Thanks to You

Becky was sure they must have another stove somewhere in the back for the railroad employees as they passed through, but as far as the passengers, there was only the one in the corner to warm them all. Had she been the building planner, she thought with some small amount of irritation, she would have designed something less drafty. Though it had been tempting to unwrap the mufflers she'd bought her mother for Christmas to give herself a few extra layers, she had somehow made it through the night on the depot bench without them, albeit very restlessly. So despite the fact that it was afternoon, Becky had put her head down on the carpet bag once more and was sound asleep when Henry Gowen found her.

ooo

"Becky?... Uhh… Becky?"

Henry was relieved when two dark eyes popped open from in between a pile of cold-weather wrapping. There were few other young girls waiting at the depot, but thankfully he had caught sight of an escaped strand of long brown hair under this one's hat, making him pretty sure she was the right one.

"Mr. Gowen!" Becky sat up quickly, shocked out of slumber. Blinking her eyes a few times, she looked around, then back at him with a squint. "Mr. Gowen?"

"Afternoon," he said, his face crinkling uncomfortably. "I'm here to take you back to Hope Valley."

"Did Mom send you?" Becky asked, still bleary. "Wait, aren't you…?"

"It's a long story. Long ride too, so we best get going." He offered a hand to help her up, which she took, though she seemed understandably still uncertain as to why he was standing in front of her at a snowed-in train depot in Nelson Ridge instead of by himself in a jail cell.

ooo

It crossed her mind briefly that Mr. Gowen had escaped from prison, intending to make a getaway by hopping on a train, and then decided upon discovering her at the depot that he would kidnap her as insurance against harm when he was recaptured. But this theory of events seemed as though it might be a bit dramatically coincidental, so she dismissed it for at least the time being.

She followed him out cautiously to where his horse stood waiting, tied to a pole in front of the station. "I don't understand though?" she prompted again.

He bowed his head in quick contrition. "My apologies. You're right to ask. Abigail… your mother, was kind enough to request I be transferred to the Hope Valley jail for the holidays. I was doing some community service in town when I heard you couldn't get home from Nelson Ridge. Thought I could help."

"So picking me up is community service?" she tilted her head, still a little confused.

He smiled. "Something like that."

Becky hugged herself and looked around, a gust of wind blowing into her face, making her aware of the hair that had fallen loose from her bun. The last station announcement had estimated that, with so many workers gone for the holidays, it would take at least six more hours to clear the tracks. If that were true, she could still potentially get to Hope Valley in time for Christmas if she waited. Unfortunately, the estimate had also been six hours two hours before that. And the last time she had seen Cody he had nearly died, and she'd sworn to spend as much time with him as possible.

"Would you mind waiting just a minute while I fix my hair?" she asked.

"Not a problem at all."

ooo

It crossed his mind briefly that Becky was going back into the depot to alert the authorities that he had escaped his detention. The low rumble of panic nearly made him kick the horse and take off without her. But if he was caught, he would deserve it. Besides, it seemed entirely likely he would be meeting Bill or Jack somewhere along the return route anyway. He had understood the consequences when he made the choice to leave, and had had three hours to think about them even if he hadn't.

Thing about Stantons, though… they believe in people even more than they believe in the law. That was the whole reason he was here, really: he was tired of letting them down. And since Becky was a Stanton now too, it probably shouldn't have surprised him when she came back out of the depot a minute later and grabbed his hand to mount up behind him.

ooo

It didn't take Becky very long to notice that Mr. Gowen did not know how to ride this horse.

"You usually drive a car instead of riding, don't you?" she asked, shouting over the blasts of air as they galloped.

He stopped repositioning himself in the seat, likely a bit embarrassed. "That obvious?" She smiled, but he couldn't see it. "I do find it a better mode of transportation most of the time, but unfortunately my car was seized along with the rest of my assets when I was charged."

"I'm sorry," Becky said, not knowing what else to say.

Mr. Gowen shrugged. "Not going a lot of places these days anyway."

"Well, I prefer horses myself. So I'm okay with the ride."

"I probably should prefer horses," Mr. Gowen joked. "A horse never threw me off the side of a cliff."

Becky grimaced, the nonchalance of the statement out of balance with how deeply it struck her. "I didn't know you'd been in an accident."

"No reason you would. Think you were in the hospital then and I'm not much worth writing about."

It was the kind of self-deprecating statement that Becky had learned from the girls at school was to be immediately met with a reassurance that it was utterly untrue, even though the person who said it never did believe it to be true in the first place. But the idea of playing this well-rehearsed game of platitudes with a middle-aged businessman sent a stripe of pink heat rushing across her cheeks. Besides, something about Mr. Gowen told her he did quite genuinely believe this to be the case and was not probing for flattering argument.

She did, in fact, have cause to argue, as Cody and her mother did occasionally mention Mr. Gowen in their letters. However, while the sentiments involved were not completely negative, she doubted that the contexts in which they were relayed would be particularly welcome conversation. She also did not want to continue the thread about his car accident, the two of them still barely acquainted with one another, and so ultimately she offered no response, though a subconsciously forming pool of empathy and memory made her instinctively tense her hands where they circled his waist.

ooo

Frankly, he had been startled when Becky put her arms around him. Reaching for the reins as they began to set off, he'd jumped a little to find himself suddenly surrounded by an unexpected human belt. He'd forgotten the holding-on would be a necessity, it being quite a while since he'd ridden with a companion (and, as Becky had quickly observed, a while since he'd ridden at all). Being embraced – even such an embrace as this one was, without any intention – was always a little uncomfortable for him. Add in the fact that he was now the escapee rescuer of a young woman he'd never spoken to and whose mother he thought of with some amount of affection (though with what amount, he would not admit even to himself), and Henry was feeling well out of his typical depth.

He himself had no problem with silence, preferring it generally to most other sounds and to nearly all conversation. But his own awkward thoughts made the current prolonged silence feel as though it too were awkward. And while he knew very little about young women, especially these days, it seemed to be the general consensus that they liked talking. He cleared his throat.

"So… has Cody been doing alright?... Since the appendicitis, I mean. I did see him for a bit working on the Christmas floats and he seemed in good spirits."

"Yes, no problems since then. It's kind of you to ask about him."

He was sure Becky knew nothing of his asking to stay in the jail until there was news of Cody's condition. It didn't seem like something Abigail would have shared with the children, and Bill certainly wouldn't have made mention of it to anyone, lest it cause someone to view Henry in even a sliver of positive light.

"I'm glad Dr. Shepherd was there and made the right call," he noted.

While realistically there was not much Henry could have done to help, it had still made him feel frustratingly powerless to be stuck behind bars when Abigail had been going through such a difficult trial. Not that she would have sought solace in him even if he were a free man, of course. He knew that implicitly, but the renewed recognition of it still stung.

"We were very lucky," Becky was saying, a wistful note in her voice. "Just like we were with Miss Abiga- with Mom. I've never been any place like Hope Valley."

Beneath his riding hat, Henry's mouth drew up into his own affectionate smile, its corners tempered with regret. Distracted by their own thoughts and jostled by the ride, they fell quiet again for some time after that, which suited Henry just fine.

ooo

Mr. Gowen had picked up their speed, though he seemed to have a hard time trying to get the horse to navigate around some of the narrow or icy patches. Becky pursed her lips to keep from laughing each time he muttered to the horse, partially because of his exasperation and partially because he kept sputtering random words in an attempt to keep his language clean in her presence.

"No, there, over there… turn, you darned… sock… son of a… picnic…"

He was definitely used to being around other businessmen, she thought. It couldn't have always been that way though, unless he had been born into some kind of mining legacy family (was there such a thing?).

"Did you go to college, Mr. Gowen?"

"Huh?" he said, distracted from his mangling of the reins. "Oh, no, I didn't."

"So how did you get into mine operations?" she asked, curious now.

"I started out as an office boy with a company near where I grew up. Pestered them until they let me learn the books and follow them around."

"You never worked in the mine either?"

"No, actually. I probably should have. Would have appreciated it more. But in my foolish youth, I was just maneuvering myself into wherever I thought I'd see the most money. You made a good choice, getting an education."

"I'm enjoying it a lot," she said, perking up. "I prefer the math and science to the history and literature. Most people think that's strange for a girl, even in college."

"I think it's admirable to carve your own path. What is it you're studying for?"

"I want to be an engineer, like my father."

Mr. Gowen grunted in what she assumed to be approval. "We could always use more good engineers in the mining industry."

Becky appreciated the encouragement, and so she didn't point out that he was no longer in the mining industry.

"I'm still figuring out where exactly I'll go, but it's what I've always wanted to do. When I didn't think I could walk, the only thing that motivated me was working on my sketches. I just never thought it was something that could actually happen for me. It seemed so out of reach even before, but then after…" she trailed off.

Mr. Gowen nodded in front of her, not needing her to finish. "I'm glad you changed your mind," he said, his voice low and sincere. "Only thing that makes achieving something impossible is not trying. It'd be a shame to give up something you love that much."

The fatherly warmth of it seemed to rumble through his back and pass through to her, unexpectedly striking a chord of her heart that had lain cold for some time. She turned her face up to the darkening sky and closed her eyes, letting herself drift into the past.

ooo

"My parents died in an automobile accident," she said suddenly. "You probably didn't know that."

Henry slowed the horse, a rush of guilt making his heart sink as he recalled their earlier exchange. "I didn't. I'm sorry to have brought up painful memories for you."

"You didn't. They're kind of always there," Becky said. Though he didn't doubt the truth of that, he could hear her trying to make it sound less affecting than it was.

"Actually," she said, "the part of it that still comes back to me more than anything is them taking us to the group home. The social workers come with the Mounties, right at the same time. You haven't even had a chance to understand everything that's changed before they take what's left from you and change it again."

He knew the disorienting feeling she was describing very well, having ended up in an orphanage or a foster home a few times himself. In his case, the hand that guided him up the steps was usually the same one that let go and left.

His own recollections of these group homes had blurred and dulled in their effect on him over the years, but not so much that he would need to ask why Becky and Cody had run away from one. Instead he asked, "What was yours like?"

"The women who ran the home...," she paused, trying to find the words amidst what he recognized as a lingering trepidation. "Maybe they meant well at first, but I think they stopped understanding what sadness and loss were like after seeing it so many times. They didn't have a lot of patience with us, especially Cody. It helped to be around other kids who knew what you were going through at least, but… I don't know. The only thing I was there was an orphan, and I didn't want to be that every day. Does that make sense?"

"It does," he answered firmly, knowing exactly what she meant. "I've spent a lot of my life trying to change how people define me, what they think of me."

"Why?" she asked, surprising him. "What was your childhood like?"

Henry didn't often up about his past, and he was reluctant to now. He didn't want to tell her that while she had always wanted to be an engineer, the only thing he had always wanted to be was rich. It was a far less virtuous dream, though it had taken him fifty years of his life and a decidedly spectacular downfall to finally be convinced of that. But something about the way she had trusted him at the depot, and the way she continued to trust him, made him want to reciprocate that for her.

"Pa was a sharecropper," he started, not knowing where else to start. "I can appreciate some of the sacrifices now, but I didn't see the dignity in it at the time. I was the youngest and so I was the most recent burden. Not much reason to keep me around 'til I was old enough to help work the land, and by then I wasn't used to staying put. But I was also too young to know the difference between making it on your own and just making trouble." He didn't tell her he probably hadn't really learned the difference until he met Ray Wyatt.

"What did you do?"

"I stole a lot. Any time I wasn't locked in a home I was swiping food like you and Cody were, but mostly I took things I could trade or sell."

"For that long?" she asked incredulously. "And no one found you?"

"Oh, they found me! Got dragged to the Mounties by my ear on more than one occasion after stealing this or that. They didn't much care to deal with me though. There was a doorstep somewhere for them to drop me back at most of the time."

He felt her shoulders shake as she nodded. "We almost got caught one place, before I got sick and Cody started going alone. The store had a dog."

"I learned that lesson too. Started staking the places out first. Did it get him?"

"No," she scoffed. "He wanted to stay and play with it. I got him out the door right before the lights came on!"

Henry laughed. "Well, in the end, it's probably a good thing Cody's bad at breaking and entering."

Becky laughed too. "Yeah, I guess it worked out okay."

No one had laughed like that around him for a long time. It was almost as though she was genuinely enjoying his company, and he had to admit, hers wasn't half bad either. And though his heart swelled to know that she and Cody had left illness and hopelessness in the past when they found a loving home with Abigail, his own hardscrabble youth gave him a respect for how they had faced and survived it. If he were ever in a position again to put in a word for this impressive young woman's future, he would do so without hesitation.

Unfortunately, the branches of his and Becky's lives had twisted in very different directions since childhood, and the days of Henry's being able to influence anyone were coming quickly to an end. In fact, he realized with a morbid amusement, his future had been at the mercy of her word ever since he pulled up to the depot.

ooo

"You need to stop at all?" Mr. Gowen asked a while later. "I don't have anything in the way of food, but…"

"I have some," she chimed in quickly, sensing that he was embarrassed not to be able to take a detour into some town and buy them something. She also realized he must be quite hungry, having now been riding back and forth for several hours. "I wouldn't mind stopping for a few minutes. It doesn't need to be long."

In contrast to her earlier stubbornness, the horse was only too willing to comply with a rest, stopping short as soon as they pulled off the road and nearly catapulting them from her back. Luckily they regained their balance and were both able to dismount properly, in Mr Gowen's case with a not-quite-swear word under his breath. While Becky went to relieve herself, Mr. Gowen tied the horse to a tree. By the time she got back, he had gone off in a separate direction to answer nature's call, so she took the food she had purchased from the vendor near the depot and gave an apple to the horse, whose name she still did not know. Another apple and now-crumbling muffin she laid out on a handkerchief on top of a rock, along with a thermos of cold tea.

She turned her head at the crunch of snow that signaled Mr. Gowen's return. He was trying hard to smile at her, though his halting stride displayed less confidence. They settled on two nearby rocks that faced each other, huddled inside their coats and eating in a mutual silence that had become surprisingly comfortable. Mr. Gowen had insisted that she take the intact apple, and she pretended not to notice as pieces of blueberry muffin scattered across his lap.

It was strange to think that this was the man who had caused so much anger in the town – the man whom she'd once heard Sheriff Avery refer to as "Gasbag Gowen." There was an aura of humility about him that did not match up with this reputation, and though she hadn't known him long enough to determine which was closer to the truth, she couldn't help but soften towards him. He was swiping muffin crumbs away from his mouth with the back of his hand and staring out across the woods, his brows tight. He didn't look as though he belonged here. She wasn't sure where he belonged.

"They don't know you're gone, do they?"

His head snapped back to her, the furrowed brows now matched with a frown. "What makes you say that?"

"Well," she said lightly, "you tense up any time you hear something nearby and you didn't pack any food. Also, I'm pretty sure this isn't your horse."

The horse snorted and kicked, confirming the statement. Mr. Gowen side-eyed the traitorous animal.

"I didn't exactly say goodbye, no. Imagine they've figured it out by now though."

"Do you think Mom's worried?"

"I think she was more worried about you. That's why I came."

"Because she helped get you home for Christmas," she confirmed.

He shrugged. "Seemed a fair trade."

She wondered if he knew that willingly risking, and probably receiving, several additional years in prison so that the mayor's adopted daughter could get home a day early would not seem to anyone else to be a fair trade.

ooo

Abigail was definitely worried. Henry imagined Bill had started chirping in her ear the moment his absence was discovered, telling her she was too trusting for her own good. Henry thought that about her too, sometimes, but he wasn't about to admit to agreeing with Bill Avery.

He knew that he had only left to get to Becky, but he could only imagine what Abigail was thinking right now. That it had been a mistake to ever bring him back. That he was just a criminal who stole from his constituents and he would never change. That she should have left him in a freezing tent camp. It would have been a fair assessment to make; there was no evidence to the contrary as far as she knew.

Except… except for the faith she had in him.

It had been weighing on him even before she had said it out loud, ever since they unlocked his cell and told him where he was going. He couldn't fathom why she had sent word to the prison to let him out, why she had spared even a moment's thought for him. What do you want from me? he'd asked her.

A cynical part of his mind had imagined it was some kind of public shaming – come look at the failure, the fraud, the disgrace. He could have handled that. He deserved that. But he knew that the Abigail Stanton who had pressed a kiss to his cheek out on the street would never want that. What she wanted was for him to be the man she thought he was: a good man.

He wasn't sure he knew how to be that for her. And he wasn't sure why she cared. And the thought of trying to answer either question terrified him.

He was bound to disappoint her. He was staring down the barrel of a ten-year stint in Cape Fullerton – even longer after this probably ill-advised impulse of his – and the freedom of the open road was more tempting than he was willing to admit. And even if he had these moments where he did a little better than before, like riding out to the depot or protecting Bill from Wyatt, would it really make a difference to anyone by the time he got out?

"Did you ever get the scones?"

He blinked at the question, having half-forgotten someone else was there. "Scones?" he repeated, the word nonsensical to his distracted mind.

Becky finished the last bite of her apple and swallowed, still holding the core. "Cody overheard Mom trying to figure out whether the detention center would let you have a box of her scones. He thought I might know. He thinks I know everything because I'm in college."

Henry felt a blush creep up his neck. "Uh, no, I didn't receive any," he said, standing abruptly and tilting the riding hat over his face. "That was incredibly kind of Abigail to even consider it though. Very kind. Anyway," he said, pulling at the knot around the tree, "only about 40 minutes to home now. Best be on our way."

He was bound to disappoint her. But it wouldn't be tonight.

ooo

Becky had always understood in the abstract that Mr. Gowen had known loss. That forty-seven men had died under his watch, that his career and influence and money were gone, and that he was about to be sent to prison. She knew that some of this was due to his own actions, and that he had tried at times to reverse the mistakes he had made. But it wasn't until she spent three hours listening to the regret that scratched his voice that she truly grasped he was experiencing those losses – the same as she had, the same as she continuously did. There was a sadness and isolation in his past that followed him like a shadow… a grief that struck him at unknowable moments. It was the same as the grief that came over her when Cody turned his head a certain way and looked like their mother, or when she thought that her father would know exactly how to finish a design she just couldn't get right. It was a wave that came up inside of them, reminding them how difficult it had been to live without the love they wished for, how difficult it was still, and how it seemed impossible that anything could fill the spaces it had left behind.

But the only thing that made something impossible was not trying. Maybe Mr. Gowen would take his own advice someday. Maybe that was what he was trying to do today. And if she could show her gratitude by beaming at her mother while she proudly presented her chivalrous and incidentally non-fugitive rescuer… well, it couldn't hurt.

Sheriff Avery seemed to discover his own soft spot for Mr. Gowen the next morning as well, letting him stand in the doorway of the jail to watch the parade go by. He had painted their float after all – helping Cody try to make up for a space left behind. From the back of the Christmas parade float, Becky waved, throwing her other arm around her brother to remind herself how fortunate they all were in this moment.

She didn't know in what way her mother loved Mr. Gowen, if it was anything like the way she'd loved her husband or Pastor Frank. She didn't know if Mr. Gowen would ever stop sabotaging himself long enough to find out. What she did know, as she watched the two pairs of eyes follow each other and refuse to let go, was that Henry Gowen would never again be dropped on someone else's doorstep.