A dark AU. Heath arrives at the Barkley ranch, but Jarrod and Nick are not there anymore. The demons that followed them home from the war have overwhelmed them and taken them away. Heath decides to try to find them and bring them back to the fold. WARNING: Involves child abuse (past). Tough read, but I tried to make it worth it.

Outcasts

Chapter 1

When Heath first came to the Barkley ranch, he was surprised with what he found, in many ways. The place was operating very well – it was as successful a business enterprise as he had learned about by reading the newspapers before he came. What surprised him was who was running things –

Mrs. Victoria Barkley, Tom Barkley's widow, a classy lady but tough as nails in the business world, she ran the mining and other non-ranch enterprises.

Eugene Barkley, her son, all of 18 years old but somehow boss of the ranch operation and remarkably, had been since the death of his father when he was only 11. Granted, he had more than a lot of help from the foreman, an older man named McCall, and Heath was certain he'd had a lot of training very young from his father, but to be nominally responsible for a ranch this size since age 11 was incredible to Heath.

Audra Barkley, Victoria's daughter, just about to turn 19. She was beautiful and should have been spoiled rotten, but circumstances made her as tough as her mother. She assisted her mother and brother in all that they did, and somehow found time to be chief fundraiser and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Stockton School for Orphans.

These three people – a woman over 60 and two youngsters who hadn't yet seen 20 – kept everything Tom Barkley built going, six years after he died fighting the railroad.

And what was most surprising of all to Heath was the grace with which they accepted him into their family. Sure, he had to prove himself in the fight with the railroad, but even Eugene had to do that. They fought side by side. They tended the injured side by side. They bonded, and in the three weeks since that fight, Heath found himself invited into and slipping into the role of an additional son and boss, someone whose expertise was welcome and even becoming treasured. He was astonished at how quickly he was fitting in, and how much they were all coming to love each other.

But something wasn't right, something the Barkleys weren't talking about. Heath knew what it was. It just took him a while to ask about it. He had thought they might volunteer the story about the other two Barkley men, Victoria's older sons, but they didn't. They were two men nobody wanted to talk about. Heath only knew they existed because he'd heard stories about them before coming here. He had no idea why they were gone, not discussed, not even acknowledged as living human beings, much less part of this family. Oh, the stories he'd heard gave some inkling as to why they were outcasts, but Heath had no idea if the stories were really true or were just gossip. He finally worked up the courage to ask.

Victoria's face fell when Heath sat down in the living room with her and asked about Jarrod Barkley and Nick Barkley. Eugene was working with the books in the library, and Audra had just gotten home from working at the orphanage all day, so they were not there, which is why Heath asked now. He was certain the older sons were never talked about because they were embarrassments.

"Jarrod and Nick," Victoria said quietly, and she got up and went to the desk in the corner. She reached into a drawer. In a moment, she returned to the settee where Heath waited for her. She carried a framed photo, which she gave to Heath as she sat down.

It was an older family photo – Victoria, Tom, little children Audra and Eugene, and two young men. Heath looked closely at it.

Victoria pointed to the young man with the very dark hair. "This is Jarrod, my first born. He's older than Audra by 14 years. Nick – " She pointed to the other young man. "Nick is four years younger than Jarrod." Then she stopped talking.

Heath looked at them, noticing how much he actually resembled each of them, even if they didn't resemble each other more than passingly. "What happened to them?" Heath asked.

"The war," Victoria said, as if that said everything, but she sighed and kept on. "Jarrod left home at 17 to fight for the Union. We didn't want him to go, so when he left, it was with our anger, especially your father's. He had ideas that Jarrod would take over the ranch someday. Jarrod served for the entire war. Nick also left at 17, but we weren't so angry when he did. Your father had gotten him a position as an aide to a general named Alderson. He'd be mostly out of the line of fire. We worried less, so we were less angry."

"Why aren't they here?" Heath asked.

Victoria shook her head. "They were different when they came home. Not just older. Not even just worn down from the war. Jarrod, fighting for four long years. I suppose we should have understood more how disturbed he was. Deeply disturbed, even violent. A man rather than a boy when he came back, but a man carrying around too much. He couldn't stop fighting. Nick – he was disturbed by something else, something specific that had happened to him that he wouldn't tell us about. Something that left him shut down at first, but then it erupted. They both clashed. They clashed with your father and me, they clashed with the children – they clashed with each other."

