Emma

Chapter 5

May 7th, 1637
    For the past month I hid everything pretty well. I had a few slip ups but was able to pass it off and tell them I was just fine. Its was the first time I had seen my husband since and to say I was nervous is an understatement.

"Emma! Gabriel, Han and the troops are back, they were spotted in the village come on!" Geslyn takes my arm hurrying me along towards the door of our home. We get into the village running the entire way there. We see an entire crowd cheering and yelling patting the back of all our men including both our husbands. Geoffrey, one of the men I used to know as a kid, has blood down his face but his smile shows other wise that he's not in any pain. He kisses his wife Anastasia, then hugs his child grinning the entire time. I admired their relationship as they found and chose each other. Their child was a product of real love not a fake one that most are forced to have. Hugh stood next to Israel, the village drunks, you won't see those two without smiles on their faces and drinks in their hands. They may be total buffoons with their greasy hair and dopey smiles, tattered clothes and arms swinging around any woman who walked by, but there real good fighters. Top of the pack, they can cut you with their knife before you even see them coming. Noisey at home but stealthy in the battleground. I have yet to really figure those two out. Geslyn hugs her husband both smiling brightly at each other. They were married two years before Gabriel and I even met, and it was not love at first sight. They fought like no tomorrow, always finding something to argue over. Their differences turned out to be their strengths. Geslyn would think that waking up early in the morning is better for your health than going to bed early. Han would think that being a soldier meant you needed to be strong, and Geslyn thought that it meant you needed to be wiser than the person you're fighting against. Seconds later, they would be back to how they were before, loving each other to no extent. They met when Geslyn was clipping the roses in the garden, Han came walking up along side my father, him introducing them to each other. I could see them from my bedroom, they stared at one another like they have met before. As a kid I dreamed that I would meet someone and look at them like that. Many would have wanted it to be Gabriel, it wasn't.

A pair of arms wrapped around me from behind  "I'm back, did you miss me" what I recognize to be Gabriel, whispers in my ear. I turn around to greet him properly holding his arm in my hands seeing his face for the first time in over a month.

"It wasn't the same without you" I respond to him, he has brown dirt over his forehead probably from when he rubs his face while his hands were dirty. He smiled kindly as he always does, showing the small dimple on the left side of his cheek.

"Hows lillian" he asks tilting his head placing the piece of hair back behind my ear.

I grin at him thinking of my little girl with her brown curly hair and green eyes like an emerald. "She's perfect" I tell him not able to wipe the smile off my face. "She cant wait for you to come home, she has a little dance she has been preparing" Gabriel takes my hand pulling us toward the trail back to the house. "It's not much, she only bobs up and down right now, but she is very good"

"I'm glad" is all he says as we quietly walk back, the sounds of the soldiers still echoing in the distance as we get further and further away. His eyebrows crease leaving the lines across his forehead, and his mouth curls as he bites his lip hard. Something wrong obviously, though I can't get to asking him what. As we stride side by side, slowly Gabriel's face displays pain, almost like he's battling someone in his mind. Like a ringing in your ear you can't find the source of, but you know and you need to make is stop before it drives you even more crazy.

"Do you have any idea of what we do out there?" he blurted out not taking a glance towards me. His eyes casted directly in front of him, his words coming out thick and throat having to be cleared every few seconds.