A/N: Someone had to do it? Apparently I am attached to this ship...or maybe just their dysfunction. Two parts with any luck, though heaven knows how I tend to get sidetracked. And just a short little thank you to everyone who has been around this year, I've appreciated your feedback through the months of crazy stories I can't let go of. Hope you all have a wonderful, safe New Year's. Enjoy-
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The Harrowing Adventures Of...
- Tokyo Police Club
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Kevin eyes his girlfriend suspiciously as she struggles to get the black purse over her shoulder while balancing a steaming cup of morning coffee. He wants to reach out and assist but it's not his place. Not this morning, maybe not the next. Walking out on people takes away things once so commonplace that he aches for them. "Addison?"
"Great," she mutters with a over exaggerated eye roll. This morning has been absolutely fantastic. Not only is she dealing with an epic hangover the likes of which she hasn't felt since college but apparently the world also hates her enough to send the cause behind the two bottles of lonely red wine.
He follows her into the elevator uninvited, hoping that no one else arrives inopportunely. "I..."
"I'm not going to apologize," she decides firmly, last night's drinking having worked through the whole damn relationship, all of its faults, and all of the reasons why she is fully ready to get over the asshole to her left. "I didn't do anything wrong."
He nods. "I believe...you think you were helping...and I jumped all over you." Everyone's perception is this world is different, but it doesn't mean that people aren't fools along the way.
It was a nice thing to do if you ask her. And a pain in the ass to try and figure out how to give her cleaning lady directions into the smoggy San Fernando Valley which, as far as she's concerned, may as well be another planet. She clenches her jaw and waits for him to continue through the rest of the thirty second ride. What she doesn't expect is his hand reaching out to jab at the stop button.
"I'm...not good at letting people take care of me," Kevin admits, hoping that maybe it will ease the tension of the confined space. "It's a long, boring, melodramatic story, a product of my upbringing and I just wanted to let you know that I am sorry for the way I reacted and that sometimes I'm human and susceptible to my overly inflated ego." He glances up at her challenging glare. "We come from different worlds Addison. I wish...it was different but there's a reality here we can't escape." He licks his lips and trails out hesitantly, "Maybe we could overcome it though."
Then he releases the frozen elevator after she finds more interest in her cellphone than in his attempted reconciliation.
"You hurt me," she reveals, still refusing to look at him or take off the massive sun blocking glasses. "You hurt me when I did nothing wrong, because you don't feel good enough anymore. Because for some odd reason you think I believe the world is encased in a candy coated shell where, if I pay enough, things are always bright and shiny. Do you know what I do for a living? Do you understand how many people I've watched die helplessly?" Caging the bubbling rage and possible reaction of vomit she sighs, "Money doesn't fix that so stop trying to make me out to be someone I'm not."
He presses a few fingers to the bridge of his nose, feeling the situation worsen, not wanting to acknowledge that he is very much in love with someone he doesn't know in any way shape or form. "All I can say is sorry Addison."
"I need time." she says as loudly as possible, voice still barely above a whisper, head trying to explode from the hazy drought. "Just...give me some space."
"Whenever you're ready," he agrees easily, his heart wrenching as she dodges out of his attempted kiss on the cheek and prepares to bury herself in the non-existent patients flitting through the hallways. It takes him the entire ride home to calm down and when he enters the dark, now spotless house, he knows he made a mistake.
He went from loving to judging in a week flat. Money, he affirms later with a room temperature beer in hand, does funny things to people.
~-~-~-~-~-~
Every officer, as his luck would have it, involved in a shooting (whether it be of them or the perpetrator) is required to have some sort of psychiatric follow up. To ensure that they haven't gone all post traumatic stress disorder or now have some personal vendetta against a person of a certain height, weight or color. So that apples are still apples and not oranges and to make sure no one else will be on the receiving end of his 9mm Smith & Wesson.
He obliged to the whole ordeal without a lot of grumbling because really anything that helped him get back to work was as good as gold in his book and set about making an appointment with the normal guy at the department. And it wasn't like he took out an innocent civilian. He got shot. It was an expected part of the job, especially in Los Angeles.
So when the normal guy up and decided to take a vacation in the middle of November and he was told to find someone else or he was going to be stuck behind a desk for a few weeks, he did the only thing he could think of.
"Come in," Violet says warmly and holds the door open for him, the rest of the office mercifully dark.
"Thank you for doing this," Kevin mumbles, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. "I was looking, and I saw your name and-"
"It's not a problem." She sits, with her pencil poised just in case this turns out to be actually interesting, and crosses her legs. "So why don't you tell me what happened?"
