All in the Family-Someday, Ch. 1-A Casket Two-Shot spanning Season 1 to the future
Title: All in the Family-Someday, Ch. 1
Summary: "The flowers are easy enough, once she lets them be, but she's at a loss with the other thing. She really ought to donate it somewhere. Or regift, except she doesn't know anyone, does she? She gets the occasional, obligatory invitations from cousins and high school friends she hasn't seen in forever, but she doesn't go. And it's too lovely, anyway. Too pretty and chosen with too much care, even though it was a joke. It's too personal."
A/N: ZOMG. This is IT. I am . . . UGH. I just cannot even, but this is IT. (Also your periodic reminder that Cora Clavia is built from evil parts to do EVIL). It's a 2-shot.
It feels less like a decision than a compulsion. She rolls her eyes and grits her teeth, because this is what he does to her. He makes her sentimental and has her acting the fool. All the time. It's what he does.
But she can't just leave it now. She can't just peel open a box and shove it in with the rest of the unwanted, hastily grabbed things, even though she'd meant to. She'd meant to, but he'd rescued it.
You'll want it someday, won't . . . won't you?
She's unequal to the task, so she tucks it into the other bag. A careful passenger she slips down the side so as not to crowd the purple blaze of flowers. She carries it home.
And then there's the matter of what to do with it all.
The flowers are easy enough. Something to grow. She doesn't have much in the way of that. A philodendron that's sprawling and un-killable so long as she tosses water at it once in a while. Some scrubby cactus relative that someone gave her as a joke when she made detective.
She doesn't have much now, but she grew up surrounded by living things her parents filled the apartment with. A tall, hearty rubber-tree plant they'd gotten as a wedding present. Peace lilies and alocasia and baby's tears. Aloe vera her mother would snip off to smear the sticky sap on her skin when she burned herself.
She loved the task of watering. Gently lifting the leaves and feeling the soil. Turning the pots to make the tall plants bend this way or that, seeking the sun. The memory of her mother entrusting her with the scissors and showing her how to pick through a thicket of green to snip away curled up leaves and sections gone brown or pale.
It was all part of her childhood. Green, living things, but she doesn't have much now. She's always told herself that it was the job. Long, unpredictable hours and days at a time when she couldn't make it home. It's an excuse, though, and she's glad to have this. Heliotrope. Something that demands attention and the work of her hands. She likes the dirt under her nails and the bathroom mirror post-its she needs at first, reminding her to water. Reminding her to move the little pot from sill to sill and look into a better window box. To pick up one of the cute little tin watering cans she's seen in some window somewhere, even though half-filled pint glasses have always gotten the job done before.
And then they're habit. Before too long, really, they're a fixture, and she doesn't need the post-its. It's ritual soon enough. Turning. Watering. plucking away the dry petals when the color fades. It's ritual to bend her head over the sprawling purple clusters before she leaves in the mornings. To breathe in and out, drawing scent deep into herself and, more often than not, leaving behind an encouraging whisper, because this is what he does to her.
The flowers are easy enough, once she lets them be, but she's at a loss with the other thing. She really ought to donate it somewhere. Or regift, except she doesn't know anyone, does she? She gets the occasional, obligatory invitations from cousins and high school friends she hasn't seen in forever, but she doesn't go. And it's too lovely, anyway. Too pretty and chosen with too much care, even though it was a joke. It's too personal.
It's part of the problem.
She lets it sit for a long while on the old painted desk by the door, bag and stuffing and all, but that's a danger. She sees finally that it's a danger when she realizes one morning that she's inclined to wave to it. She's inclined to peek at the merry little hat tucked inside and run her fingers over the warmth and softness of it when she's feeling blue.
It's the strangest thing. She's not a baby person. She never was. Not even before her mom. Not even before the job made the idea of kids of her own unthinkable.
She's still not a baby person. It's a relief the day she finally dumps the bag on to the couch and sits with the damned things. She picks up the tiny sweater and holds it to the light. She twirls the hat on a finger and spreads both things in her lap and she's still not a baby person. Not in general.
