Marching Home

by Angel ( valarltd@yahoo.com )

Archive: Master and Apprentice and the Bad!Fic site ( www.hawksong.com/~momskitchen )

Category: BAD Fic

Pairing: Q/O, sorta

Rating: Adult

Summary: May Resu Jinn gets a lover for her daddy.

Disclaimer: George owns everything.

Warning: Do not read while eating.

Notes: Came in fifth in the BAD!FIC Contest.

May Resu Jinn sighed sadly. She drooped dejectedly under the daphne laurel. Her daddy was lonely. He was very, very lonely and there was no one to love him since her mama had died, closing her beautiful violet-silver eyes for the last time. Now Mama was buried under the big willow tree, and her daddy was lonesome.

"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching Cheer up, comrades, they will come. And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe the air again, Of the free land in our own beloved home."

The fine clear voice cut through the humid Illinois air, and May hopped her ten year old self off the bench she'd been sitting on. The young man swaggered down the road, the blue uniform faded and tattered.

"Hello little lady," he said, sweeping off his forage cap.

"Hello yourself."

"Could I get dinner at your house, on my way home?"

"Dadddddeeeeee!" May yelled.

"What is it sweetheart?" Quintien Gonril Jinn was an imposing man, and his long legs ate the dooryard like it was a piece of rhubarb pie. Looking up at his rugged face with its hawklike nose that had obviously been broken once, Ben wasn't sure he wanted to stay. This big mountain of a man looked like pictures of lions Ben had seen in his books as a child, the kind that gobbled up missionaries and heathen cannibals like.

"Soldier wants to stay to dinner, daddy. Can he?" The girl's eyes were the same blue as her father, and Ben knew at once she had him completely ensorcelled.

"We have plenty. It's not fancy."

"Captain Ben Kenobi, Badger State Flying Artillery unit out of Racine, Wisconsin. I'm on my way home from Memphis. The grateful nation gave me an honorable discharge, but no trip home."

Jinn laughed. "I've finished harvesting for the day. Come on in and we'll have a wash and some supper."

There was a pot of ham and beans on the stove and a rhubarb pie on the windowsill. While her daddy and the soldier washed, May stirred the egg and milk and salt into some cornmeal. She carefully added two spoons of sugar and put it in a skillet to bake while she set the table.

It wasn't uncommon for traveling soldiers to ask a night's stay. The Jinn farm was the only thing on the ten mile stretch between Virden and Thayer.

They ate quietly. May watched the handsome young soldier. Ben watched Quintien. Quintien watched his food. There was much to do tomorrow. Acres of corn to pull, garden to tend, supper to start before he left.

"Mr. Jinn, if I could stay the night, I'd be happy to help you in the morning."

"All right. You can sleep in the barn. There's some good hay in there. May'll find you a quilt." Wearily, the big man rose and started clearing the table.

"Daddy, I'll get that. I've got the eggs already, and fed the animals. All you have to do is milk the cow." May gathered the plates and started washing them in the water she'd put on the stove earlier.

"Where's your mom, little May-day?" Ben asked as he brought his plate to the dishpan.

"Under the willow all last winter and all spring and summer too."

"Your daddy could use some help, couldn't he?"

"Can't afford any, Ben. He does it all and I do what I can." She put the clean dishes away neatly and started to sweep the floor.

"You're a good girl, May."

Quin came in with the milk, and May set it aside to make butter tomorrow. She went to get Ben his quilt.

The young soldier worked hard in exchange for the night's lodging, but it was a large farm and when they finished, there was no time for him to move on before dark, so he stayed the next night. Two nights became a week, a week became a month, and soon it was October.

"Don't get any finer traveling weather than this, pretty May-day," Ben said as they sat on the front porch swing. "I guess I'll be moving on after the apples are picked."

"Ben, I like having you here. I know Daddy does too. Please stay?"

"Maybe for the winter, little May-day,. But I'll be gone before your namesake comes round."

In late October, they heard bells. May knew who it was. Yoda the Peddler had traveled the roads every year at this time. She knew what they needed. The little dwarf hopped off his wagon and began sorting things for her.

"Mmm, hmm. Bigger you get every year, May. Soon, a woman will you be. Run the house like a woman you already do. Needles and pins and cloth, yes. And a new ladle. Tell your father I gave you this, you will not," he said as he slipped a piece of barley sugar into her hand. "Now, your love I must have, three dozen eggs, a pound of butter and two dollars in cash money."

May gave him the requisite hug, along with the produce and money. When she took the goods in the house, she saw the cart had not moved. Yoda sat in his seat, ready to drive on, but saw her in the curtains and beckoned her out.

"A word of advice I give you. Young soldier, very handsome he is, very sweet voice. Believe nothing he tells you about anything other than cooking."

In late November, there was snow and ice. Quin invited Ben in from the barn, to sleep near the fire. And Christmas too came round as it always did.

May was singing to herself as she made pancakes on Christmas morning. She was almost eleven now. She turned each pancake just as it was ready. There were three tall stacks, and butter and rhubarb jam. She went to wake her daddy.

"Morning, Daddy! Merry Christmas."

Quin sat up and his first instinct was to draw the featherbed up higher. The beautiful green-eyed soldierboy in his bed was not something May needed to see. It was too late. "Ben, Ben, wake up!" She was bouncing on that side of the bed.

"The pancakes are ready and there are presents."

Quin dressed quickly, but Ben stretched slowly. While he was not yet uncovered, Quin grabbed May and hustled her to the livingroom.

"How did you know Ben was with me?"

"Daddy, he's been sleeping on Mama's side of the bed since you both got tiddly on Thanksgiving. Are you going to marry him?"

"Man can't marry another man, May. It's not right."

"Do you love him? Like you loved Mama?"

"Never like I loved your mother. But Ben is a good man, a good help and a good friend."

"I saw you kiss him. Not like you kiss me." May was certain in her almost-eleven judgment. "If Reverend Brown won't let you get married, maybe I should just make you married."

Ben was out of the bedroom. "Who's getting married?"

"You and daddy. Stand together now and repeat after me:" Amused, the men stood together. Quin took Ben's right hand in his own. May continued, "I Quintien Gonril Jinn take you Ben Owan Kenobi to be my husband. To love forever and ever."

Quin repeated the words at her instance. She turned to Ben. "I Ben, Owan, Kenobi take you to be my husband. To love forever and ever." When he hesitated, May prompted "Say it."

Ben complied.

"Now kiss."

With a half-raised eyebrow, Ben stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to Quin's mouth.

"Good. You're married. And I take you both to be my daddies. Now the pancakes are getting clod, and afterwards there's presents."

That night, after May had been packed off to bed, Ben sat beside his husband on the settee in front of the fire. He looked at the rings on their hands, rings May had bartered a quilt of her own making to Yoda for.

"I never expected to get married," he said, leaning up and kissing Quin under the chin, letting the fine beard tickle his mouth.

"I never expected to love anyone again after Susie Marie went." Quin turned Ben to cuddle in his arms, and kissed him properly.

"I always wanted to make love in front of a fire," Ben said. "I used to spy on my folks in the winter when they did."

So they made love in front of the fire as husband and husband, and raised May to womanhood. When she was old enough, they married her to Andy, the boy from the Walker farm across the way. And everyone lived happily ever after.