miles (to go) from where you are

summary: Everything changes the moment that Violet reaches for him and calls herself his mother — and there's nothing you can do about it, except stand on the sidelines and watch. Addison/Pete/Violet (& Lucas) AU from "Second Choices" onward

A/N: 3 parts, kind of AU in the sense that there's no courtroom drama. Also, some dialogue taken from season 3 episodes (Love Bites, Eyes Wide Open, Second Choices)

"…My life is working."

(It's the little lies we tell ourselves, sometimes, that push us to keep on going when everything else is telling us to stop.)

And for a while — before Amelia Shepherd came breezing back into your life, bringing along with her the ghosts of family's past and over a decade's worth of history and baggage from a life you thought you'd left behind— this was the lie that worked: that you were in a better place, that somehow all the dysfunction from your life before had simply…faded away. For a short while, you thought that you actually managed to successfully convince yourself that this wasn't just a possibility, but an absolute truth.

My life is working.

It's easy to say the words when you're not really thinking about whether or not you actually mean them.

It's different, though, when you're trying to convince someone other than yourself that your life is working this way, and that everything is going so well that to anyone on the outside looking in, it would seem as if this is how you'd always planned for it to be. Because you are Addison Montgomery and you have always been at your best when putting on an air of pretense; it's the one of the few things you can be grateful towards your mother for teaching you early on. How to Put On A Proper Facade And Fool the World 101.

My life is working. The words fall from your lips with practiced ease, a skillful conviction that you've learned to properly convey over the years, regardless of whether or not you believed it completely. (It's the same kind of certainty that you've used in the past to calm the nerves of an anxious new mother; to alleviate the devastation left behind when a baby can't be saved or when their life is forever altered by an unlucky roll of the genetic dice.)

And though it may not be the whole truth, your life is working, in a way. Not to mention, things could certainly be worse.

(Naturally, of course, Amelia doesn't hesitate to remind you of a time when things certainly were worse.)

"…Addison. This is me you're talking to." Amelia smirks, her lips quirking upward in that annoyingly knowing way of hers as she needles and cajoles and digs, forever and always falling into the role of the pestering baby sister. "I caught you with my brother's best friend and I kept your secret; you can talk to me. …You used to trust me."

It's not about trust, or a lack of it but then, again, you aren't quite sure how to explain what your mindset is at the moment.

You take a long, slow sip of wine before carefully responding. "I…chose Pete. I choose Pete. He's great - we're great and…" You allow a small smile that's a mixture of sadness, longing, and acceptance to cross your lips. "I can't have kids, but Pete... Pete has Lucas, so that's sort of this amazing icing on the cake—" You pause, swirling the drink in your wineglass a little to give it some air, allowing your mind to drift to the moment that you and Pete decided to get together, to try - and, before that, to the mournful way he'd looked at Violet. "Well, at least, I mean, it would be, except for the fact that Pete's kind of still in love with Lucas' mother, which is expected, I guess, but it's…" you quietly trail off, completely and utterly unsure if there's even a point to trying to struggle through finding a proper way to end that sentence.

There isn't, you realize. Not really. You shake your head but no words come to mind, so instead you settle on a phrase that has become your own personal philosophy over the last four years. "It's complicated."

You sigh, tipping your head back and letting the wine hit the back of your throat, the faintly fruity scent filling your nostrils.

Amelia leans back in her seat with a smirk. "…Yeah, well, what isn't?" she muses, before pouring you another drink.

You're standing in the middle of Pete's kitchen, with his arms wrapped around your waist while he tries to reassure you that all of your doubts and fears about a past that feels like it is still very much a part of the present shouldn't matter. That it doesn't matter.

(Except for all the moments when it does.)

"…and Amelia thinks I'm settling," you continue ranting. "I'm not settling. I mean, I don't settle."

Pete blinks slowly, then, seemingly taken aback by either what you're saying or how you're saying it, but at least he finally seems to notice your state of irritation. He takes a step away and you are grateful for the distance. "…You're mad," he says, though his tone makes it sound more like a question than an observation.

"Yes, I am," you admit, your tone sharper than you intended it to be, but you don't apologize and you're not sorry. "I'm mad."

It's been bothering you for weeks now, but you haven't been able to figure out how to put it into words, exactly - although mostly you've just been wondering if you even have the right to bring it up at all. And by the time Amelia showed up and turned your whole line of thinking about this thing with Pete - and how it's "working" - on its head, you have already managed to halfway convince yourself that it's not your place, anyway.

And maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but what worries you more is that you can already feel yourself becoming attached to this, ingratiating yourself into his life - and that's a problem. That is the problem. You look forward to the evenings now: with him cooking dinner, and you, spending time with his son.

(But the worst thing is that you're not sure if it's Pete specifically that you're attached to or if it's the feeling of family and the potential "second chance" that he represents.)

"What is it? …Addison-"

"…You called me Violet," is blurted out, with no finesse, before you can obsess about it any longer.

But it's out, finally, and now you both have to deal with it.

"I - What?"

"You said "I love you, Violet." To me; you said it to me."

"What? When?"

The fact that he doesn't remember, doesn't even have a clue makes you feel embarrassed, almost, for allowing this to eat at you and for even bringing it up now, several weeks of private brooding later. "I…It was when you were sick and you had a fever - and it shouldn't upset me, I know…but, you know what? I'm here - babysitting and playing peek-a-boo with your kid and you said, "I love you…Violet"."

Pete's face goes through a gamut of emotions: confusion, fear, astonishment, uncertainty. He shakes his head, arms crossed over his chest as he seems to work out a response in his mind. "That - that was six weeks ago. You've been carrying this around for six weeks?"

You want to tell him that it doesn't matter how long ago it was or how much NyQuil he'd ingested the night he said it - he said it, you heard it and ever since then it's been yet another specter of the past hanging over your heads.

("…the Addison Montgomery I know would go through fire for a patient she wouldn't whine about the risks. What is it— you're settling in your personal life so now you're willing to settle for your patients, too?"

"I'm not settling, Amelia—"

"You have feelings for someone else, Pete has feelings for his kid's mom… You say it's great, but you don't seem great.")

"…Look, I am trying, okay? I am trying here, Pete, and I just...I just need to know if you don't want to do this and then I won't get too attached." (Except, you're starting to think, it's probably a little too late for that.)

He grabs your arms, gently, to keep you from leaving the room – because "I will always love Violet" will never be an incentive for you to stay - but you relax and he lets go once "I've moved on" reaches your ears and you realize that he's the one who said the words. You try to hold on to that because it's what you want to believe, what you need to believe - but, of course, that would make everything too simple and too easy, too good to be true.

(And if there's anything you've learned in the past couple of years, it's that it's never too late for the other shoe to drop.)

"I'm not sitting around, waiting for Violet to come back," he insists. "I've moved on and I am happy that I've moved on, with you."

"Yeah?"

He nods, sliding his hands down your arms until they're resting on your waist and it feels too comforting to resist. "Yes."

This is the moment where he says "I love you" and tries to mean it.

When he says the words, they're tinged with the possibility of hope but still contradicted by fear – although, of what, you're not exactly sure. But still, you know that there's a promise in there, somewhere; the kind of promise that he wants to mean, declarations that he wants with everything within him to be true— because that won't turn everything he's said about moving on (with you) into a lie.

Because you both need that to be the kind of truth that sticks, and believing him would certainly be easy, but you can't forget the Pete that you met when you first moved here, the one Sam deemed it important enough to warn you against, the one who broke the hearts of four employees so badly the only way out they saw was to quit. But you're stronger than that (and leaving Seattle doesn't count because that was never home to begin with).

You want to accept what Pete is telling you. You want to give into the potential of what could be, because the reality of the what is, is actually a little disheartening and more than a little depressing. (But you can't accept it, not really, and he can't, either, because I think I'm in love with Sam and I'm still in love with Violet are not the kind of things you can will yourself to just forget overnight, no matter how much easier your life would be if you did.)

This is the part where you say "I love you" and hope that you mean it.

It feels like you do, or like you could, at least - and, God, it would make this situation even just a tiny bit less complicated. But it's not an easy commitment to make, not when the (slightly drunken) conversation you had with Pete the night you both decided to try to make a go of it has always been there, it seems, at the back of your mind; always the reminder that when it comes down to harsh truths, neither of you are each other's first choice.

("Do you think we're ever gonna…not be in love with other people?" you asked him. He was trailing the tips of his fingers up and down your bare arm, but he wasn't looking at you and, at the time, you couldn't help but wonder if he was thinking of Violet.

