Karma, Chapters 6-7
I haven't given up on this story, or my other works in progress. I promise.



Chapter 6

****

Addison took a deep breath to steel herself before knocking.

When the door opened, she took in the not unexpected sight of Meredith Grey. What she hadn’t expected was how Meredith looked. She was wearing pajama pants and an old college sweatshirt, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from crying.

‘Not your problem, Addie,’ she reminded herself. She had her own issues to deal with, and whatever energy she had left over she would give it to those who deserve her friendship – like Preston, Miranda, and Callie – not to the intern who had sex with her husband.

“I’m here to see Stevens.” Addison’s tone was controlled. Not friendly in the least. “O’Malley said I could come by.”

Meredith nodded. She was glad for Izzie’s sake that Addison had come, though her presence brought only more negative feelings to the forefront for Meredith herself. Guilt. Sadness. Inadequacy. She looked at Addison, still perfectly coifed post-work, and then down at her sweat shirt, ripped and fraying at the bottom.

“She’s upstairs. Second door on the right. I took some food up there a little while ago, but I couldn’t convince her to eat it.”

Addison just nodded and swept past Meredith on her way to see Izzie. When she got to the door Meredith had indicated, she knocked. When she didn’t hear a response, Addison invited herself in.

Izzie was lying on her bed, eyes red and swollen like Meredith’s, in pajama pants and a tank top and an oversized sweater that Addison surmised must have been Denny’s. She was lying there and when Addison first walked through the door, it seemed to her as if Izzie was still just staring into space.

“How do you do it?”

Addison jumped when Izzie’s voice washed over her. It took her a second to catch up and respond.

“Do what?”

“Stand there and look fabulous when your heart is broken?” Izzie asked, and she scooched herself up into a sitting position, back against the headboard, clearly making room in case her mentor wanted to sit.

“You know about my broken heart?” Addison couldn’t figure out how Izzie would know or why she would care in the wake of losing Denny. She sat down next to Izzie, leaning back against the headboard, and swung her legs up onto the bed.

Two broken-hearted women sitting side by side. Survivors – battered and bloody, at least on the inside – of the same war.

“I heard Meredith and Finn last night talking about you – well, you, and Derek, and Meredith. – And I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry, too, for you as well as for me.”

Addison had thought a lot about Izzie’s situation as well as her own in the past couple of days. She had tried to decide what was worse – to lose the man you loved when you were just starting, when the love was fresh and new and exciting and you knew that he loved you more than anything or to lose the man you loved after 12 years of love and commitment and euphoria and mistakes and heartbreak. There was no answer to that question.

“Denny was a good man, and I know you loved him and he loved you.”

“So how do you do it?”

“You just – you put one foot in front of the other,” Addison took a deep breath. “I – somewhere along the way I learned that even when you’re down, when you’re broken, if you at least look like you have your act together, it helps. Other people might think you really do, and if it doesn’t fix what’s wrong inside, at least – at least I function.”

“I can’t seem to function,” Izzie said. “I can’t even seem to get up and go to the bathroom. I know Mere and George are worried. Even Callie and Christina. And Alex. Bailey called. I can’t seem to care. I lost Denny, my love and my future rolled up into one. And my career. I am nothing. I might as well move back to the trailer park.”

“The trailer park?” Addie asked.

“I grew up in this small town trailer park. My mother works long shifts at the diner. And I was determined to get out. I worked hard and I used everything – my brains at school, my looks to model. And here I am, but now it’s all gone. Everything I worked for. Everything I am. I am nothing.”

“It’s not gone,” Addie reassured her. “You’re here. You’re a fighter. You may not feel like one now, but you’re a survivor. So we’re going to fix things, one piece at a time.”

“Where do I start? How?”

“You start by eating something. Taking a shower. Then tomorrow, we’re going to have a meeting.”

“A meeting?” Izzie was puzzled.

