Work Text:
Kathy was halfway through scouring the flat clean when she realised she had access to a more useful resource on taking in a child than bloggers on the net. A second after this realisation, it also occurred to her that she’d have to explain why she was taking in a child a week after her retirement from active SAS service. The idea of trying to explain that series of events to Josh was deeply unappealing. He was a licensed social worker, and the idea of the Special Forces making a shady deal with her to take in some kid was probably even stranger to him than it was to her. And he’d probably have opinions about her accepting the deal. After the fourth time she found some kind of booby trap she’d set up late at night on a previous gap between deployment, Kathy conceded the necessity of the phone call. She made her way over to the home phone, checked Josh’s number on the pad sitting next to it, and dialed.
“Locke speaking.” Businesslike. How very unlike him.
“Hi Josh, it’s Kathy.” She said, sinking uneasily into the normal call and response of civilian phone calls.
“Kathy! Wow, it’s been ages, how’ve you been?”
“I’ve retired from the service, so that’s definitely a big change.” She confessed, wishing the phone had a cord she could toy with. 10 years of elite military service and a phone call with an acquaintance was dissolving her.
“Congratulations!” He said. There was a conspicuous pause. “Wait, is that insensitive? I just never really understood someone enjoying military service.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m glad to be out.” She laughed. “Besides, you’re a social worker. That’s about as far from the things I did as you can get.”
“That’s true. Did you want to catch up? I imagine you’ve got a lot more time for that now you’ve retired.” There was an undercurrent of resentment in that last sentence, one Kathy hated to have put there. She’d pulled back from her friends when she’d gotten the secondment to the SAS, unwilling to lie or bend the truth to people she cared so much about. It only took two years before the pulling-away became a self-enforcing cycle.
“I’d love to, Josh, but I was actually calling about your work.”
“Really? Whatever for?” A pause. “Kathy, please tell me your sister’s okay.”
“You’re a quick thinker. No, Jess is fine. And also still childless.” Josh laughed on the other end of the line. “I have come into guardianship of a child though. I think I probably need some kind of help before I mess him up.”
“Yeah, yeah, no, of course. Is he already with you?” Kathy shook her head, despite knowing he couldn’t see her.
“No, he’s going to be dropped off in two days. He’s fifteen.”
“Right. Do you know why he’s going with you instead of Jess? Usually children are entrusted to relatives with stable civilian careers before they pull people out of the Forces.” Kathy winced. Josh was a lot better at putting things together than she’d given him credit for. She’d known she’d have to come clean about the dubious circumstances of guardianship acquisition, but she hadn’t wanted to do it so soon.
“He’s not a relative. And I was already retiring when I was offered his guardianship.” She was too well trained to mutter her confession, but the shame was there in her voice.
“What the fuck? That’s not how anything works. You were ‘offered’ the guardianship of a teenager upon your retirement from the services? As what, some kind of sick reward? What the hell is going on over there, Kathy?” Kathy chose not to answer, hoping that Josh would get himself under control and ask a better set of questions. There were the crackly noises of deep breathing, and Josh’s tightly controlled voice came back on the line. “Okay, okay. I need you to explain everything before I call the cops and this journalist I know.”
“That’s reasonable. But between you and me I don’t think either of those pathways would get very far.” Kathy took a deep breath, preparing to rush all the details out before Josh interrupted her. “I was in my exit interview with my CO when this guy in a suit came in and kicked him out. I don’t know what’s going on but if my CO cooperated I definitely have to. He starts asking me questions, weird ones. Nothing about my files, my readiness for ‘civilian life’, anything that continued what me and my CO had been discussing.” Kathy barked out a laugh. “He’s asking about the size of my spare room, what I’m using it for. Not if I have one, but what I’m doing with it. He asks about my attitudes towards children, if I ever wanted to be a mother. I tell him I’m ambivalent, and he drills down into it. Did I have a problem with someone depending on me for everything? Doubts about my emotional capacity? Why, specifically, was I ambivalent?”
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going.” Said Josh, breaking her rhythm.
“Yeah, I didn’t either. In my head, this guy is just someone who outranked my CO who didn’t like women in the Regiment. Weird, but not someone I ever have to deal with again. But then he pulls out a briefcase full of paperwork and introduces himself as a civilian attache to the Special Forces. He tells me he’s here to assess whether my discharge is ‘appropriate’. There’s concerns among the higher ups that socially isolated women are more likely to experience undue stress upon discharge.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well I didn’t know that, did I?” Kathy shook her head. “He suggests that it might not be in my best interests to continue to pursue the discharge. I start to argue with him, but he shuts me down pretty quick. Then he proposes a solution. And this guy, he’s really proud of himself for this. He tells me there’s a teenager who needs a military guardian, and I’d be suitable. If I agreed, he’d let the discharge go through, raise my pension, make sure I got the appropriate commendations marked in my file.”
