TITLE: The Road Less Traveled By  
CHALLENGE: The Poem Challenge.  Nope, it's not to write a poem, but to base a story around one.  Pick a long one, short one, old one, or a new one…heck, use one of your own, which would be great. Don't include the poem in your story…this isn't about that. Do, however, post the poem (please include the author's name, book title, and the publisher) at the end, just so the readers can read your inspiration. Pick any AU, as long as you have permission, or create a new one! Have fun!
UNIVERSE: The Revolution
MAJOR CHARACTERS: Chris
RATING: PG
ARCHIVE: Yes
SPOILERS: None
NOTES: This is based on Robert Frost's famous poem, one of my all time favorite poems.  I must admit that I am not a poet fan.  Frost and Blake are two of only a few poets I enjoy.  I love Blake, but his poems are so complex that I wasn't even about to tackle one of those.
This is a musing piece, my first centering around Chris.  Also it is the first set in my new AU entitled the Revolution.  It sets the goys in the American revolution.  I plan on writing an introductory piece to start the AU but who knows when I'm going to get around to that.  If you would like to try your hand at this universe, contact me and I'll tell you what I have planned.  After that- when I have the characters set up you may write in it with contacting me at all. DISCLAIMER: Don't own em or the poem.
AUTHOR: Lady Catherine Dunbar (Kelly)
EMAIL: kellyg49@hotmail.com

Colonel Christopher Larabee of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers led his jet black steed carefully through the dense New England wood. 

He had managed to escape the busy camp near Boston the day before, after much assurance from his friend and captain Buck Wilmington that everything was under control and that the regiment was in no danger of seeing any action while their commander was away.  At first Chris had been reluctant to leave his men, but Buck had been persistent, even having Vin talk to the stubborn man.  Finally Chris had conceded.

He had been moodier than usual over the past few days, drinking himself to sleep for the first time in two months.  In fact his binges had been fewer and farther between since he had become the leader of what his troops referred to as the Magnificent Seven.

But as the anniversary of his wife and son's death approached Chris had reverted to his old habits of grief.  The drinking had gotten worse every night, until one night he had busted Buck's nose.  The sight of his old friend's bruised face had helped to convince the Colonel that he needed time to himself, bedsides, he had been away too long.

After an hour or so the path led out of the woods and through open pasture land.  Chris kneed Job into a canter, hurrying him past the pristine farms that had not yet suffered at the hands of the British.  Only a matter of time, Chris thought fleetingly. 

Chris turned Job down a narrower side road that led to the remains of a blackened farmhouse.  Halfway to the skeleton of his former life Chris turned his horse to the right, towards a small fenced plot several yards from the house.

Pulling Job to a halt, Chris dismounted and let the dark horse roam, he would not go far.  Reverently Chris approached the plot, carefully opening the picket gate, closing it quietly behind him. 

For several moments he stared at the two simple grave stones he had carved himself.  He had dreamt about his family so often that now, faced with the hard unforgiving pieces of stones, the grief of the loss hit him forcibly in the chess.  As if he had been shot he fell to his knees onto the cold rocky soil, silent tears falling down his cheeks, regret taking hold of him.

He had lived the first twenty four years of his life as a wild card, the rebel of the small Massachusetts town.  He never caused any true harm, but he had caused more than a few headaches to the conservative Puritan residents. 

But then, at a barn raising Buck had convinced him to attend, he had met a girl with warm brown eyes and stubborn streak that could match his own.  It had been a risk to fall for the deacon's daughter, a risk to move from the life of a free hell raiser to a farmer with ties, but Chris had taken the risk, had traveled down the road few had. 

And it had paid off, until that awful day he had returned with Buck from Boston, when his world had caved in around him.  He had chosen to travel down the road less traveled and had paid the price.  Chris leaned forward in his despair, his forehead falling on the cool dirt of his wife's grave.  As he did so a coin rolled out of his coat pocket, rolling towards his hand.

He sat up and picked up the coin from the colony of South Carolina.  Even through his grief he could not help but smile at the memory the coin recalled.

He had only been the leader of the strange Magnificent Seven for two weeks when his group of wild cards had been asked to act out what many considered a suicide mission, locating and capturing a group of Dragoons.  Chris had been quite concerned about his men, not only about their safety but their abilities as well.  Though they had proved themselves the first time they had worked together, but Chris still had some doubts, particularly over a certain artillery officer from South Carolina.

The man poised as a perfect Southern gentleman and was as slippery as an eel.  Chris had not trusted him from the moment he had laid his eyes on the man, and his desertion of them had seemed to validate his suspicions.  But the man had returned, something Chris had not expected and secretly respected.

Yet, at that time Ezra's loyalty had still been in question and the Southerner knew it, also knew how worried the Colonel was for his men.  Before leaving to take his position with his canon, Ezra had thrown the coin at Chris, who had caught it with suspicion in his eyes.

"For luck," the gambler turned soldier supplemented.

At this Chris had raised his eyebrow in doubt.  "I thought you didn't believe in luck."

"I simply said I abhorred gambling.  I said nothing concerning luck."  He had then turned his ginger and left the man holding the coin.

At first Chris had thought little of the coin, had slipped it into his pocket.  It was not until a few months later when he had been fingering it absent-mindedly when Vin had spotted the coin.  He had asked his friend where had gotten the coin and when Chris told him Ezra had given it to him, the tracker had stared at him wide eyed.

"What?" Chris had asked. 

Vin told him that when they had been on their first mission he had seen the gambler rubbing the coin when he was thinking.  When he had asked Ezra if the coin was significant the gambler had hesitated, apparently unsure of what the tracker wanted.  Yet after a few moments he seemed to come to the decision that the man meant him no harm.  He told him that it had been the first money he had ever one gambling, back when he was only ten and he kept it for a good luck charm. 

"You must think me sill," he had said.  When Vin shook his head, the Southerner looked at him in apparent surprise for a few moments before smiling.

Chris had been thrown off by the story.  Apparently the coin much meant to Ezra, and he had given it to a man he barely knew.  Perhaps there was more to the gambler than he realized.

The man still got on Chris's nerves something fierce, but the coin had become a symbol of his men's loyalty, of their mutual sacrifice.  Chris knew anyone else would consider the concept overly sentimental and silly.

He rubbed the coin, thinking of his men, his friends.  He snorted as a funny thought dawned on him.  The road that had led him to so much pain had also provided him with so much joy.  If he had never taken a chance on Sarah, he never would have joined the army out of a need to get himself shot, never would have met the men he considered his family.  He knew that for all the pain his route had caused him, he would not trade his time with his family, new and old, for his former life, the easy life.

Smiling, his tears subsiding, he kissed the names on each stone, whispering words to his family, assuring them that he was fine.  After another moment, he stood up and closed the gate. Whistling for Job, he placed the coin safely inside in his jacket pocket.  Job trotted to his master, waiting calmly for him to mount.  Casting one last glance at his family, Chris turned Job around and headed for the main road, a sense of peace coming over him.  He had chosen the road less traveled, and for better or worse, that had made all the difference.



Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost