Chapter Text
Tyler grunted at the knock that sounded on his motel room door. He had just managed to lower himself to the bed, left leg awkwardly stuck out. He hadn’t even changed out of his dirt covered jeans and flannel. Another knock sounded a minute later. Guess they weren’t going to go away if he ignored them. With a sigh, he pushed himself back to his feet, stumbling into the wall for a minute when his leg gave out. By the time he got to the door, the person had knocked two more times.
Heaving the door open, he was prepared to tell whoever it was from his crew to leave him alone but ended up staring, mouth falling open for a second.
Looking back at him was Kate.
Beautiful, whole, alive Kate.
Tyler closed his mouth with a click, blinking rapidly to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. When she was still there, he casually leaned a hip into the doorframe to take the weight off his leg and a small smile quirked his lips, “Hey, Supulpa.”
She smiled back at him, “Hey, Tyler.”
Tyler waited for her to say something, maybe explain why she was knocking on his door, but it didn’t happen. They just stared at each other for a minute.
“Everything okay? What did the doctors say?” Tyler gestured at the top of her forehead where she was bleeding from after crawling out of his wrecked truck not even twenty-four hours ago. He had escorted her to the hospital but left when Javi made it clear that she wouldn’t be alone. Tyler preferred to lick his wounds privately. And he hated hospitals.
Kate reached up and touched her forehead, gently brushing some of the hair away so he could glimpse the butterfly bandages on the cuts, “Oh! Yeah. Just some small cuts from the glass breaking and bruises from rolling. The doctors said I was a little out of it because of the shock and dehydration. No concussion or anything. Good as new after fluids and some sleep.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Kate just nodded, shifting on her feet.
Tyler rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit he thought he had gotten rid of years ago. To be fair, he wasn’t expecting anybody tonight and hadn’t quite had the time to prepare, “Uh, is there something you needed or…?”
“Oh,” Kate waved her hands in front of her, “No, no. I don’t need anything. It’s just uh. Well I’m going home for a few days and she said that I should invite you so I DM’d Lily on Instagram and got your room number. I also realized that I don’t have your phone number.”
“And you got the room number from Lily instead of the phone number?”
Kate hesitated, “To be honest, I hadn’t thought of that. Probably would’ve been easier. I guess I also uh, you know. I wanted to see you after everything. You weren’t at the hospital.”
Tyler swallowed roughly, “Uh yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah I just–Javi was there and I didn’t want to intrude.”
Kate laughed at that, “Intrude? You’ll show up at my motel room door and invite me to a rodeo and show up at my mom’s house but you didn’t want to intrude after going through a life changing tornado?”
Tyler laughed with her, “Yeah, guess that doesn’t make much sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. But you can make it up to me now and come back to my mom’s house. She’s making dinner.”
“Kate, I don’t wanna–”
“Intrude?”
Tyler nodded, slightly shifting on his good leg, still leaning on the door frame.
“She said she insists. And so do I. Least I could do after wrecking your truck,” Kate grinned sheepishly making Tyler laugh.
“Nah, don’t worry about the truck. That’s what it’s for. It still drives. Besides, didn’t completely save you,” Tyler trailed off, biting his lip as he focused in on where he knew she bled from. He should’ve installed thicker glass. Who cares that it’s more expensive? Maybe it wouldn’t have cut her if it had been nicer.
“It definitely saved me. And everybody else. If I had been in anything else I probably would’ve been crushed.”
Tyler swallowed at the thought. He had only known Kate a week but he couldn’t imagine life without her anymore. Of course she will eventually go back to her fancy job in New York but at least there her mom and Javi still had her. If she had died because his truck wasn’t fortified well enough…He would have to mark up some new ways to make it stronger. Maybe he’d add another two drills to it for when the tornadoes are bigger. He definitely would add thicker glass all around, and maybe stronger supports around the frame for good measure. Weight would be helpful, but he still needed it to be nimble enough to drive through the fields and haul the trailer for Kate’s polymer. Before his brain could start coming up with the schematics for it, Tyler tore himself from his thoughts.
“Well, if you’re going to make it a habit of driving off into death storms then I’m gonna have to make some serious upgrades.”
