Fic: Quiet Sanctuary 1/14

[youngeratheart.livejournal.com]

Quiet Sanctuary
Chapter One
Word Count: 3,025
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Tim/Marion, eventually... Lou/Scott and Ty/Amy.
Warnings: Non-graphic discussion of child abuse.
Disclaimer: I'm never going to grow up. That means... I'm not legally responsible for anything, right?
Summary: AU. Heartland is a refuge, not just for abused and neglected horses, but for all.
Author's Note: While I was writing Inheritance of the Heart, this idea came to me. I didn't think I'd have time to write on it, but then I got sick, and the only thing I was able to work on was this. The Tim in this story is probably heavily influenced from the television series version of Tim, and there might be a bit of the tv version of Jack to this one, but only because he fit the 1880s time period a bit better than the book one.

---

Arrival in the Night

 

"He's restless again."

Restless wasn't the word that Jack Bartlett would have used to describe his son-in-law's behavior, but he knew that his daughter was trying to make it better than it was. She couldn't help it. There was so little that Marion could do about the situation she was now in, and it sure wasn't easy. She did her best, but the doctors had said that Tim might never walk again.

In his less charitable moments, Jack thought they might all have been better off if he'd just died in the accident. It wasn't that he disliked Tim, not really, though he was getting there. The man had problems, true, and what happened to him, a young man in his prime, with a wife and two daughters to think about, cut down in a minute by a single misstep, wasn't something that was easy to accept. He had been strong, had his own land, his own livelihood, and he was taking care of everything just fine before, but now he was laid up, unable to walk. It ate at him. It would eat away at anyone. Still, Jack found it hard to forgive Tim, no matter what had happened to him or how much pain he was in, for how he was treating his wife. He didn't blame her—and she wouldn't have been at fault if he did; it wasn't anyone's fault—but he was always angry and cruel, feeling sorry for himself and lashing out at her.

Restless was one thing.

This was another. It wasn't going to go on. Jack had had about as much as he could stand, and tomorrow, when Marion was in town, he planned on having a good, long talk with his son-in-law. If that didn't straighten him out, Jack was going to dump his sorry behind out in the fields. He didn't care what it took. Tim was going to have to change the way he was treating Marion and Amy.

At least Lou was away at boarding school. She didn't have to be exposed to her father's foul mood and words, his violent temper. Little Amy was almost terrified of her father and wouldn't go in his room these days.

Jack shook his head. "Marion, I know you want to pretend that nothing's wrong, and you want to believe that you'll get through this, but you need to face the facts."

"Dad, please," Marion started to protest. "It's not—"

"I know you, honey. I know you don't like to give up or give in. You'd do anything rather than admit defeat, and that's why you go off with those Indians and learn their remedies. I admire your spirit, but I'm not going to let you ignore this. You can't let him do this to you or to Amy. Tim has had time, and the time for being gentle has passed."

She nodded. "I'm not trying to fool anyone, Dad. It's just... When the accident happened, when Pegasus went down... Tim fell, and I thought... I thought I'd lost him. I thought I had lost him forever. I wasn't ready for that. I can't lose him. I can't give up on him any more than I gave up on Pegasus. They said we should shoot him, but he's doing better every day. He's healing. Tim can heal. He just needs time."

"I'm not saying he can't heal. I'm not sure I put much faith in what those doctors say, but even if he never walks again, I am worried about what he's doing now. I'd be a lot more willing to let him have all the time he needs to heal if he would stop hurting the people I love."

Marion sighed. She couldn't argue with that. There was nothing to argue. Jack was right. She knew it as much as he did. She had to accept that. He knew his daughter. She had fight and spirit and the greatest will he'd ever known. Not even her mother had been that strong. Maybe if she'd shown all along just how strong she was, not given Tim any quarter, then maybe he'd have come to his senses already. Instead, she'd been shaken by almost losing him, and that fear led her to coddle him when that wasn't what he needed.

Jack touched her arm. "I know you'll do what you have to do, Marion. You always do."

She nodded numbly. She was still trying to accept what she needed to do. A noise came from outside, and their attention was diverted from the conversation as they both moved towards the door. "Something spooked the horses."

"Could be a coyote," Jack said, picking up his old rifle. "Stay inside. I'll check on them."

"Dad—"

"You deal with your restless husband. I'll see to my livestock," Jack insisted, heading out to the barn. Now was not the time to argue with his daughter over her capabilities. She was strong and talented and smart, and she'd helped him with the farm since she was little. Her independent and hard working spirit was what had attracted the new homesteader Tim Fleming to her, and their marriage had followed shortly after that, a happy one until a few months ago and the accident.

