(no subject)
Title: Eulogy For Evolution
Pairing: Addison, Sam/Addison, Derek/Addison, Amelia, and Mark.
Rating: R.
Part: 2/3, previous: variations of static
Summary: For winter_machine, forever ago. A rewrite of Season 5, plus some Derek, and a whole lot of flashbacks.
A/N: It is truly shocking how long these things can take to come together when you are out of practice, but I have not forgotten, and I hope you all haven't either (though a reread was certainly warranted on my end). Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison is emotionally unavailable at the moment, Sam knows this, but it doesn't stop him from pushing. He tries to get her to leave Amelia's room, tries to get her to ease up off of surgeries (the only patients she is currently helping because it doesn't require her to leave the hospital), tries to lie and say he forgot the paperwork she asked him to bring from her office. He doesn't want to share every meal with her and Amelia. He's tired of cafeteria food and the bland wallpaper.
It's been a week, and he's fearful of what will occur when Amelia is released.
“I was thinking,” Sam says as he walks into the all too familiar room, straightening his silver tie, “we could have lunch today.”
“Sure,” Addison complies easily, waving him in from the doorway. He takes the chair next to her, playfully closes the chart she is working on, setting it next to Amelia's legs and attempts to make eye contact.
“How is she today?” he asks carefully. It's a can of worms he wants no part in, but he supports Addison and Amelia; she's not no one in their world, annoying as she may often be.
“I called Derek,” Addison admits. “He says he can't come, or he won't. I don't know.”
“She's a grown up Addison, she'll be alright.”
“I hope so,” Addison nods. Sam wasn't there the first time. The other car crash, the other almost fatality.
“She will,” he reassures her, pulling her out of her seat. “Let's go have lunch.”
“I-”
“Please,” Sam smiles, lacing his fingers through his. He hasn't had her to himself in too long. “Thirty minutes is all I am asking for, and yes, I know you have a surgery at two.”
“Ok.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addie.”
It's garbled. It's scratchy. It's paper thin.
But it's there, rousing her from her station on the couch, curled into a painful ball, white lab coat her blanket.
“Amy,” she breathes, waking up rapidly. She pushes the girl's bangs out of her face and smiles. “Hi stranger.”
“Hurts,” Amelia swallows.
“I know. You're ok, you're ok.” Addison exhales and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Derek hasn't been in yet. She's tired of arguing with him, he's hit a wall. Carolyn left for coffee an hour ago with Kathleen and hasn't been seen since, Nancy is rounding on patients somewhere and Mark who was her companion for the last day has disappeared, presumably to chase one skirt or another.
“I'm alive.”
“You're alive,” Addison confirms, the relief swallowing her whole.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I'm not going, I'm not going to go. You can't make me,” Amelia recites for the hundredth time, watching Addison pack her bags that she brought from home.
“You're going. You'll get better, come back-”
“You have no idea-”
“It worked the first time,” Addison counters, before they can really get into it. Sam said he would drive them both. Honestly, she had no interest in him being there for this, but he insisted. “Rehab works, for you.”
“You have to want it to work,” Amelia spats angrily, reaching for the things in the brown leather bag that Addison painstakingly put away. She's been folding and refolding and not having the conversations she needs to be having; the usual. Amelia likes when things are awkward and difficult for other people, it is when she feels most at home.
“Look,” Addison sighs, “You can do whatever you want, you're a big girl now. But,” she says loudly when Amelia starts to interrupt, “there are consequences.”
“Consequences,” Amelia repeats, disbelieving.
“I have a practice to run,” Addison gulps. The alternative is not something she has wanted to think about, no matter how many times Sam tries to press her into imagining it. “I have to do what's best-”
“You'll fire me?” Amelia challenges, sweater in hand, wrung into a fine cord of fabric.
“If you refuse treatment, yes.” Sam told her to stay calm, to breathe, say what she needs and to mean it, but she just wants to slap Amelia until she sees daylight.
“I don't need treatment,” Amelia refutes, slumping onto the well used hospital bed.
“You have a problem-”
“You have problems, we aren't shipping you off to some hellish paradise to detox from dead babies and failed relationships!”
“That's different-”
“Is it, really Addison? You scare away every single man you meet with your crazy. The ups, the downs, there's no wonder they go running for the hills. Sam,” she pauses, narrowing her eyes, “is a loyal, and persistent, and frankly I don't know why he's still here. I don't know how he manages. How does anyone manage?”
She's greeted with the welcome click of the door latching into its position, silence engulfing her ears. It's the one sweet morsel of sanity she has been hoping for since this whole ride began. Again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You have ten minutes, go get your stuff,” Sam orders, unlocking the car doors and glaring at Amelia. He wasn't really happy she called, and he's out of the loop on what happened between her and Addison at the hospital. He was twenty minutes late out of surgery, an unavoidable complication, and now he's ushering Amelia into Addison's house to collect her things before he begins the harrowing drive three hours north. The place, Addison selected. He dials the number, unapologetic, informing them that they will be arriving after hours and to make arrangements.
He knows Amelia wanted to call him about as much as he wants to be doing this alone. She's infuriating. He wishes she could see what she does to people, how she hurts people and own it. But she never will, because she's Amelia. A perpetual child, bound by history's secrets.
He's pacing the length of the couch impatiently when Addison's keys come to a crashing halt on the kitchen counter. She looks exhausted, says nothing, and goes straight for the doors of her living room, facing off against the stern beach air.
“Addie,” he says cautiously, it sounds foreign, even to him.
“Do what you have to with her,” Addison says loudly, hearing the stairs creak with Amelia's descent.
“I'll see you in the morning,” he promises, dreading what will be a silent trip in the dark to relieve some of the world's tension.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You were supposed to watch her,” Derek says furiously.
“I was!” Addison yells back. Granted, she had taken a nap, but Amelia didn't need to be babysat like a three year old. She promised she wouldn't go anywhere, not even to the store on the corner. And Addison had just come off a intense two day shift of sick babies and sicker mothers.
“Clearly,” Derek retorts. His fist has already made contact with one of the hospital's walls, to Dr. Webber's dismay, and Addison was instructed to get him out of there. “How could you let this happen, Addison?”
Carolyn had said Amelia was acting weird when Addison picked her up that morning, said she hasn't quite been herself. Addison smiled and had replied that she was just being a teenager, that she could handle Amelia, and whatever boy problems she was having.
They left it unsaid, hanging in the air.
Now their laundry is being aired at work, in their safe place. She can't blame Derek for being angry. It's all starting to crumble around their feet, fractured concrete separating, washing away in the rains. It's hard to be the golden boy when you're world is made of rocks.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Amelia is quiet, head pressed against the cool glass, the world around them encased in a dark glow. Lights glimmer, speed by, and yet he feels like he is going nowhere. Their relationship is stressed, tenuous. Amelia is loud, and opinionated, and right more often than he would like. He imagines she's the little sister he never had, or almost had. He does want better. He wants her to make better decisions, needs her to be better at not colliding so violently with the world around her, for everyone's sake.
“Too bad it was a pole instead of a wall, huh?” she tells him when he opens the door for her almost four hours later.
