(no subject)
Title: The Day I Lost My Voice (The Suitcase Song)
Part: 3/3
Pairing/Character(s): Sam, Addison, Sam/Addison.
Rating: R
Summary: A/U after 3.16. And in certain ways he'll never admit, the biggest letdown has been getting to know Addison Montgomery... Previous: 1 & 2.
A/N: This is a long time coming, and it's also super long so grab a snack and have a fun ride. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The Day I Lost My Voice (The Suitcase Song)
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It doesn't take much to keep Sam from his sleep at night, and Addison has been the culprit of more hours of missed rest than he'd like to admit, but after a statement like that, it's hard to even shut his eyes. Yet, she's curled up on her own side, blanket under her chin, passed out like she hasn't seen a bed in weeks.
But Addison spends so much time bottling things up, going until she explodes, that it was probably cathartic. At least that's the only reasonable explanation he can draw from not having her wrapped up in his arms tightly when she awakens. Instead, he's already downstairs on his fifth cup of coffee, paper spread over the table, every word being utilized in the hopes that he will be sufficiently distracted.
“I'm - I'll see you at work,” Addison says loudly, startling him out of the headlines and into her newsflash.
“They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Sam smiles, luring her in with a fresh cup of boldly blended beans.
“Not hungry,” Addison declines, wrapping her arms around herself. She's in last night's attire, preparing for the walk of shame. And while there is much to be ashamed of, it's far from traditional. “About yesterday, I'd appreciate it if we kept this- the practice is under enough stress as it is.”
“I understand,” Sam nods in his best version of friend mode, but he can't stop the butterflies that have been storming through his stomach all night, diving and swooping every time she would inch closer, hair near enough to smell.
“Thank you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“How you holding up?” Sam asks, dutifully digging his hands into her shoulders after setting a tall cup of chai tea on her desk. The blinds are drawn, and most of the staff has checked out, so he feels safe in his decision. Safe, until she snaps up, wriggling out his grasp, and hastily grabbing her purse.
“Pete and I are having dinner, I have to go,” Addison explains, no longer caring about the slight moment of unease it causes him to hear the other man's name spoken aloud. Fact is, Pete is the person she whines to. Pete is the person she never has to divulge full secrets to, only the parts she so chooses. He comforts her one way or another, the only way they know how. So she called him, apologized, and suggested a quiet meal, without Lucas, because that only seems to hurt more lately.
“I thought-”
“Me too,” Addison sighs, sweeping her growing hair over one shoulder and heading for the door.
Later that night, tangled in Pete's legs, she prays for Lucas to erupt into a series of hysterical cries so she can go rescue him. She needs to fix something, soothe someone who can't judge her, someone who loves her unconditionally even if she doesn't deserve it, even if it is only because he isn't old enough to get it yet.
But the men in her life sleep better than ever, and Addison spends the night crawling out of her skin, waiting.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
On the fourth day of her recent reconciliation Addison schedules her day packed full of complicated, tiring, and emotional surgeries. Never as exhausted as she was in Sam's bedroom, Addison makes her first cut full of hope for a great night's sleep that will last into the afternoon hours of Saturday so that she can't be overwhelmed by the instant handshake of regret and guilt that accompanies her every morning.
She should be there. She should be holding her father's hand, telling him all is forgiven, no hurt feelings. But feelings were hurt, and lives were, if not ruined, skewed in a manner that was unfair to everyone. And that's difficult to let go, to let go of the life that likes to slap her hand when she least expects it.
The monitors bring her attention back to the rather routine procedure on the unconventional patient, as she attempts to make a break for death.
“Charge the paddles!” Addison hears herself shout before she realizes that perhaps this, the day of gross, bloody fun that usually cures all, may not be able to scratch the surface of her preoccupied mind this time.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam finds her impassive in front of the ocean, watching the lapping waves with fake enthusiasm, after receiving a tip from Charlotte King that Addison's big day out at the hospital left with her practically sprinting for the entrance as Charlotte was bombarded with lawyers.
“You're amazing, it wasn't your fault,” Sam starts with a playful grin, offering her a tall glass of red wine to wash away their fears.
“I killed her,” Addison nods.
“You did your best,” Sam interrupts. His recent foray into surgery has been difficult and she's his model of success. He left for a reason, all those years ago, but he thinks he's strong enough again.
“I didn't,” Addison shrugs. “I did the equivalent to what an intern does, I froze. I don't freeze, Sam. Never.”
“Addison-” Sam scolds, forcing the drink into her hand, and trying to hide his disappointment when she won't even touch it. Alcohol is mandatory for these type of events, for unwinding, and it's more than disconcerting that she's uninterested.
“I think I should take some time off...until after.”
“Ok,” Sam gulps, peering through the long locks of red that are blocking a clear view of her face. Addison is never one to take a day away, nevermind more than two days in a row.
“There will probably be a lawsuit involved,” Addison tells him numbly. Today, she killed a person. It hasn't happened in so long, not so blatantly, that she's caught off guard. If this was Seattle, she wouldn't even be fazed (mistakes wouldn't have been made), but out here in the bright sun, cracks have developed in her carefully carved life. Everyone knows all of her strictly confidential information here. “Maybe you should take over running the practice, it'd be for the best.”
“No,” Sam objects, settling onto her deck, speaking over the ocean. “You're my partner, we've been sued before, for worse. We always make it through, it'll be fine.”
“I don't know what's wrong with me,” Addison squeaks, pity mode fully engaged.
Since Sam can't assure her that it's nothing, because he doesn't know, he drops a warm arm over her shoulder and leads her head to the special nook in his neck that he loves to feel her pressed against. It's a little selfish, but Sam the friend would do this too.
“I miss Nai,” Addison moans into the collar of his striped collar. But Naomi has run off somewhere, and even if she was in town Addison highly doubts she'd be receptive to being a sounding board for this mess.
His fingers dance into her hair eagerly, tracing feather light patterns over her scalp as she tries to control the emotions that are daring to break her resolve.
Sometimes, he has learned, the best plan with Addison is just to shut up and let her do her thing.
There's rarely room to argue, she's always right, even when she's wrong.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam can't say he's entirely surprised to hear the clicking of Addison's heels the next morning running through the halls at the practice. He's come to expect the overreaction, the coiling, and then the resolution.
“Change of heart,” Sam jokes, waltzing into her office, Addison's head bent over, searching through a desk drawer.
“No, actually. Rescheduling some patients that probably won't want to continue being patients of mine as soon as this hits. Will you remind Dell that Mrs. Lyman is very anxious?”
“Addison-” Sam begins, clearing his throat. “You're running.”
“I'm taking space,” Addison clarifies for him, plucking a pen out of the container in the corner and powering up her computer.
“An unplanned sabbatical,” Sam changes, striding forward.
“It's not like I'm quitting to go back to Seattle Sam. When's the last time I took a vacation- I can't even remember.”
“Switzerland,” Sam mutters to himself. She went to Switzerland almost seven years ago, Derek tagging along reluctantly, if he can recall correctly. He hates himself for knowing the answer only slightly less than he hates the idea of her personal leave. “When are you coming back?”
“I'm not sure,” Addison answers casually, not minding the seat he's strategically placed himself in, or his building fury.
“As your business partner I think I have a right to that information. I need to be able to deal with this accordingly.”
“What if I say a month?” Addison questions, finally facing him, work mode engaged.
“Fine.”
“Two months?”
“Addison-”
“What Sam? I'm just asking because apparently it makes a great amount of difference to you. One week? Seven weeks? Three hours? What would make you the most comfortable?”
“Come on,” Sam sighs. It's not about the time off, hell he'd like some himself but that's not how their world works. They're doctors, they're minutes are not their own, and she knows it well.
“Forget it,” Addison replies, fizzling out easily. She has no energy, no stamina. She is consumed.
“He is going to die Addison,” Sam interrupts her exit. “Maybe not today, maybe not next Monday, but he's dying. You can't run from that.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“No Addison,” Violet notes, dipping into the cookie stash in the kitchen the following week.
“You did something bad,” Cooper accuses, sipping his coffee, staring at Sam, leaving him to wonder why in the world they all think this is his fault.
“Worse than bad,” Pete tacks on, Addison having not returned a single call since her bowing out at work.
“Why are you even up here?” Sam scowls, looking at the man Addison likes to pick over him.
“Everybody stop your whining-” Charlotte begins, but pauses when the tension in the room reaches critical level. “We're beating a dead horse here, she'll come back if she wants, when she wants.”
“Who?” Naomi asks, with a slow smile, perched behind them in the doorway.
“No one,” Sam mutters, excusing himself with the paper he stole from Addison's porch this morning.
She doesn't come over for drinks, she doesn't respond to invitations of dinner, he can't even catch her outside anymore. If he wasn't borderline stalking her, catching the briefest of glances, he'd swear she wasn't even living next door any longer.
It's miserable, losing a lover. It's hell missing his friend.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison is swept up into the tragedy tornado as soon as she steps foot onto the estate. It's a cold, dreary day in Connecticut, just as she suspected when she landed a few hours ago. There's rain sprinkling over the still dewy petals, the blades of grass are signaling their retreat, as her knuckles bounce off the front door.
She can't let herself in.
“Ms. Addison,” Ingrid greets, ushering her in, practically ripping the light coat off her arms. “Dr. Montgomery is in the study-”
“My mother-”
“Study,” the housekeeper nods, rushing away and back within seconds, a strong cocktail being offered.
Addison declines, noting the early morning time. No one notices here, it's not odd. It's commonplace to have gin with cereal, brandy with a muffin. This parallel universe haunts her as she winds through the expanse of open rooms, cluttered with perfect artifacts of a life that never existed outside of a decorator's mind.
She's here, she made it, she reminds herself as her hand locates the chilly doorknob. There's no sense in turning back.
“Addison!” Susan squeals in excitement, removing herself from Bizzy's side.
“You didn't tell us that we should be expecting you,” Bizzy breathes, frigid as ice, unapologetic.
“It's- it was...sort of last minute,” Addison finishes, eyes glued on her father. Her once tall, proud, cocky father. Now he sits, a blanket draped over his legs, a bunchy sweater clinging to his dwindling form. It's been swift, the disease, gouging his eyes, stealing his usual swagger and gleam.
He's reduced to this human-esque resemblance, but it's not nearly as victorious as Addison once imagined it to be. To have him looking at her, wanting attention, instead of the other way around.
The victory is hollow, churning her empty stomach.
“Give us a moment, please,” The Captain says, clearing his throat, waiting for them to vacate. “So what do you think of my new look?” he laughs.
“Don't do that,” Addison says softly. There isn't a place for jokes where they never lived anyway.
