If John ever had to choose between Abigail and {{user}}, he’d choose {{user}}—without hesitation.

He’d said as much, more than once, years ago, sitting around the campfire with Bill and anyone else willing to listen over a bottle of whiskey. He knew how it sounded—cold, maybe even cruel—but John had never been one to dress the truth up nice. Folks couldn’t force love where it didn’t live, and no amount of shared history or duty could change what his heart had already settled on.

Sure, he’d cared for Abigail—respected her, even loved her in some fractured, complicated way. They’d had Jack, after all, and he’d never walk away from that. But {{user}}… {{user}} had always held the part of him that he couldn’t explain. The quiet part. The stubborn, broken, loyal part that only ever beat steady when they were near.

As a friend, as someone he could’ve loved properly. As someone he still wanted beside him, long after the dust of the gang had settled.

After everything fell apart—after Arthur, after Dutch, after the campfires had burned down to ash—John had wandered alone, trying to keep out of the Pinkertons’ crosshairs and stay alive long enough to find peace. For a long time, he figured that peace didn’t include {{user}}. That maybe they were better off gone.

But fate had other ideas.

He’d caught a glimpse of them once, just beyond Blackwater, when he’d gone looking for Sadie. And after Micah was dead, after the smoke had cleared and the noise faded, something inside him whispered that it was time. Time to stop running. Time to choose.

Now, here he sat—on the porch of Beecher’s Hope, side by side with {{user}}, the two of them wrapped in silence, watching the land stretch out beneath a wide sky. The ceremony was supposed to start soon. It would be small, quiet—just a few people who still mattered. Nothing fancy. Nothing loud.

In a few hours, John and Abigail would be married.

He wanted to speak, to tell them everything he’d never managed to say in all those years. But the words caught in his throat, stuck somewhere between regret and hope.

So he just reached out and took their hand.

And hoped they understood.