When the devil came to visit me
He said son I am your enemy
Fear me
But it came to my surprise
I was drawn by the fire

-Fire by Noah Gunderson

It's not so bad, Tim thinks, as a fist slams into the side of his face. It's a beating plain and simple and that's nothing new to Tim, sometimes it feels like his whole life has been one beating after another. It's a beating with questions thrown in between punches and it's not fun but it's not the end of the world either. Tim will endure, as he always does.

He uses a trick he came up with when he was a kid and his dad came home with angry eyes and angry fists, it's simple, just running through the alphabet in his head letter by letter. Simple as it is it gives him something to focus on beside the pain, takes his mind off of fists and questions and an aching sense of fear. Second by second, letter by letter he waits.

Valdez has kept his hands off Tim for the most part, instead letting Wilcox and his angry friend do most of the work. Instead he stands in the corner of the room with his arms crossed, wide stance and resting lightly on the balls of his feet. A fighter's stance. His face is still as blank and impassive as ever as he watches Tim, eyes betraying nothing. Eventually he uncrosses his arms and waves Wilcox off. Wilcox stops immediately, stepping away like a well trained dog. Tim almost laughs at the thought.

"Because I'm a forgiving man I'm going to give you time to reconsider your earlier reply. You have an hour."

And with that he turns and leaves the room, disappearing from Tim's field of view. Trevor, and by now Tim's figured out the other man is named Jake, follow him. He can hear their movement behind him but he can see nothing beyond the front of the room, it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Eventually though the sounds stop and he hears a door creak open and then shut somewhere else in the small cabin, eventually he is alone.

It isn't until he is alone that the doubt and fear come sweeping in like a tidal wave. It isn't until he's alone that Tim drown's.

And Tim drowns, chokes on the blood in his mouth and in his lungs and on his hands. Drowns in the wrongs he's done and the rights he hasn't and wonders if this is something worth dying for. Wonders if he's really been living at all. Because he came home and the world moved on, but he didn't. Didn't move on from sand and dust and dirt and blood and the hole in Sam's forehead and the hole inside of him that grew larger every day.

And this moment , he thinks, is about what he can compromise and still be true. This moment is about what he is willing to give up about himself, what ideals he holds closest that he is willing to sacrifice. Because at his core, if you burned away everything else, what would be left is a man who did what was right. A person who did things because he believed they were right. Did he want to protect Wyatt? No. Did he like Wyatt? No. Did he think Darren Wyatt was a man who deserved to be saved? Probably not, but it was the right thing to do. It was his duty to do. So could he set that aside and still be able to live with himself? He used to think the answer to that was undeniably no but he watched a good innocent man go to prison and he could have stopped it and he did nothing. If he's honest with himself he's not sure he knows the difference between right or wrong anymore and if he doesn't have that then he has nothing. If he doesn't know right from wrong then how is to know if all the lives he's taken are right. He used to comfort himself with the fact that he's saved a lot of lives with what he's done. And that's true, he has. But he's also taken a lot of lives.

It's dark now, the sun setting behind the thick brush of tree's Tim can see through the window he's facing. Shadows creep across the floor towards his chair in inky threads, twining around his ankles like tentacles and he swears he can almost feel them on the skin of his ankle. The back of his throat is dry and coppery with the taste of blood, his head pounds a syncopated rhythm that he feels in his skull. Everything seems a little blurry at the edges, like old film or opening your eyes under the water. He wonders if he's going to die here, in this cabin in some unknown Kentucky forest with blood on his tongue and in his throat. Wonders if he's going to die for something he's not sure he believes in. He wishes he wasn't alone.

He thinks he sleeps, but dreams blur with reality and he can't tell if he's asleep or just seeing things. He sits, he waits, and for the first time in a long time (for the first time since his mother died, for the first time since he realized the only one he could ask for help was himself) he prays. He doesn't pray for himself though, he prays that Raylan and Rachel and Art won't blame themselves for his mistake. He prays that wherever Will Billings is he's found some sort of peace. He prays that Ted Billings finds something to live for, the he finds hope. He prays that the kind old lady across the street finds somebody else to help take care of her garden.

When Valdez returns he has the first display of emotion on his face Tim's seen. It's slight, his eyebrows barely pulled together, a hint of tension in his jaw, it's slight but Tim sees it. He sees it and recognizes it as fear. He thinks that a Hector Valdez who is afraid is more terrifying then one who is not. Valdez stands in front of Tim, flanked on either side by Wilcox and Jake like tattooed gate-keepers. He's holding something loosely in his left hand, but Tim can't quite make out what it is.

