Beacon of My Soul

by Lilyjack

The following is a combination MM/ATC for Season 2, Episode 21, "Bloody Hands" written by John Meston, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Crazy enough, this fic assumes that Matt and Kitty are not yet a couple. Many thanks to Moonstone Maiden, Glow, and anotherredhead for ideas and encouragement.

Oh, won't you stay with me
'Cause you're all I need...

Sam Smith, "Stay With Me," In the Lonely Hour

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Chapter 1

"You're nothin' but a butcher..." Jack Brand's disembodied, raspy voice coldly sneered in Matt Dillon's ear. "A butcher..." The sound echoed hollowly in his head like a death knell.

He looked down at his own hand where cool, gray gunmetal glinted, pointing directly at a man dressed entirely in black at the far end of the street, his shadowed face unidentifiable. Who was this man? Why was Matt pointing a gun at him? The stranger dispassionately reached for his weapon.

Matt pleaded hoarsely, "Don't make me shoot you. Don't go for your gun. Don't make me kill you!" Matt's heart pounded until he thought it would burst from his chest. Please, not another killing. He heard the raspy hiss in his ear once more, "Butcherrr..." and felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a brilliant flash of color, a red and pink sequined dress emerging from the saloon doors, bright blue eyes in a porcelain face etched with worry. "Be careful," Kitty whispered under her breath, but he heard her clearly all the same, and he could smell her rose-scented perfume from where he stood. "Please be careful, Matt..." she whispered again and blew him a gentle kiss from perfect, ruby-stained lips.

The stranger cocked his trigger. Quickly Matt's gaze returned to his opponent, and he begged once more, "Don't make me kill you!"

Staring at him with bleak, dead eyes, the stranger laughed callously, even while his hand darted for his gun.

Bullets fired.

Kitty's voice desperately cried out, "Matt!"

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The Marshal of Dodge City bolted straight upright in his undersized cot for the second time that night, gasping for air, black images of death and destruction by his own hand slowly slithering from his mind's eye. But the icy fingers of his shattering dream remained clenched around his heart all the same. His shirt collar was soaked with sweat, and he pushed the curls plastered to his wet forehead off his face.

It was still dark out, and the loud insect chorus outside the jailhouse window seemed to mock him, repeating Brand's damning curse, "butch-er, butch-er, butch-er." Chester remained undisturbed, snoring softly on his own cot, arms dangling, mouth gaping in sleep.

Matt sighed and stood with a small groan, his whole body aching with utter exhaustion. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep in two days. Looking out the window, he judged the time to be about 1AM. He grabbed his gun belt and buckled it back on, deciding to make the rounds of Dodge once more to try and chase the nightmare images from his head. He was sure getting no rest as it were. He grimaced at the thought that outlaw Jack Brand had gotten to him like he had. Maybe a walk around town would help to clear his troubled mind. Matt placed his hat on his head and glanced over his shoulder at his still peacefully sleeping assistant before he softly closed the door behind him.

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Boots scuffing along the boardwalk and dusty streets, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, Matt paid scant attention to where he walked or what was going on around him. Truthfully, at this hour and with the town being between trail herds, little was going on in Dodge. All the stores and most of the saloons had closed up for the night since there were very few cowboys to darken their swinging doors. Only an occasional drunk could be seen stumbling his way home to sleep off a snootful. Matt ignored them as he made his preoccupied way through the darkened thoroughfare.

Matt's mind was in a terrible mire, mulling over the deadly events of the afternoon before. Three killings. He knew there was nothing he could have done differently—the men had all resisted arrest and drawn their weapons first-but Matt had never been a killer at heart. Loss of life had always bothered him, but three deaths on his hands all at once, not to mention Brand's merciless taunting, were eating him up inside.

