So I didn't like Wyatt until the last two weeks he was around, and now I want him back, and then this idea kept plaguing me, so while I'm stuck on another fic, here it goes...

"Take your clothes off."

Wyatt heard himself say the words over and over again as the scene played out in his head on an almost nightly basis.  And no matter how many times it rebooted in his memory, it always ended the same way...

Addison turning on her heel and walking out the door without a word.

Every morning he willed himself to let it go.  It was a missed opportunity--a chance that had come at the wrong time for both of them--and probably, that was for the best.  She was a distraction he couldn't afford at a time when his research was at such a critical point.  Four different pharmaceutical companies had been interested in funding Phase III of his clinical trial, and instead of fine-tuning his report the way he should've been, Wyatt had let himself get caught up in trying to save Addison's patient.  It was foolish... out of character.  Nothing got in the way of his work, not even his marriage.  But she had... he'd allowed her to.

The fact that she had also twice saved his research with her surgical skill was a reality that had been staring back at him from his computer screen at his desk that night... after she'd turned him down again, after she'd walked away in that half-hearted manner that made him want to chase her because really, he felt like she wanted him to.  But he hadn't chased her because Wyatt knew Addison would've told him to go away.  She had her cop, and she was trying to make it work.  So he'd gone back to his office, back to his research and his report and his data.

And then she came to him.

"I don't know what I'm doing here."

He should've told her to leave, that he was working and he'd had enough of being judged by her and if she really wanted a boring Dudley Do-Right boyfriend, then she should go home to her cop.  Part of Wyatt had wanted to say all those things to the redhead as she stood there staring at him, waiting for him.

He hadn't said a word of it though, because another part of him, the part he so rarely let win the fight, wanted to know what it felt like to kiss Addison Montgomery, even if she did think he was an arrogant ass who was only the least bit human.

Really, there was no faulting her for thinking that... it was the exact way Wyatt had wished to be seen.  Until he hadn't.  But by then, it was too late. 

Except it wasn't, because she was there, bewildered and saddened after a horrible few days, and she had come to him seeking... comfort... release... a rush... something.

He'd let her kiss him.  He'd made her decide.  But the moment the kiss moved from a hesitant beat of experimentation to a movement of exploration, Wyatt understood.  She wasn't lying.  She didn't know why she was there.  She wanted... but she wasn't sure and her conflict radiated through the tension in her body.

"Take your clothes off."

And then she was gone.  Every time... every time, she walked away and didn't stop or even look back.

The next morning, Prescott/Landing had called with a funding offer, one good enough to make him clean out his office and head to San Francisco indefinitely when Charlotte had refused to grant him an extended leave.  Three weeks into his meetings and negotiations with P/L, the phone had gotten his attention again... this time, with an offer from Hardwick Pharmaceuticals that had a bonus contingent... one of the three main hospitals where Wyatt wanted to stage his Phase III program was ready to sign on full-bore if he agreed to work with Hardwick.

So he was back in Los Angeles, his new office a mere twelve miles from St. Ambrose and the glass and steel office that had been his at Pacific Wellcare... twelve miles from where Addison Montgomery worked at Oceanside Wellness saving babies that most doctors didn't think anyone could save, bringing mothers back from the brink.

There were cases that made him think of her, of the way she fought him for the sake of her patients, and even if he hated being questioned, he admired how determined she was to battle anything or anyone to get the best result she could.  They were so much alike in that way, even if it had locked them in seemingly mortal combat.  Different approaches, different techniques, and he knew she still thought he was more about the glory than the patients... but really, they were two sides of the same bull-headed coin.

He missed her.  Wyatt just didn't know what to do with that.  The truth was, he'd probably spent a total of 15 hours around her, and that included surgeries where she had barred him from speaking, elevator rides where she had threatened him physically and fights in their mutual offices over who was more wrong about how to treat their patients.   One shared meal of hospital cafeteria mac and cheese, one brief respite where they'd finally stopped talking at one another and finally listened to each another didn't make for some great, heartfelt connection, and one kiss (well, one incident of kissing made up of many, many kisses) didn't scream "great romance."  But he still missed her.  And when fate gave him the perfect excuse to drop by Oceanside Wellness, Wyatt tried to pretend that his five glances in the rear-view mirror to check his hair and the pressure in his chest as he rode the elevator to the fifth floor were all just nerves about the doctors turning down his professional request.

