Rhona found herself being carried along by the crowd. Buck Merrill's Roadhouse was never empty at this time of night, but Rhona had never been around to experience it firsthand. She didn't have the heart to tell her friend's that being pressed up against sweaty bodies that smelt like whisky and cheap cologne was not how she wanted to spend her night. But they had been excited to hear she finally had a Friday night off and Rhona never had the heart to disappoint anyone.

"Hey, take a breath huh? Sunday's are when you deal with homework, Scott" Loretta cooed from the backseat of Rhona's truck as they turned down the long gravel driveway towards the roadhouse. Even with the windows rolled down and the cool air seeping into her pores Rhona could almost taste the cheap wine that had settled on Loretta's breath. Leave it to Loretta to be past tipsy, but still feel her friend's anxieties radiating off her skin like a fever. Even with wine on her breathe Rhona trusted Loretta's judgment. If she felt like it was going to be okay, it most likely would be.

If this had been any other weekend, Rhona would have found herself sitting in the cabin of her truck alone. A cigarette dangling from her lips as she waited for her girls to trickle out one at a time. It would be dawn at this point, Friday night slowly becoming Saturday morning as the sun would peek out from behind the roadhouse like a headlight. Spotlighting those who left full of sin and regret from the night before. Bellies full of warm amber colored liquor. Rhona never knew what that felt like, but from the low giggles and sluggish grins that plastered her girls' faces once they crawled into the seats Rhona had a feeling it felt like a sweet, unfulfilling dream. You always wanted more.

"Take a shot of this, Scottie!" Brandie squealed as she placed the shot glass of clear poison in front of her friend. It smelt like straight alcohol. The kind her grandmother used to use to clean her scrapes with when she was a child.

"It doesn't smell good," her voice full of skepticism as the shot glass was pushed closer to her empty hand. The girls had settled at table towards the back. Far away from the poker games and the hustles from the pool tables, but close enough to the bars and to the single boys who occupied its stools.

"Well you ain't supposed to smell it," Brandie replied with the slightest roll of her eyes. They were blue in color and only seemed to brighten the more she drank.

"Here," Loretta chimed in as she sauntered up to the table with a glass of orange juice in her hand. "Take the shot, drink the juice, loosen up," a devilish smirk breaking across her face as Rhona balanced the shot and glass of juice in her hands.

Rhona counted to three at her own pace.

One. Eyes scanning the room as she focused on the pool tables with the older men flocking around the green patchy baize. Two. The dance floor filled with bodies melting together like crayons left out in the sun. Three. Tim Shepard who watched from the corner of the room with a beer in his hand and that look in his eye. She drank. It burned every bit of the way down and the orange juice did little to hide the taste it left behind. Her eyes glanced back to Tim Shepard, who tipped his beer in response. Quickly she lowered her eyes away and a giggle escaped past her lips as her friends cheered and offered up another. This one burned less and she felt freer. Lighter. Like she could fly.

XxxxX

He remembered her. He remembered how his Gram and her Nana used to put them to work in their gardens. This was before he had any kind of taste in leadership. Before he knew what the inside of jail cell smelt like. Before he was Tim Shepard. At that point in his life, barely the age of six, he was just Timothy. He hadn't been Timothy for a while.

How the only two Scottish women in Tulsa ended up living next-door to each other was beyond him. His Gram used to call it the works of fate. As if somewhere in the big open universe there was a higher power pulling the strings on stars and creating a tangled web of relationships. Timothy used to believe his Gram and the workings of Fate, but Tim was too smart for faerie tales. Fate might have put everyone together for a reason but it was that same fate that took everyone away too.

Tim had never seen Rhona inside Merrill's place before. He was used to seeing her in the wee hours of morning, when he would roll of out of bed, over whatever girl he had conned into sleeping with him for the night. Lighting a cigarette out the window, he could always count on finding her heavy black truck sitting on the gravel. It rumbled in the silence of morning, breaking up the bird's songs before they even started to sing. She brought the world back to reality. Always there to collect whatever girl needed a ride home. Always there to comfort whatever girl had a bad night. Always there without fail. Period.

She downed two more shots before her friends got tired of watching her drink and trickled off to dance with whatever boys had been eyeing them from the sideline. Tim didn't leave his spot in the corner of the room. He was there to work, to watch, to make sure his territory stayed his another night.

Rhona stayed at the table and Shepard was sure it was because the four shots her friends made her take back to back were already starting to mess with her head. The thought made a wicked smirk press against his lips. He sipped on his beer to cover it.

She was a good kid still. As pure as they could get on the East side of town. And while it was a rare sight and something that anyone else would be proud of, Tim thought it was dumb. Being kind for too long meant that there always someone or something somewhere out there ready to take advantage of you. But maybe, that was just Tim. The neighborhood hadn't chewed her up and spit her out yet. Lord knows her mother tried.

"You gonna sulk all night?" Luis' low voice pushed Tim's thoughts away. A beer dangled from his buddies one hand and his girl hung tightly to the other. "Ain't a single River King here to ruin the party, Shep. You can let loose, find a doll, get your kicks while you're still young," his voice had a slow drawl that made him sound dumber than he was.

"I'm workin'," it was Tim's most common excuse, but it worked for the most part. If a gang leader said he was working, then he was working. Tim knew that Luis didn't buy it, but his buddy dropped it. He knew when Tim was looking for a challenge and when Tim was looking for a break. All Tim ever really needed was a break.

"I can find a girl for you Tim," Soledad finally chimed in with a sweet smile on her face. Her smiles always reached her eyes, because she was always genuine when it came to the people she cared most about. How Tim got roped into that category was another thing beyond him. Fate was funny.

