keep those eyes open

[attitude]

To be honest, it still makes me nervous. How am I even here? How is this even my life? You'd think that a girl, at some point, might feel like she's seen everything. I'd been running for years, and if there's anything true about life on the run, it's that you see more. You're exposed to more. You're forced to look fast and tuck it away. You would think that my imagination's stretched far enough by now, that I might actually be able to picture life, paused. Or life as spread out under the sun.

But here's the truth: I can't even begin to imagine every passing hour these days. I can't imagine myself like this, standing at the doorstep of a man who loves me, a man I love in return, one worth loving. And me, in that way. Everything my parents wanted for their little girl, really, minus the fifty years spent in a chamber and the lack of a ring on my finger.

Were I more of an idealist, I might point out that this is when little girls say they're all grown up.


It's only when Redtail is finally parked and carefully nestled among the trees that Faye stops to consider it all. Stares distantly at her new home, the door of the craft open and a hand covering her growing belly, fingers slightly curved, as though protecting a secret. Her body doesn't feel much like her body these days, everything aching and moods lighting faster than oil under sparks, but on the other hand, the world's slowed down to a languid spin, and for once, Faye thinks she's managing to hold on.

This feels like the right choice. And something about that last flight of her craft felt final in its way, even though Faye knows she'll take the sky again at some point. There's enough fuel to. There's just no... hurry.

Because she might have found that place. It's the best feeling in the world, isn't it? Belonging.

Comments

[weary_head]

"Hey," says Dean, greeting Faye for the sixth time on his porch, their porch, and pulling the soft linen bag of clothing from her hand. He kisses her cheek, free hand spread wide and familiar against her swollen stomach. "Stop trying to carry stuff. If I get stressed I'll get heartburn, and we can't both have heartburn. Cas will murder us."

[attitude]

Truth be told, Faye loves being pampered. Loves having doors opened for her, loves having someone wait on her, loves all the luxuries that she thinks that people are practically programmed to love, at the bottom of it all, even if guilt gets in the way of some and pushes them towards supposed altruism. There's a line, of course. Too much meddling, and she's liable to feel less in control of her life— and that's worse.

But a bag of clothes, probably acceptable.

Still, she wrinkles her nose, making a bit of a fuss. "Four months, Dean. My balance isn't shot yet, and I'm pretty sure I can handle a few pounds' worth of clothes," she points out, tilting her head in time to nudge her nose against his cheek before muttering, "I'm pretty sure I've handled the addition of more than that already, judging by the scale."

[weary_head]

"Maybe," says Dean, "but these stowaway pounds won't give me heartburn." Kissing Faye again, he looks down at her belly with a raised brow. "Not until she's old enough to date, anyway."

It's a thing, of late. Perhaps trained by Cori, Dean just feels the baby will be a girl. "How, uh," he adds, "How many more bags of clothes have you got?"

[attitude]

"Not you, perhaps," Faye replies, narrowing her eyes with a thin smile. "Unfortunately, heartburn seems to be one of the standard symptoms lately." With a sigh, Faye turns around to face Dean, movement slightly sluggish as she drops her forehead to Dean's shoulder, arm wrapping around until her hand runs neatly down the line of his spine.

"I've got four more bags at least, but the rest probably won't fit me anymore anyway," she murmurs, brow momentarily furrowing. "How are you so convinced that the baby's a girl? Maybe the baby's a boy who'll grow up to be heartbreaker like his dad."

[weary_head]

Dean laughs outloud, burying the last of it in her hair with a long exhale. "Now I hope it is a boy," he says, "otherwise I'm gonna have to add a whole new room just for your combined clothes."

Pulling back, he smooths down Faye's dark locks. For all his teasing, he can't stop picturing her, a little girl with his freckles and her eyes, her hair and his jaw and their combined, deadly aim. "If Ed's a clotheshound, too, I give up."

