Interlude (Come Fly With Me) by irinafan, NC-17 [ Part II ]
Check Part I for disclaimer, summary, etc.
Interlude (Come Fly With Me) - Part II
She took three days off after prom. The first day, she moved out of the trailer and into Seattle’s most prestigious hotel. The second day, she got horribly drunk and mourned the end of her marriage with lots of whiskey, scotch and other funny drinks. She didn’t touch the tequila. The morning of the third day found her in her lawyer’s office, filing divorce papers.
Two weeks later, they were divorced. Irreconcilable differences, they’d both named as the reason. And all of a sudden, she was a free woman. It didn’t really hit home until Alex Karev greeted her without the hyphen plus the Shepherd added to her name. “Good morning, Doctor Montgomery,” he said, and she stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him confused for a second.
“It is Montgomery now, isn’t it?”
She stared at him for another few seconds, and then nodded her head, a slow smile spreading across her face. He smiled back, and she suddenly got aware of the fact that he hadn’t touched her since prom night. She’d been too caught up in the whole divorce circus with Derek, she’d been constantly changing between confused and sad and angry, she hadn’t even thought of anything that had to do with him. But now, she was a free woman. Free to do whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted, whenever and wherever she wanted. It made her nervous, but it also made her happy and excited in a way she hadn’t been in ages. Her life wasn’t predetermined anymore like it had been the past few years, living with Derek, working with Derek, eventually having kids with Derek; no, it was suddenly all open and fresh and new again. Different, new, exciting opportunities.
Of course, her ex-husband (it took her some time to get the “husband” out of her head) and Meredith managed to put a damper on her new-found happiness only a half day later when she caught them making out in an elevator. They’d been officially divorced for a mere hours and he was already going at it with his intern. She promptly turned on her heel and decided to take the stairs for the rest of the day, trying hard not to be too bitter about it all.
The constant climbing of stairs didn’t do her feet any good, especially with the new pair of heels that she hadn’t properly broken in yet, and at the end of the day her feet were red and hurting all over. She took some paperwork with her and fled into the attendings’ lounge, taking her shoes off with a relieved sigh and putting her feet up on the old couch in there. Half an hour later, her intern found her.
“Need your signature on the post-op notes,” he said, grinning boldly, his eyes skimming her outstretched form. She chuckled and reached for the chart he was holding out to her, opening it and starting to look over it. She saw him close the door and search for a place to sit down from the corner of her eye, but the only other sitting accommodation was a chair, and that was covered in her paper work. In the end, he just grabbed her legs, lifted them up and sat down at the end of the couch, placing her feet into his lap.
“Hey!” she protested, but he just smirked, and she shook her head and continued to read the chart, occasionally throwing glances in his direction. He was inspecting her feet with great interest, and she was just about to sign her name on the chart when he started to touch her. The pencil stopped midway, hovering over the chart, while she waited for his next move. He put his palms on top of her feet, and slowly started kneading her soles with his fingers. She sighed, not sure if she should let him continue or not, but then his thumbs started to slowly rub along the top of her feet, and the pencil fell from her hand when she leaned her head back in contentment.
“Like it?” he asked, and she answered with a breathy “Yeah,” adding massaging feet to the list of things his hands were good at. That reminded her of other times with his hands, and when she looked up and their eyes locked, she realized that she really, really wanted to (finally) kiss him. “I’m divorced.” She blurted out, and “You’re divorced,” he repeated, smiling, but didn’t make any other move. Unfortunately, that was when she remembered the incident with Derek and Meredith in the elevator the same morning, and her smile froze a little. She wasn’t even divorced for a full 24 hours, and she didn’t want to follow her ex-husband’s footsteps. She wanted to somehow honour this divorce, after all it marked the end of a third of her life, and she really wanted to give it a bit of time. At least a week, in any case, even though that still seemed ridiculous compared to twelve years of marriage. Alex seemed to think the same, because he suddenly stopped his movements and reached for the chart.
“I think I should go.” He said, and she nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think that would be a good idea.” He left the room, and she pulled up her knees to her chest and placed her chin on top of them, lost in thought. Seconds later, he barged back in and she almost fell off the couch in surprise. “You forgot to sign the chart,” he explained, and she blushed, biting her lip in amusement. She quickly scribbled her signature, and he left, this time for good.
* * *
They both took care to stay strictly professional for the entire next week, but once that had passed, the flirting started. It wasn’t big and obvious, it was more little things and glances and sometimes touches that only the two of them noticed. They both knew that they wanted each other, so they didn’t have to worry about that but could concentrate entirely on the anticipation.
“Since when do you wear glasses?” he asked one morning after sidling up to her flipping through a chart, and she leaned against the wall and peered at him over the rim. “Since I’ve been having headaches and my eye specialist told me they come from putting too much strain on my eyes without the glasses, and that I should wear them to read?”
“Aaaah,” he said. “Well, they look hot on you.” He smiled at her and then turned around to go and pick up a patient from a CT scan, leaving her standing there a little breathless. She liked that about him, how he didn’t go out of his way to make her excessive compliments: he either said nothing or was nicely honest in his typical Karev-manner. He wasn’t the flower-type of guy, or the candle light dinner guy, he just wanted her in his bed, and he didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t mind at all. The last time she had had actual sex, that had been almost six months ago, and then there hadn’t been anything except for his fingers (and his tongue) between her legs. That had been nice, but she really, really wanted to get laid again, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that it would be with him.
Still, it took her another two weeks to finally muster up the courage to do something about it and turn up on his doorstep one evening. She’d ruled out the hospital immediately: they didn’t need to get caught, and she couldn’t bring herself to invite him to her hotel room. She knew she’d feel weird about taking a man upstairs in front of the concierge or the bellboy, which was completely ridiculous since it was probably normal for them, but still. So the only other option was his place, and she carried that idea around with her for a whole week before she finally executed it. She’d already done it almost two days before, but freaked out when she didn’t know what to wear. What did one wear to a sex date? Clothes were only there to be taken off, and she had overanalyzed and spent an afternoon in front of her wardrobe before giving up and postponing it. Two days later, she took a quick shower at the hospital after work, changed back from scrubs into normal clothes, took a look at the shift plan and then spontaneously drove directly to his place.
“Hey,” he said, grinning broadly at her after opening the door. “Hey,” she said back and stepped into his flat, twisting her hands a little. He took her coat and then led her into the kitchen, immediately opening a cabinet and taking a bottle of wine and two glasses out of it. He found them way too fast for her taste, and she leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms in front of her.
“You knew I’d come,” she said, trying to keep the accusing tone out of her voice, but he merely smiled and looked up at her while searching for a corkscrew in a drawer. “I didn’t know, but I was hoping you would,” he answered and closed the drawer with his hip. “I’ve had that bottle for about a week and a half, but I figured you’d take a bit longer than that.” He held one of the glasses out to her, halfway filled with deep red liquid. She moved towards him cautiously, taking the wine from his hand and leaning against the counter while taking a sip.
