The days that followed after Rob came into their little world were… good.
Which made Bruce suspicious.
Life settled into a rhythm so steady it felt unreal, like the calm after a storm that hadn't realized it was supposed to come back. The days came. The nights followed. Nothing terrible happened in between.
For once, the world stopped trying to kill them.
Rob stayed.
Two weeks, he'd said.
And for those two weeks, Bruce did not have to clean or try to be useful in the desperate way he had before—because Rob was here. Things simply got done.
Rob fixed things.
Not perfectly, not like an engineer or a craftsman who measured and planned—but competently, confidently, like a man who had done this sort of thing his whole life. He used his big knife to cut bundles of straw for the roof, then climbed up without even a ladder, to Mother's visible horror. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing to brace against, but Rob moved like gravity was optional.
Mother and Bruce watched from below in open awe.
Mother was a good climber—Bruce knew that—but even she looked unsure whether she could have climbed the roof herself. Rob didn't hesitate. He just went up and fixed it.
Slowly. Surely.
The roof stopped leaking where winter had chewed at it.
Rob also cut small trees with that same knife, chopping patiently until the woodpile inside the cottage grew neat and tall. Fish appeared regularly, silver and fresh, as if Rob simply decided they should exist. Sometimes rabbits followed. And once—once—a deer so large Bruce stared at it in silent disbelief before quickly deciding he did not like the blood part at all.
Still…
Rob was good at this.
And Bruce watched.
Because this was how you lived out here. Food did not come from nowhere. It came from effort, and skill, and the unpleasant parts you didn't get to ignore.
Bruce watched Rob skin animals and let their blood spill into the dirt. He watched how every part was used—meat, hide, bone—nothing wasted, nothing taken lightly.
It disturbed him.
But it also taught him.
Rob showed Mother how to skin and clean, slow and patient, explaining as he worked in his strange, half-familiar English. He did it with fish too, guiding her hands, correcting gently. Mother listened carefully, asked questions, tried again in her broken way.
Bruce listened as well.
Words piled up in his head—Norse, old English, meanings that overlapped and disagreed. His mind worked hard, sorting sounds and intent and context.
Too hard sometimes.
But he liked it.
Life was easier like this.
Rob kept them fed and warm and safe. Mother rested more. Bruce no longer felt the constant pressure to help or else. All mother had to do was mend clothes, clean tools, stack wood, and cheer Rob on as he vanished into the forest hunting, or ran through the shallows of the lake splashing like a madman.
Rob was impressive like that.
And Bruce, reluctantly, had to admit—
Having Rob here felt like the world had decided to give them a break.
For now.
One afternoon, Bruce decided he was done being a useless baby crawling in the garden.
If Rob and Mother were going to insist on kissing in the dirt and whispering things that made Mother laugh in that embarrassing way, then someone had to do something productive.
From what Bruce understood, Rob was a hunter from the village of Einsway, and Mother had once been a reindeer herder far to the north—good with animals, good with forests, good with surviving.
Neither of them, however, knew the first thing about keeping a garden safe.
That, clearly, was Bruce's responsibility.
So while the two adults lay tangled together in the grass, Bruce gathered the chickens—who were always eager for anything that looked important—and began his work.
He pushed a small stick into the dirt.
Then another.
Then another.
Then one laid carefully across the others.
Rob noticed first.
He stopped touching Mother mid-movement and stared down at the crooked line forming in the soil. For a heartbeat he only watched—then understanding sparked.
He laughed.
"A fence," he said, delighted. "Aye. That's a fence, that is." He crouched closer, studying Bruce's work with exaggerated seriousness. "A fine idea indeed. Well thought. Wise little kitten."
Bruce puffed his cheeks, pleased.
And suddenly the idea became real.
Rob cut small trees with his massive knife, hacking patiently before kicking them down the rest of the way with brute force. He drove the sharpened stakes into the ground with heavy blows, the earth thudding with each strike.
Mother gathered dry grasses along the lake's edge. Bruce grabbed fistfuls of plant fibers and tugged at them with fierce determination, earning laughter from Mother as she helped twist them into rope.
The rope was ugly.
Uneven.
But it held.
They worked together.
Bruce mostly provided moral support and supervision. Mother handled the careful tasks—patting soil back into place, pulling weeds, handing over sticks, mending clothes by the fire, humming softly as she worked.
Rob did the heavy things, as always.
By the end of the first week, the garden had a fence.
A real one.
Rough and imperfect, but solid enough to keep rabbits and deer out. There was even a small gate set thoughtfully to the side—close to the forest and the lake, for quick trips to water.
Bruce approved.
The bed grew bigger too.
Not much. Just enough.
Some nights Bruce slept tucked between them. Other nights—somehow—he ended up on Rob's chest, warm and solid, listening to a heartbeat that wasn't Mother's but didn't frighten him either.
Mother rested.
Really rested.
Her cough faded. Color returned to her cheeks. She laughed more—quietly at first, then freely. Rob praised her shamelessly, whispering poetic nonsense Bruce neither understood nor approved of.
Bruce learned to ignore it.
Mostly.
Sometimes he woke at night alone, tucked safely beneath blankets.
He didn't like that.
But he wasn't afraid.
The fire still burned. The chickens still slept together in their corner. The house still stood. And when he had the energy, Bruce trained his little body the best he could.
When Rob and Mother returned later, flushed and laughing like people who had shared a secret, Bruce narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
Adults were strange.
Ignoring adults was a survival skill.
Then the two weeks ended.
Too fast.
Rob packed quietly. Mother helped him—slowly this time. Bruce pretended not to care, because Rob was suspicious. He was far too kind, and people were rarely kind unless they wanted something… or unless they were Frank.
But Bruce cared.
A lot.
Rob kissed Bruce's forehead before leaving. Bruce frowned stubbornly, but did not pull away.
Mother and Rob kissed goodbye at the door—long and careful, like people trying to memorize each other.
"I will come back," Rob promised.
Bruce watched him walk into the forest.
He waved once.
Then the world felt smaller.
Too quiet.
Bruce cried.
So did Mother.
She held him close and whispered softly, "Is all right. Papa will come back soon."
The house was quiet again.
But not empty.
Bruce fell asleep that night with the fence standing outside, the roof whole, the fire warm, a thick new fur blanket made from the deer's hide pulled over him—
and the fragile knowledge that sometimes, in this world,
good things didn't vanish forever.
Sometimes…
they came back.