Chapter Text
Lee wakes up early. Well, wakes up. He hasn’t slept much, really, tossing and turning most of the night. Now, grey light filtering in through the tattered curtains, he knows he’s got no chance of getting back to sleep. He sighs and stretches out on his back, folding his hands behind his head.
There’s a crack in the ceiling that he’s never noticed before - he supposes it might be the particular angle of crack-of-dawn-light that makes him notice it - and he follows it with his eyes to the edge, then down the wall until it disappears behind the curtains and, presumably, ends where it meets the window sill.
He’s always hated making Tara cry.
She’d shouted, first, given him a right good bollocking, called him every name under the sun. He sat quietly by their worn kitchen table, taking it. Finally, exhausted, she sank down on the chair opposite him.
“Is this it, then?”
He closed his eyes, grit his teeth.
“Yeah.”
She cried. He stayed put, wanting to comfort her and knowing he couldn’t. Finally, she rooted around her handbag for some tissues and wiped her face. He stood, uncertain, grabbed the bag he’d packed before she came home.
“I’ll be round tomorrow. Talk to the kids.”
She nodded, pulling her cardigan more tightly around herself.
“I’m sorry, Tara.”
“Just go,” she said, looking anywhere but his face.
David rolls over and mutters something, still lingering somewhere in the space between awake and asleep.
“Your place is a kip,” Lee murmurs softly. “There’s a crack in the ceiling.”
David opens his eyes and blearily looks up, then at Lee.
“So there is. How are you feeling?”
“Like absolute shit, but really fucking happy."
"That makes two of us. You know, first day in the rest of our guilt-ridden, wretched lives.”
He smiles wryly and Lee can’t help but smile back.
“In that case, good morning.”
He leans in and kisses David, picturing ten thousand more mornings like this. The rest of their wretched lives, he decides, will probably be alright.