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stressed

Chapters 24 & 25
I had meant to update before this, but RL got in the way. For the record, the characters still ain't mine, and I still love feedback.



Chapter 24 of the neverending saga

****

“Derek?”

“Mmmhmmm?”

“You do realize that when we go back to Seattle, we’re taking this bathtub with us?”

Derek smiled and laughed, but he didn’t open his eyes. He was perfectly content to lie there covered by the water and the bubbles that smelled like the ocean into which they had scattered their divorce paper confetti earlier that evening. He had his wife in his arms, her body lying comfortably back against his.

“You don’t think the owners will notice if it’s missing?”

Addison just smiled.

When they had come back to the room at the end of their second full day in Victoria, she had made a bee line for the bathroom. She had observed out of the corner of her eye Derek’s evident amusement as he watched her fill the tub with steaming water and some more of the bubble bath Savvy had sent from New York. This was one was called simply Ocean, and so it felt like the right choice to end the day the Shepherds had just spent together.

The boat and the ocean and the stars had been wonderful; the destruction of the divorce papers had been phenomenal. However, both she and Derek were both freezing after their night out on the water. A hot bath would warm them up. Plus, she was taking advantage of the wonderful tub while she had it, before she had to go back to the cramped shower in the trailer.

To get Derek to join her, she had been forced to assure him once again that these bubbles would not make him smell too “girlie.” Although to be fair, his objections had fallen away when he watched Addie start to strip.

“Besides,” Derek added, “I don’t think we’ll have room for it in our luggage.”

As the Shepherds lay their content with each other and the moment, Derek began to think more and more about the sentiments Addison had expressed earlier that evening, about how she lived each day in Seattle in fear that he would change his mind and leave her for Meredith. That bothered him. And he noticed that when Addison talked about leaving Victoria and the B&B, she talked about going back “to Seattle” rather than home.

He realized that although the word choice was no doubt unintentional, it probably reflected her feelings. Addison had moved to Seattle for him. She would stay in Seattle for him. But it wasn’t home – at least not yet.

Richard had made her a great offer to lure her to Seattle Grace, but if Derek hadn’t given her and their marriage another chance he had no doubt that Addison would have said “thanks, but no thanks” to the professional opportunity and hopped the next flight back to New York. Her practice had been thriving there.

There, she would still live in the beautiful Brownstone they had shared or perhaps in a new place equally nice if she wanted to escape the memories. She would not live in a trailer. And if she went “home” to New York, she would still have her circle of friends and family, both inside and outside the hospital where they had worked. In Seattle, Addie had become friends with Miranda Bailey and maybe she was starting a real friendship with Izzie Stevens, but she had to be lonely.

Her life in Seattle, Derek admitted to himself, mostly revolved around him. Given how he had been acting, and given her expressed fears, that was not much of a life.

Derek vowed that it was time for a change. If Addison and Derek were going to stay in Seattle, as they were now both contractually bound to do, then it was time to construct a real life there together. They needed to make Seattle home the way New York had been.

As he had been thinking, Derek had unconsciously let his hands trace all the curves and planes of Addison’s body. She had felt his fingertips as they moved along the sides of her ribcage, down her arms, across her stomach, tracing patterns in the skin that he could easily reach. At first, the motion had been calming and peaceful, like the bath itself, but as Derek continued to mark random patterns in her skin, Addison was beginning to feel a different type of energy.

Without warning, Addie sat up, turned around and claimed her husband’s mouth with her own. Derek was startled out of his thoughts and into the moment, as he watched Addie stand up and step out of the tub.

“Where are you going?” He asked, his eyes unable to leave her nude form, still glistening from the water of the bath, some bubbles clinging to her in provocative parts, emphasizing some of his favorites of his wife’s attributes.

“To bed.” She replied.

“Are you tired?”

Addison grinned wickedly.

“Not in the least.”

********

Day three – their last full day in Victoria before they would have to return to Seattle – dawned cloudy and cool, with a hint of rain. The Shepherds slept in and relaxed.

They battled over the Sunday crossword puzzle during their scrumptious breakfast at the B&B. Derek lost a small wager with his wife during breakfast, after he failed to get three clues specially selected by Addie on said crossword puzzle.

As a result they were spending the morning shopping. Derek pretended to grumble, because it was expected, but in reality he was fine with it. He liked to watch Addison in her element, and it had been a long time since he’d seen the master shopper at work.

The stores of Victoria offered a plethora of alternatives – from antiques to art galleries, boutiques with clothing and jewelry stores, used book stores and even a toy shop. As they were not looking for anything particular, the Shepherds took them as they came.

