(no subject)
Title: Signs of Life
Pairing: Sam/Addison, but everyone is in this thing.
Rating: R, for disturbing circumstances.
Word Count: Crazy long, 9467.
Summary: The brief telling of Sam and Addison through one event.
A/N: I started this back in October, and the more I went, the more the show went, and this became crazy AU and Sam took a turn for the worse, but it couldn't sit unfinished. So, here we are. And it's AU, and has issues with grammar, spelling, reality, and medicine, but it's finished and that's far more than I can say for everything else I am working on. So enjoy, if you can look past the above (I'll be back for the easy fixes a little later), and tell me about your Cinco de Mayo or something...
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Signs of Life
- Andrew Belle
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's not waking up...today,” Naomi had whispered in Sam's ear that fateful evening, clothed in her workout clothes, fresh from the treadmill, Sam with his tie barely loosened around his already stuffed throat.
And he left with her, shrugging away from her unwanted and unneeded presence when she reached for his hand. He piled into his own car, surrendering the keys, then lying flat against the back seat praying for another crazy teen driver to come out of the woodwork and put him in a coma beside his unmoving neighbor.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Happy Birthday,” Sam says softly, stroking Addison's bright hair until she awakes from a brutal night that involved her mother, her mother's assistant, numerous phone calls, and too many cocktails to keep track of.
Bizzy was, as always, cool, but unusually uncollected, even for her. There was an anxiousness in the air the entire evening and most of the conversations completely eluded him. But then, Sam figured, he probably wasn't meant to understand what was going on. Other than that Bizzy was visiting and ergo Addison was a total basket case when he found her in solitude at the end of the night.
She didn't want to talk, she never wanted to talk about her parents, so he tucked her gin stained tongue into her own bed and instead of trekking back across the sand, as a polite suitor would do, he merely stripped down and slid onto her chilly sheets, waiting for her to wrap herself around his form for support.
She never did.
Which is why he got up extra early, skipped his beach run, and went to the store to get the supplies that were sorely lacking for the breakfast he desired to make. Then he set up, wrapped a flowery, unflattering apron around his waist and got to work.
Unfortunately, his cooking appeared to have an adverse effect as it sent Addison rushing toward the bathroom to work out the rest her aggression toward Bizzy. He heard her call in sick, to whom he presumed was Naomi (the only one crazy enough to be there at that hour), and then unhinge herself from the toilet long enough to brush her teeth and jump in the shower.
When she emerged fifty minutes later the eggs were cold, the bacon soggy, and he was half done with her daily crossword.
She mumbled a half-assed, “Sorry,” and excused herself to go visit the creator of the tornado.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The longer the week got, the shorter Sam's temper, patience, and expectations became. It was now almost commonplace for Addison to drink herself into a comatose state and then be dead to the world for a solid six hours before rolling out of bed. And he was so used to watching her cover the black circles under her eyes that he automatically started allotting five more minutes to their morning routine. And since she was living on caffeine and alcohol, he usually had a drink ready, whichever the setting, before she could get out of her coat.
They were living in survival mode.
Get in. Get out. Stay alive. He could only imagine what it was like growing up in the place, especially when drinking wasn't an option (though he somehow finds it hard to believe that Addison and Archer didn't start taking wine with their gourmet dinners at the age of twelve).
But he was done. At least for one night.
So he drug her out, sans her company, to their favorite restaurant right off the ocean, snagged a table near the window without a reservation, and attempted to have a normal, civilized meal with Addison. Finding her aloof, withdrawn, and nervous was probably something he should have seen coming but he was tired, and feeling oddly alone so he snapped.
“You're ruining everything,” he warns. His entire evening, the recently rescheduled weekend he had been planning for months was being unwound and he had no control. They were supposed to hop on a plane out of LAX two hours ago and jet off to a snowy adventure so Addison could get in the mood of the holidays, and her birthday. Sam wanted chilled champagne, snow covered hills, a hot fire, and to snuggle with her without worrying that she would shirk away. His tone was harsh, and he meant it. How was he going to get her to agree to remarrying someone, let alone him, when he couldn't even get her to pick what kind of salad she wanted to start with?
The hint of tears returning, the ones that had, until earlier, been present all week, weren't missed. The tinge of red in her cheeks wasn't unnoticed either, and Sam was ready to toss the cloth napkin and just call it a night when she stood shakily, bit into her palm embarrassingly, and rushed in the general direction of where they entered.
And since he was already busy looking like an ass to every patron feasting on salmon and crab, he figured he should do the right thing and follow her out the door, dragging his nice work shoes into the grainy sand to where she was diligently watching the waves in the dusk of grays and purples above them.
“Don't-” she told him, one hand in the air, the other on her hip, heels completely sunken into the ground.
And he didn't.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Go away,” Addison tells him four days later, reveling in the sanity of her office, silently consuming one patient file after another.
But Sam had spent the last half-week leaving her alone, letting her sleep in her own bed, giving her the space she desired and he was done. She would have to deal with it, live with his hands beginning to press into her tight shoulders, lips trailing dangerously along the curve of her exposed shoulder. He was asking for it, but instead he felt her melt into a pool of deep breaths and closed eyelids.
“I'm sorry about dinner,” he slips in, looking out at the dark hallway of the practice, everyone else long gone.
“Don't-” she tells him again, unwilling to accept his failure.
“You have to let me apologize,” Sam says confidently, taking the plain gold ring out of his pocket, sans box, “so I can give you this.”
“I-” Addison began, looking back at him confused.
“It was supposed to be for your birthday, but then Bizzy came, so I was going to give it to you at dinner but then...I,” he pauses, his heart racing in his chest. God, he never thought he'd ever want to even think of getting married a second time, the first had been so damn disastrous. But now he can't think of anything else than getting to have Addison as his partner to fight with. “I...want you. Forever. Will you marry me?”
He's not on one knee hunched over a blue velvet box, in fact they can't even see each other, but he knows she's having a panic attack. “It doesn't have to be big...or anything. It doesn't have to be anything but you and me, whenever you want. It's fast, I know it's fast, and I said we had to wait on things but...this is right. This is the right thing, Addison.”
And that was all it took to end the non-argument, and send him running straight back to Addison's house to show Bizzy what he'd done, much to her obvious dismay.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's gonna freak out, you know that, right?” Amelia asks warily, reaching for a coffee cup in the kitchen of the practice. Addison's ring is gleaming, catching every fractured piece of light it can scrounge up, and Amelia's head already hurts too much to deal with Naomi screaming.
“Who is going to freak?” Cooper laughs, reaching across the counter for an apple, Charlotte trailing in behind him.
“Naomi-”
“No one,” Addison answers at the same time, hand coming to a rest in her lap.
“Naomi is always freaking out about something or another,” Charlotte murmurs, eyes still encased by dark sunglasses.
“Someone had too much to drink last night,” Cooper offers, pointing at Charlotte when she turns her back to them.
“Who had too much to drink, other than me?” Violet asks, dropping everything in her arms onto the island counter and immediately heading for the coffee pot.
“Why do we work Saturdays?” Charlotte almost screeches, head pressed against the cool metal door of the refrigerator.
“I've got a patient,” Addison says, showing herself the way out of the kitchen, ring slipping off her finger and into her dry palm as she strides down the hall. Perhaps now isn't the best time to announce her joy.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Bizzy left, six days later, leaving an ominous black cloud that even Sam couldn't stop from raining down on Addison's head. But he weathered the storm, held her fidgeting fingers until she pulled them away, asked the questions she didn't want to answer, and made sure not to leave her with too much free time on her hands. He took her to a spinning class (that nearly gave him an asthma attack), was adamant about teaching her how to cook what they were having for dinner each night (instead of letting her soak in the tub, or fall into a pit of old magazines and recorded documentaries), and scheduled activities (like babysitting Lucas and Olivia even though he could think of far better things to do; there was nothing that compared to her smile when she was playing with them).
That night, after Pete and a mostly asleep Violet picked up Lucas, and Olivia had been ushered off to her grandmother's house, he told her.
“I'm not interested in any other children-”
“I'm aware,” Addison mutters back, toothbrush wedged between rows of teeth.
“Let me finish,” Sam urges.
“Fine,” Addison sighs, slapping the toothbrush back into its holder, tightening the cap on the mint laced toothpaste more than necessary.
“I'm not interested in any other children,” Sam begins again, because the whole thing needed to be said together, to soften the blow. He held up a hand when she moved to interrupt again. There was no discussion to be had, yet. “But I am interested in you, in us. I spoke to Violet, she thinks being a foster parent might be a good solution for us. We can help children, get to have children in the house-”
“And then they go live with someone else,” Addison finishes for him.
“I'm working towards a compromise here, Addison,” Sam tells her. He's been a dad for almost twenty years, he's a grandfather. He's tired. And the idea of another three years of no sleep and endless diapers and chasing a little monster through the sand- it's intimidating. He needs the tact of appearing to care, because he has no desire to lose her, and this issue, it could break them. It might yet.
“I want to be a mother,” Addison says clearly, calmly, finding her book on the nightstand.
“You would-”
“I want more than a few months, or a few years, Sam.”
She's getting flustered, annoyed, he decides. “Promise me to think about it,” Sam tries. They weren't getting any younger. Being 60 with a college student sounded wholly unappealing. He wanted to be lounging on the beach with Addison, working like madmen, but taking the time to maybe travel upstate to experience some fine vineyards, to walk through the trees instead of the beach.
“It's not an option. For me, it's not an option,” Addison replies softly.
He wishes he didn't believe her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
”He wants me to think about it,” Addison huffs, dipping her nose further into her glass full of grape juice.
“Are you?” Amelia asks curiously, hand gripping the warm aluminum soda can. Somehow, someway this always happens with Addison.
“Of course not,” Addison relays, refilling her glass once more. “Why would I waste my time-”
“It's a solution,” Amelia points out, selfishly playing devil's advocate.
“I have my own solution.”
“Are you sure you want to lose that man? He's super hot, like illegal hot-”
“Maybe I won't,” Addison suggests wistfully, looking up at the stars. Maybe this time, things go the other way. Maybe this time she wins.
Amelia scrubs her hands over her tired eyes, prepared to turn in for the night, especially when she hears Sam's door close next door. “Night, Addie.”
“Have a good-safe trip,” Addison says obligingly.
“Oh, I intend to make this the best sober New Year's it can be, if that even exists.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, you should really get a change of clothes, take a shower,” Pete says, breaking his daydreams. He slides in the stiff hospital chair that is situated next to Addison's bed. His back aches from his stagnant position, feet beg to be used.
“You smell Bennett,” Charlotte coerces, flipping through her colleague's chart for the third time that day. No changes. No changes since she arrived. After a tumultuous night in surgery, after surviving a twisted heap of metal and unforgiving pavement, she's simply not going to wake up.
“Charlotte,” Cooper warns, easing her away from the pair on the other side of the bed.
