ARIZONA TERRITORY, 1880

Elsa groaned in acute misery as the coach hit a particularly bumpy patch of the dirt road. Anna tightened her grip on her partner's hand in reassurance and comfort as the blonde's free hand reached over to tangle a fist of auburn hair into her fingers, using Anna as a sort of anchor - or lifeline.

"Elsa, I'm so sorry," Anna said again. Another spasm of pain wracked the blonde and Anna flinched as the fingers in her hair gave an involuntary tug. "This is all my fault. I shouldn't have provoked him, but you know me, I never think and... Elsa! I'm so stupid! And now you're hurt."

"It doesn't matter," said the older girl, cracking open her weary eyes to fix her partner in crime with a glazed, watery stare. "At least you're all right." Anna watched the corners of Elsa's mouth twitch as though in an attempt to smile but the expression was lost when Elsa cringed again, releasing Anna's hair to press a palm to her own bullet-ridden side.

"How can I help you?" Anna breathed, holding in her panic as she had done the entire coach ride so far. Elsa shook her head, eyes shut tight, telling Anna that she didn't know. Anna scooted toward Elsa and took a deep, shaky breath.

"Do you remember how we met? In that awful saloon." Anna figured distraction would be the best option for comforting her partner at the present. "Remember? I had come in looking for a cheap place to sleep because I was alone but while I was at the counter a man approached me…"

The man, sidling aggressively up to the redhead, had forcibly flung a large and heavy hand around her narrow shoulders as she inquired to the owner about a bed.

"Excuse me," she had said petulantly, quickly shrugging the weight off. When Anna turned back to the owner, the man had gripped her twin braids painfully and possessively. The effect was instantaneous - in seconds the redhead had him on the floor, broad and heaving chest under her boot heel. Being brought up by her father and older brothers had granted her with a keen sense of militant combativeness which she rarely used but masked right under the surface in case conditions as such should arise. Anna had pinned the man down and was fixing her mussed braids when he lashed out in anger from beneath her. He rolled and simultaneously swept Anna's feet out from under her with a well-aimed kick.

She had fallen hard into a body - a woman - Elsa. The blonde had staggered from the force but caught Anna all the same. After a moment of confused and suspended eye-contact, the mysterious woman had set Anna back on her feet and promptly hoisted a nearby chair and hurled it at the man who had been scrambling back to his feet. This successfully began a brawl in which the entire saloon participated and ended with the two women decidedly expelled from the establishment. A quick introduction found both Anna and Elsa friendless and in desperate need of income - and thus their partnership was born. Had it really been two years since that first escapade?

"We caused a riot," Elsa said, smiling weakly. Anna took this expression of tenderness as a sign that her distraction was working.

"You mean you caused a riot."

Elsa gave a chuckle which evolved into a cough that had the blonde curling up on herself in pain. Anna, petrified, could only watch helplessly and squeeze the clammy hand she held until they subsided.

"Elsa?" Anna said uncertainly.

"Continue with the story," Elsa prompted gently. She lifted the hand from her side and made as if to touch Anna's face, but seeing that it was stained with dark blood, quickly tucked it behind herself and out of sight. Anna pretended not to have seen this gesture, though her heart dropped into her stomach.

She found she couldn't continue. Instead she said, "Elsa, I've never been more scared."

"Never? Not even for our first hold-up?" The words sounded forced as Elsa let them out in one breath.

"No, that was fun!" Anna had set upon comforting Elsa, but now the blonde was distracting Anna from her own emotional pain. Anna plowed on, retelling the story as though Elsa had not been present at the event. She recalled waiting impatiently (as later became habit) on the abandoned feed grain's roof for the coach, remembered the smell of the dust, the heat of the sun, distant rumble of a team of horses. At length, she was in another time and place, the interior of the musty coach forgotten as the memory engulfed her. She spoke as though in a trance, detailing the fashion in which the wind swirled the earth below, nudged the clouds, and displaced Elsa's loose golden braid from her shoulder. She recounted how the coach had finally come racing into view, how Elsa had grinned and yelled "watch this!" before sprinting at the edge of the feed grain, hurling herself off of it without hesitation. Though the coach was moving fast, her timing was so impeccable that she managed to land perfectly on the driver, pitching him off of his perch in the process. Anna and been so impressed that she had been rendered speechless and it wasn't until Elsa had pointed out the red-tipped pistol among their spoils and urged her to claim it did Anna react at all.

