Homecomings and Reunions

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A day and a half later, Willow, Birch, and their healers traveled the short road to the Rantes' farm. Jessamine had made his sons call ahead to their husbands so that they wouldn't give them heart attacks when they arrived, and by the time the car rolled in the Rantes' blue gravel driveway there was a crowd in front of the Rante home waiting to jump on them the minute they stepped out. Hemlock found himself with an armful of happily crying cub-bearer, while cubs descended from everywhere to get in on the new excitement. Even Beryl came out, hanging onto his da's pant leg with one hand and his brother's wrist with the other, to greet the triumphant five.

Sineult, it turned out, was on account of the cubs the only one not allowed to leave his bed for the celebration on the front lawn (though he'd put up a great fuss over it and tried his sneakiest of cub-bearer wiles to wiggle Onyx into letting him), so before long, Fern and Onyx were wanting to get back to his bedside and fill him in on how the new arrivals were. Of course, this explanation led to suggestions, and before Onyx knew it the huge crowd was trying to stuff itself into Sineult's bedroom. The little space rang with the sounds of Fern trying to explain Scammony's progress, Vi and Cloe poking people who came too close to Beryl, and the adults all trying to catch up at once.

The redhead was a little appeased when Jessamine and Willow (whose husband was following him everywhere, trying with no luck to get him to go to bed) settled immediately into a joint checkup of the unborn cubs' progress, finally declaring them safe and sound for the moment. Whether they would have physical and/or mental scars from their experience had yet to be seen, and both healers reminded Sineult solemnly of this fact, but Sineult only joined his half-brother in his joyful tears and told them he didn't care if his twins were turned into frogs as long as they could live. That worried Fern, who wanted to know if he was really going to have frogs for brothers, and the last of the leftover worry drifted away in laughter.

Almost giddy again with the happiness of seeing everyone still alive and back together, the convalescents began splitting up and heading back to their rooms for rest, taking with them small clusters of parents, mates, or offspring to keep them company. Lupin dragged his husband off first with a hug and a sniffled goodbye to Sineult, seeing that the presence of so many males was making both he and his half-brother uncomfortable. Not long afterwards, Willow realised the same thing and let his husband help him to bed, promising to come back and visit again the next day at the latest, and Sedge and his group followed them out. This appeared to be Ginger's cue: he left only minutes later to usher Mica, Topaz, and his husband to their beds and rest.

Orange, who was the designated household cook, Lapis, his mate and assistant, and Jessamine withdrew to make a special meal in honour of the homecoming, and when Spruce and Amber led a tentative Beryl out to try and help, Vi and Cloe bouncing along in their footsteps, only Sineult and Jade were left sitting on the edge of the bed and talking in low voices.

Sineult watched the cubs go; then he turned to his husband and shooed him, smiling innocently. Onyx rolled his eyes and left.

"No getting out of bed!" he called over his shoulder. Sineult grinned.

"Won't!"

But as he turned back to Jade, his smile softened.

"Haven' gott'n a chance t' talk t' you," he observed, snuggling himself more comfortably against the pillows his husband had been bribed into tilting at a sixty-five degree angle. "Not by m'self, anyways."

"About Beryl, you mean?" Jade murmured, smiling cynically down at his hands, which were folded in his lap.

"No. 'Bout you."

Jade's smile faded; the weary tears it had been holding back welled up. "I'm sorry, Sineult. That was cruel as it was uncalled for. I just-I know you all want to help, but it's so hard..." The redhead sighed, a rushing gust that cracked at the end with the effort of suppressing a waterfall.

"I just don't think anything can."

"Why not?" Sineult asked, watching him expressionlessly.

"Well, Beryl's so... He's so little! He got into so much trouble before... I don't..." Jade trailed off, looking confused and irritated. "I don't know. I don't know anything. And that's it, I don't know what to do! Not with him, not with Amber... My son knows more than I do about taking care of his brother than I do!"

"But Amber always knows more 'bout takin' care 'f Beryl," Sineult pointed out. "They're like tha'. 'S not a comp'tition, is it?"

"No." Jade bent double to hide his face in his hands, his hair falling about his knees like a curtain of burnished sunset. "I wish I knew what to do," he groaned, muffled. "I don't want to make him feel uncertain, but I know that's what I'm doing. Spruce agrees with Amber that they should be out and about, but all I want to do is lock him away, where nothing can hurt him any more than he's already been hurt..."

"Where y' c'n keep 'im safe."

"Yes."

"He doesn' like goin' out, does 'e."

"He doesn't. I can see it in him, he shies away from everything. He's scared. And it feels so heartless... to keep pushing him out there where he has to be scared like that. We used to be the ones he came to when he was afraid, and now all we do is force him into it."

