Author's Note: I'm putting up monster chapter 11 and the wee final chapter 12 at pretty much the same time. One final thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. I know it's been angsty and possibly aggravating, and things get messy before they get better, but look at it this way - there's not that much left! Seriously, though, I appreciate everyone's input and am looking forward to hearing what you think at the end.
The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 11
"No," she says when he opens the door, blinking blearily into the porchlight. It's just after two a.m. "I'll say it first, okay? No sex."
"Okay," he says slowly, wrinkling his brow. "Do you ... want to come in?"
"No sex," she repeats, and she sees his eyes skim over the baggy Columbia tee shirt she's not even sure is hers, flannel pajama pants so long they've got sand in the cuffs. Her feet are bare.
"No sex. Got it. Come in, it's cold out there," and he pushes the door wider.
She stands in the middle of his living room with the distinct impression that she's moving unbearably slowly while everything around her is too fast for her her to touch. Very slightly, she sways on her feet.
"I'm so tired."
"I know."
"I can't sleep."
"I know. Addison-"
"I'm not getting into your bed," she interrupts.
"Okay," he says again. "That's okay," and then they're on his couch, side by side, and he's wrapping an afghan around her legs, pressing a glass of water into her hands - which she sets aside, asking for wine instead and being refused.
There are maybe three chaste inches between them on the couch but it might as well be an ocean. Yet she's certain she can feel the heat rising off his thigh where it's barely grazing hers. He's always so warm. She misses that warmth. An involuntary shiver runs through her and he adjusts the blanket, misunderstanding.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks quietly. She shakes her head.
"I'm so tired," she repeats, voice cracking very slightly on the last syllable.
"Close your eyes," he urges.
That's no good, there are images behind her eyes, there are thoughts, there are things she doesn't want to remember.
"I can't."
She reaches blindly for his hand and he grasps it.
"Addison," he says gently and she shakes her head.
"No sex."
"No sex," he repeats, firm as an oath. He sets a throw pillow across his knees, waiting for her slight nod before easing her across the couch until her head rests on the cushion on his lap, legs curled under her on the couch. He resettles the blanket over her. "Just friends."
"Just friends," she whispers.
His hands find her hair, smoothing it down. He runs first one hand and then the other from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck, just as he always has. The comfortingly familiar movements stroke her closer to sleep.
Her eyelids are growing heavy, the cushion plush under her cheek. She can feel one of its buttons pressing against her temple, but her body is warmer now, snail-curled and drifting, and raising her head would be too hard.
"Are you - but you can't sleep like this," she murmurs, realizing he's sitting straight up, he can't be comfortable.
"Shh. Close your eyes." He resumes the gentle, rhythmic stroking of her hair. Slowly, her eyes flutter shut once again, his voice soft above her. "You couldn't pay me to move right now."
ooo
Early light stripes the floorboards, the couch, the paisley pajama pattern on Sam's legs as she opens her eyes, blinking and confused. She's still curled on his couch, but the pillow must have fallen away at some point because her cheek is flush against the warm expanse of his thigh. His breathing, above her, is deep and regular. He's asleep. She pushes against the muscles, struggling to sit up and he starts awake.
"You really slept like this - Sam," she scolds.
"What are friends for?" He wakes quickly, naturally, always has.
"You get some sleep?" he asks, looking closely at her face.
She nods, rubs bleary eyes.
"Good." He glances at the clock on the wall. "It's a good start. You need more than four hours, though - what are you doing?" he asks as she stands up, stretching her stiff muscles, heading for the door.
"I'm going home."
"Addison, wait. Don't." And she stops, her hand curling around the knob. "You don't need to go."
"Sam-"
"We're friends. Right?"
"Sam..."
"Friends don't leave like this. They don't need to. Come and sit down, I'll make you coffee."
The thought of someone making her coffee brings tears to her eyes. Embarrassed, she looks down. It means nothing, of course - her tear ducts have been out of whack since Bizzy's death.
Sam tactfully pretends not to see. "I'll put up the coffee now. Let me just grind fresh-"
"No," she says quickly, trailing him to the kitchen. "Whatever you have is fine."
"It's been sitting-"
"It's fine, Sam."
"Okay." He looks at her curiously, but replaces the cap on the grinder without further discussion. "What will you eat? Eggs? Yogurt?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway, to be polite." He smiles at her, makes her something delicious looking with Greek yogurt and fresh berries and even though she plans to take just a few spoonfuls as etiquette requires, she's scraping the dish clean - Bizzy would be horrified - before she knows it.
