We Can Work It Out

by lostcowgirl

Matt and Kitty's deepening relationship is at a crossroads when a spat turns to an argument. Becoming an even more connected couple depends on if Kitty accepts Matt's point of view. AN: This takes place right after The Roundup, about 9 months before Kitty buys into the Long Branch and moves completely into her room there.

We Can Work It Out

Life is very short, and there's no time

For fussing and fighting, my friend

I have always thought that it's a crime

So I will ask you once again

Try to see it my way

Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong

While you see it your way

There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long

We can work it out

We can work it out

Bridge & Verse by Lennon & McCartney

When I accepted this job I had no idea how hard it would be. I don't mean the long hours and short pay the government too often forgets to send on time. It's the town leaders thinking they can keep the peace in Dodge City better than me. I'm thinking of the crooked yet outwardly respectable citizens who put profit over endangering or even ending innocent people's lives. When you add in my assistant Chester Goode spraining both ankles as a result of a crooked poker game to facing the wild celebration of the roundup closing out the biggest cattle season we've yet seen added to certain of those already named citizens drawing straws to see which of them would have the pleasure of murdering me, upholding the law in this Gomorrah of the Plains becomes nearly impossible.

Still, I managed to fulfill the oath I swore before I pinned on the badge during the roundup that closed out cattle season last week and survive. I can't say the same for Zel Blatnick. With Chester only available to watch the office, my old friend volunteered to pin on a deputy's badge and help with rounds and I took him up on it. Of course it wasn't just because I'd once saved him from a mob in Alamogordo, New Mexico, it was Kitty blurting out my predicament and urging me to accept his offer. He's returned the favor and then some because my bullet killed him while I came away with a mere scratch.

When Torp got the drop and winged me I fired at everyone who so much as looked like he might be trying to kill me. Fact is, despite not taking the time to consider whom I was shooting at, let alone aim, I was accurate. My friend, trying to turn the blame to himself with his dying breath was dead because I lost my head. It's the reason I closed the street then buried Zel the next morning with only Chester along. When I was done, I notched my gun, a practice we both hate, in his memory. Only then did I let Doc look at the crease on my upper left arm before heading out of town alone.

Riding out on the prairie alone after it was all over didn't help. The night of the killing she tried to tell me the same thing Zel had, but I wasn't ready to listen. I was too consumed with what I'd done. My guilty feelings aside, I need to sort out where things stand with the job. If I quit, I'll be going back on my oath, but at the same time I can't reconcile myself to killing a good friend because I'd become kill crazy. Nothing of my internal argument was resolved when I finally went to get my arm tended to.

Doc, dispensing fatherly advice along with medical treatment while Kitty hovered nearby assisting him in as many ways as she could, tried to get me to accept it as an accident. I walked her back to the Long Branch where, once we were alone upstairs, she again tried to get me to talk my way through it. Instead I stormed out of her room, closing the door just in time to avoid being hit by the flower vase she threw at me. I heard it shatter against the wood as I walked down the hall. Once outside, I got my horse from Moss and rode out of town and stayed away for a week, living off the land. I don't know if I'll ever reconcile myself to what I did, but maybe I can at least patch things up with Kitty enough that she'll still want to be my date to the fall sociable I found myself thinking upon my return to town.

"Mr. Dillon! Glad you're back! This jist come in fer yah," Chester yelled, making his way towards me from the office as I walked toward it from the stable.

I took the envelope from him in the middle of Front Street, but didn't open it until I'd put my gear down on the table and leaned back in my chair at my desk. It seemed Dutch George had returned to Kansas despite his promise and Jimmy McQueen, the cowboy who ruined my case against him, had caught up with him between Garden City and the Colorado border. He and a small band of his Cheyenne friends from the Darlington Agency had caught up with the horse thief as he and his men were stealing a particularly fine herd from an isolated ranch there. They wanted me to add the weight of my testimony at the trial. The problem was the trial was scheduled to begin September 29th and the sociable would be on October 3rd. I'll just have to ask Kitty but forewarn her that if the trial runs long or is delayed, I might not get back in time to take her to it.

