THE FINAL CHAPTER
My squeamishness, which had made me turn the binoculars away from the battle, had caused me to see a sight at once miraculous and horrifying. It was a sight that made me instantly begin trembling from head to toe, and that was no exaggeration. Also, my breathing had suddenly accelerated to a near-pant. At the same time, I felt more filled with energy than I probably ever had in my life before, like I could have ran a marathon full-out without ever slowing, unless my rubbery legs gave out beneath me and made me collapse to the ground. But even then, I felt like the electric energy my body seemed filled with, would allow me to quickly reach the finish line just by crawling.
I'd seen my sisters. I hadn't been hallucinating. I was certain. I'd seen Jessica and Ebony. They'd been near the middle of a gently-sloping hill similar to the one to the east. To their right, there had been a group of men. I didn't know how many men were in the group. I'd seen the men somewhere in the corners of my eyes. My gaze had been locked on Jess and Eb for every millisecond of the two seconds I'd been looking directly at them before absolute shock made me drop the binoculars.
The sight had been, without a doubt, the most miraculous one I'd ever seen in my life. However, at the same time, it was the most horrifying. Dozens of Huskers were closing in on Jess, Eb, and the men with them from all sides. Some of the Huskers were only maybe thirty or forty feet away. And because there were so many of them, there was no clear escape route that Jess and Eb could cut through. Not without fighting a line of Huskers three or four deep.
After dispatching another Husker sticking its face through the wall, Kathy frowned at me, lowering her massive knife. "Now, why in the hell would you say-"
"Just help me find a ladder."
"No. Now, you tell me right this second what-"
"Never mind. I already see one."
I was already dashing toward it. Not twenty feet beyond Kathy, it had been left in place a few days earlier when a few of us were repairing a rotting section of wood high up on the wall.
Having zero fear of heights, I'd actually been up on the ladder myself. Which is how I knew that once I climbed to the top, I'd be able to easily scramble down the other side of the wall, even though there was no ladder. Looking over at the other side of the wall just out of curiosity, I saw that it was constructed of so many different pieces of timber and steel that there were a few places where a person could get a few good footholds on the way down.
When I was dashing by her, Kathy grabbed my arm to stop me. "Stop, Eva, right this second. Stop."
I tried to shake her hand from my arm, but she had an iron grip. "You don't understand. My sisters are out there. They're alive. I just saw them. They're to the southeast. I don't know how, but they're alive and completely fine, but I have to go help them. There's a good-sized horde of Huskers-"
"No. No, goddammit, you're staying right here."
"No, I'm-"
"You're really ready to just throw it all away? The happiness you have with Blaine and Nick? Your very life? You're really ready to just throw that all away? And for what? For a slim chance-"
"Of saving my sisters? Hell, yes. Now, let go of my damn arm so I can-"
"No. Rethink your choice, Eva. Happiness and Blaine and Nick, or probable death. At the very least, they'll never forgive you, though you probably won't even be alive for them to-"
"I guess this is just who I am, Kathy. I'm the kind of woman who flies out of trucks to help men she's just met, and I'm the kind of woman who's about to climb over a wall if there's even a one-in-a-trillion chance my sisters can be saved. I guess I'm just dumb. But-"
"If all the Huskers out there don't kill you, you know the Borderliners will drag you back to their village, right? Where you'll be raped, and where you'll probably never be heard from ever-"
"I don't care. Now, let go of my damn arm, Kathy, or else I'm going to punch you in the face."
In response, Kathy only tightened her already-fiercely-tight grip, adding a hand to my other arm as well. "No. No, you can't go out there, Emily! Don't you realize you'll never come back?"
Clearly in her frustration and anger, Kathy had misspoke, calling me Emily, though there wasn't even anyone named Emily in the village. I didn't have even a second to puzzle this out, though, and Kathy didn't even seem to realize her mistake.
She suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard enough to make my teeth chatter. "You stupid, stupid girl! Why have you always been so impulsive...so reckless!" Just as suddenly as she'd begun shaking me, she backhanded me across the face. "How could you have done what you did?"
