A/N: I guess that love scene pleased more than just Jane and Lisbon, lol. Thanks so much for your words of appreciation. This chapter didn't take me as far as I had hoped, but there's still some good stuff here for you I think, especially if you are a Rigspelt fan. But there's plenty of Jisbon, and some Red John madness too. Enjoy! ;)

Chapter 10

Rigsby felt restless, and Monday morning seemed a million years away. He sat in the saloon for awhile, barely touching his whiskey, losing the one hand of poker he'd played, and refusing the offer of Miss Madeleine's bleached blond girl, Sophie. It was only a redhead he was thinking of now, and none of his usual pastimes could possibly put out the fire of his anger toward Craig O'laughlin. It was all he could do not to track the man down and beat his ever-loving head in.

To keep himself occupied, he'd checked on Jane earlier, brought him dinner, so he knew the peddler was safely ensconced in the back room. He was still running around in his mind all the different scenarios that might occur the next day, and it got so convoluted he almost went to confess to LaRoche. Almost. Rigsby liked being a deputy and had dreams of becoming sheriff one day. Telling LaRoche the myriad ways he had bent the law lately would not be a good way of realizing that dream.

Instead, he sat at the bar and watched his friend Cho work, pouring cowmen whiskey after whiskey until he thought he might die of the monotony.

"Refill?" Cho asked. Rigsby looked down. Turns out he had finished his shot; he must have done it while preoccupied with his troubling thoughts.

"Nah, I think I'll go out and patrol a bit."

"Watch out for train robbers and lawyers," said Cho, deadpan.

"And you watch out for certain peddlers," Rigsby replied meaningfully, his eyebrows comically raised.

The night was pleasantly warm, and Rigsby took a turn around Main Street, then ventured into the alleyway, hand on his gun. He saw nothing suspicious, so he began to walk in a direction he tried to convince himself was totally random. When he arrived on the street where the mayor's mansion was, he told himself it was only a coincidence that his boots had directed him there. He climbed up the tree-lined hill to the sidewalk to the impressive new home.

He looked up longingly at the bedrooms still lit up on the second floor. He scanned each room with the hope that he might discover which one belonged to Grace. Rigsby would give anything to be up there with her, kissing her, holding her, taking her to bed instead of one of the two-bit floozies he was used to. Grace was so pure, so refined—all that her very name implied-and he loved her with all that he was, all that he had. The problem was, Wayne Rigsby didn't have much.

As he was staring up at a likely room on the south side of the house, he literally took a step back when he saw his fair maiden at the window. She pulled the white lace curtains all the way closed, but not before he saw that she was wearing a frilly pink shift and a matching wrapper. Her bright red hair hung down unencumbered to her waist, just like she used to wear it when they were kids.

Rigsby practically dove behind a tree, breathing hard at both the sight of her and the possibility that she might have seen him. But it was very dark in the side yard, and he reassured himself that she hadn't caught sight of him, because there had come no yells of Peeping Tom. He stood a minute, his back to the tree, then very slowly eased his head around to look up at the window. The light was out, and other lights had been extinguished too, so that now the entire house stood in darkness.

He wasn't sure why at first, but he waited. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. By then, Rigsby realized he was waiting for everyone to go to sleep. He smiled to himself. At the same time, his heart was racing. It will be like old times, he thought, and he felt around on the ground for some small stones.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Grace couldn't sleep, so after several minutes of tossing and turning, she lay in bed, thinking about Wayne Rigsby and feeling hopeless and trapped. No elixir or wishful thinking was going to make her stop loving him, and every time she saw him, she became increasingly unhappy with her lot in life. She sighed and closed her eyes again, only to be bombarded by images of a tall, dark-haired man who looked at her like she made the world spin.

When she'd first heard the faint taps on her window, she thought it might be rain. As the sound grew more insistent, she thought it might be the wind blowing a tree limb against the glass. When the tapping started almost to sound desperate, she smiled with delight and rushed to the window, drawing aside the curtains. She squinted down into the moonlit grove of walnut trees, and saw a flash of a white shirt and an even whiter grin as the man only recently occupying her thoughts stood looking up at her window as if she'd conjured him there. She pushed up her window as quietly as she could and had to move quickly to dodge a tiny pebble.

"Wayne Rigsby!" she hissed, leaning out so he was sure to see her. "Stop throwing rocks at me!"

