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

[following this:]


The door opens up to a fancy hotel room. It may not be as rich as some Loki has seen in his time, but as Kate leads him through the door he'll notice the grand four-poster bed, the fine washstand with an array of soaps and perfumes set out, the gold-framed mirror and the clean plaster walls. Kate keeps it immaculate, her things contained on a vanity table and hidden inside an oak armoire. The only thing astray is a book, which is kept next to the bed.

"Ain't exactly proper, leadin' a man out of my bedroom."

Her lips twist. Milliways does love to complicate things.

"Mireille's room is next door."

[Previously...]

Ms. Katherine James appeared in Galveston one early August evening, astride a clear-eyed red dun with a stern young companion at her back. To say the apparition wasn't poetic, even for the bustling port town, would be a grievous omission.

On their first day in Galveston, Kate and Rachel install themselves in the first fancy hotel they agree upon; an opulent Greek Revival with a hotel saloon and all the latest comforts. Galveston's as big a city as you could hope for out West, and they find no trouble filling the hours with twenty-five cent baths perfumed with rose petals and lye soaps, hot square meals, entertainment, and the first comfortable night spent in their respective rooms — feather pillows and silk sheets — since they started on the trail east from Cuero.

It takes a few days for everyone to find each other. Ace is the first to ride in, followed a day later by Butch and Mireille. In that time, Kate takes to exploring the island. Her father would come home with stories after business trips and quick errands, but Kate herself has never been to the coastal cities. She's never seen the buildings pock-marked with salt mist and sun and mildew, or smelled the tangled gardens hung heavy on the muggy air. Galveston's a wealthy, modern, commercial gateway to cotton, cattle, and other trades, whose mercantile benefactors have made it a cultural and architectural showpiece without equal west of New York.

Having seen the New York of the future, that makes Kate smile privately. Wandering Galveston's urban streets makes her wonder if someday it will sprawl just as big, whereas now it swims like a guppy in the vast ocean of progress where New York City is a shark.

(And, unmentionable, unthinkable, comes the pang that accompanies remembering her trip to New York, where thoughts of Tommy are quickly suppressed.)

Kate catalogs the avenues, the back streets; making maps of getaway routes in her mind. The Strand spans Twentieth to Twenty-fifth Streets, a commercial epicenter akin to Wall Street, where she counts five enormous banks and eight newspapers. The former makes the gears in her mind crank, potentials endless, but she meekly skirts past the latter for fear of being recognized. Ms. Katherine James, daughter of wealthy cattle baron Elijah James, secretly the infamous kissing outlaw half of Texas now hunts. Wouldn't that sell a rag or two?

Punctuating the western end of the Strand is the Sante Fe Railroad station. Steam billows from an engine, which looks to her like an angry bull impatiently awaiting a rider; the rumble and ruckus of lever, engine, and air is low, but deafening. Kate wanders the limestone halls, glancing over newsstands in search of familiar names and dollar amounts. 'CUERO BANK ROBBED BY KISSIN' KATE!' But she sees nothing.

Yet.

She meanders through the East End, along Sealy, Ball, Winnie, and Church Streets, across Broadway where business gives way to extravagant Queen Anne style homes, fine cast-iron Gothic Revival verandas, wooden galleries, columns, and balustrades carved with intricate Gothic and Greek Revival designs — every ounce of wealth from the Strand on display, boasting, bragging. She pauses for a while outside the limestone and granite mansion she's told is the "Bishop's Palace", and wonders what it would be like to strip these people of their grand vestments. To show them what it's like to live like Viktoria, and the rest of the people of Cuero so long taken advantage of.

The thought passes.

She eventually makes her way back through the business district (and even it peacocks about, cast-iron facade decorations and iron hoods over every window), the ghostly scents of oleander and hibiscus melting away to German Jewish delicacies, the scent of the cotton mills, horses, and sweat. The occasional blast of salt and sea off the Gulf. The barking calls of merchants haggling, inviting, tempting; the sound of wagon wheels and clinking glasses and people laughing and crying and buying and selling and living.

It's a good place to get lost, if you're running from something.

But Kate stands in the broad way, and thinks to herself, Goddammit, I'm gonna make you people see me.

The trick will be not letting them see Weyland's giant mechanical bird first.

(Finding a suitable place for Hildegard didn't exactly come easily, but rich Victorians who rely on oil and shipping as their main trades don't have much use for plow, hoe, or most helpfully, barns. The golden bird tucks herself in the hayloft, nests in old straw; Mireille is satisfied, though some mean streak in Kate's humor is tempted to let her loose on those fine Queen Annes and watch the people scatter as she picks off cattle and sheep for snacks.)

