We saw you headin' back with a shovel, Miss Katherine

Tonight isn't any different than most other nights. Tommy stops in late, long after Kate returns from her nightly chores, washes up, and changes into something clean and comfortable. He brings along dinner, and the two sup together in comfortable silence.

It's been a tiring period for them both. Sometimes a quiet dinner is just what they need.


They're only just finishing up. Soon, she'll tenderly peel him out of his clothes and put him to bed with her, watching over him until he's relaxed enough to fall asleep.

[a little after this...]


She looks for reasons to stay in the stables as late as possible, but eventually she can dally no longer. They're practically sparkling, and all the animals are in for the night. Beaut's cooled down after her ride around the lake, and is cocking her ear at Kate like she knows something the woman doesn't.

All right, you nag.

True to his word, Tommy's waiting for her when she gets back to her room. They share a meal, quietly conversing about New York, and 'anniversary' plans; she reminds him it's getting close to her anniversary here, and how she's been thinking about leaving awhile. They seem a little shy to set the other off, and so discussions stay light and open. It's late by the time they're through.

He invites her to come to bed, and she sends him ahead, saying she'd like to stay up and read for a spell. He doesn't fight her on it, perhaps because he knows she's uncomfortable about something. She typically sleeps well enough when Tommy's here, but he's usually worn her out before they drop off; it doesn't seem worth the gamble tonight.

She's only ten pages through her book when he starts to sigh, all the while tossing and turning. He coaxes her to join him, and with a good deal of long-suffering patience, she closes her book and does just that.

He's got her wrapped up in his arms when she finally drops off.

It feels nice.



For the first time in months, she dreams about her daddy dying: his body carried up the hill to her childhood home, breast stained red, dust curling in the air as they drop him at her feet. Trout's there, telling her she brought it on herself. Sam reaches out to her with that questioning tone, the last words he ever spoke ringing in her ears.

'...Kate?'

She's on a boat. Sam's face explodes beside her, iron rain pattering on her skin. She's screaming, but she isn't making a sound. Trout overturns Sam's boat into a sea of scorpions, writhing and snapping, some big enough you could ride. She's caught in a maelstrom of them, and the more she fights the more it feels like quicksand, the more her limbs feel heavy and dumb. She fights harder, and harder, but she's sinking.

The sky is red, and in the middle of it all a hole opens up, sucking everything up like so much refuse.

[Sometime after this:]


Kate isn't sure she trusts the cavalier attitude toward illness in Milliways. Sure, they've made some remarkable leaps in medicine throughout the universe, but remarks like 'it's just the flu' and 'common cold' still make her gawp. This doesn't feel like just anything, and she's seen folk die from less.

She takes her medicine like a good patient, and agrees to bed rest to avoid staying in the infirmary. She mostly stays in bed — when nobody else is watching, even. However, that's to do mainly with how awful she's feeling, rather than any sudden change in disposition.

She's bored.

She's dying.

Doesn't anybody care?


She sets aside the last of the six books she borrowed from the library to keep herself occupied, and sighs. It quickly turns into a coughing jag. What's she going to do now?





--kismetBehest has logged on--

[following this:]


As Tommy is headed downstairs, Remy is headed up.

Not much has changed in Room #100.

It's the day before Christmas Eve. December.

Even looking at a calendar it's hard to believe she was gone the whole month of November. That's not what she had planned. She was only meant to be gone until All Hallow's passed, given a little time to ease herself into a month that makes her bones freeze whether she's in faux-Scotland or Texas, not dumped straight into the middle of it without any warning.

December.

How many years will it make it now since the Crockers put a bullet in her daddy's heart, just a few days shy of the holidays? About as many years since she last celebrated Christmas, she reckons. Is there really any point when the one you want to celebrate with ain't there? All her memories, all her traditions, tied so inexorably to her father that the thought of trying by herself made her cold.

Until last year.

It's been a topsy-turvy December, with money in her pocket and Tommy around. For the first time in a while, she hasn't been alone. But trying to explain why she sometimes goes quiet, staring off into space, arms hugged around herself and eyes so, so sad, isn't as easy as she thought it would be. They've talked, sure. He brought her to New York. But she hasn't told him everything; about the nightmares, or the conversation she had with her 'father' over All Hallow's Eve, or how it's creeping up on the anniversary of Sam's death, or the cold winter she spent trapped in a cabin in Colorado after putting Doc's body in the ground. The wind howls through the trees here, and it sounds like voices moaning, wailing, fingers scrabbling up out of the earth. The snow puts a chill in her skin that's only mirrored by the one in her heart.

She smiles, and tells him to spend the night with her. She flirts, and teases. Anything so long as she doesn't have to be alone; so long as he doesn't leave. And he makes her laugh. He makes her feel good. Some days, everything's all right. And she thinks about the promise she made to herself, alone in the desert; she thinks about trying to live again, and dares to feel hope.


Tommy's been gone for a few days now, and she can tell by the mood of the bar and the steadily growing pile of presents under the massive festive tree that Christmas Eve is growing near. She takes several deep breaths while she's settling affairs in the stables, letting the ice in the air burn her lungs. She hums under her breath, songs her daddy used to sing. And when she goes inside, she heads to Miss Bar to ask for holiday sweets and candles for her windows. She'll find a reason to celebrate this year.

She ends up with a note instead.



