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Corteo I : Prelude
Corteo II : Overture
Corteo III : First Movement
Corteo IV : Second Movement
Corteo V : Entr'acte
Corteo VI : Third Movement
Title: Corteo VII : Fourth Movement
Rating: R.5
Pairing: Addison/Mark, /Alex, /Derek. No joke.
Summary: Penultimate chapter.
Minor spoiler for the ferryboat episodes. And by “minor” I mean “if you’ve seen the previews, you’re good to go.”
He didn’t notice the two of them staring at her like that any more than she wanted them to be staring at her like that. He was too busy trying to make yet another failing relationship work; this time with a woman who was too tired to try on her own. He was about to give up, but then she nearly drowned and he gave them another chance.
She didn’t want them staring at her like that, she didn’t want them staring at her at all. She wanted to work and to be able to focus on work, and she was pretty sure her patients and their patients wanted the three of them to focus on work, but they were making it difficult. They were too pretty, the fantasies quickly got out of control. She told her ex-it’s-complicated that they were supposed to keep it at friends but she kept ending up in bed with him anyway. She told the unbearably attractive intern that it had been a weird week and she couldn’t but she ended up kissing him anyway. That he told her he maybe wasn’t interested wasn’t part of the point. Neither was the sixty-day celibacy pact with her ex-it’s-complicated.
They were fighting each other for her and they didn’t know it, but she knew it and she felt it and there were days she wanted to set them both on fire and there were days she wanted to fuck them in a supply closet one after the other.
--
“I hate that,” his voice sat next to her in the bar and ordered a beer.
“Hm, what?” She turned around to face him, her mind already focused on him but light years away and with considerably less clothing.
“Patients like that woman today. Their husbands beat the hell out of them and they make excuses and get sutured up and go home. We should be able to do something.”
She inhaled deeply and tried not to make it noticeable; she knew why cases like that struck home for him and, though it was two years ago and under vastly different circumstances, it surprised her to know how much it affected her. She hated it. “Karev, the only thing we can do is give them whatever band-aid they need. If they rip it off and come back three days later, then they rip it off and come back three days later. It sucks, I know, but that’s all we can do.”
He took a long drink of his beer and debated saying something. A six month-old overheard comment resurfaced in his mind and he couldn’t get it to go away. “Why did you go back to him?”
“Excuse me?” She finished her drink in one large swallow.
He knew he was risking everything he had with her by diving in, but cared too much not to jump. Lowering his voice to keep what he knew had to be a tightly-kept secret from spreading further, he whispered “I know what Shepherd did to you in New York. Why did you go back to him?”
Fury took over her usual end-of-the-day sadness and exhaustion and she motioned for the drink to be put on her tab and she grabbed her coat. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, Alex, and none of it is any of your business.” She heard him follow her out the door and into the pouring rain where she let her tears flow, where they shouldn’t be noticed. He cared and she wanted him to care because it felt good and had been so long since someone cared about her like that without strings attached, strings that invariably turned into nooses by the end, but she couldn’t let him care. He was too nice of a guy, too good of a person to be pulled into the mess that was her life and head.
“Why are you defending him?” He ran after her into the hospital parking lot.
“I’m not defending him, Alex, I’m not doing anything! Stop acting like every domestic violence situation is exactly like yours was.” She turned and walked backwards toward her car and waved her arms angrily and if she were in any other state of mind she would apologize. “You heard one sentence out of a ten-year saga. You have no clue what happened that night, so don’t presume that you’re the expert. I’m the one who fucking started it! I drew blood on him first - I shoved him into the corner of a bookshelf. I slept with his best friend the same fucking night! And we did it to each other, Alex! We beat the hell out of each other! Everyone keeps thinking that I’m this breakable China doll because Doctor McDreamy left me to go with Intern McTwisted. Everyone thinks I’m the only one who got hurt, that I slept with Mark and then let everything else passively happen to me. I tried, Alex, I tried in New York and I tried in Seattle; I yelled and I threw things and I hurt him and I moved to the other side of the country and I drew up divorce papers and I kept trying until trying hurt too much. You’re pretty fucked up, too, I thought you might be able to get me, be able to get that there’s a lot more to me than whining and looking sad.”
