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Abigail had never given much thought to the future before Jack. After his birth, the day-to-day had taken all of her time and energy, so the far off future was something she couldn’t see, much less grasp. After Jack had survived his first year and Susan pronounced him more likely to live past the age of swaddling, Abigail began to breathe, to dream and look forward. John, though, for his part, didn’t seem interested in planning a future with her, even if it was spun of clouds and make-believe. He shrugged her off and withdrew from her and Jack, shoulders tense and jaw clenched tight enough to crack his teeth.
Hosea insisted that John needed time to settle into fatherhood; he needed to learn what it meant to be a father at all, seeing as his own Pa hadn’t been worth half a damn. John never mentioned him to Abigail and Hosea had only let the occasional hint drop. So, what Abigail knows, the pieces of John’s torn past that she knits into a patchwork explanation of the man he’s grown to be? Those come from only one source: Arthur Morgan.
It’s shortly after Jack turns a year old and Abigail is trying to hold the infant still enough to feed him. John is nowhere to be found and the other members of the gang are less than interested in helping with the mothering, not that Abigail expects, or would even ask. After all, John is meant to be there with her, sharing in the work of caring for the son he’d helped make.
She’s about to give up, Jack is dissolving into red-faced tears, when a shadow is cast over where Abigail sits on a camp chair. She jerks her head back, flyaway locks of hair are shaken loose from where it’s tied up out of Jack’s reach.
“You need some help there, Miss Roberts?” Arthur’s gruff drawl is not what she expects, but the offer is so sorely needed that she accepts it without a second thought.
“Oh, Arthur! Yes, if you could. Jack hasn’t eaten and I can’t very well hold and feed him at once. Only got one set of hands and his father is off doin’ God knows what, as always.” Abigail shifts Jack where he sits on her lap and watches as Arthur picks up a crate and places it in front of her, slowly lowering himself to sit on it.
He moves like he’s stiff and saddle sore; most likely he is. Abigail may be busy, but anyone with their sight could see the way Arthur is running himself ragged. Coming and going from camp at all hours, whispering with Dutch or Hosea, often both, before dashing off to do whatever work needs doing.
His face is slightly sunburned and Abigail thinks, just for a moment, of the dusting of freckles that she knows dust his nose and cheeks. She pushes the thought out of her mind and focuses on the fussy child in her lap.
“John’ll turn up, he always does...eventually.” Arthur holds his large hands out for Jack and Abigail hesitates.
“You sure?” She asks it low, softly, more than sorry to bring up the child he’s lost, even indirectly like this.
The pain Abigail expects crosses Arthur’s face in a brutal flash, stomped down wherever he stores the heartbreak he carries with him. He nods and extends his arms further, swallowing thickly.
Abigail has seen Arthur’s hands do all manner of violence and bloody work and she hadn’t batted an eye. Seeing those hands hold and touch Jack like he’s made of glass, tender and soft as goose down stops her short. One hand holds Jack up, tanned fingers wrapped around the soft, pudgy skin of his torso and the other rests lightly against his back, in case he topples backward in his flailing. It’s a practiced thing, old but familiar. Abigail realizes at that moment that he must have held Isaac that way a time or two, at least. She studies his face briefly and sees open fondness there. There’s no attempt to keep his heart closed off from Jack, nor any effort made to pretend at indifference.
The contrast between the way Arthur is watching the child in his lap, a boy that ain’t even his, and the way John had glared at her when she’d asked him to hold his son earlier that morning is stark. Not for the first time, Abigail Roberts finds herself wondering if, maybe, she’d chosen wrong when she’d bedded down for good with John Marston.
You’ve got a man, you fool and he’s heartbroken. Besides, the time for romance is over with.
The thoughts are biting and cruel but they serve to keep Abigail’s head on straight in moments like these. They are few and far between, but when they do come, they shake Abigail to her core.
~
The morning John leaves, Abigail wakes up cold on her bedroll. Winter is creeping closer and the threadbare blanket she wraps around herself and Jack won’t be near enough to keep them both warm soon. She’d been asking John about running into the local town to see about buying a new one, or even something second-hand. She’d gotten nothing but piss and vinegar in return and the screaming match that followed had her hoarse for hours afterward.
After John had stomped off, cigarette clamped between his lips - “Always got money for cigarettes, but you can’t find a nickel to keep your own son from freezin’ to to death!” - Abigail had looked up to see Arthur watching the exchange from across camp, his expression thunderous.
