Hello and welcome (back) to my bizarre little world. I have recently watched S1 and S2 of Justified and this fic started rolling in my head and although I really should be doing other things I decided to write it down. And since it is written, I thought I may as well post. Please bear with me as I try and get a handle on these characters.

TWD fandom readers will recognise the name of the OC but rest assured she has not moved universe, she is entirely a different person – I am just lazy about thinking up a new name.

My intention was to work my slowly into M rated material, but I have had to submit to the muse and this chapter is more M than not. I have also had to play around with two timelines – I think I have my tenses correct but you will need to concentrate. Hope you enjoy.

Mandatory disclaimer – if you've seen it on tv, it is not mine. Everything else, unless noted, is mine originally (if not exclusively).

Chapter 1

Fuck she thought but the sound that came out of her mouth was more of a moan. She traced her hand from where his was currently rolling her nipple between his thumb and finger until she found his shoulder, taking a firm grasp to drag him up from her nether regions before she exploded.

Not that she had a problem exploding; it's just that she wanted to do it with him, not by herself.

She had noticed him as soon as he had come into the seedy bar that she was sitting in; she could tell with just one look that he didn't belong. He had worn a collared shirt, a small triangle of his white undershirt showing above the first unbuttoned slot, a casual sports jacket hanging open, a clean pair of jeans and a nice pair of loafers. His face was lean, with a rather cute nose and perfect cupid's bow lips; he was clean shaven and his hair showed evidence of some care – there was no evidence of piercings or tattoos. She had taken all of that in with one glance and then turned away so as not to attract undue attention, but kept enough of her gaze on him that she had seen the way his eyes had looked over the room before he had committed himself to enter. Cop she had thought initially and while outwardly she didn't stiffen noticeably, years of experience tightened muscles in readiness and she had kept an eye on him. She had changed her mind even before he sat down and started drinking, although he was drinking too freely to be a cop, well certainly an on-duty one. It had been a certain something in his walk; a walk that lacked the swagger that most cops his age adopted, but rather was balanced, lithe, smooth, almost a, and it took her some consideration to find the appropriate adjective, prowl. It was the walk of a man with quiet but innate confidence in his abilities. It had been fucking' sexy and then he'd bent over slightly to sit, tightening his jeans around his rear end and she'd felt her body react in anticipation.

He smirked at her as he lifted his head at her tug but took his own time as he moved up along her naked torso, touching his lips to a hip bone, across her flat stomach and on each rib until he found the red peak of her breast, practically demanding attention. He lavished some on it, enclosing it with his mouth and flicking it with his tongue, feeling her jerk slightly, hearing the gasps from her with each touch. He closed his teeth over her, grazing against her flesh gently at the same time that he pushed a finger into her wet opening. She hissed, arching up into him, her hands curling into a shoulder and the back of his head.

This was an unexpected development to the day he thought as he landed on his back, looking up as she straddled him and then bent her head to his chest.

The day had been ordinary – nothing outstanding. He had used up most of the day moving and settling a new Witsec candidate – taking custodianship from the New York marshal, then running him through the documentation and rules of the programme then driving down to Redbud to place him in the small shack on the outskirts of the township. Rachel had accompanied him for the drive, and their eyes had met in unspoken amusement as the witness had complained about the absence of signal for his phone and moaned about the likely speed of the internet. Painstakingly he had once again gone through the concept that someone convicted of computer fraud and about to testify against some particularly nasty people whose records he happened to access really should not be accessing the internet for more than the telephone directory. He hadn't been confident that it had sunk in, but they had left him in his new life and driven back up in companionable silence broken occasionally by snippets about how quick Nick was growing and what he was doing. A dinner date for the Sunday may have been made – he would have to confirm with Rachel because damn if he could even process a thought at the moment.

His head rolled back as her teeth grazed over his nipple, her hand tracking over his stomach and then to feather across the top of his now far too tight jeans. She followed the track with her mouth and his breath hitched as her warm breath penetrated the fabric. She looked up, her brown eyes sparkling impishly and then returned her mouth to his belly, tracing along the line of his belt as her hands worked on the buckle, the button and then the zipper underneath. He moaned as her hand slid between the fabric, clasping his shaft firmly and running down its length.

Marion smiled at his reaction, both the physical jerk within her hand and under her lips as well as the guttural groan that escaped his lips.

