Eclipse

Immediately follows the ending of Blind Man's Bluff (S2E1) written by Carey Wilber.

Warnings for graphic depictions violence and language.

.

CHAPTER ONE

He saw it. In the distance. Her golden hair. He remembered the feel of it, the softness. The smell, a hint of jasmine. He thought he could catch her. He was wrong.

She was gone. The ruts of the road stretched empty before him. Not even a hint of dust remained. He squeezed his eyes tighter thinking maybe the image would stay behind his closed eyelids. He was wrong.

The burning from the too bright light brought a wash that swirled the pain in his left temple where the bullet had taken him down. His fists dug into his eyes as if he could hold the brief glimpse of her inside. Her hair, yellow gold shimmering in the sunlight—his only sight of her—he clung to it, but it was swept from him. His arms and chest ached from the memory of her pressed against him. He thought his love for her would keep her with him. He was wrong.

Mattie. She had found him, helped him, and accepted him as he was. Her touch spoke to him, surrounded him, soothed him. Her breath soft against him, her heartbeat racing in her chest, her kisses growing passionate as she held him. He thought she loved him. All of him. He was wrong.

His hand clutched the paper, grown damp in his sweaty palm. It didn't make a sound. It had nothing more to say.

Rocks dug into his knees, his shins, his feet where he sat over his legs on the dusty track of the road. His feet and legs throbbed but he couldn't make sense of it. His head ached, the pain sharpening at his temple. He smelled blood. It trickled next to his eye, rolling over his cheek, trailing along his jaw, dripping onto his lap. His head hung, inert. He no longer had the desire to lift it or remove his hands to see—he could see, but now he didn't want to—the vacant road. His throat was swollen shut blocking the need to cough. His chest hurt. It felt like he had taken a bullet, dead center, and he had been left in the dust. Alone. As it should be.

He heard the steady clop of a horse, the creak of a wagon. He stayed unmoving. Hopefully, they would pass on by. He willed himself to be unseen. What he wanted failed again. The wagon stopped.

Even with his eyes closed, he sensed a shadow falling across his shoulders, the shades of gray reaching through and touching his vision. He could see. He was grateful he detected the difference because he also felt the heat lessen where the shadow touched him. He tried to draw the shadow inside. He wanted to disappear into it. He felt like nothing; he wanted to be in the nothingness.

Someone sat beside him. No, not just any someone. An arm draped across his shoulders. Just resting there. No demands.

Scott.

He wondered if the sun was going down as chills tickled along his arms, wrapped around his spine, and started to seep inside. It spun in his gut like the ice floes he saw in the river the one time when he went into the far north during winter. He didn't like the feeling of the cold, so he came back. Maybe he should have stayed gone.

The pressure on his shoulders and a gentle hand on his arm pushed him back from his knees to sit on the rutted road. His legs kicked out along the hard ground. He pulled them to his chest. He dropped his folded arms across his knees and buried his face in the darkness it created. He slit his eyes open to see—he could see—if the light still burned. He could just see a bit of the wadded paper clenched in one fist. He closed his eyes again. He didn't want to see.

"Johnny."

He turned his head away from the sound. He didn't want to hear.

"Look at me, Brother." The voice was open, kind. Patient.

"Can't. Hurts." He hadn't planned on answering and not with such truth, but the words slipped out. When did he get so weak?

Scott wasn't sure if it was Johnny or the breeze whispering in his ear. The elder man winced. He saw for the first time that the lower third of Johnny's nightshirt was covered with brambles and stickers. That forced him to look closer. The needle-like barbs of dozens of stickers found their mark on Johnny's bare legs. Red swatches marred his skin where the bull nettle scraped against him. His feet bled where dozens more had been driven like spikes into the soles of his feet.

"Talk to me, Johnny."

"Can't. Hurts."

Although the words were tossed by the wind, Scott was now sure of the source. The hurt was too raw to be no more than his imagination. He began to gently rub Johnny's back. His brother leaned against him, his dark head falling against his shoulder. Scott turned to wrap his arms around him. Johnny dropped his legs flat against the dirt allowing Scott to pull his body against him. One arm flopped over Scott's strong shoulders, the other—his right— fell to the ground next to his hip, his fingers searching for something before becoming still. Pressed chest to chest, Johnny shuddered, then shook, then sobbed. Scott held him tighter, saying nothing.

Scott held Johnny until his brother's weight leaned fully against him. Scott clamped his own eyes shut against the tears as he lay one hand protectively at the back of Johnny's head. He slowly recognized that despite the heat radiating from beneath the thin fabric, Johnny continued to shiver. His brother lay limply in his arms.

His voice tore through the tightening grip in his throat. "We're going now, Little Brother."

Maneuvering to his knees, Scott braced the younger man with one arm at his back and slid the other beneath his knees. He found the strength to stand. He staggered up but found his feet and walked determinedly to the wagon. He wanted Johnny to speak again even if it was no more than a whisper lost among the dust devils, but Johnny's head and limbs were tossed like dried stalks of prairie grass in the breeze as he moved. He rested Johnny in the bed of the wagon on the blankets he had tossed there. He grabbed another to wrap around him. Scott brushed the dampness from Johnny's cheeks and rested his palm against his forehead. He didn't like the heat that emanated beneath his touch. Scott swallowed hard a few times before he dared speak, willing his voice not to crack.

"We're going home, Brother."

.

xXxXx

.

"MATTIE!"

Johnny bolted up, his eyes unfocused, unable to catch his breath. The light scorched his eyes bringing a watery film to further blur his vision. He shut his eyes against the pain. He jerked his head toward the clatter of something dropped, the swish of a skirt.

"Mattie?"

After a pause, a hesitant voice spoke. "Mattie's gone, Johnny. It's me. Teresa."

His body punished him with a coughing jag that rocked through his chest leaving him feeling pummeled. A hand rested on his back; the edge of a glass cup touched his lower lip.

"Drink this," Teresa instructed. He obeyed as a bitter taste laced with honey filled his mouth. He turned away from it. "It's willow bark tea. I think the worst of it is over, but you still have a fever. Drink it." Once again, he obeyed, bringing one hand up and finding Teresa's hand holding the cup.

Holding her hand. Teresa's hand.

A conflagration of memories erupted from his thrumming senses overwhelming his ability to focus. Pictures flitting beneath his closed eyelids rose up, just enough to taunt him then fly away before he could see it, tossed like twisted fragments of broken detritus in a windstorm.

He was hurt. Bushwhacked. Blinded. Found by the girl who couldn't speak. Helped. Hidden. Rescued by the girl who couldn't speak but whose fingers touched him in ways that brought light into the darkness. Soft. Sensual. Loved by the girl who couldn't speak but said everything he needed to know when he held her.

"Mattie, you stick close to me, honey. I'm scared again." Her hands soft in his. Comforting. Safe. Taking the darkness away by her touch. Her smell. Her presence. Johnny touched the doctor with one hand to find him. The contact with Mattie was broken suddenly. Fear gripped him.

"Mattie!"

His hands waved in the air, searching for her.

"Mattie!"

The bed dropped when she sat back down. Johnny grabbed for her. She took his hand, and he gripped her, the most stable thing in the blackness.

"Mattie, I told you not to go," he chastised her, his fear exploding with bolts, like lightning, behind his darkened eyes, and then he begged her. "Don't leave me."

He grinned a little when the hand grew still. Mattie was with him. Her hands with his. Joined as one. No matter what happened, she was there.

"Go on, Doc. Let 'er buck."

The cold edge of the scissors creased his right temple causing the left to tug with a jab of pain. The sound of the bandage being separated as the blades moved echoed in his ear as the sensation trailed along his jawline. He squeezed Mattie tight. She held him but it was…tentative. Worried? He tried to be brave for both of them.

"It will be a few days before normal sight is restored," Sam Jenkins told him. "After that, complete rest.'

Johnny released Mattie, his hands finding his face, the bandage loosening as Sam cut. He knew if the treatment didn't work, if he was blind, he had to accept it. Alone. Then he could take Mattie in his arms as he had done that first night and she would guide him through the things he could no longer see. She would show him how to find his way. With her next to him, Johnny recognized he could live with that. He could live with anything as long as he could live with Mattie. His heart slowed. He touched his fingers to the closed lids.

"Open your eyes, Johnny," Sam encouraged.

"I'm scared." He was even more scared that those words escaped his lips admitting that fear. Fear was weakness. Weakness was death. Then what was blindness?

"Open your eyes, Johnny."

His lids clamped tighter for a moment. Held shut in between knowing. His chin tucked. He couldn't stay in a world of waiting, wondering. Fate had dragged him into dark places but also led him into the light. And whether a life in perpetual darkness was his newest fate or not, that fickle mistress had given him Mattie to hold onto. His fear vanished.

He took a breath and held it as his eyes slit. The grin came slowly as the signals reached his brain. Nothing was clear. It was like looking through a smoky window in a vacant house, rung with years of dirt along the edges. But in the middle, there was light, as if someone had taken a cloth and tried to wipe away the gloom….

"I can see ya, Doc."

The laughter bubbled up, a spring in the desert. He could see! He turned to find her. The girl he had seen with his fingers and now would see with his eyes.

"Mattie…." Scott was there. Teresa and Murdoch. Confusion further muddled his clouded vision. A fist squeezed in his chest.

"Where's Mattie?"

"She's gone, Johnny." Murdoch stated it so plainly, so matter-of-factly. He might as well have said dinner was at six.

"Gone?" Disbelief took his breath away and then a spark of anger brought it back. "Where?" His father wouldn't answer him. The three of them simply stared at him. It was as if they had joined Mattie in the silence but without the warmth she had given him.

"She's not coming back, Johnny."

Abandoned by the girl who couldn't speak so she didn't bother to say good-bye.

The past blew away like smoke. He was back in his bedroom like before. Mattie was still gone. The hitches in Johnny's breathing caused Teresa to lean in closer as she rubbed his back. "Johnny slow down. Try to take slower breaths."

"You tricked me," he gasped before the coughing took over.

"I told you it was willow bark. I know you don't like it, but you need it. You have been very sick since Sam took the bandages off your eyes," the girl tried to calm him.

"Don't touch me!" His volume rose as the coughing subsided, but he could feel the rales in his chest as he fought for air.

Teresa pulled back a step. "I can get you some broth. Maria has some warming for you."

"Get away from me!"

"Johnny, you've been so sick. You have to do what Sam says." She fought to keep calm, but his anger spewed toward her like a flung blade.

"Get out!" Johnny was yelling loud enough to bring quick foot falls down the hall. Murdoch pushed in through the doorway hard enough to bang the door against the far wall.

"Johnny?" The alarm in his voice was not alleviated by the sight of his son sitting upright, his face red with a controlled fury. Teresa, his ward, stood a few steps back from the bed, her body tense, both hands white from her tight grip around a teacup precariously tipped to spill the brown liquid inside, but it was her reddened face on the verge of tears that sparked his anger. At what, he didn't know but he had no doubt his youngest son had risen from his fever induced delirium with a sharp tongue. He tried to remind himself that Johnny was unconscious an hour ago and not in control of himself as he pushed into the room.

"What's going on here?" the elder man demanded.

"Get her away from me!" Johnny shouted before succumbing to the deep coughs that forced him to bend over his legs toward his knees that drew up beneath the sheets.

"I tried to tell him that Sam said he has to drink the tea for his fever." With short breaths catching in her throat, Teresa kept her tears away, just. The dark circles beneath her eyes were taking on a reddened hue.

"It's not about the damn tea," Johnny hissed. Murdoch heard the words only because he took Teresa around the waist in a protective hold. "Leave me alone. Both of you." Johnny wanted his anger to drive them away, but the uncontrolled coughing brought them closer to him. Teresa started fussing with the quilt while Murdoch laid a hand on his shoulder. Johnny made an attempt to jerk it away but that caused another cough eruption.

"Son, we've been worried about you," Murdoch softened his tone. He grabbed the water pitcher and filled a metal mug offering it to the boy. Johnny eyed his father with a glare the man couldn't interpret and didn't want to push for an explanation. "You've been in and out of consciousness for the last three days with pneumonia from swallowing the river water when you were shot and inhaling the smoke from the fire Slate Meek set. As painful as it is, Sam Jenkins will be pleased to hear you coughing at last. He said it was the best way to clear the infection in your lungs. Your fever was so high. And the head wound…your eyes…. We've been worried. Teresa has exhausted herself looking after you. You've no cause to be upset with her."

