Chapter Thirteen: New Beginnings (pt1)
The joyful and heartwarming reunion between the Evans family as well as between Sean and Marcy was wonderful to witness. As was the tight hug and peppering kisses from John to his son, an image that was mirrored by Marie with her own toddler. The commotion had Juan appearing along with some of the other older kids, they were watching the reunions from the doorway with some envy bleeding into their eyes... Not that Juno could blame them.
Marcy was hugging her now awake grandson tightly and wiping away the stray tears that continued to stream down his cheeks. The curious gaggle of toddlers flowing out of the Hearts' classroom only made the reality that 'this was it' sink in. This was going to be their life now, it hit her like a freight train... and took all of her power not to start hyperventilating. No one else had made it.
Juno didn't gain any new perspective come morning.
The day before had ended almost quickly after they were all reunited. The Kim men had gone home with their twins after dropping off a walkie to Hank and barricading his door. They didn't leave before offering to ferry all of them to the farm, so that they could all stay together for protection... A decision that they had rejected in light of the fact that the Kim's wouldn't have enough space or bedding for all of the toddlers that were now in their care. Instead, with the comforting notion that it was now safe to go outside, since Juno had taken out all of the shamblers in the town, they carefully got all the kids upstairs through the emergency stairs in the back... None of them wanted to get the kids upstairs through the entrance in the front. It didn't matter that all the shamblers in the street were now truly corpses. Nope. As it was, some of the kids still complained about the stench... and how scary the dark was.
There are two apartments on each floor, baring her own floor, and each unit had two bedrooms (it was a combination of one queen-sized bed and two twin beds in the other), a stocked kitchen, bathroom, and a living room that had a pull-out couch. Altogether, discounting her own, there are four apartments in total meaning that there were eight available bedrooms all fitted with fresh linens that Juno had put out the day before, plus four extra beds made out of the pull-out couches. Juno herself had a guest bedroom that was usually occupied by José when he came down for a visit, and two spare rooms -one which was used for storage and the other her art sanctuary- a decent sized kitchen, two bathrooms, and a large living room. Juno's own couch wasn't a convertible like in the other apartments, but it was large and extremely comfortable to crash on. Juno has slept through the night on that couch more times than she can count that can attest to that.
She'd taken the three Morrison siblings up to sleep in her own apartment along with four of her Hearts that weren't sensitive to allergies (Emma, Abriehet, Salvador, and Xiao-Chen). The Evans family got one of the apartments all to themselves, although Kathy had taken Annabel and Jace (two Stars) up to sleep with them. John and Marie decided to bunk together and watch over the Smith girls, Juan and Johnny along with their own kids and the other three Stars (Carly, Janiyah and Liam) that were the most well-behaved. Marcy and Ashley took over another apartment with Sean, all the Diamonds (Jalissa, Ethan, Mason, Mia, Kateri, Mandy, Logan, Jonah and Noah) and the last two Hearts (Sammy and Penny, the Davis twins, whom they thought may have felt more comfortable bunking with their older cousins the Miller twins). The night had -understandably- been a long one.
Juno didn't know how the others had fixed up their sleeping arrangements, but she'd let the three Morrison siblings take the guest room and arranged the four Hearts onto her own bed before crashing on the floor -more like May and Finn's doggy beds- sleeping while she could. It had taken a while for the four babes to fall asleep, and Abriehet had woken up once during the night asking for her foster mom, but the most trouble she'd gotten had come from the heartbroken Morrison siblings. The youngest, Pipi, had fallen asleep rather fast but Mavis woke up periodically through the night because of nightmares. Xander hadn't been too helpful in the matter, struggling with his own night terrors as it was.
In the end, Juno still woke up at six-thirty to the pitiful whines of her dogs. The poor things hadn't gone out to use the bathroom since yesterday morning, something that made her feel awful for. She stretched her body out, groaning softly as her back cracked and creaked. She was going to have to let them out one way or another. Juno nibbled on her bottom lip nervously before standing up resolutely and making her way to the storage room. As a safety precaution she had locked it last night before letting the kids in, Juno pulled the key out from underneath her shirt and pulled the twine over her head before bringing the key up to the lock and turning the knob. She briskly opened her safe and took her Ruger out once more before making sure it was loaded, the silencer and scope were correctly in place and throwing it over her shoulder before making her way out of the room -not before locking it behind her of course- and walking into the hallway leading to the rooftop. Tiptoeing to grab the string, she quietly pulled down the stairs while her dogs wiggled happily in anticipation before they barreled by her and climbed up the steps.
