Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean
Title: Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing, still..
Summary: Family- a group of people related to one another by blood or by marriage.
A/N: And because I have two exams tomorrow, one on Friday, I almost set the house on fire this morning and I have more exams in about a week and a half, thy kindly scheduled by Biology one on my birthday (thank you, school), I decided now would be the perfect time to start posting this little beauty, It's been sitting on my heard drive since mid-November I would say. So, I would like to point out that I called Addison 'Red' long before anybody did on television. Just, FYI. This is actually 25 pages long(and still not finished) so I've shortened it into more readable sections. Enjoy.
-
It’s been a long time. A long time since she’s just sat in a room, wrapped in a blanket, long after her father has slipped off to bed, long after her brain has already begun it’s long and hard fought battle against sleep. It just doesn’t come for her. It doesn’t come and wrap it’s warm arms around her and gently tug at her until her eyes are droopy and it’s just too hard to not let them fall closed. Let her body curl in upon itself and just sleep it all away.
She looked around the room. The painting that never made the grand journey upstairs to her bedroom. The lamp that bends closer to the surface of the table with each passing moment. The guitar she never plays anymore, with the stickers that she loves. Books. Books are all around her. There’s a book of synonyms and antonyms beside her, a good mood food cook book, a romance novel, a serious piece of literature. In the middle of the table, the dining room table, there’s a wooden chest. It’s a dark brown wood with an ancient looking pattern on it, there’s a leather handle on the top. She knows what lies inside it. Stationary.
It’s supposed to be their dining room, it’s not.
It’s now a makeshift office for her currently redundant/free-lancing older cousin who sometimes lives with them because her own mother can get to overbearing. Supposedly. She’s gone to the city, to stay with her friend and try and find some work. Or just get drunk and let loose without knowing she was going to have to crawl back into her childhood bed sometime the next morning.
There’s something about this room that makes her feel secure. That makes her feel like she has got some control. This room makes her feel like at any moment, of her choosing, she could just let it all go.
A sweet release, of everything.
Because it’s been six days. Six days at the bottom of this ocean and she needs a release. Six days and the same amount of hours sleep. Her brain is whirling. Fast. Too fast for a teenage girl who hasn’t slept properly in a long time. A girl who hasn’t been eating properly. She doesn’t feel hungry, but she knows she should. She knows a lot of things. They all add up, they all wear her down. When she feels worn down, she feels nauseous too.
It’s a hard thing. She knows she’s not the only one, but still, that doesn’t make you feel any less lonely, just that there are a lot of other people there who feel lonely too. Not with her. Just, around her. She’d like for it to not be this way. She just doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong anymore. She was really good for a nice amount of time. She can’t remember what it was that made her slip this time. Except, she can. With a painful amount of detail, every moment, every second. She remembers.
She pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders.
So distracted was she by her own thoughts in the silence of the dimmed room, surrounded by innate objects that she sought comfort in, she didn’t notice her mother arrive home. Didn’t notice her headlights illuminate the room she was sitting in, staring straight out the window, straight into her mother’s eyes.
She never registered the shaky breathes her mother was struggling with as she pulled her phone from her small black clutch.
Her mind was in a completely different world as her mother dialled a number that had become unfamiliar to both of them over the last few months.
Sarah Shepherd, the oldest of the brood, took one last look at the shell of her daughter before she turned away and walked a few steps towards the kitchen.
The dial tone mocked her, forced her to allow her mind to take off on a high speed chase of what could happen. Images flashed through mind, each one more chilling than the last. She almost gasped at the release she felt when the infuriating dial tone was cut short and the person on the other end picked up.
“Derek….” she forced herself to breathe. She steadied herself on the kitchen table’s edge and steeled herself for what was going to be a hard conversation. “Derek I….. I need you to come home. I need you Derek.” she whispered, her voice devoid of any of the passion she had felt mere second before. Flat and distant. That was how she felt, and it was mirrored in her quiet plea to her brother.
=
He was sitting on his side of the small bed. Removing his watch from his wrist, a present from her. He sat there for a second and looked at the watch for a moment or two. He breathed in a deep breath before he stood up and pulled his sweater over his head. Her eyes quickly move to watch him for a split second before moving back to her magazine. Glasses once again perched on the bridge of her nose she sighed gently before turning the page.
It was only a second, but he had felt her eyes on his back, taking him in, trying to comprehend this sudden turn about. He understood, it was hard to wrap your head around. One minute your going through your life, seeing it in one way, the next, everything had changed. he moved quietly around their small ‘bedroom’ and changed into his pyjamas.
He was sitting on the bed, on his side, again. He sat there for a second and looked at his phone as it suddenly burst to life. He can feel her slight jump at the noise, interrupting their silence.
Without much thought he picked up the phone and answered.
He was sitting on his side of the bed, and suddenly his sister was breathing raggedly in his ear.
“Derek I… I need you to come home. I need you Derek.”
“Sarah.” his mouth had run dry. Her voice was so unnatural. She was generally brimming with life. She loved to talk. She was nice to talk to, easy to listen to. She could talk about pretty much nothing and Derek would still listen.
“It’s…” she broke, flooding the phone line with her tears.
“It’s ok Sarah, I’m right here. Just.. Tell me what’s happened Sarah, please.” he’s begging, pleading with her. This is not alright. This is so wrong and unimaginable.
She let her magazine drop to the floor beside their bed and carefully placed her glasses on the bedside locker. She’s a warm reassuring hand on his back and he can’t move away. She’s exactly what he needs right now, warm comfort and something familiar as his oldest sister is having something of a nervous breakdown on the phone and he’s 2,926 miles away. She moves and sits beside him, her long legs curled beneath her as she wraps an arm around his shoulders, placing her other hand on his chest, right above his heart, which is racing.
“I don’t understand it Derek. I don’t expect you to but, I just…. You were the only I can think of. I don’t know how to… I’m afraid that if I let it go on.. I don’t know how to talk to my own daughter Derek.” she finished, a small sob escaping from the lips Derek’s sure she had covered with one hand.
“Mom, I’m going to bed.” a faint voice could be heard on the other side of the phone.
“Oh, ok sweetie, good night.” Sarah called out weakly. She knows she won’t sleep. Her daughter has not slept through the night in such a long time. It’s killing her. She knows what it means. She’s her mother. It’s just so unknown and terrifying.
“I know it’s a lot to ask but Derek I wouldn’t ask if I thought there was another way. I’m sure you have patients and Richard will yell but please.. Can you just…”
She’s cut off by Derek’s adamant ‘yes’. It seems so solid and reassuring in her ears that she nearly smiles, but she can’t because it’s just the beginning now. She has no plan. She just had a phone call.
Derek’s rambling about flights and time off, a patient he’ll need to reschedule and Richard Webber’s wrath of fury. There’s something he’s leaving out. And it’s a big something.
“Derek,” she cuts him off gently, but firmly. He stops for a second and she mentally reassures herself this is a good thing. They both need this. All of them.
“Derek, can you make sure Addie comes with you?” she asks it so softly, her voice is weak with emotion and pain.
His eyes move to his wife. Sitting Indian style on their tiny cramped bed. Her face is one of utter confusion. He can see her brain working overtime, her eyes searching his for clues, something, anything that would have touched such a raw nerve.
He needs her there. With him. He knows no one else on this planet would be able to withstand this. No one except her. She’s his wife. And he was indifferent towards her, he pushed her away, and now he had his second chance, he couldn’t go back to ignoring her, calling her childish names, escaping her endless need to ‘talk’ by hopping into an elevator and smelling an intern’s hair. That wasn’t right.
“Yeah. Addie’s coming.” he replied quietly. He closed his eyes and nodded, listening to his sister’s words for a few more moments until she ran out of steam.
“You just try sleep Sarah, we’ll be there sometime tomorrow. I promise.”
He hung up the phone and looked at his wife. She rose slowly from the bed. Ignoring the dog, who ploughed into her endless legs as she moved toward him. She stopped, inches from his face. He moved forward, invading her personal space. She closed her eyes. He followed suit, placing his hands on her hips and letting his forehead drop so it rested against hers. She ran the palms of her hands slowly up and down his upper arms, soothing the tense muscles. He swallowed hard when he felt the warmth behind his eyelids. She ran her palms from his arms to his shoulders, his neck and then finally to his face. She cupped his cheeks gently in her palms and just stood there.
They stood, leaning on each other, holding each other.
“Something’s wrong.” he whispered against her cheek after many minutes of just standing there. She moved to wrap her arms around his neck, foreheads still touching, and nodded.
=
She crouched on the stairs, reliving a few childhood memories as she pressed her cheeks against the banisters.
She heard her mother all but get down on her knees and beg her uncle to come home. She pressed her body further into the uncomfortable position she was cowering in and wished she could feel something. Anything. She was numb.
It had been six days. Six days at the bottom of this ocean. Six days and her mother was calling in reinforcements.
=
This was not what Addison had expected when her husband came home and announced to her that he had recognised his part in the downfall of their marriage. He was sorry, and he was going to try. He was going to try and remember what is was that had made them so unstoppable and complete before. He was going to try and make their marriage work. You do not get unlimited chances at the things in life. This was their second chance. Addison wasn’t sure if her heart could take anymore of their chances. The first one had ended with her in a tragic heap on the bottom of the stairs of their central park brownstone. Weeping and knowing that she had just destroyed what ever shambles of a marriage they had left. Which, hadn’t been much at that point.
