***
You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.
John Green
***
Mary Seresin is not a kind woman.
She knows what she left her children wasn't a gift. She could have let it all end with her, but she was too stubborn, too proud, too defiant to lay down and die.
She's not naturally gifted at anything, but she works hard.
She gets that from her mother.
Rebecca Smalls grew up down the road from John Seresin, one of the many small, family-owned ranches protected by the Seresin umbrella. She'd known since kindergarten that she was going to marry him, though it took him a while to come around.
Boys are slow like that, she always told Mary. Make sure you pick one worth waiting for.
Mary never had her mother's patience, though.
And no matter how many times her father insisted she lives her life to make herself happy, she could never put the family curse completely out of her mind.
She grew up angry and hard, a barbwire princess her grandfather called her. With her red curls and freckles, she'd always thought she looked like Raggedy Anne when she looked in the mirror.
How she hated that doll.
Nothing like the beauty queens Texas seemed to prize.
She'd been too young then to realize that what Texas really prized was that vicious will to survive that women had nurtured and shared among their gender.
No lines, no limits, nothing so far out of bounds that a woman wouldn't do it if it meant living another day.
Men don't understand.
They're obsessed with the idea of an honorable death, but there's really no such thing.
Who cares once they're dead?
No one.
If you're not alive, then nothing matters, and Mary has never been such a good person that she can overlook that her family dies by forty because of some fool generations before.
Male or female, if Mary had a chance, she'd go back and kill them herself.
Painfully.
Slowly.
Make them really feel it. Make them cry and beg forgiveness that's never going to come because they've cut so many lives short.
Cut them off at the knees before they ever really got the chance to live.
Add maybe it wasn't that bad before, in those early generations, because so few people, in general, lived that long, but now….
Now, it makes a difference.
Mary's brothers had barely lived at all when they went, telling themselves as long as it was an honorable death, it was okay.
Acceptable.
Seresins die fighting, they said.
Seresins die protecting, they said.
But they're all still dead in the end.
And Mary can't think of a single fight, a single person that's worth what it cost.
It's just her by the time she's a teenager.
She buried them all one after another, getting harder and more bitter each time. The people on the ranch love her and overlook her attitude because they know where it's coming from. Know she's just angry at the world, not at them.
They're better people than she deserves.
Chief among them is the youngest son of one of the neighboring bean farms under the Seresin's protection. A fifth-generation family that had almost as much history in the area as the Seresins themselves.
He was small for his age, didn't have the growth spurt that made him taller than Mary until high school, but he was such a nice kid that even the bullies felt bad picking on him. His family would help out on the Seresin ranch for extra money when they weren't needed for their own place, and Mary can't remember the first time she actually met him.
It took a few years before she noticed him; too busy with the ranch and the family and her anger. It wasn't until she started high school as the only one left and started worrying about the future that she started paying attention.
Davey was still small for his age in their freshman year, but he was the only one nearby that was Mary's age, and they rode to school together to humor all the over-protective adults around.
Mary's Trigger and Davey's Black Beauty spent most of the year in the coral down the road from the high school together. To the point that they even started getting barn sour when they split at the end of the day.
Mary ran through a list of candidates before she picked Davey. Even told him about them as she worked her way through a long list that included most of their peers. Established relationships, outright refusals, and family influence eliminated most of the list.
Greed eliminated a few more.
Davey was a Hail Mary after she had to cross off her last three because they thought marrying her meant they'd be running the ranch instead of her.
At least Davey knew better.
He was small, quiet, and kind.
And Mary picked him without a single thought to what it would do to Davey.
He didn't exactly fight her, either. Just nodded, said OKAY, and that was that. From that day on, they were Davey and Mary.
She was four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than when they were fourteen and ignorant of the challenges to come.
Davey followed faithfully and never complained, and it was easy to get used to him right beside her, silent and steady.
Even if she glanced over him most of the time.
They had their first kiss at the end of their freshman year, and Mary decided they'd get married at seventeen, so Davey started saving for a ring.
Their sophomore year was mostly taken up with the ranch and schoolwork, and one by one, Davey's siblings decided they wanted other things than the family bean farm, so his parents started making plans to sell the land to the Seresin Trust.
No one doubted they'd get married eventually, although there were some concerns over how easily Davey seemed to go along with things.
He was so quiet and still so young that no one had realized what lay underneath the easy smile.
Even Mary didn't know.
Yet.
