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Lindsey McDonald ([info]morallydamaged) wrote in [info]parabolical,
@ 2009-11-07 19:03:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:cathy mcdonald (née hyatt), lindsey mcdonald

Who: Lindsey and Cathy McDonald
What: After the dust settles, the memories remain
Where: Their apartment
When: Evening
Rating: PG
Status: Complete

The sandwhich was ruined.

Spatula in hand, Lindsey dug the charred grilled cheese sandwhich off the bottom of the frying pan and slipped it into the garbage can. It was in a sad enough state that he wouldn't even put it on the dog to eat. He dropped the pan onto the range and backed up, leaning against the counter. His hand found the half full cup of coffee nearby and he picked it up, staring at the wall beyond as he took a sip.

In an effort to get Cathy to stay in bed and rest, he'd moved the TV from the living room to the bedroom, clearing off the top of the dresser. The stereo had been too much of a hassle to move around but his laptop was the bedside table beside her, just in case music was something that held her interest. He'd taken to trying to cook meals for them both, avoiding scrambled eggs since the holding dimension. She needed to eat, get her strength back after having nothing for the past couple of days.

He was waiting for her to talk about it. She'd been through emotional hell in that holding dimension, everything seeming so real that it had taken some convincing to get her to believe that it wasn't real. What she had lived through in four days had taken its toll on her. The last thing he wanted to do was treat her like a fragile doll but every instinct in him demanded that he protect her so that it never happened again. He just wished he could help her.

There was a box of waffle batter in the cupboard when he went looking. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to the bedroom with a tray. A stack of waffles, a little more brown than they should have been, and sausage links. Herbal tea, cranberry juice, water. Two open cans of fruit topping, strawberry and apple, and a can of whipped cream. Anything she could want with the meal was easily in reach. He set his refilled mug on his bedside table and set the tray down beside Cathy on the bed. "The grilled cheese didn't work out but I found something better."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-08 01:32 am UTC (link)
Cathy just wanted everything to return to normal.

She was eating again, however timidly, finding that nothing was particularly appetizing after her time spent in the Wolfram and Hart holding dimension. While it was true she hadn't eaten in a matter of days, she hadn't felt hungry in that time. Even when she was able to come out of the hallucination, it didn't occur to her that part of the reason her body nearly gave out from under her was due to an utter lack of nourishment. Sleep, too, was a necessity, though it still wasn't something that felt natural. What she had experienced had been so real to her that she still found herself reliving her last moments with her husband, or the instant in which she found him dead, over and over again each time her eyes closed.

Izzy's absence ached, someplace deep in her heart, too. She hadn't felt like a parent last month, when the nine-year-old had become part of their household. This time, it was difference. She was the child's mother in every sense, at least mentally, and in the moments that had been good...having the chance to watch her sleep, lying with her tiny form between herself and her husband, it had been everything she thought it would be. Now, after the fact, she was grateful that it had all been a lie.

The sight of Lindsey reappearing in the doorway with all that food, doting on her again, was enough to spring tears back into her eyes. Again. She couldn't seem to so much as look at her husband without crying or coming incredibly close to it. Cathy had thought he was dead, honestly and truly believed that she would never see him again. Now, having him back, even if he was never gone in the first place, was the most amazing feeling in the world. All she wanted to do was take care of him, the fact that she was in no way in a position to do so be damned.

"This is perfect," she assured him even as she reached for the tissue box resting on the bedside table, wiping her eyes before dropping it in the nearby wastebasket. Sniffling, she took a breath, determined to compose herself before Lindsey began to seriously question her sanity, if he wasn't already. "Thank you, baby."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-08 02:12 pm UTC (link)
He hated seeing her go through this. Everytime she started to tear up again, he wished there was something he could do or say to her to dismiss those memories of the past couple of days. He wasn't going anywhere and he wouldn't let them take her again. He'd fight to his last breath to make sure that it didn't happen. But this he was powerless to fight. It was up to Cathy to work past, but he wouldn't be far from her side.

"You're welcome." He picked up his mug and went to her side of the bed, pulling the chair from the corner to rest beside the bed. Leaning over, he kissed the top of her head before sitting down. It was easier than sitting in bed with her, one less person to jostle the tray. Having to change the sheets was counterproductive to making her stay in bed to get some rest.

