Chapter Text
Caitlyn is, quite enthusiastically, reworking the final paragraph of her essay on maintaining veterinary standards and etiquette when her Apple Watch dings with an “urgent” message from campus police. It’s probably another bear sighting or an alert for drunk students causing havoc after their final exam. She should probably leave it alone and keep studying, but she kind of wants to know which one it is and if she was right or not.
She opens a new tab and clicks into her university email. The subject is an unhelpful “UM Alerts”, but sure enough, one line into the text proves her right. A black bear was spotted on the M trail near the jogging path at around 3:47 PM and though the animal is not behaving aggressively, students are advised to stay “bear aware” and observe the following protocol.
By this point, Caitlyn’s desensitized to any unexpected wildlife wandering into campus, just as she has long since stopped jokingly informing her father about each incident. A Cambridge graduate, he is well and truly mortified that his only daughter lives in such close proximity to predators he has only seen in pictures.
The bears are harmless, it’s the mountain goats that have to be avoided, but Caitlyn only ever crosses those when hiking. Either way, she has nothing to fear holed up in the library at 4 PM on the Friday of finals week. Everyone else and their mother is done with it and out celebrating, and Caitlyn is rather close to being done with both the baby and the bath water, but she knows she can take her cumulative essay from exemplary to perfect if she just tweaks a few things. The essay’s not due until nine PM, she’s got time. Vi will forgive her for being late. She knows better now than to plan some big surprise celebration. She’s sat around waiting for Cait to come home and kick back enough times to know that Cait will use every last available second to ensure the work she puts out is as flawless as can be.
Vi has been working awfully hard lately, working long hours and house hunting with every spare second she finds. Sure, Caitlyn’s been in educational hell the last…well forever but Vi too deserves a proper celebration, at least something nice to show her how grateful Caitlyn is for her taking the brunt of this “buying a home” debacle while Cait slaves over textbooks and practicums. The bars in Missoula will still be open after nine PM, she could take Vi out for a nice stiff drink…although, the bars will all be hell with celebrating college students…maybe she could pick up a bottle of Jack and a two liter of Diet Coke. Vi would appreciate that.
If she’s going to the liquor store, she might as well pick up burritos from next door. Vi will cook dinner if not told otherwise so Caitlyn breaks from her rumination to shoot her girlfriend a quick text. Before she can even open her contact though, her phone buzzes with an incoming call from Vi no less, which is a bit strange since she knows not to bother Cait tonight.
“Hello?” She answers in a library safe voice (despite the library being entirely empty).
“Hey, Caity,” Vi greets in a typical sing-songy voice. Never one to resist her charms, Cait smiles into her palm.
“Hi, Darling, what is it?”
“Well…” Vi kicks around the subject of the call like a tin can. “I’ve just put down a deposit on a house—“
“What?!” Caitlyn claps a hand over her mouth in shame but there’s not a soul around her to shush her.
“I’m settling with the seller right now if you’d like to come see the place and give it the okay.”
Caitlyn’s been absolutely swamped with her studies. She's had barely a second to dedicate to the house hunt, ironic, since they live in a van. The market in Missoula is slim pickings, hence why it’s taken most of the semester and why it’s easier for them to just live out of the converted van they already own. Vi’s shared a few listings with Caitlyn before but they’re both rather picky about their first, and possibly “forever” home so Vi only shared the very best. The knowledge that Vi is prepared, day of, to drop hard cash is actually comforting.
“I didn’t even know you were looking at properties today. Where is it? What is it?” The place must be a bloody monument of architecture if Vi is this up to bat for it.
“It’s about an hour-thirty north of Missoula near Flathead so you better get driving if you want to see it.”
“An hour? I can’t do that commute during school, not during winter.”
“This place is worth it. We’ll be okay.”
“Why? How?”
“Cait, you’re going to think I’ve lost my mind,” Vi warns, unswayed by Cait’s very logical reasoning. “Maybe I have, but I need you to trust me. This is our place.”
Caitlyn slows down and listens to the unshakable certainty in Vi’s voice. She’s convinced alright, and Cait did give her full reign over the home search…If Vi’s convinced…Cait’s convinced.
“Okay,” she sighs, “Wait for me?”
The grin in Vi’s voice is audible. “Always.”
Caitlyn hurries through the last of her sentence and submits her paper as is.
***
Vi wasn’t kidding about the commute. The address is in the middle of nowhere. Caitlyn leaves the paved city roads of Missoula and heads north along Swan River, driving alongside miles and miles of reservation land until the progressively trickier roads curve around Flathead Lake and take her deeper into forested mountain terrain.
The sun sets late in May, but the hills obscure it long before it sets so it’s dark by the time Cait’s GPS (cutting in and out with the thin service) spits her out in front of a huge gate and barbed wire fence that, as far as she can tell, wraps for miles in either direction. Half a dozen ‘keep out’ and ‘private property’ signs decorate the gate and the surrounding trees, but this is the address Vi sent. When she gets out of her car, nothing prevents her from pushing open the gate and driving through it up the long, winding dirt road to the house. Nothing but free-roaming chickens that seem to want to be ran over, leisurely strolling out of the way of Cait's Subaru.