The summer of their sophomore year saw the first hiccup in Mary's plan.
A classmate from the next town over, named Bobby, who was just as good with a horse and rope as Mary and much louder and harder to overlook than Davey.
Mary clicked with him in a way she'd never clicked with anyone before, attracted to a personality she thought suited her as much as she was to the tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed ideal.
And Davey didn't fight for her.
She spent more and more time with Bobby as the summer went on, and still, Davey only ever sent her off with a smile and welcomed her back with a simple hey.
It started to infuriate her as they went into their junior year, and that was when she finally started looking.
Davey had sprouted up over the summer and had two inches on her now, lean and sun-kissed with dirty blond hair that flopped in his eyes without his Stetson to hold it back.
It took her a while to reconcile him with the small boy who always just said yes and followed along in her wake.
And then she was angry and not ready to admit it was more at herself than him.
They even went a solid month without saying anything to each other until Mary's fury boiled over, and she vented to Ham and Lightfoot, the man who would father Ren in a few decades.
Neither was amused.
And they'd both been at her birth, so they felt no shame in telling her off.
Ham, a diehard romantic who'd never married or had kids and thus considered all the Seresins his, couldn't stand pushovers but, for some reason, loved Davey.
"You're being stupid, girl."
"I am not! He never does anything! He doesn't even care that I've been hanging out with Bobby."
"You been cheatin'?"
"No! But I've been thinking about it."
"Better not go farther than that. That boy deserves better."
"Him? What about what I deserve?"
"You deserve a hard hit to the head, Mary. You've been running around with another boy, haven't spoken to Davey in a month, and what's he doing?"
"Nothing! He's not doing anything. That's the problem!"
"He drives you to school."
"We carpool!"
"Don't think we don't know that he does most of your homework for you."
"We have the same classes. There's no point in doing it separately."
"He's been doing all the chores you've been forgettin'."
"He gets paid for that."
They'd shared an exasperated look at that, but their words were already sinking in.
"He drives you wherever you want to go."
"Even to see that other boy."
"Because he doesn't care!"
"You get kicked in the head, and I missed it? He trusts you, girl. He will until you give him a reason not to."
"Which you are dangerously close to doing."
"Why wouldn't he say something then? How am I supposed to know if he doesn't say anything!"
"Girl, you been telling him what to do since you two could walk. You ain't never asked him before."
"Go ask him now. You two are too old to go on like this."
And she had.
Had stormed right off to the stable where Davey was rubbing down Black Beauty and started yelling at him.
"Do you even care that I've been hanging out with Bobby?"
"He's your friend. Why would I care?"
"Because he's a boy!"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"You're so stupid, Davey!"
She stormed off then or tried to, but apparently, Davey had gained some muscle along with the inches, and he'd caught her easily enough.
"Stop running away and just tell me what the problem is!"
"I shouldn't have to tell you! You should just know!"
"I'm not psychic, Mary. How am I supposed to know if you don't tell me?"
"Because you're my boyfriend. We're in a relationship. We have been for years. How can you not know?"
"Because you've never wanted me to before. Jesus, Mary, you picked me because there was no one else. You've always told me exactly how you wanted things, so that's what I've always done. If you want that to change, you have to say something."
She'd been the quietest he'd ever heard her then, "I want things to change."
"You want Bobby instead?"
"No!" And even she'd been surprised by her answer. "I want you, I just…"
"You want a real relationship. 'Cause the sure as shit hasn't been what we've been doing."
"Then why did you go along with it?"
"Because I wanted you! Jesus, Mary, how did you not know that?"
Ham and Lightfoot had separated them and then made them walk off in opposite directions until they calmed down.
That was the first night in her life that Mary cried herself to sleep over a boy.
And it was the first time in his life that Davey was truly angry.
It took them another week to actually talk about it.
During which, as everyone was quick to point out, they kept driving to school together, eating, and working together. They might not be talking to each other, but they were still together.
Mary stopped hanging out with Bobby after that, and they both agreed to actually talk about things.
It wasn't easy. Mary was used to just making decisions, and Davey was used to just going along, so they stumbled a bit along the way, but it did, slowly, get better.
The first time Mary grabbed his hand in the hallway, Davey turned bright red.
The first time Davey argued with her over their plans, she was stunned into silence long enough that he got his way.
After that, it was easier and easier to like him, and they went from casual friends to actually dating. Perfunctory kisses became hello and goodbye, and no one's looking quick.
