Note: Okay, well I have to admit I hate thanksgiving. I don't like the food. My relatives are loud and dysfunctional. And well, it's a holiday that makes us feel guilty. I have more than the poor people in whatever third world country, therefore I should be thankful for what I have. And I am, well I hope I am, but I don't need a holiday to ask me to do that do I? Especially not a commercialized holiday that makes us purchase even more food when other families have absolutely none. It's not all bad though... Two and a half days off from school and champagne. Ohhhh, Holidays. So... I imagined what the holidays would be like at Addison's house. (AU: Story mentions for a brief second, Addison's sister who first appears in "Perfect Memory". Post-Addison/Derek divorce. Addison has a house)

Addison watched the rain falling, and pulled the blanket higher over her head. The expensive champagne flutes were ready to be washed, and a pile of dishes towered high in her sink. She would hire someone to do that tomorrow. She would get things done somehow.

"Addison?" Her mother walked in the room, carrying a flute full of champagne.

She nodded through her blanket, dragging a piece of hair out of her face. "Hi." She hadn't really talked to her mother in years. The phone calls were all courtesy. Her own mother didn't even know she flew across the country. Her own mother didn't even know she was divorced. Until tonight. She and her husband flew across the country in their private jet as a surprise. Some surprise, Addison thought bitterly. Then again, she and her mother never had real conversations.

"Addison, why didn't you tell me you and Derek got divorced?" Her mother's voice was strong but weak at the same time.

After years of swearing she would be nothing like her mom, she was exactly like her mom. She was in total absolute denial. "I don't know." She said, her voice cracking under emotion.

Her mother sat down next to her. She almost moved in to stroke her daughter's hair, but finally pulled away as if she didn't know how. She smoothed her own crimson hair instead. "You should've told me." Alexandra Montgomery said. "You should tell your mother these things."

Addison shrugged. "Yeah."

The emotional tension in the room was too much for both women. Alexandra stood up, but then changed her mind and sat down, offering her daughter the champagne. "If we hadn't come, would you have spent thanksgiving alone?"

"I was planning on eating sushi with Rachelle." Addison took the champagne, watching the rain streak the window. She and her mother were one in the same. Thank god she and Derek never had kids.

"Where is your sister, anyways?"

Addison shrugged again. "Drunk on champagne. Upstairs."

"I don't know why you never told me, Addison." Her mother said yet again, as if her daughter had always told her everything. "Imagine my surprise when I knock on your door and find a stranger who tells me that my own daughter has moved across the country. Just imagine it. The embarrassment."

"It's thanksgiving, mom."
"And?"

"There's supposed to be family dysfunction." Addison gave her mother one more look and downed the last of the champagne. "Unfortunately in our family that dysfunction happens every day."

Alexandra Montgomery took one last look at her daughter, and turned away.