Derek was nervous to say the least. He had carefully planned out his every word for the night, his every move. Everything. He needed that night to be perfect in every possible way. But the second he saw Addison he'd forgotten all his plans. He didn't remember how to tell her just how amazing she looked, or how much he loved her. He could barely get passed a single word without stuttering.
Addison pulled away from the view finder on top of the Empire State Building. She turned to Derek to see him sweating as if he had run a marathon. "Derek?" she started off softly. "You okay, babe? You look like you spent an hour in a sauna. It's almost January...in New York. New York Decembers aren't suppose to make you sweat."
"S-s.." he took a breath before attempting the word again. "S-sweat?" he finally managed to say.
"Yeah. Sweat...as in perspiration. As in you have salty water coming out of your pores like a fountain..." she explained sarcastically. "Are you not feeling well or something? Do you have a fever? We can go home, Derek. I don't want you to get worse out here."
"I'm not sick!" he insisted. "I'm fine...It's just I can't stop thinking and nothing has gone right tonight. I planned everything, Addison. It was all perfectly scripted and then I saw you and I forgot everything. And now I'm out of quarters. Everything went wrong! It wasn't suppose to be like this. I put a lot of time and thought into this. It was suppose to be perfect."
"All this because you have no more quarters?" Addison asked with slight confusion. "It's okay, I don't even like viewfinders that much. Besides, you already made me stare through it for half an hour, I think I've seen everything I could see from up here."
"You saw everything expect what I needed you to see!" he exclaimed. "Please tell me you have a quarter somewhere in your purse. Please." he begged.
Addison sighed and took out her wallet. She looked into the change compartment and pulled out a quarter. "I have a quarter." she confirmed and held it out to him.
Derek took the quarter from her and slipped it into the slot in the viewfinder. He looked through the eye piece to find the building he was looking for. He backed away carefully so it wouldn't lose focus and turned to her. "Okay, I found it. Just don't move the thing and lose it because we're running on a quarter shortage."
Addison rolled her eyes and carefully looked through the eye holes. At first she missed it, but just as she was about to give up and nag him to leave she saw it. He had rented paid an advertising agency to cover two stories of a building's windows in white with Red letters printed clearly across reading, "Marry Me?" He heard her gasp but knew she wouldn't back away until the time on the viewfinder ran out.
"Are you proposing to me?" she finally asked.
"Yes... but it was suppose to me more romantic. I was suppose to have enough quarters, you were suppose to see it on time. I was suppose to remember the speech I had planned, it wasn't suppose to be this cold out here and I shouldn't have been sweating so I wouldn't stink right now. I know I killed the romance of it but that sign goes down in 10 minutes so..."
"You didn't kill it." Addison smiled and chucked in tension. She knew the answer, she had no doubts. She didn't even need to think about it. "This is perfect because it didn't go according to plan. It feels real."
"It is real, Addison. I love you, I want you there every single day for the rest of my life. And that's not what I was initially going to say...but I think we've already established that I don't remember what I wanted to say. I'm too nervous to remember anything that was suppose to happen. In fact, I'm so nervous that I don't even know if you've already answered."
"Yes." she beamed a priceless smile. "I will marry you even if you don't remember what you were initially suppose to say. I love you and nothing you say will change that...or in this case nothing you don't say can change that." Addison leaned in and wrapped her arms around his neck to place a tender kiss over his lips.
After a few seconds Derek pulled away and laughed nervously while he ran his fingers through his hair. "Yes? Really?" he asked. "Are you sure? Did you read the question correctly? You realize you just kissed me regardless of the fact that I'm sweating? Why would you kiss a nervously babbling, sweating person?"
"Because I love you." she answered as she placed another kiss on his lips. "And I don't care whether or not you're sweating. I don't care if you don't remember what you wanted to say. I don't care if you think this didn't go well just because it wasn't as you planned it. I love you and I think this was perfect."
"But you don't even like viewfinders..."
"That was before. Now they're my favorite...especially this one. And my new favorite building in the world is this one...And my favorite person in the world is standing right next to my favorite viewfinder on my favorite building."
And from that point they were Addison and Derek. Nothing would ever measure up the viewfinders on the Empire State building. December would be their month and as long was they were together they could take on anything...whether it be planned or not.
The last thing Addison expected to see when she woke up was her husband lying in bed next to her and staring at her with passion burning in his striking blue eyes. She groaned and shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds, reliving the events of the previous night. When she opened them again Derek was still staring at her except now he had a equally striking smile (to match his eyes) on his face.
"I'm guessing that all of that wasn't a crazy drunken dream." Addison assumed.
"Defiantly not a dream." Derek confirmed. "Although you were wasted. I'm surprised you can remember anything about last night."
"I remember everything." she replied. "And I'm wondering if maybe you were drunk too and you didn't realize what you were saying."
Derek shook his head. "I was sober. I knew exactly what I was saying and who I was saying it to." he assured. "And I know you were drunk but that's that good part...you are brutally honest when you're drunk. So I know you couldn't have been lying about how you feel about me."
