You, Undeniably

by jorbz

Summary:

It’s difficult being the odd one out in Pelican Town.

Even after living there for five years, Harvey still feels like an outsider at times among such a close-knit community. He’s just never felt like he really fits in, instead spending most of his time in the clinic or alone in his apartment. And with a sometimes taxing job and an always anxious mind, he doubts that routine will change anytime soon.

Kate needs a fresh start. After leaving a fruitless career at Joja Co., she decides to take over her grandpa’s old farm in Stardew Valley and finds herself among friendly but no less unfamiliar faces who all seem to have such high hopes for her. As much as she wants to settle into the quiet, comfortable lifestyle of Pelican Town, she still feels lost somehow.

But maybe the valley can still give them both what they need.

Chapter 1

“I heard the new farmer got here yesterday.”

Harvey glanced up at Maru sorting samples at the counter. The balmy spring weather marking the transition from winter meant a slow day at the clinic, everyone too excited to shed their cold weather clothes and embrace the returning warmth to schedule any appointments, which gave the two of them a rare chance to catch up on doing paperwork and sorting supplies, or in his case, finally read the new medical journal on cardiac research that he had ordered last year and barely touched since.

“I didn’t realize she’d arrived already,” he mused.

It felt like only a few weeks ago that Lewis had announced the old farmer’s granddaughter was taking over the farm, and it had been about the only thing anyone could talk about since. A new face in the valley was rare these days, with most opting to leave in favor of urban areas like Zuzu City or further north. In some ways Elliott was still a frequent topic of interest to the others, and his arrival was over a year ago now.

“Mom was talking about her this morning—she helped Lewis show her around the farm last night.” Maru was fully turned to face him now, eyes bright as she leaned against the counter. Clearly, she was just as excited about the new arrival as everyone else. “She didn’t find out much about her, though. Have you heard anything about her yet?”

Harvey pushed the journal aside, stretching back in his chair by the front desk. He was itching to enjoy the sunshine outside, too, and glanced at the slow-ticking clock on the wall that showed he still had several hours to go before he could close the clinic for the day.

“Not much more than you, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll see her soon enough.”

He was a bit surprised Lewis didn’t end up parading her around town the minute she stepped off the bus, all too willing to find some kind of credit to take for her arrival and the “economic benefits” a new farmer would bring to the area, as he had put it during his initial announcement. But Harvey decided that was maybe a bit too cynical to share with an employee who was much more interested in the farmer herself.

“Mom said she looks like she was about Emily or Leah’s age; I didn’t think she’d be that young for a farmer. Hopefully she comes into town today.” Maru turned to him again, a much more insistent look in her eye this time. “What about you? Are you planning on saying hi today too?”

He gave her a small, slightly self-deprecating smile. “Usually, the doctor is the last person a new arrival wants to meet as soon as they move in. I’ll see her around town, or whenever she comes in for a check-up.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and Harvey didn’t think it was fair that she always seemed to see right through him when it came to avoiding social situations. Of everyone in town, she was the one who tried to push him out of his comfort zone the most, a gesture he found equally kind and nerve-wracking.

“All due respect, Doctor Harvey, but we all barely see you outside the clinic or town festivals as it is. It’s going to take weeks for her to run into you that way.”

She wasn’t wrong necessarily, and Harvey knew it, but his face warmed anyway. “L-listen, I- I go out into town more often than that,” he argued as he straightened his tie. “You know I’m very busy, and I’m sure everyone will be wanting to meet her right away. It won’t hurt if I… hold off ambushing her for a day or two.”

Maru hummed, unconvinced, but turned back to the samples anyway, a temporary reprieve to Harvey’s interrogation.

“If you say so,” she relented with a knowing smile.

“I appreciate your honesty, Maru, and I promise I will introduce myself when I see her.” He stood up with a sigh, tucking the cardiac journal under his arm. “I’ve got some paperwork to finish in my office if you need me.”

 He made the short trek back to his office and sat down heavily in his chair. The contentment he’d felt earlier was starting to give way to a creeping dread knowing at some point he’d have to do the ever-awkward song and dance of meeting a new person, one he always seemed to flub somehow. He shuddered a bit remembering when he first met Pierre and had accidentally knocked over one of his inventory displays. Harvey still did his best to avoid him as much as possible years later.

It wasn’t as if Harvey was incapable of small talk: he often had to exchange pleasantries with patients while waiting for tests or while setting up medical tools. But talking to his patients as their doctor in the familiar comfortability of his clinic was one thing—trying to do the same with a stranger in the middle of town as “just Harvey” was a lot more daunting.

He shook his head to himself. He was grown man. He could do his due diligence of introducing himself and letting her know about the clinic, and then he’d be off the hook, likely until she needed an appointment.

He looked at his office clock, barely any difference between it and the one he checked in the waiting room. It was shaping up to be a long day.

------

Kate sat back on her haunches, sweat dripping down the side of her face as she dropped another weed in the steadily growing pile next to her. Despite the warm spring weather, the sun still beat down on her after hours in the overgrown field, and as she squinted out over the rest of the farm—her farm, now—she’d only cleared a fraction of the property.

Everything had been more or less a blur the last few weeks after she quit her job of three years and decided to move to her grandpa’s old farm in Stardew Valley. The logistics had been hell, trying to deal with her parents who didn’t understand why she’d leave a “stable” job in the city; her few friends who called her crazy for moving to the valley; the lawyer who in a single afternoon had sealed her fate with a few signatures and a quick handshake. From the moment she left Joja Co., Kate didn’t think she’d stopped moving for a minute until she finally sat down on that bus.

The only constant had been that old letter Grandpa had handed her so many years ago, all yellowed and brittle and yet somehow still faintly smelling like his cologne. She’d kept it tucked against her chest for almost the entire trip to Pelican Town, the cool touch of the paper keeping her grounded.

Her memories of the valley had been mostly reduced to the hazy, dreamlike recollections of early childhood, the kind that sometimes made her wonder if they had happened at all or if she had just imagined them. But Grandpa’s farm was the center of almost all of them: running through fields of vibrant green leaves and stalks, laying under sunlight sparkling through his greenhouse, sitting with him on the old porch swing of the farmhouse. Before her parents had moved closer to Zuzu City when she was 9 and couldn’t make the trip to the valley anymore, she’d loved the farm more than anything.

So when the town carpenter and mayor had shown her to her new home the day before, she was shocked at the state it was in. The greenhouse was collapsed in on itself, the land once so fertile and well maintained littered in weeds and rocks and trash. The farmhouse itself looked faded and run down, with spots of rot on the porch and missing shingles on the roof.

“It’s… different than I remember,” she had choked out, fighting not to panic at the state of the land she’d just given up everything to take over.

Robin had sighed, kicking at a stray stone. “Henry wasn’t able to keep up with all the land in the few years before he passed. It’s kind of gone to seed since then.” Then, seeing Kate’s horrified expression, she squeezed her shoulder in as reassuring of a gesture as she could offer. “Don’t worry, I’ve started fixing up some of the most glaring problems with the house already. Should be finished by tomorrow morning.”

“And the sooner you can get settled in, the better,” Lewis had added. She had some vague memories of him as well from those visits to the farm, of course about 20 years younger back then and newly elected mayor. Oddly, apart from the gray hair he now sported, nothing else about him seemed to have changed too much—still a little too invested in everyone’s business, still wearing those suspenders. “There’s clearly a lot to be done around here, and we wouldn’t want you getting a late start with any planting. Your grandfather was always very punctual in the spring.”

Kate’s stomach felt like it had dropped into her shoes, but still she gave Lewis a wavering smile. “I-I’ll do my best.”

“That’s the spirit, Kate!” He’d clapped his hands together expectantly with a wide grin as he turned back toward town. “Everyone here is very excited to meet you; I’d encourage you to go out and introduce yourself over the next few days. Welcome to Pelican Town!”

Then he and Robin had set off down the path they came down, Robin giving her a smile of more reassurance as she went, and Kate had tried her hardest not to either throw up or pass out as soon as they left.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting; Grandpa had been gone for almost 10 years, and obviously the farm had started falling into disrepair long before that. Of course it would be a mess. But still she had stared at the barren fields and wild trees that had taken over in his absence and for a moment wondered if it was too late to get back on the bus and return to the city with her tail between her legs.

But she couldn’t turn back this soon. She was going to make this work somehow. She had to.

So here she was, trying to clear at least a sliver of land so she could get something in the ground. She’d found a few of her grandpa’s old farming almanacs and guidebooks the night before, still stored in the farmhouse, and had poured over as many as possible for tips on how to get started, reading well into the night until she practically collapsed.

She pulled another stubborn weed with a grunt, almost falling back in the process, and threw it on the ground with a frustrated sigh.

“I suppose this will work for now,” she huffed, pushing herself back to her feet. The area she’d managed to clear was still small, but it was at least enough to get a few crops started; she could chip away at the rest later.

Kate managed to dig a few furrows into the now bare earth, sprinkling in the parsnip seeds Lewis had left for her. But she still had more ground to work with, and Grandpa’s books mentioned a lot more spring crops than just parsnips.

Lewis had also mentioned something about the general store in town selling seeds. Maybe it was time for her to make a few introductions.

She set off down the old dirt path, eventually finding herself in a quaint little town square of a place that somehow looked no different than it had when she was child. Almost every building looked exactly the same, save for some more wear and faded paint on many of them. The nostalgia of it all almost made her forget her frantic state of mind, just for a moment.

She found the general store easily enough, pushing through the double doors into a shop filled with everything from grocery items to home décor. At the far end, a man with glasses and a brown jacket glanced up from the counter at the sound of her entering.

“Good afternoon!” he greeted as she approached. “You must be the new farmer everyone is talking about. I’m Pierre, the store owner.”

“Kate,” she replied with a polite smile. “I was told you have seeds for sale?”

“Best seeds in Stardew Valley!” Pierre gestured over to a wall filled with seed packets, some clearly meant for home gardens and others a bit bulkier. Kate immediately started grabbing the larger packets as Pierre continued, “So, you’re old Henry’s granddaughter? I think I remember a little girl who looked a lot like you running around here years ago.”

“Yep, that was me.” Then in an effort to steer the conversation away from more reminiscing, she asked, “Do you carry seeds all year round?”

“Spring, summer, and fall: I get a new shipment around the start of each growing season. Your grandpa used to get his seeds from here, too.” He leaned forward a bit, almost conspiratorial. “So feel free to stop in whenever you need something, especially if you want it good quality. The stuff at the JojaMart barely compares.”

Kate froze. A new bead of sweat gathered at her temple. “A JojaMart? In Pelican Town?”

Pierre nodded, crossing his arms with a grim scowl. “They set up shop about a year or two ago now. The crap they sell is laughable, but it’s cheap, and in a place like this, most people go for affordable.” His frown deepened, like he could spend another 10 minutes complaining about the corporation if she let him, but instead just waved a dismissive hand. “Trust me, it’s a waste of time to buy anything there.”

Despite the new wave of unease cresting through her, she did her best to force a smile. “I’ll keep it in mind. Good to meet you.”

“You too! Good luck with the farm!”

Kate hurried for the door, mind already racing with the knowledge that after everything she did, Joja was still haunting her, even in the valley. Her old job was like a ghost over her shoulder here, patiently waiting for the inevitable failure of the farm, ready to claim her again. Now more than ever, she had to make this work.

She was staring at the bundle of seeds in her arms and wondering if she even had time to get them all planted before nightfall when she crashed into something just outside the door, almost knocking her over. Immediately two hands grabbed her elbows, keeping her from losing her balance.

“I am so sorry! Are you ok?”

Kate looked up at a deeply concerned, mustachioed face staring back down at her. The man it belonged to was tall, with glasses and a green suit jacket, and looked maybe a few years older than her—decidedly not the type of person she was expecting to find in a town she had anticipated to be mostly populated by retirees.

“It’s fine. No harm done,” she said once she righted herself again. “It’s my fault anyway for not looking where I’m going.”

He nodded to himself as if satisfied by her answer, and she realized then the pressure of fingertips against her skin hadn’t gone away, his hands still holding her elbows. He seemed to realize it too, and pulled back with a forced cough.

“Well, I, uh… I don’t have an excuse like you do,” he continued, cheeks a little pinker than before. “You’re the new farmer, I assume?”

“That’s me. I’m Kate.” She shuffled the seeds in her arms until her hand was free, offering it for him to shake. He took it, long fingers wrapping around her own.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Harvey. Doctor Harvey.” There was a beat of silence before his blush deepened a little more and, fumbling, he continued, “I’m the town doctor.”

“I gathered,” she chuckled. As much as she still felt off balance in her new surroundings, his gentle, if slightly nervous, way of talking to her made the tension in her body dissipate just a little. And so far, he was one of the few people she’d met that didn’t seem to have any expectations of her.

“So, what brought you to the valley?” he asked.

Kate stared down at her bundles of seeds, debating how to answer. Harvey seemed nice enough, but she still had zero desire to share all her issues with a stranger.

“I just… needed something new. I thought running Grandpa’s old farm might be a good change of pace.” She shrugged so the seed packets rattled with the movement. “I came into town to stock up.”

Harvey spared a look over his shoulder toward the doors to the general store. “Well, Pierre’s more than happy to help with that. He’s very…” The doctor trailed off, brows furrowing a bit as he hesitated with some word clearly on the tip of his tongue.

“He’s a little pushy,” she finished for him, and the look he gave her, eyes wide and mouth curved into a half-surprised smile, proved she’d at least gotten the gist of what he’d been too polite to say himself. “Lewis was too. They all seem nice, don’t get me wrong. I just think I’m not used to everyone being so… involved yet. People in Zuzu City kind of kept to themselves.”

“Zuzu City?” he repeated. “That is a change. Good luck with that.”

It was an innocent comment. And yet it flung Kate back into the overwhelming stress and frustration of that morning and the night before, and it had her bristling all over again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harvey blinked, fully taken aback. “N-nothing, it’s just a… a hard adjustment to make, that’s all.”

“Look, I don’t need anyone else telling me how hard it’s going to be or how out of my element I am, ok? Believe me, I’m well aware.”

“Wait, w-wait I didn’t—”

“Goodbye, Doctor Harvey.”

She didn’t look back as she hurried back to the farm. The warmth of early spring suddenly felt oppressive, sticking to her skin like a film she couldn’t shake off, pressing her into the valley.

Kate knew she had overreacted, snapping at him like that. She highly doubted Harvey could have meant it in any way but genuine well wishing, and yet she just felt rubbed raw by everything in Pelican Town. She’d had enough of expectations and her grandpa’s legacy for the day.

And she had more important things to worry about, anyway, as she reached the farm and looked at the little section of land still untilled and the various seeds in her arms. It was time to get to work.

------

Harvey was pretty sure chasing the new farmer off in less than five minutes was some kind of record for him.

He hadn’t even noticed her before he nearly knocked her over, too deep in thought over the next day’s appointments to see her rushing out the door. And then for a moment he’d been too worried making sure he hadn’t hurt her by accident to realize he’d run right into the very interaction he’d been hoping to put off for a few days.

She’d looked frazzled and tired, with dirt streaked across her clothes and strands of brown hair pulled free from her ponytail and stuck to her forehead and temples with sweat and dust. Looking up at him, she seemed almost as uncomfortable at the prospect of a conversation as he was, her blue eyes wary.

It surprised him then that talking to her had been… easy, or at least easier than conversations with strangers usually went. After she wasn’t immediately annoyed with him after their literal run-in, he found he barely stumbled over his words after introducing himself. And she had seemed to relax bit by bit as they talked, that wary look softening ever so slightly. He thought maybe he'd been worried for nothing.

So it had been even more surprising when her expression grew stormy nearly out of nowhere, her words ice cold and cutting, and she left before he had a chance to explain himself. He barely had time to process what had happened before she was down the dirt path to the farm, never looking back.

Mentioning Zuzu City had obviously been some kind of mistake. As usual, he’d managed to put his foot in another conversation, doing the exact thing he’d hoped to avoid altogether before Maru had convinced him otherwise.

Another stunning performance, Harvey, he thought as he turned into Pierre’s with a sigh. At least he likely wouldn’t see her again until she scheduled an appointment.

And based on the way they parted, he didn’t figure that would happen any time soon.

Notes:

We're doing it babey!

And what better way to meet your future husband than yelling at him in front of the local grocery store.

This chapter was really fun to write, especially after I got some really nice comments on my first fic. I've got all through Kate's first spring planned and am working on an outline for the rest, so hopefully it won't be too long between uploads.

I enjoyed writing Maru and Harvey's dynamic. She is the emotional support dog to his nervous zoo-raised cheetah.

Also, the title is a reference to the song "Undeniable You" by Jukebox the Ghost. Kind of a good tone setter for this story if anyone wants to check it out.

Chapter 2

By Kate’s second week in the valley, she was sure she’d finally managed to introduce herself to everyone in town.

Most had been friendly like she expected—like Marnie, who owned a ranch just south of her farm, or Penny, the local schoolteacher—and just as excited about her arrival as Lewis and Pierre had been. She tried to take all their interest in stride, grateful most of them had welcomed her with a little less pressure compared to when she first arrived.

A few had been more reserved about her arrival, especially the younger 20-somethings like Sebastian and Abigail. Most of them had either hardly known her grandpa or just didn’t have an interest in the farm the same way their parents or peers did. Still, they were welcoming in their own way, and Kate found she actually enjoyed saying hello to them whenever she was around town or doing little errands for extra cash.

And then there was Shane, one of the Joja employees in town, who had all but directly told her to fuck off when she tried to say hello to him a few days into her new life in the valley. She’d honestly appreciated it, considering how almost everyone else always seemed so eager to talk to her, to ask her about the farm, to share their memories of her grandpa. Shane’s less-than-welcoming attitude was almost a breath of fresh air by comparison, a reminder that she was still just plain old Kate at the end of the day, not any more interesting or special than anyone else in town.

But best of all had been reconnecting with Emily. They’d played together as kids when Kate used to visit the valley—tailed by little toddler Haley—chasing each other through the woods and creating elaborate make-believe games where they were fairies and knights and pirates, running wild until the sun set and the fireflies emerged like beacons through the trees.

In the 20 years since she’d last seen her, Emily had certainly developed a unique sense of style, not to mention her more eclectic hobbies that Kate didn’t completely understand, but still they’d been thrilled to find each other again so many years later, and Emily had become her main source of comfort in an otherwise unfamiliar town, telling her about practically everyone and everything.

“So how are things going?” Emily asked her one day while she was having lunch at the Stardrop Saloon. With the farmhouse’s kitchen only about half functional after so many years of disuse, Kate had taken to getting most of her meals in town until she could afford to fix it. “I’ve been dreaming about your farm lately—must be a good omen.”

“It’s… a work in progress,” Kate answered haltingly, staring at the ice floating in her glass. “I’m still trying to get everything figured out.”

In truth it was turning out to be the biggest learning curve of her life. She had to wake up well before the sun to make sure she had time to work on clearing the farm and tending the crops before she spent the rest of the day running around as much as possible: doing jobs for the other townspeople, fishing in the local lakes and rivers or down by the ocean, foraging in the forest—anything that could make her just a little bit more money while she got the farm up and running. She’d even started a tentative exploration of the mines after the landslide a few days prior, though she hadn’t made it much farther than a floor or two down. Every night she went to bed exhausted clear down to her bones.

The work was taking a physical toll on her, too. Three years of an office job didn’t exactly prepare her for the manual labor necessary to run a farm, and her arms and legs were practically reduced to jelly by the end of the day, her hands a mess of cuts, scrapes, and blisters. She felt tense and vastly out of her element; her one consolation had been the slow but obvious growth of seedling plants in her front field, a sign at least one thing was going right so far.

“You know, the clinic sells some muscle relaxers and energy tonics if you need them,” Emily suggested as she watched Kate knead into her near-constantly aching shoulders. “It might help to stop by sometime.”

“I can’t,” Kate sighed, poking at her lunch half-heartedly. “I’m almost positive Harvey hates me.”

“Harvey? As in Doctor Harvey?” Emily’s eyebrows quickly furrowed. “Why in the world would he of all people hate you?”

She quickly recounted what had happened that first day when she met the doctor. Since then, she’d done her best to avoid him at all costs, too embarrassed at her earlier outburst to risk running into him again. She’d even started taking the long way through the backwoods and mountains to get to town just so she wouldn’t have to walk past the clinic.

“Oh, Kate,” Emily sighed with a look somewhere between pity and disbelief. “Sweet, sweet Kate: you yelled at one of the shyest, most socially awkward men in town.”

Kate dropped her head on the bar top with a despairing moan. “He has to think I’m the biggest asshole in the entire valley,” she lamented, her words muffled against the wood.

“That’s not true,” Emily told her, using the gentle tone one would take to console a crying child, and threw her thumb over her shoulder. “Shane lives here.”

Shane, who’d been nursing a beer on the other side of the bar ever since Kate walked in, raised his mostly empty pint in salute. “Damn straight.”

Kate just rolled her eyes. She figured if anyone else had said the same about him, he would have at least made a show of flipping them off for it, but from her short time in town it was clear he and Emily had the closest thing that could pass for friendship when it came to Shane.

“You both know what I mean,” she said. “The point is I can’t talk to him again after that; I’d rather die.”

“Well if your plan is to avoid going to the clinic altogether, you just might,” Emily said. “Just go and apologize to him, Kate, he’s really sweet. I’m sure he won’t be mad.”

Kate sat silent, chewing her bottom lip. Usually she wasn’t one to shy away from owning up to her mistakes, but every time she thought about approaching Harvey again, she could only see the look of shock and confusion and guilt across his face before she had stormed away, and regret would bubble up like a fountain inside her.

“Maybe just start with a peace offering,” Emily suggested. “You’ve given a few other people interesting things you’ve found in the valley—it wouldn’t be strange to do the same for him. And then it might feel less weird to apologize.”

Kate nodded slowly. “Yeah, ok, I could do that. What does he like?”

Emily paused, leaning on the bar, and Kate watched her face grow more and more puzzled, curiosity slowly morphing into concentrated effort to recall any little piece of information about the doctor’s interests or hobbies.

“You don’t know?!”

“We don’t talk very much!” Emily exclaimed, her face going red. “Harvey’s very professional: he doesn’t talk a whole lot about his personal life, or really anything that’s not related to the clinic or medical stuff.”

Kate sank back onto her seat, defeated. “I’ll just have to hope I don’t drop an axe on my foot anytime soon then.”

“Stay positive—your aura is turning dark blue,” Emily said. “Come on, we’ll think of something.”

“Get him coffee.”

Kate and Emily both turned to Shane, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, and he scowled at their owlish expressions. “Come on, how the hell is it that I know he’s practically addicted to coffee and you don’t, Em? He comes in here almost every afternoon to buy some from Gus.”

“He must come in before my shift starts,” Emily shrugged, but slowly her surprise was eaten away by an excited grin. “But it’s a great idea. I can ask Gus what his regular order is, and you can bring it to him!”

She practically skipped away toward the back room, leaving Kate and Shane alone at the bar. Without Emily there to act as a buffer, they mostly sat in tense silence, punctuated only by the scuff of chairs on the wooden floor and the soft, tinny sound of retro pop music coming from Gus’s old jukebox.

After a couple of awkward minutes, Kate cleared her throat. “Thank you for the suggestion,” she said to him. “That was nice of you.”

Shane just shrugged, staring at his drink. “Whatever will get you to quit whining so I can enjoy my lunch break in peace.”

“Ah, there it is. For a minute I almost thought you were being decent.”

He sighed heavily, scowling a bit as he set his glass down. “Look, most people in town would not use the words ‘nice’ or ‘decent’ to describe anything about me,” he said, “but you’re a friend of Em’s, so I will do my best to be civil, ok?”

Kate wasn’t sure what exactly Shane would consider “civil,” but she nodded anyway just as Emily returned, a small piece of paper in hand.

“Ok!” she chirped. “Let’s get you on the path to making amends!”

------

Harvey ushered Jodi and Vincent back into the waiting room from his office, the latter’s knees and hands covered in colorful band aids, a sucker held tight in his fist.

“Be more careful on the playground next time, ok Vincent?” Harvey instructed gently, crouching down so he could be closer to the boy’s eye level. “No more jumping off the swings.”

“Ok, Doctor Harvey!” Vincent pledged with a wide grin before taking off like a bullet for the door, Harvey’s warnings already abandoned.

Jodi gave him a tired smile as he stood up. “Thank you again,” she said, and as she watched her son run out into the town square, added with a sigh, “I’m sure we’ll be back soon.”

“It’s no trouble, Jodi,” he said. “It’s what I’m here for.”

He waved as she headed outside before returning to the recovery room where Maru was remaking the beds. She glanced back at the sound of his footsteps approaching.

“Did you get Vincent all patched up?” she asked.

“It wasn’t as serious as it looked—just a few scrapes, and I’m sure he’s getting new ones as we speak.” Harvey started pulling the old sheets off of one of the other beds, shaking out the dust that was starting to collect. As good as it was to have them there, they rarely saw much use, not that he could complain about that. “I hate to say it, but Vincent’s visits are starting to become the main thing keeping this place running outside of flu season.”

“If not him, then Sam always falling off his skateboard,” Maru added with a laugh. Then there was a beat of silence, her hands stilling from where they were folding a blanket, before she turned to him. “Have you gone and talked to Farmer Kate yet?”

Harvey sighed, dropping the sheet he was holding into the pile of others needing to be washed. It had been about a week since the first and last time he had talked to Kate, and at first all he wanted was to forget the entire interaction, to move on with what little dignity he had left. But he’d only made it a few days before Maru had started asking if he had met her yet, and eventually he had no choice but to come clean about his attempted introduction. She’d spent the last few days since trying to get him to talk to her again to explain himself, and he’d been doing his best to avoid Kate even more.

“No, I haven’t,” he confessed. “I’m sure she’s busy trying to get settled on the farm. I don’t want to bother her now.”

Maru crossed her arms, leveling him with an unimpressed look. “You’ve been saying that for days. You can’t stall forever.”

“I tried to talk to her once, and look where that got me,” he muttered without thinking. Then as his mind caught up with his mouth, he immediately turned to Maru with regret. “I-I’m sorry, that was—”

“You know you don’t always have to be perfectly polite when it’s just the two of us,” she interrupted with an exasperation that had little real annoyance behind it, and Harvey wondered when a 20-year-old became possibly the only person in town who knew him on even a slightly deeper level than just exchanging simple pleasantries. “I’ve worked for you for the last two years: I usually know what you’re really thinking even if you’re too nice to say it.”

Harvey busied himself with stripping the rest of the bed, grateful for something to keep his hands occupied if they were going to have this conversation. “Then you know why it’s hard for me to just… go initiate something like that,” he said. “I just don’t want to make it any worse than I already have.”

“It was clearly some kind of misunderstanding, Doctor Harvey. I’m sure she’s not going to bite your head off again.” Maru finished making the bed she had been working on and joined Harvey as he started remaking his. “I’ve talked to her a couple times already and I think you two could actually get along pretty well. Plus, she’s not all that much younger than you. I mean, it seems like I’m the only one you ever really talk to, and you’re closer to my parents’ age than to mine—”

“Maru, for my sake, please don’t ever say that again.”

“I’m just saying,” she continued, barely missing a beat, “that I don’t think I should be the only person you talk to like this. I mean, when’s the last time you really spent any time with someone else outside of work or the festivals?”

It took him an embarrassingly long time for anything to come to mind. During his first couple years in town, Harvey had attempted making friends with the others around his age, but he just never managed to click with anyone. Clint was about as awkward with social stuff as he was, but even a single conversation with him left Harvey feeling more depressed than before; Emily was lovely, but he knew she was too eccentric to want to spend time with someone like him; and Shane—well, Shane made Harvey look like a regular socialite in comparison, not to mention that most of their interactions were the result of clinic visits and near-alcohol-poisoning. He’d managed to have a few decent conversations with Elliott since he had arrived, but as friendly as the writer was, they just didn’t have enough in common to get past small talk. So Harvey was left largely adrift, and he’d be lying if it didn’t gnaw at him some days.

“I don’t know if I was half as insightful as you when I was your age,” Harvey marveled.

“It’s a gift and a curse,” Maru shrugged. “So you’re going to talk to her now, right?”

The bell to the front door chimed insistently before he could say anything. A second ringing only a moment later had him hurrying down the hall, worried what could have happened to have multiple people coming in at once. He certainly didn’t need a repeat of Willy and Elliott’s “fishing lesson” that led to stitches and hook removals for the both of them.

But the waiting room was empty, a takeaway coffee cup sitting on the counter the only sign anyone had been there at all. Harvey recognized the Stardrop Saloon’s logo on the cup sleeve, but there was no note or anything attached to it as he picked it up, only a short message written on the side:

Sorry.

     -K

“There, see?” Maru declared as she came up behind him and caught a glimpse of the coffee and its message. “I told you she was nice.”

Harvey just stared out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of a brown ponytail, and wondered how much more complicated the new farmer was going to turn out to be.

Notes:

Emily and Shane have appeared! I've always liked the headcanons and fics that give them a kind of unlikely friendship.

Some ages are established in this chapter: I have exact ones figured out but I'm not sure if I'll end up explicitly including them for all the villagers, so in case I don't, Maru, Alex, Abigail and Sam are all in their early 20s; Sebastian, Haley and Penny are in their mid 20s; Leah is late 20s; and Emily, Shane and Elliott are in their early 30s. We're going with late 30s for Clint based on a message from ConcernedApe: https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/q804ir/after_arguing_with_my_friends_about_how_old_we/

Hope to have the next chapter up soon!

Edit 2/23: Quick edit to Maru's age. Should be 20 and not 21.

Chapter 3

If there was a more stubborn man than George Mullner alive in the valley, Harvey had yet to meet him.

He was well aware that doctors were rarely anyone’s favorite person, especially for people like George and Evelyn who had to see him multiple times a year, but with every appointment, the old man was growing more and more resistant to any of Harvey’s recommended treatments or lifestyle changes, and Harvey was starting to run out of ways to appease him.

“George, it’s important that you make some efforts to improve your diet and exercise more often,” he insisted, hanging his stethoscope around his neck as he sat back on one of the Mullners’ rickety old chairs. “If you don’t, you run the risk of your health deteriorating sooner rather than later.”

He preferred doing George’s check-ups at the clinic, where he was a little less likely to push back on medical advice, but the mid-spring rain over the last few days had reduced some of the town’s dirt paths to thick mud that made it a challenge for George’s wheelchair to make it even the handful of feet to the town square’s cobblestone, so Harvey had agreed to a house call instead. On top of that, Evelyn—one of the only people who could get her husband to take Harvey’s advice—had been called away by Lewis over some issue with the flower beds, leaving Harvey to try and make his case by himself. It hadn’t been going well.

“My health is fine, thank you very much,” George grumbled, eyes narrowed at Harvey. “You think I don’t know my own body?”

“I’m sure you do, but it’s my job to look out for your well-being anyway,” Harvey explained as patiently as possible. “It’s why I went to medical school for eight years.”

Difficult patients weren’t anything new for him. Harvey saw his fair share of them during his residency, and as frustrating as they could be, it was an unavoidable facet of being a doctor. But in Pelican Town, where he was a daily witness to the habits and struggles of all his patients, he felt he had to fight harder to get them to take their health seriously, and it felt all the more personal when they didn’t.

George just made a dismissive noise, waving a hand like he hoped Harvey would disappear with it. “In my day, we didn’t need any fancy diets or supplements or whatever junk you doctors are selling these days,” he scoffed. “People are going all soft now. If I weren’t in this chair I could run circles around you, young man.”

“I don’t doubt that, George,” Harvey replied with a thin smile. He was grateful this was his last appointment of the day so he could disappear to his apartment almost right after, finally able to decompress with his radio and maybe open the bottle of wine he’d had stashed in his fridge for far too long.

A knock on the door put his thoughts of a more relaxing evening to an end as he flinched at the sudden sound. George, sparing a moment to grouse again about unsolicited visitors, called out, “It’s open!”

The door creaked, letting in the sound of gentle raindrops hitting the ground outside. “George? I’ve got those leeks you wanted!”

Kate came around the corner into the living room, a faint spattering of water drops darkening the top of her t-shirt, but stopped short when she noticed Harvey. She clutched a paper-wrapped bundle against her chest, her hair done in two braids over her shoulders. Harvey shifted in his seat, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Oh! Sorry, I-I didn’t realize anyone else was here,” she stammered a moment, then gestured behind her. “I’ll just leave these in the kitchen.”

“Not so fast,” George said as she turned, wheeling a couple inches closer. “You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I’d like to hear your opinion on the doctor’s so-called recommendations for my health.”

“George…” Harvey sighed, pushing his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose. That wine was sounding better and better by the second. “I’m sure Kate has other things she has to do today.”

George as usual paid him no mind. “He thinks I need to change what I eat and exercise more,” he stated with a frown, “and I think that I’ve been living in this body for over 70 damn years and know what it needs better than anyone else.”

Kate’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two men, and Harvey would have given anything to sink straight into the ground. In the month or so since she’d left him the coffee, they had run into each other around town a handful of times, exchanging brief, awkward hellos and maybe a comment or two about the weather. They had been polite with each other, but still he felt like he was walking on eggshells around her, worried he’d say or do the wrong thing again and upset whatever odd equilibrium they were in. And now she’d gotten roped into his work as well, and Harvey hated the thought that she might agree with him just out of pity, but was even more terrified that she would choose to enable George as if to spite him somehow, as paranoid as it made him sound.

“Well, I think Harvey is right,” she finally answered. “He is a doctor, and he just wants what’s best for you. If he’s making suggestions about your health, then it’s for a good reason.”

George sat stewing for a moment, long enough for Harvey to become hyper-aware of his own heartbeat in his ears as he and Kate stood there watching and waiting with the same uncomfortable looks on their faces.

“Fine. I suppose you have a point,” George relented before turning back to Harvey. “Alright, tell me what you want me to do.”

Harvey did his best not to visibly breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank you, George. I think limiting your sodium intake is a good place to start, and we can see how you feel at your next appointment. And I’d like you to make sure you exercise your arms more frequently, too.”

He looked up to say—something, he supposed, though he wasn’t quite sure what—to Kate, but only caught her foot disappearing back around the corner, soon followed by the open and shut of the door. Harvey was already halfway across the room before he realized what he was doing.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to George, not bothering to wait for the grumbling that inevitably came after, and followed Kate outside.

The rain had been reduced to a light sprinkling, cool drops in his hair and on his shoulders as he stopped her just outside the house, already on her way back in the direction of the farm.

“Kate, wait!” She spun back, a slight pinch to her brows at his appearance. “I’m sorry you got dragged into that. I should have done more to stop him.”

“It’s not a problem,” she replied with a shrug. “I get that George is pretty stubborn. I’m not surprised that extends to stuff about his health, too.”

“Well, I appreciate your help anyway, especially since I… I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.”

She didn’t respond for a moment, glancing down at her shoes instead, and Harvey deflated a bit that his attempt to broach the gap between them had led to just another failed interaction. But just as he turned to retreat back to the Mullners’ house, Kate heaved a resigned sigh.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to give you a real apology for weeks now,” she admitted, moving to stand underneath one of the nearby trees to escape the lingering rain. “I know you were just trying to be nice that day and there was no excuse for me to snap at you like that.”

Harvey followed her under the canopy of bright green, hands buried in his pockets to keep them idle. “There’s no hard feelings, Kate. In your defense, I probably could have phrased my comment about Zuzu City a little more tactfully. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything.”

“I was already on edge after Pierre told me about the JojaMart in town.” She didn’t turn to look at Harvey, instead wrapping her arms around herself as she stared out at the sodden paths. “I- well, I worked for Joja right before I came here: taking over the farm was supposed to be my way of getting away from that job,” she explained, mouth contorting into something between a sardonic smile and a grimace. “It feels like everyone looks at me and only sees my grandpa and everything he accomplished, and I’m having a hard time living up to that.”

Harvey sat with the silence that followed her brief moment of vulnerability. He didn’t fail to notice the tired look in her eyes even now, the same look she had when they had first run into each other. He hadn’t really considered how much pressure had come with her trying to restart the farm, or how much of that might be because of her grandfather’s legacy that had still lingered even when Harvey first arrived in the valley years after the man’s death.

Kate finally noticed him watching her and huffed out a half-hearted laugh. “Sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear me ramble on about all my problems.”

“No, no I understand better than you think, actually.” It was her turn to give him a curious glance, and he leaned back against the tree as he continued, “I took over the clinic from the last doctor about five years ago, and he left some very large shoes to fill. If it had been him making recommendations to George, I doubt he’d have half the trouble I do.”

Kate laughed more genuinely at that, a lighter sound than he’d heard from her before. He thought it suited her. “How long did it take everyone to… I don’t know, see you as your own person, I guess?”

“A little while, but eventually people started to come around to the way I did things,” he said with a shrug. “They’ll do the same for you too; just give it a little more time.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She gave him a cautious but no less grateful smile. “I suppose I should get back to the farm. Thanks for the advice, Harvey. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

He waved as she headed off toward her home, a gesture she returned. For the first time in a month, Harvey felt a weight lifted from his shoulders, a lingering tension dissipating and leaving him standing a little straighter than he had before. And he hadn’t stumbled over his words once during the entire conversation: if that wasn’t a win for him, he didn’t know what was.

Evelyn reappeared just as he was heading back inside, wiping dirt from her hands with a handkerchief pulled from the pocket of her raincoat. She met Harvey’s gaze with raised eyebrows.

“Oh! I expected you to be done with George’s appointment by now, Doctor Harvey.” Her surprise shifted to light concern at the fact that he was still there. “Is everything alright?”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, casting one last look back in the direction Kate had disappeared. “Everything’s perfectly fine.”

Notes:

Sorry this one took longer than I meant it to. I got very engrossed in a video game like halfway through and it was the only thing I could do for about three days (If you're into research-oriented, detective like games, I would highly recommend The Roottrees are Dead. 10/10).

The next chapter should be out sooner than this one provided I don't get distracted again!

Chapter 4

Kate all but bounced into Haley and Emily’s house, not bothering to knock as she flung the front door open.

“Emily! You’ve got to see what I found!”

Haley, who’d been sprawled out on one of the living room couches, yelped and fumbled with her phone at Kate’s sudden intrusion, shooting her a dirty look as soon as she recovered.

“Knock much?” she snapped, but Kate just waved her off.

“I brought you that salmonberry jam last week and didn’t charge you for it, so now I get to come in here and talk to Emily whenever I want.”

Haley opted to roll her eyes and flip Kate off instead of firing back at her teasing.

Growing up an only child, Kate’s experience with younger siblings mostly came from her friends’ brothers and sisters over the years, and it didn’t come as much of a surprise that Haley would fall into little-sister tendencies with her and Emily, too. Though they weren’t very close as children because of their age gap, Kate’s rekindled friendship with Emily was starting to push them into something like sisterly teasing, though sometimes Kate had a hard time telling whether Haley was actually being mean to her, her tone more often than not an ambiguous mix between a joke and a jab. Despite that, Haley was still one of the only people in Pelican Town other than Emily who Kate felt she could kind of be herself around, so she couldn’t bring herself to mind her little digs too much.

Emily poked her head out of the kitchen as Kate approached, blue hair secured back by a red bandana. Kate pulled a rough cluster of light purple crystals from her bag.

“Is that amethyst?” Emily practically dove to scoop the gem out of Kate’s hands, cradling it in her own the way one might hold a baby bird. “Where did you find this?”

Kate sat at the nearby kitchen table as Emily did the same, barely taking her eyes off the crystals. “I was in the mines earlier today and cracked into it thinking it was another rock.”

“Is that why you’re caked in dirt?” Haley asked as she wandered in to join them. Emily gave her a withering look while Kate just stuck her tongue out at her.

“This dirt is the mark of money-making, for your information,” Kate said, head held high. “I grabbed enough of them to give a few crystals to Emily and sell the rest to Clint. It’ll get me through another week or two—enough to make up for the last cauliflower harvest, at least.”

There was only a month or so of spring left, and since arriving in the valley, Kate’s farming attempts had yielded mixed results throughout the season. Her first few batches of vegetables were small and barely worth the money she spent to buy the seeds, not to mention those that fell victim to bugs and disease before she knew how to watch for those. Slowly her crops improved over the next couple months as she learned more, to the point where she could even afford to buy a few preserves jars and kegs to experiment with when she had the time.

But the last couple weeks had been a backslide. The crows had gotten into part of her meager field, wrecking almost a third of the plants there, and another section had been overwatered by accident, leaving the cauliflower she had hoped to sell mostly rotted and worthless. The only way she’d been able to make back the money she lost was spending nearly every waking hour either in the mines or fishing.

And that was on top of her episode inside the old community center a week ago that ended with a visit to the strange man on the edge of Cindersap Forest who called himself “the wizard.” She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone for fear they’d rightfully question whether she was mentally sound, or at the very least, insist she take a break to avoid overworking herself any further. Something she couldn’t afford to do going the way she was.

“I will consider this an early birthday present, then,” Emily said, tucking the amethyst into her pocket. “You’re going to come to my party in a couple weeks, right? I’m inviting everyone so we can have it at the saloon.”

“You’re really going all out for this, huh?” Kate laughed gently, though she was hardly surprised Emily would turn her birthday into a town-wide celebration considering the average level of optimistic cheer she seemed to carry every day.

“Usually the only times we all get together are for valley festivals full of tourists or Lewis’s ‘community-building’ initiatives like the luau or Winter Star,” Haley interjected with her average level of mild cattiness. “We thought it would be nice to do something less formal for a change.”

“Plus, you can take a break from the farm and socialize for a while,” Emily said to Kate. “You barely had time to stick around for the egg festival.”

Kate sighed a bit, leaning forward on her elbows. “Of course I’ll come, Em, but… my attempts at socializing haven’t gone super well so far.”

“I thought you said you and Harvey talked?” Emily asked.

Kate’s mind briefly drifted back to her conversation with the doctor outside George and Evelyn’s house, the soft rain around them and the gentle look he gave her as he told her about his own struggles settling into Pelican Town. “Just give it a little more time,” he had said, and it was the first time since getting off the bus that Kate felt like everything would, with time, work itself out. Too bad things never ended up being that simple.

“We did; I’m talking about everyone else,” she explained. “I can’t have a conversation with any of the older folks without them bringing up the farm and Grandpa and what a great guy he was, and pretty soon it feels like they’re more interested in talking about him than they are in talking to me.” She picked at the dark dirt still stuck under her fingernails as she relived the one-sided conversations she’d had with people like Marnie and Willy and Gus, all of whom meant well, but still made her feel like a little kid wearing their parent’s too-big shoes around the house, trying to be something they weren’t. “And then everyone closer to my age feels like they have their little friend groups and niches figured out, and I don’t know how to join in without feeling like the new kid at school.”

Emily clicked her tongue with kind understanding. “Look, you’re not wrong that in a town this size, we can get a little… cliquey, when it comes to new faces. Haley and I are guilty of it sometimes, too.” Haley scoffed a bit at Emily, but also didn’t offer any kind of rebuttal to her sister’s words as she continued, “That’s not going to change if you avoid all the town gatherings, though. Some of them are pretty fun.”

Then Haley’s eyes sparkled with a sudden excitement that Kate had rarely seen from her so far. “You should totally come to the Flower Dance tomorrow!”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “You mean the dance Abigail called ‘a show of forced traditionalist values’?”

She’d raised questions about the event one Friday night at the saloon after she’d heard it mentioned offhand during the egg festival, and Abigail had been quick to make her opinions about the event known—loudly and to Lewis’s quick disapproval as he happened to wander through the conversation.

