Chapter Fourteen: New Beginnings (pt2)
Juno made her way inside of the bedroom in record time -with Finn panting at her heels- and she quickly gathered up a teary Emma in her arms. The little blonde's cries were still in the wind-up phase, right at the precipice of becoming a full-blown tantrum if Juno didn't get her under control. A tantrum that would no doubt wake all the other kids in a displeasing way- leading to more grumpy and upset toddlers.
"Hey, Emma. Shh, it's okay, it's okay. I'm here." she whispered into Emma's hair, attempting to comfort the distressed toddler without making too much noise. Emma rubbed her face into Juno's now dirty shirt.
"'Uno?" Emma whimpered.
"Yeah Emma?" Juno responded as gently rubbed the girl's back.
"Where mommy?"
"Mommy's not here, remember? We had a sleepover last night just like in Barney." she explained patiently, "I'm making breakfast do you want me to put on the T.V.?" Juno asked.
"O'tay." she agreed, perking up in Juno's arms at the promise of TV time.
Babbling from the bed made Juno look up to see a smiling Salvador pointing happily at Finn -who was in sentry mode and guarding the door after realizing that there was nothing actually wrong with the kids- before crawling towards them.
"Hey, good morning Sal!" she greeted the happy tot. Salvador was a rather easy-going toddler to handle, like Xiao-Chen, and he'd been in daycares since he was still an infant and was rather used to not having his parents around when he woke up in the mornings. "Do you want to get down?" Juno asked him before reaching out to him with one arm and helping him off the bed. He was quick to run towards Finn and bury his face into the dog's fur.
"Goo' mornin' 'Uno..." Abriehet yawned sleepily, her big brown eyes blinking heavily in their direction, before standing up on the mattress and stumbling in her direction. Well, it looked like Emma's cries had woken up her youngest charges after all. At least they weren't all crying. Juno helped Abriehet get off the bed in the same way as Salvador before ushering them into the living room.
Juno quickly found a child-friendly movie from her collection -Ice Age- and placed it in the DVD player. The toddlers quickly arranged themselves on the ground in front of the screen and began watching animated pre-historic animals prance across the screen. She couldn't hold in the snort of amusement at Xiao-Chen's craned neck as he tried to peer at the TV from his place in the high chair. Juno let him out, glancing to make sure that he joined the other toddlers and dogs sitting on the floor, before finishing up the breakfast as fast as she could.
She left the pot of arroz con leche cooling on the stove before heading towards the guest bedroom. The Morrison children still hadn't stirred and it was almost eight-thirty now in the morning, the three kids were curled up together under the covers where she'd left them at four in the morning the last time she'd put a crying Mavis to sleep.
"Hey guys," she called softly as she sat on the side of the bed, "It's time to wake up. Come on Xander, Pipi, wakey-wakey. Mavis, come on, up."
The siblings stirred and Xander let out some dissatisfied groans but Pipi just stuck her head out from underneath the blanket and smiled up at her.
"Mornin' Ms. 'Uno!" she chirruped, her brown locks sticking up around her like a mane.
"Good morning, Pipi." she greeted in return, "The other kids are watching a movie, do you want to go with them?"
"Yeah!" the four-year-old agreed easily, reaching her arms out towards Juno, "I needs some help out!"
Juno giggled, "Help? Are you stuck there little bug?" she asked in a teasing manner as she pulled Pipi out from under the covers and the limbs of her siblings.
"I was, 'cause Xander an' Mavis are heavy." Pipi informed her seriously before glancing at the door, "Can I go down now?"
"Yup, anda, everyone else is in the living room. Go on." she encouraged the youngest Morrison, before turning to look at the two older siblings still clinging to sleep. "Xander you need to get up now, bud. I know you're tired but you're the oldest here and I need your help."
"Noooo," he whined, eyes still stubbornly shutting away the world, "Mavis was cryin' all damn night."
"Language!" she scolded lightly, rubbing his arm, before adding, "And I know she was crying all night Xander, I was there. Come on, help me get everyone situated for breakfast. It should be done cooling by now. Come one, let's go."
He groaned again before sitting up, "How come Mavis don't gotta get up yet?"
"She'll wake up when she wakes up. Mavis had a tough night, so let's just leave her for a bit." Juno replied as she made her way out of the guest room and into the living room. Pipi was laughing merrily at the movie as the other four toddlers giggled and pointed to the screen in excitement. "Hey Pipi do you need to go potty?"
"Oh yeah!" she exclaimed. "I forgot I has ta go!"
"You forgot, huh?" Juno asked in amusement as she extended her hand towards the girl, "Let's go, I'll help you use the potty real quick and then we're going eat some breakfast. How does that sound?"
"B'eakfast! I'm hungry!" she informed Juno seriously as they walked into the bathroom. Juno helped the little girl do her business and wash her hands before making her way back to the kitchen again. She tested the creamy rice pudding to see how hot it was and was pleased to find out that it was cool enough to serve.