“You, me, Bailey and Burke. We’re going to figure out the best course of action professionally and then we’ll make it happen. You are too talented a doctor and too fabulous a person to spend the rest of your life in pajamas in bed. That doesn’t mean that your actions aren’t going to have a cost professionally – they are. But we’re going to make the best out of a bad situation. So you need to think about what you want professionally and how we’re going to get there – and what price you’re willing to pay.”

Izzie turned and looked at Addison, and Addison looked back at her. Then, Izzie nodded.

Addison stood up. “Good. Now eat that sandwich.” She walked to the door and paused again, looked Izzie straight in the eye and said with empathy in her voice. “I’m sorry about Denny. I really am. But now, now we have to focus on you. So I will see you tomorrow. Burke’s room at 7:30 a.m.”

“Addison,” Izzie called out as Addison entered the hallway. Her mentor turned back to look at Izzie. “Thank you.”

Addison just nodded and left. Without a word, she walked past Meredith sitting on the couch on her way out of the Grey house. It looked like Meredith was crying, and Addison reminded herself a second time that Meredith Grey was not her friend and definitely not her problem.

Meredith pulled an old afghan over herself and just sat there on the couch. Seeing Addison had brought the night before back to her, not that it had ever really faded away.

“Why can’t you talk to Addison? . . . I think it’s time for you to be straight with me.” Finn had said after George left the room. “I told you that it’s fine if you’re scary and damaged, and I promise I will understand and I will try to help, but I need to know what’s going on. Because that night, I felt like I was in one of those old westerns where the two gunslingers duel over the girl, and I had no idea what was going on. That’s not fair to me.”

“It’s a long story . . . and not a very pretty one.”

Finn took the bottle of wine and refilled their glasses before taking a seat. “I’ve got time.”

Meredith nodded, took a seat across the table and kept her eyes down on the wood, tracing the patterns. She couldn’t look at Finn – or anyone – and tell the story.

“I met Derek when he and I first moved to Seattle. It was the night before my internship. We both were at Joe’s, having a few drinks. I picked him up, or he picked me up. Whatever. We had a one-night stand. That was supposed to be it.”

She glanced up and saw Finn’s eyes on her, so beautiful and kind and unprepared for what she was about to say, and quickly lowered her gaze again.

“Then I discovered that my one-night stand was in fact my boss, or my boss’s boss, and I tried to end it, but I liked him and he liked me and we just kept sleeping together. I can’t really say dated, because it wasn’t like we went out to eat or on dates, but we were regularly sleeping together and we liked each other. I had my own other issues and Derek had his own other issues – obviously – but we never talked about them. Neither of us wanted to be serious, to deal with our problems. We were each so busy hiding our own problem, I don’t think either of us even realized the other one had a secret, too.”

“Where was Addison while all this was going on?”

“New York.” Meredith paused, guzzled the rest of her wine. “I’m not going to explain Derek’s issues or Derek’s and Addison’s issues because those are their issues, not mine, and they’re only tangentially relevant. So I’ll just say that they were in a really bad place in their marriage, Addison had hurt Derek badly, and he came out here to – I don’t know – get away from her, from their marriage, whatever. He never told me he was married. . . . And then one day Addison showed up. That’s how I found out.”

“So Addison came to Seattle ostensibly for a case, but she also made clear that she wanted Derek back. At the same time, however, she offered him his freedom. She gave him the choice to fix their problems and rebuild their marriage or to divorce, and he picked her.”

“But?” Finn asked, sensing this was not the end of the story.

“But I don’t know. It was like now that we couldn’t be together, I wanted Derek more than ever, and he wanted me, too. I mean, I was mad, I was angry, I was hurt, but I was also fixated on him, on what we could have had together. And it wasn’t one-sided. If it was, maybe I would have gotten over it. But Derek was fixated on me, too, and we would flirt and pretend to be just friends, but it was a lie. Addison bought it, or at least she pretended to, and she tried to be friends with me, too. Derek would go home to Addison and I would pick up more strange men in bars. And that was that.”

“That’s it? What changed at the Prom?”

“I can’t tell you. If I tell you, you’ll hate me.”

