(no subject)
Title: There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease
Part: 2/?
Pairing(s): Noah/Addison, Pete/Addison, Pete/Violet, and some Sam/Addison friendship. Addison-centric.
Rating: R
Summary: Continuation of 2.22. Everyone struggles to find their footholds while dealing with disasters of their own making. Previous part here.
A/N: 3 parts? Let us hope. Thanks for hanging in there with this weird story, I can't explain the urge that created this mess, but here it is anyway. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~
There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease
~-~-~-~-~-~
At first the warm sensation under her cheek is welcome, almost invigorating, until she opens her eyes and realizes that no it's not her ex-husband, her ex-booty call, or even that guy she has been trying not to pursue for months now-it's Pete. Pete, her friend. Pete, her almost whatever. The guy that kisses her in stairwells for no reason and then has to gall to ask if she wants to do it again.
Addison's face flies off Pete's chest in a flurry of straitening covers and mumbled groans, as she wraps a sheet around herself and toes into the bathroom for a chastising shower. Between bars of wondering how she could be so damn stupid, and attempting not to remember how his hands slid so wonderfully down her body, the unlocked entrance creeks open and the shower door flings back. “Pete-”
Pete reaches around her for the shampoo not particularly caring that he is going to smell like Addison all day. He lathers as she stands agape. Her mouth hasn't closed by the time he pushes her to the side to rinse his hair, and he sighs audibly. In a manic fit they did some rash, to which he has no problems with, but assumes she does. At least, if her suddenly frozen posture has anything to say about the situation. His hands find her body wash, barely scented and he is in the middle of working up a good foam on his stomach before she can find words. He can't help that it makes him smirk, his ego needs a bit of stroking after the demolition fest that has been Violet lately.
“We...shouldn't...have,” Addison stammers, her mouth minty fresh from toothpaste but her brain not quite engaged yet. Plus, there's a naked man in front of her, and despite her growing maturity, there's still an overriding instinct to crush her lips against his and take full advantage of something she knows she could have very easily.
“I don't see why not,” Pete argues, for the fun of it. Getting under this redhead's skin should be a sport and while he's been trying to be nice and supportive lately, he's not feeling it today.
“Violet-”
“Hates both of us,” he finishes for her. And really, it's par for his life. Admitting love, wanting commitment, getting it thrown back in his face.
“She hates me?” Addison questions aloud instantly, face crinkling to remember a time when they clashed.
“How would I know?” Pete asks her, turning around, giving her a good view of the back she left red streaks across the previous night. He feels her reach out and gently trace one, her fingers like feathers. “Don't worry about it,” he instructs, meant more for the entire evening, rather than the minimal injuries he sustained pleasing her.
It's coming back in waves. Flashes of discarded clothes. Panting, tumbling to the living room floor. Addison gulps. She could live with a daily dose of what happened a few hours ago, hell she may be a more pleasant individual even.
“It wasn't anything,” Pete continues. “Not a big deal.”
“Yeah,” she mumbles finally. It's nothing.
Except she wants to do it again and again.
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison,” Noah whispers guiltily, checking down the hall before slipping into her office.
She hangs her head behind the magazine in her hands. It's really not the day to begin this. She was hoping that since she hadn't heard from him in almost a week that chances were he came to his senses. Addison forces herself to smile when he sits down on the desk in front of her, cupping her cheeks gently and announcing, “I did it.”
“Did what?” She has the nerves to ask. It could be many things, she reminds herself.
“I left her,” he grins. “I needed some time after....I took a few days, and I'm sorry, but...I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ok,” Addison swallows. A first time mother, fresh off an incredibly high-risk pregnancy is now at home...alone, and it's her fault. Wonderful.
“I was,” Noah drops her face finally and reaches out for her clammy palms, “hoping that maybe you'd like to go out to dinner with me.”
“Dinner,” Addison repeats, trying to make sense of it. Sex, then the date. It seems to be how she works lately. If she gets the date at all.
“You know, you, me, food, drinks, maybe some dancing. It'll be fun. Plus...I want a chance to...be with you.”
“You aren't ready for this,” she warns him. In reference to both the date but also the bag of crazy that she brings into any romantic entanglement. Perhaps Pete is onto something with this whole “fun” thing. Just because she was married once, it doesn't have to mean that she is the marrying type, right? Except that part where she's a serial monogamist. She even dated her extra-marital affair for a few months out of desperation.
“I'm ready,” Noah nods convincingly, leaving a sweet kiss on her upper lip. “I want this Addison, so bad. I think...I know, you're my one.”