“I'm glad you came Kitten-”
“Don't call me that.”
“Fine,” The Captain sighs, picking up the crystal next to him and downing the amber liquid.
“You shouldn't be drinking-”
“I know you didn't come all the way here to start telling me what to do, we both know your mother has that under control.”
“I don't know why I'm here,” Addison admits, gripping her hair in fury. It's hard to hate a crippled man, it's hard to blame the limp form in front of her for all of her issues, small and large.
“I'm glad you came.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam!” Addison yells, barging into his darkened home. “Sam!” Her shin connects with the kitchen table, leaving her stunned as he ambles down the steps.
“Addison- what?” Sam asks, yawning, brushing his eyes as they attempt to make out her form.
Addison crumples into the floor willingly, gripping her leg that doesn't hurt any worse than anything else, but using the excuse to finally cry for the sake of getting it out.
Sam frowns, reluctant to have this interrupting his precious sleep, but manages, after some fight, to get her onto the couch, even if she is tangled up in his embrace.
When the sniffling stops, when the shaking subsides, he finds the courage to ask if she wants a drink which initially results in a yes, until he has to stand and then she changes her mind not wanting to relinquish the way he feels pressed against her.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks dumbly as she winds a fist into the neck of his blue shirt.
“It was horrible,” Addison whispers, lips landing just behind his ear, inhaling his perfect scent.
After a few minutes of ill-advised soft kisses, Sam manages to pluck himself free. “What are you doing?”
“Sam,” Addison whines, reaching for the drawstring of his pajamas.
She needs to feel better, she needs to forget. This is her modus operandi. It never fails to satisfy in the moment.
“You're not doing this, not like this. You have to pick me.”
“I am,” Addison grins, standing up beside him, ready to climb the stairs and take this dive.
“No,” Sam nods to himself.
“No,” she repeats, trying to confirm the failure.
“I won't be the thing you regret in the morning-”
“I won't,” Addison assures him, still seeing a sparkle of hope on the horizon.
“Just go home Addison, go sleep off whatever nightmare you've created.”
The cutting edge in his voice takes her back to the failing of her marriage and unwittingly ignites a fuse. “You've been begging for this, and now you're going to stand there and dictate when and how I should be giving myself to you?”
Sam rolls his eyes in the darkness and turns to face the ocean. He's lost the ability to reason with her, lost the will to argue. “I don't want to push this,” he tries, wanting to be sympathetic on some level.
“Push? All you do is push Sam! You kissed me in the vineyard-”
“And you kissed me in the hospital,” he recalls correctly.
“So what? Now we're even? I moved on Sam, I'm with Pete-”
“Then why aren't you knocking down Pete's door and jumping into his lap?” Sam asks angrily, sending her flying from the room. “Perfect.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He's still fuming in the morning air when she waltzes back into his kitchen, helping herself to a cup of his coffee and a splash of his creamer. To say he's confused would be a grave understatement, but he's too baffled to open his mouth. Women are insane, why no one ever warned him of this fact he is unsure.
“You're my friend,” Addison explains to him, feeling more like herself today than any day preceding it. “Last night, that was wrong. You don't do that to friends. Forgive me?” she smiles, watching him in trepidation for the moment it all breaks lose.
Seems she's having a string of bad nights lately.
Sam's going to forgive her whether he wants to or not, because unfortunately, he's in love. He's in lust. He's a mess.
“I'm- Pete and I, we're not...anymore...again. I should have mentioned that.” It lasted about three days the second time. She was lonely, but it wasn't a cure for what she was missing.
She can't remember who ended it, whose conclusion it was, things like that don't matter much.
“Would've been good,” Sam agrees, feeling the atmosphere begin to shift in his favor. “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” Addison laughs, taking another sip of her coffee. “That's the last thing I want to do, but I was thinking you could help me with something...”
“Something like?”
“Work,” Addison answers simply, smiling over the rim of her cup.
“You're welcome back whenever you're ready, that lawsuit was a no go.”
“I heard,” Addison sighs. Her lawyers have more money, a settlement was easy, quick, and dirty. She bets a younger version of herself is screaming in her sleep about morals and principles and how this was not the way things were supposed to go. “I'm- I can't deal with people.”
“Naomi,” Sam assumes. He's starting to see her presence, though with hate bursting from her pores, more often than after the original incident. “She'll come around, or she won't. Nothing we can do.”
“More specifically,” Addison clears her throat, God she can't even handle Naomi right now. “Cooper. Charlotte. Violet.”
“Cooper's afraid of you, I'll tell Violet to keep her space and I'm afraid there's not a lot we can control about Charlotte King. Unless you want me to fire her, that'd be my pleasure.”
Addison slumps into a seat at the kitchen table and traces the small grains in the wood below her. There's a fragile game she's partaking in, and while she's certain she can lie to each of them a few times, persistence will wear her down. The withering, knowing looks will get under her skin, and she feels catastrophe looming. “I told Sheldon. He was just there, and...I don't want to make that mistake again.”
Sheldon is the only one with the whole story, and she feels infinitely safer with several versions that make up the larger picture floating around rather than his.
“What do you want me to do?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Your father has been feeling a little under the weather,” Bizzy explains, dutifully pouring the tea into the delicately patterned china in front of her. She looks at Addison expectantly, wanting her expertise, and watches her daughter fumble for the right words. “He's fine,” Bizzy unilaterally decides. “We missed dinner at the Faulkner's last Wednesday, he said he needed sleep. And he's been spending a lot of his time out on walks or lounging in his study.”
“He's fine,” Addison repeats for her, steadying her shaking hand by taking the steaming pot from her grasp and finishing up their afternoon snack. “Patients often times need extended recovery time,” Addison tacks on wisely. “Strokes are traumatizing.”
“Yes,” Bizzy agrees simply. “We have a charity event tomorrow evening, are you staying?”
Addison notes the abrupt change in topic and takes the hint. “No, I have work I need to get back to.”
Bizzy stops, slowing the cart in front of her laden with lemon cookies and buttery croissants. “It was nice of you to stop by Addison.” She then returns to her task, heading back toward her husband, leaving her daughter in the dust.
Addison thinks it may be the nicest, un-backhanded compliment she has ever received from her mother. And it's frightening.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam feels torn. On one hand it's always super fun to be on Addison's sneaky team, but on the other, shuffling her charts under his and stowing away paperwork for her, speeding home on his lunch to give her his findings, that part is a little tiring. And he feels a tiny bit used after the first three days. “When are you coming back?” he asks, slumping into a lounge chair beside her, taking to the ocean waves the way she takes to red wine.
“I'm really behind Sam,” Addison smiles gently. “I remember now why I don't take time off. I feel like I never catch up.”
He's seen the papers, the labs spread across her living room floor in very organized piles, caught her bedroom light on at three in the morning on more than one occasion. Chances are, she'll be caught up sooner than she'd like.
“You can't operate on your kitchen table.”
“That'd be...interesting,” Addison laughs to herself. As a surgeon she's spent countless hours hypothesizing what it would be like to perform rogue surgeries in random places. The backseat of taxis, while shoe shopping, nameless sidewalks. But truth be told, she likes the sterile scent of an OR, the condemning glint of clean clamps and retractors.
There's a safety in that world that can't be matched by anything else she's discovered.
“Naomi yelled at me today,” Sam remarks, cleaning out his glass and pouring another. It's a false truth. She did yell, about a patient. But he needs a way to work her into this conversation, once light and fluffy now trekking into a dangerous territory where Addison shuts down completely. “Yelling is a good sign. And we haven't done anything wrong, we're adults.” And that's what he would have told her, had she been willing to hear it. Instead he stood his ground in the hospital while his ex-wife got passive-aggressive and yelled about things that had nothing to do with him.
He'd stand up for them, for Addison, if he thought it would make a damn bit of difference. Unfortunately, he's too spun up in trying to play the good guy for everyone.
“She'll calm down, there's no need to hide out in your house,” Sam tells her confidently. And Naomi will settle, she always does, but it's also fun to see her fight for something instead of resign.
“I'm going back...to Connecticut on Thursday,” Addison deflects. “Archer said he'd meet me there.”
“That'll be good.”
“Yes,” Addison nods her approval. There will be a shield, finally.
“Do- I could-” Sam sputters, hastily giving up. He wants to say that he's here, lean on him. He's here to have tears staining his shoulders, to wipe wet cheeks, to soothe dizzy minds. But then, that's what Addison always uses Archer for. He's not her fallback.
He's a good shoulder, though.
“Bizzy doesn't know,” Addison sighs. And it's a lot more convoluted than she's going to let on. There's no way to say that her mother's lover is the person holding her father's other hand, the one changing schedules, the one easing her mother's worried heart.
Addison wants to know if Susan secretly feels relieved, to have no competition, but she'll never be able to ask.
“The Captain won't tell her what is going on- I...I told him I would, but he knows I won't.”
“She worries about you,” Addison says cautiously, returning from dinner, running to her room but suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to confront him.
“She worries,” The Captain dismisses, laboring over the leather bound book in front of him, and the cocktail staining the fine mahogany with a liquid rim.
It's unfair because the affection she longs for, has always longed for, her father dismisses without thought, without care. What she would give to have Bizzy genuinely worried about her, for her, without prejudice to how it will challenge her social standing.
She's been through hell the last five years, and when she needed a family, a mother, a father, a sibling, no one showed. No one ever comes for her. And yet, here she is.
“She has a right to know,” Addison tactfully challenges.
“And I have a right to live,” her father growls angrily, swiping at the thick crystal in front of him, letting it bounce off the tasseled rug at his feet.
“I'm his box,” Addison sighs heavily, closing her eyes tightly.
“It'll be over soon,” Sam says after a few beats, leaning over to press his lips to his forehead. He thinks, after seeing them all interact, that maybe she can take solace in that.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Certainly being trapped in an elevator with her best friend who loathes her has many outcomes, but Addison opts for resignation and silence. She's not going to plead her case, she's too busy mentally packing. She's not going to apologize, she's tied up in trying to calculate how much longer her father will be among the land of the living. And the one person she wants to tell everything to, the one person who she wants running their patient fingers through her hair, is steadily glaring at her as they ascend floors slowly.
“You betrayed me,” Naomi seethes, not able to keep it in as she climbs free of the laughing contraption.
“The Captain is dying,” Addison blurts out, mind devoid of any other words that could be used.
The doors slide to a close. It's a cheap shot, but she's not asking for forgiveness.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The box of heavenly chocolates slides hesitantly across the surface of Naomi's desk, but her chair doesn't swivel from it's position facing the wall behind her.
So Addison begins anyway, because she decided she can't leave, not in good faith without doing this.
She needs peace somewhere on the horizon and she's a fighter, or she was.
“I shouldn't have...we shouldn't have done that, Sam and I. I should have said something, at the first inkling. You deserved that. I was scared Nai, I am scared,” Addison shakes her head. This is audacious. A trial with the executioner is only meant to go one way. “We- I,” she rapidly changes her mind, “never meant to hurt you, or betray you. It wasn't about you, and maybe it should have been- before, earlier. Could have spared us all.”
Addison sucks a deep breath in when the chair doesn't move a fraction of an inch. “Nothing happened. Nothing is happening. There's no conspiracy- I just...I miss my friend, and I have to fly out to Connecticut and you know what that does to me Naomi, you know. So I'm going crazy, and he's dying and I don't feel anything about it. I'm devoid, but I miss you. I need you. It's selfish and I don't care.”
She knows better than to think a well meaning speech will win her heart over, but she had to speak it. She knows better than to think Naomi won't be a complete mule about this, but she hopes. And then that flees and she turns to the door to find that her friend hasn't been listening mutely the entire time, no she joined the party at some point toward the end and lingered in the doorway.
“I- I...can't Addie,” Naomi whispers. With William and Gabriel an Maya, there are limits. It's strategy at this point. “I can't do this with you right now.”
When the final blow of disappointment settles into her stomach Addison rushes herself away, unprepared and unwilling to deal with the storm brewing on the home front.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Lighten up, Addison,” Archer chides with a smile too disconcerting for the situation. He swings the front door wide open, letting himself into their childhood home and tosses his coat over the table in the foyer nearly knocking over a tall vase of freshly cut red flowers. He spots his mother across the house and turns back to his little sister. “Remember to breathe.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You're still mad about that Naomi bullshit,” Archer accuses after dinner, Addison carefully observing the dying patient dressed in his best pinstripes. Bizzy was astonished and thrilled to see Archer, Addison in tow, and demanded to hear all of his latest stories, but as the night wore on, alcohol flowing strongly through the heavy air, Addison grew weary and annoyed with his cavalier attitude.
“No,” Addison denies. She's not mad anymore, if she was at all. She's just tired of dealing with everyone in this house, including Susan who is lurking closer than normal, Addison assumes trying to assess if she's ratted her out to Archer.
She wanted to, but really, how does one start that conversation? Especially when your only sibling picks up his phone one in twenty calls. She's lucky he's here at all, distracting her mother with his amazing words and insight.
“Archer, tell us about Paris,” Bizzy asks as they settle in by the bar for an enduring night. “I haven't been in too long.”
“Have you had any interesting cases lately?” The Captain asks his daughter, trying to start a side conversation and receiving a blank stare in response. She wants to play the silent treatment game, but she has better manners than that.
“No,” Addison repeats for the second person. And Archer swoops in perfectly, diving into a story about another one of his patient's misfortunes. He always lacked proper bedside etiquette.
Archer has no heart, Derek used to say. Archer has no soul, every one has remarked at least once in their dealings with him. And try as she might, Addison has never been effective at cutting out the source of the infection in her life. They haven't spoken since he ran out of L.A. His publicist (a.k.a. the professional woman Archer was seeing on the side) spoke with her last week and mentioned that Archer would be returning home briefly to see his father (he comes home sporadically like a good child, Addison hadn't been here for years).
No one has told Archer that his model of success is dying in front of his eyes, Addison wonders if he can sense it.
“I- he- The Captain,” Addison stutters nervously, drawing everyone's attention, down to the server helping with the drinks. She receives a cursory warning glance from her father but she's overcome by the monster. If she has to listen to another word about Archer's adventures or Bizzy's prized garden or the damn country club she is going to lose her mind.
They talk about everything that isn't important, everything that isn't real, and it's exhausting.
“Well finish, since you saw it so fit as to interrupt,” Bizzy demands.
She can see Archer laughing at her scolding from across the room. “He's dying,” Addison squeaks, and receives uproarious laughter in reply.
“Someone has had too much,” Archer mocks, toying her glass out of her grasp as she looks on confused.
“Honestly Addison, if you're trying to gain attention-”
“She's right,” The Captain interrupts through a burst of relief. It's his story, but he couldn't tell it.
“We're all dying, right sis?” Archer continues, signaling the man behind him for another dose of alcohol. “This is some hypothetical or philanthropic point of interest. One could argue that as we wear down our bodies-”
“Archer, enough,” his father interrupts. “I- I'm dying.” He smiles. “Cancer.”
Addison notices the death grip Bizzy has on her cup and takes that as her cue to retreat immediately.
The screams that echo down the hallway should lull her to sleep in a frustratingly fragile sense of normalcy, but instead she spends the rest of the night watching the wallpaper until it wiggles in an illusion of imagination and necessity.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
At one in the afternoon, the following day, a light knock on the door pulls Addison from her daydreaming. She hasn't left this space, hardly climbed out of the large bed, since last night's explosion. No has come to retrieve her for breakfast so that they could put on a big show for their imaginary guests, and the screams, and slamming doors went well into the earliest parts of the morning. She doubts anyone has noticed she's missing.
“Come in,” she replies to the insistent askance on the other side. It's probably Susan dropping off a snack, as she used to during the legendary fights she had with Bizzy.
Back when Addison thought they were on the same team.
“Hey,” Sam says softly, latching the heavy door behind him quietly. He took a chance, he dared himself.
So rather than attend the conference he flew into New York for he took a sharp detour and he's not sure if it's going to pay off. But he had to try, he had to give it a last ditch effort after the morning of coffee they shared, after the last week of empty conversations and halfhearted declarations of being “fine”.
“What- ah- what are you doing here?” Addison asks with a gulp. She pats down the hair she hasn't brushed and self consciously runs a quick finger under her eyes to grab and traces of mascara residue that she may have or may have not cried off over the course of the last few hours.
“I had a conference, but I thought, maybe you could use a friend. Ingrid said you hadn't woken up yet when I called.”
“I outed my father,” Addison explains. “I fed him to the vultures Sam.” Not even he deserves that, Addison rationalizes. “And I tried to talk to Naomi before I left and she...hates me, literally despises me. And Archer has probably already taken off. I ruined everything. Everything, and I...didn't know how to get out of bed today so...I didn't.”
She broke a cardinal Montgomery rule. You don't share someone else's private matters for them. She knows better than that.
Sam nods wordlessly and climbs in next to her, leaning back against the pillows and tugging at his yellow silk tie. It's too tight, it's suffocating in here, the warmth emanating from the crackling fireplace making him overheated. He sighs when she curls up against him, placing her head in his lap and tugging her sweatshirt over her shorts, covering her bare knees.
“Bizzy is going to murder me,” Addison tells him confidently. Of all the horrible things they have shouted at one another, this takes the cake.
“I feel like...I'm spinning out Sam, like I'm spiraling down into a black hole constantly. With Mark and Pete and you, and the Naomi thing, and the Violet thing, and the baby thing. And this. I don't- what do I do?”
“You sleep,” Sam assures her, brushing back her hair over the bunched hood of her shirt, stroking until he feels her relax over him. “For now, sleep.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You don't just get to reintroduce yourself into my life like you haven't been missing,” Addison says angrily, slamming down her cup on his desk. “I'm not going to do crosswords with you, or talk surgery, or whatever else it is you have in mind for us. I told you I was done-”
“I'm dying,” The Captain stuffily reminds her.
“That doesn't change anything! You dying doesn't...it just...doesn't,” Addison blathers exasperated at his desire for blanket mercy for everything that has happened. “I'm not your daughter. You don't know me.”
“I want to know you. This is our chance,” he persuades.
“And what? If you weren't...dying, what then?”
“I can't speak to that, it's not the circumstance.”
“I won't forgive you.”
“I don't expect you to,” he replies, well aware of his daughter's perceptions and feelings toward their nonexistent relationship. “Just...let me be there, like I should have been, for a little while at least. Let me try Addison.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Feel better?” Sam murmurs a few hours later, roused from his own nap after feeling her stir on his legs.
“Worse,” Addison gripes, swallowing the bitter taste in her mouth. “If that's humanly possible.”
She excuses herself to brush her teeth and is met with the unfriendly remembrance of last night, of all of her father's pleadings, of all the things that have amounted to Sam in her bed. And she realizes, she doesn't care anymore, guilt be damned. She's lost the ability to have any emotional outcry toward anything, she's numb.
It's an old friend, wrapping her in a cocoon of meaninglessness and surety.
When she returns, freshened with sweet mint and tangle free hair, she straddles Sam's legs between her own and settles her head against his chest. The sound of his heart fills her ears graciously, quickening when she reaches up for the top button of his collar.
“Addison,” Sam mumbles as he clears his throat. Of all the inappropriate places and times, this is the topper. But then she lifts her own shirt overhead, exposing the skin he fantasies about and most rational thoughts flee his head. She's tugging at his belt, nipping at his ear frantically, and he's afraid their first time will be so rushed that she'll never get to understand how terrified he is, and how special this should feel.
He doesn't want to be number twelve, or the final musketeer. He just wants to be Sam and Addison, true to themselves, slow. So by the time she's got his shirt pushed back against his shoulders, her tongue making a delightful pattern just above his abs, he has no other choice but to reach for her wrists and push her back. And when she looks confused, and hurt by his reaction, he leans forward and gently kisses her, letting her know that it's his turn.
Because there's no way that he's letting her have all of the control their first time, there's no way she's going to stop him from tasting every last inch of her tantalizing legs, and there's no way he's going to allow her to have this all be over in ten very heated minutes, no matter how enticing it sounds in the moment.
He paces himself, taking his time pulling down her shorts, enjoying every second of watching her squirm. And he commits her first breathy moan to memory, deciding it's the best sound he's heard out of her in a long time, and when he's finally ready to push into her, they're already glistening with sweat, and she's so wet the bedsheets are a complete mess.
And then, Sam swears the world stops. This is exactly how it was supposed to be, his head cloudy, his full body spread over hers, his grasp on her wrists still secure.
There's a quiet plea for more, harder, faster, but he wants it languid. He needs to let her know how serious he is about this, that it's not all about finally getting to screw each other unconscious.
And when it finally happens, Sam's positive he's never come that hard, that he's never felt anyone that tight around him, that he's never had all of the air pushed out of his lungs in such relief.
For a good three minutes he kisses her neck softly, as she tries to stop constricting around him. For three minutes the world is perfect.
And then she rolls out from underneath him, covering herself the best she can with a sheet and makes a mad dash for the bathroom as she bursts into tears.
