Last Chances, chapter 1
Title: Last Chances
Pairing: Derek and Addison
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Addison's back from LA and has a really bad day; meanwhile, Derek's life begins to take a turn. <---that sucked, so, please...just read it and see if you like it. :)
As Addison sat on her barstool, she wondered why she had gotten out of bed that morning. Joe set a shot glass down in front of her and filled it with vodka. Addison looked at it for a moment, before pouring it down her throat.
“Again.” Joe poured another shot, all the while thinking of how uncharacteristic it seemed for the savvy and sophisticated, red-headed and beautiful attending to be sitting at his bar alone doing shots. He watched her down the next shot. “Again,” she paused, “You can just leave the bottle-I’ll pour them myself.”
From the moment she opened her eyes, she knew that it was just going to be one of those days. The day back from vacation was never a good day and the vacation itself hadn’t been so good. She’d hoped to come back from Los Angeles with a new perspective on life, a new plan for herself and a new life-a life that didn’t involve men. But upon her second day in LA, that had all be shattered and now, she’d returned to Seattle more alone and lost than ever. So, this morning, on her first day back, for whatever reason, her alarm failed to go off and she woke up an hour late, which meant that she was late for surgery. In a hurry, she called the hospital and then jumped into the shower. In her hasty attempt to get ready, her hair dryer had shorted out and her lips stick had cracked. Finally, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her head, she got dressed and hurried out the door-not noticing the huge snag in the back of her nylon stockings until she was getting out of her silver Lexus and the heel of her black Jimmy Choo pump caught in the drain and snapped free from the rest of the shoe.
She’d looked down, shaking her head, as she pulled the spiky heel from the drain. “Perfect.” She reached behind her to pull off the other shoe-going barefoot was better than hobbling, she’d deduced-when she felt the snag in her stockings. “Great, just great. Really, really great.” She tossed the shoes into the Coach tote bag she was carrying and headed towards the hospital-the sooner she got into the OR, the better. She stepped through the glass doors and pushed the “up” button on the elevator. Waiting, she tapped her shoeless foot against the tile, looking around at nothing in particular, when her eyes came to rest on Meredith Grey-clad in a huge smile, she linked her arms around Derek’s neck and kissed him. Addison rolled her eyes and groaned. The elevator dinged, the doors opened and Addison tore her eyes away from the seemingly perfect couple. She stepped onto the elevator and chose her floor, thankful that she didn’t have to watch the slightly inappropriate display of affection between Meredith and “McDreamy”. To say that it didn’t bother her, would be a lie but on this particular morning, she wasn’t in the mood to tell herself otherwise. She closed her eyes and waited for the doors to shut-but hey didn’t shut-instead, she heard Derek’s voice call out for her to hold the elevator and after a small inner-battle within herself, she threw her arm out between the doors, causing them to bounce back open and allowing Derek to step onto the elevator with her.
“Nice shoes.”
She looked down at her only-covered-by-stockings feet. “Yeah, thanks.”
He grinned at her. “Really, it’s a good look,” he teased.
Jaw clenched, Addison sighed and hit the button for the third floor, making the doors open almost instantly. “I’m not in the mood for your ‘it’s a beautiful day to save a life’, sunny disposition.” She stepped off the elevator. “I’m late for surgery.”
When Addison reached the OR, for a brief moment, she felt as though she might be able to find some solace. The OR always had the calming effect on her-no matter how tense she was Addison was calm, cool and collected in the OR. But today, she hadn’t found that solace that she expected to find.
Almost immediately, her eyes fell upon her intern-the intern she’d fantasized about, the intern she’d allowed into the most private of dreams, the intern she’d slept with a week before and the intern who rejected her that same night.
“Hi,” he said cautiously looking her up and down.
“Is Jane Doe ready for me?”
“Yes,” he told her, grinning back, “And its Ava, remember?”
“Right.”
“Addison, are you okay?”
When he’d laid a hand on her shoulder and she shot him a warning look that caused him to pull his hand away. “I’m fine.”
“Where did you go?”
“Los Angeles…visited some friends,” she paused, “How is Ava doing?”
Alex shook his head, “Still no memory,” he paused, biting down on his bottom lip, as if debating about the question he was about to ask. “Look, about…”
Addison opened the door, “I’m fine and it’s really not your concern how I’m doing.”
