ikissdhimbck | OOM: Room #25 (WARNING: Contains triggery content)

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OOM: Room #25 (WARNING: Contains triggery content)

[following this:]

After Guppy takes Alex home, Kate eventually does make it to the fire to warm up. Of course, by this point her body is already warm; it's her heart that feels chilled. She dispenses with the tea, and just takes the whiskey for a second and third drink.

It's late by the time she's able to muddle through her thoughts well enough to drag herself upstairs. All she wants to do is collapse into her bed and sleep, but once she reaches the landing--

Doc.

He'll be expecting her.

She stands there for a moment, gathering her wits about her.

I don't want him to see me like this.

She swallows hard, steeling herself for what she knows she has to do next. She can't just bypass his room without a word; not when they've been spending so many nights together. Not when he'll be expecting her. Not when they've just had the intimacy 'conversation.' She'll pull herself together long enough to tell him she needs a quiet night to sleep. Everything's fine, she just misses her own bed. She'll be right as rain come tomorrow.

When she stops outside his door, she doesn't take out her key and walk in. For some reason, tonight she knocks.

.

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Everything.

Goes.

Still.

(She's sobbing against his button-down, fabric soaked with her tears, ragged gasps for air leaving a ringing sensation in his ears as the room echos around him.)

"Darlin'..."

Oh my god.

He rests his chin against her shoulder and blindly pulls her into a hug, simply because there are no words to describe what he's feeling, and no words to ease her pain.

Goldie's nosing around her boots, purring steadily as he scents the air, confused about what's going on. Roz is still mewling plaintively, a short distance off.

"I didn't even know ... I didn't even know!"

She's so angry; she had no idea how mad she was, but suddenly she can hardly breathe for how blind she is with rage. She cries desperately, and somewhere in the back of her mind she realizes she hasn't cried this hard since the day Doc died in her arms.

"I th-thought I was sick. From the infection. When it happened."

I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry!

"I didn't... even know."

"There...if y'didn't know y'were with child...then y'couldn't have known..."

He's trying to put the pieces together. Dates and events, how much stress she was under, in addition to the sickness from the infection; how hard she had to work to survive.

His hand is still running over her hair.

"It...nothin' could've told you..."

I could have, if I'd been there...instead of buried under dirt and snow in the grave.

She shakes a little harder with every sob, fists curling so tight she can almost feel her nails punching through the skin.

She feels so stupid and so betrayed; cheated out of the one thing in the world she had left after losing Doc. She never got to lie awake at night worrying over names until after it was too late. She never got to touch him. She never got to sing him to sleep. The one good thing -- and it wasn't even good; it wasn't even right -- was that she wouldn't have to tell Doc that she lost his son or daughter.

And then he came back.

"It's my fault."

She should have been more careful. She should have been more wise. She should have known; she should have done something. She should have been able to do something.

'God will punish you!'

"It's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault!" she chokes, desperate screams muffled by raging tears.

"Sweetheart, no..."

His voice wavers as she trembles in his arms, his throat feeling raw as he tries to find words.

"It's not your fault."

"Yes it is."

She should have been more careful.

"I killed him. I killed you both. If I wasn't... if I hadn't... oh, god," she chokes. It takes too much effort to speak over her tears.

This isn't how she wanted this to go. This isn't how she wanted to tell him. She'd spent hours upon hours, lying awake at night, imagining this moment. Picturing where they would be, the words she would say. How she would hold his hand and explain to him what Guppy had told her. If he cried, she would wrap him up and soothe his tears. If he withdrew, she would petition him with words of love and sorrow. But none of those fantasies had her blubbering on the floor, seasick with whiskey and grief, practically unintelligible.

"God, what have I done?" she cries, weeping bitterly. "How could you do this?"

A brief flicker of anger surges through his veins as her words echo against his eardrums, his own questions following -- though he keeps the words to himself, thoughts stored in his mind.

How could you do this to her. To us.

The anger fades to sorrow within an instant, as he begins to struggle to find his own words. There is nothing to say that will make this right -- nothing to say that will take away the pain, or right the wrong.

"I'm so sorry."

It's their loss, yes. But her pain and heartbreak is the greater at the moment, so that's what he focuses on.

For a long time, the only sounds in the room are of her echoing sobs and breathless gasps for air.

"I didn't know how t'tell you."

Her voice is strained and high, weak and watery through a throat aflame. After so long weeping uncontrollably, her body grows heavy and ill. She has no choice but to lean against him for strength, bury her face in his chest and pray that morning never comes.

"M'so ashamed."

"I'm not..."

He holds her close.

"There ain't no reason for you to be ashamed, not for somethin' like this...with all the stress'n the trauma...you bein' ill, so far from help..."

Why'd you choose a place so far from town, you idiot.

"I ain't...I still love you. I always will, darlin', when I said nothin' would change that I meant it, and I still do."