“So he bribed you to look after a teenager? Kathy, that guy sucks, but surely another round of deployment wasn’t going to kill you? You’re not qualified and way more likely to mess whoever this kid is up worse.” Josh said, disapproval clear.
“Josh,” Kathy leaned in, shielded her mouth, like there was someone listening. Maybe there was. “He threatened Jess. Said maybe if I left the Regiment without some kind of social tie in place, she’d be hurt. Maybe something would happen to her job. All her contracts are government! It wouldn’t even be hard to bankrupt her. Maybe something would go wrong with my pension, there’d be a paperwork error that marked my discharge as dishonourable.” Josh sucked in a breath.
“Shit, okay. I don’t like it but there’s not much else you could’ve done with that.” They both paused, let Kathy’s revelations hang in the air. Josh, surprisingly, got himself together first.
“Ok, all of that really sucks. Are you going to take it out on the kid?” Kathy recoiled.
“Christ, no! He’s fifteen, he couldn’t have done anything to make the man threaten me. If I was going to take it out on him I wouldn’t have called you, would I?”
“You’re right. Ok, what do you know about this kid? He’s fifteen, but that’s not a lot. Really variable age.”
“His name’s Alex Rider. The man said some really vague stuff about the need for a military guardian because of family connections to the service, some stipulation in his last guardian’s Will? Said he was self-sufficient, mostly needed me for legal reasons. He also said I was allowed to keep my gun in the flat, there was some exception made to the normal rule.”
“So all of that’s bullshit.” Josh sighed like it was stopping him from laughing hysterically. “There are ex-military people with actual licenses for this kind of thing, no child is actually self-sufficient and it’s probably some kind of trauma response, and the gun thing is unacceptable. That’s my first recommendation: get rid of it.”
“Not allowed. When I said he told me I was allowed to keep it, I mean he suggested if I didn’t keep it in the flat the arrangement would fall apart.” The next thirty seconds was mostly just Josh swearing.
“I know, I know.” She said, trying to get him back on track. “It’s such bullshit.”
“Fucking yeah it is.” Kathy could very clearly picture him pinching his nose, eyes locked on the ceiling. “If you can’t get rid of it, lock it up. Best gun safe you can get. If you can’t afford it, I’ll spot you money.”
“To own a gun, any kind, it has to be locked up, and the cabinet has to be concealed from visitors and bolted to the floor. And then checked by the coppers at random.” She said dryly, grinning. The things civilians didn’t know.
“Oh, I’m too normal for that knowledge, Kathy, forgive me.” he joked, before continuing, “but in all seriousness, that safe better be impossible to get into, you don’t want to be responsible for that kind of tragedy.”
“I’ll make sure of it. I’ll ask around about noisemaker traps, make sure I'll come running if he starts fiddling with it.” She said, already thinking which of her old compatriots would have the most fun designing that.
“Good. Okay, next, when the kid gets there, and you’ve really been given a criminally low level of information, you need to find out about school. Where did he use to go, can he still attend, what were his grades like. He’s going to hate it, but you have to know. Actually, you should look into your local secondaries. That’s your number one goal.”
“Ok, when I get off the phone.” From there, the conversation was logistics all the way down, hammering out all the little details of taking in a fifteen year old kid. Out the other side, Kathy felt a far sight better about her capability to look after Alex. Most of Josh’s advice was common sense but it was reassuring to have it pointed out. He 'd spent a lot of time on the more social aspects of taking Alex in. Kathy felt she was being unfairly stereotyped as an emotionless member of the Armed Services, but she supposed it was well meaning. It was maybe even an accurate stereotype, seeing as she hadn’t thought of half the things he said were mandatory.
Two days later, Kathy had gone over the flat one last time, triple-checked the gun safe and noisemakers, and was waiting in the sitting room for Alex. The TV was on, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was instead knitting very poorly, something she’d read could be good for her. Repetitive, calming, and at least somewhat practical. She was trying to purl a stitch when the doorbell rang, jolting her and making her drop the stitch. She cursed, but put the needles down and turned the telly off before going to greet her new charge. When the door opened, however, the first thing she saw was Ben Daniels, the guy who got seconded to MI6 a year ago. Not exactly a reassuring house-guest.
