Out of Context
By dcat
This is a Hardcastle and McCormick fanfic, the characters don't belong to me.
Rated G or K
Notes: Just a short look at a scene at what may have happened as McCormick was trying to adjust to life at the estate. The story takes place right after the Martin Cody case, but before the next one.
"Honestly your Honor, he eats more than six men combined," Sarah said as she moved from the kitchen counter to the table to pour Hardcastle another cup of coffee.
The Judge nodded a thank you as she filled his cup. He cleared his throat and was just about to respond to her as they both heard the screen door slam and in walked McCormick.
"Morning Judge, Sarah," Mark said, looking like he had just woke up a few minutes earlier. He ran a free hand through his head of curly hair, even more unkempt than usual, then stifled a yawn as he directly went to the cupboard and got a cup for some coffee.
"Little early for you this morning huh McCormick?" the Judge asked him, stifling a laugh at how the kid probably hadn't ever seen a real morning before. Mark poured some of the fresh coffee into the cup and went toward the table to sit down and let out a sort of groaning sound, which was obviously meant to be his reply.
"Well, get to use to it Sport, this is how it works around here," the Judge added, drinking down his coffee. He turned his attention back to the morning paper.
"What would you like for breakfast Mark?" Sarah asked him as she busied herself near the sink.
McCormick was studying the contents of his coffee mug, still trying to fully wake up, "Um, anything is fine Sarah," he responded, finally looking up at her and giving her a smile.
"The Judge wants pancakes, is that all right with you?"
McCormick nodded the affirmative.
Milt set the paper flat on the table. "You're not very talkative this morning kiddo, something on your mind?"
"Other than it's 7am and I'm still half asleep?" McCormick's snappy repertoire began to kick in.
Hardcastle laughed out loud, "I happen to know for a fact that you didn't get to sleep in while you were in prison. They get you up and get you going early."
"You don't have to remind me Judge, I lived it thanks to your kind generosity, remember?"
"I just want you to realize this isn't a country club I'm running here," Hardcastle fired back.
"It's not?" Mark answered sarcastically. "You sure could have fooled me, I mean, the ocean, the pool, the luxurious gardens?" Sarah clanged some pans in the background just to let them both know that she was still in the room. McCormick turned to look at her as she started to mix up the pancake batter and he held back his next comment out of respect to her.
"You know if you went to bed before 1am, it would make getting up early a little easier," Hardcastle said, as he went back to reading the paper.
Mark ignored Hardcastle's needling and plucked a section of the nearby paper for himself. He decided to give up on the banter for the moment. Even though he was still tired, he had a million thoughts and or questions running around in his brain and when that happened he knew it was better for him to keep his mouth shut and try to figure things out for himself. Now was certainly not the time to do or say the wrong thing. As awkward as this new situation was, it beat being back in prison by a long shot. He plucked the entertainment section of the newspaper from the table and started to read about a new band that was headlining at a downtown bar that he used to go to. Used to go to, he used to do a lot of things. He'd never heard of this band featured in the paper and wondered if, two years after he'd been in prison if they still played good old-fashioned rock and roll or if the band listed was now something like new age. So many things had changed out here in the real world, sometimes he felt like he was in a running race trying to catch up, but failing badly at even getting back in with the pack. He completely tuned out Hardcastle and Sarah while he read the article or rather, tried to sort out his own thoughts, that was until Sarah was sliding a plate of pancakes in front of him.
"Set that aside for now and eat your breakfast while it's hot," she ordered, nearly pushing the paper out of his hands. His hands went flying upward and the nearby silverware nearly skidded off the table, but he reached down and saved it from taking flight. If this hadn't been Sarah, he would have made some sort of smart-aleck comment, but he kept his mouth zipped for a change and prepared to eat. All this parental attention was more than beginning to take a toll on him. It was something else he wasn't used to, he hadn't been for many years now.
He looked over to see Hardcastle fold up the section he'd been reading as he received a plateful set in front of him as well. Milt glanced over to him and gave him a smile and rolled his eyes as if to say, 'she's in charge when it comes to food, so just do what she wants you to do.' Both of them started to eat, so as not to anger the cook. McCormick needed a playbook when it came to the rules of Gulls Way, there seemed to be a new batch of them every day.
"Do you think you can finish up on the lawn today kiddo?" Hardcastle asked him, stuffing a mouthful of pancake in his mouth.
Mark started to nod the affirmative as he took time to slather on the butter in preparation for the syrup. "I think so, doesn't look like it's going to rain, that's half the battle right there. I do need to look over the engine on the mower. I think it needs a spark plug."
"I can go into town and pick one up, if you want," Milt kindly offered.
"That'd be nice, then I can start painting the garage door too. It should have been painted about three years ago," he added as a dig to his predecessors, which he'd only remotely heard about.