He probably was.

"I don't know." He sounded so lonely, then; so lonely and confused and broken that it was like listening to your inner emotions reflected outward. It didn't really cross your mind that thinking of this - the two of you being in love with other people that you can't have - as a "connection" is more screwed up than you realize. "But maybe…this is okay. Maybe this is better. Love hurts, but this doesn't hurt. This feels like-"

"Happiness?"

"…Something like that.")

There was something about the look in Pete's eyes in that moment that made your chest ache with loneliness the moment you realized it's been there for a long time; he wasn't just alone, he was lonely. You know from experience that it is one of the worst feelings in the world to have to deal with when you were in love with someone, where all you wanted was them and they could be lying in bed right next to you or passing you in the halls of your own home and yet still feel like a complete stranger.

You ignore the fact that in the middle of the night, when he's not awake enough to put up his defenses, Pete's hands reach for someone who's nothing like you and his lips murmur a name that isn't yours. It's easy to accept his reason for saying another woman's name in his sleep because denying it means not having to deal with reality, at least for a moment.

With eyes closed, this thing with Pete has the potential of being almost everything you ever wanted. But eyes open and you can' ignore the fact that something - you can't quite put your finger on what - is missing.

It's hard to miss the similarities between the way your life is now and how it was three years ago - when you were trying to be the kind of person who was perfectly okay with living in a trailer that was the size of your old walk-in closet back in New York, in the middle of the damp woods of Seattle, eating trout and salmon for three meals a day and walking your husband's ex-mistress' dog. Because you thought that eleven years was worth fighting for and if you fought and worked hard enough, you would eventually get what you wanted - it's the way your life has always been, the way things have always worked for Addison Forbes Montgomery (dropping the "Shepherd" was much harder than you thought it would be).

You're not in Seattle anymore, but some days - though it's mostly the nights that get you - it's hard to ignore the lingering feeling that maybe things haven't changed that much and you are haunted by ghosts of a life you've already lived: the man you (want to) love, the man you're building something with, is in love with someone else.

You justify it with yourself that this isn't settling (Amelia) this is what adults do.

"You seem sad, Addison. And, honestly, you should be." It's a statement that's stuck with you from the moment Amelia came back into your life, no matter how much you wish you could forget it or brush it off as Amelia being Amelia. Denial has always been your method of coping in the past, though you always manage to forget how quickly the clock runs out on how long that actually works.

But you smile, echoing a sentiment you're not entirely sure of, because at the moment, this is all he really has to offer.

It's easier to accept his words and ignore his actions. ("Words and deeds," is something your father used to always say, always emphasizing the importance of the difference between the two, and as you grew older, you learned to hate him for his hypocrisy.) But mostly because accepting it means that you get to have this: holding his son close to your chest, his head tucked underneath your chin and his chubby little fingers toying with the ends of your hair as he babbles incoherently, a noise you now equate to the most beautiful concerto you've ever heard. Eyes closed, you breathe in deeply, inhaling his innocent and sweet baby smell.

Pete presses a kiss to the side of your head and you smile because it's easy, or it feels like it could be. It feels natural enough, easy enough, simple enough that you know you would do anything to hold onto this moment.

The doorbell rings. Pete goes to answer it while Lucas giggles as you bounce him up and down on your hip. You stop, the smile on your face faltering once you look up.

Pete's entire demeanor changes once he opens the door. His back is rigid and ramrod straight and he doesn't say anything for what feels like several minutes. Before you even step forward to see who it is, you feel as if you already know; even the air in the room has changed, thickened, somehow, and your chest is tightening while your stomach feels heavy, with a sense of dread.

Suddenly, you hear Pete speak in a tone you've never heard him use before, his voice hushed and filled with the kind of longing that turns your stomach upside down.

He utters "Violet..." in a way that unsettles you. (Because you still remember the way he relaxed against you in his sleep when he thought you were someone else.) Pete sounds like a drowning man who has finally managed to break the surface of the rocky ocean that was going to be the death of him, a sigh of relief at being able to just breathe.

