Easier to Repost Than to Write
My theme for today is that it's easier to repost than to write. No duh, huh? Of course, as I repost -- and for that matter, as I write -- I'm always rereading. And I hate when I catch my own mistakes 'cause it means I put them out there in the world. So sorry for those of you who've caught mistakes. You beta and you proofread, and they still get out there in the world.

Anyway, I still live in my delusional Addison and Derek fictional world, which -- DISCLAIMER ALERT -- for the record I do not own. So here's Cracks & Foundations:

Chapter 15



Addison Shepherd knew when it was time to cry.

Recounting to Derek the story of how she ended up in bed with Mark for the first time, and then how she stayed with him while trying to pick up the shattered pieces of herself while Derek fled New York – well, if that didn’t justify a full-fledged sobfest, she didn’t know what did.

Derek had left her there, sitting on a park bench in the middle of Victoria, when he left after hearing her story to deal with it himself.

Addison was terrified.

Terrified that this time when he fled he was going to leave not just the city, not just the state, but maybe the country or even the hemisphere. Maybe they needed a neurosurgeon in Australia? Or Antarctica?

Terrified that she would be sitting at the B&B all by herself and the three-hour mark would pass and once again she would be alone, with no idea where Derek was.

There was no one in Victoria to help her pick up the pieces.

And, even with help, Addie simply was not sure that she could do it again. The core of steel inside her remained weakened by the flaws from the last time Derek left.

One more time would probably be the end.

She’d be like one of those buildings that simply, having lost its structural support, fell in upon itself.

But, as Addie sobbed, she began to feel lighter.

There was a physical and an emotional release.

She had no more secrets.

Derek knew everything.

Derek knew that she had been with Mark while Derek had been in Seattle.

And Derek knew that Mark had loved her, had wanted Addison back.

And Derek knew -- or at least he’d been told -- that Addison chose Derek. She chose her marriage. She chose her love.

Now the choice was once again up to Derek.

What Addison did not know was if Derek was going to be able to keep his promise.

If Derek was going to be able to choose her, Addison, despite the pain, despite the mistakes, despite everything. If he could believe in her, in them, a second time.

Oh, Addison believed that Derek intended to. That he intended when they started this conversation to get past it and to meet her back at the B&B in three hours.

She just did not know if he was actually going to be able to.

So now that she had let all of her secrets out, she also let out all of her tears. And, after a while, her sobs slowed, turned from out-of-control bawling to a steady stream of tears, and she gulped and hiccuped and tried to catch her breath. Then they slowed to just a trickle.

Then she was ready to leave the sanctuary of her bench.

First things first, she needed a bathroom and a mirror, because she had more than two hours to kill and she was damned if she was going to do anything before she washed her face and fixed her makeup.

After that, well, a cup of coffee was definitely in order. Then, Addie smiled, maybe some power shopping.

Unlike Derek, Addie had no need to think about this particular conversation.

She had already dissected her own relationship with Mark ad nauseum, both with and without her therapist.

What she needed was to distract herself until that magical three-hour mark, after which she would know one way or the other.

What could be a better distraction than spending some money?

*********

Derek, on the other hand, was a man with a far different mission.

After leaving Addie on the bench, the vision of her tears streaming down her face emblazened in his head along with the one of her with Mark’s hands on her body in their bed, he had walked as fast and as far as his legs could carry him away from the center of historic Victoria.

He just walked. And walked. And then he walked some more. It was like if he kept moving his legs, he wouldn’t have to deal with his pain.

So he kept right on walking.

He ended up on a rock near the shore, looking out on the ocean but not really seeing the spectacular view before him.

For Derek was entirely inside his head and his heart.

He had asked for honesty. Boy did Addie deliver.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And now he had to deal with the honesty he had asked for. He had to face what he had been running away from since the day he left New York. Since the day he left his wife.

First, the reality that Addison had sex with Mark. Multiple times. The night he caught them and after he left.

That wasn’t really news. He had sort of figured that out. You could say he was the master of the obvious.

Though it was hard to get past, he had sort of made an uneasy kind of truce with that information. He did his best never to think of it, and after months of practice he was more or less able to ignore it.

Other than when Mark had shown up.

And while they were discussing the affair.

It had taken a while to get to this uneasy truce. To start letting go. To start to forgive the physical betrayal.

When Addison had first showed up in Seattle, it was like the recurring acid flashback from hell.

Look at his wife, and the picture of Mark making love to her would flash before his eyes.

Touch Addison, and see the instant replay in his mind.

But time had helped. And Addison’s repeated apologies. And then just seeing her more, replacing that memory with others. It helped that she rejected Mark and sought him out.

Nevertheless, for a long time, that unwanted memory had deterred him from touching his wife, from having sex with her -- from making love to her.

But Addie had forced the issue, and they had “ripped the stitches.”

