Raylan didn't know what it was, but Art seemed to have a personal vendetta against all of his personal relationships. First with Ava, then with Winona, and now with Tim. He always seemed to find some way to either screw it up personally, or set in motion events that would, inevitably, screwitup.

Take tonight, for example.

It was no secret that he and Winona had gotten back together for a time. Hell, most of the Marshal's office knew about it, and those who didn't were just on the cold side of the social spectrum or too full of themselves to admit to listening in on water cooler gossip.

What people didn't know was that he and Winona had also broken it off. After that whole money ordeal, Raylan just hadn't had it in him for another go around. Besides, they hadn't worked in the past…they just weren't a right pair, and seemed like they'd both finally come to realize that. No dramatics, no screaming or fisticuffs. They just calmly talked it out, and calmly decided that enough was enough.

Which would have been great, save for the third party in this little equation: Tim.

See, he wasn't being entirely honest when he said they'd just realized they weren't gonna work. No, Raylan had a little more incentive than that. He had someone else. Someone else whom he thought about those nights Winona came creeping in. Someone else whom he wanted to spend time with.

It had started less than a month after Raylan got reassigned to the hell's asshole that was Kentucky. He'd come in expecting wet-behind-the-ears deputies or hillbilly veterans that thought they knew it all. That had been the officer pool last time he'd been around.

But no, what he got instead was a fiery lady named Rachel (who admittedly seemed to think sometimes that she did know it all) and a quirky young veteran named Tim. It was the latter more than the former that really through him. Raylan had always been a pretty good judge of people; he could figure a guy out in a conversation, and hell, give him a couple of beers and he could tell you the guy's whole life story.

Not Tim, though.

Tim was a walking puzzle. At first, he didn't say much and Raylan almost got the impression he was just one of those good ol' boy background guys. Only good in support. After the accident with Boyd, though, when Tim had managed to snipe that big asshole in the middle of an OK Corral style shoot out, he started to get the impression that maybe there was more to the guy than just a badge and a good shot.

It was the stakeout, he guessed, that really did it. When you're trapped in a car with someone for hours on end with nothing to do for entertainment, you tend to get to talking. At first, it was mostly Raylan that got to talking, but as the hours ticked by, Tim started chiming in a little more. Raylan decided to pull his trump card, then, and brought up the one little tidbit he'd managed to glean from that water cooler gossip he'd been mentioning earlier.

He'd found out Tim had been a sniper with the Rangers in Afghanistan, which he guessed went a little ways in explaining Tim's cast. He decided to mention it, just in passing, and see if he could get a little more from the guy than the usual one-liners and work jargon that seemed to make up most of his conversation.

It was warm in there, but not too bad. They'd been sitting there for a few hours, Raylan making starts at conversation and Tim making one- or two-word comments that tended to kill them where they stood. Not on purpose, Raylan didn't think; Tim just wasn't much of a conversationalist.

"Art tells me you were a sniper with the Rangers," he tried again. They'd been sitting there for hours, and frankly, he was getting tired of the silence. If he could just get Tim to talking, then maybe he'd have something to take his mind off of how bored he was. And how bad the coffee was.

They needed to keep Rachel away from the coffee pot.

Tim's response was altogether disappointing, though. "I was," he said, and went on staring ahead at the windshield.

Raylan took a sip from his coffee, not because he was thirsty, but because he needed a second to think of how to revive that little plot thread. It was the last hope he had, and he wasn't quite ready to let it die that easy. He wanted to figure this guy out, by God, and to do that, he had to get him using full sentences.

"What's the longest you ever had to watch a target?"

Raylan realized too late that the question left way too much room for another cut and dry answer.

"Three days," Tim said.

No shocker, there. Not the time – the time was impressive, and a little bit horrifying – but the response. Two words. Big surprise.

But then, Tim did surprise him. With no further prompting, save a sideways glance, Tim went on, "Shitty little village outside Condor. You watch a man that long, you get to know him better than his wife does."

Raylan resisted the urge to point out that most of the time, wives didn't know their husbands too well at all. He imagined it wasn't something Tim had a lot of personal experience with, him being young and with his background in the military and all; and besides, he didn't want to break his stride.

"When he reads the paper…picks his nose. What glass he likes for tea, what for milk. When he jerks off…what he looks at when he – when he does. If he's nice to the dog when no one's around."

It was the most words Raylan had ever heard him string together in a sentence outside of office talk, and frankly…it was some of the weirdest stuff Raylan had ever heard. He'd watched guys plenty in his day, too, and he'd never gotten to know any of that about any of them.