It’s clear the occupant(s) of the home have been gone a long time. Ancient, abandoned tractors, lawn mowers and other such farm equipment dot the land banking the road, some so sedentary the grass has grown all around it and the ground has started to swallow it. The house isn’t in much better condition. A view of just the front side is a hodgepodge of…everything under the sun. The yard is full of junk, plain junk. Caitlyn can’t begin to identify what it all is, so disguised by rust and dirt, and the house itself is washed out and rotting, all its windows boarded up with heavy sheets of plywood. There is a lovely patio table and chairs that appears to be the home of several squirrels. A bird feeder on a pole drilled directly through the front porch is hanging on by a single fraying hunk of wood. Old toy bikes, metal ones from the fifties and sixties, toy shovels, dolls…an array of abandoned children’s toys haunt the eastern half of the grand porch. Caitlyn swallows down an uneasy gulp as she passes it all and approaches the front door. ‘No soliciting’ signs cover the front door to the point that Caitlyn cannot tell what the color of the door is, much less the type of wood.
Nailed into the faded wood paneling is a delightful bit of charm; a carved sign of two cheerful beavers and a welcome home plaque. The paint is chipped, barely an outline of the original words remain, and the beavers are so weather-worn their eyes are haunting, soleless pricks of black paint, but like the child’s toys, it’s an eerie bit of comfort to an otherwise haunted ass home.
The window is, of course, covered with a curtain so she can’t see inside. Her fist is raised to knock when she thinks better of it and calls Vi.
“Hi, baby.”
“Violet.”
“I told you to trust me.”
Caitlyn sighs into pincered fingers. “What is this place?”
“It’s a gold mine.”
“It’s a rat’s nest.”
“None of that,” Vi scolds, “Vicente is a lovely man.”
“Who is—”
“Hold on. We’ll come get you now.”
Vi hangs up, leaving Caitlyn alone with swaying pines and a spitty, summer breeze. Behind the clutter, beyond the disarray, is beautiful land, wooded hills stretching in either direction as far she can see. There’s a path of sorts, unkempt and overgrown stretching through new growth of weeds and saplings toward a wretched little barn with a sagging roof two inches of snow away from collapsing entirely.
It’s that barn exactly Vi emerges from, followed by a short man in a cowboy hat as broad as his shoulders.
Vi greets her with a grin and a kiss. She’s sweaty, just from walking around the property, her overshirt tied poorly around her waist and a bandana looped around her head, pushing wet hair back. She has on a zany smile, one that’s very dangerous if Cait has any intuition worth salt.
The seller is a haggard, elderly Latino man. He hikes up the porch step like it’s a mountain, even needing Vi’s arm to help him over the last step. He pats her affectionately on the arm and points a wrinkled finger at Caitlyn.
“This you’re girl?” he asks in accented English, so soft spoken he’s scarcely more than whispering.
Vi snakes an arm around Caitlyn’s waist. She’s hot and sweaty and smells like animal musk and gasoline but Cait leans into her touch anyhow. She’s used to the barn smell by now.
“Yes she is,” Vi chirps, the proud arm sliding lower.
Vicente smiles, almost toothlessly. “She’s very pretty.”
That arm tightens around Caitlyn’s ass. “Yes, she is.”
“She is ready to see this place,” Caitlyn grumbles, stepping out of Vi’s grip. “I’ve yet to see what’s so special about it.”
It’s a remarkably beautiful patch of land, beneath all the junk and filth, but that isn’t unique to this listing. Any property they pick will offer stunning landscapes, ones they won’t have to gut top to bottom to make it remotely inhabitable.
“Where are you from?” Vicente asks, clicking his tongue at Caitlyn’s accent. A posh London accent isn’t exactly incognito in cattle county. She answers that question so often she ought to wear a pin with the answer on her blouse.
“London,” she answers coolly, “England.” Caitlyn has lived a bit of everywhere, but her heart will always be in the cobbled streets of London. Her father remains in London, in his empty, drafty townhome with nothing but the Dobermans to keep him company, and an urn.
The man, quiet, but warm, claps a hand to his heart with a splutter. “I may not know my left from my right but I know my east from west,” he winks. Vi laughs. Caitlyn does not find it particularly funny.
“What are you doing all the way over here?” he asks, still in that hoarse whisper she barely hears.
Caitlyn opens her mouth to give him a non-answer to shut him down, but Vi raises a cheeky hand and flashier smile, “Me.”
Caitlyn dials up her glare to a six, nothing too severe…yet.
Vicente’s held completely captivated by their life’s details. He props one elbow of a rotting fencepost and waves them on imploringly. “How’d you two meet?
“University of Southern California,” Caitlyn explains with a very careful swallow. “We were roommates Freshman year.”
Vi arm finds its way around her shoulders again, respectfully this time. “We’ve spent every summer since in a different part of the world, traveling.”
Road tripping across the southwest one summer, camping in the Olympic peninsula another…walking the Appalachian trail…backpacking through Turkey, sailing through the Mediterranean, dune climbing in Western Sahara…there are pages and pages of their passports stamped, each one with a catalog of stories to follow. They lived somewhat of a double life, glued to their studies eight months out the year, then off adventuring the other four. Caitlyn had studied for her DVM certification from the deck of a catamaran in the Adriatic sea and her NAVLES out of the back of a van at the foot of Mount Denali. Unconventional, for sure, but Cait wouldn’t have it any other way, not when every place they visited brought her closer with Vi. They’ve seen so much of the world together, enough of it to know they belong right here, in the sleepy mountains of Montana.
“And why this corner of the world?” Vicente asks, his mouth pinched in what might be a scowl if he wasn’t so smiley.
