A/N: Don't own the show or the characters you recognize, every thing else is mine. And a nod to Joe Cocker's 'You Can Leave Your Hat On.'

You Can Leave Your Hat On, Baby

Art looked up to see me leaning against the door frame of his office, my t-shirt pinned down with my double-holster and my blue jean jacket slung casually over my shoulder. "Damn, Elena. I wasn't expecting you for another day or two." He rounded his desk and put out his big hand, swallowing my smaller one in his. "The tan looks good on you."

"Thanks Art. Glad to be here finally."

Art motioned for me to take a seat, "Wanna go for a drink and I'll catch you up? Do you have a place to stay yet?"

"Yeah, I'm all squared on the place to stay. Thanks for leaving the car for me at the airport. That was real thoughtful of you." I watched his back as he started looking at files and putting things in a bag. "It's late Art, won't your wife want you home by now?"

He waved dismissively still looking through his folder. "You know how it is, Elena…marry the man, or I guess in your case the woman, marry the service. By 20 years, she's used to it. Of course you're not married so I guess no one's ever wanted to share."

I laughed at his assumption, "Or maybe I just never wanted to share, Art."

He turned to look at me then, nodded and laughed and turned back to whatever he was looking at. In the reflection of the Tombstone movie picture I saw another man approach, and lean against the door frame where I had been just moments before. He had on a cowboy hat and tucked both his hands in his jeans pockets. That must be Raylan Givens… I didn't turn around to acknowledge him and I didn't think Art even knew he was there yet.

"So Tahiti was it? How did that go? What's it like?"

"Tahiti is great. Warm climate, hard-bodied boys wearing almost nothing, no phones or computers, pretty nice."

A deep well worn voice came from behind me, "Sounds good to me…"

I smiled and turned around to face the man at the door, standing, "What sounds good, the climate or the hard-bodied boys?"

The man pushed his hat further up on his forehead and laughed, "Can't say I'd be interested in the hard-bodied boys."

I looked him up and down, obviously admiring his appearance. Yes, he was quite fine…deep set eyes, dark hair from the look of it, casually sexy, no doubt a sexual volcano when activated. The way he stood there in his tight jeans and his hands tucked into his pockets, letting his head hang slightly, definitely screamed for my attention. Well, he had it. And as my eyes raked him up and down, I saw his do the same. I tried to imagine what he saw… a smallish woman, long dark black hair, breasts larger than her small frame would really allow for but that was what God gave me and I hadn't had any complaints. The holsters tucked under each shoulder loaded with guns would only emphasize that feature. I watched as his eyes traveled to my tiny waist where my white Jim Beam t-shirt tucked into my well-worn blue jeans. His eyes finished their scan and trolled back up my body to my face where he found a well-deserved smirk.

While we were not-very-subtly undressing each other, Art was making introductions. "Ah Raylan, good timing. Marshal Raylan Givens, this is Marshal Elena Gibbs. Elena, Raylan. Elena's goin' to be joinin' our office." We shook hands firmly, our eyes never leaving each others. I caught the same humorous glint in his eyes as I'm sure he could see in mine.

"Really? You'd leave Tahiti for here?"

"Sure. Don't get me wrong, Tahiti is great for what it is, but after a while even I could get bored."

"I thought it was paradise. Isn't that where Bora Bora is? How could you get bored? What's there to do?

"Yeah it's paradise, but Bora Bora has become sort of a tourist trap. I spent the first week or so in Papeete. That is the main city. I like taking pictures when I travel to fun place so I have a lot of pictures of crumbling old churches and interesting people. After I had enough of the people I headed to a more remote island. I stayed in a little grass hut set off the beach surrounded by water. It didn't even have a door. How different is that from our life here?"

The two men kept listening so I told them some more. "The smaller places, they have nice resorts…really nice resorts, and I dived in some of the caves and reefs around there. I even went to where they dive for pearls and did some of that. Did you know that some of those divers can hold their breath for five to seven minutes?" I paused to let that sink in and added, looking at Raylan and sounding a little like Mae West. "A handy skill to have, as I'm sure you can imagine."

He coughed lightly and strained his neck around his collar. "I can imagine how, uh, useful that might be."

Art snorted and shook his head. "Do we even want to know what else you did?"

"Oh, you know Art after a while, no matter how beautiful those hard-bodies are, eating, drinking, diving, and fucking get old day in and day out. There's just not much danger and I had to make do with a diving knife. I had to come home if only for my guns."

Raylan laughed. "You were lonely for your guns?"

"Sure, aren't you when you leave'em behind?"

"Maybe not when I'm having the, uh… entertainment that you were having in paradise."