Sam's not certain how it could have gone better, cleaning himself off and yanking his pants back over his legs, but he's now definitely contributed to the disastrous state of affairs that led them all here.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He begged her to come out for a solid five minutes, demanded that she unlock the door so he could come in, but then he heard the powerful spray of water from the shower and gave up, slouching onto the couch by the window and grabbing a faceless book off the coffee table in front of him.
Sam doesn't know the expanse of time that's passed since he began reading the same page over and over and the knock on the door, but the shower is still on so he thinks it can't have been too terribly long. Convinced it's Archer waiting in the hall, Sam answers.
“Look, she doesn't want to talk to you right- Naomi-”
“Samuel,” Naomi acknowledges, trying her best not to turn on her heel and march right back away.
He lets her in, because he can't not, but the bed is obviously in chaos, and Addison managed to throw her clothes completely across the room earlier. His cheeks burn warm as she surveys the area, and he can tell she is attempting not to wrap her hands around his neck.
“When did it happen?” Naomi wants to know. Was it in med school, was it before she married Derek, while they all lived in New York, before or after Maya? Because doubt has crept into every memory, every story, and she's been re-examining her life for the last several weeks desiring to figure out how she'd been so dumb, how she couldn't have seen this coming.
Sam thinks it's fairly obvious when and what just happened, and he can feel the air around him become thicker and harder to inhale. “I-I, I don't know,” he answers honestly.
“Our marriage-”
“Fell apart on its own,” he reminds her. There were no closet lovers, there were no feelings being harbored and hidden for other people. Their marriage was an honest debacle, and it came to its own end, in its own time. Addison had nothing to do with it. “We didn't know...until we knew...and then we- Addison stopped it.”
“I don't know how to be alright with this Sam!” Naomi yells, kicking at Addison's shorts with her pointy black heel. “She's my best friend, and you're my husband!” She didn't come here to scream, she came to grow up and be supportive, because her friend needed her, but this is too damn much.
“Ex-husband,” he corrects for her.
“How could you do this to us?”
He's about to answer her, retying his tie to keep his hands busy, when he hears the shower turn off. He wants to tell his ex-wife that this, what he and Addison have going on, has nothing to do with her, and he doesn't particularly care if Naomi hates him or not. He can be the villain if he gets the girl. Instead all he can mumble is, “Don't hurt her, please.”
Sam can't convince Addison that Naomi doesn't count anymore, he can't keep telling her that it doesn't matter what she thinks, because it's become achingly obvious that it does matter, and her say, never bother how much it enrages Sam to be a in three person relationship, is important to the woman he wants to spend the foreseeable future with.
“I'm sorry, that was amazing, and I-” Addison speaks, door barely open before she gets it out, long before she sees Sam and Naomi facing off in her childhood bedroom that she just defiled in the most pleasurable way possible. “Na-omi.”
She quivers when she's embraced by warm hands around her back, her head following suit, too stunned to move out of the hug. There are no words for this, and nothing is okay, but she's really here. “I'm so sorry,” Addison whispers.
“Not now,” Naomi tells her, pulling her closer, and ushering Sam out of the room with a flick of her wrist.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Dinner is stilted and awkward. Naomi isn't talking to Archer after what happened, not that anyone is really speaking to each other anyway. There's chatter about the silly garden that's in full bloom, and The Captain's waning enthusiasm in golf, but mostly it's the clatter of silverware against delicate china, and the slurping of wine that occupies the space.
There's a game to be played, a lie to keep well hidden in front of the guests (who don't need cluing in), and Bizzy entertains as though her life depends on it. They settle into the parlor for cards and more gin, and when Archer makes a break, Addison is hot on his heels.
“Why'd you bring them here?” he snarls. His ex-whatever and the guy who packs a helluva punch, it's uncalled for. He throws his coat over his shoulders and hurriedly buttons it closed.
“What are you doing?” Addison asks, looking at the front door, the room brightly lit by the chandelier overhead.
“What do you think I'm doing?” Archer replies meanly, scowling at her as he reaches for an umbrella in the stand.
“You cannot leave me here.”
“Addison-”
“Archer!” she yells suddenly, feeling threatened. “He's sick. You can't leave me alone with them, you can't leave me!”
“He's an ass,” Archer reasons. He hated him, once.
“What about me?” Addison demands. He can walk away from their father, that's easy.
“I have to go.”
“Fine,” Addison huffs, wrapping her arms around herself to shield the icy wind that cuts through the entryway when Archer opens the door. “Run away, that's what you do best.”
“Oh come on, this coming from the woman who fled both New York and Seattle.”
“Don't bring that into this,” Addison answers him.
“No! No. You get to run when it suits you, but heaven forbid that anyone else get to make the same decision.”
“He's dying!”
“No one cares!” Archer shouts back at her. Good riddance and all, he figures. And if it hurts, if the little boy who used to love playing out on the harbor with his father is anywhere inside him he can't recognize it. “Let him!”
“Bizzy-”
“Screw Bizzy,” Archer cuts her off heatedly.
“I need you,” Addison whimpers at her older brother, following him out the door. But the men she surrounds herself with, they aren't reliable.
“You're a big girl Addison,” Archer relinquishes, pressing a hesitant kiss to her cheek, afraid she's going to slap him. “And you should have told me, we're supposed to stick together.”
It's hard to stick to water, Addison thinks. He's slippery, diving in and out. You can't tie down Archer. His car peels out of the asphalt angrily, speeding off to God knows where and she can only be thankful that at least this time she got a goodbye.
When she rejoins her friends, her parents, she has a fib ready and waiting. Archer got a call, Archer has a patient, Archer has a flight, Archer has a meeting.
She's used to the routine, she almost doesn't notice the hurt in her mother's eyes anymore.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I love you, Addison,” The Captain breathes, drinking in her astonishment. “I know I never said it enough, or often, but I love you both. You and your brother. You're the best thing I've ever done with my life, maybe the only good thing, and I'm sorry, for all of it.” He sighs, it probably sounded rehearsed. Mostly because it was. They don't talk about these things, they don't talk about anything. If he recalls correctly he used to yell at her about Derek being an inappropriate fit and about how she wasn't focused enough on her career.
He's tired, and he doesn't want to argue anymore, especially after last night and Bizzy's complete meltdown. He feels ill, he feels old, and there's no one to care because he never let anyone know they were important to him.
“I hate you,” Addison cries. She hates him for trying to erase the past with a phrase. She hates him for wanting to know her, for confusing the very clear family lines they had set up long ago. She hates him for making Archer the way he is, she hates him for making them all miserable.
The Captain only nods, understandingly. He hates himself too. But then he feels a shaky pair of arms close in around him. And it's real, a real hug, the likes of which he hasn't felt since she was five and didn't know any better.
It's the best present he could ask for on a birthday as tumultuous as this.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Forty three days. Seven other weekend trips. Three very overcareful hugs.
Nothing really changed. Bizzy still pretended the best she knew how, and The Captain still lectured her on cases. Susan still hovered around behind everyone. But the edge was gone. There was anger, but above it, a collective effort. To make the best of a bad situation, to deal with the pain, the betrayal after it was over.
It was a cease fire. The only respectful thing to do.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Samuel,” The Captain greets wearily from his favorite chair. This has become his station, pill bottles scattered on the table next to him, a cup of water mostly full.
“Sir- Dr.- Mr. Montgomery,” Sam sputters, reaching for his frail hand.
“You need to learn how to calm down,” The Captain smiles. “These Montgomery women will give to give you a heart attack.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam agrees kindly, sitting next to him.
“Go ahead,” The Captain urges impatiently. He's seen him with his daughter, out by the horses holding hands, sneaking a kiss in when they think no one can see. But from the window on his right he's watched their story unfold, perhaps more so than he'd like.
“I came- I wanted- I have to-”
“Ask for my blessing?” The Captain fills in watching Sam play with his watch. He looks more panicked than Derek did all those years ago.
“I- yes,” Sam breathes. He feels like he's twenty again. And yeah, it's too soon, way too soon. They haven't even muttered those three special words (even though it's painfully obvious) , but he's preparing because it's an inevitability for him. And because Sam has manners, he was raised right, and this is what you do. Sometimes quicker than you want, situations dictating. “I would, someday, like to marry your daughter.”
“Ok,” The Captain smiles.
“Ok,” Sam nods. It was far easier than the interrogation he was prepared for, and even though they're all adults now, he was fearful.
“Pour us a drink Samuel, we have things to discuss.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's alright,” Addison smiles, trying to assure her boyfriend of barely two months who is staring at her rather skeptically. “I'm fine,” she insists, gracefully slipping into a pair of tall black stilettos. She's all class today, her knee-length skirt pressed and clean, the light sweater covering her shoulders devoid of any of Milo's many orange hairs.
“We need to get going,” Addison tells him, reaching for the handle on her matching suitcase before her hand is batted away and he's silently carrying it down the stairs for her.
He meets her in the garage and wraps her in a pity ridden kiss, holding her so impossibly tight that she can't help but become overcome with emotion. She gives him a stern shove to serve as the only warning that if he makes her cry through several layers of waterproof mascara there will be hell to pay.
The call came at three this morning, disturbing them both from slumber, and Bizzy's voice was oddly sympathetic and calm. ”It's your father, you need to come.” And Addison knew it was time to go say goodbye. But before they could even finish their mutual shower and share a cup of coffee another call came. And when Sam relayed the message, from Susan, Addison pulled the brush from her hair and buried herself in his arms for a just a minute before drawing in a strong breath and preparing for the week ahead.
“LAX?” Sam asks, before receiving explicit instructions (that he doesn't need) on how to get to the private airport they are flying out of.
He remembers like it was yesterday.
And though his predictions have been accurate, you can't kiss Addison's wounds and heal them, it has been more pleasant than not. Sometimes he can get her to talk about what's wrong, other times she seals herself off. Sometimes she makes him want to scream, sometimes there's no way to stop her from yelling. But there is more laughter than tears, more stories than silence, and Sam thinks the tangible give-and-take to their relationship is what makes it successful.
At least with this ring burning a hole in his pocket, he certainly hopes so.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
This time her hand isn't wrapped firmly around a bottle of vodka, though there are many spares behind her. It is wound through Sam's, who is rescheduling the practice accordingly since they had to leave so immediately.
And instead of ignoring Susan, she's talking calmly with Naomi, who despite her problem with this very situation, has been very accommodating and friendly.
She still has grave issues with her childhood that she may never own up to, and Naomi isn't over the moon about her and Sam, and may never be. And Archer probably won't even show up to his father's funeral, and Bizzy will be completely catatonic. And Addison knows she will be the one in control, the one picking flowers and caskets and dates and times.
It isn't remotely ideal, and it's been a struggle every single second of every hour, but somewhere in the back of her heart she feels a little flutter distinctly reminiscent of happiness.
