FIC: Love Wins Every Time 8/?

May 30, 2007 21:58

Hi again. Needed a bit of a break last night (and had to work on some stuff for my summer course!) but I am back with more of the story. In this chapter, Burke and Addison go for a swim, and Callie does not want to be That Person :)

Previous parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

And now, on with the story!



--

She's wearing a bikini that's more practical than fashionable, but in typical Addison style, it manages to be completely flattering. Not that he's ogling, of course. But she's fit and healthy and tall and the shimmery fabric matches the shade of her hair almost exactly. She is like a slim, especially agile mermaid as she crosses the length of the pool.

He grabs a kickboard and joins her in the deep end, gripping its edge while he pumps his legs, treading water.

"So," she says.

He nods affably and offers her a corner of the kickboard, but she is still in macho show-off mode, and stretches her arms as she kicks, keeping her head above the water.

"You owe me a box one day," she tells him.

"And you owe me a workout," he teases.

"And this is what, exactly?"

"This is a gym, Addison. You want me to really put you through your paces? Come climbing with me."

She grins and looks like she's about to make a smart remark, when suddenly, she shrieks, and the water around him erupts in a volcano of floundering splashes.

"Addison!"

He takes a hand off his kickboard and reaches for her, blindly grabbing skin, dragging it onto the board's surface. He has managed to snag a hand, and he pulls, centering her weight on the kickboard as she works through a fit of coughing.

He floats them over to the wall, braces himself against the side of the pool and keeps the kickboard steady. She's still coughing a little, but she looks more embarrassed than hurt.

"Cramped up," she manages. She's finally catching her breath. "God, that was embarrassing."

She's still hunched at a funny angle. His eyes track her appraisingly, and when she gives him a slight nod of assent, he ducks under her, draws out her knees, and braces her as she works through the kinks with a fisted palm. Finally, she settles and leans back into the water, arms around the board, breath flowing through her body in short, shallow bursts as she rides out the last of it. Lamaze breathing. Of course, she would know how to ride it out like that.

He remembers her asking about food, and he regrets pushing her. "You okay?" he asks.

She blushes, and he is sorry for a moment. But she's fine now, her kicks slowing down, her body slack and slow and peaceful. They float together, and the silence is warm and comfortable.

"Okay," she says, coming out of it at last. "Let's never talk about that again."

"Addison, I…"

"No. You didn't break me, Preston. You understand?"

"But…"

"Uh huh. So, I'm not the world's best swimmer. It doesn't mean I can’t still kick your ass six ways from Sunday any time I want, we clear?"

She's so serious. It's adorable. He nods obediently. "Okay. Yes. We're clear."

"Now, you said something about buying me dinner?"

--

He comes out of the showers and finds to his amazement that she's beaten him. Her hair is still a little damp, and her face is plain, but scrubbed clean, her clear skin pale against the drama of her fiery hair. She's sitting in a lounge chair, her feet propped up on her gym bag, talking on a cell phone.

"No, that's great. Yeah, we're right down here. Ten minutes? Yeah. Yeah. Okay."

She snaps the phone shut, tucks it back into the gym bag. "Callie's meeting us."

"Um hm."

"She'll be ten minutes. We can dump our stuff in my room, if you want to."

He follows her out to the elevators, and can't help but notice the set of tension in her jaw.

"Addison?"

"Hmm?"

"I have an early surgery tomorrow."

She frowns. "Oh."

"I was thinking that perhaps I should just pop out to the car and stash my gear now, while we wait for Callie. It's already eight o'clock, and we haven't even eaten. I might not want to make a trip upstairs to get it later."

Her relief is obvious, and he sees that he has correctly guessed the cause of the sudden tension: it's her room. She's embarrassed about living in the hotel, and she doesn't want to show him her room.

"Right," she says a little too brightly. "Good thinking. Um, I’ll just run up and drop my stuff. I'll meet you at the bar, okay?"

He waits until she's on the elevator, then he walks over to the bar and flags down the barkeep.

"I'm meeting some friends," he says. "I'd like a table. Three steak dinners with the works. A bottle of white wine."

"Yes sir."

"Make it pretty. Flowers, if you have them. Candles. It's been a long day."

"Yes, sir, Absolutely, sir."

He goes to the car and leaves his gym bag there. Then he returns to the bar and waits for Addison.

She must have stopped on her way to pick up Callie herself, because they come in together, dressed alike in loose black pants made of some sort of shiny material. Callie is wearing a sweater with hers, and Addison is taking advantage of her longer, taller frame with one of those girly shirts, purple and black, all pleats and folds and shimmers. He rises to meet them just as a waiter comes and shows them to their table.

It's class, just as the lobby was class and gym was beauty. They’ve found him his flowers, a trio of miniature roses, one red, one white, one pink, in a flute of blown glass. The waiter pulls out the chairs for him, pours him a glass of wine to sample. Could there be a better meal than this?

Addison takes in the set-up, takes in the flowers and tenses up again, but Callie catches it at the same time he does, and gives him a poke with her elbow.

"So," she says. "Do I need to tease you about your gay-man flower tastes?"

The tension is broken. It's going to be a casual meal after all.

--

The food is exquisite, but he finds as the meal progresses that his eye keeps straying to Addison. Callie is comfortable. Addison was right about her, and she's witty and brash and hilarious. But Addison…her mood keeps shifting on him, and it's starting to make him…not uncomfortable, exactly. Preoccupied? Confused? Concerned? It's like she'll have moments of total freeness, enjoying the wine, the food, the conversation. But the moment the actions breaks for a second, her shoulders tense up and her eyes go sad and distant. He doesn't know what to do with this.

The waiters clears their salads away, and Addison excuses herself. As soon as she's out of earshot, Callie pushes her wine aside and says "Oh, man."

He puts down his napkin and waits for her.

"Look, you’re not taking this personally, right?" she asks him.

"Taking what personally?"

"This hot-and-cold thing. You see it too, right? I was thinking that you see it too…"

"I see it," he admits.

"So, we're not going to have some kind of 'you hurt my friend and I break you' conversation, cause I don't think either of us are really That Person, and it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing you have with her. But you should know that her dealings with the male of the species are kind of fucked up."

"Ah."

"And it's not necessarily her fault, and it's not necessarily your problem, but I think this whole divorce thing is just adding another layer onto a very tall cake, if you know what I mean. And I'm not saying she's some sort of damsel or victim or freak. But I don't think this whole thing is just about Derek or Mark either."

He had supposed this much on his own, and honestly, he almost prefers Cristina on this count. Yes, she can be angry and bossy and rude, but the anger, the bossiness, the rudeness, it's obvious. This? What is he going to do about it?

"Look, don't over-think it," Callie hastily clarifies. "Just be her friend, okay? She needs that, especially from a guy. She just needs to learn that, she can be around men, and it can be safe and it can be comfortable and it can be happy."

That word again, safe. So, he wasn't the only one who was seeing it. He didn't know if that should be a comfort, or a worry.

"Oh, and Preston?"

He was lost in thought. He turns to her, eyes distant. "Hmm?"

"If you do hurt my friend? I'll totally kick your ass. Just saying."

character: addison, shipper: burke/addison, author: ficbot, character: burke

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