Chapter Text
Struggling to catch his breath, Lenny surveys the chaos surrounding him. Their stolen wagon is in pieces, the poor horses dead and the crates of weapons littering the ground. At least the Lemoyne Raiders who ambushed them with dynamite on the road are dead – and then it occurs to him that there are five corpses, and Lenny took all five shots. So what did Micah contribute to this gunfight exactly?
Lenny spins around, suddenly aware he hasn’t heard Micah’s voice since they both yelped as the wagon exploded. Where has the bastard gone? He already hates the racist asshole, and if it turns out Micah abandoned him… Lenny doesn’t know what he’ll do. Still, he better look for Micah before plotting potential murder.
Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Lenny runs around the wrecked wagon, searching his immediate surroundings. Just off the road, between a pair of trees, Lenny spies a familiar white hat. And just beyond the fallen hat lies the prone, crumpled form of Micah Bell.
“Micah!” Lenny yells, genuinely wondering if Micah is dead.
Micah lies flat on his back with his limbs splayed out, motionless and limp. With his eyes closed and no visible wounds marring his skin, Micah just looks asleep.
“Micah?”
Lenny crouches beside him. Micah doesn’t respond, but at this distance Lenny notices the subtle rise and fall of his chest. So he’s alive, but unconscious. Lenny gives his shoulder a tentative shake; he doesn’t know much about this sort of thing, but Hosea once said the longer a person is out cold, the higher chance of serious injury, like brain damage. Micah must have been out for a few minutes already, so he better wake up soon.
As Micah continues to lie there, Lenny carefully rolls Micah onto his side – the injury must be on the back of his head, and Lenny needs to check there isn’t a hole in his skull. Thankfully, the injury isn’t that bad, but Lenny still finds Micah’s long hair matted with blood, and a small but sharp stone right under where his head hit the ground. Lenny winces.
At a loss for what to do, Lenny supposes he should try to stop the bleeding. He pulls a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully presses the square of fabric against the back of Micah’s head over the bloody mess of hair, hoping he actually covers the gash. He unfastens Micah’s neckerchief and wraps it around his head to hold the makeshift bandage in place, tying the knot over Micah’s forehead. And then he continues his attempts to wake Micah up.
“C’mon, I can’t carry you, so you need to wake up,” he says to Micah with a firm but gentle tap against his face. He shakes Micah’s shoulder again and even tries blowing air onto his face, but Micah doesn’t flinch.
Now he thinks about it, Lenny has never spent so long with an unconscious person, and it scares him how different it looks than sleeping. Lenny has only seen Micah sleep once (after he and Javier got blind drunk in the middle of camp and Micah crashed out at the table), but even he groaned and twitched in his sleep. So to see him like this – almost indistinguishable from a fresh corpse – sends a shiver up Lenny’s back.
Eventually, after a total time of nearly ten minutes, Micah shows signs of life. His fingers twitch and a moan rumbles in his throat. As Micah’s eyelids flicker, Lenny braces a hand against Micah’s shoulder to stop him rolling onto his back – not wanting the head wound to get worse. Micah groans, clenching a weak fist as his lips part and his eyes begin to open.
“Micah?” Lenny whispers.
A pained gasp escaping him, Micah flinches hard. Glassy eyes flicker towards him, staring at Lenny with… fear? It seems to alien for Micah to be scared, but his behavior shows Lenny’s assumption to be correct – he flinched at the slightest touch, and there is no recognition in his eyes. Another flinch makes his head thump against the ground, and Micah… whimpers? It’s a weird noise to hear from Micah, but it undeniably happened.
“Calm down, Micah,” Lenny says, squeezing his shoulder.
Micah blinks slowly, reminding Lenny of an exhausted kid trying not to fall asleep. “Who… who’re ya?” he mumbles, slurring like a drunkard.
Well, now he knows for sure. Somehow, the bash on the head has made Micah forget Lenny. This isn’t good.
Despite wanting to badger Micah with questions to make sure his memory has failed (or to confirm this isn’t all an act – a though that makes Lenny guilty the moment he considers it, not wanting to be so paranoid), Lenny can tell how confused Micah is, and overwhelming him will only make it worse. So he keeps calm (or as calm as he can when he’s alone in the middle of Lemoyne with an injured Micah fucking Bell) and just says, “I’m Lenny Summers. Do you remember what happened?”
Micah groans, and it’s like Lenny can see slow, stuttering cogs turning behind his unfocused eyes. “Was… on a… on a wagon… ugh…” he trails off, grimacing. “Dunno. M’Head hurts.”
He sounds so confused, his faltering speech and fearful, bleary eyes giving Micah a disturbingly childlike aura. The hit to the head must have rattled his brain harder than Lenny thought.
It would normally infuriate Micah (he would surely scream about being patronized), but Lenny switches to a gentler tone, like when he talks to Jack, as he says, “You had a fall and hit your head. Can you sit up? I needta get you someplace safe.”
For several, long seconds, Micah just stares at him, before eventually mumbling, “Uh… ‘kay.” So he can hear and understand Lenny fine, but instead processes everything extremely slowly.
“Okay, just let me hold your hand and we’ll sit you up,” Lenny says, reaching out a hand.
After another noticeable delay, Micah holds out his hand without a word. Of course, it’s much easier to deal with Micah when he isn’t running his mouth, but it will never stop feeling weird to see Micah so docile.
