The heels in her hand feel heavy, the weight of the day finally catching up to her, as she climbs the stairs, concentrating on not slipping against the hardwood floor, her tights doing nothing to help the situation.
"Fuck," she mutters to herself, her foot nearly slipping out from under her, and she catches herself on the railing. Her voice carrying in the big home that is filled less and less by people, and more with the absence of hope.
Creaking the door open to her room, she tosses her heels in the corner, sick of having carried them across the whole fucking ranch all night, sinking into the dirt, and causing her usually confident stride to waver, literally, until she'd finally had enough, stripping them off and carrying them one in each hand, cigarette dangling between her lips. The ground soft beneath her feet, lighting her with a smile as she spotted Rip on the hill, the one reprieve from her hectic, long day.
But the words her husband had uttered just hours ago, rattle around in her mind, refusing to let up. She'd always known losing the ranch was a possibility, but to actually hear the words from the one person who'd always believed in her, even when he shouldn't have, gives a finality to them. They'd instantly sobered her, wiping the smile from her face, instead replacing it with a worried frown. For the first time, their future didn't feel so endless, but rather precariously weighted on her shoulders to make this plan work and save everything she'd known and everything she'd come to love.
Normally she'd have enjoyed the slow, tantalizing tease of removing her dress, his wandering eyes and soon to be hands trailing over her with every inch of skin exposed, or even the urgency of yanking the dress up around her hips, not even bothering to remove the rest, the need of them both getting the better of them. But tonight, she finds Rip already in bed, her mind refusing to let her heart take hold, instead churning over and over with the possibilities of an untold future.
Slipping out of her dress, she leaves it in a pile on the floor, wanting to leave that party behind in a heap, and tossing her hair clip onto the counter. She pulls on an old white t-shirt that faintly smells like Rip over her head, until she's drowning in its length, and hanging off her small frame. She tiptoes to her side of the bed, climbing in and curling up against her pillow. Her hair wildly falling around her face in a tangle.
It's only when she hears him turn towards her, that she shifts to look at him, finding his eyes open, his usually blue eyes, always taking on a darker shade in the dark, but still able to penetrate through all her walls to see her. The real her.
"I can hear ya thinking' from here," he groans, his hand moving to brush her bangs out of her eyes.
She'd woken up from her dream that morning in a panic of all the things she'd allowed herself to be denied, the biggest of which was time. The feeling of reluctant invincibility something she'd adopted at a rather young age, convinced that it was only the people around her that would leave. But not her, she found herself stuck, doomed to walk this ranch with the ghosts that refused to leave her side. And that morning had chosen to bring her a memory of self-sabotage to the forefront. A time when she'd refused to get close, feeling unworthy of the man in front of her, even as a kid, continually robbing him of what he'd deserved.
The secret she'd been harboring had burrowed a hole in her heart, and somehow the person she'd left in the dark, who needed to know the most, had been the one to manage to chip away at the scar tissue that had attempted to protect the open wound that she'd left hemorrhaging into anger that pushed anyone who dared get to close to the wreckage, away. Punishing herself by denying what she'd wanted the most. Him.
She adjusts on the pillow, her hand coming to cover his own, the calluses of the work he'd done all these years scraping against her like a familiar pattern that had long since memorized every last inch of her.
She entangles their legs, her cold feet coming between his shins, and he involuntarily shivers at the contact, groaning once more, but absorbs her burden, like usual, bringing her closer, until his lips are against her forehead, as if attempting to silence the war she's waging against herself, a quiet soldier making peace, until she surrenders, waving her white flag to the love he has never once relented in giving her.
Her fingers dance against his beard, and she knows he feels the smile against his face at the comfort he offers her.
"You," she mutters against him, her breath whispering against his cheek, and she reaches higher, soothing the furrowed brow that comes with his confusion. Anticipating his moves before he can even voice them.
"Me?" He questions, his voice rough against her, but oddly soothing and familiar. She can remember the nights she'd snuck into the barn, the only person who was able to make her forget, for even a moment, just how unhappy she was. He'd done that for her from the start, and he'd never stopped trying
She contentedly sighs, and just nods against him.
"You asked me to find one thing that makes me happy today." Her thumb tracing over the sun kissed skin of his cheek, lips brushing against his just briefly. "It's you, baby."
The vision of him in her childhood kitchen, quietly sipping on his coffee, never more content than when he was with her, despite everything she'd put him through. He accepted her as she was, accepted her apologies but never demanded them, accepted her into his arms, knowing she could fight her own battles, but always ready to fight with her if she needed him to. He never whispered her sweet nothings, but rather hard truths. He expected nothing from her, and that's why she gave him every damn inch of her.
After all the casualties around them, the burning embers of their past threatening to ignite them, they were due a win, and when it was all over, he'd be the one she reached for. Rip was the one happy thing in her life, and if the end was coming, at least she had someone beside her. Because if anything, their vow to each other just gave her something to fight even harder for, their future, their love, their life.
Her hand slips underneath his t-shirt, needing to feel him against her, his warmth radiating through her, until she feels his lips settle against her forehead once more. His response to her statement scratchily muttered into her, and she hums as if absorbing the reverberations of his meaning into the very being of her.
"You make me happy too, darlin'."
And she smiles, only granting Rip that glimpse at the heart she reserves just for him, because sometimes the sweet nothings she refused to accept as a young girl are now whispered as hard truths.