The Gift, a carnivàle fanfic

DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.

Note: This followup to Season One of Carnivale - relegated to AU status by Season Two - dealt only with the carnival folk, not with Brother Justin and his circle. It was meant to include enough summarization that the story would be clear even to a reader who'd never seen the show.

1935.

"I don't believe it!" Ben Hawkins protested, backing away. The look on the scrawny youth's face was not so much disbelieving as horrified.

"I didn't believe it at first, either." Ruthie kept her voice steady, her eyes locked on his. "But it's true, Ben, it happened. And I swear it's yours. You know we've never used birth control -"

"Hell, I ain't denyin' that. But I thought - I thought -" He couldn't bring himself to say it.

She came to his rescue. Grimacing, she said, "You thought I was past menopause. I thought so too. But it seems I'm not. These things happen."

Not often, when the woman's 53 and her only other child is in his twenties. But why should we be surprised by anything that happens around here?

Ben sagged into a chair and buried his face in his hands. She let him be.

After a minute or so he looked up. "Ruthie," he said miserably, "we can't do this. You gotta have an abortion."

"No!" She clutched her belly. "I'm too far along for that. I can already feel life. And it shows - that's why I've been wearing loose clothes."

Ben moaned. "For God's sake, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I didn't know myself, till way later than a woman normally would. Like I said, I thought I was past menopause. Then I began to feel something, and I imagined it was a tumor. I didn't mention that because I was afraid to face it, to have to ask for more help. I just wanted it to go away.

"But it's not a tumor - and it's not going away."

After a long silence she said gently, "I'm not asking anything of you, Ben. I just figured you'd want to know this baby is yours."

His only reply was another moan.

What else could I expect? I'm 53, he's barely out of his teens.

But there's more to it than that, of course.

Her son Gabriel was mentally retarded, but she knew that wasn't the problem. Not only had Ben never hinted she'd be better off without Gabriel, he didn't seem to perceive the young man as "handicapped." To him, Gabriel was just Gabriel, a unique individual.

"If you're worried about safety," she ventured, "I'm not the least bit afraid of having a baby at my age. Gabriel was big even at birth, but I had no problems at all. And a second birth is supposed to be easier."

"It ain't that," Ben said dismissively. Then he reddened, apparently realizing he'd sounded boorish. "I'm sorry, Ruthie. You know I care about you. But I just can't bring children into the world! I'm afraid they'll...be like me."

There, it was out.

Ruthie laid a hand on his shoulder and said softly, "There's nothing so terrible about a child's maybe being like you."

She knew, of course, that Ben's past was mysterious. That he was a fugitive from the law, possibly an escaped convict. That he was tormented by nightmares whenever he slept.

She also knew he possessed unwanted psychic powers, powers that frightened him.

Tentatively, she said, "If you're afraid a child will inherit your gift -"

"It ain't no gift!" he burst out. "It's a curse!"

Ruthie frowned. "A 'curse' saved my life?"

Carnivale, Ruthie reflected, had been a decidedly eerie home-cum-workplace even before Ben Hawkins signed on as a roustabout.

To the casual observer, it would have appeared no different from the dozens of other small carnivals that plied mid-America, bringing the region's impoverished people a few hours' escape from the Depression. Most of its acts were normal enough. Ruthie, a sometime snake handler, and Gabriel, a gentle giant who was Carnivale's strongman, were certainly in the normal category.

The strangeness began with the never-seen "Management." For all practical purposes the boss of Carnivale was Samson, a middle-aged dwarf who had himself been - for his size - a strongman in his youth. But the lead trailer was marked "MANAGEMENT - Keep Out"; Samson insisted that he shared it with the actual owner of the carnival, and merely passed on the owner's instructions. There were rumors that brave souls who'd ventured inside in Samson's absence had found no one there. Yet no one could suggest a reason why Samson, if he owned the carnival, would lie about it.

The explanation of that mystery could be simple eccentricity on someone's part. But while Ruthie was sure most carnivals' psychics were phony, Carnivale's had always been disturbingly real.

