A/N: I sadly do not own Ford or any characters from Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. Enjoy!
It was a quiet winter evening. Snow tumbled gently from the sky, blanketing the small town in a soft sheet of white velvet. The citizens of Westown rested peacefully, undisturbed in silent slumber.
Except for one.
A single candle in the small second floor room of the White Capsule shone through the darkness of the night. The candle's flames danced upon an antique oak desk, illuminating half of its surface. Scraps of parchment littered the desk and the floor around it. Even the wastepaper bin was overflowing with crumpled balls of writings that were no longer desired.
With a soft sigh, the doctor pushed back the matching oak chair and slowly stood to his feet. It was well past midnight, and he very well knew that he should have retired to bed hours ago; but he simply could not bring himself to sleep. If it were possible to will himself into slumber, he would have easily joined his fellow citizens in peaceful rest. However, sleep was unfortunately not a state that could be attained by sheer force of will. Thus, for the tenth - or was it more? - time that evening, he returned to pacing the confines of his small room, his arms folded tightly across his chest.
The truth was that he had absolutely no experience with his current situation. A single child born to a couple who had separated shortly after his birth, Ford had bounced between residing with his mother and his father. Though he was sure that they had done their best to raise their son, growing up in the absence of a functioning couple had left its marks on the blond physician. He had learned from an early age to distance himself from his emotions - it was the only way he could cope with listening to the muffled sounds of his mother crying, or the distinct clinking noise from his father having consumed yet another bottle of beer. Suppressing his emotions had been the only way Ford could protect himself against the unbearable pain and emotional struggles of facing his parents' failed marriage.
For as long as he could remember, he had strongly believed he would never marry or have children of his own. But now, after all these years, after all the vows he had made, he was battling doubts that he had never faced before.
This upset him greatly.
What happened? It wasn't as if Ford had never been around other women. He had developed numerous friendships with female classmates during his studies and had never once felt an ounce of attraction to any of them. He had even been asked out on a date a few times - to which he had always politely declined, of course. Science and logic had always been the sole focus of his life, and he had been perfectly content.
Until now.
Ford simply could not comprehend what it was about this woman - a new farmer who had moved to Westown a few months ago - that aroused such a concoction of unfamiliar feelings in him. He could feel his face flush just at the thought of her smile, could feel his heart skip a beat at the mere memory of her laugh. When she was around him, he felt so strange - his respiratory and autonomic nervous systems kicked into overdrive, bringing him to shallow, rapid breaths and causing him to sweat profusely. It was a fight or flight response, and Ford reflexively defaulted to the latter every time.
However, the events of that afternoon had caused him great emotional turmoil, and he had made the decision to finally face his true feelings.
The blond doctor stopped in the middle of the room and closed his eyes. A picture of the woman swam into view in his mind's eye. Those glowing violet orbs... Those perfect curls framing such a beautiful face... Her slender body and shapely curves -
His eyes snapped open, dispelling the image from his thoughts. He blinked furiously as he tried to take deep breaths to calm his accelerated breathing. He was flummoxed by how greatly he was affected by mere thoughts of this woman.
His gaze fell on the piles of scrap parchment on and around his desk, and his stomach churned at the sight of the untidy mess. Being a bit of a "neat freak", Ford hated anything in disorder, and the piles of crumpled bits of parchment made him feel extremely uneasy. However, the fifty-some-odd drafts he had written had left him feeling too emotionally drained to appease his discomfort.
He passed by the desk to blow out the candle and hesitated at the sight of the one piece of smooth parchment at the center of the desk - his most recent draft. He reached out and touched the paper, gently grazing his fingertips over the bits of parchment that had not yet been penetrated by the tip of his quill. If only he could figure out how to put his emotions into words...
Tomorrow, he decided. The decision alleviated his sense of need to complete the letter that night, and a wave of fatigue suddenly washed over him. With a soft blow, the candle's flame disappeared, plunging the room into a state of near darkness that was just barely illuminated by the light of the white powdery snow outside his window. Ford dragged himself over to his bed and, after removing his glasses and placing them on the nearby nightstand, collapsed onto the memory foam mattress.
He was sound asleep in minutes, joining the rest of the town in peaceful slumber.