And it's enough, finally.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Part: 3/3
Pairing/Character(s): Sam, Addison, Sam/Addison.
Rating: R
Summary: A/U after 3.16. And in certain ways he'll never admit, the biggest letdown has been getting to know Addison Montgomery... Previous: 1 & 2.
A/N: This is a long time coming, and it's also super long so grab a snack and have a fun ride. Enjoy-
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The Day I Lost My Voice (The Suitcase Song)
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It doesn't take much to keep Sam from his sleep at night, and Addison has been the culprit of more hours of missed rest than he'd like to admit, but after a statement like that, it's hard to even shut his eyes. Yet, she's curled up on her own side, blanket under her chin, passed out like she hasn't seen a bed in weeks.
But Addison spends so much time bottling things up, going until she explodes, that it was probably cathartic. At least that's the only reasonable explanation he can draw from not having her wrapped up in his arms tightly when she awakens. Instead, he's already downstairs on his fifth cup of coffee, paper spread over the table, every word being utilized in the hopes that he will be sufficiently distracted.
“I'm - I'll see you at work,” Addison says loudly, startling him out of the headlines and into her newsflash.
“They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Sam smiles, luring her in with a fresh cup of boldly blended beans.
“Not hungry,” Addison declines, wrapping her arms around herself. She's in last night's attire, preparing for the walk of shame. And while there is much to be ashamed of, it's far from traditional. “About yesterday, I'd appreciate it if we kept this- the practice is under enough stress as it is.”
“I understand,” Sam nods in his best version of friend mode, but he can't stop the butterflies that have been storming through his stomach all night, diving and swooping every time she would inch closer, hair near enough to smell.
“Thank you.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“How you holding up?” Sam asks, dutifully digging his hands into her shoulders after setting a tall cup of chai tea on her desk. The blinds are drawn, and most of the staff has checked out, so he feels safe in his decision. Safe, until she snaps up, wriggling out his grasp, and hastily grabbing her purse.
“Pete and I are having dinner, I have to go,” Addison explains, no longer caring about the slight moment of unease it causes him to hear the other man's name spoken aloud. Fact is, Pete is the person she whines to. Pete is the person she never has to divulge full secrets to, only the parts she so chooses. He comforts her one way or another, the only way they know how. So she called him, apologized, and suggested a quiet meal, without Lucas, because that only seems to hurt more lately.
“I thought-”
“Me too,” Addison sighs, sweeping her growing hair over one shoulder and heading for the door.
Later that night, tangled in Pete's legs, she prays for Lucas to erupt into a series of hysterical cries so she can go rescue him. She needs to fix something, soothe someone who can't judge her, someone who loves her unconditionally even if she doesn't deserve it, even if it is only because he isn't old enough to get it yet.
But the men in her life sleep better than ever, and Addison spends the night crawling out of her skin, waiting.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
On the fourth day of her recent reconciliation Addison schedules her day packed full of complicated, tiring, and emotional surgeries. Never as exhausted as she was in Sam's bedroom, Addison makes her first cut full of hope for a great night's sleep that will last into the afternoon hours of Saturday so that she can't be overwhelmed by the instant handshake of regret and guilt that accompanies her every morning.
She should be there. She should be holding her father's hand, telling him all is forgiven, no hurt feelings. But feelings were hurt, and lives were, if not ruined, skewed in a manner that was unfair to everyone. And that's difficult to let go, to let go of the life that likes to slap her hand when she least expects it.
The monitors bring her attention back to the rather routine procedure on the unconventional patient, as she attempts to make a break for death.
“Charge the paddles!” Addison hears herself shout before she realizes that perhaps this, the day of gross, bloody fun that usually cures all, may not be able to scratch the surface of her preoccupied mind this time.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam finds her impassive in front of the ocean, watching the lapping waves with fake enthusiasm, after receiving a tip from Charlotte King that Addison's big day out at the hospital left with her practically sprinting for the entrance as Charlotte was bombarded with lawyers.
“You're amazing, it wasn't your fault,” Sam starts with a playful grin, offering her a tall glass of red wine to wash away their fears.
“I killed her,” Addison nods.
“You did your best,” Sam interrupts. His recent foray into surgery has been difficult and she's his model of success. He left for a reason, all those years ago, but he thinks he's strong enough again.
“I didn't,” Addison shrugs. “I did the equivalent to what an intern does, I froze. I don't freeze, Sam. Never.”
“Addison-” Sam scolds, forcing the drink into her hand, and trying to hide his disappointment when she won't even touch it. Alcohol is mandatory for these type of events, for unwinding, and it's more than disconcerting that she's uninterested.
“I think I should take some time off...until after.”
“Ok,” Sam gulps, peering through the long locks of red that are blocking a clear view of her face. Addison is never one to take a day away, nevermind more than two days in a row.
“There will probably be a lawsuit involved,” Addison tells him numbly. Today, she killed a person. It hasn't happened in so long, not so blatantly, that she's caught off guard. If this was Seattle, she wouldn't even be fazed (mistakes wouldn't have been made), but out here in the bright sun, cracks have developed in her carefully carved life. Everyone knows all of her strictly confidential information here. “Maybe you should take over running the practice, it'd be for the best.”
“No,” Sam objects, settling onto her deck, speaking over the ocean. “You're my partner, we've been sued before, for worse. We always make it through, it'll be fine.”
“I don't know what's wrong with me,” Addison squeaks, pity mode fully engaged.
Since Sam can't assure her that it's nothing, because he doesn't know, he drops a warm arm over her shoulder and leads her head to the special nook in his neck that he loves to feel her pressed against. It's a little selfish, but Sam the friend would do this too.
“I miss Nai,” Addison moans into the collar of his striped collar. But Naomi has run off somewhere, and even if she was in town Addison highly doubts she'd be receptive to being a sounding board for this mess.
His fingers dance into her hair eagerly, tracing feather light patterns over her scalp as she tries to control the emotions that are daring to break her resolve.
Sometimes, he has learned, the best plan with Addison is just to shut up and let her do her thing.
There's rarely room to argue, she's always right, even when she's wrong.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam can't say he's entirely surprised to hear the clicking of Addison's heels the next morning running through the halls at the practice. He's come to expect the overreaction, the coiling, and then the resolution.
“Change of heart,” Sam jokes, waltzing into her office, Addison's head bent over, searching through a desk drawer.
“No, actually. Rescheduling some patients that probably won't want to continue being patients of mine as soon as this hits. Will you remind Dell that Mrs. Lyman is very anxious?”
“Addison-” Sam begins, clearing his throat. “You're running.”
“I'm taking space,” Addison clarifies for him, plucking a pen out of the container in the corner and powering up her computer.
“An unplanned sabbatical,” Sam changes, striding forward.
“It's not like I'm quitting to go back to Seattle Sam. When's the last time I took a vacation- I can't even remember.”
“Switzerland,” Sam mutters to himself. She went to Switzerland almost seven years ago, Derek tagging along reluctantly, if he can recall correctly. He hates himself for knowing the answer only slightly less than he hates the idea of her personal leave. “When are you coming back?”
“I'm not sure,” Addison answers casually, not minding the seat he's strategically placed himself in, or his building fury.
“As your business partner I think I have a right to that information. I need to be able to deal with this accordingly.”
“What if I say a month?” Addison questions, finally facing him, work mode engaged.
“Fine.”
“Two months?”
“Addison-”
“What Sam? I'm just asking because apparently it makes a great amount of difference to you. One week? Seven weeks? Three hours? What would make you the most comfortable?”
“Come on,” Sam sighs. It's not about the time off, hell he'd like some himself but that's not how their world works. They're doctors, they're minutes are not their own, and she knows it well.
“Forget it,” Addison replies, fizzling out easily. She has no energy, no stamina. She is consumed.
“He is going to die Addison,” Sam interrupts her exit. “Maybe not today, maybe not next Monday, but he's dying. You can't run from that.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“No Addison,” Violet notes, dipping into the cookie stash in the kitchen the following week.
“You did something bad,” Cooper accuses, sipping his coffee, staring at Sam, leaving him to wonder why in the world they all think this is his fault.
“Worse than bad,” Pete tacks on, Addison having not returned a single call since her bowing out at work.
“Why are you even up here?” Sam scowls, looking at the man Addison likes to pick over him.
“Everybody stop your whining-” Charlotte begins, but pauses when the tension in the room reaches critical level. “We're beating a dead horse here, she'll come back if she wants, when she wants.”
“Who?” Naomi asks, with a slow smile, perched behind them in the doorway.
“No one,” Sam mutters, excusing himself with the paper he stole from Addison's porch this morning.
She doesn't come over for drinks, she doesn't respond to invitations of dinner, he can't even catch her outside anymore. If he wasn't borderline stalking her, catching the briefest of glances, he'd swear she wasn't even living next door any longer.
It's miserable, losing a lover. It's hell missing his friend.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Addison is swept up into the tragedy tornado as soon as she steps foot onto the estate. It's a cold, dreary day in Connecticut, just as she suspected when she landed a few hours ago. There's rain sprinkling over the still dewy petals, the blades of grass are signaling their retreat, as her knuckles bounce off the front door.
She can't let herself in.
“Ms. Addison,” Ingrid greets, ushering her in, practically ripping the light coat off her arms. “Dr. Montgomery is in the study-”
“My mother-”
“Study,” the housekeeper nods, rushing away and back within seconds, a strong cocktail being offered.
Addison declines, noting the early morning time. No one notices here, it's not odd. It's commonplace to have gin with cereal, brandy with a muffin. This parallel universe haunts her as she winds through the expanse of open rooms, cluttered with perfect artifacts of a life that never existed outside of a decorator's mind.
She's here, she made it, she reminds herself as her hand locates the chilly doorknob. There's no sense in turning back.
“Addison!” Susan squeals in excitement, removing herself from Bizzy's side.
“You didn't tell us that we should be expecting you,” Bizzy breathes, frigid as ice, unapologetic.
“It's- it was...sort of last minute,” Addison finishes, eyes glued on her father. Her once tall, proud, cocky father. Now he sits, a blanket draped over his legs, a bunchy sweater clinging to his dwindling form. It's been swift, the disease, gouging his eyes, stealing his usual swagger and gleam.
He's reduced to this human-esque resemblance, but it's not nearly as victorious as Addison once imagined it to be. To have him looking at her, wanting attention, instead of the other way around.
The victory is hollow, churning her empty stomach.
“Give us a moment, please,” The Captain says, clearing his throat, waiting for them to vacate. “So what do you think of my new look?” he laughs.
“Don't do that,” Addison says softly. There isn't a place for jokes where they never lived anyway.
“I'm glad you came Kitten-”
“Don't call me that.”
