This is all Xavier/Catherine fluffy angst, or angsty fluff. If that's not your thing, feel free to skip this chapter. It won't affect the plot line whatsoever. ;)
Chapter 56 ~ May, 1997
"Now, she can have a bottle at eight o'clock before you put her to bed." Artemis paused and set her hand on the girl's arm. "Thank you Catherine, I really appreciate you watching her," she said sincerely. "Are you sure you weren't planning on going with the others?"
"I'm positive," said Catherine emphatically. "It will be quite a while I think before I'll make it back to karaoke night."
"Well don't let fear keep you from doing what you enjoy…" Artemis began, but Catherine cut her off.
"No, I'm not afraid. After the last experience and what we've been learning over the past few weeks I feel pretty capable of handling myself. But bars and lots of people…the night life…it's just not really my thing. I guess I'm just not much of a city girl."
"All right. We'll probably be late coming home. The restaurant is hosting some sort of dance contest Remus wants to watch. He'll probably pick up all kinds of ridiculous moves he'll make me practice," Artemis laughed, her smile warm and happy.
"You'll have to teach us all," said Catherine, reaching out to take Ana. "Isabel is planning some sort of big band night for Gareth's birthday. It's going to be a surprise. Maybe you two could do an exhibition dance."
"No one's ever accused me of being an exhibitionist," said Remus, coming up to them. "It sounds like I should avoid whatever you two are scheming about."
"And that's why you shouldn't eavesdrop," chided Artemis, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "You missed the entire point of the conversation."
"We should go, our reservation is at seven," said Remus, pulling her toward the door. "Thank you for watching Ana, Catherine. I hope you have a quiet evening."
"We'll be just fine," called Catherine. "Maybe we'll get Hawthorne to tell us a story. He always makes them fun — very dramatic."
The pair blew Ana a kiss and disappeared out the door. A moment later the front hallway was crowded with a group ready for their own night out. Sirius, Xander, Hezekiah, Tonks, Gareth, Joshua and Daisy left in a boisterous laughing herd for the karaoke bar. Catherine was suspicious when Isabel wasn't among them, but she thundered down the stairs a moment later wearing a…
"Izzy, you're wearing a dress…with flowers on it," stated Catherine. "You always said they made you feel childish."
"Oh…well, I just thought it might be time for a change. I saw a dress like this on a television show in a shop."
Catherine raised her eyebrows. "You'll have to hurry to catch up to the others, they just left a minute ago."
"Oh…I'm not actually going to karaoke…I, uh…well…"
Isabel was saved by a firm knock at the front door. She tried to open the door just far enough to squeeze through and escape, but Catherine grabbed the door knob and yanked it open. And there stood George Weasley. "Hi Cat. You ready to go, Izzy?"
"Yes." Turning back to Catherine she took a deep breath and said, "George and I are…are going out on a date…or…that is…we're just going out for ice cream…sort of…I mean…not just…"
Catherine gave Isabel her best big sister stare, and Isabel crumbled. "We're pretending to go on a date so that we can work on a surprise for Gareth's birthday," she said in a rush.
Shaking her head with an exasperated sigh, Catherine turned to George who had watched the interaction with a baffled expression. "Isabel is a terrible liar. Gives herself away every time. Not that that's a character flaw — far from it. But if you are going to continue meeting to work on whatever surprise this is, maybe you'd better be the one to talk about it."
George nodded like he was pondering this solemnly before he grinned cheekily at the blushing Isabel. "Maybe we should just go out on dates and I'll surprise you with the times we actually work on Gareth's project."
"Oh," Isabel said in a small voice. "That…that would work."
Laughing to herself as the front door closed on those two, Catherine turned to see the rest of the household coming down the stairs. Oscar, Rosa, Hawthorne, Jane, Kieran, and Ellie were all dressed up a little, Xavier trailing behind them in his typical jeans and t-shirt carrying Finn.
