Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
Reunions could be seen as most to be a happy condition of the human state. Long lost relatives, lovers who had been kept apart by distance and time, old friends lost to each other lives, all coming together in joyous unity and celebration of emotional ties that made man the social animal that he was. Unfortunately, it was rather a mixed blessing when Mike Larabee realised saw his father and Buck Wilmington striding in his direction following the timely arrival of the seven. Billy, Lilith, Elena Rose, the captive Young brothers and himself had been given warnings of their presence when they heard the sounds of gunfire, coupled with the voices that ordered the throwing away of guns and the cessation of hostilities.
Buck Wilmington's face flooded into a mixture of relief and then mild annoyance when he saw his daughter alive and well only to then notice her in the hold of Mike Larabee, which was anything but friendly in its intensity. In fact, he was holding her like one would hold a lover and while Buck knew that both children were much too young for anything like that, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of panic because he suddenly realised that she was not the little girl he remembered. Not the child whom he had been singularly pleased to have been with when she had taken her first steps or the little girl whom he bought ice cream for when she was weeping over the lost of her first baby tooth. She was a young woman now and Mike was looking at her....
The way he looked at Inez.
That disarmed Buck a little at least until he approached her and saw the bruises on her face. Crossing the space between himself and his daughter in seconds, Buck felt a bubble of fury surface seeing those ugly welts against her skin. Upon his approach, Mike dropped his arm from around her shoulders and glanced anxiously in the direction of Chris, who was still a few paces behind Buck.
"What happened to you?" He demanded. He had never in his life raised a hand to his daughter and when he found who had done this to her, there was going to be hell to pay. "Who did this to you Rose?"
Elena Rose glanced at the two men that Billy was covering with his gun and whom Buck recognised as Hank Young and his brother Jesse and debated over telling her father what Jesse had intended to do to her. Knowing her father well enough, Elena Rose decided against it because there would be nothing that could stop Buck Wilmington from tearing the man apart with his bare hands if that piece of information reached him. "I was trying to keep them from hurting the others." She said after a moment, deciding that was the safest course of action.
Mike looked sharply at her at that admission. He almost balked at the suggestion that Jesse ought to walk away from what he had almost done to Elena Rose but he understood by the impassioned look in her eyes as she begged him to support her story, that it was Buck she was attempting to protect. "Yeah," he nodded slowly, fuming inwardly at having to protect Jesse Young from Buck's wrath because he believed the man sorely deserved whatever retribution Buck was liable to inflict upon him for the attempt rape of his young daughter. "That's what happened Sir."
However, whether or not Buck knew the real truth did not detract him the slightest from the rage he was feeling now as seeing his Rose's lovely face marked by the bruised caused by knuckles. He strode past the two children and went straight to Hank. Buck almost stood eye to eye with the man but it would not have mattered if he were an inch tall. No one harmed his child and got away with it.
"You like hitting little girls, you son of a bitch." Buck asked Hank with barely concealed rage.
Hank glared at Buck derisively but he never had a chance to make an offending remark because no sooner than the words had left the angry father's lips, Buck flattened the man with a single blow. Hank and his considerable bulk went down in a heap, sending up a small cloud of dust when he landed a few feet away his still unconscious brother. Once the formalities were over, Buck looked over his shoulder at the children before him and demanded with far more intensity than either had ever heard him display.
"Can someone tell me what the hell went on today?" He stared at the two children, aware that the answer lay with them more than it did with Lilith and Billy.
"What about the others?" Billy asked first, ignoring that question until he knew if the other children had been rescued although he guessed by the absence of the rest of the seven that they were dealing with the remainder of Hank's gang.
"We found them hiding up in a cave in the ridge," Buck answered quickly. "Once we got the drop on the men who ride with this piece of crap, they were more than happy to get out of there. Ezra can't get Penny to stop complaining about the bugs or something." Buck shook his head, not understanding what that was all about. "Sam's hurt though."
