Chapter Text
Your memories of the days following your incident were foggy at best.
You could remember the pain, of course, though it was more of a constant, dull ache rather than the sharp, burning pain you had felt when you had first been shot. Still, it was less than desirable.
You could remember voices—snippets of conversations in hushed tones floating just beyond your comprehension. Understanding the words had been out of the question at the time, but the humming in your ears carried notes of worry and distress and frustration. You remember feeling vaguely remorseful for making them fret, but mostly you just remember feeling tired.
You must have woken up a few times, because you remember the light being different. On one occasion, everything seemed dark, with only slivers of silvery-gray light coming from above. Another time, you remember a warm, orange glow coming from somewhere nearby, and a quiet murmuring that had to have been close, but you couldn’t recall seeing the owner of the voice.
The first truly cognizant memory you had was of waking to see two figures sitting by you. Upon blinking some of the sleep from your eyes, you realized that it was Hosea lounging in a chair, reading a book at your bedside while Tilly perched on the edge of your cot, her hands working a needle delicately through the piece of cloth she was holding. You were covered up to your chest in a thick, red and white quilt that you recognized as one of Miss Grimshaw’s.
You said nothing, though not for lack of trying. When you tried to get their attention, your voice came out as little more than a dry wheeze that made your throat burn. Thankfully, Hosea had noticed your poor attempt at communication, leaning forward and placing his book face-down on the ground beside him.
“There you are, dear,” he said warmly, beckoning for Tilly to help you as he grabbed a canteen from somewhere out of your line of sight.
Tilly set her sewing down and moved to sit by your head, carefully coaxing you to sit up a bit. “Hey, Y/n,” she spoke softly. You tried to give her a smile, which quickly turned to a grimace as you dragged yourself upwards. Tilly was quick to push the bed-roll-turned-pillow up behind you so that you could rest back against the wall. Settling back down, Tilly took the canteen Hosea had grabbed and held it up to your lips, helping you drink, her free hand resting gently under your chin.
“How ya feelin’?” asked Hosea once you had gotten your fill and cleared your throat. He had pulled his chair up a little closer, crossing one leg over the other.
“Like I got shot, I suppose,” you deadpanned, though there was a hint of a smirk on your face. Just sitting up had left you feeling more exhausted than you had in a long time, and you looked around the barn with half-lidded eyes. Across the way you could see Lenny and Mary-Beth sitting at one of Pearson’s makeshift tables and chatting quietly over what looked like a game of dominos. With them sat Sean, who had his seat pulled out and a rifle laying over his knees. He ran an oiled rag over it as he watched Lenny make a play, adding in his own commentary as he did so.
Carefully, you ran a hand over your midsection, feeling the thick padding of gauze and bandages under your shirt. “How bad…?” You winced as you pressed your fingers a bit too hard against your side.
Hosea gave you a sympathetic look. “It wasn’t too terrible, nothing we couldn’t take care of, anyway. Frankly, we were more afraid the cold was gonna get ya, once we got you patched up.” You nodded, looking down.
“Those boys I crossed, did y’all find any more of them?”
“No, no more of them. Arthur found their camp to the north a ways. They seem to have been the only ones, but we’ve been keeping an eye out for more in case they were just the scouts.” Hosea picked his book up off the ground and dog-eared the page.
“So… everyone else ‘s alright?” Hosea cocked an eyebrow at you as you cleared your throat, watching as your hands fretted at the edge of the quilt.
“Sure. You didn’t exactly leave anyone alive to do us harm, Y/n.” He studied your face as some of the tension in your shoulders receded.
You felt some relief. Worry had been gnawing at you relentlessly ever since the morning of the botched heist. You had been worried when the boys had left, you had been worried when they came racing back late that night, and you had been worried all through your flight through the foothills and into the mountain pass. Life on the run had made you hyperaware of the fragility that could be brought upon the gang in times of uncertainty. Sure, you all had always managed to get through hard times with the family still in tact, but that never stopped you from worrying that one day your luck would run out. The gang was all you had, and losing them would be like losing the very thing that gave you purpose.
You nodded to Hosea, resting your head back and letting a slow breath out through your nose. “How long do you think we’ll be holed up here?” you ask after a few beats of silence, deciding it was best to change the subject. Hosea seemed to catch on.
“Well, Dutch wants to move once the weather lets up, but so long as we don’t get anymore trouble from anyone, I think this is a good a place as any to lay low for a little while,” he said, adjusting himself in his chair. “There seems to be plenty of game in this valley to hold us over, so I don’t see why we couldn’t. It may be miserable, but it’s worth not seeing any of our own hanged back south.”
