So you know how much I need you
But you never even see me, do you
And is this is my final chance of getting you
And on and on from the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep
I'll be there by your side
Just you try and stop me
I'll be waiting in line
Just to see if you care

- Coldplay

The three of them made camp near the bayou as the night wore on. They'd gotten away like thieves at Sisika, and without a tail as far as any of them could tell, but their luck diminished fairly quickly; once they'd ridden far enough from the penitentiary to put sufficient space between them and potential pursuit, it had begun to rain again lightly, once more plastering Rane's hair to her cheeks. She had begun to wish she'd taken up Arthur's offer to borrow one of his hats now. Twelve straight hours of being soaked to the bone in this humid, messy weather without so much as a change of clothes was enough to make a pair of dry jeans and a warm blanket sound positively ambrosial.

They pitched a couple of tents in front of the makeshift, struggling fire, with the idea being that Sadie and Rane slept together in one and John in the other, but Sadie Adler, who'd spent the past two or three days fighting off Pinkertons, evacuating Shady Belle and helping bust John Marston out of prison, was spread-eagled and fast asleep before half an hour had passed, both hands curled behind her head and her blonde hair strewn over her forehead. This left Rane with John alone, something she'd very much wished not to suffer so soon.

The midnight hour found the pair of them sitting by the fire in the diminishing rainfall, Rane just inside the empty tent's mouth, cross-legged with her sword on her lap, polishing the blade with a wad of her damp sleeve. John, sensing her reticence, had sat himself outside the tent, still barefoot in his prison stripes, shivering a little and clearly trying not to let it show.

"What happened after the bank?" John asked her at last. He'd largely maintained his silence since they'd left the shore after Sisika. Rane had, too; she'd avoided his gaze as much as possible, but now they were trapped together, without the social lubrication Sadie's presence would have provided.

Rane didn't look up from her sword. "That's a pretty long story, sir."

"Well, maybe talkin' will warm me up."

Rane glanced at him from beneath her brows, her hand slowing to a stop on her blade. He was sitting with both knees pulled up, hands dangling between them, glaring off into the woods. His hair was stringy with rain, and the soaked prison garb he wore looked about as thin as onion skin. She could see every filament of muscle in his shoulder and about six inches of his scrawny ankles were exposed in the dirt. He was still shivering, too. She placed her sword aside.

"John, why the hell are you sitting out there? The fire's about to go out and it's raining."

"Didn't think you wanted me near ya." John yanked a strand of grass from the ground and strung it between his teeth, blinking against the rain. "And Sadie's hoggin' up all the room in the other tent."

"You're shaking."

"I ain't shaking, I'm fine. It ain't even that cold."

Rane picked up a pinecone near the mouth of the tent and hucked it at him. It bounced off his temple, clattering into the brush. John flinched, giving her an affronted look.

"The hell was that for?"

Rane slapped the spot at her side with an exaggerated gesture, open-palmed. "Quit acting all tough and bring your skinny ass out of the rain, Wyatt Earp."

John glared at her a moment longer, then got to his feet, slipping a little in the mud. Rane scooted over a scosh, making room, and he dropped down on the ground with a grunt at her side beneath the cover of the tent. It was not a moment too soon; the light rain suddenly rose to a fever pitch, striking the tent like bullets overtop them. Sadie was unperturbed by this, still quite dead to the world across from them, but the little bonfire they'd mustered couldn't quite hang; it whiffed out without fanfare, leaving Rane and John in relative darkness. Eli and Sadie's horse were tethered some ways off, huddled close to one another, their breath puffing out of their nostrils in white clouds.

"Great," John muttered.

"Come closer," said Rane, beckoning and stretching her long legs out in front of her. When he cast her an uncertain look, she scoffed. "I'm not being weird, just come here, let me warm us up. It's freezing and this spell sucks."

