Work Text:
He had only the barest acquaintance with the Tarletons; Will Benteen was from southern Georgia, while the tall, long-legged twins and their brothers were from somewhere near Jonesboro.
But amidst the smoke and chaos and confusion of the second day of battle, Will had become separated from his unit. Come the end of that long day, he had found himself sitting next to Brent, Stuart, Tom and Boyd Tarleton, sharing a mean dinner of ramrod rolls, stringy jerked rabbit meat, and a handful of parched corn. It was not enough food for two men, much less five, and Will felt guilty that he could contribute nothing. But the brothers willingly shared as if it were the finest Christmas feast, and friendships had begun over much smaller kindnesses.
The promise of friendship would never extend beyond the camaraderie of that night, but of course Will did not know that as they compared news of the day’s fighting, traded information about their homes, and discussed family, friends, and sweethearts waiting for them at war’s end. Will was not naturally garrulous, but the Tarletons had an effortless, relaxed way about them that put him at his ease.
At length, the talk faded; Will stretched out on the ground, his pack beneath his head, and closed his eyes, but despite his exhaustion, he was unable to sleep. He wondered, not for the first time, if his sister in Texas had gotten the letter he sent before he’d joined up, wondered how many men in his own unit had been lost, tried to block out the cries of the fallen coming from the battlefield. He shifted around on the hard earth to find a more comfortable position, and saw that one of the twins –Brent, he thought – was still sitting upright, squinting at a page in his hand, obviously a letter.
“I should’ve gone ahead and married her,” he said quietly, although Will had made no sound to indicate that he was awake; the regret in his voice was palpable, tinged ever-so-faintly with despair. “She’d’ve accepted me, right then. Long engagements are for men who’ve got all the time in the world.”
He seemed very different from the man who, just half an hour ago, had been cheerfully teasing his twin about having the dogs set on him by their mother. He seemed to need a response, so Will said, “She’ll wait for you.”
He sighed. “She shouldn’t have to,” he said, putting the letter in his pocket and taking out something else. “She’s waited long enough as it is. No-one would have said a word if we’d gotten married instead of just engaged.” And then he lay down between his brothers and fell silent.
~*~
Will saw them fall; one twin was hit full in the chest, and the other had just enough time to cry out and catch the flag his brother carried before he, too, was cut down. Later, when the battle was lost and they were searching the field for survivors, Will found them both, the one sprawled across the other. Carefully Will searched them, taking a pocket watch and other small tokens from each, along three letters from home in one boy’s pocket, and took them to be returned to the heartbroken senders. He did not see the other two brothers again and wondered if they had survived this brutal battle.
It was basest curiosity that drove him to open one of the letters; if he had not been so weary and heartsick at the loss of so many good Southern men, he would never have done such a low thing. But he was, and he did.
The rich, heavy paper was worn and stained from handling; folded inside was a fair lock of hair, soft and gently curled in on itself. Will knew that, for decency’s sake, he should give all their belongings to their commander or a friend from the County who had survived – but he didn’t, and he would never be able to explain why to himself. Perhaps it was that he had no-one to send him such letters, perhaps it was that Brent’s despondency moved him, or perhaps it was neither. No matter what the reason, Will tucked the letters carefully into his own pocket, resolving to return them to Carreen O’Hara himself if he could, and gave the other belongings to an aristocratic officer named Ashley Wilkes.
~*~
Eventually Will found his way back to his own unit, where he was greeted with relief by comrades who had thought him lost on the field of Gettysburg. And Will fought on, a dead man’s love letters in his pocket like a talisman, even though he knew he was being foolish. Those letters had not kept Brent Tarleton safe; why should they do so for him?
He never read the content of the letters past the greeting of My dearest Brent, How it pleases me to call you so!, he did not want to sink lower and invade the privacy of Brent’s still-living betrothed. But on occasion, he did take a letter out and study the delicate, elegant handwriting on the front of the neatly folded page, and somehow that soothed him, assured him that somewhere, there were still people living, working, waiting for this all to be ended.
~*~
Of course the letters were confiscated when he was taken prisoner, but he still felt that the honourable thing to do would be to one day find Miss O’Hara, and share Brent’s last night with her. He sat many nights in that dank Yankee prison, imagining how he would do so without causing her too much pain, wondering if he would even be able to find Carreen – Miss O’Hara. He knew that the Yankees would have burned out many good families. He knew, too, that he may have set himself an impossible goal, but the imagining distracted him from his incarceration, gave him something to look forward to, no matter how unlikely it was that he would be able to fulfill the task .
