Chapter Four - Her Doting Fathers

"Hey, we're back."

"Where's our princess?"

"Upstairs, asleep. How'd it go?" Dexter asked the pair of smiling men, noting that however weary the taller man appeared, his lover was as energetic as always.

"Fine," Cole yawned and handed over a couple of large flasks to Dexter before running his hand through his nearly shoulder length hair with a grimace. He once more questioned his oath never to cut his hair again after the disaster caused by Shaun that last time. His own body odour reached his nose, causing his expression to twist more so. "I'm gonna take a bath, is there water?"

"Should be," came the nonchalant reply. "Kairo filled up the hot water tank this morning."

Hearing that, Cole couldn't help but sigh with relief. What Tyler, their other main water user thought was 'hot' water these days could barely be considered as lukewarm. Just that Kairo was just a teen, not as powerful as Tyler and couldn't be held responsible for the whole community's daily hot water supply needs. It was good enough that he'd taken over a bit of the burden these past couple of years so that Tyler could focus more on piercing zombies with spears of ice from the heights of the walls.

"Care to join me?" Cole turned to Chang Min as he headed towards the stairs. The other man's eyes narrowed to smiling crescents as he nodded enthusiastically, while Dexter rolled his eyes, wishing that they'd flirt when he wasn't in earshot.

A piercing baby cry sounded from upstairs, causing Dexter's darkened face to once more brighten. Who told these wannabe fathers to attempt to gain a few extra minutes of couple's time? Sure enough, Cole was left standing alone, reality splashing cold water in his face as his lover took one step to bound up the stairs towards Dexter's bedroom. Cole could only sigh and follow, before his stinky self was ushered into the bathroom to wash up alone.

They'd been out for a week on a mission that had taken them to the sea along with an allied squad from the Little America base, as it had come to be known. It was not an unusual situation for them to unite with this squad in order to complete missions that the L.A. Base had set, they gained as much as a third of all spoils in this manner. To outsiders, this seemed like a losing deal for the squad, but as Chang Min's strength alone could be considered more than twice that of the ten members of the squad, it was probably them winning in the end. Yes, they could take more squad members out in order to complete the mission without outside help, but the issue boiled down to fuel or lack of it.

Before the end, their nation imported a fair amount of their fuel requirements in order to meet the increasing demand for diesel and even if this was not so, even if there had been no need to import petrol, which base had the manpower to focus upon producing this now? Some bright spark had managed to reproduce a biofuel, but could only supply it in small amounts, therefore making it extremely expensive in terms of trade. Therefore, conserving the remnants of fuels were a must these days. One way squads dealt with this issue was to pack the strongest of their men and women into a reasonably fuel efficient vehicle and have it tow a trailer or gutted out small caravan in order to bring things back. It was not unheard of for these too to carry squad members or see people riding on the roofs of the vehicles.

This mission had been to extract salt from the ocean, something that needed numbers as well as a strong defence against hostiles while they were stationary and working. The small Haven community had the strength, but could not afford the numbers less they left themselves lacking the ability to defend themselves, but adding salt to their depleted reserves was not something that they would wish to miss out on and so Chang Min volunteered to join the mission and Cole naturally followed him.

Their baby girl was left to Dexter and his wife to care for during these past few days.

Little Willow had an awkward place in Dexter's heart and not only his. Jonah was equally if not more effected by this tiny child's presence in their home. Little Willow happened to be Brooke's daughter, in other words, the child of Jonah's ex-girlfriend. Little Willow was also the half-sister to Jonah's son.

Before their community had formed, Dexter had been the leader of a surviving squad of his original base, while Jonah had been the leader of another surviving squad from the same base. When they had reunited, Jonah had brought with him his new girlfriend Brooke and that girl's cousin Autumn, the woman who would become his wife. However Brooke ideals of grandeur that were really just illusions in the face of this new world and while she could easily abandon her cousin, boyfriend and recently born son, she could not leave those aspirations aside, fleeing for pastures new in the desperate need to somehow fulfil them.

The man she fled with, a soldier named Thomas, died just before the last winter set in during a wave of attacks by weak, yet persistent zombies which threw themselves at L.A.'s walls for several days and nights before the temperatures lowered to well below zero, literally freezing the undead in their tracks. The soldiers of the base as well as conscripted ability users naturally did not go unscathed, caught between unrelenting monsters and bitter weather. If a person was lucky, they just suffered a bit of frostbite. It was unknown how many joined the ranks of the undead or died without an incomplete corpse, but at least thirty bodies were burned in a heaped pyre when the crisis was over. They did not count the finally deceased zombies that were burned in a much larger, separate fire.

Following this, Brooke then discovered that despite their best efforts, she had fallen pregnant again.

Her original confidence that she was meant for some greater path had long since been crushed and only her need to prove herself to still be better than her estranged cousin had quietly kept her going, kept her cultivating and slowly her abilities had become stronger. But at that time, she'd still had a pillar and shield in Thomas; relying on him in order to eat that she could dedicate more time to cultivating that method she'd once disdained. And now he was dead. Not only that, but she'd already been warned that a pregnant woman could not cultivate. Without the baby, she could not continue to be a salted fish in the L.A base and would have to find work as one of the many without much valued ability (in this era) or exhaust herself to death trying to purify water, one of the few things she actually knew how to do.

But after the baby was born, she would still need to do this; the base would only supply her some necessities for her baby, not for herself.

Her concerns were really not without value; water users would often drain almost all but a tiny smidgeon of their energies supplying the drinking water needs of the people and then have to find the strength to water the crops. Fire and lightning users had to man the walls, consistently raining down their powers on undead and mutated enemies, while earth, wood, metal users maintained the walls, built new and fixed housing, created pottery, arrows, knives... people who lacked powers didn't stop either, sweeping the streets of debris, removing weeds less they mutate, cleaning out the chicken pens; only the lucky ones got to work in the greenhouses or as a canteen chef. Those with niche skill sets or those that risked everything outside of the walls before padding their nests could be said to have better lives, but they still worked hard to live. Not everyone could be or could be attached to a commander or community leader, seen to have the best lives amongst everyone in the base. And who would want a pregnant widow who never worked hard a day in her life, no matter how pretty she once had been considered.

The community was surprised when Dexter returned from a trading excursion with a heavily pregnant Brooke in tow. She brought little with her, offered no apologies for her actions and hid within her room for the last month of her pregnancy, curtains closed. At that time, she barely said a word to her cousin, let alone anyone else. She did not even try to reconnect to the little boy she'd birthed then abandoned, the son that did not know who she was. Perhaps deep down she knew that she was not worthy of their forgiveness or perhaps her stubborn pride prevented her from admitting her mistakes until the end. But whatever her reasons and whatever Dexter's for bringing her back into their midst, the baby was innocent.

Sadly, but maybe not completely unexpectedly considering the woman's mental health, Willow's first breath would happen when Brooke took her last. However, it still came as a shock to lose her in this most final of ways. The birth of a new child in an era when everyone was fighting for their continued existence should have been a celebration, but instead it became a day of mourning. Not everyone could cry for her, not everyone really knew her, but they would all be effected somehow.

Especially Chang Min and Cole, who suddenly became fathers to the baby girl orphaned at birth.

But despite the baby's origins and despite that indulging themselves while sharing bath water was something that had to often be postponed, the pair of doting dads did not regret their decision.