"Sam?" Mike's voice rose an octave. "Is she okay?"
"One of those bastards shot her in the arm, looks like a flesh wound but when she got hit she took a nasty tumble down the tree she was hiding in." Buck said gravelly. "Nathan thinks she busted some ribs."
"Oh god," Lilith exclaimed in horror, thinking that anyone who would shoot a child should have a special place in hell prepared for them.
Mike said nothing but then Buck saw his eyes.
"Now young man," Buck said to him aware that Chris was letting him to do the talking because he did not trust himself to speak, which bode badly for the younger Larabee. "You mind telling me what the hell you kids been up to today?"
"Well," Elena Rose spoke up before Mike could. "You see it's quite a funny story. In fact, you'll laugh when you hear it, I know I laughed."
Everyone rolled their eyes collectively.
"Its okay Rose," Mike gave her a look telling her that it was not necessary for her to cover up for him. He knew what he had done wrong. In the last few minutes, having seen what almost happened to Elena Rose, hearing about Sam's wounds and everything else that had transpired since emerging from the underground, Mike knew that he had endangered everybody by his full hardy taste for adventure. He knew it and he was prepared to accept whatever consequences came from this. However, he still found himself unable to meet his father's eyes.
"It was my fault," Mike admitted readily, more than aware after what had almost to happened to Elena Rose at the hands of Jesse Young and the dangers similarly faced by the rest of his friends, just how much he was responsible for. His quest of treasure and adventure had almost cost them their lives on numerous occasions today and Mike was not about to let anyone cover for him. He was prepared to face the consequences for his actions. "I found the map in the school house," he explained, unable to meet his father's eyes in all this. "I thought it was a treasure map and I convinced everyone we ought to go hunting for it. It was my fault that we got into mess and my fault only."
Buck looked at the young man taking the brunt of responsibility and could not help thinking how much he was his father's son. Buck met Chris' gaze and knew the former gunslinger was madder than hell but restraining his own anger until the correct time. Considering how Chris could be about such things, Buck knew nothing he said would compare to the moment when he had to face his father.
"You could gotten your fool selves killed." Buck retorted, with reproach in his voice but no real anger.
"I know Sir." Mike nodded. "I am sorry for endangering Elena Rose."
"Daddy, I wanted to go with him!" Elena Rose cried out. "We all did! Mike didn't have to convince us! We wanted to find treasure!"
"Well," he shrugged, having already come to that conclusion but admiring his daughter's desire to exonerate Mike and suddenly felt a resurgence of that feeling of loss at realizing the steps she was taking towards womanhood and her future that was being solidified. Buck knew enough lovers and love to know what he saw in his child's eyes and it was not something that frightened him but gave him a warm glimpse of the future and that future was being played out by the obvious affection between them. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, let's get you home. That face of your needs looking at." He placed his hand on her shoulder and guided her away even though she wanted very much to remain with Mike when he faced Chris.
"On your feet!" Billy jabbed his foot into Hank's side. "We're going to town. I'm pretty sure the sheriff is gonna want to talk to you." Billy's guns was still aimed at Hank who got slowly to his feet, pulling his brother upright at the same time. The swelling on the side of Jesse's face had contorted his jaw out of shape, probably in direct inverse proportion to the dent in the shovel Mike had hit him. Lilith had relieved Hank of his gun earlier and was keeping it trained on the man, just in case he tried anything, though she doubted he would.
When Billy and Lilith marched the two brothers out of the clearing to join the other members of the seven, it left Mike and Chris facing each other alone.
For a few seconds neither man or boy spoke nor the silence between them lengthened into minutes. Mike knew from experience that this was usually a good indication that his father was furious with him and for once Mike also found that nothing Chris said could make him feel any worse. Knowing how close Elena Rose had come to being... he could not even think about it and Sam being shot and all the other near misses of the day, he felt singularly ashamed of himself. He had never felt so awful in his life that if there was some consolation to all this was the fact that Chris Larabee could not make him feel any worse.