It was here that Anna stopped in her story and felt a pang as she realized her prized pistol was all but lost now, still laying on the side of the road where it had fallen from Hans' grip.

"The pistol… it's gone." Within an hour she had given up the reward from her first hold-up and the flowered handkerchief that reminded her of her parents. Now that it was very possible that she was about to lose Elsa too and it seemed unbearable and unfair that so much could change in so short a time.

The sweaty hand in hers tightened and Anna knew it was Elsa's silent commiseration.

"This is all my fault," said Anna, continuing on her track from before. "If you hadn't let me tag along on your robberies this never would have happened."

"Anna, look at me." Anna's head, which had hung while she berated herself, snapped up to meet a surprisingly ferocious gaze from those blue eyes. "Stop blaming yourself. I wouldn't have let anyone else come along with me and asking you to do so was the best decision I've ever made."

When she had finished her protest Elsa slumped back onto the seat cushions and closed her eyes, drained from the effort she had put into the outburst. Anna was stunned into tears once more and the remainder of the coach ride was spent in a quiet only broken by the redhead's sniffling. Eventually the coach slowed to a stop and Kristoff opened the door to the cab. Anna had not realized how dim it had been in the small space until late evening sunlight was streaming into it. She clambered out, blinking, legs numb from sitting on them in order to be level with Elsa on the cushions.

"We're at the physician's. Help me carry her inside."

Striving not to jostle the blonde, the unlikely pair - stagecoach driver and robber - shuffled inside with Elsa dangling between them. The sounds Anna's partner made as they transported her cut Anna to the quick, and this combined with the putrid stench of blood, bile, and illness inside the building threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn't decide if she'd rather faint or retch. They managed to heave Elsa onto a cot before they were shooed away by the doctor, who promised to retrieve them after he had assessed the patient and acted accordingly. Under ordinary circumstances Anna would have stubbornly protested, but she felt exceptionally ill and knew fresh air would do well to cure her.

Fortunately, her head did clear as she stepped outside and immediately began to fret because knew that Elsa would not be so easily cured.

"I hope your friend makes it," Kristoff commented evenly. He had followed her out onto the porch and ambled over to the railing, standing with a foot rested on the bottom-most rung.

"Me too," said Anna unnecessarily in a strangled voice and collapsed ungracefully on the wooden steps. Wrapping her arms around the posts that lined the steps, she realized it would be a good time to give in and break down once more, but she found she was too worried and tired to cry. Instead, she contented herself with staring at the dirt at her feet and tracing the patterns that it formed. She was stirred from her reverie when Kristoff began to pace, the floorboards creaking under his dusty boots.

"Thanks again," she said but did not turn to face the driver. She kept repeating herself today as though she could not think of anything else to say. She was too weary to correct the repetition and plowed on. "For everything. I honestly don't know why you're helping us.

"I'm not sure that I do, either," he said. He clumped over to the stairs and settled himself next to Anna. She did not acknowledge his proximity.

"What will you do if-"

"Don't say it," Anna snapped. She was desperately trying to keep the pieces of herself from falling apart. Her tone softened. "Please don't say it."

"Sorry," said the coach driver, fidgeting guiltily.

Silence fell on the pair and Anna wondered whether she should barge back inside and demand to hold Elsa's hand or if she would fall ill again upon entry and remain useless. As she was deliberating however, the door creaked open behind them and the physician stepped out onto the porch. Anna scrambled to her feet, tripping as she approached the man. Her mouth opened to form a string of questions but he held up a hand to suspend the interrogation.

"You may attend the patient. I must warn you that she's in a bad way. The operation did not go well and although the bullet has been extracted… the woman is failing."

Anna stood motionless as a ringing filled her ears and her gaze slipped out of focus. She felt large hands steadying her and realized that she had stumbled and Kristoff had caught her.

"You should go now." The doctor moved aside for Kristoff to half-carry the redhead back inside. He deposited her on the floor by Elsa's cot where she was forced to kneel, once more an observer of her wounded partner's suffering.

"Anna?" Elsa grumbled, clearly addled from morphine. Her pale hand groped blindly for her partner and the redhead assisted, catching the hand and locking their fingers together.

"How are you doing?" Anna asked, though she knew the answer.

"I've been better." Elsa chuckled sadly, weakly.

"Anna?" came a soft voice from behind her. Kristoff had found her a stool. She took it gratefully and slid it under herself.

