A/N: Entertainment only, nothing new there. We're getting close to where everything will pick up steam and start rolling. Enjoy!

Jessie eyed him in silence for a long moment, her eyes picking him apart. He let her search, wishing he could let his true feelings show, but she'd never accept it. Not yet. His chest tightened at the realization that she may never feel the way she would have felt before, when the truth had all but slapped her in the face after he'd been jailed and sentenced to hang. His throat closed, and he kept silent. If he could only save her, it would be enough. He'd make it be enough.

"Mexico," she agreed, and Billy sighed in relief, even though he wasn't looking forward to that conversation. He didn't even know where the hell to begin.

They sat together on the boulder, watching the sunrise, until Doc whistled from his place near the horses. "We're ready, Billy."

"Let's go." Billy headed for his gelding and mounted up, gaze tracking automatically to his right, and Jessie swinging her mare into line. How had he managed seventy years without her? His throat closed again and he spurred his horse into motion, unable to stop one last look over his shoulder in the direction of White Oaks. Old Pat was gonna get a big surprise when he turned north, and that delay was all they'd need.

He could have cried when they waded their horses into the Rio Grande. El Paso was barely five miles to the east and Mexico stretched out in front of them like a welcoming angel. Juarez wasn't far, not even an hour's ride, and they were safe. Billy swallowed hard. This time, they weren't going back, not for anything.

White Oaks, New Mexico Territory

"Did you entertain him, Jane?" Garrett turned a brandy glass over in his fingers. Jane Greathouse arched a perfect eyebrow and his stomach clenched. The redhead set her glass on the table and slouched in her fancy chair with a snort.

"Billy ain't here, Garrett." She pursed her lips. "Fact is, I'm kind of upset with him, they haven't dropped by for a visit in a couple of months." Her eyes blazed. "So why don't you take your posse to hell?" She settled into her chair with a dangerous glare. "I don't share my bed with the law."

Behind him, he could practically feel Poe laughing inside. Reeling, Garrett slammed his glass on the table and turned away, staring at Billy's wanted poster tacked up on the wall right beside Jessie's while he rubbed his neatly trimmed mustache. How could he have been wrong? The Kid lived for attention, especially female attention. After riding all the way from Sumner, he'd force a stop somewhere, no matter how much Jessie protested, and White Oaks was the closest.

Maybe they just weren't here yet. Maybe Jessie'd argued enough to delay them. Maybe … He rubbed his chin and swore under his breath. Damn it, he couldn't be wrong, Billy couldn't exist without someone knowing who he was and what he'd done … he lived to stir up trouble … he'd never run to Mexico and mean it.

"Trouble, Pat?" His skin crawled at the smirk in Poe's lazy drawl. The man from the Cattleman's Association snorted and took off his hat, running his fingers slowly over the brim. "I thought you knew the Kid."

"I do know him," he spit, and braced an arm on the fireplace mantle. "He should have turned north …"

"Somehow, I don't think you two are playing the same game, Sheriff."

"That's all he does. It drives Jessie crazy."

"Maybe he's learned a few tricks," Jane suggested, her eyes dancing. "I'm betting Billy's holding aces, and you've got a pair of twos, Garrett." She stood and adjusted her skirt. "The both of you, get out of my house, now." She whipped around and stalked up the staircase. "If you're lucky, I might leave some flowers on your grave."

Poe chuckled as a door slammed overhead. "You were hired because you knew them, knew what they'd do. If you can't even track, you're no use to the Ring."

"Now wait a minute." He pushed off the wall. "Billy would have turned north, I'd bet my life on it, but Jessie wouldn't." He scraped a hand over his hair and looked around, trying to piece the puzzle together. That camp with the blood trail … "Maybe he was hit in that fight, too, maybe it didn't bleed enough to leave a visible trail until after they'd had a chance to bandage it." Poe shook his head.

"And maybe you're grasping at straws, Pat."

"If you knew them, you'd realize that's the only thing that makes sense. Billy wouldn't go under, but she'd take them under. If they crossed the border, Jessie's in charge now, not Billy. And the only way she'd take over is if he's wounded or dead." Saying the words twisted his stomach into knots. He liked the Kid, this wasn't personal. Hell, he half liked Jessie even with her hating his guts and wanting to shoot him every time she turned around. "If she took them over the border, the Regulators are finished, they'll never cross back into the territory as a unit again. The Ring got what they wanted, Billy the Kid and Jessica Dolan will never darken their door again."

"No, Pat." Poe settled his hat back on his head, shoved off the door frame, and ambled over. "The Ring paid you to kill them."

"We can't cross into Mexico, we've got no authority."

"Who's gonna know they died in Mexico? Come on, Pat … I thought you wanted to make a name for yourself." That oily sneer made him want to drive a fist into the man's face.

"I'd know. If they come back, I'll deal with it, but I know they're not coming back. And if you talk common to me again, I'll put you on your ass." He shoved past the man and stalked out to the hitch rail. "Mount up. The Kid crossed the border into Mexico, and we're going back to Santa Fe." He turned his horse and the skin between his shoulder blades itched. He tensed, half expecting a bullet, but none came.

