Title: All the Difference: Feeling the Way

Pairing: Alex/Addison

Disclaimer: They belong to Shonda and friends, not me.

Summary: After her trip to LA, Addison needs to find out something.

Here's the next part, guys. Many thanks to my betas for cheering me on. I'm really glad I managed to finish this section before the ep last night, because otherwise it would have taken me longer to write this up. I'm not feeling the urge to be too nice to Alex at the moment. However, last night I wanted to smack him, so I'm making progress. I could probably still use some poking on getting the last piece finished up, though. Yes, I'm planning on having one more part to this particular story, and then doing more fics/oneshots in the same universe. Thanks for all the feedback…you guys are awesome!

Addison isn't really sure what she expected would happen after she showed up at his door, but she does know that his looking like he's about to keel over after kissing her isn't it.

Oh, man. This totally blows. "I, um, think I better, ah, sit." Alex reaches behind him, feeling for a chair, and very nearly lets out an extremely unmanly gasp of relief when he finds one. "Okay. Okay, yeah. Wow." He rubs his spinning head and tries not to think of what an ass he just made of himself.

"Are you okay?"

He looks up at her. Her eyes are wide and her forehead is crinkled in concern. "Yeah, no, I'm fine. I just got really woozy all of a sudden. This damn bronchitis. One second I feel fine, the next I'm so tired I could drop."

"The kissing probably didn't help the shortness of breath at all, either. Do you have a fever?"

"A mild one, yeah."

She huffs out a breath and drags a hand through her hair. "Alex, why didn't you just say something? Tell me to go, or just to come back later?"

"Maybe because I wanted to see you."

She flushes a little, but continues. "I'm glad, but you shouldn't make yourself sicker just to see me!"

"Addison, I doubt you've made me take a turn for the worse in the half-hour you've been here, okay? Just chill."

Her pointed response dies on her lips when she reminds herself that he is, in fact, sick. She takes a deep breath. "I just…I'm sorry. That you're sick."

"Isn't your fault."

"I know that, but…" She pauses. "Look. Will you just let me care, for just one single second, please? That's all I need. Then I can, you know, go back to yelling at you."

"'Cause God knows I love it when you yell at me. You do it so well, too."

"Alex, I swear to God…"

He gets up, gingerly, and walks over to place his hands on her shoulders. "I get it, Addison. I do. And for the record, me too. With the caring thing. Now, do you think we could maybe postpone the rest of the yelling? I seriously have to lie down."

For some unexplainable reason, as she watches him stumble towards the stairs, Addison swears she can feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She doesn't know why. It's not as though he made some sort of grand declaration of everlasting love or something. On the contrary, his words had been awkward and somewhat cryptic, and "love" hadn't come in anywhere. But they were…real, and honest, and suddenly Addison finds his halting honesty more tender than any flowery sentiments could ever be.

Steeling herself, she walks toward the stairs. "Alex."

He turns to face her, eyebrows raised in question. "Hmmm?"

"Come with me. Back to the hotel."

He rubs a hand over his face. "Addison," he begins, "you have no idea how much I hate to say this, but I'm really not up to sex right now."

"I wasn't actually talking about sex. I mean, we can, if you want, but…you could just sleep."

"Just sleep. In your hotel room."

"Yeah."

"Huh." A tiny smile appears on his face. "Okay."

His day is steadily becoming more and more…unexpected, that's the word. Right now he's sitting in the passenger seat of her car, watching through half-closed eyelids as she drives them to her hotel. She's tapping the steering wheel, and every so often she glances over at him and gives a quick smile.

After he'd agreed to go back with her, things seemed to happen very quickly. He went upstairs to grab some things (he'd refused her offer of help, because hello?...dirty laundry everywhere) packing some clothes, his pager, and his phone as quickly as his foggy head would allow. After that it was back to the kitchen for his industrial strength meds, his tea, and his Iowa State mug. He left a message for Izzie on the whiteboard ('Iz. Staying with a friend. I'll call later. No worries. A.) and grabbed his jacket.

All he was supposed to be doing today was sleeping and maybe watching some crappy reruns on TV. Instead, he's sitting here, in her car, on the way to her hotel.

It's just…weird.

He falls asleep on the way over, and so she has to shake him awake. She keeps an eye on him as they walk through the hotel, ready to steer him in the right direction with a hand if necessary. Once they reach her suite, he heads immediately for the bedroom, and she watches as he rearranges the pillows and settles in. Clearly, he doesn't need her for anything, so she nods towards the sitting area. "I'm gonna, just…"

"'Kay, good," he mumbles, and she suspects he's already half-asleep.

