new eden - 67
*68*
Not able to find much of a verbal response to Jared’s revelation right then, Lili instead took a shallow breath before heading inside, where the tiny child was resting in her makeshift crib. Jared and Ian exchanged a silent look with one another, seeming to agree that Lili would need to take a moment to let the seriousness of the situation and the truth of Jared’s words sink in once and for all. So instead of following her, they took over the preparation of that day’s lunch. Kyle easily stepped aside to let them do so, an obvious sign that he had had quite enough conflict of his own that day as well.
It didn’t take many more moments of the obvious tension between the three men before Kyle sighed slightly and decided to remove himself from their presence, however temporarily, by taking his own belongings that he had had at the pod with him that week, back inside.
Inside, Kyle found Lili standing next to the crib, looking down at the tiny child, her face and body language making her obvious fear and anxiety almost tangible. “They decided to finish making lunch. Wasn’t really in the mood to argue with them. So I just decided to bring my stuff back inside instead,” Kyle offered his quiet explanation as he passed by her to set his bag down on the other side of the blanket that acted as a door to his own sleeping quarters.
“Honestly, you’re the one person here who I’m actually not afraid to have to speak to right now,” she answered him softly as he reappeared in the main part of the cabin.
“That’s…unexpected,” he decided on as he moved nearer to the crib as well.
Lili took a breath as she moved her eyes from the baby and back to Kyle before offering further clarification. “The reason I haven’t been worrying about you and me the way I’ve been worrying about them and me…” she took a breath as she attempted to continue. “It’s because you don’t have as many reasons as they do to pull away from me now.”
Kyle looked a bit surprised by her statement as he thought on it another moment before attempting to make a response. “What reasons would those be?”
She glanced down at her daughter pointedly before offering the first answer. “She’s struggling to even survive now because of me. I know it and Ian knows it. He won’t come out and say that it’s my fault she’s so weak, but he knew that it was even before the conversation we just had out there. There’s no way he can overlook that. When he sees her fighting for life, he knows that I’m the reason,” she confessed with another sniffle.
Kyle took a slight breath, not really able to argue her point. Instead, he moved on. “And why do you think Jared would ever be pulling away from you. I figured he’d be the last person you’d ever worry about losing, considering he’s always made his feelings for you pretty clear.”
“Exactly. He’s never faltered, even once. He’s always tried so hard to look after me both physically and emotionally. That’s almost all he’s done since we found ourselves here. Day in and day out, all he does is try to make sure that I’m ok. It’s gotta be exhausting,” she sighed, “And I don’t deserve it: That kind of devotion. And I know it’s gotta be getting to the point where he’s feeling the exhaustion of always having to worry about if I’ll finally break at any second. He acts like he can handle always having to look after me, but I can see the cracks wearing him down.”
Kyle took a long moment to process her statement and try to find the best response he could. “It seems to me like that all can be fixed though.”
Lili scoffed slightly as she looked back at him. “Care to share how?”
“What you have to do is make sure Jared knows that you are going to get through all this, and you are going to be all right. And the best way you can do that is…” instead of finishing the sentence, he looked down at the tiny child before them once more.
Lili shook her head sadly once more as she moved her eyes back to her daughter once again. “Everyone seems to think that I can do this…everyone but me,” she sniffled again.
“I guess you’re outnumbered then, huh?” he told her with a slight smile as he moved to squeeze her shoulder slightly. “Only way to prove it to yourself is to just do it. You were always so convinced of how strong you were before all this, Lilith,” he offered another smile. “So now’s your chance to show that strength, isn’t it?”
“But I…”
“Lili,” he nudged slightly.
“I don’t know,” she faltered. “I mean she’s sleeping now, and if she’s already so weak, I should let her sleep, shouldn’t I?”
Kyle just allowed another slight smile as he took a step forward and reached down to gently pick up the tiny baby who fussed slightly as she was lifted into his arms. “There, she’s awake now,” he stated simply.
“But…” Lili whispered, biting her lip as she looked wide-eyed at the child in his arms, her anxiety still more than apparent.
“Your turn,” he stated simply as he moved to place the child in her trembling arms as a few tears emerged from Lili’s eyes as she tried to force herself to stop the trembling long enough to steady the baby against her chest.
“But…” she attempted again, as she looked down at the child once more.