Lenny gets a firm grip on Micah’s clammy hand, surprised when Micah responds with a tight squeeze, and keeps his other hand braced against Micah’s back.
“I’ll try to go slow. Tell me if you get dizzy, okay?”
“Y-Yeah,” Micah says, staring at Lenny with half-lidded eyes.
He tries to keep the motion fluid, mindful of how every slight jolt will hurt Micah’s head, but Micah still groans as Lenny carefully sits him up. Once upright, Micah gasps through gritted teeth, eyes screwed up, and he wobbles slightly in Lenny’s grip.
As Micah adjusts to sitting up, Lenny whistles for Maggie, hoping his horse can hear him from where he left her before stealing the wagon. He deliberates asking Micah to whistle for Baylock, but he doesn’t have to worry, as when Maggie appears, trotting out of the trees, Baylock is right behind her.
“Okay, let’s get you onto Baylock and outta here,” Lenny says, still amazed he can use such a caring tone without getting punched.
“Bay… what?” Micah mumbles, staring at the two horses.
“Baylock. The black one. He’s your horse.”
Micah blinks, eyes studying the stallion looming over him. “He’s… mine?” he asks.
Lenny holds back a sigh. Out of everything, Micah forgetting his horse hits the hardest. How long is he going to be in this state?
And what if he never gets his memories back?
---
Arthur has barely been back in camp for five minutes, still fussing over his horse after he and Kieran returned from a fishing trip, when he hears something: Lenny shouting.
“We need help here!” Lenny yells, stress and fear noticeable in his voice, seconds before he comes thundering into camp on… Baylock?
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” Arthur yells, dropping his grooming brush and rushing towards Lenny.
As Lenny leads his borrowed mount down the path towards camp, Arthur notices two important things. One: Maggie, Lenny’s own horse, follows right behind him. And two: Lenny holds the reins, but he isn’t the only one sat on the stallion’s back. Baylock stops, turning awkwardly on the spot as Lenny struggles to control him, allowing Arthur to see… someone sat behind Lenny.
And he knows it must be Micah—he’s wearing Micah’s clothes and Arthur remembers the pair left camp together this morning to do a robbery—but the sight before him seems so wrong. Because the man behind Lenny slumps forwards, hands clinging to Lenny’s hips and his forehead resting against Lenny’s shoulder, barely conscious with something wrapped around his head.
“Arthur, I need help!” Lenny cries, snapping Arthur out of his thoughts. “Help me get him down.”
“Sure,” Arthur says, noticing Kieran rush past and grab Maggie’s reins, leading the untended horse to a hitching post.
Lenny carefully pulls Micah’s hands off his hips, twisting in the saddle to grasp Micah’s arm. Without Lenny’s shoulder in the way, Arthur realizes the ‘something’ around Micah’s head is Micah’s neckerchief, being used as a makeshift bandage. Micah’s face is uninjured, but the sight still shocks Arthur; seeing Micah Bell sat there with unfocused, half-closed eyes and a genuinely confused expression on his face is so bizarre Arthur doesn’t know what to think.
Still, he forces himself to help, grabbing Micah’s belt and slowly tugging Micah sideways until he slips off Baylock. Looping an arm around Micah’s chest, Arthur staggers as he takes most of Micah’s weight, disturbed by how limp he is. Once Micah’s feet are on the ground, Arthur relaxes his grip—
And Micah collapses to his knees.
“Arthur, careful!” Lenny says, right before Micah cries out in pain, clutching at the sides of his own head. Lenny hops down from Baylock’s saddle, kneeling at Micah’s side. “Can you go get help?”
Arthur nods, stumbling away, still shocked by both how Micah just crumpled the moment Arthur stopped propping him up, and Lenny’s genuine concern for Micah, a man who goes out of his way to treat Lenny badly. He runs off to locate Susan and Hosea, but finds a group of gang members already rushing over, obviously having heard the commotion right at the edge of camp.
Susan reaches them first, shoving Arthur out of the way with all her usual grace, but he doesn’t argue, knowing he is useless in this situation. Less useless are Susan and Hosea, who give Micah one look before ordering Arthur and Lenny to bring Micah to Dutch’s tent.
“My boy, what happened?” Dutch says, watching Arthur and Lenny haul Micah up between them, his arms across their shoulders as they help his semi-conscious body move across camp. He seems to speak to Micah, but the man in question doesn’t notice, too busy grimacing in pain with his eyes screwed up, clearly fighting the urge to faint. So Dutch repeats his question to Lenny, who actually meets his eyes.
“Lemoyne Raiders ambushed us…” Lenny says between heavy breaths. “Dynamite in the road… Blew up the wagon and sent us flying… I was fine but Micah… he hit his head… He was out cold for nearly ten minutes, Boss and…” Lenny sighs shakily, the stress from the ordeal briefly visible in his eyes. “He doesn’t remember me. Or Baylock. He’s so confused and dazed and…”
“Calm down, son,” Dutch says, patting Lenny’s arm. He steps out of the way to let Arthur and Lenny stagger into his tent, watching them ease Micah onto the bed. “You did everything you could. I’m proud of you.”
After rolling Micah onto his side, both he and Arthur realizing Micah has passed out, Lenny glances at Dutch with a bashful smile. “Thanks, Dutch.”
“Dutch is right, but could you two please get out,” Hosea says, gently shooing Arthur and Lenny out of the tent. “We need to check him over.”
And once they are out of the way, Susan shuts the tent flaps, leaving them stood outside, wondering what will happen now.