"This Ruined Puzzle"
Part: 12/?
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Rating: R
Authors: Hannah & Sarah
Description: Derek decides to fight for his marriage. Season 2.
Summary: A whole lot of therapy.
Disclaimer: Not ours.
A/N: So I don't have a whole heck of a lot to say. Thanks for the support on this from everyone we know it's not exactly the most happy fic in the world but we do appreciate the feedback. Enjoy-
~~~~~~~~~~
Increasingly you've made me cold and afraid
A lonely companion
Apparently love runs on one way course
Away from contentment
Or maybe there's anger that can't be expressed
That fuels your resentment
...
Nothing's good, nothing's right, but I love you.
Nothing's good, nothing's right, but I love you
- Paper Route, "Second Chances"
~~~~~~~~~~
Addison stood below the stop sign sipping on her coffee and avoiding the gaze of a passerby as she checked her watch for what felt like the 400th time that morning. She sighed dejectedly, dumping the remnants of the now cold coffee in the trash can to her right and looked up at the sign above before she took the steps forward entering the large intimidating building that had far too much to do with the outcome of her life, at least for her liking.
“Hi, I have an appointment.” She smiled at the young woman behind the desk, after locating the correct floor.
“What name is it under?”
“Shepherd.”
“Ok, and will Mr. Shepherd be joining you?”
“I hope so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” She mocked, almost jokingly but as certain as the day includes the sun the small woman behind the desk held her tongue and grinned.
“Okay, I’ll let her know you’re here.” The young woman grinned back sympathetically, some how Addison was sure she had seen it all before.
She sat in the small waiting room picking up one of the magazines and flicking through the articles. It struck her as odd that she couldn’t remember the last time she read one of these, all she ever seemed to see was medical journal after medical journal, chart after freaking chart. The same glossy magazines covered in pictures of ideals held up by society were telling tales of shock and awe. Her imagination went into overload and she blinked a few times as the couple on the front page of People morphed into a laughing Addison and Derek on vacation. Her stomach turned as she shook the image from her thoughts. They weren’t those people anymore, the ones who were held up as idealistic models for what a marriage should be, not even a fraction. Perhaps they never really were.
Life is funny when you reach a point where you can actually question everything you thought you were, could have been, would have been if- “Addison?” A woman calls, her head popping out of the jarred office door. Addison looked up from the magazine she had no interest in, smiled as she acknowledged the woman. “You can come in now.” Addison dropped the magazine back on the pile, subconsciously covering the smiling faces of that happy couple that mocked her. She stood gratefully, collecting her purse and entered the office.
“Please take a seat,” the woman smiled with a gesture as Addison closed the door behind her. “As you know I’m Dr. Klein. You’re here today because…”
“Because I want to work on my marriage.” Addison said quite confidently, her eyes shifting to the empty seat beside her. She sighed deflated, before looking back at the doctor. “But again, I can’t do this alone. I’m sorry I think I may be wasting your time.” She smiled and made to stand looking almost too longingly at the seat that once would have been occupied. Her husband was punctual and still is when it doesn‘t involve her.
“Oh no, please sit.” The psychiatrist ushered her to return to her seat, “I know you are both surgeons so I’m sure Dr. Shepherd will be here as soon as possible. You’ll have to forgive me,” she smiled, “I Googled you both. Very impressive I must say. You both have wonderful sounding careers.”
“That’s about all we do have these days.”
“It’s a balancing act,” the woman nodded, “sometimes the scales tip a little too much in one direction, that’s why I’m here.” She smiled again, trying to make Addison feel at ease. “So Addison, do you mind me calling you that?” Addison shook her head with a small shrug so she would continue. “Tell me, why are you really here?”
“I already told you that.” She stated not wanting to repeat the obvious and live through another round of torture. She was surprised, to say the very least, when Derek agreed to this. It was a backhanded off-the-wall kind of comment and now sitting in the warmly decorated office staring at the certificates on the wall she kind of wishes she was the one who was running late.
“Addison-”
“I just think that this would work better if we were both here, don’t you?”
“People run late, it happens. It’s a part of life, does that bother you? When people are late.” She asked trying to dig, trying to discover the reason for the unconscious tension that was flowing freely about the room.
“No, it doesn’t bother me.” Addison replied dejectedly before crossing her long legs over one another and resting her hands on her lap, doing her best impression of someone who was interested in a conversation that she’d rather not be having.
“You seem edgy, just relax. This is your allotted time to get things out and work on them without feeling the need to be guarded. I’m here as a mediator to give guidance.”
“I’m relaxed.” She grinned, clenching her jaw and looking to her watch again.
“Addison, I’ve been doing this a very long time. I know you know that, I know you sought me out. It takes deliberation to pick someone for this sort of…life event. And I know you didn’t open the yellow pages, close your eyes and point- so take a few deep breaths with me while we wait it out. Ten more minutes and then we’ll reschedule if that will make you feel better, alright?” She tilted back in her chair, waiting for compliance from her patient before they did five long easy breaths together. Usually, in her experience, one spouse wanted this more than the other. One was sharing, the other absent. She had a feeling this case was going to be difficult.
Ten minutes came and went almost effortlessly when Dr. Klein began asking her about her job. Work Addison could do. She could tell baby stories until she was blue in the face. Tales of residency, stories of working forty eight hours on three hours of sleep, sagas of being the only intern to know what specialty they wanted. This she could do and then she choked, or very nearly rather when the woman before her asked, “Do you have children?”
“No.” She answered quickly, maybe too quickly because the doctor was now jotting in her notes. Her stomach swung like it was in the middle of an exam and her mind immediately grew defensive.
“Did you two ever plan on having children?”
“I suppose, we talked about it from time to time. Nothing concrete. We got busy and then it was never the right time and I didn’t want to bring a helpless codependent life into what we had or rather what we didn‘t have.”
“Do you think it would have been different, if you two had kids?” She asked scribbling again. Her blue pen bobbing furiously along the lined paper.
“You mean, do you think I still would be in this position with Derek?” She tried to clarify.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Maybe, it’s hard to say. I don’t know.” She offered with a prolonged shrug and then realized that they had fluidly crossed the line of sharing. Seamlessly the woman in front of her in the black desk chair got her to share without even thinking about it. Money well spent she decided, even if Derek wasn’t there. The timer on the wall rang surreptitiously as Derek’s figure fumbled through the door.
“You’re late.” The women chorused together and then smiled simultaneously.
“And you’ve made a friend.” He mumbled feeling oddly out of place.
“We’ll try again on Wednesday, ok?” Dr. Klein asked looking toward her appointments to confirm the three times a week schedule they arranged. “Oh and I might suggest that you both see someone privately. I think it would help our sessions and be really beneficial for you both.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m not getting another therapist; I don’t even want the one I have.” He huffs shrugging his coat off and tossing it to the ground, deliberately ignoring the coat rack in the corner.
