Chapter Text
Tyler Owens was falling in love with Kate Carter.
At this point, he knew it, his crew knew it, hell, even her mom knew it. Although, Cathy probably knew before anybody did. It seemed like Kate was the only one who didn’t know. To be fair, Tyler had come to this realization fairly recently.
About a week ago, he and Kate had been sitting at her dining room table after a good afternoon of working on her taming project. Her mom was out for the evening and the Wranglers were out making content for the Youtube channel. After that tornado that canceled Kate’s flight made his leg ache like a bitch, Kate and Boone wouldn’t let him out until his doctor gave him the all good. Knowing him, they also couldn’t leave him completely unattended. Boone had testified to that fact, backed up by multiple stories of leaving to get something or even going to the bathroom and coming back just to find Tyler not in the bed anymore. More often than not, he could’ve been found in the living room, sitting on the floor with papers or books spread out in front of him on his coffee table.
It was Kate’s turn on whatever schedule they cooked up behind his back to babysit him.
Kate was sitting across from him, staring at her own notes and ideas on what they would need and how to improve certain aspects. Her hair shone under the light, even pulled back in a messy bun as it was. Her bangs were unstyled after her shower leaving them with a slight wave. She had no makeup on as she chewed on a pen, muttering under her breath. One knee was pulled up to her chest, the other stretched out beneath the table to rest against Tyler’s good leg. Like always, Tyler was playing soft music, but he had recently invested in a good speaker instead of the shitty ones on his phone.
They weren’t even talking. Tyler had just looked up at her and was hit with the thought that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. That she was beautiful. That he didn’t know what he was going to do when she left for New York. For real, this time. He had only known her for three weeks but he couldn’t imagine life without her anymore.
That’s when he realized he had fallen hard for this crazy girl. And honestly, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Which is how he ended up in this situation; a pit of dread settled in his stomach knowing she was going back to New York in two days. The wranglers decided to have a going-away-temporarily party for her by building a bonfire in her backyard. Even Javi had shown up, but that wasn’t a surprise with him talking to the rest of the crew more. Tyler hadn’t really had a chance to get to know him yet; he had been spending most of his time with Kate or the odd two or three days were spent at his place. Those only happened twice though, once when she was originally leaving and once since then when he had an appointment with his ortho doctor.
The thought of that appointment had him scowling down at his leg, still restricted to crutches and the ‘monster brace’ as Boone had called it. He still hadn’t gotten together with his crew to tell them the gist of it but he would do that before he went chasing with them again. They deserved to know after following him for so many years. And according to his own doctor, it would take another few weeks at least if he wanted to avoid a cast.
Kate nudged him with her elbow, talking quietly enough that the others didn’t hear her over their own rambunctious conversation, “I don’t think you can glare your leg into healing, cowboy.”
The name she had started teasing him with in the past week still brought a smile to his face, “Maybe, maybe not. I can certainly try though.”
Kate laughed at his smirk and the wink he shot her, leaning into his shoulder, “You lemme know how that works for you.”
“Don’t you worry, I will.”
They were interrupted by a thud making them both look over to where Boone had fallen off his bench and was laying on the ground laughing. After a second of confusion, Tyler just shook his head and started laughing with his best friend despite not knowing what happened. Everybody else was laughing too, Dani leaning on Dexter while Lily held a hand over her stomach. Kate still had no idea what was happening but their laughter was contagious and soon they were all laughing, sitting around a fire in the middle of her mom’s field.
–
The next morning was a surprise when Kate got down to the kitchen before Tyler. He was usually already up, drinking coffee at the table or sometimes on the porch. A small pang of worry flashed through her but she quickly dismissed it as being irrational and went about starting the coffee maker. When the coffee maker was done and she had eaten breakfast and had her coffee and he still wasn’t down, she started wondering if her worry wasn’t all that irrational. She placed her dishes in the sink and vowed to do them later as she tried not to race up the steps.
By the time she got to his door, her brain had come up with so many horrible scenarios that it didn’t even cross her mind to knock. She quickly opened the door but froze when she actually took him in. He was spread across the bed on his stomach, blankets tangled all in his legs and half falling off the bed. Somehow he even managed to get them wound around his brace. His laptop was open on the bed, playing something quietly. When she snuck around the bed she noticed that it was playing a movie, something she vaguely recognized as Marvel. He was mildly drooling on the sheets, his face smooth in his sleep. But once she looked a little longer, forming dark circles under his eyes told her that hadn’t been the case all night.
She didn’t know what it was that made her reach out to brush his hair off his forehead. Maybe it was the fact she had never seen him asleep or maybe it was because of something her head refused to acknowledge from her heart. Whatever it was though, she quickly came to regret it.
The moment Kate’s hand brushed his forehead, Tyler shot backwards out of the bed, scrambling away from her. His laptop hit the floor with a loud clatter, Tyler’s body following a millisecond later with a thud. She could hear him wince as his leg roughly hit the old hardwood but he didn’t seem to notice as he retreated to the other side of the room, still on the floor. They both stood there a minute, staring at each other.