He’d found her not long after, drying useless tears as they fell and promised to ride out and bring her back a blanket for the baby. She’d wanted to turn him down, as a point of pride. Wanted to insist that his good-for-nothing father ought to be the one to do it, but the chill in Jack’s fingers and toes scares her to death. She simply nods and listens as Arthur walks off, steps full of purpose and coiled anger. The blanket he brings back is finer than she’d dared hope - quality wool made from a local weaver, deep green in color and large enough to cover them both. Abigail doesn’t ask about the cost, doesn’t want to know. She knows that Arthur rarely treats himself to anything more than a new journal or fresh pencils. He prefers to squirrel away his share of jobs run, like a man of sense. When she thanks him for the blanket, he simply looks at her, a strange expression on his face. He looks twisted up and turned around inside, but Abigail can’t rightly understand why. She puts it up to shame he must feel, seeing his brother act the way he does. She puts it out of her mind and forgets.
Then John leaves. Rides off during the night without leaving so much as a note for someone to read to her. There’s no reason, no justification, no paper-thin lie for Abigail to hide behind. She’s simply left there, holding John Marston’s son, wrapped in that blanket.
Arthur is away from camp when John leaves; the gossip and whispering that carries on from tent to tent that Abigail works hard to ignore falls silent when Arthur finally rides in. He’s covered in dust and has dried blood spattered on his shirt. He swings from the saddle and heads for the contribution box, as always, but it doesn’t take him long to pick up on the tense atmosphere around camp. He stops halfway to Dutch’s tent, scanning faces before he finds Hosea. Abigail doesn’t try to listen to whatever conversation they have. She doesn’t need to. She knows that Hosea has broken the news to Arthur when a shout, loud as a crack of thunder, rings out across camp.
“He what?!” It echos, bouncing off of rocks and scares the songbirds from the trees.
Abigail almost feels guilty for the small crumb of happiness she feels when she hears how enraged Arthur is on her behalf.
The rest of them half stopped whatever work they’d been pretending to do to listen as Arthur continues yelling.
“That sorry sack of-- I’ll track him down and drag him back by the short hairs, I swear I will! Never understood responsibility, never had any goddamn idea what he was doin’, gettin’ a child on her-”
Hosea cuts him off, his voice hushed and strained, only just reaching Abigail’s ears. Jack coos at her from her lap, his cheeks rosy and she runs a finger across them, trying not to see John’s in those features.
Whatever Arthur says after that is too quiet for Abigail to hear and a small part of her is disappointed by that. Arthur’s horror and anger on her behalf is something of a balm. It eases her own pain and helps it spark into something that will, one day, be anger of her own. If nothing else, his reaction reminds her that someone truly cares about her and the boy, if nothing else.
Arthur does, eventually, stride back to his horse, fists clenched so tightly that the skin is stretched white over his knuckles. The brim of his hat is pulled low over his face, but every he passes can see the snarl. They all dodge him, stepping out of his way as he heads to where his horse is hitched, still saddled, and swings into the saddle. He pulls on the reins harder than Abigail has ever seen him do and kicks the mare off into a gallop, kicking up dust and stones. The talk that starts up after Arthur is gone is a series of bets and guesses.
Will John come back with his balls intact or not? (Abigail secretly hopes not.)
How badly will Arthur beat on him when he finds him? (Abigail hopes that he’s still conscious when Arthur drags him back; she wants to get in a few shots of her own.)
Will Arthur just up and shoot him? (Abigail doesn’t know what she hopes for, in regards to that.)
Arthur is gone for two days searching for John. When he returns, Abigail is not surprised to find him alone. John knows how to get himself lost, just as well as Arthur, Dutch and Hosea do. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.
Hosea is at the hitching post to speak to Arthur before he’s even dismounted. Their voices are low, drained and wrung out. Arthur gets off his horse slowly, like the movement pains him. He’s stiff on his feet, steps heavy. The toes of his boots don’t clear the ground completely as he walks, as if he’s too tired to even pick his feet up fully.
Hosea walks with him to his cot and helps ease him onto it, snatching the hat off before it falls to the ground. He places it on the table, leans close to Arthur and says something more, before patting him once, twice on the back and walking away.
Abigail sits with Jack, the sock she’d been darning forgotten beside her and she looks at Arthur.
She looks at him, exhausted and filthy, already asleep on his cot with his boots still on. He’d run himself into the ground looking for John. Trying to make things right for her and her son in whatever way he could. Abigail wouldn’t be surprised if he’d crossed a few state lines hunting for his brother, pushing his horse to her limits as well as himself.
Knowing how hard he’d worked for her, tried for her, it causes a lump to form in her throat. Swallowing it down, she picks Jack up and walks toward Arthur’s tent, quietly as she can manage. He doesn’t so much as twitch as she approaches, setting Jack on the ground under the canvas cover before she moves to remove his boots.