“My old man was here. He had a sheep and steer ranch up the north side of the lake.” Vi continues, her eyes growing wider the way they do whenever she mentions her family. Caitlyn didn’t think it was normal to love family as much as Vi did hers. Caitlyn loves her father, of course, and, yes, her mother, terribly, but Vi loves in a way that was entirely foreign to her; vicious, sincere and unwavering. She’d shown Cait how family could be, even though they’d spent the first four years of their relationship removed entirely from either of their families. The school years away from home and the summers off traveling were hard on Vi, hence why Caitlyn had applied to the University of Montana for her doctorate.
“Ah, family,” Vicente clicks, “Family is good, best even.”
“Is that where you’re off too?” Vi asks. Amongst the two of them, she’s always been the one to flourish with small talk. “Family?”
Vicente’s eyes grow foggy as he stares off at the never ending tree line, “Aye, no,” he whispers, barely moving his lips, “no family for Vicente.”
Vi claps his shoulder, head bent and says something in Spanish. Vicente slaps her right back and waves her off, clicking and tisking. “Ah, ah, Ms. Violet, here…” He digs in his jeans pockets and brandishes a ring of keys with weapon status at her. “Go in. I’ll be in the barn, just finishing up.”
Vi nods and beckons Cait over to the front door. She holds out her hand for Cait to hold onto as she walks over the loose boards that were lazily thrown over rotted out sections of the decking.
“Violet,” Caitlyn sniffs the moment Vicente is out of ear shot. “What on earth have you gotten us into?”
“I know it looks bad,” Vi starts, forcing a key that obviously doesn’t belong into the front doors’ lock. She tries another, and another. “But I think you’ll see the potential.”
Caitlyn doubts she’ll be able to see much of anything beyond all the clutter. How Vicente expects to have all this cleaned up by their move in date is beyond her. There is easily weeks’ worth of work in just the front yard alone. How had he expected to sell the place with it looking so poorly? How long had it been listed before Vi, just the right idiot for the job, decided it was worth it? Finally, after maybe seven keys, Vi gets the right one and the door swings open.
The inside is…so much worse than Caitlyn ever could have imagined. From wall to wall (and in some places, floor to ceiling) there’s stuff. So much stuff it’s hard to imagine one man could accumulate it over one lifetime. There’s normal things, a rack of hooks full of coats, a dining room table, a sofa, a Lazy Boy, a TV table and cabinet, but every surface is covered in belongings new and old, useful and useless. Caitlyn is immediately so overwhelmed she cannot rightly take inventory of just how much there is or what half the stuff even is.
The walls are a deep burnt orange and wreak of cigarettes and mouse droppings. The heavy smell instantly disarms her, scrambling all her capabilities for critical thinking. Beneath the clutter, She recognizes a large family room with the landmarks of a wooden staircase, a wood burning stove, a hanging chandelier made of antlers…simple, beautiful features rendered absolutely useless underneath all the junk.
“Well…” Cait swallows and puts a lot of dedicated effort into remaining polite. “I’m sure it’ll be a lot better without all this mess.”
Vi grins, grabbing her by the arm and tugging her toward her. Arm around her shoulders, she sweeps a hand out toward the cluttered room. “Come here, imagine with me: this whole front room as a living space, sofa and chairs by the fire, obviously, built-ins here by these windows for a little book nook for a work space…”
Caitlyn cannot actually see through the windows. Sections of plywood or dark curtains are shoved inside the frames blocking any light or view. Cait is not near as imaginative as Vi is. She does best when everything is laid out in front of her with all the evidence visible to the naked eye. Until she sees something with her own two eyes she can’t quite believe it.
She carefully picks her way through the mess with a purpose till she reaches the corner of the room with all the boarded windows and wastes no time prying the make-shift shutters from the frames and tossing them on the ground in a haphazard pile. Vi doesn’t miss a single beat joining her in manhandling the windows free of obstruction. There’s barely any natural light left in the sky to be let in, but the twilight kissed view, though unimpressive, makes the space infinitely more inviting. It’s mostly trees—huge, overgrown pines and young shrubby trees, but just beyond that is a sliver of running water—a creek trickling around the home and deeper into the property. In a million different AUs, Cait sees herself studying for hours right here, watching the trees sway and the water run.
“You’re imagining, aren’t you?” Vi nudges, her tone dangerously amused. Cait nudges her back.
“I’ve imagined. Where’s the kitchen?”
Vi laughs, “Why do you care?” For as long as they’ve been together, Cait doesn’t think she’s made a single meal for herself. Not for lack of want or capability (though her culinary skills are fairly stunted) She’s easily distracted and consumed by her studies and after so long of Vi hounding Cait with reminders to eat she’s finally picked up the mantle of just cooking for Cait herself. Cait doesn’t feel bad about it because she knows Vi loves to do it. Food is somewhat of her love language, which yes, was hard to express when they were living out of a converted van and cooking on a one-burner electric range. That’s why Caitlyn cares, she wants Vi to have the most glorious kitchen in which she can make Caitlyn divine things.
There’s barely a path to be taken past the windows and into the little hallway, but Vi leads the way through a corridor of cabinets (some bolted shut) and into a side door that spits them out into the grandest space of the whole home so far; sprawling counters, (a stained, chipped laminate), a double range with a picturesque backsplash and hood, a drop down ceiling of tempered glass that will let in sunlight during the day, yet another nook of windows (curtains pulled tightly shut) with a chipped round table and chairs, and curiously, a hole in the wall. It’s an intentional hole—it must be, is a clearly cut rectangle that peeps into the other room, similarly filled with junk. The most Caitlyn can see through it is a taxidermized deer head. She peaks through it anyhow and to her surprise, the cut out leads to a home bar. It’s a legit, four poster bar with countertops and barstools and shelves upon shelves of dusty liquor bottles and specialized glasses. The counters are cluttered, as is the room beyond it, and there’s some more windows covered up with curtains, long, grand ones to match the size of the tall windows.
