A/N: Wow, life has been completely hectic for me, but I'm glad to be back into writing! First off, I want to say that if you're continuing the story, Chapter One was rewritten, so please go back if you want it to make sense and read the A/N! Secondly, I am slowly emerging you into Kat's backstory, and introducing the main characters of the story, so bear with me. There is a lot to come, all meticulously planned! I want to reiterate that if you want to suggest a character you would like as a main character, a pairing you want to see a little/lot of, or a character written a certain way, my inbox is always open! Enjoy my lovelies xoxoxoxoxo

Off on the Wrong Foot

Sunday, Spring 28

I finally stepped off the train the next morning, the sun was already high in the sky and paving a blazing path before me. Having washed and changed quickly in the poky train bathroom, I felt a new sense of accomplishment at having survived a train journey on my own.

Well, not entirely on my own. Elli jumped down behind me effortlessly, bags in tow, looking unruffled by the temperature. She had promised to walk me into Mineral Town and show me the way to the Valley, and we all walked in comfortable silence, only a passing comment here or there about the natural beauty of the surroundings. It seemed that Celeste was a popular destination for country folk, all returning on the warm Sunday to resume routine.

The day was unusually warm for the end of Spring, and the walk took us through a bare field, with sheep dozing in the heat. Despite the lack of wind, I could sense that the air was different here – it had a cleaner, more revitalising quality that the congested city just couldn't possess. It felt like home. I felt a surge of loneliness – everything was so different, and brought over me an unexpected wave of nostalgia.

"It's weird to think I grew up here," I said absently. I wasn't even sure why I said it, but it slipped out of my mouth like sand through my fingers. Nobody replied; the walk was becoming gruelling. Warm air shimmied above the dusty rock path, and bees droned around flowering yellow gorse. It wasn't a long journey, but the temperature distorted my sense of stamina and I already felt tired.

"I take it you'll see Celia on your way to your new home?" Elli called over her shoulder eventually. I realised I was lagging slightly behind her comfortable pace and hurried along to keep up.

"Will I pass it this way?" I asked. I had been to Mineral Town many times when I was younger, but only ever to the library with my mother. The memory was blurred together with other libraries, other market places. I could barely remember my grandmother's voice, lost in a sea of memories that was my tumultuous childhood.

"Just off the path from Mineral Town. It's a big enough farm; you couldn't miss it." This shook me from my recollections.

"And Mineral Town itself?" I had begun to struggle with my bags. To this she simply pointed, and as we came over the top of the slightly hilly field we were on I saw it. Wedged below us was the quaint little town, all coloured buildings and beaten paths. I could see a little ranch from where we stood, large enough for a small field of crops and a barn. I wondered if it was a real farmer, or some idiot who had just rented the place out for research. Like, you know, me.

"It's not much," Elli said with a small smile, "but it's home."

I had never really understood the concept of a home. The ranch I was going to visit was my Grandfather's, and I had lived there for a few years after I was born. My mother and father had met at boarding school in the city at age 15, and she was pregnant by the time they were 18. Completely shunned by her family, she and my father moved back to his parents' ranch, and they took us all in: no judgments, just love. My earliest memory was the calves being born in the Spring after my third birthday and how small they had been. After that, it was the apartment we lived in when my father got his first job in the city when I was 6, and I was forced to take this in as my new home. We weren't even there two years before it was on to a bigger apartment when he was promoted. After a year there my mother and I left – my dad wasn't the same person I remembered from my childhood on the ranch, and our little apartment raised me til the very moment I left it, approximately 18 hours ago.

I hadn't spoken to him in years, and it was hard coming out here in a way – this was his father's place, and he had always wanted him to look after it once he died. Dad had other plans. My grandfather was nothing like him; he had let us live out here while we found our feet as a family. I felt like it would be more comforting to study on the land than painful. Certainly if it was as pretty as Mineral Town, which we were fast approaching. It only took a few minutes of walking to reach the path with the sign for Forget-Me-Not Valley, and Elli turned to me with a small smile that lay somewhere between fondness and sadness. She took my hands in hers and squeezed tightly.

"I know you love science and logic, but I feel like we were meant to meet! You made the train journey so much more pleasant. Please drop into Dr Trent's clinic whenever you can, and good luck!" And just like that, she was gone, me smiling after her goofily.

The crowd moved fairly quickly in one direction or the other, and I followed a group of people along the stony path to the valley. It took a mere ten minutes, passing tall hedges and long rows of flower beds, standing to attention, commanded by the sun. A mother and son in front of me were engaged in hearty conversation, and I was lulled to comfort by their back-and-forth.