She heard his surprised bark of laughter. "Grace? Sorry, I couldn't see you," came his amused whisper.

They regarded each other in the moonlight, taken back in time when they were two years younger and desperately in love. Two years later, and desperation had turned more to resignation, that as much as they loved each other, it just wasn't meant to be.

"What are you doing here?" Grace finally asked him, her soft voice carrying down to him and making Rigsby shiver a little. God, he'd missed this.

"I needed to talk to you. About tomorrow morning."

"You mean the Wells Fargo arrival at the bank? I don't want to go, but my father insists."

"Please, think of some excuse—say you're ill. Just…don't go, all right?"

"But, why?"

He sighed and looked down at the darkness where his feet were. He longed to tell her what was going on, what had the potential to go wrong, but he wasn't sure where her loyalties lay. Would she run to her father, or worse, O'laughlin? When she'd left and had stopped responding to his letters, he'd lost more than the girl he loved; he'd lost his closest friend next to Cho, and it saddened him now to think he might not be able to trust her anymore.

"I can't tell you. You just have to trust me. Can you still do that?"

She regarded him a minute, and he wished he could see her expression. "Wait there," she said finally.

"Huh? What the hell are you doing? Grace!" Before his shocked gaze, she was suddenly climbing over her windowsill and shinnying down the big walnut tree. He ran to stand beneath her, cringing when she slipped a few times. He tried to be a gentleman and not notice how her shift slipped up to her thighs, and that she was no longer wearing the wrapper he'd seen her in earlier, but her white skin glowed in the moonlight, and he was a man after all. And she was climbing down to him like a wood nymph. A few frightened indrawn breaths later (Rigsby's, of course), and Grace hopped to the ground in front of him, grinning in satisfaction and smoothing down her shift.

"You are one crazy girl," he said in admiration. She reached for his hand and pulled him further beneath the trees out of sight of the second floor windows.

"Now we can talk without anyone overhearing," she said. Wayne could only stare, his heart in his throat that she was actually standing before him, all the ladylike airs she'd recently adopted slipping away to reveal the Grace he'd always known…and still loved.

"I wish I could tell you," he said. "But I'm afraid it's official police business."

It was even darker beneath the trees, but he could imagine one of her fine eyebrows shooting up as she caught him in this lie.

"I don't think so," she said, and he knew he'd been right about her reaction. "You want me to trust you, Wayne Rigsby, but you aren't telling me the whole truth."

She could always read him like a book. He sighed in resignation. "You ever heard of the outlaw they call Red John?"

"No."

"He's a train robber. Robs banks too. He killed the peddler, Patrick Jane's, wife and child—that's why he was here. Anyhow, Red John is in town, or at least, he was last night."

Grace gasped, feeling her eyes water at this information. "Oh, poor Mr. Jane! No wonder he got so distraught and left town."

"Well, it wasn't exactly like that." And like she was his confessor, he found himself telling her everything, from Jane's kidnapping to the plan to take the Red John gang by surprise in the morning. He only left out only one thing—O'laughlin's involvement.

Grace listened in awe, feeling proud of this man, who seemed to be juggling everything at once. But she was also very fearful of what the next day might bring.

"You have to tell the sheriff, Wayne."

"We thought about it, Jane, Cho, Miss Lisbon and I, and came to the conclusion that if LaRoche found out, he'd cancel the wagon's delivery and Red John would just slip away and on to the next town. We'd lose him. This way, we draw him out, and then we've got him. He won't know what hit him."

"But now my father's going to be there, and most of the townsfolk. People could get killed—innocent people."

Rigsby took off his hat and ran his hand through his short hair. "I know. But Stockton lawmen'll be there. They'll have men stationed on the rooftops, their best sharpshooters. Don't worry. They'll take Red John out with one shot."

"I'm frightened, Wayne," she whispered. "Frightened for you, and for my father. Please, be careful."

He reached out and picked up a lock of her hair. It felt like red cornsilk. "I will, if you promise me you will stay home. I won't be able to concentrate if I think you might be in danger."

She didn't answer him, but brought her hand up to his face, feeling the light stubble on his cheeks, then touching the ends of his dashing mustache. She smiled. "This is new since I left."

He was glad she couldn't see him blushing. "I thought it made me look tougher, meaner." Her finger traced one black handlebar up to his lips.

