"What are you doing here?"
"That's a nice greeting."
Addison doesn't open the brownstone door all the way. She stands in the big empty foyer, teeth chattering even though she's got layers on, she's wrapped in Derek's flannel bathrobe, but she just can't get warm.
"How did you-"
"My sister called me."
"That's a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality," Addison scowls. She's exhausted and cramping and just wants to sleep.
"Not Nancy," she says softly. "Amy."
Oh.
"Now would you let me in?"
"Are you here to shrink me?"
"Kathleen's the shrink, Addison, not me."
"You're kind of a shrink."
She's a professor, as the canvas bag slung over her shoulder attests. Addison likes to think of her teaching eager young medical students. Using her mind, not her healing hands, and -
"Addie, the door?"
She lets her in. She's a Montgomery still - or maybe again - and so making drinks is her first thought but she knows she can't have alcohol so she puts up a pot of tea instead. It makes her insides twist to be domestic in this kitchen, in their home, but she does it anyway. Liz bustles around like she knows the place, like she hasn't stayed away all these years, didn't even come to the hot dog Thanksgiving, just heard the story over and over again.
"So - are you okay?"
Addison sits on the couch, pulling her legs up under her automatically. Derek's bathrobe warms her bare skin but makes her think, inexorably, of the flannel sheets she left out for the garbage pickup the next morning. She has to sleep in cotton now, which isn't nearly as warm - but that's just as well, because he's always warm, hot even, and -
"Addie, what are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"Funny, Mom said it seems like you weren't thinking at all."
Addison's head snaps up. "Mom - said something?"
"She's not exactly the quiet type, is she?"
Addison hides a smile, but there are tears in her eyes. She hasn't been able to face the betrayal of her mother-in-law; somehow, even though she's suspected all along that Carolyn doesn't approve of her, she knows this justified disapproval will hurt worst of all.
"Is she - does she -"
"She's surprised. Confused." Liz pauses. "We all are."
"I'm sorry." Addison's voice is high and thin. Mark's jacket is hanging on the banister. He might be back here tonight. She doesn't know the rules for this, isn't sure how to do anything except nestle the warm cup of tea against her belly and pretend the emptiness is Derek's fault.
"No one's heard from him," Liz says.
"I tried calling him-"
"He wouldn't even call us back."
"Liz, when will-"
"Call me," she says with surprising gentleness, "if you need anything."
Addison waits until Liz is down the front steps and the door is deadlocked before she lets the tears come. She pulls the robe tighter around her battered old Yale sweatshirt, which smells like medicine now, and her sweat, and thinking about washing it just makes her cry harder. Mark finds her on the foyer stairs with her head resting on her knees, weeping into her own lap. He doesn't ask her why or question what she's done, just carries her upstairs - she's weaker than she realized, shaky legged, and he doses her with the painkillers they prescribed.
He falls asleep first. She calls a travel agent, and boards a flight to Seattle in the morning. Staring out the window, she says I'll miss you to the skyline and I'm sorry to the clouds. Her fingers dance across the keypad a few times over the next months but she never calls.