Instead of responding, instead of searching her face for some sort of expectation, he pushed her against her car and kissed her, his hands coming up to cup her wet cheeks and his tongue tasted the scotch he imagined she only drank when she was feeling excruciatingly low. Thunder knocked their lips apart and for a second he thought she might slap him or tell him she couldn’t or any number of things that would send him back to the bar but she merely looked at him with an expression that simply said I think I might need you. He was willing to take his chances with the possibility that she would later realize she was wrong and he followed her back to her hotel.
She smiled at the man at the front desk and hit floor number twenty-two, thankful it was empty; she was almost certain half of the staff of Seattle Grace currently lived in the hotel on her floor or higher. Once safely above floor ten, she turned and kissed him. Hard this time, intense and sexual instead of soft and curious. He slipped his tongue into her mouth and unbuttoned her coat, sliding his hands below the thick fabric to settle on her hips so his fingers could tease the edge of her shirt. They pulled apart immediately when the elevator dinged, signaling her floor, and walked quickly to her room, part in her worry that someone one would see them but mostly out of need.
The moment the door was solidly shut behind them, they tugged off coats and kicked off shoes and just before they kissed again he pulled her shirt over her head and onto the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt, slipping it off his shoulders, and by the time they made it to the bed they were both breathing hard and flushed and in just their underwear.
He gently laid her down under him and slowly kissed up her neck to tease her earlobe with his tongue, his fingers dancing patterns across her bare stomach. As much as he wanted this, he knew she needed it more and slowed it down for both their sakes. He knew it would be the first and last time he slept with the beautiful redhead, knew that he was an impromptu booty call. But as he traced the edges of her panties and made her squirm, he decided to ignore that and wrestle with his emotions when she wasn’t whispering his name in desperation and when his tongue wasn’t teasing her very hard nipple.
--
She tugged him into a supply closet five days later because she had to, because she worked with him, because the tension was too much, and because she needed to say what he already knew. “Alex, I’m sorry. Thank you for that night and for caring and for the sex,” a small smile briefly graced both their faces, “but I can’t.” She felt awful, their positions reversed from their first encounter in that same closet, and she imagined that, though he knew it was coming, his face looked remarkably like hers had.
He nodded and looked at the ground. “Which one are you going back to?”
She gave him a puzzled look, not knowing the troubles between her ex-husband and his intern. “Neither.”
“Then why?”
Leaning her head back on the closed door she shut her eyes. “Because I want to be with Mark and I need to be with Derek and I can’t deal with the two of them in my head if I’m having mind-blowing sex with you.”
He stepped forward and squeezed her hand. “The two of them did a mindfuck on you, Addison.”
She opened her eyes and pulled her hand away and snapped. “And I can’t get into a relationship, whether it’s just sex or something else, without dealing with that first. I’d be the most fucked up person you could possibly be with and it wouldn’t last. Leave it as a one night stand, Karev. Please.” She opened the door and walked away, leaving him confused and slightly hurt behind her.
--
News of the breakup of the year had spread like wildfire even before the two in question arrived for work. They expected a thunderstorm, they received a class five tornado. If they weren’t being pulled aside for interrogation, they were being talked about or stared at or the rooms and hallways would quiet when they entered.
Part of her felt bad for her ex-husband. Everyone had looked at her the same way when she first arrived. But part of her gloated smugly and that part of her won out and let him squirm in discomfort for a week before she said anything to him about it. She showed up at his trailer and let herself in and sat on the tiny table, waiting for him to get out of the shower. She did her best not to fall off laughing when he nearly tripped in surprise on the small ledge between the shower and the kitchen.
“Have you come to gloat?” He walked into the bedroom and turned the corner so she couldn’t see him. Most of him didn’t want her there, wanted her to leave his property and leave his city, because she was irony personified right then and fate was laughing maniacally at him. But there was a small spark that screamed for her to stay.
“No, actually, I came to see if you were okay.”
“Well, I’m not. Satisfied?” He stuck his head out, looking for his shirt.
She shrugged and hopped off. “Sure.” She walked the three feet to the door and opened it before his call of her name stopped her.