"What have you got to say for yourself?" Chris asked, his voice taut with anger. There had been a terrible moment when he heard that gunshot that Chris had felt himself revisited by horrific memories of coming home to find Adam and Sarah, of being too late to save them and thinking that he was to late to save either of his sons. With as much shame as he was unaware that his son was feeling at the moment, Chris had thought for a moment in a stray instant of fear to let it be anyone else but Kyle or Mike. He was mortified by his selfishness.
"I'm sorry." Mike said quietly.
"Sorry?" Chris glared at him sharply, angry and unable to stop it from letting it get the better of him. Being scared half to death tended to do that to a man. "Is that all you got to say? After convincing you friends to go on some stupid treasure and almost getting them killed, that's all you have to say?"
Mike smoldered but kept his own temper in check. He was nearing something, something he had not expected to feel but now that it was here, Mike found he had difficulty reining it although he was not about to voice it just yet. "I know that."
"I don't think you do." Chris retorted. "I thought I taught you better than that."
Whatever it was inside him that he had been attempting to restrain, finally found its time and Mike turned on his father and said sharply. "Well I'm not you! I'm not perfect like you!"
"What?" Chris looked at him, stunned by the tone of voice that did not at all sounded like a child's tantrum but a man's anger and it took him a further second for Mike's words to register in his brain. "What did you say?" He said with something akin to astonishment.
"Do you have any idea what it's like to be your son?" Mike demanded, unaware from where this fountainhead of repression was finding its voice but was powerless to stop it now that it had gushed forth from inside him. "I am eleven years old and everyone looks at me like I should have all the answers. Whenever something goes wrong, they all look to me to fix it, not just Sam, Rose, Peter or the others, but everyone! I'm always supposed to know what to do because you always know what to do and when I can't manage it, they treat me like I'm the joke end of a legend."
Too many years of seeing the look into many eyes, hearing the whispers behind his back of what he was supposed to be and their reproach when he was not quite up to the standard of his father had finally found expression. "I am only eleven years old and I am expected to know everything and that ain't fair. You know what the worse thing about all this is? I can stand it when it's them, when its people I don't know. I can even stand it when its Rose and my friends because that's how its always been but when it comes from you of all people, I just wish my name something else other than Larabee because then it hurts."
Chris did not know what to say. He opened his mouth to protest and give Mike as good as he got, to flatly deny everything that the boy had said but he could not. He could not because it was true.
"I want to be a kid but if that's not good enough, if you can't accept me as anything than a younger version of yourself then forget all about me until I go through whatever happened to you to make you what you are now." Mike concluded and started to walk away, not waiting for his father, a gesture that in itself was unprecedented because it was always Mike that was following Chris.
That was too much even for Chris and way to close to home. What had made him the man he was, had been the loss of his wife and son that almost destroyed him. It had sent him spiraling into the black abyss which immersed his soul in that dark so completely that it never really recovered, not even after wedding Mary and being father to four children. He looked at his son and was suddenly struck with the memory of how ashamed he had been when he had been discharged from the Academy. How he had been so afraid to face his father because of failing the General's expectations that they remained strangers for the next twenty years. Chris saw his son receding into the distance and knew that if he did not speak now, it would not be just space that came between them.
Chris would lose him.
"Michael!" Chris called out.
Mike stopped, too conditioned to obey to ignore that voice. However, he took his time turning around and met his father's expression and saw that Chris was shocked but strangely enough, not angry. He had expected sharp rebuke but instead he got that one look from his father he could never understand, the one that only his mother seemed to be able to interpret.
Chris paused in front of his son and saw a face that was no longer the child he had been terrified to let out of his sight in Mike's early years. The face was evolving; the transformation was especially significant tonight Chris suspected because their relationship was about to change. "You know," Chris said meeting his son's eyes and saying with a little smile. "When I was your age, everyone expected me to join the army."
"You mean like grandpa?" Mike questioned quizzically unable to imagine his father as a soldier, gunfighter definitely, but not a soldier.
"Yeah," Chris answered. "When you have a father who is general and a career military man, people tend to expect that you'd go the same way. After awhile I started believing it too. I wanted to be so much like him that when I couldn't be, I ran away."
"You don't run away from anything." Mike said somewhat incredulously, unable to imagine the concept of Chris Larabee turning tail and running from anything, let alone his father.
"I ran from him." Chris responded firmly. "I kept running for 20 years because I couldn't face him. I thought that if he saw me, saw how not like him I ended up being, it would be the end of the world."
"What happened?" Mike asked because his father seldom talked about his early years and Mike had the impression that there was something in his past that was too painful to reveal, something that was perhaps too much for anyone to bear.
"One day I stopped running and I met him face and to face and the funny thing was, he never expected me to be like him. He wanted me to find my own way. I'd been so caught up in what I was sure he was feeling, it never occurred to me that it might be different." Chris saw Mike starting to understand before he continued. "I didn't mean to make you think that I wanted you be like me. I never meant for that. I guess sometimes I worry too about you taking care of yourself that I forget what it is like to be kid, that being a kid is all about getting into trouble."
"Really?" Mike asked, unable to believe that his father was being so understanding. Sometimes the old man could really surprise him.
"Yeah," Chris nodded, placing his hand on his shoulder. "I love you Michael and nothing you do in your life will ever make me ashamed that you are my son. I ain't easy to please I know that and you are nowhere out of trouble for what you did today but I promise, I'll keep in mind that you're allowed a bit of rope being a kid and all."
Mike smiled and hugged his father in a warm embrace. It was not the thing for Larabee men to be so emotional but for once the moment warranted it. Chris held his son for a few seconds, feeling a terrible sense of loss knowing that he had lost the boy today and gained a young man, growing into his own. Chris had never felt time catch up with him as profoundly as that one moment.
"Now tell me," Chris said ruffling his hair when Mike pulled away. "What's happening with you and Rose?" A hint of the devil crept into his voice as he asked.
Mike blushed involuntarily but was unafraid of the question. "I am going to marry her." He stated firmly, with neither hesitation or doubt in his voice.
"Okay," Chris nodded, deciding that he could live with that and what Mike was talking about was something he did not have to worry about for a few years anyway. "Just let me be the one to tell Buck..."
Vin had gone on ahead, deciding that he needed to get home immediately because no doubt Alex would want to treat Sam herself and he did not wish to be away from his wife at this delicate stage of her pregnancy. Fortunately, Nathan had given Sam something for the ride home so by the time Vin had left them to deal with Hank and his men, Sam had succumbed to the effects of the drug and was fast asleep. The would be treasure hunters had arrived at Cullen's Ridge with a wagon full of prospecting supplies and these were soon discarded in order to ferry the children home. While Billy rode with the seven, Lilith took charge of the seven since they would prefer to have their hands free but able to keep their children in sight since there was still the matter of moving the Young gang back to Four Corners. The seven were agreed in the assertion that the group may not be through giving them trouble and wanted the freedom not to worry about their wayward offspring in case Hank and his men did just that .
"If you would be so kind as to take our roving treasure hunters home," Ezra Standish said to Lilith who was perched up at the front of the wagon as he helped Penny into the back of the wagon. Then he glanced at his two children and winced at the unholy sight they were, covered in dirt and mud and tried to picture the look on Julia's face when they faced their mother. The thought brought a little smirk to Ezra's lips, which he forced away because he was meant to be angry with his children. "I expect that their mother will probably have a stroke upon seeing them and will no doubt scrub them raw as they so richly deserved."
"But daddy," Penny looked at him with those emerald coloured eyes that were identical to Julia's and pouted. "You always said that we're never to let a golden opportunity slip by. We thought that there was treasure at the end of the map."