John moved closer until her thighs were touching his. She quailed a little as he did; his skin was freezing even through her jeans. She pulled her wand, drawing a little counter-clockwise circle before them.

"Focillo!"

A little golden orb of light manifested before them, hovering in the air. John recoiled a little, startled, but Rane nudged it toward him with her index finger, watching with amusement as he leaned back warily while it floated before his bewildered face. It was like watching a leery picnicker eyeing a bumblebee that was flying a little too near to his nose.

"Feel that?" Rane placed both hands palms-out against the light baking off of the little orb.

John nodded. "Warm."

"Yeah." She took one of his hesitant hands by the wrist and placed it nearer to the ball of light. "It's not dangerous, stop being weird. Warm up."

"Guess I'll just never get used to that shit." John leaned a little closer to the light, relishing the heat.

Rane sighed, leaning back on her elbows, watching the rain. "People can get used to anything."

"Who's Wyatt Earp?"

Rane looked at him with genuine surprise. "Beg your pardon?"

John shrugged, curling his legs beneath him much as Rane often did, allowing the orb of light to bake warmth over his chest. Gooseflesh stood out prominently on his bare forearms and his pared jaw was pitted in the low golden light as he clenched it against the shivers that wanted to rack his body. The rain continued to pound overhead.

"You called me Wyatt Earp earlier. Figured I was gettin' insulted and wondered how, is all."

Rane sat up, looking at him with naked astonishment. "You don't know who Wyatt Earp is?"

John shook his head.

"Tombstone. The O.K. Corral shootout. Doc Holliday. The Cochise County Cowboys. None of that's ringing a bell, seriously?"

John shook his head again, glancing sidelong at her. "I wish I knew what the hell you were talkin' about, Rane."

"Holy shit." Rane swept her hair from her face, still staring at him. He laughed, low, meeting her astounded gaze.

"What?"

"When were you born? What year?"

"Seventy-three."

"And this is ninety-nine."

"Yep."

Rane counted on her fingers a moment, mouthing silently, then shrugged.

"Ah, well." She relaxed a little, clasping her hands, her eyes on the falling rain outside. "He's still around for another thirty years or so, maybe word just hasn't gotten around yet."

"So who the hell is he? Or you gonna be mysterious about this too?" John sounded a trifle irritated. "You always gotta make everything sound like a goddamned riddle, girl, you gotta learn to just say shit right out loud."

"He's a lawman," said Rane, smiling a little at the present tense. Thinking about Wyatt Earp alive someplace right at this very second was a little dizzying. "Give it a couple years and I bet you'll start hearing about him. Fastest gun in the west."

"Well that can't be true, because I'm the fastest gun in the west," said John, thumbing his chest with the hand that wasn't hovering before Rane's spell.

"You're in the southeast, but whatever you say." She glanced at him, smiling a little and chewing her thumbnail. "You're only twenty-six?"

"The hell do you mean,'only?' You're only a year more, for Christ's sake -!"

"I dunno, I thought you were older," Rane admitted, turning away, still smiling. John snorted, looking none too amused.

"Maybe you oughta send one of these things over there for Sadie."

"Sadie's barely even clinically alive right now, I think she'll be fine," said Rane, following his gaze. She was still stretched out, snoring lightly, boots lax in the low light. "Besides, she came dressed for the weather, unlike you, with your toilet-paper-ass pants and no shoes on -"

"Well, I didn't exactly have a damn choice, did I?" John snapped, but he was grinning, the flash of his teeth rather lovely in the light of Rane's spell. She was happy to see it, and happy to feel the enmity between them lessening a bit. The rain continued to fall heartily outside.

"So," said Rane, leaning back on her elbows again "After the bank."

She told him briefly of their adventures on Guarma, skating over the finer details of their time in Hostas and ending at last with her battle on the sand with Limdur. John was listening raptly by this point, arms crossed across his lean chest and eyes fixed on her face, captivated.

"You ain't got stabbed in the damn chest and lived through it," he said skeptically.

