Work Text:
The theater was empty, was the thing, because it was a Tuesday afternoon and the movie had been out for three weeks, so everyone had already seen it. They weren't looking out for anyone.
Dad helped her get her hair tucked up under her beanie before the credits were even over, and they both slipped their sunglasses on in the lobby. CJ felt kind of cool sometimes, going undercover like this. She and her dad grinned at each other, and he held the door open for her as they stepped outside. She was pretty sure that he thought it was cool, too, even if he had to wear long sleeves and gloves to cover his tattoos all the time, even when it wasn't really cold enough for it. It was pretty chilly today, though, so it wasn't a big deal for him to have on his beat-up red jacket and his fingerless gloves, the ones he wore when he rode his bike.
He hadn't ridden it today, because he said CJ wasn't tall enough to drive around except for just doing laps around their neighborhood back home, and definitely not a busy place like LA. She was wearing a leather jacket of her own, though, so maybe people would think she had ridden to the theater even though really they had just walked. Her jacket was also red, with a painting of a pirate ship on the back that Mal had done for her. It was kind of too big, which Mal said was so that CJ could wear it even when she grew up more. Ben said it was because Mal forgot what size CJ was when they went birthday shopping.
She stuck her hands in her pockets and walked close enough to her dad that she could bump her shoulder against his arm. He raised his eyebrows at her behind his sunglasses, and she grinned.
“That was a really good movie.”
“It was, wasn't it?” he asked. “Loved the musical numbers.”
She laughed and bumped him again, and he elbowed her back just a little bit, not even enough to make her miss a step. Sometimes he did at home, and they would wrestle around on the floor and the sofa until either she pinned him or he surrendered. Her pinning him was basically the same as him surrendering, because she knew there was no way she could really beat him at a wrestling match, but it was still fun.
“No, you didn't,” she said, grinning wider. “You hated the musical numbers. You hate all musicals.”
“I do not hate all musicals,” he said. She couldn't see it behind his glasses, but she was pretty sure he was rolling his eyes. “I just… don't necessarily love them.”
“You just like screamo punk music,” CJ said loftily. “With the electric guitars and the guys yelling about the man.”
“Who taught you the word screamo?” Dad asked. “Which, for the record, I don't listen to.”
“Don't lie to me, I've seen your Spotify history,” CJ said, and Dad burst out laughing with his silly, wheezy giggle. CJ was grinning wide enough now that her cheeks hurt. She hadn't gotten to hear that sound for a long time, but it was coming back more and more often these days.
“Hey! Hey, CJ!”
She looked over her shoulder automatically when someone called her name, and she scowled when she saw a man with his phone held up like a camera hurrying down the sidewalk after them. She turned back around and pulled her hand out of her pocket so she could grab her dad’s. He squeezed it gently, and neither of them stopped walking.
“Harry, CJ! CJ! How are you adjusting to all this popularity?”
Dad held her hand a little tighter, and they sped up a little. CJ didn't look at the man following them and, when she peeked up at him to check, neither did her dad.
“Harry, any comments on the rumors about Audrey's–”
“No comment,” Dad said. The reporter said something else, but Dad drowned him out with another, louder, “No comment.”
CJ couldn't help but look over her shoulder then and smirk at the reporter’s frustrated face. Dad never commented, not on anything.
The reporter noticed her looking at him and smiled too big. CJ frowned and looked forward again.
“CJ, do you think you'll follow your mom's footsteps?”
“No comment,” CJ and Dad said together.
“Any plans to make an appearance on screen now that they've started casting for the next VK movie?”
“No comment, please,” CJ said. Dad swung their hands a little between them. When she looked up at him, he was smiling at her. He looked proud.
Very polite, he mouthed, and CJ preened a little.
“What are you doing in LA?” the reporter tried. “Any auditions coming up?”
“Mate, she said no comment,” Dad said. “Leave it.”
“I just have a few–”
“She said no.”
“I don't want to talk to–” CJ started, but then the man grabbed her arm and yanked her backwards hard enough that she lost her grip on her dad's hand. She let out a little shriek, more out of surprise than anything. He wasn't holding her tight enough to hurt, but all of a sudden there was his too big smile and a phone recording right in her face and she tried to say “no comment” but–
She didn't even see Dad move. She just heard a loud sound over her head, something like a smack and a crunch, and the man toppled backwards onto the sidewalk. His hand was still holding onto her arm, and it pulled her half a step after him as he fell. A familiar pair of arms caught her even as she screamed again and stumbled forward, but then she was tugged back again and suddenly her dad was right there, hands on her shoulders as he bent down to look at her.