"Yeah," Peter grinned at Penny, grasping where she was heading with this. "You always said that we had to make the most of things. Like the time that you had to turn those working girls into real wives and that hospital and casino you tried to convince Uncle Nathan to build when those wagon people gave him land!"
"And... oh wait... when Aunt Mary got kidnapped by Mr. Wickes and you had to wear a dress..."
Ezra just about choked on his spit and turned sharply around to see the sniggering looks his friends were trying to hide. Even Chris Larabee was trying hard to keep the mask of cool indifference fixed on his features but the attempt wavered when his lips curled up involuntarily.
"Who... told... you... about... that?" Ezra asked in a low voice
Penny's eyes darted immediately behind him and Ezra turned around to see Buck making quiet signals with his hands at her until he realised he had been discovered and Ezra was glaring at him with a narrowing gaze.
"Come on now Ezra," Buck shrugged. "That was a great story. I mean, I said you sang Red River Valley really well!"
"I am going to postpone the shedding of blood until after my children are away from here," Ezra bristled and turned back to Penny and Peter. "And this impassioned plea will not work on me, my dears since I mastered the craft years before either of you were conceived."
Both children frowned, having hoped that reminding their father of his past indiscretions would have the effect of negating their punishment. Unfortunately, it looked like they were not quite crafty enough to outwit Ezra just yet and by the looks of it, would not hearing any more stories from Uncle Buck either.
"And we will talk when we get home Tommy." Nathan threw a similar warning at his son who was already in the wagon as he leaned over its side.
"But..."
Nathan silenced him with a look and Tommy shrunk back into the corner where he was seated. In truth, Nathan was nowhere as angry as he was relieved that his child was safe and sound. Having heard something of the escape that Mike had planned for the kids when the Young gang had them captured convinced Nathan that Tommy had acquitted himself well. Besides, he knew what it was to be young and he also knew that sometimes when you had friends like these, it was hard not to get swept away with the tide of lunacy that always seemed to follow the seven and those around them. However, Tommy did not need to know that his father had thawed considerably on the subject because the boy had done wrong and Nathan was not above letting him suffer for awhile.
"Just be very prepared for a lot of chores this week." Nathan retorted as he turned away to hear Annette making a plea on behalf of Adam.
"I wanted to go daddy." Annette begged in her little voice as JD lifted her into the wagon. "And Addie made sure that I was okay, he made sure I didn't fall when we got pulled up the ropes over that big river in the cave."
"Big river?" JD looked at Adam instinctively, whose eyes immediately dropped to the ground in guilt.
"Yeah," Annette nodded. "And there was this room that filled up with water and when Mike opened the door, we all fell down this big hill."
JD could only look at Adam and remark, "There ain't no words to describe how much trouble you are in and next to your mother, I won't even look like I'm hard on you."
It was almost two weeks before the children could gather together in a group again. Aside from being collectively grounded for most part by their parents and being forced into performing a multitude of tasks to make up for going on their adventure underground, they were banned from being together for the same period. None of them could say which was worse since they had been such an ingrained part of one another's lives since the day they were born. However as punishments went, the older children in particular were glad that it was all said and done with. Kyle, Annette and Jimmy had come away from the adventure unscathed, mostly because their responsible siblings should have known better. Sam's broken ribs and her gunshot would were punishment enough as far as Alex and Vin Tanner were concerned.
Elena Rose though bruised did not escape punishment however and ended spending the next two weeks working in the kitchens of the Standish Tavern. She had once envisioned how marvelous it would be to run the Tavern her mother seemed so effortlessly capable of doing. However, she soon come to the firm conclusion that there was nothing marvelous about having to fend off drunks, wash endless piles of shot glasses and navigate one's way through men who leered at her the same way Jesse had on the rare occasions she ventured out of the kitchen. It did not escape her how close she had come to suffering a fate worse than death and while outwardly, she did not show it, Elena Rose thought about it a lot.