“You said-”
“I agreed to it Addison. I thought, never mind. I didn’t think you’d be talking to a friend about us.”
“She isn’t my friend.” Addison counters growing weary, desperately trying to find the energy to fight. To find the energy to be in the present.
“Well, it sure seemed like-”
“Maybe if you would have bothered to show up on time!”
“Then what? I had a surgery Addison; you know how my schedule works. I can’t walk out on someone because a vessel bursts and I don’t feel like fixing it. I can’t hand the reigns over to an intern because I have an appointment with my therapist.” He argues flopping onto the couch and pulling at his shoes.
“You had an appointment with me.” She mutters heading out of the room to find caffeine, or a distraction of any sort. Fighting over something that hasn’t even happened feels ridiculous.
“Addison, don’t do that.” He yells as she retreats, then sighs, then rubs his eyes and then lets his body succumb to the sleep it is screaming for.
“Don’t do that, don’t say that, not now Addison, I’m busy, I have a patient, I have lives to save…” It trails on, over and over, like a broken record from the horror movie that is her life.
~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m just saying Kathleen, I don’t like her. Can you at least look her up for me?” Derek whispers into his cell phone. He’s in his office, at work, in a separate wing with the door locked, blinds drawn and still has the presence of mind to realize that this is totally unacceptable. “No, Klein. K-l-e-i-n, Yes Dr.! God Kathleen who do you think I’m seeing, someone off the street? Yeah I’ll hold.” His pager beeps before she comes back. He slides the phone to a close effectively cutting her off and hoping she’ll call back bitching and leave a voicemail with the information he actually wants.
It’s unnerving to be the odd man out in therapy. It’s not like it isn’t unnatural enough as it is, talking to a stranger about his wife getting naked with his best friend. And then he gets sick. It’s like a trigger, some bullshit. Naked, wife, Mark and all he wants to do is throw up in the closest receptacle. He tries not to think about it. That’s how he gets through his days.
So here they are dancing.
Skirting around the issue, he’s waiting for her to just say it. It’s her action to own up to, not his.
She’s flat out fidgeting at this point, toying with her wedding band, tearing at her cuticles (a nasty little habit that gives sick satisfaction when she can feel the layers of skin ripping and the slightest trickle of blood bubble to the surface), and pulling at the hem of her skirt. Nearly startled she half jumps when Dr. Klein enters the room.
“Alright, you’re both here so that’s a vast improvement over last week.” She looks to Addison with a smile and Derek can feel his anger mounting.
He’s not defending himself; he’s above that, well right now anyway. Instead he offers a hand and, “Nice to meet you Dr. Klein, I’m Derek Shepherd.”
“The brain surgeon.” She finishes with a little smile that sends Addison reeling and then feeling oddly overwhelmed with the fact that it still pisses her off when women openly flirt with her husband in front of her. It’s one thing to do it behind her back, entirely another when she has been introduced and is three feet away. She bites her lip and clenches her jaw. 57 minutes to go.
“Let’s get this going, shall we?” They both look straight ahead praying that that’s rhetorical. How can two people so accomplished in their fields suck so badly at therapy, Addison thinks dropping her gaze to the clock. 55 minutes and she is beginning to think time is moving backwards.
“So Derek last week, I started by asking Addison a few simple questions to get the ball rolling, not much but this week I’d like to dive in and get to the main issue. What do you think is the downfall of your marriage? There are no wrong answers here. Just talk it out, let me hear what you think.”
She’s tightlipped. It’s her turn, so her turn and there she sits holier than thou and looks pensively back at him when he gazes over and mumbles, “Mark.”
“Who’s Mark?” Dr. Klein asks innocently enough.
He’s not answering, he lost his claim over Mark when Addison was screaming his name upstairs, in their bed, on his favorite sheets, and they were his favorite damn it. Now they’re in the garbage somewhere in the greater New York area. He tilts his head toward his wife and drops his eyes to the ground waiting for her to step up; this is her shining moment after all.
“Addison?” Dr. Klein asks after seeing Derek’s lackluster response.
“Mark was…is.” She stops gasping for breath, amazed at how big of an asshole her husband can be, how many times he wants her to relive this. Perhaps she should wear it printed on a cheesy t-shirt from a street vendor, “Hey! I cheated on him -->” and walk around together. Maybe the scarlet letter is in order, why not, it’s already tattooed on her soul. She sees it every time she looks in a mirror. Every time the metal door of the elevator catches her image. She looks at the ground a lot now, it helps.
“He and Derek used to work…do work together…we all work together. And they...we...we were all close friends. Until Derek found us in bed together.”
“Ok.” She responds scribbling things. Things that make Addison feel like a lesser person, things that make her want to walk over there and snatch the stupid little notebook and light it on fire but she wouldn’t dare. Sometimes she wishes she was that kind of person.
They agreed to this she reminds herself with a deep breath and keeps her face forward.
“And Derek how did you feel when you found them together?” She doesn’t pause out of respect of consideration of the awkwardness of the sentence.
He wants to shake her, slap her in the face and scream, “How do you fucking think I felt?” But he wouldn’t dare. He swallows the bile that is trying to revolt against his digestive system and replies, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to talk about it?” She quips too quickly for his liking. Addison takes the break from interrogation with hesitance, waiting for her turn to come again.
“I don’t…both.” Now he’s perplexed and already sick of being mind fucked.
“Is this why you are here?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Addison replies and then rethinks her answer, “Yes.”
“Addison, you said no. Would you like to elaborate on that?”
“I just, I was confused by the question.” She breathes, 43 minutes, god it never ends. “I…cheated on my husband, that’s why we’re here.”
“Ok, let’s stop.” Dr. Klein announces and they both look at the clock and then back at her. “I hate to sound like your mothers or really anything resembling a mother but this…” She points to them and the space in between, “It only works if you are willing to give it something. Anything and right now I’ve got two people who think that if they throw enough money on this it will bury itself. I don’t mind you paying me to sit here and nod but I much prefer to actually help my patients. You‘re welcome to find someone else if you like.”
When did they become someone’s patients? This is so backwards.
“I know that this is hard but you both decided that this was the best course of action. So I’m sending you home with homework.”
His first though is he doesn’t have time for this crap and hers is that she is afraid he won’t do his and she’ll look like a complete fool trying to make up his part. “Homework?” Addison repeats a little unsure. Normally she is excellent at homework, she owns homework but this feels…different.
“I want you both to think about the real issues that led you here. Maybe the affair was the last straw for you Derek or Addison you mentioned something about Derek frequently being late. Let’s focus on the little things for right now and come back to the affair. It’ll give you some time to think about what you really want to say. So I want you to both write down the first five things you notice “wrong” about your marriage compared to what I am assuming were the better years, ok? And then write down three things that initially attracted you to Addison Derek, and the same goes for you Addison. Sound good?”