"No mustache could hide the kindness in your eyes," she said. He captured her hand and kissed her fingers. She grinned as his mustache tickled her fingers, but it faded at his serious expression, and when he pulled her closer.

"Are you in love with O'laughlin?" Rigsby asked suddenly. His heart pounded so loudly he was sure she could hear it in the quiet, even over the singing crickets. But he had to know or he wouldn't be sure he could hurt her by hurting him.

"No," she said at once. Relief washed over him, and he closed his eyes against it, the feeling was so powerful.

"But he's who my parents want me to marry, so I had to give him a chance. But I—" it was Grace's turn to be embarrassed. "I even took some of Mr. Jane's love elixir to try to make myself love him. I couldn't though, Wayne. I've only been able to think of you."

"Grace," he said, having trouble believing this wasn't a dream. "My Grace." He dipped his head and pressed a tentative kiss to her soft lips, pulling back slightly to gauge her reaction. He couldn't make out her face though, but he had his answer when she threw her arms around his neck and planted her lips on his. Taken off balance, he backed into a tree, his knees nearly buckling under the onslaught of her ardent kisses. And then he was kissing her back wholeheartedly, his tongue breaking the seal of her lips in the kind of kisses she'd never allowed him before.

Grace had heard about kisses like this, whispered and giggled about them with her friends, and while some of the other girls had reacted in disgust, Grace had been secretly titillated. When she imagined Wayne doing it to her, it didn't seem disgusting at all. Now that it was really happening, she found it to be the single most erotic thing she'd ever experienced. He tasted faintly of spirits, but it wasn't at all unpleasant, and when she experimented by swirling her tongue around his, she was gratified to feel the hum of his impassioned moan in her mouth. Her own legs grew weak, and she clung to his strong shoulders for balance.

She could have kissed him like this forever, but he was the one to break away from her tempting lips, breathing hard and touching his forehead to hers.

"I'm sorry, Grace. I don't know what came over me."

"I'm not sorry," she panted, her heart fluttering like a hummingbird's.

"You're not?" he asked hopefully.

"No."

Rigsby wanted nothing more than to take her lips again, but he knew if he did, he'd end up taking her up against the tree. While she'd been gone, he'd gained much more experience in the rooms above Kimball's, but he could tell just by kissing Grace that she was still an innocent. He still believed his wife should be pure until their wedding night, and that's how he felt about Grace.

"Marry me," he said impulsively. "Forget O'laughlin, forget your parents. Marry me."

She looked at him in shock, reluctantly backing away a step or two. "I—I want to, Wayne. But it's not that simple."

"Why not?" he demanded angrily. "Your parents aren't the ones marrying me. It would be you. Why do they get to choose? They damned sure didn't pick a winner with O'laughlin!"

"Shh," she cautioned at his rising tone. "Hush, Wayne. O'laughlin's a respected man, a rising attorney. He's kind and he's handsome and—"

"And he works for Red John," Rigsby finished, unable to stand there and listen to her sing the man's praises when he was nothing more than a murderer's minion. He might have even killed someone himself; he had a certain ruthless look about him that Rigsby had seen before among killers.

"What? That's a terrible lie!"

He forced himself to be calm, for her sake. He could tell his words were hurting her, but he realized it was better for everyone if she knew the truth. "I'm sorry to say it is true, Grace. Jane saw him with his own eyes when he was captured. O'laughlin was hiding the gang in the back of the attorney's office. He's been helping Red John plan this robbery tomorrow, and God knows how else he's helped him in the past."

"No!" she turned away from him, and he reached a comforting hand to her back. She shrugged him off and stepped even farther away.

"Grace—"

"When were you going to tell me this?" she asked bitterly. "When he asked to marry me? At the altar?"

"Of course not. I only just found out about it myself, and this is the first time I've been able to talk to you alone. I wouldn't have let you marry that scum, I swear. And after tomorrow…"

"What?" she rounded on him.

"Well, to tell ya the truth, I'd hoped the bastard would be dead."

He could see the glitter of her tears now in the dappled light of the moon. "This is such a big mess, Wayne. I can't believe I've let a man like that court me. And Daddy and Mother—if they only knew…"

"You see what I'm sayin', Grace. You can't rely on your parents' choice of husband. Trust your own judgment on this. You love me, I know you still do. I'm a good man, Grace. I can't build you a fancy mansion on a hill, but I can provide for you, and any young 'uns that should come along." They both blushed faintly at that. "Please, just think about it. And after tomorrow, we can start to make plans."

