So happy that you guys enjoied the last chapter! It hurt me a lot wrote it but I think that it was the right way how ther react. Addison is having a lot of problems with her marriage, she found Derek with Meredith, and then Alex..she thought that he was dead and he isn't. She thinks that he abandoned her, that he didn't want her anymore. She was hurt like hell when Alex's brother told her that Alex was dead, so I think that she has every right to be angry at him. Talking about Alex, he has a lot on his shoulders too. He beat his father and he knows that it is his fault if his father left. Alex hates The Captain for what he did to him and Addison and plus he hates himself for how much he did hurt Addison in the past and now with his behaviour. He's disappointed to see how Addison is changed and blames himself for this, plus he's angry with Derek for how he treats Addison. He just wants to go back in the past and react different!

Btw, I hope that I made clear why they reacted in that way. Enjoy this new chapter! And don't forget to let me know what you think about it. (And if you want, about my rant.)

xxx

"So what's your story?" Alex's patient asked him the day after, while he was checking on her. Addison was in the room too. They ignored each other since he yelled at her.

"Excuse me?" he mumbled not looking away from the chart that he was writing.

"What's your story? You walk like a zombie. You don't speak to anyone.. It's pretty strange.."

"I'm not a chatty person. I hate chatty person. Why don't you tell what's your story? Pregnancy aside. You have a lot of bruises.."

"This could be cold." Addison interrupted them, putting some gel on the patient's belly to take an eco.

The patient nodded and then she returned her attentions to Alex. "My dad beats me." He snapped his eyes on hers, stiffening.

"What?" he hissed and Addison looked at him. In that moment all her angry gone away. Only in that moment.

"Have you told that to someone?" Alex asked her, checking her more carefully.

"My mom knows. He beats her too. I didn't tell anyone..but I've hit my head and it still hurts."

"Call Dr. Shepherd." Addison told to the nurse and then read the patient's charts. Some minutes later Derek was there with his intern. Alex was surprised that was Izzie instead of Meredith.

"She told me that she hit her head." He told Derek and then let the neurosurgeon take a look. "We need to take some scans."

"Wait, wait, please. Alex, what I have to do?"

"You have to go with Dr Stevens and Dr Shepherd to run some tests.."

"No." she interrupted him. "I saw the face that you did before. It's the same face that I do when someone talk to me about my father and family. What do I have to do?"

Alex sighed. That was something that he doesn't do. Give advice to people. It's so not a Karev's thing. But he sat on the bed near her, not caring about the people in the room. Addison never looked away from him.

"Do you wanna know my story?" Alex asked to his patient. She simply nodded. "My father was a drunkard, junkie man. He was something close a guitarist, but he had more feelings with alcohol and drugs than he had with music. My mom always had some mental problems. I started to take care of my parents, my little sis and brother when I was 7."

"Without help?"

"My best friend always helped me." Alex nodded, not looking at Addison tough. Addison, on the other side, wasn't able to look away from him. "I was in the Army. After an year I came back. I was living in New York. When I came back I've found my sister cry hysterically, my father was beating my mother more hard than usual. I couldn't stand it anymore. I beat the crap out of him. In high school I was a wrestler. I became a wrestler because I wanted to protect my mother. My sister. My brother. So that day I beat him. He left us that day and we never heard from him again." He smiled sadly and Addison heart sank. That was the first time that she heard that story.

"What did you do then?" The patient asked.

"I regret it. He was still my dad, you know. And I've lost the most important person in my life. I've lost my girlfriend. Her father knew about what I did and told me to not see my girlfriend again. He thought that I was going to hurt her like I did with my dad." Alex rose from the bed, avoiding every look that the others were giving him.

"So I left for Iowa. I worked some years to help my mother, to pay every debts that my father had. To pay every debts that I had with my girlfriend's family 'cause they paid me College and paid my mother's care." He was now prepping her, still speaking.

"I regret it. Every day I regret it. Even more knowing that my ex girlfriend, that was my best friend too, hate me."

"How do you know that?"

"Cause she's in this room. And she told me."

Derek and the patient looked at Izzie. Alex noticed and smirked.

"Not the blonde one. The red head." Everyone in the room froze.

"Are you kidding?" Derek asked him in disbelief.

"It was before you met her, so no need to treat her bad again." Alex told Derek, almost threatening.

"What I want to say is that there are options. Talk to your mother, ask her to tell everything to the cops. Do the right thing. I did the wrong one and I'm paying it even if this happened 20 years ago." Alex nodded and left the room.

"Sorry.." Addison excused herself and followed him, grabbing him by the arm.

"Why you didn't tell me?"

"Weren't you listen? Your father told me to not see you again. They paid me everything, but I couldn't see you again."

"Why didn't you fight? Why did you give up on me? On us?"

"I needed money, Addison. I needed money for my family and for my mother. My father left us and I had to leave the Army to take care of them. Don't make me the selfish one."

"I'm not saying that you're selfish, Alex." She hissed.

"Whatever you say, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd." Alex replied since Dr. Bailey was looking at them.

"I'm just sorry that your husband was there."

"Oh you're sorry that my husband was there? What about the other intern? What about the patient? You didn't think about tell me all of this alone? It was really necessary that the whole hospital knew about our past?"

"Izzie and your husband are not the whole hospital." Alex smirked and Addison noticed that they were attracting a lot of people's attentions. She had to do something to end this conversation for the moment.

"Go back in the room and finish to prep the patient."

"We're having a conversation here.."

"Dr. Karev." Addison cut him off.

"No offense, but honestly I don't do vagina. Not as a doctor anyway." He smirked cocky. In the past she would have slap him playful and call him 'Perv.' But now she raised her hand in front of him, while the other one was on her hip.

