Hi, so here is another story and it is an episode based story like the last few this time in the later series.
I do like the later series and this episode The Lost Sheep in particular however I really struggled with the character of Olivia when she came back from Arizona this episode in particular, as a parent I don't understand her actions, I mean she basically belittles Erin, bullies her out of marriage, all but spits on Ashley and gets John to cover for her. Erin in the later series is basically an afterthought, they never seem to know quiet what to do with her and they create man after man to throw at her and to be honest Ashley was the best-granted Paul was quite good (until they ruined him in the movies) but this is a fix it basically for Erin because she deserved to marry the man she loved and she deserved to marry him despite her mother throwing an almighty temper tantrum (to be kind). Seriously...Olivia did twenty plus years married to John and despite everything I thought it was always pretty clear how he viewed religion...
On that note this does mention atheism, war, PTSD and trauma-basically all the good stuff the series doesn't cover. If this is a hard line for you then maybe stop here. I do not wish to offend anyone but this is based off the episode and nothing more. Personal beliefs don't come into it.
If you've read my work then you know spelling and grammar are not my strongest so please keep that in mind.
This is not going to be word for word cannon either. This story should be about eleven chapters long.
I will try and update when I can but with work that might be a bit sporadic so apologies in the meantime.
I have also brought back the original John Boy. The first five series were the best and it is arguably down to Richard Thomas, Ellen Corby and Will Geer being just as involved as Micheal Learnerd and Ralph Waite.
The Same Coin
AU of Season 8-The Lost Sheep. IN which Erin chooses Ashley over Olivia's objections and John ends up being the man trying to put the pieces back together before it is too later. Cannon Pairings, No Paul (Original John-Boy)
Chapter 1-Small Disappointments.
In which Erin and Ashley talk it out and make a decision. Olivia is not impressed.
"Ashley…"
"I've been thinking"
"Oh no"
"Erin for the love I bare you I will forget that remark"
Erin giggled before she could stop herself and Ashley smiled and it was odd, it was like the world just faded away and all this fighting and all this pointless waste of energy about religion just faded away with it.
"Look" he said quietly. "I…I know you have questions. I know this came out of the blue. Your mother made it clear to me—"
"She thinks you'll raise her grandchildren as heathen disbelievers" Erin said before she could stop herself.
"Hmm…well…that's…fair I suppose."
"Don't be nice to her Ashley please don't"
"I wasn't planning too. I was just…Erin what if I assured you that you could have say over our children's religion"
She turned him all big blue eyes in her pretty face and Ashely told himself looking at her that this was a sacrifice that he could happily make. He loved this red-headed woman sat in his car with all he had, thinking of her had kept him alive through abject hell. He was more than happy with compromising, after all, wasn't that the way of marriage?
Ashley Longworth Jr didn't know. To be fair his parents had not had what one would call a good marriage, or a stable one, actually his parents had barely spoken to each other for the last few years of their lives. All in all when his father had died there was a part of Ashely that had wondered if he and his mother were going to have to learn how to speak again.
"You mean that?"
"Yes" he said snapping back to the present. "I want a family with you Erin, a lovely big family filled with sons and daughters and I know that you want to take them to Church, I know that you want them to have God in their lives. I can compromise on that. You can raise our children in your faith if that is what you want, but please…I ask of you that you not include me in this"
"You don't want to be there when our children are baptised?"
"No" he said finally. "One day, one day my darling when this war is over and can speak about it I will tell you why God and I are no longer on speaking terms but today is not the day for that. If you want to say Grace at the dinner table then that is fine too but please don't ask me to hold hands or say a blessing, that is my compromise until one day I can talk about it"
"Do you think one day you might accept God back into your life?"
The truth was no.
For her however he would lie.
"I don't know" he lied finally. "I don't know how I would feel in the future. But I know right now that this is the best compromise I can give"
For a moment she stared at him and then she turned her whole body in the car.
"So marriage with a clerk." She nodded. "Alrighty I can do that, The Baldwin Sisters—"
"Will be back in two days and would be terribly hurt if we did not include them and you know it"
"I agree, last thing I want to do is hurt those two old ladies. But marriage with a clerk from the county and then when we have children they will be raised in my faith under my control."
"Yes, in matters of faith you will be the primary instigator. You cannot tell me it is not like that for you and your siblings with your father?"
Erin paused.
"I don't…Daddy does believe in God" she said quietly. "I just…I believe that he believes in it in his own way. Maybe you could do that."
Ashley wondered for a brief second if Mr Walton's disagreement with the Good Lord had been the same as his, when he had gone to war and see the total brutality of men and the lack of godliness or anything else. He wondered if his 1944 was the same as Mr Walton's 1918 and thought that maybe, just maybe, deep down the other man knew how he felt.
That would be nice wouldn't it?
"I could try" he lied again, again maybe it wasn't best to lie but he couldn't answer Erin truthfully. So much of his world was up in smoke depending on what the Allies did next, depending on where he was to be sent or taken or even killed. If this was a small bit of comfort then he would take it. If he somehow survived this (and nobody yet in uniform was safe or secure enough to think that they would survive this just yet) then maybe he would change his mind down the line.
Right now he didn't have the time nor the luxury of thinking like that.
She nodded her face already brightening.
"So I would be raising my children in a godly home" she says and Ashley bits down hard on his lip because there is an Olivia Walton speech if ever he has heard one. He can understand the woman's concern, she has after all only just met him and if she was even attempting to understand his side of things or even listen to them then he might be a bit more nicer but right now all he can think of is that he is going to get the mother in law from hell.
Not said reverently at all.
"Yes" he says quietly. "But I would ask that you respect my feelings Erin and you understand my aversion, I will defer to you with our children if and when they come to all matters spiritual and you will not ask me to go to church or say grace and…and please…please defend me when people question that"
Erin beamed at him, it was like the clouds had disappeared and the sun had come out and her face was shining and Ashley was totally in love with her. It was the only thing that managed to get under the apathy of war that was clinging to his skin, Erin had never seen what he had seen, she had never seen the death and the destruction and the terror and the mud and all that fucking blood. She was the one good pure thing in this world, the one good pure thing in his life and he would be damned if he was going to let Olivia Walton take that away from him without one hell of a fight.
Certainty not over religion.
"Here" he said and he lifted her hand in his. Her promise ring that he had given her so many months ago desperately needed to be updated and he pressed a kiss onto her open palm before he turned it over slid the ring off and passed her the box.
"Thought it was high time that you got a proper engagement ring from me" he said and she took the box and opened it her eyes wide. It was a simple diamond encased in a silver ring, square. He had…well…somewhere between London and France he had found it but he had thought of Erin the moment that he had seen it and he said that now out loud today here on Walton's Mountain in that fancy car of his that as Serena said, made all the girls giggly.
"Why?" she asked as he took the ring and slid it onto her finger.
"Timeless, classic, beautiful, a beauty that never changes and never will no matter how time comes." He said simply. It was always easy to find the right words with Erin, she was always so delightfully warm and loving, he had never had a love like it, never had anything like it and he knew deep down in the blackness that was his heart, that this was the one woman who would save him from himself. And for reasons beyond his wildest dreams she had chosen to throw herself away on him.
Take that Mamma Walton he thought viciously.
"Oh Ashley"
"You like? Because if you don't then I can get you—"
"I love it" she interrupted and then she leaned forwards and kissed him her hands on his face and he pulled her closer, respectful of her reputation but needing her close, needing her to block it all out, the good, the bad, the ugly, the bloody.
"You kept me alive" he murmured close to her lips, "You kept me sane over there, everyday I dreamt of wanting to come back to you. I don't have the way with words that your family does Erin, I don't have the Walton gift that way, I might not be the most romantic husband in the world and tell you everyday but I will tell you here and now in this car, in this moment that I love you."
He caught her chin in his hand and she smiled at him her eyes overbright.
"That" she said with the maturity that came with age and came with losing people and came with wanting to be happy and being in love and so, so much more, "Was all that I ever wanted to hear from you Ashley. I love you too"
And so they stayed like that for a very long time.
Erin came through the house at ten. John was awake mainly because he was not stupid, he was not going to sleep while his daughter was out in the darkness with some solider.
He wasn't born yesterday.
Olivia was out of bed before he had time to react and he put down his book. He had been trying to read more, been reading GI Journal a little but he had to take it slow. He was getting flashbacks to France and that wasn't good for anyone.
He sighed sitting up and cracking his neck to the side and then turning the light off. Olivia had informed him of Ashely's believes. She had looked at him in utter frustration when he had raised one eyebrow at her but then again in twenty five years of marriage religion was the one thing that they still managed to disagree on. John was not going to ban Erin from marrying a man because his believes different from his wife.
Also…this was not Chad Marshall, as he knew from his own experience Erin was quite capable of doing what she wanted—that picture of her in shorts was still seared into his brain. And not in a good way.
There was a brief conversation and then Olivia came back into the room.
"Still engaged?"
"Yes" she said throwing her dressing gown off and sitting on the bed and yanking out her hairclips. "Apparently they have discussed it and he is going to let her raise her own children in her own religion"
Privately John didn't see what was wrong with that as a compromise but he had learnt a long time ago not to argue with his wife when she was in this particular kind of mood.
"Oh"
"Oh…Oh! Is that all you can say Oh! Our daughter is off marrying some godless atheist and all you can say is Oh!"
"What would you like me to say Olivia?"
"Say she can't do it!"
"Aha. You see that working or is this in a dreamworld? Because in the real one I see Erin marrying him regardless and I see myself walking her down the aisle"
"To give away to who hmm? Some clerk?"
"To a good man who loves her" he said quietly. "He loves her Olivia, I have always said as long as the man in question loves my girls to pieces, doesn't hurt them and earns a semi decent living then the rest can fall by the wayside."
She threw her hairclips onto the bedside table with an almighty clatter.
"Well we'll see about that" she said climbing into bed. "I am going to stop this wedding from going ahead John. Mark my words"
She turned over on her side and flipped the light out and John did the same.
All his life from the end of his war to the beginning of this one and beyond he had wanted a quiet life.
And what had he got?
Stubborn woman, seriously his lot in life was to be surrounded by stubborn woman and he was married to the worst one in the best way possible.
But right now, privately though he loved her beyond reason, heart and soul, forever and ever and ever beyond death do us part, he had to concede that he thought Erin had the right of it and that maybe, just maybe, Erin was going to win.
And yeah there you go, next chapter will come soon.
Next Chapter-Olivia and Erin have a talk at the breakfast table. John wishes he'd had the foresight to stay in bed.
