The Promises We Make
By Michelle (Mickey)
Disclaimer : No, I don't own them. I have also come to the realization, after much therapy, that I will never own them and the only way I get to be near them is to write these fics. So, before you sue, please remember that I am only vicariously living out my fantasies through these things and that I'm not doing anyone any harm. (And even if you DID sue me, all you'd get is about twenty bucks cash, an extensive mp3 collection, and a dented flute.)
Rating : PG-13
Warning : Deals with a sensitive topic.
Archive : At http://www.geocities.com/michellestandish and http://www.fanfiction.net
Comments : This is the sequel to "Another Day Out West", which can be found at my site : http://www.geocities.com/michellestandish . You might want to read that first if you haven't already, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to understand the gist of the thing.
Acknowledgments : Wynde, for taking the time to beta-read this monster. I could have never finished it without you! KellyA for giving me a plot (which was lacking severely when I started this), Libby, for telling me when I needed to get off the stupid computer and eat something, and my cat, for sitting on my lap and licking the bottom of the keyboard while I typed. (Which is helpful for some strange reason that I haven't figured out yet.) Oh yeah! I also want to thank the Academy! You love me, you really love me . . .!
---------------------
Lobby, the Ritz Hotel
8:15
Ezra checked his pocket watch again, double taking when he saw the time.
"She's never been late," Ezra thought of the young woman he was supposed to dine with this evening. A short, curly haired brunette, not too astonishing in any of her physical features, but with intelligence like a whip. In the four months since her arrival in Four Corners, Ezra had yet to see her arrive late to anything; she was punctual to a fault.
And now, she was over an hour late. Ezra half stood, then sat again, wondering if he should go look for her. She might get angry if he showed up at her room unannounced. Maybe she just forgot, maybe she was just late . . .
Another thought, a memory really, of their first meeting flashed through Ezra's mind. That soul picture guided him from his seat, across the dusty road and into the boarding house where Julian stayed.
"Good evening, Mrs. Pross." he greeted the owner. "Have you by any chance seen Miss Larabee today?"
Mrs. Pross gave the gambler a quick glance, disapproving, like most of the town, of the relationship between the young couple. But she wasn't rude. "I haven't seen her leave the premises since this afternoon Mr. Standish. She's probably still up in her room."
Ezra didn't waste another moment as he raced up the stairs to the small room Chris's sister occupied.
"Julian?" Ezra knocked heavily on the door, more heavily than he would have normally, driven by anxiousness. There was no answer. He rapped again, this time loudening both his voice and his knock.
"Julian? Are you there? It's Ezra." Still no answer. Where was she? As if guided by an unseen hand, Ezra tried the handle, surprised to find it unlocked. If there was one thing ingrained into his system from living in eastern cities, it was that you locked your door. He knew Julian lived in the city for a far longer time than he had.
He pushed the oak door open, the fear building up in his chest. He knew something was wrong. Then he saw the blood on the ground.
His eyes followed the crimson trail to an unmoving form on the floor.
Julian!
"Julian?" He knelt by her still form, praying, hoping that he wasn't too late. He felt for a pulse, like he'd seen Nathan do a thousand times before. In his haste, he couldn't find a beat. Frantically, he turned Julian on her back, looking for a sign that she was still . . . Her chest rose and fell slightly. She was alive.
As Ezra gathered the unconscious body into his arms, still praying that he wasn't too late.
***
"Nathan?" Ezra asked after the healer remained silent for a minute.
Nathan looked up from his pale patient, fingers holding a damp cloth to her forehead. Nathan knew what was wrong with her, Ezra could tell this from years of practice. But he could also tell that Nathan didn't want to say it.
"Ezra, maybe you ought to get Chris for this one." Nathan said solemnly, turning back to the young woman.
Ezra still in shock from finding Julian, was too disconcerted to argue with the healer. He gave a long gaze at her bloodless face before leaving the room in search of her brother. As he hurried down the dusty night street, he glanced at his watch again, trying to gauge where Chris would be at this hour.
