Who: Lindsey McDonald and Cathy Hyatt What: After the nightmares are gone, the doubts stick around When: Evening Where: Apartment Rating: PG Status: Log; complete
Lindsey swore under his breath as the keys slipped out of his fingers and hit the floor in front of the door. With careful consideration, he shifted the bag of Chinese food to the other arm, adjusted his grip on his briefcase, and crouched down, sliding the keys towards him. Finally he was able to get a finger through the loop and rose to his feet, finding the apartment key and unlocking the door. Cerberus, leaving the tiny puppy stage and entering the awkward all legs and no grace stage, came running into the room, feet skidding on the floor.
"Babe, I'm home," he called as he dropped the keys on the table, the briefcase and his coat on the couch, and took the food to the kitchen. "And I brought food. Hope you don't mind but after a long day, cooking doesn't seem like all that great an idea." He rolled up his sleeves and dug into the silverware drawer for a couple of forks. Tonight, it was the lazy method.
Lindsey dug out his carton of food and sat back on the counter, prodding around the mess of rice with his fork while he waited for Cathy.
Cathy, having clearly been on a similar wavelength, was dressed for the night, already decked out in plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt that may or may not have been Lindsey's. Since the ability to sleep soundly had been returned to her, she had been taking advantage of the once-natural activity. "Mind? You kidding?"
She appeared in the kitchen a moment later, arms sliding around his shoulders from behind as her lips sought out his neck, then jaw, then temple. "And Chinese food, no less. You treat me too well." Claiming the spot next to him, she reached for the carton that must have been hers and lifted the fork.
"How was work?"
Lindsey closed his eyes, carton in hand momentarily forgotten as Cathy's lips brushed over his skin, her arms pressed around her neck. After a long day at work, all he needed was his girlfriend and a good meal and he was a happy man. Being able to sleep without being tortured by every nightmare and fear was great too but once he actually caught up on sleep, he'd be back to sleeping as little as he could get away with. As much as she hated that phrase, he meant it when he said that he could sleep when he was dead.
"I treat you as you should be treated." He slid his free arm around her waist and gave her a tight hug before releasing her so that she could get her food. Lindsey slid over so she had her room to work, a comfortable distance between the two of them. "It's work," he replied, finding a piece of shrimp with his fork and jabbing at it. It disappeared into his mouth a moment later. "Still working on proving my worth and loyalty before I get to do the heavy hitting. The former shouldn't take too long." The latter was tainted by his previous employer. No one had very many good things to say about the demonic law firm, except they knew how to win a case.
If only they knew about the magical jury tampering, witness intimidating, falsification of records and evidence, buying off the court officials, and general misguided behavior that some of the firm's employees engaged in. Lindsey? He didn't need the help. So what if there may have been a few times here or there where he'd taken a little extra help? It wasn't often.
"How was your day?"
She was halfway through a bite of chicken when the question was posed, and told him so with a raise of a hand, doing her best to overcome the obstacle without either losing her table manners or choking. Finally, she swallowed, taking another moment to determine how to answer. "It was...fine, I guess," she stated, non-committal. And it had been. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she had accomplished some by way of organization and worked on the web site, but other than that? It didn't deserve mention, and she was happy to leave it at that.
"They're gonna love you, you know," she added, attention still stolen by Lindsey's own recount. Of course, that wasn't anything that he didn't already know, but it didn't hurt to say anyway. "They want to test the waters for a bit? Let 'em."
And speaking of testing the waters, she was currently doing the exact same thing, waiting for the opportune moment to bring up the thing that had been on her mind for the better part of a month. They both seemed to be in a decent mood, and while after a long day might not have been the best of times, then when? The mornings were rushed, they went their separate ways until now...and some things couldn't wait any longer. The strain between them was beginning to repair itself, thanks largely to the fact that sleep had miraculously returned, but the damage had been done. And she knew that it wasn't only the case with her.
"You seem well-rested," she started, cautious.
He chuckled, waiting until he had swallowed his own mouthful of rice before he spoke. "You sound so enthusiastic about that," he said, leaning over to gently nudge her shoulder with his. "Why do you guess?" That little bit tacked on at the end he wasn't going to let go until he received an answer. Playing the odds, sometimes 'I guess' meant things weren't quite as great as they could be. He dug the fork back in, looking for a chunk of shrimp.
