Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-10-03 22:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman |
Who: Wren
What: Narrative
Where: Luke's place + around Las Vegas
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
It had taken a few days for Wren to feel safe actually stepping outside with Gus, and the outing was preceded by multiple games of "run down the hall" and "run to the elevator" and "run to the sidewalk" before she actually worked up the courage to call a taxi and take Gus away from the apartment. She wondered about those harnesses and leashes for children and, for the first time in her life, she almost wished she had one. Gus was small, and she had enough trouble keeping herself in one piece; the prospect of keeping a little boy in one piece was terrifying.
Not to mention that those early few days were a bit of a challenge for both of them. Gus missed Jack badly enough to hide under the bed the first day Jack was gone and, though he was coaxed out more easily than in the past, Wren was still worried that she wouldn't be able to compare to the man that Gus was accustomed to. Not only were the dinosaur nuggets not placed correctly on his plate, but the cartoons weren't his favorite ones, and the bedtime stories were wrong, and even the amount of water in the bathtub wasn't okay. Gus didn't scream about it, and he didn't tantrum; he never did either of those things. He just pushed the dinosaurs around on the plate sadly, and he quietly whispered to Finch about other cartoons, and he fell asleep a few pages into the story, and he surreptitiously tried to add more water to the tub.
By day three, Wren accepted the fact that being like Jack was never going to work, and so she stopped.
She woke up and made croissants and honey, instead of cereal and milk. For lunch, there was homemade macaroni and cheese instead of dinosaurs. For dinner there was soup and bread with cheese, instead of takeout. She let Gus pick the cartoons, and she let him fill the tub himself (under her nearby supervision), and she let him tell her a bedtime story instead.
Her first outing with him was short and sweet; just a run to the store for some milk. She'd spent the entire time white-knuckled. But no one ran away, and no one was hurt, and no one bled or cried. There were traditional French cookies that night, made under supervision and which left the apartment's small kitchen covered in cookie dough, and Wren considered it a victory.
Now, a few days after trips to the pet rescue (to pet kittens), the mall (to buy Gus new shoes), and the library (for storytime) later, she was meeting a realtor that had come highly recommended on the internet. They went to look at properties for the safehouse first, during which Gus was quiet and well-behaved in a way that Wren wasn't used to. He didn't seem to like the woman, who was all business and direct speech. Wren might have lingered over her choice, but Gus' discomfort kept her from it, and she took the first place the woman showed her. It needed work - paint and some new drywall - but she figured she might be able to get help on the handiwork, and it was already zoned for commercial/residential use.
She asked the woman to e-mail her locations for the houses that were available for rent, instead of showing them to her and, after a trip to the zoo to cheer Gus back up, she settled in at home with the little boy on her lap, letting the laptop serve as their virtual guide to the available homes.
Even house shopping had taken a little warming up to, but by bedtime Gus was mentally painting his new bedroom blue with giraffes on the wall, and Finch was being regaled with stories about his new dog house, which would apparently be in Gus' room, instead of outside.
"Luke has to say it's okay," she told the little boy of all of his gushingly informative and lispy babble to the ever attentive dog.
"Luke says lots of things are okay," Gus informed her sagely, as if he was the expert on such matters, which made her smile.
"Does he?" she asked, ruffling his hair, and then tugging the blankets up to his chin.
Gus nodded as he yawned. "Will Jack have a room?" he asked, and Wren thought it was an improvement, that the question had taken this long to come around.
"Jack will have a room, bebe," she promised, standing from where she'd been sitting on the bed. She leaned over him, and she pressed a kiss to his forehead, even as she pulled the cord on the lamp beside the bed. "Je t’adore."
"Oui," was the sleepy reply from the bed, and Wren watched him a few seconds longer before quietly pulling the door a little forward and going back out to the computer. Luke was working, and she tried not to bother him when he was on the job, but maybe a little phone call wouldn't hurt?