Hearth & Home

[troublewillfindme]

All things considered, the house isn’t in bad shape. Sure, there’s a few boards on the outside that need to be repaired, and the floors need to be redone, and that step creaks, and the shutters are loose, but overall. It’s not in bad shape.

 

The owners had moved out towards the city center in Chicago years back. The stragglers who stayed behind at adopted the house as their own. Strange, maybe, but that’s small town Kansas for you.

Kansas. God, the thought of being back here voluntarily is strange. When he’d left, he’d sworn he was gone for good. Then, XCOM happened. After that, he knew he’d never be back.

But they’d needed gear from the base. He’d needed files. His mother’s house was still a warm place to winter. Manhattan still had salvage. But once again, he’d promised himself: this is the last time.

He’d left for the ocean; now, he wants to be as far from it as possible. So, Kansas, once again.

Slowly, the world is reforming, reintegrating. There are challenges, and there will be for some time. The almost total loss of skilled manual labor outside of the Resistance and Haven communities will be a challenge that takes years to really overcome. The losses in biodiversity may never truly heal — at least not without intervention. The decimation of the Lost cities remains an ever present concern.

And that’s not factoring in integrating the ADVENT forces, newly able to act of their own agency, into a society that still isn’t sure how to react.

He is tired. He has fought so hard for so long. The ache of old injuries never truly goes away, and the new ones throb in ways he never truly thought possible. His nerves are raw, his nightmares ferocious, and his strength worn.

He just wants peace. He wants somewhere safe and dry to lay his head at night, a place where the floors creak and the sunlight pours in, where broken things can be mended once again.

The house might be enough.

He brings the idea up after dinner one night, a sketch of an idea presented to the partner curled against his side. The Commander listens and nods, rubbing circles into his palm while he talks.

“Sounds like we’re finally getting our chance.” A better benediction than he could have hoped for.

They’ve come to know the community, or at least what remains. Those brave enough had made contact with the Avenger when it had landed in one of the fields on the outskirts; they’d been happy for the supplies and rations, and had welcomed the crew into their lives.

It is a chance to begin again, maybe the last one; he has no intention of squandering it.

–

Three months in, and the big things have all been fixed. The shutters have been re-hung, the rotted boards replaced, the creaking step silenced, and the floors redone.  Their small solar grid keeps the house comfortable, the lights on, and the water running. It has been long, hard work, but he is satisfied.

Menace had liberated a mattress from a former ADVENT warehouse as a kind of housewarming gift for them, parading it off the Skyranger with such solemnity before asking if they could surf it down the stairs. The Commander had just laughed, unable to respond to such an absurd request. For his part, he’d simply glowered up at their surprisingly cherubic grins.

“Not unless you’re planning on fixing the wall — and doing it the right way.”

That had been more than enough to disabuse them of such an idea.

He sits on the porch steps with Kelly that night, watching the sun set over the land.

“It’s amazing what you’ve done,” she says. “You’ve gotta be exhausted.”

He shrugs. “Take this over the war any day.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, I’d imagine. God,” she sighs. “I’d kill for a break. Even just a little time away from it.”

“So, stay.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You’re gonna have to steal your own mattress, but we’ve got the room.”

“You mean it?”

“I’m not the only one who’s earned a break.”

–

The garden starts as a joke, a bet that a human bonded with an incredibly powerful alien, the only person to survive being inserted, removed, and re-inserted into the ADVENT network, is, in fact, not in possession of a green thumb.

It is not the correct assumption.

The berries have taken over, sprawling out into the lawn, with watermelons and summer squash chasing after. Oregano, mint, and lavender sprout in the window boxes, and tomatoes climb towards the sun in their cages.

“This your doing, or his?” He asks one afternoon.

“Both, I think?” The Commander answers. “I think he likes that it’s constructive.”

“Keep it up, and we’re gonna have to find help eating all this .”

“That’s the goal.”

–

There are still nightmares. He suspects there always will be: the faces they couldn’t save, the friends they lost, the horrors they saw, the few agonizing seconds waiting for the Commander to come back to him after Leviathan. These are the things that haunt dreams.

They have been in the house for five months. They have beds and bookshelves and the kitchen cabinets are almost almost entirely refinished. The swing he’d put up for Kelly as a joke has become something of a neighborhood attraction. There is a kitchen table in progress, even.

There are times it is still not enough.

