Author's Note: All I have to say is that Broken Strings is such an Addek song, and it's so sad :/

New York, 1993

"You really don't have to be here", Addison insists.

"Of course I do", Derek replies. "I'm your fiancé."

"That doesn't mean you have to come to the Montgomerys' boring events."

"I think it does. Plus, I kind of like to see that ring every time you shake those boring people's hands".

She smiles, but Archer rolls his eyes beside her.

"How can you still smile? My cheeks hurt from this fake smiling welcome-to-our-dinner-we-are-so-glad-to-have-you-here thing", Archer complains.

"We've been doing this since I was five, I thought you'd be used to it by now." She clears her throat and puts on another fake smile when another couple arrives. "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, we are very glad to have you here".

"The Captain and Bizzy are waiting for you in the dinning room", Archer imitates her.

She sighs when they enter the house. "Alright, my cheeks hurt too", she admits. "I hate this."

"You've being doing this since you were five?", Derek asks her.

"In our family, we learn to lie and pretend at a very young age.", she jokes sarcastically and then looks at him like she just remembered something. "Archer, can you handle this for a few minutes? Derek and I will be right back."

"Really?", Archer looks at her skeptically.

"We'll be right back", she reassures him. "I'm going to show him the secret place."

At that statement, Archer's expression softens a little. "Fine. Don't take too long."

"The secret place?", Derek raises his eyebrows.

"You'll see."

She guides him to her bedroom, upstairs; she leads him to a balcony, spreading her arms when they're both standing there. "Here it is. Whenever I got tired of the lies and the fake vain conversations and pretending everything was okay, I used to come and sit here. I decided this was the one place in this house where I didn't have to pretend, where I got to be myself. It was also the place where I could calm myself down every time something bad happened, and where I was able to think about things. I called it my 'secret place' when I was seven", she laughs lightly, rolling her eyes at herself, "even though it wasn't secret because it's not like it's hidden, but no one bothered me here. Well, except for Archer, who joined me here sometimes and we talked."

He nods. "Oh. Wow. This is a nice place. Thank you for showing me this. And for telling me that story. I know it's not easy for you."

"It's okay. It just seemed right.", she shrugs. "You already know more about me than everyone else in the world.", she looks deeply at him and he returns the look. "Though I still have a bunch of other stories I'm saving for when we are married. So it won't get boring, you know", she teases.

"I might have tons of stories of my own too", he teases back. "But we can create new stories. New memories."

"Yeah, we can", she smiles.

"And when we get our own house you can find a new secret place", he teases again.

She shakes her head. "I can be myself around you. And there's nothing fake between us. We're real. I don't need a secret place when I'm with you."

Seattle, 2005

Pretending is what she's been taught to do. She's been told that it's easier to pretend everything is just fine than to face the truth. And she realizes that's what they have been doing. He pretends to love her, she pretends to believe it.

Mark's words echoed in her head for hours the day he showed up in Seattle. How can you expect to work out a marriage if you can't even be honest with him?

He's not in love with you, he's in love with that intern and he's not even trying to hide it.

Your marriage is over, Addison.

It was the truth. But Derek didn't want to talk about it. She wanted him to say something, anything, but he didn't. So she went back to doing what she's learned to do: avoiding the truth, pretending everything would be okay.

Sure, sometimes, it seemed like it would be okay, like there was still hope. They had some good moments, like when she got poison oak and they ended up laughing like the old times. And there was this one particular moment that gave her more hope than any other. "I was indifferent towards you", Derek recognizes. "I was absent."

"Yes", she agreed, a little bit surprised.

"I'm partly to blame for what's happened to our marriage. I'm sorry. I'm working on it."

She hadn't expected him to recognize that, or apologize, in that precise moment, but he finally did. We're not a lost cause, she thought. We can still make this work.

But then, they found themselves pretending again, when he was clearly still in love with Meredith. And Addison knows not even she can pretend forever. She's been told that lies are better than the truth, because, sometimes, the truth is horrible; lies will keep you from facing it, and this way you'll be happy. But, many times in her life, she didn't agree with that. She thought that the weight of pretending was much heavier than the weight of the truth. Everything was not okay, dammit. Her father was a cheater. Her family was far from perfect. And this time is no different. Her husband doesn't love her. He is in love with someone else. Her marriage is falling apart.

There's no "secret place" this time, so she bursts out at him, throwing the truth in his face, pathetically demanding to know what else does she have to do to make him love her, before noticing that pretty much the whole hospital is watching them. There she is, a Forbes Montgomery, making a scene in front of everyone. But right now she doesn't really care.

She's sick of being fake happy. She wants the real happiness back, and she has tried everything. She doesn't know what to do to anymore.