“Oh, that is good.” She was surprised and reached for the bottle to take a look at the label. “How much did you pay for that wine?” But he quickly shifted the bottle out of her reach and placed himself between it and her, leaning against the counter next to her. “Let’s say, it was affordable,” he answered and tried to distract her with a smile. Her eyes narrowed, but she decided not to pry further, since he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. He shifted a little closer to her and turned his body until it was facing hers, and she swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry. When she placed her glass on the counter, her hand shook a little and he threw her a curious look when he saw it. “You’re nervous,” he noted, surprised, and she gave a small laugh that sounded strange even to her own ears, looking anywhere but at him. Of course she was nervous.
He put his own glass away and came even closer, placing his hands on her hips and moving his body into hers. She still didn’t look up, instead observing her hands winding around each other uneasily. He didn’t press her, but his thumbs were stroking her hipbones softly, reassuring her that he wasn’t going anywhere. God, this was embarrassing. Such a bad idea-she was acting like a virgin, like some stupid high school girl before her first time. He was still waiting for her to talk to him, so she gave a deep sigh and finally summoned the courage to tell him.
“It’s just that-it’s just that I was married for the past twelve years, and before that we’d been dating for three, and then there was only Mark, and ….” And basically, she’d only slept with two men in the last fifteen years. She hid her face behind her hands, absolutely mortified at just having admitted that fact to her intern, but he only chuckled and tugged her closer to him.
“Well, it’s like riding a bicycle,” he deadpanned and she pulled a hand from her face and smacked it into his chest, laughing heartily. He used her momentary distraction to press a kiss to her neck, and when she didn’t protest but tilted her head to give him better access, he left a trail of more kisses up to her jaw. She stopped laughing and looked up at him, their eyes meeting, both of them smiling. She glanced quickly at his lips and saw him swallow, which made her swallow in return. The whole thing somehow shifted, he took her face into his hands and then, after months of waiting for it, his lips were finally on hers. She opened her mouth for him immediately, their tongues meeting and swirling around each other, one of her hands behind his neck to pull him closer, the other at his butt, pressing their bodies against each other. He didn’t move away from her this time, instead bumped his hips into hers, and she forgot all about her nervousness when she suddenly remembered the six months without sex. The kiss started to get more heated and his hands left her face and wandered her body, as she moaned quietly into his mouth.
She broke away from his lips, breathing heavily, to ask a question: “I get to touch you too now?”
“And I get to see all of you naked,” he answered before bending down to suck on her neck. “I think you should take off your shirt,” she mumbled and reached for the bottom of it, already tugging it over his head. “Only if you take off yours,” and his hands quickly unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it out of her skirt.
He took her by the hips, guiding her out of the kitchen, and they stumbled through the corridor, lips and hands all over each other. He unzipped her skirt, and her hands went to unbuckle his belt and push his pants down his legs while she tried to step out of the skirt and her heels at once. She lost her balance and he barely caught her, pressing her into his body, his hands splayed out against her butt. They both laughed, breathlessly, and she jumped a little, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. “Bedroom,” she whispered against his lips before covering them with her own again, her eyes closing.
They fell on the bed in a mess of limbs, rolling around in a quest for the top position. She won (even though she had the feeling that he let her) and bent down over him to lick his earlobe; he used the chance to unclasp her bra behind her back. He turned them over, trapping her hands effectively against the covers, and started sucking on her right nipple, eliciting a quiet gasp from her. Her back arched off the sheets, and one of his hands moved between her legs, rubbing her through her panties. She was already soaking wet, and he quickly dragged her panties down her legs while her own hands moved to cup him through his boxers. He groaned and threw his head back, giving her an opportunity to tug them down over his ass, until he himself helped her take them off him. She absently noticed that his hands were shaking too now, probably from restraining himself, and she felt so incredibly wanted, she had to screw her eyes shut to keep herself from coming right there this second.
He moved his lips to her neck again, holding his body over hers, and she squirmed because it wasn’t enough contact. His erection brushed her thigh, and her hips instinctively bucked upwards into his, both of them groaning. She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him hard,
wrapping her legs around his waist. “Forget the foreplay,” she whispered into his ear, and he didn’t waste any time but slipped into her immediately.
Her head fell back against the covers and she moaned when he started to move in and out slowly. They’d waited so long, she’d no idea how he managed to hold back like this, and the thought that he did it for her made her tighten her legs and arms even more around his body. He was still being all considerate and careful, but she couldn’t care less about slow and soft in that moment-there’d be enough time for that later-right now she just wanted to get fucked (and there was no sugar-coating it), preferably as hard as possible.
She met his next thrust with her own hips, taking his earlobe between her teeth and then hissing: “Faster. More!” in her most demanding voice, her fingers digging into his back. His whole body shuddered, and he couldn’t hold back the next time he pushed into her and did it a lot harder than previously, stopping for a short moment to wait for her reaction. When she only moaned appreciatively, he groaned and finally gave up on controlling himself, putting an arm under her waist to angle her hips better up into his, and then started moving as fast and hard as he could.
It didn’t take them long, and she came a little earlier than he did, her whole body going rigid, the violent throbbing between her legs sending him over the edge too. He collapsed on top of her groaning, and they stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to catch their breath, he not bothering to support his weight with his arms. She didn’t mind it; she liked feeling him all heavy and spent on top of her, the muscles between her legs still softly contracting a few last times.
“Well, that was definitely worth waiting for,” he announced into her shoulder, his usual, brutally honest self, and she laughed, taking his face into her hands and kissing him lazily on the mouth. She felt absolutely wonderful. She’d expected a bout of guilt, but there wasn’t anything except for a lazy contentment spreading through her entire body. She was officially a single woman, and she’d just finally gotten laid without having to worry about how bad the sex would be, and how she could maybe spice it up a little. He rolled off her and tugged the covers up around them, and she wordlessly turned on her side and pressed her body back into his. He put an arm around her waist, drawing slow patterns on her stomach, and she wanted to purr. “Mmmhmmm, this is nice,” she mumbled instead. “Yeah?” he asked against her neck, and she covered his hand with her own, echoing him: “Yeah.”
They drifted into a phase of drowsy dozing, readjusting legs and arms from time to time. She enjoyed the sensation of a naked body against her, feeling wonderfully relaxed. “How much did you really pay for that wine?” she asked after some time, and he sighed, nuzzling his face into her hair.
“250 bucks,” he mumbled, and she scrunched up her nose and turned her head to look back at him. She kissed him softly on the mouth. “Next time, I’ll be happy with a beer.”
“You like beer?”