Of course, he knew better.  Naomi was thrilled to hear that Claudia Jenkins, done processing her grief about not being able to carry her own child, was ready to move on with a surrogate and egg donation, and she wanted the doctors at Oceanside to handle the procedure.  She also wanted Addison to oversee the pregnancy, and though Naomi offered to broach the topic with her partner, Wyatt cleared his throat, took a deep breath and said that no, he'd handle it.

She was sitting at her desk poring over a journal article.  He watched as Addison wrote notes on a pad to her right, then as she sat her pen down only to reach for a coffee cup a few inches away.  When she lifted it to her lips and found it empty, she sighed deeply and then stood up, cup in hand.  And that's when she finally saw him lurking in her doorway.

"What... Wyatt?  What are you... I thought you were gone."

"I am... at least from Pacific Wellcare.  But my Phase III research is running out of University, so I'm back.  In L.A., I'm back."

She stared at him a moment, and then nodded before she moved toward him.  Wyatt could help but laugh when Addison gave him a passing glance as she continued on toward the kitchen and a refill for her empty cup.

"You don't even want to know why I'm here?" he asked as he trailed after her.  Addison shrugged.

"Why are you here, Dr. Lockhart?"

She picked up the coffee pot and found it empty.  He stepped closer to the counter as she started to set up a new pot to brew.

"Claudia Jenkins came in for a checkup."

Addison's face immediately switched from annoyance with him to concern.

"Is she all right?"

Wyatt smiled.  "Fine.  In fact, she's decided to use a surrogate to have her baby.  She wants Naomi to handle it, and she'd like you to handle the pregnancy if, you know, you think you can stand being associated with me on a case again."

The annoyance quickly returned to her expression in the form of a raised eyebrow.

"This won't be about you."

"No," he agreed, "of course not."

"I can imagine how much soul-searching it took for Claudia to accept that pregnancy wasn't something she was going to get to experience for herself.  But she fought so hard to live.  I'm glad she's going to let herself have her dream, even if she has to get there a different way than she'd hoped."

She tried to smile, but the curve of her lips didn't make it to Addison's eyes, and Wyatt wondered at the reason.  But he knew it would take time for him to get that answer.  He had an obstacle course to navigate first, and his only source for hope that he might succeed was that he was the one who'd put up the cones and caution signs with his rude behavior and caustic comments.  He had to be able to undo it... he had to find his way through.

"How have you been?"

Addison ignored him and pulled the carafe free of the coffee maker, using the delay feature to fill up her own cup.

"I'm asking because I really want to know, Addison.  How have you been?"

She shook her head and looked at him incredulously.

"How have I been?  You kiss me, act like an ass and then disappear without a word after chasing after me for weeks... my brother almost died, I had to go back to Seattle and deal with the ex-husband of a lifetime past and now here you are all 'gee, Addison, how have you been?'  Really, Wyatt?"

He took a beat to steel his nerves before following as she marched past him, her anger at him radiating off of her.  But Wyatt took it as another positive sign... if she was angry, she had to have cared in the first place.

Shutting her office door behind him, Wyatt stood firm, hands in his pockets as she slammed her coffee cup down and pointed an accusing finger his way.

"You played with me.  You made me into a game, and when I didn't respond to your asinine command that I take my clothes off for you in your office after one kiss, you up and leave and don't even have the common decency to even write an e-mail telling me you're leaving town?  I thought I was wrong about you.  For one insane moment of craziness, I thought I'd been wrong, but I wasn't.  You're an ass, Wyatt--a conceited, selfish, egomaniacal ass!"

Her rant was punctuated by furious gestures, a careful attempt to control the volume of her voice and finally an exasperated half-scream.  It was a scene he imagined would have horrified him and sent him running if any other woman were its originator.  But Addison Montgomery wasn't scary or repulsive when she hit girl flip-out mode.  She was freakin' adorable, and Wyatt couldn't stop himself from bursting out laughing.

"Are you..."  She stopped and walked towards him, her mouth open in shock.  "Are you laughing at me?"

That made him laugh harder, and he put his arms up in a defensive pose as his increased hysterics led to the redhead's highly skilled hands coming at him in a flurry of slaps.

"Okay, okay, I'm stopping.  I'm stopping the laughing.  Can you stop the hitting?"