She'd hit me so hard that stars had instantly appeared in front of my eyes, and I'd staggered backward, falling to my rear, stunned. It hadn't even been the pain of her blow that had done it, just the sheer power and force. I'd never been hit a single time in my life, let alone backhanded by a very strong lady who'd seemed to put every ounce of her strength into it.
Kathy was suddenly sorry now, though, crying with her hands covering her mouth, as if she couldn't believe what she'd done. "I didn't mean to do that, Eva. I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. I just wanted you to be Emily...thought you were her for a second. I'm so sorry."
I had a feeling I was getting really close to hearing why Kathy had always behaved strangely toward me, but as intrigued as I was, I just simply did not have a fraction of a second to spare at present.
Quickly getting to my feet, I rubbed the stinging side of my face, trying to shake the stars out of my eyes at the same time. "Follow me, Kathy, and I will punch you in the face. Twice now, for what you just did to me."
Softly-lined cheeks wet with tears, she just nodded, the perfect picture of contrition. "I won't follow you. I won't try to do anything to you. I'm just so sorry that I hit you."
I didn't have time to hear anymore and began sprinting off to the ladder at top speed. When I reached it, I raced to the top, just flying. I came down the other side of the wall at about the same rate of speed, just jumping the last five or so feet, unable to be bothered looking for another foothold.
Now looking to the southeast, I couldn't see Ebony and Jessica at all. All I could see was a tight circle of at least a hundred Huskers clearly in some kind of a frenzy, moving faster than they usually did. I realized it was possible that Eb and Jess might have already been bitten, and the Huskers that I could see on the outside of the circle were desperate to move in for a taste of their blood.
To the east of the village, Blaine, Nick, and all the other Helena fighters were too far away for me to call out to. Besides, it looked like they still had their hands quite full dealing with all the Borderline and Pine Bluff shifters. Also, I didn't want to alert any of the enemy fighters with any shouts. I was just going to have to try to break through the circle of Huskers and get to Jess and Eb myself, or die trying.
I knew by now that I wasn't the kind of person who could just simply go on in my life knowing that I hadn't even made an effort to save them. It didn't even matter to me that I might lose my own life in this effort.
It did, however, matter to me that I might never see Blaine or Nick again, and that my death would surely break their hearts. By this point, I'd become convinced that they both truly loved me just as much as I loved them, and I knew that I'd be absolutely devastated, just wrecked, if one of them died.
So, I could only imagine that they'd feel the same. Still, I couldn't not do what I was going to do. Like I told Kathy, I knew who I was, and it was maybe a dumber yet braver person than I'd ever thought myself to be. Or, apparently like Emily had been, whoever Emily was, maybe I was just reckless. Not that it even mattered what I was. I was going to try to save my sisters.
At the very least, I wasn't going to let them be undefended and turn into Huskers. I knew they had a group of human men with them, of course, but for all I knew, the group of men was a predatory one who'd chased Eb and Jess right into the arms of the Bloodsuckers in the first place.
After yanking my screwdriver from my pocket and stabbing two Huskers near the wall through their eyes, one right after the other, I tore off across the green grass, glancing in the direction of the battle, and Blaine and Nick, with my chest aching. "I'm so sorry."
*
With adrenaline flooding my veins, I fought just as ferociously and as well as I hoped I would, killing at least twenty of the hundred-something member Husker horde within minutes. However, even after that, I still couldn't see Eb or Jess, and I'd attracted the attention of many of the remaining Huskers.
At least ten of them were now heading straight for me, fangs bared. I'd only been able to dispatch the twenty or so that I had because they'd all been more or less focused inward, possibly on Jess and Eb's bleeding bodies, though I was barely even letting myself think about that.
I wasn't even going to make an attempt at retreat. Not now. Not now that I was maybe within mere feet of my sisters, just unable to see them. With the ten or so Huskers about to attack me, though, I was beginning to lose hope that I was going to remain unbitten much longer. I was possibly never going to see Blaine and Nick again, and even if I did, I figured it would probably only happen while I was in the grip of the Bloodsucker virus.