"Or tolerate me. I don't make it easy to get along with me and I'll be damned if I care about that." He paused thoughtfully. "Might be why I can count the number of friends I have on one, maybe two hands. You people have the patience of saints, you know that?" He could be more accommodating to people but beyond playing up the charm, he had no interest in catering to people's ideals of what a good acquaintance was. Accept him as he was.
He glanced over at her, frowning slightly. "More or less," he replied, sticking the fork in the box and setting it down. He slid off the counter and went over to the fridge, pulling it open to root around. "Do you want anything?" The question was followed by a continuation of the conversation. "Seems like we're in the clear." He found a bottle of beer and turned to face her. "Are you? The nightmares haven't come back, have they?"
His insistence brought a smile to her face, though even as her head shook slightly, she knew she wasn’t getting out of this one. Lindsey knew her a little too well. “Just a boring office day,” she confided in him, lifting the same shoulder he had nudged in a shrug. “I accomplished some things, but nothing important.” And she hated that. It was an improvement upon fruitless audition after audition, but being the woman she was, she was driven by activity and interaction—though, even she had to acknowledge, ‘boring office days’ had their own merit.
She shook her head again, propping her chin up with a hand as she thought about that, fork poised in the other. "It's easier to get along with you than you think," she informed him, meaning it. "And I'm not only saying that because we're here--" A broad gesture, indicating more than just the apartment. "It was easy from the get-go to like you. To care about you."
Another quiet moment of consideration, and then she released a laugh. "But I do think you intimidate people, baby."
The frown did not go unnoticed, and if she had to guess, it had less to do with the topic of discussion, and more that it had been brought up. "Diet coke, please." A fingernail tapped against the counter top, anxious, and one more time, silence followed. "Not new ones. Or those ones."
She was choosing her words carefully.
"Lindsey...I don't want you to think that I believed for a second what they were trying to tell me"--though, of course, she had--"but I think we need to talk about it. What they showed me...what I know they must have showed you, even though you haven't mentioned it. And don't tell me it's 'nothing', because I know that's not true."
"I don't mind intimidating people," Lindsey stated lightly before looking back towards the fridge to locate her drink of choice. "At least you got something done. It may not seem like much considering you were bored but the accomplishment is there." He picked up the can and reached over to set it beside her, kicking the door shut.
He picked up the bottle and returned to his seat on the counter, turning it in his hands without removing the cap while he listened to Cathy. This wasn't about the nightmares, at least not directly. The hesitation and the thought he'd thought he read had been about the aftereffects. His mouth was already open to respond with 'nothing' when she shot him down and rightly so. It wasn't nothing.
He hadn't even asked what she'd seen, if she'd seen something. What future they'd given her, what they'd thought would bother her the most. His appetite went missing but he grabbed his fork to pop the top off the bottle and took a long drink. Once he had swallowed it, he looked up at her.
"Jamie came to Los Angeles," he said quietly, "and he wanted you back."
That was all he had to say, and then her heart was stuck in her throat. Of course they would stoop so low as to bring her ex-husband into the picture, if they were willing to concoct that her entire relationship with him had been a lie--...no. Not yet. This was about him...and in a way, her. Their relationship, their baggage. She knew that she came with a lot, and was more than grateful that Lindsey had been willing to be so patient with her. Now, she wouldn't have traded the man for anything--or anyone. The thought, she was certain, would never cross her mind. But did he know that?
Cathy knew what was coming, and if the mix of pained sympathy and anger was any indication, it was written over her face. Even so, she hoped that she was wrong. "Baby..." Her eyes closed for a moment, a hand pressing over her eyes as she swallowed, hard. "What did I do to you?"
He reached out with his free hand to take the one over her eyes, tugging it gently away from her face. Lindsey kissed the back of her hand. "I know it wasn't you, Cathy, and that's all that matters." He didn't want to talk about what was said. Even knowing that it all been a nightmare, some part of it had rung true. Stability wasn't a certainty in his life and therefore, not something he could offer to her. And what if she did want that?
There was no time like the present to bring that up.
"Stability. That he could give it to you and that I couldn't. Maybe someday a home, children, a normal life." He stared at her hand, still grasped in his. "And I want to know what you want, Cathy. If there's ever something you have a problem with, with me, bring it up. It may not be changeable but at least I'll be aware and we can talk about it."