"I need to go home. Get ready for work."
"You still have plenty of things here," he points out. "Shower upstairs and I'll drive you in."
"Sam..."
"How many times did we drive in together, before? Friends drive to work," he says resolutely.
But she hasn't been in his shower since before. It smells like him. She lets her hand linger over the soap, the shampoo. Thinks of Naomi in the shower, after, and has to squeeze her eyes shut furiously. But then she remembers the last time she was in Sam's shower, and her heart speeds up. Her eyes burn.
She won't think about it, simple as that. She won't go there.
It was the morning before she left for Connecticut.
The thought rises, unbidden, and she closes her eyes tightly, to try to stop, because she doesn't want to remember. She can't.
What she wants is to not remember.
But the memories rush in anyway, in no particular order, pounding her scalp in time with the hot water.
Why didn't you call me? Now you just smell like Addison. It was an aneurysm.
She claps her hands over her ears to block them out.
I'll come with you. No. Baby, you need to sleep. Hurry then, I don't have all day. You didn't have to do this alone.
It doesn't work.
It was an aneurysm.
The one thing she doesn't want to remember. Everything she's tried not to remember.
It was an aneurysm.
She died in her sleep.
It was an aneurysm.
Her legs give way and she slides down the slick tile wall.
ooo
"Why didn't you call me? I thought you were staying at the hotel." His shoes slapped the linoleum of the hospital hall as he rushed toward her, pulling her into his arms as soon as he reached her. She stood stiffly in his embrace, her own arms hanging at her sides.
"Addison, what happened?"
She'd traveled in the ambulance to the hospital from the hotel, handled the paperwork, dealt with the morgue. Dawn was already starting to break by the time she finished and realized that her car was still at the Carlyle.
That's the only reason she called, she told Sam. She needed a ride. That's all.
"It was an aneurysm," she said woodenly. "She died in her sleep."
"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry."
"It's fine." She pulled away, staring at a spot over Sam's shoulder. "It happens."
"Addison, you should have called. You didn't have to do this alone."
"It's fine."
"Addison-"
"I'm going to Connecticut in the morning. To bring her back."
"But it's morning already. When are you going to sleep? Baby, you need to sleep."
"I just need to get ready."
"I'll come with you," he said. "I'll rearrange my patients."
"No," she said simply, and again when they pulled up to his house. "No. I'm fine, Sam.
"Addison..."
"I smell like hospital," she murmured, standing in his bedroom, cold and hot all at once. He seemed to understand: not a hospital, where she honed her talent and taught her students, but hospital, where people were sick and people hurt and people died.
So he turned on the spigots while she mechanically removed each layer of carefully accessorized clothing. Her hands shook when she unhooked her bra and he helped her, his warmer fingers covering her cold ones.
She stepped into the hot shower, too numb to stop him when he stripped off his own clothes and climbed into the oversized tub after her. He soaped her shoulders, then dug his fingers into the knotted muscles there, painful and soothing all at once. She let him do the same down her back, easing some of the tension in the flesh there. Then he massaged shampoo into her hair. Her shampoo - the bottle she'd begun keeping there for her own use. "Now you just smell like Addison," he whispered as he tilted her head back, rinsing her hair clean.
He turned her around gently, holding her face and trying to look her in the eye; studiously, she avoided his gaze.
"I have to go."
"You haven't slept." He turned the water off, wrapped her in an enormous towel like a child, pulled her against him again, the thick terrycloth absorbing the water from both their bodies. "You need to sleep, baby, isn't that the point of private planes - can't you just leave a few hours later?"
She pulled away. "No. I have to go." She shrugged into her robe. "I need to go get dressed."
"You have clothes here."
"Not the right clothes." She brushed past him.
"Let me drive you to the plane, at least - Addison..." he trailed her downstairs, a towel wrapped around his waist. "I'm driving you. Wait for me."
"Hurry then," she said coolly. "I don't have all day."
Bizzy's note was tucked into her handbag. She wrapped her fingers around it on the plane, and again in the sleek black car that ferried her from the private airport to the estate. The edges of the thick Crane's card were sharp enough to break the skin.
The money is for housekeeping.
No one could deliver absolute heartbreak wrapped in proper etiquette quite like a Montgomery.
Dear Addison - The money is for housekeeping, Bizzy wrote, calmly and politely, in her suicide note, knowing (as she must) that it would be Addison who found her.