It wasn’t fair though, she couldn’t just have sex with his best friend in their bed, on his sheets, because her husband was absent. She couldn’t justify her actions. She knew what she did was wrong but she just needed to feel something. Anything. She had been numb. She’d been numb when she had sat at their dining room table with a bottle of wine and a pack of crackers. She had been numb when his best friend had strolled through the front door, shaking the rain from his hair and calling out her name. It damn well hadn’t been his name she’d called out hours later. She hadn’t even felt anything. Nothing, just a pair of sweaty arms wrapped around her and a mouth on her chest and neck that didn’t belong there. And she thought, in the far away corners of her mind that maybe it wouldn’t have felt that way. That maybe, maybe it had been right. Maybe crossing the lines and breaking the rules would be the right thing to do because that was what was right for her.
She’d forced her breathing to become shallow and laboured and let her husband’s name roll from her lips in a desperate bid to get her husband’s best friend to get off of her and leave. She had not expected the unwelcome rush of pleasure she had felt when he had been there, with her, moving above her and touching her and kissing her like he loved every single fibre of her being. She had not expected it, but she had liked it, that feeling, of being loved by someone, she’s forgotten what that felt like. She had not expected it, but she had allowed it.
“Addison?” a voice cut through her thoughts. She glanced down in front of her to find Miranda Bailey standing there, charts in hand. She searched Addison’s face for an explanation of why she was standing there. It was nearly midnight and Addison Shepherd was standing in the middle of the surgical floor, dressed immaculately, with a black trench coat and a pair of black heels that declared you would not mess with this woman if you held your life to any value. At all.
“I… Derek and I…. he’s talking to the Chief. We have to take some time off.” she finished limply.
“The Chief? What? Why in the world are you two-…” she was cut off by the sounds of the two men approaching.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?” Richard Webber asked his favourite resident which an arched brow.
“Shouldn’t you?” she answered back defiantly, giving him that Nazi look she was famous for.
Derek quickly stepped in and saved his superior from a grilling by Miranda Bailey. “Thanks, Richard, we’ll be in touch I’m sure.” he nodded and stepped closer to his wife.
Addison looked up at his face, her eyes scanning his for a second before she turned back to face her boss.
“Addison, I assume everything in your department will be ok?” he already knew the answer, he wouldn’t have been so quick to offer her this position and all of the money he put into promoting her if he hadn’t been sure she could do it. And do it well.
She nodded yes, “It’s all been settled, I talked to some of my staff, who weren’t so impressed by the late night phone calls, but yes, everything is fine.” she smiled reassuringly, but Richard could see her faltering.
“Ok then. You two be safe. And…. Good luck.” he added before reaching out and squeezing Addison’s hand. He walked with them to the elevators and clapped Derek on the shoulder before returning to his office.
Miranda Bailey could merely watch as Derek Shepherd took his wife’s hand and tugged her to stand closer to him. She watched as Addison glanced up and locked eyes with him, sharing some unspoken words before Derek nodded and smiled weakly, warmly at her, and they boarded the elevator together.
Bailey whirled around, her charts forgotten for that instant as she took off after the Chief.
=
When he watched something, or someone, he could envision whatever, or whoever it was, doing something completely different. It was one of the things he had attributed to his success as a surgeon. When he looked down at his hands, he could see them wielding a small shiny blade, see them positioning that blade above someone’s scalp, see the trail of crimson begin. He could see his own hands performing a craniotomy on a patient everyone else in the room had deemed a lost cause. That afternoon, he had seen his hands tap a screen which displayed an image of a woman’s brain with one of the largest aneurysms he had ever seen. His hands had tapped the screen, but in his mind, they had been tangling in his wife’s hair while he kissed her. Then his hands had been wrapped around the sleeve of his best friend’s jacket, then they turned the knob on the door, and then they went numb.
When he watched the woman who was next in line at the coffee stand casually place her hands on the sneeze guard and cross one leg over the other as she leaned forward to get a better view of the brownies, he saw a ballerina. He saw the sugar plum fairy gracefully bending sideways at the waist, arms outstretched above her head, one leg straight, perpendicular to the floor, the other lifting into the air, parallel to the floor. Her muscles strained, every fibre in her body on fire, her nerve endings exploded. But she was the definition of elegance, grace and she was flawless. He blinked, and when Derek Shepherd looked at the woman at the coffee stand straighten up and move towards the young man behind the counter, he saw his wife, in bed with his best friend and his hands, his life saving, surgeon’s hands, balled into angry fists.
Ok, so perhaps his visionary side was fast becoming his fatal flaw as a surgeon. He could not operate on someone, he could not be in the power to manipulate someone’s brain, if he was seeing his hands opening the door to the Bedroom of Doom as he now affectionately dubbed it.
It wasn’t his operating style that needed to be re-adjusted, he needed to remove the image of his best friend in bed with his wife, in their marital bed, from his brain. He stared down at his tense fists and attempted with all of his strength to see them remove that mental picture from his mind. He stared, and stared, until all he did was leave marks from his fingernails in his palms and let a large sigh build up in his chest.
Releasing the air from his lungs he fell back into the plastic chair of Gate 21C. He scrubbed his palms over his tired face and decided he was thinking too much. Derek Shepherd was a highly intelligent, learned man, he wasn’t one to spend large amounts of time wallowing in his own narcissistic thoughts.
“Hey,” he glanced up and caught his wife’s eyes. She was scared, scared and she was looking into his eyes as she would a terrified pregnant woman whose water just broke. Two days ago, he would have made a snippy comment about treating him like a patient. At that moment in time, he was scared too. Anxious.
“I’m anxious. Are you anxious?” he asked as she settled herself next to him, she handed him a steaming cup of something. Hot to the touch and oddly soothing.
“That’s… certainly one word for it yes.” she trailed off, cautiously sipping from her own cup. They both looked straight in front on them, neither sure if eye contact was the best idea at that particular moment. Addison was sure she would simply dissolve into an unexplainable display of emotions. Derek was almost certain that the second he looked into his wife’s eyes, he would wake up. It was all some dream. He’d wake up, in his bed, in the brownstone, stumble down the stairs and his wife would mumble something incoherent from behind a cup of coffee or the newspaper. Derek was also almost certain that at this point, waking up, was not an option.
“This is.. This is the point where things change isn’t it?” he asked quietly, daring a glance at her knee, covered in a thin layer of black from her tights.
“Yes.” she glanced at his elbow, then his chest, his hair. He shifted, his head moved. Her chin rose, on instinct. His lips parted, his eyes moved from her lips, to her collar bone and back again.
The eyes they had been working so hard to focus suddenly slipped.
He smiled, on instinct, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that Derek Shepherd way that showed he was genuinely smiling.
She bit her bottom lip and her brows furrowed for a second.
“I didn‘t think it would be so anti-climatic.” she mused. Never breaking eye contact, he gently took her hand in is own.
“You always had a flair for the dramatics.” he answered before pouring more of the steaming hot liquid down his throat. She gave a small humpf of disagreement and settled back down in her seat, his hand moved from holding hers to resting casually on her shoulder. She softened at his touch and he didn’t pull away.
“Trying is more than holding my hand, Derek.” she said, her voice just above a whisper. He heard her.
“It’s my first day back.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left in the first place.” there’s a slight amount of acid in her tone, but he’s ignoring it, for now.
For now, they’re sitting in an airport at two thirty in the morning, waiting to board a plane to get them out of the City of Constant Precipitation. For now, he doesn’t feel so numb.
It’s been close to six months since the last time Addison had been on the East Coast. And she’s nervous.
=
It was still slightly dark out. Dark enough that if she kept her eyes closed and ignored the clock beside her head it could have been dusk outside. In her head, it was seven in the evening, not the morning. It was seven in the evening and she could walk upstairs into her room and pretend the day never happened. She could lay down in bed, close her eyes and imagine that when she opened them it would bring about a brand new beginning for her.
She liked new beginnings. In the film that she played in her head, the one where she was the tragic heroine and wore fabulous costumes at all times, there was no middle and end. It was just one beginning. Every morning someone rolled the tape back and she got to start fresh, again.
She used to like mornings, because they brought about the new beginnings. She used to really love them. She buried her head in the pillow beside her and she screamed. Howled would be more fitting actually. She didn’t even have the energy to work her voice up to the pitch so that she could scream. Instead she just howled, like a lonely wolf on a picturesque cliff somewhere in the darkness.
There was a knock on her door and she stuffed her head underneath the pillow. Like an ostrich, with it’s head in the sand, she longed for oblivion. An escape. As the knocking on her door became more determined she wondered how many times she could make use of similes to compare herself to a wild animal in the next five minutes.
“I think you should get up now sweetie. Hop in the shower, have some breakfast.” her dad suggested meekly from the door. She almost missed the days when he would just kick her door open and stand there, slurping his coffee and calling out clues from the crossword until she would kick back the covers and get out of bed.
Almost.
“I’m trying Dad.” she mumbled weakly from beneath her pillow fortress. Nobody really understands. And she’s fine with that. She wouldn’t want anyone to understand, because it would mean they would have gone through everything she has been going through. She wouldn’t wish this on anyone. No one. A few weeks ago she may have, but then she moved passed anger and now she’s just numb. She’s so numb that she’s raw and it hurts. Even when people look at her, it’s as if they rub salt into her wounds. And she’s raw. It’s painful. A dull ache began to thump in her temple.
She hasn’t even heard what her dad has been rambling on about, so she just sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She fixes her father with a look. She breathes out a huge sigh of relief once she could hear his footfalls on the stairs.
