Notes and Disclaimer: Hey guys, thanks for all of the reviews and the support, sorry updates have been kind of sporadic, I've been traveling all over this summer but now I'm pretty much home of good, hopefully I can make them more regular. Everything is owned by The Pleasant Company.

More Than This

An American Girl: Felicity Fanfiction

By: DaggerQuill

Chapter Three

Felicity woke before dawn the next morning. She quietly dressed and snuck out the back door, stopping in the kitchen to grab a large apple, which she nibbled on while she walked to the barn.

"Good morning, Penny girl." Felicity greeted her horse as she gave her the rest of the apple, while Penny chewed Felicity brushed her copper coat.

Felicity walked across the barn to retrieve Penny's saddle, blanket and bit and to feed the other horses. She was tightening the girth on Penny's saddle when she saw something out of the corner of her eye, then everything happened very quickly.

The mouse darted into the stall and ran up Penny's leg causing her to neigh loudly and rear back onto her hind legs. Felicity was thrown backwards onto the hay covered barn floor, and Penny's hoofs smashed into her trough, splitting the wood with a loud crack.

Before Felicity had lifted herself off the ground she heard a crash from the loft upstairs, a door being flung open, and someone running down the stairs.

"What's happened?" Ben demanded, appearing in front of Penny's stall, disoriented from being awoken suddenly, and wearing only a pair of hastily thrown on breeches.

"Penny was spooked by a mouse." Felicity said pushing herself onto her elbows. Ben blinked several times when he saw her on the ground, and then reached down to help her up.

"Are you alright?"

"Y- Yes," Felicity said while she tried not to stare at the scar that ran from his left shoulder to his right side, interrupting the well toned muscles of his chest. She quickly busied herself with calming Penny.

"Is it the middle of the night?" Ben asked after a moment.

"No, 'tis early in the morning, I was just taking Penny out for a ride." She explained keeping her attention on her horse.

"Would you like to borrow a pair of breeches?" He asked. She looked at him again, and saw a smile playing on his lips.

Felicity could feel herself blushing. "N- No," she stammered, smiling too, "I think I can manage without." She paused, her cheeks still pink. "Would you like to come?"

"Yes, if you would accept my company. Just allow me a moment to, umm, dress."

"Oh, of course! Felicity said blushing harder, "I'll prepare Patriot for you."

She walked past him to get another saddle from the opposite side of the barn. "Lissie!" Ben called after her. She stopped, and he stepped behind her. She suddenly overwhelmed by his sent, it was so familiar, but she had never experienced anything like the way it made her feel. "You have…" Ben said and she felt his fingers in her hair, then he reached over her shoulder to show her the hay he had pulled out. "I'll only be a moment." He said as he headed back upstairs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After Ben got dressed he found Felicity waiting outside with Penny and Patriot, she smiled as she handed him the reigns. It was clearly morning now, the sky was becoming light gray, bright colors appearing on the horizon.

"You've always rode early in the morning, haven't you?" Ben asked once they mounted the horses.

"I guess I have. I began when I trained Penny, I'm sure you remember. Then the last summer my Grandfather was alive, the summer you ran away, he and I would go riding every morning and watch the sunrise. Then, when I was staying in New York, I liked to take Penny out in the morning, before everyone was awake. She reminded me of home and when it was just her and me I didn't have to worry about my every movement."

"What do you mean?"

"I was living with Elizabeth's family in upstate New York, it was just very different. All day it was curtsying, afternoon tea, dinner parties, and dances. Not that I am really complaining, most of the time I enjoyed myself, but everything was always so formal. It's one thing here where I was expected to have good manners when we were out or when we had company, but in New York house guests and neighbors were always around. Sitting in the drawing room was a social event, walking in the garden was a social event, but when I went riding with Penny I could just be myself."

"You had trouble meeting the requirements of higher society?" He teased. Felicity glared, but ignored him.

"Everyone was absurdly rich. The Coles were one of the poorer families in the neighborhood, and they were all loyalists." Ben got the feeling that Felicity had wanted to say all of this for awhile now, but didn't have an opportunity. "No one except for Lord Harry's family knew that my father was a shopkeeper, or that I was a patriot. Does that make you angry with me?"

"No." He said sincerely, although he didn't know why, he should be angry she was denying the belief that he had been fighting for. "Wait, Lord Harry?" Ben was confused, "Annabelle and Lord Harry never got married."

Felicity laughed, "They did, though. It's a strangely romantic story, actually. They didn't get married when Lord Harry joined the British army, which you knew, but he and Annabelle began writing to each other while he was away. Then in February of '80, he was in a battle, in Westchester County, and he was hurt, he lost his foot. He was furloughed and sent home. When he first saw her he was so ashamed, he told her he would understand if she never wanted to see him again. She told him that she would never want that, and then she proposed, right there. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel for his brave sacrifices, and given an office job in New York City, which allowed him to come home quite often. I heard this all from Elizabeth, or course, because I didn't go up until right before their wedding."

"And, why did you go up to New York?"

Felicity sighed. "The simple answer is that I went up for the wedding. That my dear school friend Annabelle was to be married and I had to be rushed north to be a bridesmaid."

"But, that's not true."

"Not really, no. Father hired a new apprentice, Timothy. He was the son of a very rich man from Richmond. He had gone to go to college, he didn't need an apprenticeship, but he was unbelievably spoiled, and his parents believed he needed to learn the value of a hard days work so they apprenticed him to father for two years. He - well, he was sweet on me, and he was very... persistent, and forward with me. Elizabeth and I had been writing since she left, so everyone decided it was best if I went to New York for Annabelle's wedding."

"He didn't," Ben faltered; anger was flooding his mind making it difficult to find a word that wouldn't offend, "hurt you, did he?"

"No," she said quickly. "He was always following me around, staring at me. When I went to take care of the horses he would watch me from the holes in the floor of the loft. It was like I couldn't escape him. I never wanted to be alone, even in my own house."

She shuddered with the memory, and he felt a sudden guilt that he had not been there to protect her. "I wrote you and told you all of this. Why didn't you ever write me back?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"I got a letter from you when I was marching to South Carolina, you spoke of Timothy, and I wrote you back, but I couldn't write after we got to Charleston."

"Why not?"

"The city was under siege, and we fought skirmishes there for nearly two months before we had to surrender. Then, while my company was retreating, we met with more redcoats and there was a battle. We surrendered, but they continued to come at us, with their bayonets, they didn't even have the decency to shoot at us."

Felicity interrupted him, "Is that how you got that scar, across…" She drew a diagonal line across her chest with her finger.

"Yes, it was a miracle someone noticed I was still breathing during the retreat. I was in the hospital in Charlotte for six months. When I got out, I made it to Richmond in time to reenlist when they reorganized the companies. We marched back down to the Carolina's and spent the entire spring and summer of '81 either marching or fighting. There was no time to write, nor any paper or supplies to use. In September, we marched back to Virginia, and I stopped at the store to see you."

"You were here?" Felicity asked, astonished.

"Yes, but the only person here was the wretched apprentice boy." Ben told her, sounding more spiteful than he'd intended. "The store was a mess, he was unhelpful to the customers, and he said awful things about you and your father, I could hardly stand it, but I had no choice but to leave, we were marching to Yorktown the same night. We were on reserve most of the time and I hardly even fought in the battle. And once the French arrived there was no question about how everything was going to end."

"If we were somehow back to the night that I came to your room and asked you not to join the army, would you make the same choice?"

"Yes," Ben said without hesitation. "Does that make you angry with me?"

"No. I would have been surprised if you'd said no." Ben wondered why she brought up such a painful night.

"I saw my family often while I was in Yorktown, and I started to realize how lucky I was to still be alive. I had seen years of cities being burned, people getting injured, and dying, but my family was together again, we were hardly affected. It made me realize that I needed to move toward something different in my life."

"I don't understand, I thought our new country was what you've always wanted?"

"It still is something I want, but the war is over, Felicity, not officially yet, but I truly feel I saw it through to the end. And now, I am two and twenty years old and still an apprentice. By the time your father was my age he had a shop, a wife, a daughter and another on the way. I never planned of having a life after the war."

"Delaying your apprenticeship was your choice, Benjamin Davidson!"

"Yes, but it was your idea if I recall."

"It was," she said simply. He could hear her tone becoming defensive. "And, I remember you being more than grateful for it. I was only a child then, how was I to know you would resent it seven years later?"

He hadn't meant to upset her, he softened his tone. "I don't regret it, Felicity. Coming back was always my plan, the thought of it kept me fighting, kept me alive." She was staring at him, her eyes wide and mouth slightly opened. In that moment he realized how many things he would never be able to tell her, how many things he would never be able to fully explain.

"I just never expected coming home to feel this strange. I think I expected to be eighteen again, and you still to be twelve. I thought I could just pick up where I left off, with everything, not just my apprenticeship. I thought I would know exactly what I would do when the war was over."

"You'll finish your contract with my father, and after that you'll do whatever you decide, isn't that the freedom that you were fighting for?"

"Aye," He smiled at her. "How is it that you always know exactly what to say?"

"I could ask you the same thing." She said with a grin, as she turned Penny around to head home.

When they arrived back at the house Ben could smell breakfast waiting for them from the kitchens. He rode ahead of her once they were in sight of the barn, earning himself a questioning look as he passed. He quickly dismounted Patriot and offered his hand to help her down.

"Will you join me tomorrow?" She asked as they climbed the porch steps.

"I would be honored." Ben answered, holding open the front door.