"What if I had been the one to ask you out first? In medical school?"

She shakes her head. "You weren't."

"But what if I had been?" he persists.

"It's not worth thinking about." Addison shivers slightly in the breeze; the sun set a few hours ago over the ocean and a chill permeates the salt air. "I introduced you to Naomi, remember?"

"I remember."

"And you married her and you had all those happy years together."

"They weren't all happy."

"A lot of them were happy," she prods gently. She scans her old friend's face. He looks older - she does too, she knows - and sadder. She's sad too, because of this conversation and everything else in her life that feels just beyond her grasp. So she goes on: "And you had a daughter together."

"I love her," he says quickly. "Addison, you know I love my daughter."

"I'm not questioning that. She's my goddaughter, after all." She smiles. "I just think there's nothing to gain from this - conversation. That was then, and this is now."

"Right. This is now. We're here now. Addison-"

"No."

She stands up and starts to walk toward the house, then turns back. He's still looking out at the water. From the back he could still be her medical school classmate, still that skinny, gawky guy who asked her to dinner while safety goggle marks still marred his skin.

Okay, so she's thought about it. Once or twice, over the years, like when her husband stopped paying attention to her. Like when she turned to his best friend. Like when her best friend ordered her not to even think about dating her ex-husband. But that long ago night in the med school library, when he'd just missed her: what if he had caught her first? What would she have said?

It's late enough and she's just enough wine gone that honesty feels right.

"I, uh, I think I would have said yes."

He looks up, eyes bright. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"And we would've gotten married. It would have been our house, our life and -"

"And our cheating, and our divorce."

"That wouldn't have happened to us."

"You don't think so?" She sits down next to him again, wraps the afghan around her legs.

"No, I think we - I really do think we could have made it. We would have been that couple."

"You and me."

"You and me," he repeats.

She finds herself smiling sadly. It's all well and good, twenty years later, to look back like this. But it doesn't really accomplish anything, does it? They're still pushing middle age, still past their prime. Their pasts are still littered with cheating and heartbreak and failed marriages. He has a teenager; she still doesn't have a child. What good is it to look back twenty years?

Except she still sort of wonders what would have happened if he'd asked her out first.

"I wish he hadn't gotten to you first," he says quietly.

She's not willing to concede, just pulls her own legs up and hugs them. What does it matter? They'll never be able to be a real couple now, not with him divorced from her best friend. And she can't lose Naomi.

No, they have no future, but just for a minute, she lets herself wonder what it would have been like.

To be that couple.

To have him lifting her white veil, carrying over the threshold of the brownstone, jumping waves with her in the Hamptons, popping champagne at the opening of her practice. Maybe if he'd been the one she married, she would have been ready to have a child instead of making excuses all these years. It would be her daughter asking for homework help and curfew extensions. She imagines what it would have been like if he stayed in New York. He and Mark would have still been close friends, but that would have been different too. He wouldn't have ignored her, wouldn't have buried himself in his work until Mark was the only one noticing how sad she was. How lonely.

They would have been stronger together, maybe, supporting each other instead of drifting apart. No pettiness or professional jealousy. He's solicitous of her now, he's been her closest friend in this strange sunny state. Imagine what it would have been like to be married to him instead. To have had that kind of support back in New York.

She indulges the fantasy for another minute, saying their names - just in her head - just swirling them thoughtfully to herself like a sip of good wine:

Addison and Derek.

"Addison, if I had-"

"Derek," she says softly. "I'm going inside. It's enough. Sam asked me out first. And I said yes. You were late to the library that night for study group-"

"I was practicing!"

"You were too late."

"Maybe not."

"No," she says firmly, and Addison and Derek dies in her mouth as surely as it was first uttered. "You were too late. I'm going inside, Derek."

"We could have been great," he calls after her retreating back, and she just walks inside, closes the door.

Derek will have to find his own way home.

This just popped into my head, along with a whole alternate universe for them. Considering exploring/expanding, but felt I needed to get this down first. Thoughts?