oom: room 25, saturday night

[scurlock]

Ever since Katherine had sprinted out of bed on Thursday night, Doc has been sleeping alone, and spending more time upstairs than he usually did.

Katherine was around on Friday - he knew that much because Beaut's been gone from the stables for periods of the day and back at night - but she didn't come upstairs at the end of the day. He left the stables for his staff to attend to on Saturday afternoon, claiming a need to get some paperwork done.

And in all reality, he has gotten a good deal of paperwork done. He spent a few hours going over the stock record and copying things into a fresh ledger, working out how to organize the list, and taking care of numbers and figures for costs and staff salary. Bar could have done it for him, but he doesn't mind the work.

It's late, now. There are sketches of barns and floorplans littering his desk, those small peach seedlings in his windowsill have grown a bit the last few days, thanks to a hint of a nudge they got, showing their familiar sawtooth shaped leaves starting to form. The lamps are turned down low, but he's not sleeping, sitting on his couch in the near-dark with a glass of whiskey sweating on the coffee table.

He's sketching on a notepad, lines and dimensions, occasionally sipping from that glass.

Comments

[scurlock]

He stays quiet awhile himself, before he covers her hand on his chest.

"What're you thinkin' about?"

His fingertips are tracing the delicate bones in her hand.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Nightmares."




She tucks her head away under his chin, returning the earlier favor by pressing her lips down the column of his throat, stopping only when she reaches his collarbone.

[scurlock]

He exhales gently at the contact, tipping his head back slightly.



"They gettin' worse?"

[ikissdhimbck]

"Not gettin' better."

She nips gently at his adam's apple when he tips his head back, before sighing and burrowing her face into his chest, nuzzling up to the warm folds of his white thermal.

She is quiet for a moment, eyes barely open and blinking.

"Know what they tell me?"

[scurlock]

He has a few guesses, but she's talking to him and not about to hamper that progress.

(Plus that nip just sent a shiver down his spine.)


"What do they tell you?"

His hand settles at her waist.

[ikissdhimbck]

"'It's what I was born to be.'"



She laughs quietly.




"...You 'member the last time we sat together, 'fore you went home and got all shot up?"

[scurlock]

He's quiet a moment.


"Call it for luck."


"I remember what you said that woke me up in the infirmary when I got back."

"Some luck."

[ikissdhimbck]

'Some luck.'

She nods carefully.

"You almost died."

You should have died.

"I came back from school. There was this schoolhouse. Abandoned. Needed a teacher. So I left home to look. Told him I'd see him soon."

'You be safe, Katie.'

'I will, daddy. Promise.'

"Kissed him goodbye.




"That was it."

[scurlock]

"Your daddy got shot because someone didn't like that he had the stones to stand up for what was right. Sam got shot because there are some people in this world who don't believe in equality."

He leans in and nuzzles at her face gently.




"I got shot because I chose to go first out that door. Not because you kissed me."

[ikissdhimbck]

"I'm tired," she murmurs, changing the subject.

He doesn't like what she has to say, and she isn't going to argue with him.

She shifts until she's laying with her back to him, curling her body away from his embrace.

[scurlock]

Doc shifts behind her and then wraps an arm around her middle, spooning his body against hers gently.

"I can't change what you think, Kate. And I'm not going to tell you what's right and what's wrong. Only you know that, because it's in your heart."



He presses his lips against her hair.

[ikissdhimbck]

"My heart don't talk to me no more."

That could be the most honest admission she's made, after all this time. Not only to him, or anybody else for that matter, but to herself.

[scurlock]

"Not at all?"


His fingertips seek out her skin, to trace the bones in her arm, wrist, and hand. It's not disbelief, just an honest question.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Quiet as a titmouse."

She shivers under his touch, feeling a prickle along her hairline where sweat is beginning to form.

"I don't feel nothin' inside."

[scurlock]

"Hollow?"

He can see the sweat on her skin in the faint light in the room.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Numb."

She shifts her arm so it's resting on top of his, curled around her middle. She buries her face in the mattress.

"'Cept for.... regret."

[scurlock]

"Numb 'cept for regret," he repeats.

A moment's consideration.

"Ain't nobody suggestin' that's anything than what you should be feelin', right now."

[ikissdhimbck]

"I hurt people."

She squeezes her eyes shut tight.

"When I sleep. When I'm awake. Always."

[scurlock]

"You've never hurt me."

He shakes his head.

"I know you never will. No matter what you're seein' in your dreams."

[ikissdhimbck]

She opens her eyes slowly, and stares at the wall.

[scurlock]

He rises up on his elbow to look down on her face, bracing his weight on his side as he reaches up to wipe the sweat off her forehead.

"You want to take somethin' for the fever or let it try and break on its own?"

[ikissdhimbck]

"Doc?"

[scurlock]

"Yeah?"

[ikissdhimbck]

"No one's ever gonna hurt you 'gain. Ever."

[scurlock]

"I know that."


He does.

She will never hurt him.

"You will never hurt me."