Hello all, this is a two parter of a chapter and the next one will be the same side of this with John and Olivia and then John-Boy comes back as we move into the home stretch.

This one is primarily Esther/Zeb.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.


Guardians And Gladiators

Chapter 8-Tears Dry On Their Own.

Esther and Zeb share a moment as they reflect on the past, present and the future. John-Boy comes out of surgery and is wheeled into the recovery room.


"Well that was impressive"

"Don't" his wife said as he shut the door to the mercifully empty chapel. Her head was in her hands and her voice was muffled but Zeb lowered himself into the seat next to her anyway.

"Don't Zeb, I am utterly shamefaced"

"Why?"

"Why?" Esther said pulling her head out of her hands. "Why? Zeb I have just smacked your nephew clean across the mouth in front of the man who sells me grocery's, my son, my daughter in law, half the county and three of my grandchildren"

Zeb thought about it.

"You want to know what I think?"

"Not really no"

"I think that was really impressive. I'd forgotten what a temper you had Esther. I'd forgotten what it did to me"

Esther shot him a look. It was one of her trademarked looks but Zeb ignored it. Over the years he had become accustomed to it.

"Please don't joke about this Zeb" she said softly.

"I'm not. He insulted our grandson, he insulted our family. All you did was do what John and I were going to do. Or even Jason depending on how long they were there. What does it matter? You think people in this hospital didn't hear what filthy lies he was spreading? You think if push comes to shove they will believe them over you? John-Boy is respected and loved around our friends and neighbours. Everyone will understand that you acted out of emotion. A gold star from Jesus even"

Esther let out a gasp and then laughed as if the laugh had been wrenched from her. Zeb saw his opening and took it.

"And a gold star from me" he said softly.

Esther smacked his arm lightly.

"What the children must think—" she began but Zeb laughed. It was so like Esther to think of the children though he didn't know if she meant the grandchildren or John. Considering the looks on their faces he thought they were one in the same when it came to something like this.

"The children think that, that was the most amazing thing that ever happened to them. Grandma punching out Boon clean across the hospital. They will whisper about this one for years…as for John…Good Lord woman—and I say that reverently—did you not see the look on his face when Boon went down?"

"To be honest I wasn't seeing much at that point"

"Well I was. And I can just say with a bit of hard work and training you could be the county's next boxing star—"

"Oh how can you be so cavalier in the chapel"

"It's a gift Esther"

Esther shot him another look and this time he did listen to it.

"Whatever happens next" he said finally. "We do what we always do. We face it together"

Esther smiled at him.

And then…

"It did feel good"

Zeb laughed once.

"I know. It was good watching it. I haven't seen you like that since Amy Pritchard made a comment about John and Olivia's marriage and weather John-Boy was conceived before the ring went on"

"Well to be fair to Amy Pritchard we both thought that at the time. I know you asked John outright."

"Well…boy disappears all night, drives us mad with worry, comes back at three in the morning with a woman in his arms saying he's married…and Ben was no help if I recall. He drove them there and he drove them back. I have to admit if I'd have put money on one of our sons pulling that stunt weather or not their was a baby on the way it would have been Ben"

Esther privately agreed. Ben had always lived hard and fast. She knew of at least two occasions where he had come home bloodied and bruised and stinking of cheep perfume. He'd laughed her off when she had tried to warn him about the evils of places like the Dew Drop Inn but she knew he went there anyway. And John had been his shadow. None of her boys had been innocent. It had not been out of the realm of possibility that John-Boy had been conceived before the ring had been put on.

She had never asked Livy and she had taken John at his word when he had tiredly told them that "No Ma. No Pa. We didn't have to get married"

But John-Boy had come along very fast afterwards.

"It was simpler back then" she said finally. "Simpler when that was all we had to worry about"

"And now we've got seven grandchildren to worry about. Cause you know one of them is going to follow in their father's footsteps and bring home a firecracker without telling everyone about it. Personally my money's on Ben"

Esther snorted again but if truth be told she thought he had a point.

"I hate the fact that we are here again" she said finally looking at her hands knotted with age and coarse with hard work. "I hate the fact that we keep living on the edge. It seems like we just got over the boy being sick the last time and now he's here again. I don't know how John and Livy keep doing it. I don't know how we keep doing it"

Zeb was silent for a long time and then he spoke.

"Esther if I thought that this was a serious possibility…"

"I know…Zeb you think I don't know you'd be on that surgeon's table if you could. As for John…well…he's a scared parent right now. He's lashing out. Trust me when the dust settles he'll be repentant. This is just…I think this is just bringing up memories he's not had to think about since Tip Harrison was here. Maybe even before that"

"I allowed this to happen" Zeb said finally. "I held that gun in my hand, I told John-Boy to take one, I was prepared to fight I just…I wasn't prepared for them to shoot back. It sounds so stupid once I say it but I wasn't prepared for them to shoot back. I was gunned up and young again defending my brother and his land from the people who wanted to take it away. I forgot the cost of a shooting. One son dead in France somewhere, Germany on the march again and one son who still has nightmares about what he's seen and done and I forget the cost of war."

