Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy it. This was a great joy to write and delve behind the background of John Walton.

In this chapter I do create a bit of a background for John and Ben in the Great War. There is very little on both brother's and their history in the Great War so I have created it. John's history in the war is not really explored even in later seasons when the Second World War is shown. Therefore this chapter does show it and the early days of John-Boy and Jason's birth.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just this chapter and this story.

Please Read and Review.

Guardians And Gladiators

Chapter 2-Act Of God

John-Boy is whisked into surgery for the second time. Ike gets to deliver a message he never wants to deliver again (alongside the Sherriff) and John can barely keep his temper in check.

They took his son off him when they got the desk, hell before they got to the desk, there were shouts about operating and John and Zeb were directed to a waiting room that had a small phone and small chairs and then there was nothing else to do but wait. When John-Boy had been sick the first time and he had been in the hospital he had been able to help him walk to a bed no matter how weak his son was. This time it was different. This time it was him, John watching as his first born was taken out of his arms and pushed towards surgery by people in white coats and white masks.

He could count the amount of times that he had seen the inside of a hospital on one hand and all seemed to involve his children. There had been that nightmare night that he had rushed his bleeding pregnant wife to the hospital and one of his babies had made it and the other had been taken away to be buried and without John putting his foot down (for Livy not for him) the baby wouldn't have been baptised. There had been the night that he had taken Jim-Bob to the hospital to have his appendix taken out and he and Livy had tried not to think of the last time that their son had been in the doctor's hands. And then there had been when everything had been looking good and he thought he might be on the cusp of getting one of his children to college (a pipe dream he had thought lost when the banks had collapsed) it had all nearly fallen down over a stupid pully belt.

And now not even six months after that he was back here watching his son get dragged away from him and the rage that was threatening to bubble over was so strong he felt like he could taste the red haze that was coming over him. It had been like that in the war after he had received the telegram from Livy that his brother was dead. He and Ben had been in different units, different parts of the war but he had heard that his brother's unit had been hit pretty bad and Tip and he had gone searching local hospitals whenever they were off the line. That had been the first indication John had ever had of the war off the front line. Something about those men bleeding, groaning, dying and the resolute expression of the war nurses as they attempted to achieve miracles with very little help, medicine or experience had been utterly terrifying. Men who were wounded on the line were evacuated sharpish. That first time in the war hospital was the first time that John had seen where they went and as he had looked, trying desperately to find his brother but knowing deep down that he would not he had thought the whole thing so fucking pointless. When he had got back that memory out of all of the bad memories was the one that stayed with him and even to this day he still couldn't figure out why.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and then he shrugged it off. Second he did John felt childish but if his father said anything right now then John was going to say something back and he was sure that he was going to snap and that was the last thing that he needed right now. John-Boy was depending on his father having a clear and level head but he needed to…he needed to…he needed…

He needed Livy. Livy who was at home with the children who had no idea what had happened. Livy who didn't think that Martha Corrine had been serious when she had spoke of defending her land with rivals and his mother who had said nothing but who had watched with disapproving dark eyes that seemed to speak of an age of…something.

Livy needed to be here. John needed her here. And so he turned on his heels and he walked to the nearest phone and he knew that his father was watching him but he managed to find a quarter and get the phone number that he needed.

It rang twice and in that heartbeat John had to remind himself on how to speak and how to keep his voice calm.

"Hello? Godsey General Store this is Ike?"

"Ike it's John"

"Oh hi John"

Ike, good old dependable Ike who was his friend, who had been Ben's friend. Who had been with them in the Great War and who had been there when he had gotten back, who had been the first to congratulate him over his elopement to Olivia when everyone else was judging them assuming it was because she was in the family way. It was Ike who he had asked to be Jason's godfather (Ben being John-Boy's) and it was Ike who was always there whenever it had gotten bad and though John was ashamed to admit it, it had been Ike who had on more than one occasion let their bills slide until John had cold hard cash to pay for them.

"Listen is someone there who has a car with you?"

"Just the Sherriff…listen we've been hearing some rumours coming up your way, you know they moved in with blasting this morning and shooting and…and is everything alright? Because I have to tell you John taking on the government—"

"John-Boy was shot up there" John said flatly. Christ even hearing himself say it made him feel like it was coming a long way away. He didn't know what to do or what to say but he thought that now he had said this, now someone else knew what was going on he might be able to breath a little bit easier.

Then again.

Ike was silent for a long time and then he spoke and his voice sharpened in a way that Ike usually only used for shoplifters or when he was in the war.

"How bad?"

"I don't go. I got him to the hospital in Charlottesville but I need you to get Livy and my mother and get them here as well."

"And your Pa?"

John didn't snort though it was with great difficulty.

"He's fine" he said sharply. "Look Ike can you just…can you do it gently. Mary-Ellen, Jason they can know but I don't want anyone else knowing about this until we know…one way or the other"

There was a very pregnant pause and then John could practically hear Ike straightening his shoulders.

