lookforheaven (aucontraire_) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-06-08 18:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [06] june, adelaide hawkins, archer avery |
Who: Archer and Adelaide
Where: Capitol shelter, Lansing quarters, Charlie’s nursery
What: A serious talk is past-due. Friends sharing some realtalk.
When: Wednesday night/wee hours of Thursday morning
Status: In Progress!
Chief Avery is finally off the clock, if there was still such a thing as a timeclock for him. He’s never really off duty anymore, but this is the closest he’s been for days. If Archer hasn’t started his time as chief of police under enough stress, the downpour of blobs took care of that. Considering his deputy chief and partner is known as the blob whisperer, Archer didn’t just have a police department to coordinate this week, but he’d had to do his usual job of making sure O’Brien was suited up with all of the proper equipment, that both of them were going throughout the city on a constant threat assessment of slow-moving death traps. And if Archer has to look at another of the fucking things in the next few hours, he might just shoot it with his service piece for the sole purpose of getting his aggression out. Won’t do a damn thing to the blob that carries the same virus as a fucking zombie but maybe he’ll feel fractionally better. Maybe.
Somewhere around the third day, Archer forgets how to do anything but process the needs of his community and his ability to provide. He is positive that someone has him eat, and that he showers at least once a day and often more just to be sure his equipment hasn’t failed and he’s not carrying the virus on his unbroken skin. He’s vaguely sure of these things he’s done to take care of himself but that otherwise he is on his feet and directing personnel, helping Bran with the blobs, checking in with the different shelters. He looks for Ads. He checks in on Graham, who he’d been with when the first -- and worst -- storm started. He sends messages to Handsel and Adelaide and everyone that he should keep an eye out for. He thinks, not for the first time, not for the last, that this city should have a police chief that is certain of his immunity status.
When he has time, Archer looks in on Charlie, like he told Adelaide he would when they finally connected via text message. The mayor's secretary’s teenage daughter only has so much time to dedicate to babysitting an infant. For that matter, so does Thomas Lansing. But it takes a fucking village and Archer makes sure that Charlie isn’t left alone at any point during the storms. When he has a few minutes in the Capitol, he jogs over to whomever is responsible for the boy and visits with him, even the times he can’t pull off all of his gear and can only stroke the top of Charlie’s head and roughly assure him that his mother will be back soon, that his mother loves him, that he is loved. Then Archer is off again, putting out the next metaphorical fire, mind slightly eased in seeing Charlie safe. He isn’t granted the same assurance with Adelaide.
It’s over now, as over as it can be until the next storm, and Archer is released from whatever duty he’s put on himself. This is very reminiscent of New York, all the things he did wrong when trying to untangle a particularly thorny case, all of the ways he became a single-minded workaholic, but it’s the end of the fucking world and Archer thinks he can grant himself a little latitude when it comes to how he spends his time and does his job. The infected are in quarantine and everyone’s as safe as they can be; he can take a deep breath. Until the next time.
Archer has Charlie in one arm when he comes into the nursery and his black tactical vest in the other. He’s completely unaware that there’s a motion sensor camera in here acting as a baby monitor, complete with sound, but it won’t surprise him too much when he eventually knows. Adelaide is a good mother and Graham is very handy with the technology; there’s always a way to get something accomplished if you want it badly enough. Archer doesn’t know that the camera starts recording him when he moves into the room. He probably wouldn’t care if he did.
Nerveless fingers drop the vest next to the crib, and Archer whispers nothing decipherable to Charlie, but Adelaide’s son is having none of it: no crib, no Archer letting go. So he doesn’t. He sighs deeply, a sound born of bone-deep weariness and a man who hasn’t laid down his burdens yet. Though his dark grey cargos and lighter grey work shirt are clean, there’s a couple days worth of stubble he hasn’t had a chance to shave off, white sand littering his cheeks and chin. The first words he says loud enough for the camera to pick up are curled with amusement and are more openly exhausted than Archer has ever allowed himself to be seen; he says them half to himself, thinking of his texts to Adelaide, but it’s Charlie who hears them and quiets his fussing to look up at his giant of a protector, putting his fist to his mouth. “‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.’ I can do those miles if you can, little buddy,” he says to Charlie, who continues to look up at Archer.
That seems like answer enough.
So Archer paces the floor -- it’s not a large room, but he marks it off in his head and walks back and forth -- and he tells Charlie a story that begins, “Okay. Okay, buddy. Let’s see.” He tucks Charlie’s head under his chin and hums in thought. “No, I’ve got one. When have I ever let you down?” he asks, as if in answer to a mewl from the infant. “Right. Well. Do have a story for you. Before your mother gets back. Which she will be. Really soon,” he hears himself reassuring Charlie, though even Archer suspects that’s more for himself than for the boy. “And she loves you. Your father is… busy. But he loves you, too. In the meantime? You’ve got me, though. You’re stuck with the tin man.” From the way he says the label, it’s not the first time Archer has used this device in a story with Charlie. “Gonna tell you about the days your tin man police chief pal had. With Deputy Scarecrow and that Brainiac Cowardly Lion. Yep. I know. They don’t always play nice. You’d be proud of ‘em this week, though. They worked real hard. I was with the lion when the rain first started…”
And on and on, Archer spins the disaster of this week into a fairy tale for Charlie, from Graham’s slip and fall when the blobs first started coming down, to the way Brannon bravely goes out with him to help scared people, all of it told in a way that downplays how scary everything really was. Even with the heavy sugarcoating for Charlie’s sake, it’s obvious how much Archer is downplaying his own role and how much the constant work has taken a toll. The parts of the story he leaves out are as important as the parts he tells. He talks himself into patches of silence, always brought out of his own thoughts by noise from Charlie. Eventually Archer’s pacing takes him all the way out of range of the camera / baby monitor and it stops recording. His steps at the end don’t look perfectly even. It’s more than possible he was limping ever-so-slightly.
When Adelaide gets home, there’s a low light on in the main room, with the door open and the light on in the nursery, and Archer’s vest is standing up stiffly next to the crib as if waiting for the next time he’s going to have to put the armor back on and jump back into the fray. Charlie isn’t in the crib, though. No, the infant is sound asleep on Archer’s chest.
Who is also asleep, on Adelaide’s couch.
