Epilogue

Kieu-Linh sat on the porch on the warm Spring day, rocking slowly with her feet propped on a small stool. The weather had turned mild early that year, bringing rain and melting the snow cover in late March a few weeks earlier than normal. April brought more moderate rains and warmth, as did May, and it was with a smile that she thought it might be a nice Summer spent with those she loved.

She cradled her daughter against her bared breast, her shirt off, no shame or embarrassment even as Jimmy stepped by her with a heavy jug of fresh milk, heaving it into the cabin. They'd all grown close over the many months spent living together, and it was not uncommon to see naked flesh of others, or to hear passionate cries in the day or night as one couple or another took pleasure in intimate touches.

Juliana-Ly suckled softly on her tit, her daughter calm and sleepy, and Kieu-Linh held her with love and genuine affection for the small child in her arms. It had taken a few months before her egg had caught her husband's seed and began growing within her body. They'd celebrated and chosen names for each possible sex. Juliana-Ly, combining a version of Hitch's first wife's name with that of Kieu-Linh's mother, had been the one she hoped to be able to use.

She remembered the times she'd talked to James about having a child, and at first, he had been a bit uncertain. Not that he said so, but it showed in his tone. But it clearly grew on him over time, and after returning from the west, he never withdrew or preferred to finish somewhere other than her vagina. Kieu-Linh loved the sensations it gave her, made more thrilling to think that he might be setting her with child each time. When she finally missed her period, and then, a month later, missed another, the morning sickness and general malaise she felt at times made it certain that she was pregnant.

Kieu-Linh had given birth two months earlier, in March, without serious complications. James was there with her father and mother, and she'd squeezed her husband's hand so tightly it dislocated one of his fingers. He'd said nothing, showing no signs of the pain, letting her hold fast until the delivery was complete.

Later, when she'd repeatedly apologized, he would laugh and tell her it was no less than what she'd endured for him, and he still owed her more. Thankfully, the finger was easily, if painfully, brought back into alignment, and he had healed well since those days.

Kieu-Linh had never fully admitted to her husband her fears during combat, but she had taken Willow's confidence on the matter as comfort. Willow talked to her often about it, and Kieu-Linh had felt safe to honestly admit how much she trembled during the Siege, how she'd dry heaved several times, vomiting little but water, from the fright and horror she felt. She'd pissed herself at least once, ashamed to admit it to the woman. She'd frozen, uncertain what to do several times, and there were moments she almost ran from the battlefield in terror. Kieu-Linh knew that her valorous medal citation didn't fully reflect the reality of all that she'd experienced.

But Willow shared with her some of her moments of fear and such feelings. She, too, had pissed herself in fear once or twice, and she knew many others, men and women, who had done the same, and everyone had felt the desperate urge to run and hide and never return. The only thing that mattered, Willow assured her, was that none of that fear, that shame, kept Kieu-Linh from her duty. She'd let her courage win out, Willow had said, and she'd shown herself able to function effectively despite her fears. Being afraid was normal, and expected, but the way Kieu-Linh had performed under such terrible stress, Willow had told her, was even more impressive given the newness of the experiences and the brutality of the combat that night.

Kieu-Linh understood, better, what James experienced when he went away in his mind. It had been happening less and less over the months, but was not completely lost. He suffered less often, however, and came out of each episode more quickly and with less confusion. Kieu-Linh understood those moments better after her own combat, and the ways those experiences had triggered in her moments of sudden terror, of waking in the night, panicked, looking for cover when a log cracked and fell in the fire. She sometimes felt sick to her stomach for no reason, and it wasn't just during her pregnancy. Vivid gore and horrible screams sometimes flooded into her mind, the sudden belief that she was in danger, trapped, pinned down, and it took effort and help to regain control. James shushed her and held her, calming her fears and letting her use his strength to let go her memories for a time.

Her thigh still ached, some nights after a lot of exertion, but it had healed well and no longer much troubled her. The last few months, she'd done less and less as her pregnancy bloomed and she then had a small child to feed and look after. James took Juliana-Ly often so that Kieu-Linh could bathe or nap, and she smiled to think how he was such a kind and gentle father to their daughter.

Her own father and mother held up over the year and a half or so since Kieu-Linh had returned with James and Willow from the west, despite growing older, her mother still looked young and appeared lively, her father less so but still getting around and full of energy for a man his age. He'd suffered a small downtime the previous Winter during a bout of intestinal distress, but he'd come through fine, and from the sounds they made in their bedroom in the night, Kieu-Linh knew her parents were still intimate and enjoying each other fully.