“I won’t hate you, Meredith. How could I hate you?”

“You will. You’ll hate me and you’ll be disgusted by me. I know. Because I hate me. And I’m disgusted by me. But, whatever, I deserve it," she took a deep breath and then spoke quickly. "At the Prom, Derek was looking at us dancing, and I couldn’t take it. I left. And he followed me. We ended up in an exam room. And I – I lost my underwear.”

“You had sex with Derek Shepherd,” Finn said, to confirm, to make no mistake.

Meredith nodded, unable to look up and meet his eyes.

“While Addison was what, down the hallway? While I was down the hallway?”

Meredith nodded again, the tears crawling down her cheek.

Finn stood up, picked up his jacket from the chair, and walked toward the door. At the door, he paused for a moment but he didn’t turn around.

“I don’t hate you, Meredith,” he said, before he walked out. “I don’t hate you.”

As Meredith sat on the couch in her living room 24 hours later, she just heard the echo of those words, “I don’t hate you.”

But it didn’t matter. Those words from Finn couldn’t keep her from hating herself.

*******

Across town, Miranda Bailey stared in disbelief at what she had found on her doorstop.

“You have a lot of guts showing up here.”

“I need to talk to Addison and I figured she would prefer to do it in private rather than causing yet another scene at the hospital.” Derek was nervous enough about this conversation and having to go through the pit bull that is Miranda Bailey protecting her best friend was not helping matters.

“A. She’s not here. B. Did you really think ambushing her is the right thing to do? C. You are an insane idiot. D. According to the rumor mill, the vet dumped Meredith Grey, so why don’t you go chase her?”

Tucker kept an eye on the scene on his front porch. Miranda usually limited herself to verbal smackdowns; but, given how she felt about Derek Shepherd at the moment, Tucker was not entirely sure she would limit herself tonight. At least she didn’t have the baby in her arms. Nevertheless, Tucker didn’t want to have to have conjugal visits in prison if Miranda killed Derek; plus, while he thought Derek was an absolute moron for cheating on Addison, the man had once saved his life. So he kept an eye and an ear out.

“Look, I know you don’t believe me, but I love Addison. I screwed up, as bad as a man could. And not just at the Prom, but since she came to Seattle and even before that. Maybe it took me hitting rock bottom to see it. But I do now. I’ve realized it. I love Addison. And anything you want to do to me for hurting her, I deserve.”

“Fine,” Bailey said, unsure if she could believe a word he was saying. “Even if you do, why the heck should she give you the time of day?”

“She shouldn’t. You think I don’t realize that? But I love her. I know she deserves better, but I can’t help how I feel. I love Addison, and I think – I think despite everything, underneath the anger, and the pain, and the hurt, she might still love me. If there’s a chance, if there’s a glimmer of a chance, that we could still love each other, that we could forgive and build something new and stronger and better, then I have to try.”

Bailey gave him her infamous Nazi stare.

And there was silence. A long, heavy silence. Derek felt like the stare could possibly stop his heart, which might not be the worst resolution to this whole situation.

Then, Bailey pronounced judgment before turning and going inside to her husband and son.

“You can wait on the porch.”





Chapter 7

****

Addison had had a long, long day.

She had woken up hung over – despite the water and anticipatory ibuprofen she had consumed before bed. The water and ibuprofen had been no match for the quantity of alcohol in her system.

It was her pager that woke her. She had rushed to Seattle Grace to discover that a high-risk patient whom she had been monitoring for weeks had gone into pre-term labor. Despite her best efforts and those of George O’Malley, they had been unable to save the baby and the mother had lost her uterus as well when they couldn’t get the bleeding under control. Thankfully she hadn’t lost her life, but that was small consolation to the Addison's patient today.

Though Addison had done everything she could, and she knew in her head that even her best wasn’t always going to be enough, she felt the loss of that baby and that mother’s future potential babies in the core of her soul.

