Hi, so here is another story from me for this wonderful fandom! I am so glad to be back with a couple of stories and I hope that you enjoy this one. This is a stand alone one centring around one of Season 1s best villains.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine here.

I might have been a bit lazy when it came to the naming of the children but if anyone is a fan of Michael Landon then you will get the inside joke and you will hopefully forgive me.

I am not a spelling expert so please keep that in mind.

Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.

This is set in Season 1 as a stand alone story and I expect it to be under twenty chapters.

To Another Heart

Chapter 3-The New Order Of Things

Freddie Spencer and Ben Cartwright meet for the first time. It is not a happy ending. Not yet...anyway.

Ben had been at his desk working when he heard children chatter.

For one second he thought he was a having a stroke because there had not been children on this ranch for a long time and there had most certainly not been any girl children. He had told himself and meant it too that he did not mind what any of his unborn children would be. He would always welcome three girls into his life as he had welcomed his three boys…granted he might have gone grey a long time ago with three girls but he was not one of those men who thought that just because they had girls that meant their lives were over. Three healthy children…that was all he had ever asked God for and that was what for a short while anyway, he had, had. Didn't matter to him if they were boys or they were girls so long as they were happy and healthy. That was what mattered.

But it threw him that there were the sound of girls in his yard. Usually the kind of girls that came back here did not give out high pitched giggles and shouts and so he put down the pen and opened the door to his home to see what had to be one of the strangest sights that he had seen in a while.

And that was saying something…

Adam was there helping another young man with bags move into what had been the foreman's bunkhouse until he had left last year. Adam was talking to the older man who had his hat down low on his head but was tall the same way Adam was dark hair cut short at the back and skin tanned. He was young, Ben being practical had to put him at early twenties or even late teens. He had the look of a boy who had aged very quickly.

The two girls on the other hand were children through and through. He'd have to put them about five and three. One was blonde, so blonde it was like she was Inger's younger sister, her hair was burnished gold and bright by the sun and her dress was pink edged in dust. The other girl was brown haired, hair loose down her back too but not for lack of trying and both were chasing each other around a tree stump all but dancing and laughing as if they were experiencing kind of joy that only came rarely. It was like watching the Indian children when they went to war and they danced around the fire.

Adam stepped back out and caught his expression.

"Hey Pa"

"Adam"

"I got us a new hand…and two children"

Ben nodded. To any other man it would throw him but Ben had been through too much right now for anything to get to him and this was not even on his scale. The two girls stopped dancing around the tree stump and the shouting noises died down. Their…what? Father? Brother? Came out of the bunkhouse and sighed.

"Pa this is Freddie Spencer he's new in town, these are his children Mary and Laura and for reasons I yet don't quite understand I may have offered him a job"

Ben nodded and then counted to ten in his head. He was not in a good place to begin with and this was not helping his temper nor his headache very much.

"I see…Adam…" but before he could say to his son that he needed to be aware that this was a working ranch and not a school yard the man…Spencer lifted off his hat and Ben felt something in him die for a second.

He didn't know what it was but it was like an invisible hook had reached out and yanked his guts out through his back. He felt like he had done…like when he had done when he had come home that day to see Adam with half his face bashed in and Marie faced down on the floor screaming and Joe's crib empty. He had not felt that raw pulsating pulse of emotion for a long time but now that he was looking at this man he found that he was right there back in that house. He didn't know how to think or feel or speak and then…

"Hello Mr Cartwright my name is Freddie Spencer" he stuck his hand out and Ben took it feeling slightly ill and not knowing why. This man had bright eyes and a sharp face and would prove to be a heartbreaker with the ladies no doubt but still…there was no reason for him to be acting like this surely?

Maybe it was a sign that he was going mad?

"Hello" he said. "Ben Cartwright"

He let go of the boys hand before he could do anything else and then turned to look at the girls both of whom had crashed into their father's side. Ben watched as Freddie Spencer looked down at his two girls face creasing into this expression of love that Ben knew only too intimately. There was a sense that this kid…and he was a kid wasn't he? Standing there in front of him was older then even he was. A sense that he and the two children had never been children at all. Ben didn't know what was making him feel that way but he had a feeling that the brandy bottle was going to make it's way upstairs to his room tonight and it would be empty in the morning.

"And who are these two?" he asked recovering himself and trying to play hostess. Freddie Spencer's face creased into an open smile.

