Chapter Text
--chapter one-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvey woke with a start, his chest heaving and his face glistening with sweat as he fought to control his breathing after being summoned into consciousness. He sat up and pushed the soft grey blanket down onto his lap. The sudden movement from the disheveled man roused the honey colored mutt at the foot of the bed, who lifted his head and aimed his lazy eyes at Harvey.
“Sorry buddy, didn’t mean to spook you.” Harvey murmured and rubbed the dog’s head. This was a good enough apology for him it seemed, as he lowered his head back onto the bed and closed his eyes once more. The rain that rapped against the windows helped the dog slip back into a blissful sleep. Now that he was sitting and mostly aware of his surroundings, Harvey turned his blurry vision towards the empty side of the bed beside him. The blankets were sloppily pushed towards the midline of the bed and the pillow was rotated an odd 90 degrees. Harvey put his hand on the exposed bedsheet and smiled softly to find that it was cold. Always an early riser.
Harvey was quite a heavy sleeper on most nights, but on the rare occasion, he would wake with an extreme start at the simplest of noises regardless of their volume or distance from him. This morning’s trigger was the muffled sound of distant thunder. Harvey reached onto the nightstand beside him to grab his glasses before sliding his legs over the side of the bed. With his feet on the ground and glasses on his face, Harvey took one last calming breath to steady his pulse before standing up and walking over to the dresser across the room. The bedroom door was open and he could see his girlfriend in the kitchen facing the stove. The sight alone brought a small smile to his face.
The girl stood in the kitchen in a pair of too-big black boxers and an oversized white shirt that hung loosely from her petite frame. On her feet were a pair of mismatched striped socks. Her brown hair was braided messily over her shoulder and a pair of glasses were nestled on top of her head, almost hidden by the mess of her hair. Amelia was always a beautiful sight to Harvey’s eyes, but perhaps his most favorite view of her was shortly after she woke. Something about her was so open and natural and he could never seem to get tired of waking up to that view.
Harvey opened up the dresser’s second drawer and pulled out the first flannel he found and then quietly closed it. He shrugged on the soft blue garment and adjusted his black pajama pants before padding out of the room softly towards his girlfriend. Whether or not she heard him, she made no move to turn around. Amelia continued humming softly while stirring something in front of her. His hands found their way around her waist smoothly and Harvey placed his head on her shoulder. As soon as his hand made contact with her skin below her shirt, her body gave a small jump and the small spoon she was holding fell out of her hand and clinked loudly against the side of the porcelain mug and onto the counter.
“You know today is a day off right? No need to be up as early as always.” Harvey’s moustache tickled her ear softly as he whispered.
“Harvey, I could have peed myself! Not fair.” Amelia turned her head towards him and playfully scolded her grinning boyfriend. “Plus,” Amelia began and twisted herself around in his embrace before continuing, “I never have days off and you know that.” Amelia placed a quick peck on his cheek before half turning to pick up the coffee mug she had her attention on a moment ago. She took a small sip and then offered it to Harvey who took it with one hand. The scent of the hot coffee warmed his nose and his heart alike.
“I know, but I wish you did. You work harder than anyone in this entire town,” Harvey said and then took a long, careful sip of his coffee.
“I chose this life, so I’m fine with it. It’s really not a lot of work once you get used to it. Since its raining today I have much less to worry about.” Amelia explained and slid out of Harvey’s loose embrace. “I do have to start working though, so please excuse me.” Amelia excused herself back to the bedroom. A moment later, he heard drawers open and the sound of a shirt colliding with the side of a laundry basket followed.
Harvey sat down at the table while he waited for Amelia to change and return. While he sipped his coffee, he picked up the television remote and flipped it on. While he already knew it was raining, he learned that tomorrow was going to be a cloudy day, which he noted for Amelia’s sake. The next channel he landed on pictured a woman in navy robes seated in front of a crystal ball.
“Ah, it seems that we have a new viewer watching! …..Stardew Valley it seems? Welcome welcome!” The woman clapped happily, which made Harvey’s ears perk up. He didn’t have a television back in his clinic, so he had no idea this channel existed. Must be a good fortune teller though, he mused with a smile and watched as the crystal ball began to dimly glow. Yellow smoke slowly materialized in the crystal ball and in an instant it was no longer confined to the orb. The smoke had an almost snake like appearance as it trailed above the woman’s head and twisted itself into a neat pyramid.