He brought his hand to her damp cheek. "Please, Grace."

"I should get back up to my room," she said, turning away. "If anyone saw you here, saw me with you…"

"Grace." But he knew the conversation was over for now.

She picked her way gingerly back through the trees until she found the one that led back up to her room, Rigsby following silently behind.

"Give me a boost, Wayne," she said. He'd wondered how she was going to get back up there, shoeless and wearing only a scrap of night clothing. Despite their turbulent meeting, he smiled at her quandary, and at the thought that he'd soon be touching her again. He locked his fingers together, making her a step for one dainty foot. She held his shoulders and he resisted kissing her again, knowing it wouldn't solve anything for her right now, and might even anger her, but he couldn't help saying one more thing in his defense.

"I love you, Grace. When you're thinkin' about things, think about that."

She nodded and he boosted her up until she could reach the lowest limb on the tree. He looked resolutely ahead, lest he be tempted to look up her skirt. As it was, the feel of her smooth calves beneath his hands was doing things to him that were definitely on the impure side. When he thought she was secure in her hold on the tree, he stepped back, watching her climb nimbly back up to her room. Once inside her window again, she leaned out so she could see him in the moonlight.

"I love you too, Wayne," she whispered, and then she quietly shut the window and pulled the curtains again. Rigsby stood there a few minutes, wanting to laugh like an idiot because she'd kissed him, said she loved him. But he didn't know if she loved him enough to defy her parents for him. It was a sobering thought.

Rigsby found his discarded hat beneath the tree where she'd kissed him, and walked back toward the center of town. Halfway there, he realized he'd never gotten Grace's promise to stay away from the bank tomorrow. He said a quick prayer that she'd listened to him, or tomorrow might well prove to be a total disaster.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At six o'clock the next morning, a lone rider made his way into Sacramento, trotting his horse confidently down the main street of town, his tin star reflecting the faint light of dawn. He appeared to be a deputy, the six-shooters holstered on his hips, the rifle attached to his saddle bags. He dismounted his horse in front of the jailhouse and tied it to the hitching post, spurs jingling as he walked up the steps to the boardwalk. A lantern burned low inside, and he could see through the barred window a heavy bald man reading by the light. Todd Johnson tapped on the door.

"Come in," said the soft-spoken sheriff. Johnson entered, looking around the jailhouse with hidden amusement. He didn't remember ever being in a jailhouse unless he was on the other side of the bars.

LaRoche looked up at the nondescript man with the shiny badge. He set down his book and rose.

"You one of them Stockton boys?" he asked.

"Yeah," lied Johnson. "You must be Sheriff LaRoche."

The big man nodded. "The rest of your men getting organized out there?"

"'Fraid not, Sheriff. I'm the only man they could spare, what with the big steamboat accident down the river and all." Johnson had come up with that story all on his own.

"What? What happened? I haven't heard anything."

"It's terrible," said Johnson, "bodies in the water everywhere. A real mess. My sheriff knew you was still expectin' some help, so he sent me, since I'm the best he's got, and he figured, if he could only send one, I was the natural choice."

LaRoche shook his head in wonder. "Dammit. We got that big Wells Fargo gold delivery this morning, that's why I needed the extra eyes and arms. And now the mayor got it in his thick skull to have a rally of sorts to welcome the wagon to Sacramento. Damned politicians."

"Amen, brother," said Johnson, getting into his role. He often thought, had he not become a bandit, he would have made a hell of an actor in one of those city melodramas he'd seen in San Francisco.

"Well, thanks for comin'. Slim help is better than no help I guess. My deputy is due in anytime, plus a couple more of my own deputies, so we can go to the bank and plan what security we can. Wells Fargo has their own armed guards too. I'm sure there'll be no trouble, though. Sacramento is usually a pretty quiet town."

"What about Red John's gang," Johnson couldn't resist asking, testing the limits of his acting abilities. "I heard tell he was 'round these parts."

"Ha," scoffed LaRoche. "Everybody's afraid a that bogey man. He's just a common crook, far's I've heard. That gang tends to hit places who aren't expectin' them, gettin' away with it because they've taken them by surprise. Well, we're way ahead a those scoundrels, and we'll shoot to kill."