I didn't think either of them would ever forgive me before I turned into a Husker, requiring one of them to kill me.
Over the previous several weeks, Nick had told me repeatedly that no matter when the battle happened, and no matter what happened during it, I wasn't to leave the village walls, by any means, for any reason. And like I'd learned the first day in the truck with him and Blaine, when Nick gave an order, he expected it to be followed.
Unable to imagine any scenario that would make me even want to leave the village walls during the battle, I'd told Nick repeatedly that I wouldn't, also telling Blaine a few times when he brought up the subject as well. Now I just hoped that Kathy would at least tell them why I'd gone over the wall, if I was too out of it with fever by the time Blaine and Nick found me. Or, if the virus had already transformed me into a Husker by that point.
I wasn't about to give up just yet, though. Even with a dozen Huskers coming at me, even if there was still a one-in-a-million chance that I could still save Jess and Eb, I was going to take it. I was going to continue to fight.
However, at the same moment that the dozen or so Huskers reached me at once, hissing, someone yelled to my left, attracting their attention.
"Hey! Hey, you nasty blood bags! Over here!"
It was Kathy, some thirty feet away, waving her arms. Right away, several of the Huskers began shambling on over to her, leaving me to deal with only the several remaining, which I immediately began stabbing with my screwdriver.
To my left, Kathy began yelling again. "Come on! All of you! Over here! Come and get me!"
Now she had the attention of most of the horde, who began shambling on over to her, groaning and hissing.
Kathy yelled again, though this time so loudly she was nearly screaming. "Now, Emily! Now! Run! Get back to the village!"
I really needed to find out who Emily was. Just sometime when I wasn't nearly being trampled by a hundred-some bloodthirsty creatures with fangs bared.
I began dodging and weaving, but I wasn't about to run. Now I could see Jessica and Ebony. Jess was on her rear in the long Kentucky bluegrass, shrieking, covering her face, while Ebony stabbed at several Huskers near her with a long, thin knife. Around them both, the group of men they were with stabbed at other Huskers even as those Huskers lurched away toward Kathy.
Everything began to feel as if it were happening in slow-motion and yet with lightning-fast speed all at once. I reached Jess and Eb, who both screamed when they saw me, as if I were a ghost. I yelled, stabbing at a Husker who was quickly moving toward Ebony, fangs bared. I pulled Jess up from the ground by the hand. I shouted at the group of men to go help Kathy. But right then, not even a second after I'd spoken, it became clear that Kathy was about to get more help than a group of human men could ever provide.
Thunderous roaring alerted me at first, and then I looked and saw Nick and Blaine, neck-and-neck, charging over from the battlefield. I could only guess that they'd somehow heard Kathy's yelling. Behind them a short distance, several dozen Helena shifters with paint-smeared heads were charging over as well.
I allowed myself the tiniest sigh of relief, daring to hope that now not only were Jess, Eb, and I going to live, but Kathy, too. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted the group of men to live or not, being that I didn't know if they were predators and rapists who'd been holding Jess and Eb captive or something.
Nick came to a screeching halt next to Jess, Eb, and me, and I knew what to do, all but leaping onto his broad back and telling Jess and Eb to do the same. And the second they were on his back, Jess holding onto Eb's shoulders, Eb holding onto mine, and me clutching Nick's golden mane, he took off.
I turned back quickly just in time to see Kathy leap onto the back of a Helena wolf. Some distance away, the group of men was running toward the village, with shifters on either side of them picking off Huskers.
When I felt Eb wrap me in a monstrous bear hug about halfway to the village gates, I just wept, shoulders shaking, reaching one of my hands back to cover one of her own. And by the time the gates had been opened and Nick had taken us inside the village, Eb, Jess, and I were all weeping, flying up and off of Nick's back to embrace, all three of us talking so fast that through our tears our words just sounded like complete gibberish.
