Isekai Family Robinson: A slow-burn Isekai

Alejandra sat alone with her knees pulled up to her chin, wrapped in a medical blanket from the first aid kit, and stared deep into the fire. She let the soft crackling of immolating wood be the theme song for the myriad thoughts trundling through her head like sheep.

What did I miss.

She still couldn't believe that those had been her first words upon waking up and seeing her family leaning over her. And she only slightly less believed the influx of information that had come after her family had finally finished fussing over her.

What had she missed?

Magic.

She held up her hands, which had been ruined messes when she'd blacked out, and were now miraculously whole. She flexed her fingers, feeling no strain or catch in the tendons and muscles. Back on Earth, those kinds of injuries would have required months to fully heal, and years to fully recover from. But her boy, her dear sweet wonderful son, had gone against Matty's express commands to help his mother, and had succeeded in ways that went beyond even Olivia's wildest dreams.

"I still say he took a risk," Matty's voice rumbled in his chest. She glanced up to see him standing over her, staring at her hand just as she had been, a conflicted look in his deep blue eyes. "But I can't be too mad. Not if that's the result."

"See?" Olivia said as she walked up with more firewood in her arms, depositing it beside the fire they'd made in the middle of the ruined village. "That's what I've been saying. We need to figure out how the System works here, get stronger, learn magic, take advantage of the natural–"

"We know, Liv," Isabel said as she joined her sister, carrying still more wood. "Just… Let us get used to the idea, okay?"

"What's to get used to?" Liv asked, cocking her head curiously at her sister. "It's just magic. It's no weirder than cell phones or laser pointers or…"

"Did you seriously just call cell phones magic?" Bel asked, giving her sister a Look.

Olivia gave it right back with interest. "I'll give you twenty bucks, right now, if you can explain to me in detail how a cell phone works."

Bel opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again, blinking a couple times.

"So… Magic, you say," she said after a long moment.

The two walked off again, back to continue collecting wood as Matty had requested. It was nearing dusk, and Matty had very rightly asked for as much firewood as they could possibly collect before dark. They would need the warmth, the protection of the fire itself, and the distraction.

Because none of them were going back to the yacht tonight.

That had been Matty's first decision after she had woken up, just as soon as the deluge of information had died away.

"No way are we moving you," he'd said. "Whatever Luc did–yes Luc I know it was a good thing and I'm not mad at you I promise in fact I'm incredibly relieved just give me a second–didn't heal you completely. And we've no way of knowing the toll it's taken on your body. So we're staying here tonight."

Even her broken leg was mostly healed now–though that, it seemed, was more to do with the fact that their healing supplies were magic now. The IVs, the bandages, the prescription-strength painkillers… They were speeding her healing far beyond anything that terrestrial medicine could account for.

But still, she'd been in no position to argue. Even if she'd wanted to, her thoughts flitted around like mayflies in her head, refusing to land for longer than a second and flitting away when she tried to latch onto one.

She'd almost died. Again. The thought should have shaken her, she knew. It would have rattled a normal person. But she barely registered it, if she was being honest. It wasn't even that she was numb, it was just…

She'd been here before.

Unbidden, a rush of images from the Desert flowed into her mind and slid behind her closed eyes. They weren't complete memories so much as emotions and random sensations. Her stomach flip-flopped as the humvee spun around her and tumbled onto its side. Fear bubbled up in her throat like bile. Her shoulder twinged with remembered pain.

And when someone stepped on a twig, it sounded like a gunshot.

Gunny! We need suppressing fire to the north, right now! Get up soldier!

Gunfire filled the air. Her lungs burned with sand and smoke and gas fumes. Somewhere someone was screaming. And out the window she could make out the shapes of–

Strong arms circled her. She cried out and swung her elbow backwards. It something fleshy and there was an 'oof' from behind her, but the arms did not let go. They held her, restrained her, pulled her gently backwards–

Gently?

And just like that the world dissolved back into focus. She was sitting in front of a crackling fire, her feet were bare and on grass and not sand. Strange trees stretched towards a strange sky overhead, and still those strong arms held her.

She blinked.

"Matty?" Her voice was thready and confused.

"I'm here," said her husband's voice from right beside her ear. It was gentle and soft and made her muscles relax just a fraction. "You back with us?"

"Yes," she hiccuped in the middle of the word and had to suck in a deep breath. "You can let me go now."

"Sorry," he said, and the arms finally fell away. "You were starting to lean right towards the fire. I figured this was a better option than third degree burns." He was sitting behind her, his chest against her back. He was breathing hard.

She turned to see him rubbing his belly and wincing. "Did I hurt you?"