Rane pulled the collar of her shirt down, tracing over the long scar in the center of her chest. John laughed, low.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, I'll be twice-damned."

"I know, it's insane. Some random little English doctor put me back together. I'll never know how he did it."

"Bet Arthur was about ready to lose his mind seein' ya that way."

Rane sighed, leaning back on her elbows again. Here they were. She'd known it was coming, and the levity of their conversation had lulled her into a false sense of security, but this was a splinter between them that would either fester or need excising. John was looking out into the rain, massaging his unshaven chin, mouth pursed.

"He was pretty upset, yeah." She glanced at him, frowning. "Are we gonna do this right now?"

"Well, we're gonna do it eventually. May as well be now, who knows when I'll get a second alone with you again. Between him and Abigail bein' funny as hell every time we so much as look at each other -"

"Abigail is -?"

"Of course she is," John said at once, smiling a little beneath his hand. "Jealous? Is that what you were gonna say?"

Rane shrugged, smirking.

"You think she don't know?"

Sadie snorted in her sleep across from them, rolling over, then resumed snoring softly. Rane shrugged.

"I don't know Abigail from Eve," she remarked, low, shifting her weight and letting one of her legs trail out before her. "Did you tell her?"

John laughed loudly, letting his head roll back on his shoulders, his throat working. "I wouldn't admit anything to her about you even if somebody tried to torture it outta me, Rane," he said, grinning. "She's crazier than a shithouse mouse. She'd probably claw my damn eyes out then and there."

"But you think she knows."

"'Course she does, she ain't stupid." John sighed. "We spent about three hours yellin' at each other about it when she got back. Don't act like you didn't hear it. I'm sure everybody did. She thinks you're a witch or somethin' -"

"Well, she's got that part right."

"Not like you're thinkin'," said John, smirking. "Like you're into voodoo or somethin'. Talkin' about how you look all young and beautiful but you're really some old crone or somethin' like that, tryin' to bewitch men -"

Rane threw her head back and laughed. "Really? That's really what she thinks?"

John placed a hand over his heart solemnly. "Swear on my life."

"Why in the actual fuck would anybody want to do that anyway?" She gestured at him. "I mean, why wouldn't I just go, I dunno, seduce a rich dude or something? Why a bunch of outlaws?"

"Search me." John was watching her curiously. "Arthur worried about me? With regards to you, I mean?"

Rane shrugged and nodded. "Yeah. Doubly so when he figured out we shared a room in Saint Denis -"

"Oh, hell." John looked rueful. "Why'd you go and tell him about that?"

"I didn't tell him, he just . . . figured it out. The man's sharp as hell, John. You get brought up a lot. We're quite a pair, the both of us, jealous as a couple of high school kids," she added, looking a trifle abashed.

"What's he say?"

Rane rubbed her forehead briefly, slinging her long, damp hair over her shoulder. "He says you're always stealing the girls he likes away from him because you're young and handsome."

"You think I'm handsome?"

"Everybody thinks you're handsome," said Rane wryly, smirking at him.

"Shit." He snorted. "You woulda laughed right out loud if you'd have seen how we was seven or eight years ago."

"How was that?" Rane eyed him curiously.

"Well." John shrugged, pawing the little orb of light before him with the tips of his fingers. Judging by his ruddy cheeks, he seemed quite warmed up now, and the rain was tapering off a little outside. "Arthur was always the good-lookin' one with all the muscles. He was just too . . . I dunno, too dumb and too pissy to ever notice when girls was lookin' at him that way. Then he'd get mad at me when I caught 'em up after they got tired of makin' eyes at him. Got worse as we got older. He's just . . . dumb about a lotta things, is all."

Rane scoffed lightly, smirking, then leaned forward over her crossed legs, rubbing her hands together and looking out at the storm. John matched her movements, toying with the hem of his pants, watching her profile. She was lovely in the low light, her eyes bright beneath her lashes, brows dark and descended, chewing her lip, her skin clear and smooth and capering beneath the glow of her spell.