It was a while before Jess could speak properly, which she did after pulling away from our group hug, wiping her eyes. "We left Nashville almost as soon as my call with you got disconnected, Eva. I know you told me to stay put with Ebony, but I just couldn't. I just had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen to the city, something far worse than what had even already happened with the virus and the Bloodsuckers.
“So, I made Eb come with me, and we just got in my car and flew. But then we broke down, then we got kidnapped, but then we got guns and fought our way out. We wandered for a while with some priests, and two of them were black-belts in karate, then we lived with an elderly couple in the root cellar of their farmhouse for a really long time.
“But then a horde caved the cellar in, and the elderly couple died, so Eb and I started wandering again, meeting up with this group of men. Then we saw signs that said this village was a safe place, so we all just started walking. We were out of food, and this place was our last hope. We never in a thousand, billion years ever thought we'd find you here. We were just hoping to find a safe place, like the signs said. The signs, however, didn't quite prepare us to get ambushed by a horde coming out from the forest almost the second we got here."
Wiping my eyes, I sniffled a bit, thanking my very luckiest of stars for so many different things. "I was the one who set the putting up of those signs in motion. I asked my husbands to do it so that good people could get help...and it was also a little bit to try to expand the dating pool for my friend Chris, but that's a whole other story.
“I never dreamed that the signs would draw the two of you here. I thought you were both dead. I planted rocks in our memory garden for you both. I had a little memorial service with our minister praying that your souls had found peace."
Just staring at me, as if she couldn't quite believe that she was looking at me, Ebony began crying again. "We thought you were probably dead."
Another tearful, near-hysterical group hug commenced, only broken up when the group of human men soon came through the village gates, asking Eb and Jess if they were okay. Eb and Jess both said yes, then Jess introduced the group of ten men to me by name, saying that they were all friends.
I believed her, although I had many questions for later. One of them being if she and Ebony knew what Stockholm Syndrome was, and if it was possible that either of them had fallen victim to it.
It was only after these introductions had been made that I realized that Nick was just gone. In my wild haste to pull Eb and Jess into my arms, I hadn't even noticed him charging away. However, I figured it was probably best that he had. I knew he was probably absolutely irate with me, and I wanted him to cool down a bit before we spoke. Same with Blaine.
Soon Kathy came in through the gates with Sam, who was in human form, and he looked more than a bit irate himself. I was really too overjoyed to see Kathy, and in one piece, too, to really even pay much attention to Sam's expression. I just pulled Kathy into my arms, asking her if she'd been bitten. She said no, squeezing me tight, then asked me the same question. I responded in the negative, only then realizing that if hadn't checked with Jess and Eb. However, before I could even speak, Eb did, from somewhere behind me.
"We're good, too. In fact, I did a fake-out chomp at one of the Huskers, just to try to scare it away for a second when I dropped my knife."
Realizing just how much I'd missed her and her sense of humor, I suddenly began crying again, burying my face in Kathy's shoulder. Soon, I cried harder still when she patted my back, telling me that the battle was over.
"Things were just winding down when Sam and I came up to the gate. Lots of Borderliner and Pine Bluff shifter carcasses. But not a single carcass with paint...not a single one of ours. Some of our men even survived the fight with enough energy left over to just take off in pursuit of the Borderliners that escaped."
Chris soon came down from the guard tower, took Jess, Eb, and me to his office, and then gave us all brief physical exams, declaring all of us in perfect health, or nearly perfect, because I had a giant bruise on my face where Kathy had struck me. Chris asked me what had happened, and I sighed.
"Basically, Kathy hauled off and hit me. I'm just going to let it go, though, even though I definitely didn't appreciate it. I think Kathy and I were both suffering brief attacks of insanity."
After leaving Chris' office, I took Jess and Eb to the house, where we cried some more, ate, and cried some more again. Jess and Eb took hot showers for the first time in two years. I waited downstairs for them, not knowing if I wished that Nick and Blaine would come home, or if I wished that they wouldn't.
