He flinched but only nodded before licking his lips and kissing the top of my head. I spun around and waved at the room, "This is my family, Drake. Kris, Skip and Win. Even Jacks over there."

The spot was empty where he'd been standing and as I panned the room Kris made her strangled cry again. Except the sound wasn't coming from her. She stood next to me with her hand hooked into the pocket of my sweats and the cry I heard was coming from the doorway where Jacks had moved. He bent down toward the ground and lifted something with care before settling it into the crook of his arm. At first, it looked like a blanket balled up and ready for the laundry hamper but then a tiny foot poked out of the bottom.

With a gasp, my hands flew up to my mouth. "Oh my G.o.d! Jacks!"

His angry demeanor dissolved as he held the squirming bundle out to me. "Riley, meet baby Lily."

Gently, and with careful attention spent on making sure I was properly supporting the baby's head, Jacks transferred her into my arms. At first, she was just a colorful blurry blob through my tears but eventually my eyes dried. There in my arms, was a beautiful newborn baby girl with a full head of dark hair and even darker brown doe eyes that stared sleepily up at me. I counted her fingers; long and slender with carefully trimmed nails, and counted her toes, just as dainty and expertly groomed. She had that baby smell that I remembered from my own two children, sweet, fresh and brand-new. For months I had loathed the day she was born, as if it would remind me o my own lost babies and wreck my heart, destroying me in the process. But the opposite happened.

"Jacks," I whispered, "Lily's beautiful. She's perfect." I looked up at him to see his own eyes swimming in tears but he swallowed and blinked and they never had a chance to spill onto his cheeks.

"She is. She's amazing."

"I love her name. I can't believe you and Ana finally agreed on one," I laughed.

It was something they argued about every time it came up - what to name the baby. She had a notebook with dozens of names, none of which Jacks liked, of course. I didn't remember Lily being on the list.

"Um," Winchester cleared his throat but Jacks waved a hand at him and he stopped talking.

"You two did a good job, she's just beautiful. Where's Ana? I need to compare faces to see whose nose she has," I paused to coo at the baby, "Because she doesn't have yours, thank G.o.d."

"She's not here, Riley."

"Right. Where did everyone go? The entire lodge was abandoned, you know anyone could have come in and claimed it," I said everything in a happy voice as I smiled down at Lily while using my knee to gently push Zoey off my leg. She sniffed at the blanket like a treat was hidden inside.

"No, Riley. That's not what he means," Winchester sighed. One of Kris's arms curled around my waist again and she buried her face into my shoulder like a small child.

"Did she...leave?" I stared between Winchester and Jacks in shock. Surely Ana wouldn't abandon a newborn child. The woman was no saint, but she had a heart in there somewhere. For the first time since riding Foxy, I looked down at my wrist where she tied the bracelet onto my arm. It was gone, most likely torn off when I rolled through the bushes and dirt after being shot off the horse.

"She's dead, Riley. She...she died just after delivering Lily," Winchester dropped his gaze and lowered his voice to a whisper, "Ana only got to hold the baby for a couple seconds."

Jacks stepped forward as if to take Lily back but I held her to my chest and cried silently against one of her round, pink cheeks. "Oh sweet baby, don't you worry, you will be loved more than you could ever dream." As I rocked her in my arms, Jacks leaned into us with his arms around my shoulders. We stood like that for a moment until Kris's arms circled us, then Winchester's and finally Skip's. Huddled around the baby, we cried for what she lost and for what we found.

A new life to love. Another chance at happiness. A new beginning.

"Win delivered her, can you believe that?" Jacks rocked the baby carrier with his foot and sipped out of the gla.s.s of wine I finally poured.

"I wish I could've done more," Winchester said from the couch. His face was ashen at the mention of the birth. It must have been just as traumatic for him - losing Ana.

