Work Text:
"John, you seen Ruth around?" Abigail called from the porch, hands tucked away, arms folded.
Oh, that girl was in trouble. In trouble because she ran from mama and her duties, but that was a trouble for a stronger man than John.
"No!" he called peeking out of the barn, "Maybe the boy knows!"
Abigail huffed, in a cute way that made everything feel nicer, and turned heel.
"It's Tuesday," Ruth grumbled from where she sat atop the stool John pulled out for her. "I hate Tuesdays."
"Hate's a strong word, sunshine." John closed the door and returned to the hinge that was in dire need of fixing. "What's so bad about today?"
"Mama makes me sew." She kicked her little legs and John remembered too quickly when her legs were so much littler. It felt like yesterday.
What a fool he had been with Jack.
Fatherhood suited him just fine, and she was the proof. He shouldn't have ever been such a fool, and every day with her felt like a second chance to prove he wasn't that fool anymore.
"Sewin's a good thing to know," he offered between a nail in his teeth.
"My fingers get poked," she argued, and with it came her open palms. As if the long healed pricks would still be there, and for John, they were. He wanted to kiss the hurt from her tiny hands and keep her far from any needle. Abigail hated sewing, too, little did their darling girl know. Little did she know much at all, like how Abigail was only teaching and not making her do it at all.
"Well, now. Can't have that." John stood with a huff, nails set aside as he scooped her off of her throne. "We'll just have to hide away today, hmm?"
Ruthie, sweet Ruth, smiled like the sun, "Yeah!"
It was thirty minutes of planning mixed with Uncle offering to distract and Jack asking if he could come.
The ranch would survive an hour without them.
Uncle feigned something, Abigail shouted, and Jack rode with his sister while John led the way to their fishing hole. The air out here was clean in a way Blackwater's was not. These plains were simply filled with the world John knew best before this one. It was perfect. He was proud of what he built. What he had. He watched Jack ahead of him, who knew the path by heart. Ruthie giggled and squealed as Jack jumped old logs and rocks.
"Careful!" John chided.
"I am, pa!" Jack gave that big sigh only teenage boys can do.
John rolled his eyes.
They arrived with the sun high in the sky, and Ruthie set up by her pa with all the usual excitement John still stung about missing with Jack. It would have been different, God, would it have, if he had known this joy was possible.
"Remember how to put the bait on?" John crouched by her, watching smaller hands work a worm onto the hook. Expectant eyes just like his own, seeking, and finding. "Good job. Can you cast it?"
"She ain't a baby, pa," Jack grumbled, line already in the water despite his disdain for fishing — it was the girl's fault. He wanted to be a good big brother to her. He was. Oh, he was. Some girl in town had pulled her hair and he just about laid into her worse than his mother could have. He was so good about teaching her not to hit, what kind of animals there were, how much fun reading was.
"Yeah, pa. I ain't no baby." Ruth upturned her chin, the image of her mother, and John snorted.
"Yes, ma'am."
She did need help with casting, after the third time it got caught in the bushes, and John happily guided her hands. Finally, he got his own pole. Finally he fished alongside his little ones, and for not the first time, but the millionth, his head rested easy knowing this was what he had. A life, a family, freedom. Dutch was so wrong back then, and it only came in these moments that he realized how much time he wasted chasing something that he could have had so easily if he just accepted it.
For a Tuesday in April, it was nice. The sun was warm, the fish were biting, and Jack caught three before John caught one.
"I'm not catchin'." Ruth glared at her pole.
"Ain't your fault," John said, crouching by her, his own pole put away. "You can always come next time. We got plenty."
Ruth pouted, "But I don't want to go home. Mama's gonna be mad."
"She won't be mad, Ruthie. She'll be happy pa took us out and mad at him for lyin'," Jack said, a bag of fish over his shoulder and a bath in his future.
Clever boy. Ruthie was going to grow up to be just as smart.
"Yeah," John agreed, "Come on. You'll ride with me."
Ruthie was small enough to sit in the front still, it reminded John of Arthur riding in with Jack on his lap—it stung to remember him, it stung to remember what he had been to Jack. Ruth took him back as she leaned against John. He wrapped an arm around her to keep her safe. What he promised to God and anyone listening when he held her small body in his arms the first time. His girl, his baby, his daughter: come hell or high water, he would raze the earth to keep her as happy as she could be.
"John Marston!" Abigail growled, marching from the steps, "Oh!" she hissed.
John passed Ruth down, and Abigail glared at him with Ruth in her arms for a moment too long, "You lied to me!"
"Angel-"
"Don't you dare!" A mean finger jabbed up at John, "I should make you sleep with the wolves!"