But she tucks them carefully back into the bag-sweater and hat and the bed of hand-dyed raffia. She ties the handles up with the satin ribbon and presses up on her toes. She pushes it up, out of sight, as far back in the closet as it will go. But she keeps it.
Because this is what he does to her.
It's the thing that breaks her when she loses everything. How it comes back to her. So unexpected. So unexpected.
She's stoic through it all. She has to be. It's not her life in ruins, it's a crime scene, and even with her heart pounding and her knees scraped and bruised by the wreck of everything she owns, she can't stop to think of it any other way. Even when she spots that glimmer of chain and kneels down beside the tattered picture of her parents. Even when, like a miracle, she comes up with her mother's ring, she's stoic. She has to be.
She loses the flowers, of course. She loses everything alive, and the little tin watering can has a hole blown through it. It's hard, but it's one of a hundred tragedies. Books and irreplaceable photos. Stone figurines fractured and hand-me-down china shattered. A faded t-shirt her mom brought her as a joke from a business trip to Nebraska, gone with the basket of laundry she'd been too tired to deal with. She takes inventory. Assigns value and calculates loss and the sums have little to do with one another.
Most of her work clothes are salvageable. So they tell her, anyway. Insurance does cover dry cleaning, but it's an undertaking. Someone from the agency takes everything and carts it off, and then it's a week and another week and into the next before the intercom buzzes and it's lucky she's in.
The temporary place is blank and empty. She doesn't spend a lot of time there, but she happens to be in, and they roll a hotel-style hanging rack right through the door. She overtips. She has no idea really-no clue about protocol when you've lost everything and someone brings a part of it back to life-but when the guy enthusiastically offers to hang things for her, she thinks she must have overtipped.
She turns him down. A snap decision she second guesses before the door is closed, but it's as good an exercise as any. A step away from the in-between she's been occupying. So she has him drape armfuls over the counter and the back of the couch before the empty cart rattles back over the the hardwood and out the door. She tears through plastic twists up the cheap wire hangers. She buttons and zips and rearranges things in groups.
It's something like therapy until she lifts an unremarkable grey blazer and there they are. A tiny sweater neatly pinned to the stiff paper. The little hat looped around the neck of the hanger, a length of cream ribbon, satin smooth, slipped through the emerald that's woven in and out just above the ruffled brim. A kind, careful gesture, and it's the thing that breaks her. It takes her to the floor with her knees drawn up. She cries over it until she's empty. A lovely, silly thing she hadn't even remembered she'd lost.
It would be a lie to say she forgets about them. They dwell in the darkest corner of a few closets, to be sure, but she's the one who puts them there. She's the one to flick quickly past the hanger, every time, sliding it into the keep section when she moves from place to place to place.
It would be a lie to say their very presence doesn't make her uneasy when she's finally somewhere she plans to stay. When he's gone and she's alone. Left to dig at her own wounds again. It would be a lie to say it doesn't bother her to picture them, tiny and waiting in the dark while, just steps away, the sun pours into the room, slipping between brutal facts of her mother's murder, written out in her own hand and tacked up in the window.
It would be a lie to say there aren't a hundred things wrong with her holding on to them. Having held on to them all this time, given what has and hasn't happened between them. What is and isn't.
But the day he comes to her with flowers, there's a still, secret part of her that's so glad to know they're there. A not-so-still, not-so-secret part of her that wants to drag him by the hand to the darkest corner of her closet. Wants to take the already-dying blossoms from him and tell him that they're wrong, lovely as they are. That he's supposed to bring her living things that need the work of her hands and whispers from her lips to grow and thrive. That the things he brings her ought to carry them both from now all the way til then. An unbroken line.
It would be a lie to say she doesn't want to tell him right then that she's been holding on to Someday all this time.
She's shy about them when they're first together. He's a casual snoop when he's bored. A dedicated snoop when he's plotting something. He's always bored or plotting something. Sometimes both, and she doesn't want him to know. It's too soon. Too weighty, though it's odd to think of them that way. Innocent little things that started as a joke.
