Chapter Text
Tim kicked off the branch that had fallen across his legs, curled in on himself, fetal position, closing his eyes and loosening muscles, then flopped over on his back and stared up through the branches, what was left of them. Eventually he sat up, crossed his legs underneath him, lifted his rifle and laid it on his lap. He dug his fingers into the leaves and dirt around him, looking for bullets, and watched the party in the yard. He was happy for the distance.
A sheriff's deputy and one of the marshals from the office disappeared into the garage and came out with two boxes of whiskey and matching smiles. Art had been talking with Craig Franklin but the whiskey distracted him, and he turned and walked over and rubbed a hand over one of the boxes, shared a lottery-winning grin with the local sheriff. A hand on Nelson's elbow, Rachel was guiding him back to what was left of his car, then the two of them got to work trying to open the passenger side door. Standing protectively near Kurt, Raylan was doing some fast talking to a local deputy, likely explaining the presence of the Courtney Love look-alike with an expert twist of words. And Duffy stood off to the side, stiff and awkward, trying to avoid attention, looking like a Comic Con attendee in costume who wanders accidently into the neighboring gun show.
Craig Franklin looked good in handcuffs, Tim decided, reaching to scratch the itch that was his companion lately, somewhere behind his left ear. It was only when his hand reached his head that he realized the itch was gone. He wasn't sure if it was the handcuffs on Mr. Snipers-are-cowards or being the target of a functional .50 caliber machine gun that offered relief; he wasn't going to think hard enough about it to figure it out. Instead, he ejected the round chambered in his rifle, put on the safety and stood up.
Shedding leaves as he went, a forest dust devil, Tim trotted down the slope to the yard carrying his weapons. The beard was a good three days old now, filling in nicely, and the personal aroma was filling in nicely, too. A fireman's line was emptying the contents of the smuggler's hole into the yard, and Art stepped out of it, wove past the mingling crowd admiring the growing stack of bourbon and stopped directly in Tim's path. He pounded a hand onto each hip and worked his face into a perfect disapproving Chief Deputy US Marshal scowl.
Tim slowed his trot to a wary but unapologetic walk. "I didn't shoot him. See." He waved with his rifle to the cruiser into which a local deputy was folding Craig Franklin. "He's walking and talking…or would be anyway, if he weren't handcuffed and a pouty sorry sack of shit sitting in a sheriff's car and waiting on a trip to lock-up." He grinned wickedly at the thought.
Art detached his hands from his hips and did a slow clap, but didn't look particularly pleased or impressed with Tim's performance. "Congratulations, you've cleared your slurred name. How many bodies did it take?"
"I'm not sure," said Tim, looking around the yard. "I lost count."
"You lost count."
"Hey, if I wasn't here, it might've been Raylan and Kurt and Franklin in that body count…and Duffy."
"Uh-huh."
"And you might never have found the bourbon. Do you think they'll give you a bottle?"
"Don't do that."
"What?"
"Try to distract me from being mad at you." Art reminded Tim of a drill sergeant just then, looking him up and down trying to find something else to yell about. "That's not your service weapon." He gestured at Tim's handgun.
"Nope."
"Registered second, I hope? 'Cause at least then I can make a believable attempt at retrofitting you out of your vacation and into this investigation in some sort of official capacity in my report."
"I qualified on it two weeks ago."
Art sighed, a resigned nod. "Well, good, I guess. You're damn lucky, Tim, that there's bourbon here. I'm just saying – damn lucky."
Tim thought it best to divert attention. "Did you see what Nelson did? He's the man. He saved the day. Those Yakuza dudes were seriously trying to kill us. That was a Ma Deuce they were cutting loose with just before you arrived."
"A Ma Deuce…?" Art repeated, body language calligraphy asking the question, too, and then quickly, "Never mind," shutting Tim's mouth as it opened to elaborate. "Yep, Nelson sure is the man, bringing a civilian to a gun fight and involving her in a car wreck."
"A civilian? But Kurt wasn't anywhere near the SUV he hit."
"Who's Kurt?"
Tim looked for Raylan, found Kurt there, too. Art followed his gaze, a different question now forming on his face.
"Kurt?" said Tim, a head tilt in the man's direction, a prompt for Art.
Without batting an eye at the dress, Art shrugged and said again, "Who is he? And how's he involved in this?"
"He's, uh..." Tim peered around Art for a closer look at the wreckage that was Nelson's Marshals Service pool car. He grinned all over again while he inspected the damage close up, remembering the spectacular rescue. Nelson caught his eye next, looking a little worse for wear, leaning heavily against the wreck, and then Rachel, squatting down by the driver side door, her hand on the shoulder of a woman with her head down in bloody hands, brown hair, a Ranger hoodie, his Ranger hoodie. Tim's grin fell off his face and thudded to the ground. He almost threw his rifle at Art in his hurry to get to her, jumped a member of the Yakuza lying prone in the dirt and being processed, hopped up on a bumper to get past the stack of whiskey, scrambled over the attached hood and landed at a run on the other side.