“Ruskie! Wow, haven't seen you in ages.”
“Yeah, it’s been a while, Ben. I’m waiting on someone though, I don’t have time to catch up.” She said, trying to dismiss him. More to the point, she did not want to kill time with an ex-SAS spook while waiting for a child she was going to be a guardian to for the next three years. His friendly smile tightened around the edges.
“Yeah, I know. He’s real pissed off about this, but be nice to him, yeah? He’s had a rough go of it.” Kathy made a heroic effort to keep her despairing confusion internal. This poor kid’s situation got weirder and more unsettling with every development.
“Right, sure. Why don’t you come in?” Kathy stepped aside for Ben to enter, and got her first look at Alex himself. He was a tall kid, well built for his age, with shaggy blond hair that fell into his eyes. The only thing about him that was even slightly unusual, that even briefly hinted at why someone had gone out of their way to arrange a military guardian, was that he was wearing fingerless driving gloves with studs at his knuckles. As he glided past her, he flicked an assessing glance at her from under his hair. She was promptly dismissed. As soon as his oversized backpack was out of range, she shut the door behind the two of them. They’d both already marched into the sitting room. In a larger flat, she might have been offended, but it was practically the entryway, so she couldn’t really hold it against them. As they sat, she noticed that it didn’t seem like Alex had brought a lot with him. He had his hiking backpack, and Ben had a little rolling case, but that was it. She shrugged it off. Josh had said that kind of thing happened sometimes, and it wasn’t any of her business besides. Ben and Alex had both taken the best couch, the one on the back wall with sightlines to the window and the door. That was fine, it was also the only couch in her house. She pulled a chair out from the nice dining table instead. Kathy didn’t hesitate, it wasn’t in her nature, but with the two of them staring at her it was certainly tempting.
“I’m Kathy, you probably heard Ben call me Ruskie. That was my Regiment nickname, I don’t use it any more. Do you want to be called something other than Alex?” She asked.
“Alex is fine.” He sighed. He was as good as any other teenager at making displeasure clear. Something in his voice or posture was pinging at the place in the back of her brain she’d been taught to listen to, but Kathy didn’t quite know what.
“That’s good. I’m new at this and have no idea what I’m doing, but we can work it out. My friend gave me a checklist of stuff we should go through to get you sorted.” She kind of hoped that Ben had some more details, it felt cruel asking a fifteen year old who’d probably just lost his guardian paperwork questions.
“Of course, I’ve got all of his paperwork and records in here,” Ben said, patting the rolling case. “And his guardianship’s been transferred to you officially, so it’s all on the up and up as far as Children’s Court’s concerned.”
“Oh, I thought you had to go to the court for that?” A completely innocent statement not at all aimed at getting more of an idea at what the hell was going on. Kathy put great stock in her poker face, but these two weren’t having it.
“Kathy, we both know these are exceptional circumstances.” Ben said.
“Fuckin’ do we?” Muttered Alex, glaring at Ben. He sighed.
“Yes, we do. Alex, you promised you’d give this a chance. I know you hate your alternatives.” Alex rolled his eyes, but at no point, Kathy noticed, did he slouch or cross his arms. It was unusual for a teenager to avoid doing those things, and it was definitely one of the things throwing her threat-detection brain off balance.
“Sure, exceptional circumstances.” She made sure she was only directing this skepticism at Ben. Alex didn’t deserve suspicion over guardianship arrangements he didn’t seem too happy with himself. “Alex, I want this to be the best for you it can be, so just let me know if there’s anything you need me to do, okay?” She made sure he made eye contact with her before moving on. “First thing, what’s your deal with school? Is yours close to here?”
“15 minutes’ walk north-east.”
“That’s specific, but at least that doesn’t have to change. Do you want to change? We can use this as an excuse.” Alex shook his head, eyes widening.
“Absolutely not, I’m staying.” That was the most emotion she’d heard out of him yet. Kathy held up her hands.
“That’s fine, I’m not going to make you. Is there anything I should know about how to treat you?” A Josh-provided question.
