Title: One Hell Of A Racket
Authors: Sara And Lizzie
Rating: T for language, mild sex
Disclaimer: we don't own grey's anatomy, or any anatomies but our own at that.
Summary: Sequel to Sound And Fury. Mark and Addison come back to Seattle, and chaos ensues. Forget the internship- there's sex, lies, jealousy and procreation to deal with it.
Author's Note: We couldn't let go of Sound, so we decided to write a sequel. Review.
Okay. This is the drama we've been setting up. Before you think we're going Addek, remember we ship ONE WAY. This is merely another obstacle on the MerDer path. We think this is our best chap yet, so...
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"Does she make everything match better and bring you all the shiny weather that you want, and is she everything, is she everything I'm not?" –Something Corporate
Meredith trudged into Joe's, stomping her feet along the floor as she went. Okay, there was a slight possibility she was acting like a six year old, but at this point she didn't care. Addison moved to Seattle for me. It was like an echo. It was all she could hear. His voice saying that, ringing in her ears.
She winced. In the bathroom, she had done a good job of using anger to mask the pain. It was easy to flush the toilet and slam the door, and leave him in a freezing shower, but here, without any weapons to fire or any gauntlets to throw, she felt the hurt of that statement.
It cut her deeply, and where it hurt. The thing she feared most about her relationship with Derek was the day he woke up and realized he had made a terrible mistake. She lived in fear of the day he woke and saw that she wasn't a world class neo natal surgeon with perfect, bouncy red hair and an impeccable designer wardrobe. She was just an intern with a temperamental conditioner and like, twenty of the same J. Crew sweater in different colors.
That was the day he would wake up and realize that the world renowned, famous neuro surgeon was supposed to be with the gorgeous red head, not the intern. And that was the day her world would stop.She just hoped it wasn't today. Addison moved to Seattle for me. But hey, it could be today. She looked at Joe.
"Meredith." He said cheerily. "Ahh, I know that look. Would you like a shot of tequila?" he asked, in a somewhat sing song, patronizing tone.
"Only if it's in a really big shot glass." Meredith said dryly.
Meredith sighed as she felt a presence sit on the barstool next to her. She looked over, knowing that she would know if it was Derek, and she already knew it wasn't. Mark sat down next to her at the bar. "Are you aware your girlfriend is perfect?" she asked.
"According to…?"
"Her ex- husband."
"Oh good. Because she says the same about him."
"And the dirty mistresses strike out. Again." Meredith said, downing another shot. "What did you do?"
"Everything Derek has too much class to." Mark signaled to Joe and gestured for two more shots of tequila. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "Sometimes I think they loved us more when they were married."
Meredith groaned, slightly aghast at hearing her worst fears summed up in a single sentence by Mark Sloan, the original dirty mistress. "Don't say that." She pleaded.
"Ahh, the former Shepherds. Can't live with 'em or without them, Grey. Cheers to that." They drank, and ordered another.
"Which is apparently the problem." Meredith said, sounding less than perfectly coherent. "I can't live with him. Physically. In a house. Because I can't leave my house. Because it was my mother's and she's dying and two of my best friends live there, and somehow this turned into Addison moved to Seattle for me." Meredith said, very fast, while downing her fresh shot. "Oh, and Addison liked sex in the shower."
Mark made a face. "We're completely justified in getting very drunk right now." He looked up and signaled to Joe. "Keep 'em coming." He instructed.
Several shots later, Meredith dropped her head into her hands. "Are we ever going to be good enough for them?" she asked Mark, no sounding more than a little drunk.
He shrugged. "I really don't know." He said, putting his hand on Meredith's knee in a gesture of comfort. She smiled at him, but their eyes locked and the atmosphere changed.
The intense star between them seemed to draw them together, and Mark's hand slid up Meredith's thigh. Her breath hitched in her throat and both their eyes widened. "Oh, God, what are we doing?" Meredith whispered, at the same time Mark pulled his hand away. "I promised Derek." She blurted out. "I promised Derek nothing would happen between us ever, and he promised me the same about him and Addison. I could never…. I promised."
