Gabe rinsed the blood off his hands and grabbed the soap to get the remnants out from under his fingernails with a sigh. He'd gotten most of it washed off outside, but a little more remained.
"I told you expanding into veterinary work would make the practice flourish," He observed to Dr. Sherman.
"That was never the concern," The Doctor replied. "I've always had plenty of patients."
"And now you have more, and furrier, patients," Gabe grinned.
"Just what I always wanted. I'm glad you were able to save the horse." The Doctor smiled affectionately.
The younger man nodded his thanks for the understated praise. The creature had been badly wounded when a cart it was pulling hit a stray rock and its wheel splintered. Gabe had used surgical tools to remove the shards of wood and treat for infection like he would have on a person.
"It went smoothly. I'm not sure I could have handled anything more complex." Gabe shrugged. When Mayra had married off and begun having babies, Dr. Sherman's practice had been in need of a new assistant to fill her role.
Gabe had been eager to begin helping after school, and his father had thought it wise that he begin learning a trade. The youngest of Phillip and Amelia's combined broods, he was determined not to be the least successful in life.
Being a doctor seemed as good a profession as any other, but his love of animals leaked in along the way. Nowadays, he had almost as many non-human patients as Dr. Sherman had human ones.
He'd finished his schooling early, determined to power through quickly so he could get on with his life, and then come on with Dr. Sherman full time after his year of blessedly uneventful military service. He could tell the older man appreciated having him around; perhaps it reminded him of long ago when Roland was by his side.
But Gabe's brother-in-law was the de facto leader of two-and-a-half nations now. Rumor had it the Peacekeeper was retiring soon, and would be recommending that Roland take on his role as well.
It was strange for Gabe. His youngest years had been in a village isolated in almost every respect from the rest of the world. He only learned there were other nations when he was kidnapped and held hostage by one of them, only to later have his sister become queen of the people that attacked!
The nightmares still came to him occasionally. Trapped, silent, in the Darkness. He shook them off as best he could. Healing others, particularly animals, helped him put himself back together little by little.
The door burst open and Victoria came flouncing in. She kissed her adoptive father on the cheek where he sat at the table.
"Hello Father! Hello Gabriel!" She kissed him on the cheek as well. Probably because she knew how much it irritated him, this insistence on being treated like a brother. He'd tried to talk her out of it so many times, but she insisted on claiming as many people as family as she could, even if it twisted logic into confusing knots.
It had bewildered Amelia's brood, Gabe's step-siblings, but gradually they'd all either accepted the designation or ignored it.
"Good afternoon, Tori." Gabe smirked. If she was going to get under his skin, he would try to return the favor with a despised nickname. To his surprise, she ignored it and beamed at them.
"Did you hear?" She asked excitedly. "Shayn and Kyler are back!"
"Oh, yes," Dr. Sherman said thoughtfully. "Mrs. Sherman mentioned there's to be a welcome home party tonight we should attend."
"A party! Like a ball?" Victoria's eyes glowed. "Will there be dinner, and dancing?"
"You'll have to ask Mrs. Sherman. I'm not sure on details, I just go where she tells me." The doctor shrugged.
"There may not be dancing," Gabriel warned the girl. "It wouldn't exactly be a fun time for Kyler."
"I didn't think of that," Victoria blinked at him. "I always forget about the crutches, he seems so able-bodied otherwise."
Dr. Sherman's face clouded, and Gabe decided to guide the conversation away from Kyler's legs. The good doctor considered it a personal failing that he hadn't been able to help the soldier more.
"How was school?" He asked. Victoria was finishing up her final year, chafing to be done once she took her last exam next month.
"It was fine, I suppose. I'm not learning anything new." She shrugged.
"Perhaps they'll let you take your exam early and be finished," He suggested. He had studied hard and taken his exam at sixteen so that he could be done.
"Maybe. I despise exams, though, don't you? It's never anything useful I'm tested on! I won't need complex arithmetic or the history of early civilizations in my life." She complained.
"And what do you plan to do with your life?" Dr. Sherman looked up from the medical book he was perusing. "You've repeatedly avoided discussion about what your days will look like after graduation."
"Um, I need to tend the garden. I promised Mama I would." Victoria glanced at Gabriel and then slid out the side door, dropping her bag and grabbing her bucket of outdoor supplies as she did.
"That girl!" Dr. Sherman huffed, and Gabe smiled. She'd always been flighty in a sense, ready to move from one thing to the next. It didn't surprise him that she didn't want to be buckled down and committed to one plan for how her life would go.
Even if she would need to decide sooner or later.
"I'm at my wit's end trying to make her see that she needs to look to the future," Dr. Sherman grumbled. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her."
"I can try," Gabe shrugged, having nothing pressing that needed to be done.
He ambled out to the garden where Victoria sat in the dirt. Instead of gardening, she was looking up at the sky with a wistful expression.
"Dreaming of flying?" He guessed. She leveled her gaze at him.
"Something like that." Victoria replied.
"Dr. Sherman wants what's best for you, you know." He knelt down beside her and started pulling weeds. She watched him for several seconds before putting on her gardening gloves and joining in the work.
"Yes, I know."
"Then why don't you just tell him what you're going to do?" Gabe tilted his head.
"Because I'm not sure." She admitted, looking over at him. "I don't know what my future holds."
Gabriel sighed. They'd always talked easily, but things had become more formal after he'd gone away for his year of service. The time apart had pulled a thread from the weave of their childhood friendship.
"You have a lot of options." He encouraged her. "You can join the military, as some women do–I even had one in my recruitment class–you could…"
"You did?" Victoria squeaked, and then cleared her throat and turned back to weeding. "What was that like?"
"It was a bit odd, if I'm honest, but I think she had as fine a time as any of us. She lost a lot of weight, however. She was quite a burly young woman when she first came to the camp." He pulled another weed.
Victoria giggled. "I'm not sure how much weight I would lose."
"None at all, unless there's an accident and one of your arms gets cut off," Gabriel looked her over. "You're anything but burly."
"Thank you, I think." Victoria said.
"It's a compliment, I assure you," Gabriel smirked, "but if you're not up for the army, you could take up a profession. Mayra ran a baking business for a short time, and then of course she helped with the nursing until she married. You could do something like that."
"Father has you and Mother to assist him, he doesn't need another nurse." Victoria frowned.
"Maybe I'll strike out on my own someday. Become solely an animal doctor." Gabe turned the thought over in his mind. "A stable would suit my patients better than a clinic like this."
"Will you need a nurse?" She asked.
"Probably not at first. I wouldn't be able to afford to pay one until I got established." He shrugged.
"How long do you think that would take?"
"Oh, I don't know. It was just a thought I had. I may never act on it." Gabriel smiled. "But we're not supposed to be talking about my future, we're discussing yours."
"Those can't be the same?" She used two hands to pull a particularly stubborn weed, and then fell backwards for the trouble it gave her.
"It wouldn't be proper," Gabriel shook his head. "I know you've always tried to insist we're brother and sister, but the world doesn't see it that way. There would be talk. A blood brother and sister can live and work and run a business together just fine, but we can't. It would ruin your reputation."
He finished the weeding and stood, offering her his hand to help her up. She took it, squeezing his hand as she did.
"I guess I'll just have to think of something else then," She said a little sadly.