She made her way into the bathroom. At the mirror she stopped and rubbed a circle in the glass with her palm. It’s barely seven and the room is already foggy with hot steam. With a glance at her distorted reflection in the mirror she blinked back the tears until she stepped beneath the scalding hot water.
“The shampoo got in my eyes. Shampoo. Eyes. That’s all.” she whispered fiercely to herself as she stood, quivering in the tiled box that had become her safe haven.
Downstairs Sarah Shepherd glanced up at the ceiling, she could hear the water running. Life was not fair. That much she knew. Life had a way of appearing very nice and lovely, really, it’s hard. No one ever tells you just how hard some moments of your life are going to be. She wished she could have warned her daughter. Sarah Shepherd is a good mother. She loves her daughters.
Letting her head fall into her palms Sarah willed herself not to cry. She breathed in.. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and….. Ten. She breathed out.
There’s a knock on her office door and her husband says something about a meeting, a conference call a meal with a colleague. She didn’t hear him. And he wasn’t really talking to her.
They were just there.
She’s terrified.
She picked up her phone and was about to dial a very familiar number when the water above her head shut off and two pairs of feet thundered down the stairs. Eager, excited and completely oblivious. She longed for just one day of her childhood back. She almost missed the feel of her mother’s fingers carefully threading through her hair as she twisted and weaved the strands around one another to form the braids Sarah loved so much. She almost missed it.
She had almost missed a lot of things.
“MOM.” her youngest bellows from the doorway. “Did you forget about breakfast?”
Sarah smiled easily and follows her daughter into the kitchen. There’s a small square of white paper on the table. Flight details.
“I have to pick someone up at the airport after I drop you all off at school.” she glances at her eldest daughter who had seated herself at the island, twirling her spoon around and around. It caught the light and made it seem as if her daughter was spinning diamonds from her fingertips. Sarah had always had this uncanny ability to see things differently. In reality, she saw her daughter twirling a damp spoon as she sat silently at the counter, trying not to drown. But in her mind, she saw her daughter sitting on a bench in some park, green and leafy, full of promise, spinning priceless gem stones on her fingertips and laughing at the dazed expression on the faces of the people passing her by.
“Unless you wanted to take the bus?” Sarah offered weakly. Her eldest slid off the stool and mumbled something about taking the garbage out. Her father had already done it. She had heard him, slamming the tops on things and kicking at pebbles on his way to his car.
“Did you forget?” Sarah turned and looked down at her middle daughter over the rim of her coffee mug.
“Almost.”
=
Addison watched the people move around her. Her eyes are searching for something. She really wished they weren’t. Their flight was painfully long and full of bumps and she had not slept. At all. She had attempted to count the amount of hours she had been awake. She was a surgeon, she had graduated first in her class from med school. Surely she should have been able to count backwards and figure out how much longer she had before her body just gave in.
She forced her eyelids to droop. Slowly, ever so slowly. Almost. There.
Something flashed in the corner of her right eye and they popped open again. She groaned and turned her head to the right. There he was.
The love of her life.
Her husband.
The one and only.
He loved her. He really did. There was a time when she was his best friend and the love of his life. Then she got tired of being married to his answering machine and fucked his best friend. She’s making it a bit sensational, that wasn’t how it happened. It was much less organised than that. Derek liked to weave this horrific story of how his wife and best friend had seemingly spent vast amounts of time together, plotting her adultery.
That wasn’t how it happened.
He was a liar.
And she was a sensationalist whore.
Match made in matrimonial heaven.
Her weary eyes followed him as he made his way toward her, studiously avoiding her eyes. He instead chose to just watch at her legs. Marvelling at how her legs seemed to be able to convey emotions. Surely that’s not right.
“Ready to go?” he smiled softly and Addison really wants to smile back, but she can’t, because she’s the woman she swore up and down she would never be. It’s hard to smile when you’ve become someone who you find just a little repulsive.
She nodded and stood, taking the handle of her suitcase from him and snapping it up, allowing him to lead the way.
“I dyed my hair.” It’s sudden, she really doesn’t know where it came from.
He turns and looks at her, not seeing his sister in the crowd he simply stares at his wife of just over a decade.
“I love you.” she watches his face, waiting, just waiting for him to shake his head, walk off and stick his nose in Meredith Grey’s hair. He can have his cake and eat it too. It just made him the nice guy. Any woman in his position would have been labelled a slut. Or indecisive.
“Sometimes Derek, I don’t believe you.”
“Why is that?”
A sleek looking black car is suddenly at the curb and within seconds Sarah Shepherd is before them. Eyes wide and bearing dark circles. She looked her brother up and down before smothering him in a warm embrace.
Addison can just watch as her husband rubs soothing circles on his sister’s back and holds her close, trying desperately to give her a little hope. Anything.
The two women stand toe to toe, just looking at each other. Addison lets the nerves show, the nervousness and the exhaustion and when Sarah studies her eyes for what seems like minutes, eventually all she can see are her own emotions reflected back at her.
“Hey, Red.” Sarah smiled.
Derek could just watch as his eldest sister sweeps Addison into her arms and the two women cling to one another. He wonders how you can forgive someone for that. How you can forgive someone for that by just looking them in the eye.
They settle themselves into the car and begin their quiet journey to Sarah’s house. Addison lay horizontally across the back seat, her legs curled beneath her slightly in case her heels mark the leather interior. The passengers are all shifted harshly up and then back down as Sarah takes a speed bump without slowing. She mumbles an apology and glances in her rear view mirror. Addison gives her a small smile as she rubs the head she slapped off the car door.
It’s just a small bump in the road.
It carries the impact of an articulated truck.
Derek balls his coat up and hands it back to Addison. Without speaking they exchange pleasantries and Derek is very tempted to brush his lips across her sore forehead. He doesn’t. She wasn’t even aware of his inner musings as she allows her eyes to slip closed and buried her head into the softness of his coat. Holding her hand and offering some form of pillow aren’t exactly groundbreaking actions. She shrugged it off and pointed out to herself that at least he was aware of her presence now. That’s got to count for something.
Anything.
And then nausea grabbed her. Shook her violently and her eyes sprang open just to ensure they hadn’t been side swiped by a sixteen-wheeler.
They haven’t. For just a split second she wished they had been because it would have meant that his coat would have been far, far away from her. Ripped to pieces underneath the debris of the wreck.
Has her whole life become one mediocre metaphor now, or, the lyrical things in life had just become more glaringly obvious to her.
She groaned quietly against the back of her hand and prayed to anything that would listen. Derek’s sister may have forgiven her for sleeping with her husband’s best friend, but that could quickly be taken back when she vomited all over the backseat.
Sarah glanced at Addison in the back seat when she stopped at a light. She looked over at her brother. Oblivious.
She would have given anything to throttle the two of them so hard at that moment.
Sarah tried very hard. She tried very hard to ignore her sister-in-law’s pained expression as they pulled up the driveway and set the car in park.
Addison, who had at some point between the third last red light and the house pulled herself together enough to at least sit up straight, bolted from the car.
Derek watched in fascination for a few seconds until his sister came around to his side of the car. Slamming the car door she fixed him with an incredulous look.
“So you’re just going to stand here?”
Derek opened and closed his mouth, willing words to come, any words. He had nothing. With a frustrated sigh he followed his sister up the steps and onto the porch where Addison was waiting. She shifted her weight from foot to foot uneasily as Sarah fumbled with her vast array of keys.
Addison was just about to step over the dubious threshold and into the warm inviting house when a hand on her arm stopped her.
“What’s wrong?” his eyes were brimming with concern, if it had been two days ago her heart would surely have melted while he stood there, looking at her with such sincere honesty it made her stomach tremble in absolute delight.
However, it wasn’t two days prior. And she was pissed.
She stepped backwards out of his grasp, he didn’t reach for her again. Her arm suddenly felt cold.
He was forced backwards when his balled up coat and her fists collided with his chest. She stepped closer, invading his personal space, her lips at his ear and her legs brushing against his.
“It smells like her.” she whispered icily in his ear. Her teeth gritted together and a tiny noise is all she’s capable of, otherwise she would surely expel the contents of her stomach, which wasn’t a whole lot, all over him.
Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd may have been wildly furious, but she was not about to projectile vomit all over her husband. Although, the coat was tempting, at least it would cover up the smell of that damn interns hair.
Without another word Addison was gone, racing up the stairs and towards the guest bedroom.
Sarah was standing in the kitchen, clasping a steaming mug in her hands and staring silently out the window, looking onto her back yard.
Six days ago she would have given anything for this peace. The quiet that had invaded her home. She would have relished in it and emerged far better off.
She felt him enter the room, look around, soak it all. She can almost hear the words in his head. This isn’t right.
“Nothing about this is right. Nobody here is right. Everything about this is so wrong.”
Derek is slightly taken aback by her words. Strong and biting.
“How far along is Addie?”
Derek just about kept his jaw off the floor.
She turned and looked at him.
His brain is positively whirling. It was entirely plausible. But it couldn’t be. His brain scrambled desperately, surely they had been careful. They were a sex couple. Or at least, they had been. It made him feel embarrassed when he realised that he could nearly count on two hands the amount if times he had actually had sex with his wife since she had moved to Seattle. It was certainly a far cry from the Addison and Derek of before. No. No.
“She had poison oak.”
Sarah arched an eyebrow at her brother’s limp response. Why must he speak in riddles.
“Just go upstairs, Daddy.” she added teasingly from the rim of her mug.
