Lili was startled from her most recent failed attempt at getting any rest by the sound of two distant shots piercing the usually quiet air of the forest. She sat up quickly as her eyes darted around the shack. “Ian?” she called loudly past the partially constructed dividers which were only beginning to be built with the intention of providing at least some privacy during certain more intimate moments among the group.

“Yeah, I’m here, just moving a bit slower than I’d like,” he called back to her as he reached for his holster and belt while painfully attempting to push himself up from his own bedding.

Lili’s ragged breath began her next statement as she shakily moved across the shack to Ian’s ‘room’ of sorts. “Great, you’re here. So who the hell just fired those shots?” she whispered as she took another step to help him up.

Ian let out another pained breath as she helped him to stand. “Jared went to find Kyle. And he took a gun with him,” was Ian’s simple explanation as he gestured for her to help him to the doorway.

“Find Kyle?” she asked with a bit of worry. “So both of our geniuses, including our only doctor, are out there where there was not one but two shots just fired?” she rephrased, her panic easily increasing as she got him to the door.

“Stay in here,” was Ian’s only return response as he moved his arm from her shoulders to the door.

“You can barely walk,” she argued weakly while trying to hold back tears which were replenished so much easier these last few days than ever before.

“Yeah, and you’re pregnant,” he quickly returned, only to then see her look quickly up at him as though she had just been struck. He forced a quick breath, then spoke more gently. “And I’m trained for this, injuries aside. Just stay inside, please,” he finished before cautiously moving through the door despite her obvious upset.

Lili tried to compose herself as he moved through the door with continued caution while she waited around the corner of the doorway, watching him with worried tears. “See anything?” she finally managed as he stepped out into the late afternoon sun.

“The shots sounded like they were a ways from here. Jared said something about following Kyle up the river. Kyle supposedly went looking for more fish,” Ian managed to answer quietly as his eyes scanned the distant riverbank, watching for any sign of their approaching companions before he finally attempted another pained step toward the water’s edge on his own.

After several tense, silent moments of the walk back toward their camp, Jared finally decided he had better say something before Kyle asked for answers he wasn’t even sure he had. “So what was that stuff about this all being your fault, anyway?” he finally dared asking the younger man, who, until then, had been concentrating on trying to hide the pain each time he took a step that caused his t-shirt to irritate his still fresh injuries, self-inflicted though they were.

Kyle just scoffed. “Isn’t the more relevant question how the hell you threw a five hundred pound bear-thing through the air without even touching it?” Kyle just had to retort defensively.

“Depends on your definition of relevant,” Jared mumbled.

“I’d say that’s pretty damn relevant!” Kyle returned with yet another scoff.

“I don’t know how I did it. I just did it. Ok? Now, your turn to answer,” Jared returned with a bit of his own impatience, rare as that was, and most likely was being caused by his own stress.

Kyle just shook his head, another slight cringe as he attempted to hold the t-shirt out away from his bloodied stomach without drawing any undue attention to the fact. “You don’t know? What kind of answer is that?”

“The most honest one I can give,” Jared sighed heavily as he glanced back. “The bandages are back at the camp, but in the meantime it might benefit you to just take the damn shirt off so it’s not constantly rubbing the cuts and making them worse.”

Kyle looked down at Jared’s words before finding his own. “Yeah, thanks for the advice,” he mumbled.

“Well, I am supposedly a doctor aren’t I?” Jared returned in the same only slightly louder mumble.

“Well, I really didn’t feel like advertising these cuts to Ian and Lili right now, so I think I’ll keep the shirt on, thank you.”

“The cool air might help numb the cuts too, but hey if you’d rather be in pain than admit to the crap you’re pulling…” Jared let the sentence trail off, content that he had made his point.

“If I wasn’t in pain already, I wouldn’t be doing it at all now would I?” Kyle just had to bite back.

“Which brings us back to why you think this is all your fault,” Jared easily returned to his previous question.

“You really do think you’re a shrink now too, don’t you?” Kyle muttered.

“Hey, if there’s an obvious need,” Jared returned quietly, though pointedly.

“Well Carrie, maybe you should figure out your own head before digging around in mine. Ever think of that?”

Jared just sighed deeply as he pressed forward toward their so-called home. It was only a few more equally tense moments before they spotted Ian limping toward them, though still at least thirty feet off.

“You two both in one piece?” he called over to them with some combination of pain, worry, and even a near annoyance.

“What the hell are you doing, Ian?” Jared answered as he moved more quickly to meet the older man and keep him from taking any more steps on that leg of his.

“Looking for your asses,” he winced again as Jared reached him, offering a shoulder to help take a bit of the weight off his leg, if only momentarily. “And I’m hoping you didn’t just decide today was a good day for an unannounced attempt at target practice or something.”

“Target practice?” Jared furrowed a brow as he continued to hold Ian up while Kyle made his way over to them, still attempting to hide his own less severe physical discomfort.

“You hear the shots when I’m hunting, don’t you? The sound tends to carry in these damn woods. Which is why Lili is currently having a fit back at the shack. Care to explain what you were shooting at? And make it good,” Ian warned.

“How much of a fit?” Jared asked worriedly.

“Is there a measuring system for that that I don’t know about?” Ian asked wryly despite his current pain as Jared began leading him back toward the camp again.

“I mean, it’s her first trimester: She can’t let herself get too upset,” Jared continued in a slight whisper.

“Yeah, who would get upset by any of this?” Kyle mumbled.

“Tell me doc, how often do people let themselves get upset, honestly? Is there also an on/off switch I don’t know about either?” Ian just had to add.

