Hi so here is my first fanfic for this fandom that I literally just stumbled across. I love this fandom I love Adam. S1-6 are hand downs the best.

This story and all stories coming from it exist S1-6.

I do plan to write series of this story so if that's something your interested in let me know.

I do have an A03 account under a different name, this story will be posted there as well in case you come across it.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine,

Please Read and Review.

And I swear in my works. If you don't like don't read.

This is part of a series, this isn't episode related. Neither is this series. Assume everything is S1-S6

Any inaccuracies please let me know.

I might add to this...I'll leave it up to you.

Please be aware...some triggers.

And thank you so much for the response! It means more than I can say, I really do have plans to make this a series now so let me know if that would be something your interested in!

THIS WORK IS NOW PART OF A SERIES-Stories not chronologically in order, some swearing, some triggers, some based on episodes of Bonanza some based on other episodes of other western TV shows including Little House on the Prairie/Waltons, etc. All will be included in stories or series notes.

Running To A Standstill

Chapter 3-Next Victim

Ben decides to let Ivy go to Mrs Mitchell's house contradicting Adam…and really it spirals from there.

He had sent Adam out check the Eastern timber and then sent Hoss to oversee the breaking in of a new horse. He would have sent Little Joe but Little Joe and new horses had caused Ben Cartwright enough headaches so he had sent his youngest up to the Carsons who lived on the edge of their lander bordering Virginia City. June Carson had, just had her forth baby, a pretty girl called Amelia and so Little Joe was going with the family's best wishes and some supplies and also to see if there was any more news on what had happened to that poor little girl that had drowned in the lake with rope burns on her wrists and ankles.

That just left Hop Sing battering away in the kitchen doing...something and Ivy who despite what Adam had told her, had given up even the pretence of schoolwork and had taken to lying on her stomach lining up all her wooden ponies with a concentrated frown.

"What are you doing?"

"Trail"

"Oh" he said looking down at his granddaughter who with a flick of her finger knocked over one white horse and then moved him to the back.

"What did he do?"

"Oh he doesn't like snakes, so he goes in the back so that the older ones who do like snakes can scare them off."

"Aha"

Yes…it didn't matter how old you were it was always hard to understand the pure logic of a six year old.

Ivy sighed straightening up as Puddle came into the room. He padded into the house leaving muddy paws no doubt all throughout the back room. Ben despaired sometimes he really did. Joe had found that puppy and had come home excited and thrilled with the mongral covered in mud determined to give it to his four year old niece who had been so thrilled she had ran out from under Adam's hand and let the puppy slobber over her clean new dress.

Adam had been speechless with indignation. Ben who knew that feel rather well had poured himself a brandy and listened to the dulcet tones of Adam shouting at his little brother all the while Hoss tried to give the puppy (and his niece) a bath and a good delousing.

Sometimes it was nice to not have to have these conversations for a fourth time.

"Ivy please take him outside before he gets mud on the carpet"

Ivy pouted looking very much like her father and then stood up shooing Puddle (stupidly named by his youngest and then confirmed by a granddaughter who would not let him be called anything else) out the door. Then she came back and sighed.

"Grandpa?"

"Yes dear?"

"Can I go riding?"

"No"

"Even with you?"

"I don't have time to go riding today Ivy-girl. I have to get through all of this paperwork"

"Looks dreadfully dull"

He chuckled at that.

"Yes I suppose it is, but it keeps the Pondarosa running so I get it done"

"Is paperwork a bit like math homework?"

Ben put down his pen and eyed the girl stood in front of him. Even in her white dress, her feet crammed into boots and her long blonde hair tied back into two neat plaits (Adam had been painfully taught by Hop Sing after the cook claimed that he could not let his daughter go around like a marauding wilder beast—whatever that was) she was the picture of both innocence and mischief. No wonder Adam most of the time liked her to stay around the ranch.

Sometimes having a granddaughter did make you melancholic.

Or at least for Ben…sometimes…when he was really in the mood for a painful ride down memory lane he would look at Ivy and see Elizabeth staring back at him. Right now with Ivy looking at him with her straight gaze she was the very image of his first wife.

"Grandpa I can't just sit here and do nothing waiting for Dad to get back…can I go and pick some flowers?"

"Since when did you pick flowers?"

It was true. Maybe it was the four men and no woman around the house but the truth was Ivy was more tomboy than promising young lady. Certainly she could put herself on a pony and fling herself hallway across the land as if she was a soldier charging into battle, she did not faint at the site of blood—Joe's bar brawls saw to that—and she did not run away and hide at the earliest opportunity. And if you gave Ivy the option of a knife or a dress she was more than likely going to pick the knife even if she cut herself with it. Elizabeth would have been scandalised, Marie would have been horrified, Inger would no doubt have been impressed.

"I can pick flowers! Besides…I thought…maybe I would give them to Mrs Mitchell you know…cause May is dead"

Ben put down his pen.

"That's very nice of you" he said sternly. "But remember your words Ivy. You don't always have to be so blunt"

"Sorry…so can I go?"

Ben thought about it. Adam had only asked for her to stay off the pony and away from the lake and besides…picking some flowers and spending time with a grieving woman would perhaps do some good for Ivy. Perhaps his excitable granddaughter would be a comfort to the poor woman and perhaps the grieving woman might help calm Ivy down a bit. He was still not sure if the gravity of loosing a classmate had hit his granddaughter yet. Adam would not talk about what he had told her and she had not understood at the funeral that much he could tell. He knew Adam had disapproved of his single command that they were all supposed to go but it had seemed the least that he could do. By the time his boys had been six Adam had seen death more than once, Hoss had seen it…even Joe. Death followed the Cartwrights from New England, down the Oregon trial to Virginia City the same way it had followed many pioneers. That was just the reality. God knows it wasn't as romantic as it was made out in newspaper articles and books.

"Alright" he ruled. "But you are to be back before dinner so you can wash up."

"What if she wants me to stay?"

"Tell her politely that you have your own supper to go to. If she's up to it then maybe she can join us and if not you can always go back tomorrow. But if she doesn't want to see you, you come straight home"

"Why wouldn't she want to see me?"

Ben sighed. It was pointless to try and explain the complicated and painfully chaotic nature of grief to even his own sons never mind his granddaughter. When Marie had died he had wanted to get as far away from everything and anything that reminded him of her including this ranch and those boys, with Elizabeth it had been the same, Inger too. Only it got more complicated with the three boys he kept leaving behind. Only Adam who had been a teenager keeping it all together…and the look on his face when Ben had come home that last time was still burned into his eyes, that somewhat doubtful look when Ben had said that he was staying and he was staying for good.

"Just remember to be kind…God knows that woman needs a little kindness right now. And see if Hop Sing has any cookies…she might like them"

In truth there was very little that May Mitchell's mother would want right now other than her little girl back but Ivy didn't know that.

But Ben did…

And that should have been his first warning…

But you know what they say, there's no fool like an old fool.

The Mitchell house was little more than a shack.

Okay so maybe Ivy was being harsh considering she lived on the Pondarosa in that big house but she looked at the Mitchell house and thought that one good blast of wind would send it all crumbling.

She climbed the creaking stairs and knocked on the door.

It was like a scene out of a penny dreadful that Little Uncle Joe pretended that he didn't read and shoved under the mattress so that Pa couldn't tease him about them.

The door creaked open.

Pushing past it she stepped into a mess.

It was dark and damp and a musty smell around the place and she dropped her little basket with the flowers and the cookies on the table that if Hop Sing saw it would have a fit. She reached into the basket and picked up the ivory elephant that Grandpa had gotten her when he had last been in San Francisco. She took that everywhere with her like a little good luck charm. Right now she wished she had more.

"Hello?"

There was nothing.

"Hello…Mrs Mitchell?"

"Why hello there?" came a male voice from behind her.

Ivy screamed. She took two steps backwards and crashed into the back of the stove.

There was a half chuckle and then a man half stepped out of the shadows. Ivy thought she recognised him from the funeral.

"Hello my dear child, sorry for startling you, but you startled me in the house"

"Sorry" she said breathing rapidly. "Sorry I just…I came to see Mrs Mitchell"

"Aha…Mrs Mitchell is sleeping right about now. She's not been sleeping you see. Not since May"

"Oh"

"The human body" the man said walking round to the kitchen and taking some water out of the bucket. "Can make it up to three days without sleep. Mrs Mitchell's made it even longer…she started rambling a few hours ago so I gave her some morphine for the pain. Terrible pain losing a child"

He put some water into two earth worn cups and then put them onto the table.

"You're that Cartwright girl"

"Ivy"

"Hello Ivy my name is Clarence Carter."

"Oh…hello"

He chuckled again.

"What did you bring?"

"Cookies…and flowers…"

"Well that was very nice of you, when Mrs Mitchell wakes up I will tell her that you brought cookies and flowers. What a charming gesture"

Ivy smiled. She didn't think anyone had ever used charming as a word to describe her.

"Do you want some milk with those cookies or do you want water?"

"What have one now?"

"Well I wont tell if you don't"

Ivy giggled. "Anyone ever tell you Mr Carter, your charming too?"

He laughed at that and she giggled again and one finger came out to lift her chin so he could see her face.

"Ah you'll do nicely" he said quietly. "We don't seem to have milk so water will have to do, take a seat"

She sat down at the table even though it was dusty and her dress was going to need beating out (and Hop Sing would complain no doubt) and she took a bite of the cookie and took a sip of the water.

There was a moaning noise from the next room and she turned to see the Mrs Mitchell standing by the door. At the sight of her she choked on the water—a small part of her brain wondered if he had not gotten it from a clean stream—but then the woman, half awake, half not was in the room.

"Now my dear you know you shouldn't be up—"

But Mrs Mitchell seemed beyond words.

"May" she slurred and this time she was looking at Ivy. "May back?"

Ivy opened her mouth but suddenly she couldn't speak. She put the cookie down on the table and suddenly felt very dizzy, it was a cool day and the sun was not beating down on her and yet she felt terribly dizzy like she had been out in it too long.

"Yes my dear…May is back…we can make sure now that the two of you go together just like you should have done. May was very naughty going off like that before you were ready. Especially when you had not told me where your husband's money was."

Ivy didn't understand but she also didn't know how to leave, her brain was telling her she should but she didn't know how, she felt sick and dizzy and weak and she pushed back the bench harder than she should have done. Turning around the nausea hit her and then she fell against someone's brought shoulders.

"I am sorry my dear" Clarence Carter said still smiling. "And I am sorry for you Pa…but really…Adam Cartwright is used to losing family, you shouldn't come as a shock"

And that was the last thing that she remembered before her eyes rolled back in her head and the world as she knew it went black.

And there you go, next chapter coming soon.

Next Chapter-Adam finds out that Ivy is missing.