That evening, when they still hadn't returned home, Jess, Eb, and I shared dinner and a few glasses of wine around the kitchen table. And when Ebony excused herself to use the restroom, I suddenly remembered a very important question that I hadn't gotten answered yet, so I asked Jess.
"Those men that you and Eb came in with...I can get the fine details of how you two came to meet up with them and all that later, but...I just have to know right now. Have any of them ever hurt either of you in any way?"
To my surprise, Jess actually stifled a laugh. "Um...no. Well, sorry...yes. Just four of them in particular...the four of them that make up two couples, Max and Andy, and Dave and Terrence. Those four would sometimes hurt my ears all night with their wails and moans of passion.
“It was really like the two couples were hell-bent on outdoing each other in the noise department. Finally the six other guys and Jess and I told them that they just had to start pitching their tents further away from the rest of ours. We were all going to strangle them in their sleep if they didn't, not to mention that some nights, I was pretty sure they were attracting a few more Huskers than we'd normally be bothered with. But, anyway...after our threats and orders to move their tents, my nightly-ear-pain-level got a little better."
Listening to Jess, profoundly relieved, my wheels had already started turning.
"The other six men in the group, besides the couples...they wouldn't happen to be gay, too, would they?"
Jess looked at me quizzically, lips twitching with amusement. "Why, yes...yes, they would. You wouldn't happen to have anyone from the village you'd like to introduce them to, would you?"
"Oh, just a very handsome doctor in his late twenties. You think any of them might be interested in meeting him?"
"Oh, something tells me that very soon, there's going to be a line at the doctor's office six men deep."
The line might have been forming even then. Because when Chris stopped by to check on my bruised face around ten, he had Kevin, who was one of the more handsome men from the group, with him, and Chris said that they were going to take a stroll through the village, just to look at the stars. While Chris said this, looking right at me, I noticed a few stars dancing in his chocolate brown eyes.
No sooner had Chris and Kevin left than Kathy arrived, asking Jess and Eb if she could visit with me in private. When it was just the two of us at the kitchen table, she began studying her hands and nails as she’d done when talking to me after the wedding.
"Emily was my daughter, Eva, and you're just her absolute dead ringer. Same age...almost same literally everything. And for two brief seconds when I first set eyes on you, I thought Emily had somehow found her way back to me, and I've never felt such perfect joy in my life, not even when she was born. But then I saw that you don't have a very prominent scar on one side of your forehead...and I knew that I'd been mistaken.
“You were just the Olympic ice skater that Emily and I always joked was her twin. And in that moment when I realized this...I hated you. And I'm sorry about that, but it's true. I hated you. I hated you because for two seconds, you'd unknowingly made me think that my daughter had come back to me, safe and sound somehow, miraculously...and then it was all just ripped away. I felt like I wanted to die, which is something I've only felt one other time in my life, and that was right after I lost Emily."
Chest aching, I just looked at Kathy for a moment or two before responding. "How did it happen?"
Gaze still on her hands, Kathy heaved a sigh before continuing. "It was the two of us out on the road, not long after the virus hit, and we picked up a teenage girl named Chelsea, who'd lost her whole family. None of us knew how to fight. We got surrounded by a horde in a little shack somewhere in the boonies.
“Chelsea tried to escape by running past all the Huskers, but, not knowing even how to kill them, she got stuck, stabbing them but not able to get free. Emily ran out after her, even though I begged her not to. And once she was out the door, I couldn't chase after her, because the Huskers had blocked the doorway by that point.
“I ended up hiding in a large oak chest in one corner of the shack until the horde had moved on, destroying the shack in the process. And then, when I came out, Chelsea was staggering around outside, having been turned into a Husker. But Emily was just gone...just nowhere to be found. And, of course, I searched the surrounding areas for a time, carefully surveying the face of every Husker I killed, but I never found her. And eventually, for my own survival, I had to move on, both geographically and mentally. I never even told Mike and Sam about Emily until just a few hours ago...never even told my own husbands about my daughter.
