freedhunter | (no subject)

Darcy was not a fan of crowds. She never had been. At least now she didn't have to feel like she was being bombarded with every emotion that could possibly exist, instead she just didn't like tight spaces. She stuck close to Ford's side and knew that this was only going to last as long as they took to shop. She was very well organized when it came to finding what she needed and getting out. Sadly she also had fairly expensive taste in certain things, but that wasn't the point.

Ford had so gracefully agreed to stargaze with her. She never could get him to agree with that and usually he only came outside to grab her when she'd been sitting around on her own. Typically he was wondering if she was going to come to bed any time soon and she'd ask him to sit with her and he'd make a face and that was that. This time he agreed and she was holding them to that.

If only they could figure out what direction they were going...
Darcy wasn't letting herself focus on anything but her path, but then there was the sound of sniffling and it didn't just sound like some kid crying over mom and dad saying no to the toy they saw in the window. She opened herself up a little, directing it and realizing that this was a kid that was scared.

"Jonathan, wait..." she stopped dead and grabbed his arm. Looking around in the mall she tried to figure out where it was coming from. Darcy started the direction of the crying and found a little boy, face red with tears and terrified. He was hiding by a wall near one of the ridiculous planters the mall insists on having indoors. Darcy crouched down to the little boy's level; he couldn't be much older than three, with big pouting brown eyes and dark hair.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly. He didn't respond.

...oh no.

To his shame, his first thought was that he did not have the energy to deal with a crying kid. But that first thought didn't last very long. Kids were kids. Annoying and loud and chaotic and quite often both smelly and sticky. But they were kids. They couldn't exactly help it, and they couldn't take care of themselves. So now, when faced with a frightened kid in the middle of an overly full mall, not even Ford was heartless enough to turn away.

He rose on his toes. Being as tall as he was he had no problem peering over the crowd, trying to see if he was any form of the commotion a parent looking for their child were bound to cause. Nothing. And the kid was still curled up and not responding to Darcy's soft voice.

He knelt down as well, in front of the boy. "Hey, kid." His tone wasn't as soft as Darcy's, nowhere near. But not as gruff as it could be either. "You lost?" Screw asking how he was. He was terrified, so obviously he wasn't. So, Ford thought, let's get straight to the matter of things and solve this.

Edited 2012-11-15 18:43 (UTC)

Darcy kept from rolling her eyes at Ford when jumped right to the point. She was getting there, but she didn't want to frighten him more. However, the direct question did get a nod from the child and Darcy exhaled a sigh. Well, at least they knew where to start then.

"My name's Darcy," she said softly, smiling gently at him, "Are you here with your parents?"

The boy looked a little stunned, but finally answered, "My mommy..."

"Do you remember what she was wearing?" Darcy decided if she could at least figure out vaguely what the woman looked like they could start there.

"Umm," he was being as good as he could at remember, giant tears rolling down his cheeks, "...purple?"

"Okay," Darcy smiled again, "do you remember what store you were last in?" she decided to see if he knew anything else.

"Shoes..." he mumbled. Well, that narrowed it down.

So they were looking for a worried woman in purple? Okay, it narrowed it down a bit but not as much as he would have liked. That they had been in a shoe-store did help more, he felt, as long as the kid hadn't been gone too long.

"Can you remember if the shoes were in that direction..." He willed his face to relax into an easy smile and pointed down the way they had came "...or in that direction?" He pointed to where they had been going. If he just got a direction he could maybe leave them there and go looking. He could move faster on his own, and someone had to stay with the kid.

And that question seemed to remind him of how lost he was, because his bottom lip pouted out and quivered as he started to cry the saddest tears Darcy had ever seen. She shook her head, "It's okay if you don't remember. We'll help you find your mom, okay? What's your name, sweetheart?"

Again, the boy didn't answer right away, but he was drawing further from the wall and towards them. Darcy was glad that they found him and not someone else. She may not think the world is full of kidnappers, but at least she knew she didn't want to harm the poor thing.

"J-Jackson..." he stumbled over his words, trembling with an inhale of breath.

"Okay, Jackson, let's see if we can find her, okay?" Darcy stood up from where she was and held out a hand to the little one. His eyes were on Ford for the moment and then he reached up with both arms to Ford and not Darcy.

See? Wasn't this what he always said? He sucked around kids. Just a simple question and the kid was again bawling his eyes out.

He was just about to suggest to Darcy that he go of on his own to look for the mother, but then the kid shocked him by reaching out to him. Him, instead of Darcy! What the hell? Darcy was the kinder one, more... maternally. Why would the kid want to be picked up by him of all people?

