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ross poldark

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With the weather starting to change, Jordan has, somewhat predictably, become increasingly restless, dragging Sam out of the apartment whenever she has a chance. For the most part, Sam can't say he minds that, though he knows full well that he's probably a little too easily inclined to give in to his daughter's whims. At least he can work on his own schedule, putting the finishing touches on an app that he's hoping to roll out, at this rate, sometime in the next century. It's good, though, having a direction, actually knowing what he's trying to do instead of aimlessly trying to pick up the pieces of a life he didn't get to have. He likes to think that his father would approve of his arcade games from the '80s being revamped for a contemporary crowd, but he tries not to dwell on it for long. He'll never know one way or the other, and he can't let that be the only reason he's doing this.

Today, it's hardly on his mind at all, anyway, Jordan's enthusiasm keeping him more than a little busy. There are days he feels like he can barely keep up with her, like she's got three times as much energy as he ever will. This is one such day, Sam winding up slumped on the grass, half-leaning against a tree, as Jordan celebrates a victory of some kind. He can never really understand the rules of the games she makes up; he would probably let her win anyway.

He's still catching his breath when she runs up to someone on the path before he can stop her, a man with children of his own. "Hi!" she says, clearly catching on to this fact, though it's the father she addresses. "Want to play?"

Sam rolls his eyes, but it's fond, and finally starts to pull himself to his feet. "Jordan," he calls, smiling almost apologetically at the man in question, "what did I say about running up to strangers in the park?"

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Julia is already struggling to get out of her carriage seat, tugging at the restraint that holds her back, and Ross chuckles as she looks up at him with wide, pleading eyes.

"Papa," she says, "play! Papa!"

"Yes, yes, very well" Ross agrees, leaning down to unhook her belt clip and hoisting her from the stroller before setting her down. She wobbles on unsteady legs at first, then bounds up to the other young girl with a bright smile, immediately reaching out to take her hand as they wander over to the grass. It's a sweet sight, really, and Ross is all the more amused to find that Jeremy looks decidedly uninterested by it all.

Looking at the man who's approached, presumably the little girl's father, Ross shakes his head. "It's no trouble at all, mine would be the same way if I let her to her own devices," he says. Extending a hand, Ross offers a smile. "Ross Poldark. My daughter, Julia, and this is my son, Jeremy. A pleasure."

It really is a nice sight, the two of them wandering off together, apparently barely needing introductions themselves. Sam has wondered on more than one occasion if Jordan has been too isolated, if he should make more of an effort to socialize her with other children around her age, but seeing how easily she can make a potential new friend, there doesn't seem to be much to worry about on that front. If anything, it's a relief. She's been through so much in the past few months, losing her mother and brother, and as long as she can turn out better adjusted than Sam did himself after similar losses around the same age, he figures he'll have done something right.

"Sam Flynn," he replies, shaking Ross's offered hand, "and she's Jordan. It's nice to meet all of you." Glancing in Jordan's direction, he lets out a slight laugh. "I think she gets a little enthusiastic about the prospect of playing with someone other than me."

Ross hums his agreement at that, amused by just how much it seems Julia has taken after her mother and, in some ways, how Jeremy already seems to have taken after him. Jeremy is far more subdued than Julia had ever been, quiet, if occasionally temperamental. Like her mother, on the other hand, Julia seems keen to engage with everyone who happens to cross her path. It's a bit of a wonder, really, that Sam isn't already familiar with his family when Demelza's reach seems to be so far and wide in Darrow.

"Julia very much takes after her mother," Ross says, putting a voice to his thoughts. "To be perfectly the honest, I think the only reason I have anything resembling a social life outside of my family at all is due largely in part to her. We're always stopping to greet some stranger or another at her behest."

"I have no idea where Jordan gets it, to be honest," Sam admits with a trace of a laugh. "I don't think it's from me or her mother. Maybe she's compensating." If that is, in fact, the case, he doubts Jordan knows it. He worries sometimes about how much she'll remember, if, when it comes down to it, she'll have much of a recollection of Andrea at all, but that loss still stings, and he's hardly about to bring it up with a stranger. It's not an uncommon story around here, anyway. People disappear all the time; he isn't special in that regard. Still, glad as he is to do it, grateful as he is every damn day to have her around, raising Jordan alone was never supposed to be part of the picture.

He supposes his own father must have thought the same thing, though, when his mother, Jordan's namesake, died. Shit happens, and all they can try to do is pick up the pieces.

"She's definitely responsible for most of my social life, though, I'm with you there."

"It's rather a good thing," Ross supposes aloud.

He'd consider himself friendly enough but then again, only with those he's established a rapport with, those he would have been introduced to by someone else. In his case, at home in Cornwall, it'd been due to his father that he'd met men like Mark and Paul, Zacky and Henshawe. Even his friendship with Dwight had been born of his injuries from the war, Ross hadn't done that favor to himself all on his own.

