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There weren't nothing fancy about them, not in the way that proper folk did things up like they was something important when, in the eyes of land and law, they really weren’t. All of them, people that is, were specks in the wind and Abigail ain’t never had problems with being that. With knowing that she’d no more impact than a leaf that drifted in from the autumn trees, because that meant she’d the freedom to drift, but the comfort of roots and that suited her just fine.
Mind that days came when that the idiot savant called her husband had her questioning how deep those roots really went and whether the winds were picking up to carry them all away. But, for all his flaws, John’d always meant well, no matter how badly he bungled in his expressing of it.
So, no, she ain’t had fancy thoughts above her place in this world, and Abigail knew she’d suffer for the trying if she did. She set her sights on things they could attain, like living straight and owning land - and even that near as cost them everything. She watched and wilted whenever John got it in his fool head that his family deserved better than the bliss they’d finally secured after years of running, gunning, and too much fighting. While he learned from his mistakes to be all the more content with plain over perfumed, because ain’t no one needed to get into fisticuffs with the only cabinetry carpenter in fifty miles over how gilded the cupboard door handles needed to be.
Abigail sighed.
Meant well, her John always did, and she loved him for that. Lord knew she loved him for that and too much more, enough that it’d set her heart to hurting those long years on the run, settling and scattering each time he tripped into old habits. Ached her something fierce to see him struggle and squander opportunities, but warmed her heart to watch him always getting back to his feet. Always ready to try again and though she’d left him once, it’d not happen again.
Once each.
That’s what they got; him a year, her a scattering of months that added up near the same. And now, ring set warm and snug around her finger, it'd never happen again.
Mind that something pestered her thinking after the dust settled, after Charles and Sadie set out in their separate directions and the spectres what’d haunted them faded into memory. Something that nibbled at her thoughts as she stood cutting roots for the stew, the sting of smoke wafting from the charcoaled remains of a rabbit that’d started as roast and would end as stew. The latest casualty of the eternal struggle between her and the creation of something palatable for dinner.
“Why’s it you went with a boat?”
Abigail turned around, leaned against the counter and gestured at him with her knife as she asked the question that’d been chasing her thoughts for weeks now.
Across the room, where he stood admiring that danged taxidermy piece of art (by his insistence) that spoiled the good humours of the parlour, John started, whipped his head around to look at her. “What about a boat?” he asked, confusion and wariness rife in the expression. Unexpected questions from her often meant he’d done something what angered her and so, rightly, he had learned to be cautious when they cropped up.
“When you proposed, John,” she shot back. “Why’d you insist on that boat?”
John turned slowly, arms shifted from idle rest, old habits raising one hand towards where he’d’ve kept his Cattleman holstered if she ain’t banned it from being worn about the house like they were the bunch of outlaws that they’d once been. “Ain’t it enough that it were romantic?” he hazarded, testing the waters.
The question came measured out, slower than cold molasses, and that had her arch a brow, set the knife down, and start wiping her hands on the apron draped over her skirts. “You never been the romantic type,” she reminded him. Tried, in a way, but John weren't so creative about things like that; too pragmatic to do more than select some flowers what might look pretty, but his eye on natural beauty were somewhat skewed. She knew that well from the time he’d tried bringing her flowers to mend some dispute, only there’d been stinging nettles in that bouquet that gave her a rash what itched and irritated her more than he ever could. “Anyhow, weren’t the whole… photography bit romantic enough for you? Why the boat?”
“Why’s it matter, Abigail?” He sounded exasperated, and that told her more underlay the idea than a romantic notion. It served to make her the more determined to in discovering it. “You ain’t seemed bothered then, so why’s it a problem now?”
“I never said it was a problem, John,” she corrected, walking over to him. Here eyes lit briefly (and bitterly) upon the strange abomination he was so fond of, but she moved her gaze to meet his, searching there for the answer he’d kept from his words. “I asked why the boat because you’ve never waded deeper than your knees into no water before, and out there it must’ve been twice or three times your height to the bottom.”
The way she explained it paled his complexion and he leaned back against the mantle as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do y’have to remind me?” he groaned.
“That’s why I’m asking you this,” she told him, pulling down the arm he’d lifted, the hand half-covering his face. Abigail softened her tone, circled her thumb on the smoother underside of his forearm, not so scarred as his hands and legs from years of beatings and bullets. “You swim worse than a one-tonne boulder, so why’s it you thought the idea brilliant to take me out onto Flat Iron in a boat without no way back if it sank?”
John winced and his eyes closed; seemed he wanted to forget that part of their date, or the part of it that had him getting into a boat and leaving the shoreline of his own volition. “Because, Abigail,” he said in a strained tone, “I was tryin’ to prove something.”
That had her laugh, quick - but quickly subdued by the brief upset that clouded his face. “If you were trying to prove you loved me, there’re safer ways,” she said in place of the biting commentary, the sarcasm that roused up. Abigail stepped up against him, rested the palms of her hands on his chest, where she could feel the beating of his heart beneath his shirt. “Not that I’d’ve needed it, you silly man,” she added, a teasing afterthought to smooth whatever she’d just done to hurt him.
“I was tryin’ to prove that-“
The way he cut off the words pulled strings against her heart, tightened them in her chest until he opened his eyes again and looked at her, serious and loving in ways he hesitated to show outside the safe privacy of their home. “I figured that weren’t much I could do to prove I meant it,” he started, hands coming up to rest on her shoulders, a gentle, reassuring grip. “That I weren’t talking out my ass the way you- Hell, the way I’ve done before.” He shrugged and the hesitance, the vulnerability he showed in that moment warmed her within. “So, way I saw it, if I got you out onto the lake with me, it’d show that… I ain’t wanting to run away from this? From you, I guess. It’s stupid, but it made sense to me then. If you think that’s funny, I don-”
Abigail stopped him from explaining further when she raised up on her toes and snared his lips for a kiss, lingering there to taste the tobacco on his breath and the salted traces of beef on his tongue from whatever he ate in avoidance of the breakfast she’d set out. The indignation of that slipped from her, chased by the way that warmth had exploded in her chest, that John had taken a step, faced one of his fears to prove that he wanted her, wanted their family, after years of chasing and denials that left them struggling.
When she pulled away, she could feel the misted trace of tears in her eyes, but her smile came easily, a contentment shining through. “When I saw Beecher’s Hope? I knew it then: That you weren’t runnin’ out on us no more,” she told him, fingers tightening in the folds of his shirt, tugging him closer. He understood what she wanted in that, sliding his hands from her shoulders, enfolding her in the embrace of his arms.
"You could've told me that before I got us in the boat," he grumbled, tone lightened by her assurance. "It weren't easy to do."
Abigail smiled against his chest, rested her head where she could slowly shift them to sway to music that weren't playing, a gentle dance that pulled them away from the mantle. "Nothing about us is ever easy, John Marston," she reminded him with a warm chuckle. "But all that's reason and more why I love you."
The arms about her stilled brief before John let her lure him into the easy swaying motion, his voice deep and rumbling with his own short laugh. She felt his lips press against the top of her head, his arms embrace her that much more closely, and closed her eyes, savouring the sound as he spoke once more: "I love you, too."