“Fine,” The Captain sighs, picking up the crystal next to him and downing the amber liquid.
“You shouldn't be drinking-”
“I know you didn't come all the way here to start telling me what to do, we both know your mother has that under control.”
“I don't know why I'm here,” Addison admits, gripping her hair in fury. It's hard to hate a crippled man, it's hard to blame the limp form in front of her for all of her issues, small and large.
“I'm glad you came.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Sam!” Addison yells, barging into his darkened home. “Sam!” Her shin connects with the kitchen table, leaving her stunned as he ambles down the steps.
“Addison- what?” Sam asks, yawning, brushing his eyes as they attempt to make out her form.
Addison crumples into the floor willingly, gripping her leg that doesn't hurt any worse than anything else, but using the excuse to finally cry for the sake of getting it out.
Sam frowns, reluctant to have this interrupting his precious sleep, but manages, after some fight, to get her onto the couch, even if she is tangled up in his embrace.
When the sniffling stops, when the shaking subsides, he finds the courage to ask if she wants a drink which initially results in a yes, until he has to stand and then she changes her mind not wanting to relinquish the way he feels pressed against her.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks dumbly as she winds a fist into the neck of his blue shirt.
“It was horrible,” Addison whispers, lips landing just behind his ear, inhaling his perfect scent.
After a few minutes of ill-advised soft kisses, Sam manages to pluck himself free. “What are you doing?”
“Sam,” Addison whines, reaching for the drawstring of his pajamas.
She needs to feel better, she needs to forget. This is her modus operandi. It never fails to satisfy in the moment.
“You're not doing this, not like this. You have to pick me.”
“I am,” Addison grins, standing up beside him, ready to climb the stairs and take this dive.
“No,” Sam nods to himself.
“No,” she repeats, trying to confirm the failure.
“I won't be the thing you regret in the morning-”
“I won't,” Addison assures him, still seeing a sparkle of hope on the horizon.
“Just go home Addison, go sleep off whatever nightmare you've created.”
The cutting edge in his voice takes her back to the failing of her marriage and unwittingly ignites a fuse. “You've been begging for this, and now you're going to stand there and dictate when and how I should be giving myself to you?”
Sam rolls his eyes in the darkness and turns to face the ocean. He's lost the ability to reason with her, lost the will to argue. “I don't want to push this,” he tries, wanting to be sympathetic on some level.
“Push? All you do is push Sam! You kissed me in the vineyard-”
“And you kissed me in the hospital,” he recalls correctly.
“So what? Now we're even? I moved on Sam, I'm with Pete-”
“Then why aren't you knocking down Pete's door and jumping into his lap?” Sam asks angrily, sending her flying from the room. “Perfect.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He's still fuming in the morning air when she waltzes back into his kitchen, helping herself to a cup of his coffee and a splash of his creamer. To say he's confused would be a grave understatement, but he's too baffled to open his mouth. Women are insane, why no one ever warned him of this fact he is unsure.
“You're my friend,” Addison explains to him, feeling more like herself today than any day preceding it. “Last night, that was wrong. You don't do that to friends. Forgive me?” she smiles, watching him in trepidation for the moment it all breaks lose.
Seems she's having a string of bad nights lately.
Sam's going to forgive her whether he wants to or not, because unfortunately, he's in love. He's in lust. He's a mess.
“I'm- Pete and I, we're not...anymore...again. I should have mentioned that.” It lasted about three days the second time. She was lonely, but it wasn't a cure for what she was missing.
She can't remember who ended it, whose conclusion it was, things like that don't matter much.
“Would've been good,” Sam agrees, feeling the atmosphere begin to shift in his favor. “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” Addison laughs, taking another sip of her coffee. “That's the last thing I want to do, but I was thinking you could help me with something...”
“Something like?”
“Work,” Addison answers simply, smiling over the rim of her cup.
“You're welcome back whenever you're ready, that lawsuit was a no go.”
“I heard,” Addison sighs. Her lawyers have more money, a settlement was easy, quick, and dirty. She bets a younger version of herself is screaming in her sleep about morals and principles and how this was not the way things were supposed to go. “I'm- I can't deal with people.”
“Naomi,” Sam assumes. He's starting to see her presence, though with hate bursting from her pores, more often than after the original incident. “She'll come around, or she won't. Nothing we can do.”
“More specifically,” Addison clears her throat, God she can't even handle Naomi right now. “Cooper. Charlotte. Violet.”
“Cooper's afraid of you, I'll tell Violet to keep her space and I'm afraid there's not a lot we can control about Charlotte King. Unless you want me to fire her, that'd be my pleasure.”
Addison slumps into a seat at the kitchen table and traces the small grains in the wood below her. There's a fragile game she's partaking in, and while she's certain she can lie to each of them a few times, persistence will wear her down. The withering, knowing looks will get under her skin, and she feels catastrophe looming. “I told Sheldon. He was just there, and...I don't want to make that mistake again.”
Sheldon is the only one with the whole story, and she feels infinitely safer with several versions that make up the larger picture floating around rather than his.
“What do you want me to do?”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Your father has been feeling a little under the weather,” Bizzy explains, dutifully pouring the tea into the delicately patterned china in front of her. She looks at Addison expectantly, wanting her expertise, and watches her daughter fumble for the right words. “He's fine,” Bizzy unilaterally decides. “We missed dinner at the Faulkner's last Wednesday, he said he needed sleep. And he's been spending a lot of his time out on walks or lounging in his study.”
“He's fine,” Addison repeats for her, steadying her shaking hand by taking the steaming pot from her grasp and finishing up their afternoon snack. “Patients often times need extended recovery time,” Addison tacks on wisely. “Strokes are traumatizing.”
“Yes,” Bizzy agrees simply. “We have a charity event tomorrow evening, are you staying?”
Addison notes the abrupt change in topic and takes the hint. “No, I have work I need to get back to.”
Bizzy stops, slowing the cart in front of her laden with lemon cookies and buttery croissants. “It was nice of you to stop by Addison.” She then returns to her task, heading back toward her husband, leaving her daughter in the dust.
Addison thinks it may be the nicest, un-backhanded compliment she has ever received from her mother. And it's frightening.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sam feels torn. On one hand it's always super fun to be on Addison's sneaky team, but on the other, shuffling her charts under his and stowing away paperwork for her, speeding home on his lunch to give her his findings, that part is a little tiring. And he feels a tiny bit used after the first three days. “When are you coming back?” he asks, slumping into a lounge chair beside her, taking to the ocean waves the way she takes to red wine.
“I'm really behind Sam,” Addison smiles gently. “I remember now why I don't take time off. I feel like I never catch up.”
He's seen the papers, the labs spread across her living room floor in very organized piles, caught her bedroom light on at three in the morning on more than one occasion. Chances are, she'll be caught up sooner than she'd like.
“You can't operate on your kitchen table.”
“That'd be...interesting,” Addison laughs to herself. As a surgeon she's spent countless hours hypothesizing what it would be like to perform rogue surgeries in random places. The backseat of taxis, while shoe shopping, nameless sidewalks. But truth be told, she likes the sterile scent of an OR, the condemning glint of clean clamps and retractors.
There's a safety in that world that can't be matched by anything else she's discovered.
“Naomi yelled at me today,” Sam remarks, cleaning out his glass and pouring another. It's a false truth. She did yell, about a patient. But he needs a way to work her into this conversation, once light and fluffy now trekking into a dangerous territory where Addison shuts down completely. “Yelling is a good sign. And we haven't done anything wrong, we're adults.” And that's what he would have told her, had she been willing to hear it. Instead he stood his ground in the hospital while his ex-wife got passive-aggressive and yelled about things that had nothing to do with him.
He'd stand up for them, for Addison, if he thought it would make a damn bit of difference. Unfortunately, he's too spun up in trying to play the good guy for everyone.
“She'll calm down, there's no need to hide out in your house,” Sam tells her confidently. And Naomi will settle, she always does, but it's also fun to see her fight for something instead of resign.
“I'm going back...to Connecticut on Thursday,” Addison deflects. “Archer said he'd meet me there.”
“That'll be good.”
“Yes,” Addison nods her approval. There will be a shield, finally.
“Do- I could-” Sam sputters, hastily giving up. He wants to say that he's here, lean on him. He's here to have tears staining his shoulders, to wipe wet cheeks, to soothe dizzy minds. But then, that's what Addison always uses Archer for. He's not her fallback.
He's a good shoulder, though.
“Bizzy doesn't know,” Addison sighs. And it's a lot more convoluted than she's going to let on. There's no way to say that her mother's lover is the person holding her father's other hand, the one changing schedules, the one easing her mother's worried heart.
Addison wants to know if Susan secretly feels relieved, to have no competition, but she'll never be able to ask.
“The Captain won't tell her what is going on- I...I told him I would, but he knows I won't.”
“She worries about you,” Addison says cautiously, returning from dinner, running to her room but suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to confront him.
“She worries,” The Captain dismisses, laboring over the leather bound book in front of him, and the cocktail staining the fine mahogany with a liquid rim.
It's unfair because the affection she longs for, has always longed for, her father dismisses without thought, without care. What she would give to have Bizzy genuinely worried about her, for her, without prejudice to how it will challenge her social standing.
She's been through hell the last five years, and when she needed a family, a mother, a father, a sibling, no one showed. No one ever comes for her. And yet, here she is.
“She has a right to know,” Addison tactfully challenges.
“And I have a right to live,” her father growls angrily, swiping at the thick crystal in front of him, letting it bounce off the tasseled rug at his feet.
“I'm his box,” Addison sighs heavily, closing her eyes tightly.
“It'll be over soon,” Sam says after a few beats, leaning over to press his lips to his forehead. He thinks, after seeing them all interact, that maybe she can take solace in that.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Certainly being trapped in an elevator with her best friend who loathes her has many outcomes, but Addison opts for resignation and silence. She's not going to plead her case, she's too busy mentally packing. She's not going to apologize, she's tied up in trying to calculate how much longer her father will be among the land of the living. And the one person she wants to tell everything to, the one person who she wants running their patient fingers through her hair, is steadily glaring at her as they ascend floors slowly.
“You betrayed me,” Naomi seethes, not able to keep it in as she climbs free of the laughing contraption.
“The Captain is dying,” Addison blurts out, mind devoid of any other words that could be used.
The doors slide to a close. It's a cheap shot, but she's not asking for forgiveness.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The box of heavenly chocolates slides hesitantly across the surface of Naomi's desk, but her chair doesn't swivel from it's position facing the wall behind her.
So Addison begins anyway, because she decided she can't leave, not in good faith without doing this.
She needs peace somewhere on the horizon and she's a fighter, or she was.
