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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2021
The grey silence was the first thing Arthur noticed when he awoke the next morning. In the aftermath of a snowstorm, the stillness and absolute lack of noise never ceased to amaze him. Snow acted as a cushion, absorbing sounds the same way as a pillow or piece of cloth, and so when Arthur arose the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee, he was blindsided by just how quiet Tori's house was. So quiet, in fact, that he could hear her tapping on her computer keys down the hall.
It was cold in the house, and so he rose quietly and coaxed a fire from the embers in the fireplace. With this done, he made his way down the hall, following the sounds of Tori's fingers as they clacked over the keys.
She didn't notice him when he peeked in the doorway. Arthur stood for a minute and just watched her. Her long, sleek, brown hair fell gently down her back. She was still in her night clothes, and the blush-colored shirt she wore was simply a silk garment with only two very thin straps holding it up to cover her torso. As a result, Arthur could see how her hair fell against the smooth, creamy skin of her back, could just barely see the curve of her cheek as she stared at the screen in front of her.
Her arms and hands stretched out in front of her as she worked, and he observed her small, graceful fingers and the purpose with which they moved. Her smooth arms were confident and sure, and in the reflected light of the computer, Arthur could see the small, fine hairs that ran up and down them. Truly, he had never seen a more beautiful creature in all his days.
Not wanting to startle her, he raised his hand to knock gently on the open office door.
"I can see you in the reflection of the screen you know," she laughed, startling him a bit. He jumped and put his hand down quickly, embarrassed that she'd caught him staring. "Did you sleep well on the couch?" she asked him, turning her chair on its swivel to look at him. "When I woke up and saw you there, I figured you must have had a hard time falling asleep in that bed."
Arthur nodded. "I did. Yesterday was... a bit much."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, it was. How are you feeling?"
How was he feeling? His soul felt less crushed than it had yesterday, but he still felt a bit hollow inside, especially when he thought of John and of Levi Cornwall. Still, the few precious hours of sleep he'd been able to get had refreshed him some. It was only about four hours, but that was more than he got most nights. And, to his knowledge, he hadn't awakened himself by screaming into the darkness.
"Did I...did I yell in my sleep last night?" he asked her. He didn't think he had, but there was no way to be sure. His nightmares didn't always wake him up.
"Not that I heard," Tori admitted. "But then I never do, it seems. Not when you sleep in this house."
Arthur smiled at her. "I certainly feel calmer here, for some reason. And I still didn't get as much sleep as I'd'a liked, but at least it weren't my hollerin' that kept me from restin'."
