Country Roads

The months passed quietly, the way seasons do when you're not paying close attention. Summer baked the hills red-gold, and autumn brought mist that clung to the paddocks like memory. Winter was hard—frost on the windows and firewood stacked high—and by spring the scent of wattle had soaked into everything.

Josh stayed. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. And somehow, he found peace in the rhythm.

He learned to patch fences, pull calves, and coax stubborn machinery into roaring life again. He stopped counting the days since his last mission. He stopped needing to.

***

Robert’s powers came in fits and starts. Sometimes the air would shift gently around him as he slept, as if he dreamed of wind. Other times, his control slipped—turning a tantrum into a localised windstorm, or blowing all the rakes across the yard during an argument about chores.

Josh taught him to breathe first. To listen. To ground himself.

“It’s not about control,” he told him one day, watching Robert levitate a single dandelion seed. “It’s about connection. You can’t force it. You have to trust it.”

Ben, meanwhile, didn’t manifest anything obvious—yet. But he kept reading. Kept experimenting. “Maybe my power’s intelligence,” he declared one afternoon, upside down on the couch with a book about quantum gates balanced on his chest.

“Or being a nuisance,” Tiff muttered as she walked past with laundry.

***

The wedding came in late spring. Tiff and Jett stood beneath the ironbarks in full bloom, her in boots and a white dress that flared like sunlit canvas, him in a clean shirt and the same smirk he'd always worn.

It was a good wedding. Honest. Laughter-filled.

Josh stood with Bruce and the boys, a blue tie awkwardly knotted around his neck. He didn’t cry—but he felt something tighten in his chest as Tiff kissed Jett and the crowd erupted.

***

That summer, the boys learned to run drills. Josh taught them how to track scents, avoid detection, control their breathing in a crisis. He and Bruce sparred under the old red gums, boots sliding in the dirt. It wasn’t like training with Reiko or Amara, but it was enough. It kept the edge from rusting.

Sometimes, Bruce asked him about the world beyond. About the gates. About Vale.

Josh always told the truth, but never the whole of it.

Some things were too heavy to speak aloud.

On the anniversary of Red’s death, Josh hiked to the ridge alone. He brought a beer and a dog biscuit. He laid them both on the stone he'd marked the year before. For a while he sat in silence, letting the wind speak.

“I’m still here,” he said quietly. “But I think I’m starting to be okay.”

***

The urge came back slowly.

A tug in the gut. A restlessness at night. A subtle awareness whenever the weather changed wrong or the birds fell quiet.

He began checking the Atlassian feed again. Not often. But enough.

Vale had gone quiet, but the gates hadn’t.

One morning, Josh stood by the fence, staring out at the western hills. The cows were silent. The sky was pale blue and stretching.

Bruce came up beside him, coffee in hand.

“You thinking of going back?”

Josh didn’t answer right away.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I think I am.”

Bruce just nodded. “You’ll be missed.”

Josh nodded too. “I’ll miss this. More than I thought I would.”

That night, Uncle Glenn cooked a roast. They all squeezed around the kitchen table, laughing too loud and stealing potatoes off each other’s plates. It felt like a goodbye, even if no one said it out loud.

After dinner, Tiff handed him a small envelope. Inside was a photo—Josh, Bruce, the boys, and Tiff on the verandah. Everyone was grinning. Even him.

“Something to carry with you,” she said.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” he replied.

He stood there awkwardly for a moment before Tiff gave him one of her rare smiles.

When he packed his bag, he found it lighter than expected.

He took only what he needed.

The rest—he’d already left behind, growing in the soil, echoing in laughter, tucked between the gum leaves and the sunlit fields.

***

The train cut through the countryside like a quiet thought, silver on rusted tracks. Josh sat by the window, legs stretched, pack at his feet. The world blurred past—paddocks, hills, the occasional half-collapsed shed—each one a fragment of the place he was leaving behind.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He could still smell the gum trees. Hear the dogs barking in the distance. Feel the sun on his back as he walked fence lines with Bruce, shirts off, boots caked in mud.

His fingers curled around the photo Tiff had given him. He hadn’t told her, but he’d already framed it in his head: a snapshot of belonging, of being someone without having to be useful.

Outside, the green began to fade into concrete. Silos. Overpasses. Apartment blocks. Civilization creeping back in.

He tried to steady his breathing.

He wasn’t the same man who left. Not really. That version had been brittle and fast-burning. He was different now. Grounded. Slower. But strong in a way that didn’t always show.

He was nervous about who he’d have to be when he walked back through those doors. The portal agent. The 100-score miracle. The good boy.

He rested his head against the glass and closed his eyes.

“I can do this,” he whispered. “But I don’t have to be perfect.”

The train rolled on.

***

Josh stepped off the train into the warm fug of a Brisbane afternoon. His ears twitched at the rush of noise — traffic, chatter, the distant thrum of helicopters overhead. He paused on the platform, tail flicking in a slow arc behind him, and let the city surround him.

The scent of fuel and coffee, of damp pavement and street food — it was familiar but jarring. For a moment, he thought he heard the lowing of cows again, the chirp of birds nesting in the shearing shed rafters. But it was gone as soon as it came.