His calves are heavy, strong and warm where she grips them, wiggling the boots and easing them off of his feet gently. Arthur continues snoring as she removes the second boot and places them on the ground next to his cot. Abigail glances around for a blanket and sighs when she sees it’s trapped under Arthur. She leaves Jack where he’s sitting, playing with leaves on the ground, and retrieves the green wool blanket from where she’d folded after getting up that morning.
She’s tender, more than she ought to be, when she drapes it over him and tucks him in. A flash of guilt cuts through her when she reaches out to brush a lock of dirty hair from Arthur’s face. It fizzles out quickly when she reminds herself of the shock, the betrayal when she’d realized John had lit out on her.
If John don’t want what I got to give, then more fool him, she thinks, scooping Jack up and heading back to her tent, mentally making a note to ask Susan if Arthur has anything that needs mending.
Arthur sleeps the rest of the day and all through the night. Abigail is already awake and dressing Jack for the day when he finally rises, looking down at the blanket and his boots with confusion. After Abigail has Jack dressed, she walks to Arthur’s tent, shoulders thrown back and determined. She doesn’t rightly know how to say what she has a mind to say, how to communicate what’s taking root in her mind, but she doesn’t want to dance around it, either. There’s no reason to, not with Arthur.
“Mornin’, Arthur,” she says, taking care to keep the edge out of her voice. After so many months snapping at John, she’s not used to speaking softly, kindly.
Arthur blinks up at her, running his hands over his hair in a vain attempt to tidy it. The gesture is as adorable as it is ridiculous, considering that they’ve seen each other naked.
“Abi-Miss Roberts. Everythin’ okay? With you an’-an’ the boy?” His voice is sleep-rough, and it sets a warm glow of fondness in her stomach.
“Call me Abigail, Arthur, please. We’re fine, Jack and I. I came to see how you are. You was gone for a while and you look...well, you look like hell.”
Arthur chuckles, sitting up slowly, wincing as he does, “I am sure I do.”
“You couldn’t find him, could you?”
Arthur doesn’t look at her for a moment, just stares at his bare feet, collecting his thoughts.
“No. No I did not. I am sorry, Abigail. More sorry than I can possibly say. What he done, it ain’t right. I-- I’m ashamed of him, to tell you the truth of it.”
Abigail shifts Jack to her other hip and Arthur looks up at her, watching her adjust, before he gestures to his cot wordlessly.
She shakes her head, gesturing toward the cook fire with her head, “Was about to get some coffee. I’ll bring you some, if you’ll mind Jack for me.”
She doesn’t acknowledge Arthur’s comments about John, can’t, not quite yet. She hardly has a hold of herself as it is. If she takes a moment to consider the gravity of what John’s done, she feels she’ll go insane.
Arthur simply studies her for a moment, a calculating look in his blue eyes before he nods.
She sets Jack on the cot next to him and heads off before he can say another word.
~
Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months and John is still gone. They decide to move camp, waiting as long as they possibly can before packing up and moving on. Dutch is uncharacteristically silent as they pack and Hosea takes over ordering everyone about.
Arthur packs Abigail’s and Jack’s belongings before he sees to his own, making certain that a few things are within easy reach, should Abigail need them. He even produces food for the journey, a can of strawberries, a can of peaches, a tin of crackers and an apple or two. He hands the bundle of food to Abigail and she feels that now-familiar glow of fondness bubbling away.
“Should be enough, if Jack gets hungry. Peaches are soft enough, strawberries too. Reckon he can just chew on a cracker if he wants.” Arthur is surprisingly knowledgeable of what Jack needs or can have at this stage of his life. It’s another reminder and Abigail feels her heart ache at the knowledge of it.
“We’ll be fine, Arthur. It ain’t far to the new site,” she says, rolling her eyes playfully at him.
Arthur fusses over them, truth be told, and Abigail still isn’t quite certain what to do with the attention. The first time he had presented her with a flower he’d found on the trail - a violet snowdrop, he’d said, brilliant purple in color - she’d just stared at him for a moment before taking it. The flower is pressed in an old book she’s taken from Hosea and she takes it out every now and again to admire it.
Folk around camp had watched them carefully, at first, in the first few weeks after John had left. Abigail had taken to spending more and more time with Arthur when he was in camp, letting him hold and interact with Jack whenever he was in the mood - and he nearly always was. They never discussed the shift that was taking place. Arthur simply saw a void, a need that had always been there, and stepped in to fill it, as he always had.
Whenever he would approach Abigail and ask after Jack’s health, if he needed anything, they would watch. They would watch the way she would brush her hair behind her ear and smile up at him and the way he would dunk his head to cover his face with the brim of his hat. They watched the way Jack would reach his arms out to Arthur to be held and they watched as Arthur would pick him up and hold Jack on his hip. They watched as Arthur would run his fingers over his fine baby hair and talk to Jack, voice soft and affectionate.