For a moment Ford just looked at the kid, looking just as surprised as he felt. But, again, he didn't have the heart to refuse. "Alright, come on then." He reached to grab the boy under his arms and hoisted him up until he got an arm under the kid's bum to support him. "Let's go find your mom."

Darcy could understand why the kid would want to be held by Ford. It was easy for a little boy at that age to have an attachment to men and feel safe with them. She was kind and maternal, but Ford looked safe. She couldn't help but admire how adorable it was seeing her husband holding a child, especially a child who had his arms around his neck and was nuzzled into his shoulder.

She kept an eye out, as well as an emotional 'ear,' trying to locate a woman in panic. She had to be out of range. Maybe they could get close enough for her to figure this out and find the poor boy's mother. "If we don't find her in the next few minutes, we'll take him to security," she said. There was no point in searching for the panicked woman and she didn't want to get too far from where Jackson got himself lost.

"Agreed." That was when Ford lowered his shields and started reading their surroundings. He had a better range than Darcy so far. It was chaotic, to sift through so many people,though most people had their minds on normal everyday events, and felt mostly just like white noise. But further ahead? That could be something. "I think this way," he said to Darcy, setting off down in the direction the had been going, keeping a secure hold on the boy.

She trusted his abilities more than her own so she had no problem following Ford through the mall when he felt like he was onto something. The boy was as tightly wound around Ford as his arms could be, still crying, but not sobbing like he had been. It broke her heart to watch a little kid get lost like that. She'd be having a panic attack if that was her. The woman probably was panicking.

And that was true enough because as they got closer, Darcy could feel it and through the crowd there was a frantic woman in a purple blouse with another child--a little girl probably around age five--holding her hand. She was saying something, which Darcy was sure the little boy's name.

Yep, that would be the frantic mother right there. Ford set a direct course for her, navigating around the people in his way. "I think we found her, kid," he said, closing his shields back up now that he could see the woman. She had her back to them, not seeing them. "Ma'am? " He'd raised his voice, hoping to be heard without actually shouting, but when that failed, he did shout. "Yo! Lady in purple!"

She didn't hear them immediately and Ford's bluntness did catch some attention but not from her. Luckily, she turned to face them and gasped arms immediately outstretched the direction of her son. "Jackson!" she called to the boy, who then sat up in Ford's arms and twisted around to see his mother. He then reached out to her and the two were reunited.

Darcy smiled softly, the little boy clinging to his mother and the young girl holding the hem of the woman's shirt. "We found him cowering by a wall," she said in reply, "he seemed to be fine, but a little scared."

And that was that, it seemed. Ford handed the kid over to his mother and stepped back. A case of everyday drama, all done. He actually felt a bit,, proud? Naah, couldn't be. It was good for the kid, though, that he was back where he belonged, safe and sound without anything bad happening to him.

The woman thanked them profusely and Darcy smiled, looping her arm through her husband's, "You're very welcome."

Jackson gave them one last tearful look, arms around his mother's neck and tucked in under her chin before hiding against her again. Darcy and Ford then turned away as she left with her children and now, of course, she was completely obsessing over the idea of children, the image of Ford holding a kid making that seem so much more real suddenly. But he wasn't so sure and she could only wait so long.

"Thanks," she said, knowing that helping some little boy wasn't something that usually fell under his radar.

Okay, so he had to admit to himself that it was with a certain degree of accomplishment that he watched the little family be on their way.

That's when Darcy decided to confuse him. "For?" Thanks for what? She didn't think that..? "You didn't think I would have just walked away, did you? Come on, I'm an ass, but not that much of an ass."

Darcy laughed, a little surprised, "No, I didn't think you'd walk away... I just... you looked hesitant when he reached for you. I didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything like that." He wasn't used to children whereas Darcy sort of raised her siblings and she had a heart for kids. He wasn't as invested in that as she was.

"Now, what were we doing?" she looked around to figure out what part of the mall they were in.

"He just surprised me," he replied. "Considering I'd made him cry even more not even a minute before."

He laced his fingers with hers as they strolled on. "You had been saying something about new sheets, last I recall."

"You didn't make him cry," she protested, brushing her fingers through her hair and laying it over one shoulder. "You asked him a question he didn't know how to answer is all; it wasn't what you said."

Ah, yes, sheets. She was looking for new sheets, because she was slowly but surely redecorating some of the house, though not so much as to ruin it for Ford. So she was heading for an expensive linen store where she could get what she was looking for.

