32
"So … this is where they stopped for a while?" Dwight asked, walking with Kathy around the edge of the lake and they came to an overgrown area. He stopped walking and reached into a pile of brambles, pulling at the bushes and weeds until he unearthed a seat.
"Well… look at that" she said with surprise, settling on the seat as the warm sun belted down on them. Dwight sat next to her, checking the baby asleep in the little pram they had found as if left for them.
"You know… someone put this here just for this" Dwight said happily "Someone knew the walk around the lake was too long for someone who was not at full capacity and so they placed this seat, I bet there are a couple more along the walk. Someone loved someone so much they did this for them. Maybe for just this. To sit and enjoy the warmth while the kids play or something."
Kathy closed her eyes and let her hair fall back as she considered "I like that idea. Someone loved someone so much they gave them these little stopping points."
"You think it was them?" Dwight asked, rising from the seat as the little one snuffled and he clucked softly while rocking the pram.
"Torchwood? Nah. You know… the few times I saw the Captain and the Welshman together … no. I think if the Captain did something like this for his fella… well silly but in my mind he would have painted them in bright rainbows to be a dork. Ya know? Gay and proud?"
Dwight laughed, not knowing the man but already liking the man she was describing.
"In another world, in another life maybe… I can see this level of love. Sweet. I hope they made it, whoever did this for their lover." Kathy sighed then rose and they started to walk, passing the other houses long since closed down and she knew the team before them would have gone through these houses to rummage about. Still … Douglas and a few of the others wanted to look in case there were still things to be had and she didn't really care as Douglas was really enjoying having a little gang and she was pleased that the others had finally accepted him into their inner circle.
Since they had arrived a month ago things had settled into a nice routine. There were fish in the lake and the children were excited to be allowed to sit on the end of the pier with lines. There was a veggie garden established and also another homestead further inland marked in the book left behind (Yeah, he did) as having free ranking chickens roaming about. Ghost had gone that way.
Kathy and Dwight were almost around the lake when he stopped again and pointed "There we are. Another one."
Kathy grinned as she walked happily in the warmth of the day, no Biters in sight. They had not seen any in the time they had been there, the daily scouting not showing anything in the two or three miles around the lake.
"Do you think we can stay here?" Dwight asked, as if reading her thoughts.
"Well… if they've been here for this length of time … I feel it's safe enough. Yeah. We will sit out this winter and see where we are… maybe even the next? Why not." She shrugged "This place seems solid enough. We are a good number to be here and … well. I wonder if they moved on because they got too many people or … this was simply not good enough for the amount of people they were. I get the feeling there are a lot more of them than of us."
"So … you and Doug?"
"Better. Much better" she assured him "I think things are really looking up.
.
.
.
.
And they were. For three glorious months it was all good, the winter settling them into the large house that must have been for children like some sort of crèche. Not only did everyone find their chores and respective place in the family but also Kathy was surprised to find she was happy to slip into the mainstream as just one of the family members, leaving the leadership to Douglas and Ghost.
It seemed easier to revel in her motherhood. Time spent just watching her child become the sweet little life that she had created, the joy in just spending her days breastfeeding and cuddling her child. Something she thought she would never have. IT was wondrous. She did feel a little ashamed of how happy she was in a world where so much sorrow and death existed too.
She wondered if there were others, other people sitting out there with their own little one on their arms, replenishing the world, restarting the human race again.
Surely there was, right?
Andy had made it, Torchwood had made it… what are the chances one day they might actually meet and their children might even stand together.
In a New World.
She can have Hope.