“Ah, yes! The spirits seem to be in good humor today! I think you’ll find a little extra luck today,” The woman seemed to look directly into Harvey’s eyes as she spoke. A small smile spread across her face and she winked.
-click-
The television turned itself off as Amelia re-entered the room. Her long hair was wrapped into a messy bun on top of her head and a headband kept the rest of the flyaways away from her face. She wore an old and faded t-shirt beneath a blue raincoat, a pair of faded blue jeans with a dark denim patches on the left knee, and matching blue rain boots.
“Watching television?” Amelia mused before pouring herself her own mug of coffee on the counter. Harvey placed the remote on the table and shrugged before shifting his body to face her. “I guess I was. Thank you for the coffee, by the way,” he said and nodded towards his now empty mug.
Amelia took a long sip of the steaming liquid and then lowered the mug to reveal a cheeky smile. She took a few steps towards him and leaned forward at the waist to place a soft kiss on his forehead. “It’s my pleasure!”
Harvey smiled up at her and cupped his hands around hers. Her fingers were always cold, and even holding a mug of coffee didn’t manage to shift that. He brought her hands to his face and he placed a chaste kiss on one of her fingers, which made the heat in her face spike the tiniest amount.
Since she was distracted, Harvey took this opportunity to tilt her mug into his mouth and take a quick sip of her coffee before releasing her hands. Amelia giggled as he wiped the liquid from his mustache.
“Alright alright, I do need to get started. I’ll see you in a bit!” Amelia said and backed up a few steps before turning and heading out of the house. Harvey scanned the wall for a clock and saw that it was pushing 8:20 am. Amelia was usually out of bed and on the farm by 6:20 at the latest, even if it was a rainy day. What caused such a delay today? He knew he had taken up the last 10 minutes of her time, but that came nowhere near accounting for the two hour difference.
While Harvey was contemplating his girlfriend’s shift in morning routine, he made his way back into the bedroom to switch into a pair of pants and find his farm boots. He still worked at his clinic full time, but on the weekends that he was closed he liked to help Amelia on the farm unless he had a patient with a special appointment. He was always ‘on call’, he supposed, but with just over thirty people in the town, he wasn’t the busiest. The farm was a brisk ten minute jog from the clinic, so anyone who needed him just needed to call and he would meet them at his clinic, which left him more open to help his girlfriend with her sprawling farm. He quickly learned that his normal clinic attire wouldn’t swing in this kind of labor, so he took it upon himself to dig out some of his old clothes that he wouldn’t mind ruining.
As he pulled on his shoes, Harvey eyed an empty cardboard box on the floor across the room. He tightened his laces and made his way over to the box to pick it up and place it in the recycling bin in the kitchen. The box itself was about the size of a hefty book, which confused Harvey as to what its contents could have been. He turned the nondescript box over and saw Amelia’s name scrawled in pen with Marnie’s name signed neatly underneath. Marnie? What did Marnie give Amelia in such a uselessly small box? Harvey wondered to himself but decided to ask her about it that evening, if he even remembered it by then, and then tossed the box away.
Once Harvey was adequately dressed and armed with an umbrella, he made his way out onto the front porch of his girlfriend’s house. She had only been in the valley for two and a half years, but one wouldn’t guess that by the sight ahead of him. What was once a gnarly overgrown mess was now a neatly organized field of healthy crops. On the west side of the farm is a coop and a barn that housed numerous animals, both completely enclosed with a beautiful black iron fencing. Amelia had saved enough over her time here to build numerous silos and sheds and even a mill on her property to fully utilize her farm’s potential. If her grandfather could see it, no doubt he would be proud of all of her hard work and dedication to this land.
Harvey picked up his girlfriend’s empty coffee mug off of the top step and set it instead on one of the chairs behind him. He stepped out of the cover of the porch and into the rain in search of his girlfriend to see what kind of help he could offer her.
He knew her general routine on a normal day, and figuring that she wouldn’t stray from two routines in the same day, he headed towards the coop and figured he would work from there. Numerous chickens and ducks of different colors greeted Harvey as he stepped into the coop. He stooped down to softly pet and coo at each one of them until they were satisfied enough to leave him alone and continue pecking at the floor. With no sign of Amelia in this building, Harvey then moved onto the barn and repeated the process of loving on all of the affectionate animals while searching for his girlfriend.
