This fic was written for Irinafan, who donated for a runner-up fic in my "Private Practice" fic auction for SupportStacie.net. With her permission, the story is being posted publicly. She wanted Alex and Addison with a scene of awkward at Casa de Grey.  Spoiler warning if you haven't yet watched the "Private Practice" season finale.

She'd gotten used to the fact that no one believed that she had once been the most awkward girl in high school.  Addison got it.  She'd worked hard to leave that all behind her, and people tended to know what you put in front of them, not what you told them about how you used to be.  While she wasn't ridiculously vain, Addison knew she was pretty and she worked hard to keep her body looking the way it did.  She also knew she was lucky to be able to afford clothes that showed off the package well, and incredibly fortunate to find four-inch Italian heels comfortable for daily wear.

But she knew all too well how painfully shy that strange teenage girl had been.  Her face had taken time to grow into and the braces and curly red hair pulled into braids hadn't helped anything.  Capping it all by being the top student in her class and being rich was like pouring lighter fluid on a lit barbecue--it had set her up for immediate hatred from most of the so-called cool kids.

The fact that she felt like that girl now as she sat outside Meredith Grey's house was both beyond ridiculous and perfectly logical.  She was Addison Montgomery, world-class neonatal surgeon and slayer of medical dragons.  And yet here in Seattle, from the moment she'd arrived, the redhead from New York had been the de facto intruder on the cool kids' table, because even if they were just interns, Meredith Grey's friends were the in crowd, and to Derek, Meredith Grey was the prom queen.

Addison shuddered a little at the mental image that thought brought to mind and she chided herself for dwelling, though she couldn't help but wish that Archer was here beside her instead of at home in Los Angeles recovering from having worm sacs pulled out of his brain.  He'd always been a help when it came to navigating the tables of kids who worshiped him and wondered how in the world the gangly thing beside him could be his sister.  His good looks distracted the girls, and when needed, his fists had made the boys shut the hell up.

She was on her own though, which was nothing new when it came to Seattle, and Addison was keenly aware of why escape to Oceanside had made so much sense.  This had never been her home, and her current stay had only reinforced that.  Now she was done at Seattle Grace, she'd written Miranda Bailey the letter of recommendation she needed to cement her Pediatrics fellowship application, and so Addison was just one stop away from the airport and escape.  All she had to do was muster the courage to leave the car.

She stared at the front porch and sighed.  The house was alive with people... probably the whole crew, including Mark and his teenybopper girlfriend and Addison's very own ex-husband.  No, not Mark and the teenybopper, not after the fistfight.  So probably just the rest of them.  Like that was better, she thought, laughing.  Just the thought of walking into that... it almost made her hate the man she was here to see.  Almost.

The idea of calling him and asking him to come outside to meet her at the car ran through her head, but that would probably only be worse.  Then they'd all think she had something to hide, and really, she was just here to do one simple thing, and damn it, she was Addison freakin' Montgomery.  She was Satan.  She could walk up to the damn door and ask for someone and not care who the hell didn't like it.

As it turned out, she didn't need to ring the bell or knock.  Cristina Yang opened the door in a whirlwind of black hair and jacket sleeves, apparently on her way out.

"Uh, oh.  You... what are you doing here?"

"Hey, Yang.  I, uh... I need to see Karev for a minute."

"Oh, um... he's..."

Cristina peered into one room then around another corner, and just as she was about to report her findings, Meredith bounded down the stairs.

"Oh, hey, you got the door.  Who's..."

Addison couldn't miss the look of concern on Meredith's face at seeing her, nor did the younger woman's glance upstairs go unnoticed.

"You're not here to see Derek, are you?  Because he's kind of wrecked after Jen and everything, and I don't think he can talk about it yet.  And I know you were right and I should've listened, but really, he just... can't."

"No, no, she's not here for Cut Happy," Yang reported.  "She's here to see Devil's Spawn."

"Alex?" Meredith asked.  "Oh, I think he's upstairs.  I can go--"

"Mer, who's at the door?"