By the end of their junior year, Davey had enough for a modest ring, and Mary was starting to feel left behind when her school friends talked about sex.
Mary knew she was far from the genteel southern belle. Davey had seen her covered in mud and dirt and god knows what else on the ranch, and no matter what she did, her red curls never did anything but go all over the place. She spent more time in boots and jeans than she did in dresses, and she didn't even own heels. They'd skipped the last school dance to help birth a foal, and as beautiful as the miracle of life was, it was also gross.
Still, she'd never not put effort into something wanted, and she wanted Davey, so she went out a bought a dress that went with her boots because she was still Mary.
She told Davey that morning on the way to school what was going to happen, and he turned redder than her hair and spent the day sputtering and dropping things whenever she looked at him.
It was kind of cute. Especially when she told him she'd bought a book and supplies, and his voice died in the middle of trying to respond.
He kept fumbling all the way until they were in her room after dinner, with the door locked, and then, suddenly, he was so focused and steady and calm that he actually assuaged Mary's sudden onset of nerves.
It was still painful and awkward, but once they got past that first night, they were off to the races.
They got married the day after their high school graduation, and Mary was pregnant with their daughter a month later.
They both decided to put aside college to focus on the ranch, and Mary quickly found that while she desperately wanted children, she absolutely hated being pregnant.
Along with the physical MISERY, Mary's normally cold and controlled emotions go haywire, and she finds herself alternating screaming and crying at the drop of a hat.
So much so that people on the ranch start avoiding her, and when she notices, it just gets worse, though she doesn't really blame them. She was ready to start avoiding herself a few months in.
Only Davey seems to have the unending patience to deal with her 24/7.
She married a freak.
No one should be that even-keeled.
He even smiles and buys her ice cream when she tells him that.
The larger she gets, the more insecure she gets, too. Her ankles swell, her hair is frizzier than ever, and she can barely stand to look in the mirror to make sure she's gotten the dirt off at the end of the day.
She can't understand why he finds her attractive despite the fact that their sex life nearly triples, and it was already impressive to begin with after the pregnancy is confirmed.
And with that insecurity and unbalanced emotions comes the thought that Davey's always so much more confident in the bedroom than she is. It's the one place Mary always feels behind, and normally, she can put it out of her mind because she knows Davey is devoted.
She wouldn't have picked him if she thought he'd ever be the kind to cheat.
But she also thinks that even though she asked him out in the beginning, they weren't in a real relationship until that fight about Bobby, so maybe she was the only virgin that night at the end of junior year.
He'd been so calm, unsurprised, and sure where everything was supposed to go. Mary read a bunch of books before, and she wasn't that sure.
The thought sticks in her head and drives her mad through the fifth month of her pregnancy.
It comes out one night while he's making dinner, her current craving, pickle and egg salad sandwiches.
His agreement with something stupid triggers tears, and when he tries to comfort her and assure her he still thinks she's attractive, it makes her jump to the one area she's always felt lacking, always behind him.
"Who was she?"
"Who?"
"The other woman!"
"What other woman?"
"The one you slept with!"
"You're the only woman I've slept with! We've been together since we were fourteen!"
"I know you slept with someone else! Stop lying!"
"What? What are you talking about, Mary? I've never slept with anyone else."
"Yes, you have! You must have!"
And she'd collapsed in sobs and shoved him away when he tried to hold her as she cried on the kitchen floor.
"Mary, I have never slept with anyone else. I've been in love with you since we were kids."
She's so emotional she misses the true meaning of that sentence and doesn't remember it until years later.
"Then how did you know?"
"Know what?"
"What to do!"
"Do what? When?"
"When we, you know, our first night together."
And there was that blush because they were expecting a kid, and he still blushed when they talked about sex.
"Mary-"
"You knew what to do!"
"You gave me a book!"
"So? I read that book, and I still didn't know what to do."
"Neither did I!"
"What?"
"Mary, I had no fucking idea what I was doing."
"But, but you were so calm. You weren't even nervous."
"Of course I was."
"I couldn't tell!"
"Well, how is that my fault?"
"It just is!"
"I, I don't-, Mary, what are you actually angry about?"
"That you knew what to do, and I didn't."
And then she felt like a heel.
Thankfully, he mostly looked amused.
"Mary, I swear I had no idea what I was doing. I just, I was just following you. Like I always do."
"What?"