"Oh, Catherine, good, you haven't left yet," said Ellie. "Would you mind telling Artemis that Xavier's going to stay here and watch Finn for me, so she doesn't have to worry about him."
"Actually, Artemis and Remus went out," said Catherine slowly. "If she was supposed to watch Finn, she must have forgotten. I told her I would watch Ana for them."
There was an awkward shuffling moment as the three couples realized Catherine and Xavier were going to be left here alone together to watch the two children.
"Oh for goodness' sake, don't make this weird," Catherine finally huffed. "Go out, have a good time. We will be just fine…Or I can watch both of the kids and Xavier can go with you."
Xavier made a face. "No thanks. They're going out to a fancy dinner and to see Anna Karenina. It's fine…we'll be fine…no weirdness whatsoever."
And that was mostly true.
Dinner for just the four of them was very quiet. Xavier had already told Finn he could help make his own dinner, so the little boy was stationed on a step stool in front of the counter, very methodically arranging carrot sticks and grapes on his plate while Xavier assembled sandwiches and warmed up some soup. Catherine held Ana on her lap, keeping her entertained with a rattle, and trying not to let her heart melt watching Xavier's interactions with Finn.
"No, I wan' 'at one," said Finn, pointing to something on the countertop.
"Pumpernickel?" laughed Xavier. "All right, little man."
Finn said something else that Catherine couldn't catch, and Xavier nodded. "Sure, put it right there on my sandwich."
"I don' yike 'matoes," came the little voice again.
"I know. All those tomatoes are for me and Catherine…No, not on that one. Cat doesn't like lettuce on her sandwiches."
Catherine saw his shoulders stiffen, as though he regretted speaking those last words aloud. There wasn't any need for him to worry though. She could certainly have made his favorite sandwich without thinking about it. She probably could for any of them. It's just what happened when you lived together so closely for so many years. But Xavier seemed to think it was something he noticed about her that he shouldn't have noticed.
Biting back a sigh, Catherine tried to focus her attention on the baby in her lap. Ana smiled up at her, happily gumming her own little fist. "You don't get to have opinions on food yet, do you, little miss?" Catherine said softly. "You have to be content with what you're given."
"Ana d'inks milk," said Finn helpfully, climbing up into the chair beside her and leaning over to pat the baby on the head.
"That's right. And what do you like to drink?" Catherine asked, one hand reaching out to steady him. "You'd better sit down."
"I yike chok'it milk!"
"No chocolate milk tonight, buddy, sorry," Xavier said, bringing Finn's plate over to the table. "Your mama said you had to drink water. But if you eat a good dinner you can have a cookie."
"Yay! I ha' cookie!" cheered Finn, promptly grabbing up part of his sandwich and shoving it in his mouth.
"Whoa there," chuckled Catherine. "Take bites, remember?"
Finn nodded agreeably and settled down to eat. Catherine placed Ana in her little swing seat on the table top and Xavier set the other plates on the table. He walked over to Artemis' radio and flipped it on. "If they're at a swing dance contest she'll probably unconsciously send some pretty good music over here."
The first song that began was a quartet singing "Sweet Georgia Brown," and Xavier began laughing quietly, a far away look in his eyes.
"What's funny about the song?" asked Catherine. "Seems like it's a nice memory for you."
Xavier smiled. "I'd actually forgotten this was a real song. It's kind of silly…it's a theme for a basketball team, the Harlem Globetrotters, and one time they put them in this cartoon on television…so ridiculous…there's a dog and these kids that chase monsters and ghosts, but the monsters always wind up being just a regular bad guy in a costume. I loved that show. Anyway, it just reminded me of watching cartoons on Saturday mornings when I was little…sorry."
"Why be sorry? I can just see you and Xander sitting on an old couch watching television, probably eating your way through those boxes of sugary cereal Jane's complained about," Catherine laughed.
"Frosted Flakes," he said softly. "You've probably never had them, have you?"
