He couldn't quite believe it was twenty years. Raylan was as fresh in his heart as the day he'd bled out beneath Tim's hands. Held by Art and Rachel. The people he loved, and who had loved him.
Tim raked through his graying hair with his hands. The thumb of his right hand stroked over the ring. Everything that he had, circled back to Raylan Givens in some way. The guy had driven Tim, and mostly everyone around him, absolutely crazy with his unique brand of Raylan chaos. He gingered things up. He was bold, brave and an exceptional shot, far faster on the draw than Tim. Tim was the better marksman though. He supposed that should have been a source of contention or envy, but bizarrely Raylan was proud of Tim's skills. He used to boast about them to the fugitives they were trying to apprehend.
Of course, all that apricot stuff was about Tim taking the shot. But it still did funny things to Tim's heart. Then Raylan would go and mess it up by dragging Tim into some shit of Raylan's which was entirely avoidable and then all hell would break loose, and Tim would have to take another shot to even up the score again.
Until the day Raylan's life ended with a knife in the back, treacle-dark blood spilling from the wound that Tim knew to be mortal even as he reached Raylan's side. Screaming for Art and Rachel, Tim had desperately tried to hold the blood in. Hanging on with all his strength even as Raylan breathed his last, and then his heart was breaking as Rachel collapsed in a torrent of grief. They had just found each other, and life was so damn unfair.
The three of them were bound by more than shared experience, but by the man who died on them that Monday afternoon on a routine takedown that should have been so simple.
He supposed he really ought to get up, wife and children were already on the hop, he had booked the day off, and trusted that the office would not fall apart without him. They would all be there. It had become tradition. Once a year, all in the same place together. The people who were part of Raylan's story.
He threw the quilt back and got to his feet. He was lean and hard now, the slight softness that he had had back in the day gone for good, because if he kept himself hard and his senses sharp, perhaps he would be able to make up for his failure to protect his friend.
He padded to the bathroom. His wife had got up and out of his way, she would meet him there later, with the children, his daughter and two sons. She was smartest woman he had ever met, she knew exactly what this day meant to him, and his need for a little space before facing the world.
Everything had come together because of Raylan. Knowing what he owed his friend, even if it was in a sort of messed up, roundabout, nonsensical Raylan way, well that just intensified his grief. Even as his grief and Raylan's death had given him the things that helped him move past his Afghanistan experiences and find a semblance of a normal life.
Not that he didn't have the flashbacks, or the occasional sleepless night where he would take refuge on the porch. He would be out there, all alone, wrestling with the misery of his thoughts, and a small hand would slip into his, he would lean forward, his head resting against her slender body, as her free hand would curve around his neck, sometimes her slim fingers would rake through his hair, words would twine through his senses as she would talk him back from the edge.
Her hands would guide him back, then she would lead him to bed, and they would finish the night together. So young, so wise…
He pulled himself together, shower, shave, then think about facing the world with a coffee inside him, maybe even a pastry.
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Loretta McCready-Gutterson opened the restaurant door and shooed her children through it. The twentieth anniversary of Raylan Givens' death was weighing heavily on her heart, and she knew it was weighing on her husband too.
Of course, this was Raylan. He had saved her life, and he was the one person who actually got her back then. When she heard of his death she locked herself into the room she had been given by her foster family and cried herself to sleep.
She went to the funeral. She found the darkest, neatest clothes she owned. She polished her shoes, and brushed her coat and went to stand by the graveside of the only person who had showed her anything like love or true understanding.
She found herself standing next to Tim Gutterson. At first she felt awkward standing there, a scruffy sixteen year old kid from the hollers. A tall elegant blonde woman kept staring at her strangely. But when she felt overcome with the realization that Raylan was never going to come to save her again, the blonde was forgotten. Tim's arm was around her shoulders, a large handkerchief appeared in her line of blurred sight, and she clutched it to her face. Virtually shoving her fist into her mouth to keep silent.
He was good and kind to her. He wasn't Raylan, but he had a way with him. When she looked up into his face to try and thank him for his kindness, she realised that his apparent stiffness was a cover. He was grieving too. Deeply. He was wearing Raylan's ring, his thumb kept straying to touch the ring on his ring finger. It seemed like a ritual to him, and she found herself touched by this sign of his distress.
The cemetery was a bus ride from her school. She found herself visiting. It became a regular thing, she would walk though this peaceful place, and go and sit, and talk to Raylan. He said that she could call him any time, his death had left her bereft, but there was still a connection.
She told him she was going to stay on at school until she was eighteen. That she was never going back to the hollers. That she wanted something very different for her life. She would never forget, but she would never go back.
Just before the first anniversary of Raylan's death, just after her seventeenth birthday, Loretta saw Tim again. She knew through keeping in touch with the marshals' office that they had caught Raylan's killer. From the look of Tim Gutterson, at a heavy price. He looked tired. Older. The line of stitches down his cheek, from just beneath his right eye headed towards the corner of his full-lipped generous mouth, before turning and sweeping back under his jaw. He was in a bad way. She could see that.
She watched his slightly unsteady progress towards Raylan's grave. He was still grieving, that much was clear. He was assuaging his grief from the bottom of a bottle. She had been there. Her father sat in his chair and blunted the sharp edges of his life with shine, or maybe a little weed.
It was the weed that had got him killed.
It would be the bottle that would get Tim killed, and even though she hardly knew him she didn't want that. She had lost Raylan, she didn't want to lose Tim too. She had to do or say something.
Loretta McCready was seventeen going on thirty-five. The hollers and Mags Bennett had forged something entirely adult from the child. She straightened her back and walked over to join him.
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Tim Gutterson stood in the shower until he was out of hot water, and starting to gooseflesh. It was always like this on this day. He reached for the tap and turned the shower off. Raked his hands through his hair to squeeze out as much moisture as possible, and stepped out.
He wiped the steam from the mirror with a dry towel, and picked up his razor. Various people over the years had suggested he get the scar corrected with plastic surgery. But it was his scar, the wound he received taking down Raylan's killer, both his penance and the confirmation that he had captured justice for his friend.
He traced the line with his index finger, remembering.
Enough of memories for now, there would be plenty of them later on.
He shaved and dressed. Picked up his keys, relieved that he had had the truck detailed the day before. Three children accounted for quite a mess. Regardless of the almost daily reminders about no food in the car, the sticky remnants of PB&J inevitably adorned most of the back seat most of the time.
He reckoned that he had half an hour by himself, and made a small bet who would be first to arrive after him.
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"Well, Ray-Ray. Another year. Older, grayer and probably no wiser. I'm Chief now. Bet you would laugh at that." Tim sat down on the grass, "It should have been Rachel, but you know what happened there. She left the Marshals, and came back as an AUSA. Two years from now, there will be a Givens back in the Marshals office. Your daughter, Ray-Ray. Much as it pains me to say it, and the hat. What was it you said, put the hat on, and the attitude comes with it? Well Alyssa's got attitude to burn."
He paused, the tears choking him. It was always like this. The pain didn't diminish with time. "She's a great kid. A real throwback. Sure she's a girl, but every time I see her, I see you. And the hat. She started younger than you. She's been wearing it since she was thirteen years old. Rachel didn't really like it, but she wears it and that's kinda that. I think they even made some kind of special rule for it at Glynco. Of course the instructors at Glynco don't know if they're in heaven or hell. A girl trainee marshal who can draw and shoot like her famous father, and think like her mother."
A hand touched his shoulder. Loretta. He put his right hand up and clasped hers firmly. They stayed like that a while.