i wish you'd write a fic where charlie recognizes that the people who love her really do love her and finds peace and acceptance with her found family
Somewhere between stirring sugar into her coffee and looking out the window to see the stars positioned just a little bit differently than they had been back in the Mojave, Charlie realized that the usual tension in her shoulders wasn’t there. She couldn’t pinpoint, exactly, when she’d stopped holding herself so tightly bound that her joints creaked. Maybe, like with all other progress she’d made, it had been a slow process with weekly, daily, hourly, small adjustments.
She blew on her coffee, brought it to her lips. It was grainy: it always was. Little bits of the rough-ground coffee stuck to her teeth, but that never bothered her overmuch. It was Arcade that would complain about it, she thought with a smile. He’d ask if the filter had been replaced with burlap, and Callinan would reach over and offer to take his mug, if Arcade hated it so much. Arcade would decline, and sip at it with that same faux-sour face he always had in the morning. It had become a ritual, something akin to a morning prayer.
But first, she needed to wake them. She fed some wood into the stove, started a second pot of coffee as she waited for the fire to build. Something simple this morning: some eggs, and a bit of the brahmin meat left over from the night before. She’d only just started to push the meat around in the pan before Keira came into the room carrying Davi on her hip.
“How’s my favorite kid in the whole wide world?” Charlie gushed, leaning to kiss her son on his forehead. Davi babbled quietly into Keira’s shirt, gripping it against his face.
“He’s still tired,” Keira said with a yawn of her own. She gave Charlie a kiss, mindful of Davi, cradling him away from the stove.
They sat, and Keira pretended to read the paper to him, telling him a story about some raider gang that roamed the wastes, stealing from the rich and throwing quips behind them as they would make their daring escapes.
Davi, who was fifteen months old, would sometimes try to carry on the conversation with his mama.
The smell of Charlie’s cooking had summoned the earlier risers. Callinan, who seemingly never slept, was the next one in. He tousled Charlie’s hair as he entered, grabbed the fresh pot of coffee, and sat across from Keira and Davi. Charlie would sometimes catch Cal making faces at Davi, and Davi would burble and shriek in that happy way babies sometimes did. This morning he was even using his words- “No!” he’d giggle, reaching towards Cal and grabbing the air, “no, no, no!”
Next came Reid and Xander. It had almost been unsettling back when Reid first joined, the way he and Xander would sometimes fall into step with each other. They were both quiet this morning, like most mornings, and they both gave Charlie a small smile that only just reached their eyes before each taking a mug of coffee out of her hands.
There were a few more minutes of calm, the Commonwealth’s crisp autumnal air coming in through a sunrise-lit window.
“Come get y’all’s plates,” she said, and they lined up in the order they’d arrived: a rule that had to be made nearly a year ago after what could only be called extremely heated negotiations. She doled out the food, laughed when Cal pinched her cheek and had the steak in his mouth before he’d even sat down.
Crow would come down soon, Charlie knew, and she went ahead and made a plate for him, set it aside.
Tex had better hope he woke up before everything else had been eaten, she thought, but she’d learned not to hold food for him too long. He’d eat it even if it had started to turn, and there was no way of knowing if he’d be up in the next twelve hours.
Arcade shuffled in, looking half-ghouled with wrinkles on his face from sleeping too soundly. Charlie pushed his hair away from his eyes, straightening his bedhead just a bit. She put his cup of coffee in his hands. He took a sip, then grimaced.
“What, did you replace the filter with burlap?”
Charlie smiled. “Love you too, Gannon.”
“Hey, now, if you don’t want it-” Callinan started, reaching out towards Arcade’s mug.