Addison groaned as she heard him pound up the stairs. She wanted her husband back, so much. She wanted her marriage back. They had been a great love before. It sounded very romanticised and clichéd, but they had been.
She wanted..…
She shook her head and heaved herself up off the floor. She flushed the toilet and began a search for some sort of air freshener, because she was not going to give his family anymore reasons to want her to perish on a rock in the desert for all of eternity.
She threw a window open and shivered as the cold air swept over her.
She needed her marriage back. She needed her husband back. She had never ever imagined herself to become one of those women who need to have a man in their life. No, she didn’t need a man, she didn’t need a husband. She just needed Derek. She caught her reflection in the mirror and groaned, loudly, she needed eye liner, for hers had faded, and concealer.
He was yelling at the door now. After two minutes of his knocking and shouting she gave in and unlocked the door.
He stepped in and closed the door behind him. His wife sat on the lid of the toilet seat. Head in her hands, wavy merlot hair falling over her face, her longs legs stretched out in front of her, angled in such a way that if she had been looking at him she could have been some European model taunting him with her wicked curves and teasing lips from the glossy page of a magazine.
“What Derek?”
The truth was, he hadn’t really thought of what he was going to say. He never really did. When it came to dealing with his wife he had never felt the need to rehearse what he was going to say to her. He had never had to practice how it was he would connect with her. Not even when he proposed. Sure in the moments, weeks, leading up the exact time there had been beautiful phrases and poetic comparisons floating in his brain, but then.. Well then he had walked into his childhood bedroom one Christmas morning and found her sleeping soundly in such a comical position that he had just known that was his wife.
He just knew.
“You…. You are not pregnant.”
Derek simply stood there. She had that look on her face. It mirrored the look that had morphed her beautiful face when he told her he had fallen in love with Meredith Grey on Christmas. It was this whacked out mixture of shock, disgust, hurt, anger and that feeling you get when someone reaches into your gut, turns it upside down and then pulls their hand back out.
“No Derek. I’m not pregnant.” He turned away from the mirror and crosses his arms over his chest, allowing his shoulders to slump, he rests his tired body against the lip of the sink.
Addison yanked a toilet roll from the holder and slammed in off his head.
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry did you just slap me upside the head with a roll of Charmin?”
Addison glared at him and just told her brain to shut up and let him have it.
“Yes. Yes I did you ignorant ass. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? Do you?”
Something inside Derek’s brain just stopped functioning. He lunged forward, she stumbled backwards and he gripped her arms. His eyes boring into hers until she actually flinched.
“Derek…”
“No. Stop talking. It’s my turn.”
She glared. Stone cold and piercing. He met her with equal intensity.
“Do you have any idea how much seeing you in bed with my best friend hurt? DO YOU? Do you know how hard it was for me to watch you stroll into that damn hospital and not grab you and just have you right then and there and make you scream MY NAME. Do you? Because that is all I wanted to do. That is all I could think about. His hands on YOU. Him, KISSING YOU. Touching you. HOLDING YOU. IN MY BED. You are my wife. You are Addison. HE does not get to kiss you, or touch you or SLEEP WITH MY WIFE. Do you know how long it took for me to be able to close my eyes and NOT SEE THAT. THAT was all I could see FOR MONTHS. You BROKE MY HEART ADDISON!” he shook her, just a little bit roughly.
In a masochistic way she kind of likes it. Finally, he’s yelling. Finally, something to show her that he’s actually processing it all.
“And Meredith pieced it back together for you. Remind me to SEND HER A ‘THANK YOU’ CARD.” Oh yeah, now she’s going to scream.
She wrenched her arms free of his grasp, she’ll bruise, they both know it. And it will make him want to vomit.
“Don’t bring her..-”
“The hell I won’t! I left EVERYTHING FOR YOU. I thought that when you didn’t sign those papers, when you agreed to REMAIN MARRIED TO ME, that it meant you BROKE UP WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND. And don’t tell me you did because you didn’t. Do you think I’m blind? Do you think that I don’t see how YOU LOOK AT HER? Do you think I don’t see that YOU LOVE HER. And you will always love her, because I RUINED US and she put you back together. I’m your adulterous, wench of a wife and she’s the pretty little intern who helped you to HEAL. That’s fine I could have lived with that. BUT NO. You had to be THE GOOD GUY. You couldn’t just divorce your wife, where’s the honour in that, you had to the good guy and try and work it out with the whore of a wife..” she stopped, to regroup. And before her brain could even formulate a reply she’s gone again.
“You beat up Mark Sloan. You made your best friend bleed because he was talking to her. WE HAD SEX IN YOUR BED AND YOU WALKED AWAY! Why didn’t you fight for us Derek? I understand why you were furious with me, I was too, and I still am. I just… I don’t…. Why can’t you just pick a side Derek?” she was just about standing. Her knees shook and she gripped the edge of the sink. The sweet little phrases pinned to the wall are mocking her. She can’t look away. She can’t look at her husband because she’s terrified. This is not the first time she’s given him an ultimatum. The last time, he picked her. This time, she’s not even certain if he’ll answer. He might just walk away. Why break the cycle?
“Addison… I..”
And he’s crying.
Not the heart wrenching sobs that are threatening to over take her, but there’s tears sliding down his gorgeous face and it’s just so wrong.
“I picked you Addison. I chose you. My wife. And I know, I haven’t acted like it but I love you. I don’t know why, I don’t even know how, I just know that I do. You are the only woman who could ever make me cry Addison. You are the only woman who could ever hurt me so much that I couldn’t even stay on the same side of the country as her. Another woman may have pieced my heart back together but you were the one who had so much of my heart that when it broke, I couldn’t breathe, Addison.”
“Derek…”
“Did you love him?”
She knew this was coming. She knew that she was going to have to talk about it at some point.
“I… Yes. I loved him. But Derek, he’s not my husband. I fell in love with Mark because I needed to believe that I hadn’t just thrown my marriage away for a stupid one night stand. Derek, he’s not you. I love you, I’m in love with you, hopelessly, foolishly in love with you. You’re it, for me. It’s you. That’s it. And you were NEVER THERE. You ignored me. I don’t know if you even know this but there times when you flat out ignored me. I WAS MARRIED TO YOUR FUCKING ANSWERING MACHINE.”
“Was he the only one?”
It’s a blazing ache across the side of his face. He can taste blood when he touched the corner of his mouth with his tongue.
“Is this it? Is this you trying, Derek?”
He shook his head vehemently. She’s his wife. She’s Addison Shepherd, and she was right, Meredith Grey wasn’t just the girl he had been sleeping with. He fell in love with her, it was hard not to. She was everything Addison wasn’t. She was a nice little escape route from his catastrophe of a marriage.
“ I want to move past this Addison.” he stepped closer to her again. Addison held up a hand to stop him, covering her face with the other, she shook her head.
He ignored her, stepping forward and cupping her face in his hands. She placed her hands firmly on his chest, arching her body away from him.
“Can we, Derek?” she whispered, so quietly. Her eyes locked with his for the first time in so long and she desperately wanted to believe him.
He nodded, gently tracing tiny circles on her cheek.
“I… told you I was going to try. I’m trying. I want…. I want to be your husband Addison..”
Addison gasped a small sob and nodded. Derek stepped closer, his hands moved from her cheeks, down her neck and shoulders, all the way to her hips. He tugged her closer, gently, keeping his eyes on hers. She exhaled deeply, every muscle in her body relaxed, slowly. She moved closer to him, tilting her head up to look into his eyes, their noses practically touched. She closed her eyes and moved her arms to wrap around his shoulders. Derek took his chance, he pressed his lips against hers, softly. She tensed, her body which had mere seconds before been soft went rigid. She pulled away from him. Opening her eyes.
“Are you going to get your coat dry cleaned?” she whispered, shifting her arms so she could let her fingers touch the soft waves of hair at the back of his neck. There was a half smile playing at the corner of her lips and Derek kissed her there. He missed kissing her. She stepped backwards again, until her backside hit the lip of the sink, he walked with her, pressing his body against hers.
“Are you laughing?” he teased, running his hands, touch feather light, up and down her sides, slipping inside the coat she still had on to finger the curves of her body. She moved her palm to cup his wounded cheek. His eyes fluttered closed at the feel of her skin in his. She ran the tips of her fingers over the glaring red mark on is right cheek. She breathed in sharply, taking her fingers away, stained with dried blood. She caught his face with the back of her left hand, her wedding ring breaking his skin. She whirled around, grabbing a towel off the rack and dunking it beneath the now flowing tap.
“Addison.” he moves his hands to her hips, gently turning her to face him. Her eyes well up with tears as she gently runs the wet towel over his cheek. He lets his eyes fall closed because it really hurt. When she was finished, she pushed herself up onto the counter, shifting forward so she didn’t end up sitting in the now wet sink. She tugged him closer to her, lacing her fingers with his she reached up and started placing achingly soft kisses on his sore cheek. Her apology tickled his ear, her breath warm and heavy with more tears. Derek can’t stand it when she cries. It’s part of what made it so hard for him to talk to her in Seattle, he hates seeing her cry. It makes his chest get tight when he thinks of all the times in Seattle he was oblivious to her , ignored her and acted in ways he knows made her feel like he didn’t care. He cared. He wrapped his arm around her waist, moving to stand between her legs he tangled the other hand in her hair. She pulled back ever so slightly and their lips met. Finally.
It escalated sweetly when he swept his tongue across her lips, gently, asking her. Her hands move to his face and pulled him in. Closer.