It might always be too soon. Because nothing has changed. She's a cop. She's not a baby person, and he's been there already. He has a grown daughter, and for once in her life, being with him-being in this moment and the next and the next-feels like enough. It feels like the right thing to hold close.
For a while-later on-they're too frightening. They're too close to all the things they never talk about, and anger and fear and the burning desire to run all flare up when she comes across them. Innocent little things, but they're painful when it seems that everything is falling apart. When it seems like the inevitable has come at last, and she's lost him. Whether she's driven him away or he's cast her aside. Either way, it's like she's always worried it would be. It's just too painful to think about them. Someday gone to Never.
But the two of them come right. They pass through their darkest hour yet, and it's still his fingers tangled with hers, only she's leaving. Packing up again and it's the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
He's there. "Helping." Insisting that she has to take this and this and this. That she'll be lonely without every last tchotchke, even though her place in DC is small and already furnished. He's there, snapping drop cloths high in the air to cover the furniture, because she'll probably have to deal with a sublet eventually, but there's no time and she's stubborn anyway.
He's in the living room. She's in the darkest corner of the closet, seeking them out. Surprised to find them exactly where they ought to be, because everything has seemed impossible these last few weeks and it's all happening too fast. She wants to stop the world, and they do that for her. Warmth and color and softness. Someday in her hands, and she stops the world for a little while.
"Kate?" His voice is low. Worried, even though he's been shying away from that. He's been . . . hearty and upbeat and excited for her. But she's standing alone in the closet. Unmoving. Of course he's worried. "Are you ok?"
It's a split-second decision. She's balanced on the edge of turning to him. Letting him see the little bundle of it pressed to her midsection. Asking him to keep Someday a while, but so much has happened already in such a short time. So much, and when she thinks of not having them near, her heart clenches hard.
"Fine," she says, stooping to tuck them under the neat stack of shirts and jeans already in the rolling suitcase at her feet. She rises and turns and wraps herself around him. "I'm fine."
A/N: If there were a second chapter-which there certainly is not-it would be up sometime this weekend. UGH. UUUGGGGHhhhh.
Summary: "The flowers are easy enough, once she lets them be, but she's at a loss with the other thing. She really ought to donate it somewhere. Or regift, except she doesn't know anyone, does she? She gets the occasional, obligatory invitations from cousins and high school friends she hasn't seen in forever, but she doesn't go. And it's too lovely, anyway. Too pretty and chosen with too much care, even though it was a joke. It's too personal."
A/N: ZOMG. This is IT. I am . . . UGH. I just cannot even, but this is IT. (Also your periodic reminder that Cora Clavia is built from evil parts to do EVIL). It's a 2-shot.
It feels less like a decision than a compulsion. She rolls her eyes and grits her teeth, because this is what he does to her. He makes her sentimental and has her acting the fool. All the time. It's what he does.
But she can't just leave it now. She can't just peel open a box and shove it in with the rest of the unwanted, hastily grabbed things, even though she'd meant to. She'd meant to, but he'd rescued it.
You'll want it someday, won't . . . won't you?
She's unequal to the task, so she tucks it into the other bag. A careful passenger she slips down the side so as not to crowd the purple blaze of flowers. She carries it home.
And then there's the matter of what to do with it all.
The flowers are easy enough. Something to grow. She doesn't have much in the way of that. A philodendron that's sprawling and un-killable so long as she tosses water at it once in a while. Some scrubby cactus relative that someone gave her as a joke when she made detective.
She doesn't have much now, but she grew up surrounded by living things her parents filled the apartment with. A tall, hearty rubber-tree plant they'd gotten as a wedding present. Peace lilies and alocasia and baby's tears. Aloe vera her mother would snip off to smear the sticky sap on her skin when she burned herself.
She loved the task of watering. Gently lifting the leaves and feeling the soil. Turning the pots to make the tall plants bend this way or that, seeking the sun. The memory of her mother entrusting her with the scissors and showing her how to pick through a thicket of green to snip away curled up leaves and sections gone brown or pale.
