(no subject)
Title: I Will Write You Love Letters (If You Tell Me To)
Pairing: Addison/Alex
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She doesn’t think it very fair that she should finally be allowed to smile right before she has to disappear for good. She planned to disappear weeks before it happened and thinks that it wasn’t as though she didn’t give fate and the gods enough warning.
At least the flight is smooth. She concedes a microscopic piece of thanks for that and takes two bags of peanuts because she has that stupid song stuck in her head even though she isn’t leaving yet, she’s coming back to finish. And to tie up loose ends and ignore others and find the pack of gold stars she knows is somewhere in her desk. She steals a deck of cards with the airline logo and a pin with wings on the way out and gives them to the man who does the room service for her floor as a gift for his daughters.
--
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
She looks up in surprise at her intern standing against her closed office door. She offers him a sad smile and nods and dumps the contents of a drawer she can’t remember ever opening into a waiting garbage bag. She gave up on the miniature trash can sitting under her desk long ago. He sits down in the uncomfortable chair across from her desk and she reminds herself that she should switch her chair with that chair before she leaves and put things back the way they were. She figures that whoever inherits her office should also inherit her karma and therefore inherit the desk chair spat out from hell and given to her as a housewarming gift as a greatly unfunny joke. She also figures that she can be bitter because, at some level, it was not entirely her choice to leave.
“Today was your last day.”
She nods again.
“When are you actually leaving?” He decides not to ask her where she’s going because if she wanted him to know she would have told him during their emergency C-section on triplets that it would be their last emergency C-section on triplets instead of leaving without a word.
She looks up for real this time and registers the sadness and desperation in his face and something invisible hits her in the stomach as she realizes that she will be missed. Truly missed, not simply an idle recognition that she is gone that will pass with time. She bites her lip and throws a pencil in the black plastic bag, she hates pencils. “Next Friday. I’ve been working with Richard to find someone to replace me. We’ve narrowed it down to two, they’re both fantastic and you’ll learn a lot from either.”
He nods and keeps his mouth shut until he decides just what to say to her without pushing her away or sounding like an idiot or both. His eyes lock on a box sitting on the floor next to the couch he always thought too comfortable for its own good and idly wonders whether her replacement will allow him to sleep on the couch or even work in her office. The office, he corrects himself, unsure whether her replacement will be male or female. He doesn’t care about their gender and he doesn’t care about their credentials; no one could properly replace her. The box is nearly overflowing with frames and he notices that the top one is a diploma of some kind and he assumes that the others underneath it are as well because he isn’t sure whether she ever had pictures or art sitting anywhere. He never looked that closely and he was certain that any pictures she had would probably bring up too many bad memories.
“Hey...” she leaves the word hanging, leaves it there to encourage him to turn back to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“You wanted to leave without it being a big deal.” He bends over to the floor and hands her a new garbage bag because the old one is about to topple over.
“Yeah.”
He watches her tie up the old bag and shake out the new one and he realizes that she’s reached the vacuum stage of cleaning out a desk, the stage where everything indiscriminately ends up in the trash. He hopes that she has already removed anything really important and then his mind flashes on the thought that there never was anything really important there anyway. “Why are you leaving?” He knows that it is professionally none of his business (though technically it is, just a little, because she is leaving him with someone he will not trust for months) and certainly personally none of his business (though technically it is, just a little, because he lied to her that day in the supply closet and he knows she knows it) but somehow that doesn’t matter.
She thinks of all the answers she could give him but none of the professional ones, none of the superficial ones, are true and he isn’t so stupid as to believe her. “I need to start over.”
He nods and understands even though he doesn’t want to. He understands that she needs to go somewhere else to start over, understands that there is too much history here and too many assumptions for her to truly get her life back. And, as much as he wants her to stay, he understands that he has to let her go. But. “Then can I at least take you out to dinner before you disappear from my life?”
She stops trying to pull the middle drawer out of her desk, because it’s easier to dump it upside down and get out all the eraser bits that get everywhere even though she hates pencils than dig it out by hand, and looks at him in shock. She knows her answer, and has known it for a while, but his phrasing catches her off-guard and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Until right now, amidst empty shelves and garbage bags full of stuff she truly hopes is just garbage, she has never thought of it as disappearing. She suddenly feels badly for pulling a vanishing act, but only feels badly for a select few and she blinks back tears as she realizes that the man in front of her is the only one of the select few who will not come into the hospital in the morning to find a note with a phone number in his locker. Nodding and telling him yes with a genuine smile, she wonders whether there was unconscious reason for the oversight or whether it was true forgetfulness.
She’s willing to bet a lot of money on the unconscious reason but makes plans for tomorrow night.
--
They date for six days and share hugs and kisses and chocolate cake but never a bed. On the seventh night (and twelfth date because they’ve met for breakfast and shared French Toast, too), she invites him up to her hotel room because the way he wrapped his arm around her when they walked out of the restaurant said so much and the kiss he placed on her head when she leaned it on his shoulder said that it was true.
