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

[angriestman]

"He's okay, Rachel," says Raylan, picking him up. He checks him over quickly, finds nothing amiss other than the screaming, which is more shock than anything, and lays him gently down in the grass before he turns back to her.

"What hurts?"

[sluttylyingliar]

"I..." she starts, bringing one jerky hand up to her face. "I don't think anything's broken. I think I hit my shoulder and my face. Maybe my ribs. It's fine, Raylan I don't care are you sure he's okay?"

[angriestman]

"He's fine," he says, again, his hands on, feeling for more obvious hurts. Gently, he turns her face with his fingertips against her jaw. "We'll take him to the clinic and we'll get you both checked out but I just want to make sure that you're not gonna fall apart if I lift you."

He glances at the stairs.

"They just went?"

[sluttylyingliar]

"I don't...I don't know. They've never even shaken before, Raylan. You built them they were solid," she says, slowly managing to push up to her knees, hand out to stop him from helping. "Carry him; I'll be fine just carry him"

[angriestman]

"They were solid," he says, looking at them for a minute. Hell, he'd come down them himself an hour or two before, with no problems at all. He gives her one last look and then turns to pick the baby up because the last thing she needs is to end up agitated.

"Okay," he says, the baby balanced in the crook of his arm, still screaming, as he offers her his hand. "I've got him."

[sluttylyingliar]

Rachel finally lets herself be pulled up, immediately dropping kisses to Jess's red, angry face. "Those steps didn't so much as fucking wobble," she grinds out, teeth clenched in an effort not to raise her voice. "Someone fucked with it. Christ, Raylan, I could have crushed him to death. I could have dropped him."

[angriestman]

"But you didn't," he says, voice firm and level and eyes still on the steps. "Now, we are going to go get both of you checked out and then I am going to come home and I am going to look at the damned steps, okay?"

And that's when he sees it - a flicker in the corner of his eye that looks like Arlo, just for a split second. He doesn't turn his head.

[sluttylyingliar]

"Please, Raylan, please," she breathes, turning up the path, cradling her rapidly bruising face. "I'm not crazy, okay? Look at them when we get back. I just...something feels really wrong about this."

[angriestman]

"I'll look at them," he promises. In the back of his head, he thinks about whether an island that can change all around them between one breath and the next could also fuck with steps. "I promise."