What Ain't Broke (2/2)
Title: What Ain’t Broke (2/2)
Author: truhekili
Characters/Pairing: Alex/Addison
Rating: PG-13
Standard disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Word Count: 6,300 (13,300 total)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Begins during the Season 6 Finale. It’s either palm trees or poison ivy, and either way, Addison hates nature. Alex/Meredith friendship also featured. Two shot. Complete.
Addison runs her finger gingerly over the plain wedding invitation that had been slipped into her office mail box. She almost makes a bad joke to herself, something about Derek having a shot gun wedding - though that’s more Mark’s deal at the moment, him and the other Grey whose name she can’t still remember.
It arrives amid another flurry of memos from the Board, and she reminds herself through gritted teeth that Richard warned her about being a department head, and about the perils of hospital politics amid a merger, and she reminds herself that her staff is doing the best they can with the resources they have, and that some of them still shiver when they walk under the wide open glass archways that used to signify Seattle Grace’s pre-eminence, but now just mostly remind them of the day they were lucky to make it out alive.
She sees Alex later that afternoon, with Meredith and Yang, but she doesn’t join them, because the laws of the universe have nothing on the laws of the lunchroom. She watches Meredith absently place a pudding cup on his tray while he scrapes half his salad onto her plate, and she imagines that that’s what they all see in the Grey sisters - that they’re the type to need rescuing - and she imagines that that was Derek’s problem with her, too and Mark’s - even if neither of them is exactly the white hat type.
She wonders if that’s just a thing with men, the dragon slaying impulse - though she’d tried it once too, she supposes, to be the rescuing needing type, and nobody came.
But she’s not that type anyway, and she may be Satan’s Mistress or whatever the hell they’re calling her this time around, and she may be a hot tempered red head with depressive inclinations and too many shoes and a tendency to sulk and an excessive fondness for ridiculously expensive white wine and designer silk finery - and that might be a recipe for a Wyatt session or two if that woman wasn’t a bundle of nerves herself these days- but she was done with pathetic, and her patience was already wearing thin.
He must have known that that invitation was coming, she fumes through her next staff meeting, since he’s not tongue tied around Meredith Grey, and she probably tells him everything, and she grabs him by the arm and drags him into her office the first chance she gets and demands to know when he was going to tell her and if he’s in the wedding and if he’s moving in with them - since most of his stuff must still be at Meredith’s, and she’s sure he still has a key - and how she’s supposed to find a dress on such short notice, since all of her favorite designers are obviously between seasons in early Spring.
She’s too angry then - about the wedding she should have seen coming but didn’t, about the space she’d cleared in her house for him which still went unoccupied, as if he was just some lingering guest - to notice the second invitation perched on her desk, until after he storms off, snarling something about grilled duck and Mere’s brilliant ideas.
That invitation had probably been given to him by hand, she realizes, cringing, and had probably been stuffed into his pocket for a while, since it was tattered, near the thick question mark inked in beside the time and date, and smudged, near his initials, written in his familiar sloppy block printing, and wrinkled, along the underlined part about it being an informal barbecue on Derek’s land - his code, no doubt, for skip all the slippery silk finery - though, in her defense, it says nothing about the menu.
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He meets Mere and Yang at Joe’s later that evening and he’s grumpy and distant and he hears all about how Hunt’s still a controlling jerk and McDreamy’s still a pouting whiner with grandiose McMansion plans and he wonders where he fits into the angry chick taxonomy, since he’s not baseball and hamburgers, and he’s still ugly scars and weird dreams, and he was obviously an utter moron to think he might be anything more then another of her charity cases, or a place holder until she moves on or upgrades.
It’s all falling into place and the beers-with-Tequila-chasers are really clearing their minds and Owen’s getting dumped again, and McDreamy’s getting a Lego set from his very buzzed bride to be, and Alex’s going to end up in the pit forever for messing with Satan’s Mistress, and Meredith is giggling as she floats empty peanut shells in Cristina’s glass, and announces abruptly that this must be her bachelorette party.
The girls are raucously urging Joe to perform a strip tease as he quietly collects their car keys, and Alex just shrugs as they sloppily clear off the table for the burly bartender to dance on and dig out their dollar bills, and then Addison’s in front of him, apologizing and kissing him deeply and Yang is making gagging noises and Meredith is fondling Addison’s hair and complimenting her conditioner and admiring her non split ends and he must be drunker then he thinks because then the hot red head is grabbing his hand and tugging him up the steps and he’s a pagan but he prays he doesn’t hurl this time.
