scurlock | oom: room 25, for katherine

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oom: room 25, for katherine

Doc leads the way into his room, holding the door for Katherine as she steps inside. He's still just buzzed enough from the liquor (though the food's helped him a lot) to be relaxed, but he knows that Katherine knows that he just wants to talk and hang out.

"You mind if I change, real quick, get outta this shirt?"

He inclines his head to the bathroom while he says it. Obviously she can go find a spot to claim on the couch and doesn't have to leave the room.

There are some new books on the desk, and a photo propped up against one, of Doc standing over an incubator, looking at a tiny baby that happens to be holding onto his finger. Guppy gave him a copy. There are also several brightly colored squares of paper in a pile.

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Doc wraps his arm around her, shifting to unfold it from under his head to pull her close, his hand trailing over the still damn strands of her blonde hair as he presses his lips against the top of her head again.

"For awhile, I wasn't sure if I was gonna. But I knew that I had one shot and I wanted t'get back to you. I'm glad I made it back too."

She simply clings to him, getting her emotions under control bit by bit. It takes a while of holding her breath and squeezing her eyes shut to fight back the tears, but eventually they subside.

"So they snuck out while you drew the fire?" she asks, voice still a bit strained.

"All of 'em 'cept Billy. They caught him 'cause he was the last one out, they had him pinned down and he couldn't run. I'd gone down by then."

Doc moves his hand to her back, rubbing slow, even strokes along her spine to soothe her a bit.

Her body tenses just slightly with his words, trembling as the soothing motion of his hand relaxes her too-tight muscles.

She lets out a sharp, awed breath, almost laughing she can't hardly believe this man.

"You're really som'thin' else," she marvels, tipping her head to place tentative, grateful kisses along his collarbone.

"Thank you."

A pause, as he bites his lip, to hide his grin, as he looks at her.

"I think?"

He's only joking. He knows it's a compliment.

It is a compliment, but she still manages a teasing, watery smile.

"Wouldn't be so quick to assume I meant it as a good thing," she nips, resting her chin against his chest. "It was a damn foolish thing, goin' back out there by yourself, even with the vest. Coulda hit you anywheres else, and that would've been all she wrote. Yer lucky you didn't die!"

And then she shifts up his body, pressing her lips to his in a tender, lingering kiss.

"I'm lucky you didn't die," she murmurs, brow creased.

"My half-witted little hero."

"I am lucky I didn't die. I could've."

If he'd been shot in the neck or in the head, he would have been nothing more than a body in the dust...

Doc threads one of his hands up into her hair, thumb brushing over her temple as he pulls her back in for another kiss, but he murmurs something first.

"Your half-witted little hero. Nobody else's I'd rather be."

'Nobody else's I'd rather be.'

She closes her eyes and sighs softly against his lips, lingering.

'I took a deep breath...thought of you, and Will, and Jack...I said I was sorry an' then I ran out there into all of it.'

Her fingers thread up into his hair.

'I knew that I had one shot and I wanted t'get back to you.'

When she finally pulls back, she regards him through her lashes, eyes dark and curious.

"You really tell Will you wanted to run off with me?" she whispers.

"Yeah."

Doc nods, the motion ever so slight but it's there.

"Yeah, I did."

She is still for a moment longer, keeping her eyes on his.

She kisses him one more time, but this time she keeps her eyes open as she does so.

"Chicago," she murmurs, index finger tracing his profile, from his forehead to his chin, past his ear, down his jaw...

"I've always wanted to see Chicago."

Doc smirks a little at the touch along his jawline.

"S'cold in Chicago..."

His arm wraps around her, pulling her closer to him, her body pressed against his, blankets loosely draped over them.

"...but I know how to git there."

She chuckles, dipping her head to nuzzle his ear.

"S'cold here," she points out.

Pause.

"But there are ways of keepin' warm."

"There are...ways..."

He shudders a little at the breath and her voice in his ear, a chill running down his spine.

"Ways of keepin' warm, yeah, there are ways. I know a lot of ways."

"Do you, now?" she murmurs, fingers still shifting slowly through his hair. "Well, there y'have it, then."

