Autumn
Lexie has done everything she should have done, I couldn't ask for more. There's a turkey roasting in the oven and the kids are pacified, baking cookies with Aunt Izzie. Meredith, Derek, Cristina and Owen are lounging on the sofa, satisfied that their little ones are being taken care of in the kitchen, and Alex is bouncing their bonny little baby son, George, on his knee. Callie has the emergency shift at the hospital, but she's promised she and Arizona will at least find their way in for the leftovers. But although I've known that she's been coming for weeks, I'm still not prepared when Carrie, my seven-year-old, answers the door and doesn't recognise the family standing there. I walk into the hall, lifting Tyler, my son onto my hip as I go, but when I see her standing there I stop short.

She looks the same as ever, and although she's aged in the years since I last saw her, it's definitely gracefully. There are only a few lines of silver in her vibrant red hair, and she when she smiles, ever so honestly, at me, there are a few lines around her eyes. The man she's with, smiling also, reaches out to shake my hand, and for a moment it's Derek in front of me the day he told me he was going to propose. But that day is too many years ago now, and instantly the memory fades.

"Noah, this is Mark. Mark, this is Noah, my fiancée."
He looks nice enough, but I can't meet his eyes. The little boy clinging to Addison's legs with ebony skin is obviously not her own, but the look on her face when she glances down at him tells me he might as well be. There's a pang as I remember her only chance to have a baby… and how she'd thrown it away. I'm struggling for something to say when Meredith appears in the doorway behind me and ushers them in, hugging Addison slightly awkwardly as she does. I wonder what the look on Derek's face will be when he sees her after all this time, but I don't get to see. Tyler is fisting my shirt, and I can hear Lexie calling from the kitchen. I walk through, and seeing her standing at the stove, one of her hands half a metre deep in a turkey should make me feel better.

I married her less than a year ago, and I've been happy… it's not that. But seeing Addison standing there in front of me like that, arm in arm with some man who hasn't known her half the time I have, with a child between her legs… that changes everything. A life I never really could have had but I could have wished for all the same flashes before my eyes, and I have to swallow, making Lexie frown.

"You all right?" she asks, but there's still a smile in her voice. I instantly feel guilty, wondering what I ever did to deserve her, this perfect, pretty, loving, intelligent woman, and wonderful mother, who I can't even love as much as I should. I smile at her, and nod, and slide my arms around her waist, kissing the back of her head, thinking if I can breathe in her smell long enough, I'll be able to convince myself I'm in the right place, with the right woman.

I feel the muscles taut in her back relax, and she turns in my arms, fixing her lips to mine. I deepen the kiss slowly, forcing red hair and blue eyes out of my mind.

I hear a throat clearing, and Lexie and I break apart. Of course it's her standing there in the kitchen doorway, one of her eyebrows slightly raised. I have to swallow, but thankfully Lexie has averted her gaze, is back to the stove. She stares at me for a long moment, and then, when she speaks, I have to take a step away from my wife.

"We're out of beers." She says softly, and I nod, almost instantly.
"I'll just go out and get some." I get a nod from Lexie, but she doesn't even turn her head.
Addison shakes her head. "You've had too much to drink to drive, Mark. I'll drive you."
I want to say no, I should say no, but I can't.

We climb into her car minutes later, and she puts it into gear, silently.
"I haven't seen you in too long, Mark." She mutters, as she pulls out of my driveway. I have nothing to say to that, so I simply nod.
"You're happy, though?" she probes gently, and I can't help the sigh from escaping.
"Happy enough." It doesn't even sound true to me, so I feel the need to follow it up. "Noah, he… seems nice."
She laughs a little. "Yeah… he's been great with Finn… we met when he was still married though."
I don't say anything, just realise that this is some sort of sorry turnaround. She glances at me briefly, taking her eyes off the road.
"For what it's worth, Mark, I like Lexie."
Again, what is there to say to that? I try and force a smile, but suddenly my face feels heavy. We pull into the parking lot of the off-licence, and I wordlessly go in and buy the beers. As I walk out to the car again I can feel my heart racing, and for a while I'm the teenage boy I once was, realising I was in love with her as her legs twirled around mine in a river. I open the car door, and she moves to turn the key in the ignition, but something stops her.

"I've missed you, Mark."
How can she be doing this again? Hell, I didn't want to invite her to Thanksgiving, even, I've been better off away from her, forgetting, these last years, but Meredith fucking Grey insisted… She isn't allowed back into my life, not like this…
When I say nothing, she speaks again.
"There were so many times I wanted to see you… I should have just picked up the phone and called…"
Why didn't you? "I thought you were happy."
She sighs. "Happy enough." She whispers, and there's something in her voice that makes me turn to face her, my eyes locking with hers.
They're big and sad, her eyes, like they were that night by the lake, when she first opened her arms to me, admitted her marriage was failing… the day she left for LA and hardly came back… but she is and always will be Addison, and she's the one person in the world I can't say no to.

"I always… I thought you didn't want me to call…" I hate the sound of my own voice, right now, "I thought-"
So her finger on my lips is crossing a line, but right now there's nothing else I can feel.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, and when I frown, she leans a little closer. "I always thought we'd end up together, you and me. But I ruined everything…"

I remember how she used to look, all long pale limbs and red hair and smiles, and realise the woman in front of me is a shadow of that girl.

So I kiss her, if only to make her stop talking.

I can't tell you how long it lasts, or how far we take it, up against the driver's side window of her car, in the parking lot of the only shop we could find open on Thanksgiving, but it's everything I've been missing these past years. But I know it can't continue.

I pull away slowly, and her eyes are red, and I think she might be half-crying. I shake my head slowly, having realised one thing. I may never be able to get over her, but I can say no to her, for Lexie's sake if not my own.

"I can't do this." I whisper, and it's such a cliché I loathe it the moment it leaves my lips. But she shakes her head slowly, still running her long white fingers over my cheek.
"I'm sorry." She says again. "I really am, Mark."
I shake my own head, wishing she'd stop touching me.
"You'll just leave again, and pretend nothing happened, pretend neither of us felt anything."
"I won't… not this time…" she's pleading with me.
"I… I've got a wife and children, Addison."
She's still shaking her head, and her eyes, almost turquoise with tears, are breaking my heart.
"Please…" she breathes, and I pull her close to my chest, but I'm still shaking my head. She sobs for a moment, and then she seems to resign herself to it all and pull away, turning the key in the ignition.

The whole exchange is surreal, like I'm watching someone else in my place. I sound desperate, lost, she sounds alone, broken. But I can't let her have what she wants, not here, not now. I've been hurt too many times, and I can't crumble any more because of her. She's made her choice, more times than most people ever get to, and it's over now. I made my choice, and I choose Lexie and Carrie and Tyler and some form of broken normality, regardless of where my heart really is. She drives back in silence, we enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving as well as we can, trying our hardest not to talk to each other.

She's the last to leave, her little, perfect family, Finn asleep in Noah's arms. She looks as if she's trying not to, but she hugs me for too long, and I breathe in that scent of her one last, long time. I might not see her for years, and for once, that's something I'm almost grateful for. She's taken up half my life, and I've finally realised that I have to move away from her, no matter how much it hurts. She gives me a small, bitter smile, and they leave, and the door swings closed behind them.

But I just can't seem to shut her out.