we were told that we absolutely had to go to the Café du Monde and experience their beignets. We ended up going there once a day. These are almost as delicious." Addison took a moment to wipe away the powdered sugar that was now probably covering her face. A black dress really was not appropriate beignet-eating attire.
"After four years at Tulane, I got my fair share of those beignets."
It struck Addison how little she did know about him. She had no idea that he had done his pre-med at Tulane. She had no idea where he completed his medical studies. To a doctor, these were some of the most important issues that someone else could know about them. "Where did you go to medical school?"
"I graduated first in my class from Johns Hopkins," he answered. It was part of his nature to throw in the gratuitous bit about his class rank. He was proud of it, and it partly defined his life as a surgeon. "Dr. Erica Hahn graduated in my class as well."
"I'm sure she must have been close behind you in rankings to have the kind of antagonistic relationship the two of you have." Addison had noticed the tension between the two of them during the O'Malley situation. Now that she knew it was driven by competition and not something else, she felt a little better. She even felt a little twinge of shame for allowing herself to feel jealous.
"She was second. It also helps that I don't let her forget it." Preston was never one to hide his faults. He had a competitive disposition and didn't see any reason to keep that a secret. Not that it was anything like a secret. Everyone knew that Preston Burke strived to be the best that he could be. It also happened that the best he could be usually happened to be better than anyone else. And he felt it was something he should be allowed to be proud about.
Addison knew that Preston was a cocky man. While in Seattle, she had often found herself getting irritated at his consistent need to be the winner and sometimes longed to take him down a notch. She still felt that way now, and bit her tongue before she let some nasty comment slip. Instead she changed the subject.
"What I can't forget are the words I picked up in Seattle. I still have yet to understand the vernacular there. I find myself slipping Mc into my sentences, using 'whatever' far too much, even though I despise both of those things, and it earns me very questioning looks from my co-workers. And I say seriously way too much."
"Seriously?" Preston looked innocently back at Addison, sure that she was repressing the urge to stick her tongue out at him. He liked that she had a playful underside to the professional exterior that he was used to "I blame that entire group of interns for my current vocabulary."
"When I visited Los Angeles, I made Naomi promise that we would never Mc anything and now I'm the one who uses it. When I explained the origin, she snorted." Addison took another bite of her beignet, sending another spray of white powder into the air.
"Well, at least you have something to remember Seattle by," Preston responded, pointing to his own mouth to indicate that Addison had a bit of sugar by hers. She wiped at it, in vain. He shook his head. "You didn't get it." He dabbed his napkin in his water glass and leaned over to clean it off.
Addison felt a little bit of a flutter as his hand touched her face. She ducked her head when he took his hand away to hide her blush. She cleared her throat and looked up at him. "What were we talking about? Oh, right. Something to remember Seattle by. Yes, the words that have infiltrated my vocabulary are something to remember Seattle by. There are other things too, like the fact that I stole about eight pens from the nurse's station, a pair of the salmon scrubs I used to wear, and a clean set of sheets from the clinic."
"And why did you need those?" He understood about the salmon scrubs. There was a certain nostalgic value to those, even if she had traded them in for the navy blue scrubs the other attendings wore. And pens, well, everyone took pens.
"The sheets on your bed, my friend." Addison wasn't sure if she wanted to call attention to the fact that Preston was sleeping on a twin bed. She had always meant to buy a larger bed, but it wasn't high on her list of things to do.
"I thought they looked familiar." He smiled. There were little things that added comfort to one's home. "So you save things."
"Yes, I save things. I like reminders of important events in my life." It was true. She didn't display them prominently, but she did keep them. Occasionally she allowed herself to go through them, to savor in the nostalgia.
"I have things like that, too. My favorite scrub cap, a picture of my grandmother, my Eugene Foote collection." These were the things that had made his apartment undeniably his. These were the things that he had taken from his apartment after his wedding-that-wasn't.
"Eugene Foote? That name sounds familiar. I mean, I realize he's famous, but it sounds more familiar than that."
"He was one of the best violinists, a personal hero of mine. And he was one of my patients." They sat in silence. Addison remembered that day now. That was the day she had started Alex Karev's career in obstetrics, the day she had tied a woman's tubes without her husband's knowledge, the day her reputation had been challenged. The day Preston Burke's hero had died. She reached over and squeezed his hand, the only thing she could do. He wasn't looking at her, and wiped his face with his free hand.
"So, you beat Dr. Hahn," she said after a while, doing her best to lighten the mood.
"Yes. Yes, I did." His voice was quieter, his attitude more subdued. It was not a day he liked to remember. Addison rubbed the top of his hand with her thumb. She didn't know if this was allowed with friends or if it was crossing a line, but she knew that she didn't actually care.
She hadn't seen Preston Burke in such a vulnerable state. It endeared him to her even further. So she was going to hold his hand and do her best to make him feel better. Because it's what friends did. It's what she did. So she held his hand.
A/N Again: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I watched some of Season Two while writing this, which is where some of the Eugene Foote stuff came in. And there is a real place called Café Du Monde, it really does have the best beignets ever, if you Google 'beignets', the second link that comes up is to their website. I recommend eating them as much as possible.