They’re home before he gets his seat belt buckled and he almost mutters something about not being a freaking charity case but then he’s groaning under her weight and she kisses him again and her body coils around him and her fingers burrow into his neck and he’s sure she knows what that does to him and he fights to stay awake anyway because it can’t happen tonight, especially not tonight. But it does and he sinks into the darkness before he can defend himself and he’s trembling when he wakes up and she’s shaking him gently and telling him it’s just a dream again and her arms are still snaked around him.
She’s gripping him like she’s holding him together and her embrace doesn’t loosen until she drifts off and he knows his body’s still a freaking crime scene but her eyes are a prison even when she’s asleep and the vacant stare still won’t scream and what’s left of his mind is driving him crazy and he gasps because he needs air but he breezes right by the window as he slips out of the bed, grabbing his clothes as he runs for his life.
He swings by Mere’s house late the next morning, still buzzed and jittery, and spies two green dumpsters in the backyard, and he nearly gets run over by McDreamy, who pours excitedly out of the door, shaking his hand vigorously and gesturing happily about tubes of house plans. Shepherd drives off, finally, and Alex pokes his head in the door and sees moving boxes scattered everywhere, even on the steps as he climbs up to his old room.
He shoves the rest of his clothes into two black hefty bags, and is tossing some junk out the hall window, into the dumpster waiting below, when he hears banging from the attic.
Scaling the narrow steps, he finds Mere surrounded by crushed cardboard crates and dusty old lamps and musty clothes and broken toys and piles of faded pictures taken who knows when. He knows that panicked look she gives him, too, so he just shrugs and grabs the closest box and hauls it down the stairs and drops it into the dumpster, too.
Some of it is her mother’s, she announces in a trembling voice, and some of it is from when she was a kid, and then she’s off ranting about inadequate storage space in the new mansion, and about McDreamy wanting slate instead of marble in the three down stairs bathrooms now, at a cost of twenty grand, and about whether they’ll have enough hot dog buns for the house warming party, and she squawks when Alex accidentally breaks an ugly old ceramic vase that’s just going in the garbage anyway, and she mutters about how the post it note had always been enough for her, though it wasn’t, really, for him, and she shoves old Christmas decorations into a trash bag without even looking at them.
He watches her gather what she’s keeping - a few photos of people he doesn’t recognize and a cracked music box and a scary old doll with a missing foot - and he rolls his eyes as she trails him down the narrow stairs while he hauls the last box, insisting that she might need whatever’s inside. It’s stalling, and they both know that, too, so he just hurls it out with the others, closing the window with a thud and dusting his faded tee shirt off.
She’s still fuming about it all and squawking about the cracked vase, and he’s hot and tired and his fingers hurt -and he just tells her to get new crap for the new place.
Then her arms are abruptly clamped around him and she almost knocks him off balance and they don’t do - this - but he doesn’t pull away, and he just smirks when she demands again that he bring Addison to the party with him, and tells him again that her new place has two guest rooms for whenever Addison’s that mad at him again.
“We can do this,” she finally whispers into his chest, and he has no idea what “this” is exactly, and he doubts she does either, but she’s still trembling slightly and his arms half close awkwardly around her and whatever this was, at least she’d stopped calling him a duck.
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“You’re… finger painting?” Alex asked incredulously, walking into Addison’s sun room later that day and peering at the sheets of paper she was laboring over.
“Watercolor,” she snapped, continuing to work. “And you’re in my light.” A neighbor in LA had suggested it to her once, as a form of stress relief. So far, it was proving almost as frustrating as he was.
“What is that?” he scowled, poking lightly at the surface.
“Peonies,” she replied impatiently, swatting his hand away as she pointed to the flower filled vase on the table across the room, which she was copying - with limited success. “It’s a still life.”
“Those look dead,” he muttered, shaking his head as he looked from the vase back to her picture.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” she demanded, glaring at him impatiently as she continued to mix her paints furiously. “Like whatever you were doing today, since you were gone this morning,” she added sharply.
She hated the sound of her voice, hated the words before they finished tumbling out, hated the bitter taste they left behind on her lips, like cheap booze, and she wasn’t going to be that woman again. She wasn’t doing needy or desperate or pathetic, not this time.
