Life As We Know It

It felt a little like acceptance, being trusted with the welfare of the younger members of this family and the ranch itself while Jake and Michael were away. It was something Leon hadn't even realized he'd been hoping for until Jake tasked him with it on their strange adventure in to town for supplies. For two men that had gone at each others throats just a handful of weeks ago, things had certainly changed.

Strange as it was to admit it, he was actually happy here.

Valerie seemed in her element, settled and more vibrant than he'd ever known her. She had friends here, a life that she'd forged for herself. Whatever he may think of Michael, there had to be something to be said for that. He didn't remember ever seeing that sparkle of mischief in her eyes back home. She'd been such a subdued, mousy little thing. A slave to their fathers cruelty and insanity.

Here? She had come alive. Any idiot could see it.

As well as Valerie's happiness, he'd found some of his own in Isabella. Their fledgling relationship still so new and delicate, with some potentially rocky waters to navigate when both of their pasts came knocking. But for now, what had happened between her and Jake was really her business, he hadn't pushed her to talk about it after Ripleys revelation.

Ripley. The wild card. The one Jake was worried would get herself shot again, or worse. She seemed to be equal parts thorn in everyone's side and everybody's big or little sister. He knew kids like her, he'd seen them arrive as military brats and transform in to men over the course of a handful of battles. Shame the army didn't accept women.

It had been a peaceful day without the Family's two patriarchs. They'd eaten well at dinner when he'd roasted them enough meat to fill everyone to bursting, then they'd sang camp fire songs until it was time for the kids to go to bed. Leon had been impressed by the attentiveness of Yuliy. He was a good kid that seemed to care deeply for the others. Orphans with no family, it tugged at his heart a little bit. But nothing about this life was easy.

He and Isabella had sat up drinking and talking well in to the night, until the fire burned down to tiny flames and they kicked dirt over the last embers. Turning in, retreating to his tent, where they made love while everybody slept. They had fallen asleep tangled up in one another, and he'd felt a perfect calm.

Somehow, he knew that calm wouldn't last forever.

Morning.

Isabella had woken and gotten out of bed first, heading off to wash at the river and brush her teeth. He'd laid there in his bunk a while longer, scribbling in his journal and jotting down plans. Between them, he and Izzy had decided to try and bring some money in to camp via hunting. Treating and selling pelts, perhaps even making clothing and other items out of them. He knew other members of the group got up to more 'unsavory' activity out there. But he hoped to avoid that where he could. He already had the army after him, he didn't need more reasons for the law to be on the look out.

"Hey.."

Isabella interrupts his thoughts, poking her head through the thick canvas tent flaps and letting in a beam of morning light. He lifts his head and lets the journal flop down on his chest.

"Hey." He smiles in return, then notes her expression with a frown. "Somethin' wrong?"

She purses her lips and simply gestures with her head, nodding toward the outside.

He gets himself up and tugs on some jeans, fastening them and heading out barefoot and shirtless to see what the problem was. He shivers with it, the tent had been warm thanks to their body heat and a lantern, but outside there was a pre-autumn chill to the air. Dewdrops sparkling on the grass like glass. "Whats up?" He asks.

Then he follows her gaze as she folds her arms and tilts her chin in the direction of Valerie's tent. It sat across from theirs in a kind of well spaced half circle to the right of the main cabin. Outside it sat a pair of boots.

Not Valerie's boots.

Leon scowls. "Who..?"

"I think they're Yuliy's." Isabella whispers, then grasps his arm as he makes a step forward. "Don't."

"But.." he objects, gesturing. That protective instinct flaring. Valerie might be able to hold her own, but she was also naive, easily led, and easily taken advantage of. He'd vowed to keep that from happening.

"They're friends." She explains. "If you burst in you'll just make it weird."

"It's already weird." He snorts.

Isabella eyes him. "She's eighteen."

"But she's no adult." He reasons. The sheltered life she'd led, locked away behind closed doors for seventeen of those years. She hadn't even known what a bunny rabbit looked like beyond sketches in books until recently.

Isabella squeezes his hand. "We'll talk to them. Later."

Leon sighs, running his hand through his hair. "Guess I'll make a start on breakfast. See if that draws them out."