Her tears are like molten lava burning fresh against her reddened face. Her head is spinning hard, and she can't help but wonder why the hell she let herself drink all that whiskey.

"I didn't wanna-a tell you," she whimpers miserably, voice catching as her lungs struggle to feed themselves. "After everythin' you'd said that night. I was a-afraid you'd ch-change your mind. I can't stand t'even l-look at myself in the m-mirror."

I can't stand to look at you.

"Kate...I meant it when I said that nothin' would change how much I love you. This don't change that...god, no, it wouldn't change a thing. This wasn't somethin' you could control," he leans over and presses his lips against her temple, breathing in her scent, trying to calm her down by calming down his own heart rate.

He shakes his head slightly.

"I love you. So very, very much. I always will."

She lets her tears calm at length, giving way to silence.

He sits in silence for a moment, holding her, still not knowing what to say.

Eventually, he thinks of something.

"How...how did you find out?"

There's too much noise in her head: too many questions; too many accusations; too many regrets; too much pain. It takes her a minute to wade through it all before she can find the strength in her to answer.

"Guppy."

Her voice trembles, threatening to break.

"When the door came back. He took me t'the infirmary t'check on me. I... I was underfed. He was concerned. An' he... he wanted t'look at m'scars, make sure they was healin' all right."

She closes her swollen eyes, and concentrates on breathing for a moment. She licks the salt of her tears from her chapped lips.

"I told him 'bout the sickness. An' the bleedin'. An' the starvin'. An' the aches in my body. He used his machine, his... he 'scanned' my body."

"I've used the scanner in the infirmary...it can tell you an awful lot, 'bout what a person's dealin' with."

He knew she looked a bit skinny when he returned -- she still looks awful thin, pale skin and tired expressions on her features -- and her words confirm it.

Doc kicks himself, mentally.

You should have been better prepared for the winter, more foodstuffs stored, been ready for somethin' to happen, how would you take care of her...

"I should'a had more stores'a food for the cold season..."

"It was August."

She sniffles quietly, shaking her head in a brief, miserable motion that never leaves his breast.

"How could you have known? It was my fault. If we hadn't been runnin', if Ramon hadn't've shot you, if I'd just ... if we could've just..."

If...

If what? Nothing can change what happened now.

It's your fault.

"August ain't too early t'at least have some stores ready, in case y'get an early winter. I should have been better prepared."

He rubs his hand down over her spine, head bowed.

We would have made it, if not for the fact that I ended up dead.

"You did."

She draws her hands down from his shoulders, uncurling them with effort (her joints are stiff, like they've been set in glue, her palms sore from where her nails dug in), and rubs at her face.

"I survived a long time off'a what you had. It just ... wasn't enough."

She doesn't say "for two" but she thinks it.

"I just can't help but think, maybe if I'd had more, we might not have lost..."

His voice betrays him and he closes his mouth to keep from choking out the words. Everything below his waist feels numb -- and he knows it's not from the way he's sitting on the floor.

"I'm so sorry."

This is my fault, too. I should have been here. I never should have left that day.

She grimaces sharply, shoulders shaking as she holds in one lingering sob. She presses her fingertips into her forehead so hard that they turn bone white, moisture continuing to slip into her palms.

Maybe he's right. Maybe if she'd had more; if she'd just taken better care of herself...

"It wouldn't've mattered. He still would'a punished me."

"He wouldn't..."

Doc's not sure, just what he believes. At one time in his life, he would have been so confident (so accepting) of the punishment, knowing that it was God's will and that it happened for a reason.

But things have changed. His thoughts on the subject of faith are different than they used to be.

See a man strung up for nothin' more than the color of his skin, shot down for just tryin' t'git food t'feed his family, watch babies go hungry just because of some fargin' war, innocent merchant men murdered in the name of corruption, ladies cryin' because their men git black lung from workin' so far deep in the earth...there ain't a higher purpose that makes any of that right.

"If it was punishment, then I ain't got no use for him."

"Maybe it's me He ain't got no use for no more."

She sniffles quietly, neck beginning to ache from having her head bowed for so long. She's tired -- so tired -- and weak and cold and ... lost.

She's lost her faith.

(She's lost herself.)

"Then He's foolish, not knowin' what He's loosin'."

Doc carefully pulls back and tries to lift her chin with his hand, to encourage her to look at him.

"I love you. And m'always gonna be here. I know I ain't on comparison t'God himself, don't claim t'be, but I hope it counts for somethin'."

She doesn't fight him as her stiff neck slowly straightens, his rough fingers like sandpaper against her inflamed skin. But she just can't look at him; she just can't face him.

She squeezes her eyes shut, eyelashes wet and clumping together, and turns her head away from him.

"Y'should lie down," he says. "Or you ain't gonna be able t'move in the mornin'."

It's not like he intends to let her get up early, either. Sleeping in, and some real food for breakfast. She looks so damn weak it scares him.

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