Disclaimer: all the usual disclaimers apply.

Kitty finished going over the books and helped Sam close up for the night. As she quietly made her way up the stairs to her room, she was grateful that the night was over and the bawdy cowboys had all but disappeared into the night. Sometimes the cowboys' antics sure could wear on a person. She shook her head remembering some of the occurrences in the saloon tonight, a disagreement over one of the girls, a spilled drink, a few harsh words. Thankfully things hadn't gotten so far out of hand as to need to call the law, most of the drunken cowboys had forgotten what they had been bickering about five minutes after they started.

Entering her room, she was silently hoping that Matt would make it back into town tonight. She always missed the tall giant of a man when he wasn't sharing her bed in her room above the Longbranch. She smiled at the thought of her lawman. As she was getting ready to light the lamp in her window that she always lit when Matt had been out of town and was due back, she happened to look out the window and saw the man she had been waiting for.

He was just pulling his horse up to Doc's across the alley from her window, and she saw that he was carrying someone in front of him, riding double on his buckskin. She knew instantly that this someone must be badly wounded, Matt rarely brought people into Doc's riding double. As she was watching from her perch, she saw Festus emerge from Doc's office and she wondered when he had made it back to town, most likely while she was still closing up. Fearing that perhaps Matt was also wounded, Kitty abandoned her vantage point and hurried over to Doc's office.

Matt had made it up to the office and had gently placed the young woman on Doc's examination table when Doc noticed the dust-covered braid fall out from behind the rider's duster. Doc couldn't refrain from voicing his surprise to Matt. "A woman! By thunder, you mean to tell me you shot a woman!?" "Now Doc…" attempted Matt, but he was cut off when the door to the office opened and Kitty entered, still wearing her work clothes. She immediately came to Matt to inspect him and noticed a fresh splash of blood on his left shirt sleeve. As Matt looked at her, he saw a look flash across her face that he had seen too many times before. Times when he lay in the street or Doc's office, bleeding and near death, and he felt regret at the memories of causing her pain.

Mustering up her courage, and unable to tear her gaze away from the red blotch, Kitty softly asked, "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. That's her blood," said Matt while hooking a thumb over his shoulder indicating the woman lying on the examination table.

"Oh..." breathed Kitty as relief washed over her like a fresh spring rain. She hadn't noticed that she had been holding her breath. Realization slowly sank in as she processed his words. She snapped her head up to lance Matt with a look of confusion. "Wait…did you say 'her'?"

"Yeah…look, I'll explain later," he said, directing his gaze to both Kitty and Doc. He pointed toward the examination table, "Right now she needs to get those bullets outta her."

Doc suddenly remembered the reason that they were all standing in his office at this insane hour, and instantly shifted into his physician mode. As Doc began to work on his newly acquired patient, Kitty moved to his side, silently volunteering her assistance. Matt turned toward the door and said, "I'll be back later, I'm gonna go find Festus."

"Sure, fine," replied Doc as he continued his studious assessment of the young woman's injuries…