8:45
It was hard to believe that only a half-hour had passed since he was sitting alone in the hotel. Every minute that went by seemed like an hour as he'd carried that too still form to the clinic. As he'd watched Nathan check Julian over, he hadn't heard a word that came out of Nathan's mouth. And as he raced to the saloon where he knew Chris would be, he did not notice the stares he was attracting by doing something this out of character.
Ezra pushed open the batwing doors with determination. He scanned the room, eyes falling almost immediately on the black clad figure of his leader, seated at their usual table.
"Chris," he began, out of breath and not caring that he was interrupting what appeared to be an intense card game. In fact, he scarcely noticed the game at all. Ezra took a deep breath before he began again, this time with the eyes of nearly every patron in the saloon on him.
"Chris, it's your sister . . ." it was all he got out before the older man shot from his seat with the same wild look in his eyes Ezra carried.
"Where?" It was all Chris wanted to know. If he could get there in time, maybe this time nothing would happen to his baby sister.
"Nathan's . . ." Once again Ezra was cut off as Chris tore from the saloon at a breakneck pace. The gambler would have been close on his heels had Buck not stopped him.
Ezra, pulled out of his single-mindedness by the unexpected appearances of Buck and Vin, blinked rapidly a few times as he tried to make sense of what the ladies man was asking him.
" . . .happened?" Buck asked, quickly gaining on Chris and Ezra in the fear department. Ezra shook his head, he didn't know what Buck asked him.
"I asked you, what happened." Buck's fists were tangled in Ezra's shirtfront, almost lifting the smaller man off the ground. Vin put a hand on Buck's strained arm.
"Let him down, Buck. Man can't tell you anything if he can't breathe." Buck's eyes lost some of their rage with Vin's calming words as he let go of the expensive silk shirt. Ezra took a deep breath before speaking. Vin was right about the lack of air.
"I don't have any idea. I found her like that . . ." Ezra began, getting cut off. An occurrence rapidly becoming old. It seemed as if he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
"Found her like what? Where?"
"Her room . . .you should go see her. I can't explain." Ezra pushed past the two men blocking his path to the door. He practically ran from the saloon. Buck, close on the gambler's heels, was followed by a confused Vin.
Vin didn't understand until later what happened on the street. In fact he was fairly certain that none of the men, except perhaps Chris, knew why the squabble occurred.
The trio were more than halfway to the clinic, Ezra far in the lead, when Chris came storming out into the street, door slamming behind him. Ezra's heart stopped as he feared the worse. This thought was quickly displaced by mortal fear as Chris ran full force into the younger man, knocking him to the dusty ground.
"' You Goddamn, good for nothing, Southern piece of shit conman!" Chris spat down upon the disoriented gambler.
"Chris I don't . . ." Ezra began.
"Shut up! I don't need to listen to anymore of your lies! I've had it up to here with them. Get this through your thick skull, Standish," Ezra winced at the use of his surname, one very recently replaced in Larabee's vernacular with his first. "If I ever catch you near her again, I will personally see to it that your death is a very painful one."
"I trust you are going to tell me why?" Ezra picked himself up off the road, running his palms across his now dusty apparel.
"Trust? You're asking me about trust?" The words slowly got more and more vehement as his tirade continued. "I trusted you to watch out for my sister. I trusted that you wouldn't hurt her. I trusted you to make sure that no one else hurt her. I trusted that you had changed enough to do this. I trusted you enough to let you continue seeing her long after the talk started because I figured you were just good friends. And then, you go and pull a stunt like this. I should kill you where you stand." Chris's voice became deathly quiet, so only the itinerant gambler could hear his next words. "And trust this. If I ever see you near her again, I will kill you." Ezra didn't doubt these words.
Confused, Ezra only watched as Chris walked back to the clinic, Buck and Vin in his wake. It wasn't the first time these men had shunned him. But something told him that this could very well be the last.
With a long look at Nathan's, Ezra turned and walked back to the saloon. He couldn't help Julian if Chris beat him senseless. And the odds that Larabee would were definitely ones Ezra would bet on. He just hoped she would be okay.
It would be a long night.
***
" . . . had it up to here with them . . ." The voice which initially pierced the warm glow of Dan's drunken mind filled with unmitigated rage. It was enough that Dan, who'd ignored the shouts at first, decided to make his way toward the sound.