They nod and exit confirming the appointment on Friday. The elevator ride is silent. Therapy is painful as hell.
“I’m going to work.” Derek spews as their feet hit the pavement.
“You aren’t on the schedule or on call.” Then she sees his face and knows.
“I can’t…I can’t look at you, I can’t be around you right now. I’ll be home-.”
“Later.” She finishes for him when he hastily turns in the opposite direction.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Derek she’s a perfectly fine therapist, hell she’s a great therapist from what I’ve found.” Kathleen states stabbing a piece of fallen leafage from her lunch.
“I just-” He begins and then stops himself taking a drink of water. This is the first time he has seen a family member since that night and he has no idea why he is embarrassed by her actions.
“Derek, I-”
“Don’t.” He states firmly. He didn’t invite her to lunch to weigh in on the mess and begin muddying the already clouded waters.
“Let me finish a sentence.” She quips dabbing her mouth with the red cloth napkin primly.
“Not if it involves my marriage…or my life.”
“Well I’m not going to sit here and discuss Yankees stats with you Derek. Maybe you should talk to mom, she calls all of us like crazy and you know I’m going to have to tell her that I talked to you. She’ll beat it out of me until I don’t have a soul left.” She finishes with a smile but his face doesn’t lift. He’s never lights up anymore.
“She gave me homework.” He mutters dropping his fork and accidentally letting it clatter onto the white plate.
“That’s common.”
“You give your patients homework? What kind of bullshit is this?” He blurts out and then drops his voice when patrons begin to look at him.
“Sometimes, people need to work on things at home too Derek. You can’t just go in once a week-”
“Three.”
“What?”
“We go three times a week.”
“Oh, ok well three times a week for an hour and talk about it and then pretend it isn’t happening anywhere else. That won’t fix anything.”
He thanks the waiter for the bill immediately shoving a card into the appropriate spot before his sister can start bitching about it not being 1953 and then looks back with deadened eyes. “How do you know it can be fixed?”
“Off the record here Derek, speaking as your sister all I can say to you is that it’s Addison, it’s Addison for crying out loud. You work, you just do and it’s disgustingly cute most of the time. Maybe you both got sidetracked, shit happens but…it’s Addison.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” He pulls his heavy coat from the back of the chair and exits with a quick goodbye and no promises of returning future calls. The streets are calling him. Their collective spirit of hustle and rush calms his mind. He takes the long way home circling the block one too many times before sneaking into the house.
Quietly setting his keys on the end table he scans the room for any signs that Addison might still be awake. He spots her open leather journal with her familiar scrawl on the coffee table and knows that it wasn’t left there by accident. Passive aggressive Addison doesn’t do things on accident; she rarely makes mistakes, everything is purposeful. Everything.
His eyes refuse to ignore the pages and on one side he sees the numbers one through five and on the other one through three. There’s nothing else yet. He doesn’t even know where to start on his own list. He’d rather not think about the mess. Instead he opts for finding the newly replenished stock of beer in the refrigerator and pops the top before turning the TV on and drowning into the mess of colors.
~~~~~~~~~~
“You’re home.” She nearly whispers the next day pulling at the drawstring on what he assumes are his old gray sweats. He’s not willing to entertain the possibility of them being anyone else’s. Working her way down the creaky steps she hesitantly follows him into the kitchen in time to see him grab a beer. It’s the first thing he always does now and coming from a family that abuses the intake of alcohol all too frequently she is a little afraid of where this could be heading. Finding her voice and setting her footing she asks, “Derek, do you have to drink to be in the same house as me?”
“No.” He scoffs immediately and then turns his attention to the bottle caps in the corner of the counter. Of course she’s been counting.
“It’s just you come home and drink and that’s it. I think we need to talk.”
“Addison we talk all the time.”
“No, not really. We talk in therapy or actually we get scolded in therapy together and then you run somewhere and come home and drink yourself into a coma.”
Oh, he knows where this is headed. “I’m not your father, or your mother for that matter.”
“I know, that’s not-”
“Then what is this? I can’t enjoy a beer in the comfort of my own home anymore? Are we under prohibition again and I didn’t hear?” He tips the bottle toward her and she adamantly declines before tracing his path to the living room. He sits on the couch and she takes the chair farthest away as possible. And this is their existence.
For a second she looks defeated, resembles the very quiet indifferent woman he has seen as of late and then she is standing full of the fury he knows so well and shoving a piece of paper at his chest. “I just thought that maybe you would like to see my answers before we went in there and made complete fools of ourselves. I’m assuming you aren’t doing yours so if you need me to scribble something down for you, I’ll be in the bath tub.”
She retreats very much the way she came trudging up the stairs lightly, as if they may break and send her to her death and then she is gone. His eyes try to focus on the fiber resting against his palm. His mind knows the words but his brain refuses to put them together. Staring down at the list he knows he has to come up with something better than, “she cheated on me” because it is sounding so childish. He rises from the chair grumbling and lets the paper flutter to the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Addison?” Out of habit he doesn’t knock and just tries the door handle. He doesn’t remember her locking the door ever before but then raps his knuckles against the wood calling her name again. Seconds later with dry hair and a fluffy robe she answers back.
“What?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Ok.” She nods.
“I’ll have it done.” He tries to assure her.
“Ok.”
“I don’t…I haven’t- I,” he gives in temporarily and draws a large breath; “I would like this to work.”
“Me too.” She swallows back trying to assess where the conversation is headed. It’s soft, it’s his thoughts this time and she isn’t sure whether or not she should stand still and nod or interject and help the conversation along.
“We’ve made a lot of mistakes.” He replies and she nods again, silent, afraid.
“I’ll try and stop drinking in your presence constantly.”
“Thank you.” She squeaks out trying to keep the tears at bay, trying to keep her voice level because if she loses it here there is no telling when it will stop.
“I’m not a very good husband.”
Then the tears happen not only because it’s the truth but because he looks so pitiful admitting it. Admitting something she recognized years ago and tried to repair. He watches the liquid work down her face and tries not think about the night of the affair. Her shoulders shake as she tries to remain calm and in control of the situation. And now he has to go because every part of his heart is telling him to man up, step forward and hold his wife as she cries, cries the tears he knows that he caused. But his head won’t allow it. He turns toward the hallway.
“I wish I was better.” He whispers and leaves her to her own defenses.
Jaw quivering and hands trembling she manages to get the door closed before sinking to her knees letting them hit hard against the floor. She gasps in with such force it leaves the bathroom echoing with her guttural cry. Drawing her knees to her chest she slides up against the counter and tries to take deep even breaths. The tears are hot and salty and leave wet tracks around her eyes and down to her mouth before she wipes them away and tells herself to buck up because this ride is going to be so much more than one night of admissions. She gives herself five more minutes of self pitying and mourning before climbing into the tub feeling like there is a noose around her throat.
