Difference between revisions of "Logs:Doesn't Feel All That Much Like Home"

The weyr doesn't feel all that much like home, now. The furniture is all the same, the doodahs on the mantlepiece, the stash of whiskey beneath the bed. There are more clothes and towels on the floor, but usually only for a few hours at a time, before someone from the lower caverns comes in and cleans them all up, replacing old for new, clean for dirty. Mostly, though, K'del tries not to spend too much time in his weyr, because since Milani went to Cove, everything has just felt wrong.

At night, the bed is intolerably empty, and it never feels quite right inviting someone else to spend the night. It's not that he's turned celibate - though he's not quite the randy teenager with a new girl each night he once was - but somehow, he'd rather sleep the night through alone than with someone who isn't Milani.

Sometimes, he 'borrows' Nikalas from his foster-mother, and brings him back to the weyr, using the cradle that would otherwise have just collected dust in the corner (though, of course, it wouldn't have: it gets dusted every day, too). He likes working with the baby nearby, even though it can be distracting sometimes. When Nik cries, he picks him up and holds him, walking endless circles through the weyr, around and around and around. He tells him stories-- about his mama, his aunts and uncles, his cousins, his brother and sister.

And always, the wholehearted promise: "Your mama loves you, Nikky-boy. Loves you like nothing else. We're going to go see her, soon. Soon as you're big and strong enough. And one day, she's going to come back to us, and we're going to live happily ever after."

He spends time with Kasey, too, of course: he's forever conscious of being as fair as he can be with his time, even though Kasey still has his mother to hold him. It's just that he never wants either of them to feel slighted, and besides which, he loves them both - loves them to distraction, sometimes. "Not many kids get to be a big brother as early as you, Kase," he murmurs to his giggling elder son. "Some never get to be. Reckon you're going to be a good one, though, mm? All this practice."

He feels guilty, but sometimes it /is/ easier coming home to a weyr that Milani isn't moping around in. He misses her, feels her absense like a hole in his heart, but he /knows/ she's doing better at Cove, and knows it was necessary-- and knows that he might not have been able to take it, if she'd stayed, and stayed like that. He visits her, of course, as often as he can, full of stories about Nik, about the weyr, about anything he can think of. Coming home afterwards hurts all over again, though: it's all so wrong, without her.

He doesn't talk to her about his worries, on those visits. Doesn't talk to her about the eggs, about all the weyrbred young people who aren't Standing, about how lonely he feels sometimes. Those things he keeps to himself, as much as he can, though they, too, hang heavy on his shoulders. What can be done? Nothing. Nothing can be done.

Sometimes, he dreams about his sister, older now, than when he saw her last, but happy. He's sure she is happy, out there, somewhere, but waking up, tangled up in the sheets and alone, he can't help but reach out to the thought of her. Everything would've been so much easier, is she'd been there to talk to.

It's impossible not to see the similarities - the likeness, between Milani and Nakasha. Two women unable to look after their sons, unable to bounce back to their lives. Don't let me lose Milani the way I lost Kash, he thinks, desperately. I can't bear it.

If it weren't for his boys, he'd probably come to hate the idea of having children-- even so, it half seems as though children ruin lives. And then he hugs them all the tighter, holding them, promising them - silently, and in words - that he will always love them, and that he is so, so glad, to have them in his life.