A Crack Of Thunder

A crackle of thunder rolls above as talons of lightning claw their way across the sky, lighting up the night for a split second. It's the flash of it that rouses Jake to an instant assault on his senses. Cold. Wet. The sodden earth beneath him cradling him, soaking him through as rain battered his naked torso. His eyes flicker, opening to nothing but a stunted view of grass and the stems of flowers poking out from slick black mud. His hand rested a few inches from his nose and as he begins to piece together his surroundings, his fingers curl easily in to the waterlogged soil.

The world lights up again to the ominous growl of the storm, and he shivers. Freezing. His teeth chatter as he sucks in a breath and lifts his head. The smallest action that sends a bolt of pain through his entire body. Memories flood back, unstoppable and brutal. Michael standing over him, the menacing eyes of the demon piercing through him.

He groans, moving slowly, picking up the pieces bit by bit, until finally he sits up straight and slumps back against the heavy boulder behind him to nurse his injuries.

Droplets of water drip from the end of his nose and the tip of his chin, hanging from his eyelashes and obscuring already blurry vision.

It was night and he could see no moon, just endless storm clouds and the occasional flash of lightning lighting everything up and letting him know he was still where he'd fallen. Alone. They had left him?

After staring at his scuffed and bruised hands for a moment, he draws them around to hug himself against the cold. His vest gone along with his boots. His long hair free of it's tie now clung to his face and neck and shoulders, soaked through and wild. He shivers, somehow finding it in himself to keep going, keep moving. He uses the bumpy ridges of the rock to help himself to his feet, the leather of his pants clinging uncomfortably to his thighs, no respite from the damp as fierce rain stung his shoulders.

It's the caw of a raven that gets his attention, snapping his head to the side to follow the sound, finding it perched upon the boulder. As battered by the downpour as he was, it looks right at him, opens its beak and squawks, then with a flurry of feathers and wings takes to the air.

There was nobody here, and the storm howled across the mountain side and whipped the poppies and daisies flat against the ground. Jake lifts a trembling hand to his lips and tries to use his fingers to whistle for Blue, but nothing. No sound comes from him. He gives up and calls out the name of his horse in to the night.

"Blue?!" he hollers to no response, blinking raindrops from his eyes, "Michael?!"

Was this it? Was the demon free and the world now plunged in to some kind of eternal, stormy night?

They had failed, utterly.

He could either stay here and freeze to death, or he could move.

Try.

His first few steps are shaky, like those of a newborn. His body screamed with agony, each breath in a torture that had him gritting his teeth and curling his arms gingerly around bruised and broken ribs. He pushes on. Get to the road. If he could make it there maybe he could find somebody. Anybody. Get some help.

He walks for what feels like an eternity in the unrelenting storm. His teeth chattering and skin turning blue from cold. The rain never lets up, the thunder never gets any further away. But he heads for home. The ranch. Maybe they would be okay, maybe the demon hadn't gotten to them. Maybe he could still save somebody. He couldn't lose them all.

Cresting the brow of the hill, he looks down toward Bacchus Station, seeing a single light in the distance. It gives him the smallest grain of hope.

A hope that's dashed as his bare foot falls on sharp stone and with a hiss and a growl he topples to his hands and knees again. Frustration, anger. His fingers curl in the sodden dirt and his sodden hair whips at his eyes.

"Get up." He snarls to himself.

When he lifts his head, the station is gone.

A frown fleets over his brow.

The rain now battered a lush green field. He found himself looking up a familiar grassy hill instead of down toward rail tracks. The moon poked out from behind the dark clouds, lighting up the silhouette of the tall oak tree that spread it's limbs out over a single cross, buried in the ground beneath it.

Jake staggers back to his feet, wobbling there, exhausted and spent. His eyes fixed upon the grave at the top of the hill.

Sara's grave.

Was it time to join her? Had he already? Was he just on some walk of penance to reach a final place of rest? By her side again, where he always should have been.

Weakly, he steps forward. The soft spring of the grass a welcome relief to his sore feet. It almost felt heavenly.

With every placement of his foot, one in front of the other, he feels the pain of his injuries and the ache in his heart melt away. Replaced by a sort of calm. An acceptance that the fight was over and there was nothing left to give. He had failed them, but now he could rest.

