Description 

Calan is easy to spot, tall and pale with freckled cheeks and bright ginger hair. He's rather thin despite eating fairly well. He's got a rather cheery disposition and tends to see most people and situations in good faith. He teuly believes all people mean inherent good, but their fear and selfishness at times drive them to hurt others. He can be strict and firm, but doesn't seem to take most things to heart, seeming to have no problem speaking in a friendly manner with people of all walks of life. He's not very forthcoming about his past, though he'll never have more than one drink in a sitting and will freely share that he used to struggle with alcohol.

Early Life 

Calan Adam Kelly was born to Frank Jones Kelly and Elinda Anne Kelly on a ranch on the Heartland sof New Alexandria. His parents were by no means rich, but the cattle ranch they operated did well enough to allow them to live an easy life. Calan's upbringing wasn't remarkably different than any other ranch kid in the state, his mother and father were loving and genuine, and he and his older sister, Erin, had a close and supportive relationship. She and Calan were inseparable, best friends and closest confidants, and it extended into their teen years. They were educated at home by their mother, a small group of kids from the local ranches corculating around the different homesteads to pass learning responsibilities off to each family and allow the children some socialization outside of their ranch responsibilities and home lives.

When Alexandra showed up, Calan was twelve and Erin fourteen. Calan found her in the loft of the barn sleeping in some of the bales of hay. Alex was dirty, underfed, and clearly homeless, but the most striking thing to Calan was the cheery nature she seemed to have despite it. Calan had never met anyone from outside of his small social circle in the local community, and Alex was someone who brought a curiosity and wonder for the outside world into his life. He didn't tell his parents about her at first, afraid that they would make Alex move on, taking leftovers from meals out to the barn for her, and blankets from his bed. He thought himself quite clever, of course, though his mother caught on rather quick. Much to Calan's relief, Frank and Elinda accepted Alexandra with open arms, allowing her into their home and at their dinner table. While Alex still preferred to sleep in the loft, she became one of the family, and Frank closes the loft off to make it more comfortable for her, allowing Alex a space of herself to come back to, sometimes a bit troublesome of a kid, wandering off for days at a time to get into mischief.

He got close to Derek Fray when he was 16. He'd schooled with him when he was growing up, though they hadn't spent a great deal of personal time together. Derek started spending his free time participating in the local rodeos, and when Calan decided to get into the competitions to pass some time, he noticed Derek right away. Four years since they'd completed their home schooling, they had much to catch up on, and they grew close spending time together at the rodeos, cheering each other on and spending time sitting atop the fence watching the other riders.

Their life was peaceful and good, and Calan grew up learning to manage the ranch from his Father. His riding skills improved, roping skills excelled, and he spent what free time he had outside of work with Erin, Derek, and Alex practicing for the rodeos and getting into petty mischief. It was one particularly perfect day in his 20th year Calan remembers best of all. He'd spent the day laying in the wheat field with Derek, talking about Erin, Alex, his future and all the places he wanted to travel with the rodeo if he could get a farmhand for his father on the ranch. Derek made him promise not to let go of that dream, and promised to come with him. Calan talked about his feelings for Derek extending beyond their friendship, and Derek expressed the same.

Life was perfect, and the only thing that could bring it down on him was precisely what happened. He returned to a concerned Father, and was shown the bloody rag his mother had coughed into. It took Elina first, and quickly, her body not strong enough to fight it long. Calan Erin, and Alex were banned from the house, and though being unable to see their mother as she died weighed on the three, Frank was unwilling to lose any of his children as well. The Tuberculosis took him next, and the life Calan saw for himself shattered. At once he was met with the responsibility of burying two parents, taking over the ranch, and caring for his two sisters. Erin was indispensable to him, but even she couldn't take all his burdens away.

Calan turned to alcohol to accomplish as much, and his sisters bore the brunt of his dysfunctionality. Often falling from horseback or forgetting to secure the gates, letting the cattle out, losing a few for good. They became used to mopping up Calan's messes, often scooping him up from outside Emerald bar and helping him into his bed. To Derek's credit, he weathered through this time with Calan, disliking the way he'd been gripped by the drink, but hoping with time he would heal. This worked for a time, but eventually, Derek stopped waiting for Calan to come back. It was one night when Calan was particularly drunk and cleaning a shotgun he was arguing quite vigorously with Erin. She was angry because she was tired of his reckless and unsafe choices, and he had been yelling back at her that he'd unloaded it before he'd started on polishing the stock. She wanted him to let her check it, but she never got the chance. It was clear he was closed to his tiredness taking him, so she gave up the fight, crouching down to start unlacing his boots to peel off before she and Alex would have had to carry him to bed and Calan fumbled with the weapon, and accidentally discharging it.

The aftermath was messy, and it was Alex who saw it first. The blast had taken a decent amount of Erin's neck, and several pellets had lodged deep into Calan's leg. Too drunk to realize what was happening, and quickly slipping into a rum addled sleep, Erin told him it was okay, and told Alex it was okay. Confused, in shock, and not knowing what to do, Alex did what she could muster herself to do. She put Erin to bed first, then Calan. It wasn't until he woke in the morning that he understood the gravity of what had happened. In pain from the pellets in his leg, but lost what to do, he and Alex decided to take Erin out and bury her in the woods, deciding that Calan going away to prison would do neither of them good.

Later that day, Calan saw a doctor for his leg, a hunting accident, nothing more. The shot had lodged into the bone, and there was no option but to take the leg. Calan was under surgery all day, and recovering in the ward for months, having to learn to walk on a wooden leg. Alex, unable to handle the stress, left, to where, Cal didn't know. When he got out of the ward, he sold the last of the ranch's assets, and cleaned himself up, and decided to travel, though this time it was alone. It took him time, but he healed, and he got better on his leg, diligent in working with his own body, unwilling to live like a cripple any more than he had to.

Present Life 

In time, he came back, and Alex did too. They never spoke about what happened, Alex seeming to have wrote Erin out of her mind completely. Calan allows her, unwilling to break her cheery spirit that seems stubborn to endure. Calan slowly forgave himself, but carries Erin with him, his leg a constant reminder of the accident. He joined the New Alexandria Sheriff's Department, wanting to be the man that Erin had always seen in him, and, to his credit, seems to have started thriving again.

Affiliations 

New Alexandria Sheriff's Department

Quotes 

"I didn't like the man I was when alcohol had a hold on me."

Trivia 

• Has a chesapeake retriever named Charlie.
• Is the 'hay guy' and enjoys picking grain and baling hay in his free time.
• Currently lives up in a trailer behind Rhodes Church.
• Was raised religious, but doesn't actively attend currently.
• Plays guitar occasionally but prefers to sing to keep himself company.