“It's fine,” Sam says, a small smile creeping onto his face. It was perfectly Charlotte, he admires her ability to remain unscathed in the face of opposition, wishes he had a little more of that in him.
“I can drive you, I don't have any more patients with foreign objects up their noses today,” Cooper offers.
“I could use a drive anyway,” Sam laments, standing, hearing his bones protest under his skin. He pats his pocket for his keys, not sure where he left them, not positive how long he's been sitting in one place. He knows Naomi dropped off food at some point, it remains untouched in its bag on the other side of the room.
Just like everything else in the room.
It's a snapshot. A snippet. The flowers lining the windowsill, the chairs, are all as bright as they were when they arrived, water level barely lower. His coat hasn't left the end of her bed, still has the tear next to the third button where he got caught up trying to leave the house after he got the call. And Addison sure as hell hasn't bothered to move.
He's in a scene.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam rolls down the driver's side window of his car annoyed, jabbing at the button until the amount of wind he desires smacks him in the face. It's not as cold as he wants or as dry, it's rather warm and wet and reminds him of all the nights he spent out on the deck of Addison's house, but it's something. And he is running with nothing, so he settles against the leather, dares to turn the radio up a fraction more, and finally feels his tongue peel itself off the roof of him mouth for the first time in god knows how long.
The funny thing, he thinks is, how none of it matters. How he should have known better. He'd give her kids if she'd wake up, he'd buy them a baseball team of tiny, screaming newborns. Sam would give anything to have her lace her fingers through his once more, and he knows that now, thinks he knew it then. But he was too stubborn, too exhausted, too angry. After Bizzy and Susan, he just wanted to curl up around his girlfriend for one night and be able to breathe. Breathe without the weight of their future crushing his chest, without her incessant need to be answered.
But now, it's all invalid.
He may never sleep well again, thinks it was childish to get so wound up in the first place, to get so stressed and not be able to enjoy their time together when they had it. But, Sam deduces as he swings his car widely onto an empty side street, that's human nature. To push, resist, to not truly see the problems for what they are until it's too late.
He thinks somewhere down the line his mother tried to teach him this lesson. But as he pinches his eyes shut to avoid the swelling of unwanted emotion, he reckons that this is something that must be learned from experience.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You didn't have to say anything,” Addison argues with Amelia, legs crossed demurely, hands wrought together in fear, anticipation.
“I'm being honest, you should try it,” Amelia smiles. Naomi asked, Naomi thought she heard someone mention that Addison and Sam were engaged.
“Amelia, this is a delicate situation and you come in and thrash around like a bull in a china shop.”
“This is not my fault,” Amelia says simply. “Are you going to wear white again?” She asks, her nose crinkling at the idea.
“Amelia,” Addison sighs. This is not the time to be talking about table arrangements and flower choices. This is war. She needs a strategy. Maybe she could work from the hospital for the rest of the year.
“Just talk to her, she has a right-”
“Go,” Addison says softly, pushing her away with her hands. When the office door clicks shut, she sinks into the couch, pulling the blanket from behind up over her head. Living under the thick weight, in the hot air for the next week doesn't sound so bad.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's World War III in there,” Cooper remarks, leaning against the wall, staring at the closed door but not closed blinds of Sam's office. Naomi is pacing, Sam is sitting. She gestures wildly and he shakes his head, but it's hard to make out the words exactly.
“Where's Addison, why isn't she in there?” Charlotte asks, looking around the hall.
“She's hiding,” Violet advises.
“I would too,” Pete tacks on, ducking out of the group and heading for the safety of his office.
“Why are we always ripping each other to shreds?” Violet sighs.
“Oh- what's going on in there?” Sheldon asks, joining them, daring to look around the corner before being pulled back by the collar of his shirt by Charlotte.
“Do you want to be castrated?”
“I- no,”
“Then stay back here and observe.”
“That still doesn't answer my question,” Sheldon reminds her.
“Sam and Addison are engaged,” Cooper tells him hurriedly, grimacing when Naomi picks up a book off Sam's desk.
“Oh,” Sheldon mumbles.
“Yeah.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam hates the way Addison looks at him when he's taken something from her, from the remote, to the last eggroll, and now this. This, while admittedly much more important, receives the same disappointment. He supposes he underestimated the importance of being at the right point in your life to share it with someone, guesses he should have picked someone who was at the same point in her life. But, he didn't, and now they are all paying the price.
And they are good together. Despite a rocky and rather humiliating start, they get each other. Which can result in inordinate amounts of button pushing, and hurt feelings. He kind of wishes he didn't know what she was thinking in this specific instance, because looking at someone you've known well for twenty some-odd years, someone you've been intimate with for about one year, and telling them that you shouldn't see one another any longer is no easy feat.
But Sam doesn't want to waste time anymore. And he knows, even if it is killing her, she isn't the kind of person who wants to drag her heels in a relationship that isn't working (again), and he doesn't want to be the kind of man that forces her to.
“Makes sense,” Addison dismisses, pouring herself a glass of water. She should have seen this coming from a million miles away, but didn't until recently.
“You want children, and I don't,” Sam explains once more. “I have a child. I just don't see either one of us backing off this one.”
“No,” Addison agrees softly. Slowly, she tugs at the gold ring on the finger it felt so right on. All that work, all that screaming, all the silence. For nothing.
“Keep that, it- meant something,” Sam stutters. He wouldn't know what to do with it if she did give it back. It's hers, was bought specifically for her.
“So much for forever,” Addison whispers to herself before leaving her own living room, keys in one hand, phone in the other.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She'll come around Addison, once she cools down.” Sam tells her confidently, wrapping his arms around her, bringing her back when she tries to wiggle away. His bed is always more comfortable with her in it.
“I think she'd kill me, if she could get away with it,” Addison replies, twisting the hair on her pillow into a knot.
“She'd have to kill me first.”
“She's just angry, she's entitled to a reaction,” Sam starts after a few minutes of silence, the waves crashing off in the distance.
“I'm a little over her sense of entitlement when it comes to you,” Addison tells him honestly. She understands they have a bond, and will forever. They will always have a life together, but she wishes, it didn't have to feel like this. God, she wished just one person was happy for her, for them.
Sam chuckles to himself, then tightens his grip. Frankly, he's quite over it too, not that it isn't flattering. “You are all I want, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” Addison agrees reluctantly, though sometimes she strongly disagrees.
“Good,” Sam smiles, reaching for her hand that is toying with her hair. As they sink further into silence, fingers dancing around tender flesh scattered with the scars of a lifetime, Sam feels more and more content in his rushed decision. Differences aside, fights notwithstanding, other opinions not taken into account, he could do this every night for the rest of his life and die a happy man. So he utters the phrase they rarely say, reserved for special moments such as this. “I love you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Naomi-” Sam half-greets, half-announces, welcoming himself into his own kitchen, reaching for a glass of water to cure his pained throat. She's playing with something, twirling it on the counter, he doesn't notice until the last gulp.
“Thought you guys might want this back someday,” Naomi grins, placing Addison's ill-timed engagement ring into his palm. No one knows, that's the beauty of the situation. It's also the burden. It's too fresh for him not to be there, and he cares, he will always care, but on some level he wishes that someone else cared about Addison, wishes someone else would sit next to her bed for more than an hour.
“Yeah- it's not, what you think it is. It's- nothing,” he finishes slightly pleased at the truth.
“I'm fine, Sam. I'm good- with that, if that's what you both want.”
“Doesn't matter now,” Sam reminds her stoically. After the hell it caused, after her threatening to leave the practice, this is how it ends.
“Sometimes,” Naomi tells him, hope filling the dusk settling through the room, “these things take time. Addie has never been one for doing things by the book.”
It's quick, the kiss. There's no tongue, no teeth clashing, just warm lips, comfort. “Thank you,” Sam sighs, hands still pressed against her flushed cheeks.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
”Coop, not now. Just...not now,” Sam answers, phone dangling from his hand.
“It's Addison,” the voice tells him. “She's been in a car accident. They're working on her now-”
Sam shakes his head, questions bouncing like rocks. She was just there, angry, sad, broken. He just saw her, red hair tied back, feet bare. “What happened?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“What the hell happened!” Amelia screams, heels clicking into the room, presence not needing to be announced.
Sam looks up, startled. He assumed someone called Amelia, anyone. Apparently not. “Car accident-”
Amelia snatches the chart at the end of Addison's bed before daring to look up at her ex-sister in-law. Medicine she can do, and that's about it right now. “No one bothered to give me a call. Say Amelia, yeah hi, how's your trip, oh by the way Addison is in a coma, no biggie, come home whenever you want. What the hell Sam!”
“Amy-”
“You guys suck,” Amelia says angrily. Here she was thinking she was a part of something, of a family. She flips the page fueled by her rage before dropping her front and shuffling toward Addison's head, resting comfortably on a mound of hospital grade pillows. And it strikes her how odd this room is. There's nothing here of Addison's. She has no throw, or pillow, or the book she was reading. Why would she want to wake up in this.
“You're free to leave,” Amelia glares at him, taking Addison's other hand, falsely warm and heavy. “I've got it from here.”
And it's the very distinct tone in her voice that tells him. The time she spoke to Addison, before, was after. She knows. The tangled web in his chest slowly dissipates with a cooling sensation. It's freedom, it's delicious on his tongue.
“I want to be here,” he says suddenly, not sure if he does or if he doesn't want to explain to everyone more.
“Well, she doesn't want you here. So get out.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's not going to wake up...today,” Naomi says assuredly. And, for all intents and purposes, there have been no indications that Addison will be waking up at all. Naomi came straight from the gym, after her fielding the call from Amelia as to why Addison wasn't home and why Milo was freaking out. She thought she could stop the tornado, but traffic kept her. Until now.
She takes his keys when he thrusts them forward. They've done this dance so many times. At this point she's not sure it will ever end.
But she wants it to.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Look Amelia, I'm not- I can't be-pregnant,” Addison chokes out. “It's medically impossible.”
“We've both seen miracles,” Amelia reminds her from outside the bathroom door. “Have you talked to Sam?”
“No,” the groan from the other side implies. “It's the flu, he's really tied up on a case. He slept at the hospital last night.” She's not about to tell Amelia they are fighting, she can't bear to rehash the reason she has yet to see him this week.
“Imagine what Bizzy would say,” Amelia squeals with delight, certain the woman is somewhere in the house spying since she managed to take up residency last week.
“Don't you dare,” Addison spits, pulling back the door, wind catching her matted hair. Everything has been such a mess lately, with her mother, with Susan, Sam suffocating her.
“Auntie Amelia, it's got a nice ring to it,” Amelia smiles, flopping back on Addison's bed.
“You've been an Aunt fourteen times over-”
“Eh, they aren't half as cool as this kid,” Amelia dismisses.
“Well, don't tell Kathleen that.”
“Easy,” Amelia shrugs, “I never speak to her. Time's up!” She shouts as Addison disappears again, presumably to empty her stomach of the bile churning within.