At the foot of Sara's grave he stands, hands clutching his arms and his teeth chattering together from the cold of the rain that still beat down upon him. But he barely felt any of it anymore. It didn't matter. He drops to his knees, weary and ready, and slumps to the ground. His fingertips brush the cross of her grave, and he breathes her name in a sigh.

"Sara."

Closing his eyes, he rests. At peace. Ready to go.

The rain stops. The first respite his abused body had felt in hours. He was so tired, but a quiet footstep nearby draws his attention and he forces open his eyes with the last of his strength.

She stood in front of him, a silhouette against the moon. Dressed in the white night gown she'd been wearing the night he lost her.

Beautiful.

She smiles at him. Lowering herself to her knees to rest her warm hands gently upon his cold skin. Comforting. She takes his chin between her fingers and coaxes him to lift his head just a little, just enough, to softly press a kiss to his lips.

"I'm sorry." He murmurs as the gentle kiss breaks.

Sara offers him the tiniest shake of her head and strokes her hand against his cheek, resting it upon his shoulder.

"I'm ready." He swallows.

Sara's smile fades slightly and she leans in again, pressing a kiss to his brow. She could take him right now and he would go peacefully.

But she doesn't.

"Not yet." She whispers against his ear, then dissolves before his eyes as he reaches for her.

---

Five days had passed since Jake had been returned to the ranch in a dire condition. Leon had treated his injuries and given him medications to reduce swelling. Yuliy and Valerie had stolen IV equipment from Valentines Doctors office and they'd kept him alive with vital fluids. Each of them praying it would be long enough for Jake to find his way back to them. Leon couldn't be certain what it was that was causing this prolonged unconsciousness, he could theorize swelling in the brain or other such damage but there was no way to be sure. Just theories he'd read in books and learned in practice. Hope had been their greatest ally.

But they all knew with each day that passed, his chances just seemed to get worse.

Evening was drawing in again and the camp was subdued. Isabella lightly smooths a damp sponge along Jake's arm and finishes her task, ringing it out over a bowl of soapy water. She gazes at him for a moment or two, watching his chest slowly rise and fall, then with a heavy sigh she gets to her feet to rinse out the dish and perhaps find herself something to eat. Leon was outside cooking for the kids.

She's standing by the window in the light of the fading sun as Jake's eyelashes flutter. The tips of his fingers lifting from the bed, reaching for Sara as she turns to mist and vanishes.

"Sara.." he rasps. Out loud.

He blinks.

He isn't dreaming anymore.
It isn't the first time Isabella has felt compelled to ask Jake what he sees in Michael, and it certainly won't be the last. The details surrounding what happened out there in the mountains are still foggy to everyone, but Michael wears his guilt like a scarlet letter, telegraphing his part to play in Jake's condition for miles around.

But the question dies on her tongue, smothered underneath the weight of Leon's words the day Ripley brought Jake back to camp.

It doesn't matter who's responsible. Not right now.

"He's fine," she offers, hesitantly, and is unnerved by the look of relief that flickers across Jake's face. "Leon checked him over. Barely a scratch on him."

Jake nods and lets his eyelids flutter shut against the golden rays of the dying sun, but doesn't have the energy to press for anything more.

Trading her weight between her feet, she watches him rest for a moment, studying the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. She wants to ask if he knows something the rest of them don't, if he remembers anything before he lost consciousness, but it's a discussion that carries a lot of weight that she isn't sure he's yet prepared to bear.

She lets it go for now, and it's no accident that she doesn't offer to go find Michael.

"I should fetch Leon and let him know that you're awake" she says, tucking the edges of the blanket underneath him to better insulate his shivering body. "I think he's preparing dinner for the kids right now. I can fix you a plate if you think you can stomach it."

Jake briefly considers the idea of food, but passes on it swiftly. His stomach felt like it was flip flopping around with every thump in his head. For now he just wanted to lie here, peacefully, and let all of it wash over him.

He wanted to see Michael, make sure he was alright, make sure it wasn't the beast still lurking and biding it's time. For what, he didn't know. But for now he simply didn't have the strength.

He isn't sure if he'd dozed off again or what, but the next thing he knows the bed creaks slightly and he opens his eyes as Leon carefully takes his wrist and studies a pocket watch.

"What are you doing?" Jake asks in a weary mumble.