Her eyes, too, were on their hands as he spoke and she tried valiantly to swallow the thousands of too-complicated emotions threatening to pour over her carefully balanced demeanor. So she had gone with him, then. Broken the heart of the man she loved. And though it hadn't been her, in that moment, it had been real. She knew how that felt.
"Listen, Lindsey," she began, it taking more effort to form the words whilst keeping her composure than she could have expected. "I'm not gonna tell you that he means nothing to me, because that would be a lie. He does. I wonder about him every now and then, how he's faring...but listen to me, Lindsey, I don't love him anymore. I don't. I would never, in a million years, consider going back to him."
She was looking into his eyes by now, more honest than she had ever been. "And I don't regret the time I spent with him because, in a way, it made me who I am now." Her fingers laced through his, and this time she was kissing the palm of his hand. "And I wouldn't change that for the world."
A moment of hesitation came then, when she considered the question that had been posed to her. Stability. Children. The latter of those two things twisted her heart, as hard as she tried not to show it.
"There was a time in my life when I wanted those things," she admitted. "I never wanted anything mundane--not the house, the yard, and the white picket fence--but I did want..." She shook her head, trailing off. "But some of those things, I can't have in my life, and it has nothing to do with you, do you understand? It was low of them to even go there." Anger, directed toward the Senior Partners for making her relive that time in her life just now, not at Lindsey. It dissipated quickly, and she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
"What do I want? I want you. And look around, what do you think it is we have here, anyway?" She had to smile, finding it ironic. "Stability. Our own kind."
He understood what she meant all too well. "I wouldn't want you to regret that time," he replied, "because it made you who you are, the woman that I fell in love with." He squeezed her fingers briefly before he released them and dropped his hand back to the countertop. "He's part of your past and I understand that you will still in some way care for him. That five years is as much you as it was him."
Which was why the dream had frustrated him so much. Jamie had that connection to Cathy's past. He had known her for five years of marriage, despite having chosen to cheat on her. There was something there that had kept them together until they had grown apart. And for all of Lindsey's talent, his ability to manipulate, the willpower to get what he wanted, he couldn't change what Cathy wanted. But the reassurances she gave him now were bare honesty, the truth, pushing away some of the doubt that had existed in the back of his mind when it had come to their relationship as of late.
When she faltered, talking about what she wanted, Lindsey glanced over at her. There was something there, a story that hurt her, something she didn't want to talk about. "Yeah," he said. "Our own stability." He hesitated, wondering if he should ask. If she would want to even talk about it. "You do know that involves redefining the entire meaning of the word 'stability', right?"
"I understand, Cathy." He sighed and picked up the bottle again, taking another drink. "I believe in us. With all the work we've put into this relationship, I'm not going to lose faith over a stab at my battered psyche." He stared down at the bottle. "What did they show you?"
"Redefinition never hurt anybody. We both come back here every night, don't we?" She watched him hesitate in response to her hesitation, and knew there was no avoiding the subject. Not because he asked--and she appreciated that he hadn't--but because in an 'everything on the table' moment such as the one they were having, some things needed to be said. Rather, some secrets deserved mention.
"Children." There was wistfulness in the way she said the word, betraying the shake of her head that was meant to tell him she had gotten over it. "We tried for a long time, for them. It...never happened. They said it might have been the stress, that I needed to take some time off to relax and just let it happen naturally. Only, I didn't...and it didn't." But that was only half of it. "The last thing I heard from him, before I decided to move to L.A.? He and Elise were expecting a son. So I'm pretty sure it's me." A short, awkward laugh followed, as if it were something she was able to find amusing, after the fact.
His assertion brought a slight smile to her face. "I'm not gonna, either," she promised, frowning as the tables were just as suddenly turned on her. It was harder to have to tell him what the dream version of himself had done to her than it was to hear how the firm had demonized her own character.
"You left me," she said at last, quiet. "Said you'd been working for that firm all along, that I was just the means to an end."
"We do. A small victory in a city that prides itself on chaos," Lindsey replied, the barest hint of a smile on his lips. It disappeared almost immediately as she explained her hesitation. All their previous conversations in which Lindsey had vehemently protested ever having children seemed petty now. He still didn't but Cathy had at a point in her life and had been denied, by her own body, by circumstance. That was worse. "I'm sorry." It was the only thing he could say that wasn't condescending in reassurance or brutally blunt, neither of which she deserved.
