The Ballads of Rebirth (Arthur Morgan x Reader)

Daffodils

A/N: I'd love to hear some more feedback from you guys! This entire story actually came to me from the song Coventry Carol SAB arrangement and opening night of the musical Big Fish, while I stood in the wings during the opening number haha! Daffodils is are a major part of Big Fish, I had to incorporate some part of Big Fish into it. And surprisingly, daffodils are actually the flower of rebirth!

•••

It had been three months since you had last seen Arthur, and you had come to terms with your husband's death. You ended up in Richfield, a large city just on the other side of the Grizzlies. Quite literally, there was a mountain between you and your old life.

You saw Arthur in the bookstore when you pulled a book from a shelf, he was there for a split second staring right back at you through the shelves with a shy smile and twinkling blue eyes that dazzled like Flat Iron Lake. It took your breath away and pure joy and panic swelled in your heart every time. He was there at the end of the street, packing up Boadicea, just around the corner of the saloon, but when you blinked and came to your senses, he was gone. You knew it was insane, and you knew damn well he wasn't coming back from the grave, but still you relished those moments, only if he was there for less than a second. It was like the winds from the Grizzlies had come down and swept him away, and with those winds, your hope. But those winds brought in the spring air, the ones that began to regrow your garden that had froze over.

Time was a wise healer. Arthur's death was devastating and painful and everyday you felt the aftermath of your past mistakes. You had only recently been married to Arthur, only two months prior to his death so barely anyone knew that you had taken up the last name Morgan. Still, you kept your answers short when people asked you of your life before Richfield "The City of Opportunity". You feared someone would recognize you, so you stayed from the more crowded areas of the city.

Life had been rough since the gang's demise but things were beginning to look up, you rode with John for a month until you decided Richfield was where you wanted to be. John had enough on his plate, trying to keep him and his family alive in a cruel world, and he wanted to put as much distance as he could between him and wherever the hell Dutch and Micah were. Abigail begged you to stay a little longer with them, but you declined the offer. Richfield was a good of a place as any other.

Luckily, you were able to find a job at a general store within a few days of getting dropped off in Richfield and you had enough money to rent a small apartment above the general store within two weeks of your arrival there. Richfield was a new industrial city, lots of steel mills, but the people weren't your average city folk. It was up and coming, so many of the citizens had lived there when it was just a small farming town. The only farms left were the ones on the outskirts of the city, but most of them had been turned commercial.

Richfield was a new start, you only hoped you could leave that old life behind even if you did still hold onto some hope that Arthur was still alive. That small sliver of wishful thinking was waning everyday, the odds of him making it off that mountain were greatly against him and you had come to terms with it then, but after no word from any of your former friends you began to become worried of your friends fates.

•••

Arthur's cough got better with each passing day. It had been three months since Charles pulled a dying Arthur into Wapiti. At the beginning of his treatment, it was horrible, Charles was sure he would wake up one day and Arthur would be dead, but months passed and he hadn't died yet.

His coughing was less frequent and with less ferocity, Charles had brought Arthur into the Valentine doctor a week ago, and there had been less fluid in his lungs which was a wonderful sign. Arthur's body was fighting a hard battle, the recovery was slow and painstaking. The first month was dreadful and he was bedridden, fevers accompanied him frequently creating horrible dreams and delirious moments. He had passed out from coughing the second month once when Charles was out hunting and the healer woman, Mahala had nursed him back to health.