"I got shot," Kevin laughs easily and presses a sweaty palm into his clean jeans. It feels good to be out of sweats and undershirts. It feels horrible to be in a room with a couch and a person who writes down your thoughts, questioning events they will never be privy to.
"How?" Violet pushes, yawning.
"Wrong place, wrong time," Kevin answers without second thought.
"I see. Have you had any feelings of-"
"No," he cuts in, the loneliness of another non-Addison day heavy on his mind. Day three to be exact. "This is a formality. So, let's just sign off or call or fax...or whatever it is that we have to do."
"Kevin," Violet says patiently. "I know this is required but humor me. I tend to take my job seriously and I like to make sure people are actually okay when they say they are. Just relax, there are no wrong answers here. What happened?"
His fingers rub the denim again, unsure of what to say exactly, how technical to get. "We got a call. Went out there and I decided to branch off like an idiot and got hit."
"You usually take those kinds of risks?"
"It's my job," he replies defensively.
"So you decided to pursue the individual alone?"
"Individuals," he corrects. "My guys had...most of them were in one part of the...warehouse but the one, we've been trying to get him for years now...I had a hunch and it paid off."
"You got shot," Violet tells him.
"Yes, but we got him," he exhales exasperated. It's not the whole truth and it reads plainly across his flustered face.
"Ever happened before?"
"Being shot?"
"Injured in the line of duty?" Violet elaborates.
"No," he shakes his head. "First time for everything."
"How does that make you feel?" She relies on the old standby for the sake of it. He smiles again and Violet can kind of get why Addison seems to be so enamored with the guy. He's cute and charming in the most vanilla plain sort of way.
"Kind of makes me feel like a moron," he laments.
"Why is that?"
He looks around her office, eyes flitting left to right, up and down and he hears her ask the question again. This woman has ways. He should've just waited until IAG threatened to suspend him or the Chief breathed down his captain's throat. "Because it never should've happened to begin with."
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Addison swirls her pen around again and stares out at the vast expanse of details slowly losing her focus entirely. She's not that woman. The weak one who goes running back to wounded men for fear of being utterly alone all the time...except she kind of is sometimes and the only thing she wants to do is call Kevin up and ask him to please come hug her bad day away. She needs his tight embrace.
One dead mother, one dead baby boy and a overly emotional father have taken their toll on her and she's positive if this was something she was still dealing with everyday it would be a non-issue, but her concrete wall has been chipped away by the Oceanside routine and that closet ten feet away is looking better and better with each line of scribble she gets out.
"Montgomery," Charlotte King bellows behind her. "What the hell happened in there?"
Addison shoves the chart forward, unable to use her words, and reaches out for her cellphone. Sometimes barriers need a little help. "Excuse me."
Three rings in and she's tempted to hang up but then there's a warm voice on the other end. "Nae?"
"Addison, where are you?"
"St. Ambrose. Mrs. Jones...it was...can you meet me-"
She's cut off by the affirmative and taps the end key without a goodbye. She takes the offered log of her mistakes back and signs off on the stupidity. Weighted with loss and destroyed families it lolls in her hand, waiting for something.
"Montgomery- you okay?"
"Yup," she grins pathetically, "I'm good."
"It wasn't your fault. Preexisting condition." Charlotte leaves it simple, understandable. Busy isn't her style. "I'll deal with Mr. Jones, I'm sure you're busy over there at Oceanside today," she tacks on carelessly, letting the insinuation hang blatantly in the air.
Instead of duking it out with the shorter woman Addison drops her failure on the counter and heads for the door she came in four short hours ago.
She was a different person then. Not recently humbled by death, and slapped with the inability of her skills.
~-~-~-~-~-~
"Just call him," Naomi groans out by the ocean, digging her heels into the sand.
"I can't," Addison tells her. "I physically cannot bring myself to do it."
"Because he won't apologize?"
"No," Addison jumps in immediately. He has apologized, probably more than he should have.
"This is unequivocally one of the stupider fights you've ever engaged in Addie. He doesn't want you to clean his house, leave it alone and move on. Hell, be happy he knows how to clean up after himself already and doesn't need the help." Naomi shakes her head. People should try on some real problems not this reality television bullshit.
"It's more than that," Addison gives in. "He thinks I...am a controller."
"You are!" Naomi accuses with her finger.
"Yeah but-"
"But nothing. You have always been a bit of a control freak and you know what? After the whole Derek/intern thing, no one blames you. I'd be on the lookout too. You can't help it but you can't take it out on Kevin either. Different guy, different relationship. Find a compromise."
"I was helping him, I...was trying to get him to stay..." she looks longingly at her now empty cup. "It was nice having him here."
"So why don't you say that? Why don't you tell him that you wanted a few more nights with him around?"