Just like it was supposed to, the remark made Kate laugh.
“Don’t worry, not planning on doing that again.”
But Tyler was still going to get better reinforcements for it. Just in case.
Kate continued, oblivious to his thoughts, “Come on, Arkansas. I’m not taking no for an answer. Come back to my mom’s house where we’ll get a nice home cooked meal and clean, soft beds.”
Tyler still hesitated. It would be much harder to hide his leg from Kate if they were in the same house. Not that he was hiding it from her. He just wasn’t a fan of showing people when he was hurting. Honestly, he was lucky she hadn’t brought it up yet. The whole event had probably been forgotten after the rest of the day which was exactly how he preferred it. He hadn’t even told the rest of his crew that anything had happened, just claimed he was sore from holding onto Lily. Which was true. Holding onto Lily with his bad leg hooked through the seats while she was being pulled by a tornado had in fact made his leg very sore. Actually, just about every part of his body was sore but that wasn’t the most pressing issue right now.
“It’s got hot water,” Kate sing-songed.
Tyler glared at her. “You know that I can’t say no to that.”
Kate grinned, scrunching her nose a little, “I know.”
Tyler chuckled, ducking his head to hide his grin. “Alright, alright. Let me grab my stuff. It’ll only take a minute. Meet you down there?”
Kate nodded once, “Okay.”
Tyler couldn’t help but shake his head with a small laugh as she practically bounced as she walked away, hair swishing back and forth. Once she rounded the corner, shooting him one last smile, he closed the door. Finally taking all his weight off his left leg, he pressed his forehead into the door. Dehydration and sleep deprivation were definitely getting to him, not to mention that he hadn’t eaten since before The Tornado.
The Tornado that almost killed them plus an entire town, his crew—his family—included.
The Tornado that finally taught Kate to believe in herself.
Tyler shook those thoughts away. Now was not the time to dwell on what happened. For now, the memories and all the emotions they evoked would be neatly tucked away into a box to be shoved to the back of his mind. That is, until his subconscious came out to play in his dreams.
With a sigh, Tyler quickly shoved the few items he had taken out of his bag back in. He paused with the bag on the bed, hand hesitating at the zipper. It would probably be fine. But what if a tornado touched down near them and he needed to get Kate out? But what if Kate saw it?
Ultimately Tyler’s concern for Kate won out and he huffed as he dug through the bag, searching for something at the bottom. He hadn’t worn the brace in years, not since soon after he retired bull riding, but it would come in handy now. It would only be part of the brace but at least then his leg wouldn’t be collapsing under him when he walked without leaning on something.
Mildly buckling probably but he could cover that up at least.
Tyler slipped his jeans off as fast as his aching body would allow, bruises and sore muscles protesting after being partially squashed by a street car, knocked over and rolled by a wave from the water tower, holding onto Lily for dear life, and then running what had to be a mile to get to Kate. Not to mention helping people in town after leaving Kate with Javi at the hospital and going back to El Reno. The more he thought about it, the more surprised he was. His leg was actually doing okay considering what happened. It was still attached.
The compression part of the brace was a thin sleeve that slid up his leg, meant to be worn under a bulkier, sturdier brace for his knee. He had originally broken his leg up as a teen, using the brace for stability after being in a cast so long, and then to ride bulls as it now had a tendency to get hurt easier. Rehab had made it stronger, but the bones inside his leg still ached in a storm sometimes or if he overdid it, hence why he kept the brace around.
Boone and Lily were the only ones to ever see him wear it. Boone knew him from the rodeo and Lily was the first one he and Boone brought into they’re little ragtag storm chasing group. By the time Dexter and Dani came alone, he had already stopped wearing it regularly. Now if he needed to wear it during chasing season, if the day was that bad, he holed up in a crappy motel room and rode it out by himself. The bulky part of the brace, the part that was actually important to wear, was carefully tucked away under the seats in the back of his truck.
It only took him a couple minutes to slide the brace up, followed by his jeans and then boots. Doing his belt back up, he took a quick minute to pray that his truck made it as far at Kate’s house. It had taken quite the beating and multiple pieces were broken or bent. He was sure he could fix it, he always did, but he hadn’t had the time or energy to thoroughly evaluate just how messed up it got.
