Caitastrophic

She swept off before he had a chance to get more information, which rankled him a little. It had been like that for the past couple of weeks: Sara not quite being honest with him, pushing him away a little.

It wasn't his fault they were stuck in the 50s.

Getting stranded here had been...challenging. Palmer and Saunders were doing their happy homemaker thing on the opposite side of town, which was fine. He and Sara had been a little stifled, so they'd found a shitty apartment in a less than ideal part of town, let the landlord make assumptions about their relationship, and made their own way.

He got a job working security at a bank, continuing a few of his less than moral hobbies to ensure that they were comfortable. Sara bounced from diner to diner, focusing on the ones where the waitress turnover was high due to shitty management or shitty clientele. She came in, cleaned house, and moved on.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a life he didn't mind. He missed the ship, worried about Mick and the rest of the crew, missed his sister...but being here with Sara was a hell of a better situation than some of the other possibilities. Her or him here alone, him and Hunter stuck together, something happening to one or both of them...

Their apartment was almost homey after ten months of being stranded here. his suits and clothes hung in one bedroom closet, while she slept in what he told everyone who asked was his office. He cooked when they didn't eat out at a restaurant, she did the laundry, they split the cleaning. The car he'd acquired a few days in was nice enough for them to get out of the city for a few days at a time, to get away from everyone else. The apartment was too small for her to work out in, the walls too thin for real conversations. They had more than enough money, though he had some plans for some of it.

For a while, they seemed to be heading towards something a bit more between them. She flirted and he reciprocated. When people assumed they were together, he played the part of doting husband and she of loving wife without any challenges or complications to it. It felt easy, being with her. It had started on the ship, but he'd wondered if it had been adrenaline or the mission pushing them together. Here, in the comparatively sedate life they'd settled into, they still gravitated toward one another.

It was...nice to know that whatever this was between them was real. Real enough that the two bedrooms were starting to look a little unnecessary. Not that they'd kissed yet, or said anything about making their fake relationship into something real, but they were heading that way, he was sure.

Except, she'd been pulling away a little recently.

He usually drove her to the diner, her decision to take the later hours lining up with his schedule so they could spend time together. The past couple of weeks, though, she'd picked up a few more shifts on days when he couldn't drive her. She wasn't doing it for the money—they had more than enough thanks to his extracurriculars, which she helped out with, so she knew their monetary situation—and if it was due to an issue at work, she usually handled it and moved on by now. This was the longest she'd stayed at a place, which was a little unexpected, and he'd had to make other arrangements quietly, so as not to rush her.

There was probably a great reason for the way she was acting, but she hadn't stood still long enough to tell him. Hell, they hadn't played cards in days. It bothered him. The 50s sucked, but being with her was the biggest upside to it. He'd prefer to be home, obviously, but being with her was...

The bells jangled again. Leonard, his eyes on Sara as always, saw her stiffen slightly.

The three men entering were the broad, surly type that usually meant trouble. Sometimes they were businessmen, sometimes they were construction or blue collar workers, every time they were arrogant and assumptive.

They took a booth on Leonard's side of the restaurant, a few booths down from him. He knew that Sara and Susan alternated tables, and that the guys should go to Susan. He wasn't surprised, however, when Sara said something to Susan, and started over to take their order.

Susan, going pale, came over to Leonard's table. "Can I get you something to eat?"

"No, thanks." He lowered his voice. "Everything okay over there?"

Susan glanced over her shoulder, her fingers tightening around the notepad. "Maybe? They were in last week, and they were...not nice."

"How not nice?"

She shrugged, but the flash of fear in her eyes was clear.

Very not nice, then.

Susan escaped to the back counter. Bill was still smiling, but it was a little strained, and his eyes kept darting over to Sara and her table.

Leonard sipped his coffee, glancing around the room, but lingering on that table, picking out their voices amidst the crowd.

"...something to drink?" Sara said, that fake service tone in her voice.

"Beers for all of us."

"Make it quick, cutie, we're thirsty."

Strike one.

"Got it," she chirped. "Anything else?"

"Yeah," another one spoke, leering at Sara. "Give us your name, sweetheart."

Strike two.

"Sara. I'll get those beers for you and be right back."

She turned to head to the counter, catching his eye, and he read the resignation in her expression.

One of the men reached out, grabbing her wrist and trying to tug her back toward them.

Strike three.

Sara planted her feet, as Leonard rose to his.

"Let go," she demanded.

He visibly tried to pull her again, ostensibly to get her into his lap, but Sara didn't budge. She twisted her arm free and took a step back as the man's friend hopped up and lifted his hand as if to hit her.

Leonard was there; he caught the man's strike on his forearm. He didn't hit him. Not yet.

"What the hell, man? You know her?"

"That's his wife," Bill said sharply, at the edge of the counter, clearly waiting for things to get worse.

One of the men blanched, but the other two weren't discouraged. "Maybe your wife would like a man who can actually provide for her, 'stead of making her work."

"I don't 'make her' do anything," Leonard said blandly.

"That's the problem, then," said the one who tried to grab her. "Letting her get too outta hand. You gotta nip that in the bud, smack her around some."

He felt the anger rise in Sara, his own past full of those types of echoes.

"Try it," Sara said quietly.

"That's enough," Bill said, cutting through the tension. "Why don't you guys get out of here, let my girls get back to work."

The man scoffed, standing and getting in front of her. Sara's brow was cocked, waiting.

Much as it killed him, Leonard didn't move or speak. This was her play. He was just here to back her up.