She closed the doggy gate leading into the hallway, just in case one of the kids woke up and started wandering through the apartment, and made her way up as well. Finn and May were sniffing and exploring the roof, before Finn jumped up and leaned his front legs up onto the wall to peer onto the street. His ears were high and his nose twitched non-stop. Juno was quick to grab his collar and haul him away from the wall before pointing to a corner of the roof.
"Go potty Finn." she commanded before turning to May and giving her the same command, her poor dogs looked so confused. Juno couldn't blame them. They always used the toilet out on the grass in the woods. "It's okay," she cooed in reassurance, "Go potty. Come on."
The retrievers looked at her once more in confusion before Finn took the lead and began looking for a good spot to go. She turned her eyes back to the street below her, everything looked the same as it had yesterday. Except the bodies were starting to smell really ripe. Flies were buzzing around the corpses in a pesky manner, and she could see Nixie the cat skulking around the bodies and sniffing them curiously. They needed to get rid of the bodies as soon as possible if they were ever going to achieve some resemblance of normality. They were probably going to have to burn the corpses in order to prevent whatever disease it was that infected them from harming the soil.
She rubbed her forehead, trying to stave off an already incoming headache. A persistent wet snout snuffled itself into her free hand. May gave her a goofy doggy smile before nudging her hand more insistently again. Juno snorted before massaging the top of her fluffy white head. Both of the dogs had completed their business, so she used a small hand rake to pull the dog shit onto a trowel before opening the small compost bin she had on the roof and dropping them in. She quickly hosed down the tools before putting them back in their place and hosing off the area the dogs had peed on so that it wouldn't smell like dog piss the next time she came up. She let out a low whistle to get the dogs' attention before gesturing to the stairs. Finn and May bumped into each other as they raced down the steps before she carefully followed after them.
The two support dogs were waiting patiently by the doggy gate as she closed up the roof before opening the gate for them and closing it behind her once more. She peeked into her bedroom and sighed in relief at the sleeping faces of the toddlers before peeking into the guest room and smiling at the peaceful expressions of the kids. She made her way back to the storage room and put her gun away before locking the door again. Juno was going to take advantage of the quiet to take a shower in her personal bathroom before the kids woke up for the morning and her peace was gone. She grabbed her towel a change of clothes before entering her white and gray bathroom, leaving the door open a crack so she could keep an ear out for any crying.
By the time she was finished showering Xiao-Chen had woken up and had a goofy smile on hi face as he peered up at her through the crack of the door. Juno smiled down at him warmly as she towel-dried her hair. "Good morning Xiao." she greeted softly.
Xiao-Chen giggled as he pulled the door open and ran into her legs. Smiling she bent down and plopped him onto her hip, the toddler immediately began squishing her cheeks and rubbing her exposed collar bone. Juno snorted softly under her breath as he began to mumble nonsense into her skin. She swiftly made her way into the kitchen, making sure to leave the door open in case one of the kids woke up, and sat Xiao-Chen in the highchair usually reserved for Elijah when he spent the night. Juno handed the toddler two empty plastic containers to play with while she whipped up some breakfast. May and Finn were hiding in their favorite spot under the dining table, taking their early morning nap... since it was so hard to be a dog, after all, it wasn't every day their human brought a gaggle of toddlers into their home.
Since Juno had been planning on going up to New York she had gotten rid of the majority of her perishables. But, thankfully, she had always been a huge believer in buying in bulk, especially when there were coupons available. Juno had a surplus of canned goods in her cupboards and about twenty-five pounds of rice in the storage room. Juno also had canned evaporated milk in her cupboards and all the spices necessary to make arroz con leche. She'd make one big pot, enough so that the kids would be able to eat it for breakfast for two to three days. Juno had already gotten the rice boiling and all of her ingredients out when she heard a cry coming from her bedroom. Making her way inside the room, in a record time with Finn on her heels, she quickly gathered up a teary Emma in her arms.
And so it begins.
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