“And?” Amelia demands impatiently. “Addison?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“All I'm asking for is a simple CT-” Amelia argues, Charlotte's office at the hospital full of doctors, and friends.
“There have been no changes,” Sam mutters, and receives his millionth glare since Amelia's return two days ago. He hasn't been allowed to see Addison for more than ten minutes. He's surprised how much he misses her.
“It couldn't hurt,” Violet fights, in a corner, “right?”
“It's unnecessary,” someone from the back pipes up. Probably someone on the crack team of docs letting her lie there, Amelia thinks.
“Fine then I'll have her moved somewhere else,” Amelia threatens.
“You can't do that,” Naomi butts in immediately.
“Her in case of emergency is Archer, who hasn't bothered to show up yet. And I really don't think I'll have a hard time convincing him once I tell him his baby sister isn't receiving the kind of care that family deems to be important.”
“Archer?” Sam questions. He didn't really think it was him, but Archer is the last person he'd turn to in an emergency.
“Get it over with Shepherd!” Charlotte yells above all of the squabbling over when and how Amelia will manage to pull this off when none of them have been able to get Archer on the phone yet, not to mention the conversation Violet had to have with Bizzy. They sent flowers, as if she was a faintly recognizable friend who suffered a fall.
As the crowd slowly begins to stumble out of the office, Sam pulls Amelia aside, waiting until the coast is clear.
“I don't know what she said- I don't know what you think happened. I care for her, I care about Addison. I don't want you chasing some wild hunch. You will not play roulette with her life, are we clear?”
She rides away on her wave of victory, sweeping him under.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Are you sure this is the right time?” Pete asks skeptically as Sam dodges into yet another jewelry store on their extended lunch. The sun is bright and hot on his neck.
“I'm not proposing tonight,” Sam replies, rather taken with the display on Pete's left. “It might not happen for another year, but...this is what I want.”
“That's it,” Pete confirms, eyes following his friends to the plain band, sparkling in its case.
“I know,” Sam breathes. Everything with Addison just falls into place. After her initial stubborn streak, after they stopped fighting what was there, after he convinced her to stop caring what everyone thought, it's been smooth sailing. Like that's how it was always supposed to be.
Sometimes, with Addison's legs intertwined with his, her head on his chest, Sam wonders if this was always right in front of him and he never saw it until it was almost too late.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“The bleed is compressing the injured portion of her brain,” Amelia explains, pointing to the scan with a smug smile on her face.
“Yes, but even if you can repair it-”
“-I can, and I will,” Amelia interjects, Charlotte rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“There's no way to know if this will wake her up, and the bleeding may resolve itself,” Sam refutes, nervous, stomach storming with nauseating butterflies.
“It's also affecting the uninjured part of her brain, Sam.”
“Get a'hold of the brother,” Charlotte sighs, leaving the two to battle on their own time.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You might kill her!” Sam yells, door to Addison's private room shut, the monitors sounding their compliance in the background.
“You just want to keep her like this! You don't want to face what happened-”
“How dare you-”
“It's over Sam! You have no claim to stake here. You broke up with her!” Amelia paces the length of the room, feet smashing into the shiny tile.
“You have no idea what you're talking about Amelia, this doesn't involve you.”
“She was pregnant Sam! Did she tell you?”
And the shell-shocked face she gains tells her all she needs to know.
Sam shakes, sinking into a chair.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“What are you going to do? You're going to tell him right? You have to tell him,” Amelia rambles.
“Amelia, shut up,” Addison says, breathing deeply.
“Oh my god!” Amelia yells happily. “We are going to have so many awesome adventures.”
Addison bites down hard on her lip, not minding the pain. It's the least of her worries. She hasn't spoken to the father of her child, if she is, which she doesn't like to entertain despite the test on the bathroom floor, in almost a week.
“Addie?” Amelia chimes from the bed. “This is a good thing.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I emailed Derek the CT scans, he agrees with me,” Amelia tells everyone in the room while managing not to look up at the people around the table who believe they owe it to Addison to be here when they have been far from it for months, maybe even years.
“Then Derek can come do the surgery-”
“He can't,” Amelia replies uninterested. It's not like she didn't ask, she did. But Derek declined the offer, citing his previous close relationship with the patient. He said he was in no position to operate. It was a quick call, she's kind of surprised he picked up at all. But now, it's her job to fix this. “He's in the middle of a clinical trial.”
“Of course,” Sam mutters, fingers tapping the hard surface in front of him impatiently.
“I spoke with Archer,” Naomi volunteers, swaying in her chair. It took some persistence, and a few well placed calls to his publicist, but she got it. “He's...in Paris.”
“He's not coming,” Sam finishes knowingly. Archer doesn't do this well.
“We have his blessing,” Naomi tacks on.
“I'm sure he'll be out on the first flight if this is a success.”
“When it is a success,” Amelia interrupts. She needs positive thinking surrounding this procedure. It's not difficult, it's not something she hasn't had years of practice doing, but it is Addison. Addison, who has been more of a sister to her than any of her actual blood relations.
“You will be assisting Dr. Gerson, you will not-”
“What!” Amelia erupts, standing up instantly and locking eyes with Charlotte.
“We can't risk it,” Charlotte says, cleaning her hands of the matter. The last thing she needs is more office appointments littered with this nonsense. “End of discussion. Book the OR for tomorrow. And no one will be in the gallery,” Charlotte instructs sternly, “no one. We clear?”
“Perfect," Sam says, leaving the room.
"He's upset," Naomi placates, but no one cares. They're all wrapped up in their own drama, their own emotions.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
"Do you think she would come, if I invite her...if...when we do-" Addison stammers, chopsticks gliding through the perfect combination of grease and crunch sitting in the white carton in front of her.
"Naomi needs time to process. This is what she does," Sam replies, easing his hands over hers to aide the nerves. They've been engaged for exactly eleven days, Bizzy barely out of the picture, and he hates the tornado it has swept everyone up in. "What do you think about taking a long weekend?"
He smiles when she grins, that grin, followed by a subtle nod. She makes him feel young, daring, and at the same time grounded. He thinks, with Addison, he may be able to weather anything. He became a surgeon again, found a shoulder when he needed one, or an ear, or a kick in the ass. He lived through the practice falling apart, Naomi leaving, the merger, all with her shared help. He made it through Maya's accident, long nights with Olivia, and now he thinks it may just be his turn for something good.
"I was hoping we could get away for a while. Relax."
“That sounds nice,” Addison says. She sips at her ice water, glass daring to drop from its precarious perch in her hand. “But I have patients- you have patients.”
“I took care of it.” Sam shrugs. He delegated all of his paperwork to grunts, gave out the on call surgeon's phone number just in case, called the hotel two days ago, and booked the plane tickets last night while Addison was working late.
“I'm not sure I can- I don't know if this is a good time to up and leave.”
“It's three days Addison.” And then he understands. “Naomi will still be mad in three days. Naomi will probably still be mad in a week.” He watches her puff out her cheeks in resignation. “Naomi will always be a part of my life, we have Maya and Olivia, but she does not determine-”
“She's not a part of my life,” Addison tells him sadly.
And she is gone, abruptly at first, then on the sly. They feigned small gatherings, pretended that it didn't hurt to talk, and now the effort isn't even there. Naomi is gone and she's not going to come around, not all the way, not in the way Addison needs to not have a meltdown over wedding cakes and seating arrangements.
“Let's go away,” Addison says with a smile and a convincing nod. It couldn't be worse than staying.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam is a lovely person, Addison, but he is not a proper husband,” Bizzy protests, her drink recently refreshed.
“Why? Because he's-”
“Because,” Bizzy intercedes before Addison can make a huge production, “because Samuel Bennett has never understood what it is to be a Montgomery, he doesn't respect it.”
Addison grins. That's a piece of it, why she adores him. He doesn't get it, in fact, most of the time it makes him roll his eyes in the certain way she always wanted to when she was seven and sitting stiffly in a lecture hall listening to speeches that were far beyond her years. “I love him,” Addison objects, primly folding her hands over her knees, back straightening of its own accord.
“Well, Dear, you never were a good judge of character.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It'll be okay, Amelia is in there,” Sheldon breathes, looking around the room. Naomi is noticeably missing, Pete and Violet are conversing about Lucas, Cooper and Charlotte arguing over the day for their own wedding, and Sam hasn't stopped staring at the ground in over an hour. Every now and again, Sheldon swears, from his position a few seats away, he can hear the faint splash of something wet hitting the well worn carpet on the floor. When it becomes apparent he is talking to himself, and maybe for the benefit of Sam, he gets up and moves closer, patting the other man on the back. “Addison is stubborn.”
Sam doesn't look up or flinch when he feels Sheldon's presence. They've all taken shifts with him, even Charlotte, and eventually they all give up. He's not into talking, or praying, or hugging it out. Because everything is a lie. Their secret, sans Amelia, taints every emotion he has.
And he genuinely hopes she wakes up, hopes that this is a miracle and she never wants to see him again. He hopes she has the chance to be angry, and hurt by his decision. But there's a fraction of him that wonders if there wasn't some truth to Amelia's annoying words. Perhaps, it would be easier if Addison never did wake up. Perhaps, it would be better for everyone to not know the whole story, especially when he certainly feels out of the loop.
But then, he thinks these things, feels his heart seize in agony, and regrets ever believing that her not waking up is a good thing- among things like peace on earth, the joy of Christmas stockings, a simple kiss goodnight. How he could lump such horror in with “good” has him contemplating his entire being, his entire moral compass and outlook on life. He was a good man once, he swore.
Now what he has is Sheldon trying to shrink him while his mind jumps on the carnival ride of insanity. What he needs is Naomi to show up and slap him into reality.
“Don't talk about Addison like you know her,” Sam warns absently. There's no threat, really, he just wants quiet, solace.
“I know Addison,” Sheldon rebukes. “And I know how Addison feels about you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's over,” Addison speaks into the phone, car engine turning over, the convertible roaring to life. “I should have seen it, I knew-”
“Did you tell him?” Amelia asks instantly. It's over, sure, but maybe not.
“I-”
“Addison, you have to tell him. Seriously, what are you going to do?” Amelia laughs when a man slides off his bar stool and accidentally finds himself in her lap. Falling off the wagon doesn't feel all that desperate or dirty.
“Maybe I'll move,” Addison suggests, tears trying to mount their defense, throat clenched in anticipation. She turns on her right blinker and pauses at the light. “I hear Boston is nice this time of year.”
“Yeah- right,” Amelia giggles again, this time feeling his hand slide up her thigh. “Addison, can I call you back? It's really loud in here.”
“Behave yourself,” Addison says with a smile. She hangs up, and then pulls out onto the desired road.
She catches a sliver of the traffic report before the world goes silent, glittering blackness beckoning her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Bizzy was not pleased,” Sam mentions, sliding around her office chair and working his talented hands into her shoulders, he grins when she careens her neck to the left.