Such proclamations usually tend to let her down, but it doesn't mean she isn't swooning into it heart first. “Ok,” she replies rather optimistically, mouth curving upward. Maybe he's ready, who is she to say anyway?
“7?” Noah questions, getting a slight affirmation. “I'll pick you up.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
7:30 however, finds her out on the dimly lit deck, watching the ocean, mesmerized by it's anger. There's a voicemail explaining an emergency, and she thinks, swirling her drink, that it should serve as a sign. Coincidentally, scheduling for the next day also falls through, and yet she perseveres, until finally, Friday, they are seated across one another a quaint little Thai restaurant that he assures her will change her life.
She remains steadfast and determined, even after suffering through horrible food poisoning the following days.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Noah creeps through Addison's house quietly, afraid he may wake her if she isn't already up. He checked at the practice and her co-worker, Sam he thinks it was, informed him that she was still out. Since he hasn't gotten a return call on their slightly disastrous date he believes it may be time to check in with her.
When he reaches the living area though, a place he's never been privy to, he finds her curled up outside, admiring the dark night sky. “Addison?” he calls out, not wanting to scare her completely out of her mind. He smiles when she waves him out toward her, and takes the empty space next to her, hoping that it isn't too close. “You didn't call me back.”
“Sick,” Addison informs him, stomach still queasy from her fun battles. She hasn't had a reason to stay home sick in years, and she probably could be working but with everything else snowballing, staying at home felt like the best option. Plus a little wallowing never hurt anyone. She is, however, beginning to regret the red wine sitting next to her, almost empty.
“Oh,” Noah breathes, immediately concerned, his hand being slapped away from her instantly when he tries to deduce the level of illness.
“I'm fine,” she assures him. Probably more heartbroken/wracked with insurmountable guilt than anything else. The illness portion of this has being played up in her mind, hyped.
“You should be inside,” he tells her, lovingly wrapping the thin blanket around her feet a little tighter.
He's that guy. The kind she can't resist, the seemingly good one. The one who doesn't hurt the people he hurts on purpose. She admires it. “Needed some fresh air.”
“Ok,” Noah concedes, falling back into the chair and looking up at the night sky. He could get used to this, the barely visible stars, the sound of waves slamming into the shore. She has a nice life that he would love to be a part of. “Would...can I stay over...so I don't worry about you all night?”
“Noah-”
“I'm willing to stay on the couch,” he vocalizes, though he'd much prefer to hold her. “I won't try anything.”
She nods, and he disappears seconds later with his ringing cell phone in hand. “You don't want me,” she whispers warningly, well after he's gone.
She's not a big enough person to send him home, she's not strong enough to stop this tidal wave from crashing down upon them.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Pete has Violet pressed up against him while he's busy thinking about Addison. He knows it's not right, and that this is his chance, the crazy woman did call and apologize for her blatant dismissal of him before. She explained that she's grieving, and insane (always insane she mentioned, he knows), and that he shouldn't be offended by her because she means no harm.
But he is, and she does.
“Thanks...for dinner,” Violet says softly, relaxing into the man behind her. It's not everyday you get a reformed guy wanting happiness, not everyday that she allows herself to dip her toes into something ultimately good. She tosses a drying fry down on the coffee table and cuddles back into him once more. She's still sore, bruised, and ultimately torn up- inside and out. But having Pete here, having anyone here who feels some bit of pain is comforting in itself. Misery does love it's company.
“Not a problem,” Pete murmurs soothingly into her wild hair, hands stroking her arms as they aimlessly flip through channels. There's still a few discarded bottles of beer littering the floor and he knows she's been heavy at work trying to not only to recover, but also to forget it ever happened. “I think...” Pete drags on, “I think I was...ready, for this. For our family.” It's a tiny voice inside him, one he doesn't recognize and likes to think doesn't really exist.
The man he is right now, it's the layer of skin, of memories he's been trying to shed for years.
Violet takes a deep breath, her nose perpetually stuffed, eyes always red. “Me too.”
He owes it to her, to stay. What they've been through, he wouldn't wish on anyone.
~-~-~-~-~-~
“See it's not all that bad,” Noah tells her, feet wound into his skilled hands, eyes beginning to drop against the hazy fuzz of colors on the television screen in front of them.
“No,” Addison mumbles stilted, trying to stop from falling asleep while he is still up in her room.
“Are you okay?” Noah asks, knowing that despite strong evidence to the contrary she isn't completely over whatever she has been dragging her down.
“You shouldn't be here,” Addison says wistfully. Not that she doesn't enjoy him being here, not that she doesn't applaud a man who wants to be with her voluntarily. But their relationship isn't and can never be shrouded in the newness that most couples get to experience. They're already bogged down by issues, circumstances, and she doesn't need the fight anymore. While sometimes it easy to disengage his wife, his child from the man in front of her, it's always there in the back of her mind.