“Just the very thought of it hurt too badly. And I guess the tiniest part of me was always hoping that I'd never have to tell them the sad story...that one day, Emily would somehow find me, and then they could just share in the joy." With tears shining in her eyes, Kathy suddenly looked up at me, trying to smile. "Like the joyful reunion you had with your sisters today."
I found I couldn't muster any kind of a smile in return. Instead, I impulsively reached for one of Kathy's hands, covering it with my own. "I'm so very grateful that my sisters came back to me, but I'm so very sorry it wasn't Emily who came back, too."
Now smiling even harder, though with tears streaming down her cheeks, Kathy nodded. "Thank you. Me, too. I'm truly happy for you, though...and Emily's always in my heart. She will be until the day I die."
Feeling a few tears welling in my own eyes, I gave Kathy's hand a squeeze, making her smile and cry harder, but after a few moments, she abruptly wiped her eyes with a deep sigh, leaning back in her chair.
"Hopefully you'll never, ever have to learn what it feels like...to have your daughter just disappear...and you never even get to find out what happened to her. You never even get to find out if she's a Husker, or is at peace, dead, or if she's being held as a sex slave somewhere. You just never get to find out. I never get to find out. I'm not saying this so that you feel sorry for me, Eva, I'm just saying it because it's true. I wouldn't wish my experience on you, or anyone, ever."
"Well, I hope none of those scenarios are true. I hope maybe Emily got away from the horde somehow, but she got lost, and later found a nice community like Helena somewhere. I hope maybe Emily's still alive somewhere happy, except maybe she always wonders what happened to her mom, and she's always looking for you."
Wiping her eyes again, Kathy gave me a little smile. "I like that thought, and a tiny part of me will never stop hoping that scenario is true...but it's not very realistic in this new world, and I have to find a way to make peace with the scenarios that are more realistic."
"I understand."
A few seconds ticked by.
Kathy turned her gaze downward, to the table, then abruptly stood, moving her chair out of the way so fast it threatened to tip. "I'm really very, very sorry for hitting you, Eva. Hitting is an outrageously horrible thing for a person to do, no matter the circumstances. I just hope you can forgive me at some point, because I'd like to be your friend. I'd like to move past hurting nearly every time I look at you."
Eyes filling again, Kathy turned to leave.
But, after flying up and out of my chair like she had, I caught her hand to stop her. "I forgive you, Kathy, and I'd like to be your friend, too. I'd like to make you smile sometimes and think of the good times with Emily, if I can."
Kathy nodded, smiling while tears streamed down her cheeks once again. "Thanks. I hope you're given the same gift of forgiveness by your husbands that you just gave me...something tells me you will be."
I was not at all sure about that. And after Kathy left, I got Eb and Jess all settled into the guest bedrooms, and then came back downstairs and cried, wondering when Nick and Blaine were going to come home. Wondering if they still loved me.
However, when they both came in the living room around midnight, my remorse and heartache suddenly turned into irrational anger, and I flew up from the couch, wiping my eyes.
"Well, go ahead. Let me have it. Yell at me. Tell me what I did was stupid and wrong, and a violation of your direct orders, Nick. You both can even throw things if you want, just not at me. But go ahead. Yell. I don't even know why I'm so mad all of a sudden, because I know I deserve it."
*
In response to my angry tirade, telling him and Blaine to just go ahead and yell at me, Nick just shook his head. "No."
In the soft glow of a small lamp, I just looked at him for a moment. "'No,' what?"
"No. Blaine and I aren't going to yell, or throw things, or any of that. We're both too grateful you're okay, and that your sisters are alive."
A long moment went by before I could respond. "Well...well, that's it, then?"
Nick moved a little closer to me, lifting his broad shoulders in a shrug. "I guess that's it. Blaine and I understand why you did what you did. We definitely wish you wouldn't have done it, but we get it. You're a brave, loving woman who saw her family members surrounded by Huskers, and so, you did what brave, loving women do. Blaine and I both needed some time to cool off before seeing you to talk about all this, but bottom line, we both forgive you."