Jack shook his head. It was time to find out what had spooked the horses. If it was a coyote, it would get a bullet between the eyes. Marion was soft on the creatures, always chasing them off instead of killing them, and normally he humored her, but they'd lost half the year's chicks to a coyote just last month. They couldn't afford to lose much else, not with Tim's homestead falling into disrepair while he was laid up. The two farms were too much for Jack to handle alone, even with Marion's help. It was looking like they were going to lose the Fleming part of the land.

If that happened, they might well forget about Tim Fleming ever recovering. That would damage him in a way that he might never come back from. This land got under the skin. It mattered. It was a part of them. The land had to be something they loved, or they would never make it, and whatever else Tim Fleming was, he was a man who loved his land.

Jack saw the door to the barn was open. Not by much, didn't hardly even seem big enough for a coyote to get through. He opened it up all the way and stepped inside, stopping to light the lantern just inside the door.

A whinny came from the stall at the back, where the old plow horse, Jake, was, and Jack walked back towards it, gun ready. He unlatched the stall door and looked inside.

He lowered his gun, almost ashamed of himself. The look of fear in those wide green eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life. He studied the shivering boy in front of him. "Well, now, where did you come from?"

---

The boy couldn't have been more than eight, Jack thought, though he probably was more like six. He was small, scrawny, and between the rags he wore and the way he stood, Jack doubted that the kid had eaten in a long time. The weather was cooling, and the barn wasn't much of a shelter for a boy his age. He was filthy, but Jack thought some of the darker marks on his skin were bruises and not dirt. The boy shuddered again, holding up his shaking hands in surrender.

Jack set the gun down outside Jake's stall. "Easy now. I'm not going to hurt you."

The eyes didn't leave him, not for a moment. This boy had no trust in him, as though he'd never known kindness at all. Jack tried again. "I don't mind if you were looking for someplace warm. Tell you what, though, the house is a lot warmer."

The boy just stared at him. He started to lower his hands, and his stomach rumbled. He looked down, ashamed, and Jack smiled at him. "We just finished supper, and there was plenty left over. Why don't you come inside and have some?"

Though he was clearly hungry, the boy backed away, deep into the stall, behind the horse. That was dangerous. Even Jake, who was a docile horse most of the time, willing to do whatever was asked of him, could be spooked and hurt the child, who was much smaller and weaker and could very likely not survive the encounter. "Let me go get you a plate then, and maybe you'll come out and eat it? Jake here isn't used to sharing his home."

The boy looked up at the horse. The gelding leaned down towards him, and the boy smiled a little as he touched the horse's nose and moved up his face. Jack watched, fascinated. He'd never seen a horse bond with anyone like that, not so quickly, not even Marion, who had a real gift with them. She seemed to know what they were thinking, and this boy, he had something similar.

Marion. That was the answer. Jack nodded to himself and walked back to the house. His daughter was back in the kitchen, and it looked like she'd been crying. Damn that Tim. Jack would have this out with him. He didn't care if anyone thought it was cruel under the circumstances. The man couldn't keep doing this to them.

"Was it a coyote?"

"You crying over the dog?"

She shook her head. "You know better, Dad. I won't try and lie to you."

"Good," he told her. "It wasn't a coyote. We've got a guest. I need your help to convince him to come into the house. He's rather shy. Possibly with good reason."

She looked at him. Jack explained, "I think I saw some bruises. Hard to tell under the dirt and in that light, but I think that boy took a beating. Still, you should see him with Jake. He's got that old horse eating out of his hand."

"This I have to see," Marion agreed, following him out to the barn and back to Jake's stall. The boy was still with the horse, but the gelding now seemed to be standing there to block them from the child. Jake looked up at Marion, normally his favorite person to see, but his attention quickly went back to the boy. "What is that you're doing?"

Spooked, the boy jumped back from the horse, and those wide eyes looked over at Marion. She smiled at him. "Hello, there. I'm Marion Fleming. You've met my father, Jack. This big fellow here is Jake, and he really seems to like you."

The boy shrugged at little, stiffly. Jack turned to his daughter. "I offered our guest some food. Maybe he thought I cooked it. Can't be good if I did, right?"

She laughed. "Oh, Dad. You're a better cook than I am."

The boy watched them carefully for a moment. He slowly went back to Jake's side, touching the horse in small circles, an absent sort of thing, but Jake seemed to really enjoy it. Marion took this in, and she stepped inside the stall. "You have a real gift there. I don't think anyone else could have gotten Jake to accept them in his stall like this."

