Just A Step

Authors Note/Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy, that credit is for the writers and creators.

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Summary: One step forward.

One Shot

Addison slammed the door to the trailer shut behind, groaning aloud when her jacket got caught. She dropped her bags at her feet, opened the door again, pulled her jacket against her body and slammed the door shut again, though when she turned around, her foot caught on her bag and she stumbled slightly. "Ugh!" She kicked the bag in anger. "There is no space in this trailer!" She kicked the bag again.

"You don't have to live here."

"Ah," She jumped slightly, and almost tripped again. "Derek! You scared me!"

"Hmm," He didn't bother to look in direction, he just sat staring into his beer bottle.

She let her eyes wander over him, his words finally registering with her. 'You don't have to live here.' Did he believe that she had a choice? He had blatantly refused to give up the trailer.
It's home.
She remembered those words because when he had spoken them it was another knife to her chest. The brownstone wasn't home anymore, he'd made that perfectly clear but it was years of history. Their history. While the end was rough, filled with pain and betrayal, on both their ends even if he refused to acknowledge his part, it was also a place where some of their happiest memories were. But if he was eager to leave the brownstone behind, then so would she. His home might be the trailer but her home was him. "Yes I do."

"What?" He mumbled, not really paying attention to what she was saying.

Addison sighed. "Yes I have to live here."

"Then quit complaining." He took a long sip of his beer, only to pull back to take a deep breath. He never asked her to move in, she had made that decision on her own. He hadn't been happy about it but he hadn't fought her on it. He didn't see the point, Addison would always get her way.
However the whining, the complaining, he hadn't signed up for that.

He liked the trailer. Yes it was small, it didn't have all the high end finishes the brownstone had. The couch was lumpy and the fridge was a tad small but it was all he needed when he moved to Seattle. He brought it with himself in mind. Not Addison. God, she had been the last person he wanted to think of when he picked the trailer.
Though he knew deep down on some subconscious level he must of been thinking of her, because he wanted to pick something she would hate, something completely anti-Addison.

"Derek," Addison broke the silence that had been lingering since he spoke. He was wearing his thinking expression and she couldn't help but wonder if he was regretting allowing her to move into his space. She hadn't outright said she hated the trailer, she wasn't even sure she did. She just felt cramped, and being cramped inside a trailer with someone who seemed to hate her, well, it had her in a mood and when she was moody she nitpicked and complained about small things. She had always done it, he knew that about her. But she didn't want to fight, all the fighting had her exhausted. The constant arguing, yelling and glaring. She used to be so good at quick witted retorts, but even they lacked because she didn't have the energy to keep up with them.

"Addison," He said her name in that same tone he had been using since she stepped foot in the trailer. It was the stop talking tone, but it never worked.

Addison knew he wanted her to be quiet but she rarely heeded his warning. "I'm sorry." She was always apologizing now but she was sorry not just for Mark but for complaining. She didn't hate the trailer.

God, here we go again. She was apologizing, all she did now was apologize. It was very different to the Addison prior to that night. It now seemed to be her response to everything, said so frequently he was beginning to question what she was sorry for.
Was it her infidelity?
Her appearance in Seattle?
Her need to complain?
He didn't know but he knew that she was baiting him. Addison wanted him to ask. If he asked, "What are you apologizing for, Addison?' It would give her the opportunity to launch into a full conversation. So he was refusing, refusing to take the bait.

Addison's eyes never left his face, watching as he took another sip from his beer and tried desperately to pretend she wasn't there.
It wasn't like this feeling was unfamiliar to her, he'd been like this for two years before he left New York. It just never got any easier to be with. "If we don't talk to each other then we'll never mend anything."

"All you do is talk, Addison." He placed the empty beer bottle on the table. "I'm sure one night off isn't going to make a difference, god, you might even feel better."

"Derek,"

"Doesn't your throat get sore. All the whining, complaining, shouting. Don't you ever just run out of things to say." He ranted a little, then stood up. "I need air."