"Yeah," he replied, and she winced at the honesty. "But not too bad. I don't think it'll even bruise this time."

She winced again, because this was not nearly the first time she had accidentally struck her husband in the middle of one of her flashbacks. It was one of the reasons she'd been halfway to leaving, honestly.

"Let me see," she said, motioning with her hand.

"Huh?" He blinked at her like an ox who had just heard a joke he didn't understand.

"Shirt off," she demanded, stepping up. "Let me see it."

After a second, he shrugged and complied. He stripped his torso bare and slung his shirt over his shoulder, posing like he was a GQ model.

She snorted.

The bruise forming on his abdomen wasn't a bad one. He'd been hurt worse by malfunctioning construction equipment on the job. But those had been accidents on his job site. This one…

This one she had caused.

And just like that, the laughter left her throat and the shakes started. She was doing it again. She was hurting the people she loved. The War never really left her. She would never be free. It would always be there, clawing and ripping and tearing at her and forcing her to hurt those she cared about and now her thoughts were speeding along well-worn and hated ruts and there was nothing she could do to stop them and the world was coming into bright crystalline focus around her and her head was starting to throb with the pain of it all–

A rough hand grabbed hers, and it was like sandpaper against raw skin. She cried out and pulled away, trying to stand up but her legs weren't working right and oh god she was injured that's right she was vulnerable and open and–

"Tell me what to do." Matty's voice was quiet and calm. Her eyes jerked to his, and found him staring at her, his face a mask of determination. Like a rock in a raging river. She swallowed and forced herself to keep her gaze on those blue eyes of his.

"I d-don't know," her teeth chattered like she was freezing, and she felt like she was shaking apart. "I need to run. Need to move. Can't just sit here. Need to–Eep!"

Matty stood in one smooth movement and pulled her along with him. His hands were on her arms, where they were covered by the blanket, and the touch wasn't as abrasive as skin-on-skin. Her legs wobbled underneath her, but she could feel him holding her up. She sucked in a desperate breath and tried to shuffle her feet, tried to move, tried to run.

Matty moved with her, taking a step for each halting, barely-supported step of her own. Her hand came up and fastened onto his bare arm, nails digging into his skin as she fought for balance.

She moved another step, and he moved with her. And again. And again. And with each step she took, the shakes slowed just perceptibly. She still felt like she was flying apart, but slower now.

And then she heard him humming. It was deep and quiet and pleasant. The melody was a familiar one that her racing brain could not put a name to, but it was simple and slow. She felt her feet take up the rhythm, moving in time to her husband's voice. She took a step, firmer this time, and he stepped with her. And again. And again. His grip on her shifted. He moved around to her front, facing her, still holding her in that strong, gentle grip.

They were dancing. Their feet shuffled and stepped slow and certain. She led, he followed, all the time humming that slow, gentle tune. His voice was an anchor amidst the storm raging inside her. Her mind slowed to the rhythm of the song, her body swayed to the music, and slowly the shakes subsided. She turned into him, facing her husband, still swaying in time to his voice. And as her heart calmed, she finally placed the song.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Alejandra danced with her husband on an alien world to the tune of Amazing Grace, and she could breathe again.

Finally she stopped, and Matty stopped humming to look down at her. His face was calm, but she knew him well enough to see the worry flickering behind his eyes.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

Her heart melted anew for this man, and she found herself smiling as she leaned her forehead against his bare chest.

"Si, mi corazon," she murmured back to him. "Thank you."

The smile she got in return was small and soft and blinding in its radiance. "Any time."

"Uh, are we interrupting something?"

Alejandra lifted her head from her husband's chest to see all three of their children–all four of their children, she had to remind herself, because Dinah was there as well–watching them from back by the fire. Olivia and Lucas had near-identical looks of 'ew, parents being lovey-dovey' on their faces, while Bel just looked thoughtful, and Dinah looked uncomfortable, like she thought she was intruding on a private moment.

Alejandra opened her mouth to say everything was fine. And with her tongue halfway through forming the first syllable, she changed her mind.

"I was having PTSD reactions," she said, and the ease of the admission startled her. "Your father was helping me through it."

"Without clothes on?" Liv asked, raising a disbelieving eyebrow.

Alejandra glanced back at Matt, then down. Somewhere along the line, the blanket had been lost. She was clad only in her underwear. She felt her cheeks heat up.

"Kids," Matty's voice was deep and quiet and held a sparkle of amusement in it. "Ask yourself; do you really want to know the details?"

Olivia and Lucas exchanged glances before looking back and in perfect unison going "Never mind!"

