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Addy’s birthday dawns dark and cloudy.
But luckily the team isn’t chasing today, too busy getting equipment repaired and data collated from the latest iteration of Dorothy.
It still makes Kate feel jittery though, like the wind is Addy’s fingers playing with her ponytail like she used to do when she was bored, like Addy’s ghost is closer than usual.
Javi clearly agrees because the second time Boone glances up at the clouds with sad puppy dog eyes, he announces loudly with some agitation that he’s going into town.
“But we don’t need anything,” Dexter protests as Tyler and Dani frown at him in confusion.
“I’m going to town,” Javi repeats and Kate offers him an out around the lump in her throat.
“Can you grab me some gummy bears?” He looks over at her with his soft, sad eyes and they share a moment of understanding before he nods and he climbs into the car.
The rest of the Tornado Wranglers, because Kate and Javi are part of them now too though unofficially, take this in stride and the only person who’s gaze lingers is Tyler’s, because he can read Kate about as well as Kate can read a storm, and Kate gives him the best reassuring smile she can muster which must be enough because he returns to repairing his truck.
Kate then settles in to help Lily with whatever she’s doing because it will be work that doesn’t take too much brain power, but will allow her to focus enough that her mind won’t linger on Addy. It works great until lightning cracks across the sky and Kate jumps, but what really sends her spiraling is Lily.
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.”
And then suddenly Kate can’t breathe, can only hear Addy in the backseat counting out the beats between lightning and thunder mere minutes before everything had gone wrong.
She tries to wheeze out something about how she has to go as she stumbles towards the RV and the bathroom in it, and Lily’s calling of her name mixes into Addy’s screaming of it.
Then it’s all flashes. Addy in the backseat demanding what they should do. Addy trying to scramble up the embankment. Addy, terrified, begging for Kate’s help. Addy getting slammed with debris. Addy’s bruised and battered body in the makeshift morgue that she and Javi had to identify so that the authorities could tell her parents that Kate had gotten their daughter killed.
It’s that last one that always traps Kate because how can a dead body have bruises? Don’t you need blood for bruises? Blood that moves? Does that mean Addy wasn’t killed instantly when the debris slammed into her? When Kate wasn’t fast enough to save her?
“Kate?” Lily calls through the door with a gentle knock that seems to echo like cannon fire in Kate’s head.. “Sorry, but Tyler said if there isn’t a sign of life from you soon he’s going to kick the door down. I’ve got Dexter and Dani holding him off for now.”
That is enough to get Kate to stop spiraling and suck in a few breaths before shakily pushing herself to her feet and opening the door. Lily’s waiting outside the door with a concerned, apologetic look on her face and Kate opens her mouth to tell her that she didn’t do anything wrong when Tyler rips the door of the RV open and barrels in with a look of deep concern.
“Sorry,” Kate manages to scrape out and swallows against the roughness of her voice. She hopes she wasn’t screaming, but she’s pretty sure if she had been Tyler would have kicked the door down regardless of the team trying to hold him back from causing damage to their own property.
“For what? Wigging out?” Lily asks and Kate laughs wetly at the phrasing as Tyler hands her a bottle of water before tucking her into his side and the rest of the team files in. “I’m sorry I’m the one who made you wig out.”
“You didn’t- I was–” Kate fumbles around for a moment trying to decide what to say before landing on the cold, harsh truth. “It’s Addy’s birthday.”
“Oh,” Dani says, loaded with sympathy and understanding.
“Why didn’t you say?” Tyler asks. Kate swallows.
“Because I got used to not talking about them. I ran away to New York so I wouldn’t have to and no one ever questioned why I took their birthdays off because they were just random days. And I thought I had it under control,” Kate says feeling tears press at her eyes and Tyler presses a lingering kiss to the top of her head.
Javi takes that moment to also enter the RV, bags in hand and he gives Kate an understanding smile.
“I freaked out in the post office,” he admits and Kate laughs. “I bought wagon wheels for her.” He sets the bag on the table and pulls out the bright red boxes. “I always eat them on her birthday.”