And that bit of her mind, it's the place she's been trying to escape since her flighty road trip down here over a year ago.
She's ripping apart a family, regardless of how much responsibility she actually carries in the action. She feels like she is tearing haphazardly through someone's world for something that may ultimately fall apart. It's not worth that, she's not worth that.
“I'm where I want to be,” Noah tells her, pushing his thumb into her heel a little too hard and causing her to squirm. “I didn't tell you this,” he clears his throat. “I don't want this to be about Morgan. We decided to separate amicably, she agreed that it isn't working. I'm still very much a part of my son's life, and we are working with our lawyer to reach some sort of definitive custody agreement. I don't want it to...interrupt what we are doing. She's always going to be a small part of my life Addison, but I love you and I hope someday that will be enough to make it all right again.”
Noah squeezes her left foot lightly when she doesn't reply, when he thinks that the shine in her eyes may not be from exhaustion. “Ok?”
“Yeah.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
What feels like forty but is actually only four voicemails to Naomi later she finally gets a response. A simple text on her phone telling her that they should get together tonight at Naomi's because she has Maya. Addison breathes a deep sigh of relief, upon seeing that she may be able to flee the world she has made lately, and divulge in some good wine and heavy chocolate. Seeing her best friend, turned arch rival also couldn't hurt. Cathartic cleansing.
“Addison?” Pete blurts out, walking past her office, attempting to get on with his damn day after spending another night curled up around Violet and cursing his misfortune.
“Hey,” Addison smiles. They haven't seen much of each other, but to her relief, he was right and it was literally nothing. She almost feels like their friendship is now stronger for having gone through it. Almost being the key.
“I...just wanted to say thanks...for the other night. I didn't before, and I should have.”
“You're thanking me for sex?” Addison blushes unconsciously.
“Not specifically that,” Pete grins. “The other stuff, about Violet-”
“Oh, right. How is she?”
“Better. Getting better,” Pete replies, lingering in her doorway. “I should...get going,” he says to himself, watching as she uncrosses and recrosses the legs that he loves having wrapped around his back. The haunting images of that night love to play across his closed eyelids at night, when he is supposed to be focused on the painful consequences of the previous two weeks.
He's too happy to just have had his life torn apart, too content that nothing is quite how he imagined it would be just a few short weeks ago. That's the unsettling part, at least, that's what he tells himself. The reality that he wasn't attached, that his mind was playing tricks on him because he thought there was going to be a mother of his child, thought there would be a child, that's not the kind of semantics he likes to divulge into on a Monday.
“That's good to hear,” Addison tells him, professional mode slipping back over her almost as easily as the denial. “About Violet, I mean.”
“How's the guy?” Pete asks interestedly, dipping further towards the lavender walls.
“Left his wife,” Addison nods.
“This is good?”
“I don't know, we'll see,” she tells him honestly, watching as his lower lip bounces in anticipation, watching his arms over the thin black barrier of his shirt. He looks just as delicious now as he did then and she can't help but let her mouth salivate.
“I should...go, patient waiting,” Pete repeats, eyes tracing her as she makes each movement, wondering what it would feel like to have her arms wrapped around his neck just once more as he stumbles from the room. “I'll see you later.”
“I have a surgery...later,” Addison murmurs futilely as he dashes from the room.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison can effortlessly get lost in Noah. His humor, his charm, his smile. It's simple to be enamored, to laugh loudly with him. There's a jaded sort of side to him that she appreciates. They've both seen the horridness that life can bring and are still standing. She likes that they can relate in that manner, so when he begins to chuckle once more, sliding her a white carton of takeout, she giggles too.
He's infectious.
“I don't think I've ever seen Charlotte King look so embarrassed,” he tells her, the story lingering from this afternoon where they were both witness to her rather devastating fall. Since nothing was broken, scraped, or torn Addison feels free to embellish a little and receive pleasure in another's discomfort.
“Made my day,” Addison smiles proudly, spooning another mouthful of noodles into her mouth.
“I thought I made your day,” Noah pouts playfully, receiving nothing short of a full eye roll.
“My patients,” Addison corrects truthfully, “make my day.” It's kind of all she has going for her as of late anyway.
Noah is just about to reply about how much he enjoys that medicine hasn't ruined that aspect of the job for her yet when the knock on the door interrupts them. Addison excuses herself, and seconds later is backtracking into the house, trying to stand firm in front of another man.
