Hi, so here is another story from me, it's a pre-series story which is a new one for me but I am really looking forwards to it and I hope you do to.

I have constantly alluded in other Waltons stories that in my personal headcannon Ben Sr (John's brother) was a homosexual. I have also alluded to John knowing about it, the Waltons was filmed in the sixties, somehow I think things would have been very different if it was filmed today so this is my headcannon. Ben Walton survives and Waltons Mountain gets some much needed LGTBQ love.

If you don't like that, don't bother reading.

This is going to be short and sweet this story about ten chapters.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine except Bradley and maybe some interpretation on the births of John-Boy and Jason...and the rest of them.

Historical references are my own.

Please Read and Review.

There is an episode in the later seasons where Olivia drinks champagne because it's her and John's anniversary and so this is where Esther drinking recipe comes from. I figured if she was ever gonna do it, it was this moment right here.

Boots With My Father's Name

Chapter 4-Young Lovers, Die Laughing

Esther recollects what she knows...and she and Zeb talk about their son's collective futures.

Esther Walton is a simple woman.

She is not simple of the mind thank you very much but she is simple in the sense of the world that she lives in. She has her values and she has her opinions and she will not change them for anyone or anything. She is who she is and she is not going to care what anyone thinks.

She married, she had three children, she lost one, that girl that had breathed and died in the same breath that would have been Amy Walton…she lost her but God gave her two boys and Ben and John were the best two boys that she could have had Benjamin Matthew and John Zebulon. Her boys.

She'd made it work with Zeb. Loved him with every fibre of her being, adored him with everything she had, trusted him with even more. She loved him now as she got old and grey more than she had loved him when she was young and fair. She was his wife, she was his soulmate, and the only thing that one could wish for after a long life together was that when one of them went the other went soon after for what was life without your soulmate if not terribly lonely until you were reunited once more?

And with her boys…well…she was their mother she knew them before they even knew themselves and so it was not so much a shock to her to find out that Ben liked men the same way that John loved woman…

Okay that might be a slight lie.

She tapped her nails against the edge of the bed and Zeb passed her the bottle of recipe. She sighed looking at the clear liquid and for once she did not pass comment on the fact that she was drinking and drinking from a jug made by illegal old bootleggers.

Failing that two maiden bootleggers who she was quite sure in their own way were both in love with her husband who she was quite sure was in love with them himself.

And it wasn't that Esther didn't know that Zeb loved her…she had been married to the man for nearly thirty years and she was not some insecure flower or bird or whatever the poets called it. Esther knew that Zeb's heart beat solely for her and for her alone. She knew that and she was secure in it. But she had a feeling that Miss Maime and Miss Emily might inspire a generation of men in her family going gaga over them and their still from John who blushed like a teenager when he saw them, to Ben who winked fondly at them and was more than happy to take them onto the dance floor and even little John Boy and Jason who would both crawl into both their laps and stay there despite Olivia's eye roll.

All the men in the Walton family went gaga for the Baldwin sisters.

God only knows what would happen when her grandsons knew what it was to drink.

But that was how she knew that Ben was…the way he was.

She had heard words said for it but they sounded so ugly that she did not dare repeat them even in her mind. So she never asked like her husband and Ben never told and neither did John though it was clear both brothers shared this secret. Neither did Livy to be fair though she was not all together sure if Livy knew. Livy was miles smarter than her son and Esther was not the worst mother in the world for admitting that. The truth was that Livy might know.

Zeb might know.

Ester knew.

John knew.

Hell (and she said that reverently) at this point the entirety of Walton's Mountain might know.

The point was that she knew.

Ester couldn't tell the exact time she knew her son's preferences. It might be the fact that he pushed away all woman…when they went to the dances as a family her son was a perfect gentleman. Both the Baldwin sisters were pulled up to dance more than once, girls who were not perhaps the nicest of the most attractive (God help her) but Ben would spend time with them. He'd take out the widows and dance with them and the maiden ladies and Esther had, had her hand shook and been told what a lovely man she was raising and she'd nodded and then she had wondered late at night just what it was that made Ben the way he was.

She had known then…she had not needed what her husband had, she'd known without seeing the way that the college student had looked at her son.

And so it had come to this.

"When did you know" Zeb said finally. Esther sighed.

"I think I always knew" she said truthfully. "I think that on some level I always knew what he was. But I don't…I don't think that I cared that much. I don't…it's hard to explain Zeb but throughout the last year and a half all I've cared about is that they both come home in the same condition they left this house in. That's all I cared about"

"So you knew?"

"I suspected. I am his mother"

"And I am his father Esther and I didn't know until I knew. And when I say I knew I mean I saw"

She considered that for a second and then.

"Do you care Zeb?"

Zeb looked at her for a long time and then.

"I don't care that he's interested in men" he said finally. "He's as much my son as he is yours Esther, I love him no matter what and I will love him no matter what until the day I die. I have never been one of those men that would judge their son or God forbid throw them out because of who they love. If that's what you are asking me then that will never happen"

Esther resists the urge to roll her eyes because that was the last thing that she was thinking of and Zeb knew that because Zeb knew her no matter what.

She sighed and then breathed in and breathed out and then only when she was sure that she had herself under control did she speak.

"Zeb you know that to be not true" she said finally. "Zebulon" she said again passing him the jug. "I love our boys and I always will…and at the very least we are not going to have to worry about our eldest running off and eloping"

There was a pause and then.

"Esther I believe in God as you well know. But I believe in God in my own way and you believe in Him in yours. And so I don't know what we are going to do but I do know that this is easier for me than it is for you."

"What does that mean?"

"Esther you re what one would call very linier about God. I am not"

She considers that for a second trying to work through the words. She is not what one would call educated, certainly not at the level that John had already said he wanted for his sons.

And even so she knows what he is getting at. Esther believes in God, she believes in Him whole heartedly and she believes in the power of the Bible and yet she knows what the Bible says about her son.

And she cannot reconcile herself with what has happened. She cannot reconcile herself with what her God says about her son. She knows Ben, she raised him, she loved him, she still does, Esther carried him for nine months inside of her, she went through fourteen hours of labour with him and she held him in her arms and had him at her breast and she had known with Ben a love that had eclipsed even her deepest love of Zeb and that was saying something.

"I love Ben Zeb" she says easily. "I love him because he is my son and because he is the sweetest boy alive. And I might not have proof until just know who he was in love with but I can accept that he is just as much deserving of love as anyone else. And besides—" she says taking the recipe jar back in her hand and taking a swig.

"I sent two boys off to war and they both came back"

Zeb nods.

"I know"

"I prayed to God that I would take them back in any condition that He chose to send them back to me and He chose to send them back to me whole and healthy and maybe they are not the same as the boys that I sent out but they are here and they are whole and they have their sight, their hearing and their limbs and I will take that over any other thing that comes my way. Millions of mothers are heartbroken tonight…I am not one of them. The bereavement, the loss…has past me by. And I will cling to that with everything that I have"

Zeb took the jar off her and then he put it to one side turning and he took her face in his hands and kissed her, it was delicate and soft and a hint of passion with it at the end and she grinned melting into the kiss as easily she had done the first time she had been with the man all those years ago.

"Esther, you are a wonderful woman"

"You are saying that because both of us have had a skinful"

"No" he said quietly. "I am telling you that because you are wonderful, you are a wonderful woman who has a great capacity for love. And that is why I am forever grateful you chose me to be the one that you married"

She blinked.

She was not an overly sentimental woman and emotions didn't get to her but the truth of the matter was that Esther was deeply touched. Zeb might be able to talk his way in and out of any situation but when he spoke from the heart it never stopped to make her melt.

For a moment the two of them stared at the other and then.

"Oh…Zeb"

"Esther"

There was another pause and then.

"So…do we like this one?"

She nodded looking away and then back at him. Gone was any issue that came with Ben's sexuality. Now they were onto the question of do they or do they don't like the boyfriend…partner…husband…

Well…it was 1919. They had never really found a name for it yet.

"Has there been many others?"

"One more that I know about" he said finally. "And I do like this one. Ben…Ben looks at him the way that John looks at Livy, the way I look at you. And as much as I want to hate him for taking our boy away from us I have to concede that Bradley looks at Ben the same way that you have looked at me and Livy has looked at John"

Esther nodded and then she patted their hands where it had been together hand clasped against her shoulder. She smiled and her eyes were overbright.

There was a very long pause and then…

"I don't want him to move away from us" Esther said finally. "I love him, I love whoever he choses to love. I don't want him to move away because he feels like he has to, and whatever I might think of our friends and neighbours I know that they love Ben enough to keep their opinions to themselves. And so I want him to stay here, with the boy if he must"

She turned to look at him and her eyes were very overbright.

"Promise me Zeb that we will keep him there"

Zeb reached out and kissed her before pulling her into the embrace and she folded into him.

"I promise" he said into the safety of their room. "I promise you Esther…I will keep him here and I will keep him safe…he will be happy here, I will make it so that he will be happy…you have my word"

And there you go, I hope you enjoy.

Next Chapter-Ben and Zeb have a long talk as truths come to light.