He assumes she's talking about last week, not last decade.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, I gave you keys for a reason,” Addison mutters as she yanks the door back, morning beginning to creep up from behind a curtain of blue waves. “Derek,” she breathes, tightening her robe around her waist and running a few fingers through her hair.
“I'm here,” he sighs pitifully, welcoming himself into her home, finding a place to stretch on the couch.
“You're here,” Addison repeats to herself, shutting the door loudly, jarring her ex-husband out of whatever self-righteous pity party he has managed to contract on his flight down.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's not your fault, you know that, right?” Mark offers obligingly, stuffing a napkin wrapped blueberry scone into his lab coat pocket and holding Addison's boring latte while she checks her pager.
“I did everything I could.”
“Amy,” Mark corrects softly, thinking she means her patient from earlier in the morning. He pauses when she looks up at him confused. Their honest moments are few and far between, and he mostly finds her grating. She takes up too much of his guy time with Derek, and her legs are infuriatingly inviting in even the rattiest of sweats. He knew she was trouble from the get-go. “You did do everything you could.”
“Tell Derek that,” Addison retorts, stealing her coffee back, uncomfortable fingers beginning to play with the paper sleeve.
“I have,” Mark answers soundly and then leaves her to chat up the blonde nurse reading a chart a few feet away.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“So tell me,” Derek sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he and Addison share morning coffee out on her deck. He tried to sleep, and was mostly unsuccessful. The waves were surprisingly loud. Her proximity to the ocean reminded him a bit of their “summer” house.
Addison looks up from her newspaper and takes a sip from her cup. Sam isn't back yet, as far as she can discern, though he may be asleep in his own bed. “She got in an accident after she left a bar,” Addison says simply. There's not really any need to add extra details.
“And?” Derek asks, unimpressed with Addison's retelling. Her hair is a bit longer than the last time he saw it, and he can't quite remember when she started looking so dull. Was it Seattle and the rain that beat it out of her drop by drop or was it somewhere in New York with everything else he forgot. He resorts to his phone when she doesn't reply and is greeted by a fresh picture of Zola from his wife. He grins and closes the phone again, looking to his left.
“What?” Addison demands.
“You look tired,” Derek shrugs.
“I need to get ready for work.”
“I'll come with,” Derek says, rejuvenated, jumping to his bare feet. “See what made you turn to the dark side.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's nice, I suppose,” Derek admits, after getting the official tour from the local pediatrician who he found less funny than the man found himself. He waltzes into Addison's office to wait while she finishes with a patient, absorbing the pictures littering end tables and the lavender walls. Maybe they would have wound up here eventually. Offices across the hall from one another, lunches everyday, leaving work before the sun sets.
He wonders, sometimes.
“Addis-” Sam stops, smiles, and walks towards Derek. “Long time, no see,” he greets.
“Yeah,” Derek nods. “Addison is with a patient.”
“Of course,” Sam replies. He hadn't seen her yet this morning, somehow missed the extra car in her driveway on his way home.
“You should come to lunch, with us, talk some sense into her.” Derek smiles to himself and settles in on the couch for a hopefully short and sparse conversation with his old friend. They discuss Meredith, and Zola, and the house that's just about finished up on a hill somewhere outside of Seattle. He asks how Naomi is doing with Maya in New York, about the practice, and learns a whole lot more than he bargained for when he began the day. And yet, none of it is about the one woman they are both eager to see.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You look miserable,” Mark comments, watching Addison sink into her seat further. “I've got a car,” he offers jokingly.
“You have this idea...of what this day will be-” Addison smiles, wine glass glued to her hand as she watches Bizzy orchestrate from the front of the church. She could count the times she had been in here before this week on two hands.
“Girls,” Mark corrects. He doesn't fantasize about the future, about who it may or may not include. Sometimes childhood does you favors, teaches you lessons, he always says, at least to himself.
“Addison!”
“Satan beckons.” Mark rolls his eyes, stealing her glass she rises gracefully, smoothing the lines from her skintight blue dress.
He wishes he didn't swirl the lingering taste of her lipstick in his mouth for a few extra seconds, her longing contagious. The bitter liquid burns as he swallows, watches his best friend fawn over someone who is doing just a good enough job looking happy. He knows the look well.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison,” Sam grumbles as the mattress shifts beneath him to allow her to curl onto her side, away from him. “Where have you been?”
“Hospital,” Addison answers shallowly, truthfully. She was there. Briefly.
Sam sighs. She can hear him. He always sighs now. And for a second she wants to let him in on her secret, watch him suck that smug air right back in when his lungs screech for help. She imagines it might feel good to be on a level playing field for once in their muddled relationship.
Sam's hand comes to a rest on the small of her back before looping around, his breath hot on the back of her neck. Sometimes he's the right amount of pressure. This morning, in the light slithering through the wooden slats coating her with a warmth she didn't seek out, he's wholly suffocating.
“Bizzy's dead,” she whispers.
He jolts upwards, staring at her, imploring a explanation, demanding a reason for his world always getting knocked off its axis.
She doesn't give one. She tightens the fists she's made around the ends of her tan coat, sinks into the pillow, eyes fixed on the jittery grain of his bedside table, and figures she should soak in whatever silence she can before the hurricane.
She feels the heavy necklace in her pocket shift, an innocent victim.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“So...you and Sam?” Derek asks after Sam excuses himself from the table to take a call from St. Ambrose, that place he'd like to see. Addison looks up from her salad quizzically, she's mostly stirring the dry leaves around her plate in a counter-clockwise motion. “Oh please, I'm not blind.”
“Fine,” Addison concedes to the conversation she never wanted to have. “Sam and I-”
“What about Naomi?” Derek accuses, feeling warmth rush to his cheeks, a hand running through his coiffed hair.
“Naomi-”
“God Addison, you had to get all of-”
“It's not like that,” Addison argues. It doesn't feel that way, except on the bad nights. The nights she escapes to the lounger, wine, the waves pounding acceptance into her heart.
“There are other men in the world-”
“None of your business,” Addison summarily informs him, returning to her salad, her iced tea. “It's absolutely none of your business, Derek.”
“What's not his business?” Sam asks, slipping back into his chair, Derek cringing when he sees Sam's arm slip to the right a few inches, hand undoubtedly resting on her thigh.
“Nothing,” Addison dismisses. “I should get back to the hospital, I have a patient. Sam can you give Derek a ride back?”
“Sure.”
Sam smiles, Derek notices. He's looking for things now. It's a habit, the way she lingers, the way the corners of her lips curl in appreciation, the way she looks back at them after she's several feet away. He shakes his head and brings his glass to his mouth while Sam finishes eating, oblivious.
It might be for the best.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Med school?” Derek asks that evening, cartons of food spread out across her counter, the rain making it impossible to feast outside on her porch. He's had some time to think. About eight hours since Addison was avoiding coming home. He had to hitch a ride with her...boyfriend.
“What?” Addison asks, sucking down her fourth glass of water. It wasn't the best evening, she needs something to do with her hands.
“You and Sam,” Derek nods. “You've always been close.”
“Seriously, stop,” Addison instructs. She didn't have close calls with three patients to come home and have the same fight she's been having for the last twenty years of her life. He loses some of the light in his eyes, throws himself onto her couch, already reaching for the remote.
