ikissdhimbck | OOM: Room #100 - drinking aftermath (part 2)

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OOM: Room #100 - drinking aftermath (part 2)

[following this:]

It's a long and restless night, both for the outlaw, and for the Russian astronaut.

Once or twice, Kate jarred Esfir from slumber by waking with a start and lunging for that trash can. Who knew a body that tiny could survive being sick so many times in one night?

Esfir finally decided to forsake her spot in the armchair after the last time Kate was sick, settling next to her in bed.

"Momma?" Kate had murmured, half asleep and disoriented.

"Go back to sleep, Katyushka."

It wasn't long after that when dawn broke.

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She hesitates.

It's been a long time since he's stopped to correct himself in front of her. It reminds her of the nervous boy she had met, when she was still a proper lady. A schoolteacher. His ears would hint crimson if he let his tongue slip.

She turns her face away, heart beating a little fast.

"About what?"

"About...anything."

It really doesn't matter what they talk about, to him. He just wants to talk to her, hear her familiar voice filling his ears.

He's missed it for so long...

"About us. What I've been up to...how you are, I don't mind what we talk 'bout. I've missed the sound of your voice."

She closes her eyes.

(Now that boy is thirty-four, a whole world and a hell of a lot of scars away from her. Now the schoolteacher is brash and bawdy, tainted and mean.)

She slips trembling arms beneath her and pushes herself into a sitting position. The world teeters around her ears, but that is mostly from over-sleeping and medication, than it is from nausea.

Closer to him now, head bowed to avoid those eyes of his, she whispers:

"I didn't want y'to end up this way. I thought I could give y'somethin', if you'd jus'... give up on me. Us. I've already robbed so many men of their lives, I jus' ... wanted you t'be happy."

"But the only way that you could rob me of life is takin' away my reason to live," he tells her. "The only reason I ain't dead yet is 'cause I spent ten years chasin' doors in hopes of gettin' back here to make things right."

There have been...opportunities...for that not to be the case.

He's still here.

(He's still breathing.)

Doc keeps a close eye on her as she sits up, and adjusts the pillows at the headboard to make it easier for her to sit against it if she wants.

She grabs him by the wrist to stop his busywork with the pillows, needing his attention as she speaks.

"What makes y'think we could be happy?"

Her eyes are pleading with him for an answer, free hand lightly resting on the bicep of his other arm in case she begins to feel too unsteady.

"After everythin' that's happened, Doc, and now this. Maybe there's a reason you been gone ten years. You know? Maybe it's a sign. Maybe y'really wanted t'leave me b'hind."

"I never wanted to be gone from your side, not for a minute, Kate. When I'm without you, I feel like I'm missin' a part of my soul, like a piece of my heart's not beatin'. I never wanted to leave you behind, and I don't."

He looks at her, shifting his hand around in her grasp so that he can lightly run his fingers against her wrist.

"And what makes me think we could be happy?" The barest hint of a smile and that familiar spark - he loves her with everything he has, even if it has been a decade that fire is still burning hot as it ever was. Maybe even hotter, now that it's been allowed to smolder for so long. "I got faith in us. It's hard t'explain in words, but I just know, Kate, that as long as we're together and doin' what we're meant t'be doin'...that things will work out and that we'll make our way together. Whatever that path is, it don't matter to me...I just want t'be ridin' it with you."

She doesn't speak as he explains his feelings to her, focusing her attention on his face instead, looking for deception (hoping for sincerity). When his fingertips ghost across her wrist she shivers, dipping her head to collect herself.

There is a pause.

"I've been so mad at you," she murmurs, voice muted and broken. "'N mad at myself."

"Start with me," he offers. "Tell me why you're upset with me, and then tell me why you're upset with yourself? I'll listen."

There is honesty in his voice, along with the desire to make this work tangled up with it. Everything about them is tangled up in knots, waiting to be untied and unwound. It just takes time.

(He's had ten years.)

She purses her lips together and closes her eyes, shaking her head briefly.

"You hurt me," she mutters, struggling to keep her chin from trembling.

"An' y'lied t'me."

He looks down, nodding.

"I should have told you 'bout Yen and Jonathan from the start...and I should have been honest with you 'bout knowin' what I was goin' back to my world to face. You deserved to know that I went back t'say goodbye to 'em, too."

Doc studies the scars on his fingers, avoiding looking at her face - giving her the ability to regain her composure and avoid his eyes.

"And I...I shouldn't have let my desire git the way of bein' sensible, when we were together. I just...felt like it'd help, but I know now that it didn't do nothin' but hurt you and I'm sorry for that."

She keeps her head down, shaking it once again.