“I was at Mere’s,” he replied bluntly, scanning her painting again, “picking up my stuff. They sold her house. They’re moving this weekend.”
“What are you doing with it?” she grumbled, eying him closely. She wasn’t going to be that woman, either, the woman who demanded an accounting of everything. But this was the Karev she remembered, and she wasn’t doing that again, either.
“It’s only two bags,” he retorted, frowning sourly. “It won’t crowd out your shoe collection, or anything.”
“I moved my shoes months ago,” she snapped. “A third of the bedroom closet is empty, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Why would I look in your closets?” he asked, with a baffled scowl.
“Because I made room for you,” she sputtered, glaring at him. “I made room for you and you still act like a… like a weekend visitor.” That never occurred to her, actually, that he might not even look in her closets; then again, he was probably afraid to.
“You never asked me to move in,” he grumbled after a strained silence, in a tentative voice that reminded her that all of Bailey’s interns had been basically, well, twelve.
“The key I gave you wasn’t a clue?” she demanded incredulously.
“I had a key to Mere’s house, too,” he retorted, shifting uncomfortably and looking away. “We never did…this,” he added, his arms motioning vaguely around the room.
It took him a while to stammer out a word as descriptive as “this,” and she would have pointed that out if he didn’t have that expression on his face, almost as if he’d just bitten into a lemon, and she would have volunteered an alternative immediately if she had one.
“Do you want to,” she asked finally, watching hi closely, “do… this?”
“My stuff’s in the hallway,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes impatiently, as if that was as obvious as, well, as the key was supposed to be, she imagined, since he was nothing if not literal to a fault, and 'moving in' meant 'stuff in bags, physically entering the house.'
“You didn’t tell me about the wedding,” she muttered, her tone more measured as she wiped off one of her brushes.
“I didn’t think you’d want to go,” he replied. “But Mere-“
“She makes you think screwed up people have a chance, I get that, and you have to go for her,” Addison interrupted, almost giggling at his bewildered double take.
“You remember that, huh?” he asked, grimacing slightly.
“She says you’re like a family,” Addison added, meeting another puzzled frown. “I heard her tell Yang that, when she was visiting you in the hospital, before you woke up.”
“Yang’s a different story,” he mumbled, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
“She got the Evil Spawn part spot on,” Addison teased.
“Whatever,” he grumbled, looking hurriedly back at her painting. .
“My ex-husband is marrying your former best man,” she pointed out.
“Yeah,” he smirked, watching her again. “Mere wants me to bring you.”
“She approves, does she, of this?” Addison teased, motioning vaguely around the room with her arms, as he had.
“She does,” he agreed, smirking again, more sheepishly this time.
“Do you want me to go?” she prodded, rolling her eyes.
“Are you asking me to move in?” he countered warily.
“What do you think?” she replied, sighing and shaking her head as she returned to her work.
“I like the yellow splotches on that one,” he replied finally, pointing to one of her almost finished projects.
“Not about my paintings,” she retorted, “and they’re flowers.”
“They are?” he asked skeptically, studying them closer.
“What do you know, you play with kids all day,” she teased, moving him aside.
“At least they can finger-paint,” he noted, nodding seriously.
“You want to pose?” she taunted, eyeing him carefully. “You can be my next subject.”
“X-rated finger painting?” he asked, his eyes suddenly widening.
“Art,” she huffed, pushing him aside again. “Pervert, I’m living with a pervert,”
“It was your idea,” he grumbled, still muttering to himself about hot tempered red heads as he grabbed his Hefty bags and hauled them up the stairs.
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She brings a fruit platter to the informal wedding, and surveys Derek’s impressive new house, and congratulates his new wife, and she snickers as she watches Alex poke warily at the barbecue pit and pepper Owen with questions, and she smirks when Bailey corners him and gives him an earful over some indiscretion, because he’s Karev again full time, and fair game whenever he’s within shouting distance, and the Nazi is going to make a first class Peads surgeon out of him if it kills them both.
Peering out over the bay, she notices how far away LA seems, since there are no palm trees, and her friends are far less laid-back. They’re all surgeons here, and it’s not like they can just leave that behind after hours, since it’s who they are - and it’s always work all out and play all out with them - and the raucous party goes on far longer then planned, and she finally pulls him away from the fire pit and drags him behind a tree.
