It's quiet, in the hospital. Quiet when Chin's there, and quiet when Steve finally gets him to leave, and he doesn't exactly bodily shove him through the door, but she thinks the threat is there.
There's no question Chin needs it. He looks rough and ragged enough that he's almost unrecognizable as the smiling man secure in his ability to get his wife a good Valentine's Day present, perfectly pressed in his tailored suit and laughing to himself at Steve and Danny's bickering, smugly certain and full of the serene happiness of a man knowing he'll be going back home to the love of his life.
Now, he's polite, but distant; eyes continually tracking back to the still figure in the bed. Cath wishes she'd met Malia before: she's a beautiful woman, but it's hard to see under her ashy complexion and the dark circles under her eyes. She looks exhausted, even asleep, and Chin isn't doing much better, skin translucent from lack of sleep and food, bags under his eyes, clothing wrinkled and worn. A break is sorely needed, but she can't blame him for being reluctant to go, even with Steve offering to stay and keep an eye on her.
There's a brief moment when she considers offering to go, when they get back, but it passes in an easy question from him about dinner that she bats back, and before she knows it, it's well into the evening and he's showing no signs of forgetting why he invited her to stay.
Instead, it's a companionable dinner, the kind of fresh fish and fruit she can only dream about three months into a cruise, a couple of beers each, empty bottles left on surfaces until they get collected and tossed into a bin, and she realizes the air's gone purple and cooler, with the kind of hazy glow that comes from humidity and the reflected light off water.
At that point, it only makes sense to grab another beer each and retreat to the couch, where she sifts through his limited DVD collection and comments idly on each possibility until he looks a little less distracted and it doesn't feel so suddenly strange to be sitting next to each other there, close enough that her knees brush his leg when she's curled up, one elbow balancing on the back of the couch, movie splashing both of them with light and faintly muted sound.
And it's actually not so bad, once they both relax, and it's clear that just touching each other isn't taboo, isn't grounds for panic and pushing away. She's has worse ways to spend a night off, definitely.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-02-05 08:19 pm (UTC)There's no question Chin needs it. He looks rough and ragged enough that he's almost unrecognizable as the smiling man secure in his ability to get his wife a good Valentine's Day present, perfectly pressed in his tailored suit and laughing to himself at Steve and Danny's bickering, smugly certain and full of the serene happiness of a man knowing he'll be going back home to the love of his life.
Now, he's polite, but distant; eyes continually tracking back to the still figure in the bed. Cath wishes she'd met Malia before: she's a beautiful woman, but it's hard to see under her ashy complexion and the dark circles under her eyes. She looks exhausted, even asleep, and Chin isn't doing much better, skin translucent from lack of sleep and food, bags under his eyes, clothing wrinkled and worn. A break is sorely needed, but she can't blame him for being reluctant to go, even with Steve offering to stay and keep an eye on her.
There's a brief moment when she considers offering to go, when they get back, but it passes in an easy question from him about dinner that she bats back, and before she knows it, it's well into the evening and he's showing no signs of forgetting why he invited her to stay.
Instead, it's a companionable dinner, the kind of fresh fish and fruit she can only dream about three months into a cruise, a couple of beers each, empty bottles left on surfaces until they get collected and tossed into a bin, and she realizes the air's gone purple and cooler, with the kind of hazy glow that comes from humidity and the reflected light off water.
At that point, it only makes sense to grab another beer each and retreat to the couch, where she sifts through his limited DVD collection and comments idly on each possibility until he looks a little less distracted and it doesn't feel so suddenly strange to be sitting next to each other there, close enough that her knees brush his leg when she's curled up, one elbow balancing on the back of the couch, movie splashing both of them with light and faintly muted sound.
And it's actually not so bad, once they both relax, and it's clear that just touching each other isn't taboo, isn't grounds for panic and pushing away. She's has worse ways to spend a night off, definitely.