A/N: some dialogue is taken directly from "Hostage!" Also, Trigger Warning for themes of abuse and sexual assault

In the days, weeks, months, and even years following Jude Bonner's attack on Dodge, whenever Kitty dared to look back on that time, voluntarily or otherwise, that week was barely more than a haze broken by moments of sharp, horrifying clarity. The scenes ran through her mind like a grotesque dime store novel, always feeling a bit sensational and yet always, always all too real.

For some reason Kitty never quite understood, she couldn't remember one memory without revisiting them all, the whole damned saga. And it always started in the Long Branch, sitting at a table with Doc. Speculating with Festus.

"Festus, um, what do you think the Dog Soldiers are gonna do about this?"

"Well, Miss Kitty, it's hard to tell what them killin' side-warshers'll do."

Matt had only been doing his job and it was an innocent question, a conversation like hundreds of others they'd had over the years, and no one could have known the horror about to descend on them. How could any of them have known?

And then he came. That night in the Long Branch always stood out in her memory as the dividing line, the fork in the road.

"I want the marshal's woman. I want her now. And if I don't get her, I'm gonna cut throats."

Sam, Lathrop, and Burke had remained stoic and tight-lipped. Those brave, sweet fools had been prepared to die for her. Kitty had a choice to either let them protect her with their lives or give herself up to Jude Bonner. And really, that had been no choice at all.

Kitty slapped the balcony railing – "Bonner!"

All eyes in the saloon instantly turned her way, but she blocked them all out and locked eyes with Bonner. Making her way down the stairs, Kitty remained focused on him and him alone. She couldn't afford to let anything, anyone, distract her. Because she knew what she would see if she looked at Burke and Lathrop, knew what she would see if she looked at Sam.

Kitty felt it instinctively, a knowledge that sat solidly in the pit of her stomach, carving her out and leaving her feeling hollow. She didn't expect to make it out alive, not this time, and she knew she couldn't bear what she would see if she looked at her friends – those brave, sweet, foolish men.

"I'm the lady." Eyes flashing, jaw clenched, Kitty felt as if her whole career, her entire life, had been preparing her for this moment. And for a brief second, she felt a flush of pride surge through her body at being able to claim her place at Matt's side so publicly. And doing exactly what he would have done. "Now what was it you wanted, sunshine?"

Jude started laughing at her and the color rose in Kitty's cheeks, but she stood her ground, waiting. This man was nothing to her.

"I mighta know'd I'd find the marshal's lady in a sportin' palace."

The next few seconds had played out almost before Kitty realized what was happening. She'd let her temper get the best of her. Insulted on her own behalf but outraged that the man in front of her had used her to demean Matt, Kitty lashed out, striking Bonner across the face. A mistake. In the next instant, his whole countenance had changed, darkened, and he grabbed her hard at the back of the neck and pulled her tight against himself. His body had thrummed with a manic energy, she had felt the tension in every muscle pressed against her side, smelled the stink of his sweat.

Kitty never could remember much of the rest of that night, leaving the Long Branch, riding to the Dog Soldiers' camp, but she could remember the scent of Jude Bonner's sweat. A cruel trick of the mind. She could remember his scent and an echoing threat that haunted her on those nights when she closed the Long Branch alone and the air was so hot and still each breath felt sacred—

"…my brother hangs…this little lady's gonna wish to God she'd never been born."

The first time Kitty heard that voice in the silence of an empty night, Matt found her crumpled on the floor in front of the bar, the saloon long since closed for the night, sobbing because Bonner had been right.

Once, in a fit of frustration, Matt asked Kitty how the hell she'd thought it would end when she gave herself up. And she wanted to take the easy way out and lie and tell Matt the problem was that she hadn't been thinking at all, but he'd hurt her just then, so she told the truth. Already, Matt's eyes were clouded with regret and he was reaching out toward her, but Kitty threw her walls up and shut him out, stepping just out of reach. She told him the truth, her eyes cold, voice flat.

"I thought they would kill me." And really, there had been no choice at all. "You would have done the same, Marshal."

