Derek stood in his bedroom, looked around, and silently hoped that Addison's instincts were correct and that their baby was a girl. If she was wrong and a baby boy with his temper was on the way, the neurosurgeon knew that Addison would be cursing him for years to come.

Derek Shepherd, world-renowned surgeon, had thrown a temper tantrum. He'd walked in, thrown down his jacket, and moved to the bedroom to strip off his clothes and get in the shower. That's when he'd seen his list sitting there on the bed. Instead of ignoring it, given the dark mood the morning had already cast on him, he'd walked over, dropped down on the bed and picked up the notebook.

In red ink, circled several times, were the words, "Remember how your words hurt her."

In frustration with himself and with his own stupid, big mouth, Derek had hurled the notebook across the room. It hit the dresser, knocking over everything that sat atop it, toppling the lamp. Groaning in annoyance, he'd gone over to retrieve the lamp, only to catch his hand in the shade. Derek had dropped the lamp to keep his finger from getting cut by the shade's metal and the ceramic base shattered on the ground. In retaliation for that new upset, Derek had slammed into the dresser as if it were a tackling dummy.

He realized now in the aftermath that it was probably that impact that had set the shelves on their path to destruction. The tiered wooden bookshelf had shifted sideways and then buckled, the pieces collapsing in on themselves as the unit disintegrated. Books, framed photos and candles had gone everywhere, some damaged beyond repair.

Sighing, Derek sank down onto the bed and tried to decide where to start cleaning up the mess. He laughed bitterly when he realized his inability to find a starting point was just as true in his life as it was in dealing with the remnants of his fit.

[i]"Can you feed the dog before you leave?" Addison asked as she stepped through the patio door onto the back porch. Derek looked over at her from his seat on the swing. She had pulled on a pair of slacks and sweater, her hair brushed back in a ponytail. He wondered if she had gotten dressed quickly or if he had been sitting outside longer than he thought, trying to sort out the jumbled emotions he was feeling after seeing Mark on her doorstep.

"Did you get paged?"

The question was the only thing that came to mind. She sighed and shook her head.

"No, I'm going to find Mark. I need to talk to him, Derek."

He felt his mouth fall open, and then he pushed himself up and walked towards her.

"You're seriously going to chase after him because he's upset that your husband stayed over at your house last night?"

Addison spun on her heel and she spoke as she moved back to the patio door and into the house. "Oh, Derek, please, I'm not up for this."

"All I'm saying," he persisted, "is that we are still married and we are having a baby together. We had... we went through hell yesterday, Addie, and what's so strange about us wanting to be together?"

"Nothing. Nothing is weird about it."

He stood still as she looked around for her purse. She found it, pulling it up over her shoulder, then she turned to face him.

"Derek, this isn't about you and me. I'm glad that you came here last night. It... it means more than I could tell you that you did and that we were able to just be Addison and Derek and be kind to each other again. But you aren't privy to every detail of my life. You don't know that I already hurt Mark yesterday so, yes, I'm worried about him because he's my friend and he's hurting, and I just want to talk to him."[/i]

In that moment, Addison had given him a chance for grace. All he'd had to do was say, "Okay, you're right, I don't know all the details. Go do what you have to do, and I'll see you later." Because she was Addison and it was ridiculous to think she wouldn't care about whether or not Mark was hurt; it was who she was. When someone mattered to her, she had to make it right when she felt something had gone wrong. Hell, wasn't that why she'd stayed in Seattle with him in the first place, to make right what had gone so terribly wrong between them in their marriage?

But in that moment, Derek hadn't been the reasonable guy who wrote a reminder to himself so he wouldn't forget how often his words left damage behind with Addison. He'd been a guy who had woken up feeling like maybe, just maybe, he stood a chance at winning his wife back only to come face-to-face with the bastard ex-best-friend who had helped tear his marriage apart in the first place.

So Derek had done damage... and now he didn't know how to fix it.

[i]"He was our friend," Addison had continued. "You remember that, right? Before I ruined our marriage and your friendship, Mark was our friend, and [/i]we[i] loved him. I realize that's gone, Derek, but he's still a person, and he has feelings and I just... I can't not care that he's upset."

"Well, I'm sorry I don't ooze with sympathy over Mark's emotional state, but I'm pretty sure he forfeited any right to my warm fuzzies when he screwed my wife."

The room was quiet as his barb died out in the air, and then Derek watched as Addison dropped her eyes, her shoulders slumping.

"I don't expect you to forgive him... or me... ever."

"Addie... no, that's not what I..." He stopped, his mind racing to think of words that would somehow erase the hurt that was in her voice. But he had no idea what to say or how to take back what he'd already said.

