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The sound of thunder booming throughout the countryside echoed around the old, rundown barn that Theo was currently standing inside of. The roof was holding up relatively well, all things considered, and he was practically rejoicing that he didn’t have to call the roofer to come patch it again. After the big storm last fall, Chimera Ranch had suffered some pretty severe losses, though thankfully none of the residents had gone. The same couldn’t be said for the buildings though, three of which had to be completely rebuilt from the ground up.
A soft, worried whinny pulled Theo’s focus and he slid a calloused hand through the horse’s mane.
“Easy, girl. It’s okay. ‘s just a storm, it’ll pass,” he said, his voice low and soothing.
The horse’s head rose slightly and she shivered underneath the blanket draped over her back. Her hooves pawed at the ground anxiously and she shook her head as another round of booms rattled the barn doors. The other animals in the barn were equally as displeased with the weather as Luna was, but she was the most anxious of the bunch.
Theo’s head lifted up curiously when he heard the doors to the barn open and then close, a singular wet figure ducking inside to get out of the rain. Wet footsteps echoed throughout the barn as the person made their way over to the stall he was in, the clink, clink of spurs somehow still loud despite the ruckus going on outside.
“Were you able to get the hens secured?” he asked.
The figure nodded before pulling off his hat and hanging it on a hook next to one of the stall doors, droplets of rain falling off of it and onto the ground.
“Yeah, everything’s good. Alec was able to get the goats to settle, Josh, Zach, and Brett got the cows in line, and Tracy took care of the sheep,” came the reply.
As he stepped further into the dim light of the bulb hanging above the aisleways, his sun-kissed tan skin and tawny blonde hair came into view and Theo hummed in acknowledgement as he continued to stroke the horse’s mane.
“Okay, good. Did you check on—”
“Yes, the donkey is secured. So are the rabbits, pigs, and dogs.”
Theo breathed out a sigh of relief and took a step forward into the light, the bags of his eyes more pronounced now that they were more visible. Ever since inheriting the ranch from his guardians all those years ago, it’d been one thing after the other. Managing a farm like theirs was hard enough, but also taking care of the orphans that came with it was something else entirely. Thankfully, he had Liam. They’d been through a lot of shit together and, truthfully, couldn’t stand each other half of the time, but they were partners in all of this and wouldn’t have it any other way.
Seven years ago, Theo’s three guardians had died. They’d been running a makeshift orphanage in their house and Theo had inherited not only the ranch, but also all of the kids that came along with it. His brother, Alec, was one of them, along with the twins, Corey and Tracy; the middle child, Hayden; the eldest, Brett; the youngest, Zach; the two troublemakers, Donovan and Josh; and the newest addition to their little pack: Lucas. They were a ragtag bunch of people more outcast from society than the Island of Misfit Toys.
Luna let out a nervous little whinny and shook her head again, her eyes lifting up to look at Liam. Theo reached out and gently slid his palm across the horse’s forehead, soothing her to the best of his ability.
“Storm’s been brewin’ for a few weeks now. It’ll probably last a while, we should bunker down inside.”
Theo shook his head and continued the slow, soothing strokes to Luna’s mane. “I can’t leave her out here all alone, not after what happened with the foal. She’s too vulnerable.”
The mention of the ranch’s most recent loss effectively silenced Liam, words completely escaping him. The birth of the newest addition to their family had been tumultuous to say the least, and the baby hadn’t survived. Nobody knew what was wrong with it, other than it had come out of its mother lifeless and cold.
Liam carefully lifted the latch that secured Luna's stall door and took a step inside, closing the door behind him. The inside of the barn was surprisingly—and pleasantly—warm, despite the frigid winds blowing outside. When he stepped inside, Luna’s head lifted slightly and she nudged at his hand with her nose, effectively demanding attention.
“You think she’ll be okay?” he asked, his hand lifting up to pet her forehead.
Theo looked up at her and hesitated for a moment before eventually nodding. “Yeah, I do. She’s strong. After everything that’s happened, after everything that everyone has lost, I think a ray of sun is due to come our way sometime soon,” he murmured, his voice low, soft, and soothing. “Nothing’s ever all bad. The sun always comes back out again,” he said, reiterating the words that his mom used to tell him as a kid. Before their deaths, before the fire, before everything , she'd drilled that into him and he’d never forgotten it.
“You’re a sap, you know that? If any of the kids heard you talk like that, you’d never live it down.”
Theo’s eye twitched and he reached out to pinch Liam’s arm, causing the younger of the two to lightly yelp.
“Then I suppose they shouldn’t hear it then.”
Just like he said it would, the skies eventually parted and the sun began to peek out of the clouds. The horizon was painted with shades of pinks and blues and purples and oranges, like a mosaic in the clouds. The storm had lasted damn near all night, but Theo and Liam had stayed with the mare until it was safe to leave her. The aches in their feet and backs didn’t matter, not when she was calm and settled.
“That was quite a storm, wasn’t it?”
Theo glanced up from where he was picking up some planks of wood that had fallen during the storm, proceeding to push them back into their rightful place next to the barn.
Hooves steadily clopped along the ground as his closest neighbor, the owner of Beacon Hills Ranch, approached. Scott McCall was a good man, much better than him. He had a heart of gold, despite the multitudes of shit that the world threw at him. As much as Theo had struggled over the years, Scott had struggled just as much. His pregnant wife had died a few years back and he’d poured himself into his work in a way that was incredibly familiar to Theo. It was the same thing he'd done when life hit him like a bag of bricks all those years back, his guardians dying and his household growing by nearly a dozen.
“Yeah, you can say that again. Y’all lose anything?”
Scott shook his head and dismounted, efficiently tying his reins to a large wood block next to him.
“No, we were lucky. In fact, we were digging through the wreckage this morning and found something that you might be interested in.”
He waved a figure over, and when Theo saw what his ranchhand had with him, his eyes widened.
“Is that…?”
“Yeah. We lost one thing during the storm and that was this little guy’s mom.”
The foal was unsteady on his legs as Stiles, Scott’s partner, and Isaac, their resident ranchhand, led him over. His coat was a beautiful golden, like rays of sunlight shimmering across beach sand, his face spattered cloud-white. Theo was taken aback for a moment before he felt his chest tighten, his eyes wide and his heart pounding.
“He’s beautiful. You got a name for him yet?”
Scott laughed softly and patted Theo on the back affectionately before wrapping a casual arm around his shoulders.
“Was thinking you could take care of that bit. Heard y’all were missin’ a foal.”
Theo stared down at the foal, who had to have been only a week or two old. It looked right back up at him after a moment and let out a pure, happy little neigh before stumbling over to him on long, gangly limbs. Theo reached down and gently stroked the foal’s head, the baby leaning into him happily. Maybe this was what he was talking about last night, maybe this was the sun shining through the clouds.
Maybe everything would be alright after all.