Kitty Russell. Why was I even thinking about asking her to the dance? If I had any sense, I'd cut my ties to her or at the very least go back to us just being friends. The problem was, when it came to that redhead I lost nearly all reason. Despite the vow I made after Lee threw me over to marry that scrawny gambler Tim Jackson to dedicate my life to the oath I'd sworn on taking this job I was mixing involvement with a woman with wearing a badge. Adam Kimbro taught me a man has to choose between a badge and a family while providing me with all the other lessons I'd need to be a good lawman. Lee couldn't abide being a rancher's wife. It would deprive her of the excitement she craved, but I couldn't remain a marshal, as new as the job was to me, and marry her.

While I openly courted Lee, Kitty worked her way into my heart and I into hers despite neither of us pushing for it. Fact is we tried our best to avoid it. Somehow, despite all the reasons against it, ever since that rainy morning she showed up in Dodge on the stage from Abilene I haven't been able to keep my distance. Instead, I keep revealing parts of myself that I've never shared with anyone else and she does the same with me. What I have with Kitty makes what I thought was the love I had for Leona Drummond nothing more than infatuation - a very strong infatuation.

By the time I finished the backlog of paperwork piled on my desk, she'd begun her shift at the Long Branch and was already sitting with Doc and Chester when I entered. Asking her to spend time alone with me so I could tell her what's on my mind would have to wait until I could speak with her alone. The chance finally came when a new nester's oldest boy came rushing into the saloon in search of Doc.

"Doctor Adams! Yah gotta come quick. It's ma's time!"

As old man and boy rushed toward the door, the 12-year-old jostled a gambler, giving the player next to him a quick glimpse of the card up his sleeve just as Doc and the boy disappeared through the swinging batwing doors. The two men rose from the table to confront each other. Before I could get there the gambler drew his derringer from the same sleeve that had held the extra ace to fire at his accuser. His shot at that short distance was fatal to the drifter. I grabbed the small gun from the gambler and sent Chester out of the Long Branch with instructions to lock him up.

It wasn't how I'd have preferred it, but when I returned to our table I was alone with Kitty. She was still somewhat angry from our last would have been night together but agreed to see me in her Long Branch room after my late rounds. I joined her when the only customer left was Doc, returned from his call out into the countryside, who was bracing himself with a whiskey after a very difficult birth. Both mother and child lived. I walked out with him and watched while he climbed his stairs and closed his door. Then I strode around to the saloon's back stairs to make things up to Kitty, hoping she'd allow me to walk her back home to Ma Smalley's, preferably to my room.

"Kit, I'm sorry I stormed out the other night," I said as she poured whiskey into our glasses. I've thought things through somewhat since first Doc and then you insisted Zel's shooting was unavoidable under the circumstances even if I was the one who killed him."

"Cowboy, I know it's hard for you to accept what happened was because a group of Dodge City's finest congregated in Torp's Saloon wanted you dead. If you hadn't kept firing your gun they would have succeeded. Zel simply got in the way of one of those bullets when he crossed the street to help."

"Part of me knows you're right. Zel told me the same thing. Still, I lost my head and it was my bullet that killed him. That's a fact. Whatever I did before or after doesn't change a thing."

"Yes, Matt, it's a fact, but the main thing is what you did saved your life and the lives of who knows how many innocent people. It's too bad you sometimes have to shoot your friends in order to fulfill your oath. Only you can decide if the good you do by wearing that badge outweighs the parts of the job that tear you apart inside."

"Kitty, can we put off talking through just what my responsibility is to the job 'til later? I've got something to ask you concerning you and me. The Harvest Sociable is comin' up in a couple of weeks, you know. I was wonderin' if you'd go with me?"

"Of course I'll go with you, Matt. I've been hopin' what happened at last spring's charity sociable didn't scare you away from asking me to another dance."

"Uh, there's one little problem. They caught Dutch George and they want me to testify at his trial in Garden City. If I don't get back in time Doc and Chester will take you."

