Apple Candy (Mark/Addison)

[openended]

Title: Apple Candy
Rating: PG
Pairing: Addison, really, but Maddison fluff in there.
Summary: Mostly happy flashbacks on Addison’s childhood split up by Mark and Addison sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. After Derek left, but before Addison went to Seattle, and there's some playing with time to make it all work around Thanksgiving.

Note: I have this feeling that Addison isn’t actually a city girl. Money, yes, but I’m not entirely sold on the urbanite thing.

Title = Ben Lee. This is a phenomenonal song.


Grinning to herself, Addison looked up at the tree in front of her, calculating exactly how she was going to reach the top. She shivered a little and zipped her jacket up higher, cursing the New York not-quite-winter; November was in the stage of clothing-impossible. She had spent her entire life on the East Coast and still couldn’t keep her hands warm between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

This would be perfect if it were the Pullmann’s apple orchard she thought, reaching up and pulling gently on the closest branch, testing its limits. Satisfied it would hold her weight, she blew on her hands and rubbed them together in futile effort to keep them warm, and with a deep breath she jumped, pulling her body up until she was sitting comfortably. Bark had broken off onto her hands and she brushed it off on her jeans before cautiously standing up, grabbing another limb to steady herself.

Growing up, her elderly neighbors had owned an apple orchard and she had spent countless afternoons competing against her brothers in contests of who could climb higher. It was a miracle only one of them had ever fallen out and broken anything, especially the November the oldest was given a stopwatch for his birthday.

Her parents had always told them to stay out of the orchard and the trees, but Helen and John Pullmann never minded the Montgomery children playing, as long as they were safe and nothing was damaged. They often paid them to have fun, exchanging bushels of apples for the best apple cider Addison had ever had or, when they got older, pocket change. Addison chose the cider.

“I’m totally going to win this, Little Sister!” Andrew Montgomery taunted from the tree next to her, a few feet higher than she was. She hated that nickname.

The orchard went silent for half a second and she heard the three still on the ground shuffling through the dry leaves at the base of the trees.

“Come on, Addie, you’re almost there!” Christopher shouted through cupped hands, always her own personal cheerleader; they were only a year apart but he was more her older brother than any of the others.

“Hurry up or it’ll be the tree-climbing version of lapping you.” Addison was tempted to throw an apple over at his head, but decided it would either hit a branch and miss and inspire more teasing or hit him and inspire grounding and, either way, be a waste of a perfectly good Granny Smith apple.

“Shut up, Andrew, this isn’t timed.” Consistently the neutral one, middle child Jordan was dubbed Chief Judge; a title he hadn’t minded much since he fell out of a lower branch and broke his arm two years ago. According to their mother, he ‘found common sense’ that day.

Addison paused and sighed, rolling her eyes in frustration at the tree for not having a branch where she needed it and annoyance at her oldest brother for being a competitive asshole. He’d won every other time and she secretly knew that the only reason he ever challenged her was because he was guaranteed to win, but she wrote his mouth off to him being a competitive asshole who would trash-talk their grandmother if necessary. And a competitive asshole who would be out of the house in May. She wrapped her hand around a proven sturdy branch and leaned back, frowning at how to continue.

Mark wandered about in the distance, clearly looking for her, and Addison stifled a laugh, securing her foot on a broken branch about a foot up and continuing upward. The branch with no leaves near her shoulder was not her most graceful decision: her right foot slipped and she found herself hanging by one arm, steadied mostly by her left foot shoved solidly between the trunk and the branch she had pushed up on. She shook her head at herself and caught another limb, lifting herself up that way.

The youngest of five, Addison was used to competition, and used to hiding. She read somewhere, when she was six, that people never look down and almost never look up when they enter a room, and had adopted that theory into her strategy for life and sanity. She hid underneath her father’s desk whenever she needed to be away from people (but leaving the house would get her in too much trouble); she did most of her med school studying on the roofs of buildings or on the top level of the castle in the playground down the street. So when Mark made a joke about hide-and-seek, there was no way she wasn’t going to challenge him (even if they weren’t seven and if there were only two of them), and no way she wouldn’t win.

She gritted her teeth and leaned back into the tree trunk, choosing to give up on branches and hope that knots would hold and that nothing was living in the woodpecker’s hole to her right. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Andrew had stopped and was about to be out of branches. Grinning widely, she dug the toes of her sneakers into the bark and kept climbing. She knew from experience that he had chosen the wrong path up that tree; he could’ve gotten much higher if he had used the flimsy branch and been quick about pushing off it.