Leon lifts his eyes, smiling gently. "Just takin' your pulse. Good to see you back with us."

Jake swallows, a tiny dip of his chin his only acknowledgement. After a few moments silence he licks his dry lips and asks. "So.. you're a doctor, huh?"

Leon sets his wrist back down and sets the watch on the bedside table, moving to check on the IV bag. "I am." He answers quietly. "How are you feelin?"

Jake's forehead bunches in a frown and he lets out a groan. "Like I got kicked in the head. Repeatedly."

It's not a lie.

Leon looks at him curiously. "Is that what happened?"

Frozen for a moment, Jake eventually lowers his hand from where he'd been rubbing his brow and simply nods. "Yeah I guess."

There's movement to his side and he opens his eyes again to see Isabella there, clutching a pitcher of water.

"Looks like you took quite a beatin' from someone." Leon presses gently, readying a syringe with something.

Jake swallows, gazing at the ceiling.

"Who?" Isabella asks, quietly.

"It don't matter."

Leon flicks a look across to Izzy. She pours a glass of water.

"Well is it someone we need to be worried about?" Leon ventures conversationally. "Lotta kids here, if we got some new enemies we should.."

"I don't know." Jake sighs irritably. "Maybe? Yeah. We should probably just... be careful."

"What was the job?" Isabella asks, setting the glass down beside him.

Jake rubs his brow again, then scowls at Leon as he brings the hefty looking syringe over. "Whats that?"

"Somethin' for your pain, and to keep any swellin' down while you continue to heal."

Jake tenses, but allows it. Leon carefully administers the shot.

There's no opportunity for Izzy to continue her questions as a slight knock at the door comes and Ripley pokes her head. Word had spread that he was awake and it had already breathed a new energy in to the camp.

Leon gestures for her to come in and tells her to keep her voice low and not jostle him.

He brushes his hand over Izzy's back and ushers her out. "C'mon, lets go eat. Give them some time."

"I'm worried about him," Isabella complains, reluctantly allowing Leon to usher her out of the cabin.

He nods and strokes his thumb against the small of her back. "I know. But he's awake now, and that's a good sign--"

She steps in front of him and blocks his path. "That's not what I meant."

Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, she hisses, "You know and I know that Michael is to blame for this. I don't understand why Jake is protecting him."

Leon considers his words carefully before he speaks. "We'll get to the heart of it when he heals up. Right now, Jake needs time to recover."

"And until then?" she challenges. "He could have died if Ripley didn't get him back here when she did, and we're just supposed to turn the other cheek and act like everything is okay?"

Pain and anger flare in her eyes as she pleads with Leon's for some sort of resolution. She had never been very good at taking injustice lying down, even if her vigor to right wrongs were often misguided and reckless. Every problem was a fire that needed to be extinguished in her eyes, and Michael burned brightest and most deadly of all.

"C'mere."

Leon coaxes her to come closer and wraps her up in his arms, resting his chin on the crown of her head. "All we can do is offer Jake support," he soothes, "and that's only if he wants it to begin with. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'im drink."

It's not the answer that Isabella wants, and she hides her scowl in the material of Leon's shirt. "But he's not a horse, he's my friend. Might be dumb as a horse sometimes..."

It makes Leon chuckle and he withdraws far enough to kiss her forehead. "We can spend another night in the room next door if that'll make you feel better."

She hitches a shoulder. "I suppose. But I don't want Michael in there alone with him. Not yet."

"We'll keep an eye on Michael." Leon agrees, appeasing her, "Least until all of this is resolved."

He wasn't sure what to think, having spoken to the other man himself on a few occasions since all of this began. He'd seemed to rueful and yes, plagued by guilt. Was it because he had been responsible for Jake's beating? Or was it because he had failed to stop it?

Leon knew a thing or two about guilt over events you had no part in. He knew the weight of being unable to stop something terrible from happening to people you cared about. It sat just as heavily on your shoulders.

He keeps the thought to himself, however. Izzy was in no frame of mind to accept anything other than her own theories right now, and even after only a handful of months, he knew better than to challenge her when she had her mind set on something. He had a feeling Jake would have to douse these flames himself.

They arrive at the camp fire and he stirs the hearty stew, dishing out a bowl of it to Isabella along with a think chunk of bread and butter. Maybe she'd finally eat a real meal now that Jake was awake.

Taking his own, he sits beside her to eat, gazing in to the fire between mouthfuls.

He can't help but glance at her from time to time, lost in her thoughts. Her concern for the other man had been consuming her of late, he understood it, but that part of him that was also now her partner as well as her friend? well.. that part was curious.

"You two have been friends a long time, huh?" he asks quietly, after swallowing a bite of tender steak.

Isabella just nods.

Leon pushes around a few chunks of carrot, searching out another piece of meat. "Ripley... she uh... let slip I guess. That you were more than that for a while?"

There's a part of Isabella that suspected this topic would come up eventually, despite all the measures she had taken to banish the memories to the deepest, darkest corners of her mind. She had been in a bad place back then, and so had Jake, and with their world crumbling to pieces around them, they clung to each other and any shred of familiarity they could get their hands on.

"I was never his girl, if that's what you're asking," she mutters, skirting around the question.

Leon nods, somewhat uncertain. "Sure, I just... what Ripley said--"

"What does she know?" she interrupts, cutting him off. "What happened between me and Jake was a bad idea, but it's our business, not hers or anyone else's."

Leon takes that as his cue to drop the subject, mumbling an apology under his breath for prying. For a moment, Isabella is content to leave it at that, but the silence that stretches between them is deafening, and eats at her until she can't help but break it.

Sighing, her appetite gone, she sets aside her half-empty bowl. "He was engaged to my sister when she was alive. I don't know if you knew that or not. Sara and I... I loved her, I looked up to her in so many ways, but I also hated her. Hated her for the attention she got, for how smart she was, all the opportunities she had that I didn't. I'm not proud of it, but I saw Jake as just another one of her trophies that I wanted for myself."

The first time they slept together had been a mistake, a drunk and petty lapse in judgment, and the guilt had nearly eaten Isabella alive. After Sara was gone and the town they had grown up in had been burned to the ground, Jake had been like an oasis in a never ending desert.

"I thought he died the same night she did. And when I found him again, alive and well... I had nothing else but him, no home, no family, and I tried to force him to be everything I needed. There was a hole in my heart as big as Gaptooth Ridge and I thought I could use him to fill it."

She steals a glance at Leon but his expression is indecipherable.

"I've been lost and afraid for a long time," she continues, "and I was looking for any excuse not to feel like that anymore."

Leon gazes down into the depths of his bowl. "So the day I went with you to that ranch up north..." He trails off, letting her follow that train of through to its logical conclusion. "And now..."

Her eyes widen and her brows knit together. "It's not like that."

"What's different?"

The sincerity in the question catches her off guard. There's no malice, no challenge, just curiosity. Struggling to meet his gaze, she forces herself to hold it.

"Because you never made me feel like I was second best."

A soft and somewhat sad smile flickers across his face as she speaks, her story tugging at his heart and the echo of loneliness in her voice mirroring the same kind of lost hopelessness he'd felt here and there. He rests his spoon down in his almost empty bowl and sets it aside, his hands clasping between his knees as he looks back to her.

His confession comes with the smallest breath of a laugh. "Darlin' you've been the first thought in my mind every day since I met you. Which, granted, ain't all that long ago. But.." his eyes search hers and he smiles again, "I'm real glad to have found you."

He sees the slight mist in her eyes and reaches out, gently touching her cheek with a brush of his thumb. She makes the smallest sound and in a heartbeat moves from her seat and in to his lap, straddling his thighs and kissing him.

His hands settle on her hips and pull her close, returning the kiss. His thumbs sneak under the hem of her shirt and graze bare skin beneath. She reacts with her entire body, like a jolt of electricity. Pressing herself against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. After almost a week of stress and restless nights, it felt good to lose themselves to a little indulgence.

Until the giggles of a handful of children stop them in their tracks. Parting breathlessly and laughing quietly to one another.

Leon strokes her back fondly, dipping his chin to rest their foreheads together.

"Guess we should get back to our chores, huh." He murmurs.

"Guess so," she murmurs back, absently tracing the stitching in his vest with the tip of her finger. There was never any shortage of tasks that needed to be done around the ranch, and with Jake being bed-bound, Isabella's chores had been neglected in favor of taking care of him.