Archer sleeps neither deeply nor especially well. He must have grown tired of his pacing and attempted this as a way to get Charlie to finally settle. One hand rests protectively on Charlie’s back, a warm weight that isn’t easily dislodged. The other hand is curled into a loose fist that he clenches and flexes, brows furrowed even in slumber as if anticipating the next patch of bad news and another abrupt call to arms. Even so, with his short pale hair mussed and without many of the shields he throws up to protect himself from the horrors of this world, Archer looks somehow younger in this light: younger and pained and worried. The dark smudges under his eyes look like bruises and match the ones he’d worn that morning in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago. For now, he sleeps; Charlie’s tin man isn’t nearly so inhuman as he pretends to be.
-----
Adelaide’s heart has been divided right down the middle these past days - these past weeks, even, since she met back up with Rodeo and Sarge. If this were a year ago, she would have already begun scouting out a trailer to set up in the Dog Park, without a second’s hesitation - she would have found Rodeo and Sarge, and never left their sides again so long as the world keeps ticking.
But this isn’t a year ago, and there are two very, very good reasons her heart was dragged back to the Capitol.
Thinking of Archer sends guilt coursing through Adelaide, which is a very rare occurrence to say the least. But it happens now. She’d meant to leave the Dog Park as soon as that first downpour ended. Then, she’d meant to leave just as soon as Rodeo and Sarge returned safe from the crazed mission to the mall, with the Ghouls. Then they did return, bringing back chaos with them as they so often had in the past, and Adelaide’s intentions - and intentions of having intentions - all went straight out of the window. She’s only just found Sarge again, and then out of nowhere she is faced with the idea of losing him and leaving his bedside, leaving Rodeo to his grief and worry alone - though really, with the two hundred damn people he cares for is he ever actually alone? - seems impossible.
But she’s never been away from Charlie overnight before, and Archer has enough to worry about without adding her to the list. Not to mention, Thomas has been busy enough to keep him distracted, but even his texts are beginning to sound suspicious and though she’s got Lita covering at the hospital, she’s dreading the moment when Thomas up and decides he’s going to go find her there.
But relations with Charlie and Archer and even Thomas can be repaired - if the worst happens to Sarge, there is no second chance. And so she has existed in a state of flux, pulled in two directions for the past two nights but ultimately sticking at the Dog Park. She’s been sneaking looks at her CharlieCam whenever she is alone to reassure herself, and that’s what finally does it on the third day.
She goes back to Rodeo’s trailer for a change of clothes, opens up the app, and there it is. The Chief of police and her son, doing laps of the nursery, looking utterly wiped out but as devoted as ever a man was. The story he tells, and even the way he tells it, makes her smile like a fool, while she sinks down onto Rodeo’s sofa to listen and watch, with her fingertips pressed to her mouth. It isn’t like her, but it nearly brings a tear to her eye to see.
That’s when she knows she needs to go home.
She’ll come back, and she’ll come back damn soon because despite her stubborn belief that the three cockroaches from Montgomery Tennessee can’t actually be ended and that Sarge will be fine, he’s just not out of the woods yet. But she needs to go home.
When she finally walks into her and Thomas’ piece of the Capitol, it feels like a strange alien world. So clean and tidy next to the dust-and-whiskey-bottles life of the Dog Park, almost sterile looking in comparison, despite her impeccable decorating skills warming up the former boardroom. There’s just one part of it all that doesn’t leave her cold, and that’s the part that’s fitfully snoozing on her sofa.
It fills her heart up to the brim to see where the two of them ended up, and she really doesn’t know how she got lucky enough in her life to gain a fella like Archer. She peeks into the bedroom and Thomas isn’t there, but the shoes by the closet and the jacket on the hook on the back of the door tell her he has probably been and gone, maybe off taking a run like he does sometimes in the small hours of the morning after a long day. Taking advantage of the highly qualified babysitter, probably. He’s never needed more than a couple hours of sleep, which is something Adelaide will never understand. She takes her softest giant blanket from the little closet, and she returns to the living room.
Bending in she gently lifts Archer’s big hand from Charlie’s back, letting it rest down on his stomach before she takes the baby and replaces the warmth of him with the warmth of the blanket. The baby, thoroughly out now finally, doesn’t stir, but Archer does and Adelaide lays her hand over Archer’s again briefly. “You go on and get some more sleep, Tin Man,” she murmurs, before he settles back, having never really awakened entirely.
She should deposit Charlie back in his crib, probably, for some dumb PhD reason like ‘promoting good sleep habits’ or ‘fostering independence’ or ‘decreasing parental fatigue’ or whatever stupid thing. But ‘should’ has always irritated Adelaide, and so she shuts off the light in the nursery, and she keeps her son right with her.
By the time Archer stirs Adelaide has showered, made an excursion to the kitchens, and put Charlie down. She has been wanting to try out substitutions for eggs in pancake mix, and she thinks the bit of canned pumpkin she experimented with was a pure success. She can’t seem to make herself try to sleep, her thoughts continually returning to Sarge at the Dog Park, and she’s checked in with her brother numerous times since she got back - so far, not a zombie.
Now, there’s a stack of cooling pancakes on the table, and she’s curled up on the bench seat by the window with a throw blanket, reading Emma for the fourteenth time, listening to the occasional Blob that pelts the thick glass.
She looks up and tries a subdued smile when she sees Archer waking. It occurs to her that he might be furious. “Well hi there, Arch.”
-----
He’s always been a light sleeper and Archer nearly claws his way to awareness when Adelaide takes Charlie from him, feeling his charge leaving his care. There are very good reasons he should be awake, reasons he never should have fallen asleep in the first place, and Archer frowns at the pull of his responsibilities and concern and the need to keep moving forward until there is literally nothing more he can do. But there’s no danger pinging on his radar, no sense of urgency that’s driven him so relentlessly through the past few days. Instead, there’s warmth and there’s the weight of his exhaustion determined to keep him under. Archer wavers, nearing wakefulness... but then there’s a murmur he doesn’t understand as anything but reassurance, pressure on his hand, and he settles back into the holding pattern of sleep after readjusting his head on the couch.
For a few hours, he manages to stay under, anchored by both his desperate need for rest and that sense of reassurance. About the only way Archer gets decent sleep is through keeping busy and forcing himself to take a break to bunk down each night. But blobs raining down from the sky were a good reason for him to set aside that requirement. He’s too wiped out, though, having taken it that step too far in his worry for her and everyone else, in his desire to see the job through and maybe even to just avoid any opportunities for the nightmares for a little while. No one could have anticipated that the first storm would have bled into the second, or the third, and though there have been fewer blobs as they go along, it’s still been a lot to deal with. Archer soldiered on until he knew his reaction time wasn’t what it should be and then he’d taken himself out of the rotation, choosing to look after Charlie until he feels ready to head back out there and do what needs doing. He sleeps, still twitching a shoulder now and again, shifting in his slumber but staying below the surface of consciousness.