"Jesus, Mary, I was so focused on you that I didn't think about anything else. A bomb could have gone off, and I wouldn't have noticed. You were," Oh god, the blush. "I mean, it was pretty clear what-, what you liked, and I just kind of focused on that. That's what I do every time."
And she burst into tears again, crying even harder than before, but this time it was guilt because she'd never focused on him so much that she forgot everything else.
"Oh god, I'm sorry! Mary, please stop crying. I don't know what to do!"
"I'm a horrible person!"
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am! I've never paid that much attention!"
He'd looked hurt for a second, and when he tried to hide it, she'd cried even harder.
"I'm so sorry! Please don't leave me."
"I'm not going to leave you, Mary. Please. It's not-, it's alright."
"No, it's not. How can you say that?"
"Mary, why do you feel bad?"
"Because I'm horrible. I treat you badly."
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"Mary, why do you feel bad?"
"Because I love you, and I should treat you better."
"I'm pretty sure everyone experiences sex differently. Even in relationships. We don't need to be the exact same."
"We don't? You're not upset?"
"No, maybe a little hurt. I kind of thought I was better at it than that by now."
"You are! I love having sex with you!"
God, he was going to burst into flames before this conversation was over.
"Well, that's-, good. Do you love me?"
"Yes! Of course!"
"Then it's okay. We can try…stuff. New things. Figure it out if it's bothering you."
"You have low standards, Davey Seresin."
"No, I don't."
He kissed her then, despite the tears and the running mascara and the egg salad and pickle sandwich she'd thrown at him.
"Oh my god, you cannot find me attractive right now."
"I kind of do."
"I'm a mess!"
"It's weirdly enthralling."
That was the first time anyone had ever called her enthralling, and the heat and desire had come on so fast they hadn't made it out of the kitchen.
Of course, once one trial passes, another begins.
Towards the end of her first pregnancy, the economy tanks, and that comfortable profit margin for the ranch thins and thins.
Davey starts talking about the Navy, and Mary starts thinking about what she's leaving her children when she goes and realizes it's not much.
A ranch and a guarantee to die by forty.
Some life.
As much as she loves this land, she wants her children to have more. Wants the little girl she's carrying to have the world in the palm of her hand and endless years ahead of her.
Not a ticking clock.
She throws out all the clocks in the house in a fit of rage and ignores the wide-eyed and wary looks it gets her.
Fuck whatever moron brought this debt down on them.
So, Davey goes to the Navy and manages to put off leaving until Mary pushes out their little girl.
It's the most painful thing she's ever done, and her body is different after. Not really in a great way either, but she does love this tiny pink, wrinkled thing.
And she loves the awed look on Davey's face.
She supposes it's worth the few times she pees herself the week she gets to go home.
It's less worth it when Lily cries non-stop, but god-bless Davey's patience because pregnancy certainly didn't give Mary any.
Lily is followed by Brian, quiet, dutiful Brian.
Then Jessie, who never stopped smiling.
And Michael, who made friends with anyone and anything.
Jordan, who's a menace in the best way.
Peter, somber, watchful Peter.
And Jake. Her baby. The baby. Who reminds Mary so much of herself that sometimes it's hard to look at him. Who alternates between happy and railing at the world.
Davey puts on a uniform, and isn't that delicious? The first time he comes home in it, they don't make it past the front hallway, and they definitely traumatize at least one kid.
Lily's horrified shrieks were hilarious, and Davey seems pleased about her oath to never, ever kiss anyone!
He buys a small Cesna plane, and though Mary won't set foot in it, he starts teaching the kids to fly.
Only Lily and Jake really take to it, and they spend hours in the summer drives, flying a few hundred feet above the herd and waving directions.
That stretch of years. From Lily's birth to Jake's fifth birthday are the happiest of Mary's life.
And she starts to understand all that nonsense about love and a single moment being enough against the span of a lifetime.
Mary's only going to get forty years, at the most, but at least these years were good.
Were amazing.
Not easy, but then, she probably wouldn't have enjoyed them so much if they were.
Mary's never been a very talented person, but she's a hard worker, which means she needs work to be happy.
And she's happy when she cooks next to Davey, in a kitchen that's never quiet.
When she does chores alongside her children, they alternate between wanting to be useful and being completely lost in daydreams and play.
When she builds the Seresin Trust back up into something that almost looks like an empire if you catch it at the right time in the right light.
