Upon watching the excellent season six episode, 'Between Heaven and Earth', I was struck by the fact that, while Little Joe's childhood excursion up Eagle's nest might explain his fear of heights, it does little to account for the fact that he blanked the incident completely from his mind, suffering total amnesia for eighteen years. In reality, this amnesia would have continued had Ben not told him what happened. To me, it seems inconceivable that this sort of psychological damage came about simply because he climbed too high and had to be rescued.

This is my take on what really happened...

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Bring Marie

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Prologue

Ben Cartwright's near black eyes shot open. He lay for a moment, his heart pounding, considering the implications of the shriek of sheer terror that had shattered the quiet of a Ponderosa night. When no clear cry for help followed, he allowed himself the luxury of believing it to be his youngest son, not threatened or in danger, but caught once again in the depths of a night terror from which he could not escape.

As he opened his door, Ben noted Adam and Hoss doing the same. The smile was weak that he favored them with. While he appreciated their concern, there was no need for all three of them to lose a night's sleep.

"I'll get it this time, boys. You go back to bed."

Adam ran a hand through his tousled black waves, shoving them back from his forehead. He listened to the now soft sounds of his youngest brother's terror for a moment before saying, "I thought...well, after what happened at Eagle's Nest, you'd think the nightmares would have stopped."

You'd think.

Ben walked the rest of the way down the hall to the sound of retreating footsteps and two doors closing. Outside of Joseph's room, he paused. He could hear the boy muttering and thrashing about in the bed, fighting whatever unseen phantom haunted his dreams. The older man paused with his hand on the door latch. He knew that – no matter how softly he spoke or how gentle his touch – waking his son would be, as Hoss liked to put it, akin to rousing a grizzly from a nice winter nap. Without knocking he opened the door and walked in. As careful as he was to guard his sons' privacy now that they were men, it wasn't a violation. From the time this particular son had been very little, it had been a necessity. Ben paused at the end of the bed to watch. Joseph's jaw was tight; his full lips drawn into a thin line. His fingers formed fists that punched at the empty air. There was a sheen of sweat on his exposed skin and he was breathing hard. His son was at war with an enemy only he could see, but could never describe.

Ben ran a hand over his stubbled cheek as he pulled a chair up and sat down. While Joseph couldn't describe that enemy, he could.

And it was time he did.

It had been a hard week. Ben snorted – make that 'month'. For the last several weeks Joseph had been a man possessed. While night terrors had always been a constant in the boy's life, during the last month they had become a dark companion that shadowed his waking moments as well. He had turned on everyone he loved – him, his brothers; even his dearest friend, Mitch Devlin – putting himself and others in danger, and all because of a childhood fear. The phobia had inexplicably resurfaced when he had climbed up a fist of red rock known as Eagle's Nest in order to get a better look at a mountain cat that had been terrorizing their herds; an irrational fear so deeply ingrained in his young son's subconscious that the boy didn't even know it was there.

Joe had a fear of heights. It began when he was a little over five years old. His son had climbed to the top of Eagle's Nest and become so frightened he couldn't climb back down.

Or, at least, that's what he'd told him.

It wasn't the truth. The truth was too...

Painful.

Steeling himself as if for battle, Ben reached out and caught one of Joe's flailing arms. He held his son's wrist in an iron grip as he managed to catch the other hand – the one bunched into a fist and aimed instinctively for his head – just before it made contact.

"Joseph!" he said, his tone stern. He'd learned over the years that speaking gently to the boy did nothing to break into his dreams. "Joseph, it's Pa. You're in your bedroom and you're safe. You need to wake up."

Still that curly head tossed about on the pillow. Still Joe's agitated body thrashed from side to side. The young man's eyes remained closed, but he saw something – something that terrified him.

"No, don't..." his son wailed. "No, please... Please, don't...let me fall..."

Ben drew a sharp breath as Joe's words cut through him like a knife, and sights and sounds long buried took the stage and played out before his weary eyes. They had haunted him for over eighteen years, these things his son knew nothing of that disturbed his sleep.

They disturbed his sleep at times as well.

It had been his hope that when Joseph found the courage to climb toward the pinnacle of Eagle's Nest and retrieve his rifle, that it would bring him release – that his son would finally be free of what had happened all those long years ago. It hadn't, of course. Joseph's fear of heights wasn't the heart of the problem. At its heart was just how his son had come to be on that pile of rock that punched the sky in the first place. He'd told Joseph that it had to do with one willful little boy who had run off and gotten lost and needed to be rescued.

It was a lie.

Again, he tried, speaking in a calm, sure tone. "Joseph, it's Pa. You're having a nightmare. Joseph! You need to wake up!"

This time the boy's body went rigid and then his green eyes snapped open. For a moment they were without focus, but then...slowly...reality bled into the nightmare landscape of his terror. Little Joe drew in a deep breath, shuddered, and then smiled sheepishly at him through a curtain of sweat-soaked curls.

"Again?" he asked, his voice as ragged as if he had just finished running a race.

"Again." Ben reached out and pushed those curls aside, freeing the boy's eyes. "Eagle's Nest?"

Joe nodded. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then sat up straighter, propping his still trembling form against the pillows. "You know, Pa, I thought for sure once you told me about me climbin' up there as a kid and bein' scared witless, this would stop. But it hasn't. It's worse."

The older man hesitated. "You said something a moment ago, Joseph. 'Please, don't let me fall.' Do you know why you said that?"

His son's smile was chagrined. "That's what I said, 'Don't let me fall?' Sheesh, what'd I think, some eagle got hold of me and was gonna drop me?"

Ben's sucked in air, remembering that horrible night.

The night he almost lost his son.

"Pa?"

It was time.

"Joseph," he said softly, "do you know why that ridge is called Eagle's Nest?"

The dusky light fell through the partially opened window, illuminating his son. Joseph Francis was such a handsome young man. Ben could see himself in him, but even more he could see Marie. Sometimes it was like she was there, staring at him out of those familiar green eyes – issuing a challenge, calling him to care for their son; to keep him safe and whole.

He had come very close to failing her that night, some eighteen years before.

Marie's boy shrugged. "Because eagles like it?"

Ben leaned back in the chair. Oh yes, 'eagles' liked it. Especially one Eagle – an ordinary, strange, and extraordinary man by the name of Gabriel Augustine Eagle who chose that high promontory as the place to make his stand.

And wait for Marie.