OOM: Green Lake, Doc's visit (cont.)

[ikissdhimbck]

It's a bit foggy out by the lake this early in the morning. Texas in July doesn't get mornings that are too terribly chilly, but as the warming air hits the cold lake water, a fine layer of mist blankets the glassy surface, and curls into the grassy shore.

Katherine is sitting in the dewy grass, her back against an old oak tree. It is the very spot she had pointed out to Doc a few days previous. She wasn't sure how it would look if Doc met her that morning at her house, or even if she came again to the Hawthorn's front porch. She hadn't wanted him to come alone to the schoolhouse, either. So she had invited him to meet her there, by the lake, in public but at the same time... not.

The noise of crickets and bullfrogs is in the air, and the book of Poe Doc had lent to her those few weeks past is in her lap. She's scribbling in the back, on that blank page every book has, though Doc's handsome cursive is already covering most of it.

When he arrives, that's how he'll find Katherine: comfortable against the trunk of that tree--her tree--book balanced on her knees as she reads.

.

Comments

[scurlock]

Doc does take the time to interact with the children and he does so, almost sad when they're gone, but he's got more than enough good memories of the day to fill his head and keep with him.

Once they are gone, however, he leans back slightly in her chair and looks at her, smile on his face.

"You have a wonderful class of students, Miss Katherine," he says quietly, setting the pen down and glancing at the characters on the page a brief moment. "A very inquisitive bunch, but they really are a smart group."

[ikissdhimbck]

"Thank you," Katherine smiles in return, pushing in desk chairs and tidying discarded papers and personal effects. "I am rather fond of them. They keep me on my toes."

When he says 'inquisitive bunch', a blush returns to her cheeks. She places one delicate hand over her face.

"Oh, heavens, Doc, I'm sorry about that. I don't know what got into them, really," she chuckles nervously.

[scurlock]

"It was an honest question," he says softly, shaking his head. But they are nowhere near a real discussion of that at all. Besides...he's already married. Even this is a few years ahead of his time...and he's not sure if he's still even alive, in her time.

Thinking about it makes his head hurt, so he doesn't.

"I'd rather they ask questions than be afraid to," he continues. "Even if they do need a bit of guidance from time to time."

The ink on the page is nearly dry, so he stands from the chair. "Now we had a deal, you bring me to the picnic and I help you fix up a bit..." He's not about to let her get away with not letting him help.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Honestly, I've always encouraged them to be vocal with their questions. If you don't ask questions, you'll never learn the answers. And the reason they come here is to learn. But they were full of the devil today," she says, shaking her head.

Her eyes fall to his left hand, focusing on the glossy scar that mars both front and back. "And I imagine you had to be less than honest about a thing or two, as well," she comments, sounding almost apologetic.

As he stands she smirks, shaking her head at him. "Honestly, Doc, you don't have to trouble yourself..." She's just glad he came.

Very glad he came.

[scurlock]

Doc arches an eyebrow and gives her a look as he pulls his jacket off and slings it over the back of the chair, leaving him in the shirt and vest.

"Ain't no trouble at all, Kate," he says quietly, almost tentative in using the nickname, not sure if she'll mind it or if she'll ask him not to use it. "Honestly."

A beat.

"Besides, helpin' fix up a few things around her would be nothin' but helpin' the children, right?"

That grin says otherwise, but of course he won't say that.

[ikissdhimbck]

She blushes, but judging by the smile on her face she doesn't mind the nickname at all. She ducks her head away a little.

"I..." she starts, fumbling with her words a bit. "I hate putting you to work. I have no way of repaying you."

Even if it is for the children.

Which it is. Of course.

[scurlock]

Completely for the children.

"Repayin' me? Hell, you don't gotta..." a quick pause. "Heck, I mean, heck. You don't have to repay me. You brought me here t'Green Lake and let me teach your students. I had a hell of...heck of a good time today. Brought back a lot of good memories."

Doc reaches for the cuff of his shirt and unbuttons it, and rolls the sleeve up as he walks over closer to her.

"Besides, just gettin' to spend time with such fine company and bein' in a town where I ain't gettin' shot at," he adds quietly. "That's payment enough."

[ikissdhimbck]

For the umpteenth time today, the blush on Katherine's face deepens. She feels the heat creep all the way down her neck as he steps closer to her, rolling up his sleeves.

"I..." Deep breath. "I'm glad. That you enjoyed yourself. It... it was wonderful of you to come. The children were... well, they loved it, I know."

So did I.