I'm Addison Shepherd, Addison said, calmly and politely, introducing herself to the young woman whose world was about to shatter.
How could you let this happen, Addison? the Captain asked, calmly and politely, meeting her at the door to the estate, pressing a gin and tonic into her icy hands. His words hit her so hard she might have fallen over, had there been anyone there to catch her.
ooo
"Addison. Addison!"
It's loud in here, someone is thumping on something made of wood, noisy and hollow. She's curled in on herself, slippery porcelain and warm water gushing everywhere.
A wave flows over her face, making her cough. Maybe it's the ocean. Maybe she's drowning.
But she's such a good swimmer.
Not so far from the buoys, kitten!
Someone is crying.
How could you let this happen, Addison?
"Addison! What's going on? Open up or I'm coming in," the voice warns.
When people ask, tell them I died in my sleep.
She's in pain. She's in it and it is all she knows.
The truth is too embarrassing.
"Addison!" There's a loud noise, a shattering, a shadow above her.
She opens her eyes then and what she sees is mostly tangled strands of wet red hair and what she hears is mostly the choked sounds that tear from her own throat but she can also make out - just barely - a pair of worried dark eyes and a low humming voice.
"What happened? Addison, what happened?"
"It hurts," is all she can gasp.
"What hurts? Did you fall?" And he's crouching beside her, hands and eyes skimming over her with urgent, clinical detachment even though she's naked as the day she was born and this - this - is the Sam she remembers loving.
"No, no, it hurts," and she tries to gesture, but there's no gesture big enough for the pain. He reaches past her to shut the water off but she grabs his wrist. It's warm and alive, his pulse thumping under her fingers.
"I remember," she whispers. "It hurts to remember."
ooo
"Back already?" He kissed her gently, looped an arm around her waist. "I thought you were going to stay at the hotel."
"I offered, but Bizzy wants to have breakfast instead." She delivered the line as casually as she could, but a helpless smile tugged up the corners of her mouth at the thought.
"Have you eaten? I kept a plate warm-" as he reached for the oven door she pulled him back to face her.
"It's awful, Sam, because I know how devastated she is, she's stricken, but - I think we really have a chance. I think we have a chance to build something here." The words tumbled out quickly. "I really do think it's going to be different now."
"Yeah?"
"She hugged me," Addison whispered.
"Bizzy did," Sam repeated doubtfully, pouring her a glass of wine.
"She hugged me. She thanked me. Sam, I think this could be the beginning of something new. Something real, you know? I think she actually forgives me. I do. For Susan."
"That wasn't your-"
She waved a dismissive hand. "But she thought it was. But now maybe she thinks it wasn't. And she wants to have breakfast with me, Sam."
She took a sip from the wineglass Sam pressed into her hand, and a smile stretched across her face. "God, I feel - sort of terrible, being happy, and you know it's not that I'm happy, I'm just - I guess it's that I'm hopeful."
Hope - that's what it was that lit her eyes and lightened her stride.
"I'm hopeful, Sam."
He pulled her into his arms. "Good. Then I'm hopeful too."
She nibbled at the plate of warmed leftovers. Sam made conversation and she answered as best she could, her mind still on the hotel room where the next step awaited her. With most of her plate still untouched, she jumped back to her feet.
"Up again?"
"I'm going back to the Carlyle."
"What?"
"Well, she wants decent coffee, for the morning, but I think maybe she'll want a cup tonight too. And... I'd like to be with her."
"Okay..."
"And why not start over now, right?" She beamed at him. "Cafe Beso is still open, don't you think? In the valley?"
"All the way out there?"
"They have the good coffee. They'll grind it the way she likes it. She's very particular, you know, Sam."
"All right." He nodded, his expression guarded. "You want some company?"
"No. Thanks, but no." She kissed him this time, cupping the side of his strong jaw with one hand. "I'll probably stay over, go straight to work from there in the morning, so - see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Wait-" and he tugged her back into his arms one more time before she reached the door, hugged her quick and strong.
"What's that for?"
"Just - be careful, okay?"
"Sam..."
"Addison."
"This is a good thing, Sam."
"I heard you, Addison, but how long ago was it she was slapping you over Susan's hospital bed, blaming you for-?"
She looked down at her hands, stung. He stopped talking then and touched her cheek gently, feather light, in the same spot her mother had imprinted her palm.
"I'm sorry, baby. I want you to be hopeful, I do. You deserve to be hopeful. I just don't want to see you hurt."