Again, I couldn't respond right away. "You do? You both do?"
Nick nodded, and Blaine responded with a grunt. And soon I was in their arms, being held and cradled and kissed, experiencing one of the strongest rushes of joy I'd ever felt in my life.
Over the next several weeks, things in the village slowly got back to normal. All the carcasses beyond the walls were burned and the remains buried. Some, though not all, of the Borderliners that had escaped the fray, including Wesley Archer, were hunted down and killed. Chris fell in love with Kevin. Jess and Eb found men of their own, two for each of them. Ten additional newcomers joined Helena after having seen the signs advertising a safe community.
Jess and Eb's stones were removed from the memorial rock garden, and Kathy added one for Emily. She had me design it with roses around Emily's name, because roses had been Emily's favorite flower.
Not long after, toward the end of dinner one night, Nick asked Blaine if he'd like to formally become co-leader of Helena. The question had kind of come out of nowhere, during a long pause in conversation, when I'd been finishing the last few sips of a glass of wine. Surprised, because I'd had no idea that Nick had even been thinking about what he'd asked, I set my wineglass on the table silently, covertly glancing between Nick and Blaine.
I thought that Blaine would accept Nick's offer, especially since Nick had added that he'd be honored if Blaine would accept.
However, surprising me yet again, Blaine just glanced up at Nick, then looked down again, pushing a few remaining cooked carrot slices around on his plate. "Thanks, brother. But I think I lead best, in my own way, when I'm not the top dog, or one of them, if that makes any sense. I feel most like myself how things are now."
I'd never heard Blaine refer to Nick as his brother before. And I found that I kind of liked the idea of that, of the two of them being brothers, maybe in the same way that Jess, Eb, and I were sisters. I also found that I understood what Blaine had said in response to Nick. Blaine was certainly no beta male, but he wasn't as vocal as Nick.
He seemed a bit more independent than Nick, even though he wasn't "top dog." And somehow I mentally agreed that being "co-top dog" probably wouldn't suit him. I also kind of liked things the way they were. Nick seemed fine with them, too, not directly responding to what Blaine had said, but lifting his whiskey glass in a toast "to brothers."
About five weeks after the battle, after having tended to the flowers in the garden for several hours, I came home at about four in the afternoon to find Nick and Blaine already home. They said they had a surprise for me. Funny, I thought, because I had one for them, too. However, eager to see or hear theirs first, I let them blindfold me and lead me out to the garage, where they'd had some sort of a secret project going on for a few days.
When Nick removed my blindfold, he gestured to a large, inflatable kiddie pool, maybe ten by ten feet, that appeared to be filled with a few inches of solid ice. "It's not Olympic ice, but it's ice. We got the idea when we found a few industrial cooling coils in a warehouse out on a supply run about a week ago. When we came across a pair of ice skates in your shoe size later that same day, we just knew we had to do it. We figured it might give you some joy just to feel ice under skate blades, even if you can't really do much on our small little rink but spin."
After eying a pair of battered white skates tucked against the side of the "rink," I looked at Nick and Blaine with tears welling in my eyes. "It's the most beautiful rink I've ever seen."
Soon I was skating on it, or at least spinning on it, laughing out loud while Nick and Blaine looked on, both of them grinning from ear-to-ear. Though after a while, they headed back in the house, with Nick saying that the ice wouldn't last for long, so they'd go make dinner for me in the meantime while I enjoyed it. Enjoy it I did, spinning around, and even skating backward for a bit, for at least an hour before the ice began to melt.
When I arrived in the kitchen, cradling my new skates to my chest, Nick looked up from the stove with a smile.
"Has it turned to slush yet?"
I nodded, and Blaine asked me if it had been fun while it had lasted, making me nod again.
"Yes. It was so much fun while it lasted. I loved it. Although, even if the two of you were willing to make me another little rink at some point in the future, I guess I should probably stay off the ice for a while."