“It’s not that bad,” Emily said with a slight shake of her head. “The dancing is a little old-fashioned, but it’s still a nice event, and it’s out in a clearing in the forest, so you don’t really have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to.”

Kate knew she didn’t have the time to spend the entire afternoon dancing in the forest. She was barely going to have the time to go to Emily’s birthday party, and unless Yoba themselves dropped a pile of money on her front step tomorrow, losing part of the day she could spend working would hurt her wallet at the end of the season.

But Pelican Town and the valley were her life now. Even if it was inconvenient, she needed to at least try to make herself a part of the community and connect with the other townspeople, or else she was in for some profoundly lonely decades ahead of her.

“I can probably stop by for a little bit,” she relented, prompting wide smiles from the sisters.

“Make sure to wear something nice,” Haley said. “You can borrow something from me, if you want.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Believe it or not, I own more clothes than just overalls,” she asserted, not missing the way Emily tried to stifle a laugh behind her hand, “but thanks, Haley.”

Conversation soon turned to Emily’s birthday and other mundane news and gossip, and Kate tried not to let worried thoughts about all the farm land she still needed to clear, or the crops she still needed to harvest, or the barn she still needed to save up to build, run wild and dampen Haley and Emily’s excitement. She could set it all aside for the sake of bonding with the other Pelican Town residents.

It was just one afternoon.

------

The late spring breeze curled the skirt of Kate’s light purple dress around her calves as the forest clearing unfolded before her, near full to bursting with flower displays, the smell of Gus’s cooking lingering on the wind. The others were already gathered in small groups around the grass, all dressed in dresses and nice shirts and ties, and Kate was for a moment relieved she had taken Haley’s advice seriously, fiddling with the tie of the halter top at the nape of her neck, the light linen smooth under her fingers.

Emily and Haley ran up as Kate wandered in, wearing almost identical white dresses, though only Haley was adorned with a white-and-pink-petaled flower crown. A quick glance around proved most of the younger townspeople were dressed in matching white dresses or blue suits, reminding her of the elementary school music concerts she’d been forced to participate in as a child and the dusty themed costumes they had all been forced to wear, reused year after year with each new class.

“Kate! You look so nice!” Emily called as they approached, giving her an approving once-over. “That color really suits you; if you wanted, I could probably hem the skirt some time so it flares out more for a better silhouette and—”

“You’re tailoring out loud again,” Haley chided her sister, regarding Kate with a slight smile. “It is a cool dress, though.”

“Thanks,” she said, looking around at the clearing once more. “Is there some kind of theme this year where you all need to dress like that?”

The other two exchanged quick looks, Haley’s of quiet amusement and Emily’s of a sudden realization.

“Yoba, I kind of forgot for a minute you’ve never been to one of these before,” Emily admitted, fluffing up the satiny fabric of her skirt. “The dancers wear the same thing every year, but I don’t know if that’s a part of the old celebration or just because Lewis likes it.” All the new questions posed on the tip of Kate’s tongue were brushed away just as quickly as Emily breezily continued, “It’s supposed to represent when people in Stardew Valley would give thanks to Yoba for the return of spring by making a big feast and having all the unmarried adults dance with a partner—kind of like a fertility thing.”

“You forgot how every year they crown the best dancer the flower king or queen,” Haley added, straightening the circlet of leaves and flowers on her brow with a little grin. “I’ve won it for five years in a row now.”

“Well, my dress is light enough that I don’t think I’ll look too out of place,” Kate said, turning back to Emily. “We could dance together so you can show me the moves—just don’t be too mad if I step on your feet a little.”

Emily’s open, cheerful expression collapsed in on itself, replaced with some mix of confusion and guilt. “Oh, well… I’m already dancing with Shane.” All three of them turned to where he was watching his goddaughter Jas spin circles in her princess-style dress, shoulders hiked up and head ducked low like it would hide him from the rest of the town, though he still smiled at the little girl in front of him. “It’s the only way to get him to participate, and Marnie gets mad if he just sulks by the fence.”

“And Alex and I dance together almost every year,” Haley confessed as well, sharing a similar look of regret.

Kate’s shoulders drooped knowing her two easiest options for dance partners were already taken, but she nodded anyway. “That’s fine, I can just ask someone else.” She glanced around at the others gathered at the edges of the clearing: she and Leah had talked a couple times about foraging advice and spending time in Zuzu City, so there was chance she wouldn’t mind showing Kate how the dance went, and Sam was always good-natured whenever they crossed paths. And Elliott, ever the romantic from what she’d come to gather, might be eager to be her dance partner and show her the moves if not just for the fairytale aesthetic of it all.

But Haley’s hand on her shoulder made her turn back, the genuine remorse written across her face catching Kate off guard. “I think everyone who plans to dance already has a partner.”

The simple fact the sisters had been gently trying to explain to her finally landed, and it left her far more disappointed than she could have guessed. “Oh.”

Emily lowered her gaze to her hands, clasped tight in front of her skirt. “I’m really sorry, Kate, I didn’t think you’d want to participate or else I would have told you there wasn’t anyone to dance with this year.”

“Don’t worry.” Kate plastered an easy smile across her face to try and soothe her friend’s guilt. “It’s no big deal. This way I can watch and be ready for next year.”

It really shouldn’t have been surprising. She shouldn’t have expected to join in the way everyone else did in her first year there: she didn’t match the other women, she didn’t know the dance, and she didn’t have anyone to dance with. But despite what should have been, being relegated to the sidelines sent a dull ache spider-webbing through her chest, another reminder that she was still not of the valley, still not a part of the community the way the others were.

She excused herself with forced lightness, claiming she wanted to stop by the refreshment table before the dancing started, and retreated with her tail between her legs.

Standing at the edge of the river, staring down at her distorted reflection in the breeze-blown ripples, Kate sighed around the swell of dejection within her. Dancing had barely crossed her mind as she had gotten ready that morning, more concerned with the chores that she would have to do when she got home. But seeing how the others talked and laughed with each other so easily, how they kept their traditions with the kind of purpose that came from knowing those traditions were theirs and theirs alone, Kate felt a desperate desire to make herself a part of it, as if she could force Stardew Valley to accept her if she just tried hard enough, worked long enough, danced her heart out in a clearing in the woods. It was a ridiculous belief, and she chased it anyway.

“How are you liking the flower dance so far?”

She looked up from her little pity party just as Harvey wandered over, also dressed in a blue suit that made his already tall frame look even taller, exaggerating the near head’s worth of height he had on her. The spring weather had caught up to his normally well-tamed hair, auburn strands now fluffed up and windblown from the afternoon outside.

“It’s been nice,” she responded, taking a cheerful tone again, not wanting to chase him off with her own dejected feelings. Harvey initiating a conversation, especially with her, felt akin to seeing a baby deer in the woods—slightly unexpected and prone to startling if she wasn’t careful. “Of course I still have to see the actual dancing everyone’s been talking about.”

The tips of his mustache dipped with a small frown. “You’re not going to join in?”

Kate hesitated to answer for a moment, trying to find a balance between being honest and not completely bringing down the mood of the celebration. “Well, I- I wanted to, but Emily told me everyone was already partnered up, so I’ll just be watching this year.”

He hummed with an apologetic tone. “I’d be more than happy to let you take my place, but I think Maru might physically drag me out there if I try to get out of it.”

“Not a fan of dancing in front of the whole town?” she asked with a raised eyebrow and a grin.

Harvey gave her a dry laugh in return. “I’m not a fan of big social events in general. Usually I try to say my goodbyes early or find somewhere quiet to disappear to when it gets to be too much, but this is the one event I can’t escape that easily.” Then almost like an afterthought, he added, “And I have to dance in front of the whole town.”

Kate noticed then that he did look a little paler, rubbing his palms up down the front of his dress pants, fingers tapping a staccato against his legs. “So why do it? I doubt Lewis can force you to dance.”

“No, he can’t,” Harvey admitted, hands in his pockets as he watched the river run. “Everyone knows I’m not the most… extroverted person in the community, but if I didn’t force myself to go to things like this, I’d probably never leave the clinic.” He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the town, oblivious to the two outliers watching, as always, from the edge. “I owe it to everyone to try.”

The sentiment struck a familiar, vulnerable chord within her. “I know what you mean,” she said softly.

“Everyone!” Lewis’s voice cut through the clearing and their conversation. “If all the dancers could find their partners, we’re about ready to begin.”

Harvey blew out a steadying breath. “That’s my cue.”

“Break a leg, Harvey.”

“Wouldn’t that be just my luck,” he sighed, almost rueful, and the brief break from his usual polite tone, foreign to her until then, conjured up a sudden burst of amusement in her, making her toss her head back laughing.

“In that case, don’t break a leg.”

He smiled, and she watched him walk to the middle of the clearing to meet up with Maru, who seemed just as indifferent about dancing as any of the early-20s participants, save for Haley. Lewis started the music from some ancient-looking speaker system, and slowly, six pairs of dancers began going through the motions of an old tradition done countless times before.

Kate again felt that little drop in the pit of her stomach as the dance continued, mourning the loss of something she’d barely had and that wasn’t even hers in the first place. There would be other flower dances in other years and she would have her moment of community eventually. She’d try again another day.

The spring breeze kicked up once more. Kate wished the season would hurry up and end already.

Notes:

Kate attempts (and fails) to join the Flower Dance, plus some lore about the event that I made up on the spot.

A more dialogue-heavy chapter, but Emily's birthday party will be in the next chapter! Plus some much more Harvey/Kate focused scenes.

Chapter 5

Another potato was unearthed from the dirt like hidden treasure as Kate dug through the furrows of her little field, tossing it into the basket beside her, already brimming with harvested produce. The sun on her back was a welcome comfort, a sign of the changing season.

It would likely be her last harvest before she needed to plant summer seeds, and as it had gone for weeks now, she was already thinking ahead to the next set of tasks to complete: get new seeds in the ground in the next week or two, give Robin a down payment for a chicken coop, work on collecting… whatever it was the weird little things living in the community center wanted from her—the list stretched on like an endless path before her, the immensity more than once threatening to pull her down into despair at just how much she still hadn’t accomplished.

Her thoughts were interrupted as something small slid sideways along her back and her new gray tabby kitten, with the gangly legs and troublemaking attitude of a little teenager, sidled up to her, tail curling around her arm. Marnie had stopped by the farm a few days before holding the stray in her arms, wondering if Kate had any need for a mouser. While she wasn’t concerned about rodents, she was happy for the companionship anyway.

“I’ll fill your bowl in a minute, Ren,” she cooed to him, scratching under his cheek as he purred with all the intensity of a chainsaw. “I’ve got to finish with these so I can go to Aunt Emily’s party tonight.”

Emily’s birthday was the only thing that had gotten her through the couple weeks after the flower dance, the only thing she’d really had to look forward to in months. It had taken weeks, but Kate finally felt she had cushioned her savings enough to almost call herself “comfortable,” if only temporarily. It would be enough to last while she reset for summer and paid for the coop, and she desperately needed a celebration of some kind to start relaxing the claws of anxiety that had been a vice around her for so long. At the very least, she needed access to some strong alcohol.

Footsteps crunched on the dirt path leading to the bus stop, and Kate turned just as Lewis came into view, stopping just past the fence and gazing out at the farm, large swathes of it still growing wild even after she had managed to clear most of the sticks and rocks left over.

“Afternoon, Lewis,” she called from where she kneeled on the ground, beckoning him over with one hand as the other pulled another potato free. “What brings you over here?”

“Good afternoon, Kate. I just thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing out here,” he replied as he approached, eyeing her handiwork. “Hard at work, are you?”

“Just gathering up the last of the spring crops so I can replant for summer.” She held up the basket, bulging with potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, and even a meager showing of strawberries. It still wasn’t anything spectacular, not compared to the picture-perfect produce her grandpa used to grow, but her pride in what she had grown was genuine, nonetheless.

Lewis hummed with light approval, turning his attention back out to her field. “Certainly still have a lot of room to expand though, right?”

She had tilled about half the length between the farmhouse porch and the southern edge of her land over the last three or so months, the section about the same distance in width. It was still small compared to the rest of the unworked acres on the property, but it had been a decent start.

“I’m planning on clearing more land during the summer,” she said, climbing to her feet and dusting the dirt off her knees. “I’ve got some plans drawn up to add a little more fencing and some more sprinklers, too.”

“Well, I know Pierre appreciates the fresh produce, no matter how often it comes.”

Kate soured at the offhand snub and considered letting him know he was more than free to grab a hoe and join her instead of sitting in that mansion doing Yoba knows what all day. She ended up offering him a thin smile instead. “Is there anything else you needed? I just have a lot I need to finish before Emily’s party tonight.”

Until now, she’d been relieved Lewis had mostly left her in peace when it came to the farm, only stopping her in town a few times to ask how her efforts were coming along. Most of the time she was able to give him some vague update and blame her speedy exit on an errand she was running or a person she needed to track down before evening. Standing with him in the field, watching him look over the farm with a discerning, critical eye, made her skin itch with trepidation.

Lewis’s mustache twitched back and forth, the motion almost comical if not for the concerned furrow of his brows that went with it.

“Right, I suppose I should get to the point,” he said, clearing his throat. “You know everyone here in Pelican Town is happy to see the old farm occupied again, but some of us are getting a little worried about how much progress you’re making out here.”

Even half-expecting what he would say, Kate’s stomach still lurched with a bout of nerves, but she managed to keep a straight face, leaning on her shovel handle to mask the way her hands shook ever so slightly.

“Lewis, I can’t just fix this place up overnight,” she objected. “I’m doing the best that I can.”

“Of course; I don’t doubt that for a second,” Lewis was quick to add, “but I owe it to Henry to look out for your well-being, and I’m concerned that his farm might be more than you can handle with your… level of experience.”

As he fretted over her lack of knowledge, the worry and shame that had first dominated her slowly churned and solidified into something much more indignant. Despite the exhaustion that had come with the farm and the struggle to keep up with its needs, at the end of the day it was her farm, her new home. This wasn’t something she could wash her hands of and give up on, even if she wanted to, and Lewis insinuating she do just that, knowing at least in part what the place meant to her, sent a hot, angry flush up the back of her neck.

“I’m well aware this place isn’t what it was when Grandpa was here,” she told him, voice low in warning. “I don’t see how that’s any business of yours or anyone else in town.”

“I have to consider the financial impacts of this place on our community.” He had the good sense to look thoroughly guilty, eyes glued to his feet, scuffing his loafer against the dirt. “A farm is only an economic benefit if it’s profitable; I only wanted to broach the idea of hiring some help from someone with more of a background in this. There’s plenty of farmers near Grampleton who’d probably be willing to step in.”

Kate barked out an incredulous laugh. She vaguely remembered hearing her grandpa gripe about other farmers in the valley and their insecticide-heavy, commercial-based practices. He’d roll over in his grave if she let any of them set a single foot on the property.

“Grandpa left this farm to me,” she insisted, her jaw set. “I’m happy to get advice from others in the valley, but I’m not going to let some stranger run this place unless I physically can’t anymore.”

Lewis shook his head and blew a tense breath out through his teeth. As stubborn as the mayor could be, Kate was more than willing to stand her ground on this, until one or both of them were in the ground if need be. And Lewis was older than her.

Then he pulled his hat a bit tighter onto his head, like he was preparing to throw down one final gauntlet. “I didn’t want to bring this up to you because I figured once you moved here, it would no longer be an issue,” he started. “Joja and Morris have been trying to get their hands on this land for a few years now, but with the way your grandpa set up the farm to go to you after he died, there hasn’t been much they can do.” He spread his hands helplessly. “But if you end up leaving or the farm goes under, then they’re free to keep trying to buy up the land for a warehouse or distribution site or whatever else they can think up.”

If she weren’t already tensed like a coiled spring, the speed at which her jaw clenched at the mention of Joja Co. would have cracked her teeth. “I am not leaving, and the farm is not going to fail,” she all but hissed. “Now like I said, I’ve got a lot to do before tonight, if you don’t mind.”         

Their stare-down only lasted a few seconds, the heavy silence punctuated by Ren pouncing on whatever little bugs he found crawling through the upturned dirt. Lewis finally took a few steps back from her, hands pulling at his suspenders.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Just… think about what I said.” She watched him go without another word, headed back to Pelican Town.

As he retreated, her self-righteous anger quickly shifted to a sinking panic. She could talk a big game to Lewis, but his warnings about the future of the farm and Joja’s creeping reach sparked entirely new waves of worry within her than simple money troubles and the memory of her grandpa. A dense, cloying weight settled in her stomach, her heart pounding against her ribs.

She dropped back down to the dirt, throwing potatoes into her basket with much less care than before.

She needed that drink now more than ever.

------

Checking over inventory had never been Harvey’s favorite part of clinic duties, but it served as a decent distraction on slow days—a monotonous task good to make a few hours pass by unnoticed.

He had let Maru leave early so she could go home before Emily’s birthday that night, leaving him to finish up her tasks for her. Her absence was barely an inconvenience anyway as no one had set foot inside the clinic for the better part of the afternoon. He’d fallen victim to the warm, gentle onset of the nearing summer within an hour of being left by himself, shedding his white coat and jacket and cracking open the window to let the breeze in. He’d even grabbed the old radio he kept in his office and set it up on the main counter, one of his favorite oldies channels drifting softly through the waiting room.

He was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk, list of medical supplies in one hand and half-empty cup of coffee in the other, when the bell at the front door signaled Emily’s entrance. She beamed at him as soon as she saw him, and Harvey scrambled to right the chair and regain some semblance of professionalism as she approached the counter.

“H-hello, Emily,” he stuttered, ignoring the way her grin only grew wider with the flush of his cheeks. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“I just came by to talk about my party tonight.”

Both her expression and posture feigned innocence, her hands clasped behind her back and her eyes wide. Harvey would have to have been blind not to notice there was some hidden motive for her visit, but he kept his tone light anyway. “I’m afraid Maru’s not here; she’s probably still at home if you want to try and catch her there.”

“That’s ok, I’m not here for Maru.” Emily’s easy smile turned a little more pointed as the other shoe dropped. “I came to talk to you.”

“Me?” Of all the reasons he could think of for why Emily would need to come to the clinic to talk about her birthday, wanting to talk to him wasn’t on the short list—it wasn’t even in the top 20.

“You are going to come tonight, right?” She gave him a quick look up and down, and there was a twinge of resigned disappointment when she met his eyes again. She had always had some uncanny ability to look at him like she had weighed his soul with a single glance and already knew what he was thinking or feeling. Faced with that look then, it rooted him to the spot.

“Emily, you know how I am at parties,” he sighed, hands fluttering at his tie as he recalled other gatherings at the saloon spent tucked away in a far corner, gripping a glass of wine like a lifeline as he limped through small talk before slipping out early. “I’m hardly anyone’s idea of an ideal guest.”

Emily’s smile receded into a thin line, hands planted on her hips. “Come on, Harvey, it’s a milestone: you only turn 30 once. I want everyone there!” Then a corner of her mouth twitched, a little glint of mischief in her eye. “Especially my aerobics classmates.”

A mix of embarrassment and exasperation passed through him, bringing another wave of warmth as his fading blush turned a much deeper red. Emily was sworn to secrecy about his weekly involvement in the class alongside the others, and she was much too nice to ever share that secret. She was not so nice, clearly, as to not gently tease him about it anyway if they were alone.

“I promise I will stop by, at least,” he vowed, voice croaking around the lump of lingering mortification in his throat. “Just don’t be too disappointed if I’m back home before 9.”

She nodded with a quiet acceptance, as if she walked in expecting that to be the best she could get from him, and gave him a grateful smile.

“It’ll be fun, I promise. You might even end up having a good time!”

Just as she was about to leave, she paused by the door, open to the fresh air outside, and looked back at Harvey with an expression he couldn’t quite place, somewhere between fondness and sorrow.

“You know, there’s so much potential for happiness in your future if you open yourself up to it.”

She disappeared before he could respond, not that any response would come as he stared at the door dumbstruck. Emily was, as always, some seemingly all-seeing enigma that his far-too-grounded mind could spend the rest of his life trying to figure out and never quite get there.

He didn’t have the time to unpack her cryptic goodbye anyway. He now had a party to mentally prepare for.

------

The celebration was in full swing by the time Harvey arrived, walking through the door with hesitant steps. Gus’s old jukebox was turned up louder than Harvey ever thought it was capable of going, and people were scattered throughout the saloon, all talking or dancing or gathered around tables and bar seats. Even Shane, posted up at his usual spot by the fireplace, seemed more relaxed than Harvey had seen him in years. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, but it still did little to unwind the knot in his stomach.

He wound his way to the bar, catching a few curious looks thrown his way by the other party goers, some more surprised at his presence than others. Caroline and Jodi looked genuinely shocked that he had come, a reaction that might have offended him if it wasn’t perfectly warranted. Gus, as professional a bartender as ever, only gave him a knowing smile as he poured him a glass of the red wine he always ordered and left him to his devices, already called away by other patrons. Harvey clutched the glass and tried his best to blend into the background of the party.

He’d only taken a sip or two when someone pressed against his elbow. Kate was looking up at him, cheeks faintly pink and eyes sparkling with whatever she’d already had to drink, an empty cocktail glass set on the bar top waiting for a refill.

“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” she said, a few strands of loose dark hair falling over her shoulder as she leaned closer, her voice just catching his ear over the music. “I thought you weren’t a fan of stuff like this.”

It had been a couple weeks since the flower dance, the last time he’d seen or spoken with her. He was sure they had both been surprised that Harvey of all people had started the conversation—in truth he’d only approached the river to get away from the celebration himself. But she had looked so absolutely defeated standing by the water, arms wrapped around herself like if she squeezed hard enough, she would just disappear altogether, and the sight of her had overwritten the worries that usually kept him lingering on the sidelines. He had only hoped his attempt had worked, somehow. At the very least, he had gotten her to laugh.

“Emily can be pretty persuasive,” he replied, swirling the wine in his glass absentmindedly, “but I don’t know how long I’ll stay.”

“She’ll be sad if you don’t tell her happy birthday, at least,” Kate countered, nodding back to the game room of the saloon just as Gus returned her glass, filled with a fizzy mixed drink he didn’t recognize. “Come on, it’s quieter back by the pool table.”

“Oh, I-I couldn’t impose on you and your friends,” he tried to protest, but Kate was already weaving through the small crowd, eyebrows raised expectantly as she looked back at him over her shoulder, a silent bid to follow. For a few seconds his eyes darted between her and the bar top, willing some amount of bravery to possess him, before he grabbed his drink and trailed after her.

The loud, almost crowded energy of the main saloon was traded for a much more manageable atmosphere in the game room. Sam and Sebastian were hunched around the pool table, already in the middle of a game, as Abigail watched and made what sounded like less-than-helpful commentary from the nearby couch with Maru, who perked up immediately upon noticing Harvey, looking both surprised and impressed to see him. He held a hand up to her in an awkward wave as the tips of his ears burned again.

Kate beelined for one of the corner tables in the room, where Emily—adorned in a handmade sash and crown—was laughing with Elliott and Leah. All three turned at the approaching footsteps.

“Harvey!” Emily called as soon as she caught sight of him, breaking into a giant grin as she clapped excitedly. “I knew you’d come.”

“He was hiding by the bar when I found him,” Kate piped up, sipping her drink with a smirk.

“I don’t know if ‘hiding’ is the word I would use,” Harvey mumbled. “But I did want to wish you a happy birthday, regardless.”

“Well now that you’re here, you should pull up a chair!” Elliott gestured to one of the unoccupied seats behind him. “It’s not often we’re graced with the good doctor’s presence, after all.”

Harvey hesitated, unsure if Elliott’s flowery language was actually a sincere invitation, and found himself looking to Kate for help. She only shrugged with a slight smile, the choice to either join or shy away left up to him.

Like a little conscience at the back of his mind, he thought about Emily’s comment from earlier that afternoon without really meaning to. It wasn’t realistic to think one conversation could completely alter the course of his future; it also didn’t stop Emily’s words from being the final straw that had him grabbing a stool and squeezing in between Leah and Emily.

As the other four picked up where they left off talking, now absorbing Harvey into the discussion as well, little by little the twisted ball of nerves he’d brought to the party started to unravel. He would have been more than happy just listening to them talk; Elliott launched into explaining the plot of a fantasy book he had started outlining, Emily jumping in to offer suggestions of her own, while Leah and Kate resumed a debate about the best art museums in Zuzu City.

But soon he was asked about museums in the city that he had visited, or whether he preferred mystery or thriller novels, and even a few questions about being a doctor that went beyond the usual topics of blood and gore or how he survived medical school, and Harvey’s chest loosened into something more comfortable as he realized that he was being included, genuinely, with no suspicion of obligation from the others weighing against him. Before he knew it nearly two-and-a-half hours had passed along with the conversation, and he hadn't once felt like escaping back home.

But as the group bounced between different topics, his attention kept sliding back to Kate. Harvey had always done his best to take off his doctor’s hat at the few parties he had been invited to since arriving in Pelican Town, so he tried not to worry as she made her third trip back to the bar, or her fourth. By her fifth, however, he was concerned he was going to have to give yet another talk on the dangers of overdrinking.

“Kate, how are things out at the farm?” Leah asked her as she returned again, wobbling just a bit as she climbed back up onto her stool.

“Yeah, they’re ok I guess,” she said softly, more intent on spinning the ice in her drink with a straw. “Just still… cleaning the place up.”

“Looked like you had a lot to go when I walked by there yesterday.” Abigail had wandered over at the mention of the farm; it was no secret that she used to explore the property when it was still vacant, no matter how many times Pierre nearly had a heart attack when she’d come back covered in scrapes and dirt. “You could get lost in some of those trees and weeds.”

The others chuckled at the image, but Kate’s shoulders tensed, almost flinching with the noise.

“I’m doing the best I can with it, alright? I don’t need you guys giving me shit for it too.”

Her tense retort brought the laughter to an end in a staggered cascade, and Harvey watched the others exchange unsure glances, unprepared for her response of frustration and anger.

“We’d never insinuate your work with the farm was subpar,” Elliott assured her, “but you’ve said so yourself that your grandfather’s farm is… well, is a bit of an untamed beast at the moment.” He smiled at her, all charm and sympathy. “There’s no shame in struggling a bit to get your feet underneath you with an endeavor like this.”

Kate only scowled at his attempts to placate her, and when Emily put a hand on her shoulder, she shrugged it off brusquely. “I get it, ok? I don’t know what I’m doing and everyone knows it, so can you all get off my fucking back?!”

Silence hung in the aftermath of her outburst, so similar to Harvey’s first meeting with her that it almost felt like déjà vu, broken only by a peal of laughter from the other room and the jukebox music. The others at the table stared at Kate, and even Sam and Sebastian had stopped mid-game when the tension rose, the two of them and Maru all watching with almost morbid fascination as she lashed out. Harvey froze somewhere between wanting to console her and hoping the fire behind her eyes wouldn’t fall on him as well.

It was only a moment before Kate’s brief fury melted into deep regret, her face flushing a deep red from more than just the alcohol she’d had as she shrank back from the group and the eyes that were glued to her.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I sh-shouldn’t…”

She wavered on her feet, casting one more frantic glance around at the expressions of surprise and concern, and rushed for the door, her phone and other belongings abandoned on the table.

“Kate wait!” Emily immediately started to follow, her birthday crown nearly slipping from her head in her hurry, but Leah took hold of her arm before she got very far.

“I think we should give her a minute,” she cautioned, her eyebrows pinched tightly together. “I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“I shouldn’t have made a joke about the farm,” Abigail lamented, pulling her lip between her teeth as she shot a guilty look in the direction of the door.

“Clearly she’s been under much more stress than we thought.” Elliott turned toward Harvey, his usual light tone dropped in favor of his worry. “Maybe you ought to go after her. You were the only one she didn’t seem upset with; she might be more receptive to seeing you than any of us.”

Harvey almost argued against it: they were Kate’s friends, not him, and he couldn’t imagine a single thing he could say to her to undo whatever was bothering her so badly that she had snapped over Abigail’s teasing. But his medical training was quick to jump in that, depending on how drunk she really was, she could be in danger of seriously hurting herself if she ran blindly into the night.

“I can try,” he agreed with an unsure shrug.

As he pushed back from the table and made long strides for the door, Harvey only hoped he was the right man for the job.

Notes:

Had to cut this chapter off in a different place than I planned because it was getting pretty long, so the extensive Harvey/Kate conversation will come next chapter. Should be a shorter chapter and a shorter wait!

In the meantime enjoy Kate having a no good, very bad day and Harvey hanging with the cool "kids" for once.

Chapter 6

The cool night air was a sobering contrast to the saloon’s stifling interior as Kate burst out the door, all but stumbling toward the town square and away from the party and her stupid, awful tantrum.

Abigail’s comments about the farm were the perfect catalyst for the storm within her of lingering outrage and fear after Lewis’s earlier visit and her own self-doubt, only fueled by the drinking she’d done most of the night, hoping it would push those worries to the side if only for a little while. The stunned stares from her friends that greeted her when she fully realized the vitriol that she’d lashed them with was just the last nail in the night’s coffin.

Kate made it as far as turning the corner of the saloon before she crumpled against the wall, welling tears blurring her vision as her chest tightened around the frustration that had been slowly consuming her for months. She slid until she was sitting against the building, knees pulled to her chest and hands pressed tight against her mouth to muffle the noise as sobs shook her from the inside out.

Everything she had done in the valley was just mistake after mistake after mistake. Everything she touched fell apart like rot under her fingertips. She never should have opened that letter. She never should have come.

The muffled sound of the party, oblivious to her sudden exit, briefly grew louder with the open and close of the saloon door, laughter and cheesy pop music breaking the still evening.

“Kate?”

Harvey’s voice echoed against the brick and empty cobblestone. Kate clamped her hands down tighter, barely daring to breathe. She didn’t need anyone seeing her mid-breakdown, having them look at her all full of pity and disappointment. All she wanted was to slip away back home, curl up with Ren and cry until she was too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

He came around the corner of the building shortly after, his eyes meeting hers in the dim light of the lone lamp post. She watched his expression shift in an instant from worry to practiced calm as he crouched in front of her, scanning over her with the focused gaze of doctor running through a mental checklist of injuries she could have sustained in her flight outside. She stared at the ground in front of his feet, too embarrassed to look at him.

When she passed his test, his face softened into concern once more. “Are you alright?”

Instinct had her ready to brush him off, to tell him she’d just had too much to drink and only needed to go home and sober up. She felt like a bug under a microscope with the way he looked at her, and running was her only defense.

But her nerves already on a hair trigger and the weight of her spiraling emotions betrayed her, and she choked out another strangled sob before she could say a word, shrinking into herself again.

“I’m so stupid,” she whimpered, ducking her head as if it would hide her from him. “I don’t- I don’t know what I was thinking moving here. I’m barely getting by on the farm, and I’m n-nothing like my grandpa.” She scrubbed uselessly at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m a fucking failure.”

“You’re not stupid.” Harvey’s voice was gentle, his smile soft and understanding as she peeked at him past the curtain of her hair. “You’re not a failure, either. Anyone would be overwhelmed doing what you’re doing. It’s not some kind of mark against you that you weren’t immediately gifted at farming from the first day.”

A garbled, watery laugh escaped her as she kept trying to rub her eyes dry. Harvey dug into one of the pockets inside his jacket and pulled out a folded handkerchief, handing it to her without a word. The gesture, however sweet, made her stomach sink with guilt again.

“I didn’t mean to snap at everyone like that,” she murmured, twisting the square of cloth between her fingers. “Yoba, they probably think I’ve lost my mind.”

“I think they feel guilty more than anything,” Harvey said. He’d switched from crouching to sitting across from her in the grass, knees pointed at odd angles. “Abigail especially.”

“Her jokes don’t usually bother me; like Elliott said, I make them too.” Kate let her head fall back against the saloon’s bricks. “Lewis came by this morning and had… concerns about how the farm is doing, and I fought with him over it. I thought I could just ignore it for tonight.” She wiped the last of the tears from her face with a resigned sigh. “Now I’m worried he was right.”

Harvey didn’t say anything, only knitted his eyebrows with quiet solace, which didn’t help the uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability that sat heavy on her shoulders. Pouring her heart out to someone as close as Emily, as endlessly understanding and kind as she was, was already a new sensation for her after years of mostly surface-level conversations in the city. Doing the same with Harvey, as nice as he’d been to her so far, felt dangerously close to cutting herself open and spreading her ribcage apart, exposing much more than she wanted him to see.

Eventually his attention flicked past her to the saloon door. “Do you feel like going back inside?”

She shook her head. Even though she’d come down from the high-running emotions that sent her outside, it had left a hollow that had sucked her energy away with it; socialization was the furthest thing from her mind in the moment anyway.

“I’ll apologize to everyone eventually, but I can’t go back in there tonight.” She got to her feet, blowing out a heavy, weary breath. “I just want to go home.”

“Alright.” He hoisted himself back up to standing as well, a tad slower than she had. “I’ll walk back with you.”

“No, Harvey, please, I can get there by myself,” she protested. “You’re already missing the party because of me.”

Harvey remained undeterred. “You’re upset, and you’ve been drinking most of the night. You could still get hurt walking back by yourself in the dark.” His eyes—hazel, she finally realized this close to him, not brown like she once thought—were almost pleading with her. “Humor me, please.”

Kate was almost compelled to tell him five drinks over a few hours wasn’t enough to get her wasted anymore, not like it did when she was in college before she was exposed to Zuzu City’s night life, but the way he looked at her like he was still concerned she might dissolve into tears had her swallowing the argument down.

“Ok, fine,” she said, arms crossed over her chest, but still added a reluctant, “Thanks.”

She turned toward the farm and made it all of three steps before her hands flew to her jean pockets. “Shit,” she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut. “I left my phone and wallet in there.”

For a second she debated whether it was worth it to just grab her things from Gus’s lost-and-found box the next morning, unwilling to risk the questions and worries from her other friends if she showed her face again that night, before Harvey spoke up.

“I can go get them, if you want,” he offered. “I’ll just tell the others you’re not feeling well.”

She didn’t have it in her to try and fight him again, only giving him a nod that he was nice enough to leave at that, and watched him disappear back inside, another momentary burst of sound disturbing the night.

Minutes passed while she stood under the lamp post, hugging herself against the breeze that, however gentle, bit through the sleeves of her flannel shirt, and still something in her shrieked that she should take off for the farm before he got back. All her adult life it had been her point of pride to fend for herself and brush herself off any time something went wrong. She hated being treated like glass, and this was already the third time she’d been way more honest with Harvey about her feelings than she ever meant to be. She couldn’t keep giving him reasons to think she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself.

But she stayed anyway until he returned, depositing her belongings into her outstretched hand.

“They hope you feel better soon,” he said, pushing his glasses up with his other hand. “Abigail apologized for the jokes, too.”

“I’ll make it up to them,” she promised. “Let’s go.”

She started the trek back to the farm, Harvey in step next to her.

------

Most of the walk to Kate’s farm passed in silence, and Harvey spent that silence debating whether to try continuing their conversation outside the saloon or let the matter drop.

She’d looked distraught when he found her, curled in on herself in the grass, the tears running down her face visible even in the dim light. Even as she started calming down, he’d done his best to console her fears. He didn’t know the first thing about farming, but even he could guess it wasn’t something she could master without a lot of trial and error—something Kate seemed to have a difficult time accepting as she tried to make a life in her grandfather’s shadow. Harvey could only barely relate to the struggles and worries that came with what she was trying to accomplish, but as much as he felt that any words of assurance from him would fall flat, he was still desperate to do something to try and convince her she wasn’t the failure she thought she was.

Kate’s voice next to him cut through his anxious thoughts. “You really could have stayed at the saloon,” she said, her eyes still red and puffy as she looked up at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that happy.”

“I’d be a pretty awful doctor if I didn’t make sure you got back safely,” he countered, “but it probably wouldn’t hurt me to join in on celebrations like that more often. The party was… a lot more fun than I was expecting.”

“Gus ought to host more stuff than just gridball watch parties,” she laughed softly. “I know almost everyone goes there on Fridays, but still.”

They reached the end of the path at the edge of the farm, and Harvey saw for the first time what she’d done with the land in the last three months. Abigail and Elliott hadn’t been lying that parts were still overgrown with wild trees and fallen logs, but it was also clear she had put considerable work into developing what she could. The main field in front of the house was filled with plants, all meticulously lined in rows. Past the house there was a small, fenced-off area with large preserves jars and a few kegs, and there was a grouping of tapped trees surrounding a few small bee houses. To him, it seemed like a much better start than anything he would have been able to do.

“Kate, what you said about Lewis coming to the farm this morning,” he began slowly as she approached the farmhouse, “what exactly did he say to you?”

She looked out over her field, her mouth pressed thin. “He said he and some others are worried about how productive the farm is and my ability to run it.” Her frown grew a little deeper. “He suggested I hire someone else to take over instead so Joja can’t swoop in and take it if I leave or go broke.”

Harvey had his opinions about Lewis, most of them he wouldn’t repeat on principle, but he could hear in her voice how the mayor’s words had shaken her, and he couldn’t find a good reason to hold his tongue this time.

“I’ll tell you something that I think only Maru knows,” he said, a little conspiratorial, standing next to her in front of her porch steps. “Every year Lewis tells me how the clinic’s not making enough money and that I need to take on more patients outside of Pelican Town or else I’ll have to close, and I always tell him that the money will come through. And every year, it does.” He brushed his fingers over his tie, smoothing it down where it had been blown askew by the night breeze. “I’ve cut it close a couple times, but for all his worrying about profitability and economic benefits, he’s never been right about my business. He’s not right about yours either.”

Kate scoffed and shook her head. “You know, I still don’t know what it is he does all day as mayor. So far all I’ve heard is he organizes festivals, collects taxes, and badgers people about how much money they make.”

Their shared laughter echoed across the farm, and for a moment she looked lighter than she had all night, her eyes crinkling at the corners. But slowly, the smile slid from her face again.

“He wasn’t completely wrong about me not having enough experience, though. Before this I was a customer service rep for Joja where all I did was sit at a desk and take phone calls all day.” She stared down at her shoes, kicking at a stray rock. “I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how much I’d be guessing at trying to do this.”

Harvey shrugged. “I think there’s a lot of blind hoping that goes into something like rebuilding an old farm, or moving from the city to a little town to take over someone else’s clinic.”

She looked back up at him with a surprised smile. “You moved here from Zuzu City too?”

“I went to med school there; this is where I ended up after my residency,” he explained. “Don’t get me wrong, I know going from one medical job to another is nothing like switching from an office to a farm, but I at least know how scary the change of scenery is.”

“What you said about it being a hard adjustment moving here makes a lot more sense now,” Kate said, her eyes still a little wide. “At least it’s nice to know I’ve got more than one friend in the valley that knows what it was like living there.”

Harvey stilled. A part of him wondered if he’d even heard her right, but before he could say anything a yawn had her nearly stumbling back onto the porch steps.

“I should get to bed. I’ve still got a lot to do tomorrow,” she sighed.

“Y-yes, I need to… I should get back to town, too.” He nearly tripped over the words, only saved by the medical autopilot that took over. “Make sure you drink some water before you sleep, though, or something with electrolytes if you have it.”

Again she laughed, light and quiet, as she crossed the porch to her front door. “Thanks, Doctor Harvey. Have a good night.”

“Good night, Kate.”

He waited until the door closed behind her, taking one last look around at the work she’d done, before he turned back the way they had come, his footsteps on the ground the only other sound alongside chirping crickets and late-night birds.

He was halfway home before he realized she had never returned the handkerchief he lent her, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. If that was the price to have someone call him a friend, he was glad to pay it.

Notes:

We've reached the end of the Harvey/Kate friendship build up!

Y'all will find out quick I'm a hurt/comfort girlie at heart. I don't imagine there will be a ton of it in this story, but anytime I get to write it is a joy for me.

Summer starts next chapter!

Chapter 7

Notes:

Heads up: There's some very mild descriptions of minor injuries in this chapter. Nothing graphic, but proceed with caution if that's something that bothers you.

Thunk!

The thick wooden post sank into the earth a few inches further as Kate heaved the mallet down again. She straightened up once it settled deep enough to hold secure, panting as she glanced at the handful of pre-dug holes ahead of her waiting to be filled to finish the new fence.

Only about two weeks in, the start of summer was already looking more productive than her first season spent in the valley. She’d worked from dawn to dusk for days to clear a second field to grow more crops, now filled with tiny, green seedlings just beginning to emerge from the dirt. The fence—and her new scarecrows—had been an added measure to make sure there was as little risk as possible of losing any more profit to crows or other scavengers.

She had even made more progress felling the farm’s unwanted trees and breaking up the logs and rocks; there was still more to do, but she had cleared enough for the chicken coop Robin promised to build her in a few weeks. It was the cleanest and most put-together the farm had looked since she arrived.

The work, however rewarding, had kept her from venturing in Pelican Town much, and she had barely seen anyone since Emily’s party. She had made sure to track down her friends as soon as possible to apologize for what she had said that night, and all were thankfully understanding. While with Emily she had been completely honest about why she had freaked out, the others she told a more watered-down version of the story: Kate didn’t doubt that Abigail, Leah, and Elliott would have been just as kind about her self-doubt as Emily, but she didn’t see a need to have even more people worrying over her when she was determined to move on from what had happened.

She grabbed another fence post from the nearby pile, jamming it into the ground. She had been going almost nonstop since the start of the season, fueled by a burning need to prove she was more than capable of making the farm her own. As much as Lewis’s so-called advice had stung her, it had also given her a firm push toward cultivating the land into something she could be truly proud of, and not simply because of the warm nostalgia of her summers with Grandpa. Whether she was going now out of inspiration or spite was hard to say, but she figured it didn’t matter as long as she was motivated. And if Lewis had kept his distance from the farm, too, that was just an added bonus.

Thunk!

Another post joined the line, all more or less straight and stark compared to the dark dirt of the field, and Kate followed it with the next in the pile. She would have to go back when she was finished and connect the posts with the long, thin planks Robin had given her, but for now she was content to lay out the borders of the fence. The steady rhythm of placing posts was comforting in a way, even relaxing despite the dull ache through her arms and back from the physical demand of the task.

It was only as she stepped back to pick up the mallet again that she realized she had miscalculated where her feet had ended up, her right foot slipping down into the next post hole and the rest of her falling back onto the ground.

A bolt of white-hot pain flared up the side of her ankle, and she unleased a string of curses that would have made Shane cringe as she pulled her foot free. The joint throbbed as she sat up and tried to gingerly readjust her foot, her fingers shaking as she prodded at it and prayed that she hadn’t just screwed herself over.

Her mind raced with worst-case scenarios. A broken ankle would mean nearly two months without being able to do any farm work herself, and she didn’t have the money to hire someone to help her. Her stomach sank at the thought that all her effort could be rendered useless with one simple misstep.

Alongside the panic was also the burning embarrassment that she had made it so far without hurting herself only for that streak to be ruined by tripping in a hole. Common sense would be to call the clinic and have Harvey come examine it, but she still cringed at how often he had been witness to her falling apart or making a fool of herself. Even if it was his job to treat whatever dumb injuries the people of Pelican Town sustained, she would almost rather lay on the ground and suffer than subject herself to more scrutiny.

But she also couldn’t afford the setback that not getting her ankle looked at would cause. She was just going to have to swallow her pride—again—and call the clinic.

