What If's | Arthur Morgan x Reader

Background

I don't know what went down with this. This can be skipped. The next chapters are way better.
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It was a rather usual day. Sun shining through clouds, the sound of busy bodies bustling through the small town you called home. Valentine had quite the personality. The people there were friendly enough to their own, but the men still held themselves in higher regards. God forbid you were an outsider, much less an outlaw or vigilante. Valentine, the town, even though it was a nice place to be besides all the drunkards and liars, was also shady. Side businesses were almost a regular to keep up with the changing times.

You lived in this town. Your family had originally resided in Blackwater several decades ago before moving and making Rhodes their home. When you finally came of age, and without any suitors waiting on you, god forbid, hand and foot, you took the chance to run off with $100 worth in cach and took off on horseback to whichever town you came across first. You hadn't thought it through. With no job, a horse, $100, and no food, it was hard to start out in the beginning, but you made it work by scraping by and penny pinching.

When you first came to Valentine, you rented a room and took a nice long well deserved hot bath. It was only a few days later, after you started considering how you could get some kind of income, that you started asking around for any available jobs. First, it started out with small errands, like getting this persons groceries, or cleaning a house or two. Several weeks later was when you really got a job. The innkeeper at the hotel you had stayed at, offered you a job as a maid to clean and serve for 75 cents an hour. You thought it wasn't a bad price, and accepted.

You liked the job in the beginning, thinking it was almsot a steal, being as you were a woman, and woman at the time weren't anything but trophies for the apple pie life. As time went on, you grew to hate having to work there. It wasn't the job that had made it unbearable, but it was the people. For a while, you let their occasional snide comments on your gender get to you.

As a month turned to two, and two to five, and finally it was November. You finally got back in contact, sending a vague letter to your family, explaining how you were fine, and well off, and asked how everyone was. They told you that the family farm was doing okay, that the performance was lacking. But they were getting by just fine. They told you how your aunt and uncle were having another baby- a boy, they think it is. They sent their regards, and a bit of extra cash in the envelope as well as letters from most of your family that bothered to write to you. You made sure to keep in contact with them.

You made the hotel your permanent home for the moment. It had its charm. Though you got a lot of unnecessarily rude and ignorant customers from time to time, you still got nice people that came in more often than not. Their friendly banter and nice chat was what made it bearable in the end before you quit three years later to work at the stables. They were short on staff, and offered an additional fifty cents to what your pay was before because you were on very good terms with the boss there. You liked this job lots more than being a maid.

When you had enough money, doing odd jobs and with your daily work, you were able to move out of the small room you called home to a house you bought. You packed your things into a wagon you had bought prior, and rode off you your new home on the outside of town. It was a small two bedroom house with an open kitchen and living room with the bathroom tucked away down the hall. The yard was fenced in with wire, and the surrounding trees provided shade to make the outdoor heat bearable. With the space you had, you decided to grow some herbs, fruits and veggies to sell off to the doctor and the store owner for a bit of extra money. You ended up rescuing a dog you named Critter. He was a Border Collie. He tended to eat bugs.

After five years had went by, you were quite well off. You weren't rich, but you certainly weren't poor. You were more on the upper side of middle class. You weren't going to lie, you liked this peaceful little life you've made for yourself. You had proven to yourself that you could be okay by yourself. Things had proven that they were changing, though. People became unpredictable.

The first time you had been held hostage and robbed was the third time you were going into town to sell what you had, and to buy provisions for the month. You came across a woman that was laying on the side of the road looking incapacitated and was begging for help. When you went to help him, she had pulled a gun to your head and demanded you stay where you were, and she and her supposed husband had made off with your work horses. You learned your lesson. That day, you hitched a ride off of one of the riders going in to Valentine, and you bout yourself a gun, as well as a replacement work horse. You made sure you remained with some kind of protection from then on, and hardened yourself.

In 1899, when you were at your best, your life had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. Your family had started to die out. Your mother died from a sickness, your uncle was gunned down, your grandparents died of old age, your brother had gotten real sick and frail before losing all mobility and was put out of his misery. Your youngest nephew was mauled by wolves, leaving your dad to take care of Meredith (your aunt) and Garth, the newest edition of the family at three years of age. All that remained of your family was yourself, your father, aunt, nephew, and your sister. The family farm ended up having to be sold, amd they moved closer to you in Valentine.

Things had really began to change for you when one day, you went to buy another work horse to replace the one that had been stolen. That day, you met him.