"I won't get hurt, Sam. I mean, the bad part is over. You saw what happened. That was as bad as it could get. And it was bad. Now, though - now things are going to be different. How could she possibly hurt me now?"
ooo
"Let's get you out of there, baby. Come on, let me help you."
She pushes at his hands. "It was my fault. If I'd gotten there earlier... if I hadn't left...if I hadn't bought the coffee..."
"It was not your fault."
"I should have stayed. I never should have left, I should have known. I let this happen. My father was right."
"Your father was - what? I am going to kill him," Sam says through gritted teeth. "I am going to kill him."
He reaches for her again and she pushes him back, wrapping her own arms around her midsection.
He stands, shucks off his pants, yanks his shirt over his head and climbs over the high wall of the oversized tub in boxer briefs and an undershirt. "It's not your fault." Warm water gushes between them. He's soaked in an instant.
"It's not your fault," he says again, slinging a leg over hers to bring them closer.
Then she's in his arms, grasping at anything solid in the slippery tub, she's falling and he's catching her and holding on so tightly that she can feel the pain recede, just a little bit. Just enough that she can almost think again.
She grabs at his soggy undershirt, wanting skin on skin contact and he drags it over his head and tosses it aside with a wet squelch, pulling her back against his chest.
"It was my fault."
"No." He works a hand around her face, tilts it back until she can see his eyes, angry and sad all at once. "Look at me. I need to see your face. It wasn't your fault. It is not. your. fault, Addison."
"She wasn't out to sea," Addison whispers. "She didn't drown. She jumped."
He doesn't say anything now, just holds her close. She keeps talking, the words flowing out of her like water. "She didn't love us, Sam. She didn't love me. A person doesn't love and jump."
"Addison..."
"I wasn't enough for her to stay. I was here and it wasn't enough. She didn't love me. She never loved me." Her hands dig into the muscles of his back, trying to hold on tighter.
"Addison, she-"
"Don't say she loved me. Don't say it, Sam."
"Okay, I won't," he whispers. "I'll just say she missed out. Okay? Whatever she felt or didn't feel, she missed out, because you are ... incredible."
"No."
"You are. The most incredible person I know. You are brilliant and loving and beautiful, a great doctor, a good person, if she couldn't see that it's on her. Not you."
"I've hurt people. I hurt you."
"No," he says firmly. "Stop. Everyone...hurts people they love, sometimes. It's part of life. The good ones, they try to fix it and - that's nothing to do with this."
"Then why?" She pulls back to look at him. "Why did she make me find her like that?" Her voice sounds high and tinny to her own ears. "She knew I was coming back. Why did she trick me?"
He tugs her back into his arms, rocking. "I don't know, baby. I - like you said before, maybe she just wasn't thinking - I don't know. I just know that it wasn't your fault. People make choices and we can't stop them. You couldn't have stopped her, Addison. You couldn't have changed it. None of this is your fault."
He reaches past her to turn the water off and this time she doesn't protest.
She lets him help her out of the tub, wrapping her trembling form in an oversized towel, not bothering with clothes for either one of them. He bundles her under the covers of his bed, the chocolate silk sheets she used to love, and crawls in behind her, spooning his larger, warmer body around hers until she stops shivering, every muscle limp with exhaustion. She clutches his hand at the level of her heart, a whisper in the shape of his name escaping from trembling lips.
"I'm here, I'm right here." His mouth presses the words to her cheek, each syllable heated and moist like a kiss, and then the darkness overcomes her.
ooo
The next time her eyes flutter open, slowly, the warmth of Sam's arms is gone. But when she inhales a deep, shuddering breath, his familiar scent is still there. Taking in her surroundings, the rumpled sheets, she rolls over to see him propped up against the headboard next to her in sweatpants and nothing else, a laptop resting on his knees and a stack of files beside him.
"Hey." He gives her a genuine smile. "You're up."
"I - how long was I sleeping?" she croaks. "What time is it?"
He checks the bedside clock. "One-thirty."
"Oh my god." She sits up. "My patients-"
He lifts a hand, smooths her hair back from her face. "I took care of it. Everything is rescheduled."
"Sam..."
"You needed to sleep."
She did. She did need to sleep. It's the first deep, dreamless sleep she can remember since... but still half tangled in the sheets, she's suddenly aware that she's naked.
"Sam..."
"No sex," he assures her.
"No sex," she repeats. "Thank you, Sam," she whispers then and he smiles at her again, a real smile - not just the mouth, but the eyes too. She can't see her own face, of course, but she thinks she might have returned it.
