Author's Note: First of all, I would like to state how grossly out of date I am on the Grey's front; the season three finale only aired in the UK on Thursday, and I loved the misery. I can't remember the last time in a TV series that pretty much every single character's life was left at such a bleak point. With the real joy of that being, of course, it gives us writers so many places to go with it.
As far as this piece of writing is concerned, as you may know if you've skipped through my profile and had a gander at some of my ER stories, aside from the multi-chapter fics I write, every now and again, M rated one shots (which more often than not run into two or three parters but that's not exactly the point). Well, this is the first one I've done for Addison and Alex, which has grown out of the season three finale, and true to form, it is a one-shot that has mushroomed into a two parter.
Disclaimer: Standard not mine, yadda yadda yadda sort of disclaimer applies.
Rating: M rated, partly for language but mainly for adult content. The adult content doesn't appear until the next chapter but this one still lives up to the M rating on the language front. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Whiskey and Fear
'You don't want me.'
'Maybe I do.'
When he realised Ava – Rebecca, God damn it, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, fucking Rebecca – had gone, it was like an abyss, a deep black chasm, and he was falling head first into it, hurtling downwards, and he hoped like Hell he would be dead before he hit the bottom.
But rolled in there somewhere with the pain, the regret, the loss, there was something else; something that felt like a tiny spark of… relief. Relief that he wasn't going to have to put himself out there, relief that he wasn't going to have to take the risk, relief that he didn't have to try.
And he hated himself for that.
He wandered around the city for hours. Through streets, some that he knew and some that he didn't recognise at all, through parks, took a ride on a ferryboat, just walked and walked and walked. He didn't want to go home; Izzie would be there crying or drinking or baking over George and just now he couldn't cope with another reminder of his failure, how he didn't measure up. Meredith would be with Cristina. Meredith might understand, but Cristina's need was greater than his at the moment; he wouldn't call her tonight. He'd have even made do with drinking Joe's bar dry and a friendly ear there, but Joe was with the new twins.
So somehow, and he really, honestly, didn't know how, he ended up outside her hotel. Then, after a quick and persuasive flirt with the receptionist, he was standing outside her hotel room. He had no idea if he wanted to be there or if it was because he had no place else to go, but after five hours of blank, mindless wandering, he opened his eyes and there he was. He knocked on the door.
'I'll be there in two seconds,' he heard her voice call out from within.
He waited until the door swung open, leaning casually, or maybe in exhaustion, against the doorframe.
'Hey,' he said quietly.
She looked beautiful. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to the wedding, but had kicked off her shoes and unpinned her hair, allowing it to tumble down over her shoulders. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw him standing there.
'Karev, what are you doing here?'
'Not quite the welcome I was hoping her, but no less than I deserve,' he replied wryly.
Addison sighed. It had been a long, heartbreakingly disappointing day. Richard wouldn't make her Chief, the wedding was a disaster, and there was Alex, all the time, like a knife in her side. Painful.
'I meant it, what are you doing here? Where's Ava?'
'Rebecca's gone.' There was a distinctly bitter emphasis on the "Rebecca". 'Can I come in?'
'You're asking to come into my hotel room?' she asked a little incredulously. As if she couldn't quite believe his nerve. Again, utterly deserved.
'Please.'
There was something in his eyes that stopped her from telling him where to go, which was she what she sorely wanted to do. Those chocolate brown depths like pools of velvet looked so anguished, so desperate, so… sad that she couldn't find the strength to turn him away. He had this way that always seemed to end up with him sapping her strength away and bringing out a vulnerable part of her she usually managed to keep firmly locked inside.
She shook her head again, not believing she was letting them start this dance again, and stood aside to let him in.
He sat on the bed and watched in silence as she poured them a whiskey each from the mini bar. The pale blue material of the dress clung to her hips and swayed with them as she walked. Very sexy.
'It's bourbon, not scotch. Sorry,' she said as she handed it to him, careful not to let their fingers brush against each other.
He knocked back the amber liquid in one practised motion, a flick of the wrist that drove the whiskey straight down his throat. 'Bourbon's fine.'
She refilled his glass, a larger slug this time, then sat on the bed beside him. Not too close Addison, she told herself. No need to be a masochist.
'So, why are you here Karev? I meant what I said in the church, I do kind of hate you, and I'm done with your games.' Her tone was harsh, no nonsense, but she couldn't meet his eye as she spoke. Instead, she stared down into her whiskey glass.
'But you let me in anyway,' he stated.
'But I let you in anyway.'