It’s a bad idea, though, she remembers vividly the next morning, and she curses weddings for the next week as Alex spreads calamine lotion across her back, and Naomi chortles about there being no poison ivy problems in LA, and she recalls why she hates nature, since the feeling is obviously mutual, and nature is just physics with noxious weeds.
She stays home for the last two days of the week, anyway, and she notices that Alex’s mail is finally being forwarded from Meredith’s old address, and she learns more tidbits about the family that didn’t visit him - about the trucker brother who works two jobs, and the little sister with big dreams, and the meds that he boxes up and ships to the mother with the soft voice and the tenuous grip on reality, and the loose arrangement that they’ve all cobbled together, through occasional phone calls and rarer notes.
She notices that he’s slow to return contact, sometimes, like the occasional cards that come from Amber, who apparently likes art and purple and English class - judging just from her envelopes - and she’ll push him about that when she figures out how. But a wounded animal is still a wounded animal, and nature hates her, and Karev roared back when his blood counts and his stamina returned - and she picks her battles carefully.
They both do, she imagines, since he didn’t even realize she’d asked him to move in until she told him so point blank - as if a key could mean anything else, really. But she didn’t pick a fight that night, because he was more voracious then Mark and could out pout Derek, and she would have gutted him with a ten blade in his sleep months before if he didn’t breath so steadily as he curled beside her, and grimace so comically when her fingers brushed over the faint pink flesh still forming along his suture lines, and nuzzle so closely into her neck when her arms still slid around him, just in case.
It was silly, anyway, because the scars were healing well even if they were ridiculously ticklish, and he was in no danger of spilling open onto her new bedding - the plain cotton sheets she’d bought when he grumbled so much about her fine silk offering no traction - and it wasn’t like he needed anyone to hold him together any more then she did - even if he had almost set the house on fire trying to barbecue that evening.
She almost laughed recalling his expression - as she called for pizza delivery while he doused the flames. He was being too literal again, she’d teased as the embers smoldered, about the whole baseball and barbecue thing. But another befuddled expression followed, and she’d just rolled her eyes, again, because too literal or not, that would never be the end of it now - even if he left the whole neighborhood burned to rubble like Sherman left Georgia - as if they couldn’t order out for hamburgers just as easily as for pizza.
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She asks him, again, if he returned Amber’s latest phone call - which he had - and he almost wished his sister didn’t write sometimes, because then Adds wouldn’t see the mail, and then she wouldn’t ask questions, and then she wouldn’t be telling him how crazy her own family was, as if Forbes and Montgomery were names to be freaking ashamed of or something, or as if she was ever a teen aged girl without a trust fund.
It was just as well that Iowa was so far away, and so expensive to get to, and that Aaron was so busy, and that Amber was already working more hours at Jensen’s grocer, since at least that kept her out of trouble. She’d be graduating soon, anyway, would be an adult, and at least she knew the score just like he and Aaron did, that she’d have to find her own way out.
She could do it, too, since she was smart and tough like Mere; she was a lot like Mere, really, sounded just like her in her occasional notes, and he wished Adds would stop pressing him about Aaron and his sister and his mom, because everything was under control. He wished she’d start paying more attention to her own crap for a change, like her on-going battle with the Board, which was making her pace impatiently in the scrub room and bite her nails and snap at her staff and act like she didn’t notice any of it.
That he could do something about, though, and three nights later he pulls into the Fair Grounds’ parking lot, ignoring her puzzled glances as he snags two tickets and tugs her through the gate. Immediately scouting out where that smell was coming from, he drags them onto a line ten people deep, snaked between a ride pass window and a water game booth whose featured prizes were tiny gold fish bowls and mountains of stuffed animals.
“Pop corn and candy apples for dinner?” she laughed, poking into her steaming bag as they settled on a nearby bench under a tree.
“Tickets are half prize on Thursday,” he shrugged, eagerly unwrapping his apple, his eyes widening as the sticky sugar shell dripped down his fingers. “And it’s either this or the Board finally fires you.”
“They’re threatening to cut my staff again,” she grumbled, digging into her pop corn. “I just told them what I thought about that.”
“They’re never going to pick you to be the next Chief if you keep sending those memos, you know that, right,” he retorted, scowling as she offered him three napkins.
