Author's Note: Oops, I'd forgotten I'd written this. I was right when I thought I was going to be too busy to write recently, but it would probably help move the story forward if I actually remembered to post the stockpiled chapters, wouldn't it? Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter, and this is another one wavering on the side of fluffy; hope very much that you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Disclaimer: As before

They lay on the couch, half entwined and with Addison resting across Alex's chest and listening to his heart beating quietly. They had drunk the rest of the wine, and watched soporifically as the fire burned down to all but glowing embers. After a long time, Alex stirred and sat up to put some more logs on it.

'No, stay here,' she said sleepily.

'It's cold, I'm just going to get the fire going again.' He lifted her carefully off his body and laid her down on the soft suede.

'All right,' she smiled lazily, 'don't be long.'

'I'm only going to be ten feet away.' He smirked back at her, loving the look of happy contentment that shone in her dark blue eyes. He knelt in front of the fireplace and took three logs out of the wicker basket that was next to the hearth and used the poker to try to prod the flames back into life.

'I hope you know I'm never letting you go further than ten feet away from me ever again.'

The fire was showing some tentative signs of picking up again as the flames licked at the new logs, so he left it to his own devices and returned to the couch, sliding back beside Addison's warm body. He wound his arm around her waist, lightly stroking her stomach with his thumb, just above the waistband of her skirt, and she snuggled into him.

Gently, he lifted her hair to one side and kissed her neck.

'Mmm,' she murmured.

'So, I was thinking,' he said slowly against skin that still, somehow, smelt of the same Chanel No 5 it had that morning when he had greeted her, fresh and fragrant, in the ambulance bay outside the hospital, 'this whole moving in deal… How soon were you talking about?'

Addison wriggled around in his arms until she was facing him, and when he dipped his head to kiss her again, she met him partway, and for a moment, they were lost in each other. He wound his hand carefully in her hair, and eased his tongue between her open lips, and was rewarded with a soft moan.

'I asked you a question.' He moved his attention along her jawline to a spot just below her ear that he knew made her squirm.

'You haven't exactly given me a chance to answer.' Reluctantly, Addison pushed him off her and they both sat up.

'Well?' He'd developed a habit, dating back from the night at Trafalgar Square, of playing with her fingers as he held her hand, and he started doing the same again. She smiled down at their long, surgeon's fingers all knotted together.

'I don't know. Whenever you can. I mean, how soon can you…?'

'I've got a day off tomorrow,' he suggested.

'What?' she asked quickly.

'It doesn't have to be tomorrow,' he said hurriedly, picking up on her alarmed tone. 'It's just, I'll have the time, and I don't know when I'll next have the chance. And it's not as if I have to give the hotel notice, or anything like that. But don't worry about it, if it's too soon – '

'No,' Addison interrupted him. 'You know what, tomorrow would be perfect.'

He gave her a quick peck on the forehead, and began to disentangle himself from her. 'Well, in that case, I had better be going,' he said, with a regretful tone.

Addison stuck her bottom lip out in an endearing pout, and looked up at him with big, appealing, puppy dog eyes.

'It's late.'

'Exactly. Why go?' she asked.

'Because I told you I wanted to do this properly Addison, and I meant it.'

'We're moving in together tomorrow, don't you think that the waiting thing might be about to go out the window anyway?' she said seductively. He was standing up now, although still close enough to the couch for her to be able to run her foot teasingly up the side of his leg.

He grabbed her foot by the ankle, and tickled it, eliciting a girlish shriek from her. 'Just think how good tomorrow night will be.'

Her voice became serious. 'Please stay.'

He dropped her foot, and went back to perch next to her on the couch. Carefully, he tucked a tress of red hair behind her ear, and stroked her cheek lightly. 'Not tonight. I need to be at the hotel really, to check out and everything in the morning. It'll be a lot easier.'

She looked unconvinced.

'Then I promise you Addison, from tomorrow night onwards, I'm never going to spend another night apart from you ever again.'

'What, never?' she laughed, but he answered in earnest.

'Not if I can help it.'

Something in his eyes as he gazed at her reminded Addison of a moment long ago, in Seattle, when Meredith was recovering after her near drowning during the ferry crash. Derek had been sitting at her bedside, watching over her with such a look of love in his eyes, as if his world would end if she died, as if he would die if she died, and she'd known, in her heart of hearts, that the way he loved Meredith utterly outshone what he'd felt for her.

She'd realised, a little later, on her long, mid-life crisis inspired drive to California, that she was thirty nine years old, and no-one had ever looked at her like that. And now she was forty six, and for the first time ever, she knew what it felt like to be the very centre of someone's world. Alex Karev's world.

She leaned into his caress of her cheek and planted a soft kiss on his rough palm. 'Okay.'

'Okay?'

'Okay, you can go. But on the sole condition that you never stop looking at me like that.'

He looked at her quizzically, his brow furrowing a little in confusion. 'Like what?'

'Like I'm your whole universe. Like you couldn't live without me… Like Derek looks at Meredith,' she explained, baulking a little at using the final analogy, but it was the closest way of describing what she meant.

'I couldn't live without you Addison,' he said simply. 'For all the years that you were gone, what I did, you couldn't call it "living". First there was the disaster with Rebecca, then Izzie and I… We were both dead inside then, in a way. And ever since, I've just worked. I've filled every minute of my life with medicine so I didn't have the opportunity to think about the fact that that was all I had.'

'It makes me sad to hear you say that,' she admitted. 'You're young, much younger than I am. You shouldn't be that screwed up.'

'I always have been. And at least I've been able to do some good over the years. But none of that matters now.'

This time, she noticed, as he spoke he was playing with the third finger of her left hand. It was an idle gesture; like all habits, he seemed barely aware that he was doing it, but it still set her mind racing, even though the more rational side of her was telling her not to be so stupid.

The only thing she had been sure of over the intervening years since Seattle was that she never wanted to get married again, but London had revitalised her in every possible way and her conviction on the point was slipping away. Why would you not want to marry someone who loved you, who you loved, like you were the only two people in the world? But she was getting ahead of herself.

'I love you,' she told him instead.

He gave her one last kiss before moving towards the door. 'I love you too.'