Baby, You Gave Up
I can't believe what you said to me,
Last night we were alone,
You threw your hands up,
Baby you gave up, you gave up...
She has fluid eyes, and they always entranced him. The pale irises roll like waves, and shift between colors and emotions and he’s a little rusty on Addison language right now, but he tell there’s pain in her soul. It’s not something he’s proud of, but Sam seemed to doubt his intentions, and Addison seemed to be desperate and lonely, and he was a little desperate and lonely himself-he didn’t really understand what was going on and they’ve been here too many times-bottom line, it’s not the time or place.
They’ve never been available at the same time. It’s a pattern he recognizes. The first time they met, he’d been dating a girl whose name he’d forgotten, and then he’d slept with Addison who was repulsed she’d been used as another woman. The next time they met, he realized that he’d slept with his best friend’s girlfriend, and he spent a good five months sucking up to her. They sleep together while she’s married, they shack up while she’s separated, and they make a bet while she’s emotionally unavailable. And now he has a girl, who he’s half in-love with and charmed by. Maybe it’s best if it ends here. Maybe tonight should be the last.
He stands and takes his leave, kissing her one last time and then he retreats. He thinks they’re both afraid of what might happen if they actually got together.
XXXXXX
It’s a hopeless moon he sees that night, and she’s dressed in some kind of pale, some kind of blue, some kind of old and new. And he thinks to himself, here lay their devastation. The older he gets, the tougher his love life becomes. His girlfriend is fifteen years younger than him and he feels the separation, he traces the gap with his wounded soul. They’re probably never getting married. Mark doesn’t really want to.
Lexie grips his hand a little tighter, perfectly aware of what exchanged between him and the bride once upon a time. Addison catches her eye and grins evilly at her, he smirks, she’s not really helping.
He dances with her at the reception, and she brushes against him ever so slightly and he shivers. He can almost see the faint glint in her eye and he knows that she’s abandoned all morals.
“Why are you marrying him?” He asks, just for the sake of asking.
Sam is noticeably absent and Mark takes note when she answers, “There was no reason not to.”
“That sounds so romantic.”
She shrugs, “I gave up on romance a long time ago.” He realizes that she’s gotten colder, bitter, “It’s failed me too many times. I’ve fallen in love with too many guys who were in love with someone else, and this one wasn’t. He loves me. I can’t get hurt this way.”
“Oh Addy,” he sighs into her hair, “You know that’s a lie.”
She’s marrying the man who stuck his child full of needles and then called him Dude. He’s not really sure of anything anymore. Addison and a quack is the last thing he’d imagine, and she had not been thinking of Pete when she was with him. She was only thinking about him. He knew. She had to have been.
He clenches his eyes and tries to think happy thoughts. Lexie squeezes his hand and leads him as far away from her as possible but his eyes still trail onto the bride. She’s gotten so good at pretending that she’s happy, but she never really survived his last betrayal. It was a dance that they continued to do. They twirled together in three fourth time.
Sloan doesn’t come around anymore, although she calls periodically. He misses having a child. He misses how good he felt. He misses so many things he can’t even list them. Disappointment was always something that lingered along the depth of his soul.
She follows him to the bathroom and pushes him against the wall. He smirks because it’s so fitting that she’s in her wedding dress, her fingers dance lower and lower and she whispers and moans at him, “You’re not happy.”
He replies with, “You’re not either,” but he blows the words into her ears and she groans at his hot breath trickling into her.
“I shouldn’t do this.” She tells him, as they fight their way towards the bathroom and lock the door.
“Yeah. Me too.” He says kissing her.
But it’s never stopped them before. And they fuck right there, in the middle of her wedding, because fucking is all they know, and it’s what brings them together.
XXXXXX
She picks up the phone after the second ring, not bothering to look at the caller I.D., “Hi honey,” she says it, smiling too widely, voice too high pitch.
“Hi sugarcakes,” is the sarcastic reply and she yelps a bit, “Mark?”
“Yeah…” she can hear his smile through the line, “I’m going to be in L.A. for a couple weeks, you wanna show me around?”
She grins sincerely, “I’d love to.”
She finds herself dressing up for him, wearing special lace panties beneath a low-cut dress and stripper heels she’s pretty sure she’s too old for. She doesn’t have the energy to pretend to feel guilty or to ask the requisite questions of, ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘What the hell Addison?’
