A/N: Here it is, the last chapter. Thank you all so much for indulging my love of Burke/Addison.

The day after Addison left, Preston spent a good deal of time in the maternity ward watching the babies. Alex Karev shot him several questioning glances whenever they were in close proximity, but since Preston had become involved with Addison, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of enmity towards the former intern.

"Why the sudden interest in babies?" Shepherd asked, catching Preston while he was eating lunch.

"A friend just clued me in their ability to lift one's spirits," he replied, hoping that the fact that he hadn't looked up from his magazine would clue Shepherd into the fact that he wasn't interested in conversation.

"What friend? And why do you need your spirits lifted?" Derek either couldn't take the hint or didn't want to, because he pulled out the empty chair next to Preston and seated himself in it.

"I'm not entirely sure that's any of your business." Preston flipped the page and did his best to sound both distracted and bored.

"We're friends," Shepherd said, and Preston's head shot up at that.

"No, no we are not friends." Preston found that the feeling of enmity also extended to Addison's ex-husband.

"Well, we used to be. So why are you out of sorts?" Shepherd and progressed to his cheekiest, most pleased with himself state and Preston wasn't quite sure he could handle it.

"I am missing my friend. She came to visit this past weekend and now she is gone. Please let me eat my lunch!" Preston practically exploded the last bit, causing Shepherd to shy a bit. He felt that any piece of information would satisfy Shepherd and that he would leave.

"Well all right, then," Shepherd said, but didn't leave and merely started to eat his own lunch. Preston sighed and resigned himself to a meal with the neurosurgeon.

---

"Come over for dinner," Addison said, leaning against the counter in the break room, digging through her lunch sack.

"And what would we be eating?" Naomi asked, flashing a skeptical look in Violet's direction.

"Chicken and pasta." Addison took a large bite out of her peach.

"You know how to cook pasta and chicken?" Naomi looked quite disbelieving.

"Preston taught me."
"Is that what you did last weekend? I expected more out of you, Addison." Addison responded to Naomi's statement with a mock embarrassed shrug and a smirk.

"Or did you bring him back with you and are now keeping him locked in your house? Because I would." Violet ate a bite of salad, clearly contemplating what it would be like to have Preston in her house.

"Every week or so, he teaches me a new recipe over the phone. It's like Rachael Ray but not nearly as annoying."

"What is?" Cooper asked, walking in and heading towards the refrigerator.

"Preston Burke's Phone Cooking 101," Violet answered, a little bit of dressing dribbling out of her mouth and she wiped it away with an embarrassed look at Cooper.

"That's what your phone conversations consist of? Cooking? I would have expected more of you, Addison," Cooper said, with a suggestive hint in his voice so they would all know what he was referring to.

"Just because it's something you enjoy, Cooper, does not mean we all can," Violet replied, rolling her eyes and Cooper muttered something about 'at least he didn't have dressing all over his face.'

"Or want to," Naomi added and Addison made noises of agreement emphatically through her mouthful of fruit.

"It's one of our rules," she said once she had swallowed.

"Rules?" Cooper looked a little doubtful. "You have rules?"

"Yes, we have rules. Now are you going to come over for dinner or not?" she asked, hurriedly trying to change the subject.

"If we come, will you tell us these…rules?" Naomi added a low seductive tone to her question.

Addison shrugged with a grin. "Just come. I could use the company."

"You must be desperate, if you're inviting us. Those phone conversations with Preston not doing it for you?" Cooper had begun eating his own sandwich rather sloppily, which caused Violet to make faces of disgust.

"Maybe if you didn't have so many rules," Violet offered.

"Hah. Okay, I have to go now. Tomorrow night. It will be delicious. And if it's not, you all can laugh at me and I've got enough alcohol to make up for it." With that, she went back to her office, throwing away the peach pit as she exited.

---

Addison sat on her couch, cell phone in hand, waiting for Preston to call. When it did finally ring in her hand, she almost dropped it out of surprise. "Hi," she breathed softly into the phone and snuggled into the couch, settling in for a good long conversation.

