The Road Home

[abrightboy]

Raylan's loose ends had been tied in Kentucky and Malcolm's were as tantalizingly close as they'd ever been. He and Raylan made the trip to New York with the intent of discovering the fate of the girl in the box, so they could head down to Miami without... baggage.

They would have to start with the revelation Jessica and Ainsley had made to Malcolm right before Raylan was shot, sending Malcolm back to Kentucky: that Eve had infiltrated the Whitly family to learn more about the Surgeon's victims.

Malcolm let them into the New York loft - a space he considered theirs now, more than his, since they decided they might weather the hurricane season there after moving to Miami - smiling as Sunshine tweeted greetings. Once the door was shut behind Raylan, he opened the door of her cage. Ainsley would have fed her diligently, but nobody would have let her out to fly. Sunshine took off across the loft and Malcolm grinned, watching her go.

He looked at Raylan. "We can still bring her with us when we leave, right?"

Comments

[tinstar]

Raylan couldn't argue, wouldn't argue. Whatever Malcolm liked about it, about him, he'd take. Whatever made Malcolm happier. Healthier.

He nodded at Ainsley's answer. "Well, don't feel like that's the end of the world. Lady like you, I imagine you're going to go through some hearts before you find a good one. Break a few hearts along the way."

[abrightboy]

Ainsley laughed, ducking her head for a second.

When she looked up, she joked "Just as long as my mother doesn't marry me off to a suitable society husband first so I can quit my job and pump out grandchildren."

"Well you're probably safe," Malcolm told her. "Suitable society families won't touch us with a barge pole."

Ainsley put her pheasant down, her expression still relaxed and happy. "You know what? Maybe I'll meet a movie star or something when I go national."

"New money is definitely a safer bet," Malcolm teased.

She stuck out her tongue.

[tinstar]

"Lot more press coverage that isn't you behind a desk either," Raylan commented behind another bite of food, smiling crookedly as he cleared his mouth.

He glanced at the doors.

"She's not comin' back this time, is she?" His tone suggested he thought not but was asking anyway.

[abrightboy]

"Um, no," Malcolm said. "She hates losing an argument."

"She really hates looking like the bad guy, no matter how much she says she doesn't care," Ainsley added.

"Plus she's probably already replaced this meal with very expensive top shelf scotch," Malcolm added.

"We won't see her until morning," Ainsley told him. "When she'll pretend nothing happened."

Malcolm looked at Raylan. "Don't worry; we won't be here for that," he assured.

[tinstar]

He looked at the doors again for a longer moment before bobbing his head and lifting his glass. Had she lost? Did that mean he'd won? He didn't feel like it at all.

"Here's to the rest of a peaceful meal then." Maybe not the kindest thing to toast but it felt appropriate.

[abrightboy]

Jessica Whitly's children did not seem to take it as an unkindness and tilted their glasses towards him.

After the meal, Malcolm led Raylan upstairs to his old bedroom, gathering up the lamp he wanted to take for Willa and bundling it into Raylan's arms along with an FBI-crested backpack he pulled out of the back of his closet before holding up a finger for him to stay there a moment while Malcolm walked down the hall to his mother's suite, tapping on the door before opening it and poking his head in.

"Mother?"

She was inside, sitting on the couch, looking out the window with a glass of scotch in her hand. She looked over when he looked in, raising her eyebrows. "Are you still here?"

It wasn't an accusation; she was surprised they hadn't gone.

"We're just about to leave," he told her, stepping in and shutting the door.

"You didn't just... go."

"I'm not mad at you," he told her with a sigh. "But you have to stop this, okay? I would really, really like us to keep the sort of relationship we've developed since I came back to New York but you can't... treat my husband like a second class citizen. You can't come to our home if you're going to act like Condescending Rich Lady. You have so much heart and so much kindness in you. Why don't you show that to him for more than five minutes at a time instead of playing the role of Jessica Whitly: Society Matron? Why do you even want to be that? You don't even like those people."

"No, I don't. But we can't all... swan off and marry a hillbilly," she told him, taking a large swallow of scotch.

He gave her a look.

"Okay, I'm sorry," she relented, gesturing towards him with her glass. "But there aren't many places I'm welcome at any level, so I don't know what you think my alternatives are. You have freedoms, Malcolm. I have appearances to maintain."

"What for?"

"For me. So I can feel like who I was supposed to be before your father ruined it all. That's what for," she said petulantly, looking into her glass while she swirled the liquid around in it.

He nodded. "That's fair. Can you do it without demeaning my fiance?"

She closed her eyes and huffed a breath out through her nose and nodded. She opened her eyes and looked at Malcolm. "Are you still going to bring the baby after Christmas?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "We're still bringing the baby."

Raylan was kind under his hard outer shell, too. The two of them actually had a lot in common.

"Okay. Well. Let me know how it goes with that lying little wench," she said mildly.