Their first night all together, Butch, Ace, Mireille, Rachel, and Kate, is spent in celebration. Kate promised them a party, and she found one in the Garten Verein. The city's so bright and shiny with all the finest modern ideas that bona fide electricity lights up the German dancing pavilion, giving Kempner Park a soft, unearthly glow. Folk are nice enough, the night is warm, there's no lack for beer, and the time stretches on in laughter, dance, spirit and song. After the job, it's a needed respite. And before she can buy Butch that dinner she promised him, it's a welcome moment to spend in merriment.

For every thing there is a season.

For every wound, a salve.


For every job there is a time to spend, to keep breathing, to live.

Kate's door opens out into her hotel room. It's nice  —  real nice, to be honest. Four poster bed, basin, writing desk, carved oak bureau and vanity. Empire draperies in rich reds and golds; pristine horsehair plaster walls.

"C'mon in."

Kate sets her things down on the bed, and turns to Miss X. Standing akimbo, she grins.

"Shall we see what the Miss picked out?"

Over the Spring/Summer of 2011, a plot arc with Gene Hunt (Life on Mars) visiting Kate's Texas, c. 1888, was meant to occur in her milliways_bar timeline. After a few months, the plot was abandoned. It has since become an AU, and should be treated as a standalone plot not associated with any game, and not fitting into Kate's continuity.

Since several people have shown an interest in reading it, I have organized each post here in order from first to last.

•   May    6th        †   Western Texas, 1888   †   The pair arrives in Texas, and Gene visits his very first Old West town... and encounters the local wildlife. [144 comments]
  
•   May  14th        †   Western Texas, 1888 (pt. 2)   †   Camp the next morning. The two share breakfast and a few angry words. As you do. [49 comments]
  
•   May  17th        †   Choke Canyon, 1888   †   They make camp for the night, and Gene has more adventures with local wildlife — to put things lightly.* [176 comments]
  
•   May  26th        †   Oakville, 1888   †   At last they arrive in Oakville, and Gene meets some local color. [133 comments]
  
•   June 12th       †   Oakville, 1888 (pt. 2)   †   That night, Gene and Kate go on their first date. [156 comments]
  
•   June 25th       †   The Morning After   †   After things the night before get awkward, Kate's distressed to find Gene's gone by morning. He returns drunk, and she leaves him to his foul mood, exploring Oakville instead. Later, Gene has a bone to pick with a certain man in black, and when he returns to the hotel he and Kate find a way to reconcile.* [230 comments]
  
•   July    9th        †   Oakville, 1888   †   A morning that could have been spent fooling around is interrupted when a town meeting is called. [91 comments]
  
•   August    1st   †   Just Outside Oakville, 1888   †   After Gene volunteers to catch cattle rustlers, Kate takes him to a private place where she can teach him a thing or two about being a cowboy. Gene is easily distracted by other needs. Later that night, the two are accosted on their way back into town. They spend the night together.* [313 comments]
  
•   October 2nd   †   Oakville, Morning   †   It's Gene's first day on the job. Kate rouses him so he won't be late, but he manages to coerce her into a little morning hanky-panky. Thread never completed.* [52 comments]

I'm rather proud of what did get accomplished, all in all. Many thanks to the impeccable Gene Hunt! Feel free to leave comments below.


* Adult content

**NOTE: This is part of a plot arc that was meant to occur in Milliways over the Spring/Summer of 2011 in Bar Time. It has since become an AU, and should be treated as a standalone plot not associated with any game, and not fitting into Kate's continuity.**



It's still dark outside when Kate wakes. The room is bathed in warm lamplight from the oil that was left burning overnight, but through the window she can see the first hint of dawn.

It's not the first thing she sees. She finds herself pressed to a warm body, naked and masculine, and feels totally disoriented. For the briefest, cruelest second she believes she's with Doc, his scarred arms wrapped around her middle; and then the heat of the room registers, thick and heavy, and she's brought back to Texas.

Back to Gene.

She blinks slowly, butterfly kisses against his breast, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Her mind is trapped in a haze of sticky dreams and clutching memories, unable to shake them even as the wheels start going. She tips her head back, and watches him sleep.



It seems like hours later, but really it's only a matter of minutes when she shifts away from him. She's taking care not to wake him at first, but the moment she moves her legs — good god, is she sore.

How she manages to get out of bed without waking him is a mystery. How she manages to quietly get dressed when every inch of her feels like it's been crushed by a boulder is another honest mystery. At least he's a heavy sleeper, and by the time she's snuffed out the lamp and rid the room of every last trace of her, light is starting to turn yellow while he slumbers on.

She gets to her room without anybody noticing, but doesn't stay long. She's in desperate need of a long, hot bath. She changes clothes, uses the basin and a small chunk of soap to try and mask the smell of sex, tidies her hair and goes downstairs to see the innkeeper.