“Bizzy is a very hard woman to impress,” Addison complies, closing her eyes, already tired from a full day of nothing but paper after paper, email after email.
“Any word from Archer?”
“None yet,” Addison sighs. She didn't want an elaborate engagement party, she just wanted people to know, to accept that it was her turn to move on with life. But she was hesitant to bring it up in public, public being work, her ring stuffed away in the pocket of her skirt, constantly being fiddled with. “When does it get to be easy, with us Sam?”
“Soon,” Sam assures her, lips finding her warm neck.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Everyone looks up when Archer and Naomi enter the room, everyone that is, except Sam. If he did, he'd see Archer clinging to his ex-wife, eyes red, wet with tears, clothes disheveled, the distinct hint of alcohol wafting after him. Sam doesn't notice until Sheldon pats his shoulder, Archer already sitting next to him.
“We don't know anything yet,” Sam huffs, annoyed. Now there's another person in the fold, another person with feigned interest. “Thanks for coming,” Sam tacks on, coldly.
And no sooner does the last word leave his mouth than does he find himself pressed up against the wall, Archer's elbow pressing into his neck. Sam remains unimpressed and looks to Naomi for help, there's nothing that will shake the hell out of this feeling of perpetual waiting. Will Addison wake up, will she be okay if she does, will she die, what happened to their almost child, is Amelia just lying to lie.
There are so many questions. He almost prefers to make up the answers in his head.
Pete pulls Archer off first, explains that they are all here to support Addison, that he needs to sit down and shut up. Cooper is there too, Naomi watching, distastefully scolding Archer with a shake of her head.
Sam leaves without looking back. He doesn't hear them calling. He doesn't see Charlotte breeze by him with an update for everyone.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Let's not talk about it tonight Addison,” suggests Sam, gripping his head. “I don't have the answers, right now, and-”
“Okay,” Addison sighs, sliding onto the chair on her deck.
“It wasn't a good day,” Sam continues, not noticing how easily she's resigned to lounging in front of him. “I need tonight-”
“I said okay,” Addison pipes up again, reaching for his hand as the sun begins to fall behind the ocean.
It never gets old, Sam decides, sitting down beside her. The waves, the woman he loves, the relief that punctures his lungs at the end of a long day. He lies back against her chest, thinking how odd it is that their usual position is reversed and takes respite in her solid, steady heartbeat.
He lost a patient. A patient died, he corrects. And while the normal feeling of surgery, the smells, the stress, the adrenaline came rushing back, he's not used to everything yet.
“Thank you,” Sam murmurs softly, her left hand absently playing with the string of his hooded sweatshirt. He thought he would run off the stench of death, but then, Addison. And she's better than the lung shredding goodness of being completely winded three miles from home, darkness creeping up behind like an old shadow.
“I needed a break too.”
“I knew you couldn't fight all the time,” Sam laughs, twisting upward to catch her face as her light fist lands on his arm. He settles back into her embrace, content to watch the sunset and relish the feeling of a ceasefire when he hears, “Why can't it always be like this?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Amelia sits clenching Addison's hand tightly for the first three hours, but gradually her hold weakens, fingers barely knitted together. The first flutter she thinks is her own hand cramping, but then the monitors begin to pick up, and she hears the faint sound of Addison's long lost voice fill the room.
“Addie, can you hear me?” Amelia asks, jumping up, hand holding tighter than it ever was. She yells for a nurse, but her head never turns away. Watching someone come back to life, the gradual climb into consciousness is not something she wanted to witness with a loved one, but she can't stop herself.
Addison moans once, tries to twist her legs to find a solid cast holding down one side, and then her eyes pop open, wild.
“Addison, look at me. Look at me,” Amelia instructs, wishing for a little help. She reaches for the call button, and then centers her energy. “You were in a car accident. You are fine.”
“You are fine,” Amelia repeats, Addison easing against the hospital grade pillows. The flowers are still present, they never left, neither did the rare cards, but everything else is the same as it was the day she was wheeled in.
“Head...hurts...” Addison says reaching for the white bandages only to have her hand swatted away.
“It's going to hurt, but we'll fix it,” Amelia replies, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Her ribcage sinks in with the release of air she'd been holding. Never has a victory felt this good.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
They weren't exactly taking turns. Sam was missing, and Amelia was greedy. Naomi and Archer were huddled together with Sheldon in the far corner, Violet had to leave to take Lucas home, Cooper was mostly asleep, and Charlotte was finishing paperwork in her office. Which left Pete.
“She's up,” Amelia says with a small smile. It's almost too good to be true. “They're checking her out- but she looks good...she looks good.”
“I should call Violet,” Pete answers, already reaching for his phone. “You did good, Kid.”
“No visitors,” Amelia says as soon as Archer and Naomi stand up. “Maybe tomorrow. I-”
“I'm her brother,” Archer growls.
“No visitors,” Amelia repeats. She could, technically, bend the rules. It's very late or early and no one is paying attention, and it's not like they don't all kind of live here anyway, but she's being cautious. Besides, Archer Montgomery, is never the answer to any problem.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, she's up. She's awake- she's in pain, but she's fine...she will be fine,” Amelia corrects. He was hiding in the stairwell, she wishes she should have looked here first instead of wasting the last half hour away from Addison's bedside.
“I messed it all up,” Sam confesses, hunched over the last stair before the landing. “Could've had it all- I thought I had it all.”
“You don't get to feel sorry for yourself, you're not going to take the joy out of this.”
“What happens now?” Sam asks shakily. Addison won't want to see him, she won't accept his help. Not after this, it's gone too far.
And the truth begins to pour through him in an icy bath. He wishes she was still in a coma, he wishes he was the doting boyfriend, he wishes he was still a part of her. But not for aiding the situation, but because he's messed it all up, and he'll never get another chance.
“It'll work out on its own,” Amelia says halfheartedly.
“Archer is going to kill me when he finds out,” Sam tells her. And he will, because Addison, for some godforsaken reason, shares things with him.
“I hope so.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Shouldn't Sam be here for this?” Amelia pesters, slumping into her seat next to Addison who is spread over the exam room table.
“I want- I have to be sure.”
“Uh huh,” Amelia nods.
“I paged you-”
“And I'm here.”
“No, I paged you,” Addison says once more, trying to be obvious.
“Oh you have got to be kidding,” Amelia groans, standing back up, looking around at the equipment that shouldn't be so foreign considering the rotations she just got off of before moving out here.
“You should be flattered that I picked you,” Addison argues, knees pressed together, feet already in the stirrups.
“I'm the only choice-”
“There's always Pete,” Addison reminds her. “He's great with-”
“- his hands,” Amelia finishes for her, snapping a pair of gloves on before settling herself on the stool.
“- mothers,” Addison says with a grin. He's also good with his hands, she'll concede, but that's a discussion for another time.
“Alright, it's cold and gross and...just spread 'em,” Amelia says with a roll of her eyes.
“You're going to be the worst Godmot-” Addison relays, before being cut off with Amelia's squeal of excitement.
“What if it's a boy?” Amelia asks, nose wrinkled for a myriad of reasons.
“Cross that bridge when we get to it,” Addison suggests, relaxing against the crinkling of paper beneath her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Archer's here,” Amelia says, rejoining Addison who has been propped up, barely sitting if you could call it that.
Addison licks her cracked lips. Car crash. Sam. She can really only register one thing. “Hurts.”
“You're alive.”
She's on something, the swirling in her head, she can tell but she's never liked it, being out of control. Amelia stops quivering in her line of vision, eyelids already heavy once more, sleep threatening to steal her. “Baby,” Addison gulps, feeling the knot in her throat. She squints, sees Amelia shake her head.
“I'm so sorry, Addie.”
She's alive. It's hardly a consolation prize.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam fingers the ring in the pocket of his jeans nervously. It's a small window he has. The nurse finishes changing the dressings and gathers her things for a quick break. Sam's been timing it out for the last three days, lingering in the halls even when they've told him to go in. He wasn't sure then. He isn't sure now.
“Addison,” he says softly, drifting from the doorway tentatively closer. Her injuries have faded slightly, her color is soundly better, and the little glimmer of warmth is still in her eyes. He didn't realize how good it would feel to see her up again.
He wants to lose it, he wants to clamber up into bed with her and hold her until it doesn't hurt anymore. It's strange to think, after everything, this is how it ends. Emotions play with his vocal chords, his eyes, but slowly he pulls the ring out of his pocket and places it over her legs, covered with the blanket from the back of her couch. “When you came in, they found it.”
“Thanks,” Addison swallows, placing the warm metal onto her palm, inspecting it closely.
“I shouldn't have let you leave,” Sam admits selfishly. He has to say everything, now, while she can't escape, but she doesn't build with resounding fury like he wants.
“You couldn't have stopped me,” Addison replies equally, flipping the ring into her other hand. She's had time to consider it, and found herself surprisingly dejected, bitterness and anger faded before she had a moment to process them.
She's sad, not angry.
“I'm so, so sorry,” Sam laments. If he had known, if she had said something about a baby in terms of reality rather than a dream, it could have been different. It would have been different, Sam has resolved, he would have been better.
He shifts away from her bed a few minutes later, hands buried deep in his pockets, head hung in shame. This wasn't who he wanted to be, this is never the man he set out to be.
“Archer's driving me crazy,” Addison says as he inches away. “Amelia is hovering, and Naomi is...acting like nothing happened between us. And I can't hear myself think with them in and out of here all the time.”
Sam laughs, he can't help it. They are exactly as he expected them to be. The only one who isn't, is him.
“Will...will you sit with me?”
“Addison, I'm not...a person you want around,” Sam says, he knows. If the accident hadn't occurred she wouldn't even think of it.
“All I want is quiet. I want peace.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He's there, everyday. Not for long, never more than once a day. She's angry about her slow recovery, hates being chained to a hospital bed by tubes and cords and the inability to move her left leg. He updates her on the practice, brings in papers for her to read and sign, helps her feel like a part of the team still. Archer left the day after her surgery, citing a need to get back overseas, Amelia is in her first surgery since the incident, and Naomi, despite coming over for dinner last night as a friendly gesture, is giving them both some space.
They're healing, piecing back together a decades old friendship. And on his most guilty nights Sam feels thankful. Thankful for the accident that's forced them to come to terms with things they would have ignored, forced them to speak instead of fight, forced him to return to the man he always wanted to be for her but lost sight of somewhere back in sparkling December lights.
And they're not there yet. Sometimes Sam still wants to lean in and kiss her fragile lips instead of her warm cheek, and Addison has yet to mention anything about their baby (he thinks she may never), and he swears there's still lingering feelings there, might always be, but he can be happy with this resolution.
Because three weeks later when she's released into her own care, he's the one who gets to drive her home. And when he asks he how she feels once settled on her couch and she whispers, "Broken," he's the one who gets to hold her hand when she finally breaks down in the safety of her own space.