=
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing, still..
Summary: Family- a group of people related to one another by blood or by marriage.
A/N: And because I have two exams tomorrow, one on Friday, I almost set the house on fire this morning and I have more exams in about a week and a half, thy kindly scheduled by Biology one on my birthday (thank you, school), I decided now would be the perfect time to start posting this little beauty, It's been sitting on my heard drive since mid-November I would say. So, I would like to point out that I called Addison 'Red' long before anybody did on television. Just, FYI. This is actually 25 pages long(and still not finished) so I've shortened it into more readable sections. Enjoy.
-
It’s been a long time. A long time since she’s just sat in a room, wrapped in a blanket, long after her father has slipped off to bed, long after her brain has already begun it’s long and hard fought battle against sleep. It just doesn’t come for her. It doesn’t come and wrap it’s warm arms around her and gently tug at her until her eyes are droopy and it’s just too hard to not let them fall closed. Let her body curl in upon itself and just sleep it all away.
She looked around the room. The painting that never made the grand journey upstairs to her bedroom. The lamp that bends closer to the surface of the table with each passing moment. The guitar she never plays anymore, with the stickers that she loves. Books. Books are all around her. There’s a book of synonyms and antonyms beside her, a good mood food cook book, a romance novel, a serious piece of literature. In the middle of the table, the dining room table, there’s a wooden chest. It’s a dark brown wood with an ancient looking pattern on it, there’s a leather handle on the top. She knows what lies inside it. Stationary.
It’s supposed to be their dining room, it’s not.
It’s now a makeshift office for her currently redundant/free-lancing older cousin who sometimes lives with them because her own mother can get to overbearing. Supposedly. She’s gone to the city, to stay with her friend and try and find some work. Or just get drunk and let loose without knowing she was going to have to crawl back into her childhood bed sometime the next morning.
There’s something about this room that makes her feel secure. That makes her feel like she has got some control. This room makes her feel like at any moment, of her choosing, she could just let it all go.
A sweet release, of everything.
Because it’s been six days. Six days at the bottom of this ocean and she needs a release. Six days and the same amount of hours sleep. Her brain is whirling. Fast. Too fast for a teenage girl who hasn’t slept properly in a long time. A girl who hasn’t been eating properly. She doesn’t feel hungry, but she knows she should. She knows a lot of things. They all add up, they all wear her down. When she feels worn down, she feels nauseous too.
It’s a hard thing. She knows she’s not the only one, but still, that doesn’t make you feel any less lonely, just that there are a lot of other people there who feel lonely too. Not with her. Just, around her. She’d like for it to not be this way. She just doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong anymore. She was really good for a nice amount of time. She can’t remember what it was that made her slip this time. Except, she can. With a painful amount of detail, every moment, every second. She remembers.
She pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders.
So distracted was she by her own thoughts in the silence of the dimmed room, surrounded by innate objects that she sought comfort in, she didn’t notice her mother arrive home. Didn’t notice her headlights illuminate the room she was sitting in, staring straight out the window, straight into her mother’s eyes.
She never registered the shaky breathes her mother was struggling with as she pulled her phone from her small black clutch.
Her mind was in a completely different world as her mother dialled a number that had become unfamiliar to both of them over the last few months.
Sarah Shepherd, the oldest of the brood, took one last look at the shell of her daughter before she turned away and walked a few steps towards the kitchen.
The dial tone mocked her, forced her to allow her mind to take off on a high speed chase of what could happen. Images flashed through mind, each one more chilling than the last. She almost gasped at the release she felt when the infuriating dial tone was cut short and the person on the other end picked up.
“Derek….” she forced herself to breathe. She steadied herself on the kitchen table’s edge and steeled herself for what was going to be a hard conversation. “Derek I….. I need you to come home. I need you Derek.” she whispered, her voice devoid of any of the passion she had felt mere second before. Flat and distant. That was how she felt, and it was mirrored in her quiet plea to her brother.
=
He was sitting on his side of the small bed. Removing his watch from his wrist, a present from her. He sat there for a second and looked at the watch for a moment or two. He breathed in a deep breath before he stood up and pulled his sweater over his head. Her eyes quickly move to watch him for a split second before moving back to her magazine. Glasses once again perched on the bridge of her nose she sighed gently before turning the page.
It was only a second, but he had felt her eyes on his back, taking him in, trying to comprehend this sudden turn about. He understood, it was hard to wrap your head around. One minute your going through your life, seeing it in one way, the next, everything had changed. he moved quietly around their small ‘bedroom’ and changed into his pyjamas.
He was sitting on the bed, on his side, again. He sat there for a second and looked at his phone as it suddenly burst to life. He can feel her slight jump at the noise, interrupting their silence.
Without much thought he picked up the phone and answered.
He was sitting on his side of the bed, and suddenly his sister was breathing raggedly in his ear.
“Derek I… I need you to come home. I need you Derek.”
“Sarah.” his mouth had run dry. Her voice was so unnatural. She was generally brimming with life. She loved to talk. She was nice to talk to, easy to listen to. She could talk about pretty much nothing and Derek would still listen.
“It’s…” she broke, flooding the phone line with her tears.
“It’s ok Sarah, I’m right here. Just.. Tell me what’s happened Sarah, please.” he’s begging, pleading with her. This is not alright. This is so wrong and unimaginable.
She let her magazine drop to the floor beside their bed and carefully placed her glasses on the bedside locker. She’s a warm reassuring hand on his back and he can’t move away. She’s exactly what he needs right now, warm comfort and something familiar as his oldest sister is having something of a nervous breakdown on the phone and he’s 2,926 miles away. She moves and sits beside him, her long legs curled beneath her as she wraps an arm around his shoulders, placing her other hand on his chest, right above his heart, which is racing.
“I don’t understand it Derek. I don’t expect you to but, I just…. You were the only I can think of. I don’t know how to… I’m afraid that if I let it go on.. I don’t know how to talk to my own daughter Derek.” she finished, a small sob escaping from the lips Derek’s sure she had covered with one hand.
“Mom, I’m going to bed.” a faint voice could be heard on the other side of the phone.
“Oh, ok sweetie, good night.” Sarah called out weakly. She knows she won’t sleep. Her daughter has not slept through the night in such a long time. It’s killing her. She knows what it means. She’s her mother. It’s just so unknown and terrifying.
“I know it’s a lot to ask but Derek I wouldn’t ask if I thought there was another way. I’m sure you have patients and Richard will yell but please.. Can you just…”
She’s cut off by Derek’s adamant ‘yes’. It seems so solid and reassuring in her ears that she nearly smiles, but she can’t because it’s just the beginning now. She has no plan. She just had a phone call.
Derek’s rambling about flights and time off, a patient he’ll need to reschedule and Richard Webber’s wrath of fury. There’s something he’s leaving out. And it’s a big something.
“Derek,” she cuts him off gently, but firmly. He stops for a second and she mentally reassures herself this is a good thing. They both need this. All of them.
“Derek, can you make sure Addie comes with you?” she asks it so softly, her voice is weak with emotion and pain.
His eyes move to his wife. Sitting Indian style on their tiny cramped bed. Her face is one of utter confusion. He can see her brain working overtime, her eyes searching his for clues, something, anything that would have touched such a raw nerve.
He needs her there. With him. He knows no one else on this planet would be able to withstand this. No one except her. She’s his wife. And he was indifferent towards her, he pushed her away, and now he had his second chance, he couldn’t go back to ignoring her, calling her childish names, escaping her endless need to ‘talk’ by hopping into an elevator and smelling an intern’s hair. That wasn’t right.
“Yeah. Addie’s coming.” he replied quietly. He closed his eyes and nodded, listening to his sister’s words for a few more moments until she ran out of steam.
“You just try sleep Sarah, we’ll be there sometime tomorrow. I promise.”
He hung up the phone and looked at his wife. She rose slowly from the bed. Ignoring the dog, who ploughed into her endless legs as she moved toward him. She stopped, inches from his face. He moved forward, invading her personal space. She closed her eyes. He followed suit, placing his hands on her hips and letting his forehead drop so it rested against hers. She ran the palms of her hands slowly up and down his upper arms, soothing the tense muscles. He swallowed hard when he felt the warmth behind his eyelids. She ran her palms from his arms to his shoulders, his neck and then finally to his face. She cupped his cheeks gently in her palms and just stood there.
They stood, leaning on each other, holding each other.
“Something’s wrong.” he whispered against her cheek after many minutes of just standing there. She moved to wrap her arms around his neck, foreheads still touching, and nodded.
=
She crouched on the stairs, reliving a few childhood memories as she pressed her cheeks against the banisters.
She heard her mother all but get down on her knees and beg her uncle to come home. She pressed her body further into the uncomfortable position she was cowering in and wished she could feel something. Anything. She was numb.
It had been six days. Six days at the bottom of this ocean. Six days and her mother was calling in reinforcements.
=
This was not what Addison had expected when her husband came home and announced to her that he had recognised his part in the downfall of their marriage. He was sorry, and he was going to try. He was going to try and remember what is was that had made them so unstoppable and complete before. He was going to try and make their marriage work. You do not get unlimited chances at the things in life. This was their second chance. Addison wasn’t sure if her heart could take anymore of their chances. The first one had ended with her in a tragic heap on the bottom of the stairs of their central park brownstone. Weeping and knowing that she had just destroyed what ever shambles of a marriage they had left. Which, hadn’t been much at that point.