Isabella agrees to the more indirect approach to get Valerie's attention, and situates the percolator over the fire while Leon gets to work on breakfast. "Remember, it's important that you do everything you can to make sure you're working together and not against each other," she reminds him, digging through her satchel for a tin of ground coffee. "She already ran once."

What Isabella doesn't say is how scared she is that he'll go chasing after Val if she takes off again. After all, his sister was the reason he had ever agreed to stay at the ranch in the first place.

Whatever they had between them now, and wherever this new and tenuous relationship may take them, it's no match for a lifetime of familial bond.

The plan works, at least -- one by one, the kids poke their heads out of the barn and follow the aroma of roasting venison to the fire. First Philip, who wolfs down his meal without a word and retreats to his cot to go back to sleep, then the girls come searching for something to fill their growling bellies. Leon and Isabella divvy out portions and pass dishes around, reminding the kids to stay close to the property as they run off to play, and stoke the fire to stave off the crisp autumn chill creeping into the air.

It's different around the ranch with Jake and Michael gone, although Isabella can't instantly pinpoint why. Michael is a dark and noxious miasma that poisons the very air around him and makes it hard to breathe, a polluted and roiling flash flood that threatens to decimate everything in his path, but Jake is the levee that holds him at bay.

Isabella can't call the ranch peaceful without them there -- life goes on, as it was wont to do, the children shrieking and giggling as they played tag and chased each other around, people argue, they laugh, they carry on. Not peaceful, perhaps, but it's still. Calm. And when nothing is demanding her time or attention, she can't help but wonder if that stillness is simply the eye of some impending storm.

Eventually, Yuliy and Valerie emerge from her tent and park themselves by the fire.

Leon hands his sister a bowl. "Sleep well?" he asks, emphasizing the word 'sleep' as if to determine that's all she and Yuliy had gotten up to.

Isabella nudges him in the side with her elbow. She regards Yuliy curiously, less confident with communicating with him than Valerie, but tries her best. "You didn't sleep in the barn last night," she observes.

He looks embarrassed, his face flushing crimson, but he has no forthcoming explanation.

"We were playing hide and seek," Valerie supplies, conversationally, shoveling a forkful of venison into her mouth. She mumbles around it. "Hiding from the bad thoughts."

It's a revelation that soars over Isabella's head, but Leon seems to understand. The tension in his shoulders bleeds away, that gut instinct to protect subsiding.

"Everything all right, then?" he questions.

Valerie smiles at Yuliy and he smiles back. "It is now."

And she's right, at least for a few hours. Isabella and Leon wash the dishes together while fleshing out their plans to get their trading business off the ground, how they'll acquire materials for treating the hides and the most cost-effective way to provide for the family. Leon is adamant that they do everything by the books, and Isabella can't think of a single reason to argue to the contrary.

"I don't know much about treating pelts, but I can sew," she supplies, stacking the last of the dishes in the pile.

Leon chuckles and hitches his shoulder, drying his hands off on a towel. "Well, you're one up on me, darlin'."

She eyes him sidelong, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, despite her efforts to conceal it. "Darlin'?" she parrots.

He pales, ever so slightly, and scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck. "I, uh... is that okay? It just sorta came out, and--"

She presses the pad of her index finger to his lips to quiet him. "Shhh. I like it."

Movement over his shoulder cuts the tender moment short. Three horses but only two riders, a body draped over the back of Ripley's mustang as they plod over the well-worn path to the ranch.

Not just any body.

Jake's.

All the color drains from Isabella's face, and she spits questions at a rapid fire pace as she hurries over to investigate.

"What happened? Is he okay!?" she demands. Jake's skin is deathly pale and clammy, his face mottled with bruises and dried blood to the point that he's almost unrecognizable. Prodding at his throat with her fingers, she searches and and prays and eventually finds a thready pulse.

Her gaze locks on Michael's, but he looks away. She's never known the man to convey an ounce of guilt or remorse, and it she flings the accusation at him like a punch.

"What did you do?"

Michael avoids Isabella's eyes as she questions him, while Ripley drops down off of her horse with the same bitter expression on her face.

"I found him like this. Michael was out of it, barely said a word this whole time." She explains in a a frustrated breath.

Isabella's teeth grit and she shoots the man another glare as Leon arrives beside her.

"We should find him a doctor." Ripley grumbles, folding her arms.