He fits, here. He's far more comfortable than she'd like. Amelia's out for heaven knows how long, she won't take any calls. Addison's minds quickly connects dots, spins through the spider's web of possibilities.
“He's not,” Derek starts, motioning at the space between them. “He doesn't stay here, right?”
Addison smiles for a second, dangles what little power she's had over him in years in the damp night air. “Would that bother you?”
“No,” Derek shrugs. It shouldn't, anyway. He's not sure if it will.
“Good.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It wasn't exactly that she had wanted to make Bizzy this Mother's Day card, but when she finished putting the glittery touches on Helene's card her teacher told her it wasn't acceptable, as pretty as it was. Archer is off at his tennis lesson, and there's mysteriously no one else to be seen in the usually hectic foyer of the estate.
Addison can't recall if Bizzy has ever greeted her at the door upon her arrival from school, and it can't mean anything good. She shoves a chilled hand into her plain navy backpack anyway, thinking perhaps this is a non-consequential turn of events. The thick paper feels rough against her palm and she hesitates when Bizzy looks at her confused.
“I made this,” Addison says with a frown. Bizzy has never taken an interest in any science project, art, or perfect report card to date. Though, the time with the B+ was traumatizing. It has to be perfect or she shouldn't be wasting everyone's time with it, Bizzy says.
Without opening the card adorned with sloppy, halfhearted flowers, Bizzy remarks, “That's nice, Dear.”
Ten minutes later, Addison is having her hair ripped from her scalp as Bizzy's hairdresser fashions something acceptable for The Captain's big retirement party.
On Mother's Day the following Sunday, Addison hesitantly presents Helene with her original work. She receives a well meant smile and hug as they walk toward the stables for her obligatory weekend riding lesson. Bizzy says ladies know how to ride a horse without looking like jumping popcorn.
She wouldn't know the day Addison can successfully canter from any other Thursday; or successfully gallop from any other Memorial Day party extravaganza. She gets the chance to show her, weeks later, but Bizzy is swept away for another important call, and Addison vows never to touch a horse again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I don't understand why he's still here,” Sam broaches later in the week, over a stale cup of coffee at the nurse's station of St. Ambrose. It's been a long, stressful day for both of them. He's tired of Derek in the guest room, dropping his two cents into every single conversation. “Amelia isn't even in the same zip code.”
“I'm not having this discussion with you, again,” Addison sighs, closing the chart she was signing off on.
“Doesn't he have a job and a family?” Sam asks, pulling the pen out of his pocket.
For the last three days it has been this. Over morning scones, and crosswords they laugh. And he tries to join in, but he doesn't know the joke or he came in at the end or he never knew what they were talking about in the first place. They're in a whole other world, and Sam wonders if it was always like this. Addison and Derek, and their spectators. It's hard to remember that long ago.
“If you're really that interested in Derek's day-to-day, you should probably ask him.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You're just in time,” Derek informs Sam as he stumbles into the house, tossing his keys onto Addison's kitchen counter. “We got egg rolls this time.”
“Again?” Sam asks, loosening his tie and grappling with the top button of his shirt.
“I thought you liked Chinese,” Derek shrugs, opening Addison's cupboards, finding plates and glasses. He reaches into the top cupboard, finds the label he is looking for and curls his fingers around the cold bottle.
Sam scrubs his hands over his face, watching Derek pull out the wine he and Addison shared on their first official date, and excuses himself to go rinse off the day in her shower, where his razor is, and his towel, and where his clothes are waiting for him. Yet, he can't help but keep looking over his shoulder. Waiting, the nagging knot beginning to turn and twist and mold itself in the pit of his stomach. Derek Shepherd never brings good news; the repercussions linger long after he's returned to his perfect life with his perfect family.
When Sam returns, Addison is already home, conversing, eating with her ex. Sam can't help but be slightly irked by Derek, he's always had that ability, that demanding presence. So Sam does the only thing he can think of, sliding an arm around his girlfriend's waist, pressing his lips to her cheek. He greets her, watching mindfully of Derek who either doesn't notice or pretends to not notice.
“You didn't hear the good news before you ran off upstairs,” Derek says sarcastically, dropping his chopsticks into an open container of grease and noddles.
“Amelia agreed to see us,” Addison says with a smile. “We're going to head up there tomorrow after my morning rounds.”
“Good, that's good right?” Sam asks. He doesn't know the protocol, his sister simply left. There was no talking about it, no rehabilitation, just plaguing thoughts and his mother's tears late at night to comfort him.
“Yeah,” they both say at the exact same time. Their tones, their meanings couldn't be more different.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison couldn't wait a day later, and she knows now is not the time. Now is never the time in her life. It's kind of her theme song, but she had an inkling so she brought home the test, and snuck away when she was certain Sam was long asleep and Derek was locked in the guest room.
Two lines. One happy face. One word.
It seals her fate and she smiles, visualizes all of the worry and regret, all of the tension and unsaid words wash off her shoulders as she slips back into bed, cold toes colliding with Sam's leg.
“Baby-”
“Sorry,” Addison whispers, still grinning. “Go back to sleep.”
Her midnight secret meets its match when Sam rolls over and flips on the lamp next to him, an expression she can't read on his face. “What?”
He yawns and she can see this isn't going to end in the next five minutes. “Sam-”
“I want to go with you tomorrow,” he says seemingly wide awake. It makes her question if he was ever really asleep to begin with. “I want to be there for you, Addison.”
“You have patients,”
“I'll reschedule. You haven't spoke to Amelia since she left-”
“Neither have you,” Addison refutes, but she knows it's useless. Amelia is more to her than she is to Sam. Amelia is the crazy little sister she never got. Amelia was an unwitting example of persistence and resilience that she mostly admired. Amelia was her vault, her safe, her most treasured, hidden and confidential stories lie exposed inside.
“Let me do this for you,” Sam pressures, rolling onto his side to look at her. “Addison, look at me. Tell me.”
“I don't need you to go, Sam. I can do this. Amelia is ready now. Amelia is...Amelia again, not that monster you drove up there and I don't need you to protect me from her.” In fact, she's gotten quite good at not needing him for much of anything lately. She doesn't need someone to hold her hand during her visits with the newest member of their practice, and she didn't need help picking out a sperm donor, and she didn't need help choosing a rehab facility.
She's put distance between them, fearing the worst. She's mourning her loss of him with him, staring back at her every morning over breakfast, breaks in the practice's kitchen, in her office as they look over their separate files.
She knows what a child looks like with him in the picture, and he's just barely in the frame, skirting around commitment.
“Ok,” Sam sighs, turning the light off, darkness enveloping their quiet sanctuary.
“Night.” He doesn't push half as hard as she expects, and she's grateful to return to the safety of night without blurting out what she's been working so hard on for the last few months is now a reality.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“He hovers,” Derek surmises on their journey north to his sister. If he thought he could reasonably drive 20 miles an hour then he would, but he's pretty sure Addison would force him out of the driver's seat. “I know, I hover. I know what it looks like.”
“Shut up,” Addison commands, hand pressed against the seat belt. Her sunglasses slip down her nose and she almost regrets her middle of the night freak out on Sam because at least they wouldn't be having this conversation. “I'm not talking to you about Sam. Not on the way there, not on the way back.”
