scurlock: (stablemaster)
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.
scurlock: (candlelight)
[after this]

When they make their way into the bar, Doc's grateful for the heated interior as a contrast to the cold air that's outside. After a few hours, it gets to the point where you just want to get warm no matter what you're doing or how important it is, which is why they've come inside with their lunch.

His arm is still around her shoulders as he glances down at her. "You want to change first, or just camp out by the fire and get warm that way? I can get drinks from Bar."
scurlock: (milliways stables)
After returning from Green Lake the night before, Doc had a promise to keep to Miss Katherine in regards to the stables and taking her out riding for a proper tour of the grounds. And even with the immediate exit blocked by strange plants and vines, he'd gone out early to take care of the cleaning, feeding, and general work that he'd missed over the last few days before slipping back in for breakfast and to have a waitrat deliver a note upstairs to her room while he got changed into more riding-appropriate clothes.

The note (which she'll find along with the clothes Bar has most likely helpfully left for her upstairs -- don't ask how the rat got in to leave it, these things just happen) says simply that he'll be out in the stables after she's had breakfast and is ready, but not to rush, and to avoid angering the strange plants and she'll be just fine walking through.

So when she does wander outside, she'll catch him singing if she's quiet walking into the stables. It's a more modern song, but one that he heard while in the bar one day and it caught his interest and he's heard it enough that he's got a little bit of it memorized.

"Well Maggie was my true love, the only kiss I knew
I’d meet her at the oak tree in the cool evening dew
Where we would walk beside the levee, our fingers intertwined
While the crimson moon gazed through the needles of the pines

We’d lay beside each other, staring at the sky
Listenin’ to the whistlin’ of the train blowin’ by..."


That's all he knows, so he trails off towards the middle of the verse.

She'll find that he's in one of the store rooms gathering up the tack they'll need for two horses, and there's a few papers pinned to the wall near the door with his handwriting on them, notes and lists of feed and supplies, reminders, that sort of thing.
scurlock: (wounded hand)
He's outside, working, but at the same time, thinking about what he knows.

It's not much. A name. The fact that Will and Kate are gone. Missing. He rode out over the grounds earlier, looking for tracks, signs, anything that Will might have left behind. He's a man of Sherwood and a fellow outlaw and outlaws don't just vanish without a fargin' trace. You just don't. No new notes have been left to him since Guppy's this morning, and he hasn't found a damn thing to help in the search.

Doc doesn't like the feeling in the pit of his stomach. Not one bit.

His body is on autopilot, using the fork to spread straw around a stall. The weather is warming up a bit and more and more of the horses and other beasts are taking to the paddock instead of staying inside all day, but it doesn't hurt to have things clean. Just in case.

Just in case.

Maybe he should search again. Take a run through the woods, perhaps. He and Billy survived an evening shooting the demon bunnies, he could do it on his own.

But would Will and Kate be able to survive demon bunnies?

Was it even the stupid bunnies at all?

Probably not. This was Milliways, after all. It was probably something bigger than he was, more advanced, something that he couldn't understand. Something with ships that fly among the stars or computers, the damn video player that he and Will couldn't figure out. Perhaps that had gone batshit and killed...

no no no no no.

They couldn't be dead. Will was stronger than that. Kate was stronger than that. They were young, yeah, but not as young as Tommy was. Not wrapped up in something they couldn't run from. Not wrapped up...

Well maybe they were.

"Christ."

Doc mutters the word as he feels his hand brush against something sharp, and looks up to see the scratch and the thin trail of blood starting to come to the surface. It's really not all that deep, just a surface wound.

He doesn't wipe it away.

Tom bled to death on the desert floor.

you ever seen a man shot before, tom?

Of course he had. Most everyone who was anyone had seen a man shot and killed on the desert or seen a man hung by the neck in the center of town. Doc couldn't count how many men he'd seen hang. Hell, he'd nearly been hung himself. Will had helped get him out of that mess.

He'd seen a lot of men shot, too. Before he joined the gang, before he started working for Mr. Tunstall. Then he saw John killed by Murphy's men. Dick gunned down by Buckshot Roberts. Watched Billy blow McKloskey's brains out near a river just south of El Capitan. Saw Charlie, Steve, Alex, all gunned down. Now Tom.

you read the book. you're next.

Doc blinks away the heat in his eyes and moves to grab a cloth from his pocket to wrap around his hand, then leans the pitchfork against a wall, and heads back into the bar.
scurlock: (milliways stables)
Billy was always persuasive.

This was no exception. Doc had gone upstairs and changed into clothes that would be more suitable for riding around in the half-darkness and cold and then rejoined Billy downstairs, and took his coffee with him as they crunched along the dirty layer of snow towards the stables.

It was quiet. Almost a familiar quiet.

New Mexico was quiet too.

"So how far's the place where we can hole up for a bit 'fore Garrett comes near again," Doc asks, as they enter the stables through the smaller side door and head for the stall with their horses.

He was already smiling though. Maybe it was the prospect of doing something he was used to with a pal for a change.
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