“Pete-”
“You have company,” Pete frowns. He really needed her tonight. Especially after learning the wrenching news that the kid he was planning on raising wasn't actually his but belonged to the dorky downstairs psychologist, Sheldon. He attempted the whole it didn't matter whose kid it was they were all going to love it thing, but it didn't work, and neither did the first seven drinks, so now he's swaying in Addison's entryway, a familiar but unplaceable man standing behind her protectively.
“Addison,” Noah intervenes, “Do you want him here?”
“It's fine, can you give us a minute?” she asks unwittingly, watching Pete's eyes begin to spin.
“Is that the guy?” Pete questions distastefully.
“The guy?” Noah parrots, looking over Addison's shoulder, placing a light hand on the small of her back.
“She's too good for you,” Pete shakes his head, feeling it swirl slowly, trying to catch up with the action.
“Pete,” Addison speaks up, steering him back toward the door skillfully. “Noah, one minute, okay?” She looks behind her, telling him to back off for a second. Leave it to Pete to screw up the first date they've had where things are actually going well. “What?” she seethes, biting down on her lip.
“I- Violet...Sheldon.” It's too magnificent to speak aloud, especially with the other asshat a room over.
“Pete,” Addison whispers. “I can't help you right now-”
“I's...wanted to see you.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” she nods placating, treating him like a small child. “But I'm kind of busy...right now-”
“I don't like him,” Pete crinkles his nose.
“Not your call,” Addison retorts strongly. “Do you want me to get you a cab or something?”
“Can I stay?” he asks, brushing by her toward Noah. The thought of riding in another traffic jammed, slow, stench ridden cab is already making his stomach curl.
“I don't think-”
“It's alright,” Noah tells her, leaving a lingering kiss on her cheek. “I need to get going anyway,” he glances at his phone, having just received a message from Morgan. She's exhausted and Jack is fussy and he likes to help, plus it seems like a convenient time. “I'll call you tomorrow.”
“Great,” she mumbles, glaring over at Pete who has made himself at home on her couch and looks as though he could pass out at any moment. “Just fantastic.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison?” Sam yawns, pulling the door open further, allowing her to step into the darkness. “What's-”
“Sorry...I'm sorry,” Addison sniffles into her sleeve. “I know it's late, but Naomi is...never there anymore and I...just needed someone.”
“It's okay,” Sam replies softly, having dealt with a female meltdown or two in his days. He guides her toward the living room, letting her choose what to sit on before she explodes into what will surely be a fit of hysteria and tears.
“I'm sorry,” Addison gulps again, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her shirt. Pete's been out for two hours, and she's done nothing but stare in his general direction while finishing off her dinner.
The truth is she didn't even bother to try Naomi. After their pathetically short excuse for girl time, and the invented emergency that sent her back toward her own empty house, she didn't feel like risking the scrutiny of her glorious failings.
“Just...tell me what happened,” Sam replies calmly, stealing a blanket off the back of the chair and tossing it to her.
“I'm...making such a mess. Pete and Noah and Pete...and Morgan.”
Only one of the names catches his attention. Pete. Pete who always does something to make women run in the opposite direction. “What did he do?”
“Nothing...I did it...I'm faltering here Sam. I'm so...out of my element.”
He waits for her to regroup and then nods, pushing her along silently, offering a warm hand out to grasp for support.
“It's just...he was the one stable thing in my life...until he wasn't, and now- now my family is crazy and Archer is Archer, Naomi is practically gone...and I'm all alone. I'm faltering, and I don't...know if I can do this.”
Sam catches the not-so subtle alluding the late, great Dr. Derek Shepherd and smiles pityingly. He knows how it is to get so attached to something, only to have it snatched out from under your feet, or to go until you no longer recognize what it was that you began with. “You can do this,” Sam encourages suddenly. They can pick themselves back up, she's his partner in this.
“You don't even know what I'm talking about,” Addison criticizes, but knows it's pointless. He's never needed to know the exact details of what is happening. He's a good friend in that way.
“No, but-” he holds a hand up when she opens her shaking mouth once more, “I know you. I've known you forever and I know that whatever it is that Pete has or has not done is nothing that you can't handle. And...I'm here. Right next door. Always.”
“Can I stay here?” Addison asks, feeling like the drunk man on her couch, her cheeks blushing instantly. “I...just don't want to go home tonight.”
“Yeah,” Sam replies, “Do you want-”
“The couch is good,” Addison smiles reassuringly, beginning to pull herself back together after the debacle that happened earlier. All it took was the tiniest of pin pricks to start the explosion of water.
The walls she's built up are crumbling rapidly, suffocating her with their debris.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Part: 2/?