“…and now I know why they call him McSteamy.”
Addison froze, looking directly at the nurse. Judging by the nurse’s wide-eyed, gaping stare at her, she knew that Mark really had broken their deal-it suddenly didn’t matter that she’d broken it first; it still hurt to know that he was moving on. Her jaw clenched and she forced herself to tear her eyes away from the young nurse and started to scrub in.
“Well, at least you didn’t kill anyone this time.”
Addison’s eyes shot up and she stared back at her father. “Dad…what are you doing here?”
“Visiting.” He paused, looking his daughter up and down with disapproving eyes. “But the way you were oogling that intern…tacky, Addison, tacky and unprofessional,” he paused, “Though, I can’t say uncharacteristic.”
She looked down. “Is there something you want?”
“Your mother told me that Derek divorced you.”
“Yeah...”
He shook his head, “He finally wised up.”
She looked up at him, “The divorce was no fault.” Not that she believed that.
“Oh, Addison, you really believe that? That it wasn’t your fault?” He paused, “You’re a screw up, Addison. You screwed up your marriage-you screwed your husband’s best friend in his bed, how can you really think that it was “no fault”?”
Addison slammed the chart she was looking at shut. Her jaw was tight and she could feel pressure building up behind her eyes. “I have rounds.”
She stepped around the nurse’s station. She wouldn’t give her father the satisfaction of knowing that he’d gotten to her-that he made her cry. Briskly she walked past him. “Of course you do,” he said, shaking his head.
She rounded the corner and then fell into the nearest on-call room.
The door opened at Addison pushed the tears from her eyes with her fingers. “Really, this isn’t a good time.”
“Are you okay?” Alex asked. Awkwardly, he walked over to her. “I heard-and-I just wanted to see if…if you were okay.”
“Stop asking me that!” Addison stood up, looking down at his lips and then into his eyes which were full of concern for her and ordinarily, that would have been a comfort. But it wasn’t because not only was that concern complicated by their recent history, but his eyes weren’t the eyes she wanted staring back at her with concern and she knew that she couldn’t take comfort in them anymore. She stepped towards him, a sober look on her face. “I’m not your girlfriend; you don’t have to worry about me.”
Derek was sitting in his Range Rover in the parking lot of Joe’s bar, trying to decide how he felt. He knew how he should be feeling; he’d been through this once before. The pain the first time had been all-consuming. He’d felt such anger and betrayal and hurt and then there was the fact that he couldn’t stop feeling for her, which made his own hurt that much more severe. The first time, he’d felt blind-sided and this time, he just felt guilty-guilty for letting it come this far and guilty for not realizing how unhappy he actually was. In the back of his mind, he knew that he’d regret some of the recent choices that he made and he knew that no matter what, he might still love her. This was a new realization-something that he’d realized only that morning and he had Addison’s father (of all people) to thank for it.
Almost as soon as Derek stepped off the elevator, he began to hear rumors of a mystery man floating around the hallways of the hospital. No one knew who he was, but when one nurse suggested that he was a possible candidate for Chief, the rumor caught on like wildfire. And now, Derek was curious.
“Did you hear?” Meredith asked in a playful voice.
He looked up, “About the mystery man-yeah, I heard.”
“Well, he’s drinking coffee in the waiting room on the third floor.” With that, she grabbed his hands and pulled him towards the elevator. A moment later, Meredith was leading him down the hallway to the third floor waiting room. “There he is…”
Immediately, Derek’s jaw tightened and his entire body tensed; an angry look settled in his eyes. “If he’s a candidate for Chief, I quit.”
“Who is that?”
“That’s my fath-ex-father-in-law,” he looked at Meredith, “He makes Thatcher and Ellis look like parents-of-the-year.” He looked away from Meredith, “He wouldn’t come out to visit her-he couldn’t even make it to our wedding.” Pacing back and forth, he wondered what he should do and he wondered if Addison knew that her father was at Seattle Grace. “What the hell is he doing here?” He thought aloud.
“Derek…” He looked up to see the older man walking towards him with an extended hand. “Nice to see you again…” he looked over Derek’s shoulder at Meredith, “Who’s the blonde?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Derek spat, his jaw still tight. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your father-in-law?” He paused, “Or should I say, ex-father-in-law. You finally wised up and left my daughter.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Derek scoffed.