His expression went blank. Lindsey slid off the counter and ran a hand through his hair. He could only imagine what that must have been like for Cathy to experience. The dreams had been very real, almost impossible to distinguish from reality. In this case, it was very close to reality.
Honesty. "That would be something I would do," he told Cathy as he turned to face her, leaning against the opposite counter. "Play a part to manipulate the players into place, to get what I need, and then see the plan through to the end. I have done that." Lindsey looked up to meet her gaze. "But you? I'd never do that to you. There is nothing in this world that I would want or that could make me. The love I have for you is very real."
"It's okay." It wasn't, not really, but the last thing Cathy wanted from him was pity. He had made his opinion on the matter very clear on a number of occasions, and she supposed that it worked out, anyway. "I mean, it's better that way, I guess. Things would have been...very messy, when they ended." Because having a baby, while it would have been wonderful, would not have solved their problems.
She nodded mutely when he admitted the act was one that he had been guilty of in the past, unsurprised. "I believe you," she reassured him, ignoring the tiny voice of cynicism inside of her head that called her stupid for it. Perhaps, by logic, it might have been, but she did trust him. With all of her heart. "And you know I feel the same way."
A smile surfaced, at last, a weight lifted. "This feels better, doesn't it?"
He left it at that, an unspoken acknowledgement of where not to tread. She had respected his moments in the past and he would respect hers. "They would have. Maybe it was a sign he just wasn't right for you." It wasn't a reassurance or a sympathy vote but a statement left unelaborated on. It gave me the chance with you.
Lindsey knew that she was aware of some of the things he had done and would continue to do, a player by his own rules in this world. He never tried to make it seem like he was innocent of all charges, that he wasn't as bad as his reputation made him out to be, and she accepted him for who he was. She didn't try to change him, didn't expect him to, and he loved her all the more for it. Just as who she was, was who Lindsey wanted. He never wanted her to change, not for him, not for anyone, remain the woman he had fallen in love with.
"I do." He ran his thumb across the side of the bottle, the chill seeping into his thumbpad. "And I know that it's not always easy. So thank you." He pushed away from the counter, setting the bottle down on the other counter before he pulled her into a hug. "It does. Is that all that was weighing on your mind?"
"Maybe it was," she agreed easily enough, appreciating his stab at finding the silver lining. It was ironic, given that the one she had ended up with vehemently protested the idea of children in the first place. Still, while she didn't know for a fact that bearing a child was, for her, a physical impossibility (she had always been too afraid to pursue the matter at length), the sting was still there. She doubted that Lindsey would ever be able to understand it, or how difficult it could be at times to see the people around her finding the fortune she had missed out on, and in some cases, failing to exalt over the miracle. Because that's what it was, a miracle. But since it was pointless to dwell, she quit while she still had the chance.
"He wasn't right for me, you're right." It was the first time she had ever acknowledged it aloud, and while it sounded strange, it was somehow liberating. She opened her mouth to elaborate, but found herself being enveloped in embrace instead. Stepping away from the counter, her arms found him, locking tightly around his middle. "How many times do I have to tell you?" she reprimanded him, gentle yet firm. "It's easy to love you. Stop it."
Another question, one that forced Cathy to ask herself the same thing. When she was being truthful, there was always something weighing on her mind. "You know I question things, a lot," she told Lindsey, needing one last reassurance even though her heart already knew the answer. "And all of this chaos has just made me so..." She shrugged a single shoulder, withdrawing to look up at him.
"I'm not gonna be perfect. Neither of us are. But I want to know that I'm still making you happy, after all this time. I mean, it's been nearly a year now, and I know how things change." Did she ever. "Especially lately, when everything has been so hard. That's all. And if I'm not--or there's ever a time when I'm not--I want to know that you'll come to me so we can work on getting the spark back."
"I may not be but it's a possibility. You know how that relationship went, not me. But I want you to know that." He tightened his arms around her, the hug welcome content after the discussion. "It takes two but not everything is shared fault. And sometimes that fault falls on the wrong person." The last two words were emphasized, a point to be made. Whatever had happened with Jamie, some circumstances were out of Cathy's control and he didn't want her taking those on herself. "You're too hard on yourself sometimes, babe. I understand it being motivational because hell, I'm the same way, but there is such a thing as too much."
