Chapter 2 of "Mother"
A/N: Ok, here's the 2nd chappy!
Harry arrived promptly fifteen minutes later, like he promised. He got out of the car and rang the bell. He could hear disturbing noises from behind the door. Lots of banging and screaming.
Ruth flung the door open and he could really see the tension in her posture. Exhaustion was written all over her face. She stood stiffly like something was shoved up her arse and her hair was all over the place.
"Is he really being that bad?"
Ruth nodded and stepped backwards to let him in. Harry looked around. Everything was in disarray, even Ruth looked a little worse for wear.
He heard Wes sprinting down the stairs at top speed screaming, "UNCLE HARRY! UNCLE HARRY!"
Harry laughed and Ruth winced. The little boy showed no signs of mellowing down anytime soon. Wes jumped into Harry's waiting arms and Ruth looked on in sheer amazement.
How the hell did people get kids to like them so much anyway?
"Have you been giving Aunt Ruth a hard time now?" Harry asked Wes in a voice that he would use while interrogating apprehended terrorists.
Wes looked Harry straight in the eye and said, "No." Harry laughed once more and shook the child in his arms. "You're just like your dad."
Wes smiled with his father's boyish charm and Ruth was suddenly irritated even more when Wes was behaving for Harry since it took a pinch to his central nervous system from her just to get him to sit still.
"Let's go and watch a movie alright?" Harry suggested diplomatically. Wes agreed frightfully easily and Ruth wanted to really hurt that child for giving her hell and making her look bad in front of Harry.
She followed them into the living room where she found the two sitting next to each other on the leather couch, staring at the big screen plasma TV.
Wes had only watched half the cartoon movie when he fell asleep in Harry's lap. Ruth, being worn out from watching him, had nodded off even sooner, and her head had fallen to rest on his shoulder.
Harry decided he liked having her head there, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They didn't move for a while, Harry liked this odd..domestic sort of feeling. They were like father, mother and child, on a typical night at home.
Except they weren't. Wes's father had been injured by a gunshot wound and would be back tomorrow. Ruth and he weren't married, and as much as he'd love to fix that situation, it was simply too complicated.
Harry just enjoyed the feeling of Ruth lying in his embrace, and drifted off to sleep on the couch.
When he woke up, Wes was gone from his lap and Ruth was nowhere to be found. The TV was off and the room was eerily silent.
He stood and stretched, his back cracking painfully as a result of falling asleep in an awkward position.
Good god I'm getting old. He thought as he massaged a kink in his neck.
"I took Wes upstairs. He's finally out cold." Ruth appeared in the doorway, looking refreshed and lovely.
"I just had a quick shower, I thought I'd feel better. It seems that you've been asleep the whole time." She moved to stand next to him so that he could smell the shampoo she used. It smelled damn good.
Harry chastised himself and tried to focus on what she was saying, not what she smelled like, and failed quite miserably.
"I trust that you'll be ok from here?" Harry asked, implying that he was going to leave.
"You're not going to try and leave are you?" He took note in her use of the word 'try.'
"You want me to stay?" He tried immensely to hide the hope in his voice.
Ruth instantly pinked and stammered, "Well, it's snowing like mad out there, and I just thought that—,"
"Yes, I'll stay then." He cut her off quickly and she fell silent. Ruth and Harry stood in suspenseful silence for about five minutes until she rolled her eyes in annoyance and said, "Oh what the hell!"
Harry's eyes flew wide open when Ruth pulled him into a big kiss. She placed her hand at the back of his head to bring him down to meet her lips. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the ground, and the last coherent thought of the night was, "Finally!"
Little did they know that they were being watched by little Wes, hiding in a shadow near the door.
'Mission accomplished.' The eight year old thought mischievously.
TBC...
A/N: there's the epilogue after this!