Lodz, a vain, charismatic blind man in Ruthie's age bracket, had been adept at handling objects and gleaning information about their owners or others who'd come in contact with them. Rumor claimed Lodz had made a pact with an unholy Power, giving up his sight as the price of his psychic ability. Ruthie didn't believe that, of course. But the scope of his talent had always unnerved her.

Even stranger in some ways was the woman called Apollonia, also in their age bracket. Apollonia had been catatonic for years, yet communicated mentally with her daughter Sofie. Sofie, about Ben's age, had been a Tarot reader since childhood; all the interpretations of card layouts were communicated by her mother. There was no doubt that both the mental communication and Apollonia's psychic visions were genuine.

The traveling Carnivale had encountered Ben when a bank was foreclosing on his newly-dead mother's farm, trying to drive him off the property before he could bury her. The troupe defended him and helped him complete the burial. Even after discovering Ben was a fugitive, Samson had offered him a job as a roustabout. When "Jonesy," the chief of the rousties, argued against it, Samson had claimed the order came from Management.

They soon learned Ben possessed healing powers - which his mother had, for some reason, refused to let him use to save her life. The youth was tormented by nightmares, some involving a man he'd never known. He was finally able to identify him as one Hack Scudder. The long-vanished Scudder, a possessor of similar powers, had been Ben's father - and a performer with Carnivale.

After weeks of bizarre occurrences, Samson had moved out of the Management trailer, reportedly expelled by the reclusive owner. Lodz had moved in.

All hell, it seemed, had broken loose on a night shortly after that, of which Ruthie remembered next to nothing: the night she had almost died. She'd been bitten by a poisonous snake that had somehow gotten into a bag of clothes mended for her by Lodz's girlfriend Lila. She'd remembered Hack Scudder had saved her years before when she'd sustained a similar bite. Before she passed out, she'd sent Gabriel to seek help from Ben.

When she came to, a frightening number of hours later, she was alone in her trailer. Looking outside, she saw a carnival in turmoil. Apollonia and Sofie's home - a converted school bus - was in flames! But she'd barely had time to register what was happening when the fire went out. Disappeared, incredibly, as if it had been a simple match-flame extinguished by a puff of breath.

Just as incredibly, the bus was undamaged, and neither of the women had been burned. Nor had Jonesy, who'd dashed inside in a heroic rescue attempt. (A week later, everyone knew he and Sofie had become lovers.)

Lodz was never seen after that night. Samson, once again ensconced in Management's trailer, made a half-hearted attempt to convince the troupe that Lodz had set the fire and fled for fear of being exposed. Few believed it, but no one had a better explanation.

Ruthie knew what kind of snake had bitten her, knew the bite should have been fatal. Under pressure, Ben had confirmed that he'd used his healing powers to save her.

She was sure he'd been as stunned by the fire as she was. He clearly did know something about Lodz's disappearance...but if he wanted to keep the details to himself, Ruthie had no complaint.

She was just glad Lodz was gone.

"I'm sorry," Ben said now. "Of course I'm thankful I was able to save your life, Ruthie.

"But this, uh, gift is a burden in some ways. I can't really go into it. But I have reasons for not wantin' a child of mine to hafta make the same, uh, decisions I've made."

The weariness in his young eyes, the worry lines etched in his face, made Ruthie's heart ache. She stroked his hair and murmured, "A child won't necessarily inherit your gift, power, whatever."

"I inherited it from my father!"

She took a deep breath. "Ben, I've never told you this because you flew into a rage when you first suspected I might've slept with Hack Scudder. But the truth is, I did.

"And...Gabriel is Hack's son."

His head shot up and he let out a startled gasp.

"Yes," she said firmly. "Just like you! Older than you - Hack told me Gabriel was his firstborn. You know as well as I do that Gabriel's only 'power' is in his muscles.

"I know it's more than coincidence that you have the same power as your father. But he may have done something to pass it on to you, deliberately, after you were born. Even if you really did inherit it, that was a fluke. We have the proof it isn't passed to every child...or every son...or every firstborn."

