The soft bell shape of feminine hips swayed to the music pouring from the speakers. The fabric knotted between her shoulder blades wrapped around her upper body, cradling the small warm body of a baby boy close to her abdomen. The gentle sway was a simple, neat shift of her weight from one side to the other. Her long, dark spirals were piled on top of her head; soft chocolate eyes sleepy and steadily closing despite her best attempt to stop them. Her tank top doesn't quite meet the waistband of her dark green sweatpants. She's tired. So unbelievably exhausted but she's determined to make sure her baby is comfortable and she'll do anything, even if means forgoing sleep in favor of making sure her baby slept.
He's content to watch from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder resting against the doorframe. His eyes have softened considerably, the intense ice blue of his teenage years has dissolved into something much softer but just as intense. He's muscular in a way that if he was any younger would be awkward but works well on his near six-foot frame. It's days like this, when he comes home to find her too exhausted to move but still rocking their son to sleep to the dulcet sound of The Civil Wars pouring out of the speakers, that he realizes how much time has changed him. How much fatherhood had changed him.
He'd experienced prejudice and all of the negativity that came along with that. Foster kids, especially ones from the wrong side of the tracks, had not been easily accepted into his wife's part of society when they were teenagers. His life had been negative in all aspects, at least if you were to ask him, until she came along in a whirlwind of black silk spirals and melted chocolate eyes. Her sweet voice and the genuine warmth in her voice made him believe that maybe they weren't all alike. Maybe there were still a few good people left in the clique that had been Hartwell High at the time. Their sudden appearance in each other's lives had startled a change in both of them, shaking them to the core.
He doesn't want his son to experience the negativity and the prejudice that he had but at the same time, he wants his son to find the kind of woman he had found in his wife. The kind of woman whose playlist was composed of different artists from a wide variety of genres. Who believed that hot fudge sundaes cured even the worst case of insomnia. The kind of woman who genuinely cared about him. Who loved him despite the risk she was taking. Despite the fact that it took him a long time to love her back.
He pushes off of the doorframe and makes his way over to them, wrapping his arms around her, cradling the little boy between them. He kissed her forehead and looked down at the tiny bundle sleeping between them. His eyes were closed, eyelashes forming golden crescents against his delicate cheek bones. He gently rubbed his son's head and looked back at his wife. Without a word spoken between them, he led them up the stairs to tuck them into bed. She is exhausted because of their son's petulant aversion to sleep, something that was inherently his father - if nothing else, Damon Edward Jackson had inherited his father's poor sleeping habits.
Damon is tucked into his crib and Jackson almost has to carry Melissa to their bedroom.
She practically melts against him when the door closes behind them. Her arms wrap around around his waist, clinging to him as if her life depended on it. He carefully maneuvers them over to the bed and eases them both down, Melissa practically draped over his frame. He rubs her back and digs his fingers into the thick, tangled knot of black curls, seeking her scalp. His fingertips work gentle circles, relaxing and soothing her until he could hear the deep, shallow breaths, indicative of sleep.
It's during this time that Cody Jackson can truly appreciate the beauty that is his wife. That's not to say he doesn't always, but when she's sleeping, he can still see that sixteen year old girl that came bounding up to him, wanting nothing more than innocent friendship. The guileless eyes and warm smile of a beautiful, unassuming girl. Oh she had, had so much to learn about him back then but it had never scared her. Not once. And it was in that girl, that he had found the one person, he truly believed he could spend the rest of his life with and never once grow tired of her company. He had been so very right about that.
In the beginning, it had seemed like the less he gave her, the more she had given him back. It had been annoying at first; never seeming to be able to get rid of her but he learned her quickly and he soon learned to take comfort in her presence. He had hurt her, not physically although he's ashamed to admit he had thought about it, but emotionally he'd been the poison to her wine. Their relationship was tumultuous, painful and irritating but at the same time, comforting and healing. It almost seemed like fate wasn't giving him a choice in the matter, like it was Melissa or nothing. He'd always choose her because she'd always seem like the only choice he had.
She knew him inside and out; knew things about him that he hadn't wanted her to know. She knew what he'd dreamed of as a kid; not of being a musician but a successful businessman with a wife and kids and a beautiful house. He'd wanted what his parents had never given him, a normal life. It was only later, when he discovered escapism through music, did the idea of becoming a musician seep into his dreams of being a businessman.
He never thought of being both.
He never thought, when he was sixteen and trapped on an island for a month, that he'd marry the naive little Asian girl, who he had called his best friend. He never thought she'd give him everything he'd ever wanted in life; a loving wife and a beautiful baby. He didn't dare dream of one day owning a successful record company. Because, at the time, those dreams seemed delusional and unrealistic but Melissa hadn't let him stop dreaming. Melissa had been there and she had dreamt the world for him. She had dreamt of something more for him, when he refused to believe that it could ever happen.
He guesses, that is about where he fell in love with her.
When Melissa became his dream; his unfailing success. The one part of his life that is perfection and that he cherishes with every part of himself. Even the deepest, darkest parts that he had been so scared to show her but had let her see anyway because he had wanted her to see everything. She had loved the darkest parts of him and taught him that despite the darkness, he could love her and love her, he did. It was fierce and protective and nobody had been surprised when he proposed to her. When he expressed the desire to marry her as soon as possible and finally build a reality out of years of dreams.
She was it.
She was his dream.
Always.
This story is my baby, now that I've finished it. To me this is more in-character for Jackson than anything else I've ever written. Anyway, hope you enjoy it, loves! Leave me some love, Dolls!
Love ya,
RobertDowneyJrLove
P.S. You'll notice that some of it is suspiciously similar to the lyrics of Poison & Wine by the Civil Wars...I'm sorry. I was listening to that song when I wrote it and I think I even mention the Civil Wars. I own none of it. I was just obsessed at the time I started this story and listened to it last night while I was finishing it up.