Then she reaches for his hand, eyes wide open this time, and he laces his fingers through hers.
ooo
"I talked to Sam," she admits to Derek on the phone the next morning, having made arrangements for Meredith to consult with one more specialist in San Diego. Still in her robe on the deck, she pulls a cashmere blanket tighter around her half-bare legs. It's early yet but the sun is already strong, reflecting off the horizon.
"So..." he prompts.
"So I talked to Sam," she repeats, folding and unfolding her sunglasses, nibbling unconsciously on the arm.
"Things are better, then."
"I don't know. Maybe."
"They are. Because I can tell you're chewing on your reading glasses right now, which means-"
"Actually, I don't wear those anymore." She shed them when she moved to Los Angeles - one of many things she left behind - but of course he wouldn't know that.
"Your sunglasses, then."
"I'm not." She slips the tip of the arm out of her mouth.
"You were," he insists. His tone is light, with a strong hint of self-satisfaction; if she knows him, he's coming off a surgery high. Or something else - but the alternative really is none of her business anymore.
"And you shouldn't chew on them," he adds, "because they're always ridiculously expensive, and then you get attached to them, and when they fall overboard when you're sailing Menemsha Pond you have a total flipout and then your very charming boyfriend, who had planned a very romantic proposal, mind you, ends up having to jump into sub-freezing water instead in a snorkel that doesn't even fit with a ring he really can't afford hidden somewhere he really can't - "
"I remember," she interrupts hastily, right on cue. "And, you know, sorry about that."
"Well, you said yes anyway," he says. "So I guess it all worked out."
"Yeah, I guess it did."
"You really did love those sunglasses."
"...almost as much as I loved you," she finishes automatically, because that's her part and it comes next, when he tells this story. The way he's told it a hundred times.
To her surprise, the world doesn't end, either, when she says loved and you and it's Derek on the other line.
It barely even hurts.
It's just rote, now, like when someone says "shave and a haircut" and you're compelled to say "two bits." Like the times she went to mass with the Shepherds and everyone said in turn: Peace be with you. And also with you. One of those phrases you can't leave incomplete.
Almost as much as I loved you.
People always clamored to hear that story. The sailboat, the sunglasses, the ring - they ate it up. Someday your children will just adore hearing this, they would say.
She wonders what story he'll tell the children Meredith gives him, about how he met their mother. How he proposed.
She hopes the phrase "adulterous bitch" stays out of the final version.
"Like I said," and she hates how he always sounds so sure of himself, "things are better now."
Her blackberry buzzes then - the hospital.
"I have to go."
And somehow she knows, with a clarity usually reserved for the OR, that this is the last time they'll speak for a while. That whatever they've been doing is done.
"Goodbye, Derek," she says. "And...thanks."
"Bye, Addie." His tone is just casual enough that she thinks maybe he knows, too.
Peace be with you. And also with you.
She sleeps that night. Deep and dreamless, sprawled across her own bed, balcony windows thrown wide open to the ocean.
ooo
She doesn't call anyone the next night. She buries her phone at the bottom of her purse and lets Amelia take her dancing, some salsa place she heard about God knows where (not, Addison secretly hopes, at a twelve-step meeting). She drinks double-strong margaritas until her mouth burns with salt and they dance, and laugh at their own dancing. She's not on call, no one interrupts her, and she feels almost young, almost good.
"Don't tell me you're single" - someone actually says this, coming up behind her while she's dancing. She says "I won't," and Amelia, who's only had tonic water but might as well be drunk, howls with laughter. And Addison laughs too, because nothing is simple, it's another question with shades of grey and no real answer, but maybe it's all okay as long as she can laugh.
They drive home in Addison's car with the top down, still laughing at everything and nothing, the cool air whipping their sweaty hair wild all the way down the coastal road.
ooo
She wakes up with a tequila-stung mouth and heavy head. Everything is the same, but something is different. Sharper, clearer, even with the alcohol buzz behind her eyes. She rests her flushed forehead against the cool glass of the kitchen window, gazes across the way where Sam is drinking coffee, folded newspaper in hand, pen poised over the crossword puzzle. Every piece of the scene is achingly familiar. He looks up, sees her watching him. She flutters three fingers in a tentative wave and he smiles broadly, lifting his cup in greeting.
"Addie?" Amelia is chopping vegetables for a hangover omelet. Addison turns away from the window. Sam will still be there, if she looks back.