“My wife finally told me all about it-and, well, I just had to come out here and see it for myself.”
“That’s sick, you know that?”
“What’s sick is that my daughter screwed your best friend in your bed…”
Derek stepped forward, struggling to keep his cool. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to come in here and start talking about things that you don’t know anything about.”
“I know my daughter.”
“You know your daughter?” Derek scoffed, “Since when?”
“I raised her.”
Derek shook his head, “A birthday card two months late and visiting every now and then to rub in whatever imperfections she has doesn’t constitute as “raising”.”
“I never said that I did a good job.” With a sly grin, the older doctor added, “Maybe that’s why she’s so screwed up.”
Again, Derek went on the defensive. “Do you get off cutting her down constantly?”
“I’m just stating the facts.” He started to step around Derek, but Derek side-stepped him. “And it is a fact that my daughter is a screw up.”
“Don’t call her that…”
“It’s true,” he said smugly.
“No, no, it’s not. She’s not perfect, but no one is and you’re hardly one who should be tossing stones-your daughter is an amazing woman-she’s talented-one of the top five neonatal surgeons in the country, top ten in the world-she’s beautiful, inside and out and when she loves someone, she loves them with her whole heart and doesn’t give up on them.” He shook his head, “That doesn’t sound like a screw up to me,” he paused, “You could really learn a lot from her, if you took the time to realize what an amazing woman your daughter is…no thanks to you, of course.”
Addison’s father stepped inwards, “If she’s so wonderful then why did you leave her for another woman?”
Derek’s jaw clenched, “Have you ever considered that maybe the reason for our divorce was my fault? Maybe I wasn’t good enough for her.”
The older man walked past him, “You’re still in love with her…how pathetic.”
For a long time now, he’d known this-deep down, he knew that he didn’t feel as he once did-or thought that he did. So, when he walked in on Meredith with someone else-he didn’t feel the betrayal and anger and the hurt that he’d felt when he caught Addison with Mark-instead, he just knew that it was finally over. He sighed and got out of the vehicle-there was one similarity-he needed a strong drink.
He walked into the bar and his eyes immediately on his ex-wife, sitting at the bar with her shoulders slumped forward.
“Is this seat taken?”
She turned and looked at him and he knew that she’d been crying. “You don’t want to sit there.”
Derek sat down, “Sure I do.”
Derek motioned towards Joe. “What can I get for you, Dr. Shepherd?”
“Just a glass,” he pointed at the bottle of vodka, “We can share.”
Addison looked over at him, “Speak for yourself.”
Joe set a shot-glass down in front of Derek and walked away. Derek looked over at Addison, “I saw your father. We had our usual run-in.”
She poured herself a shot and then poured Derek one, “Sorry about that,” she paused, “One good thing that should have come from our divorce was that you’d never have to deal with him again-so, sorry that you had to.”
She downed the shot. “He’s right. I am a screw up.” She looked down at the now empty glass. “I can’t have kids-I kept on delaying it, telling myself that I still had time and then-time ran out. I can’t even count how many times I told you that I wasn’t ready-and then Mark, God, I had a chance then, too-a real, viable chance and I didn’t take it because I didn’t want a child with a man that I wasn’t in love with,” she shook her head, “And now, I’m finally ready and…and now, I can’t,” she shook her head, “I never thought time would just run out like that.”
Derek’s jaw dropped slightly, his mind flashing back to all the times that Addison told him they had time to have a family and how she honestly seemed to believe it. It had always been a soar spot between them, but he knew deep down that she’d eventually be ready-for the kids and barbeques and the house with the white picket fence. And now, she was finally telling him that she was, but she couldn’t have it. “I’m so, so sorry, Addie,” was all he could manage.
She looked over at him and saw those sympathetic eyes she’d been searching for earlier and so desperately, she wanted to take comfort in them, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. Shaking her head, she looked away from him, “Karma, right? That’s what I get. I kept pushing and then-when I finally stopped, I’d pushed too far. I lost the guy, I lost the dream, I lost the other guy and then I lost hope,” she shook her head, “Karma.” She took another shot.