Addison seriously would have burst out laughing if this was happening to someone else, but with her cast in the lead of this farce?  The horror was far outweighing the hilarity.  Stevens joined them at the door.

"Dr. Montgomery, hey.  What are you doing here?"

"I, uh... I just had some information I needed to give Alex.  I missed him at the hospital, and I had a few minutes before I went to the airport, so I thought I'd...

"Alex, door, now!" Yang screamed, and then she flashed a quick smile.

"There you go.  See you next time."

"There won't be a next time," Addison said as Yang slipped past her.

"Yeah, right," came the reply as the cardiac-loving resident bounded down the stairs and out to her car.

"So, uh, what was it Alex wanted help with?"

Stevens' voice pulled Addison's eyes back to the front door, and she couldn't help but note the look of worry in the blonde's expression, as if she knew she were part of reason Addison was here.

"He asked me about a case I worked on in Los Angeles, and I never had time to give him the details."

Izzie and Meredith exchanged a glance that clearly conveyed they weren't sure they believed her, but neither of them had the chance to ask more as Alex came down the stairs, pulling a sweatshirt on as he did.  He glanced between his girlfriend and his landlord and seemed to immediately pick up on the discomfort of all three women, so he stepped between Izzie and Meredith and came directly toward Addison's spot on the porch.

"Hey, uh, is everything all right?

"Yeah, yes, I just... I realized we never finished that conversation, and I wanted to do that before I left."

Alex looked at her quizzically for a moment but then recognition melted across his features, and he nodded and cleared his throat.

"Oh, oh, yeah.  Uh, well, why don't you come in, and we can, uh..."

"You can go in the study," Meredith said, and Alex seemed surprised to find that she and Izzie were still standing behind him in the doorway.

"Okay, great.  Come on."

Addison followed him inside, her form passing between Meredith and Izzie who remained seemingly immovable objects there in the entry.

"I'll, uh, be up in a little while, Iz."

Alex closed the door behind them, leaving his fellow housemates looking a little stunned to be shut out.

"Sorry, I... I thought about calling, but I thought I owed you this in person."

He turned toward her and crossed his arms over his chest.

"No, it's fine.  I was in the shower, or I'd have made it down to save you from the snoop patrol faster."

Addison chuckled.  "It was fine.  I used to live in a place like this, actually, with Derek and Archer and Mark, Naomi and Sam.  I remember what it was like."

Alex nodded, but didn't say anything, and she realized he was probably waiting on her.  After all, she had come to see him... because she had never answered his question, and it deserved an answer.

"Are you happy?"

"My brother just had brain surgery."

"No, I know.  I just... I'm with Izzie.  Did you hear?  We're together now.  And she's a mess.  She's a mess.  And I know it's my own fault.  I'm always picking the crazy chick and...  present company excepted.

"I love her.  I do. I love her.  And I want to be with her, except... I kind of don't.  I kind of want to run, 'cause it's like there's a train coming.  There's... I can feel the ground shaking.

Something's coming, and I kind of just want to run, go somewhere new, start over like you did.  So I'm asking, are you happy you did it?  Did it work?"

"I didn't run, Alex.  I walked.  I walked away.  There's a difference."

"Yeah, but are you happy?"

The conversation had caught her off-guard and Addison had been so afraid of saying the wrong thing to him that she'd ignored his question and sent him off to pick up their lab results.  But she knew he deserved to hear what she had to say.  He'd asked because he needed a real answer, and she had come to give him one.

"When you asked me if I was happy in L.A., I wanted to tell you.  The thing is, I'm never sure of what the answer to that question is."

"What do you mean?" he asked, moving closer, and when he motioned for her to sit down, Addison eased into one of the chairs as he sat on the arm of the sofa.

"Some days are... they're good.  And some are horrible.  And I don't think I knew how much of my energy I spent trying to keep everyone happy until I was really away from my family and Derek and Mark and didn't have to try so hard.  So it's better... freer."

"So you are glad... that you did it, I mean?"