"Here." Amelia passes her ibuprofen and a bottle of water and Addison downs both, watching Amelia work silently until the buzzing in her head lessens. The silvery motions of the knife are soothingly hypnotic. She feels the flash of pain and, before she can swallow it, changes the game and speaks out loud.
"My mother killed herself," she says. "Sam cheated on me. Naomi cheated on me."
Amelia doesn't say anything, just stops chopping vegetables and listens.
"Derek left me," she says finally.
Amelia reaches for her hand.
"A long time ago, I mean. In New York, I - I don't even know why I'm saying this."
Amelia smiles sadly at her. "Air in the sheets, Addie."
"Maybe I'm a magnet," she says. "The people who've hurt me, I - maybe I deserve it."
"Who says you do?"
She doesn't answer.
"Is this about Sam?"
Addison shrugs, pressing her lips together. "It's about everything."
"Well, it's not true. No one deserves pain, Addie. Everyone has it, to some extent, but - you don't deserve it. And anyone who knows you knows that. Okay?"
Sam had said much the same thing a few nights ago.
"Okay," Addison says. "But..." and she trails off. She feels the cool marble of the countertop under her hand, the press of the drawer knob against her hip, solid bamboo floors under her feet. Feels the intense pain of being present.
"It still hurts," she admits after a long moment.
Amelia just holds on to her hand, small fingers strong and warm around hers.
"I know," she says softly. "But it gets better."
ooo
She sees him the next morning as they walk out to their cars in tandem, and after a moment of uncertainty she raises her hands in mock surrender. "No sex," she says.
Sam smiles and it's not awkward, just comfortingly familiar. Steady. "Got it."
"So...can I have a ride to work?"
"You want a ride to work?" he repeats.
"It's silly to drive separately. Bad for the environment."
"The environment."
"We'd just be doing our civic duty," she points out. "To be green."
"Sure. Al Gore would be proud." He opens the passenger side door for her and she pretends not to notice him looking at her legs as she swings them into the car.
As they drive, she studies his hand on the gearshift. In some ways its his hands she misses most of all. His fingers lacing through hers. The hollow of his palm against her cheek. The back of his knuckles brushing gently along her arm.
His hands look the same without her.
Really, they've always looked the same. She can close her eyes behind the shield of her sunglasses and see him in front of her like it was yesterday instead of twenty years ago.
What if you had said yes, when I asked you out in med school?
ooo
"I just, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe get some dinner. Sometime."
It had taken him a while to get the words out, buying her some time. She watched his hands flexing nervously around the door of her study carrell. Just beyond them, animated whispers and the squeaky scratch of highlighters reminded them it was nearly midterm time. His hands looked strong, she remembered. The rest of him was whippet-thin then, still with tufty hair and the glasses Naomi had swiftly encouraged him to replace once they started dating. It would be another two years before he discovered that the gym was a good way to work off the stress of medical school. He would pack on almost thirty pounds of muscle, finally growing into his physique.
"Sam, that's - that's really sweet of you, but I-"
"It's Shepherd, isn't it?"
"No, that's not it." She was pretty sure he liked her: he held her glances a little longer than necessary with those twinkling blue eyes, he laughed at her jokes in lab - even the ones that weren't funny. But it wasn't like he'd asked her out.
"Oh." Sam looked down. "Okay."
"Sam, wait."
He turned around. "Addison, you don't have to explain, okay? I get it, I-"
"You don't get it." She shook her head. "Look, Naomi likes you, all right? She likes you, and she's really great and-"
"Naomi likes me?" His eyes widened, the corners of his mouth curving up as pleased surprise washed over his features. Addison felt a pang of something then - was it disappointment? That was ridiculous, though. She was happy for Naomi, and happy that Sam seemed happy.
"You didn't hear it from me."
"Got it." He grinned. "Got it. Thank you, Addison."
"You're welcome, Sam."
Derek asked her out a week later. She was wearing goggles and a blood-spattered lab coat and had been too busy to wash her hair that day. She'd felt hideous and clumsy, already starting to break out from the stress of approaching midterms, but the way he looked at her when he invited her to dinner - she felt beautiful. In that moment, she was beautiful. She'd smiled, accepted his offer and then closed her eyes, just for a brief second, behind her goggles, to make sure she remembered exactly how he'd looked at her. She thought that one day she'd want to tell this story to someone - that it would be something she wouldn't want to forget.
She never did forget it. As the years passed and he stopped looking at her that way, she remembered it with increasingly painful clarity.
ooo
"What are you thinking about?" Sam's voice interrupts her thoughts.
