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I still don't own anyone from Grey's or from PP -- I just like to have fun with them from time to time.
She
never lied when people asked. Yes, the divorce had hurt. Not as much as it probably would have if Derek had just said to her,
"Addie, I'm unhappy and I want out," at some point before her frustration and loneliness had turned into that train wreck
of a night with Mark. But it still hurt. Because she had never stopped loving her husband; at least not until she'd finally
felt how completely he had stopped loving her.
So yes, the divorce had hurt. And it was still strange to her not to
be a wife, to be back in the world without the hyphen-Shepherd in her name. But it was also true that there were things Addison
didn't miss about being married in any way, shape or form. She'd come to see that as she planned and executed her move from
Seattle to Los Angeles.
She had stayed in New York after medical school because Derek wanted to. Addison had actually
been leaning toward Boston, the idea of trying someplace new intriguing to her after a life lived in Manhattan and the Hamptons.
But he had wanted to stay in the city, close to his family, and she had loved him. So Addison had stayed in New York and added
the hyphen-Shepherd to her name.
Buying the brownstone had been something akin to two warring nations trying to enact
a peace treaty. She had really wanted the Tribeca loft they had seen in their second week of looking even though Derek had
done nothing but grouse about not wanting to live in Tribeca. The view from the bedroom had been exactly the sight Addison
wanted to wake up to every morning... a stunning sky dotted with treetops and the amazing architecture of the neighboring
buildings. Derek had called it "cold," and when he'd gone back out into the hallway to wait for her while she finished the
tour, she knew the loft was a moot point. So when her husband fell in love with the Central Park West brownstone, even though
Addison didn't hate it, she had pretended she did. It was the least he deserved for not even considering the home she'd wanted.
It also made Derek agree that she could decorate their bedroom and master bath, the living room, the dining room and her office.
He got domain over his study. The interior designer Derek hated paying for got the rest.
The house in the Hamptons
had, frankly, made Addison think her husband was having an affair. He hated their trips to the colony and had never really
warmed to her desire to buy a house there. But Addison had spent the best summers of her childhood exploring the various villages
that made up "the Hamptons" with her father, and she had once envisioned doing the same with the little Shepherds she'd meant
to have before her marriage had imploded. Derek had hated it from day one, though, and so when he agreed so easily to the
purchase, Addison had asked him point blank what he'd done wrong that he was trying to make up for.
She wondered what
would have happened to her life if he'd said then what she now knew to be true; the house was his way of placating his guilt
not over another woman but over his disinterest in her, their marriage and anything that might have made things better.
In
Seattle, of course, there had been the trailer... that godforsaken hunk of metal that Addison hated almost to the point that
her sanity would be questioned if she really spoke of it out loud. But she had endured it, learned to make do with the limited
storage and the washer and dryer that only did small loads and the generator that worked 90 percent of the time. Addison had
learned to call the trailer home because it was where Derek was. She had given it up as her home for the very same reason
the day after prom night had thrown the last straw onto her marriage's fragile back.
She had never made the decision
to live somewhere based solely on her own needs before, and as she rounded the bases toward 40, Addison had been awestruck
by the freedom to do so. There had been no debate over which house was right, what view was more perfect, if the price was
worth it. Realizing that she could walk out the back door of the 3-bedroom, 2-bath house that sat literally on the beach and
let the sand hug her toes had sold the place to her moments after she'd parked outside the Spanish colonial home and heard
the waves breaking along Malibu's coast.
Decorating her stunning new home without having to consider anyone else's
tastes or needs had been ridiculously fun, and Addison almost felt a little guilty at how relieved she was to just be able
to make her own choices or to be able to do a complete 180 and change her mind without having to hear someone bitch about
it. So what if it took three tries to get the right rug for the living room? Who cared if the bedroom set she'd purchased
probably cost more at the antique store she'd found it in than if she'd bought it new in some high-end Beverly Hills store?
In the end, it was all perfect--perfectly her.
It wasn't really until she was finished--the last picture hung and
all the boxes broken down and sent off to the recycling bin--that the freedom of being single began to lose its shine, tarnishing
a bit after too many moments where Addison did something silly in the kitchen and there was no one to tease her about it or
when she lay awake at night thinking about the hard parts of her seemingly great life that almost no one knew about. Derek
had known. Even Mark had to some extent. The pain that shot through her every time she thought about her father's death; the
ache that never went away from her mother's disappearance from her life in favor of rich, fun husband number two; the awkward,
shy girl she had been who still sometimes looked out of grown-up Addison's eyes and saw fault... there had been a time once
when Derek would hold her as those life-long pains ate away at her. Later, Mark had been there to comfort her when her husband
had gone absent.
Now she comforted herself and she made it through the long nights on her own. But it wasn't the same
as having someone think you mattered enough to tell you that you weren't alone, that they cared. And there were new hurts
now... ones even her ex-husband and former lover didn't really know about. The baby she'd given up... her confusion over the
disaster with Alex Karev... the heartache over the children there wouldn't be now because somehow time had gotten away from
her... those wounds were new, fresh... waiting for someone to say she wasn't alone and that they cared.
When she thought
about it all too much, Addison wanted to tell herself to get over it. Yes, there were parts of being single that sucked, but
the good parts were pretty good, and it wasn't like she was all alone in the world. She had wonderful people in her life who
loved her. Savvy and Weiss had already flown out once to visit and were trying to woo her to New York for Christmas. She,
Callie and Miranda shared 3-way phone calls every few days to commiserate, offer moral support and generally help one another
get through life. Preston Burke had moved to San Francisco, and he had reciprocated her hospitality on a weekend visit to
LA by taking her on a weekend wine country tour a month later. And closer to home, she had Naomi and Sam, who remembered pre-Derek
Addison and reminded her all the time that she'd been "Addison" long before she'd been Addison Montgomery-Shepherd. Her new
partners were bright, outgoing, funny people who she admired and felt relaxed around, and that was a gift, really, after the
torture of working at Seattle Grace's gossip mill where she had been a main topic of discussion.