“You’re telling me to be diplomatic?” she snorted. “You?”
“Strategic ass kissing,” he corrected, shaking his head and gnawing busily on his dripping candy apple.
“I tried that once,” she insisted, handing him another napkin. “I lost anyway.”
“You didn’t lose,” he reminded her. “Weber didn’t retire.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she replied, shaking her head as she carefully wiped butter from her fingers. “If they hire me, they hire me. At least they’ll know what they’re getting.”
“Wear that red skirt,” he smirked, polishing off his candy with gusto. “They won’t know what hit them.”
“That’s your professional advice?” she taunted, shaking her head again.
“No,” he admitted, wiggling his eye brows. “But, wow, that skirt.”
“Shut up,” she replied, swatting him playfully. “Seriously, you’re twelve years old.”
“Right,” he scoffed, watching the crowds milling through the park. “You like Ferris wheels?” he asked suddenly.
“You want to go on a Ferris wheel?” she asked incredulously.
“Chicken,” he taunted, raising his eye brows at her.
“I take that back,” she huffed. “You’re five years old.”
“And you’re chicken,” he retorted smugly.
“Get up,” she demanded, eying him sternly and standing abruptly and tossing her empty pop corn bag into the nearby trash can.
“Oh,” he teased. “Now you want to-“
“No,” she said flatly, snatching the wrapper from his candy apple away and tossing it into the trash bin after her pop corn bag. “You’ve plainly had too much sugar tonight.”
“Really,” he smirked, springing up from the bench.
“Yeah,” she insisted, brushing her fingers across his face and kissing him.
“Whoa,” he breathed, when she finally released him.
“Sticky,” she countered, shaking her head and sticking her tongue out with a grimace.
“Sticky?” he repeated, eying her sheepishly as he ran his fingers over his lips.
“Yeah,” she agreed, grabbing his hand and tugging him toward their car. “Let’s not waste all that sugar on a kids’ ride.”
She’s definitely more relaxed hours later, snoring softly beside him, and he toys with her hair and brushes his fingers over her body and he smirks as she curls closer into him with a contented murmur and the warmth of her skin makes him drowsy and the rhythm of her breathing slows his own heartbeat and he sinks into her before he can stop himself.
Different vacant eyes are waiting for him, again, from a different pool of blood, have been for most of this week, and he bolts awake and his hands run soothingly over her again and she just stretches lazily and shifts closer and doesn’t wake and he closes his arms uncomfortably around her and those eyes look more familiar even then Reed’s and he wishes that Iowa was even farther away.
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She watches him with Meredith and Yang the next day, the quirky little family whose dynamics could be measured on the Richter scale, and she knows his dreams are back again - probably because the hospital is awash with talk of an anniversary memorial - and she could tell him she notices, but she’s sure he just needs to simmer for a while.
She could tell him the dreams would stop, eventually, but then she’d have to call them nightmares, and then he’d have to believe he was a victim, which he never would, and that would all be too close to the meds he boxes up each month, for the mother he hates to talk about. She could tell him the scars would heal, too, that he wouldn’t always look like a gutted fish, as she’d heard him grumble once to Meredith after Yang teased him.
But they probably wouldn’t, even after the bruising faded away completely, and then she’d have to tell him a scarier truth, anyway, that she’d gotten used to them, that he’d look too naked without them now, that they’d always line the mental map she used to navigate his body in the darkness, and that she’d probably always coil around him while he slept just in case, since holding him together was just part of who she was now.
She could tell him she got it, too, the impulse to hide, the impulse to run. But she’d have to add that you can only run, really, if you’ll never look back, and she couldn’t run again, - not when he made her laugh, and made her scream, and made her charge up a highway she was sure she’d seen the last of, and still made her heart catch in her throat, like he had from the beginning - not when she knew she’d always end up back here, anyway, not when she was sure that she could never run far enough to stop this from being home.
That galled her too, though, because she wasn’t going to be another loose thread, another snag he had to protect whenever his own life threatened to unravel, and she wasn’t going to keep quiet about what she wanted anymore - because she had expectations, and he was as literal as all hell - and she wasn’t going to sit back and watch silently as he made bad situations worse - as if the future he was inadvertently setting fire to wasn’t hers, too.
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“Why didn’t you show this to me?” she finally asked a week later, fingering the newspaper clipping she’d plucked from his bedside table.
