"Almost There, Going Nowhere"
Part: 2/?
Pairing: Maddison
Description: Post Season 3. Addison leaves for L.A. hoping that no one will get in her way of finding a new life.
Rating: Harmless for now.
Disclaimer: I own nothing with the exception of two cats, which you are all welcome to.
Summary: Addison gets an unexpected visitor at her door.
Previous parts can be found inside. Enjoy!
Part 1: There's been too many days of trying.
A/N: Alright sorry for such a long turn around on this chapter. Usually I am much faster but I was on vacation so I think it is acceptable. I forgot to mention the title, "Almost There, Going Nowhere" was taken from the Starting Line. Thanks again to my fabulous beta and to everyone who is giving this fic a chance, I appreciate all of the feedback.
~-~-~-~-~-~
I've been waiting for answers
Dancing in circles, making me sick
I've been chained like a tiger
To hundreds of liars all holding hands
-Starting Line- "Ready"
~-~-~-~-~-~
She tries to keep her mind steady as she carefully folds clothing into an already full suitcase. The ride “home” (she has nothing else to call it) was finished in silence and he left her in the hallway without a word. She hadn’t planned on telling anyone goodbye. A little under a year ago she came out here to get her husband back. She lost at that, and has succeeded in making few friends, who she assures herself, will live just fine without her.
Upon hearing the light knocking on the door she contemplates acting like she isn’t there. She has no idea who it is and could frankly care less. She freezes as the sound increases in volume and prays to whatever god that will have her that it will go away so she can continue on packing and assuring herself that this is the right choice. It is her only choice.
“I know you are in there. I watched you go in your room. So unless you have jumped from the balcony you better get your ass to the door and open it now.” It is a familiar voice. One that she has learned to revel in. Callie may be the one friend she will miss from this place, so she strolls over to the wooden door and opens it slightly with a small smile beginning to take place. Although she has quite a few years on the black haired woman, she admires her spunk and ceaseless amount of hope.
“What? I don’t get to come in. Do you have a guy in there?” She states as she tries to peer through the crack.
“Uh.. No. I mean definitely no, I don’t have a guy in here. I am just cleaning and it is a mess. I will join you.” She steps out into the hall wishing that Callie couldn’t see past her casually dressed figure and into to the mess on the bed that has yet to be packed. She has no idea where all this stuff came from, and she was certain that most of what she owned was still sitting in New York waiting for her inevitable return.
“I don’t want to talk in the hall. This is important. Let’s just go inside, order ice cream, and talk about the many many reasons why men and marriage suck.”
“Oh.. Well I am kind of busy right now. Maybe we could do dinner in half an hour?” She needs something to work with here. There is no way Callie will understand if she let her in.
“No. I need to talk now. What’s up with you? You are acting all flaky and… oh my god! You didn’t!”
“Didn’t what?”
“You slept with Mark again. I knew it. Is he still in there? Because I can totally come back some other time.”
“What! No.. no I didn’t do that. I am just busy.”
“You are a horrible liar. Anyone ever tell you that?” Addison thinks that she is a pretty convincing liar but decides that Callie will probably have to learn that in due time anyway. Callie pushes her way past and walks into the half packed room. “What the hell is going on in here? Did you find an apartment or a house or something finally?” Her eyes scan the heaps of clothing and the boxes of shoes that have yet to be packed.
“Kind of. I am moving.” She walks in closely behind her and hopes that she won’t have to explain to anyone else the reason that seems so obvious to her.
“Well I see that! Geesh.” She walks over to the boxes of shoes that sit atop one another and begins looking inside. “Damn.”
“What?” She remarks frightened that maybe she has found some old picture or keepsake long lost in the box with a pair of black Manolo pumps. “They are just shoes.”
“Ridiculously expensive and gorgeous shoes.” She holds up the torn heel. “But what the hell happened to it?”
The memories of awful times in a tin can trailer flood her mind and she bites back tears with her simple reply of, “Doc.”
“What?” She asks while flinging around the broken shoe from a better time.
