Author's Notes: This has been in my head for a while, and I'm in an AddisonAndDerek mood. This is a combination of prompts (thanks, Rach!). The story opens at the close of the Season 2 Christmas episode of Grey's (following Derek's confession to Addison that he fell in love with Meredith) and goes AU from there with some more exploration of how they got there and where they're going. If you decide to read, please let me know your thoughts - they're always welcome. I can't be the only one who still wants to read about these two crazy kids, can I? I plan to update as quickly as I can, though this chapter may be a bit longer than future endeavors.

The Climbing Way

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

(Sears/Willis, "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear")

"Dr. Shepherd?"

"Yes, this is-"

"You're Addison Shepherd's husband."

"Yes." He swipes confusion and sleep from his eyes, fumbling for the clock. 4:52. The sky's a bruised black-purple outside the small windows. "Yes, what's-"

Then his mouth goes dry at the words on the other end of the phone.

"No, that's impossible, she's-" and he turns but the pillow beside him is empty, the covers flat and rumpled.

"I-she was here. She was sleeping-"

The voice on the other end of the line is gentle, sympathetic. He knows the tone too well. He's used it himself.

"I'm very sorry."

the night before

She's on her fourth drink. Not a word has passed between them since his admission. They left comfortable silence behind in New York, long before Mark happened. But this silence is something else entirely: weighty. Sticky. Like the silly seasonal drink she was nursing when he arrived.

He should be relieved that he's been able to be honest. In truth, though, he's not sure what he feels - if it's anything at all. Feelings aren't simple for him, they neither overwhelm nor underwhelm him. They are, like everything else in his life, subject to clinical analysis and study before he expresses them.

Extract, review, determine.

He leans against the stiff back of the booth and waits.

I'm not saying this to hurt you...

She drains the glass and signals to Joe. When he brings a fresh one he meets Derek's eyes with some emotion he can't identify - sympathy? Judgment? Derek nods briefly at him. Addison takes a long swallow and sets the glass down with little grace. A few drops slosh over the side; she switched to gin several drinks ago and he's not sure the combination is doing her any favors.

...or because I want to leave you, because I don't.

He glances at her, uncertain of his next move, and sees that her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her tolerance - for alcohol and other things - has always been high, but the set of her jaw is noticeably tight.

Meredith - it wasn't a fling. It wasn't revenge. I fell in love with her.

He didn't say anything after her second drink, or even the fourth, deciding to give her some space, but-

That doesn't go away just because I decided to stay with you.

"That's probably enough." He wraps his fingers around the cool cylinder of her glass and moves it carefully away from her. He waits for her to protest but she's looking past him.

"I want to go home," she whispers.

He'd braced himself for a scene, not agreement. He nods, pleased that they're on the same page and can leave the awkwardness of the too-small booth behind them. "Good. I'll drive." The single scotch he drank has long since been metabolized, he's been matching her glass for glass with water.

A tear rolls down her cheek and she jabs at it with the heel of her hand. "No. Not the...trailer. Home."

"Addison-"

She raises her voice. "I want to go home, Derek!"

Shit. He glances quickly over his shoulder, confirming they've drawn a few unwelcome stares.

"Okay, let's just-"

"I want to go home. I want to go back to New York." Another tear falls and he angles his body along the booth to try to shield her from view, knowing how little she would want to be seen in this state. Addison's not one for public crying; she's barely one for private crying. He realizes he should have cut her off earlier and kicks himself for it. He doesn't - can't - regret what he said, but the longer they sit here, the more he realizes how exposed they are.

Still blocking as much of her as possible, he rests a hand on her tweed-covered knee - she doesn't resist - and gentles his tone as much as he can. "Addison, we'll talk about this at h- after we leave. Come on, let's go."

"We'll talk about this? Seriously? We don't talk about anything!" Her voice is shrill and he winces.

"Calm down. You're making a scene. This isn't the place to do this-"

"You did it. This is your scene."