“CJ, oh my god,” he said, frantically running his hands over her arms, then pulling her in to hug her, then pushing her gently away so he could cup her face in his hands. “Duckling, baby, are you okay?”
CJ’s head spun. She took in a deep gasping breath, then another, and then she started to cry. Dad made a soft noise and pulled her back into his arms, holding her close against his chest and running his hand over and over from the top of her head and down her back. Her beanie had fallen off somewhere in the mess, and he smoothed her hair back down, cooing in her ear and rocking back and forth while she sobbed against his shoulder.
“Come here,” he said. He stood up and took her with him when he did. She was too big for him to carry like this, really, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around her waist, then she tucked her head down against his neck and kept crying. He braced his right arm under thighs to hold her up. She felt him shake out his left hand for a second, and then he went right back to petting her hair.
“It's okay, duck, you're okay,” he said, and his voice was shaking.
“He grabbed me,” CJ cried, wrapping her arms around his neck. She worried for a second that she was holding him too hard and started to pull away, but he just tugged her back into a hug.
“I know, baby, I know. It's okay, he's not gonna hurt you, you're okay.”
“Daddy, he grabbed me,” CJ said again, crying even harder. Dad said something she couldn't make out over the sound of her own sobs, but he sounded like he might be about to cry, too. “I just didn't want to talk to him, I– I said no comment–”
“You did it exactly right,” Dad said. His voice was still shaking, and she realized with a start that he wasn't crying. He was angry, angry in a way she'd never heard him be, angry in a way she didn't know he could be. “That's just what you're supposed to say, ducky. You didn't do anything wrong, anyone that's not a fucking bastard should have left you alone–”
She heard someone spit a few times, then groan.
“You broke my jaw,” the reporter said, voice slurred. “You– fuck, you broke my phone!”
“You need a quote from a nine-year-old that bad?” Dad snarled. “You didn't fucking hear her say no?”
“You broke my jaw,” the reporter repeated, and Dad scoffed.
“You'd know if I broke your jaw, you son of a bitch,” he snapped. The reporter moaned, and CJ finally picked her head up enough to look at him. She was still crying, she felt like she'd be crying forever, but she could make out the reporter bent over on his knees and one hand. The other one he had out flat in front of him, holding–
CJ blinked away her tears, and then her jaw dropped. His mouth was bloody, and he was holding a tooth.
She hiccuped, then pressed her face against Dad's neck again. She was probably getting his jacket all wet, but he was cupping the back of her head now and holding her there so she felt safe and protected and hidden, even though she heard people talking and knew they had to be staring at her and her dad and the man with the bloody mouth.
“You, stay down,” Dad said. He practically snarled it, but his voice turned gentle when he said, “CJ, baby, give me one second.” His left arm disappeared for a moment, and she shivered. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, and then she heard his phone ringing.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“A man just tried to grab my daughter,” he said flatly, somewhere between the soft way he spoke to CJ and the furious way he spoke to the reporter. “She's fine. He had a run-in with my fist. I'd just like a few officers to come by so we can make a statement, and he might need someone to take a look at his mouth. He's bleeding.”
He gave them directions and hung up. Someone got ice for the reporter, and he held it against his mouth and kept giving her dad dirty looks. Dad didn't pay him any attention, just sat down on the curb with CJ sitting sideways in his lap, and he gave her his beanie and pulled his jacket off so he could drape it over her shoulders like a blanket. She could see the goosebumps on his arms, but he didn't seem bothered it.
She had stopped crying by the time two police cars pulled up, but she started sniffling again as soon as the officers stepped out of the cars.
There was only one woman cop, and she came over to talk to them, squatting down on the sidewalk next to them. CJ hid her face behind Dad's jacket as much as she could and still be looking at the officer, and Dad hugged her a little closer.
“Hey, there,” the woman said. Her hair was pulled back in a crazy tight bun and it made her look like she might be tight too, all serious and grouchy, but her smile was warm and encouraging. “I'm Lonnie. What's your name?”
“I feel like you already know that,” CJ said. Dad barked out a surprised laugh, and Officer Lonnie chuckled.
“Okay, yeah,” she said. “But it's polite to ask. I need to ask you a few questions, okay? I just want to know what happened here. You think you can do that for me?”