The fancy dressed man, he couldn't recall his name, was on the ground, with Larabee towering over him.
" . . . thick skull, Standish . . ." Standish, that was his name. Dan remembered now, a memory tinged with animosity. Two weeks ago he'd lost his entire paycheck in a game with the conman.
Pressing up against a wall, deep in the shadows, Dan made himself less noticeable as he eavesdropped on the group in the street.
" . . . trusted that you wouldn't hurt her . . . should kill you where you stand . . . near her again, I will kill you . . ." Dan only caught snippets of the conversation. He was not so far away that he couldn't hear, but the lowered voice of the blond gunslinger made his effort all that much more difficult.
A shadow crossed in front of him, the forebearer of one of the figures in the moonlit street. Dan ducked further into the alleyway. It was Standish, dust covered, and obviously deep in thought. Whatever passed between the men had the gambler uncharacteristically disconcerted. As Standish moved from his sight, Dan moved slowly back into the light, peeking a head around the corner.
Almost deserted. Except for two men, more of those 'seven', on the porch opening the door to the town's clinic.
His curiosity was piqued. Dan moved suprisingly quick for a man half-inebriated. His route was not as silent as he imagined, but quiet enough that the preoccupied men did not notice their follower.
Dan pressed up against the door. Despite the wall between them, this conversation was easier to discern than the previous one.
The drawl of the Texan sounded first. "What's wrong Nathan?"
A deep voice replied, presumably that of the doctor. "Miscarriage."
The comment was followed by a long silence, and for a split second Dan tensed, preparing for a hasty departure. He relaxed as the discourse continued.
"I'll kill that dirty, no-good . . ."
"Buck." Once again from the Texan, stopping the sentence that was almost sure to continue with even more violent and descriptive expletives.
And suddenly everything sank in. Dan, never the quickest on the draw, leaned back with astonishment.
Standish fathered a child on Larabee's young sister. Dan began to chuckle as he turned back toward the saloon.
The boys were going to love this.
By Michelle (Mickey)
Disclaimer : No, I don't own them. I have also come to the realization, after much therapy, that I will never own them and the only way I get to be near them is to write these fics. So, before you sue, please remember that I am only vicariously living out my fantasies through these things and that I'm not doing anyone any harm. (And even if you DID sue me, all you'd get is about twenty bucks cash, an extensive mp3 collection, and a dented flute.)
Rating : PG-13
Warning : Deals with a sensitive topic.
Archive : At http://www.geocities.com/michellestandish and http://www.fanfiction.net
Comments : This is the sequel to "Another Day Out West", which can be found at my site : http://www.geocities.com/michellestandish . You might want to read that first if you haven't already, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to understand the gist of the thing.
Acknowledgments : Wynde, for taking the time to beta-read this monster. I could have never finished it without you! KellyA for giving me a plot (which was lacking severely when I started this), Libby, for telling me when I needed to get off the stupid computer and eat something, and my cat, for sitting on my lap and licking the bottom of the keyboard while I typed. (Which is helpful for some strange reason that I haven't figured out yet.) Oh yeah! I also want to thank the Academy! You love me, you really love me . . .!
---------------------
Lobby, the Ritz Hotel
8:15
Ezra checked his pocket watch again, double taking when he saw the time.
"She's never been late," Ezra thought of the young woman he was supposed to dine with this evening. A short, curly haired brunette, not too astonishing in any of her physical features, but with intelligence like a whip. In the four months since her arrival in Four Corners, Ezra had yet to see her arrive late to anything; she was punctual to a fault.
And now, she was over an hour late. Ezra half stood, then sat again, wondering if he should go look for her. She might get angry if he showed up at her room unannounced. Maybe she just forgot, maybe she was just late . . .
Another thought, a memory really, of their first meeting flashed through Ezra's mind. That soul picture guided him from his seat, across the dusty road and into the boarding house where Julian stayed.
"Good evening, Mrs. Pross." he greeted the owner. "Have you by any chance seen Miss Larabee today?"
