A How To Know Guide for Derek Shepherd: Ways to know if your significant other and best friend are into each other. . . .
#3
Oddly enough, one clear indication that your girlfriend and best friend are into each other is if they have secret emergency codes they use with one another when they need help.
Derek and Addison were walking in the park discussing and calculating his chances of graduating with honours and the likeliness of it as a result of his latest GPA when she got a text from Mark.
It was slim, he reckons. He needed a solid 4.0 this semester and unless he aces all his subjects, which, he have to agree on, is highly improbable, he'll have no choice but to graduate as common as everyone else.
Derek read the text over her shoulder, but the simple message - 'Come quick. Code 306.' meant nothing to him.
She rolled her eyes and looked mildly annoyed but nevertheless quickly replied back - 'Be right there.' before shoving her phone in her bag and turning to him with a sigh.
"Sorry, sweetie. But I have to go over to Mark's now." she said in a brooding voice, already heading for the road at a fast trot.
"Oh, I'll come with you." he replied easily. "It's been a while since I hung out with my boy."
Addison's mouth tightened slightly. "Alright. And please don't call him your boy. It's making me nauseous." she responded grudgingly, light tone gone. "But you won't be able to come up straight away when we get there."
"Why not?" he questioned suspiciously, eyebrows drawing together in a typical Derek look of confusion.
She emitted another frustrated sigh. "Never mind. There's no time in explaining now." she replied impatiently, breaking into an almost run as they crossed the street to Mark's.
After they reached the outside of his apartment, she opened her bag again and pulled out a small pillbox. When she opened and reached inside the box, he was surprised to see her pull out a glittering ring which she promptly slipped onto the third finger of her left hand.
"Okay, wait down here. When you see a girl rush out the door crying or muttering obscenities, it should be safe to come up." she informed him matter-of-factly.
Before he had time to answer she had given him a quick peck on the lips and spun around to run into the building.
Derek groaned. Lately he had felt so distant from both Addison and Mark. This certainly wasn't the first time he didn't have a clue what was going on in her head. The sad thing was that he was actually pretty apathetic about finding out. It was more than just him having his mind on school and work, because he thinks something between him and Addison had shifted. She seemed to have become a different person - less bookish, a lot less studying than before but somehow still getting straight-As, more drinking and partying, even more than the daily Montgomery standard, getting strange messages from his best friend. It was like he didn't even know her anymore.
But he suspected Mark did. They have been hanging out a lot lately since he've been spending most of his time peering into his textbooks. Not that it worried him. If anything it was a relief to have the pressure of pleasing his girl taken off him for a little while. And he knew nothing would ever happen between the two of them. They were polar opposites. Addison wanted a prince, not a playboy. And Mark preferred women with a lot more experience and without inhibition and a moral compass.
As Addison had predicted, within ten minutes a girl rushed through the doors of the lobby, blonde hair flying behind her as she muttered 'bastard, that asshole bastard'. Obviously, Mark was up to his usual tricks.
He assumed it was now safe for him to head on up. When he exited the elevator on Mark's floor he could already hear the sound of his girlfriend's voice. The door of Mark's apartment had been left slightly ajar.
"... And I can't believe you keep making the same stupid mistakes and just expect me to drop everything to help you out. I was having a lovely walk in the park with Derek and you know how little time we've got to spend with each other lately ..."
He felt a tiny twinge of guilt at that because truthfully, he wasn't exactly that entirely busy. He really could have spend more time with her, but it has just become so hard to, especially when half the time he was with her he can't help but think how he could be bettering his grades. Because, really, it's her fault that he's been distracted; she's his distraction.
Mark's voice suddenly cut across his girlfriend's angry tone. "Hey, how was I supposed to know she'd get all clingy and refuse to leave in the morning. I'm telling you that one needs a room at the Ostroff Centre, I thought she was going to go Glenn Close on my ass."
He heard Addison snort.
"Mark, face it, any girl who falls for your bull is probably suffering some serious mental problems. But you should know by now it's always the blondes that are the real crazies. Every single time."
"Mmm, maybe in the future I should stick to redheads." Mark drawled, his tone obviously suggestive in a way that gave Derek just the briefest pause. "What'd you say, huh, Red?"
"Ugh!" she responded. "Anything that will keep you from interrupting my mornings."
When Mark spoke again he sounded slightly irritated. "Oh, God forbid I interrupt a date with Derek the Great. It must have been so romantic given the speed with which you arrived at my front door. What, did he bore you with more of his desperate need for a higher GPA?"
There was a pause inside. Derek could picture Mark smirking at Addison as she glared at him.
He knocked on the door as he entered. Mark and Addison immediately broke from their intense stare, and an undefined tension that was hanging in the air was suddenly broken.
"Hey, I saw the blonde leave so I figured it was safe to come up." he said.
"Good to know she isn't hanging around in the lobby. It gets a bit awkward, after a while, having to ring down to reception to make sure they're really gone." Mark declared, mouth quirked.
"So, is one of you going to tell me what's going on? What the hell is a code 306?" he asked, faintly irritated.
"Number 306 of the Addison and Mark Code is invoked when one of my guests proves more ... tenacious, than usual." Mark answered.
"The Addison and Mark Code?" he queried, torn between exasperation and amusement and irritation.
"A list of codes we constructed one night while you were off studying somewhere, intended to get us out of any awkward situation." Mark explained. "And we might have been slightly intoxicated while ... just to be clear."
"And each possible event from which one of us that might need restriction has a number for texting purposes, and also an innocuous phrase, a safe words - you might say - in case it needs to be dropped innocently into conversation whilst others are present." Addison further clarified. "For instance, the other night at the van der Pol wedding reception when that Spitty from Genetics was threatening to dance with me I mentioned how much I enjoyed the Superman franchise as Mark happened to walk by."
"Which of course meant she needed rescuing and wanted me to fly her to a galaxy far, far away," Mark concluded.
"Right." Derek said, brows furrowing. "That's when you two disappeared out onto the balcony with a bottle of champagne and a tray of hors d'oeuvres, leaving me to be propositioned by a middle-aged and very very persistent cougar, by the way. But what was this morning's SOS about? And why is Addie carrying around a ring in her bag?"
"Because in the event of a 306, when Mark can't get one of his weak-headed mistakes from the night before to take a hint and depart in the morning, I appear on the scene wearing a ring, doing a very convincing impression of the extremely outraged and possibly violent fiancée." she spoke clearly, as if explaining the situation to a very young child.
"Speaking of which, you didn't need to hit me quite so hard earlier, Montgomery." Mark muttered, rubbing his jaw at the memory.
"You wanted it to be credible, didn't you?"
"Well, thank you so much, love." Mark bit out sarcastically.
"Save it. You can repay me by handling a 215 for me next week." Addison replied casually as she shouldered her bag and headed for the door.
"A 215?" Derek asked, as he took in Mark's blanched expression.
"Trust me. You don't want to know." Mark whispered hoarsely, as he watched Addison's swaying hips as they disappeared out his door.
Derek realised that that was true.
Even though he probably should.
A little Maddek silliness.
What do you think?