Earth's Children
Summary: The parents of Harper tell their tale of life and love in Post-Commonwealth Earth.
Author: Luna Sealeaf
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Figured I should go ahead and add one of these, just in case...Basically I do not own...um. Well, I don't own the universe of Andromeda, which includes the Nietzscheans and Magog. I did create Harper's parents though, as well as the rest of his family. Nor do I own these lyrics. What lyrics? Oh, forget it and just read.
"Tell him to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme,
Without no seams nor needlework,
Then he'll be a true love of mine..."
-Ancient Earth lyrics
Episode Five
Will you marry me?
...Maybe...
Maybe?!
What kind of answer is that to a marriage proposal? The question had been asked that morning, with the answer given, and now it was evening. Josephine avoided me throughout the day, insisting she had chores to do. The awkward atmosphere and the lack of company were killing me faster than any of my wounds could have. Suffice it to say I was extremely glad to see Orla, Liam, and even Lughna, when they entered the small hut.
Orla let out a small sob and ran over to my side, giving me a hard hug. A very hard hug.
"Ouch! No, its ok Orla, really, I'm just a bit sore," I tried to smile reassuringly at her, but she didn't smile back.
"Thank you so much for saving him Devin," Orla turned to Devin, who was grinning sheepishly by the door. I felt a surge of annoyance at the situation. How come saving my life made Orla grateful, while saving Josephine's life –and nearly dying for it, mind you- only got me a 'maybe'. I didn't have time to dwell on these thoughts as Liam approached my other side, pressing a hand briefly to my forehead.
"You did a good job Mr. Lahey, it doesn't look like a fever's set in..."
"Yeah thanks, now if you're all done staring at me like I'm some freakin' medical miracle..." the words were said a little harshly, I admit, and Liam frowned at me, but I think Devin understood.
"I'm going to see Josephine," He said, and then quickly ducked out the door. Good, I needed some time with just my siblings.
"Evan, you shouldn't swear," Orla chided me, but I knew she was only teasing. I relaxed a bit and grinned, trying to sit up a little in the bed.
"So, care to tell us what happened? Devin didn't know anything," Liam finally asked, arms folded across his chest as he looked down at me.
"The short version? I took out a Nietzschean," There were a few disbelieving looks, but I continued before they could interrupt me. "Ok, maybe not by myself. Josephine helped. Anyway, that's not important. I need to talk to you guys," I glanced at Lughna, "alone."
"Whatever you need to say, you can say in front of Lughna. She's going to be family soon anyway." He held out his hand and Lughna stepped forward as she grasped it. They exchanged warm smiles and Orla suddenly smiled happily at the two of them.
"What do you mean Liam?" She asked excitedly.
"Well, we were going to wait until Evan was feeling better, but I guess now's as good a time as any...Evan, Orla; Lughna agreed to marry me." Orla practically shrieked with happiness and went to hug Lughna. I was glowering at the happy couple. I mean, how's that for stealing my moment?
"So, anyone even care to hear my news?" I snapped. The other three turned back to me looking a little guilty. Well, at least that was something.
"Of course Evan, we're sorry," Orla went over to the stool that Josephine had been sitting on earlier and took my hand. As always, Orla's words soothed me.
"Congratulations though, Liam...and you Lughna." This was all kind of weird, but I managed to smile at them both.
"Thanks Evan. So, what is this news you want to tell us?" Liam cajoled me. Now that the moment had come to say it, I was feeling a little reluctant. All right, maybe the right word was embarrassed. Why couldn't Liam have announced his proposal, his positive proposal, some other night?
"I asked Josephine to marry me," I finally announced, trying to look pleased with myself.
"Wow, you sure make your moves quick," Devin had come back inside, just in time to hear my words. He looked surprised, but not displeased.
"Yeah, so what'd she say?" Liam asked after a few moments of stunned silence.
"Well, er, it's complicated." I felt myself blushing, and picked at the blanket uncomfortably.