“Maybe it is karma,” he said, thinking not of Addison but of Meredith. He downed the shot. “Meredith is cheating on me.” He looked over at Addison, “Right now, actually.”
“What!?” Addison gasped, as her eyes grew wide. She looked away, “It wasn’t with Mark, was it?” She refilled his shot glass. “This one’s on me, too,” she told him, as she refilled her own glass.
“No, oh, no, it’s certainly not Mark.” He turned to Addison, who was taking a sip of her drink. “Right now, my girlfriend is in bed with another woman.”
Cheeks full, Addison swallowed a mouthful of liquor, “Excuse me?”
Derek shrugged his shoulders, “Karma, right?” He downed the shot. “I cheated on you with her and now she’s cheating on me…with another her.”
Addison’s mouth dropped slightly. “Wow,” she picked up the bottle, “You get another shot for that one.”
Derek watched her pour the shot and watched as her father walked into the bar with a nurse on his arm and suddenly felt the need the shield her. “Are you planning on getting completely trashed tonight?” Addison looked at him and with a slight smile on her lips, she nodded. “I also plan on getting completely trashed tonight-but it’s getting a little crowded in here-so, why don’t we go somewhere else and get completely trashed together,” he suggested.
Addison considered it for a moment. Feeling daring from the slight buzz she’d acquired from her round of shots, she smiled, “I’ve got a never-opened bottle of vodka waiting in my hotel room…and a mini-bar-fully stocked.”
Derek stood up and offered her his hand. As she stood up, she stumbled slightly and he caught her by the waist. “No fair, you got a head start,” Derek said with a grin.
“Why are you doing this?”
Derek tilted his head to the side, not really understanding the question. “This?”
“Being here for me-literally holding me up.”
He smiled sadly, “Because after everything we’ve been though, it’s too damn hard to blame you for something that was both our fault-and more than that, it’s too damn hard to pretend to hate you for it.” He shook his head, “I care about you, Addison-I care about you way too much to let you sit alone in a bar, drowning your sorrows in alcohol, thinking that nobody cares about you and that you’re all alone.” He shook his head, “I just can’t let that happen.”
Pairing: Derek and Addison
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Addison's back from LA and has a really bad day; meanwhile, Derek's life begins to take a turn. <---that sucked, so, please...just read it and see if you like it. :)
As Addison sat on her barstool, she wondered why she had gotten out of bed that morning. Joe set a shot glass down in front of her and filled it with vodka. Addison looked at it for a moment, before pouring it down her throat.
“Again.” Joe poured another shot, all the while thinking of how uncharacteristic it seemed for the savvy and sophisticated, red-headed and beautiful attending to be sitting at his bar alone doing shots. He watched her down the next shot. “Again,” she paused, “You can just leave the bottle-I’ll pour them myself.”
From the moment she opened her eyes, she knew that it was just going to be one of those days. The day back from vacation was never a good day and the vacation itself hadn’t been so good. She’d hoped to come back from Los Angeles with a new perspective on life, a new plan for herself and a new life-a life that didn’t involve men. But upon her second day in LA, that had all be shattered and now, she’d returned to Seattle more alone and lost than ever. So, this morning, on her first day back, for whatever reason, her alarm failed to go off and she woke up an hour late, which meant that she was late for surgery. In a hurry, she called the hospital and then jumped into the shower. In her hasty attempt to get ready, her hair dryer had shorted out and her lips stick had cracked. Finally, with her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her head, she got dressed and hurried out the door-not noticing the huge snag in the back of her nylon stockings until she was getting out of her silver Lexus and the heel of her black Jimmy Choo pump caught in the drain and snapped free from the rest of the shoe.
