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.
Chapter Two.
It was a little bird that awoke him, singing out softly into the bright dawn sky. Sully yawned as he stretched awake, his yawn sliding into a slight wince as his shoulder groaned in protest from all the lifting he had been doing recently.
The sun was already up and he had recognised before he opened his eyes that he had slept in a little longer than he should have. His work on Preston's homestead was beginning to take its toll. He could barely keep his eyes open each night when he came home. The house should have been completed already, if the Banker could only make up his mind!
He turned towards Michaela, finding that she lay on her back beside him, the sheets pushed down to her middle, exposing the light cotton of her nightgown. The soft curves glimpsed beneath the lace fastenings caught his attention, until he realised she was awake, but that her clouded gaze remained fixed on the ceiling above her. Her hands were clasped together upon the edge of the blanket at her waist. She was still pensive.
He thought quickly over the midnight conversation they had shared, but he could not see how she had been left feeling unresolved.
Leaning over he pressed a light kiss to her cheekbone.
"Mornin'!" he whispered with a gentle smile as she blinked surprised.
"Sully, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"
She turned to face him and he saw the faint dark circles under her eyes that betrayed her lack of rest.
He shook his head, " No," he spoke softly. "Bird did, but I gotta be gettin' up anyway. Work to be done."
He leaned closer again, pressing a kiss to her lips this time, trailing his fingers in a light tease of affection over the sensitive line of her jaw, before turning and lifting the covers to climb out. He shivered as he felt the light morning breeze wave over his bared skin. The day was going to be a hot one he could just feel it.
He felt her eyes follow him across the room, caught her reflection in the dresser mirror and flashed his eyes at her making her smile in a brief moment of distraction from her troubling thoughts, before she looked away her face a picture.
But he felt proud. Almost two years of marriage had changed her in some ways she was right about that. She was so much more relaxed about so many things. Their intimate relationship being one of them. That look that had passed over her face as she had watched him cross the room. He had fought hard to draw breath catching the way her gaze swept over his naked flesh and he loved that. Loved that she felt comfortable enough to openly show that to him. Except for that now all he really wanted was to cross that room and climb back in with his wife, but he was already so late.
In the short time he took to pick up the clothes he would wear all he could think was just how far she had come from the shy newlywed she had been the first time he had climbed out of the bed naked in the train car on their wedding day. After all that had taken place between them on that incredible afternoon he had been somewhat surprised and yet, understanding when she frantically averted her eyes, as if seeing his bare body in the bright lamplight had been ever so wrong. He had been touched by her innocence, and awed by the recognition that nothing had ever made him feel as loved as the intense experience they had just shared with one another.
But he smiled at how quickly she had gotten used to his sleeping without clothing. When he had slept in his lean–to he had simply slept in his clothes, but in the luxurious bed they shared the nights were sometimes just too warm for him to stand. But sadly he had yet to coax her into sleeping this way herself. He had asked her once but she had laughed him away smiling, thinking him to be teasing.
She had closed off to him again he realised. Her gaze was once more fixed on one single panel of wood, across the room from her as if she were considering it, wondering about the life the tree once led.
"You and Marjorie got plans for the day?" he asked, as he dragged on his buckskins, distracting her concentration, pulling her mind back to him.
"Colleen is taking Katie for me. I've no patients at the Clinic. I'm taking the day off." She said almost without thought. Almost as if he were disturbing her thinking and that worried him. He knew she was tired, but he rarely saw her like this.
"Takin' the day off? You?" He laughed at her, she hated when he did that and loved it all at once.
"Marjorie and I are taking some of Hank's girls to the Chateaux." She said her eyes flicking to his almost flirtily now.
He returned her look with one of kind as he commented that "Having Marjorie here may actually turn out to be good for you!" He felt a small amount of relief at the idea of her taking time for herself. It was rare that she did that these days and she worked so hard.
"Marjorie has been encouraging Hank's girls to demand better working conditions." She explained emphasising working conditions, still unable to say the real words, discuss the matter even with her husband. He watched her closely whilst she spoke watching the way that the life seemed to awaken within her as she recognised her part in a crusade. He loved the confusing puzzle that was his wife, so strident and yet so shy all at once.
"She came to me yesterday all alive about the idea of them demanding breaks during the day. She wanted my advice!"
Imagine! Her mind almost screamed with laughter. For her entire childhood she could not remember Marjorie ever asking her for advice on anything. She was the older sister the one who thought she knew everything. The one who scoffed at Michaela's dream to be a doctor, who refused to take her side in arguments with Mother. Who had told her that the beautiful house Sully had built for her was like the frail old homestead, just bigger.
But despite all that she wanted to go today for she had her own agenda. Had been puzzling for hours over the best ideas and the best way to communicate them to the girls. This was her chance, her opportunity to suggest to the women that they did not have to do the work they did. That they were intelligent and beautiful and capable and they could do anything they liked. She remembered with modest pride how she had inspired Myra to be her own person, to become the strong woman she was today.
And then she had realised something.
Something that had first flickered through her mind as she had watched with observant interest Marjorie's argument with Hank in Town. She had watched for the first time the fallout that came from strident words and confident opinions and promises. Seen how angry Hank had become, which had riled her in turn. But she could not help but wonder if this kind of ripple effect had ever ensued from her actions, and just like Marjorie she had been unable to see.