She gave his shoulder one last smack and then crossed her arms in front of herself with an outraged huff.

"Can you just go, please, before I decide that I can't even tolerate you long enough to help Claudia?  Just... just go back to wherever you came from."

She turned and started back toward her desk, and Wyatt instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm.  She whirled around ready to swat him away, but he grabbed her other hand at the wrist as it moved forward.

"I promise I'll go after this."

"After what?"

He pulled her closer to him, then Wyatt released her, his right arm sliding around her waist in a light hold she could have easily broken free from if she wanted to.  So far, she hadn't made a move.

"You aren't supposed to be who you are.  You weren't supposed to be different than all the other hot bodies who were perfectly content to enjoy me and move on.  And the more you didn't want the shiny veneer, the more you didn't care about the act... I saw who you were, Addison.  You let me see who you were."

His throat felt dry and he waited for her to pull away, for her palm to meet his cheek.  But she just stared at him, curious, wondering what else he had to say.

"I said what I did because I knew it would make you walk away.  You were already regretting it, me... after the kiss.  And I didn't want that.  I did not want us to be something you'd wished had never happened."

"You... you want me to think you cared about anything beyond getting lucky that night?  That's why you just disappeared?  I came back for you, Wyatt.  I came back.  And yes, it took me time to do that because I needed to finish things with Kevin and I wanted to be coming to you for you and not because I was confused or sad, and I came back, and you were gone."

He hadn't known that part of their story.  He'd never known she came back for him.  And Wyatt felt the stakes of this moment in his life increase ten-fold at hearing it.

"I don't let people see me." 

The tremor in his voice surprised him, but he didn't let it stop him.

"I don't let my patients see how much I care because I know so many of them are going to die, and I don't want them to have to carry my feelings on top of their own.  I stopped letting my wife in because she didn't like what she did see.  She didn't want a man driven to the point of insanity by some mystical possibility of saving a life, she wanted a husband who saw patients 9 to 5 and was home for her every night.  And other doctors see me as a rival or an obstacle, so there's no point in caring what they see.  So I don't let people see me... and it made me stop looking at who was standing in front of me."

He felt her back push against his arm and Wyatt realized he'd pulled her too tightly against him as his emotions got the better of him.  He eased his hold and sighed when she relaxed at his giving way but still made no move to separate herself from him.

"You made me look at you, Addison.  And I saw that the fight about the patients wasn't about me or you wanting to beat me, it was about the patients.  You were ready to do anything you could, even work with someone you didn't trust, to try to give that little girl and her family hope.  And then there you were in front of me, wanting me and not wanting to feel that way and it wasn't because it was me.  You were trying to do right by your cop, by yourself, but you still wanted me.  And so yes, I left without a word because if I had said good-bye, if I seen you again, I would've stopped at nothing until you were mine, and you would've hated me for it."

She drew in a breath and it was shaky, which somehow comforted him... at least he wasn't the only one who was moved or whose boundaries had somehow fallen without permission.  He'd never intended this, for him to expose himself so completely, but now it was done, and Addison stood silently as she looked at him, weighing his words.

"When you walked in here, did you know I wasn't with him or..."

Wyatt shook his head.  "No.  I came here to see if there was a chance, if you were still willing to hear what I had to say.  I missed you... and I had to come and see if there was anything left when you looked at me."

Her lips curved into a smile then, and even though her eyes dropped as she took in a deep breath to steady herself, Wyatt felt the tension leave his body because he had his answer.

"What did you think would happen... if you came here and I heard you out and there was still something there when I looked at you?"

Wyatt let a small grin seep onto his face.  "I thought maybe you'd let me buy you a crazy expensive dinner to make up for my whole disappearing act... and that maybe after dinner, if you hadn't found a reason to run, we could maybe plan to spend some more time together... you know... seeing each other."

Her hand dropped down to where his sat in the curve of her waist, and Addison gently lifted his fingers up, escaping from his hold finally, her eyes locked with his through the entire process.  Then she walked back to her desk and eased down into her chair, her elbows coming to rest on the tabletop, her eyes never leaving his through all of her movements.

"Make reservations for 7:30, you can pick me up here.  You actually show up, and we'll go from there."

His grin widened into a full-on smile.

"I'll see you tonight."

And he would, and Wyatt knew for the first time in a very long time, he was looking forward to being seen in return.