“I love beer.” They grinned at each other, and she wriggled her hips back into his, silently asking. He hissed in surprise, and she reached behind her, her hand closing around his length, slowly moving up and down. “God, Addison,” he groaned and bit her shoulder, and his own hand travelled downwards from her stomach. She gasped when he slid a finger into her, spreading her wetness around, and she sped up her own movements around his erection. His other hand closed around one of her breasts, his thumb flicking her nipple, his mouth sucking on her neck. He pulled her even closer into him, and she lost her grip around him when he bit her lightly. His fingers twisted and curled into her, and she gasped when he pulled them out and quickly pushed into her from behind. He stopped for a moment, bringing his mouth close to her ear, his palm softly teasing her clit. “Still want it hard and fast?” he whispered against her skin, and she answered his question by bucking her hips forcefully back into him. They both groaned, and she closed her eyes when he started thrusting into her like she wanted it, mirroring the rhythm of his hips with his hand, rubbing furiously between her legs.
* * *
“When do you have to get up tomorrow?” he asked from behind her some time later.
“I don’t, I have the day off.”
“Oh cool, me too.” She felt him grinning into her hair and turned her head to give him a wicked smile.
“I know, I looked it up.” She almost wanted to stick her tongue out at him, but figured that she was maybe a little too old for things like that at 38. She turned around in his arms until she was facing him, and he chuckled. “You planned this.”
“You got a problem with that?” she raised and eyebrow at him.
“Nope. I certainly don’t have a problem with a newly divorced, totally ravenous, horny woman in my bed.” He smirked and put a hand to her ass, squeezing softly, laughing when she smacked him hard.
“You’re incorrigible.” She put her hands to his shoulders and pushed him on to his back: “But…” she quickly threw a leg over his body and went to straddle him, “You’re also right.”
They didn’t sleep much that night and spent the next day mainly in bed, only interrupted by a short tour she took through his flat out of curiosity, clothed only in a bed sheet, and ordering some pizza that they ate, with her sitting in his lap, at the kitchen table.
When they finally went to work the next morning, she was sore all over, but in a wonderfully pleasant, yes-I-had-too-much-sex way. It reminded her of her last night with Mark: she’d only come by his apartment to pick up the last of her stuff, but somehow ended up staying the night, and they’d spent it having hard and violent sex, both trying to hurt and mark the other. She usually wasn’t a screamer, she moaned and groaned and gasped; but that was the first time ever she screamed, with Mark holding on to her and them moving against each other desperately. She’d left before he woke up, barely able to walk, and that soreness had stayed with her for the next few days. If he’d wanted to mark her, he’d certainly succeeded, because she’d had to face her husband for the first few days with the soreness from Mark still between her legs, and she’d felt horribly guilty about it.
Now, she was walking around with the results of her night and day with Alex between her legs, and when she ran into Derek at the nurse’s station, she greeted him cheerfully, her lips almost turning into an evil grin when she thought about her nightly activities. Derek looked at her confused: he still seemed to expect her to walk around with a sad, oh-my-husband-dumped-me face, and his expression turned into a mask of shock when she told him that Meredith was looking for him on the second floor, smiling broadly at him.
She laughed and turned around, incredibly happy that she wasn’t bound to this man anymore, and went to find her intern to go through today’s charts with him.
* * *
They had sex often and whenever and wherever they wanted, even though they tried to keep it to a minimum at the hospital to avoid getting caught. She moved out of the hotel and leased a small apartment a little out of town in a quiet area, but they still spent more time at his place; she said she liked it better than hers and it was closer to the hospital. They had a particularly memorable time on the rooftop of SGH, as well as on a clearing in the woods close to her new place, and after a few weeks she stopped worrying that he might eventually stop wanting her. They enjoyed each other, it was nice and uncomplicated, they both got laid on a regular basis, and they started to talk about everything and anything, getting to know each other in the process. They alternated between beer and wine, as well as pizza and Chinese, but she made him promise not to spend a quarter of his salary on an expensive bottle again.
They still worked together, falling back into their old pattern, except that he’d finally stopped complaining about being a part of the “vagina squad,” as he called it, and sometimes she even had the feeling he actually liked working with babies and pregnant mothers. Sometimes she yelled at him (always with reason though), and sometimes it ended up in sex, other times it didn’t.
A few weeks later, she was standing in the empty locker room, her scrub top pushed up, looking at three very distinct, red bruises on her back in the mirror. The evening before they’d been at his apartment and somehow ended up going at it in his kitchen, he pinning her to his fridge and moving into her fast and hard, her hands locked behind his neck. She’d barely noticed them at that time (she’d been way too distracted for it), but the magnets sticking to the white premium steel had been digging into her back, and now she was sporting three weirdly shaped bruises, one in the form of a woman’s legs, naked save for a pair of very slutty stockings. She chuckled a little and softly touched a finger to that particular red spot, tracing the line of the small garter belt, when the door opened behind her.
“Hello, Addison.” An all too familiar voice greeted her, and she gasped, turning around and coming face to face with Mark Sloan.
“Mark!” she yelped surprised, quickly tugging her shirt down, staring at him in shock. He quickly crossed the few feet between them and enveloped her in a hug that she was too surprised to fight off, her own arms coming up around his neck automatically. His fingers dug into one of her bruises and she winced, pulling back a little. Before she could even ask him what he was doing in Seattle, a pager beeped. She entangled herself from his arms to reach down to her hip, but the display was silently staring back at her.
“It’s mine,” Mark said, reaching down to his own hip.
“You’ve got a pager.” She noted, alarmed. “Why do you have a pager, Mark?” She couldn’t quite keep the panic out of her voice, but he was already on his way to the door.
“Because I work here, Addison.” He answered and smirked at her over his shoulder, confirming her worst fears before rushing out of the room. “I’ll see you later!” he called back.
Oh crap. She’d expected him to turn up ever since the divorce had become official, and she’d had several scenarios in her head detailing how that could possibly happen, but none of them included him working at SGH. Her lips tightened and she figured she’d have to have a serious talk with a certain someone.
She arrived at Richard’s office simultaneously with Derek, who was fuming, and seemed to blame her for Mark’s sudden reappearance. “This is all your fault,” he hissed, clenching his fists at his side and stepping so close to her she could make out the pores on his face. She was too stunned to reply for a moment, and he took that opportunity to shoot more barbs at her: “If you hadn’t slept with Mark, then he wouldn’t turn up like this now: he’s only here to get you back into his bed. I’m wondering, did you call him here just to annoy me?”
That got her going, and she felt herself losing control, almost yelling at him: “If I hadn’t slept with Mark, then we’d still be stuck in New York together, having horrible sex and ignoring each other, and you’d have never met your PERFECT little intern, so you should be HAPPY that I cheated on you with him.” She was in his face now, pointing a finger at his chest, her face turning red. “In fact, you should be THANKING me for it.”
The door they were standing in front of opened, and Richard appeared behind it, frowning, and they both turned their wrath on him. “You HIRED Mark Sloan??” they said in unison, and he sighed, rubbing his face and inviting them in with a wave of his hand.
