For Raylan and Danny - Esther plot

[sluttylyingliar]

 Rachel has bounded up and down the steps to their porch hundreds of times. Up and down the four steps quickly and without even thinking about it. Raylan built that porch sturdy and strong and while she's grateful for it, it's not really something she ever thinks about. She doesn't think twice about keeping Jess perched happily on one hip with his baby bag slung around the other shoulder. She's more than ready to get home, half a mind to cook Raylan something for dinner like an actual goddamn wife and reward his heartily with his husbandly rights. 

That's the very last thing she thinks before the top step gives way. Later on, she'll try to remember what happened but in that split second, she managed to get both arms around Jess, pulling him tight as first her shoulder and then face catches the side of the porch, landing her hard on her right side in the dirt. Jess immediately lets out a terrified shriek as Rachel lays gasping on the ground, too stunned to move or to check on Jess. Just gasps and doesn't. move. an inch.

Comments

[sluttylyingliar]

"He finished this porch like a year ago," he hisses. Her mind is whirling but keeps sticking on the same thing. There's no way. She's just a freaky kid. But her gut says she just tried to kill her kid.

"It was rock solid this morning," she grunts, pushing herself up to stand, reaching out a hand to smooth back Jess's hair and kiss his face. She doesn't trust herself to hold him, but she needs to feel he's okay.

[haolehothead]

"Rachel, you just had a hard fall, okay? Can you please looking for some conspiracy theory about the screws in your porch?" he hisses, holding onto Jess as lightly as he can so as not to scare the young boy. "It was an accident. And if it wasn't, I'm sure it happened by accident."

If it didn't, then Danny's really freaked out. "How about I send Nick this way later today, okay? He'll do a CSI sweep of the place?"

[sluttylyingliar]

"I'm not crazy, Danny," she murmurs in a hard, low voice as she moves to slowly move with them towards the clinic. "And yes, I want someone to look at it. I..." she trails off, not yet willing to tell him what she thinks. Who she suspects. "I think someone did this."

[haolehothead]

"I'll talk to Nick, okay? But you have to promise me that if he looks and he doesn't find anything that you'll let it go, just like I'll look into it," he says. "You just had a baby, you're sleep-deprived. Rachel, this is probably just nature. The daily rain showers making the wood contract so the screws don't fit right."