"That's not what you meant? Is that what you were gonna say?" She forced herself to look at him, her eyes coming level with his. "But we both know it's the truth, isn't it? You've never forgiven me. You never will. Not that it matters now. And the plain truth is that Mark was a friend to me when I needed one, and right now I'm going to go check on my friend and make sure he's all right."

"Addison..."

Her name sounded lame on his lips because he was just desperate to stop her from going out the front door, but he didn't know what came next. Because even as he stood there ready to deny she was right, to scream at her that he still loved her to try to prove his point, he sadly realized the truth--He did still love her, he wanted her back, but Derek had never taken the time to try and understand the affair, nor had he ever actually forgiven it.

She paused a moment when he called out, but then she opened the door and moved through it, leaving him without a good-bye.[/i]

Hearing the conversation again in his head tore at Derek and made his chest ache. God, they had been so close. How was it possible that last night he'd been laying there on the couch with her in his arms and now they seemed further apart than ever?

He remembered vividly when Addison had left in the night to go to the restroom, and he'd lain there feigning sleep, wondering if she would come back. He wasn't ready to give up the sensation of being near her, but he also got that she was pregnant and possibly uncomfortable staying with him on the couch both physically and emotionally. But then she'd come back and snuggled up against him, and Derek wondered next if she could see the smile on his face in the dark as he sighed and let himself fall back asleep beside her.

In his mind, in those bits between sleep and wakefulness, Derek had envisioned how the morning should go. He wanted to say things to Addie... to thank her for letting him in when he'd done so much to run away from her, to make sure she knew she was the only one he could've or wanted to turn to. And he wanted her to know that his regret at turning their marriage into some unspoken competition was not only real, but was one of the biggest of his life.

It was supposed to be a beginning, and then he'd heard the faint voices coming from the door, risen from the couch, and come face-to-face with Mark. The sense of panic had been instantaneous. Mark was real competition. He was no longer just an affair, just a snake who'd crawled into bed with Derek's wife. Mark was in love with Addison--Derek had seen it too many times to try and deny it. And with Derek finally feeling like he might be able to reclaim the love of his life, a rival was the last thing he needed.

But Mark had fled, clearly crestfallen at seeing husband and wife together so early in the morning, so why, Derek wondered, had he felt the need to pout and to walk away and slam the patio door? He had no explanation for his childish behavior except the one he wanted to deny.

He was jealous... jealous and angry... and when his mind got quiet enough, when he let his guard down, Derek could still remember every detail of walking into that bedroom in Manhattan.

He hated himself for it. Addison had pleaded for forgiveness more times than he could count, she had endured his indifference, his lust for another woman and still, she had stayed and asked time and again just that he try. That was all, as if she'd really felt she didn't have the right to demand anything more from him because of the enormity of her sin. And Derek understood now that he' d made her feel that way because he would not talk about Mark or the affair, and he would not hear her out on what had pushed her to make such a tragic mistake. He had somehow convinced himself that ignoring it or assuming he had all the answers he needed was enough.

But clearly he was wrong. His intense feelings about the affair had been stuffed down along with his own anger at himself, with his love for his wife--everything Derek should've been examining and sorting out the past year was now opened up and exposed, just waiting for him to do something about it.

Derek eyed his notebook where it lay now, hanging off the edge of the dresser. He thought about all the pages inside that were filled with notes, thoughts and scribbles. There were at least a half dozen partially formed letters, some to Addison, one to Meredith, one to his unborn child, all trying to explain the choices he had made. But none of them had an ending point, and now he saw why... he didn't know how to explain his choices because he still needed to be honest with himself before he could be so with all the people in his life.

Deciding against picking up his improvised journal, Derek instead began to clean up the mess he'd created in his home. He stacked up the books, swept up the broken glass, salvaged the photographs and then sorted out the fragmented pieces the wooden shelves had broken into.

His first instinct was to take the gathered wood and toss it out. He couldn't honestly even remember where he'd bought the shelf, only that it came from some store in downtown Seattle, not long after he'd arrived. It would be easy enough to stop in town and pick up a new one. But as he carried the first few larger pieces outside, he realized that the wood was good--a nice oak with character. So he went back inside and brought the rest of the pieces out and examined them. The shelf, it seemed, was a victim of bad craftsmanship. It was good wood put together in a half-assed manner. Derek measured the pieces and determined he could piece the shelf back together if he was willing to do the work.

An hour later, Derek had his toolbox set up on the porch under the patio canopy. After double-checking his measurements, he began to reassemble the fragments of wood, his hands glad to be back in touch with a hammer and a saw. The work reminded him of summers in high school spent working construction with his father, a contractor who always seemed to be starting a new house project come the end of the school year. John Shepherd would always act put out by having to hire his teenage son onto his crew, but Derek knew, really, his father was glad to know his only boy could not only handle hard work but was willing to take it on.

