Now on with the show. Louise has had her baby and I think the title gives this chapter away so enjoy.
Going Home
After the birth of Louise's baby things seemed to happen quickly. Two days after Jesse's birth Emily found her self being constantly nagged by both her friend and her Aunt to return to Rock Springs. She wanted to but she had also made a commitment to her aunt and her mother. Her aunt told her to forget the commitment and to go home and make the type of commitment that actually mattered in life. Emily now sat in her room, looking at the beautful jewlery box that Ethan had made her and she wanted to cry. She was thinking of him constantly now probably since that was all anyone talked about was Ethan. She felt the locket around her neck and looked at the picture that had graced her mirror since her arrival. Then she heard little Jesse's cries and she made her decision. She was going to go home. She ran down the hall and into Lou's room to see her friend nursing her son. "Let's go back to Rock Springs." she said.
"Now?" Lou asked.
"No not now, I mean next week or as soon as we can get tickets out on the train. The weather is nice now and we can get back to Rock Springs in the the spring when things take a fresh start. I will introduce you to my brother Oliver and we'll find you a job or you can just stay with my family and I. I mean Jesse is much to small to be leaving alone for very long." Emily said.
"Don't you want time to write Ethan and tell him your coming?" Louise asked, looking down at her son.
"No. I'll go out to his house when I get back. I just feel that now that I've made the decision it is time to go. I'll send a telegraph to Mama and Papa and let them know that we're coming."
"Ok. You go down to the depot today then and try to get us passes." Lou said.
Emily ran down the stairs and told Emma where she was going. Her aunt was at the shop. Howard was just pulling around the yard to drive Emily to the depot when Thomas showed up. Emily hadn't been seeing as much of him since the night that she way laid his kiss. He stepped out of his carriage and asked her where she was going. She told him and he offered to give her a ride there. He was still supporting the dream of becoming a gunsmith in the west. On the way there he told her, "I would like to travel out with you ladies."
"I guess that would be ok." Emily said. "Are we going to have to buy a fare for Jesse?" she thought suddenly.
"No he is just an infant child, but is Louise going to be ready to travel?" Thomas asked.
"She said that she is. The doctor was by the other day and told her that she was healing nicely."
"That's good." Thomas said.
When they arrived at the depot they found that the soonest and only time they could get tickets to Rock Springs was in three days. Thomas looked at Emily, "Can you and Louise be ready to go in that amount of time?"
"Of course. The question is can you?" Emily said. She paid the fare for herself and Louise and watched as Thomas paid for himself. They also secured a sleeping car for Louise and Emily so that they had somewhere more private to care for the baby. The ticket handler told them that it would take them two days to arrive in Rock Springs and the only stops that would be made would be to drop off people and to let them on along the way. Emily then went next door to the telegraph office and sent her telegram to her parents.
John Munch was in his office visiting with as fate would have it, Elliot and Ethan Stabler when the telegram arrived. The two were in town checking on Percy Benson and getting lumber for Ethan's house that he was building. He had been ill recently and Olivia had been fretting and finally sent her husband and oldest son in to town to check on him. John opened the paper and read and then he looked up and said, "It's from Emily. She's coming home. She leaves in three days and then will arrive two days later, so in a week my girl, she'll be home."
Elliot looked at his son for his reaction and he didn't see much out of Ethan. He just kind of stared off into space and didn't say anything. Then he just walked out the door.
"What was wrong with him?" John asked.
"He's been waiting all those months for this to happen and now it has, I'm not sure he knows what to do." Elliot replied.
"Is he courting another gal?" John asked. He hadn't really kept up on Ethan lately. Not since and the ladies and Elliot had talked about him the night of the Valentines day dance.
"No nothing like that. I noticed that he wasn't getting as many letters from Emily though. Then he started to work on this house and help me plant fields. Hell, John, I'm not even sure how much that boy is sleeping right now." Elliot told his friend. In fact he was worried about his son. He didn't know why it was so important for him to work on this house. Did he want out of his childhood home that badly or did he think that he needed to have a place to take Emily once she came home? Those were questions that Elliot was unable to answer so he said to John, "Well we better be going. If she is coming in in five days then I will send Ethan to meet the train. I can't gurantee that he will come or maybe he'll come on his own. But I want your word and for Casey too that if something does start between those two that you'll not stand in the way of it."
"You have my word and I think I have convinced my wife that her behavior is not all that becoming." John said.
Ethan was silent on the way home. His mind a jumble of thoughts and his heart a jumble of feelings; to the point that he was numb and didn't know if he could have a coherent thought. Five days, in five days, the girl that he had dreamed about, fretted about and loved from afar would be home, be back where he could start to maybe do something about all these emotions that were running through him. His biggest fear was that she would bring home some dude with a diamond ring on her finger to announce to everyone that she was taken or worse yet, married. To tell them all that she was returning to Philadelphia after a short visit. He could see it happening.
The three days before they were scheduled to leave were a blur for both Louise and Emily as they packed and prepared everything that they would need for the trip. It was more difficult now that they would also be traveling with baby Jesse in tow as well.
On the day that they were scheduled to leave Thomas came by for them with is carriage and another wagon to load their things in to. Emily's aunt cried as she watched their things being taken out the door but said that she was also glad that they were going. Emily had Ethan's locket around her neck and the jewelry box in her carpet bag that she was taking on the train. Lou also had a carpet bag with clean clothes and diapers in it for Jesse. After hugging everyone all around the girls were helped into Thomas's carriage and away they went to the train depot. They boarded the train with their tickets and bags as Thomas oversaw the loading of their things into the baggage car and then he joined them. Sitting down right next to Emily. He put his arm across the back of her seat in a possessive gesture and then Lou handed Jesse to her while she grabbed something from a bag.
Just then an elderly couple walked by Emily and Thomas and said to each other, "Oh what a nice looking family!"
Thomas didn't correct them and Emily couldn't, she was trying to soothe a crying Jesse. When she handed the crying baby to Lou again Thomas leaned closer to her and said, "You know what they said is true, Em. We would make beautiful children together and have a nice looking family."
"P-please don't call me Em, Thomas. Only a certain few people call me that and you are not one of them. As for us making a family together, I don't foresee that happening either."
"Why not Emily?" Thomas asked, hurt, again. He had thought that they were making progress in their relationship. He was only three years older than her, and was ready to be married.
"Because I don't love you Thomas. I like you as a friend but I don't love you."
"You could learn to love me Em."
Over the next two days Thomas kept acting possessive of Emily and also calling her Em. It was the fact that he kept doing that that bothered her the most. Only a reserved few people that she knew very well called her Emily. Lou, her brother and Ethan. Even her parents didn't call her Em!
She had even taken to setting in the seat next to Louise and one of them would just hold Jesse rather than lay him in the wicker carrier that someone had found. She found Thomas's behavior extremely rude and so did Louise. Louise even told her to tell him about Ethan but Emily refused. She just sat and fingered the locket that he had given her when she thought no one was looking.
After two days of hard traveling they finally arrived in Rock Springs. Emily was so glad that she was home. Now she could be rid of Thomas once and for all. If she had to, she would have him arrested by her father she thought to herself.
It was the day of Emily's arrival and Ethan thought his parents were acting quite strange. There was work in the field to do but they were sending him to town to check on Granddad again. That was strange. As Ethan pulled on his suit coat and went down the stairs, Katie, who thought that he was really going to see granddad asked if she could go. "Sure Miss Katie. You can come with me." He said.
He intended to only go see their grandfather. He was a little upset with Emily right now. She hadn't written for weeks now and he wondered what was wrong with her. Actually he was worried that she had found someone else and was bringing him home to show him off. He didn't want to give some other fellow of seeing him standing at the train station looking like a whipped pup.
