The bag.

Charlie had made to move away to begin searching for the bag - had even located it by glancing around the room - when his words stopped her immediately.

Baby?

She couldn’t think about that right now. If he’d said that shit six months ago, she would have skipped her way to the phone and promptly made a call to Milly, asking what she should do, if she should address it, what did it mean. But clearly Luke wasn’t in his right state of mind and now was not the time to dwell. So she started again, her pulse lowering slightly with each step, until she grabbed the dusky bag that had clearly been through more than just one or two international flights.

Front. Pen. But as she opened the flap, her eyes skimmed over the contents quickly until they landed on envelopes. Normally she wouldn’t pry, but she could see the tops of some letters, like an ’S’ on one and a ‘Ch’ no the other. 

How did she suddenly have so many things to address with him? 

A little more digging procured a small, plastic bag and she opened it hastily, the leftover surge of adrenaline causing her fingers to still shake as she handed it to him. All she could do was hand it to him and watch helplessly as Luke administered the medication. 

Her eyes lingered on the scar; she hadn’t known it was so extensive, or so ugly. Emotion welled again in her throat as she wondered what he could have possibly endured to have that, but she refused to cry again. Refused to feel any relief as he looked up at her like she’d just caught him at the bar, refused to feel the way his hand had found its way to her waist. 

So she just waited there, until he let go of her and had some of his senses back. She didn’t want to look at the other things he had stored in the bag. It wasn’t any of her business, was it? Charlie tried to calm herself while Luke waited out the meds. “It’s okay,” she replied quietly, wishing she could give him some support other than silence.

[I]Fuck the farm[/I]. Fuck the farm exactly, if he said he overworked it and hadn’t got to much manual labor at all. It would have been nice had he been upfront about the injury but she knew better than to expect that from him. Charlie remembered throwing the words “If you don’t talk about it, it just didn’t happen then?” more than a few times, always in frustration at how eager he was to hide things from them.

From her.

She started to clean up, putting leftovers in tubs then washing the pots he’d used and the cutlery they’d dirtied. Charlie was quick to remove her plate and was thankful that Luke was still trying to recover from his episode, and by the time he spoke again, all that was left was his plate. 

Looking up at him, anger replaced whatever nondescript feelings she had in that moment. “TV? You wanna watch fucking TV and not talk about a goddamn thing that just happened?” She scoffed, raised a brow, and crossed her arms, watching for changes in his expression. “You wanna have a complete come apart at dinner, not tell me how you got that scar, call me baby, tell me to get in your bag where there’s letters fucking addressed to me and your dead brother, then ask me if I want to watch TV?” She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, Luke.”