He makes sure to glide his hands over every inch of her body and he memorizes how she tastes and smells and he wishes he could record the soft low moan that comes out of her mouth as he dips his tongue into her center because he thinks it’s almost probably the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. She takes care not to dig her nails into his back as he moves above and inside of her, takes care not to mar his perfection and she lets him suckle a bruise on her neck because he wants to and it feels too good. It’s been years since her breath has caught in her throat in ecstasy without the help of fingers and it’s been years since he’s been with a woman who hasn’t needed help and they tumble over the edge one after the other and don’t stop moving until they’re sure there’s nothing more.
Her skin sticks to his as they hold each other afterward. They say nothing and breathe together in quiet, silence broken only by the soft brush of lips on skin or rustle of fabric as fingers trace artistic contours and lines. She drifts off first and he combs his fingers through her hair, lightly so as not to disturb her, and watches her sleep. Elegant long fingers unconsciously squeeze his and he smiles a kiss against her temple and slowly follows suit.
--
He takes her to the airport because they both know that she’ll want one last hug from him before she disappears into the security line. He holds her tightly in his arms and wants to tell her not to go, wants to tell her that she should stay here and stay with him and they could make it work for her but he knows she won’t listen. So he hugs her and gently kisses her lips and watches her go. He now knows where she’s going but cares about her too much and respects her privacy and swears to himself not to try to find her.
He fishes around his coat pocket for his keys and finds an envelope with his name on the front in her handwriting. He flips it over to open and read right then but a note to wait until a specific time stops him. It’s only when he’s in his car does he realize that the time she gave him guarantees that he’ll open it while she’s in the air.
--
She trudges through the front door of her building after a painfully long day and wants nothing more than to curl up in bed because she has been at work for fifteen hours and up for eighteen. She’s lived in the building for two weeks and her mail is just beginning to forward itself properly and it hasn’t been interesting but she checks anyway. She grabs the stack of mostly junk and ads for pizza chains and unlocks her door and kicks it shut behind her. She drops the mail on the table by the door and tosses her purse on the couch and drapes her coat on the back of a chair, promising to hang it up properly later.
And her day gets monumentally better when she sifts through the mail and finds an unassuming envelope without a yellow forwarding sticker on the front. Her name stands out in recognizable handwriting in black ink against the white paper and she smiles widely and pours herself a glass of wine and curls up in a pillowy chair and opens the letter.
Pairing: Addison/Alex
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She doesn’t think it very fair that she should finally be allowed to smile right before she has to disappear for good. She planned to disappear weeks before it happened and thinks that it wasn’t as though she didn’t give fate and the gods enough warning.
At least the flight is smooth. She concedes a microscopic piece of thanks for that and takes two bags of peanuts because she has that stupid song stuck in her head even though she isn’t leaving yet, she’s coming back to finish. And to tie up loose ends and ignore others and find the pack of gold stars she knows is somewhere in her desk. She steals a deck of cards with the airline logo and a pin with wings on the way out and gives them to the man who does the room service for her floor as a gift for his daughters.
--
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
She looks up in surprise at her intern standing against her closed office door. She offers him a sad smile and nods and dumps the contents of a drawer she can’t remember ever opening into a waiting garbage bag. She gave up on the miniature trash can sitting under her desk long ago. He sits down in the uncomfortable chair across from her desk and she reminds herself that she should switch her chair with that chair before she leaves and put things back the way they were. She figures that whoever inherits her office should also inherit her karma and therefore inherit the desk chair spat out from hell and given to her as a housewarming gift as a greatly unfunny joke. She also figures that she can be bitter because, at some level, it was not entirely her choice to leave.
“Today was your last day.”
She nods again.
“When are you actually leaving?” He decides not to ask her where she’s going because if she wanted him to know she would have told him during their emergency C-section on triplets that it would be their last emergency C-section on triplets instead of leaving without a word.
She looks up for real this time and registers the sadness and desperation in his face and something invisible hits her in the stomach as she realizes that she will be missed. Truly missed, not simply an idle recognition that she is gone that will pass with time. She bites her lip and throws a pencil in the black plastic bag, she hates pencils. “Next Friday. I’ve been working with Richard to find someone to replace me. We’ve narrowed it down to two, they’re both fantastic and you’ll learn a lot from either.”
He nods and keeps his mouth shut until he decides just what to say to her without pushing her away or sounding like an idiot or both. His eyes lock on a box sitting on the floor next to the couch he always thought too comfortable for its own good and idly wonders whether her replacement will allow him to sleep on the couch or even work in her office. The office, he corrects himself, unsure whether her replacement will be male or female. He doesn’t care about their gender and he doesn’t care about their credentials; no one could properly replace her. The box is nearly overflowing with frames and he notices that the top one is a diploma of some kind and he assumes that the others underneath it are as well because he isn’t sure whether she ever had pictures or art sitting anywhere. He never looked that closely and he was certain that any pictures she had would probably bring up too many bad memories.