In her mind, Kitty had that hellish week marked out into scenes, chapters. It was a way of compartmentalizing that somehow made everything more manageable.

Doc told her it was her mind's way of protecting her.

The next chapter was only full of vague impressions, snatches of a conversation here and there. She had been with Bonner, in a tent and tied up with her hands behind her back. Sore, hungry, tired, thirsty, but…. There was a spark of outright defiance there, too, and because Kitty knew the song and dance as well as she knew the rhythms of life in Dodge, sometimes in dreams her subconscious would fill in some of the gaps. She had done her best to rattle Bonner, unnerve him. Whatever happened to her, Matt Dillon and Jude Bonner would meet face-to-face – it was inevitable – and she had to give Matt his best chance. Kitty always had to give Matt his best chance.

But then….

Everything snapped into focus with sickening clarity.

"They hung 'im, Jude."

Kitty broke out into a cold sweat, in spite of the suffocating heat. She'd expected the news. She had told Jude as much, but hearing it confirmed…. This was it, then. Body trembling, Kitty inhaled deeply and drew herself up, lifting her chin defiantly. Jude would kill her, and Matt….

She breathed his name like a prayer.

No one had uttered a single word since the scout rode into camp. They were all still looking to Bonner for a cue. Kitty watched him, too. Watched his eyes lose the last of their light, watched as his body turned to stone, save for a muscle twitching in his jaw.

In the eerie, early morning silence, Kitty hardly dared to breathe.

Then, slowly, Bonner turned his dead eyes on her, and Kitty's breath hitched as he drew out his knife. He circled her, twice, and she could feel the tension rising, her brave face weakening by the second, until he came to a stop behind her. So close she could feel his heat and the rise and fall of his chest.

All eyes in the camp were on them. Anger, vengeance, indifference, lust, all swirling in the air. Waiting.

A sudden movement from behind her, Kitty jerked reflexively and stumbled forward, finding Bonner had cut the ropes burning into her wrists.

Rubbing her raw skin, Kitty turned to face Bonner. Confusion, wariness, pure exhaustion, fear – they all swarmed around in her head until she felt faint. Until she felt her anger resurfacing. And still he looked right through her. She knew there wasn't a chance in hell Bonner was letting her go, and if she tried to make a break for it there were well over a dozen men there to make sure she never made it past the first tent. What kind of game was he playing?

In the unnerving stillness, Kitty startled at the sound of Jude's voice.

"Woman…. You don't mean nothin' to me."

Then he turned around, walked back into his tent, and left her alone.

Alone with his men.

The next pieces of Kitty's memories were broken, harsh and jagged like a mirror too damaged to be of any real use any longer. Fragments of memories sharp enough to open old wounds but not large enough to see the entire image.

Kitty remembered the pain, the humiliation, the brutality of it all. She knew she fought them off for as long as she could, as hard as she could, but she was only one woman against so many men…. All of them eager, none of them gentle, some of them willfully malicious. She knew she counted at least three different men, but at some point she shut down and so she never knew the final count.

Sometimes, in her memories, she could hear screaming, which she could only assume was her own. And she remembered the stench and the heat and the weight of the men and being passed around liked a bottle of whisky. She remembered the humiliation and the feeling of crushing shame and the laughter.

Always the laughter.

On nights when the smells and the sounds and the atmosphere of the Long Branch aligned in just the right way, Kitty found a reason to work in her office or go see Doc or close up early. Sam never questioned her, but he always gave her such an understanding look that she suspected he knew what she was doing.

Kitty remembered pain and terror and glimpses of leering faces bathed in early morning light and then a dull sort of numbness until suddenly she was being pulled off a horse. She remembered feeling a sense of something familiar until pain exploded into an aching void. Kitty figured that must have been when Bonner shot her, and Doc confirmed it one night after too much whiskey and reminiscing and regret. She'd only seen him cry a handful of times throughout their friendship, but he broke down in the midnight quiet of the saloon, recounting what he saw, how he felt, watching the Dog Soldiers present Kitty to Dodge, so horrifically abused, beat to hell, and then seeing Bonner shoot her down like an animal in the street. And all he could do was watch. Kitty's heart broke for him, but holding him close, comforting him – and wasn't that a role reversal – she couldn't help but also feel just the tiniest bit relieved at having one more missing memory filled in.