“He hovers,” Derek says, purses his lips, and then turns the music up again. “It's not a bad plan,” he offers as they creep down the road.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's alright now Derek, she wouldn't have called if she wasn't.”
Mark ditched them at the last minute for an opportunity to operate with his mentor, a man he too closely resembles, if you ask Addison, and the air in the rental car is thick with Derek's disdain and her trepidation. It took her half the week to get him to agree to even coming to visit Amy in rehab, and Amy had cried and begged and apologized so many times that Addison didn't know how her husband had managed to turn into a unmovable boulder. Addison wasn't immune to the tears that always started and ended each telephone call they shared, and she certainly wasn't used to Amy's weak voice pleading for something she couldn't have or steal from someone or somewhere.
“I think she's ready, she's doing the work, I think this is helping. She's going to be better. Derek?”
“Stop,” he instructs in a whisper, eyes glued to the icy road as they trek on an already unforgiving journey.
“Derek, it's alright. Amy knows-”
“Stop Addison, stop.” He's firmer this time. He's hit a wall. A mental barrier preventing him from reacting correctly to this monumental affair. It's the nagging feeling that this isn't the end, that's there's never going to be an end.
She's still for a moment, a beat, eyes drifting toward the snow that is trying to fall. The rental smells like a new car, and they need one, but Derek refuses to go looking with her, and she refuses to just buy him a car that he would certainly hate. He'd rather drive a cardboard box than anything she's suggested lately. “Kathleen said we shouldn't necessarily be gentle with her, we need to be honest-”
“Shut up, Addison, stop!” Derek commands. He takes a glance at her, catches the way her eyes begin to glisten and moves his hand to her thigh in a cease fire. He needs a break, a second to catch his breath, to wrap his mind around the fact that his baby sister (admittedly always a bit of a handful, but usually in a lovable way) tried to kill herself, or actually killed herself, with or without intent via his car, his signature.
It was never the way he wanted with Amy. She was never still, never calm, never content. She was a hurricane. It's impossible to stop her path of destruction, to protect her from herself, so he blames Addison.
“I shouldn't have taken that shift,” he says spitefully. As if he could have stopped her from leaving, as if he could have hidden his keys well enough. As if he could have saved her.
The silence begins with the snow, ends with Addison slamming the car door.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Why do I have to be here again?” Archer moans, looking through old tennis trophies that have been placed by his hands haphazardly into a box labeled “Study” in Addison's sloppy handwriting.
“Archer,” Addison begins, but it is futile. She's going to get more done without him here. She should have just let the moving crew handle all of the rooms in the estate but she thought it might be nice to remove some items herself, in case. “He's our father.”
“Ha,” Archer laughs, reaching over to the drink cart to fill his glass. “Some Dad.”
“Where do you have to be? Japan? France?”
“Belgium, as a matter of fact, I was supposed to be there three days ago. My publicist is growing impatient with not being able to parade around my brilliance for the world to see.” He swirls the vodka in his glass, ignores the smoothness, the clean feeling it leaves in his mouth.
“Just go, honestly, you're useless anyway.”
“Oh, baby sister,” Archer teases, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her away from the endless pile of books that litter the shelves. She's sorted and resorted and resorted. He's watched every bound page switch stacks at least three times. “Don't get angry.”
“I'm not angry,” Addison tells him matter-of-factly. She's disappointed, she should have known better than to think this would be something that could draw them closer together as a family, she's alone, she's lost, she's mortified. But she's not angry.
“This is you, not angry,” Archer tells her, sinking into the deliciously chilled chair to his right. “I can see the glaring from here.”
“I can finish this,” Addison tells him, taking his glass, and setting it on the tray before leaving the room. She wasn't planning on getting a goodbye out of him anyway, he comes and goes as he pleases. She simply wishes it would stop hurting already, not being enough.
It never does.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I didn't want him here,” Amelia gestures in Derek's direction. “God Addison, can't you follow simple instructions?”
“He's your brother, he's your family Amelia.”
“He's condescending, judgmental, and impetuous. I don't need this right now Addie, I am trying to do what you asked me to do here. You are my family, I wanted you.”
“I'm here,” Addison reiterates, pointing at herself. The room is well lit, and oddly empty, but she is thinking they should still take this outside before it gets out of hand.
“Why is he even in town? Did you call him? Did you call my mother?” Amelia paces nervously across the spot in front of the fireplace. It's off but she can still feel the heat emanating from within. It is seeping, crawling over her face.
“I called Derek,” Addison admits, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, heels bobbing off her feet. “I didn't call your mother, or Nancy, or anyone else. Promise.”
“It was just a slip Addison! I slipped, one time. You've done it, we've all done it!”
“Amelia-”
“Why are you punishing me?”
“I'm trying to help you.”
“By locking me up with these crazy people? Have you ever done a stint in rehab Addison? I can't talk about my feelings anymore to these strangers or I am going to need more pills coming out of here than I was doing before I went in.”
“Talk to me, talk to Derek,” Addison suggests, waving him over, fingers colliding with her hair. Derek sits next to her, too close, but he's nervous, she can tell, almost more than the last time they did this. He ran then, she's hoping he doesn't do the same again this time.
“Amy,” Derek greets, inhaling sharply before reclining and swallowing heavily. In this moment he can't recall why he ever boarded that plane.
“You need to get better,” Addison tells her. “I love you Amelia, but I won't watch you kill yourself and I won't standby while you destroy everything you've built since...then. You have a gift Amelia, you have a responsibility to your patients, and you are going to kill yourself if you keep going like this.”
“Is that what you tell yourself Addison? Does it help? How does that make you feel?” Amelia spouts.
“Sit down and talk to us like humans and not some caged animal at the zoo, or we are leaving,” Derek tells his sister, watching as she slides across them and finds respite in her clenched hands. “We all want the best for you Amy, and you know that.”
“I slipped,” Amelia tells him softly, wringing her knuckles against each other.
“I'd hate to see what a fall looks like then,” Derek corrects harshly, taking an elbow to his side from Addison.
Addison's mind spins off elsewhere while they pick up steam again. Derek's voice is rising, she elbows him again and he settles. She can see herself, in this room, watching from above, like a movie. She can feel Derek's leg bouncing against hers, his almost never present nerves beginning to make an appearance. Amelia looks like she is stalking her prey, pacing the full length of the room, unable to bear Derek's unwavering scrutiny.
Eventually, her legs carry her upwards and slowly out of the room, toward the parking lot. Addison can hear her name being called loudly at first and then quietly and then not at all. She's escaped. She finds a tree to lean against and descends into the dewy grass, head in hands. The urge to vomit passes swiftly and she knows it not to be the cause of her unborn child but rather the impasse they have reached inside.
It would be easiest to cut her losses, turn and run. But it's counter-intuitive. She stays for the ones who will never repay her, for those who need it the most. It's punishing, and brutal. But thankless, mostly thankless. Archer never asks for forgiveness, Derek never thought he was in the wrong, Sam can't possibly sink to her level, The Captain found it to be a contractual bloodline agreement that his indiscretions be kept private.
Derek finds her an immeasurable amount of time later, and tells her simply to get in the car, that they're leaving.