“Think of the meals I could cook us in here,” Vi says, stretching her wingspan across the island counter. “No more meal kits on the camper stove.”
Truthfully, Caitlyn never minded their simple, camp-stove meals. It was hard to be picky about a hot meal when they’d spent the whole day backpacking through wilderness and it’s hard to care when one glance up reveals the biggest, bluest, sprawling night sky she’s seen, stuffed full with sparkling white dots and cosmos of stars upon stars. That said, Caitlyn can’t wait to see what Vi can do in a proper kitchen.
“It needs gutting,” Caitlyn decides, taking in the painfully nineteen-eighties interior in a slow circle.
“The kitchen?” Vi shrugs, “sure, it’s a little dated but I don’t mind it. It’s like Vander’s kitchen.” She looks around fondly, and Cait knows she’s overruled.
“The whole place,” Cait argues, gesturing around with a shudder. They’ve toured two and a half rooms and there’s already enough work to last the entire summer. “It’s disgusting. Then, there’s the matter of the integrity of the structure. Have you gotten an inspector? The roof looks ready to come down and the wood’s practically rotting off the home.”
“We’ll fix it,” Vi promises, unphased. “I’m handy and you’re rich,” is all the assurance she gives. “Besides, you’re exaggerating, this place has charm. It’s no Kensington apartment, but it’s got spirit. Don’t you agree?”
“It’s got rubbish,” Cait shrugs, wandering into the bar room next door. More clutter packs the floors.
“You call it rubbish, I call it spirit,” Vi grins, grabbing a corner post of the bar and stepping onto the rail. “Look at all this treasure…There’s even already a pool table.”
Caitlyn looks around dumbfoundedly, “Where…” She identifies a structure, obscured beneath a plastic tarp and boxes and boxes of records. She looks at Vi curiously. “Is the pool table staying?”
Vi mirrors her blank face, then swallows carefully. “Cait…” she hops down from the rail and approaches slowly. She grabs Cait’s hands and brings her fingers to her lips. Cait braces herself for a bombshell. “It’s all staying.”
Caitlyn exhales thinly through her nostrils. “All of it?”
Vi nods. Her eyes are so sweet and dreamy, Cait can’t resist giving into them, even though her ears have started to ring.
“We’ll be clearing junk for years…” She shakes her head, “the front yard alone…”
“It isn’t that bad,” Vi says. Cait can’t tell if she’s lying to convince Cait or if she genuinely believes that. “A lot of this stuff is really cool. We can reuse it, or recycle or even donate most of it.” She squeezes Cait’s fingers, “It’s not like we need the money.”
Caitlyn is a trust fund kid, wealthy since conception, but she doesn’t live off her father’s money. She sustains herself on the exorbitant inheritance of her mother’s legal dynasty. Would Cassandra approve of her pouring hundreds of thousands into a dumpster fire of a home? If it was Caitlyn’s home, maybe, and after all, hundreds of thousands is scarcely a drop in the bucket of her personal coffers.
“I can’t talk you out of this, can I?” She whispers, slotting her forehead to Vi’s. Bent at that angle, she sees how wide and excited Vi’s eyes truly are. She’s wanted a home for ages now. Cait knows Vi enjoyed their time on the road. Growing up in a sleepy cattle town in Montana never let her see much of the world. Running from a slew of personal tragedies, Vi was almost more eager to escape than Cait was, but underneath all that fear of loss, she craved stability and permanence. Cait never doubted they’d have that. She’d grown up wanting for nothing and she was determined to give Vi the same. Then her mother died and everything she thought was guaranteed wasn’t anymore. She wants it too—a place for Vi and her to call their own, something that’s theirs, something they’ll build their life on. As overwhelming as this particular something seems, Caitlyn’s ready for it.
Vi catches that look Caitlyn gives her and grins ear to ear. “I already put a down payment in,” she says gleefully. “It’s ours.”
They’re homeowners. For so long, as care-free young twenty-somethings, their home has been the road, but now, at twenty-eight, they’ve got a place to rest.
“You’re crazy,” Cait whispers, holding Vi’s jaw in her hands and kissing the bridge of her nose.
”You love it,” Vi smirks, kissing her back.
Caitlyn shakes her head, “I love you.”
They pull apart with a prolonged kiss, Caitlyn savoring the smell of axle grease. He looks around at the home—at their house. “Have you actually looked in every room in this house?” she questions, “There are no bodies?”
Vi holds the back of her head bashfully, “Does mounted game count?”
There’s three buck heads and a duck in the bar room alone. Coming from a family of bird-hunters, Caitlyn finds the practice of trophy mounting an animal you killed morbid and distasteful, but she’s grown accustomed to seeing taxidermied hunt since settling in the northwest. The first time Vi lugged home a four point buck and gutted it in front of her, Caitlyn made her swear she’d never try to put her food on the wall. If this is the loophole Vi’s found, Cait swears to god…
“Show me,” she sighs, preparing herself for a whole lot of dead animals.
Beaming, Vi lifts her hand like a crossing guard, “Hold on. We’ve got one more stop,” she beckons Cait to follow her back into the kitchen and out the back door. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
Cait frowns, “Someone living?”
Vi cheekily keeps her on the hook, guiding her through the overgrown flora down a gentle incline to the barn she’d seen earlier. Equipped with wellies, Vi splashes right into the ankle-deep creek with Caitlyn (and her useless soft-toed trainers) on her back. Just to show off, she refuses to put Cait down, carrying her all the way to the barn door.
