(no subject)

[freedhunter]

Going to the mall during the busy hours probably hadn't been the best of ideas, Ford thought as his wife and him were making their way through the crowds, bumping shoulders with passerby's ever so often. He was mainly just annoyed, but he worried about her. Crowds and Darcy had never been the best of combination. Though as far as he could tell, she was holding up okay. Comparing her now to the woman he had first met was like comparing night and day.

Still, they had some shopping to get done, shopping they had been putting off for long enough already. And it had to be now, if they wanted to get home to have dinner at any sort of suitable hour, and go out stargazing later in the evening like he had promised her they would. It wasn't often that he agreed to go out and do that with her, so now that he had promised he wanted to keep that promise.

But it was still crowded. And loud. And annoying and frustrating and full of idiots and... And crowded.

Comments

[freedhunter]

He shifted a bit to accommodate her, keeping the blanket secure around the two of them. True, he didn't much care for stargazing, at least not enough to make a thing out of it. Though there had been many a night out in the backyard on summer nights, just him and a bottle of bourbon. Nights were tranquil times. This was no exception, though he had come out here with her not to see the stars, but to spend time with her.

"Perhaps, perhaps. At least for this time of year," he half-joked back. She wouldn't have as much problem getting him to agree in the warmer months of the year.

[ocdarcy]

"Do you still want to move somewhere warmer?" She figured now was as good a time as any to ask about that. He seriously hated the cold andthough being somewhere hot all the time didn't sound great, she didn't like having him suffer either.

Her only concern was leaving Quinn and Francis behind.

[freedhunter]

He let the silence stretch out, thinking before answering. "Yeah. I feel done here." A house was just a house, but that was where he had lived during the worst years of his life. In most ways he had left that period behind him, so severing that last tie felt like a good idea.

"There's really nothing left here, except for Francis. And he's moving on." It almost hurt, how the little man pushed forward without him. But it was an unfair thought, of course the little man should reclaim the life he wanted if he could. And if Ford felt a bit left behind at time, well... Maybe he should just focus in building his own life with his beautiful wife.

"What about you? Don't you want to stay close to your sister?"

[ocdarcy]

She understood his answer and what he wanted, but there was so many different aspects of this. She felt like she was going to lose a lot by leaving. She'd spent so much time here and grown so much. She should, perhaps, consider what somewhere else might have to offer assuming she could find work.

"I worry about her," she answered first and foremost, "I don't know if she needs me though and I shouldn't be inserting myself into her life if she doesn't. I'd always been on my own, so it shouldn't bother me to leave."

[freedhunter]

"But it does." In ways it bothered him too. Leaving something you knew was hard.

"If we do move, we don't have to do it now. Or this year, or next year, or... There's no hurry to do anything." They could keep status quo for a while longer.

[ocdarcy]

Yes, it did bother her and she wasn't sure what she could do about it to make it any better. "I don't want to have to wait around though for something to happen to is. Be it moving or kids or... " she took a deep breath. She didn't have to control everything. She could let something else happen.

"I want us to move forward. I don't know where or what that is, but I do."

[freedhunter]

"Depending on things like work, we could possibly split out time between two places," Ford suggested. "Keep a home here, and a home somewhere else. Could be a way to sort of test and see how well we do elsewhere."

[ocdarcy]

She didn't know how that would work or even if it would. That was certainly an option and she hoped that she could find a way to work. It wasn't necessarily what she wanted but it could be a start.

"We could look into it," she agreed.

[freedhunter]

"If nothing else, somewhere to run away to when Francis and Quinn get too annoying." He had this picture in his head now. The first time they had talked about moving, she had mentioned Arizona. The desert. And now he had this idea, of them alone there in the desert, just them with no-one else around for miles.

What was the world coming to, when even he got romantic ideas?

[ocdarcy]

"Like a vacation home?" she asked. Well, that made them sound like they were well off. She didn't mind that idea. Somewhere to escape to if they needed it and... yeah, she could imagine it. Finding somewhere warm and spending time alone. They were so used to having people all around them all the time and suddenly it was just them, alone and it was really weird. Darcy liked it, in an odd way and sometimes she craved company, but she wanted to spend time with her husband.

[freedhunter]

They were well off. Not insanely rich, far from it. But they could manage two homes. "Something like that. It could be a start. So, let's just dream a bit here. Where would you want to live?"

[ocdarcy]

This time she twisted a little so she could face him while they spoke. "Somewhere warm with a way to escape city lights," she said, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth. She had a hand on his leg and was half watching him and half glancing at the sky. "What about you?"

