xp_logs | [Logan, Tore] Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past. (Reply)

Logan and Tore, Monday evening before dinner.

Tore parked the car and, loosening his tie, got out and stretched. A day of meetings in the office was not his idea of a relaxing time. He far preferred being out on job sites. He came in the front door and listened. There were women's voices upstairs and he smiled.

"Sharon! When's dinner?" he shouted up the stairs.

"Not even a half hour," she called back. "Don't you eat anything, Tore."

"Fine. I'll just be out back then." Having a cigarette. A blessed cigarette after being stuck in the smoke-free zone of the office all day. He wasn't a smoker, Tore always told himself, he just liked a cigarette once in a while.

He looked around the downstairs on his way to put his briefcase in the office and didn't see any sign of the man who'd come home with Marie. If he was smart, he was outside. Tore looked out the back window. Sure enough, the man was out in the gazebo some distance from the house, reading a book and smoking a cigar. He chuckled a little as he thought, -Trained already, is he?-

Sharon had said not to eat anything. Beer, however, was not technically a foodstuff, and Tore pulled two out of the fridge before heading out back, opening his cigarette case with his free hand.

Logan was finishing off The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe, the book he'd started (re)reading the night before. He was halfway through "The Tell-Tale Heart" and there was only poetry to read, after that. Chewing on the end of his cigar, he turned the page, and then took the cigar out of his mouth and flicked off the ashes into an ashtray just before they started to flutter off in the breeze.

Tore didn't say anything as he stepped up into the gazebo, just offered a beer to Logan while folding up his cigarette case -- having successfully gotten one out and into his mouth -- and putting it back in his suit pocket.

Logan accepted the beer, twisting the cap off quickly and taking a drink. He put his book to the side and sucked in a breath through his cigar, then nodded his thanks to Tore.

"She looks good," Tore said quietly, watching the swing sway in the breeze.

"Been good for 'er, seein' 'er fam'ly again," Logan said, taking no credit for Marie's health and well-being.

"Looks aren't everything." Tore opened his beer and flipped the lid into the ashtray. "And she'd be falling down before she let on she wasn't doing good, if she's anything like she used to be. She's got her pride. Something brought her home at a run." He glanced over at Logan, feeling in his pocket for his lighter. "You gonna tell me how she really is?"

Logan snorted. "'s for her t'tell, ain't it?" he said, draining a quarter of the bottle of beer. He sighed, then, and looked at Tore. "She's been better. An' worse."

"Only works if she talks. And she didn't, not before she ran." Tore lit his cigarette and inhaled, thinking he'd have been better to bring out a bottle of scotch instead. "Not after that thing with Cody, she didn't. Never saw anything like her eyes back then. Don't think I could take seeing her worse than that. Good to know she's been better than this too, though." He sat down on the top step and leaned his back against one of the posts of the archway. "Didn't expect to see her again."

"I didn't think you'd be seein' 'er again, either," Logan said bluntly. "Guess she decided it was worth th'risk."

"You disagree? Is she making a mistake being here?" Tore didn't look over at him, just watched the wind push the empty swing.

"Nah. She needed t'come more'n she needed t'make sure th'army don't bother y'no more." Logan chewed his cigar over to the corner of is mouth. "Ain't my decision, anyhow, either way."

"Sharon didn't mean for her not to come home on our account," Tore said tiredly. "Just didn't want her walking in where they were looking for her. Telling her to stay away on her own account was spittin' in the wind, pretty much. You'd probably know that well and good. If y'don't, my eyes are going."

Logan nodded. "I ain't sayin' y'didn't want 'er around. Just, that's what she thought, prob'ly, an' I know she didn't want th'army bangin' on your door."

"She can't fix what's broke about the world like that." Tore shook his head and sighed. "Not her problem if the army's banging on my door, as long as they're not there to put their hands on her, though God knows they'd have to go through me first for all that's worth. Where she got this damn idea that anybody'd be better for having her gone... wish I could say I didn't know where she got it, but I can see where she did. She shoulda just told us to get our damn heads on straight."

Logan was glad to see that Tore knew what he'd done wrong. He seemed like a good man, and Logan would rather not have to hate Marie's father, if he could help it. "'s not how she works," he said, shrugging.

"Well, somebody better teach her different, least to keep her from hurting herself too much." Tore took a drink of his beer and looked over at Logan. "She's not done growing up yet. There's still time."

Logan flicked the ashes off his cigar again, then took a swig of beer. "Think I've taught 'er enough t'last a lifetime. Or two," he muttered against the rim of the bottle. "She's learnin' t'take care of 'erself, lately, an' she's doin' a damn good job of it," he said, this time more loudly.

Tore nodded, taking in what Logan said and thinking about it for a while. "She came home. I hope it's a good sign," he said at last.

"Daddy! Logan!" Marie leaned out the back door, calling them. "It's dinnertime."

"Coming, Princess." Tore reached out and buried the butt of his cigarette in the sand of the ashtray.

Princess. It was strange to hear her called something like that, but fitting, too. "I hope so, too," Logan muttered, following Tore's lead and putting out his cigar in the ashtray before heading inside.

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tag and title from Tonight will be Fine by Leonard Cohen.