"Stop pretending!" she cried, suddenly angry. "It would have been better if you hadn't asked at all! Admit it, you don't think enough of either yourself or me to face those biddies and their husbands except in Delmonico's where sharing the table is a matter of circumstances. Many of those same husbands would like to see you dead or at the very least disgraced. You'd rather deliberately try to get yourself killed because you think that's all you deserve. Your short life is a mere excuse!"

"You can't believe that! I was on my way to ask you this afternoon when Chester handed me the telegram about the trial. I just wanted to prepare you for the possibility I might not get back in time. You know how the job is."

"I accepted you breaking off our date for the spring Ford County Sociable, Founders' Day and the Fourth of July at the last minute as part of the job, but not this time. Well, nothing but a saloon girl Kitty won't go to the dance with you even if you do manage to get back in time for it. At least Doc and Chester respect me enough to be seen escorting me to a public function just as if I were one of the respectable women in town."

"Kitty, honey, please…"

"Don't you Kitty, honey me. Just get out! I never want to speak to you again!" she shouted as she threw the whiskey in the glass I'd put down on the table in my face followed by the glass.

I ducked in time to avoid getting hit on the head and got out through her door as quick as I could. Then dejectedly walked to my room.

Kitty kept her word. She spoke not a word to me, going so far as to turn her head away when I tried to say hello at the bar or join her at a table with our friends. She pointedly talked to them or anyone else in the Long Branch as if I weren't there. By the time I had to leave for Garden City I was sure it was over between us. It's probably for the best. I shouldn't have forgotten what Adam taught me about the badge and relationships not mixing even if she had agreed that how close we'd become had to be our secret.

As luck would have it, I was the first witness and since I hadn't arrested him, I didn't stick around for the sentencing. The Deputy US Marshal in Pueblo, who also gave evidence, took care of escorting him to prison in Colorado. I was home by early afternoon on October 1st. As soon as I washed all the trail dust off of me, shaved and changed into fresh clothes that included what Kitty jokingly calls my courting jacket, I walked to the Long Branch. Something inside me wouldn't let me stop trying to continue what she and I had begun. She was alone in her room upstairs on a break when I got there. Bill Pence told me to go on up.

I knocked softly at the door and entered as soon as she acknowledged it. She was lounging on her divan with her feet up looking more beautiful than ever.

"Oh it's you. I thought it was one of the girls wanting to borrow a piece of jewelry. What I said before you left for Garden City still stands even if you did manage to get back with time to spare."

"Try to see it my way. I prepared you for me not getting back in time, but I did. I still want you to go to the sociable with me."

"Well, I'm not sure I want to go with you. I'm not sure how you really feel about me."

"Then give me the chance to show you by going to supper at Delmonico's and then the dance with me. Life's too short for me not to want to be with you as much as I can."

"Throw I could die tomorrow in my face again will you! Can't you see part of that is your stubborn pride forces you into taking unnecessary chances."

"That's not it. It's a chancy job; I realize that. It's why I tried to avoid becoming involved with you, but I did. Since I did, I want to take you to places and events around town where it appears we're nothing more than friends."

"Neither of us wants marriage right now, but I also don't want to be an afterthought or the woman who's not quite respectable enough to be your girl."

"If you look at what we have that way, we don't have much of a chance. You have to know I'm only asking you keep how much we care about each other secret for your safety."

"I want to believe that, but you miss so many dates that it's nearly impossible. To you, Doc and Chester I'm just one of the boys when I'm not working."

"I didn't come up here to fuss and fight, I came to patch things up between us and to ask you once again to go with me to the Harvest Sociable. If you don't change your mind, we just might be finished. That's sure not what I want. Kitty, please try to see it my way."

"Somehow Cowboy, when you look at me with those puppy eyes, I have to see it your way. I'm a fool to believe you, but yeah we can work it out starting right now even if we only have time for a quick makeup kiss before you leave while I get ready to go back downstairs."

I left to do my job with a promise to see her later. There were no arguments when I returned after my late rounds. She was ready for us to work things out when I stopped by for her as the Long Branch was closing. Oh, and this time I did make it to the sociable with her. Otherwise, we'd have to work it out all over again & maybe it wouldn't take a second time.