A/N: Hope you enjoy!

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Disarm
- Ben Rector
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"Addison?" Sam croaks, careening his neck inside of his neighbors living space.

"Yeah," Addison greets over her mug of coffee, letting it scald her throat as it slides down. There were tears, everything burns at this point. Everything is tender, raw to the touch.

"Mark's gone?" Sam asks, straightening his tie, looking hopefully across the room as her black, seemingly mourning, attire swishes across her knees listlessly.

"He went to St. Ambrose, to discharge Sloan Sloan," Addison dismisses, pouring the rest of the mud into the sink and taking a quick breath before spinning around. All she knows how to do is push through the mess, but with each passing day she's less and less sure that it'll be worth anything.

"Right," Sam snorts. The name thing never gets old, Mark being a grandfather never ceases to amuse him. "Are you ready?" He catches her raised eyebrow, clearly not following his lead. "It's Wednesday, Addison, we carpool."

"Right," she nods, beginning the futile search for where her car keys might have fallen last night when she stumbled through the door with Mark's hands up her shirt, tugging on the zipper of her dress.

"It's my turn..." Sam hesitates. It's not true, they both know he drove last week. "I was just...checking on you."

"I'm fine," Addison answers resolutely, almost cutting him off. "Let's get this over with."

"That's the spirit," Sam mutters, jumping back through the sand for his keys.

~-~-~-~-~-~

The ride home is stained with bitter silence, anger seeping out of every pore of his passenger. Sam sighs, looks over at her once more, and then turns back to the road. Sometimes he is at a complete and utter loss with her. But she's tied to the tracks, and no matter how close the train gets, he just can't manage to tear himself away. "Do...you...if you need, to talk about it-"

"No," Addison replies sharply, stunned with her own voice. "No- no, I do not want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it-"

"Alright then," Sam agrees. "Traffic sucks tonight."

He glances over just in time to hear the bitter chuckle leave her mouth, to see the mascara trails dribble over her cheeks.

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"Don't- just don't...comfort me, I don't deserve it," Addison warns, stepping away from his garage and immediately trying to flee the scene of her latest folly.

"You are my friend," Sam states authoritatively, crossing to her side of the vehicle, trapping her.

"Don't know why," Addison mumbles to her shoes before having her jaw yanked upward by someone else's hand.

"I'm not judging you-"

"But-"

"I was," Sam placates, "before...I was looking out for you, but I was judging. Friends, real friends," Sam corrects, "don't judge, they support. So...if you want to talk, talk."

"I don't want to talk," Addison swallows, pointedly directing her gaze behind him so she'll let him move.

He doesn't owe her an apology to begin with.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"Sam, I said I don't want to talk," Addison grumbles for the hundredth time, frustrated by her sudden lack of privacy, Sam storming the deck, pacing behind her.

"I want to talk," Sam replies, sandals slapping against the decking as he makes his way in a straight line and then back. "About the thing, that happened...with us."

"Oh God," Addison moans into her hands. "I'm sorry!" she screeches. "I- that's what I do evidently. You were collateral damage and I'm sorry Sam, okay?"

"It's not okay," Sam refuses, coming to a halt, eyes squinting under the harsh attack of the vibrant sunset.

"It's...not easy for me to apologize," Addison says loudly, finally spinning around to face him, Milo scampering off her lap and back into the house as she moves.

"It wasn't easy for me to turn you down, but I did it, because that's what you do. You do the things you have to do Addison, and I did them. And now-"

"And now what?" Addison challenges. "I made a mistake- I thought, I think we can overcome this Sam. We've been friends for decades."

"You're Naomi's friend," Sam reconstructs for her. Addison doesn't talk to him outside of groups, and Addison certainly doesn't confide in him.

"What is it that you want from me?" Addison screeches, hands agitatedly finding their way into the deepening sky above. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry you saw me with Mark. I'm sorry...about the whole Mark thing. I'm sorry...that I put our friendship in peril. I- I get," she clenches her fists trying to explain the craziness that occurs inside her head every single day. "-and I...act. I'm not a thinker, I'm sorry."

Sam fumbles between wanting to pace forward and catch her, never letting go, and turning around and running for the hills. The last thing he needs is this bag of bullshit, but for better and always worse, it is all he can think about. What Addison's leg would feel like under his palm, how her hair looks dangling above his eyes.

"You have to say something," Addison whispers to herself, subconsciously winding her fingers into her sleeves so they'll have something to fiddle with.

