One very devastated BH fan here. But I wrote this ages ago, and I was waiting for season three to end so It could be as cannon as possible. Guess I don't have to worry about season four now…
Anyway, yes. I love our Mitchell - may he rest in piece, now - and I don't think we got to know nearly enough of his 117 year life. So, I started filling in some of the gaps.
I have a few lined up, if this is received well, and if anybody would like to request anything, let me know.
Also, this is my first BH fic, so reviews are appreciated, thank you muchly!
It Doesn't Matter How You Feel, Now
Born in the Blood
John Mitchell came from a very long line of John Mitchell's.
He was named after his father, who was named after his father, who was named after his father before him.
It was an inherited name, traceable back a good seven or eight generations until you came to a Mrs Mitchell, born just off the western coast to a family with four daughters but no sons.
John didn't often feel the need to share that particular titbit of information. Nobody needed to know that the honoured tradition was started by a girl that couldn't keep her legs shut.
John had never been a man to deviate from the expected.
He trained as a blacksmith under his Da, and took over the Smithy when John senior died. He'd worked every day of his life, and he lived in the house he had been born in.
He courted the girl his Mam liked - Nora from down the lane, the baker's daughter, who had creamy skin and hair that fell in dark curls. They married when she came of age, and she moved in with John and his mother, Alana.
Within months she was expecting. John wasn't much phased; it was the next logical step in their relationship. Every man needed heirs, after all.
The news was around the village like a fire, the gossips were satisfied, and life went on.
John got up and went to work while Nora kept the house and chattered with Alana about the baby over half-knitted blankets. Everything was fine, normal, and John actually started to get excited.
Then it happened.
Six months in.
The bleeding.
It was sudden and heavy and unstoppable. John had come home to find his wife, covered in a cold sweat and pale as a ghost against the greying, bloody sheets. She was sleeping, he decided after a moments pause, and he left her to rest.
He searched out his mother, the only one in the house with experience of childbearing. She was found in the kitchen, scrubbing out some of the scarlet stained blankets. John stared at the dark, red tinted water for a few long moments before she noticed him.
She looked up slowly, pain etched into every feature, and when their eyes finally met she shook her head.
John was stricken. His baby - His son, he had convinced himself, his heir - was gone.
He sank to the floor, heedless of the cold, damp tiles, and wept.
News of the loss swept across the town faster than the news of the pregnancy.
And life went on.
Or it did for everyone else.
For John Mitchell, it was frozen. A nightmare he couldn't seem to wake from.
Nora didn't improve. She bled almost constantly. She was bedridden and pale and barely ate.
And, though nobody could understand why, her swollen stomach kept growing.
The nearest doctor was in a town miles away, and she'd never survive the journey even if John could pull together enough money for the passage. None of the mothers in the village had seen anything like it.
As the weeks passed, mutterings of witchcraft followed him like a breeze. He received threats, lost customers. He felt his faith fading fast.
Surely God shouldn't allow such a thing?
The closest to divine intervention was that finally, after six weeks of suffering, something changed.
Nora cried out, screamed as the pain racked her frail body, and sighed with relief when it was over. John clutched her hand in his as she passed away.
She never did get to hold her baby.
Nora had been dead for four years, and still he couldn't wake in the morning without wondering why he couldn't feel her laid next to him. That was, until that little voice chirped up.
' Morning, Da.'
John Mitchell got his son.
Never one to shun tradition, the boy was named John too. Not that anybody ever called him that.
Mitch, they called him. Mischievous little Mitch, John's lad, and not nearly as endearing as it sounded.
Some days it was all John heard on his way home from a long day's work at the smithy.
The grocer, Ade, down the lane.
' You owe me another apple, John. You're Mitch's been by.'
The busybody seamstress, Miss Hughes.
' You must get that boy something to do, John. I caught him under one of my petticoat displays against today. If it's spoiled, I'll be charging you.'
And, possibly worst of all, Old Janey Barnes from down the lane, who wouldn't know subtlety if it was etched onto the back of her eyelids.
' The boy could do with a mother figure in the house. Feminine touch, John. You know my Hettie is about your age…'
Mind you, John would take the complaints over the sympathy any day. He loathed the pity, the sorrowful looks cast his way.
He'd prefer the accusations of witchcraft.
He inwardly cursed every time someone said, ' Well, what can you do?', because nothing needed to be done.
John shoved the door open with his foot, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold.
' Anybody here?' he called.
' In here, Da,' came the reply.
John found him in the kitchen, with his Nan.
Mischievous little Mitch, John's lad, with his mothers porcelain skin and dark curls but the murky hazel eyes John remembered his own father having. The little boy, so like his Mam, who grinned up at him with a cheeky smile, so full of life.
' You been a good lad for your Nan, Johnny-boy?'
' Course. Always am.'
' Oh yeah? That's not what I hear off of Old Mrs Dean. You got something you want to tell me?'
' Nah,' beamed Mitch - the beautiful little boy, born in blood. ' Nothing at all.'