“Meredith’s dead dog. Doc. He liked shoes apparently. I found him one morning… Nevermind. It isn’t important, I should throw those away. No sense in packing them.” Her mind slips as the sentence trails off and suddenly she can’t stop the tears bottled up from an entire year of pain and a lifetime of agony any longer. She hopes as she bats at the tears falling freely that the girl in front of her will stay facing forward because crying in front of anyone who isn’t Mark is just outright embarrassing. Not that crying in front of him isn’t embarrassing, it has just happened too many times for her to care or count anymore. She has pride (however withered it may be these days) so she uses that back of her tired hand to absorb the moisture while trying to stifle a sob.
To her credit she can sense a change of inflection in her friend’s voice and turns to find her crying. “Hey now, it is just a shoe and by the looks of it you have plenty more where that came from.” She moves towards her.
“No.. I know. It is just a shoe. Just a stupid shoe. I’m stupid. Look at me this is ridiculous.” She takes a deep breath to try and re-group before heading over to the ripped shoe to toss it in the garbage. “Sorry about that.”
“You love shoes. I suppose it is rough when one of your babies gets hurt.” She offers while following back to the bed.
She fakes a smile that could pass for a real one if she gave it to anyone in this town and sits next to the shoes. “It isn’t the shoes. But speaking of babies, how goes the quest?”
“Good! Well ok, not to gross you out with details but I told him, and we tried this afternoon before the wedding. So maybe.” Callie’s mouth opens into a wide smile and she can’t help but feel good for her friend no matter how much it hurts to watch other people conceive.
“That’s good. That’s really good. I am happy for you guys.”
“You still have to be my doctor. No getting out of that no matter how much you cry.” She sits with a thud next to the other woman who is perched tediously on the edge of the king sized bed.
“Fine.” She replies with a smirk and tries to lift her demeanor to a pleasant state so that the real questions will stay as far away as possible.
“So can I ask you something? I mean I know we aren’t the best of friends, and I don’t do friends well...”
“You can ask me anything you want to. I reserve the right not to answer though.”
“Ok, deal.”
“Floor is all yours.” She is happy for the change in conversation and perhaps a change in her train of thought. Worrying about someone else’s problems has always been so much more entertaining then her own issues which do nothing but remind her of how much she has failed lately.
“Remember when I told you about Izzie Stevens?” She nods and the speech continues on, “Well you said that usually there is a reason for thinking that way and I don’t know-. Something just feels off between George and me. And we had this huge fight before and now it feels wrong.”
“Fight?” She motions an unsure response as she begins to play with the tattered heel.
“Small fight.. Turned large. It was nothing. But he got mad and left, and then my dad came out and talked to him, and then I told him I wanted a baby. Maybe it is all going too fast. Maybe we just need time to slow down. Maybe it is nothing.”
She tries to stem the feeling of the conversation she held earlier with Izzie about being an adulterer but her mind is literally running wild with ideas, all of which will break the person next to her. “Maybe it isn’t nothing. Maybe it is something. But you should talk it out with him, not me, you know.”
“I know. I just thought I’d run it by you first and see if you had heard anything.”
“I am not big on gossip because most of the time it involves me. Although I do have a certain flare in these wildly popular stories, most of them are untrue. It is better to just talk to him Callie.” She chucks the shoe away from her and decides right then that she did the right thing. The truth will come out. It always does, and this isn’t her place to be saying a word about the things she thinks may or may not be true.
She stands up and heads for the door but suddenly turns back looking at the woman on the floor with some sort of expectation. “Yeah?”
“Stand up. This is the part where we hug now. I think. I don’t know I am not the best at this. But I am pretty sure that girls hug, a lot.”
“Right.” She stands and takes in the warmth of an embrace by the only friend she has made in the last few months of hell.
“Well I am off to talk to the husband.”
“Good luck.” She desperately wants some sort of confirmation that it isn’t going to turn out the way she is certain that it will.
“Thanks. Umm.. You too with this moving thing. Call me if you need help organizing when you get set up. Oh! And I want to do your new house party. That’s a girl thing. I swear we can invite total strangers and no one from the hospital.”
“Sounds good.” But you may have to catch a plane to do it. Minor details, she thinks as the door slams shut and she is left alone again with her thoughts. She is hoping that no one else tries to stop by so that she can actually manage to get something other than crying over a broken old shoe accomplished.
