A/N: I can't bring myself to end this series so it will probably just be one of those things that I add to for months upon months because I love them, even when they hate each other (especially when they hate each other). Also, this is the third thing I've written in three months, and I can't begin to explain how much that sucks. Anyway, this had a mind of its own so I hope you do enjoy-
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A Three-Legged Workhorse
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Too often Addison finds herself forgetting what it is that they are fighting for, or more correctly, what she is fighting for. Too often she can't pluck a reason from the vast universe as to why she should continue hunting him down in the wide maze of the hospital. She can't force herself to breakdown into a woman who pleads and begs and cries for attention every single day of the week (in the form of petty fights and incessant battles over who can be out of the "house" longer). No, she lets it build within, until the pressure pops the top off and she finds herself alone, wound into delicate, fresh bedsheets and surrounded with nothing reminiscent of the life she used to know.
And when the pain swoops, the anger pools, and the loneliness if outright suffocating, that is when she seeks the familiar old comforts. Alcohol, a long distance call to her one sane relative, reassurance from Nancy that this is the right thing and that Derek is simply stubborn, and that she knew that getting into this. Surgery used to be an option, but with Derek in and out of the ORs next to her, it's hard to feel calmed.
It's hard to feel like she's doing the right thing here, and the wearing is beginning to become evident in her professional life as well. She's falling apart at the seams, literally, and it's unbecoming.
But on the rarest of occasions she'll find him squirreled away in his little nook of an office, papers hanging from the desk edge, a pen twining through his restless fingers. And sometimes he'll look up at the knock on the door, and when she steps in, she'd swear she sees something other than complete contempt, something other than hatred.
And it's those moments more than the highly effective vodka and barely receptive calls that pull her through this, that propel her to think that there has got to be something more left in their gas tank. That maybe their public arguments and humiliation can be worth it in the end, that this soul draining expedition isn't going to leave her empty handed and mortified.
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"Hi," Addison announces, tiptoeing into the well used carpet of his third floor hole. Derek may have gotten the job first, but he certainly didn't get a view. She's the star, a redundant fact of their marriage.
"Hello," Derek greets, reading over his latest patient roster, groaning as it mounts with the ill, sick, needy. This time of the year is always particularly brutal, but the one redeeming feature used to be his personal life. Perusing store windows and catalogs with his wife, manhandling the giant tree of her choosing into the wide brownstone front door, and helping her place a star on the top of that tree.
It was the one time of the year that he could unearth himself from the death that shrouded his career and really feel alive.
"What time are you off?" Addison asks tentatively, trying to make herself at home on his couch, (trying to look like she belongs) shoving a few articles out of the way in the process. Her feet curl under her stocking clad legs, highest of heels discarded a mere second before.
"I don't know," Derek mumbles, burying his hands into his graying locks. Sometimes he thinks surgeons should have their own rooms just built in so they never have to leave during the holidays. He can't even begin to think about how much time he has wasted by driving out to the trailer only to have to turn around on the way or worse as he's pulling into the driveway.
Everything just feels like a crapshoot lately. He can't win on one side or the other. Wasted, all of it. It's hard not to be Bah! Humbug! when all you can see when you close your eyes is his hands on her legs; when she is a living, breathing, annoying souvenir that it never used to be like this, and in vivid red detail how she swiftly ruined it. He can't not compare it to the Christmas before, the non-spoken truce that seemed to form, or all the wonderful years before that.
It's their season, an aching perpetual relic of the way it was, and it makes him want to strangle himself with the tiny twinkling lights that showed up everywhere in Seattle before Thanksgiving this year.
"I'm off in two hours," Addison volunteers. And she knows better than to beat around the bush with him, because when she does the hinting thing it only leaves her madly disappointed and alone. "I was hoping we could get some of our Christmas shopping done, I'd really like to have it shipped by Thursday, because I don't know how long it takes- better to be on the safe side—Derek?"
"Hhm? Yeah, Addison. Thursday will be enough time," Derek replies halfheartedly, half-minded.
"Can you meet me?" Helpless hope winds through her lungs, tearing, shredding until he responds. And she hates that she is such a girl, and that there is no better way to explain it. It hurts constantly, every knock sends her overly sensitive nerves into frazzles, pricking little holes of doubt into her plan of action.
"No," he says gruffly, not even taking a split second to think it over. Buying presents with her, anything with her for their family...it's just not a step he can take yet. If anything the holidays are ripping them further apart, not bringing them together. "I'm sure whatever you pick will be fine. You know them, they're vultures, they love it all."
