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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1884
They stood above a grave.
It seemed the entire gang had turned up for Bessie's funeral that day in North Elizabeth. Arthur, unsurprisingly, was so drunk he would barely be able to remember it in the future, and would be extremely sad and disgusted with himself. To his right, beside the hole with Bessie's casket in it, stood John Marston. To his left stood Mac Callander and Davey.
Arthur had grown quite close to Davey these past few months. It was now on into the summer, and the nights were no longer cold and harsh. Arthur no longer slept beneath the thick, patchwork quilt he'd received as a gift from Annabelle for Christmas last year. It still smelled like Mary and was far too warm for the summer. Still, because of Annabelle, he couldn't bring himself to get rid of it.
Bessie had died the day prior. She'd been complaining of pain in her jaw and had assumed she had a toothache. Then came an uncomfortable tightness in her chest, and she dropped dead only a couple of hours later, with little warning. According to Susan, who had the most medical training out of the entire gang even if it was only rudimentary, it was some kind of weakness of the heart. Hosea, understandably, was distraught.
He hadn't shed a tear, only calmly taken Bessie to the undertaker in Bear Glen, the nearest town to the small, abandoned mining settlement they were currently camped in. Arthur hadn't heard him say a word the entire time, and his mouth was a small, thin line, straining against the thin skin of his face. As he listened to Reverend Swanson give his dead wife's eulogy, Arthur swore he saw Hosea's lip trembling as though he were about to cry, but was remaining strong for the rest of the gang.
Dutch stood on Hosea's left, with a hand gently squeezing his best friend's shoulder. Even Dutch could tell Hosea was suffering. Having lost the woman he claimed to love so recently, Arthur supposed Dutch was in a better position than most to understand how Hosea felt.
And yet it wasn't the same somehow. When they'd buried Annabelle, Dutch's face had looked grim like Hosea's, except that his eyes had been completely blank and emotionless. After her death, he spoke often, as loudly and flamboyantly singing her praises as he could. Hosea, on the other hand, had a dead, heartbroken look in his kind eyes. His shoulders slumped in grief, and he hadn't been able to bring himself to even murmur one word, let alone one about Bessie, the love of his life.
When Reverend Swanson finished his eulogy, Dutch stepped forward. "That was very touching," he said in a quiet, deep voice like melted chocolate. "Let's give Hosea a few moments by himself, and then the Callanders will fill in the hole."
Arthur turned on his heel to go, drunkenly stumbling over a rock as he did so. John caught his arm and held him up to keep him from falling flat on his ass, and gave him an angry look that could have curdled dairy. "Get a grip, Arthur," he hissed in Arthur's ear. "That woman might as well have been our grandmother, and here you are drunk out of your goddamn mind!"