Her thoughts of Myra which had come crashing through during a moment of clear revelation in the night came back unbidden to her now, in one way they backed her belief that these women could succeed outside the Saloon life and yet…
She had encouraged Myra to tear up her contract, to be her own woman and marry the man she loved. Yet had she been guiding Myra from one man who controlled her to the next? Horace and his beliefs, which he expected her to abide by, had soon controlled Myra's freedom. The flicker of Horace that had haunted her for weeks now, lain out on his bed with the note and the deathly shade of pale gleaming across his skin, came back once again to trouble her.
Had she too lit fires she could not control, just like she feared her sister was doing?
Had she influenced vulnerable women, like such women as Victoria Woodhull and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had influenced Marjorie? Marjorie had mentioned her name in that list, her name Michaela Quinn held in such high esteem by her sister who had always fought on the other side against her. Was Marjorie just a lost vulnerable woman looking for her direction in life? In looking had she simply attached herself to others crusades instead of striving hard to work out her own path?
She had come to one sure conclusion, that the Michaela Quinn she remembered would have been proud to be held in such high esteem as those influential women, so why did it trouble her stomach and her mind so? Were Marjorie and Loren and even Sully right? Had she changed so much? Had marriage and motherhood altered her life so greatly?
"Ya goin' to Preston's…" he questioned getting a little frustrated by her lack of focus. "Could ya keep him there for a while?"
"Hmm?" she responded, just barely. Focusing upon him again confused.
"Preston. Could you keep him at the Chateaux? Might gets me some work done then!" he raised his eyebrows at her and she could not help but return his smile.
A knock at the door caused them both to startle. Michaela grasping the bedsheet and clasping it across her breast to cover herself.
" Michaela?"
Marjorie's voice whispered conspiratorially through the wood. "Michaela, are you awake?"
Sully pulled a face of amused horror as he reached and threw open the door making Marjorie jump on the spot in the hallway.
"Well good morning to you too Sully!" she quipped as if unaffected by his actions, before she leaned to her left peering around him where he stood blocking the doorway to speak directly to Michaela in the bed.
"Which one?" she asked her younger sister as she thrust two bundles of coloured fabric towards her.
Michaela, suddenly recognising that she may have let herself in for more than she realised, looked from Marjorie to Sully and back again, feeling a little uncomfortable.
Marjorie seeing the look that passed between the couple sighed exasperatedly and then pushed the blue material into Sully's hands. "The blue will do." She announced before turning on her heel and disappearing back down the hall.
With a sigh himself Sully looked down the hall once more, before looking down at the bundle in his arms. With a faint shake of his head that told it all he closed the door and turned to Michaela.
In a silence in which she seemed unable to break his gaze he unrolled the garment in his hands, holding it up. He smiled despite himself. His eyebrows asking the question.
She gave him an anxious smile, which was clearly forced.
"We're going to the Chateaux." She reiterated the corners of her mouth curving up in another similar smile as she waited for his reaction.
"In this?" he asked, amused to think his shy wife would even consider appearing in daylight dressed like this.
"You know Marjorie when she sets her mind to something," she tried to explain. "It sounded like such a good idea at the time. Preston invited her to view his hotel…"
"I'm not sure I like the sound of my wife bein' out in public dressed like this without me." His voice had become deeper, that recognisable sparkle in his eyes deepened them to an aching blue. And her heart picked up from just the sight of him.
"Sully," She whispered, almost annoyed at how breathless her voice sounded. She tried to be annoyed at his protectiveness, but knew that there was also an element of jealously in his words. "It's a bathing suit. All the fashion out East."
"Because it's cold?" he asked, his mind jumping to a long ago conversation with Brian where she had sought his help in explaining why the swimmers at Coney Island wore suits when he wore nothing. He liked the way this conversation was going; she seemed to be more cheered and less introspective than before.
"Not exactly." She replied. Looking back at the garment in his hands. "Oh my." She breathed as she took in its cut and the way it would cling to her figure.
He smiled dangerously as he crossed back to her, leaning down ever so slowly in what felt to her like an eternity of time. She tilted her chin up, expecting a heady kiss, but he instead slid his lips to her ear, his heated breath causing her eyes to close as her pulse thudded in her throat.
"I think it will suit you!" he breathed hot.
Overwhelmed by his nearness it took her a moment or two before she processed his words and caught onto his joke!
With a cry of laughter, which lightened her mood considerably, she reached for his retreating form, dragging him down for the hungry kiss she had been waiting for. The heat of his familiar body stirring hers as he pressed her back onto the mattress with a bounce, his arms sliding around her as her mouth opened achingly to his duel.
"Michaela?"
Sully broke away with a full-throated groan of frustration. "Was she like this as a child?" his voice betrayed his annoyance.
She sighed nodding her head slightly. "Oh she was so much worse…"
"Uh hu." Sully nodded too as he regretfully lifted away from her so she could sit up.
"Michaela?" Marjorie's singsong voice resounded again.
"I'm coming!" she replied her exasperation as clear as Sully's as she bestowed one last kiss to her husband and then allowed him to pull her upright.