Tyler quickly came to the conclusion that fixing his truck is a thought for another time. A time after he has had food and water and has slept for twenty hours and it’s not going to worsen the headache pounding behind his eyes. He had run out of Advil capsules a few weeks ago and has thus far forgotten to replace them.
By the time Tyler carefully limped his way down the steps of the motel, Kate had been waiting about five minutes. She was sitting on the curb, knees pulled up to her chest with her elbows resting on them and chin resting on her hands. Her blonde hair had been pulled back into a messy ponytail, front pieces falling around her face as she stared at the blue sky above. Not a cloud in sight. Her small suitcase was beside her on the sidewalk, bag placed on top.
Tyler’s gaze wearily shifted to his truck. Usually he always got a thrill looking at his truck but seeing it dented and missing some pieces just made it look sad. All of the windows were busted out and the windshield was a mess of spiderwebbed cracks. The outside was a mess of dents and holes, the metal exoskeleton missing in some places. Most of the equipment strapped to the top had blown off or been crushed.
All in all: it was going to take a while to get it back together. Not to mention how much money it would take. Tyler would have to dip into his own accounts. He couldn’t take all of the money from the YouTube account to fix the truck, especially with the upgrades he was planning on making. The rest of his crew had small part time gigs but most of their income came from storm chasing. Taking away some of their income to fix his truck didn’t sit right with him. His side gig was the highest paying anyway, high enough that he didn’t have to use the YouTube income to survive but still low enough that the money from social media would definitely help. He tried to save most of the money from the channel to invest back into gear and upgrades and tech but sometimes it wasn’t quite enough.
“Hey, Sapulpa.”
Kate’s hair swished as she turned to face him, a small grin on her face, “Hey, Tyler.”
“Whatchu smilin’ about?”
Her lips pursed as she tried to fight the smile threatening to overtake her face, “You know what we did yesterday?”
Tyler’s eyebrows scrunched together even as he grinned back at her, “Not die?”
Kate stood and let out a joyous laugh, arms out by her sides encompassing the vast Oklahoman sky, “We tamed a tornado.”
“You. You did it, darlin’. You tamed a tornado.”
Kate laughed as her head fell back to look at the sky as she spun and yelled, “I tamed a tornado!”
All Tyler could do was stare at her. She was perfect. The same revelation from when they saw that perfect EF-1 form came back full force: he was gonna do everything in his power to help this girl fix her broken pieces. And then he was gonna do everything in his power to marry her.
She finally stopped spinning and looked directly at him, smile on full display, pieces of her blonde hair gently blowing across her face. What really got Tyler though was the joy in her eyes. The only other time he had seen her eyes light up like this was when they were in the EF-1. The spark that loved chasing these forces of nature. The fire that found them beautiful. And the determination to not kill them, but tame them. Kate had made that careful distinction when Boone called her a Twister Killer.
“We’re not gonna kill it, Boone.” She grinned, eyes alight, “We’re gonna tame it.”
“Well shit, Not City Girl. Kate the Tornado Tamer." Boone whipped around to face Tyler, a mildly awestruck expression on his face as he stage whispered," I think she’s the OG wrangler, T.”
Tyler just shrugged and smiled, eyes focused on Kate and oblivious to the looks his crew was giving him, “Yeah. I think you may be right.”
Still grinning, she asked, “You ready to go?”
Tyler cleared his throat, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready, Supulpa. You ridin’ with me?”
“Who else could I trust?”
Although she meant it as a joke, it stole Tyler’s breath. She trusted him. Kate trusted Tyler. Not many people did. Actually, it was just his crew. And somehow in the past few days, Kate had become a part of the crew. She fit in well. Talked the science with Dexter, asked Lily about her drone, had Dani explain how the relief boxes came about and all that goes into them, and even shared tornado stories with Boone. Somehow, she fit seamlessly into their mismatched family. Almost like she should’ve been there all along.
“Besides,” Kate continued, “I don’t have another way without stealing Javi’s truck again.”
Tyler laughed at Kate’s sheepish smile.
“Well, come on, darlin’. We got about a two hour drive ahead of us.”