2/2
Thinking that maybe he'll muddle his way through the start of something people can stop in and grab for lunch and dinner, Archer is first alerted that someone else had the same plan by the cooking smells that waft from the kitchen as he approaches the end of the hall. It's Adelaide's voice he hears next: not the words, they're too indistinct to be made out, but he can hear the pitch and timbre and knows it's her. If he had to run into someone this morning, Adelaide's okay. Unexpected, but okay. More than okay.
When she turns at the sound of his approach, they’re both in for a little surprise. Archer is used to early mornings and late nights; the Capitol inhabitants and their routines are generally familiar. Because Adelaide is a friend, he likes to think he knows her habits… and even though he heard Adelaide’s voice, this was still incredibly early to see her out and about. There’s more, though, something else he just can’t put his finger on. Something in her expression, maybe.
Archer’s typically impassive expression is a little easier to read, if only because she’s had more practice than most of Austin. The fatigue he’d prefer to keep to himself is broadcast clearly in the dark smudges under blue eyes that are normally focused and alert. While he’s in a modified version of his dress uniform -- pristine uniform shirt with the top button undone and sleeves rolled just above his elbows, clean black suit pants, black tie with the knot loosened and a gold tie clip -- the tall man’s broad shoulders aren’t squared off the way they so often are, his posture not depicting honor or purpose but rather more burdened, as if he carried far more than his shoulder holster. Perhaps the most telling is that the oft meticulous Archer isn’t clean-shaven this morning, the faintest trace of stubble littering his cheeks and chin.
Still, he musters up a faint half smile for her, a flash-in-the-pan quirk up of one corner of his mouth. “Mornin’, Ads,” he greeted her. “Little early?” It’s on the edge of being a tease. Almost but not quite. Because if one of them is in the kitchen at this hour, making stew, it’s not usually Adelaide.
Speaking of… “Smells good,” Archer says as he steps farther into the kitchen, and he means it. Without the herbs, maybe it wouldn’t smell like much more than beefy water and mealy potatoes. Which don’t taste half bad, really. The steak’s good quality and the freezer’s made it last. But thanks to her garden, he can smell herbs in the stew, and since they’re so rare, and since he’s spent enough time here -- since they’ve both spent time here together -- without seeing what she picked and without looking into the pot, Archer takes a deep breath and before the inhalation is even done, he’s named it: “Rosemary?”
He exhales in a sigh, opens eyes he’d been unaware he’d closed, and sees Charlie in his baby seat. When Archer smiles this time, it sticks around for half a beat longer. “‘Lo, little buddy,” comes the soft, abbreviated greeting.