Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter – too many of you to thank individually without taking up half the page. To be honest, I'm just glad you're not coming after me with hatchets and cudgels for the cruelty of the previous chapter. Although the story is getting to be a bit of a tome, Alex and Addison are still on their first day together. Wouldn't want to rush things now, would I?! By the way, this could be my last update for a while, a good week or so, and probably nearer two. I'm about to move house so will be without the internet until it's activated at the new address. On the upside though, I'll still be writing, so once it is up and running again, you should get some more regular updates.

Disclaimer: As before.

Alex groaned. It was four in the morning, and he hadn't so much as closed his eyes yet. Shift work screwed with your body clock, and he'd never been a great sleeper to start with, but this… this was full blown insomnia. His mind was racing, thoughts swirling, memories prodding at him until he thought his head was going to explode (medically unlikely, admittedly, but the way he was feeling, he definitely couldn't rule out the possibility).

It was his own fault of course. Friends. Friends? What sort of stupid question had that been? Where were all the explanations? Not the poor excuse for an explanation he had come out with, but all the things he'd really meant to say. That he'd never meant to feel this way, but in those early days after the divorce, she'd seemed so broken, so in need of a friend, that you would have had to have had a heart of stone not to throw her a lifebelt, and that's what he'd done. To start with.

Then there was how he had gotten to know her… well, you couldn't fail but admire her skill, her composure. Every day she walked into that hospital to face the fragmented splinters of her former life, haunted by the twin ghosts of Derek and Sloan, and every day she was nothing less than professional. She stalked those halls striking fear into the hearts of less robust interns as if she didn't have a care in the world. Yet, just under the surface, there was this beautiful, vulnerable woman who just needed a someone to notice her. If only you took the time to look for her.

Alex would never have had himself pegged as the person to find that side of a woman, but then, he knew he had hidden depths himself that you had to dig pretty deeply for. And somehow, Addison, without ever trying to, had uncovered them. Perhaps it was because she hadn't demanded anything from him that he had found himself wanting to offer it anyway.

Friends?

He didn't want to be her friend. He wanted… He loved her. He wanted to be her lover. When you stripped away all the excuses and bullshit, that was all it came down to. He wished he trusted himself to be able to go for it. But he didn't, that was what he wanted to explain.

When Ava had told him about overhearing Addison and Callie's conversation, all he could think was how much Addison deserved some good, decent guy who would give her the family she wanted, the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence, the happy ending. That wasn't him, it could never be him. He could bring her coffee and make her smile, and defend her against Derek and Sloan and their stinging remarks. He could work with her, and save a life with her. He could kiss her, and make love to her. But he couldn't be the person she wanted. He couldn't then, and he didn't think he could now. Apart from growing up, not a whole lot had changed. He was still Alex Karev, screwed up Alex Karev. And she deserved better.

He rolled over in bed and sat up, flicking the light on. He needed to tell her all this. There was no use lying in bed thinking it all; the whole reason for asking her to dinner tonight was to explain it all properly. Not to offer some half hearted "I'm sorry I hurt you, I was trying to protect you" crap.

It was four in the morning though. You couldn't exactly call someone at four in the morning, even if you did want to bare your soul to them. A part of him wanted to think that he wasn't the only one lying awake in emotional turmoil tonight, but he didn't flatter himself by believing that.

But then, if it was the other way round, he'd want her to call. He reached out for his cellphone, but just as his fingertips touched it, it trilled into life.

He taken by surprise, and answered it without looking at the caller ID. 'Hello?'

'I'm sorry, I know it's the middle of the night over there, but I really, really wanted to tell you something.'

All he really registered was that it wasn't Addison. All he really cared about was that it wasn't Addison. 'Hey Izzie,' he said wearily. 'I was awake anyway, it's fine.' Damn it, he was actually going to do it, he was going to call her – by the time he got off the phone to Izzie the moment would be lost. It already was.

'I know I normally call you at work…'

'I mean it, don't worry about it. What's your news?'

'Well, it's not really my news, but I had to tell you anyway. I was having lunch with Cristina, who had been having coffee with Meredith,' Alex's head began to spin at the convoluted paper trail, '…who said that Derek had been talking to an old college friend of his that Addison used to work with in California.'

'I see,' he said, although he wasn't sure that he did. He could see where this was going though. Less than a day. She'd been here less than a day and already everyone knew.

'Anyway, apparently Addison has left California. This amazing job came up, and she just went.'

'Right…'

'And you will never guess where she's gone.'

'Oh, I think I can,' Alex replied wryly, but Izzie didn't hear him in her excitement.

'London. She's in London Alex. I don't know where, but I'm sure I can find out for you.' Oh, I bet you can, he thought. 'Oh, isn't it like fate, or destiny or something?'

'I don't believe in fate.' Which he didn't. Fate and Destiny belonged in fairytales and Disney stories and happy endings that didn't happen in his life.

'Alex, I know you don't like it when I talk about her, but why not? What really happened? I've just told you that you're living in the same city as her and you're not even excited, or happy, or anything. I've called you in the middle of the night, and you haven't even reacted.'

'Izzie. I don't have a right to be excited or happy or anything when it comes to Addison okay? I screwed up. I screwed it up with her worse than I ever did with you, although not in the same way. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me.'

'Alex, has it ever occurred to you that you're really not that bad a catch? You're kind and sweet, even though you'd rather die than for people to know that. You're an amazing doctor. You're a good person.'

They'd had this argument over and over. During their relationship, and after it, as friends. It always ended with him falling into silence and her giving up.

'I'm going to go now.'

'Come on, talk to me Alex. What did you do? Just find her, and say sorry. Whatever it was, it's worth taking a chance, isn't it?'

'What makes you think that after seven years she'd even remember me, let alone more than that?'

'You're kidding me, right? You don't honestly believe that?'

'No,' he conceded. 'But it isn't going to just fall into place. This is real life Izzie, not some romantic movie.'

'Just think about it. I'm sure if you asked around, you could find out where she is. There can't be many newly arrived American Neo-Natal Surgeons in London.'

'It's not that simple.'

'Why not?'

He said his goodbyes, and hung up without answering the question. Her words echoed in his ears though.

Why not?

He glanced back at the phone, then turned the light off, and rested his head on the pillow again. It was going to be a long, lonely wait until morning.