It was during those days of trying to stay in the shade while hammering and sawing that Derek had formulated his plans for the future. College, medical school--he'd already known he was interested in neurosurgery even then, though ortho had also been a consideration. And he'd imagined the kind of personal future he wanted for himself as well. He wanted to find a woman who was loving, open with her emotions like his mother was, but Derek also liked girls who presented a challenge. The girls who fawned over him, who were too easily seduced by his blue eyes, they were fun to date, but they weren't the kind of girls he could talk to endlessly about everything from medicine to politics to silliness like which of the 31 flavors was really the very best one.

Mostly, young Derek had been sure that he'd know who "the one" was because he'd be able to imagine her as the mother of his children. He hadn't necessarily wanted to duplicate the hustle and bustle of the large Shepherd household he'd grown up in, but one or two children had seemed inevitable to him. With the right woman, children just felt like a given.

As Derek knelt down on the porch outside his Seattle trailer and tested the strength of the reassembled shelf base, he thought now about just how accurately his teenage vision of the woman of his dreams matched up to Addison. She was loving, and she'd never taken to hiding her big heart behind a tough-as-nails façade like some women did as they got older and achieved a certain status in life. She was also a challenge--a brilliant, fiercely independent woman who was not about to be told what to think about anything. But she also knew how to let go, how to bust up a serious argument with a suggestion they go buy gum and see who could blow the biggest bubble to settle the debate.

Another thing he'd been right about--Addison was still the only woman he'd ever been able to imagine as the mother of his children, and now she would be. When they'd gone so long without getting pregnant, he supposed they had both just decided it wasn't meant to be and let go of that dream... they surely hadn't spoken about it. But now finally, they'd have their baby just as all their other dreams with each other fell apart.

Derek sighed and put the top back on the shelving unit, and then he tested its ability to bear weight by leaning heavily against the reassembled wood. The pieces were nicked up, perhaps not as pretty as they'd started out, but as a sum total, the bookshelf itself was stronger than it had originally been. He set his tools aside and carried the shelves back into the trailer. Once the books and photos and surviving knickknacks were back in place, he stood back and surveyed the work he'd done.

Satisfied, Derek moved into the kitchen and made himself some coffee. Then, mug of steaming brew in hand, he finally walked to the dresser and reclaimed his notebook before sitting down at the dining table.

As he flipped the pages, Derek examined the work he'd done on reassembling himself over the past few weeks. He'd made progress, but sometimes when he saw notes that reminded him of his failures, it made him wonder if every step forward meant three back. So much of his thought process had been about figuring out how to honestly tell Addison what she meant to him. He felt he'd made huge strides toward that in confessing his obsessive need to best her as a doctor and admitting how it had harmed their marriage, making him pull away from her. And yet no sooner had they made that breakthrough then Derek had propelled them back to the muddle that was "Addison, Derek and Mark."

Pushing the journal away, the confused surgeon stood and went outside to put his tools away. But even as he packed them carefully back into the large metal box that protected them, Derek wondered about another project he might think up to keep him busy. He'd forgotten in all the years of being on call and living in a top-notch Manhattan brownstone that he really liked working with his hands outside of an O.R. And he'd lost touch with the sense of release he got from taking wood and nails and constructing them into something tangible.

Going back inside, Derek realized that he still had patients at the hospital he needed to check up on even if he'd already told Richard he was taking today off in light of yesterday's devastation. His chief had understood, no doubt hoping that today would see Derek taking care of Addison and vice versa. He could only imagine how disappointed his friend and mentor would be when he learned about this morning's misstep.

With a sigh, Derek headed for the shower. He wasn't going to fix anything with Addison standing around in his trailer.

*****

No one had ever confused Mark Sloan with a selfless person. Most of his life, in fact, his reputation had been that of a self-involved jackass who was going to get ahead and get where he wanted to be without much regard to anyone else. And the truth was, the only difference between most people who became star surgeons and Mark was that he was honest about being exactly that person everyone assumed he was. Unlike Derek, who hid his conceit and his selfishness under a good guy veneer, Mark was the type of guy you could call on his ish and he'd admit it cold, feeling little to no remorse if he was successfully getting the "what" or to the "where" he had in mind.

The only person in his life he had ever tried to change himself for was Addison. She was attracted to his arrogance and his brashness, but Mark suspected it frightened her, too, and so when push came to shove, when she'd had a choice between coming back to New York with the unapologetic ass who loved her or staying in Seattle with the apologetic ass who had once and maybe still loved her, she'd chosen Derek. So round two--coming back to try to prove his love to Addison--it had to be fought on different terms. He'd known that coming in, and Mark remembered musing to himself on the flight from New York that he was committing to a fight against not only Derek's possible feelings for his wife, but the obviously strong feelings she still had for her husband.

