Part 6: But At My Best, I Am The Worst

Mathias woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the front door of Echo's house. He sat up and looked over, finding her bedroom door wide open with no sign of life inside. Assuming maybe she was in the bathroom he walked over to answer the door, only to find Henry standing there with two cups of coffee.

"Mathias, I hope you slept well, I am here to take you back to your car," as he held out one of the cups to him.

Mathias looked around the house confused, "And where is Echo?"

"She got called into work early this morning, she called and asked me to pick you up." Mathias took the cup from Henry and walked over to pull his boots on.

"Was everything ok, was it something bad?"

"She did not say, just that she didn't want to wake you." Henry took a drink of his coffee while Mathias finished gathering his things and throwing an extra log into her stove. "Is she ok? I know her survivors guilt was strong last night."

"She is still a warrior, just fighting a different battle. I think she will be just fine in time." Mathias answered while throwing his jacket on and walking out to Henry's truck to head back to The Red Pony.

Mathias was sitting in his office staring at the ceiling, frustrated because no matter what he did, he couldn't stop thinking of Echo. It had been a couple days since that night, and no matter what he did, her green eyes and smile would appear out of nowhere. With a loud groan he rubbed his hands up and down on his face a couple times until his phone started ringing.

"Officer Mathias."

"Hey it's Longmire, can you come down to the station so we can get your statement to turn in?"

"Sure, I'll be there when I get done." Mathias heart did a little flip at the thought of getting to see Echo again, so he jumped up and grabbed his jacket and tried to take his time getting to his car.

However, when he walked in there was no one there but Ruby. "Hey Mathias, I'll let Walt know you're here." she said as she got up and walked over to Walt's office.

As she was on her way back across, Mathias spoke up, hoping he didn't seem too nosey, but hoping she'd give him answers. "Awful quiet in here today, Ruby."

She chuckled and flicked her hand at him, "Oh don't jinx it, it's the first quiet day I've had in forever. Ferg was called in to look into some busted mailboxes, Vic is out handling a domestic violence case, and Echo took a couple days off."

"People get days off around here?" he said with a chuckle.

Ruby just waved her hand at him again, "Oh everyone needs a break sometimes. She's the least troublesome one I have around here anymore."

At that time, Walt opened his door and waved Mathias on into his office.

"I hope I didn't take you away from anything to have you come in here, just thought it would be easier for you to come in and do this than over the phone." Walt said as he motioned for Mathias to take a seat across from him.

"It's no problem, it was a slow day on the Rez, seems like it is a slow day here as well."

Walt chuckled, "I'm not complaining, seems like it's been one dead body after another here lately."

Mathias finished up filling out everything Walt needed and as he stood up to leave, "Longmire, is Deputy Aven doing ok?"

"Go ask her yourself, Mathias. She's at her cabin as far as I know, and before you look at me like I'm crazy, I'm not an idiot. Thanks for coming by, I appreciate your help with everything."

Mathias sat in his car confused as to what Walt was talking about, and even more confused as to why he wanted to listen to him and actually go see her. Frustrated with himself, he started his car towards the Rez. However, after about 15 minutes of driving he found himself turning to go towards Echo's cabin. As he got closer he could see her truck sitting in front of the cabin, and once again his heart did the weird little flip that he had never had happen before earlier that day. He parked his car beside of her truck and walked up onto the front porch. He knocked on the door and tried to think of some excuse as to why he was here.

After waiting a few minutes he knocked again, still no answer. He walked to the end of the porch and rubbed his hand over his face, trying to convince himself he needed to just get back in his car and drive away and stay as far from Echo as he could.

As he started walking back to his car he heard a yell come from the barn, and all of the sudden he found himself walking towards it. As he walked into the stables he could hear Echo fussing in one of the stalls. "For fuck's sake Max, get off of me. Seriously?! IS THIS NECESSARY?! Stop you damn fool!"

Mathias made his way to the open stall door and looked inside. There stood Echo with her back to him, trying to clean the stall, but the huge white and black horse kept putting his head over her shoulder. "Quit it! You can't help! Stop!" she said as she kept trying to push him off of her, but the horse was still right up on her. Finally the horse saw him standing there and immediately jumped around, pushing Echo into the wall with his ass as he raised his ears and snorted at him.

"Oh for the love, what is your problem now?" she said as she shoved him off her and turned around. "Oh...hey Office Mathias, I see that you've met Max. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed if you haven't noticed." she said as she pushed her way around the horse and wiping her hands off on her jeans.

Mathias chuckled as the horse slowly stepped towards him and stuck his nose out to sniff the stranger. Mathias stuck his hand out for him to smell, but Max was not impressed as he pinned his ears back and tried to take a bite out of him. Echo just started laughing as Max stepped back again with his ears still pinned and snorted at Mathias again.

"Yeah, he's a little protective of me if you can't tell," she said while rubbing the side of his neck and came from the stall. She slid the door shut behind her and lifted the wheelbarrow and started heading for the barn door. Lucy started nickering at them as they passed while shoving her heard out the window to eyeball the new stranger as well. "This is Lucy, she's a little dramatic." Mathias stopped to rub on the buckskin mare.

Echo walked out and dumped the wheelbarrow and came back in, Mathias was still standing there rubbing on Lucy. "These are beautiful horses, Echo."

"Thank you, but I know you didn't come here to talk about horses. What can I do for you, Officer?" she sat the wheelbarrow down and turned to stare at him, arms crossed.

Mathias reached up and started rubbing the back of his neck, "Well, I wanted to come check on you and see how you were holding up after the other night."

Echo threw her head back and started laughing, "Oh Officer, I don't need you worrying about me. You can go on now, I have stuff to do." She turned and started walking away from him.

Mathias turned and walked from the barn and to his car, ashamed he even bothered.

Echo watched him drive off, feeling a little guilty for shutting him down, but at the same time, she didn't need him. She didn't need anybody. Everyone always left her in the end, or died. A lot of them always died. What she was doing to him, was for his own good.

Once his car was out of sight, she went back into the barn to feed the horses and get ready to head to the Red Pony. She had promised Ferg she would come out for his birthday tonight.