Complete - finally! "On the forsaken prairie, alone except for the wind and dust, Kitty Russell's world fell apart."

The final installment in the Growing Old With Kitty trilogy. Lotsa cowboys, romance & adventure with young Matt & Kitty smack dab in the midst of the whole shootin' match. Kitty's fondest wishes come true at last. AU. A world of thanks to my two betas, Glow and Moonstone Maiden, for enduring this needy fic author's endless questions and revisions. xoxo

Set after season 20 and well after Kitty leaves Dodge. Doc & Matt go to New Orleans to see an injured Kitty. There will be some spoilers... at some point. Disclaimers: As usual Gunsmoke is not mine and belongs to a scary conglomerate.

co-author:Ladybrit. Matt grinned at Kitty mischievously. "Doc told me a while back that you were a pretty good pool player. I just wanted a chance to see for myself." Kitty pursed her lips. "What stakes are we playing for? You wanna make it interesting, don'tcha, Cowboy?"

This is a continuation of END OF AN ERA. It would be best to read this first.

This story envisions how I think the last show of the 20th season should have ended.

I gasp helplessly, feeling myself slipping and finally falling… falling…bright lights filling my unseeing eyes. Matt, are you still there holding me? Don't let me go, Cowboy. Please hold me tightly…

"Goldmine" ATC. Smokin' hot, melt-your-drawers romance in the Long Branch Saloon...

ramblings of an old cow town doctor

ATC-Seven Hours to Dawn. While Matt mends physically, Kitty needs a lot of emotional healing with a little help from her closest friends.

In the aftermath of Jude Bonner, Kitty Russell seeks the courage to live and love again.

He makes his way up a wooden staircase to an unlit bedroom containing the most desirable woman in town, whom he dares to hope will share with him her considerable charms. Not to mention he needs to retrieve his best hat in the process…

Silent footsteps warily approach while watchful eyes roam hungrily over the unconscious female form, slumbering blissfully unaware.

I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more. - Richard Lovelace

Kitty Russell's high-heeled boots clicked across the polished floor of Kansas City's Grand Hotel. Aware that every male eye in the lobby was focused on her movements, she held her stylishly coiffed head high as she signed the register.

Kitty finds herself pregnant after the brutal rape by the Dog Soldiers.

Matt returns to Dodge after weeks in exile and surprises Kitty. What does that mean to her, his friends, and to the town? Complete

Kitty remembers a distressing part of her past.

Can Matt and Kitty save the ranch at Yellow River. Will the trail finally lead them home?

Kitty leaves Dodge City to marry Will Stambridge. When Kitty needs Matt's help will he come?

missing moments to, "Kitty's Injury."

Matt meets Kitty

In a heartbeat Matt Dillon discovers what Kitty means to him.

"Sunlight was peeking in through the folds in the drapes, and she looked down in surprise at the man still sound asleep in the circle of her left arm." A Matt and Kitty vignette.

ATC for 'Anybody Can Kill a Marshal' Part of the flashback dialogue between Matt and Kitty is from the ep. I take no credit for that, of course, except for the surrounding description.

He fought again and clawed upward, gagging and coughing to expel the vile fluid from his sodden lungs, but his efforts seemed futile and the final curtain of darkness fell over him, her name the last word bubbling from his lips.

That's not why I left, Matt." "Tell me, Kitty, just why did you leave? I've always wondered." An ATC for "Return to Dodge."

Part Kitty's journal, part narrative. "She turned to walk away, and he watched the sway of her hips through the thin fabric of her gown. A man could get used to that. Maybe, just maybe...."

ATC to "The Avengers" - She was going to die. In just a matter of moments she was actually going to die. It wasn’t the first time Kitty Russell had faced that realization, but it was the most recent and, therefore, the most imminently possible.

A sequel to “Whelan’s Men” first aired Feb. 1973 , with reference to “Hostage” first aired Dec. 1972 . I presume a few more months between these stories, however. “Quiet Day In Dodge” first aired Jan 1973 and others offer backstory.

