Disclaimer: Any publicly recognisable characters, locations or content aren't mine. *Sighs* How I wish they were... grr, Shonda.
A/N: So yes, this is angsty. Very. I make no apologies for it though, I don't think I have the mental capacity to write anything remotely fluffy so we're stuck with angst - and in this case, angst written at goodness knows what time in the morning, unbetaed and whilst ignoring the fact that I had a GCSE History exam in the morning. So yeah :D
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Suddenly she is running, desperately trying to rid her mind of the images that have been burned on the back of her eyelids; they're refusing to budge, each desperate blink making them clearer, fiery against the black of the night.
Her and him. Him and her. She snorts. They'll be getting matching dressing gowns soon.
She's not sure when her shoe came off but she becomes aware that her long strides are being hampered by the absence of a Christian Louboutin. She shakes her foot and the other falls away. She has no need for expensive tastes now she thinks bitterly as she runs harder and rounds a corner, oblivious to her battered feet. She can't imagine a time when she'll ever be able to feel again – that is, when she'll allow herself to feel again.
Addison knows very well that she'd been the first one to cheat, there was no getting around that fact. She had let herself be crushed by her husband time and again as she had believed that it was her just desserts that it was so; there would be no bars for Addison Montgomery, no, her sentence was to be served at the mercy of her college sweetheart and his twelve year old girlfriend. She realises now that this whole charade has been just that: a game, a toy for his new pet project, a plaything for her to bat before she cast her aside in the gutter.
Seattle was just one huge, hellish metaphorical gutter through and through.
She knows very well that she should've probably never come here but she did because she had foolishly fallen in love with her husband over again the moment she'd slept with another man. She is still tortuously ashamed and she's pretty certain that she will be for the rest of forever or at least until the stars cease to shine. Addison knows therefore that she deserves to serve her sentence as much as the next adulterous bitch but the next adulterous bitch rarely attempts to reconcile with their husband. She did, she has, she… was? She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything any more.
Except that the crippling pain in her ruined heart is nothing short of criminally justified.
She has walked her gangplank, hung her head, apologised and grovelled more than she cares to remember. Finally after nearly six months, two weeks and three days (though she's not keeping tabs) she heard the word forgive grace his lips. And in the same foolish way that she had tumbled back into the tumultuous relationship that they'd called love she had been a complete and utter irrational and believed what he'd had to say.
She glances around and realises that by some dark and twisty foregone conclusion her numb feet have brought her back to the wretched place she was so anxious to flee from. An hysterical laugh escapes from her before she can try to stem it and she can't tell a lie, it feels good.
She hears the car coming before anything else. Hearing, a remarkable sense. They say it's always the last to go before you die. The driver she recognises, his grieving, white face etched into her memory from the last time she saw him on the wrong side of her "I'm sorry, we did everything we could" routine. Some little nugget of information in her brain tells her that what he is doing now isn't routine but she can't quite fathom why. She frowns. It's probably not important anyway.
Her body steps in to take control at this point, turning her away from the oncoming vehicle and attempting to shield her with her arms, bracing for impact. As she spins however her autopilot mind registers the piercing blue eyes widen over by the hospital entrance, not ten feet away. Their owner starts to run but she observes darkly that he will never be in time. In time for what? It irritates her that she still doesn't know.
The answer comes to her just as the bumper collides with her thigh and she is thrown into the air, her back twisting as she flies in a graceful arc, rushing through the air towards the unforgiving asphalt. All she can think of though is how she feels a bubbling euphoria inside of her at regaining control of the situation; she knew the answer and she's no longer a failure. That is until she's consumed by the flames that greet her as she crashes into the car park.
She's often wondered what it'd be like to be involved in a car crash. She's often envisioned jumping down an entire flight of stairs too and what it would be like to put her hand on an iron. But being dumped unceremoniously in a heap by an SUV isn't at all like she'd imagined it. She thought that she'd see stars - naively - or be welcomed into some great black abyss. She also reckoned that the shock would immediately protect her from the devastating pain. By all counts she finds that in reality and like so many other times she is totally mistaken. The pain she knows will dissipate shortly as the adrenaline courses through her veins but right now she is aware of every cell in her body; in this moment she feels more alive than she has done in the last two years of regret and absence. She recognises this ridiculous irony for what it is.