“No.” Ben leveled him with a disbelieving look. Alex avoided his eye by staring at Kathy instead. His eyes were hard and angry, and he seemed surprisingly capable of assessing her. She’d assumed his initial glance had discarded the Army history with typical teenage arrogance, and she'd had a moment of private amusement. Under a more serious assessment from him, Kathy could instead tell that he was actually very good at the assessment business. He picked her out as left handed, noted that she was unarmed, and decided that she wasn’t going to be aggressive towards him, all in the five seconds before Ben spoke. That kind of skill pointed to someone with the kind of life experience to throw up warning signs in the back of her mind. Having even a glimpse of an explanation for a teenager throwing her threat detection a warning relaxed her, even if the lack of any other details probably should’ve freaked her out. “He has nightmares. Don’t wake him, and walk loudly around the house. Don’t expect him to sleep through the night, or be home a whole lot. His old house is still his property, so he spends a lot of time there. Don’t just assume that he’s there though, you have to check.” Alex broke eye contact with her to glare at Ben again. Ok, good question suggestion by Josh. Kathy was beginning to suspect that the dubious guardianship had more to do with the last guardian’s traumatic death than their Will. She raised an eyebrow at that last part, though.
“Really? What for?” Ben laughed.
“Sometimes he’ll wander off somewhere random and not tell you. He was with me for two weeks, and I caught him somewhere nonsensical three separate times. It’s our responsibility to know where he is, not that he acknowledges that.” Ben met Alex’s glare head-on with a grin, clearly inured to teenage pique. Kathy wasn’t sure she was.
“I can do all that. Walking loudly might be hard, Alex, but I’ll get the hang of it eventually. Ben, was there anything else you needed from me?” She asked, ready to settle Alex in properly. If Ben kept answering for Alex, she should probably get him alone to see if they were the actual answers. Avoiding that scenario was also included in Josh’s list of necessities. She wasn’t going to risk misunderstandings with what sounded like a set of PTSD mitigations.
“No, that’s alright Kathy. I’ll leave you two to it. Do you mind if I let myself out?” Kathy shook her head.
“If you don’t mind.” Ben stood up to leave, abandoning the roller case where it leant against the couch.
“Yeah, no worries at all. Look after yourselves. Cub, you can call me anytime. The lads as well.” Alex looked skeptical.
“Wolf and Bear?” That was a weird set of nicknames, and Kathy was military. Ex-military. God, she still wasn’t used to it.
“Wolf’s gotten over himself, you know that. Bear will answer just because the others will give her shit if she doesn’t.” Alex nodded, clearly conceding the point. Ben waved, and headed out. Kathy wasted no time.
“Alex, I’ll show you your room. Do you want me to grab your suitcase?” He grabbed it himself by way of answer. Kathy let it slide. He seemed like a pretty combative kid, she didn’t need a fight over luggage. He followed her to the back of the flat, moving silently behind her. It was kind of creepy and Kathy really hoped he didn’t move like that all the time. Didn’t seem fair, for one thing. They were probably both going to be dealing with each other’s startle reflexes for at least a month.
Kathy opened the door to the room she’d decided would be his. She’d kept the one with the little balcony, but she thought this one was a nice enough space, even if it was small and the furniture a bit utilitarian. The view was a fair sight better from this window, for one thing. Brick wall versus tiny front yard wasn’t much of a tradeoff, but tiny front yard still won every time. The walls of the room were blank and a bland white, the bedding an impersonal shade of green. She’d bought the bedding hoping that Alex would improve the place with his own decorations and doona cover. Looking once more at Alex’s two bags, she kind of doubted he’d brought anything like that with him.
“Alex, is there anything you want to tell me that you couldn’t when Ben was here? Anything you need to correct? He answered for you a few times.” Alex shook his head.
“If you’re sure. Ok, the rules. You’re home by, at the latest, 7 in summer, 5 in winter. Autumn and spring we can decide closer to. Obviously there are exceptions for visiting your mates but you have to discuss it with me. I’m never going to come into your room unless you’ve invited me in or I suspect you’re hurting yourself. All of your meals are my responsibility but if you want to eat something specific you can ask me to make it or to buy the ingredients. If you break one of those rules or otherwise act out we’ll just talk like adults.” She paused, trying to remember the other stuff Josh had told her to say. This kind of thing was not her strong point, but she could usually recite a CO’s stipulations better than this. In fairness, there were a lot of little things and Alex was glaring at her like she’d personally wronged him.
“That’s actually kind of normal. I thought people like you were all terrible at this.” He said.
“In fairness, I called my friend who arranges things like this for a living. I’m just reciting what he told me.” She caught herself. “But I’m going to stick to it! I got a professional opinion and I’m good at following orders.” They both grinned at her mediocre joke, and Kathy finally got a look at the cheerful kid Alex probably was when he wasn’t stuck in an extremely dubious guardianship situation. Then she caught up to the implication in the other end of his phrase.
