Casting Bones on the Future

Caroline squeezed some mint gel onto her toothbrush, lost in a myriad of complicated thoughts. The mint did help quiet her innards, if not her mind. She completely the task mechanically.

Nothing made sense. If the rioters were the culprits, wouldn't it have been alright to stay with her parents? Surely, the police would have been able to keep them from attacking a hospital. There was something weird about all of this. And then there were the godawful dreams and the lapses in her own memory. Why couldn't she remember when and how she'd gotten home that one night?

The sound of the brush against her teeth slowed to a stop when Tobias called out a suggestion. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and tried to suppress a hysterical sort of mirth. Yes, the offer was sweet, but it felt like they were doing everything backwards. They'd started with the old-couple arguments, then had done the pregnancy drama, and now they were in the dating stage? What a strange way of going about things.

She spat minty white foam into the sink and rinsed her mouth, the toothbrush, and the marble. After putting everything away, she moved into the living room and sat next to Tobias. "Yeah, sure. That might be nice." She wanted to lean against him, but that seemed oddly too intimate. That, of course, was completely stupid given their level of intimacy in the past, but this was intimate on a different level. They'd done everything passionate, somehow skipping over the sweet. "It'll be interesting to do this without alcohol. I guess I'll have to be on my best behavior, because I won't be able to blame my actions on that factor anymore," she commented with a chuckle.

She gave in to her impulse and leaned against Tobias. To Hell with the awkwardness.

Tobias shifted and draped his arm around Caroline's shoulders. This was nice, just a quiet evening alone. He was happy that Emilio didn't linger around but what he had said still irked at Tobias. There were nagging little hints that he just couldn't put his finger on and his intuition was going in many different directions.

"Are you feeling better?" Tobias asked, giving Caroline a small squeeze. When his mother had been pregnant with Tobias' sisters, his stepfather had developed a sympathy sickness. It had always been a joke in the family, but now Tobias was beginning to understand it a bit better. Listening to vomiting, let alone smelling it, was enough to make anyone sick.

But her queasy stomach was not the only then Tobias had been questioning. He had been thinking of Caroline's distress, but left the question ambiguous just in case she still wasn't feeling open to discuss the rioting.

Caroline shrugged against him, wondering if it would be better to deliberately misinterpret the question and tell him that she'd be able to eat in a bit. Finally, she replied, "I don't know. I'm still confused, but at least the surroundings are familiar. And you're here." She closed her eyes. "I feel safer here... with you."

She sighed lightly and relaxed a little more. How exhausted she felt had not really sunk in until just now and there was nothing she wanted to do more than fall asleep next to Tobias. Fear and doubt were heavy emotions to carry for a week. "Dreams are always sweeter when you're around," she mumbled. "Old memories don't plague me... as much." Based on the cadence and the steady trailing off of her words, she was on the cusp of sleep when she finally asked,

"Do something else for me? Will you... marry me?"

Tobias smiled a little at her words. They were romantic in a way and he was only sorry that he couldn't wipe out her bad memories completely. While Caroline spoke, he ran his thumb over her shoulder affectionately. When she had first finished speaking, Tobias leaned in to kiss her but paused halfway. She was proposing to him.

The gears in his head seemed to grind to a halt. Maybe it was the tired old way in which he was raised, but Tobias couldn't wrap his mine around the idea of a woman proposing to a man. His brow furrowed and his mouth hung slightly ajar, as he still hovered within kissing distance.

"Wait...No...no. I'm the one that's supposed to ask that," he sputtered out finally. "I've been waiting half my life to ask the right girl." Tobias leaned back and removed his arm from her shoulders. And now he had ruined the moment for her as well, but it was just all so wrong. It wasn't just because Caroline was a woman either. The timing...the moment...all of it was just off completely.

Nothing like the cold, hard slap of reality to bring one right out of a sleepy/happy (ish) state of mind. Caroline straightened slightly, giving Tobias a searching gaze. She wasn't sure if she was hurt or amused by his non-answers. She sighed and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. "Get over it, Sweetheart. Either I'm the right girl or I'm not. The fact that I proposed to you shouldn't be so much of a surprise- we do everything else backwards. Or you bothered that I didn't get you a fancy ring?" she said in a quiet voice as stood up, regretting that she couldn't drink away the sting of not being accepted right away.

"The offer still stands, even if you do have to think about it." The fact that he might threatened to send her shoulders slumping forward, but Caroline was nothing if not dignified. His reaction would have been funny if it had been in response to anything else. Even if it had been a different day, in a better year, maybe it would have been funny then. Not now, not here. Not to this question.