She’d looked down, shaking her head, as she pulled the spiky heel from the drain. “Perfect.” She reached behind her to pull off the other shoe-going barefoot was better than hobbling, she’d deduced-when she felt the snag in her stockings. “Great, just great. Really, really great.” She tossed the shoes into the Coach tote bag she was carrying and headed towards the hospital-the sooner she got into the OR, the better. She stepped through the glass doors and pushed the “up” button on the elevator. Waiting, she tapped her shoeless foot against the tile, looking around at nothing in particular, when her eyes came to rest on Meredith Grey-clad in a huge smile, she linked her arms around Derek’s neck and kissed him. Addison rolled her eyes and groaned. The elevator dinged, the doors opened and Addison tore her eyes away from the seemingly perfect couple. She stepped onto the elevator and chose her floor, thankful that she didn’t have to watch the slightly inappropriate display of affection between Meredith and “McDreamy”. To say that it didn’t bother her, would be a lie but on this particular morning, she wasn’t in the mood to tell herself otherwise. She closed her eyes and waited for the doors to shut-but hey didn’t shut-instead, she heard Derek’s voice call out for her to hold the elevator and after a small inner-battle within herself, she threw her arm out between the doors, causing them to bounce back open and allowing Derek to step onto the elevator with her.
“Nice shoes.”
She looked down at her only-covered-by-stockings feet. “Yeah, thanks.”
He grinned at her. “Really, it’s a good look,” he teased.
Jaw clenched, Addison sighed and hit the button for the third floor, making the doors open almost instantly. “I’m not in the mood for your ‘it’s a beautiful day to save a life’, sunny disposition.” She stepped off the elevator. “I’m late for surgery.”
When Addison reached the OR, for a brief moment, she felt as though she might be able to find some solace. The OR always had the calming effect on her-no matter how tense she was Addison was calm, cool and collected in the OR. But today, she hadn’t found that solace that she expected to find.
Almost immediately, her eyes fell upon her intern-the intern she’d fantasized about, the intern she’d allowed into the most private of dreams, the intern she’d slept with a week before and the intern who rejected her that same night.
“Hi,” he said cautiously looking her up and down.
“Is Jane Doe ready for me?”
“Yes,” he told her, grinning back, “And its Ava, remember?”
“Right.”
“Addison, are you okay?”
When he’d laid a hand on her shoulder and she shot him a warning look that caused him to pull his hand away. “I’m fine.”
“Where did you go?”
“Los Angeles…visited some friends,” she paused, “How is Ava doing?”
Alex shook his head, “Still no memory,” he paused, biting down on his bottom lip, as if debating about the question he was about to ask. “Look, about…”
Addison opened the door, “I’m fine and it’s really not your concern how I’m doing.”
“…and now I know why they call him McSteamy.”
Addison froze, looking directly at the nurse. Judging by the nurse’s wide-eyed, gaping stare at her, she knew that Mark really had broken their deal-it suddenly didn’t matter that she’d broken it first; it still hurt to know that he was moving on. Her jaw clenched and she forced herself to tear her eyes away from the young nurse and started to scrub in.
“Well, at least you didn’t kill anyone this time.”
Addison’s eyes shot up and she stared back at her father. “Dad…what are you doing here?”
“Visiting.” He paused, looking his daughter up and down with disapproving eyes. “But the way you were oogling that intern…tacky, Addison, tacky and unprofessional,” he paused, “Though, I can’t say uncharacteristic.”
She looked down. “Is there something you want?”
“Your mother told me that Derek divorced you.”
“Yeah...”
He shook his head, “He finally wised up.”
She looked up at him, “The divorce was no fault.” Not that she believed that.
“Oh, Addison, you really believe that? That it wasn’t your fault?” He paused, “You’re a screw up, Addison. You screwed up your marriage-you screwed your husband’s best friend in his bed, how can you really think that it was “no fault”?”
Addison slammed the chart she was looking at shut. Her jaw was tight and she could feel pressure building up behind her eyes. “I have rounds.”
She stepped around the nurse’s station. She wouldn’t give her father the satisfaction of knowing that he’d gotten to her-that he made her cry. Briskly she walked past him. “Of course you do,” he said, shaking his head.
She rounded the corner and then fell into the nearest on-call room.
The door opened at Addison pushed the tears from her eyes with her fingers. “Really, this isn’t a good time.”
“Are you okay?” Alex asked. Awkwardly, he walked over to her. “I heard-and-I just wanted to see if…if you were okay.”
“Stop asking me that!” Addison stood up, looking down at his lips and then into his eyes which were full of concern for her and ordinarily, that would have been a comfort. But it wasn’t because not only was that concern complicated by their recent history, but his eyes weren’t the eyes she wanted staring back at her with concern and she knew that she couldn’t take comfort in them anymore. She stepped towards him, a sober look on her face. “I’m not your girlfriend; you don’t have to worry about me.”
