After it happened book 9.., p.33
After It Happened (Book 9): Home, page 33
part #9 of After It Happened Series
“You’ve got antibiotics, right?” Dan asked, displaying enough knowledge to be ignorant.
“That’s no guarantee of anything,” Jan explained kindly. “At this point it’s out of our hands. I hate to say this, but there’s literally nothing more I can do. It’s up to his body to fight it now.”
“Hey,” croaked Neil in a hoarse whisper from across the room. Dan looked up to see him gesturing, beckoning him over with a weak flutter of his left hand. Dan went to him, using furniture along the way to keep him upright. Reaching him, Dan took his hand and squeezed it as much for comfort as it was for reassurance.
“Mate,” Dan said, “you need to rest—”
“Why…why are you holding my hand? You—” He stopped to cough wretchedly before resuming. “You switched sides on me?” His lips pursed together as if he was leaning in for a kiss, making Dan snort out a laugh in spite of the grimness of their situation.
“I heard what he said,” Neil interrupted him. He smiled a sad smile at Dan and spoke softly. “What will happen will happen,” he muttered with his eyes closed, “but I don’t want to die here. Take me home. Bury me by the watchtower overlooking Sanctuary. Promise me…”
His hand faltered as he lapsed back into sleep.
“I promise,” Dan whispered. “I promise.”
Dan, not a man to waste time or ever let a friend down, gave his instructions and made his requests that they be taken to their boat to leave immediately.
EPILOGUE
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Sera sneered at Dan as she breezed past him in the doorway. He said nothing, for once not having the time or the energy to pick a fight with the woman he could still argue with over the colour of the sky even years after they first got to know one another.
He stepped back out of the way, shifting his weight from one foot to the other unable to stand still because of the sounds coming from inside the medical rooms. Leah had screamed at him to get out as soon as he burst through the door with two German shepherds flanking him excitedly. Leah, in a state of undress and clearly in pain, screamed at him to get out using language that shocked even him.
He’d busied himself by shutting the dogs away, taking the time to do it properly and put Leah’s dog, Nemesis, into one of the kennels near to the stables. He put Ash with her, after yelling at his own dog for going batshit crazy at one of the big horses that seemed about as concerned with the dog as it was with the loitering flies. Returning to the central part of their home where their adapted hospital wing was, he hovered uncertainly outside the door.
Marie was inside, naturally, as were Kate and Sera and one of the older French women from the town who knew some things about midwifery, which qualified her to the title in their world. Lucien was there, summoned from his position on the main gate where he’d been taking his turn to keep eyes on the approach road to Sanctuary.
If Dan stopped pacing and placed his head against the thick wooden door, he could hear the young man crooning reassuringly to Leah in French. The kid was a cool customer in most situations, probably due to the high level of confidence he’d always had, and Dan was glad that he was there with her.
A scream echoed down the stone corridor, bouncing off the walls and sounding as loud as if the door didn’t exist. He paced again, unable to keep any one part of his body still and feeling the caveman urge to hit something as if the release of energy would make him feel better.
The screams came and went, and if he’d been less of a ball of pent-up stress then he might’ve had the wherewithal to check his watch in between the bouts of foul language and shrieks of agony to reassure himself that things were progressing.
People came and went, leaving gifts and offering reassuring smiles to him, and at some point the sun had gone down without him noticing. He was forced to leave the doorway once when he’d run out of cigarettes, and even then it was only to go far enough to collar one of the children who ran around the fortress like it was their own personal maze and playground and instruct them to find the right person who could bring him a replacement tin so he could continue chain smoking through his stress.
The sound went on well into the night, and when they reached a worrying crescendo Dan was all set to breach the door and go in tactically before other sounds replaced the screams.
Crying. Sobs of anguish made his chest go cold and tight at the same time as the sinking feeling threatened to take his legs out from underneath him. The sobs intensified as more people joined in, and just as Dan’s eyes welled up with the grief and tragedy he illogically expected, another sound reached him.
The sharp, high-pitched and utterly helpless cry of a newborn baby.
