Epilogue
Ronin walked along the sidewalk, optics roaming over the park across the street.
As many times as he’d seen it in the fifty-one years since he’d come to Cheyenne, he never tired of it—the place was ever changing.
Most of its grounds had been repurposed for farming decades ago, coupling with the fields outside town to leave Cheyenne with a food surplus that attracted traders from distant settlements.
Children ran and played between rows of crops, laughing and smiling, getting especially giggly when fieldworkers shooed them away.
Ronin knew them all by name, knew which of them were likely to leave signs on Mr. Mather’s back, which unfortunately included one of his great grandchildren, Rae.
The teacher still hadn’t caught on to their tricks.
“Dad!”
Stopping, Ronin turned. Tabitha jogged toward him with a bundle of Indian Paintbrush flowers in her hand.
Ronin’s memory flashed back to the first time he’d held his daughter. Tabitha had been so tiny and fragile, small enough to hold in one hand. It hadn’t mattered that her biological father was someone else, Ronin had bonded with her instantly. She was his. His baby.
Now, Tabitha was a woman with grown children and a few grandkids of her own.
She possessed so many of Lara’s features—the red hair, the bright blue eyes, the stubborn streak.
The forty-seven years since her birth had gone by too quickly, though they’d been full of joy, meaning, learning, and adapting.
Tabitha grinned as she reached him. “Found these on my way back from the fields. I thought Mom would like them.”
Smiling, Ronin accepted the flowers. “She’ll love them.”
“How’s she been? I visited with Lucas and the grandbabies yesterday, but I think they tired her out pretty quick.”
Lucas, Tabitha’s oldest, had two young daughters who often visited Ronin and Lara, Rae and Sadie. Rae was a handful on her own, but paired with her little sister… The two were far too mischievous, clever, and hilarious for their own good.
Ronin couldn’t express how much he loved them.
He cupped Tabitha’s cheek with his free hand, brushing a thumb over her dusting of freckles. “She doesn’t quite have the endurance she used to. But to be fair, those kids tire me out too.”
She chuckled as he lowered his arm. “Tell me about it. Anyway, Dan’s waiting on me, so I gotta run.
We’re going to help with some repairs on the wall.
Let mom know I’ll stop by tomorrow. It’s my day off, so I can help her around the house if she needs it.
Oh, and I was talking with Sam, Mel, and Mandy, and we want to try to get everyone all together in the next couple weeks.
We’re trying to coordinate with everyone. ”
“That sounds great. I’ll let her know.”
Tabitha stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek. “Love you guys.”
He hugged her back and kissed the top of her head the same way he had throughout her youth. “Love you too, Tabby.”
As Ronin watched her go, he couldn’t silence the question whispering across his processors.
Had he been right to downplay the truth and deflect with humor?
Tabitha wasn’t a child anymore. She knew Lara’s health was waning, knew that, despite the comforts they’d all worked hard to have, death remained a reality in Cheyenne.
She’d been old enough to understand what was happening during the famine when she was a child, and she’d been nearly twenty when sickness swept through town and killed dozens.
That had been amongst the hardest lessons Ronin and Lara had learned as parents—that no matter what they did, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t shield their child from the world.
Tabitha was mature, strong, observant, and compassionate. He knew she would be able to handle anything. But he still couldn’t bring himself to say anything that would dim the love and joy that always sparkled in her eyes.
Finally, he resumed his walk, greeting the neighbors who were outside tending their gardens as he passed. Though flowers had become popular in recent years, adding color to the neighborhood, many humans still kept their own plots of crops.
The struggles of the past had not been forgotten. Most of the humans who’d suffered under Warlord and revolted against him were gone, but their legacies continued, carried on by their children and grandchildren, new generations who worked alongside bots to build and maintain a prosperous community.
When he reached his residence, Ronin opened the front gate and entered the yard, closing it gently.
Coming home like this felt strange sometimes.