“Addison, wait.” Tugging his shirt over his head, he walked out to her. “I’m sorry.” Though he hated to admit it, she was the one person whom he knew he could trust, that he could rely upon and he couldn’t afford to lose her. Not then. “Thank you for asking.”
She let go of the door handle and let it swing shut on its own and offered him a small smile. “You’re welcome. Is there anything I can do?” It was a useless question but genuinely heartfelt.
His downcast eyes and defeated shoulders answered her without words, allowing him to keep some of his already injured pride, and she tenderly circled her arms around him in a hug. He was quick to respond and she smiled sadly, knowing that she was the only one he had now; even though he and his best friend had reconciled, they were nowhere near the friends they were before their lives exploded. She rubbed his back soothingly and felt him fight to keep his breathing steady. If he were anyone else, she’d tell him to go ahead and cry but as much as he needed her, she knew she wasn’t the one he’d let his tears out to. Not anymore.
--
He glared at her for a week straight. She was supposed to go sixty days, just like he was, and he knew she broke it and he knew she broke it with that intern of hers. He liked New York. It didn’t rain all the time and the subway was kind of fun and interns didn’t sleep or date attendings; the attendings created enough drama for themselves without the help of those twelve years their junior. She was the one who broke their pact and, looking back, he should have expected that. He should have expected that she would break it; she always had less invested in them than he did and he thought time and space would lessen the hurt of that but he thought wrong. He waited out the rest of the sixty days in quietude and celibacy, pretending that he didn’t know that somewhere in the middle she had gone off and had fantastic sex when all he had was himself.
“You know,” he whispered to her on day sixty one with two fingers deep inside of her and his tongue on her neck causing her to writhe on the bed under him, “I know you broke it.” He grinned his daring wicked grin at her when she opened her eyes to glare at him for his words and for his momentary halt in her pleasure.
“I never agreed to it. I just asked who I’d be having sex with.”
He was tempted to stop completely and walk out of her hotel room but it would only earn him a stiletto in his back and a permanently lost chance with her. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said firmly, inarguably, against her lips and kissed her again, restarting his ministrations on her body and knowing full well that the conversation would never happen.
Corteo VIII : Finale
Corteo II : Overture
Corteo III : First Movement
Corteo IV : Second Movement
Corteo V : Entr'acte
Corteo VI : Third Movement
Title: Corteo VII : Fourth Movement
Rating: R.5
Pairing: Addison/Mark, /Alex, /Derek. No joke.
Summary: Penultimate chapter.
Minor spoiler for the ferryboat episodes. And by “minor” I mean “if you’ve seen the previews, you’re good to go.”
He didn’t notice the two of them staring at her like that any more than she wanted them to be staring at her like that. He was too busy trying to make yet another failing relationship work; this time with a woman who was too tired to try on her own. He was about to give up, but then she nearly drowned and he gave them another chance.
She didn’t want them staring at her like that, she didn’t want them staring at her at all. She wanted to work and to be able to focus on work, and she was pretty sure her patients and their patients wanted the three of them to focus on work, but they were making it difficult. They were too pretty, the fantasies quickly got out of control. She told her ex-it’s-complicated that they were supposed to keep it at friends but she kept ending up in bed with him anyway. She told the unbearably attractive intern that it had been a weird week and she couldn’t but she ended up kissing him anyway. That he told her he maybe wasn’t interested wasn’t part of the point. Neither was the sixty-day celibacy pact with her ex-it’s-complicated.
They were fighting each other for her and they didn’t know it, but she knew it and she felt it and there were days she wanted to set them both on fire and there were days she wanted to fuck them in a supply closet one after the other.
--
“I hate that,” his voice sat next to her in the bar and ordered a beer.
“Hm, what?” She turned around to face him, her mind already focused on him but light years away and with considerably less clothing.
“Patients like that woman today. Their husbands beat the hell out of them and they make excuses and get sutured up and go home. We should be able to do something.”
She inhaled deeply and tried not to make it noticeable; she knew why cases like that struck home for him and, though it was two years ago and under vastly different circumstances, it surprised her to know how much it affected her. She hated it. “Karev, the only thing we can do is give them whatever band-aid they need. If they rip it off and come back three days later, then they rip it off and come back three days later. It sucks, I know, but that’s all we can do.”