It wasn’t fair though, she couldn’t just have sex with his best friend in their bed, on his sheets, because her husband was absent. She couldn’t justify her actions. She knew what she did was wrong but she just needed to feel something. Anything. She had been numb. She’d been numb when she had sat at their dining room table with a bottle of wine and a pack of crackers. She had been numb when his best friend had strolled through the front door, shaking the rain from his hair and calling out her name. It damn well hadn’t been his name she’d called out hours later. She hadn’t even felt anything. Nothing, just a pair of sweaty arms wrapped around her and a mouth on her chest and neck that didn’t belong there. And she thought, in the far away corners of her mind that maybe it wouldn’t have felt that way. That maybe, maybe it had been right. Maybe crossing the lines and breaking the rules would be the right thing to do because that was what was right for her.
She’d forced her breathing to become shallow and laboured and let her husband’s name roll from her lips in a desperate bid to get her husband’s best friend to get off of her and leave. She had not expected the unwelcome rush of pleasure she had felt when he had been there, with her, moving above her and touching her and kissing her like he loved every single fibre of her being. She had not expected it, but she had liked it, that feeling, of being loved by someone, she’s forgotten what that felt like. She had not expected it, but she had allowed it.
“Addison?” a voice cut through her thoughts. She glanced down in front of her to find Miranda Bailey standing there, charts in hand. She searched Addison’s face for an explanation of why she was standing there. It was nearly midnight and Addison Shepherd was standing in the middle of the surgical floor, dressed immaculately, with a black trench coat and a pair of black heels that declared you would not mess with this woman if you held your life to any value. At all.
“I… Derek and I…. he’s talking to the Chief. We have to take some time off.” she finished limply.
“The Chief? What? Why in the world are you two-…” she was cut off by the sounds of the two men approaching.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?” Richard Webber asked his favourite resident which an arched brow.
“Shouldn’t you?” she answered back defiantly, giving him that Nazi look she was famous for.
Derek quickly stepped in and saved his superior from a grilling by Miranda Bailey. “Thanks, Richard, we’ll be in touch I’m sure.” he nodded and stepped closer to his wife.
Addison looked up at his face, her eyes scanning his for a second before she turned back to face her boss.
“Addison, I assume everything in your department will be ok?” he already knew the answer, he wouldn’t have been so quick to offer her this position and all of the money he put into promoting her if he hadn’t been sure she could do it. And do it well.
She nodded yes, “It’s all been settled, I talked to some of my staff, who weren’t so impressed by the late night phone calls, but yes, everything is fine.” she smiled reassuringly, but Richard could see her faltering.
“Ok then. You two be safe. And…. Good luck.” he added before reaching out and squeezing Addison’s hand. He walked with them to the elevators and clapped Derek on the shoulder before returning to his office.
Miranda Bailey could merely watch as Derek Shepherd took his wife’s hand and tugged her to stand closer to him. She watched as Addison glanced up and locked eyes with him, sharing some unspoken words before Derek nodded and smiled weakly, warmly at her, and they boarded the elevator together.
Bailey whirled around, her charts forgotten for that instant as she took off after the Chief.
=
When he watched something, or someone, he could envision whatever, or whoever it was, doing something completely different. It was one of the things he had attributed to his success as a surgeon. When he looked down at his hands, he could see them wielding a small shiny blade, see them positioning that blade above someone’s scalp, see the trail of crimson begin. He could see his own hands performing a craniotomy on a patient everyone else in the room had deemed a lost cause. That afternoon, he had seen his hands tap a screen which displayed an image of a woman’s brain with one of the largest aneurysms he had ever seen. His hands had tapped the screen, but in his mind, they had been tangling in his wife’s hair while he kissed her. Then his hands had been wrapped around the sleeve of his best friend’s jacket, then they turned the knob on the door, and then they went numb.
When he watched the woman who was next in line at the coffee stand casually place her hands on the sneeze guard and cross one leg over the other as she leaned forward to get a better view of the brownies, he saw a ballerina. He saw the sugar plum fairy gracefully bending sideways at the waist, arms outstretched above her head, one leg straight, perpendicular to the floor, the other lifting into the air, parallel to the floor. Her muscles strained, every fibre in her body on fire, her nerve endings exploded. But she was the definition of elegance, grace and she was flawless. He blinked, and when Derek Shepherd looked at the woman at the coffee stand straighten up and move towards the young man behind the counter, he saw his wife, in bed with his best friend and his hands, his life saving, surgeon’s hands, balled into angry fists.
Ok, so perhaps his visionary side was fast becoming his fatal flaw as a surgeon. He could not operate on someone, he could not be in the power to manipulate someone’s brain, if he was seeing his hands opening the door to the Bedroom of Doom as he now affectionately dubbed it.
It wasn’t his operating style that needed to be re-adjusted, he needed to remove the image of his best friend in bed with his wife, in their marital bed, from his brain. He stared down at his tense fists and attempted with all of his strength to see them remove that mental picture from his mind. He stared, and stared, until all he did was leave marks from his fingernails in his palms and let a large sigh build up in his chest.
Releasing the air from his lungs he fell back into the plastic chair of Gate 21C. He scrubbed his palms over his tired face and decided he was thinking too much. Derek Shepherd was a highly intelligent, learned man, he wasn’t one to spend large amounts of time wallowing in his own narcissistic thoughts.
“Hey,” he glanced up and caught his wife’s eyes. She was scared, scared and she was looking into his eyes as she would a terrified pregnant woman whose water just broke. Two days ago, he would have made a snippy comment about treating him like a patient. At that moment in time, he was scared too. Anxious.
“I’m anxious. Are you anxious?” he asked as she settled herself next to him, she handed him a steaming cup of something. Hot to the touch and oddly soothing.
“That’s… certainly one word for it yes.” she trailed off, cautiously sipping from her own cup. They both looked straight in front on them, neither sure if eye contact was the best idea at that particular moment. Addison was sure she would simply dissolve into an unexplainable display of emotions. Derek was almost certain that the second he looked into his wife’s eyes, he would wake up. It was all some dream. He’d wake up, in his bed, in the brownstone, stumble down the stairs and his wife would mumble something incoherent from behind a cup of coffee or the newspaper. Derek was also almost certain that at this point, waking up, was not an option.
“This is.. This is the point where things change isn’t it?” he asked quietly, daring a glance at her knee, covered in a thin layer of black from her tights.
“Yes.” she glanced at his elbow, then his chest, his hair. He shifted, his head moved. Her chin rose, on instinct. His lips parted, his eyes moved from her lips, to her collar bone and back again.
The eyes they had been working so hard to focus suddenly slipped.
He smiled, on instinct, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that Derek Shepherd way that showed he was genuinely smiling.
She bit her bottom lip and her brows furrowed for a second.
“I didn‘t think it would be so anti-climatic.” she mused. Never breaking eye contact, he gently took her hand in is own.
“You always had a flair for the dramatics.” he answered before pouring more of the steaming hot liquid down his throat. She gave a small humpf of disagreement and settled back down in her seat, his hand moved from holding hers to resting casually on her shoulder. She softened at his touch and he didn’t pull away.
“Trying is more than holding my hand, Derek.” she said, her voice just above a whisper. He heard her.
“It’s my first day back.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left in the first place.” there’s a slight amount of acid in her tone, but he’s ignoring it, for now.
For now, they’re sitting in an airport at two thirty in the morning, waiting to board a plane to get them out of the City of Constant Precipitation. For now, he doesn’t feel so numb.
It’s been close to six months since the last time Addison had been on the East Coast. And she’s nervous.
=
It was still slightly dark out. Dark enough that if she kept her eyes closed and ignored the clock beside her head it could have been dusk outside. In her head, it was seven in the evening, not the morning. It was seven in the evening and she could walk upstairs into her room and pretend the day never happened. She could lay down in bed, close her eyes and imagine that when she opened them it would bring about a brand new beginning for her.
She liked new beginnings. In the film that she played in her head, the one where she was the tragic heroine and wore fabulous costumes at all times, there was no middle and end. It was just one beginning. Every morning someone rolled the tape back and she got to start fresh, again.
She used to like mornings, because they brought about the new beginnings. She used to really love them. She buried her head in the pillow beside her and she screamed. Howled would be more fitting actually. She didn’t even have the energy to work her voice up to the pitch so that she could scream. Instead she just howled, like a lonely wolf on a picturesque cliff somewhere in the darkness.
There was a knock on her door and she stuffed her head underneath the pillow. Like an ostrich, with it’s head in the sand, she longed for oblivion. An escape. As the knocking on her door became more determined she wondered how many times she could make use of similes to compare herself to a wild animal in the next five minutes.
“I think you should get up now sweetie. Hop in the shower, have some breakfast.” her dad suggested meekly from the door. She almost missed the days when he would just kick her door open and stand there, slurping his coffee and calling out clues from the crossword until she would kick back the covers and get out of bed.
Almost.
“I’m trying Dad.” she mumbled weakly from beneath her pillow fortress. Nobody really understands. And she’s fine with that. She wouldn’t want anyone to understand, because it would mean they would have gone through everything she has been going through. She wouldn’t wish this on anyone. No one. A few weeks ago she may have, but then she moved passed anger and now she’s just numb. She’s so numb that she’s raw and it hurts. Even when people look at her, it’s as if they rub salt into her wounds. And she’s raw. It’s painful. A dull ache began to thump in her temple.
She hasn’t even heard what her dad has been rambling on about, so she just sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She fixes her father with a look. She breathes out a huge sigh of relief once she could hear his footfalls on the stairs.
