To Everything There Is A Season

~A Report~

Owen stood at the corner of the house watching their tiny hostess work with her flowers. He had been startled by her approaching him after lunch. He'd expected it to take longer for her to push back. He was rapidly realizing there was more to the pint-sized mystery than he'd first thought.

"What are you looking at Owen?" Sean asked as he came to a stop beside his best friend.

"An enigma, Sean. When we first met her Miss Sang was quiet and complacent like she needed us to take over but today she requested space. There is a solid core of strength in that young woman."

"I noticed it this morning. The strength isn't a brittle one either. She's more like spring steel or a willow, she will bend under pressure, but she doesn't break." Sean responded his eyes never leave the young woman working across the yard. "She told me about her plants and what they are used for while making butter. She talks about her plants the way you used to. She knows her garden and what everything in it does."

"I noticed that everything she has planted had multiple uses yesterday, but I wasn't sure she knew. Once again, I find myself surprised by her. The fresh rose blooms will most likely be for an essential oil and the resulting rose water. I see coneflowers which are beautiful but also have a couple other more practical uses. Yet the composition of the plantings is pleasing to the eye." Owen told Sean. His gaze finally leaving the busy form of their hostess.

"The more I see and speak with her the more I agree with Dr. Roberts assessment of her being an Academy girl. I'm almost to the point of not being surprised by anything she does. I've watched her outwork all nine of us, roll with repeated blows to the foundations of her world and every time a new revelation about her past or the waste of space she was married to is revealed she gets back up and keeps going." Owen look softened slightly. "Sean, I want to protect her with everything I have yet I know by trying to shield her I will do more damage than good. I need you to help me."

"Always my friend. Besides North will be overprotective enough for all of us. All of them feel it and it will only get worse once they know that Sang has a baby on board. We can only give her room to grow until the rest of them clue into the fact that she's growing a mini-me and not malnourished, which, by the way is what both Nathan and Kota approached me about last night."

"That girl eats better than those seven did at any point during their teens. I remember what they ate during that horrid year at Ashley Waters. That none of them have been seriously sick can only be attributed to you." Owen scoffed at his friend's comment.

Sean shot him and answering grin, "Oh I know none of them needed that many booster shots, I just got a kick out requiring them to come in for vitamin injections. It was my only amusement that year. I hated that school and by November I was really close to hating you for agreeing to take the assignment. I obviously got over it, but that year nearly broke us, and we never really fixed the fractures."

"I know. I kept hoping that I could find a way to fix what my decision broke. Five years Sean. I've been trying to fix my mistake and now I find all it took was a tiny blonde with a heart bigger than she is, a head full of practical knowledge we need and a spine that flexes but doesn't break. She could have been our kryptonite but is turning out to be the balm our souls needed."

"You weren't alone in trying to fix us. Do you remember what Gabe did for Luke's birthday this year? Yeah in part they went to try and pull Luke out of his grief induced fog but mostly it was to try and get a few of our brothers to relax. I just never expected to see Silas in a sparkly G-string ever in my life. I still wake up screaming. Though to be fair he really can work a pole." Sean smirked at the memory. "I thought North was going to blow a gasket multiple times that night but all he did was laugh. I watched the mayhem that was the Blackbourne team in a strip club and for the first time in five years I saw a glimmer of who we used to be."