"I have given you an hour. What is your answer?"

Tim want's to make a sarcastic comment but his lips feel swollen and numb and he's just so tired so he just shrugs limply and rasps.

"Hasn't changed, asshole."

Valdez shakes his head and sighs,

"You are a stubborn man, Tim Gutterson. I respect that."

He turns and nods towards Wilcox,

"Untie his arms."

Trevor scurries forward, pulling a knife out of his back pocket he flicks it open and starts to saw at the tape around Tim's wrists. The blade nicks the inside of his left wrist and he can feel blood pool and trickle down his palm, warm and thick mixing with sweat. Valdez moves forward and now Tim sees that what he's holding in his hand is a flat rubber headed mallet, ones he used to see his dad use when he was sober enough to finish some of the wood working projects he eternally had lying around. There's a sick feeling in his stomach.

Valdez walks over to the little fold out table and grapping the lip of it with his free hand he drags it back behind and around Tim, the metal legs grate and squeak against the wood floor and the sound rings in Tim's ears. As he does he starts talk, tone conversational.

"You are a sniper correct? A good one too. Your aim got you a few medals in Afghanistan, I know because I saw your military record Tim. Very impressive. It's very delicate work, what you do. A little to the left, a little to the right and –poof- there goes your kill. You need delicate hands for that sort of work, steady hands."

He finally sets the table down with a heavy thud, just to the right of Tim. Lifting the hammer he lets the head rest on the edge of the cheap linoleum surface, black rubber threatening and familiar all at once.

"One last chance. Where is Darren Wyatt? Tell us, and all this,"

He says gesturing towards the table and hammer.

"It goes away. No more pain, no more anything at all."

And now, staring into Valdez's cold eyes, Tim knows what he can sacrifice. Knows what he can leave behind. This is fire, it will come and it will burn and what is left when it leaves will be the truth. His truth. Fire will burn away all the lies. When he replies every word is spat out through gritted teeth and every word is true.

"Go. To. Hell."

There's a flicker of something that looks like rage that flies across Valdez's face and then it's gone. Face once again impassive he shrugs,

"Very well. Hold him."

At Valdez's command Jake comes up in front of Tim and wrestles his right arm out from behind his back, forcing it out from his body and onto the table. Wilcox behind him holds his other arm secure. Tim struggles, twisting and bucking against the restraining hands not because he thinks he can escape but because he is not stupid enough or proud enough not to be afraid.

And he is afraid, he feels the fear like a hot coal in his stomach and he wants to shout and swear and wants to be anywhere but here. In the movies this would be when the cavalry would come riding in, guns blazing and with quippy one liners aplenty to save him because in the movies the hero never hurts like this. In movies they always save them just in the nick of time and everything works out in the end. But this isn't a movie and Tim isn't a hero and nobody's coming to save him. This is the real world and Tim's seen to many good men suffer and die when they shouldn't have to think it'll be any different for him.

His hand is being pressed flat on the table now, fingers splayed out against the sticky surface. He tries to fist his fingers but somebody pulls them out again sharp fingernails digging into the skin of his hand. Everything's moving so quickly, like a tape on fast-forward time feels jerky and disconnected. The pressure on his shoulder is heavy and painful and the muscles of his arm pull and burn. He wonders if this is what a trapped animal feels like, he fights like one to escape. But it's three against one and he never had a chance anyways.

Valdez raises the hammer high in the air, and it hovers there for what feels like forever. Seconds stretching into eternities and then snapping back into place. Wilcox's breath is hot and moist on the back of his neck. The air smells slightly of crushed pine and sweat. He can see a faint silvery scar on the inside of Valdez's wrist. His breath is trapped and bubbling in his lungs. Still the hammer hovers. Tim wishes it would fall. Tim wishes this moment would last forever.

Time isn't frozen though, and so it does descend slowly at first and then faster and faster. He closes his eyes, looks the other way because he doesn't want to watch. It's the seconds before the drop of a roller coaster, it's clenching your eyes shut and waiting for the pinch of a needle entering a vein. Tim has never been so afraid, Tim has never realized before how much he wants to live.

The hammer lands, he hears bones snap and pop and crumple. For a second there's an absence of any feeling at all and then it's fire in every cell of his body. Tim burns and he wonders what will be left. Tim burns and hopes this will be enough to repent for what he's done.

The hammer lands and Tim screams.