Archer doesn’t know what it is that finally wakes him. The smell of pancakes, maybe, or the splut of a blob against the window signaling still more fucking rain, or just his own stubbornness. None of his dreams fully coalesce into the things that make him bolt awake before dawn as if a preemptive strike against true nightmares, so at least it’s not that, thankfully. Even so, he’s only got a few hours rest under his belt and he’s a little groggy, not fully awake and aware as he’d normally be. He stirs, hand on his chest clenching into a fist and instead closing over a soft blanket, and frowns a little, eyes still shut. Archer is trying to remember everything there is to remember, adjusting his large frame on the couch... and his left leg chooses that moment to lock up.
Pain blooms in his mind, banishing many of the cobwebs of sleep. It’s a minor discomfort and lasts only a few seconds before it’s gone, as muscles tense around scar tissue and spasm hard enough for his knee to refuse to give. It’s as good a sign as any that he pushed too hard, did too much, even if he’s ready to argue there’s more he could be doing. The couch isn’t a small one but he’s still a tall guy and it still wasn’t the brightest idea of his to stretch out here, not when he needed real sleep. Okay, actually, that’s not fair: it’s a comfortable couch. He’s just been stalking about for too long, not resting, running from place to place with only the occasional break and this is what it’s got him. None of his defenses are really in place; Archer hadn’t really had enough time to think about where he was or how he got there before that brief burst of pain so there was no way to block it from showing on his face. A few seconds, then gone, but it shows in the way his eyes open in surprise, the twisted grimace of discomfort, the sharp intake of breath. Archer lets it out in a sigh.
Now he’s awake enough that he remembers the past few days, and he’d really fucking rather not, but that isn’t a privilege he’s allowed. His eyes focus and when they do, he sees Adelaide looking over at him with a small smile and Archer’s first emotion is pure relief, visible in careworn blue eyes even as she delivers her subdued greeting. “Ads? Y’okay?” Shit, he sounds a little confused even in his concern, not fully cognizant, and he hears it. It isn’t helped that his next words are: “Wait, where’s Charlie?” because it’s the last thing he did before dozing off, watched Charlie. Fuck this. He needs to get to a place where he looks and sounds and is completely cogent. He slept. Now he’s awake. Soon there will be work to be done and he’s fucking awake so he needs to start acting like it.
Archer massages a hand over the back of his neck, the back of his head, mussing his close-cut hair even further, not giving a shit if the prematurely white strands stuck out in the back. “M’okay,” he assures her automatically, because she’s probably going to ask. He’s fine. He just needs a minute. Pushing himself up on one elbow, he sweeps a look through the room to orient himself a little better. Right. Okay. Better. Adelaide has seen him dead on his feet before but she’s likely never had the pleasure of seeing the aftermath, of Archer forcing himself to simply be fine because it was what was needed.
“Get over ‘ere,” he mumbles to her. “Had me scared shitless.” She’s seen and heard that Archer is more capable of emotion than he’d have the average person believe, but Adelaide’s also likely never had the chance of hearing him completely unfiltered, where he didn’t even realize it himself. Not many people have. He doesn’t sound angry. His voice is a little rough, and this time it’s not from having just been asleep. She had scared him, and his brain caught up with his words. He won’t take them back or pretend he didn’t mean them or the emotion behind them. So, okay, he cares. He cares a lot. It hasn’t always been easy for him to admit this to the people in his life. It was hard enough to become friends with Bran; now, he can’t imagine his life without the man he thinks of as his younger brother. Doesn’t want to. Getting wounded in the line of duty changed a few of Archer Avery’s priorities. The apocalypse shook up the rest of them. He cares about Adelaide and her son and when he couldn’t reach her in the storm…? His mind furnished him with every awful possibility. He’ll possibly be angry with her in a few minutes. It’s actually pretty likely. But Archer frankly isn’t finished being relieved yet.
-----
His progression from asleep to awake is a fascinating one for Adelaide - she has never tried to deny that as closed-off a person as she can be, she’s just plain nosy. She knows well that the opportunity to observe Archer in this state is a rare one, and certainly it offers a number of insights. She wonders what pains him when he winces like that, if it’s that old line of duty injury he told her about once. She wonders if he’s the type that’s always bewildered when he wakes up, or if this is a special occasion because of the exhaustion he has clearly pushed himself to. She wonders how he would react if she ever informed him that it’s ridiculously adorable when he mumbles and frowns.
When he summons her over her already excessive fondness gives a leap, and that subdued smile of hers doesn’t fade away. She picks up the plate of pancakes, the fork, and the bottle of syrup that she absconded with from the kitchens, and she scoots out from behind the table. She’s in pajamas, navy fleece bottoms and a giant worn flannel shirt that looks like it definitely wasn’t hers to start out with. She keeps her blanket wrapped around her shoulders while she shuffles over toward the sofa. “I put Charlie down in his crib,” she assures him, first off, while she walks. She puts the plate and things down on the coffee table, then scoops her blanket up enough that she sits cocooned in the puddle of it, her legs curled underneath her. Being comfortable could very easily be listed as one of her life’s greatest talents.
And then she takes the liberty of leaning over and hugging Archer Avery, Chief of Police, both because he looks like maybe he could use it, and because after the days she has had she probably can too.
“Thank you for coming here and keeping an eye on him, Arch. And I’m really… really sorry that I worried you,” she says over his shoulder. Then she sits back again so she can see his face, looking him over, and she shakes her head. “And that I promised you I would be there for you and help you shoulder things, and instead I put more on you. I’m… I’m really so sorry.” She doesn’t offer excuses, though she does have reasons. She isn’t interested in excusing herself, she really just wants her friend to know that she doesn’t take these things lightly, or for granted.
------
The push up to his elbow becomes Archer sitting up: somewhat carefully, waiting for his right shoulder to twinge like his left leg. It doesn’t and he’s relieved. He’s also not especially particular about the fact that this blanket is determined to not let him go. Maybe a corner of it is stuck on an edge of the couch but sitting up didn’t exactly dislodge it and Archer can’t say he’s sorry. Texas is normally a cripplingly hot state heading into summer but this is the longest he’s felt warm, dry, and comfortable in days. It’s not fucking aces, going from sweating under the multiple layers that made up the rain gear and safety suit he’d helped come up with for Bran’s fucking ‘blob whisperer’ thing -- which was very helpful this week, no doubt about it -- and running around in a downpour, only to jog into sometimes air-conditioned buildings (mostly the Capitol), clean up, and go right back out to do it all over again after checking in with everyone and fielding reports.