Leon and Isabella share a glance, and he steps forward to check the man over. "I AM a doctor." He confesses finally.

Ripley's brows shoot up, incredulous. "You didn't think to tell anybody?"

"I'm tellin' you now." He placates. "Military, field doctor. What happened here?"

Michael lifts his head at that admission, a small frown forming. "You're Military?"

"This is NOT the time." Isabella quiets him.

"But.."

"She's right. We can talk later." Leon releases Jake's face after lifting his eyelids to check his eyes. "We need to get him off of this horse and inside. Who knows what kind of extra damage being like this is doing."

The two women offer to help but Leon's experience in combat had him well prepared. He hefts Jake on to his shoulders off of the back of the horse and carefully sets him on the ground a few steps away. Offering out a few instructions, the small crowd that had gathered around them comes in useful. The kids scurry off in different directions, finding what he needed.

Isabella fetches him a leather satchel he'd kept tucked away under his bunk, returning with it and offering it to him. He slings it over his shoulder and kneels beside Jake on the grass. He finds a stethoscope and drapes it around his neck, then works on unfastening the heavy leather vest Jake always wore.

It falls away and reveals a mass of welts and bruises over Jake's ribs. Over Leon's shoulder, Isabella makes another small sound of concern, while Ripley chews her thumb nail down to the quick.

"What happened?" Leon demands as he listens to his heart and lungs. "Was he hit? Did he fall? Give me something to go on."

All eyes drift to Michael, now off of his horse and on his feet, a dazed expression still on his face. He rubs awkwardly at his hair.

"Michael!" Ripley snaps.

"I don't!..." Michael blinks out of it and tries to focus, "I... he... fell, I guess."

"You guess?" Leon looks over his shoulder at him.

Michael shrugs uselessly. "Or he was thrown. He hit a rock, I think. There was a fight."

"With who?" Ripley asks, crossing her arms again.

Michael just flounders again.

Ripley scowls and hisses. "You did this."

"It wasn't me. I would never.." Michael mutters miserably.

"I think the bar on things you would never do is pretty low." Isabella accuses, "I've seen him with bruises before."

"Not from me!" Michael barks, the life suddenly back in his eyes.

Leon tucks his stethoscope away and interrupts the bickering and accusations as the kids arrive with the two planks of wood from the barn that he'd asked for. "Help me get him inside."

They ease the two sturdy planks of wood underneath his body to keep him flat, then he enlists the help of Isabella, Ripley and Michael to carry him inside on the makeshift stretcher. It's slow, heavy going. But they manage to get him up the small set of steps and in to the cabin, setting him down on the bed.

"How long as he been out?" Leon asks of Ripley, "has he come around at all?"

"I found them yesterday, around midday. He's just been like this the whole time." She gestures sadly. "I didn't know what else to do besides get him home."

Leon gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You did what you could."

Another brief check over and Leon delivers his verdict. "A few cracked ribs by the looks of things. His heart and lungs sound fine, the blood from his mouth doesn't appear to be anythin' serious. It's the injuries to his head that are the worry. Whoever did this.." he sighs heavily, "they were either intending on him never waking up or they were outright tryin' to kill him."

"But he will.. wake up?" Ripley squeezes her arms around herself.

"I'll work on gettin' all that swellin' down. Few things I can give him to help. But mostly.. it's up to him. Time will tell."

"He survived having his throat cut. He'll survive this." Michael's voice drifts over from the door.

A petty, vindictive part of Isabella wants to banish Michael from the cabin, as though she has the authority to slam the door of his own home in his face and lock him out. But she doesn't have to -- with that one final declaration, Michael excuses himself and gives Leon space to work.

Guilt. She can read it all over his face as if he had scrawled the word across his forehead in ink. From the open doorway, she watches him descend the staircase and all but collapse onto a chair around the fire, burying his face in his hands.

"You better feel terrible, you son of a bitch," she snarls, although he's too far away to hear her.

Leon's hand on her arm brings her around. "It don't matter who's responsible for this," he says.

She gawks at him, incredulously, gesturing wildly at Jake's prone and battered body as if Leon can't see the extent of the injuries for himself. "How can you s--"

Splaying both palms to her in defense, Leon clarifies, "Not right now, at least. Right now, what matters is gettin' Jake stabilized, and once we do, we'll deal with the rest as it comes."