"You love him?" John asked her.

Rane met his eyes a moment, still chewing her lip, then turned her eyes back to the rain pattering down into the dark forest beyond. The silence spiraled out before she answered, allowing the distant thunder to weigh in, as well as the low whinny of Eli some ways off as he reshuffled himself, tail flicking, spraying rainwater in an arc around his hindquarters.

"I love that man more than I can hardly stand," she said, very low.

John sucked his teeth, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well I won't pretend that don't smart a little."

Rane sighed roughly. "John, listen, can I speak freely for a moment? Without worrying that I'm going to hurt your feelings?"

John waved a hand before him. "If you're worryin' about that now, you're kinda late."

"We fucked drunk next to a river," said Rane bluntly. She saw John's cheeks redden, saw the way his eyes turned from hers awkwardly, and sighed impatiently. "Boy, you guys sure have some hang-ups around here. There's nobody else to hear it, except Sadie Adler over there who's about as captive an audience as Rip Van Winkle. We did it, it happened. We had sex. It was good - I mean, it was really good - but that's what it was. Sex. Drunk sex. Couple of lonely fuckers getting it on."

"You know that ain't all it was." John shifted, scrubbing at his damp hair.

Rane sighed. "If Arthur wasn't around, maybe, yeah. But he is around, John."

"So Arthur Morgan's why I can't lay down and hold you right now. You might could say I resent him a little bit for that, if that's the fact of the matter -"

"No. No ." Rane shifted her weight, feeling ungainly. She had an unpleasant thought - Arthur, walking in on them talking this way without context - and her stomach cramped a little. "That's not the reason, John. It's just circumstantial. I think . . . I think sometimes that these things are sort of predetermined."

"I guess." John sighed, rubbing his rough chin. He looked at her frankly, vulnerable in the light of the Warming spell. "I'm in love with you, Rane, I am. I think about you all the goddamn time, I dream about you. Abigail don't know it, not all the way, but I am."

"John, you don't love me, you just . . ." Rane gestured vaguely.

"What?" John looked darkly amused. "Just what?"

"You just . . . I dunno." Rane sighed. "Look, can I be frank? And a little immodest?"

John flapped a hand at her.

"You and me aren't so different," said Rane, choosing her words carefully. "We both loved somebody, and we both lost them. And it was a long time before . . . well, for Sirius, never, but for Abigail, she came back. And in between we were lonely. Then you and me, we ended up together alone, and I mean . . . that's how it goes," she finished lamely. "You know it does. We were both wanting for touch. We were both drunk and horny and -"

"You keep sayin' I only say I care for you because we fucked!" John said, suddenly sharp. "Why you think that?"

"Because it's true."

"I care for you because of a whole mess of things, Rane, not just for that," said John, his voice still cold. He was looking over at her, half his face hidden beneath his damp hair, his mouth downturned. "I ain't as dumb as everybody's always sayin'. I don't just like to look at ya for how pretty you are and I don't just like fuckin'. I know how I feel."

"What about Abigail?"

John scoffed, turning back to the rain. "She don't love me none. She don't even like me. We just got stuck together because of Jack."

Rane watched him a long moment, her hazel eyes flitting over the features of his profile. The little ball of warmth she'd conjured was fading now, its light beginning to waver, and the strobe-like effect on John's face made him handsome and sad.

"Abigail loves you a lot," said Rane softly. "She wanted me to come get you. She was worried sick about you."

John scoffed again. "Sure."

"Seriously. That's the first time she's ever been nice to me, when I told her I was gonna go break you out. She wouldn't shut up about you all evening."

John shook his head, massaging his chin again, brow furrowed. Rane looked at him a moment longer, then reaching out she pulled him toward her, grasping his upper arm. He resisted a little at first, then gave into her, slackening. She strung an arm around his shoulders from his side and placed a kiss on his temple, letting her lips linger on his sweaty skin. His eyes fell shut at the gesture.

