oom: stables, outside milliways

[scurlock]

It's been more than a few days since the last time Doc actually spoke to Katherine - and the way that they left each other has been biting at his insides, even through the battle and everything else that's gone on since the night he came back in half-frozen to death. Since then, he's gotten the sneaking feeling that she's trying to avoid him. He doesn't quite blame her, though, given the conversation and everything that happened that night - but that doesn't mean that not talking to her isn't driving him nuts.

The morning that Doc makes his way down the stables is cold. There's a fine layer of snow pack on the ground, and his boots crunch against the icy covering as he makes his way out. Normally, on Wednesdays, he sleeps in and doesn't make his way down to the stables until the afternoon.

Not today.

Part of it (him being up so early and headed down the path) is the fact that he hasn't been sleeping very well, and that he wants to work to get his mind off things. Part of it is the fact that he's hoping to catch her.

They need to talk - he knows that much.

He's wearing the lined flannel jacket, thick pants, and boots, with his scarf around his neck and a knit hat pulled own on his head, covering the messy swatch of blond hair. His hands are tucked deep into his pockets, fingers curled into fists inside wool-lined leather gloves. As he nears the stables, he wonders just what it is he's going to say if she is here, this morning.

Doc's thinking on that when he rounds the corner and ducks into the side door, entering the barn.

She's standing a distance away, brushing down a horse - Duncan - and both of them look as if they've been out for awhile in the weather. There's a ruddy bite to her skin from the cold, and a good lather of sweat on the horse's skin, which she's working on.

He nods his head. "Mornin'."

He greets her, simply, as he moves to his desk to pull off his hat.

Comments

[ikissdhimbck]

"Mind your tongue," she snaps at the vulgarity, for lack of any better response to make. Her head and heart are reeling.

She shrinks under his eyes when he looks up, clutching the cuff of her jacket like a little kid waiting for punishment.

[scurlock]

Doc opens his mouth to say something but instead closes it, and sighs softly.

"I do apologize for swearin'," he murmurs, before he moves - he needs to move or he's going to go crazy - and paces a few steps away before he turns back, and then settles against the wall again. "Heat of the moment n'all."

She looks like she's ready for him to yell at her which confuses him.

[ikissdhimbck]

She shakes her head softly, as if to accept his apology, but she doesn't look up again.

It's quiet.





So quiet.

"Doc, I... I can't marry you."

Beat.

"...Right now."

Not until I know where I stand.

Not until you know where I stand.

"But I... I want you to ask me again. Sometime."

She glances up, looking lost.

"But I don't want you to wait ten years."

[scurlock]

He keeps his eyes on hers, and then nods slowly, understanding.

"Alright."

Despite the feeling in his stomach, the way he's wanting to curse himself for not being honest, the feelings running through his body and through his heart, he smiles, just a little.

(He's still got hope.)

Doc nods again, a little stronger.

"Alright. I will ask you 'gain sometime."

[ikissdhimbck]

"All right."

She manages a small smile in return, nodding her head. She looks down and away, pulling in a deep, deep breath.

"And I-I... 'course I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna come back, Doc, I just need..."

To go home.

"...time."

[scurlock]

"S'understandable. You've been gone an awful long time."

She misses her students.

She misses her friends.

She misses him.

Doc can understand that.

"You think you'll leave today?"

[ikissdhimbck]

There's something in his voice. She can't pinpoint it, but when she looks back up it's there on his features, too. Something.

Guilt twists her belly, but she doesn't look away.

"I don't know," she whispers, shaking her head somewhat numbly. "Perhaps. I haven't given it a great deal of thought."

She can't hold his gaze for long. Especially not when she opens her mouth, and murmurs haltingly:

"There's something... something I should... tell you, though. Something... before I leave."

[scurlock]

Doc nods. "I don't plan on goin' nowhere for awhile," he says. "So if y'ain't ready to say it, right this moment, that's alright."

There is paperwork he could be doing, or he could clean the tack room again and take some stock out to the back paddock...

He looks away, so that she doesn't feel his eyes on her, and focuses on the growing light of morning outside the barn.

[ikissdhimbck]

She isn't sure what to say to that.

She isn't sure what she means to say at all.

Her heart is racing, and it's suddenly cold where she's standing, by herself, an icy maw stretching between their bodies.

"I just don't know what's waiting for me when I get home," she murmurs, wrapping her arms around her body for some warmth and some comfort. "I left in the middle of everything. The schoolhouse is..."

No. Don't make this what it isn't.

She sighs.

"I find my thoughts wandering while I'm here," she continues, eyes alighting on the same doorway he's watching, the light of day casting a beam on the dirt at its entrance. "Thinking about folk there, that I've left behind. Some I'm afraid to see. Some I'm... not."

[scurlock]

"Well, y'don't got to worry 'bout those that you're not afraid to see, so long as you trust them," he says.

Doc leans against the wall and glances over at her.

"If you're havin' trouble with folk you are afraid of, then you know you got me, you got Ben, you got a lot of folk here that ain't afraid t'stand up for you. Not sayin' you can't stand up for yourself - I know that ain't the case."

There's a definite fondness in his tone - with plenty of seriousness as well.

He looks back to the dirt.

"You got friends there, people you've been missin' like hell. Your students are there. There ain't...those kids mean the world t'you, Kate, darlin'. Just like mine meant the world to me."

[ikissdhimbck]

She looks down and smiles when he mentions knowing she can stand up for herself, toeing the ground absently in thought. She takes a step away from the wall, towards him, but a sudden timidness pulls her back and she stops.