"No. When we first came to America Grams and Nana were big on having lots of eggs and bacon and toast with butter. They thought we were too skinny. Then after Jane came there were a lot more sweet things — coffee cakes and cinnamon rolls. I was standing on a stool helping scramble eggs when I was just a little older than Finn…after we'd helped collect the eggs of course."
"Shik'ns have eggs," contributed Finn importantly.
"Yes they do. Do you miss the chickens?" Xavier asked him, reaching to grab the little boy's cup before he knocked it over with his full body expression of agreement.
"Shik'ns say bawk, bawk, bawk! Dey chase me!" Finn said gleefully.
Catherine had thought perhaps the music would probably help cover any awkward silences during the meal. But she was happily surprised to find any silences weren't actually awkward at all. The quiet moments felt normal and peaceful, rather than strained between the two naturally reticent people.
"How is it going reading through all those science books?" Xavier asked near the end of the meal.
"Pretty well I think," Catherine replied. "There's a lot of memorization, but it's interesting. We didn't have much science instruction growing up beyond what we could experience with the garden and chickens, or occasional books we could find. It wasn't Hawthorne or Rosa's field of study, so I'm not sure they thought much about it."
"I don't think the wizarding world is too big on the sciences in general," said Xavier thoughtfully. "If everything can be handled with a flick of a wand there's not much call to find other ways to try and understand the world or bend it to your will. I wish I'd realized that years ago. I could have tried to teach y'all something about electricity or wiring. Practical stuff anyway. I don't guess I know too much theory-wise."
Ana was beginning to squirm frustratedly in her seat, and Finn then proudly popped the last grape in his mouth, declaring that he was ready for his cookie. Their dinner was over. Scooping up the little girl and with Finn trailing cookie crumbs behind her, Catherine took the two upstairs for a bath while Xavier cleaned up the kitchen.
It was really too domestic and homey. Xavier frowned down at the sudsy water as he scrubbed the pot from the soup a little harder than necessary. He had to stop imagining moments like this in a small house of their own. It was't fair. She had so much more of life to experience before she was tied down to something like that. But she said she didn't even like being here in the city with so much going on. Xavier shook the pesky thought away. It didn't have anything to do with being in the city. She'd never sat down and watched a television show. She'd never driven a car. Heck, she'd never even been in a car! Ugh stop, now he was picturing the two of them on a road trip, wisps of her hair escaping from her long braid as the wind danced through open car windows.
With all the dishes washed and set in the drying pan, Xavier wiped the crumbs from the table and swept the floor, trying to erase the memory of her taking his hand and asking if he would consider her after she'd had a chance to live her life. Deep water…deep enough to drown in. They were too strong, his feelings. It wasn't fair to pour all of his expectations out on her when she didn't have any experience with men. Xander sounded unexpectedly in his head arguing that he hardly had any more experience himself, and what was he waiting for exactly? Someone else to steal her heart and then break it? Xavier told his brother's voice very firmly to shut up. Of course he didn't want her heart to be broken. Of course he didn't really want her to fall madly in love with someone else. He just wanted…what did he want exactly? The more he tried to think it out the more muddled everything seemed. He knew he didn't want her to look back in ten or twenty or thirty years and think she settled for the first man that paid attention to her. He didn't want her to feel like she missed out on some normal right of passage for a woman her age. And what is normal? You never thought your life growing up was normal - dad not around, mom barely holding things together. Watching friends die screaming around you because of madman's bomb isn't normal. Trying to rob a complete stranger to help pay your mother's hospital bills isn't normal. Becoming a werewolf sure isn't normal. Almost getting killed by your brother when both of you were out of your heads with bloodlust isn't normal. Normal doesn't exist. There's only making the best of what you're given each moment.
