Work Text:
Hope had been reading a book when Scott sent her a text asking her to come downstairs and help him get something from his car. When she got down to the street, the trunk to his Honda Accord was open, with several terracotta gardening pots and a bag of soil.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Well, it’s springtime and I thought it would be fun to plant some things and put them by the window.”
“Like what?” She picked up the pots and he picked up the bag of soil.
“I don’t know. Maybe flowers, Cassie likes planting those.” He frowned as they went back up the stairs. “Or at least, she did.”
“Well, maybe she still does.”
Hope hadn’t been involved in much gardening as a child. The only thing she recalled was the windowbox her mother planted tulips in every spring, until she was sent to boarding school and the flowers withered and nothing was planted there ever again. Flowers and plants and everything else were the subject of biology classes ever again, and while science had always been her passion, that passion was not as strong in the biology classroom.
They picked up Cassie that evening and Hope didn’t think she had seen her stepdaughter that excited in a while.
“We should definitely do that! Remember, we planted some stuff that last summer.”
Last summer. That was the title that those last few months before the Snap was for everyone who was gone. Hope was pretty sure it would always have that title, no matter how much time had passed.
Hope was also sure Cassie didn’t have her seatbelt on, based on how she was now resting both of her elbows on the shoulders of the two seats in order to have a conversation with the two of them.
“Cass, I can’t see behind the car if you’re blocking the mirror,” Hope said.
“Oh, sorry.” Sure enough, there was the click of the seatbelt.
“I think it would liven up your apartment too,” Cassie said, to which Scott turned around in the passenger seat.
“Do you not like my interior decorating?” he asked, faking taking offense.
“Hmm. Well, I just think some plants would be nice.” Hope took a glance into the rear view mirror to see Cassie grinning.
They picked a pizza up from the Mom and Pop place on the corner by the apartment building, and decided that the evening was nice enough that they could eat it out on top of the flat roof of the apartment building, which had been discovered by the tenants last summer as a great place to spend the evenings when it was nice out.
“I’m gonna head back down to the apartment if that’s cool,” Cassie said after a long period of pause. “I have chemistry homework to do.”
Scott handed her the keys and she headed downstairs.
“You okay?” Hope asked, putting a hand on his arm once she was gone, noticing the look on his face.
“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate, maybe just wanting to stick to his own thoughts, but Hope could tell what he was thinking, and it was definitely along the lines of “in my brain, her homework should still be learning times tables rather than the periodic table.”
Hope put her head on his shoulder. “She’s excited to plant everything tomorrow.”
Scott nodded. “Yeah.”
When Hope lifted her head he kissed her gently, and sat in silence until the rest of the crowd on the roof had disappeared and the stars had come out and it was just the two of them.
“You had a garden at the townhouse, right, with Luis?” she asked, a yawn mixing in at the end.
“We did. We tried to plant a few things but the backyard was always sunny so everything just withered and we were so busy trying to stop X-Con from sinking. Kind of wish we had more space now but some plants on the windowsill will be nice.”
It was silent out now, except for the rush of the cars on the street below and the gentle hum of the early summer city.
They cleaned up everything and went back to the apartment, where Cassie was jamming out with her headphones at the kitchen table, her chemistry textbook open.
“I don’t know how she thinks straight with that music blasting,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I’m gonna go throw this pizza box away.”
Hope went to brush her teeth and on her way back to their room caught eye contact with Cassie.
“Goodnight!” Hope said, a little louder than normal, as if her voice could somehow make its way through the noise coming through the headphones.
Cassie waved goodnight and turned back to her textbook and Hope went to her and Scott’s room. She didn’t quite know where Scott was, expecting him to come in soon, but he didn’t. Hope fell asleep long before he eventually did.
When summer sun rose up in the morning, it hit the window of the apartment in a way that there was a giant patch of light on the floor, like a bright spot on a patchwork quilt. They spent that morning planting all of the seeds in the terracotta pots.
By the end, there were six pots sitting on the windowsill, full with soil and watered, sitting in the sunshine just waiting to grow after a long series of laughs and several iterations from Cassie of “Dad, I can do it.”
Scott and Cassie had also had a fun game of seeing how much dirt they could “accidentally” fling on each other without getting it on the floor. Nonetheless, plenty did end up there, and they were tasked with vacuuming it all.
When Cassie went to her room and everything was safely cleaned up, he moved in for a hug before she stopped him with a hand.
“You are covered in potting soil-“ she said and he gave a frown.
“Ah, this is what I get for my hard efforts potting the plants this morning.” But he was just teasing, in a way that was so pleasantly familiar.
“I showered this morning and I don’t want to have to again,” she said, picking up her notebook. She did, however, grant him a quick kiss. “Which I think you should go do now.”
“You could always join me,” he suggested with a grin as they parted, and she pushed him away.
“Maybe later,” she said right as the bathroom door shut.
Hope had mentioned the story of the tulip box to Scott one evening, and they decided one Saturday to surprise her mother with tulip bulbs to plant in the window box.
“I had forgotten I used to plant those,” her mother said as Hope handed her the box. “I suppose I must have forgotten about… a lot of things while I was in there.”
She didn’t have to clarify. Hope knew her mother’s memory about certain things was gone a lot of days. Not everything- she remembered Hope and Hank like she had never been gone, but the little things, the things that were gone from her daily and yearly routines had slipped from her mind.
But together they all planted the tulip bulbs in the window box and everything blossoming seemed perfectly fit.