"Nothing much."
"You looked far away."
"You're driving," she chastises him gently.
He shrugs. "I can just tell."
She nods, pushes at the sunglasses that might cover less than she thought. "I was thinking that ... I guess I couldn't really change anything," she says finally. "Anything that's happened. I wouldn't. Because it would change everything else."
His hand flexes on the gearshift.
"Addison..."
"You asked."
"And you answered."
She touches his hand, just for a second, but she feels the tendons freeze under her fingers. Pulling back, she asks "Sam?"
"Yeah." He's focused on the road again, changing lanes smoothly to let someone faster pass him.
"You said...that you were here," she says softly. "And that I should tell you if I got there too. Does that - is it - is it still a thing?"
He chances her a quick glance, maintaining a steady speed as the cars around him speed up and slow down, brake lights flashing as they weave. He's always been a good freeway driver. "It's still a thing."
"Oh."
"Do you -"
"No, I just - I just wanted to check."
"I'm still here."
She nods. It's pretty much what she thought. Not yet, after all, doesn't mean never.
ooo
They're friends. They're still friends.
Friends are civil at work, sociable across the fence. They don't touch more than necessary, but they share rides sometimes. Other times, they share information.
"Nai's trying to reach you," he says in the sunny practice kitchen, over breakfast. Naomi's been out of work for the last week, helping her daughter get ready to move. Maya's spending the summer before college in New York, settling in with Olivia before classes start.
She doesn't blink. Naomi and Sam are friends too. Small pieces of a larger puzzle, not quite fitted together - she and Naomi have spoken little since their last conversation was interrupted. It's not purposeful, she's told herself. They'll talk again, when there's time.
Her cell phone buzzes later that afternoon. Naomi. This time she answers.
"All-I-want-to-say-is-that-we're-leaving." It comes out all in one rushed breath, before she can digest it. "Maya and Olivia and I. We're leaving for New York. Just, uh - just hear me out. Please."
"Okay."
"I'm selling back my share of the practice, I renewed my New York State credentials. I'm going to work there, maybe teach a little, and help Maya with Olivia, and -"
"You're - you mean you're staying in New York?"
"I need to be there. I need to be with Maya and Olivia. I - there's too little time, Addie. I can't lose any more time with the people I love."
"And you're leaving-"
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," she repeats.
"I've been trying to call you."
"What about...everything here?"
"Most of it's coming with me, Addison."
"Naomi-"
"Fife's already out there. He was in D.C. but he's transferring up to New York and - it's him, Addison. Not Sam. It hasn't been Sam for years and years. We couldn't fight for it, neither of us did-"
"Nai-"
"No, please, let me. One more time, before I go, let me. It was wrong, Addie, what we did, and the things I said, and I know that. Yes, it hurt me, you and Sam being - but I still never meant to hurt you back. I never wanted to hurt you, never, but in some way I guess maybe I needed to do it, I was angry and I was hurt and Sam was there and I needed to see just one more time if I - he gets me, you know, he gets some things no one else can. But that's not love. It's just history. We hurt you and we hate that, because we both love you, Addie, and you have to know that. If you won't let him tell you, I'll tell you. You just have to know that before I go."
We, Addison thinks. It's a hard habit to break, she knows, a dozen years of the first-person-plural. We're sorry. We're on our way. We'll be there at six. We won't be able to make it tonight. We're divorcing. And the last one hits her hard. We're done.
It takes time to remember not to use we. And distance. Sometimes an entire continent doesn't seem like enough. How many casual I love you's had she and Naomi tossed off over the years? It never seems like any one of them will be the last.
"You still there, Addie?"
"Yeah."
"So most of it's coming with me. But you, I - I want to say good-bye. We're leaving in the morning, and we're stopping at Sam's place first. He has the airline carseat. Maya wants to see you and - and, you know, I do too. If that's okay."
ooo
"Sam's back inside." Naomi speaks before Addison can ask. She busies herself with Olivia, adjusting the collar of a miniscule shirt, smoothing her dark curls. "He wanted to give us some time to..." Naomi trails off.
"To say good-bye," she finishes finally, and she holds Olivia out in front of her like an offering. "Say good-bye to Aunt Addie, Liv."
Addison accepts the baby into her arms. She touches one soft cheek with the back of her finger. "When am I going to see you again, little one?" Olivia's lashes are impossibly long, her skin silky. "You won't remember me, I bet."