The laugh that bubbled up from Alejandra's belly was deep and loud and felt like a sunny day on her favorite beach. It took only a moment for Matty to take it up for his own, and then Bel started giggling, and that was it. The clearing rang to the laughter of the family. Even Dinah joined in, her soft chuckles blending in with the rest of them.

It felt good. It felt right.

"Help me back down," she said to her husband as the laughter faded, and he complied not by assisting her back to the rock she'd been sitting on, but by sweeping her up into his arms. She let out a startled 'eep', and then melted against him as his lips came in and met hers in a gentle kiss that was the sweetest thing she'd ever tasted. She found herself wishing the five steps to the rock were five thousand, that she could just stay in this moment, this perfect moment, forever.

Then she sighed and pulled away, and he lowered her back down. Perfect as the moment was, it couldn't last.

"Okay," she said after taking a deep breath and shoving the butterflies in her stomach back into their cage. "Back to work."

"Yes ma'am," Matty said with a grin, echoed by the 'yes mom' from her kids and 'yes Mrs. Albright' from Dinah.

"I brought the camping stuff from the yacht site while you were resting," Matty said, settling down beside her. "We'll be roughing it tonight, but it's the best we can do for now. Tomorrow I'll see about rigging up some sort of travois or something for us to get you back there. I also," he added with a sigh of mock-disappointment–"got you a change of clothes. I figured you didn't want to wear the blanket the whole time."

"We've finished checking the area," Bel said as the rest of the kids came up and flopped down beside the fire. "Doesn't look like there's any of those kitty-croc things left. You really did a number on them, Mom."

"Yeah! And this thing is so cool!" Lucas said as he knelt beside Alejandra's transformed rifle. "It's like something out of a sci-fi book. And you said it just transformed like magic?"

Images and sensations flashed back through Alejandra's mind, and she felt herself tensing up again. But this time she fought back against it and won, breathing out the stress in one big 'whoosh'.

"Yes," she said, looking over at the tri-barreled gatling-gun thing that her trusty rifle had become. "Matty… Your father, I think, sent me some sort of power. And the next thing I know, my gun has morphed into that thing and I'm spraying more lead across the area than I used during my entire first deployment."

"Can I see it?" Luc said, looking up at her with wide pleading eyes.

She sighed. "Sure," she waved her hand at the gun. "It's useless now. Whatever happened to it, it doesn't take the same ammo anymore." Matty had checked that at her insistence. And it hurt. One of their most powerful weapons and protective tools was now completely defunct.

Lucas grinned–and grabbed. He pulled the gun into his lap and stated poking and prodding at it from all angles, and was soon lost in his own little world.

"We're gonna have to move the croco-kitty bodies," Dinah said quietly, staring into the fire. "Bury them somewhere. Otherwise there's a risk of disease the longer they stay out in the open. And they might attract other scavengers or predators."

Alejandra winced. She'd completely forgotten about that.

"I'll do it," she said, struggling to stand. "I don't want you kids–"

"Mom."

Bel's voice stopped her mid-rise. She turned her head to stare at her eldest daughter, who was looking right back at her with a complicated expression on her face.

"You're still hurt, and those things weigh like a hundred pounds each. And that big fu–stinker," she added, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the corpse of the male, "he's huge. We're gonna need a crane or something just to shift him. Let us do it."

"What?" said Luc and Liv at the same time, turning to their traitor sister with identical outraged expressions on their faces.

"Oh shut up," she said, rolling her eyes. "Dad was gonna make us do it anyway. I just got there first."

"She's not wrong," Matty admitted with a grin. "And I'll help."

"No," Bel turned her eyes on him. "You stay here with mom. She needs you."

Both parents blinked at that.

Bel took in a deep breath and let it out. "You guys are still figuring shi–stuff out. You need private time for that. So while we're going and burying the kitty-crocs, you guys need to talk and stuff. And then we'll come back, and we'll talk as a family. Because we need to figure stuff out together too."

Everyone stared at Bel for a long second.

"Wow Mom," Liv finally said. "You're a lot younger than you used to be."

"Oh shut up," Bel flung a handful of grass at her sister. "If you haven't figured it out yet, we're on an alien world and there's things out there that are trying to kill us. We all need to be on our A-game, and that means we've gotta grow the fu–frick up. That means Mom and Dad need time to get back on the same page, and then we all need to come together and figure how to make all this work together."

The only response to that was a thoughtful pause as everyone digested her words. Then Dinah nodded once and heaved herself to her feet. "I'll get started on the croc bodies," she said, then grabbed a spade from the pile of camping gear and marched off.