"We're heading back?" Ash struggled to sit his horse and looked around in confusion. "But what about the –"

"Not now, Ash!" He'd have to give the money back, have to turn in the badge, too, if Chisum and Rynerson wouldn't accept his decision. He'd try and explain that waiting really was the best option. If Billy was only wounded, soon enough he'd heal, and his need to be famous would overpower Jessie's good sense. They'd come back, maybe just the two of them by that point, but it would be easier then. Less chance of friends he had nothing against getting hurt in the crossfire.

"If you say so, Sheriff." The emphasis placed on that one word made his skin crawl. "I wouldn't be betting my life on it, but that's just me."

Juarez, Mexico

"Talk to me, Billy." Jessie grabbed his arm and pulled him down to a chair at the rickety table in the small, run-down shack they'd taken over the day after arriving in Juarez. Charlie had found them something at least, even if it had belonged to a deceased relative of his wife's. "You're not yourself, we can all see it."

"You wouldn't understand," he moaned, burying his face in his hands. "And you'd never believe me."

"Try me."

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"We established that when you had us toss you out of Alex's attic in a trunk." He choked on a laugh. "Come on, Billy, it can't be that bad. Remember who you're talking to."

"You don't know the half of it," he mumbled. A week, that's all he'd managed before she began demanding the explanation he'd promised. "God … I don't even know where to start. Or how."

"The beginning generally works just fine."

"You promise to let me tell it all before you interrupt? And you won't leave me?" His throat worked. "I've got to tell someone, but … you're gonna think I've lost my mind," he finished in a whisper.

"How about you tell me then we'll worry about what I think?" Billy lurched up from the table and scraped a shaking hand through his hair, pacing back and forth across the small room while he fought to come up with a way to explain the changes. "Billy … I followed you through hell and came out the other side … I said I'd never leave you, not once, but several times. What are you so afraid of?"

That it wouldn't be enough. She'd left him, not by choice, but she had in the end, and it was all his fault. "You don't even like me half the time." She shrugged offhandedly.

"You irritate worse than burlap underwear. And you're reckless." Jessie straightened. "But you're also the best friend I've got. So can you just say it?" His throat closed and he swallowed hard.

"Chavez suggested we go to White Oaks and I said no." He turned away, staring out the tiny window, unable to face her as the words fell into the open. "But you don't know why." Silence was her only response and he continued, his chest unbearably tight. "If we'd turned north, we were all gonna die, Jess, some sooner than others, and I was the last one left, seventy years from now. I had something the doctors call a heart attack and I saw you all coming for me, riding straight out of the setting sun with you in the lead, the Regulator's last captain." His eyes burned and he swiped a hand over his face. "And then I opened my eyes and I was alone. Until the ass in the fancy suit showed up. I got a second chance, Jess, and I took it." He turned around then, desperately needing to see her face when he said it. "You saved Doc and Chavez, and even me, but Garrett killed you." A single tear slipped down his cheek. "I had to come back and save you."

She stared at him in silence. Her arms folded over her chest and her head tilted, lips pressed into a thin line as she studied his face. Her jaw worked. She stood up and paced the room a few times, head tilted as she rubbed her temples. "I don't believe it," she finally said, and his heart cracked.

"Jess –"

"No." She held up a finger in warning and he shut his mouth, choking on the pain that welled up inside his chest. She halted and drew in a sharp breath, that finger inches from his face. Her jaw worked again and her brows twitched. "There is no way in hell that ass could beat me to the draw." Air whooshed from his lungs and his legs almost buckled.

"That's it?" He staggered back to his chair and sat down hard. "I tell you I died and somehow came back to life, and you're mad that Garrett might have beaten your draw?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I accepted that I might not survive our little crusade that day in the barn." Her face darkened. "But for it to be Garrett …" She made a disgusted noise in her throat and threw him a veiled look. "I knew I should have shot that bastard in Juarez." She paced another lap, then parked herself with her back to the wall, arms across her chest, one boot raised to the wall behind her. "Seventy years?"

"Yes."

"And you came back, just to save me?"

"Yes," he whispered through numb lips, wanting to hold her right then more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. She tapped her nails on her arm, jaw working, eyes flashing.

"I'm your second in command," she mused, half to herself. "But Dick was the captain … then Steve and Alex …" Billy swallowed hard.

"Charlie," he whispered. "And Tommy." Their eyes met. "But not you." His voice broke. "You never left me, how could I leave you?"

"There is something you're not saying, William H. Bonney, so why don't you tell me the whole story?" Relief nearly gutted him, and he sagged in his chair. She didn't think he was crazy, she believed him. He swallowed hard, and proceeded to tell her exactly what had happened from the time they met with the Governor all the way up to that fatal night in Fort Sumner, tallying every facet of the story against what she'd written in her own account. When he finished, she said nothing for several minutes. Sweat trickled down his back and his heart skipped a beat. She wouldn't really shoot him over that one little revelation, would she? Her head tilted again as she studied him.

"Say something, Jess, please."

"I can almost see it, Billy." Her foot dropped to the ground. "I need to think, I'll be back." She turned and vanished out the door. Billy buried his face in his hands, fighting the urge to cry.

He'd lost her.