She returns her gently to the ground before knocking softly on the open door. Vicente’s inside, his face pressed to the neck of a beautiful chestnut horse. She’s underfed, Caitlyn can tell right away, and her coat is coated in dust. She can’t see the mare’s legs but she’s sure her hooves are in a state of neglect. Vicente doesn’t look up and while Vi’s holding Cait back to give her a moment, Cat’s storming forward with intent.
“Who is this?” she asks, approaching the horse calmly with none of her previous aggression. The horse, a gentle, passive creature brushes Cait’s hand with her muzzle.
Vicente won’t pull his face from her neck, but strokes her lovingly. “This is Penny.”
Caitlyn squints closer and decides that under all the dust and grime, the horse is a stunning copper color. “Penny?” she parrots, her eyes shooting to Vi, who stands in the doorway swallowing a grin. She nods, as does Vicente.
“Penelope.”
She certainly looks like a regal queen, or perhaps a once-regal queen who’s spent twenty years waiting for her mate. “I don’t understand.” She holds her hands at Penny’s mouth and lets her lick her palm. “Is she…a part of the sale?”
Vicente sighs and pulls his face from her mane to pat her back. “I can’t take her with me,” he explains. “Your girl says you're a horse doctor.”
“I’m studying to be one…” Caitlyn corrects. It’s a sore subject for her. She would already be a veterinarian if she hadn’t taken a year and a half break grieving her mother in London or running away from that grief with Vi to Africa. Instead she was a two and a half semesters behind and headed nowhere but clinicals.
Vicente dismisses her insecurities. “She’ll be in good hands with you both.”
“I didn’t see any proper enclosures,” Caitlyn protests, pulling her hand back to search for a brush in the mess of the barn, no tidier than the house.
“She’s faithful,” Vicente explains away. “Clingy as a puppy.”
Caitlyn finds the brush bag, the curry comb is caked with dried mud so she knocks it clean on the wall. “My Stallion’s intact. I’ll not house either of them in a ring paddock.”
“Cait…”
“I won’t,” she insists, stepping into Penny’s stall and familiarizing herself with the horse. She wouldn’t shove any horse inside such a small enclosure, no less one that’s clearly been neglected over time. As furious as she is at this man for allowing his horse to become so underweight, she respects him for surrendering it.
"I can have a corral constructed in two trips to Home Depot and an afternoon,” Vi promises. She knows how Cait feels about animals, particularly horses. She’ll make it her first priority.
“Add it to the list…” Caitlyn grumbles, brushing out the clumps from Penny’s coat.
“Cait, come on…” Vi approaches the stall and hangs over it, approaching Penny with the same gentle reach. “Ody and Penny?”
Caitlyn angles away from Vi to hide her smile. Odysseus and Penelope…it is too perfect, like a sign. If Caitlyn wasn’t on board already, there was no way she was leaving this horse.
“I want a paddock constructed by the weekend,” she calls over her shoulder, consumed with removing the itchy dirt and mud.
Grinning, Vi scratches Penny’s forelock. “Deal.”
“Take care of her for me,” Vicente whispers, hoarse from the door of the barn. His eyes are wide-set and low, pointed at the ground. Caitlyn knows that feeling. It had been like ripping out a piece of herself and leaving it behind saying goodbye to Odysseus with a carry-on bag of clothes, not knowing when she’d return. She’d left him in the best of hands, the reputable stable she housed him at and Violet. Vi stayed behind that year Cait was with Tobias in London following her mother’s death, taking care of Odysseus and finishing her studies. Vi would joke that Caitlyn missed her horse more than Vi herself. It was half true.
“She’s a good girl,” Vicente sighs, “She deserves good girls like you.”
Caitlyn catches his eye over the stable door. She nods. It’s like a scene out of an old western watching him tip his hat. Vi starts talking to him, shaking his hand and handing over an envelope. Cait pays little attention, her nose twitching at the foul smell she detects. The stable is poorly mucked but that isn’t what she smells.
Vicente hobbles out the door, “Let me get my bag,” she hears at one point.
Positioning to reach Penny’s left hind, she perks up, “What…?”
“I’ll get out of your hair now.”
Unconcerned, Vi thumps his shoulder again. “Alright, safe travels, Vicente.”
Cait shakes her head, “Where…”
Vicente tucks the envelope into his coat pocket and smiles toothlessly. “God bless you both…” Vicente slips into Spanish as he walks off, only to turn around several paces from the barn. “Ey, my Mouse hasn’t cared to show her face all day. If she shows back up, give her some of your dinner, yeah? She’s a good girl too.”
Even Vi is stumped at that one. “You have a pet mouse?” she asks non-judgmentally. Caitlyn is fond of all animals, big or small, furry or scaled, but mice…admittedly, they still give her the creeps. She can’t get over the mental image of them running up her body with their stubby, dirty legs.
“Aye, no!” Vicente laughs, but it’s whispered eerily, “Mouse is a cat.”
“You aren’t going to take her with you?”
He frowns, “No, Mouse doesn't like me so much. She’ll like Mexico even less. I think she don’t like men.” Toothlessly, he smiles. “She’ll like you two ladies much more.”
In less than an afternoon, Cait has acquired a house, more junk than she could ever get rid of, a malnourished horse and a lesbian cat. What’s next? Some cattle? Some crippling fiscal debt?