Derek had forced his way past the memory of Mark touching Addison. There had been a night when he was determined to make her body forget Mark's touch.

Derek had made it his mission to reclaim every single inch of her body from the tip of her toes to the top of her head.

He had used his mouth; he had used his hands; and he had repossessed his wife.

If that made her sound a little bit like a possession, well, Derek could live with that -- although he would never share the thought with Addison, who likely would bean him upside the head with a brick or something harder.

He couldn’t help it if once in a while a little caveman came through; he could indulge the internal caveman so long as he kept the sentiment a secret. But thinking of it, even now, made him smile.

Addison had been stolen from him, and Derek had reclaimed her.

Physically branded her as his own once again.

And the process of making love to Addison once again, of feeling her warm body, and her long legs, and the smile turning up the corners of her mouth, and her kiss, had allowed him to let go of the image.

More or less.

Now, so long as he didn’t conciously bring it up, most of the time the memory stayed away. It would never be a good thought, but it no longer deterred him from doing things like taking advantage of Addie’s hot green negligee of the night before.

And the physical closeness had helped with emotional closeness.

Not that sex equals love, but making love to Addison had let him see her again, had let him believe that she picked him, that she wanted him, that she loved him.

That Mark had been a mistake.

Boy, had he. A bigger one that Derek had even realized until Addison’s confession today.

Their “affair” was nothing like he imagined it.

Derek had pictured romantic trysts behind his back, Addie and Mark laughing at the oblivious husband/best friend who didn’t realize what was going on, lovers with smiles and laughs and emotional intimacy, stolen moments at the hospital, and flowers, candy, and poetry.

Not a drunken one night stand fueled from desperation, anger, frustration with him.

Which, Derek had to admit to himself, is all that it would have been on Addie’s side if he hadn’t disappeared. The “relationship” hadn’t occurred until after Derek was gone.

If he had found the guts, the will, to beat the crap out of Mark that night and fight it out with Addie in New York, he would have had a lot less to get past.

It was hard for him to picture Addie as she described herself.

“Falling apart” and Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd just didn’t go together. Look at her in Seattle. Cool, calm, and collected. She had walked into Seattle Grace every inch the put-together New York docter and society wife. She took his insults and his emotional daggers and she never let him see her sweat, never let him see that he had pierced her armor until well after he chose her.

He had known, even when she first arrived, that some of that was bravado.

A case of Addison putting her strongest foot forward, of coming in fully armed and fully shielded.

But it was still hard to reconcile it with an Addison who didn’t eat, who didn’t sleep, who was ordered away from her patients, and who went voluntarily to a therapist.

Who stayed with Mark because she needed him, not because she wanted him.

It was hard for him to square what he had thought in his head about Mark and Addison for all those weeks when he was separated from them by a continent with the picture painted by his wife.

It wasn’t that Derek doubted Addison, because he had no doubt of the honesty of her account.

It was just that it was like she had told him that the sky was red with purple polka dots. He didn’t doubt she was right, but he was having trouble processing the information.

The more Derek thought about things, the angrier, the more enraged he got.

And he had just a couple of hours to find a way throught that red haze and back to his wife.



Chapter 16



Derek Shepherd realized he had a choice.

He could let the anger inside him, the regret, the bitterness take over.

He could shut out Addison, let her go, leave her, punish her for the affair she had with Mark Sloan. He knew that he could always tell people that his wife slept with his best friend, and they would understand why he left.

It was one heck of an excuse.

Or he could make the decision to forgive, to rebuild, to have a future with Addison.

The choice was difficult.

Life would not be easy either way.

If he rejected her, Derek would truly have to let Addison go. Let her rebuild her own life as well.

With someone else.

He would have to find away to make a life without her, without his partner of the last fifteen years.

If he forgave her, really and truly forgave Addison, then Derek would have to find a way to let the affair go. Not forget, because that was impossible, but to forgive. To trust again. To have faith again. To hope again.

To stop using the affair as a weapon in their fights, as an excuse when he didn't feel like being kind to his wife, as a rationale that permitted him to continue flirting with Meredith.

Derek had already tried to leave Addison.

He had not been very successful.

The only way he had been able to survive leaving his wife, moving across the country without her, cutting her out of his life, had been to entirely shut down.

He hadn't dealt with it; he had just denied his emotions -- his pain, his anger, his jealousy, his rage.

In doing so, he had also denied his history, his memories, his friends, his family – anything and anyone that had the potential to remind him of Addison.

Without all of that, who was Derek Shepherd?

******

Addison looked in the mirror in the bathroom in the quaint little coffee shop she had found.

The proprieter had looked at her sympathetically and said to "go on back."

While Addie appreciated the gesture, she felt like the sympathy might break her.

The cold water she had splashed on her face made her feel a little more like herself. She pulled out her makeup kit and began to undo the damage the tears had left on her face.

