Traveler trilogy Book 2, updates every Friday!
Five years after killing Levi Cornwall, Arthur Morgan is happy. He has a wife who loves him, an honest job he enjoys, and two beautiful children named Sadie and Hiram. All of it is turned on its head, h...
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"Arthur?" Tori muttered in the darkness, stirring slightly as he slid quietly into bed next to her. It was after two in the morning, and it looked as though she hadn't been successful in waiting up for him. She'd been sleeping, and he hated to have accidentally awoken her.
"Yeah, it's me, sweetheart," he murmured, wrapping his arms around her from behind and planting a kiss on her cheek before laying his head on his pillow.
"How did it go?" she asked tiredly, yawning halfway through the question.
"Fine," Arthur replied. "Everything's still okay."
"Good," she sighed. "I'm glad."
Arthur paused for a moment, unsure if he should tell her more. In the end, he figured she'd want to know. After all, she claimed to have come all the way back here to 1899 to support him, at great personal cost to herself. He might as well say something.
"I froze," he said at last. "There was fellers shootin' at me left and right, and I... I froze."
She turned over to look at him. "Oh, Arthur. Was it your PTSD? Or-."
"No," he replied. "At least it wasn't fear or a flashback or nothin'. It was... John spoke to me, for the first time since I left him on that rock to head to my death. I didn't see him die, Tori, but I saw his grave. I grieved for him. Hell, I ain't a cryin' man, and I even cried for him. I love him like a brother and when he spoke to me, I...I..."
"Froze," Tori finished for him in a gentle voice. "I'm so sorry, hon." She kissed him quietly on the lips. "It's okay. What's done is done, and you're here now."
"Yeah, but I... There was so much I wanted to say to him, and I didn't get the chance because I had to keep pretending I was the other me, not some feller from the future."
"Oh, Arthur," Tori whispered, kissing him again, on the forehead this time. "I'm so sorry. That sounds so hard. I can't imagine."
"Besides that, I killed people tonight, darlin'. Lots of them. For the first time since Levi. And it... It was so much harder to do than it was back then. I used to kill folk one after the other until it became second nature for me, as easy as breathin' or ridin' a horse. But tonight it was hard. Every time I pulled the trigger of my gun, I was thinkin' of all that man's hopes and dreams and thoughts and desires, snuffed out in an instant, like flickin' off a light."
"That's the way it should be," said Tori, cradling his face with her hands as she stroked his cheek with her thumbs. "If you get complacent with killing, you're no different than an animal. But the fact that it bothers you means you're human. And more than that, you're a good man. You killed tonight because you had to, not because you wanted to, just as you did with Levi Cornwall. It's completely different than you were before you and I met."
"I know," he sighed. "But it still bothers me."
"Hopefully it always will," she said simply.
"I'm not sure I could have done it if it weren't for the fact that I knew I'd lose you and the kids if I didn't." He cleared his throat and nestled his head in between her breasts for comfort.