[freedhunter]

"Somewhere warm," he echoed, his eyes directed straight ahead and slightly up. Maybe he was looking at the sky, maybe he was looking at nothing. "Away from people, but not far out enough that searching people out would be too much of a hassle." He wanted privacy, but he didn't want isolation. "Your idea of the desert does have a certain appeal, though."

[ocdarcy]

She watched his face in the darkness, nestled in close to him while he spoke. She hadn't realized that the desert idea had stuck with him. Darcy kissed his jaw this time and let her lips brush his skin when she asked, "Why's that?"

[freedhunter]

He gave a shrug. "I just seems calm. Peaceful." Looking down at her, he smiled. "And that way you would get your stars."

[ocdarcy]

He looked at her as spoke and Darcy's smile spread brightly across her face. She could hardly believe how much she loved him. "You're too good to me," she repeated his words back to him.

[freedhunter]

For once he didn't argue. He just tightened his arms around her slightly, tucking her in closer, going back to watching the sky that didn't make much sense to him. Didn't have to make sense.

[ocdarcy]

She got comfortable, staring up at the sky and wondering where they'll be soon. They could move or find adventure or...

God she had to stop thinking about children. She couldn't pressure him into an answer. She refused to be that kind of a wife. Darcy played with the ring on her finger, taking a deep breath and letting her mind go blank long enough to open herself up to him, just a little so he could feel her if he wanted. Simple intimacy. Something few get to share.

[freedhunter]

What she did there was a very frightening thing. It was something that required so much trust, for people like them, to open up to that degree, to invite someone in. It was daunting, and, it was humbling. That she did trust him so much.

To open up in return was a very hard thing for Ford. It wasn't trust that was the issue, it was that he saw in himself so much darkness, and that was something he was afraid to let her see. But when you thought about it, she had already seen. She had seen him at his worst. Slowly his shields lowered, opening up just a crack.

[ocdarcy]

If she was afraid of his darkness she would have run a very long time ago. She wouldn't have thrown herself into this relationship, let him help lead her. She wouldn't have helped drag him out of his own head. She wouldn't have married him and she certainly wouldn't have wanted children with. Who he was and who he is are two different things connected by the past but not dictating the future.

And he did, so softly, share himself with her. She smiled to herself at first but then twisted slightly in his arms, curling up against his chest and letting him continue to feel that love she felt for him. He thought he was dark but he was certainly a light for her.

[freedhunter]

She saw him so differently than how he saw himself. How else could she feel such love for him? It was enough to almost make him cry.

But which image was real? He wasn't blind enough to not realize that he judged himself to harshly at times. And she, she probably saw a bit or an idealized version of him. But which version was actually more to the truth? He didn't know, but, if the real him was somewhere between those two images, then that wasn't bad.

He held her tightly, practically curling around her, the blanked secure around them almost like a cocoon.

[ocdarcy]

Darcy could argue that she didn't have a skewed version of him. She saw the sides of him most people didn't. She knew he was a killer. She knew that he could take a life. She'd seen him prepared to kill a man who had tried to hold up liquor store. She stopped him, or at least encouraged him not to. He didn't kill him, but she clearly saw that he could. She knew what he had done.

She loved him anyway.

That was all that mattered, curled in against him, her slim figure sitting between his legs, perfectly protected by the surrounding chilled air. God she would never be able to explain what she felt for him. Thank god she could share it with him.

"Mm..." she smiled as she hummed, nosing in under his jaw.

[freedhunter]

Sitting there, alone in the dark under a sky full of stars, Connected to Darcy like this, Ford was shocked to find that he really was on the verge of crying. With a lump in his throat and tears prickling behind closed eyelids, he wondered why. And, finally, he got it. Acceptance, and in a way, forgiveness. She knew who he was, and she accepted him, forgave him his past when he was unable to. He had no need to hide from her, she loved him for everything he was. It was something she had tried to get across to him for a long time, that he hadn't been ready for. It was a balm for a damaged soul.

He hugged her tighter still. "Thank you," he whispered, voice thick.

[ocdarcy]

She hadn't expected the tone in his voice and she could feel something about him in the way they were connected at the moment. She nuzzled in tighter against him, smiling while he thanked her and held her close like this.

"What could you possibly need to thank me for, Jonathan?" She asked him quietly, not wanting to disturb the night

[freedhunter]

He actually laughed. What did he need to thank her for? "Everything," he said, sniffing, easing up his hold on her to bring a hand up to wipe at his eyes.