“Bye, Vicente!” Vi finishes sending him off in Spanish and soon, he’s disappeared past the house through the tree-line. Vi turns, cheery. “What a lovely gentleman…”
Caitlyn snorts, “He’s a whack job. Who just closes on a house day of and leaves all their stuff? Like all of it, and their horse? And their cat?”
Vi shrugs, still unbothered by the set up. “He said he wanted a fresh start.” She sighs, kicking some rubble that drifted in from the outside. “I figured…” she pauses, leaning the weight in her arms on the stall door and tilting her chin to get a proper look at Cait. “I thought maybe we needed one too.”
Caitlyn looks up from her task and catches Vi’s honest, hopeful expression and can’t help but match it. Cait knows she’s been a shoddy girlfriend. She abandoned Vi for a year, calling her some but mostly shutting her out while she bottled up her own grief instead of letting Vi in to help her through it, then picked her back up and insisted they run half way across the world together; and this past year…she’s been married to her studies, so focused on getting back into her program and getting back on track. Between her studies, her internship and Odysseus, she made time for hardly anything else, including Vi.
Vi is so damn sacrificial and nurturing. She’d never let Caitlyn know how much her absence affected her, always insisting it was ‘just what Caitlyn had to do’ and that she ‘needed the time away’ and that Vi was just happy to have her back, but Cait knows Vi’s heart is too fucking big-hearted to not feel her absence like a crushing blow. With her Father gone and her sister states away, Vi was all alone in Misoula, finishing up her degree with no one but Caitlyn’s horse to keep her company. Vi’s no stranger to being alone, Caitlyn knows, but that isn’t nearly an excuse. This place, Caitlyn supposes, is her apology.
“I’d like that,” she smiles, glancing up from Penny’s hind legs, catching Vi’s eyes for just a second before returning to her task. There’s something rotten there, she suspects. “I think you’re right. I think this is our place.”
Despite the conversation sounding finished to her, Vi stays put and when Caitlyn finally looks up from Penny’s infected hoof, her eyes are bigger and her bottom lip is tucked inside her mouth. “You promise you’re on board?” She asks softly, all her unbothered confidence suddenly at stake. “I didn’t fuck everything up or betray your trust?”
Cait looks around for something that might have caused this shift, but there is none. “No, no, baby.” She wants to go over there and kiss her, but she can’t abandon her work. The infection runs deep into the frog. “I…I can’t wait to make this place ours,” She promises, “I want to build something here with you.”
Vi smiles knowingly, “A three acre triple enclosed corral?” When Caitlyn blanks her, she plays dumb. “Oh…” She smiles bashfully, not that Caitlyn can’t see through it. “Wait, do you wanna marry me or something?”
“I don’t know, do you want to ask me?” Caitlyn teases, then adds in a poor American accent, “or something?”
There have been so many times where Caitlyn was convinced Vi was finally going to pop the question: At the top of Quandary Peak after their undergrad finals, in Thailand, when Vi asked her to move back with her to her hometown in buttfuck nowhere, Montana, in Denali State Park after Cait’s DVM certification results came in and all her dreams started coming true…they’ve had a surplus of gorgeous backdrops that would’ve made for perfect proposal pics. Caitlyn would’ve said yes to any one of those occasions, but she really thought Vi was going to ask her three years ago, after her Mother died and she called Vi after a year in London, begging to see her and Vi had dropped pretty much everything and booked a ticket. She met Caitlyn’s Father, and although things had been slightly awkward, they got along well enough and Vi stayed up one night talking to him for hours. They left the next morning for Morocco and like dumb college kids chasing adrenaline, jumped the coal-train and rode it into Mauritania. When they came to their senses and realized they’d made a terribly reckless choice as two queer women traveling alone, they’d been stuck on that train, staring at the stars, just talking…about Cassandra, about what they’d been up to on their own, about how much they missed each other and about how they never wanted to be apart that long again. It was cold and Caitlyn kept trying to put her hands in Vi’s pockets like she always did and Vi wouldn’t let her. Caitlyn psyched herself into believing there was a ring in that pocket. All their talk of forever planted a seed in her head, but they fell asleep and woke up in Senegal. Cait’s lying if she says she’s ever gotten over the disappointment. Vi’s had ample opportunity to make good on that promise of forever, Cait doesn’t know why she hasn’t.
It’s, ultimately, a formality. Cait knows they’re as good as engaged at this point. Hell, they’re as good as married, but she would like a formal request, and besides, it needs to become official within the next two years as Caitlyn will not have a student visa forever.
“So impatient,” Vi teases, “you’re such a nag.”
Caitlyn would ask the question herself If Vi wasn’t the one insisting she’d do it. Caitlyn argues that, in a way, that’s Vi already asking but Vi promises she’ll do it right one day. Maybe Cait should tell her that if Vi got down right now, one knee in horse shit, Caitlyn would say yes.
“All in good time,” Vi promises, throwing Cait an infuriating wink that tells her where the conversation is headed. “Cupcake.”
“Don’t ‘cupcake’ me,” Caitlyn mutters, “You’ve lost cupcake privileges until we get this mess sorted.” She stokes Penny’s hip guiltily, “this poor baby…”
Vi plugs herself right in, carefully opening the stall door and holding it open for Cait to guide Penny out to be tacked to the post. “What can I do?” she asks, passing Cait the bridle and rope.
“You can muck out her stall,” Cait instructs, gesturing to the shovel. “Poor girl has thrush. She needs a clean, dry stall.”