As he whisks her from the scene, her head falls back against the seat, her hand creeps across the seat belt once more, longing.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Pairing: Addison, Sam/Addison, Derek/Addison, Amelia, and Mark.
Rating: R.
Part: 2/3, previous: variations of static
Summary: For winter_machine, forever ago. A rewrite of Season 5, plus some Derek, and a whole lot of flashbacks.
A/N: It is truly shocking how long these things can take to come together when you are out of practice, but I have not forgotten, and I hope you all haven't either (though a reread was certainly warranted on my end). Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison is emotionally unavailable at the moment, Sam knows this, but it doesn't stop him from pushing. He tries to get her to leave Amelia's room, tries to get her to ease up off of surgeries (the only patients she is currently helping because it doesn't require her to leave the hospital), tries to lie and say he forgot the paperwork she asked him to bring from her office. He doesn't want to share every meal with her and Amelia. He's tired of cafeteria food and the bland wallpaper.
It's been a week, and he's fearful of what will occur when Amelia is released.
“I was thinking,” Sam says as he walks into the all too familiar room, straightening his silver tie, “we could have lunch today.”
“Sure,” Addison complies easily, waving him in from the doorway. He takes the chair next to her, playfully closes the chart she is working on, setting it next to Amelia's legs and attempts to make eye contact.
“How is she today?” he asks carefully. It's a can of worms he wants no part in, but he supports Addison and Amelia; she's not no one in their world, annoying as she may often be.
“I called Derek,” Addison admits. “He says he can't come, or he won't. I don't know.”
“She's a grown up Addison, she'll be alright.”
“I hope so,” Addison nods. Sam wasn't there the first time. The other car crash, the other almost fatality.
“She will,” he reassures her, pulling her out of her seat. “Let's go have lunch.”
“I-”
“Please,” Sam smiles, lacing his fingers through his. He hasn't had her to himself in too long. “Thirty minutes is all I am asking for, and yes, I know you have a surgery at two.”
“Ok.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addie.”
It's garbled. It's scratchy. It's paper thin.
But it's there, rousing her from her station on the couch, curled into a painful ball, white lab coat her blanket.
“Amy,” she breathes, waking up rapidly. She pushes the girl's bangs out of her face and smiles. “Hi stranger.”
“Hurts,” Amelia swallows.
“I know. You're ok, you're ok.” Addison exhales and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Derek hasn't been in yet. She's tired of arguing with him, he's hit a wall. Carolyn left for coffee an hour ago with Kathleen and hasn't been seen since, Nancy is rounding on patients somewhere and Mark who was her companion for the last day has disappeared, presumably to chase one skirt or another.
“I'm alive.”
“You're alive,” Addison confirms, the relief swallowing her whole.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I'm not going, I'm not going to go. You can't make me,” Amelia recites for the hundredth time, watching Addison pack her bags that she brought from home.
“You're going. You'll get better, come back-”
“You have no idea-”
“It worked the first time,” Addison counters, before they can really get into it. Sam said he would drive them both. Honestly, she had no interest in him being there for this, but he insisted. “Rehab works, for you.”
“You have to want it to work,” Amelia spats angrily, reaching for the things in the brown leather bag that Addison painstakingly put away. She's been folding and refolding and not having the conversations she needs to be having; the usual. Amelia likes when things are awkward and difficult for other people, it is when she feels most at home.
“Look,” Addison sighs, “You can do whatever you want, you're a big girl now. But,” she says loudly when Amelia starts to interrupt, “there are consequences.”
“Consequences,” Amelia repeats, disbelieving.
“I have a practice to run,” Addison gulps. The alternative is not something she has wanted to think about, no matter how many times Sam tries to press her into imagining it. “I have to do what's best-”
“You'll fire me?” Amelia challenges, sweater in hand, wrung into a fine cord of fabric.
“If you refuse treatment, yes.” Sam told her to stay calm, to breathe, say what she needs and to mean it, but she just wants to slap Amelia until she sees daylight.
“I don't need treatment,” Amelia refutes, slumping onto the well used hospital bed.
“You have a problem-”
“You have problems, we aren't shipping you off to some hellish paradise to detox from dead babies and failed relationships!”
“That's different-”
“Is it, really Addison? You scare away every single man you meet with your crazy. The ups, the downs, there's no wonder they go running for the hills. Sam,” she pauses, narrowing her eyes, “is a loyal, and persistent, and frankly I don't know why he's still here. I don't know how he manages. How does anyone manage?”
She's greeted with the welcome click of the door latching into its position, silence engulfing her ears. It's the one sweet morsel of sanity she has been hoping for since this whole ride began. Again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You have ten minutes, go get your stuff,” Sam orders, unlocking the car doors and glaring at Amelia. He wasn't really happy she called, and he's out of the loop on what happened between her and Addison at the hospital. He was twenty minutes late out of surgery, an unavoidable complication, and now he's ushering Amelia into Addison's house to collect her things before he begins the harrowing drive three hours north. The place, Addison selected. He dials the number, unapologetic, informing them that they will be arriving after hours and to make arrangements.
He knows Amelia wanted to call him about as much as he wants to be doing this alone. She's infuriating. He wishes she could see what she does to people, how she hurts people and own it. But she never will, because she's Amelia. A perpetual child, bound by history's secrets.
He's pacing the length of the couch impatiently when Addison's keys come to a crashing halt on the kitchen counter. She looks exhausted, says nothing, and goes straight for the doors of her living room, facing off against the stern beach air.
“Addie,” he says cautiously, it sounds foreign, even to him.
“Do what you have to with her,” Addison says loudly, hearing the stairs creak with Amelia's descent.
“I'll see you in the morning,” he promises, dreading what will be a silent trip in the dark to relieve some of the world's tension.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You were supposed to watch her,” Derek says furiously.
“I was!” Addison yells back. Granted, she had taken a nap, but Amelia didn't need to be babysat like a three year old. She promised she wouldn't go anywhere, not even to the store on the corner. And Addison had just come off a intense two day shift of sick babies and sicker mothers.
“Clearly,” Derek retorts. His fist has already made contact with one of the hospital's walls, to Dr. Webber's dismay, and Addison was instructed to get him out of there. “How could you let this happen, Addison?”
Carolyn had said Amelia was acting weird when Addison picked her up that morning, said she hasn't quite been herself. Addison smiled and had replied that she was just being a teenager, that she could handle Amelia, and whatever boy problems she was having.
They left it unsaid, hanging in the air.
Now their laundry is being aired at work, in their safe place. She can't blame Derek for being angry. It's all starting to crumble around their feet, fractured concrete separating, washing away in the rains. It's hard to be the golden boy when you're world is made of rocks.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Amelia is quiet, head pressed against the cool glass, the world around them encased in a dark glow. Lights glimmer, speed by, and yet he feels like he is going nowhere. Their relationship is stressed, tenuous. Amelia is loud, and opinionated, and right more often than he would like. He imagines she's the little sister he never had, or almost had. He does want better. He wants her to make better decisions, needs her to be better at not colliding so violently with the world around her, for everyone's sake.
“Too bad it was a pole instead of a wall, huh?” she tells him when he opens the door for her almost four hours later.
He assumes she's talking about last week, not last decade.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam, I gave you keys for a reason,” Addison mutters as she yanks the door back, morning beginning to creep up from behind a curtain of blue waves. “Derek,” she breathes, tightening her robe around her waist and running a few fingers through her hair.