"I'd rather have you work on the pool," Hardcastle added. "The heater is shot."
"But yesterday you said the garage door?"
"Yep, I know, but I changed my mind, it happens."
"You've been in the peanuts again Judge?" Mark needled him.
Sarah brought another plateful of pancakes over for the Judge, who graciously accepted them. She turned toward McCormick and asked him if he was ready for more. Mark quickly declined the offer. "Thanks Sarah, but this is more than enough this morning. They're sure delicious though," he added as he noticed they both were staring at him. Sarah and Milt had stopped dead in their tracks. It was the first time since Mark arrived they'd actually saw him decline food.
"Something wrong with you kiddo?"
McCormick looked up from the plate, where he was cutting off a section of pancakes, "No why?"
"You usually put away about two dozen of Sarah's pancakes on any given morning, and suddenly you're stopping after a short stack? Are you sick?"
He grinned at both of them, "No, I'm not sick, I'm just fine. I just have a lot of work to do today, and this is plenty to get me started," he took his fork and pointed at the plate in front of him. He kidded by adding, "I do want to keep this fine physique of mine in top form you know?"
"That'd be a first," Hardcastle remarked, "You dump more garbage into the bottomless pit of yours than anyone I've ever met."
"Things change Hardcase," he said suddenly serious, "that's what you're always telling me right?" Hardcastle backed off when he heard the kids tone. Mark went back to finishing up his breakfast, which were only a few more mouthfuls. He politely took his dirty dishes over to the sink and bid them both a wonderful day, and then exited for the gatehouse to change into some work clothes.
OOOOO
Time dragged inside San Quentin, but McCormick never thought life on the outside had changed that much in two years and maybe it really hadn't in the whole scheme of things. He wasn't Rip Van Winkle for crying out loud. But his life had done a complete 180 since his subsequent release. Those couple of months up until now were a real whirlwind of activity, culminating with putting away a murderer by the name of Martin Cody. In between it all had been Milton C. Hardcastle, Judge extraordinaire. He suddenly was smack dab layered into every crack and crevice in Mark McCormick's life. The weird thing was that Hardcastle was actually like mortar. The Judge managed to hold McCormick together when things were going wrong and together they were stronger than when they were apart. It was all just too strange and bizarre for him to believe, and he thought about all of it way too much.
Still, what he had heard and didn't hear made him mad.
McCormick pushed aside the thoughts he was having. He knew it didn't do much good to speculate, but he'd heard what he'd heard. And it sort of hurt. Inside the gatehouse now, he quickly changed into cut-off shorts and a t-shirt and started to think about the day of work he had cut out for himself. It was nothing near as exciting or dangerous or crazy as chasing after Martin Cody, but the Judge assured him more 'cases' would follow. He'd always thought he'd end up having some sort of dead-end job when he got out of prison, but cutting grass and trimming hedge hadn't even made it to his list of crummy jobs he'd qualify for. He never had actually cut grass anywhere before a couple of weeks ago, but a motor was a motor and once it hummed up, it was just a matter of pushing the darn thing all over the Judge's acreage. The Judge only yelled at him one time, saying the blade was set to low and the grass was getting clipped a little too close to the ground. It was a simple adjustment and he'd only gone over about a 10 foot section before the Judge stopped him from butchering it all.
It was going to be another hot day, but it did feel good to be outside working and best of all seeing the result of that work. He thought the grounds looked pretty good when he had gotten through with different sections and he was surprised to already be able to start noticing where things needed his attention.
Before getting started McCormick had written down the type of spark plug he wanted the Judge to buy. That would keep him out of his hair for at least an hour, maybe longer, depending on who he'd run into in town. The mower started up well enough, but the plug was worn down and wouldn't last too much longer. He dropped off the list back at the house, where the Judge still sat, drinking coffee and reading ever word of the entire paper. He decided against making another smart-aleck comment and just decided to get to work.
As he pulled the mower out of garage, his mind wandered to all the 'little' things that cluttered his mind…and more specifically how the 'little' things usually turned into bigger things if you didn't somehow stop them from getting out of hand. Little things like the Judge's rules….and why did he agree to all of this in the first place. Being Tonto to the Lone Ranger was one thing, but agreeing to be the cheap, hired labor for an estate, that was something else and he wasn't sure he wanted it. But back to the agreement, it was obvious wasn't it? He wanted to nail Flip's killer, pure, plain and simple right? And it kept him out of jail. Two bonuses right there. That's what McCormick kept telling himself, but was there something more? Did he secretly want this in his life? The rules, the discipline, the monitored schedule? Or was it something else, was this lifestyle of Hardcastle's a means to a different end, an end that McCormick really craved. Could he learn something from the old donkey that would propel him into a better future, a life he himself could be proud of? The only answer he had at the moment was to give this time, give it all a chance, give Hardcastle and McCormick a chance.