"Did she say no?" Orla asked in a soft voice, all ready to be comforting.
"Not exactly." I replied, trying to form an explanation in my mind.
"Should we plan a double wedding?" Liam ventured to ask, trying to get me to explain further.
"She said 'maybe', ok? I just gotta give her some time, that's all." The others didn't look very convinced.
After a few more minutes of talking and fussing over me, they finally left to return to the camp. Devin and Josephine had graciously agreed to let me stay at their house until I recovered, or until Liam and the girls managed to build a house. Whichever came first.
"Ouch! Ow!"
"Quit being such a baby!" Josephine ordered in an exasperated voice.
"Do you have to rip them off so hard?" I ground my teeth in pain, but she only rolled her eyes.
"Trust me, its better if I do this faster. Now if you don't stop complaining I'll tell Devin to do it instead." That silenced me up pretty quick.
A week had passed since my proposal to Josephine, and she was changing the bandages on my wounds. Unfortunately the stuff Devin had put on them dried and stuck to my skin, making it very painful for them to come off. But any time alone with Josephine was a gift. Even if it was a painful one.
I had finally been allowed out of bed as my wounds started to close. Where could I go to? Any chair that was inside the hut. Still, it was progress. And at least I didn't have to go to work; either in the factory or helping Liam build our house, which was going to be situated near the Lahey's. I did feel a little guilty about not helping; but only a little. After all, in a way, I had my own work cut out for me.
Winning Josephine's love.
I used my time stuck in bed to plan a strategy. When Devin returned from work he and I would sit together and he'd help me come up with ideas. Josephine had insisted on going back to work, despite our protests, claiming that no one would suspect her of anything, since no one took any notice of her. This was obviously flawed logic; how had we ended up with a dead Nietzschean in the first place? But neither Devin nor I could convince her not to go. On the bright side, this gave us plenty of time to talk.
"Orla's favorite color is white," I informed him. I was still bed-ridden and Devin was sitting at the stool by my bed.
"White? White?! Where am I supposed to find anything that's white?" Devin exclaimed. It was true that white cloth was difficult to come by; the closest most people had was a dull yellowish color.
"As if you need to worry about it! Orla's already smitten with you! Now what about Josephine?"
"She doesn't have one."
"Are you serious?!"
"Yes; she claims that picking a favorite color is pointless." We both sighed at the same time. Whoever said winning a girl's heart was easy?
Not that our time was solely taken up by these rather frivolous activities. No; even though I would eventually look back on these times as a sweet, if brief, reprieve from the outside world, bigger things than our love lives were changing. The Nietzscheans were slowly moving out of the countryside, though no one knew why. There were all sorts of rumors; the most absurd claiming that the Drago-Kazov were leaving Earth altogether. Others claimed that they were simply tired of the boring land and were in search of better places to live. Whatever the reason was, their slow leaving was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, fewer Nietzscheans meant, well, fewer Nietzscheans. On the other hand, fewer Nietzscheans meant fewer jobs, and less money.
But these curious tidings were in the back of all our minds. Lughna and Orla were busy planning a wedding. I have never seen two girls giggle so much! Even Josephine volunteered to help with the planning. While I grumbled about my lack of an answer and Devin gazed at Orla with love-sick eyes, Liam and Lughna quietly talked about their plans for their future together.
"Of course Evan and Orla will still live with us," Liam was saying one night at dinner. The Laheys had pretty much been integrated into our life, not that anyone was complaining, and we often all had our meals together.
"Yes, but we're going to build another smaller shed next to the main one for when there's children," Lughna had become more talkative over the past few weeks, and most of the time the subject was on children. And Liam was always holding her hand. It was sickeningly sweet. I met Josephine's eyes and made a face, glancing at Liam and Lughna, then back to her. She understood and laughed, making me feel ten stories high. Orla was also caught up in this whirl of romance.
"Isn't this great? All three Harper siblings in love," She murmured softly one night when the two of us were alone.