Pairing(s): Noah/Addison, Pete/Addison, Pete/Violet, and some Sam/Addison friendship. Addison-centric.
Rating: R
Summary: Continuation of 2.22. Everyone struggles to find their footholds while dealing with disasters of their own making. Previous part here.
A/N: 3 parts? Let us hope. Thanks for hanging in there with this weird story, I can't explain the urge that created this mess, but here it is anyway. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~
There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease
~-~-~-~-~-~
At first the warm sensation under her cheek is welcome, almost invigorating, until she opens her eyes and realizes that no it's not her ex-husband, her ex-booty call, or even that guy she has been trying not to pursue for months now-it's Pete. Pete, her friend. Pete, her almost whatever. The guy that kisses her in stairwells for no reason and then has to gall to ask if she wants to do it again.
Addison's face flies off Pete's chest in a flurry of straitening covers and mumbled groans, as she wraps a sheet around herself and toes into the bathroom for a chastising shower. Between bars of wondering how she could be so damn stupid, and attempting not to remember how his hands slid so wonderfully down her body, the unlocked entrance creeks open and the shower door flings back. “Pete-”
Pete reaches around her for the shampoo not particularly caring that he is going to smell like Addison all day. He lathers as she stands agape. Her mouth hasn't closed by the time he pushes her to the side to rinse his hair, and he sighs audibly. In a manic fit they did some rash, to which he has no problems with, but assumes she does. At least, if her suddenly frozen posture has anything to say about the situation. His hands find her body wash, barely scented and he is in the middle of working up a good foam on his stomach before she can find words. He can't help that it makes him smirk, his ego needs a bit of stroking after the demolition fest that has been Violet lately.
“We...shouldn't...have,” Addison stammers, her mouth minty fresh from toothpaste but her brain not quite engaged yet. Plus, there's a naked man in front of her, and despite her growing maturity, there's still an overriding instinct to crush her lips against his and take full advantage of something she knows she could have very easily.
“I don't see why not,” Pete argues, for the fun of it. Getting under this redhead's skin should be a sport and while he's been trying to be nice and supportive lately, he's not feeling it today.
“Violet-”
“Hates both of us,” he finishes for her. And really, it's par for his life. Admitting love, wanting commitment, getting it thrown back in his face.
“She hates me?” Addison questions aloud instantly, face crinkling to remember a time when they clashed.
“How would I know?” Pete asks her, turning around, giving her a good view of the back she left red streaks across the previous night. He feels her reach out and gently trace one, her fingers like feathers. “Don't worry about it,” he instructs, meant more for the entire evening, rather than the minimal injuries he sustained pleasing her.
It's coming back in waves. Flashes of discarded clothes. Panting, tumbling to the living room floor. Addison gulps. She could live with a daily dose of what happened a few hours ago, hell she may be a more pleasant individual even.
“It wasn't anything,” Pete continues. “Not a big deal.”
“Yeah,” she mumbles finally. It's nothing.
Except she wants to do it again and again.
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison,” Noah whispers guiltily, checking down the hall before slipping into her office.
She hangs her head behind the magazine in her hands. It's really not the day to begin this. She was hoping that since she hadn't heard from him in almost a week that chances were he came to his senses. Addison forces herself to smile when he sits down on the desk in front of her, cupping her cheeks gently and announcing, “I did it.”
“Did what?” She has the nerves to ask. It could be many things, she reminds herself.
“I left her,” he grins. “I needed some time after....I took a few days, and I'm sorry, but...I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ok,” Addison swallows. A first time mother, fresh off an incredibly high-risk pregnancy is now at home...alone, and it's her fault. Wonderful.
“I was,” Noah drops her face finally and reaches out for her clammy palms, “hoping that maybe you'd like to go out to dinner with me.”
“Dinner,” Addison repeats, trying to make sense of it. Sex, then the date. It seems to be how she works lately. If she gets the date at all.
“You know, you, me, food, drinks, maybe some dancing. It'll be fun. Plus...I want a chance to...be with you.”
“You aren't ready for this,” she warns him. In reference to both the date but also the bag of crazy that she brings into any romantic entanglement. Perhaps Pete is onto something with this whole “fun” thing. Just because she was married once, it doesn't have to mean that she is the marrying type, right? Except that part where she's a serial monogamist. She even dated her extra-marital affair for a few months out of desperation.
“I'm ready,” Noah nods convincingly, leaving a sweet kiss on her upper lip. “I want this Addison, so bad. I think...I know, you're my one.”
Such proclamations usually tend to let her down, but it doesn't mean she isn't swooning into it heart first. “Ok,” she replies rather optimistically, mouth curving upward. Maybe he's ready, who is she to say anyway?