Addison grumbles and stands up to find more alcohol. "I always ruin everything."
"No, you're just...you and you act quickly, often times without serious concern of consequences."
"Naomi!" She shouts incredulously across the patio while refilling her cup. Her friend has the most amazing way of making personal attributes sound like certain disaster.
"It's true," Naomi shrugs. "You need to call him."
"I told you I can't!"
Naomi roots around the small table next to her and finally comes up with a phone from underneath the mess of their discarded dessert. "You can and you will. And then you will be to the point and-"
"I'm not apologizing," Addison interrupts.
"Oh, of course not. Heaven forbid."
"Nae," Addison whines pitifully and sinks back into her sand covered chair. It's deeper than the apology and the regret. She can't seem to do relationships anymore. She's ruined, a bruised piece of fruit left to rot on the road in the hot summer sun.
"That won't work on me." Naomi tosses the phone onto Addison legs and fixes her with a stern glare. "Time to grow up Addie."
"Fine," she mumbles, dialing the familiar numbers. He answers on the first ring before she can rethink anything and her mouth has him invited over just as quickly.
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Addison paces through her house like a barefoot wildfire, knowing that it's going to take him at least thirty minutes to arrive but still intent on worrying the hell out of those painful seconds. She organizes books, shifts vases inches to the left and then back to the right, and attempts a pass at a book before giving up and returning to running a hole into her new rug.
True to her calculations the doorbell signals his arrival fifty-one tiring minutes later. "Hi," she stutters inadvertently. "Thanks for coming."
"I'm glad you called. I've missed you."
"I've missed you," she blurts out, aided by liquor lubrication at the same time. They share an awkward nod and then she fixes a seat on her couch, tempting him to take the place across the room. "I guess we have to talk about it now."
"Yeah."
"I've never...I'm not really, ugh...It's just...the thing is Kevin...I was kind of trying to keep you here. And not because I don't think your place is nice and not that I don't want to see it one day, I was...it was nice having you here. It was nice having something to come home to instead of taking the longest possible route home and praying for traffic madness." She shakes her own head, chiding her rambling and holds her breath until he speaks. Twelve years of marriage, a few boyfriends, and one would swear she'd be better at this sort of thing. When he doesn't pipe up she dives back in. "I'm a mess...I'm a messed up person but my intentions...they were good. I need you to believe me. You have to believe me."
"I do," he says softly, unsure if she is done. "I didn't...but I do now. It took me that while to get it. I'm sorry I was such an...ass. I shouldn't have left like that-"
"It's okay," she jumps in. Addison forgives outwardly with great ease. More easily than she should, even when it lays dormant below the surface. "You thought I was insulting you, where you come from."
"And in the process, I did the exact same thing to you," he pieces together. "God, I hate Archer."
Addison laughs loudly, breaking the tension. "Yeah...I get that response a lot."
"Call it a truce?" He stands and offers a hand.
"Yes, please," Addison answers without pausing to think. He's the best thing to happen to her since moving out here and if there's one thing she knows how to do it's fight like hell for the few people who seem to genuinely care about her.
Kevin smirks as she crosses the room to him, "I think this is the part where we make up."
Her lips attach to his as soon as she is close enough and as her hands loop around his neck, nervously beating chests pushed together, she pulls back to whisper, "My favorite part."
~-~-~-~-~-~
Kevin shuffles into the dark office just as Violet shrugs her coat around her shoulders. "Dr. Turner?"
"Oh," Violet nearly screams, jumping with her hand pressed to her heart. "I didn't think you were coming back."
"Sorry I'm late. I was with Addison," he clarifies. Trying to wiggle out of being with her for their second night rekindled proved to be more difficult than he thought. In the long run he had to fake an emergency work situation and lied through his white teeth to be here. And...he needs to be returning soon.
"Ok," Violet smiles gingerly and flops her light coat over the back of the couch, searching for something to write on.
When she sits and relaxes into the chair Kevin begins, "She hasn't said she loves me yet."
"Who-"
"Addison," he tells her before she can even finish the thought. "She said if I gave her time...she wants to be together...and I was tactless about my words the first time but I thought...after our...fight thing."
Violet presses her lips together. Last session ended promptly with him telling her it was none of her business and that she wouldn't understand the inner workings of police code without living it herself. Nothing about her co-worker and frankly it's not an area she is presently comfortable with but it is obviously something that is bothering her patient so she's torn. Rocket-shipped into a very gray area that makes her squirm. "Well why do you think she hasn't...responded."
"She's been hurt. She's a little fragile...I get it, I do."
"You just want it to be different?" she asks patiently.