Just then Matt looked up and was surprised to find himself in the shadowy back alley behind the Long Branch. Well, maybe not so surprised after all. Ever since Kitty had come to town, he'd made it a habit to always check around back of the saloon on his rounds, where her bedroom window was, to make sure she was okay. He guessed his feet had taken him there as a matter of course this evening.

But when Matt's gaze lifted upward, his heart caught in his throat. A soft light in Kitty Russell's window illuminated her graceful form as she moved beyond the white lace curtains. It suddenly dawned on him -it had been no accident that his booted feet had brought him here. He needed to talk to her. Kitty was a good friend. She always listened to his problems without judging him and offered him sound advice. Maybe she could help talk him out of this miserable brown study he was stuck in.

Quickly, he cupped his hands to his mouth, calling out her name as loudly as he dared, and waited, waited, watching the lighted window for any sign of her face. His heart sank when there was no answer, only the white lace curtains blowing gently in the slightbreeze.

He hurriedly glanced up and down the alley. No one in sight, but he didn't want to shout any louder and take a chance of drawing someone's attention. He shook his head and rolled his eyes at the very idea of what some of the townspeople would say.

Peering down in the dim light, he kicked in the dust and came up with a few pebbles. He pitched one small one, then two more. Matt screwed up his mouth at the thought of breaking her window. She'd be fit to be tied if that happened.

Then Kitty appeared, peeping out from behind the curtains cautiously at first, brows knitted in a frown. "Who's there?" she demanded, and Matt had to stifle a chuckle. Kitty was one tough little lady, that was for sure. It crossed his mind that he was lucky she didn't have a gun in her hand.

Matt spoke up quickly, hoarsely whispering as he held aloft both hands in an act of surrender, "It's just me, Kitty."

Then her mouth popped open at the sight of the U.S. Marshal in the alley below, grinning sheepishly. She opened the window wider and leaned on folded arms, her demeanor instantly changed. She was dressed in a spotless white, long-sleeved nightgown, her thick, wavy hair in a long, loose braid over her shoulder. "Marshal Dillon!" she exclaimed, her eyes twinkling in the starlight. "What on earth? Why, it's the middle of the night!" she added in a scolding manner, but the expression on her face told him she was anything but angry.

He grinned again and scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his boot, then offered, "I know, but I saw the light in your window, and I thought you might still be up. But if I'm botherin' you..."

Kitty hurried to interrupt, "Oh, I didn't say you were bothering me, Matt." She fingered her braid and pointed it at him accusingly. "You're puttin' words in my mouth."

Pushing his hat back off his forehead, he chuffed out a quiet laugh. "I apologize, Miss Russell. So, uh, I'm not botherin' you?"

"No, you're not." Kitty scrunched her forehead and rested her chin in one hand, "Hey, I just got off work. But what are you doing up at this hour? Chester told me earlier you were sleepin'."

"I, uh..." Matt hesitated, but finally decided to just come out with it. "I couldn't sleep, Kitty."

"Couldn't sleep? Why, he said you haven't slept for over two days. You must be dead tired!" she exclaimed in concern.

"I am, Kitty." Matt ducked his head. "Awful tired."

"Matt..." Kitty waited for him to look up at her before she continued. "Somethin's the matter, isn't it? That why you can't get any rest?"

Matt's throat constricted again and all he could do was nod.

"You wanna come up and talk about it?"

He cleared his throat and looked up and down the alley again to make sure no one was nearby. "What'll folks think, Miss Russell?"

"Oh, folks can go hang themselves, Marshal Dillon. You wait right there and I'll be down in a jiffy. Okay?"

Matt Dillon, bone weary and disquieted over his duties as a U.S. Marshal, just gazed up at Kitty Russell's radiant face looking down at him so expectant and soft and sweet there in the warm lamplight streaming from her bedroom window. In that moment, he thought he'd never seen anyone so pretty or met anyone so good in his whole entire life. "Okay," was all he could manage in an exhausted voice. "Okay, Kitty, I'll wait right here for you."

tbc

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