Hello all! In case nobody has noticed, there are a few things I've not been the best at lately:

1. Posting fic.
2. Commenting on fic (I'm out here reading, I swear).
3. Concentrating on writing much of anything.

Oops! I've been a bit busy with work and distracted by upcoming travel plans. I'm headed off to Wyoming in less than two weeks, and I am super excited! :-0 Not so sure I will accomplish much if any writing between now and when I return home after Longmire Days, but I most certainly am hoping to encounter varying sources of inspiration.

This piece is something I've been working on intermittently for several weeks, and I thought I'd share before things get too hectic and I descend into full-on travel psychosis. I may be a seasoned traveler, but that sense of anticipation is always powerful for me! Hope you guys will enjoy this story, and that everyone has been having a great summer out there! :D

There's a First Time for Everything

The first time he ever saw her, his reaction more or less set the bar for the entirety of their relationship.

Walt couldn't even remember the last time he had looked at a woman and felt those feelings, those urges. For a long while attraction had been an abstract concept in his mind, something that happened to other people and sometimes resulted in domestic disputes or days where he couldn't find Henry because Dena happened to be in town.

His first instinct was toward guilt. Big surprise there— he had become an expert in that particular gut deep emotion. In this case, the basis was that Victoria Moretti was a beautiful woman and he had noticed that about her and kept noticing through the entire interview, even the parts relating to her stacked arsenal of professional skills. She had been saying something about ballistics when a ray of sunlight caught the flecks of gold in her eyes, and Walt nearly choked on his words while contemplating the undeniably sexy combination of good looks and competence that she presented. Then he finally noticed her wedding ring, and the feelings of wrongness in his stomach danced him one step closer to full-on nausea.

He had been trying his damnedest to stop noticing each and every little thing about her ever since.

The first time Walt met Vic's husband, his immediate response was confusion.

The other man was nothing like he would have expected. Sean Keegan was… ordinary, almost to the point of blandness. It didn't seem like an appropriate match for his fascinating, extraordinary new deputy. When Walt analyzed those feelings after the fact, he somehow managed to circle himself right back around to guilt. After all, who was he to judge? Vic and Sean had met, fallen in love, gotten married, moved across country together. There had to be something there between them, right? Something deep and abiding like he had experienced in most phases of his own marriage.

Walt's habit of not saying very much had been aggravated by his silent analysis of the other man plus the self-recriminations that immediately followed, and Vic had given him A Look. A what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you, what-is-going-on-in-that-brain-of-yours, eyebrow-accented warning look which had already become quite familiar to him in the days since her arrival.

It was immediately clear that Sean didn't like him very much. Walt figured Vic must have at least mentioned him in passing, so he couldn't help but wonder whether it was something she'd said or if Walt was telegraphing his attraction toward her on a frequency all too easily picked up by the receptors of a jealous husband.

Obviously he would have to be more careful, do a better job of hiding it. His conscience suggested that the more suitable solution would be to stop admiring his deputy full stop, but the long-buried part of him that was still just a man refused to tender its agreement.

The first time he ever dreamed about her, he knew he was in real trouble.

If the visions constructed by Walt's unconscious mind had been more overtly sexual, he could have rationalized them away as the natural formulations of an under-stimulated imagination. The thing that caused him so much panic was the intimacy, the blissful domestic circumstances that his sleeping brain had chosen to concoct. He hadn't allowed himself to want that by the light of day, was sure he wasn't ready for it. The circumstances were all wrong with her being married and him still weighed down by the mysteries surrounding his own wife's death.

So why would his dreams allow him to imagine a life where he was free to touch Vic, pull her against him in the white-gold glow of early morning and press his lips against the nape of her neck just above the collar of his faded denim shirt that she had wrapped around herself upon rising from their rumpled and well-used bed? A bed soon to be used again as their morning coffee was abandoned in favor of even more invigorating pursuits, according to the loosely woven plot line of Walt's wandering dreamscape.

Waking tangled in sweat-dampened sheets with phantom impressions of Vic's lips and fingertips ghosting over his hypersensitive skin, Walt sank back into the pillows and listened to the sound of his own breathing as he willed his spinning thoughts to decelerate. The dream replayed itself on the back of his eyelids like a worn out VHS with no audio track, the silence merely enhancing the power of those imaginary touches, the illusory heat of skin pressed on skin.