One thing was for sure, a man could do a lot of thinking while he cut grass. Too much thinking as a matter of fact. He was getting hotter in both mood and temperature as the day wore on. He was by and large doing more than the Judge or Sarah asked of him, and aside from an occasional smart aleck remark, which he blamed as a character flaw, he was more than courteous and respectful to both of them when need be. What more could they possibly want and if what they said when he wasn't in the kitchen really bothered them, why didn't they just tell him outright?
There it was again, the matter of what he'd heard this morning when they didn't know he was listening. He knew he could probably get reprimanded for eavesdropping, but he wasn't really eavesdropping, he was just going in for breakfast. This was crazy. It was making him crazy. It still niggled at the back of his sun-touched head as he began to finish the last section of grass that he needed to mow. Hardcastle still wasn't back yet, but he could tell from the angle of the sun and way he was squinting that it was coming up on noon.
It was just as well that the Judge wasn't back. He'd just as soon skip lunch anyway. Maybe he could fix the pool and paint the garage door too. That would show him. Yeah, show him that he could be a stubborn donkey too.
OOOOO
It was mid-afternoon when Hardcastle coasted the old pick-up truck up the long driveway and parked it. The lawn looked like it was completed and the kid wasn't in sight. The Judge grabbed the plastic bag with the spark plug in it and headed inside. He called out to Sarah.
She came out from the den where she was cleaning. "You two could be more considerate, I had lunch all fixed for both of you and neither one of you bother to come and eat it."
"Where's McCormick?" The Judge asked her.
"He said he had too much work to do to take time to eat lunch," she explained.
"McCormick passed up a meal? That doesn't sound like him. Maybe he's got an upset stomach, don't take it personally Sarah."
"I didn't have the time to argue with him," she continued, "but he did a nice job on the lawn and he even took the garbage from me when he saw me carrying it out," Sarah added.
"Better make extra for supper then, he's probably going to be hungry," the Judge took off his baseball cap and walked past Sarah into the den to check over the mail. "Where's he at now? I saw his car is outside."
"Out by the pool, trying to get the heater running. I had to remind him to watch his language again," she chided.
The Judge stifled a smile. "Sarah, you need to understand when a man is working on a stubborn project, he lets loose on a profanity or two now and then, it's bred in us. He probably didn't know you were in the vicinity."
She made a sound in her throat to let him know she didn't agree with his explanation or the profanity and exited the den to leave him to the mail. Hardcastle made a mental note to remind McCormick to watch his language around her.
The Judge shuffled his mail around for awhile and decided to go see how McCormick was coming along on the pool heater.
"I got that spark plug for ya," Milt began as he walked out onto the patio, "It's out on the workbench in the garage."
Mark poked his head out from behind the pool heater. "Thanks Judge, I knew you could take direction as well as give them," he grinned.
"How's this coming?" Hardcase dropped down in a patio chair and motioned his head toward the pool heater.
"I," Mark turned the wrench, "am finished here, and it's working just fine. Now, I'm going to do that garage door." He popped up from his squatting position and gathered up his tools.
"Sarah says you didn't eat any lunch?" Hardcastle tossed out.
McCormick nodded, "Yeah, so? Is that a rule too?"
"What are you talking about rules? It's lunch, if you're hungry you eat."
"Okay, good, I wasn't hungry."
"You sure everything's all right? You're not sick or something? Because I'm working on another case for us."
McCormick interrupted him. "I'm not sick, I'm fine, but there's a lot of work around here. I'm just trying to get caught up on the things that need it the most."
Hardcastle took the not so subtle hint. "I'll let you get to it then, we'll have dinner about six okay with you?"
"Um, I think I'll just head into town, maybe catch a movie or something and get something to eat there, if that's okay with you?"
Hardcastle was taken aback, "Sure, that's okay, don't be too late though, I want…"
McCormick cut him off and finished for him, "to start early, I know, another rule."
Hardcastle watched him as he walked past him and toward the garage. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was bothering the kid, but in just the several weeks he'd been at the estate, it was clear to Milt that something was on that boy's mind. He just needed to solve the riddle.
Breakfast and lunch the next day the same thing happened. McCormick suddenly had gone from being a ravenous eater to eating as an anorexic supermodel. Milt finally deduced that it had something to do with food, so before supper came and went minus McCormick, he decided to walk over to the gatehouse and pick the brain underneath all the curly hair.
He gave a quick knock and entered before he got any sort of response. Mark came walking out of the bathroom. "Most people wait for a greeting before they just barge in Hardcase," he said, smiling. "The real polite ones actual wait till someone opens the door for them."