And it's enough, for now.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Pairing: Sam/Addison, but everyone is in this thing.
Rating: R, for disturbing circumstances.
Word Count: Crazy long, 9467.
Summary: The brief telling of Sam and Addison through one event.
A/N: I started this back in October, and the more I went, the more the show went, and this became crazy AU and Sam took a turn for the worse, but it couldn't sit unfinished. So, here we are. And it's AU, and has issues with grammar, spelling, reality, and medicine, but it's finished and that's far more than I can say for everything else I am working on. So enjoy, if you can look past the above (I'll be back for the easy fixes a little later), and tell me about your Cinco de Mayo or something...
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Signs of Life
- Andrew Belle
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's not waking up...today,” Naomi had whispered in Sam's ear that fateful evening, clothed in her workout clothes, fresh from the treadmill, Sam with his tie barely loosened around his already stuffed throat.
And he left with her, shrugging away from her unwanted and unneeded presence when she reached for his hand. He piled into his own car, surrendering the keys, then lying flat against the back seat praying for another crazy teen driver to come out of the woodwork and put him in a coma beside his unmoving neighbor.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Happy Birthday,” Sam says softly, stroking Addison's bright hair until she awakes from a brutal night that involved her mother, her mother's assistant, numerous phone calls, and too many cocktails to keep track of.
Bizzy was, as always, cool, but unusually uncollected, even for her. There was an anxiousness in the air the entire evening and most of the conversations completely eluded him. But then, Sam figured, he probably wasn't meant to understand what was going on. Other than that Bizzy was visiting and ergo Addison was a total basket case when he found her in solitude at the end of the night.
She didn't want to talk, she never wanted to talk about her parents, so he tucked her gin stained tongue into her own bed and instead of trekking back across the sand, as a polite suitor would do, he merely stripped down and slid onto her chilly sheets, waiting for her to wrap herself around his form for support.
She never did.
Which is why he got up extra early, skipped his beach run, and went to the store to get the supplies that were sorely lacking for the breakfast he desired to make. Then he set up, wrapped a flowery, unflattering apron around his waist and got to work.
Unfortunately, his cooking appeared to have an adverse effect as it sent Addison rushing toward the bathroom to work out the rest her aggression toward Bizzy. He heard her call in sick, to whom he presumed was Naomi (the only one crazy enough to be there at that hour), and then unhinge herself from the toilet long enough to brush her teeth and jump in the shower.
When she emerged fifty minutes later the eggs were cold, the bacon soggy, and he was half done with her daily crossword.
She mumbled a half-assed, “Sorry,” and excused herself to go visit the creator of the tornado.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The longer the week got, the shorter Sam's temper, patience, and expectations became. It was now almost commonplace for Addison to drink herself into a comatose state and then be dead to the world for a solid six hours before rolling out of bed. And he was so used to watching her cover the black circles under her eyes that he automatically started allotting five more minutes to their morning routine. And since she was living on caffeine and alcohol, he usually had a drink ready, whichever the setting, before she could get out of her coat.
They were living in survival mode.
Get in. Get out. Stay alive. He could only imagine what it was like growing up in the place, especially when drinking wasn't an option (though he somehow finds it hard to believe that Addison and Archer didn't start taking wine with their gourmet dinners at the age of twelve).
But he was done. At least for one night.
So he drug her out, sans her company, to their favorite restaurant right off the ocean, snagged a table near the window without a reservation, and attempted to have a normal, civilized meal with Addison. Finding her aloof, withdrawn, and nervous was probably something he should have seen coming but he was tired, and feeling oddly alone so he snapped.
“You're ruining everything,” he warns. His entire evening, the recently rescheduled weekend he had been planning for months was being unwound and he had no control. They were supposed to hop on a plane out of LAX two hours ago and jet off to a snowy adventure so Addison could get in the mood of the holidays, and her birthday. Sam wanted chilled champagne, snow covered hills, a hot fire, and to snuggle with her without worrying that she would shirk away. His tone was harsh, and he meant it. How was he going to get her to agree to remarrying someone, let alone him, when he couldn't even get her to pick what kind of salad she wanted to start with?
The hint of tears returning, the ones that had, until earlier, been present all week, weren't missed. The tinge of red in her cheeks wasn't unnoticed either, and Sam was ready to toss the cloth napkin and just call it a night when she stood shakily, bit into her palm embarrassingly, and rushed in the general direction of where they entered.
And since he was already busy looking like an ass to every patron feasting on salmon and crab, he figured he should do the right thing and follow her out the door, dragging his nice work shoes into the grainy sand to where she was diligently watching the waves in the dusk of grays and purples above them.
“Don't-” she told him, one hand in the air, the other on her hip, heels completely sunken into the ground.
And he didn't.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Go away,” Addison tells him four days later, reveling in the sanity of her office, silently consuming one patient file after another.
But Sam had spent the last half-week leaving her alone, letting her sleep in her own bed, giving her the space she desired and he was done. She would have to deal with it, live with his hands beginning to press into her tight shoulders, lips trailing dangerously along the curve of her exposed shoulder. He was asking for it, but instead he felt her melt into a pool of deep breaths and closed eyelids.
“I'm sorry about dinner,” he slips in, looking out at the dark hallway of the practice, everyone else long gone.
“Don't-” she tells him again, unwilling to accept his failure.
“You have to let me apologize,” Sam says confidently, taking the plain gold ring out of his pocket, sans box, “so I can give you this.”
“I-” Addison began, looking back at him confused.
“It was supposed to be for your birthday, but then Bizzy came, so I was going to give it to you at dinner but then...I,” he pauses, his heart racing in his chest. God, he never thought he'd ever want to even think of getting married a second time, the first had been so damn disastrous. But now he can't think of anything else than getting to have Addison as his partner to fight with. “I...want you. Forever. Will you marry me?”
He's not on one knee hunched over a blue velvet box, in fact they can't even see each other, but he knows she's having a panic attack. “It doesn't have to be big...or anything. It doesn't have to be anything but you and me, whenever you want. It's fast, I know it's fast, and I said we had to wait on things but...this is right. This is the right thing, Addison.”
And that was all it took to end the non-argument, and send him running straight back to Addison's house to show Bizzy what he'd done, much to her obvious dismay.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's gonna freak out, you know that, right?” Amelia asks warily, reaching for a coffee cup in the kitchen of the practice. Addison's ring is gleaming, catching every fractured piece of light it can scrounge up, and Amelia's head already hurts too much to deal with Naomi screaming.
“Who is going to freak?” Cooper laughs, reaching across the counter for an apple, Charlotte trailing in behind him.
“Naomi-”
“No one,” Addison answers at the same time, hand coming to a rest in her lap.
“Naomi is always freaking out about something or another,” Charlotte murmurs, eyes still encased by dark sunglasses.
“Someone had too much to drink last night,” Cooper offers, pointing at Charlotte when she turns her back to them.
“Who had too much to drink, other than me?” Violet asks, dropping everything in her arms onto the island counter and immediately heading for the coffee pot.
“Why do we work Saturdays?” Charlotte almost screeches, head pressed against the cool metal door of the refrigerator.
“I've got a patient,” Addison says, showing herself the way out of the kitchen, ring slipping off her finger and into her dry palm as she strides down the hall. Perhaps now isn't the best time to announce her joy.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Bizzy left, six days later, leaving an ominous black cloud that even Sam couldn't stop from raining down on Addison's head. But he weathered the storm, held her fidgeting fingers until she pulled them away, asked the questions she didn't want to answer, and made sure not to leave her with too much free time on her hands. He took her to a spinning class (that nearly gave him an asthma attack), was adamant about teaching her how to cook what they were having for dinner each night (instead of letting her soak in the tub, or fall into a pit of old magazines and recorded documentaries), and scheduled activities (like babysitting Lucas and Olivia even though he could think of far better things to do; there was nothing that compared to her smile when she was playing with them).
That night, after Pete and a mostly asleep Violet picked up Lucas, and Olivia had been ushered off to her grandmother's house, he told her.
“I'm not interested in any other children-”
“I'm aware,” Addison mutters back, toothbrush wedged between rows of teeth.
“Let me finish,” Sam urges.
“Fine,” Addison sighs, slapping the toothbrush back into its holder, tightening the cap on the mint laced toothpaste more than necessary.
“I'm not interested in any other children,” Sam begins again, because the whole thing needed to be said together, to soften the blow. He held up a hand when she moved to interrupt again. There was no discussion to be had, yet. “But I am interested in you, in us. I spoke to Violet, she thinks being a foster parent might be a good solution for us. We can help children, get to have children in the house-”
“And then they go live with someone else,” Addison finishes for him.
“I'm working towards a compromise here, Addison,” Sam tells her. He's been a dad for almost twenty years, he's a grandfather. He's tired. And the idea of another three years of no sleep and endless diapers and chasing a little monster through the sand- it's intimidating. He needs the tact of appearing to care, because he has no desire to lose her, and this issue, it could break them. It might yet.
“I want to be a mother,” Addison says clearly, calmly, finding her book on the nightstand.
“You would-”
“I want more than a few months, or a few years, Sam.”
She's getting flustered, annoyed, he decides. “Promise me to think about it,” Sam tries. They weren't getting any younger. Being 60 with a college student sounded wholly unappealing. He wanted to be lounging on the beach with Addison, working like madmen, but taking the time to maybe travel upstate to experience some fine vineyards, to walk through the trees instead of the beach.
“It's not an option. For me, it's not an option,” Addison replies softly.
He wishes he didn't believe her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
”He wants me to think about it,” Addison huffs, dipping her nose further into her glass full of grape juice.
“Are you?” Amelia asks curiously, hand gripping the warm aluminum soda can. Somehow, someway this always happens with Addison.
“Of course not,” Addison relays, refilling her glass once more. “Why would I waste my time-”
“It's a solution,” Amelia points out, selfishly playing devil's advocate.
“I have my own solution.”
“Are you sure you want to lose that man? He's super hot, like illegal hot-”
“Maybe I won't,” Addison suggests wistfully, looking up at the stars. Maybe this time, things go the other way. Maybe this time she wins.
Amelia scrubs her hands over her tired eyes, prepared to turn in for the night, especially when she hears Sam's door close next door. “Night, Addie.”
“Have a good-safe trip,” Addison says obligingly.
“Oh, I intend to make this the best sober New Year's it can be, if that even exists.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, you should really get a change of clothes, take a shower,” Pete says, breaking his daydreams. He slides in the stiff hospital chair that is situated next to Addison's bed. His back aches from his stagnant position, feet beg to be used.
“You smell Bennett,” Charlotte coerces, flipping through her colleague's chart for the third time that day. No changes. No changes since she arrived. After a tumultuous night in surgery, after surviving a twisted heap of metal and unforgiving pavement, she's simply not going to wake up.
“Charlotte,” Cooper warns, easing her away from the pair on the other side of the bed.
