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“Must you go for so long, Kettle?
“It will only be for a few days,” Seth says with a smile as he and Ezra walk towards the edge of town, his horse walking next to him. “But I am needed in the next town over, that is unavoidable.”
“I don’t know why someone else can’t go in your stead.” Ezra says. He’s had an awful, gnawing anxious feeling in his gut for days now, all leading up to Seth’s trip. As if his body is warning him that something is going to happen soon, something bad, if his intuition is right. And he finds that it often is.
“It’s a sheriff’s duty.” Seth says, coming to a stop at the edge of camp. He gently pulls Ezra by the hand still held tightly in his, so they are mostly hidden from prying eyes by the bulk of his mare, pulling him close into a hug. The town has long since known about them, for years now, but Seth still appreciates his privacy. “I will return, with haste, in three days.”
“I know, I know.” Ezra wraps his arm around Seth’s waist, heaving a heavy sigh against the wool covering Seth’s shoulder. “I am just an old man prone to disconcertment.”
“I should leave now, if I am to make it before sundown.”
Ezra is hesitant to let him go, that feeling sitting heavy in his belly, but he pulls back, reaching up to cup Seth’s cheek and leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. “Safe travels, Kettle, I love you.”
“And I you, Ezra May.” Seth mounts his horse, and sets away from town. He turns back, and gives Ezra one final wave goodbye, when suddenly there is a loud explosion, close enough that Ezra could feel the shockwaves through the ground. It rocks the entire camp, and he stumbles in his spot, throwing out his arm in an attempt to catch his tenuous grasp on his balance. When he looks up, there is a plume of black smoke, billowing up from the opposite side of town.
Ezra whips around, sure that Seth will have turned back, expecting to see him galloping past and into the scene of whatever accident has happened.
Instead what he finds is Seth in a heap in the dirt, his horse nowhere to be seen.
“Seth!!” Ezra calls, as he runs as fast as he feet will carry him to Seth’s side, dropping hard to his knees, feeling the gravel bite into his skin. He gently pushes Seth over, onto his back, gasping at the blood he sees, from a large gash at his temple, blood covering the side of his face.
“Seth, can you hear me?” Ezra mutters quickly, leaning over Seth’s prone body, with his hand braced on Seth’s chest. He brings his hand back up to his cheek, patting insistently. “Kettle, you need to open your eyes for me.”
But no matter what Ezra does, Seth will not rouse, not a twitch of fingers or even a flutter of eyelids.
Seth rests in their bed, Ezra having insisted he be brought to their home. A bandage wrapped around his head is the only evidence of an injury had befallen him.
“I stitched up the cut, but where it is, the skin is thin, so it’s likely to scar no matter what.” Cochran explains to Ezra, as it puts the rest of his things back into his black leather bag. “Now, Ezra, it’s been,” he stops to pull out his pocket watch, his mouth turning into a frown. “About two hours since you said Mr. Bullock lost consciousness, I can’t say with any certainty that he will wake.”
“Surely, you mean to say you can’t say when he will wake.”
“I meant what I said,” Cochran repeats, a hint of sadness in his voice. “He has had a lot of head trauma in the time I've known him, Ezra, and I don’t know much about before he came to camp. This could very well have been the last straw.”
Ezra looks over at Seth, his head pillowed against a clean white pillow, and he really just looks like he’s only sleeping.
“He will wake.”
“I just think you need to accept the possibility,” Cochran says. “Seth has a propensity to head injury and there is only so much ahead can take before it’s too much to bear. Even if he does wake up, there may be adverse effects.”
Ezra knows what Cochran says is true. He himself has seen lapses in Seth’s memory, small episodes where he seems to be far away, but it has not been anything they haven’t been able to get through.
“His memory may suffer, or hell, his personality may be different. I can’t say for sure though.”
Ezra refuses to believe another knock on the head is what takes Seth from him.
“He will wake.”
Ezra can’t help but think this is fitting, sitting vigil at Seth’s bedside. For all the times Seth has done the same for him, it wasn’t often that he was able to return the favor.
But Ezra can’t help but think he’d rather the explosion not have happened at all, a stick of dynamite that was lit as a joke, he’d learned. Seth would be on the road, but at least he’d be ok.
“I don’t care what Cochran has to say,” Ezra says softly, leaning forward and brushing his fingers through Seth’s hair. “I know that you are simply too stubborn to let this little accident knock you down.”
At Ezra’s voice, he’s sure he sees Seth’s eyes move beneath his eyelids.
“Seth?” Ezra says, his voice going up at least an octave in surprise as he stands, only to pull a leg up underneath him to sit on the edge of the mattress. Seth’s eyelids flutter erratically, his breathing changing from the calm rhythm it had been keeping. “Come on, that’s it, open your eyes.”
Seth’s eyes open, just a crack, but that little sliver of hazel means the world to Ezra.
“Hey, kettle,” Ezra says, a weight lifting off his shoulders as Seth’s eyes open all the way, even clouded as they are. “I don’t think I can explain how good it is to see your eyes, my dear.”
Seth blinks slowly, his head throbbing in pain. He reaches up towards his head, only for it to be intercepted by Ezra’s.
“I wouldn’t mess around with that just yet, it’s still freshly stitched.”
“What happened?” he asks slowly, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth.
“What do you remember?”
Seth closes his eyes again, trying to think back. “I was… I was going somewhere, but after that I am not sure.”
“Do you know your name?”
“Seth Bullock.”
“And do you know who I am?”
“You’re my husband…” Seth says carefully, as if he has to pull every work individually from his brain. He clenches his eyes tight, trying to pull the most important piece out of his memory, but he can’t seem to find it. When he opens his eyes, they are glistening with frustrated tears. He knows this man, why can’t he grasp his name. “I am afraid... I can not seem to remember your name.”
Ezra’s face falls, and he has to remind himself that this is to be expected, he can only hope it’s temporary.
“I am sorry,” Seth is quick to respond, hot tears spilling down his cheek now, his heart shattering at his husband's sadness.
“Oh, my dear Seth, you have done nothing wrong,” Ezra says, his voice soft and he hopes, comforting. He slips his hand into Seth’s. “My name is Ezra and whether you know that or not changes nothing about how I love you.”
“There was an accident, an explosion, not that involved you however,” Ezra explains. “The explosion spooked your horse and you were tossed from her back, I believe you struck your head upon a rock. Now we are in our home, and you are in our bed.”
“Ezra,” Seth repeats, it’s the only part of the story he has told him that he retains, his hurts too much to try and remember if what he says is true. But that name, the way it rolls off his tongue and fits in his mouth, the way it settles some of the anxiety in his chest, he knows that’s true.
“Yes, dear heart,” Ezra soothes.
“I will remember,” Seth mutters, squeezing Ezra’s hand. “I promise.”
“I know you will, Kettle,” Ezra says, feeling his own eyes well up in return. He lifts Seth’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckle, and holding it against his chest, against his heart. “We will be ok, we’ll get through whatever happens next together. A little knock on the head isn’t going to be what ends this.”