“What the hell is a wagon wheel?” Boone asks, even as he hovers over Javi’s shoulder because he’s got a massive sweet tooth.
“Marshmallow fluff in between two cookies dipped in chocolate,” Kate explains. Boone and Lily’s eyes light up while Tyler and Dexter pull faces of confused disgust. “Come on, let’s have a picnic.”
They all set up on a blanket outside and no one says anything about the tears that Javi and Kate are thumbing away, but Lily leans on Javi while Kate leans on Tyler when they both flinch slightly at the sound of thunder.
“Addy grew up in Seattle,” Javi says as he starts handing out wagon wheels. “So she had a bunch of cousins in Vancouver and they had these Canadian things.” He shakes the one that he has so the plastic crinkles. “They were her favourite.”
“We all thought they were weird and gross, but she loved how sweet they were. Basically a s'more without effort,” Kate added.
“She sounds great,” Lily says as she cracks hers open.
“And she has great taste,” Boone says around his giant mouthful of wagon wheel. “These are awesome. Shout out to Canada.”
Everyone laughs and then Kate finds her mouth opening to start telling stories about Addy. They go back and forth until they run out, and it feels like excising a wound that never healed properly in the years between, but now that wound might have the chance to become something painful on occasion rather than the constant agony.
“She used to count in between lightning and thunder,” Kate says with a comforting smile towards Lily so she didn’t feel bad about it. “We always teased her for it because there was no scientific evidence that it was real. She always said that we just hadn’t found it yet.”
“Addy sounds like she was cool,” Lily says as she wraps Javi up in a hug.
“She would have liked you,” Javi says.
Later that night, when Kate is curled up next to Tyler with her head on his chest and his hand tracing random designs along her arm, Kate decides to be brave.
“Can I- can I tell you about what happened?” Kate asks quietly.
“You can tell me whatever you want, Sapulpa,” Tyler says, giving her a kiss on the top of her head and the random designs turn into comforting rubs for a few moments before going back to the designs.
So she tells him about what happened to Addy, tells him about the guilt that still lingers for introducing her to the chase, for getting the information wrong, for not being strong enough or fast enough to maybe save her, for surviving.
“Not your fault Sapulpa,” Tyler reminds her when she finishes and his shirt is wet with tears. She loves the way he says her hometown, like a special endearment just for her.
“It’s the maybes that haunt me,” Kate says. “Maybe if I hadn’t frozen in the car. Maybe if I hadn’t been so focused on the science. Maybe if the tornado had been an EF-1 instead of an EF-5.”
“You had no way to know it was going to be an EF-5,” Tyler says, and Kate knows that’s true since they hadn’t realized until Dorothy’s information had come through. “Every scientist is focused when they’re out in the field. You can’t control your fight, flight or freeze response.”
“Are you just going to poke logical holes in all my arguments?” Kate teases as she looks up at him and Tyler shrugs before flashing her his beaming shit eating grin.
“I can do this all night Sapulpa,” he drawls, and she wallops him in the stomach with a throw pillow which devolves into a pillow fight, which ends when Kate almost falls off the bed and Tyler has to lunge several feet to save her.
Javi punches Tyler for the first time on Jeb’s birthday, after Tyler and Boone purposefully turn the radio off while driving into a tornado.
When they return, Javi is spitting mad and Kate is sitting on the ground with her head between her knees with Dani crouched next to her coaching her to take deep breaths. Tyler notices and veers for Kate immediately, but Javi cuts him off.
“You can’t do that man!” Javi yells and shoves Tyler, who stumbles despite his greater height due to the fact that he’s so surprised. “You can’t turn your radio off!”
“We needed clear audio for the video,” Tyler says reasonably, shifting his gaze between Javi and Kate, just in enough time to miss Javi wind up for his swing.
“You don’t turn off your radio when you drive into a tornado!” Javi bellows after his fist cracks across Tyler’s jaw. “Tell us to shut up! But don’t turn off your radio!”
“Javi–” Tyler says placatingly as he rubs at his jaw.
“No! You don’t get it! I spent the whole time yelling down the damn radio for them and they didn’t answer! No one answered! And I am not going to let you do that to me again!” Everyone winces as the realization descends over them and Tyler walks forward to pull Javi into a tight hug.
