[ Emma has a nice little home on the fringes of the town. Not far enough away to make trips into town a hassle, but just far enough to allow for privacy. That privacy is a blessing, as Vasquez enjoys a good night’s rest and a good meal for the first time in what feels like ages. They fall into easy conversation, and he has to take a moment to wonder just how they got here from him roping her feet from under her and threatening her at gunpoint.
Life is funny that way, he supposes.
But it becomes obvious to him just how much Emma’s home goes neglected. A fence in disrepair, a door falling from its hinges, paint that’s been worn through or chipped away, to name a few items that catch his attention. Without thinking much of it, he offers to give her a hand. She says that she’s more than capable, and he doesn’t doubt that, but capability doesn’t mean a damn thing if there’s no will. Emma spends her time in town, caring for everyone and everything but herself. Vasquez isn’t so clueless in the ways of the world not to know that she’s trying to focus on anything but the yawning emptiness left behind by her husband. Her home is a void now, where there once was love and the promise of a family.
So he stays. He has every reason to leave, five hundred very big reasons in fact, but for some strange reason his heart aches for her, for her situation, and fixing a door might not be much, but perhaps it will make her house feel a little more like home again. After all she gave to see her town and the people in it safe and happy, it’s the least he could do.
Weeks roll by, though he hardly notices. He toils away the day working around the house while Emma is in down, and they usually wander back to the house around the same time for dinner. They chat and they joke, and he teaches her small snippets of Spanish now and then, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He leaves his hat on a peg by the doorway.
He catches himself one day, as he resets fence posts on the edges of the property, sweating in the midday sun, thinking how nice it will be to return to Emma. To her smile and bright eyes and the smells of dinner, and he wonders just when he let himself get in so deep.
This is surely more responsibility than a man like him can bear, but Emma Cullen became an unmovable presence in his life the moment she stepped foot into that abandoned cabin in the mountains. The moment she spat fire at him, fierce in spite of the rope around her ankles and the gun in his hand. Her determination impressed him, her quiet intensity earned his respect, and now here they are, slotted together as if they had been that way all along.
(He calls her querida exactly once, the word spilling from his lips without him realizing it until she asks what it means. He dodges the question with a little less grace than he normally would, startled at himself as he is. He nearly packs his things and leaves that very night, frightened at just how close he’s let himself get, but he hears her in the next room, fighting off the ghosts of some nightmare. His heart aches all over again, and he just gives in to the temptation to stay.)
There’s not much left to do around the house anymore. Very minor things, perhaps, and while he gets the feeling he doesn’t need the excuses, he makes them anyway.
He’s got a chair upended in the middle of the kitchen as he fiddles with the legs- it’s a little wobbly, and it’s something to occupy his time besides- when he hears the hurried footsteps skirt past the kitchen window. All this time in relative peace hasn’t dissuaded him from wearing his guns, a lifetime of peace might not even break that habit. He quietly makes for the back door, one hand resting on his weapon.
The sound of Emma’s voice should come as a relief, but there’s something in her tone that worries him. She sounds out of breath, worried, and he does not remove his hand from his gun when he opens the door, peering out to find her. ]
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Life is funny that way, he supposes.
But it becomes obvious to him just how much Emma’s home goes neglected. A fence in disrepair, a door falling from its hinges, paint that’s been worn through or chipped away, to name a few items that catch his attention. Without thinking much of it, he offers to give her a hand. She says that she’s more than capable, and he doesn’t doubt that, but capability doesn’t mean a damn thing if there’s no will. Emma spends her time in town, caring for everyone and everything but herself. Vasquez isn’t so clueless in the ways of the world not to know that she’s trying to focus on anything but the yawning emptiness left behind by her husband. Her home is a void now, where there once was love and the promise of a family.
So he stays. He has every reason to leave, five hundred very big reasons in fact, but for some strange reason his heart aches for her, for her situation, and fixing a door might not be much, but perhaps it will make her house feel a little more like home again. After all she gave to see her town and the people in it safe and happy, it’s the least he could do.
Weeks roll by, though he hardly notices. He toils away the day working around the house while Emma is in down, and they usually wander back to the house around the same time for dinner. They chat and they joke, and he teaches her small snippets of Spanish now and then, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He leaves his hat on a peg by the doorway.
He catches himself one day, as he resets fence posts on the edges of the property, sweating in the midday sun, thinking how nice it will be to return to Emma. To her smile and bright eyes and the smells of dinner, and he wonders just when he let himself get in so deep.
This is surely more responsibility than a man like him can bear, but Emma Cullen became an unmovable presence in his life the moment she stepped foot into that abandoned cabin in the mountains. The moment she spat fire at him, fierce in spite of the rope around her ankles and the gun in his hand. Her determination impressed him, her quiet intensity earned his respect, and now here they are, slotted together as if they had been that way all along.
(He calls her querida exactly once, the word spilling from his lips without him realizing it until she asks what it means. He dodges the question with a little less grace than he normally would, startled at himself as he is. He nearly packs his things and leaves that very night, frightened at just how close he’s let himself get, but he hears her in the next room, fighting off the ghosts of some nightmare. His heart aches all over again, and he just gives in to the temptation to stay.)
There’s not much left to do around the house anymore. Very minor things, perhaps, and while he gets the feeling he doesn’t need the excuses, he makes them anyway.
He’s got a chair upended in the middle of the kitchen as he fiddles with the legs- it’s a little wobbly, and it’s something to occupy his time besides- when he hears the hurried footsteps skirt past the kitchen window. All this time in relative peace hasn’t dissuaded him from wearing his guns, a lifetime of peace might not even break that habit. He quietly makes for the back door, one hand resting on his weapon.
The sound of Emma’s voice should come as a relief, but there’s something in her tone that worries him. She sounds out of breath, worried, and he does not remove his hand from his gun when he opens the door, peering out to find her. ]
Emma? Is everything okay?