“It's fine,” Sam says, a small smile creeping onto his face. It was perfectly Charlotte, he admires her ability to remain unscathed in the face of opposition, wishes he had a little more of that in him.
“I can drive you, I don't have any more patients with foreign objects up their noses today,” Cooper offers.
“I could use a drive anyway,” Sam laments, standing, hearing his bones protest under his skin. He pats his pocket for his keys, not sure where he left them, not positive how long he's been sitting in one place. He knows Naomi dropped off food at some point, it remains untouched in its bag on the other side of the room.
Just like everything else in the room.
It's a snapshot. A snippet. The flowers lining the windowsill, the chairs, are all as bright as they were when they arrived, water level barely lower. His coat hasn't left the end of her bed, still has the tear next to the third button where he got caught up trying to leave the house after he got the call. And Addison sure as hell hasn't bothered to move.
He's in a scene.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam rolls down the driver's side window of his car annoyed, jabbing at the button until the amount of wind he desires smacks him in the face. It's not as cold as he wants or as dry, it's rather warm and wet and reminds him of all the nights he spent out on the deck of Addison's house, but it's something. And he is running with nothing, so he settles against the leather, dares to turn the radio up a fraction more, and finally feels his tongue peel itself off the roof of him mouth for the first time in god knows how long.
The funny thing, he thinks is, how none of it matters. How he should have known better. He'd give her kids if she'd wake up, he'd buy them a baseball team of tiny, screaming newborns. Sam would give anything to have her lace her fingers through his once more, and he knows that now, thinks he knew it then. But he was too stubborn, too exhausted, too angry. After Bizzy and Susan, he just wanted to curl up around his girlfriend for one night and be able to breathe. Breathe without the weight of their future crushing his chest, without her incessant need to be answered.
But now, it's all invalid.
He may never sleep well again, thinks it was childish to get so wound up in the first place, to get so stressed and not be able to enjoy their time together when they had it. But, Sam deduces as he swings his car widely onto an empty side street, that's human nature. To push, resist, to not truly see the problems for what they are until it's too late.
He thinks somewhere down the line his mother tried to teach him this lesson. But as he pinches his eyes shut to avoid the swelling of unwanted emotion, he reckons that this is something that must be learned from experience.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You didn't have to say anything,” Addison argues with Amelia, legs crossed demurely, hands wrought together in fear, anticipation.
“I'm being honest, you should try it,” Amelia smiles. Naomi asked, Naomi thought she heard someone mention that Addison and Sam were engaged.
“Amelia, this is a delicate situation and you come in and thrash around like a bull in a china shop.”
“This is not my fault,” Amelia says simply. “Are you going to wear white again?” She asks, her nose crinkling at the idea.
“Amelia,” Addison sighs. This is not the time to be talking about table arrangements and flower choices. This is war. She needs a strategy. Maybe she could work from the hospital for the rest of the year.
“Just talk to her, she has a right-”
“Go,” Addison says softly, pushing her away with her hands. When the office door clicks shut, she sinks into the couch, pulling the blanket from behind up over her head. Living under the thick weight, in the hot air for the next week doesn't sound so bad.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's World War III in there,” Cooper remarks, leaning against the wall, staring at the closed door but not closed blinds of Sam's office. Naomi is pacing, Sam is sitting. She gestures wildly and he shakes his head, but it's hard to make out the words exactly.
“Where's Addison, why isn't she in there?” Charlotte asks, looking around the hall.
“She's hiding,” Violet advises.
“I would too,” Pete tacks on, ducking out of the group and heading for the safety of his office.
“Why are we always ripping each other to shreds?” Violet sighs.
“Oh- what's going on in there?” Sheldon asks, joining them, daring to look around the corner before being pulled back by the collar of his shirt by Charlotte.
“Do you want to be castrated?”
“I- no,”
“Then stay back here and observe.”
“That still doesn't answer my question,” Sheldon reminds her.
“Sam and Addison are engaged,” Cooper tells him hurriedly, grimacing when Naomi picks up a book off Sam's desk.
“Oh,” Sheldon mumbles.
“Yeah.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam hates the way Addison looks at him when he's taken something from her, from the remote, to the last eggroll, and now this. This, while admittedly much more important, receives the same disappointment. He supposes he underestimated the importance of being at the right point in your life to share it with someone, guesses he should have picked someone who was at the same point in her life. But, he didn't, and now they are all paying the price.
And they are good together. Despite a rocky and rather humiliating start, they get each other. Which can result in inordinate amounts of button pushing, and hurt feelings. He kind of wishes he didn't know what she was thinking in this specific instance, because looking at someone you've known well for twenty some-odd years, someone you've been intimate with for about one year, and telling them that you shouldn't see one another any longer is no easy feat.
But Sam doesn't want to waste time anymore. And he knows, even if it is killing her, she isn't the kind of person who wants to drag her heels in a relationship that isn't working (again), and he doesn't want to be the kind of man that forces her to.
“Makes sense,” Addison dismisses, pouring herself a glass of water. She should have seen this coming from a million miles away, but didn't until recently.
“You want children, and I don't,” Sam explains once more. “I have a child. I just don't see either one of us backing off this one.”
“No,” Addison agrees softly. Slowly, she tugs at the gold ring on the finger it felt so right on. All that work, all that screaming, all the silence. For nothing.
“Keep that, it- meant something,” Sam stutters. He wouldn't know what to do with it if she did give it back. It's hers, was bought specifically for her.
“So much for forever,” Addison whispers to herself before leaving her own living room, keys in one hand, phone in the other.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She'll come around Addison, once she cools down.” Sam tells her confidently, wrapping his arms around her, bringing her back when she tries to wiggle away. His bed is always more comfortable with her in it.
“I think she'd kill me, if she could get away with it,” Addison replies, twisting the hair on her pillow into a knot.
“She'd have to kill me first.”
“She's just angry, she's entitled to a reaction,” Sam starts after a few minutes of silence, the waves crashing off in the distance.
“I'm a little over her sense of entitlement when it comes to you,” Addison tells him honestly. She understands they have a bond, and will forever. They will always have a life together, but she wishes, it didn't have to feel like this. God, she wished just one person was happy for her, for them.
Sam chuckles to himself, then tightens his grip. Frankly, he's quite over it too, not that it isn't flattering. “You are all I want, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” Addison agrees reluctantly, though sometimes she strongly disagrees.
“Good,” Sam smiles, reaching for her hand that is toying with her hair. As they sink further into silence, fingers dancing around tender flesh scattered with the scars of a lifetime, Sam feels more and more content in his rushed decision. Differences aside, fights notwithstanding, other opinions not taken into account, he could do this every night for the rest of his life and die a happy man. So he utters the phrase they rarely say, reserved for special moments such as this. “I love you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Naomi-” Sam half-greets, half-announces, welcoming himself into his own kitchen, reaching for a glass of water to cure his pained throat. She's playing with something, twirling it on the counter, he doesn't notice until the last gulp.
“Thought you guys might want this back someday,” Naomi grins, placing Addison's ill-timed engagement ring into his palm. No one knows, that's the beauty of the situation. It's also the burden. It's too fresh for him not to be there, and he cares, he will always care, but on some level he wishes that someone else cared about Addison, wishes someone else would sit next to her bed for more than an hour.
“Yeah- it's not, what you think it is. It's- nothing,” he finishes slightly pleased at the truth.
“I'm fine, Sam. I'm good- with that, if that's what you both want.”
“Doesn't matter now,” Sam reminds her stoically. After the hell it caused, after her threatening to leave the practice, this is how it ends.
“Sometimes,” Naomi tells him, hope filling the dusk settling through the room, “these things take time. Addie has never been one for doing things by the book.”
It's quick, the kiss. There's no tongue, no teeth clashing, just warm lips, comfort. “Thank you,” Sam sighs, hands still pressed against her flushed cheeks.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
”Coop, not now. Just...not now,” Sam answers, phone dangling from his hand.
“It's Addison,” the voice tells him. “She's been in a car accident. They're working on her now-”
Sam shakes his head, questions bouncing like rocks. She was just there, angry, sad, broken. He just saw her, red hair tied back, feet bare. “What happened?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“What the hell happened!” Amelia screams, heels clicking into the room, presence not needing to be announced.
Sam looks up, startled. He assumed someone called Amelia, anyone. Apparently not. “Car accident-”
Amelia snatches the chart at the end of Addison's bed before daring to look up at her ex-sister in-law. Medicine she can do, and that's about it right now. “No one bothered to give me a call. Say Amelia, yeah hi, how's your trip, oh by the way Addison is in a coma, no biggie, come home whenever you want. What the hell Sam!”
“Amy-”
“You guys suck,” Amelia says angrily. Here she was thinking she was a part of something, of a family. She flips the page fueled by her rage before dropping her front and shuffling toward Addison's head, resting comfortably on a mound of hospital grade pillows. And it strikes her how odd this room is. There's nothing here of Addison's. She has no throw, or pillow, or the book she was reading. Why would she want to wake up in this.
“You're free to leave,” Amelia glares at him, taking Addison's other hand, falsely warm and heavy. “I've got it from here.”
And it's the very distinct tone in her voice that tells him. The time she spoke to Addison, before, was after. She knows. The tangled web in his chest slowly dissipates with a cooling sensation. It's freedom, it's delicious on his tongue.
“I want to be here,” he says suddenly, not sure if he does or if he doesn't want to explain to everyone more.
“Well, she doesn't want you here. So get out.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's not going to wake up...today,” Naomi says assuredly. And, for all intents and purposes, there have been no indications that Addison will be waking up at all. Naomi came straight from the gym, after her fielding the call from Amelia as to why Addison wasn't home and why Milo was freaking out. She thought she could stop the tornado, but traffic kept her. Until now.
She takes his keys when he thrusts them forward. They've done this dance so many times. At this point she's not sure it will ever end.
But she wants it to.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Look Amelia, I'm not- I can't be-pregnant,” Addison chokes out. “It's medically impossible.”
“We've both seen miracles,” Amelia reminds her from outside the bathroom door. “Have you talked to Sam?”
“No,” the groan from the other side implies. “It's the flu, he's really tied up on a case. He slept at the hospital last night.” She's not about to tell Amelia they are fighting, she can't bear to rehash the reason she has yet to see him this week.
“Imagine what Bizzy would say,” Amelia squeals with delight, certain the woman is somewhere in the house spying since she managed to take up residency last week.
“Don't you dare,” Addison spits, pulling back the door, wind catching her matted hair. Everything has been such a mess lately, with her mother, with Susan, Sam suffocating her.
“Auntie Amelia, it's got a nice ring to it,” Amelia smiles, flopping back on Addison's bed.
“You've been an Aunt fourteen times over-”
“Eh, they aren't half as cool as this kid,” Amelia dismisses.
“Well, don't tell Kathleen that.”
“Easy,” Amelia shrugs, “I never speak to her. Time's up!” She shouts as Addison disappears again, presumably to empty her stomach of the bile churning within.