Part 3: Too late to learn from experience.
Pairing: Maddison
Description: Post Season 3. Addison leaves for L.A. hoping that no one will get in her way of finding a new life.
Rating: Harmless for now.
Disclaimer: I own nothing with the exception of two cats, which you are all welcome to.
Summary: Addison gets an unexpected visitor at her door.
Previous parts can be found inside. Enjoy!
Part 1: There's been too many days of trying.
A/N: Alright sorry for such a long turn around on this chapter. Usually I am much faster but I was on vacation so I think it is acceptable. I forgot to mention the title, "Almost There, Going Nowhere" was taken from the Starting Line. Thanks again to my fabulous beta and to everyone who is giving this fic a chance, I appreciate all of the feedback.
~-~-~-~-~-~
I've been waiting for answers
Dancing in circles, making me sick
I've been chained like a tiger
To hundreds of liars all holding hands
-Starting Line- "Ready"
~-~-~-~-~-~
She tries to keep her mind steady as she carefully folds clothing into an already full suitcase. The ride “home” (she has nothing else to call it) was finished in silence and he left her in the hallway without a word. She hadn’t planned on telling anyone goodbye. A little under a year ago she came out here to get her husband back. She lost at that, and has succeeded in making few friends, who she assures herself, will live just fine without her.
Upon hearing the light knocking on the door she contemplates acting like she isn’t there. She has no idea who it is and could frankly care less. She freezes as the sound increases in volume and prays to whatever god that will have her that it will go away so she can continue on packing and assuring herself that this is the right choice. It is her only choice.
“I know you are in there. I watched you go in your room. So unless you have jumped from the balcony you better get your ass to the door and open it now.” It is a familiar voice. One that she has learned to revel in. Callie may be the one friend she will miss from this place, so she strolls over to the wooden door and opens it slightly with a small smile beginning to take place. Although she has quite a few years on the black haired woman, she admires her spunk and ceaseless amount of hope.
“What? I don’t get to come in. Do you have a guy in there?” She states as she tries to peer through the crack.
“Uh.. No. I mean definitely no, I don’t have a guy in here. I am just cleaning and it is a mess. I will join you.” She steps out into the hall wishing that Callie couldn’t see past her casually dressed figure and into to the mess on the bed that has yet to be packed. She has no idea where all this stuff came from, and she was certain that most of what she owned was still sitting in New York waiting for her inevitable return.
“I don’t want to talk in the hall. This is important. Let’s just go inside, order ice cream, and talk about the many many reasons why men and marriage suck.”
“Oh.. Well I am kind of busy right now. Maybe we could do dinner in half an hour?” She needs something to work with here. There is no way Callie will understand if she let her in.
“No. I need to talk now. What’s up with you? You are acting all flaky and… oh my god! You didn’t!”
“Didn’t what?”
“You slept with Mark again. I knew it. Is he still in there? Because I can totally come back some other time.”
“What! No.. no I didn’t do that. I am just busy.”
“You are a horrible liar. Anyone ever tell you that?” Addison thinks that she is a pretty convincing liar but decides that Callie will probably have to learn that in due time anyway. Callie pushes her way past and walks into the half packed room. “What the hell is going on in here? Did you find an apartment or a house or something finally?” Her eyes scan the heaps of clothing and the boxes of shoes that have yet to be packed.
“Kind of. I am moving.” She walks in closely behind her and hopes that she won’t have to explain to anyone else the reason that seems so obvious to her.
“Well I see that! Geesh.” She walks over to the boxes of shoes that sit atop one another and begins looking inside. “Damn.”
“What?” She remarks frightened that maybe she has found some old picture or keepsake long lost in the box with a pair of black Manolo pumps. “They are just shoes.”
“Ridiculously expensive and gorgeous shoes.” She holds up the torn heel. “But what the hell happened to it?”
The memories of awful times in a tin can trailer flood her mind and she bites back tears with her simple reply of, “Doc.”
“What?” She asks while flinging around the broken shoe from a better time.
