Hey there! Just wanted to let you know, that I binge read your fic in one sitting and it was glorious. I loved it bits and I can't wait to see what you got planned for the next chapter!
Thank you so much! I'm so happy to hear that you're enjoying it so far! I'm working on the next chapter right now and I hope to have it up soon. I hope you continue to enjoy it! 🖤🐝
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Ginny went to sleep troubled and woke with a new sense of purpose and determination. As helpful as Arthur had been up to this point, and as generous as Dutch had been in allowing her to stay, and as kind as most of the gang had been… she needed to learn how to take care of herself. She could not count on these near strangers to protect her, to feed her, to shelter her and to deliver her to her great-grandfather. The only person she could rely on was herself, and yet she had no real-world survival skills with which to take care of herself. She now knew how to wash laundry in a basin with a bar of soap and a washboard. She knew how to heat up coffee over a campfire. She knew what to feed horses and chickens. But surviving?
She determined that her plan from back in Valentine – collecting supplies and heading out on her own – was indeed foolish at best. However, she had ordered that tent and bedroll from Worth’s general store, and it should have come in by this point. If she’d spent the money on it regardless, she may as well start putting together her own stockpile of necessities. Just in case.
She stretched once she’d stepped over the sleeping bodies she’d crawled out from between, leaving Tilly and Marybeth snoring softly in the gray light of the early morning. New plan, she decided. First, get a ride into town to pick up my things. Second, find someone to teach me the basics of hunting and trapping. I don’t need to catch anything big, but if worse comes to worst, I’ll know how to catch and eat, I dunno, a squirrel or something. She paused mid-stretch, nose scrunching. Ew.
Making her way over to the few coals still left burning in the campfire, Ginny considered her options for a ride into Valentine. She could always ask Arthur, but she was beginning to feel like she was taking up too much of his time, and she didn’t want to overuse his kindness. Maybe she’d ask around after people started waking up and getting their first sips of coffee in.
Charles came up to the firepit and greeted her as she began stoking the coals and adding small pieces of wood to them.
She smiled up at him briefly and returned the greeting before turning her face back to the task at hand. They sat in companionable silence as he prepared some coffee and she fed the slowly growing fire. Eventually, though, he broke the silence with a tin cup and a softly spoken, “You look as though you have a lot on your mind.”
She took the cup with a ‘thank you’ and smiled wanly. “You could say that.”
Caption: "Heard a rumor about some secret room at the doctor's office in Valentine. I'm considering looking into it, see if maybe there's some money to be had there.
Ginny has been going off into the woods with Charles these last few days. I don't It isn't any of my business, I just noticed it."
"Distantly, Ginny wondered if she should have brought a notebook to this particular class, and then imagined Charles as a college professor. Would he wear a suit, or would he dress more casually? The mental image of Charles in suit pants and a button-up dress shirt, sleeves partly rolled up and the top few buttons undone, made her stomach do a little flip and she fought to keep the inappropriate blush off her face. But if he’s teaching a survivalist class, he’d probably be dressed a bit more like, I dunno, Steve Irwin…She covered up the snort at that mental image with a forced cough, and Charles eyed her with slight concern as she fought to get her head back in the right place."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Ginny was settling into a comfortable routine by the end of her first week with the Van der Linde gang. She woke up as the sun began to rise over the mountains and hills, which incidentally was about the time the various animals around the campsite would begin making a ruckus. The lone rooster that strutted about the site was generous enough to wait until there was a small amount of sunlight before he began crowing, and inevitably someone would throw a boot or an empty beer bottle in his direction to get him to hush up (usually that someone was Uncle, who she came to understand was a bit of a layabout).
Once awake and with a blanket wrapped about her shoulders to ward off the morning chill, she’d make her way over to a campfire, stoking the coals and adding some wood to warm up. By this point, there were usually a handful of other folks who were up and milling about. Arthur seemed to wake up earlier than just about anyone else, and she’d sometimes catch glimpses of him as he lugged haybales across the site to the horses, or slinging chicken feed over his shoulder to dump behind one of the wagons, or chopping wood for the fires.
She’d never admit it to anyone, but she did sneak the occasional glance as he worked away at the latter chore. If she were particularly lucky, he’d have removed his shirt rather than just rolling up his sleeves. Often, Karen or Marybeth would be found nearby, enjoying the view as well. A sideways glance shared between the girls never failed to produce a grin at being caught, and they’d each go back to whatever they’d been doing before Arthur could catch them, too.
She had a feeling he might know about their spying regardless, though he never showed that he’d caught on.
The journal entry for Chapter 5 is pulled mostly from Arthur's journal, with a little bit of extra thrown in for my story to pull things together.