Derek held Addison’s hand as they wandered through an antique store first. They looked and admired the furniture, and Derek could tell that the beautiful mahogany dining room table nestled near the back of the store had caught his wife’s eye. Truth be told, he liked it, too. But, of course, they didn’t have room for a dining room table in the trailer, so the matter was academic.

Store number two was a clothing boutique, and Derek claimed the chair designated for husbands and boyfriends as Addison began to pile up clothing to try on.

“Addie,” Derek warned, “if you’re not careful, we’re never going to make it past this store.”

“Derek,” she responded, “have you lost faith in my ability to shop efficiently?”

“Never,” he assured her.

He watched with a smile as she disappeared into the dressing room. She popped out minutes later with a green blouse on that fit her perfectly and complemented her eyes, and Derek assured her she should take it.

The second time Addie emerged from the dressing room – 10 minutes later, since his wife rarely bothered to show Derek things she’d decided to reject – she had on a black skirt that was modest enough for work but had a sexy slit up the side that showed off her legs to full advantage. Once again Derek assured her it was a winner. He didn’t share with her the elaborate fantasy about making love to her both in and out of the skirt that he developed once she went back into the dressing room to continue trying on clothes. A man had to entertain himself somehow.

When she emerged for the third time, she was wearing the clothes in which she had started the day. She had in her hand four garments – the green blouse, the black skirt, something in red, and something in blue. She kissed Derek and praised him for his patience.

“You didn’t show me these?” Derek observed, as Addie led him up to the counter so they could pay.

“Nope.” Addie smirked.

“So you want me to just buy them for you sight unseen?” Derek teased.

“I’m a doctor. I’ve got a few bucks. I can buy them myself,” Addie smiled. “Beside, where would the fun be if I showed you all my tricks ahead of time? If you want to see these on my body, you’re just going to have to take me out a couple times.”

“I see. . . . So this is just blackmail?”

“Think of it as incentive.”Addison smiled, and she gave him a quick but passionate kiss, as if to remind him what else might serve as incentive for taking her out on the town.

As they moved on to store number 3, a bookstore, Derek and Addison picked out together a couple of books for themselves and a present for Derek’s father’s birthday. The proprietor was helpful with recommendations, which was useful since Derek’s relationship with his alcoholic father was quite strained and they always had a difficult time buying him presents.

As they moved from store to store, Derek realized that he was having a good time. As they browsed, Addie stayed close to him, her hand usually either in his or else somewhere on his body. Even when she seemed to be engrossed in whatever purchase she was contemplating, he could feel her warmth, her affection, her love, and it made him feel good.

While they meandered through the next couple of stores, they also found a birthday present for his niece and a board game that they had never seen before. Derek just laughed when his competitive wife promised to whip his ass at the game, though neither of them yet knew the rules.

They hit a jewelry store but when Derek suggested that he should buy Addie something new, she just shook her head and pointed to the charm bracelet that she had worn every day of the trip.

“I think you’ve bought me enough presents lately,” she smiled, before pressing a soft kiss on his lips. When he suggested that she needed something special to remember this trip by, she shook her head again. “I’ve got everything I need to remember this trip right here with me,” she said, squeezing his hand.

Derek felt like an idiot when he realized five minutes later that what she meant was all she needed was him. He silently promised not to lose sight of that truth again.





Chapter 25

It was mid-afternoon by the time the Shepherds dropped off their packages at the B&B, grabbed a sandwich for a late lunch, and found their way back to the bench that had served as their makeshift therapy locale during their stay in Victoria.

They each claimed their respective spot on the bench, and then they sat there in silence for a minute.

"It's weird," Addison remarked. "It was so obvious that we needed to finally discuss Mark and Meredith – to just tell each other the whole truth so there would be no more secrets standing between us -- and now that we have it's almost like I don't know what to say. I mean, don't get me wrong, Derek, I know there's more to say, but it's such a relief to no longer have those big things, to not have any secrets."

Derek took his wife's hand in his, feeling safer and more secure with the physical connection before he began to talk.

"I have something I need to say," Derek paused for a moment, and then he looked Addison in the eye. "I think maybe I'm only now starting to realize how much I've put you through the last several months, particularly by continuing to interact so much with Meredith."

"That's on me, on my need to deal with my own guilt about hurting her, and my inability to properly end what she and I shared. And maybe I felt like I was getting some of my own back when I spent time with her, because I knew it bothered you and I was still so, so very angry about Mark. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about this since our conversation yesterday and since our discussion on the boat when we ripped up the papers."