The kid could hide things well when he wanted to, Milt had to give him that. His mouth hid a lot of what he really felt. "It's my house kiddo, and I knocked remember?"
"Well, what is it now? You just got done riding me for the last hour for dumping too much mulch in the spring flower gardens, what else could I have possibly done wrong in the last five minutes," he said as he checked the watch on his right hand.
"Why do you always think it's something bad?"
"Experience Judge, need I say more?"
Hardcastle picked up his hand and brushed off the whole conversation and decided to sit down. "You did a lot of work today. You must be hungry."
Mark briefly froze, "uh, not really. I think I have a leftover sub out here in my refrigerator, I thought I'd just eat that."
"Aha," Hardcastle said loudly.
"Aha what?" McCormick nearly jumped from the raised tone of Hardcastle. He looked over to the old man to see what was possibly on his mind.
"This all has something to do with food, I knew I was right," Milt clapped his hands together, "Now we're getting somewhere."
"Judge, did you take your medication this morning? You're not making any sense, did you want the leftover sub?" Mark offered.
"No, I don't want the sub. I want to know why you've suddenly gone from eating enough for six men to not eating at all. You got a tapeworm or something?"
McCormick was trying to straighten up around the gatehouse and stopped as Hardcastle made the 'six men' comment.
"Okay, so it's not the tapeworm," Hardcastle began, "is it something about Sarah's cooking? She gets a little carried away with the garlic sometimes. I can tell her to ease up on it."
"Judge it's got nothing to do with garlic," Mark said, sitting down on the nearby couch.
"You gotta do better than that McCormick, give me a hint here okay? It's got something to do with food. Am I right? What is it kiddo? I thought you liked it here for the most part. Maybe I can get Sarah to take some cooking lessons. Is she making you sick with her cooking?"
"Judge would you stop?"
"You know you can tell me anything. I can make some compromise."
McCormick's eyes widened when he heard the Judge say that. He even sat up straighter on the couch. "I heard what Sarah said the other morning." The word compromise triggered him to give this conversation a chance.
"About what?" Hardcastle asked.
"About me eating enough for six men. I guess I didn't realize I was being such a pig Judge, I'm sorry. I wish you would have just said something to me. I'm just trying to follow all your rules."
"My rules? I don't have rules when it comes to eating, except if you're hungry you eat. That's the silliest thing I've ever heard McCormick," Hardcastle shook his head, "I swear it's going to take me a lifetime to figure you out."
"Well, I'll probably eat you out of the estate in less than a lifetime, give it ten years at the rate I'm at," McCormick slyly said.
"How much of the conversation did you hear wise guy?"
"Just the part about me eating for six men. Sarah sounded pretty upset."
"Oh for crying out loud, you've been here for what, three and half weeks? Sarah always sounds upset, that's how she is, you should know that by now."
"That still doesn't mean I wasn't eating more than I should," McCormick said.
"Listen, let me ask you this, were you hungry?"
Avoiding eye contact, Mark rolled his neck and said in a quieter tone, "I'm always hungry."
"Then you need to eat. We got a lot of work to do, I don't you need you falling over from malnutrition." There was a moment of awkward silence. The Judge sensed he wasn't getting through to McCormick. "You didn't hear the whole conversation huh?"
Mark shook his head no.
"Well if you had, you would have heard both of us talk about how much work you were doing around here and about how nice the place was starting to look and such And it was no wonder that your appetite was increasing by the amount of work you were doing. You're the landscaper, pool man, contractor, mechanic, electrician and plumber if need be. That's a lot of skills and talents there. It was all good kiddo, it wasn't meant to be anything but a compliment. We appreciate your effort and your hard work. You can't just take things out of context like that. You need to work on your listening skills and keep that smart mouth of yours closed a little more often. It'd do you a world of good."
"But,"
"But nothing, Sarah's not used to cooking that much, that's all. She'll get used to it."
"I don't want to put a deficit on your food bill either Judge."
"Look, you let me worry about the food bill, that's one of my rules too," he gave him a smile. "Now are you hungry or not?"
"I'm starving," Mark admitted.
"Okay, let's go see what's for dinner then, but if you over-indulge yourself tonight you could be sorry."
"Oh yeah, why's that?" McCormick asked.
"Because after dinner we're playing basketball."
"Hey, I gotta make up for these past couple of days, but don't worry, I'll be ready to play."
"Oh really?" Hardcastle was intrigued.
"Yeah, there's no rules in gorilla ball and that's my game."
"And there's no chance to take anything out of context there either. Let's go eat." As they walked toward the main house, Hardcastle added, "There is one more rule I gotta tell you about. When you're working on stuff, you gotta watch the profanity, it drives Sarah nuts. That's when she adds the extra garlic to our dinner."