"Mom, can we have cake when we get home?" He asked hopefully, lugging a little suitcase behind him. His blonde hair seemed to shine in the light. His mother audibly sighed, but she leaned in closer to him and caught his hand.

"Maybe one slice. And don't tell your dad!" Even though I couldn't see his face I could imagine the massive grin there. There was something different in the air here, something hopeful. And even though I found myself alone in the bright glow of the afternoon, knuckles white from gripping my bags and the rest of my skin red from the relentless sun, I could feel something different about the place. Something I hadn't felt in a long, long time.

Something, I realised, that could come rushing back to me in a matter of seconds and have me stumbling over my luggage and down the path to the quaint little farmhouses with the fenced fields and the uniform rows of crops, to the spot where one of my best friends stood for the first time in 20 years.

Celia looked better than ever, even from this distance; her long brown hair was glossy in the sunlight and she stood tall among the crops. Everyone on the path had seen me blunder over my suitcases, including her, but she'd simply dropped the watering can in her hand and eased herself over the fence, colliding with me as I caught my arms around her. She felt like all kinds of home.

"Kat! You didn't tell me you were coming today!" I buried my head into the soft cloth of her dress in reply. She always smelled like she'd just taken a warm batch of cookies from the oven, even on a summer's day. "I can't believe you're here again!"

"I can't either." I loosened my grip on her and took a sheepish step back, grappling with my bags again. I couldn't take the smile off my face. "How have you been?"

"Honestly, I've been amazing." The warmth in her voice matched the happiness on her face.

"I came out here to help aunt Vesta after I'd finished school, after Grandpa died. She needed the help and I needed the job. And it's wonderful! The air does my sickness good, and now you're here too!" She took my hands and squeezed them, and I remembered the custom from my distant childhood. It was a way of showing thanks for someone. Elli had did the same thing to me when she left me not long before. "How are you?"

"A little scared, I'm not going to lie." The frown on her face made me go on. "I haven't been in the farmhouse in 20 years, Celia. What if everything's changed?"

"And what," she asked with a small smile, "if everything's stayed the same?"

She took me inside; it was approaching midday and the sun was climbing too high for anyone to work in. Armed with one of my bags, she guided me into the house that had been like my second home. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the artificial yellow lighting, but when it did I was surprised – relieved? – to find that the only thing that had changed was the general décor. The large pot stove and kitchen dominated much of the back wall, and the same large table where I was always welcome for dinner sat front and centre at the front of the room. Sitting in two adjacent seats munching on sandwiches were two people; ghosts from my childhood. I could barely get a word out when Vesta stood, lunch half-chewed in her mouth.

"My god. Wee Kat Donovan, you're a bloody woman!"

She pulled me into a huge hug, all breasts and arms. I couldn't help but squeeze her tight back. "Last time I saw you, you were six years of age and came to my waist!"

"It's lovely seeing you too, Vesta," I said with a laugh. She didn't let go until she felt it'd been long enough, and even then only released me slowly. "How's the business?"

"Booming!" she said with a booming laugh to match. "Our vegetables are all organic, all grown by the three of us. You know you can have whatever you want to help you get on your feet while you're here. We don't mind at all-"

"Speak for yourself." I turned to the sole remaining occupant of the table, a man of dark features. His eyes surveyed me from top to bottom; I could tell it was from curiosity and not malice, but it still made me uncomfortable under his gaze. A slightly amused expression passed over his features. "Some of us work hard for a living." Voices are one thing that don't change – his had broken with age, and had a rougher quality to it, but it remained a ghost from my childhood.

"Marlin. So nice to see you too," I said sarcastically. I don't know what I expected, perhaps a hand shake or even him to rise to greet me, but he didn't budge. I stood awkwardly instead. It was he who broke the silence, taking another gulp of his soup.

"Another rich kid seeing if she can come make it out in the sticks?" he asked casually. There was an undertone of sarcasm, but his words were still biting. "Daddy-funded, I assume?" I instantly regretted engaging with him, the words washing over me like a second wave of realisation. These people would see me in terms of my father; of the village gossip that no doubt had been passed on in my absence. My mouth opened and stayed there; I felt a heat creep up my neck, and the notion to cry restricted my throat. Nothing sent me off like my father. Vesta got there first.

"Marlin, attitude!" she roared, and the broken silence gave me and opportunity to swallow the lump in my throat. "You have no idea-"

"C'mon, Vesta," he snapped back irritably, dropping his spoon and pushing back his chair. This was not the sickly little boy I remembered; he stood, towering a full 6 inches over me. "What do we owe her? As soon as her father got his Business Degree, he was too good for us. They didn't visit, not even when Old Mr Donovan passed-"

"Uncle Marlin, that's enough!" There was little age difference between Celia and Marlin; Vesta's sister and mother were pregnant only a few years apart. I'd never heard her call him uncle. It was the only absent thought I clung to as I fought to repress my anger, failing miserably. Vesta crossed her arms, and I recognised the angry curl of her mouth before she would begin to shout. Celia stormed past him to reach me, nudging him out of the way as she went. He simply swayed at the little impact the action had on him, and for some reason this sent me into action. I snatched my bags up into my hands, masking the fact it was shaking uncontrollably.