He came back to find the door closed. Turned around on the seventh step to see that she shut him out again. He drops to the ground and lets his back rest against the wood. He listens to the cries escape her at a frightening velocity and intensity. This is their night. This is their life. He pounds his head against the door and tries to find the strength to just enter the damn room already. At least to make sure she is okay from a medical stand point. He could justify it that way; after all she does occasionally suffer from a bout of anxiety here and there. Instead he’s trucking back down the stairs to his couch. It hurts to hear her sobbing but it hurts more to have to actually deal with the situation by seeing her suffer every pin prick of pain he knows he caused. He picked the lesser of the two evils.
This is their existence.
~~~~~~~~~~
She’s been carrying around the folded piece of paper in her lab coat all day. Her fingers consistently keep finding the wrinkled edges that are in the shape of a perfect square. Folded twice. She twists her wedding ring around her finger while trying to scribble through the last of the days’ notes. Apparently there was a time when she thought having therapy sessions at the end of her Friday was a good idea. Her rationale being that if they happened in the morning or mid-day she could very well come back to work exhausted and ill prepared to deal with stressful situations but as it stands now she has spent the entire day worrying, dreading what was to come.
She hasn’t seen Derek’s list, hell she hasn’t seen Derek since he dashed from the front door with a cup of coffee at six this morning. She did see his name jotted on the OR Board at various points in her day but never found the courage to seek him out and confirm their appointment. He knows as well as she does when to be there and she is tired of being the nag. Sighing and toying with the edge of the chart she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t have to look to know who it is; her husband has touched her since that one night in their bedroom. “Mark go away.” He’s been chasing her through corridors and trapping her hallways since he found out they were back last week.
For some reason neither of his friends’ bothered to call him while they were busy moving home not that he can blame them but it hurts just a little. “Addison.” He chokes out watching her spin to face him. He hasn’t seen her blue eyes in far too long, hasn’t seen that scowl in what feels like a lifetime. “Hear me out-”
“I can’t hear you out. I’m working on my marriage Mark. My marriage to Derek, your best friend…and I’m trying to keep whatever amount of dignity I have left in tact. This-” She points to the narrow slit of air in between their yearning bodies, “isn’t helping or giving the right idea so… just please go away, leave us alone.”
“I missed you.” He calls out as she stalks away taking her chart with her.
~~~~~~~~~~
They ride up the elevator in silence. With all the time they are spending in this building it may as well be called home. The doors ding and slide giving way to the same smiling receptionist who Addison feels more and more embarrassed in front of with each passing meeting. She knows, logically, that there is no way that the woman knows what is said in that room but the whole floor is like an instant guilt trip. She sinks to her lowest lows; face down on the wet pavement of a memory here and there’s nothing to make it any better. No one can undo what she did and living with the pain is almost unbearable.
“Dr. Klein is ready for you. You may go in whenever you’re ready.” She points out as they barely brush by the counter. Derek fidgets with his own paper in his coat pocket without realizing that that is the very same reason that Addison has her hand buried in her purse. They take their respective seats and collectively hold their breath until their doctor spins in her seat ready to get to work.
“Hello Derek, Addison.”
“Hey.” Derek grumbles.
“Hello.” Addison responds in kind trying to remember how to smile.
“So how have the last two days been?” She starts and they both look back up at her like she has to be kidding. “Ok, let’s get down to it shall we? Lists please.” She holds her hand out and moves to take each piece of paper. Comfortably back in her seat she reads over the words so as not to be surprised. Unfortunately for her the only thing that Derek managed to scribble out under the list of five things that should be wrong was that it was, “off”.
“Ok.” She clears her throat and pushes the papers to her desk reaching for a pen. “You both seem to think something is, ‘off‘…Derek what makes you think that?”
He gulps after being put on the spot. He’s got nowhere to look for help and the room is slowly closing in around him. He breathes deep and tries to think of ways to clarify the problems that have crept in over the last five years and festered for so long that he no longer sees anything good in his marriage. “We just don’t.” He holds his hand out into the air like it explains everything and then shoves it back into his lap. It’s a non-working answer.
“Addison?”
“Hmm?”
“You said here that you guys got busy with work. I think that that one is an easy remedy.” They appear to not follow and Dr. Klein laughs, “Take time for each other. Most couples forget to work for it after awhile and then they take things for granted. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s really quite common.” She tries to assure them.
They spend the rest of the session touching upon the little things and the facts of what it will take for them to keep their marriage afloat. No one mentions Mark. No one mentions the affair and for ten seconds they are breathing easy. Then she looks back to the lists next to her. “I wanted to save this for last. These three things that made you fall in love with each other; we aren’t going to discuss them. We aren’t going to trek down memory lane because I’m sure it’s lovely but right now I want you to look at each other and see if all of these things are still true.“ She waits and they don’t move an inch. “No actually look at each other.” They shift slightly to face one another. “Ah, there we go. You see them?”
There’s no answer as they turn away uncomfortably. The eye contact was too much to bear and Derek found himself looking past her to the picture on the wall of something related to a jungle while she sighed tiredly. If his wife, the one he married almost twelve years ago, is under there somewhere he isn’t seeing it anymore. All he sees is her perfect shell with the searing flaw and it’s beyond frustrating.
“Addison, why do you want this marriage? At the end of the day what makes this fight worth it?” Dr. Klein asks picking up her pen again.
And there it is. The same question she has been asking for years. There’s no real answer here because she has spent many a night alone and quite possibly drunk reflecting over the reasons why she should stay and devote herself to someone who can’t see past his own lab coat to find his way home. “I-I love him.” And that’s all she knows.
“Derek?”
He’s been thrown into the spotlight now. There’s no way to respond without saying the same exact thing. You can’t top the words that she just said and he doesn’t know if she did it on purpose or if she actually meant it. He grits his teeth and tries to buy time. He hasn’t thought about loving Addison since the second he found her under Mark. It stopped then, as illogical as it sounds, or maybe he wished it stopped then. If only there was an on/off switch for emotions.
“I love her.” And maybe he does, maybe he really does still love her but right now it feels like a lie as the words tumble out. He fixes his eyes to the pen smudge on his khaki colored slacks daring not to look up and see the hurt in her eyes. She knew before he said it.
She breathes in easier after the words leave his mouth but his posture says something very different. He didn’t mean it. She tries to grin when she feels like bursting through the door and sobbing until she collapses. She reaches down the arm of the chair and lets her fingers brush against the back of his hand because this what they do. They pretend because it's easier.
This is their existence.
