#elizarthur

[squidproquoclarice]

Yeehawgust Day 3: Caravan April 1889 Guthrie, Oklahoma Sadie could only look around Guthrie with awe.  She and Jake had been here five days and it had sprung up like a crop of bizarre wildflowers, pale canvas of tents and covered wagons blowing gently in the spring breeze.  As she looked east, she could see more wagons yet coming to join, a caravan that stretched damn near to the horizon with more new arrivals crowding in with the land race the day after tomorrow.The line at the land office, one of the few wooden buildings in town along with a general store and a saloon, held a serpentine line just as long, with men stretched around the block and then some waiting to register for their marker flag.  She couldn’t help but be grateful she and Jake had gotten here early to register and avoided the worst of it.But that done, all there was to do now was wait.  People couldn’t roam too far, else the Army would sternly shepherd them back into approved territory, or at worst, fire a warning shot.  With so many people, the game had been scared off for miles, so hunting was hardly worth the while.  That left idle time to do nothing but get acquainted with one’s neighbors in the tent city.  It felt damn strange, given her entire nearly twenty-one years thus far had been spent working hard every day except Sundays, and even sometimes then when the situation called for it.  Tumbleweed had started fading out too, so what chances there were for Sunday socials with neighbors had faded too.  Being able to sit around and do nothing but jaw and play cards, pick idly at a guitar and try to teach herself to play it?  It felt strange. But they’d done the right thing in leaving.  They had.  There was no future in Tumbleweed, and her mother had as much admitted it, and given Sadie and Jake her blessing to go seek their own fortunes, just as the Griffiths and Adlers had both done after the war going to New Austin from Pennsylvania.  So here she was, now two months a wife, now looking at staking a place of her own, and she could see the land here looked so much richer than that in New Austin.  It would be a good future.  They would make it one. Glancing over at her neighbors, she could see that same look of confusion at idleness.  Though Eliza and Arthur Morgan had a little boy to watch, so that kept them busy enough.  Isaac was a sweet kid, though, for all he was a restless bundle of energy, and he was currently busy playing with the Morgans’ dog, Copper equally exuberant.Watching Isaac playing with Copper, laughing and full of boyish joy, she thought about the news she had for Jake, and how he’d take it.  Another piece of their future, but for now she kept it as her own secret delight.  She’d tell him the day after tomorrow, once they had their land.  Once they could start to envision their home. Eliza glanced over at her.  “I still don’t much know what to do with myself,” she confessed, her voice a soft twang she’d told Sadie came from the Tennessee hills.  “All this waiting.”“Me neither.  But we’re gonna be busier than we know what to do with in a couple of days, I figure.”  All the business of putting up a homestead would begin.  Arthur Morgan had come back last night with a gleeful smile and a wink, telling them that he’d found a perfect site for him and Eliza, and that there was an equally excellent lot next to it if the Adlers wanted to stay neighbors past this camp.  She and Jake had readily agreed.  The four of them had formed a tight-knight friendship even here in this camp, spending time together, often cooking dinner together, and all of it. But Arthur, for all he’d skirted the rules, scoffed at the idea of staking his claim too early. Nah, none of that.  You got to win the race to that land fair and square.  But knowing where it’s at?  That’s just playing it smart.

She had to wonder exactly what kind of past a man who seemed to know nothing about farming but who could sneak past the Army like a shadow to scout out lots had.  It didn’t matter, she supposed.  They’d all come here for a clean start, hadn’t they?  He seemed like a decent sort, and he obviously adored his son, and looked at his wife with damn near worship in his eyes.  He and Jake had made fast friends already.  Nothing wrong with turning the rules to advantage. They’d agreed that she’d be the rider and follow Arthur on horseback for a fast ride to the right spot, and Eliza and Jake would follow with their wagons.  So they’d have a fine plot of land.  They’d have friends and neighbors to rely upon.  Their baby would have Isaac to play with as a friend.  New dreams, shiny as a silver dollar.  As she sat there in the spring sunshine, tipping her head back and smiling at the warmth of it, she had to think that life held all sorts of promise, and she was eager to drink deeply from that well.