"Who's the lucky guy?" I teased gently. She playfully nudged an elbow against my arm.
"Devin of course...you're so horrible Evan!" I considered telling Devin what Orla had confided but eventually decided not to, for more than one reason. The selfish one was that I didn't want those two announcing their engagement while Josephine and I were so uncertain. The selfless one was that Orla had confided it to me as a secret, and while Devin and I had become close friends, Orla was still my twin sister.
And then, at long last, it was announced that I was fit to be on my feet! After two months of planning, I could finally convince Josephine to make her 'maybe' a 'yes'!
That is, after I'd helped to build our house, gone to work, and did a thousand other chores. I managed by using the times in between our endless tasks. For instance, on my way home from work I scoured the countryside until at last I found a handful of plants pretty enough to be called flowers. Casually walking into the Lahey home and telling Devin to beat it -he saw the flowers and laughed, saying that he'd have to steal my idea and get some for Orla- I then waited until Josephine returned to present my token of love and affection.
"Thank you Evan, they're lovely. I didn't think there were any nontoxic plants left this side of the Prime Meridian..." She saw the look on my face and looked down at the flowers in her hands.
"Er...maybe you shouldn't smell them too deeply...or anything," I said in an effort to save face. To my surprise she laughed, walked up to me and kissed my cheek, before turning and tossing the flowers outside.
"Um, what just happened?" I asked, confused by her mixed signals. Throwing away the flower's I'd given her didn't seem like a good thing, but then she had- wait- SHE KISSED ME?
"No one else but you would get me poisonous flowers to express your love for me," she sank into a chair by the table and laughed. I gave an unsure smile, finally laughing myself.
"So...?"
"No. It's still maybe."
"Right."
Over the next year things continued this way. We were all so busy just trying to survive that minor things, like the wedding, and my pursuit of Josephine, had to come second in priorities. Not that our efforts ceased. It was just, as Orla put it, that there wasn't enough time in the day to do all the things we had to do. The girls were busy trying to put together a nice dress for Lughna, Liam was trying to build a house and maybe find some land where we could grow food, and the rest of us were going to work and helping the others. We ended up doing what most other human beings had learned to do; cope with as little sleep as possible. It's funny, but when you're life could end unexpectedly at any day and at any time; you tend to try and waste as little time as possible sleeping. According to some doctors, this minimization of sleep was adding to our already defective immune systems. Sadly, not many people listened to them. We were too busy trying to survive.
My oh-so-grand scheme to win Josephine over consisted mainly of talking with her. I'd go over in the late evening and hang out with her and Devin. If Josephine wasn't in the mood for flirting, I'd simply talk with Devin. It didn't escape our notice that our two names rhymed.
"It must be fate," Devin joked as we sat sipping cups of tea.
"In that case, fate must be against you Devin," Josephine remarked as she poured herself a cup. We both looked at her in surprise.
"What do you mean?" Devin finally asked.
"Think about it. If you and Orla ever get married, she'll be Orla Lahey." I burst out laughing but poor Devin paled and looked terrified.
"I hadn't thought about that," he said quietly. I cast a glance at Josephine, who, although pretending to be serious, was enjoying her brother's discomfort.
"Don't worry about it Devin, Orla will either not care, or she'll just keep her own last name. It's not that big of a deal."
"You're right Evan," he finally said, and was soon laughing and joking once more.
I still liked to surprise Josephine with gifts, though this time I made sure they weren't potentially deadly ones. As the leaves on the spindly trees changed colors, I searched the thin forests for nuts and pretty pieces of wood. Then, using the little knife I'd made awhile ago, I carved them into small round beads. With a few pieces of thread I had a necklace as a gift for her. Again I made sure to give it to her when we were alone. In this case, we were both outside behind her house.
"You made this?" She asked incredulously, holding the necklace up so she could see it better.
"Yes, I hope it fits," I added quickly. She tied it around her neck, giving me a strange smile.
"How does it look?" she finally asked.
