The Epic Cough – Robert and Alice – G

[halfaustere.livejournal.com]

March 1962

Robert had been off all night.

Not off enough to cancel his plans – a relaxing dinner with Alice at a small place by the hospital – apparently, but somewhat less sociable and cheerful than he often was. While Robert was no Sully, he also usually wasn't quite this solemn. Though he was happy to speak and kept a smile on, it was obviously somewhat put upon and he didn't really suggest any topic of conversation on his own.

Mostly because he hadn't wanted to plague Alice with why. He knew if he'd talked about his day he'd just end up crying, and so he kept his mouth shut, and when the tube pulled up and they stood to board, Alice arm in arm with him, he had to actually stop himself from sighing in relief lest she think it had something to do with her.

Truly, Alice was the only thing that day that hadn't been miserable.

But she was certainly paranoid.

At first, she had assumed Robert was tired. He had a full schedule where she had twenty four hours of free time every day. It wasn't unusual for him to be overworked, but this was different than overworked. So Alice was paranoid, because even though she had no reason to be (they weren't dating, after all, no matter how convinced she was that Robert felt the same way about her she did for him), he was still unhappy, and she had kept her worries in for the better part of an hour, but was going to keep herself up all night if she didn't ask him what was wrong.

( She just couldn't do it yet. )