~~~~~~~~~~
13. You humiliate me in front of our friends.
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Rating: R
Authors: Hannah & Sarah
Description: Derek decides to fight for his marriage. Season 2.
Summary: A whole lot of therapy.
Disclaimer: Not ours.
A/N: So I don't have a whole heck of a lot to say. Thanks for the support on this from everyone we know it's not exactly the most happy fic in the world but we do appreciate the feedback. Enjoy-
~~~~~~~~~~
Increasingly you've made me cold and afraid
A lonely companion
Apparently love runs on one way course
Away from contentment
Or maybe there's anger that can't be expressed
That fuels your resentment
...
Nothing's good, nothing's right, but I love you.
Nothing's good, nothing's right, but I love you
- Paper Route, "Second Chances"
~~~~~~~~~~
Addison stood below the stop sign sipping on her coffee and avoiding the gaze of a passerby as she checked her watch for what felt like the 400th time that morning. She sighed dejectedly, dumping the remnants of the now cold coffee in the trash can to her right and looked up at the sign above before she took the steps forward entering the large intimidating building that had far too much to do with the outcome of her life, at least for her liking.
“Hi, I have an appointment.” She smiled at the young woman behind the desk, after locating the correct floor.
“What name is it under?”
“Shepherd.”
“Ok, and will Mr. Shepherd be joining you?”
“I hope so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” She mocked, almost jokingly but as certain as the day includes the sun the small woman behind the desk held her tongue and grinned.
“Okay, I’ll let her know you’re here.” The young woman grinned back sympathetically, some how Addison was sure she had seen it all before.
She sat in the small waiting room picking up one of the magazines and flicking through the articles. It struck her as odd that she couldn’t remember the last time she read one of these, all she ever seemed to see was medical journal after medical journal, chart after freaking chart. The same glossy magazines covered in pictures of ideals held up by society were telling tales of shock and awe. Her imagination went into overload and she blinked a few times as the couple on the front page of People morphed into a laughing Addison and Derek on vacation. Her stomach turned as she shook the image from her thoughts. They weren’t those people anymore, the ones who were held up as idealistic models for what a marriage should be, not even a fraction. Perhaps they never really were.
Life is funny when you reach a point where you can actually question everything you thought you were, could have been, would have been if- “Addison?” A woman calls, her head popping out of the jarred office door. Addison looked up from the magazine she had no interest in, smiled as she acknowledged the woman. “You can come in now.” Addison dropped the magazine back on the pile, subconsciously covering the smiling faces of that happy couple that mocked her. She stood gratefully, collecting her purse and entered the office.
“Please take a seat,” the woman smiled with a gesture as Addison closed the door behind her. “As you know I’m Dr. Klein. You’re here today because…”
“Because I want to work on my marriage.” Addison said quite confidently, her eyes shifting to the empty seat beside her. She sighed deflated, before looking back at the doctor. “But again, I can’t do this alone. I’m sorry I think I may be wasting your time.” She smiled and made to stand looking almost too longingly at the seat that once would have been occupied. Her husband was punctual and still is when it doesn‘t involve her.
“Oh no, please sit.” The psychiatrist ushered her to return to her seat, “I know you are both surgeons so I’m sure Dr. Shepherd will be here as soon as possible. You’ll have to forgive me,” she smiled, “I Googled you both. Very impressive I must say. You both have wonderful sounding careers.”
“That’s about all we do have these days.”
“It’s a balancing act,” the woman nodded, “sometimes the scales tip a little too much in one direction, that’s why I’m here.” She smiled again, trying to make Addison feel at ease. “So Addison, do you mind me calling you that?” Addison shook her head with a small shrug so she would continue. “Tell me, why are you really here?”
“I already told you that.” She stated not wanting to repeat the obvious and live through another round of torture. She was surprised, to say the very least, when Derek agreed to this. It was a backhanded off-the-wall kind of comment and now sitting in the warmly decorated office staring at the certificates on the wall she kind of wishes she was the one who was running late.
“Addison-”
“I just think that this would work better if we were both here, don’t you?”
“People run late, it happens. It’s a part of life, does that bother you? When people are late.” She asked trying to dig, trying to discover the reason for the unconscious tension that was flowing freely about the room.
“No, it doesn’t bother me.” Addison replied dejectedly before crossing her long legs over one another and resting her hands on her lap, doing her best impression of someone who was interested in a conversation that she’d rather not be having.
“You seem edgy, just relax. This is your allotted time to get things out and work on them without feeling the need to be guarded. I’m here as a mediator to give guidance.”
“I’m relaxed.” She grinned, clenching her jaw and looking to her watch again.
“Addison, I’ve been doing this a very long time. I know you know that, I know you sought me out. It takes deliberation to pick someone for this sort of…life event. And I know you didn’t open the yellow pages, close your eyes and point- so take a few deep breaths with me while we wait it out. Ten more minutes and then we’ll reschedule if that will make you feel better, alright?” She tilted back in her chair, waiting for compliance from her patient before they did five long easy breaths together. Usually, in her experience, one spouse wanted this more than the other. One was sharing, the other absent. She had a feeling this case was going to be difficult.
Ten minutes came and went almost effortlessly when Dr. Klein began asking her about her job. Work Addison could do. She could tell baby stories until she was blue in the face. Tales of residency, stories of working forty eight hours on three hours of sleep, sagas of being the only intern to know what specialty they wanted. This she could do and then she choked, or very nearly rather when the woman before her asked, “Do you have children?”
“No.” She answered quickly, maybe too quickly because the doctor was now jotting in her notes. Her stomach swung like it was in the middle of an exam and her mind immediately grew defensive.
“Did you two ever plan on having children?”
“I suppose, we talked about it from time to time. Nothing concrete. We got busy and then it was never the right time and I didn’t want to bring a helpless codependent life into what we had or rather what we didn‘t have.”
“Do you think it would have been different, if you two had kids?” She asked scribbling again. Her blue pen bobbing furiously along the lined paper.
“You mean, do you think I still would be in this position with Derek?” She tried to clarify.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Maybe, it’s hard to say. I don’t know.” She offered with a prolonged shrug and then realized that they had fluidly crossed the line of sharing. Seamlessly the woman in front of her in the black desk chair got her to share without even thinking about it. Money well spent she decided, even if Derek wasn’t there. The timer on the wall rang surreptitiously as Derek’s figure fumbled through the door.
“You’re late.” The women chorused together and then smiled simultaneously.
“And you’ve made a friend.” He mumbled feeling oddly out of place.
“We’ll try again on Wednesday, ok?” Dr. Klein asked looking toward her appointments to confirm the three times a week schedule they arranged. “Oh and I might suggest that you both see someone privately. I think it would help our sessions and be really beneficial for you both.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m not getting another therapist; I don’t even want the one I have.” He huffs shrugging his coat off and tossing it to the ground, deliberately ignoring the coat rack in the corner.