"Beautiful." Was my reply. I was hardly trying to buy her affection though, and Josephine knew that. She would talk to me more and more each time we were together, either at our house or hers. My determination to win her love only increased.
Strangely enough, fate almost seemed to have had a hand in all this. I've never been a big believer in destiny, but as spring began to thaw the long and bitter winter, something happened that almost changed my beliefs.
"You know, Josephine loves music," Devin told me quietly as we walked back from the factories together.
"What kind of music?" He gave me a look that clearly said he wondered if I was trying to be an idiot, or if it came naturally.
"Any music," he rolled his eyes and said this as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well what do you expect me to do? Sing her a love ballad?"
"It couldn't hurt. Besides, I thought you Irish had tons of love songs,"
"Sure we do. But that doesn't automatically make us all good singers!" He shrugged and we continued walking in silence. His words had started to make me think, there was something I could do, in theory, but...
The next day solved my problem, and as I said, nearly made me rethink my beliefs about fate.
I was helping Liam finish putting up the door to our house, which was finally about done, when he looked around to make sure none of the girls were near, and said in a whisper,
"You know, Lughna was saying the other day how she'd like to have some music at our wedding. She wants to dance, you know how women are."
"Uh huh," I wasn't paying much attention, trying to wield our ungainly hammers, which were really just sharp pieces of stones tied to sticks.
"Well, I was thinking, maybe you could do it."
"Do what?" He stopped working and set his hammer down. Confused, I turned and did the same thing.
"Play your tin whistle of course. You always had more talent than any of us,"
"That's not true, Alan was always the best." I countered, and then we both fell silent. Alan and Hagan were our two older brothers. They were already adults by the time Orla and I were born. When I was five they were taken by Nietzscheans and sent away. We never found out where, and we never saw or heard from them again. Finally we left these sad thoughts and Liam continued,
"Yeah but you're still better than me or Orla."
"I'm not saying I wouldn't Liam, but there is the fact that I don't have anything to play on. The Ubers didn't exactly give us a chance to pack before we left home, remember?"
"That's where you're wrong," Liam leaned forward conspiratorially, and despite myself, I leaned forward as well.
"There's a man who works next to me at the factory. He was with us on the boat from Ireland, and he has a tin whistle. It belonged to his cousin and he'd been holding on to it for him when the Nietzscheans took him. He can't play it though, and when I told him about you, he said he'd be willing to trade it for some food and clothing."
Suddenly I remembered what Devin had told me about Josephine's love of music and I grinned.
"How much food?" It was Liam's turn to grin and he gripped my shoulder affectionately.
"Thanks Evan, I know it'll mean a lot to Lughna...and to me." I shrugged his hand off, but didn't stop smiling.
"Quit with the lovey-doveyness. We've got work to do." He laughed and we continued on the door. Even if it hadn't been for Josephine, or Liam's wedding, I would have looked forward to playing music again. It was one of the things I'd missed most about our old life.
As spring started to fully take its hold on the land, many things came to an ending.
Three weeks after Liam and I had discussed the tin whistle, a clearing was made in the woods and we decorated the trees (carefully) with the same flowers I had once gathered for Josephine. Liam went to stay with the Laheys, since for the final week he and Lughna weren't supposed to look at each other, and we, as the only present surviving family members for both the bride and the groom, prepared our speeches that would give our approval to the match and make their wedding as official as anything could be in those times.
I also practiced on the tin whistle Liam had recovered. It wasn't as good as mine, but it would do. Our excitement continued to grow and finally the day came. While Josephine and Orla prepared Lughna, Devin and I went to go help Liam. The girls had the hard part; Liam didn't need help getting dressed, so mostly we were just there for moral support. And to tease him mercilessly of course. Liam, however, was no fun. When we joked that he'd be stuck with dozens of kids, he simply remarked that he wanted a large family. He was infuriating that way. Not that it mattered; we enjoyed the time alone together. I guess it was also a little sad. Our childhood was officially ending, almost simultaneously. None of us had been kids for a long time, but it was still a little strange.