It was all part of her childhood. Green, living things, but she doesn't have much now. She's always told herself that it was the job. Long, unpredictable hours and days at a time when she couldn't make it home. It's an excuse, though, and she's glad to have this. Heliotrope. Something that demands attention and the work of her hands. She likes the dirt under her nails and the bathroom mirror post-its she needs at first, reminding her to water. Reminding her to move the little pot from sill to sill and look into a better window box. To pick up one of the cute little tin watering cans she's seen in some window somewhere, even though half-filled pint glasses have always gotten the job done before.
And then they're habit. Before too long, really, they're a fixture, and she doesn't need the post-its. It's ritual soon enough. Turning. Watering. plucking away the dry petals when the color fades. It's ritual to bend her head over the sprawling purple clusters before she leaves in the mornings. To breathe in and out, drawing scent deep into herself and, more often than not, leaving behind an encouraging whisper, because this is what he does to her.
The flowers are easy enough, once she lets them be, but she's at a loss with the other thing. She really ought to donate it somewhere. Or regift, except she doesn't know anyone, does she? She gets the occasional, obligatory invitations from cousins and high school friends she hasn't seen in forever, but she doesn't go. And it's too lovely, anyway. Too pretty and chosen with too much care, even though it was a joke. It's too personal.
It's part of the problem.
She lets it sit for a long while on the old painted desk by the door, bag and stuffing and all, but that's a danger. She sees finally that it's a danger when she realizes one morning that she's inclined to wave to it. She's inclined to peek at the merry little hat tucked inside and run her fingers over the warmth and softness of it when she's feeling blue.
It's the strangest thing. She's not a baby person. She never was. Not even before her mom. Not even before the job made the idea of kids of her own unthinkable.
She's still not a baby person. It's a relief the day she finally dumps the bag on to the couch and sits with the damned things. She picks up the tiny sweater and holds it to the light. She twirls the hat on a finger and spreads both things in her lap and she's still not a baby person. Not in general.
But she tucks them carefully back into the bag-sweater and hat and the bed of hand-dyed raffia. She ties the handles up with the satin ribbon and presses up on her toes. She pushes it up, out of sight, as far back in the closet as it will go. But she keeps it.
Because this is what he does to her.
It's the thing that breaks her when she loses everything. How it comes back to her. So unexpected. So unexpected.
She's stoic through it all. She has to be. It's not her life in ruins, it's a crime scene, and even with her heart pounding and her knees scraped and bruised by the wreck of everything she owns, she can't stop to think of it any other way. Even when she spots that glimmer of chain and kneels down beside the tattered picture of her parents. Even when, like a miracle, she comes up with her mother's ring, she's stoic. She has to be.
She loses the flowers, of course. She loses everything alive, and the little tin watering can has a hole blown through it. It's hard, but it's one of a hundred tragedies. Books and irreplaceable photos. Stone figurines fractured and hand-me-down china shattered. A faded t-shirt her mom brought her as a joke from a business trip to Nebraska, gone with the basket of laundry she'd been too tired to deal with. She takes inventory. Assigns value and calculates loss and the sums have little to do with one another.
Most of her work clothes are salvageable. So they tell her, anyway. Insurance does cover dry cleaning, but it's an undertaking. Someone from the agency takes everything and carts it off, and then it's a week and another week and into the next before the intercom buzzes and it's lucky she's in.
The temporary place is blank and empty. She doesn't spend a lot of time there, but she happens to be in, and they roll a hotel-style hanging rack right through the door. She overtips. She has no idea really-no clue about protocol when you've lost everything and someone brings a part of it back to life-but when the guy enthusiastically offers to hang things for her, she thinks she must have overtipped.
She turns him down. A snap decision she second guesses before the door is closed, but it's as good an exercise as any. A step away from the in-between she's been occupying. So she has him drape armfuls over the counter and the back of the couch before the empty cart rattles back over the the hardwood and out the door. She tears through plastic twists up the cheap wire hangers. She buttons and zips and rearranges things in groups.