She must have gotten through the animal chores faster than usual or there wasn’t quite as much product to be collected on a rainy day Harvey guessed as he headed back out into the rain. Once he closed the fence gate behind him, he paused and contemplated where to search for her next. He scanned the buildings ahead of him as he pondered, but eventually caught sight of his target anyway. She was squatted near her greenhouse, so it was no surprise he had missed her on his first quick visual sweep of the farm. He could make out her blue raincoat in surrounding green fields and noted that her hood was up and obstructing her face. He made his way towards her at a leisurely pace, enjoying the sound that the raindrops made on her paved walkways.
Only as he got closer did he realize that his hooded girlfriend was not merely crouching on the ground. When he was only about 15 feet away, he could visibly see her shoulders shaking. This sent a cold feeling straight to the core of his stomach and he quickly jogged up to her and called her name, “Amelia? What are you up to?”
Amelia hurriedly stood up and turned towards him, her hand clumsily wiping her cheeks and mouth. “Oh, hey Harvey. Didn’t know you were coming out here,” she said, her voice strangely hoarse.
Harvey instead slipped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest and underneath the umbrella, sensing that something was up. It wasn’t until her face was already in his chest that he noticed the dark puddle behind her. The smell was unmistakable and Harvey’s own stomach churned and threatened to heave. He gently led her back towards the cabin, and she obliged silently.
Once inside, Harvey made his way into the bathroom and retrieved a warm, dry towel. When he returned he found Amelia sitting on the chair in her kitchen, lazily rubbing alternating circles on her dog’s ears. He carefully stepped over the dog and draped the towel over her shoulders and gently patted her damp hair dry. “Are you feeling alright? You didn’t seem ill when you went out,” Harvey noted and looked at his quiet girlfriend.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I think it was just the sight of the rat Doug caught and kindly left out for me.” Amelia explained without breaking her eye contact with the dog. Doug’s tail began to thump loudly against the floorboards at the mention of his name. Harvey couldn’t recall seeing the rat, but then again he didn’t really look that hard.
“Alright, well sip on your water and I’ll go grab something for you real fast,” Harvey instructed and rested the towel around her shoulders once more before walking over to the cupboards near them. He retrieved a loaf of bread from the shelf and placed two pieces of bread into the toaster and pressed the slider down. Harvey hefted himself onto the counter beside the appliance to wait. “Do you want me to go take care of the mess?” He offered.
Amelia finally broke eye contact with the dog and looked up at Harvey. “Oh no no, don’t worry. I can take care of it myself. I wouldn’t want you having to touch it.” She answered quickly and offered a smile. If Harvey was guessing something was off about her before, there was no doubt now.
They sat in silence for another minute as they waited for the toast to pop up. Once he pulled it from the toaster, he placed it on a napkin and placed on the table next to Amelia’s water. Amelia smiled at Harvey in thanks and turned her head to look at the toast in front of her. He watched in slight confusion as she did just that, simply looked at the toast.
What…..what was she doing? Or, rather, lack of what she was doing. It was like Harvey could see the gears twist in her head as she studied the toast in front of her. No more than ten seconds could have passed before her nose scrunched up the tiniest bit and she stood up.
“E-excuse me,” Amelia pushed her chair back and scurried past him and into their bedroom. Harvey followed closely behind her, his face a mixture of confusion and worry. Since when did toast offend her?
Amelia made a beeline for the bathroom and unceremoniously threw her head into the porcelain bowl to upheave the contents of her stomach for the second time that morning. Harvey quietly sat down next to her and rubbed circles on her back as she sputtered into the bowl. Without raising her head from the seat of the toilet, she raised her hand and flushed. Harvey let her remain in that position until she was ready to move, but he remained beside her and rubbed her back soothingly.
After a few minutes of listening to the toilet refill and Amelia’s heavy breathing, she looked up and into Harvey’s eyes. Her forehead was glistening with a light sheen and her skin was pale, but her eyes were unusually calm and serious.
“I need to tell you something.”
The spirits are in good humor today? Good humor my ass.