"We need to figure out how to make her feel more comfortable around us, too," Matt murmured into Alejandra's ear. She nodded. Dinah was probably in the worst place of any of them, but she wasn't showing much emotion one way or the other. Alejandra resolved to try and get the girl alone and talk to her… Once she was able to move and think again, anyways.

"Speaking of how to make this work…" Liv said, and glanced meaningfully over her shoulder towards the male. There was still a golden coin spinning slowly in the air above the dead monster's body, waiting for someone to claim it.

"Liv," Alejandra started to shut her down, then stopped. She looked down at her own hands, mended back to near-perfect health. She looked at Lucas, who was pretending not to watch what was going on out of the corner of his eyes as he fiddled with the gun.

Then she sighed.

"We will talk about it," she said. "Once we're settled in for the night, we will… Talk."

She still didn't like the idea. There were too many unknowns around the strange magic. She still remembered Matty's scream as he was teleported into the air, and still remembered the shock in her heart as she realized her husband was about to die.

She did not want to experience that again.

But she also remembered, faintly, the warmth from Lucas's touch. And the soothing feeling of the magic swirling through her, healing her injuries.

Yes. They would have to talk.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Lucas said suddenly, his head coming up. "Why don't we just dump the kitty-crocs in the river? That way we don't have to spend any time digging graves!"

The sudden change of subject caused a bit of mental whiplash for Alejandra, which is why it was Bel who answered first.

"Because we don't want a bunch of stinking corpses in our drinking water," Bel said, rolling her eyes. "Duh."

"Wait, we're staying here?" Luc blinked. "I thought we were just hanging out until mom was better?"

"That's the plan right now, yes," Matty said. "But your sister is still right. While we're here, that river is a perfect source of water, and we don't want dead stuff in it if we're going to be drinking from it. Even boiling it first, which we'll still do, we can't be sure we'd get it as clean as we'd need it."

"Oh. Right." Luc made a face. "Wait, maybe I could like magic it clean! I think this Chirurgeon has something–"

"Do not do anything until we've had a chance to really go over it," Alejandra said firmly. "We've got to be sure–"

"Hey guys," Dinah's voice came from behind one of the rubble piles. "Come here. You need to see this."

Everyone blinked. "What's up Di?"" Liv called.

"Just come here. It's important."

Everyone looked at each other, then shrugged and got to their feet. Matty had to help Alejandra up again, but she found she didn't mind it all that much.

Together they trooped over to where Dinah was calling from. She was farther away than Alejandra had expected, almost at the edge of the clearing near a copse of dense shrubbery. The girl was standing over the body of another gator-cat…

Alejandra frowned as they walked up. That was weird. Most of the other gator-cats were clustered together around where they'd been attacking her. Why was this one here? It was a smaller one, and it took Alejandra a moment to realize that there was something off about it. It was dead, sure enough, but she couldn't see any bullet wounds.

"So what's the deal, Di?" Olivia asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's just a dead croco-cat."

"No, it's not." Dinah said. "Look closer."

The kids craned their necks.

"That's weird," Bel said. "It doesn't look shot. Did it get hit by Mom before the gun changed? Maybe it was wounded and ran away?"

"That's what I thought too," Dinah said. "Then I checked closer, and found this."

Everyone blinked as she turned it over, exposing a series of wounds right around the creature's neck and chest.

They were not bullet wounds.

"Help me over there," Alejandra said to her husband in her Sergeant voice. Matty hesitated, then helped her shuffle forward. Damn, she needed to get her legs working faster. She gestured, and he helped her kneel down beside the corpse. With fingers that somehow managed not to tremble, she poked and prodded and inspected the strange wounds.

They were all puncture wounds, made by something with a cross-shaped blade. The holes in the flesh looked like ragged plus signs, except for the ones where the blade had obviously been twisted to increase the damage. Blades like that had been common back before the Geneva Convention on earth, designed to make wounds that were damn near impossible to stitch shut because of the nature of the holes they punched in people.

Alejandra had a knife, her old folding combat knife from her time in the desert. It was still in her pocket, its familiar weight a comfort in the back of her mind. But it didn't make holes like this. There wasn't a blade on the boat or among her family that would have made wounds like this.

The conclusion came stealthily, and only after she'd reached it did the full implications explode behind her eyeballs like a Fourth of July firework. She looked up, eyes wide, to see Dinah watching her. The teen had an expression on her face that, up until now, she'd only seen on combat vets prepared to deliver bad news.

Of course. The girl was a hunter. She'd know what this meant too.

The others were staring at the cat. Some with confusion, others with dawning realization. She looked up at Matty, and saw his face had gone from cheerful smile to beetle-brow scowl. And lord didn't he look even more attractive like that.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then took another to get the words out.

"There's someone else here."