“7?” Noah questions, getting a slight affirmation. “I'll pick you up.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
7:30 however, finds her out on the dimly lit deck, watching the ocean, mesmerized by it's anger. There's a voicemail explaining an emergency, and she thinks, swirling her drink, that it should serve as a sign. Coincidentally, scheduling for the next day also falls through, and yet she perseveres, until finally, Friday, they are seated across one another a quaint little Thai restaurant that he assures her will change her life.
She remains steadfast and determined, even after suffering through horrible food poisoning the following days.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Noah creeps through Addison's house quietly, afraid he may wake her if she isn't already up. He checked at the practice and her co-worker, Sam he thinks it was, informed him that she was still out. Since he hasn't gotten a return call on their slightly disastrous date he believes it may be time to check in with her.
When he reaches the living area though, a place he's never been privy to, he finds her curled up outside, admiring the dark night sky. “Addison?” he calls out, not wanting to scare her completely out of her mind. He smiles when she waves him out toward her, and takes the empty space next to her, hoping that it isn't too close. “You didn't call me back.”
“Sick,” Addison informs him, stomach still queasy from her fun battles. She hasn't had a reason to stay home sick in years, and she probably could be working but with everything else snowballing, staying at home felt like the best option. Plus a little wallowing never hurt anyone. She is, however, beginning to regret the red wine sitting next to her, almost empty.
“Oh,” Noah breathes, immediately concerned, his hand being slapped away from her instantly when he tries to deduce the level of illness.
“I'm fine,” she assures him. Probably more heartbroken/wracked with insurmountable guilt than anything else. The illness portion of this has being played up in her mind, hyped.
“You should be inside,” he tells her, lovingly wrapping the thin blanket around her feet a little tighter.
He's that guy. The kind she can't resist, the seemingly good one. The one who doesn't hurt the people he hurts on purpose. She admires it. “Needed some fresh air.”
“Ok,” Noah concedes, falling back into the chair and looking up at the night sky. He could get used to this, the barely visible stars, the sound of waves slamming into the shore. She has a nice life that he would love to be a part of. “Would...can I stay over...so I don't worry about you all night?”
“Noah-”
“I'm willing to stay on the couch,” he vocalizes, though he'd much prefer to hold her. “I won't try anything.”
She nods, and he disappears seconds later with his ringing cell phone in hand. “You don't want me,” she whispers warningly, well after he's gone.
She's not a big enough person to send him home, she's not strong enough to stop this tidal wave from crashing down upon them.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Pete has Violet pressed up against him while he's busy thinking about Addison. He knows it's not right, and that this is his chance, the crazy woman did call and apologize for her blatant dismissal of him before. She explained that she's grieving, and insane (always insane she mentioned, he knows), and that he shouldn't be offended by her because she means no harm.
But he is, and she does.
“Thanks...for dinner,” Violet says softly, relaxing into the man behind her. It's not everyday you get a reformed guy wanting happiness, not everyday that she allows herself to dip her toes into something ultimately good. She tosses a drying fry down on the coffee table and cuddles back into him once more. She's still sore, bruised, and ultimately torn up- inside and out. But having Pete here, having anyone here who feels some bit of pain is comforting in itself. Misery does love it's company.
“Not a problem,” Pete murmurs soothingly into her wild hair, hands stroking her arms as they aimlessly flip through channels. There's still a few discarded bottles of beer littering the floor and he knows she's been heavy at work trying to not only to recover, but also to forget it ever happened. “I think...” Pete drags on, “I think I was...ready, for this. For our family.” It's a tiny voice inside him, one he doesn't recognize and likes to think doesn't really exist.
The man he is right now, it's the layer of skin, of memories he's been trying to shed for years.
Violet takes a deep breath, her nose perpetually stuffed, eyes always red. “Me too.”
He owes it to her, to stay. What they've been through, he wouldn't wish on anyone.
~-~-~-~-~-~
“See it's not all that bad,” Noah tells her, feet wound into his skilled hands, eyes beginning to drop against the hazy fuzz of colors on the television screen in front of them.
“No,” Addison mumbles stilted, trying to stop from falling asleep while he is still up in her room.
“Are you okay?” Noah asks, knowing that despite strong evidence to the contrary she isn't completely over whatever she has been dragging her down.
“You shouldn't be here,” Addison says wistfully. Not that she doesn't enjoy him being here, not that she doesn't applaud a man who wants to be with her voluntarily. But their relationship isn't and can never be shrouded in the newness that most couples get to experience. They're already bogged down by issues, circumstances, and she doesn't need the fight anymore. While sometimes it easy to disengage his wife, his child from the man in front of her, it's always there in the back of her mind.