It was a small miracle she had stuck her phone in her pocket before heading outside for the day: more than once she had forgotten it on the kitchen table or on her dresser where it sat abandoned until sundown when she returned home. She fished it out, thumbs hovering over the keypad.

And couldn’t remember the damn number.

Kate knew she had seen it before; Lewis had left a phone book in the farmhouse before she arrived with most of the local numbers, including the businesses in Pelican Town. But it had gotten tossed into a pile of her grandpa’s old things some time ago and she had no idea where it could have ended up.

But her other option was calling someone else in town to come and take her to the clinic, and the thought of anyone else seeing her helpless and sprawled out in the dirt was worse than having to explain herself to Harvey.

“Ok, you’re a capable woman, Kate,” she huffed to herself. “You can do this yourself.”

She grabbed the shovel she had been using to dig holes, luckily within arm’s reach, and carefully pulled herself off the ground, leaning on the handle. Her first few experimental steps were like lightning shooting through her foot, but still she breathed a relieved sigh that she could at least put some weight on it, a good sign she hadn’t broken or fractured anything.

Bracing against her makeshift crutch, Kate gritted her teeth and started the slow, careful trek into town.

------

“Hey Ka—Sweet Yoba, are you ok?”

Maru rushed through the door behind the counter and out into the waiting room as Kate limped into the clinic, sweating both from her earlier fence building and the effort it took not to fall on the walk from the farm. She collapsed into one of the nearby chairs.

“I had a bit of an accident,” she panted. “Is Harvey here?”

“Yeah, hang out a minute and I’ll go get him.”

Maru disappeared just as quickly as she came, and Kate slouched into her seat, the mild adrenaline fading away and leaving her boneless as she leaned her shovel-crutch next to her. She wouldn’t have been shocked if it was the first time in a week that she had sat down during the middle of the day, and even the unyielding plastic of the waiting room chairs was a welcome alternative to the early summer heat, despite her rest being at the expense of her ankle.

Maru burst through the door again, startling Kate back into sitting straight, as Harvey followed close behind, pulling on a white doctor’s coat. His jaw tensed as he approached, worry lines creasing his forehead.

“Let me take a look,” he instructed, crouching in front of her and her ankle, which had swelled nearly twice its size since she left home. Then he caught sight of the shovel next to her, and his brow wrinkled even further. “Did you walk here?” His eyes widened in horror. “Kate, I would have come to the farm if you had called.”

She ducked her head as warmth slowly spread over her cheeks. “I… couldn’t remember the clinic’s number.”

Harvey shook his head to himself, more out of resignation than annoyance, and straightened up again as he held out his hand to her. “Well, you can go ahead and leave your ‘crutch’ here. I’ll help you back to the exam room.”

He bent down so she could sling her arm over his shoulders, an awkward feat because of the height difference, but after some adjusting, they slowly made it down the hall, Kate hobbling along as Harvey kept her balanced.

He led her into a smaller room with an exam table, sink, and a couple of chairs, the walls adorned in different anatomical charts and posters warning about the dangers of smoking and skin cancer and other health risks that did nothing to set her mind at ease. In one corner was an old, heavy wooden desk scattered with papers next to a small bookcase: the designated spot for Harvey’s office.

He helped her shimmy up onto the table, pulling up a rolling stool tucked away behind the door.

“So what happened?” he asked as he removed her shoe with a gentle grasp.

Kate toyed with the edge of the thin paper covering the table. “I was putting up a new fence and got distracted and… tripped into one of the post holes,” she admitted. “Pretty smooth, huh?”

He hummed, noncommittal, keeping his focus on turning her ankle back and forth. “I promise it’s hardly the most embarrassing injury I’ve treated since I moved here,” he assured her, and before she could ask continued, “and no, I can’t tell you any of them: patient confidentiality.”

“I guess it’s not the dumbest thing that’s happened to me on that farm.” She winced as he slowly rotated the joint, though the pain was starting to die down some. “When I was still visiting Grandpa out here as a kid, I once stepped on a rake and smacked myself in the forehead with the handle.” As stupid as it was, she still broke into a fond smile thinking of her grandpa holding a bag of frozen parsnips to her head as an ice pack, alternating between fretting over her injury and chastising her for not being more careful. “I’m still amazed I didn’t give myself a concussion.”

Harvey chuckled. “It’s not worse than my dumbest injury. I was riding my bike to school when I was a teenager and got distracted by a plane overhead. I ended up running face-first into a tree and split my lip open.” He ran his finger from just under his nose to the left corner of his mouth “Even after I got stitches, it still left a scar.”

Kate peered at the spot he pointed to on his face, trying to glimpse any sign of a mark. “It’s hard to tell with your mustache in the way.”

“That’s why I grew one as soon as I could.” Then he rolled back from her, taking a professional tone again. “It looks and feels like a moderate sprain. Normally I’d do an X-ray just to be sure, but unfortunately our portable unit is getting maintenance right now.” He frowned to himself, mourning the limitations of their rural location. “I’ll wrap it up for you, but if the pain gets worse you need to come back as soon as possible just in case it is something more serious.”

She only just processed what he said after “sprain,” too relieved that she wouldn’t be laid up with a broken ankle after all. “Yeah, of course. Thanks, Harvey.”

“Your timing is actually pretty convenient.” He wheeled over to his desk, digging through a pile of papers while he talked. “I usually send out letters reminding everyone of their annual check-ups about this time, and since this is your first year here, I planned to send you one too so I could get you on the schedule. But now that you’re here, we can just do it now.”

“Do I have to do it now?” She grimaced at the whine to her words, but if she didn’t finish installing the fence posts that afternoon, she would fall behind schedule getting the rest of it done and risk the progress she had pushed so hard to make.

“I can’t force you to stay,” Harvey sighed, “but considering how much physical labor you do on a daily basis, I would really like to get your vitals and other information in case you come back with another injury later on. Besides,” he raised an eyebrow at her, “you should take it easy the rest of the day anyway.”

Damn. She should have guessed the doctor of all people would clock her eagerness to return home for what it really was. “Alright, point taken. Let’s do it then.”

He ran through a few quick tests: temperature, blood pressure, all the things she expected from a run-of-the-mill appointment. Still the silence and the way he had to press into her bubble to do his work made her antsy; she had never been too touchy-feely with people she didn’t know all that well, and it didn’t help she still felt awkward from the last time they spent any time alone.

When he leaned in to listen to her heart, the stethoscope pressed to her chest as he kept an eye on his watch, Kate couldn’t help the way her heartbeat quickened with her anxiety, her eyes flitting around at anything in the room but his face.

He pulled away again after what felt like a lifetime had passed. “Everything sounds good, but your pulse is high.”

“I did just spend 10 minutes limping over here on a sprained ankle,” she reminded him. It wasn’t exactly a lie—the walk had left her winded, and her heart was still settling into a regular tempo before he had checked it.

It was at least enough to satisfy Harvey, who looped the stethoscope over his neck as he stood. “I’m going to grab a bandage to wrap your ankle and some ice packs you can take home.” Then he turned back to his desk and handed her a clipboard holding a few sheets of paper and a pen. “While I do that, you can fill out the patient information forms.”

“Fun,” she muttered, earning a soft laugh from him again before he left her alone, his footsteps fading down the hallway outside.

Left to her own devices, Kate’s attention drifted over Harvey’s desk and bookcase, intrigued by the snapshots they gave into his life. A couple of abandoned coffee mugs and a single framed photo of an older-looking woman sat on his desk alongside the mess of forms and files, while above the desk hung his degrees and credentials. The bookcase was filled with old medical journals and manuals, but one shelf also held a painted model of a plane and a retro-looking radio. Compared to the sterile mood of the clinic, his corner was almost cozy.

Harvey returned just as she finished with the patient information, handing him the clipboard after he sat back down. As he glanced over the forms, he paused as he noticed something, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

“Your birthday is the middle of spring,” he observed, frowning again. “I don’t remember anyone saying anything about it.”

“Well, I didn’t make a big deal about it.” Only about a month into her life in the valley, she had barely had the time to breathe back then, let alone worry about her birthday. “The only people who knew were Emily and Haley; they did try to get me to go to the saloon with them, but I was too busy trying to get my crops to survive.” When he still looked sorry for her, she waved him off. “I didn’t feel like celebrating anyway. Now I’m only one year away from the dreaded 3-0.”

“You’ll miss being 30 when you get to be my age.”

“You can’t be that much older than me, Harvey.” She’d never thought about how long it took someone to become a doctor, but looking at him then, there was no way he was anything past his late 30s unless he had an exceptional skincare routine.

“I’m 35.” He brushed his hand past his hair, straightening a piece that had fallen behind the lens of his glasses. “I’m certainly no spring chicken anymore.”

She scoffed as he lifted up her foot again. “Agree to disagree, then.”

He wrapped her ankle with a practiced hand, and it was a testament to his love for his job how calm and confident he was inside the clinic. When they had talked more casually at the flower dance or in the saloon, he had carried himself like he was a little unsure of everything, always ready for something to go wrong. She’d seen a touch of his more collected side when he found her outside the saloon, but even that didn’t compare to him in his element like he was in the exam room.

“This should be enough for you to get around without needing a crutch,” he told her when he finished, just a hint of a teasing smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Or a shovel.”

“You really are a lifesaver,” she said. “I was terrified I wasn’t going to be able to get anything done on the farm because of this.”

His expression softened a bit as he stored his leftover supplies in a little cabinet by the sink. “How have you been doing since… well, since we last talked?”

Kate stiffened at the mention of Emily’s party, but the lack of judgement in his voice had her reluctantly answering anyway. “I’ve been doing better; I feel like I’m finally getting things under control.” She kept her gaze trained on her ankle. “I know I didn’t really thank you for talking me through everything that night, but I do appreciate it.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” he answered. “I’m always happy to help.”

“Yeah, but it feels like the only actual conversations we’ve had so far have been you listening to me have bullshit emotional breakdowns.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t be the first,” he shrugged. “In a town this size, I’m the closest thing some people have to a therapist, sometimes whether I’m in the clinic or not.”

“That’s got to be hard on you, though." With a slight laugh, she added, "Who’s your therapist?”

His smile faltered ever so slightly, a far-away look crossing his face, like she had unearthed some thought that Harvey didn’t often bring to the surface.

Kate rushed to change the topic before the awkward tension she created could grow any further. “I-I should be heading home.” She carefully slid off the exam table and took a few steps on her newly wrapped foot; the injury still ached, but it was nowhere near the needle-like pain she had experienced earlier. “Thanks again for your help.”

Harvey blinked as his attention was drawn to her again. “Oh, you’re welcome. I’ll walk you out.”

He followed her back to the waiting room where Maru was sitting at the front desk computer. She brightened up as soon as she saw them.

“Looks like the ankle’s fixed now!” she said with a grin.

Harvey cleared his throat behind Kate. “I know it’s easier said than done being a farmer, but please try to rest and ice that ankle as much as you can, especially when you’re home at night.”

“I will, I promise.”

“And for the future…” He grabbed a sticky note from the front desk and scribbled on it before passing it to her. “The top number is the clinic, and the bottom is my cell phone in case something happens after hours.”     

Kate tucked the note into her pocket and gave him a sheepish smile. “Thanks, again.”

She made sure to grab her shovel before she left, waving to Maru as she headed out the door and started down the path to the farm, slightly faster than last time.

Her thoughts turned to the unfinished fence only a few yards down the path. She’d been more than lucky to have only suffered a sprain, and if she hurried, she could still get the last few posts in the ground before sunset.

But as she reached her property line, she thought of Harvey and the care he had put into treating her ankle, the concern written across his face and in his voice when he told her not to overwork it, and with a groan, she climbed the porch steps to the house instead.

After all, the posts would still be there tomorrow.

Notes:

The first chapter that seriously fucked with my Google search history.

Fun fact Kate's rake story actually happened to me once, only I was old enough to know better.

Chapter 8

“Thanks again for doing this, Robin.”

Robin took the last of the payment Kate owed her with a bright smile. “It’s my pleasure! I haven’t gotten to build an actual structure in ages; your coop will be a nice change of pace.”

Kate had all but skipped through the backwoods to the mountain that morning to get to Robin’s house right away, brimming with the excited anticipation of being one step closer to getting her first farm animals. Grandpa had never kept livestock, putting all his energy into produce, but Kate had always held a giant soft spot for animals. Getting to raise her own was both a dream come true and another way to separate her farm from her grandpa’s.

“Don’t feel like you have to rush or anything,” she told Robin. “I’m not going to have the money for chickens for at least a few more weeks.”

“Oh don’t worry about me. It’s a lot simpler than you’d think to build a chicken coop.” She leaned forward on the counter between them, the same sparkle in her eye that she always got whenever Kate asked her about woodworking. “If you want to give me a real challenge, I’m still happy to do more work on that old house of yours.”

“I’ll take you up on that eventually, I promise.” Robin had already brought her kitchen back to working order earlier in the spring, but there were still plenty of places where the farmhouse had fallen into disuse. “The whole upstairs is a wreck still; I’ve honestly just stopped going up there.”

“Well just let me know whenever you’re ready for me to fix it up. I’ll be by tomorrow to start on the coop.”

She waved goodbye and stepped back out into the mid-morning air, already growing sticky with the summer humidity lingering from the thunderstorm the night before, making her glad for her shorts and T-shirt.

She’d grown fond of the mountains since she started visiting the mines over the last few months: the gray speckled stone rising to the north made every sound echo on quiet days, and the serene blue water of the lake had been a refuge for her more than once when she was stressed out. It was a shame the bridge leading to the quarry was in pieces at the bottom of the ravine, or else she would have loved to explore what was left from Stardew Valley’s mining days.

With no other pressing errands for the day, Kate walked the short path to the lakeside, pulling her collapsible fishing pole free from her backpack. Demetrius had asked for help with population control for the carp the day before, willing to pay her for her time and effort. Plus, she’d be able to sell her catch to Willy afterwards, and after the cost of the coop, she more than jumped at the opportunity for some extra cash.

As she approached the water, she spotted Linus sitting on the low plank bridge between the lake’s two little islands, his legs dangling over the edge so his feet disappeared into the water.

“Morning, Linus!” she called as she started crossing the first bridge.

He turned at her voice, raising a friendly hand in greeting once he saw her. “How have you been, Kate?”

“Not too bad.” She stopped at the first island, a few feet away from where he sat on the wooden planks. “I had to stop at Robin’s and figured I would do some fishing while I was here.” She shifted the pole resting against her shoulder. “How’s the summer foraging going so far?”

“It’s off to a very promising start,” he said, his grin showing through his shaggy gray beard. “The valley has plenty to offer me this time of year.”

Kate had grown exceedingly fond of Linus since coming to Pelican Town. She had been wary of him when she was first told there was a man living in the mountains: spending most of her life in the city, and after a few run-ins with the so-called wizard in the forest, she had more than a few reservations about another “wild man” in the valley. Linus had steered clear of her as well, he had eventually told her, worried how a new face in town may treat someone like him.

But as she spent more time in the mountains and backwoods foraging and fishing and mining to make money that spring, they had crossed paths more and more often, and slowly her hesitation around him morphed into intrigue. Linus was a clear master at living off the land and forging a home in the valley, and when she struggled to reap any benefits from the wilderness, Kate had asked him to teach her some of what he knew, at least enough to get her by. Through those lessons, she had come to realize that Linus was one of the most insightful, down-to-earth people she had ever met, more intelligent and kinder than half the people she had known back in Zuzu City. Since then, she had made considerable efforts to visit him as often as she could, whether for more foraging tips or just to talk.

“Why don’t you sit for a while and fish off the bridge? The water’s nice this morning.” Linus patted the plank next to him.

Kate pulled off her shoes and socks, leaving them on the island before joining Linus on the bridge, letting her feet dip into the water as it lapped at her calves, the coolness a refreshing balm against some of the slow-growing heat.

As she flicked her line into the still lake, she smiled over at him. “I had almost forgotten how beautiful it is in the valley,” she said, looking out where she could just make out the tops of some of the town’s buildings past the little ridge the community center sat upon. “I never explored much past the farm and forest when I came here as a kid. It’s nice to get to enjoy it now.”

“This place is one of my favorites in the entire region,” he agreed, following her gaze. “I don’t usually stay in one place as long as I’ve stayed here, but there’s something about the valley that’s called to me more than anywhere else I’ve lived. The connection to the natural world is unique here.”

She watched the ripples spread from her bobber and thought about her own connections to the valley that had drawn her back after so many years. The farm and the valley had been a defining facet of her childhood, and now living there as an adult, even without the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, that same love for the land was still rooted within her. When she had been drowning at Joja Co., overworked and passionless, she often dreamt of the mountains and the forest and the farm, and the joy that always engulfed those dreams had in part returned to her when she moved, even with the stress that had come with it.

But recently, late at night, she had been wondering if those feelings would last, or if one day she would find herself in another rut like she had been in in the city, again wishing she had made some other choice.

“Linus, can I ask you a question?” When he gave her a soft noise of affirmation, she continued, “Have you ever regretted choosing to live like this?”

He dropped his eyes to where his hands were clasped in his lap, his expression pensive as he considered what she had asked. But when he looked at her again a moment later, it was with conviction.

“No, I haven’t,” Linus replied. “That doesn’t mean that it’s never been difficult or even dangerous, but I was miserable before trying to conform to what society expected me to be.” He again glanced out at the lake that spread out before them and the rest of the valley just visible beyond it. “As hard as it is sometimes to survive, choosing this life was the first time I had ever really felt at peace.”

“And when people told you that you were crazy for just leaving everything behind?”

He gave her a more knowing smile, one that crinkled the sun-worn skin around his eyes and made her impulsively think of her grandpa, a small ache settling in her chest.

“People always push back against the things they don’t understand,” he said. “I think we all have a hidden urge to return to nature. It’s just a little scary to make the leap.”

Her bobber dipped below the water ever so slightly, and she rushed to reel in whatever had caught it. When it turned out to be nothing but a clump of algae, she huffed out a frustrated sigh, planting her hands against the worn wood underneath her and leaning back.

“I just wish I knew that I’m not going to regret this in a few months, or next year, or five years from now.”

She had ignored her parents and her friends in the city when they had all tried to talk her out of leaving her old job, saying she was making a mistake; at the time if felt like the only possible choice she had was to leave. The chance that one day she may have to face them all again having failed or burnt herself out on yet another choice she thought would give her everything she wanted brought her a sense of dread like a rock in the pit of her stomach.

Linus only shrugged, standing up from the bridge with a grunt.

“It’s alright to slow down and enjoy the moment, Kate,” he told her. “Don’t spend all your time worrying about how you might feel in the future.”

With that, he wandered off in the direction she had come from, leaving her sitting on the edge of the bridge feeling like he’d just answered all and none of her questions at the same time.

Kate cast her line into the water again and watched the way the clouds inched across the light blue sky, everything around her slow and silent apart from the chirps and buzzes of the birds and bugs in the nearby trees. Closing her eyes, she took in a slow, deep breath.

She didn’t really feel any more sure about her possible future in the valley, but she could, at the very least, take a moment to sit with the nature around her, quiet and peaceful, and hope at some point, she could feel just as free as her friend.

Notes:

Shorter little interlude chapter for Kate!

I wanted to do a chapter just for her to kind of explore some of the things she's worried about other than just running the farm, and I think her talking to Linus about it and being good friends with him makes the most sense. Some of his dialogue implies he left some other life to live in the wild and I feel like they can really relate to each other in that regard.

Also I just love Linus :)

Chapter 9

For someone trying to rebuild a once successful farm, Kate frequented Pierre’s general store far more often than she thought she probably should have.

She had known moving to the valley that she would still have to buy most of her basic kitchen staples like flour and sugar, but nonetheless she had been looking forward to being generally self-sustainable with the produce she raised; of course, she hadn’t stopped to consider while she was leaving the city that she wouldn’t be able to do that until she was making enough money where she could afford not to sell all of her crops.

So, after waiting the whole week until she could harvest the handful of radishes and peppers that she had ready, plus a few small containers of mediocre blueberries, on Friday she carted her goods into town to sell to Pierre, prepared to turn right around and use the same money to buy her groceries for the week.

“Looks like another quality harvest, Kate,” Pierre mused as she handed over the box of fruit and vegetables, him sliding over the money in turn. “I’m glad to see you’re getting the hang of things over there.”

Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She had put it together some time ago that Pierre was more than likely one of the other so-called concerned residents that Lewis had mentioned the last time he visited the farm, worried about how her lack of experience would affect his own earnings. But still, she needed him to buy her goods just as much as he needed her to provide them, so it was easier to smile and nod than tell him where he could stick his “compliments” about her efforts.

She took her payment and turned back to the other shelves, filling a shopping basket with ingredients and whatever else of Pierre’s limited stock of brand-name snacks caught her eye. She loathed the thought of giving any of her budgeted earnings to Joja, but she still missed their much wider variety of products compared to Pierre’s from time to time.

As she debated what flavor of chips she was more drawn to that week, one of the front doors opened as Harvey stepped into the store, clad in his usual jacket and tie despite the temperature outside peaking nearly into the 80s.

“Yoba, Harvey, aren’t you hot?”

He nearly jumped at her sudden exclamation, whirling to face her with his eyebrows sky high, his shoulders tensing in surprise. When he saw her standing there, watching him with an amused smile, his face was quick to flush red.

“Well, uh…” he hesitated, smoothing the front of his jacket, “not really, I suppose. I’ve been inside the clinic all day so far.”

“You’re lucky then,” she sighed, shifting her basket from one arm to the other. “This is the first time I’ve been in air conditioning all day; I had to get the latest harvest done to sell to Pierre.”

He hastily composed himself from the brief scare, grabbing a basket sitting by the door and stepping into the pseudo aisle with her so he wasn’t blocking the way in and out. “At least you did something productive today; slow days like today are usually when I make futile attempts to catch up reading medical journals.” Then his eyes darted to her feet. “How is your ankle, by the way? I’ve been meaning to follow up with you.”

She wiggled her right foot around for him, the joint still a little stiff but loads better than it had been only a few weeks ago.

“Just about good as new,” she replied.

He gave her an approving nod as his attention drifted to where Pierre was disappearing through the back door of the shop with her crate. “It’s nice to see your crops being sold in town. There’s not really a lot of options for healthy foods here; with a local farm again, maybe that can change.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that,” she countered, pointing to where a handful of the peppers she had dropped off only a week before still sat in a produce bin, the price large and obvious, almost mocking them both. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I can barely afford to buy back my own crops if that’s what he’s charging.”

Pierre’s prices weren’t horrible by any means—she’d seen worse in Zuzu City where most things were marketed as high end goods simply by virtue of being made or sold in the city itself. But now that she was living without the benefit of a city job’s income, even costs in the low tens made her wince and clutch her wallet close.

Harvey was equally put off by the price tag, a rare, irritated frown curving his mustache. “I get he has to make ends meet just like everyone else, but he knows there’s nowhere else in town to get fresh foods,” he grumbled. “He won’t get any business at all if everyone starts going to Grampleton to buy fruit instead.”

“Well, part of it’s probably my fault,” Kate interjected. “I’ve got to charge him enough that I can make a profit, so I’m sure he has to turn right around and do the same.”

“The joys of a rural community, I suppose,” Harvey sighed, his brows still furrowed. The availability of healthy, affordable foods in Pelican Town was clearly a war Harvey had waged before but had not won just yet. “It wouldn’t bother me so much if the valley weren’t so isolated. Pierre’s said before his perishable grocery deliveries are pretty sporadic, and more than half the people here don’t have a way to leave town without the bus. The only thing they have access to is the frozen stuff that Joja sells, or junk food.”

She glanced down sheepishly at her basket. “You’re not going to get after me about the chips, are you?”

The question managed to cut through a bit of Harvey’s annoyance as he gave her a wry but otherwise genuine smile. “Snacks in moderation aren’t the problem—not by themselves anyway. Besides,” he reached just above her head to the shelf behind her, pulling down a bag of a different flavor of chips, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She stifled the laughter that surged in her chest, despite them being the only two in the store until Pierre returned. It felt good for a moment to complain about something with Harvey instead of at him. For once it seemed like they’d found each other on equal footing: she wasn’t a stranger snapping at a well-intentioned comment, or an overwhelmed farmer venting to the town doctor—standing amongst the shelves they were two community members lamenting grocery prices and talking about guilty pleasure junk food. As mundane a conversation it was, it gave Kate the comfort of belonging she still so rarely felt even after over four months in the valley.

“I guess on the bright side, I picked a good time to get into canning,” she said. “At the very least it’ll save me money later this winter when I don’t have crops to sell.”

“You’ve been canning things?” Harvey asked, a surprised lilt to his voice.

She shrugged a shoulder as she threw a bag of rice into her basket. “A little bit, when I can afford to keep some things for myself. When I started, I was hoping I could find some kind of bougie farmers market to sell homemade jelly and pickled vegetables and stuff for extra cash, but so far most of it’s ended up in my pantry.”

“It’s a smart move.” The mild surprise had shifted to something a little more wistful as he looked over the shelves. “My family used to can a lot of foods when I was younger, when money was tight. There might have been a year when the only vegetables I ate were pickled beets.”

She winced with a chuckle. “I don’t know if I’d ever be able to even look at a beet again if that were me.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” he laughed in reply. “I actually kind of miss it sometimes: I’ve never had the time to learn how to preserve anything myself.”

She gasped with an excitement that might have otherwise embarrassed her if it weren’t for the tantalizing promise of getting to give a gift, especially a handmade one. She’d always been the friend or family member who gave baked goods away or made presents from trinkets and pretty things she found that reminded her of the person, sometimes just giving away little objects themselves. Her parents had always told her she was like a magpie the way she would pick up any shiny thing that caught her eye.

“I’ll have to bring you some then! I was planning on pickling some radishes this weekend anyway; I’d be happy to give you a jar.”

The soft smile he wore faded in an instant, a more apprehensive expression taking its place, as he quickly shook his head. “O-oh no, Kate, you- you really don’t need to do that,” he objected, almost tripping over the words. “I wouldn’t want you giving away food that you could use yourself, especially to me.”

“It’s really not a problem, Harvey,” she told him, raising an eyebrow at his unease. “I can always make more later.”

But he still shook his head, this time with a thin smile. “It’s a very nice offer, but you don’t need to go out of your way just for me.” Then the back door creaked open again, and Harvey’s eyes darted over to where Pierre had just returned. “I should be getting back to the clinic anyway.”

He started for the counter before she could point out that the only thing in his basket was the bag of chips, and she watched as he paid and left just as quickly, clearly eager to leave. She’d caught moments of his anxiousness before, but this was the first time she’d seen him actually flee a place just to end a conversation. The unstoppable force of her gift-giving had met the immovable object that was his fear of inconveniencing anyone.

Good thing she had absolutely zero plans of listening to him.

------

The ping of an unexpected text message not long after his lunch break started put Harvey immediately on edge as he crossed from his kitchen to the couch where his phone sat.

He seldom received texts from anyone; there weren’t many people outside the valley that he kept in contact with, and people in town would sooner call or find him in person if they needed something. Getting a text during the workday, when everyone would know to just call the clinic, was even more concerning.

A single message from a number he didn’t recognize lit up his screen.

Hey are you at the clinic?

A beat passed as he stared at his phone, wracking his brain for who had that number, before a typing bubble popped up again from the unknown sender.

It’s Kate btw

Seeing her name, Harvey’s mind raced with all the possible injuries or accidents she could have suffered to have her texting him about where he was. Had she sprained an ankle again, or broken one this time? He knew she was still cutting down trees on the property: had her axe slipped and cut her? Was she bleeding out somewhere?

His fingers hesitated over the keypad, then over the call button, afraid texting would waste valuable time he would need to rush down to the farm if she was hurt. He briefly contemplated grabbing his emergency kit and running over to her without bothering to reply at all.

His logic finally won out after a few deep breaths—if she was able to text in the first place, she probably wasn’t on death’s door like he was quick to assume—and he typed out a short message instead.

Are you alright? Did something happen at the farm?

The typing bubble reappeared, for longer this time; Harvey didn’t dare look away from the screen.

I’m fine, I just have something for you and wanted to know where to bring it. I’ll be there in 10

He blew out the breath he’d been holding, the tension seeping out of his shoulders along with it, but it was quickly replaced by the dread of knowing she was probably doing exactly what he told her she didn’t need to do only a few days ago.

All throughout his teenage and adult years, as long as his anxiety had been rearing its head, Harvey hated being given gifts. He would grin and bear it for Winter Star and his birthday, but receiving them any other time, no matter how thoughtful or well-meaning the giver might be, made him want to fold inside himself and hide, always worried they wouldn’t think he was grateful enough, or that all his apologizing for their trouble and his concern about returning the favor would make them decide he wasn’t worth the effort they had gone through to get the gift in the first place.

He didn’t need a therapist to parse out why he avoided letting anyone go out on a limb for him. His anxieties might have seemed countless some days, but one of the few that followed him into his worn-down twin-sized bed and kept him awake late at night was the terrifying thought that most of the people in his life only tolerated him, that he was just one panic attack or catastrophic social encounter away from chasing off for good the handful of people he considered his friends.

And he desperately wanted to avoid Kate, one of the few people in Pelican Town that he felt even slightly more comfortable than normal being around, thinking of him that way too.

He had almost reached the bottom of the stairs to the clinic just as the door chimed and Kate strolled in, a wide grin visible from under the shade of her wide-brimmed straw hat and a tote bag slung over her shoulder.

“Before you say anything, I actually ended up making more than I needed, so you’re not putting me out at all.” She pulled a tall mason jar filled with slices of pickled radishes free from her bag and set it on the counter. “I’ve never done radishes before, but they look like they came out alright.”

Harvey mustered up a smile, strained compared to hers, and attempted to ignore the uncomfortable itch of his skin with the way she looked at him so expectantly, knowing he was about to let her down.

“Thank you, Kate, but I promise you don’t have to give me these. I’m sure you could use them more than I could.”

He was anticipating more polite insistence, maybe even veiled annoyance, watching closely to gauge if her smile grew a little more forced or if her fingers inched forward to take back the jar. But when she rolled her eyes at him, the excitement on her face never wavered.

“Harvey, it’s a jar of pickles, not a family heirloom,” she sighed with a playful tilt of her head. “I wouldn’t have offered if I needed them that badly. You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”

Her kind bluntness froze the fretting in his mind for an instant, and it was both a shock and a wonder to him how easily she could find the heart of what worried him. The tug of nerves in the pit of his stomach hadn’t quite lessened all the way—she would have to be a Yoba-given miracle worker to pull that off—but he could feel a bit of its grip give way as someone more grounded than him pointed out the obvious fallacies in his own anxiety. He couldn’t bring to mind a time that that had actually worked on him before.

Since he’d met her, it was clear Kate was a lot of things that Harvey could never be: decisive, brave, effortlessly friendly with the people around her. Apparently he could also add “level-headed enough to cut through his overthinking” to that list.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be difficult, I’m just— I’ve never been good at accepting presents, I guess.”

Her expression turned more sympathetic, and Harvey caught a sliver of regret cross over her face with it, sending another spike of panic down his spine before she replied, “You don’t have to apologize; I know I can come on too strong sometimes about this kind of stuff. I probably should have just let it go when you said you didn’t want any at Pierre’s.”

He shook his head in earnest: the last thing he wanted was for her to blame herself for his own fears. “I’d just end up kicking myself later on for not taking them anyway. They look amazing.” He turned the jar a bit, following the way the pink-tinged contents swirled with the motion.

“I’ll have to bring you more the next time I have extra produce to spare.” Again Kate beat his worry to the punch, quickly continuing, “You don’t have to think of them as gifts, if it helps. I’m just the farmer sharing my goods with the community.” Then she leaned forward against the counter, an enthusiastic glimmer in her blue eyes. “I’ve been thinking about making my own wine, too, once I get my fruit cave up and running.”

Her exuberance was infectious, his jumble of concerned thoughts quieting to background noise at the back of his mind as he returned her bright smile with a more reserved one of his own.

“That I will have to try,” he said as he picked up the jar. “I’ll take these upstairs with me: I’m, uh… on my lunch break, actually.”

“Oh!” A faint blush spread across her cheeks and down her neck, darkening the tanned tops of her shoulders underneath her tank top straps. “You should have said so and I would have come back later. I’ll get out of your hair.” She waved over her shoulder as she turned back for the door. “Have a good day!”

“You too,” he responded, and added before she could get too far out of earshot, “and I really do appreciate the pickles!”

As the bell above the door jingled again with its open and close, he lingered a moment at the counter as he watched Kate stride off through the town square, on to her next piece of business wherever that might be. She was a force to be reckoned with compared to a small, sleepy community like Pelican Town. Harvey was growing more and more sure that that wasn’t such a bad thing.

He finally retreated down the hall and back up to his apartment once she’d disappeared from view, the jar of pickled radishes held tight in his hands.

Notes:

Harvey gets to be a little bit bitchy, as a treat.

Getting the dialogue right on this one took me forever, but I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. A few snippets of Harvey lore for everyone and some lore for Kate too to explain why the farmer just loves giving people random things they find around the valley.

Chapter 10

Notes:

Heads up: Kate expresses a couple thoughts about physically harming another character in this chapter; she doesn't act on any of them though.

The mid-summer heat had started to hang in the air like a blanket, uncomfortable to the point that Kate regretted almost every moment she had to spend outside and away from her clunky window air conditioner back at the farmhouse. Even waking up almost two hours before the sun rose to start chores and try to beat the worst of the humid afternoon, she still came back home each night drenched in sweat, dirt and hay clinging to her skin.

Exploring further into the mines was one of her few reprieves from the humidity. The stone walls deep under the earth stayed cool compared to the world above, and she had even started delving into floors that were somehow dusted in frost and ice, a welcome alternative even with the monsters that inhabited those rooms.

With her latest trip that afternoon, she had uncovered a small, delicate light blue crystal, iridescent and just barely see through when she held it up to the sunlight outside. Kate had seen a photo of it once in one of Grandpa’s books: a frozen tear, one of the items requested by the Junimos in the community center.

Slowly but surely she had been bringing items to the… creatures? Spirits? She still wasn’t sure how exactly to refer to them or how or why they planned to somehow fix up the crumbling building, but each time she brought them a portion of her harvest, or a fish she had caught, or whatever else they asked of her, they carted it off with happy little chirps and squeaks, seemingly satisfied, so she figured they were doing something with it all. There were some things Kate just didn’t have the time or energy to fully question.

Her grandpa had told her stories on occasion about magical beings and strange phenomena in the valley, and how the land itself contained a spirit older and more primeval than anywhere else in the Ferngill Republic. As a child she had sat and listened in wonder, a wonder that had faded as she got older. Now, having encountered wizards and forest spirits and even the real live dwarf that lived in the mines, she was starting to wonder again just how many of his stories were only stories after all.

As Kate came down the path from the mountains, rounding the side of the community center, she spotted a familiar green jacket by the fountain. Harvey was sitting on one of the benches, his back to Kate as she approached, head bowed slightly as his focus was dedicated to whatever he held in his lap.

“Hi Harvey!” she called, and he turned just as she reached him, tucking a bookmark back into the hardback he had had open; she didn’t catch the title, but it was definitely a change from the more academic reading material she had seen him with a few times. “I still can’t believe you’re not hot with that jacket on in the middle of summer.”

“I only just sat down a bit before you arrived,” he answered, but his attention was fixed on something on her face, his face screwed up in worry. “Are you alright? You’re all scratched up.”

Her fingers flew to her cheek and came away with light streaks of red on them, and it was only then she became aware of the dull sting of scratches and scrapes up and down her arms and along a few places on her face—nothing deep enough or painful enough to leave any lasting damage, but a concerning sight for anyone who would come across her, especially the town doctor.

“It’s nothing,” she shrugged, pulling a spare cloth from her pocket to wipe away the drops of blood from her cheek; it was another belated reminder that she still needed to return his handkerchief, currently washed and folded on top of her dresser back home. “I was just down in the mines and must have gotten banged up a little.”

“You really shouldn’t be going down there, especially by yourself,” he chided as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a few bandages he must have kept on hand for Jas and Vincent based on the teddy bear patterns on them. He handed them to her as he continued, “That mine shaft was closed for years before you arrived; it hasn’t been inspected in Yoba knows how long and there’s all kinds of things down there that can hurt you.”

“They’re not that bad if you’re careful and have a sword,” she countered, “and I don’t have a lot of other options for making extra money until the farm is more profitable. Some of the stones and gems down there are worth a lot.”

She could see in the lingering crease between his eyebrows that she hadn’t put Harvey much more at ease, but he didn’t press her any further. “Well, if you need more bandages, you know where to find me,” he offered. “Other than mining, what else are you up to today?”

“I was on my way to the community center before I saw you. I’ve been… sort of helping to fix it up.”

His eyes lit up with intrigue, casting a quick glance at the building behind them. “That’s wonderful! I’ve always wondered what it might have looked like in its prime. It was already in a pretty bad state when I moved here.”

“I haven’t really done much yet. I’m just collecting supplies whenever I can,” she said, “but it is pretty neat in there, though. I can see why it was so important before it fell apart.”

Harvey just nodded, one hand tapping away on his knee. “I don’t know if it would be— I don’t want to inconvenience you if you’re in a hurry or anything, but I’d kind of like to… I mean…”

He wanted to see inside, she realized after a moment, and in almost the exact same thought remembered with a rising panic that that would bring him face to face with the Junimos waiting there.

What little Kate had learned about the colorful little creatures was that they were a popular topic of fairytales for children who grew up in the valley. She didn’t know if he had heard the stories in passing since he moved to Pelican Town, but whether he would recognize the Junimos or not, she couldn’t imagine poor, sweet, anxious Harvey being anything but panic-stricken at the sight of them—learning that magical creatures had been living only a few hundred feet away from him for Yoba knows how long would probably be more than his practical mind could handle. And worse, she was horrified at what he might think of her giving offerings to them in exchange for fixing the crumbling building.

She didn’t realize her internal struggle had manifested into a wide-eyed, mouth-agape look until Harvey shifted awkwardly on the bench at the uncomfortable silence she had created.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” He grabbed his book from where it sat next to him as he hurried to his feet, keeping his eyes trained in any direction but hers. “I should get back to the clinic anyway; I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

She should have been relieved his loss of interest would mean she wouldn’t have to explain the Junimos’ presence in the community center, but the way his shoulders sagged a little, so obviously crestfallen and embarrassed, made something in her chest squeeze painfully in a way she wasn’t expecting.

“Wait, Harvey!” she blurted before he could walk away. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about how— how much of a mess it is in there.” Not her best lie, but at least believable based on the state of the outside of the building. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. But I’d be happy to show you some of the safer spots inside.”

He still gave her a cautious look, like he didn’t want to get his hopes up, but had at least stopped his retreat back to the clinic. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be in the way.”

“Of course,” she said, fighting not to hesitate again as she gave him what she hoped looked like a confident smile. “Come on, I’ll take you inside.”

As they climbed the few short stone steps to the building’s door, Kate felt a cold dread settle in her stomach, mixing with the heavy summer heat all around her in a way that left her uncomfortably caught in the middle. She paused just before she took hold of the handle, looking back at Harvey over her shoulder.

“Ok, just… don’t freak out when we get inside, please.”

A questioning look scrunched up his features just as she pushed open the door, stepping into the dim interior and the musty, earthen smells of the moldering community center, still just as barren and broken as the day Lewis had shown her inside of the first time.

Despite how it looked, Kate could tell it was a grand building once, for Pelican Town’s standards. The tall ceilings and massive fireplace at the end of the main room made the building feel gigantic, the east and west wings stretching on past them. Having a community center in town again after so many years would be a much-needed boost to the people of the valley, provided she could actually pull it off.

Harvey stared in awe at the old interior, his eyes roaming over everything from the broken fish tank to the cobweb-covered chandelier in the center of the main room. Kate realized she had never seen him so genuinely enthralled before, eyes sparkling and a boy-like fascination written across his face, endearing enough for a smile to pull at the corner of her mouth at the sight.

“Imagine how nice it must have been in its heyday,” he marveled, wholly fixated on the room around him.

She hummed in agreement, but was too preoccupied searching the corners and edges of the floor for signs of the little spirits who lived there to be paying much attention. Usually whenever she came by to deliver something, she would spot them peeking out of doorways or huddled by their little hut in the corner—she had seen Harvey take note of it, but like Lewis, must have assumed it was one of Jas and Vincent’s creations—but today they were seemingly nowhere to be found: Kate couldn’t decide if that made her more or less anxious about Harvey finding them.

He eventually noticed the way she was watching the room like a hawk, pausing where he had been investigating an abandoned bookshelf. "Are you sure it's ok for me to be in here? You were saying not to 'freak out' about something before we came in."

She straightened up, again plastering an unbothered expression onto her face. "Yeah, everything's fine," she was quick to assure him. "I just meant that squirrels and things like to hide in here and I was checking to make sure none had gotten inside." Then she gestured over her shoulder at the hall behind her. “I’ve got to drop something off in the boiler room; it’s probably best if you stay here or in the hallway. Some of the floors in here aren’t that stable and if you don’t know where to step, you can break through.”

That at least wasn’t a lie: she had almost lost a shoe when she first investigated the building because she stepped on a weak spot, her foot crashing through a part of the floorboards.

She was grateful when he seemed to believe her without any fuss. “Alright, just be careful,” he nodded.

She hurried through the hall and down the stairs into the boiler room, carefully hopping around the broken stone floor and dripping pipes along the walls and ceilings until she got to the unassuming little brown basket on the floor, waiting for another offering from her.

As she pulled the frozen crystal from her backpack and set it in the basket, a glimpse of movement caught her eye just as a light blue Junimo peeked out from behind the ruined boiler, wearing as close to a hesitant look as its features would allow.

“You guys will have to stay hidden until we leave,” she whispered, checking to make sure Harvey hadn’t wandered into the hallway yet. “I don’t want him to get scared if he sees you.”

The Junimo trilled in response, disappearing again behind the old equipment. As odd as the creatures were, she couldn’t deny how cute they were, too, with their stubby little arms and legs and round little bodies, always seeming so eager to see her and lend a hand.

“Kate?” Harvey’s voice called out from down the hall, and she reemerged from the boiler room just as he was approaching the doorway, the wrinkle of concern that had returned between his brows smoothing away once he saw her. “I was worried you’d fallen through the floor after all.”

“Not this time,” she replied with a light smile, leaning on the doorframe. “So, what do you think? I haven’t really made a lot of progress yet, but I think it could really be something again, eventually.”

“I think it’s incredible that you’re helping with this,” he remarked, though there was a hint of careful reservation in his tone, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I can’t imagine how busy you’ve been with this and the farm. I don’t think I’ve seen you hardly at all since before the luau.”

“You’re not the only one. I barely saw anyone at the luau,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “Lewis cornered me immediately after I got there and had me talking to the governor almost the whole day. He said he wanted to ‘showcase the agricultural improvements Pelican Town is making.’” She crooked her fingers in air quotes, recalling with a scowl what the mayor had told her only moments after she had contributed to the communal soup, destroying her hopes of a relaxing afternoon on the beach.

“I hope you’re not overextending yourself.” Ah. That hesitance in his voice made sense now, and as he continued, he talked slowly, almost stretching each word like he didn’t want to spook her. “You should be careful about not taking on more than you can handle. Burnout can take a huge toll on a person, both physically and mentally.”

You have no idea, she thought as she gave him a good-natured smile. She was sure he meant well, just being considerate as always, but it was easy for him to preach the importance of not stretching oneself too thin: the town doctor rarely had to prove that he was useful to the community, that he had purpose and deserved to be there like the rest of them.

“I will… keep it in mind, Harvey. But thanks,” she promised.

She was about to suggest they head back outside when the squeak of the front door suddenly opening, cutting through the moment’s silence, made them both freeze. As Harvey turned back toward the main room, as if to investigate, Kate wondered in horror if the Junimos had somehow figured out how to work a door handle.

She hustled to catch up to him, arriving at the hall entrance just as he did, and saw neither a stack of Junimos opening the door nor any of the other townspeople coming into the community center. Instead she saw a short man with dark hair and glasses, wearing a suit and a crisp red bowtie, peering around the room with a grimace of disgust and distaste. He looked vaguely familiar to Kate, but she couldn’t place where she had seen him before.

“Can we help you?” Harvey asked, startling the other man, who regarded the two of them like they were the ones who had wandered in out of nowhere instead of him.

“No, you most certainly can’t; I was under the impression the building was empty,” he sniffed, casting one more indignant look around him. “I’m here to survey the structure for a new Joja Warehouse in Pelican Town.”

Kate felt her blood start to boil at even the mere possibility of more of Joja’s presence in the valley, and finally realized why the other man looked familiar: she’d seen him once before, not long after she’d moved to Pelican Town, when he’d come to Pierre’s store offering coupons for JojaMart.

"You’re that shitty manager at the JojaMart,” she all but growled.

He gave her an annoyed sneer in response, hooking his fingers under the lapels of his jacket. “I also answer to Morris. And you must be the new farmer who took over that overgrown field west of town. I heard your grandfather used to own it. What was his name? Harold? Howard?”

“Henry.”

“Right.” He flashed her a condescending smile that only made the hot anger in her burn brighter. “If that farm ever gets to be too much for you to handle, I’d be more than happy to talk to you about how Joja Corporation can lighten that load.”

Oh, Kate would have absolutely smacked that grin off his face if Harvey hadn’t been standing next to her, though he looked just as pissed at Morris as she was, his body tense and his brows furrowed so deeply they almost disappeared behind the top of his glasses frames.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she replied instead, voice dripping with faux pleasantry. “Lewis told me you’ve been trying to buy that land for a while. I’ve got no intentions of letting you do that anytime soon.”

Morris’s smile slipped into irritation for a second before he schooled his expression again. “Well, I hope your farm stays profitable, then. It’s so easy for new ventures like that to go under with less experienced producers in charge.”

She wanted to fire back at him again, but the dig struck a still-raw nerve within her, and her voice caught in her throat against the rising wave of shame as an embarrassed blush spread along her cheeks and down her neck. The best she could muster was a furious stare in Morris’s direction.

Then Harvey cleared his throat, breaking the tense moment between the two of them. “You may want to leave before I give the mayor a call,” he said, his phone already in hand. “I don’t think he’d be thrilled to learn you’ve been in here.”

She couldn’t help the way her eyebrows jumped a bit at him inserting himself into the conflict. Harvey and confrontation seemed to rarely go hand in hand, but apparently polite passive aggressiveness was less of a stretch for his more reserved personality.

Morris’s eyes darted between Harvey and the phone for a moment before he muttered something that sounded like a mix between a threat and a curse and stormed back out the front door, leaving Kate and Harvey alone in the old, still building once more.

“I fucking hate that guy,” Kate sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Clearly I’m going to have to get the key from Lewis and start locking this place again.”

“Yet another reason not to shop at JojaMart,” Harvey agreed, giving her a wary look. “Are you alright, after all of that?”

She nodded, but even still her body felt heavy as the initial rush of rage and frustration started to ebb. “I’ll be fine. It was probably good you played the Lewis card when you did, though; I was really thinking about strangling him with his own stupid bowtie.”

Half of Harvey’s mouth quirked up into a wry smile. “I could tell. The more people I can keep out of my exam room, even Morris, the better off we all are.”

She laughed at that, the sound bouncing off the walls of the empty rooms around them, a bright contrast to the worn-down interior and the unwanted encounter they’d just had. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it in mind if I run into him again.”

As they pushed back through the community center door, Harvey dawdled on the steps a little below her. “I’ve got a little more time before I need to be back so Maru can go home for the day. Do you want a coffee from the saloon? That always helps me calm down after, uh, emotions run high.” Then hurriedly, he added, “I’ll pay, of course.”

“As long as it’s iced.” Even less than a minute in the midday sun and she could feel sweat starting to collect between her shoulder blades and along her forehead.

“I think Emily can manage that,” he chuckled.

He started down the path back into the town proper, and Kate spared one more look over her shoulder at the building, just barely spotting two dots of color watching her through one of the windows.

She gave them a sneaky wave, noticing with a surprised smile that they both returned the gesture, and rushed to catch up with Harvey, leaving the building behind for the day.

Notes:

Morris has appeared and he's just as delightful as you would think.

More importantly the Junimos have also appeared! I kind of think in the world of Stardew Valley, most of the monsters that you run into in the mines are perceived kind of like wild animals in that people know they exist, but most regular people are probably not going to run into them unless they actively go into the mines or in the deep woods. Junimos are more like our idea of magical creatures, like unicorns or dragons. Which is why Kate tries so hard to hide them from Harvey but doesn't care if he knows she's fighting monsters in the mines.

Chapter 11

Kate dropped her axe to the ground next to the newly created stump, chest heaving as she worked to catch her breath, and reveled in the realization that she had finally, finally, cleared the last of the unwanted wild trees from the farm.

She had decided to leave a few standing just south of her coop in case she wanted to tap them later on or use them for lumber in the winter, but for the first time in the almost five months that she had lived there, the land was free of the logs and rocks and other overgrowth that had marred the property. Kate was almost prouder of accomplishing that than she had been after her first successful harvest.

A rare cool breeze ruffled her ponytail, and she moved under the shade of one of the still-standing trees, first sitting against its trunk before fully laying in the grass at its base, staring up at the slow-moving, fluffy white clouds against the light blue sky. For the briefest of moments, she was 8 years old again lying in the long grass, waiting for fireflies to appear as the sun set while her grandpa called for her from the farmhouse porch, wishing that summer never had to come to an end.

She knew there was more to do—that there would always be more to do at this point. But she wanted her one selfish moment to lie in the field like she used to, listening to the birds and bugs in the trees and the wind rustling the grass while trying to forget for a time that she was still just barely treading water with the farm, attempting to balance the operation with her efforts to cement herself more fully into the community.

Whether she wanted to or not, she had even started hearing Harvey’s voice in the back of her mind whenever she took on another errand or task for someone, repeating what he had told her in the community center over a week back about not spreading herself too thin. Most of the time she forced herself to ignore it—even if he had a point, she didn’t have the time or the money to slow down now. A few times she had actually managed to turn down a request or, like she was doing now, sit still for a minute and breathe. It had felt nice whenever she could steal a break in the middle of all her obligations: she was also far too proud to admit that to Harvey.

The calm silence she was enjoying was slowly drowned out by the sound of children’s excited voices growing louder and louder from the direction of the forest. Kate sat up just as Vincent and Jas ran into view at the old dirt path at the southern edge of the farm, spotting her in an instant and waving with broad smiles.

“Hi Farmer Kate!” Jas yelled, her green hair bow bobbing precariously as she and Vincent started sprinting Kate’s way. Penny appeared at the end of the path a moment later, giving Kate a gentle smile as she hurried after them.

“What are you three up to today?” Kate asked, trying to discreetly pick little dried grass clippings out of her hair.

“We were taking a walk through the forest, and Jas was telling us about how you bought some chicks from Marnie a few weeks ago…” Penny started to explain.

“And I wanted to see if they liked your farm!” the little girl chimed in, Vincent nodding along with her.

“If Farmer Kate says it’s alright, of course,” Penny reminded them, casting Kate a sneaky apologetic glance. “She has a lot to do around the farm, after all.”

“It’s not a problem,” Kate assured them as she pushed herself up off the ground and back onto her feet. “I was going to feed them for the night in a little while anyway, but I can do it now and introduce you all to them.”

Jas and Vincent beamed at Kate before they started running toward the chicken coop, its wooden walls and roof still pristine after Robin had built it almost a month before, now with an added fence that Kate put up before she bought the chicks. Eventually she wanted to build a little barn for a cow and maybe a pig or two, but that was still far down the line considering how much the coop and chickens cost.

“Thanks for doing this,” Penny said while they walked, her voice pitched low so the children wouldn’t hear their conversation. “They were pretty adamant about coming over here.”

“Like I said, it’s no trouble,” Kate said. “So, do you teach them during the summer months, too?”

“Oh no, I just keep an eye on them sometimes whenever Jodi and Marnie are busy.” A slightly troubled expression crossed her face for a moment, but she smoothed it over just as fast as she continued, “And it gives me a chance to get out of the house when I need it.”

Kate let the comment pass without explanation. She’d heard some of Penny and Pam’s arguments passing by their trailer late at night on her way back home, usually after Pam had spent the night at the saloon. The few conversations Kate and Penny had had proved well enough that Penny loved her mother, but Kate could understand the frustration over why parents couldn’t just be better, even if it was rarely that simple. She hadn’t exchanged more than one or two quick phone calls with her own parents since she moved out of the city.

Jas and Vincent were practically vibrating waiting at the gate when the two women finally caught up to them, and Kate led them all inside the coop. The two chicks she had bought from Marnie, already starting to lose some of their soft yellow fluff in exchange for the beginnings of adult feathers, gave the newcomers cautious side-eyes between pecking at the remnants of feed in their little dish.

“They’re still pretty nervous around people, so move slowly and talk quietly so you don’t startle them,” Kate told Jas and Vincent, who nodded solemnly as they crouched near the two chicks.

“What are their names?” Vincent asked.

“The one that’s starting to grow white feathers is named Viola,” Kate pointed at the chick on the left, “and the one growing brown feathers is Piccolo.” The chick on the right slowly approached Jas, who giggled as it inspected the skirt of her dress.

As the kids watched the chickens, laughing with delight any time the birds flapped their little wings or chased each other around the inside of the coop, Kate leaned back against the wall next to Penny.

“So, how did you end up teaching them?” Kate asked her. “I could have sworn Emily mentioned having to ride the bus to school when we were kids.”

“You’re thinking of Valley Region School District,” Penny replied. “It was about halfway between here and Grampleton. They finally decided to close it about three or four years ago right after Maru’s class graduated.”

“What happened?”

“Enrollment rates were dropping; everyone was moving out of the valley or switching to other bigger schools,” Penny shrugged before turning her attention back to the kids. “These two were supposed to start kindergarten about that time, and I was almost finished getting my early education degree online, so Marnie, Jodi, and Lewis asked me if I’d consider teaching them here in town instead of applying somewhere else.”

It was just another example of how life in the valley was dying out everywhere around Pelican Town, and it sent a stab of guilt through Kate as if she was somehow responsible for part of it. She hadn’t lived in the valley as a kid, but she and her parents had been close enough to see the slow signs of decline as more and more people left for bigger cities. They had done it themselves. And part of her almost wondered if anything might have been different if they had stayed nearby instead, whether it was an illogical thread to follow or not.

“I don’t mean this as a judgement or anything, but have you ever thought about— I don’t know, about leaving and getting a teaching job somewhere else? Where’s there’s more kids?”

Penny quickly shook her head, eyes wide in surprise. “No, not at all! Actually, teaching Jas and Vincent is much easier than working somewhere else,” she corrected Kate. “I can be a lot more flexible with lesson plans, Lewis gives me a decent budget from the community fund to buy textbooks and supplies, and I can dedicate much more time to making sure neither of them fall behind.”

If Kate had half the self-assuredness that Penny seemed to possess in her role, she was sure she would have had the farm in a better state months ago. She did her best to turn the brief bout of self-conscious laughter that followed into something that sounded a little more nonchalant.

“I’m glad you’re happy here, then,” she said. Then when she processed how dismissive that sounded, she rushed to add, “Genuinely, I really am! I know what it’s like to have to do a job you hate; it’s great that you’re doing something that gives you so much sense of purpose.” She waved a vague hand, gesturing around the two of them. “I— I hope that I’ll feel that way about running the farm, eventually.”

Penny took hold of her forearm with a reassuring squeeze. “Of course you will! Something like this is just going to take a lot of time, I’m sure,” she said with a smile. “Besides, everyone in town already loves you. No matter what happens with the farm, I think you’re going to be stuck with us all for a while.”

She gave Penny a grateful smile back; even though a tiny, persistent part of her fought against Penny’s promises of the other townspeople’s care for her, Kate let the assurance push that part down as deep as it could, determined to believe that she really could be as well-received in Pelican Town as the other woman claimed. “Thanks, Penny. I appreciate it.”

Then she clapped her hands together softly, turning back to Jas and Vincent still preoccupied with the chicks. “So, who wants to help me feed these guys?”

Feeding went a little slower than it usually did as both Jas and Vincent wanted to help pour the feed and refill the chicks’ water bowl, but eventually the birds were fed and ready for the night, and Kate was standing outside the coop, waving goodbye to Penny and the kids as they made their way back to the forest. She had made sure to let Penny know she was welcome to bring them back if they wanted to learn anything else about running a farm, something Jas and Vincent seemed, almost impossibly, even more excited about.

Still it made an affectionate warmth bloom in her chest to see them like that, knowing that at least two people in town didn’t care how productive or useful she was so long as she had farm animals to look at and acres of land to run around on.

Her eyes wandered to where the sun was just starting to touch the horizon, the sky around it already starting to shift into faint oranges and pinks. Dinner that she didn’t have to make herself sounded really good all of a sudden.

She double-checked that the coop door and gate were secured, and with the pleasant summer breeze making the leaves of the trees around her dance, Kate started the walk to the Stardrop Saloon.

Notes:

Did I write this chapter mostly so I could come up with an explanation for why Pelican Town's school situation is Like That? No comment.

In this story Penny, Sebastian, and Haley were all in a class together, with Seb being on the older end of the grade, and then Abigail, Sam and Alex were in the next class down. Maru was about three years behind the oldest group, so a freshman/9th grader when Sebastian/Penny/Haley were seniors/12th graders.

Also the chickens are named after my actual in-game chickens. I have a music theme going that Kate is going to end up following as well.

Chapter 12

It was almost two hours past closing before Harvey was able to set aside the stack of paperwork he had been chipping away at for the better part of the afternoon. He stretched back against his chair, his back and shoulders stiff after sitting hunched over his desk so long, and only then realized, like he always seemed to do when he got too engrossed in work, that he hadn’t eaten in hours.

His fridge upstairs was on the sparse side—Harvey added “grocery shopping” to his mental to-do list for the next day—but he knew he at least had enough to make something simple. If he wanted, he could easily spend the rest of the night on his couch surfing through the valley’s limited set of channels for whatever random documentary or game show was on that night.

But he had the rare itch to be somewhere that wasn’t home or work, to truly stretch his legs and look at a different set of walls for an hour or two. Being the middle of the week, the saloon was likely to be pretty empty as an added bonus, so with a final definitive sigh, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and headed for the door.

He made the short trip across the town square, the sun already more than halfway below the horizon line. Somewhere near the river he could hear Vincent and Jas yelling back and forth about some game they were playing, interrupted only by Jodi’s voice calling her son home for dinner. Down the other path Evelyn had the window of her kitchen open as the tinny warble of an old radio flowed out into town, joined by faint grumbles from George.

It was the kind of evening that he had always envisioned when he thought about where he wanted to end up after med school and that had endeared him to the valley years ago. While many of the initial charms of Pelican Town had grown a little less shiny over time, its quiet summer nights still calmed him in ways the city and his life before moving there never could.

The saloon was mostly vacant like he suspected; Pam and Shane were at their usual posts on either end of the bar, noses buried in their pint glasses, and Willy was tucked away in a corner booth, nearly finished with whatever he had ordered. Gus and Emily looked to be taking the low activity as an opportunity to go through the rows of bottles lining the back wall, pulling a few down and adding new, full ones in their places.

The only other person in the saloon, sitting in one of the booths just left of the door, was Kate, her attention completely fixed on a little notebook in her hand. He could hear her muttering to herself as she turned pages back and forth and scribbled notes between them. She didn’t even seem to register him approaching until he cleared his throat.

“Didn’t feel like cooking tonight either, I take it?”

Her head shot up from the notebook, eyes wide with surprise and the fading concentration she had been keeping.

“Oh! Sorry, I… yeah, I thought I’d try to get away from the farm for a little bit. Try to relax for a night.”

“You and me both, then,” Harvey replied. Even standing straight, there was still a twinge in his lower back, and a part of him regretted taking for granted being able to pull all-nighters in the college library and still get to class the next morning when he was younger.

“Do you want to sit down? I wouldn’t mind the company.” She frowned at the notebook now sitting on the table next to her. “It might distract me for a while.”

His gut instinct was to politely decline; if her goal was to relax, she shouldn’t have to worry about keeping up a conversation with him instead. But she was watching him with that same open, kind look she had when she gave him the pickled radishes almost a month and a half ago, without expectation or annoyance, and he had to remind himself not for the first time that they were friends now. And friends shared meals and talked, and it didn’t make him a burden to do so.

“Thank you,” he said as he sat across from her, folding his hands on the table. His eyes drifted over to the little book. “So, you came to the saloon to relax?”

She caught his stare and the pointed tone, and her frown deepened. “I meant to,” she sighed, flipping through the notebook with a careless thumb. “I got as far as giving Emily my order, and then I started thinking about needing to plot next season’s crops, and how much money I would need to save to start building a barn, and a hundred other things that I absolutely didn’t want to think about tonight.” She slid the book over to him unprompted. “As useful as that little thing is keeping everything straight, it’s the bane of my existence some days.”

He picked up the notebook slowly, giving her a chance to take it back if she wanted, then turned to one of the middle pages. Each space in the lined paper was filled with detailed ledgers of Kate’s weekly spending the month before, how much she had made from sales to Pierre and Clint and Robin, plus extra cash from errands and trades with the other townspeople. The meticulousness with which she kept track of everything put his own attempts at doing the clinic’s budget to shame.

He turned a few more pages and found more of the same careful note keeping. Some pages had more finance tracking, others detailed growing information for certain crops—what kinds of fertilizers did the best for them, what pests seemed to cause the most problems. Some of the more recent additions to the notebook were some messy sketches of a barn and a greenhouse; they weren’t drawn with a very practiced hand, but it was clear she had an eye for design.

“This is very thorough,” he marveled, impressed at the care that she used tracking everything. “I can see why it’s hard to leave it alone, even for a little bit.”

“My grandpa used to keep a log of everything on the farm like this,” she explained, slouching back a bit against the worn red leather of the booth seats. “It’s been a lifesaver so far, but clearly I need to leave the damn thing at home more often.”

“I understand that all too well,” Harvey laughed softly. “The doctor’s hat never really comes off, either.”

Emily drifted over to the table a moment later, her own notebook held ready in her hand. “Hi Harvey! I can take your order if you’re ready. Are you staying here or eating at the bar?”

When Kate invited him to join her, he had meant to eventually move to his usual seat at the bar top and leave her to her meal. But he cast a glance at her across from him and saw her staring back, the same expression as when she invited him to her table, waiting for him to decide what he wanted to do.

“I’ll stay here tonight,” he confirmed just as much to Kate as he did to Emily—maybe even to himself.

Emily disappeared again once he ordered, and the conversation between he and Kate returned, eventually winding into just talking about what they each had done earlier that day. He was in the middle of explaining the nearly weeklong battle he’d been waging against the clinic’s main pharmaceutical supplier to get a handful of prescriptions filled before they ran out before he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down and just… told someone about his day. It would be redundant to have those conversations with Maru, since she was usually present for whatever happened during clinic hours, and with everyone else in town, it just felt awkward to get into anything more than small talk if they weren’t already asking him medical questions. With her, none of those worries ever seemed to spring to the surface.

Their food arrived and the conversation continued as Kate told him all about getting up early that morning to go down to the beach and catch a red mullet for Caroline, her victory in clearing the last of the unnecessary trees on the farm, and how Penny had brought Vincent and Jas over a few hours earlier to visit the chickens Kate was now keeping.

“The chicks are growing a lot faster than I thought they would,” she said between bites of a burger. “Ren’s tried to pick on them a couple times, though, so I’ve had to ban him from the coop.”

Harvey paused just as he was bringing his forkful of eggplant parmesan to his mouth. “Who’s Ren?”

Kate’s face screwed into confusion for just a moment before her eyebrows shot back up. “That’s right! You didn’t get to meet him when you were out at the farm that night.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, swiping through a few photos before she landed on one of her holding a gray cat up to the camera, his green eyes narrowed despite Kate beaming behind him. “I got him toward the end of spring; I think I might be spoiling him a little, but I never got to have pets as a kid.”

He smiled to himself, amused as she swiped through a few more photos of the same tabby: sleeping curled up in a ball on her bed, sitting on a kitchen table and watching Kate with an unamused stare, and peering through the fence at two half-grown chickens, ears and tail on high alert.

“He looks well-loved,” he observed with a laugh.

“I need to find a place to get him fixed and give him his shots, though,” she said. “I’m not sure who would be willing to give me and a cat that’s never been in a car before a ride to Grampleton.”

“Marnie could probably take care of him, actually,” Harvey proposed. “She’s mentioned a few times during appointments that she went to veterinary school before moving back to the valley. I’m pretty sure Alex takes his dog Dusty to her.”

“Oh!” Kate straightened up at the new information, slowly nodding to herself. “You know, that makes so much sense I’m kind of surprised I never thought of that. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” Then with a friendly, grateful grin, she added, “It seems like between you and Emily, I’ve got unlimited access to all the good gossip in town.”

Harvey gave her a wry smile of his own. “I don’t know if ‘gossip’ is the word I’d prefer,” he objected lightly, “but I’m happy to help.”

By the time their plates were empty, the sky outside had faded into a deep violet, the other patrons in the saloon had left, and Kate was stifling a yawn behind the back of her hand, blinking against her own tiredness.

“I should probably get going,” she announced, slowly sliding out of the booth. “Got another early morning tomorrow.”

“I won’t be staying much longer, either,” Harvey said, taking hold of the mostly empty wine glass he’d nursed throughout the night. “Thank you, for letting me join you.”

“Of course,” she smiled. “I always like talking to you. Have a good night.”

The weight of some emotion that left him feeling somehow both pleased and embarrassed settled in his stomach as he watched her pay Gus at the bar and exit out into the night, waving to him as she passed by. He downed the rest of his wine as soon as she was out the door, hoping it would ease the uncomfortable sensation.

Gus gave him a nod and a smile—a little wider than Harvey usually noticed—as he approached the bar himself. “Have a good night, Harvey?”

“Yes, I did.” He eyed the other man with a growing inkling of suspicion as he handed over payment: Gus was always polite and conversational whenever Harvey stopped at the saloon, but he could practically feel the intent behind Gus’s friendly interest this time, hinting at something he hadn’t worked out for himself yet.

“That’s good,” Gus replied innocently, then nodded in the direction Kate had gone. “I’m glad to see you making friends with the farmer; she’s a good one, like her grandpa.” He dropped his attention back down to where he was wiping down the bar top. “You know, you shouldn’t spend all your time worrying about us older folks and our health. It’s good for you to spend more time with other young people.”

“Well it’s my job to worry about your health.” Harvey felt a warmth from more than just the wine he’d had spread across his face. “And I’m not that young anymore, Gus.”

“You’re not that old, either.” Gus raised an eyebrow at him, taking a tone that was very effective at making Harvey feel like a teenager being scolded. “I’ve got about 20 years on you, son. If you’re old, what does that make me?”

Harvey sighed, adjusting his glasses where they had started to slide down his nose. “The point is, even if Kate and I weren’t friends, I would be perfectly happy with my life as it is.” He smiled reassuringly at Gus, hoping it would put him at ease, if at least temporarily. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Don’t I?” Gus’s tone morphed into more earnest concern. Harvey felt like he’d just walked into a trap he didn’t even know had been set for him. “I’m the town bartender: I notice things. You’re always off by yourself at festivals, you don’t join in on celebrations here at the saloon, and when you do come by, you eat by yourself at the bar. Even Clint and Willy get dinner together a few times a month.” He dried his hands on his towel and shook his head to himself. “I’ve just never seen you as… social as you are with Kate. You look happier when you’re being social.”

“Gus, it’s not like it’s some big secret that I get nervous around people,” Harvey argued, fighting the urge to sound as indignant as he was inside. The others in town had known his nature for years and never given him as much grief over it before, at least not all at once, and he was starting to feel cornered. “Yes, I’ve liked talking to Kate the last few months, but that’s— it’s an exception, not the rule. Us getting along doesn’t change who I am.”

“Are you even going to see the moonlight jellies at the end of the month?” Gus asked bluntly. “You slinked off early last year. And I don’t think you came to the Spirit’s Eve party at all.”

Harvey’s mouth moved to protest, but all he could do was flounder silently trying to think of something he could say in his own defense. Even if he tried to deny it, it wouldn’t be any use: everyone knew he was one of the first to leave community functions, spending most of his time until then lingering at the edges of the party and making just enough conversation to avoid exactly what was happening right now.

Gus blew out a breath, saving Harvey from coming up with a response. “Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped or anything,” he relented. “You spend a lot of time caring about the rest of us in town; don’t think we don’t care about you, too.”

He handed Harvey his change, and with that left the bar to disappear through the swinging doors to the back hall, leaving Harvey standing there dumbfounded and more than a little shaken.

As he walked out into the late evening, he grappled with everything Gus had more or less accused him of when it came to his lack of outgoingness. Part of him insisted that it wouldn’t matter, that he could have a hundred friends in town and it wouldn’t make him any more comfortable at gatherings or make it any easier for him to be as open and easygoing as everyone else. He was nervous and cautious—it was just as much a fact about him as it was that he was a doctor.

But even so, he could admit it was nice to spend time with someone who seemed to understand him better than most people in town did. Kate never really questioned why he had such a hard time putting himself out there or joining in with the rest of the town, or why he kept to himself in the clinic. And he did realize, after Gus had pointed it out, that he was usually able to put aside a few of his nervous habits when he was with her; he'd asked to come along with her into the community center, as hard as it was to get he words out then, and he hadn't put up nearly as much of a fight as he normally would have when she brought him gifts or asked him to join her for dinner. Harvey had already noticed she was easier to talk to than most, except for maybe Maru. He supposed it wasn’t a stretch that she might make him more comfortable, too.

He arrived back at the front door of the clinic and let out a heavy sigh as he dug his keys out of his pocket. No matter what Gus or anyone else said, one thing was sure: he had certainly had enough of being social for one day.

Notes:

Gus is really out here saying, "Hey buddy, I know you've got a lot of social anxiety, but have you tried... not doing that?"

For real though I like the idea that Gus is one of the few people that Harvey interacts with the most either through appointments or by coming to the saloon, and so him seeing what Harvey is like when he's actually relaxed and talking to someone he vibes with is kind of a light-bulb moment of 'oh, so you ~are~ capable of having a good time with other people.' He really does mean well :)

Unrelated to the chapter but I realized I never linked my Tumblr to this account or anything- I'm stargazer-writing over there. I really only post fic updates and the occasional WIP so far but I've been thinking of doing random SDV characters headcanons if I have the time. And my inbox is open if anyone wants to ask me about the fic or characters/ideas!

Chapter 13

Kate stared for a moment at the unmarked bottle filled with deep purple liquid, searching for any possible sign of imperfections or problems, and broke into a wild, thrilled grin when she was finally convinced that she wouldn’t find any.

Her first successful batch of wine sat in about a dozen bottles around her, all sharing the same dark hue that the blackberries from her fruit cave had given them. She’d been—mostly—patiently watching and waiting for it to finish fermenting since nearly the middle of summer, sometimes checking on it multiple times a day just to be extra sure nothing was going wrong in the brewing process. If she could pull it off, homemade “artisanal” wine, as she planned to market it, could be the key to pushing the farm from just getting by to making her enough money to truly thrive and become a real business.

Most of the bottles were going into her old stone basement where they could age for a while before hopefully being sold, but the one in her hand she had more immediate plans for.

Almost as soon as the wine was ready for bottling and aging, her mind had turned to Harvey. Although a little indirectly, she had promised to bring him some of her wine a couple months back, when she’d delivered those pickled radishes to him, and while she hadn’t exactly said when she was going to give him a sample, once the thought of having him taste-test her first bottle slotted itself in her head, there wasn’t any way she could shake the idea.

So after setting the rest of her bottles securely in the small wine rack she’d put together with Robin’s help, she took her test bottle in hand, stopping at the porch to give Ren a couple good scratches behind the ear, and started the walk to town, her excitement making the trip pass faster than usual.

The first hints of fall were starting to show in the valley, evident in the occasional yellow-tipped leaf along the path to Pelican Town and the cool breezes more frequently in the air. She was looking forward to a new season; her grandpa had kept some records of his success growing different kinds of produce, and it seemed like fall crops like cranberries and pumpkins usually did the best in terms of yield and quality. If she was lucky, a good growing season might mean she could get a barn before the end of the year.

The dirt under her feet transitioned into worn cobblestone as she beelined for the clinic, the smooth glass neck of the bottle gripped in her hand. It was as she reached for the handle, however, that a hand-scrawled note taped to the door caught her attention and made her stop short.

Closed for the rest of the day. For emergencies, call Harvey.

She recognized his narrow, clipped handwriting and his cell number at the bottom of the small piece of paper, but the fact that he would close early on a Tuesday—even with only a few hours of his work day left—made a sliver of concern curl at the bottom of her stomach.

The logical part of her mind helpfully suggested that he was most likely out on a house call or simply taking what was probably a much-needed break. At worse, he could have caught a late-summer cold; she had heard from Jodi when she brought her some summer spangle blooms and seeds earlier that week that Vincent was just getting over something similar.

Still, she pulled up his contact among her texts and sent him a quick message as she leaned against the clinic's light blue siding.

I just stopped by to bring you something but saw you’re closed. Is everything ok?

Kate watched her screen and waited for the telltale ellipses to pop up signaling his response, but nearly five minutes went by without any text back, or even a notification that he had read or received her message at all. The silence from the other end didn’t help ease her burgeoning worry about what might have happened.

She tucked her phone away and forcefully pushed back against that particular train of thought. Harvey had a life outside of the clinic. Leaving early one day didn’t mean anything other than she now needed to find something else to occupy her time for a while.

Her attention eventually landed on the sign to Pierre’s store just next door. He had mentioned before in a few off-hand comments that he was interested in stocking new products to put him in a better spot for competition against JojaMart. Maybe homemade, local wine would pique his interest.

She headed inside and found Pierre noticeably absent from his usual spot behind the counter, with another little note folded to stand near the register.

Back in 15 minutes

“Where is everyone today?” she muttered to herself as she set the wine bottle on the counter and checked her phone again—still no response from Harvey. A deeply buried, rarely indulged nervous part of her wondered if, in some bizarre way, she had something to do with it. Like they were all avoiding her for some reason. She shoved that insecurity down too, to join the others.

A few more minutes went by, and Kate was nearly ready to call it a day and just try again tomorrow, when she heard a peal of muffled laughter from the next room over. Training her ear to the noise, she could make out what sounded like Caroline giving instructions and a slightly quieter music underneath it, along with a few other voices every now and then.

She glanced back to the door at the back of the shop that she knew led further into the building. It wasn’t as if the other parts of Pierre and Caroline’s home were completely off limits: there was some kind of gathering room where she assumed the voices were coming from, and she had seen Jodi and the Mullners going inside on Sundays to visit the altar room. So if she poked her head through to see what all the commotion was, she reasoned to herself, she wasn’t technically being nosy.

It was enough justification in her mind to slip through the door and down the hall as the sound of voices and music grew louder, stopping at the edge of where the large room opened up before her and peeking around the corner.

Caroline was at the front of the room, leading some kind of exercise routine involving some not-too-heavy-looking weights and a lot of choreographed movements, clearly meant to go with the music. Following her movements were Robin, Jodi, Marnie, and Emily, all dressed in exercise gear, none of them seeming to have noticed her standing nearby, too intent on staying on beat and in sync with Caroline.

But beyond them, Kate almost did a double take when she finally noticed Harvey toward the back of the room, wearing sweatpants and just a T-shirt, panting with the effort of keeping up with the rest of the women. He hadn’t spotted her in the hallway either, and with a sudden panic she debated to herself whether she should duck back out before he had the chance to do so. Him being in an exercise class didn’t phase her all that much—it made sense the town doctor would want to keep himself healthy in multiple ways, after all—but finding him there so unexpectedly, sweating and dressed more casually than she had ever seen him before, felt almost like she was intruding on some part of his privacy, crossing some boundary she wasn’t meant to cross and sending a buzz of nerves through her body.

She never got the chance to make up her mind as the song came to an end, and simultaneously, the class came to a rest. Without needing to watch Caroline anymore, Emily finally spotted Kate and waved to her with a bright grin, which also caught Harvey’s attention. He looked over at the hall entrance as well, and she watched as his eyes went almost comically wide when he saw her, all the color draining from his face in an instant and his body going taut. For a split second, Kate thought he might actually try to make a break for it out the back door of Pierre and Caroline’s kitchen to hide in her sunroom.

“Good effort today everyone!” Caroline announced, still oblivious to Kate’s presence or the wordless exchange that had just happened. “Same time next week!”

The others all started packing up their belongings and picking up conversations that were left at the beginning of class as Harvey hurriedly threw his things into a small duffle bag, rushing to meet her where she still lingered in the doorway, chest heaving now from both the physical exertion and his frantic dash to get to her.

“Kate, I just— I-I’m not really… I mean—” He stammered over several different attempts to explain away his clear involvement in the class, his previously pallid complexion now flushed into a deep red all the way down to his neck. His hand gripping the strap of his bag shook just enough for her to notice.

“Harvey,” she held her hands out almost as if she was calming a cornered animal, cutting off his rambling with a soft, steady smile, “I mean this in the politest way possible: I don’t care that you’re in an exercise class. It kind of looked like fun, honestly.”

He froze again, though this time she could almost see him recalibrating to her lack of judgement, his brain stuttering a moment before a little bit of the anxiety that had brought his shoulders nearly up to his ears started to relax.

“O-oh, ok.” His breathing had slowed down some, though a blush still colored his cheeks. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder at his classmates, none of them paying attention to the two of them tucked back into the hallway. “Just please don’t tell anyone else about this. If… certain people in town found out I don’t think I’d ever live it down.”

It was probably a fair concern to have. As much as she knew no one in town would ever be downright mean to Harvey, she could only imagine how the 20-somethings—or hell, even someone like George—would react to finding out their shy, mild-mannered doctor did a dance exercise class with Emily and the local moms. It would probably be at least a month before he’d be able to get through an appointment without someone bringing it up.

“Of course I won’t,” she promised, solemn and sincere.

He let out a deeply relieved breath, the rest of his body releasing its tension as he all but sagged in place. “Thank you,” he sighed.

“I actually came to town looking for you.” She showed him the wine bottle she still held in her hand. “I stopped at the clinic first, but when it was closed, I thought—”

Kate found herself pausing just shy of admitting her worry when she didn’t find Harvey at work. It felt more than a little silly to be self-conscious about something like that considering how vulnerable Harvey had just been with her, but still something about the idea made her own face feel a touch warmer, and she swallowed down the words. “Well anyway, I said I was going to bring you some when I finished a batch, so I thought you might like to have the first taste.”

He looked down at the bottle between them, a glimmer of excited recollection in his eye.

“I almost forgot about your winemaking venture,” he grinned as he took the wine from her. “I’m honored to get to be the first to try it then.”

An amused smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she watched him turn the bottle over, but the motion drew her attention back to his bare arms and, consequently, the T-shirt and sweatpants she had managed to make herself forget until then. As soon as her brain became aware of it, that odd feeling that she was seeing too much of him crept over her again. Had she ever actually seen him without a jacket on before? She thought she would have remembered the light dusting of freckles covering his forearms, or how his chest was broader than it seemed under his dress shirt and tie.

The blush that had come close to rearing its head earlier finally made good on those threats as she felt her cheeks go hot, some mix of shame and butterfly nerves swirling in her chest. She ducked her head before he could lose interest in the wine and notice her.

“So, do Emily and Marnie and the rest keep you being in the class a secret too?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay level.

Harvey nodded, grimacing as some memory resurfaced in his mind. “I practically begged them all not to tell anyone I was there,” he said. “Considering Maru hasn’t come in to work laughing at me yet, I think they’ve all kept their promises.”

“Maru wouldn’t laugh at you,” she assured him with a teasing eye roll. “Haley or Abigail, on the other hand…”

The laugh that almost seemed to sneak up on him at that, abrupt and unrestrained, made that anxious, floating sensation in her flare again, bringing her dangerously close to another full-faced flush.

“Well, it helps I don’t go every week like the rest of them, just whenever I can close early and Maru’s not working,” he said eventually. “Though I’m sure Pierre knows; there’s no way he hasn’t noticed me sneaking in on class days.”

“Speaking of, I should probably see if he’s back yet.” It was an easy out of the conversation and she took it gladly, afraid that if she stood there much longer, she might actually embarrass herself. “I was going to talk to him about selling my wine when I have some more of it.”

“I’m sure he’ll jump on the opportunity,” Harvey smiled at her.

“More than likely.” She nodded to the bottle in his hand. “Let me know what you think of that.”

He promised as much, and they both turned opposite directions down the hallway after saying goodbye, letting Kate finally breathe easy for the first time in nearly ten minutes.

Pierre was back at the counter when she reentered, and after she explained her idea, was quick to agree to selling her product as soon as it was ready, immediately thrilled at the thought of adding locally made and easily marketed goods like wine to his stock.

Kate meanwhile barely paid attention to Pierre’s plans, still too hung up on her interaction with Harvey. Between her flashes of worry not finding him at the clinic and her honestly near-prudish behavior over seeing him in a T-shirt—she’d had friends of all genders that she’d seen wearing far fewer clothes than him and had never before batted an eye—she couldn’t trace a reason for why she’d been so on edge that afternoon; even leaving Pierre’s she could still feel that persistent buzz buried deep in her chest.

As she started down the path back home, she started to regret not taking a few swigs of the wine before she gave it to Harvey, if only to wash away the weirdly warm fluster still clinging to her skin.

Notes:

Kate, seeing Harvey's bare arms for the first time: 🎶What is this feeeeling?🎶

Hold tight everyone, we're entering realizations territory.

Chapter 14

Lewis intercepted Harvey as he was crossing from the saloon back to the clinic, the warmth wafting up from the coffees he held in their little cardboard carrier helping to ward off the just noticeable chill in the air, even in the early afternoon.

“Afternoon Doctor Harvey!” he called, mail bag slung over his shoulder. “Got a couple for you today.”

The lack of a post office anywhere closer than Grampleton meant the people in Pelican Town had had to get proactive about delivering their own mail, and Lewis had taken it upon himself to act as mailman of the town some years ago. As excited as he sometimes got about his bonus title, Harvey wondered if he missed his true calling being elected mayor instead.

He took the handful of envelopes Lewis dug out of his bag. “Thanks, Lewis.”

“Not a problem.” Lewis waved over his shoulder as he continued his route for the day. “I’ll see you down at the beach tonight!”

Harvey returned the gesture with a more half-hearted wave of his own, already trying to fortify his social battery for the festival that night. He had decided with determined resolve that he was going to stay for most of the event this time after Gus had called him on sneaking off early the year before, but it didn’t make him any more eager to go. His one consolation regarding the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies was it was one of the few festivals they held late at night, and with the dark and the lure of the glowing jellyfish in the ocean, most people were too transfixed to pay him much attention.

Maru glanced up from the samples she was sorting on the front counter as Harvey entered. “That was fast,” she said as he set one of the two to-go cups in front of her, freeing his own from the carrier.

“Not a lot of people at the saloon at 1 in the afternoon,” he responded. “Your dad is supposed to be coming in soon to follow up on that burn he got last week. I’ll be in the back until then.”

Maru rolled her eyes at the mention of Demetrius. “You should have seen Mom freak out when she found out about it,” she told him. “You would have thought he set his whole arm on fire instead of just hitting his hand on a Bunsen burner.”

“I know he’s lucky his daughter is a talented nurse with a knack for treating burns,” Harvey chuckled, though he could very well imagine the lecture Robin probably gave him anyway. “Let me know if you need anything.”

As he returned to his desk, he skimmed the mail Lewis had given him, sorting through bills and medical supply catalogues for the clinic, along with a few rare pieces of personal mail.

The return address on one of the envelopes quickly caught his eye: a former classmate from med school he hadn’t heard from in a year or two, one of the several that had stayed in the city after graduating. Curiosity won his attention immediately as he took a letter opener to it, sliding a small, folded piece of paper into his hand.

He sat back in his chair as he unfolded the letter:

Harvey,

I’m sure you’ll be surprised to get this from me; we didn’t get a chance to talk for long the last time you came back to Zuzu and I’m not even sure how much you remember of the conversation, but I know you’ve always preferred this kind of stuff written down instead of sent in an email or over text. I figured the address in Stardew Valley was still current.

You mentioned that you were thinking about leaving Pelican Town when I saw you a couple of years ago. A friend of mine in the city is leaving her job as a GP at the start of next year and asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in applying for her position. I thought that you might be a great fit if you’re still interested in something new.

I know you always said all the big hospitals in the city were too fast-paced and stressful for you, but I think this would be just your speed. Her clinic is on the outskirts of town and doesn’t see as many patients as the inner-city places. It’s probably not all that different from the one you’re running in the valley, and you’ll be able to come back and reconnect with everyone from school. I know there’s quite a few people who miss seeing you.

Let me know if you’re interested, but maybe shoot me a text or an email instead of a letter. I don’t have the same love for snail mail as you do.

Best,

   Tom

Harvey had to read the letter twice before he could recall that conversation almost two years ago now; he’d been in the city on the way back from visiting his father, had run into Tom and a few other former classmates, and had been convinced to go out for a drink, or two, or five, at a bar they used to frequent during school. And it was as he skirted the line between tipsy and flat-out drunk—not a state of mind he usually liked to visit—that he admitted he was feeling stuck in Pelican Town, still finding it difficult to fit in after three years and missing the spark of real purpose and drive he had hoped to find there. That even in such a close-knit community and even with his struggles with social anxiety, he was starting to feel lonely.

He hadn’t meant for the confession to lead to anything. At most he had just wanted a chance to vent without anyone thinking he was ungrateful, wanted to share his worries with people who understood better than the others in Pelican Town did. He’d left the city the next morning with an annoying hangover but having got some of his frustrations out of his system, at least temporarily, and that had been that. He had spent the last couple of years taking it one day at a time—it wasn’t like he had any other options anyway.

But now another option had all but fallen into his lap, and Harvey stared at the letter in dumbfounded confliction. He hadn’t really considered the possibility of leaving the valley in years, and as he ran his thumbs over the smooth paper in his hands, he forced himself to confront those feelings of listlessness and dissatisfaction he had chosen to bury to keep moving forward.

If he really sat down and thought about it, not much had changed since that night in a Zuzu City bar. He still struggled to connect with most of the people in Pelican Town, even at his best. He loved his work, but he still had a tendency to look at his days like a series of steps to complete: wake up, go to work, see patients, go home, go to bed, repeat. His life here was a cycle that he had worn so deep, he couldn’t see over the walls of the rut anymore.

But leaving the valley behind? Was that still what he wanted? Would that really be the answer to a problem he wasn’t even sure he could fix?

A knock on his door almost made him fall out of his chair. He slipped the letter underneath a pile of files on his desk just as Maru poked her head in.

“Doctor Harvey? Dad’s here to see you.” Her face was twisted into a cross between embarrassment and desperation. “Please talk to him before he starts attempting to ‘fix’ all our testing equipment again.”

Harvey plastered a neutral smile on his face, fingers gripping the fabric of his pant legs. “Go ahead and send him back. Thank you, Maru.”

She disappeared again, and he spared an unsure glance at where the letter now sat buried, pulling the inside of his cheek between his back teeth. He only had the bandwidth to worry about one thing at a time: he would get through the festival that night, and then he would untangle the new handful of problems and conflicts the letter had unearthed.

He straightened his tie with a heavy sigh and prayed he could survive the rest of the day.

------

By the time Harvey made it to the beach, the dark of late, late evening had settled like a blanket over the sand and the water beyond it, only the sliver of light from a crescent moon keeping him from tripping over a stray piece of driftwood or colliding with any of the others waiting at the edge of the docks. Out over the water he could see the shadowed shapes of everyone else peering into the black ocean below them, catching snippets of conversations that echoed against the still air and over the sound of crashing waves.

Evelyn was the first to notice him approaching, waving from the little lawn chair someone had set up for her near the water, a blanket tucked around her legs. “Oh good! You were able to make it,” she called as he trudged through the sand to reach the shore. “George was just saying he wasn’t sure if you’d be able to come this year.”

Her husband, parked in his wheelchair next to her, scoffed and crossed his arms. “No, I said I figured he was going to ditch it and hide in that clinic of his instead.”

“Good to see you too, George.” Harvey was glad it was dark enough and their eyesight wasn’t so sharp anymore that neither of them would be able to see him roll his eyes. “I’m planning to stay until the end this year, actually.”

Evelyn beamed at him, taking his hand between her wrinkled ones and giving it a pat. “That’s good; you only get to see the jellies once a year, after all. It would be a shame to miss it.”

As much as George could get under his skin, Evelyn had always treated him with a kindness that more than made up for it, and he squeezed her hand in return.

Pierre and Caroline wandered over then, the latter immediately launching into a conversation with Evelyn about flowers and town decorations for the next season, and Harvey stepped back and watched the water slowly lapping at the sand by his feet, letting the repetitive, droning sound lull his mind. He wasn't the biggest fan of the beach, but even he enjoyed the calm of it on a night like this.

Familiar laughter caught his ear behind him. He turned, training his eyes to the darkness of the tree line at the edge of the beach, and spotted Kate talking with Linus next to Elliott’s cabin, head resting back on the worn wooden planks of the structure as she laughed at something the older man had said to her. A thick-knit cardigan covered most of her body, wrapped around her to protect from the night air.

With little hesitation Harvey extracted himself from the group he had somehow ended up in the middle of and made his way over the Kate and Linus. She grinned at him when she noticed him.

“This is so exciting!” she almost whispered with hushed glee, eyes bright even in the dark. “I never got to stay in Pelican Town long enough to see the jellies when I was a kid. Linus was saying they migrate past the valley on their way to the Fern Islands.”

Linus nodded out toward the ocean. “This group has passed through these waters for years now, always following the same path. They’re a real marvel of nature, especially around here.”

“They really are beautiful,” Harvey added. “I remember the first time I saw them after I moved here. There’s… really nothing else like them.”

Kate’s smile softened as she let her eyes drift past him to where the river that ran through the forest and Pelican Town emptied into the sea. “I’m glad those boards I put up to get to the tide pools are still holding. I was afraid the water might wash them away again.”

Harvey followed her gaze to a set of fresh wooden planks he hadn’t noticed before, nailed together and laid over the shallow runoff like a bridge. The former path over to the handful of tide pools on the west side of the beach had been broken and weathered with time and the elements as long as he’d been living there.

“Have you been over there yet?” Kate asked him.

“No, not yet,” he replied. “I don’t come down to the beach very often.”

“Well come on, we’ve got some time before they send the boat out.” She said farewell to Linus and started carefully crossing the plank bridge, its sturdy boards barely even bending under her weight as she stopped in the middle, watching him and waiting.

He glanced at the other man still standing in the shadow of the cabin; after all, Harvey had, albeit unintentionally, walked up and effectively ended the conversation he was already having with her. But Linus just tossed his head in her direction with a half shrug before returning his gaze to the ocean ahead of him.

Harvey followed her over the planks, taking careful steps until he was back on solid sand, and found himself in front of a handful of small, rocky pools scattered along the shore. It was too dark to see what might have been living in them, but Kate knelt down around the rocks of the nearest one, searching for something.

“You can find a lot of interesting shells or coral pieces that get stuck when the tide washes in,” she explained, and he watched her pluck a shell, about a third the size of her hand, from between two of the rocks, the scarce bit of moonlight above them reflecting a muted collection of colors through it. He could only imagine how the iridescence would shine during the day. “I came out here a lot this summer looking for artifacts for the museum.”

“You’re helping Gunther too?” Harvey asked, eyebrows drawing together as he straightened his glasses. “Kate, between your farm, the community center, whatever errands you do for everyone, and now the museum, I’m not sure how you even have time to sleep.”

She stuffed the shell into her cardigan pocket, pulling the woven yarn tighter around her. “I sleep, Harvey, don’t worry about me.” She brushed him off with an easy smile. “And I have been pacing myself like you said, actually. I promise I’m not overworking myself; I just…” she paused, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she dropped her eyes back down to the tide pool next to her. “I want to be useful.”

In a rare bout of disregard for his conflict avoidance, he wanted to argue and tell her she didn’t need to be useful, and she wasn’t going to be any help to anyone if she pushed herself to the brink of exhaustion. But he doubted she’d hear it; the fact that she was even making an effort to slow down a little seemed like enough of a win for him for one night, and he didn’t want to push his luck any further.

So he gave her his best understanding smile instead, moving to stand next to her by the tide pool. “I suppose as long as you’re not being dragged unconscious into the clinic and I don’t have to treat any more sprained ankles, I can let it go for now.”

She chuckled to herself, a little contemplative. “Honestly, it’s been a better summer than I could have hoped for. I’ve got chickens that should start laying eggs later this fall, my wine project is off the ground, and the summer crops all did well for the most part. It feels like it's starting to actually come together.”  

“I believe it,” he said, and with a rush of earnestness that even to him felt completely out of the blue, added, “I don’t know if I know anyone half as capable as you. If I were in your shoes, I would have collapsed into the fetal position in a field months ago from all the stress.”

That earned an amused snort from her, though he thought he saw the hint of a blush darken her cheeks as well. “Come on, you’re plenty capable yourself,” she argued lightly. “Maybe you’re a little anxious sometimes, but you’ve always seemed put together to me.”

He returned the compliment with a wry smile. “I have to be put together; it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the townspeople watching their only doctor fall apart every other day.”

He had tried to keep his tone light, but a frown pulled at her mouth anyway at his self-deprecation, her forehead wrinkling in concern. The brief silence that followed made him squirm as his fingers started pulling on his jacket sleeves.

Her mouth parted as if she was about to counter him somehow when off in the direction of the docks, carrying on the light breeze, Lewis’s voice interrupted her.

“Ok everyone! We’re going to unmoor the candle-boat in just a couple minutes!”

Harvey looked at Kate, expecting her to rush back toward the others where she could watch the boat float out and illuminate the inky water, drawing the jellies toward the shore and under the docks where you could almost touch them.

But instead she moved closer to the shore a few feet ahead of them, craning her neck to try and get an early glimpse of the creatures’ glow as they made their approach.

“You’re not going to watch from the docks?” he asked. “It’s probably a better view.”

Kate just shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m kind of with Marnie on not trusting how sturdy those are with everyone standing on them,” she said with a wary side-eye in the direction of Willy’s shop. “I like it better over here anyway; it’s quieter, and darker too, so I bet we’ll probably see the jellies better.”

She sat down where they stood, either oblivious to or uncaring of all the sand that was probably going to get stuck to the yarn of her cardigan, and patted the spot next to her, looking up at him with expectant, smiling eyes.

Despite having always hated the feeling of sand clinging to his clothes and ending up in his shoes, he found himself awkwardly dropping down next to her anyway, knees folded nearly to his chest and the beach shore cold beneath him. But Kate wore such an exuberant, childlike wonder plainly on her face, a rare sight with the weight she usually had stacked on her shoulders from trying to run the farm, and he didn’t want to burst that bubble of contentment, especially after everything he’d preached about taking breaks.

After a few minutes of anticipatory silence, a distant light beneath the surface of the water started drawing closer, as one by one dozens of glowing blue and green jellies floated toward the shore, met with the cheers and awe of the people of Pelican Town.

Kate was completely enraptured, her mouth falling open as the slow-moving, translucent sea creatures swam by a few feet away from them, out of reach but clearly visible with their natural light.

“Yoba, they’re beautiful,” she breathed, leaning forward as a particularly large jellyfish floated by. “I should have come and seen them years ago.”

Harvey could only watch her and the way the blue glow cast her in soft light, catching on her dark hair falling loose over her shoulders. His heartbeat stuttered in his chest like he’d just run all the way from the mountains. He couldn’t really pinpoint why.

The jellies slowly swam past the shore and through the docks, until eventually they returned to their natural path southward, their light growing fainter and fainter until the water was dark and still again. Harvey couldn’t say whether they had been sitting there for 20 minutes or an hour by the time everyone started meandering back toward town.

Kate sat back with a bittersweet sigh as Harvey got to his feet, brushing off as much of the sand that clung to him as he could. “It’s too bad they only come this way once a year. I’d spend every night of summer down here if I could see them more often.”

“Something to look forward to for next year, then,” he proposed as he extended a hand to her, helping her to her feet.

She hummed in partial agreement. “Who knows, maybe next year we’ll risk the docks.”

It was the first time that night that he thought about the letter sitting on the table in his apartment that very moment. About the idea that the same time next year, he may not be sitting on the beach watching the jellies make their annual migration.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he replied, and she laughed.

They walked back to Pelican Town together, their conversation carrying on until they arrived at the clinic door, the way to Kate’s farm behind them.

“Home sweet home,” she announced, nodding to the entrance. “Have a good night, Harvey.”

“Good night, Kate.”

He watched her turn on her heel and begin walking toward the dirt path home. For a moment he almost let her go, getting as far as unlocking the door and intending to step through it. Instead he called after her.

“Do you…” She looked back over her shoulder at his voice, stopping at the edge of the town square. Harvey took a steadying breath. “Do you like it here in the valley?”

Even in the dark and under the dim lamp posts, he could see her blinking in surprise at the sudden, unexplained question. A beat of silence, then two, passed between them and hung in the quiet of the empty town as she considered it.

“I’m still getting used to it in some ways, I guess,” she admitted, but then smiled softly. “But I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.”

He nodded, satisfied, and waved as she did the same before the dark enveloped her as she disappeared down the path.

Then he turned into the clinic, sat down at the counter and powered up the old desktop computer, and opened an email to Tom.

Notes:

This is one of two chapters I have been dying to write since I first decided I was going to do this. I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially the end.

A little drama, a little hint of Harvey also not understanding his own feelings. Fall starts next chapter!

Chapter 15

Bees flew lazy circles around Kate as she approached her little “honey garden,” armed with a trowel, watering can, and several packets of fairy rose seeds. The fuzzy little insects barely paid her attention after nearly two seasons living on her farm, and she in turn trusted them to stay docile as she planted new rows of flowers for them for fall.

Fall in the valley was always unseasonably warm compared to places further north like Zuzu City; a few chillier days may pass by, but nothing so cold as to kill her crops or the fairy roses that did better in cooler weather anyway. The first frost likely wouldn’t set in until after Spirit’s Eve, still months away. It left her plenty of time to gather more honey before the bees hibernated for the winter.

Once she finished watering the last of the seeds, she did a quick inspection of the sunflowers she had planted during the summer, checking for any damage after a late summer storm a few days earlier. While most were still in good shape, standing tall and bright around a couple of the bee houses, she clicked her tongue in disappointment as a few had ended up bent at their stems, giving them more of a lean than was probably sustainable for the rest of the year.

“Well, at least you’ll all make good sunflower oil for later,” she sighed as she took out the jack knife in her pocket, cutting the damaged flowers free.

As she started for the house, intending to find a spot in the kitchen to dry out the small bouquet in her hand, she couldn’t help but admire the delicate flower petals on each sunflower’s head, still strikingly yellow and mostly pristine even after the bad weather. It would be a shame to let them slowly wilt inside with only her to enjoy them—besides, she had more than enough still growing to get the seeds she needed for oil later in the season.

And Kate did know one person who adored sunflowers, and she had been meaning to talk to Emily anyway to see if she could fix a pair of jeans that had gotten ripped while she was in the mines a few weeks before. She was sure Haley could put the flowers to good use if she was at the house when she dropped by.

It only took her about 15 minutes to get to Emily and Haley’s front step, the sunflowers trimmed and wrapped in plain parchment paper Kate found in one of her kitchen drawers. As she approached, she could hear muffled music, something kind of slow and bassy, coming from just beyond the door somewhere in the living room, loud enough send a low humming vibration through the wood under her knuckles as she knocked.

“Emily? Haley? It’s Kate!” she called, voice raised slightly to try and overpower the music. She knocked once more, but after a couple minutes without any kind of response, she tried the doorknob and let herself in when she found it unlocked, expecting to find Emily dancing on the other side of the door, oblivious to everything except the music.

What she did not expect to find was Haley and Abigail, completely unaware of her standing a few feet from them, all but completely wrapped around each other and making out on the couch, Abigail straddling Haley and both of them threading fingers through each other’s hair. Now inside, the music just barely covered up the sound of their muffled breaths and moans.

Kate’s face was ablaze as she was rooted to the spot, stuck between the overwhelming urge to run away and the need to say something, before she saw something she really didn’t need to see. For five agonizing seconds, her mouth worked with no luck to make some kind of sound.

“Uhh…”

Haley sat up with a strangled gasp as Kate announced herself the only way her brain could think of, causing Abigail to roll off both Haley and the couch altogether with a string of panicked curses.

“Why didn’t you knock!?” Haley shrieked, scrambling to grab a remote on the coffee table before pointing it at the speakers by the TV that were responsible for the music, reducing the room to a more manageable noise level.

“I did! You had that fucking music playing too loud!” Kate yelled back, still standing stock-still in arm's reach of the couch. She’d never in her life felt more like a bumbling, clueless parent stumbling in on their kid with someone in their bedroom.

Abigail meanwhile, having recovered from the initial shock, was cackling from where she lay sprawled out on the floor.

“Fuck, for some reason I thought you were my dad for a minute,” she gasped between peals of laughter.

Haley on the other hand was flushed bright red, trying in vain to smooth her hair as she shot daggers at Abigail. “It’s not funny,” she grumbled. Then she turned back to Kate with an equally sharp glare. “What are you even doing here?”

“Well I-I had some sunflowers I had to cut down, and I needed to talk to Emily anyway, so I thought I’d see if you wanted them.” She held the blooms out to Haley tentatively. “I guess now they’re also congratulatory?”

Haley snatched them from her, her face still burning. “Yoba, you’re almost as embarrassing as my sister sometimes,” she griped. Still, a ghost of a smile crossed her expression as she turned the bouquet over in her hands.

“Look, don’t blame me for not knowing how to act when I walk right into…” she gestured vaguely toward the couch, “that, especially when it involves someone who is basically my little sister.”

It didn’t matter to her that Haley was nearing her mid-20s, a fully grown adult able to do as she pleased: a part of Kate would always look at her and see the little girl who would follow her and Emily around all summer, begging them to let her join in on their games.

Abigail finally picked herself up off the floor, straightening her own clothes. “It’s fine; I should get back to the shop anyway before Dad wonders where I went.” She looked over at Haley with an affectionate smile. “I’ll talk to you later?”

The blush that had been slowly fading from Haley’s cheeks brightened again as she tucked a loose blonde wave behind her ear. “Y-yeah, I’ll— I’ll call you.”

Kate waited until Abigail had left before she flashed Haley a shit-eating grin. “Smooth.”

“Shut up.” She took one of the throw pillows next to her and smushed it over her face, muffling the long, frustrated groan that followed.

“How long has that been going on?” Kate asked when Haley had re-emerged from the pillow, sitting beside her on the couch.

Haley stared at her hands in her lap for a long while, squinting like she was waging a silent war in her head over whether she wanted Kate knowing any more than she already did. Finally she let out a defeated sigh.

“We’ve only really been talking for a couple weeks,” she started. “I mean, obviously we would see each other in school all the time, and still now around town, but we’ve never had a reason to hang out before the moonlight jellies.” As she talked, her fingers fidgeted with the fringe on the edge of the pillow now held on her lap. “We ended up next to each other on the dock because she said she was tired of third-wheeling Sam and Sebastian all night, so we… just started talking, to kill time. It turns out we like some of the same movies, and I told her about my photography and she told me about her band with the boys and…” she trailed off, a soft smile slowly spreading across her face. “I don’t know, I always thought she was a little weird in high school, but she’s actually really cool. She came over because she said she wanted to show me this song their band is working on and… you know.”

Maybe it was just Kate falling too in line with the stereotypes that always seemed to crop up in high school, but it was a shift for her mentally to picture Haley—in some ways still very much the popular girl she was when she was younger—to be interested in the edgier style and sometimes macabre interests of someone like Abigail.

But then again, they were both artistic in their own ways, and passionate about the things they cared about most. And they could match each other’s snark in ways everyone else in town could only dream of. If Haley was happy, Kate certainly wasn’t going to be the one to stand in her way.

“Well I’m happy for you, really,” she told Haley, whose smile turned a little shier. “Does Emily know you two have been talking?”

“Not yet,” Haley replied with a grimace. “I really should tell her now, but she always gets so weird about me dating someone. Whenever I had a crush or a girlfriend in school, she would always try to get me to do this love reading thing to see if ‘our destinies were intertwined.’”

Kate threw her head back laughing as Haley did a spot-on impression of her sister’s voice. “Well you’re welcome to hide at the farm if you need to. I’m just going to ask you a bunch of annoying, prying questions instead.”

The look of momentary horror that crossed Haley’s face had Kate erupting into giggles again, with Haley joining in eventually. She had started coveting moments like this: times where she could forget she was a farmer barely managing her farm and instead just be another person teasing her friend and honorary little sister about her crush and poking fun at her other good friend in the process. It reminded her of the good times in Zuzu City spent in friends’ apartments, talking and laughing well into the night, a short reprieve from the endless grind of work the next morning.

Then Haley got a glint of mischief in her eye that turned Kate’s good mood into something more wary. “So what about you?”

Kate eyed her suspiciously. “What about me?”

Haley rolled her eyes, elbow up on top of the couch so she could prop her head up in her hand. “You’ve been in Pelican Town over half the year now; isn’t there anyone you’re interested in?”

Once or twice the topic had crossed Kate’s mind since she had moved to the valley. There hadn’t been anyone for her while she was working at Joja, and she’d been too busy to date back then anyway. Now being in Pelican Town, there was a certain kind of ache that settled beneath her chest occasionally: not quite fully loneliness, but the recognition that she was alone on her farm and wouldn’t have minded having someone to sit beside her at night and watch the sun go down in the distance, or wake up with her as morning broke through the blinds of her bedroom window.

But even if she wasn’t being run ragged like she was in the city, she still had far too much on her plate to pursue any kind of romance yet. “I just don’t have time for anything like that right now: the farm kind of demands all my attention.” She shrugged with the finality of an immutable fact. “Besides, no one’s going to want to try dating me when all I do is run around from sun-up to sundown.”

Haley was undeterred, however, leaning closer to Kate with a little smirk. “Come on, no one’s going to care how busy you are: you’re hot—” she laughed as Kate smacked her arm before continuing with a more genuine tone, “and kind and funny and a serious catch for anyone here. And there are some nice guys in town: Alex is really sweet when he’s not trying to be such a macho man, and Elliott’s got that whole romantic-artist’s-soul thing going for him.”

Haley meant well, Kate knew, but she also knew no matter what Haley said, she just couldn’t see herself dating any of the so-called “eligible bachelors” in town; Alex was nice, but his and Kate’s life experiences so far just didn’t match up in a way that she felt a relationship between the two of them would actually go anywhere. Elliott was always sweet to her, too, but she was pretty sure he and Leah had something going on, though she didn’t have any concrete proof yet. For a moment she even thought of Shane: over several months his cold demeanor towards her had been slowly thawing, mostly because of their shared connection to Emily, but it was painfully clear he still wasn’t in a place mentally where he could take on a romantic relationship with anyone. And so an already miniscule dating pool was reduced to—

“What about Harvey?”

Kate stared vacantly at Haley. “What about Harvey?”

She watched as Haley’s mouth dropped open, eyes narrowed at Kate like she had just told her she was thinking about starting an interpretive dance group with Lewis and Clint.

“Are you kidding?” she demanded. “The only person you stop and talk to more than him is Emily, and I saw you two together at the moonlight jellies festival. There’s no way you’re not at least the tiniest bit interested in him.”

“We’re just friends,” Kate insisted, head still tilted in confusion. “The most we’ve done is sit together at the saloon and at the festival. And he doesn’t have any interest in me, either.”

Kate’s assurances seemed to fall on deaf ears as Haley didn’t look the least bit convinced that dating Harvey wasn’t on her mind in the slightest, one skeptical eyebrow raised at her, but still she threw her hands up in defeat.

“Whatever; you do you,” she got up and started in the direction of the kitchen as she added over her shoulder, “but Sam and Sebastian used to say the same thing about each other before they started dating.”

Kate scoffed and followed her into the next room. “Yeah, but I think I’m a little bit more in touch with my emotions than those two probably were as teenagers.”

She liked Harvey—of course she liked him, he was probably one of her closest friends in the valley now after Emily—but that’s all it was for both of them: friendly chats when they ran into each other around town, a couple times getting coffee together if they were headed the same direction, and maybe spending what would have been time sitting alone by themselves keeping each other company instead.

Sure, he was handsome—maybe not in the same way Elliott and the younger men were, but something about the soft slope of his eyes and the way his mouth curved when he smiled reminded her of the actors in those old-school movies that her grandpa had always loved and that she had grown up watching with him. He was handsome in an older way, a more timeless way.

And yes, there had been some fleeting moments like the one she had after stumbling upon his aerobics class during summer, where she’d catch a glimpse of him with his shirt sleeves rolled up, or he would laugh at one of her jokes when she stopped into the clinic to say hello, and her heart would skip a moment, a flutter of nervous anticipation for something that didn’t exist.

But that was all superficial. Byproducts of her being able to even vaguely consider being with anyone for the first time in years. There was nothing there that ran deeper than a base physical reaction to the first man in Yoba-only-knew how long that she had bothered to get to know past monotonous small talk in the Joja break room. And besides, Emily talked to Shane all the time, and Haley to Penny, and no one ever batted an eye or called them something that they weren’t.

“Says you,” Haley huffed, pulling a bowl of fruit salad out of the fridge and handing Kate a fork. “I’d bet all the money I made helping Alex with the ice cream stand this summer that you’ll be making puppy-dog eyes at him before the end of the year.”

Kate took the utensil from her with a wicked grin. “You’re on.”

The front door opened then as Emily stepped through, humming to herself as she weaved through the living room and into the kitchen with a bag of groceries in her arms. She stopped short when she noticed Kate and Haley already leaning over the table.

“Oh, hi Kate!” she chirped, setting the bag down on the counter. “What are you two up to?”

Kate made eye contact with Haley across from her as she stuck a blueberry from the salad in her mouth.

“I’m winning a bet.”

Notes:

No, I'm not interested in Harvey, Kate says, then describes how she thinks he's handsome in a way that's deeply personal to her.

She'll get there, folks.

EDIT: I totally forgot I was going to add a link to doctor-aceus-art on Tumblr with this chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/doctor-aceus-art
His old Hollywood Harvey art rewired my brain.

Chapter 16

Notes:

Heads up: Some mentions of blood in this chapter, but nothing graphic.

Soft pinks were just starting to bleed into the blue of the sky, the afternoon fading into early evening as Harvey stood under one of the trees in the fenced-off green on the west end of town, his first time outside all day.

The clinic had been unseasonably busy; after Lewis’s yearly appointment that morning, it had been an almost nonstop stream of townspeople needing to see him—first Robin coming in to get a prescription for cold medicine, then Clint needing treatment for a minor burn from his forge, and then Vincent had managed to scratch up his knees again tripping while running across one of the bridges in town, according to a very frazzled Penny who had brought him in. On top of all of that, Harvey still had had paperwork to do alongside everyone else coming in for everyday needs like bandages and pain relievers. A few times he had been deeply tempted to call Maru in on her day off, but he had never had enough time to dial her anyway.

He took a deep breath and leaned back against the solid oak trunk behind him, basking in a moment of fresh air before he would have to disappear upstairs to his apartment to scrounge up something for dinner. He really should start finding more time to get outside, he thought to himself. In a few months winter would be in full force, and if the busyness of annual winter sickness didn’t keep him in the clinic, the weather certainly would.

Taking one more lungful of calming autumn air, he rounded the tree trunk to head back inside, and stopped as he saw Kate coming down the weathered stone steps that led to the community center just ahead of him, her pace hurried and tense, left hand gripping her right forearm against her chest.

“Kate?” he called out, and she froze like a deer in the headlights at his voice before tucking both arms behind her with a thin smile as he came closer.

“Hey Harvey!” she greeted him with a cheerfulness that was almost jarring as he approached the old wooden fence that separated them. Strands of brown hair had been pulled free of the braid hanging down her back, her clothes somewhat disheveled and streaked with dirt. “How’s it going? Everything good at the clinic?”

“It’s fine,” he said slowly, taking in her appearance and rigid posture with an increasingly furrowed brow. He could hazard a guess as to where she had just been, and exasperated worry crested like a wave up through his chest as he frowned at her. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” she shrugged quickly, and he caught the twitch around her eyes as she stifled a wince. “I’m just on my way home for the night. Got to feed the cat and the chickens.”

He remained unconvinced, especially when he caught sight of a few small red splatters on the cobblestone just behind her, watching as another drop fell from the space currently occupied by her arms hidden against her back.

Harvey’s grim gaze met Kate’s guilty one as he held his hand out to her. “Show me your arm.”

The stern tone of his voice, gruffer than he really meant it to sound, seemed to catch them both off guard, as he only just managed to keep from outwardly cringing at how ill-fitting any attempt at authority sounded coming from him. Kate blinked at him too, eyebrows shooting up in surprise, but she still brought her right arm into view again without argument, her wrist coming to rest in his palm.

A collection of shallow but slow-bleeding gashes stretched down the outside of her forearm—defensive wounds by the angles of them. It was clear they came from some kind of animal, or monster, more likely, and the grip of cold anxiety tugged at his stomach as his mind raced over all the possible dirt and bacteria the injury could have already been exposed to coming down from the mountains.

“You need to get these cleaned and wrapped up,” he muttered, gently turning her arm back and forth as to not pull at it. “I can take care of it in the clinic.”

“It’s fine, Harvey,” she insisted, bristling in defense as she brought her other hand back up to wrap around the gashes, small rivulets of blood threatening to trickle out from between her fingers. “You’re already closed for the day; you don’t need to do more work for something I can take care of myself.”

He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger, pushing his glasses up to his forehead in the process. He expected protest from her at this point—he’d seen her more than once with scrapes and cuts from working and offered to treat them, and she would always decline with a polite smile. But more and more she was starting to sound like George with the way she would brush off his help, frustrating in the way she seemed to disregard her wellbeing so easily.

“I’m still a doctor whether the clinic is closed or not,” he asserted, softening his voice this time. “Just let me bandage it for you, ok?”

Kate blew out a tense breath, eyes scrunching closed as she stood silent for a beat that felt like it stretched on forever—it reminded the unhelpful voice that resided in the corners of his mind about that one painfully awkward moment outside of the Mullners’ house that spring, when he tried and for a moment feared he had failed to bridge the gap between them after their first meeting.

Finally, she looked up at him again and nodded with resigned acceptance. “Alright,” she relented, “I guess it won’t kill me.”

She fell into step behind him as he crossed the square to the clinic, still clutching her arm against her as he unlocked the door, leading her through into the quiet, dark interior that always greeted him after hours.

“It’s kind of eerie in here when all the lights are off,” she murmured as they walked down the hall and into the exam room. “It feels empty.”

Harvey shrugged as he ushered her over to the sink in the corner, turning the tap and testing the water to keep it from running too hot. “I’d much rather have it this way than full of people,” he said. “I like the quiet better anyway.”

Then almost entirely without thinking, he started reaching for her arm, intending to wash the injury himself, before that so-often worried voice within him cut through with a shrill shout, warning him of reaching past the boundaries Kate kept when it came to excess physical touch and others crowding her physical space. He remembered how her heart rate had spiked when he had done her general exam, the way she had almost curled in on herself when he had to come close to listen, and even if his instinct was to run through each step of the wound care himself to make sure she healed properly, with Kate, doing any more than simply wrapping the cuts could become a… problem, no matter how good of friends they were.

So he stopped short, trying to cover the movement by grabbing a pair of scissors lying on the counter beside her. “Run your arm under the water and use soap around the cuts, not in them,” he instructed her as he dug out a roll of gauze from a nearby drawer.

She did as he said as he cut a long strip of the fabric, enough to wrap around her forearm, and he gathered dressings and antibiotic ointment once she sat on the exam table, her cuts cleaned and dried. He went to work covering them, each step methodical—apply ointment to prevent infection, place dressings, wrap gauze around to hold everything in place. His motions were almost rote: he could drown out his own thoughts doing something so familiar, able to put his focus into a tangible task.

Kate meanwhile tracked his movements like a cat watching a bird and trying to decide if it was worth the effort to hunt, her body still but tensed. Neither of them said a thing while he worked, but he could feel her eyes on him as he treated the gashes with a singular intent.

She finally broke the silence as he finished securing the gauze around her arm. “You’re being quieter than usual.”

He sighed as he sat back on the stool, fiddling with the end of his tie now that his hands were no longer occupied. “I told you the mines were dangerous,” he said in reply, keeping his voice level, though a hint of his lingering frustration still spilled through. “I assume that’s where you were.”

Kate dropped her gaze to her arm held in front of her, her expression solemn but not ashamed. “This was just a freak accident with some bats, and I didn’t want you to get angry over nothing. I promise I can take care of myself.”

“Kate, if something went wrong—seriously wrong—while you were down there, no one would be around to help you,” he pressed, leaning toward her. “There’s nothing in the mines worth almost dying for.”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing it in nervous contemplation that put Harvey on alert again, eyebrows deeply wrinkled. “Why, did something happen?”

Her mouth pulled into a small grimace as she rubbed her hands on her knees. “Lewis told me a couple days ago about the Stardew Valley Fair, and the grange competition,” she confessed. “I don’t have enough quality stuff to stand up against Marnie or Pierre. I thought if I could find something worthwhile in the mines, it might be enough to win.” She fixed him with an incredulous look. “You know you can find diamonds down there? Actual diamonds.”

“You know the prize for winning that isn’t any actual money, right?” he asked, heart dropping into his stomach. If she was risking her life for one of Lewis’s “community-building initiatives” thinking it would solve some of her financial worries, he was going to burst into the mayor’s mansion that minute to give him a piece of his mind, social anxiety be damned.

He was somewhat comforted when she nodded, a pink blush creeping across her cheeks. “It’s stupid, I know, I just… I want to prove I’m good at this. Lewis already thinks Joja will rush to take over if I don’t do a good enough job, but if he likes my stuff at the fair, maybe he’ll relax about it.”

Harvey slouched down until his elbows were resting on his knees, watching her with a kind of sad understanding. Pity wasn’t the right word for it—Kate was far too resilient for that anyway—but he couldn’t imagine not only having to worry about the mayor’s approval, but also the intentions of an encroaching corporation waiting for her to give up or fail.

“Morris hasn’t given you any more trouble, has he?” Harvey admittedly hadn’t thought much about the JojaMart manager since their run-in at the community center, but the idea that she might have been dealing with his or the company’s badgering all summer on top of everything else she had going on made a ghost of the anger he felt that day on her behalf resurface within him.

He regretted asking the moment her face fell, even if it was only the slightest bit. “I haven’t seen him since the community center, but I’m sure he’s keeping tabs on how well the farm is performing,” she sighed, her voice taking an edge. “Joja’s very good at that.”

Another round of silence stretched on as Kate just stared at her hands in her lap while the clock on the wall ticked by. Harvey wasn’t sure he even had the heart to be frustrated with her anymore as he scootched his stool closer to her, his knees almost touching her shins.

“Look,” he said, “I'd prefer it if you weren't risking your safety any more than necessary, but I can’t stop you from going to the mines the same way I can’t stop Clint from using his forge or Demetrius from doing experiments that sometimes explode.” She giggled softly at the imagined scenario, and the sound pulled a touch of a smile from him too. “I don’t want any of my patients sneaking around hiding injuries from me because they think I’ll get mad at them for it. That includes you."

“Yeah, I get it,” she nodded, her fingers lightly running over the gauze on her arm. “I promise I wouldn’t go down there if it weren’t worth it to me, Harvey. But I’ll be careful.”

“Just come to me the next time something happens instead of trying to do it yourself and running the risk of infection. We’re friends; I’m not going to get upset with you.” He let his smile slip to something a little more playful. “Well, not that upset.”

The grin she returned at his teasing, crinkling the corners of her eyes, made his heart thump suddenly, enough that he would have reached for his stethoscope on his desk to check that he hadn’t developed some kind of arrhythmia if Kate hadn’t hopped off the exam table in the next moment.

“Well, I think I might see what Gus has at the saloon tonight,” she announced, nodding toward the door. “Do you want to come with?”

He contemplated the microwaveable meals he had in his fridge, the same thing he’d been eating for dinner almost all week, and looked at Kate still standing by the doorway.

“I’d love to,” he said as he pushed the stool back into its corner. “After you.”

They returned to the town square, Kate waiting for him to lock the clinic door again, and as the sky flared orange with the setting sun in the distance, they walked to the saloon together, laughter filling the empty streets of Pelican Town.

Notes:

Just a nice little chapter :)

Chapter 17

Joyful shouts and laughter rang through Pelican Town, accompanied by the sounds of carnival games and faint music, all while Kate arranged and rearranged her grange display in front of Pierre’s for the thousandth time and willed herself not to throw up from the nerves.

She’d spent the last three weeks stressing over her entry for the competition, agonizing over different pumpkins to find the ones with the most pristine rinds and inspecting every bloom of the few fairy roses that had grown flowers so far, not to mention hoarding every gem and shell she came across just in case it might make her display just one touch better.

Marnie had assured her, back when Kate first came to the ranch fretting over the competition, that the award for the best display was only tickets for carnival prizes—blaming it with an eye roll and a huffy sigh on Lewis’s reluctance to splurge on anything extra, even his own ideas. She had promised that it was nothing worth getting too worked up over and that she should focus on enjoying her first fair in the valley instead.

But the prize itself couldn’t have mattered less to Kate: it was what winning would prove for her.

She stepped back from her box, chewing on a frayed edge of her thumbnail as she glanced over her goods one more time. She’d organized everything as neatly as she could, making the highlight of the display all her handmade products: a few baked goods made with some of the blueberries she had frozen during the summer, a few bottles of wine that had aged the longest so far—she had even started making homemade mayo with the eggs that Piccolo and Viola were laying, and she had thrown in a small basket of their fresh eggs too for good measure. Alongside the couple small pumpkins that she had been able to harvest early, a bouquet of fairy roses and the gems she had gotten from the mines in the weeks leading up, she had managed to completely stuff her grange display and even add a little homemade banner for the farm to boot.

Now she just hoped it would all be good enough.

“Kate!”

The familiar voice had her turning as Harvey emerged from the maze of vendor booths and tents set up throughout the square. Almost subconsciously, her hand flew to the newly healed cuts along her right arm, the ones he had been keeping a close eye on for the last few weeks whenever they had crossed paths, making sure she was changing the dressings regularly and keeping it protected from the grime of her everyday work. Even as he weaved through the other people to reach her, she could see his eyes dart down to her fading injury.

“Hey!” She smiled as he approached, a small portion of the anxious knots in her stomach relaxing at the sight of him. “Have you been here long?”

“Only about an hour.” His face briefly contorted into a distressed, chagrined smile. “Maru kidnapped me as soon as I stepped out of the clinic and had me come with her and Penny to go around to some of the booths.”

Kate could conjure a near perfect image in her head of Maru and Penny dragging Harvey through the fair like a reluctant parent following after young children, and she laughed with a lightness she hadn’t felt since finding out about the event and the competition.

His smile morphed into something more genuine again. “What about you? Enjoying the fair?”

“I haven’t really seen anything yet,” she said with a noncommittal shrug, gesturing to the grange full of goods behind her. “I’ve been working on this for the past 20 minutes.”

Harvey stepped closer to inspect her display, and there was a part of her that was almost as nervous to know his thoughts on what she had brought as she was to know Lewis’s, watching him with a hawk’s focus from where she stood off to the side.

“Well, I think it looks nice.” He nodded to her display with an approving hum as he stepped back. “I’m sure you’ll do great in the judging.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She let her eyes drift over to the other displays next to her own: Marnie had brought an assortment of cheese, eggs, and yarn from her farm animals, and Willy had various species of fish all freshly caught sitting on ice in his box, some Kate hadn’t even seen herself yet. And then of course was Pierre’s impressive display, filled to the brim with products and produce from his store. “You know some of the stuff in Pierre’s box is actually mine? I sold him that corn last week.”

Harvey shook his head fondly at her, his voice reassuring. “You’re going to wreck your immune system if you stress yourself out too much. You’ve done all you can do for now.”

He was right, and she knew it, as much as her rattled mind would beg to differ. She let out a weary sigh, running her hands through the length of her hair before bringing them down against the sides of her neck. “Yeah, I know.” She took a few deep breaths, hoping it would relieve the hum of restless energy under her skin that had been buzzing there most of the morning. “I’ll be fine once Lewis is finished judging, I promise.”

His mustache twitched with the hint of a doubtful frown before he tucked his hands into his front pockets. “I could— I mean, only if you want to, of course, but I could show you around the fair for a little while,” he offered, hesitant, keeping his eyes plastered to his feet and the stone below them. “It might help distract you.”

When he did look up at her again his expression was unsure, as if even after knowing each other for over half a year—and nearly four months of friendship—he still wasn’t quite convinced she wanted him around. It was the last thing to break the tense knots within her as she felt her shoulders slump.

“I think that would help, honestly,” she agreed. “Thank you.”

With her acceptance of his offer, Harvey straightened up again, that shy look replaced with something a touch more confident. “Alright,” he declared with a light smile, “anything in particular you want to see? There’s a petting zoo, games, free food up by the community center…”

“What’s your favorite thing here?”

He paused a moment, brows furrowing at the unexpected question, before a thought alighted behind his eyes. “I’ll show you.”

She followed him as they meandered back into the fair crowd, trying hard to keep up with his longer gait as she navigated the young families and couples and hosts of other strangers all passing from one tent to the next. She’d never in her life seen so many unfamiliar faces in town before—Emily had mentioned once that tourists used to be a year-round occurrence in the valley, visiting for festivals like the Night Market and the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies, but over the years their numbers had dwindled to only a handful every now and then, until the only visitors that passed through town were travelers on their way to more exotic destinations, fishing enthusiasts participating in the trout derby or SquidFest, and the large crowd attending the Stardew Valley Fair to take in the rural charms.

Lost in her thoughts, Kate didn’t realize Harvey had stopped in front of her until she bumped into his back, hands flying out to steady herself against him. When he looked back at her, an amused glint in his eyes met her embarrassed blush.

They had stopped in front of one of the tents a little ways off from most of the activity where Robin and Leah were busy carving small wooden sculptures and figurines for purchase. A small table had a few finished works displayed: a handful of simplistic animals, a couple decorative bowls, and some more abstract creations that were most certainly Leah’s. The two redheads smiled at them when they noticed their presence.

“Hey there!” Robin said with a cheery smile as she set her tools down. “Kate, how are you liking your first fair?”

“It’s definitely more crowded than I imagined it would be,” she replied, and gently nudged Harvey next to her. “Harvey offered to show me around and said he was taking me to his favorite attraction first.”

Leah and Robin both aw-ed at him, joining Kate’s light teasing, and it was his turn to flush at the attention, ducking his head and giving Kate a half-hearted dirty look.

“Well you should look at Clint’s and Marlon’s things too while you’re over here.” Robin gestured across from her over to another table covered in shiny-looking swords and shields, mint condition tools forged from a variety of metals, and some small gemstones and other minerals, some Kate was sure she had probably sold to Clint in the first place. “I’m sure some of those tools would be right up your alley, Kate.”

Waving goodbye to Robin and Leah, they wandered over to the forging table. Kate perused the collection of axes and hoes and pickaxes, trading courteous nods with Clint who watched over the goods on the table while Marlon, one of the old adventurers who lived up in the mountains, kept his eyes fixed on the crowd around them. After asking Clint to set aside a gold pickaxe for her, promising to pay him for it the next day, she and Harvey continued their trip around the fair.

“That’s really sweet that their stuff is your favorite part of the fair,” she told him once they were out of earshot, grinning as the tips of his ears burned.

“W-well, I know how much work they put into those carvings every year,” he mumbled, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “Clint and Marlon too, of course. It’s nice that they get to show off their hobbies and passions to more than just the people of Pelican Town.”

As he tried to downplay what he had said, she just listened with a patient smile, his consistent streak of kindness and consideration one of the things that had first endeared him to her when they became friends. As reserved and introverted as he could be, it was always evident how much he cared about the other people in town, even beyond his role as the town doctor. And it only further supported why the others cared about him so much in turn.

“It would be kind of fun if everyone got to have some kind of booth or table where they could sell things at the fair,” she proposed eventually, watching a duo of young children tear past them with reckless abandon, bags of cotton candy clutched tight in their hands. “Evelyn could have her cookies, or Emily could sell some of the clothes she’s made.”

“Actually, we used to do something kind of like that for this festival out in the desert every spring, before the bus broke down,” he said. “Anyone who was interested could sign up to have a booth and was free to sell or give away whatever they wanted—kind of like a flea market.”

“What did you usually do for it?”

He stopped at the corner of the saloon, looking at her with a mildly confused frown. “Oh, I never had a booth; I just manned the first-aid tent.” He shook his head to himself. “You’d think more people who knew they were spending the day in a desert would think to bring an adequate water supply with them.”

“Ok, then what would you have sold? Any lucrative hobbies or pet projects?”

She saw the moment that something came to mind, his eyes widening just a hair before he looked away from her, his lips pressing together into a thin line.

“No, nothing really,” he answered, and before she could try and get a more detailed response from him, he nodded in the direction they had been heading. “Come on, you’ll love the petting zoo.”

She didn’t end up trying to coax forward more information, if only for the fact that she did love the petting zoo. As soon as she caught sight of the baby goats chasing each other around and jumping off decorative hay bales like little gymnasts, Kate developed a one-track mind that demanded she hold one as soon as physically possible.

After a few minutes of playing with the goats while Harvey watched from the other side of the corral—though she did get him to give one a scratch between its tiny horns when she brought it over—they went up near the community center where Gus was grilling free survival burgers. Despite the crowd around him, he seemed ecstatic to share his cooking with everyone, handing plates to Kate and Harvey with a broad, content smile before turning back to help another waiting family. They found an empty picnic table among the other seats taken by a few people from town, like George and Evelyn, and more tourists just visiting for the fair.