Addison took a tiny step so that she was standing in his way, blocking him from exiting the trailer. "Well, I need you." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"Like you supposedly needed me when you slept with Mark."

Addison sighed, they would forever be going around and around if he didn't let it go. "That is a low blow, Derek! I said I was sorry,"

"You didn't steal my favorite pen, Addison, you slept with my best-friend. It's going to take a little more then an apology."

"You don't think I know that! I'm trying here, I am trying to explain things to you, I am trying to fix things but you won't listen." She covered her face with her hands, her next words were mumbled but she knew they would be clear enough for him to understand. "You're my air Derek, I need you, and right now I want us to talk and I want you to listen."

"I do listen to you." He defended himself.

Addison merely raised her eyebrow. "If you listen then you are capable of talking. I want you to understand that I am not blind,"

"Clearly." He mumbled, reaching into the fridge to grab another beer since she clearly wasn't letting him outside the trailer.

"I see you with her. Every time I step into the elevator, you are there with her. You request that she be on your service more now then you did before I arrived, how do I know that because I've heard the whispers. You bring her coffee and share your sandwiches with her..." She took a deep breath and blinked back the tears that were in her eyes, she would not cry, not now in front of him. "She asked you to pick her..."

"I chose you." Derek defended himself. "I didn't sign the papers."

"Then you admitted to loving her...during Christmas when you know how much I love Christmas because it is supposed to be our season." The first tear rolled down her cheek, unable to stop it. Meredith now had Christmas as well, and Addison wasn't sure what was left for her because Meredith clearly already had a hold on Derek. "I want to work on this, I am trying to but how can I fight for this for the both of us? You want her, you love her and I'm your wife and you can't even bear to look at me." She watched as Derek raised his eyes to look at her before they darted back to the beer bottle in his hand, he looked to have no idea how to comprehend what she was saying. "Everything is Not now, Addison, there needs to be more talking Derek."

"I chose you, isn't that something? Doesn't that show..."

"All it shows is that you were trying to do the good thing, like you always do. It shows that..."

He placed the beer bottle down with a thud. "That I wasn't ready to walk away from eleven birthdays, eleven Christmases and eleven thanksgivings." He shook his head. "I love her. I'll tell you that because it's the truth and I don't want to hide it, I don't want to be dishonest with you. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, a part of me loves you even when I try so damn hard to hate you."

Addison's hands shook, and she crossed her arms in attempt to get them to stop. The tears were openly rolling now, here he was admitting it again and he might have been admitting to loving her as well but all she could hear was that he loved Meredith.
Meredith.

"And you're right, I don't want to talk right now because I am trying to find as way to say things that don't end in a fight. I'm trying to figure out how to talk to you again, to look at you without seeing him." He shuttered. "All I see is Mark touching your body,"

"Derek," Addison's voice trembled.

"Your body, Addison, the one you promised would be mine to touch." He picked up his beer and tipped the rest into his mouth, sculling it down as if it would do something to calm him. "He's been where I have been, touched what I've touched...he's kissed..."

"And so has she." Addison spoke, her breath catching a little. "Meredith's been with you. You think you're the only one who sees someone even if they aren't in the room? Difference is Mark is in New York, he isn't physically here. You don't run into him in the halls, you don't have to work with him, share an elevator ride or sit across from in a meeting. You get distance. I get her."

Derek leaned back against the counter, his head shaking just a little as he ran his hands over his face. "What do you want Addison?"

She could hear in his voice that he sounded tried, exhausted just like her. "I want you to care." She clutched her arms tighter to her body. "I want you to want me, Derek. I want you to look at me."

"You think I don't see you?"

"Do you?"

Derek let his eyes wander over her body, taking in every inch of her, just like he had for all those years they were married.
Addison stared at his face, watching the expressions run over all his features as he let his eyes skim every inch of her. She felt naked under his eye, because he knew what was beneath the clothes, he knew her skin almost better then she knew it. Every scar, every freckle, every blemish. Some women would hate it; they would think that he was looking at her like she was nothing, a piece of meat. But Derek knew her, and she didn't feel insecure when he looked at her like this, she felt loved, because he wasn't seeing through her, he was seeing her.