The baby smiles and Addison kisses her head, breathes in her soft, milky scent one more time and hands her back to Naomi, turning to Maya, who's been leaning against the car, fiddling with her phone.
"Seems like yesterday that was you," Addison tells her goddaughter, studying her pretty, pensive face.
"It's fast, right?" Maya pockets her phone. "I get that now. Because of Olivia. It's already fast with her."
"Too fast," Addison agrees and she pulls Maya to her next, holds this young woman she helped bring into the world.
"Please visit next time you come to New York, Aunt Addison." Maya prepares to load Olivia's empty carseat into the jeep. "Mom says you know all the good places to go. And she says," Maya grins impishly and for a second Addison sees the innocent toddler again, the gap-toothed six-year-old whose brightly-crayoned drawings were framed in her New York office.
"She says you two used to tear it up out there."
Addison smiles in spite of herself. "That was a long time ago."
She kisses Maya's forehead, still as smooth and unfurrowed as a child's.
"Travel safe, Maya. Don't be a stranger."
Then she's alone with Naomi, who is looking right at her, unflinching, and the intensity of her gaze makes Addison ache. There's an ocean between them.
"Take care, Addie," Naomi whispers, and she turns away.
"Wait!" she calls: a reflex, the pull and sudden snap of a cord.
Naomi stops, frozen, only half turns back, hope and resignation mingling on her face.
"Sam was right," Addison blurts, seeing Naomi's eyes widen slightly at the mention of his name. "Back when - he was right, okay? It wouldn't have hurt so much if I didn't care. I do care. I still do. I wish I didn't, I wanted to stop, but I can't stop caring about you. It's been too long, and too much, and that's just how it is."
She studies her feet, raw and a little embarrasssed.
"I care too," Naomi says and then she's closing the distance between them. "So much, Addie. And I'm so sorry I hurt-"
"Stop." Addison holds up her hand, smiles when Olivia grasps one of her fingers in a chunky fist. "No more apologies. I'm sorry too, but - I can't go backwards anymore."
"What do we do, then?"
"We move forward," Addison says. "We try. We keep caring, and we try to move forward."
Olivia releases Addison's finger then and grabs a lock of red hair instead, pulling it toward her mouth. Addison leans closer to relieve the pressure on her scalp. With Naomi inches away, she can't hide anymore and they embrace, Olivia's little body warm between them. Something stirs in Addison, makes her raise her eyes slightly and she sees Sam in the front window, lips curving into a smile. Slowly, carefully, she smiles back, then lowers her head once more into Naomi's embrace.
They won't ever have what they had before. But maybe, with the cushion of a country between them, they can start to build something else with what's left.
"New York won't be the same without you," Naomi says finally, her words partially muffled by Addison's shoulder.
"Nothing's the same anymore," Addison steps back, releasing Naomi from her arms. Releasing the hurt, the lingering anger. "But...I think that's okay."
Addison sits on the grass, hugging her bare knees, and watches them drive away until she can no longer see the car.
ooo
Then she knocks on Sam's door. "Hey," is all she says when he opens it.
"Hey," he responds.
"I'm, uh," she gestures to her own house. "I need to get my things together and then head in."
He nods. "Me too."
She lets her eyes drift to the empty spot where Naomi's car had been. "She really left."
"Yeah."
"This doesn't change anything," Addison offers, although she realizes it's not quite true - everything changes everything else, pushing them forward toward whatever's waiting.
"I know," he says and she can tell that he understands. "Do you, uh, you want some coffee?"
"Yeah," she nods. "I do. Thanks."
When she comes back to his door, dressed for the day ahead, sunglasses atop her head like a crown, he hands her a heavenly-smelling metallic travel mug and she takes a welcome sip. It's exactly the way she likes it.
"Want a ride?" she asks, lowering her sunglasses, car keys jingling in her hands.
He smiles at her, warm and genuine. The way his eyes light up, he could be ten years younger. Twenty, even. "I do," he says.
Author's Note: Just a note to say that I drafted this bit "She stands in the middle of his living room with the distinct impression that she's moving unbearably slowly while everything around her is too fast for her her to touch" about a month ago, before the finale aired. It's hardly an original thought whether in print or on screen (Scrubs made gorgeous use of this in the pilot when the interns have their first night on call), but I was tickled that ShondaCo applied it to Addison in much the same way. Little last piece to follow ASAP. Please let me know what you thought, whether you made it to the beach this weekend, etc. Thank you!