“I'm here,” he sighs pitifully, welcoming himself into her home, finding a place to stretch on the couch.
“You're here,” Addison repeats to herself, shutting the door loudly, jarring her ex-husband out of whatever self-righteous pity party he has managed to contract on his flight down.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's not your fault, you know that, right?” Mark offers obligingly, stuffing a napkin wrapped blueberry scone into his lab coat pocket and holding Addison's boring latte while she checks her pager.
“I did everything I could.”
“Amy,” Mark corrects softly, thinking she means her patient from earlier in the morning. He pauses when she looks up at him confused. Their honest moments are few and far between, and he mostly finds her grating. She takes up too much of his guy time with Derek, and her legs are infuriatingly inviting in even the rattiest of sweats. He knew she was trouble from the get-go. “You did do everything you could.”
“Tell Derek that,” Addison retorts, stealing her coffee back, uncomfortable fingers beginning to play with the paper sleeve.
“I have,” Mark answers soundly and then leaves her to chat up the blonde nurse reading a chart a few feet away.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“So tell me,” Derek sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he and Addison share morning coffee out on her deck. He tried to sleep, and was mostly unsuccessful. The waves were surprisingly loud. Her proximity to the ocean reminded him a bit of their “summer” house.
Addison looks up from her newspaper and takes a sip from her cup. Sam isn't back yet, as far as she can discern, though he may be asleep in his own bed. “She got in an accident after she left a bar,” Addison says simply. There's not really any need to add extra details.
“And?” Derek asks, unimpressed with Addison's retelling. Her hair is a bit longer than the last time he saw it, and he can't quite remember when she started looking so dull. Was it Seattle and the rain that beat it out of her drop by drop or was it somewhere in New York with everything else he forgot. He resorts to his phone when she doesn't reply and is greeted by a fresh picture of Zola from his wife. He grins and closes the phone again, looking to his left.
“What?” Addison demands.
“You look tired,” Derek shrugs.
“I need to get ready for work.”
“I'll come with,” Derek says, rejuvenated, jumping to his bare feet. “See what made you turn to the dark side.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's nice, I suppose,” Derek admits, after getting the official tour from the local pediatrician who he found less funny than the man found himself. He waltzes into Addison's office to wait while she finishes with a patient, absorbing the pictures littering end tables and the lavender walls. Maybe they would have wound up here eventually. Offices across the hall from one another, lunches everyday, leaving work before the sun sets.
He wonders, sometimes.
“Addis-” Sam stops, smiles, and walks towards Derek. “Long time, no see,” he greets.
“Yeah,” Derek nods. “Addison is with a patient.”
“Of course,” Sam replies. He hadn't seen her yet this morning, somehow missed the extra car in her driveway on his way home.
“You should come to lunch, with us, talk some sense into her.” Derek smiles to himself and settles in on the couch for a hopefully short and sparse conversation with his old friend. They discuss Meredith, and Zola, and the house that's just about finished up on a hill somewhere outside of Seattle. He asks how Naomi is doing with Maya in New York, about the practice, and learns a whole lot more than he bargained for when he began the day. And yet, none of it is about the one woman they are both eager to see.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You look miserable,” Mark comments, watching Addison sink into her seat further. “I've got a car,” he offers jokingly.
“You have this idea...of what this day will be-” Addison smiles, wine glass glued to her hand as she watches Bizzy orchestrate from the front of the church. She could count the times she had been in here before this week on two hands.
“Girls,” Mark corrects. He doesn't fantasize about the future, about who it may or may not include. Sometimes childhood does you favors, teaches you lessons, he always says, at least to himself.
“Addison!”
“Satan beckons.” Mark rolls his eyes, stealing her glass she rises gracefully, smoothing the lines from her skintight blue dress.
He wishes he didn't swirl the lingering taste of her lipstick in his mouth for a few extra seconds, her longing contagious. The bitter liquid burns as he swallows, watches his best friend fawn over someone who is doing just a good enough job looking happy. He knows the look well.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison,” Sam grumbles as the mattress shifts beneath him to allow her to curl onto her side, away from him. “Where have you been?”
“Hospital,” Addison answers shallowly, truthfully. She was there. Briefly.
Sam sighs. She can hear him. He always sighs now. And for a second she wants to let him in on her secret, watch him suck that smug air right back in when his lungs screech for help. She imagines it might feel good to be on a level playing field for once in their muddled relationship.
Sam's hand comes to a rest on the small of her back before looping around, his breath hot on the back of her neck. Sometimes he's the right amount of pressure. This morning, in the light slithering through the wooden slats coating her with a warmth she didn't seek out, he's wholly suffocating.
“Bizzy's dead,” she whispers.
He jolts upwards, staring at her, imploring a explanation, demanding a reason for his world always getting knocked off its axis.
She doesn't give one. She tightens the fists she's made around the ends of her tan coat, sinks into the pillow, eyes fixed on the jittery grain of his bedside table, and figures she should soak in whatever silence she can before the hurricane.
She feels the heavy necklace in her pocket shift, an innocent victim.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“So...you and Sam?” Derek asks after Sam excuses himself from the table to take a call from St. Ambrose, that place he'd like to see. Addison looks up from her salad quizzically, she's mostly stirring the dry leaves around her plate in a counter-clockwise motion. “Oh please, I'm not blind.”
“Fine,” Addison concedes to the conversation she never wanted to have. “Sam and I-”
“What about Naomi?” Derek accuses, feeling warmth rush to his cheeks, a hand running through his coiffed hair.
“Naomi-”
“God Addison, you had to get all of-”
“It's not like that,” Addison argues. It doesn't feel that way, except on the bad nights. The nights she escapes to the lounger, wine, the waves pounding acceptance into her heart.
“There are other men in the world-”
“None of your business,” Addison summarily informs him, returning to her salad, her iced tea. “It's absolutely none of your business, Derek.”
“What's not his business?” Sam asks, slipping back into his chair, Derek cringing when he sees Sam's arm slip to the right a few inches, hand undoubtedly resting on her thigh.
“Nothing,” Addison dismisses. “I should get back to the hospital, I have a patient. Sam can you give Derek a ride back?”
“Sure.”
Sam smiles, Derek notices. He's looking for things now. It's a habit, the way she lingers, the way the corners of her lips curl in appreciation, the way she looks back at them after she's several feet away. He shakes his head and brings his glass to his mouth while Sam finishes eating, oblivious.
It might be for the best.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Med school?” Derek asks that evening, cartons of food spread out across her counter, the rain making it impossible to feast outside on her porch. He's had some time to think. About eight hours since Addison was avoiding coming home. He had to hitch a ride with her...boyfriend.
“What?” Addison asks, sucking down her fourth glass of water. It wasn't the best evening, she needs something to do with her hands.
“You and Sam,” Derek nods. “You've always been close.”
“Seriously, stop,” Addison instructs. She didn't have close calls with three patients to come home and have the same fight she's been having for the last twenty years of her life. He loses some of the light in his eyes, throws himself onto her couch, already reaching for the remote.