“You said-”
“I agreed to it Addison. I thought, never mind. I didn’t think you’d be talking to a friend about us.”
“She isn’t my friend.” Addison counters growing weary, desperately trying to find the energy to fight. To find the energy to be in the present.
“Well, it sure seemed like-”
“Maybe if you would have bothered to show up on time!”
“Then what? I had a surgery Addison; you know how my schedule works. I can’t walk out on someone because a vessel bursts and I don’t feel like fixing it. I can’t hand the reigns over to an intern because I have an appointment with my therapist.” He argues flopping onto the couch and pulling at his shoes.
“You had an appointment with me.” She mutters heading out of the room to find caffeine, or a distraction of any sort. Fighting over something that hasn’t even happened feels ridiculous.
“Addison, don’t do that.” He yells as she retreats, then sighs, then rubs his eyes and then lets his body succumb to the sleep it is screaming for.
“Don’t do that, don’t say that, not now Addison, I’m busy, I have a patient, I have lives to save…” It trails on, over and over, like a broken record from the horror movie that is her life.
~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m just saying Kathleen, I don’t like her. Can you at least look her up for me?” Derek whispers into his cell phone. He’s in his office, at work, in a separate wing with the door locked, blinds drawn and still has the presence of mind to realize that this is totally unacceptable. “No, Klein. K-l-e-i-n, Yes Dr.! God Kathleen who do you think I’m seeing, someone off the street? Yeah I’ll hold.” His pager beeps before she comes back. He slides the phone to a close effectively cutting her off and hoping she’ll call back bitching and leave a voicemail with the information he actually wants.
It’s unnerving to be the odd man out in therapy. It’s not like it isn’t unnatural enough as it is, talking to a stranger about his wife getting naked with his best friend. And then he gets sick. It’s like a trigger, some bullshit. Naked, wife, Mark and all he wants to do is throw up in the closest receptacle. He tries not to think about it. That’s how he gets through his days.
So here they are dancing.
Skirting around the issue, he’s waiting for her to just say it. It’s her action to own up to, not his.
She’s flat out fidgeting at this point, toying with her wedding band, tearing at her cuticles (a nasty little habit that gives sick satisfaction when she can feel the layers of skin ripping and the slightest trickle of blood bubble to the surface), and pulling at the hem of her skirt. Nearly startled she half jumps when Dr. Klein enters the room.
“Alright, you’re both here so that’s a vast improvement over last week.” She looks to Addison with a smile and Derek can feel his anger mounting.
He’s not defending himself; he’s above that, well right now anyway. Instead he offers a hand and, “Nice to meet you Dr. Klein, I’m Derek Shepherd.”
“The brain surgeon.” She finishes with a little smile that sends Addison reeling and then feeling oddly overwhelmed with the fact that it still pisses her off when women openly flirt with her husband in front of her. It’s one thing to do it behind her back, entirely another when she has been introduced and is three feet away. She bites her lip and clenches her jaw. 57 minutes to go.
“Let’s get this going, shall we?” They both look straight ahead praying that that’s rhetorical. How can two people so accomplished in their fields suck so badly at therapy, Addison thinks dropping her gaze to the clock. 55 minutes and she is beginning to think time is moving backwards.
“So Derek last week, I started by asking Addison a few simple questions to get the ball rolling, not much but this week I’d like to dive in and get to the main issue. What do you think is the downfall of your marriage? There are no wrong answers here. Just talk it out, let me hear what you think.”
She’s tightlipped. It’s her turn, so her turn and there she sits holier than thou and looks pensively back at him when he gazes over and mumbles, “Mark.”
“Who’s Mark?” Dr. Klein asks innocently enough.
He’s not answering, he lost his claim over Mark when Addison was screaming his name upstairs, in their bed, on his favorite sheets, and they were his favorite damn it. Now they’re in the garbage somewhere in the greater New York area. He tilts his head toward his wife and drops his eyes to the ground waiting for her to step up; this is her shining moment after all.
“Addison?” Dr. Klein asks after seeing Derek’s lackluster response.
“Mark was…is.” She stops gasping for breath, amazed at how big of an asshole her husband can be, how many times he wants her to relive this. Perhaps she should wear it printed on a cheesy t-shirt from a street vendor, “Hey! I cheated on him -->” and walk around together. Maybe the scarlet letter is in order, why not, it’s already tattooed on her soul. She sees it every time she looks in a mirror. Every time the metal door of the elevator catches her image. She looks at the ground a lot now, it helps.
“He and Derek used to work…do work together…we all work together. And they...we...we were all close friends. Until Derek found us in bed together.”
“Ok.” She responds scribbling things. Things that make Addison feel like a lesser person, things that make her want to walk over there and snatch the stupid little notebook and light it on fire but she wouldn’t dare. Sometimes she wishes she was that kind of person.
They agreed to this she reminds herself with a deep breath and keeps her face forward.
“And Derek how did you feel when you found them together?” She doesn’t pause out of respect of consideration of the awkwardness of the sentence.
He wants to shake her, slap her in the face and scream, “How do you fucking think I felt?” But he wouldn’t dare. He swallows the bile that is trying to revolt against his digestive system and replies, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to talk about it?” She quips too quickly for his liking. Addison takes the break from interrogation with hesitance, waiting for her turn to come again.
“I don’t…both.” Now he’s perplexed and already sick of being mind fucked.
“Is this why you are here?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Addison replies and then rethinks her answer, “Yes.”
“Addison, you said no. Would you like to elaborate on that?”
“I just, I was confused by the question.” She breathes, 43 minutes, god it never ends. “I…cheated on my husband, that’s why we’re here.”
“Ok, let’s stop.” Dr. Klein announces and they both look at the clock and then back at her. “I hate to sound like your mothers or really anything resembling a mother but this…” She points to them and the space in between, “It only works if you are willing to give it something. Anything and right now I’ve got two people who think that if they throw enough money on this it will bury itself. I don’t mind you paying me to sit here and nod but I much prefer to actually help my patients. You‘re welcome to find someone else if you like.”
When did they become someone’s patients? This is so backwards.
“I know that this is hard but you both decided that this was the best course of action. So I’m sending you home with homework.”
His first though is he doesn’t have time for this crap and hers is that she is afraid he won’t do his and she’ll look like a complete fool trying to make up his part. “Homework?” Addison repeats a little unsure. Normally she is excellent at homework, she owns homework but this feels…different.
“I want you both to think about the real issues that led you here. Maybe the affair was the last straw for you Derek or Addison you mentioned something about Derek frequently being late. Let’s focus on the little things for right now and come back to the affair. It’ll give you some time to think about what you really want to say. So I want you to both write down the first five things you notice “wrong” about your marriage compared to what I am assuming were the better years, ok? And then write down three things that initially attracted you to Addison Derek, and the same goes for you Addison. Sound good?”