Richard explained to them how Mark had made him an irresistible offer, how the plastics department had been neglected for ages, how adding Mark to the staff gave the hospital a whole new set of opportunities, blablabla. Addison tuned out when he called Mark a “brilliant surgeon,” which he definitely was, except for his lack of bedside manner.
The chief had already made a definite decision and Mark had signed his contract already, and Addison realized that there really wasn’t anything they could do about it. Well then, she was a professional-she’d deal with it. Derek however didn’t seem to want to accept it, arguing loudly and still looking for a way out.
“I don’t care how brilliant he is, he fucked my wife on my favourite sheets and now you hired him. I thought you were supposed to be my friend,” he added petulantly, his face red with anger. Both Addison and Richard stared at him open-mouthed, but Richard found his voice again first. “I AM your friend, but I am also your boss. And as your boss I’m telling you I couldn’t turn down Sloan’s offer, so you are going to get over your personal issues with him and you are going to do your job, Doctor Shepherd.”
“But-”
“Shut up, Derek,” she interrupted him, getting up. “It’s done, he’s made up his mind. And just for the record, I’m your ex-wife and not your wife.” She left the room in a hurry and quickly walked down the bridge, almost knocking down Alex when she turned the next corner too fast. He grabbed her by the elbow to steady both of them, catching sight of her flushed face and her lips pursed in anger.
“You okay?” he asked concerned, quickly taking a look around them and brushing a stray strand of her from her face. “I’m fine,” she said quickly, stepping away from him a little when she saw a nurse come closer from the corner of her eye. “I have a pelvic exam scheduled in a few minutes on the third floor, so I have to get going. I’ll see you later.” He nodded, sending her a strange look, but she didn’t have the time to ask him what was wrong.
A few hours later, a plane crashed during its landing approach at Sea-Tac, and the next three days were absolute hell. She ran from one emergency surgery to the next, lost two babies and three mothers, crashed for a few hours on the couch in the attendings’ lounge (the on-call rooms were all overcrowded), and she didn’t see Alex at all outside of surgery. While she could barely find the time to grab something to eat in between, Mark and Derek somehow managed to have a screaming match in the middle of the surgical floor, leaving Richard fuming and the rumour mill circulating wildly. By the time she got out of surgery, Mark had supposedly threatened to kill Derek with a scalpel while her ex-husband had tried to hit him with a pot plant from in front of Richard’s office. It gave her a good laugh, but she didn’t worry about it when she saw both of the opponents without bruises or missing limbs in the cafeteria. (Of course not simultaneously, but with a time difference of roughly half an hour.)
At the end of the third day, when her pager had finally stopped beeping every twenty minutes, she fled to the roof to have a few quiet minutes to herself. She stood at the corner, closing her eyes and letting the wind blow softly through her hair, enjoying the last rays of sunshine on her face. She didn’t hear the door to the roof creak open, and only noticed him when he stepped up next to her to the wall. She opened her eyes and watched him place his hands on the rail, his thumbs pressing into it almost nervously.
“Hi,” Mark said softly, and she sighed. She allowed herself to look out at the skyline a little longer, a few peaceful moments more, before she turned to look at him.
“Mark, why are you here?” she finally asked quietly, her eyes searching his face. He didn’t answer but instead tightened his grip on the rail.
“If you’re here because you want me back, you shouldn’t have come.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. “Look, I’m not saying this because of Derek. I’m not saying this because I don’t want to be with you because it could anger Derek, it’s just….” She trailed off, unsure how to continue.
“We tried, we tried in New York, and it was good for a while, and then it didn’t work anymore.”
“But you’re divorced now,” he protested, as if her being married had been the only problem, and she hated the hopeful look on his face.
“Yes, I’m divorced. I’m divorced, and I couldn’t care less what Derek thinks, and if I still wanted you, I’d have called you weeks ago or flown out to New York. But the thing is, I don’t. I don’t, and-”
“What if I still want you?”
“Then you’ll have to get over it.” That sounded harsh even to her own ears, and she tried to soften it up a little: “I’m doing the same thing. I still have feelings for Derek, of course I have, but I’m working on getting over that. I’m letting it go, because we, Derek and I, we didn’t work out. You should do the same thing.”
“Addison, please, I-” He reached a hand out for her, but she put up her own, dodging his touch, and backed a few steps away from him.
“No, Mark. We’re over. I didn’t want to get divorced for you, and you didn’t want to stop sleeping around for me. We didn’t work. And I’m not saying that because I want you to chase me or anything, I’m saying it because it is the truth and if you’re only here to get me back, you shouldn’t stay for that. It’s not going to happen, and it’s only going to hurt you even more.”
She turned to leave, a breath of relief on her lips, but she was sure she heard him saying, “We’ll see about that, Addison,” behind her quietly. Just great.
* * *
She was absolutely exhausted, tense from her argument with Derek and the draining talk with Mark, and she really needed to relieve a bit of that tension and wanted to see a friendly face for a change, so she spontaneously drove over to Alex’s place. He opened the door with a mixture of surprise and relief on his face, but she didn’t have time to wonder about it when he tugged her into his arms upon seeing the exhaustion in her face. She slumped against him, sighing, and he half-carried her over to his bedroom.
He was incredibly slow and gentle, taking extra care to pay attention to every last single sensitive spot on her body, holding her close when he slowly slid in and out of her, almost a little desperate. She opened her mouth to ask him what was going on, but he pressed a finger to her lips and moved down between her legs again, his tongue flicking out against her clit. She forgot her question and he didn’t stop until he’d made her come twice more.
When they finally lay next to each other, sated and spent, she waited for him to speak and tell her what was bothering him. She’d learned over the past few weeks that prying made him close up and refuse to talk at all; she had to wait for him to start talking of his own accord if she really wanted to know what he was thinking.
“I won’t hold it against you, you know. If you want to go back to him.”
She turned her head, raising one of her brows questioningly.
“Sloan,” he said, spitting the name out as if it was a toxic substance.
Oh. Well, that explained a lot. She’d already wondered why Alex hadn’t been at Mark’s side the second he turned up in Seattle, sucking up to him and trying to get into a few of his surgeries. Looking back at it, she knew of at least two burn victims he’d treated in the past 72 hours, but Alex hadn’t even gone near any of them as far as she knew.
“You did notice that I am currently lying in your bed naked, didn’t you?” she asked him, rolling over and pressing her body into his side to emphasize what she’d just said.
“Yeah,” he admitted, still unsure.
“That should tell you enough.”
He searched her face a few seconds for signs of doubts or dishonesty, but then his lips curved up into a small grin. “Okay,” he said, relieved, and she smiled back at him tiredly, placing her head on his chest.
“Good. And now shut up. I have a seven am surgery tomorrow: I need sleep.” She put her arm around his waist, cuddling into him, and he pulled her closer, sighing before closing his eyes.