Archer nods when Adelaide tells him what his sleep-deprived mind had finally caught up and guessed -- that Charlie is fine, that he’s in his crib -- but it doesn’t stop him from looking more at ease, another dash of relief to his expression. The puzzle pieces are fitting together: he’d taken himself off-duty, told the squad he’d be back when he could see straight, cleaned up, got Charlie. He’s connecting the dots just fine now. He knew his slowed reflexes wouldn’t do anyone any good in a storm but he’d still hear Charlie if he cried and it was better than leaving him with another fucking babysitter. It would stand to reason that Charlie wanted attention and Archer had been all too willing to give it to him, right up until he knew he’d be a danger to Charlie and himself if he kept walking, kept standing. They’d relocated to the couch at the end of the story, Charlie quieting down. So he’d gone and fallen asleep. Hoo-fucking-ray logic.
Logic does not prepare him for the appearance of pancakes, let alone the syrup, and logic fails him entirely when Adelaide sits down and wraps him up in a hug. It gets worse, when she hugs him and he can’t find a single one of his words. Archer is often quiet, sometimes silent, but this is not supposed to be one of those times. It’s really not a good time for this slightly strangled feeling that he belatedly realizes is a lump in his throat and for fuck’s sake, he’s not that far gone, is he? Isn’t he supposed to be pissed off? A corner of his mind confirms that this is still absolutely an emotion that is in play, but Ads is here, and safe, and grateful, and sorry and seriously, the fuck? Fucking lump in his throat that he’s got to swallow down. Archer must be far more tired than he originally thought.
But he’s returning the hug, albeit one-armed because he’s only got one free of the blanket, yet it's no less heartfelt for that. For a moment his head rests against hers because it’s fucking heavy, and Adelaide isn’t making it any easier for him to do this the way it went in his head. First off, he was supposed to be awake with all of his emotional armor in place. Now, he’s not even sure where his actual tactical vest is, let alone be bothered to pull up any shields for her. He was supposed to be stoic. Cool, even. Implacable. Matter-of-fact. Lies of omission are still lies. That was how it was supposed to go. Archer followed the clues and if she hadn’t been back tonight, what then? Get Graham to ping her phone. Access her file in the Capitol. Find the complications and find Adelaide. He would have stopped respecting the boundaries and started being the cop he was supposed to be instead of the friend he was… and if the thought is unsettling, if it makes him feel badly, maybe that means he’s the good man he tries so desperately hard to be. A skin of tin; a heart within.
Fuck, does he ever try.
When Ads pulls back to look him over, Archer wonders what it is she sees. He has to look like shit, since he doesn’t feel like he normally would after a few hours of sleep. His internal clock and her pajamas are telling him he didn’t sleep through the night, nothing even close to that, and Archer is completely unsurprised. Does he look like he’s still in pain? A little. It’s his eyes, mostly. They’re usually the last thing he can marshall into formation when trying to present a completely blank expression to the rest of the world, the first part of him to thaw in friendly company, and right now Archer’s dark blue eyes express more pain than he’d ever be able to voice aloud. Though he absently digs his knuckles into the top of his left kneecap to try to loosen the muscles, to keep them from spasming again, it would be a lie to say that physical pain is all he has to worry about.
The moment passes and Archer just looks like Archer, albeit a rumpled and unshaven version of the normally put-together chief of police he so often presents. He hears her apology in silence, nods once to indicate its surface-level acceptance. Yes, she put more on him. But it’s also true that he’s built to bear the weight. He hadn’t planned on the storms continuing to run through the week, but his initial instinct proved true: the first had been the worst, with the most blobs, and each subsequent one had shown less and less activity. So it’s okay that he stayed active through the first few days, only choosing to rest now. He’s done the best he can. It falls to others to take up the burden for a little while. He led as well as was needed, for longer than was needed, and though hindsight says he could have eased up before now…? Archer can’t be too sorry with the work he did. Adelaide scared him. That weighed on him. It will become another fear to add to his collection, something new for his unconscious mind to kick around… but in the moment, he’d been able to handle it, no matter how difficult it had been. And it most certainly had been difficult. Now he has to see if he can handle what comes next.
He looks thoughtful for a long moment, finally twisting a little so his head will come to rest against the back of the couch and he can continue to face her. Little touches like these are more eloquent than if he’d stood up and declared how tired he was or how much he trusted her. It’s his turn to look her over. Something makes him pause and Archer sighs, lifting his hand and letting his thumb move back and forth over the very faint line that brushes his left temple, unconsciously tracing the scar, a mannerism he’s utterly unaware he does when his brain is hitting critical mass in a social situation. It usually comes out to play around Graham and Brannon, who snipe at each other with the unrivaled zeal of younger siblings. Tonight, it’s just the devils and the better angels in Archer’s own head, all of which have that same annoying clamor and none of which have a concrete way to proceed to sort this all out.
“Ads,” he says finally, simply, “Got the feeling you’ve got a story to tell. So do I, comes to that. But I’ve gotta get my head on straight.” Honesty is what he has to offer; it’s not much, but it’s what he’s got, and he doesn’t do it in this pragmatic way because she was so sparing with the facts, as if to show the difference. He does it because he’s Archer. “Need a few minutes.” His hand drops and he offers an attempt at a lopsided half-smile. “So maybe start with… how the fuck you have maple syrup?” He’s not as surprised at the pancakes as maybe he should be, not anymore. They’ve cooked together long enough for that. But the syrup? Yeah, that’s not something that comes off a supply truck every day.
-----
Adelaide doesn’t blame him for needing time - she’s literally coming at him before he’s even upright, though in her defense he did call her over. Still, she shakes her head when he makes his request for time. “I’m not in any kind of rush, Arch,” she says, and it’s the truth. “You’re right there’s a story. I think you will anyway, but I’m gonna need you to hear me out all the way through if you think it sounds nuts. But we can start with the easy stuff.”