He fits, here. He's far more comfortable than she'd like. Amelia's out for heaven knows how long, she won't take any calls. Addison's minds quickly connects dots, spins through the spider's web of possibilities.
“He's not,” Derek starts, motioning at the space between them. “He doesn't stay here, right?”
Addison smiles for a second, dangles what little power she's had over him in years in the damp night air. “Would that bother you?”
“No,” Derek shrugs. It shouldn't, anyway. He's not sure if it will.
“Good.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It wasn't exactly that she had wanted to make Bizzy this Mother's Day card, but when she finished putting the glittery touches on Helene's card her teacher told her it wasn't acceptable, as pretty as it was. Archer is off at his tennis lesson, and there's mysteriously no one else to be seen in the usually hectic foyer of the estate.
Addison can't recall if Bizzy has ever greeted her at the door upon her arrival from school, and it can't mean anything good. She shoves a chilled hand into her plain navy backpack anyway, thinking perhaps this is a non-consequential turn of events. The thick paper feels rough against her palm and she hesitates when Bizzy looks at her confused.
“I made this,” Addison says with a frown. Bizzy has never taken an interest in any science project, art, or perfect report card to date. Though, the time with the B+ was traumatizing. It has to be perfect or she shouldn't be wasting everyone's time with it, Bizzy says.
Without opening the card adorned with sloppy, halfhearted flowers, Bizzy remarks, “That's nice, Dear.”
Ten minutes later, Addison is having her hair ripped from her scalp as Bizzy's hairdresser fashions something acceptable for The Captain's big retirement party.
On Mother's Day the following Sunday, Addison hesitantly presents Helene with her original work. She receives a well meant smile and hug as they walk toward the stables for her obligatory weekend riding lesson. Bizzy says ladies know how to ride a horse without looking like jumping popcorn.
She wouldn't know the day Addison can successfully canter from any other Thursday; or successfully gallop from any other Memorial Day party extravaganza. She gets the chance to show her, weeks later, but Bizzy is swept away for another important call, and Addison vows never to touch a horse again.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I don't understand why he's still here,” Sam broaches later in the week, over a stale cup of coffee at the nurse's station of St. Ambrose. It's been a long, stressful day for both of them. He's tired of Derek in the guest room, dropping his two cents into every single conversation. “Amelia isn't even in the same zip code.”
“I'm not having this discussion with you, again,” Addison sighs, closing the chart she was signing off on.
“Doesn't he have a job and a family?” Sam asks, pulling the pen out of his pocket.
For the last three days it has been this. Over morning scones, and crosswords they laugh. And he tries to join in, but he doesn't know the joke or he came in at the end or he never knew what they were talking about in the first place. They're in a whole other world, and Sam wonders if it was always like this. Addison and Derek, and their spectators. It's hard to remember that long ago.
“If you're really that interested in Derek's day-to-day, you should probably ask him.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You're just in time,” Derek informs Sam as he stumbles into the house, tossing his keys onto Addison's kitchen counter. “We got egg rolls this time.”
“Again?” Sam asks, loosening his tie and grappling with the top button of his shirt.
“I thought you liked Chinese,” Derek shrugs, opening Addison's cupboards, finding plates and glasses. He reaches into the top cupboard, finds the label he is looking for and curls his fingers around the cold bottle.
Sam scrubs his hands over his face, watching Derek pull out the wine he and Addison shared on their first official date, and excuses himself to go rinse off the day in her shower, where his razor is, and his towel, and where his clothes are waiting for him. Yet, he can't help but keep looking over his shoulder. Waiting, the nagging knot beginning to turn and twist and mold itself in the pit of his stomach. Derek Shepherd never brings good news; the repercussions linger long after he's returned to his perfect life with his perfect family.
When Sam returns, Addison is already home, conversing, eating with her ex. Sam can't help but be slightly irked by Derek, he's always had that ability, that demanding presence. So Sam does the only thing he can think of, sliding an arm around his girlfriend's waist, pressing his lips to her cheek. He greets her, watching mindfully of Derek who either doesn't notice or pretends to not notice.
“You didn't hear the good news before you ran off upstairs,” Derek says sarcastically, dropping his chopsticks into an open container of grease and noddles.
“Amelia agreed to see us,” Addison says with a smile. “We're going to head up there tomorrow after my morning rounds.”
“Good, that's good right?” Sam asks. He doesn't know the protocol, his sister simply left. There was no talking about it, no rehabilitation, just plaguing thoughts and his mother's tears late at night to comfort him.
“Yeah,” they both say at the exact same time. Their tones, their meanings couldn't be more different.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison couldn't wait a day later, and she knows now is not the time. Now is never the time in her life. It's kind of her theme song, but she had an inkling so she brought home the test, and snuck away when she was certain Sam was long asleep and Derek was locked in the guest room.
Two lines. One happy face. One word.
It seals her fate and she smiles, visualizes all of the worry and regret, all of the tension and unsaid words wash off her shoulders as she slips back into bed, cold toes colliding with Sam's leg.
“Baby-”
“Sorry,” Addison whispers, still grinning. “Go back to sleep.”
Her midnight secret meets its match when Sam rolls over and flips on the lamp next to him, an expression she can't read on his face. “What?”
He yawns and she can see this isn't going to end in the next five minutes. “Sam-”
“I want to go with you tomorrow,” he says seemingly wide awake. It makes her question if he was ever really asleep to begin with. “I want to be there for you, Addison.”
“You have patients,”
“I'll reschedule. You haven't spoke to Amelia since she left-”
“Neither have you,” Addison refutes, but she knows it's useless. Amelia is more to her than she is to Sam. Amelia is the crazy little sister she never got. Amelia was an unwitting example of persistence and resilience that she mostly admired. Amelia was her vault, her safe, her most treasured, hidden and confidential stories lie exposed inside.
“Let me do this for you,” Sam pressures, rolling onto his side to look at her. “Addison, look at me. Tell me.”
“I don't need you to go, Sam. I can do this. Amelia is ready now. Amelia is...Amelia again, not that monster you drove up there and I don't need you to protect me from her.” In fact, she's gotten quite good at not needing him for much of anything lately. She doesn't need someone to hold her hand during her visits with the newest member of their practice, and she didn't need help picking out a sperm donor, and she didn't need help choosing a rehab facility.
She's put distance between them, fearing the worst. She's mourning her loss of him with him, staring back at her every morning over breakfast, breaks in the practice's kitchen, in her office as they look over their separate files.
She knows what a child looks like with him in the picture, and he's just barely in the frame, skirting around commitment.
“Ok,” Sam sighs, turning the light off, darkness enveloping their quiet sanctuary.
“Night.” He doesn't push half as hard as she expects, and she's grateful to return to the safety of night without blurting out what she's been working so hard on for the last few months is now a reality.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“He hovers,” Derek surmises on their journey north to his sister. If he thought he could reasonably drive 20 miles an hour then he would, but he's pretty sure Addison would force him out of the driver's seat. “I know, I hover. I know what it looks like.”
“Shut up,” Addison commands, hand pressed against the seat belt. Her sunglasses slip down her nose and she almost regrets her middle of the night freak out on Sam because at least they wouldn't be having this conversation. “I'm not talking to you about Sam. Not on the way there, not on the way back.”