She made her way into the bathroom. At the mirror she stopped and rubbed a circle in the glass with her palm. It’s barely seven and the room is already foggy with hot steam. With a glance at her distorted reflection in the mirror she blinked back the tears until she stepped beneath the scalding hot water.
“The shampoo got in my eyes. Shampoo. Eyes. That’s all.” she whispered fiercely to herself as she stood, quivering in the tiled box that had become her safe haven.
Downstairs Sarah Shepherd glanced up at the ceiling, she could hear the water running. Life was not fair. That much she knew. Life had a way of appearing very nice and lovely, really, it’s hard. No one ever tells you just how hard some moments of your life are going to be. She wished she could have warned her daughter. Sarah Shepherd is a good mother. She loves her daughters.
Letting her head fall into her palms Sarah willed herself not to cry. She breathed in.. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and….. Ten. She breathed out.
There’s a knock on her office door and her husband says something about a meeting, a conference call a meal with a colleague. She didn’t hear him. And he wasn’t really talking to her.
They were just there.
She’s terrified.
She picked up her phone and was about to dial a very familiar number when the water above her head shut off and two pairs of feet thundered down the stairs. Eager, excited and completely oblivious. She longed for just one day of her childhood back. She almost missed the feel of her mother’s fingers carefully threading through her hair as she twisted and weaved the strands around one another to form the braids Sarah loved so much. She almost missed it.
She had almost missed a lot of things.
“MOM.” her youngest bellows from the doorway. “Did you forget about breakfast?”
Sarah smiled easily and follows her daughter into the kitchen. There’s a small square of white paper on the table. Flight details.
“I have to pick someone up at the airport after I drop you all off at school.” she glances at her eldest daughter who had seated herself at the island, twirling her spoon around and around. It caught the light and made it seem as if her daughter was spinning diamonds from her fingertips. Sarah had always had this uncanny ability to see things differently. In reality, she saw her daughter twirling a damp spoon as she sat silently at the counter, trying not to drown. But in her mind, she saw her daughter sitting on a bench in some park, green and leafy, full of promise, spinning priceless gem stones on her fingertips and laughing at the dazed expression on the faces of the people passing her by.
“Unless you wanted to take the bus?” Sarah offered weakly. Her eldest slid off the stool and mumbled something about taking the garbage out. Her father had already done it. She had heard him, slamming the tops on things and kicking at pebbles on his way to his car.
“Did you forget?” Sarah turned and looked down at her middle daughter over the rim of her coffee mug.
“Almost.”
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Addison watched the people move around her. Her eyes are searching for something. She really wished they weren’t. Their flight was painfully long and full of bumps and she had not slept. At all. She had attempted to count the amount of hours she had been awake. She was a surgeon, she had graduated first in her class from med school. Surely she should have been able to count backwards and figure out how much longer she had before her body just gave in.
She forced her eyelids to droop. Slowly, ever so slowly. Almost. There.
Something flashed in the corner of her right eye and they popped open again. She groaned and turned her head to the right. There he was.
The love of her life.
Her husband.
The one and only.
He loved her. He really did. There was a time when she was his best friend and the love of his life. Then she got tired of being married to his answering machine and fucked his best friend. She’s making it a bit sensational, that wasn’t how it happened. It was much less organised than that. Derek liked to weave this horrific story of how his wife and best friend had seemingly spent vast amounts of time together, plotting her adultery.
That wasn’t how it happened.
He was a liar.
And she was a sensationalist whore.
Match made in matrimonial heaven.
Her weary eyes followed him as he made his way toward her, studiously avoiding her eyes. He instead chose to just watch at her legs. Marvelling at how her legs seemed to be able to convey emotions. Surely that’s not right.
“Ready to go?” he smiled softly and Addison really wants to smile back, but she can’t, because she’s the woman she swore up and down she would never be. It’s hard to smile when you’ve become someone who you find just a little repulsive.
She nodded and stood, taking the handle of her suitcase from him and snapping it up, allowing him to lead the way.
“I dyed my hair.” It’s sudden, she really doesn’t know where it came from.
He turns and looks at her, not seeing his sister in the crowd he simply stares at his wife of just over a decade.
“I love you.” she watches his face, waiting, just waiting for him to shake his head, walk off and stick his nose in Meredith Grey’s hair. He can have his cake and eat it too. It just made him the nice guy. Any woman in his position would have been labelled a slut. Or indecisive.
“Sometimes Derek, I don’t believe you.”
“Why is that?”
A sleek looking black car is suddenly at the curb and within seconds Sarah Shepherd is before them. Eyes wide and bearing dark circles. She looked her brother up and down before smothering him in a warm embrace.
Addison can just watch as her husband rubs soothing circles on his sister’s back and holds her close, trying desperately to give her a little hope. Anything.
The two women stand toe to toe, just looking at each other. Addison lets the nerves show, the nervousness and the exhaustion and when Sarah studies her eyes for what seems like minutes, eventually all she can see are her own emotions reflected back at her.
“Hey, Red.” Sarah smiled.
Derek could just watch as his eldest sister sweeps Addison into her arms and the two women cling to one another. He wonders how you can forgive someone for that. How you can forgive someone for that by just looking them in the eye.
They settle themselves into the car and begin their quiet journey to Sarah’s house. Addison lay horizontally across the back seat, her legs curled beneath her slightly in case her heels mark the leather interior. The passengers are all shifted harshly up and then back down as Sarah takes a speed bump without slowing. She mumbles an apology and glances in her rear view mirror. Addison gives her a small smile as she rubs the head she slapped off the car door.
It’s just a small bump in the road.
It carries the impact of an articulated truck.
Derek balls his coat up and hands it back to Addison. Without speaking they exchange pleasantries and Derek is very tempted to brush his lips across her sore forehead. He doesn’t. She wasn’t even aware of his inner musings as she allows her eyes to slip closed and buried her head into the softness of his coat. Holding her hand and offering some form of pillow aren’t exactly groundbreaking actions. She shrugged it off and pointed out to herself that at least he was aware of her presence now. That’s got to count for something.
Anything.
And then nausea grabbed her. Shook her violently and her eyes sprang open just to ensure they hadn’t been side swiped by a sixteen-wheeler.
They haven’t. For just a split second she wished they had been because it would have meant that his coat would have been far, far away from her. Ripped to pieces underneath the debris of the wreck.
Has her whole life become one mediocre metaphor now, or, the lyrical things in life had just become more glaringly obvious to her.
She groaned quietly against the back of her hand and prayed to anything that would listen. Derek’s sister may have forgiven her for sleeping with her husband’s best friend, but that could quickly be taken back when she vomited all over the backseat.
Sarah glanced at Addison in the back seat when she stopped at a light. She looked over at her brother. Oblivious.
She would have given anything to throttle the two of them so hard at that moment.
Sarah tried very hard. She tried very hard to ignore her sister-in-law’s pained expression as they pulled up the driveway and set the car in park.
Addison, who had at some point between the third last red light and the house pulled herself together enough to at least sit up straight, bolted from the car.
Derek watched in fascination for a few seconds until his sister came around to his side of the car. Slamming the car door she fixed him with an incredulous look.
“So you’re just going to stand here?”
Derek opened and closed his mouth, willing words to come, any words. He had nothing. With a frustrated sigh he followed his sister up the steps and onto the porch where Addison was waiting. She shifted her weight from foot to foot uneasily as Sarah fumbled with her vast array of keys.
Addison was just about to step over the dubious threshold and into the warm inviting house when a hand on her arm stopped her.
“What’s wrong?” his eyes were brimming with concern, if it had been two days ago her heart would surely have melted while he stood there, looking at her with such sincere honesty it made her stomach tremble in absolute delight.
However, it wasn’t two days prior. And she was pissed.
She stepped backwards out of his grasp, he didn’t reach for her again. Her arm suddenly felt cold.
He was forced backwards when his balled up coat and her fists collided with his chest. She stepped closer, invading his personal space, her lips at his ear and her legs brushing against his.
“It smells like her.” she whispered icily in his ear. Her teeth gritted together and a tiny noise is all she’s capable of, otherwise she would surely expel the contents of her stomach, which wasn’t a whole lot, all over him.
Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd may have been wildly furious, but she was not about to projectile vomit all over her husband. Although, the coat was tempting, at least it would cover up the smell of that damn interns hair.
Without another word Addison was gone, racing up the stairs and towards the guest bedroom.
Sarah was standing in the kitchen, clasping a steaming mug in her hands and staring silently out the window, looking onto her back yard.
Six days ago she would have given anything for this peace. The quiet that had invaded her home. She would have relished in it and emerged far better off.
She felt him enter the room, look around, soak it all. She can almost hear the words in his head. This isn’t right.
“Nothing about this is right. Nobody here is right. Everything about this is so wrong.”
Derek is slightly taken aback by her words. Strong and biting.
“How far along is Addie?”
Derek just about kept his jaw off the floor.
She turned and looked at him.
His brain is positively whirling. It was entirely plausible. But it couldn’t be. His brain scrambled desperately, surely they had been careful. They were a sex couple. Or at least, they had been. It made him feel embarrassed when he realised that he could nearly count on two hands the amount if times he had actually had sex with his wife since she had moved to Seattle. It was certainly a far cry from the Addison and Derek of before. No. No.
“She had poison oak.”
Sarah arched an eyebrow at her brother’s limp response. Why must he speak in riddles.
“Just go upstairs, Daddy.” she added teasingly from the rim of her mug.