Vi jumps right into action, throwing wet, heavy horse shit and hay soup out the stall window and spreading out a fresh bed of straw from the smelly, ancient bales stacked in the loft above. Luckily, she’s always dressed for work—long pants and sturdy boots even in summer heat, unlike Caitlyn who’s dressed comfortably for an evening of studying in the campus library. She didn’t wake up that morning expecting to acquire all this.
They work in quiet tandem until the stall is clean and Penny’s back hooves are completely scraped and washed of the infection. Tomorrow, Cait will get her hands on a clinical solution and get this sweet beauty taken care of. Even after they finish, she keeps finding more to do, taking stock of the hayloft, the feedbin, the equipment chest. There’s two saddles, she notices, one clearly too big to comfortably fit Penny. It might fit Odysseus.
Vi clears her throat, “I’m not getting you away from here anytime soon, am I?”
Caitlyn looks out the door at the pitch black landscape. She hadn’t realized it got so late. Indifferent, she shakes her head. “No.” She has a day’s worth of work to do in the barn alone. “Go get the van ready for bed.” There’s absolutely no chance in hell she’s sleeping in any vermin-infested mattress Vicente left behind. She likes her cozy, if somewhat uncomfortable fold out mattress in the back of their van.
She takes a minute to slow down and gather herself and the state of her body. She gets tunnel-vision when she’s studying and she’s been studying since twelve in the afternoon. “I’m starving,” she announces alongside a well-timed stomach grumble. “Did you think to grab groceries before coming out here?”
Vi supplies a not-quite answer. ““I’ll hustle up some grub.”
Caitlyn upper-lip crinkles in distaste, “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you're going to proposition the food we eat.”
Vi waves her off and hikes up the trail toward the house, nothing more than a few dim lights in the distance. “Maybe I do,” she calls out, “how else do you think I get the venison so rare?”
Cringing, Caitlyn takes her time putting the barn in working order so she knows where everything is, then takes even longer just to stand there with Penny, stroking her neck and feeding her treats. For such a neglected horse, she really is incredibly docile. She doesn’t know how Odysseus will react to her. He’s a bit of a bully and a show off. They might need separate enclosures for more than just breeding purposes. She loves her sassy stud, but she hopes he won’t give this gentle giant any trouble.
“You’re safe, now,” she murmurs, hand out stretched reassuringly. Penny sighs, the hot air pouring through her nostrils has an almost melancholy air to it. Caitlyn strokes her ears and gets a slightly more contented sigh from her. “I know you probably loved him, but that man couldn’t take care of you,” she says remorsefully. “I made him a promise, though, and I will.”
Penny looks at her, huge, brown eyes blinking sadly. Poor thing, Caitlyn can’t blame her for being skeptical.
“Hey, I know a girl, real nice and respectful, but a little reckless. She needs a good, gentle girl like you to keep her head on straight.” Vi would be embarrassed if she knew Cait was airing her out to a horse, but it’s true. Vi grew up herding cattle with dogs and donkeys. She’d never properly ridden a horse before Caitlyn and sometimes still got carried away (in some cases, literally). “Could you take good care of her? We’ll take good care of you if you return the favor, okay?”
As if it’s a stupid question, Penny blows hot air at her.
Caitlyn exits the barn around one in the morning, absolutely exhausted and starving. She checks the van, parked a dozen or so yards away from the home amidst a graveyard of old vehicles, some more dilapidated than others, but sees quickly the van is dark and unoccupied. The house lights are still on and she finds Vi in the kitchen with the stove sizzling and the radio blaring. She turns it down when she hears Cait coming.
“Tada,” She announces proudly, turning around with a plate loaded with rice and beans, buttery white asparagus and a juicy hunk of some cut of red meat.
Cait stares at, unsure. The rice and beans are safe, and the asparagus doesn’t look too slimy.
“Where did this come from?” she asks suspiciously. Vi answers by setting down her plate on a bit of the breakfast table she’s cleared up (shoved the junk to the opposite end of the tale) and opens the fridge wide. It’s not fully stocked but an array of food remains inside, a jug of milk…condiments…three entire cartons of eggs.
“Vicente left us groceries,” she says cheerily. “And, check this out…” She takes Caitlyn into the pantry. The shelves are barren, save for a few ancient looking canned vegetables but the freezer in the corner is fully stocked with meat, enough for a few months of grand meals at least.
“Are you sure this is safe to eat?” she asks, checking immediately for expiration dates. Everything, luckily, seems to be in order from what she sees.
“Yeah, yeah, he said to help ourselves to anything left behind.”
“Oh,” Caitlyn coos dryly. “That’s considerate of him.”
“Don’t sleep on my man, Vicente like that,” Vi scolds, taking them back to the kitchen. “You wanna know what else he left us?” She throws the fridge back open and produces two shooters of Jameson. “Before you make that face, they’re sealed.”
Caitlyn makes it anyway. “Whiskey?” she questions. Vi rolls her eyes and shoves both bottles into her jacket pocket.
“You’ll feel differently after you eat.” She shoves a plate at Cait and they eat mostly in total silence, if not for the soft hum of the radio.
“What is this?” Caitlyn asks, poking a fork into the cut of meat on her plate. It bleeds.
“Not sure,” Vi shrugs, infuriatingly unbothered.
“I’m not really inclined to eat mystery meat,” Caitlyn sighs, going for the last of her vegetables.
“It’s fine. I used taco seasoning.” Vi is of the opinion that ‘taco seasoning’ (something Cait still does not have a proper understanding of) will disguise the taste of everything. While Caitlyn remains personally unconvinced, Vi cooks a good venison steak. “If you won’t eat it, I will.”