She watches Lily, the only girl of her generation, because the Doctor told Mary no more kids, and Davey agrees because his face looked so, so pale when the Doctor said life-threatening, watches her blossom.
Pretty in a way Mary never was and vibrant and friendly and so in love with life that even her brothers, going through their own phases of emo (whatever the fuck that is, Mary has no idea) are dragged along behind her.
ooo000ooo
How much do you love me, she asks.
They call me Have Mercy, he answers.
ooo000ooo
It's almost enough to make Mary forget.
Almost.
Sometimes, she spends the evening in the first room. What's left of the old homestead that the Seresins started in and talks.
Tells the pictures on the walls and the medals and the mementos about her children, their descendants. About what they've done, what they're going to do, that they're going to go on regardless because no force on Earth is strong enough to take down the Seresins for good.
They might be battered.
They might be bruised.
They might even be a little bit broken.
But they are not defeated.
They are not done.
She doesn't stop to think about her attitude. Her determination reaches her children. For some reason, she just thinks about how her actions affect them, her words.
But children are far smarter than adults realize, and all her rage and determination and spitefulness manifests in her youngest, in Jake.
Who, arguably, will become the greatest Seresin of his generation. The last one standing.
He's the one that's going to continue the line.
Who's going to keep everything going.
Who's going to father heroes of his own.
Not that Mary's going to be around to see any of them.
But maybe Davey will. Seresin spouses are hit or miss for the forty-year cut-off. Some make it, some don't. There's no rhyme or reason Mary can find, and Davey's such a good man.
No, just god or whatever force would dare take him from the world so early.
It takes Lily instead.
ooo000ooo
The days surrounding Lily's death are a haze.
So much fury and sadness and pride because her little girl died a hero.
That boy is going to live because Lily couldn't stand the injustice, the cruelty of it, even at fourteen when she wasn't supposed to know what that was yet.
Davey is angry in a way Mary has never seen, and his sons follow in his footsteps, out for blood for their sister.
At least the Sheriff and his men aren't stupid enough to try and stop them, and Mary spits on the unmarked grave deep in the heart of their grazing lands.
Brian gets quiet, Jake gets angry, and the others all fall somewhere in between.
She even catches Ham crying quietly in the horse barn one morning. All of them stunned into quiet compliance by the loss.
The one bright spot, if it can even be called that, is the mocha-skinned woman who shows up on their doorstep with casseroles and pie and empathetic eyes and the flock of children on her heels.
They offer no pity, which is good because she'd have put them out on their asses if they had, just simple admiration and extra hands.
They're running from something, Davey says, and Mary agrees. It's no hardship to let them sleep in the old trailer by the well, but the babies are so young it's better to have them in the main house, and between one week and the next, the Machados become part of the ranch.
Amara Machado's children might as well be hers from then on and vice versa. The woman who used to run one of the most successful jazz clubs in New Orleans turns that formidable work ethic to running the homestead and Mary finds a kindred spirit in another woman who refused to go down and stay down.
Brian gets quieter and quieter, but Jake starts to get louder, always found in the company of Amara's youngest now, a little troublemaker, Mary thinks fondly, whose solution to Jake's wild schemes is only ever to make sure they're home for dinner.
Never mind that it's a bad idea to jump off the barn into the pond; it's all good as long as they're back in time to eat.
Mary is happily married with a whole passel of kids, but sometimes she does look at Amara, a woman who belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine, not a dusty ranch, and feels the burn of jealousy.
Amara laughs at her when she tells her that one night, over wine, Davey ducked out for his own safety when they opened the second bottle.
That man adores you, Amara says, I could strip naked and all he'd do is say that's nice and walk on. My man wasn't like that. I won't ever make that mistake again.
She still loves him, but Amara has made her decision and will not be moved.
Which is sad, because Ham looks at her with such longing and gentleness that it makes Mary's heart hurt. He watches over her kids the same way he watches over Mary's. The gruff guardian angel that teaches them to pay attention and cuss, even though he thinks no one knows that's him.
Sometimes, she catches Amara looking back at him so fondly that she thinks there's hope.
But Amara has made her decision, and Ham's never thought he was worth much in a relationship when all he knows is the land and has nothing to his name Davey cautions her to let them figure it out themselves, so Mary keeps her mouth shut and focuses on the good.
ooo000ooo
"They call him Iceman, although it should probably be Icecube given how bad he handles the cold."
