Today's Akachankami's birthdayyyyyyyyyy! I hope you will like this little silly piece! I love you sooooo much! You're the best beta and friend! A very happy birthday to you!
Let's Go Fly A Kite
The kite was stuck, there was no denying that.
Aware of her eight year-old daughter's gaze tracking her every move, waiting for the magical solution she expected her mother to pull out of her hat, Abby put her hands on her hips and tilted her head back to better analyze the situation.
It was sunny for the first time in months that day, warm enough that they had chucked off their coats, and a day at the park had seemed like an excellent way to distract Clarke from the previous difficult year. Jake's absence was very much a tangible thing to the child and, while Abby had mourned and accepted her husband was dead, Clarke still had troubles coming to terms with the terrible truth. The recent move to a new town hadn't exactly helped. So, yes, Abby had thought a day at the park in the fragile spring sun would put a now rare smile on her daughter's face and she had been right.
At least until the stupid kite Abby couldn't even fly properly because that had always been Jake's role got stuck in an equally stupid tree.
She could see it. It was stuck between two low branches and when she raised on tip-toes and stretched her arm as far as she could, her fingers brushed against the ribbons that formed the tail. She couldn't pull on them though, they were tangled in the leaves. It was vexing because it wasn't that far up. If she had been wearing heels instead of sneakers…
"You could lift me up." Clarke suggested, having reached the same conclusion Abby had: the problem was that her mother wasn't tall enough.
"Let's try that." Abby readily agreed.
She lifted her daughter up but even with Clarke's legs locked tight around her waist and her little hand stretching in the air, the kite stubbornly refused to come down. She tried grabbing Clarke's waist and helping her jump as high as possible but no matter how many times the little girl requested that Abby took her higher she couldn't lift her past her head, she lacked the physical strength. They both ended up tumbling in the fresh wet grass and shot the same frustrated glare at the tree's foliage.
Abby was talking herself into climbing the damn trunk when the chuckles got her attention.
Her glare immediately switched tracks and fell on the man who was clearly laughing at their predicament. The very tall man. In a deputy sheriff uniform.
"Do you need a hand?" he offered with a smile that she was annoyed to find both kind and attractive. Although perhaps it had to do with the slightly too long hair or the beard that, somehow, suited him really well.
Abby pushed her loose hair away from her face, annoyed to be annoyed that she was wearing old faded jeans that were a size too big and a woolen sweater that wasn't exactly flattering. She was dressed for a day at the park with her daughter, not to… To what? Seduce handsome sheriff representatives who weren't even asking for it? The guilt was immediate. She wrapped her right hand around her left, thumb and forefinger pressing into her left ring finger. It was bare. She had taken the ring off as part of her therapy. It was dangling on a chain around her neck with Jake's now. Jake was dead and she didn't have to feel guilty about being attracted to a stranger she would probably never see again anyway. And yet…
Unaware of her mother's inner monologue, Clarke had jumped back on her feet and was now studying the man with rapt attention. "You're police. That means you have to help."
The smile on the deputy's lips widened with amusement and a touch of fondness. "That's right, Miss."
"Our kite is stuck." Clarke pointed out at the tree. "Can you help?"
"That isn't what I meant when I said you should go to the police if you're lost or need help." Abby cut in, slowly getting back up.
"That's alright." The man shrugged, watching with dark twinkling eyes. "Lost kites are actually a specialty of mine."
It was a little vexing that all he had to do was reach out and pluck the kite out of the tree. He handed it back to Clarke who immediately set off to try and untangle the line with a hasty thanks.
"Thank you." Abby offered, her lips twitching at her daughter's enthusiasm.
"No problem. It wasn't actually that hard." he teased.
"Not for someone who's as tall as the tree maybe." she retorted.
"You're the small one." he argued. "I was a little afraid you were going to toss your daughter in the tree for a second."
"I may have considered it." she admitted.
He laughed and she decided his laugh was just as stupidly attractive as the rest of him and it really wasn't fair. Mostly because she was wearing the worst set of mom clothes she owned.
"I'm Marcus." he offered, outstretching his hand. "Marcus Kane."
She barely had time to shake it before a small tornado with long black hair and clear eyes barreled into his legs, making him stumble two steps back. Abby estimated the girl was six or seven and far too good at the kicked puppy look.