Caitlyn makes herself taste a small amount, and though it tastes good, she allows Vi to split the remaining portion with her.
It feels so novel to eat a home-cooked meal from a proper kitchen.
Vi cleans up while Cait explores some more rooms on the ground floor of the house. There’s a predictable powder room with a tiny tiled closet where a ramshackle showerhead has been affixed. Given its proximity to the back door, it will probably be useful for washing off mud and other parting gifts of nature. There’s a mud room, full of old coats and shoes and a seemingly functional washer and dryer, which has Cait excited. She won’t mourn their bi-weekly trips to the laundromat. Off the mudroom, there’s a basement that, from the top of the stairs, looks mildly haunted at best. She’s making the executive decision not to go down there when Vi starts laughing.
Caitlyn shows up quickly, “What?”
Vi looks up from the dishwasher, trying very hard not to smile. “Nothing…” she shakes her head, baffled. “He left us dishes.” Like it’s a quirky prank, she laughs and fills the remaining dishwasher space with their dirties and runs it. Even with the extra work, a luxury as small as running a dishwasher is thrilling.
“Can we crash?” Vi asks, clicking the appliance shut with her foot. “I’m beat.”
Caitlyn doesn’t have to be asked twice. They use their phone-flashlights to make it back to the van, but find themselves sitting on the roof, too buzzed with excitement to sleep. It’s a bit chilly with the sun down, so Caitlyn sticks close to Vi and leaches off her heat.
“Hey,” Vi mumbles, elbowing Cait in her hip socket. “Look up.”
Caitlyn does, and finds herself face to face with a sky full of stars she’s never seen before. She’s lived in Montana for three years now, but she’s never seen this before.
“What is that?” she asks. Logically, she has her suspicions, but she’s so surprised she can’t rationally believe it’s true.
“You’ve never seen the Northern lights?” Vi asks, curious but non-judgmental. “Your parents never take you skiing in Sweden for the weekend or something?”
Cait rolls her eyes, “No, they didn’t. I didn’t realize you could see them this far south.”
“You can see them anywhere if the conditions are right,” Vi explains, her voice aimed at the sky as they watch the brilliant swirl of turquoise blue and creamy magenta. Vi pulls out her telescope and aims it, then passes it over for Caitlyn to use. “That’s Sirius,” she announces, allowing Cait a moment to find it herself. She spots Orion first—always does, but sure enough the bright star catches her attention.
Beside her, she can sense Vi grinning. “I think that’s a sign we get a dog, don’t you?”
Caitlyn snorts, collapsing the telescope once she’s seen enough and fixing Vi with a tired-look. “We’ve just acquired a horse, a dozen chickens and quite possibly a homosexually-inclined cat, as well as a dump of a house. I think a dog can wait.”
Vi fakes a pouty grin and exchanges the telescope for the two shooters in her flannel pocket. “Well…what do you say?”
Caitlyn takes it, but maintains a skeptical expression.
“To us?” Vi questions, waving the bottle around in a mock-toast, “To our future?”
Caitlyn contemplates the cap of the shooter. “To you.”
“Me?” Vi parrots, good-natured, but confused.
“Yes, to you, Violet.” She raises the bottle. “Thank you for being my rock. I couldn’t do this…” Vi starts staring at her all serious and Caitlyn’s resolve begins to crumble. Her lip quivers as does her voice inside her throat. “Any of this without you.”
Vi’s hand sits heavy on Cait’s knee. “Me neither," she says straightly, then frowns. “—Do this without you, that is,” she corrects. Even in the pure darkness of the wilderness, Cait spots the blush on her cheek. The unfortunate truth is that Vi could do this on her own, and she had, but Caitlyn would put a stop to that.
From here on out, they do this shit together. All of it.
She cracks the seal on the shooter and holds it up to meet Vi’s, the necks clinking.
“To you,” Vi hums, her voice warm and runny.
Cait tilts forward, forehead meeting forehead. “And you,”
Vi cracks a sly smile, “So…us then?”
Caitlyn nods, “and our future.”
They tip their heads back and chug while the sky above swirls in brilliant colors. Caitlyn could stare at hat sky forever. Her sky or Vi's...their sky, their home.
"Hey, Caitlyn..." Vi murmurs, her voice dry from the whiskey.
Caitlyn rests her cheek on Vi's steady shoulder, "What, luv?"
"What kind of stories do aliens read?"
Caitlyn stifles a groan. She'd only just recently gotten Vi off her alien-kick. She spent their stargazing every night during their road trip through the southwest looking for UFOs. She isn't a tinfoiler, she just like the way it riles Caitlyn up. The dad jokes Caitlyn knows are there to stay but she hopes to one day do away with the paranormal.
"What?" Caitlyn mutters unenthusiastically.
"Guess."
"Sci-fi."
Equally unimpressed, Vi pouts. "Love-starries..." she supplies a little dejectedly.
Caitlyn blinks. Vi waits for her to understand it...one...two...
"That's..." her face drops, "terrible Vi."
Vi tilts her head so it's resting on Cait's resting on her shoulder. "You love it."
"I love you," Caitlyn corrects, "I tolerate your corny-ass jokes."
Vi holds the empty shooter to the heavens, as if she could pound it again. "May I get to tell you a thousand more..."
Every day for the rest of their lives, Caitlyn hopes. She wants to spend the rest of that life with Vi...right here. They've made the road their home for so long with nothing but each other. This place will have no trouble becoming their home. It's something permanent, something theirs...
As long as Vi's there...it's home.