"I know. I guess I'm just... what I'm trying to say, is..."

Deep breath.

"I got someone there who has protected me. And been a good friend to me. And a listening ear, and a... a warm smile."

A tightness wraps around her throat like claws from a bear, and there's a long pause before she's able to push it away to finish her thought.

[scurlock]

"You mentioned someone the time we talked 'bout it, when you got back," he reminds her, gently.

He pulls in a breath and nods at her, to signal that she can continue as soon as she's able - as soon as she wants to, if she even wants to at all.

(Part of him can guess at what she's trying to say, he just doesn't want to say it for her.)

[ikissdhimbck]

"I know. I know I did," she murmurs, closing her eyes and remembering that conversation.

"But I wanted you to know that I... I love you."


"I just...Kate I want you to be happy and I can't fault you for whatever that means. I won't. And if...there's someone else you'd rather be with...I just want you to be happy."

She opens her eyes and focuses them on his face. They're bright, and wide, and unflinching in their devotion.

"And I want to be with you."

[scurlock]

Doc smiles.

"Y'just need time."

I would wait ten years. More than ten years.

He pushes himself lightly off the wall and crosses the distance between the two of them, and settles his hand on her shoulder. "I understand. Trust me. I love you too and we will make this work."

[ikissdhimbck]

She holds a hand up between them when he comes near, fingertips at his lips as she searches somewhere within herself for the right words.

"I need to know that you want to be with me first, though. I need to know that and... like you said, I can't know that without more time."

She meets his gaze with those impossibly blue eyes of hers, searching out the gray-green orbs peering down at her.

"I want you to be able to trust me. I ... I need that."

[scurlock]

"I do trust you," he says quietly. "I do. It was never that I didn't trust you, Kate."

Doc sighs quietly and looks at her.

"What d'you need me to do to prove that?"

[ikissdhimbck]

She searches him out a moment longer before lowering her face, fitting her head under his chin as she breathes in and lets it out slowly.

"I don't know," she murmurs, truthfully. "I don't know, Doc. I just... need time, I suppose. I need to feel like I'm here."

Her hand slides over his heart, and there it rests against the fabric of his coat.

"Really here."

[scurlock]

One hand moves to cover the hand that's resting against his coat, and the other moves to wrap around her back, drawing her closer and into his embrace for a hug.

She fits, right here.

"Well then, you got all the time in the world, darlin'," he whispers, before he squeezes her hand gently. "Cause I ain't goin' nowhere."

[ikissdhimbck]

There's a pang in her stomach when he pulls her in close, but she lets him, burying her face against his chest. His warmth and his support are comforting, and through all the emotions still rampaging through her system, a quiet calm settles over her.

It's going to be okay. It was just a misunderstanding. She did all that worrying for nothing, and dragged all those...

She opens her eyes to the sudden thought, squeezing his hand back.

"Doc? Did you tell anybody else about seeing your family when you went home?"

[scurlock]

"I...no, I just talked t'Jack and then Ben a few weeks ago..." he thinks. "I think the night I came back...I may have said somethin' t'Kate 'bout it, she was buggin' me, I don't really remember - I know we didn't talk 'bout it like I did with Jack. I really didn't say that much to Ben. Nobody else...or you talkin' about people outside Bar?"

His hand moves to her back, gloved fingers trailing along her spine, her body hidden beneath that long coat that she's wearing.

"Didn't tell nobody outside, save for my old boss...when I saw him."

[ikissdhimbck]

She shakes her head, pulling back a little so she can see his face again. She lets his hand stay at her back, her hands on his chest, but her shoulders tip away from his embrace.

"No I... I mean. Well, golly, Doc I... I sort of told a few people about it," she admits, timidly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, but I... I was confused, and I needed advice. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so free with your personal life. I... I'm so sorry."

[scurlock]

"Ain't no need to worry...I suppose I shouldn't keep it hidden so much, just ain't somethin' I felt comfortable sharin'. I ain't upset with you for askin' for advice, though...could be good t'know who you did speak to."

Doc shakes his head slightly. He's not upset at all.

"It's alright."

[ikissdhimbck]

"No, I... I wasn't thinking," she insists, relieved that he isn't upset, but embarrassed all the same.

"It was... It was Lady Dem, whom I don't think you know, but she's a real nice lady, I'll just tell her to keep it mum and I know she will," she encourages, blue eyes wide with worry. "And then a gentleman by the name of Billy Kaplan, and Sheriff Pardy..."

Yeah, she was a busy girl that night.

"And I talked with Ben about it, too. ...And Miss Bishop, but she--she didn't..."

She's shaking her head, looking confused.

"She didn't act like she knew anything about it."

[scurlock]

"Well, I don't got no problem with Bill knowing...I've met the Kaplan boy, we've talked a little bit, so that ain't too bad either. I haven't met the Lady, but I trust you not to go spreadin' it about to unsavory sorts."

Ben is Ben, and Kate...

Doc shakes his head. "It was only a word or two. I think she asked if I'd gone back, and I said yes...I don't really remember. It wasn't much, if anything at all."

His hand is still trailing down her back.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her brow is furrowed in thought, watching his eyes as he speaks. She's relieved with every name he 'clears' as being okay, glad that this isn't going to come between them somehow, after everything.

But there's something biting at her, just a tiny nibble at the base of her skull.

"When did you say you spoke with her?" she asks. "The night you got back?"