Her tone was unintentionally taut when she nodded in his direction and said, "Goodnight, Tobias. You can stay here if you want, or you can go back to Jaime's place. It's up to you. There are clean sheets in the spare room." She gave him one last glance before slipping into her own room and closing the door behind her.

She wasn't going to cry, dammit. He hadn't given her an outright refusal. But was if she wasn't the right girl? Caroline told herself firmly that if that were the case, he wouldn't have been so persistent after the Renata incident. He wouldn't have taken the pregnancy so well if he didn't care for her, right?

Tobias leaned back, his brow still knitted in worry. What just happened? How did this turn into a row and what the hell did he do wrong to merit her disappearing into her bedroom like that? He didn't even have time to react.

For a few minutes, he sat there feeling foolish and confused. Then, Tobias stood and crossed to her bedroom. He knocked on the door and it opened slightly, though he hadn't meant for it to. "Caroline?" he called out softly, leaning against the door frame but not looking in on her to show some respect. "Please don't just leave like that whenever a confrontation comes up..."

Tobias raked his hand through his hair and swallowed down his masculine pride. "Don't you want to here my answer?" His blood was aching for a cigarette, but it would have to wait. This was more important than small addictions.

The image of Caroline in a crisp white dress, her wonderful face veiled in a sheer fabric, fluttered forward in his mind. The thought of slipping one of those lacy guarders down her leg caused a smile to play at the corners of his lips. "It's yes, if your wondering," Tobias added smoothly.

Caroline wondered how he had jumped to the conclusion that this had been a confrontation. For it to be one of those, participation was necessary on both sides. She had been on the verge of undressing (thank goodness she hadn't actually gotten that far yet) when he'd approached and knocked.

In fact, she was going to plead sleepiness and try to postpone this discussion until the morning, but he went and gave her an answer instead. A moment of stunned silence preceded a clumsy dash across the room so she could hug him.

"Oh, oh!" she uttered, completely overcome by feeling and unable to frame an adequate response. "Tobias... you don't know how much this means to me," she finally said. His scent was almost overpowering, but she was so busy thinking about other things that it was impossible to feel nauseated.

Not expecting Caroline to fling herself at him, Tobias was thrown off balance, but made up for it by spinning slightly and holding Caroline in his arms. He smiled wide and set her on her feet. "Okay, but just because we're doing everything backwards doesn't mean I'm okay with wearing the dress. That's all you."

"Can I move back in, or do you want to be traditional and live in separate places until after we're married?" There really was too much to think about when it came to this sort of thing and he wasn't sure how to start. He couldn't help but wonder if Caroline was using this as a distraction from all her troubles back at home, but it wasn't a conversation Tobias wanted to start.

Caroline somehow managed to sigh and laugh at the same time. "I think you'd look good no matter what you wore... but no, I'll wear the dress. By the time we pull this thing together, I'll probably be in maternity clothing." Caroline was almost excited about being pregnant at this point, though her feelings were definitely of the mixed variety still. She'd wanted kids, sure, but she'd also wanted to plan things out. It wasn't a great time to be pregnant, what with all of the stuff going on lately.

Even if her parents hadn't been attacked, the events worldwide were the kind of thing that made her wonder if there would be another Inquisition. The fear and hate were on a steady rise, with no signs of slowing. The sheer lack of level heads trying to control this situation baffled her.

She arched an eyebrow and leaned away from him at his question. "What kind of question is that? Of course you can move back in." Caroline smiled and went to go find her pajamas. "The way I see it: the only impediment to you sharing my bed tonight is the fact that your clothes smell like cigarettes, which under normal circumstances wouldn't bother me a bit. As things are, I'm sorry to say that the smell is up there with garlic and sardines on the stomach-upset-o-meter." She cast a coy look over her shoulder. "And that's easily remedied."

The woman opened her suitcase and pulled out the pair of shorts and baggy t-shirt that served as her nightclothes, thinking. If Tobias spent the night with her, it would be unfair to wear pjs...

Tobias let out a dramatic scoff. "Woman! How dare you think I waste the effort with bed clothes!" He gave Caroline a very cheeky grin and wiggled his eyebrows. Though, he reasoned with himself, he should probably get in a last cigarette and brush his teeth before getting into anything with her this evening.

The addiction was itching at him and Tobias nearly yanked his crumpled back out of his pocket. A little bit of fabric stuck out of the lining of his jeans, like a tongue. "Speaking of..." he muttered more subdued now as he removed a cigarette from the case.

It should not be over looked that Tobias watched Caroline bend over her bag with a hungry look in his pale eyes. Calmly, he packed in the loose tobacco against the heal of his left palm. Never mind. The smoking could wait. He tucked it behind his ear and reached out for Caroline just as she stood up and pulled her in for one long passionate kiss.