“Hey...” she leaves the word hanging, leaves it there to encourage him to turn back to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“You wanted to leave without it being a big deal.” He bends over to the floor and hands her a new garbage bag because the old one is about to topple over.
“Yeah.”
He watches her tie up the old bag and shake out the new one and he realizes that she’s reached the vacuum stage of cleaning out a desk, the stage where everything indiscriminately ends up in the trash. He hopes that she has already removed anything really important and then his mind flashes on the thought that there never was anything really important there anyway. “Why are you leaving?” He knows that it is professionally none of his business (though technically it is, just a little, because she is leaving him with someone he will not trust for months) and certainly personally none of his business (though technically it is, just a little, because he lied to her that day in the supply closet and he knows she knows it) but somehow that doesn’t matter.
She thinks of all the answers she could give him but none of the professional ones, none of the superficial ones, are true and he isn’t so stupid as to believe her. “I need to start over.”
He nods and understands even though he doesn’t want to. He understands that she needs to go somewhere else to start over, understands that there is too much history here and too many assumptions for her to truly get her life back. And, as much as he wants her to stay, he understands that he has to let her go. But. “Then can I at least take you out to dinner before you disappear from my life?”
She stops trying to pull the middle drawer out of her desk, because it’s easier to dump it upside down and get out all the eraser bits that get everywhere even though she hates pencils than dig it out by hand, and looks at him in shock. She knows her answer, and has known it for a while, but his phrasing catches her off-guard and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Until right now, amidst empty shelves and garbage bags full of stuff she truly hopes is just garbage, she has never thought of it as disappearing. She suddenly feels badly for pulling a vanishing act, but only feels badly for a select few and she blinks back tears as she realizes that the man in front of her is the only one of the select few who will not come into the hospital in the morning to find a note with a phone number in his locker. Nodding and telling him yes with a genuine smile, she wonders whether there was unconscious reason for the oversight or whether it was true forgetfulness.
She’s willing to bet a lot of money on the unconscious reason but makes plans for tomorrow night.
--
They date for six days and share hugs and kisses and chocolate cake but never a bed. On the seventh night (and twelfth date because they’ve met for breakfast and shared French Toast, too), she invites him up to her hotel room because the way he wrapped his arm around her when they walked out of the restaurant said so much and the kiss he placed on her head when she leaned it on his shoulder said that it was true.
He makes sure to glide his hands over every inch of her body and he memorizes how she tastes and smells and he wishes he could record the soft low moan that comes out of her mouth as he dips his tongue into her center because he thinks it’s almost probably the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. She takes care not to dig her nails into his back as he moves above and inside of her, takes care not to mar his perfection and she lets him suckle a bruise on her neck because he wants to and it feels too good. It’s been years since her breath has caught in her throat in ecstasy without the help of fingers and it’s been years since he’s been with a woman who hasn’t needed help and they tumble over the edge one after the other and don’t stop moving until they’re sure there’s nothing more.
Her skin sticks to his as they hold each other afterward. They say nothing and breathe together in quiet, silence broken only by the soft brush of lips on skin or rustle of fabric as fingers trace artistic contours and lines. She drifts off first and he combs his fingers through her hair, lightly so as not to disturb her, and watches her sleep. Elegant long fingers unconsciously squeeze his and he smiles a kiss against her temple and slowly follows suit.
--
He takes her to the airport because they both know that she’ll want one last hug from him before she disappears into the security line. He holds her tightly in his arms and wants to tell her not to go, wants to tell her that she should stay here and stay with him and they could make it work for her but he knows she won’t listen. So he hugs her and gently kisses her lips and watches her go. He now knows where she’s going but cares about her too much and respects her privacy and swears to himself not to try to find her.
He fishes around his coat pocket for his keys and finds an envelope with his name on the front in her handwriting. He flips it over to open and read right then but a note to wait until a specific time stops him. It’s only when he’s in his car does he realize that the time she gave him guarantees that he’ll open it while she’s in the air.
--
She trudges through the front door of her building after a painfully long day and wants nothing more than to curl up in bed because she has been at work for fifteen hours and up for eighteen. She’s lived in the building for two weeks and her mail is just beginning to forward itself properly and it hasn’t been interesting but she checks anyway. She grabs the stack of mostly junk and ads for pizza chains and unlocks her door and kicks it shut behind her. She drops the mail on the table by the door and tosses her purse on the couch and drapes her coat on the back of a chair, promising to hang it up properly later.
And her day gets monumentally better when she sifts through the mail and finds an unassuming envelope without a yellow forwarding sticker on the front. Her name stands out in recognizable handwriting in black ink against the white paper and she smiles widely and pours herself a glass of wine and curls up in a pillowy chair and opens the letter.