Disclaimer: Hi Folks at CBS, Beth Sullivan and all involved with our beloved DQ. Just borrowing them again, they will be returned in perfect condition I promise!
Author's note! I hope you enjoy, I've wanted to play with the episode 'Starting Over' for quite a while, as I love the craziness that ensues from Marjorie's visit! So here goes nothing! Rx
Starting All Over Again.
By Rianne.
"Michaela?" The bed had been empty when he had reached out for her.
She hardly stirred at his voice, her head just barely tilting in his direction. The faint movement creating a ripple in her curtain of hair under the moonlight, which was the only thing to let him know she had heard him.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes, as he heaved his body into a sitting position and waited. Taking in his wife's pensive posture as she lent her shoulder against the frame of the window, staring out into the darkness.
"Come back to bed?" he asked, "'S cold.' His voice was warm and compassionate.
But again she barely reacted, her only response a heavier sigh of breath as her gaze remained absorbed by the thousands of crystal stars in the clear blanketing sky.
The house was silent, almost too silent. Katie now down the hall in her own room.
"Michaela?" he tried again, twisting his body, so he could place his feet upon the chilled wooden floor, the blankets and sheets drawn around his waist to cover his modesty.
"Have I changed?" Out of the darkness her voice sounded different, eerie almost, lost. She had turned to face him, but now the darkness cloaked her expression and he could not see her lips move or read her features.
He reached out his hand, bringing it to rest upon the cool soft skin of her lower arm, sliding it along to capture her slim fingers within his own as he asked, "What makes ya say that?"
He heard her sigh again, knew from the movement of her sound that she was hiding her face from him. He lifted his free hand to guide her to the bed beside him. Gently and instinctively curling the blanket around her cool shoulders.
He waited. Knowing that inside her head the wheels were turning too fast for her to express herself clearly. Knowing that in moments of unrest like this she needed time, time to plan over the words in her mind, to consider each meaning and complicated layer of subtext. And so he waited, his fingers gently teasing over the top of her hand, in a way that he hoped brought some comfort.
And when she was finally ready to speak, her soft whispers filled the darkness, her familiar voice edged with a self-doubt he did not hear often from her.
"It was something Loren said." She began slowly, her free hand relaxing its bunching progress upon the blanket he had draped about her shoulders to fall into her lap and be captured by his larger, warmer one. Stilling her constant movement helped her focus her tired mind. She sighed again.
"He said that Marjorie was me," she paused, feeling confusion and an odd feeling of loss well in her chest, "before I got some sense…"
Sully chuckled softly. But he felt her tense against him.
Tightening his fingers around hers he lifted her hand and placed a warm kiss to her palm.
"You gots different priorities now. That's all." He said softly.
"I was so surprised to see her. One minute I was talking to Colleen about her boarding house and its rules and the Reverend and his fears and then the next there she was. Waving her picture on the cover of the Boston Herald proclaiming that she had been arrested!"
Michaela reached the end of the rambling sentence in a rush, having been unable to fully grasp her disbelief it had shown in her words and her tone had risen.
She had sounded so full of incredulous disapproval. Which echoed so hypercritically in her mind. Her sister arrested for attempting to gain votes for women. The Michaela Quinn she remembered would have cheered her on. Not immediately questioned why Marjorie had not made up with their overzealous mother.
"There was something Hank said to me, back before our wedding," she said softly hearing Sully huff out a breath.
"Now, don't be listenin to Hank, Michaela." He said rocking against her shoulder gently to tease her. But she carried on insistent.
"He said that Marjorie was always jealous of me. Said that she may have had all the boyfriends, but that I had the freedom."
Sully grew quiet beside her.
"I mean I didn't believe him, and yet he was right about her being sick."
She had forgotten that Sully knew nothing of the events of that day; yet his absence had been heavy on everyone's minds.
"Sick?" he questioned.
"Yes," Michaela whispered, "Her husband gave it to her." She continued in an even quieter voice hoping that Sully would catch her meaning. And he did.
He breathed out again, "And Hank knew?"
"He'd seen it in his girls." She replied. Her fingers had found themselves together again between his and she had unconsciously begun to twist them into knots. "He recognised the symptoms better than I did. Said I had been to close to see…" her voice trailed off into her thoughts once again.
"Why didn't ya tell me bout this?" Sully asked, fearing the answer.
"I couldn't find you."
Her words hung heavier in the air than any had between them for a long time.
He lifted his hand from her lap, cupping her cheek and tilting her face towards him so he could finally see her in the pale moonlight, see the tears of confusion glitter in her eyes, but not quite obscuring the flickering look of anxiety.