She closes the door and then leans against it, and she congratulates herself on the utter awkwardness of the situation she's created. There's an intern, so ill that he nearly passed out from kissing her, asleep in her bed, and she has absolutely no idea what to do next.

Suddenly something clicks in her mind. Lips set resolutely, she reaches for her phone.

Callie answers on the second ring. "You go over there?"

"How could you not tell me he was sick?" she hisses.

"Because if I had, you wouldn't have gone over there."

"Callie!"

"So what happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened? He's sick!"

"Addison."

"Ugh. So I kissed him, okay? I kissed him and he almost fell over and now he's here and I have no idea what to do."

"Wait. He fell over?"

"He almost did."

"Huh. How'd that happen?"

"He's sick, Callie!" she explodes. More quietly: "Look. I told him he could come back here with me and now he's sleeping in the next room, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Well, he's sick, right?"

"I think we've established that."

"Work with me here, Addison. People need stuff when they're home sick. Orange juice, crackers, cough syrup, that kind of stuff. Do you have any of that?"

"Not exactly."

"Well there you go."

"That was embarrassingly easy."

"Yeah." Callie pauses. "Listen, just take it in stride, okay? Don't worry too much. Besides," she continues, "you already know he wants you."

Addison snorts. "Yeah." They're both silent. "Callie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

An hour later she slips back into the room, laden down with bags. She has orange juice and water and crackers, as well as cough drops and more tea. She has grapes, because fruit is good, and if he doesn't eat them, she will. She has chocolate because she thinks she might need it, and magazines because she's too jittery to concentrate on journal articles. She's in the process of shoving things into the fridge when Alex's phone, lying on the table where he tossed it, begins to ring.

Approaching it cautiously, she's unsure of how to proceed. She doesn't want to answer it, because it's his phone, but she wants to wake him even less. Decided, she snatches it up and answers quickly. "Hello?"

"Aleksei?"

Who? "Ah, this is Alex Karev's phone."

"Oh. Well, may I speak with him, please?"

Confused, Addison looks at the display. One glance, and her heart sinks.

Mom.

Addison has a sudden impulse to bang her head against a wall for the rest of the century. But first she has to answer. "Well, he's actually sleeping right now, but I'd be happy to ta-

"Addison?" Alex appears in the bedroom doorway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Who is it?"

"Your mother," she mouths, wincing.

Giving a little grin, Alex ambles forward to take the phone. "Hey, Ma…Nah, I'm okay. Just sleeping a lot and stuff… I dunno. Bailey said to take the rest of the week off, but maybe…Ma…Okay, okay, I promise I won't rush it…Nope, that wasn't Izzie. Or Meredith. I'm sort of staying with a friend right now…Well, it's really crowded over there when everyone's home. People are always wandering in. It's quiet here…Yeah, that too…Seriously, Mom. Jeez…Okay…Okay, yeah…I will…Hey, say hi to Amy and the kids for me…Yeah…Yeah…Love you too, Ma…Bye.

He closes the phone, looking somewhat abashed. "My mom."

"Yeah, I kind of guessed that one."

"She worries, you know?"

"Moms generally do."

"Yeah."

"So. Aleksei?"

"You caught that, huh?"

"Oh, yes."

"Hey, you got stuff!"

"Oh, no. You are not getting out of this one, Alex, excuse me, Aleksei, Karev. This is far too good. So. Spill."

Ruefully shaking his head, he moves to the armchair across from her. "It was my grandpop's name. My mom's dad. He came over here from Russia. Married my grandma, worked as a mechanic. When my mom was about twelve, my grandma died, so she and Grandpop got pretty close. I came along when my mom was about 19, and he wasn't too happy about her being pregnant, so she named me after him. That's pretty much it."

"What about your dad?"

"They weren't married then, and he was out on the road, so I guess when she finally got hold of him he was too wasted to give a crap what my name was. It pissed him off when he got home, though, but by then it was too late to change it. He always called me Alex."

"You never went by your full name?"

"Are you kidding? I would have gotten beat up even more at school, and I didn't…anyway. I don't actually mind it though, really. My grandpop was a cool guy. He was huge, with these big hands, but he wasn't a tough guy, you know? For a while there my mom and I lived with him when my dad was out on the road. He used to get me ice cream cones, let me help him at the garage and stuff. I think we built a birdhouse once, or something."