She should have gone into town to pick up supplies days ago -- wood to repair a broken slat in the fence around the garden, thread to mend a hole in the canvas of Valerie's tent, and all the planning she had done with Leon to get their trading endeavor off the ground had been abruptly put on hold.

But with the sun slowly disappearing below the horizon, casting the sky in brilliant shades of pink and purple, there's no place else she'd rather be than exactly where she is -- wrapped in Leon's arms and so close to him that she can feel his heartbeat against hers.

Isabella has never been in love before, but when she looks into his eyes, she thinks that maybe, someday, she could be. Maybe she already is.

She tells their audience to scram, and the children race away with a chorus of giggles to find some other mischief to get into. Alone again, she steals another brief kiss.

"Or..." she proposes, leaning in closer to whisper a better idea in his ear. Her eyes flick over his shoulder and she nods in the direction of his tent. "The chores will still be there in the morning."

With smirks of mischief on their faces they sneak away and to his tent. It was the furthest from the rest of the camp, but still in the thick of things, which meant with people still awake and milling around they were going to have to be stealthy.

Quiet.

Ducking through the canvas he takes a moment to tie the two flimsy pieces of leather cord that held the flaps together. The moment he's done, Isabella plucks the hat from his head and sets it aside on a crate doubling as a table, then practically throws her arms around his neck.

She has to stand on the very tips of her toes to reach him, the height difference between them an obstacle only when on their feet. Leon returns her eager kiss with equal passion, his hands slipping around her hips and over the curve of her ass to pull her close to him.

She fumbles buttons on his vest and shirt, pushing material away and letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud. There's laughter too close for comfort, and they slam on the breaks, Leon placing a finger softly over her lips. They watch the canvas doorway with held breath, and moments later the kids catch sight of a fox out in the early evening and go chasing after it, their voices fading away.

Leon returns his eyes to Izzy, an amused smile twinkling in his eyes. "We should probably wait till everyones in bed."

"Probably." Isabella whispers, throwing caution to the wind in the same breath and resuming their kiss.

Clothing comes away quickly and quietly. Leon watches her with hunger in his eyes as she lies herself naked down upon his bunk, the bite of her lip as inviting as a curl of her finger would have been.

Unzipping and discarding his jeans, he kneels on the cot between her thighs and reaches over to snuff out the oil lamp first. No shadows. He places the glass cover back over the lamp and returns his attention to the beautiful creature before him. "Where were we?" he rumbles quietly.

She reaches for him and he sinks down to her, pausing at her breast to tease with his tongue, before rising to her lips and kissing her again.

Before their lips meet, she giggles a tiny 'shhh'. But it's her that moans.
It's easy to fool themselves into thinking they're being quiet when the world outside Leon's tent ceases to register. Every now and then, between the touch of his hand on her breast, the flick of his thumb against her nipple, his fingers toying and exploring between her thighs, Isabella even remembers to muffle her moans with the palm of her hand.

Curling two digits inside of her makes her next breath hitch in her chest, and the way she arches into his touch has Leon groaning eagerly against the side of her throat.

They hear the laughter of Claudia and the other children as they race past the tent again, and Isabella tilts her head to graze her teeth and lips against his ear.

"Do you still want to wait?" she asks in a whisper, her right hand snaking down between their bodies, the tips of her fingers skimming the hard length of him and over the head of his cock.

Whatever he attempts to utter in response catches in his throat, and his hips involuntarily buck forward. Their eyes meet and the commotion of the children as they play, the crackle of the campfire, the conversation shared between other members of their patchwork little family might as well be a thousand miles away.

"The hell I do," he rumbles in reply, swallowing her moan with a searing kiss as he sheaths himself inside of her.

Her thighs tremble as he bottoms out, her fingernails digging crescent moons into his shoulder blades. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she digs her heels into the small of his back like she's spurring on a horse; like half the law force in Valentine is chasing her down.

She whimpers his name and it's all the encouragement he needs to give her exactly what she wants. He thrusts and she cries out despite all the reasons not to.

She unravels quickly, but he's had that effect on her since the very first time she went to bed with him. It leaves her feeling giddy and lightheaded in the aftermath, bashfully giggling into her palm over how easily he's able to bring her to the peak of pleasure.