It's a hard sell for someone like Isabella, whose only solution to wrongdoing had been revenge, however she could achieve it. If someone hit her where it hurt, then the only way she knew how to respond was to hit back even harder.

She had already taken lives in exchange for Sara's; she wouldn't hesitate to do the same for Jake. Something about the look on Ripley's face suggests the same conviction.

They get Jake cleaned up as best they can, wiping away the blood dried around his mouth and nose, while Leon disinfects a couple of gashes and welts they find skipping across his torso. Through all of it, Jake lies still and unresponsive, and with every hour that ticks by, the knot in Isabella's stomach gradually works it way up her throat and lodges itself there.

A few half-hearted attempts are made to lure her away from his bedside -- offerings of rest or food are rejected with increasing irritation, until eventually the others take the hint to leave her alone. Only Leon is met with leniency and a glimpse behind the stoic sentry she pretends to be, though it's not an active choice. It's a facade that requires a lot of fuel to maintain, and by nightfall, she's running on fumes.

"You've been in here all day," he comments, tucking the tips of his stethoscope into his ears and pressing the chestpiece to Jake's sternum.

Isabella intently studies his every move, as if supervising to ensure that he was being gentle enough, careful enough. "He's family," she croaks out. "He'd watch over me morning 'til night if it was me instead of him."

Leon nods with understanding, listens to Jake's heart for a moment, and then crouches down next to Isabella. Laying his palm on her knee and squeezing, he gives her permission to get some sleep. "He'll still be here come mornin'."

Glassy brown eyes flick over and meet his. "What if he's not?"

Truthfully, Leon didn't know how to answer that. Isabella had already lost so much, that he knew, he feared for what might happen if she lost Jake too. He might not understand the relationship between the two of them, or know it's intricate details, but nobody stood sentry beside someone they didn't care for very deeply.

Strangely, he didn't feel threatened though.

Crouched where he is, his eyes drift from her to the motionless body of her friend and then across to a doorway leading in to an adjoining room. Inside it, he could make out the ends of two bunk beds, rickety and old and probably never or rarely used.

"Alright," he concedes quietly. "Maybe we can stay here too. If Michael doesn't mind."

Isabella follows his gaze to the bunks and seems to agree with a small nod. Muttering something about Michael not getting a say.

Leon had tended to the man earlier, while Isabella had sat on watch. He'd seemed far-away. Distant, lost in his head. He'd asked him if he'd sustained any injuries in the ordeal also, Michael had simply muttered that he didn't know.

Whatever had happened out there, they likely wouldn't get the entire picture until Jake woke up.

If he woke up.

They ready the bunks in relative silence, Isabella bringing blankets from their tents and making a cozy little nest for the two of them. While she sits on the bunk and forces herself to eat a few bites of food he'd brought her, Leon checks on Jake once again.

"Where's Valerie?" Isabella asks him quietly.

Leon glances over his shoulder at her, monitoring the mans pulse. "I sent Yuliy out to get some supplies for Jake. He'll need fluids, an IV. She went with him." His lips narrow with a vague tension, but not at the two spending more time together. At what Yuliy and Valerie were going to have to do to get those supplies.

Even Isabella looks surprised. "Is that.. something they can buy?"

Leon lifts his eyes to her again. "I don't think so. No."

"Oh."

They quiet. Leon eventually sets Jake's wrist back down and covers him with a blanket. Glancing out of the window as he passes it, he notices Michael sitting on the steps in to the cabin, making no move to come in. Just guarding the doorway, like a gargoyle, not knowing what else to do.

He stokes the fire in the fireplace and settles down beside Isabella for their long nights watch. He's reading her a chapter from a book when a small knock comes at the door to the cabin.

Ripley pokes her head in a moment later.

"Everythin' okay?" Leon asks from the bunk, Isabella curled up to his side.

Timidly, Ripley enters the room, her eyes fixed on Jake. "I just wanted.." she gestures at him and doesn't really need to explain.

For the first time, Leon really feels the bond of Family between these people. It was there, however much they bickered. They looked out for one another. Cared.

As Ripley settles into a chair opposite the bed, clutching a mug of coffee, Leon finally understands what Valerie had seen in this place.