He's ill-equipped with words, because he hasn't quite figured it out yet himself, so instead he confidently gives her a quick, sweet kiss before striding away, her objections ringing loud and clear behind his trailing form.

~-~-~-~-~-~

"You can't do that to someone, it messes with their head. And my head cannot stand to be messed with anymore, do you understand me Samuel?"

He catches his rolling eyes, sliding up from his own couch and meeting her at the kitchen counter. "I don't want to mess with your head."

"We can't do this," Addison laughs. Of all the inappropriate men, he would make the top three. "I can't give up my best friend for you, and I would have to."

"You've thought about it," Sam smirks, finally relieved that he isn't the only one.

"No-" Addison refutes, digging her toes into the hardwood flooring stubbornly. "I want children Sam, I want kids so bad that it physically hurts me, but I can't have them anymore, and you already have Maya. And I want to get married again, I don't know why, but...then Naomi wouldn't be there...and I need her there because I have...trust issues, and commitment issues, and daddy issues, and mommy issues...and I couldn't do it without her, and I do understand how pitiful that is."

"Addison-"

"I hate everyone in my immediate family, even Archer. I hate my own family. And I have a large tendency to jump into bed with Mark Sloan every time something isn't going right. And I cheated on Derek, on purpose Sam. Who does that? Who does that!"

"I don't know," Sam grimaces, taking a seat on the couch, realizing that she isn't going to run out of steam any time soon.

"Bizzy is a lesbian," Addison exhales, nauseated by the words. "Which means that The Captain is just kind of a pathetic, lonely whore...not a cheating whore. It's not his fault, but he...he still could never stand to be around me. I thought it was a family thing, but it's a me thing."

"It is not a you thing," Sam says loudly enough for her to look up, smashing the heel of her hand into her eyes angrily.

"It is, I'm unlovable. I thought...Derek and I. With Meredith, I'm not sure if he ever...once you get to know me, really know me Sam, I am unlovable."

"Addison-"

"I must have been a horrible person in a former life," she jokes carelessly, falling into a heap once Sam guides her to his lap.

"You're a good person," Sam assures her, tangling his hands into her short mane as she sniffles into his collar.

Sam listens for what feels like hours. From everything to blaming Archer for killing the classroom fish she brought home over summer break, to turning down Derek's first three engagement proposals. All the indiscretions that she never let on about; Bizzy forgetting her in the middle of Paris when she was eleven, the screaming match that led up to the very distinct scar just under the left side of her jaw, being "told" repeatedly that she was an unwanted addition to the already full Montgomery family, attending her college graduation alone because no one could be bothered to show, not even Archer, it all come pouring down his ears.

When his legs are completely numb she stills, calming for what he hopes is silence, not a momentary reprieve. It's a lot to take in, she's significantly more damaged than she's ever displayed.

"I...I aborted Mark's baby, in New York," Addison squeaks beneath him, her most vulnerable of secrets finally spilling out. "After Derek left me...I stayed and I couldn't do that...with Mark, so I chased my husband. And...I think I could love him forever Sam, if he would let me. I still own the brownstone in New York, his stuff...I can't touch...anything. Most of the time, I just think it's a waste, that I wasted all that time with someone who so obviously doesn't belong with me."

"I have Naomi's favorite pair of socks upstairs, in my nightstand," Sam admits, drawing her closer. "It's hard to...move forward."

"I would have let him move in," Addison says to herself. "I know...Mark, I knew...better. But I still hope, sometimes, it's nice to have hope these days."

"Yes," Sam concedes, "Hope is good." Generally, he feels like he could talk to Addison for twenty years and not actually learn anything, but tonight, this makeshift tell all, it gives him hope.

This time the kiss lands squarely on her scalp, comforting, considerate. "You're a good guy Sam, I can't inflict myself on you."

"We can take it slow," Sam offers, finding the butterflies in the pit of his stomach again. After all of that, he almost wants her more. Addison makes dysfunction look appealing.

"I don't know how to take things slow," Addison acknowledges, she always seems to jump to the tail end of relationships rather quickly.

"If there's one thing I know," Sam smiles, "it's going slow." Hell, it only took him twenty more years, a nasty divorce, and a bumbling move to realize that there is something more with Addison now.

"I'll think about it."

"And Addison," Sam tacks on, reveling in the weight of her body pressed against his. "As your friend, it's my duty to inform you that you are completely lovable."

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