"Nah," Tim finally replied with a smallest of looks in Rhona's direction. Lucky for him, Soledad was too busy studying her nails and Luis was too busy studying her. "I'm workin'," he repeated one last time and Soledad kicked her eyebrows up.

"Then you won't need this," she grabbed Tim's beer bottle from his hand and strangled the neck. She was right. He had been nursing that beer since they rolled in at the start of the party. It was warm now and he was just keeping it for looks.

His eyes found themselves back on Rhona. She was still in the same spot. Like Tim, she was just watching. Her eyes studied the room as if she feared one day she would forget it and maybe one day she would. He suddenly remembered sparrows. He ordered another beer.

XxxxX

"Do you know what it really means?" Her nana had once asked after she placed the heavy book of faerie tales onto her lap. Rhona remembered tracing her hand over the golden paint that made up the princess' hair and looked at Timothy with eyes as wide as the sky. Both had been picturing the same thing. A hero. A man who slayed dragons. "Knight in shining armor?" Nana had repeated the question, pulling Rhona and Timothy back to reality.

"A hero who saves the day," Rhona didn't hesitate to answer that time. She watched as her Nana shared a look with Timothy's gram. They always had those secret looks, as if the two were school girls passing each other notes.

"No, wee one." Her nana laughed kindly and cupped her granddaughter's face with a firm yet gentle grip, "A knight in shining armor did nothing for nobody." She released her granddaughter and refocused on both children sitting in front of her, "He never fought. He never won anything."

Rhona remembered feeling like every faerie tale she was ever told was a lie. She felt betrayed by the book that now sat in her lap. She pushed it onto the floor and crossed her arms over her chest. Timothy, who never spoke unless he had too, continued to stay silent. He was waiting for the point.

"A knight in dented, scraped armor. That's you want." She pointed a single finger to Rhona and then turned it on Timothy, "That's what you should be."

Like most nights, the party broke apart the lighter the sky became. Rhona knew it was time to find her girls when the music finally stopped. The air was silent and Rhona could finally feel the headache that had been pounding against her skull for the past hour. The alcohol from earlier made her sluggish and she felt sticky, but its dizzying affects had worn off a long time ago.

She knew her girls would find her. They usually would slink out to her truck on their own will after a party at Buck's. Most mornings she was just picking up Loretta and Brandie, but sometimes other girls would trickle out the house to meet her. Tough girls like Sylvia and Soledad. Stupid girls like Kathy and Angela. It didn't matter. She took them all home. She made them all feel safe after a night that broke their hearts.

Rhona, who had watched the night unfold from multiple parts of the house was back in the original corner table. She ran her fingers around rings left by cold beer bottles and counted the nicks in the wood while she waited. It wouldn't be long before the sun came up and the world started spinning again. Her eyes caught movement at the doorway that led to the kitchen and she looked up to find Tim Shepard, watching once more.

He looked the same. As if parties didn't affect him at all and maybe they didn't. There was something about Tim Shepard. The world didn't touch him the same as it did everyone else. Nothing could get close to him unless he let it.

He didn't drop his eyes when Rhona finally met his glance so she looked away first. She wasn't sure why. It wasn't a crime to look at Tim Shepard, but it sure felt like it was. She was sure that's what he wanted. To intimidate her and to keep her staring at the rings in the table.

"You've been up all night," she jumped at the sound of his observation. She hadn't heard him walk towards her, hadn't felt his presence behind her either. When she looked back at him, she found a crooked smirk pressed against his lips. She knew he was working to hide it.

"I think you have too," Rhona finally replied and Shepard nodded in response. He still didn't have much to say. "Enjoy your night?" She asked but he walked away as if he hadn't heard her at all. Rhona stared dumbfounded at the kitchen door that swung shut behind him and went back to tracing rings in the table.

She wasn't left to her thoughts for too long because Shepard came back. She had a feeling he would. If you could catch him at the right moment, he was six years old again. He slid a mug of coffee towards her as he sat down at the table.

"Sugar no milk, right Scottie?" He asked without looking at her. He was focused on his own mug. She knew how he liked to drink his coffee too. Straight. Black. Like his Gram.

"You know," Rhona spoke carefully in the hushed silence of the Roadhouse. "You're just as Scottish as me. Probably even more so."

"Am I?" He asked and she caught another one of his smirks before he was able to hide it behind his mug. They made eye contact but Rhona refused to look away.

"Sure," she spoke with a playful look in her eye. It caused Tim to shift and lean against the table. He waited for her to continue. "You're dad's family is from Aberdeen, your mom's family from Perth. Meanwhile my Ma's family was from Livingston and my father? Well his family was from Amarillo, Texas."

When Tim didn't say anything in response, Rhona continued. "You're far more Scottish than me. So why am I Scottie and you're just Tim?"

"Start running a gang here in town and then we'll talk," he took another sip from his coffee and added a "Scottie" as an afterthought.

Rhona glared but couldn't hold the look for long. Tim never took her seriously, so she had a hard time being serious around him. Her eyes traveled down to his mug and caught the fresh bruises and swollen knuckles forming on his hands.

"Who was on the other end of your fists?" She asked but she knew Tim would never tell her. "Your Gram would've lost her mind if she saw your hands looking like that. She always thought your hands were so good. That they were going to change some world," Rhona wasn't sure what made her say it, but she regretted the words as soon as they slipped out.

Tim sat in silence and Rhona took a deep breath. There was a reason the two of them stopped talking. Stopped searching for each other in crowds. Too much history between people spelled out disaster. It was better that they were strangers. Easier for both parties.

"Nice talking to you, kid." Shepard told her as he stood up. He left her behind with his half emptied coffee mug, she didn't blame him.

A/N: This is my first Outsider's story and was basically just playing with the idea of Tim Shepard. I hope some of you liked it or liked parts of it!

Reviews are always appreciated!