Really, she needed
to stop with the "poor me" and get on with life because maybe she was just better off alone for now. Maybe the truth was that
she was looking too hard to fill up the silence in her life and that was why she'd lost her mind with Karev and been unable
to make a decision about Mark that didn't involve the fiasco with her intern. Maybe there was no right guy or soul mate or
perfect match to be found and she needed to just accept it and start having some fun and just move on.
Which would've
all been fine except that life had thrown Pete Finch into her path.
She had ranted once to Naomi that Pete was God's
way of getting back at her for being an adulterous bitch. Nai, of course, thought she was insane, but it made perfect sense
to Addison--take everything she thought she was getting with Derek--the truly kind man with a great sense of humor and a loving
nature--add in just enough of Mark's bad boy tendencies and stunning sensuality, and for good measure, toss a drop of Alex
Karev's "take no prisoners" honesty, and you got essentially everything Addison Montgomery could ever find appealing in a
man. The problem? Said man... was as emotionally unavailable as any male creature on Earth had ever been.
It wasn't
that they weren't close, because they were. Pete was someone she trusted, and Addison had come to see him as a person she
could be honest with and expect truth in return. And they had fun together because he never let her get away with anything
and she loved that he took her teasing without ever getting his feelings hurt. Sometimes when she was down and Naomi and Sam
were busy with Maya or work, Addison thought to call Pete before she even dialed Savvy or Callie or Miranda. And when she
did, he always came, whether it was meeting her at an all-night coffee shop on PCH when she'd fallen apart on the anniversary
of her father's death or coming with her to meet an adoption attorney when she'd finally decided to at least start exploring
an alternative route to parenthood.
If there was a guy still, the mythic right guy who someone--the universe or fate
or God--had picked as her guy, it was Pete... but Pete's scars were just as deep if not deeper than her own. She sometimes
thought there were moments where he wanted to move past the pain and anger that he still so obviously carried over the death
of his wife... and she would hope that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to stop being lonely, too, enough to finally try. But
if they existed at all, they were just that, moments, and then they passed by and Pete was still the same amazing man with
the same baggage holding him firmly in place.
Addison told herself she wasn't waiting around. She had gone out several
times with the owner of her first favorite restaurant in L.A., a French bistro she'd fallen in love with in Santa Monica.
She wasn't above flirting like mad at happy hour at the martini bar Oceanside Wellness called party central. She was... looking,
she guessed. Open. But sometimes when she walked out of the back door of her Spanish colonial and let the sand hug her toes
while she watched the sunset, Addison knew better. She knew she wasn't looking or open. She wanted Pete. But Pete couldn't
let himself want her. And she was done with men who didn't or couldn't want her for who and what she was.
She had
been reminding herself of that fact for perhaps the hundredth time since she'd moved to Los Angeles when Addison heard someone
clear their throat, drawing her eyes up from the beach view she'd been staring at from her deck. Pete was standing at the
bottom of her steps, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a simple black sweater shielding him from the evening breeze coming
off the water.
"I thought you had a date tonight," she said, and Pete shrugged and leaned against the stair railing.
"I did. I was on my way to meet her at some very impressive restaurant she picked, and I suddenly realized I was driving
past your house. And I got about another three miles before I turned around and came back."
Addison stood, drawing
her light jacket closed as she left the slight protection from the wind offered by her seat to walk out to the edge of the
deck. As she got closer to him, she saw that he looked... tired, worn down, and concern drew her brows together.
"Are
you okay?"
Pete was silent as he looked at her for a long moment. Then he stood up straight and shook his head.
"No.
No, I'm not okay."
She was down the steps and in front of him in a heartbeat. Addison took hold of his hand and squeezed
it gently.
"What's going on?"
He glanced down toward their hands, and when he looked back to her, he smiled
slightly.
"This. This is what's going on."
Addison stared at him, utterly confused.
"What... Pete,
what are you talking about?"
He took a deep breath and then she felt him offer her hand a comforting squeeze this
time.
"I'm a train wreck, Addison. I know you know this. I think about being in love again, and I can't breathe, and
I think about... what it would do to me if I ever had to survive a loss like that again... and it makes me run scared from
every person that comes near me that I might love."
"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I know."
"Except I can't seem
to run from you," he declared, going on. "Instead of running, I keep ending up standing right next to you, and I... I don't
know if can..."
He stopped, and Addison realized she was holding her breath when the wait for his next words forced
her to release her tightened lungs to draw in more air.
"I can't promise you anything... but I can't run away from
you, and... as terrified as I am right now, the thing is... I don't want to run."
It was one of those moments, the
beats of time that Addison had thought she'd imagined, only this one was very real and right there in front of her, and she
had a choice to make. Because Pete was being Pete, being honest, and he wasn't telling her he was okay and the demons were
gone and he was ready for happily ever after. He was just saying he wanted to try... to take a chance... have hope.
She
thought about the pain of losing Derek, of realizing her love for Mark wasn't the forever kind and she thought about the last
leap she had taken for possibly all the wrong reasons. Addison thought about what it would mean to consider the broken and
healing parts of Pete's soul in every decision she made from now on, how it could change everything... how the heartbreak
of another loss might finally break her and how the two of them becoming an us could change everything about her life, from
whether or not she stayed in her perfect house on the beach to if she'd ever be someone's mother.
Addison thought
about it all, and then she stood there and she felt the sand hug her toes as she pressed up on them and leaned into Pete,
hoping her kiss was answer enough to all of their questions... at least for now.
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