Mike noticed a significant improvement in his relationship with his father after their talk. Ever since that night, there was a newfound respect he supposed between them that made his punishment tolerable. He had been forced to accompany his father and Vin Tanner as they moved horses with his being forced to ride drag. The job required him to remain at the rear of the herd to keep an eye for any strays, which usually meant being covered with dust and dirt by day's end. Mike could still feel the grains of dirt in his skin and knew that it would be another month before he felt remotely clean again. Still, doing his penance had set things right between himself and his father. Mary was mostly thrilled that neither child was hurt even though Kyle continued to be a cause for concern even though no one had been able to get the reason for his melancholy out of him.
Tommy in the meantime almost suffered a nervous breakdown when he was barred from using chemicals of any kind for the duration of two weeks. He spent his time doing chores around the house and staring longingly at his father's laboratory, praying that the exile would not kill him. However, more terrifying than the prospect of his enforced restriction continuing for longer than the appointed time, Tommy also feared that his father may rescind the promise to let him work in the lab as he had said the morning before the group had gone on their wild escapade. Still despite how much trouble it had landed him, Tommy knew he would not trade any of it considering the tantalizing glimpse into the future that had been made shown to him. Even though what he had seen was years ahead in the future, Tommy had something to reach for now.
Penny found herself becoming an indentured worker at the Emporium, a task which she loathed to no end being surrounded by all those pretty things and not being able to admire them as pretty things ought to be, forced instead to stack boxes and sweep floors. No matter how many times she reminded her mother that a lady did not undertake such menial labor, Julia was adamant that she continued. However, Penny had to admit that working in the Emporium was not as bad for her as it was for Peter who found the whole idea of clothes and haberdashery the most infuriating thing to ever exist. He was dying to go outside and being trapped in a place where women came on a daily basis, needed help with their packages, not to mention on occasion require a model for little girls dresses whenever Penny was not quite tall enough.
Still, his father regarded him with complete sympathy.
Adam found himself in jail. Well not literally but he did spent the next four days painting the cells and every other space he was certain his father had actively sought in order for him to be kept quite busy for the next two weeks. Adam decided if he never saw another paint brush again, it would be too soon. Of course it did not help either that when Annette in her effort to lighten his load because she had come away unscathed, tried to aid his painting chores and ended up having so much of it in her hair, that Adam found himself in trouble again. Finally, he convinced Annette the best way for her to help him, was not to help him.
"Does a baby every stop crying?" Sam grumbled, as the entire group lay sprawled in the hay in the loft, staring at the night sky beyond the doors of the open window. They were well and truly into summer now and the weather was hot and balmy. Bodies strewn around the loft in their usual fashion, some side by side and others anywhere they pleased, their parents knew well enough to leave them here for the rest of the night need be, collecting them only when it was time to go home. Besides, this was a far safer solution than anything else the children might get up together. After what happened to them with Hank Young and his gang who were run out of town shortly after, all the parents knew not to underestimate just how much trouble they could get into.
The families of the seven were gathered at the ranch to celebrate the birth of Sam's new baby brother, Daniel Christopher Tanner born little more than a week earlier. Although labor had been difficult, both mother and child had come through the ordeal well enough while Sam was starting to wonder if that grin on her father's face would have to be surgically removed. Still even though the new arrival to her family seemed to do nothing but squeal and drool, Sam figured she could probably get used to it.
"You think crying is bad," Elena Rose snorted. "Wait until they start walking and they follow you around. It's like having a dog that won't know when to go home."
"Hey!" Jimmy exclaimed raising his head from his position next to Kyle enough to throw her a look of annoyance. "I don't follow you around!"
Elena flashed him a smile which indicated that she did not really mean it, having remembered how valiantly her brother had tried to come to her rescue when Hank had hit her.
"You know," Sam let out a sigh and she remained next to Peter and Penny. "I was thinking of all the things I was going to teach a little sister, you know hunting, how to use a slingshot, how to climb a tree and fish, now I'm just going to have to teach all those things to a boy."