It was then that Walt became acutely aware of the fact that while sexual attraction was indeed a dangerous minefield, it was nothing next to the megaton bomb of realizing he had fallen in love.

The first time he said 'yes' to a dinner invitation from Lizzie Ambrose, he told himself he was just doing it to be polite.

Lizzie had been very kind to him after all, helping him out with his campaign, showing an interest in more ways than one. It only seemed fair to share some of his time with her and it had nothing, absolutely nothing whatsoever, to do with Walt feeling a sudden need to place some extra distance between himself and a certain blonde deputy.

Yep, that was the story he had gone with. Most of the time he even had himself convinced— at least outside of the quiet hours in the dead of night where he remembered his dreams, or in those moments where he caught a glimpse of Vic and realized she had already been looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He often wondered if she even remembered her anguished ramblings at the hospital after she'd been tranquilized, painting a less-than-harmonious picture of her marriage and not-so-subtly suggesting that Walt was more of a man than her husband.

Up until then he'd allowed himself the illusion that Vic's relationship with Sean was strong and happy in spite of repeated hints to the contrary, and the reality posited by the tears in her glassy eyes beneath the harsh institutional fluorescents of Durant Memorial had forced him to understand his own selfishness in maintaining that belief. Her unhappiness was a pull on him, every instinct screaming that he could be the one to make things so much better, to take her in his arms and make it all right.

It was too close for comfort, barriers between himself and Vic crumbling before his eyes. So he'd done what he thought was the sensible thing, what would be best for everyone involved. He'd started seeing Lizzie, and only in the wake of utter catastrophe would he realize that it hadn't been best for anyone, least of all himself.

The first time they were alone at his cabin, he almost managed not to think about how easily the situation could be misconstrued.

In reality it was anything but scandalous. You'd only have needed to take one look at Vic's carefully un-sexy but still oddly appealing choice of sleepwear to determine that. It was all above-board, from his intentions to her motive in accepting and everything in between. True, her husband might not be inclined to see it that way, but Sean wasn't in town and Vic's safety had to come first no matter what the other man might think Walt had on his mind.

Walt hadn't meant it to sound suggestive when he offered Vic his bed and he didn't think she'd taken it that way, but he'd be lying if he claimed the concept didn't set his libido on edge just the same. That was fine; he'd had plenty of practice with hiding it and felt he had safely done so once he sequestered himself in the bedroom and opted for a shower to relax the tension out of his muscles. Never in a million years could he have anticipated that Lizzie would choose this night of all nights to show up on his doorstep.

When he'd emerged at the sound of Lizzie's shouting, he observed that Vic was standing near the sofa looking more flabbergasted than pissed off— just barely. The histrionics seemed a bit over the top, considering the fact that Vic's truck was plainly parked right out front and Lizzie would surely have noticed it as she approached the cabin. Returning a book seemed like a thinly veiled pretense, especially in the wake of their last unpleasant encounter after Cady's accident.

He'd thought the endgame had been clear from there on out, but perhaps it had only seemed that way to him. He'd told Lizzie that he didn't want her around, so blatantly that he knew he should be ashamed of his behavior, but maybe she had chalked it up to a bad emotional reaction and left him alone since that day because she thought he needed space. Space hadn't been what he needed at all.

That had become evident just a short while later on that very same terrible afternoon when Vic had arrived on the scene and he'd accepted her comfort gladly, wished for more if he were honest. She knew him in a way that Lizzie didn't. She understood him, and he could feel the corresponding emotions through her tentative touch almost like they shared one heart just for those few seconds while her hand was on his back.

Now, long days and longer nights later, Lizzie was flying off the handle and Walt wasn't even sure why he was bothering to make the denials when it was plain that she wouldn't be reasoned with. Only after Lizzie had stormed out and he had retreated to his bedroom to avoid any further awkwardness did Walt realize that he'd barely met the surface requirements with his arguments, and Lizzie probably knew it.

He'd said there was nothing going on between him and Vic, but had no response to Lizzie's accusation that the woman sleeping mere yards away by the dimming firelight was the one he was saving his heart for.

The first time he thought he was about to lose her was when Gorski turned up beaten to within an inch of his life.