“And?” Amelia demands impatiently. “Addison?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“All I'm asking for is a simple CT-” Amelia argues, Charlotte's office at the hospital full of doctors, and friends.
“There have been no changes,” Sam mutters, and receives his millionth glare since Amelia's return two days ago. He hasn't been allowed to see Addison for more than ten minutes. He's surprised how much he misses her.
“It couldn't hurt,” Violet fights, in a corner, “right?”
“It's unnecessary,” someone from the back pipes up. Probably someone on the crack team of docs letting her lie there, Amelia thinks.
“Fine then I'll have her moved somewhere else,” Amelia threatens.
“You can't do that,” Naomi butts in immediately.
“Her in case of emergency is Archer, who hasn't bothered to show up yet. And I really don't think I'll have a hard time convincing him once I tell him his baby sister isn't receiving the kind of care that family deems to be important.”
“Archer?” Sam questions. He didn't really think it was him, but Archer is the last person he'd turn to in an emergency.
“Get it over with Shepherd!” Charlotte yells above all of the squabbling over when and how Amelia will manage to pull this off when none of them have been able to get Archer on the phone yet, not to mention the conversation Violet had to have with Bizzy. They sent flowers, as if she was a faintly recognizable friend who suffered a fall.
As the crowd slowly begins to stumble out of the office, Sam pulls Amelia aside, waiting until the coast is clear.
“I don't know what she said- I don't know what you think happened. I care for her, I care about Addison. I don't want you chasing some wild hunch. You will not play roulette with her life, are we clear?”
She rides away on her wave of victory, sweeping him under.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Are you sure this is the right time?” Pete asks skeptically as Sam dodges into yet another jewelry store on their extended lunch. The sun is bright and hot on his neck.
“I'm not proposing tonight,” Sam replies, rather taken with the display on Pete's left. “It might not happen for another year, but...this is what I want.”
“That's it,” Pete confirms, eyes following his friends to the plain band, sparkling in its case.
“I know,” Sam breathes. Everything with Addison just falls into place. After her initial stubborn streak, after they stopped fighting what was there, after he convinced her to stop caring what everyone thought, it's been smooth sailing. Like that's how it was always supposed to be.
Sometimes, with Addison's legs intertwined with his, her head on his chest, Sam wonders if this was always right in front of him and he never saw it until it was almost too late.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“The bleed is compressing the injured portion of her brain,” Amelia explains, pointing to the scan with a smug smile on her face.
“Yes, but even if you can repair it-”
“-I can, and I will,” Amelia interjects, Charlotte rolling her eyes in annoyance.
“There's no way to know if this will wake her up, and the bleeding may resolve itself,” Sam refutes, nervous, stomach storming with nauseating butterflies.
“It's also affecting the uninjured part of her brain, Sam.”
“Get a'hold of the brother,” Charlotte sighs, leaving the two to battle on their own time.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You might kill her!” Sam yells, door to Addison's private room shut, the monitors sounding their compliance in the background.
“You just want to keep her like this! You don't want to face what happened-”
“How dare you-”
“It's over Sam! You have no claim to stake here. You broke up with her!” Amelia paces the length of the room, feet smashing into the shiny tile.
“You have no idea what you're talking about Amelia, this doesn't involve you.”
“She was pregnant Sam! Did she tell you?”
And the shell-shocked face she gains tells her all she needs to know.
Sam shakes, sinking into a chair.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“What are you going to do? You're going to tell him right? You have to tell him,” Amelia rambles.
“Amelia, shut up,” Addison says, breathing deeply.
“Oh my god!” Amelia yells happily. “We are going to have so many awesome adventures.”
Addison bites down hard on her lip, not minding the pain. It's the least of her worries. She hasn't spoken to the father of her child, if she is, which she doesn't like to entertain despite the test on the bathroom floor, in almost a week.
“Addie?” Amelia chimes from the bed. “This is a good thing.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I emailed Derek the CT scans, he agrees with me,” Amelia tells everyone in the room while managing not to look up at the people around the table who believe they owe it to Addison to be here when they have been far from it for months, maybe even years.
“Then Derek can come do the surgery-”
“He can't,” Amelia replies uninterested. It's not like she didn't ask, she did. But Derek declined the offer, citing his previous close relationship with the patient. He said he was in no position to operate. It was a quick call, she's kind of surprised he picked up at all. But now, it's her job to fix this. “He's in the middle of a clinical trial.”
“Of course,” Sam mutters, fingers tapping the hard surface in front of him impatiently.
“I spoke with Archer,” Naomi volunteers, swaying in her chair. It took some persistence, and a few well placed calls to his publicist, but she got it. “He's...in Paris.”
“He's not coming,” Sam finishes knowingly. Archer doesn't do this well.
“We have his blessing,” Naomi tacks on.
“I'm sure he'll be out on the first flight if this is a success.”
“When it is a success,” Amelia interrupts. She needs positive thinking surrounding this procedure. It's not difficult, it's not something she hasn't had years of practice doing, but it is Addison. Addison, who has been more of a sister to her than any of her actual blood relations.
“You will be assisting Dr. Gerson, you will not-”
“What!” Amelia erupts, standing up instantly and locking eyes with Charlotte.
“We can't risk it,” Charlotte says, cleaning her hands of the matter. The last thing she needs is more office appointments littered with this nonsense. “End of discussion. Book the OR for tomorrow. And no one will be in the gallery,” Charlotte instructs sternly, “no one. We clear?”
“Perfect," Sam says, leaving the room.
"He's upset," Naomi placates, but no one cares. They're all wrapped up in their own drama, their own emotions.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
"Do you think she would come, if I invite her...if...when we do-" Addison stammers, chopsticks gliding through the perfect combination of grease and crunch sitting in the white carton in front of her.
"Naomi needs time to process. This is what she does," Sam replies, easing his hands over hers to aide the nerves. They've been engaged for exactly eleven days, Bizzy barely out of the picture, and he hates the tornado it has swept everyone up in. "What do you think about taking a long weekend?"
He smiles when she grins, that grin, followed by a subtle nod. She makes him feel young, daring, and at the same time grounded. He thinks, with Addison, he may be able to weather anything. He became a surgeon again, found a shoulder when he needed one, or an ear, or a kick in the ass. He lived through the practice falling apart, Naomi leaving, the merger, all with her shared help. He made it through Maya's accident, long nights with Olivia, and now he thinks it may just be his turn for something good.
"I was hoping we could get away for a while. Relax."
“That sounds nice,” Addison says. She sips at her ice water, glass daring to drop from its precarious perch in her hand. “But I have patients- you have patients.”
“I took care of it.” Sam shrugs. He delegated all of his paperwork to grunts, gave out the on call surgeon's phone number just in case, called the hotel two days ago, and booked the plane tickets last night while Addison was working late.
“I'm not sure I can- I don't know if this is a good time to up and leave.”
“It's three days Addison.” And then he understands. “Naomi will still be mad in three days. Naomi will probably still be mad in a week.” He watches her puff out her cheeks in resignation. “Naomi will always be a part of my life, we have Maya and Olivia, but she does not determine-”
“She's not a part of my life,” Addison tells him sadly.
And she is gone, abruptly at first, then on the sly. They feigned small gatherings, pretended that it didn't hurt to talk, and now the effort isn't even there. Naomi is gone and she's not going to come around, not all the way, not in the way Addison needs to not have a meltdown over wedding cakes and seating arrangements.
“Let's go away,” Addison says with a smile and a convincing nod. It couldn't be worse than staying.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam is a lovely person, Addison, but he is not a proper husband,” Bizzy protests, her drink recently refreshed.
“Why? Because he's-”
“Because,” Bizzy intercedes before Addison can make a huge production, “because Samuel Bennett has never understood what it is to be a Montgomery, he doesn't respect it.”
Addison grins. That's a piece of it, why she adores him. He doesn't get it, in fact, most of the time it makes him roll his eyes in the certain way she always wanted to when she was seven and sitting stiffly in a lecture hall listening to speeches that were far beyond her years. “I love him,” Addison objects, primly folding her hands over her knees, back straightening of its own accord.
“Well, Dear, you never were a good judge of character.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It'll be okay, Amelia is in there,” Sheldon breathes, looking around the room. Naomi is noticeably missing, Pete and Violet are conversing about Lucas, Cooper and Charlotte arguing over the day for their own wedding, and Sam hasn't stopped staring at the ground in over an hour. Every now and again, Sheldon swears, from his position a few seats away, he can hear the faint splash of something wet hitting the well worn carpet on the floor. When it becomes apparent he is talking to himself, and maybe for the benefit of Sam, he gets up and moves closer, patting the other man on the back. “Addison is stubborn.”
Sam doesn't look up or flinch when he feels Sheldon's presence. They've all taken shifts with him, even Charlotte, and eventually they all give up. He's not into talking, or praying, or hugging it out. Because everything is a lie. Their secret, sans Amelia, taints every emotion he has.
And he genuinely hopes she wakes up, hopes that this is a miracle and she never wants to see him again. He hopes she has the chance to be angry, and hurt by his decision. But there's a fraction of him that wonders if there wasn't some truth to Amelia's annoying words. Perhaps, it would be easier if Addison never did wake up. Perhaps, it would be better for everyone to not know the whole story, especially when he certainly feels out of the loop.
But then, he thinks these things, feels his heart seize in agony, and regrets ever believing that her not waking up is a good thing- among things like peace on earth, the joy of Christmas stockings, a simple kiss goodnight. How he could lump such horror in with “good” has him contemplating his entire being, his entire moral compass and outlook on life. He was a good man once, he swore.
Now what he has is Sheldon trying to shrink him while his mind jumps on the carnival ride of insanity. What he needs is Naomi to show up and slap him into reality.
“Don't talk about Addison like you know her,” Sam warns absently. There's no threat, really, he just wants quiet, solace.
“I know Addison,” Sheldon rebukes. “And I know how Addison feels about you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's over,” Addison speaks into the phone, car engine turning over, the convertible roaring to life. “I should have seen it, I knew-”
“Did you tell him?” Amelia asks instantly. It's over, sure, but maybe not.
“I-”
“Addison, you have to tell him. Seriously, what are you going to do?” Amelia laughs when a man slides off his bar stool and accidentally finds himself in her lap. Falling off the wagon doesn't feel all that desperate or dirty.
“Maybe I'll move,” Addison suggests, tears trying to mount their defense, throat clenched in anticipation. She turns on her right blinker and pauses at the light. “I hear Boston is nice this time of year.”
“Yeah- right,” Amelia giggles again, this time feeling his hand slide up her thigh. “Addison, can I call you back? It's really loud in here.”
“Behave yourself,” Addison says with a smile. She hangs up, and then pulls out onto the desired road.
She catches a sliver of the traffic report before the world goes silent, glittering blackness beckoning her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Bizzy was not pleased,” Sam mentions, sliding around her office chair and working his talented hands into her shoulders, he grins when she careens her neck to the left.