“It’s Jeb’s birthday,” Kate says weakly from the ground. Tyler groans melodramatically as he releases Javi.
“You gotta start telling us these things in advance.” It’s a tease and everyone can tell and Boone takes a turn hugging Javi and telling him he’s sorry as Tyler walks over to scoop Kate up off the ground.
“Well I would have if you hadn’t gone peeling out of here at first light to act like an idiot,” Javi grumbles as Kate gets her feet under her.
“Sorry for freaking out,” Kate says, because this is twice now she’s had a panic attack in a single summer. Tyler sweeps a kiss over her temple in comfort as he tucks her into his side in what is quickly becoming her favourite place.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Dexter says, who had tried to hug her when he realized she looked a little freaked out and tipped her over the edge by telling her he had her.
“You don’t either,” Kate says firmly. “You were trying to help.”
“The worst part is,” Javi says as he disentangles Boone from himself. “Is that we can’t even have something sugary in his honour to make ourselves feel better.”
“He didn’t like dessert,” Kate explains through the laughter that bubbles up out of her at Javi’s remark. Everyone makes a face of disbelief at that, Boone’s face particularly horrified, and Kate laughs again.
“Like some kind of weird health nut,” Javi mutters over the sound of Kate’s laughter. It feels good to laugh about it again, rather than feeling like flinching every time she caught sight of the health food aisle.
“He always had almonds in his pockets and he’d always ramble about calcium and protein while we stocked up on junk.”
“They are a decent source of calcium,” Dexter says. “I don’t have almonds, but I do have trail mix. We could eat that for him.”
“Almonds next year,” Tyler promises, and Kate takes a second to appreciate the fact that all her new friends are so willing to honour her old ones, and that Tyler will absolutely somehow remember almonds for next year.
They set up the picnic blanket and just like on Addy’s birthday, they share stories about Jeb over his favourite snacks and Boone only complains a little bit about how Jeb could have thrown them a bone and at least liked chocolate covered almonds.
“His mom found a ring in his sock drawer,” Kate whispers into Tyler’s shoulder blades when it's just the two of them again. She does this sometimes, turns him into the little spoon, when she needs to cling to him but having his weight and his arms around her makes her wig out. “She gave it to me at the funeral and wouldn’t take it back.”
“Did you know that he was going to propose?” Tyler asks as he reaches up to hold Kate’s hand where it’s fisted in his shirt over his heart. Kate shakes her head.
“No. I’m not even sure I would have said yes, but maybe that’s just you know-” she trails off because she doesn’t know what to say. Tyler rumbles out an understanding noise.
“Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, but the trauma probably makes it a little more blurry. What’d you do with it?” His question is surprising enough that she loosens her grip enough to let him roll over and smooth her hair off her forehead while giving her a loving, soft smile. “Don’t look so surprised Sapulpa. If you had an engagement ring floating around it would have come up by now.”
“I sold it when I moved to New York,” she admits. “I wore it for a while out of some kind of twisted guilty love, but I was having panic attacks every time I looked at it so I sold it and sent the money to his sister for his nephew’s college fund.” Tyler raises his eyebrows in surprise at that. “It wasn’t that expensive, the jeweller I sold it to gave me extra because I had a panic attack when I handed it over. Figured it should go to a good cause.”
“That was good of you,” Tyler says as he leans over to give her a kiss before rolling back over so that they can go back to their original position. Kate idly muses that whoever trained this cowboy to be so emotionally intelligent should be awarded some kind of high honour. “Don’t worry Sapulpa when I get you a ring it won’t be hiding in my sock drawer.”
“When?” Kate asks teasingly. Tyler lifts a hand so that she can see him make his tornado lasso motion over his shoulder.
“If you feel it, chase it. I’ll chase it as fast as you want, but I’m chasing it.”
“You old romantic,” Kate whispers and presses a kiss between his shoulder blades.