“There was a reporter,” CJ said, then nodded at him where he was talking to two other cops. The last cop was talking to a few people who had watched what happened. One of them was showing him a video on their phone. “That guy. He, um, he grabbed me. Because I wouldn't talk to him.”
“Where'd he grab you?” Officer Lonnie asked, pulling a little notebook out of her pocket and making a note in it.
CJ frowned and glanced up and down the sidewalk before she pointed at a spot that looked right. “Uh, right there, in front of that Jamba Juice.”
She could practically hear her Dad roll his eyes. “Her arm,” he said, tapping the spot through her jacket. CJ shivered. “Right above her elbow.”
Oh. That probably made more sense.
“Can you take your jacket off?” Officer Lonnie asked. “So I can see?”
“He didn't grab me super hard,” CJ said, but she leaned away from her dad so she could slide his jacket off her shoulders and wiggle out of her own. She'd already taken hers off once, because Dad had wanted to look, too, so it was still open and unzipped. She rolled the sleeve of her t-shirt up to show Officer Lonnie where the reporter grabbed her, which looked just the same as the rest of her arm. “See? It didn't bruise or anything.”
Officer Lonnie made another note. “What happened after he grabbed you?”
CJ shivered again, and Dad helped her put her jacket back on, then his, before she answered. “He– he pulled me away from my dad. We were holding hands but he pulled me back so hard I let go. Then he fell down.”
Officer Lonnie cocked her head to the side. “Fell down?”
“Um.” CJ glanced up at Dad, because maybe she shouldn't tell a police officer what he did, but he just sighed.
“I hit him,” he said. “Just the once, but it knocked him flat.”
“Dad's really strong,” CJ offered. “But he didn't break his jaw. That man said that Dad broke his jaw, but he didn't. He channels his energy into healthy coping mechanisms, like art and exercise.”
Officer Lonnie blinked, and Dad snorted. “All right, Dr. Hook,” he said. “Family therapy,” he added to Officer Lonnie. “To help deal with…” He waved his hand around vaguely, sort of pointing at the crowd and the reporter and the police officers all at once. “All this.”
“I'm really sorry this happened,” Officer Lonnie said, sounding like she meant it. “We run into problems with the paparazzi pretty often, but most of them know better than to get physical. Especially with kids.”
“Will Dad get in trouble for hitting him?” CJ asked, and the policewoman hummed.
“Honestly, I doubt it. Someone grabbed your kid, fight or flight kicked in, and you responded in a perfectly understandable way. You just happened to be a little more thorough about it than some people,” she added dryly.
Dad shrugged. “I grew up in a rough area. Had to know how to throw a punch.” CJ glanced up at him to see him frowning. “Didn't really mean to hit him that hard, though. I thought I pulled it.”
“Heat of the moment,” Officer Lonnie said dismissively. She glanced over her shoulder, then huffed out a laugh. “Huh. Look at that.”
CJ craned her neck so she could look around Dad's shoulder, and her jaw dropped when she saw the reporter in handcuffs, getting led towards one of the cars. “Is he getting arrested?”
“Guy grabbed a little kid on the street,” Officer Lonnie said with a shrug. “If you want to press charges, you'd be well within your rights.”
“We'll think about it,” Dad said.
“I'm not little,” CJ said, but she felt little, curled up tired and small in her dad's lap. She couldn't remember ever feeling this exhausted in her life, dazed and dizzy with everything that had happened. “Can we take an Uber back to the apartment?” she asked, leaning her head against his chest so she could hear his heartbeat. “I don't want to walk all the way there.”
“Oof, yeah,” Dad said. “It's gonna take a minute for someone to get here, though. It's rush hour; people are just gonna be getting off work. You want to wait in the Jamba Juice? Get a smoothie?”
CJ sniffled despite herself. “No. I want to go home now.” She grabbed a handful of Dad's t-shirt, just sort of to hold him close, and he sighed and gave her a little squeeze.
“Believe me, duckling, I'm right there with you. But I can't make a car just appear.”
CJ felt like crying again even though Dad was right, and it wasn't his fault. But she felt too tired to walk all the way back to Mom's apartment, or even just down the street a little ways, and she didn't want to wait in the Jamba Juice where probably some of the people inside saw what happened through the window. She didn't want anyone looking at her.
She didn't feel cool now.
“You don't need to,” Officer Lonnie said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “I've got one parked right there.”
