A/N: I wasn't originally going to have any of Jessie's point of view in this one, but after the last chapter, I thought we really needed to find out what she was thinking. I wrote this with Sound the Bugle by Bryan Adams playing on repeat; it just seemed to fit the mood. As always, I own nothing but my OC. Entertainment only.

She was in the livery stable before she'd even realized where she was going. Jessie saddled her mare and rode out of Juarez to the south like the devil himself was on her tail. Doc and Chavez watched her leave with concerned frowns, but she couldn't bring herself to care at that moment.

Her heart slammed against her ribs hard enough to physically hurt. Air backed up in her lungs and she gasped for breath.

If Billy was to be believed, he'd made a godawful mess of things and come out the other side unscathed while the rest of them …. She yanked the mare to a dancing halt and spun the chestnut on her hind hooves, staring back the way she'd come, but Juarez was long out of sight, and she was alone in the desert with her thoughts.

How could it all have gone so wrong? All they'd wanted was justice for Tunstall …. She sucked in a sharp breath and flipped her braid over her shoulder. Her hands shook on the reins as she turned the mare and let the animal pick her way through the sand and scrub.

She could see it, all of it, happening exactly as he'd described, she knew him that well. Could almost hear the arguments as she tried to get him to see reason, knowing deep down he wouldn't. Could feel the pain and anguish of lost friends as it dwindled to the two of them against the world once again. The only ones who had no one else, no other reason to keep fighting. Jessie swallowed hard, her eyes beginning to sting and she brought a hand up to swipe at her face.

How could she mean that much to him he'd put himself through hell again after escaping and surviving another seventy years? She'd thought it was no different than what he felt for Jane …

She snatched the chestnut to a halt and jumped down, making her way to the animal's head. She stroked the mare's long face and rested her head against a sun-warmed cheek. Seventy years. A half laugh, half sob escaped. "God, he's a slow learner."

"On that we agree, Ms. Dolan." She spun at the unfamiliar voice, hand diving for her pistol and coming up with the smooth grips in her hand, thumb cocking the hammer without conscious thought. A man in a black suit stood a few feet away, hands parked on his hips.

"Who the hell are you? How did you get out here?" There wasn't another horse in sight.

"You don't remember me? I'm hurt." Strangely, he did sound hurt, and she couldn't figure out why. She knew she'd never seen him before. "I helped you cross that night." A smirk touched his mouth. "You had quite a lot to say about Pat Garrett." The smirk widened. "I even let you meet him when it was his turn just so I could watch the explosion." Jessie took a step back, her mouth going dry. "I admired you, you know. Your loyalty and love for your friends was impressive." His smile faded a notch. "Even when it wasn't deserved. Doc really wasn't happy with you when he died and discovered the truth."

"What are you saying?"

"Billy surprised me, you know, I hadn't expected him to actually change anything." The man rubbed his chin. "But then … he did have quite the motivation. I figured since he already told you, I might as well show myself." She stumbled backwards into the mare's side and dropped the reins.

"Why? You don't like him, you never did." Somehow she knew that, but was it from what she saw in his eyes now, or the faint echoes of another time that would no longer happen? Was she going crazy?

"I'm doing this for you."

"Why?" She repeated, her heart hammering in her chest. He looked at her with eyes full of sadness.

"It'll be easier to show you." The desert shifted and she sucked in a gasping breath as Fort Sumner appeared around them, the streets full of people dancing. Jessie turned, seeing faces she knew as well as her own spinning past.

Billy stepped out of a house down the street and the breath caught in her throat at the devastation on his face. He raised his arms, dancing with no one, and her heart shattered; tears sprang to her eyes. "Billy …" She took a step closer. "Billy!"

"They can't hear us," the man in the suit said from behind her. "All you can do is watch." She couldn't take her eyes off Billy, lost and haunted by ghosts they'd never escape so long as they both lived.

Then, she saw herself appear in the crowd, a look of panicked determination etched on her face. Her other self slipped into Billy's raised arms not ten seconds before Paulita Maxwell would have reached him. The girl stepped back, her face carefully blank as she melted into the crowd. "She was up to something," Jessie spit over her shoulder. "Pete never let her around Billy, ever."

"It was supposed to be him in Maxwell's bedroom, not you. Garrett believed the story you concocted." But Jessie wasn't listening, her attention caught on herself and Billy entwined with each other. Billy shuddered in her arms.

"Don't leave me, Jess. Please, don't leave me tonight." His head came up and her heart broke at the tortured anguish burning in those bright blue eyes. Her other self raised her hands, framing his face, leaning in until their foreheads touched.

"I won't, Billy. And I never will."