"Trust me Raylan Givens, from what I've heard about you, you'd get bored too," I said as Art picked up his briefcase and turned to face us prepared to leave.

"I have a feelin' I'm going to be aging even faster now that you're here Elena. The two of you workin' together… God almighty, what was I thinkin'?"

Raylan and I looked at each other and looked back at Art, all innocence on our faces, Raylan says, "Now, Art, we aren't that bad are we?"

Art made a half-hearted frown and looked at both of his newest Marshals, "Just for the record…You two cannot sleep together."

I spoke up in a falsely innocent voice, just to yank his chain, "Why Art, we just met? You don't really think…?"

"Don't pull that innocent shit on me Elena. You've kicked ass around the country and in many continents. You might look like an angel, but you are no innocent and don't play me like you think I believe you are."

I just laughed and shrugged on my jacket as we walked towards the door. "God forbid anyone get played."


The three of us sat at a table in a too-quiet bar on an even quieter main street of some random small town near the office. This really was small town USA. But I liked it anyway. It was quiet and that was why I had chosen here.

"So Raylan, I heard about your shoot-out with Jake Butts in Miami. Our paths never crossed, but I'd heard he was a nasty fellow. Good riddance, I say."

Raylan shrugged. "It was justified."

"I don't doubt that, I'm just sayin'."

"Funny how we never have met before, you're a big fish in a small pond. We should'a come across each other at some point, you'd think."

"Well now, here we are, paths collided I'd say. You grew up here. Is that why you came back?"

Raylan laughed bitterly and poured himself some more Jim Beam. "I didn't choose to be here! When I left, I swore I'd never come back."

I took a sip of my own whiskey, "But here you are."

"Apparently, as nasty as Jake Butts was, my shooting him was an embarrassment to the Marshal Service. I was sent here because I think they knew it was the last place in the world I would want to be."

I laughed at him. "So this is their version of a spanking, or maybe being grounded? 'Bad boy, now you have to go to Kentucky'? Well, if it's any consolation, I chose to be here. I'm just glad Art let me come."

"Why in the world would you want to be here?"

"It's quiet. Not like dangerous quiet, because I know the office stays plenty busy with that sort of thing. But more like, I can walk outside and see the stars quiet, and not a lot of people quiet, and even this sort of casual neighborhood bar quiet. That appeals to me these days."

"Well, you're right about that. I thought Miami was a pit. Full of glitz and ritz. A lot of sun for a lot of shady people."

"You got that right."

Art stepped into the conversation, "Well, I hope you two plan to stay a while. In exchange for getting two of the best Marshal around, I had to give up two junior deputies for each of you."

I laughed, "So you're saying it was a 2 for 1 exchange. One of us is equals two junior agents?" I looked over at Raylan, "Does that seem right to you?"

Raylan rolled his lip into a smirk, "Geez, Elena, with those two guns you got holstered I figure they should get a four for one exchange for you."

"You are the one with an almost perfect draw to kill ratio. You lost that when you missed the shot on the Boyd guy. I heard he was a former friend of yours when you were growin'up.

"You were in Tahiti with your boy-toys when that happened. How'd you hear about that?"

I just smiled and didn't say a word. Art cleared his throat, "I think it is time to head home. You two are leaving with me too. I'm not leaving you here."

Raylan laughed and stood to go, "Ah, Dad, you never let us have any fun."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Art threw some money on the table along with Raylan and me and we all walked to our cars. Art politely asked if I knew how to get back to where I was staying and I assured him I did, and even if I didn't he had given me a car with GPS in it.

We all said good night and left, Raylan tipping his hat to me over his open car door. I gave him a sideways smile and got into my car as well.


I returned to my hotel room, well really it was a motel room…one floor sort of place. But it had a pool and a little café attached. The rooms were neat and clean, for rented rooms at least. I scooped some ice out of the bucket and was pouring me a glass of whiskey when there was a knock on my door.

I opened it licking my lips at the man on the other side of the door. "Well Marshal Givens, what a surprise."

He waved a half full bottle of Jim Beam while he slouched against the door frame to my room. "Thought I'd just stop by to welcome you to the neighborhood, Marshal Gibbs. I'm just a couple doors down, it looks like."

I laughed slightly, noticing the soft chest hair that crept out from the white t-shirt he wore under his now loosened shirt. He'd lost the tie somewhere, but still had the hat and the boots. "That's mighty neighborly of you, Marshal. Why don't you come on in?" I found myself humming "You can leave your hat on…you can leave your hat on baby…"

Yes, he could definitely leave his hat on.

FIN

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