RICHARD 'S POV
His doctors have gone crazy, he's sure of it.
Burke had his arm shot off not two months ago and has decided that getting engaged is the best way to forget his career almost ended; Bailey ( ! ) has had a baby but is refusing to let up one bit ( he doesn't know if he should be proud or not.)
Sloan is his usual brand of crazy, Karev looks two seconds from either bursting into tears or punching someone, he's pretty sure that Torres and O ' Malley of all people have got something going on, and there is of course the matter of Meredith who us wandering the halls like desolate puppy and Izzie Stevens who seems so determined to act perfectly fine she resembles a plastic mask.
And his stars , his dream team, are out for three days - oh all right , maybe he did make them take all that sick leave they had piled up - but he's regretting it now because ther e is a complete lack of grownups in his hospital right now.
He would have called them back but he knows that they need this and he's almost as eager for this marriage to work out as the two participants in it are.
He wonders what they could possibly be doing with three whole days offthough, and reaches for the phone before he remembers what Adele had said to him this morning -
" Richard, you give them their time , you hear me? I'm telling you, if those children get divorced , you're looking for a place to sleep. "
-and he remembers vividly just how uncomfortable the couch in his office is , so he puts the phone back down.
ADDISON'S POV
" What are we going to do with three days off Derek ?"
"I don't know .Richard just told me that we both have three days sick leave left over and if we didn't take it he'd call my mother. It's probably -"
"Adele?"
" -Yeah."
" We could just stay here you know." she said playfully, running her fingers down his side and snuggling closer to him on the tiny couch.
" Mmm we could." He said wrapping his arms around her and kissing her, so they do.
For some reason he is unusually tender and gentle with her, handling her as delicately as if she were made of crystal; fragile , easily shattered.
That's exactly how she feels these days but how did he know? He stopped being able to read her cues and tells a long time ago , or maybe he'd just stopped paying attention.
What matters is that he's paying attention now , she tells herself .But this is not what she wants, she just wants some passion, some fire, to know that he can't break her again even if she is made of crystal.
This is easy and familiar, the sex , that's not the problem . The problem is when they're not having sex because then they have to talk to each other and somehow every topic that gets brought up is in some way wrong and just ends up pissing off Derek or reducing her to tears.She thinks they've honestly spent more time in bed than out in each others company these past few weeks -and she's not complaining - but shouldn't they talk?
She has something to tell him, that's for sure, and she doesn't want her marriage to be based on lies and secrets.
Not this time around.
After , when they're lying on the floor- the couch proved too small - she remembers what she's wanted to suggest they do but has been too distracted to mention before now.
" Derek we're moving to Seattle aren't we? "
she feels his body tense around her.
"Yes. "
" Then there's something we need to do first."
DEREK'S POV
When Addison told him there was something they needed to do first, he hadn't for a second thought that this was it.
Thank god for her neurotically organised brain though , because this had completely escaped his mind.
What sort of man forgets about a goddamn house after traipsing across the country?
It was okay to be back in New York, he mused ; he had expected the very sight and sound and smell of the city to catapult him back to that miserable night.
As they walk down the street towards their old brownstone, Addison tucks her hand into his , and for a heartbeat it's just like it was when they were younger and just married and had just bought the house.
Walking up the steps to the front door is harder.
Clothes flung out into the rain , Addison's slight frame offering almost no resistance as he pushed her out of his life.
He wonders if he'd be McDreamy anymore if anyone knew about this.
There's a faint red-brown stain on the top step under leaves when he kicks them away and he remembers the broken light bulb that had littered the steps with glass but neither of them had bothered to sweep up or replace.
She'd been barefoot that night.
He notices her shift her weight off her right foot almost subconsciously, and suddenly he's so overwhelmed with guilt that he can't look at her and sorry seems too hollow a word.
She opens the door with a key she digs out of her cavernous purse and they both hesitate for the briefest of seconds before they step together into the house they'd bought together and filled with their hopes and dreams and then set it on fire and watched it go up in smoke.
It's almost exactly like it was that night; Addison must not have come back here much before she left , too.
The furniture is covered with sheets - ghosts of a lifetime past- and the windows are curtained, the musty smell of neglect permeates the house .
She drops her purse onto the ground in the foyer.
" Where should we start ? "
" How about we start a year ago , Addison, and you don't screw my best friend ?" he spits , and retreats downstairs into the basement.
He shouldn't have said that. But this house , everything about it is just too much , a museum of their mistakes.
ADDISON'S POV
She follows him tentatively down into the basement , finds him slumped at his workbench , cluttered with tools and wood shavings that she used to love the sweet fresh smell of.
They smell of mildew now.
"I'm sorry , I'm sorry. I don't know what..."
" Came over you? I know . I feel the same way.This place, it's too much.
Reminds me of everything we lost."
" I'm sorry Addie. "
So am I.
" It's okay. "
They leave the basement alone and go up the second floor.