Derek was sitting in his Range Rover in the parking lot of Joe’s bar, trying to decide how he felt. He knew how he should be feeling; he’d been through this once before. The pain the first time had been all-consuming. He’d felt such anger and betrayal and hurt and then there was the fact that he couldn’t stop feeling for her, which made his own hurt that much more severe. The first time, he’d felt blind-sided and this time, he just felt guilty-guilty for letting it come this far and guilty for not realizing how unhappy he actually was. In the back of his mind, he knew that he’d regret some of the recent choices that he made and he knew that no matter what, he might still love her. This was a new realization-something that he’d realized only that morning and he had Addison’s father (of all people) to thank for it.
Almost as soon as Derek stepped off the elevator, he began to hear rumors of a mystery man floating around the hallways of the hospital. No one knew who he was, but when one nurse suggested that he was a possible candidate for Chief, the rumor caught on like wildfire. And now, Derek was curious.
“Did you hear?” Meredith asked in a playful voice.
He looked up, “About the mystery man-yeah, I heard.”
“Well, he’s drinking coffee in the waiting room on the third floor.” With that, she grabbed his hands and pulled him towards the elevator. A moment later, Meredith was leading him down the hallway to the third floor waiting room. “There he is…”
Immediately, Derek’s jaw tightened and his entire body tensed; an angry look settled in his eyes. “If he’s a candidate for Chief, I quit.”
“Who is that?”
“That’s my fath-ex-father-in-law,” he looked at Meredith, “He makes Thatcher and Ellis look like parents-of-the-year.” He looked away from Meredith, “He wouldn’t come out to visit her-he couldn’t even make it to our wedding.” Pacing back and forth, he wondered what he should do and he wondered if Addison knew that her father was at Seattle Grace. “What the hell is he doing here?” He thought aloud.
“Derek…” He looked up to see the older man walking towards him with an extended hand. “Nice to see you again…” he looked over Derek’s shoulder at Meredith, “Who’s the blonde?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Derek spat, his jaw still tight. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your father-in-law?” He paused, “Or should I say, ex-father-in-law. You finally wised up and left my daughter.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Derek scoffed.
“My wife finally told me all about it-and, well, I just had to come out here and see it for myself.”
“That’s sick, you know that?”
“What’s sick is that my daughter screwed your best friend in your bed…”
Derek stepped forward, struggling to keep his cool. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to come in here and start talking about things that you don’t know anything about.”
“I know my daughter.”
“You know your daughter?” Derek scoffed, “Since when?”
“I raised her.”
Derek shook his head, “A birthday card two months late and visiting every now and then to rub in whatever imperfections she has doesn’t constitute as “raising”.”
“I never said that I did a good job.” With a sly grin, the older doctor added, “Maybe that’s why she’s so screwed up.”
Again, Derek went on the defensive. “Do you get off cutting her down constantly?”
“I’m just stating the facts.” He started to step around Derek, but Derek side-stepped him. “And it is a fact that my daughter is a screw up.”
“Don’t call her that…”
“It’s true,” he said smugly.
“No, no, it’s not. She’s not perfect, but no one is and you’re hardly one who should be tossing stones-your daughter is an amazing woman-she’s talented-one of the top five neonatal surgeons in the country, top ten in the world-she’s beautiful, inside and out and when she loves someone, she loves them with her whole heart and doesn’t give up on them.” He shook his head, “That doesn’t sound like a screw up to me,” he paused, “You could really learn a lot from her, if you took the time to realize what an amazing woman your daughter is…no thanks to you, of course.”
Addison’s father stepped inwards, “If she’s so wonderful then why did you leave her for another woman?”
Derek’s jaw clenched, “Have you ever considered that maybe the reason for our divorce was my fault? Maybe I wasn’t good enough for her.”
The older man walked past him, “You’re still in love with her…how pathetic.”
For a long time now, he’d known this-deep down, he knew that he didn’t feel as he once did-or thought that he did. So, when he walked in on Meredith with someone else-he didn’t feel the betrayal and anger and the hurt that he’d felt when he caught Addison with Mark-instead, he just knew that it was finally over. He sighed and got out of the vehicle-there was one similarity-he needed a strong drink.