He snorted. "Cathy, I'd love to just give in to that but..." He trailed off. What could he say that wouldn't sound wrong? That she hadn't really seen him in action? There were days when he wished he could show her the old days at Wolfram and Hart, or his past stint as CEO, or what he did in between, Nepal, scheming with Eve, and see if she felt the same way because that was the man he was and hell if he was ever going to be apologetic about it. But emotions, less logical, told him to quit being an idiot. They'd been through more than a few tough situations together now, apocalypses, nightmarish assaults, whatever Los Angeles could throw at them. She knew, not everything about him, but just enough to know he wasn't and never would be a knight in shining armor, and loved him just the same.
Why was it that it felt odd, that someone would take him for being that guy and love him anyway? He had no problem loving every inch of her as she was, from strengths to flaws, personality, likes and dislikes, good days and bad. There was nothing this woman could do short of betrayal that would ever push him away. He felt comfortable around her, among a rare few others, where he didn't want to keep the world at a distance when it came to his personal life. Even after the many times in the initial get go that he'd waited for that shoe to drop, even had the temptation to throw it by dropping hints about his past, and she'd never wavered. Not once. That damn sneaker was never going to hit rock bottom.
He was crazy for the woman in his arms.
"If anything, after all this mess?" Lindsey said as he pulled away from her, putting his fingers under her chin. "I love you more than I ever thought possible." Angel's words, that it wasn't possible for someone like him to actually love another, rang in Lindsey's ears and he smirked. His old enemy wasn't right about everything, meaning there was plenty more he could have been wrong about. But this, this felt real. Maybe he still wasn't fully capable but he was able enough to love, in his own way, and Cathy was the object of that affection. "I could give you a big damn speech about why and our food would get cold but it'd just be the longer way of saying this relationship just gets better and better."
"We both did terrible things to each other," Cathy admitted openly, an affirmative nod following. "But what he did was inexcusable. And I tried to fix things...but it was too late. So yes, I guess the way things have worked out? He wasn't right for me. And I wasn't right for him. It happens." She was hardly carefree about it, but it no longer hurt in the slightest to admit. If someone would have told her that would be the case three years ago, she never would have believed them. "I wish him the best."
She watched him carefully, only able to offer up the vaguest of guesses as to what he might be thinking. Of course, he had to verbally refuse her claim, a tendency that hurt her more than he could guess. Where had this belief come from, that it was an impossibility for any woman, let alone herself, to love him unconditionally? For a man that was the walking definition of confidence--in some ways, arrogance--his views of himself seemed at times horribly out of perspective. Cathy was no stranger to the fact that he had done some impressively awful things in his life, and unashamedly so, but she held firmly to the belief that he was, at his core, a good man. While Lindsey sainted her for seeing those good things through everything else, what he failed to realize was that he made it damn near impossible for her not to. It was something he proved to her day after day, in the way he treated her, the little things he did.
Her hands found his face, a thumb stroking tenderly over the line of his cheekbone before dropping to his shoulders. "I wish I knew how to make you believe me," she told him, candidly regretful of that much. "This relationship just keeps getting better and better for me, too. And there is no one in this world that I would rather be in it with than you. Okay? It's gonna get harder as more time passes, and we're gonna have to work at it, but I am not about to let us sink."
There would never be any running away, not on Cathy's part. The thought of falling for another man had passed her mind when she signed those divorce papers, certain that once she gave her heart away, there was no getting it back, let alone entrusting it to another. But both of those things had happened, and though their relationship was far from the cookie-cutter stereotype of 'perfect' (they clearly had issues of their own)...she was happy. And hopelessly in love. And, truth be told, that scared her a little.
He lifted his bottle in a toast to someone not present. "Cheers, man. You lost out and I ended up dating an amazing woman." He quit before he ended the mocking good sportsmanship with something along the lines of wishing a venereal disease on him. Ex or not, Cathy might not have appreciated it and knowing his unwilling ability to jinx things, somewhere in another reality, a cheating ex would end up with something none to pleasent down below. Not that he gave a damn. He'd taken her for granted, instilled in her some insecurities that she held onto even now. And while Lindsey had meant it when he said he loved her flaws as much as her strengths, it didn't mean he wouldn't try to help her when it came to overcoming the ones that held her back from what she wanted to achieve.
