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To Another Heart

Chapter 10-And A Trauma In A Pear Tree

Joe or Freddie attempts to understand what he has heard. Roy ends up helping while Ben attempts to pick up the pieces and there are still two innocent children out there who do not know what is going on.

It was madness, it was absolute madness and he didn't understand it.

Joe.

According to the old man his name was Joe. Which was insane right?

So why did it feel so right?

He had taken his horse ridden to the Saloon and had a plan to get completely smashed out drunk but before he could get halfway down the bottle the Sherriff had turned up snatched it out of him thrown him out of the saloon and took him to jail for what he called a good talking too and a good drying out.

Which was distinctly unfair because personally Fre…Joe…whatever the hell he was calling himself now was not drunk. Slightly tipsy perhaps but not drunk,

"Aha" Roy Coffey had said when Joe…Fred…well you get the picture, had tried to say that to him. "I've had this argument with both of your brothers more than once you know. Adam tries to quote poetry at me to get himself out and Hoss just looks sad. I know when a Cartwright is half pissed son. And it's before noon to boot"

"I've had what you might call a really shitty day" he snapped back and Roy Coffey looked up at him from his paperwork for a second and then sighed dragging his chair over to the bars.

"Yes I suppose you have" he said not unkindly. "But your not going to find the answers that you want at the bottom of a bottle"

"He's lying through his teeth" he said and Roy looked at him.

"Why?"

"Cause it's not true. It can't be true"

"Why can't it be true?" Roy asked as if he was Mary's age and he had just found a rather nasty problem at the end of his maths book. Joe…Freddie sighed.

"Because it can't be. Look I will admit my father was a monster and that the only good thing he ever did was die but to believe him of this…I mean…he never…it wouldn't make sense"

"I think it makes perfect sense"

"Why?"

Roy opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Alright" he said quietly resting one foot on the bars "I will tell you what I know but it's not much. Marie was married to him when he came here with Adam and Hoss. Adam was about fifteen at the time and I locked him up in here that first weekend because he stormed into the saloon and I quote, wanted the strongest shit that you have barkeep so I can forget my day to day exsistance and the presence of that woman."

"You remember that huh?"

"First time anyone had ever spoken like that round here trust me. And the barkeep got him a bottle and naturally he couldn't drink it so I locked him up to sober up. Then he told me about Marie, in between puking his guts up."

"What did he tell you"

Roy hissed softly.

"Look…Adam was a very…he was an adult I think before he was ever a child. He'd lost his mother in childbirth and then watched Hoss's mother die with an arrow in her back before he had turned six. When Marie came along he was doing most of the raising of Hoss himself. Ben's a good father don't get me wrong but he has dreams and Adam and him…so then comes Marie and Adams establishing himself as a man which lets face it is never pleasant and Marie…I don't know what she did before she met Ben per say but Ben wouldn't talk about it"

"What did Adam say?"

"What Adam said wouldn't be fit to say in polite company" Roy said dryly. "Look…I got the impression she served drinks in the saloon. Personally there are worse matches if you want my opinion but Ben's always been funny about Marie. Charles Le Duke when he turned up the first time indicated that they had an agreement…and Ben hit the roof and…and I still don't know what happened. What I do know is that he lost his wife and you in the same night and for three days he wasn't sure if he was going to lose Adam either."

"I don't wish to be rude but I've heard all this so I don't—"

"I'm getting to it son, I'm getting to it"

There was a pause and then…

"What I do know is that your Joe Cartwright"

"How?"

"Cause your too much like him. Look…did you really think La Duke was going to leave you a signed confession?"

"No—"

"So what did he do that makes you think this is so unbelievable?"

Joe sighed…Freddie sighed…

"I had…you know I wasn't married?"

"Figured that out" Roy said dryly. "Don't plan on telling anyone either way. Those two girls are sweet enough—"

"They have the same mother"

"Alright I don't—"

"He killed her"

Roy was silent for a second and he propped himself up on his elbow and then dropped down again because that was actually a very bad idea with his head spinning like that.

"I…after Laura the birth…it was very distressing. We didn't have midwives or doctors because he didn't allow them. He threatened to take Mary and leave her in the snow to die and I knew that he would do it too. I had seen him…I had endured him…I was frightened of him but then Caro—she…she never recovered and then one winter she died. Laura was two, Mary was four. And I knew that the second the girls became underfoot that he would kill them too, leave them to die of waste and neglect. Do I think him capable of kidnapping a child to keep a grudge alive yes of course I do I just…I don't see how it can be me. People like me don't get the happy ending Sherriff, we don't get the doting father and the two big brothers and the big ranch with all the money. We don't…I don't know how to be part of a family. I don't know how to have a father and not flinch away from his touch. Ben might be losing the plot a bit but he deserves better than that"

Roy looked at him and then Joe had to look away because for the first time he felt like himself and the look on his face was too soft and gentle for his own good.