Mike raised his head from where he was nestled comfortably next to Elena Rose and gave Sam a look. "You're one of kind Sam." The remark was not entirely a compliment.
"Do any of you think about what happened in that cave?" Peter asked suddenly, capturing all their attention.
"I think about it a lot." Kyle said softly and Mike slid an arm around his brother, holding him closer for some reason. Mike had been trying to coax what Kyle had seen in that pool out of his younger brother but the boy was adamant to keep his secrets.
"Well you were mean to me." Annette stated with a little bit of a huff.
"I was mean to you?" Kyle looked at her in confusion.
"When I drank the water," Annette sat up from where she was behind Penny, "I saw you and you were sheriff."
"Kyle becomes sheriff?" Mike said with a smile. "Hey not bad little brother." He grinned.
"But I can't be sheriff." Kyle returned, having been burdened with the image of those dead bodies for weeks now. He knew what he had seen and it was not a future he thought he had survived, neither he or Billy. "I became a soldier in a war."
"Well you don't stay a soldier forever," she looked at him as if he was stupid. Well he was a boy. "You come home from the war and then you become sheriff because daddy wanted to go fishing." Annette informed Adam dutifully in case he was wondering.
"You mean I don't die?" Kyle exclaimed almost joyously.
"You thought you died in a war?" Mike gasped, understanding why his brother had been so withdrawn. The future he had seen was full of hope and life, it had never occurred to him that Kyle could have seen a future not so optimistic and felt inwardly ashamed he had not guessed before this. "Jeez, Kyle, talk to me about these things would you?"
"I didn't know it would do any good." Kyle answered truthfully.
"Don't be silly," Tommy said automatically. "We your friends ain't we? You got to tell us these things. We can't help if we don't know!"
"Yeah," Kyle beamed at Mike, feeling profoundly better now that he knew that he had a future and it was not with those corpses on a field far away in time in another world, removed from this one. "I know."
"Hey Sam," Adam asked. "Can I see your gunshot wound!"
"Oh gross!" Penny retorted as Sam rolled up her sleeve and revealed the gunshot wound on her skin. The skin around the entry wound had turned purple and all the children leaned in for a closer look.
"I swear, I am not gonna marry you if you're like this when we grow up," Penny frowned and added.
"Run Adam, run now!" Peter called out gleefully, "Its not too late!" He then descended into loud chuckles that only succeeded in having Penny jab him the ribs.
"Penny I am not marrying you," Adam said hotly. "I couldn't even write something that scary!"
These brought them rest of the group into a fit of giggles and as Penny and Adam started arguing Mike could only stare at Elena Rose and think to himself that the present was almost as perfect as the future would someday be.
"How are they doing in there?" Lilith asked, following Chris' instruction to herself and Billy to check on the kids when they had decided to go for a moon light walk.
"Well they aren't off treasure hunting," Billy declared. He had made this assessment after he had stuck his head through the barn door and was greeted by peals of laughter and bits of hay drifting from the loft above, indicating the signs of life even if he did not believe it by the sounds he was hearing.
"Hey it wasn't so bad," Lilith remarked linking her arm through Billy's as they drew away from the barn. "I wonder what was really at the end of the map though?"
"Annette said it makes you know the future." Billy replied, not entirely sure whether or not Annette had been joking when he had asked the question days later. In fact, now that he thought about it, the other children had been pretty closed mouthed about what they had found in the cave. Billy wondered if there was not an element of truth to Annette's words, that somewhere in Cullen's Ridge there was an oracle of prophecy for the future.
"The future." Lilith said resting her head against his shoulder as she stared into stars. "Is a lot more fun when it's a surprise."
As Billy took a deep breath of her hair and gazed into the same stars overhead, he could not help but agree with that. If it was there in Cullens Ridge, a way to see the future, Billy was in no hurry to seek it out. Besides, the good thing about the future was that it eventually found a way to let you know all its secrets.
Someday.
The End