"Milja? Milja? Are you all right?" He stopped beside Rachel, teetering forward, gripped her arm and gave it a shake. "Is she all right?" Before Rachel could answer he pushed her aside and squatted down in front of Miljana. "Fuck, what happened? Never mind, I know what happened. Were you driving? Shit, what are you doing here? Why aren't you at work? Is that my hoodie you're wearing…in public?"
Miljana lifted her head, a wad of tissue pressed under her nose, eyes on his for a long minute, then she answered, voice muffled and nasal, "Yes…no. And, no. And why the hell do you think, you moron? I couldn't work when Stella told me... And, it's my personal therapy." She looked down, picked at the front of the hoodie. "I got blood on it."
Tim's face went blank, buffering as his mind sorted through the answers. "Shit, sweetheart, I'm sorry," he said, pulled her out of the car and settled them both on the leaves and dirt. "I'm sorry. You weren't supposed to get involved in this. I told Weaver to tell you I was fine." He attempted to pet her hair down flat, bit his lip when the tears started a trek down her cheek to meet the blood and mucus on her chin.
"You're an idiot," she said.
"Yeah, I get told that a lot. Say it again. I deserve it."
"You're an idiot."
"I'm an idiot, but are you okay?" he repeated, "Sweetheart?" then repeated the question but at Rachel. "Is she okay?"
"Airbags are pretty violent about saving lives – a bit like you…and Raylan."
Entertained by the comparison, Miljana snorted into her tissue, and started the blood flowing again from her nose. She dropped her head forward to stop it dripping down her throat. "And Nelson," she added and a noise escaped through the wet and goo, sounding suspiciously like a giggle.
"That's not fair," said Nelson. "You grabbed my knee and yelled at me to speed up."
"She'll have a nice set of black eyes to explain," said Rachel, then waved a hand at them all in disgust and walked across the yard to help where needed.
Any righteous anger at Franklin was now a cardboard cutout emotion compared to the fullness of the guilt Tim felt for dragging Miljana into his vendetta. He dipped his head, trying to catch her eye. "I'll make you a Bourbon Pecan Pie," he said.
"That's a start."
"And give you a back rub every night until my vacation's over."
"That's not even another four days."
"Every night for a month?"
"And you'll come to every dinner I'm obliged to attend without causing an international incident."
He swallowed hard, his hand alternating between smoothing her ruffled hair and working calming circles on her back. "Okay."
"And you'll give up drinking during the week."
Something moving up in the forest caught Tim's attention when she added the last condition to his pardon. "Okay," he said, not really listening. His attention was focused on a broad and self-satisfied and slightly off-center grin marring an otherwise lethal looking figure humping down the ridge near the road side of the yard, confident strides, a tricked out and angry high-powered rifle handled with experience and ease, camouflaged hunting gear minus the dayglo orange don't-shoot-me vest.
Miljana lifted her head to look at Tim. "Okay? Did you even hear what I said?"
Calculating the figure's trajectory and projecting, Tim followed it ahead to where Art was again standing with the local sheriff, Raylan and Kurt, possessively near the stack of whiskey cases. His tongue traced a nervous path across his upper lip and the comforting circles he was tracing on Miljana's back became automatic, mechanical, the soothing rhythm lost in the anticipation of the disastrous collision of his two worlds.
Feeling the shift in focus, Miljana turned to look at what had Tim's attention. "What?" she said.
"Nothing. Everything's fine."
"Bourbon Pecan Pie, huh?" Nelson decided that the ground looked inviting and crumpled himself adjacent to Tim and Miljana. "I like pecan pie."
"Tim will make you one, too."
"I didn't know you liked to bake, Tim," he said.
Tim's hand had stopped, hovering, eyes riveted on his buddy, Weaver. Hands on hips was apparently a pose Art reserved for his deputies, Tim realized as he watched his boss cross his arms aggressively and face Weaver. Wishing he could read lips, Tim chewed on his own and strained to hear any syllable to give him a clue as to what Weaver and Art were discussing.
Nelson didn't get a response from Tim, so he asked Miljana, "Is he a good baker?"
"I promise you'll find out." She reached across and patted Nelson's knee. "Nice driving," she said.
"That was kinda cool."
"It was. You don't mind making two pecan pies, do you, Tim?"
Raylan had taken a step sideways, a funny look on his face as he shook Weaver's hand, then another funny look directed at Tim.
"Tim?" Miljana poked him.