He's been told he isn't very approachable, that his scowl is off-putting and though it's unspoken, Ross suspects the scar running from his brow down his cheek makes it all the more so. At least, he thinks, it seems that isn't as true when there's a bright and cheerful two-year-old girl to soften what people must see in him in some way.

"I've met some of those I might consider my closest friends because of Julia, others because of my wife. I owe it all to the women in my life, I suppose. I've no doubt Demelza would take credit for it."

For half a moment, nothing more, Sam wishes he could say the same. It had almost been true, back on the island, when as many of the people he'd known had been Andrea's friends as his own, but here, things are and have been a far cry from that. That he has a tendency to be fairly insular anyway doesn't exactly help with that, though at least, for Jordan's sake, that's an instinct he typically has to fight. With her to think about, he can't keep to himself the way he would have back home. Chances are, she wouldn't let him get away with that even if he tried, and she shouldn't have to be isolated on his account anyway. He means to do better for her than that.

Regardless, it isn't worth hoping for what he can't have, and this is the way his life has been for a good long while now. The last few months may have been something of a departure, but more for Jordan than for him, and it's all the more reason why he can't bring himself to mind her enthusiasm even with strangers. It's better than what he's seen the alternative to be since Andrea disappeared.

"It's all her, for me," he says, a half-explanation of sorts. Getting into the finer points of the situation with someone he's only just met, at least without prompting, always feels a little too strange. No one needs his sob story, anyway. "Which is probably lucky. Not everyone would be too thrilled about someone's kid just running up to them."

"Some are less prone to engaging with children than others, it's true," Ross agrees with an amused chuckle. "But they are, for the most part, those without children of their own. Though I suppose I have come across the occasional mother or father who seem to be unabashedly judgmental about the way others raise their children and it's those very people who remind me that some things may never change, no matter how much time has passed."

Ross knows people had looked down on his own father for his choices, for letting Ross run wild and free among those outside their class, but his father had always been a man of the people. He'd been a born leader to those who'd sought a worthy life without having to be born into one, and Ross had done his best to follow in Joshua Poldark's footsteps. He hadn't succeeded quite as well, but he'd done his best. It would be nice to continue the tradition here, but he's yet to find the opportunity.

"Oh, tell me about it," Sam says with a heavy exhale, half a laugh, half a sigh. "You don't want to know how many times I've been asked why her mother isn't doing something or another with her instead of me. Like the woman has to be the most involved parent and anything else is unfathomable. Or like it's any of their business in the first place." He can only foresee that getting stranger as she gets older, and he has to talk her through and take her out to do most of the things that he probably would have left to Andrea. At least comments like that don't bother him quite as much as they used to, an annoyance rather than salt in the wound. He got used to them well before Jordan didn't have a mother in the picture at all.

That's people, though — so often offering input where it's neither asked for nor wanted, assuming that their way is the only way. From one universe to another, some things really do never change. He'd probably find it more surprising now if they ever did. "I'm pretty sure that plenty of people have had all sorts of different parenting and still turned out okay, but try telling that to someone that set in their ways."

Ross, fortunately, hasn't much run into that particular brand of judgment, though he wonders whether that's because his wedding band is on display. Sam, he notices, doesn't wear a ring of his own and while that doesn't necessarily mean anything or matter at all, it may just be a contributing factor to why people might ask after Jordan's mother. In Cornwall, it would have likely seemed odd for the father to be the primary caretaker, unless the mother had passed on, as in Ross's case. It's true that he doesn't remember a great deal about his mother anymore, her face is like a distant memory now, but Ross wouldn't change anything about the way his father had raised him. Of course, there are a good number of people of his class who certainly frowned upon their side of the Poldark family. They continue to be of no consequence.

"Does she work often?" Ross asks, curiosity getting the best of him. "My wife, she works, we usually have a nanny to watch the children but when I have the odd day off, I like to spend as much time with them as possible. I'm in the middle of a project at the moment, as well, so every moment counts all the more as of late."

"Oh, that's, uh—" Sam starts, the question not necessarily a surprising one, but one he still doesn't know how to answer. It doesn't help that it's different now than it was a few months ago, an entirely new adjustment to get used to, as if showing up here with Jordan to find her mother in a relationship with someone else wasn't strange enough. Still, he's the one who's brought it up, and at least this is in far better context than the people who just assume that Jordan's mother should be the one taking her out to do things, as if there's something so inherently wrong about a father being the primary caregiver, never mind a single parent. It isn't like he asked for any of this. If he'd had his way, the three of them would have stayed together, and Jordan would have had the life — the family — he never did. Now, all he can do is try to compensate for what she's lost.

He smiles faintly in spite of the words that follow, shaking his head. "She's not here anymore, actually. Disappeared a few months back. And we weren't together, before that, she was with someone else. It's... a long story." It's not the sort of thing anyone could expect, to show up with a baby in their arms and have her mother not remember ever having carried or given birth to her, let alone most of the relationship that preceded it. He's not bitter anymore, and he thinks he and Andrea settled into a comfortable friendship before she disappeared, but he'll never forget that day or how jarring it was. He couldn't even if he tried.

