Derek Miller (throughthemill) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-10-16 08:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 21, derek miller, louisa may smith, | derek and louisa may |
Week 21 - Thursday
Characters: Derek Miller and Louisa May Smith
Loacation: The doctor's house, Medford
Summary: Derek and Louisa have a more serious discussion about Leo
Rating: PG
When Louisa May woke up on Thursday morning, it took a minute to remember that she wasn’t alone in the house. It was a good sort of realization -- the fact that she wasn’t alone. She liked it. While she was waiting for the morning biscuits to bake up, she noticed the book Derek’d been thumbing through the night before. It now had a book mark in it, about a hundred pages in. Figuring he stayed up fairly late, she let him sleep. She set aside a small plate with half the biscuits on it and put the coffee pot on the back burner to keep warm, and went out to take care of her chickens and do the rest of her morning chores, humming to herself as she went.
Habits were hard to break. So many weeks of guard duty made it impossible for Derek to sleep at a normal time. Louisa had went to bed but Derek wasn’t ready to sleep. He sat guard duty here, reading by the firelight with his gun by his side and listening for strange noises. The next morning he slept late and Louisa wasn’t in the kitchen he came in. Derek had his biscuits and then went to work. It was easy to find a set of tools, and without asking for permission, he wandered the house repairing and replacing anything that needed it. He owed the doctor that much for sleeping under her roof and eating her food. Their paths didn’t really cross until lunchtime and he felt his stomach growl.
“How’s it going, Doc?”
Louisa May was checking on the sweet potatoes when Derek came in. She straightened up slowly -- morning chores had left her a bit stiff -- and smiled at Derek.
“Goin’ well,” she replied, nodding towards the stove. “Lunch’s nearly done. Why don’t you take a seat while it finishes cooking? You probably could use a rest, with all that hard work you been doing.”
“Not that big a deal.” He thought about going into the front room for his book and decided against it, sitting at the table instead.
“Well, I appreciate it,” she replied, giving the dirty rice and beans a stir and a taste to see if they were done. “Just another few minutes,” she said, briskly moving around the kitchen to get the plates and silverware set. She smiled a little, the domesticity of the whole situation striking her funny bone -- here she was, working in the kitchen, while a man fixed up her house.
“Here we go,” she said, as she scooped the rice and beans onto plates, adding a sweet potato for each of them, some cold shredded chicken, and leftover cornbread from the night before. “I don’t usually eat this much for lunch, but I figured you’ve worked yourself up an appetite.”
“Sure, I guess.” Derek didn’t know why but he was uncomfortable with the doctor pointing out how hard he worked. The compliment made him feel awkward. “You deserve some kind of payment if I use your supplies.”
“Fair enough,” Louisa May replied, shrugging. She felt a little guilty about his putting work into her house when she’d been thinking of moving out of it, but if it’s what would make him feel like he’d evened a debt, that worked.
“So, I’ve been thinking about what I should bring up to Grant’s Pass when I head up there on Friday,” she said between bites of rice and beans. “Figure since it’s Christmas and all, and I’ll be a guest, I should come with something.” She crumbled the cornbread and mixed it up with the rest of the food on her plate. “Got any suggestions?”
“Well, I don’t think all those white folks will eat any greens...” Derek was thinking of leaving on Christmas. All those people, all distracted by the holiday. Nobody would notice and few would care if he just disappeared.
“They don’t know what they’re missing,” Louisa May replied, agreeing. “Maybe... I thought I could bring some seeds? From my daddy’s general supply store. I’ve got most of the stuff from the store in that U-Haul out back, and I’ve certainly got enough of a supply to spare some.”
That was perfect, actually. “Alice’ll shit herself over something like that.”
Louisa May made a face at the mention of Alice. “Yeah, well, it’d be for the whole group.” She shook her head. “I only met her the once, but I am not surprised you don’t get on with her.”
“She’s a crazy bitch,” Derek mumbled around a mouthful of rice.
“Color me unsurprised,” Louisa May replied dryly.
Derek chuckled at that. “She talked to you about me?”
“Let’s just say we disagreed about a thing or three,” she replied. Alice was not her favorite person at the moment, but seeing as how everyone else she’d met so far had seemed reasonable, she wasn’t ready to write them off as a group based on one sour encounter. “I was telling her about the fact I had a problem with that man of hers because of all the shit his gang was up to, and she up and says to me, ‘do you know that Derek likes to brawl?’ Like that’s just as bad or something.” Louisa May snorted. “I don’t know what crawled up her ass and died, but I’m pretty sure she’s got some issues when it comes to proportion.”