"We could go to Chicago. We could go anywhere. I got the money an' could get you a horse in Liberty easy enough...could see Chicago...anywhere y'want to go."

He's serious about that.

She pulls back slowly, resting on the mattress next to his body, pillow pushed up past both of their heads. She keeps one arm around him as she settles, face still turned towards his.

"I'd go anywhere," she whispers, blue eyes bright. "Anywhere you were. Just... long as I could keep checking in back home. Make sure the children get on all right."

She goes quiet, a far-off look in her eyes.

"I miss them. So much. I miss turnin' pages and smelling like chalk by the end of the day."

She has noticed, too, the way her English has declined a bit, in the presence of all these outlaws here in Milliways.

"I know you do. I miss my boys, too."

There is a bundle of folded papers in his desk, tucked away safe, with careful handwriting in neat rows and lines. Letters and penmanship, progress in the months he was gone.

Doc reaches up to brush a bit of her hair back behind her ear.

"I don't know if I could ever ask you to leave them forever. I know what it's like to miss them so much it hurts."

"I just..."

She catches his hand at her ear, holding him gently by the wrist.

"I just wish I knew why she won't let me go home. The landlord, I mean. Whomever. Not that it's so terrible being here, but I..."

She pauses, turning her face to kiss each one of his fingertips.

"I feel like I'm losing myself."

"I can understand that. Teachin' is what you do."

Doc thinks for a moment or two.

"Maybe y'can teach here?"

"I saw a flier, not too long ago," she murmurs with a soft nod. "Said there was some kids 'round the bar needed help with tutoring. But I haven't heard anything since."

She sighs, letting his wrist go as she snuggles closer to his shoulder.

"Just gettin' restless, is all. There's a lot goin' on back home, it gets me to wonderin' how things are going."

He tugs the blanket up higher, ignore the fact that it's mid morning and he should get out of bed, eventually. He's too damn comfortable to move.

"What's goin' on back home?"

"You remember Mrs. Tennyson, and her daughter, Becca? Sweet little freckle-faced girl, real quiet?"

But only when Doc was around. He might remember her blazing pink cheeks better.

"She's been out of school for quite some time. Deathly ill. Last I heard she was taking a turn for the better, but I'm still not sure..."

She snuggles into the warmth of the blankets and his body.

"'N I had just started the class on their multiplication tables, 'n little James has been having trouble. Promised to sit with him for an hour that morning, when my door disappeared. He had been lookin' forward to it."

"Well he's still lookin' forward to it."

Doc grinned.

"And you can go back, and teach 'em all their numbers and tables, and it won't be like they've been missin' you one bit." He leaned in and kissed her, gently. "Time don't move. Milliways give us the chance t'be together."

"I know," she murmurs, her voice soft. She rakes her free hand (the arm she isn't laying on) through his hair once, stopping with her fingers at his neck and the heel of her palm on his collarbone.

"I know they aren't missin' me, Josiah; it's me that's missin' them. You know, for the first month or so after I came back, I figured I'd only be here a few days, maybe a week. I'd sit and write up lesson plans and work assignments, I collected little things like fall leaves for crafts. But it's been so long... my desk is full of bundles of paper, things I couldn't begin to teach in a year's worth of time."

Her thumb moves against the curve of his jaw, in slow, absent strokes. Again, her face falls against his shoulder, lips pressed to the muscled joint.

"I'm glad for the time Milliways has given us, don't get me wrong. Settin' things right with you has given me a world of peace. I just... left in the middle of things, there. In the middle of a lot of things. Can't help but think of time as movin', of what'll happen if I don't get back home. People there that I'll... miss."

She continues to hide her eyes from him.

"An' I miss reading to my kids, and hearing them read back t' me. It's not the same, sittin' alone in my room with a book of poems. Can't help but think of their voices, last time we was together."

"I know."

Doc closes his eyes as her lips move over his shoulder, near that well-faded scar, the bullet he took in Lincoln, riding away from the McSween house, smoke stinging his eyes and mingling with the sweat and tears that were threatening his vision.

The bullet they'd pulled out of him here, on his very first day and visit to Milliways Bar.

He shivers.

"It ain't the same. Just like ridin' hellbent for leather in these woods ain't the same as ridin' out in the desert with the boys."

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