//
"Can we spare some time for huggles and juju tonight?" she asked hopefully. "I know I'm going to need it after the schedule I've got today."
"Sorry, I'm going to have to give it a miss." He turned for the door, picking up his pager without so much as a peck on the cheek. "Oh, and for the record I don't really do movies and cocoa any more, I prefer to fish after a stressful day," he flung over his shoulder as the door slammed shut behind him. Addison was still until she couldn't hear the rumble or his car any longer; then she sighed and went to brush her teeth.
//
She's aware of her fingers and toes losing feeling before the lack of sensation spreads like a blush throughout her entire being, rendering her immobile but also bringing with it unsurprising, abundant relief. For the second time that night she can no longer feel and this provides her with a swelling of happiness deep in her gut. She can't afford to become aware of her situation, not when she can hear the pounding feet drawing near.
She stares up at the inky sky sewn with all those suns, shimmering from faraway galaxies. That is until her vision is obscured by a mass of stylised, moussed Russell Crowe-esque fabulous hair. She shuts her eyes, refusing to acknowledge him.
"Addie? Addison?" His voice is tight, worried, frantic even. She can't fathom why. "It's okay, a gurney's on its way, just stay with me, please."
//
She froze and sank back behind the corner as she caught a glimpse of the pair making their way down the corridor, chatting and laughing animatedly.
"…so I was thinking, why don't you come around to mine tonight? We could order in a pizza, make a nest on the sofa, maybe get some use out of those DVDs I rented the other night. The others will be out, don't worry." Addison smiled to herself a little smugly, waiting for him to respond with "sorry, I have a date with some fishing tackle."
"Sounds perfect."
If she'd found the strength (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it) inside her she could've still turned a blind eye to this, denied that it ever happened, reconvened with her husband at a later date. But she peered around her shelter just in time to see their lips fused together, fumbling for the door of the on-call room.
She felt blinding anger. She felt betrayed. She felt indescribably sad.
Most of all she felt nauseated.
Suddenly, she is running…
//
Morbidly she wonders what her case will stand up in court as, what poor, grieving Mr Roslin will be charged with.
In her mind she sifts through all those ridiculous hospital nicknames. Dizzie. Bang. No, they're not what she's looking for.
Ah, there it is.
MerDer. Murder. She laughs at her little joke.
Derek's head flicks to her as he hears the strangled sob and his hand wraps tighter around hers, unwilling to ever let go of it again. Her eyes flutter open and find his pooling tears threatening to spill over.
"Addie?"
"You know I never stopped loving you right?" she chokes out – but not due to emotional strain, just because it's proving hard to breathe.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Well that's that then I guess," she says, agonisingly aware that the stars twinkling behind his head are growing dim in her eyes.
"Don't panic. The gurney patrol are on their way." Addison looks at him in the way that she may look at an astoundingly stupid child.
"Indeed," she responds after a moment. "I ask of you one thing, Derek-"
"Don't, don't," he smiles weakly at her.
"You don't know what I was going to ask."
"Yeah, I do. I don't want to hear it."
"Really? Okay then, hit me." He shakes his head but gives in fairly quickly, recognising how this isn't the time to stall.
"You were going to ask me for the mountains." Addison was slightly taken aback. He still remembered her request to be scattered from the peaks of her three favourite mountains?
"Uhm, yes," she stuttered.
"Well I don't intend to break that promise but neither do I intend to oblige any time soon." She smiles but her eyelids are becoming heavy.
"Thank you, Derek," she says, letting her eyes close. He protests as expected but she ignores him. She can feel herself winding down, the beginning of the end.
Even if she opened her eyes again now she knows that it would be fruitless.
She won't miss the smell and metallic taste of blood melding with her flowery scented shampoo either.
Her grip slackens in Derek's hand.
He moves to her ear, whispering sweet nothings when he feels her become limp. Then amongst his mutterings he proclaims,
"I love you Addison Montgomery, from now to the end of eternity and beyond. Forever means forever. I love you."
She's indescribably glad that hearing is the last sense to go.
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A/N: Thank you for reading! TEAM ADDEK (:
Oh, before I forget; this is my friend, Bob *strokes blue review button*. Please click on him, he'll be a friend for life.