“Wait, really?” Dad asked, and Lonnie shrugged.
“If you're close enough to walk here, it can't be that far out of our way. We've got some more we need to do here, and we'll need a statement from you, too,” she added, and CJ felt Dad nod. “But after that, yeah, my partner and I can give you a lift.”
“Is that allowed?” Dad asked.
“Eh,” said, which wasn't an answer. Then she grinned at CJ. “You ever ridden in a cruiser before?”
CJ frowned at her suspiciously. “This isn't a sneaky way of arresting us, is it?”
“Definitely not,” Officer Lonnie said. “I'd be reading your Miranda rights if I were arresting you.”
CJ looked up at her dad and frowned, and he huffed out a laugh. “That's the ‘you have a right to remain silent’ thing. It's all the stuff they have to tell you about being arrested, so you know what you're allowed to do.”
“How about ‘don't do it again?’” CJ asked, and Officer Lonnie sighed wistfully as she stood up.
“God, I wish it were that easy. You two hang tight, okay? I have to talk to my partner, then I'll be back to get some info from you, Harry.”
“Getting some info” turned out to take about a hundred years, and they did end up in the Jamba Juice. They sat in the back corner so no one could see them from the street, and CJ gave Dad his jacket back because it was hard to be inconspicuous when he had a tattoo on his entire arm. Officer Lonnie came inside to get Dad's statement and looked longingly at the menu the entire time she was in there, but she didn't order anything. Cops probably weren't allowed to drink smoothies on the job, CJ guessed.
Finally, after what felt like the rest of the day but what Dad swore was barely half an hour, Officer Lonnie closed her little notebook and stood up from their table.
“Okay, that should do it. We're gonna be in touch, definitely, but I think we're all set for now. Come on, we'll give you a ride back.”
CJ hopped off her chair, still holding her strawberry smoothie in both hands. “And you're for sure not arresting us,” she said around her straw, just to double check.
“For sure not arresting you,” Officer Lonnie said. “Cross my heart.”
CJ had never ridden in a police car before. Today stunk, but that part would be kind of cool. If they drove past the apartment and went to the police station instead, though, she was jumping out the window and taking Dad with her. It would be a tight squeeze, but she'd wrestled him before. She knew how slippery he could be.
Dad squinted at the other officer when they stepped outside. “Do I know you?”
“Don't think so,” the cop said, and CJ blinked when she heard his accent.
“Hey, Dad, he sounds like Dr. Dawson.”
“Oh my god,” Dad says. “You're Sebastian, aren't you?”
“Oh my god, you are!” CJ said, bouncing a little bit on her toes because she was so excited, and because today was definitely swinging back around towards being cool again. “Hi! I'm CJ!”
Sebastian cocked his head to the side. “Um. Nice to meet you?”
“Small fucking world,” Dad said. “Your dad is our therapist. He's got a picture of you, him, and Basil on his desk.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “No shit? He never said he had celebrity clients in Auradon, of all places.”
“Well yeah, dumbass,” CJ said. “Confidentiality.”
“CJ!” Dad said, gaping at her while Sebastian and Officer Lonnie both let out surprised-sounding laughs. “You can't call people dumbasses, what the hell?”
CJ had put her sunglasses back on when they stepped outside, but she pushed them up on her forehead so he could see her giving him her most unimpressed look. “Well you're not supposed to say ‘fuck’ in front of me, but here we are.”
“Jesus, you've been spending too much time with Mal,” Dad muttered. “Just get in the car before I arrest you.”
CJ handed him her smoothie so she could crawl over to the far side of the car without dropping it, and Dad handed it back to her after she'd buckled in. She started to slurp it down, then cocked her head to the side. “Hey, can we turn the sirens on?”
“No,” Officer Lonnie said at the same time that Sebastian said, “Why not.”
“No,” Officer Lonnie said. “We're already not supposed to be a taxi service. We really can't–”
Dad's phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and winced. “Oh, fu–”
CJ cleared her throat.
“Fudge,” Dad said. “I gotta answer this.”
He slid the phone open, held it up to his ear with one hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. “She's okay,” he said instead of hello. “Didn't even bruise, they arrested the reporter, and we're on our way back to the apartment. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Hey, CJ, Mum wants to say hi.”
“Hi, Mom,” CJ said when Dad handed her the phone. Her mom let out a loud, relieved sigh.