In the guest room they find Mark's clothes and shoes and things he probably doesn't even remember he left there, relics of a time when he was more commonly there than not. She flings it all into the boxes destined for Goodwill.
In the office they shove files and documents and medical journals and texts into boxes, finding little things they'd brought back from trips to conferences and triggering memories they didn't remember they had but not pausing to let them catch up.
The rest if the house is harder because everything is more personal, long Sundays spent shopping for the right fabric for curtains and couches, the right shade of paint and the most perfect polish of wood, most of it Addison but in those days Derek was at least around to have his opinions shot down.
Wedding photos of kisses and ear to ear smiles looking into each others eyes and thinking they could see their whole futures together but then again on your wedding day who the hell imagines they'll end up like this ?
The bookshelf Sam and Naomi gave them as a housewarming gift , double wide to fit all the Neonatal and Neuro texts in it they said ;
the fishbowl - empty now, she felt guilty for only now remembering the fish and wonders if Mark took it- they'd won the fish at a little street fair they'd taken their neighbors daughter to, the kind with kiddie games and lollipops and plastic combs for second and third prize and a goldfish in a bag as first prize; Derek won the ring toss and she won the rifle thing ( surgeon hands ) but the neighbours wouldn't keep both fish so they ended up with one.
The rug from Italy on their honeymoon and the coffee table still with a ring on it because Derek never used coasters and scuffs because Mark always put his feet up on it.
The armchairs around the fire where they'd cuddle up with glasses of wine after long days at work , the upstairs window with the view of Central Park and closets still full of clothes and her shoes still in plastic boxes along the bottom.
Mark's bike in the basement, Derek's fishing rods he only ever got to use at the Hamptons.
The unassembled crib in a box they'd bought starry eyed with joy but had quietly relegated to the basement when it ended too soon (7 weeks of the purest happiness before everything came crashing down around their heads.)
After a while it all just hurts so she sweeps things into boxes without looking ; there's time to feel later.
By unspoken consensus they have both so far avoided their old bedroom , avoiding it like they're bouncing off a force field around the door but there's only so long you can pretend.
They're here to pack up their old lives and move on with the new, no point in shirking.
Might as well get it over with.
Derek pauses by their bedroom door , one hand on the knob, and she sees what he must have looked like that night ; knowing what lay in store for him but refusing to believe.
She places her hand over his. " No anesthesia. "
He looks at her, eyes oddly blank. " No anesthesia. "
Inside it's the bed that draws both their eyes instantly , unwillingly, like a dead body in the room.
She averts her eyes, cheeks burning, but he moves forward, brushes his hand over the headboard, the stripped - bare mattress.
Italian paisley sheets , rolled in a ball and stuffed in the fireplace downstairs , lit with the silver cigarette lighter that the Captain left here on his last visit two years ago and a bottle of vodka.
Fire regulations be damned, her life was on fire anyway and she's burning slowly to ashes ."
He looks up at her finally and he's burning too, with rage and guilt and what looks maybe like sorrow but before she can think too much about it -
" You know your problem, Addie ? You think too goddamn much ." after she'd told him he needed to slow down , delegate cases and surgeries or he was going to peak too soon.
he's crossed the room back to her and he takes her face in his hands a little too roughly, kisses her like he's stamping a claim on her mouth, and before she can so much as put her arms around him her back is slamming into the bare mattress with his weight on her and for the first time ever she feels trapped.
But now he's kissing her neck, moving too quickly downwards , sucking and biting hard at the soft skin at her collarbone, ignoring - no , just not hearing - her sharp gasp.
She responds to him too , but it's like they are running on two completely different frequencies and so she just lays back and lets him set the tone ; she wanted fiery passion but this is not it.
His hands are a little too rough and his grip on her too tight , he pushes himself into her so harshly she muffles her cry in his neck and he sets a punishing pace , his fingers clutching her hips in a way that she's sure will leave her bruised tomorrow.
He bites her lower lip and she can taste pennies in her mouth, pain and pleasure both coursing through her but she's not sure where one ends and the other begins.
When he's done they lay side by side on the bed panting , him looking at the ceiling and she at the wall opposite , her eyes burning in tune with her body but the tears too proud to fall.
DEREK'S POV
Disgusted . That is what he feels right now. What just happened is not his proudest moment; but he couldn't help it , when he saw that room and that bed all he saw was his Addison naked and entwined with the man who was his best friend and brother, flushed and moaning in the way he used to think only he could get her.
What just happened was a reclaiming of sorts , his way of making Addie his again.
Disgusting.
She's in the shower now , he can see her slim body slumped against the translucent glass , cold water pounding down on her.
He touches her carefully this time, fingers skimming the bruises already forming on her hips and wrists , the reddened skin of her neck and her breasts, softly kisses her bleeding lip.
She dissolves into his arms and there under the freezing water, she finally cries in his slippery embrace, cries until she can't breathe anymore.
Please review. A little dark, I know , but they still have so many secrets and lies between them it would be sort of weird if they went to normal right away.