Trisha and Jake continue to lend a hand while Tad and Charlene reconcile and work out their issues to ensure that the family unit will remain strong and solid, despite the wilds of the world.
Trisha firmly guided Kitty away from the couple so that she was out of earshot. Although Kitty knew the story, this was for Charlene, and Kitty needed a distraction, badly, because she was vibrating with tension and stress.
"I'm not going." Kitty said, then she was picked up and tossed over Jake's shoulder like a sack of flour and found herself being dumped into the bed one of the rooms where Trisha closed the door behind his broad back, leaving just her and Kitty alone, while Jake kept an eye on the couple working through a major reconciliation.
"I need to be there." She protested. Trisha shook her head and stood by the door, looking at the younger determined girl who was now kneeling on the bed glaring at her.
"You have very pretty eyes when you're angry, Kitty. This is not for you. This has to be about them right now. Your time will come, and it will be glorious. Let them sort out their feelings so they can get back together properly, for each other, and for you." Trisha said, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed.
"So what are you going to do? Tie me up and keep me here until they're ready?" Kitty snapped, then got off the bed and went to the door before she was pulled off her gait by a firm grip on her forearm and was upended across Trisha's lap.
"Submissives don't dictate. They get dick, and they get spanked, Kitty." Trisha said, then put action to words and pulling down the bikini bottoms, paddled Kitty's bottom until it was a light red colour and Kitty was howling tears of anguish. She was not hurting, that was certain, but this was a release of tension for her.
Trisha continued the mild domination by making Kitty kneel on the bed, panties still around her knees, red tinged bottom on clear display and stay in the classic sub pose as she walked around the bed, looking at the younger girl as she composed herself. Kitty finally looked up at Trisha, wetness on both of her cheeks and whispered something Trisha didn't quite catch.
"What was that?" Trisha asked quietly.
"Thank you, Mistress." Kitty repeated, a bit louder.
Trisha sat on the bed and pulled Kitty into a long embrace as the girl shook with tears but not the anguish she had been feeling earlier. Once settled, Trisha undid the top and efficiently stripped Kitty so she was nude, except for the heeled pumps she liked to wear. A tap at the door, and Jake opened it. "They're ready, Trisha." He said.
Trisha got up and taking a naked Kitty by the hand, they went back into the living room.
"What happened?" Charlene asked, curled up on Tad as she was, with legs and an arm wrapped around her man, she was surprised to see Kitty naked, and with some dampness on her cheeks.
"Your girl here decided to try and take some initiative. I dealt with it." Trisha said, then turned Kitty so they could see her reddened bottom, turned her again, and with a firm swat, sent her over to the couple who owned her heart and mind.
Kitty walked over and knelt in front of her Mistress and Master, then looked up at them.
May I ask a question?" She said after a moment.
"You may." Charlene said, slipping back into the role of primary Dominant for the girl she had raised.
"Are you two good again?" Kitty whispered.
"We are all good, Kitty. You are with us, and we are all good again. I am back, and I'm not going anywhere." Charlene said, then leaned over and hugged her girl, then kissed her cheek and then forehead.
Charlene ended up sitting on the carpeted floor holding Kitty in her lap while they all talked about the events of the past weeks while she had been gone. Charlene did not react when she heard about Tad's descent into an alcohol fuelled blitz, but he knew that she would be talking about it with him later, when they were alone. She told them about her travels, where she had gone, what she had done to try and find out what had happened and how to heal. For her it had finally happened when she got to New Mexico.
She had gone on what the natives call a Spirit Quest, and had travelled into the mountains to seek out answers. She felt that she found them, sitting on the cold side of a mountain near an abandoned Pueblo village, watching the stars, more stars than she could ever recall seeing, and then it had finally come to her. Family and love is not what you can give to the group, it's what you yourself add to the group. Whether or not Charlene could give a child to Tad was irrelevant. She was what Tad wanted. She was there for Kitty, and she was loved for who she was, not for what her body could produce.