They arrived in town well before the train did and went and visited their granddad and then he asked them to go down to the store and check on things for him. They did as they were asked and Katie had a nickel, also given to them by their granddad to buy some candy for her and the boys. Ethan was waiting for her outside the doors when he saw the train pull into the station. It was like a magnet for him. He called to Katie who came running out with a nickel sack of candy and he took her hand. They walked down the board walk until they could see well who was coming and going from the train. He could even see the Munch family standing and waiting for Emily. He watched as the passengers flowed out and then he saw a girl who was somewhat familiar from Emily's letters, she was carrying a baby in her arms. Then a man got off the train and raised his hand for the next passenger. Ethan felt himself getting sick inside. The next passenger off that train had to be Emily. He just knew it, could feel it. He watched as one petite foot barely noticeable under the blue silk skirt emerged and then their was Emily. God, she looks beautiful! He thought to himself. He watched the man move behind her and put his hand at the small of her back in a protective gesture, as Emily rushed forward to greet her family. Ethan felt sick so he just took Katie's small hand in his and went back to his wagon. He swung his baby sister up to the seat and climbed in. Then turning the horses he went out of town so no one would see him.
As soon as Emily stepped off the train, she began looking for Ethan. When Thomas put his hand on her back she rushed forward to greet her family. When she reached her brother Oliver, while hugging him she whisphered, "Have you seen Ethan?"
He whisphered back, "No."
When she went to Alexandra she said, "My but you've gotten to be such a big girl!"
"I've missed you Emily!" The little girl cried, and buried her face in Emily's middle.
Emily stroked her hair and looked around under the guise of checking out how the town had changed while she had been gone. "I've missed you two Alex."
John, Oliver and Thomas unloaded the bags after everyone had been introduced and then Oliver pointed the way to the hotel for Thomas and put his sister and Louise's things in his father's carriage. Looking at Louise under hooded eyes he thought to himself that spending more time at home would be an option.
John drove the ladies home and Oliver went back to work. Once Emily had settled Louise in Oliver's old room and freshened herself up a bit she went down to talk to her father. "Papa?"
John looked at his oldest daughter, who was so much like her mother sometimes it killed him and said, "Yes honey?"
"Have you seen Ethan around?"
"Not since the early part of the week. Why?"
"I was just wondering. I thought maybe you would have mentioned that I was coming home to him. I would have expected him to be there." Emily said, chewing her bottom lip.
"Well I did mention it. In fact I thought I saw their wagon in town earlier but I may have been Olivia because I thought I saw Katie as well. Percy has been ill so they have been coming and going a lot more this week. I'm sure he was just busy this morning, he's building a house and trying to help his father in the fields you know."
"Yes Papa. I know." Emily said. She went back upstairs and found Lou without Jesse. "Is everything alright Lou?"
"Fine." Lou said.
"That's good. I hope Oliver's room was clean."
"Yes it was. Tell me about him, your brother Oliver I mean." Louise requested.
They went into Emily's room and she began to regal tales of Oliver to her friend.
Ethan and Katie drove home in almost near silence, other than a few early birds chirping and Katie slurping on her candy. Finally she said, "Etan, why didn't you go see Emwilly? I seed her up the street."
Ethan looked at his innocent little sister, how did you explain something like this to a 4 year old? "Because Katie, Emily was busy with her family." He finally said.
That seemed to appease the little girl, until they got home. He sent Katie to the house and then went out and told his father that he was going up to his own house to work for a bit of time.
He drove up there and instead of working, he sat down on the rough floors and cried. The walls weren't even up yet and that is how his father found him a half an hour later. Knees pulled up, head down crying like a baby. Elliot sat down next to his son and put an arm around him. "It will be all right son. Maybe he was just a friend."
"No I saw the way he touched her Pa. He was I don't know, it was like the way you touch Ma. Possesive and protective all at once."
"What did Emily do?" Elliot asked.
"I don't know. I took Katie and we got out of there. I suppose she is the one that told you that we saw Emily."
Elliot just nodded his response.
"Well she is obviously taken so I have other things to do anyway. A house to work on, crops to plant, a barn to build."
"Son, you know a house will never be a home without any heart in it." Elliot said.
"I'll find a new gal, she'll put some heart into it." Ethan said. "I don't need Emily Munch, because she obviously doesn't need me."
I know I know, I'm leaving you hanging but geez a guy can only take so much right? Please R&R and I promise to write more!