She shouldn't be here, she knew that: she had heard her cautious inner voice 'ad nauseum' on the topic. She knew she should already be in Harlan County, getting the lie of the land and ready to follow up on the research that she had already done to make sure that there would be no hitches to the plan. But she'd had an uncomfortable flight next to an obese man who didn't know what deodorant was and took all of the potential spare leg room. While her comfort wouldn't normally be enough to put her off her target, Google maps had showed the terrain as hilly without actually identifying where she needed to go. She had an, what she considered healthy, aversion to being lost in a strange, potentially hostile, place when it was dark and she had been hungry. So after she had found the car, using the key which had been mailed to her to start it and make sure everything worked smoothly she had stowed her stuff in a cheap motel room which didn't worry about writing names in a book as long as the cash was paid up front. Then she had followed the desk clerk's instruction, a man who was obviously smarter than he looked, to the nearest place which served alcohol and edible food. The dump that she walked into was exactly what she had been looking for: poor lighting which concentrated on the girls gyrating up and down poles rather than on the patrons who watched – some eagerly as if the spectacle was satisfying some type of need within them, others with dull eyes as if they were barely seeing what was before them but were in fact seeing something else vividly.

He had been one of the latter and while there had been a couple of dancers that actually did dance a bit before they stripped and she had been enjoying the music, the sight of all those breasts and far too much hairless skin in other bodily areas had started to pale on her. But instead of getting up and heading back for some shuteye like she should she had found herself watching him more and more as the night wore on, examining his side profile in the mirrors behind the bar from the safety of her dark booth. She had narrowed her eyes at not only the consumption but the calibre of his drinking, recognised the strategy of trying to get oneself drunk; a different time and place she might have been playing the same game, and she had wondered what ghosts haunted him that he went to it with such determination. Her aim was normally that point where there was a slight delay between moving her eyes and seeing what her eyes were looking at; but he seemed to be trying to get to the point where he couldn't walk.

Not that it seemed to affect him much she laughed as he lifted her up and flipped her back underneath him and ground his now freed erection into her centre, making her groan again.

He had noticed her as soon as he had opened the door. The bar was one of his favourite haunts: it wasn't classy by any standards, but the drinks weren't watered, the waitresses knew not to offer him any extras beyond the drinks on their trays and there was no overt drug dealing or anything else he would have felt constrained to intervene in. Most importantly – no-one from the office would ever dream of going there. Although when he saw her – sitting at a booth at the rear of the room, clean, dressed in a tailored short sleeved blouse and what could have been tailored slacks with a bottle of some type of lolly water in front of her it had crossed his mind that Art had sent someone to watch him. But her eyes had slid off him and she had ignored him as he started drinking.

He had all but forgotten about her within a short space of time, keeping his eyes on the stage although in truth he hadn't really seen the figures contorting in front of him. They were a backdrop to the memories of this time of the year, when there had been chaos all around him, when his friends had dropped full of shrapnel, when he had held Pete's hand as he had bled out, when he run across that open plain to get his position and earned ... one of those medals. Bravery had never entered his head – keeping the small number of men alive had been. He didn't think he was the one who should have got the medal – that belonged to the men who died.

It had been the accent as she ordered her meal that had dragged him out of his memories. It wasn't heard that often in Kentucky, let alone in this particular area of Lexington, but it was heard commonly enough in the military zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. The soldiers who spoke with it walked with a calm assurance that made all but their contemporaries step to the side, any soldier who thought that he would get any respect by standing up to them firmly put on his 'arse' without delay but without lasting malice – they never appeared to take anything seriously, except when on patrol. The Rangers respected them – didn't meant that there wasn't a healthy rivalry and a whole lot of bravado about who was the best and the hardest soldier, but he'd never had a problem having the SASR at his back. He had used the mirror of the bar to look her over, drinking comfortably in silence with her eyes on the stage, seeing that she looked at everyone who entered the bar and wondered if she was waiting for someone.

He pushed himself off the bed, dragging down his jeans and underwear and placed them on the floor near his jacket and shirts, being careful to let his backup disappear inside the fabric and not make an audible thump on the floor. He reached for his jacket and extracted his wallet, leaving his warrant card in the pocket, producing the foil packet with a slight grin and meeting her eyes.

Marion sighed in satisfaction – casual sex was all fun but the potential after effects weren't and she was relieved that he at least was prepared. She sat up, sliding forward so that her legs were either side of him and took the packet from his hand. She tore it open quickly and dropped the empty packet, leaning forward to place her lips on his tip, extending her tongue to capture the sweet moisture that was beading there. He groaned, his hands gripped her shoulders tightly and she replaced her mouth with her hands, rolling the condom on quickly.

He pushed her back onto the bed, leaning over her and following as she scooted up until her head was back on the pillows. Then she pushed herself up, meeting his mouth hungrily, pushing her tongue into his mouth and tasting him, then allowing him to push her back to the pillows, submitting to his demand for dominance as his hand captured one of her breasts, the other holding the majority of his weight off her. He pulled his head back as the tip of his shaft grazed against her centre, meeting her eyes for final confirmation – she lifted her hips up to him in silent invitation and he slid into her.