There was nothing. No light, no sound, no sensation. And it would be so very easy to let that void envelope her, to just…slip away.

At one point, Kitty heard an echo, Doc's voice, pleading. Pleading with who? With her? She tried to listen harder to grasp the words being spoken, but as soon as she did, overwhelming pain and memory assaulted her and she quickly retreated back into the darkness.

It would be easy to slip away. Kitty has had to fight for her life from the moment her tiny frame entered the world, screaming and flailing, and the pain and terror and shame – she's broken, and it's just not worth it anymore.

"Kitty…."

And just like that, Kitty found herself dragged into consciousness.

Matt?

Pain and inexplicable dread slammed into her, and Kitty understood the pain, remembered why she was lying ruined on Doc's operating table, but the fear couldn't be rationalized, and it stole her breath because she loved the man in front of her so desperately.

Please, don't hate me.

Kitty knew she would fall apart or turn away or beg him not to leave her if her body and heart and soul didn't hurt so damned bad.

"I need you, Kitty…."

Her heart stopped.

Could you really?

And there it was. The tiniest spark lit inside Kitty's soul, and she rallied herself for a fight.

Dying for Matt would have been easy, and somewhere in the back of her mind, a whisper told her living for him would be the hardest thing she would ever do.

Alright.

Kitty knew she had bad dreams during the long stretch of unconsciousness that followed Matt's declaration, knew that Ma came and washed her and put her in a clean nightgown – God bless that woman – and that Newly and Sam moved her into Doc's bedroom. She knew all of that, but she was never able to figure out if she knew because she remembered or because her friends filled in the gaps for her over the years.

Kitty knew she remembered waking up in Doc's bedroom, alone with Doc, and Matt nowhere to be found. She knew she actually remembered it because the following hour before Doc gave her something to put her back to sleep was its own kind of hell.

"Where is he, Doc?"

She'd already guessed the answer, and her voice, hoarse from screaming, had shook.

"He went after him, Kitty."

"Alone?"

"No, Festus and Newly went with him, and the whole town rode out after him."

"They can't help him. They're just targets for those—"

Kitty had never felt so vulnerable, so incapable of controlling her emotions as she had then. She was terrified for Matt, scared to death for herself. Still. Doc's hand on her own had made her feel panicky in an undefinable way, and yet she loved him so dearly and needed his comfort. The physical pain and confusing, intense, raging emotions and tears clogging her throat had made her feel nauseous.

"Kitty, no power on earth coulda stopped him, you know that…."

Doc's reassurances had only made her feel worse. Kitty wasn't sure she had known that. But she couldn't gather her thoughts, scattered amongst the shattered landscape of her mind. God, she loved Matt so much it hurt and he was out there to kill – murder – men for what they did to her and that was how he chose to show his love for her – ego, her brain had hissed – and he was going to be killed and then she would die for certain and—

"I couldn't live without him, Doc. You know that?"

Even to her own ears, Kitty had sounded like a broken woman.

Doc had tried to comfort her, talk her down, but there had been no reasoning with her, and eventually he had coaxed her into taking something to help her sleep. A sleep that had been mercifully free of nightmares, something that turned out to be a rarity in the weeks to come.

Matt had made it back to Dodge alive, hands free of Jude Bonner's blood. He'd come back alone, leaving Festus and Newly and the men of Dodge to ride the Dog Soldiers to Hays. Having them in Dodge, trying and convicting and even hanging some of them in Dodge, was something no one had wanted to even contemplate.

In the days, weeks, months, and even years following Jude Bonner's attack on Dodge, only Matt and Doc knew the full extent to which Kitty suffered. Only Matt and Doc ever knew everything that had happened to her in the Dog Soldiers' camp and all that came after, although Festus and Newly and Sam – even Ma Smalley – knew more than most.