"I wish Mom and Dad could be here," I said softly. Liam nodded in agreement and we were silent, thinking of them, until he said,
"They'd want us to be happy." He was right, so we turned our minds to other matters.
The ceremony was extremely nice. The sky was as clear as it could be, and the day was warm. Lughna looked lovely in a pale violet dress that went surprisingly well with her red curls. (It had taken Orla and her forever to collect enough berries to make the dye; I had even been roped into helping) Still, it was startling at how different she was from the scared young girl we'd first met. And in all our time of knowing her, she'd never once talked about her family, or even told us her real last name.
We all stood in a circle with Liam and Lughna in the middle, taking turns to recite our little speeches. At last it was Liam's turn to make his pledge. Lughna said her part, they embraced and kissed, and the rest of us cheered. Did I forget to add how beautiful Josephine looked? Her hair was pulled back in a braid and she'd worn a tighter-fitting dress than the ones she normally wore; it was a dark forest green. Devin whispered to me that it had belonged to their mother, so I told her several times how good she looked in it until finally she swore never to wear it again unless I shut up.
Then there was the time for gift-giving. Orla had sewn Lughna a blouse (where she found the time to I can't imagine) and Liam a hat, Devin had found a large pretty stone, polished it, and carved their names into it. Josephine had made the food for the wedding, but she also gave several packets of herbs for various uses, (such as medicine...) and finally it was my turn. Liam already knew what my gift would be, and he gave a small smile as I stood up to announce my present.
"It's to both of you...wait a second," I turned and ran up the hill to fetch the whistle while the others tried to guess what I was doing.
When I returned, I showed the whistle with both hands so everyone could see it. I had taken extra time to try and polish the outside, and it shown brightly. Orla gasped and clapped her hands when she saw it, Liam laughed, and Lughna actually had tears in her eyes.
"What is it?" Devin finally asked, and by the look on Josephine's face she was wondering the same thing.
"Tsch tsch, we'll have to enlighten the heathens," I joked and Devin laughed in that good-natured way of his.
I watched Josephine's face as I started to play. I wish there had been some other instruments to go along with it; the sound can be a bit harsh when it's alone. Everyone was silent, listening in awe for several moments, and then Orla stood up and began to sing. It was a song we used to perform for our family a long time ago, and I quickly joined in with the accompaniment. Liam and Lughna tried to teach Devin and Josephine how to dance to the song, and although they didn't quite get the footwork, we enjoyed it just the same. Orla took a turn on the whistle (she knew a few songs) so I could have a turn to dance. Of course I went next to Josephine, and as I turned to ask what she was thinking, I was startled to see her eyes filled with water. I almost asked what was wrong with her; never had I thought to see Josephine cry. But I didn't get the chance to say anything; it was she that turned to me and asked,
"Will you play like that for our wedding?" I swear the earth stopped turning for at least four minutes as the words, one by one, became absorbed into my brain.
"Yes?" I finally managed to say. It was both a question and an answer.
"Yes." She repeated, tears flowing down her eyes. I stopped dancing, causing Liam to nearly step on my foot, and hugged her tightly. I was relieved, and a little surprised, when she hugged me back. Later, Lughna came up to me and also gave me a hug.
"Thank you so much Evan. This was the best present I could have hoped for," and I felt myself warming up to my new sister-in-law; even managing a joke about wanting a future nephew named after me in return for the music. Beside me, her hand clasped tightly in mine, Josephine laughed.
I know this will sound cliché and a little trite, but it really was one of the best days of my life.
Author's Note:
I'm so happy! They're together at last! It took 'em long enough didn't it? But if it had been too easy than it wouldn't have been romantic. As you all probably know, telling me what you think will make me write faster. And I can't thank you enough for all the encouraging replies! Especially Kitty, who was the first and only (other than Parisindy) person on to read my story. Thank you, all. The next part will come as quickly as I can write it.
-Luna Sealeaf