It took a special kind of ego to think you could convince a woman who loved her husband that she loved you more, and Mark knew that most people would see his actions as that of the legendary jerk he'd always been and not of a caring, loving man. But the joke of it all was that he did love Addison... more, he was sure, than he'd ever loved anyone else in his life, himself included.

Everything he thought he knew, though, had been turned on its ear when he came to town only to find Addison and Derek already in the process of divorcing. For a few brief hours, he'd thought that perhaps his fight wouldn't be so hard. Sure, Addison still loved Shep, but he'd chosen Meredith Grey, and Addison was no longer fighting for him. So Mark had seen what lay ahead as an exercise in patience. Wait, let her heal, be her friend and when Addison was ready, there he'd be.

And then everything changed again.

Seeing how much Derek still loved Addison had created doubt for Mark where nothing else could. It didn't matter that, for weeks, his former friend had maintained his relationship with Meredith Grey in spite of what he felt for the woman he was divorcing. Mark had seen it in that first flash of jealousy in Addison's office when Derek had discovered him and went into a rage. That love pushed into a place of denial had become, to Mark, a time bomb waiting to go off. Because he knew what it felt like to try to not love Addison anymore, and he'd failed miserably at it. He had no reason to think Derek would fair any better.

It honestly didn't matter, Mark knew, that Addison was pregnant. Baby Girl Shepherd was perhaps the reason Derek had sat down and faced himself and his feelings when he had, but she wasn't the cause of them. Derek's longing for Addison had been a living thing before he ever learned that their child existed.

But still, despite the doubt he felt now that Derek had ended things with Meredith and knew about the baby, Mark hoped. He hoped even though Bailey was right and loving Addison might not be enough. And maybe it was as simple as he just honestly didn't know what else to do. He couldn't will himself to give up. Maybe if she finally told him to walk away, he'd finally be able to, but Mark wasn't even sure that could make him stop wanting or needing or hoping. It was a sad commentary that he'd been in his mid-30s before falling in love for the first time, but that was what had happened. The bulk of his "relationships" had amounted to maybe a month of hot sex and a few obligatory dinners to make it look good. At the end of the day, he just lacked the experience with emotions that felt this big and important because he'd avoided them for so long.

He'd started to learn, though, that there were times when you had to just swallow your upset and your fears because the person you loved couldn't handle them in that moment. Mark had recognized they were in one of those moments when he'd gone to Addison's side following Harley Salton's death. He'd been nursing a cup of coffee and a bruised ego, wondering why Addison hadn't called to accept his invitation to dinner, when he'd heard. Mark instantly felt like dirt for thinking about himself when she was dealing with something so awful, and he'd immediately headed off to find her.

Having found her, Mark felt more afraid than ever that his chance to win Addison was disappearing right in front of his eyes.

He understood that the case was one she'd shared with Derek and that made all the emotions around it that much more complicated. But Mark had still thought it was possible for him to be there for her and help her through her sadness. Then she had pulled away from him, and Mark had a feeling he finally knew what Addison had gone through every time she looked to Derek for some proof that she mattered and had him turn away without be willing to give it.

It would've been classic Mark Sloan to have been a selfish bastard, to confront her right then with how badly she had wounded him. But he wasn't that guy with her. She was wounded, too, and he knew that she'd never meant to hurt him; the guilt in her eyes attested to that. But God, it did hurt, and he wanted desperately to make it stop.

After leaving Addison's office, he'd been unmanageable. Mark had snapped at two nurses, yelled at Yang and was basically making a general ass out of himself, so he signed out and headed home to his loft. He walked in planning to jump on his treadmill and run until he couldn't run anymore, hopeful the exhaustion would numb him to the pain.

He changed his clothes and then plugged in a tough course on the expensive piece of workout equipment. Then Mark triggered the CD player with his remote control. "Moments in Love" filtered into the room, and he groaned. Slamming his hand against the controls to turn the treadmill off, Mark stalked over, tore the mix that contained Addison's favorite song out of his stereo and he threw it across the room. He replaced it with his Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Greatest Hits" disc, figuring the angry beats matched his mood.

He climbed back on the treadmill and began to run, his feet pounding against the surface beneath him. Usually working his body this hard was enough to shut his mind down, to give him freedom from himself so he could get some perspective. But an hour later, as he toweled sweat off his bare chest, Mark still felt like his head might explode from all the crap swirling around in his brain.

Why the hell did he have to love this woman out of all the women who had come through his life? Why was it Addison? Why in the hell couldn't he have been the one to love her first?

Frustrated, Mark grabbed the phone and dialed in Alex's cell phone number. The younger man answered on the second ring.

"Karev."

"It's Sloan. I need to get the hell out of this house. You want to do something?"

"I was just gonna head over and shoot some hoops. The park down the street from SGH."