She thought about that honestly for a minute and sighed.

"I am.  Because I don't think I would have seen how.... how Seattle never felt right... until I got some distance from it.  But I'm also glad I did it, came here.  If I had just sent those divorce papers in the mail and never seen Derek again, not tried, I think I would've always wondered.  And as brutal as it all felt, at least I don't wonder."

Alex was listening to her intently, and Addison could almost see him turning it all over in his brain, trying to see if anything she said was going to help him in his own struggle.

"So I guess the answer to your question really is, I'm not happy or unhappy.  I just feel like maybe now I have the chance to be something.  And that was worth leaving for.  But..."

She paused, moving toward him, her hand coming to rest on his arm as she knelt down by where he sat.

"The thing I came here to tell you, Alex, is... you don't have to run.  You can handle the train, whatever it's bringing with it.  You have that in you.  Just stand your ground."

He sighed and lowered his eyes.

"I just... what if I can't?  What if I try and I can't take it?"

Addison smiled and squeezed his arm.

"You can't see it in yourself yet, and so I know it seems like you might break.  But, Alex, the man that you're becoming... he's stronger than you give him credit for.  Trust him.  Give him a chance to prove himself."

His eyes rose to meet hers, and she saw all the uncertainty there, the overwhelming fear that he couldn't meet the challenge she was issuing let alone withstand whatever was going to happen with Izzie.

"The thing about trains, Alex, is they go by.  Eventually, they pass through, and sometimes there's wreckage and damage in their wake, but all you have to do is put things back together one piece at a time.  You can handle that."

She stood then, not sure what else she could say to reassure him, but hoping that something she'd said here tonight might help him.  Alex Karev was a good guy, and she hoped someday he would let himself see that.

"Take care, Alex.  And just... keep breathing, okay?"

He stood, walking past her to open the study door.  When Addison heard footsteps scurrying away from the entryway, she shook her head.  Alex ignored the sound and kept moving to the front door, which he held open for her.  When he pulled that shut and followed her out, intent on walking her to her car, she stopped and put her hand up.

"I'm fine, Alex, really.  You don't have to..."

"You came all the way over here.  I can walk you to your car."

She smiled and decided not to fight him when he was trying so hard to be such a gentleman.  Instead she started back down the walkway with him at her side.

"Will you keep me posted on how Jen's little boy is doing?  I checked in with Robbins before I left, but..."

"Sure thing," he answered.  "I asked to stick on his case, and Bailey said I could, so I'll let you know.  Oh, except... I don't have your numbers down there."

Chuckling, Addison opened her purse and pulled a card free from the holder in the side pocket.

"I guess we both forgot that little detail, but there you go.  It has office, cell, e-mail.  Just... whatever's easier for you."

Alex read over the card and then tucked it into the pocket of his jeans as they approached her rental car.  As soon as she clicked the remote unlocking the driver's door, he pulled it open and waited for her to climb in.

"Thank you... for coming here.  I really needed to know."

She smiled at him and nodded.  "I hope it helped.  Bye, Alex."

"Bye, Addison."

He closed the door and then moved to the sidewalk, waiting, she guessed, until he could see that she'd safely made it away from his doorstep.  Addison started the car and pulled out, sparing a slight wave before she drove off from the curb.  By the time she glanced back in the rearview mirror after reaching the stop sign a few hundred feet away, his form had disappeared from sight.

Addison hoped she'd said something that would reassure him.  She wasn't sure what, if anything, had really gotten through.  But she knew she'd done all she could for him.  It was time to go back to her beach and her practice and her brother's recovery.  It was time to go home.

*****

There were days when Addison was fairly certain that if there was a God, he was sitting around with a laptop playing a video game called "How Much Can I Screw Over Addison Montgomery?"

Today was one of those days.

