it was a great love (one for the ages) / DISCONTINUED

Stay With Me

It was the day Addison had to go back to New York. Her flight leaves at 4 pm, so she goes back to Seattle Grace for a visit to say goodbye.

She went up to Richard's room, chatting for a bit and then thanked him for having her over. Next, she checked on the TTTS twins, and they are doing as good as ever. After a curt nod at Derek when she passed him in the halls, she saw the blonde standing at the nurses station, flipping through charts. Addison sighs and braces herself before walking over.

"Hey," Addison said softly

Meredith jumps, clearly deep in thinking.

Meredith regains her composure.

"Hi."

Addison smiles. "So, my flight is leaving this afternoon."

Meredith's face falls. "Oh. Okay."

Meredith's mind goes completely blank, yet at the same time is going a million miles a minute. 

They stand in silence, Meredith avoiding Addison's eyes.

Meredith bites her lip. This is crazy. You've known Addison for, what, 3 days? This is just a small crush. You can't convince her to stay.

"Well," Addison breaks the silence. "I just wanted to say thank you for working with me on the twins case. I know I didn't give you much of a choice, but it was nice working with you."

Meredith clears her throat. "Yeah, uhm-- thank you for the opportunity."

Addison lowers her voice and rests her arm on the side of the counter. "And thank you for telling me about the park. It was relaxing. The view is beautiful."

Meredith smiles back. "Yeah, of course. It's a nice view. I go up there whenever I get the chance."

Addison nods, leaning impossibly close to Meredith. "It's a shame I didn't have a beautiful girl with me to share the view with," she winks, letting Meredith know that she was referring to her.

Oh, what the hell? This was probably the last time she was going to see Meredith. Why not have a little fun?

Meredith blushes, her green eyes wide. Her mouth hangs open.

Addison waves, then walks into an empty elevator. Her heart beats fast in excitement and she smiles the whole way down to her car.

---

Addison drums her fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the traffic to die down. She's been sitting in her car, on the same road for 10 minutes now. That's when she notices-- it's hard to hear at first over the honking of the cars in front of her, but the sirens of an ambulance got closer and closer. A whole fleet of ambulances rush past her car. There were maybe 10 of them, no doubt there were more en route.

The stoplight turns green, and Addison follows the ambulances without hesitation, her flight ticket falling onto the ground on the passenger side when she makes a sharp turn.