Chapter Text
The first thing John felt was the cold.
He stirred as he slowly gained consciousness. The biting wind whipped at his face and stung his skin wherever it touched. It seeped through his clothes and chilled him to the bone.
His body ached all over, but it weren’t quite the biting, burning pain he’d expected from twenty-odd bullet wounds. It was more of a sting and an ache, like a deep cut. Or a real bad bruise.
Or a dog bite.
The gunshots still rang in his ears. He could still see that smug look on Ross’s face as John’s lead-riddled body had swayed those final few moments before collapsing.
Pushing that image from his mind, he tried instead to focus on the memory of Abigail telling him she loved him, the ghost of her kiss that still lingered on his lips.
He only hoped he’d done right by her and Jack.
He’d tried, in the end… he really had.
Cracking an eye open, John saw only white. He heard only the wind. The ground was hard and freezing cold beneath him.
He blinked and looked around at his surroundings, the stark white sky and snow running abruptly into the gray rock of the mountain’s face.
Where the hell was he?
This didn’t look like anywhere near Beecher’s Hope. Hell, it didn’t even look like West Elizabeth.
John strained his memory to try and recall something, anything as to how he got here, but came up empty. Surely he should be dead by now? Was he dead?
If this was Hell, it was much colder than he’d been led to believe.
John shifted where he sat, intent on trying to stand, but his leg screamed in pain with each miniscule movement. He wasn’t going anywhere on his own.
He reached up to feel his stinging cheek, and immediately regretted it as the gash burned under his touch. His face was covered in fresh, angry scratches, running right over his old scars.
Wait… no.
Those were his old scars, cut anew.
What the hell?
He looked down at his tattered clothes, his bloody leg, and a powerful feeling of déjà vu washed over him.
A gunshot rang in the distance, pulling John from his thoughts.
Not seeing another option, he called out for help. He listened as the voices approached, still unsure of the nature of his situation— until a familiar face popped up over the ledge above him.
“Javier?” John squinted up at the man he had so recently sent to the grave. “The hell is this?”
“Nice to see you too,” Javier said with a dry laugh.
John opened his mouth to ask another question, but his racing thoughts screeched to a halt when the second figure appeared next to Javier.
“That’s quite a scratch you got there,” it said in a voice he hadn’t heard in years.
Realization crept up on John like a cougar, swift and silent. It all clicked into place— the snow, the scars, Javier, Arthur— He’d been here before. Lived this before.
This… this was Ambarino.
1899.
Twelve years ago.
John gawked up at the two men as if they were ghosts.
“The hell is goin’ on? How’d I get here?"
The pair of specters exchanged a concerned glance.
“You… went out scouting after we left Blackwater… remember?” Javier said slowly.
“Got yourself in a scrape with some wolves, looks like,” Arthur added.
John hesitated. That wasn’t what he meant. “... Right. Blackwater, ‘course...”
Arthur hopped down next to John and looked at him intensely for a long minute, expression unreadable. John could only stare dumbly back as Arthur studied him.
“You don’t look too good,” Arthur said at last.
“I’ve had worse,” John rasped. The death by firing squad hadn’t been great. “Never thought I’d get to say this again, but… it’s good to see you, Arthur Morgan.”
Arthur hummed in response and stooped down to lift him up.
“Don’t die just yet, cowboy,” he muttered as he hoisted John up the cliff to Javier.
Javier helped John to his feet and held him steady as Arthur climbed back up. John’s head was swimming as he allowed Arthur to pick him up and sling him over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes. They began their trudge back to the horses, John’s ears ringing and thoughts racing all the way.
He was dreaming, John told himself as he clambered onto Javier’s horse, that had to be it.
This had to be some construction of his dying brain. He was probably still lying right there in front of the barn, life flashing before his eyes as he bled out in the dirt.
Any minute now it’d all go black again and he’d finally be at rest, gone to Heaven or Hell or whatever awaits men like him.
Any minute now.
The ride back to camp was a haze of white and gray as John clung for dear life to Javier’s coat, his consciousness fighting to remain intact against both hypothermia and blood loss. So much of his concentration went into not falling off the horse that he hardly noticed the snarling wolves and gunfire behind him.
John’s world was spinning by the time they pulled up in front of the cluster of cabins. His only coherent thought was that he could use a stiff drink.
Javier and Arthur called out for help and a door burst open, a whirlwind of people ran out, and—
“You’re alive! Oh, you’re alive!” The sound of her voice warmed John better than a drink of whiskey ever could.
“Ab’gail,” he croaked, too quiet even for himself to hear.
“Ay, careful, idiotas, it’s his leg,” he heard Javier shout at Bill and Lenny— Lord, all these years, he’d nearly forgotten about Lenny— as the two men pulled John off the horse and ferried him inside.
“This is a new low, even by your standards,” Abigail scolded, materializing beside them as Bill clumsily lowered John onto a cot. “What were you thinkin’, ridin’ out into a blizzard like that?”
“Missed you too, darlin’,” he heard himself mumble as that telltale dizzy feeling began to overtake him, and his vision went black around the edges.