To her relief, Ben didn't explode in anger over her long-ago relationship with his father. He pulled her down onto his lap and held her close, whispering, "Thank you, Ruthie, thank you."

For her part, Ruthie was mentally thanking God for the inspiration - and asking His forgiveness for the lie.

Hack Scudder had indeed shared her bed. But he wasn't Gabriel's father.

In fact, of all the lovers she'd had, he'd been the most stubbornly insistent on using birth control.

Months later.

"Will you set down?" Samson sounded exasperated. "Pacin' the floor won't make it go no faster."

Ben grunted acknowledgment, but didn't sit.

He was grateful Samson and Gabriel had come with them, and Samson had actually advanced the money to permit Ruthie's delivering in a hospital. "You're a pair of fools," he'd told them. "But I'm not gonna let Ruthie kill herself by tryin' to have a kid in a trailer at her age."

The group - dwarf, hulking strongman, and mismatched couple - had drawn strange looks at the hospital. Especially when Ben, not yet 21, had identified himself as the husband of the 53-year-old mother-to-be. (Samson had almost had apoplexy over their marriage, baby or no baby.) But it was worth it to assure that Ruthie would have the best possible care.

Ben, always fearing the worst, still found it hard to believe the late-life pregnancy had thus far had no complications.

Can anything in my life go easy?

He'd never told Ruthie the truth about what she'd thought was her brush with death. In fact, she had been dead. And he was still haunted by the memory of what he'd done to bring her back.

The grim reality of his "gift," as she chose to call it, was that he could only heal by taking all or a portion of the life-force from vegetation, animals, or conceivably other humans. He'd healed a broken arm for Gabriel while they stood in a pond, hoping to spare nearby plant life; scores of dead fish had floated to the surface. He'd sworn Gabriel to secrecy about what he'd seen.

The more severe the medical problem, the more had to be sacrificed for a cure. He'd tried without success to cure Ruthie of the snake bite; she'd died in his arms.

Frantic, he'd turned for help to Lodz, whose attempts at mentoring he had previously rebuffed. And Lodz had taken him to speak with...Management.

The mysterious owner of Carnivale had been seated in a dark alcove. Ben had never seen his face, only his flickering cigarette and the apparent movement of a hand to dispose of the butt.

The harsh, grating voice had told him that in order to restore a dead human to life, he would have to kill someone else.

Ben had tried. He'd set out to pick a worthless human being and kill him. But with his hands around the throat of the most wretched lowlife he could find, he couldn't do it.

Ruthie had been good to him, the kindest of all the people of Carnivale. He wanted desperately to save her.

So as a last resort, he'd slit his own throat.

Near death, he'd felt a hand on his forehead - and looked up into the face of Hack Scudder. Scudder had healed him as if by magic, and told him that sacrificing his life wouldn't do. The only way to save Ruthie was to kill someone else. Then Scudder had vanished, leaving Ben unsure whether he was a ghost or a living man with incredible powers.

Ben had dragged himself back to Carnivale and to Management's trailer, where Lodz was still waiting. He'd told them he couldn't kill another human being. Much as he hated to lose Ruthie, he had to accept that God had chosen to take her.

Then Management had told him that God had nothing to do with it. Ruthie had been murdered - by Lodz! If he doubted that, he should just look into Lodz's eyes.

As a terrified Lodz tried to deny it, Ben had ripped off the man's dark glasses - and seen eyes that were undoubtedly no more sightless than his own.

That was all the proof of duplicity he needed. With a strength born of rage, he'd strangled Lodz on the spot.

Later, he'd talked with Sofie - now on the outs with her mother. She told him Apollonia was capable of moving objects with her mind. It was she who'd set their bus ablaze by sending an oil lamp hurtling to the floor, all the while clutching Sofie in a viselike grip from which the girl couldn't escape.

Why? She had subsequently "told" Sofie that she'd known about the crisis with Ruthie, which Lodz had created to force Ben to kill someone. She had for some reason felt it so important to protect Ben's "purity" that she'd decided to try to save Ruthie by killing the two of them. She'd understood that sacrificing her own life wouldn't suffice: at some point, one person had to kill another.