Ever since Rodeo came to her with his plan - the one he came up with alongside that woman he let into his boys’ club - Adelaide has been running it over and over through her head, trying to anticipate how it will shake out, trying to untangle all of the potential consequences. She has concern for herself, naturally, and for her brother and Sarge more importantly and for Archer, but on top of all of those, at the real heart of the matter is Charlie. She’s the only person in on this plan so far who even knows Charlie exists, and that is the part that revs up her nerves. Normally she thinks of herself as being quite good with this sort of thing, able to flesh out possibilities and foresee issues, but the pressure she feels here to get it all right is intense.
If things were to go badly between Archer and Rodeo, there’s no avoiding the fact that it would come to the attention of the Capitol. If things blow up, and Thomas gets involved? There’s just no way she can see herself skating out of that one, and if she’s in the crosshairs, then so is Charlie. Wherever they end up, they end up there together, so Adelaide is set and determined to keep things as smooth as possible. But when her heart is at the Dog Park, and her son is at the Capitol, that is no easy task.
But Adelaide trusts Archer, trusts that he’s a good man with good intentions, and that he is devoted to Charlie. The storytime she witnessed proved that sure enough if she hadn’t already known. So she thinks that telling him the whole story, the way she told Rodeo she thought she needed to, is going to be the best approach. The original plan had Adelaide leaving out the pertinent detail of Rodeo’s identity, making Archer think that he was just coming to meet her long-lost brother and it was as simple as that, but Adelaide immediately vetoed that. He meant too much, had been too good to them, to be treated as shabbily as that, and even just tactically she thought springing the Dog King on the Chief of Police was a bad idea. And so she told Rodeo how she thought it should go, and he agreed rather more easily than she’d expected. He’s always valued her opinions, spoke to her like an adult even when she was a child, but it had never been in reference to his business before, back in the old days. But he’d listened to her, and that was something to think about.
But no matter how certain she is that this approach is the better one, it’s difficult to be sure that nothing will go wrong, and it would be so much easier to gamble with just her own skin than it is to gamble with her son.
She doesn’t know if she’s glad for this reprieve, then, as it gives her more time to think, or if she wishes she could just hurry and get it all off her chest. Regardless of that, she offers a shrug to his easier question. “Come to find out, the stuff just plain never goes bad,” she says. “So it still exists. I asked Thomas if he could get it, and he got it. I don’t just stick around in this shiny palace because it’s pretty,” she says, lightly though it’s truer than her tone makes it.
++++++++++
“Shiny palace,” repeats Archer in a murmur, though he can’t say he disagrees. When he and Bran first knew they were coming to the Capitol to stay, that that’s where the officers were going to be bunked down full time, he remembers feeling a little bemused by the grandeur. They’d agreed to share a room sight unseen because they’d thought folks would need the space and they already knew they could be roommates without killing each other. Archer personally hadn’t been prepared for them getting what amounted to a one bedroom apartment, complete with a bathroom, though only the bedroom was big enough for them to really sleep in comfortably. Seeing as they thought they’d be packed like sardines and not in a space where Brannon could make a literal blanket fort out of his bed and the furniture to give himself some privacy? Yeah, there weren’t any complaints from Archer. There still aren't now. They’d been able to bring some shit from their apartments before they were looted and he’d scrounged up a microfridge. It isn't as… sophisticated as the Lansing place here. But it's comfortable and it has the stuff they need, which is more than Archer would have predicted he’d have during the fucking zombie apocalypse.
It's stopped being a surprise that Ads can just ask Thomas -- Robert, he means Robert; when he’s with Ads he forgets, sometimes, that the younger man prefers to go by his initials or his middle name -- for something and he'll go ahead and find it. Or get someone else to find it. Archer, head still tilted against the back of the couch, rubs a hand over his pale bristled jaw. “Doesn’t go bad, huh?” he says with a nod to the syrup. She hasn’t offered him the pancakes and so he doesn’t reach for them. The tidbit about the maple syrup is a good fact. “Suppose we should try it. In baking. Sugar substitute.” Cooking is a safe topic but Archer has never been the type to stick to safety.
Closing his eyes for a moment, the chief looks exactly as wiped out as he had when he was pacing his way through Charlie’s nursery telling that story. Charlie’s about the only one he’s told about the last couple of days, and that’s the watered down version of the very beginning of what Archer’s been dealing with. Accepting Samuel Grady’s badge was a no-brainer, because someone had to do the job and he knew he was the one to do it well, but Archer still feels like he’s playing catch-up and the blobs don’t help. Adelaide being gone… it made all of that worse. He’s accepted that he can’t be completely unemotional or detached but between her disappearance and his concern for Bran’s safety spending all of that time with the blobs, Archer has felt his nerves tangle and fray. Is it the worst he’s had to deal with? Fuck no. As the virus crept into Austin and he watched people succumb, that had brought up all sorts of shit. At the end of every job that he and Brannon could still find one another, if they weren’t side by side, there was an overwhelming sense of relief. It was often followed by a grim sort of grief, as they’d learn of someone else who went down. A colleague. A friend.
So, no. Keeping his fears on a short leash these past couple of days isn’t some melodrama shit that he hasn’t seen before. But it’s also different somehow, difficult. It would be harder to lose Adelaide with how much they’ve all worked to stay safe, to have these fucked up blobs come out of the sky and feel abso-fucking-loutely helpless against the virus. It would be harder to lose Bran to a blob than to a zombie. He’s chief now and Olinger made no bones about the responsibility he was to bear up under. He’s responsible for them. He’s fucking responsible.
“Where’s Thomas?” Archer asks, not bothering to switch names in his head again, before he opens his eyes. He does and they focus instantly on her face, lifting his head from the back of the couch to regard her steadily. Tired though he may be, the few hours of sleep have done Archer some good. There’s an intensity to his blue eyes, a thereness that indicates that whatever his half of the conversation is, it’s not something he’s keen to have overheard. As for hers… “Whatever it is. When you tell me? I’ll hear you out.” There’s a band of steel behind his words. It’s a promise. Even without him saying it, it’s a promise, and Archer doesn’t make those lightly. Archer looks at Ads for another long moment before finally breaking eye-contact.
-----
Adelaide recognizes the promise for what it is, and she holds his gaze steadily until it is gone. Before she answers his question, she nods toward the stack of pancakes. “Go on and eat, Arch, I made ‘em for you. And that’s a good thought about the syrup,” she adds. She has rather always been one to go for safety, but only where it made sense to do so - not a matter of cowardice but of practicality, she likes to think. Why make things hard when they didn't need to be? But right here the topics don’t even compare, and the cooking comment is only cursory before they move on.
