The lace curtains did little good at keeping the midday sun from shining into their bedroom. Unable to fall back asleep, Jackson made a mental note to gently question Susan's choice in the matter at some point. Probably not in the near future however, as he'd only recently begun to think of it as their bedroom, not the room behind the door she had slammed in his face so many times since they had moved to Tenter Street.
It hadn't been long at all since that hellish week that had ended up changing everything for the better. Theodore Swift and the Pinkertons' arrival in Whitechapel, Frank's death, his wrongful imprisonment for supposedly being the Ripper, he would have never imagined that such evil and violence would be what finally brought them back together. But after spending a few weeks that made him feel the same way he had in those early days when they had first fallen in love, Jackson was too busy being content in the moment than to question the forces that had gotten them here.
He did, however, question for the forces that made the sun so damned bright when a man was trying to sleep. True, one could argue that this time of day was when most men were awake and out in the world, but he and his wife tended to operate on a bit of a different schedule than the rest of the world given their adopted professions.
The Pinkerton and the heiress run away to become the police surgeon and the madame. Jackson couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"What could possibly be funny at this dreadful hour?" a sleepy voice asked from against his chest.
Jackson brushed back the mess of golden curls that obscured Susan's face from his view. "Just the usual, darlin', you an' me an' our funny relationship with circumstance."
"That seems an awfully heavy topic so early," Susan said, not bothering to open her eyes.
Despite the sun, the way she somehow managed to snuggle even closer to him made Jackson's eyelids heavy. Pressing a kiss to her hair, he let himself drift back towards sleep saying as almost an afterthought, "It's not that early, beautiful, it's nearly two."
Susan's eyes flew open; she hadn't realized they had slept that long. Attempting to untangle herself from her husband's arms, she began to run through a mental list of things that would need to be done before the house opened for the evening.
"That wasn't a request for you to leave," Jackson said, pulling her back to him.
"Well we can't just stay in bed all day," Susan said trying to sound more angry as she eased into his arms.
"Says who?"
Before she could open her mouth, he continued. "The girls can take care of themselves for more than five minutes and you drug me all over hell and creation yesterday to do the shopping. We'll worry about the curtains another day…."
"Curtains?" She was genuinely not sure what he meant by that last part. He brushed it off.
"Just relax a while longer before I have run off and cut up some stiff and you go downstairs and keep the ladies and gentlemen of Whitechapel in better order than any lawman."
Susan didn't appear to need any more convincing, but Jackson thought it safer to emphasize his point with a deep kiss ensuring that the police surgeon and his madame would stay in bed the rest of the afternoon.