Shaking the swirl of thoughts out of his head, Xavier climbed the stairs, following the sounds of giggles and splashing water and Catherine's soft voice, trying to steel himself against anymore silly romantic notions. He was met at the top of the stairs by a dripping, naked little boy racing down the hallway laughing hysterically. Xavier crossed his arms and tried to look menacingly at Finn, who grinned up at him unrepentantly. "Are you giving Cat a hard time?" he asked in a stern voice.
"I not go bed!" Finn sang out. Catherine came to the doorway carrying Ana wrapped up in a towel and tossed a second towel to Xavier.
He wrapped the fluffy towel around the boy and rubbed the wet hair plastered to the top of his head. "You have to go to bed, little man," Xavier said seriously. "Otherwise I'll get into trouble with your mama and Kieran, and they might make me do extra chores."
"I halp you!" said Finn. "I halp you dig weeds!" Wriggling away from the towel, Finn moved to clamber up the stairs toward the roof.
"Oh no you don't!" laughed Xavier. "It's too late to weed tonight, and you're all nice and clean from your bath. We'll dig in the dirt tomorrow. Go on to your room and pick out your pajamas."
Finn dashed off, and Xavier followed him. In the time he finally got Finn to agree to a pair of pjs and choose a bedtime story, Catherine had joined them. Ana was snuggled up in her own footed pajamas and eagerly drinking her bottle. Xavier, a little embarrassed to have Catherine as part of the audience, launched into the story he'd promised Finn, a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, Appalachian style.
Finn and Catherine watched wide-eyed as the typically reserved Xavier brought to life a boy named Jack with an accent so thick Catherine thought she completely missed some words, his long-suffering mother, a pitiful cow, a stomping giant-lady and her husband, and a magic fiddle.
Catherine's traitorous mind was suddenly full of images of Xavier telling bedtime stories to their own children, an impossibility of course. She'd never be able to bear her own children, and she highly doubted any government would be inclined to let werewolves adopt. It was a reality she thought she'd come to terms with long ago, but a moment like this made her heart ache just a little.
When Xavier crashed to the floor as he described the giant falling from the beanstalk, Finn leapt upon him with glee for an impromptu wrestling match. Amid yells and tickles and giggles, the little boy was finally deposited happy and exhausted into his own bed. He consented to having the blanket tucked tightly around him and held a stuffed bear, much loved and patched, close to his face.
Ana's turn was next. Catherine rubbed the baby's tummy gently, humming a few lullabies until she drifted off to sleep. Tiptoeing out into the hallway, Catherine and Xavier looked at each other for a moment uncertainly. Without the children to focus on, the two weren't quite sure what to do next. "Would you like some coffee?" Catherine asked hesitantly. "And Jane made a couple pies earlier today. Peach, I think."
"Um, sure…peach is one of my favorites."
"I know," Catherine said, and then wished she'd bit her tongue, seeing the pained expression on his face. This was all so frustrating. Growing up with the expectation that she'd be claimed and married off to someone made this situation seem ludicrous and backwards. She'd spent years wrapping her mind around marrying regardless of romantic feelings, not having romantic feelings and then trying to ignore them. That determined expression flitted across her face briefly. Coffee and pie it would be, with some long-overdue conversation.
Catherine silently served slices of the pie. She didn't need to ask how he took it, and she wasn't going to pretend she did — with ice cream, his coffee with cream and no sugar. "Don't think too much about it," Catherine said gently, seeing his face as she set down the plate. "Helping in the kitchen for so many years…I know how everyone takes their coffee, what their favorite dessert is, and how they prefer their sandwiches."
"I don't," Xavier muttered sheepishly. "I only pay attention to y…" his voice trailed off, and he shoveled a bite of pie in his mouth, unable to make eye contact.
"What sort of a life do you think it's important for me to experience?" she asked suddenly, pushing her long hair back over her shoulder so it didn't dangle into the whipped cream as she leaned forward and took a bite.
Xavier was quiet for a long moment gathering his courage and his thoughts. "I don't want you to regret…settling for a life like the one you had always expected. I think you deserve more than that."