Malcolm pressed his lips together. "I'll let you know what we find out from Eve," he promised, then slipped out the door to meet Raylan back at his room and lead the way downstairs.

[tinstar]

Raylan waited, arms gently loaded though he opted to sling the backpack over one shoulder to make carrying easier, just in case Malcolm had anything else that needed holding. He couldn't hear the conversation from where he was and respected where Malcolm had asked him to wait, despite his curiosity. Malcolm would tell him if it went well or not.

Still, he watched his face carefully as Malcolm came back and didn't ask as they walked downstairs. After saying a proper goodbye to Ainsley where he reiterated their welcome mat to her, Raylan let Malcolm lead him out.

"She okay?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm took the backpack from him as they descended the stairs. Raylan was neither a pack mule nor his butler; he just hadn't wanted his mother to see him removing his property from the house lest the notion of him slipping away become tangible to her.

As they stepped into the street, Malcolm met his question with a warm look.

"Yeah. She knows when she's being a jerk and she's sorry." He looked at Raylan more directly, "I know it's not me she owed the apology to, but I'm going to take the acknowledgement as... something, anyway. At any rate, I'm expecting this not to happen again." His expression grew earnest. "And I'm sorry." Because he had not brought Raylan there to be treated that way, but he'd always known it was a possibility.

[tinstar]

It was handed over without protest and Raylan closed the door behind them with a nod of his behatted head.

"You don't have to be sorry," he promised, sliding a hand along Malcolm's shoulder to tug him into a gently crooked hug. "You're not her and I know she's used to things bein' a certain way that I tend to.. disrupt just by bein' around. But I'd take it not happenin' again. I don't care if she thinks that way. She doesn't need to go tellin' everyone about it."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gave into the urge to press his forehead to Raylan's neck for just a moment when he was pulled into that hug, before straightening up a little. They were on the street, where other people were, and Raylan had an arm around him. He didn't want to make it... uncomfortable for him. It was already a Big Deal for Malcolm.

"She needs to not think that way. It's wrong. I care. She's a fundamentally good person. She can act like one."

There were no excuses, as far as he was concerned. Raylan was going to be part of their family and the rest of the family would treat him with the appropriate respect or they would be seeing considerably less of Malcolm. Raylan was his home. That was where he felt safe and happy and warm.

"Adults get to choose how they behave."

He looked up at Raylan. "Do you think Willa will like the light?"

[tinstar]

Raylan squeezes him gently, rubbing a hand down his back to gently urge him forward and onto the sidewalk so they didn't linger in the stairs up to the house. For as many eyes as were in New York City, Raylan was caring less and less. Putting his arm around Malcolm openly was getting fractionally easier, each time he did it in public.

"I'm glad you're there to tell her. She might even listen to you." Raylan was hopeful that she would be persuaded by the goodness of her son. It seemed like him and Ainsley were the only anchors in her life, they had to have some effect.

"I think she will, yes," he continued with a smile. "It'll give her something to occupy her eyes instead of fussin'. You've heard those lungs." The smile spread a little.

"Let's go home, eh? Long day tomorrow and we could both use some time to unwind before bed."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded, stepping down to the curb to hail a taxi.

Once at the loft, he gestured at the stairs as he toed off his shoes. "I'm going to put in soundproofing up there before we leave the city. So Willa can sleep up there and I won't wake her up," he proposed.

He put his backpack on a stool at the counter and riffled through it a little.

"I think I still have a few..." He paused and pulled a Glock out of the bottom of the bag by the barrel. "Oh, that's where I put my gun." He set it on the counter, no clip in it. "I was looking for the notebooks I left in here. I had one I used to write anything I dreamed that I thought might be a memory. I want to see if there's anything useful going back the past few years," he explained, continuing his search.

[tinstar]

Once they were back at the loft, Raylan happily sat his hat on the hook and toed off his boots to follow Malcolm into the kitchen with a glance at the upper room.

"Good idea. We'll have to buy a baby monitor though. If she can't hear us, we can't hear her." He didn't want Willa to.. be traumatized by hearing Malcolm's night terrors, so he'd happily apply any workarounds they could think of that would still allow all this to happen. To allow Raylan to have a family that gave a shit about him. Loved him as much as he loved them.

Setting the lamp down off to the side, he leaned on the counter top to watch Malcolm unload. Raylan's eyebrows lifted sharply at the casual way that Malcolm 'found' his gun. "Why.. why are you keepin' a gun in your bag?" he asked as he reached over to pull the piece closer and check the chamber for a shell. "Where do you keep your bullets?"

He was almost scared of the answer he was going to get.

[abrightboy]

"Yeah I was going to pick up a video one, like the one we have in Lexington," he said of the baby monitor, half distracted by his search.

At the question about the gun, he looked up at Raylan, then glanced at the gun.