So, yes, it is 4 AM. Yes, he is awake. Yes, he is sanding the damn kitchen tabletop because yes, he has to do something.

“Hey,” a gentle voice says. “Don’t jump. It’s me.”

He offers the Commander a tired grin over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Could ask you the same thing.”

He shakes his head. “Tried. Failed. Had to do something.”

“So, our table?”

“Yeah, our table.”

The Commander settles next to him. “Can I help?”

“You’re gonna get covered in sawdust.”

“Ah, the miracle of a working shower.”

Kelly finds them later that morning, asleep against the wall on the back porch, hand-in-hand.

“Remind me why we stole you two a mattress?” She asks.

“So you could try surfing down the stairs on it,” the Commander mutters.

Central just grins.

–

Seven months in, and they have made real progress. Every bed has a mattress and every mattress has a bed. The kitchen cabinets are finally finished and the table sits proudly in the breakfast nook.

The town has grown, opening its doors to ADVENT refugees of all stripes, both human and hybrid. He has been drafted into the efforts to build a better gazebo for the green, a bigger one, one that might actually be able to hold all of the faces that flock to the teach-ins.

He has thus far resisted being drafted into giving one of those.

There is a market of sorts, a place where people come to swap their goods. The Commander and Kelly bring the extra produce, and come back with books and tools and hats and coats and sweets.  

There is a rug at the bottom of the stairs now, and on each of the bathroom floors. Curtains line the windows and the wallpaper that once peeled has been stripped away, replaced by a fresh coat of paint. There are sheets and spare sheets, soft towels, and an understanding that you will take the damn boots off when you walk in.

There are even rumors of a sofa.

He comes down the stairs every morning to the sight of three coats hanging from the rack and knows he is home.

–

They crowd into town for First Night, watching a small fireworks show set against the Kansas cold. There is tea and coffee, and hot apple cider from one of the orchards farther west. The Commander’s glove-clad fingers are threaded through his, and Kelly’s head is on his shoulder, her usual baseball cap foregone in favor of warmer headgear.

The hybrids and humans mingle freely, much of the fear having been abated. The Commander had played no small part in that, loud and public speeches about the oppression of the former under the ADVENT administration, the vital efforts of their freed brethren to help reclaim the earth. It had been enough wiggle room, enough of an in, for the Skirmishers and their kind to have a chance — and that was all they needed. Confronted with the reality of the individuals, wise yet curious, battle savvy yet not blood thirsty, many found themselves embraced.

As they trudge home through the newly fallen snow, he feels something funny in his chest, something he almost doesn’t recognize: hope for what’s ahead.

–

The nature of children is that, left unattended, they will bring home unexpected animals. The nature of soft-hearted parental figures is that they will be powerless to do anything except welcome these creatures into their homes with open arms.

At least she didn’t bring home a pony, he tells himself.

The rumors of ADVENT scientists working to reintroduce decimated livestock populations had begun sometime last summer. Of course, he hadn’t paid it any mind. Sure, he’d love for fresh milk and eggs to make a comeback, for steak to be edible once again, but he’d refused to get his hopes up. Stories came in fits and spurts, but they never added up to anything more substantial than alluring rumor, a fantastic but ultimately false hope.

He hadn’t been sure what to say when Kelly walked through the door with a chicken under each arm, and a floppy eared puppy at her heels, her eyes beaming with joy.

So, yes, naturally, he’s building a chicken coop on this early February afternoon. What else is he supposed to do?

–

He sits on the porch steps, Toto’s head resting in his lap. He’d protested the name, at first, but warmed to it quickly enough. Thelma and Louise, Kelly’s much loved chickens, strut proudly about the yard; they’ve been a good source of both eggs and laughter since their arrival.

It’s been a year since they moved in, so to speak, a year of building and rebuilding, repairing and reinventing. There are beds now, and a table, dressers even, but still no sofa. There is power, water, and a garden out back. From the ashes of the old, they have built anew.

He looks out across the yard to the tree beginning to bud, the grass beginning to green. He looks up at the cloudless blue sky and offers a silent thanks to what, or who, ever allowed them to get this far.

The front door closes and the Commander is next to him, nuzzled into the crook of his neck. 

“You okay?” Comes the muffles question.

He nods. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

“What’s next.”

The Commander squeezes one of his hands. “I don’t know, but as long as I’ve got you, I’m sort of excited to find out.”