Maggie Beauford

The gas station's not exactly being built from the ground up, despite her earlier statement, but there is a lot of work to be done. Forrest is the one who moves to start fixing up the outside of the place, repairing broken windows and shutters, patching holes in the roof, that sort of thing. Maggie is the one who supervises the interior, hauling out the broken appliances and putting in the orders to replace them with new ones - or, slightly used, since nothing really needs to be in brand-new condition around this place. She knows Forrest wouldn't be comfortable unless there was at least one squeaky floorboard.

Her latest task is fixing the seats of the rocking chairs on the porch, putting new cushions together and fixing the intricately laced thatching of the backs. She works to the constant sound of hammering nails, or a saw moving through wood, and every now and then a grunt of exertion - or pain, if the hammer slips.

By the time they head back to the apartment building, they're both exhausted and completely content with the day's work, and Maggie leads the way into Forrest's without any hesitating whatsoever. There's a familiarity here, as she moves around the kitchen, preparing the kettle full of water to put some tea on after they both get cleaned up. She hears him heading into the washroom and her hand stills over the knob on the stovetop before slowly turning it off. The sound of the shower starting up precedes the sound of the unlocked door creaking open.

She's pulled off the handkerchief holding her hair back first, stripping out of her trousers and then yanking her blouse up over her head. She can see the faint outline of his body, the breadth of his shoulders. His back is still turned when she steps in behind him, fits herself against him, lowers her head to kiss the place between his shoulderblades, rivulets running down over his skin.

It's been about a week since Maggie found herself here in this city instead of back at the station the way she'd originally planned, but she's trying. She prides herself on being the kind of girl who can adapt and change for a new set of circumstances, but she knows it wouldn't be half as easy as it is without him here. Living on her own, though - that's something that takes her back a little, back to the morning she'd spent in that tiny little apartment smoking her way through a pack of cigarettes and trying to cover up bruises as best she could.

She goes to see Forrest every couple of days, though, even as she wonders if she should be coming around more often. She worries about him, living by his lonesome, especially given he's without even a single one of his brothers. She even wonders if it would be a good idea for her to address trying to get a closer room with him, though that seems a bold suggestion to make and one she isn't sure she's even entitled to think about.

It's plain reasoning that brings her to his apartment tonight, despite having received an invitation to a party in the mail. She ignores it in favor of standing on his doorstep dressed all in green with a basket full of food - there's a bottle or two in there as well - and knocking, waiting for the sound of movements from within.

"Forrest? It's me."

If he's in there, he'll answer.