Falling Apart, Barely Breathing

Chapter 20: Break On Through Part Ten

PREVIOUSLY ON "FALLING APART, BARELY BREATHING":

"Mer?" "Hey, what's going through your head right now?" Cristina asks Meredith rather tenderly. Even more tenderly than the first time.

"Oh, I was just thinking about, well, Addison " Meredith lets her name fall from her lips before she realizes she's said it.

"Ah," Cristina says to her simply. "What are you thinking about then?" Cristina offers her.

"Well, I guess I was thinking about kissing Addison ," Meredith says before cursing internally at herself for letting that part slip out easily as well.

"So are you?" Derek questions her once again.

"Am I?" Mirrors Addison with a questioning tone.

"Are you becoming a LESBIAN?" Derek says with a jeer.

"God, you really don't give up on that one, do you" she swears.

"Lesbians are hot," Burke says to her the same way a 14-year-old boy might.

"They are," Derek adds with a smirk.

"Ugh, men" Addison wants to throw something like a brick at them now.

"Ugh, men are what usually lesbians think about boys in the bedroom" BAILEY now chimes in here.

"WHAT!" Addison exclaims at Miranda this time.

"Well, you ASKED" Bailey gives her that all-knowing glance.

"Ugh, fine. I find women attractive. But I don't want to date Cristina Yang. Are we satisfied now?" Addison says with a huff.

"I KNEW IT," says Derek. "You always looked at your best friend Naomi sort of that way. Mostly while you were drunk but there was a look in your eye. A look that used to be only for me..." Derek continues.

"It was the lust look. The one you'd get when you were on your like- cycle or something. The one that meant that I should take an early night off, buy a bottle of champagne and wash the sheets over again" Derek says with a smirk.

"I- really? You did all that? " Addison says in surprise. "You have certain tells in your body you know. When you want something. When you want SEX. Like your hips move more than before, or you start to rub on my shoulders more often" he says.

"I'm surprised you're only telling me this now," Addison says, a bit stunned.

"It hurt to say it because it wasn't always directed at ME," Derek says with sadness.

"And more than half the time it seemed like it was about a woman," he says. "You'd see a hot girl at the beach or at the bar. Sometimes you'd flirt with her, subconsciously, I guess, at least. More times it was that they would be flirting with YOU. And you'd, I don't know you'd just enjoy it a lot , a lot more than one might expect...from someone completely straight " he says.

"It was all really innocent, you never moved forward. But the way that you looked at those women, the way that those women molded you in their hands if they did touch you, even accidentally. I don't know, I guess I always wondered, that's all" he says softly. And Addison just nods at him in simple understanding.

Addison realizes the pain he might have caused to Derek through this. But she gives him a look that lets him know it's on his side too.

Addison has been watching for years how Derek has fallen in love with his male best friend. And she's sad in a way, too that her husband could not admit this part of who he was, either.