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[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

One ka-mai in the bar with coffee and a thoughtful look on his face. Have at.


[Summary: Cuthbert talks about Cort's visit to the bar with Roland, who seems a bit disappointed that Bert didn't get hit, with Lilly, who finds the idea of apprentice gunslingers having to prove their manhood by beating Cort up and taking his stick amusing, I can't imagine why, and with Susan, with whom he is angstily nostalgic about Gilead.]

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[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert is beaming now.

"Well, at first we weren't sure of what happened to him. After--" his grin fades a bit, suddenly, "After Mejis. We hoped he'd gotten away safely, but..."

He trails off. Then, after a moment, the grin returns. "And then guess who showed up in Gilead, come Year's End?"

[sai_delgado]

(we weren't sure)

She understands, oh aye -- they couldn't have known, and they couldn't have returned to Hambry to find out. Not safely.

But as he continues, her startlement is evident-- as is her delight.

"Say true, 'Bert? Sheemie-- in Gilead?"

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

"Aye, say true." Cuthbert laughs at the memory. "He rode in on Capi, pink sombrero and all, telling everyone he met he was looking for Mister Arthur Heath and his friends Richard Stockworth and Will Dearborn."

[sai_delgado]

She can just picture it, can see Sheemie clear in her mind's eye in a city she's never seen--

(I love you, good old Arthur Heath!)

--pleased and happy to be reunited with those he'd claimed as friends and risked himself for.

And she's laughing as well now, oh aye. "I can see him, 'Bert-- what did ye do?"

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

"We found work for him in the Barony stables--for all that he was never the brightest, he was a good worker, ye ken? And he got on well with horses--animals in general. I think they always understood him better than other people did."

The memories are clear in his mind--Sheemie brushing or feeding the horses, chattering happily to them, always doing whatever task he was set to cheerfully and without complaint.

[sai_delgado]

"He were always good with them, say true," she says wistfully. "And he were particularly good with Caprichoso, I remember."

"And he could always be trusted to work well and hard-- and were always sweet..."

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

"Aye." Cuthbert looks wistful again, but now considerably more happily so. "It was easy to underestimate him, but if you looked beneath the surface...he was special, alright."

[sai_delgado]

(Stanley says I a bugwit)

Always cheerful, smiling and happy and hardworking-- and cleverer than most people were willing to credit, say true. Well he had loved her, she knows, and he'd risked so much for them all-- and she had been fond of him in turn.

"Oh, thee says true, 'Bert--" Her eyes are clouded, a little, but she is smiling at the memories.

"--he were special indeed. And he were happy? In Gilead?"

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert's eyes are lowered now, but he's still smiling.

"I think he was. He seemed so, anyway."

For a time, at least. Until happiness ran dry for all of them.

[sai_delgado]

"I'm glad." Soft, and very certain. "I'm so glad."

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert glances over at her and smiles, then raises their joined hands to his lips and presses a light kiss against her fingers.