The walk to his apartment was long enough for the ache in his chest to settle in properly. His boots tapped softly on the concrete, his shoulders hunched beneath a hoodie that didn’t quite fit the same way anymore. The neighbourhood hadn’t changed. Same old corner shop, same dog barking at the same window.

He keyed into the building, climbed the stairs out of habit, and paused outside his door.

The lock turned with a familiar snick.

Inside: dust, stale air, and a single piece of junk mail wedged under the door. Everything was where he’d left it — his laundry basket still half-full, a broken wall clock ticking faintly even though it had stopped at 11:42 months ago.

He dropped his duffel by the door and took a slow lap around the place. He put the photo of his cousins and uncle on the fridge. Opened the doors. Closed it again. The fridge was empty but humming away loyally. He leaned against the bench and let out a breath that shuddered on the way out.

Eventually, he ordered Thai. Sat out on the balcony with pad see ew in one hand and a beer in the other, watching the lights come on across the city like fireflies. Horns honked. A train screamed through the distance.

Josh was exhausted from his journey and fell asleep early in the evening on the couch. He brushed his teeth and put himself to bed - making sure to get a good night's rest before his first day back.

***

Josh arrived early the next morning at Atlassian HQ, the huge glass-and-steel complex glittering under the rising sun. His ID still worked. The guards gave him a quiet nod of recognition, but nobody stopped him. It felt surreal, stepping into the lobby again like it hadn’t been a full year.

He walked softly to the lifts. His reflection in the polished chrome doors stared back — broader now, more grounded. Older.

On Level 9, the room buzzed with activity. Screens ran endless footage of gate breaches, mana flow data, threat classifications. It was like nothing had changed — except for the banner hanging above the far wall: WELCOME BACK, GOOD BOY scrawled in sharpie, with paw prints and bite marks along the edges.

“Really?” Josh muttered.

“Don’t look at me,” Reiko said from behind him.

He turned — and there she was, arms crossed, hair longer, a faint scar along her cheek that hadn’t been there before. For a beat, neither of them moved.

Then she strode forward and hugged him, firm and fierce.

Amara was next — bounding across the room like a missile and nearly tackling him in a bear hug that lifted him off his paws.

“You look like a bloody workhorse now,” she said, grinning. “Farm life suits you.”

He smiled. “You two didn’t burn the place down without me?”

“Almost,” Reiko said. “But Richard installed fireproof carpet.”

Right on cue, Richard strolled out of the office with a coffee in each hand. “Good to see you, Good Boy,” he said.

He handed him a coffee. “We’ve missed you.”

Josh nodded, overwhelmed but grateful. “I missed you guys too.”

“There’s someone you should meet down in the gym.” Richard said.

***

The doors opened to Sublevel 3—training and readiness. The air was warm and metallic, tinged with sweat and ozone. Someone was using the heavy-lift frames again.

Josh stepped into the corridor. From down the hall came the low thrum of mana-charged weights being racked and slammed. He followed the noise.

In the gym, a wall mirror reflected a mountain of a man bent over a deadlift bar. Bald head, broad chest, forearms like tree trunks. Tattoos looped from his neck down to his wrists — old-world designs crossed with military unit sigils. A thick scar ran from jaw to collarbone, half-faded but unmistakable.

Josh watched as the man grunted, lifted 600kg like it was a warmup, then dropped it with a loud boom that rattled the racks.

“You Josh?” the man asked without turning.

Josh blinked. “Yeah.”

The man straightened, grabbed a towel, and finally turned. His eyes were dark, sunken a little from long years and hard roads. But there was something gentle behind them. A stillness that didn’t need to raise its voice to command a room.

“You’re taller than I expected.”

“Most people say that.”

The man grunted. “Name’s Leo. Team 7’s new frontliner.”

Josh blinked. “I thought Reiko was still in command?”

“She is. But she needed someone who could stand in the breach. Figured I’d do.”

Josh stepped further in, his tail giving a slow, thoughtful wag. “So you're the new tank.”

“I’m the old tank,” Leo said. “Twenty years portal-side before they pulled me out. Been back two years now. Still figuring out how to sleep on a bed instead of a rock.”

Josh inhaled sharply. “Twenty years there and how much time passed here?"

Leo looked at him. “Two months.”

"You didn't age?" Josh asked him.

"Part of my power set. I'm immune to their timestream." he answered.

Josh took Leo in with careful consideration, sensing the man was more than met the eye.

“I heard you took some time off after losing a teammate.” Leo said.

Josh nodded.

“You good?” he asked directly.

Josh looked him in the eye.

“I’m sleeping at night. I want to be here. That’s the best I can give you.” he answered.

“That’s plenty.” Leo replied, holding out a meaty hand for Josh to shake and giving him a nod of approval.

"Oh and one other thing. I need you to come over for Sunday dinner with the wife and my two girls. They're big fans." Leo said as he loaded more weight onto the machine, causing it to creak in protest.

"Sure, Sunday dinner, ok." Josh said.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of Leo. The fact that the man was holding it together after 20 years portal side was intriguing. He couldn't imagine what horrors he'd had to endure in the other world. To go from that back to bedtime stories with kids? It seemed like too much and if Josh was going to go on missions alongside Leo he resolved to understand how he'd coped with the mental side of things later.

For now, he just felt good to be back.