A quick shower refreshed Mark, and he jumped into a pair or shorts and a t-shirt and headed out the door. Alex was already practicing layups, and the plastic surgeon wasted no time rushing in to steal the ball and execute a perfect jump shot from the perimeter.

"Not bad for an old man."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Probably not the day you want to talk that kind of trash to me."

"Uh-oh. What did the She-Shepherd do now?"

Mark threw the ball at Karev. The intern dribbled in place and then made a move toward the basket. He met with the rock-solid chest of the attending and fell backwards, his back making contact with the blacktop.

"Dude, what's your drama?"

"How's Denny Duquette today, Alex?" Mark asked. He couldn't help but be satisfied when the young man's mood darkened to match his own.

"All right, fine," Alex said as he pulled himself up. "You don't want to talk, we don't have to talk. Let's go."

For forty-five minutes, the two men effectively tried to kill each other. So many elbows were thrown, so many charges taken and so much trash talked that a referee would've exhausted himself blowing a whistle. Finally, Mark jumped up to slam the ball home and Alex jumped up to block it and both men went crashing to the ground, their now bruised and battered bodies slow to recover from the latest blow.

"You ready to tell me who you're so pissed at?" Karev asked as he pulled up into a seated position.

"Maybe after a beer," Mark said as he stood and tried to evaluate how sore he was going to be the next day, "or two."

They headed to the pub around the corner from Mark's loft, neither of them much in the mood to run into any of their coworkers at Joe's. A few beers and some burgers put both men in a more agreeable humor, and finally Mark had answered Alex's question.

"I'm pissed at myself," he admitted.

Karev raised his eyebrows and took a swig off his beer. "So you're trying to kick your own ass and I got to be the stand in?"

"Pretty much."

Alex shook his head. "Dude, is she really worth all this?"

"Yeah," Mark said before he took a sip of his own beer. "She is."

The intern sat silently for a moment, then he sighed. "I get that. I mean, I guess I think Izzie is, too. Not that it matters. I'm not even in the running there anymore."

"No?"

Alex shook his head. "She asked to be taken off Denny's case so she could be, like, personally there for him. So that's that."

The twosome finished off their beers and ordered another round.

"Can I ask you something?"

Mark nodded at Karev's query and waited to hear what the specific question was.

"How does that happen? I mean... not that I don't get that Addison's hot and all, but I mean... the guy was your best friend."

"Did you plan to care so much about Stevens?"

Alex scoffed quietly before answering. "Uh, no, I definitely did not."

"Yeah, well..." Mark pushed the empties in front of him aside and leaned his elbows on the bar. "I didn't plan to fall in love with my best friend's wife. I just... did. Never thought it would matter because I never thought he'd be dumb enough to let her go. But I was wrong."

Karev shrugged and took a drink of his beer. "So what, he started ignoring her, you started filling in for him and you guys hooked up?"

"You've been around Addison long enough... does she strike you as a woman who lacks in confidence?"

The intern laughed so hard he nearly spit out his beer. "Are you kidding?"

"So imagine what it would be like to see her question everything about herself... to watch her think she must not be pretty enough or hot enough or special enough because her husband treats her like a wall he passes by in the hallway..." Mark downed the rest of his beer and set the bottle down. "But, yeah, he was my best friend... and I'm a bastard for doing what I did... but I love her, man. I just... do. "

The two men finished off one more round, then called it a night so they could both manage to make it to work on time the next day. Mark returned to his loft and showered before climbing into bed. But sleep eluded him as his thoughts kept returning to the feeling of distance that had crept between him and Addison over the past few weeks. It was, he admitted, entirely his fault. If he'd manned up and just talked to her about his feelings when Derek decided to stay in the picture, Mark suspected things would be different now. But he also knew there was no way of knowing. All that he could do was go and talk to her and tell her again that he was there, that he was willing to wait if she needed him to. And then he'd have to hope it was enough.

So this morning he'd gotten up early, ignored the throbbing his back from the previous day's killer basketball game and decided to drop by and keep his promise to check in on her. He wanted to talk to her away from the hospital, someplace where no one would walk in and interrupt them with an emergency or a question.

He was worried when he saw Addison standing in the doorway still in the clothes she'd worn the day before. She looked rested, so she'd slept, but he could only imagine how tired and upset she must have been to not even have the energy to change. But she also looked beautiful... all tousled and just awakened, the baby making her presence known as Addison's belly strained against her skirt.

Mark heard Derek before he saw him, but it took seeing him to make his brain really get it--Derek was there. Derek was standing there looking just as tousled and recently awakened as Addison.

Rational thought told him he had no right to react. But the fact that he'd wanted so much to comfort her and she'd pushed him away only to turn to Derek... Mark couldn't help how much that hurt, and all he could think to do was turn around and walk away before he said or did something that he couldn't take back.

