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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2022
Arthur's hospital stay did not last nearly as long as he thought it would. Less than a week, in fact, once his physical therapist was confident he could get up and walk around on his own using crutches if he needed to.
Infuriatingly, even as his leg healed, it no longer bent like he wanted it to, and it hurt something fierce. He was confined to a wheelchair for a few weeks while his femur healed, which made life extremely difficult for Tori. With both her baby and Arthur to care for, she was always on her toes doing something.
Thankfully for Arthur, he was healing quite quickly. Ranch work was still out of the question, but Francis Sinclair had come to visit them and help Jackson out with the chores Arthur was still too weak to do.
Thankfully, his physical therapist actually recommended he get back in Cheyenne's saddle as soon as he was able. The movement of a horse was healing, she said, and in fact Arthur was shocked to learn that these days, horses were actually commonly used for therapy to aid recovery from all kinds of ailments, as well as to ease chronic conditions in some people and to help those who were mentally disabled or ill.
This did not surprise Arthur. There was no question in his mind that Cheyenne helped with his PTSD, an illness from which he still suffered the effects of. According to Francis, it was unlikely he would ever be free of the PTSD completely, similarly to his chronic cough. But, the medication he took for both illnesses helped immensely, and therapy helped ease the PTSD symptoms almost entirely.
Nevertheless, as soon as he could haul himself into a saddle with his good leg, he was out riding fences again, and taking Cheyenne on trails just for fun. Sometimes, Tori left Sadie with her brother, and she and Snickers came with him, which gave Jackson time to bond with his niece and allowed Francis to spend some time with his goddaughter.
And, it was good for Tori to get away from it all for a while. Caring for Arthur on top of having a newborn had been hard for her, and he made sure to show his appreciation as often as he could, by watching Sadie while she napped or cooked or cleaned the house.
In fact, while cleaning one day, she had taken an adorable picture of them that was now framed in her office. In it, Arthur was lying on his back on the couch with his head propped up against a pillow, sound asleep. Sadie also was sound asleep in the photo, with her little head on Arthur's chest and her father's hand on her back. Both of them had their mouths open as they slept, and Tori had decided it was the sweetest and most wholesome thing she had ever seen, so she had captured a picture of it with her cell phone. Arthur pretended it annoyed him when Jackson and Francis ribbed him about it, but it was all in good fun.
Adjusting to his injury and his role as a father at the same time was difficult on occasion, but Arthur took it in stride. Months went by without incident, and Arthur had never been happier, it seemed. Levi Cornwall was gone, the ranch's financial future was much more stable, and even the weather had been great. Unfortunately, there was still the loose end of Sister Calderon's warning to him in the back of his mind that frightened him a bit. He'd killed Levi, hadn't he? So why had he not faced the repercussions yet?
