A/N: Hey Everybody! Hope you enjoy this. I've been battling a wee bit of writers block, knocking out a paragraph here and there, but that's about it. But the second half of this one flowed so I'm hoping it's done.

Shout-out to all you awesome reviewrs, I love you guys. Mammabear2Two, guest, guest, aranow, Gerodette, SubRosa7.

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Ezra stood in the small newspaper office, not sure what to do with himself or what to say, though he made sure he kept a smile on his face. A year was both a very short and long period of time. Mary didn't seem to know what to do either for a minute, but then it passed and, she was talking again, "Why don't you get washed up for dinner? There's a basin, soap, and a cloth in the spare room, first door at the top of the stairs. I'll bring you some water."

Nodding, Ezra spoke casually, though he felt anything but, "Ah'd appreciate a chance to remove the worst of the trail dust, it wouldn't do to leave a coating at the table." Mary's eyes were on him as he spoke, Ezra feeling as though she was looking for something, but not sure what it was, unease growing inside him. Apparently whatever it was, she found it, because she nodded with seeming satisfaction, and motioned him towards the staircase briskly.

"I'll be up in just a minute." Ezra kept himself entirely together until he was in the spare room, where he let himself sag. The status quo had just abruptly shifted again, and while part of him felt a strange sense of relief-whatever happened, he would no longer be looking over one shoulder-he was not entirely sure what was going to happen next. The fact that he was not cooling his heels in the small jail, that Uncle Orin had brought him here to Mary, made it seem as though the consequences for his actions would likely be informal, or at least minimal. If that was so, he'd only put off the trip to the woodshed that had been mentioned, but that was far preferable to the alternative.

Or perhaps he simply knew that Ezra would be able to pick the locks on the jail cell and be long gone before morning if he wanted, and had brought him here to insure he couldn't evade him.

No. That was foolishness, his own petty insecurities getting the better of him. Orin Travis was many things, and both honorable and honest were high on the list. He would not have brought him here, would not have insisted he still call him uncle, if he intended to wash his hands of him.

He'd worried them. Mary had had tears in her eyes when she'd embraced him for a second time, and he could feel the lingering presence of his uncle's hand on his shoulder. Ezra had known, intellectually, that they likely would, at least for awhile after his departure. He hadn't expected that worry to be so intense, or for it to last after he'd been gone a year.

Mother had used to worry about him like that, when he was a small child, he remembered that, but it had been a very long time. Since Father or soon after, and he had only the vaguest memories of him.

He hoped Aunt Evie didn't think he'd left because he wanted to. That had not been the situation at all.

With a deep breath, he straightened and looked around the room, moving over to the stand where a porcelain wash basin with a rose pattern was set up, a folded cloth and small wooden soap dish sitting next to it. He could hear Mary coming up the stairs now and slid his jacket off, hanging it over the back of a convenient chair and rolling up his shirt sleeves. He'd banged the worst of the dust off his coat and pants when he'd left Chaucer at the livery, but it still seemed to be everywhere. Since his initial plan had involved retrieving his saddle bags before he retired Ezra had no fresh clothing to change into. There was a knock at the door, and Mary pushed it open, coming in and crossing to him, lingering after she'd set the jug down. "Were you hoping we would find you here?"

Ezra blinked, uncertain why she would think so, as he had been very much hoping for the antithesis of that, "Ah have to confess that Ah had not realized you had returned to the west and Four Corners, and had initially only planned to stay on in town for a few days, replenish mah coffahs and move on to a destination a little more cosmopolitan." He saw Mary's lips purse and waited to be questioned on whether or not he was making a living by gambling, something she had never quite approved of, but she did not do as he expected.

"Even if you thought I was still with Evie and Orin, you know the newspaper office is still here, and you know that this is part of Orin's circuit. You got off the stage here and used your real name." She gave him a knowing smile, and Ezra found himself irritated, not liking her assumption that she knew him so well as to understand his motivations so completely. Particularly as her recitation of facts had him abruptly wondering if there was some truth to it, if he'd set himself up to be discovered without being aware of it. It couldn't be, he had more self control than that, was more aware of his internal motivations than that...yet, a small voice that he wished he could disregard shouted that it was a valid theory, that at least there was truth in it. Picking up on his irritation Mary took her leave, firmly saying,

"I don't know exactly how you wound up in Four Corners, but I'm very glad you did." She touched his shoulder briefly, then moved off, giving him privacy to complete his abulations as she moved to the doorway. "Come back downstairs when you're done." Nodding, and thanking Mary again for bringing the water Ezra waited for her to shut the door behind her before he began to bathe.

