Disclaimer and Side Note: I don't own Harvest Moon. I think towards the end my mind sort of wandered into Eureka Seven with naming the grandkids, I don't own that either. Wait... Hold on a sec... Glances at lawyers. Lawyers shake their heads and give me a thumbs down. No I still don't own Eureka Seven or Harvest Moon... Poo... Just a warning, but I read over this just a minute ago and it's a bit boring. There's not much of a plot going for it now so as much critisim as humanly possible to fit in that review box is greatly appreciated. Read it and weep. (Is that how the expression goes?)

Joint Ownership

Prologue

Jack had run the farm for 50 years… every day from the moment he arrived, till now. Now it was time to quit.

Jack took a pen in his hand and found an old sheet of paper hidden between the pages of his diary. The page had probably been sitting there for a good couple of months, ever since his son – the lawyer – had given it to him. The words at the top of the page were still there, just as they had been all those months ago when he had taken one glance at them mumbled something under his breath and shoved them between two random pages of his diary. They stated simply, bluntly, and quite insensitively in bold, flowing lettering the two words: My Will.

At the time Jack had been insulted by the infuriating piece of paper his son had given him. But since then he had lost his wife of 45 years, Mary, to heart disease. It had put a dent in his stubborn attitude that he was still capable of running the farm by himself give or take a few young and willing hands every so often. But this morning had been the final eye-opener.

He thought about old Saibara for the first time in ages. The old man had worked at his craft clear up to his death, when Jack was in his mid-forties. He was so blindly insistent that he was still the most capable man for his job that he hadn't realized how elderly he had become. His eyes had grown weak and his hands clumsy without him knowing – or perhaps he had noticed and was just to stubborn to do anything but deny it – either way Saibara had left the world the same way he came in, with a tool in each hand and a spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child attitude. From what Doctor and Harris could put together Saibara had had a heart attack while working at his ovens, he had likely felt it but - knowing him – ignored it, and finally collapsed while the fire at his oven roared out of control and burnt the building to ashes. The old man died not realizing he had become a liability to his shop and was bringing it down more than he would if he was never there at all.

Jack had stared at his grave the day he was buried and made a promise to himself that if he ever reached a point in his life where his work – or any aspect of his life - would flourish more with his retirement, then – no matter how difficult – he would retire. Now it was time to make good on that promise. Except, he should've done it two months ago, not now when this whole mess been flung in his face and forcedly opened his eyes.

Jack ran his fingers through his scraggily beard; Mary told him once that he only did that when he was thinking hard.

He had no valuable possessions. He had acquired a substantial amount of wealth from his farm and without Mary to spend it all on books it had grown considerably. He'd put it away for retirement. But outside of the money… all he had was the farm.

It put an ache in his heart to think that his animals would have to be sold. Maybe he could sell them to May and Ronny at their farm… If that couldn't happen and he had to sell them to a big corporation maybe he could make amends to them by putting the money to the rebuilding of the farm. Save the next owner a bit of trouble, hrm? Ah, the next owner of the farm…

Everyone in the village had their own lives to live and though he got almost regular help from the village kids he was quite aware of the fact that none of them wanted to spend their lives working a dead man's forgotten farm. His and Mary's son had already built a good life for himself. Again his brows furrowed at the thought of his son a lawyer. That was an interesting time in his life, when he found out his son wanted to be a lawyer and an even more interesting time when he found out that he was actually successful at it.

Jack was still mentally going down the line of his family tree when a memory came up on him. The summer his grandkids came to town. It was about ten years ago when they were 10, 12, and 13. They were so happy and satisfied with farm life. All three of them had taken to it almost immediately. He felt overjoyed when he watched the three of them fight over watering the crops and laughed when he watched them try to feed the chickens. Their small, white little hands tossing a handful of chicken feed at a flock of hens and their joyous, high-pitched laughter as they watched the hens swarm in a flurry of feathers.

A twinkle came into Jack's eye then. It was a twinkle only an old man with a bit of a bad streak in him could really pull off. He wondered what his grandkids were up to recently. He hadn't seen them since their grandmother's funeral. He imagined this was how his own grandfather had felt half a century ago when he had wrote Jack's name down on a piece of paper very much like the one in his hand. Taking the farm was the best thing that ever happened to him. It had changed his life. Turned him into an honest man. Brought him to the woman of his dreams. It was where he raised his son and where he introduced his grandkids to a world they had never experienced. It was where he raised hundreds of animals and grew countless plants that fed a million people. It was where he buried his faithful dog. And where he sat with his wife in her final moments. Where, just that morning, he had nearly destroyed it in a fire and nearly cost some kid his life.

The place deserved to be carried on. This was just his final attempt to save it. He could at least do that.

On the single sheet of paper, under the bold and flowing words that read, 'My Will,' Jack wrote two sentences.

"Bury me next to Mary. I leave the farm to my grandkids: Janet, Maurice, and Renton.