"Is there anything else you'd like? The milk went bad but I could run down to the corner store if it sounds good. Five minutes." And he meant run.

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-08 05:28 pm UTC (link)
The waffles claimed her attention first, her stomach actually rumbling as she took in the sight of the apple topping. The fruit was always one of her favorites, but the hankering for it since returning as her appetite finally returned had been undeniable. Comfort food displacement, she thought half-heartedly, now that she didn't want to so much as glance as a plate of eggs.

"No," she replied, a little too sharply, a little too quickly. The reaction surprised her-- it seemed like she had only just been contemplating the possibility of returning to work already, resuming their daily schedules. The fact that, on instinct, Cathy didn't want to let her husband leave her sight made sense, but she swore inwardly at herself nonetheless. It wasn't real. Why couldn't she seem to get that through her head?

Drawing in a breath of air, she shook her head, lifting the fork to her mouth to buy herself some time as she chewed. He'd done a good job. "I don't want anything else," she said, finally, lifting the glass of water to her lips. Trying to smile over at him was a valiant effort, but damn it, she tried. "I think I have the whole pantry in front of me, anyway."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-08 10:08 pm UTC (link)
The quick answer didn't go unnoticed. Lindsey glanced up at her, expression unreadable, then nodded slowly. "All right. We don't use the milk that often anyway." He tried to meet her smile with one of his own but there wasn't anything to it and he turned his attention back to the coffee at hand instead, taking a drink.

Once he cut back on it, a crash was coming for him. But not right now, not until Cathy began to feel comfortable again. No matter how long it took. "Close enough. Probably half the fridge too. There's a ton of batter left so if you're still hungry afterward, I'll make up another batch." Hopefully that wouldn't involve nearly burning it again.

The silence settled again and he found himself staring at the end of the bed, where Reb had made himself comfortable so he could stalk the plate of waffles. Lindsey sat up a little straighter and turned to set the mug on the nightstand. "Hey. How are you doing? Honestly," he asked her quietly, putting a hand on her arm.

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-08 10:20 pm UTC (link)
"Thank you." Cathy sincerely doubted that she'd manage to finish the plate in front of her, let alone be able to make a request for seconds, but she didn't say that. Instead, she nodded, genuinely grateful for the effort. It wasn't going unseen, even if she was coming across to him as unreachable. She was just totally overwhelmed, by the experience, by the outpouring of support from friends and acquaintances. It was amazing, and she felt loved, but at the same time...there was embarrassment, humiliation, too. Being kidnapped wasn't something that had been in her control, but she had caused a massive fuss, and worst of all, a handful of her friends had witnessed first-hand what had been happening to her in all the time she was gone.

That had been private, personal. And to her, it had been real, which made her feel silly now, after the fact, even if she couldn't erase the vivid images from her mind.

For as frequently as she had insisted that she was or would be 'fine,' something in his tone of voice coupled with the request for honesty told her that she wouldn't be getting away so easily this time. Part of her was thankful for it, too, recognizing that she couldn't stay silent forever. But how on earth could she go about explaining to Lindsey what had really happened in that place, aside from what he'd already seen?

"I don't know," she replied, helplessly and with equal honesty. Setting the glass down onto the tray, she shifted carefully, laying her head against his arm. "There was just...so much. I don't even know where to start, or how to get better, and I'm..." Trailing off, she shook her head.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-08 11:29 pm UTC (link)
Not all right, he mentally added to the end of her statement. He ran his free hand through her hair, brushing it back from her face. "The holding dimension you were in, it was designed to be real down to the last detail. Wolfram and Hart perfected the art of mental torture as well as physical," he said quietly. "It was so real that the line between reality and illusion blurs."

From what he'd seen, they'd done their worst. Izzy had already been in their lives for a few weeks, so putting Cathy into a position where she saw the child made it even more real to her. Had he not known better, he would have thought their home was a possibility in their future. One in which he died and left her on her own, alone with a child. He couldn't even begin to guess at what she was feeling but if there was a way he could help her get both feet under her again, that would be a step in the right direction.

"We're going to start with you're here, in our bedroom. You're safe. I'm right here beside you and I'm not going to go anywhere. Take it nice and simple and easy. As long as it takes."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-08 11:49 pm UTC (link)
Cathy shook her head, pulling away to look up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since she had been home. "I don't think you do understand," she told him, not accusing, not bitter (at least, not toward him), but stating a fact, and perhaps just a little defensive of her experience. "It was real. I was myself, but I was her, I was...I knew everything. It was my life, every memory included, every..."

Stopping abruptly, she closed her mouth. Even to her own ears, she sounded crazy. But now that she had started talking about it, however, she was taken aback to find that she didn't particularly want to stop. It almost felt like a weight taken off her shoulders.

"This isn't something I can just bounce back from," she insisted, staring down at the comforter with something like rage. "Because everything they showed me, everything they did, they have it in their power to do." He didn't know the details, didn't know how he had died in her illusion, or what had transpired before the event itself. She didn't know how to tell him, wasn't sure she wanted to lest he assure her, as everyone did, that it wouldn't happen that way. Cathy wanted to believe them, but she simply could not. Not after that.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-09 03:25 am UTC (link)
Somehow, despite similar circumstances, he didn't think he would either. His trip to the holding dimension had been a complete falsification of his past memories to the point where he believed he was a happy family man with a wife and a son. Once the spell had come off, he was able to shake it off easily because it drew no parallels to the life he'd been living at the moment.

Cathy's case was different. She was put into a situation where they had seen one possible future, them having a daughter together, and it had grounded the images the dimension had forced into her head. From what little he'd seen, there had been parallels to real life.

"I know it isn't. I don't expect you to." Lindsey got up from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed, facing her. "What if you told me what happened? Just talked. Maybe there's a way that we can prevent what you saw from happening."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-09 03:59 am UTC (link)
"I don't know if I can." Exasperated, she covered her eyes, running her hands down her face before clearing her throat. A moment of silence, and then she took in another breath, looking back over at Lindsey and daring to hold his gaze. Resigning. "If we can prevent this, that's all that matters."

Reaching over, she picked up one of his hands, weaving her fingers through his. Cathy didn't want to talk, didn't want to have to share with him the details she was trying so hard to forget. That somehow validated them, more so than they already were. When she finally began to talk, her voice was quiet.

"Izzy was just a baby. You saw her, she was so vulnerable, and little, and--...they'd been messing with us for a while. Wolfram and Hart. They started projecting these nightmares onto her, visions, like they did to us last winter?" She could still see her so clearly, screaming in his arms, terrified, unable to wake up. "She saw your death. My death. 'Monsters' taking her away. And we--...we couldn't do anything, she was sick, she wasn't sleeping, and you..."

Her eyes closed, voice disappearing out from under her. She swallowed hard. "You went to deal with it." Shaking her head again, she gave a short laugh, devoid of any humor. "It worked. She was asleep in our bed by the time you got home, and I knew you'd worked something out with them, but I didn't think it'd...I thought it was just another bump in the road. Something we'd have to get through before things could be normal again."

Now that she was talking, it was impossible to stop. She was wanted to get everything out, to lay it all on the line. At least then, it wouldn't be bottled up inside her anymore. Suffocating.

"You gave them your life for ours." The anger was directed at him this time as she spit out the words, the heat rising in her face. How dare he make that decision alone, have so much faith in her to believe that she'd be strong enough to make it on her own? She knew she'd never have forgiven him for that, despite his reasons, despite the fact that she'd have done the same thing for them. "Wolfram and Hart promised that they'd leave us alone forever, and you got to spend one more night with us before they--...before you died."

Their last moments together as a family, the child held tightly in his arms as they said their goodbyes, was burned into her memory. Against her will, a handful of tears escapes, sliding silently down her cheeks. "You loved her so much."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-09 06:53 pm UTC (link)
He listened silently, never making a move to interrupt or cut her off. Every detail of what she'd been through in that holding dimension was laid out in front of him and for the first time, he really understood the state Cathy was in. They had attacked the two people she cared the most about, even if one of them didn't exist and was only a future possibility of existing. She had still become attached to Izzy, enough that the child suffering would hurt her.