It was still difficult for her to come to grips with, the loss of their child, but it was no longer the biting burning acid feeling that had been eating at her soul for months. She was able to give love, and to receive it back again, and that was why she had returned, ready to rejoin the family that she had developed with Tad and Kitty, as long as they would have her.
Kitty was asleep by the time Charlene finished her tale, and even though Kitty was quite a lot taller than her, Charlene had little trouble picking up the naked submissive and carrying her into one of the other bedrooms, where she put her to bed and with a gentle kiss on her cheek, let the girl sleep peacefully for the first time in many weeks.
Trisha and Jake also went to bed shortly thereafter, leaving Charlene and Tad to sit on the couch facing one another, in the quiet as the night closed in. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, the living room was warm, but Charlene still felt cold. Tad noticed her shiver and pulled her back into his lap where he wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly.
"God how I missed you, Tad." Charlene murmured as she relaxed into the embrace.
"Aye, love. I missed you as much, if not more." Tad softly replied.
Charlene rolled over and looked at him, resting her chin on his chest as she had done so many times before. "Why did you let the alcohol get the better of you?"
"I'm nae proud of that, lass." Tad began but she stopped him with a finger to his lips. "I'm not asking for you to apologize, my Scot. I just want to know why."
Tad looked at her, but Charlene could see that he wasn't focused on her, his gaze was distant.
"I dinna want to lose you." He finally said.
"You didn't lose me." She replied quietly.
"It felt like I had, Red. You were gone." Tad whispered. "It felt to me just like Siobhan, all over again. Losing a child, then losing my woman, just like before. Everything just falling through my fingers like sand on a beach."
"I told you I would return, my Scot. You knew that." Charlene said, getting up onto her knees to look at him, but he was unable to properly met her gaze.
"Rationally, I knew you'd come back. You don't break your word, and you told Kitty the same thing. Emotionally, I broke. It felt too similar to my history, and I dinna know what to do. Things got a bit crazy here after you'd gone, I'm not too sure what you got told by Trisha, love." Tad said, finally looking at her squarely.
Charlene nodded. "I know you and Kitty kept drifting apart, then coming together, and that you were stand-offish to her, which nearly broke her apart, until Trisha pretty much put you both to bed and ordered you to fuck her. I also know that Trisha took you to bed as well to help you to regain some focus."
Charlene reached over and caressed Tad's cheek. "You have such a basic and simple view on life, my Scot. When a woman in your life makes an error, you feel justified to put her over your lap and spank her to correct her behaviour. What happens when you make the error, though?"
"I lose people." Tad said quietly, looking at her eyes, then looking away.
"Look at me." Charlene said with a snap to her voice. Tad's eyes focused on her.
She took his hand and put it on her chest, pressing it with her own until he could feel the strong heartbeat within her ribcage.
"Do you feel that?" She asked. Tad nodded.
"I had to go away, to find myself. To heal after my own very personal loss. I know it was your loss as well, and that it effected you deeply. Even more now that I know what happened with Siobhan years ago, my love. You are my rock, you are my anchor and my solid against the wilds of the world, Tad. What is your rock to rely upon?"
Tad didn't reply, and Charlene did not wait too long before squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt. "I am your rock, Tad. Just as you are mine, you have to let me be yours. You may be a traditional man with solid and decent values, but you need somebody who will stand by your side. An equal, not a submissive. That was a means to you finding me. Searching for a girl who would not abandon you like Siobhan did. Controlling that most intimate part of your life was all about finding me."
"It felt like you did abandon me, Red." Tad finally said into the growing uneasy silence.
Charlene nodded. "Your response to that was to get drunk on whiskey and scare our young girl so much that she began to have flashbacks of JJ. Thank God Trisha and Jake stepped up to the plate and helped to pull you back together, Tad."
She pulled him down so he was lying on his back on the couch and then straddled him. "I am not going to leave you again, my Scot. This was a one time event. I will never repeat it. Can you give me the same assurance you won't fall apart and descend into the bottle again, if things get rough?"
Tad swallowed. "I never intended to in the first-" Charlene stopped him with a finger to his lips.