He just shrugged. He didn't understand children. Never would, he thought.

He didn't mind it one bit that she was putting her touch to the interior design of his, now their house. She lived there too, after all. As long as she didn't decide to cover the place in pink and flowers, he didn't mind. In fact, he liked the little details she brought.

After dinner, when they were washing up, he caught her glancing at him. He knew that ´look. She was thinking abut something. And, with the events of the day, he could guess. "You're thinking about kids again, aren't you?"

They weren't floral or pink. No she prefered classy neutrals so he was safe from scary girl things at least. And when dinner was over and she was thinking about the day, that image of Jonathan holding a little boy and how natural he looked with him on his arms.

And then he caught her and she flushed, dropping her gaze, "I can't help it."

This was one of their sensitive spots as a couple. She wanted kids, and he... It wasn't that he didn't like kids. In most cases he didn't, but he was quite sure people were right when they said it was different when it was your own. It was just... Him. As a father. He could scarcely believe at times that he was married. He was still afraid at times that he wasn't going to be good enough as a husband. A father was ever bigger than that. Butting a child to this world, a world he didn't even like half the time, that was huge. It was a responsibility that he was sure he would fail at.

But she did want a child. He knew she did. They didn't talk about it much, but he knew she did. And, that did make him think. But he owed her a real answer one of these days. Someday soon. A yes or a no. It wasn't fair to keep her waiting for something that might not happen. But he didn't have an answer Not yet. Not a definite one.

He turned to her as he rinsed off a plate, handing it to her for drying. "I kind of figured you would be."

Edited 2012-11-15 21:17 (UTC)

It wasn't like she was good at hiding it either. She was alert to children. If they were out and there was a kid out there, she would find herself watching and curious and imagining how that could be her and Ford. As much as he seemed to think he couldn't handle being a father, or that he couldn't do it, she knew he was wrong. He'd had so much more dedication to people that weren't family, people that became family to him. There was something noble in that and he hated hearing that from her.

She took the plate and dried it off with a towel, stacking it to be put away. She didn't know what to say to him about it though. He was not giving her an answer about it and she would have to eventually decide for herself if she felt she was too old to keep waiting. The longer it went, the less time she had and she didn't want to be a woman in her forties still hoping for kids.

"That poor thing," she murmured, almost to herself, "...he was so scared."

The problem with Ford, one that he wasn't completely aware of, himself, was that he looked too much to the past. To what he had been and not to what he was. Maybe it was understandable. He had lived so long on his own, lived as a killer. An expendable asset whose one task was to hunt down a target and kill it. How could someone like that ever hope to be able to take care of a child? Only that was what he had been, not what he had become. It was a pity that he couldn't see that, at least not when it came to the subject of children.

"Yeah. He was." He washed another plate, rinsed it and handed it over. "But I wonder who was most scared, him or the mother."

It was that weird small talk they did whenever kids came up. They both knew what the question was and that there wasn't an answer from her husband on it yet, but she also knew that if they didn't outright talk about it, they'd continue skirting the issue entirely. She didn't want to be pushy and she didn't want to force him into something he didn't want--that would make him just like her own father. She knew better than that and she'd rather be with him, childless than without him and a child, or the option. Darcy hadn't become herself again until he showed up and refused to let her wallow in her own self-pity.

"She was," Darcy answered, "the little boy didn't understand the full extent of fear. He was too young, but a mother?..." Darcy shook her head. She couldn't imagine the fear that had to run through her.

"Yeah, that was my bet, too." He'd sensed the panic when they were looking for her, after all. He almost added that to the list of reasons to not have a child. What if something happened? How would that feel?

He washed the last plate, rinsed and handed it over. Pulled out the plug to drain the disrupt dishwater. Started to wipe down the sink. "So. Stargazing." Yes, he changed the subject, but he didn't think they were done with it for the night.

"Stargazing," she smiled over at him as she stacked the last plate and put them away in the cupboard. "Make some tea for us? I'm going to go grab blankets," she asked before leaning in to kiss his cheek. Darcy walked away and headed upstairs to grab something warmer to pull on, then a couple of big warm blankets. She took a moment to stand there in their room. Their was still this residual feeling of awe when she realized she was married and not just married, but married and happy. She had to remind herself sometimes that happy is all she wanted and if this was all she got, kids or no, she could be very happy.

Darcy returned downstairs and slipped on a pair of warm slippers. "Ready?" she asked him.