Coffee

A/N: I'm in medical school. I have finals in a week and a half. And yet this is happening. What.

Addison stared up at the unlit fluorescent light tubes, her arms folded so that her head rested on her hands, wishing that the darkness meant time had stopped. Just for a little while, so she could take the time to actually figure out what the hell she should do with her life.

She could go to LA. That was a real option. She could see the sun every day, and she could live by the ocean.

She could try to fix things with Richard, since she kind of got way too personally offended when he didn't give her Chief of Surgery. He basically told her to get a new job since she was so miserable here. Was that his way of saying she should leave?

You know better than to think that, Addison, she chided herself. You just want someone to take the decision out of your hands.

Addison heaved a big sigh. She wished the ceiling had her answers. That would make life so much easier.

xoxoxo

"Give me a reason to stay."

Alex couldn't. He wouldn't. He wasn't Izzie, and Ava—Rebecca—wasn't Denny Duquette. He wouldn't prove Addison right about this.

He should be getting ready for Christina and Burke's wedding. He really should be. Instead, he was just lying on his back in an on-call room, staring at the bottom of the bed above him.

Couldn't he just be friends with a patient without everyone, including the patient, thinking he's in love with her? She reminded him of his sister. Was it so hard to believe he'd want to spend time with her and make sure she was okay?

A knock came on the door. He lifted his head up to see Meredith standing in her bridesmaid's dress in the doorway. "What?"

Sighing, Meredith walked in, holding an envelope in her hand. "I heard about Ava."

"Rebecca," he grunted, sitting up and rubbing his face. He was so tired of the assumptions.

"I'm sorry," Meredith whispered. "I know you were close."

Alex shook his head, not even trying to correct her anymore. "What's up, Meredith?"

She handed him the envelope. "Our scores are back."

"How'd you do?" he asked as he took it from her hand. He didn't open it yet. Not after the last time he took the boards.

"I passed, and so did Christina and Izzie." Meredith paused, and when she spoke again, it was as if she was speaking about the death of a loved one. "George didn't."

Alex looked up at her. "Is it bad that I'm not surprised?"

"Alex," she warned.

"I'm not being a dick," he promised. "Dude's been a mess for months. I'm not surprised he wasn't able to actually study enough. I'm not saying that because I think he's an idiot."

Meredith took a deep breath and stared at the wall in front of her. "I guess you're right. A lot's happened this year."

Looking down at the envelope holding his scores, Alex could only nod in agreement.

xoxoxo

Addison was on her way to the locker room to change for the wedding when she saw Alex staring at an envelope at the nurse's station. Even from her vantage point ten feet away, she could see the way he was looking at that envelope. Like it was going to jump out of his hands and aim for his throat.

"You know it's not going to bite, Karev," she teased as she passed him. "It's only paper."

Alex grunted. "Haven't had the best track record with paper."

The vagueness of his answer compelled her to turn back around, against her better judgment. "What does that mean?"

He waved the envelope around a couple times. "STEP 3 scores are back." As if that explained things. Addison raised her eyebrows at him. He suddenly got very interested in the countertop. "I, uh, I failed STEP 2 the first time, and I had to retake it."

"Hey," Addison said, cocking her head to the side to try to catch his eye, "I have no doubt you passed. You worked hard this year." She graciously avoided bringing up the fact that he blew her off hours after they slept together because he was studying.

Whether or not she mentioned it, the memory definitely showed in Alex's face. She could tell he felt guilty for even telling her this after how he treated her. Good, because he should feel guilty for treating her how he did. But that doesn't mean he should be afraid of opening his test scores. And yet, "I know I basically have no place in asking you this but, uh, could you open them for me?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Addison shook her head and held her hand out for the envelope. "You didn't strike me as someone who couldn't open his own scores."

"Yeah, well you fail your boards once, and you start to be that person."

Opening the envelope, she could feel Alex's eyes boring into the side of her face. She tried to ignore it. Tried to, at least. "Congratulations," she deadpanned, "you're officially a PGY2 resident."

A huge rush of air fell past Alex's lips to be replaced by a huge grin. "I passed?"

