randomplaces | Sal's Earth. Republic of Newfoundland. December 2020

Kurt stood on the railing of the deck on the newly rebuilt and reopened Phoenix Bluff bed and breakfast, his tail curling with excitement as he watched vehicles pulling up and parking in the driveway and along the side of the road. As he watched his family come from the vehicles and ignored the duel voiced shrieking from the house behind him he thought of the thirteen years that he had lived on this foggy, dripping, contrary island, and the things that had happened to he and his in that time.

It had been a shock that day in 2011 when Jabez had walked over to he and Sal and quietly but firmly announced that she was engaged to be married to Corr. The party loving clone had seemed like the last man to be a proper match for his shy and retiring alter daughter, but once he'd hunted him down and pinned him to a wall to grill him it had become clear that Corr's feelings and intentions were genuine. Kurt was glad to muse that the young trooper turned commando turned fisherman had been a gentle and supportive husband for Jabez, and a devoted father to their two fuzzy little black furred sons. The family lived near the Port Club, above Jabez's shop and workshop.

Other members of Omega Squad were still on the island too. Darman fished, guided hunters, painted his house strange colour combinations, grew potatoes, and semi regularly wound up passed out in strange places with Marda, even when they weren't drunk. He and the red-haired former jedi had an odd relationship; they were all but inseparable, and totally loyal to one another, yet they never progressed beyond flirting snark and the occasional peck of greeting or drunken smooch.

Niner was a member of the Newfoundland army, a quiet and steady soldier, but a troubled man when off duty, still struggling to adapt to being a free human being and to deal with what had happened to him in the GAR. Despite his job and his troubles, he was a loving father to Not-Atin and guardian to Falen, and a beloved friend to many in the community.

Fi had never come to live on the Rock, but he and Parja were bringing their daughter to the bed and breakfast, as they always did around Christmas time.

And Atin... it was hard to say where he and Vanya lived. Gossip in the Port Club held that they lived out in the bush in wolf and hound form. All Kurt knew is that they came and went from the b and b without warning and with fair regularity.

Kurt sobered slightly as he remembered Kal Skirata's funeral, two years previous. The old man had gotten to be manager of the gas station where he worked, and had started renovating a house. Then one day he somehow managed to fall off the roof. A bug he caught in the hospital took him away. His sons had grieved and still did, but had been careful to make his gravestone match that of Sal's which tended to show up around the island from time to time.

Then he grinned as he thought of the men who had belonged to Pi Squad. Ven and Sadri still lived just a few doors away, in a house currently bright yellow with dark green trim. Shae was off in boot camp, showing her instructors how it was really done. She was still the toughest kid Kurt could remember meeting.

Scrat and Mykayla lived on K'vk'tun with their younger children. Zipporah looked like a ten year old, and was a cheerful, geeky, bubbling young lady who was highly excited by the conviction that she would soon be growing wings and acquiring the ability to produce liquid flames from her wrists. She also served as a distance advisor on the staff of a prestigious ivy league collage on the Earth where her brother Josh lived and served as leader of the JLA. Josh split his time between being a husband to Jenny, collage professorship, crime fighting, and science that Kurt couldn't begin to understand. Isaiah was quiet as twelve year old boys went, his young face often mirroring the same serenity that of his k'vk'ar family members bore. He was just like his father, with just a bit of Mykayla's merry personality to thread like gold through Scrat's warm granite.

Jav and Jeimu had just recently moved back to the reality where Endeavour lived, after having been punted back to this one for awhile as time discrepancies happened between the two universes. Kurt still had a hard time getting his head around the fact that all the bots there were now several centuries older than they had been the last time he'd seen them. Jav and Mu and their daughter Casey and son Jazz were all having a grand time learning how to live on Cybertron. Casey was her parents all over again in her mother's petite packaging, and Jazz... well, the boy had been named after Bumblebee's husband for a reason.

And then there were Leeroy and Sam.

Kurt rubbed his face to hide the snerk that escaped as he thought of the happy go lucky clone and his tall, slightly brooding wife and the daughter that they'd finally been blessed with after years of trying. Little Missouri was due on Christmas day, and bets were running wild as to whether she'd wait for it or not. So was amusement at her being younger even than her alternate nephew Rob's son.