Sineult was silent, picking at his bedcovers, and the conversation drifted away. Jade stayed head-downwards in his knees, face hidden from his small brother-in-law. All at once, Sineult piped up again.

"Did y' ever ride on a train?"

Jade's back stiffened inquisitively. His head came up, the eyes a little red. "What?"

"A train," Sineult said again, as if they had been talking about trains all along. "When I was li'l, m' mum took me on a train, t' see m' aunt. Mum need'd money," the blond confided shyly.

"I didn't know you had an aunt," Jade murmured, wiping at his eyes and seeming to forget that he'd been trying to hide his tears from Sineult. Sineult nodded.

"Mum's paren's di'n't talk to 'er, but 'er sis'er did. She's dead now... Mum got a letter... But anyways, we went on th' train, an' I'd never been on a train b'fore. I w's scared, 'cause I though' we'd crash! So Mum said if I rode it the firs' time, I woul'n't be so scared on th' way back."

"Ah. I think I see where this is going," Jade muttered, but the corners of his mouth twitched as he said it. Sineult smiled at him.

"Yup. But i' worked! When we rode back, I was only a little scared, and i' was lots o' fun."

"So I should hang in and not worry."

Sineult snuffled, a little annoyed. "Why d' peoples a'ways think I mean don' worry?" he wanted to know, his forehead wrinkling fiercely, and Jade had to bite back a giggle at the cuteness of the expression. "Di'n't say don' worry. Said, don' stop jus' because y're upset an' unhappy sometimes, or b'cause things 're hard. You've done hard stuff, an' Beryl'll have to, someday.

"Nothin's easy."

They sat for a minute, staring at each other as wheels worked in Jade's head, considering that. When he was finished, he leaned forward to engulf his friend in a hug.

"I guess not," Beryl's da accepted quietly.

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The world is scary now. Not scary like it was sometimes before, because of some things that were in it: now it's scary because if there is anything there that he should run away from, Beryl wouldn't know it. He couldn't see it.

He'll never see anything ever again.

When the flowers come in the springtime or the apples on the apple trees in the fall, Beryl won't know what they look like. He's covered up in darkness; that's how he feels. Sometimes he can feel people watching him, like an itch he can't scratch. He looks to see who they are, but he can't know until he asks, and he's too afraid to do that. Even with Amber close by, he's always afraid.

He's not afraid of monsters, or bad people: Amber will chase those away. He's scared to talk to people in case they get angry and he doesn't know it, or to help with things, because he won't be able to follow along by watching. He always used to watch his Da work, and jump in when Da needed something... but now he can't.

Amber and Beryl's friends try to help, and their help is good-Amber helps Beryl to not walk into things, and Fern, Vi, and Cloe bring him things to touch and tell him about what the day looks like, what the grownups are doing, or if there's anything new or pretty in the yard or sky. They talk all the time, too, and Beryl likes that. When people are talking he doesn't have to worry about what the expressions on their faces are like, because he can hear it in their voices instead.

Papa says it will change, and get better, if Beryl practices doing things without seeing. Amber tries to make him do things alone, but not without Amber standing close. Even Da says that Beryl should try doing, one by one, the things he did before, though Da doesn't sound sure like Beryl's Amber and Papa do. Beryl thinks that his da is afraid, too: scared of Beryl getting hurt, and scared that these things he tells Beryl he can do will never really be possible.

Beryl is trying. Amber has never told him wrong things before. But he wishes that he could know how long it will be before his trying works, and he doesn't have to be so scared anymore.

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"Hot," Mica announced briefly, turning over on his stomach. His father reached out to ruffle his hair absently, pushing the damp tendrils of long hair back from the cub-bearer's face.

"It'll get cooler."

"Not 'til September," Topaz pointed out. He was lying on his back next to his brother, his face upturned to the ceiling. "And the pond won't even warm up enough for swimming 'til August."

Birch shook his head, grinning a little at the disgust in his son's voice. "How about just being glad that we have one. Your grand-da Jessamine's is too swampy to go swimming in, and I'm sure your little cousins haven't got a place to swim whenever they want to in late summer." He shifted enough to swipe hair out of his own eyes before returning his arms to their former position-around his husband's middle. He squeezed the male tightly.

"We've got a lot of things to be glad for," he said thoughtfully, resting his chin on Ginger's shoulder to look across him at his two offspring.

Topaz groaned. "Aw, Da."

"Don't be sappy, Da," Mica complained, but Birch noticed his glance fall fondly on his brother's sweaty face before he rolled over and let his head fall across the damp expanse of the older twin's t-shirt clad back.

Birch grinned smugly.

"If you say so," he agreed, and when he started laughing,not even Mica could figure out the reason why.

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