“Andrew, you moron, you can’t go any higher.” If there were ever a thing as a tree-climbing coach, Dylan was Andrew’s. He wasn’t any good at it himself so chose to save his second-oldest pride by yelling at the oldest; the other four humored him, pretending that they didn’t know about that time in eighth grade when a kid two years younger gave him a black eye with a kickball. “Climb back down a bit and go another way.”

Addison hopped up on the last viable limb and stood, planting her feet securely under her. She leaned back against the trunk, smugly crossing her arms. Looking around, she plucked an apple from a thin branch above her and shined it on her shirt before biting into the crispness. “He can’t,” she looked down, chewing, and shouted at her brother. “He made the Can’t Go Back Down More Than Three Feet rule last week after Chris beat him on the East end.”

She tossed apples down to the three on the ground, Christopher and Jordan caught them perfectly and smiled their thanks; she purposely barely missed Dylan’s head, shrugging innocence at his glare.

“She’s right,” Jordan admitted, the happiness in his voice forever tainting his neutral record. “If you can’t go any higher, Andrew, Addie beat you.”

Addison settled down and leaned her back against the trunk, not caring about the bark breaking off onto her jacket, carefully stretching her legs out in front of her. She whistled suggestively as Mark passed under her, waving coyly when he looked up.

“How the hell did you get up there?” Mark shielded his eyes from the bright glare and craned his neck to see her nearly at the top, astonished. If she weren’t Addison, and if she weren’t Addison having a Cute Day, he’d be pissed at the amount of time it took to find her. They both had the day off and the park had been her suggestion; he would’ve been perfectly happy lying around in bed. He even offered to have the windows open to silence her “Fresh air!” argument, but she didn’t cave. And she had flashed him that girly pout of hers that always got her what she wanted from him.

Apart from beginning to get a bit cold, he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was having fun. Mark wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so happy and carefree, definitely not since Derek left. Her face had lit up like the world had disappeared when the wind caught a few leaves and swirled them around her when they first stepped outside.

Addison laughed, tucking her windblown hair behind her ears. “Well, I grabbed on to that branch down there,” she pointed at a thick limb above Mark’s head, “and pulled myself up.” She frowned, trying to remember how she got where she was. “And sort of made it up from there,” she announced with an uncharacteristically goofy wide grin as if it were the easiest thing she’d ever done.

Addison flipped another page in her book and started in on her third apple of the afternoon. Safely wedged between the tree trunk and one of its oldest and biggest branches, she let one leg swing through the air under her, the other bent in front of her. Deciding, for once in her eighteen year-old life, to shirk studying over the three-day Thanksgiving break and actually relax instead, she escaped her family after lunch and gone outside.

And, if anyone asked, she had finished her calculus homework, Chris was checking over her physics study guide, French was a joke, and she was reading Jane Eyre, for which there was a paper due in a few weeks. And, if anyone asked, she would leave out the detail that it was one of her favorites and knew it nearly by heart.

“I swear, you spend more time up there than you do on the ground on my property.” John Pullmann had been raking around her tree for a few minutes before looking up and noticing her. He smiled, red plaid scarf tight around his neck.

She folded the corner of her page and closed her book, quietly laughing. “Better view.” A quick glance at her watch and she groaned; her grandmother demanded that she be back by five. It was determined unacceptable that Addison was about to go off to college and did not know how to make Thanksgiving dinner.

John offered her a hand as she made her way down, taking the book before she hopped off the last branch. “Cooking is a valuable skill, Addison,” he teased, knowing full well that she knew he’d never cooked a day in his life, with the exception of a brief foray into moonshine Helen pretended not to know about.

“I don’t even like turkey.” She took back her book and sighed, looking at the clouding sky, lost in a brief daydream.

He gave her a quick hug and a sympathetic smile before ushering her home. “You’ll find a boy, Addison. I promise.”

Damned if he wasn’t going to keep some shred of his masculinity, she was practically daring him to join her. Rolling his eyes, he grasped the branch she point out and pulled himself up enough that he could grab another. Mark Sloan was definitely not out of shape, but he had never been one to climb trees and blocking out her laughter at his ineptitude was harder than it should have been.

As he climbed closer to her, she turned around and scooted over away from the trunk a bit to give him space to sit, letting her legs dangle in the air. “See,” she playfully smirked, sticking her tongue out at him, “wasn’t that hard.”