“Meredith’s dead dog. Doc. He liked shoes apparently. I found him one morning… Nevermind. It isn’t important, I should throw those away. No sense in packing them.” Her mind slips as the sentence trails off and suddenly she can’t stop the tears bottled up from an entire year of pain and a lifetime of agony any longer. She hopes as she bats at the tears falling freely that the girl in front of her will stay facing forward because crying in front of anyone who isn’t Mark is just outright embarrassing. Not that crying in front of him isn’t embarrassing, it has just happened too many times for her to care or count anymore. She has pride (however withered it may be these days) so she uses that back of her tired hand to absorb the moisture while trying to stifle a sob.
To her credit she can sense a change of inflection in her friend’s voice and turns to find her crying. “Hey now, it is just a shoe and by the looks of it you have plenty more where that came from.” She moves towards her.
“No.. I know. It is just a shoe. Just a stupid shoe. I’m stupid. Look at me this is ridiculous.” She takes a deep breath to try and re-group before heading over to the ripped shoe to toss it in the garbage. “Sorry about that.”
“You love shoes. I suppose it is rough when one of your babies gets hurt.” She offers while following back to the bed.
She fakes a smile that could pass for a real one if she gave it to anyone in this town and sits next to the shoes. “It isn’t the shoes. But speaking of babies, how goes the quest?”
“Good! Well ok, not to gross you out with details but I told him, and we tried this afternoon before the wedding. So maybe.” Callie’s mouth opens into a wide smile and she can’t help but feel good for her friend no matter how much it hurts to watch other people conceive.
“That’s good. That’s really good. I am happy for you guys.”
“You still have to be my doctor. No getting out of that no matter how much you cry.” She sits with a thud next to the other woman who is perched tediously on the edge of the king sized bed.
“Fine.” She replies with a smirk and tries to lift her demeanor to a pleasant state so that the real questions will stay as far away as possible.
“So can I ask you something? I mean I know we aren’t the best of friends, and I don’t do friends well...”
“You can ask me anything you want to. I reserve the right not to answer though.”
“Ok, deal.”
“Floor is all yours.” She is happy for the change in conversation and perhaps a change in her train of thought. Worrying about someone else’s problems has always been so much more entertaining then her own issues which do nothing but remind her of how much she has failed lately.
“Remember when I told you about Izzie Stevens?” She nods and the speech continues on, “Well you said that usually there is a reason for thinking that way and I don’t know-. Something just feels off between George and me. And we had this huge fight before and now it feels wrong.”
“Fight?” She motions an unsure response as she begins to play with the tattered heel.
“Small fight.. Turned large. It was nothing. But he got mad and left, and then my dad came out and talked to him, and then I told him I wanted a baby. Maybe it is all going too fast. Maybe we just need time to slow down. Maybe it is nothing.”
She tries to stem the feeling of the conversation she held earlier with Izzie about being an adulterer but her mind is literally running wild with ideas, all of which will break the person next to her. “Maybe it isn’t nothing. Maybe it is something. But you should talk it out with him, not me, you know.”
“I know. I just thought I’d run it by you first and see if you had heard anything.”
“I am not big on gossip because most of the time it involves me. Although I do have a certain flare in these wildly popular stories, most of them are untrue. It is better to just talk to him Callie.” She chucks the shoe away from her and decides right then that she did the right thing. The truth will come out. It always does, and this isn’t her place to be saying a word about the things she thinks may or may not be true.
She stands up and heads for the door but suddenly turns back looking at the woman on the floor with some sort of expectation. “Yeah?”
“Stand up. This is the part where we hug now. I think. I don’t know I am not the best at this. But I am pretty sure that girls hug, a lot.”
“Right.” She stands and takes in the warmth of an embrace by the only friend she has made in the last few months of hell.
“Well I am off to talk to the husband.”
“Good luck.” She desperately wants some sort of confirmation that it isn’t going to turn out the way she is certain that it will.
“Thanks. Umm.. You too with this moving thing. Call me if you need help organizing when you get set up. Oh! And I want to do your new house party. That’s a girl thing. I swear we can invite total strangers and no one from the hospital.”
“Sounds good.” But you may have to catch a plane to do it. Minor details, she thinks as the door slams shut and she is left alone again with her thoughts. She is hoping that no one else tries to stop by so that she can actually manage to get something other than crying over a broken old shoe accomplished.
Part 3: Too late to learn from experience.