Hi, so here we are-back again! Apologies for the delay but with work and needing some personal time to get my head straight I had to take a bit of break. I am back though so please enjoy.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

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Triggers for this chapter.

Not a medical expert here either.


Deliver Us From Evil

Chapter 5-Fear Itself.

Ivy is sick but he is not the only one, with Ben and Hoss forced to go and save as many Native Americans as they can it's up to Little Joe to babysit Ivy...at least...until he gets sick himself.


There was no other way around it, Ivy was sick. And Joe while he was not a doctor knew enough to know that it was more than a child illness. He knew it in his bones that something was wrong.

There was a pause and then.

"Okay...here is what we are going to do" he said to the sleeping child. Ivy had gone to bed and then within the space of Joe checking on her she was shaking and shivering and running a fever that he didn't like. He had taken to soothing her with a cool cloth but he didn't know what he was doing and he was achingly aware that he was eighteen years old, he doesn't know weather or not he was able to do anything here. Adam was tending the sick, Hoss and his Pa was out, Hop Sing was with his family...there was just Ivy and him and she was sick and Joe had a feeling...he just...he had a feeling that this was not going to end well if it was just the two of them on their own.

He paused and looked down at her sleeping on the bed. Her bed was so big and she was so little and he was so tired and so he curled up next to her and fell asleep.

When he woke up he knew something was wrong.

His mother was there.

For a second when Little Joe woke up he didn't know what was going on. Ivy was wheezing next to him and she was seizing and his mother was by her side looking between the two of them. Joe felt like his skin was on fire and he knew that he must be dead right? If his mother was here then he must be dead or maybe by some grace of God she was alive? Had his father got it wrong and he had buried an empty coffin.

"Ah Joseph" his mother said and Joe looked at her and knew what it was to look at beauty. She was beautiful and she was sad and he didn't know why. His father had always spoken of his mother as if she was a woman of laughter, of leisure, of happiness. He didn't talk about her in the sense of tears or sadness. Before he had known that Charles Le Duke had existed he had not though of anything that had harmed his mother even though he knew enough to know that where she had grown up and the life that she had lived had not been the same as Adam's mother. Adam's mother who had been spoon fed milk and honey her entire life.

"Joseph"

Alright maybe that was harsh. One shouldn't criticise the dead. Pa said so. Besides...

"JOESPH"

He sat up and looked at his mother who was now looking cross. She looked at him and then she reached out and tugged his face in her hands. She felt cool to the touch and he loved it, he felt so hot and she felt so cool. Like diving into a lake.

He couldn't remember if he had hugged his mother when he was a child. He couldn't remember anything right now.

"Come on Joseph" Marie said. "The little one needs your help"

He looked down at Ivy. She was dank with sweat, her blonde hair strewn out over the pillows her little body wheezing as she fought off some kind of fever. He looked at her seeing but not seeing and then his mother gently ran her hand down his face and the coolness seeped into his skin, into his bones and he looked again.

She was sick.

He was sick.

And they were miles from anyone else and they needed help.

"Adam is at the Church" she said. "You need to go"

"Cannot ride. Not with...not with Ivy...cannot..."

"Yes you can, yes you can my love, you have to find the strength, you have to go and get help. You have to get her onto a horse."

She looked at him and Joe looked at her and he felt tears prick his eyes.

"Don't leave me"

"No my darling" she said and her hand came out and stroked Ivy's matted hair. "I will not leave either one of you until you are safe where you belong" and her smile was so kind and so sweet that Joe believed her and so he swung his legs off the bed and managed to stand without falling back down again.

And her hand was on his shoulder the entire time.


Weather it was days later when he was asked, months later or even years he would not know or remember how the hell he had gotten Ivy down the stairs. He had not bothered to dress her, had wrapped her in a blanket and had somehow gotten her out of bed and down the stairs half delirious himself. He had managed to get himself on his paint horse. He had managed to do all of that and had swung himself into the saddle gotten her sat in front of him and the horse had known how to do the rest. Honestly he had to conclude at the end that that was what had happened. Joe didn't remember the ride. Didn't remember keeping Ivy on the horse. He didn't remember passing the bag of flour with the fleas in it that he had half knocked to the floor on the way out. Didn't remember if he left the fire going or if he locked the door or if he told anyone where he was going.

All he knew was that somehow he had done it.

And he knew...though he didn't tell anyone (not that he had to because he had always suspected that his father knew) who he had seen.

And she had not broken her promise either.

His mother had been with him until the end.


Adam was exhausted.

And not the kind of exhaustion that came after a long days work, this was a bone deep exhaustion the kind that stayed with you regardless of what you did. This was a combat fatigue that was deep in his bones.

It was clear even for him to see without any kind of medical training that this outbreak was getting worse, that it was spreading and that they were running out of supplies.

He had gone to the first farm to see the children first stricken with the illness only to find the entire family dead. The father had blown his brains out and Adam had buried them, father, son, daughter, wife next to each other and then rode back in silence wanting very much to climb down from the horse and scream into the dirt at how unfair life was.

He had stormed back to the Church and locked himself in the back room where the ice was kept and breathed in the cold and tried to remember that if there was a God He was supposed to be merciful and justified even though there was nothing merciful of justified about this.

Times like this he needed his father.

His Pa would know what to say to shit like this.

He always knew what to say.

For a moment he sat and stared at the block of ice and he tried very hard not to think. That was another one of Ivy's friends dead. He knew that this life was hard on children...knew that for every classmate that made it this far west there was always another one that didn't. Bones littered this country of men and woman and children of all different races and religions and creeds and colours and death in his experience never discriminated. He knew that, he knew that in his bones that he had been lucky to keep his daughter safe but now...now he was seeing it again, seeing her dead in his mind and it was too much for one person to bare.

And to think...Ivy had never done as half as much as he and Joe and Hoss had done at her age. No wonder their Pa had gone grey early.

He ran a hand down his face and knew that he had to get up. As much as he wanted to stay here all night and pretend that nothing had happened he knew that he had to get up. They were now up to twenty two people sick...he didn't know how long that he would be able to keep the ice cool.

And when they lost the ice...God he didn't even know what he was going to do then.

He had just stepped outside when he heard it, it was a lone horse and when he looked he felt his heart stop.

He knew the horse that was clomping sadly down the first street. He knew that horse with it's black and white spots. He knew the man that was half hunched over. He knew him better than he k new himself. And Adam knew that something was terribly wrong if even Little Joe's horse looked like death.

He was running out before he could stop himself. Joe was half bent over something and then when he got to the horse he felt his heart stop.

Because Ivy was there.

Joe opened one eye...he was sweating and it looked as if it had taken most of his energy to get here in one piece. He looked at Adam and then he cranked a smile that was so out of place on his face it was honestly hard to look at. For a second the two of them stared at each other and then.

"Ivy's very sick" Joe croaked. "Mamma said to get her to you"

And then he fell sideways into Adam's arms.

And he started screaming.

Within seconds the Doc was there and Joe was being took off him and he turned to Ivy. She was half asleep too her face white and clammy and she was shivering even though Joe had wrapped her in a little blanket. He didn't know where his Pa was, didn't know where Hoss was, didn't know where the Doc was taking Joe too...didn't care about anything else other than the little girl who half slid off the horse into his arms and was shivering so violently with fever it was like she was going to vibrate straight out of his arms.

Ivy was still breathing but she was wheezing slightly. Considering he had seen three people die of this, this morning he was not comforted by that. He turned and ran back with her into the Church her little body pressed against his and he put her down on the ground.

This could not be happening again.

"Adam?"

"What?"

"Adam let me take a look at her"

He paused as the Doc took a look and then.

"Get me ice for both of them. She's worse than Joe but he's not much better"

He nodded and even though he was loath to move and he was pretty sure that his feet dragged with every step he took away from his daughter he went to get the ice. He looked back at Joe when he came and felt his heart break. His brother and his daughter...

How the hell could this be happening?

How the hell could this be happening to his family...again?

Hadn't they suffered enough.

Joe made a little whimpering noise as the Doc began to pack in ice and Adam felt himself sit down weekly on the bench. The Doc had put them together and he knew that he wasn't going to leave.

He also knew that his Pa would be along soon. He knew that in his bones.

He looked at his own child and then at his Pa and for the first time in a long time Adam found himself praying that when his Pa turned up he didn't have to greet the man for the second time in his lifetime with the news that someone he loved was dead.


And there you go, I hope you enjoy, see you soon.

Next Chapter-Ben and Hoss arrive home and then Ben arrives at the Church. His worst fears are confirmed.