"It wasn't your fault, you know that," Jacks turned to me, the need to explain written all over his face. "She started bleeding real bad and it all happened so fast. It doesn't matter how many books you read, you know, there just wasn't enough time. Lily came so fast we didn't even have the birthing suite ready."

"I-I should have been here. I'm so sorry, Jacks." With my hand on his arm, it was easy to feel the tension in his muscles.

Something heavy hung in the room and I knew what it was without asking. The others did too, but no one wanted to discuss it. So I blurted out another question that had been nagging me all evening.

"Where were you?"

"s.h.i.t!" Winchester jumped off the couch so fast I sloshed wine down the front of my shirt. Drake, also surprised by Winchester's loud outburst sent a dirty look in my direction.

"Riley, you are not going to believe who we found," he said. A buzz of energy began to fill the room as the topic switched from Ana's death to the mystery surrounding their late night return to the cabins.

"Calm down, Win, s.h.i.t. She just got back. You look like h.e.l.l, by the way. What did you do, throw yourself off another bike?" Jacks teased, nudging me with his elbow.

"No," I rubbed at my face, desperately trying not to scream out the one thing I wanted to know but was too terrified to ask. "It's a long story. I don't even know where to start."

"How about with this?" He reached out and touched the st.i.tches that ran along my shoulder. In my tank top, I forgot how visible my injuries were. Bruises were nothing new, but st.i.tches always had a story behind them.

I pointed to my arm and then to my hip. "Gunshot. Gunshot." I felt around my neck where the imprint of Mariah's hands left raised welts and scratches, "And this was from a brief fight - a minor misunderstanding."

With an involuntary grimace, I remembered the chopped up body parts in the room Mariah was held. I'd forever wonder if it was she or one of the men that killed the woman as Drake stormed the building. It was an answer no one would ever know.

"And...you're okay now?" Skip asked. His voice was a bit hoa.r.s.er than usual and I chalked it up to having a rather emotional night.

"I'm okay now. Thanks to Drake. Like I said, it's a long story, but he found me, cleaned me up. Saved my life, really."

"And brought you back here," Kris said. Her eyes were rimmed with red, cried out and tired.

"Yes." Setting the gla.s.s down carefully on the counter, I took her hand into mine and looked at her collarbone while I said the words everyone seemed to be avoiding. "Where's Connor, Kris? Is he...did he...not make it?"

I couldn't look at her, even after she shook her head. "No! Well," she paused to look at Jacks, "I don't really know where he is. He tried to go back but there was so much shooting and Foxy freaked out. Connor and I barely had a chance to climb into the saddle before she took off. And...we went back that night. We did. But you were gone. And there was so much blood...so much blood..." she trailed off in sobs. With my arms wrapped around her, she let me pull her close into my chest. Her sweet pea and pear washed over me again, choking out the smell of new baby.

"You thought I was dead?" I whispered. She nodded once against my shoulder. "And Connor. What happened, how did you get back here?"

"He brought me back. But...but not on Foxy. They shot her in the leg and Connor had to...you know...he had to..." I nodded that I understood so she wouldn't have to say the words out loud. Connor had to put her down. "Anyway," she sniffed, "he had to know what happened to you. So he went back."

"What? When?"

"Weeks ago."

"Weeks? How?"

"He took his motorcycle," she sniffed again.

"Weeks," I repeated.

Where had he been for that long? How did he not find us at the house near the golf course? Connor wasn't dead. I sat stunned, leaning against the kitchen bar counter so hard that the edge dug into the skin of my back. Connor wasn't dead. Connor was alive. At least he was a few weeks ago.

"He'll come back, right? I mean, if he can't find you, he'll come back home?" Kris looked up at me with sad eyes and I nodded because that was the right answer to give her, even if everyone else in the room didn't believe it.

"Of course he'll come back." With a smile, I hugged her slight frame against mine. Kris was okay. Connor didn't die that day, he didn't abandon me - he saved Kris. He did the right thing bringing her back to the mountains where she was safe. I told my heart he would give up eventually and return. He'd have to. And I'd be waiting for him.