Kitty's physical wounds healed the fastest, were the least painful and the least debilitating. The cuts and bruises faded, cracked ribs knit back together, sore limbs and muscles regained their strength. The only physical scar, still visible over a decade later, was a reminder of Bonner's parting shot, his last failed attempt to kill her, to satisfy the debt he felt Matt owed him.

The emotional scarring, however….

Nightmares plagued Kitty for the rest of her life; although, as time went by, they became few and far between. Some nights they barely interrupted her sleep, and other times she woke screaming, but most nights were somewhere in between. The worst nights were when she'd startle awake and still think she was back in Bonner's tent. Matt found that out the hard way one night – because, predictably, she never told him herself – and once, Kitty's screams reached Doc in his office. He barely let her out of his sight for three days after that night.

From the beginning, Kitty could stand to be in the same room with Matt, with Doc, and even Festus, Newly, and Sam didn't bother her. She thanked God for small miracles. When it came to touch, however…. They all gave Kitty her space and followed her lead. Within a week she was able to accept a hand or even a hug in comfort – not surprisingly, she became comfortable with Doc's attentions first – and by the end of the first month she could help Sam in the Long Branch without breaking down, claustrophobia overtaking her. Intimacy with Matt came back much, much more slowly, in excruciating increments, but mercifully it was possible again. Kitty cried afterwards, the first time they were able to make love again, because finally she knew, whatever else she might have to battle, Jude Bonner had not truly taken anything from her, from them.

Kitty dealt with triggers for the rest of her life – hot, breathless summer nights and the raucous laughter of over-eager cowboys and dew-wet grass in the early morning twilight – but she learned how to handle them and looked back one day, surprised to find she was healing. She learned how to compartmentalize when she had to and she learned how to live again, and on the hard days she slipped on her mask, that poker face she'd perfected long before she'd ever heard Jude Bonner's godforsaken name.

Kitty whimpered, her brow furrowed even in sleep, and jerked toward the edge of her bed, flinching away from an invisible assailant. Gradually, her cries and tossing and turning grew louder and more violent, until Matt was roused from sleep. He blinked hard, rubbing his eyes for only a moment before snapping to attention, realizing what had woken him. He quickly sat up, the sheets pooling around his hips, lit the lamp on the bedside table, and then turned to Kitty, careful not to touch her right away.

"Kitty…" he whispered. Then louder, "Kitty."

His voice didn't calm her, as it sometimes did, and Matt cautiously reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder.

With a harsh gasp, Kitty's eyes flew open, and she instinctively sat up, swinging her right hand around to fend off the attacker. Matt had anticipated her move and skillfully caught her wrist mid-air, his grasp gentle but firm, and he held on until he felt her relax.

"Matt…" Kitty exhaled. Her blue eyes locked onto Matt's gaze, still wide with fear, though it was slowly fading.

"It's alright, Kitty, I'm here. It's me. You're okay, yeah?"

She nodded haltingly and took a deep breath. Her voice hardly shook when she replied, "Yeah…yeah, that one wasn't…. I've had worse."

Matt's expression only grew more troubled, though, shaded by guilt, and Kitty's heart clenched.

"I'm fine, Matt. Honest." That wasn't enough. She could see it in his eyes – words would never assuage his guilt. Like most men she'd known, he needed something to do. "Could you…could you just hold me? Until I fall asleep?"

Matt dimmed the lamp but made sure to leave it burning for Kitty's sake, and they settled back under the quilt. His right arm cradled her shoulders, her head pillowed on his chest, and their hearts settled into an easy rhythm.

The quiet stillness of the night enveloped them, and even though the night was hot, wrapped securely in Matt's arms it was far from suffocating. Matt buried his face in Kitty's tousled hair and breathed deeply, then quietly, so very quietly, his voice thick with surprising emotion, he confessed, "You'll never know how sorry I am, Kitty."

Kitty's breath caught and her eyes welled with tears, struck by a vulnerability he rarely showed, even to her, and a few minutes passed. She closed her eyes, and the tears slid down her cheeks. Then, just as softly…

"I was proud to claim my place at your side that night, Matthew Dillon. I am proud to be your woman." Kitty tilted her head back and pressed a kiss to the underside of Matt's jaw. "And I can never regret that."

The End