"These are my girls, Mary, Laura, this is Mr Cartwright"

"Ben is fine" he said and he didn't have to know that Adam had raised one eyebrow. "Ben to them" he said to Freddie as a side along and Freddie nodded but didn't say much else. Instead he turned to his daughters both of whom were looking up at Ben. As sisters they were not alike in the slightest.

"Hello"

"Hello Mr Ben" the blonde one Mary said and Ben tried to smile. He didn't know why this was throwing him off but it was.

"Anyway I said Freddie could keep the girls in Jacobson's old place. Rest of the boys won't mind and he can get them into school tomorrow."

"Fine, fine,"

"Eh…Okay then"

Ben shot Adam a long look. Cheek right now was not going to work on him.

"You do know that this is a working ranch right?" he asked because he did need this man to know that this was not a play area for children.

Green eyes shot him an almost amused look.

"Yes sir I do know. My girls will behave themselves" here he shot both of them a look that told them to behave or else and then he nodded at Ben.

"You tell them were they can go and were they can't and I'll make sure that they listen."

"Alright. They can stay here, don't go into the fields and don't go near the barns"

"You got that?"

Two 'Yes Pa's' came and Ben nodded. He was sure that there was more that he was going to forget to add but right now he couldn't remember it. Right now he was too…off…by what had happened so he watched as the new ranch hand took his children back to the their new home and then turned to Adam who shot him a look and then shrugged as if to say what are you going to do?

"Adam?"

"I found him in town, had those two girls at the whorehouse while he was looking for a job and—"

"Adam I told you not to call them that—and what do you mean he was keeping his children—"

"Eh Pa the girls don't mind"

"I don't…Adam that is totally beside the point. The point is that there are now two children on my ranch and a young man who we know nothing about who has apparently rocked into town with very little—"

"Oh yeah he's running from something"

Ben sighed as he turned and walked back into the house. Adam followed him looking more amused then he was sure that the situation allowed it.

"Adam—"

"Pa he's a kid with kids himself and no mother in the picture, clearly running from something that's big and out of control I felt sorry for the man so I offered him a job…besides there's something about him that I can't put my finger on and it's beginning to get under my skin"

"Then why ask him here then?"

"Because when I figure it out I want him here. I'm not saying it's anything bad Pa, just that…that there's something here that I need to explore, I swear to God when I looked at him all I could see was what—" but Adam suddenly stopped talking and Ben stared at him for a second. It did not take a genius to figure out what he was going to say. Ben knew it and he knew that it was pain upon pain to think about that sweet little baby but he forced himself past the shudder and the phantom ache and then…

"Is that why you asked him?"

Adam shrugged. "Does it matter" he said carefully. "He needs a job, his children need a home. And he's a widow, with those looks and those sweet kids he isn't going to remain single for long"

Ben considered the point and then conceded it immediately. It was nothing but the truth after all. The second that any self respecting mother with a single daughter got whiff of Freddie Spencer they would be down to the Pondarosa in droves trying to make sure that their daughter was the one who ended up with him.

"True"

Adam watched him for a second and then…

"Pa do you ever—"

"I should go to bed" Ben said suddenly. He knew and Adam knew what he was going to ask him and it was too much…to real…too hard for him to speak of that little baby, maybe if he was a better father he would have been able to sit his boys down and talk about it but he was not…he had never claimed to be a perfect parent. Case in point what had\ happened all those years ago. They were coming up to Joe's birthday…he'd be twenty. Two whole decades of life and Ben had missed it. And even if he had missed it there was still no proof that his son…

He swallowed and Adam looked at him with those dark eyes that he too had inherited from his mother. It was not even dinner time.

"Tell Hop Sing I don't want to eat tonight" he said trying keep his voice calm. "I will be up in my room for most of the night"

Adam's mouth twisted as if he was trying to or was going to say something and then he looked away and back at him and those slate eyes of Elizabeth's were hard as stone again. Ben hated it.

He hated all of it.

"Okay" Adam said and then he turned around and walked back out the house and Ben reached for the brandy bottle.

He was so not in the mood for this.

It was not until later when he was drunk enough to know that he was going to regret it in the morning that he realised what it was about Freddie Spencer that had set him off.

It was the eyes.

The bright green eyes.

The same eyes his baby had, had.

The same eyes Marie had, had.

That was what had set him off. The boy had the same damn green eyes.

And with that thought he put down the brandy and fell into bed and when sleep did eventually come for him he found that again he was dreaming of those damn green eyes and the two people he loved that had, had them and that he would never see either one of them again.

And there you go, hope you enjoy.

Next Chapter-Ben Cartwright and Mary Spencer spend an afternoon together.