It was awful enough that she was dealing with Naomi's mutiny, which was devastating and hurtful beyond words, not just because her best friend was now working for the enemy, but because she knew that Naomi was as lost as she was, and yet they were oddly unable to help one another.   Still, that was turning out to be the least of her problems.  The practice was barely running--Naomi was gone, which meant Sam was a wreck, Pete and Cooper were hardly even reachable while they took care of Violet and her new baby boy Jake, both of whom had survived their nightmarish close call with Violet's unbalanced mental patient.  Dell was there, but he was still a nervous wreck, keeping Betsey at the practice all day long to make sure that her mother didn't snatch her up and disappear again.

And of course, there was Noah...  Noah and his wife and their new baby boy...  Noah, who she loved in spite of herself and the family she knew she had no right to take him away from.

It didn't matter that he wanted to leave... or that she wanted him to... it only mattered that she knew it wasn't right, and so she continued to send him away every time he showed up asking her to please just let him stay.

The glass of pinot was helping, but really, today was one of those times when Addison wanted to crawl into her bed and listen to the waves and never ever come out of her room ever again.

When she heard the knock at her door, she groaned.  Seriously, if she had to mount the energy to push Noah Barnes away from her again today, she was going to scream... loudly... until she was hoarse.  But she felt that desire die out as she found a form that was part of another life standing outside her door instead.

"Alex?"

"I'm running.  I admit it.  Totally running.  And I just... I started driving and I ended up here."

She urged him in and offered him a beer, which he took gratefully before following her outside.  He joined her on the deck as the late evening sun started to paint the sky pink and purple.

"So... the train?"

Alex took a sip of his beer and then shook his head.

"No.  You were right.  I totally took on that train.  I kicked that train's ass.  And so did Iz.  It was cancer... metastatic melanoma, and it looked bad.  But once she decided to fight, she didn't stop.  And we knew the odds weren't great.  Five percent.  But she beat them.  She kicked its ass."

Addison smiled, relieved to hear that the outcome for Stevens had been a good one.  She knew about the illness via Miranda and Callie, but she hadn't spoken to them in a few weeks, not since things in L.A. had gone haywire thanks to one insanely handsome heart surgeon.  And though Alex had e-mailed to update her on Jen's baby after she'd left, they had dropped off their communication shortly after that--probably, she now assumed--because his hands had been full with Izzie.

"So Stevens is good, though.  That's... that's fantastic, Alex."

"Yeah" he said, nodding before he took another sip of beer.  "It's great.  It really is.  I'm not saying it in that 'oh, it's great, but really not' way either.  But here's the part that's not so terrific.  She left.  I stood my ground and I took that damn train head-on, and she... she lived.  And then she left me."

Her jaw dropped a little at that news.  She'd half expected to find out Alex was a runaway bridegroom not a heartbroken, jilted lover.

"What... where did she go?"

"To see her kid.  Izzie has a kid she gave up when she was young, and the kid finally wants to meet her, so Izzie went to see her.  And then she's going to go ride a bike across Europe... and then she wants to spend a year in France taking cooking lessons and learning French... and I don't know, she made some list and now she's out doing stuff on the list, and she's doing it without me."

Addison wasn't really sure what to say to that.  She took another sip of her wine, and Alex laid back, his hands behind his head, his eyes fixed on the sky above them.

"I get it.  I do.  She almost died and now she has a new lease on life and she wants to go do stuff she was putting off because now she gets that life is short.  And she asked me to go with her.  But I just... I'm a surgeon, you know?  I... I'm a surgeon."

Addison did know, and she sighed and turned so she was looking at him from her spot on the deck.

"Maybe this is just a phase she's got to get through, Alex.  Maybe a few months of moments on her list will be enough, and she'll come home."

He let out a long slow breath and then turned his head to the side so he was looking at her.

"I don't think she's going to come home.  I think... I don't think she's going to come home."

Alex rolled his head back so he was looking straight up again, and Addison laid down on her side, her head propped up in her right hand as her left balanced her wine glass.

"I'm sorry.  I'm not sure what else to say but I'm really, really sorry."

"Thanks," he said.  "Everyone keeps trying to make it all better, so I just... I had to bail for a while.  But, you know... I survived the train at least.  You were right about that."

