A/N and disclaimer...I don't own Justified, if I did, these two would find a way to work things out and I would never, ever run out of stories for them. Any dialogue direct from the finale is used with apologies, and Winona's thoughts are simply my interpretation.

This was written after nudging by MSBrooklyn. Thanks for the push, my dear!

A Man in a Hat

"Winona, wake up." Gayle is shaking her, not gently. "Your damn cowboy is on my front porch. He says he wants to talk to you. Say the word and I'll tell him to go to..."

She sits up, shaking off the heaviness of sleep and throwing off the covers. "No, no. I'll talk to him."

Gayle rolls her eyes. "Of course you will." There's that sigh, so like their mother's, and her sister swings around, hands on her hips, pointing a finger at Winona. "I swear, if you go back to him again..."

"Let him in, Gayle, okay?" Running a hand through her tangled hair she shoves it up in a twist and sticks a pin in to hold it. Something must've happened to make him come here. They haven't talked since the day she found the gun that killed Gary. She'd texted after the last doctor's appointment to let him know everything was fine and he'd texted back a thank you. That was it. She misses him, but she can't afford to show it. Not to Gayle and certainly not to Raylan. She barely acknowledges it to herself. She takes a deep breath and walks out to meet him in the foyer.

"I'm going back to bed," Gayle says, shooting Raylan a murderous look. He dips his head and looks at Winona from under the hat. She can't help smiling.

"She doesn't like me," he says, when Gayle disappears down the hall.

Winona rolls her eyes. "You're very perceptive."

"God, I could use a drink."

"We've got milk. And I think there's some apple juice."

"Nothin' stronger?"

"Gayle and Peter don't drink," she says. She rests a hand on the slight bulge of her belly. "Neither do I at the moment."

The hat is off and he runs a hand through his hair. "Got water?"

"That I have." She goes to the kitchen and gets him some, hands him the glass and walks down the hall to the bedroom, her only bastion of privacy in this house. He follows without a word.

The room is small anyway, and now it's packed with the rocker, the hand-me-down crib, and the baby supplies Gayle keeps stockpiling. You'd think Winona was due any day with twins. Raylan finds the chair shoved next to the crib and sinks down with a sigh.

She leans in the door frame, keeping her distance. "Why are you here?"

He looks up at her. "This how it's gonna be? You really wanna do it this way?"

He looks so defeated, so tired and spent. If he asks her right now to come back...if he says he misses her...needs her...she pushes the thought away. "Raylan...really...why are you here?"

He starts talking about Harlan. She should have known. God, she hates that place. Then he mentions a dead trooper and she stops him.

"Was he married?"

He doesn't look at her, just nods slowly. "Two kids."

She swallows hard, hugging her arms to her chest, and he's off again, telling about Wynn Duffy, whose name sounds familiar, some mobster from Detroit, and two kidnapped kids. When he gets to the part about the severed arm she stares at him, wide-eyed, but he doesn't notice. He just goes on about Boyd Crowder being arrested for killing someone named Devil, and Arlo taking the blame for killing the trooper and the guy Boyd was supposed to have killed.

"So Boyd got his release." He shrugs. "I asked him how it felt, letting a feeble old man take the fall for him, but it didn't seem to bother him none. Art thought I'd be upset, so he offered me a drink which I didn't need but I took anyway."

"And then you came here lookin' for another drink you didn't need."

"You sure your sister's got nothing stronger than water? Not even light beer?"

"I offered you milk or apple juice." He looks up at her again with that half-grin and she has to steel herself not to go to him, curl herself against him, and let the past few weeks just be a bad dream. Instead... "Raylan, why are you here?" She asks again.

"I toldja when I came in. Just wonderin' how all this is gonna work out. You just gonna stay here with your sister until the baby's born?"

"I am."

"Thought I might pat the belly...see the latest sonogram."

She cocks her head. "Tell me a story about a man getting his arm chopped off?"

"You know what they're sayin' at the office?"

His eyes twinkle and there's a punchline coming, she knows it. She raises an eyebrow and waits.

"I 'disarmed' him."

"Pretty good." She nods. They're at an impasse. Again. The exhaustion she feels has nothing to do with being woken up in the middle of the night, but it must show on her face because he eases to his feet.

"I'd better get goin', let you get back to sleep."

He rests a hand on her belly, just for a moment, and something he said earlier pops into her head. "Only thing I don't understand...why did Art think you'd be upset?"

"I guess it was why Arlo shot Bergan."

"Which was?"

"He didn't know it was a state trooper...just saw a man in a hat pointing a gun at Boyd."

"A man in a hat?"

He slides that sideways smile at her, the sad, regretful one. "Yeah." He slips the hat on his head and disappears down the hall.

A man in a hat? A man in a hat. Oh, my God! Arlo thought it was Raylan...his own son...She stands frozen for a long moment. "Raylan!" She calls. The door clicks shut as she moves down the hall and she almost breaks into a run. He's at the car when she throws the door open.

"Raylan," she says, again.

He hangs his head. "Don't, Winona."

She knows if she pushes too hard he'll break and if he breaks, the fragile wall between them will collapse. She needs that wall, so she doesn't tell him how sorry she is or move any closer. She just wraps her arms around herself against the chill night air and looks at him.

"Go on back inside."

"I see the doctor again on Thursday for another sonogram if you want to come."

His head is still down and she can hardly hear his answer. "That'd be good, yeah."

"I'll call you with the time."

"Okay, then." He opens the door. "G'night."

She leans against the porch rail, one hand rubbing small circles over the swell that is their child, and watches as he backs out of the drive. She's still standing there when his taillights disappear down the road.