Esther was silent. She didn't want to think about Germany marching. She didn't want to think about that God-awful moustached man and the evil that he was spouting and her grandchildren all of the age to soon go off to war. She'd seen two of her boys go, surely she didn't have to see more? Wasn't the whole point of losing Ben, the comfort (not that there was much) supposed to be that he had died in the war to end all wars?

"You made a mistake Zeb" she said finally.

"A mistake that nearly cost John-Boy his life. A mistake that nearly got him and myself thrown in prison, he could have lost his scholarship if that had happened and there was noting that I could do to stop it. Martha Corrine—"

"Martha Corrine played you like a two dollar banjo"

"Esther—"

"Zeb the woman was married to your brother for longer than I have been married to you and that's saying something. She saw you coming a mile off. She played on your sense of honour and duty, the things that you have in common with your brother. She knew that you would defend the land that Henry worked. And while I do feel for her she also knows how to cause trouble. She let that boy run wild around her for years and somehow she's surprised that he wants to take a gun and start shooting up the mountain calling on kith and kin to be the barricade. I get that she is desperate, I get that she is frightened but she's been eating nothing but pride for years and sometimes I think she looks down on us and what we accomplished. You never heard her at the house—us with our hot water and our electric lights—she knew what could happen, to her son, her grandson, to that pregnant girl. She knew and she still put guns in their hands. If that girl had miscarried up there, or had been thrown into a prison cell and gone into premature labour then she could have outright lost that baby there and then. And that is what I can't understand. I never could understand anyone wanting to sacrifice their kin the way she seems to have wanted to sacrifice hers"

"She's still my sister in law Esther. By Henry's dying promise I was supposed to look after her—"

"She's got legs and she's got a truck Zeb she could have come down from that mountain if she wanted to. She could have sent Boon or Wade to us if it was urgent before this. No…she knew what she was doing sending them to us when she did. Even the Marshall's will admit she's a cleaver woman"

"You think you'll ever forgive her?" Zeb asked.

Esther paused. There was the crux of the matter. She could understand (if she was being really, really honest with herself) Martha Corrine's motivations. She could understand the reasoning behind the actions. If it had been anyone other than John-Boy who had been shot, then she might have even been sympathetic but she had been one of the first people to hold John-Boy. She had been the one who Livy had given the baby too when she had been giving birth, she had been the one who had handed John his son when she had come out of their room to see him pacing a hole in the landing. This was her grandbaby.

"It's the Christian thing to do" she said because it was and Esther Walton was nothing if not a good Christian.

"But…" because Zeb knew her too damn well God help her for swearing.

"But it will take time. For her, for me, for this family. But that is what prayer is for I suppose"

Zeb opened his mouth and then shut it again. Esther was relieved. She knew her husband, her plain spoken husband and she knew that whatever he was thinking in that moment she was not going to like.

And he knew that as well.

Because he knew her.

Zeb took her hand a second later and linked their fingers together and when he spoke his voice was heavy with an emotion neither one of them wanted to name.

"You think John will ever forgive me?"

Esther smiled turning to look at the weather beaten face of the man that she had loved since she was sixteen, the man that she had loved since before she had even known what love was. The father of her children, the grandfather to her grandchildren and the half of her heart and soul and when she spoke she spoke with honestly.

To be frank she didn't think she could speak to Zeb any other way.

"He'll forgive you" she said. "It will take time, John right now is a scared parent and a solider on the brink and neither one of those things is good. But now that we know John-Boy is out of danger he will forgive you. I think…I think this just caught him on the raw in ways we don't know about. And…and he loves you. Whatever happens he loves and respects you."

Zeb let out a shuddering breath and Esther realised that he had been silently suffering too. He had lost Ben, the thought of losing John to either one of them in any way was…was unbearable.

Sometimes Esther thought looking at the cross on the wall of her God that she believed in whole heartedly, she really, really wished that she had forced John to talk about the war. He'd never volunteered anything other than the good times and she had been too heartbroken to ask about the worst of it. Even when the children got old enough to realise (John-Boy, Jason, Mary-Ellen) that the war had not all been sunshine and roses John had still told them the funny stories.

She opened her mouth to say…well she didn't know because at that moment there was a knock and Jason stuck his head around the door.

"Sorry Grandma, Grandpa, Momma says that John-Boy is about to be moved to the recovery area and if you want to get a glimpse of him you have to come now. He's still out of it but if you want to you can see him breathing. I think that's all she cares about at any rate"

"Yes" Esther said standing up and smoothing down her dress. "Yes, I imagine that is all she cares about"

Jason nodded.

"Jason did Ben really hold a gun?"

"Yeah, but Erin had the sense not to load it"

Well thank God for Erin at any rate.

"And did Mary-Ellen use foul language?"

Jason looked utterly unrepentant.

"Yeah she did but don't worry. Momma will probably make her recite a load of bible verses anyway, unless Daddy overrules her"

"Wouldn't put it past him" Esther muttered and then she moved past her grandson, Zeb still holding her hand to see the pale, unconscious face of her eldest grandson as he was wheeled from surgery to recovery and once again, the long waiting game continued.

But this time Esther was cautiously optimistic that they were out on the other side of it.

Time would only tell.


And there you go, I hope you like this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-A mirror to this one. John and Olivia sit down with their children to discuss the events of the day and what comes next. John-Boy is finally taken to the recovery room.