* * *
Part III
Interlude (Come Fly With Me) - Part II
She took three days off after prom. The first day, she moved out of the trailer and into Seattle’s most prestigious hotel. The second day, she got horribly drunk and mourned the end of her marriage with lots of whiskey, scotch and other funny drinks. She didn’t touch the tequila. The morning of the third day found her in her lawyer’s office, filing divorce papers.
Two weeks later, they were divorced. Irreconcilable differences, they’d both named as the reason. And all of a sudden, she was a free woman. It didn’t really hit home until Alex Karev greeted her without the hyphen plus the Shepherd added to her name. “Good morning, Doctor Montgomery,” he said, and she stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him confused for a second.
“It is Montgomery now, isn’t it?”
She stared at him for another few seconds, and then nodded her head, a slow smile spreading across her face. He smiled back, and she suddenly got aware of the fact that he hadn’t touched her since prom night. She’d been too caught up in the whole divorce circus with Derek, she’d been constantly changing between confused and sad and angry, she hadn’t even thought of anything that had to do with him. But now, she was a free woman. Free to do whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted, whenever and wherever she wanted. It made her nervous, but it also made her happy and excited in a way she hadn’t been in ages. Her life wasn’t predetermined anymore like it had been the past few years, living with Derek, working with Derek, eventually having kids with Derek; no, it was suddenly all open and fresh and new again. Different, new, exciting opportunities.
Of course, her ex-husband (it took her some time to get the “husband” out of her head) and Meredith managed to put a damper on her new-found happiness only a half day later when she caught them making out in an elevator. They’d been officially divorced for a mere hours and he was already going at it with his intern. She promptly turned on her heel and decided to take the stairs for the rest of the day, trying hard not to be too bitter about it all.
The constant climbing of stairs didn’t do her feet any good, especially with the new pair of heels that she hadn’t properly broken in yet, and at the end of the day her feet were red and hurting all over. She took some paperwork with her and fled into the attendings’ lounge, taking her shoes off with a relieved sigh and putting her feet up on the old couch in there. Half an hour later, her intern found her.
“Need your signature on the post-op notes,” he said, grinning boldly, his eyes skimming her outstretched form. She chuckled and reached for the chart he was holding out to her, opening it and starting to look over it. She saw him close the door and search for a place to sit down from the corner of her eye, but the only other sitting accommodation was a chair, and that was covered in her paper work. In the end, he just grabbed her legs, lifted them up and sat down at the end of the couch, placing her feet into his lap.
“Hey!” she protested, but he just smirked, and she shook her head and continued to read the chart, occasionally throwing glances in his direction. He was inspecting her feet with great interest, and she was just about to sign her name on the chart when he started to touch her. The pencil stopped midway, hovering over the chart, while she waited for his next move. He put his palms on top of her feet, and slowly started kneading her soles with his fingers. She sighed, not sure if she should let him continue or not, but then his thumbs started to slowly rub along the top of her feet, and the pencil fell from her hand when she leaned her head back in contentment.
“Like it?” he asked, and she answered with a breathy “Yeah,” adding massaging feet to the list of things his hands were good at. That reminded her of other times with his hands, and when she looked up and their eyes locked, she realized that she really, really wanted to (finally) kiss him. “I’m divorced.” She blurted out, and “You’re divorced,” he repeated, smiling, but didn’t make any other move. Unfortunately, that was when she remembered the incident with Derek and Meredith in the elevator the same morning, and her smile froze a little. She wasn’t even divorced for a full 24 hours, and she didn’t want to follow her ex-husband’s footsteps. She wanted to somehow honour this divorce, after all it marked the end of a third of her life, and she really wanted to give it a bit of time. At least a week, in any case, even though that still seemed ridiculous compared to twelve years of marriage. Alex seemed to think the same, because he suddenly stopped his movements and reached for the chart.
“I think I should go.” He said, and she nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think that would be a good idea.” He left the room, and she pulled up her knees to her chest and placed her chin on top of them, lost in thought. Seconds later, he barged back in and she almost fell off the couch in surprise. “You forgot to sign the chart,” he explained, and she blushed, biting her lip in amusement. She quickly scribbled her signature, and he left, this time for good.
* * *
They both took care to stay strictly professional for the entire next week, but once that had passed, the flirting started. It wasn’t big and obvious, it was more little things and glances and sometimes touches that only the two of them noticed. They both knew that they wanted each other, so they didn’t have to worry about that but could concentrate entirely on the anticipation.
“Since when do you wear glasses?” he asked one morning after sidling up to her flipping through a chart, and she leaned against the wall and peered at him over the rim. “Since I’ve been having headaches and my eye specialist told me they come from putting too much strain on my eyes without the glasses, and that I should wear them to read?”
“Aaaah,” he said. “Well, they look hot on you.” He smiled at her and then turned around to go and pick up a patient from a CT scan, leaving her standing there a little breathless. She liked that about him, how he didn’t go out of his way to make her excessive compliments: he either said nothing or was nicely honest in his typical Karev-manner. He wasn’t the flower-type of guy, or the candle light dinner guy, he just wanted her in his bed, and he didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t mind at all. The last time she had had actual sex, that had been almost six months ago, and then there hadn’t been anything except for his fingers (and his tongue) between her legs. That had been nice, but she really, really wanted to get laid again, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that it would be with him.
Still, it took her another two weeks to finally muster up the courage to do something about it and turn up on his doorstep one evening. She’d ruled out the hospital immediately: they didn’t need to get caught, and she couldn’t bring herself to invite him to her hotel room. She knew she’d feel weird about taking a man upstairs in front of the concierge or the bellboy, which was completely ridiculous since it was probably normal for them, but still. So the only other option was his place, and she carried that idea around with her for a whole week before she finally executed it. She’d already done it almost two days before, but freaked out when she didn’t know what to wear. What did one wear to a sex date? Clothes were only there to be taken off, and she had overanalyzed and spent an afternoon in front of her wardrobe before giving up and postponing it. Two days later, she took a quick shower at the hospital after work, changed back from scrubs into normal clothes, took a look at the shift plan and then spontaneously drove directly to his place.
“Hey,” he said, grinning broadly at her after opening the door. “Hey,” she said back and stepped into his flat, twisting her hands a little. He took her coat and then led her into the kitchen, immediately opening a cabinet and taking a bottle of wine and two glasses out of it. He found them way too fast for her taste, and she leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms in front of her.
“You knew I’d come,” she said, trying to keep the accusing tone out of her voice, but he merely smiled and looked up at her while searching for a corkscrew in a drawer. “I didn’t know, but I was hoping you would,” he answered and closed the drawer with his hip. “I’ve had that bottle for about a week and a half, but I figured you’d take a bit longer than that.” He held one of the glasses out to her, halfway filled with deep red liquid. She moved towards him cautiously, taking the wine from his hand and leaning against the counter while taking a sip.