They kept talking while they ate, about well and truly nothing in particular: what they had been doing during since they saw each other last, what similar festivals and events they had both gone to when living in the city, what they were looking forward to for the rest of fall. The longer they talked, the more relaxed Harvey seemed to get. He laughed a little easier, made more little jokes to her, even gently poking fun at her when she told him about almost tripping over the chickens’ feed bowl chasing after them when she had forgotten to latch the gate behind her. She rolled her eyes at him then with a smirk, but in truth she liked that teasing side of him—he was comfortable, not as concerned about what she or anyone else would think about him making jokes or just having fun, a line of tension no longer holding his spine as rigid as it tended to be at public events.

“Thank you again for taking me around the fair,” she told him as they returned to the town square, her worries from earlier practically forgotten in the last hour or two. “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t called it a day yet with how many people are around. You don’t usually stick around at festivals for this long.”

He shrugged a little as they stopped near the tents for the carnival games. “The fair is one of the easier events for me because of all the people,” he told her. “I mean, I’m always a little nervous any time I try to be social, but it’s easier to just be another face in the crowd and disappear a little when there’s a hundred other people around you.”

She remembered well what it felt like to be a faceless nobody on the street in Zuzu City, and for all the parts of living there that she didn’t have any desire to go back to, that blanket of protective anonymity was one of the few things she missed.

She was about to say as much when Lewis’s voice called her name, and she and Harvey both turned as he rushed over from the circle of tents with a look of mild exasperation.

“There you are, Kate! I’ve been looking all over for you,” Lewis said once he reached them, a clipboard held under one arm. “I thought you’d like to hear the results from the grange competition.”

Kate’s stomach lurched like she’d suddenly gone into free fall, but she managed to keep her face neutral as she nodded, her hands gripping the bottom edges of her flannel.

Then she watched as a smile slowly grew across his face, his gray mustache curling up with the curve of his mouth. “Congratulations on first place in your first year!” He pulled a bundle of red paper tickets from under some papers in the clipboard, tucking them into her hand. “I was very impressed with the goods you entered for judging. Those homemade jellies and desserts could really put some of your grandpa’s old entries to shame.”

Kate could only stare down at the stack of tickets in her hand, surprise blooming through her chest and bringing the nervous stutter of her heart to an unexpected halt. “I— thank you,” she breathed after a moment.

“I hope you’ll keep up the good work over there at the farm,” he said, giving her a good-natured pat on the shoulder, and as he turned away, he waved and called back to her with a chuckle, “Don’t spend those all in one place!”

She didn’t even bother to respond to the mayor’s poor joke, instead looking up at Harvey with wide-eyed amazement as she clutched her prize.

“I told you: you had nothing to worry about,” he said, smiling down at her, hazel eyes soft behind his glasses.

She felt a cascade of emotions well up within her—pride, shock, relief, affection—and couldn’t figure out where to put it all, that nervous buzzing from that morning returning in a different form. In the end, she acted on the first impulse that sent her body into motion, surging forward and throwing her arms around his neck, earning a surprised grunt from him at the impact.

“Yoba, I can’t believe it,” she gasped with a nearly giddy laugh, her face turned toward his shirt collar as their height difference forced her up onto her tiptoes. “I can’t believe I actually won!”

For a moment she was too caught up in her own excitement to really think about what she had done, only aware of the joy running through her and the fabric of his jacket, soft and warm under her fingertips.

Then she realized that Harvey hadn’t moved since she had rushed to hug him, frozen against her with his arms hanging limp at his sides. She released him to pull away and found him just staring at her, his eyes enormously wide and mouth parted in a silent show of shock.

“I-I’m sorry,” she croaked immediately, horrified as embarrassed warmth flooded all through her body at what was clearly an overstep of a boundary. “I got caught up in the moment. I shouldn’t have done that.”

He blinked at her, opening his mouth to say something but only managing a collection of confused, uncertain stammers. Kate was a millisecond from sprinting out of town and back to the farm to escape the oppressive mortification settling over her.

“Kate!”

She whipped her head to the left as Emily came over, her broad grin a direct contrast to the awkward, tense moment she had just interrupted.

“Marnie told me you won the grange contest! I’m so proud of you!” she exclaimed, pulling Kate into a quick hug much like the one Kate had just thrust onto Harvey. “Haley went off with Abigail somewhere, so I’m going with Shane and Jas to play all the games. You should come with us!”

Kate gave an unsure look to Harvey, who seemed to be slowly recovering from his frozen state, his hands preoccupied with straightening his tie despite its near perfect position against his chest.

Emily finally seemed take notice of the doctor standing there, too, looking between the two of them with a dawning understanding. “Oh! If you’re already hanging out with Harvey, then don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Kate and Harvey both started talking at the same time, their voices overlapping in a discord of hurried responses.

“I was just—”

“It’s ok, you can—”

She paused as he cleared his throat, taking the opportunity to finish his sentence, his voice strained just enough that Kate seemed to be the only one who picked up on it. “It's ok if— I’ve probably taken up enough of your time today,” he said to her with a polite, practiced smile. “Have fun with Emily.”

Even though there was a distant ache of guilt deep in her stomach, she didn’t try to argue with him, instead giving him one last apologetic look before she let Emily pull her along toward the tents, leaving him there in the town square.

They found Shane and Jas not long after, already engrossed in some game involving targets and a slingshot. Kate put on an upbeat attitude as she followed them around, but inside, her mind was still reeling with shame and confusion. She never hugged other people outside of short exchanges of hellos and goodbyes or brief shows of congratulations. Even Emily, as much as she loved her, usually initiated any kind of physical affection between them, giving hugs that Kate fondly tolerated. Now she’d not only gone against what she thought was an ingrained habit after nearly a decade, but she’d put Harvey in an uncomfortable situation that she deeply regretted.

Most of her wanted nothing more than to just focus on the fun of the carnival games and put the entire interaction with Harvey behind her. But even surrounded by fried foods and sweets and hay and a hundred other people, Kate could swear she kept catching whiffs of his cologne.

------

Harvey wasn’t exactly sure what had happened.

One minute, Kate was looking up at him, shocked and amazed after Lewis had walked away, her prize seemingly forgotten in seconds. He hadn’t been able to help the feeling of pride for her that had nearly overcome him; she had put in so much effort to prove herself to Lewis, even if his approval didn’t deserve that kind of importance in Harvey’s opinion, and had gotten to see that hard work pay off. Harvey liked Marnie and Willy and Pierre, but Kate deserved to win. He was fairly certain she had bled the most for it.

Then before he knew it, she had pulled him into an enthusiastic hug, her arms looping over the tops of his shoulders, chest to chest as she was suddenly closer to him than she had ever been before. Suddenly all he was aware of was the soft hum of her voice against his shoulder, the warmth of her against the rest of him, the overwhelming sense of panic clashing with an odd wave of relief. He realized then he couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him like that, or how much his body clearly craved the sensation. It was just too much for him to process.

So he had froze; he should have returned the hug, or at least said something to her—anything would have been better than standing there like a statue and watching her pull back with a look of such utter horror and embarrassment thinking she had upset him. And then before he could put himself back together enough to try and convince her that she hadn’t done anything wrong, Emily had appeared, and Harvey hadn’t had the heart not to let Kate go.

After he’d composed himself enough to give his blessing for her to leave him in the square, he watched her disappear deeper into the fair with a growing, uneasy sense that he had just let something pass him by, but what exactly that was, he didn’t know.

“Fumbled that one, huh?”

Harvey jolted at Maru’s appearance at his elbow, watching him with a pitying look in her eyes as he struggled to find the words, too frazzled again to get much of a coherent thought together. “I-I don’t— what?”

Maru rolled her eyes at him and gestured after Kate. “You just got a hug from a pretty girl who seemed very interested in you and did absolutely nothing. That’s called fumbling.”

He let out an incredulous scoff, narrowing his eyes at her. “Kate is my friend, Maru. She was excited about winning the grange competition and… caught me off-guard, that’s all. It’s not like that.”

She made a noise of undeniable skepticism, arms crossed in front of her, but still turned away with a shrug. “Whatever you say, Doctor Harvey.”

He looked back over his shoulder for a glimpse of Kate once Maru left, but she had made her way far into the circle of striped tents by then, lost among the tourists milling about. Harvey heaved a sigh and headed for the clinic, pushing Maru’s misplaced insistence about the nature of his relationship with Kate out of his head. He was finished with the fair for the year.

Notes:

I've ended up putting a lot of myself into Harvey and Kate so far while writing this, kind of splitting a lot of my own mannerisms between the two of them. While Harvey got my social anxiety, Kate got my less touchy-feeling nature. I don't mind getting hugs, of course, but I don't usually initiate them unless it's like my family or it's expected of me to hug someone, like in congratulations. But one time, someone I had a crush on put their arm around me and my legs almost buckled and I realized, 'oh, maybe I am fine with this as long as it's ~this~ person.'

Anyway that's what Kate and Harvey are going through, without knowing about the crush part of it ;)

Chapter 18

Rain fell from the dark overcast sky in dense sheets as Kate hurried down the waterlogged path to the library, the hood of her jacket pulled snug over her head, keeping the worst of the weather out of her face but drenching her back and legs to the bone. Soon she stumbled through the door into the safety of the warmly lit interior, pushing back her hood with a relived sigh as she shook the droplets from her arms over the doormat.

“Crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Gunther remarked from behind his desk, setting aside the worn book he’d been reading when she came in. The rest of the small building seemed empty, the other people of Pelican Town choosing to avoid the storm in their own homes. “This will probably be the best rain we have all fall.”

“Well my crops are loving it; me, not so much.” She smoothed back the now-tangled ponytail that had been smushed under her hood before unzipping her jacket slightly, freeing the item she’d rushed over to deliver. “Look what I found by the riverside in the forest this morning.”

She set the carved stone handaxe, its once sharp edges smoothed over by the elements over time, on the desk as Gunther peered closer, one hand absent-mindedly stroking his goatee, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes.

“We’d have to test it to be sure, but the shape of it is similar to other axeheads I’ve seen from the early people of the valley,” he observed, gently turning the artifact over between his hands. “It’s made of the same stone as that arrowhead you brought in. This could be a couple thousand years old.”

“You can see the notches around the end here where the handle was tied on,” she pointed out, tracing a light finger across the barely there groove in the stone.

“Wonderful find, Miss Kate." He pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, wrapping it around the handaxe. “I’ll send it up to the city tomorrow and likely have it on display by next week.”

It had been a few months since Kate started helping Gunther replenish the town’s museum, ever since mid-summer when she had sheepishly crept into the building for the first time since moving there. She hadn’t meant to avoid it for so long, but it had been the one place in town she hadn’t had an excuse to visit on her own, more distracted with the farm work and running around doing odd jobs for others. Even when she finally went to investigate, she only intended to take a quick look around before getting back to more important tasks, just so she could say she had been there.

But she had found an unlikely connection with Gunther after he spotted her slinking in that day, and a brief introduction quickly shifted to a realized shared interest in the history of the Ferngill Republic. And when he had mentioned, in the midst of discussing books and favorite historic sites around the country, that the museum had recently lost most of its collection, she had offered to keep an eye out for anything that might help fill it once more, much to his enthusiasm and relief.

It had started slow, but as the months went on, she was almost shocked at how many little items and treasures were hidden throughout the valley if one had a careful eye for them. Most of the artifacts she had found and donated since then were uncovered during her trips to the mines, alongside several samples of different minerals, though every now and then she had stumbled upon something while fishing at the beach or foraging in the forest and mountains. Some were in line with what she expected to find, like chipped pottery and tiny fossils buried in the sand. Other discoveries had been a little… stranger, like the odd little cloth doll she had dug up on accident while clearing some land in one of the corners of the farm.

But Gunther had been more than happy to take it all, sending some of them off to the regional archeological office in Zuzu City to be verified before displaying them in the slowly filling museum portion of the building. With each one that was added to the once-empty shelves, a soft sensation of accomplishment that had rooted in her chest grew stronger.

Kate wandered past the library shelves and study tables, trailing a hand over the smooth wooden bookcases as she stepped into the museum, looking over the partial collection she had created. It was still sparse, all things considered. There were maybe a dozen or so mineral samples lined up on one display table, and her archeological finds numbered just a few less.

But still, knowing she was helping the museum and uncovering examples of the region’s cultural roots was starting to reignite a long-sputtering flame deep, deep within her that she had left to wither for a while, doing so in a way not even coming back to the valley and the farm had quite managed, even as she was finding contentment in her new role there. It slipped old memories of her college days back into the forefront of her mind, when she was in the middle of her studies and feeling like she had some kind of concrete direction. It still wasn’t quite the same, but the familiar feeling lingered there regardless.

She returned to the front room as Gunther was pulling books out of the return box to begin reshelving them. “Anything you’d like me to look for while I’m down in the mines today?”

His nose wrinkled slightly as he gave her a wary glance. “You really want to go down there in this weather?”

“It’s the best time for it,” she replied with an unconcerned shrug. “The farm doesn't need as much attention since my watering is covered. Besides, I’m going pretty far down, so the rain shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Fair enough,” he accepted without further questions, though the sliver of forehead she could see under his hat stayed wrinkled. “I suppose you’d know what it’s like down there better than me anyway—and I don’t have anything specific in mind, to answer your question.”

“Well I’ll let you know if I find anything interesting.” She pulled her jacket tight around her again, hood up to shield her face, and started for the door. “Stay dry!”

“You too, and be safe down there!”

The wind and rain hit her like a wall as she stepped back outside, pushing her toward Clint’s shop and the newly running minecart that sat waiting nearby.

She’d noticed the system of railways surrounding the town, left over from the valley’s mining days, had been operational again about a week prior, the idle hum of the old motors that automated the carts cutting through the once silent bus stop as she walked back to the farm one night. At first she just assumed Clint or maybe Gil and Marlon had fixed them up for easier access between town and the mountains. It wasn’t until she visited the community center again and found the boiler room miraculously refurbished—and recalled granting the Junimo there one last request of a fire quartz only a day or two before—that she realized what had actually happened instead. When Lewis had approached her at the saloon that Friday and asked if she knew anything about the sudden repairs, she just shrugged and chalked it up to some helpful neighbor in town.

After a few tries with the carts, she’d grown comfortable enough with them to start using them any time it was convenient, especially on days like today when the weather made her shudder with the thought of trekking all the way to the mountains on foot. They’d even given her access to the quarry, bypassing the bridge that still sat broken and useless.

As she threw her backpack into the cart, swinging one leg over its side, she spotted a muted blob of green across the river through the heavy downpour. Even with the rain and the distance, she would recognize Harvey anywhere at this point, and watched as he sped toward the saloon door, an umbrella obscuring most of his upper body as he made a barrier between him and the wind.

She smiled to herself watching him brave the weather: apparently nothing could stand between Harvey and his midday coffee, not even a storm.

Kate hesitated halfway into the minecart, flooded with an unexpected desire to go see him. They had run into each other a few times in the two or so weeks since the fair, but their interactions had been haunted by the ghost of that horrible tension after she had hugged him without warning. The silences between sentences felt heavier, and even if they still traded soft jokes and cheerful words, Harvey avoided her eyes more often than usual, and she always found herself following suit. She longed to do something to try and fix the minute strain that had wedged its way between them, and wondered if buying him a coffee would at least get her foot in the door. Then she could apologize properly.

But a moment later she shook her head to herself, climbing the rest of the way into the cart with a decisive huff. Even if she did go over there, he would take one look at the gear she had in her backpack and know she had planned another mining trip, only adding to the unease lurking at the edges. Her attempts to remedy their awkwardness could wait until tomorrow.

She flipped the lever on the railway motor, the minecart lurching forward with a shudder as it started the journey up to the mine entrance, leaving Pelican Town behind.

Notes:

What's this? A short chapter ending on a visit to the mines? Hmm. How ominous.

On a related note, the fic rating is probably going to go up to mature next chapter, just to cover my bases. It's a good one coming up!

Chapter 19

Notes:

Heads up: mentions of blood, a shoulder dislocation, minor head injuries, and minor medical procedures. Some references to death as well but nothing detailed and no one actually dies.

Harvey could hear the droning, constant sound of raindrops echoing through the roof overhead even down in the clinic, the rain coming down fast and hard through town as the storm that started early that morning refused to let up by mid-afternoon.

It had been dead at the clinic all day. The couple of appointments he was supposed to have, all for minor things, had called asking if they could reschedule, no one in town wanting to brave the weather any more than absolutely necessary. He could hardly blame them; if he hadn’t forgotten to buy more coffee at Pierre’s and decided to risk the weather to go to the saloon to get some, he wouldn’t have stepped foot outside all day either.

By 2 p.m. he’d done nearly every chore and task on his to-do list: cleaned in the waiting room, double-checked inventory, filled out orders for more supplies. All that was left to do was sit in his office and twiddle his thumbs, so with only a couple hours left in his work day, he made his way out into the waiting room to lock the front door. At least then he could use the extra time to clean his apartment after putting it off for the last few weeks.

He had just started climbing the stairs, wondering if he had any tea left in his cupboards, when his phone went off in his pocket. Kate’s name appeared with the caller ID as he fished it out, and an immediate wave of anxiety washed over him from head to toe.

They had talked some since the Stardew Valley Fair, and their conversations had been generally as friendly as usual, but he hadn’t been able to work up the courage to bring up their last awkward moments that day before Emily had arrived, or try to come up with some way of explaining why he had froze.

She still thought it was her fault; he could see it in the way she held herself away from him, afraid to make another misstep in her eyes. And he knew he wasn’t helping either: every time he started to broach the subject, he kept imagining her face when she had pulled away from him, and he would look away again.

The phone continued to chime in his hand, insistent, and with a deep breath he finally picked up.

“Hi Kate,” he said in what he hoped sounded like a casual tone. “How are—”

“Doctor Harvey, it’s Linus,” the gruff voice on the other end bluntly cut him off. “Kate’s hurt.”

Harvey stopped mid-step in his ascent, those two words almost not registering with him at all until all at once it felt like the wind had been punched from his chest, leaving him stranded in the middle of the stairs and fumbling for the handrail behind him as he pressed the phone tighter against his ear.

“What happened?” he rasped, his voice strangled like someone had pressed a hand over his throat. “Where is she?”

The wind and rain were muffled in the background of the call as Linus grunted with some physical effort. “I-I heard something in the mines and found her collapsed outside the elevator,” he explained. Even if his voice was calm, Harvey could hear the barely contained worry and fear cresting just under the surface. “She’s awake, but she’s bleeding a lot and pretty out of it. Looks like her shoulder might be out of the socket.”

A faint mumble came from Linus’s end, near the phone but still distant, and Harvey wondered if he wasn’t trying to carry her with one arm while holding her phone in the other.

With considerable effort, Harvey forced his voice into a more level tone as he gave Linus terse instruction. “I’m calling Maru to come help you bring her down here. Put pressure on as much of the bleeding as you can and keep her arm stabilized. Call me if something happens before you get her to town.”

He hung up with Linus’s assurance and immediately slumped back against the wall of the stairwell as a cold, rock-hard ball of dread expanded ever faster in the pit of his stomach, his mind racing with a rising panic and a thousand different scenarios each worse than the last. It had been nearly six years since he’d been faced with an emergency—a real emergency; not a fish hook caught on a hand or even a fractured arm from a skateboarding accident, but a possible case of life or death if he didn’t pull himself together. He’d left the hospitals in Zuzu City behind to avoid it; he didn’t want to wake up each day wondering if he would have to tell a family that their loved one had died in the operating room, or bled out before they had even gotten that far. And now that sleeping worry was waking again as he was helpless to prevent what had already happened, blind to what Kate’s true condition would be or if he would even be equipped to help her.

Had she even put anyone down as an emergency contact during that first check-up? She never talked about her parents or family other than her grandfather. Would Lewis know, or would Harvey have to be the one to find them if something went wrong? The possibility made him want to slide down the wall and go catatonic right there on the steps.

He’d grappled with the thought more than once, often late at night when all of his darkest worries crept to the surface, that there was a world where Kate’s life would one day be in his hands after a mining trip gone bad. That world had in an instant become tangible.

With a shuddering breath, he pulled up Maru’s number in his phone and dialed, already on his way to start collecting instruments and bandages by the time she picked up on the second ring.

“Doctor Harvey? What’s—”

“Maru I need you to go to the mine entrance and find Linus,” he interrupted with firm direction. “Kate’s been in some kind of accident, and I need you to help him bring her down here.”

As professional and collected as ever, she didn’t hesitate. “I’ll see if we can use Mom’s truck; it’ll be faster.” Her voice wasn’t free from the underlying current of concern either as he heard her rummaging around, likely collecting her own first-aid supplies, but still she sounded assured and steady—more so than he certainly felt in the moment. “We’ll be there soon.”

With Maru set to her task, he funneled all his attention into preparing everything he could possibly need to treat Kate’s injuries, locking everything else away where his mind couldn’t wander to it. Every feeling of fear and worry was pushed behind his training, his process, until he’d shut himself into a single function that’s only focus was to prepare for the patient’s arrival and the first steps of triage, followed by treatment or transfer depending on the severity.

Harvey the man was still shell-shocked on the stairs. Harvey the doctor had fully prepped the exam room and all his supplies by the time he heard tires screeching to a halt on the cobblestone outside.

He sprinted for the entrance, faltering only when he met the resistance of the door he had locked earlier and had to unlock it again, almost cursing at the waste of time. The rain made quick work of dousing him when he finally made it outside and saw Robin’s old work truck parked in front, rarely used but still kept in good condition, and her, Maru, and Linus all working to gently yet quickly remove a bloodied, limp Kate from her backseat.

The blood was the worst of it. Dark red stained her arms and her side where it had spilled out through long, straight rips in her jacket and painted her in streaks, stark against the scraps of fabric that Maru and Linus must have wrapped around them while in the mountains to put pressure on them. More blood oozed down the side of her face from a cut near her hairline and another across her cheek, drawing attention to how pale her otherwise tanned face was as her head lolled on Robin’s shoulder. Linus helped support her other side, gingerly avoiding her right arm that hung limp next to her.

“Has she lost consciousness at all?” he asked as they half-carried, half-almost-dragged Kate through the door and down the hallway, laying her back on the exam table. Her eyes were open, but they were only half lidded, unfocused as she watched the others move around with a slow, uncomprehending gaze.

“Only when I found her,” Linus answered, standing to the far back of the room with Robin, watching Kate with a grim frown, his jaw tense.

“Kate, can you tell me what happened?” Harvey took a penlight from his pocket and shined it in her eyes. Her pupils barely constricted with the light, and she whined and tried to push him back with her good arm, squinting against the brightness. “What day is it today?”

“Harvey?” She looked to him, eyebrows knit tightly together in pain and confusion. “I-I don’t…”

“Does your head hurt?” She nodded, eyes scrunching shut with the movement. “Are you experiencing any dizziness or nausea?” Another nod.

“We need to get the lacerations under control before anything else,” he said to Maru, handing her a pair of scissors from his tray to start cutting Kate’s jacket and shirt to get to the injuries underneath. Then he turned to Robin behind them. “I don’t think she’s lost enough blood to need a transfusion, but would you stay in the waiting room just in case? Linus, you’re more than welcome to stay too if you’d like.”

“Happy to do my duty as a universal donor,” she answered, then put a hand on Linus’s shoulder. “Come on, she’s in good hands with these two.”

They disappeared from the room as Maru finished removing Kate’s clothes, exposing the wounds on her arms and torso. They had stopped bleeding thanks to Maru and Linus’s earlier efforts, but they were still ugly and jarring against her skin—the ones on her arms seemed defensive again, like the much shallower cuts he had treated only about a month before, as opposed to the long cut across part of her stomach and ribs. He could see several large bruises starting to form all across her body too, angry and red. Harvey swallowed hard, his heartbeat hammering in his chest.

“I’m going to give you something to help with your pain, ok?” he told her, keeping his tone gentle and soothing for her as he measured out a dose of the higher-grade pain medication he kept on hand. “We need to sew up your cuts and reset your shoulder.”

“It hurts,” she whimpered, still disoriented from the concussion he gathered she’d suffered. When she looked at him, even as unfocused as she was, her eyes were filled with fear and regret, her voice fragile. “I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have gone down there. I know you told me not to.”

He took hold of her hand with a soft squeeze and as reassuring a smile as he could give, hoping both would distract her from the pinch of the needle in her arm. “Hey, you’re ok,” he promised her. “You don’t need to worry about that right now. You’re going to be just fine.”

The lacerations were thankfully not deep enough to do lasting damage, and Harvey cleaned and stitched them as quickly and delicately as he could while Maru used medical adhesive to close the less serious wounds on her face. Kate flinched a little at the first few pulls of the needle through sensitive skin, but the drugs did their job enough to keep her from being too uncomfortable as he moved from one cut to the next.

Popping her shoulder back into place was a different story. Even with most of her pain numbed, she still cried out as he had to pull on her arm to realign it, with Maru even needing to keep a hand on her to keep her from thrashing while she sobbed. It was quick, and necessary, but he muttered apologies to her over and over anyway while he did it, his jaw clenched so tight that, if he were even a fraction less focused, he would have worried something would snap.

Finally she was patched up as best as she could be; he thanked Yoba he had an immobilizing sling left over from when Alex had suffered a similar injury a few years earlier in a gridball game, securing her arm so it would stay in place before he and Maru helped her to one of the beds in the recovery room. She fell asleep almost immediately, too exhausted to do much else.

Robin and Lewis were both sitting stiffly in the waiting room chairs when he went to update them, shooting to their feet as soon as he entered the room.

“She’s fine,” he started, watching them both melt in relief after nearly an hour of waiting. “She’s sleeping most of it off right now, but once she’s awake and alert enough, she’ll be able to go home.”

“Thank Yoba,” Robin sighed, scrubbing at her eyes with one hand. A part of him was almost unnerved seeing her so shaken, used to the steady, confident presence she usually exuded. “Oh, she’s going to be devastated when she realizes what happened. That arm is going to put her out of commission for a while.”

“At least a month, and that’s if everything goes well,” he admitted, the weight of that fact not lost on him. He had to hope that after so many months spent in the valley that there was someone in town who would step up to help her with her fall chores while she recovered, or else her hard-won progress could end up backsliding.

Then he looked at the concern still etched across Robin and Linus’s faces and gave them a tired smile. “You two should head home and try to relax; you’ve been a monumental help, and now the only thing to do is wait.”

Robin turned to Linus and cocked her head in the direction of her truck still parked outside the clinic. “I’ll give you a ride back up the mountain, if you want.”

The older man leveled Harvey with an expression that was unreadable to him, but at the same time made him feel like he was being assessed, and he tried not to shrink away from Linus’s scrutinization.

Then Linus stepped forward, pressing what Harvey realized was Kate’s phone into his hand, squeezing it between his own and looking at him with a vulnerable sort of gratitude. “You’re a good man, Doctor Harvey.”

The statement threw him for a moment. Kate had told Harvey once, in some offhand comment in a conversation months ago, that she had formed a close connection with Linus since arriving in the valley and thought very highly of him. Now he saw how that care clearly went both ways.

“I’m sure she’ll be back on the farm by tomorrow,” he promised them, and soon he watched from the window as they climbed into Robin’s truck, driving off to return to the mountains.

The second they disappeared from view was the second Harvey felt himself start to implode. Compartmentalization had served its purpose, and the flood of fear and helplessness that had been held back was now crashing against his lungs as his breaths grew unsteady, coming faster and faster as he sank into one of the waiting room chairs.

Yoba, it could have been so much worse. He could only do so much as a small-town doctor; if her wounds had been any deeper, if her concussion had seemed even a little more serious, he wouldn’t have had the resources to do anything for her. He would have had to call an ambulance from the city and pray it would get to the valley fast enough, especially if Maru and Linus hadn’t been able to get her bleeding under control. His chest tightened, almost cutting off his air altogether, at the idea of her lying on the exam table, red staining the white paper and tile floor as blood rolled down her arms and torso, as he could do nothing but watch her fade away.

“Doctor Harvey?”

He startled at Maru’s voice as she appeared in the doorway to the hall, eyebrows drawn together behind her the frames of her glasses. “I just wanted to see if you needed help cleaning up. Are— are you alright?”

“Yes!” he blurted, standing up much faster than he should have and fighting against the brief light-headed spell that hit him as a result of his poor breathing. “Yes, yes I’m fine. I’ll— I’ll take care of the exam room if you could clean the floor out here?” He looked down at the sporadic drops of blood that dotted the path they had taken from the front door back through the hallway.

He didn’t end up waiting for her to answer, instead sliding past her to return to the exam room and closing the door behind him. He didn’t want her seeing what he planned to do next; she would probably grill him for it endlessly otherwise—for good reason.

Dropping into his office chair like dead weight, he yanked open the bottom drawer of his desk, pushing aside stray papers and extra office supplies until his fingers closed around the pack of cigarettes and lighter he kept hidden away at the bottom, pulling them free with a shaking hand as he tried to summon a few deeper breaths.

He’d given it up years ago; he could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually lit one since he’d kicked the habit in med school after picking it up as an undergrad. But he’d kept a pack of them anyway for the rare times he slipped too far into his anxieties and couldn’t pull himself back out. He knew it did more harm than good. Taking the pack out was a stupid enough decision on its own, not to even mention trying to smoke in secret, indoors, with a smoke detector right above him. But he couldn’t make himself care enough to stop, pulling a cigarette free with his mouth as he fumbled with the lighter.

As much as he tried, his thumb was clumsy on the spark wheel, unable to put enough pressure down to light it properly as the tremor there made the few pitiful flames he created—all of them dying as quickly as they appeared—bob and dance everywhere but the end of the cigarette. His jaw was tensed so tightly that he nearly bit through the filter as he struggled, until he threw everything onto his desk with a frustrated groan, raking his hands through his hair as he slouched forward, elbows hitting his knees.

Never in his entire medical career had Harvey’s nerves been on such a hair-string trigger, barely keeping from cracking apart. Stress and worry had gotten to him more than once during his residency, but this was new, and it was wrong. Obviously her injuries could have been more severe: that was always possible, no matter who wandered into his clinic every day. What should have been important was that she would recover, that he had done his duty and she would walk out somewhat worse for wear but alive. He should have felt the same relief Robin and Linus felt.

But the image of her there in that room had burned itself into his brain, all of it playing over and over in his head: her crying out in pain, her eyes wide in fear, the cuts, the bruises—he hadn’t hugged her back at the fair. Yoba, why hadn’t he hugged her? What if that had been his only chance? What would he have done if her life had been in the balance, if he had had to face the chance of losing her—

Like cold water down his back he straightened up with enough force to send his chair sliding back a few inches. The thought that had wriggled through to the front of his mind, sneaking through his reason and good sense, should have been foreign to him. Kate wasn’t his to lose. She never had been.

But now he was standing in front of a freight train barreling down on him, carrying the realization that a significant part of him wanted her to be so, so badly.

Kate was so unlike him in so many ways: she was funny, easily accepted by the other community members, courageous even in the face of hardship and criticism when it came to running the farm. He had been drawn to her immediately, even with their rocky first meeting. She made him feel understood in a way not many other people had managed to do in the near half a decade since he had left the city. She was sweet. She liked spending time with him. He should have figured it out months ago.

Harvey’s heartbeat thudded even harder, threatening to drag him down into another spiral all over again. As quick as it began, his friendship with her was over. He couldn’t expect her to feel the same way about him, but now that the knowledge was free from the box, there wasn’t any possible way of shoving it down again or returning to the way he used to think of Kate. He was irrevocably ruined, forced to recognize what had been there for so long and that he just couldn’t look deeper to realize.

How the hell could he ever be normal around her again?

A soft knock echoed against the wooden door, and Harvey swiped the cigarettes and lighter into his jacket pocket just as Maru pushed it open.

“I finished mopping up everything,” she said, and her eyes flicked over to the table where the rest of the aftermath still sat untouched. “Did you need some help, or…?”

“No, thank you Maru, I can handle it.” His voice in his own ears was breathless and wobbly, and she noticed it too if the creases in her forehead or the way her mouth twitched were anything to go by. He wondered if it was plain on his face that he had finally realized what she had apparently already noticed as recently as the fair, if not before then. If it was, she had the grace not to say anything. “Why don’t you head home? I’ve got to finish Kate’s patient report. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Her shoe squeaked against the flooring as she shuffled her weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah alright, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” His smile was flimsy, but still he meant it sincerely as he continued, “I can’t thank you enough for your help today; I wouldn’t have been able to treat Kate by myself. You did a fantastic job.”

Her cheeks darkened with his praise, and she gave him a grin, albeit still reserved considering the circumstances, as she brushed one of her magenta locs behind her ear. “Thanks, Doctor Harvey. Let me know when Kate wakes up.”

“I will. Have a good night.”

Left alone again, he finally started clearing away the remnants of the afternoon, returning unused bandages to the cabinets and tossing syringe packaging and bloody fabric in the trash. The rain outside had slowed, its echoing patter on the room far above him much softer now. It didn’t bring him much comfort.

What was he supposed to do now?

------

Everything ached.

Kate nearly had to pry her eyelids open as she awoke from a disorienting, terrifying dream: endless miles of mineshafts had stretched out before her, a horde of faceless, snarling monsters forcing her to sprint blindly through the dark while every hundred feet or so Harvey’s disapproving voice echoed from side passageways all around her.

Her head spun as she tried to sit up enough to figure out where she was. The room was quiet, softly lit and filled with other empty beds, unused privacy curtains sitting between a few of them—some room in the clinic she’d never been in before. She didn’t have a clue what time it was, only aware of her pounding headache and the throbbing pain in her arms and side and the ache in her shoulder. She tried to lift her right arm and found it held fast against her waist, wrapped up in an intricate sling.

Alone in an uncomfortable bed, she heard music faintly echoing through the partially open door, from the hallway she knew was just beyond it. With a ragged, dry voice, she hesitantly called out, “Harvey?”

A pause, then footsteps grew louder until suddenly he was there in the doorway, missing his signature green coat, the sleeves of his button-up shirt pushed up to his elbows. His hair was tousled free from the style he usually wore, normally combed up and away from his eyes, and instead lay against his forehead like it always seemed to want to do.

“Welcome back. How do you feel?” he asked, his voice quiet as he pulled a chair up next to her bed and removed his stethoscope from around his neck.

“Bad,” was all she could come up with, and he chuckled softly as he listened to her heart. This time, she didn’t have the energy to feel awkward about him sitting so close to do so.

“That sounds about right,” he agreed as he sat back. His calm expression seemed controlled, purposeful. “You have a mild concussion, a dislocated shoulder, several cuts that needed to be stitched up, and a lot of bruising. Do you remember what happened?”

Kate did her best to recall, but it was like her mind had been dipped in molasses, her memories all distorted and slow to come to the surface. She repeated to him as much as she could: cold stone rooms, skeletons swinging sharpened bone swords at her as her own had clattered out of her hand. She was on a ladder at some point, trying to retreat. Her hand, wet with the blood running down her arm, had slipped on one of the rungs—she got the feeling that was ironic, slipping on something as far down as she was, but couldn’t remember why until she heard the sound of softening rain outside the window above her. Things were hazier after that, but she remembered pulling herself up until she reached an elevator and stumbling out of it once she reached the surface.

“I remember seeing you in the exam room,” she said, holding on as tight as she could to concentration as much as it hurt her to think that hard. “I told you… I told you I was sorry for going in the mines.”

The corner of his mouth wavered, and she knew she hadn’t imagined the worried, pained expression on his face hovering over her, or the way he had assured her and done his best to comfort her while he fixed her up. Her heart plummeted into her stomach as she noticed the dull, tired look in his eyes and the constant crease in his forehead and knew they were both entirely her fault.

“Yoba, I’ve put you through hell lately, haven’t I?” she said with a dry, regretful laugh, letting her head fall back onto the stiff hospital pillow. “First that stupid hug at the fair, and now this.”

“The hug wasn’t stupid.”

The conviction in his words took her by surprise, one of the few times she had heard him sound even a little authoritative. Seeing her pause, he leaned forward again, dropping the firm tone in favor of a softer sincerity. “It surprised me, but it wasn’t unwelcome. You didn’t do anything wrong.” There was regret on his face too, resulting in a sheepish kind of grimace. “I kept trying to tell you but just never figured out how. I’m sorry you thought I was upset with you all this time.”

A weight that had been living in the center of her chest for weeks dissolved in an instant, and she let out a weary but still relieved sigh.

Then his eyes fell on the sling holding her arm in place. “As for the mines, that’s something we can talk about later. Right now I’m just…” He trailed off, like he lost some train of thought, and she wondered briefly if he was going to continue at all before he sucked in a short breath through his teeth. “You’re safe, and you’ll recover fine with enough time. That’s all that matters right now.”

“That and figuring out how I’m going to finish the season like this.” She gestured down her body with her free hand.

“That too,” he acknowledged, sympathetic. “You could be a lot worse off, but it will still be about a month before your arm is fully functional and your brain has had time to heal.” Then he leveled her with a mildly chiding look. “And that’s only if you rest and don’t push yourself.”

It was her only possible option if she wanted to be able to keep farming eventually, but disappointed, discouraged tears still collected at the corners of her eyes, and she squeezed them shut to keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks, letting out a shaking, tense breath.

Wordlessly, Harvey pressed a tissue from a nearby side table into her left hand. “There’s a host of people here who will help you, Kate. You’re not on your own.”

She dried her eyes, willing her frustration to ebb for a while, at least until she was alone. He made a good point: she wasn't fending for herself anymore like she was in spring. She would make it through this alright.

When she had collected herself again, she looked over and remarked to him with a teasing smile, “Well, at the very least, I know I’m lucky to have such a good doctor here in town who’s willing to put me back together.”

Kate expected maybe a little embarrassment from him at the sentiment, or at least an exasperated smile back at her. But she met his eyes and was confused to see, just for the briefest of seconds before he schooled his expression into a more neutral state, that he just looked… sad. Sad and conflicted.

Then he stood from his chair before she could say anything, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I’m going to call Robin and let her and Maru know you’re awake, and then see if she could give you a ride to the farm. I think I have something for you to wear, um… you know, to get home.”

His cheeks had taken on a pink hue, and she looked down and realized for the first time that her shirt and jacket were gone, the sling covering most of her upper body but still leaving her midriff and collarbones exposed. She felt her entire body flush as he disappeared out the door and up the stairs to his apartment.

He came back a few minutes later holding a brown corduroy jacket, a little worn and big enough that she was able to button it shut over top of the sling.

“I haven’t worn this in ages,” he said as he helped her stand and get the jacket over her shoulders. “Hopefully it’s a good enough replacement for yours.”

“It’s perfectly fine, Harvey. Thanks,” she assured him. It was strange to be wearing something of his, even something as mundane as an old jacket, as if she were playing dress-up with his clothes. A burst of something uncomfortably bright and warm flooded her senses at the thought and made it hard to look him in the eye as he led her down the hallway.

She slowly made it to the clinic door, where Robin was waiting outside next to a well-used, chipped red truck that Kate had never seen before. The rain had finally been reduced to a sprinkling, and the sky was already on fire with oranges and purples and the distant blue of night.

She cast one more grateful smile to Harvey over her shoulder. “Thanks again, for everything.”

“Don’t hesitate to call me if you start feeling worse, ok?” he told her, ever the considerate doctor.

Robin helped her into the passenger seat once she got to the truck, recounting to her everything that had happened after Linus—Kate would need to go up and thank him for his help, too—had found her in the mine entrance.

“You really got lucky, you know,” Robin said as she started down the path to the farm.

Kate just hummed in agreement, her eyes on Harvey in the side mirror as he stood in front of the clinic and watched them drive away.

Notes:

It's a Harvey/farmer longfic- got to have a mining accident scene.

This is the other chapter I've been waiting to write since I came up with the idea for this fic. This is probably one of the longest ones I'll write for this work too, but I didn't want to end on any other cliffhangers after the last chapter.

I'm also going to entirely blame KacieKC on TikTok for the Harvey smoking/used to smoke headcanon.

Hope you all enjoy Harvey having the worst day ever and Kate still being oblivious :)

Chapter 20

Notes:

The briefest of heads ups that there's a couple short mentions of patients dying in this chapter--again very vague and quick toward the end of the chapter.

One week.

That was how long Harvey held out before he went to check on Kate.

Truthfully he might not have even made it that long if it weren’t for the early onset of flu season in Pelican Town, keeping him busy at the clinic most days while he administered vaccines and treated symptoms, all while wondering if she was recovering well, how her stitches were holding up, whether she was really listening to his advice to rest.

When he told Maru a couple hours before the end of the day that he would be leaving early to go to the farm, she had thrown her hands up with a relieved groan.

“Finally! Yoba, you’ve been like one of those little nervous dogs pacing around here all week,” she exclaimed. “I’m shocked you haven’t taken off for her place at a full sprint already.”

“Ok, yes, I get it,” he sighed, blushing at her bluntness.

They hadn’t really talked about what had happened that day or how he had reacted to Kate’s accident, but the way he had caught Maru looking at him with smug exasperation every time he rushed out of his office at the sound of the front bell, or when his attention pricked up if anyone who wandered in happened to mention Kate, told him she had pieced his realization together for herself. She’d been very… engrossed in whether or not he had talked to Kate ever since, almost unbearably so, but Harvey let it go if only for the fact that she had put up with a lot of his fretting; he figured it was only fair she got to poke at him in return.

“Would you at least handle any prescription pick-ups if anyone else comes in? Otherwise call me if it’s a real emergency.”

She gave him a mock salute from her seat behind the counter. “I’ve got it all under control. Don’t linger too long!”

He gave her a withering look as his blush grew even hotter, hurrying out the door before she could make any other little comments. If someone had told him five years ago that he would one day, in his mid-30s, be teased over a “crush” by his 21-year-old employee, he would have been concerned that they had suffered some kind of head injury.

The walk to the farm was both just long enough to give him time to stew over what he would say when he saw her, his palms growing clammy where they clutched his medical bag, and too short for him to actually think of anything before he saw the fence marking the edge of the property. Even as her house stood cozy and inviting before him in the afternoon sun, hyperactive nerves had his fingers drumming against the strap across his chest, watching the house with trepidation.

He had made the determined decision, after spending much of the night after Kate had gone home pacing around his apartment and frantically reconfiguring the context of his feelings about her, that he would not let his newfound infatuation have any impact on their friendship. For all he knew, the heightened emotions from the accident might have just convinced him his admiration and care for her meant something more, and in another week, he’d realize it was all temporary and everything would be back to normal. Either way, it wasn’t worth possibly destroying his closest friendship in years over. He could be an adult about this.

It was quiet throughout the farm as Harvey walked past the fence line, broken only by the occasional distant cluck of chickens, coming from the new coop at the far end of the farm, and harsh cursing from one of the fields right in front of the house, from someone who was definitely not Kate.

He peered into the neatly fenced field, filled with rows of leafy green leaves covering bright orange pumpkins, and saw Shane bent over one of the sprinklers, his old hoodie tied around his waist and a pair of pliers in hand as he went at the machinery’s inner workings like it had personally offended him, swearing in short bursts of frustration.

“Shane?” The other man peer up at Harvey beneath an intensely furrowed brow, wiping some of the sweat from his forehead. “What are you doing here?”

Shane scowled at him, gesturing with an irritated hand to the sprinkler head. “What’s it look like? Trying to get this fucking thing fixed.”

Harvey just blinked back, grasping at straws for how best to respond to Shane’s bristled way of talking. They’d never really seen eye-to-eye on most things, largely because of Shane’s bad habits that were often the only reason they ever ended up in the same room, and Harvey felt even more so out of his element trying to talk with him in Kate’s field, already rattled enough from everything that had happened in the last week.