"Really, I feel like I've almost taken advantage of you. You've been--" another deep breath, and her eyes slip to her feet. "--you've been wonderful."

[scurlock]

As she ducks her head and glances down at the floor, that blush rising in her cheeks, Doc pauses and finishes rolling his shirt sleeves up to the elbows so that he won't dirty them by accident, giving her a moment to regain what composure she's got left.

Then he talks, and his voice is a little quiet, a little shy, but he's telling the truth.

"Should be thankin' you," he insists, softly. "S'been a long time since I've been able t'walk 'round a town without my guns on," he admits. "Long time since I've felt safe someplace and I think I needed that more than I thought I did."

Before I head back out that door.

He glances over her head at the doorway of the schoolhouse, and seeing that nobody is near, he gently brushes his fingertips against her jaw and then presses his lips against her hair.

"Thank you."

A beat.

"And forgive me for bein' so forward," he adds, almost as an afterthought, before he slowly takes a step back.

[ikissdhimbck]

Safe.

Her heart skips a beat when his fingers graze her jaw, and suddenly his lips are at her hair and he's so close she's breathing in his scent and the warmth cast from his body is wrapping itself around her.

Without thinking, she gently closes one tiny hand around his wrist, holding his hand at her chin even as he backs away. She can see his eyes again, and her blue eyes are turning with a hundred different emotions as she peers at him.

And then she lets go, and her eyes go back to her feet.

Safe.

"You're welcome," she murmurs quietly. "And thank you."

[scurlock]

Safe.

Doc nods and smiles a little bit.

(Part of him is grateful she didn't hit him, but he's not about to mention that to her, because that just wouldn't be proper, granted that tiny kiss wasn't very proper either so he doesn't have very much room to talk.)

"Now 'bout puttin' me to work," he says, to move the subject along and keep from being too forward with the rest of the conversation, and he makes his way back up to the front of the classroom to his bag and the few tools he managed to get from bar, and he figures they're best suited for fixing the wobbly legs on those desks.

[ikissdhimbck]

She combs an invisible strand of hair behind her ear, composing herself as he moves away from her.

What are you doing, Katherine?

...Kate.

If anybody in town caught sight of this, she would never live it down. The gossip would spread and grow like wildfire, morphing with each new ear it nested in, until she became the Woman of Ill-Repute in Green Lake.

You've gotta be proper.

Her fingers are trembling.

Get a hold of yourself!

She clears her throat and smiles at Doc.

"Only if you insist," she concedes, and carefully she unbuttons her cuffs and begins rolling up her sleeves as well.

She never really did give a damn what the rest of the town thought.

[scurlock]

Doc stops walking with the tools and then gives her a look, with a carefully raised eyebrow as well.

He's not quite sure what to say, at first.

"Now that wasn't part of the deal," he protests. That's just not fair! He crosses the room and sets the tools on the nearest desk, still looking at her. "It ain't...you don't gotta help, Kate, I'm supposed to be repayin' you for all this!"

It's a weak protest at best, because Doc realizes that she's got him beat.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her eyebrow arches to match his, and a devious little smirk comes to her lips.

The sleeves don't go up far. Just halfway to the elbow--far enough so she won't get her white cuffs dirty.

"You never said I couldn't help," she points out, coming to stand next to him so she can examine the tools.

"I'm alright with my hands. I told you, I grew up on a farm. My--" She hesitates only momentarily. "--My mother died when I was young. Pneumonia. For a long time it was just me and my daddy.

"Oh, we had help, of course, but they were always our equals; never our slaves. What work there was around the farm was divided evenly among us all, didn't matter if we were young or old, black or white."

She looks up at him and grins.

"I can mend a fence and muck a stall, too."

[scurlock]

Doc nods. "We didn't have any help, weren't well off enough really, and well after the war none of that really mattered anyways," he says. "And I'm sorry t'hear 'bout your mama," he adds, quietly.

Then he smiles a little bit and grabs a small hammer.

"Then hold the desk steady so I don't knock it apart, if you would?"

He moves to sit on the floor so he can look beneath the desk and wiggle the legs, to find which ones are the problem ones to be mended.

[ikissdhimbck]

She chuckles and obediently takes hold of the desk, holding it firmly in place.

"I... it's all right," she shrugs a bit, though she knows he's not looking at her. "I was just a girl, no more than eight, when she passed. And my papa, well, he took good care of me."

It's his death that still eats at her, but then again the circumstances around that were a little more curious than natural causes.