Mark lifted his hands in defeat and leaned his back against the tree and he tugged at her hand, smiling at her to come to him. She slid back around and settled into his chest, marveling at how quickly his arms curled around her and how secure she felt near the top of a tree with only her balance to keep her up.

“This isn’t going to break, is it?” Mark half-joked.

She twisted her neck as best she could to look at him without throwing off her balance. “Scared of heights are we, Sloan?”

“I rock climb,” he offered as an answer.

“Ah, but you have ropes for that.” Cuddling back into him, she shook her head. “We’re fine.”

Lacing her fingers between his, she looked down, watching the people wander about below them. Students, couples, teenagers with Frisbees, professors, parents with small children, grandparents walking dogs, all looking for one last late afternoon outside before it got too cold.

“I was watching from the window the day you beat Andrew, you know.” Helen Pullmann poured a large glass of fresh apple cider and set it in front of Addison next to the plate of apple cinnamon cookies. “You were what, twelve?” She sat down across from the young woman.

Addison smiled at the memory, taking a sip and closing her eyes; nothing could ever be better. “Eleven.” She opened her eyes and paused, lost in thought for a moment. “Still one of my proudest moments.” Shrugging, she reached for a cookie and split it in half, carefully setting one half on a napkin before biting into the other half. Heaven in a cookie; she had become an elitist snob of apple cinnamon anything, having grown up on Helen’s.

“And now you’re twenty-one and graduating college in the spring.” Helen shook her head in disbelief, lifting her own glass. John had died several years ago, but she refused to sell the orchard, keeping it running with the help of local kids and a good head for finance.

Groaning softly, Addison crossed her arms on the table and dropped her forehead on her hands. “Don’t remind me,” her voice was muffled by her arms and the table. She sighed as she felt Helen’s hand cover hers comfortingly, still soft after all these years.

“You climbed higher than your eighteen year-old brother when you were eleven.” Helen gently lifted Addison’s chin so she was looking at her. “And you think you can’t take another semester of college?”

A girl of about five walked directly under the tree and looked up at them, nose and cheeks pink; still innocent, it made perfect sense to her that there would be people in a tree. She smiled and waved energetically, her purple mittens matching her coat.

“Hi!” The girl yelled up at them, her voice excited. She was outside and there was wind blowing to dance in, ducks to feed, piles of leaves to jump in, squirrels to chase, and new friends in trees.

Addison smiled and waved back. “Hi!” She suddenly wished she had purple mittens and rubbed her hands together, certain her nose and cheeks matched the girl’s.

The girl stood still, looking up at the two of them expectantly and Addison had an idea. Letting go of Mark’s hand for a moment, she leaned over and shook a limb, letting loose a flood of leaves down onto the girl. Grinning and giggling, the girl spun around a few times in the leaf shower with her arms out.

She glanced behind her as someone shouted a name and looked back up at Addison with sad eyes. Addison shook the branch again for her and was rewarded with a bright smile before the girl ran off, leaves stuck in her blonde hair.

“You’re happy,” Mark whispered in her ear; she seemed so alive. He hugged her tighter.

Addison thought for a moment and nodded, smiling lightly. “Yeah. I’m happy.”

Addison hoisted herself onto the counter, helping herself to a cookie. “Thanks,” she took the glass Helen gave her, trying to ignore the pain in her lower back she attributed to med school and midterm stress. Addison realized she had no idea how old Helen was; at a certain point the woman seemed to stop aging but Addison was pretty sure Helen could kick her ass if necessary.

“You’re welcome, dear.” Helen pulled out a chair and sat down. “Twenty-four and still coming home for Thanksgiving?” She smiled at Addison and then frowned when the younger woman set her glass down and twisted her back, it cracking audibly. “Oh, Addie, don’t do that, it’s bad for you.”

“And miss the insanity that is Montgomery’s Thanksgiving? Are you kidding?” She grinned, offering an apologetic shrug even though it felt so much better afterward. “Besides, there’s a boy Daddy demanded to meet,” she spoke her last statement into her cup.

Helen laughed loudly at Addison’s reluctance to admit to there being a boy in her life; even after hoping for so long, the younger woman was still shy talking about relationships. “Oh? What is the lucky man’s name?”

“Derek,” she smiled widely, eyes bright and proud. Addison’s expression dulled for a brief moment and she cast her eyes down. She recovered quickly, habitually, finding stability in her cider.

A knowing thought crossed the old woman’s face. “And what’s the name of the boy you didn’t bring home?”

Mark nuzzled the back of Addison’s neck, barely brushing his lips across her skin.

She gasped. “Your nose is cold!” She paused for a moment and then laughed loudly at herself.