"Jesus." He muttered.
Meredith smiled tentatively at him. "You're hot, Mark." She said bluntly. "Steamy, even."
He smiled back. "And you're gorgeous."
"Thanks." She said brightly, as they fell back into their old demeanor. "Although you may be McSteamy," she continued, "I like us being friends. It works. The dirty mistress alliance." She said.
Mark grinned at her. "Couldn't have said it better myself." Mark's face clouded and Meredith turned toward the door to see Derek and Addison walk in.
"Quite the happy family." She muttered. They occupied the barstools on either side of the dirty mistresses, Addison next to Meredith, and Derek next to Mark. Mark and Meredith stared straight ahead.
"Derek, do you feel like we're interrupting?" Addison asked, not liking what she was seeing. She liked Meredith, she really did. They were friends now even. Friends. But she knew how Mark worked. It would be too typical for him to lay his charm on Meredith to get back at her for telling him to be like Derek.
He could kill two surgeons with one hook up. It would hurt Addison. It would kill Derek.
"Feels a lot like interrupting." Derek replied through gritted teeth. Meredith didn't know what made her say what she started saying. Maybe she was drunk. How many shots had she had since she got here? Eight? Twelve? She had lost count.
Maybe it was the tequila coursing through her bloodstream. Or maybe it was the fear that was tearing away at her gut, at her heart. The terrifying notion that any second now, he would slip his hand into Addison's and leave her sitting here to watch them leave.
"Stop it!" Meredith instructed harshly. "Derek, I made you a promise. Don't come in here patronizing me." She looked at Mark. "Mark and I are friends. Just because she slept with him doesn't mean I'm going to. He just understands what it feels like to always be second best." She leaned over Mark and met Derek's eyes.
"You're not married. I'm not your dirty mistress, and I'm not your lusty intern. I'm your girlfriend. And I'm not Addison." She paused and sat back. "Both of you have to stop this." She said definitively. "You have to stop comparing us. I'm not Addison. Mark is not Derek!" She stopped talking, slapped her hand on the barstool and slid off.
Mark shrugged and followed suit. "Take it or leave it." He said to Derek and Addison. "Mer, I'll drive."
Derek and Addison watched them walk away. Addison dropped her head into her hands. "Did that just happen?" she groaned to Derek. She was scared. She had lost Derek. She loved Mark, she didn't want to, she couldn't lose Mark. Mark was her rock, her strength, her pillar.
Mark was, literally the reason she was walking.
Derek signaled to Joe, who placed a scotch in front of him. He looked at Addison, who ordered a gin and tonic, not her usual drink, but Derek didn't have the energy to care. "It happened." He said dryly. "What did you do?"
"I told Mark he wasn't being professional, and he should develop some class and be more like you." Addison said, wincing visibly to hear it out loud. Had she really, seriously said that to him?
After everything she put him through, after all the times she had strung him along, all the time she made him wait for her, she said that? She compared him to Derek?
God, what is wrong with you?
Derek nodded stoically, knowing that what he said was worse. And he couldn't believe he had said that to her. After he lied to her about his wife. After he chose Addison, then ignored her, wrapped her up into an affair. After all the waiting, the wanting and the pain, he compared her to his ex wife.
"I told her that you moved to Seattle for me. Because of the move in thing."
Addison sighed. "Why do we do this? Are we pushing them away?"
Derek shook his head. "I can't push her away, Addison, I can't breathe without her."
"Then what are we doing?"
"We're manipulating them." Derek said. "We're using their insecurities against them." As he said it out loud, he knew it was true. He was hurting her, and for no reason.
"Why?" Addison asked.
"I don't know." He said. "But I do know that getting drunk isn't going to help anything."
She smiled. "Oh, Derek. Such sense and sensibility."
"Don't get all philosophical on me, Addie." He told her. He slid off the barstool and shuffled his feet. He held the door for her as they walked outside. Addison looked around.
"He has my car." She said. "Our car."
Derek nodded. "I have to stop by the hospital and check the board, but I'll drive you."
