Her one competition when in came to selling produce, gone.

Her brother, gone.

Celia, who was always like a daughter to her, gone.

Jack had died when Dalton was a year old, the little scamp talking up a storm in incoherent sentences about how wonderful daddy was, and Dalton was sixteen now. So Jack had been dead… fifteen years?

It felt like just yesterday the household had gotten the news. The valley was somber for once, and it seemed as if these filthy people actually gave a shit about someone other than themselves for a change. Vesta had never disliked the guy, but once he proved to be yet another failed attempt at getting Celia away from Griffin, she didn't really care for him all that much.

Marlin married Nami in the same year that Jack had died, (she's more than ready to move on, he had said, which gave Vesta the creeps, but whatever) so Marlin had been gone… fifteen years.

So that glorious peace and quiet for a while, and a year after Jack's death Vesta knew that it was finally time to let Celia go. She wasn't going to find anyone that could take Griffin's place in the sweet girl's heart, so it was high time that Vesta accepted the fact that the girl was in love. They married immediately, making Celia gone… fourteen years.

This didn't make a lot of sense. Vesta should have been dead by now with all the farm work of three people catching up to her for fourteen years. Not to mention that after Marlin married Nami, Vesta would occasionally babysit little Dalton, and after ten years of marriage, Celia decided to start a family. (seriously, who waited that long?)

With that thought she released a quiet chuckle and got back to work peeling her potatoes.

As she did so, though, she was sprung back into deep thought when she was reminded of a young Clara helping her out, talking about how one specific potato reminded her of Great Grandma Ramona's face that she had seen in a picture, and though the comment was disrespectful on so many levels, Vesta remembered throwing her head back and laughing like a mule.

The girl never knew Ramona. Right after Ramona's death, Lumina and Rock apparently shacked up and gave birth to young Clara. After fourteen years of raising a child together, they were married. What was it with these people and waiting so long for stuff to happen?

Her train of thought was broken by a box near the front of the store being tipped over, and a roar of thunder from outside just added to the shock.

"Shit."

"Hey." Her orange hair was graying, her eyes were getting droopy, and her skin was sagging, but her intimidating voice and attitude had not changed with age. "Stop using that kinda language, I got kids stayin' the night."

Whoever you are. she thought warily.

The figure took slow steps up to Vesta, revealing a man in a brown derby hat and long coat. "Your kids?"

"Not hardly." She stood and put her hands on her hips. "Can I help you?"

The shadowed stranger ignored her question. "Whose kids?"

Vesta didn't usually tolerate bull shit, but if this was an old friend trying to get the dirt, she wasn't gonna disappoint. "A friend's. The archeologist's."

The mystery guest looked upward quite quickly. "Which one?"

Just as she had suspected, an old citizen trying to get creative with some updated scooping. "The only one that's left." "Flora's. Carter left a long while back."

"What happened to him?" the obviously intrigued visitor walked a little closer to Vesta.

Convinced that this was someone from the old days, but staying safe nonetheless, Vesta made sure she had her pepper spray in her pocket. It was a shame really- ten years ago she would have never dreamed of owning pepper spray, much less carrying it around with her at all times, but things had changed since ten years ago. "No one knows."

A sigh from the guest and then with a step forward and the removal of their hat, a sudden revealing of their face, which was sullen and tired.

Vesta rolled her eyes and reached for a towel under the fruit stand to toss to the newly revealed figure. "Daryl, you son of a bitch. You almost had me scared to death."

The older scientist just sighed deeply and took a seat in front of Vesta. "I didn't want anyone to see me. Failure isn't something I'd like to share with the town." his eyes had sunken in and he had clearly aged much more than he had ought to in ten years.

"Where have you been?" the farmer asked, now visibly at much more ease.

Daryl shook his head and sighed once more. "Thought I could actually make a living with my experiments elsewhere. Was proven wrong."

Vesta smiled sadly. "Is that it, or did you miss a certain someone a little too much to stay away?"

Daryl was shocked to be reminded that Vesta was one of the few that knew about his love for a certain someone in the Valley. "I stayed away ten years, is that not enough?"

Vesta shook her head, still smiling, and took her seat again. Daryl knew Vesta was an understanding woman, so he decided that hiding the subject matter away was pointless. "Is he still here?"

"Of course. If he wouldn't go with you, what makes you think he would go anywhere?"

Daryl had to admit that was a good argument. Though he didn't want to admit it, even he had to come clean that he had one real reason for coming home- the man he loved. The one person who could love someone like him- a scruff, strange, crazed scientist.

He didn't know if it were appropriate or not, but he decided to change the subject. "Flora has children now?"