Juno brought out five plastic containers, that she usually used to store leftovers, to serve breakfast for the kids. She was not going to be serving them breakfast in her usual glass bowls, that was just asking for an accident to occur. The portions for the toddlers weren't very big, but if they wanted more they would just ask for it. She decided to grab Xiao-Chen first and spoon-feed him, since he was the most uncoordinated out of her toddlers.
"What is that?" Alexander asked as he appeared by her side.
Juno hummed under her breath contemplatively as she took out another plastic container and served it, "It's called arroz con leche , it's like oatmeal but better. You'll like it, it's super good." She made sure that each container had a spoon before grabbing four of them, "Come on, Xander grab the other three and follow me, we'll have them eat their breakfast on the coffee table, it's the only one their size and I don't have any other high chairs."
"Kay," he agreed easily as he followed behind her.
Getting all the kids to finish eating wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. They'd become enamored with her abuela's recipe for rice pudding at first taste, though she'd suspected it was because the meal was sweet in nature and easy to chew.
"Hey Moreno?" Hank's gruff voice suddenly crackled over the walkie. Juno stopped washing the containers and ran into her bedroom where she'd left her walkie last night on the bureau. "Moreno, do ya copy? Fuckin' hell, Moreno-"
"Hank?" she questioned over the walkie.
"Finally!" the man exclaimed, "I've been talkin' ta the fuckin' air fer like an hour. Couldn' figure out what channel ya were on."
"I-I thought I gave you the channel yesterday?" Juno asked him in confusion. The previous day had been in two words: a shitshow... but she could have sworn that she'd told him what channel they'd be on.
"Hell girl, who knows. I got shitfaced after ya guys picked up Kathy's family." he admitted gruffly. Well, she couldn't blame him. Juno wasn't really one for drinking, she'd never been a party girl or even the type of person that 'let loose' over the holidays... but even she'd been tempted last night to drain the little amount of alcoholic beverages she possessed to numb away the events of yesterday afternoon. "It's what like nine now, don' tell me yer jus' getting' up?" Hank sounded incredulous and judgmental. To be fair, he almost always did.
"Please, I barely got any sleep last night with the kids." Juno sighed before adding pointedly, "I got up at like six this morning. I'm not sure about the others, I think they're still sleeping, but I've already got my brood fed."
"Fuck. I fergot that you'se got all those babies next door. How the hell is tha' gonna work?" he sounded nonchalant as he added, "Their parents ain't come for them by now, they dead."
Juno held back another sigh, the man wasn't bringing up anything she hadn't thought about herself. "Probably... and I don't know, we'll have to deal with everything one day at a time."
"Hmm, what we gonna do 'bout them bodies stinkin' up the street? Bury 'em?" he asked rhetorically in an almost insensitive manner.
Hank usually put up the front of acting like a manly "macho man," the fact that his father was one of the bodies littering the street was probably the reason he was being so gruff and cruel about it. He was hurting seeing his father like that, but didn't want to bring attention to that fact. As if anyone else in his position wouldn't bawling their eyes out.
"I think we're going to have to burn them Hank." she admitted softly, Juno could see the kids all watching the TV in the living room -she'd popped in the second Ice Age movie after the first one finished- and closed her door all but a crack, "When I was talking to my family yesterday, my sister said something about this disease being extremely contagious and that we shouldn't even really touch them. The bodies might contaminate whatever soil we'd bury them in."
"Shee-it." the man cussed, "Right when we gonna do tha'? I saw a 'coon gettin' too fresh with the bodies out there."
Juno bit her bottom lip, "I'm going to radio the others now and figure out what we're doing for the day. The Kim's said they were going to come in the afternoon to help out with the kids... but you're right. We need to get rid of the bodies today and scout the rest of Pogonip for any more shamblers."
"I doubt we'll find any more. Girl I th'nk ya got all of our neighbors yesterday." he said matter-of-factly, Juno's eyes burned at that reminder, "You ain't never been more attractive in my eyes, what'cha doin' later? Wanna make some sweet, sweet lovin' ta-"
"Shut up Hank." Juno rolled her eyes in amusement, his lecherous flirting dashing away some of the meloncholy plaguing her immediately. Despite Hank's general introverted and bad-tempered personality, he'd always been a bit of flirt and color blind when it came to the fairer sex. Hank cackled over the walkie.
Words 1953
(So... hi... it's been like over a year since I update this fic... ooops? LOL. I recently started transferring some of my fics onto AO3 because of the rumors that is going to come down, so obviously I had to get this fic up onto my AO3 account- and because I'm me, I was editing the chapters and fluffing them up before updating over there, which means that, well, I became intrigued with my own storyline and started searching through my stuff for my plans and pre-written chapters, so here I am. Updating. I hope you all enjoy the updating, Happy Reading!)