Arthur Morgan did not intend to survive when he gave his hat to John Marston and stayed behind to gain his redemption. As he crawled towards his final resting place, he never intended to wake up again.
But he does wake up. Thanks to time travelers F...
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Arthur came to a hazy consciousness once again. The sensation in his body was an odd one, and it made him feel like a fish out of water. He couldn't breathe. He physically was not strong enough to move his diaphragm and force air into his lungs. Yet, he was not suffocating. His chest rose and fell, along with a strange sound that was half click and half whoosh. Every fiber of his being was telling him to breathe, to take in oxygen, and yet he couldn't. It felt like drowning in an endless sea of nothingness.
This must be what hell felt like. It was not burning in a lake of fire, as Reverend Swanson so often liked to mention drunkenly. It was endlessly being smothered, with only Satan himself to keep air in one's lungs.
Speaking of his lungs, Arthur noticed that his were on fire. Obviously they were still being ravaged by the tuberculosis, and it was still exceedingly painful. This must also be a part of hell: suffering eternity with the illnesses of life. Then, like a lighthouse in a tempest-tossed sea, he heard a woman's voice. His eyelids painfully fluttered, trying desperately to open themselves so that they might look at the woman speaking. It was the voice of an angel. His angel. Mary Linton.
"M...m...mar-," he choked, trying desperately to call her name. Unfortunately, it was in vain. His body betrayed him by seizing into a fit of choking, and he could feel something something wet on his lips. In his delirium, he recognized the metallic taste of iron that he associated with blood.
"Shh, Arthur," Mary's voice crooned. He could feel her take his lifeless, skeleton-like hand, covered with papery skin. In contrast to his, her hand felt soft and warm and inviting. It was a gentle touch, one he was intimately familiar with.
Groaning in agony, Arthur managed to flutter one eyelid open for a few seconds. His surroundings were blurry and difficult to make out, but he could see her.
Mary's form was very near to his. He couldn't tell whether she was sitting or standing, but the knowledge of her closeness brought him comfort. He relaxed into her touch as she dabbed the blood from his chin. As she worked, she hummed. It was a melody unfamiliar to him, but he liked it just the same. When she was finished, she took his hand again. Straining with effort, Arthur managed to squeeze it weakly.
"Arthur, please don't try to talk. You're very sick and you need your rest if you want to survive. Would you like me to read to you?" Her velvety fingers stroked his arm delicately as he barely managed to squeeze her hand again.
Her hand left his, and he watched the smudge of her form retreat into the white mist that filled the room, obscuring his surroundings. As she left, however, he could see by the shape of her body and by her dark, unbound hair that it truly was Mary. He knew her body almost as well as he knew his own. As she slid back into his view, he found that suddenly he was able to focus his eyesight slightly. He could see her large, brown eyes as clearly as he could feel the pain in his body like a thousand different white-hot knives penetrating his chest at once. They were eyes he loved with all his heart, eyes he'd die for.