Caption: " As it turns out, I found Francis Sinclair, or at least a man named Francis Sinclair. Wants me to find some odd rock carvings and send him details. Not sure why. I probably won't bother. Francis had bright red hair and a birthmark on his face, and spoke in an odd way. Miss Sinclair speaks in an odd way, too, come to think of it. I wonder if it's a family trait.
Anyway. He's a strange man. I don't know if I fee l right taking her to meet this man. He's too strange, and I have too many questions. Something feels off about her."
Needed a journal page for chapter 3 and I figured this worked as well as anything.
The amazing Aicosu Cosplay/ reddit user sheilaStmaria compiled the ENTIRETY of Arthur's journal into pdf format, and it's free to download and use! This is where I've gotten inspiration for totally new entries, and I've also been able to grab some wording/sketches to incorporate in previous entries. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, please visit their webpage at: https://www.aicosplays.com/arthurmorgan
Caption: Herr Strauss is back lending money and I'm back collecting it.
The work mostly revolts me and shames me. Somehow, robbing people honestly with a gun and fists is less repellent than robbing them fully in accordance with the law.
It'll be the usual sort of desperados -- sick farmer, pregnant maids, lovesick young men, and other dupes desperate enough and stupid enough to take Strauss' terms.
A usurer's life may be a comfortable one, but it is foul work. $¢"
This one was the most daunting for me to come up with. I have this image of how I want Ginny to look in my head, and I'm too much of an unskilled perfectionist when it comes to physically drawing things, so I figured out how to get a photo to look a bit more sketched out and this was the best of the bunch. I'm really happy with the fingerprint smudges! It makes it look like he took his time drawing and shading and smudging (particularly the bag).
Now that this is out of the way and my brain feels a little bit more freed up, I hope to be updating with chapter 5 really soon!
Caption (page 1): "Hosea and I picked up a woman on our way back to the new camp at Horseshoe Overlook today. She was walking -- alone and completely lost -- and Hosea decided to stop and see if we could be of assistance. Always happy to play the hero to some damsel in distress, the old fool.
I thought something seemed off about her, especially after she said that someone had stolen her cart, and then told us that she had never been in a wagon before. I am wondering if she hit her head or some such.
She said her name was Ginny Sinclair, and that she was visiting with her aunt in Valentine."
Caption (page 2): "Anyway, we dropped her off outside Valentine after she spent the better part of the ride talking our ears off. Hosea didn't seem to mind too much. She certainly was odd, but I do hope she was able to find her aunt. Women like her shouldn't be out here alone, and she's lucky Hosea and I weren't the worst criminals on the road today."
For some reason I wanted a page about Arthur getting into that fight with Tommy at the Valentine saloon. It was kind of a pivotal moment for Ginny, because it was her second time meeting him and she saw how violent he is versus how non-violent he can be. Couldn't resist a little bit of Arthur's trademark self-loathing.
Caption: "Went into Valentine to meet up with Javier and Charles. Then Bill comes in and starts a brawl that ends with me beating the tar out of some big fella named Tommy. My face still hurts quite a bit, and I think the bastard may have nearly broken one or two of my ribs.
Ran into that lost girl, Miss Sinclair, when I was cleaning up. She somehow came to the conclusion that I am a good man.
Working on building some journal pages for my story. I found a cute stock image of a horse and worked it into this one.
Caption: "Got a new horse when Hosea and I went bear hunting. She's a good tempered young morgan, seems wise and does not seem to spook too easily. I named her Athena. She's no Boadicea, but she will do."
Arthur brings Ginny to Horseshoe Overlook, and she tries her best to leave a good first impression.
Chapter 4
Morning took its sweet time coming, though Ginny supposed her inability to sleep had much to do with it. Her mind was running a mile a minute, speeding through scenarios and potential questions she'd be expected to provide answers for, imagining what would happen if Dutch didn't care for whatever first impression she made. How many members were there? What kind of people would she be living with? And for how long?
She desperately wanted to believe that Arthur was right, that they were mostly good people. She hoped she could fit in, but knew from her experience in this small town so far that she was likely going to be fighting an uphill battle on that front. She tried to talk like the people around her, careful to avoid phrases and words that might be ahead of this time. Despite the clothing she wore, she knew she didn't look like she belonged. Would this problem improve or worsen in a camp setting? Would there be a hierarchy that she'd need to follow? Would she get special treatment, and consequently would she gain enemies from being brought in by Dutch's supposed right-hand man?
How long would she have to pretend to be someone that she wasn't?