“We can’t chase this week,” Kate says, pointedly not looking at anyone spread out around the diner booth. The team looks confused for a second before they catch sight of Javi nodding and the fact that Kate’s hands are shaking just slightly. “I’m sorry I know it's your livelihood, but we can’t. Not this week.”
“Is it someone’s birthday?” Lily asks and Javi shakes his head.
“Worse,” he says flatly. “The anniversary.”
Silence falls around the table and Kate meticulously sips her coffee while Javi stacks creamers.
“We could ask Cathy to host us so that Boone and I can start tackling the pile of editing,” Tyler says. Boone nods around his mouthful of syrup soaked pancakes.
“The vehicles could use an oil change too,” Lily adds idly, adding stir sticks to Javi’s creamer tower to make it more structurally stable.
“And I wanted to look at the suspension on the truck,” Dani says.
“Besides, the weather doesn’t look like anything is going to happen this week,” Dexter says.
“Thank you,” Kate says, which isn’t enough but it's all she can get out from around the myriad of emotions rising up in her throat. “I’ll go call my Mom.”
The Tornado Wrangler’s descend upon Cathy’s farm without further ado and set about doing what Kate’s grandpa used to call ‘putzing’, which is all the things they said they would do plus any other activities they can find to fill their time.
Tyler however, hovers.
“Aren’t you supposed to be editing?” Kate teases, because Boone had set up shop on the dining room table, which is not here out in the barn where Kate is tackling organizing her notes for the first time in more than half a decade, and Tyler lifts the laptop in his lap. “With Boone?”
“Boone doesn’t need me hovering over his shoulder,” he says.
“And I do?” Kate fires back.
“Soon as you stop looking over at me every forty-five seconds like you’re checking I’m still alive I’ll go,” Tyler says and Kate pulls a face, but can’t even be upset because she had been looking over at him a little too frequently. She’d just thought that she was managing ninety seconds between glances. “I’m not letting you wig out without me.”
“I don’t think I’ll wig out,” Kate says honestly, looking down at the notebook she’d uncovered that Praveen had doodled on the cover of and swallows against the lump in her throat. “I might cry though.”
“Well if I have my way you won’t be doing that by yourself either so get used to me Sapulpa.”
“I am,” Kate says, still staring down at Praveen’s doodles. “Used to you. Used to all of you. Which is terrifying because last time I took it for granted, but now I know what a loss like that feels like. And I don’t know if I should let you all in or keep people out.”
“Well Sapulpa you were keeping people out for the last five years. How’d that make you feel?”
“Did you minor in psychology?” Kate teases and he gives her a patient look that is both amused and done with her shit all at once. “Really fucking lonely.”
“There’s your answer then.” Silence falls between them for a while until Kate takes a deep breath and sets down the selfie printout of the five of them making stupid faces as the barn door opens and the team and Javi trickle in bearing a cheesecake that Cathy clearly made because it’s Kate’s favourite.
“We have a proposition for you two,” Dexter says as he dishes out a slice to everyone.
“Okay,” Kate says as she settles on the couch next to Tyler.
“We want you to join the Tornado Wranglers permanently,” Boone says with a hopeful look on his face. Kate looks at him and everyone else before landing on Tyler who shrugs with his little half smile.
“Seriously?” Javi asks what Kate is thinking and the team all nods in sync.
“We’re the Tornado Wranglers we have to be part of the team that learns how to tame tornadoes,” Boone says passionately.
“And we like you,” Lily adds.
“I can’t ask you to fund my science project,” Kate protests and Javi makes an offended noise. “Sorry Javi, our science project.”
“Well you better tell that to your adoring fans,” Dexter says, plucks the laptop from Tyler and shows her the special donation spot on their patreon esque thing that says ‘Help Kate Stop Tornadoes With Science :D’, which already has what looks like several hundred dollars in it. “The fans requested it.”
“But what if I get you all killed?” The again hangs in the air and its unfair to say, but Kate wants to say yes so badly but there’s that paralysing fear getting her acceptance stuck in her throat.
“It would be an honour,” Boone says and Dani wallops the back of his head.
“Believe me Kate, the idea of the same thing happening keeps me up at night,” Javi says. “But so does the idea of how disappointed they would all be if we have the chance at an answer and we don’t take it.”