Apollonia herself had extinguished the fire and restored the bus to pristine condition. She'd only given up on her murder-suicide attempt because she realized another killing had saved Ruthie.

The horror of that episode still preyed on Ben. His "purity" had been sullied (though why his purity should be more important than Apollonia's - or anyone's purity more important to her than her daughter's life - was a mystery to him).

He felt only hatred for Lodz. But he felt equal hatred for the cold-blooded, manipulative Management. Recalling Management's eviction of Samson from his trailer in favor of Lodz, he was sure the carnival owner had been in on Lodz's plot, then betrayed him. And he knew that by taking a life that night, even Lodz's, he'd played into Management's hands.

Ben had wanted to leave Carnivale. But he'd found his bond with Ruthie deepening. He'd tried to persuade her and Gabriel to leave with him. But he didn't dare tell Ruthie what had happened; and with the country in the depths of the Depression, they were understandably unwilling to give up the only jobs they knew. His nightmares continued.

And he still had fears for his offspring. He'd never been convinced the stolid Gabriel was really Hack Scudder's son...

His brooding was interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor. He spun toward the door just as it was flung open - by a nurse with a broad smile on her face.

"Mr. Hawkins? You and your wife have a beautiful baby boy!"

Minutes later, as he extended a timid finger to touch the infant cradled in Ruthie's arms, Ben understood for the first time in his life what a "gift" really was.

1940.

Ruthie woke to find herself alone in bed...as usual.

But her husband's whereabouts were no mystery. She knew where he was even before 5-year-old Emmanuel bounded into view, announcing, "Daddy's bein' silly again!"

"Yup," agreed Gabriel, emerging from the screened-off section of the trailer that served as her sons' bedroom. Mentally, he wasn't much older than Emmanuel. "Don't know enough to come in outta the rain."

Ruthie winced. Ben's habit of sleeping, when he slept at all, on the trailer steps - ostensibly because of a passion for fresh air - was really meant to keep Emmanuel from hearing his moans and cries in the course of those infernal nightmares. Unfortunately, it also kept her from holding and comforting him. And while the carnival wintered in warm climates, there wasn't enough of an overhang over the steps to protect him from Florida's drenching rains.

She hoped he'd taken shelter somewhere. But it was more likely he'd chosen to sit on the steps and let himself be soaked, so he'd stay awake.

Emmanuel looked at his big brother and said sternly, "He does so know enough to come in. He's just bein' silly. But we love 'im anyway, don't we?"

Gabriel grinned. "Sure we do, Manny."

Ruthie relaxed and let herself grin too. Emmanuel had that effect on people.

"Okay," she said, "somebody'd better call him. Duck out there and get him, will you, Gabriel?"

Scrambling out of bed, she took a quick look at herself in the mirror as she pulled on her robe.

Damn. What am I going to do about this hair?

She'd been fretting over it for months. She'd dyed it for a long time, keeping it near-black. At 58, should she begin letting some gray show? With the inevitable aging of her face, it would look more natural. If anything, it would be flattering.

Her concern wasn't the usual one of a woman with a husband young enough to be her son. Poor, careworn Ben was noticeably gray at 25. If she let her hair go gray, would he imagine she was doing it so they'd be a more natural-looking couple? Would she hurt his feelings, make him more self-conscious?

Or would he even notice? Did he ever give a moment's thought to her looks, or to his?

By most standards, Ben Hawkins was an ideal husband. She couldn't remember their ever having had a quarrel. They had sex frequently, even if he left her bed afterwards. She was sure he'd never been unfaithful, or even been tempted.

But he was always preoccupied. Distant. Bowed under burdens she couldn't understand, and he couldn't explain.

Well...not quite always. As he entered the trailer now - sopping wet, as she'd known he would be - his son lunged at him like an overeager puppy. Ben swooped the boy up and spun around with him, joining in his gleeful laughter.

Ruthie was showered with raindrops. She snatched a lamp just in time to save it from one of Emmanuel's flying feet.

But as her eyes met Ben's over the youngster's head, her spirits soared.

