Turning Page: Chapter 1

A/N: This story was my Nano challenge for the month of November 2017. Due to real life events I hadn't been able to work on the story for quite some time but now I can start posting it. The majority of it is already written, and all I have to do is type it up.

Dedicated to firstly my older sister, and secondly to all of the women who have lost a child in their lives, and who found the strength to continue on despite the pain and hurt.

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"It takes strength to live through suffering, and it takes courage to observe it."

C.S. Lewis

In the distance, the house was burning.

Dark black smoke billowed upwards like a beacon, rising for dozens of feet above the tops of the surrounding trees, its acrid scent bitter to the nose and throat. A warning, it seemed, but whether it was to draw witnesses in or drive them away was unclear.

The buckboard that rolled across the uneven grounds was speeding towards the former, the horses pulling it practically flying as they made their way close to where the little yellow house was hastily burning down to its foundation. The roar of flames was deafening as they chewed through dry wooden walls, an awful sound that set the heart to racing- but the driver of the buckboard never heard it.

"Alice!"

Joe Cartwright's frantic shout was barely discernible above the crackling of the fire and he was up and off the wagon before either the Ponderosa's foreman Candy or his younger brother Jamie could stop him. Terrified he sprinted for the front door of the house, unable in his shock to comprehend that it was disappearing in flames, and when attempting to enter that way didn't work he raced for a window, ceaselessly screaming his wife's name.

Candy reached him just as his hands began to tear apart one of the burning window frames. "Joe! Joe, don't! You can't go in there, you'll kill yourself!" Even with his sturdiest pulling Candy still felt Joe straining against his hold, pulling forward with a strength the wiry foreman could not match. Jamie, panting from his sprint from the buckboard, reached his brother's side in time to prevent Joe's entrance into the house by catching hold of an arm and digging in his heels. "Joe, please! Stop!"

The fire crackled hungrily, growling like a lion in hiding, warning now to stay away. But Joe refused to back down. The flesh of his palms was quickly scorching where they were tearing apart the window frame but he paid the pain no heed.

Glass glittered beneath Candy's boots as he, too, dug in his heels to stop his friend. God, Joe was strong! Knowing it was useless to fight anymore and hating himself for what he was going to have to do he reared back, letting go of his friend with one hand, and when Joe strained forward again Candy balled his hand into a fist and he cuffed the rancher hard on the back of the head.

Joe dropped immediately, stunned by the unexpected blow, and he pulled Jamie down with him. Frightened by his brother's loss of control Jamie still clung to the arm he had managed to grab, his legs entangled with Joe's. He felt the tense body beside him jerking with silent, ferocious sobs . Candy crouched beside the redheaded boy, his face white with horror but his eyes clear.

"Get him up, Jamie!" he shouted over the roar of the flames.

As Jamie reached to do just that he noticed the blood. Bright red and still shining dully as it dried in the dirt it was sprinkled like water droplets; the shards of glass were coated in it.

It led as a trail away from the burning house.

"Candy!" he cried. "Candy, there's blood here!"

"I see it!" the wiry foreman exclaimed, looking wildly at the trail leading to the nearest copse of trees. "Joe, someone's out here injured. C'mon, get up. Get up!" But there was no way of cutting through the grief that had his friend caught so tightly and he was too afraid to let go of his hold on Joe, worried that shock would drive Ben's last living blood son into the burning house and into an early grave. "Jamie-"

The boy, thank God, was holding himself together. "I'll go."

There was no other option than to send a sixteen-year-old out to discover what had made the blood trail. Candy could only hope that he wasn't sending Jamie into a nightmare worse than the one he was currently in but the boy was up and running across the open grounds before the foreman could say anything.

What the hell was happening?

Beneath his hold Candy felt the muscles in Joe's back tense as if he was preparing to jump and he was only just able to pin him to the ground before Joe tried to stand again. "Don't, Joe!"

"Candy!"

Jamie's cry cut through the roar of the fire even from so far away and the foreman twisted around to find the redheaded teen standing at the edge of the trees.

"Joe, come quick! Alice! Alice is over here! She's alive!"

Candy's heart seemed to jump and then stop, utterly taken aback by Jamie's words. Luckily, Joe had heard them too however dimly. He struggled to lift his head and turn in the direction of his younger brother. Candy grabbed hold of his arm again and pulled him up, allowing his old friend to lean on him. Jamie was still frantic over by the copse of trees, his face a sickly pale, and that served to frighten the Ponderosa's foreman more than anything else. They reached the boy's side and slid to an unsteady halt, the sight before them stopping them in their tracks. Joe moaned deep in his throat.