“Wait, what was Ben doing? If something was really effective for you two I’m happy to keep it even if it goes against what Josh said, just don’t tell him.” Alex shrugged.
“Ben left me alone mostly. I run before school and I have after-school stuff that runs to 6:30 three days a week, so he didn’t bother worrying about me being out of the house. I can defend myself so he wasn’t really worried about me being alone in the dark.” Kathy jumped in before he could continue.
“Defend yourself how? Because if you’re carrying a knife you’re going to have to stop that, I don’t care what Ben let you do.” He was glaring again. By this point Kathy was pretty close to sure that that was just how his face looked.
“No, I’m a second-dan black belt in karate, and I’m pretty fit, so he figured I could run away well enough if karate wouldn’t cut it.” Kathy conceded the point.
“Makes sense, I won’t enforce that guideline then. I want to know when I should expect you here every night. If that changes every week, text me about it. Do you have the data for that? Do you need a new plan?” That was another Josh question. Thank god she’d called him. She’d always preferred a clean list of objectives, which was thankfully not becoming a fault outside of the military service that had cultivated the preference.
“No, I’ve got a good one.” He pulled an angular phone from his pocket, a brick-like thing with a standard keypad and a rubber housing, and shook it as if to demonstrate.
“That’s a nice machine. We can sort comms later, we should probably go over the rest of the stuff Josh said I had to before I leave you alone to settle in.” She ran his checklist over in her head.
“So you’ve obviously got access to the tube. I’ll pay your Oyster card for the next year, and then that’s your responsibility. Do you have a job?” Alex shook his head.
“That’s fine, you don’t have to worry about that for a while. Get settled in first. I think that’s all the major stuff, so why don’t I leave you to unpack? Unless you had something you wanted to talk about with me.”
“No.” Kathy nodded.
“Alright, see you at dinner. I’ve got frozen spag bol tonight but we can have something more involved tomorrow.” She turned and left, satisfied that all the necessary details had been sorted out.
Dinner was uneventful. Alex came out of his room quickly when it was time for dinner, thankfully sans gloves. He seemed like a good kid, a bit quiet but with a biting sense of humour. Kathy carried most of the conversation, trying her best to keep chattering. Josh had said it would be counterproductive if they just ignored each other, she had to build a rapport. Kathy’d done that enough times, although not with a teenager. Her conversational topics were extremely limited, and she suspected Alex was only barely tolerating her questions about career goals and classes at school, but at least he didn’t snap at her about it. She very carefully didn’t ask about his weird guardianship arrangement and Ben’s escort, suspecting it was sensitive. She could ask better questions when she knew more about Alex, and when he actually trusted her a little. She dragged the conversation along with the power of ubiquitous reality TV and a future shopping excursion to decorate his room. Alex, for his part, complimented her mediocre spag bol and sub-par pasta cookery, which Kathy just took in stride as the polite flattery a guest offers a host. He had very few opinions on Big Brother, but seemed comfortable listening to her describe the drama she’d been using as a backdrop to knitting. He ate as much as his teenage stereotype would suggest, and it was just as well that Kathy had a soldier’s appetite, or she would’ve been worried about not feeding him enough. The both of them scraped their bowls clean, and Kathy made sure to demonstrate what she did with the dishes. When they were away, she settled herself down in front of the TV with her knitting, as was quickly becoming routine, and Alex vanished into his room. Kathy went off to her own at ten, the scarf a few wonky centimetres longer. She left the detritus on the side table, ready for her to pick back up in the morning.
The morning came for her at 5:30am, which was a habit she had yet to shake. Kathy kind of suspected she never would. Too practiced to complain about her abrupt awareness, she shuffled out of bed and to the kitchen, ready for her first coffee of the day. She only made it a few metres out of her room before she spotted Alex on the floor of the kitchen, her gun half-assembled in his hands. The cabinet she’d put the safe in had been closed. It was like the gun had materialised in his hands. Alex was staring up at her, wide eyed with shock. Kathy felt the exact same way.
“Shit! Put that down, how’d you get that?” She exclaimed, keeping her voice down only for care of the neighbours. The pieces clattered to the floor, and Kathy swooped in, grabbed them up and dumped them carelessly on the table. With all the adrenaline pumping through her, Kathy didn’t think she’d need a coffee until 10am at the earliest.