Walt hadn't done it, even though he had most assuredly wanted to, which left the burning question: who had? Gorski certainly made his opinion clear, along with his assessment of Walt's relationship with Vic.

"How long have you been sleeping with Vic?"

How else could Walt respond but to tell the other man to watch his mouth? To Ed Gorski, the deflection probably seemed more like a confirmation than anything else, but Walt couldn't do much better when the question hit way too close to home. He wasn't sleeping with her, no, but he'd thought about making love to her so frequently that sometimes he had difficulty keeping track of that blurred line between dreams and reality.

When she had tried to confess to the beating, he had touched her hand under the pretense of checking for evidence of the assault, of which he knew he would find none. He always thought of Vic as a strong woman, but her hand felt small and fragile in both of his own, the skin of her palm so soft against his fingertips.

He never wanted to let go, but as with so many other things when it came to his deputy Walt was left with a frustrating, stomach-boiling lack of choice in the matter.

She was trying to protect him, and the idea that she would go to this much trouble made all the feelings rise in him that he tried so hard to push down, the instinct to return the favor nearly overwhelming the rules of common sense. Gorski didn't deserve the satisfaction, Vic didn't deserve to pay the price and Walt… well, it didn't matter what he thought he did or didn't deserve, did it?

"Vic, if he files that report, you're not gonna be able to work here."

There was no other way for him to phrase it. What was he supposed to say? Don't do this. Don't give up hope and let him win. Don't let him take you away from me.

The first time he almost let the whole truth slip was the day she told him that her husband was demanding that she quit her job.

When Walt told Vic that he knew she wasn't someone who liked to be told what to do he was trying to say that he hoped she wouldn't let Sean make the decision for her, but he was simultaneously having a total meltdown on the inside and the words came out all wrong.

"I understand this is a— this is a big decision for you."

"And what is it for you?"

He knew what she was asking him for, and Christ but he wanted to give it to her. That and everything else. It had been charging the air between them since that morning at the hospital where any of the lines that hadn't already been crossed by his rather obvious behavior at Chance's place were most certainly thrown by the wayside.

Walt had all but outright told Ed Gorski that he would kill anyone who laid a finger on her, and Sean couldn't have missed the silent exchange between the two of them as the beat up Granada drove away from the compound. When Vic and Walt had been left alone after Doc Weston stitched him up they'd both been too raw, too vulnerable to ignore their need for each other in that moment. Those feelings were always there just under the surface, and in spite of the longing for comfort Walt had found that his iron control had still been necessary to stop him from allowing that to evolve into something… else, right then and there.

Having Vic in his arms had just left him wanting more, and the urgency of Walt's trip to Denver seemed to increase with the sudden added obligation to enforce distance. He'd needed the distraction, the focus on Henry's case and Martha's murder. Otherwise he might not have been able to stop himself from sweeping Vic away to the quiet safety of his home, the long-lost warmth of his bed and all that went along with it.

His travel plans were derailed by the death of George Linder, but he somehow managed to keep himself in check when Vic had unexpectedly joined him at the crime scene. The instinct to protect her above all things was still in full effect during the awkward, stilted conversation in his office that followed later that day. Walt had been afraid that he would say too much and give himself away, put unfair pressure on Vic in the wake of circumstances that were already so traumatic. Instead he managed to make things just that much worse by sounding like he didn't care what she decided, whether she stayed or left, which couldn't have been further from the truth.

How could he ever expect her to want him when he continued to fail her in so many ways?

The first time they kiss, it's certainly not the sort of grand romantic gesture Walt has cooked up in his mind over the three years since she came into his life.

He's covered in blood, again, mostly Branch's— at least he thinks so— and he's feeling ready to kill, mostly Barlow and possibly with his bare hands at that, but at this point both Connally men have been whisked away to the hospital under armed guard and Walt is left with the aftermath of dust and firearms and spatter analysis and one furious blonde deputy who's seen what he had in his truck and doubtless knows what he had been preparing to do.

Hands on her hips, Vic watches him. Walt can feel her eyes as he surveys the scene, turning his back and looking out to the horizon. The silence between them stretches and morphs as a breeze flutters through and carries a hint of her perfume past his nose. Adrenaline is pumping through his veins and he doesn't know if he's enraged, miserable, relieved, or any of a dozen other possible emotional combinations. He knows he isn't ready to talk about it, knows he can't face her like this, so he falls back on that old habit of pushing her away.