"I was hoping we could do this—we haven't spent much time together lately-"
"Not now Addison," Derek sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose annoyed. The whining side of her is something he can't take today. He doesn't have the reserve energy to placate her, to build her up.
"Derek," Addison repeats, trying to find some shaky ground to stand on, to start demanding things. She needs a moment with her husband that doesn't involve pagers, and thick charts. She needs a moment where they can get back to being them, instead of the disaster they created.
He walks out of his own office, the door slamming, before she gets a chance to say anything more.
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The melancholy atmosphere inside the damp trailer is unmistakable. She can hear the rain pounding, assaulting, the metal roof above her head. There's a mug of steaming tea on the bedside table, and she's wrapped tightly in a fuzzy robe, thick socks on her chilly feet. Her rings slide around her finger with ease, and she can't bring herself to move her head to the pillow only a few inches away. So instead she stares at the empty space beside her, sliding her leg into his territory.
He used to make himself unavailable for remedial surgeries and procedures. He used to set aside time during the holidays for them. He knows how important it is for her, how difficult this time of year can be when you come from a screwed up background. Once he told her he'd never leave her alone on Christmas. That lasted until year eight. It was a far cry from the beginning of the end, but it was in that moment that she saw the impending doom, the fate looming over her shoulder, snickering at her naivety.
They weren't impenetrable. They weren't some magnificent couple deflecting divorce. They were just in denial, and slow. And all that added time, all those additional memories only make it more difficult to get up and walk away.
As her tea cools, and she notices for the first time, the distinct lack of festive décor, she nudges her head under the orange pillowcase; seals her eyes shut from the building storm, inside and out.
Sometimes it's better not to see the world they've made. Tonight is one of those nights.
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Derek believes that Christmas makes you want to be with the people you love. And that list was always easy for him to make. His parents, his siblings, his extended family, and Mark. Eventually Addison made it to the top of the heap, and this year, there's no one he loves anymore. Not even himself.
He jabs the blue pen into the thick stack of papers before him, watching with delight as the end snaps off and ink begins to saturate his notes. It doesn't help that the entire hospital is like the set of a Christmas card, beaming with glee and joy, waiting for their time off to shine. And it enrages him, and he loathes that he's turned into that annoying jackass who hates the holidays.
He hates that she took that from him, too.
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"Derek?" Addison questions, stepping into his office for the second time that week, finding him asleep against the keys of his laptop. She nudges a cup of outsider coffee onto the edge and lightly runs her fingers along his scalp until he rouses.
"Addie," Derek gurgles, grinning when she pushes the container of caffeine forward for his taking. "You got me coffee," he mumbles into the carefully carved plastic top. It's not from the cafeteria or the coffee cart.
"You didn't come home last night," Addison states plainly, trying to keep all emotion at bay, leave it as a fact.
"I lost a kid," Derek grieves. An eight year old boy, who spent most of the exam time coloring reindeer and elves in his well used book. It was a long shot, they all knew it, but Derek was really hoping for a Christmas miracle, because if anyone deserved such a thing it was the Jackson family.
"Oh," Addison nods. "I'm sorry," she frowns, watching him straighten his scrubs. It doesn't excuse the lack of a phone call but at least he didn't fall asleep at his desk.
"Yeah." Derek blinks and swallows the taste of fresh roasted beans, smooth and rich, seductive and renewing.
"Is this it?" Addison asks, looking down at the ragged chart that really needs to be given back.
He couldn't bear to part with it, analyzing every last detail. And yet, he did nothing wrong. Just no luck. Derek doesn't answer as she begins to leaf through the circumstances that took a normal everyday surgery and spun it into a drastic, challenging event that he lost.
"Honey," Addison mutters unaware, lifting the last little bit, and setting it all back with a sigh large enough to encompass the entire room. "You did everything you could."
"I know," Derek replies, and most of the time that's enough. Generally, he can distance himself, but this case was different.
He's never sure how he manages to wind up in her arms, but his head rests reluctantly against her shoulder, small circles sending shivers down his spine. It's a little cold in his office this morning, but she's warm enough for both of them and for once he merely takes a huge breath and holds on; lets Addison do the comforting for once, because he needs it, because you always want to one who broke your heart to be the one who helps mend it back together.
It's not really astonishing that they feel infinitely better about life as he begins to pull away, (placing a quick, gratuitous kiss on her lips as he goes) but it is as close as they are going to get this year. Nothing is resolved, as ever, but there is resolve momentarily.
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