He let out a heavy breath, and when he spoke, Addison was struck by how weary he sounded. 'I'm sorry. I'm not trying to mess you around. I… I was walking, and I ended up here. I guess I didn't have anywhere else to go,' he finished with a shrug.
Addison hated the awkwardness that hung in the air between them. There was no way on earth it could be any different given what had happened (that it wasn't worse at work was a miracle) but it still hurt. Put a hypertensive labouring mother with a foetus in distress between them and they were as one, but this was way beyond them.
'How's Cristina?' she asked, at a loss for something else to say.
'I don't know, Meredith's with her. Not good.'
'Poor girl.'
'Yes.'
The silence echoed oppressively once again, a minute stretching into two, then five. This time it was Alex who reached for the bottle of bourbon to replenish their glasses.
'Look, if you want me to go, just say so. I understand.'
'No, it's all right,' she capitulated, an inkling of warmth finally creeping into her voice. 'Stay. I was in need of a drinking buddy tonight anyway.' Plus I was only a couple of drinks away from calling Mark, and God knows how much I'd regret that in the morning.
'Thanks.' He raised his glass to her and they chinked them against each other cheesily. 'Cheers.'
'Cheers,' Addison laughed.
A couple more whiskies later and they were both beginning to relax. What had started off as a good two feet of bed between them seemed to have melted away to a few inches.
'Talk to me Alex,' she found herself asking him softly. 'What happened? Did you push her away? Like you did me.'
'Yes,' he admitted. 'I was angry at her for being Rebecca, not Ava. I was angry and betrayed that she remembered, so I pushed her away. I know it doesn't make sense.'
'Well, you're right there.'
'Hell, I don't know. It's probably for the best. I told her she was better off with the decent guy.'
'You're a decent guy,' she insisted.
He turned away from her, and took another sip of whiskey. 'You're the only person who's ever seen that in me.'
'Then everyone else is blind. You are one of the good ones, even if you have the propensity to royally screw it up.' Somehow, she still genuinely believed that. Believed in him.
'I'm sorry for what I did to you,' he said suddenly. 'I never meant for things to turn out this way.'
'If that's an apology, I'm not accepting it. I'm a little less angry at you than I was, but I'm still angry at you.'
'Good, I deserve it.'
Addison knew they were circling closer and closer to a minefield she'd really rather they stayed away from, but she wanted to snap him out of this morose, self flagellating mood. Partly, it annoyed her – what right did he have to make himself the victim? – but mostly it was kind of sad. She missed his smile. She sensed he was teetering on the edge of something and she didn't know if it was wise to push him, yet… Tonight, for the first time she'd ever seen, he needed someone, truly needed someone. And he'd come to her.
'You don't get it, do you?' he blurted out suddenly. 'I'm not a decent guy. I screw up. A lot. I screwed up with Izzie, and Ava, and you. I tried to care for you, to help you, but at the end of the day, I was no better than Shepherd or Sloan. I still hurt you. In fact, I was worse than them, because I watched them hurt you and I saw what it did to you, and still I hurt you.'
She stared at him, too stunned to answer.
'I pushed you away to make sure I didn't hurt you anymore,' he explained. 'And I regret it, okay? Don't think for a second I don't. But I had to do it.'
Addison was lost for words. One minute he seemed to be pining for Ava, and then all this was tumbling out. She'd tried so hard in L.A. to convince herself that the whole thing with Alex had been a stupid infatuation, that it didn't matter. It wasn't significant enough to hurt her, that she didn't need him, but hearing him now she realised she had been fooling herself. She did need him. She could live without his twisted idea of protecting her, but she couldn't live without him.
Gently, she reached out and touched his face, just like she had the night at Joe's. 'Alex, oh Alex,' she whispered.
'No,' he snarled, as if the word was torn from his throat. He pushed her hand away from his face and jumped to his feet. 'No Addison,' he repeated, a little more rationally this time. 'If Shepherd and Sloan aren't good enough for you, and believe me, they're not, how could I ever measure up?'
'Alex, you're ten times the man Mark is. On your good days, you'd knock spots off Derek too.'
The sudden flash of his anger had faded as quickly as it flared, and Alex sank back onto the bed, although not as close as before. 'My good days?' he asked.
'The vanilla latte days. The "I'd notice you" days. The days when you've been the only thing that got me through.'
'Oh.'
There was another silence in the air, but it was different this time. Less awkward, more… pregnant.
Then Addison found herself saying, 'Since we seem to be sharing, I… The friend I went to see in California was a fertility expert. I wanted to have a baby, but she did some tests, and told me I couldn't have one.'
This time, it was Alex who reached out to her, to brush away a tear that hung suspended on the soft skin of her cheek. 'Addison, I'm so sorry. I know what being a mother means to you. I'm so, so sorry.'