She nods absently, a bit thoughtful. "He took good care of all of his own. The men who worked for us loved him. The men who worked for our neighbors loved him. But that was my pa, always sticking his neck out for someone else. He was always right there with Garrison. Even joined the Union, during the war. Only one in his whole town." She shakes her head, a faraway look in her eyes. "Didn't win himself a lot of friends, but he did what he felt was right.

"'We're all equal under the eyes of God.'"

She can't remember how many times she heard him say those words.

[scurlock]

"I was only a boy when my daddy and Jake went away," he says, between knocking at the desk and making certain that all the nails and hardware holding it in place are steady and tight. "We didn't have any help but...suppose he believed in what he fought for."

A beat.

"Had someone in bar call me Johnny Reb, once, that was interesting, though if I'd been older I know I would've been for the Union rather than the South," he admits. "You know in New York City, like I was sayin' earlier, there's a lot of talk 'bout how the immigrants are gettin' treated, almost like the blacks and the slaves. Workin' in laundries or on the railroad lines, that sort of thing. It's worse out West. People look down on you if you ain't white, no matter if you're black or Chinese or Mexican. Indians get the worst if you ask me."

That desk done, Doc moves on to the next.

[ikissdhimbck]

Katherine's eyes are downcast as she follows, holding the next desk steady as Doc starts working on it.

There's a deep sadness in her eyes.

"It's terrible what we do to each other," she whispers.

[scurlock]

Doc stops fiddling with the tools when she whispers, and he sits quietly a moment as the sentence rolls around in his head.

"It is," he finally says. "But I suppose that's somethin' good about Milliways," he adds quietly. "Don't matter what color you are or even if you're human or not, and it may not make much sense but y'meet people there that change your life for the better. People you..."

He looks down at his hands for a brief second as he tries to put his thoughts into words.

"...people you'd never had met before that you realize that you can't do without as friends. Life ain't easy, don't matter if you're some rich king or some poor outlaw, but...sometimes y'get a helpin' hand from a higher power to make things right."

[ikissdhimbck]

Katherine's hollow eyes move over to where Doc sits, and they warm a bit as she smiles. A small smile, but a smile nonetheless.

She crouches so she can be eye-to-eye with him, leaning her head against the desk as she regards him. A soft sigh, and the smile widens just a bit.

"I'm glad for the bar, too. It's already blessed me with some wonderful folk," she says, and her voice is so quiet it's nearly a whisper.

[scurlock]

He sets the hammer down beside him and smiles a bit.

"That bar's saved my life, more times than I can count. So've the people in it, more than they probably realize. It's safe, there."

Doc feels safe, here too, in this town. His gun is tucked away neatly in his bag back at the Hawthorns' place but he doesn't miss the weight at his hip and steel near his palm.

Safe. Something so basic yet so very necessary.

[ikissdhimbck]

Again, the smile widens, just a bit. "I'm glad to hear it."

Safe.

Her eyes skate over to the thin scar on his cheek, and she's close enough to him that she reaches up and touches it before she realizes what she's doing.

Pulling her hand away, she apologizes. "I'm sorry."

[scurlock]

When she reaches up and touches the scar, his eyes close on instinct for the briefest of seconds and his mind flashes back to the fight, the feeling of power ringing in his ears, the way Brand had turned and the glint of steel as the blade crossed his face.

But then, it's Doc's turn to catch her wrist before she can pull her hand away completely, and he does so, with a soft touch, even with his rough hands.

"Ain't nothin' to 'pologize for, Kate," he says quietly, before he opens his eyes again and looks up at her.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her stomach flutters when he catches her hand. She is still for a long moment, simply meeting his eyes with her own, breathing a little fast.

It's the quiet rasp of his voice that sends the hair on the back of her neck on end, and she shivers just a bit.

"How--" her voice is quiet--too quiet--so she swallows and starts over again. "How did you get that scar on your face?" Her words are still soft even now.

[scurlock]

Doc's quiet a moment, his eyes on hers for a brief second or two before he closes them again. It hurts too much to tell the story when she's looking at him like that.

Not like he's going to tell the whole story.

"I made a mistake and ended up in trouble in someone else's world. A man had been hurting my friends and I...I thought what I did was the right thing. It wasn't, and I realized it and when the time was right...we tried to set things right again. They sent a rescue party after us, but while Brand and I were fighting he caught me across the face with his sword, just enough to leave this scar."

He shakes his head.

"I blacked out after I got hurt worse, and woke up a week later in the infirmary back at the bar."