***

A NEW BEGINNING, ch. 25: Up & About

***

Simon’s recovery was coming along well. After his first few weeks of rehab, they had moved him out of ICU and up to one of the hospital’s top floors, where a suite had been prepared and paid for by his mother. The hospital room was appointed with not only all the medical equipment a recovering patient could need, but private cortex screens, a small kitchen, an extra bedroom where Daniel and Rylee now slept and a bed that Simon and Kaylee could sleep in that was actually made for two.

Such close proximity to his family did wonders for Simon and Kaylee both, and in just a few days, they were laughing and playing with their children as they had before the whole horrible incident.

As Kaylee again settled against Simon’s warm form, her body tired from the day’s activities and the two new lives she was growing, she felt her heavy eyelids droop shut almost immediately. With a sigh, she was soon drifting in a peaceful sleep, dreams of her son and daughter, happy and healthy, running and playing on Harvest as she and Simon watched from the porch of her parents’ house, each of them cradling a newborn.

Kaylee smiled even more contentedly in her dream, until she felt the cold approach of night. With a suddenness she did not expect she was again searching and stamping through those woods, those horrible woods where Keller had found them. Sharp branches bit at her skin, causing cuts to dot her face and arms, and Kaylee started to run, panting from exertion and calling for her husband.

“Simon!”

There was no answer but a wicked laugh and Kaylee increased her pace, calling for him again, her voice strangled as a sob rose to her lips. “Simon!”

And then suddenly, she had found him, lying at her feet … dead. With an anguished cry, Kaylee lunged forward, flinging herself on top of his lifeless form and sobbing uncontrollably. Murmuring his name over and over again, Kaylee heard his words to her, “I love you, remember that,” whispere