Though a little makeup never solved the internal problems -- couldn’t take away the guilt, the heartache, the terror, the doubt -- at least it made Addison feel a little more like herself.

Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd did not break down often.

She prided herself on being strong, confident, self-assured, tough. That's how she made it to the top of her specialty, and that's how she saw herself personally as well. She had put up with weeks -- months -- of being Satan at the hospital, of her husband's scorn, of his sarcasm, of his flirting with a young blonde intern, without breaking.

But when it came to Derek, the toughness was a shell.

Before Mark, Derek's neglect, his lack of commitment had broken through. Maybe if she'd been less concerned about being strong and more concerned about her marriage, she would have found a way to get through to him before the disasterous encounter with Mark.

Now, it was the honest discussions that just might break her.

The makeup, repairing her physical flaws, enhancing her looks, was like strengthening the outer shell of Addison; at least the disguise might cover the inner turmoil.

'When in doubt, always put your best face forward, Addie,' she told herself.

Whatever was going to happen next between her and Derek was in his hands.

All she could do is wait, and wonder, and distract herself.

By any means necessary.

*******

Sitting alone on the windy beach, Derek realized that while he was without Addison he had only pretended to be fine.

The only way to do that, to maintain that pretense, the image of the easygoing baggage-free Dr. McDreamy, was to pretend that Addison simply didn't exist.

He ran away not just from his wife, but from his past.

Derek remembered the day he met Addison, the first day of medical school when she had taken the seat he wanted in biochem class. He had been about to object when he realized it would be far better to sit down next to the gorgeous redhead with the warm smile and the intelligent humor shining in her green eyes.

He remembered each of the 22 times he asked her on a first date.

He remembered the disaster that had occurred once she finally said yes. It was something of a miracle that there was a second date.

He remembered their wedding day, their friends and family witnessing Derek and Addison giving themselves to each other; smashing the wedding cake in each other's faces with no delicacy whatsoever; their first dance as man and wife; removing her garter with his teeth; Addison tossing her bouquet of peach roses directly to his sister Liz; making love for the first time as husband and wife.

Derek remembered thousands of smaller memories, of happy moments, meals shared, intimate moments, watching her perform surgery, looking up from his own surgery to see her, waking her with a kiss, being surprised with sexy lingerie or just a cup of coffee when he really needed one.

And Derek remember the not so happy times as well.

Screaming arguments. Addie wasn't a redhead by accident. She'd been exceedingly calm since she'd come to Seattle, mostly he admitted to himself because she'd been afraid of driving him even further away. But he even missed the flares of temper.

And their creative ways of making up.

But were those memories enough to get past Addison’s betrayal?

For no matter how much Addison apologized and no matter that he now understood his own role in the events leading up to that night, he still could not forget the sight of Mark touching Addison, Mark loving Addison, and -- even worse -- Addison touching Mark.

*********

The coffee had helped a little, but even the infusion of caffeine couldn’t keep Addie’s mind from racing.

At least on the outside, she knew she looked cool, calm, and controlled. On the inside, she couldn’t focus.

She had never before been unable to concentrate on something as basic as shopping.

But, as she wandered from boutique to boutique, smiling and nodding absently at the salespeople and other customers, occasionally touching a blouse here or a piece of pottery there, Addison simply could not keep her mind on the present.

She kept seeing the looks in Derek’s eyes.

The disbelief, the shock, the horror when he had walked in on her and Mark.

The rage, almost hatred, when she had first shown up in Seattle.

The angst when he told her that he loved Meredith.

The fury when he punched Mark.

The disdain, the contempt when she explained to the Chief why Derek had punched Mark.

The searing sadness, the heartwrenching pain as she explained just minutes ago her own account of the destruction of their marriage.

How could Derek possibly forgive her?

How could she survive if he did not?

********

As terrible as the memory of walking in on Mark with his hands and his lips on Addison was, the fact was that it simply did not stack up against 15 years of being friends with and loving Addison.

He had picked her.

For better or for worse.

They had seen better.

And they had definitely seen worse.

It was time for a new cycle.

Having finally listened, really listened, to Addison's account of her affair with Mark, he knew he bore more than a little responsibility for what had happened.

Not that his absence, his inattentiveness, excused what had happened. It did not. But it did contribute to it. The same way that Jack's absence and Jack's inattentiveness had destroyed his marriage to Sarah.

It was time for Derek to be an adult, to face that fact.

Oddly, equally difficult to handle was the fact that Mark and Addison were not the great love affair that Derek had imagined.

That made their betrayal both easier and more difficult to forgive.

Easier because he could believe Addison when she said that she loved him, Derek, and only him.

Harder because Derek had to deal with the fact that he had driven his wife to a drunken betrayal of the vows he held sacred.

Ultimately, Derek knew that he would never be able to forget what Addison had done.

And he knew that forgiveness was a process.

But he was working on it.