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Hicks is out in the garden. Dana can hear him as she steps through the door and dumps her bag on the floor in the hall, just like she did when she was a kid. Except now there"s no one to yell at her. She wanders through the house and into the kitchen, where she grabs a glass of water and looks out into the garden.
The paddling pool is out again, she notices as she sips her water. Of course it is. The first sign of summer and he"s up at the end of the garden digging it out to fill it with water. It was one of the first things he bought after she had the baby. ("I never had one of these things. My kid is gonna learn how to swim, Dana!") Of course, at four years old Eva"s starting to outgrow it, but it"s not like he cares. Not on a Saturday when there"s nothing to do and the sun is actually shining and Dana isn"t home to tell him no.
Hicks - (he"s always been "Hicks" to her, even now that they"re married with a child) - has his feet in the pool, and is sitting in his crappy garden chair with his eyes closed. he"s wearing those floral shorts she bought as a joke last summer, and he"s not wearing a shirt, (presumably in the hopes of catching some sort of tan.) Eva"s splashing about with one of those inflatable toys he got on the cheap a couple of years ago, and they both look... Happy.
A smile crosses Dana"s face as she looks at her husband, looking like there"s nothing in the world that can rouse him. As long as he can hear Eva, he"s relaxed. She knows that if Eva stops laughing and splashing, even for a second, he"ll be up and alert in a heartbeat though. It"s an excellent quality. And probably the quality that saved both their lives back on LV-426. He"s cautious.
It"s also the quality, however, that postponed their marriage and Eva"s birth. After they got off that rocky wasteland and woke up in the Weyland-Yutani facility Hudson and Adams set up their bar and got married pretty speedily. Hicks" and Dana"s relationship took a little longer to establish properly. She can still remember being discharged. Can still remember talking to him about her plans, can remember him saying "I guess this is goodbye then?"
She sips her water again, a line appearing between her eyebrows. She hadn"t understood, initially. She"d thought he hadn"t been into her, that all those signals and looks she"d caught had just been a matter of proximity - she was attractive, he was attractive, and sex would be a welcome distraction from the death and horror around them. But then, when she kept going back to see him in the Hospital, stayed with him through his physical therapy, he started to open up a little. Once he"d recovered enough to leave the Hospital and actually go out he was reluctant.
Her eyes drift over the scar tissue that covers his torso, the scars he was so self-conscious about before. He wore a baseball cap the first time they went out, and a sweater despite the fact that it was nearly ninety degrees out. Kept his head bowed, his left hand in his pocket. he was worried people were staring at him. Worried they thought he was some kind of freak. Thought she"d be better off with a guy with good vision in both eyes, a guy who actually had his face intact still. She stubbornly threaded her fingers into his and told him she wasn"t going anywhere. That she didn"t give a shit that he was half blind in one eye. She didn"t care about the scars. They were there because he"d gone back to save her, he"d gone to protect her. He"d sacrificed that for her, and she wasn"t going to forget it.
The Weyland-Yutani surgeons have worked wonders, she admits. The chemical burns are less prominent now. They"re still there, still noticeable, but his face looks almost completely normal on the left side, and his chest could honestly be worse. It"s more the nerve damage he"s pissed about now. She could see the pain in his eyes when Eva was a baby, and was trying to grab at his face. Could see the hurt when her tiny hands slapped against his cheek gently and the dead nerve endings wouldn"t register it.
Even his left eye looks normal. Sure, it"s a little more of a washed-out gray than his right eye, but she assures him it"s only noticeable if you concentrate. And the people who concentrate on his eyes, get close enough, like her, don"t care.
She finishes her drink and puts it down on the side, watching her young daughter hitting against Hicks" leg with a rubber duck. Through the glass pane of the window, she can just hear the quacking noises the girl is making. A smile stretches across Hicks" lips, but other than that he doesn"t react.
Dana leaves the kitchen to go check the mail, because she knows Hicks won"t have done it. There are bills, letters from the doctor about his yearly checkup which she puts to one side, and a letter from her father. The guy has got to be the only person in existence who still writes to his friends and family. He"s invited the three of them over to visit for Christmas. Apparently he"s spending it at the base with some of his old Marine buddies. Hicks"ll probably enjoy that.
