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Title: Pictures of Houses [3/?]Author: more_awake
Rating: G
Pairing/Character: Addison, Archer
Summary: A series of random vignettes about Addison and Archer Montgomery's childhood. This third part elaborates on the incident that Addison mentioned in the second season, in which she fell off her bike and Archer carried her home.
Previous chapters: one and two
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Skinned Knees
“But I want that one,” seven year-old Addison pouts as she points to a shiny green boys’ mountain bike. It has traction tires, handle brakes, a 12-speed gear shift, no training wheels, and, most importantly, it is exactly the same model as the one her brother received for his eleventh birthday three weeks ago.
“No, Addison,” her mother sighs, shaking her head in annoyance. “Now, look at this nice pink one over here. It has-”
“But Archie has this one, and it’s not fair!” The little girl interrupts loudly. Accustomed to getting everything she wants, she doesn’t understand why her mother is being so unreasonable.
“You know that I do not tolerate whining, Addison. I told you, no. Archer is older than you, and besides that, bicycles like those are not ladylike.”
“But I’m not a lady,” she insists adamantly. “I’m seven.”
“I will buy you a nice, feminine bicycle with training wheels. You can pick out anything you want to go with it-a bell, streamers, stickers, a basket, anything-but you are absolutely not getting one like your brother’s.”
“But it’s not fair!” She nearly shouts, bouncing up and down in frustration and causing other shoppers to stop and turn their heads. “I want that one!”
“Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery, you are making a scene, and if I hear you say that one more time, you will not be getting anything,” Bizzy hisses under her breath.
“Fine,” she says resolutely, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t want anything.”
Furious, Bizzy grabs her stubborn daughter by the shoulder and forcefully steers her out towards the parking lot where their driver is waiting.
Addison’s disappointment is short-lived, though-all it takes is one complaint to her father, and by the end of the week, against her mother’s wishes, she has a bike that matches her brother’s.
xx
A month later, they are on vacation at their summer house in Martha’s Vineyard when Archer offers to let his sister tag along on a trip into town to meet a couple of friends for ice cream. She has only been riding on two wheels for a week and is still pretty wobbly when she pedals, but he knows that inviting her to come with will make her feel special. And it does-her face lights up with a grin, and she bounces with excitement when he tells her that she can accompany him. Sometimes it’s not always cool anymore to have a little sister who wants to do everything that he does, but more often than not, he still loves being able to make her happy.
When they leave the house, he has Addison ride in front of him. That way, he can keep an eye on her and make sure she is safe, while also not having to worry about whether she can keep up. She pedals more slowly than he would like and is a little shaky at first, but at about half of a mile into their journey, he notices that she is looking more confident, sitting up straighter and shifting her weight into turns like a pro. He’s proud of her. The bike is a little too big for a seven year-old, but she is managing just fine.
Until she swerves to avoid a large stick on the path and seemingly forgets how to use her handle brake. When she finally remembers, it is too late, and Archer watches as inertia causes his little sister to fly over her handle bars, landing hands-first (and then face-second) on the dirt and gravel.
“Addie!” He yells frantically as he jumps off his bike before even coming to a stop and runs to where Addison is sobbing just a few yards away.
“Archie!” She cries as he kneels down beside her. “Owwwwieeeee!”
“It’s okay, Add,” he murmurs comfortingly as he helps her to sit up against him. “Shh… I know it hurts.”
“Owwww!”
As he begins to survey her injuries, it is immediately clear that she is in a lot of pain and has every reason to be upset. Her knees are both badly scraped-as are her nose, right cheek, chin, and forehead-and her bottom lip is split open from biting halfway through it. There is also dirt mixed in with the blood, and when she suddenly coughs and spits out a previously-wiggly front tooth that had been refusing to come out, her hands fly to her mouth, and she starts to cry harder.
“My toof!” She exclaims, horrified, through her fingers that are now examining the new hole in her gums. “My mowf is bleeding!”
Truthfully, all of the blood is really freaking him out, and he is kind of panicking. He is afraid for her. They’re too far from home to just leave her to go get help, but he doesn’t know what else to do.
“Addie, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Just try to calm down.”
“I c-can’t. I-it... it hurts,” she tells him tearfully while wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It hurts, and I wanna go home.”
“I know. I’m going to ride home really quick and-“
“NO!” She shouts, grabbing onto his arm in fear and beginning to hyperventilate. “No, no, no! Y-you can’t leave me! Don’t!”