"Shit."
"What?"
"Uh…Hadadezer has joined the party."
"What?! I thought he'd just…ride off into the sunset or something, then meet us back home for some beer."
"So did I."
"Shit. Go."
"But you…"
"Go." She shifted to the ground and swatted Tim. "Go! Nelson'll keep me company."
Tim jumped up and sprinted to the group near the bourbon, cut between Weaver and Raylan. "I got this," he said, quick slap on Raylan's back. Weaver spread his arms for a hug and Tim obliged him.
"Nice shooting," said Weaver, his enthusiasm contagious, yanking a grin onto Tim's face, too.
"And nice timing, buddy. Enter stage right."
"Why, thank you. Though I'm not here for praise – I just didn't want to be the one to tell Miljana her psych-experiment boy-toy got broke."
"Bullshit. You didn't want to miss out on the action. You're a chaos junkie."
"That might've been part of it."
"Part of it. Try all of it."
"You're saying I don't care about you?"
"Oh, I'm sure you care," Tim said, glancing over at his boss, arms still crossed, still watching Weaver intently. Tim was already dreading the lecture he was going to get later. "I don't doubt you'd show at the funeral, if the invite got to you in time."
"I'm hurt."
"You have no feelings."
"Now I'm really hurt."
"What? You get hit in the crossfire?"
"Dude, I'll have you know that I chased all over Lexington to get you back-up, and then I stole a car, just for you, to get here in time to save your adorably obsessive ass."
"What d'you mean you stole a car? Where's your truck?" Concern about the lecture he was going to get from Art was quickly replaced by concern about his personal stash of stolen whiskey.
"Are you trying to get rid of me?"
Leaning in, Tim spoke for Weaver's ears only. "You usually get rid of yourself. What the hell are you still doing here? And what happened to your nice rental, the one with my bourbon in it?"
"I got a red sedan around here somewhere, stole it from out front of the court house. I was in a hurry and it was parked illegally anyway. I probably saved her car from getting towed, or having the bomb squad crawl all over it with those mirrors on sticks and those big dogs."
"You stole Milja's car? Where's yours?"
"You know she didn't even lock it – not that it would prevent it being stolen if someone was determined, but it's at least a deterrent to the casual thief. You might want to remind her to lock it. But anyway, I had her keys."
"Where's your fucking truck?"
"At her office. Dude, calm down. She insisted on driving when we went to see your boss. She's a take charge kind a gal. I admire that. Did you see her yelling at Nelson to take out the .50 cal? She was all fired up."
"She was...?" Tim's face screwed into a knot while he got his mind around what Weaver was saying. "Does she know you have her car?"
"Well, probably. Why else would she be here?"
"For me?"
"Dude, I'm trying to protect your feelings. She's really here for me." Weaver pressed his hand to his chest. "She likes me. I know she does. She pretends not to, but…it's there."
"Your fantasy life is clearly more interesting than your real life, and that's saying something."
The whole time they bantered, Tim was slowly maneuvering Weaver away from Art and Raylan, a step to the side, then back, a little pressure from a hand placed casually on an arm, subtle guidance. The intention wasn't lost on Weaver.
"You are trying to get rid of me."
"Let me see." Tim reached out a hand, waggled his fingers, trying another method to put distance between his worlds.
Knowing exactly what Tim wanted, Weaver held out his rifle and Tim took it from him, and took another step away from the group at the same time under the guise of needing more space to inspect Weaver's weapon.
"Jesus, is that an PSG1 hiding underneath all this shit. What the hell have you done with it?"
"It needed some blinging."
Raylan had sidled over to the two Tims, bored with the bourbon conversation. He peered at Weaver's rifle, asked a question to try to glean more information on Tim's friend. "It's a semi-automatic?"
Weaver nodded. "I try to tell him he's gotta get one, get with the twenty-first century. Bolt-action. Pshaw."
"The bolt action's more reliable. And besides, when do I ever need rapid fire in this job?"
Weaver and Raylan answered together. "Today."
"Okay, so that's once." Tim handed the rifle back. "No Hello Kitty stickers this time?"
"I used them up on my last one."
"How will I know it's yours then?"
"Easy. It's the best sniper system in the world, and you'll know it's mine when you go green with envy every time you look at it."
"There's that imaginary world you live in again." Tim gave up trying to be subtle and started manhandling Weaver toward the road. "It's fucking heavy and fucking expensive."
"See? Jealous. It's a dull life you live."
"You call this dull?"
"Meh."
"Where's Milja's car? I'll walk you over."
But Tim's escape was thwarted. A meaty hand grabbed hold of the back of his collar and dragged him back a step, and a voice that sounded discouragingly like Art's said, "Not so fast, boys. I need a word with you two."