"Enough." He pats her leg gingerly. "I'll get your coat."

She shakes her head. "I'm not going with you." Her voice is congested like it always gets when she cries, and it hitches on the last word. "I want to go home," she whispers again.

"Come on, Addie." He starts to stand to reach for their coats when her half-yell stops him

"I'm not going with you!"

"Okay. Okay." He drops back into the booth and she quiets down. The other customers are somewhere between uninterested and compelled to watch. Addison turns away from him, salvaging the drink he'd tried to take from her a few minutes before. She takes a long swig and sniffs, hard. There's a tinny Christmas carol playing on the aging speakers; a smell of old popcorn and wet wool in the air. He props his chin in his hand.

Now what?

It feels like hours before she speaks again. Her voice is hoarse with emotion. When did that tone start to grate on his nerves?

"I can't be here. I need to go back to New York. I'm going to get a - where's my phone?"

She fusses inside her oversized bags, movements clumsy and jerky.

"It's Christmas Eve. You're not going to get a ticket out."

"So I'll fly private."

"Addison-"

"Derek, what? What? You're in love with another woman. Isn't that what you said? So why shouldn't I go?"

"It's...Christmas," he says helplessly, and regrets it almost immediately when she turns on him, cheeks reddened with fury.

"Don't you think I know it's Christmas?"

He's given up worrying about the other patrons at Joe's. Neither of them has ordered anything in nearly an hour. Addison is half-horizontal in her seat, and he doesn't have to look down to see how tightly her heels are dug into the floor. She couldn't have made it any clearer that she's refusing to leave. And short of prying her fingers loose from the table and dragging her out of there by force, he has no idea how to effectuate this transition.

Reasoning with her has worked poorly so far. Then again, if they knew how to avoid ineffectual patterns, they might never have gotten to this point. So it's no surprise to him that he starts again, almost by rote.

"Come on, Addie. Let's go back to the trailer. Sleep it off-"

"No!"

He lowers his voice even more, hoping it will bring hers down. "If you really still want to leave in the morning, I won't stop you."

"Tonight. I want to leave tonight."

"Addison."

"I can't - " and she drops her head into her folded arms.

He resists a strong urge to bang his own head into the wooden back of the booth. He looks her over. Her red hair is everywhere, spilling across her arms and over the rather sticky surface of the table. In this position, her white sweater his ridden up, exposing a few inches of bare back between the hem and the waistband of her trousers. He wants to look away, but something about that strip of skin - which looks particularly vulnerable in the low yellow light of the bar - makes unwelcome images rise up in his mind. Kissing his way down her spine while she squirmed and laughed beneath him. Resting his hand at the dip of her back - uncovered by her wedding dress - as they danced. The rainbow shaped arc of her silhouette as her dive parted the smooth water.

He feels he should do something vaguely comforting. Resisting any unwise urge to touch the bare skin in front of him now, he rests his hand against the soft wool of her sweater instead. She stiffens under his fingers, but doesn't pull away. She's not drinking now and no one's looking, so he relaxes - very slightly, reaches past her, and with one hand still resting on her back takes a long swallow of her drink.

He definitely feels like he needs it.

She's quiet and after long minutes he wonders if she's fallen asleep. He touches her shoulder. No response.

"Addison?"

She ignores him.

He moves some of her hair away from her face to try to see her expression. He fails, but she draws away from his fingers and he can tell she's awake, at least. It's so like her, either completely together or mostly falling apart, and he feels he has limited time to get them out of the bar.

"Just come outside with me. Let's just get some air."

To his surprise she nods at this and with the same slow, jerky movements, begins to gather herself to her feet. He wonders if he should feel guilty that a lie is what got her moving - or not, since lies are what moved them out here in the first place. He drapes her coat over her shoulders and keeps an arm around her waist as they walk out, first to prevent her from doing anything rash as they leave and then just to support her, as she grows less and less steady as they walk.

She's still mumbling something and he leans closer to hear it.

