> If headquarters is already interviewing more support staff, donations must have gone up before the Threats appeared. They must have increased even more in the past few time increments! What will we even do with so much funding?

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

Where should I start? Should I tell him how we’d gotten here, to the treezilla? Fill him in on the reality of the dinosaur Challenge? How we’d started working with the military? He didn’t even know about Fort Autumn! Or Pointy! How on earth was I going to explain Pointy?

“Meghan?”

I’d been quiet for several seconds. “Sorry! Sorry… I just… You know, I thought about you all the time. I missed you every day. But in all the time you’ve been gone, I never once tried to figure out how I’d explain all this to you. Seeing you again was a daydream, not a plan.”

Vince laughed, but it was a sad sound. “That’s… fair. It was hard enough keeping a group of adults alive. Anytime I started thinking about you and the kids, it was hard not to panic. At first, I’d hoped you’d stumbled onto someone else’s food cache and bunkered up. Then the Mandatory Trials started and…” he shuddered. “I tried not to think about it too much.”

“You must be really surprised to find us here, then,” Micah said, sweeping one hand in a gesture that encompassed the webbed pink roof, the labyrinthine spars that stood in for walls, and the buzzing crowd of soldiers and civilians crawling through the corpse of the largest monster any of us had ever seen.

Vince took a moment to look around, then chuckled. “No kidding. Are you guys sure you’re not a dream?”

“Dad!” Micah groaned, slumping down against his father’s side.

Gavin wrapped his tail around Vince’s mouth. “That’s not funny, Daddy!”

“Fwowwy,” Vince responded, his voice muffled. Gavin withdrew and my husband cleared his throat, looking unusually ashamed of his teasing. He generally didn’t hesitate to make dad jokes or give the kids a hard time, but that gibe had been a little too real for all of us. “Start anywhere, Meghan. Start at the beginning. We’ve got all the time in the world. I found you guys again: you’re stuck with me forever, now.”

It took a long time to fill him in, and of course we needed to hear from him, too. We talked in the treezilla’s corpse until Davi and John woke. We talked while we walked through the battlefield and picked up his team’s belongings from the wreck of a blimp, of all things. We talked while we walked back to the fire station and met up with Kurt to wait for a ride back to Huntsville, and we talked the whole slow ride back, only pausing when we reached the Arsenal and were ushered inside a large building where we’d been told Flip and Cassie would meet us.

Along with everyone else who'd fought the treezilla, we were led into a large cafeteria filled with captivating aromas. The Arsenal had found and killed a cow and was preparing all the meat as a thank-you for everyone who’d fought.

Burgers. Brisket. Steaks of all kinds.

I stopped cold for a second as I caught the scent of freshly-cooked beef, so enticing and strange and normal that I had to take a second to nervously squeeze Vince's hand to be certain I wasn't dreaming. But no, he was real. This was real.

Reassured, I allowed myself to relax, salivating at the delicious smells and enjoying, for a moment, a world that was suddenly so much less terrible than what I'd gotten used to.

It wasn't just meat the Arsenal had prepared, either. They’d gotten fresh vegetables and actual butter to cook them in. There were fluffy white rolls and golden-brown cookies with glistening half-melted chocolate chips. Gavin had grabbed a whole plateful and was trying to eat as many as he could before I noticed and stopped him, while Micah glared at him disapprovingly over a plate of green beans and broccoli.

I’d have to make sure Micah knew it was okay to eat his fill of cookies. I wasn’t going to stop Gavin. Not today. Let him make himself sick on cookies! He’d earned it.

This was a clever move on Yoshiro’s part, I thought. He’ll probably need a lot of volunteers in the future, and a feast like this isn’t something people will forget quickly. Not these days.

It wouldn’t affect my decision making, personally. My kids’ safety was the only factor affecting my decisions. But even I had to admit it was an amazing bonus. Every bite took me back to a time when my biggest worries were missing doctor appointments.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“It’s like eating the American Dream,” I moaned as I picked up another bite of filet.

“Eh, not as good as pavemimic,” Vince said.

“What?”