"Lay down," she said softly into the cup of his ear. Outside, the rain continued to roll. "Tomorrow, you go home to Abigail. She needs you. So does your kid."

She pulled him down next to her, still holding him, letting her forehead rest against his cheek, feeling his steady breathing against her ribs. At length, as the spell she'd cast finally went out and left them in inky darkness, he pulled her hand into his and placed it gently against his chest. The fabric there was still damp from the rain, and his heart was beating steadily beneath her palm just beneath. The smell of him was close and balmy, sweat and dirt and something like sandalwood, just like before.

"We could just run away," he whispered. "You and me. We don't have to go back there. I just wanna be with you, Rane -"

Rane shook her head, turning his face to hers, meeting his glittering eyes in the dark.

"John, I saved your life twice now and I'm about to save it one more time, so shut up and listen to me," said Rane, still meeting his gaze, her hand on his cheek. "I'm just temporary. I'm just passing through. I think you know that as well as I do, even if I don't really understand it. Abigail and Jack, they're permanent. They're for life. They need you."

"Temporary, huh? What about Arthur? What's he think about you bein' temporary?"

Rane looked at him, pursing her lips. The true answer - Neither of us are long for this world, one way or another - lingered in her throat. If John knew Arthur was sick, he hadn't brought it up, and it wasn't Rane's place to be the one to tell him. Moreover, she didn't understand any of what was happening. It was just an instinct, and instinct was broad and inexact.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," she said at last.

John nodded, almost imperceptible in the dark, then leaned forward and pressed his mouth against hers. Rane let him for a moment, noting the differences between him and Arthur almost without realizing it - his pace was quicker, the way his lips moved more unpolished, the taste of him more acidic, even the beat of his heart beneath her palm was harder and more patterned than Arthur's, which grew slower on each exhale and sometimes skipped at random beneath her touch as he slept - and drew back, looking at him.

"You're not gonna change your mind about this, are ya?"

Rane shook her head. "Not even if I had a choice, which I don't."

She lay back, facing him, pulling her knees up. He placed his hands beneath his cheek, watching her, his breath fragrant and quick in the dark, his eyes flitting over her features, looking unhappy and resolved.

"Dutch is going crazy," Rane said, soft.

"I know he is." John sighed. "I know it."

"We have to be really careful. Especially with Jack around."

"I know."

"Has Arthur talked to you about all this? You don't sound very surprised."

John nodded again, but it was clear he didn't want to talk about Arthur any more tonight. "Will you cast another one of those spells? It's cold as shit."

Rane reached into her jeans pocket and produced her wand. "Focillo!"

The ball of golden light appeared over them once again. Rane gave him a smile.

"Sleep good, John Marston."

"Ma'am." John tipped her a little salute. She winked at him, shutting her eyes.

After a few moments her breath lengthened and she slept, her face relaxing. John watched her for nearly an hour as she lay there, facing him, drinking in her features in the knowledge that it may be the last time he would be lying so near to her. Her dark lashes, her thick brows, her clear skin, her dark hair hanging damp over the dirt. The gentle breath in her chest, the slow thump of her pulse at the base of her throat, regular and steady in her repose. Even the deep, pale scar rising from the low rim of her shirt, souvenir of her battle on the beach of Guarma. He wished he could tell her everything in his heart, but he knew even if he did that it would make no difference. The girl had eyes for just one, and any fool could see it. She was a locked door, and a man could bend down and eye through the keyhole, sure, trying to catch a glimpse of the luminescence therein, but there was only one man who held the key to get inside and bask in her fullness, and he was far from this camp.

Arthur Morgan, I sure hope you know what you got in your hand, John thought before he drifted off, the golden light of the Warmth spell still spilling over them both. I sure do hope you know.