#keletso

Keletso: I can’t help who Nadi chooses!

Onkemetse: This treasure hunting business is dangerous! And where did you get that bracelet? Is that a ruby?

Keletso:

Despite everything that had happened, Nadine turned out great, so would keletso ever forgive him for pushing her down that path?

Nadine DID turn out great!!!!!11!1

Ok seriously though this must be the same anon asking all these awesome questions because I refuse to believe this many people got through the 15k sex-free words of Surprise!

Nadine's parents probably talk on the phone every so often. In one of my earliest fics Loyiso had a new family, but from the characterization I've given him since? He probably still loves Keletso with all his heavy heart and misses her dearly.

Does Keletso love him right back, through her anger, as she plays with her former soldier of a daughter's curls? Nadine's head on her lap, a Nigerian soap opera on the muted TV? Does she see Loyiso in Nadine, like Loyiso sees Keletso in her?

Does Chloe ask about it, halfway through dominoes, because Nadine is asleep (probably dreaming about trebuchets and gray langurs) and can't shoot her a warning look?

"Nadine really cares about what he...thinks of her," she might say, glancing at her before looking back up, guiltily, at Keletso. "I mean. She wants to make him proud and--worries about it. Giving up Shoreline was--"

"Don't," Keletso will snap. "say that word."

"You mean Shor--oh."

Chloe will make a forced, uncomfortable smile, gulping with awkwardness.

Keletso will laugh softly. "He was stupid for giving her his stupid company in the first place."

"Oh, she did mention you don't--that you--that you prefer it out here, away from--"

"He used to say 'some girls' fathers work in the mines'. He was proud of that. Loyiso was proud. No, he would not be the one choking or being crushed in the darkness beneath the earth to earn these bastards their weight in our diamonds and gold."

"Well," Chloe will mumble. "I--I should think mining was the opposite of safe, back then, what? At least Nadine still--still has him. I mean. I guess I wish she'd not worry about it so much."

"Still has him," Keletso will scoff. "Once he pulls his head out of his ass and stops talking like it's an honest job--sorry," she sighs. "I did not mean to get into it. My daughter is like a cat. I cannot get up at all now."

Chloe nearly jumps to her feet. "Oh, did you need more tea, love? Let me get that for you--"

Without waiting for a response, she high-tails it to the kitchen, where she exhales a long breath. She may have said too much. And also why was she defending Loyiso to Nadine's mother?

I'm sorry it took so long to respond to this. I really love this question. Keletso is mentioned by her daughter in Chapter 6 of Surprise and some of my rambles about Second Legacy (the game that doesn't exist).

But to summarize:

Keletso loves Nadine very much, but in a very different way from Loyiso. She lives in Botswana and loves to help/save injured birds. She and Loyiso met and fell in love during the fight of their lives: their very different approaches to resisting apartheid and stabbing baasskap in the throat.

Keletso was an organizer for defiance campaigns, trying to bring people together to fight for a fair South Africa. She may not remember how many times the government arrested her. Maybe she's where Nadine gets her tenacity and bravery, and Loyiso is where she gets her kindness, because Keletso. Does not. Take any shit. And when she was mad at him for taking the most important thing in the world to her and making Nadine another of his soldiers, she up and left.

"How dare you," she may have said to him. "Look what a wonderful girl, a precious student, you are training to be another killer."

Nadine was already an adolescent and probably in America studying life sciences when Keletso and Loyiso had their big spat about Nadine's future and career. They did not have their fight in front of her and raised her together in Johannesburg when she was a child.

Keletso just went back to Gaborone to live with her sister and they eventually had a home built for her next door. Nadine visited often even while enlisted and is very close to her mom, aunt, and little cousin Boitumelo and he used to ask her to play dolls with him.

Gay marriage is legal in South Africa and Nadine's family is progressive in my headcanons. Loyiso thinks highly of Chloe, Onkemetse (obviously) doesn't trust her yet (she's very protective of Nadine okay), and Keletso probably hears a lot about Chloe from Onkemetse but has a more optimistic view since Nadine has called and told her about their adventures before. When Nadine and Chloe finally make it to Gaborone to visit, Keletso can make her own judgements about Chloe.

But she probably finds something about Chloe to love. Keletso isn't swayed by gifts or grand gestures, so Chloe isn't going to get on her good side with those. But she will love the Chloe who decided to sacrifice herself for the greater good at the end of the Lost Legacy. Maybe they have a long talk while Keletso is styling her daughter's hair? Maybe less 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' job interview grilling and more 'show me you can look after the most important thing in the world to me'.

He doesn't. Jordan just avoids Loyiso. The whole family sort of half-fears the former head of Shoreline, even if Jordan has gay bravery superpowers (he does) he wouldn't go out of his way to start shit with his brother.

There’s a special pain that dwells in a place where you reserved for a baby that never arrives

You see the pain never goes away, everyone else is busy living their lives and every not so often yours stands still

You find ways to manage the pain, make it lesser, make it appear as through it’s not there

You disguise the pain with a smile and a laugh

But the pain strikes at 4am when everybody else is asleep

It creeps up on you at 2pm when you’re at a baby shower

And it comes back again at 9pm when your partner slides down his hand from your belly to touch your vagina

 There is a special pain that comes from losing a baby

It comes back to you when you’re having a heated argument with your cousin

And she tells you ‘you wouldn’t understand because you don’t have kids’

And she pauses before she walks away, pity washing her face and tears of regret

It hits you again when your friend reprimands you because you put up a picture of her kid on social media and didn’t tag her

That pain gnaws at you when you see an expecting couple

 It comes knocking on you door. Every. Single. Day.

You experience that pain, always, it never stops

It comes and it promises to kill you

To destroy you

To end you

But it never does no!

Death would be easier

The void widens regardless of your management skills

You never expect it but it comes