“You’re the one who made me come outside,” he said indignantly, joining in her laughter.

“Oh? And you’re suddenly not strong enough to keep me inside.” Addison deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

The tree shook with their laughter and leaves fell off, catching in the wind; she watched them intently as they flew off in multicolored mini-cyclones. An elderly couple passed under their tree and looked up, puzzled as to why it was shaking and expected a pair of chasing squirrels. They smiled up at Addison and Mark instead, who waved down.

“Hi,” Addison said quietly with a happy smile. Mark hugged her gently and smiled, too.

“Hello!” The old woman grinned back at her.

The two women shared a quick moment of emotion; Addison didn’t know which, only that it made her feel at peace with everything.

The man shot Mark a congratulatory look and gave him a thumbs up. All four of them laughed and the old man took his wife’s hand.

“Goodbye,” the couple turned to walk off.

“Have a good day,” Addison said, waving goodbye to the two.

Mark and Addison both saw the look that passed between the old couple.

“What’s wrong?” Helen asked as Addison walked in the back door with a gust of cold air and a few stray leaves. As usual, a plate of fresh cookies sat on the table and a glass of cider magically appeared for Addison.

She slumped into the chair and leaned her head in her hands. After a few seconds of breathing to calm herself, Addison looked up. “Boys.” She took a long drink and, for the first time in her life, wished the cider were fermented.

Finishing her cookie, she brushed a few non-existent crumbs off her lips and breathed deeply. “Derek. I have a mile-long list of credentials and degrees, am clearly an intelligent and capable woman, and I can’t even get him to notice that I exist half the time. And the sex is infrequent and boring.” She exhaled and looked apologetically at Helen for the oversharing. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, dear; I asked.” She paused, letting Addison collect herself. “What else?”

Making a frustrated groan, partially that the woman knew everything, she closed her eyes. “Mark.” She opened an eye to find Helen staring expectantly at her. She closed it again and sighed deeply. “Who I really need to stop sleeping with.” Shaking her head, Addison laughed sarcastically at herself.

“How did I get here, Helen? How did I go from the girl who reads Charlotte Brontë in her neighbors’ tree and wants nothing more than a boyfriend to the woman who cheats on her husband with his best friend?”

Comforting silence fell on the kitchen for a few moments.

“You grew up, girl.” Helen looked at Addison with sad eyes.

She whispered. “Yeah.” Biting her lip didn’t hold back a few tears. “I tried not to.”

Rubbing gentle circles on her palm with his thumb, Mark kissed the back of Addison’s neck once the couple was out of sight. He did, after all, have some discretion. She leaned her neck back and closed her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder and sighing in content. He placed a quick kiss on her cheek and let his head rest on the tree, confident that it wouldn’t move, and held her to him.

The sun started to set, backlighting the other trees to glow brilliant reds, yellows, oranges. Addison shivered a little in his arms as the temperature dropped and he covered her hands with his

“I can feel you smiling,” she said after a few minutes, keeping her eyes closed.

Mark shrugged. “Guilty as charged.” He touched his lips to the sensitive skin behind her ear, just barely but enough to cause her to inhale sharply. The wind picked up and the leaves rustled below them, and Mark raised an eyebrow, suddenly having a thought. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

She tensed for a moment. Usually she and Derek alternated Thanksgivings and Christmases, but she had a feeling that showing up at the Shepherd’s after everything that had happened wasn’t in anyone’s best interests, no matter how much she knew they loved her. Staying in New York had its merits; most of them were Mark, plus the hospital put on a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. She mentally sighed, wanting a break from everything, even if nothing was all that stressful.

The same girl with the purple mittens walked back under their tree and looked up, waving again at Addison. She held a half-eaten caramel apple in her hand, and even in the dying light Addison could see that most of the caramel was on the girl’s lips and cheeks rather than in her stomach. Grinning, she waved back and the girl sped off to meet up with a voice of authority.

“I think I’m going home.”

“How are the boys?” Helen smiled, happy to see Addison grinning when she walked through the kitchen door, knowing that at least one of them was working out for her.

Addison laughed, sitting in her chair. “Is it that obvious?” She blushed at Helen’s expression.

“The one who ignored me left.” No matter how much she mocked it, it still hurt. “But the one who paid attention to me is…” She trailed off, not really sure how to describe Mark.

“As long as he makes you happy, girl.”

She looked out the window, remembering exactly which tree she had claimed as hers, comforted to know that it was still alive. "Yeah, he does."