[squidproquoclarice]

Yeehawgust Day 31: See You, Space Cowboy

May 1890: Eagle’s Bluff, Wyoming

One of those quiet evenings sitting on the porch with the sunset over the mountains in that way that reminded Eliza of the best parts of Tennessee.  Isaac was fast asleep, after Arthur had read a story to him.  Old enough now to mark Arthur’s comings and goings, and he was always so excited when his father was here, and so crushed when he left.

Arthur came out the door, and she heard the thunk of it falling into place, Arthur used enough to its crooked peculiarities to know where to push and how to close it.  He sat down on the porch--though not beside her on the stoop.  A good five feet away, leaning against one of the posts.  Always so careful to leave her distance, to thank her for meals, to ask her about doing things with Isaac.  Every little thing that made it painfully, awkwardly clear that he felt like a guest.  She had it in mind sometimes he looked like a stray dog, anxiously awaiting the broom.

It’s you that done that, she reminded herself.  The mistake that night had been both of theirs, drunk and foolish as they’d been.  She hadn’t expected to ever see him again when she woke to find him gone, let alone for him to come back next spring to apologize.  Let alone to offer to marry her when he saw her belly.  Like that night they’d met, that day had ended badly.  She’d panicked at him telling her what he was, how he made his living--if that was a living.  She’d been brought west by Richie promising her things, and he’d dumped her in a nowhere town to fend for herself.  To bind herself to a man who like as not would wind up at the end of a rope--no.  

But she hadn’t been too proud to accept his help, his insistence that he see her and the child provided for.  I got you in this mess.  So whatever I can do.

Sometimes she felt like the world’s strangest kept woman.  Tucked away, raising a child, wearing a fake wedding ring and claiming him as her Mr. McCready, conveniently on the road on cattle business.  Though she wasn’t a kept woman in some ways.  She worked, and worked hard, down at the Silver Strike in town. and Mr. Davidson was so kind about letting her keep Isaac there, mostly because Mrs. Davidson loved having a baby, and then a little boy, to look after.  She also didn’t have to provide any kind of intimate services.  The most he’d ever touched her since that night was the occasional polite, casual touch on her arm like a gentleman would do to a lady.

When she thought of a mistress, she thought of some lovely, pale languid lady just living idly waiting around for her man.  Not her, Eliza McCready, with as much African and Indian blood as white in her veins,  with her rough hands, her boy to raise.  She had her life, and it was Isaac and the Silver Strike and this cabin, and Arthur Morgan sometimes rode into it, and then a few days later he rode out again back to his gang and his life that didn’t involve her and Isaac.  The twain met, but they weren’t at all the same.

“I told him I’d be back in a couple weeks, for his birthday.  Might not make the day of, but...still.”

She smiled at that.  “Good.”  He’d be four, and she’d tried to make it known to Arthur that Isaac really, genuinely wanted him there.  He’d left her money to buy their son a present, and she had her eye on some brightly painted wooden animals in Jeck’s store, but for him to be there would mean so much.

“He weren’t much for fishing.  Too impatient.”  He glanced down towards the creek, smiling that gentle, almost shy smile he sometimes got.  “Guess he gets that from me.”

She expected Isaac would be excitedly talking about it until Arthur came back, despite that.  He could talk so easily to his father, but sometimes she felt so tongue-tied around Arthur.  The habit of almost four years now was hard to break.  Two strangers who’d shared a bed one night that he didn’t recall at all, and she’d kept only flickers.  But she should have remembered those when he found her, pregnant and afraid.  The name he’d whispered against her skin was “Mary”, but oh, the tenderness of him--it was like nothing she’d ever felt with Richie.  She wished she remembered more of it, of being somebody truly precious, cherished.

But it hadn’t been hers at all.  Sometimes she wondered if she’d turned him away as much from that as the panic of hearing about his life.  She wasn’t sure she could live with a man knowing that much sweetness was in him, but it was another woman’s to claim.  That he couldn’t ever look at her like he looked at the Mary whose loss sent him drinking in Litchburg’s Saloon that night.

