(Untitled)

[m_pinocchio]

People come and go. Things keep growing. It's the kind of constant he thinks he's always taken a kind of comfort in, even before Eostre, even in the Realm, where stunted life beat its own path through most places regardless of what was thrown at it or how much it was stepped on. There's a kind of fatalism in it, probably, a sense that it works that

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[frakkup]

Kara brushed her hands through Calliope's hair. Her daughter was asleep in the middle of the bed, the fifth Kara had occupied since arriving on the island years ago. She wondered if she belonged in it, inside the hut's walls at all, if she even belonged on the island itself, but she must. No matter who left, Kara always stayed behind. It wasn't a truth she'd come to accept with grace, but it was truth, settled heavy on Kara's shoulders and in the deep circles beneath her eyes.

She scrubbed her fingertips over them now, willing the redness away until she could go outside. She wasn't surprised to find Mike in the garden, and for a long time she only watched, wondering at the peace he seemed to find in it. When her back began to ache, Kara came closer, sitting at the soil's edge. "Girls look happy," she says, watching them at their play.

[m_pinocchio]

He looks up again at the sound of her voice, pausing with the trowel in his hand and glancing back toward his daughters. Flo lifts a toy whale into the air, moving it as though it's swimming and letting out a loud giggle.

"Yeah," he says, looking back at Kara and giving her a faint smile. "They do." His gaze flicks back to the house. "Yours doing okay?"

[frakkup]

"Sleeping," said Kara. It was as close to okay as she could hope for. Calliope's father disappeared on her first birthday, and she'd forgotten John quickly, but she was three years old now, and Cas...

"Keeps asking for him."

[m_pinocchio]

"Yeah," he says simply. Because they do. It had taken the girls a couple of weeks to really understand, as much as they even could, that asking wasn't going to bring anyone back.

He glances back at the girls, his smile twisting into something faintly sad. "Kids are resilient. I think they're better at bouncing back than we are, most of the time."