"You would see it that way, Old Man," Johnny murmured turning his attention to his fingers tapping against his leg. "Well, now I can see it, too. You all saw what happened and let it stand. Must have been real funny to fool the blind man." He blinked a few times as he turned farther away from them. No one needed to see—simple words, he said something like that to Mattie—that although he could see, it was not the same. Light made his eyes water and burn, and his throat soon followed.

Murdoch and Teresa exchanged puzzled looks. The young man had been lost in nightmares for days uttering a mingling of sounds in English and Spanish, much of which they could not decipher. Dr. Jenkins had warned them his disorientation brought on by the fever may be exacerbated by the loss and recovery of his vision.

"Johnny," Murdoch set the half-full cup of water aside, "tell me what is troubling you. We want to help."

Where's Scott? He suddenly wanted to see his brother so badly it hurt. And then he remembered that Scott was there, too. Watching him. A look of sorrow on his face knowing what he knew. Scott saw what they did but he didn't stop it either. The words died unspoken. Instead, he asked another question.

"Why?"

"Why what, son?" Murdoch could be a gentle man for his size. The hand atop Johnny's shoulder was warm but unwelcome. The son jerked away from it and his father let it fall back to his side.

"Teresa tricked me. Pretended to be…," his throat closed. Her name flittered in his thoughts—Mattie—but he couldn't speak it out loud. It still echoed across the empty field as he called to her. She never even looked back. "Her. Teresa pretended to be her. Why?"

Murdoch and Teresa exchanged looks again, hoping one of them grasped Johnny's riddle. The girl solved it first. The father closed his eyes as she spoke, the memory of his sorrow for his son replaying in his thoughts.

"Johnny, I wasn't trying to fool you," Teresa explained. She sat on the bed next to him just as she had on the day Johnny's bandages were removed. Her hand reached out toward him, but he refused to take it. Instead, he looked at it as a rattler coiled to strike as he considered how to slap it away. She lowered it to her lap. His blue eyes stormed when he stared at her face. His anger burned and she struggled against fatigue and fright that he would forever look at her with those unforgiving eyes, sharp us uncut quartz. Teresa touched her tongue to her lips before she went on.

"I got to know Mattie a little while she was here. And I learned a little more about her from Dr. Poovy from Hard Luck Notch when he came to check on her. To talk to her. Johnny, to understand what Mattie did, you have to know that Lem Cable was ashamed of his brother, Mattie's father, and the way he lived. He always thought that Mattie not being able to talk was some kind of retribution. The hand of God punishing his brother for his sinful life. Lem did his duty by Mattie when his brother died. He took Mattie in and cared for her, but he was ashamed of her, too. He hid her away thinking he was protecting her, but he also kept her away from people to protect the family from his brother's disgrace.

"Dr. Poovy wanted to help her. He told Mattie her inability to speak was nothing to do with sin and just a physical condition. He told her about a school back east, in Hartford, Connecticut, that teaches people like her. Teaches them to live full lives just like everyone else. Mattie knew she had a lot to learn. Lem had taught Mattie to hide whenever someone came to their cabin. Her only schooling was to stay away from anyone who came by. He only allowed Sarah Poovy, Dr. Poovy's wife, to help when she was too young to stay alone. Her uncle made her feel like she was some kind of message from God not fit to be around righteous folks. She was worried people wouldn't accept her. She thought she wasn't good enough to be with someone. Not yet.

"Johnny, I wasn't trying to fool you. To trick you. Mattie asked me to do it. So she could leave. She had to go. She wanted to learn. She couldn't do that here. She thought it was for the best. For both of you. It wasn't an easy decision. She had to get away. She had to find out what waited for her outside that hidden basement. Please understand, Johnny."

Johnny's eyes had wandered through his room, away from Teresa and Murdoch and finally settled on his open window. The drapes moved lazily with the breeze. His thoughts settled around Teresa's words spoken with a sincerity that was almost painful to hear.

She had to get away. Away from him.

Teresa took his hand whether he welcomed it or not. He stiffened but did not move.

"Johnny, I think she was afraid of either outcome when your bandages were removed. If the treatment hadn't worked, and you couldn't see, she would be staying with you because you needed her, not because you loved her. And if the treatment worked, I think she was afraid if you saw her, I mean truly saw her for the first time, you would want her to stay but you would see the dark stain on her that Lem preached about. I think once she looked in your eyes with you looking back, she couldn't have left you. She wouldn't have had the courage to go. She needed to do this for herself. It doesn't mean that she didn't care about you."

"But she didn't care enough," Johnny muttered to the breeze. Or maybe she was right to walk away from me. Johnny knew better than to take a deep breath for fear of disturbing the tightness in his lungs. Now was not the time to show weakness. His eyes cut back across the room, first to Murdoch and then Teresa. The concern or maybe pity with which they watched him returned him to a place he thought he had left behind months ago. A time when no one was allowed to be close to him.

"Sorry Teresa," he said the words flat, emotionless. Words don't mean shit anyway. "I'm tired. I need to sleep. If that's okay."

"You haven't eaten. I can bring you some broth," Teresa offered.

"No thanks," Johnny squeezed her hand which made her smile. "Don't think I could keep it down. Maybe later. For sure later. Just sleep is what I need right now."

"Of course, son." Murdoch knew his ward would want to press until she had a bowl of something in his belly and would elicit Maria's support in the effort. It was clear Johnny didn't need a crowd as he woke up to his loss once more. "Teresa let's give the boy some peace. He's been through a lot and just getting his eyes open." The father stopped at the implication of the words before changing direction. "And I suspect you need some rest yourself." Murdoch placed his hand on Teresa's shoulder as he moved to the head of Johnny's bed.

"Johnny, Scott is going to want to look in on you when he gets back from moving those cows to the east pasture if that's okay with you. He's been sitting with you every night since the pneumonia took hold. He's going to want to see you now that you're awake."

"Sure, Murdoch. Sure." Johnny closed his eyes and let his hand go limp in Teresa's grasp. The girl patted him gently as she lifted the quilt and placed his arm beneath it. Murdoch stepped up and pulled it beneath his chin and tucked it between the mattresses.

"He's asleep, honey," Murdoch's deep voice rumbled even when he was attempting to speak softly. "Sam should be by later. Maybe he'll let him have something more filling than broth. Let's get you settled in, too." The bed creaked as Teresa stood.

"Is he going to be all right, Murdoch?" she wondered, the tears waited just below the surface.

"He's going to be fine, sweetheart," the sounds faded with the steps as they moved across the floor and the door clicked shut.

Johnny's eyes opened and he returned his gaze to the open window even though the bright light hurt his eyes. He thought about getting up so he could look out but changed his mind as soon as he started to lift his head from the pillow. His hand rubbed at his temple finding a bandage still covering the bullet crease Slate Meek had put there.

The bullet crease that brought Mattie to him.

Mattie. He wouldn't call for her again. She's gone.

Johnny felt lost. Adrift. It was uncomfortable. And a sensation he had not felt since he was a child. He had feared the bullies once, almost to the point of losing everything those first few months he had been alone. Funny, he had been surrounded by adults who were supposed to take care of him. Give him comfort. Safety. Instead, they taught him to make his own way. He sat up in bed with the sudden memory.

Locked in a dark closet, surrounded by terror, his ears straining against the approach of adults who brought him pain. A different kind of blindness. Somehow in that darkness, he made a pact with himself: if you choose to die, do it now and do not let a slow death take over as these cabrons use you. If you choose to live, do it now and do it alone. No one is going to save you but yourself. He was gone from the orphanage within the next fortnight. He was nine.

Maybe that's what Mattie was doing, too. Avoiding the slow death of being with him. As far back as he could remember, he was told he was worthless. Scum. Not fit to be around decent people. Once he found his family, he thought that had changed. Thought he was making a decent life for himself and was finally accepted by people around him. But he knew—or should have known—it lurked in the shadows. The whispers. The looks. The judgment. The light he found couldn't take all the darkness away. The aura of that darkness wrapped him like a shroud. The oil in the lamp must have burned up because the light he had found went out and he returned to the darkness. He remembered that he would never belong.

Mattie left him. Just as she should. She knew what he forgot. He should be alone. It was for the best. She deserved better than him.