“I don’t like to brawl,” Derek protested, offended. “One fight is not liking to brawl. She’s just pissed I gave her boyfriend a black eye.”
“Her words, not mine,” Louisa May replied mildly. “And needless to say, after the talk we had, she’s not the highest person on my list when it comes to who I’m gonna listen to.” She paused. “Tom, though... he’s okay.” She looked over at Derek, amending her statement. “He’s been okay with me, I mean. Seems to have his head on straight.”
“Tom’s all right,” Derek agreed. “We just voted him officially in charge.” Tom being in charge was a smart, though the new leader seemed poised to let in the Seven.
“Good, I like the sound of that.” Louisa May split open the baked sweet potato on her plate. “Hang on, I think I’ve got me some brown sugar we can put on these,” she said, getting up from the table and going over to her pantry. She plunked down the canister of brown sugar on the table and scooped out a generous amount for her sweet potato. “I got one hell of a sweet tooth,” she admitted to Derek.
“I haven’t had food like this in a long time,” Derek admitted. It reminded him of home and he busied himself with eating it. “They want you up there?” he asked between mouthfuls.
“In a word, yes. That’s what Alice wanted, and as soon as he’d heard we hadn’t ended on good terms, Tom came straight down and asked the same thing.” She paused. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, though. Before I found out that they were considering taking in a Seven, I think I would have taken them up on it. With winter coming, and the crazy groups they were talking about in Eugene and over in Idaho, it’d be safer. And... living alone, well, it hasn’t been a barrel full of laughs, you know? It’s not good for me. But now that he’s probably gonna be there too? It really made me take a step back.”
Derek was suddenly much more interested in staring down at his plate than looking over at Louisa. “They’re going to let him in. He’s got the only bargaining chip: he’s got that kid. Nobody’s going to send that kid out to starve in the cold. He’s going to be back in.”
“Yeah,” Louisa May replied softly. “Figured as much.” She poked at her sweet potato contemplatively. “Tom really doesn’t trust him much at all, though. Said he wouldn’t be putting a weapon anywhere near him, and that if he messed up, he’d be out.”
“He also told me that he trusted you,” she added for good measure, popping the last bite of brown sugar and potato into her mouth.
Well, that surprised him. Derek wasn’t sure what to do with that information and he quickly moved on. “They been down this road before. Just after I joined the group, they were betrayed by a boy Alice was protecting. He was being watched and had restrictions too. Didn’t change shit. Jed got his ass kicked, I got shot and the last doctor was killed. So I don’t feel real good about the same rules applying to the Seven.”
Louisa May hadn’t heard about that, and she blanched a bit upon hearing of their last doctor’s fate. “Shit, Derek. Y’all been through a lot these last few months, huh?” She shook her head. “I’m almost glad I was out here goin’ stir crazy instead.”
“And I can’t say I’m happy about it either.” She paused. “I gotta tell you, though, you being there, well, it’d make me feel a lot better about having him around.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Derek answered quietly. Suddenly, he wasn’t so hungry and he pushed the rest of his food around on his plate.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t,” she replied. “You’ve got every reason to hate him. And I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to stay on my account.” This was obviously not a particularly pleasant conversation to be having, but she wanted to say her piece while they were still on the topic, and before he shut off completely.
“With winter right at our front door for another couple of months, it’s a scary thought, you going off on your own like that. Hell, one reason I want to go up there is cause I’m worried about not being able to get enough supplies together on my own to scrape by, and I know this place and what to expect.” She stood up to get a refill on her glass of water, partially to cut the tension a bit.
When Louisa got up, Derek took that as a sign that lunch was over. He couldn’t talk about this anymore. It felt like the walls were suddenly much closer and the room was stuffy. He needed air.
“Thanks for lunch. I’m going to head outside, check your fences.”
“Okay, Derek,” Louisa May replied, taking his plate and bringing it over to the sink. When she turned away from him, her face was troubled. He was such a live wire, so exposed. She really was starting to care for him, and seeing him so clearly distressed was hard. She shook her head as she rinsed the plates. Alice and Tom both had spent more time around Derek, to be sure, but whereas they told her they saw an argumentative, difficult person, Louisa May suspected they hadn’t really taken into account the reasons why -- and there were a host of them. Her heart went out to the younger man, and she wished she knew the right thing to say.