"He sounds nice."

"Yeah. Yeah, he was. He died when I was about ten." He stares intently at his hands, fiddling with a fingernail. "Sometimes I think things would have been different later on, if…"

"If…"

"If he'd been around." He clears his throat, coughs.

Sensing that he's gone as far as he's willing, Addison offers some information of her own. "I never liked my name much, you know."

"Huh?"

"Addison. I never liked it much."

"Why?"

"I always thought it made me sound, I don't know, snooty."

"Dude, you are snooty."

She narrows her eyes at him, but she's also pleased to see that he's grinning despite his evident fatigue. "Tread carefully, Dr. Karev."

"Hey, I'm just saying…"

"Tread very, very carefully."

"Okay, okay." He looks around the room. "Hey, you got any food around this place?"

She waves a hand at the bags. "Behold. Food. Some, anyway," she amends. "Nothing for a real meal. We can get room service. You should have some soup."

"I'm sick of soup," he grouses. "Izzie's been making me this homemade soup, pushing it at me all the time. It's getting really annoying."

"Well, you should have the soup anyway. It's good for you, and besides, it's what sick people are supposed to eat."

"Is that your medical opinion, Dr. Montgomery?"

"You bet your ass, Dr. Karev."

"Fine then. Order me the damn soup."

"Do you really think I'm snooty?"

He smiles. Despite being sick, and so damned tired again, he feels good. They ate their dinner in bed. He had the dreaded soup and part of an omelet, and she ate a salad. Afterwards, they found an episode of Gilligan's Island to watch. Addison laughed at parts, and between seeing her happy and remembering how he used to watch the show with his sister, he found he didn't mind it at all.

Now they're lying curled up on the bed. Her head is pillowed oh his arm, and she's turned towards him. "Occasionally, yeah," he answers. "Not that you don't have reason to be, sometimes. Anyways, it's kind of a turn-on."

She sighs. "You know, I always told myself I wasn't going to be one of those snobby, snotty rich women who look down their noses at everything and everyone. I guess I failed."

"Hey." He moves closer. "I said it was only sometimes, and never when it matters. Hell, I'm an ass a lot more often than sometimes, and you're still lying here with me. I can't be a total dick then, right?"

Even though she's sniffling, she still manages to laugh. "Right."

"Anyway, snooty isn't the only thing you are."

"No?"

"No. You're a damned incredible doctor. You can get pretty spazzy sometimes, but you're phenomenal in a crisis. You're strong, and you get people. You just know how to talk to them, calm them down, make them feel better just by being there. It's pretty amazing. But even with all that, you never pretend you're invincible. He stops. "How'm I doing?"

"Pretty good."

Damn. She's doing that sniffling thing again. Time for him to say something predictable. "You're also like totally hot." Hey, just because it's predictable doesn't mean it isn't true.

"Alex."

"What? It's true. You're gorgeous and you just have to live with it. Poor you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Okay, false modesty? Not a turn-on."

She opens her mouth and then shuts it again, and he continues. "Even when I hated your guts I thought you were gorgeous, and I'm a guy who makes a point out of finding flaws in every person, male or female, who pisses him off. So if that's not proof…"

"Okay, okay, you've made your point. I am gorgeous."

"Thank you." He strokes her hair. "It's funny, I never thought I'd fall for a redhead, though. Usually too scary."

"Well, thank goodness there's some blond in there now," she says dryly.

"I thought something was different."

"Yes, well, I thought it was kind of a duty, being in California and all. And, considering the disaster that was my last blonde experience, I figured I'd better go for something more subtle this time."

"You were a blonde?"

"For a few unfortunate days, yes."

"Huh." Interesting.

"What?"

"Nothing, I'm just trying to picture it."

"Don't. I looked horrendous."

"It can't have been that bad."

"Trust me. Mark freaked."

He snorts. "Yeah, and we know how great his judgment is."

"Yes. Anyway."

"Yeah."

They're quiet for a few minutes. Alex starts to drift off, but he feels the need to say one last thing before he falls asleep, even if it makes him sound like an idiot.

"Addison?"

"Hmmm?"

"I'm glad you went back to the red. With your hair, I mean. I like it. Just so you know, though, if you were a blonde I'd still think you were hot."

"Okay."

Satisfied, he turns over on his other side and pulls up the covers.

The last thing he remembers before he finally closes his eyes, though, is her hand stroking up and down his arm.