They nod and exit confirming the appointment on Friday. The elevator ride is silent. Therapy is painful as hell.
“I’m going to work.” Derek spews as their feet hit the pavement.
“You aren’t on the schedule or on call.” Then she sees his face and knows.
“I can’t…I can’t look at you, I can’t be around you right now. I’ll be home-.”
“Later.” She finishes for him when he hastily turns in the opposite direction.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Derek she’s a perfectly fine therapist, hell she’s a great therapist from what I’ve found.” Kathleen states stabbing a piece of fallen leafage from her lunch.
“I just-” He begins and then stops himself taking a drink of water. This is the first time he has seen a family member since that night and he has no idea why he is embarrassed by her actions.
“Derek, I-”
“Don’t.” He states firmly. He didn’t invite her to lunch to weigh in on the mess and begin muddying the already clouded waters.
“Let me finish a sentence.” She quips dabbing her mouth with the red cloth napkin primly.
“Not if it involves my marriage…or my life.”
“Well I’m not going to sit here and discuss Yankees stats with you Derek. Maybe you should talk to mom, she calls all of us like crazy and you know I’m going to have to tell her that I talked to you. She’ll beat it out of me until I don’t have a soul left.” She finishes with a smile but his face doesn’t lift. He’s never lights up anymore.
“She gave me homework.” He mutters dropping his fork and accidentally letting it clatter onto the white plate.
“That’s common.”
“You give your patients homework? What kind of bullshit is this?” He blurts out and then drops his voice when patrons begin to look at him.
“Sometimes, people need to work on things at home too Derek. You can’t just go in once a week-”
“Three.”
“What?”
“We go three times a week.”
“Oh, ok well three times a week for an hour and talk about it and then pretend it isn’t happening anywhere else. That won’t fix anything.”
He thanks the waiter for the bill immediately shoving a card into the appropriate spot before his sister can start bitching about it not being 1953 and then looks back with deadened eyes. “How do you know it can be fixed?”
“Off the record here Derek, speaking as your sister all I can say to you is that it’s Addison, it’s Addison for crying out loud. You work, you just do and it’s disgustingly cute most of the time. Maybe you both got sidetracked, shit happens but…it’s Addison.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” He pulls his heavy coat from the back of the chair and exits with a quick goodbye and no promises of returning future calls. The streets are calling him. Their collective spirit of hustle and rush calms his mind. He takes the long way home circling the block one too many times before sneaking into the house.
Quietly setting his keys on the end table he scans the room for any signs that Addison might still be awake. He spots her open leather journal with her familiar scrawl on the coffee table and knows that it wasn’t left there by accident. Passive aggressive Addison doesn’t do things on accident; she rarely makes mistakes, everything is purposeful. Everything.
His eyes refuse to ignore the pages and on one side he sees the numbers one through five and on the other one through three. There’s nothing else yet. He doesn’t even know where to start on his own list. He’d rather not think about the mess. Instead he opts for finding the newly replenished stock of beer in the refrigerator and pops the top before turning the TV on and drowning into the mess of colors.
~~~~~~~~~~
“You’re home.” She nearly whispers the next day pulling at the drawstring on what he assumes are his old gray sweats. He’s not willing to entertain the possibility of them being anyone else’s. Working her way down the creaky steps she hesitantly follows him into the kitchen in time to see him grab a beer. It’s the first thing he always does now and coming from a family that abuses the intake of alcohol all too frequently she is a little afraid of where this could be heading. Finding her voice and setting her footing she asks, “Derek, do you have to drink to be in the same house as me?”
“No.” He scoffs immediately and then turns his attention to the bottle caps in the corner of the counter. Of course she’s been counting.
“It’s just you come home and drink and that’s it. I think we need to talk.”
“Addison we talk all the time.”
“No, not really. We talk in therapy or actually we get scolded in therapy together and then you run somewhere and come home and drink yourself into a coma.”
Oh, he knows where this is headed. “I’m not your father, or your mother for that matter.”
“I know, that’s not-”
“Then what is this? I can’t enjoy a beer in the comfort of my own home anymore? Are we under prohibition again and I didn’t hear?” He tips the bottle toward her and she adamantly declines before tracing his path to the living room. He sits on the couch and she takes the chair farthest away as possible. And this is their existence.
For a second she looks defeated, resembles the very quiet indifferent woman he has seen as of late and then she is standing full of the fury he knows so well and shoving a piece of paper at his chest. “I just thought that maybe you would like to see my answers before we went in there and made complete fools of ourselves. I’m assuming you aren’t doing yours so if you need me to scribble something down for you, I’ll be in the bath tub.”
She retreats very much the way she came trudging up the stairs lightly, as if they may break and send her to her death and then she is gone. His eyes try to focus on the fiber resting against his palm. His mind knows the words but his brain refuses to put them together. Staring down at the list he knows he has to come up with something better than, “she cheated on me” because it is sounding so childish. He rises from the chair grumbling and lets the paper flutter to the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Addison?” Out of habit he doesn’t knock and just tries the door handle. He doesn’t remember her locking the door ever before but then raps his knuckles against the wood calling her name again. Seconds later with dry hair and a fluffy robe she answers back.
“What?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Ok.” She nods.
“I’ll have it done.” He tries to assure her.
“Ok.”
“I don’t…I haven’t- I,” he gives in temporarily and draws a large breath; “I would like this to work.”
“Me too.” She swallows back trying to assess where the conversation is headed. It’s soft, it’s his thoughts this time and she isn’t sure whether or not she should stand still and nod or interject and help the conversation along.
“We’ve made a lot of mistakes.” He replies and she nods again, silent, afraid.
“I’ll try and stop drinking in your presence constantly.”
“Thank you.” She squeaks out trying to keep the tears at bay, trying to keep her voice level because if she loses it here there is no telling when it will stop.
“I’m not a very good husband.”
Then the tears happen not only because it’s the truth but because he looks so pitiful admitting it. Admitting something she recognized years ago and tried to repair. He watches the liquid work down her face and tries not think about the night of the affair. Her shoulders shake as she tries to remain calm and in control of the situation. And now he has to go because every part of his heart is telling him to man up, step forward and hold his wife as she cries, cries the tears he knows that he caused. But his head won’t allow it. He turns toward the hallway.
“I wish I was better.” He whispers and leaves her to her own defenses.
Jaw quivering and hands trembling she manages to get the door closed before sinking to her knees letting them hit hard against the floor. She gasps in with such force it leaves the bathroom echoing with her guttural cry. Drawing her knees to her chest she slides up against the counter and tries to take deep even breaths. The tears are hot and salty and leave wet tracks around her eyes and down to her mouth before she wipes them away and tells herself to buck up because this ride is going to be so much more than one night of admissions. She gives herself five more minutes of self pitying and mourning before climbing into the tub feeling like there is a noose around her throat.