“Oh, that is good.” She was surprised and reached for the bottle to take a look at the label. “How much did you pay for that wine?” But he quickly shifted the bottle out of her reach and placed himself between it and her, leaning against the counter next to her. “Let’s say, it was affordable,” he answered and tried to distract her with a smile. Her eyes narrowed, but she decided not to pry further, since he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. He shifted a little closer to her and turned his body until it was facing hers, and she swallowed, her mouth suddenly gone dry. When she placed her glass on the counter, her hand shook a little and he threw her a curious look when he saw it. “You’re nervous,” he noted, surprised, and she gave a small laugh that sounded strange even to her own ears, looking anywhere but at him. Of course she was nervous.
He put his own glass away and came even closer, placing his hands on her hips and moving his body into hers. She still didn’t look up, instead observing her hands winding around each other uneasily. He didn’t press her, but his thumbs were stroking her hipbones softly, reassuring her that he wasn’t going anywhere. God, this was embarrassing. Such a bad idea-she was acting like a virgin, like some stupid high school girl before her first time. He was still waiting for her to talk to him, so she gave a deep sigh and finally summoned the courage to tell him.
“It’s just that-it’s just that I was married for the past twelve years, and before that we’d been dating for three, and then there was only Mark, and ….” And basically, she’d only slept with two men in the last fifteen years. She hid her face behind her hands, absolutely mortified at just having admitted that fact to her intern, but he only chuckled and tugged her closer to him.
“Well, it’s like riding a bicycle,” he deadpanned and she pulled a hand from her face and smacked it into his chest, laughing heartily. He used her momentary distraction to press a kiss to her neck, and when she didn’t protest but tilted her head to give him better access, he left a trail of more kisses up to her jaw. She stopped laughing and looked up at him, their eyes meeting, both of them smiling. She glanced quickly at his lips and saw him swallow, which made her swallow in return. The whole thing somehow shifted, he took her face into his hands and then, after months of waiting for it, his lips were finally on hers. She opened her mouth for him immediately, their tongues meeting and swirling around each other, one of her hands behind his neck to pull him closer, the other at his butt, pressing their bodies against each other. He didn’t move away from her this time, instead bumped his hips into hers, and she forgot all about her nervousness when she suddenly remembered the six months without sex. The kiss started to get more heated and his hands left her face and wandered her body, as she moaned quietly into his mouth.
She broke away from his lips, breathing heavily, to ask a question: “I get to touch you too now?”
“And I get to see all of you naked,” he answered before bending down to suck on her neck. “I think you should take off your shirt,” she mumbled and reached for the bottom of it, already tugging it over his head. “Only if you take off yours,” and his hands quickly unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it out of her skirt.
He took her by the hips, guiding her out of the kitchen, and they stumbled through the corridor, lips and hands all over each other. He unzipped her skirt, and her hands went to unbuckle his belt and push his pants down his legs while she tried to step out of the skirt and her heels at once. She lost her balance and he barely caught her, pressing her into his body, his hands splayed out against her butt. They both laughed, breathlessly, and she jumped a little, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. “Bedroom,” she whispered against his lips before covering them with her own again, her eyes closing.
They fell on the bed in a mess of limbs, rolling around in a quest for the top position. She won (even though she had the feeling that he let her) and bent down over him to lick his earlobe; he used the chance to unclasp her bra behind her back. He turned them over, trapping her hands effectively against the covers, and started sucking on her right nipple, eliciting a quiet gasp from her. Her back arched off the sheets, and one of his hands moved between her legs, rubbing her through her panties. She was already soaking wet, and he quickly dragged her panties down her legs while her own hands moved to cup him through his boxers. He groaned and threw his head back, giving her an opportunity to tug them down over his ass, until he himself helped her take them off him. She absently noticed that his hands were shaking too now, probably from restraining himself, and she felt so incredibly wanted, she had to screw her eyes shut to keep herself from coming right there this second.
He moved his lips to her neck again, holding his body over hers, and she squirmed because it wasn’t enough contact. His erection brushed her thigh, and her hips instinctively bucked upwards into his, both of them groaning. She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him hard,
wrapping her legs around his waist. “Forget the foreplay,” she whispered into his ear, and he didn’t waste any time but slipped into her immediately.
Her head fell back against the covers and she moaned when he started to move in and out slowly. They’d waited so long, she’d no idea how he managed to hold back like this, and the thought that he did it for her made her tighten her legs and arms even more around his body. He was still being all considerate and careful, but she couldn’t care less about slow and soft in that moment-there’d be enough time for that later-right now she just wanted to get fucked (and there was no sugar-coating it), preferably as hard as possible.
She met his next thrust with her own hips, taking his earlobe between her teeth and then hissing: “Faster. More!” in her most demanding voice, her fingers digging into his back. His whole body shuddered, and he couldn’t hold back the next time he pushed into her and did it a lot harder than previously, stopping for a short moment to wait for her reaction. When she only moaned appreciatively, he groaned and finally gave up on controlling himself, putting an arm under her waist to angle her hips better up into his, and then started moving as fast and hard as he could.
It didn’t take them long, and she came a little earlier than he did, her whole body going rigid, the violent throbbing between her legs sending him over the edge too. He collapsed on top of her groaning, and they stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to catch their breath, he not bothering to support his weight with his arms. She didn’t mind it; she liked feeling him all heavy and spent on top of her, the muscles between her legs still softly contracting a few last times.
“Well, that was definitely worth waiting for,” he announced into her shoulder, his usual, brutally honest self, and she laughed, taking his face into her hands and kissing him lazily on the mouth. She felt absolutely wonderful. She’d expected a bout of guilt, but there wasn’t anything except for a lazy contentment spreading through her entire body. She was officially a single woman, and she’d just finally gotten laid without having to worry about how bad the sex would be, and how she could maybe spice it up a little. He rolled off her and tugged the covers up around them, and she wordlessly turned on her side and pressed her body back into his. He put an arm around her waist, drawing slow patterns on her stomach, and she wanted to purr. “Mmmhmmm, this is nice,” she mumbled instead. “Yeah?” he asked against her neck, and she covered his hand with her own, echoing him: “Yeah.”
They drifted into a phase of drowsy dozing, readjusting legs and arms from time to time. She enjoyed the sensation of a naked body against her, feeling wonderfully relaxed. “How much did you really pay for that wine?” she asked after some time, and he sighed, nuzzling his face into her hair.
“250 bucks,” he mumbled, and she scrunched up her nose and turned her head to look back at him. She kissed him softly on the mouth. “Next time, I’ll be happy with a beer.”
“You like beer?”