“Since when do you read my mail?” he scowled, grabbing his jacket and his work bag as they prepared to leave for the day.
“She graduated with honors,” Addison insisted, ignoring his point. “Did you even send her anything, a card, or-“
“I called her,” he interrupted, pulling on his jacket and digging his keys from his pocket as he stalked down the stairs.
“That’s it?” she demanded, following him out of the house and to the drive way. “We could have gone to the ceremony.“
“In Iowa?” he protested, looking at her incredulously. “That’s a freaking thousand miles from here.”
“It’s not that far,” she insisted. “I’m sure planes land there. They probably have roads.”
What’s the big deal?” he grumbled, still fuming as he grabbed the car door handle.
“To her?” Addison asked, glaring back at him. “It’s huge. Why do you think she sent that clipping? She wants you to be proud of her.”
‘She barely even remembers me,” he said, shaking his head. “Her and Aaron probably did something together.“
“We should have been there,” Addison fumed, crossing her arms over her chest and exhaling heavily.
“She wouldn’t care,” he retorted. “She doesn’t even know you.”
“I’ve spoken to her on the phone,” she reminded him sharply.
“She’s got her friends, and she’s got a job for the summer. She’s moving on,” he retorted, brushing off her objection.
“Are you ashamed of your family or something?” Addison asked abruptly. “Because it’s not like mine is any prize.”
“No,” he snarled, motioning for her to get into the car. “We’re almost late.”
“Then why don’t you invite Aaron here, or Amber?” she asked, standing her ground.
“I don’t want my mom to be alone,” he barked impatiently. “Geeze, why do you think I send her those meds?”
“Then why don’t we go there?” she prompted. “Congratulate Amber, visit your mom. I’m sure they’d love to see you.”
“All Amber knows about me is that I beat the crap out of our dad and he never came back,” he snapped bitterly. “And all Aaron remembers is that I left, too.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t visit them,“ she protested.
“I can’t fix that,” he insisted, shaking his head vigorously. “I can’t give her-“.
“Alex,” she interrupted, stepping toward him.
“Here,” he said gruffly, shoving the keys into her hand and stalking away.
Climbing into her car, she watched as he tore out of the driveway in his old jeep, almost half wishing a flat tire on him, and wondering if maybe she didn’t prefer when he was tongue tied and fumbling for words. Maybe communication is over-rated, she grumbled to herself, slamming the car door shut.
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He left the hospital hours after she did, but it was still too early, and she’d still be awake so he slipped into Joe’s. It was quiet for a Wednesday, even at that hour, and he watched a soundless baseball game sprawl across the television screen above the bar, while picking idly at the empty peanut shells that littered the counter.
It was different, fighting with her, since she was tough like Mere, and she didn’t need rescuing any more then he did, and she’d never be a victim, and she was nothing like his mother - she’d scream bloody murder if he ever laid a hand on her, after doing all she could to kick his ass, and probably have him locked up for life - and she’d already be making reservations to go to Iowa herself, if she thought Amber really needed her.
He stared at the amber liquid in his glass, and wondered perversely, again, if that’s where his sister’s name came from, and he inhaled deeply - because the smell of cheap beer was all he had left of his father - and he knew that Amber had even less, thanks to her big brother and his fists and his temper and a mother who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, scream.
Couldn’t, he reminded himself forcefully, again and again, because there are a lot of things that crazy can’t do, and crazy is everywhere, and crazy follows you even into your dreams, where vacant eyes stare back at you, as if you could have made any difference, as if you weren’t always a day too late, or a dollar too short, or just a damn coward.
That’s all she’ll ever remember of him, too, if he didn’t think of something: she’ll end up in a dead end job, on a dead end street, in a dead end town, with some dead end loser, just like their mother did, and he’ll have run out on Amber, too - just like their father - and she’ll join the tally of women he couldn’t help, and the roster of women who hate him.
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“I missed you at dinner,” Addison said flatly, crawling onto the bed beside him, where he’d holed up in the darkened guest room.
“Joe’s,” he said flatly.
“Did you eat?” she asked finally, watching closely as he nodded, before sinking into silence again.
“She’s smart,” he said quietly. “She deserves better.”
“We could help her,” Addison began.
“My mom’s meds,” he said, shaking his head as he stared at the ceiling.
