No Better Version of Me Than When I'm With You

Chapter 4

Summary: Newt plants a garden, and even more questions get answered.

A/N: First chapter from Newt's POV! 

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"Well you just gonna stand there like a tree, or you going to come help me?" Newt twisted around as he heard the sliding door open. Tommy was standing on the porch still in his work clothes and looking surprised. He couldn't help but chuckle at the expression on his face.

"I – ah, yeah, yeah one sec." He turned around and disappeared back inside the house. A minute later, he reappeared in a pair of shorts and a tank top similar to his, and bare feet. "I wasn't expecting it to be this big." Thomas said as he walked up to him. Newt set down the spade he was using to dig up the hardpacked earth with, and sat back on his heels.

"Well what were you expecting? I'm not going to make some sad little garden when we have all this space we aren't using." He replied, squinting up at Tommy. He was silhouetted by the setting sun, and casting a shadow across him. It was welcome relief, as even at six thirty in the evening it was warm enough outside he was sweating in the sun.

"That's fair, honestly." Thomas crouched beside him and surveyed the ground. "So what're we doing right now?"

"I haven't gotten very far, I only jus' started really." Newt said, looking out across the plot of land he'd fenced in. "I'm digging up the soil right now, and am going to mix it with some proper, healthy soil with all the right nutrients that I bought and soak it with the hose before even thinking about planting seeds. Help me finish digging up this dirt?" He pointed to a spade that lay just outside his reach, "Use that one, and I bought some more gloves too, but they're inside on the table."

"Sounds like you've got a plan, then." Thomas stood, and grinned at him. Newt watched as he walked back inside to grab the gloves, and then picked up the spade and began digging a corner of the garden he hadn't gotten to yet. "Are we tossing some of this dirt out to replace it with the other stuff?"

"Figured we should, since then we have to put mulch over everything after we plant the seeds to keep weeds from growing. It'll be pretty full." Newt replied, glancing over at him.

They dug for another half an hour until all of the ground within the boundaries of the chicken-wire fence was tilled and slightly lower than the rest of the yard. They didn't have a wheelbarrow, so had used a five-gallon bucket to haul loads of dirt away and now had a pile off to the side they would have to figure out what to do with. The ground was full of pebbles and slightly larger rocks, which made digging a bit more difficult, but not unmanageable. An idea occurred to him as he tossed a larger rock into the bucket, that they should use the rocks to line the outer edge of the garden to make it look nice.

When he brought it up to Tommy, though, he was given an exasperated look. "You come up with this now? After we've dug up most of this dirt and haven't sifted through it for rocks? You're making so much extra work for us here."

"So?" Newt shrugged, not minding he'd have to spend an extra few hours going through the rocky pile of soil if it meant their yard would actually resemble something presentable.

"You're crazy." Thomas chuckled, shaking his head.

"It'll look great when it's done, don't be a twat about it." Newt shot back, returning his grin.

"I'm just being realistic here, but I'm not the one who's gonna have to sort through that pile of dirt."

"Trust the process, Tommy, trust the process."

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After finishing digging up the ground, he and Thomas grabbed two of the six large bags of garden soil he'd bought, and poured them out into the garden, spreading it around and mixing it with the several inches of topsoil that had been tilled. The process continued with the rest of the bags, and soon Newt had a hose in hand and was spraying down the plot of land.