“I shouldn't have...we shouldn't have done that, Sam and I. I should have said something, at the first inkling. You deserved that. I was scared Nai, I am scared,” Addison shakes her head. This is audacious. A trial with the executioner is only meant to go one way. “We- I,” she rapidly changes her mind, “never meant to hurt you, or betray you. It wasn't about you, and maybe it should have been- before, earlier. Could have spared us all.”
Addison sucks a deep breath in when the chair doesn't move a fraction of an inch. “Nothing happened. Nothing is happening. There's no conspiracy- I just...I miss my friend, and I have to fly out to Connecticut and you know what that does to me Naomi, you know. So I'm going crazy, and he's dying and I don't feel anything about it. I'm devoid, but I miss you. I need you. It's selfish and I don't care.”
She knows better than to think a well meaning speech will win her heart over, but she had to speak it. She knows better than to think Naomi won't be a complete mule about this, but she hopes. And then that flees and she turns to the door to find that her friend hasn't been listening mutely the entire time, no she joined the party at some point toward the end and lingered in the doorway.
“I- I...can't Addie,” Naomi whispers. With William and Gabriel an Maya, there are limits. It's strategy at this point. “I can't do this with you right now.”
When the final blow of disappointment settles into her stomach Addison rushes herself away, unprepared and unwilling to deal with the storm brewing on the home front.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Lighten up, Addison,” Archer chides with a smile too disconcerting for the situation. He swings the front door wide open, letting himself into their childhood home and tosses his coat over the table in the foyer nearly knocking over a tall vase of freshly cut red flowers. He spots his mother across the house and turns back to his little sister. “Remember to breathe.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You're still mad about that Naomi bullshit,” Archer accuses after dinner, Addison carefully observing the dying patient dressed in his best pinstripes. Bizzy was astonished and thrilled to see Archer, Addison in tow, and demanded to hear all of his latest stories, but as the night wore on, alcohol flowing strongly through the heavy air, Addison grew weary and annoyed with his cavalier attitude.
“No,” Addison denies. She's not mad anymore, if she was at all. She's just tired of dealing with everyone in this house, including Susan who is lurking closer than normal, Addison assumes trying to assess if she's ratted her out to Archer.
She wanted to, but really, how does one start that conversation? Especially when your only sibling picks up his phone one in twenty calls. She's lucky he's here at all, distracting her mother with his amazing words and insight.
“Archer, tell us about Paris,” Bizzy asks as they settle in by the bar for an enduring night. “I haven't been in too long.”
“Have you had any interesting cases lately?” The Captain asks his daughter, trying to start a side conversation and receiving a blank stare in response. She wants to play the silent treatment game, but she has better manners than that.
“No,” Addison repeats for the second person. And Archer swoops in perfectly, diving into a story about another one of his patient's misfortunes. He always lacked proper bedside etiquette.
Archer has no heart, Derek used to say. Archer has no soul, every one has remarked at least once in their dealings with him. And try as she might, Addison has never been effective at cutting out the source of the infection in her life. They haven't spoken since he ran out of L.A. His publicist (a.k.a. the professional woman Archer was seeing on the side) spoke with her last week and mentioned that Archer would be returning home briefly to see his father (he comes home sporadically like a good child, Addison hadn't been here for years).
No one has told Archer that his model of success is dying in front of his eyes, Addison wonders if he can sense it.
“I- he- The Captain,” Addison stutters nervously, drawing everyone's attention, down to the server helping with the drinks. She receives a cursory warning glance from her father but she's overcome by the monster. If she has to listen to another word about Archer's adventures or Bizzy's prized garden or the damn country club she is going to lose her mind.
They talk about everything that isn't important, everything that isn't real, and it's exhausting.
“Well finish, since you saw it so fit as to interrupt,” Bizzy demands.
She can see Archer laughing at her scolding from across the room. “He's dying,” Addison squeaks, and receives uproarious laughter in reply.
“Someone has had too much,” Archer mocks, toying her glass out of her grasp as she looks on confused.
“Honestly Addison, if you're trying to gain attention-”
“She's right,” The Captain interrupts through a burst of relief. It's his story, but he couldn't tell it.
“We're all dying, right sis?” Archer continues, signaling the man behind him for another dose of alcohol. “This is some hypothetical or philanthropic point of interest. One could argue that as we wear down our bodies-”
“Archer, enough,” his father interrupts. “I- I'm dying.” He smiles. “Cancer.”
Addison notices the death grip Bizzy has on her cup and takes that as her cue to retreat immediately.
The screams that echo down the hallway should lull her to sleep in a frustratingly fragile sense of normalcy, but instead she spends the rest of the night watching the wallpaper until it wiggles in an illusion of imagination and necessity.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
At one in the afternoon, the following day, a light knock on the door pulls Addison from her daydreaming. She hasn't left this space, hardly climbed out of the large bed, since last night's explosion. No has come to retrieve her for breakfast so that they could put on a big show for their imaginary guests, and the screams, and slamming doors went well into the earliest parts of the morning. She doubts anyone has noticed she's missing.
“Come in,” she replies to the insistent askance on the other side. It's probably Susan dropping off a snack, as she used to during the legendary fights she had with Bizzy.
Back when Addison thought they were on the same team.
“Hey,” Sam says softly, latching the heavy door behind him quietly. He took a chance, he dared himself.
So rather than attend the conference he flew into New York for he took a sharp detour and he's not sure if it's going to pay off. But he had to try, he had to give it a last ditch effort after the morning of coffee they shared, after the last week of empty conversations and halfhearted declarations of being “fine”.
“What- ah- what are you doing here?” Addison asks with a gulp. She pats down the hair she hasn't brushed and self consciously runs a quick finger under her eyes to grab and traces of mascara residue that she may have or may have not cried off over the course of the last few hours.
“I had a conference, but I thought, maybe you could use a friend. Ingrid said you hadn't woken up yet when I called.”
“I outed my father,” Addison explains. “I fed him to the vultures Sam.” Not even he deserves that, Addison rationalizes. “And I tried to talk to Naomi before I left and she...hates me, literally despises me. And Archer has probably already taken off. I ruined everything. Everything, and I...didn't know how to get out of bed today so...I didn't.”
She broke a cardinal Montgomery rule. You don't share someone else's private matters for them. She knows better than that.
Sam nods wordlessly and climbs in next to her, leaning back against the pillows and tugging at his yellow silk tie. It's too tight, it's suffocating in here, the warmth emanating from the crackling fireplace making him overheated. He sighs when she curls up against him, placing her head in his lap and tugging her sweatshirt over her shorts, covering her bare knees.
“Bizzy is going to murder me,” Addison tells him confidently. Of all the horrible things they have shouted at one another, this takes the cake.
“I feel like...I'm spinning out Sam, like I'm spiraling down into a black hole constantly. With Mark and Pete and you, and the Naomi thing, and the Violet thing, and the baby thing. And this. I don't- what do I do?”
“You sleep,” Sam assures her, brushing back her hair over the bunched hood of her shirt, stroking until he feels her relax over him. “For now, sleep.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“You don't just get to reintroduce yourself into my life like you haven't been missing,” Addison says angrily, slamming down her cup on his desk. “I'm not going to do crosswords with you, or talk surgery, or whatever else it is you have in mind for us. I told you I was done-”
“I'm dying,” The Captain stuffily reminds her.
“That doesn't change anything! You dying doesn't...it just...doesn't,” Addison blathers exasperated at his desire for blanket mercy for everything that has happened. “I'm not your daughter. You don't know me.”
“I want to know you. This is our chance,” he persuades.
“And what? If you weren't...dying, what then?”
“I can't speak to that, it's not the circumstance.”
“I won't forgive you.”
“I don't expect you to,” he replies, well aware of his daughter's perceptions and feelings toward their nonexistent relationship. “Just...let me be there, like I should have been, for a little while at least. Let me try Addison.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Feel better?” Sam murmurs a few hours later, roused from his own nap after feeling her stir on his legs.
“Worse,” Addison gripes, swallowing the bitter taste in her mouth. “If that's humanly possible.”
She excuses herself to brush her teeth and is met with the unfriendly remembrance of last night, of all of her father's pleadings, of all the things that have amounted to Sam in her bed. And she realizes, she doesn't care anymore, guilt be damned. She's lost the ability to have any emotional outcry toward anything, she's numb.
It's an old friend, wrapping her in a cocoon of meaninglessness and surety.
When she returns, freshened with sweet mint and tangle free hair, she straddles Sam's legs between her own and settles her head against his chest. The sound of his heart fills her ears graciously, quickening when she reaches up for the top button of his collar.
“Addison,” Sam mumbles as he clears his throat. Of all the inappropriate places and times, this is the topper. But then she lifts her own shirt overhead, exposing the skin he fantasies about and most rational thoughts flee his head. She's tugging at his belt, nipping at his ear frantically, and he's afraid their first time will be so rushed that she'll never get to understand how terrified he is, and how special this should feel.
He doesn't want to be number twelve, or the final musketeer. He just wants to be Sam and Addison, true to themselves, slow. So by the time she's got his shirt pushed back against his shoulders, her tongue making a delightful pattern just above his abs, he has no other choice but to reach for her wrists and push her back. And when she looks confused, and hurt by his reaction, he leans forward and gently kisses her, letting her know that it's his turn.
Because there's no way that he's letting her have all of the control their first time, there's no way she's going to stop him from tasting every last inch of her tantalizing legs, and there's no way he's going to allow her to have this all be over in ten very heated minutes, no matter how enticing it sounds in the moment.
He paces himself, taking his time pulling down her shorts, enjoying every second of watching her squirm. And he commits her first breathy moan to memory, deciding it's the best sound he's heard out of her in a long time, and when he's finally ready to push into her, they're already glistening with sweat, and she's so wet the bedsheets are a complete mess.
And then, Sam swears the world stops. This is exactly how it was supposed to be, his head cloudy, his full body spread over hers, his grasp on her wrists still secure.
There's a quiet plea for more, harder, faster, but he wants it languid. He needs to let her know how serious he is about this, that it's not all about finally getting to screw each other unconscious.
And when it finally happens, Sam's positive he's never come that hard, that he's never felt anyone that tight around him, that he's never had all of the air pushed out of his lungs in such relief.
For a good three minutes he kisses her neck softly, as she tries to stop constricting around him. For three minutes the world is perfect.
And then she rolls out from underneath him, covering herself the best she can with a sheet and makes a mad dash for the bathroom as she bursts into tears.
Sam's not certain how it could have gone better, cleaning himself off and yanking his pants back over his legs, but he's now definitely contributed to the disastrous state of affairs that led them all here.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
He begged her to come out for a solid five minutes, demanded that she unlock the door so he could come in, but then he heard the powerful spray of water from the shower and gave up, slouching onto the couch by the window and grabbing a faceless book off the coffee table in front of him.