The anger in her voice directed at him caught him off guard. The motion to protest was automatic but he kept his mouth shut, letting her say what she needed to. After she had finished, he stared at the wall across the room, carefully forming his response to everything she had just told him. He played with his ring, twisting it around his finger.

"I'm not going to lie to you and say that'll never happen," he said finally. "Something like that isn't beyond Wolfram and Hart's way of thinking, depending on who is in charge. It's also one of the worst possible outcomes we could have, out of thousands. Remember weeks ago, when everyone and their brother was telling us we wouldn't survive this or that? Possibilities that we now know are coming and can work to prevent. Izzy isn't here yet." If she comes, he added silently.

"What they did was took from you what could hurt you the most and showed it to you, babe. It's very powerful magic. It can get in so deep that you can't tell what's real and what isn't and that's the point. They wanted to cause you pain and misery and doubt and it's working." He put a hand on her cheek. "But what they made you see? It isn't going to happen. You'll be putting up with me for years and when I do die, it isn't going to be Wolfram and Hart that's going to be boasting about it."

He dropped his hand back to the bed. "The future is always changing with the choices we make every day. That's why seers are about as reliable as a meterologist. But we will figure out a way to avoid that ever becoming a possibility. I swear on that."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-09 08:24 pm UTC (link)
"Those were possibilities," she snapped, frustrated. "This is a threat, Lindsey." That was what it felt like, at least. It didn't add up to Cathy that they would put her through hell just to make her hurt. There was more of a statement to it than that.

Taking the mug of tea in her hands, she simply held the beverage, taking some small bit of comfort from its warmth. "I know I'm being punished," she admitted, almost a whimper. "Because I took you away. That's the way they see it, like Eve did. They see me as the reason they lost you, and they're never gonna let us be. Bringing a child into the world with that hanging over her head...that's something I don't ever want to do." That hurt most of all. The possibility was one she didn't even know existed until a month ago, and it had scared her and elated her all at once. Now, seeing what she had seen, Cathy could only see conceiving Izzy as an act of selfishness. She would rather remain childless than put a helpless being into the line of fire.

At the same time, she resented that they had the power to dictate something so important and personal in their life.

They would figure out a way to prevent the scenario she had lived from becoming a reality. He swore on it. When it came to Lindsey, that kind of promise was not to be taken lightly. "Do you think it's possible?" she asked him, looking up at him imploringly. "To prevent it? I mean, honestly. I'll do anything."

She was desperate to protect her family, regardless of who exactly that family entailed. If it remained only she and Lindsey, she would be content, as long as she had him. If there ever was a child involved, especially in the near future, as Izzy had suggested when she gave away her date of birth, the stakes were that much higher. As much as she wanted to shield Lindsey from harm's way, the fact remained that she was powerless to do so. The little girl, on the other hand, was her responsibility. And Lindsey's, she recognized. It was why he had felt it so necessary, even if it was only a damn hallucination, to do whatever it took to keep her safe. A vicious circle.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 03:16 am UTC (link)
He held up his hand. "Yes, it is a threat, but it's still only a possibility. Just because they showed you what can happen doesn't mean that it will," he replied, succeeding at keeping a patient tone without talking down to her. It wasn't often he had to use it in that way.

"For omniscent beings, they have a limited understanding of humanity. If there was any way I could convince them that it wasn't anything of your doing, and it wasn't, I would do it in a heartbeat." He picked up the mug, holding it between his hands.

"Of course I think it's possible. I wouldn't have said it if I didn't." He had fooled the Senior Partners once and he knew he could do it again. "You're married to a lawyer, babe. If anyone knows how to manuver possibilities to work in their favor, it's one of us." He put a hand on her knee and squeezed it.

"I know that what you went through in that holding dimension was hell. But you can't let it make you a prisoner in your own mind. Because instead of living your life, you might spend the rest of it hiding from what might happen. Not everything is set in stone, not even prophecies."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 03:36 am UTC (link)
He wasn't helping. It was unfair of her, to expect him to magically know all the right things to say when she didn't even know what she needed to hear, but instead of feeling reassured, she felt patronized. Lindsey was too rational, too methodical. She wouldn't go so far as to call his reaction emotionless, but he was too calm, cool, and collected for her current tastes. And she couldn't bring herself to believe everything he said.