He remembered when this had just been a place to store and care for his gear, a temporary stop between his long treks into the Dust. Back then, it had been a building devoid of life, largely empty of purpose.
But Lara had made it into a home.
Ronin climbed the steps onto the porch, where chimes crafted from scrap metal Lara had collected over the years tinkled quietly in the breeze. It was the same sound that had drawn him to her half a century ago.
The lure of fate.
He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “Lara?”
The living room walls didn’t have a single bare patch. His wife had remained a collector, as she dubbed herself, throughout her life. Decades’ worth of trinkets adorned the walls and shelves, displayed proudly for any guests to see.
“In here!” she called.
Ronin followed her voice toward the kitchen, passing the seashells she’d gathered when they visited the ocean.
There was a jar of sand from the same trip on one of the end tables, with a heart-shaped rock pressed against the inside of the glass.
Ronin hadn’t understood the need to bring more sand back to a town already full of dust and dirt, but he’d carried it nonetheless.
Lara stood at the counter, smearing jam onto a slice of bread. Her eyes were fixed on the task, her movements slow and deliberate, but she looked up at him the moment he stepped into the room. She smiled, and wrinkles bunched at the corners of her eyes.
Her hair was gray now. She’d panicked when she found her first gray hair, locking herself in the bathroom for more than an hour, crying, before Ronin had finally forced the door open to ensure she was okay.
She’d taken it as a sign of her mortality, and had been convinced he would leave her at any moment.
But she was as beautiful to him now as when he first saw her. Even more so, after the life they’d shared.
“Tabby found some flowers for you,” he said, holding up the bundle.
“She could’ve brought them herself.” The trembling of her hand was hard to miss as she set the knife down. “She only lives three houses away, and I would’ve loved to see her.”
“She and Dan are assisting with repairs on the wall, which means she was already running late. Tomorrow is her free day. She said she’ll come by.”
Her smile widened. “I’m so proud of her. Of all of them.”
“They had the best mother this side of the Dust,” Ronin replied, smiling as well.
Tabitha had been Lara’s only biological child, as complications during labor had made another pregnancy too risky.
But they’d adopted and raised three other children who they loved just as much as Tabby—Samuel, Melissa, and Amanda.
Their ages had varied, with Melissa having been the oldest at fifteen, but they’d all needed a home. A family.
Lara chuckled and lifted her arms toward him. “Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come say hello?”
Ronin crossed the room and embraced her, gently but warmly, running a hand down her long, silver braid.
“Hello.” He dipped his head to kiss her.
“Hello,” she said against his lips. When she drew her head back, she met his gaze. “Would you put the flowers in water for me?”
“Of course.” He placed the flowers on the counter, picked up her bread, and took her arm. She leaned on him as she walked to the table, where he pulled a chair out with his boot and helped her ease into it.
“You’re always so good to me.”
“It’s no less than you deserve, Lara Brooks.”
“Still calling me Lara Brooks after all this time.” She shook her head, but there was mirth in her eyes as she picked up the bread and took a bite.
Ronin found a vase in the cabinet and filled it with water from the sink. “I’ve told you already, just because I married you without having a surname of my own doesn’t mean you get to drop yours.”
Turning to the counter, his gaze caught on the granite.
There were several cracks that had been repaired, spiderwebbing out from the spot where his fist had struck it.
He played that memory in his mind. It had been the turning point for the both of them, the moment Lara had seen him as more than a machine.
The moment she had seen him as a man.
Ronin ran a finger over one of the seams that had been filled in.
After adding the flowers to the vase, he returned to the table and placed them at its center.
She’d only taken two bites when she set the bread down and raised a hand to her forehead, pressing her fingers to her temple. “It’s too early to be so tired.”
“Sunset is in less than an hour.” Ronin tilted his head with a grin. “And when have you ever passed up an opportunity for me to take you to bed, anyway?”
Lara chuckled. “We can go upstairs, as long as you promise not to rip my shirt this time.” Her smile was strained, her face too pale.
