Author's Note: So yes, I'm on the back side of 3 weeks straight with no day off from work. On top of that the PC probs so… damn the writing the stories in my head. LOL And without (okay… with just a tiny bit more) ado….

Longmire: Starting Lines.

I watched my deputy. She'd stolen my hat and had it cocked back on her shapely head. She was eating a doughnut from across the street. Well technically she was eating it, but in reality? She was nibbling in a way that can only be described as sexual, what with flashing her oh so innocent-not innocent eyes at me and the smile that bunched up the muscles over her cheeks.

I was glad I wasn't a young man any more, otherwise I would have made a fool of myself trying to get her to live up to that promise. As it was, I was ready to make a fool—an old fool—out of myself.

I looked at the eight hundred people ready to start this bike ride. In just this one group, there was a third of Absaroka county. In the back of this lot of people—a lot I thought must have some sort of mental problems-sat our own Mary Red Wolf. She was easy to pick out, what with her low-slung tricycle planted amongst its two-wheeled brothers. Henry was talking to her, and a couple of bikers who were admiring the conveyance.

I glanced back over at Vic who was licking the last bit of sugar off the tip of her finger. It was nice to see her smiling, especially after the restless night she'd had the night before. I knew what had been on her mind, and the movie replayed in my mind also. Well at least the part I'd played.

I was just about to exit Fort Longmire, which consisted solely of a slightly unfinished log cabin, thermos of coffee in hand, when the phone rang. Being that it was just a couple of minutes shy of seven in the morning, the fact that the phone at Casa Mio didn't ring that often and several years under my belt as Sheriff… It wasn't someone calling to tell me I'd won the lottery.

I sighed and picked up the talky-part and cradled it to my cheek. "Fort Longmire! Your dime, don't waste MY time!"

I knew Mike Adams's voice from the first syllable out of his mouth. "Walt? You might wanna take your ass up to near The Rez. Someone hit our two-wheeled outlaw and it's not looking good".

"First?" I already knew the answer, it would be my newest deputy, the Holy Terror from Philly. I knew this for a fact because I'd given her the choice of night shift or guarding the local batch of community service personnel.

"The noob with the boobs," he replied. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. At least it was better than my old boss Lucian who called her "Dep-itty Mo-Tit-Tay". Mind you, he called my best friend Henry Standing-Bear "Ladies-Wear" and most every other two-legged critter in Absaroka "Son-of-a-bitch", "asshole", "pecker" or some variation thereof.

When I got to the scene, the EMTs had taken Mary off, and my newest deputy… well I DID enjoy watching the back end of her usually, but I could tell by her stance that instead of the foul-mouthed package of sexy that she normally exuded, just by existing, had become a wired-up chunk of Plutonium read to nuke something.

"Troop?" I said, using Lucian's old handle for me. I looked down at her hands. They were clenched balls of flesh and bone that were looking more like sledgehammers at that moment. At that moment I knew I had to make a decision; sometimes a thing isn't one you talk about, and others you do. This was the yes kind, but I knew it wasn't the kind you just broached. Sometimes you had to sidle up to it, like a skittish horse.

I draped my right arm across her shoulders and fumbled for something to say. "Ummmmm… so… how goes it with the Philly sect of the Borgias?"

She looked up at me with the beautiful eyes her Italian heritage had graced her with and said, "The Father is practicing for a charity opera, Rigatoni I think". I knew she meant Rigoletto but I, and several denizens of Absaroka had learned that Vic took every chance she could to mock, mangle, or disparage anything.

"The Son is well… doing his cop thing. Busted some horse dealer a couple of weeks ago to the tune of 'Possession with Intent to Distribute in D-Fuckin'-Minor'… A tune I love to hum." Internally I winced, but I'd also grown used to Vic by that time. She had a command of four-letter invectives that would make a Soldier, Sailor, or Marine blush.

"I'm trying to talk Tony and my uncle Alphonse into opening a pizza parlor out here, because you cowboys know fuck-all about real pizza."

"How about The Holy Terror?" I inquired.

She turned around, grabbed two fistfuls of my jacket and punctuated every word that came out of her mouth by pounding her clenched fists against my chest. "That cock-sucker is mine! I swear… whoever it is hit her and didn't even show her the fucking courtesy they'd give a racoon. When! (thump) I! (THUMP THUMP) Get my hands on their ass (More thumps each harder than the last)…" she wound down with her invective laced diatribe. As for me? I was wondering whether I or my jacket should file a warrant for assault and battery with intent to beat some ass.

At that moment I looked down into her big eyes. Tears were sliding down her cheeks, not because she was sad, but… she was ANGRY. I'd been there a time or two, and right now I wished I was still a fresh troop and Lucian was still sheriff. The hard part of taking on responsibility is that when it comes to the people under you, and the people you represent, you find yourself stuck with the role of being the calm and cool person, along with showing concern and a level of righteous indignation while suppressing the urge to beat some asshole in to the ground, preferably the core of our little rock called Earth.

Vic let go of my jacket and started to turn around. I knew that posture; I'd been there a time or nine thousand myself. She'd given up on assaulting my chest and jacket and was about to commence violence and mayhem on the hood of my POS county issued Bronco. Thinking that it had had enough wanton mayhem committed to it over the years, I pulled Vic back around.

I grabbed both sets of slim cool digits in my paws. "I….." she started. I nodded. I held her hands and fought off the parts of me that wanted to wipe her tears away, the part that wanted to hold her and kiss the top of her head, the part that told me that holding her was okay in its opinion…

I reached up to cup her cheeks and knew that if I tried to say one word more, do one thing more we'd either be in the back of one of our vehicles which would piss off her husband, or we'd be a ball of sorrow, on our knees in the middle of nowhere.

It was nice to see Vic in one of her better moods. She looked deep into my eyes as the electronic sign in front of the Memorial Auditorium made its final countdown. Vic picked up my arm, draped it across her shoulders, folded her fingers in to mine… I gave into one of those long ago wants and kissed the top of her head. "Love you," I murmured. She punched me—hard—in the ribs with her left elbow then looked up. "You're just trying to get laid cow-poker".

"Uh-huh, that too." The countdown reached twenty seconds, then ten, then finally said "Start".

I thought about the different starts in my life. I'd been born. I met Martha. We'd managed to raise "The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time", I'd had to restart life without Martha, I'd started a new chapter with Vic, Mary Red Wolf had to start a new chapter in her life… So many starting lines. Some of which I was glad to be passed the Finish Line, but a few… I never wanted there to be a Finish Line.