#cath is me when i'm severely sleep deprived

[the-quiet-winds]

Winter Can’t Hold Back the Spring

“You’re allowed to be human, Parr.”

“That’s dumb,” Catherine giggles. “Of course I can be human! But why would I want to be?”

Anna raises an eyebrow. “What is going on with you?”

“Me?” Catherine repeats, an incredulous laugh in the single word. “Nothing! You’re the one being weird!”

“Okay,” Anna takes a step back. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“I do that sometimes,” Parr says deliriously.

With that, Anna exits the room and, with a shake of her head, makes her way down the stairs to the kitchen. 

It’s quiet. Eerily so. 

Anne was on holiday in France, and Aragon, Jane, and Katherine were all out for the day at some museum exhibit, leaving Anna and Parr alone. 

Anna and Parr were never alone together. This was uncharted territory.

And something was wrong with Parr, too.

She heads back upstairs with two mugs, one of tea and one of coffee, and knocks softly on Parr’s door.

Catherine opens it, smiling brightly, still slightly deliriously.

“Anna! Come in,” she says, and Anna is taken aback. She’s never been invited in Parr’s study, really only Katherine was allowed in, and sometimes Jane or Aragon, and her original plan was to just coax Cath out and down to join her on the couch.

But then, there she is, sitting cross-legged on Cath’s bed, sipping her coffee as Catherine furiously types at her computer, barely drinking the tea that Anna had prepared for her.

“Catherine?” Anna asks softly.

“Not now.”

Once again, Anna is taken aback. The giggly, slightly-stupid Catherine who had invited her in is gone, replaced by obsessed-with-her-work-like-always Parr.

Oh.

“Catherine.”

“Not now!”

“Catherine!”

“God, will you shut up?” Catherine whirls around in her chair to face Anna. “I invite you in here and you won’t let me do my work! What’s with that?”

Anna looks at her, hurt and nearly frightened by the outburst. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with you,” she admits in a small voice, one that doesn’t sound anything like Anna at all.

“The only thing wrong with me is that somebody won’t let me do my work!”

“That’s not true,” Anna challenges. “Something else is going on here.”

“What do you know?” Catherine counters, but there is far less accusation in her words now, like someone had taken a bucket of water to the bonfire in her chest.

“I know you, Cathy,” Anna says, “I know how you like your tea and how you hate being bored and not having work, and-” she cuts off at feeling a bump on her arm. She looks down and smiles at the tabby cat begging for attention. She gives him a scratch behind the ear and smirks at Catherine. “He agrees with me. Something is up with you.”

As if to prove her point, Argyle gives a soft yowl. Then he darts from under Anna’s hand over to the window to play with the curtains.

They sway at the mercy of his tiny kitty claws, and the escaping sunlight illuminate the dark circles under Catherine’s eyes.

“Catherine,” Anna says quietly, “when was the last time you slept?”

That catches Parr’s attention, and she turns down to look at her knees. 

“Cathy,” Anna says again. She moves to in front of Catherine on the floor, trying to catch her eyes.

“Tuesday,” Catherine finally mumbles out.

“It’s Thursday,” Anna says, concerned. 

Those two, tiny words are all it takes for Catherine to shatter. Tears, tears she can’t control, stream down her face as she tries to hide behind a hand, while the other just clings to the arm of the chair.

“Hey,” Anna interjects softly, putting a hand on Catherine’s knee. “It’s okay.” She moves her hand to cover Catherine’s, gripping the arm of her desk chair like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“I have to finish-”

“It can wait,” Anna promises. 

“No,” Catherine protests. She pulls away to continue working, even through her tears. She types furiously, almost as if there was a word count she had to meet or she would never be able to write again.

Words, Anna decides, not failing to see the irony, are lost on the writer. 

So she takes more drastic measures.

With a deep breath, she grabs the back of Catherine’s chair and rolls it away from the desk. She hits save on the document Parr was writing, closed her laptop, and blocked her from accessing it. 

“You need to sleep, Catherine,” Anna says firmly, yet with concern. “There’s still plenty of time before we have to go to the theater.”

“It’s for Jane.”

Anna tilts her head slightly so Catherine continues. “It’s about Edward.” There are tears in her eyes again. “She’s been missing him lately… I’ve been working on something about him.”

“It’ll be there later,” Anna reminds her, “but you need to be in an alright state of mind to tell that story right.”

Catherine meets her eyes, and there’s that wisdom that Anna had yet to see. “You’re right,” she admits.

Anna cracks a smirk. “What did you say?” She teased. “Did you say I’m right?” She softens when Catherine yawns, and extends a hand. “Come on, sleepy bones. Bed time.”

“Stay with me?” 

The plea was soft, barely coherent as Anna led Catherine to bed, but Anna had nodded.

“Of course.”

When Jane, Aragon, and Katherine return from the museum hours later, they had half-expected to find Anna on the couch, maybe even Parr. 

But there was stillness, silence.

“They didn’t leave, did they?” Aragon asks quietly.

Jane spots Argyle on the stairs, and he leads her up to Catherine’s room. 

The door is cracked open, and Jane can just make out Parr curled up, head on Anna’s shoulder, as the latter holds her, both dead asleep.

Argyle squeezes through the crack and leaps onto the bed to lay on Anna’s stomach.

Jane lets them sleep.

When Anna blinks awake only a little while after to hear the dim noises of the other queens downstairs, the feels a weight on her stomach and on her shoulder.

Catherine smiles in her sleep, just so, and Argyle’s ears are flat against his head.

“Guess I’m good at this whole sleep-holding thing,” she chuckles softly to herself, then brings her free arm behind her head to stare at the ceiling.

She wouldn’t dream of moving from that position until she absolutely has to wake Catherine, so that is exactly where they stay.

And Anna wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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