"Why did they send him to the artic then?"
"It's Navy, who knows why they do anything. I gave him the scarf and those socks you sent; can you send more?"
"I'll mail them tomorrow."
"He's got a man too."
"Is that allowed?"
"No, but he's not really the type you pick a fight with. Fucking Viking with a temper."
It makes Mary laugh.
"He says they're on and off, but his RIO says they're just idiots. I think they'll figure it out, though. He called him the other day just to tell him I was a better wingman."
"Ooh, how'd he take that?"
"As a challenge, apparently. I invited them out to the ranch. I don't think he believes me when I say we have seven kids."
And that pang of sadness is always there, but Davey refuses to stop counting her.
"What would he do if you tell him there's actually thirteen in the house?"
"Probably have a heart attack."
"I can't wait to meet them."
ooo000ooo
She never gets to, though she gets a beautiful note of apology and thanks and a box of what looks like scrap metal because that's all they could recover.
It should come as a shock, but it doesn't.
Somewhere deep inside, Mary knew he was too good for her, for the world, and that she wasn't going to get to keep him for long.
Who else dies protecting strangers?
Selfishly, she'd been hoping she would go first and wouldn't have to suffer through the loss of him.
That probably makes her a terrible mother, that she'd rather leave her kids behind with him than go on without him, but Mary has lived her entire life for something other than herself. Years and years of thinking of the blood and the land and doing what's best for them instead of what's best for her.
She thinks she's allowed to be a little bit selfish in her heart.
It's not like she'd ever follow through with it anyway.
There's too much work to be done, so she just keeps going. Looks forward and not back, never back, and talks to Davey's grave as often as she talks to the walls of the homestead.
And then she lays in bed every night, alone, and thinks she finally understands why Amara has refused any other.
At least her husband was worth it.
ooo000ooo
The day of the drive is surprisingly cool and crisp for the early days of a Texas summer.
Sixteen kids, twelve cowboys, five support staff, eighteen dogs, twenty-eight horses, and a thousand head of cattle.
A little bit of overkill, but all the kids wanted to come, and Mary didn't want them without supervision. between the animals and the kids, it took a lot of experience to keep the blood to a minimum.
Javy, who'd only been recently talked into learning to ride by Jake, was still nervous, but his mare, Vicky, was impossible to rile and just plodded along no matter what happened.
And often not in the direction Javy wanted until Jake raced after him and pulled her around.
Her youngest is still a troublemaker the likes of which she has no idea what to do with. Davey was better with him, had the patience to turn his attention on something else. Mary tries her best, and she does okay. Thank god for Javy, who somehow inherited Davey's patience and Mary's loyalty.
She hopes Jake gets longer with whoever he chooses.
Of all her children, he's the one who longs for companionship the most. Romance. Children of his own.
He has a grand romance ahead of him.
Or a life of heartbreak.
Worry about it keeps her up at night. Jake's gentle in a way she never was. The way Davey was.
If she could wrap him in bubble wrap and lock him somewhere safe…
Well, she wouldn't, even if she could.
Ranching has taught her that you must let things grow at their own pace. That you can't keep everyone safe, and the more you try, the more you just handicap them for the inevitable day that you're no longer there to protect.
Mary has learned that lesson.
Jake is still learning. He hovers around Javy and the animals anytime something goes the slightest bit wrong, hands fluttering, face pinched.
It's a pity she won't get to see him learn to step back, to grow.
He's going to be the spitting image of Davey when he gets older, Tall and blond and eyes as green as moss. He's probably going to fly, he loves that damn Cesna.
Davey died flying. Protecting.
Seresins die fighting.
Seresins die protecting.
But they're all still dead in the end.
ooo000ooo
When the stampede starts, she does hesitate.
She's thirty-seven.
Digs her heels in.
Six of her seven children are alive and healthy and protected.
Leans lows as Trigger reaches, too well-trained not to push through the panicked herd.
The highway is ahead. Town and that gas station where her kids buy way too many energy drinks.
Davey is dead and buried.
A horn clips her leg as Trigger makes it to the head of the storm and the force of it pulls her from the saddle as the herd begins to turn.
ooo000ooo
She doesn't get to see it, but he does take too much after her.
ooo000ooo
When Bradley finally wakes up, Pete and Tom are at his bedside, wane and grey and brokenhearted.
"Peter didn't make it. Jake isn't…Jake isn't handling it well."
~tbc~