Alice's crumpled form lay broken and bloodied in the grass; bruises littered her pale skin and blood stained her chin from a split lip and bleeding nose, and her right ankle was twisted an awkward angle. Her face was such a myriad of bruised and swelling flesh she was barely recognizable, and Candy feared the worst.

Then Joe broke the frozen moment by rushing forward, adrenaline giving him the strength to reach her side. He was sobbing again and his hands were shaking so badly that he almost couldn't turn her over. "Alice? Alice-" Her name was all he could choke out but it was enough. Feeling his touch, the young woman stirred. Her eyes never opened- Candy wasn't sure if they physically could what with the swelling- but she was clearly in pain. She whimpered and when Joe shifted her she uttered a quick breathless cry that ended in a strangled gasp.

"Joh-" His name was garbled and slurred but still she tried to speak.

"Don't talk, sweetheart, just lay still. We're gonna get you to Doc's-" Joe's gaze fell on Jamie. In the background he could see the dancing of flames. The house... "Jamie, get the buckboard. Bring it here." Short sentences were all he could manage through the tightness in his chest. His voice cracked with strain. "Fetch one of the saddle blankets and bring it here."

Candy shook his head as the boy rushed off to do as instructed. "Joe, if she's moved we might kill her." Wasn't that the rule with men run over in a stampede: not to move them? They couldn't begin to guess the extent of her injuries.

"Just help me." The look on Joe's face promised a left hook to Candy's jaw if the foreman dared to fight him on this, and ultimately Candy had no choice but to concede defeat. It was nearly a three hour ride on horseback to the Ponderosa to Virginia City and longer than that if a body wanted to reach this place. From the looks of it, Alice may not have that long.

"I'll run ahead, get one of the hands to go get Doc Martin-"

"Get Pa and bring him to Virginia City. I'm not waiting for Doc to come to us."

It was the red on Alice's skirts that scared Jamie the most as they rode the buckboard to town. Candy had stayed long enough to place Alice on the wagon and then he was off, running towards the Ponderosa to find Ben Cartwright. Joe was unable to tear himself away from his wife so Jamie climbed into the seat and turned the horses in the direction of Virginia City. The house was still alive with flame as the infrastructure was eaten away and nearing the edge of the open plain a horrible groaning had risen in the air as the structure of the building fell into itself.

"Watch the road, Jamie," Joe ordered sharply where he sat holding Alice's right hand; her left was swollen and useless, and her ribs were either bruised or cracked. It wasn't often that Jamie heard his brother raise his voice to him and guiltily he turned back to face front again, ducking his head as if he was going to be smacked.

The look in Joe's eyes frightened him. "You doin' okay, Joe?"

The strained silence that came from the back of the buckboard was more colorful a reply than any words would have been. Stupid! Jamie cringed again, hating the awful question he'd blurted out; he could only imagine the look Joe burned into his back in response.

They were only a few miles away from Virginia City and Doc Martin's office when Alice, semi-lucid, began to stir again. Her whimpers and sobs tore at the boy just as much as Joe's attempts to comfort her did, and then everything seemed to freeze as he heard his brother's sharp intake of breath.

"Joe?"

"Get us to Doc Martin's now, Jamie!" The fear in Joe's voice seemed almost sensed by the team of nervous horses, who picked up even more speed barely after Jamie urged them on. He glanced over his shoulder only once in time to find Joe lifting Alice's skirts with suddenly wet, scarlet-painted hands.

Doc was in his offices, thank God, but the entirety of the stay was a blur for Jamie. Alice was ashen and deathly still when they carred her inside, and he couldn't forget the awful red stains that were quickly spreading over her skirts and undergarments. Nor had he ever seen Joe so frantic except once before, and he quickly decided that a frightened Joseph Cartwright was a sight he never wanted to see again. Doc's grim face as he closed to door to his surgery didn't help settle his nerves either. So he sat quietly in a chair and watched as Joe's burned hands were wrapped in gauze.

And then came the moment when the white-haired doctor had exited the surgery, leaving the door open, and Joe had practically barged in to see his wife unmindful of all warnings.

"Joe- you shouldn't see her yet, she's still weak-"

"She was bleeding inside! She was beaten, and I- I thought... she didn't bleed out-"

"It wasn't all blood, Joe." Paul Martin's face was lined with grief and, worse, compassion. "The beating she took- it tore her inside. Her womb."