Mrs. Pross gave the gambler a quick glance, disapproving, like most of the town, of the relationship between the young couple. But she wasn't rude. "I haven't seen her leave the premises since this afternoon Mr. Standish. She's probably still up in her room."
Ezra didn't waste another moment as he raced up the stairs to the small room Chris's sister occupied.
"Julian?" Ezra knocked heavily on the door, more heavily than he would have normally, driven by anxiousness. There was no answer. He rapped again, this time loudening both his voice and his knock.
"Julian? Are you there? It's Ezra." Still no answer. Where was she? As if guided by an unseen hand, Ezra tried the handle, surprised to find it unlocked. If there was one thing ingrained into his system from living in eastern cities, it was that you locked your door. He knew Julian lived in the city for a far longer time than he had.
He pushed the oak door open, the fear building up in his chest. He knew something was wrong. Then he saw the blood on the ground.
His eyes followed the crimson trail to an unmoving form on the floor.
Julian!
"Julian?" He knelt by her still form, praying, hoping that he wasn't too late. He felt for a pulse, like he'd seen Nathan do a thousand times before. In his haste, he couldn't find a beat. Frantically, he turned Julian on her back, looking for a sign that she was still . . . Her chest rose and fell slightly. She was alive.
As Ezra gathered the unconscious body into his arms, still praying that he wasn't too late.
***
"Nathan?" Ezra asked after the healer remained silent for a minute.
Nathan looked up from his pale patient, fingers holding a damp cloth to her forehead. Nathan knew what was wrong with her, Ezra could tell this from years of practice. But he could also tell that Nathan didn't want to say it.
"Ezra, maybe you ought to get Chris for this one." Nathan said solemnly, turning back to the young woman.
Ezra still in shock from finding Julian, was too disconcerted to argue with the healer. He gave a long gaze at her bloodless face before leaving the room in search of her brother. As he hurried down the dusty night street, he glanced at his watch again, trying to gauge where Chris would be at this hour.
8:45
It was hard to believe that only a half-hour had passed since he was sitting alone in the hotel. Every minute that went by seemed like an hour as he'd carried that too still form to the clinic. As he'd watched Nathan check Julian over, he hadn't heard a word that came out of Nathan's mouth. And as he raced to the saloon where he knew Chris would be, he did not notice the stares he was attracting by doing something this out of character.
Ezra pushed open the batwing doors with determination. He scanned the room, eyes falling almost immediately on the black clad figure of his leader, seated at their usual table.
"Chris," he began, out of breath and not caring that he was interrupting what appeared to be an intense card game. In fact, he scarcely noticed the game at all. Ezra took a deep breath before he began again, this time with the eyes of nearly every patron in the saloon on him.
"Chris, it's your sister . . ." it was all he got out before the older man shot from his seat with the same wild look in his eyes Ezra carried.
"Where?" It was all Chris wanted to know. If he could get there in time, maybe this time nothing would happen to his baby sister.
"Nathan's . . ." Once again Ezra was cut off as Chris tore from the saloon at a breakneck pace. The gambler would have been close on his heels had Buck not stopped him.
Ezra, pulled out of his single-mindedness by the unexpected appearances of Buck and Vin, blinked rapidly a few times as he tried to make sense of what the ladies man was asking him.
" . . .happened?" Buck asked, quickly gaining on Chris and Ezra in the fear department. Ezra shook his head, he didn't know what Buck asked him.
"I asked you, what happened." Buck's fists were tangled in Ezra's shirtfront, almost lifting the smaller man off the ground. Vin put a hand on Buck's strained arm.
"Let him down, Buck. Man can't tell you anything if he can't breathe." Buck's eyes lost some of their rage with Vin's calming words as he let go of the expensive silk shirt. Ezra took a deep breath before speaking. Vin was right about the lack of air.
"I don't have any idea. I found her like that . . ." Ezra began, getting cut off. An occurrence rapidly becoming old. It seemed as if he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
"Found her like what? Where?"
"Her room . . .you should go see her. I can't explain." Ezra pushed past the two men blocking his path to the door. He practically ran from the saloon. Buck, close on the gambler's heels, was followed by a confused Vin.