Marion gasped as he filled her, setting already alight nerve endings into frantic response. She stared into his blue eyes, lifting her head to gently capture his bottom lip – and then sucked it firmly.

Something exploded in his belly at her touch and he thrust hard into her. She groaned and he pulled back, then thrust again – her hips bucked up to him and he moaned as he felt his whole length enclosed within her warmth. He returned his mouth to hers as he moved, she met him over and over again and their kiss lost its co-ordination; she arched herself further onto him, her little gasps of pleasure in his ear heightening his own sense of arousal. The gasps elevated into moans and he increased his speed – she gave a sharp cry and he exploded as he felt her convulse around and under him.

Marion held tightly to him as he shuddered above her, riding her own wave of pleasure down to a pulsing contentment. He collapsed onto her, breathing hard; she revelled in his weight, running her hands up and down his back, trying to soothe the bruises and cuts that she could feel.

"Do you mind if I stay here the night?" he murmured in her ear.

"You paid for the room," she reminded him lightly. She wouldn't come back to this motel; the desk clerk was far too smart, it had taken only a short shake of her head and his eyes had glazed over as if he didn't recognise her. "You can stay as long as you like."

"Will you stay for the night?" he moved his lips along the skin of her neck.

She sighed, stretching her neck to give him more access. "I have to get up early in the morning," she whispered.

"I'll wake you up," he promised, moving his lips to nibble at her ear.

She hesitated; having sex with him was one thing – sleeping with him was another. He lifted his head above hers, his blue eyes meeting hers almost with some vulnerability and she couldn't help herself. She smiled at him, "perhaps if you shuffle a little to the right," she quipped slightly breathlessly.

He snuffed in amusement and lifted his weight off her, but leaned in to plant a languid kiss on her lips. He sighed as he lifted his head again, then extracted himself from inside her (she jumped a little at the sensation) and rolled over to his right. She frowned a little and thought about saying something – but wasn't sure how to phrase her habit of sleeping with her eye to the door. He rolled up into a sitting position and she allowed her hand to trace his back again, admiring the muscled shoulders and tapered waist but wincing at the shadows of the bruises and the cuts and grazes that had broken skin. He threw the remains of the condom into the bin and laid back down, pulling the sheet up over both of them. She shuffled over so that there was room and tucked her arm under her head, tracing her other hand over his chest where more bruises, cuts and grazes were evident, playing with the sprinkling of hair and then toying with the small but erect nipples. His hand came up and captured hers, pulling it to neutral territory in the middle of his chest and tucked the other under her head – a slight smile on his face and his eyes closed.

She smiled and dragged another pillow over, using it to pad her head up so that she wasn't leaning on his arm and closed her eyes.

"My name's Tim," he said quietly, his eyes still closed.

She smiled again. "Marion."

"Nice to meet you Marion," he managed as he fell asleep.

And you too she thought.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The gunfire was everywhere, Pete lay still now – his blood now seeping into the desert sands – but there were still the screams of the other soldiers, some in pain, others in fear. One officer was trying to get something approaching a plan in action but they were effectively pinned down, the insurgents were dug in behind the small walls of what used to be goat pens – there was no way they were going to be able to get at them – except from that small hill 100 yards away.

He looked around, seeing the desperation, the fear, the determination on the faces of the eight men still alive, the despair on the medic as he tried to hold the intestines of one young soldier inside his body. Then he looked at the blankness of Pete how was he going to tell Jenny?

He looked up at the hill again – from there he would be able to flank those walls, he'd be able to pick them off, well as long as he had enough ammunition. As long as he made it. He looked to the officer, Lieutenant Pride he remembered – fresh out of the academy, on his first tour. The lieutenant met his eyes, saw his intention and to his credit shook his head even though he knew it was their only hope because he could see it was as good as a suicide mission. But Tim just lifted his rifle, making sure a round was chambered and stared back with resolution and the lieutenant nodded. He yelled and order, the surviving soldiers lifted their weapons and sent a stream of fire over the earth – Tim jumped up and bolted. The bullets exploded about him – he felt a sharp pang in his side.

Tim started awake – disorientated by the blinking of a purple fluorescent light through the tiny highlight window, an obscure pattern of the yellow goldenrods tracked across the roof and into striped wallpaper. It was still night, maybe not by full definition but certainly by the darkness in the sky. Then the body next to him shifted again, pressing her breasts into him, shifting her upper thigh across his, clenching her hand onto his hip and murmuring something indistinguishable. Memory flooded in and he looked over at her face.