"Sounds like you have things under control, Sheriff," said Johnson, his grin genuine. Won't Red get a laugh outta this one?

Rigsby entered then, eyeing their visitor curiously. He held out a friendly hand. "Deputy Wayne Rigsby," he said. "Nice to meet ya, Deputy."

"You too…Deputy." They laughed at the redundancy, and began to discuss specifics about the gold delivery—very useful information for Todd Johnson.

Johnson took a seat across from LaRoche, proud of his performance. At the same time, he relished the image still in his mind, of how he and the rest of the gang had ambushed the Stockton contingent in the early morning hours. They'd caught them totally off guard, sitting around their campfire and eating a rabbit they'd roasted. Two of them had even been sleeping—easy as pie. There were only five of them, and after the gang had snuck up on them and shot them all, Johnson had watched as Red John carved them up like a feast fit for the gods.

Johnson had asked if he could try, and Red had handed him the bloody knife. The deputy Johnson had chosen was still alive when he'd made the first tentative cut, and Red and the others had cheered them on as the lawman's throat gurgled hideously. It had been a real rush of energy, having the power of life and death in his hands like that. Afterwards, Red John had noticed two drops of blood that had spattered on a rock, shining black in the moonlight.

"Hey, Johnson, watch this," Red had said, dipping three fingers into the blood of one of the victims.

The rest of them were drawn to their leader in fascination as he drew a circle with his bloody finger on the rock, clockwise, the initial globs of blood becoming the eyes of a macabre face. He dipped his hands again, finishing the face with an incongruous, smiling mouth, dripping blood. They all laughed, some of them actually a little frightened of the wild-haired outlaw, splattered with the lawmen's blood and laughing maniacally like a demon in the red firelight. The bloody face on the rock grinned back at them happily. Johnson hadn't been afraid though. In truth, it made him want to find the nearest whore and ride her all night long. Too bad there hadn't been time for that, but there would be soon enough. After the morning's job, they'd have enough money to keep them all in whores for the rest of their lives.

"Hey, Johnson," the buffoon Rigsby was saying, and Johnson tried hard to stay in character and not be annoyed at the interruption of his musings. "When are the rest of your men gettin' here?"

Johnson almost smiled. "Like I was tellin' the sheriff here, the others won't be joinin' us…" And Johnson had the supreme pleasure of watching the deputy's face fall with every word he spoke.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You in there, Jane?" Cho knocked softly on Jane's borrowed sleeping room door, and Jane startled awake. He looked around him, disoriented, but then he simultaneously felt and smelled the sweet warmth of the woman curled into his side. She hadn't even stirred at Cho's knock.

"Yeah, I'm still here. What time is it?"

"About six. You want breakfast?" Cho asked. Teresa was fully awake now, looking with wide eyes at the door that she knew could open and expose their compromising position at any moment. Jane smiled at her reassuringly, moving her close again to draw the blankets up around them against the cool morning.

"No, no breakfast, thanks. See you after…well, you know."

"Yeah." And they heard the bartender's footsteps fade away.

"Oh, Lord," she whispered. "What if he had come in?"

Jane chuckled, nuzzling her temple and planting a tender kiss there. She looked just as beautiful in the morning as he'd imagined. "He would have been happy for us. Now, suppose you give me a proper morning kiss?" She flushed, and they both were taken back to the sensual night behind them. After their first passionate joining, they'd both fallen asleep, but Jane had awakened an hour or two later, wanting her again. He'd found great pleasure in waking her up, as had she, if her soft moans were any indication. That second time had been more hurried, more like a rush to the finish line, but no less passionate, no less loving. It had left them shaken and overwhelmed by the depth of their feelings for one another. Jane had thought nothing could have topped their first time together. He'd been so wrong.

Afterwards, they'd both been ravenous, and dug into Teresa's repast with gusto, sharing their second picnic together, this time on the cot in the back room of a saloon. They laughed and talked most of the rest of the night about unimportant things, about childhood experiences and happier days. Neither of them mentioned Red John or the impending arrival of the Wells Fargo wagon.

Around four a.m., Jane had pulled her to his side and they'd both slept soundly until Cho's knock. Now, as requested, Teresa leaned up to kiss him, and they ended up using the next half hour for something much more fulfilling than breakfast.