So she shifts the blanket up around her shoulders, and sets in for the real reason they need to talk. “Thomas came back while you were sleepin’,” she answers his question on a murmur. “Slept for an hour and then got a call from Olinger.” She shrugs, tucks her hair back a bit. “He’s out again. Blob stuff I guess.” Thomas has never required much sleep, but a single hour is pushing it even for him. She knows he’ll take care of himself, though. He’s not exactly the self-sacrificing type.
“And I know you’ll listen,” she adds, even though she’s the one who just asked him to hear her out. She supposes she just wants to have put it out there, because all of it means too much. And because maybe she wants to give him every opportunity to see the seriousness of things and to say “No, Ads, you know what? Maybe just don’t tell me.” She knows it isn’t in him to say anything like that, but she wants to know that she at least put it out there, she didn’t spring this thing on him completely without warning.
She sighs a little, steels herself. When his eyes open and fix, focused and present, she seems to take that as his signal that his ‘head is on straight’ as he put it. But before she begins, Adelaide glances around, suddenly furtive though only up close, only because Archer can see her eyes. “Hey did I ever show you my baby picture?” she asks, casual when she stands up, when she picks up the plate of food before he gets started on it, and inclines her head toward the other room. “I only have the one, but I swear Charlie’s got my nose…” She doesn’t explain, certainly not aloud, the suspicions she has long had, the workarounds that she has developed with a little trial and error. She is trusting that Archer’s experience and his quick mind will have him following without undue fuss.
With her blanket still around her, Adelaide goes to the bedroom, sets the food down on the desk for him. “This is a better place to talk,” she says, quiet as he follows. There is actually a baby picture, a half-blurry snapshot no doubt taken by her brother, not yet ten at the time, and Adelaide takes it out for the sake of completeness, but it’s clearly not the point. She takes a seat on the edge of the bed at the foot, looks apologetic for so abruptly tossing him in to this situation, but she hopes he’ll roll with it.
And so she gives a tentative start, slow enough that he can stop her if she’s reading that signal wrong.
“So, you might have guessed, but when the Blobs started I was on my way to see my brother. And our… one of our people, he got Blobbed,” she says, the emphasis on the ridiculous word coming with a wrinkle of her nose. “So, that’s why I was gone so long.” She fiddles with the hem of her blanket, but then she lifts her eyes again. “But that’s not the big deal. The big deal is who my brother is... You apparently already met him, at least one time.”
-----
Even tired, Archer’s brain is already working at Ads’ subterfuge about the picture. He’s still clueless about her CharlieCam in the nursery but it would somehow surprise him still less if he knew of Adelaide’s suspicions and workarounds in this main room, that perhaps Rob…
Blue eyes previously dulled by the burdens he’s been carrying brush up against the turning whetstone of his quick mind; his eyes sharpen and rest on her face for a long second. A sort of understanding cuts into his gaze, understanding and something that says he will go along with this for now but that it’s become another puzzle piece for him to fit together, for him to worry over. Archer makes himself answer with expected good humor, “Can already tell. About the nose.” But he says it while brushing aside the blanket and pushing himself to stand. “C’mon. Show me this pic.” Fuck, if he’s honest with himself -- something he usually is unless it has anything to do with his well being, his biggest blind spot -- Archer doesn’t want to be vertical right now, doesn’t want to be awake, but with barely a hitch in his step he gestures her ahead of him, follows into the bedroom. His walk has smoothed out by the time they’ve crossed the floor and he cants his head to the side with his fingers on the doorknob, waits to make sure she wants him to close the door before he does, waving away the apology in her eyes in the same motion. Don’t worry about it, Ads, the half-smile he gives her says as clearly as if he’d said it aloud.
Once they’re settled in, since Adelaide had urged him to do so, Archer reaches for the pancakes, nodding his thanks. There’s a moment where his facial expression falters into something softer, that look that can only be something like vulnerability, the one that flashed over his face in the kitchen that first morning he was chief and she made a pot pie just for him. He’s honestly not sure what he’s done to deserve such thoughtfulness so Archer simply sets about cutting into the pancake with the edge of the fork she’d provided and carefully pours syrup. It gives him something to stare at, so he doesn’t have to look at Ads and try to express that she doesn’t have to do this kind of thing for him, really. He’s got a feeling it’s a conversation he wouldn’t do especially well in anyhow.
The food’s as good as it looks, as good as it smelled, and Archer is trying to eat slowly so he can actually taste it; he eats standing, trying to get some life back into his muscles. Not unlike how Adelaide filed away his maple-syrup-as-sugar-substitute comment as a surface level topic, he’s really not going to be able to sit and make conversation about how successful the canned pumpkin was instead of eggs or how well the cakes came out. Archer is, to his mild surprise, hungry. He’s eaten, over the past three days, but the worn down cop would be hard-pressed to remember just what he consumed and when. Someone handed him something and he ate it. The last time that happened it was, what… at some point Wednesday afternoon? Piper probably gave him coffee and food. That sounded about right. Since it’s after midnight, that was technically yesterday. The cops that had been a part of his squad when he was just a commander were familiar enough with Archer’s single-minded focus and they’d seen the same trick work for Deputy Chief O’Brien back when he’d just been a lieutenant. If you unwrap something like the cardboardesque protein ration bars and hand it over to Archer when he’s reviewing a report or in the middle of delegating tasks, nine times out of ten he’ll eat it without even noticing that you’ve done anything at all until he’s finished.
Archer is the self sacrificing type, and he frowns, pausing mid-bite, when Adelaide tells him that Thomas -- Rob -- has been and gone again on the mayor’s call. He chews, swallows, and opens his mouth to say… what, exactly? That he should probably go and help them? Something very much like that floats into his mind. And it’s possibly true. The indication he has that he shouldn’t, though, besides the expression on her face as she gathers the blanket to herself and shrugs -- there’s something below that that twists his guts, makes him dread this upcoming talk -- is that Rob didn’t bother to wake him up. Archer can’t afford to feel self-conscious that he’s crashed on the couch in their quarters after working for three days straight, so he doesn’t, though he knows by now that he and Rob are cut from at least slightly different bolts of cloth. Neither man needs much sleep, but Archer will go without it if he has to, will stay awake for days until he winds up nearly passing out on the nearest piece of furniture so as not to crash to the floor while holding Charlie. Whereas Rob is the guy who doesn’t see a reason for push himself to that particular limit… though if Archer saw fit to do so, he in turn saw no problem with taking some time for a run whilst the drained police chief stayed in charge of the couple’s infant son. Because Rob trusts him.