Heath saw her hands begin to shake. "We don't have to talk about this now if you don't want to."

"No, no, you need to know," Victoria said. "It started with Jarrod. He came back angry and sullen except he would sometimes become enraged for reasons we could never understand. When he started becoming physically violent, especially with the children – " Victoria stuttered and began to cry at the memory.

Heath took hold of her hands. "We can stop."

"No, I can't," Victoria said and wiped her eyes with one hand. "When Jarrod couldn't control his violence, we told him to leave. That was in early 1866. When he left, Nick got worse. Sometimes he was all right, but sometimes something would come over him and he'd become as physically violent as Jarrod did. Not with the children, not with me, but with your father and with other men in town. We thought we could work it out with him if we could just find that specific thing he was carrying with him, but one day he just left. We got up in the morning and he was gone. That was in 1867. Your father never saw them again. I haven't seen them again."

Heath found this both hard to believe and easy to believe. He carried his own demons home from the war, and right now he wondered if he should bring them up. Did she need another male around here who had troubles from the war following him around?

But Victoria mad the decision for him. "Did you serve, Heath?"

"Sort of," Heath said. "I was just a kid, just 13 when I went in and it wasn't long before I was captured. I spent most of my war in a prison camp. Carterson."

"Oh, Heath," Victoria said, tears coming even harder.

He quickly shook his head. "When I got out, I was pretty sick. My mother and the other women who raised me, they took care of me. I carried some demons with me – I guess I still do – but nothing like you say Jarrod and Nick had. The only anger I ever felt was toward the men who imprisoned me, and I don't let that anger carry over to who I am now. I was a kid then. I had time and room to outgrow the hate – I think. I never, never could attack anybody I loved. Never."

Victoria looked very nervous all of a sudden, and Heath understood why. She never thought her sons could become physically violent either, but they did.

Heath squeezed her hands harder. "Mother – "

Victoria straightened, looking surprised. This was the first time he had called her "Mother."

"I will never hurt you, or Audra or Eugene," Heath said. "Never. I know you hardly know me and you don't have much reason to believe me – "

"No, Heath, I do believe you," Victoria said. "I knew my sons were in trouble the moment they came through the door. You're not that way. I know it could happen, but I'm willing to accept the risk. You belong here with us. I need you here with us."

Heath understood why she said that now. Not that he was a replacement for the sons who were gone. What he was was a man, fully grown, experienced in life. She needed that. Her children needed that.

"Do you know where Nick and Jarrod are now?" Heath asked.

Victoria looked at the photo again. "I haven't heard anything about them for years. Someone who took a job on the ranch a couple years ago told me he had seen Nick, worked with him for a few months on a ranch in Montana, but Nick got into a brawl and was arrested. He was in jail for assault the last time this man saw him. I have no idea what happened to Jarrod. Before the war, we thought he'd become a lawyer, but I'm certain that's never happened. When he left here – we were afraid he would get himself killed before very long. Maybe he did."

Heath put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry I brought this up."

She wiped her eyes again. "I'm not. You're part of this family now. You should understand what you're getting into." She actually laughed a little about that, but tears came quickly again.

Heath squeezed her. "The war was tough on a lot of families. I'm sorry it broke this one up. If I could repair the damage, I would."

"You're doing that in a way," Victoria said. "Your coming here, your willingness to stay and work with Eugene – he's needed that, you know, the older brother to help him along. He's done miraculously well since I've needed him to run this ranch, but he is still just a boy. McCall has been wonderful, but Eugene's needed a brother. He's needed you."

Heath smiled a little. "I kinda need him, too. You're my family now, and I'm just sorry Jarrod and Nick aren't here to be part of it."

Victoria looked at the photo again and touched the faces of her two lost sons. "It's not likely they'll ever come back to us."

Heath wished he could make that happen for her, and for himself. To have two more brothers he knew nothing about was tough to swallow, but he knew it was far more tough to have two sons, out there somewhere, that she could never reach.