"Bel isn't letting me play with the ball." The girl pouted. "Can I have ice cream?"
"Ice cream?" Clarke looked up from where she was kneeling on the ground at Abby's feet, the impossibly tangled kite forgotten in favor of the newcomer.
"Oh!" the little girl exclaimed when she spotted Clarke. "You're new! Is that your kite? We've got one too! Can we make it fly? What's wrong with it?"
Without leaving her daughter time to answer the downpour of questions, the little girl flung herself at the ground and started helping – or, at least, Abby thought she was trying to help – Clarke untangle the line and the ribbons. Clarke looked a bit overwhelmed at first but with a shrug she soon found her usual footing back and patiently answered the girl's questions.
Marcus flashed Abby a sheepish smile. "I did say kites were a specialty of mine. That's Octavia, by the way. She could have told you herself but she tends to get overexcited and forgets her manners." The girl looked up at the obvious rebuke but simply gave him a toothless smile and it was enough for him to shake his head and hide his own smile, the fondness evident. "And her brother should be…" He looked around, his shoulders briefly tensing when he didn't immediately spot the boy only to relax when he finally found the little boy – this one was ten, at least – standing a little to the side his soccer ball under his arm, watching them all a little warily. "Right there."
The boy came closer slowly, his eyes remaining on Clarke for a very long time, observing the way she was acting around his sister… Clarke hadn't noticed his approach and when she looked up and found him right in front of her, her instinctive reaction was to smile.
Abby couldn't say for certain of course but she had the feeling the boy had fallen in love on the spot.
"What's wrong with your kite?" the boy asked awkwardly.
"It was stuck in a tree and now it's all tangled." Clarke explained. "Your daddy got it for me."
"He's not my dad, he's my uncle. I'm Bellamy. What's your name?" Bellamy fell to his knees and leaned over the kite to lend his – no doubt precious – expertise on his sister's pressing orders.
The children clearly had the matter well in hands – or they thought they did, Abby doubted that kite would fly again until they changed the line and that was beyond her competences – so the adults wandered the short distance to the tree and sat down with their backs to the trunks, keeping an eye on them.
"Do you take your nephew and your niece to the park often?" she asked because it sounded like a good conversation opener. It had been a long time since she had been forced to think about conversation openers with attractive men, after all. Besides, her being friendly had nothing at all to do with how attractive she found him. She was new to the area. She needed new friends. Someone with children around her daughter's age was actually perfect.
"They live with me actually so outings are… pretty frequent." he answered with a small shrug. "I'm sorry I didn't get your name earlier…"
"Abby." She only meant to glance at him, to smile and then to return her attention on the children but their eyes met and locked and she felt something in her stomach she hadn't felt in a very long time. It felt like butterflies. Or maybe it was the flu. She did work in a hospital after all.
"Abby." he repeated softly. The way he said her name… He looked a bit dazzled too. "I've never seen you around before and I know almost everyone…" He winced in apology. "It's a small town."
"And you're the deputy sheriff." she teased, pointing at the thick jacket he was wearing. "You would know everyone."
"True." he granted with one of those smiles that made it very hard for her to think straight. "And I don't know you… Which looks like a gross oversight. Because of my job."
She grinned. "Do you want to know if I'm in the habit of breaking the law?"
His eyebrows shot up. "Are you?"
"Not unless there's a good reason to do it." It wasn't exactly the answer a law representative would want to hear, she mused, and her voice had been more serious than she had intended. She cleared her throat and averted her eyes, answering his real question. "Clarke and I just moved in a couple of weeks ago."
There was a moment of silence and she didn't dare look at him. She hoped she hadn't given him the wrong idea with her quirk about breaking the law. Clarke seemed to be having a good time and she wanted her to make friends. Antagonizing the deputy would…
"Just you and Clarke?" he asked, sounding awkward.
When she glanced at him, she saw there were spots of color on his cheeks.
She would have found it a bit cute if the subject hadn't been so painful for her. Her hand automatically closed on the rings hanging around her neck. It was a second before she tucked them inside her sweater. "My husband had a car accident a year ago, he didn't make it."