"You weren't there," she informed him, staring intently down at his hand on her knee. "You didn't have to find your spouse dead in the morning, or have to explain to a little girl that her parent was never coming home. 'Hell' doesn't even begin to cover it, Lindsey."

She tensed, biting the inside of her cheek. "How am I supposed to brush that off?" It reminded her all too vividly of what she had felt with Izzy's disappearance, and it angered her even more. The words spilled out, voice rising. "I can't just 'live my life' now, do you understand that? I've seen too much. You aren't supposed to know what might or might not happen to you in the future, it ruins everything. You don't even want a baby, I remember that, but we might have a daughter, we might not have a daughter. We might be happy together, or you might die a horrible death when she's four. We might die in some horrible Apocalypse next month."

Grabbing the tissues from the nightstand, she tore out a handful on reflex, barely consciously aware of the tears pouring down her face. "It was better when I didn't know. I want to go back to that."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 03:53 am UTC (link)
His hand slid off her knee, going back around the mug again. He understood that Cathy was upset, especially after what she had been forced to see and go through, but he wasn't getting far. "I didn't mean brush it off. You've been through a traumatic event. You don't just brush something like that off. But you have to deal with it eventually to get past it or you just quit living."

Lindsey stared at the floor quietly before speaking up again. "When the Senior Partners caught me, they dumped me into one of those holding dimensions. I have a small idea what it's like." He took a long drink, finishing off the contents and setting the mug aside before continuing.

"Cathy, listen to yourself. You still don't know. These possibilities, yeah, we've seen and heard them. So what? It doesn't mean that that is the future we're going to have. Things change. Each day, an element is introduced into our lives that forever alters our paths through life. You cannot take the word of someone from the future or believe what a holding dimension shows you. They are possibilities but they're not certainties."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 04:06 am UTC (link)
"I know you did, and that must have been horrible, but it's not the same." Physical pain, she would have preferred. Cathy couldn't quite imagine what exactly Lindsey had gone through, having his heart torn from his chest every day, but for what she went through, she might as well have experienced the same thing. It felt like it, at least, anyway.

She rolled her eyes, hands pressed tightly to the sides of her head, trying to control the pounding there. "Fine, okay? I don't know. Neither do you. Everything is entirely out of our control. I give up."

The tray of food disregarded, she shifted, turning from him to curl up on her side, staring blankly at the wall. "There's nothing wrong with me," she stated softly, as much to convince herself as to convince her husband. "Except that I love you. And I want to protect you. That's all."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 04:30 am UTC (link)
So relating wasn't going to work this time. Even though he wanted to argue the point, the condition she was in kept him from doing so. Lindsey rubbed his forehead, eyes shutting briefly as he tried to find another way to put it. He felt the mattress shift as Cathy turned over on her side, away from him.

"That's not what I meant," he said, catching himself before he threw up his hands. "We are in control of our future to a degree, then the rest is left to fate. But we can prevent what you saw in that dimension. We know it could possibly happen and steps can be taken to avoid it."

Turning around, he leaned down over her, chin resting on her arm. "There is nothing wrong with you. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." He kissed her arm and sat up again, grabbing the blanket from the end of the bed. "I'd go to any lengths to make sure you were safe, Cathy. And I'd be there to continue making sure you were safe."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 04:44 am UTC (link)
"We can prevent it by not having her. That's all I can see." And it was the option she fully intended to run with, that was how deeply the experience had cut her. "As long as it's just me, you never get to make that deal, okay? Can you just promise me that? As long as it's just me...I can handle it. Whatever they might do."

Cathy squeezed her eyes shut, the aching in her head almost overpowering. For the first time, she did feel safe and warm, though the feelings dissipated as soon as he pulled away. Her eyes blinking open, she rolled onto her back to focus in on him. A hint of a smile appeared. "Come back."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 04:55 am UTC (link)
"A day at a time, babe." The mention of Izzy took him back to their conversation over lunch, when she'd given him a few hints about the future. In contrast to Cathy's fears about the future, Lindsey felt more confident that they would remain in control of their own destiny. As long as he drew breath and could fight, the warnings would never come to be. "There will never be a deal because we'll find some other way to fix the problem. I promise you that."