Vesta noticed the sudden change and went along with it. "Yeah, Carter apparently knocked her up before he ran off to do things bigger and better." she took the knife she was using to peel potatoes earlier and got back to work while she shot the breeze. "And that second one, she says it's definitely not Carter's, but she won't say who's it is." she shook her head disapprovingly. "My bets were on someone she was friends with, like you."

"Oh no, it wasn't me." Daryl had given up on Flora long before she apparently gave birth- was she even pregnant when he left? "So give me the scoop- how long has Carter been gone?"

Vesta looked up from her work to the ceiling to squint her eyes and think hard. "You left about ten years ago, making his departure from town about… eight years ago. Yeah, that sounds about right. Because Lily is eight years old."

Daryl nodded. "How old is the other one?"

"Six." she sighed and returned to peeling. "Flora's not the smartest of girls, but she's one of the few real ones we've got."

Daryl took a potato and another knife from the edge of the counter to help. "If by real you mean honest and not two-faced, then you've got that right." Vesta noticed the man's attempts to help her out and scooted a few potatoes his way.

"Town's changed a lot, huh?"

Vesta wish he hadn't asked. "Drastically. It's like Jack was the only good one we had left."

Daryl chuckled. "He stayed for like two years."

Vesta shook her head again. "I know." She brushed off some peels from the counter with her hands. She got a good look at Daryl, who's eyes were tired, and he had developed a few wrinkles, and when she looked closer in this bad light she could see a light, healed scar on his left cheek. She decided not to question it.

"Alright, tell me what everyone's up too."

Vesta had just made this mental recap, but verbalizing it to pass on some good gossip onto a returning friend didn't seem like a bad idea. She and Daryl had gotten friendly when he asked for a few seeds to conduct an experiment, and finding someone that he could talk too and share secrets with turned out to be a wildly convenient thing.

"Dalton, Jack's son, is 16 as of right now, and helping his parents run the farm, nothing going on over there as far as I know. Lumina and Rock just got married, and Clara is fourteen."

Daryl moved on to potato number two. "'bout time."

"Yeah. About five years ago Celia gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Luke and Hannah."

"Again, 'bout time."

"That's what I said." Vesta took a break from her peeling to relax her hands, but Daryl continued with his potato. "Uh, Muffy works at Ramona's house now, as a maid of some sorts to help out with the newly wedded couple and Clara."

The atmosphere was light and peaceful, but there was something apparent on the scientist's face that was bothering him.

Vesta noticed said 'something' and grinned. "You want me to hurry up and get to him, don't you?"

Daryl didn't even look up. "Preferably."

Vesta laughed. "He's still here. He's still himself. He hasn't changed."

"Do you ever speak with him?"

"Now that I don't have you as a mutual connection, not really."

That was understandable, it was one of the things he and his love had bonded over, not being very social. But he couldn't help but wonder if he was terribly alone, like he said he was before Daryl came into his life.

"He's never asked about me?" his voice was sad and soft, and Vesta's heart went out to her strange friend. She took the peeled potato and knife from Daryl and reached over to pat his head with her free hand. "You know how he is." she stood and got the finished potatoes and put them in a box separated from the unpeeled ones. "Go see him."

Without something to distract him, Daryl could only twiddle his thumbs. "I don't think I can."

"Oh come on." she put the unpeeled potatoes away safely and put the peeled ones under her arm. "You and I know both know you want to. If things don't go as planned, you can stay here."

Daryl looked up, shocked. "What do you mean? What happened to my lab?"

Vesta rolled her eyes. 'Don't play stupid. It's been ten years, Daryl. They got rid of it."

It was very much expected but the scientist's heart sank nonetheless. "What's there now?"

"Space."

"So they had no reason to tear it down! They probably found some of my work in there, too- I got all the things I could when I left but…"

Vesta dropped a rough, large hand on the top of the man's hand. "Again, you can stay here if things get rough between you two, which they never did, but still."

Daryl lightly pushed Vesta's hand away before standing. "He might get angry at me."

"But it's worth the risk, and you know it." she smiled at him, warm and large, before nodding in the direction of the doorway. "Go. Take my umbrella."

And he did.

000

The tent had been replaced with a small wooden cottage shortly after Carter had left for better things- It was the last project Takakura had worked on before he had died. Flora promised to make him dinner to show her gratitude, but she never got the opportunity.

"Anything for you and the child." he had said. Flora never forgot those words.

The archaeologist had some tea on, trying to get it perfect. Her cooking skills were nothing special, but she really wanted to get this one thing right- there was an ongoing joke between her and her circle of friends that her cooking was the real reason Carter left, when it was obvious he left because Flora was pregnant.