"I jus' wanted t'feel somethin'. People here, s'nothin' big t'them. I thought I'd feel better, I thought... thought it'd fix things. S'my fault, fer drinkin' an' lettin' myself..."

She lets go of him, covering her face with her hands.

"Now I lost my honor, top'a everythin' else. Can't take it back."

But she won't ever have her white wedding, with her proud father walking her down the aisle, anyway. What's one more indiscretion in a life full of sin?

"Kate, that ain't all that makes up honor," he protests gently. "I know what it's like t'just want to feel somethin', or just want to forget somethin'. You just want t'make everything stop hurtin' for awhile so you look for a distraction. It...it's a natural response t'stress and pressure."

And God knows she's been through enough of that, lately.

"We're all human, and when you're out there...the education and the upbringing stripped away...you just react different. And nobody can blame you for it - nobody should blame you for it, because they ain't livin' your life and they've got no place to cast shame upon you for a choice you make."

He pauses briefly to collect his thoughts.

"Of course people are gonna look down at you, spit on you and call y'a sinner and a bunch'a other names but you have to know that they ain't got a leg t'stand on because it ain't their life. You have to know that, or you'll start believin' what they're sayin' 'bout you in the papers and in the bars is true, and then you'll turn into what they're writin' about...and that ain't ever the way to do things without gettin' in trouble."

Edited 2009-08-22 00:50 (UTC)

She drops her hands, a wry, watery laugh escaping in short puffs. Her eyes are still closed when she mutters:

"Maybe I'm already the woman they been writin' 'bout."

Opening them, she looks at him again, blinking to put his face in focus.

"'She kisses the men she kills,' s'my trademark. I ain't never done nothin' but hurt you. Got Sam killed. Murdered three men. I wasn't even there when they shot my daddy."

She drops her head again, staring at his hands -- one brown, the other smudged with that silky white scar.

"I hate you for havin' a family, for not tellin' me. For goin' back t'them an' keepin' it secret. For trustin' your friends here more'n y'trust me. I hate feelin' second best.

"But mostly I hate m'self, 'cuz I'll never be able t'give you what y'had with Yen."

His stomach drops somewhere into his boots (or his socks, since he's not wearing any boots at the moment) with an icy feeling running down his spine.

"I know you won't be what I had with Yen, Kate...I've always known that. I don't want what I had with her, I want t'make somethin' different with you. You ain't some...I ain't lookin' for someone t'replace what I lost, t'be the woman I used to be married to. That's never...you ain't some second-best replacement that I want just 'cause I can't have the woman I married the first time around, it ain't like that. I would never expect you to do that, and I'd never want you to."

He's being very serious - but at the same time, there's a quiet disbelief in the edges of his voice, simply because she was never a replacement for Yen - as he speaks.

Doc reaches for her hands.

"I want to be with you. Kate Barlow. For who you are."

She shakes her head fiercely, looking up with desperation in her too-bright eyes.

"I can't give you children. I can't give you a home. I ain't got no dowry; nothin' t'my name. The only thing I'm gonna give you is a big red target on your back."

Without missing a beat - but without being 'funny' about it, he replies.

"I'm very good at ridin' with a big red target on my back."

He's had a lot of practice.

He shakes his head, growing a bit more sober as he reaches for her hands.

"I don't need children, or a home with a wife tendin' to the housework. I don't need a dowry, and you don't gotta feel bad 'bout not havin' one to offer. I don't need the life they tell y'to dream about when you're small, all I need is you, Kate. And if that comes with a big red target on my back, then I'll have you know that I've got a good trigger fingers and a fast horse to take care of that. I just need you."

She closes her eyes to fight back her tears, shaking her head and murmuring 'no' again and again. Eventually, she tips forward, her head falling against his shoulder.

(She squeezes his hands tightly.)

"I can't lose you. I can't lose you, too."

He leans forward slightly, keeping her hands steady in his.

"If you push me away, you ain't gonna have me at all. If you let me in, then you'll have me for as long as we're in this together, 'til the very end of it."

"At least keepin' my distance, I know you're safe."

"Might be safer, but I ain't gonna be happy like you're hopin', sorry to say it."

"Fool."

"Yeah."

He sighs gently and runs his thumb over her knuckles, wishing that he could lean in and press his lips against her neck, or nuzzle his cheek against hers.

"But at least I'm bein' honest."

She's quiet for a long while. She's still upset, but unsure of what else to say.

Shivering, she eventually pulls back so she can gather the blankets back up around her.

"Do you feel up t'maybe drinkin' a bit of hot tea?"

He's not sure what to say either - he feels better, slightly, about the entire situation - but it's still not settled as he'd like it to be. He moves the blankets slightly to tuck them in.

Once he figures out what to say next, he'll say it.

"No."

She curls on her side, looking away from him.

"Well, maybe."

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