"I see."

Ross isn't quite sure what else to say, if only because the situation seems to have so many layers to it that there's no possible way he could understand just how it'd affected Sam; but either way, it's a loss, particularly little Jordan.

"I'm sorry," he adds, which he realizes isn't helpful in any way, but he does mean it. "I've thought about it, what it'd be like to lose Demelza. I don't often let myself think about it for very long." Ross pauses, glancing at their daughters, who seem to be getting along wonderfully as they fall into another round of shrieking giggles (over what, he doesn't know). "They were here, Julia and my wife, before me. For about a month, I think it was. When I arrived--"

He stops, ducking his head to clear his throat before looking back up to meet Sam's eyes. "They were sick in Cornwall. They had the putrid throat, both of them. Just before I arrived in Darrow, I'd buried Julia. I buried her then held her, alive, in my arms again, within a day. Thinking I might someday lose either one of them again, lose my son, it's the stuff of nightmares."

"Jesus," Sam says on an exhale, shaking his head a little at the thought of it. He can't imagine what that must be like; he doesn't want to. For all that he's no stranger to loss, it's one thing to have parents and parental-type figures and any number of friends disappear. If anything happened to Jordan, though, he doesn't have the first idea what he would do. That, he thinks, isn't something he'd be likely to come back on, nor is it something he would wish on anyone. At least, in this case, it's worked out for the best — a rare good turn of fortune from this place — but he still doubts it's something easily forgotten, either. He's spent most of his life expecting people to lose people the way he so often has. To have seen it happen to his child, there's no way in hell that he would ever be able to stop thinking about it, worrying that it might happen again.

He clears his throat slightly, mostly in an attempt to clear his head, too. "That must've been one hell of a welcome to this place." Probably about as shocking as turning up at the train station and being found by Andrea, looking at Jordan in his arms like a stranger. She's been gone for months now and they had years here before that, but he'll still never get that look she'd worn out of his head, never forget what it was like to have to tell her they'd had a child together that she didn't know about.

He'd like to think that at least Jordan got to know her mother at all, regardless of whether or not Andrea here was the woman who gave birth to her, but she's just young enough that he doesn't know how much she'll remember and for how long.

"There's not really anything worse, is there? Than the thought of something like that happening."

There's nothing worse than it actually happening, but Ross doesn't correct him because it isn't necessary. The meaning is clear. Sam is a father, from what Ross can tell of him so far, he's a good one, so there's no doubt that he can imagine exactly how heartbreaking it would feel to lose his child. There is no greater loss, Ross thinks. He'd lost his parents and his younger brother, but he'd been young for his mother and brother's deaths and had been away at the war for his father's. Ross doesn't think he'd ever properly mourned for them, at least not now that he knows what it's like to mourn his daughter.

"I don't mean to discuss anything so dismal," Ross tells him, "but it can be frightening, at times, how unpredictable this place can be. My family has been fortunate in that nothing exceptionally awful has happened to any of us, not even during the city's stranger hours, but one never does know." The worst that's happened to him so far is a fight with a drunkard outside of Tintern Abbey, but that'd been quite some time ago. Frankly, Ross is surprised it hasn't happened again since. Admittedly, he doesn't always mind a good fight.

"In any case, we're fortunate to still have them," he continues, nodding toward their daughters. "I'd trade anything to ensure her happiness."

"Oh, hey, don't worry about it," Sam says, waving one hand absently, dismissively through the air. It is dismal, sure, but a hell of a lot of his life has been dismal, and he doesn't see much of a need to shy away from it, if only because he's never let it overshadow what he has. Jordan being with him makes up for everything that this place has put him through, everything it's taken from him. He never thought that would be the case, mostly because he never expected to become a parent at all, not exactly in the habit of forming lasting connections before he wound up on the island and then here, but there's nothing that matters a fraction as much to him as she does. And maybe he won't be able to do what he really wanted, to give her the life he didn't get to, with Jordan already having been through too much that he went through, too, but he can still try to give her something better than he got.

She's already lost one parent. He means to do everything in his power to see to it that she doesn't lose another.

"I'd be thinking about it anyway," he adds, by way of explanation. "Since Andrea — her mom — disappeared, she's had all sorts of questions. If I'm going to disappear, if she's going to disappear..." He trails off, exhaling heavily. Perhaps the worst part of all of it is that he can't guarantee that neither of those things will happen. For the most part, it seems like children vanish when their parents do, and on the off-chance that that doesn't prove to be the case, he has plans in place for Jordan in the event of his own disappearance, but wanting to reassure her without lying to her, not having any of the answers himself, it's a difficult position to be in. "But yeah, that's... More than anything, that's what I want. Whatever it takes to see her happy."

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