While they were treating the patient, O’Malley had approached her about Izzie Stevens – both her professional problems, which clearly were not insubstantial, and the fact that she was a mess in general, mourning Denny in her pajamas without eating or showering or leaving her bed, unresponsive to her friends’ concerns.

So, despite everything going on in her own life, Addison mustered the energy to go see Izzie, passing Meredith on her way to and from Izzie’s bedroom sanctuary, to express her sympathy and to try to help pull her at least a step closer to living her life again.

Now, she was exhausted.

All she wanted was a glass of white wine and a full night of sleep in the guest bed that Miranda and Tucker were so graciously allowing her to appropriate for as long as she needed it.

So to say Addison was less than pleased to see Derek waiting for her as she walked up to the Bailey porch was more than a little bit of an understatement.

“I’m really tired, Derek.”

“I know. I heard about your patient and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Derek looked at Addison and the tiredness emanated from her very being. She looked perfectly coifed on the outside, but Derek could see exhaustion of her soul. He knew that he was largely responsible for it.

“You didn’t come all the way over here to express sympathy about my losing a baby.”

“No. I did want to tell you I was sorry. But I also came to talk to you, in private. I need to talk to you, to tell you some things. I didn’t want to make another big scene at the hospital because, well, we’ve entertained the gossip mill plenty. And I know that is my fault, but I still thought maybe it’d be better to talk in private.”

“I’m sort of surprised Miranda hasn’t called the cops on you.”

Derek smiled at the recollection of Bailey’s recent verbal whipping.

“I think there’s some pity mixed up in her contempt and desire to kill. After beating me down, she told me I could wait on the porch.”

Addison looked at Derek, really looked at him, for the first time since she realized what he had done with Meredith Grey at the Prom. And she realized he looked awful. Worse than she did, although that was just due to her skill with makeup and a curling iron. Not worse than she felt. And not worse than Izzie, since he had at least showered in the last 48 hours.

Nevertheless, Derek looked like a man who hadn’t been sleeping, hadn’t been eating, and had had a date with the bottle. She tried to harden her heart against the glimmer of concern lodged there.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Derek asked.

“Look, you came over here to tell me something. I’m listening. Tell me, so I can go inside, have my glass of wine and go to sleep.”

Derek gave his wife a wry smile.

“So you’ll hear me out just to get rid of me?”

“Exactly.” Addison nodded, taking a seat on the steps of the Bailey porch. Suddenly she was too tired to even stand.

“OK. I’ve rehearsed this a thousand times in my head and now I know it’s not going to come out right. But here goes.”

Derek sat down next to his wife and looked her in the eye. He didn’t attempt to touch her. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms, but he knew that even his hand on hers would be unwelcome. It was enough that she was going to listen, even if it was just so he would then leave.

“I love you, Addison. I know that I don’t deserve to, that I am nowhere near good enough for you, and that I’ve done nothing but hurt you for a long time now. In New York when I didn’t prioritize our marriage. When I left without a word. When you came here and I treated you like crap, using my own pain as a justification to just keep on hurting you. I know that what I did with Meredith at the Prom was just the final straw.”

“And I’m so sorry for all of it. I don’t even – there are no words to express how sorry I am for all of it, and most especially for what I did the other night.”

“But the one thing that the last 48 hours has made clear to me is that you are the one I love. You are the person I most regret hurting. You are the person I see when I close my eyes and think about my life twenty years from now or fifty years from now. I love you. I lost my way for a while, but I am in love with you. And I am asking you, no begging you, to consider giving me another chance even though I recognize that I in no way deserve it.”

“Derek,” Addison finally interrupted, unable to listen to her husband’s declaration any longer in silence. “The problem with this nice little speech – and the one you made outside the neonatal unit -- is that I can’t believe a word you say. Not one word. Because everything, every single thing that you’ve said to me for months has been a lie. So I don’t see what you hope to get out of being here, out of doing this. Unless you just want to twist the knife a little more?”

“Addison, the last thing I want to do is hurt you more. And I know you can’t believe me. I don’t blame you. I never meant to lie to you, to deceive you. And, believe it or not, I never meant to sleep with Meredith again.”