Addison watched Derek nervously, trying to figure out where exactly he was going with this speech. These conversations never went where she expected them to, and while they seemed to be accomplishing their purpose, that didn't mean that she didn't have a gigantic knot in her stomach throughout. She looked down at their handhold and let the fact that Derek had reached out to her physically signal to her that he was reaching out emotionally as well. A good thing, though it didn't make the knot go away.

"So I guess I have three things to say, that I need to just put out there. The first one is that I am sorry. I hurt you more than I ever intended to, more than I wanted to, and that is something I regret. Maybe I needed to get a little bit of revenge, or to hurt you back for hurting me, or just to test you to see if you really wanted, if you really loved me, and maybe I needed to find some way to resolve things with Meredith, but I didn't realize the extent of what I was doing to you in the process, Addison. And I am so sorry."

Derek looked at Addie and saw the tears come back into her eyes even as she smiled.

"Apology accepted," she said softly.

Derek laid a hand against her cheek as he wiped the escaping tears away, but her eyes continued to glisten.

"The second thing is that I love you. I love you. I want to be married to you and only you. I am not going to wake up tomorrow or any other day and change my mind."

"I know we're going to fight, because, well, you're a redhead and I'm me," at that Addison gave a laugh and Derek smiled back at her before continuing, "and we're both stubborn and strong-willed, and sometimes we've even been known to fight dirty and stay mad for a while. But I don't want you to think that because we're fighting or angry or because I'm having a conversation with Meredith at the hospital or for any other reason that I'm going to change my mind."

"I love you. I'm committed to you. And when we're 89 and have no teeth and I have no hair, you're still going to be stuck with me."

Addison smiled again at the image, and Derek's heart twisted when Addison smiled.

"And I know – I know – that maybe the only way to prove that to you is just to keep being there, but I needed to say it, too. Because you've already proven it to me, with your ability to stay with me through all the craziness since you came to Seattle. And I appreciate it more than you know."

Addie nodded. "And the third thing?"

"The third thing is that I forgive you – for Mark. I needed to say that outright. I can't promise to forget, because that's probably impossible. But after everything that we've been through together and apart, the least I can do is understand and forgive."

"I forgive you, too, Derek."

"Really?" There was a note of doubt in his voice – doubt caused by his own fairly recent appreciation of the depth of his crimes against Addison.

"Like you, I can't promise to forget. There will probably always be a little bit of scar tissue when it comes to Meredith, even after the wound heals, just like there'll always be a scar for you when it comes to Mark. A different kind of scar in my case maybe, but a scar nonetheless. But I love you, I want my life with you, and I can and do forgive you."

"But," Addison smiled reassuringly at Derek when he jumped at the word 'but,' "I think to really fix what went wrong, we do have to talk about what happened before. Because Mark and Meredith were the symptoms, they weren't the root of the problem."

"I know," Derek said. "I've come to realize that I was the root of the problem."

"No," Addison said, shaking her heard. "Marriage is a two-way street. We were both the root of the problem. You don't get to martyr yourself, and take all of the blame or the responsibility for the state of our marriage in New York. We both made mistakes. We both took each other for granted. We both forgot to make time for what was most important, for each other."

"And then one day I realized that we had lost each other. And I got scared. I didn't know what to do. And that's when I made the mistake with Mark."

"I wish," Derek said, "that I could point to one decision, one mistake, and say that's where things went wrong. And I'll never do it again. The problem is that there wasn't one mistake. We had lots of small mistakes, lots of times when I stayed at the hospital maybe longer than I needed to, lots of times when we forgot to take each other into account."

"We both," Addison jumped in, "were busy trying to build our careers. I think for a while that made things easy for us. We were med students together, we were residents together. It was only when we started to specialize, when our time together was no longer built into our training that we started to let go. We both had our own individual certifications and mentors and patients, and it wasn't so easy to catch lunch or a nap together in the on call room or whatever."

"And because it had never been difficult before, we never really thought about working at it, to keep our relationship there. And I'm as responsible for that as you are, Derek. This isn't a contest to see who's more responsible or who screwed up worse. We both did."

Addie reached up and wiped away her own tears this time.

"What matters now is that we're both really trying to fix it, to be honest, to be committed, and to love each other."

After Addison finished, they both sat there silently. Neither one of them wanted to rehash the specific times that they had screwed up. The forgotten occasions. The time they went three days without seeing each other even though they were working in the same hospital. The arguments they never resolved and just allowed to build up into an underlying resentment that was easier to let be than to address.