“I love beer.” They grinned at each other, and she wriggled her hips back into his, silently asking. He hissed in surprise, and she reached behind her, her hand closing around his length, slowly moving up and down. “God, Addison,” he groaned and bit her shoulder, and his own hand travelled downwards from her stomach. She gasped when he slid a finger into her, spreading her wetness around, and she sped up her own movements around his erection. His other hand closed around one of her breasts, his thumb flicking her nipple, his mouth sucking on her neck. He pulled her even closer into him, and she lost her grip around him when he bit her lightly. His fingers twisted and curled into her, and she gasped when he pulled them out and quickly pushed into her from behind. He stopped for a moment, bringing his mouth close to her ear, his palm softly teasing her clit. “Still want it hard and fast?” he whispered against her skin, and she answered his question by bucking her hips forcefully back into him. They both groaned, and she closed her eyes when he started thrusting into her like she wanted it, mirroring the rhythm of his hips with his hand, rubbing furiously between her legs.
* * *
“When do you have to get up tomorrow?” he asked from behind her some time later.
“I don’t, I have the day off.”
“Oh cool, me too.” She felt him grinning into her hair and turned her head to give him a wicked smile.
“I know, I looked it up.” She almost wanted to stick her tongue out at him, but figured that she was maybe a little too old for things like that at 38. She turned around in his arms until she was facing him, and he chuckled. “You planned this.”
“You got a problem with that?” she raised and eyebrow at him.
“Nope. I certainly don’t have a problem with a newly divorced, totally ravenous, horny woman in my bed.” He smirked and put a hand to her ass, squeezing softly, laughing when she smacked him hard.
“You’re incorrigible.” She put her hands to his shoulders and pushed him on to his back: “But…” she quickly threw a leg over his body and went to straddle him, “You’re also right.”
They didn’t sleep much that night and spent the next day mainly in bed, only interrupted by a short tour she took through his flat out of curiosity, clothed only in a bed sheet, and ordering some pizza that they ate, with her sitting in his lap, at the kitchen table.
When they finally went to work the next morning, she was sore all over, but in a wonderfully pleasant, yes-I-had-too-much-sex way. It reminded her of her last night with Mark: she’d only come by his apartment to pick up the last of her stuff, but somehow ended up staying the night, and they’d spent it having hard and violent sex, both trying to hurt and mark the other. She usually wasn’t a screamer, she moaned and groaned and gasped; but that was the first time ever she screamed, with Mark holding on to her and them moving against each other desperately. She’d left before he woke up, barely able to walk, and that soreness had stayed with her for the next few days. If he’d wanted to mark her, he’d certainly succeeded, because she’d had to face her husband for the first few days with the soreness from Mark still between her legs, and she’d felt horribly guilty about it.
Now, she was walking around with the results of her night and day with Alex between her legs, and when she ran into Derek at the nurse’s station, she greeted him cheerfully, her lips almost turning into an evil grin when she thought about her nightly activities. Derek looked at her confused: he still seemed to expect her to walk around with a sad, oh-my-husband-dumped-me face, and his expression turned into a mask of shock when she told him that Meredith was looking for him on the second floor, smiling broadly at him.
She laughed and turned around, incredibly happy that she wasn’t bound to this man anymore, and went to find her intern to go through today’s charts with him.
* * *
They had sex often and whenever and wherever they wanted, even though they tried to keep it to a minimum at the hospital to avoid getting caught. She moved out of the hotel and leased a small apartment a little out of town in a quiet area, but they still spent more time at his place; she said she liked it better than hers and it was closer to the hospital. They had a particularly memorable time on the rooftop of SGH, as well as on a clearing in the woods close to her new place, and after a few weeks she stopped worrying that he might eventually stop wanting her. They enjoyed each other, it was nice and uncomplicated, they both got laid on a regular basis, and they started to talk about everything and anything, getting to know each other in the process. They alternated between beer and wine, as well as pizza and Chinese, but she made him promise not to spend a quarter of his salary on an expensive bottle again.
They still worked together, falling back into their old pattern, except that he’d finally stopped complaining about being a part of the “vagina squad,” as he called it, and sometimes she even had the feeling he actually liked working with babies and pregnant mothers. Sometimes she yelled at him (always with reason though), and sometimes it ended up in sex, other times it didn’t.
A few weeks later, she was standing in the empty locker room, her scrub top pushed up, looking at three very distinct, red bruises on her back in the mirror. The evening before they’d been at his apartment and somehow ended up going at it in his kitchen, he pinning her to his fridge and moving into her fast and hard, her hands locked behind his neck. She’d barely noticed them at that time (she’d been way too distracted for it), but the magnets sticking to the white premium steel had been digging into her back, and now she was sporting three weirdly shaped bruises, one in the form of a woman’s legs, naked save for a pair of very slutty stockings. She chuckled a little and softly touched a finger to that particular red spot, tracing the line of the small garter belt, when the door opened behind her.
“Hello, Addison.” An all too familiar voice greeted her, and she gasped, turning around and coming face to face with Mark Sloan.
“Mark!” she yelped surprised, quickly tugging her shirt down, staring at him in shock. He quickly crossed the few feet between them and enveloped her in a hug that she was too surprised to fight off, her own arms coming up around his neck automatically. His fingers dug into one of her bruises and she winced, pulling back a little. Before she could even ask him what he was doing in Seattle, a pager beeped. She entangled herself from his arms to reach down to her hip, but the display was silently staring back at her.
“It’s mine,” Mark said, reaching down to his own hip.
“You’ve got a pager.” She noted, alarmed. “Why do you have a pager, Mark?” She couldn’t quite keep the panic out of her voice, but he was already on his way to the door.
“Because I work here, Addison.” He answered and smirked at her over his shoulder, confirming her worst fears before rushing out of the room. “I’ll see you later!” he called back.
Oh crap. She’d expected him to turn up ever since the divorce had become official, and she’d had several scenarios in her head detailing how that could possibly happen, but none of them included him working at SGH. Her lips tightened and she figured she’d have to have a serious talk with a certain someone.
She arrived at Richard’s office simultaneously with Derek, who was fuming, and seemed to blame her for Mark’s sudden reappearance. “This is all your fault,” he hissed, clenching his fists at his side and stepping so close to her she could make out the pores on his face. She was too stunned to reply for a moment, and he took that opportunity to shoot more barbs at her: “If you hadn’t slept with Mark, then he wouldn’t turn up like this now: he’s only here to get you back into his bed. I’m wondering, did you call him here just to annoy me?”
That got her going, and she felt herself losing control, almost yelling at him: “If I hadn’t slept with Mark, then we’d still be stuck in New York together, having horrible sex and ignoring each other, and you’d have never met your PERFECT little intern, so you should be HAPPY that I cheated on you with him.” She was in his face now, pointing a finger at his chest, her face turning red. “In fact, you should be THANKING me for it.”
The door they were standing in front of opened, and Richard appeared behind it, frowning, and they both turned their wrath on him. “You HIRED Mark Sloan??” they said in unison, and he sighed, rubbing his face and inviting them in with a wave of his hand.