Jared just shook his head, and decided to sidestep the questions that obviously didn’t have any real answers, in favor of the one that did. “There was a bearish, thing. That’s what we shot at.”

“And you actually killed it?” Ian asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced over at Jared while the younger man continued to help him back, with Kyle following a few feet behind them.

“To say the least,” Kyle couldn’t help mumbling, as Jared just cast a slight scowl back over his shoulder at the youngest of them.

“Wow, and you’ve never even had any kind of firearms training to help take down any type of bear, especially with just two shots. Does the air here help aim bullets, too?” Ian couldn’t help adding with a tinge of his old sarcasm.

“Good question,” Kyle had to add pointedly.

“The animal is dead, and we’re not. Isn’t that the important thing here?” Jared finally retorted with a bit of his own annoyance coming out then as well. The other two looked toward him with wary expressions, but they thankfully said nothing else on the subject, at least for the moment.

“Oh my god, what happened this time?” Lili breathed the exclamation as she rushed out from where she still stood right inside the doorway once she saw them approach.

“We’re all reasonably ok,” was Jared’s first response as he helped Ian to a seat near the fire once more. “There was some kind of bear-type thing that caught our scent, somehow,” he added the final word with a pointed look toward Kyle. “We shot it. Neither of us got hurt, really,” he added, yet another pointed glance for Kyle on that sentence too.

“I did get…a scratch…earlier,” Kyle decided on. “I’m gonna go put something on it,” he added in a near mumble as he moved past Lili and headed inside without really making any eye contact with any of them as he did.

“A bear?” Lili nearly choked on the word.

“Well I’m sure it wasn’t actually a bear, just seemed a lot like one,” Jared sighed quietly as he offered Ian a drink once he had him off his feet again.

“Is that supposed to make it better?” Lili returned, her voice breaking with every word.

“The point is: It’s dead and we’re ok,” Jared attempted, though he knew that such a fact wasn’t likely to help calm her, all things considered.

Lili just sniffled and shook her head. “The same day I find out about the baby, Ian gets attacked by some boar or something, and now, the very next day, you two run into a bear-thing?” she exclaimed with a barely stifled sob. “Are you still gonna tell me not to take that vision in the worst possible way? Honestly?” she asked through more tears before turning away and heading back inside once more.

Jared sighed deeply again, wishing he could have found anything to say to reassure her right then. Though, he couldn’t spend too long thinking on it as he glanced back to see the look Ian cast him, which was somewhere between merely questioning and slightly accusing.

“Care to tell me what vision she’s talking about, this time?” Ian finally stated bluntly.

“Right now the important thing for you to worry about is staying off your damn leg already. If you don’t stop walking on it, and now, it may never heal right at all. Got it?” Jared attempted to sound authoritative but it was difficult in the face of Lili’s upset coupled with Ian’s accusatory tone.

“What vision, Jared?” Ian stated more firmly. Jared just looked down with a shake of his head as he rubbed his temple. Though he was by far the best among them at hiding his own stress, the cracks were getting wider with each day. “Jared?” he repeated more loudly.

“She told you guys about most of the vision months ago, ok?” he managed, though the words barely made it past his lips.

“Most of it?” Ian shook his head then as well. “Why do I get the feeling that’s an understatement somehow?”

Jared sighed again. “It was the same vision that convinced her that that day in the woods she wouldn’t die right away, and that none of us would yet, either.”

“A little more specific, please,” Ian prodded in the same firm tone.

“I had a vision the night before that, and in it,” Jared took a deep breath, “in it, I saw Lili here on this planet, in labor. We knew that this child was coming, months ago. We just didn’t know when, ok?” he confessed in the same whisper.

Ian took his own ragged breath as he looked up at the clouds above to allow a moment bite back his immediate response before continuing onward. “And there must be more, considering what she just said, right?” he pressed, though he spoke in a quieter tone this time.

Jared just shook his head before managing an answer. “That’s just it. That’s all I could see: Her in labor. Only I couldn’t see anyone else there with her, helping her through it.” he sniffled again. “And that’s the only part Lili can concentrate on: She thinks it means that we’ll all be gone before this child is even born,” another sniffle as he tried to continue more firmly. “And absolutely nothing in the vision explicitly said that,” another breath. “It’s just what she’s talked herself into believing. And with you getting hurt, and then this today…She’s losing her hope very quickly. And, I honestly don’t know how to give it back to her, ok?” Jared confessed as he turned to move away.

Though, despite Jared’s confession, Ian wasn’t quite ready to let up just yet. “Exactly how many other things…how many other fucking visions are the two of you keeping to yourselves, huh? How much else are we only gonna find out about way after we should, huh?” Ian asked angrily.

“Ian…” Jared shook his head sadly again, still not looking back. “Considering how bad it messed Lili up to hear about that vision, I guess I just thought I’d spare the two of you, at least until I could see the missing pieces. I’m sorry if that was somehow the wrong decision, ok?” he managed with a bit of defeat.

Ian just continued to center a look of annoyance on Jared before speaking again. “Fine, you can spare Lili from now on. Lord knows she doesn’t need the help to feel any more hopeless.” he admitted, then continued. “But I am fucking responsible for keeping all of us alive, even if the goddamn ship really is gone forever. It’s still my job, and the only thing I was sent here at all to do. So if you have any fucking vision at any time ever, you damn well will tell me even if you feel the urge to ‘spare’ everyone else! You got that?” he told him forcefully.

“I suppose that’s an order?” Jared responded, though with barely any volume.

“You’re damn right it is.” Ian assured.

“Then maybe now would be a really good time to tell him about the other stuff too,” Kyle interrupted the heated discussion as he had since stepped outside once more, giving Jared a pointed look as he spoke the words.