Nodding, Catherine took another bite of the pie, swallowing it slowly and then sipping her tea. If Xavier thought that answer was enough for the quiet girl he was very much mistaken. "The life I expected," she said deliberately, "was to be married off to someone I knew fairly well, but probably didn't love any differently than a brother, live, grow old, and die within the same few square miles. That life doesn't exist anymore, so I could hardly settle for it."
"But there is still more to see and know. You're still trapped by the expectations of everyone to fight when you don't want to. You still can't really go out in the world and meet different kinds of people, and…"
"Xavier, you talk like I have to do all those things alone. Even without a war, even with no limitations on our lives I wouldn't ramble the world on my own meeting people and trying new things. I would be happy to travel a little and see far off places and try exotic foods and experience different cultures. But I would want to share that with someone. And that someone wouldn't restrict the experience, they would enhance it."
Xavier took a sip of his coffee, trying to formulate a response. Xander's voice popped up again asking why he was fighting so hard against this. Xavier tried to ignore it and took another sip of coffee.
"I think you like me, Xavier. And I like you too." Catherine paused and bit her lip, trying to find just the right words. "I find you very…appealing. You're thoughtful. You're humble and…peaceful. It's hard for me to share a lot of myself in the best of times. I don't know that I would ever be able to be fully open with…well with someone who wasn't a werewolf. How could they possibly understand such a significant part of who I am? And that admittedly limits my options," she gave a small half-hearted laugh.
"You shouldn't have limited options," he responded, sighing a little. Running a hand through his hair in frustration he sighed again. "Jeez, Cat, you should have everything. And I…yeah, I like you," he said with a little huff. "More than I have any right to."
"So why does it feel like you're pushing me away?"
Xavier didn't reply; his own head and heart in a turmoil of hope and fear and longing and what ifs.
"I spent good deal of last year thinking I was going to have to marry Hezekiah or Gareth, because they were closer to my age and Mamá kept going on about opposites attracting. But all I could think of was what if? What if I could be brave enough to suggest you? What if the man I always thought was so patient and calm didn't have to see me like that little girl he taught to skip rocks? What if the man I thought was the strongest and handsomest and best could be the one? I tried to sort of figure out how you felt or show you how I felt, but I wasn't brave enough to say anything back then. So I'm going to be brave enough now." Her eyes were stinging a little, and she blinked quickly, trying to chase away tears. "I don't want to get to know other people. I want to get to know you."
"Catherine, I don't…" his voice choked up, and Xavier cleared his throat. His ears were buzzing strangely, overwhelmed by her words. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I assumed you hadn't thought any of this through and were just…going with a safer option."
Catherine made a face at him. "I would hope that the man I fall in love with would make me feel safe. I've been hit on by a guy that didn't make me feel safe at all, and I don't recommend it."
"Do you love me?" he asked, deep furrows creasing his brow.
"In a way…" she said slowly. "But I will be completely honest and say I don't think I know you well enough to say yes unequivocally. I trust you and your motives and feelings…and, and plain common sense. But I don't know that you trust me in all those areas yet. So…" she finished with a little shrug.
Xavier laughed in sheer relief and a little self-rebuke. "Ugh, I've been such an idiot. I was doing exactly what Gareth accused me of…swinging back and forth between thinking that because you were a young woman you didn't know what you wanted, and worrying that any interest I maybe felt from you was just a…a crush."
"Well don't be too hard on yourself. I'm not terribly ambitious, and your idea about nursing school was a good one. I was so wrapped up in all the drama of right now that I hadn't been thinking too much about the future. And I do want to see more of the world, I just would prefer to maybe do that with you." A small smile was hidden by her mug of tea, and her brown eyes sparkled.
Xavier nodded, pulling his coffee mug toward him and finishing the now lukewarm drink, trying to not grin like an absolute fool.