She'd worried for years because of the lie she'd told about Gabriel's paternity. What if Emmanuel was like Ben, in all the wrong ways?

Now they were sure he was not. Ben had told her he'd been afflicted by nightmares, had known he was frighteningly "different," by age three. He'd never had the sunny disposition of Emmanuel.

God has given us the boon we wanted most. How can I ever presume to wish for more?

Ben too was in a thankful mood as he wolfed down the last of his breakfast. The rain had stopped, so the carnival would have no problem setting up tents at the new location it had reached last night.

He was now the chief of the roustabouts - having succeeded Jonesy, who'd eloped with Sofie and taken a job as manager of a minor-league baseball team. Ben had been dubious about the promotion. Both his youth and his previously spotty work record had seemed to disqualify him, and he'd feared Management wanted him in the job for some devious reason.

But Samson had said it was his idea. "The bottom line," he'd said, "is that I need someone who'll stick with Carnivale long-term. I think you will, bein' married to Ruthie an' havin' a kid with her. And Gabriel's friends with you - his contract is just for bein' our strongman, but he may help out with the grunt work, for no extra pay, if you're in charge."

Ben made the mistake of thinking of Jonesy. A mistake because he then, unavoidably, thought of Apollonia.

Sofie had never forgiven her mother for setting that fire. When she and Jonesy married and left Carnivale, they'd stashed Apollonia in a nursing home.

Apollonia did what she did for my sake. I'm glad Sofie and Jonesy ain't dead. But Apollonia's worse off than if she was dead! She's got all her wits - or did have them. And she's trapped in a place where no one can understand her.

Her life is ruined. And her sacrifice was for nothing, because I killed Lodz.

His guilt trip was cut short by Emmanuel's tugging at his sleeve. "Can I come with you, Daddy? I wanna help."

Ben shot a quick glance at the smiling faces of Ruthie and Gabriel. Then he gave his son a hug and said, "Sure, Manny. We couldn't get them tents up without you.

"I'm a proud man, bringin' my son and my stepson to help with the job!"

Two hours later, after a half-dozen assurances that he couldn't "help" with anything else, Manny found a front-row seat on a tree stump. Alert and observant, he loved to watch everything that was going on. The proceedings might seem boring to his elders, but never to him.

He spotted Samson as soon as the dwarf came out of the Management trailer. Samson ambled over to him, smiling indulgently.

"Mornin', Mr. Samson!" the boy caroled. His parents insisted on proper manners.

Samson loved it. "Mornin', Manny!" He tousled Manny's hair. "You're the smartest little boy in the Carnivale family, you know that?"

Manny got the joke and giggled. He was the only little boy in that peculiar "family."

He waited until Samson had turned away, and he was sure no one else was looking, before he let his smile turn into a smirk.

Manny Hawkins liked his nickname. It seemed amusingly appropriate for a 5-year-old with the mind of a mature man.

A mature man who was, fortunately, a very good actor.

He'd understood who and what he was for two years.

He'd inherited all Ben Hawkins' powers; he found them delightful. Of course, when it came to restoring and taking lives, his decisions on who should live and who should die would probably be very different from Ben's.

He also had all the powers of his previous incarnation. And his eyesight, which he'd bartered away so many years ago.

The one person who could have recognized him in this new form was Apollonia. She was gone - and by now, she'd probably been driven mad.

"You have done well, my friend," the one who called himself "Management" had told him after they'd killed Ruthie and set young Hawkins the task of taking someone else's life.

He had modestly acknowledged the compliment.

"Such loyal service should be rewarded," Management had told him. "Come closer. I have a gift for you."

The immediate gift had been the restoration of his sight. He had foolishly assumed that was all there would be.

His faith hadn't wavered when Management seemingly betrayed him. Even as Ben choked the life out of him, he'd played along, sure it was part of some larger plan. But he hadn't guessed what plan, hadn't anticipated how wondrous his reward would be.

With a barely perceptible inclination of his head in the direction of Management's trailer, the 5-year-old whispered reverently, "I thank You for Your gift...my Prince."

The End