“You’re right. I’m in.” Kate smiles as the team whoops and Tyler seems to relax in relief.
“Me too,” Javi confirms and the team whoops louder.
“Is it okay if we tell you what happened?” Kate asks when everyone has calmed down. “You all deserve to know.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Dani says
Kate tells the crew exactly what happened that horrible day six years ago; about how they’d gotten trapped in front of a tornado more powerful than they’d expected with nowhere to go, about how she’d frozen up and the desperate run towards an underpass, how Praveen had just been gone when they’d gotten there and she hadn’t even heard him scream or anything and she still doesn’t know what actually happened.
Tyler breaks in to remind her to breathe at this point and Lily gives her a comforting smile while scooting forward to lean on Kate’s knee.
Javi takes over to give Kate a break and talks about watching Dorothy shoot up further and faster than she should have and yelling down the radio in some kind of desperate hope that someone would answer and getting nothing until a cop had come on to tell him they’d found the car upside down in a field with no one in it.
Kate picks it up again now that her breathing is steadier and talks about Addy, how they’d been making eye contact when the debris slammed into her, how Kate can’t shake the way that Addy had looked shocked when it happened.
Then she talks about Jeb, about how much she’d loved him and how he’d hauled her up the embankment, coached her through holding on, how he’d wrapped his arms around her from behind and chanted that he had her until he was sucked away by wind.
Javi talks again, about trying to drive the van through the wreckage hoping against hope that his friends weren’t all dead, the miraculous hope of bumping into the cop that found Kate that died when Kate had looked at him and just shaken her head. The agony of holding Kate’s hand in the wheelchair in the dark basement of the hospital to identify all their friends.
“Thank you for telling us,” Dani says when they finish.
“We still want you on the team,” Tyler adds, watching Kate close enough that he can see her opening her mouth to ask.
“Then you’ve got two new tornado wranglers,” Kate says wetly and the team grins.
Praveen’s birthday is in January, which makes it a little bit easier in some ways because the weather is so very distinct from the weather that killed him, but also harder in others because it is so different.
Since it’s the off season the team has spread out a little bit to take care of their day jobs. Dani and Dexter are out in Louisiana working for a company that helps people who are still struggling in the aftermath of hurricanes. Boone holds down the fort on the YouTube channel, creating compilations and getting the team to make content in the off time to supplement the on time. Kate gets her own little series where she explains the science behind her tornado taming project which is popular and sets the comments on fire about whether her and Tyler are dating. Lily bounces around staying with all of the different team members while she works remotely on all her freelance coding.
Kate goes back to school and Tyler follows her, getting a construction job that does not stop him from giving his input into Kate’s thesis until she threatens to make him co-author and tell the internet about it so that he loses his reputation for being a dumb cowboy.
But because it’s a birthday the team all pile into discord and have Chai together, the way Praveen always made it and it feels good to laugh with the team as Javi and Kate tell their stories about Praveen.
One of Kate’s therapists had once told her that one day it would get easier and Kate hadn’t believed her, but now that she’s here, listening to Boone try to talk Tyler into letting him get struck by lightning while Tyler firmly and unwaveringly says no, she realizes that it did get easier. The pain isn’t necessarily smaller, but its easier to live with it, to breathe around it.
“Thank you,” Kate says after the discord call has ended and Tyler has closed the laptop and she has climbed into his lap.
“You’re welcome,” Tyler says in a way that sounds like a question.
“For making sure I realized it would be stupid to push you all away,” she clarifies.
“I had a very vested interest in making sure you were going to let me stick around,” he says teasingly. She laughs.
“Yeah I saw you eyeing up that jewellery store,” she teases and Tyler runs his fingers through her hair.
“Say the word Sapulpa and the Tornado Wranglers will convene in Vegas,” he says seriously and she blinks down at him in surprise. “I’m not dumb enough to risk the chance of you coming to your senses about dating a dumb cowboy who drives into tornados. You say you wanna get married and I’m locking that in.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Kate teases as she leans in to kiss him. “I’m here for the long haul.”
“Glad to hear it.”