"Yeah, I guess," he mumbles, suddenly aware of what they are talking about.
"Well, you need to figure out if you can live without hearing her say it, or if it's a breaking point for you."
Kevin's face puzzles inadvertently. "She's worth waiting."
"Solves that then," Violet says more than relieved. "Now I'd like to get back to what you said last session, about-"
Kevin runs a few fingers up his own arms, tracing the faint red scratches Addison's nails left while she was busy screaming underneath him. He smiles briefly remembering just how good she is at the making up part. "I was thinking about her," he laments painfully and then shoots out another clarifying, "Addison," when his therapist doesn't follow.
"It's common to think of those who are important to you when faced with trauma," Violet tells him easily. Really is everything always about that damn redhead?
"No, no. I was thinking about Addison when I got shot. That's why I wasn't able to get out of the way in time."
"Oh," Violet whispers. "What were you thinking about?"
"Her brother...just, the stuff he said. I didn't know a few key things about Addison and he felt the need to give me the lay of the very expensive land. I was thinking about how we couldn't possibly work...her insane trust fund and my salary do not go together."
"Why not?" Violet pushes gently.
"She has more than I will ever dream of making in my lifetime...and I feel...useless," he pauses his shoulders mid-shrug and then slouches back against the couch. "Anyway, that's why...it happened."
"And now?"
"Fully recovered," Kevin says proudly almost reaching for his shirt to show her the battle scar before realizing how inappropriate that may be considering she is not one of the guys.
"And Addison?"
"We're good," he says warmly. "Talked and all that. I think we are good."
"Talking fixed your salary?" Violet asks curiously. She knew she should always harbor ill will toward the taller co-worker, or at the very least some sweet jealousy.
"No," he says slowly putting it together, "we can...I need to get over that. It's not like she asked for twenty-five million dollars for her first birthday and someone forked it over. It's...not a big deal."
Violet's mouth gapes, unable to stop the slack from happening. She swallows heavily. She'd pet monkeys for a living with that kind of money. God, she'd never work another day in her life. Addison would be one hell of a case study. "Ok."
"Ok?"
"Yeah, ok. I'll give my approval first thing tomorrow."
"That's it?"
"Yeah," she stands back up, sturdy in the fact that Kevin is completely fine, even with his neurotic plate full.
"No more?"
"You want there to be more?" Violet asks without hesitation. She's got some free time this week and he's not half bad.
"No,"
"Well have a goodnight then Kevin. Go enjoy...and don't lose your focus next time there's bullets flying."
"Will do," he grins at her and jams his hands into his pockets neglecting the one thing that he needs to say.
He blames her, Addison, for his wounds. It's childish and illogical but his heart is kind of stuck on it. If it wasn't for her he'd have a few less pages in his work file, no insurance companies breathing down his throat about what they do and do not cover in hospital stays, and less nagging in the back of his head saying that no matter how much he wants this thing to work out with her it never will. "Night Dr. Turner."
"Violet," she corrects, ushering him out and shutting the door behind her as they make their way to the elevator.
~-~-~-~-~-~
"Kevin?" Addison questions for the fifth time since he's been back at her house.
"Hmm...yeah?" His eyes find hers suddenly, realizing how much he was drifting off.
"You okay?"
"Yes," he lies straight to her face. "The work thing...was a little disturbing. Sorry."
"Oh." Her face softens at the mention of his very important job and she gently turns him around, pressing her agile hands into his shoulders. A low groan escapes his throat twenty seconds later and she giggles lightly. "Do you want to take this upstairs? I give an excellent full body massage."
"Addison-" he starts flipping around to face her.
"I know," she puts her hands in the air in resignation, "you don't live here but I would like you to stay tonight, please?"
"Alright," he agrees, liking her understanding and really looking forward to her warm hands...everywhere. He drags them both up off the couch, catching her drift when she tugs up on his belt loops and begins sucking on his neck. He pushes her backwards toward the stairs, guiding her path, and trying to get over it but unable to stop himself. "I love you."
She gulps, hearing the words that make her lips quiver and knees shake. She attempted to rationalize it but she couldn't and there's this small portion of her that's irrationally angry. He doesn't know her, and the loving thing, it seems anyway, almost patronizing and placating whatever sense of relationship duty he has. "I-"
"I know," he smiles, easing the sudden halt. "Now let's get those fingers to work, shall we?"
She nods, tears trying to escape, damn memories flooding back through her head. "Yeah."
They stumble through the steps up, feet catching sometimes painfully on the hardwood, her back slamming into the banister as soon as they reach the flat landing one fourth of the way up. Slowly they etch a path through her home, each wanting to overlook the little details that will soon be bringing them to their knees once again.
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