“Jesus Christ, are you okay? How’d you get in there? I know it was locked, and the noisemakers were all attached. I checked the setup three times.” Kathy took a breath, staring at Alex and waiting for an answer. He stared back, shock entirely dissipated and resting angry face in place. Then it hit her that the minor in her care had accessed her firearm. “Josh’s going to kill me. And then I’m getting arrested.”
“No you’re not,” Alex said, “I have a license to handle firearms.”
“Okay, so I can probably swing not getting arrested, but Josh’s still going to kill me.”
“Literally what for?” Kathy felt distinctly juvenile as she violently gestured at the disassembled gun on the table.
“I promised I would booby trap the gun safe so it’d wake me up before you got close enough to poke at it, and you not only got in, I slept long enough past the noise for you to have figured out how to dismantle the fucking thing.” Alex grinned. It was unfortunately shark-like.
“I have a gun license, it didn’t actually take me very long to take your gun apart. Weird model for a soldier, but it’s not exactly a rare kind.” Kathy waved that knowledge off. Knowing how to disassemble a gun commonly owned by sport-shooting citizens as someone who probably did the same thing made sense. The bit about a soldier’s choice was typical teenage army fan behaviour, or so she’d been told. He probably planned on enlisting, which went a little way to explaining all the bullshit with his guardianship. But none of that explained the noisemakers not waking her up or the safe not being locked when she triple-checked it. She told him so.
“Haha, you got me. I pick locks as a hobby, and I wanted to see if I could get in to a safe like that. Your noisemakers weren’t tied to the cabinet doors, so I muffled them with my socks and then cut them loose.” He winced. “That’s going to be a pain to replace, isn’t it? Sorry.” Kathy sighed.
“Sure, ok, makes sense.” It was a bit outlandish, but hypothetically it made sense. And what else was going to explain him getting through the locks on the safe, an elaborate and clandestine past as a cat burglar, which conveniently explained her involvement in his life? Some kind of secret military program to train future operators that got disbanded when someone got too loud and opinionated about ethics and indoctrination? Russian bullshit? Kathy shook those thoughts off. They were unreasonable, fantastical, and products of her mind at 5:30am. It was admittedly suspicious that the kid who needed an ex-military guardian had experience with guns and picking locks, but Alex’s explanations made enough sense for her to dismiss those suspicions. Weird hobbies for a teenager, but not so out of the norm that it was a red flag.
“And why were you up before 5:30am looking in my kitchen cabinets?” She asked, crossing her arms. He ducked his head, letting his hair fall over his face.
“I woke up and knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep, so I wanted a look around.”
“That’s reasonable.” Kathy paused long enough to pull a chair out from the little table in the middle of the kitchen and take a seat. “How about we have an honour system with the safe?” She pulled the gun to herself and began to reassemble it. “I want to see the paperwork for your license. After you show me that, I’ll take you to a range and you can use it under my supervision, but only if you never break into the safe again.” Alex nodded.
“Yeah, sure, I won’t do it again.” Kathy squinted at him a bit before accepting that answer. Gun reassembled, she put it back in the safe, still open in the kitchen cabinet. The safe itself was surrounded by what she assumed were Alex’s abandoned tools. A set of lockpicks in disarray, a metal ruler, and as he’d said, a pile of socks presumably stuffed full of metal bells and scrap. She put the gun inside, checked it was going to be secure, and shut the safe. She left the door to the cabinet open though.
“Why don’t you clean up your stuff while I start breakfast? I usually have it hot on Saturday, is bacon and eggs fine?” She raised herself off her knees and shot him a look. Entirely predictably, his face had brightened at the mention of bacon. Teenagers were the same even 20-some years apart. She pointed at him, mock-sternly.
“You’ve got to get rid of all that metal scrap and wash the socks yourself, though. We’re going to share laundry duty as well, you’re old enough.” He nodded, contrite. Or so she thought, until he grinned at her.
“Don’t want to deal with the iron?”
“That’s terrible. You should be ashamed of yourself.” She laughed, turning to the fridge. She pulled out the eggs and bacon, and there were clinking noises from behind her as Alex gathered his tools. By the time she was heating the pan for the bacon, he was shuffling off to his room.
She had the bacon resting under a bowl, the kitchen table set, and the eggs cooling on the stove before Alex came back. Kathy didn’t mention it, he was probably still sleepy. Breakfast was quiet, it being quarter to six on a Saturday, but it was comfortable. It was the first time in the last day Kathy hadn’t had a frantic little voice in the back of her head, one that sounded like an unholy combination of her drill sergeant and Josh, telling her that she’d absolutely mess this child up worse. It was nice to feel like she’d accomplished a little bit of trust.