Vin didn't understand until later what happened on the street. In fact he was fairly certain that none of the men, except perhaps Chris, knew why the squabble occurred.
The trio were more than halfway to the clinic, Ezra far in the lead, when Chris came storming out into the street, door slamming behind him. Ezra's heart stopped as he feared the worse. This thought was quickly displaced by mortal fear as Chris ran full force into the younger man, knocking him to the dusty ground.
"' You Goddamn, good for nothing, Southern piece of shit conman!" Chris spat down upon the disoriented gambler.
"Chris I don't . . ." Ezra began.
"Shut up! I don't need to listen to anymore of your lies! I've had it up to here with them. Get this through your thick skull, Standish," Ezra winced at the use of his surname, one very recently replaced in Larabee's vernacular with his first. "If I ever catch you near her again, I will personally see to it that your death is a very painful one."
"I trust you are going to tell me why?" Ezra picked himself up off the road, running his palms across his now dusty apparel.
"Trust? You're asking me about trust?" The words slowly got more and more vehement as his tirade continued. "I trusted you to watch out for my sister. I trusted that you wouldn't hurt her. I trusted you to make sure that no one else hurt her. I trusted that you had changed enough to do this. I trusted you enough to let you continue seeing her long after the talk started because I figured you were just good friends. And then, you go and pull a stunt like this. I should kill you where you stand." Chris's voice became deathly quiet, so only the itinerant gambler could hear his next words. "And trust this. If I ever see you near her again, I will kill you." Ezra didn't doubt these words.
Confused, Ezra only watched as Chris walked back to the clinic, Buck and Vin in his wake. It wasn't the first time these men had shunned him. But something told him that this could very well be the last.
With a long look at Nathan's, Ezra turned and walked back to the saloon. He couldn't help Julian if Chris beat him senseless. And the odds that Larabee would were definitely ones Ezra would bet on. He just hoped she would be okay.
It would be a long night.
***
" . . . had it up to here with them . . ." The voice which initially pierced the warm glow of Dan's drunken mind filled with unmitigated rage. It was enough that Dan, who'd ignored the shouts at first, decided to make his way toward the sound.
The fancy dressed man, he couldn't recall his name, was on the ground, with Larabee towering over him.
" . . . thick skull, Standish . . ." Standish, that was his name. Dan remembered now, a memory tinged with animosity. Two weeks ago he'd lost his entire paycheck in a game with the conman.
Pressing up against a wall, deep in the shadows, Dan made himself less noticeable as he eavesdropped on the group in the street.
" . . . trusted that you wouldn't hurt her . . . should kill you where you stand . . . near her again, I will kill you . . ." Dan only caught snippets of the conversation. He was not so far away that he couldn't hear, but the lowered voice of the blond gunslinger made his effort all that much more difficult.
A shadow crossed in front of him, the forebearer of one of the figures in the moonlit street. Dan ducked further into the alleyway. It was Standish, dust covered, and obviously deep in thought. Whatever passed between the men had the gambler uncharacteristically disconcerted. As Standish moved from his sight, Dan moved slowly back into the light, peeking a head around the corner.
Almost deserted. Except for two men, more of those 'seven', on the porch opening the door to the town's clinic.
His curiosity was piqued. Dan moved suprisingly quick for a man half-inebriated. His route was not as silent as he imagined, but quiet enough that the preoccupied men did not notice their follower.
Dan pressed up against the door. Despite the wall between them, this conversation was easier to discern than the previous one.
The drawl of the Texan sounded first. "What's wrong Nathan?"
A deep voice replied, presumably that of the doctor. "Miscarriage."
The comment was followed by a long silence, and for a split second Dan tensed, preparing for a hasty departure. He relaxed as the discourse continued.
"I'll kill that dirty, no-good . . ."
"Buck." Once again from the Texan, stopping the sentence that was almost sure to continue with even more violent and descriptive expletives.
And suddenly everything sank in. Dan, never the quickest on the draw, leaned back with astonishment.
Standish fathered a child on Larabee's young sister. Dan began to chuckle as he turned back toward the saloon.
The boys were going to love this.