She drops the mail on the side table and kicks off her shoes, opening her communicator to check her video mail. Two messages from Adams, one from her father and... Three from the home vid-com?
She raises an eyebrow and brings them up, checking the thumbnails of each video. One is from Eva, who must have gotten into the study to send it to her. In the other two she can see Hicks in the background, with Eva on his lap. They"re both grinning into the camera.
She closes her communicator and puts it on the kitchen counter as she moves back to go out to the garden. The stones of the patio are warm on her feet as she pads across. Neither of them notice her as she gets close, and then Hicks speaks. "Afternoon."
"How do you do that?!"
He opens one eye and shoots her a grin. "Training, baby."
Eva"s seen her now, and she"s splashing about in the pool, yelling something about "Mommy!" and "Ducky!"
Laughing, Dana pulls up a chair and sits beside Hicks, dipping her feet into the cold water. "So what have you been up to today?"
Hicks" eyes are already closed again. "Check your vid-mail."
"I saw the messages. Haven"t opened them yet."
"You"ll love "em." He assures her, the smile creeping back on his face. "Won"t she, honey?"
Eva babbles something not entirely comprehensible in the paddling pool, before splashing her duck down into the water. Droplets hit Hicks and Dana, and she wrinkles her nose, making him laugh. "Oh, and Adams was here a couple of hours ago. Apparently Hudson wants to throw some cook out thing next weekend."
"Is he cooking?"
"God, I hope not." Hicks laughs. They sit there together for a while, before the sun goes in and Eva complains she"s getting cold. Hicks hoists her out of the pool and Dana grabs the blazer she discarded from the garden table, and the three retreat inside.
"She"s finally asleep."
Dana looks up. Hicks has appeared in the doorway of their bedroom, the book he was reading Eva in one hand. She grins - he complains about bedtime stories, but she knows he loves them really. She knows he likes watching Eva jab at the pictures of the characters, shouting out their names and talking about them like they"re really in the room with them. "What story was it tonight?"
"Actually." He tosses the book to one side and crawls into bed beside her, waiting for her to curl up to his side and lay her head on his chest. "She asked me about this."
He"s holding his left hand out a little bit, looking at it with an expression she can"t quite place. His eyes are tracing the scars. "What"d you tell her?"
"Told her I saved Mommy"s life. Told her I saved Uncle Hudson"s life, too."
"And Aunt Delilah?"
He snorts. "Aunt Delilah can take care of herself."
"Well she is the only one of us who didn"t get seriously wounded or captured."
"Aunt Delilah is a badass." He concludes, resting his hand on her back. She laughs and looks up at him from where she"s lying. Looks up at the scar tissue, which is clearer now she"s inches from it. She raises her index finger and traces along his jawline, and from where the muscles clench under her fingers, she can tell it feels weird for him. Some of the nerves are damaged, some are dead, but some are perfectly fine. When she moves her finger along like this, different parts of his jaw pick it up differently. A shiver runs down his spine, and she retracts the finger quickly.
"Sorry."
"It"s fine. Just... Still takes some getting used to I guess." He admits. She cups his face and kisses him gently, tenderly. When she pulls back he"s smiling, sadly now. "You still feel guilty, don"t you?"
The breath hitches in her throat, just a little. "Hicks, if I hadn"t jumped down to get Newt, then you wouldn"t have been attacked, and -"
"Dana, for the last time." He says calmly. "Shut up."
She purses her lips. It"s true - part of what happened to him was her fault - but she knows that her self-pity for his injuries is pretty stupid and only annoys him, so she drops it. "I love you, Dwayne."
He cocks an eyebrow. "You haven"t called me Dwayne in a while. S"usually just "Hicks"."
Her smile widens. "I don"t give a shit what Weyland-Yutani say. You"re always gonna be Corporal Hicks to me."
He presses his lips to hers again. "And you"re always gonna be that badass Analyst who"s a helluva shot."