"I'd better get home," Teresa said later. "I need to get ready for school at nine."

"By then, it should all be over" Jane said, watching with much interest as she rose from the bed and began dressing. He'd modulated his tone carefully, trying not to give away his plans, but the perceptive school teacher had come to know him very well in such a short time. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You're staying here until after the robbery is foiled, right?" He tried his best to look completely guileless. She wasn't buying it. "Jane?" she said in warning. She was starting to see that his last name seemed to suit him better than his first, especially when she was angry. She could understand why everyone tended to call him that.

"I'll be perfectly safe, Miss Lisbon. You go on to school now and teach those three r's."

"Stop patronizing me. You give me your word that you'll stay away from that bank, or I'm staying here with you, school be damned."

She was even more beautiful when she was angry with him. "My, my, Miss Lisbon, such language. Wherever is my paddle?" he asked suggestively. Her lips quirked, but she didn't let his seductive charm distract her…again.

"I mean it, Jane. You are to stay here where you'll be safe and out of trouble." He loved it when she used her teacher tone. By this time, she'd buttoned her last button and sat on the end of the cot to fasten her shoes angrily. He had a sudden vision of these being their last moments together, and he was ruining it by upsetting her. He sat up and moved to the edge of the cot next to her. Her eyes were drawn to his bare chest, and he smirked when he saw she was stubbornly trying to avoid looking at him. He reached down to still her hands at her left boot.

"Hey," he said softly, pulling her upright and holding her hands in his. "Nothing's going to happen to me. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

"It will be if you do what we agreed." She was one mulish lady.

"Fine. Whatever you say," Jane said finally, in exasperation. It wasn't exactly a hand to heart promise, but Teresa realized it was the most she would get from him under the circumstances. She'd just have to be there too to make sure he stayed well away from the danger. She smiled, having made up her mind to do just that. If she ran home and washed and changed, she'd have plenty time to be there before eight when the wagon was due to arrive.

Now Jane was the one to look at her suspiciously. She was planning something too, he just knew it, but he couldn't question her without receiving further questions that he wanted to avoid himself.

"Before you go, I want you to know something," he said seriously. She looked like he was about to hand down a death sentence. He saw her red ribbon on the bedside table, picked it up, and began finger combing her hair into a low ponytail, then neatly tying the bit of velvet around it. She watched his face, how he focused on his task, keeping her in suspense as he tried to find the right words.

"What is it?" she finally asked, anxious for whatever it was, fearful that he was saying good-bye.

"This-our time together here—it was one of the most wonderful nights of my life. I don't ever want either of us to forget it."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. How could she forget her first time with a man? Especially since it was this man. The man she—Teresa blinked back sudden tears. What did I almost think? But that's impossible. It's too soon. He's too…damaged. I can't…love him. Can I?

"I won't forget," she said huskily.

"Nor will I," he said, then kissed her insistently, trying to commit to memory her taste, her warmth, her scent. After a few minutes, he reluctantly let her go. He could literally hear the clock ticking—his watch on the table was counting down the seconds.

"I'll see you later, when it's over," she said, echoing his earlier words.

"When it's over," he nodded. He watched her gather up her blanket and empty jar and put them in her basket. At the door, she looked back at him, sitting on the bed, hair a tousled mess, eyes slumberous, his nudity covered only by the thin bed sheet at his waist. She smiled at the beautiful picture he made, then opened the door, looking both ways to be sure no one was seeing the local teacher leaving a saloon in the early morning.

Jane got up and barred the door behind her, then began getting dressed himself. He left a quick note of thanks for Cho, plus the few dollars he had in his pocket for his trouble. If he were able, he'd return later for his carpet bag. The only thing he needed now was Wayne Rigsby's gun. He checked to be sure it was loaded, then put it in his frock coat pocket. Quietly, Jane snuck out the door and into the morning sunrise.

A/N: I promise, I'm really not trying to tease you and build up the suspense of the robbery. These were scenes I'd already had planned in my mind to occur beforehand, they just took longer than I expected to tell. I hope you are still interested in knowing what's going to happen next. Thanks for reading. A review would be fabulous!

P.S. (spoilerish) Just learned the first episode of season 4 is entitled "Scarlet Ribbons." I do believe that's the title of one of my fics. I'm thinking about suing, lol. Can't wait until Sept!