lb_heartland | Fic: Quiet Sanctuary 12/14

Quiet Sanctuary
Chapter Twelve (or Part Two, Chapter Five)
Word Count: 3,160
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Tim/Marion, 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: I just wanted to add a little note to thank everyone who has reviewed this story. They mean a lot, especially right now.

Changes and Confrontations

"Has your father changed his mind, then?"

Amy frowned, looking at Soraya. "What do you mean? I thought we were talking about Ty. That's all anyone's talking about, and he hates it. I know that. I don't like that I'm doing it, but I can't stop. He's my friend. I'm worried about him."

"We are still talking about Ty. Your father's never liked him, considered him just a stable hand. He thought Ty wasn't good enough for you, right? So... Has his opinion changed now that Ty's the son of a vice-president in the railroad, a man with money? Ty is kind of... rich, right?"

"Is that what everyone's saying now? I'm surprised Ashley Grant isn't trying to marry him," Amy muttered, annoyed. She was worried about Ty because he hadn't been the same since his father showed up in town, and the man kept trying to contact him, though Jack was resolute about patrolling the borders and keeping him off of Heartland's land. It seemed like almost every person had come by with some kind of message or food or something, and it was uncomfortable. Awkward. The Grants were on Brad Baldwin's side, of course, and they were pushing the issue to where everyone on the town seemed to accept his story and not Ty's. They also thought that, despite Ty being old enough to be on his own, that he should be given back to his family.

"Okay, I can see that you're upset," Soraya began, holding up her hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to find the one good thing in this whole disastrous mess and point it out to you? I know Ty doesn't like talking about this man. He's making it harder for himself. Everyone has heard Mr. Baldwin's story. He says that Ty was taken from them, that the people who took him demanded money that they paid, but they never got him back."

"And Ty says that they never paid the men who took him, and that those men tried to kill him."

"They could have done that despite getting the money," Soraya said. She shrugged. "I don't know. It's so weird. You never hear of anyone being taken for money, not out here."

"None of us have that kind of money. We wouldn't get taken for money."

"Which goes back to the idea of Ty's family being rich," Soraya said. "I know he doesn't want anything to do with them, but does that mean that Tim's not being so... That he's changed the way he treats Ty?"

Amy sighed. She gave in and nodded. "Oh, yeah, he has. Now he's acting like Ty is his best friend in the world, asking Ty what he thinks of expanding Heartland, of trying to get horses from other towns and territories, and he was trying to convince Ty that it was a good idea for business. He's only a few questions and crazy ideas away from planning our wedding."

Soraya looked at her. "Is that such a bad thing? You do love Ty, after all."

"I'm fifteen. And Ty's in no state to get married!" Amy protested. She saw people look over at her. She groaned, lowering her voice. "He's not. One thing everyone seems to forget is that he's never ever said he loved me. I love him, and I'm pretty sure he knows that, but he's never said it back. I don't want to discuss weddings. Lou getting married is enough. Right now, all that matters to me is helping Ty through this. No one is making this any easier. All those people, trying to tell him that he has to talk to his father. That he has to forgive him."

Soraya shook her head. "He doesn't have to forgive him, but it might be good if he talked to him. If he talked to anyone other than you."

"Do you have any idea how hard this is for him? Could you talk about it if you had almost been killed? I don't think I could, but I don't know. None of us know. No one around here has been through anything even remotely close to that. My father's accident is the only thing that comes close, but that was an accident. No one tried to kill him."

Soraya nodded. "I know. I just... I think if more people knew what Ty knew, then they would be more understanding."

"It's none of their business."

"I didn't say that. I... I'm sorry, Amy. I've listened to Ty's father. He's got a sad story, and everyone believes it. It's convincing. He's also wired his family, and they are coming. Ty's mother and his brother will be here soon. When they get here, I don't think anyone will be willing to listen to anyone but them. Ty's story won't matter."

Amy nodded with new determination. She knew that Ty wasn't going to like it, but she thought that Soraya had a point. He needed to tell his story before it was too late.

"This is all against my better judgment," Ty began. He looked at his father across the room, aware that they were being watched. Everyone's eyes were following them, not daring to look away. This had to be the biggest excitement that the town had ever had, this thing between him and his father. "I don't want to be here, and I don't want to see you. I don't believe anything you have to say."

"You haven't even given me a chance."

"Chance?" Ty repeated, shaking his head. "I should give you a chance? You want a chance after all I went through? Are you joking? Let's say, even for a minute, that I believe your story about the money. That you actually paid them and they didn't give me back. That doesn't excuse the rest of it."

