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

[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."

[ikissdhimbck]

"No--"

She turns until she's on her back, blue eyes staring up at him oh-so-seriously.

She reaches a hand out and gently caresses his face.

"I mean anybody. Nobody. I don't want to see you hurt--"

Her voice goes a bit tight.

"Ever."

[scurlock]

"I know."

He swallows, hard.

"Because I got you at my side, Darlin'. There ain't nobody else I'd want watchin' my back. I trust you."

He's looking down into her eyes, those same brilliant blues with that spark that he saw all those years ago (but it wasn't really that long ago, for him) and he knows he can trust her.

"We're in this together. Nobody's gonna hurt you, either."

[ikissdhimbck]

She is looking up into his eyes, those gray-green orbs that shift and sparkle with emotion like whitecaps on a choppy sea, and she thinks back to that boy all them years ago. The one that rode off for Denver. For land.

'Calamity Jane has a hat. You should have one too, darlin'.'

She lifts her head up off the pillow, threading her hand around the back of his neck, and kisses him.

"You'd tell me, right? If you ever needed help... if there was ever... you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

The words are hissed against his mouth, because she can't bear the thought of pulling away.

[scurlock]

The fingers of his free hand slide into her hair, keeping her close, because he doesn't want her to pull away from him, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone.

"If I ever need help, I will tell you. I swear it."




Doc nods slightly, then leans in to seal that promise with a deep, solid kiss.

[ikissdhimbck]

She is crying a little now -- mostly because the fever is making everything in her brain hot, and the exhaustion doesn't help. But there is relief in there, too.

"Good."

She presses her mouth to his again.

"Good. I-I couldn't bear it... if..."

You're not going to die because of me.

In lieu of finishing her statement, she just continues to kiss him.