"I'm going to leave tonight. I'll find a hotel. I'll-"

"Addison." He's having some trouble holding her up, her trench is damp and she's increasingly just dead weight against him. "It's Christmas Eve and you're not in any shape to travel anyway."

She makes a soft snorting noise, sounding disgusted. "Please. You don't care that it's Christmas, except that you couldn't bear to be the guy who made his wife leave on Christmas. You have to be the good guy who keeps her around, right, Derek?"

It hits him hard, an arrow between the eyes, like truth, but before he can process it she's slipped through his fingers and she's on her knees in the parking lot, back arcing with what look like painful spasms. He drops to his haunches beside her and pulls her long hair away from her face mechanically, seconds too late.

Her clothes are spattered - even her trench. She looks glassy eyed and miserable and a little corner he'd frozen away thaws, just slightly. He's never been good at resisting her when she's vulnerable; what he's learned, unfortunately, is that it's just another form of avoidance.

She's too tired, too drunk, or both to argue any further and he loads her into his car, turns up the heat - she's shivering - and the enclosed space is claustrophobic with exhaust and the sour stench of vomit.

Christmas, Derek. We love Christmas.

It's too dark to see anything until the lights of a passing car illuminate her face. Then he sees how empty her eyes are.

Or at least we used to.

She's quiet when they get inside, then turns to him with that peculiar double-take affectation she uses so often, half-stammering. He's never been sure whether she does it on purpose and this doesn't seem to be the time to ask.

"Christmas - Christmas makes you want to be with people you love. That's what you said."

He nods.

"Not including me."

"I didn't say that."

"So it does include me?"

He lowers his head. This feeling of being trapped in her sights is so familiar. "I didn't say that," he admits.

She covers her face with her hands, turning away, and despite the still-present stone of anger inside him he feels a spear of guilt as he observes her shaking shoulders. She used to cover her face with her hands whenever she cried - something about her parents and that achingly cold upbringing. It took ages before she'd cry openly; when they were first married, he would occasionally pry her hands away from her face himself, lacing her fingers with his and preventing her from hiding. It's something he feels, oddly, he could never do now - it's too intimate somehow.

Is it possible that after ten years he actually knows her less?

Her mother had told her it was inappropriate to cry anywhere outside of one's bedroom; he knows this. The trailer has no real bedroom demarcation, but he supposes it's close enough. He stands there, wondering what he should do, used to being more certain of the right choice to make. The right thing to do. All that certainty has faded now, and he wonders too if he hates her for it.

Struck with the thought that he can't really do anything for her, he crosses the limited space and turns on the shower, waiting predictably long moments for the water to warm up.

"Get in. You'll feel better."

She turns around at this, eyes wide and bloodshot. She's a mess and where he expects he should feel tenderness he can only access resignation and a weak sense of duty. Cautiously, he approaches her and she covers her face again.

"Don't talk to me." Her voice is muffled behind her hands.

"Addison..." the tone is more of an entreaty than he intended. "Come on, it's okay."

Her hands fly away from her face, her eyes redder than before. "If you say that again, Derek, so help me..."

He holds a hand up. "Calm down." He gestures at her ruined clothing. "Take those off and I'll put them outside."

She undresses slowly with her back half to him; he realizes each of them has turned slightly away from the other. Privacy. He used to love to watch her undress after work, the slow slide of stockings down her endless legs.

The trailer smells better with her clothes on the porch, and the pounding water from the shower is inexplicably soothing, almost as if it's raining down on his skin. He changes his clothes, sits on the side of the bed with his elbows on his knees and treasures the relative silence. The trailer was quiet, before. She's mostly moved in now; she's filled it with dresses and shoes, endless glass bottles of lotions and perfumes and makeup. And with noise: questions, some of them even spoken out loud. Accusations. Her presence fills it up; her long body runs head to foot in the bed, her hair comes close to brushing the ceiling at times. He trips over her things.