He walked into the bar and his eyes immediately on his ex-wife, sitting at the bar with her shoulders slumped forward.
“Is this seat taken?”
She turned and looked at him and he knew that she’d been crying. “You don’t want to sit there.”
Derek sat down, “Sure I do.”
Derek motioned towards Joe. “What can I get for you, Dr. Shepherd?”
“Just a glass,” he pointed at the bottle of vodka, “We can share.”
Addison looked over at him, “Speak for yourself.”
Joe set a shot-glass down in front of Derek and walked away. Derek looked over at Addison, “I saw your father. We had our usual run-in.”
She poured herself a shot and then poured Derek one, “Sorry about that,” she paused, “One good thing that should have come from our divorce was that you’d never have to deal with him again-so, sorry that you had to.”
She downed the shot. “He’s right. I am a screw up.” She looked down at the now empty glass. “I can’t have kids-I kept on delaying it, telling myself that I still had time and then-time ran out. I can’t even count how many times I told you that I wasn’t ready-and then Mark, God, I had a chance then, too-a real, viable chance and I didn’t take it because I didn’t want a child with a man that I wasn’t in love with,” she shook her head, “And now, I’m finally ready and…and now, I can’t,” she shook her head, “I never thought time would just run out like that.”
Derek’s jaw dropped slightly, his mind flashing back to all the times that Addison told him they had time to have a family and how she honestly seemed to believe it. It had always been a soar spot between them, but he knew deep down that she’d eventually be ready-for the kids and barbeques and the house with the white picket fence. And now, she was finally telling him that she was, but she couldn’t have it. “I’m so, so sorry, Addie,” was all he could manage.
She looked over at him and saw those sympathetic eyes she’d been searching for earlier and so desperately, she wanted to take comfort in them, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. Shaking her head, she looked away from him, “Karma, right? That’s what I get. I kept pushing and then-when I finally stopped, I’d pushed too far. I lost the guy, I lost the dream, I lost the other guy and then I lost hope,” she shook her head, “Karma.” She took another shot.
“Maybe it is karma,” he said, thinking not of Addison but of Meredith. He downed the shot. “Meredith is cheating on me.” He looked over at Addison, “Right now, actually.”
“What!?” Addison gasped, as her eyes grew wide. She looked away, “It wasn’t with Mark, was it?” She refilled his shot glass. “This one’s on me, too,” she told him, as she refilled her own glass.
“No, oh, no, it’s certainly not Mark.” He turned to Addison, who was taking a sip of her drink. “Right now, my girlfriend is in bed with another woman.”
Cheeks full, Addison swallowed a mouthful of liquor, “Excuse me?”
Derek shrugged his shoulders, “Karma, right?” He downed the shot. “I cheated on you with her and now she’s cheating on me…with another her.”
Addison’s mouth dropped slightly. “Wow,” she picked up the bottle, “You get another shot for that one.”
Derek watched her pour the shot and watched as her father walked into the bar with a nurse on his arm and suddenly felt the need the shield her. “Are you planning on getting completely trashed tonight?” Addison looked at him and with a slight smile on her lips, she nodded. “I also plan on getting completely trashed tonight-but it’s getting a little crowded in here-so, why don’t we go somewhere else and get completely trashed together,” he suggested.
Addison considered it for a moment. Feeling daring from the slight buzz she’d acquired from her round of shots, she smiled, “I’ve got a never-opened bottle of vodka waiting in my hotel room…and a mini-bar-fully stocked.”
Derek stood up and offered her his hand. As she stood up, she stumbled slightly and he caught her by the waist. “No fair, you got a head start,” Derek said with a grin.
“Why are you doing this?”
Derek tilted his head to the side, not really understanding the question. “This?”
“Being here for me-literally holding me up.”
He smiled sadly, “Because after everything we’ve been though, it’s too damn hard to blame you for something that was both our fault-and more than that, it’s too damn hard to pretend to hate you for it.” He shook his head, “I care about you, Addison-I care about you way too much to let you sit alone in a bar, drowning your sorrows in alcohol, thinking that nobody cares about you and that you’re all alone.” He shook his head, “I just can’t let that happen.”