A/N: This episode is SO full of angst and one of my absolute favorites.

Walt Riggins must have been handsome once. Tyra can see the shadows of a younger man—a man a little too much like—well, anyway. He's faded and pinched and mean now, and Tyra doesn't like the way his eyes gleam.

She sees Tim track his every move like he tracks the game plays, see Tim's eyes gleam, and she chews her lip. Thinks, he's going to be like his father.

And that's why she can't go back.

.

"Tyra, you are just dull as paint this evening." Her mother is handing her a glass of wine, and Tyra takes it, sips it, sets it down. Too dry. Some cheap crap Mindy brought home without fixing to ask who preferred sweet, again.

"I'm fine. I'm just tired."

"You need a man," her mom says fondly, like it isn't too soon by half for her mom to be talking about men. Tyra rolls her eyes all the way back in her head.

Her mom sighs. "I'm just sayin', honey. You talked to Tim lately? I'm sure he's sorry."

Sorry? For what? She's not mad at Tim particularly, at the moment—no more than usual, but they're not together. She's just worried, worried as a friend and now she's pissed off that her mom could figure out so easily that it had something to do with Tim in the first place.

"I'm going to work," she announces, slamming down the magazine she's barely been looking through, and Angela Collette's drawn-on eyebrows rocket up.

"Your shift doesn't start for an hour."

"I'll grab a bite to eat first."

"There's something in the fridge—"

But Tyra is already gone, biting down on the insides of her cheeks.

.

Her truck is running fine these days. Cussed old thing.

She's starting to wish she hadn't had all that gall and gumption when the tire blew off. Starting to wish she and Mindy had figured something else for Mom.

She thinks of Buddy Garrity's toothy smile, those piggy little eyes, that buttery laugh, and she shudders.

Holy hell, Mama, please. Please no.

She talked about it with Tim once. They were lying on the couch; she was all stretched out along the length of him, and she said, "Do you ever wonder how some people do it?"

"Do what?" Granted, she couldn't even jibe him for being slow on the uptake; her thoughts had been wandering and his thoughts were much more obviously concerned with picking buttons off her shirt.

"Y'know. Like, Mrs. Garrity's pretty, and they're rich…but…she's married to Buddy."

She could feel Tim's laugh in that moment, against her. They were chest to chest.

"Oh, you mean you wonder how some folks do each other?"

"Yeah. He's so…" Tyra'd shuddered then, just like she did now. "Bulging all over the place."

"Don't you worry," Tim said slowly, tipping down his chin so that he caught her bottom lip between his. "Billy's the only one going to fat in this family. Dad's still thin as a rail, probably."

And Tyra had laughed—alright, she'd giggled, really—and said, "Don't you dare try to make a pick-up line out of how you're not turnin' out like Buddy Garrity."

"I don't need a pick-up line," Tim had said, and all conversation was over.

Tyra presses the gas a little too hard. It's a cold day. Wind raking over the fields, over the fine gravel settled on the road. She wants more for her mother, more for Tim, and maybe it's about damn time she worked consistently and hard on wanting more for herself.

.

So when Tim comes in and wants to talk to her, all sea-glass eyes and that wobbling lower lip, she tells him to get lost. She's had enough Riggins men for this week—didn't fancy the way Walt looked at her, calculating-like. Doesn't want to think about Tim hustling pool to make his deadbeat daddy proud.

Just like his father. Just like his father. And her father was a sad son of a gun, and every damn boyfriend her mother's ever had has made her sick and angry, and Tyra's just done.

(She'll kick herself afterward, for not hearing the break in his voice.)

.

Billy talks the whole way back. Tim isn't listening

Dammit all, why doesn't Billy know that by now? Tim never listens.

Tyra's sandwiched in between them. Tim has his head against the window. There's blood oozing above Tim's eye and she thinks he looks something like a wounded animal. She thinks she saw him smile out there. She thinks he was asking for it—for real, not just how everyone always says their kind is asking for something.

Billy explodes in one final expletive-ridden rant and Tyra just wants to get away. But she can't. She's pressed shoulder to shoulder with them and she wants to touch Tim and never see him again, wants to clean the dirt and blood off his face and ask him—

—why.

But she doesn't do any of those things. She reaches for his hand and rubs her thumb lightly over his knuckles—the ones that aren't split, anyway. His hand is warm but he doesn't respond to her touch. Doesn't respond to anything.

Tyra's tongue tastes like dust and salt.

.

The Riggins house is empty. Walt isn't there, and Tyra's smart. She's put three to two to one together, found that there's only one possible solution. She would breathe a sigh of relief, of gratitude that Walt had slunk off back to God-knew-where before he screwed everything up, but it seems like he already did.

They get Tim inside. Tyra knows every grimy inch of this place. Billy's still talking, still complaining. Tyra stands in Tim's room for a long moment. He's not moving, face pressed against a pillowcase that hasn't been washed in weeks.

Tyra swallows hard. Looks at him lying there, inward pains and outward bruises, and knows that he's never going to be like his father.

And that's why she can't stay.