He slumped to the cold stone floor, his back against the doorframe as the relief washed out of him through his eyes. He cried unashamedly, not only for the joy of his Leah becoming a mother or giving him a grandchild but for all he’d been through recently and not yet had the time to process. He wept for the happiness and the pain until the door opened and Marie stepped out.
“Soppy old git,” she laughed at him. “Get off your arse and come meet your granddaughter.” She still hadn’t forgiven him for returning as they had but she loved him enough not to let that dilute the importance of the occasion.
He clambered to his feet awkwardly as he tried to cuff the tears from his eyes and the snot leaking from his nose at the same time as staying upright on legs that had gone to sleep from sitting on cold stones.
He couldn’t say anything, just tried to straighten his appearance and followed his wife excitedly inside. Leah, her hair clinging to her face wetly, looked pale and exhausted but the tears in her eyes and the smile on her face made everything right.
Tightly wrapped in a bundle of clean towels was a wrinkly, purple alien with a toothless mouth open wide and puffy eyes clamped shut as she cried. Her skin was streaked with what looked like butter and Dan was totally, utterly in love with her the second she opened her eyes.
She clamped them shut again and began to wail until Leah struggled to manoeuvre her towards her breast. Dan was torn between looking away and being unable to tear his eyes from the girl, but Leah had no reservations about him seeing her partly naked; some things were just so important that everything else faded far beyond insignificance.
Dan sniffed, his wits returning to him as he looked up to see Lucien also crying freely without shame as he looked down on their creation. He caught Dan’s look and smiled, earning a rough hug that stank up the room with testosterone briefly before Sera muttered something half-heartedly about them getting a room.
“Have you decided?” Dan asked, knowing that they had names in mind but were tight-lipped about their shortlist until their child had arrived safely.
“Dan,” Leah said formally, “meet Adalene.”
When Leah spoke her name the baby opened her eyes, looking up at her young mother with interest.
“It’s nice to meet you, Adalene,” Dan said quietly. “Welcome to the family.”
~
It was two weeks before Leah was strong enough to make the climb up to the high cliff where their watchtower sat firm and proud overlooking their home. Dan didn’t want to go without her, and Adalene went nowhere without her mother so their small ceremony had to wait until she was able.
They went slowly, Leah carrying her baby in a wrapped sling and being doubly careful over every footstep in contrast to their numerous journeys up the steep incline over the years. They had both run the path many times, using it as a gruelling exercise to compete and stay strong back when that kind of thing mattered much more than it did now.
Finally, after many stops not just for Leah but for Dan and the others too, and when his son’s head crested the rise first courtesy of being carried on his father’s shoulders it seemed that the whole world stretched out below them.
Rows of neat graves lay in uniform lines, all trimmed and tended by those standing sentry at the watchtower as one of their solemn duties as protectors. Dan lifted his son from his shoulders with a groan, setting him back on his feet and sending him in the direction of his mother with a gentle kick up the backside as he went. He walked ahead by himself, kneeling by one specific grave and placing a flat hand on the grass as he spoke.
“I wish you could see it,” he said softly, speaking only for himself and the other person in the conversation who couldn’t hear him. “What we’ve built here, all that we’ve created…it’s a long way from the survival we scratched at in the beginning.” Ash leaned in against his side to shove his big head under Dan’s arm and let out a whimper for attention. He responded, sympathising with the dog who he knew was reacting to what he sensed was his master’s sadness.
A hand landed on his shoulder gently as another person approached. Joints cracked as they lowered themselves to crouch beside Dan.
“You telling the old man what we’ve been up to?” Neil asked, breathless from the climb and the exertion as he was still recovering from his injuries.
“Yeah,” Dan said, sweeping some moss from the carved wood bearing Jack’s name. “Just checking in with him now that we’re home.”
About the Author
Devon C Ford is from the UK and lives in the Midlands. His career in public services started in his teens and has provided a wealth of experiences, both good and some very bad, which form the basis of the books ideas that cause regular insomnia.
Facebook: @decvoncfordofficial
Twitter: @DevonFordAuthor
Website: www.devoncford.com
Ford, Devon C., After It Happened (Book 9): Home