And that bit of her mind, it's the place she's been trying to escape since her flighty road trip down here over a year ago.
She's ripping apart a family, regardless of how much responsibility she actually carries in the action. She feels like she is tearing haphazardly through someone's world for something that may ultimately fall apart. It's not worth that, she's not worth that.
“I'm where I want to be,” Noah tells her, pushing his thumb into her heel a little too hard and causing her to squirm. “I didn't tell you this,” he clears his throat. “I don't want this to be about Morgan. We decided to separate amicably, she agreed that it isn't working. I'm still very much a part of my son's life, and we are working with our lawyer to reach some sort of definitive custody agreement. I don't want it to...interrupt what we are doing. She's always going to be a small part of my life Addison, but I love you and I hope someday that will be enough to make it all right again.”
Noah squeezes her left foot lightly when she doesn't reply, when he thinks that the shine in her eyes may not be from exhaustion. “Ok?”
“Yeah.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
What feels like forty but is actually only four voicemails to Naomi later she finally gets a response. A simple text on her phone telling her that they should get together tonight at Naomi's because she has Maya. Addison breathes a deep sigh of relief, upon seeing that she may be able to flee the world she has made lately, and divulge in some good wine and heavy chocolate. Seeing her best friend, turned arch rival also couldn't hurt. Cathartic cleansing.
“Addison?” Pete blurts out, walking past her office, attempting to get on with his damn day after spending another night curled up around Violet and cursing his misfortune.
“Hey,” Addison smiles. They haven't seen much of each other, but to her relief, he was right and it was literally nothing. She almost feels like their friendship is now stronger for having gone through it. Almost being the key.
“I...just wanted to say thanks...for the other night. I didn't before, and I should have.”
“You're thanking me for sex?” Addison blushes unconsciously.
“Not specifically that,” Pete grins. “The other stuff, about Violet-”
“Oh, right. How is she?”
“Better. Getting better,” Pete replies, lingering in her doorway. “I should...get going,” he says to himself, watching as she uncrosses and recrosses the legs that he loves having wrapped around his back. The haunting images of that night love to play across his closed eyelids at night, when he is supposed to be focused on the painful consequences of the previous two weeks.
He's too happy to just have had his life torn apart, too content that nothing is quite how he imagined it would be just a few short weeks ago. That's the unsettling part, at least, that's what he tells himself. The reality that he wasn't attached, that his mind was playing tricks on him because he thought there was going to be a mother of his child, thought there would be a child, that's not the kind of semantics he likes to divulge into on a Monday.
“That's good to hear,” Addison tells him, professional mode slipping back over her almost as easily as the denial. “About Violet, I mean.”
“How's the guy?” Pete asks interestedly, dipping further towards the lavender walls.
“Left his wife,” Addison nods.
“This is good?”
“I don't know, we'll see,” she tells him honestly, watching as his lower lip bounces in anticipation, watching his arms over the thin black barrier of his shirt. He looks just as delicious now as he did then and she can't help but let her mouth salivate.
“I should...go, patient waiting,” Pete repeats, eyes tracing her as she makes each movement, wondering what it would feel like to have her arms wrapped around his neck just once more as he stumbles from the room. “I'll see you later.”
“I have a surgery...later,” Addison murmurs futilely as he dashes from the room.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison can effortlessly get lost in Noah. His humor, his charm, his smile. It's simple to be enamored, to laugh loudly with him. There's a jaded sort of side to him that she appreciates. They've both seen the horridness that life can bring and are still standing. She likes that they can relate in that manner, so when he begins to chuckle once more, sliding her a white carton of takeout, she giggles too.
He's infectious.
“I don't think I've ever seen Charlotte King look so embarrassed,” he tells her, the story lingering from this afternoon where they were both witness to her rather devastating fall. Since nothing was broken, scraped, or torn Addison feels free to embellish a little and receive pleasure in another's discomfort.
“Made my day,” Addison smiles proudly, spooning another mouthful of noodles into her mouth.
“I thought I made your day,” Noah pouts playfully, receiving nothing short of a full eye roll.
“My patients,” Addison corrects truthfully, “make my day.” It's kind of all she has going for her as of late anyway.
Noah is just about to reply about how much he enjoys that medicine hasn't ruined that aspect of the job for her yet when the knock on the door interrupts them. Addison excuses herself, and seconds later is backtracking into the house, trying to stand firm in front of another man.
