st_alksthroughwalls | [For Wyatt] Valentine's Day

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[For Wyatt] Valentine's Day

Hair twisted in a loose knot with a pencil through it, Kitty pored over a notebook filled with what must've looked like arcane sigils to someone unfamiliar with her personal shorthand. In fact, it was the first iteration of a security/surveillance drone design. Between sips of coffee, she flipped the pencil in her hand to erase one assemblage and then flipped it again to sketch in another. One she immediately saw wouldn't work.

"Fudge."

She set down her coffee cup, absently poured more from the carafe, flipped the page and then started over. The severe materials limitations made paper refinements essential, but she seriously hated doing it.

Is she hadn't already been to at least one version of hell, she'd have said she was living it.

Valentine's Day in a hotel designed for lovers, decorated by her manic partner on the Welcoming Committee so that it looked like aftermath of a glitterpunk war, everyone she'd ever loved--including her very first Valentine, her dad--as good as dead to her, and chicken with heart-shaped waffles for breakfast, without a lab to distract herself?

Yeah. She'd rather be in Limbo.

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Yeah, sure, Kitty had felt the pull between them. But she didn't think anything would come of it. He seemed totally off-limits, even when he smiled at her like it really mattered if she smiled back. So when he touched her cheek, she figured he was just trying to get him to look at him so he could say something encouraging.

Eyes closing so he wouldn't see how much she needed it, she turned her cheek into his touch, but then he was doing that lean in thing and her heart started flipping around. It didn't matter that she'd been trying celibacy out. Not now. If Wyatt wanted to kiss her... hell, yeah, she wanted to be kissed, and so tipped her head up to let him.

Wyatt watched her for a moment before his eyes slowly lowered and he just felt the kiss. Between one breath and the next, his mind cleared with only the feel of her lips against his. He paused in kissing Kitty but only long enough to catch his breath and kiss her again.

He hadn't been celibate after Jessica's death, but this was different. This was the first time that he'd 'felt' anything but Wyatt wasn't ready to examine that information just yet.

Kitty felt her mouth curve into a smile as he pulled back, because wow, sweet, sexy kiss. But before she could say anything, or ask anything, his mouth was over hers again, and her hand was sliding into the back of his hair to pull him in for a deeper kiss. Celibacy might be doing good things to protect her heart, but her body was sick of it already.

And it wasn't doing that good of a job protecting her heart. She'd been thinking about Wyatt a lot more than she could pass off as "friendly" interest.

As soon as Kitty's hand slid around to the back of his neck, his own hand that had been cupping her cheek moved to thread through the silky strands of her hair. Wyatt hadn't been asking for permission but when she became a partner in kissing, a knot that he hadn't known was in his chest, loosened.

Reluctantly he broke the kiss, more to give them time to breathe than any other excuse. His forehead rested against hers, "I should probably apologize for that but I won't. I will apologize for the timing of it though." He had meant to comfort her and distract her. He certainly hadn't meant to kiss her in order to do that but he was glad he'd taken that step.

The pencil that had been holding her hair up slid out and clattered over the side of the booth to the floor. Kitty only recognized that was what happened because her hair fell from the loose knot to spill over her shoulders and his hand. When he stopped, she protested, chasing his mouth for another kiss.

"Don't apologize. Please don't apologize." She touched her hand to his jaw and smiled. "I wanted that as much as you did. I mean, assuming you did want it..." And why would he have kissed her if he didn't want to?

"I wanted it." Wyatt assured her with a nod, his other hand came up to cover hers on his jaw. "I'm a spur of the moment person, that's a fact, but I also usually plan things like this." He stopped abruptly hearing what he just said, "not that I planned on kissing you. Well I had but not like this, after a date."

Which surprised him as much as it felt right in thinking it. He hadn't had a real date since Jessica.

"Wow. Okay." That made her grin. When was the last time she'd been out on a date? Hardly ever. Pete hadn't really been the dating type. "Um." She tucked her hair back behind her ear and ducked her head a little. "If that was you asking, this is me saying yes. But... I should warn you, I'm terrible at all of this. Like really bad. I kind of swore off dating for awhile before I got here, because I was trying to figure me out."

Oy. Could she shove her foot any farther in her mouth? She shook her head. "Sorry, like I said, bad at this."