Addison groaned as she heard him pound up the stairs. She wanted her husband back, so much. She wanted her marriage back. They had been a great love before. It sounded very romanticised and clichéd, but they had been.
She wanted..…
She shook her head and heaved herself up off the floor. She flushed the toilet and began a search for some sort of air freshener, because she was not going to give his family anymore reasons to want her to perish on a rock in the desert for all of eternity.
She threw a window open and shivered as the cold air swept over her.
She needed her marriage back. She needed her husband back. She had never ever imagined herself to become one of those women who need to have a man in their life. No, she didn’t need a man, she didn’t need a husband. She just needed Derek. She caught her reflection in the mirror and groaned, loudly, she needed eye liner, for hers had faded, and concealer.
He was yelling at the door now. After two minutes of his knocking and shouting she gave in and unlocked the door.
He stepped in and closed the door behind him. His wife sat on the lid of the toilet seat. Head in her hands, wavy merlot hair falling over her face, her longs legs stretched out in front of her, angled in such a way that if she had been looking at him she could have been some European model taunting him with her wicked curves and teasing lips from the glossy page of a magazine.
“What Derek?”
The truth was, he hadn’t really thought of what he was going to say. He never really did. When it came to dealing with his wife he had never felt the need to rehearse what he was going to say to her. He had never had to practice how it was he would connect with her. Not even when he proposed. Sure in the moments, weeks, leading up the exact time there had been beautiful phrases and poetic comparisons floating in his brain, but then.. Well then he had walked into his childhood bedroom one Christmas morning and found her sleeping soundly in such a comical position that he had just known that was his wife.
He just knew.
“You…. You are not pregnant.”
Derek simply stood there. She had that look on her face. It mirrored the look that had morphed her beautiful face when he told her he had fallen in love with Meredith Grey on Christmas. It was this whacked out mixture of shock, disgust, hurt, anger and that feeling you get when someone reaches into your gut, turns it upside down and then pulls their hand back out.
“No Derek. I’m not pregnant.” He turned away from the mirror and crosses his arms over his chest, allowing his shoulders to slump, he rests his tired body against the lip of the sink.
Addison yanked a toilet roll from the holder and slammed in off his head.
“What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry did you just slap me upside the head with a roll of Charmin?”
Addison glared at him and just told her brain to shut up and let him have it.
“Yes. Yes I did you ignorant ass. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? Do you?”
Something inside Derek’s brain just stopped functioning. He lunged forward, she stumbled backwards and he gripped her arms. His eyes boring into hers until she actually flinched.
“Derek…”
“No. Stop talking. It’s my turn.”
She glared. Stone cold and piercing. He met her with equal intensity.
“Do you have any idea how much seeing you in bed with my best friend hurt? DO YOU? Do you know how hard it was for me to watch you stroll into that damn hospital and not grab you and just have you right then and there and make you scream MY NAME. Do you? Because that is all I wanted to do. That is all I could think about. His hands on YOU. Him, KISSING YOU. Touching you. HOLDING YOU. IN MY BED. You are my wife. You are Addison. HE does not get to kiss you, or touch you or SLEEP WITH MY WIFE. Do you know how long it took for me to be able to close my eyes and NOT SEE THAT. THAT was all I could see FOR MONTHS. You BROKE MY HEART ADDISON!” he shook her, just a little bit roughly.
In a masochistic way she kind of likes it. Finally, he’s yelling. Finally, something to show her that he’s actually processing it all.
“And Meredith pieced it back together for you. Remind me to SEND HER A ‘THANK YOU’ CARD.” Oh yeah, now she’s going to scream.
She wrenched her arms free of his grasp, she’ll bruise, they both know it. And it will make him want to vomit.
“Don’t bring her..-”
“The hell I won’t! I left EVERYTHING FOR YOU. I thought that when you didn’t sign those papers, when you agreed to REMAIN MARRIED TO ME, that it meant you BROKE UP WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND. And don’t tell me you did because you didn’t. Do you think I’m blind? Do you think that I don’t see how YOU LOOK AT HER? Do you think I don’t see that YOU LOVE HER. And you will always love her, because I RUINED US and she put you back together. I’m your adulterous, wench of a wife and she’s the pretty little intern who helped you to HEAL. That’s fine I could have lived with that. BUT NO. You had to be THE GOOD GUY. You couldn’t just divorce your wife, where’s the honour in that, you had to the good guy and try and work it out with the whore of a wife..” she stopped, to regroup. And before her brain could even formulate a reply she’s gone again.
“You beat up Mark Sloan. You made your best friend bleed because he was talking to her. WE HAD SEX IN YOUR BED AND YOU WALKED AWAY! Why didn’t you fight for us Derek? I understand why you were furious with me, I was too, and I still am. I just… I don’t…. Why can’t you just pick a side Derek?” she was just about standing. Her knees shook and she gripped the edge of the sink. The sweet little phrases pinned to the wall are mocking her. She can’t look away. She can’t look at her husband because she’s terrified. This is not the first time she’s given him an ultimatum. The last time, he picked her. This time, she’s not even certain if he’ll answer. He might just walk away. Why break the cycle?
“Addison… I..”
And he’s crying.
Not the heart wrenching sobs that are threatening to over take her, but there’s tears sliding down his gorgeous face and it’s just so wrong.
“I picked you Addison. I chose you. My wife. And I know, I haven’t acted like it but I love you. I don’t know why, I don’t even know how, I just know that I do. You are the only woman who could ever make me cry Addison. You are the only woman who could ever hurt me so much that I couldn’t even stay on the same side of the country as her. Another woman may have pieced my heart back together but you were the one who had so much of my heart that when it broke, I couldn’t breathe, Addison.”
“Derek…”
“Did you love him?”
She knew this was coming. She knew that she was going to have to talk about it at some point.
“I… Yes. I loved him. But Derek, he’s not my husband. I fell in love with Mark because I needed to believe that I hadn’t just thrown my marriage away for a stupid one night stand. Derek, he’s not you. I love you, I’m in love with you, hopelessly, foolishly in love with you. You’re it, for me. It’s you. That’s it. And you were NEVER THERE. You ignored me. I don’t know if you even know this but there times when you flat out ignored me. I WAS MARRIED TO YOUR FUCKING ANSWERING MACHINE.”
“Was he the only one?”
It’s a blazing ache across the side of his face. He can taste blood when he touched the corner of his mouth with his tongue.
“Is this it? Is this you trying, Derek?”
He shook his head vehemently. She’s his wife. She’s Addison Shepherd, and she was right, Meredith Grey wasn’t just the girl he had been sleeping with. He fell in love with her, it was hard not to. She was everything Addison wasn’t. She was a nice little escape route from his catastrophe of a marriage.
“ I want to move past this Addison.” he stepped closer to her again. Addison held up a hand to stop him, covering her face with the other, she shook her head.
He ignored her, stepping forward and cupping her face in his hands. She placed her hands firmly on his chest, arching her body away from him.
“Can we, Derek?” she whispered, so quietly. Her eyes locked with his for the first time in so long and she desperately wanted to believe him.
He nodded, gently tracing tiny circles on her cheek.
“I… told you I was going to try. I’m trying. I want…. I want to be your husband Addison..”
Addison gasped a small sob and nodded. Derek stepped closer, his hands moved from her cheeks, down her neck and shoulders, all the way to her hips. He tugged her closer, gently, keeping his eyes on hers. She exhaled deeply, every muscle in her body relaxed, slowly. She moved closer to him, tilting her head up to look into his eyes, their noses practically touched. She closed her eyes and moved her arms to wrap around his shoulders. Derek took his chance, he pressed his lips against hers, softly. She tensed, her body which had mere seconds before been soft went rigid. She pulled away from him. Opening her eyes.
“Are you going to get your coat dry cleaned?” she whispered, shifting her arms so she could let her fingers touch the soft waves of hair at the back of his neck. There was a half smile playing at the corner of her lips and Derek kissed her there. He missed kissing her. She stepped backwards again, until her backside hit the lip of the sink, he walked with her, pressing his body against hers.
“Are you laughing?” he teased, running his hands, touch feather light, up and down her sides, slipping inside the coat she still had on to finger the curves of her body. She moved her palm to cup his wounded cheek. His eyes fluttered closed at the feel of her skin in his. She ran the tips of her fingers over the glaring red mark on is right cheek. She breathed in sharply, taking her fingers away, stained with dried blood. She caught his face with the back of her left hand, her wedding ring breaking his skin. She whirled around, grabbing a towel off the rack and dunking it beneath the now flowing tap.
“Addison.” he moves his hands to her hips, gently turning her to face him. Her eyes well up with tears as she gently runs the wet towel over his cheek. He lets his eyes fall closed because it really hurt. When she was finished, she pushed herself up onto the counter, shifting forward so she didn’t end up sitting in the now wet sink. She tugged him closer to her, lacing her fingers with his she reached up and started placing achingly soft kisses on his sore cheek. Her apology tickled his ear, her breath warm and heavy with more tears. Derek can’t stand it when she cries. It’s part of what made it so hard for him to talk to her in Seattle, he hates seeing her cry. It makes his chest get tight when he thinks of all the times in Seattle he was oblivious to her , ignored her and acted in ways he knows made her feel like he didn’t care. He cared. He wrapped his arm around her waist, moving to stand between her legs he tangled the other hand in her hair. She pulled back ever so slightly and their lips met. Finally.
It escalated sweetly when he swept his tongue across her lips, gently, asking her. Her hands move to his face and pulled him in. Closer.
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