"Stop," she choked, ghostly emotions flooding her chest, and spun away from the scene. "I can't …" She jammed a finger in her mouth and fought the urge to run to Billy, to take that pain from his eyes. "That really happened … didn't it?" She whispered, her voice breaking. "God … if Doc saw that, he'd understand …" Jessie choked on a sob and wrapped her arms around her waist, sinking slowly to her knees in the crowded street, dancers swirling right through her. Her eyes burned and she looked up at the man in the suit. "All we ever had was each other."

"I know," he said softly with a glance over her shoulder. She turned her head, saw the ghosts of herself and Billy walking away, still entwined. Pain cinched her heart in giant hands, squeezing until she could barely breathe. "You always knew who you were, Jessica, and as much as I don't like him, so did he."

"Why did you have to show me that?" It had been hard enough hearing it from Billy. Tears spilled over her lashes.

"To get an answer for what came next."

"What?" The street turned into Maxwell's darkened bedroom and there she was, backed against the wall, arms folded over her waist, Garrett standing next to the washstand, pistol in hand.

"Billy wasn't the only one who needed to listen," he said softly. "He told you at Stinking Springs that you had to do it, even if you thought you couldn't. For the longest time, I thought he meant you should leave him." The man rubbed his chin as the confrontation played out behind them, the words chilling her blood as echoes of a past forever changed flashed across her mind's eye.

She rode towards Billy out of the rising sun, desperate to catch up and take her place to his right on the desolate, heart-broken trail to Mexico …

Yelling at him for weeks that he needed to give their story to a newspaper and show everyone the truth …

Riding lonely trails for years as he drifted from town to town, never calling any home, forever alone …

Welcoming friends one by one as they crossed over, Chavez joining her on her lonely vigil through the decades …

Sitting her mare as the sun set, listening to the faltering heart inside the shack, finally able to call the Regulators together to bring their last pal home …

"God knows I don't want to do it, Jessie, but I've got no way out. Don't make this any harder than it has to be. I'm betting you had a hand in him busting out of Lincoln, you saved him that time, you saved him before, but you can't do it now."

"Wanna bet?" Gunfire rang out and Jessie flinched as her body hit the floor behind her. The man in the suit hitched up his pants and crouched in front of her.

"You had to let go of Garrett or you were always going to be doomed. Chavez knew that much, he just couldn't see exactly what the choice was."

"He led us into a trap!" She shot off the floor and spun around, watching Garrett fend off Deluvina as he cut her hair to make her look more like Billy. A bitter taste filled her mouth. That ass. "He was nothing but a filthy traitor!"

"Vengeance is mine, I will repay," he quoted. "Pat Garrett got his due."

"Not soon enough," she hissed. "They all died because of him!"

"How did your death help Billy?"

"At least he got away."

"You left him, after promising you wouldn't."

"I see why he called you an ass." She got up out of the floor and stomped through the wall, the man following her. "Go away! I thought you hated him?"

"Oh, I do. He got far too many chances to save all of you the first time around. Frankly, I was glad it was his time to cross over, I was tired of listening to his incessant whining."

"Sorry you got stuck with us."

"I was never bored, at least."

"Why are we still here?" She didn't want to see anymore, she knew what came next. Her eyes rose, searching the almost deserted streets with everyone chased inside by the gunfire. Billy was out there in the dark, desperate to find her. Her heart slammed against her ribs and she looked back over her shoulder.

Why had she even gone into Maxwell's room that night? Billy said she'd gone after the horses and food. Why would she have pushed their luck when they needed to ride? Where had her good sense gone?

Had she wanted to find Garrett?

"Maybe." The man walked around her and met her gaze. "But that is irrelevant. What's more important to you now: vengeance or love? Billy's changed the course of history already, but it remains to be seen whether or not it turns out better or worse. As I told him, fate isn't an easy thing to change, but if both of you know the truth, it might even the scales." Jessie blinked, and she was back in the desert, no sign the man in the suit had ever been there marring the sand underfoot. She ran a shaking hand through her hair and sank to her knees.

Had she gone crazy? No, everything she'd seen matched what Billy had told her, except the confrontation with Garrett, and he'd had no way to know what happened then. He'd never lied to her before, why start now?

She'd accepted that it could have happened, and now, any faint remnants of doubt she'd possessed had been washed away. Why had he insisted on carrying this weight alone?

Jessie shot to her feet so fast the mare snorted in surprise and backed up a step. She scrambled into the saddle and wheeled the chestnut back towards Juarez. They had to finish their account of the Lincoln War and get it to the papers. The Ring would have to leave them alone once the country knew what really happened. They'd brought down one governor already, and they could do it again.

She wasn't going to lose everything a second time.