Ronin brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “Come then, my wife.”
He pulled out her chair and lifted her into his arms. Lara’s weight had always been slight to him, but she was thinner now than ever before. She slid her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her up to the bedroom.
Ronin set her on her feet beside the bed, and she took his face between her hands, kissing him.
He returned the kiss and undressed her. His hands brushed over her skin, which was so changed, yet so familiar, lingering on the stretch marks and scars.
They were evidence of a hard-fought life made all the more precious by its struggles.
He touched his forehead to hers. “You remain the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“You’ve always made me feel that way.”
He helped her into her nightgown and pulled back the covers.
She slipped into bed slowly. Ronin kicked off his boots and changed out of his dirty clothes, putting on a plain shirt and a pair of shorts.
He climbed onto the bed and drew her into his arms, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder.
Her body still fit against his perfectly.
Lara’s light breath tickled the sensors on his skin. He took her braid in one hand, absently running his fingertips along it.
“I never thought I’d have this life,” she said softly.
“Neither did I. It is more than I could have ever hoped for.”
She reached up and brushed her fingers over his jaw. “Even after all these years, I haven’t had enough time to love you.”
Her words pierced him; they were too final, too true. He settled a hand on her cheek and stroked his thumbs over the fine wrinkles near her eye. Ten thousand years wouldn’t have been enough, but this…it was much, much too soon.
“We have years more to go, Lara.”
“Bots always say what they mean,” she said, “but that doesn’t make it the truth.”
“Lara, I—”
“Shh.” She placed a finger over his lips as she met his gaze. Her smile was warm, though her eyes were tired. “Will you stay with me while I sleep?”
“You know I always do.”
“And you know I always ask.”
She relaxed, her weight settling against him, and soon her breathing evened out. He measured time by the slow, faint beat of her heart, pulling up memories from their life together.
Her sunburn after her first day working in the fields despite the lengths to which she’d gone to cover herself.
The joyous smile she’d worn the first time she held Tabitha and the tears that had followed.
Her patience with the townsfolk when they came to her—the mother of the revolution that had set them free—for advice.
The life glowing in her eyes when she danced, just for him.
And every time she’d told him she loved him.
Two hours and eleven minutes after midnight, she released her final breath. It flowed over Ronin’s skin gently, the last caress from the woman he loved with all the power in his processors. He held her close and shut his eyes, pressing his lips to her hair.
“I will love you even after darkness takes me,” he whispered.
“Mom? Dad?” Tabitha called as she stepped through the front door of her parents’ home. Silence greeted her. She checked the kitchen, where a plate with a partly eaten slice of jellied bread was upon the table along with the flowers she’d picked yesterday.
“Mom?” she called again, unable to keep the worry from her voice. It was early, and her mother had been more tired than usual lately…though shouldn’t her father have answered?
She hurried upstairs. The door to their bedroom was ajar, and her heart pounded as she approached it.
She knocked. There was no reply.
“You guys in here?” Tabitha pushed the door open all the way.
Tabitha knew the moment she saw them. Tears blurred her eyes as she staggered to the bed, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as though she could hold in the sound of her own heartbroken silence.
Her mother lay with her father, both unmoving. The casing on his back had been pried open. He clutched a power cell in his hand.
Blinking away her tears, Tabitha picked up the folded paper that lay atop him with a trembling hand. She wiped her eyes and read it.
Tabby, Sam, Mel, and Mandy,
I am so sorry to make this your burden. You may not understand now, but I hope you will in time. We have lived long, happy lives together. My place remains at your mother’s side. I cannot continue on, unchanging, as my children and grandchildren live and die.
I ask that you do not reactivate me. Please bury me with your mother, so I can fulfill my promise and be with her during her long sleep.
Know that we are proud of all of you and the people you have grown to be, and that our love will always be with you. When your mother was young, we changed the world. It is up to you to continue shaping it into something beautiful for everyone.
With Love,
Dad