Still, strange as it was, it was oddly endearing. Charming. He'd known Tim was quirky, but it seemed to Raylan he was the right kind of quirky. A lot of it was a little bit juvenile – picking his nose and jerking off – but some of it was kind of deep…sentimental. It was an odd sort of juxtaposition, but Raylan found he kind of liked it.

And besides that, Tim's voice was really starting to grow on him. It wasn't abrasive, and it had this smooth, restrained country drawl that sat just right on the ears like a good hat.

To that effect, he wanted to keep him talking. "What's the trick to something like that?" he asked.

"Wha—keeping your focus?" Raylan nodded. "Well, they told us to come up with stories about ourselves and the target."

"What do you mean, 'stories?'"

"Nothing elaborate. Imagine…taking Shirley to the movies, watching Price Is Right, eating take-out Chinese." A pause. "They eventually stopped that, the business with the stories."

"Why is that?"

Tim's brows drew down in a look Raylan couldn't quite place. "Eh, they found some folks get, so involved in the tales they're telling themselves…they grow to like the target. And when they got the green light, they couldn't pull."

Raylan watched as a station wagon pulled up in front of their car. "That happen to you?" he asked.

Tim looked over at him. "Is that her?"

Raylan wasn't sure whether he should take that as a yes or a no.

After that, there's been the hostage situation at the station. He'd gotten to know Tim a little better by then, got to know that he was just as strange as he thought he was, but in a good way. He would make these little comments in passing, and get this surprised little look on his face when people laughed, like he was just saying what was in his head all the time and couldn't imagine why people might find it funny. Raylan liked him in moments like that – he was the sort of guy that Raylan could be around for more than five minutes without wishing for a standing kill order.

That day with the hostage situation, though, he'd seen a different side of Tim. He'd seen him take off from his desk with his sidearm drawn before anyone else even figured out what the hell was going on. There'd been a look in his eyes, then, that Raylan couldn't quite figure. Something cold. Something sharp. Something not at all like the warm, quiet mirth that usually danced behind those blue eyes.

He'd come in just in time to save the day, too, breathing hard like he'd just run a marathon (Raylan suspected he might just have). But he got there all the same, and if it hadn't been for him, Raylan knew a life would've been lost that day. Maybe more than one.

That was the day Raylan figured out that it was almost like two different people, packed inside one Tim. There was the Tim he was when he was off the clock and out of danger, all relaxed and casual and charmingly odd. Then there was the Tim he was when there was a gun pointed at him or his – this cold, calculating beast with a sniper rifle and not much in the way of conscience. Raylan admired them both for different reasons, but he had to say he liked the former better.

They'd been around weeks after that, and Raylan found the younger man growing on him more and more. Mostly, it was through the conversations in the office with everyone around, but sometimes he would catch him alone in the elevator and talk about something other than work for just a few minutes.

Raylan loved those times.

He supposed things really came to a crest, though, that night when he and Art were at the VFW trying to get at Arlo. Neither of them being veterans, they'd had to call Tim over to get them in.

Raylan's jaw'd about hit the floor when Tim showed up. Not just because he was a little drunk and Raylan had never seen him drunk, but because…damn. The contrast between the way his white tank-top and worn jeans clung to his lithe, muscled form and the way his too-large plaid button up hung off him like a little kid in his big brother's clothes sparked something in Raylan that he hadn't felt sparked in a while.

He supposed he probably knew what was coming when he offered to drive Tim home. He'd said it was because Tim shouldn't be driving, but they both knew Tim really wasn't that drunk, and he'd gotten there just fine. But Raylan wasn't quite ready to go his separate way.

Needless to say, it hadn't really been all that big a surprise when he'd wound up in bed with Tim a few hours later, sweaty and happier than he'd been in years. Laying there, the smell of rain and just a hint of gun oil and powder in his nose and a tone, naked body in his arms, he'd known that he could die right then and be fulfilled.

They'd been good for a few weeks after that. Subtle, undercover, but good. It seemed to Raylan that Tim was smiling just a little bit more during those times, but maybe he was imagining it. He knew he wasn't imagining all those repeat performances that took place anywhere from his hotel to Tim's house to the locker room at the Marshal Station when the nights were late and the desire was there.

It would've been perfect, Raylan thought. Only, he wasn't sure what "it" was. A fling? Tim didn't seem like the type, but then, something told Raylan he'd not had much chance at relationships. Or maybe it was a relationship, in which case Raylan thought about going public. He was tired of all watching the young ladies at the office stare at his Tim like a piece of meat, and hell, he just wasn't too worried about what other people might thing. Kentucky convention or no, he wanted Tim to be his.

He'd just about worked up the courage to do it, too.

…until Winona came along.