There is a difference, you realize, between assuming the way that something is going to happen, maybe, sometime in the future, and being forced to confront it in the actual moment that it's happening - in the present, in the here and now. Not in the hypothetical. And you come face to face with that difference the moment that you hear Pete, his breath caught in the back of his throat as he says Violet's name almost wistfully, in a way, and the moment is so intimate that you almost feel like you're the one who's intruding, even though Violet's been MIA for months and you've finally let yourself bring a few items over to Pete's when you stay the night. But it's as if you might as well not even be standing there at all.

You want to hold onto what was said not twenty minutes ago: "I'm not waiting around for Violet to come home…" But that was a moment where, as far as either of you knew, Violet reappearing wasn't an option. Twenty minutes ago was a hypothetical; now is the moment that is real. (And Pete puts up a good front, but you know better than almost anyone that the opposite of love is not hate, never hate, but an indifference so cold that not even an affair could elicit a response.)

He's drinking her in, it seems, and you want to be angry, to hate him for that, but you're certain that he doesn't even realize what he's doing. Besides, this - your relationship, playing an adult and yet, somehow, still idealized version of 'house' - has always been more about distractions and comfort and practicality than love, no matter how many times you lie awake in bed next to him and tell yourself otherwise.

Violet laughs, a nervous chuckle that's self-deprecating. Endearing. (Almost.) "…Guess I should've called first."

"No! No, it's fine." He's quick to open the door, too quick, maybe, and you know he has a right to hear her out, but you don't want him to appear nearly so eager. Pete pulls the front door open wide enough so that she can step into the foyer. She's standing kind of in between you and Pete, which is ironically fitting, you think.

"So I guess that you and Addison are…I'm sorry, I didn't even— Addison, hello."

"…Hi," is all that you can manage at the moment.

"He's gotten so—he's so big." Her voice is filled with awe. While her eyes are wide and shining with unshed tears, they never once stray from looking at Lucas, who eyes her with a tentative curiosity from the comfort of your arms.

As you see her standing there, you realize in that moment what's been missing from her eyes all of these months since Lucas was born that she's been here physically but never present - it's openness. Violet seems to be open now in a way that she wasn't and couldn't be before. You think you would feel happier for her if this didn't mean that your fantasy has ended and it's time to wake up now. If it meant that you can have just a moment longer of holding the little boy in your arms.

Pete is the one who ushers her inside, a gentle hand of reassurance pressed against her back. "Violet." And there it is again, that tone he seems to have reserved especially for her.

"I'm crying, I know, I'm crying. But look at him—he's like fifteen."

"He is not fifteen," he counters.

"No, he's fifteen and I haven't been there. I was in the crazy and then I was in Costa Rica and then New York—"

"You were in New York?"

"And then I got out of the crazy and came back here and now I'm just a stranger to him and you and Addison are—"

"…It's okay, Violet."

"No, it's not. I'm his mother. I am his mother and I haven't - I'm so sorry that I couldn't - I am so, so sorry."

This is it. This is the moment you've been holding your breath for; it's part of the reason why you were so hesitant to get close to Pete and Lucas. This is the moment you knew, that when it happened, would change everything. You can feel it happening, now.

It's the moment when they - Pete, Lucas, and Violet (not you) - start to become a family, and not just three people divided by distance and connected only by DNA.

You bite down hard on your bottom lip, enough to taste a hint of blood. It wasn't Violet's intention, you know, but hearing those three words ("I'm his mother") out loud cut deep.

Even though you've known, you've always known, that he isn't yours - can't be yours - and never will be.

"Would you like to hold him?" Everything changes when Violet reaches for him and calls herself his mother — and there's nothing you can do about it, except stand on the sidelines and watch. But it's not really your choice. (It never truly was, was it?)

"…Can I?"

It's instinctive, almost, the desire to say "no", the need to hold him closer, to wrap your arms around his tiny body and consume yourself with his sweet baby scent that has the power to ease your worst nightmares. You don't understand it, really, can't explain it but it's a scent that always feels like home and you can't just let go of that - not yet, anyway. You're not ready; you need more time. Another day, another hour, another minute and you would be ready for this. You count to three before handing Lucas over into Violet's waiting arms.

Nervousness flutters your insides as you wait to see his reaction to the woman who gave him life but, in his not-quite-one-year-old mind, is a virtual stranger.

"That's your mom," Pete assures him and Lucas seems content, settled in between the two of them. "That's your mommy."

(…Or maybe it's just fear.)