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She doesn't mean to overhear. It's just a quirk of timing that Addison's exit from a successful surgery brings her by the
surgical board where Derek and Meredith are standing. Then Debbie stops her to ask if she can sign off on a chart the chief
is looking for, and so Addison has to wait. And that's when she hears.
"Derek, we bought the tickets two months ago."
"I know," he says. "I'm sorry. But I didn't know a case like this would walk in the door today, and I need
to do some more prep work for the surgery tomorrow. You can ask one of your friends to go with you, can't you?"
The familiarity of the conversation is shocking, and Addison slinks back a few steps hoping to stay unnoticed as Meredith's
pleading turns to frustration.
"I spend more time with my friends than I do my husband. Which is funny because I really thought getting married
meant I'd decided I wanted to spend time with you."
"I'll make it up to you, Meredith, I promise. Please... just try and understand, okay?"
Addison can't help but feel a little sad at hearing the exchange. It makes all of those months she spent here trying to
fix her marriage seem that much more pointless. She wishes he was happy... they were happy. At least then the train wreck
that "Addison and Derek" had become at the end would've mattered more. But really, it was just a bitter rending
of a marriage once envied by everyone who knew them. Worth it, somehow if he was happy, if he'd found what he needed with
wife number two. But it seems he's just reliving their life together, Addison thinks, only at hyper speed. It took him eight
years to start to pull away from her. He and Meredith have been married less than three.
"Dr. Shepherd?"
It's still her name, but it takes her a minute to register it because Addison is trying not to look like she was paying
attention to the other Drs. Shepherd. They both glance at Debbie, unsure who she wants, and when the nurse keeps walking,
they both turn and offer polite smiles to Addison.
She kept the name because it was her name, period. Though really now, it's always Montgomery-Shepherd here at Seattle
Grace except when the nurses are in a hurry and the "Montgomery" slips through the cracks. Addison kept the name
even when hearing it made her want to cry because she wasn't really a Shepherd anymore. But her professional life was wrapped
up in the hyphenated name, and though she'd accepted the upheaval that divorce brought to her personal world, Addison had
determined that her career could not and would not be touched by the end of her marriage. So Addison Montgomery-Shepherd she
stayed, and finally, she learned to smile politely and change the subject and to stop wincing when patients or new staff members
asked, "Are you related to the other Dr. Shepherd?"
He asked her to change the name once, right before he married his intern, right after Addison had renewed her contract
at SGH, dashing their hopes that she might leave and take the specter of "the failed Shepherd marriage" with her.
Too many doctors with the same last name, Derek had said, nothing personal. It just seemed logistically to make sense. Addison
remembered nearly biting through the inside of her cheek as she stifled a colorful stream of swear words not appropriate for
the workplace and instead told her ex-husband that he'd have to learn to live with it, the same way she'd learned to live
without him.
Now the new incarnation of the Drs. Shepherd walk away, talking quietly, as Addison double-checks the chart and signs
off on it. Debbie thanks her and heads off to finish her work, and after moving her neck in a few slow circles from side to
side, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd makes her way to the locker room in search of a shower.
Thirty minutes later, the hot water having worked its magic, Addison zips up her pencil skirt, checks to make sure that
her pinstriped blouse is buttoned correctly, and then she sits down on the bench to untangle her slingbacks from the sweatshirt
they'd somehow gotten wrapped up in this morning. The door opens, and Derek enters, a loud groan of frustration escaping him
as he does. When he notices her, he startles.
"Sorry. I, uh... long day."
Addison nods and slips on her heels and stands, ready to leave. When she turns to pick her purse up off the bench, she
sees him leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed, his arms crossed in front of his chest. She remembers seeing him
like that a lot when they were married, or rather once their marriage stopped working. Addison had dubbed it his "my
wife is a pain in the ass" pose, because every time she tried to get him to talk or asked him to take time for her, whenever
she suggested that they might be in trouble, he would get annoyed and frustrated and end up standing just like this, like
maybe if he stood there long enough, she and their problems might disappear.
"Good luck with the case," she says as she walks to the door. "If anyone can pull it off, it's you."
Derek's eyes open and he looks at her, and she can admit to herself now how nice it is to be a welcome sight, a friend,
instead of having him look at her with dread the way he had the last few years of his marriage.
He smiles and thanks her for the good wishes, and then they both fall silent. She's tempted to tell him what she saw earlier,
to ask if he realizes that he's making the same mistakes with Meredith as he did with her, but then the door opens and Burke
wanders in with Richard, the two bantering about a case, and the moment is lost. Addison wishes the men a good night and heads
toward the exit.
She's near the door when she sees it... Meredith sitting alone, dressed up, her eyes staring out at nothing in particular,
her face a mask of loneliness. Addison can't begin to recount how many nights she'd ended up sitting alone, waiting, in New
York, here. And honestly, despite all the times she might have wished Meredith Shepherd nee Grey to disappear on nights past,
Addison empathizes with her now. She remembers what it felt like to wake up and feel Derek gone and have no idea why it happened.
But she can't offer the intern any words of advice, any answers. Happily ever after with Derek was a mystery Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd
had never solved.
When she sees Alex Karev walk up and offer a consoling hug to Meredith, sees the second Mrs. Shepherd holding on to her
friend for dear life as she begins to vent, Addison wonders just how much history is going to repeat itself.
Sighing, she moves to the door and heads out into the cool night air. She is barely three steps out the door when a cry
of joy grabs her attention, and she turns to her right in time to see a warmly wrapped blur rushing toward her.
"Mama!"
Dropping down to a crouch, Addison opens her arms in time for the excited two-year-old boy to wrap his small limbs around
her neck.
"What is the sweetest little boy in the world doing out at this time of night?"
When she tickles him, Lucas lets out a stream of giggles, and the smile on her face makes it hard to feign any real upset
about finding her son and his father waiting for her.
"We sort of took a late nap," Mark explains as he walks up and stretches over their child to kiss her. "And
someone wasn't sleepy, so we figured we'd come make sure our favorite girl was on her way home, right, little man?"
Addison shakes her head at her two bad boys and shifts Lucas to her other arm. Mark slips his hand around her waist, and
together, the three of them head for the car and for home.
She remembers the day she had signed her divorce papers... the way her signature had looked on the paper next to Derek's.
She had been scared to death that she wouldn't know how to go back to being just herself... no one's "Mrs.," no
one's wife, no one's obligation.
What she had never imagined then was a day when she'd realize how lucky she was to be free... to know who Addison Montgomery-Shepherd
was and not be afraid to be her because the man and the little boy who love her now take her as she comes. But after seeing
her past again so clearly today in Meredith's face, Addison knows absolutely that the second hand she's been dealt is far
better than the first. She knows that even if the pain of it all didn't bring Derek the happiness he was sure it would, it
brought it to her.
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