The words blur, along with the rest of the room. She doesn't know if she's more angry or hurt, shocked or ashamed. It's a tangled knot inside her that makes her feel sick, and through the thousands of thoughts screaming through her head she's able to discern one. Just one.

You were s'posed to be ... better.


Calmly, she conscientiously folds the note up into a perfect square, tucking it inside her vest pocket. And then she turns on her heel, abandoning everything else, and heads for the stairs. She doesn't hear anything. She doesn't see anything. She doesn't feel anything. With any luck, her door will be locked behind her before the first tears fall.

[following this and later this:]


It's late.

So late, in fact, it's practically the time she gets herself out of bed in the morning.

Her body is humming with the rhythm of packed earth, drumbeats under thundering hooves. Her face is wind-chapped and cerise. She spent a long time with Beaut, beating every trail in the dark with the stars overhead like millions of laughing eyes, sparkling and winking while she runs. She's chilled and stiff, but her tears have long since stopped and she's almost found her center once more.

She's grateful when she reaches the last step, turning in the direction of her room.

Kate wakes with the dawn ... generally speaking.


This morning, however, is different. The light coming in the windows is warm and golden rather than pale blue. It's a nice day outside, and the cowgirl is still abed.

You can blame that on the bourbon.

She's curled around Dug, blankets twisted around her legs from a restless night of tossing and turning. The comfort of the dog snoring beside her chased the worst of her nightmares away, but it's been a hell of a week.

The good news is she probably won't remember most of it.

[following this:]


That didn't go the way she planned.

"I would indeed have asked you to be my queen..."

All through settling Concession and finishing her chores, running into Master Albus, and the hoopla she started with Ben Hawkins, it's been on her mind. Not the queen business so much — Can you imagine, daddy? Me, a queen? — but the look on Teja's face when he said it. The look on his face when she left the forge.

"I shall not mention these things again."

Steam curls into the room as she emerges from the shower, chasing away the chill of rain and hail and her own cold heart.

It's been a long time since somebody's looked at her like that. Not like she's just a pair of pretty blue eyes and long blonde hair, but the kind of woman they could wed. The kind of woman they'd be honored to wed.

She comes out wearing her silk robe, and it hugs her thighs as she walks; it's heavy and damp under her hair. She's feeling penned in, hot, and the bottle of bourbon on the table is looking more and more like a good idea.


Turning him down was the right move. It's for the best, and she knows that. It's more than just her virtue or her barren belly, things that would be enough out west to send men like Teja packing. She's an outlaw, a criminal, and how's she supposed to tell him that men end up six feet under when she gets too close? Or how she's still in love with Doc, and will be to the end of her days? And, on the subject of love and the end of days, how's she supposed to tell him she sees Sam's ghost following her from place to place?

It's not Teja, it's her. She can't love nobody.

She finishes her first glass, and goes to the table for another.

Though, the more she thinks about it, she reckons it is about Teja. Because he's different. This isn't like Gene Hunt; that would only ever be physical, safe, because he didn't love her and there was no danger he ever would (and furthermore, he's gone and disappeared and god knows if she'll ever see him again; as hurt as she was to be stood up, she's spent the last eight months thinking about all the ways a copper can be killed and she wouldn't ever know). Teja looks at her with affection, and that? That's dangerous.


"I can fix that."


She turns, third glass sloshing in hand. Eyes wild.

The room is empty.

She only sees Sam when she's outside Milliways. Sometimes he's standing there like the day she kissed him in the rain, rucking his brow in surprise, not knowing what to do with his hands for the first time in all the years she'd known him. Sometimes he's leading Mary Lou, hitched to his onion cart. Sometimes he's rowing, and those are the times she hates the most because it's hard not to see him half blown away, or taste his blood on her tongue. But never when she's here.

"Sam?"

She doesn't know why, but never when she's here does he come to see her.

She lets out a breath, shutting her eyes to the brightness of the room and the sick climbing the back of her throat. The thing is, she's been riding for miles across Texas these past six months with the words her daddy said ringing in her ears.

"You were s'posed to be ... better."

Can you imagine, daddy? Me, a queen? It makes Joseph Waller and his three general stores seem like small potatoes. There wouldn't have been any of that fussing about dowries and occupations. I can just see you now, pulling your hand down your face like someone just hit you with a bucket of cold water. Me, a queen.


That's the thing about getting what you wish for. Just one more day with him, just one more, and All Hallow's Eve provided. Suddenly, the memory of his last words being you take care of yourself out there is rewritten, and all she can see is his disappointment when she thinks of him.

The thing is, his ghost has chased her across every lonely plain from Beeville to Yorktown.

The thing is, she was supposed to be better.




The thing is, she's so damn tired of being lonely, and she didn't think anyone would ever think of her that way again.


The neck of the bourbon bottle hits her glass indelicately, as drink number four sloshes to the rim. She climbs into bed, and convinces herself she didn't trip on that silk robe.

The world just tilted for a second, but it's all right now.

Kate opens the door and drops her bags on the floor by her desk. By the time she's flicked on the light, two orange-and-cream tabby tomcats are running up, mrowing and blinking hard to adjust to the sudden brightness of the room.

"Hello, boys," Kate grins, giving them a gentle scoot with her boot to get them out of the doorway. "C'mon in, an' make yourself comfortable."

Kate steps into the room so Elle may follow, hanging her wearied old cowboy hat on a peg by the door.