Mark and Addison's car was idling in front of Meredith's house. She dug in her purse for her keys. Why couldn't she find her keys? "I bet Addison never lost her keys." She slurred under her breath. She sat back in the car seat. "My locker." She moaned.
Mark smiled. "George and blondie?"
"On call."
"Hospital it is then."
Derek and Addison were walking toward Derek's office. The hallway was abandoned and dark. "You really love her, don't you?" Addison asked him quietly.
Derek didn't hesitate before answering. "Yeah. I really do."
Her pearly white teeth sank into her bottom lip. Her shiny enamel tugged at the plump flesh of her lower lip. "Derek, I don't want to ask you this, but I have to know. What was missing? In our marriage? What makes you love her so much that we didn't have?"
He didn't know how to answer that, because what do you say when your ex wife asks you why you failed her? And that's exactly what happened. He failed her. From day one, it was doomed.
"She's the one." He heard himself saying. Her eyes left his face and looked down immediately. "Addison." He said, instinctively tilting her chin so she was looking at him. "I'm so sorry. That it wasn't you."
She was going to pull away, tell him it didn't matter, because she loved Mark and he loved Meredith. And she did love Mark and she knew he loved Meredith. But it did matter, because she was still open and bleeding when it came to Derek…
Meredith looked at Mark and giggled. "I'm a failure, Mark." She said, throwing her hands out to her sides and spinning around in a little circle. "A big, lusty failure."
"The only thing you are is drunk." Mark told her.
Meredith smiled a childish grin and shook her head. "No. Well yes, I am drunk. But I'm also a failure. I won't move in with him. I won't leave my Mom's house. I didn't have sex in the shower, although I was tempted, because the bending thing he does is incredible." Mark made a face. "And I'm not Addison. And now I have to break in to my boyfriend's office to get his spare key to my house."
Mark smiled at her. "He's lucky to have you, Mer."
Meredith giggled again, and they rounded the corner to the final corridor leading to Derek's office. What she saw sobered her up immediately.
Derek wasn't sure why he was kissing his ex-wife, but their lips were fused. It wasn't something he had been looking for, but it felt like the closure he needed with Addison.
Addison, who was just as shocked as he was. She knew they were on the verge of an understanding, so close to the closure that she was desperately seeking, but she didn't know what she was doing when she moved toward his lips.
Derek heard something behind them. A gasp he recognized. He usually that gasp, shocked at a surgery, or that gasp of pleasure when he got inside of her but, tonight, now, it was a gasp of pain. He whirled around and saw Meredith, staring at him open mouthed. Her eyes were huge and her cheeks had two spots of red on each side.
Addison felt Derek jerk himself away from her, and she looked in the direction he was staring, and her stomach dropped. Mark and Meredith, both staring at them. Meredith looked like she was going to throw up, and Mark's face barely changed at all. He just narrowed his eyes ever so slightly at her.
"Meredith." Derek said desperation in his voice. Desperation for her to understand that this wasn't at all what it looked like. She backed up, and stumbled, and Mark put his hand on her elbow and shoulder to steady her.
"You're…you.. you promised me." She breathed.
Derek strode toward her and grabbed her hand. "Mer.."
She pulled her hand away from his grasp, and stared at her fingers like they were on fire. "Don't touch me." She said, her voice not rising above a whisper. "You promised me, and you broke it, and you do not get to touch me now."
Mark continued to stare at Addison. His eye bored into hers. She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. "Don't, Addie. Either of you. I think you've both done quite enough."
Meredith looked shocked. Mark pulled her away from Derek. "Come on, Mer." He said. She tore her eyes away from Derek, shook her head, and turned away. Mark put his hand on the small of her back and guided her back down the hallway.
Derek and Addison couldn't do anything except watch them walk away.
Check out our other fics: "Forever And A Day", "The Best Laid Plans", "A Tale Of Two Cities" and "Keeping The Faith."
Hint: A Tale Of Two Cities isn't getting as much love as the others, but we really like it. It's our youngest, so it already has an inferiority complex. Review for it. We don't want to hurt it's self esteem. Okay, done referring to out fics as children…..
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