singillatim | Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen

“Ah, sir, could you bring the jars down from the cabinet there?” he wonders, pointing. He’s got water boiling, bones from hunted and trapped creatures adding flavor and nutrients to broth. But he needs to store it and dry out the pemmican. He’s found an old book about how to make it and is following along, narrowing his eyes in the waning light to read the smaller print.

“And take care not to drop any.”

There’s a lot of swearing coming from behind the trees. Swearing that doesn’t usually come from the mouth of the quiet Victorian steward-turned-lieutenant.

It will go quiet as he concentrates on the snare, but when it inevitably snaps (again), the soft swearing starts up again.

The man is knelt down, dressed in his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows, and is hunched over a rabbit snare. He twists the twine in his fingers, muttering a prayer or two to himself as he tries to pull it taut between two upright sticks in the ground.

He’s done this several dozen times, but this is the day he knows he’s close to simply chucking the whole thing into the lake as a sacrifice for the creature.

The serpent must be appeased. Game is running thin in the woods with the coming winter, and he needs to fish. Every day he goes out there, he brings something with him. Some salted fish from the catch the day before, a bit of scrap fabric that he would use for mending, anything can be sacrificed.

The creature seems more like a strange friend than anything else after a while, so Thomas can be heard talking to it as he walks.

“Yes, come and get your pound of flesh, you oversized salamander!” he calls out to it before taking out a shoelace from his pockets.

Sometimes he will sing to it, tell it stories as he waits for the fish. There’s a fishing hut out on the ice, one that Thomas uses, and if there’s smoke coming from the chimney, then it’s always safe to come and say hello.

He makes a little hmph sound under his breath in mock offense, which is really just barely masked amusement. As if his normal and reasonable amount of energy as he moves through a room puts him at risk of dropping anything!

"Handled with the most delicate care, of course." He is deliberate, though, as he reaches for them, setting them down in a cluster together. "Sturdy jars, doing their duty. Which is — fascinating." With a nod to everything currently happening in the kitchen right now, though he moves closer to have a look at the book himself.

Thomas shoos him away from it and brings the candle closer so he can read. "You're blocking my light," he tells him with a teasing smile. "You are more of a nuisance than you realize, sir."

But he wouldn't have him anywhere else.

"They will hold enough to last through the winter."

He's quick to roll with it, stepping back, but teasing in return with an easy smile. "And lucky for you, your nuisance at the moment."

He's enjoying watching Thomas at work, though, intrigued about what he's making, what he wants to help him make. "What's the next step?"

"Melting the lard," he explains. "That will bind everything in this together to make something that will last through the winter. The jars are for the broth and we'll need to salt the fish."

He puts a hand on the Doctor's lower back, as if to guide him. "Go stir the pot for me. I will keep you out of trouble."

As it's explained and he observes everything Thomas has gathered, what he's already prepared, it falls in line easily in his head and he understands the intention of it all.

"Do you prefer me out of trouble?" He queries, smirking gently before going to stir the pot.

"I prefer you where I can see you," he says easily enough, the banter rolling off of his tongue before he realizes exactly what it could imply.

Then he clears his throat and goes back to cutting the meat thinner.

"You can see as much of me as you like, as often as you like," he tosses back without missing a beat, too quickly to have parsed any other implications in his own words, or Thomas', but it will absolutely occur to him with only a slight delay.

He will just — concentrate perhaps more than needed, on stirring this pot with due diligence and utmost care. Important work! "Can't be too prepared," he notes idly. "Not here, of all places."

He nods, also choosing to skirt past it. "We didn't have this time to prepare last year," he mutters. "I came in just before winter and simply existed for as long as I could." He tucks his hair behind his ear, leaving a streak of blue berry juice along his forehead.

He wonders for a moment what that would have been like, had he arrived closer to Thomas then. They would have been strangers, yes, but that wouldn't have stopped him trying to help when he'd been so ill.

"Well — a perfectly solid plan for this winter." Though he would expect nothing less from him. He turns to glance over his shoulder and smile at him. "Of course you would have, though." His eyes narrow just a moment as he sees it in the dim light, that streak of juice. "Oh, you have something —" He starts to explain before just reaching out to swipe it off with his thumb, then threading the fingers of his other hand through the rest of his hair briefly before smiling, "Better."

He stills, letting that hand touch him briefly, and then he's reaching out to hold him, to embrace him, to pull him in and kiss him.

"I will care for you, for Wynonna, for everyone I can," he promises. "I will get us through this winter, come hell or Darkwalker."

"Funny that, I was thinking the same thing," he smiles softly, embracing him in return. Not just believing in Thomas getting everyone through the winter, but from the Doctor's own perspective, intending to see him and everyone else through it in return.

Thomas is steps ahead of him in this, though — preparing as he is. Which only makes the Doctor eager to learn how he does it, what he does. He understands the science of it all, he's simply never had to do it before and he fully intends to be useful.

"I need to test something, though," he decides, kissing Thomas again without completely explaining what exactly he's testing.

He subconsciously moves them closer to the stove, to the warmth of the fire, to make the kiss less of a shock to the system, but otherwise is simply enjoying here what he can get.

"What exactly are you testing, sir?" he mutters, unwilling to pull away just yet.

"There are — a few different ways to prepare, you know, fortifying for winter as it were. The obvious, like what you've already planned, plus gathering firewood and the like. Practicalities. But there are more than just tangible things," he reasons out, kissing him again. As they move closer to the stove, he idly thinks how very Thomas-like it is, caring for him yet again.

"I never would have thought of it before. This, I mean," and one more kiss to demonstrate. "I didn't understand it all before, not completely, how important it really could be. But every time we...well, it's a fortification all its own. Deeper. Where we can't see." There is so much strength he takes from this connection that continues to grow between them.

"What do you mean?" he mutters, pulling back though not completely away. He keeps an arm around him, wanting him close. But this seems important, this seems - some sort of revelation. He wants to ensure that he's paying attention, no matter how distracted he is by the thought of kissing him again.

"What do you understand now?"

"Of course you'd ask that," it's said with a fond laugh under his breath. Which means he owes him an answer, an actual answer that isn't one thought and then another thought, with no bridge between them.

"I was going to just keep kissing you," he tries to tease first. Like he's warming up to it. He's not running from the topic entirely, though, at least. He means to answer him.

"Ah, well, don't let me stop you from it," he says and leans in close, ensuring the fire is warm, one arm draped around his shoulders.

There, that's better. Just a moment more. As he loops an arm around his waist and kisses him again, he pulls back with a smile.

"It's that, to start. This kissing business, which is a personal favorite, which hasn't been true for me in a very long time. But what I meant before is that — well, people have each other. Some people do, that is, and I haven't. But when we're together like this, I do, I have you, and I feel...stronger for it and better and happier."

Thomas is not an object, not a possession, nothing of the sort, but he's begun to think of Thomas as his, and that's not something he generally allows himself to feel, or...has been able to feel. But — here they are now.

"You do have me," he assures him. "For as long as we can have each other." It feels so strange, so odd, to admit any of that aloud. It's just foreign to him because Thomas is not someone who gets to have anything he wants.

The Doctor has been showing him, little by little, day by day, that this is patently untrue. He can have things. He can have what he wants.

He takes his hand and kisses his fingers.

For as long as we can.

This is the part that's always done him in. He can get close (not often) to the edge of this unseen line, where he knows if he goes a step further, it's too late to stop the tide of emotion. Because he knows himself, his own hearts, how deeply and truly he loves when he lets himself. But "as long as we can" is all that anyone really has, except the one who runs from it every time he has to face it.

Thomas has shown him the value in so much he's pulled away from until now, in fully embracing all that comes with life and not just closing off to stop some inevitable pain. Because then he loses so much more.

He squeezes his hand, letting out a breath he's apparently been holding. "I haven't ever really known how that could feel." The times he's come closest, they were already gone and time was running out, in the wrong direction. Here — all the time that any of them have is a second chance. And he's still too hopeful to sink into the depths for long. He's just on the edge of making a cheerful remark about going back to the important business of stirring the boiling water, but — this is a new path to tread, and Thomas means too much.

He nods. He knows that these affairs of the soul and the heart are difficult for him. He's had loss so many times that not even Thomas can fathom it. He can hear it in his voice, in his words, and all he wants to do is be that exception for him. He wants to give him every single second that he has so that he can truly know -

Thomas stops himself there.

What is it that he really wants the Doctor to know? He cares for him? Sure. A lot of people do. That he wants him? Yes, that much is obvious. But Thomas knows there is something else left very, very unsaid.

"I - love you," he tells him all in a rush, very sudden.

"Thomas." There's only a half beat pause for a moment between the words before he fumbles, "Do you —"

Does he...what? What does he want to say? So much. No second of time spent with anyone at all is ever taken for granted by him, but especially with Thomas, especially this, and this is so important, so — big, suddenly. As if the room can't contain it all, as if his hearts aren't big enough for all that he feels now. He feels so much happiness from just those words, the most tender and fondest of smiles on his face.

The words are harder for him to say, even though he feels it, too, but he's only ever loved at a distance. Never this close. He takes Thomas' hand and kisses his palm before guiding that hand to rest over one of his hearts. "Do you know — what I feel for you? How important you are?"

That he feels the same?

Thomas isn't afraid of rejection as he says this. He still walks with a little trepidation because he has to, but he's learned the Doctor's words don't always match up with his intentions, and he doesn't try to seek meaning in the nonsense that he says. Not unless he's willing to contextualize things through another lens.

So the Doctor stutters and doesn't respond save to touch him, to stumble over his words, and Thomas is content.

"I believe so, sir. But it would be better if you said it yourself." He knows it's hard, but he believes he's owed this.

Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen

Preparation; Closed for the Doctor

OTA; The Traps

OTA; The Lake

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