"Thank you. You don't have to stay," she said kindly.

"All right." He turned to go but was halfway across the room when he paused and added, "if you need me, I'll be staying at the inn down the road. Please find me if you're left alone."

Anna said nothing and tried to hide the fact that his words had prickled her eyes with tears again as she heard him take his leave. Her attention returned to Elsa, intent on her partner's comfort.

She told Elsa stories as the sun set outside the window. Some were a handful that her brothers and father had told her when she was younger, before they had died - these were about heroes with amazing strength and stamina. Some were recollections of real-life adventures she'd had with Elsa - those told with humor even brought on a faint smile or two. And some were entirely crafted from her own mind - these talked of ships and princes and all had happy endings. As she talked, she gripped Elsa's hand and watched her closely - the blonde's eyes were closed but Anna marveled at the sight of her chest rising and falling. Even laborious breathing was a sign of life and therefore a relief to Anna, even small and temporary.

Time whittled away, as it does when one wishes it to slow, and Anna felt herself dozing, her eyelids drooping without her consent. Her latest story had ended and there was a silence as Anna listened to Elsa's increasingly shallow breathing.

"Anna…" said the blonde suddenly, softly. So soft, in fact, that Anna almost didn't hear it. She leaned in as Elsa carried on, "promise me that you'll take care of yourself."

"Don't talk like that," Anna said harshly, too harshly. "You're not going to die, you are not allowed to say goodbye. I won't let you."

The tears came thick and fast. Elsa's acceptance of her own fate was too much and too certain for Anna. The hand that reached for the redhead's cheek was cold as death and Anna had to restrain herself from cringing away from it, away from truth.

"Promise me," Elsa pressed on, summoning what seemed to be the last of her strength. "You are too important for me to let you waste away. Take the driver's offer - I know you can trust him because he has that same kindly gleam in his eye that you do. Promise me?"

Anna nodded into the palm at her cheek, tears leaping from her face and dripping from her chin. This was enough commitment for Elsa and she let her hand drop limply from Anna's face. The pale lids fluttered shut over glazed eyes. Anna relieved Elsa's hand and draped the arm instead over the older woman, carefully avoiding the fresh bandages swathing her torso. Anna buried her face into the crook of Elsa's neck and she felt cool lips on her forehead before she was whisked into a dreamless sleep.

Day had broken when Anna woke. Wisps of blonde, almost white, hair floated in her view. "Elsa?" she said groggily, sitting up and rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. When she looked down at her partner, she knew… she knew, but she said the name anyway, she shook the lifeless shoulders despite knowing that there would be no rousing the woman. Elsa would not wake because she had slipped away in the night and left Anna all alone, just like Anna's father and brothers had.

After paying the doctor in the gold from the robbers' final hold-up together, Anna, good on her promise, sought out the stagecoach driver. He took one look at the redhead and understood exactly what had transpired in the night.

They buried Elsa in an unmarked grave on the outskirts of the town. Kristoff faded into the background to let Anna grieve and was surprised when she addressed him from her position before the mound of freshly dug earth.

"I'm glad she wasn't alone when she… went. That would have been the worst thing." She sniffled and raised an arm to wipe her nose on her sleeve.

"Did she have any family?"

"No, all dead. She only had me."

"What about your family?"

"Dead. We only had each other and now I'm alone again..."

She once more dissolved into anguish and Kristoff came forward to comfort her.

"You're more than welcome to come with me. Free room and board as long as you clean up after the horses."

Despite her despair, Anna gave him a watery smile.

"And then you wouldn't be alone. No one has to be, you know. I could use the company myself - the team only gives so much stimulating conversation."

"Are you sure I wouldn't be in your way?"

"On the contrary."

"How can you trust me?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I do. Quit asking me those questions, if I didn't want to have anything to do with you I wouldn't have helped you yesterday and I wouldn't be here now. I think the real question is: can you trust yourself?"

The next morning found Anna perched next to Kristoff as he whipped the horses into motion and soon they were lurching out of the town. As they passed the spot where Elsa had been laid to rest, Anna raised a hand and Kristoff removed his hat in respect for the fallen. Anna had said goodbye to all of the people that she loved, but as she turned back to face the road that stretched before her, she felt that the next phase of her life would be another strange and new adventure - even if her favorite partner in crime would not be able to share it with her.

A/N: And you guys thought the last chapter was sad. As Stephen King once said: "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings."