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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Boots With My Father's Name

Chapter 6-Silent Thunder

Esther has a talk with her new...what does she call him? Son in Law?

He's outside soaking in the sun.

Ben has the boys and has gone off for a visit with Ike which means he won't be back until late and probably they will have a puppy with them. Zeb has gone wildflower picking and Olivia and John have gone to the hot springs which Esther knows is a code for...well...not something she wants to think about her baby doing thank you very much.

She sits there and watches as Bradley drinks up the sun and then she sighs. It is ridiculous that she is nervous, wondering if coffee is too much for the boy. The boy should be nervous of her but Esther is aware she is stepping into a quagmire that she doesn't understand and she is aware that she could put a foot wrong and blow the whole thing up. SNAFU as John says. She doesn't know what that means but Ben snorts whenever he says it so she suspects It must be something heathen like.

She sighs. She is Esther Walton. She tells herself at any rate that she is not afraid of anything and so she squares her shoulder and she goes out to see her son in...well...that's another thing she has to think about.

What the hell is she going to call him?

Said reverently.

"Coffee?" she asks and he starts awake. He's like Ben now...none of her boys will sleep easily anymore. She knows that both of them are having bad nights and she knows it's due to the war. John had one last night and it was three AM and she could hear him pacing. Zeb and her had held hands and they had let him walk through it, the night before it was Ben who had woken up and banged the door shut running a hand through his hair and whimpering softly like a dog in pain.

She watches as Bradley surges upwards as if he too is looking for the sniper in the woods.

She hates war.

Esther hates war.

And Esther hates to hate.

"Coffee" she says gently and he nods scrubbing hand down her face and takes it from her. She watches as he stirs in liberal amounts of sugar and milk and then she passes him the plate of hive biscuits.

"You don't—"

"Humour me boy"

He takes one.

"You're making me fat you know"

"Please" she humps sitting down. "You were far too skinny"

And that was true. Esther has been steadily feeding up her boys since they came home. She won't have skinny men in her house.

Her boys it seems now includes this one too.

She sighs and looks out over her garden.

"I feel at peace now you know"

"Now that everyone is home?"

"Yes. Ben, John...I used to sit here and pray..."

He snorts.

"You don't pray?"

"He doesn't listen to men like me"

Esther doesn't know what to say to that. Bradley watches her for a second and then.

"I don't mean that...I prayed for it to end, soldiers did, they prayed for their Momma's at the end, for a quick death, for their sight back, their hearing, their limbs, their lungs...for the dreams that they had before they were sold the biggest con in human history. That they would be anything other than nameless, faceless cannon fodder. That they would be remembered. I know what prayer does Ma'am. I don't like it. He has a long way to go before He is back in my good books"

Well...John had said much the same thing. Ben didn't even try.

Esther loved a challenge.

"I don't think the Lord cares your Queer anyway" she says and she gets one second of glee as Bradley chokes on his biscuit.

He puts the coffee cup to the side and watches her mouth open.

"Huh?"

"You know son...both Zeb and I knew"

"I knew Zeb did but—"

"Aha—so he's warned you not to hurt Ben then?"

Typical Zeb.

"He mentioned it" he says still looking at her as if she has taken leave of her senses.

Esther nods and then.

"It's hard for me" she says quietly. "Because I live a life with God at my side. And God...there are several version of Him. But the one I believe in believes in love. And if you and Ben are in love then you and Ben are in love"

Bradley watches her for a second and then.

"Not everyone sees it the way you do"

"No...maybe one day...maybe one day they will? Maybe one day men like you and Ben can live openly. Can be together openly. Hold hands and kiss and get married in a church. Adopt children..."

"I think Ben and I will both be dust when that happens. Besides even if it did some politician would come along and take it all away again"

"I don't see how you can put the jack back in the box"

Bradley smiled and then.

"You know you should run for politics" he says easily. "You've got the right brain for it"

Esther shot him a poisonous look but he was immune to it.

There was another pause and then.

"So you know"

It was not a question and she didn't answer it as one.

"I've known for a long time" she said. She knew what he was talking about and so did he. She knew a lot of things.

"And you don't care?"

"Once I might have done" Esther conceded. "I might have cared. But I've lived through a World War. Plus I have buried a child out in that graveyard. So I don't really—"

"Ben didn't tell me that"

"Ben and John don't know"

Carefully she didn't think of that girl of hers. Amy. The one that had lived only to die six months later. Scarlett Fever. Nothing that could be done no matter how much she had tried and begged and prayed. She had been the first, the baby girl of the family. Then there had been Ben and she had been unsure how to love him, hated being pregnant with him terrified that he would take over the loss of that baby girl that she had loved and held and carried in such happy ignorance and then he had been placed in her arms and she had fallen in love with him again.

Fallen in love with the world again.

Fallen in love with her God again.

"When I lost my baby" she said. "The one that Ben and John don't know about—and believe me boy that's how it's going to stay—I thought about the world in a different way than I am thinking about it now. But the truth is that I am a lucky woman. I have two sons, I sent them off to war and two came back. I have buried a child. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life mourning anymore."

"Pretty much what your husband said"

"Yes" she said with a slither of satisfaction. "Yes I suppose that is exactly what he said. We are aligned on this, we got both our boys back...we want to keep them. And Olivia is my daughter. And you will be my son"

"Oh will I?"

"Son in law is too formal"

He eyes her for a long time and then he shifts so that he is bent over his arms resting on his legs. He looks out over the yard and then pushes himself up out of the chair and looks out onto the yard. Esther watches him sipping her coffee. This is not her first man who she has watched stand there on her porch and stare at her flowers as if they hold the answers to the world.

"I don't know how to do this" he says finally. "I don't know what a family looks like."

She swallows down the questions that rise with that. It's not her place to ask about this man's past.

"Well get used to this one. And get used to us caring about you" she says gently. "Because that is what it is in this family...we take care of each other. We love each other."

There is another long pause and then he turns and watches her.

"I'll stay as long as he wants me to stay" he says quietly.

"He'll want you to stay forever" Esther guesses correctly. She sighs and looks down at her hand and then she looks back up and swallows. She has to ask this now otherwise she is quite sure that she will lose her nerve.

"May I ask?"

"What?"

"Can you...do you...is it like a woman and a man in the sense that...that you say vows?"

He gives her a flat look that she takes to mean yes. She nods and then taps her fingers on the wood again and then...

"All I ask...is that you say some kind of vows before God. I don't have to be there, neither does the rest of the family but I...I want God to bless this union."

"I don't have to ask God permission to love your son" he says flatly. "God sent him to me"

Esther pauses. Bradley shrugs.

"I was dying" he said quietly. "I was all but dead on the inside. I ran to the war and I didn't expect to live as long as I did. I was waiting for the bullet to sneak out and hit me. I was begging for it. I wasn't suicidal not like that but the truth was I wasn't really interested in living either. I won't tell you why, I don't want to tell you why but I was waiting for that bullet to kill me and then Ben arrived in my side of the trench, in my life, in my bed. He saved me. Saved me in every conceivable way that one person could save another. I don't need to ask God permission to love your son. I don't need to ask permission to be with him for the rest of my life. When I stand here in front of you and tell you that I will be with him until I am put in the ground that is what I am telling you"

Esther watched him and wondered what to make of that. With all three of these boys now there was an edge that made her think that it had to be the war. Certainly her own boys had not had an edge since...

"Alright" she said finally. "Would you like another biscuit? As we talk about what we need to do for the shed so that the two of you can live there?"

For a second he gazed at her eyes glazed over for a second and then he nodded and sat down. She patted his arm for a second and he pulled his shades back onto his face and stared out over the yard again.

"Thanks" he said finally. "Eshter"

Esther Walton beamed. She was not entirely sure that this conversation had gone the way she hoped it had but she was not losing her son...in fact she was privately quite sure that she was gaining another one.

Not that she would say that. She was learning with this one...

Bradley chewed another cookie and then.

"I'm going to get you to call me Ma you know. You and Olivia"

Bradley rolled his eyes. Esther smiled.

She took in the sun for a moment and thought naively that nothing could ruin her mood and then...

"Esther?"

"Yes Bradley?"

"Can I ask you a question now?"

"You may"

There was a pause and then...

"Who the hell are the Baldwin Sisters? And how do they not know that they are making whiskey?"

Esther snapped her eyes open good mood ruined.

Of course.

It always had to be those two shameless old bootleggers that got in the way of her perfect afternoon.

Of course.

The baby I am speaking about is from the episode 1x05 The Typewriter-Ben mentions to John about a baby who was called Amy who died when she was a baby and he gets emotional. In the season two episode The Awakening Esther mentions to Mary Ellen she has born three children so I am assuming that they had a daughter who died and that her name was Amy. I know there is an Aunt Gina but I think she is more Olivia's sister than Johns. Hope that makes sense.

Next Chapter-Ben and Bradley visit the Waltons, Ike and Ep spend time with John. Everyone knows.