KARMA

2,588 Days. . .

Chapter 8 - 2,588 days

2,588 days. . .

It's wrong, he thinks, that tonight - the first of hopefully calling her his constant one and only and hopefully never having to feel the cold Siberian distance ever again whenever he reaches across to her side, and the first time he really actually feels the curve of her body curl into his side, the press of her face to his collarbone and the weight of her slender frame meeting his - is when he is all but only thinking about his wife.

Ex-wife! Ex-wife.

It's wrong that tonight as he held her, brushed the mane of her hair back from her face and cradled her cheek in his palm is when he can't truly feel at all because someone is whispering what an asshole he is.

Not was. Not have become. Just simply; is.

Because he's an asshole for continuing to lie to Meredith, to want her back when he thinks he doesn't, to dream about his wife.

Ex-wife, Derek! Ex-wife!

It looked just like this. It looked too familiar, too similar for him to ignore the parallelism. Well, other than their differences in height and hair complexity, it still looked as though he've already been in this predicament. Déjà vu. An over ten years resemblance.

How the feel the curl of her body curling into his side was the same as his wife's. Ex-wife! Oh, he give up trying. How the press of her face to his collarbone and the weight of her frame meeting his felt exactly like Addison. Like he was holding her instead.

He had to open his eyes and shake away the silent tears to really actually see for himself that it is, in fact, not his wife that he's holding.

Meredith.

And, of course, Addison still is dead.

He remembered the day as interns, over ten years ago, when the bubble that kept his wife anchored and grounded - the one she would withdraw into to feel safe and sound - had burst and very publicly too when her baby died in her arms - the baby whom Richard had had her in charge of.

She wasn't even hiding like she normally would and to say the least, he was more than just surprised. She was very visibly there - exposed, in the hallway at the hospital, trying so desperately to stop and just get a breath in. With one hand clutching tight on the pillar that's hoisting her on two feet and not leaving her to crumble to her knees, while the other was shaking, awkwardly displaced mid-air, perhaps not certain what on earth she was suppose to do with it.

He wasn't there at first. Of course, he wasn't. His shift had just ended and he was heading up to the NICU to help her with the baby when a nurse ran up to him.

"Your fiancée..." she was hacking on air, out of breath, "She's having a nervous breakdown or something."

"Addison?" he raised a brow.

"You have another fiancée, doctor?"

But it was an honest question, confusion because Addison do not cry. His Addison do not cry. His fiancée.

She was, though.

More than just crying, in fact. And if it wasn't for the tears swimming in the confines of her eyes, causing all to blur or that she was so completely lost, she would have been horrified to know that all eyes were only on her.

A dozen pairs were gawking at him, at her, at them as he merely tried to soothe her sobs, attempting to keep her body from collapsing in anguish.

"My baby, Derek...she's dead...Dr. Webber..."