Before he could answer, the slap of running footsteps and a familiar little girl’s voice interrupted us. “Daddy! I’m gonna see my Daddy! Daddy’s home!”

Flip opened the door, craning her neck to look down the hallway. “Wrong way, Cassie! He’s in here!”

Vince and I set down our plates and sprung anxiously to our feet. A hush fell over the crowd as everyone’s attention was drawn to the entrance. People had been very good about giving us space, but they'd been staring at me and Vince and the boys from a distance, talking about us. I understood. Vince and his friends had made a frankly unbelievable journey and given the Arsenal a way to get in touch with people as far away as New Mexico. On top of that, our family was fairly well-known, and our reunion had given a lot of people hope about eventually reconnecting with their own relatives and friends.

“Oops!” One more clatter of little footsteps, then Cassie dashed into the room. She looked around excitedly, Pointy squeezed tight to her chest.

Vince dropped down to a squat, opening his arms wide, tears welling in his eyes. “Cassie!”

My little girl had overlooked him initially, but when he spoke, she turned her head back to him and stood frozen, staring.

Vince waited patiently.

Cassie’s lip started to tremble.

The room waited for her to run to my husband, like the emotional finale of a cheesy feel-good movie.

Vince’s fingers drooped slightly at the same moment my eyes widened. It would be easy for a stranger to look at Cassie and interpret her high emotions as relief or excitement, but we knew our daughter, and she-

“YOU’RE NOT MY DADDY!” Cassie screamed. She turned, putting her back to Vince and nestling her face against Flip’s thigh even as she lifted one hand to hit the older woman repeatedly, her enhanced strength making the pilot wince with every slap. “That was a mean trick! Mean, mean, MEAN! I was really happy.”

“Sweetie! No! It’s him!” I ran forward.

Vince was right behind me, but Cassie made an agonized noise and threw herself at me, keeping my body in between her and Vince. “He doesn’t look right! He’s not Daddy!”

Vince looked agonized, frozen in uncharacteristic indecision, like he wanted to scoop her up but was terrified of upsetting her more.

“It’s him, sweetheart. Lots of people look different. Gavin has a tail now, right?”

She sobbed, not responding.

“And Ms. Priya is yellow, yes?”

“It’s not Daddy.”

I met Vince’s eyes and shrugged, helpless. He shook his head, equally at a loss.

“Wait!” George ran up to Vince. “Let me try something. May I?”

Vince gave a jerky nod, nonplussed, and George swiped a hand in front of his lower face, Cleansing away the untidy beard my husband had grown, leaving only his bare skin and customary stubble. Shards of beard hair drifted to the ground like the world’s ugliest confetti. “There! See!”

The difference was actually shocking. Now that I could see him without it, I had to admit that the slightly-curly beard had made his face look bigger, squarer, and a bit savage. His hair was still different, more like his wild mop from college than the professionally short do he’d sported in recent years, but…

“His eyes are wrong.” Cassie's whisper was fierce and mistrustful as she peeked around me. She still wasn’t coming out, but she was looking at him now.

“That’s an ability I took,” Vince said. He’d dropped down to a squat again, and was speaking to her softly. “I’m sorry I look different, but it helped me get home.”

“Are you really Daddy?”

“I am. It’s me.”

Cassie stared at him, her face scrunched and angry, her fingers digging into me. She stared at him and whispered something else, too quiet for anyone to catch.

“What was that, Cassie?” Vince asked.

She took a deep breath and glared at him. “I said, do a unicorn noise!”

Vince paused.

He shook himself.

He got down on all fours and locked eyes with Cassie.

Keeping her gaze, he reared up on his “hind legs” and pawed his “front hooves” in the air, all while letting out the most unholy abomination of a horse noise I’ve ever heard anyone make, as if a real horse tried to whinny while gargling and then ended in a sort of fluting hum: “Neeeeeiiiiiiiiighwhwhwhwmmmm!”

Cassie’s eyes widened.

She let go of me, running forward, even dropping Pointy to the floor as she launched herself at him. “DADDY!”

I picked up the turtle, smiling, as the entire room burst out into wild cheers.