The fact that he was living a sanitized G-rated version of that night in the brownstone wasn't lost on him, and the irony made Mark sick to his stomach. If he felt this awful when he'd just had to deal with Addison and Derek needing each other after what had happened with Harley... dear God, what the hell had gone through Derek's mind when he'd walked into that bedroom?

He'd never bothered to ask, he realized... he'd never once had the nerve to ask Derek what he'd thought, and in all those months in New York, he'd never had the heart to ask Addison if Derek had ever said anything, even in a message from three thousand miles away, about what he'd been thinking when he turned and walked out of the bedroom door.

It had been easy then to think he'd felt nothing. Mark had convinced himself that Derek didn't love or want Addison anymore, and his just walking out had proven that. Except now he knew he was wrong. Now Mark had seen firsthand how much Derek still loved and wanted Addison.

The enormity of it all suddenly overwhelmed him, and the surgeon who had made his mark repairing the faces of others buried his own in his hands as he sank down in his chair in his office.

[i]"I'm nowhere, Mark. Do you get that? I'm barely ready to accept that my marriage is over. I'm not ready to move on, I don't know when I will be, and I am not at all sure that when I am, it can be with someone who was so much a part of me and Derek and everything that happened."[/i]

He remembered standing in Addison's kitchen and hearing those words, but Mark hadn't really gotten it until now. Derek and Addison and Mark--it was a three-way mess they'd all participated in, and despite all his determination that he was going to fight for her till the end because he loved her, he had refused to see the situation she was in. Derek was her husband. He was her best friend. And Addison was standing there between them, trying to find a way to make things right with both of them.

She was nowhere... and he and Derek were there with her, both terrified to lose her.

****

Despite the success of her practice, despite the deepening of her friendships with Richard and Adele and the new bonds she'd formed with Miranda and Izzie and Preston, there were days Addison wished she had never come to Seattle.

How much simpler life would've been, she'd think on those days, if she'd just sent the divorce papers to Derek after Richard had called to ask her about the TTTS case. She could've told Richard she'd ask Ben Hartford to fly up from Children's Hospital in Los Angeles to take care of Julie Phillips. Ben was nearly as good as her, so it wasn't like she'd have been cheating the patient and then things would've just been over... Derek would've signed, she'd have stayed with Mark in New York and the roller coaster of the past year would have never happened.

She hadn't thought it in a long time, especially not since finding out about her baby. Nothing could make Addison regret being pregnant with Baby Girl Shepherd. But all the rest of it... the trying and the failing and the feeling so broken... she wondered who she might be right now if none of that had ever happened.

But as she pulled into the parking lot at Seattle Grace and spied Mark's car in the staff lot, Addison wondered if it would've all been that easy. Because some part of her couldn't let itself believe that Derek and she would have never spoken again. And it felt to her now, after the way they had worked toward that small patch of common ground last night, that his voice over the phone, even dripping with the venom of those early Seattle months, would have been enough to make her want to see him and talk to him and try.

There was so much they didn't know about each other. She could see that so clearly now when it had seemed so impossible before. How could two people who had been married so long, who had loved each other through so much, not know each other? But he'd been completely unaware of the depth of the pain he'd caused her until she'd confessed it that night at the Alexis Hotel, and she had never imagined that her confident and gifted husband had ever felt second-best to anyone let alone her until he had admitted it last night.

Each admission had given them a chance to move forward, to find the Addison and Derek who they had been to each other so that those two people could be parents to their child. That she harbored any hope it might be more was something she was loathe to admit, but the truth was that Addison had those moments where she wanted to think that in the end, when Derek finished finding himself and she had sorted out her own feelings, that maybe, just maybe, they still had a chance.

But all those little bits of wishful thinking had withered inside her this morning when the anger in Derek's voice reminded her that no matter what steps they took, no matter what other issues they managed to be honest with one another about, they still couldn't talk about the darkest place in their relationship.

Mark had dared her that first time he'd come to Seattle to tell Derek the truth--the whole truth--about the affair. But she knew he didn't understand what that meant, not really. Because the truth was more than just that after three weeks of coming home every night hoping Derek would be back, even if it was just to yell at her, that she'd packed a bag and gone to Mark's because she couldn't take being alone anymore. The truth was why it happened at all, the truth was about her choices and her feelings on all the days that led up to the first time and all the nights that came before Derek had walked in the door of the brownstone bedroom.

She had wanted to accept the dare. She had tried to get Derek to talk about the affair for the first time since counseling had failed them and since he'd declared to her again that he didn't want to talk about it. But Derek had dismissed her once more, and then there had been the poison oak and the laughing and the weeks that followed where it felt like he was starting to try and things were getting better. So the truth had just stayed hidden amongst all the other things Derek didn't know about her.