“Um… fair enough.” He picked at a small splinter of wood that was starting to pry up from one of the fence posts. “Is Kate here?”

“Nah, she’s in Calico Desert.” Shane rolled his eyes at Harvey and pulled another frown that all but spelled out just how much he wished the doctor would be doing anything else but asking him questions right then. “Where the fuck else would she be?”

That one I had coming, Harvey winced in his head, nodding for Shane to return to his maintenance with a resigned sigh as he turned to the porch steps behind him.

He stopped in front of the blue-painted door, and for a few short seconds wavered there, one hand hovering over the wood, just shy of knocking as a flutter of nerves kicked up again in his stomach. But just as quickly he shook his head as if he could shake them from his person, and with a sharp breath rapped his knuckles on the door. This was Kate. And he was a doctor. He was just there to do his job and make sure she was doing alright. There was no reason for him to feel self-conscious about appearing on her porch—at least that was what he repeated to himself as he waited for an answer.

He heard the floorboards creak on the other side of the door and watched as it slowly opened, revealing Kate standing there in sweatpants and colorful polka-dot socks, her sling secured over a tank top and her hair a little messier than usual, squinting as the light of the fading afternoon fell over her in the doorway. Harvey’s heartbeat picked up again with a speed that was frankly embarrassing, but still he managed to keep a straight face.

“Oh, hi Harvey!” she smiled at him, head tilted in curious confusion. “What brings you out here?”

He held up his bag, unlooping the strap from across his chest. “I just wanted to come by and do a quick wellness check to make sure you’re doing alright,” he explained, and glanced uncertainly behind her to the sliver of the interior that he could see over her head. “Can— is it alright if I come in?”

She took a step back, waving him in with her free hand. “Of course; come right in.”

As he stepped inside, it finally occurred to him that he’d never been inside the farmhouse before. Seeing it now, Kate had obviously put considerable work into pulling it out of the depressive state it had been in when she moved in.

The large, open living room looked comfortable and welcoming, with a couple plush chairs and a couch that seemed well-loved based on the way it was starting to sag in the middle. A large green rug covered the scuffed wooden floor, and a TV that might have been nearly as old as Kate sat on a plain wooden stand. Tall bookshelves in the corners were stuffed with books and dozens of little shells, dried flowers, unique looking stones, and other trinkets, while the weathered fireplace on the far wall held even more little decorations.

The kitchen on his other side was similarly cluttered with cooking supplies and mismatched spoons and whisks, while dishware and cups of all different patterns and colors were drying on a rack by the sink. And all around the walls were photos and artwork and posters. Everything that he could see in her home pointed to a love of collecting, of finding furniture and treasures and other odds and ends that, while maybe not cohesive, gave the rooms a character that felt homey and authentic, like he was seeing scraps of what lived at the heart of who Kate was.

“You’ve really fixed this place up,” he marveled as he followed her over to the small kitchen table.

She shrugged as they sat down in the two plain wooden chairs there. “It’s been mostly Robin, honestly. She’s the only reason this place is inhabitable again.” A long yawn interrupted her then, making her reel in her seat as she fought back against it before offering him a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I just got up from a nap a little bit ago.”

“No, that’s good. Resting often will help you recover faster.” Then he gestured behind him out one of the front windows. “Do you know that Shane is outside waging a war against one of your sprinklers?”

She laughed, tipping her head up to try and catch a glimpse of the man in question. “Yeah, he offered to help keep an eye on things while I’m out of commission,” she answered. “Actually, Marnie probably made him volunteer, but I’m not really in a position to complain either way. Alex is going to come by too whenever Shane is at work.”

“I’m glad you don’t have to worry about running the farm while you’re healing, then,” he said, and truly it was a small weight off him to know she wouldn’t fall behind because of the accident, finding himself grateful, for possibly the first time ever, to Shane and Alex for stepping up.

“I’m hoping they won’t have to help me for long,” she continued. “The crops only have a couple weeks left before they need to be harvested for good, and after that it’ll just be feeding the chickens, which I’m pretty sure I can do with one hand.”

Harvey’s smile thinned a bit; only a week after getting hurt, it concerned him that she was already planning when she could return to her duties on the farm. But at the same time, he could hardly expect any other reaction from her knowing how important her work was to her, not to mention that Joja probably still had its eye on the land. He tempered the disapproving words that had been poised on the tip of his tongue.

“Well don’t try to rush into getting back to work too soon, even if you’re starting to feel better,” he cautioned.

“I know, Doctor Harvey,” she assured him with a fondly playful grin, and that flutter of nerves from earlier returned with a vengeance. He hoped to Yoba she couldn't hear his heart pounding considering the barely two feet that separated them.

He cleared his throat to try and dislodge the butterflies as he set his bag on the table, letting himself fall into the professional tone he used for appointments in an attempt to put some distance between himself and his feelings. “I’d like to take a look at your stitches first, if that’s ok.”

He went through to motions of checking her vitals and giving her injuries a once-over, putting his focus into searching for any signs of discomfort or infection so he wouldn’t think about how close she was to him, or how the random strands of hair still sticking up after her nap only made her look more adorable. He’d always thought she was pretty, in a purely objective way of course, but now he was all too aware of how the light tan of her skin made the blue of her eyes stand out more, or how her smile made her entire face light up, or how her lips were colored a soft pink—

“How, uh, how is your cognitive function? Any problems in the last week?” He kept his eyes on her arm as he checked that her sling was still fitted correctly, afraid that if he looked right at her, his face would catch fire.

“Some days are better than others,” she replied. “Everything feels foggy sometimes, like I just can’t concentrate on anything too complicated. And I’ve been getting really tired at night even when I’m just sitting on the couch all day.”

“That’s all pretty normal for a concussion,” he said. “It’ll get better with time, and everything else looks good so far. I’ll probably be able to take the stitches out in another week or so.”

He was packing his supplies back into his bag when something curled around his calf, and he glanced down to see a gray tabby cat winding its way through the legs of their chairs, letting out long, plaintive meows like a mournful child.

“I take it you must be Ren,” he said to the cat, who only cried louder, eyeing him with distrustful curiosity from the floor.

Kate giggled, reaching down to scratch between Ren’s ears. “He’s been upset that I can’t pick him up and carry him around like the demanding little baby he is.” She gestured down to the cat. “You can pet him if you want. He pretends he doesn’t like the attention but he’s lying.”

Harvey held his hand down to Ren, who slowly sniffed it, letting him turn his fingers to scratch below the cat’s chin. Almost immediately Ren dissolved into loud purring, turning his head into Harvey’s touch.

“See? He’s all talk.” Kate smiled at Harvey, and he watched as her eyebrows suddenly shot up, eyes wide as something fell into place in her mind. “Oh! Stay here a minute. I’ve got something for you.”

His face contorted with confusion, but she had gotten up and disappeared down a hallway that led further into the house before he could ask what she was talking about, leaving him in the kitchen with Ren still going like a motor at his feet.

“You don’t know what that’s about, do you?” he asked the cat. Ren didn’t offer any comment, just staring at him with piercing green eyes. “That’s ok; I don’t think I ever know what to expect from her either.”

Kate came back soon after, holding a folded square of fabric in her hand.

“I’ve been meaning to return this for months now,” she said, and he recognized it as soon as she held it out to him. “I’ve been so busy I never remember to bring it with me whenever I know I’m going to see you, but at least I can give it back now.”

He’d completely forgotten about the handkerchief he’d lent her way back at the end of spring, after Emily’s birthday party. The fact that she’d kept it ready to return to him for so long warmed something in his chest and brought back that memory of standing with her outside her house—their first moment of real connection. Maybe that was where the little inkling of affection started for him. Maybe the accident had just opened the floodgates.

But despite the better memories associated with the handkerchief, it also reminded him that, if either of them hadn’t been as lucky as they were, she wouldn’t be there to return it to him. He’d been shoving down the remaining whisps of fear from the accident all week, but as he rubbed the little square of cloth between his fingers, even knowing Kate was standing mere feet from him alive and well, the pervasive images of her bloody and frightened were seeping back into his mind, and he could swear his lungs were constricting again, his chest heavy as his breathing grew shallow.

“Harvey, are you ok?” Kate rushed to drop into her seat across from him again, her eyes filled with concern. “You just got really pale all of a sudden.”

He breathed out a clipped laugh, and only then noticed his hands had started shaking as he clutched the handkerchief between them. “I’m fine,” he told her. “Just tired I supposed.”

She didn’t believe him: he could see it in the way her worry softened into something more understanding, her free hand resting on the table between them. “If something’s bothering you, you know you can tell me, right?”

The care in her voice made his heart stutter, but she had more important things to worry about than his anxiety. She didn’t need to try and console him on top of everything else.

“I’m the town doctor,” he said with a feeble smile. “It’s my job to listen to people’s problems, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, but you’re a person, too,” she insisted. “You’re everyone else’s therapist all the time; I don’t mind being yours every now and then.”

A silence fell between them, and Harvey felt like he’d been left defenseless, trying to decide if he should flee while he still had the chance or go all in and bare himself the rest of the way to her. He still didn’t believe it should be her responsibility to listen to him stress, to take on his worries alongside all of her own.

But she was watching him with such patience, and Harvey had been trying to bury so many of his worries for so long. If need be, he could ask forgiveness for being selfish later.

“When Linus said you had been hurt, I was— I was terrified,” he admitted, and when he saw her face drop he rushed to continue, “That’s not to say I blame you or that I’m mad at you; accidents happen, and what you do necessitates some risk sometimes. But the thought of something happening to you, and not being able to help you…” He dropped his eyes to his hands clasped tight in front of him, the handkerchief crumpled in between. “Imagine having a patient’s life completely in your hands, and failing to keep them alive.” He met her eyes again. “That’s something that will haunt you forever. I didn’t know what I would do if that patient had ended up being you.”

Kate leaned forward, her expression solemn and sincere. “If something had happened to me, it would have been because there was nothing that could have been done, not because you failed.” Her earnest assurance, however well intended, was almost overwhelming, and he turned away to look out the window above her sink. She tapped her fingers on the table to draw his attention back. “No, I mean it; Harvey, you’re not a miracle worker. I won’t pretend to be able to fully comprehend how scary all of that must have been from your end, but you can’t work yourself up over what might have happened.” She smiled, more optimistic, and shrugged her bad shoulder in a vague kind of gesture. “You said so yourself that I’m going to be fine. There’s nothing else to worry about right now.”

He let out a long, heavy sigh, letting his shoulders droop with it, willing some of the tension that had gathered there to dissipate again. “I think it will probably be easier said than done to let that particular worry go for good,” he responded, but he managed to relax his hold on the square of fabric in his hands. “I’ll be alright; I promise. I’m working through it.” He offered her an embarrassed, barely-there smile. “Thank you for listening, though. You’re right, it did help some.”

“I’m just sorry you’ve been dealing with this by yourself all week.” Then Kate paused, pulling the inside of her cheek between her teeth before she asked with a careful tone, “When you were still in the city, did— were there ever—”

“Not anyone I treated directly, no,” he finished for her. “But I saw other doctors have to deliver that news to people all the time, and every day I dreaded that it would finally be me telling someone that their loved one had died. That’s why I took this job. I figured the odds were a lot lower that I would have to do anything like that at a small-town clinic.”

“Probably less stress for you too—usually, anyway,” she smiled, and went on to offer, “If it would make you feel better, you’re welcome to stop by anytime to check up on me.”

Yoba, if he kept bouncing between fear and affection so quickly, he worried his heart would give out. “I appreciate that, really. I’ll try not to take you up on it too often if I can help it, though.”

She stood up from the table and he did the same, petting Ren one last time before he straightened up.

“I suppose I should get back into town,” he said. “I’ll call you to schedule a time to take your stitches out if I don’t see you sooner.”

“Before you go…” She fidgeted with the edge of her sling by her wrist, her face a little apprehensive but still determined. “I know the last time I did this I wasn’t really thinking, and you weren’t prepared, but,” she held out her good arm, “would you like a hug?”

The gesture caught him off guard: he figured after the confusion from last time, she wouldn’t be volunteering to hug him again anytime soon. But she stood there, arm outstretched, waiting to see if he would accept or not, and even if she was only offering out of pity, he gave in almost immediately.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, trying to disguise the way his voice hitched on the word. “I think I would.”

He stepped into her bubble and felt her hand come up to rest between his shoulder blades as he wrapped his own arms around her, careful to avoid hurting her shoulder. Every place they connected was like a grounding point, steady and warm and relaxing the last of the tightness under his ribs. In its place arose a swell of longing so overpowering he almost buckled under the weight of it. But it felt so right to be in her arms. It felt right to hold her in his.

“Thank you for caring so much about me,” she murmured against his chest. “You’re a good friend.”

The last time she had called him her friend had been at the farm too, but what then had been a welcome revelation now only felt a little disappointing. He made sure not to show it as he pulled back.

“So are you,” he told her with a smile as he hooked the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “It’s nice to know there’s someone willing to listen to me overthink.”

“Like I said, I’m always happy to listen.” Kate followed him to the door, opening it for him as Ren sat sentinel at her feet. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Harvey headed down the porch steps into the cooling autumn afternoon. He’d stayed longer than he meant to, based on the way the sun was now just touching the top of her chicken coop to the west, but it was worth it, he decided, as he turned and waved goodbye to her as she did the same before closing the door once more.

Left on the worn dirt path that led to the porch, Harvey turned around and saw Shane still in the front field, now up by the fence as he took a long drink from a reusable water bottle. Harvey hoped there was actually water in it.

They made eye contact, with Harvey giving him a brief nod as Shane frowned at him, though it carried a little less annoyance than usual.

“You doing ok?” he asked, leaning against the gate. “You look sunburned.”

For the first time since stepping out of the house, Harvey took notice of the heat that had spread over his face—really throughout his entire body, as he felt the flush stretch to the back of his neck and down his chest. He pulled the strap of his medical bag tighter around his body.

“Y-yes, I’m fine, thank you,” he answered in a rush, and started in the direction of town before Shane could sniff out his nervousness for what it was. “Have a good afternoon!”

He sped down the tree-lined path in record time, long strides taking him closer and closer to Pelican Town nearly twice as fast as usual. As the clinic—now closed for the day—came into view, Harvey realized that he had finally come to terms with two things.

One, his interest in Kate was very, very real.

And two, that meant he was in deep, deep trouble.  

Notes:

Well Harvey, you tried (and crumbled pretty quick).

Then again if I told myself I wasn't going to acknowledge a crush on someone and then had that someone listen to me vent about my anxiety with no judgement and then hug me about it, I would also fold immediately.

Also Shane's here! I mean the guy lives on a ranch, there's no way he doesn't know his way around some produce too. And Marnie absolutely did force him to volunteer to help Kate. He'll get over it later.

Chapter 21

Having now experienced both a head and shoulder injury at the same time, Kate didn’t think she would be recommending it to anyone in the future.

If the mental fatigue and lingering fogginess from the concussion weren’t bad enough, making her first couple weeks after the accident a frustrating, slow-moving ordeal, only being able to use one hand on top of it definitely took the cake. The fact that it was her dominant hand too only made it worse; brushing her teeth had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

She tried not to let the setback discourage her too much, but after months and months of hard work and constant effort to make the farm into something wonderful again, taking even an unwilling break felt like wasted time. There was a part of her now that didn’t recognize herself if she wasn’t doing something productive either on the farm or elsewhere around town. And sitting around the house was more and more frequently—each time with a cold shiver of dread down her back—calling to mind her days at Joja, sitting at a desk staring at a harsh computer screen all day only to go home and find herself aimless and alone in her apartment at night.

She probably would have said to hell with her injuries and tried getting back to work within the first few weeks of getting hurt if it weren’t for Harvey. During the few appointments she had with him following his visit to the farm, he would continue to remind her, always in the same gentle, understanding tone, that the process would only take longer if she tried to push through it and go back to her normal workload before she was ready.

“I know how frustrating this is for you, but I promise it’ll be worth it,” he had said while he was removing her stitches about a week after his visit, snipping the threads on her arms and side free with a steady hand. His smile was always sympathetic and patient. “Everything is still healing really well, so if you keep it up, you’ll be as good as new in no time.”

If it had been anyone else attempting to soothe her frustrations and reminding her to slow down, it would have only made her more antsy to get back to the farm. But after their conversation at her house, seeing and hearing the fear that still clung to him from the accident, she finally realized how shaken everything had left him and how much he cared about her, and it had all but doused the agitated fire within her. She couldn’t shake the inklings of guilt that still gnawed at the corners of her mind, either; even if Harvey didn’t blame her for getting hurt in the mines, she couldn’t give him another reason to worry about her, not after he had been so open with her about it.

So she did little jobs around the house to keep herself occupied as much as possible: preserving some of her last fall crops so she could use them through the winter, sorting through a few of her grandpa’s old things still left upstairs, plotting out next spring’s fields and a potential location for a barn. There was always a persistent, restless energy in her limbs, always eager to go out and put itself to use, but she tempered the itch anyway as best as she could, at least comforted knowing she would be making Harvey happy.

Having Shane and Alex around to lend a hand helped too. They’d both separately appeared at her front door the day after the accident, offering to keep an eye on things while she was recovering so nothing would fall behind before the end of fall. She had hesitated initially: a little stubborn part of her was irked at the idea of needing anyone’s help running the farm, even temporarily. But her logic demanded that there was no way she would be able to do it on her own in her condition, and so she had relented to letting them help, with Alex checking things over in the mornings and Shane coming by after work.

But they had both ended up being capable farmhands, to her mild surprise. Alex was a little less experienced around a farm but was happy to help move feed bags and fix fences. After some guidance from her, he was even quick to learn how to check crops for damage and collect fruit from the cave every couple days. Pretty soon he was doing his rounds in the morning without needing to ask her any questions at all, and it made her feel oddly proud to see him catching on, alongside his enthusiasm when it came to learning how everything worked.

Shane of course was a natural around a farm. Kate had almost forgotten that living on a ranch would have taught him most of the same skills that she had learned in the last seven or so months, and even with his occasional grumbling and complaining about “having a second job to do now,” he still showed up at the farm every afternoon to harvest whatever crops were ready, check the tree tappers and kegs, and care for the chickens. That part he at least never had any complaints about: walking into the coop and finding him there cooing to Viola, Piccolo, and her new black chicken Tone might have been the first time she’d ever seen him smile.

She had offered to pay them after the first day or so, despite not having a ton of extra money saved for something like that. Even a little bit would have made her feel slightly less like a charity case. But they had both firmly turned down the offers—Alex claimed he was getting a workout helping to move tools and supplies around ahead of winter, and Shane outright told her Marnie and Emily would kill him if he took any of her money.

So she had to get a little creative.

The afternoon was chilly when she stepped out onto the porch. The old stove in the kitchen usually kept most of the front rooms nice and warm whenever she cooked, and the heat had insulated her from the late-autumn air until she headed outside for the first time that day, almost swimming in Harvey’s old jacket with her foil-covered plate in hand.

Shane was over by the shipping bin, unloading the last of the pumpkins from a nearby wheelbarrow, the sleeves of his hoodie rolled up past his elbows. He watched her approach with a guarded expression, his hands braced on the edge of the bin.

“You need something?” he asked, his tone hard but not hostile—an improvement from the harsh words and indifferent grunts he used to give her not long after she arrived.

“I just wanted to make you something as a thank you for helping me out these last few weeks,” Kate explained, holding the plate out to him like she was offering a fish to a grumpy grizzly bear. “Emily mentioned you like pepper poppers.”

His eyebrows raised just slightly, an extreme reaction coming from him, as he took the plate and stared at it.

“You… made me food?” he asked, sounding confused and skeptical all at once as he peeked under the foil. “Like real homemade food?”

“Well, mostly: all the peppers I have from summer are either pickled or frozen,” she replied, and gave him a snarky kind of smile. “I had to go and buy peppers from fucking JojaMart instead, so I hope you appreciate them.”

Shane still looked flustered, his forehead deeply creased from his now furrowed brow as his eyes flicked up at her and then back down at the plate in his hands, over and over.

Finally he leveled her with an accusatory glare. “Why are you being nice to me?”

Her mouth fell open a little; she knew him well enough to not expect any showers of gratitude for what was honestly a pretty meager repayment of all the work he’d done on the farm, but she had been at least hoping for some kind of acknowledging nod, or maybe even a single “thanks” if he was feeling generous. She did not anticipate that he would start to question her motives altogether.

“Because you’ve been basically running my farm for me for the last three weeks and I appreciate it?” she more asked than explained, her eyebrows now drawn tight together in confusion too. “I know we’re not best friends or anything, but I’m not going to just not give you something for your effort.”

He shook his head sharply, gesturing around with the hand holding the plate so wildly that Kate was worried he would drop it. “Why? I checked your crops and fed your chickens for a couple weeks—so what?” She couldn’t tell if his scowl was more angry or conflicted at this point as he leaned back against the shipping bin with a tense huff. “I’m an asshole every other day. Hell, I’m an asshole when I’m here too. You can’t actually be grateful enough after all of that to make me food.”

She stood digesting his outburst for a minute, the background sounds of the farm the only noise between them. It would take more time than Kate was able to give to try and explain to Shane why he still deserved to have good things happen to him despite his spiky demeanor most of the time. Instead she joined him next to the bin with a slow, steadying sigh.

“Ok sure, you act like an asshole most of the time; that doesn't mean you're actually as much of a jerk as you seem to want people to think you are,” she told him with a pointed look. “If you were, Emily wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

He scoffed to himself, keeping his eyes on the dirt path under their feet instead of meeting her gaze, but he didn’t try arguing with her either.

“Well it’s kind of hard to be mean to someone that… bubbly,” he grumbled.

“I get that some shit has happened in your life, and you don’t need to tell me about it if you don’t want, but all I’m saying is your ‘don’t talk to me’ attitude isn’t going to scare me off that easily.” She gave him a casual shrug. “I used to deal with worse than you all the time when I did customer service for Joja.”

Shane didn’t respond right away, scuffing one of his shoes against the ground, holding the plate in front of him while his jaw worked. Kate figured he was three seconds from taking off back to Marnie’s and never bringing up the conversation to her again.

But then he let out a heavy breath, some miniscule bit of his distrust seemingly going with it. “Well… thanks,” he mumbled.

She nodded, knowing that was as much of a response on the matter as she was going to get from him. “I know you’ve got enough to do with your actual paying job, and I just didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage of you.”

He flashed her a lopsided smirk. “So I get food and not Alex, huh?”

Kate reached out and smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. “He gets breakfast when he comes by tomorrow morning. I don’t like you that much more than him.”

Shane actually chuckled at that, a rare sound that she found equal parts refreshing and a little jarring coming from him. Slowly and with more than a few awkward pauses, they found themselves in a conversation about the farm and some of her future plans for the next spring, including expanding her flock to include a few more chickens and some ducks. No matter how Shane might have disagreed, the way his spirits always seemed to raise a little when he talked about the things that he loved—whether it was chicken care or Jas and Marnie—was all the proof she needed that he wasn’t really as surly as he would have liked everyone to believe.

Eventually she pulled her phone free from her pocket. When she noticed the time, she gasped in shock.

“Shit, I’ve got to get into town.” She gave him an apologetic grimace. “Sorry for holding you up: I’m sure you were planning to head home anyway.”

“Going to see Harvey?”

“No, I told Lewis I’d meet with him about providing pumpkins for the Spirit’s Eve festival next week,” she said. “I don’t have another appointment with Harvey until after the end of the month.”

He barked out a single short laugh. “Sucks for him, I bet.”

Kate paused, raising an eyebrow at him as she stuck her hands—she’d been freed from the immobilizing sling about four days ago and was already thanking Yoba for having both hands again—into the pockets of her jacket.

“What does that mean?”

Shane just shrugged. “He hovers like a hummingbird whenever you’re around. I’m surprised he hasn’t just set up camp out here with how much he’s into you.”

Even anticipating where he was going with the sentiment, she still groaned in annoyance, a little louder than she meant to, as he blinked at her in surprise. “Yoba, not you too!” she complained as her face went hot, flushing from more than just the cold air. “Haley thought the same thing about me a couple months ago. I don’t know who else I need to tell that we’re just friends!”

He held his free hand up in surrender, wide-eyed and taken aback. “Ok, alright, you’re just friends!” he repeated. “Shit, I was just trying to make conversation. Doesn’t matter to me either way.”

She sighed, pushing down the sudden burst of irritated embarrassment that had washed over her. “Sorry, I just... he doesn’t see me that way. That’s not what our relationship is.”

“Oh-kay, whatever,” Shane drawled, still giving her a cautious side-eye.

Kate picked at a stray thread that had been pulled free from a buttonhole on her jacket, frowning to herself. Haley trying to convince her to that she had feelings for Harvey was one thing—Haley had always liked playing gentle matchmaker with her friends, according to Emily, who’d witnessed her attempts back in high school to get Sam and Sebastian together after learning they both had feelings for each other.

But now Shane suggesting that Harvey had feelings for her, completely unaware of what Haley had told her, left her weirdly spooked. And a little jittery.

“What made you think he was interested in me anyway?”

He gave her a tiny shrug, staring out at her fields in front of him. “Well I’ve seen you two together a lot. And he’s been different lately.”

“Different how?”

He made some vague sound of uncertainty, somewhere between a grunt and a growl. “I don’t know, just different—happier, maybe?” he offered, scowling a little. “The guy’s had to drag me into the clinic to sober up more than once: I don’t make it a habit to ask him how he’s doing emotionally.”

She didn’t say anything right away, still trying to organize her thoughts, and he took the opportunity to straighten up, jamming his free hand into his pocket.

“I need to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He passed her as he started toward the path that led to the forest, only making it to the edge of the closest field before he turned back around, his cheeks just barely tinged pink in the late afternoon light. “I— talking to you was… nice, just so you know.” He lifted the plate of pepper poppers a little higher. “I’ll bring the plate back tomorrow.”

With that he trudged off toward the south, and Kate was left by herself leaning up against the shipping bin.

She knew well enough that the others’ interest in her and Harvey’s relationship was more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, but it was still strange that even people like Shane were finding any kind of deeper meaning in their interactions. Of course they were together a lot: friends tended to spend time together, as far as she knew. And he was her doctor as well, and knowing what she knew now about how worried he’d been for her, it made sense he would be more interested in her well-being.

As for whether he was happier now that she was in the valley… well, that she couldn’t speak on. Maybe he was happier—she was certainly happier being around someone who understood her like he did, who cared about her and made her laugh. Friends did all of that too; just because she enjoyed his presence didn’t mean her feelings were anything more than platonic.

She chose to believe that the same occasionally over-enthusiastic interest in gossip and intrigue that possessed the local moms might live in everyone in Pelican Town to some extent. It was the only reason she could come up with for why everyone seemed to insist there was something more between her and Harvey.

She checked her phone again and released a forceful sigh.

“Lewis is never going to shut up about this,” she muttered, and began the walk to Pelican Town.

Notes:

In Kate's defense, she is right that spending a lot of time with someone of the opposite gender, or any gender, doesn't necessarily mean that that relationship has to be romantic. Friendships are just as important and meaningful as romantic relationships are.

It's just that in her particular case she is... wrong, lol

Chapter 22

Notes:

Heads up: one brief mention from Kate about thinking about hitting someone. A little spookiness from the atmosphere of Spirit's Eve and some of the monsters/costumes but nothing graphically gory or unsettling

Spirit’s Eve in Pelican Town was clearly a community-wide affair, Kate quickly realized, as she came around the corner of the path from the farm into the dimly lit town square decorated in oranges and purples, several of her pumpkins scattered around and now carved with ghoulish grins.

Like the other festivals she’d attended, it seemed like everyone in town was present, some of them even wearing costumes for the holiday. She spotted Jas, unsurprisingly wearing a sparkling purple princess gown and matching tiara, running from table to table collecting candy while a pirate that looked a lot like Vincent dashed after her, their shared laughter mingling with the other conversations filling the square. Elliott and Leah were talking by the saloon, the former wearing a long dark cape and frilly shirt like a vampire out of one of those old movies and the latter dressed in patch-covered work clothes, straw poking out from her collar and from beneath her hat.

Even a few of the older adults were dressed for the occasion: Marnie wore a pointed witch’s hat and black dress, helping to serve the seemingly endless food that Gus had prepared, while Lewis stood nearby, dressed in a cowboy hat and boots with a gold sheriff’s star pinned to a vest.

“Hey Kate!” Across the square Abigail was waving in her direction, her face painted with sickly greens and deep reds like a horror movie zombie. She and most of the other young adults were huddled around one of the back tables, avoiding the bigger crowd and their parents. As the others turned with Abigail’s waving, Kate saw Sam and Sebastian wore similar zombie makeup, their clothes worn out and cut up to look old and tattered.

Abigail frowned as Kate came closer, hands on her hips in mock annoyance. “Boooo! You didn’t dress up!”

She looked down at the plain hoodie she wore underneath her jacket to keep out the cold of the nearing winter weather. “I didn’t really have anything good to wear. All my clothes are basically overalls and old T-shirts now.”

It was mostly true, but she didn’t add how she had been so busy bottling and labeling her latest batch of wine that she had forgotten about the festival until only a few hours before—even if she had wanted to put together a costume, she wouldn’t have had the time.

Sebastian shrugged from beside Abigail. “It’s cool, Alex didn’t dress up either.”

“I did too!” Alex cried, indignant, and gestured to his gridball uniform, complete with pads and helmet. “I’m a Tunnelers player!”

Haley rolled her eyes next to him. Her blonde waves were pulled up into a ponytail as she was dressed in pinks and purples like one of the fashion dolls Kate and probably ever other little girl in the country had as a kid. “That barely counts: you’re just wearing your intramural gear from last year and one of your fan jerseys.”

While Alex, Haley, and Sebastian all launched into good-natured bickering, Sam and Abigail turned back to Kate.

“Have you checked out the maze yet?” Sam asked, scratching at some of the paint on his cheek. “It’s actually pretty cool. There’s supposed to be this sick prize at the end, but I don’t think anyone’s ever found it.”

“Well Sebastian says he got to the end once when he was, like, 12,” Abigail added with a scoff. “He’s probably lying, since he refuses to tell us what the prize actually was.”

“Maybe I can be the one to solve the mystery then,” Kate replied with a grin. “Where’s the maze set up?”

“Around the community center.” Sam pointed behind her toward the hill to the north, the old building’s roof a stark shadow against an already black sky. As run-down and decrepit as it looked in the daylight, it only looked creepier at night, the darkened windows and cracked siding feeling especially ominous considering the holiday.

Kate turned back to the group with a smile that was a touch less confident. “Ok, wish me luck.”

As she headed for the maze, stopping a few times to exchange hellos with a few of the other townspeople, she finally took notice of a large, barred enclosure in front of Pierre’s. Four skeletons from the mines stalked around inside, hissing at anyone who got too close. Emily stood just to the side, watching the monsters with a mix of fascination and fear.

“Freaky, aren’t they?” Kate said as she came up next to her, making Emily jump with a frightened squeal, the iridescent wings of her fairy costume fluttering with the motion.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she exclaimed with a light glare, arms crossed over her shimmery gossamer dress, before her expression dropped back into wariness watching the skeletons rattle and growl. “It’s just so… eerie the way they move. Their whole aura feels uneasy.” She rubbed her thumb over a small amethyst stone in her hand.

“They’re not really as scary as they look,” Kate reassured her, but even she couldn’t help but stare as one drew closer than the rest, brandishing its jagged bone sword, hissing at the two of them from the other side of the bars. For the first time, Kate felt a creeping dread snake its way through her insides as the creature stood there and watched her.

Emily shivered next to her. “I just know one of these guys is going to show up in my dreams tonight; I’m going to go find Shane.” She waved goodbye to Kate and disappeared back into the crowd.

Kate stood face to face with the skeleton, her eyes darting between its dark empty sockets and the sword clutched in its bony hand. She remembered the icy pain of that sword slashing against her skin. She almost swore she could feel it then standing in the square, and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself.

“Careful not to get too close to the bars.”

Marlon was posted up next to the cage, keeping an eye on everyone who came near to make sure there weren’t any accidents. He nodded to the skeleton that stood against the side of the enclosure. “They’ll reach through and grab ahold of you if you’re not careful, and they’re a hell of a lot stronger than they look.”

Kate rubbed her right shoulder. “Yeah, thanks.” She took a step back from the skeletons, moving closer to him instead. “How do you even get them up here from the mines?”

“Very carefully,” he chuckled, and while she wouldn’t really describe anything about Marlon as “soft,” his one uncovered eye did look at her a little more gently than usual. “I heard about what happened to you in the mines a few weeks ago. I hope you’re doing alright.”

“I’m doing pretty good,” she answered with a shrug. “Harvey says I should be about healed up by now. I, uh, haven’t been back down to the mines yet though.” She spared one more glance back at the skeleton that had finally moved on to growl at the other people walking by the other side of the cage. “I might take a break from that for a little bit longer.”

“The creatures down there get the best of everyone sooner or later,” Marlon said, nodding with the understanding of someone who had likely suffered far worse injuries during his long tenure in the adventurer’s guild. “If you ever want someone to practice sword fighting with though, I’d be honored to give you a hand.”

He was far from the first in town to offer her help after the accident. Along with Shane and Alex helping around the farm, Marnie had brought Kate cat food for Ren “on the house” a few days after the accident, just to make sure she didn’t run out before she could lift a new bag. And Evelyn—with almost uncanny consistency—always seemed to have food for her whenever Kate bumped into her around town. Even Clint had knocked a little off the prices on his ore for her since she couldn’t mine her own. Not to mention everyone else who always asked how she was recovering every time she had come into town in the last month or so.

The care and concern certainly made her feel loved; she would never have received so much help or well-wishing from the people she had surrounded herself with in Zuzu City, and for a time it was nice to know how many of her neighbors were willing to lend her a hand. But she had started shying away from the attention after a while. She knew they only meant well, but the constant offers to help had started to make her feel like she was some fragile thing now, or some damsel suddenly incapable of caring for herself, and it made something deep within her itch to hurry up and get better already so she wouldn’t have to feel like a charity case anymore.

But with Marlon, his offer didn’t strike that sensitive nerve the way some other offers had. For him accidents like hers were an unavoidable part of life—it made sense he would want her to build the skills she would need to go back down into the mines eventually.

“Thanks, Marlon. I’ll probably take you up on that.”

He gave her a wistful smile. “I remember having to teach your grandpa a thing or two about protecting the valley back when we were younger,” he said, and as his smile grew a little more mischievous, he added, “I’ve got more than a couple stories about him getting into trouble with monsters too that I’d be happy to share some time.”

“I can believe it,” she replied with a laugh. “I’ll stop by sooner or later to hear them. Enjoy the festival.”

She continued up the stone stairs toward her original destination and was immediately floored at how impressive the maze looked even from the outside. Tall hedges obscured most of the green where the community center sat, the entrance marked with two glowing lanterns that made the darkness within it even more foreboding. Kate wondered how the town was even able to create such an ornate maze in a little over a day—she was at least curious where they had managed to get real hedges.

With a quick breath, she started attempting to navigate the maze, hugging the inside of the path to try and keep herself from getting turned around. It was simple at first, her hand running through the leafy walls, passing the town fountain and some impressive spider decorations that left even her, with her general respect for insects, feeling uneasy as she gave them a wide berth.

But her plan fell apart eventually as she hit one too many dead ends and found herself somewhere in the middle of the maze, unsure where she was supposed to go next. She tried to find the wall she had been following—what was the trick? Always turning left or right?—but even nearly a month after the mine incident, she still struggled to concentrate at times when there were too many things to focus on, and after passing the same spider decorations two more times, she threw her hands up in frustrated surrender.

“Forget it,” she muttered. “Whatever the prize is, it’s probably not worth this.”

She hurried down what she hoped was the path that led back to the entrance, trying not to think about the dark corners she was passing by or some of the haunted houses she had gone to in the city where actors would jump out whenever she least expected it. If this entire thing had just been an excuse for Alex or Sam or one of the other boys to suddenly pop out of a hedge and scare her, she was going to deck them.

It was as she was turning another corner, one she was mostly sure only led to another dead end, that she collided with another body and jumped back with an undignified shriek, met with a slightly deeper one from the other person, who nearly fell into the hedge wall next to them.

“Harvey?” She watched him right himself with a wheezing groan as he caught his breath, almost leaning against the hedges behind him. “Yoba, are you ok?”

“I-I’m fine,” he stuttered, one hand pressed to his heart, and even in the dark of the maze she could tell his face was paler than normal, more than just from the brief scare of running into her. “I-I’ve been going around in circles for a while and I’m just—I’m a little on edge.”

“I got turned around too,” she confessed. She watched his fingers tap furiously against his arms as he crossed them over his chest. “Come on, we can find the way out together.”

For a moment he gave her a wide-eyed, almost grateful look, still standing up against the leafy walls of the maze, before he nodded, his shoulders dipping from their tense position up by his neck. “Y-yeah, ok. Thank you.”

They left the dead-end path and started winding through the maze again, trying to keep as close to the right as possible as the sounds of people talking and laughing off to that side grew louder. Harvey seemed to relax little by little now that they were navigating together, but he still startled at every noise around them in the maze, hesitant of each corner they turned and each dark shadow that fell along the path.

“I take it you’re not a huge fan of the maze, huh?”

He huffed out a short, self-conscious laugh. “I don’t know why I keep trying to finish it. Every year I think I’ll be fine, and every year I end up spiraling thinking something is going to pop out at me from behind every corner, and I just wind up lost.”

“I didn’t make it any further than the spider decorations.” She peeked down a path in front of them that looked to loop further into the maze before continuing straight. “I got excited when Abigail and Sam started talking about some prize at the end, but I don’t think I even came close to the finish.”

“Well I’m glad you found me and not one of them,” he said, his eyes tracking every moving branch and flickering decoration around them. “They already think I’m crazy because I keep going in even when I just end up panicking.”

“I don’t think they’re ones to talk,” she told him with a light grin. “Apparently they’ve never finished the maze either.”

He gave her a grateful, slightly amused smile at that, his eyes a little brighter even in the dark of the maze. She fell more in step with him, their shoulders nearly brushing as they slowly walked the maze, the light of the town square starting to reach them within the tall walls.

As Kate finally recognized some of the first few turns she had taken when she entered the maze, the leaves ahead of them rustled and shook, as something came charging full speed in their direction from beyond the next corner. Blind terror overcame her, her brain positive that the horror actors she had envisioned earlier during her paranoid wandering had somehow manifested into reality. On instinct she grabbed Harvey’s arm, hiding her face against him in dread-filled anticipation of whatever monstrosity was about to crash into them.

But instead of monsters or gory serial killer characters, Alex and Sam rounded the corner, sprinting into the maze without concern for where they were going. They both pulled up short as they nearly bowled Harvey and Kate over, just barely dodging them as they continued running past.

“Whoa, sorry!” Sam was at least aware enough to shout over his shoulder before they both disappeared among the hedges, leaving Kate and Harvey once again shaken from an unexpected scare.

She let out a deep, wavering sigh as her heart pounded in her chest, and only then realized that she not only still had a death grip on Harvey’s upper arm, but that he had turned toward her in fear as well, his hand on her bad shoulder, pulling her a little closer like he was trying to shield it, and her, from whatever might have come barreling toward them. She could feel the slightest tremor in his body from where they held on to each other.

Their eyes met as they froze in place, a beat passing between them before he released his hold.

“Sorry, I— I wasn’t thinking,” he hurried to apologize, shoving his hands into his pant pockets like they would reach out and grab her again of their own volition.

“Don’t be; guess we’re both still jumpy.” A blush had crept over her cheeks and ears as she kept her eyes forward, embarrassed to have clung to him like a little girl afraid of the dark.

They reached the entrance in a couple more turns, stepping into the town square again with immediate relief.

“Glad that’s over,” she announced, turning toward Pierre’s shop cart parked near the path to the farm. She avoided looking in the direction of the skeletons on the other side.

“I’m sorry you had to help guide me out,” Harvey said quietly, looking more than a little embarrassed himself. “This is probably a sign I need to give up on the maze for good this time.”

“I really didn’t mind, Harvey,” she said. As unpleasant as the experience had turned out to be, finding him may have been the only good part of it. “Next year we can go in together—maybe then we’ll stand a chance of finding the prize.”

One end of his mustache quirked up a little. “We’ll see. I don’t doubt you’d be able to find it, at least.”

“I just didn’t expect it to be so extensive,” she said, gesturing behind them. “How do Lewis and the others even have time to set all of this up?”

“Actually, the man who lives out at the edge of Cindersap Forest puts the maze together each year,” Harvey explained, though his eyebrows were starting to draw together in confusion too. “He’s always done it by himself. I’m not sure where he gets all the decorations and hedges each year either, now that you mention it.”

Knowing the wizard put together the maze in truth told her everything she needed to know about how he was able to set everything up so quickly, but that was a conversation she certainly didn’t plan on having with Harvey in the midst of all the Spirit’s Eve spooks and scares, if ever.

Abigail and Haley approached the maze entrance then, the former spotting Kate immediately and giving her a grin, which came off less excited and more unsettling given her makeup.

“So? What’s the prize at the end of the maze?”

Kate looked up at Harvey for a moment before she shrugged at Abigail. “Sorry, they swore me to secrecy as soon as I found it. I'm actually forbidden from telling you.”

“What!? Come on!” Abigail gawked at her in shock and mild offense as Kate laughed and Haley scoffed in fond exasperation at both of them. “You can’t betray me too!”

“If you finish the maze, you can join the club too,” Kate replied with an innocent smile. “Trust me, it’s worth it.”

Abigail gave her the middle finger, though there wasn’t any real anger behind it, and led Haley into the maze with renewed determination.

“Are you planning on telling her the truth eventually?” Harvey chuckled after the other two had disappeared. “No judgement from me either way, but I can’t imagine she’ll be any more impressed with you if she finds out you’re messing with her.”

“I’ll tell her after Spirit’s Eve, but I think it’s her turn to wander around the maze for a while.” She took a step in the direction of the town square, giving Harvey a tentative look. “Do you want to come with me to go find Emily and the others, or are you socially tapped out for the night?”

She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had declined after their stressful experience in the maze, but instead he took a step after her.

“I think I’ve got another hour or two in me,” he answered, but then pulled back a little, his eyes flicking past her toward the square as if a sudden wave of uncertainty hit him, before adding more slowly, “I mean, if you’ll all have me.”

“Of course we will,” she promised. “Emily and Leah and Elliott like talking to you as much as I do. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

He smiled again, the one that always made her feel like she couldn’t help but smile back at him, and together they left the maze behind to find their friends in the in the warmer glow of the festivities.

Notes:

Hello I'm not dead

Had some struggles figuring out the order of my next couple chapters and then had some life stuff that had me busy for the past couple weeks, but I'm happy to have this little interlude Spirit's Eve chapter done for you all!

Some of the costumes are a reference to Tumblr user tamatosss's very good and sweet art of the bachelors' and bachelorettes' various outfits (like this one). Also Haley is supposed to be Barbie but I couldn't think of a good in-world name for what their version of Barbie would be sooo

Gonna be taking another quick break from this while I work on prompts for OC Week for the Stardew Fanfic Writers Guild on Tumblr, so look out for those, and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled obliviousness that Kate and Harvey are currently exhibiting :)

Chapter 23

The clinic bell sang out as Kate pushed through the door, smiling at the bright, joyful grin Maru gave her.

“Hey! You’re looking better and better each time I see you,” Maru declared from behind the counter. “How are you feeling?”

