He's cagey but he's cute. That's what she tells Savvy in a letter - they still write handwritten letters, even though Addison has had an electric typewriter for two years, and has her eye on one of those new word processor things with the little screens. However it's written, her description is accurate: he has twinkling blue eyes, a mop of messy hair, and she catches him checking her out in Gross Anatomy lab four times before he finally asks her out. She decides she can be cagey too.

"I barely know you."

"What?" He looks offended. "I'm your lab partner! That means we're practically married."

Addison rolls her eyes. "We have Sam and Jennifer in our lab group too, so does that make us bigamists or whatever?"

"Polygamists?"

"I said whatever." She fights an urge to stick her tongue out at him. He keeps smiling at her and she blushes. "Look, Derek-"

"I'm not asking for bigamy or whatever," he says, holding up a conciliatory hand. "Just a coffee."

"I drink coffee with people I know," she responds primly.

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

She has to think for a minute. "Uh... what's your favorite color?

He blinks. "Blue."

Like your eyes? "Baby blue?" she tests teasingly.

"No! Dark blue."

"Indigo," she nods, pretending to tick it off. "Okay. And, let's see - favorite subject in college?"

"Stats."

"Really?"

"Of course not."

She smiles then. "Okay, do-over. More personal. How many siblings do you have?"

"I have four sisters."

"Four!" Her eyes widen automatically. "What are their names?"

He shakes his head. "That's all you get for now. The rest you'll just have to take on faith."

"Faith?"

"Goes well with coffee."

"Oh, you still want to have coffee?"

"Very much so. Even more now, if possible, so what do you-"

"Oh, fine," she sighs, and has to pretend not to be flattered. She likes the way he looks at her, like she's the only girl in the room - well, okay, she is the only girl in the room. She's wearing her Yale sweatshirt even though it's still humid early fall; they had a quiz today and she needed it wrapped around her, to feel that boost of confidence and warmth. He asked her about it - did you go to Yale? She just said nope, and let him wonder while she relaxed into soft fleece. She should have known it would change her life, again.

They drink coffee on a Thursday, eat dinner on a Friday, and by Sunday they're eating breakfast in Hewitt with fresh-from-the-shower wet hair and sex-sleepy eyes. She knows more now: his favorite band is the Clash, his favorite food at Thanksgiving is the stuffing sandwich he makes at midnight, and the city he most wants to visit is Venice - for the boats, he says. He has a thing for gondolas.

Dates turn into study dates and finals are as intense as any honeymoon. It's medical school: they have time only for learning, eating, sleeping, and sex, and often one or two of those have to fall short. But never the first or the last. They feed each other bits and pieces of their past like tastes of strawberries or cake: her one track and field trophy, his desire to learn to fish; the scar on her jaw from a bike accident; the braces he wore until he was 15. Months swallow months and then he invites her home with him Easter weekend; the alternative, with Bizzy in Europe with her social secretary and the Captain who knows where, is an empty estate, so she agrees.

But his family. They're so-

family.

There's noise and people, sisters and their boyfriends, a whole house for all these people smaller than just the wing she grew up in.

He's somewhere between sheepish and happy with all these women circling around him, clucking over him. She counts two sisters and his mother - though they're loud; they sound like more. Maybe it's the others she can hear in the next room.

"This is Nancy-" the skinny one grins at her - "Kathleen" - the shorter one, head in a book, nods in a friendly way. "Ma, where are the others?"

"Derek!" A little dark-haired blur runs through the room. "You're home!" She pauses in front of them, sizes Addison up. "Who're you?"

"This is Add-"

"Where's Mark?"

"Amy, this is my friend Addison."

Amy tugs on the hem of Derek's sweater. "But where's Mark, Derek, you said he was coming home with you!"

Derek shoots Addison an apologetic look before turning back to his sister. "Amy, he's going to try to come tomorrow, but-"

"Why not today?" Amy looks accusingly at Addison. "Because she's here?"

"Amy," Derek says sharply. "Of course not. Look, why don't you go-"

"Is she giving you trouble?"

Addison glances up at another voice, low and musical, and then her stomach drops.

"Nah, she's just being Amy," Derek sighs. "But hey, this is Addison - Addie, meet my oldest sister, Elizabeth."

Dark hair, shorter, blunter than she remembers. She's cut it. Those dancing dark eyes, the cheekbones. Addison's mouth is dry. She can hardly breathe.

"Call me Liz," the other woman says coolly, and Addison looks away so Derek won't see the pain she knows has registered on her face.