"Any regrets?"

He rolled onto his side, mirroring her position, and took a drink of his beer.

"No.  I'm glad I stayed.  You were right about that, too."

"I'm so often right about everyone else's life.  I really wish I could get better at that when it comes to my own."

"Uh-oh.  That doesn't sound good."

She laughed and took another drink.

"It's not, trust me."

"Train?"

"A six-foot-tall, dark-haired, married train."

"Crashed and burned?"

Addison sighed and let herself collapse onto the deck, her wrists crossing over her eyes.

"Crashed, burned, miles of twisted wreckage everywhere."

His body shifted, and she guessed he had rolled onto his back again.

"I hate trains."

The statement was so sincere, so matter-of-fact, that Addison burst into laughter.  And Alex followed suit, and they laughed until they could both barely breathe.

"How, uh, how long are you here for?" she asked as she tried to get air back into her lungs.

"Couple of days.  I need to get back in time to find a new place to live before break is over.  Your ex has been trying to get us out of there forever."

"Just don't let him try to rent you the trailer.  That trailer is hell on Earth."

Alex laughed and pointed to her empty wine glass.

"How many of those have you had?"

Addison picked up the glass and looked at it as she counted back.

"This was three.  But I'm sober enough to order takeout and show you where the guest room is... unless you have other plans."

"I really did just get in the car and take off," he confessed.  "So if you don't mind, the guest room would be great."

"Come on.  I'll show you were it is, and you can get settled while we wait for dinner."

Alex scrambled to his feet and offered his hand to help her up, and they headed inside.  Despite her earlier mood, Addison felt better.  She took Alex to the spare room and set him up with towels, and then she started toward the door, intent on finding the takeout menus before she had glass of wine number four.

"Addison?"

His voice stopped her, and she turned around.  Alex stood poised to enter the guest bathroom with a pair of sweats and a t-shirt in his hand, the large towel she'd just handed him tossed over his shoulder.  But he had paused in the doorway and was looking back at her.

"Thanks."

"Anytime," she replied, smiling, meaning it more than she could ever have imagined she would.

*****

For seven months, Addison went about the work of putting her practice back together.  Violet healed and came back to work.  Pete and Cooper got back to normal.  And Sam had decided to fight the good fight to get Naomi back, and while she was still working on the fourth floor, Addison could tell her defenses were weakening.

The office was alive again, happy--Jack and Betsey's near constant presences adding to that--and she was beyond grateful for the change of mood since it contrasted so completely with her personal life.  Noah was still her train... a now divorced train... but that hadn't actually made things better.  He was frustrated that she was letting her guilt stand in their way, and Addison didn't know how to stop feeling guilty or how to start moving past the awful way they'd started.

It also helped that now on those days when she wanted to slam doors or throw her grandmother's china across the room, she instead had the option to pick up her cell phone and send a text message to a friend who didn't need lengthy explanations.  He was content to get her single-line complaints.  She was equally receptive to the brief, sometimes single-word messages he sent her way.  Her favorite exchange to date was still the one they'd had on the Friday afternoon when she'd found out about Noah's divorce papers being filed and Alex had gotten a letter from Izzie telling him how great life in France was.

"He left her.  I hate myself."

"France sucks.  Don't run away there."

But on the day that Noah showed up at her office and said that he was asking for a chance and he was asking for the last time, Addison didn't send Alex a text message.  She showed up on his doorstep after catching the last plane leaving Los Angeles with enough clothes for a weekend and a burning desire to not talk about how scared she was to say yes or how terrified she was that Noah meant that he was done asking.

"I'll change the sheets," he said when he answered the door.  "You can have the bed.  I'll take the couch.  Takeout menus are by the phone.  You have to buy the fancy wine, though.  I only have beer."

She smiled and dropped her bag on the floor and sank down into the only chair that wasn't covered with newspapers or clothes.

"Thanks, Alex."

He smiled and picked up her bag, offering her a one-word response before he took her things into the bedroom.

"Anytime."