She used to be an optimist, but now she’s not. Life bitch-slapped her over and over again, the world that once doted on her betrayed her. She’s not going to pretend she’s not having sex tonight. She’s faked it too many times.
“I don’t know how to properly live without you,” she tells him as a greeting.
He pulls her arm along and twirls her into the car as she laughs, “I bought a car for you.” Is his reply.
She leans across the chair and kisses him.
When she finally pulls back he asks, “Isn’t your husband upstairs?”
She shrugs, “Why’d you buy me a car?”
XXXXXX
She told Pete that Derek needed her, something about Meredith having a baby. She also told him that she was going to road-trip up there, clear the air inside her brain and soothe her soul. She says that the practice has been too busy lately when it hasn’t. She says she needs to go alone when she isn’t. She picks up Mark at the air-port.
“You know, you could have bought me a prettier one.” She tells him as they drive, his hand already resting up her thigh.
“I bought it for this trip, I was hoping it wouldn’t fall apart by the end of it.”
“I guess it’s nice… but SUV doesn’t really say ME you know?”
“Oh Addy,” Mark sighs, “Nothing really says you except sex and maybe like a red car.”
“I had a red car.”
“But you took mine.”
She shrugs, “It reminds me of you.”
XXXXXX
Callie corners her in an on-call room and she laughs, “Callie I’m too tired now.”
“Addison Forbes Montgomery, no games, why did you and Mark Sloan come in together?”
Addison shrugs, “He just got in, I picked him up from the airport.”
Callie grins wickedly, “Which one?”
Addison laughs, “What do you think?”
XXXXXX
She ends up at Joe’s the second time. She doesn’t want to explain why she flew three hours to find a fucking bar but she’s there. She’s waiting and she’s waiting patiently. Meredith Grey walks in and does a double-take but luckily she’s smart enough to avoid her. Derek unfortunately isn’t so intelligent.
“Addison?” He asks, surprised mingled with his good boy voice, “What are you doing here?”
She groans and attempts to smile but all she can come up with is, “Fuck off.”
So he does.
She’s still waiting and she almost punches Mark when she has to wait for three damn hours, “Where were you?” She growled.
He looks surprised, “Well it’s not like you called me.”
She ignores him, “I’m pretty sure we’re in a destructive relationship.” She tells him.
He wraps an arm around her concerned, “Addy?”
And she cries into his warm body. She cries because she’s in her forties and she’s acting so goddamn immature. She is crying because her husband’s discovered her extracurricular activities and why she feels the need to travel to Seattle, Washington every couple of months, and why she disappears into “medical conferences” in the periods between. But most of all she’s crying because she can’t stop it anymore, she’s been losing her identity and humanity as each year progressed, and she’s stopped trying to hang on.
Pete’s disgusted with her but she doesn’t give a damn. She cared more about Derek anyway and she still fucked Mark behind his back.
He asks what it means that she’s single now and she shrugs. She doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t have a clue.
XXXXXX
Lexie catches them next. She rejoins Seattle Grace and coordinates her schedule with Mark’s. They go to the Space Needle and spend time strolling around the Science Center like the nerds they are. They make out in the movie theatre, and Addison’s hands are halfway down his pants when they hear a clearing of a throat and both look up, blushing profusely.
Lexie runs away. Mark gets up to chase her but it’s a bit too painful to move so he sits down again. Addison laughs.
XXXXXX
“I’ve never really been happy,” she tells him, “except when you’re around…” She fingers his stubble and looks down at their entwined bodies, “So, you don’t have to sleep with me; you just have to stay in near proximity.”
“You want me to stop sleeping with you?”
“No. I’m just giving you the option.”
Mark sighs and grabs her hands and twists them in his before he looks up at her fluid eyes, “I never really was given a choice about loving you Addison,” he tells her, “I just always do.”
She smiles, “And I love you too.”
Mark laughs, “Marry me.”
“No.” She shakes her head, “Because then I’d have to cheat on you…”
She scrunches her forehead in thought and then decides, “But, we could do the Meredith/Derek thing, but I want something better than a post-it note.”
Mark smiles and agrees, he kisses her forehead, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
XXXXXX
On the anniversary of the first time she strayed from a husband, she marries another one. They sneak into the Empire State Building with Mark’s old card key and with a pocket knife they carve their promise into the marble behind a view-finder.
Mark + Addy
Forever and Ever