Arthur lit a cigarette and handed it to her, then lit one of his own.  As they had a peaceful smoke, Arthur went on, “He likes stories.  Think he’s gonna start learning to read soon?”

Probably.  He was a smart boy.  But she hadn’t learned to read until she was thirteen, when Mr. Jones had come to the village and become their schoolteacher.  She didn’t know what age a kid learned to read normally, but she didn’t want to admit that.  She must already look poorly enough to him.  So she settled for turning it aside gently, “He ain’t even four yet, Arthur.  Be enough time for that.”

He nodded hastily. “Sure.  Just…”  He hesitated, then added softly, “He’s such a good kid.  Got you to thank for that.”

He gets some from you too, and it ain’t just impatience with fishing.  She wasn’t sure where it had happened, but somewhere she’d stopped waiting for him to prove out as rotten.  True, he still wasn’t around more often than he was, but he was coming here more and more with Isaac getting old enough to interact with him in a more meaningful way.  He was still awkward sometimes, but oh, how he tried.  She could see it.  She could see how he loved that little boy.  

She never could have thought that somehow she could look at him and see a the traces of a kind man, a caring father, right alongside a self-proclaimed outlaw.  What he did when he rode off, she didn’t know.  Still didn’t want to know, truth be told.  But there was something in him, clean and bright, that she wanted to know better, wanted to see shine clearer.  He might be an outlaw, but he didn’t seem remotely beyond saving.

It had been on the tip of her tongue these last six months to ask if he’d stay awhile longer, or even for good.  For Isaac’s sake, yes, but for hers too.  To see if that goodness in him could grow, if it didn’t have to be something he tucked away like a pocket watch every time he left here.  To let Isaac have his father.  And in some silly, desperate corner of her soul, hoping that the kindness and respect and even possibly friendship that had grown in place of the wary awkwardness could grow into something else entirely.  She could never be his Mary, but she could see being his Eliza, could see being married to the man she saw he could be, if only he’d want her, if only he could believe in that life too.

But those felt like dreams too distant, reaching for the stars in the heavens and trying foolishly to fly to them.  She’d have to be enough for him, and how could she be?  She had lost her chance when she’d turned him down before, and she couldn’t bear to ask and have him refuse, and perhaps ride out of Isaac’s life forever.  Chances were Arthur would have to leave anyway once Isaac got older and too many questions came up, but for now, she wouldn’t deny him what father he could have.

She’d watch Arthur ride away in the morning, say See you, cowboy as she always did, and her life would go on, as it always did.  

[squidproquoclarice]

Do you have other OTPs for Arthur and Sadie?

For Sadie, my other ready OTP would be Jadie (Sadie/Jake). It's clear they had a genuine, loving equal partnership and she's deeply devastated by his loss. Very easy call there.For Arthur, Elizarthur (Eliza/Arthur). While they didn't get a great start--Sunrise readers know I HC Isaac's conception as a drunk and lonely one night stand for both of them--the fact that Eliza let him sleep in her house and be a part of Isaac's life for days at a time, and probably increasingly so as he grew out of babyhood and could interact with Arthur more, says something that there was a growth of respect and trust there from the low point in their relationship where after finding she was pregnant, he almost definitely asked her to marry him and she had enough strength of mind to refuse due to the life he led, given they clearly never married and a pregnant woman in that era had every pressure in the world to accept any offer of marriage, no matter how bad. By the time she was killed, I do think they had gotten to know each other much better and were starting to romantically fall for each other, even if they didn't realize it due to it being buried under so much awkwardness and guilt given the bad start they got. Arthur's very poor self-esteem, and my writing Eliza having her own issues in that arena (multiracial WOC in the 1880s, poorly educated, a single mother), didn't help either given they both likely thought there was no way they could be someone the other could love. But if they'd had the chance, I think they'd have realized it eventually, and admitted it. Given John and Abigail also present a slowly developing romance of a couple who come together over an accidental child, I do firmly believe Eliza and Arthur could have been something good together.

