The journey to here

3

Addison's POV:

I avoided Meredith like the plague. Not only did looking at her make me angry, but remembering how she kissed me, liking how she kissed me, that infuriated me.

So, I avoided her in the halls, I made sure to keep her off of my service, and I spent any free moments I had in the attendings lounge to keep from awkwardly running into her in any mutual areas like the cafeteria. I went out of my way to keep a distance from her, to forget that anything happened with us whatsoever, but fate had different plans.

About three days after the last time I'd seen Meredith in surgery with Callie, I'd still been avoiding her like a pro. I hadn't so much as seen her in the halls, let alone talked to her, in three days. Pretending that nothing ever happened seemed to being going pretty well.

Until it wasn't.

Callie joined me as I ate lunch in the attendings lounge, she was still only a resident but I liked the company and often invited her to eat with me when the lounge was empty. She sat, pulled out a salad, and said something that made my blood run cold.

"I was talking to Meredith this morning, and the strangest thing happened" Callie recalled, as she squeezed ranch dressing into her salad "her hair was tied up, and I noticed that she had a scratch on her neck. I asked what happened, and she said it was nothing, but when I looked down the back of her scrub top, her entire back was full of scratches!" Callie exclaimed "full! Like a cat went wild. They're all kind of faded, I'd say a few days old at least, but still there" she tacked on.

I swore I could feel my heart stop beating in my chest. "Oh yeah?" I kept my face neutral, not wanting to give anything away "did she say what happened?" Oh Fuck was all I could think.

Callie shrugged, and speared a piece of cucumber "A steamy hookup; she said she went out with some guy who was really submissive, she had her way with him apparently. It was so good, he ended up scratching up her entire back"

My blood boiled; she did not have her way with me. "You believe that?" I snort, opting to sip some water before I exploded altogether.

Another shrug. "I don't think it was a guy, if that's what you mean. Scratches like that could only be made with some long nails, lady nails" Callie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively "Meredith's been toeing the border of lesbian town"

"She always does cross too many lines" I murmur absently. Meredith, so it seemed, had zero boundaries. Absolutely none, zilch, nada.

Callie kept on talking, moving on to something else that happened to her a few hours ago. I'd stopped listening; I nodded and made attentive noises but in reality, I had no idea what she was saying.

My mind was focused on Meredith, and how I not only had to speak to her, but I also had to get a look at her back.

"Excuse me, I actually forgot I have something to do. I have a surgery this afternoon I completely forgot about, a last minute thing" I lie, standing up and throwing out the remains of my lunch. Callie smiles at me, says something that I'd be able to remember if I wasn't thinking solely about Meredith, before standing up herself.

"I've got a patient to check up on right now anyway, but I'll see you later?" She asks, leaving the room.

"Of course"

Once the coast is clear, and she's off to check on her patient, I'm barreling towards where I know Meredith is bound to be; the cafeteria.

My lungs feel like they're being squeezed together as I approach her table. She's sitting with all her friends, as per usual, laughing over something one of them just said. If I didn't hate Meredith so much, I would've felt bad for breaking up the conversation.

But my blood was on fire, and rage sat heavy in my stomach.

"Dr. Grey, I have a surgery this afternoon. I want you to scrub in, I don't have a resident assigned. I assume you're able to?" My voice is sharp and clipped, no nonsense and no pity. All concealed rage and not so concealed hatred.

She nods, and opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off abruptly.

"Great, then come with me to see the scans. I want you as prepared as possible so you don't screw yet another thing up" I watch with narrowed eyes as she says goodbye to her friends and stands up to follow me.

The second we're alone in an exam room, the door is firmly shut and I've got her shirt pulled up to expose her pale back. Which, as expected, was littered with long, thin, red lines. I ghosted my fingertips over them, feeling slightly guilty that I'd managed to scratch her up this badly.

"You're not the only one who was marked up" Meredith tells me, and even though she's not facing me, I can hear the smirk in her voice "you've been avoiding me; guess it took some scratches to get your attention. Scratches you put there, that Callie had to inform you of. Must've been hard to lie to her like that, to tell her you had no idea what happened"

The conniving little bitch. She'd set me up, she knew I was avoiding her and went out of her damn way to get my attention. Callie, God love her, had a bit of a gossip problem. I was one of her best friends, so it was only common sense that she'd tell me when something weird was happening.

"You fucking bitch" I growl. She spins around, malice in her eyes, and has me pinned against the wall before I can even get another word out.

"Why were you avoiding me, Addie?" She asks, breath hot on my neck. Her lips are barely touching me, just enough for me to wish there was more contact, more touching, more kissing, more something. "Did you not like our first encounter?" She asks, feigning ignorance "you moaned like a whore, I thought you were having a good time" she begins to suck on my collarbone, hard and sharp enough to sting. But it doesn't bother me; my breath leaves my mouth in a sharp hiss, and no sooner she's biting down.

I can't let myself be like this, I can't let myself give in. She's a horrible person, absolutely awful, and I can't let myself do this with her.

"I can't do this" I push her away, though admittedly not as hard as I could've "I can't, I've been avoiding you for a reason!" I exclaim, though if you'd asked me at that exact moment, with my skin still stinging and my head spinning, I wouldn't have been able to tell you a single reason why I'd been keeping a distance.

"What's that reason, hm?" She asks, hands on her hips, looking menacing "do you think that this makes you a bad person, being married and fucking around with the mistress" my core clenches when she swears "do you want to do the right thing, start being a good person, try to make your marriage work?" She questions "or are you staying away from me because you can't handle the fact that you absolutely despise me, yet all you want is this"

My breathing is heavy, and I know she's right. I'd never admit it, I'd die first, but she was. Everything about her was an oxymoron; she was a living embodiment of everything I hated, yet wanted all at once.

"You cannot stand that you're this big shot doctor who makes all the decisions, has all this power, all this authority, and yet all you want is to submit to the likes of me" she's inching her way closer to me now, and I know that if I don't turn and leave now, I won't have the strength to push her away a second time.

"You're such a whore" is all I manage to get out, before I'm kissing her. Hard, because nothing with Meredith was ever soft.

I lost all train of thought, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself go.