He came back to find the door closed. Turned around on the seventh step to see that she shut him out again. He drops to the ground and lets his back rest against the wood. He listens to the cries escape her at a frightening velocity and intensity. This is their night. This is their life. He pounds his head against the door and tries to find the strength to just enter the damn room already. At least to make sure she is okay from a medical stand point. He could justify it that way; after all she does occasionally suffer from a bout of anxiety here and there. Instead he’s trucking back down the stairs to his couch. It hurts to hear her sobbing but it hurts more to have to actually deal with the situation by seeing her suffer every pin prick of pain he knows he caused. He picked the lesser of the two evils.
This is their existence.
~~~~~~~~~~
She’s been carrying around the folded piece of paper in her lab coat all day. Her fingers consistently keep finding the wrinkled edges that are in the shape of a perfect square. Folded twice. She twists her wedding ring around her finger while trying to scribble through the last of the days’ notes. Apparently there was a time when she thought having therapy sessions at the end of her Friday was a good idea. Her rationale being that if they happened in the morning or mid-day she could very well come back to work exhausted and ill prepared to deal with stressful situations but as it stands now she has spent the entire day worrying, dreading what was to come.
She hasn’t seen Derek’s list, hell she hasn’t seen Derek since he dashed from the front door with a cup of coffee at six this morning. She did see his name jotted on the OR Board at various points in her day but never found the courage to seek him out and confirm their appointment. He knows as well as she does when to be there and she is tired of being the nag. Sighing and toying with the edge of the chart she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t have to look to know who it is; her husband has touched her since that one night in their bedroom. “Mark go away.” He’s been chasing her through corridors and trapping her hallways since he found out they were back last week.
For some reason neither of his friends’ bothered to call him while they were busy moving home not that he can blame them but it hurts just a little. “Addison.” He chokes out watching her spin to face him. He hasn’t seen her blue eyes in far too long, hasn’t seen that scowl in what feels like a lifetime. “Hear me out-”
“I can’t hear you out. I’m working on my marriage Mark. My marriage to Derek, your best friend…and I’m trying to keep whatever amount of dignity I have left in tact. This-” She points to the narrow slit of air in between their yearning bodies, “isn’t helping or giving the right idea so… just please go away, leave us alone.”
“I missed you.” He calls out as she stalks away taking her chart with her.
~~~~~~~~~~
They ride up the elevator in silence. With all the time they are spending in this building it may as well be called home. The doors ding and slide giving way to the same smiling receptionist who Addison feels more and more embarrassed in front of with each passing meeting. She knows, logically, that there is no way that the woman knows what is said in that room but the whole floor is like an instant guilt trip. She sinks to her lowest lows; face down on the wet pavement of a memory here and there’s nothing to make it any better. No one can undo what she did and living with the pain is almost unbearable.
“Dr. Klein is ready for you. You may go in whenever you’re ready.” She points out as they barely brush by the counter. Derek fidgets with his own paper in his coat pocket without realizing that that is the very same reason that Addison has her hand buried in her purse. They take their respective seats and collectively hold their breath until their doctor spins in her seat ready to get to work.
“Hello Derek, Addison.”
“Hey.” Derek grumbles.
“Hello.” Addison responds in kind trying to remember how to smile.
“So how have the last two days been?” She starts and they both look back up at her like she has to be kidding. “Ok, let’s get down to it shall we? Lists please.” She holds her hand out and moves to take each piece of paper. Comfortably back in her seat she reads over the words so as not to be surprised. Unfortunately for her the only thing that Derek managed to scribble out under the list of five things that should be wrong was that it was, “off”.
“Ok.” She clears her throat and pushes the papers to her desk reaching for a pen. “You both seem to think something is, ‘off‘…Derek what makes you think that?”
He gulps after being put on the spot. He’s got nowhere to look for help and the room is slowly closing in around him. He breathes deep and tries to think of ways to clarify the problems that have crept in over the last five years and festered for so long that he no longer sees anything good in his marriage. “We just don’t.” He holds his hand out into the air like it explains everything and then shoves it back into his lap. It’s a non-working answer.
“Addison?”
“Hmm?”
“You said here that you guys got busy with work. I think that that one is an easy remedy.” They appear to not follow and Dr. Klein laughs, “Take time for each other. Most couples forget to work for it after awhile and then they take things for granted. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s really quite common.” She tries to assure them.
They spend the rest of the session touching upon the little things and the facts of what it will take for them to keep their marriage afloat. No one mentions Mark. No one mentions the affair and for ten seconds they are breathing easy. Then she looks back to the lists next to her. “I wanted to save this for last. These three things that made you fall in love with each other; we aren’t going to discuss them. We aren’t going to trek down memory lane because I’m sure it’s lovely but right now I want you to look at each other and see if all of these things are still true.“ She waits and they don’t move an inch. “No actually look at each other.” They shift slightly to face one another. “Ah, there we go. You see them?”
There’s no answer as they turn away uncomfortably. The eye contact was too much to bear and Derek found himself looking past her to the picture on the wall of something related to a jungle while she sighed tiredly. If his wife, the one he married almost twelve years ago, is under there somewhere he isn’t seeing it anymore. All he sees is her perfect shell with the searing flaw and it’s beyond frustrating.
“Addison, why do you want this marriage? At the end of the day what makes this fight worth it?” Dr. Klein asks picking up her pen again.
And there it is. The same question she has been asking for years. There’s no real answer here because she has spent many a night alone and quite possibly drunk reflecting over the reasons why she should stay and devote herself to someone who can’t see past his own lab coat to find his way home. “I-I love him.” And that’s all she knows.
“Derek?”
He’s been thrown into the spotlight now. There’s no way to respond without saying the same exact thing. You can’t top the words that she just said and he doesn’t know if she did it on purpose or if she actually meant it. He grits his teeth and tries to buy time. He hasn’t thought about loving Addison since the second he found her under Mark. It stopped then, as illogical as it sounds, or maybe he wished it stopped then. If only there was an on/off switch for emotions.
“I love her.” And maybe he does, maybe he really does still love her but right now it feels like a lie as the words tumble out. He fixes his eyes to the pen smudge on his khaki colored slacks daring not to look up and see the hurt in her eyes. She knew before he said it.
She breathes in easier after the words leave his mouth but his posture says something very different. He didn’t mean it. She tries to grin when she feels like bursting through the door and sobbing until she collapses. She reaches down the arm of the chair and lets her fingers brush against the back of his hand because this what they do. They pretend because it's easier.
This is their existence.
~~~~~~~~~~
13. You humiliate me in front of our friends.