"I am so sorry." He whispered, his words so full of sincerity that the first tear broke free and trailed vibrantly down her cheek to trickle over his fingers. Then he was leaning in, and she gasped as he pressed a heated, but simple kiss to her lips before lifting away once more, brushing the glittering trail of her tear with the slightly rough pads of his fingertips.
"I know." She whispered her voice choked with emotion, with love, with exhaustion. Her fingers left their limp placement in her lap and drew him into her as she whispered, " I love you." Curling into his embrace to be instantly accepted as his arms encircled her easing her down back onto the bed with him.
He lifted one hand to manoeuvre the blankets back over their bodies before encircling her in his arms once again. He rocked her for a sweet eternity, feeling her relax against him, his hands rubbing soothingly over her back, hearing her shuddering emotion filled breathing calm and ease.
Yet still she could not sleep. Still the events of the day rumbled over and over in her mind. She could not decide which particular comment or happening had wounded her more, that she had been once considered as wild and as disruptive as she considered Marjorie to be, that she had agreed with Mrs. Morales on something, or what Marjorie had been encouraging Hank's girls to do?
"Do we know why she's here?" Sully asked, lifting the hair back from her face, knowing she was not yet sleeping.
"I got a letter from Mother." She replied. "She accused Marjorie of having an affair with a married man."
"Do you believe that?" he questioned softly, trying to help her through her thoughts by simply being there.
"No," she breathed softly. " I asked her, she said it was merely a platonic acquaintance, that he was helping her to write a speech. Sully, she said that she would never do that to a marriage. Not after what happened to hers, but what she said about…"
She lost her voice again to her overwhelming emotions, so he sank lower, down into the bed covers, bringing his face level with hers, so close that their noses bumped. But neither laughed, for it was not the time.
He waited again for her to gather her thoughts.
"She said that she believed that marriage was wrong, Sully." She felt her indignation rise up once more as a flush in her cheeks.
"Wrong?" he coaxed.
"She said it is a tyranny, that robs women of their rights, their property. She said that women should be allowed to choose who they love and when they love them."
Her last words were spoken more quietly.
"She said she believed in free love Sully. That complete freedom of sexuality is an inalienable right!" The disbelief was clear in her voice. "What happened to the Marjorie I knew?"
Sully had slowly felt the tension return to her body as the minutes had flowed onwards.
"Yet, she and I are so much closer. When we have never been. We went riding today and I haven't had that much fun with her since we were children. Yet Loren told us we were behaving wildly, and Jake told Marjorie that she looked like she was becoming in her bloomers."
"Becomin?" Sully knew that did not sound quite right.
"Becoming a man." Michaela finished, the distain for the barber and his lack of true wit apparent.
She sighed still clearly perplexed.
"I know she has changed since her divorce, that really she needed to, but I didn't expect her to change so much. She's even smoking Sully, smoking! And Mother, who only knows what she said to her."
"Maybe your Mother is wrong," Sully suggested in as calm and diplomatic a tone as he could. "Look at how she saw me when we first met. She called me a savage!" The laughter in his voice was clear.
She lifted her hand to caress his cheek in compassion. " You heard that?"
"In that old homestead? You could hear for miles!"
She smiled fondly at the memories he evoked.
"I heard you shoot her down," he admitted, the smile curving into his words. "But she was wrong, your mother. We were platonic," he continued stressing the word.
Michaela smiled and spoke her words gently. " We were never really platonic Sully, and Mother could see that much more clearly than we could!"
He felt a small amount of relief at her soft laughter.
"Sully?" he heard the unspoken question in her voice.
"I'm glad I married you." He confirmed and she laughed softly again at their wonderful connection.
"And I am glad I married you." She rubbed her nose gently against his in a gesture filled with sleepy affection.
Silence over took them as they let their eyes lull a little under the influences of exhaustion.
"Sully?" he barely heard her voice, just catching himself on the brink of sleep.
"Hmm?" he breathed.
"Did you think I was this rebellious, this wild when you met me?"
He huffed softly.
"Did you?" she asked again.
"I fell in love with you." He pronounced barely thinking, for his response was true and sure.
"Sully," she tickled his back where he was most sensitive above his hips, needing a reaction, awaiting a response.
His lulling words, poured forth on sleepy sighs as he slowly answered her question.
"You weren't wild, you were you. You were spirited and fearless, and you let your guard down for me. You let me in. I loved you. I love you." His mind was then just too drowsy for him to continue, as his eyelids drooped.
"Even in my riding bloomers?" came her vulnerable reply, but he was lost to the heavy pull of sleep.
More to come soon! Thank you for reading!! x