She stumbles out of the shower in a cloud of steam, interrupting his thoughts-

She's always interrupting

- and the smell of her shampoo is overpowering in the small space. He used to love the smell, love burying his face in her wet hair, nibbling at shower-damp skin.

Now he just takes the towel from her and rubs it through her hair. There's something left, but what? He wishes, not for the first time, that he could locate and name the sensations he feels. Affection? Perhaps. Pity? Maybe. She's shivering in a robe and he turns his back tactfully so she can change.

"I'll sleep on the couch."

How many times has he heard that before? It was often - just as it is now - a pretense. They had two guest bedrooms, not to mention - he tamps down the thought. And they also had a fully furnished office. But there was no huff quite like a sleeping-on-the-couch huff, so she seemed to prefer the drama of that: stalking down the wooden staircase, flopping on the oversized leather couch, and waiting for him to venture after her with a peace offering. Sometimes he'd sleep there with her, millimeters from her frosty shoulder as he drifted off. He'd usually wake with her molded to him, her cold toes mingled with his. In sleep she sought his heat.

The thin strip of couch in the trailer - if it can be called that - is mostly for show. She looks somewhere between defiant and pathetic, hair still wet and uncombed, eyes glassy, and he sighs.

"Addison." He rubs a weary hand through his hair. "A Christmas truce, please." She winces at the word Christmas, but he can sense her weakening and he wraps a hand around her arm, guiding her toward the bed.

She lies on her stomach as far away from him as possible, face pressed into the pillow. He's on his back, staring at the ceiling. Wind moves the tree branches outside.

He gets the distinct sense Christmas won't be her favorite holiday anymore.

He looks inside himself, tries to access guilt, but all he gets is that hard stone again. Resignation. Anger. Betrayal. It's still there - there are a lot of things ruined now. He counts them off as his eyes grow heavy: Flannel sheets. His bed. The thing they don't talk about. His best friend. His marriage, most likely. His old goddamned shirt she used to sleep in that looked so good on her, until - well, Christmas can just find its way to the list as well.

That's his last thought as sleep overtakes him.

"I'm very sorry."

"No, she was here." His hand skates down the empty half of the bed. "I don't know when she left, I-"

His voice is breathy, uncharacteristic to his own ears. Someone else has taken the phone.

"Just get here, Derek. Just get to the hospital. Hurry."

The roads are slick with frost, eerily empty. He remembers it's Christmas morning.

It's our season.

He didn't hear her wake. He didn't notice she'd gone. He didn't see anything.

Hurry.

He's a surgeon and he is calm where others can't or won't be. His hands don't shake and his voice won't crack. Still, images flash before his eyes as if reflected in the ice-crusted windshield, in no particular order.

Addison grinning at him, agreeing to get some coffee after lab, deep indentations around her nose from the safety goggles

Addison looking up at him in the bar, eyes shining with hope, then downcast once again

Addison standing over the incubator, pale against dark green scrubs, asking him to try

He blinks hard against the images but she's still there, a small version of her moving before his eyes.

Linking her arm through his in the early dawn light outside the hospital

Arms flailing, rain-soaked and sobbing, begging him to stay

Turning to the side, admiring her profile, laughing when he teases her.

Longs legs stretched out on an adirondack chair, half asleep, eyes drifting closed.

He should feel something, but he doesn't. Not exactly. He forces his foot to ease off the gas before the car spins out. He's calm. He is calm, isn't he? Is that what he is?

The Chief is there; he meets him before he's even inside. There's a worn wreath hung on the exterior wall, a few strands of tinsel hanging limply. One more holiday ruined, another wife left behind. Richard's eyes are dark and bottomless and Derek swallows hard.

"Is she-"

"She's alive."

And for the first time, he feels something he thinks he can identify: the exquisite agony of guilt-laden relief.

The small Addison before his eyes flashes him a quick smile, tosses her long hair, and disappears.

Reviews are warmly welcomed and always appreciated.