How many times had she been forced to say those words? To explain herself? Enough times that they came out without inflection now. They were cold detached words. Every time she had to utter them, her mind retreated behind thick walls nothing could breach.
She fought the lump in her throat, fought the selfish need to pluck Clarke off the ground and hug her tight because she was the closest link to Jake she had now…
"I'm sorry." Marcus said quickly, like most people always did.
"Thank you." The reply was automatic, just as automatic as the explanation.
"No, I mean…" He winced. "I'm sorry I asked. I didn't mean to remind you of…"
"You couldn't know." she pointed out and forced a smile, forced herself to shake off the gloom that wanted to settle on her shoulders. "It's fine really. I'm alright."
She wasn't truly but that was her problem to fix and not his to worry about.
He watched her profile for a few seconds but she stubbornly refused to look at him, keeping her attention on the kids who had finally given up on the kite and were now chatting as if they had known each other all their lives as children were prone to do.
"My sister is dead too." Marcus' voice was soft, kept low on purpose so the sound wouldn't carry to the children. "It's not the same, I know. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this…"
She rested her head against the trunk at her back and smiled a little sadly. "Loss is loss. I'm sorry."
"We weren't close. She was my half-sister and she was… She had a troubled life." He shrugged. "The kids ended up with me but they've been having a hard time. It might be good for them to have a friend who understands… We could schedule play-dates? I'd like to see you again." He paused, winced and then rubbed his face. "I'm sorry, that sounded terrible. I mean…"
"Why not?" she cut him off before he could dig himself into a bigger hole.
If they were scheduling play-dates for the kids, they were not scheduling dates for themselves. She wasn't sure she would be able to handle dating right about now. But she wanted to see him again. There was… something about him.
"Really?" He sounded hopeful and happy. "Great. I…"
His sentence ended in a huff when Octavia jumped straight on his lap, accidentally hitting him in the stomach. "Ice cream? Please, please, pleaaaase?"
Abby laughed. She was too cute for her own good.
"Fine. Ice cream, it is." Marcus sighed, making a small face for Abby's benefit. "I did promise."
"Can Clarke come?" Bellamy asked, dragging her daughter closer by the hand. Not that Clarke seemed to need much convincing to be dragged, her kite was trailing on the ground behind her, held loosely by the ribbons. "She's never been to Azgeda's yet!"
Abby frowned. "Azgeda?"
"Roan's ice cream parlor." Marcus supplied.
"He's the King of ice cream!" Octavia exclaimed, lifting her arms in the air in her enthusiasm. "Maybe Echo's there. She's Bellamy's girlfriend." Ignoring the boy's sputtered protestations and his quick assurance to a slightly frowning Clarke that he didn't have a girlfriend and his sister didn't know what she was talking about, the little girl settled more comfortably on her uncle's lap and peered at Abby closely. Abby submitted to the inspection willingly enough, trying to conceal her amusement. Eventually, the girl leaned against Marcus' chest with a satisfied nod. "You're very pretty."
She couldn't help but smile. "Thank you."
Octavia kept nodding. "Uncle Marcus thinks so too. He said so when he told us to wait while he came to help you with the…"
She was quickly and efficiently silenced by Marcus' hand on her mouth. Her immediate struggle to get free of it ended up in a fit of giggles when he tickled her side. "You're talking too much."
He was very good with kids.
As if Abby needed any more reason to find him attractive.
"Can we get ice cream?" Clarke asked, a hint of hopeful hesitation in her voice.
Desperate to keep the smile on her face a little longer, Abby nodded. "Sure. I've never met a King before though. Do we have to curtsy if we want ice cream?"
Octavia's laugh was contagious. She bolted to her feet and grabbed Clarke's and Abby's hands with an authority that wouldn't be denied, pulling them in the right direction – it took some doing because Abby was still sitting down and the kid was stronger than she looked.
"He's not a real king!" Octavia countered, still laughing. "It's just pretend!"
Marcus rescued the kite before Clarke could let it drag behind her all the way to the ice cream shop and, for that, she was grateful. The boys trailed after the three of them at first but it wasn't long before Bellamy took Abby's spot and she found herself walking next to Marcus.
The whole thing felt strangely normal. As if it wasn't the first time they were doing it.
She had a feeling, in any case, that it wouldn't be the last time.
Far from it.