A/N: Okay. Bear with the background. This is necessary. ALSO: I LIVE. 0_0

1) The .338 Lapua is a bullet, not a weapon. I stand corrected.

2) The Savage Model 110 BA is a VERY new weapon; it's only been out on the open market for a year and a piece. It shoots a .300 Winchester Magnum, or the Lapua round.

3) Flat-shooting refers to bullet trajectory. All bullets, when fired, have varying degrees of arch in the path to their destination. If you have a heavy bullet and a small load of powder, it moves slow and in a high arch, but hits like a sledgehammer. If you have a heavy load of powder and a light bullet, it'll fly straight and fast, but at long ranges, the bullet starts melting due to air friction. Depending on what you're shooting, this can be an issue. If you strike the perfect balance, you have a round that can fly in an almost straight line, maintain its structural integrity, and shred whatever it hits. When fired from the correct weapon, such a round is both accurate and deadly for about two miles. The .338 Lapua is such a round.

4) Any inaccuracies in the representation of the testing of this weapon are my own. I do not own Justified or XE. I do own the South family, Charlie, and this body of work.

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"So what exactly is it that has you so all fired up to embark to North Carolina so quick?" Raylan was grouchy. He didn't care who knew it.

"A gun." Gutterson stretched back in his chair. The grin escaped, crawling across his face before he could squash it. "It's BASED off of a Savage Model 110 BA, and we're testing the .338 Lapua round with it. Somebody at XE did something funky to the gun and they want to offer it to the Marshal's Service being as it'd be cheaper all around than the Rem. M-40 Sniper System. So me and the other four of the Marshal's top five riflemen get to wear it out for a week."

"Do what?" Rachel said. She was on the southern end of a caffeine cycle and it was beginning to show.

"Do donut?" Tim replied. He lifted a suspiciously familiar box from the side drawer of his desk and rattled the cellophane.

"Are you stealing from the Little League again?" she demanded.

"We already had this discussion, and it's that time of year. Raylan, you want one?"

Raylan did not justify the question with an answer. Instead, he took two and disappeared behind the paperwork. Rachel took one and headed for the microwave in the break-room.

"Hey!" Tim hollered.

"What?" she yelled back.

"There any coffee in there?"

"No!"

Art stuck his head out his office door. "Inside voices, children…..is that a box of Little League donuts?"

Tim raised the box and opened the lid.

"Rachel turn that coffee pot on!" Art bellowed, and requisitioned the box.

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He called her from the road.

"You're driving it?"

"Seemed more practical. Also, the Service is paying for it."

"You don't like to fly, do you?"

"No ma'am. Not unless I have to. Is that Spongebob I'm hearing in the background?"

She half-laughed. "If I could get him to watch Sesame Street, he would be."

A bit of silence. "What about Blue's Clues?"

"He gets bored with it. Deputy…"

"Tim."

"Deputy Tim? You're nervous."

"Well the last time I saw you I pissed you off royally. And seein' you again ain't exactly sanctioned. You bein' in WITSEC and all."

She laughed openly at that. "Deputy Tim, you have yet to see me well and truly pissed."

As the conversation wondered on, Tim filed that statement away as a possible clue that he might get to know her long enough to actually see that state of affairs. Hey, at this point, he was gonna take what he could get.

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A/N II: Slight crossover. See 'Of Donuts and Paperwork.' (grins)