"Alright John, I'll get right on it"

And then he was gone. John put the phone back onto the receiver and breathed in and breathed out. He couldn't remember what he was going to say though as he had driven down from the mountain and he had watched as his son was taken away from him.

"John"

"Not now Pa"

"John if I had thought for a second that there was—"

"What?" he asked. He could feel the dull roaring in his ears that meant nothing good and he felt like he could taste something in his mouth. It reminded him almost of the taste of gunpowder. The heat of the fires that were built for warmth for those few short moments, as he closed his eyes he felt like he could still feel the slippery feeling of blood on his fingers as he looked down at some seventeen year old the same age as him and trying to keep his guts from spilling out.

He thought that he was going to be sick but he forced his eyes open to glare at his father who looked even sicker than he felt.

Good, John thought viciously. And that was just his father…if he ever got his hands on that scrawny neck of Martha Corrine Walton he'd save the government a job.

"What? You gonna tell me Pa that you didn't think that this was a possibility? You gonna tell me that you stood there with my son holding a rifle and facing down the US Government that you didn't think that a stray bullet or you know…you all getting shot was a possibility? John-Boy's on a collage scholarship did you even think that if he was caught and arrested what that might do to his future?"

His father drew himself up to his full height and John resisted the urge to shiver. He was a grown man with seven children and there was still something about his father in that moment that made him want to flinch back. His Pa had never been one of those men who had ever hit his children and John had never been one either but right now John was expecting a hit.

Which was good because if a hit came his way then he would hit back and he was sure he would win. Not just because of the age difference but because John was so angry he wasn't sure that he could stop if he started.

But who he was angry at? That was the question. Livy would know. She would know exactly what to do in this situation.

"John you are the one who left him with me. You were the one who said that it was alright that he could stay. Don't talk to me about consequences. I assume that you knew what was going to happen when you left him with me—"

"I NEVER TOLD YOU TO TAKE MY SON ON A SHOOT OUT DID I YOU BLOODY—"

He stopped speaking turning and he smacked his hand into the wall. It hurt but it was the good kind of hurt. It allowed the panic to clear his mind and he sat down on the little chairs and his father watching him sat down with him. There they were sitting at each other, looking at each as if they were enemies standing on either side of the trench who didn't recognise each other not father and son who had been through hell and back together, who lived together, who worked together, who loved each other.

Livy needed to be here…she would know what to do about this.

Livy knew what to do about everything.

"I didn't think you'd do it" he said quietly. "I really didn't think that even you with your own grandson on those mountains would really be stupid enough to start shooting at the government—not even for that old crone"

"That old crone is my brother's widow. My dead brother—"

"Yeah and like your son my son could be joining him" John snapped.

If he had been feeling anything other than a bone deep worry and an anger that could have put nations against nations, he would have felt bad at the look that crossed his Pa's face. Ben was a cheep shot and he knew it but the truth of the matter was he was just too angry to care because his baby was in an operating room and nobody had come to let him know if he was dead or alive.

He had thought that he would know. Surely to God if something had happened to his baby he would know? He had known the last time that something was wrong he just couldn't put his finger on it. And with Ben, in those two day stretches where he had gone off to find his brother he had known that he wouldn't find him in a hospital bed chatting and joking with the men and flirting with the local nurse—God knows Ben had always been the flirt in the family, John was still amazed that they hadn't found a woman yet who had a dark haired son or daughter that was Ben's parting stamp on the world—but he had known.

That was the point of it. He had known that while he was looking he was never going to find Ben and now as he sat in a hospital waiting room he thought that surely he must know if he was never going to see his son again except in the cold embrace of death. He had never seen Ben like that. He had already been buried over there. It was how it worked really and it wasn't like John had not done the same with men who had died. You had to get rid of the bodies for morale and for the smell and though the brass did everything you could to get them home to their families the reality was that sometimes that just wasn't enough. War was chaotic and unless you were over there, unless you actually saw what it was like then there was no words to explain it even though he knew when Tip had been down here two years ago John-Boy had done his best to try.

"I didn't think it would get this bad" his father said finally. "I love that boy John, I love all of them certainly more than my own life. If I could be there in that room instead of John-Boy you know I would in a heartbeat. I just…I just didn't think until it was too late."

John said nothing. There was nothing to say. There was nothing to do.

There was just waiting, just the terrible horrible wait that made your palms itch and there was nothing to do but wait and hope that this feeling wasn't like the last time and didn't lead to the terrible, horrible, gut-wrenching news that you got when a person you loved more than life itself had died.

I wanted to show the divide between John and Zeb that I think surely must have happened in this story and therefore here it is. It's like sometimes when you see Ester and Olivia fight, it's just about whose the parents in the family and whose not and this tension will be included in further chapters.

And there you go, now begin this story. I do start work back up again so please be aware of that when it comes to updates, as always your reading this story means the world to me and I will post the next chapter as soon as possible.

Next Chapter-Ike arrives at the Walton's to deliver the news. Jason and Mary-Ellen try to keep a stiff upper lip and even while dealing with her own emotions Esther tries to keep Olivia from falling apart.