2/2
"Late," he confirms for Adelaide. "Real late. Didn't even try sleep. Didn't want to..." Archer gets tangled in words he can't say. Words he doesn't know how to say. How he didn't want the old nightmares to pop in for an untimely visit. How he could do without a brand new one that featured the former chief of police as a zombie 'taking down' the former deputy chief. The sentence trails into nothing as Archer busies himself with pulling his duty piece from his shoulder holster. He does this so he doesn't have to look up for a few seconds, checking that the safety is on and moving it to the far more secure -- and therefore less accessible -- holster at the small of his back on his duty belt. His right shoulder is a little stiff as he snaps everything into place.
If he was out and about, the leather catch would stay undone and this pistol would be cocked and locked in this upside-down carry. Instead, the chamber is empty and the hammer is down, the gun safely tucked where little fingers cannot reach. Charlie is only a baby, but one day he will be a toddler, then a child. He will grow -- it is one of Archer's missions in life that this boy grows up -- and he will eventually learn that the world is very, very dangerous. But he doesn't need to learn that lesson from the things Archer carries in order to make his world safe.
The world. So shines a good deed in a weary world. That was it. That was the line he wanted to attribute to Ads, with the rosemary and her kindness. His weary world is surely the better for it, and he's glad now to have found the words. He's often deliberate with them; they matter.
Moving to the counter, rolling his shoulders one at a time, Archer cleans off his hands, careful not to waste any water. "Long night," he sighs, an opening volley. Adelaide can ask more, or not, his eyes tell her when he turns to face her. He isn't going to retreat. They did ease toward this friendship, largely due to her persistence, but now that they're there, he's not backing away just because it's difficult. Maybe he needs to talk.
For that matter, maybe she does, too.
The tall cop puts his hip to the counter, scans the kitchen as if surveying a scene -- what he's looking for, even Archer couldn't really say, just a habitual action of a tired man -- and asks, "You stickin' around this morning?" An opening to real conversation. A sign he isn't heading to bed just yet.