“Hi, honey. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” CJ said, then grimaced because that was kind of a lie, and Dr. Dawson said it was always important to be honest about feelings. She had a feeling her parents went out of their way to not do that, so it was up to her to set a good example. “Well. I was really scared. And now I'm not scared so much, but I'm really tired. And Dad punched a guy.”
“I know,” Mom said. “I saw the video.”
CJ’s shoulders sagged. “There's a video?”
Dad winced.
“Yeah,” Mom said. “Two. One just has your dad picking you up and talking to you. The other one starts right before the reporter–” Her voice shook a little bit. She sounded just as furious as Dad had earlier. “Right before he grabs you.”
“So you can see Dad hit him,” CJ said, and Mom murmured an agreement. “Well, that's not good for his image.”
“Jesus,” Dad muttered. CJ looked at him curiously, but he just pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Can I talk to Audrey for a second?”
“Dad wants to talk to you,” CJ said.
“Sure thing. You're sure you're okay, honey?”
“I didn't even get a bruise,” CJ said. “Dad checked, then so did Officer Lonnie.”
“Officer Lonnie,” Sebastian whispered. “That's adorable.”
“Shut up, Dawson,” Officer Lonnie whispered back.
“Okay. I'm on my way back right now. I'll see you in just a bit.”
“Okay,” CJ said. “I love you.”
“Love you too, honey.”
Mom made a kissing noise, and CJ made one back before she handed the phone back to Dad. He slumped back in his seat. “I know. I know. I wish you'd been there, you probably would have–” Mom said something that CJ couldn't make out, and Dad's eyebrows shot up. “Okay, maybe it's good that you weren't. Christ, Brianna.”
Sebastian snickered, and Officer Lonnie let go of the wheel for a second so she could punch him in the arm. CJ slurped the last of her smoothie and didn't take her eyes off her dad.
“Okay, so that's not ideal. Not as bad as it could be, though. Yeah, of course. Have you talked to Phil?” There was a long pause, and Dad nodded slowly. “Sure. Yeah, I was sort of planning to do that anyways.” He snorted. “Sure.” He looked at CJ and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Your mum just grounded me. Okay, no, that is literally what you just said. 'Don't leave the apartment and stay off your phone.’ That's the definition of grounding, Audrey! It's not even my apartment. Can you legally ground someone to a place they don't live?”
“That's your building right there, right?” Sebastian asked. He looked like he was disappointed to be interrupting. CJ couldn't blame him.
“Yeah,” Dad said, looking out the window. “Thank you two so much. If you can just drop us off at the curb, that'd be–”
“That woman has a camera,” CJ said, pointing at the couple loitering near the door. “So does the man she's talking to. They're probably waiting for us.”
“Can we get two goddamn minutes–” Dad snarled, then took a deep breath. “Okay, new plan. Private parking garage is around the corner.” Officer Lonnie didn't even slow down, just cruised right past the building like she wasn't even thinking about stopping there. The paps didn't even glance at them. “Super incognito mode, duck.”
CJ nodded and pulled her beanie down so it covered almost her whole forehead. “We're secret agents.”
“Hell yeah.” Dad held out his hand, palm up for a low-five, and CJ smacked it. “Audrey, I gotta go, okay? Don't go in the front door when you get here, there's people waiting. All right. See you in a few.”
He hung up right as Officer Lonnie pulled into the underground parking garage. “Code’s 3-8-9-6,” he said. “Then the pound sign.”
“It's a hashtag,” CJ said.
“I’m going to throw your phone out the window,” Dad said absently. Sebastian snorted out a laugh as Officer Lonnie drove them toward the elevator. “All right, team,” Dad said, clapping his hands together. “We–”
“There's just two of us,” CJ interrupted.
“I'm including Officers Li and Dawson,” Dad said, waving a hand at her to be quiet. “And even if I weren't, tennis teams are two players, so shush. It's about fifteen feet from the curb to the elevator. Officer Li, gonna need you to drive right past it. Don't even slow down. CJ, you barrel roll out the door and start running for the elevator. Don't go in a straight line; moving targets are harder to hit, so you have to zigzag. Officer Dawson, I'm going to need your taser, gun, baton, machete, grenade launcher, and flamethrower so I can provide cover fire. Are we ready, men?”
There was a long moment of silence, then Dad looked at her and slowly raised one eyebrow. “What? You're the one who said we're secret agents.”
All three of them burst out laughing, and Dad grinned kind of proudly.