Addison sent him a small smile and handed him the scores. "You passed." A glance at the clock told her she was going to be late if she didn't get moving. "Now get dressed. We have to be at the church in 20 minutes."

xoxoxo

It was a very awkward experience leaving a church when a wedding didn't actually happen. The sunny day seemed too cheerful for Addison as she shuffled out down the steps with Alex Karev for some reason walking beside her. It should be raining when someone gets left at the altar.

"What now?" he asked, squinting in the daylight. Addison looked over at him, standing in a suit, clean-shaven, and absolutely clueless. Why was he still with her?

"I don't know, Karev. I've got to go back to the hospital, though, so I'll see you later." She tried to leave, to get away from him, but he walked with her. She could feel him staring at her again. "Yes, Karev?"

"You have to go back to the hospital?"

"Yes, Karev. I'm on call."

"But weren't you going to go to the reception if the wedding hadn't been canceled?"

Huffing, Addison crossed the street a little quicker than before. "We can't have every attending in the surgical wing take several hours off from work at the same time, Karev. And considering the reception would be me watching everyone else be happy together, I volunteered to be the one to go back in." She hated admitting to being alone to anyone, let alone to Karev.

As they entered the lobby, Addison glanced at the no-longer intern walking beside her. "What are you doing, Karev?"

He shrugged. "We all know Yang and Meredith aren't going to come in, and you'll need a hand with everyone off."

"You know Ava's gone," Addison prompted, not up for letting him pull another Izzie Stevens.

"I wish everyone would stop acting like I had a thing for Ava," he grumbled. "Do you want my help or not?" He didn't even wait for her to answer. He just climbed the stairs to go to the locker room and change, leaving Addison staring after him in confusion.

What?

xoxoxo

Hours later found Addison and Alex sitting in a conference room, updating chart after chart. Cold coffee sat in the middle of the table, and Addison's hair was more than a little mussed after her running through her hand through it so often. Alex never noticed how much she did that when she had to do paperwork, but he did notice how similar it looked when they hurried out of that on-call room a month ago.

"Do you have Jaime Tucker's chart?" she asked, looking at a page of lab results she needed to put in the chart.

Alex searched through his pile. "Which one was he again?"

"He has DiGeorge's." Alex found the file and handed it to her.

"Poor kid," he commented. "Kid's not going to know a life without monthly hospital visits."

"You're telling me," she agreed. "Has his cleft palate surgery been scheduled?"

"Yeah, it's tomorrow afternoon."

Addison nodded and made a note in his chart. "Should be an interesting surgery for you, Karev."

Alex looked up at his boss, who ran her hand through her hair again as she continued writing in Jaime Tucker's chart. "Yeah, I mean I'm not as interested in plastics as I used to be, but I always liked the idea of getting to fix kids' cleft palates."

A small smile came onto her face as she spoke again. "Don't tell Mark that. He doesn't like people knowing he actually likes correcting cleft palates in newborns. It would wreck his tough guy persona."

"Won't you be in there?"

Addison looked up at him and shrugged. "Why would I be? You'll be there to monitor Jaime."

"I didn't realize you trusted me that much."

"Karev, you were in my specialty for the better part of this year. You're qualified to make sure Jaime's okay during surgery, and if there's a problem you don't think you can handle, you can always page me."

As Addison went back to her charts, Alex stared at the table, not liking the feeling in his stomach at her attitude. She trusted him to be the neonatal surgeon in that OR, and he should feel proud. But all he could think about was that she didn't want to be in that OR with him anymore.

"I'm sorry."

Addison's head whipped up at his words, her glasses perched on her nose and her mouth just slightly open. "Excuse me?"

Alex hadn't meant to say that. He hadn't meant to say anything. But it was coming out whether he wanted it to or not. "I'm sorry I was an ass to you. I pushed you away, and ... I cheated on Izzie."

"I'm sorry?" This conversation was taking too many sudden turns for Addison to really understand what was going on.

"I thought I was in it for real with Izzie, but I still cheated on her. I don't play catch. I don't barbeque. I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who cheats on someone he cares about."

Addison didn't really know how to respond to that, even though she knew deep in her bones Alex was kidding himself if he thought he wasn't a good guy. "I'm the woman who cheats on her husband." She had no idea what possessed her to say that, but what else would she have said?

"What?" Alex knew that, but it just felt wrong to hear Addison reduce herself to that categorization.