"Dr. Karev, I may be a board certified OB/GYN, but I also have fellowships in Maternal-Fetal medicine and Medical Genetics and am one of the foremost neonatal surgeons in this country. When you can top that, you can mouth off. Until then, you will do your job and you will do it right. Which at this point in time means you keep your mouth shut unless I give you permission to open it. Understood?"

Alex was silent, staring at her.

"Understood?" she asked again.

"Oh are you giving me permission now?" Alex asked her arrogant.

"Just go in that damn room." Addison snarled at him pointing to the room.

"There was a time when you found this funny." He mumbled walking away slowly from her.

"There was a time when you always told me everything." She fired back with hurt in her voice.

Xxx

"The whole hospital is talking." Derek muttered while he was checking on a newborn.

"Whatever, they were talking anyway. I'm your wife, remember?" Addison shrugged playing with the newborn's hands.

"Ex-wife." He pointed.

"We're not divorced yet. And we can have counseling."

"We've had adultery. That was enough."

"I'm trying to talk, Derek. I'm trying to fix what I did." She was on the verge of tears. She had enough in these days. Alex stepped inside the room but remained silence, listening to what Derek and Addison were saying.

"I've messed up, Derek. People mess up. You didn't talk to me anymore. We became lazy and more focused on our career. We didn't even fight anymore Derek. And I missed you. People do desperate things to get someone attentions again. But there are two sides to every story. Mark was there and I missed you and now I'm sorry. I'm more sorry than you could possibly imagine, but at least I'm talking to you about it."

"That's what you were thinking when you were screwing my best friend?"

At these words, Alex did his best to not knock down Derek.

"No. In that moment I wasn't thinking at all, I was scratching an itch." Addison hissed angry but also defeated. Alex smirked at the smartass reply.

"You know..there are three options, Derek. Option one, I go home. End of the story. Option two, I could apologize, you could forgive me, come home, but you could still bring it up to use against me whenever we argue."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"Satan has sense of humor." Addison smiled, and Alex felt sick. He felt jealous, and he didn't like how Addison was humiliating herself to have that ass back.

"Is there a third option?" Derek asked her.

"I don't know what the third option is. I just know I still love you." Addison kissed her husband, slowly and Derek kissed her back. Alex couldn't tear his eyes off the couple. And he hated it.

"What about Karev?" Derek asked after the kiss.

"What about him?"

"He was important for you. He was the one for whom you always cried at College, and even after. I was there, Addison. And now you both are here."

"He's the past." But Addison didn't sound so convinced and both Alex and Derek noticed it.

"I'm not moving back to Manhattan. I'm not the same person I was in Manhattan."

"I know, I get it. So I have to pick up everything and move here." Addison nodded. Alex felt something warm inside of him.

"You need to know something to make this marriage work, ok?" Derek sighed and finally he looked at Addison. "I'm not saying this to hurt you, or because I don't want try again, because I don't. Meredith wasn't a fling. She wasn't revenge. I fell in love with her. And it's not going away soon only because I decided to stay with you." Then he left, exchanging a look with Alex. Addison followed Derek with her eyes and only in that moment she saw Alex.

"What are you doing here, Karev?"

"I'm Karev for you? Not Alex?"

"We're working. At work you're Karev and I'm Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd."

"Yeah, I get it. Here's the result of the labs." He handed her the paperworks. "So, you're not leaving?"

"Disappointed Karev?"

"It doesn't matter what I think." He shrugged. "I just don't recognize you anymore." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't recognize you either. People change." Addison said in a matter-of-fact reading the results.

"The Addison that I know wasn't bitchy like that."

"Neither the Alex that I know."

"Where's she?"

"She died with you. She died the moment that you're brother told me that it was possible that you were dead. She died when then he told me that you were dead." They stared at each other without talk again.

Xxx

"Hi, I'm Alex." A 5 years old kid with a missing tooth introduced himself to a 7 years old red haired girl.

"Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery." She replied softly and polite.

"Dude, how many names do you have? What are you? A princess?" he grinned and she rolled her eyes. "What are you doing, Addison?"

"Reading." She gave him the book that she was reading. "Do you want to read it?"

"I can't read." He shrugged but he blushed too and gave her back the book.

"I can read it for you. I like read for my friends." Addison smiled and tapped the ground to tell him to sit down near her. "Do you want to?"

"Yeah. I'd like too." Alex nodded and sat down, looking at her while she was reading.

Xxx

"Do you really regret it?" Alex dared to ask her after a moment of silence. "Fell in love with me, I mean." His voice was a whisper and Addison felt bad for the words she said to him. But then she remembered how bad he talked to her too.

"No." she said quietly. "But you hurt me in the past. And you hurt me today and yesterday. I'm not the same person that you loved 20 years ago. And I don't know if I could trust you again. But I'm staying. That you like it or not and we have to work together. Plus, Dr Bailey told me that your asses are mine until I say otherwise. So congratulation, Karev."

"You can't do that." Alex frowned glaring at her.

"I'm your boss. And your boss' boss. So, yes, Alex, I can."

He tried so hard not to smile at her when she called him by his name.

"I'm glad that you're here." He shrugged.

"Do you?"

"Yeah, but don't flatter yourself now."

"We still have a lot to talk. And I can't promise you that I'll be nice."

"Me neither. I hate your family." Alex smirked and left the room. Only then, Addison allowed herself to smile.

xxx

Do you like these flashbacks? Because I was thinking to ask you guys, to prompt me some words for the flashbacks.

Something like "Addison, cat." or "Alex, eating." or "Alex/Addison, walking." What do you think?