Draping the blanket over her, Lindsey laid back and put his arm around her, his body pressed against hers. "I've got your back," he told her, a small smile appearing as he saw one gracing her face. He laid another kiss gently on her shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere right now."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 05:46 am UTC (link)
That was all she needed to hear. It was hardly an immediate cure, but a considerable amount of the tension left her shoulders with the promise, a weight lifted. He wouldn't do it; that much was in his control, and she trusted that he wouldn't lie to her, not about something like that. "Thank you."

Cathy tugged the blanket around her body, going still when he joined her on the bed. Something that had been broken came back into being when his arms came around her, a missing piece. That was what she needed, to be held by the person she loved, the person she'd thought she'd lost. "Please don't," she whispered back, though she knew she didn't have to. Lindsey was there to stay.

"You know what I think?" Turning onto her back, she looked up at him, a hand brushing against his face, smoothing a stray lock of hair. "I think we should put this amazing buffet aside for a while, and I think we should get some sleep. Both of us." She wasn't stupid, she knew full well that he hadn't slept--or if he had, it was fleeting--in the time that she was gone. Even since she had been back, his energy had been devoted to taking care of her, even if she hadn't been coherent enough to show much gratitude.

The smile, as weary as it was, spread just enough to reach her eyes. Hand pressing gently against his neck, she claimed his lips, her kiss slow and deep, taking in every emotion that washed over her. She'd never take him for granted again, she vowed. Life was too short. "I missed you," she murmured when she finally pulled away, brushing another kiss to his cheek. "I mean, I really missed you."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 12:55 pm UTC (link)
I want you to promise me the same. Don't ever make a deal like that, all right?" He'd taken the chance on letting her in to his heart and life. It'd been a risk and well worth it in the end, for the love and happiness he felt everytime he looked at her. But if he lost her again, he wasn't sure if the broken heart was something he could bounce back from.

He glanced over at the tray and gave her hip a pat. "Just one moment," he told her and got up off the bed, reaching over to grab the tray. Reb's ears drooped as he realized he wouldn't be getting a free human meal after all. Grunting his dismay, he got up, circled three times, and flopped back down at Cathy's feet with a dramatic sigh.

Lindsey dropped the tray off on the counter in the kitchen and returned, falling back onto the bed and resuming his previous position just in time to get a kiss. He had almost lost this a day earlier. "I really missed you too," he replied softly. He'd been terrified, angry, horrified all in the space of four days and now, he wanted nothing more than to hold on her and reassure himself that she was there beside him.

Revenge could wait a day.

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 04:28 pm UTC (link)
"I promise I'll never make that kind of deal," she swore seriously. It wasn't nearly as much of a possibility, not the way she saw it, given that it was Lindsey they so badly wanted. But she would honor it, no matter the situation. They were a team. Where would one be without the other?

When he disappeared and Reb displayed an act worthy of any diva, a sure sign that he'd been raised by a human with a flair for the stage, she nudged the overgrown puppy with her foot. "Spoiled," she grumbled accusingly, though it brought a smile to her face when the dog cast her an innocent look. Me? Never.

Lindsey's return was welcomed enthusiastically, her eyes seeking out his after they had parted. "I think this counts as a 'rough patch'," she acknowledged softly, slipping her arms around his middle as she curled back up against him, comfortable. From the views that came to conflict with Izzy's arrival, to the event of her disappearance, to the fight over Eve that had gone down in their history as the most disastrous altercation yet, and now this...it certainly hadn't been easy. "We're gonna be fine. Right?"

She still loved him, more than anything, that much went without saying. The events of the past four days had put some things in perspective, so much so that the Eve incident seemed petty and insignificant. Without Lindsey, her life would be, for the most part, empty.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 06:10 pm UTC (link)
Lindsey kicked off his sneakers, the two solid thumps telling him they'd landed somewhere in the room. He shifted to put his arm around Cathy, getting comfortable. Even if he didn't sleep, he was going to remain by her side, in case nightmares came for her.

"We're going to be fine," he replied with casual certainty. "Any couple that doesn't have rough patches isn't doing it right. We're two different people with different views that will conflict sometimes. All that matters is that we can work through it." And in his opinion, they had. Even if the past couple of weeks hadn't been the steadiest.