He took a long drink of his beer and debated saying something. A six month-old overheard comment resurfaced in his mind and he couldn’t get it to go away. “Why did you go back to him?”
“Excuse me?” She finished her drink in one large swallow.
He knew he was risking everything he had with her by diving in, but cared too much not to jump. Lowering his voice to keep what he knew had to be a tightly-kept secret from spreading further, he whispered “I know what Shepherd did to you in New York. Why did you go back to him?”
Fury took over her usual end-of-the-day sadness and exhaustion and she motioned for the drink to be put on her tab and she grabbed her coat. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, Alex, and none of it is any of your business.” She heard him follow her out the door and into the pouring rain where she let her tears flow, where they shouldn’t be noticed. He cared and she wanted him to care because it felt good and had been so long since someone cared about her like that without strings attached, strings that invariably turned into nooses by the end, but she couldn’t let him care. He was too nice of a guy, too good of a person to be pulled into the mess that was her life and head.
“Why are you defending him?” He ran after her into the hospital parking lot.
“I’m not defending him, Alex, I’m not doing anything! Stop acting like every domestic violence situation is exactly like yours was.” She turned and walked backwards toward her car and waved her arms angrily and if she were in any other state of mind she would apologize. “You heard one sentence out of a ten-year saga. You have no clue what happened that night, so don’t presume that you’re the expert. I’m the one who fucking started it! I drew blood on him first - I shoved him into the corner of a bookshelf. I slept with his best friend the same fucking night! And we did it to each other, Alex! We beat the hell out of each other! Everyone keeps thinking that I’m this breakable China doll because Doctor McDreamy left me to go with Intern McTwisted. Everyone thinks I’m the only one who got hurt, that I slept with Mark and then let everything else passively happen to me. I tried, Alex, I tried in New York and I tried in Seattle; I yelled and I threw things and I hurt him and I moved to the other side of the country and I drew up divorce papers and I kept trying until trying hurt too much. You’re pretty fucked up, too, I thought you might be able to get me, be able to get that there’s a lot more to me than whining and looking sad.”
Instead of responding, instead of searching her face for some sort of expectation, he pushed her against her car and kissed her, his hands coming up to cup her wet cheeks and his tongue tasted the scotch he imagined she only drank when she was feeling excruciatingly low. Thunder knocked their lips apart and for a second he thought she might slap him or tell him she couldn’t or any number of things that would send him back to the bar but she merely looked at him with an expression that simply said I think I might need you. He was willing to take his chances with the possibility that she would later realize she was wrong and he followed her back to her hotel.
She smiled at the man at the front desk and hit floor number twenty-two, thankful it was empty; she was almost certain half of the staff of Seattle Grace currently lived in the hotel on her floor or higher. Once safely above floor ten, she turned and kissed him. Hard this time, intense and sexual instead of soft and curious. He slipped his tongue into her mouth and unbuttoned her coat, sliding his hands below the thick fabric to settle on her hips so his fingers could tease the edge of her shirt. They pulled apart immediately when the elevator dinged, signaling her floor, and walked quickly to her room, part in her worry that someone one would see them but mostly out of need.
The moment the door was solidly shut behind them, they tugged off coats and kicked off shoes and just before they kissed again he pulled her shirt over her head and onto the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt, slipping it off his shoulders, and by the time they made it to the bed they were both breathing hard and flushed and in just their underwear.
He gently laid her down under him and slowly kissed up her neck to tease her earlobe with his tongue, his fingers dancing patterns across her bare stomach. As much as he wanted this, he knew she needed it more and slowed it down for both their sakes. He knew it would be the first and last time he slept with the beautiful redhead, knew that he was an impromptu booty call. But as he traced the edges of her panties and made her squirm, he decided to ignore that and wrestle with his emotions when she wasn’t whispering his name in desperation and when his tongue wasn’t teasing her very hard nipple.
--
She tugged him into a supply closet five days later because she had to, because she worked with him, because the tension was too much, and because she needed to say what he already knew. “Alex, I’m sorry. Thank you for that night and for caring and for the sex,” a small smile briefly graced both their faces, “but I can’t.” She felt awful, their positions reversed from their first encounter in that same closet, and she imagined that, though he knew it was coming, his face looked remarkably like hers had.