"So glad to know you've kept up with my life so well," I spat back at him, "but you've missed out on a few minor details. When grandpa died, Dad was off on business, so we had to organise everything. Took every scrap of saving we had, 'cuz Dad's 'business' was with his secretary. I haven't lived with him since I was 7; my two jobs are what got me out here eventually. But anyway, how are you? I'm so happy you haven't turned into a presumptuous, entitled prick."

I don't know where the sheer bitchiness came from, especially in front of Celia and Vesta, but as soon as the word vomit left my mouth all that was left in me was an ocean of tears, pushing up against my eyes and threatening to spill down my cheeks. Marlin's mouth was slightly open, struggling to form a sentence, but I never gave him the chance. I knew I had to get out of there.

People have confronted me about a lot of things in my life, especially being a woman in my field, but for some reason this was too much. I turned on my heels and made my way towards the door, numb to Celia's calls for me to wait. I couldn't stand there any longer.

"You horrible idiot!" I heard the tail ends of Vesta's verbal tirade. "Have you no idea what that girl has even…"

The shift in brightness to the unrelenting midday sun only disorientated me further, blindly stumbling down the dirt path to my right. This was a journey I'd made a thousand times before, in another life, but one I could never forget. Would everyone in the valley think the same thing as me whenever they saw me? That I was just some entitled, stuck up rich kid who'd come back as some sort of social experiment? My father had already permanently damaged my relationship with my grandfather, and now that he was gone that damage was irreversible. It made me so anxious to think that he could damage my relationship with old friends in the valley. By the time I stumbled up the path to the farm, I was heaving. I couldn't even make it into my pocket to get the key out.

I was sweating from the midday sun and full-force crying now; my potentially hopeful start seemed to be slipping away from me already. Flinging my bags to the floor, I slid down the side of the wooden farmhouse, grinding the heel of my hand into my eye sockets. Pull yourself together! It's one person's opinion!

I couldn't bring myself to pull myself together for at least another ten minutes. The sun was starting to head behind the old farmhouse, so at least I was able to have my Complete Emotional Breakdown of the Century in the shade. Even when I'd calmed enough to think straight, my anger hadn't subsided. I kept my head buried in my hands, trying desperately to control myself.

"Everything will be fine. You just need to get up, forget about it and not care. You need to start as you mean to go on. You need to…" I faltered. There was no uniform way of approaching a new life, with new friends and your career on the line. There was certainly no easy way of facing the past head on. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't hear the shuffle of shoes on the packed dirt, nor the heavy breathing of their owner.

"You know," a familiar voice said, and I whipped my head up from my hands in surprise. Between the purple shapes dancing in front of my vision, I could make out a small, hunched over man in a white vest, skin darkened and dirt permanently etched in his face by years of working outside. The man had lived next door to my grandpa for as long as any of us could remember. My mother must have told him I was coming, a comforting thought. "When I met your mother for the first time, she was sitting in the exact same spot you were. She was pregnant at 16 and thought it was the very end of the world." To my surprise, he slid down the wall next to me. I could smell a familiar mix of sawdust and soil. "Tell me, Kat Donovan, are your problems so big you can't leave them in this spot, walk through that door and not look back?"

"I missed you too, Uncle Tak," I said through a strained smile. He shuffled closer, throwing an arm around me. "How's tricks?"

"All good. I hear your taking over my farm to build a goddamn telescope," he said lightly, and I smiled genuinely this time. "'Atta girl. Wanna tell me while you're sitting here alone?" My face fell again; the answer was not a straightforward one. My mixed emotions were only exacerbated by the heat, and at the risk of being dramatic, I shrugged.

"Ever just...wonder if what you're doing is the right thing? Or if you made a horrible mistake, and should run back to your bed and hide under it for the rest of your life?"

He shot me a sideways grin and for a few seconds, all that I could hear was the humming of bees in the heat and the distant sounds of a working day. Then he stood, slowly but purposely, and held out two weathered hands to me.

"Only one way to find out, my dear." I stared at his outstretched hands hesitantly. Tak seemed to sense this, and he winked at me; the sunlight catching his eye made it twinkle. I let out a long breath. "Adventure is the best way to learn, don't you know?"

I took his hands, and let him pull me to my feet.