Four

Bruce loaded the wood into the back of the truck and wiped his hands off on his jeans. Paige set a bag of nails next to the wood and moved back around to the passenger seat. Bruce followed suit to the drivers and climbed in. Their door slammed and Bruce looked at the wheel a moment before starting the engine. Paige watched him.

"What?" Bruce asked and he stretched his arm across the back of her seat and turned his head to look behind the vehicle in order to back out of the parking space.

Paige looked at him and shrugged. "Nothing, really."

"I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I mean, when I came home. It has been awhile. You cut your hair again. It was long last time."

"Yeah. I've lost some weight too," Paige said and leaned on the door, looking out the window of the car as it bounced along the road.

"You don't wear boys clothes anymore," Bruce said and risked a glance at the girl next to him.

"Not really. I was wearing a dress the last time you saw me."

"You also had brown hair when I saw you. This color is darker. Is it a rinse?" Bruce said and shifted the truck into another gear.

"Yeah, it is, actually," Paige answered and did not speak anymore.

Bruce tried to remember why he had decided to leave these people. He wondered why he had been so keen to run away from his family, from the ranch, from the girl that cared for him.

The silence stretched on and Bruce wished for sound.

It was quiet for an hour, maybe more, before Paige spoke.

"I've kept my hair short since July thirteenth, 1962," she said it very suddenly. Bruce glanced at her for a moment and then looked back at the road.

"That's the day I left," he said and she looked at him and smirked.

"I know," she said. "I watched you leave and then I walked inside and took the scissor out of the drawer and cut all of my hair off."

Bruce exhaled a breath. "I'm sorry," he said and she did not look at him.

"I still have the dress."

"The yellow one?"

"Yep."

It was silent again as they entered the station. The car pulled into the garage and Bruce cut the engine. Bruce opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Paige opened her door.

"Was I your first? The night… the night you wore the yellow dress?" Bruce asked and Paige halted.

"Yeah, you were. Why?" Paige turned and looked back at the man that she had not seen in six years.

"I just wasn't sure. I wanted to ask. I'm sorry I left."

"Yeah, well, you still did it," Paige said and slammed her car door. Bruce heard her leave the garage and walk into the homestead.

Coming home was the worst idea he'd ever had.

Bruce dropped the wood next to the fence and carefully set his bag of nails next to it. The Australian sun was already beginning to sink low in the sky. Bruce hoped he could get this done before the sun completely set. He settled the first piece in place and then began nailing it to the fence. He followed it up with another. He worked silently, thinking of how destroyed his relationship with his family was and of how the rest of the team must have been doing. He wondered how everything was so fucked up and how to make Paige not hate him. He thought a lot of his father and his cancer. He thought a lot about that.

Especially that.

As if on cue, the sound of hooves on dirt caught his attention. He turned to look into the setting sun at a sharp figure riding up.

"Hello, Dad," he said gruffly to his father. The man dismounted his horse and walked over to his son.

"Bruce," he said to the boy and nodded. He looked at his son's work on the fence. "Good work, boy," he told him and squatted down next to the man. "Keep them dingoes out for sure this time."

"Can't have Paige firing that gun anymore," Bruce smiled and he heard his father chuckle. The mood turned serious again. "When were you planning on telling me?"

"About the Cancer?"

"Well, yeah."

"Probably never. However, I figure you coming home now is a good thing. Been thinking a lot," his father said and looked at the setting sun, "probably won't be around much longer. The way I see it I'll be getting worse before I get better."

"Don't talk that way, Dad," Bruce said and looked up at his father. "You've got doctors and I've got the money to help you," Bruce said and his father made an impatient noise.

"I don't want to live on the money you been given to kill folks," his father said and stood up again. No longer on the same level. No longer equal.

Bruce made a frustrated sound and stood up to look his father in the eye. He was maybe a bit taller than him now. His father's older frame shrunken by age. He looked him in the eye. "You can't keep this up. I'm tired of whatever problem you have. I make more money than a doctor for Christ's sake!"

"I know! I saw the postcard!" his father shouted back at his son. He soon launched into a coughing fit. The older man grasped the fence to steady himself as he coughed and hacked. Bruce watched his father and sighed. He moved toward his father and patted him on the back, attempting to help. He didn't stop his son from doing this. It was the most they had spoken since he had been home.

"You alright?" Bruce asked leaning over to look at his father. He looked older to him. He suddenly realized how much older his father was beginning to look. The cancer made him cough and his skin was leathery from too much sun. This man had fought in World War 2 and seen way more than his son ever had or would.

"Yeah," his father answered. He stood up straight and wiped the corner of his mouth off on the back of his hand. He looked at his son and then put his hand on his shoulder. He patted his shoulder a moment before moving back to where his horse was eating grass. He mounted it again and pulled on the reigns to make the horse turn around. "Bruce, I'm dying."

"I had a feeling," Bruce said and felt the words catch in his throat a bit. "Do you know how long?"

"The Doctor gives me no more than a year."

Then no more words were spoken. His father begun to ride away.

A very small part of Bruce wished he had spent this leave how he always did: In a different state in America with a different woman that he met in a different bar. He wished this only because a very small part of him didn't want to see this side of his father. The man that had put on his service uniform and kissed his mother. The man that pulled his boots on and mustered cattle in the scorching Outback of Australia. This man was indestructible as he rode away back toward the homestead.

This man could not die.

And yet.

Night had already descended when Bruce finally finished reconstruction on the busted fence. He deposited his hammer, nails and extra wood in the garage just in case any other holes presented themselves. He made his way to the front of the house and as he walked up the steps to the porch, he met Paige.

"Hey," she said and he looked at her. She was smoking, leaning on the railing of the porch.

"Yeah?" Bruce said, not to patiently.

"Thanks," Paige said. Her attitude had visibly softened toward him.

"It wasn't a problem," Bruce said and took his hat off in preparation to enter the homestead.

"It was important that you did that. It was also important that you talked to your father."

"Yeah. I s'pose it was," Bruce smiled and looked up at Paige. She smiled back and suddenly laughed. "What?" Bruce asked her.

She looked at him and smiled. "Do you remember when we were kids and you cut all of my hair off?"

"Oh, Jesus. Did I do that?"

"Don't remember?"

"I forgot so much about this place. It feels like it's been so many years but it's only been six and really, I only saw you once after three. If you think about it it's been nine years since we last spoke," Bruce stood quietly for a moment, staring at nothing in particular.

"I don't know how you could forget this place," Paige said and turned to look at Bruce. "I think I hated you most because you did."

"I think I would have hated me too."

"Things are looking better for yourself," Paige admitted and flicked away her cigarette butt. She stood before Bruce with her arms crossed and a smile on her lips. "I may not hate you in a few more years."

"Am I forgiven?"

"Not quite. You did sleep with me and then leave and then forget me almost completely," Paige said and Bruce flinched at what it all looked like when she said it like that. "It is a good thing that you came back though. You've got guts showing your face around her again after six years."

"Thank you. I like to think that I get that moxie from my mother," he grinned and Paige rolled her eyes. She opened the door to the house and stepped through quietly without looking back. Bruce exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Everything was beginning to fall back into place.

Blah. Lame chapter is lame.

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