It's something like therapy until she lifts an unremarkable grey blazer and there they are. A tiny sweater neatly pinned to the stiff paper. The little hat looped around the neck of the hanger, a length of cream ribbon, satin smooth, slipped through the emerald that's woven in and out just above the ruffled brim. A kind, careful gesture, and it's the thing that breaks her. It takes her to the floor with her knees drawn up. She cries over it until she's empty. A lovely, silly thing she hadn't even remembered she'd lost.
It would be a lie to say she forgets about them. They dwell in the darkest corner of a few closets, to be sure, but she's the one who puts them there. She's the one to flick quickly past the hanger, every time, sliding it into the keep section when she moves from place to place to place.
It would be a lie to say their very presence doesn't make her uneasy when she's finally somewhere she plans to stay. When he's gone and she's alone. Left to dig at her own wounds again. It would be a lie to say it doesn't bother her to picture them, tiny and waiting in the dark while, just steps away, the sun pours into the room, slipping between brutal facts of her mother's murder, written out in her own hand and tacked up in the window.
It would be a lie to say there aren't a hundred things wrong with her holding on to them. Having held on to them all this time, given what has and hasn't happened between them. What is and isn't.
But the day he comes to her with flowers, there's a still, secret part of her that's so glad to know they're there. A not-so-still, not-so-secret part of her that wants to drag him by the hand to the darkest corner of her closet. Wants to take the already-dying blossoms from him and tell him that they're wrong, lovely as they are. That he's supposed to bring her living things that need the work of her hands and whispers from her lips to grow and thrive. That the things he brings her ought to carry them both from now all the way til then. An unbroken line.
It would be a lie to say she doesn't want to tell him right then that she's been holding on to Someday all this time.
She's shy about them when they're first together. He's a casual snoop when he's bored. A dedicated snoop when he's plotting something. He's always bored or plotting something. Sometimes both, and she doesn't want him to know. It's too soon. Too weighty, though it's odd to think of them that way. Innocent little things that started as a joke.
It might always be too soon. Because nothing has changed. She's a cop. She's not a baby person, and he's been there already. He has a grown daughter, and for once in her life, being with him-being in this moment and the next and the next-feels like enough. It feels like the right thing to hold close.
For a while-later on-they're too frightening. They're too close to all the things they never talk about, and anger and fear and the burning desire to run all flare up when she comes across them. Innocent little things, but they're painful when it seems that everything is falling apart. When it seems like the inevitable has come at last, and she's lost him. Whether she's driven him away or he's cast her aside. Either way, it's like she's always worried it would be. It's just too painful to think about them. Someday gone to Never.
But the two of them come right. They pass through their darkest hour yet, and it's still his fingers tangled with hers, only she's leaving. Packing up again and it's the end of one thing and the beginning of another.
He's there. "Helping." Insisting that she has to take this and this and this. That she'll be lonely without every last tchotchke, even though her place in DC is small and already furnished. He's there, snapping drop cloths high in the air to cover the furniture, because she'll probably have to deal with a sublet eventually, but there's no time and she's stubborn anyway.
He's in the living room. She's in the darkest corner of the closet, seeking them out. Surprised to find them exactly where they ought to be, because everything has seemed impossible these last few weeks and it's all happening too fast. She wants to stop the world, and they do that for her. Warmth and color and softness. Someday in her hands, and she stops the world for a little while.
"Kate?" His voice is low. Worried, even though he's been shying away from that. He's been . . . hearty and upbeat and excited for her. But she's standing alone in the closet. Unmoving. Of course he's worried. "Are you ok?"
It's a split-second decision. She's balanced on the edge of turning to him. Letting him see the little bundle of it pressed to her midsection. Asking him to keep Someday a while, but so much has happened already in such a short time. So much, and when she thinks of not having them near, her heart clenches hard.
"Fine," she says, stooping to tuck them under the neat stack of shirts and jeans already in the rolling suitcase at her feet. She rises and turns and wraps herself around him. "I'm fine."
A/N: If there were a second chapter-which there certainly is not-it would be up sometime this weekend. UGH. UUUGGGGHhhhh.