"So," Drake interrupted, tugging at the collar of his shirt as if it was suddenly too tight around his neck, "You said you found someone else. Who?"

Winchester blurted out the words before anyone else had a chance to answer, "A pilot."

Drake and I stared at each other, confused and waiting for a further explanation. Lily stirred in her seat and we all looked down at her as she sighed and flailed a hand around her face till Jacks moved it close to her mouth. She found her knuckles with her rosy Betty Boop lips and the only sound in the room for a full minute was a soft, repet.i.tive suckling.

Skip smiled at Jacks and Lily and then ran a hand over his jaw. He'd aged a good five years in the few months I'd been gone. "His name is Lou and yes, he's a pilot. He's been doing flyovers in the area and spotted our chimney fire a few nights ago. He landed his plane on the freeway can you believe that? Right down there on the 8. We heard the plane fly over and turned one of the radios on. Five minutes later, we were chatting back and forth like old buddies. He came back tonight, brought a few supplies with him and we all drove down the mountain to say h.e.l.lo."

"Tell her the good part, tell her about Arizona." Winchester all but bounced on the arm of the couch. He seemed to be the only one that couldn't hear the wooden frame creaking out a desperate warning - one good bounce and the couch was threatening to break beneath him.

"Arizona?" Drake and I spoke at the same time.

"Yeah, he's from Arizona, from some secret community with a whole underground bunker set-up and everything. They've got enough water and supplies to last one hundred people twenty years," Jacks said.

"Wow."

"Yeah, but there's only thirty or so people there now. Lou's been picking stragglers up in his plane from all over the country. He scouts once a month."

"Really?"

"Riley, they have all kinds of people - they have a Doctor, a real Doctor and water tanks and a greenhouse system and everything you could ever need."

"A Doctor. That would be good for the baby," I said quietly.

It dawned on me why Winchester was so excited and why the others were so somber. They wanted to leave California and go to Arizona. Maybe they were preparing to do that before I came back. Would they have left? Something told me they would. Even with Connor out there looking for me.

"Arizona. Do you want to go?" I aimed the question at Jacks but looked around the room. Drake sat quietly with his gaze locked on me but no one else made eye contact.

"We're all alone here. And with winter on the way, how are we going to have enough food? We've got tomatoes and beans growing out back, but that's not enough for all of us. We've got a little one to think about now, too. They have a Doctor." Skip leaned back into the couch, looking more harried as the seconds ticked on.

The room began to shrink around me. The browns, greens and blues of the fabrics swirled together into one bright color and the walls pushed inward. I let my head fall down on the counter and pressed my forehead against the coolness of it until the room stopped spinning.

"It's been weeks, Riley. I know you're thinking about Connor, but if he didn't find you and he hasn't come back..." Jacks flinched back from me when I looked up.

"Why do you trust this Lou guy so much? What's the rush, anyway? We have plenty of time before we have to worry about the first snow."

Jacks looked over my head at Skip, who was still leaning into the couch. With a weary nod, he repeated what he already told me, "They have a Doctor, honey."

Of course. How did I miss it? Skip was sick - really sick from the look of his pale skin, sunken eyes and thinner build. He watched me walk across the room and smiled weakly as I sat on the coffee table in front of him.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"Oh, no need to worry, dear."

"How bad is it?"

"Well," he sighed, "I couldn't finish my last round of chemo in December, so I imagine the cancer is having quite a field day in this old body of mine."

"Cancer." We spent so much time worrying about the dangers of our new world that we forgot about the killers of our past. Skip was dying of cancer. "Are you in pain?"

He laughed, "When you get to be my age, something always hurts."

Well, that was true. I was twenty years his junior yet could barely walk after sleeping on the ground. Even climbing out of a real bed in the mornings made my knees creak and complain. He wasn't going to tell me how bad it was - not in front of everyone.

