Work Text:
Before the doctor visit, Arthur hadn’t believed he would ever die. He knew he would, but that’s different from believing it. The world and his own life felt expansive and endless, and anything that troubled him about what he did – what they all did – could be dealt with later. There was always something more pressing. They were trying to survive, damnit – sure, they killed people, and not all their robbing was of the rich, and plenty of innocents were caught in the crossfire, but it was in the service of survival. You do what you have to do.
After he collapsed in the street, and was pulled by strangers through a fog of pain and confusion to the doctor’s office, and was told that he was dying, the wide, sprawling vista of his future suddenly narrowed and came into focus. He had no time. His past and his deeds were close on his back and he had nowhere to run. The nagging feeling of discomfort with his way of living morphed into a conviction that it had to end; or, it would end, undeniably, and Arthur needed to end feeling that he had brought a little light and justice and peace into the world, like he’d always told himself he was doing.
He didn’t know how to do it.
He returned to the young Grey and Braithwaite couple – they asked him for help, and he agreed, immediately, his heart burning with the need to do good. Escorting them onto a train turned into killing the girl’s cousins from said train, and he had the familiar feeling of being pulled under by the tide, not knowing which way was up until someone told him so.
Arthur was crouched behind a crate on one of the open train cars, and bullets were flying past his ears like hornets. His hands were sweaty where he gripped his repeater. He was wearing his coat, even in the thick Lemoyne heat, but he was shivering. His chest burned and it was an effort not to cough. His legs felt weak and untrustworthy beneath him. He was shooting almost blindly when he ducked out from behind the crate. He was frightened, terribly so, of so many things, but the fear was pushed to a distant corner of his mind, along with the pain in his chest. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling beyond that. It might have been nothing at all.
He leaned out, gun cocked, and aimed at the first thing that moved – and it was Honeybee. His palomino mare was galloping alongside the train, flaxen tail flying; she was so afraid, caught between the train and the gunmen, and she was running as fast as she could. She tossed her head and screamed and Arthur was frozen watching her. A bullet whistled past his head and he ducked behind the crate, gun still cocked. He was breathing hard and it raked at his lungs like sandpaper. His hands shook. To his great surprise, tears sprung from his eyes – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.
The sun beat down on his pallid face and the light was so beautiful in the trees and the wildflowers. He tried to feel its warmth; he felt it, working its way through his fever, gentle and persistent. He breathed deep, let it settle in his bones, as best it could – and leaned out again, to try and finish what he had begun, as best he could.