I wont let this relationship be ruined by such things- cooking or otherwise. She thought with a deep frown. She heard a feminine, somewhat nasal voice behind her call out to her from the bedroom, where the sleeping bag she had slept in for years stood rather than an actual bed- funds weren't exactly plentiful right now.

"Hey, you invited me over. The least you could do is come lay down with me." after that she heard footsteps from the bed room to the kitchen, and Flora didn't even turn around in fear of one second away from the tea would ruin everything. "What are you making?"

Flora didn't comment. Gotta focus, she told herself.

"Tea? I didn't know you liked tea." the voice groaned when Flora failed to reply. The teen threw two arms around the older female's waist and rested her chin on her shoulder. "Come on, we don't need tea. Come lay down with me."

Flora sighed. "You talk too much."

The young woman behind her giggled and licked her cheek playfully. "Finally I get a word out of you. Now leave it!"

Flora shook her head. "No, I'm going to get this right. I'll be right there, just be patient."

Her companion groaned, annoyed, and withdrew her arms. "You're such a bitch!" she mumbled, half joking. And to show that it was sarcasm she harshly slapped Flora's ass before returning to the bed room.

Flora blushed but let it pass. She looked downward at the tea and saw that it was almost ready.

She had asked Vesta to watch her daughters tonight, the eight year old Lily and the six year old Fara, so she could have some alone time with her newest relationship. She knew Vesta didn't approve of getting rid of her children for a romantic night with someone but the farmer refrained from verbalizing it. Would she stop doing this for Flora if she knew who exactly it was that she was seeing? She didn't want to think about it and she certainly didn't want to care about other's opinions, but she couldn't help but wonder if her close friend, Vesta, would understand.

She drained the tea and put it in two serving cups. Tasting the beverage carefully, she nodded in approval before making her way to the bed room, tea in hands.

"Finally!" her brunette lover called out like an impatient toddler. Flora tried to pretend like she was talking about the tea. She allowed a blush to escape when she saw that her lover was in some of the shortest shorts she had seen on an individual.

She took in the appearance of the young woman, now about twenty, she supposed. She had long brown hair pulled away from her face in a clip that allowed it to flow straight behind her, and she had outgrown the pig tail braids, but she had yet to outgrow her bratty attitude or her adorable freckles- two things Flora had to admit she liked best about her.

The archeologist set the tea down on the floor and settled herself beside Kate on the sleeping bag, and reached for the remote to turn the TV on, but Kate grabbed her wrist and stopped her, clearly having other intentions for the night.

"It's storming, you wont get good service anyway." Flora couldn't believe that the girl actually had a logical reason other than "I don't want to" for once.

Flora was still sitting up right but Kate pushed her back against the wall so she could support herself as the much younger woman climbed on top of her lap, straddling her, and pulled off her oversized blue t-shirt, revealing her bare rather impressively-sized breasts.

"A-are you sure that you don't want some tea first?" It was a really stupid question, but Flora tended to ask stupid questions when she was aroused. Kate stuck out her tongue at her as a reply, and Flora made contact with it with her own, and the two felt around the other's wet appendage for a few seconds before the blonde of the two reached up to play with the brunette's nipples.

Kate responded by throwing her arms up above her head to give her partner room, moaning hotly, with the hands holding on to the elbow of the other arm, and the archeologist just tweaked and lightly pulled at the girl's nubs until her face was red and she was gasping for breath.

"You could at least use your tongue!" she called out before releasing another moan. Flora rolled her eyes but couldn't resist the temptation as she brought her mouth to one of Kate's breasts, and the younger woman began to grind hard into her, hollering and gasping.

Flora couldn't hold back her own pleasure cries anymore as she widened her legs to feel Kate a little closer. In doing so, the result was their crotches coming in clothed but full contact, and the two began to push and grind onto each other.

All those thoughts she had when all of this first started- she's too young, she's a girl- were all gone now. Flora didn't care. Older men had done nothing but hurt her. Give her children and then leave without a trace- a woman with no experience that didn't know how to break a heart even if she wanted to was what Flora needed. Fuck the rest of this damned town- it felt safe and it felt good and anyone who wanted to object could go fuck themselves.

Flora felt lust overcome her- I feeling she had felt twice before- as she dove for the girls pants to unzip them. "Stop moving your hips!" she scolded.

"I can't!" Kate cried. "It's too good!"

"It gets better- stop moving." Kate didn't come to a complete stop but she slowed down some, still aching to feel that release.

Flora got the girls pants off of her to reveal that she was going commando- she released a grunt of satisfaction as she slid in two fingers at the same time.

Hearing the young woman call out her name made her push harder then she knew she should've on the inexperienced female, but there was no going back now- what they had started wasn't stopping any time soon.

Flora realized this and smiled- Kate simultaneously realized the same thing and felt her heart sink to her stomach.