The helicopter carried them in its belly to the mainland.
At a clinic in San Jose, a small doctor with a widow's peak and blue gloves pronounced Timmy an especially lucky lightening strike survivor. The doctor and his nurse spent the next two hours cleaning crusted blood from wounds and replacing dirt with gauze pads that seemed absurdly white.
At some point, Alan fell asleep in a chair, holding the children's hands.
~o~
Ellie touched Alan awake with her hand on his shoulder. Her smile was tired and gritty, a sunrise through Montana dust.
They were alive, and this sudden miraculous fact broke something loose in Alan.
"I love you, Ellie."
Ellie let out a breath and stepped into the nest of his arms. He rested his head on her breast, letting her steady heart drown out the sounds of the past two days.
At home, they helped each other collapse onto the bed. They were asleep almost before their eyes closed.
Ellie found Alan in the kitchen, at daybreak, staring into a cup of coffee. She waited in the doorway. "I don't want coffee," he said abruptly, looking at her, looking lost.
"Come back to bed," Ellie said, opening her arms for him.
~o~
Ellie clutched him as he moved. They were climbing inside each other, flesh to flesh.
When Alan felt her muscles tense around him, he fit a hand between them to give her what she needed. Minutes later, he shuddered, too, and buried himself in her as deeply as he could, pressing silent endearments into her skin.
Alan rolled them over but stayed inside her, and they let their exhaustion overtake them again.
When Ellie told Alan she was pregnant, he laid his hands on her waist and asked, slyly, "You mean I'm gonna be a father?"
Ellie hitched up her chin with a tight smile. "Do you want to be?"
"I used to think I didn't want children." Alan squeezed her and watched her smile spread as she understood his meaning.
She leaned in and rested her lips against his shoulder. "What changed?"
Alan thought of those hours in the tree with Tim and Lex, how he'd stayed awake all night to meet their pure trust in him.
He thought of dinosaurs and beauty and fear.
He thought of how much he loved this woman.
"Nothing, really." Alan smiled at his old foolishness. "I just realized how things were."