Kitty Russell sat at the Queen Anne writing desk staring into the darkness of the Dodge City night. Looking down at the blank page of the leather-bound journal in front of her, she dipped her pen into the inky black bottle by her right hand and began....

Just go on up now? While everyone was still there? While everyone could see him climb those stairs and know exactly whose room he was going to? And know exactly – well maybe not exactly – what he would be doing, and with whom?

Matt returns to Dodge after the death of his good friend Adam Kimbro with a lot on his mind. Complete

You think it’s funny, sometimes. Or at least that’s what you to say, to cover up the fact that it hurts more than you’d have ever thought. Most of the time, though, you just try not to think about it at all.

When an exhausted Matt becomes ill, both he and Kitty have time to rethink their relationship. Updated! Chapter 15: Kitty and Matt have a conversation, an intruder breaks into the Long Branch.

This was his masterpiece, his tribute to a man who had eluded its comforts much longer than Percy would ever have imagined.

Doc's sharp old eyes watched with dismay as Matt unpinned the small piece of metal from the coarse fabric of his shirt and held it in his huge hand. An epilogue for "Hostage!" Story is complete in itself, but there will be a sequel.

With a feeling that was disturbingly familiar, he crossed his left leg over his right, smoothly avoiding her uninvited and unwelcome touch, and wondered if he should have stayed in Wichita one more day.

Matt poured another shot of the amber liquid and stared into the smoky room. An ATC for the season 19 episode, The Town Tamers.

Even with her back to the nearly empty room, the rapid acceleration of her heart told her the exact moment the biggest and best looking man in the U.S. Marshal's Service stepped up to the batwing doorsa missing moment to black and white Hostage, 1965.

What was the aftermath, for Kitty, for Matt, of the brutal actions of the sociopath Will Mannon?

When Kitty first arrives in Dodge City

Kitty left in this episode what made her change her mind and return?

While trying to bring in a crazed bounty hunter, Matt is wounded and it is up to Doc to save his life. Story complete.

At the beginning of the episode Snap Decision, Matt rides into Dodge with Ray Gilcher's body at his side and a pained expression on his face. What had Gilcher ever been to Matt?

He found his thoughts returning to another night three years earlier, a night he had lain almost in this very spot, a night he had thought would change his life. And it certainly had, but not at all the way he planned.

A harmless fishing trip turns into a nightmare for the Marshal and Kitty when they are taken by a group of bounty hunters who mistake Matt for a wanted man.

Color episode Hostage After The Credits story. Recovery begins, but will Matt and Kitty pay the ultimate price?

Ten years hadn't made a difference, but ten days had.

Kitty volunteers to help Doc take two recently orphaned children to their relatives' homestead near Dodge. Unfortunately, things don't go quite as planned and trouble finds them soon in the form of Dan Biggs, a vengeful outlaw in search of Matt.

He beat the odds because he was good – the best, they said – and Kitty knew it was true. Still, even the best weren’t perfect. And imperfection allowed for mistakes.

Kitty Russell was sick, terribly sick, and there wasn’t a thing Matt Dillon could do about it. COMPLETE

Her thoughts fluttered back to that night, to his stunned eyes. He had knelt by her side, clutched her hand in his. “I need you, Kitty. I need you.”

While pursuing two outlaws, Matt is wounded and left to find his way back to Dodge without his horse in a snowstorm. At the same time, Rip Toland arrives in Dodge, intending to kill the Marshal in retaliation for his brother's death.

After Matt is forced to shoot the son of Raymond Dunning, the wealthy rancher has the Marshal kidnapped. It is now up to Doc and Chester to find and free him before Dunning can carry out his plan of taking Matt's life in retaliation.

Kitty is caught in the crossfire of a bank robbery.

Quick sequel to Rose Sullivan, mostly from Doc's point of view.