At the sound of the compassion in his voice, Addison felt a sob rise up in her chest just as his arms encircled her. Slowly, he rocked her back and forth, stroking her hair soothingly, and she realised she had never felt so safe in her life.
'Shh, sh, it's all right.'
'No it isn't Alex,' she sobbed. 'It's not all right. My life's a mess. Richard won't make me Chief. I'm divorced, almost forty, and I can never ever have children. This is not how I thought my life would turn out.'
Alex stopped comforting her and held her away from him for a moment so he could look her in the eye. Every warning bell and alarm system in his head was screaming at him not to say what he was about to, but he couldn't stop himself. She needed to hear it just as much as he needed to say it.
'Well, if it's any consolation, I didn't think that my life would turn out with me falling in love with an almost forty year old divorcee who Richard won't make Chief.'
She stared at him again, her tearstained face so beautiful it almost made him want to cry too.
'What did you just say?' she stuttered.
'I said I'm in love with you.'
'What about Ava?'
'Ava doesn't exist. She's a dream, an ideal, and I never was much of a dreamer.' He carefully wound a tress of her hair behind her ear as he spoke. 'You're real.'
'I…' Addison didn't know what to say. He was being honest this time, she could tell. This was no game. 'You don't want me,' she repeated dumbly from earlier. She needed to hear him again to believe it.
'I do. I don't deserve you, and I'm not what you want, but I am in love with you Addison.'
'What makes you think I don't want you?' she asked. 'It's been me who's been chasing you all along. I kissed you, I pushed you into the call room, I invited you back here to "study". See, me every time.'
'You only think you want me. Or you want who you think I am. I'm not that person Addison. I don't barbeque and I don't teach kids to play catch.'
She heard her own words echoing back at her and wondered how he knew. But then, he'd found out about the bet with Mark too, so she shouldn't be surprised. 'I can't have children. Barbeques and catch are officially off the menu. I just want someone who makes me feel like me again. Alive, strong, capable. Like Addison Forbes Montgomery. And you do that Alex, you make me feel all those things.'
He sighed heavily, and downed the rest of his whiskey. 'Perhaps,' he conceded.
Another long pause. Addison finished her drink also and put her glass down on the floor, resisting the temptation of another; four whiskies, large ones as well, were more than enough for one night, else she'd regret it in the morning. Hangovers got increasingly difficult to shake off with every passing year, so she tried to avoid them nowadays.
'So, what now?' she asked, laying her hand on his thigh.
He only let it rest there a fraction of a second before he removed it, putting it firmly back on the bed. 'Nothing, Addison. I've already told you I can't do this. Relationships aren't my thing, and you deserve a whole lot more.'
'Don't I get a say in this?' She knew she sounded petulant but she couldn't believe he was walking away from this on such a thin argument.
'No.' He stood up. 'I think I'd better go. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here tonight.'
She stood up as well, but didn't follow him to the door. She wouldn't chase after him, she wouldn't. 'But… you're in love with me.'
'Yes, but that doesn't make this a good idea.'
'God damn it, stop trying to protect me Alex,' she shouted at him, finally prodded into anger. 'Stop pretending to be so fucking noble. You're just a coward. You're a fucking coward who's too scared to take a risk.'
Her words were right on the nail, and they both knew it. 'Why do you care Addison? It's not like I'm anything more than a revenge fuck for you anyway,' he fought back, on the defensive now. He was doing the right thing here, she didn't get to be angry. 'Your husband has an intern to screw, so you have to have one too.'
They were standing face to face now, and she sent a stinging slap across his left cheek. 'How dare you?' she hissed through clenched teeth.
There were crystal tears sparkling on her lashes and he knew that he'd gone too far. There was pushing her away, then there was being cruel. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I don't even think that.'
She was standing there in front of him, barefoot on the carpet and looking so completely broken that he knew he wouldn't be going anywhere tonight. He couldn't leave her like this. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, muttering more apologies under his breath into her hair.
'Please don't Alex,' she choked out. 'You don't love someone if you can say things like that to them.' But she didn't move out of his arms.
'I can. I did warn you, I'm not a nice person.' Then, 'Do you want me to go?'
'No.' He had to strain to hear her.
'No?' he asked, surprised.
'No,' she repeated. 'I don't want you to go.'
'Why not?' She was soft and yielding in his arms now, and he could feel her hot tears clinging to his shirt.
'Because,' she paused, and took a deep, wobbly breath, lifting her head away from his chest to gaze up at him. She was a good bit shorter than him without her heels. 'Because I think I might be falling in love with you too.'