"If you stayed around to babysit there's no need. I won't do anything stupid."

A huff of unamused laughter is the first response he receives. "News flash— someone's got to process the scene. I'm not so sure you're currently qualified to run this investigation, never mind define what's stupid and what isn't."

"Yeah, well, I—"

"And I definitely don't want to hear whatever fucked up justifications you've got for wanting to throw the rest of your life away so you can just keep that shit to yourself, alright?"

Walt would have been perfectly happy to do just that, if he hadn't heard how her voice cracked and wavered at the tail end of those well-deserved admonishments. Tears weren't like her, especially not when she was in the middle of kicking his ass. Slowly looking behind him he saw Vic angrily swipe at one side of her face as she bent to retrieve the crime scene kit. What he really saw, though, was so much more than that. In that moment he let the blinders fall away and finally completely saw her.

Vic was small but so strong, vulnerable but incredibly determined, angry but sorrowful and, in that moment, disappointed. Walt was aware that he was the source of that disappointment, and he knew he would have to take ownership of that. But if she thought his actions meant that he didn't care enough, he suddenly realized that there was one more thing that she was— wrong.

He was in front of her with two long strides, reaching out to grasp her arm at the elbow in a bid to still her fierce movements. Vic tensed, and Walt felt a lump in his throat at the knowledge that he'd made things bad enough for her to flinch at his gentlest touch.

"Vic."

She jerked away. "Don't touch me."

Strands of blonde hair blew into her face as she straightened, taking up a defensive stance. She raised her left hand to push the wild locks away, and Walt's keen investigative eyes couldn't help but notice the absence of her wedding ring. He slowly advanced again, wanting to say so many things. In the end, all he came up with was one gruff exhortation. "Please…"

Their gazes locked, Vic's eyes widening and then softening as they searched his own. He could see the flecks of gold and green glinting through the moisture that had pooled in front of her irises, and this time when he reached for her she swayed forward and buried herself in his arms. Her hands slid inside his jacket and around his waist as she sobbed into the open collar of his shirt. Walt held on as tightly as he could, not caring if he might be crying too, knowing that he needed her arms around him just as badly as he had on that fateful morning at the hospital after the shootout with Chance.

Rocking from side to side as Vic quieted in his embrace, Walt allowed his fingers the luxury of caressing the soft skin above the collar of her duty shirt. Exhaling shakily, Vic pressed her cheek against the faded fabric covering his heart and slid one of her hands up his ribcage to rest over the lapel of his jacket.

After a moment or two, she balled that hand into a fist and lightly— for Vic, at least— punched him in the pectoral muscle. "You're an asshole."

"I know." Walt tilted her face upward, looking at her mouth without meaning to.

Vic drew closer, breath hot and sweet against his slightly parted lips as she pushed up onto her tiptoes. "You better be really fucking sorry."

He brushed the pad of his thumb over her cheek, inhaling deeply as both her arms snaked around his neck. "I am—"

It turned out Vic really didn't want to hear any of Walt's explanations. There would be a time for talking, for apologies and forgiveness and declarations, but it wasn't now. The kiss was frenzied, heated, sharp like the wind with the faintest salty reminder of both their tears. One of his hands was in her hair, the other arm slung low around her waist and holding her hard against him. Their mouths parted for air and Vic gave a breathy moan, pulling hungrily at his lower lip with her teeth and knocking the hat right off his head as the passionate contact was renewed.

They were close enough to the edge of the overhang that Walt's hat was in grave peril of being blown away to the valley below, but for once he didn't give a damn. It wasn't a grand romantic gesture, no, but it was them— the road behind, the here and now, the admittedly distant promise of what lay ahead. And for the first time in a long time, that was good enough for him.

That's all I've got! Now back my scheduled program of agonizing over which shoes to bring on my trip. I've never been west of the Mississippi River, how am I supposed to know what shoes to wear in Wyoming?! Maybe I'll just bring them all...? Yes indeed, these are the problems that define our modern age.

Drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this little series of vignettes! I enjoyed writing them, and certainly haven't run out of fuel to throw on my crackling Walt/Vic idea fire. As usual, will trade fancy cocktails for reviews! With an umbrella and everything... ;D