“You are such a nerd,” CJ said.
“That one there, that's the elevator into the building,” Dad said cheerfully. “Really, thank you two so much.”
They climbed out of the car and said their goodbyes and then their thanks again.
“Tell Dr. D I said hi!” CJ said, and Sebastian gave her a lazy salute.
“Will do, but you'll probably see him before I do. Rookie cops don't get days off.”
“You are not a rookie cop,” Officer Lonnie said. She sounded grumpy, but she smiled when she said goodbye.
CJ waved goodbye as they drove off. She was still giggling when they stepped on the elevator, and Dad was smiling at her fondly.
Her giggles slowed down when the doors closed, though, when it was quiet and just the two of them. By the time the elevator went up past the fifth floor, she wasn't even smiling anymore.
“Hey, duck, what's up?” Dad asked. CJ slid over closer to him and grabbed his hand. That didn't feel like enough, so she grabbed onto his whole arm.
“Today was, um.” She tried to swallow, then had to do it again because there was a big lump in her throat. “Today wasn't fun.”
“I know, baby,” Dad said softly, reaching out with his other hand to pull her into a gentle hug. “It was pretty rough, wasn't it?”
CJ pressed her face against his chest and nodded a few times, feeling her sunglasses press into her cheeks and her beanie slide up and down on her forehead. Her shoulders hitched a little bit and she felt her mouth make a crying shape, but she didn't actually cry. She felt too tired for that, like she had cried so much earlier that she didn't have any crying left in her.
“I know,” Dad said again, cupping his hand around the back of her neck and gently massaging the base of her skull. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
CJ shook her head.
“That's okay, then,” Dad said. “We don't have to talk about it right now. That was scary, though, and I don't want you to hold it all inside you, okay?”
“I’m really tired,” CJ mumbled. She didn't want to think about it, let alone talk about it. “I'm really tired.”
“How about you lie down when we get inside, huh?” Dad asked as the elevator doors opened. CJ sighed and pulled away from him enough so that they could walk, but she didn't let go of his arm.
“Yeah,” she said. “Can I sleep on the sofa?”
“You can sleep on top of the fridge if you want to,” Dad said as he fished his key out of his pocket. “Wherever seems like prime napping territory.”
“The sofa,” CJ said firmly. “And can I use you as a pillow?”
Dad's eyes were really, really soft. “Yeah, duckling, of course.” He led her into the apartment, then gently wiggled his arm loose. “How about we get changed into pajamas though, okay? Blue jeans and leather jackets might be stylish, but they aren't the most comfortable for sleeping in.”
CJ yawned, nodded, and stumbled off to her room, kicking off her tennis shoes as she went. She hung her jacket up carefully in the closet, but the rest of her clothes she left in a pile on the floor. Putting them in the laundry hamper just seemed like a lot of work.
She put on her fluffiest red pajama pants and a hoodie from Dad's shop that was meant for adults; it went halfway down to her knees, and the sleeves hung all the way past her fingers. It said “Just the Tip” on the front, with a traditional style drawing of a man from behind, looking over his shoulder with a shocked face. Dad assured her it was about tattoos and nothing else. She wasn't allowed to wear it in public, though, so she had her doubts.
When she wandered out of her room, Dad was already set up on the sofa with his feet propped on the coffee table, wearing sweatpants and a worn out t-shirt that had a hole in the collar. She was pretty sure he hadn't bought any new clothes at all since she was born, because they all looked that old.
She walked straight over to the sofa and flopped onto it. It took a little arranging to get perfectly comfortable, but she finally wound up on her side with her head resting on her dad's thigh and her forehead pressed against his hip.
“You all comfy there?” he asked, amused, and CJ grunted.
“Shh. I'm sleeping.”
“Pretty talkative for a sleeping beauty,” Dad said dryly, but he didn't say anything else, just rested his hand on her head and began to gently comb his fingers through her hair.
CJ kind of wanted to make a joke about Prince Charming, and she kind of wanted to say thank you, and she kind of wanted to tell him that he was the best.
She was tired, though, and she was safe and sound and snuggled up all close to her dad, who she knew would never, ever let anything happen to her. She puffed out a little sigh against his hip, and he gave her shoulder a gentle little squeeze before he went back to finger combing her hair.
She knew for sure that he was still going to be there when she woke up. She would tell him how much she loved him then, and she would say it over and over and over, just like he did.