gets the pass from @preludeinz and handballs it to @drdone

One of the hardest things Gordon had to learn when he started working shifts was how to sleep whenever and wherever.  He’s mostly got it down, but there’s always going to be that groggy moment when he first wakes up, that brief moment of ‘what century is this?’

He’s no princess in a sleeping castle, for all that he can hear snores from across the hallway. But as he sits up in bed, knuckling sleep out of his eyes, the door opens with a slow creak and Penny comes in, a chipped mug in one hand.  “You really do have an internal alarm clock,” she teases, barely whispering in deference to the woman still asleep across the hall. She passes him the mug and settles on the edge of his sagging mattress as he inhales deeply of the slightly lemony steam.  “I was just coming to wake you up so you can make your bus.”

Gordon knows he should be getting up, getting dressed, getting on the road to walk the four blocks to the right stop.  But he sits instead, takes a tiny sip from the tea from Penny’s secret stash, feels the warmth of Penny’s hand seep through the thin covers from where she’s rested it on her leg.  “How you holding up?” she asks, rubbing his knee gently.

“I feel like I should be asking you that.”  Gordon will never tell Penny, but he loves the smell of her tea much more than the taste. He takes one more tiny sip, more for the warmth than the taste before passing the mug back to her.  “Thank you so much for sitting with Grandma all night, I know you worked a double yesterday too.”

She wraps her fingers around the mug, seeking out warmth as Gordon grits his teeth and swings his feet onto the floor.  “You’re more than welcome, darling.”  She smiles into her tea as Gordon whips off yesterday’s shirt and shorts, stands naked to paw through their shared dresser for anything that might fit. “No word from your brothers?”

Gordon glances at the screen charging on top of the dresser, but there’s only one message, from his boss confirming his leave – it had been scuttlebutt at the depot for hours that Gordon had found a brother at the crash site, he hadn’t even had to ask for the time.  “Nothing,” he told Penny, his voice muffled by the shirt he was struggling into.  “Besides, my brothers being open and honest and good at communicating what’s going on?  That’s crazy talk woman.”

That gets a little laugh out of her, a flash of brightness in the dull gloom of the room.  “Silly me,” she murmurs, taking another sip.  “Are you going to be all right?”

Gordon pauses from his search for his other shoe to lean over the bed, his knee exaggerating the sag, to press a delicate kiss to her forehead.  “We’ve been through worse,” he tells her, and it mostly isn’t a lie.  “We’ll be fine.”

She catches his head as he went to lean back, pulling him in for a proper kiss that made his toes curl, made him want to lose the clothes and close the door.  Across the hall, Grandma starts coughing, a phlegmy, throaty sound that makes Gordon sigh into Penny’s lips as she pulls back.  

Penny pats his cheek, her fingers warm from the tea.  “I’ve got her.  You’ve got a bus to catch.”  She rises elegantly, pauses in the doorframe.  “Don’t forget Virgil’s charger.  And I’ve made you some sandwiches to take with you.”

Gordon laughs as he finds his other shoe.  “Sending me off with a kiss and a packed lunch? I could get used to this!”  Her light and delighted laugh echoes across the otherwise empty apartment.

It was cold outside, and Gordon curses the lack of coffee in his system as he pulls his coat tight and crosses the nearly empty street.  Dawn is just a glimmer on the horizon as he pays the fare and finds a seat, but Gordon’s looking forward to it after what feels like one of the longest nights of his life.

Several people get off at the hospital stop, but Gordon pays them no mind as he trots up to the public entrance.  His work ID is in his pocket, he could take the side door, but that would mean walking halfway around the building, and the few hours of snatched sleep are already not enough.

It’s automatic to flirt with the admission clerk, winking as he strolls towards the elevator blanks.  There’s a small knot of people waiting, but elevator etiquette means they all pretend the others don’t exist.  Gordon thinks nothing of the footsteps that get off on Alan’s floor right behind him.  They only register, a sour note in his subconsciousness, as he pauses to check the name on the chart in the slot by the door.  

But by the time he turns to look, whoever was there is gone.

Shrugging, Gordon pushes open the door to take over the watch from Virgil.