After Alexa had been discharged, she had decided that she would rather live with Derek than Addison. She wasn't getting along well with Addison. They rarely spoke when they were together and when they did it was usually casual conversation without depth or importance. She gotten along fairly well with Derek but wasn't on comfortable terms with Addison. Things always seemed awkward between them, despite Addison's efforts, Alexa had no interest in forming any kind of bond with her.
Alexa spotted Derek standing by the nurse's station, he was going through the nurse's notes on his patient's chart before the surgery he had scheduled. A few feet away, she saw her mother doing what she assumed was the same thing.
"Hey, Alexa." Derek said once he closed the chart and saw her standing by him. "I didn't realize you were here, you should have said something. Did you have fun with Meredith and Izzie? They were really excited about today."
Addison looked up from her chart when she heard her daughter's name. She couldn't help but smile as she watched Derek interact with her. He was still the flawless father he had been when she was a toddler. He hadn't lost his touch. "Where'd you guys go?" Addison asked with a smile.
"Meredith and Izzie took her shopping. Her lack of clothes was bothering them. So they took my credit card and went to the mall." Derek answered.
"Oh..." her smiled died. "I was hoping to be the one to take you shopping. I've always wanted to go shopping with my daughter."
"I'm sure she'll need more clothes, Addison. How much could they have gotten in four hours?" he replied.
"True. How about I get this Friday off? We could fly out to New York Thursday night and we could spend the weekend there. We'll go a spa and shopping and...it'll be fun. We could fly back Sunday afternoon." she offered, already imagining the perfect trip with her daughter. "Trust me, nothing compares to a shopping spree in New York."
Alexa shook her head. "I've got plans with Meredith this weekend." she answered.
"Are you busy next weekend?"
"I don't wanna go to New York with you, okay?" Derek winced from the harshness in his daughter's voice. He glanced at Addison to see her reaction, which to his surprise was neutral.
She just glanced down at the chart she had in her hand and cleared her throat, "Okay, it was just a suggestion. I'm not forcing you to go." Addison answered.
"You don't know how to pick up on a subtle hints." her daughter told her, the coldness still preserved in her voice. "When someone spends minimal time with you and shares nothing in common, when they avoid you at all costs...that generally means they don't like you."
"I should go see my patient, pre-op exam, nervous questions..." her voice died down as she walked away.
"I don't get it." Alexa said as she turned to Derek, "How could you ever have been in love with her? How go you go from her to Meredith? They are like polar opposites."
"You liked her in the beginning, or that's the impression your gave off." Derek reminded her.
"Yeah, when she was just my doctor. She seemed nice and trustworthy, she was supportive and reassuring and all of that." She started to say when Derek cut her off.
"Which, in my opinion, are all excellent qualities in a mother."
"Except for she's not like that as a mother, she's like that as a doctor. The second she found out I was her kid she went into this selfish mode. She didn't care how I would feel about the whole thing. She arranged to have father arrested in front of me. She assumed that I'd be thrilled about the idea of new parents but she never bothered to ask how I feel about the whole thing. I'm not really sure about this but, isn't the point of being a parents to put your child's happiness ahead of your own?"
"Lier." Derek accused when he barged into Addison's temporary office to see her sitting at her desk with her head down on the flat surface. Addison lifted her head and glared at Derek. "You said you were going to do a pre-op exam. You lied."
"I don't usually like telling people that I'm gonna go have a hysterical fit in my office." Addison answered. "It sounds better when you use your patients as an excuse to get away. But I assume you would know, since your the one that used your patients as an excuse to get away from me all the time."
"Now we're gonna talk about our miserable marriage." Derek trailed off.
"We are not going to talk about our marriage. In fact, we are not going to be talking about anything because you are leaving." She answered. "Forget the fifty/fifty custody agreement, you have full custody. I'm going back to New York as soon as your stupid peds surgeon gets back from her god-damned maternity leave."
"Why are you taking all your anger out on me?" he exclaimed in frustration.
"Because..Because this is your fault! You're the one who made me fall in love with you, you proposed, you're the one who got me pregnant, you ignored me, you left me and now our daughter loves you but hates me. It's your fault that I'm so fucking miserable. Had you never proposed, we wouldn't even be in this position!" she yelled.
"Yeah well, I regret that day just as much as you do! If fact, I regret it almost as much as saying 'I do' instead giving in to the voice in my head and running." He screamed. "We've got a meeting scheduled with the police tomorrow afternoon. Be there. I don't care what the hell you do or where the fuck you go after that, but I need you to be there tomorrow."