If the situation called for it, he’d similarly have no problem shaking Archer awake for a meeting with the mayor. If the situation is upgraded, Robert will call and ask Adelaide to do just that. Archer has to believe this, so with a light sigh and a shake of his head, Archer closes his mouth over whatever comment he’d wanted to make and obediently goes back to eating the pancakes.
He looks a little tense, though. It begins to filter in for Archer that his phone and everything else is with his tactical vest and the last time he saw that, it was near Charlie’s crib. That percolates for a handful of seconds. Ads would have moved it: not closer to him but farther from Charlie, which is really the first concern Archer has when he thinks of it. Charlie is an infant and the vest was not quite within reach of the crib, he believes, but Ads would have at the very least nudged it aside because his duty piece is in the holster in the back and that does not need to be any closer to Charlie than necessary. His gear and his phone are somewhere safe, though it does not sit well with Archer that he didn’t keep them closer to him. His instincts made a call that his conscious mind didn’t have full access to: when he took Charlie with him over to the couch, Archer believed a) he was of more use to the boy in his fatigue than he was to his work -- this is the truth, one Archer came to even as he was taking himself off duty -- but also b) that he would still be able to protect Charlie from danger armed with little more than the contents of his pockets. To be sure, Archer does carry things on his person that would be of use in that scenario. If startled awake, though, he would have been inclined to reach for his gun and been very confused in this apartment as to where it was. Perhaps Archer should feel safer in the Capitol, or in general, but it’s been a long three days and his sleep has not been easy.
When Adelaide steels herself to begin is when Archer really starts to purposely focus on the tone of her voice, the expressions that cross her face. His last few bites of food are taken without really looking at the plate, sober blue eyes resting instead on Ads. Anything he has to say, any story he has to tell? It’ll keep. He acknowledges her slow start by sliding his fork onto the now empty plate and touching her shoulder under the blanket with the tips of his fingers, a ‘go ahead’ gesture that’s accompanied with a nod. The plate is finally relegated back to the desk, set far enough back that it can’t be bumped and fall off. Archer is very, very aware that this is their bedroom, Rob’s and Ads’, and while she might have wanted privacy to talk…? He’s gonna be respectful.
Her use of the word ‘blobbed’ is met with an expression that looks exasperated, a flash of teeth that is equal parts smirk or grimace: either way, no sort of humor reaches his eyes. He hates that fucking term and is clearly pretty fucking sick of the blobs. Adelaide’s words and actions are digested in layers: her fiddling with the blanket, looking down and looking back; the phrase ‘our people’ and the fact that one of them was facing infection; finally mentioning her brother, he of the complications. The fact that Archer has met her brother before now and that she hasn’t told him, hasn’t introduced them, fills him with such… disquiet.
Archer’s eyes hold her face whole for a long moment, eyes blinking like a camera taking a snapshot, his mind beginning to run its version of facial recognition software as it tries to pair her features with anyone he’s come across here in Austin since he’s moved here that could conceivably be kin to her. There’s a long, long moment of silence before he begins to speak. “Ads,” Archer says slowly, gently. “Sorry about your…” Her what? One of her people? The fuck kind of way of putting it is that? He goes to rephrase. “About the blob.” Whatever she says about it not being the big deal isn’t strictly true. It is a big deal. It’s huge. It kept her away from Charlie until tonight and Archer’s eyes steadily regard her, letting her see for herself what he’s not gonna dredge up in the midst of whatever revelation she’s got coming for him. He lets her see that he understands that this blob thing with her ‘person’ is clearly also important, that he knows this guy matters to her. That he has to.
Then he sets it aside and visibly steels himself for the news that is to come, his mind whirring away, clicking through snapshots. Maybe, given what she’s said about her brother and his relationship to law enforcement, he should be dredging up a mental line of mugshots. Archer’s brain switches over to the task without a second thought, narrowing it down, narrowing it down. Someone he’s arrested, perhaps, someone he’s put in jail. Shit, maybe he’s arrested Adelaide’s brother.
The ‘big deal,’ how she’s phrased it? That’s for him. It’s gonna be a big deal to Archer, who her brother is. A big deal to her when she’s gotta tell him. Better be like a fucking Band-Aid. Pull it off. Do it quick. Archer is somewhat removed from these thoughts, the stuff about trying to picture what her brother could look like and how it’s possible she hasn’t told him before now because it’s going to be someone he hasn’t crossed paths with in the best of ways.
None of it can be helped now. He told her he’d listen and he’s listening and reacting as thoughtfully as he possibly can, his voice still steady, still gentler than he even knows. “Who’s your brother, Ads?” asks Archer softly.
-----
Adelaide nods when Archer, ever the one who just gets what she’s saying, who picks up on things even when she skims them, takes the time to make an aside about Sarge, about his quarantine. Even through all of this, the buildup of this reveal and what she has to ask Archer after, Sarge is never more than a step behind in the back of her mind. Archer is right about the fact that it is a big deal to her - as big as they get. And even though it isn’t the point right now, Archer makes it clear he gets it.
“He’s okay so far,” she murmurs, with a look on her face that blazes briefly with a determination that refuses to face any other outcome. “This’ll be day four. He’s still okay.”
But then they are back and the question is out there. Who’s your brother, Ads?
He’s the biggest heart attached to the ragingest temper. He’s the most devoted, determined, never-rest human she’s found in this life. He’s the reason she didn’t simply wither away as an infant while their mama broke down. He’s the reason she ever knew love. He’s a hilarious outlandish mind attached to some of the sharpest wits and the best set of survival instincts she can even imagine. He’s blind to his baby sister’s faults, and always was. He’s still alive, when he was supposed to have died more times than Adelaide cares to count.
But Adelaide knows that as true as all of the rest of that is, as much as she even knows that Archer will take the whole thing into consideration, there is still one sentence that she has to deliver and that is the one that will rock Archer, the one he’ll have to work to get past to see all the rest.
She takes in a breath, lets it out slowly while the blanket falls from her shoulders and she meets Archer’s steadfast gaze. If she knew he was mentally cataloguing mugshots, she might have laughed, but instead she looks frank, wary, a little apologetic maybe.
“My brother’s name is James Hawkins,” she says evenly. “His friends call him Rodeo. I’ve always called him Jims… But you probably know him as the Dog King.”
--------
As long as he lives, Archer isn’t going to forget the wariness in Adelaide’s eyes when she tells him her brother is the fucking Dog King.