He nodded and looked at the ground. “Which one are you going back to?”
She gave him a puzzled look, not knowing the troubles between her ex-husband and his intern. “Neither.”
“Then why?”
Leaning her head back on the closed door she shut her eyes. “Because I want to be with Mark and I need to be with Derek and I can’t deal with the two of them in my head if I’m having mind-blowing sex with you.”
He stepped forward and squeezed her hand. “The two of them did a mindfuck on you, Addison.”
She opened her eyes and pulled her hand away and snapped. “And I can’t get into a relationship, whether it’s just sex or something else, without dealing with that first. I’d be the most fucked up person you could possibly be with and it wouldn’t last. Leave it as a one night stand, Karev. Please.” She opened the door and walked away, leaving him confused and slightly hurt behind her.
--
News of the breakup of the year had spread like wildfire even before the two in question arrived for work. They expected a thunderstorm, they received a class five tornado. If they weren’t being pulled aside for interrogation, they were being talked about or stared at or the rooms and hallways would quiet when they entered.
Part of her felt bad for her ex-husband. Everyone had looked at her the same way when she first arrived. But part of her gloated smugly and that part of her won out and let him squirm in discomfort for a week before she said anything to him about it. She showed up at his trailer and let herself in and sat on the tiny table, waiting for him to get out of the shower. She did her best not to fall off laughing when he nearly tripped in surprise on the small ledge between the shower and the kitchen.
“Have you come to gloat?” He walked into the bedroom and turned the corner so she couldn’t see him. Most of him didn’t want her there, wanted her to leave his property and leave his city, because she was irony personified right then and fate was laughing maniacally at him. But there was a small spark that screamed for her to stay.
“No, actually, I came to see if you were okay.”
“Well, I’m not. Satisfied?” He stuck his head out, looking for his shirt.
She shrugged and hopped off. “Sure.” She walked the three feet to the door and opened it before his call of her name stopped her.
“Addison, wait.” Tugging his shirt over his head, he walked out to her. “I’m sorry.” Though he hated to admit it, she was the one person whom he knew he could trust, that he could rely upon and he couldn’t afford to lose her. Not then. “Thank you for asking.”
She let go of the door handle and let it swing shut on its own and offered him a small smile. “You’re welcome. Is there anything I can do?” It was a useless question but genuinely heartfelt.
His downcast eyes and defeated shoulders answered her without words, allowing him to keep some of his already injured pride, and she tenderly circled her arms around him in a hug. He was quick to respond and she smiled sadly, knowing that she was the only one he had now; even though he and his best friend had reconciled, they were nowhere near the friends they were before their lives exploded. She rubbed his back soothingly and felt him fight to keep his breathing steady. If he were anyone else, she’d tell him to go ahead and cry but as much as he needed her, she knew she wasn’t the one he’d let his tears out to. Not anymore.
--
He glared at her for a week straight. She was supposed to go sixty days, just like he was, and he knew she broke it and he knew she broke it with that intern of hers. He liked New York. It didn’t rain all the time and the subway was kind of fun and interns didn’t sleep or date attendings; the attendings created enough drama for themselves without the help of those twelve years their junior. She was the one who broke their pact and, looking back, he should have expected that. He should have expected that she would break it; she always had less invested in them than he did and he thought time and space would lessen the hurt of that but he thought wrong. He waited out the rest of the sixty days in quietude and celibacy, pretending that he didn’t know that somewhere in the middle she had gone off and had fantastic sex when all he had was himself.
“You know,” he whispered to her on day sixty one with two fingers deep inside of her and his tongue on her neck causing her to writhe on the bed under him, “I know you broke it.” He grinned his daring wicked grin at her when she opened her eyes to glare at him for his words and for his momentary halt in her pleasure.
“I never agreed to it. I just asked who I’d be having sex with.”
He was tempted to stop completely and walk out of her hotel room but it would only earn him a stiletto in his back and a permanently lost chance with her. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said firmly, inarguably, against her lips and kissed her again, restarting his ministrations on her body and knowing full well that the conversation would never happen.
Corteo VIII : Finale