He did not deserve that look either.

"Oh son…you are more a Cartwright than ever. Of course you deserve nice things, of course you deserve a family…you a good lad. You just…you have to give yourself a chance for happiness at some point"

Joe kicked out against the bed he was resting on,

"I have to think of my girls too" he said to the ceiling. "This is going to confuse the hell out of them"

"Oh I doubt it" Roy said pulling back and moving his chair back to the desk. "God made children durable for a reason boy. Besides…your girls are too clever to be confused. They could be running this town in twenty years time if they let woman run for the legislature."

Joe laughed and then promptly fell asleep.

It was slightly more embarrassing than it should have been.

Most of the time when he dreamed he dreamed of Caro, of her soft touch and her bright blonde hair and the way she had smiled at him when things had been perfect. Of the way her chin had jutted out and the feel of her…well you get it.

Most of the times his dreams were a safe place to be with her. There had been no safe place when she had been alive, they had hidden their relationship from the outside world until they could not hide it anymore. He could have ran away but the truth was his father had frightened him. And she had not wanted to leave. Naïve as she had been, lovely as she had been she had been convinced that it could have worked.

Now when he dreamt it was off another woman.

Dark hair as dark as his and Laura's twirling around in a red dress. Blood pouring from a boy's head. A baby crying in the crib. His father, the one that had made his life hell picking him up from the crib and telling him that his name wasn't Joe anymore it was Freddie. That he had a purpose to fulfil.

"He won't come looking for you" he said to the babe in his arms. "He will forget all about you in time. Though I have been wrong before, in which case I will use you as my greatest weapon against him"

But Joe had never wanted to be a weapon.

He had never wanted to be anything other than loved.

And when he remembered that man…the other one, Ben Cartwright in his little chair holding him when he was a baby he thought that he remembered what it was to be loved.

It's a funny thing, memory. A funny, funny thing.

Even when your small you can pick up memories and you can remember them. And sometimes you can supress them because of course why would you remember something that causes you excruciating pain? Why would you remember something that you cannot do anything about? Why put yourself through that? Why put yourself through the terror of remembering? And then one day the brain gives you a gift and you can remember.

It's bits and it's pieces. Conversations and half truths he had heard as a child.

Enough.

The smell of a French perfume. Laughter. Ruby red lips and whiskey and crackling fires and small hands picking him up.

"Gentle Adam, that's your baby brother"

"I know Pa, hell at this point I'm old enough to be his Pa"

"That's a disturbing thought son"

And then he woke up.

And don't ask him how, but he remembered.

He just…did.

Freddie Spencer woke up Joe Cartwright.

Don't ask him how.

He just did.

Roy let him out in a daze. He didn't ask and Joe didn't say.

"If Ben asks?"

"I am picking up my children from school" he said through numb lips. "After that I will…our stuff is there so I guess I have to go back…" he couldn't say home. He really, really couldn't say home.

"To the Pondarosa?"

"Yeah" he said grabbing his hat.

"Alright then—"

"Are you going to tell him about—" he trailed off and Roy shook his head with a wry grin that made him want to scream.

"Amount of time that I spent bailing you boys out…anyway I am just glad your home son"

He patted him on the shoulder and then he was out in the blinding sunlight walking towards the school and resisting the urge to gag. God he hoped it wasn't obvious where he had been…that was all he needed.

Miss Charlotte O'Brien who was the girls school teacher watched him with an eye that was deemed entirely too sympathetic. Joe took this to mean that either everyone knew or everyone was going to know soon. Gossip in little towns like this was rife. His arrival had been gossip. God knows what his identity was going to be.

Mary and Laura were waiting for him. Mary had her head in a book and Laura was drawing in the dirt with a stick and a part of Joe wanted to stay there and watch them be children a little while longer. But he could not deny the truth from them anymore than he could deny it from himself.

"Girls?"

They ran to his side and he helped them on the horse and then swung up after them and set off riding.

They came to a little lake.

"Pa? Are we not going home?"

"We are" he said though he didn't technically know if it was 'home' anymore. "But we need to have a little chat beforehand. Hop off for me"

Laura jumped to the ground and Mary came down a lot smoother and Joe found a tree in the corner in the shade and tucked both his girls a bit closer to him.

"So" he began wondering just how on earth he was supposed to explain this mess, "I have a story to tell you…"

And there you go-Only four more to go!

Next Chapter-Joe tells his girls the truth and then comes back home to the house where Ben is waiting.