Addison couldn't help offering him a small smile. "It's not exactly the way I planned on telling you...If I ever came around to telling you that is."
"How would we ever be able to make this work is you never got around to telling me how you feel?" Derek retorted. "We'd both be miserable single people who never realized we were in love with one another the whole time...and then we'd have a horrible made for TV movie based on the story."
Addison laughed, moving her body closer to him and burying her head between his shoulder and the pillow. "The sun is bothering me...make it go away."
Derek put and arm around her and placed a loving kiss over her forehead. "You know what else you mentioned somewhere in your drunken rambling last night? That you missed being held. And how much trouble you had the hardest time adjusting to having to sleep alone and that your solution was hugging a pillow which you'd drench in the cologne that I use."
"I recall mentioning that." Addison mumbled in mortification. "I need to stop drinking to the point where I can't control what I say or do but remember it all."
"I'll go get you a bottle of water and Tylenol." Derek decided.
Addison shook her head and held on to his arm, begging him not to leave her. "Coffee...really strong coffee" she managed to stay while fighting to stay awake.
"I'm not going to go out and buy you a cappuccino or anything like that. I'll make strong coffee if you want but you are gonna have to drink it black. No sugar, no creamer..and I know you have black coffee."
Addison pouted, holding onto the Derek scented pillow tightly. "I'll stick to water." she chose.
Derek returned in a matter of minutes with two pills in his palm and a bottle in the other hand. He carefully handed her the medicine and opened the water bottle for her as she popped the pills into her mouth. He climbed back into bed and wrapped his arms around her. "Just go back to sleep, Addison. By the time you're awake the hangover will be gone. No headache, no nausea..."
"I've got to go to work, Derek. I have patients...and responsibilities." she reminded him. And when the realization hit her she pulled herself up into a sitting position and hit her already pounding head lightly against the white back board of the bed. "Ella. Where is Ella?"
Derek laughed and pulled her back into his arms. "She's in your guest room." he reassured. "I didn't just leave her at the hotel and come after you last night. Sam dropped me off there on his way home remember? Ella was with him. He got her settled in here and kept an eye on her until we got home. She's alright. She will survive without you for a few more hours. I know I'm a shitty father, Addison, but I have enough consideration to make sure my daughter is taken care of."
"Derek, you raised her on your own after her mother, her birth mother left you. You took care of her and you went to school full time and had a job to support the two of you. You didn't take the easy way out and abandon her or put her up for adoption." Addison pointed out. "And these last few year have been...horrible, this year specifically but you always were there for her...give or take a night or two. But what does that matter?"
"Yeah, and you aren't even biologically related to her but you've been there. Every birthday since you came into her life, you've helped her study for every test she ever needed help studying for, you've written like...30 book reports while she was in elementary school when you had your own research papers to write, you were there for her every time and anytime she needed you, she looks up to you as if you're god... Who would you say the better parent is?"
Addison laughed. "Okay, so between the two of us I've got a slight upper hand. But you're not a bad father, I would have killed to have a father like you...and I'm sure I'm not alone."
"Does that mean you might want to consider expanding out family?" Derek asked hopefully. "I mean...I'm not even sure if we're back together. And I know we've never talked about it. I know is sudden but...we always wanted kids and we're not getting any younger."
Addison looked shamefully at Derek, her eyes meeting his for just a second before dropping her tearful gaze down on the off white comforter around her body. "I can't have kids." she admitted regretfully.
Derek looked at her in confusion, he wasn't able to lock eyes with her only because she was determined not to. "What do you mean 'you can't have kids.' Are you on the pill? Did you get your tubes tied?...because if you wanted kids you could have it reversed." he paused, mentally kicking himself. "I just told an obstetric and gynecological surgeon her options in reproductive surgery."
"I'm not on the pill, and I didn't get a tubal ligation. I'm infertile." she clarified. "I found out when I first came to LA...I desperately wanted a child, I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to finally have my own child. I had chosen a donor and everything..and then it turns out I can't have kids."
"Oh." Derek managed to utter, finding himself at a lack of words.
"I'm sorry, Derek." she whispered sadly, not being able to look into his eyes. She herself back down into bed and placed her head over his chest, he kept an arm around her waist and held her lovingly.
"Addison." be began softly while running a gentle back up and down her back supportively. "It's okay. I don't need to have more kids. It's not going to kill me. The only things I can't live without are you and Ella. Everything else, anyone else doesn't matter."
"You can't give up your dream for me, Derek." Addison argued.
"You are my dream." he promised. "And I would never give that dream up for anybody."
Not that I'm complaining but...are there less reviews because people got bored of this? Didn't mean to stretch it out and bore you.
Last chapter is coming up and it's got that famous smut flashback we've all been waiting for. Actually...it's not exactly smut. It's like pre-smut or almost smut but it's still pretty hot. Never mind, you'll get to read it soon enough. Right now all you have to do is Review. :D!