And then there was no reason to try anymore. Derek wanted out, she had let him go. Even Mark's arrival hadn't made Addison try again because she'd convinced herself that Derek was her past except for the role he would play in the baby's life. What was the point of dredging it all up now?

But the point was that they were still all a part of each other's lives. Mark was still her friend, maybe more, and Derek was the father of her child, and maybe more and she seemed to need them both so much for very different reasons. And they couldn't just pretend they'd all let it go and moved on when the sight of Mark and her together sent Derek into a rage or when seeing her with Derek broke Mark's heart.

Addison's every intention was to go to Mark and tell him just that, just what she'd finally realized, the minute she stepped through the doors of Seattle Grace. But no sooner had she come off the elevator onto the surgical floor than Izzie called out to her.

"Hey, I was just about to page you. We just got a call from Mercy West. They have a multiple they want to send to you for a consult, 42-year-old mother who's 20 weeks pregnant with triplets. She's had four prior miscarriages, and they used IFV. She started having contractions this morning.

"Okay, tell them we'll take it and see how soon the mother can get here. And have her doctor send over the file, but I'll want to do a full workup myself."

Izzie nodded and headed off to take care of Addison's instructions while the redhead moved toward the surgical board. A glance told her Mark was in surgery with a car accident victim. As was so often the case, medicine had interrupted her personal life yet again. Their talk would have to wait.

After completing the workup on her newest high risk patient, Addison left her intern to admit Maureen Reynolds. As she walked back toward her office, she caught sight of Derek's dark head of hair moving in the halls, and Addie turned and quickly made her way to the stairs to avoid him.

The sun was already beginning to set when Addison finally managed to find Mark laying cross-legged on a bunk in an on call room, his hands laced behind his head.

"I've been looking for you," she said as she closed the door behind her.

"I've been trying to get ready to talk to you," he answered.

Mark sat up and made room for her on the bed and she sat down beside him, her elbows resting on her knees.

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "You didn't... I feel like I keep saying this, but you didn't do anything wrong."

"I know I didn't, but I'm sorry it hurt you anyway." Addison felt herself start to move to take his hand, but then she thought better of it. What she needed to say to him today wasn't the kind of thing that would be helped by her touching him or giving him mixed signals. "I didn't know when we talked yesterday that Derek and I... that he'd want to talk about Harley with me or that he'd let me go through that with him."

"I'm sorry, too."

Mark's voice was low, raspy. She had the feeling he'd probably cried today and she hated that more than she could say.

"I shouldn't have just walked away like that," he continued, "but I just... my brain kind of stopped working and I needed to move before..."

He trailed off and she nodded before speaking. "I understand. It was... I think the moment caught us all by surprise."

"I'm not just sorry for this morning," Mark said. "All of it, Addison--I'm so sorry for... for everything. I... I was so sure, you know, that I'd love you better than him, that I'd take better care of you..."

Tears pooled at her lower lids, and she gave him a small smile. "I know. And I know you mean it, Mark. I know that all of that is real."

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"But it doesn't matter, does it? Because even if you're the love of my life... I'm the biggest regret of yours. That's the truth, isn't it?"

The moisture ran from her eyes, down her cheeks, and Addison felt her throat ache from the tightness she felt there.

"You? No. But the affair, Mark... how could I not regret it? Look at what it did to us--to my marriage, to your friendship with Derek."

He closed his eyes and turned away from her.

"I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't mean to, I just... I wanted you so much."

"And I knew that," she confessed. "Don't you see? I knew how you felt. And I was so tired of being ignored and left alone, and I needed so very much to feel like someone wanted me and thought I mattered. And you did give me that."

Addison stopped and wiped at her eyes, clearing away some of the teardrops that remained. "The thing is, I had a choice to make, Mark. I could make myself feel better by getting what I wanted and needed from you, or I could choose to take the pain and the hurt for one more day and put my marriage ahead of me. And I'll never know if that one day might have made a difference. That's my regret. That's what I have to live with."

He sat unmoving for a long time after she fell silent, and then he opened his eyes and turned back to her.

"I can't just stop loving you. I can't just pretend that's not how I feel."

"And I can't pretend that I'm ready for that." Addison felt the admission remove weight from her heart as she spoke it aloud. "I may hate myself for it someday, but right now, I just... I cannot love you back the way you want me, too. I'm not free to do that, yet, Mark, and I may never be."

He nodded and stood up, his body leaning heavily against the top bunk for support.

"I know."

There didn't seem to be anything more to say then, and Addison stood up and looked at him. He had his face pressed against his hands on the bunk, and though she couldn't see for sure, she felt like she knew the disappointment and hurt that lay in his eyes.

"You are not a regret," she whispered. "You are a part of my heart, no matter what."