“Bizzy is a very hard woman to impress,” Addison complies, closing her eyes, already tired from a full day of nothing but paper after paper, email after email.
“Any word from Archer?”
“None yet,” Addison sighs. She didn't want an elaborate engagement party, she just wanted people to know, to accept that it was her turn to move on with life. But she was hesitant to bring it up in public, public being work, her ring stuffed away in the pocket of her skirt, constantly being fiddled with. “When does it get to be easy, with us Sam?”
“Soon,” Sam assures her, lips finding her warm neck.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Everyone looks up when Archer and Naomi enter the room, everyone that is, except Sam. If he did, he'd see Archer clinging to his ex-wife, eyes red, wet with tears, clothes disheveled, the distinct hint of alcohol wafting after him. Sam doesn't notice until Sheldon pats his shoulder, Archer already sitting next to him.
“We don't know anything yet,” Sam huffs, annoyed. Now there's another person in the fold, another person with feigned interest. “Thanks for coming,” Sam tacks on, coldly.
And no sooner does the last word leave his mouth than does he find himself pressed up against the wall, Archer's elbow pressing into his neck. Sam remains unimpressed and looks to Naomi for help, there's nothing that will shake the hell out of this feeling of perpetual waiting. Will Addison wake up, will she be okay if she does, will she die, what happened to their almost child, is Amelia just lying to lie.
There are so many questions. He almost prefers to make up the answers in his head.
Pete pulls Archer off first, explains that they are all here to support Addison, that he needs to sit down and shut up. Cooper is there too, Naomi watching, distastefully scolding Archer with a shake of her head.
Sam leaves without looking back. He doesn't hear them calling. He doesn't see Charlotte breeze by him with an update for everyone.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Let's not talk about it tonight Addison,” suggests Sam, gripping his head. “I don't have the answers, right now, and-”
“Okay,” Addison sighs, sliding onto the chair on her deck.
“It wasn't a good day,” Sam continues, not noticing how easily she's resigned to lounging in front of him. “I need tonight-”
“I said okay,” Addison pipes up again, reaching for his hand as the sun begins to fall behind the ocean.
It never gets old, Sam decides, sitting down beside her. The waves, the woman he loves, the relief that punctures his lungs at the end of a long day. He lies back against her chest, thinking how odd it is that their usual position is reversed and takes respite in her solid, steady heartbeat.
He lost a patient. A patient died, he corrects. And while the normal feeling of surgery, the smells, the stress, the adrenaline came rushing back, he's not used to everything yet.
“Thank you,” Sam murmurs softly, her left hand absently playing with the string of his hooded sweatshirt. He thought he would run off the stench of death, but then, Addison. And she's better than the lung shredding goodness of being completely winded three miles from home, darkness creeping up behind like an old shadow.
“I needed a break too.”
“I knew you couldn't fight all the time,” Sam laughs, twisting upward to catch her face as her light fist lands on his arm. He settles back into her embrace, content to watch the sunset and relish the feeling of a ceasefire when he hears, “Why can't it always be like this?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Amelia sits clenching Addison's hand tightly for the first three hours, but gradually her hold weakens, fingers barely knitted together. The first flutter she thinks is her own hand cramping, but then the monitors begin to pick up, and she hears the faint sound of Addison's long lost voice fill the room.
“Addie, can you hear me?” Amelia asks, jumping up, hand holding tighter than it ever was. She yells for a nurse, but her head never turns away. Watching someone come back to life, the gradual climb into consciousness is not something she wanted to witness with a loved one, but she can't stop herself.
Addison moans once, tries to twist her legs to find a solid cast holding down one side, and then her eyes pop open, wild.
“Addison, look at me. Look at me,” Amelia instructs, wishing for a little help. She reaches for the call button, and then centers her energy. “You were in a car accident. You are fine.”
“You are fine,” Amelia repeats, Addison easing against the hospital grade pillows. The flowers are still present, they never left, neither did the rare cards, but everything else is the same as it was the day she was wheeled in.
“Head...hurts...” Addison says reaching for the white bandages only to have her hand swatted away.
“It's going to hurt, but we'll fix it,” Amelia replies, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Her ribcage sinks in with the release of air she'd been holding. Never has a victory felt this good.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
They weren't exactly taking turns. Sam was missing, and Amelia was greedy. Naomi and Archer were huddled together with Sheldon in the far corner, Violet had to leave to take Lucas home, Cooper was mostly asleep, and Charlotte was finishing paperwork in her office. Which left Pete.
“She's up,” Amelia says with a small smile. It's almost too good to be true. “They're checking her out- but she looks good...she looks good.”
“I should call Violet,” Pete answers, already reaching for his phone. “You did good, Kid.”
“No visitors,” Amelia says as soon as Archer and Naomi stand up. “Maybe tomorrow. I-”
“I'm her brother,” Archer growls.
“No visitors,” Amelia repeats. She could, technically, bend the rules. It's very late or early and no one is paying attention, and it's not like they don't all kind of live here anyway, but she's being cautious. Besides, Archer Montgomery, is never the answer to any problem.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, she's up. She's awake- she's in pain, but she's fine...she will be fine,” Amelia corrects. He was hiding in the stairwell, she wishes she should have looked here first instead of wasting the last half hour away from Addison's bedside.
“I messed it all up,” Sam confesses, hunched over the last stair before the landing. “Could've had it all- I thought I had it all.”
“You don't get to feel sorry for yourself, you're not going to take the joy out of this.”
“What happens now?” Sam asks shakily. Addison won't want to see him, she won't accept his help. Not after this, it's gone too far.
And the truth begins to pour through him in an icy bath. He wishes she was still in a coma, he wishes he was the doting boyfriend, he wishes he was still a part of her. But not for aiding the situation, but because he's messed it all up, and he'll never get another chance.
“It'll work out on its own,” Amelia says halfheartedly.
“Archer is going to kill me when he finds out,” Sam tells her. And he will, because Addison, for some godforsaken reason, shares things with him.
“I hope so.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Shouldn't Sam be here for this?” Amelia pesters, slumping into her seat next to Addison who is spread over the exam room table.
“I want- I have to be sure.”
“Uh huh,” Amelia nods.
“I paged you-”
“And I'm here.”
“No, I paged you,” Addison says once more, trying to be obvious.
“Oh you have got to be kidding,” Amelia groans, standing back up, looking around at the equipment that shouldn't be so foreign considering the rotations she just got off of before moving out here.
“You should be flattered that I picked you,” Addison argues, knees pressed together, feet already in the stirrups.
“I'm the only choice-”
“There's always Pete,” Addison reminds her. “He's great with-”
“- his hands,” Amelia finishes for her, snapping a pair of gloves on before settling herself on the stool.
“- mothers,” Addison says with a grin. He's also good with his hands, she'll concede, but that's a discussion for another time.
“Alright, it's cold and gross and...just spread 'em,” Amelia says with a roll of her eyes.
“You're going to be the worst Godmot-” Addison relays, before being cut off with Amelia's squeal of excitement.
“What if it's a boy?” Amelia asks, nose wrinkled for a myriad of reasons.
“Cross that bridge when we get to it,” Addison suggests, relaxing against the crinkling of paper beneath her.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Archer's here,” Amelia says, rejoining Addison who has been propped up, barely sitting if you could call it that.
Addison licks her cracked lips. Car crash. Sam. She can really only register one thing. “Hurts.”
“You're alive.”
She's on something, the swirling in her head, she can tell but she's never liked it, being out of control. Amelia stops quivering in her line of vision, eyelids already heavy once more, sleep threatening to steal her. “Baby,” Addison gulps, feeling the knot in her throat. She squints, sees Amelia shake her head.
“I'm so sorry, Addie.”
She's alive. It's hardly a consolation prize.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam fingers the ring in the pocket of his jeans nervously. It's a small window he has. The nurse finishes changing the dressings and gathers her things for a quick break. Sam's been timing it out for the last three days, lingering in the halls even when they've told him to go in. He wasn't sure then. He isn't sure now.
“Addison,” he says softly, drifting from the doorway tentatively closer. Her injuries have faded slightly, her color is soundly better, and the little glimmer of warmth is still in her eyes. He didn't realize how good it would feel to see her up again.
He wants to lose it, he wants to clamber up into bed with her and hold her until it doesn't hurt anymore. It's strange to think, after everything, this is how it ends. Emotions play with his vocal chords, his eyes, but slowly he pulls the ring out of his pocket and places it over her legs, covered with the blanket from the back of her couch. “When you came in, they found it.”
“Thanks,” Addison swallows, placing the warm metal onto her palm, inspecting it closely.
“I shouldn't have let you leave,” Sam admits selfishly. He has to say everything, now, while she can't escape, but she doesn't build with resounding fury like he wants.
“You couldn't have stopped me,” Addison replies equally, flipping the ring into her other hand. She's had time to consider it, and found herself surprisingly dejected, bitterness and anger faded before she had a moment to process them.
She's sad, not angry.
“I'm so, so sorry,” Sam laments. If he had known, if she had said something about a baby in terms of reality rather than a dream, it could have been different. It would have been different, Sam has resolved, he would have been better.
He shifts away from her bed a few minutes later, hands buried deep in his pockets, head hung in shame. This wasn't who he wanted to be, this is never the man he set out to be.
“Archer's driving me crazy,” Addison says as he inches away. “Amelia is hovering, and Naomi is...acting like nothing happened between us. And I can't hear myself think with them in and out of here all the time.”
Sam laughs, he can't help it. They are exactly as he expected them to be. The only one who isn't, is him.
“Will...will you sit with me?”
“Addison, I'm not...a person you want around,” Sam says, he knows. If the accident hadn't occurred she wouldn't even think of it.
“All I want is quiet. I want peace.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He's there, everyday. Not for long, never more than once a day. She's angry about her slow recovery, hates being chained to a hospital bed by tubes and cords and the inability to move her left leg. He updates her on the practice, brings in papers for her to read and sign, helps her feel like a part of the team still. Archer left the day after her surgery, citing a need to get back overseas, Amelia is in her first surgery since the incident, and Naomi, despite coming over for dinner last night as a friendly gesture, is giving them both some space.
They're healing, piecing back together a decades old friendship. And on his most guilty nights Sam feels thankful. Thankful for the accident that's forced them to come to terms with things they would have ignored, forced them to speak instead of fight, forced him to return to the man he always wanted to be for her but lost sight of somewhere back in sparkling December lights.
And they're not there yet. Sometimes Sam still wants to lean in and kiss her fragile lips instead of her warm cheek, and Addison has yet to mention anything about their baby (he thinks she may never), and he swears there's still lingering feelings there, might always be, but he can be happy with this resolution.
Because three weeks later when she's released into her own care, he's the one who gets to drive her home. And when he asks he how she feels once settled on her couch and she whispers, "Broken," he's the one who gets to hold her hand when she finally breaks down in the safety of her own space.
And it's enough, for now.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~