This is how archaeology happens: layer after layer of what happens, falling down and, after a time, covering each other up. —Gil Adamson, Help Me, Jacques Cousteau
A/N: many thanks to ziparumpazoo for reading my endless babble and making me work that extra bit harder.
Walt hires Vic Moretti as much because he likes her as because of her qualifications. He likes her cockiness and swagger, her sarcasm and attitude, likes the compassion she hides and the intelligence she doesn't. There's something a little jagged about her, maybe even wounded, though she masks it well. Like draws to like and he recognises that something in her.
None of this is anything he puts into words during her interview that afternoon. It's all just there in a flash: intuition and years of observation and assessment honed to an unconscious instinct. His gut says yes, so he offers her the job.
It's only later, idly flicking through the paperwork he's somehow brought home, that he notices her emergency contact is her husband. That's a slight jolt, something his gut hadn't told him. She hadn't mentioned a husband, only said she'd moved from Philadelphia for personal reasons when he'd asked how she ended up in Wyoming. He's sure she hadn't been wearing a wedding ring.
The knowledge that she's married shifts his perception of her slightly, for no other reason than it's something he missed, and Walt isn't used to missing such significant details. He's forced to admit that Vic Moretti possesses more depths than he'd thought.
Now he wonders fleetingly about the kind of man her husband is. What does it take to share a life with a woman who wears her more-than-a-hint-of predatory danger the way some women wear pearls? One with such sharp teeth, who's as likely to snarl as smile? A certain strength, he imagines. A taste for exhilaration. Some shared wildness.
The thoughts exist in a flickering instant, dissolving almost as quickly as they form. Walt is a man who spends a lot of time purposely forgetting these days. He's something of an expert at it now.
Twilight is coming down the mountains, bringing with it a chill and the evening's hush. He tosses the paperwork at his feet, opens another beer, and stops thinking altogether.