Joe went white. Inside the room lay Alice's unmoving form partially covered in a crisp white sheet; beside her lay a small bundle of bloodied grey blankets. It took Jamie longer to put the pieces together than it did his older brother, and by then it was too late to stop him- the boy was simply too small to stop him, and Doc Martin didn't have Candy's wiry strength.

With shaking fingers Joe lifted the corner of the blanket up just as Jamie called out again,

"Don't, Joe-"

Too late. His color bypassed white to grey. "My god," he choked out.

Two seconds later, his knees buckled.

Feeling far older than his sixty-plus years, Ben Cartwright looked up as Paul stepped into view. His old friend met his gaze with sorrowful dark eyes and Ben feared the worst.

"Paul-?"

"Sit back down, Ben. Both Joe and Alice are doing as well as can be expected."

His heartbeat was loud in his ears and painful in his chest- or maybe it was merely his own sense of grief that was making it difficult to breathe. He let the open unmasked pain ask his questions.

Paul, thank God, understood. "Alice was beaten- brutally. A broken wrist and ankle, two cracked ribs, three bruised... there was a tear in her stomach that I've closed but... I'm afraid, Ben, that the worst of it centered around her midriff. Her womb."

"I- was afraid," Ben said carefully, slowly, "that I feared... when Jamie spoke of the blood..."

"Alice suffered a miscarriage. No child could have survived such a severe beating. If she makes it through the night-"

"What are you saying, Paul?"

"What I'm saying, Ben, is that that young woman may not live to see tomorrow. She's young but she's not strong, not like your Marie was. But if she does make it, I'm afraid it will be nigh impossible for her to become pregnant again, much less carry a child to full term."

It was one of the cruelest punches to the gut the elder Cartwright had ever felt. No children. "Joseph. Does Joe know?"

Paul nodded. "He'll need your help, old friend. I'm afraid if he doesn't step back and let himself rest then he may suffer a heart attack. He's received too many shocks today."

Jamie had tearfully explained to Ben about Joe's collapsing in Paul's surgery, but he had not seen his son anywhere since he'd arrived thirty minutes before. "There's something you're not telling me, Paul."

The grief in the doctor's face deepened. "Come with me, Ben." He led the way out of the open waiting rooms and through the back rooms into the back alley. There Ben saw his son seated against the wall of the building, holding something.

"Joseph?"

The sound of his name barely made him stir; the head of unkempt grey curls remained bowed. A small bundle of grey blankets was held protectively against his chest.

Ben knelt beside him. "Joseph. Joe, look at me, son."

The touch of his father's hand on his shoulder finally made Joe stir, and with difficulty he lifted his head to meet Ben's gaze. The dazed grief that had settled in his features had seemed to have aged him ten years, and there was a vacancy there in his eyes that made the older man's breath catch. "It woulda been a girl, Pa," he croaked.

The simple sentence brought tears to Ben's eyes but his son didn't notice. "Joe, you need to let Paul take care of you. You need to rest so you can be there for Alice when she wakes up."

"Alice..."

"That's right, Joseph. Alice."

Joe's gaze dropped to the bundle in his arms. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't, I can't- if I see Alice I'll have to tell her about the baby, and I can't-"

A tear broke from Ben's hold. "I'll hold the baby," he lied, reaching out. "Just let the doctor help you, son." There was absolutely nothing he could do for Alice or the child that she and Joe had so cruelly lost, but he could sense that his son was fraying at the seams. Joe gave up his burden only reluctantly but when Ben passed it to the waiting doctor and realization struck, irrational fury twisted Joe's features and he pushed off of the wall. "You son of a-"

Ben grabbed hold of him by the shoulders and pinned him down against the building again, grabbing hold of the clenched left fist that had started to fly at his face. "Joseph!" The shout actually made his son jump- he could feel Joe's body trembling beneath his hands, taut like a rope and ready to snap. "Joe, look at me, son, look at me! That's it, look at me."

"Pa?"

"I've got you, son. I'm here. I've got you."

The reassurance was all Joe needed to hear. The fight and tension fled his body as quickly as it had come and he fell back limply against the wall with no strength left anymore to even lift his head again. Ben caught him before he could slide into the dirt and held his son close as Joe began to cry again, great racking sobs that tore at his throat and shook them both as he mourned for the daughter he had lost. Burying his face in his father's shirt he cried until he couldn't anymore and exhaustion finally pulled him into slumber. Ben waited until he felt the last of the tension leave his son's shoulders before he carefully leaned up against the building himself, drawing Joe's head into his lap. There Paul found them thirty minutes later, the father gently stroking his son's curls back from his forehead, and when Ben looked up it was with a tear-stained face.

"Help me carry him inside, Paul."