The boy shrugged again. Jack didn't like the way he looked. Too thin. Too stiff. Too sore. "Anyone who can do that deserves a full meal, wouldn't you say, Marion?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," she agreed, and she held her hand out to the boy. He stared at it for a good long while before he finally took it. They both tried to hide their relief as she led him out of the stall, and Jack closed the door behind them. Marion carefully led the boy towards the house, not pulling him when he seemed to hesitate. She knew just what to do with a frightened and wounded animal.

---

"We'll have to go into town and get him new clothes. Those rags are horrible, and I think they're better off being burned," Marion mused aloud, fussing about the kitchen. Jack watched her with a smile. He didn't know what had brought that boy into their home, but he knew that it was what they needed, all of them. This wasn't just about the battered child who needed food and clothes and a place to heal from his wounds. It was about Marion and about Jack. Somehow, within hours of finding the boy inside the barn, things had changed.

He'd sat through the meal quietly, and Jack was starting to wonder if the kid had been beaten when he spoke. It was unnatural for a boy his age to be so quiet. He should be loud and running around with energy the way that Lou and Amy did, but he was silent, still, and didn't answer any questions. Jack didn't think that the boy was deaf. He heard, but he was afraid to speak.

He had good table manners, and he didn't seem to fit the idea of a lost urchin. The fact that he'd reached Heartland was something in of itself. Their land was miles from the nearest town, a half a day's ride at best, and for a boy his age, it was quite a walk. Jack knew he'd never seen him before, and the town was small enough, and he'd been here long enough to where he would have if the boy was local.

"How could anyone do that to him?" Marion asked with a sigh. She'd fixed the boy a bath while he was eating, heating up the water and filling the basin. She'd set out one of Lou's old nightdresses—one that was not done up with any frills and could pass for a boy's nightshirt—for him and simply let him be after the food, dragging Jack out of the room.

When she finally allowed him back in the kitchen, they'd found the boy bathed and changed and waiting for them. Now that he was clean, Jack figured he'd been wrong about his age. He was probably around nine or ten, but he was small. There was just too much knowledge in those eyes, with a reserve and careful manners that seemed older, more practiced and experienced than six or eight.

Marion had offered him a bed, and the boy was definitely spooked by it, but when she said he'd have to share the room with her daughter and not wake her, it seemed to calm him down some. He had followed Marion warily, and she'd opened the door to Lou and Amy's room with the two beds. Amy had been snoring away in the one, and he cautiously approached the other. As he climbed in, he had to bit his lip to keep from crying out, and Marion almost lost it then.

Jack did, too. He didn't know how anyone could hurt a child. The boy was too young, too small to fight back, and from what he could tell, perfectly behaved. It could have been the harsh discipline of someone that did it, but somehow, Jack just didn't see it. There was no malice or even mischief in the boy's eyes. Intelligence, yes, but that boy was no trouble maker. How could anyone have done that to him? If Jack ever found the person who did it, they would have some explaining to do. "I don't know, Marion. It isn't right."

"He's ours now, isn't he, Dad? We'll never let that happen to him again, will we?"

"No, we won't," Jack agreed. He saw her working with the herbs she'd gotten from the local Indian tribe. She must be making something for the child. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to try and give him some of this while he sleeps. It should help with the pain. I can't believe that mark on his neck. I swear, someone must have tried to kill him. Why, though? He seems so... sweet."

That was not the word Jack would have used, but he knew what she meant. Aside from the fact that no one should hurt a child like this one had been hurt, the boy showed good manners, was polite and respectful even without saying a word. "He's well-disciplined. Could be his family fell on some rough times or his parents died unexpectedly. We don't know. Maybe he'll tell us when he starts to trust us. Let it go for now, Marion. We have to let him come to us, just like you always say with the horses."

She finished the herbs and started back up the stairs. Jack followed her in case she needed help, but she stopped. He frowned, and then he heard the voice of his granddaughter. Little Amy was talking. Marion let the door open just a crack, and they could see inside. Amy had crawled out of her bed and was sitting next to the boy's feet. He stared at her, but she wasn't a threat to him, not in the same way that Jack or Marion seemed to be. "... And then Lou had to go away to school. She says she likes it there, but I don't like that she's gone. I miss having someone to share my room with. So I'm glad you're here. And you won't tell them that I wasn't sleeping, right? They always make me go to bed so early, and I can never sleep."

The boy shook his head, and Amy smiled at him widely. "Good. I'm Amy. Did I tell you my name was Amy? What's your name?"

Considering that the boy hadn't said a word since Jack found him in the barn, he wasn't really expecting an answer. But the answer came, in a soft voice that they barely heard. "Ty."