She was beautiful – even in purple fluorescent light. More so than he had been able to pick out in the bar. Her face was lean with classic high cheekbones, delicate button nose and full lips. He had pulled her chocolate brown hair out from its pony tail sometime during the night – it was spread across her back, several bits wisping around her ears which twinkled from a single diamond stud.

She hadn't needed his help, not really. He hadn't seen her take down the two thugs, but one minute he was copping a beating from two of them with the third on the way in and then the beating had halved, he had thrown off the remaining thug and stood – she'd been hardly breathing more heavily but one thug was lying motionless and the other was gasping and groaning while clutching at his throat. He'd quirked his eyebrow at her.

She had smiled slightly and shrugged. "Black belt."

"Perhaps you could have mentioned that earlier?" he'd suggested sardonically, wincing slightly as he touched a tender spot on his face.

"Did you ask?" her tone had been arch and he'd had to acknowledge the point. Everything about Bo and his cronies had offended him and blood had rushed to his head. "Are you damaged significantly?" she'd wanted to know, reaching to where he could feel blood oozing from his lip, her face not that far from his.

His lips had twisted and he stretched a little, testing what hurt and what didn't and how much those bits that hurt did. "I think I'm good."

It was her turn to snort. "Uh-huh. No beauty contest lined up for tomorrow then?"

"They banned me," he had returned with a glint in his eye. "The competition complained." She had laughed at that, her eyes lighting up and a real smile tugging at her lips – he found himself attracted even more. "I need a shoe," he reported, having completed an inventory of his person.

The missing article was found under Thug 1 and she had held an arm out for him to balance as he slipped it back on. He had stepped once and stumbled; the effects of the alcohol now more apparent that the burst of adrenalin was gone and she had pulled his arm over her shoulders, wrapping her own around his waist and taking a firm grasp of his belt. He had allowed her support without protest, although he kept the majority of his weight off her and directed her to a dark sedan.

Marion's eyes had narrowed as he'd pulled the keys out of his pocket. "Uh-uh I don't think so," meeting his eyes evenly and apparently not at all worried about his best sniper's glare. "I'll get you a cab."

"I'm not that drunk," he had protested, putting the key toward the door.

She had snorted, snatching at them. But despite his condition he was still quick and his hand closed over them, putting them behind his back. "Bullshit. You're hammered," she had argued, stepping in closer to try and capture his hand – his blood had warmed beyond the alcohol effect as her breasts brushed against his chest.

"Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz," he had rattled off quickly and she had stopped; her face very close to his. "Zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba," he rattled off just as quickly and with more than a hint of triumph.

Her eyes had lit with amusement. "Just because you have memorised the alphabet in reverse order does not make you sober." He had watched as she looked up and down the street, finding it empty except a few isolated cars, then met his eyes over a disturbing absence of centimetres. "Um," she had swallowed, stepping back and tried again. "There doesn't look to be many cabs around." She had sighed, then held out her hand. "Give me the keys," she instructed.

"You're drunk," he had retorted playfully.

Her eyes had flashed with indignation and she had placed her hands on her hips, apparently unaware of how the action accentuated her bust. "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck so much wood he wouldn't know how much wood he chucked!" she had snapped.

"She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells Seashore shells," he had returned in a voice of appreciation.

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?" she had challenged.

"Eighteen," he had replied.

She had laughed out loud and he hadn't been able to help himself. He had leant in and kissed her; for a moment she had been still, as if shocked, but before he could retreat she had pushed up into him and thrown her arms around his neck. He had reached his hand up to the back of her head, burying it amongst her hair and pulling her closer into him. The wave of desire had all but taken his breath away, he moved his hand up along her side, extending a thumb over the curve of her breast.

She'd pulled away and he thought for one horrible second that he'd overstepped a line. "Not here," she'd whispered and he'd turned to see that three of the four shapes on the ground were moving. "There," she'd nodded to where a purple neon light flashed a few blocks away. He'd let her drive – it had been an interesting experience but there hadn't been enough cars on the road to correct her.

Suddenly her face contorted slightly at the same time that her hand clenched again and he frowned slightly. Carefully he moved the arm underneath her so that it wrapped further around her, resting on her waist and moved his other hand to enclose hers against his hip. She gave a sigh and her face relaxed again, her body softening against him and he smiled. She was beautiful he thought again, lulled back to sleep by her breathing and warmth pressed against him.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

So? Reviews are not necessary as such but they add fuel to the fire that will keep me writing this story, because I haven't finished it yet. Tim's military history is not mine – I borrowed from the universe as described by freshouttaideas.