Nick and Blaine both simultaneously asked me why, and I worked hard to maintain a straight face and not break out in a grin.
"Oh, just because I'm pregnant. Chris told me this morning. So, I wouldn't want to wipe out and hurt the baby."
With both of them wearing expressions of shock mixed with joy, Nick and Blaine both scooped me up and into their arms at once, and so fast that I dropped my skates, laughing.
About eight months later, I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy the three of us named Alexander Michael Hardwick-Miller. Right away, he resembled Blaine, and not subtly, but obviously. He even grunted a lot. He was an adorable baby, and I called him my sweet angel because he really was, but he had a definite gruff, vaguely disgruntled way about him, even from day one.
It didn't even matter that he was clearly Blaine's biological son. He was our son. Nick's, Blaine's, and mine. Nick was actually the parent he seemed to enjoy being held by most.
It was looking like nine-year-old Emma, and baby Laurel, the only girls so far out of all the kids in the village, might have to take numerous husbands when they became adults. Jess, Eb, and three other women in the village were all currently pregnant with sons.
However, only a few months after giving birth to Alex, I became pregnant again, and an ultrasound done by Chris a few months later revealed without a doubt that I was carrying a girl. Tracy was also pregnant by this time, after a year or so of struggling to become so, and at her first ultrasound, she learned that she was carrying not one, but two girls. Twins. Her wait to become pregnant had obviously been very well worth it.
When I gave birth to a tiny, flaxen-haired, shrieking, six-pound girl a few weeks early, with Nick and Blaine by my side, we at first spent several minutes just marveling over her absolute perfection before I put her to my breast to nurse.
When she latched on immediately, Chris said he thought giving her a physical exam could wait a little while, because she seemed perfectly healthy, especially considering she was just on the nearly-full-term side of preemie. "And in the meantime, would you three like me to go out in the hall and get Kathy? Or would you like to wait until you've finished nursing, Eva?"
I said no, to please send her in right away. Kathy, who I'd grown very close to, had seen me nursing Alex many a time, and besides, I couldn't wait to find out what her answer would be to two questions I was going to ask her.
When she came in Chris' delivery room, carrying Alex, and saw me with the new baby, who'd already fallen asleep at my breast, she burst into tears, saying how beautiful the "brand-new princess" was. "And does she have a name yet?"
Feeling pretty near to tears myself, I glanced at Nick and Blaine before looking up at Kathy again. "No, but that's one of two questions we have to ask you. The first is if you'll be our baby girl's godmother. The second is if you'll allow us to name her Emily Rose. The three of us all just love the name, and we'd like to honor your Emily by using it. Although we totally understand if it might be too painful, or in any other way upsetting, so we've picked an alternate name, which-"
"No. Please call her Emily Rose. I'd be so..." Voice cracking, Kathy paused to wipe her eyes. "So very honored."
Soon, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Kathy cried, I cried, and tiny Emily Rose woke up and cried. Appearing horrified to see his spirited new baby sister, Alex just looked at her, wailing. Nick's eyes became pink and shiny. Blaine grunted a few times, clearing his throat, before wiping his eyes with a rough, hasty motion, seeming as if they were greatly irritating him.
Over the next several months, Emily's bluish-toned newborn eyes turned a deep shade of emerald, indicating that she was likely Nick's daughter. Her facial features also greatly resembled his. Like with Alex's obvious biological parentage, this didn't even matter, though. Emily was our baby.
One evening, after her Aunt Eb had returned her home, and after Aunt Jess had returned Alex home, Nick, Blaine, and I sat down on the couch with our sleeping baby and sleeping toddler, after having missed them a lot during dinner. Blaine cradled Emily, planting a feather-light kiss on her forehead. Nick held Alex, running a hand over his somewhat wild, wavy brown hair. Sitting between the two father-child groups, I looked from side to side with my heart swelling, realizing that happily-ever-after endings really could happen, even in the new post-apocalyptic world.
THE END
Message From The Author:
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