“Almost as good as new.” She rolled her shoulder to demonstrate, still a little gingerly, but smooth enough to show how the muscle and ligaments had healed.

It had been almost a month since the accident, about the end of the line for her recovery period, and she had never before been more eager to get through an appointment, if only to get Harvey’s final blessing to return to running the farm full-time. Even as she had slowly improved, able to go longer and longer without getting fatigued and gaining more and more of her strength in her arm back, all she could think about was needing to get back to the fields and gather supplies for Robin for a barn. The anticipation was like near-constant bees buzzing just beneath her skin.

“Doctor Harvey’s still on his lunch break; he should be down pretty soon,” Maru told her, looking over her shoulder in the direction of the hallway.

“That’s fine, I can hang out for a little while,” Kate replied, taking a seat against the wall of the waiting room.

She watched as Maru returned to fiddling with a little gear box in her hands, using a delicate screwdriver to adjust tiny springs and wires, the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips. Kate had seen some of her inventions and projects the few times that she had ventured past Robin’s carpentry shop and deeper into their home, and in the last month she had had frequent conversations with Maru about her creations while waiting for her appointments. Seeing what the young woman was capable of making with her hands and ingenuity, and hearing her ramble excitedly about every new idea and schematic she created, Kate wouldn’t be surprised if another 10 or 15 years from now, she was hearing about Maru’s inventions on a much larger scale.

Nearly 10 minutes went by of Kate sitting there before Maru looked up at the clock with a small frown, turning again toward the hallway.

“He’s not usually late like this,” she mumbled to herself, even checking the time on her phone next to her at the counter.

“Is he in his apartment?” Kate asked, getting up from the hard plastic chair as she did.

Maru nodded as she opened up the messaging app on her phone as if to text him. “He’s usually pretty punctual if he’s having lunch upstairs. He must have gotten distracted by something.” She had just started typing out a message when her thumbs paused, her eyebrows raising as some idea crossed her mind, and she turned to Kate. “Actually, would you go up there and just knock on the door or something? I have to stay here in case someone calls or walks in, otherwise I’d just do it myself.”

“Me?” Kate cast a cautious glance toward the double doors that led to Harvey’s apartment stairs. Even if they were friends, he’d never invited her to his apartment before, and knowing him, that wasn’t a relationship benchmark she wanted to force upon him. “Is that… appropriate?”

Maru shrugged. “You don’t have to go in, just knock to shake him out of whatever rabbit hole of reading or paperwork he managed to fall down up there.”

Kate still hesitated for a moment, a knot of nerves tying itself into a ball in the pit of her stomach. Going up to his apartment, even just to the door, inspired a similar feeling as to when she had stumbled upon him in Caroline’s aerobics class earlier that summer: embarrassment and anxiety, like she was seeing or doing something she wasn’t allowed to. It was as ridiculous as it was last time; she wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, and like Maru said, all she had to do was tap on the door to get his attention.

“Ok, sure,” she finally agreed, starting down the hallway. “Be back in a minute.”

She took quick steps up the stairs until she found herself in front of a plain brown door—unassuming, nonthreatening. Before she could get too much in her own head again, she rapped lightly against the wood.

“Harvey? It’s Kate. Maru asked me to make sure you were coming down for my appointment?”

There wasn’t any response, and she leaned a little closer, listening for any signs of movement. Muffled through the door she thought she heard Harvey’s voice reading off… coordinates, or something? There was more silence, then a barely audible gasp from him as he continued speaking much more excitedly, nearly stumbling over his own words. She smiled a little to herself at the joy in his tone, could almost imagine the look on his face at whatever had him so enthralled he had lost track of time.

But she hadn’t been sent upstairs to listen through a door. She knocked again, a little louder this time. “Harvey, can you hear me?”

Again nothing, and this time she reached a tentative hand to the doorknob, telling herself there was no harm in just checking. It turned with ease, creaking open just enough that Kate could see Harvey sitting at a desk on the far side of the room, adjusting knobs on a complicated-looking radio with a large set of headphones covering his ears. No wonder he didn’t hear her.

She wavered in the partially open doorway for what felt like an agonizingly long moment of indecision. He wasn’t going to hear her unless she went inside the apartment, and she had told Maru she was going to get his attention. So despite the curl of nerves in her stomach of how he would react, she pushed the door fully open.

“Harvey?” She took a few steps inside. “Harvey!” A few more steps—she was almost halfway across the apartment now, its studio layout forcing everything close together.

It seemed cozy at a quick glance: a small couch and matching chair in one corner set up around an old TV set; a table opposite of that, scattered with papers and mail and what looked like more than a few medical journals. A twin bed was tucked up against the far wall, its dark blue bedspread neatly made.

It was when she was just barely close enough to reach out and touch his shoulder that he finally turned around and promptly jolted back in surprise with a strangled kind of yelp when he saw her standing there. She jumped back too, pulling her hand back sharply to her chest.

“Wh-what are you doing in here!?” He yanked his headphones off, his eyes wide and darting between her and the radio with a nervous, tense energy.

She took another step back, hands up as if in surrender, her face furiously warm with a fast-spreading blush. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be in here!” she apologized. Yoba, she would have rather died than stand there with him looking at her like that, his face contorted into a mix of embarrassment and a slight amount of suspicion. “Maru asked me to come up and try to get your attention since your lunch break ended, but you couldn’t hear me through the door with the headphones.”

His gaze drifted past her to a clock on one of the walls, and she watched his eyes go even wider in realization.

“Oh, not again,” he sighed with a frown. The surprise and shock had melted from his face, leaving his expression one of sheepish regret instead. “I’m sorry Kate, I completely lost track of time.”

“What is all this equipment anyway?” She moved closer again, gesturing to the radio on his desk. Parts of it reminded her of the CB radios that truckers used, able to connect with others while out on the road.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze flitting away from her to a far corner of the room. “Well I— I use it to try and connect to pilots flying overhead,” he explained, his fingers moving to trace the edge of his collar. “I actually managed to talk to one right before you came in.”

It was at that point, once she wasn’t worried about technically trespassing in his apartment anymore, that she finally took notice of all the model planes around the room. A few sat on shelves lining the walls while others poked out between books squeezed into a bookcase by his bed, and she spotted the remnants of a few model sets on the table under scraps of paper. There were also maps of the valley, and beyond, and diagrams and posters of different types of planes hung up all throughout the room.

He watched as she took everything in, still looking at her with a wary kind of tension. “I know it’s not the coolest thing to be interested in,” he said, then added with a short, nervous laugh, “Definitely not as interesting as Sebastian and his motorcycle.”

The implication in his words dragged her attention back from the models and posters. He was fiddling with the cord on his headphones, staring at his feet instead of where she stood only a foot or two away from him. She couldn’t really bring herself to be fully surprised that he would worry about what she thought of his hobby—she’d seen his anxiety in action enough times to know how much he fretted over what people thought of him, and how he tried his best to fit in even when the others in town didn’t seem to “get” him the way that she did. Still, the realization made her heart sink a little all the same.

“Harvey, you know I would never make fun of you for liking planes, right?”

He winced at the question, as if just hearing his worry echoed back to him was enough to make him realize how it sounded, and sat back with a resigned sigh.

“No, of course not; I just…” he worried his lip between his teeth, as if caught between multiple attempts to try and explain himself, before he landed on spreading his hands helplessly in front of him. “Well, you know me: that’s the kind of stuff I tell myself.”

“Well, I used to knit in middle school and high school, so I can’t really make any kind of judgements on how ‘cool’ other people’s hobbies are,” she told him, and added with a shrug, “besides, every other guy in Zuzu City has a motorcycle these days. It’s really not that edgy of an interest anymore.”

The pull of a smile that twitched at the corner of his mouth was enough to feed some swell of victory in her chest, and oddly, maybe more than a few flutters of something else like butterflies in her stomach.

Then the moment was cut short by a sound that Kate hadn’t heard, or at least hadn’t paid attention to, since she left the city: the droning whir of a low-flying airplane somewhere overhead.

Harvey’s eyes brightened in recognition before she could really process the sound, and he was out of his chair and at the nearby window in an instant. “Here, come look! This must be the pilot I was talking to.”

He beckoned her over, and she squeezed in to look through the bottom of the windowpane, which ended up requiring her to practically press her back against his chest so they could both see. Harvey didn’t seem to notice, too focused on the sky outside, and she tried to lean forward as much as physically possible to avoid any more awkward interactions.

Coming into view high above the community center roof, an already small green plane that looked even smaller against the expanse of blue sky flew over town, passing over the valley on its way somewhere else. Harvey grinned at the edge of her vision, watching through the glass above her, and started pointing out details of the aircraft as it flew by.

“That’s a TR Starbird; they usually have that green body with the yellow underside. They’re meant for personal use, but the military used to try flying them for undercover missions before they became too recognizable.”

His voice was laced with eager excitement again, the kind she had heard through the door, and Kate couldn’t do anything but listen to him go on about different types of planes and how rare it was to see pilots flying so close to the valley and smile to herself at how happy he sounded.

She turned to catch his eye once the Starbird had flown out of sight. “How did you end up getting into aviation?”

“There was an air and space museum not far from where I grew up,” he said, and with the plane gone, finally seemed to notice the position they had ended up in next to the window. She watched his cheeks flush pink as he took a small step back, clearing his throat with a forced cough. “M-my parents took me when I was a kid, and then kept taking me nearly every year when they saw how fascinated I was by all the planes and how they worked.” He looked back up at the sky through the window, some wistful thought giving him a far-away look as it came to mind. “After that I started telling everyone that I was going to be a pilot when I grew up—well into middle school, actually.”

“So how did medicine come into the mix?”

The wistfulness faded as he paused for a beat, staring out the window, before the corner of his mustache turned up in a wry smirk. “When I realized I had a near crippling fear of heights. My class went on a field trip to Zuzu City when I was about 13, and one of our stops was the City Center Tower.”

She knew the tower well: the tallest skyscraper in Zuzu, not too far from Joja’s corporate offices where she used to work.

“I’d never actually been that high up before, and when we got to the lookout platform at the top, I took one look down and nearly passed out. One of the teachers had to wait with me in the lobby until it was time to leave. That was the first moment I started to realize being a pilot probably wasn’t going to happen for me.”

Even if it had been over two decades ago, her heart still broke for him. It was easy to imagine how excited a young Harvey had been about being a pilot, about following a passion he’d had since he was little, and just as easy to imagine how absolutely crushed he must have been to realize that dream couldn’t come true. Maybe it was just because he wore his emotions so plainly on his sleeve, but it was like she could almost picture him as a boy, sitting outside some building in Zuzu City, heartbroken that he would be confined to a life on the ground after all.

The devastation she felt must have been obvious on her face, because when he glanced over at her again, he gave her a more reassuring smile. “Don’t feel too bad; I made peace with not becoming a pilot a long time ago. Besides, a few years later I found out that with my eyesight, no program would have accepted me anyway. I’m more than content with my career as a doctor.”

“Still, I’m sorry it wasn’t meant to be,” she told him. Then with a deep sigh, she added, “I know what it’s like to have to give up on a dream like that.”

His gentle smile dropped into a confused frown in an instant. “What do you mean?”

For a split second she almost immediately regretted bringing it up. He’d told her all about his failed career aspirations; she knew it was only fair that she tell him about hers. But still she found herself bracing for the expected wave of dread that always seemed to come whenever she had the choice to be vulnerable.

Until that dread didn’t come, and Kate almost reeled at the internal stillness she felt instead without her brain and body warning her she was about to make some mistake. She didn’t feel scared, or cornered, or uncomfortable. She didn’t feel any different than she had before offering up a part of her own history. It was almost foreign after only knowing the opposite for so long.

She noticed Harvey still watching her, his face scrunched up in growing concern as she just stood there, and she took another deep breath as she leaned back against the wall.

“I was studying history in the city; I’d wanted to be a historian or a museum curator for years,” she said, “but the master’s program at Zuzu University was too expensive, even with scholarships, and they didn’t offer any tuition reimbursement for the program. I tried to get some entry-level jobs at local museums hoping I could work my way up with experience, but everything that I was qualified for didn’t pay enough to stay in the city.”

Years later she still remembered the feelings of bitter disappointment after each and every rejected application, all while living off a bare-bones salary and hoping something better would come along. “I found an opening at Joja after a lot of failed applications thinking it would be a temporary thing, and then I stayed there for three years, ended up burning out, and decided to come here.”

It was his turn to look at her with sad, sympathetic eyes, and for once she didn’t feel pitied for it. She felt understood.

“I’m sorry you went through all that after putting in so much work,” he said.

She gave him a half-shrug. “Helping Gunther with the museum has been kind of a nice wade back into it. I’m hoping to do more there during the winter when I’m not as busy on the farm.”

“That’s good; I’m glad you’ve been able to do something that makes you that happy again.” He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses, until he spared a glance down at the watch on his wrist and grimaced at the time. “And now we’re extremely late to start your appointment.”

Kate sucked a breath in through her teeth as she looked over at the clock on the wall. “Yeah, I told Maru I’d only be a minute; Yoba knows what she thinks we’ve been doing this whole time.” 

Harvey’s entire face suddenly went tomato red, and Kate just stared at him, lost, until Shane’s unhelpful voice and the conversation they’d had about her and Harvey a couple weeks earlier crawled its way back into her mind. If Shane of all people had thought they were interested in each other, she could only imagine what Maru might assume. Heat washed over Kate’s face too as Harvey took long strides toward the door.

“W-well, we probably shouldn’t keep her waiting any more then,” he announced. Despite the awkwardness, he still held the door open for her, as gentlemanly as ever.

She stepped into the stairwell, Harvey just after her, and turned as he locked the door behind them. “Thanks for showing me all your radio equipment.”

He smiled back at her, genuine compared to the forced casualness in his voice and step a moment before. “You’re welcome. It was nice to share it with someone else. You’ll have to show me your knitting sometime too, if you want.”

She gave him a halfway strangled smile in return. “I haven’t actually done any knitting since I started college; I’ve just never had the time since then,” she admitted as they got to the clinic hallway’s double doors. “Maybe that could be another winter project of mine.”

“Well, from a doctor’s perspective, having a hobby is good for your mental health,” he told her while they walked to the exam room, stopping just outside the door. His hand flexed over the door handle, his eyes focused more on the floor than her face. “And… as your friend, I think you should have some things that are just for you. No farm, no community center, just— just what makes you happy.”

The crest of fond affection for him that surged up through her chest, warm and heavy like syrup, caught her off guard. But he was always so earnest when he was honest with her like that, and it always made her feel seen and special in a way that she hadn’t felt in longer than she could even recall. He was sweeter and more charming than he gave himself credit for, she thought. And she really ought to tell him sometime.

“There you are!”

Maru poked her head through the door that led to behind the counter, arms crossed like she was chiding two children who’d been gone from the yard too long. “I was about to come up there after you. What took so long?”

Harvey blushed for at least the third time in the last half-hour, and Kate was almost worried he was going to stay that way permanently if it happened too many more times. He took a step closer to the exam room door, ducking his head a little.

“Nothing Maru, I just— I had headphones on and didn’t hear her knocking. We were just about to start her appointment.”

Something unspoken passed between the two of them: Kate watched Maru raise her eyebrows at him, as if asking some question, and Harvey blushed a little deeper, frowning as he huffed out a little exasperated breath and turned into the exam room, leaving Kate standing between both doorways and wondering what she’d just missed. She looked to Maru, who just gave her a little knowing smile—Kate wasn’t sure what she was supposed to know, exactly—and returned to her spot at the counter.

Kate shook her head to herself. Whatever it was was probably some kind of inside joke she wasn’t going to understand anyway, and she followed after Harvey into the exam room.

Notes:

Anyone jonesing for a heart event? Harvey gets to nerd out. Kate's still oblivious.

This one took longer than I thought, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm hoping to get back on a roll here for the next couple chapters!

Chapter 24

Harvey wasn’t really the type to have a least favorite season. There were pros and cons to each one: spring had new plants but mud and soggy weather; summer was heavy with heat but filled with late sunsets; fall brought changing leaves and decay; and winter was bitter cold and beautifully quiet. He could find something worthwhile in every part of the year if he really wanted to.

But there were three to four weeks out of every year he could have done without.

Flu and cold season always seemed to come with a vengeance no matter how well he tried to prepare. This year hadn’t been so bad, at least not compared to some of his previous years since coming to Pelican Town, but even still, his waiting room had been nearly full to bursting every day for the last few weeks as late fall started to officially transition into winter. Most were people from nearby in the valley who had the means to travel—doctors were scarce in such a rural area, and not everyone wanted to try and get an appointment in Grampleton, or even in the city. The rest were his fellow neighbors who’d either fallen victim to sickness themselves, or a few who were trying to navigate a busy waiting room to get to their regular appointments.

Penny was one of those lucky few; her yearly check-up was at least later in the day, after Vincent and Jas were done with school, so she hadn’t been stuck waiting for the rest of the out-of-towners to get their prescriptions and last-minute flu shots. Still, Harvey couldn’t help but apologize for the wait as he walked her back to the front.

“Hopefully we’ll be back to normal in a couple more days,” he said, pushing his glasses up to his forehead to rub one of his eyes. He’d been rushing around since 7 that morning and had barely had time to sit down for lunch, and the few cups of coffee he’d managed to squeeze in to keep him going had run their course of caffeine hours ago.

“I promise it’s no trouble, Harvey,” she said, giving him a sympathetic once-over. “I hope you’re able to take a break soon. You look exhausted.”

“I appreciate it, Penny, but you don’t need to worry about me.” He gave her an approximation of an easygoing smile. “As long as everyone is healthy—or on their way to healthy—then that’s enough to keep me going.”

She returned the smile, waving goodbye to him and Maru—sitting behind the counter as she had been most of the day—as she left. Harvey waited until the door closed behind her to slouch into one of the waiting room’s stiff plastic chairs.

“I don’t know how you even have the energy to pretend like you have energy,” Maru sighed, sinking into her own chair. She’d been working just as hard as him running the front of the clinic during their hectic few weeks, and was starting to look just as frazzled as he felt.

“Well, it’s not exactly professional to tell a patient that I’m up to my eyeballs in paperwork and last-minute clinic visits.” He stretched forward, feeling more than a few pops in his lower back as he did. “We’ve at least reached the end of the scheduled appointments; I think we’re out of the woods unless another wave of colds comes through.”

“And all these visits mean enough money to get us through until spring,” she added. “We’re running low on syringes and codeine, by the way.”

“I’ll make some calls tomorrow.” He stood up with a yawn, trying to stifle it behind his fist. “You can go ahead and head home for the day. I’ll do restocking and everything when I’m done with the last few patient files.”

Maru perked up a little, already reaching for her bag at her feet. “Thanks, Doctor Harvey.”

As he started straightening up the waiting room, his attention drifted to the window, where he saw Penny had stopped to talk with Kate in the town square. She had a basket tucked under one arm, filled with what looked like eggs from his distance. Something Penny must have said made her laugh, part of her hair slipping back over her shoulder as she threw her head back with a wide grin, and Harvey stumbled as he nearly stacked two chairs on top of each other, paying more attention to the sight out the window than to what he was doing.

He hadn’t seen her much since she had come up to his apartment; the valley-wide respiratory bugs had started going around not long after, and he’d barely set foot outside the clinic building since then. But he’d thought about her; almost daily if he was being totally honest. Everything that had happened upstairs—her complete, nonchalant acceptance of his model plane hobby, her interest in his relationship with aviation, even everything she’d told him about her own career aspirations that didn’t work out—had only poured gasoline on the slow-burning embers of affection he had realized he had for her. He knew plenty well that that brand of kindness should be the bare minimum, but it had been years since anyone had shown as much care as she had for his passions and his history. A small, desperate, animal part of him was more than willing to chew on scraps.

He finished organizing the chairs and peeked back outside just in time to see Kate looking his way, freezing him in front of the glass like a deer in the headlights. She lifted her free hand in a wave, one he just barely managed to return before she turned back to Penny, and the rapid patter of his heart in his chest, all from a simple look, was downright shameful for a man his age.

“You need any help, Doctor Harvey?” Maru appeared at the hall doors that led into the waiting room with an amused smile.

He straightened his white coat with another glance through the window. Kate had already started walking away, disappearing around the corner of the saloon. “No, thank you Maru, I’ve, uh… I’ve got it covered.”

She followed his gaze, her eyes bright with contained laughter behind her glasses. “I can’t believe I thought you were squirrely before you asked her out. I’ve only ever seen you this jumpy on four cups of coffee or more.”

With the casual, blasé way that she said it, as matter of fact as commenting on the weather, he almost glossed over the statement altogether. But as his too-tired mind finally processed the words, his head whipped around to her, gawking at her as his face all but burst into flames, stuttering and stammering over several half-baked, barely cohesive attempts at explanations.

“I-I never— we’re n-not, I mean… that-that’s not—”

Maru narrowed her eyes at him in confusion before a dawning understanding made her whole face go slack. “You did ask her out when you were up in your apartment together, didn’t you?” The teasing look on her face was gone, replaced with a growing disbelief as Harvey buried his face in his hands and prayed that he wasn’t actually having this conversation, that he would wake up in his bed instead, the whole thing just a horribly awkward nightmare.

“Of course I didn’t!” He almost choked on the words once he managed to get them out; his tie suddenly felt oppressively tight, and he pulled it off with a jerk, stuffing it into his coat pocket. “I’m not ruining what might be the best friendship I’ve ever had over some…” he flapped his hands around as if he could pull the right word out of thin air, “some infatuation with her. Just because I like her doesn’t mean I have to tell her.”

Maru planted her hands on her hips, her eyebrows deeply furrowed. “So you’re just going to stare at her through a window for the rest of your life instead? You know there’s no shame in having a crush.”

He cringed at the word—another layer to his embarrassment that made him feel like a little boy sitting at his desk in middle school, staring at the back of some girl’s head and willing her to turn around and look at him so he wouldn’t have to actually talk to her.

“You’re still young, Maru; you don’t understand how rare that kind of close friendship becomes the older you get. And if she doesn’t feel the same way, then…”

He’d been trying not to linger too long on theoretical scenarios where he did confess to her. Statistically, sure, there was a chance she could be interested in him the same way he was interested in her. But the chance that she wasn't, that she would never treat him the same if he dared to ask for something more, was more than enough to terrify him, and he would rather have stayed terrified but certain than hopeful and heartbroken.

The fire behind Maru’s eyes softened a little, and she breathed out a defeated-sounding sigh. “Look, you can do what you want, it’s just I know how happy you are when you’re with her.” She looked up at him again, and there was a more earnest honesty there than he was used to seeing from her. “I want you to be happy.”

He couldn’t help the reassuring smile that he gave her; of all the younger people in Pelican Town, he’d always liked her best. The others were smart, of course, but she was just so quick-witted and clever for her age, and the ideas and inventions she came up with could put some of the medical researchers he’d known in the city to shame. He hoped if she ever had a chance to leave the valley and share her talents with a wider audience she would take it; Yoba knew the world needed more honest, confident, determined people like her in it.

“I know you do. I appreciate how much you try to look out for me, but I can make these decisions for myself,” he told her. “My feelings for her are my responsibility. I promise I’m happy just being her friend.”

She didn’t seem to buy it—he wasn’t even sure that he bought it himself—but she didn’t fight him either, instead shouldering the strap of her bag and heading home for the day with a wave, leaving him behind in the clinic to finish closing up.

To her it probably was simple: if you were interested in someone, you’d be stupid not to at least tell them and see what they say. If he were braver, maybe he’d think the same thing.

Nearly 20 minutes after Maru had left, Harvey heard the bell ring on the front door from back in his office. He’d gotten sidetracked with paperwork after finishing the cleaning and forgotten to lock the door, and a wave of dread washed over him at the thought of another walk-in, especially so late in the afternoon. For split second, even if he knew he’d never do it, a part of him wondered if he could pretend that he wasn’t there, until he heard a voice call out.

“Harvey? Are you still here?”

His heartbeat picked up speed again with the sound of Kate’s voice just as the rest of his body relaxed at the same time, the panic of his earlier conversation with Maru still fresh in his mind alongside the relief of not having another last-minute patient. With a quick, composing breath, he hurried out to the front.

He found her standing near the counter, a to-go coffee cup and a plain little brown bag held in one hand, steam from the drink rising out of the lid and curling through the brown waves of her hair that fell over her coat. It had gotten longer in the last few months, to where it almost reached the middle of her upper arms when she wore it down now. She smiled when she saw him coming, and it didn’t help the stutter of his pulse.

“Hi Kate,” he greeted, one eyebrow quirked at the items in her hand. “Did you need something?”

For the first time since he had met her, her expression suddenly turned almost shy, her smile faltering a little and her eyes darting away as she set the cup and bag on the counter next to him.

“I just wanted to bring you these, actually.” She stepped back from the counter as one of her hands reaching for a lock of hair against her chest, fidgeting with it as she twisted it around her fingers. “I ran into Penny on my way to the saloon and she said you’d been busy lately with all the flu patients. I thought you could use a coffee.”

“Really?” He picked up the cup, the warmth of it seeping into his hands as a separate warmth of sudden affection bloomed in his chest. “That’s— that’s very nice of you.”

Her smile relaxed with his acceptance—he realized then that the last time she had brought him something without asking first, his initial reaction hadn’t been… exactly what she had hoped—and she nodded to the little bag still on the counter. “Emily made me bring you one of Gus’s zucchini muffins too. She said they’re your favorite.”

“She’s not wrong,” he said with a laugh, peeking inside the little bag to see a large, freshly baked muffin waiting there for him. It was enough to make him realize for the first time in a few hours just how hungry he really was. He looked back up at her with a grateful, almost awed smile. “Thank you. This is just what I needed.”

She leaned against the counter as he sat in Maru's chair, the coffee still held in his hands. “I would have brought them over sooner, but Clint kind of cornered me in the saloon.” Her face scrunched up at the mere mention of him, her expression a cross between a grimace and an astonished grin. “He wanted advice on talking to women.”

He couldn’t help it: the image that came to mind of Clint calling Kate over with his usual withdrawn, awkward way of interacting with everyone, trying to get her to give him tips on talking to women as he practically hid at one of the saloon tables, made Harvey snort out a laugh.

“How did you end up becoming Clint’s expert on women?” he asked.

“Yoba only knows,” Kate sighed, shaking her head a little, though he spotted just a glint of amusement in her eyes too. “I think it’s because I’m friends with Emily. He probably thinks if he asks me about dating, I’ll give him some kind of hint or tip on how to get her attention.”

Clint’s massive, one-sided crush on Emily was one of the worst-kept secrets in town. Everyone knew the only reason he went to the saloon as much as he did was to watch her while she worked, apparently trying to work up the courage to ask her out, or just hold a conversation with her at all. He had never done or said anything inappropriate, and Emily had never said anything about him hanging around either, preferring to just politely ignore his obvious anxiousness when he did manage to talk to her. Either way, there was an unspoken rule among everyone else to make sure he never actually crossed a line—and, if they were all being honest, there was a kind of morbid fascination to watching him sit there, frozen between wanting to say something to her and either fumbling through a few awkward interactions or just giving up all together. Like not being able to look away from a bad car accident.

“Well, did you give him good advice?” Harvey asked, grinning over the lid of his coffee.

“I told him that he should just be himself, and that women like it when you just treat them like normal people,” she said, then added with a shrug, “I also tried to gently persuade him that maybe he should try using that advice on someone other than Emily, but I don’t think he really absorbed that part.”

“Don’t worry,” he laughed, “I don’t think anyone’s been able to get him to consider that yet.”

“I don’t know, I still kind of feel bad,” she said, looking back out the window toward the saloon as if she might see him out there. “He’s not that bad a guy, but he obviously gets in his own head too much about what he thinks dating is actually supposed to be like. It’s like he’s just trying to come up with excuses for why he can’t go talk to her: if it’s not something about her being too pretty and nice to be interested in someone like him, then it’s because of his job, or their different interests, or the fact that he’s seven years older than her.”

The last point she listed made Harvey falter, and he tried to hide it behind another sip of coffee. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, he’d worried about the age difference between him and Kate too, during the few late-night battles he’d had with himself about whether or not it was worth it to tell her how he felt. The more rational part of him obviously knew Kate was basically in her 30s, independent and more than capable of handling herself, and not some barely-out-of-college young woman. The less rational part… well, maybe he was more similar to Clint than he wanted to believe, and was just looking for reasons why he couldn’t confess anything to her either.

As much as it was showing his hand, he heard himself asking her in a quiet, hesitant voice, “Do you… do you think an age gap like that is strange?”

“I think Clint is strange,” she said with such conviction he almost choked on another sip of his coffee, “but two consenting adults can do whatever they want. Seven years isn’t that big of a deal at our age anyway.”

He just nodded, and tucked away that little bit of information to dissect later. “Well it’s nice that you want to help him out. He is harmless, just a little… misguided in his romantic life.”

The grin she gave him next was a little too innocent looking for his liking. “I can’t help it; I have a soft spot for socially anxious, introverted men.”

His cheeks burned as she laughed, cheery and playful, and even if it was at his expense he still loved the sound of it. “I’ll take the compliment,” he mumbled, hoping she wouldn’t pay much attention to the blush spreading across his face and down his neck.

“Sorry,” she said with a slightly softer smile. “I do mean it though.” Then her eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall behind him. “I should let you finish locking up for the night. I hope things slow down around here soon.”

“They will. Thanks again for the coffee and the muffin. I’ll return the favor eventually.”

“Don’t worry about it. Have a good night, Harvey.”

She smiled at him again as she left, the bell jingling with her exit as he took a bite of his muffin. It didn’t taste quite as satisfying as it usually did as he watched her turn the corner, heading back towards home.

For a moment he thought he could understand Clint a little better: he didn’t think someone as kind and charming as Kate could possibly want to date him either.

Notes:

rip sorry Clint - at least your awkwardness is bringing Kate and Harvey closer together.

Sometime bits of dialogue for future scenes I want to write will come to me while I'm working on other stuff, so I'll just write them down at the end of the doc. That little bit of dialogue of Harvey asking Kate her thoughts on age differences and her immediate response is actually one of the very first little idea snippets I wrote down back in like January and I'm glad I was able to fit it in still.

Strap in for the next chapter ;)

Chapter 25

Winter settled upon the valley slowly, the cold creeping in bit by bit until Kate finally had to start using her fireplace at home, the old farmhouse still drafty in some of its corners. Her work on the farm was limited to caring for her chickens—and her new duckling Harmony—and making improvements to her fences and sprinklers, plus whatever else she could do to prepare for the spring only a few months away. She’d even started making short, tentative trips back into the mines, though never without letting Marlon or Gil know she was down there. And she still avoided some of the colder tunnels and floors as much as she could—even the thought of them sometimes sent phantom pains through her shoulder.

She put the rest of her focus into gathering the things the Junimos requested for the community center and helping Gunther with the museum collection, and when she wasn’t busy with that, she was doing odd jobs around town and selling whatever fish and foraged goods she could find to keep her afloat until spring. Her mind always drifted back to money eventually, but having consistent tasks before her helped keep her distracted, for once able to actually enjoy some of the quiet of the season and the sparkling frost that gathered on the bare branches, signaling the snow that was soon to come.

Even with the cold, everyone else around town seemed to stay just as busy as Kate did. Sometimes if she went to the museum right away in the morning, she’d see Jas, Vincent, and Penny walking along the path to start their school day, all three of them bundled up against the chilly breeze. Evelyn still took care of the flower beds, even when they were empty, making sure the dormant perennials were well protected from the cold and eventual snow. And the saloon was even livelier on Friday nights as everyone sought out ways to fight against the seasonal depression that always came with the short days and long nights.

And Kate kept finding herself coming back to Harvey. Their paths crossed more as she did more around town: both of them ending up at the saloon for dinner at the same time, running into each other at Pierre’s, finding a few minutes to talk whenever she brought help board deliveries to the clinic. Sometimes she visited just because. Once the flu season crowds dissipated and the clinic was quiet again, she enjoyed having a little haven of peace that she could duck into whenever she felt like it. And he always seemed happy to have someone to talk to when the waiting room was slow and Maru had the day off. In the last two weeks alone, she’d lost track of time sitting there in the clinic with him more times than she cared to count.

It wasn’t any different when she stopped by that morning to bring him a few snow yams and ended up staying until almost noon, wandering around the waiting room chatting away with Harvey while he sat behind the counter filling out paperwork. Somehow they had gotten on the topic of their college days in the city.

“You never ate at the Rooster?!” Kate exclaimed, incredulous, while she watched him finish an order form. “Literally everyone went to that diner. It was the only place near campus open past 11. How did you never go?”

“I didn’t really go out much,” Harvey shrugged with a light smile. “If I wasn’t at the library or in an anatomy lab, I was studying in my dorm room; I barely even saw my roommate. The only times I really went anywhere were when a few classmates would drag me out to bars they liked.”

“My roommate and I went there all the time. It’s some of the best cheap food I’ve ever had in my life.” She could almost taste the 1 a.m. waffles eaten at their favorite booth in the back corner with the cracked vinyl seats, retro music playing over the old speakers as everyone from college students to workers just starting their night shifts to partiers fresh from the night clubs all descended on the little unassuming diner near the college. She was sure some of those waitresses knew her by name by the time she graduated.

“Maybe I’ll make a stop the next time I pass through Zuzu,” he chuckled as he checked his watch. “Speaking of food, I really should go to lunch before someone actually does come in for something.”

The reminder that it was well past time for her to get on with her day sent a little flicker of disappointment sputtering in her chest, but still she smiled at him. “Wouldn’t want you to forget to eat altogether. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Just as she started to turn for the door, however, Harvey stood hurriedly from his chair, almost reaching for her across the counter. “Actually, if you want— well, if you don’t have anything else you need to go do, we could keep talking upstairs?”

She looked back at him with a tempered hesitation. “Are you sure? You don’t have to feel obligated to invite me up.”

“Well you already know about my plane hobby; I don’t have anything else to hide up there,” he pointed out with a small, shy smile and a shrug. “And the way this morning is going, it’s going to be a long, boring day for me. I like having you to talk to.”

Another flicker of… something, somewhere under her ribs, flitted through her as she just nodded and followed him down the hall and up the stairs to his apartment, stopping only to grab the little box of snow yams she’d come in to deliver in the first place.

Stepping through the door was less daunting the second time, and she found herself taking in more of the details of his living space as he disappeared into the attached kitchen. He had a new model plane sitting half-constructed on his dining table, still covered with papers and mail. And she hadn’t noticed before that he had DVDs on the table holding his TV—there were a few she recognized, mostly some old mystery movies and other classics she remembered from her own days in high school and college.

Harvey’s voice called out then from the kitchen. “Do you want a turkey sandwich or peanut butter and jelly?”

“Harvey, you don’t need to feed me. I’m not even that hungry,” she argued, and he poked his head out from around the corner to frown at her, his mustache curving in a way that was almost comical in its exaggeration.

“I didn’t invite you up here just to make you sit there and watch me eat for an hour,” he fired back, raising an eyebrow. “So, turkey or PB&J?”

She let out a mildly frustrated sigh, arms crossed over her chest as she relented. “PB&J. Thanks.”

He disappeared again, this time with a smile that she tried not to let him see her smiling back at, as she wandered over to his bookcase in the meantime, her eyes trailing over the covers of the hardbacks and paperbacks organized there. Most were medical journals or manuals of some kind or another, but she also spotted a few titles that suggested works of fiction—some seemingly historical, others more modern. There were several others on the history of aviation and different plane types, a couple biographies of people she didn’t know, and one she thought might have actually been a romance book that she was absolutely not going to ask him about. But it was clear Harvey was a reader, and one with a wide taste at that; of course it only made sense for someone as smart as he was.

One book in particular caught her eye just as Harvey re-emerged from the kitchen, a plate in either hand. “I hope you’re fine with classic grape jelly because that’s all I have.” He stopped when he saw her pulling the book off the shelf, head tilted in curiosity. “What did you find?”

She held it up to him so he could see the cover. “Do-It-Yourself! Knee Surgery?” she read, staring at him with a look of disbelieving concern.

Harvey just shrugged. “How else was I going to learn?” When her expression only turned more horrified, his own turned panicked as he quickly continued, “Sorry, that was a bad joke. It’s a gag gift I got for Winter Star a couple years ago. I forgot I had it, actually.”

“If I find one that says Do-It-Yourself! Shoulder Re-setting, we’re going to have to have a conversation,” she warned him as she put the book back in its spot on the shelf.

“Technically it would be ‘shoulder relocation.’” He handed her one of the plates—an unassuming but obviously carefully made sandwich sitting upon it—and crossed over to the table, pushing the model set and a few random papers to the side. “And I promise all of my training comes from real textbooks.”

They had both just barely sat down, Harvey’s sandwich halfway to his mouth, when the clinic phone ringing downstairs echoed up the stairwell and through the apartment door that he’d kept open to listen for anyone coming in. He dropped the sandwich back onto his plate with the slow, fortifying exhale of someone who guessed they wouldn't be taking a bite of their meal anytime soon.

“I should go get that in case it’s an emergency,” he told her, already almost out the door as he rushed to answer it. “Don’t worry about waiting for me!”

She smiled, shaking her head to herself as he hurried down the stairs, and picked up the sandwich he’d made her. Even if she had tried to protest, it was a sweet gesture from him; she couldn’t remember the last time someone had made her food, even something as simple and easy as a PB&J. She took a bite, the grape jelly and peanut butter sweet and smooth on her tongue, and waited for him to come back.

She didn’t really mean to snoop; she was mostly staring absentmindedly at the model plane set, and her gaze drifted over a few of the papers that had been scattered by Harvey, only vaguely registering what was written on them until one sheet, partially hidden by the plane set’s instructions, snapped her to attention like a rubber band pulled taut.

Harvey,

I’m sure you’ll be surprised to get this from me—

How much you remember of the conver—

Text. I figured the address in Starde—

You mentioned you were thinking about leav—

Kate froze with the last line she could read, her mind caught between a sinking feeling of panicked curiosity and a determination to respect Harvey’s privacy. It wasn’t her place to read his letters—she’d already seen more than she should have. But the dread at what she thought she’d seen was a powerful, tempting motivator, whispering in her ear that she could only assume the worst if she didn’t read the rest, and the not-knowing would eat her alive until then. For a while she could only sit and stare at it, almost willing the rest of the letter to manifest before her so she didn’t have to pick it up and cross that perceived line.

She could hear Harvey’s voice distantly below her, still talking with whoever had called. Her eyes darted back and forth between the door and the letter. With a wince and a silent prayer for forgiveness, she snatched up the paper and began to read before he could come back.

A growing dejection solidified in the pit of her stomach as she took in the contents, somehow both chilling her blood and sending an uncomfortable flush of warmth across her face and down her neck and back. By the time she reached the end it was like she had come untethered from her body, frozen at the table as her mind raced; the half-eaten sandwich on the plate in front of her may as well have been miles away. Through her shock, she racked her brain trying to recall if Harvey had ever told her he was thinking about leaving the valley, or if there was anything she should have noticed so she wouldn’t have been left so blindsided as she was then sitting at his table, the letter thrown aside like something poisonous.

There had been a few times she’d made some reference to him about the future and gotten only vague answers in return: the moonlight jellies festival and Spirit’s Eve immediately came to mind. She’d chalked it up to his social anxiety, but maybe he’d been trying to temper her hopes all along, preparing her for what would eventually come. She had no idea when the letter had been sent; maybe he’d been planning on leaving since before she moved to Pelican Town, their friendship on a countdown before it had even begun.

With a mounting horror she finally registered the hot itch of impending tears behind her eyes, and she tipped her head back and forced herself not to let them fall. She could be sad and disappointed, at least on the inside, but she would not let herself cry over him leaving when he was just downstairs, about to come back up at any moment. She would not let him see her like that.

She was scrubbing furiously at her eyes as Harvey’s footsteps grew louder and louder up the stairs, and she had just enough time to shuffle the letter back into the stack of other papers before he appeared in the doorway, sighing as he closed the door behind him.

"Sorry about that; someone wanted to know if they could get a prescription sent here to pick up.” He took his seat at the table and immediately caught sight of Kate’s red-rimmed eyes, and his face falling into instant worry. “Are you ok? What happened?” He leaned closer, checking her for any sign of something wrong. It only made the ache in her chest hurt more.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, trying to turn away without him noticing why. “I-I had a sneezing fit and I always tear up when I sneeze. I might be coming down the cold that was going around.”

Miraculously he didn’t question it, only making a sound of sympathy as he mercifully moved out of her bubble. “I suppose we couldn’t avoid it forever. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten it yet after all the traffic in the clinic this month.” He picked up his sandwich again and gave her a warm smile. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

She tried her best to pay attention to him as he carried on their conversation without a clue as to what she knew, but no matter how hard she worked to focus on what he was saying, she was nearly consumed with thinking about Harvey’s possible absence and what that would look like: about the clinic downstairs without him in it, or his apartment without the model planes on the shelves and his radio in the corner. Every thought only added to the weight in her chest, but she managed to at least feign normalcy until Harvey led her back downstairs at the end of his lunch break.

“I should get back to the farm,” she told him, her coat pulled tight around her. It felt like the only thing holding her together.

Harvey’s eyebrows were pinched together as he followed her toward the door. “Are you sure you’re alright? You still look a little pale.”

“I’m alright,” she told him, her smile wan as she stood in the open doorway, tired blue eyes meeting his concerned hazel ones, and there was a sudden surge within her of fondness and mourning that, almost like a reflex, had her telling him, “I’m… I’m really glad you’re my friend.”

His eyes widened a little at the unexpected declaration, a corner of his mouth curving up into a surprised smile, but she also saw the moment of falter behind his eyes as she finally knew to search for it, a flash of something sad and maybe regretful that she finally had the context to understand.

“I’m glad you’re my friend too,” he replied.

Her walk back to the farm felt impossibly long, the entire time spent trying to wrap her head around the potential of a Pelican Town without Harvey in it. She almost hoped in the middle of her confusion and shock that some sharper feeling would take root—anger, betrayal, something she could bite with, something that would take away the uncomfortable tightness that had wrapped itself around her ribs and her heart.

She couldn’t even pin down why the idea of him leaving the valley shook her so thoroughly. Putting any of her other friends in the same position didn’t leave her with the same empty hole. Even the thought of Emily leaving didn’t hit her as hard. Kate would have been sad to see Emily leave the valley, especially after they had been apart for so long before, but it was also a thought that she could make peace with eventually; Emily had always been a free spirit, and a part of her wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if she decided to move out to the desert one day, or to the Fern Islands, or anywhere else her heart took her. She’d only be truly upset if she left without saying goodbye.

The possibility of Harvey leaving, though—something about that was a punch to the gut in a way Kate wasn’t expecting. She couldn’t even begin to imagine not seeing him in the green by the clinic on a summer afternoon, or not having him to turn to during the town festivals. She couldn’t contemplate not being able to go and see him whenever she wanted without her heart falling straight through her to the ground.

He understood and cared about her more than almost anyone else in town. He was kind and sweet and soft-spoken in a way that made her feel safe and soft. She couldn’t picture her life in Stardew Valley anymore without him in it.

The first fluffy snowflakes started to twirl and fall around her just as she got to her porch steps and stopped there, a final thought striking her like lightning in a storm, an explanation that she had denied and scoffed at that suddenly wasn’t just a funny idea anymore.

“Oh fuck,” she gasped. “I owe Haley a lot of money.”

Notes:

In honor of this chapter I made a meme:

 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Grapefruit Skies and Rolling Hills