MAJOR SEASON 6 SPOILER
If you haven't seen it, and don't like spoilers, STOP READING NOW!
My husband and I sat around for a good hour after finishing S6E10 and wondering what happened to everyone. What follows will (hopefully) be a multi-chapter journey into the future of some of my favorite characters of all time.
Walt and Vic will have their own chapters. Other characters will probably be combined in logical pairings; Henry and Jacob, Cady and Zach, Ferg and Meg. I'd like to put something for Mathias in with Henry and Jacob...we'll see.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Please review, and I'll post Vic as soon as I can get her finished!
Walt
His first time out, he is gone for two weeks. He kills rabbits and such for food, washes his face in the clear mountain streams, and wakes up every morning feeling more alive than the morning before. In the crisp mountain air, he looks forward to the day ahead with optimism he hasn't felt in a long time.
He sees country much like the land outside his front door, but feels like he's journeying through untouched bits of heaven. His horse is sure-footed, graceful even, over ground that has never felt the alien cold of iron horseshoes.
At night, he puts his back to the fire and looks at the black sky, the Great Bear watching over him while he sleeps. Henry comes to mind often.
And Vic.
He packed salt and coffee, has enough ammunition for the rifle to keep himself both fed and protected. He told her he could be gone 'for a while'. He knows he can stay out for another week at least, but he finds himself riding for hours without thinking about the treasure. Instead, he's thinking about Vic.
About how she has made a staggering difference, in every respect. How she is strong and bold. Abrasive, in the beginning. She is a damn good cop, but she almost ruined her chances in Absaroka County, trying to force the level of respect she actually deserves.
And how she has a terrible poker face. About how he knows things she never says because her face is always telling her secrets. But he is ok with that. Especially now, when he wants more than anything to not be in the business of keeping secrets from those he loves anymore.
She's changed something inside him. Or maybe time has. He doesn't know which, but he wants to go home. It's a feeling he hasn't had in a long time; it feels foreign against his chest, but familiar, too.
The cabin isn't just a stale and empty vessel for memories of Martha anymore. Vic came in and now he loves the way she makes the house smell. It smells like new beginnings and fresh starts and not like hollow pain. It smells like coffee he didn't make and lotion he wouldn't use and peace he has forgotten. She doesn't hum like Martha used to, but there is music in her presence.
He wants to go home, and the truth in his yearning makes him smile.
The cell phone in his pocket vibrates, the ringtone muffled by dingy denim, and his smile broadens; it's her. It can only be her. She gave him the phone before he left. Said she was grateful she didn't have to worry about him getting shot on a raid anymore, but she'd be damned if she was going to let him ride off into the sunset without a leash.
He had guffawed at the gesture, but knew behind the mock-ownership of her words, there was a genuine fear that he wouldn't allow to grow. He took the phone, kissed her lips and told her thanks.
He pulls the phone from his pocket and answers.
"Hello?"
"So, are you rich yet?"
He smiles again.
"I was rich before I left."
He leaves the words hanging in the air. They have been very good at saying just enough.
"Hey, Vic?"
"Yeah, Walt?"
"I'm coming home."
After months of searching, Walt finds the Anson Hamilton treasure, right where Lucien's clues led him. Vic stands above him, holding the reins of their horses and a shovel. He smiles up at her from the dirt, his hand on the latch of the trophy half-uncovered in the packed ground.
"Wanna see what's inside?"
"If you tell me you dragged me out here just to half-dig it up, and not look inside, I'll shoot you myself. Then I'll go back home and ice my ass and drink the rest of the beer that's in the fridge."
He laughs. She's softened around the edges recently, but only a little. She lingers in his arms. Seeks out the crook of his neck when they sit by the fire. Moans softly in her sleep when he shifts to hold her closer.
But she's still the hard-ass cop she's always been. And he loves her.
"You'd never get away with it. Cady knows you're here."
"She likes me better than you now. And I'm a cop; I know how to make it look like an accident. You're screwed if you don't open that damn box."
He laughs again.
"Alright."
He lifts the lid.
"Huh..."
Her word comes out as a statement, rather than a question.
"Well, that's not what I expected."
She says what they are both thinking, but there is no more disappointment in her voice than there is in his own mind. He closes the lid back and hoists himself out of the hole. She dusts off the front of his shirt as he wipes the wet and grime from his face.
"I think I would have liked Anson Hamilton, if I had known him."
"And why is that, Walt?"
"Because of what's inside that box."
She rolls her eyes in the way that always tells him she's exasperated, but not angry. No poker face at all. And he reads her even better now than before. He puts a quick kiss on her cheek and walks to his saddle bag, pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil; the supplies had been for final goodbyes if anything had happened to him when he was alone.
With quick strokes, he makes some marks, and folds the paper. Walking back to the hole, Vic scoffs.
"Aren't you at least gonna tell me what you wrote?"
Turning, he faces her, the sun behind her making her hair golden and glowing. He hands her the paper.
It will always be about more than what you find after searching. If it's not, then you've missed the point. Remember the asymptote.
Her lips purse, the dimples on her chin and the welling in her eyes giving away her understanding. Head cocked to the side, she clears her throat, looks in his eyes and smiles.
"I still think the two of you are bat-shit crazy."
He laughs again.
"Maybe."
They do their best to make the ground look un-dug, scattering rocks and ground cover. Walt spreads Lucien's ashes and says his goodbye to the old lawman, his friend.
Vic mounts Walt's Horse, as she's come to call him, and waits. As he walks back to her, he looks across the landscape and decides he still lives in heaven on earth. It looks a little different than it did when he and Martha first laid the logs of their home, but different can be a good thing. Usually, it's a good thing, when people have the courage to see it in a different light.