Kate had her hands halfway up, unsure exactly how to respond. She had never seen Tyler this flustered. Never about his leg, not with the little information he’s given about his family, not even his questionable attempts to flirt with her when they first met. But right now, he was sitting on the floor, back against the wall and good leg pulled to his chest, staring at her with wide eyes. When his lungs started heaving, she realized that though his eyes were wide on her, they weren't actually seeing her. She slowly walked around the bed towards him, stopping a good three feet from him when he flinched. After crouching down, and then sitting cross legged on the floor with her hands placed on her knees, she realized she had no idea what she was doing. The nightmares and panic attacks he had calmed her down from, he had done so by pulling her close and letting her cling to him for dear life. Since that clearly wasn’t an option right now, she was at a loss.
Still, she knew she had to do something when his breathing only increased and he tucked his head down, hands fisting in the grown out hair in the back.
Pulling on a vague memory of him doing the same, she started humming. She had no idea what song it was, only that Tyler hummed it whenever she was in distress so he must have some connection to it. He had never given her words though, and she only remembered snippets, mostly just the chorus. Something about the tune had a song name on her tongue, or maybe the artist, but she couldn’t quite recall it.
Tyler’s breathing started to calm and his fists started to loosen after about her third time humming it, and after four more, he was mostly calmed down. Fingers tapping along to the beat she hummed as he rested his head on his knee. She let him have it for another two repetitions before she slowly trailed off. His head still didn’t raise.
Kate asked hesitantly, not wanting to break the quiet atmosphere but needing to know he was with her again, “Ty…?”
He just hummed a reply.
Kate unconsciously shuffled a little bit closer, “Ty? You back with me?”
Tyler let out a breath, shoulders slumping even further as he nodded against his knee, only giving an agreeing hum.
“Okay. Can you look at me? I just wanna make sure you’re okay.”
Tyler’s voice broke as he chuckled, trying for levity but not reaching it, nor raising his head, “Think that’s my line, darlin’.”
Kate tried for a smile, but all the corners of her lips did was twitch, “Well, I’m sure you can share just this once.”
Tyler slowly lifted his head and met her eyes. His own green ones were bloodshot and red, no visible tear tracks down his face though, “I suppose, just so you do the same when I ask you.”
“Hey, there you are.”
Tyler also tried for a wobbly smile, giving up after a second and letting his head follow his dropping eyesight. He focused on the floor, specifically not looking at Kate, when he cleared his throat, “Sorry, Sapulpa. Didn’t mean to freak on you there.”
Kate was immediately shaking her head, “What did you say the first time I apologized for a panic attack? Something along the lines of ‘no reason to be sorry for the way your mind deals with trauma. Just means you survived long enough to fight through it,’ right?”
Tyler glanced back up at her with a wrinkled nose. He didn’t say anything though, letting Kate take the lead.
“Or what, does that not apply to you? Cause if it doesn’t apply to you, then it sure as hell doesn’t apply to me.”
Tyler laughed bitterly, tipping his head back now to rest against the wall, eyes tracking the spinning of the ceiling fan, “I’m fucked up, Kit Kat. And I don’t just mean my leg.”
Kate furrowed her brows, “Ty, we’re all a little fucked up. Some more than others. I should know, I’m definitely part of that ‘more’ category.”
Tyler just shook his head.
Kate wanted to argue but reconsidered when she looked at his face. He looked sad, she decided. Sadness mixed in with fear and anger and something close to shame.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Tyler’s answer was immediate, “No.”
“Okay,” Kate breathed, “Okay.”
–
Tyler was unusually quiet the rest of the day, seemingly lost in his own head most of the time. She had to call his name more than once to get his attention and sometimes she had to physically tap him just to watch him flinch.
He was more present at dinner, talking and laughing with her mom. The two of them got along alarmingly well. However, his face lit up when Kate interrupted.
“I’m moving back.”
Tyler grinned, looking happier than he had all day.
“And I’m gonna finish my PhD.”
Cathy smirked, “So you are gonna save the world.”
Kate blushed when Tyler met her eyes, “Damn right, she is.”
Kate cleared her throat, “I’m gonna meet up with my boss when I get back. She already knows what I’m doing out here and got me some contacts with investors. Good investors who care about the people and the science. She also said I could work remotely part time so I still have some money comin’ in. And I already got into contact with University of Oklahoma. I just have to show them what I was workin’ on and meet with who my advisor would be: Jo Harding.”
“Oh, Katie. That’s great!”
Tyler’s face was doing funny things. There was a hesitance there but he still looked elated.
“When are you movin’ your stuff back?”
Kate twirled her fork around, “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t have a car to drive back, so probably as soon as I find one and can rent a trailer. It’s mostly just clothes but I don’t wanna ship it back.”
“I’ll help you move.”
Cathy cut off Kate’s protests, “That would be so helpful, Tyler!”
“You really don’t have to. That’s all the way across the country.”
This time, Tyler’s smile was softer, “It’s not a problem, Kit Kat.”
Kate felt her own hesitance give way, “If you’re sure…”
Tyler turned the charm back up, “Besides, Sapulpa, who doesn’t love a cross country road trip?”