“He hovers,” Derek says, purses his lips, and then turns the music up again. “It's not a bad plan,” he offers as they creep down the road.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“She's alright now Derek, she wouldn't have called if she wasn't.”
Mark ditched them at the last minute for an opportunity to operate with his mentor, a man he too closely resembles, if you ask Addison, and the air in the rental car is thick with Derek's disdain and her trepidation. It took her half the week to get him to agree to even coming to visit Amy in rehab, and Amy had cried and begged and apologized so many times that Addison didn't know how her husband had managed to turn into a unmovable boulder. Addison wasn't immune to the tears that always started and ended each telephone call they shared, and she certainly wasn't used to Amy's weak voice pleading for something she couldn't have or steal from someone or somewhere.
“I think she's ready, she's doing the work, I think this is helping. She's going to be better. Derek?”
“Stop,” he instructs in a whisper, eyes glued to the icy road as they trek on an already unforgiving journey.
“Derek, it's alright. Amy knows-”
“Stop Addison, stop.” He's firmer this time. He's hit a wall. A mental barrier preventing him from reacting correctly to this monumental affair. It's the nagging feeling that this isn't the end, that's there's never going to be an end.
She's still for a moment, a beat, eyes drifting toward the snow that is trying to fall. The rental smells like a new car, and they need one, but Derek refuses to go looking with her, and she refuses to just buy him a car that he would certainly hate. He'd rather drive a cardboard box than anything she's suggested lately. “Kathleen said we shouldn't necessarily be gentle with her, we need to be honest-”
“Shut up, Addison, stop!” Derek commands. He takes a glance at her, catches the way her eyes begin to glisten and moves his hand to her thigh in a cease fire. He needs a break, a second to catch his breath, to wrap his mind around the fact that his baby sister (admittedly always a bit of a handful, but usually in a lovable way) tried to kill herself, or actually killed herself, with or without intent via his car, his signature.
It was never the way he wanted with Amy. She was never still, never calm, never content. She was a hurricane. It's impossible to stop her path of destruction, to protect her from herself, so he blames Addison.
“I shouldn't have taken that shift,” he says spitefully. As if he could have stopped her from leaving, as if he could have hidden his keys well enough. As if he could have saved her.
The silence begins with the snow, ends with Addison slamming the car door.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Why do I have to be here again?” Archer moans, looking through old tennis trophies that have been placed by his hands haphazardly into a box labeled “Study” in Addison's sloppy handwriting.
“Archer,” Addison begins, but it is futile. She's going to get more done without him here. She should have just let the moving crew handle all of the rooms in the estate but she thought it might be nice to remove some items herself, in case. “He's our father.”
“Ha,” Archer laughs, reaching over to the drink cart to fill his glass. “Some Dad.”
“Where do you have to be? Japan? France?”
“Belgium, as a matter of fact, I was supposed to be there three days ago. My publicist is growing impatient with not being able to parade around my brilliance for the world to see.” He swirls the vodka in his glass, ignores the smoothness, the clean feeling it leaves in his mouth.
“Just go, honestly, you're useless anyway.”
“Oh, baby sister,” Archer teases, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her away from the endless pile of books that litter the shelves. She's sorted and resorted and resorted. He's watched every bound page switch stacks at least three times. “Don't get angry.”
“I'm not angry,” Addison tells him matter-of-factly. She's disappointed, she should have known better than to think this would be something that could draw them closer together as a family, she's alone, she's lost, she's mortified. But she's not angry.
“This is you, not angry,” Archer tells her, sinking into the deliciously chilled chair to his right. “I can see the glaring from here.”
“I can finish this,” Addison tells him, taking his glass, and setting it on the tray before leaving the room. She wasn't planning on getting a goodbye out of him anyway, he comes and goes as he pleases. She simply wishes it would stop hurting already, not being enough.
It never does.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I didn't want him here,” Amelia gestures in Derek's direction. “God Addison, can't you follow simple instructions?”
“He's your brother, he's your family Amelia.”
“He's condescending, judgmental, and impetuous. I don't need this right now Addie, I am trying to do what you asked me to do here. You are my family, I wanted you.”
“I'm here,” Addison reiterates, pointing at herself. The room is well lit, and oddly empty, but she is thinking they should still take this outside before it gets out of hand.
“Why is he even in town? Did you call him? Did you call my mother?” Amelia paces nervously across the spot in front of the fireplace. It's off but she can still feel the heat emanating from within. It is seeping, crawling over her face.
“I called Derek,” Addison admits, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, heels bobbing off her feet. “I didn't call your mother, or Nancy, or anyone else. Promise.”
“It was just a slip Addison! I slipped, one time. You've done it, we've all done it!”
“Amelia-”
“Why are you punishing me?”
“I'm trying to help you.”
“By locking me up with these crazy people? Have you ever done a stint in rehab Addison? I can't talk about my feelings anymore to these strangers or I am going to need more pills coming out of here than I was doing before I went in.”
“Talk to me, talk to Derek,” Addison suggests, waving him over, fingers colliding with her hair. Derek sits next to her, too close, but he's nervous, she can tell, almost more than the last time they did this. He ran then, she's hoping he doesn't do the same again this time.
“Amy,” Derek greets, inhaling sharply before reclining and swallowing heavily. In this moment he can't recall why he ever boarded that plane.
“You need to get better,” Addison tells her. “I love you Amelia, but I won't watch you kill yourself and I won't standby while you destroy everything you've built since...then. You have a gift Amelia, you have a responsibility to your patients, and you are going to kill yourself if you keep going like this.”
“Is that what you tell yourself Addison? Does it help? How does that make you feel?” Amelia spouts.
“Sit down and talk to us like humans and not some caged animal at the zoo, or we are leaving,” Derek tells his sister, watching as she slides across them and finds respite in her clenched hands. “We all want the best for you Amy, and you know that.”
“I slipped,” Amelia tells him softly, wringing her knuckles against each other.
“I'd hate to see what a fall looks like then,” Derek corrects harshly, taking an elbow to his side from Addison.
Addison's mind spins off elsewhere while they pick up steam again. Derek's voice is rising, she elbows him again and he settles. She can see herself, in this room, watching from above, like a movie. She can feel Derek's leg bouncing against hers, his almost never present nerves beginning to make an appearance. Amelia looks like she is stalking her prey, pacing the full length of the room, unable to bear Derek's unwavering scrutiny.
Eventually, her legs carry her upwards and slowly out of the room, toward the parking lot. Addison can hear her name being called loudly at first and then quietly and then not at all. She's escaped. She finds a tree to lean against and descends into the dewy grass, head in hands. The urge to vomit passes swiftly and she knows it not to be the cause of her unborn child but rather the impasse they have reached inside.
It would be easiest to cut her losses, turn and run. But it's counter-intuitive. She stays for the ones who will never repay her, for those who need it the most. It's punishing, and brutal. But thankless, mostly thankless. Archer never asks for forgiveness, Derek never thought he was in the wrong, Sam can't possibly sink to her level, The Captain found it to be a contractual bloodline agreement that his indiscretions be kept private.
Derek finds her an immeasurable amount of time later, and tells her simply to get in the car, that they're leaving.
As he whisks her from the scene, her head falls back against the seat, her hand creeps across the seat belt once more, longing.
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