The three rose, muttering about getting drinks somewhere else. They shoved the menus to the ground, leaving what mess they could, starting toward the door.

The one who grabbed Sara was at the back of the pack, and Leonard wished he could say he was surprised when the man swung round and tried to hit her.

"Finally," he heard Sara mutter under her breath. She ducked, then came up into his chest, knocking him to the ground.

The guy's buddies paused, then their baser instincts won out, and they both threw themselves at her. Luckily, Leonard was right there.

Not for her luck; she didn't need him. But because if he were any further away, he wouldn't have had the time to get a single strike in.

As it was, Sara knocked down two in the matter of five seconds. The third one, who was doing his best to ignore Leonard's existence entirely, managed to get a glancing blow off her face before Leonard caught his arm, wrenching it up and back in an attempt to dislocate it. The pleasing crack said that he was successful.

It was all over before Bill made it over to them from the counter. Susan's eyes were huge, the regulars at the bar were staring at them.

"Are you okay?" Bill asked, his eyes wide as he looked at Sara, then at Leonard.

Leonard could tell he was already excusing it away in his mind. All the blows Sara gave, the way she moved, Bill was already attributing it to something else. Leonard was in the way or the guys were already drunk on their way in. Before he looked at Sara again, he'd convinced himself it hadn't been Sara doing it at all.

"You're bleeding," Susan said, unnecessarily as Sara wiped her mouth on her hand.

"Why don't...why don't you head home," Bill suggested. "We've got the rest of it tonight."

Leonard put his hand on the small of Sara's back; a hasty exit before any cops arrived would be good.

"Thank you," Susan said, as Bill went to call the police. "They were...they don't like it when people say no to them."

"No problem," Sara said, smiling through the cut lip.

The two of them left quickly after, just giving Sara a chance to grab her coat from the back.

He opened the car door for her as soon as they got to it. He was pulling out of the parking lot just as they started to hear the sirens approaching. The drive back to the apartment was longer than he was willing to make with her still actively bleeding, so he pulled into a small park a few miles away.

The streetlights would give him enough light to work by, but reaching across the wider center console would be a pain. Getting out of the car, he went around to the passenger side, opening the door and popping open the glove compartment where he kept some of their first aid things.

Sara turned, her feet on the pavement. "I can do this."

"Sit down, birdy," he said, standing in her way.

With a huff, she stayed in place, despite both of them knowing she could have moved him if she'd wanted. He took that as the peace offering it was, and undid the antiseptic wipe.

Sara winced when the alcohol smell hit her. "I hate that stuff."

"I know. I'll be as gentle as I can be," he told her. "I promise."

He held her face in his palm, turning her slightly so he could see the cut.

"Wish you'd just get it over with," she muttered, her eyes sliding from his.

The tight tone of her voice made him hesitate, his fingers tensing on her jaw slightly.

"Guessing you aren't talking about this," he said, trying to keep his voice light. He started cleaning the cut; it likely wouldn’t need stitches.

Her sigh was ominous; a resolved, but sad sound. "I know about the house."

This time, his pause was more pronounced. It wasn't just surprise that she knew, but that she sounded...disappointed by it?

"I was going to tell you," he started.

"Right," she said, pulling her face free of his grip. "So when do you leave?"

"What?"

She stared just past his shoulder, and he was even more shocked to see water lining the bottom of her eyes. "When are you leaving?"

"Sara," he said slowly, "you don't think I've leaving without you, do you?"

From the way she inhaled, a tear slipping over to mix with the alcohol and blood on her lip, she had thought that.

"I found a house," he said, giving her a moment to recover. "Just outside the city limits. No neighbors. A decent backyard." Wiping away the bit of blood that pooled again, he took her face in his hand gently, his thumb tracking along her skin. "Hard to get the types of things you were used to in the WaveRider gym, but I've gotten some of them on order."

"You're making a gym for me?"

He smiled faintly at the surprise in her tone. "No. I'm making a life for us."

Her eyes looked brighter than usual as she looked up at him. The cut on her lips wouldn't need stitches, and it was clean. Dropping the wipe off to the side, he crouched, getting eye to eye with her.

"I would've lost my mind here if it weren't for you, birdy. And if we're going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives, I don't want to spend it with anyone else. And that isn't—" he said, continuing to speak over her when she inhaled to speak, "—because you're the one who's stuck here with me. It's because even before, I was wondering what a future between me and you would look like. I just didn't imagine it'd be here in the past."

"Why didn't you say anything?" she asked.

"I was waiting until you were done at Bill's diner. Until you felt comfortable with money, so you had a choice. I didn't want you to feel trapped."

"You're the only part of this that doesn't feel suffocating." She lifted her hand up, pressing her palm against his hand to hold him in place. "But I breathed easiest around you on the ship, too."

Slowly, and with the usual amount of hesitation worthy of approaching a trained assassin, he leaned in and kissed her.

Even if the 50s were strange, if the clothes still chafed, if the car still didn't smell right, there was nothing that felt more like 'home' than his mouth on Sara's.

She tasted like coffee and sugar and still a little bit of blood, bitter and soothing in equal measures. He wasn't sure how long he knelt on the ground outside the car, kissing her until they forget the time and place they were in, and only knew each other.

He pulled back only when they were both short of breath. He felt Sara's puffing laugh against his lips, and smiled.

"One last question," she whispered, her fingers curling into his collar. "How many bedrooms in this house?"

The fact was on his tongue, that there were three bedrooms, not including the in-process gym.

What he said, though, was, "Just one."