Not that she needed him that much. Since her arrival in Los Angeles, she seemed to have really come into her own, from struggling actress to the manager of the welcoming center that assisted all new arrivals in adjusting to their new surroundings. She handled it all with grace, and sometimes a sense of humor, she'd made friends, she was more confident, while still entirely being the woman he'd fallen for.
As her hands cupped his face, he watched her quietly, taking in her words. The problem was a matter of perception. Lindsey had always watched his own back, even as a child. Few friends, and even fewer adults willing to take an interest, he'd learned quickly that no one would help him stand on his own two feet and if he was ever going to escape becoming just another powerless soul consigned to a mundane life, he had to work hard and trust no one. The latter had seemed a little paranoid until he'd started working at Wolfram and Hart, where watching your back took on a literal meaning. No, he approved fully of the man he was, the one that could make the power plays, could hold his own in his fight, and lived by a morally grey code that allowed him to see both sides. But that was biased.
"I do believe you," he replied after a moment, and then admitted honestly, "but I don't know how to take it." And it wasn't something he wanted to talk about, would avoid at all costs. His past, while something he would never use as an excuse, shaped him and also happened to be something he didn't want to discuss unless the situation absolutely called for it. And the last time, well, someone had pretended to fall asleep during...
Taking advantage of a topic change, Lindsey leaned in to kiss her, his answer to hers. He wanted this relationship, despite whatever faulty ability he had when it came to maintaining those healthy attachments. She was right. Neither one of them was going down without a fight, one for the ages. That was why he'd never regretted his decision to make the deal that would send him back to Hell when his time was up because he would have rather spent a few months content in Cathy's company than to have her suffer for a crime she'd never committed.
"You know," he murmured when he broke the kiss, "the food's going to get cold."
His response, to say the least, confused Cathy while breaking her heart. For some reason, he didn't--couldn't--get it, and it cut at her all the more deeply for the inability to make that connection with him. It was her place to make him feel cherished, and worth it, and somewhere along the line, she just wasn't able to reach him on that level. And it hurt.
"Why?" she questioned simply, still, fingers toying with the fabric of his collar. "Like it or not, that's something we need to work through, too. Until you can figure out 'how to take it', we're on an uneven playing field. And that's not how this is supposed to be. It won't work." She didn't mean to pry, not really, and certainly not in the most negative sense of the word. Of course, that happened to be a tendency of hers anyway, but this time...it was for the sake of the issue that needed to be resolved. It might take days, weeks, months, years, but someday they had to get to that place, and there was no time like the present to start in the right direction.
The kiss was welcomed, a soft breath of air passing through her lips once they parted. Her eyes didn't open for a long moment, lips tugging upward in the barest hint of a smile. "Let it. We've got a microwave."
"Because that's the way I've been for thirty years of my life. Learning otherwise is going to take some time." There had been points where he'd sought the approval of those he respected, very few people but those whose opinions mattered all the same. But this was different. It wasn't approval, it was something else that he couldn't quite give a name. "But I'm working on it." His grin was teasing. "You just got me used to close contact again. Baby steps."
Microwave. Good point. "Mmm. Yeah, there's that." And just as quickly as they'd come, thoughts of food were pushed away as he lowered his head for another kiss, tugging her closer to him.
"Take all the time you need." That, she understood. He had been nothing but patient with her, so allowing him the time to overcome another personal barrier was the absolute least Cathy could do. "In the meantime, I'm gonna keep pushing you." A finger poked at his chest, the threat in the statement betrayed by her warm tone.
The suddenness of the second kiss caught her off guard, though she recovered in no time at all, an arm hooking around his neck as she gave in to the moment. There was nothing more she could say to him, for now, and after all--actions spoke louder than words. It was a mystery to her, how something as basic as kissing Lindsey managed to be somehow different every single time, the passion never exactly duplicated. This time, she was on fire for him, physically, emotionally, and everything in between.
"Plan on it," he replied, laughing as she poked his chest. "Sometimes all we need is a little push." The meaning behind the statement went unsaid as he kissed her, the apartment of the quiet only completing the quiet calm that the moment had come to. Peaceful.
The kind that said, for the moment, things were ok in their corner of the world.