She'd packed as soon as she had returned to her room, and then thought perhaps the backpack would look too odd. Would anyone question it? Could she just pass it off as being a common item from back home? It was all that she had, however, and so she left her few items and clothes packed into it – modern clothes and broken iPhone carefully tucked beneath everything else at the very bottom of the bag – and thanked whatever chaotic forces got her into this mess that it was a simple and worn LL Bean canvas bag and not a bright patterned bag with fancy pockets and velcro.
She kept the journal and map out for most of the night, studying both of them by candlelight until she was sure she'd memorized every punctuation mark and crossroad. When she grew bored of that, she stood and paced back and forth across the room, practicing what she might say when Arthur introduced her to Dutch. Then, she figured it would do no good overthinking conversations that haven't even happened yet, so she packed her journal and map into the bag and set everything on the floor next to the bed so she could attempt to get some sleep.
She ended up laying awake for over an hour, unable to keep her eyes closed for more than thirty seconds at a time, despite knowing the exhaustion she would feel the following day. She could not get her mind to stop racing, and so she shot up out of bed, lit the candle at her bedside again, and brought it over to the small mirror by her dresser. She brushed her hair methodically, focusing all of her attention on styling it just so, in the hopes that at least this aspect of her would look the part. It was difficult to gather all of her long hair up, but with the help of a dark hair elastic that she'd had on her since before she woke up in this century, she made it work. It blended just fine into her hair, and she figured no one would ever notice it anyway. She'd gotten a little better at achieving the simple pinned up-do that many young women of the time favored, especially after watching Anne style her own hair a few times.
At this point, she had exhausted any ideas to pass the time, so she spent a long while just staring out the window to watch the sky gradually lighten from a deep black to a dark blue, the stars gradually starting to wink out.
He'd said bright and early, she thought to herself, seeing the sky shifting to lighter and lighter hues as the sun prepared to rise over the horizon. How early is 'bright and early?' And how bright does it have to be?
She started pacing again, hearing the sounds of the town beginning to wake up as roosters crowed and dogs barked. She heard Anne start moving around next door, drawers opening and closing and water being splashed into a basin so she could wash up. Ginny followed suit, deciding washing her face and neck was probably not a bad idea, and at least kept her from staring out the window again. Anne left her room and began walking down the hallway, on her way to begin the day's chores. Ginny almost felt badly for leaving the entirety of the inn to her once again, but she also knew that this was nothing new to her, and chose not to give into the guilt of adding to the other woman's workload.
She heard Mr. French speaking distantly, probably to Anne as she passed the front desk. More time passed, and Ginny took to pacing again.
The sky lightened to a soft pink and threw her room into color, almost making it pleasant. As the light sharpened, however, it only served to highlight the sparse furnishings and dull colors of the wallpaper and furniture. She paused at Mr. French's raised voice coming from downstairs. He sounded alarmed, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. In all reality, he could have just seen one of the few rats that had made their home in the walls downstairs. She smiled at the thought, and then she heard slow, heavy footsteps coming up the stairwell and then down the hallway.
“All right, all right, calm down!” a deep voice called, and instantly she recognized it as belonging to Arthur. She hoisted her bag onto her shoulders and moved to blow out her candle, adrenaline and nerves making her tremble a little. A knock sounded on her door, and she rushed to open it, finding him standing awkwardly in the hallway. “'Mornin' to ya,” he said, mouth quirking up in a half-smile. “Hope I'm not here too early.”
She grinned. “You did say 'bright and early.'”
He ducked his head and smirked, his face hidden briefly under the brim of his hat. “That I did. C'mon, let's go.”
She adjusted her backpack and followed him down the hall to the stairs, shaking a little as the reality and weight of her decision to jump into an unknown setting with a man she barely knew finally hit her full-force. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, and Arthur stopped a few steps down, sensing that she'd paused. His blue eyes analyzed her, noting how she held one strap of her bag in a white-knuckle grip and was grasping the wooden handrail as if her life depended on it.
“You alright?” he asked moving up a step to stand at almost eye level with her.
Her eyes scanned his face, shifting back and forth as she struggled to gain control of her nerves. “My mom always told me to be careful about who I choose to trust.”
He nodded. “She sounds like a wise woman.”
She bit at the inside of her lip, and then finally asked, “Can I trust you, Arthur Morgan?”
He didn't answer immediately, but she could tell it wasn't because he was avoiding the question. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully, so she waited.
“I'm not a good man, Miss Sinclair. I've done a lot of bad things, and I'll probably do more before my time is done. But you can trust me to look out for you.”
They stood there for a long moment, reading one another as she digested his words and matched them up against his actions. Her trembling gradually stopped, and she slowly released her death-grip on her bag and the railing. “I'm choosing to trust you,” she said, and her expression and tone were both grave. He nodded wordlessly, and turned to walk down the stairs again.