"You don't look at me like that anymore...or you haven't in a long time."

Derek tore his eyes away from her body to her face. "What?"

Addison bit her bottom lip, trying to figure out in her mind how to word it that he wouldn't be annoyed, that he would actually listen and understand. "You say you see me, but that look, the way your eyes run over every inch of me...you haven't done that Derek, in years..."

"I..."

"In New York those last twenty fours months, we were like two passing ships, your eyes could barely meet mine." She sighed, moving away from the door to take a seat, if he wanted to leave then she wouldn't stop him. "You were busy, working an incredible amount saving lives; but at a cost. You were just never home, and every time we tried to have a moment together it was ruined by work. I didn't plan to do what I did with Mark..."

"Addis..."

"Just listen...I didn't plan it, and I am not proud of it. It's just he was there. When we planned dinner, or a movie or made any sort of commitment, if you didn't show, Mark did. He'd bring chinese, I'd give him your ticket to the movie, he accompanied to the play." She didn't even like plays but the tickets had been a gift so she felt as if they had to be used. "You were supposed to take me. It wasn't like I was replacing you with Mark, he was just there and some of it was your fault to." She told him firmly, he had to understand he was the cause of this too. She wasn't denying her part, he just needed to understand his.

Derek raised his eyebrow at the accusation. "I don't..."

"My birthday. You were supposed to take me to dinner, last minute surgery and if your assistant hadn't reminded you then I doubt you would have remembered but you called Mark, asked him to take me, told him you'd pay for it all. That one moment you asked him to step up and he did, so for every moment after that something like that occurred, you just asked him again and again." Addison wiped her tears away. No point in crying anymore, the tears did nothing, they didn't help to ease the pain, they didn't help Derek to understand. "He never said no to you. He never said no when I called him. In all of this, I guess somewhere along the line I relied on him to much. I felt comfortable and I missed you."

Derek's head was spinning, he vaguely remembered asking Mark to take Addison to her birthday dinner but how many times had he called him for instances like that again? He sort of remembered having Mark on speed dial for emergencies like that but how many times had pushed the button?

"Hey, Jen, would you call Mark and tell him I can't make the movie tonight. Addison has the tickets, he can take my place."

"Mark, I told Addie I'd take her to that new bar across town after work but I have a last minute surgery. Will you take her?"

"Hey Mark..."

"Hey Mark..."

"Hey Mark..."

Derek stared at the ground. How many times had he called? How many times had Mark been there to pick up the slack. "I..."

Addison wasn't looking in his direction anymore, she was staring out the window. "I guess the victim in all of this is Mark. I used him as a substitute without realizing, at the time I just needed the company...and you, you used him as replacement, to be your stand in when you were too busy. Maybe it's him we should apologize to." Her words were said so quietly, and she almost didn't register when Derek sat down on the opposite side of the very small table, pushing a beer in her direction.

"I don't..." He paused, he couldn't process all of what had been said. It was a lot, along with the exhaustion he felt from fighting with her everyday. The tiredness that came with trying to push her away because he was angry, but also fighting from within because he wanted to tug her close despite everything. He wasn't just at war with her, he was at war with himself. "I'm tired." He finally spoke, staring into his beer bottle.

"Me too." Addison whispered, wrapping her fingers around her bottle. "I am sorry, Derek. I am."

Derek nodded his head slightly, for the first time acknowledging the words that were leaving her mouth. "I guess I have my far share to be sorry for too." He didn't know where they went from here, but at least he listened, now they just had to decide where to go...slowly he reached across and took his hand loosely in his hand gave it a gentle squeeze.

Addison was shocked, it spread through her body and she gently squeezed his hand back. "Der..."

"We're working on it Addie."

Addie.

She didn't know how long it had been since she'd heard that nickname, since it had left his lips. It had been a while, and relief flooded into her just hearing it. It was going to take a long time to heal, to fix what was broken but this was step.

Let me know what you think.

Much Love. x