John chuckled, a smack found his shin, and Jack offered fish as if he could somehow play Jesus and feed away the upset. She put Ruth down, a hand smoothing the fly away strands atop her head where her braid had come a bit loose — her hair was so long now, Abigail prided herself on keeping it pretty. Her dress got dirty, John would apologize for that later.
Abigail let John hold her as she cooked, his eyes closed as she moved in his arms. She leaned back against him after a bit, and after a bit longer she kissed his cheek and smiled.
"She was upset she couldn't catch any fish," John whispered.
"Really?" Abigail hummed, "Never knew a girl who wanted to fish."
John smiled, "She's my girl, course she does."
Ruthie rubbed Rufus's ears in the corner. A rule about no dogs in the house abandoned when he got older and when Jack started begging to let the dog sleep in his room. Jack was setting the table, Uncle was already sat, and for a moment, John squeezed his wife and buried himself away in her neck to breathe it all in. She patted his hands, and continued to cook.
For a Tuesday in April, life was wonderful.
It felt like the days passed too quickly, but every Tuesday his little girl trotted to find her daddy and hide away from sewing duty. No one could blame her. Though, Abigail usually did most of it, Ruthie hated it nevertheless. She hated sitting still and she hated being quiet and she hated anything that wasn't fun. Though, John didn't know what was quite so fun about learning to read—he had hated learning himself.
It was Tuesday again, and while John was shoveling shit in the barn he kept an ear out for little Ruthie's footsteps.
At noon, John left the barn, trying to hunt down where she went and hid. He asked Uncle, who shrugged and said he last saw her with the chickens that morning. He had already checked with the chickens, and he already ruled out her having snuck into the barn. Inside the house, Abigail was sewing alone, and she shot John a sharp glare.
"Where is she?" she huffed.
John bit down something growing in his gut, that lingering bad feeling that somehow always came when he didn't want it to. When Jack went to school the first time and came back teary-eyed begging not to go again. When Abigail had been gone a whole day for some thing that Jack read her in the paper. When people he loved vanished, a part of him imagined it was time for the good to be ripped away.
He asked, "She ain't with you?"
"John," she chided, "I know she's always runnin' off to find you."
It didn't feel right all of a sudden, and Abigail saw it. She put her things aside, her eyes on his before she jumped to her feet, running through the house calling for her while John went outside. The horses were here. Uncle was on his feet, too. He called for Jack, surely Jack would know. Jack would know, the boy was a hawk with his sister.
"God damn it!" John growled as he saddled up Rachel and climbed on. Jack's horse was still here, they couldn't have gone that far!
Maybe a walk in the fields and they were too distracted.
Maybe they had gone to the road to look at rocks.
Maybe Jack had taken her to some spot he liked to read at.
Maybe Jack had taken her to the river.
John hurt Rachel with how hard he dug his heels in, screaming through the fields for his kids. His hearts.
"Pa!" Jack screamed as he peaked a hill, a little girl in his arms. He was running. He was crying.
Her arms were flopping with every pound of Jack's feet on the ground.
"Pa! Help!"
She was cold when John took her from Jack. He pulled her against himself so tight as he took the reins in one hand. He rubbed her back, and prayed it would move.
Jack's sobbing faded with the pounding hooves and rushing water in John's skull.
When John got to the doctor in town he knew.
He knew when the man rushed her away from him.
He knew when that door opened slow and the man held his head low.
"I'm sorry." The man touched John's shoulder, and for the first time in years, he cried.
It was Tuesday, and that Wednesday they buried their daughter.
A snake bite.
Jack cried when tried to explain what happened. He had been reading a book to her by his favorite tree. The rattle, her panic. He sucked the venom out, he thought. She even puked on his back, didn't that mean she was getting it out? He thought she'd be okay if he just ran fast enough. People didn't die from snake bites if they got to a doctor quick. If he got back home, Rachel could get them to town in minutes.
But she was just so little.
He blamed himself so much, but John knew it wasn't his fault.
No one held blame in this.
John didn't allow for blame to be directed at his son.
Jack didn't leave his room for a long time after the funeral.
John didn't want to leave his either.
Abigail laid, facing the wall as morning light trickled into their room. Tears dry on her cheeks as John held her like he did every morning since before, but tighter, now. She hadn't looked the same since that day. She needed him. She swore that to him the night after the burial — the night John put his boots on when he thought she was asleep.
He had wanted to run again before Abigail looked at him the way she did.
This morning, Abigail clutched his arms.
They could both hear Jack's muffled sobs.
There was no shuffle of Uncle, but quiet creeks as the old man made them coffee.
It was Tuesday again, and Beecher's Hope was quiet.