"I, of all people, know that sometimes there are weird, warped reasons behind adultery. Not that it justifies it, but…I had my reasons, and if I'd had a stronger marriage, I probably wouldn't have cheated," she explained. "I know how much I hurt Derek, and I never want to hurt anyone like that again. I can hate myself for it all I want, and trust me, I do. But…I'm still allowed to want to have someone. I'm allowed to look for happiness. And so are you."

This might have been the first time Addison had outright told him about her personal life instead of just hinting at it through hypotheticals. Alex felt the weight of it in his chest, the importance of this moment. "Doesn't mean I was allowed to do what I did to you," he insisted.

Addison tilted her head to the side and took off her glasses. "No," she agreed, "it doesn't. But I am glad you told me why. Thank you, Alex."

xoxoxo

Addison was back in an on-call room that night, not feeling like going back to the Archfield just yet. She found contemplating the bottom of the bed above her more interesting than sleeping four hours in a hotel before coming back here.

Was she actually considering going to LA? She hadn't actually decided anything yet, but she felt like she was already tying up loose ends, preparing to leave. She let Alex off the hook for making her feel like shit and hurting her more than she thought he could. Ordinarily, she would take way longer than a month to get to that point.

LA did sound appealing. A slower pace. She could actually sleep more than six hours at a time. She could drop all of the administrative headache that came with running an entire surgical department and focus solely on her patients, her life.

Before she could continue to muse about the appeal of joining Naomi, Alex walked into the on-call room yawning. He stopped short when he saw her on the bed. "Oh, sorry, Dr. Montgomery. I didn't realize you were in here."

"No, it's fine." She sat up and waved him in. "I wasn't asleep anyway."

She expected the lights to turn on, but instead, Alex walked to the bed, leaning against the bedframe. "Any reason why?"

Addison shook her head. "Just thinking."

She felt the bed shift beneath her and turned her head to see Alex sitting down next to her. "About what?"

She just stared at him in the darkness. She didn't want to tell him about LA. She didn't want to tell him she could be leaving. She didn't want to see his reaction. And she certainly didn't want to see his possible lack of a reaction. She didn't want to think about a small private practice and one patient a day.

"Addison?" His voice was husky in the dark. She was focusing on the way it sounded when he said her first name more than she told herself she was going to. She told herself she wasn't going to focus on him anymore.

And yet her answer still came out a little too breathy. "Yeah?"

"I…would probably play catch with my kid if I had the chance."

She didn't really know if she kissed him first or not, but given her history it was pretty likely. But she did know that just the gentle pressure of his lips on hers made her mind go quiet. She stopped thinking about LA when he slipped a hand around her neck and into her hair, bringing her a little closer so he could kiss her just a little harder. It wasn't a passionate kiss, but it did make her feel absolutely every inch of her skin that was on fire.

His lips moved against hers and she needed to move. She let her hand move up his arm and ended up grasping his scrub top above his heart. That small movement prompted him to pull her even closer, and he slipped his other hand around her waist, his thumb stroking the skin of her back.

When they separated, it was only for a second. They locked eyes and this time, she knew he kissed her first. He pushed her backward and slanted his mouth over hers, Addison none too eagerly moving her hands underneath his shirt.

It took a solid two minutes for her to gather the mental capacity to push against him enough to break the kiss. "Alex," she breathed. "Slow down."

"I'm not hurting you, am I?" he asked, panic seeping into his voice. He straightened so quickly that he hit his head on the underside of the top bunk.

"No, no, you're not hurting me." Addison sat up and straightened her shirt before she reached out and checked his head. "I just…well, last time I slept with you, quite frankly, you told me I wasn't your girlfriend."

"I told you I was sorry. You said—" Addison cut off his earnest apologies.

"I know, and I accepted your apology. But you can understand my hesitance to jump into bed with you."

Alex stared into his lap. "I hurt you."

"Yes."

"Too much to give me another chance?"

Addison sighed and tilted his chin up so that he'd look her in the eye. "I only said slow down, not stop." That caught his attention. "How about we start with coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Coffee. We'll see where it goes from there."

A/N: I'm out of practice, but I decided rewatching seasons two and three of Grey's was a good idea. Addex hurt my heart all over again. I hope there are still some Addex readers out there! If you are, please let me know what you think!