“We have the money,” she replied, eyeing him closely. It was pocket change, to her. Four years of college anywhere wouldn’t even put a dent in her latte budget. But it was a vast sum to him, and millions more in pride, even more then his barbecuing misadventures.
“I can help her once I finish residency,” he insisted. “She can work until then, maybe go to night school at the community college.“
“Or we could help her,” Addison repeated.
“I’ll figure this out,” he said, bluntly. “My family’s freaking screwed up, but we’re no charity case.”
“Just pig headed,” she muttered.
“I owe her,” he insisted. “I’ll find a way to help her.”
“Or, we could get married,” she suggested. “Then we could help her.” He was literal, she reminded herself wryly; that might be the only ‘we’ he could understand.
“Married?” he repeated blankly.
“You’re grumpy,” she announced quietly.
“Huh?” he asked, half sitting up on his elbows.
“And you’re hot headed, and stubborn, and you pout, and you’re a menace with a barbecue poker, and you’re a general, all purpose pain in the ass, and if you leave the milk out again when you raid the cookie jar I’m going to pour it all over your head,” she breathed, pausing briefly before her voice dropped to a wispier, “and I want you anyway, and… and I came back to get you.”
He was just staring at the ceiling then, vaguely terrified, and she could see his eyes widen even in the darkness, and she could almost hear his heart beat speeding up as he exhaled sharply. “You snore…” he stammered finally, “and I hate those fake weeds in the den.”
“They’re gladiolas,” she snorted, “and they’re real.”
“Oh.” He nodded absently, still staring at the ceiling, glassy eyed.
“Is that your idea of a yes?” she asked a moment later. “Accusing me of snoring? Usually you’re more…direct.”
“I still see her sometimes,” he said finally.
“The woman who was shot in…in the supply closet?“ she asked carefully, judging from the tone of the ‘her.’ She wasn’t sure, because she’d only heard second hand stories and gossip and conjectures, about a young female Resident whose name she never wanted to know, blasted right between the eyes, and a trail of blood leading to the elevator where he was found, almost too late - almost too late for her to come back and get him.
“I knew her, worked with her,” he answered. “She liked yoga.”
“It’s been less then a year,” she said quietly. “And with all the talk of a memorial now, it makes sense that you’d remember her.“
“She looks like my mom sometimes, in the dreams,” he mumbled. “Just…gone, before I could freaking do anything.”
“You can still help Amber,” she said. “We can help her.”
“You shouldn’t have to do that,” he objected, cutting her off.
“Do what?” she asked, with a sharp frown.
“This,” he insisted impatiently, his arms motioning vaguely around the room again, though she was fairly sure she had a better grasp of what “this” was this time around.
“I’m not,” she replied. “And it’s not charity.”
“Then what is it?” he asked.
“Figure it out,” she directed smugly, rolling over on top of him and slowly peeling off his clothes.
He was entirely too literal, except about dreams, apparently, and he was probably going to burn their house down someday because of it. But he needed direct communication, and “this” was entirely too - too something, too a lot of things - to put into any words she had - and it poured out instead in moans and gasps and groans - and a deep shuddering howl that coursed out through her lips, rattling the windows as he found his way home.
She was still collapsed on top of him moments later, his heart beating wildly against her, and his moans inter-mingled with hers as she slid slowly to one side, tugging him along as he lingered inside her, and her eager hands found another choice destination, expertly mapped long before - because she was Satan’s Mistress, and even literalists could be made to talk - and she just giggled as a thundering groan finally rippled through him.
“Was that a yes?” she teased, moments later, pulling him closer.
“Wow,” he muttered breathlessly, nodding wide-eyed again.
“Okay,” she chuckled softly. “I’ll take wow instead.”
“Hmphmh,” came his more or less self-explanatory reply, as her hands continued their well worn travels.
“So I snore?” she asked, her fingers creeping threateningly along his suture lines as he struggled not to squirm. “Bad?”
“Like it,” he mumbled vaguely, shaking his head slightly as another soft moan escaped him. “Like knowing you’re there.”
“Then why did you say that?” she demanded sternly, her hands tightening their grasp.
“You started it,” he gasped, his eyes half rolling back in his head as another rumbling groan stirred beneath his skin.
“Yeah,” she smirked, coiling more tightly around him. “I guess I did.”