“You can do this Lili. Remember, the vision said so,” he reminded, using her own words to remind her.
“I don’t know if it exactly said that,” she whispered, still shaking a bit as her daughter cuddled closer to her chest, finally feeling her mother’s arms around her tiny body for the first time in the ten days since she had arrived in that new world.
“You know you’re the one who saves her, Lili. And once you do, I think you’ll see how much easier it will be to save everything else that you’re so terrified of losing right now,” he told her softly as he placed a soft kiss on her cheek above where she continued to look down at those ocean-colored eyes. With that, Kyle left her to finally prove at last that she was the savior they all believed she could be if she just started to believe it herself.
Three hours had passed since Kyle had left Lili behind inside and went to join the other men outside, despite how much tension was still quite obvious between them. In those three hours, they had shared a deadly silent lunch, and then each attempted to find anything else to keep them busy enough to avoid any kind of real conversation. Though, Ian’s worry over the current situation did not honestly allow him much relief from those worries.
With a heavy sigh, he moved over to where Jared was adding to his collection of plants that he thought he could find some medicinal use for. “Don’t you think it’s about time we check on her, and Hope?” Ian interrupted Jared’s busy-work with his question.
“Hope?” Kyle interjected hoarsely, from his place several feet away where he had just finished collecting more milk from their pets.
Ian couldn’t help scowling at the mere sound of Kyle’s voice, but did force an answer. “We named her that this week, while you were off feeling guilty about something you supposedly didn’t do,” he offered coolly.
“I was just giving her the time to take in everything I told her this morning,” Jared replied before allowing Kyle any time to respond and start that debate all over again.
“Well it’s been three hours,” Ian pointed out the obvious, his attention easily moved from Kyle back to the state of his daughter’s health that day.
Jared just sighed in concession and closed the box before pushing himself into a standing position, squaring his shoulders, and heading back inside. Upon his arrival in the main room of their home, Lili immediately startled from her seat upon the floor, her back against the crib as Hope slept soundly in her arms. Despite the fact that Lili was obviously shaken by Jared’s reappearance, he couldn’t help allowing a small smile down at mother and child.
“You’re holding her?” he stated the obvious in a gentle voice as he moved nearer to stoop next to where she awkwardly sat, almost as if frozen in place there.
“She fell asleep,” Lili managed shakily. “I was afraid I’d wake her if I moved to put her back in the crib.”
“You’ve been holding her like this for three hours?” Jared smiled as he gently moved a tiny red curl from the baby’s forehead.
“It’s been three hours?” was Lili’s only response, still whispering every word as though she was afraid that the mere sound of her voice would shatter the tiny baby.
“About that,” Jared offered with another small smile. Lili didn’t seem to be able to find any other response at that moment as she simply looked down, the smile on Jared’s face somehow making her feel even more tense than she already was. Jared took another moment to glance at Lili’s still more than apparent discomfort before finally forcing himself to speak again, though in an even quieter tone. “Did you manage to get her to eat?”
“She was really hungry and…and I don’t even know if I did it right. I mean, what if I did something wrong?” Lili asked as more tears formed at the corner of her pretty eyes.
Jared couldn’t help another smile as he pushed back any of his own emotion at the news. “If you got her to eat at all then believe me, it’s the best thing that’s happened in the entire time since she was born,” he assured her. Though his words only caused another sniffle from Lili who still seemed convinced that she could have easily made things worse without even knowing it somehow. “Ok, one thing you might wanna do differently…” he began.
“Oh god, what?” Lili asked as her head snapped up in fear.
“You may want to actually put her back in the crib at some point. You know, just in case you might need to, I don’t know, get some food into your own system now so you can keep up your strength, for both of you,” he instructed. “We still left your lunch waiting out there for you, you know,” he chided gently.
“But, do you think it even helped?” Lili asked with a slight breath as Jared moved to gently take the child from her arms and place her into the crib once more.
“I think it’s the only thing that could have helped her at this point. And you got past it. That’s all you needed to do. And now that you have,” he allowed his own slight sniffle as he moved back from the crib to offer a hand to Lili and help her back to her feet, “I have a lot more faith in that vision coming true after all,” a slight pause. “And now I think you can finally let yourself have a bit of that faith in your own strength as well.”