Leeroy and Sam didn't care how late she'd come, they and Rob and his wife Ree were too busy praying that she just arrived safely. Besides that slight concern the two couples were fairly content out on that acreage near Truro Nova Scotia, with Rob and his former intel trooper wife and their 3 year old living in a little travel trailer a comfortable distance from Leeroy and Sam's mobile home. Leeroy fished during the season, yelled at cows during the off season, and hunted spooks part time with Sam's dad and Rob. Sam had done the part time hunting til she'd gotten pregnant, then and now she confined herself to doing IT work via the internet.

A particularly strident screech from behind him stirred up a bark of drill sergeantish ire from a kitchen harried Sal and brought his mind back to his biological family.

Stephen was an honours student. An active, but quiet and warm soul, he looked a lot like Kurt himself except for the red hair that he'd gotten from Cain. He bustled gently through life, unaffected by the storms that blew through the b and b.

Wolfen's black curls and russet eyes were unchanged from her babyhood. Spirited, quick witted, and saucy, she was hard to pin down and had a quick retort for everything. She was starting to grow back the wings that the reality shift had taken from her when she was a baby, and loved to use her shadow travelling ability to grief her younger sister. She and Celeste loved each other. It was just really hard for anyone to tell sometimes what with the screaming matches and fist fights.

Celeste was another beauty, who against expectations WAS developing a slightly smaller version of her mother's nose. Blue eyes snapped at the world from her sleek blue fur, and long black hair swirled to her waist when it wasn't in her sister's grasp. Temperamental and prone to blowing her top at the drop of a hat, she was nonetheless a loving and loyal heart. Young Brian Peddle was her constant companion despite his lack of X gene and his inability to keep up with her sometimes, especially after she'd come into her jaunting ability.

And then there was Pete. Peter Aaron James Wagner. He had black hair, blue eyes, and the Wagner charm. Despite being an easy going child and having the Burgite water element gift, he was a lot like his mom. He had Sal's mom's nose and Kurt's chin. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, just like the eyes of the great grandfather he'd never gotten to meet had. The eight year old was still hoping that he might have the non Burgite version of the X gene and start looking more like the rest of his siblings. Kurt couldn't help but marvel over a situation where a perfectly normal looking child thought himself the funny looking kid.

"Hey, elf, you playin' a scarecrow or somethin'?" A wrapped gift hit him in the chest and snapped him out of his thoughts, and he blinked and looked down into Victor Creed's grin as the big man stood below the deck beside his wife Trace, who was clone sister to Ree and Aoife.

"I'm thinking," replied Kurt, grinning as he shook the package by his ear. "You should try it sometime, Victor."

Vic snorted and turned to help Jav thump Ven into the wall, and Kurt shook his head as he watched Jeimu and Trace cheer them on, his mind going to the hijinks that happened whenever those two tiny women wound up in the same room as his wife. It still surprised him that the big man had found a woman who fit so well into Jav and Jeimu's insane family dynamic. But then, even Aoife and Hunter were married and were raising families. Aoife to an older engineer from another reality who lived with her in the Backwater nexus, and Hunter to a quiet, proud, but warm gargoyle woman from another reality again. Hunter and Chiyoko had two children, one of whom lived in the Backwater because of difficulties with a natural sun cycle that his hybrid physiology gave him. Scott had grown up a lot faster than normal, too. His brother, however, seemed to be a normal gargoyle baby, and was currently an adorable little stone statue laying in the manger on the lawn as his mother's stone form leaned over him protectively.

"Ach, vright. I still haf to find Mary und zhe baby." Kurt hopped down from the railing and started helping bring in luggage. "Ve can't celebrate Christmas vith an empty manger at night."

"You could always lay Mu in it. She'd fit." Sam laughed and ducked a TK swat, then sent one back toward her sister in law.

"Mom's not a boy, dummy!" Jazz shook his head, then chortled as something popped and was followed by surprised cursing.

"T'ank t Lard," noted Jav absently as he critically watched Vinny try to deal with an excited bottle of champagne.

"I telled t'at stunned @#$% not t' shake t'at." Leeroy sniggered, then lifted up his voice in a slightly tipsy bellow. "Merry Christmas, ye lot 'o @#$%! God bless ye every one!"

Kurt chuckled as various voices raised up in agreement and mirth, then nodded his head. -Ja. You haf blessed us all. Danke, Gott.-