Richard explained to them how Mark had made him an irresistible offer, how the plastics department had been neglected for ages, how adding Mark to the staff gave the hospital a whole new set of opportunities, blablabla. Addison tuned out when he called Mark a “brilliant surgeon,” which he definitely was, except for his lack of bedside manner.
The chief had already made a definite decision and Mark had signed his contract already, and Addison realized that there really wasn’t anything they could do about it. Well then, she was a professional-she’d deal with it. Derek however didn’t seem to want to accept it, arguing loudly and still looking for a way out.
“I don’t care how brilliant he is, he fucked my wife on my favourite sheets and now you hired him. I thought you were supposed to be my friend,” he added petulantly, his face red with anger. Both Addison and Richard stared at him open-mouthed, but Richard found his voice again first. “I AM your friend, but I am also your boss. And as your boss I’m telling you I couldn’t turn down Sloan’s offer, so you are going to get over your personal issues with him and you are going to do your job, Doctor Shepherd.”
“But-”
“Shut up, Derek,” she interrupted him, getting up. “It’s done, he’s made up his mind. And just for the record, I’m your ex-wife and not your wife.” She left the room in a hurry and quickly walked down the bridge, almost knocking down Alex when she turned the next corner too fast. He grabbed her by the elbow to steady both of them, catching sight of her flushed face and her lips pursed in anger.
“You okay?” he asked concerned, quickly taking a look around them and brushing a stray strand of her from her face. “I’m fine,” she said quickly, stepping away from him a little when she saw a nurse come closer from the corner of her eye. “I have a pelvic exam scheduled in a few minutes on the third floor, so I have to get going. I’ll see you later.” He nodded, sending her a strange look, but she didn’t have the time to ask him what was wrong.
A few hours later, a plane crashed during its landing approach at Sea-Tac, and the next three days were absolute hell. She ran from one emergency surgery to the next, lost two babies and three mothers, crashed for a few hours on the couch in the attendings’ lounge (the on-call rooms were all overcrowded), and she didn’t see Alex at all outside of surgery. While she could barely find the time to grab something to eat in between, Mark and Derek somehow managed to have a screaming match in the middle of the surgical floor, leaving Richard fuming and the rumour mill circulating wildly. By the time she got out of surgery, Mark had supposedly threatened to kill Derek with a scalpel while her ex-husband had tried to hit him with a pot plant from in front of Richard’s office. It gave her a good laugh, but she didn’t worry about it when she saw both of the opponents without bruises or missing limbs in the cafeteria. (Of course not simultaneously, but with a time difference of roughly half an hour.)
At the end of the third day, when her pager had finally stopped beeping every twenty minutes, she fled to the roof to have a few quiet minutes to herself. She stood at the corner, closing her eyes and letting the wind blow softly through her hair, enjoying the last rays of sunshine on her face. She didn’t hear the door to the roof creak open, and only noticed him when he stepped up next to her to the wall. She opened her eyes and watched him place his hands on the rail, his thumbs pressing into it almost nervously.
“Hi,” Mark said softly, and she sighed. She allowed herself to look out at the skyline a little longer, a few peaceful moments more, before she turned to look at him.
“Mark, why are you here?” she finally asked quietly, her eyes searching his face. He didn’t answer but instead tightened his grip on the rail.
“If you’re here because you want me back, you shouldn’t have come.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. “Look, I’m not saying this because of Derek. I’m not saying this because I don’t want to be with you because it could anger Derek, it’s just….” She trailed off, unsure how to continue.
“We tried, we tried in New York, and it was good for a while, and then it didn’t work anymore.”
“But you’re divorced now,” he protested, as if her being married had been the only problem, and she hated the hopeful look on his face.
“Yes, I’m divorced. I’m divorced, and I couldn’t care less what Derek thinks, and if I still wanted you, I’d have called you weeks ago or flown out to New York. But the thing is, I don’t. I don’t, and-”
“What if I still want you?”
“Then you’ll have to get over it.” That sounded harsh even to her own ears, and she tried to soften it up a little: “I’m doing the same thing. I still have feelings for Derek, of course I have, but I’m working on getting over that. I’m letting it go, because we, Derek and I, we didn’t work out. You should do the same thing.”
“Addison, please, I-” He reached a hand out for her, but she put up her own, dodging his touch, and backed a few steps away from him.
“No, Mark. We’re over. I didn’t want to get divorced for you, and you didn’t want to stop sleeping around for me. We didn’t work. And I’m not saying that because I want you to chase me or anything, I’m saying it because it is the truth and if you’re only here to get me back, you shouldn’t stay for that. It’s not going to happen, and it’s only going to hurt you even more.”
She turned to leave, a breath of relief on her lips, but she was sure she heard him saying, “We’ll see about that, Addison,” behind her quietly. Just great.
* * *
She was absolutely exhausted, tense from her argument with Derek and the draining talk with Mark, and she really needed to relieve a bit of that tension and wanted to see a friendly face for a change, so she spontaneously drove over to Alex’s place. He opened the door with a mixture of surprise and relief on his face, but she didn’t have time to wonder about it when he tugged her into his arms upon seeing the exhaustion in her face. She slumped against him, sighing, and he half-carried her over to his bedroom.
He was incredibly slow and gentle, taking extra care to pay attention to every last single sensitive spot on her body, holding her close when he slowly slid in and out of her, almost a little desperate. She opened her mouth to ask him what was going on, but he pressed a finger to her lips and moved down between her legs again, his tongue flicking out against her clit. She forgot her question and he didn’t stop until he’d made her come twice more.
When they finally lay next to each other, sated and spent, she waited for him to speak and tell her what was bothering him. She’d learned over the past few weeks that prying made him close up and refuse to talk at all; she had to wait for him to start talking of his own accord if she really wanted to know what he was thinking.
“I won’t hold it against you, you know. If you want to go back to him.”
She turned her head, raising one of her brows questioningly.
“Sloan,” he said, spitting the name out as if it was a toxic substance.
Oh. Well, that explained a lot. She’d already wondered why Alex hadn’t been at Mark’s side the second he turned up in Seattle, sucking up to him and trying to get into a few of his surgeries. Looking back at it, she knew of at least two burn victims he’d treated in the past 72 hours, but Alex hadn’t even gone near any of them as far as she knew.
“You did notice that I am currently lying in your bed naked, didn’t you?” she asked him, rolling over and pressing her body into his side to emphasize what she’d just said.
“Yeah,” he admitted, still unsure.
“That should tell you enough.”
He searched her face a few seconds for signs of doubts or dishonesty, but then his lips curved up into a small grin. “Okay,” he said, relieved, and she smiled back at him tiredly, placing her head on his chest.
“Good. And now shut up. I have a seven am surgery tomorrow: I need sleep.” She put her arm around his waist, cuddling into him, and he pulled her closer, sighing before closing his eyes.
* * *
Part III