[attitude]

Snorting, Faye furrows her brow, tone slightly sarcastic as she glances up, brushing the bridge of her nose against the line of his jaw. "Oh, c'mon. You love my clothes, don't deny it," she drawls, arching a brow. "That's how we ended up here, remember? Even though that dress is now far from salvageable."

At the mention of Ed, Faye lets out a deep exhale.

"Ed's got two or three outfits she switches between, and that's about it. Just enough for me to make sure she washes them frequently. I guess I can't speak too much, considering that I mostly stuck to one outfit for bounty hunting, but I still change at every opportunity," she remarks. "Ed doesn't yet see the point. Only time will tell if that'll continue to be her opinion on the subject."

[weary_head]

"Should put a scrap of that dress in her baby book," Dean agrees, but he hasn't missed the slight shift in Faye's mood. "C'mon," he says, leading her forward towards the house. "How do you think Ed's going to settle in? I still have some of O-Ren's things lying around, if that'll help. She wasn't exactly a girly-girl either."

[attitude]

"Back to her, huh," Faye murmurs with a fond roll of her eyes, although she gives easily enough to the hand spread over the small of her back, turning to head inside. Even though she's been here any number of times before, there's still something strange about seeing it as her own home, now. She's not sure how long it'll take to get used to that. Even if she's refused a proposal already, sometimes it feels like they're inching together in every other way.

Rubbing the back of her neck with a tired sigh, Faye shakes her head. "I don't think having another person's belongings around will help that much. Ed's... she's not going to adjust easily, if I know her well enough. I'm starting to expect her to hightail it out of her at any moment. She doesn't like being left behind."

[weary_head]

"She's got her own bedroom in our house," says Dean with a frown. "Wouldn't call that being left behind. I don't know..." He holds the door open for Faye. "Cori's not exactly a quiet kid. She might go a long way towards getting Ed used to having little ones around."

[attitude]

"She had Bebop too, but she left in search of something that felt more stable to her, somewhere she belonged," Faye points out, expression sobered as she steps inside the house, sighing in slight relief as shade keeps out the worst of the heat. "I don't know, Dean, she's a moody kid— and not in the usual ways. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but it's not a very typical thing to be left with at my age, a thirteen-year-old who isn't even close to done growing up. I don't exactly feel like her mom, but sometimes I think she might need one."

Offering a slight grin, she adds, "I do hope Cori tugs Ed around a bit though. Ed got along pretty well with some kids she knew back home."

[weary_head]

"This house has seen a lot of orphaned girls over the years," says Dean with a shake of his head. "Not sure how it turned into a halfway house, but we've always done our best to make it a good home."

And since they're alone, Dean doesn't mind admitting, "Pretty cool to know the next kid is going to really be mine."

[attitude]

With eyes that slide to a slow shut, Faye can't help but think that she knows exactly how this house managed to turn into a halfway house. Knows exactly how Dean's managed to gather so many kids who need people like him. It's because he's got a heart for it, nurturing to no end and a caretaker when none other can be found. In part, Faye wishes that she could be that same caliber of person, sighing over her lower lip as she pulls in, caving to a moment of sentimentality as she wraps her arms around his waist, dropping her lips down to press them against his shoulder.

"Thought about names yet?" she asks curiously.

[weary_head]

"Yeah," Dean replies, tucking his chin onto the top of her head. Her hair smells good. His own pillows smell of it now, a scent Dean won't ever get tired of. "Mary for a girl, John for a boy. Maybe not their first names, or even exactly those names. Maryanne, Marian, I don't know. What do you think? You got any?"

[attitude]

Faye falls silent in consideration, running through possibilities in her head. "I don't know," murmurs Faye, feeling her words thrum against his shirt. "Jesse for a boy, maybe. Mark. Nathan. Maybe Lia for a girl. Ella. May."

She lets out a slight laugh, hooking her chin on Dean's shoulder. "All pretty short names, huh."