“We ended it when you and I agreed not to divorce. I don’t want you to think that this was going on for six months. We didn’t have sex from the day you walked into Seattle Grace until the one crazy, stupid, idiotic time at the Prom. It’s just – I don’t know -- we didn’t end it right, or something.”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I don’t know if it was my guilt at hurting her or if it was just that we ended so abruptly but I was crazed about her. I thought if we could be friends, if I could make sure she was OK, that would be fine, but that didn’t work. I was deceiving myself because I was just feeding my unhealthy obsession. I know it was wrong. And I know that if you were to decide to give me another chance, it would never happen again.”

“Really?” Addison asked, bitterness and sarcasm evident in her tone. “Because from my vantage point, it seems to me that you’re here with me on this porch because Meredith didn’t want you. She picked Finn, right? Left the Prom with him? So maybe you should rethink this whole speech about loving me because I don’t know if you’ve heard the latest Seattle Grace gossip, but Finn dumped her. She’s free and back on the market. And I saw her not long ago and she’s in tears, so maybe you should go rescue her, McDreamy.”

Derek winced at the embarassing nickname, said with such sarcasm and vitriol.

“I know that Meredith and Finn had a fight, broke up, whatever. No less than a dozen people made sure I knew today. But I don’t care. If anything, I hope they work it out. What Meredith and I did was a mistake. A big, giant, monumental mistake. I cared about her. I was obsessed with her. I felt guilty about hurting her. But I never loved her the way I love you.”

“Really? . . . So maybe you wouldn’t cheat on her?”

Derek bit back the words that she cheated first. That simply did not matter anymore. For he finally had understood and forgiven Addison for her affair with Mark. And next to his own sins, well, Addison’s one giant mistake paled in comparison.

Meanwhile, Addison had been waiting for the obvious comeback. That she cheated first. He had never been shy about throwing it in her face before. So she was stunned by Derek’s next words.

“I know you have no reason to believe me. . . but you are the one I want and if you give me another chance, I promise you will never ever regret it. . . .”

“When you first came to Seattle, there was a point in time when I was so angry and you said to me that you might be Satan and you might be a bitch, but you still were the love of my life. I still remember those words, as if you said them yesterday. I couldn’t admit it then, but you were right. Not about the Satan part, about the love of my life part. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

“I know I have no right to ask you for another chance. And if what you decide is that you really want is a divorce, I promise I won’t contest it. I’ll sign whatever papers you want.”

“But if there’s some glimmer of a hope, I have to try, I have to beg you to consider giving me one last chance to get it right. Because I love you. I promise you that – while I probably will make other mistakes – I won’t make the same ones again. I won’t cheat on you. And I won’t take you for granted. And I know you think you can’t believe me, because my track record is terrible, but if you give me a chance I will prove it to you with more than just pretty words.”

“I’m willing to do whatever you want – therapy, move back to New York, sell the trailer, anything – if you’ll just hold off on the divorce papers and give me a chance to prove to you that I can be the man that I once was, the man you married, the man you could trust with your heart, your best friend. Indeed, the first thing I think we should do if you are willing is therapy – with a better therapist then the one we used the first time around.”

“He wasn’t very good,” Addison interjected. One small point they could agree on.

“Because just like you are the love of my life,” Derek continued, “I believe that somewhere deep down underneath the anger and the rage and all those other things you are more than entitled to feel, I believe that you still love me, that I am still the love of your life. And if we have a tiny fraction of a chance to reclaim our love and our life together, I want to seize that.”

“So all I am asking, Addie, -- and I know it’s far more than I deserve – is that you think about it, think about whether there is any way, definitely not today or tomorrow, but maybe down the road, that you can forgive me and that we can rebuild. Because I love you and I want to rebuild my life with you.”

Addison looked at Derek when he fell silent. Then she stood up and walked into the house and let the door close behind her, leaving Derek still sitting on the porch of the Bailey house. Alone.