"I'm not that great at this either. It's been a long time since I've been on a date." And the last time he and Jess had a 'date night', they'd argued and she'd been murdered. Not a great track record.

"There's something you should know though." It wasn't a secret, but Wyatt found himself nervous telling her. He couldn't explain it and it certainly wasn't logical. "The reason why it's been a long time for me, I'm a widower." God, he hated that word. Husband to widower. "My wife died three years ago." He raised his eyes to look into Kitty's. "I'm a little rusty at it. Maybe we can figure out who we are together."

Kitty had expected something about the war, losing too many of his people, so to hear loss was the cause didn't surprise her. But so intimate a loss as a wife... she couldn't help thinking of Scott. And Jean. Her eyes filled up with tears, and she reached for his hand. "I'm sorry."

After three years, his grief wouldn't be fresh, but she didn't mistake the lack of freshness for lack of depth or significance. She'd be grieving her dad a lot more than three years.

Wyatt gently wrapped his fingers around her hand, "thank you." There had been so many expressions of sympathy since that day, but like with only a few others, Kitty's brought some solace.

"She was murdered." His eyes glazed as he looked inward to that day, like he had a million times since then. "We'd had a stupid argument and she left to walk and think. That was the last time I saw her." He hated that their last words were an argument.

"Oh gosh. Wow," Kitty said softly, and since they'd already kissed today, thought nothing of wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders to hug him tightly. "That's really hard. I can't even imagine how you felt, but you know it's not your fault, right?" She was sure people had told him that, but she wanted to say it, so he knew she didn't blame him at all.

"If I hadn't been an ass." Wyatt began, his arms tightened around Kitty briefly, "she wouldn't have left. I know Jess would have said the same thing, but it still doesn't stop the guilt." He doubted anything ever would but it felt good to know that Kitty didn't blame him. Not that anyone could blame him as much as he blamed himself.

"People in relationships fight," she said protectively without letting go. It had been almost two months, she realized in that moment, since the last time she'd hugged anyone or they'd hugged her. She wasn't exactly the huggy type, usually, but feeling it now made her chest ache. "I get feeling guilty. I always do too when people get hurt or killed and maybe I could have done something. Just don't feel guilty about the fighting part."

Edited 2017-03-03 06:56 (UTC)

Wyatt felt a shudder go through him at her words. In all of his thoughts with Jess and his tries to change the past, he'd never once wrote a note to his younger self to not argue that night. It was always to Jess to go with him even when he'd been an ass.

"I tried to change that night." He began, "I wrote her a letter in the sixties and had Western Union deliver it to her before that night. It didn't work, but I tried." Wyatt pushed back just enough so that he could look at Kitty, "I never even thought about writing to me. Maybe underneath it all, I knew I shouldn't feel guilty about arguing. Maybe I just needed to hear someone else say it."

Kitty touched her fingers to his face and caressed his jaw. It felt...simple, easy, and natural to lean in to kiss where her fingers had brushed. There really wasn't anything else to say, so she just put her head on his shoulder.

After a little while, Kitty said, "I understand if you're not ready to have another relationship. I'm cool with taking this slow."

Wyatt smiled softly when he felt her lips on his jaw. "This is the first time since Jessica's death that I've wanted to be emotionally close to someone. It's not that I'm not ready for another relationship, but slow is probably a good idea."

He'd likely take a few missteps and it helped a lot that Kitty understood.

"Honestly, I don't know how ready I am." That she felt close to him already was undeniable, and the prospect of being with him appealed. But she knew how much of a mess her relationships got in a hurry, usually. And then there was...

Kitty sighed. "My dad was killed in that attack I told you about. And the guy I loved for years and thought was dead came back from the dead--" Jeez, her life was complicated. "--and didn't feel the same way not that long ago. I'm kind of a mess, like I said."

In all of his scenarios of bringing Jess back, the thought of her not feeling the same didn't even enter it. God, that would have been a knife to the gut, but she would have been alive. Theoretically, Wyatt thought he could live with that, but truthfully he wasn't so sure.

"God, that is very understandable." He smiled slightly as he rested his forehead against hers, "it's a good thing we both understand baggage."

"Yeah." She turned her head enough to look up into his eyes without pulling away from him and then smiled crookedly. "It really, really is."

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[For Wyatt] Valentine's Day

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