Joy & Woe - An Alternate RDR2 Story | Arthur Morgan x OC |

20. let bygones linger on

"No... it's not." Joyce frowned, looking down at the ground. She didn't want to push the nice girls away, but at the same time, talking about it was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment. She didn't even know what to think.

"Girls!" Grimshaw's shrill shriek rang across the camp. "I need you over here — now!"

Joyce flinched. That meant she'd be working till sundown at this rate to pack up the camp, getting ready to go back on the run — and she still hardly knew them all.

Tilly and Mary-Beth glanced at each other, rolling their eyes with a shrug. Then Tilly looked back to Joyce. "...We'll cover whatever she would've told you to do," she said quietly. "Don't think she'll miss your hands."

"Really? Huh... thanks, girls," Joyce replied genuinely, looking between them with softened eyes. "That's real kind of you..."

"Take your time... I'm sure there's lots of things you wanna think about." Mary-Beth gently placed a hand on Joyce's shoulder. "Maybe you'll join us at the last campfire tonight?"

Joyce looked behind Mary-Beth, watching the people get to work. From their words, it sounded like the girls were assuming that she and Ezra would make a break for it overnight. Either that, or stay at their childhood home. They weren't too far off from her initial thoughts.

She made a half-smile and looked back at the girls. "...Yeah, maybe."

With that they left her standing there, her hands balling into fists. She waited for a moment before slinking back into the house, eyes down and avoiding any curious looks from the others. Joyce found herself aimlessly wandering the halls, wondering if she could really let it go — for good this time.

To her surprise, cracking open a bedroom door revealed Ezra. He was sitting on Mama's old bed, twirling something in his hands. Last time he'd spoken about the house, he was grateful he didn't have to go in it — yet now here he was, sitting by himself. She silently walked over and sat down next to him. "...Whatcha got there?"

"That ol' fountain pen Mama used to teach us to write," Ezra replied, his voice quieter than usual. He let out a light chuckle, holding it up so light bounced off it from the cracked window. "Found it between some broken floorboards in here. Used to hate this thing. Writin' was no fun to me... plus, we had to share it."

Joyce smirked, laughing once through her nose. She recalled that quite well — they couldn't afford to buy a new pen, and their old mutt managed to chew up just about every pencil they had. So the siblings had to pass along the pen to each other for each writing assignment their mother made for them.

As Ezra said, he never liked it. Joyce didn't mind it herself, but certainly minded the monotony of each assignment; it wasn't too fun for her. But Phoebe had latched on like a leech, wanting to learn everything she could. That girl loved to write so much that she had to be reminded to let up and give her siblings the pen so they could actually complete their work. Mama always touted her as the example, to which the elder two siblings rolled their eyes in response.

"That's a great find," Joyce finally said as the vivid memories were pushed back once more. "Maybe I can keep usin' it for Phoebe's journal."

"You still write in that thing?" Ezra looked at her curiously.

"Sometimes." She shrugged. "Only when I got a lot on my mind. Which has been a lot recently."