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 07:47 pm UTC (link)
Cathy pressed a kiss to his chest. "You always have the answers," she accused him, the smile in her voice. "It's like you talk for a living or something."

They had come a long way since the beginning of their relationship, when Cathy was the one to reassure him with every step. Lindsey had been afraid, hesitant to let her in, she'd seen that. Now, he was as secure with her as she was with him, enough that he could see into their future together, despite everything that went wrong along the way.

"Speaking of work." It was close to a mumble by now, her eyelids beginning to grow heavy. "If you want to get back tomorrow, I promise to stay in bed and rest. You don't have to babysit me." It was a concession on her part, given that she did want to return to work, especially knowing that there was so much to be done. But he had been working hard too, and on a case against Wolfram and Hart, no less. She knew how much that meant to him.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-10 10:18 pm UTC (link)
"Yeah. Imagine that," he said, grinning lazily. "Maybe I should look into that. See if I can find a job where that comes in handy." It would still be a long road back but it was nice to hear her teasing again. It was a start in the right direction.

He glanced over at her when she mentioned work, an eyebrow arching. "You sure?" he asked, hesitant about leaving her home alone. That big case was looming on the horizon and after the events of the last couple of days, it would be a nice slap in the face to win. He just didn't like the idea of leaving her alone.

"Babe, I don't mind staying home with you tomorrow. I just want you to feel safe."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-10 11:21 pm UTC (link)
"You should," she replied, content to see the grin on his face. "Since it's obviously a hidden talent." The statement couldn't have been more sarcastic if she tried. "Maybe something like teaching, or, I don't know...law."

Cathy could hear the hesitance in his voice and knew that it was on her behalf. But she also knew that, up until her disappearance, his waking hours had been devoted to the case at hand. It meant something to know that she took priority over his work, but this case stood out from the rest. "I'm sure."

If she was honest, she wasn't certain how safe she would feel. For all she knew, they would come back for her. It was like Lindsey said, though...she couldn't let them run her life, as easy as it would be to give in.

"Stay. Go. It's your decision." She gave him a nuzzle, still marveling over the feel of his skin, warm against hers. "But if you stay, I want to see you working on that case, got it?"

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-11 02:07 pm UTC (link)
"Law, huh? Never considered that one before." The thought of him teaching was laughable enough, joking or not.

"Yes ma'am." He gave her a small salute at the orders she'd given him. "I just want to know that you're going to be all right on your own before I make that decision. I don't want to leave you if you don't think you will be."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-11 04:38 pm UTC (link)
"I'll be fine." She was a grown woman, Cathy reasoned. There was no harm in staying in bed watching old movies for the better part of the day. There were methods of distraction, and besides, she had Reb to keep her company.

She didn't want to be a nuisance.

"I want you to win this case," she told him seriously. "I promise, there's no harm in leaving me to have an black-and-white movie marathon with the dog. I'll be here when you get home, and I'll keep the phone by my side all day."

Smiling, she hid behind humor. "You decide you miss me, I'm a phone call away."

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-11 10:49 pm UTC (link)
"If you insist." He didn't wholly believe her. She would be the type to tell him she was fine when she wasn't, just to get him to do what he thought he needed to do. But he wasn't going to leave her that alone, if he could help it.

Lindsey yawned. "I'll probably check in more than once. Just to be safe." By the time he finally got home, she might be sick of him. "It goes the same way. If you need anything, call. I mean anything."

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[info]notatypicallife
2009-11-12 12:30 am UTC (link)
"I promise I will call you if I need anything," she agreed readily, finally allowing her eyes to close now that it was settled. It was a relief, in a way, and she did have a personal interest in that case of his. There was nothing she wanted to see more than her husband kill the firm in the court room, especially after all they had done. "I'll even text you all the really funny movie lines."

On that, she was kidding. Maybe.

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[info]morallydamaged
2009-11-12 01:03 am UTC (link)
"Maybe not that," he told her, although the tone was less serious. He closed his eyes, resting his head on his free arm. "But if you want to text to check in, feel free."

He sighed, feeling better about the situation now that they'd talked. He had an idea of what was going on in her head. That was a place to start. "Why don't you try and get some sleep? I'll be right here."

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