The room did that weird shrinking thing again and I closed my eyes and imagined pushing the walls away from my body until the claustrophobic feeling faded. When I opened my eyes, I saw the gla.s.s of wine still sitting on the counter. It was entirely too far away.

"To Arizona we go, then. We're a family - we stick together. We can leave a note here for Connor. Or I can stay and wait for him."

"We won't leave you here alone," Winchester said.

"Okay. Then, I'll leave a note. I've done it before," I smiled. "When is Lou, coming back?"

"Next week," Skip sighed.

"Let's hope Connor makes it back before then."

"Fin..." I said his name softly but the warm breeze still carried my voice into the trees behind his grave. "Are you here?"

Nothing stirred and of course - nothing answered me. With a long sigh, I sat down next to where his body rested and placed my hand on the overgrown bulge of land. A blade of gra.s.s tickled my ankle where my jeans lifted; the weeds had grown almost a foot since the last rain. Every few seconds, a gnat would fly around my mouth or nose so my hands were in a constant state of fanning the late afternoon air around my head.

"I need to know you're okay, wherever you are," I said. My voice was quiet and hushed. I didn't want the others to hear me talking to the grave. "You know I can't stay here with you, I can't keep seeing you every time the lights go off. I'll never recover - you'll never move on."

The only reply I got was the whistle of the wind in the tree above me. It sailed through the pine canopy like a train and I c.o.c.ked my head to follow the sound all the way into the woods. Even the birds seemed to be listening to the air flowing around them. That moment when you know a storm is coming, when there is electricity in the air and your joints ache a little - that was what it felt like on top of the hill. Like a storm was building in intensity, waiting for the right moment to split open and unleash its fury on anything and everything in its way. Was that what things had come to? Fin as the storm and me as the obstacle that was going to be swept up in its wrath?

With a noisy grunt, I pushed up off the ground and dropped the wildflower I held in my hand on top of where Fin's body rested. "This is all I have left to give you. Move on in peace, my friend."

The wind rushed down the mountains, scattering leaves and dirt across the highway in a frenzied mess. The others had already boarded the plane, each of them with a small bag of personal belongings - two for the baby. But I stood on the shoulder with one foot on the highway asphalt and the other in the soft dirt looking to the east where the stubby manzanitas tapered off as a more desert-like landscape took over. Dawn had come and gone only an hour before and the day held promises of something new.

Lou waited inside the c.o.c.kpit patiently, a.s.suming the reason for my hesitancy was a fear of flying. It wasn't. Even when the small plane roared to life, I kept my feet planted where they were. The moment both of them were on the highway it meant I was really leaving California. I wasn't ready.

"Having second thoughts?" Drake said from behind me.

I shrugged. It was the right thing to do for the group but no matter how many different ways I told myself that, my heart refused to listen. "I'm not sure I'm ready."

"Will you ever be?"

I laughed. It was a hollow sound, a sarcastic laugh. "No."

Drake looked back at the plane as the men inside laughed about something. "Win and Jacks...are they like, a couple?"

"What? Why would you think that?" I blinked at him.

He shrugged. "Win follows that man around like a puppy. And he stares at his a.s.s a lot. They aren't gay?"

"Oh my G.o.d, no!" I scoffed, considering Drake's words carefully. Jacks was a ladies man. Always had been - always would be. But Winchester - Win being gay made perfect sense. His insistence on living in the cabin with Jacks and Ana, his discomfort with kisses and hugs from Kris or me. His good taste in clothing and knowledge about shoes. His impeccable appearance - Win was gay. And he had it bad for Jacks. I suddenly wanted to bolt into the plane and ask him, but obviously, it wasn't something he felt comfortable discussing, otherwise he would have told one of us.

"Wow," I muttered. It didn't bother me in the least, but that I hadn't seen it before shocked me. I wondered if Jacks knew.

"So, are we staying or are we going?"

"I thought you were a loner?" I turned to look at him. He smiled and tugged on my hair.