And hell, there’s reason for it, good reason, because Archer is a cop -- the top cop, now -- and her brother is the equivalent to Public Enemy No.1 and it should be funny, it should be fucking hilarious, except there’s that wariness in her eyes and there’s history here. Even as the name HAWKINS, JAMES is entered into his mental computer, the photograph brought up behind his eyes and paired with Adelaide, the analytical part of his brain whispering that there’s a match -- across the eyes, shape of the ears, the determined set of the mouth -- Archer has ground to a halt.
Because there’s fucking history here.
There isn’t enough air. There isn’t enough fucking air in his lungs and it’s because Archer realizes, belatedly, that he’s ground to a fucking halt, that he has simply ceased to breathe for one, two, three seconds. This is the end of the world, though, and he’s come to believe that his will end with a bang, not with a whimper. Not with something as trivial as not having the sense to pull oxygen in. So he does. There’s not time to be overdramatic, to be lightheaded when he’s already so tired. Adelaide said some words, some surprising -- shocking, actually -- words. Now, he needs to process them.
Archer takes a breath that rattles a little, then another that’s back to being even and calm and quiet, staring at Ads like he’s looking for more to be written on her face than she’s said aloud. Worn denim eyes revealing frayed nerves are stitching together all of the pieces. Archer wonders how long she would’ve waited to tell him, if not for the blobs. He wonders how long her brother would have had her wait, if he could have helped it. If he even knows.
He knows, Archer’s gut tells him, looking at the seriousness Ads carries with her. Maybe not everything, but her brother -- he’s not letting the name pierce him all the way yet; his brain has the gist of it even if his heart is still trying to process -- has to know something about this conversation. That she’d like it to take place, if not the fact that it’s happening here and now. Adelaide is cautious, has wariness sketched onto her features as she watches his reaction, but Archer can see the frankness, too. In someone else, someone different from who she is and even who he is, he might call it ‘earnest.’ He chooses to believe that she’s telling him about her brother because she honestly wants him to know; he chooses to believe she looks apologetic because she knows that it’s not just difficult news. And it is, in its way. Archer’s brain buzzes with all of the ways this is a nightmare. But it's not just that. No, Ads also has to know that a lie of omission is still a lie in Archer’s book. They’ve never pressed one another for personal details but this is one of those things that’s kind of big and maybe he wouldn’t have cared half as much as he does in this moment if not for a few bullet points, some of which she’d have to know.
In the event she does not, Archer is going to educate her.
Having finished his silent scan of her features, the tired cop turns his head, finds a point across the room to focus his eyes on. His left hand comes up, thumb ghosting over the faint scar on his temple. Back. And forth. Back. And forth. His hand drops as he carefully picks and chooses his words, navigating a minefield. His tempo is unhurried, his voice pitched low, almost terribly soft. “Your ‘complicated’ bro is... James Hawkins. The Dog King.” A pause, drawn out over a few seconds, before he cuts his eyes back over to Adelaide. “Was there, oh, any other time y’could’ve told me this?” When Archer is angry, he does not yell. He goes cold and his voice becomes dangerously quiet, his eyes chips of ice and his clipped sentences puffs of frosty air.
This is, thankfully, not that. At his question, there is the briefest quirk of one corner of his mouth upward in a half-smile that goes nowhere near his eyes, even if he feels the dark humor behind his words. He’s not nearly as pissed off as he feels he should be. Not at her. Maybe not even at James fucking Hawkins. But there is a sort of anger in Archer, even if it isn’t directed outward as wintry fury; the line of his shoulders is taut and he’s no longer completely her stalwart kitchen companion standing at parade rest while they wait for a stew to bubble; some of his easy camaraderie with her has been shelved for the moment as he processes this news.
On impulse, though, Archer reaches out his hand, palm up, awaiting hers. She has to know that he’s not mad enough that he’s never going to forgive her or something ridiculous like that; she needs to know he’s still here, even as he works through all of his thoughts and feelings on this one. And there’s one particular thing that’s got him tangled up, one ‘bullet point’ that he’s got to tell her about now if she doesn’t already know. Tension thrums through Archer as he lets his gaze find that spot across the room again.
Softly. So very softly. “Yes. Your brother and I have met before. He tell you about it, Ads? Or d’you want me to try my hand at the story?” Yes, no, maybe so. Maybe the answer to both questions is a ‘yes.’ He has no idea what Rodeo -- James Hawkins; Archer has never been able to assign any seriousness to that particular alias -- thought about what happened that day. Hasn’t stopped him from turning his mind to it, now and then.
----------
Adelaide thinks for a second that Archer is about to erupt. It feels like a calm-before-the-storm when he ceases breathing, and Adelaide finds herself holding her own breath, waiting. She has been steadfastly certain up until this exact moment that Archer will take this revelation, be shocked, be worried, be overwhelmed, but ultimately come around to the reality of the situation. But for that quick second an irrational fear clutches at her, just briefly, just knee-jerk because if she's actually thinking about it she knows better, but the fear still hits.
Then he breathes, and the fear eases, and Adelaide can see him there, the Archer she knows, though he's taut and somewhat stiffer than usual. He even makes a joke, and Adelaide allows herself a little exhale of breath that is the shadow of the ghost of a laugh, eyes sober.
"I mean, I guess I could have shouted it in your ear while you slept, that would have been even better, right?" she returns. Her subdued air proves she's picking up on that tension that has dropped in, and her brows lift in surprise when he puts his hand out to her.
This second moment of uncertainty clues Adelaide in to something, out of nowhere.
She knows she can rely on Archer, she understands that. But the addition of their genuine fondness for each other, the fact that they have an actual relationship and not just some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement, is unique to her life. There's only Rodeo and Sarge before him, and the significance of that hits her as soon as his hand is held out to her, like a symbol that he is not just here, but he cares.
She doesn't often think about the fact that she's an isolated person. It is so much the way it has always been, because of her circumstances and because of the way she has always reacted to her circumstances, but this beat of time - with his palm held out for hers in solidarity - shows her just how remarkable a thing he is in her life.
She stares for a second, like his hand is something she doesn't quite understand, but then it brings a change over her, softening her features in a way that one almost doesn't otherwise realize they need until it happens.
She takes his hand. In her head it's a big deal, though she doesn't know that it shows on her face, too. These kinds of things so rarely have a chance to.
"He told me you let him go," she answers. There's a hint to the sentence of a question, a wondering why he did that, before any of them had a clue what it would mean. "But I wouldn't mind having your telling of the story."