They watched from inside tents and under canvas flaps when Arthur ushered Abigail and Jack into his cot when a nasty storm blew in, icy rain and bitter winds. They watched as he bundled Jack in a shirt of his, wrapped them in that wool blanket and pulled the canvas flaps down, shutting out the world. They watched when morning dawned, waiting for one or the other to emerge as the sun dried out the puddles on the grass. And they watched when Arthur would reach out for Jack after coming back from a few days away and carry him to his cot to lie down, with Jack falling asleep on his chest, Arthur asleep not long after.
Abigail let them watch it all and offered no explanations. Arthur, as far as she could tell, offered none either. It simply became the way things were; the three of them sharing a tent after Arthur came back with a proper one. Heavy, waterproof canvas and room enough for three. It became normal to see Abigail trim Arthur’s hair or rinse the soap out of his hair while he washed. She mended his shirts, his socks and the tears in his trousers and she mended them well. He brought her flowers or other things he found on his wanderings, telling her stories that made her burst out laughing or staring at him in bemused awe.
Hosea had cornered her once, shortly after the new tent had arrived, making it clear the state of their relationship. He’d asked her what she’d intended, had reminded her that Arthur was not John.
“No,” she’d said, calm and serious, “He’s ten times the man John Marston ever was.”
Hosea had left it at that.
The heavy sadness Arthur had carried with him seemed to lighten and his anger cooled. He took less risks and worked to keep himself safe on jobs. Abigail made a point of waiting up for him to return when they went out robbing, wrapping her arms around his thick shoulders as soon as he was off his horse.
The first time she had done it, he’d froze.
“I’m so glad you’re back. I was startin’ to worry. Dutch didn’t say ya’ll would be gone so long,” Abigail had said, face buried in the fabric of his shirt.
Arthur hadn’t moved for a moment, just stayed where he was, before slowly, cautiously, wrapping an arm around her in return.
“M’alright. Didn’t mean to worry you none. Job got a bit...complicated, but I’m here now. You didn’t need to wait up for me.”
She’d squeezed him tighter before replying, “Of course I did. I couldn’t sleep without seein’ you’d come back in one piece.”
Arthur had said nothing, just buried his face in her hair, holding her tighter.
~
Months turn to years and John Marston never returns. Jack grows from an infant to a child, reaching four years old. They’re camped outside of Blackwater, their eyes set west, toward New Austin. All they need is enough cash to get them there; Arthur and Hosea are working a long con. Arthur tells Abigail about it at night, after they finish making love, pressed against each other, light and happy. She knows he can pull it off, given time to do it.
It’s in that camp outside of Blackwater, on a bright, blue morning when she darts out of their tent, just making it to the outskirts of camp before she vomits. She stands there, wiping her mouth and counting backward in her head. She counts again, three times, four, before she presses a hand to her belly.
A few days later, when Arthur is mounting up to work the job, polished and slick as anything Abigail has ever seen, she pulls him aside. His face, when she tells him, is like a spring sunrise, bright and glowing light. He touches her like she’s made of glass, kisses her so tenderly she feels her heart flutter in her chest. He presses her forehead to hers and cradles her close. She takes his hand and presses it to her belly and they stand there for a moment and Abigail thinks of what it had been like to tell John the same news.
When Arthur finally pulls away from her, she sees a strange, serious expression on his face. He says nothing, just walks toward Hosea’s tent and they leave the tent together, Hosea sneaking a glance back at Abigail where she’s watching. They enter Dutch’s tent, pulling the flaps shut behind them. When Arthur leaves, he does so alone, but no less full of purpose.
He walks to their tent and peels off his fine clothing, replacing them with clothes he wears for a long ride. Abigail watches his movements. Watches him gather their things and pack them into trunks. She watches him lift the trunks into a wagon, hitching two draft crosses up wordlessly.
When Jack appears at her side and asks what his Pa is doing, she picks him up and shushes him gently.
She watches as Arthur folds up the cot, gathers the blankets and takes down the tent. She watches as Charles approaches him and has a brief conversation with him. She watches as Charles gives him a small smile and a shake of his hand, wishes him good luck. She watches as the others come to watch, dumbfounded and demanding answers Arthur refuses to give.
Abigail watches as Arthur packs up the only life he’s ever known, steady and solid as ironwood. She watches as he stores food on a wagon to feed her, their son. She watches as he ties the provisions down and checks the horses over before ponying Bo behind the wagon. Finally, she watches as he turns to her, determined and steadfast. He reaches out a hand to her and she follows, waits for him to climb up into the wagon before handing Jack off to him. She sits beside him, cradling Jack as they drive off, headed God only knows where.
Abigail watches the Great Plains around them and thinks of John Marston, running out on her those years ago.