If you're a fan of the show LONGMIRE, and you haven't yet had the pleasure of reading Craig Johnson's books, The Walt Longmire Mysteries, please…please…please…go read them!

Completely different, completely engaging, you see a COMPLETELY different Walt Longmire.

I hope you enjoy mine every bit as much as I've enjoyed both books and series!

"Walt?"

"Just good news, Rose. Just good news." He hissed in his breath and let it out slowly. "They're going to ease up on her medications. Let some reality back in."

Branch looked up at his boss and wondered what made the man tick. "You want to ride out there? We've got this…"

Walt nodded gratefully. "I do. I want to be there when she comes out of it. I don't know what she's going to be like, what she'll remember or how she'll feel."

"Want me to come with you?" Vic offered.

He smiled at the younger woman, pleased and amused and touched.

"I got this. This daughter I can understand."

He drove to the hospital in the sleeting rain, wondering what he'd find when his youngest was let out from under the trap of the sedatives. Wondered what she'd remember of the nightmare. Worried over the pain.

Branch clenched his jaw and texted Cady a message just in case her father hadn't thought to call her. Obviously things were still strained.

Forty miles away Autumn clenched her jaw against the burning in her shoulder, the pain in her limbs, and the fuzzy pounding in her head. Her arms didn't want to connect—too heavy—and her mouth felt full and swollen. Her cheek ached. Her hand stung. Her throat was seared.

And the cool air washed over her as she simultaneously reconciled the feel of sheet, the ozone tang of the air, and the medicinal antiseptic scent in her nostrils with the disjointed images her brain was feeding her. Images that mostly featured waves, coated in flame, coming at her.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Correction: she tried to ask. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"Where am I?"

It was better this time. Stronger. Her head spun as she tried to push herself up. She was on her stomach, staring at a rolling cart with beeping lines and pips. Just a bit farther away was another cart, this one holding a pitcher of presumably water, along with some cheap plastic cups. And just beyond that was a body.

Again, presumably, because this one was wrapped up like a mummy.

A hand reached out and covered hers as she tried to find purchase to brace her trembling arms enough to rise to a sitting position.

"Easy, Autumn," the voice said. It was a good voice. One that she'd known for what felt like forever. And it was completely out of place.

"Samuels? Carson?" she tried to ask, trying to gesture so that he'd understand she asked about the other soul in her room.

"It's Macawi, Autumn," he said instead, crouching so that his face appeared before hers. His voice was gentle, his touch even more so as he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

"I'm home?" she asked.

"You are. And you're safe now. Do you remember anything?"

She hesitated, considering. "I think I do. Why aren't I at Walter Reed?"

Macawi Mathias shrugged. "I have no idea. I didn't realize you were here until my witness ended up in the next bed for a while."

He discreetly pushed the call button for the nurse.

"Where's my team?"

He shook his head, swallowed hard. "Autumn, I don't know anything. I don't have any answers for you."

She paused, her breath spend, her throat so very sore, and considered. The back of her head and neck especially hurt like hell—throbbing and pulling and tight. Her shoulder felt ravaged.

"I know you had a couple of surgeries. A couple of grafts to try to piece everything back together. I don't know what happened beyond what's known in town."

"I can remember now," she whispered. She could. And she doubted that was either of her teammates in the next bed. She shifted slightly, wincing at the pain. The moaning started and she tried to control the urge to scream. It mustn't have worked, though. Because Macawi's hand clenched down on hers. Or perhaps he responded only to the clawing nails she raked into his palms as she fought both the nausea and the awareness and her body's physical distress.

"Don't leave me," he whispered, shifting so that he was in front of her again. "Stay here—stay with me…"

She couldn't. The haze took over her mind before the nurse was able to plunge the hypodermic in and take away the worst of it.