"Ty—"

"You have all of these people believing you, and they've taken your side. You're just the poor pathetic father whose son was abducted. There was nothing you could do. You paid the money, and they didn't give you back the child, right?" Ty asked. "Did you tell them the rest of it? How about months before? How you knew this was coming and did nothing?"

"That's not true, Ty."

"Oh, really?" Ty couldn't believe this. He'd known it was a bad idea, but he'd tried. He couldn't believe his father was still denying it. "I suppose you'll say I'm lying, then. You did think it was true then, and you wouldn't believe it now, would you? Those men yanked me out of my bed that night, and if I hadn't struggled and got dropped out that window, dislocating my shoulder and breaking my arm, they would have taken me that night. Instead, they had to wait while I recovered, while people fussed over me, while that idiot of a doctor ruined my shoulder for life because he didn't fix it properly. It was the same men. They came back for me, like I told you they were going to. I didn't lie. I wasn't goofing off; I didn't fall out of that window on accident."

"Ty—"

"We're done. I have no interest in seeing you or my mother. I might be willing to meet my brother, but the two of you... No. I cannot forgive you for this because you didn't listen to me. I suppose it's my fault, then, that one of them beat me until I was covered in bruises and the other one... He put his hands on my throat, and he choked me until I passed out. I thought I was going to die. They must have thought I died because they left me, dumped my body... Forgive yourself for that if you can, but I certainly can't."

Ty turned and walked away, distantly aware of his father calling his name. He walked out of the building, stopping in alleyway. He stopped and dropped down to the ground, leaning his back against the wood and wrapping his arms around his legs. He put his head down on his arms, trying to breathe. Trying not to cry. He absolutely did not want to cry over that bastard back there. His father didn't deserve it.

He had only been sitting there for a while when Peyote came over to him, sniffing at his shirt. Ty lifted his head and frowned. "I know I left you behind."

"Blame me if you want," Amy told him, and he looked past Peyote to where she stood. "When I heard him whining, and you weren't around, I figured out where you were. I thought you'd need him after seeing your father again."

Peyote pushed closer, almost forcibly nuzzling him. Ty smiled in spite of it all. "Thank you, Amy."

"I shouldn't have told you to do it."

He shook his head. "No, it was something I had to do. If I didn't say it now, I never would. He needed to hear what I had to say, and he needed to know... He can't hide behind those lies he told himself. He knew what was going to happen. He let it happen. He said I was lying when I told him that the men tried to take me out that window."

"Your shoulder."

Ty nodded. "The one... the one that later tried to kill me, he jerked my arm so hard it seemed to come apart, and that was before they got me towards the window. I managed to bite his hand, the one he had over my mouth, and I should have screamed, but I was half-way out the window, so I kicked the other one instead. He dropped me. I landed on my arm. They could have taken me then, but I guess I must have called out as I fell, and my father came running, my mother with him, and the baby screaming in the background. They were angry with me for waking him up."

"They were wrong, Ty. You know... Maybe they just thought—None of us knows anything like this. Out here, it's unthinkable that anyone would hurt a child for money. Not that any of us has enough money to where it would be worth it, but that's not the point. People out here get killed over water rights or cattle rustling. Trespassing. Sometimes, rarely, it's a poker game in the saloon, but it's not like the cities back east. Violence is rare. Most people die of illness or old age. Maybe he—they—just thought it couldn't really have happened because they didn't want to believe it."

"I've been going over it in my head, Amy, and I keep coming back to something..." Ty took a deep breath. "If he paid them what they wanted... I'm still not sure he did, but I believe that if he did, given that they came back for me, that it wasn't ever about the money, not really. I don't know what I could have done to make them come for me..."

"So, you're thinking it wasn't something you did but something he did? They did take money from him, too, so maybe it was revenge? You think... revenge against your father?"

Ty shrugged. "I don't know. What am I supposed to think? I can't believe this was an accident, that they just grabbed me at random, not when they came back for me. What... Why else would they do that? They could have beaten up any other child if that was all it was. Unless I made them mad when I tried to escape the first time..."

"Wouldn't it have been enough that you fell and broke your arm? You saw them. You could tell people who they were."

"I don't know. It's so easy to blame him again because I want to be mad at him."

"I know," Amy agreed. She held out her hand to him. "I can sit with you if you like, or we can go somewhere. I don't think you want to be on the ground when everyone starts moving again."

He nodded. "Let's go. Not to Heartland. I'm not ready to go home, either."

"You don't have to," she promised. She wrapped her hand in his after he got to his feet. "We'll just walk for a while."

"They're late."

"Ty confronted his father today," Marion said, wishing she'd gone after him like Amy had. She should have. Then again, she trusted her daughter to reach him as Amy had always done so effortlessly. "I don't expect them back for a while."

"Damn it, Marion, it's bad enough that she follows him everywhere, but they're off God knows where. Alone. Don't they have any idea what they're doing to their reputations?" Tim demanded.

Marion sighed and looked at her husband. She knew about the rumors, but she knew they were false. She figured that one day Ty would ask Amy to marry him, and as long as her daughter and the boy she considered her son were happy, that was all that mattered. Yes, she'd like to someday call him her son and have it be more than a feeling. Ty was family, but that wasn't how outsiders saw it. Then again, she knew the lines got blurred even with people that knew them.

"Yesterday you were ready to throw Amy at him. Your whole attitude towards that boy is appalling, Tim, and I swear, it makes me doubt why I love you so much. First you treat him as though he is nothing, and then you change the instant you hear that his family has money. It disgusts me, and don't think for a minute you fooled anyone."

"I can't help being the only practical person around here. You've taken most of our working acres and turned them into an animal sanctuary, and when it comes to that boy—You took him in without knowing a thing about him. He wouldn't tell you anything about him for years. He could have been anyone, anything. We're lucky the only thing his father claims about him is that the kidnappers lied to him. He didn't have to be some sweet innocent. He could have been a troublemaker, and you let our daughter go off with him. All the time. Never supervised. We're lucky she isn't pregnant already."

Marion was not a violent woman, but it was all she had to keep herself from smacking him straight across the face. "Tim, you're an idiot. If you had ever spent a minute with Ty without judging him, then you would know that he is not a danger to anyone. He would never hurt anyone and certainly not Amy. He respects her, and he cares for her. If he asks her to marry him, I would be happy. But I already know that one of the reasons he hasn't, why he holds back what he might feel for her is you. He is well aware of how you feel about him, and he won't ask Amy to turn her back on her father."

Tim frowned at her. Marion sighed again. "Sometimes, Tim, it takes nothing less than a blow to the head to get you thinking again. You can be so pigheaded and stubborn, and you can't see what's right in front of your face. I've been patient with you, probably more patient than you deserve. I am sick and tired of it, do you understand me?"

"You're never shy about speaking your mind."

"You used to like that about me."

"I still do."

"Well, then, I'm going to give you a few orders. The first, then, is that you keep your mouth shut for a day. You spend that day listening. You see what things are really like, and I don't just mean with Ty. I mean with Amy and with Lou. You'll probably never fix things with my father, but don't undo the progress you've made with the rest of us. That accident wanted to tear us apart, and it almost won. You helped that a lot. You could have made it a lot easier, but then again, you could have made it a lot worse," she said, shaking her head. "You're doing something now that... it wants to do the same thing. Don't be practical, if that's what you think you're doing. I know we're not exactly making money right now, but as long as the land is ours, that is all that matters. If Ty managed to forgive his father—that is unlikely, I might add, and I don't know that any of us will—and accepts some of his family's money, that's one thing. I know, even without asking or your less than subtle hints, that he would give it to Heartland. He loves this place. Forcing his hand, though, that was never going to work. You've been pushing him away for years, and this might be the final straw."

Tim shook his head. She knew that he didn't want to hear it. He never did like being contradicted. This time, though, he didn't talk back. He just grunted and looked out to the yard.

"There they are," Marion said, smiling as Ty and Amy rode in. She walked out the door as Ty dismounted and moved over to help Amy down. She was more than capable of doing it herself, but she let him help with a bashful smile, all just to have him hold her for a moment. Marion couldn't help another smile as she saw it.

Ty said something to Amy, and she nodded as he moved to take the horses into the barn. Amy walked over to Marion. "Sorry we're late. Ty... wasn't ready to come back."

"How did the conversation go?"

Amy winced. "Oh, great, if you count the fact that Ty's father knew—or at least should have known that they were after his son because they tried before and now Ty thinks that they might have taken him and asked for the money and hurt him—tried to kill him—to get some kind of revenge against his father. It's a big mess. He did agree to see his brother if he comes, but he still doesn't want anything to do with his father or mother."

Marion wrapped her arms around her daughter. "It's going to be okay. We're here for him."

Amy shrugged, unconvinced, as she looked at the barn. "We really are lucky, aren't we, Mom?"

"Sometimes it might not seem that way, but yeah, I believe we are."