She turned and walked from the room, making her way back to her office. All Addison wanted to do was pack up her things and go home. A last check of her messages, though, told her she wouldn't be alone.

"I'm picking up pizza and ice cream because from the looks on Derek and Mark's faces today, I think we need both," Izzie said on the recording. "I'll see you at your place."

Though her first instinct was that she wanted to be alone, Addison was grateful to know she'd have a sounding board. Maybe talking it all through with one of her friends would help her figure out how to do the next thing that was waiting to be done--talking to Derek and making him listen.

But instead of a quick trip home to the comfort of junk food and a friendly shoulder, Addison found the other man in her life waiting for her, his long body leaning against her car.

"Derek, please..."

"I never wanted you to talk about it because I was afraid," he said. "I was afraid that you'd tell me that it was love and not just sex, and I didn't think I could take that."

Addison stared at him in shock.

"I guess that seems twice as cowardly now considering I told you to your face I loved Meredith, and you stayed with me anyway. But I... I never wanted to hear you say you loved him."

Derek pushed himself away from the car and walked toward her, stopping about a foot away.

"I didn't know until I said it out loud that I was still mad, Addie. I thought it was... I thought it was done."

She nodded. "But it's not."

He shook his head. "No, it's not. And I know you tried. But I wasn't ready then. I wasn't ready to know how much hurt I'd caused to make you even think about it or to know the details. But now I am. I need to know why. I need you to tell me why at all and why with him."

The redhead sighed and walked around him, opening her car door. Addison threw her things over into the passenger seat, and then turned back to face him.

"I lost faith," she said, "in us, in me. I hurt so deep inside myself, Derek, I didn't even know I could hurt that much. And I needed to make it stop. But it wasn't... it wasn't about me loving Mark. It was that I knew he loved me. I didn't pick him to hurt you. I slept with Mark because I wanted to feel loved, and you didn't make me feel that way anymore. It was wrong, and you don't know how much I wish I could go back and make a better choice... but I can't undo it."

He sighed and then nodded his head. "I know you can't. And I can't change walking out on you even if I spent all day wondering what might have happened if I'd just stayed and screamed at you or torn the house apart... anything but leaving you. And I can't take back Meredith either."

"And there we are," she said, "back here... and all the wishing and regret in the world doesn't fix the things that drove us apart, Derek. We're not just getting divorce because of Mark and Meredith. We're getting divorced because in maybe the two most important moments of our lives, we both made the wrong choice."

He moved toward her again, and Addison felt her breath catch in her chest as his hand reached out and smoothed over her cheek.

"We need time, Addie. We wasted a lot of it--I wasted a lot of it. And now we're finally facing us head-on, and we need time. We can choose now to give each other that."

She shrugged and eyed him sadly. "What are you saying?"

"It isn't final yet," he explained. "We can still call the divorce off. We can see where we end up after we both just work through some--"

Addison shook her head and stepped away from his touch. "No. No, Derek, you can't do this to me. You... you wanted out, you're the one who said you didn't love me the same way anymore, and even though it nearly killed me, I let you go. You can't ask me to risk that again... you can't say let's wait and expect me to believe it'll be any different this time."

He tried to move closer to her again, but when she pulled back, Derek stopped, but she found herself unable to look away from the intensity in his gaze.

"I know what I said, but, Addie, I told you, I... I lost track of myself. I'm finding me again, and I know for sure that I don't want to lose you. And this isn't about the baby, you know that. We've already made our promise to our baby to be there for her and take care of her. This is about us. I'm not ready for some judge to say our marriage is over, not anymore."

It was everything she'd wanted to hear from him for so long... all the months she'd waited only to lose him anyway, and now here he was saying that he was really ready to fight, that she was what he wanted to fight for. But even as she willed herself to say yes, Addison felt her heart balk at the idea of trusting him. It simply couldn't withstand another disappointment.

"When you find yourself," she said, her voice trembling, "if you still want me then... if I can make myself believe in it then... but I just can't do it, Derek. I've stared those papers down twice now and both times, I wondered how I was supposed to survive it when I woke up and I wasn't your wife anymore. I can't do it again. So we're not stopping it. This time, we just... I can't go back."

She climbed in the car and slammed the door before he could voice another argument. Addison started the engine and carefully made her way out of the parking lot, pulling over a few blocks away so that she could finally give in to the tears that threatened to blind her. By the time she got home, the pizza was cold and Izzie was sitting on the front steps with the phone in her hand, no doubt calling Miranda or Richard trying to figure out where she was. The younger woman looked at her as Addison sat down on the steps beside her, turning into her when Izzie opened her arms.

"It's gonna be okay, Addison," she whispered. "You're gonna be okay."

Addie sobbed against her friend's shoulder, and prayed that she was right.

Commentary?

Contact the author