~*~
And when the war was over, when he was released from prison alongside all the other scarecrows of Southern men once so fine and strong and sure of victory, he set a slow, painful course towards Jonesboro. His leg ached, although it was no longer there, and even riding a stolen, broken-down mule did little to abate his discomfort. The badly-fitted wooden replacement itched abominably, as did his skin from filth and lice and impetigo, but he was no worse off than many men, and Will Benteen was not the type of man to complain about a leg gone missing when he was still alive and drawing breath.
Like so many others, he was caught by pneumonia as he traveled and rendered insensible by fever. Unlike many, he was not abandoned on the doorstep for some impoverished family to nurse back to health or be let to die, as Will had been traveling with a war comrade named George Anderson. George did not understand Will’s determination to find Carreen O’Hara, but nonetheless, he carefully bundled Will on the back of the mule, and helped him on his way.
~*~
Lost in delirium, Will dreamt of a sweet, concerned face, a cool hand on his brow, and quiet prayers for his safe recovery. When he awoke, and saw a strangely familiar face staring down at him, he said the first thing that came to mind: “Then you warn’t a dream, after all. I hope I ain’t troubled you too much, Ma’am.”
That was how he met Carreen O’Hara; when he was strong enough, and deemed it would not be too forward, he told her of Brent’s last night, assuring her of his bravery. Of course she cried and then went away, and he feared she wouldn’t speak to him again. To his surprise, she did; often she came to sit with him and read him passages from the Bible in her light, lilting voice, or she would tell him stories of life in the County before the War.
Often Carreen would say nothing at all, as if they were old, comfortable friends, as if she enjoyed his company. Her presence was calming, and long before he was able to leave his sickbed, Will knew he was in love with her.
~*~
He decided to stay at Tara. He felt obligated to pay back the kindness of the O’Haras, total strangers who had taken him in and nursed him back to health as if he was one of their own, although they were quality folk and he just a few steps above poor white. No man worth his salt would simply tip his hat, say, “Thankee kindly”, and leave these women to struggle on their own.
Truth be told, not only was he in their debt for saving his life, it was clear to him that for all her hard-headed, bloody-minded Irish determination, Carreen’s sister Scarlett would never be able to wrestle Tara under control on her own. She needed the support of someone as hard-headed and willing to work as she, yet someone less tyrannical, for Scarlett was too much of a despot to do anything but terrorize everyone else into doing work they had no aptitude for. Will saw that he was needed.
He stayed at Tara out of honour, for the hope of Carreen, and because he had nothing waiting for him anywhere else. His small farm would be overrun by weeds and brush gone wild; he had no slaves to help him any more, he couldn’t work it on his own, and Will was too prosaic a man to be overly-sentimental about a simple plot of land.
So he stayed, and worked, and kept his hope close. Sometimes, Carreen treated him with an almost absent-minded kindness, as if he were a brother or distant cousin. Other times, she confided in him, speaking of her pain at losing her mother, her beau, so many friends, her bewilderment at this new, harsh life, when she had been raised to believe that she would always be pampered and never want for anything.
It hurt him to see her so lost and confused, roused his fiercest protective instincts, and more than once, when Carreen talked to him so plainly and trustingly, Will came very close to asking for her hand. But then she would fade into herself again, lost in memories almost like old Mr. O’Hara, like so many other people who were not able to accept the reality of their new place in the world and the losses that had been piled upon them.
Gradually, painfully, Will came to the realization that Carreen’s heart would never belong to anyone but Brent Tarleton. He could not – would not - deny his love for her, so he did the only thing he knew to do, and turned his considerable resolve toward Tara.
~*~
It was hard, but not as hard as he’d feared it would be, accepting that Carreen would never consider him more than a friend, or a link to Brent. Where he had let his mind drift to Carreen’s gentle eyes while working, now he focused on how the soil at Tara was much richer than the earth on his farm. Rather than wondering how lovely Carreen must have looked dressed in fine silk, her shining hair curled to perfection, Will imagined how the fields would look once the cotton began growing in the spring, how proud he would be to have helped coax crops from the fertile earth. While on the edge of sleep each night, he no longer allowed his ears to strain for Carreen’s murmured prayers through the walls, instead occupying his drowsy mind with a list of tasks that faced him on the morrow.
Will still felt the tightness of longing his chest each time Carreen smiled at him, when she thanked him for distracting Scarlett from one of her rampages, when she shared the fears of her heart. He still loved her with a quiet, unshakable steadiness, and knew he always would. Though he accepted she would never be his, he could not stop wanting to protect Carreen, even if she did not know she was being protected.
So Will poured himself into Tara as if born and bred to it, and found some measure of solace, even found himself growing to love it as he never had his farm in the south.
He knew that Tara would never again be the grand plantation it had once been, but he could make it a place of comfort for Carreen. He could give her a haven, ease her fears, make her feel safe and cared for. It was far less than Will wanted to do for her, but it was all she would allow, and Tara would have to be enough to soothe his aching heart.