"Addison, hello. How was your day?" He, too, was settling into his couch, but he had more on his mind than a friendly chat.

"Oh, it was a good day. I invited everyone over for dinner tomorrow night. I thought I'd try the chicken penne alla vodka that you taught me a while back. I've made it successfully twice without your phone supervision." She stretched slightly and wiggled into the couch cushions.

"And how many times unsuccessfully?"
"Three, but that's not important." Sometimes she was grateful for the telephone because he never witnessed her girlish blushing. "How was your day?"

Normally Preston would have begun telling her about the patients he had seen or the surgeries that he had performed, but today wasn't one of those days. "I had to have lunch with Shepherd. It wasn't too bad," he said after Addison made a sympathetic noise. "He was just curious about you."

"About me? Why, what does he know?" Addison sat up straight, her heart pounding just a little.

"Not you you, just my friend who came to visit you. Although it would be nice to share your identity. People are starting to think I'm making you up." Preston had almost reached the intended crux of the conversation. "I know you don't want either of us to become fodder for the rumor mill, but I want to have an actual relationship. Being gossiped about is nothing compared to finally actually being able to tell people that I've got Addison Montgomery as a girlfriend."

"You think that I don't wish it could be that simple? Preston, there's still the whole issue of the states in between us. It's not a real relationship even if you do call a meeting of the Addison's Ex-Lovers Club and announce that you too have slept with me." She found herself raising her voice, her ire rising.

"Well, if I did that, could I work in how you like me the best?" He couldn't resist a injecting a little humor into the conversation that had taken a turn for the dramatic.

"Preston you can tell them all that you are the best I've ever had, but that really doesn't change anything. I wish that we could have a real relationship, one where you come home and find me curled up in my sweats reading, or I'll walk into the smell of you cooking me dinner." She did think about those things, as implausible as they might be, with Preston. She wanted more.

"You know I can't leave Seattle." The words were followed by a long silence.

"I can't go back to Seattle," Addison said finally.

"We've danced around this issue before. We both want something more but neither of us is willing to give it. I don't want just a weekend every now and then." Preston knew where it was heading and didn't know if he had the courage to follow through.

"Neither do I, but what else can we do?"

"Addison…," he trailed off, leaving her active brain to fill in his meaning.

"Yes, that is an option, Preston, but then there aren't any weekends at all," she said, sounding as though she had just contracted a serious head cold.

"But then there's the possibility of us getting what we want, even if it's not from each other," he said softly.

Addison was silent. She didn't have anything to say. She knew that what she wanted was Preston, but he seemed to feel as though she was interchangeable. When she found words, she told him as much.

"Addison, that's not what I mean at all. I just mean that we both want something but that I'm not willing to move to Los Angeles and you can't come back to Seattle. I want us to be happy, Addison." He could feel his emotions coming to a head and didn't think he could bear it.

She sniffled slightly. "Is it okay if I'm not happy for a little while? Or a long while?"

"As long as it's okay that I won't be either."

"Good-bye…I guess," Addison said quietly, biting her lip, keeping the flood of tears at bay until she was able to cry without him hearing.

"Good-bye, Addison," he said, and she heard a moist-sounding breath, the click of the phone being hung up, and silence. She almost couldn't believe what had happened, but the fact that he didn't immediately call back to tell her he was joking, that it was a mistake, left her sure that it was real.

Just as when he left Los Angeles, she stayed frozen for quite some time. When she finally eased herself from the couch, she went not upstairs to her own bedroom, but to the guest room. She hadn't washed the sheets since Preston's visit. She climbed into the bed, hugged the pillow to herself and slept there, her phone clutched in one hand.

---

Preston allowed himself to wallow. He allowed himself to feel regret. He pulled on the Tulane sweatshirt that Addison had worn around his apartment and spent the night lying wide awake on his bed, feeling the crushing weight of doubt and disappointment. He missed her.

A/N Again: Don't hate me too much. Please just find it in your heart to read the epilogue instead of throwing heavy objects at me.