oom: upstairs, room 25

[scurlock]

He's lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, and she's moving around the room, trying to be as quiet as possible. It's not like it's hard for her to walk softly, and with long nights of a young son waking up them up every few hours, they've been trading who actually gets out of bed. Eighty percent of the time, it's her (as he's not really able to feed their boy, and she protests when he wakes up with her) but this time he's awake too.

She knows it, which is why she gives him a look when he cracks his eyes open and shifts on the bed.

"Doc."

"Mm?"

"Go back to sleep."

He sighs and props himself up on an elbow. "Bed's cold 'cause you ain't in it. How'm I supposed t'sleep," he teases gently, giving her a look right back. "If I ain't got you?"

"You have work."

"I always have work," he reminds her, as he slides out of bed and then pads slowly across the floor to where she's standing with Jonathan William Scurlock snuggled close to her chest, small hand brushing over the boy's thin, hair. "And I always get out of bed on time."

"Not without protest," she smiles at him and then rests her head against his shoulder, regardless.

"Mm, true," he admits, pressing his lips against her hair, his arm sliding around her shoulder. "But I happen t'enjoy stayin' in bed with you as long as I can." A small smirk curls at his lips. "Especially on Saturday..."

"Doc," she scolds him, lightly, her voice a bit shy.

He just chuckles under his breath and shakes his head. "M'sorry," he whispers, trailing his fingers over her shoulder. "But it's true."

"I know," she agrees, as she snuggles a little closer to his chest as their son seems to fall asleep again, finished with his meal. "Will you take him?"

"Course."

He holds their son in his arms as he slowly walks across the apartment (it's so small it doesn't take more than a dozen steps to stand by the window to the fire escape) and then back again, waiting to be certain that the boy is actually asleep before he tucks him into his bed. If they can call one of the dresser drawers (the low one, there's no room for a cot so a drawer lined with blankets has to do in an apartment that small) a bed.

It works just fine.

By the time he's done with that, she's already crawled back into bed and is sitting there, waiting for him to join her. The bed is pushed up against the wall, and he carefully climbs over her legs to get to the far side.

(When they found the place to put the bed, he made sure it was against the wall, and sleeps with his back to it out of habit, because that means he can see the whole room and nobody can sneak up behind him.)

"Thank you."

He's pulling up the sheets as she curls into his chest. "For what, darlin'?"

Yen sighs and presses her forehead against the crook of his neck. "For helping," she explains. "Sometimes, the women talk at the laundry, of always being tired because their men do nothing but sleep and work." She presses a gentle, timid kiss against his skin. "For making me necessary."

"Yen," Doc starts, not quite sure what to say. What does someone say to something like that? He shifts onto his side and pulls her closer to him, breathing in the scent of her hair and her skin. "I..."

She's quiet, and he glances past her shoulder as he presses a kiss against her skin, his beard scraping gently against her skin. There's not much noise in the apartment, save for the gentle, quiet breathing of the city outside the window that's still cracked open ever so slightly.

"I love you."

His lips graze her skin again and he hears her exhale quietly, and it's not long before her lips are brushing across his neck and finding his in a kiss a moment later. He knows how strange this is for her, which is why he takes it slow. Easy touches with steady hands against her skin, his lips never crushing hard against hers, always soft, never hesitant.

She's his china doll.

He doesn't ask about Murphy (he doesn't want to know) and she doesn't tell him. It's not important. What's important is the way her hands trail down along his sides, fingertips tracing the scars on his shoulder, the way his body moves against hers and the way he holds her close.

She's safe, here.

His hair falls down into the space between their eyes and he closes his, not saying a word, not needing to, as she presses against him, closer, because she needs him, and he needs her, and in that tiny apartment in the middle of the night, in the midst of the city living and breathing around them none of the noise matters.

When the young master stirs a few hours later, it's Doc who slides out of bed, bare feet against the well worn rug that covers wooden boards. It's almost dawn and he needs to start getting ready, but he gathers his son up in his arms and moves to sit in the chair beside the window, nothing more than a blanket wrapped around his waist.

He runs his thumb over Jonathan's bare skin and smiles at the way it feels under his touch, pale like porcelain, like his wife's. He glances over at the way she looks, dark hair framing her face against the pillow, and then glances back at the boy in his arms and smiles a bit wider.

His son. His son.



Doc half-wakes from the dream without a sound and opens his eyes slowly, the smile still etched across his features, fingertips reaching to the bed beside him to find cool sheets and nothing there except the journal he had been writing in earlier. Words upon a page, and he sighs, quietly, before he rolls into the center of the bed and draws the other pillow into his arms, resting his face against it as his eyes slide shut.

You went to work that morning and never came home.