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

It's late afternoon on a Saturday, and all of Kate's chores have been squared away. Most of the hands are here in the mornings, leaving the afternoons a little less busy, and the evenings even more so. Kate knows today is the day Dr. Lecter will be coming by, and so she's seen to it they'll have a modicum of privacy.

She's left the desk clean and organized, and taken the chair out to the back paddocks. The ones in the far back are being used right now, so she sets the chair near the railing edging the forest near the stables' back exit. The horses not in their stalls are all out front, leaving things pretty empty out here.

Once that's settled, she waits by the side entrance for the good doctor.

It's a nice day at the end of the universe. Kate's been letting some of the stock out to graze, so the stable itself is fairly quiet.

She's moving between stalls, getting them mucked and freshening up the troughs. Beaut's whickering at her as she moseys to and fro, occasionally pinning her ears at the new stallion across the way.

The stallion who, as of a few minutes ago, has enjoyed his second green apple of the day.

The last several weeks have been -- well, to call them odd would be the understatement of the millennium. Kate's been turned upside down and inside out, figuratively and literally.

Normally when she feels like this the only solution is to get out and go home. But 'home' right now is a bloodshot Texas, all heat and grit, and the possibility of getting caught while she figures a way out of Kenedy is something she hasn't wanted to ponder. It keeps niggling at her, becoming ever more and more a fact, a surety, an inevitability. Still, staying here means sitting around, feeling like an old woman with aches and pains; coming down with strange illnesses; and getting into spats with what few friends she still has. She hasn't seen hide nor hair of Gene Hunt since their last little discussion. Part of her is relieved that he hasn't been around for Miss Bar's shenanigans. The other part? Is agitated, and melancholy.


She's been out practicing at the firing range, but -- unable to keep the tremble from her fingertips -- she's given up and come to the stables. She's brushing down Concession, the horse she brought back from Colorado that nobody seems to love but her and a sweet little Japanese girl she's been giving riding lessons. He's not the prettiest stud in the stables, but he has spirit. And he helps Kate remember.

It's chilly outside, and Kate has traded in Doc's winter coat for one of her own. After X-23 had explained that she retrieved both bags and kittens from the stables that morning, leaving the former with Miss Bar and taking the latter back to her apartment for safekeeping, Kate had decided to pick the bags up. The kittens, she told X, could stay with her for a little while longer. At least until she got back from a trip she was planning on making back home, to clear her head and give Ramon some space. She knew the man wouldn't be celled forever, and despite their newly-established truce, she felt more comfortable with making herself scarce before Security released him.

X had agreed that this was a logical plan.

One bag had gone to her room, for repacking. It's where she found her own winter wear (things she could have used over that cold Colorado season), and a few more things she would be needing for this trip. The other -- Doc's bag -- was brought up to Doc's room. Bar generously gave her a key, no questions asked.

She thought about packing up some of his things, to make the room available for another patron, but it became quickly apparent that she still didn't have the heart for that. Even in Doc's Colorado home, she left much of his things there; an unexpected inheritance for the new buyer.

So his bag was left by his dresser, his key pocketed, and his belongings untouched.

(Except for the little orange paper crane, which found its way between the pages of a volume of poetry, and placed with her things.)


She now stands in the stables, brushing down Beaut with numb fingers; words of affection for the horse are steamy little puffs of air in the chilly morning weather, which linger between horse and master before melting away. Her bags are against the wall, waiting with Beaut's tack.

If Ben's note was accurate, however, they won't be waiting much longer.

.

There's a bite in the air this morning. It's not terribly cold, but it's just cool enough to set a fine, chilly mist about the hard earth outside the stables, warranting blankets to be thrown over the horses left outside last night, and the hands of the sole person on the grounds that morning to bury themselves a little deeper into her coat. It's hardly a winter coat, but it's long and warm (and deep red in color), which makes it just enough to ward off the chilly air.

It's only just barely light out, a gray filter turning the whole landscape to twilight and shadow. Much too early for any stable hand to be about their business just yet. But the woman there now, milling about the stalls, visiting horse after horse, is looking to find one stable hand in particular, and she wasn't sleeping anyway. She'd rather wait out here than inside the bar. At least out here she could breathe.

(A little.)

Once the sun rises a bit more and the ground starts to heat, whoever comes by to begin their morning chores will find her about three stalls in from the main entrance, feeding oats to a (rather content-looking) Bay. Her face is somber, but her hands are light and loving as they stroke the animal.

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