"Well, I had to hand in my service weapon, but I bought that one when I applied to Quantico. To practice. I only ever used it for that, so it was just kind of... kicking around my apartment in DC, so when I moved, I just... packed it with the rest of the little odds and ends from my desk. I'm sure the bullets are in here somewhere..." he mused, digging around and coming up with a clip, which he set on the counter for Raylan. "Yep, there they are."

He dug back in, pulling out a few notebooks. "It's gotta be one of these ones..."

[tinstar]

The thought that Malcolm put into accometing Willa wouldn't ever fail to charm the hell out of him. He didn't have to embrace her or the idea of having her around, but he had and Raylan didn't think it was wholly, 100% for his own sake. It made wanting this life, having this life, having him possible.

The only reason Malcolm was getting off from a lecture was the fact that his chamber was empty. Still, Raylan gave him a look as he pulled the magazine closer to see how full it was. "What good is it to you if you have'ta hunt for the clip?"

Nevermind that - he gestured one finger at the bag. "Dare I ask what's in the other notebooks? Or they all the same genre of thought stuff?"

[abrightboy]

The clip was about two-thirds full. Malcolm looked at the gun oddly when Raylan asked him what good it was.

"I don't... use it," he pointed out reasonably.

At Raylan's next question, he looked down at the notebooks and clutched them to his chest, looking at Raylan a little sheepishly. "Actually. Some of them are my case notes. And some of them... sometimes they made me take time off. So I worked on famous cold cases," he admitted.

[tinstar]

"So why have it," he countered, collecting both to go deposit them in the drawer of Malcolm's bedside table. It was safer there and significantly more useful. It wasn't like Malcolm was going to get rid of it now.

"I guess I can tell what your end career is gonna be," he teased as he came back. "You solve any of them?"

[abrightboy]

"I told you: I needed to practice so I didn't look like an idiot," Malcolm said distractedly, flipping through one of the books. He grinned over at Raylan at his remark, though it probably wasn't registering that Raylan was storing the gun near the bed. "A crime novelist?" he hazarded. "I haven't uncovered enough actual provable evidence to get anyone in authority to take my theories seriously," Malcolm replied, "so we may never know."

[tinstar]

"That is not how you store a weapon," he replied with a shake of his head before he opted to slide a hand around Malcolm's waist, just to feel him close.

"I'd read it. So long as it didn't read like a textbook. You've clearly got quite a number in your head that you access on a regular basis. Havin' to suffer dumbin' it down for us less well informed folks."

He peered over Malcolm's shoulder. "Any luck?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stared at the page of the book he'd flipped to, then looked up at Raylan.

"There's a memory fragment I sometimes see. It's been a little while; I'd almost forgotten. I'm kneeling over a person who's lying on the ground. Holding a pocket knife. My father is holding my hands from behind. Guiding them towards the person's ribs with the blade."

[tinstar]

Raylan frowned gently. "This happen at the cabin?"

It was the only trip he was aware of that Martin would have had with the time and freedom to give such detailed lessons. "Do you remember who it was?"

[abrightboy]

"I think so," Malcolm told him. "It's the same knife. I don't know who the v... person was. I don't even know if it was a man or a woman. They were wearing some sort of... padded vest. I don't..." He frowned faintly and looked up at Raylan. "I don't know if I actually hurt them."

[tinstar]

Victim. Malcolm hadn't wanted to use the word; Raylan assumed it was because he wasn't sure if the person was dead yet or not. Either that, or he was trying to keep it from becoming a proper case in his own head. A clinical divesting of emotion for the sake of sanity.

"No matter what the answer to that is, you know it's okay, right? We're gonna figure it out," he reassured, one hand smoothing over Malcolm's shoulders. "What's this got to do with Eve?"

[abrightboy]

If he didn't say victim, maybe the person wasn't dead or wasn't real. Maybe he didn't stab some innocent person between their ribs.

He was staring at the page, but Raylan's touch and voice made him look up at him, some amount of consternation smoothing out of his features at it.

"I don't know yet. But my father brought the girl in the box on that camping trip. She knows something about the girl in the box."

He closed the book and put it on the counter.

[tinstar]

Raylan doubted that Malcolm did but.. There would always be a fraction of 'but'. A fraction of worry that Martin had forced Malcolm to do something that would, now as an adult, ruin the fragile state of mind he'd maintained.

"Eve can wait and so can the girl," he said, gently sliding the notebook away from Malcolm to offer himself as a replacement, free hand on the counter as his off hand moves to the side of Malcolm's neck. "For at least one more night. I got no doubt that you'll spend the whole morning goin' over what you're gonna say and how she might react.. So let's try to relax tonight before divin' into gettin' you outta here and into a beach house with me."

In case Malcolm's mind needed to be reminded of their end goal. A little light to make the lack of answers a little less disappointing.