Sam doesn't know the expanse of time that's passed since he began reading the same page over and over and the knock on the door, but the shower is still on so he thinks it can't have been too terribly long. Convinced it's Archer waiting in the hall, Sam answers.
“Look, she doesn't want to talk to you right- Naomi-”
“Samuel,” Naomi acknowledges, trying her best not to turn on her heel and march right back away.
He lets her in, because he can't not, but the bed is obviously in chaos, and Addison managed to throw her clothes completely across the room earlier. His cheeks burn warm as she surveys the area, and he can tell she is attempting not to wrap her hands around his neck.
“When did it happen?” Naomi wants to know. Was it in med school, was it before she married Derek, while they all lived in New York, before or after Maya? Because doubt has crept into every memory, every story, and she's been re-examining her life for the last several weeks desiring to figure out how she'd been so dumb, how she couldn't have seen this coming.
Sam thinks it's fairly obvious when and what just happened, and he can feel the air around him become thicker and harder to inhale. “I-I, I don't know,” he answers honestly.
“Our marriage-”
“Fell apart on its own,” he reminds her. There were no closet lovers, there were no feelings being harbored and hidden for other people. Their marriage was an honest debacle, and it came to its own end, in its own time. Addison had nothing to do with it. “We didn't know...until we knew...and then we- Addison stopped it.”
“I don't know how to be alright with this Sam!” Naomi yells, kicking at Addison's shorts with her pointy black heel. “She's my best friend, and you're my husband!” She didn't come here to scream, she came to grow up and be supportive, because her friend needed her, but this is too damn much.
“Ex-husband,” he corrects for her.
“How could you do this to us?”
He's about to answer her, retying his tie to keep his hands busy, when he hears the shower turn off. He wants to tell his ex-wife that this, what he and Addison have going on, has nothing to do with her, and he doesn't particularly care if Naomi hates him or not. He can be the villain if he gets the girl. Instead all he can mumble is, “Don't hurt her, please.”
Sam can't convince Addison that Naomi doesn't count anymore, he can't keep telling her that it doesn't matter what she thinks, because it's become achingly obvious that it does matter, and her say, never bother how much it enrages Sam to be a in three person relationship, is important to the woman he wants to spend the foreseeable future with.
“I'm sorry, that was amazing, and I-” Addison speaks, door barely open before she gets it out, long before she sees Sam and Naomi facing off in her childhood bedroom that she just defiled in the most pleasurable way possible. “Na-omi.”
She quivers when she's embraced by warm hands around her back, her head following suit, too stunned to move out of the hug. There are no words for this, and nothing is okay, but she's really here. “I'm so sorry,” Addison whispers.
“Not now,” Naomi tells her, pulling her closer, and ushering Sam out of the room with a flick of her wrist.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Dinner is stilted and awkward. Naomi isn't talking to Archer after what happened, not that anyone is really speaking to each other anyway. There's chatter about the silly garden that's in full bloom, and The Captain's waning enthusiasm in golf, but mostly it's the clatter of silverware against delicate china, and the slurping of wine that occupies the space.
There's a game to be played, a lie to keep well hidden in front of the guests (who don't need cluing in), and Bizzy entertains as though her life depends on it. They settle into the parlor for cards and more gin, and when Archer makes a break, Addison is hot on his heels.
“Why'd you bring them here?” he snarls. His ex-whatever and the guy who packs a helluva punch, it's uncalled for. He throws his coat over his shoulders and hurriedly buttons it closed.
“What are you doing?” Addison asks, looking at the front door, the room brightly lit by the chandelier overhead.
“What do you think I'm doing?” Archer replies meanly, scowling at her as he reaches for an umbrella in the stand.
“You cannot leave me here.”
“Addison-”
“Archer!” she yells suddenly, feeling threatened. “He's sick. You can't leave me alone with them, you can't leave me!”
“He's an ass,” Archer reasons. He hated him, once.
“What about me?” Addison demands. He can walk away from their father, that's easy.
“I have to go.”
“Fine,” Addison huffs, wrapping her arms around herself to shield the icy wind that cuts through the entryway when Archer opens the door. “Run away, that's what you do best.”
“Oh come on, this coming from the woman who fled both New York and Seattle.”
“Don't bring that into this,” Addison answers him.
“No! No. You get to run when it suits you, but heaven forbid that anyone else get to make the same decision.”
“He's dying!”
“No one cares!” Archer shouts back at her. Good riddance and all, he figures. And if it hurts, if the little boy who used to love playing out on the harbor with his father is anywhere inside him he can't recognize it. “Let him!”
“Bizzy-”
“Screw Bizzy,” Archer cuts her off heatedly.
“I need you,” Addison whimpers at her older brother, following him out the door. But the men she surrounds herself with, they aren't reliable.
“You're a big girl Addison,” Archer relinquishes, pressing a hesitant kiss to her cheek, afraid she's going to slap him. “And you should have told me, we're supposed to stick together.”
It's hard to stick to water, Addison thinks. He's slippery, diving in and out. You can't tie down Archer. His car peels out of the asphalt angrily, speeding off to God knows where and she can only be thankful that at least this time she got a goodbye.
When she rejoins her friends, her parents, she has a fib ready and waiting. Archer got a call, Archer has a patient, Archer has a flight, Archer has a meeting.
She's used to the routine, she almost doesn't notice the hurt in her mother's eyes anymore.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“I love you, Addison,” The Captain breathes, drinking in her astonishment. “I know I never said it enough, or often, but I love you both. You and your brother. You're the best thing I've ever done with my life, maybe the only good thing, and I'm sorry, for all of it.” He sighs, it probably sounded rehearsed. Mostly because it was. They don't talk about these things, they don't talk about anything. If he recalls correctly he used to yell at her about Derek being an inappropriate fit and about how she wasn't focused enough on her career.
He's tired, and he doesn't want to argue anymore, especially after last night and Bizzy's complete meltdown. He feels ill, he feels old, and there's no one to care because he never let anyone know they were important to him.
“I hate you,” Addison cries. She hates him for trying to erase the past with a phrase. She hates him for wanting to know her, for confusing the very clear family lines they had set up long ago. She hates him for making Archer the way he is, she hates him for making them all miserable.
The Captain only nods, understandingly. He hates himself too. But then he feels a shaky pair of arms close in around him. And it's real, a real hug, the likes of which he hasn't felt since she was five and didn't know any better.
It's the best present he could ask for on a birthday as tumultuous as this.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Forty three days. Seven other weekend trips. Three very overcareful hugs.
Nothing really changed. Bizzy still pretended the best she knew how, and The Captain still lectured her on cases. Susan still hovered around behind everyone. But the edge was gone. There was anger, but above it, a collective effort. To make the best of a bad situation, to deal with the pain, the betrayal after it was over.
It was a cease fire. The only respectful thing to do.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“Samuel,” The Captain greets wearily from his favorite chair. This has become his station, pill bottles scattered on the table next to him, a cup of water mostly full.
“Sir- Dr.- Mr. Montgomery,” Sam sputters, reaching for his frail hand.
“You need to learn how to calm down,” The Captain smiles. “These Montgomery women will give to give you a heart attack.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam agrees kindly, sitting next to him.
“Go ahead,” The Captain urges impatiently. He's seen him with his daughter, out by the horses holding hands, sneaking a kiss in when they think no one can see. But from the window on his right he's watched their story unfold, perhaps more so than he'd like.
“I came- I wanted- I have to-”
“Ask for my blessing?” The Captain fills in watching Sam play with his watch. He looks more panicked than Derek did all those years ago.
“I- yes,” Sam breathes. He feels like he's twenty again. And yeah, it's too soon, way too soon. They haven't even muttered those three special words (even though it's painfully obvious) , but he's preparing because it's an inevitability for him. And because Sam has manners, he was raised right, and this is what you do. Sometimes quicker than you want, situations dictating. “I would, someday, like to marry your daughter.”
“Ok,” The Captain smiles.
“Ok,” Sam nods. It was far easier than the interrogation he was prepared for, and even though they're all adults now, he was fearful.
“Pour us a drink Samuel, we have things to discuss.”
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
“It's alright,” Addison smiles, trying to assure her boyfriend of barely two months who is staring at her rather skeptically. “I'm fine,” she insists, gracefully slipping into a pair of tall black stilettos. She's all class today, her knee-length skirt pressed and clean, the light sweater covering her shoulders devoid of any of Milo's many orange hairs.
“We need to get going,” Addison tells him, reaching for the handle on her matching suitcase before her hand is batted away and he's silently carrying it down the stairs for her.
He meets her in the garage and wraps her in a pity ridden kiss, holding her so impossibly tight that she can't help but become overcome with emotion. She gives him a stern shove to serve as the only warning that if he makes her cry through several layers of waterproof mascara there will be hell to pay.
The call came at three this morning, disturbing them both from slumber, and Bizzy's voice was oddly sympathetic and calm. ”It's your father, you need to come.” And Addison knew it was time to go say goodbye. But before they could even finish their mutual shower and share a cup of coffee another call came. And when Sam relayed the message, from Susan, Addison pulled the brush from her hair and buried herself in his arms for a just a minute before drawing in a strong breath and preparing for the week ahead.
“LAX?” Sam asks, before receiving explicit instructions (that he doesn't need) on how to get to the private airport they are flying out of.
He remembers like it was yesterday.
And though his predictions have been accurate, you can't kiss Addison's wounds and heal them, it has been more pleasant than not. Sometimes he can get her to talk about what's wrong, other times she seals herself off. Sometimes she makes him want to scream, sometimes there's no way to stop her from yelling. But there is more laughter than tears, more stories than silence, and Sam thinks the tangible give-and-take to their relationship is what makes it successful.
At least with this ring burning a hole in his pocket, he certainly hopes so.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
This time her hand isn't wrapped firmly around a bottle of vodka, though there are many spares behind her. It is wound through Sam's, who is rescheduling the practice accordingly since they had to leave so immediately.
And instead of ignoring Susan, she's talking calmly with Naomi, who despite her problem with this very situation, has been very accommodating and friendly.
She still has grave issues with her childhood that she may never own up to, and Naomi isn't over the moon about her and Sam, and may never be. And Archer probably won't even show up to his father's funeral, and Bizzy will be completely catatonic. And Addison knows she will be the one in control, the one picking flowers and caskets and dates and times.
It isn't remotely ideal, and it's been a struggle every single second of every hour, but somewhere in the back of her heart she feels a little flutter distinctly reminiscent of happiness.
And it's enough, finally.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~