“Pete-”
“You have company,” Pete frowns. He really needed her tonight. Especially after learning the wrenching news that the kid he was planning on raising wasn't actually his but belonged to the dorky downstairs psychologist, Sheldon. He attempted the whole it didn't matter whose kid it was they were all going to love it thing, but it didn't work, and neither did the first seven drinks, so now he's swaying in Addison's entryway, a familiar but unplaceable man standing behind her protectively.
“Addison,” Noah intervenes, “Do you want him here?”
“It's fine, can you give us a minute?” she asks unwittingly, watching Pete's eyes begin to spin.
“Is that the guy?” Pete questions distastefully.
“The guy?” Noah parrots, looking over Addison's shoulder, placing a light hand on the small of her back.
“She's too good for you,” Pete shakes his head, feeling it swirl slowly, trying to catch up with the action.
“Pete,” Addison speaks up, steering him back toward the door skillfully. “Noah, one minute, okay?” She looks behind her, telling him to back off for a second. Leave it to Pete to screw up the first date they've had where things are actually going well. “What?” she seethes, biting down on her lip.
“I- Violet...Sheldon.” It's too magnificent to speak aloud, especially with the other asshat a room over.
“Pete,” Addison whispers. “I can't help you right now-”
“I's...wanted to see you.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” she nods placating, treating him like a small child. “But I'm kind of busy...right now-”
“I don't like him,” Pete crinkles his nose.
“Not your call,” Addison retorts strongly. “Do you want me to get you a cab or something?”
“Can I stay?” he asks, brushing by her toward Noah. The thought of riding in another traffic jammed, slow, stench ridden cab is already making his stomach curl.
“I don't think-”
“It's alright,” Noah tells her, leaving a lingering kiss on her cheek. “I need to get going anyway,” he glances at his phone, having just received a message from Morgan. She's exhausted and Jack is fussy and he likes to help, plus it seems like a convenient time. “I'll call you tomorrow.”
“Great,” she mumbles, glaring over at Pete who has made himself at home on her couch and looks as though he could pass out at any moment. “Just fantastic.”
~-~-~-~-~-~
“Addison?” Sam yawns, pulling the door open further, allowing her to step into the darkness. “What's-”
“Sorry...I'm sorry,” Addison sniffles into her sleeve. “I know it's late, but Naomi is...never there anymore and I...just needed someone.”
“It's okay,” Sam replies softly, having dealt with a female meltdown or two in his days. He guides her toward the living room, letting her choose what to sit on before she explodes into what will surely be a fit of hysteria and tears.
“I'm sorry,” Addison gulps again, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her shirt. Pete's been out for two hours, and she's done nothing but stare in his general direction while finishing off her dinner.
The truth is she didn't even bother to try Naomi. After their pathetically short excuse for girl time, and the invented emergency that sent her back toward her own empty house, she didn't feel like risking the scrutiny of her glorious failings.
“Just...tell me what happened,” Sam replies calmly, stealing a blanket off the back of the chair and tossing it to her.
“I'm...making such a mess. Pete and Noah and Pete...and Morgan.”
Only one of the names catches his attention. Pete. Pete who always does something to make women run in the opposite direction. “What did he do?”
“Nothing...I did it...I'm faltering here Sam. I'm so...out of my element.”
He waits for her to regroup and then nods, pushing her along silently, offering a warm hand out to grasp for support.
“It's just...he was the one stable thing in my life...until he wasn't, and now- now my family is crazy and Archer is Archer, Naomi is practically gone...and I'm all alone. I'm faltering, and I don't...know if I can do this.”
Sam catches the not-so subtle alluding the late, great Dr. Derek Shepherd and smiles pityingly. He knows how it is to get so attached to something, only to have it snatched out from under your feet, or to go until you no longer recognize what it was that you began with. “You can do this,” Sam encourages suddenly. They can pick themselves back up, she's his partner in this.
“You don't even know what I'm talking about,” Addison criticizes, but knows it's pointless. He's never needed to know the exact details of what is happening. He's a good friend in that way.
“No, but-” he holds a hand up when she opens her shaking mouth once more, “I know you. I've known you forever and I know that whatever it is that Pete has or has not done is nothing that you can't handle. And...I'm here. Right next door. Always.”
“Can I stay here?” Addison asks, feeling like the drunk man on her couch, her cheeks blushing instantly. “I...just don't want to go home tonight.”
“Yeah,” Sam replies, “Do you want-”
“The couch is good,” Addison smiles reassuringly, beginning to pull herself back together after the debacle that happened earlier. All it took was the tiniest of pin pricks to start the explosion of water.
The walls she's built up are crumbling rapidly, suffocating her with their debris.
~-~-~-~-~-~