Derek got out of bed in the middle of the night and pulled on a pair of pants. He grabbed his cell phone and his keys off the nightstand and ran down the steps of Meredith's house. He carefully shut the door so no one would wake up and got in his car. He reclined the seat and exhaled deeply before slowly dialing a number he'd unconsciously memorized over the decade.
"Come on, pick up." he whispered, two rings later he heard the sound of her voice. "Did I wake you?" he asked before he said anything else.
"No. I wasn't asleep..." she in a tone that he hated when they were still happily married. It was the way her voice sounded after she's been crying and it always made him feel like his heart was gonna explode. This time was no exception.
"Why not? It's like..three in the morning. Most normal people are asleep."
"Well you're not either."
"Yeah, that's because Meredith's snoring is particularly loud tonight. But I've seen you...and I know what insomniac Addison looks like. I became well acquainted in med school. You look like you've gotten absolutely no sleep in months." He told her softly.
"I can't sleep alone." she snapped. "Is that what you wanted to hear? It feels cold and weird and I can't go more than an hour without waking up to the emptiness. So go find a fucking pair of ear plugs and sleep, leave me alone."
"You're really cranky." he observed. "And you snap real easily. It's like your a rubber band that someone wrapped one time too many, you could literally see the snap coming."
"Do you enjoy making my life as difficult as possible?" Addison asked rhetorically.
"I miss holding you while you sleep." he whispered. "Meredith hates if I touch her while she's asleep but it feels weird not to have someone to hold. I miss that. And I miss sleeping beside someone who doesn't sound like a bull horn."
"That's great." she responded dryly.
"Remember when Alexa was like ten or eleven months old and she spent the night between us because she would cry if we left her in her room alone? We were both so afraid of rolling over on her and crushing her that neither one of us ended up getting any sleep that night. We were both like zombies the next day and she had more energy than she'd ever had." he recalled fondly.
"What do you want, Derek?" she asked, trying not to let her emotions get to her as he reminded her of all the memories she unknowingly gave up the right to remember when she jumped in the sack with his best friend.
"I'm just trying to tell you that I'm sorry without actually having to say it." he mumbled.
"You're sorry?" Addison repeated. "For what? You haven't done anything."
"I've been an ass-hole...probably since the second your plane landed in Seattle. I have said some of the rudest insults in world, I may have started a rumor or two... I've been horrible. I wanted to apologize for that. I didn't mean what I said in your office, I don't regret marrying you. I don't regret falling for you. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me."
He heard Addison laugh from the other end of the line. "You think an apology can erase that? How many times have I apologized to you? You haven't forgiven me, and you're never going to no matter how many more times I do. But you have nothing to apologize for, you have every right to be rude and horrible. So forget about it and go to sleep, okay?"
"No." he answered sternly. "You always listen to everyone else's problems. I've mentioned Meredith a million times and you haven't said anything, you actually sit there and take it. But I'm willing to bet my life savings that you don't talk to anyone. So I just wanted you to know that I'll still listen even if we aren't together anymore."
"I have nothing to tell you, Derek." she stated in a firm and even tone, she managed to keep up that facade for two seconds before it dissolved. "Why does she hate me?" she asked in a whisper that was barely loud enough for him to understand.
"Alexa?" he asked. "She's a teenage girl, Addison. Aren't they all suppose to hate their mothers? I mean... you're almost forty and you hate yours. Guess you never really grew out of that stage."
"She barely knows me. She seemed fine with me at first, before she knew I'm her mother. The second she found out it was like an instant transformation and I was at the top of her most hated list. I just wanna know what I did? I understand what I did to make you hate me, I know why Mark hates me, why Meredith and everyone else in Seattle hates me. I know why your family never liked me to begin with... I know why my family never liked me. I just wanna know why she joined the club. Is it that difficult to feel something other than hate toward me?"
"I uh.." he started to speak until she cut him off.
"Nevermind. Don't answer that. I'm gonna go take a sleeping pill, I need to sleep and stop thinking. I'll see you tomorrow at the police station."
"Okay." he agreed quietly and heard the phone go dead. He sighed before getting out of the car and going back into the house. He walked in through the doorway and turned to make sure it didn't slam shut. He walked two steps and noticed Meredith standing at the base of the stairway.
"Do you always make mysterious phone calls in your car in the middle of the night or is this your first time?" she asked, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "Who were you talking to that was so urgent that it needed to be said at 3:30 am?"
Derek looked up from the ground and into her eyes. He couldn't bring himself to actually answer her.
Thoughts?