They each had a list, although Derek was sure Addison's was much longer, of slights.

"I have an idea."

Addison raised an eyebrow at Derek's pronouncement.

"I think we should take our break, and we should each make a list."

"What kind of list?" Addison asked.

"A list of promises. Things we can do in Seattle to avoid making the same mistakes we made in New York . . . . Tonight we can talk about our lists and put some safeguards in place so that we don't fall back into our old bad habits."

***

Derek found himself back at the beach, near the same spot where he had been lost in thought just two days earlier after hearing Addison’s account of her affair with Mark. He thought about how far he and Addie had come in discussing their problems. He also recalled the less serious moments of the weekend – making love, battling over the crossword puzzle, shopping, hiking.

The time together away from work had done wonders to restore the Shepherds’ connection with each other. It had been a long time since they focused on each other. It had been a long time since he felt so much trust in his relationship with Addison.

Derek knew that more than anything he wanted – no, he needed – to ensure that he and Addison never fell apart again.

When Addison first walked back into his life in Seattle, playing the part of the wicked witch of the east, Derek guarded his heart. When he came to Seattle, Derek had shut Addison out of his heart and his life in order to survive. At her return, Derek was terrified that if he let her back in, if he forgave her, gave her a genuine chance, that he would lose himself again in his love for her. If that happened, and they fell apart a second time, he didn’t think there would be any way for him to survive.

Addison had stuck around anyway, showing her remarkable determination and will and her endless capacity to love him, even when he was being a first-class asshole, and had proven to him that she was worth that chance.

And slowly, Addison had crept back into his heart simply by being her strong, resilient, loving, amazing self, when he was busy looking the other way – looking at Meredith. Despite everything, Addison was back in his heart.

Addison was his heart.

So Derek pulled out the piece of paper and pen he had for his list. The focus of his list would be, he knew, things he could do to ensure that Addison always knew that he loved her, so that she would never feel like she couldn’t reach him – that he wasn’t there for her -- the way she had felt in New York.

1. Weekends away together – at least once every six months. Next time, Vancouver?

2. A real vacation – at least a week somewhere far away. Paris?

3. Seasons tickets to the local repertory theater.

4. Always wake the other when get in late/leave early.

5. Lunch together at hospital whenever possible.

6. Date nights – once a week?

7. Talk!!! Regular sessions like on this trip?

8. Call if stuck at hospital.

9. Surprises. Lots of salmon scrubs and peach roses.

10. If 12 hours pass and haven’t kissed wife – way too long. Drop everything and fix situation immediately.

Looking at the last item on his list made Derek want to kiss Addison now. He looked at his watch and realized there was probably a chunk of time before she’d be back at the B&B, so he headed back into historic Victoria to take care of something he’d promised himself that he’d do.

*****

As usual, Addison chose to remain in town while contemplating what she and Derek had shared. This had been the best conversation yet, for she and Derek were able to focus on the root cause of their problems rather than simply on the affairs that they had after wrecking their marriage on the rocks of indifference, inattentiveness, and absence.

They hadn’t rehashed every little thing, but the conversation nevertheless had brought back to Addison the memories of that painful time in New York when she could not figure out how and why she had lost her husband or what she needed to do to get him back.

And now, now they were creating safeguards to see that situation never occurred again. Positive. Forward-looking goals. Toward building their life together. Now it was about them – Derek and Addison. The Shepherds.

Addison pulled out a piece of paper from her bag to work on her list. Like Derek, she wanted a strong list with a plan for the future to prevent a relapse into their estrangement in New York. And she wanted to finish in time to make a quick stop to pick up something on her way to the B&B.

But, first things first. What could she do different this time around? What would make her and Derek stay happy together? Ultimately, she had learned that marriage was a process, it was a commitment, it was about two people both making the effort.

She began to write:

1. More weekends like this one. No pagers

2. Talk. Scream if need be, but don’t let things go out of fear about what Derek will say. Be strong.

3. Tell Derek you love him. Lots.

4. Surprises to make Derek happy. Very sexy lingerie. Caffeine.

5. Take ferry together whenever possible. Travel to/from work together as much as possible. Wait for each other.

6. Explore Seattle together. Make it home.

7. Walk Doc together sometimes.

8. Go back to salmon scrubs permanently.

9. Romantic dinners for two.

Addison paused for a moment before she wrote down the tenth item, but then she figured it was worth talking about no matter what. The tenth item was something she and Derek had to at least have a conversation about, before they waited too long for a conversation to matter.

10. Baby?