She starts coughing again because she’s so upset, and he’s knows that if she doesn’t stop, she will probably make herself sick.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he assures her gently. “We can, uh… um…”
He has no idea how he is going to get her home all by himself.
“Can you stand up?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Can you try?”
“Awnagohome,” she sobs almost incoherently into his shirt. “Awnagohome.”
“I know, Addie. Please, can you try to stand up?”
He feels her shake her head, causing the blood on her face to seep through onto his own skin. It’s obvious that she can’t of do much of anything now, and it’s breaking his heart because he feels so helpless. He wants to take away all of this pain, but he just can’t.
Suddenly, though, he has an idea.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he instructs her as he carefully moves so that she is sitting behind him with her legs around his waist. “Come on, you're going to be okay. I’m going to piggy-back you, and we’re going to go home.”
He isn’t sure if he is even capable of carrying Addison for more than a couple minutes-he is short for his age, and she is tall for hers-but there doesn’t seem to be any other choice.
“But...“ She starts out, motioning towards her precious bike that is lying on its side in some bushes.
“We can send someone to get them both later.”
“’Kay,” she sniffles as she links her scraped hands around his neck and shoulders.
And with strength he didn’t know he possessed, Archer manages to lift them both up and start walking back down the path-but not before slipping Addison’s lost tooth into his pocket; after all, she still believes in the Tooth Fairy.
xx
“We’re almost there,” her brother says after what feels like hours of being carried on his back. She’s sore all over, the sun is so hot, and she is so exhausted from crying that she has been struggling to keep her eyes open. “You’re going to be fine.”
She has never been so happy to see their house.
“Archie! What happened?” Bizzy calls from the back patio as she sees them approaching. She stands up from the table where she was entertaining a group of friends with afternoon cocktails and walks a few steps to get a closer (but not too much closer) look. "Is she alright?"
Addison ducks her head further into the space between Archer’s neck and shoulder and immediately starts to worry-her mother is going to be so disappointed in her for ruining her face and clothes.
“She fell off her bike,” he replies, out of breath.
“I told her ‘no,’ about that bicycle a thousand times, but she wouldn’t hear it,” she hears Bizzy explain to the other women. “So she went crying to her father, and he bought the thing for her in a heartbeat. Now, look what happened.”
“Archie, she’s gonna be so mad at me,” she whimpers quietly.
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll call Alice out to help us, and once we’re inside, she’ll forget everything.”
Addison hopes he’s right.
“Put her down," their mother instructs Archer when they reach the bottom of the steps leading up to the patio. "She can walk the rest of the way.”
“I don’t know. She got really hurt, Bizzy.”
“She’s a big girl, Archer,” she sighs. “Addison, come up here and let me see what you’ve done.”
“Sorry,” Archer murmurs, slowly setting her on her feet.
When her legs straighten out, though, the faint scabs that have just started forming on her knees crack and start bleeding again. It hurts, but she doesn’t want to cry in front of her mother and further disappoint her, so she bravely climbs the six stairs up to where Bizzy is standing with her arms crossed.
“Oh, god, Addison. Your face!” She gasps. “Oh, your clothes are ruined, and my god, your face.”
Addison’s eyes start to tear up, and her shoulders slump forward in shame and embarrassment as her mother and her mother's friend stare at her. She’s sorry. She really is. And everything just hurts. “I’m sorry.”
“Addison, that was a new outfit. What are we going to do with you?”
“I’ll take her inside,” Archer pipes up.
“That would be lovely. Thank you, dear,” she says sweetly before turning to yell for their nanny. “ALICE!”
When they get in the house, Archer stays while her injuries are being cleaned and bandaged, allowing her to squeeze his hand when the disinfectant burns and comforting her as best he can with words of encouragement. Once everything is over, he smiles and gives her a hug, careful not to put any pressure on her cuts and bruises.
“Oh, hey-I saved your tooth,” he remembers before retrieving it from his pocket. “Here. Now you can put it under your pillow. See, Add? I told you that you’d be okay.”
And she is. He always seems to make sure of that.
She doesn’t know what she would do if she didn’t have such a brave big brother to carry her home.
A/N: Not sure that this one flows quite as well as the others since it's so dialogue-heavy, but it's been several weeks since I've done one of these, and I wanted to put something up. So. Thanks for reading! I'm a little stuck on Expand, Contract, so I'm working on a fourth chapter for this right now where they are teenagers (Addison learning to drive and Archer freaking out from the passenger seat.. we've all been there. haha). Anyway. Hopefully I'll have that up faster than it took me with this one.