[squidproquoclarice]

What kind of father do you think Arthur was to Issac? He supposedly taught him to fish, so he clearly spent some quality time with him. Arthur seems like he's good with kids based on how he interacts with Jack.

Being honest, it sounds like Arthur was more of a babydaddy than a father.  He talks about dropping by every once in a while to see Isaac, and to give Eliza some money for their support, but a few days every couple months isn’t much.  While I do think he tried to do his best in the very limited time he was there, for all intents and purposes, Eliza was raising Isaac as a single mother. He did spend some time with Isaac, and that allusion to teaching another little boy to fish long ago pretty strongly points towards Isaac.  But I think he’s good with kids mostly because of his innate personality and gentleness, not because of ample experience. Getting into HC and meta territory here, but Eliza/Arthur (Elizarthur) to me is just kind of tragic, because it feels like just a missed opportunity on both sides.  Some history here: for Eliza to not marry the father of her child, even an outlaw, was extremely unusual for the time.  Plenty of women unfortunately married awful men out of desperation at pregnancy or even having been judged “loose” in sexual behavior (even the suspicion of it was enough), because the alternative of being left as morally unacceptable, broke, and unable to get most jobs aside from sex work, meant even a terrible marriage was the lesser of two evils. And I doubt Arthur just shrugged it off and never asked Eliza to marry him.  He has a fairly solid sense of right and wrong when it comes to women and family, and given he was sorta-engaged already, I really don’t see him refusing to do right by a woman he got pregnant and leaving her to the condemnation of the world, and Isaac being shamed as a bastard.  (Nor do I see Hosea, Bessie, and/or Susan allowing him to do so.)  He’s not like John on that score. Which leaves the likely conclusion: this was no love story.  It was probably a one-night stand between them--I HC that they both were pretty damn drunk after breakups, Arthur’s with Mary, and Eliza’s with a man who’d abandoned her.  And when he offered to “do right” by her, Eliza apparently refused him.  Probably when she found out who he was, and in a panic.  I’m better off by myself than married to that, having him around my child!  It’s an understandable reaction, to be honest.  Tying herself and Isaac to an outlaw legally could have also been a disaster for her, when Arthur almost inevitably came to a bad end.  He not only wouldn’t be reliable and respectable as a husband, he could actually cost her even more.   My HC is that Arthur helped move her to another town to avoid the scandal, and pretended to be “Mr. McCready”, her largely absentee-husband often away on cattle drives.  But I imagine the first couple of years were fraught, with Arthur coming by to pay for Isaac’s support, and being unable to have much of a relationship with an infant.  At some point, Eliza and Arthur seem to have struck some kind of respect and even friendship, given that Arthur started to stay at her house for days at a time, and spend real quality time with Isaac.  And it seems like he probably started feeling more and more torn, caught between loyalty to the gang, and this increasing pull towards his son and a woman he’s now at least fond of. If Isaac and Eliza hadn’t been killed (I have Isaac being four when this happens), I think matters would have come to a head.  He would start asking too many questions about Arthur’s comings and goings.  Plus Arthur and Eliza’s regard might well have kept deepening.  I think they probably had come to love each other, but neither of them could say anything given they both were too afraid of rejection.  But they were killed, and it never happened. So I think the recognition that he wasn’t much of a father in Isaac’s short life, that he has only a handful of memories and missed so many days and nights and moments with his son, that Eliza carried so much of that parenting burden alone, is also a deep part of Arthur’s regrets.

[squidproquoclarice]

Hey just wanna day your work of Sunrise is by far the best for RDR2 fanfics out there and featuring Arthur and Sadie too. So I was wondering what your prompt list is for ALAWT and if you plan on continuing it, will it be a one-part story like the rest?

Thank you, Nonny!  Current list I have is:* Posting the 2 prompts for 500 followers I wrote* Past Jadie and/or Elizarthur* Bea and/or Danny’s birth* Hosea noticing Arthur and Sadie’s dynamic* Some more from Arthur and Sadie’s overnight at Lake Don Julio* Arthur as deputy and Sadie as bounty hunter UAThey’ll likely all be one-shot ficlets, yes.   If you have a request, feel free to drop it in the Askbox!