They don't notice someone fiddling with the leather ties holding the canvas flaps of his tent shut behind them; they don't notice when they come loose and fall away, either, or even the silhouette standing in the gap left behind as they part.

Oblivious, Leon tucks his hand in the crook of Isabella's knee and pins her leg back, earning himself a wanton moan at the change in angle. Cursing against his lips, she cups his face between her hands and tangles her fingers in his hair. "Leon... please..." she whispers.

"Leon?" echoes a voice from behind them.

It's like having a bucket of cold water dumped over their heads, and they launch away from each other like they've been electrocuted. Isabella yelps and grabs for the blanket to tug up over her chest, and Leon snatches up a pillow to hold over his groin.

Valerie stands in the entrance to the tent, her head tilted curiously to one side like a dog listening to a high pitched noise. "What are you doing?" she asks.

It's worse than a bucket of cold water, it's like being dunked in ice. He feels the heat of embarrassment rise in his cheeks and quickly replace the flush of passion. Clutching the pillow to his crotch so firmly it almost hurt, his eyes flick to the side to see Isabella cover nearly every inch of herself with a blanket in record time.

Valerie might as well be holding them at gunpoint.

She arches an eyebrow curiously and - entirely unphased by what she had walked in on - dunks her spoon back in to her stew.

"I uh... we uh..." Leon puffs, his breath still ragged. He looks to Isabella for help and gets nothing but a mortified stare in return. Of course Valerie didn't know what she'd walked in on, it was highly unlikely their father had ever given her a birds and bees talk and with the sheltered life she'd lived until now.. why would she?

He swallows, clearing his throat and reaching for a second blanket to wrap around his waist. "Just.. exercises." He blurts out.

Isabella's lips purse in to a thin but amused line.

Valerie chews a piece of steak and speaks around it. "Exercises?"

"Yeah." He knots the blanket round his middle and drops the pillow. "Just like.. stretching.. I was helping Izzy.."

Isabella groans, flopping her head down to the pillow to stare up at the ceiling.

"Oh." Valerie nods, "I just thought she hurt herself, heard her from all the way by Jake's house. He's awake!" She beams.

Leon's expression softens and he nods. "Yeah, he is. Why don't you go see him?"

"Jesus Christ on a broom!" Ripley appears behind Valerie and instantly turns around to look away, covering her eyes, then she turns back and grabs Valerie's hand. "I thought I heard.. nevermind.. c'mon Val.."

"But they're doing exercises!" Valerie protests. Clutching her stew bowl.

"No kind of exercise you need to be doing, ever." Ripley snorts, dragging Valerie out of the tent.

"But why?" They hear Valerie continue her protests out in to the night.

Leon slumps back down on to the cot, puffing stray hair that tickled his eyes away. He glances sideways to Isabella, and just laughs.

They can hear Valerie's indignant, confused protests for far longer than they would like to, her barrage of questions quickly wearing down Ripley's patience. Why? What do you mean? What kind of exercises? Why can't I do it, too?

"I ain't your mother," Ripley complains. "Ask someone else!"

Valerie apparently considers this. "Okay. I'll ask Jake," she concludes.

Isabella can think of a million reasons why that's a bad idea, but the thought of showing her face outside the confines of Leon's tent just now is the absolute last thing she wants to do.

Eventually -- mercifully -- Ripley and Valerie make it inside the cabin and shut the door behind them. Isabella and Leon share a look, and they both devolve into a fit of sheepish laughter.

"Exercises!?" Isabella parrots, one brow arched indignantly. Gathering up the blanket and draping it around herself, she refastens the ties on the tent flaps and then crawls back into bed.

"I panicked!" Leon exclaims, defending himself. "What was I s'posed to tell her?"

Hiding her face behind her hands, Isabella groans into her palms. She doesn't have an answer to his question. "Guess the moment has passed, hasn't it?"

Leon regretfully dips his chin in a nod to confirm. "Your kid sister walkin' in on you like that kinda has that effect, yeah."

Rolling onto her side, Isabella gently lays her palm against his cheek and momentarily studies his face.

"Raincheck?" she asks.

He smiles and runs the pad of his thumb along her lower lip, a look of such adoration in his eyes that it makes her heart skip a beat.

"I'd like that," he says.