She smiled nervously as they trotted forward and passed a man with longer dark hair and a scar across his face. He watched them suspiciously, and Arthur said over his shoulder by way of an introduction, “That's Marston. He's an idiot.”
If nothing else, I can be happy that I’ve captured Arthur’s attitude pretty accurately.
Ginny has a close encounter, forcing her to speed up her plans to leave Valentine. Unfortunately, nothing seems to work out as she hopes.
Chapter 3
It was not often that Ginny had an opportunity to go anywhere outside of the inn or the saloon in Valentine, and so when Mr. French asked if she would be willing to deliver a handful of letters to the post office, she eagerly accepted the task.
Valentine was not a beautiful town by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a sense of growth and anticipation that settled like sunshine over the muddied streets and mostly wooden buildings. The scents of sawdust and sweat mingled in the humid air, not a pleasant smell but not the worst thing she'd encountered here by far. Laughter and haggling alike came from every direction as the farmers and working men went about their busy day. She kept to the main street, keeping half an eye on where her feet settled in the mud to avoid piles of animal dung, the rest of her attention on the goings on around her.
A couple of the townsfolk recognized her and offered up a wave or a nod as she passed by, which she returned with a small smile and a nod of her own. She'd been careful not to get herself attached to any of the locals, knowing she'd be moving on soon enough.
She rounded the corner where the newspaper boy was stationed, giving a brief glance to the headlines before continuing on toward the post office. The weather was mild and the sun on her skin felt like a small promise for the future, bolstering the sense of determined hope she'd been nurturing in the days since she'd last seen Arthur. His warning had spooked her, but had also served to light a fire under her feet, pushing her to develop a solid plan. She'd since acquired a small map of the tri-state area, marking where she believed the carving she'd fallen from to be, and circling the small town of Valentine. She'd lightly traced over the most direct roads between the two with a worn down pencil she'd found tucked into one of the drawers of her room, memorizing the distance and the turns she'd need to take if she were to attempt to go back to that stone.
She was concerned enough about being sent further back in time to decide that this would be her back-up plan, the one that she resorted to only when everything else had failed. Every other idea was just that: an idea, a clouded list of things to do with no leads and no solid directions to follow. She needed to find Francis Sinclair. She needed to ask him questions, to figure out what he knew and what he didn't. She needed to figure out if there was another way to get home, if these other carvings he'd hinted at were the most direct way to get there. She needed to find a way to travel, preferably safely. She needed to know what to bring with her, and probably figure out how to hunt for herself. She didn't relish the idea of that.
Frowning slightly, she looked up as she neared the train station that doubled as a post office, observing the few horses hitched outside and the piles of luggage being brought to and from the long, black train that hissed and groaned at the front of the building.
She thought she recognized the pretty brown horse grazing at the hitching post in front of her, but then saw another similarly-colored mare around the corner of the building, and another trotting past with a farmer perched in her saddle. To an untrained eye, they all looked about the same, and so she shrugged and wondered what exactly someone like Arthur does with his days.
The door creaked on its hinges as she made her way into the station, casually observing the few people milling about as they grabbed their belongings to get onto the waiting train. She waited in a short line at the postman's window until it was her turn to hand over the sealed letters and pass over a few coins to pay for postage.
“Miss, may I ask you to wait to the side a moment?” the postman asked, gesturing to the line behind her. “I believe I saw a letter for your employer earlier. After I've helped these gentlemen, I'll see if I can find it for you.”
Ginny nodded, stepping away to stand by one of the many windows facing the train. “Not a problem. Thank you.”
The postman resumed his duties and Ginny leaned against the window frame, wondering if she'd need to take a train to find her great-grandfather or if he was closer than she thought he might be. A trio moved toward the train, and she found her gaze drawn to a young man dressed in an odd, white outfit as he climbed aboard. A woman soon followed, turning back to accept her luggage from a man in a dark cowboy hat and dusty jacket. She spoke with him a moment, her expression earnest and then pained as she turned and entered the car. With a shrill whistle, the train began to lurch forward, and the man stepped back to watch the car the other two people had disappeared into fade away through the smoke left behind.
Arthur turned around, his expression tight and attention drawn inward.
Ginny blinked, shocked and realizing she'd likely just witnessed a very private moment for him. Perhaps this woman was his wife, or a lover? Who was the boy, then? He didn't seem old enough to be a father to a teenager, but... well, it was the 19th century, and people started families very young still.
Regardless, it really wasn't her business, so she stepped away from the window before he could look up and see her staring at him like some sort of creep.
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