“If Sean had just kept his mouth shut, we wouldn’t need to be out here at all,” quipped Tilly from beside you. You gave her a tired smile.
“That may be so, my dear, but what’s done is done. No going back now,” Hosea returned, his gaze falling back to the book in his hands.
You smirked at the both of them, your eyes sliding shut as Tilly settled against you, letting you lean against her side. The muffled sound of the howling wind mingling with your body’s own exhaustion had you feeling drowsy and languid.
Before long, you had nodded off once again as the storm outside raged ever onwards.
A couple days later found you sitting on your cot at the back of the barn, quilt around your shoulders with Mary-Beth and Tilly sat on either side of you. Tilly had one arm encircling yours as she continued on with some embroidery she had started to pass the time, her head resting against your shoulder while she worked. Mary-Beth was pressed up against your opposite side with her knees drawn up to prop her journal. She was writing out what you guessed was another one of her stories, and every now and again she would break your companionable silence to ask for an adjective or if a sentence sounded alright.
You sat reclined against the wall, watching passively as the other gang members went about their business. Bill sat by the barn door, dozing with his rifle against his hip, while Javier strummed idly on his guitar nearby, trying to shake the cold that had settled into his hands from being on watch.
A gust of chilled air blew in suddenly as the barn door creaked open just enough for a single figure to slip in. Beside you, Tilly drew her knees up a bit on instinct, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Across the way, you watched as Arthur took his hat from his head and shook the the snow from its brim, stomping the ice from his boots as he did so. Blinking and looking around the barn’s dimly lit interior, he nudged Bill in the shoulder to rouse him from his nap, mumbling something to him about being on watch.
Gazing across the barn as he pulled his gloves off, Arthur met your eyes when he looked towards your cot. You nearly diverted your own gaze on instinct, but he caught you by surprise when he shot you a tired little smile and a wave. The two of you hadn’t talked much at all since you had woken up, and you couldn’t tell if it was simply because he was busy most of the day with hunting and keeping watch, or if he was actively avoiding you. Rationality told you it was the former, but your own wounded pride told you it was the latter. You couldn’t help but feel embarrassed about your whole ordeal out in the valley; like you had only brought an unneeded tension to an already shaken up group of outlaws on the run.
You gave him a little wave in return, watching as he made his way over to where he had set up his own cot. Sighing through your nose, you tried not to dwell on your own anxieties too much, instead returning your attention to Mary-Beth’s writing.
“When are you two gonna quit moping around and just talk to each other, huh?” You were startled out of your repose when Tilly spoke up from beside you. You turned your head to see her frowning up at you.
“What do you mean by that?” you stalled, unsure of what else you could say.
Tilly rolled her eyes. “I mean you and Arthur have been dancin’ around each other for months, Y/n.”
“Uhh…”
“She’s got a point, Y/n,” came Mary-Beth’s voice from your other side. “I know I shouldn’t be one to talk, but the two of you are just too awkward for your own good.” Tilly hummed in agreement and your cheeks burned.
“You’re never gonna get anywhere with him if you keep on like this.”
You suddenly had the urge to pull the quilt up over your head to hide how flustered you had become.
“It ain’t that simple,” you tried to argue, looking to both of them for some kind of understanding. “It’s just… he just…ohh,” you muffled your sigh of defeat in the quilt, bringing it up and pressing your face into it. You felt Tilly pat your arm.
“He doesn’t need someone like… me,” you said dejectedly, keeping your eyes down as Mary-Beth coaxed your hands away from your face.
“Y/n, you could ask anyone here, and they would all tell you that Arthur fancies you.”
“And we’ve all seen the way he looks at you.”
“I don’t think—”
“He’s hopeless, Y/n.” Your heart leapt into your throat when Javier’s voice cut in, and you turned to see him smirking at you, his fingers hovering over the frets of his guitar. You heard Mary-Beth giggle beside you. “You know, when he first got here, the first thing he asked about was you. He looked like a lost puppy when I told him you went out scouting.”
“He’s head-over-heels.”
“And you’re no better.”
“You gotta talk to him.”
“Okay!”
You huffed out another sigh, looking between the three of them and feeling severely outnumbered. Tilly, Mary-Beth and Javier all watched you expectantly, each with varying degrees of smugness and delight. Relenting, you let your shoulders fall forward and your head fall back against the wall, your eyes sliding shut.
“Alright. I’ll… try to figure somethin’ out.”
Another week passed, and you found yourself sitting on watch by the little campfire just outside the barn doors. The wind howled angrily through the clearing as night fell over the snow-covered valley, and you watched wearily as two riders came galloping in from the tree-line. You recognized Hosea and Arthur atop their horses, wrapped in their thick coats with rifles slung over their shoulders. As they approached the shed-side of the barn, you could see two large bundles, one on the back of each horse. Supper.
Your stomach rumbled at the prospect of a warm meal. You needed no thermometer to know it must have been close to freezing outside, and you were more than ready to trade your post as watchman for a cozy space in the barn. It wouldn’t be much warmer, you knew, but at least you’d be out of the wind.
Snippets of conversation made their way to you from around the side of the barn where Pearson had set up his station, though you made no effort to eavesdrop, opting instead to draw your over-sized coat tighter around your shoulders and bury your nose down in the collar.
A few minutes passed in relative quiet, until you heard the crunching of boots through snow coming from your right. You perked up when you caught sight of Arthur stepping out from the shed. He wandered over to where you sat huddled against the door and plopped down next to you, much to your surprise.
He was quiet for a moment, and you wandered if you were meant to say something. He looked restless.
“What’re you doin’ out here?” he mumbled as he began to dig around in his pockets. He fished out a crinkled pack of cigarettes and lit one on a smoldering log before him. You had noticed this quirk of his, one you think he may have picked up from Dutch. Whenever he needed a boost in confidence, or something that bought him time to organize his thoughts, he lit a cigarette.
“I figured it was about time I pulled my weight again,” you stated, deciding to watch the fire and give Arthur the moment to compose whatever else he was going to say. He merely hummed and took a long drag.
Silence settled between you then, though it wasn’t your typical companionable silence that you shared with the man. There was something more to it, you knew, but you decided not to push it. Not yet.
You waited until Arthur finished off his cigarette, watching as he tossed the butt into the fire. “I never got to thank you for comin’ and findin’ me,” you said quietly, picking absently at a loose string on one of your gloves. You heard the slight rustle of fabric as Arthur turned to look at you.
Another beat of silence.
“So, thank you. I uhh… well, you didn’t have to come for me, but you did, and…”
“Sure, I had to come for you.” You looked up at him, taken a bit aback by his sudden response. His brows were furrowed, and even with the brim of his hat casting them in shadow, you could still make out something akin to concern in his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I have?”
You weren’t sure how to respond.
“I… it’s just… the rest of the gang was a bigger priority. I didn’t think I warranted such… such…?” Your gaze fell to the fire once more as you tried to find your words. Your heart all but leapt when you felt Arthur’s hand touch yours, carefully at first, like he was looking for permission. You opened your palm to him, letting him lace his fingers between your own.
“Y/n.” You met his gaze once more, struck then by the look of sincerity on his face. “Why don’t you let someone worry about you?”
“Arthur…”
“You matter to this gang just as much as anyone, and don’t you think otherwise.” You were surprised at how genuine he sounded. He looked imploringly into your eyes, leaning in like he was waiting for you to accept his words.
“Arthur, really, it’s fine. I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” you trailed off, unsure of how to continue. You were both quiet for a moment.
“People care about you, Y/n. I—,” the quiet words caught in Arthur’s throat. He squeezed your hand, and you briefly wondered if it was for your comfort or his own.
Arthur’s heart hammered in his chest as Hosea’s words echoed through his head; flashes of the conversation they had had right before those three gunshots had echoed through the valley. Despite the frigid cold around him, he could feel an uncomfortable heat rising up his neck. It was now or never.
“—I care.”
Arthur’s voice was low and hushed, and you almost weren’t sure you had heard him right. But then he met your eyes again, and there was something new there, something you couldn’t quite describe. He rubbed at the back of his neck and adjusted his hat, and you were almost afraid he would jump and bolt at the slightest disturbance with how fidgety he had suddenly become.
“Well, I mean I… um…”
“I care about you, too.”
“What?”
You weren’t sure where the burst of confidence had come from, but you certainly weren’t about to squander it. “I mean it, I do. I care about you, Arthur. A lot.”
You put your free hand over the one holding yours and met his troubled gaze.
“Well… then.”
“Well then?”
Arthur let out a slow, steadying breath, looking to the fire, then back to you.
“I’m sorry it took you gettin’ shot for me to finally come to my senses.”
You laughed then, loud and unreserved, and Arthur felt his heart skip a beat in his chest at the sound of it.
“Well, I’m sorry you had to haul my sorry ass out of the snow in the first place,” you snickered, squeezing his hand absentmindedly. He smiled back at you with one of those fond, genuine smiles you loved so much; the little crooked kind that gathered the little wrinkles around his eyes and made the green of his irises alight with joy.
“It was no trouble at all, Miss Y/n,” he breathed as you scooted closer to him.
You hummed as you settled against him, feeling the weight of his arm fall carefully around your shoulders, like he still wasn’t quite sure of himself.
“No trouble at all.”