Eventually, they have to venture out from his tent. Hideous embarrassment didn't half the call of nature or the call of duty, and after answering the first they head to the second. Letting themselves back in to the cabin they find Ripley and Valerie playing cards at the small table near the window, while Jake watches them from his spot on the bed.

Isabella's cheeks flush bright red as Ripley asks them if they're done exercising.

Jake frowns curiously. "They keep going on about exercises.. what..."

Leon offers him a small smile and crosses the room to check his IV. With Jake awake and able to take fluids on his own power now, it was time to remove the cannula. A task that is distracting enough to pull attention away from the awkward conversation.

Valerie sighs as she loses another round to Ripley, then sets her cards down and gets to her feet. "I should go help Yuliy get the kids to bed anyway."

Leon smiles across to her, setting the used needle aside on a small tray and dressing the small wound it left behind.

"Maybe tomorrow you can show me how to exercise?" She asks.

Three of them stop in their tracks, Leon's face an absolute picture. Getting no answer, Valerie eventually skips away down the steps and back toward the barn.

"Alright, someone wanna explain?" Jake asks in a weary rumble.

Ripley folds her arms, standing at the foot of his bed. "She walked in on these two at it like bunnies."

Jake blinks. In the next room, Isabella drops something and it clatters to the floor. Flicking his gaze from Ripley to Leon and back again, he suddenly laughs and swiftly winces in it's wake, clutching his hand to his ribs.

"Your sister walked in on you fucking?"

A sour look crosses Leon's face and he grunts his response, tidying away the medical things. "It ain't funny."

"The hell it's not." Jake chuckles, getting swift control of his amusement. Not that it wasn't hilarious, but it hurt to laugh. "So wait, she thought you were.. exercising?"

"First thing that came to mind, I panicked." Leon mutters.

Confused, Jake looks at him curiously. "She doesn't know what sex is?"

"She doesn't know what a lot of things are." Leon answers, moving in to the small kitchen to wash his hands. "Why I was so worried about her, why I tracked her down. Our father kept her shut in that house her whole life. All she ever had were fairytale books for company."

Jake processes this. "Should probably tell her, then.."

"I know that." Leon sighs, entering the room drying his hands. "But you try havin' a kid sister with her head in the clouds and you tell me how you'd even begin to broach the subject?"

A further, darker thought crosses Jake's mind as they talk. That was why the girl was still here, why she hadn't run a million miles away after the demon attacked her in that cabin. She didn't know what he was trying to do. She had no idea the danger she had been in, and none of them had told her.

"I guess you just.. tell her. You're a Doctor."

"It's different when it's your sister."

Isabella emerges back in to the room, a fresh pitcher of water and some crackers on a plate in case he felt hungry yet. "He's right though, she should know.. what's going on with her body.. all that."

"Maybe you.." Leon gestures toward her, and then glances at Ripley who holds her hands up and makes her exit with a hasty 'no thanks'.

There's no resolution made that night, nobody quite willing to draw the short straw and take responsibility for a sorely needed biology lesson. It's a task to worry about another day; for now, everyone is content just to know that Jake is awake and finally on the mend.

He manages to choke down some water and a few crackers before everyone turns in for the night, Leon giving him one last check over and Isabella making sure he has enough blankets to stave off the chill in the air.

"Do you need anything else?" she asks, propping up an extra pillow behind his head for him.

He declines. "I'll be fine, get out of here already," he jokes, waving her off. "If I need anything come sun up, I'll give you a holler once you've gotten your daily exercises out of the way."

Heat creeps into Isabella's cheeks again, and she mumbles something about how he's lucky that he's already black and blue. "Funny."

"I thought so."

"As long as someone did."

Awkwardly clearing his throat and scratching at the back of his neck, Leon hooks his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm, uh, gonna go check on Val, see if she needs anything."

"Give her the talk!" Jake calls after him, earning himself a swat against the shoulder from Isabella.

"I think I liked you better when you were out cold," she teases, though she doesn't mean a word of it.

He pretends to be greatly wounded and clutches at his arm. "Somehow still not the cruelest thing you've ever said to me."

She smirks, but it only lasts half as long as the silence that settles between them.

"You're going to be okay," she insists, but it's more for her sake than for his.

"I know," he agrees, dipping his head in a nod. "Got good people lookin' out for me."

Laying her hand over his, she gives it a gentle squeeze and wishes him good night.