Pouring about half the water from the jug into the basin and being careful not to soil his shirt, Ezra scrubbed and wiped away the dust and dirt that had accumulated on his person on their long ride home, and stubbornly clung on even after they'd stopped to cool off at a small pond. Finished washing, he rinsed and squeezed the flannel out and hung it on a small wooden peg on the side of the stand. Looking in the mirror Ezra frowned slightly, and reached into his jacket to pull out a comb, dipping it into the clean water still left in the jug and fussing at his hair with it until it was presentable enough. A proper visit to the bathhouse was definitely in order shortly. Taking in a deep breath, Ezra pulled his jacket back on and straightened it out before heading towards the doorway, dinner and his doom.

Uncle Orin would no doubt enjoin a rationale for his long exodus, and Ezra would not, could not, divulge that information. The potential for disaster to come from him doing so was just too high. To refuse to give an answer would be foolhardy at best, which meant he would have to think of something convincing. Only, he'd never been able to fool Orin with a falsehood before, and knew that to get caught trying to do so would certainly rile him into a pique, and that was something Ezra did not relish being on the receiving end of.

His footsteps seemed strangely loud on the stairs, and it was somewhat of a relief to see Mary right there waiting for him as he got to the bottom. Although one had to speculate that the reasoning for that may have been to prevent him from slipping away. "Am Ah sufficiently dressed for the dining table?" He knew he was of, but he'd had to say something.

"Of course," her lips twitched up into a smile, "Pretty as a peacock." A chuckle left Ezra, it was something Billy had said to him once, in one of the child's rare good moods, and he'd meant it utterly sincerely. He suddenly realized he'd seen no trace of the boy and looked at Mary quizzically.

"Where is young Mistah Billy? Ah rathah thought Ah'd have gained a shadow by now." Perhaps the boy was upset with him, angry at the way he'd left them, and the knot of guilt that Ezra had spent the last year pretending wasn't developing in his stomach region seemed to double in size.

Mary looked surprised, and then just a touch nervous as she spoke, "Billy is still staying with Evie and Orin. Were you in town for the shooting earlier?" Ezra nodded. "Then you know this town is no place for a little boy right now. Honestly, except for the Potter twins I don't think there are any children in the whole town, only on outlying farms." She'd left him. She'd moved on and left him behind just like Mother had moved on and left Ezra behind countless times. It took all of Ezra's self control to keep the confusion and anger from showing on his face, because that couldn't be correct, Mary was nothing like that. She couldn't be. There was no doubt that Mary was right, the town was not the sort of place one raised a small boy, but it was not as though anything had forced her to come back either.

Nor, to be just, had Billy been left with relatives so distant they might have been strangers. If Ezra had a small child he could not care for for whatever reason, Orin and Evie would have been his top choice of caregivers, and not simply by virtue of being the only ones on the list besides Mary herself. She was saying something now, about Billy coming home as soon as the town was safe enough, and Ezra nodded along, smiling and saying something inane about food as he followed her to the small kitchen and dining area in the back of the newspaper.

Whatever her intentions, Ezra knew what young Billy must be feeling. Knew what it was like to lose your father and then have your mother leave you, and it wasn't right. It wasn't right at all. He shook his head to clear it as Orin appeared in the doorway holding a heavy tray, and one of the waitresses at the restaurant holding another behind him. Ezra got swiftly to his feet and took the tray from the young lady as his uncle sat his own down, then turned and gave the waitress a coin as a tip, "Thank you, I never would have been able to manage all that alone. We'll be sure to bring everything back in the morning." The waitress smiled and nodded, disappearing quickly afterwards and after a quick grace that Mary insisted on, the three dished up servings of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and string beans. Ezra was just about to take his first bite of chicken, when voice deceptively casual, Uncle Orin said, "So, Ezra, when exactly did you meet up with Larabee and the rest of those men?"

"What?" Mary sounded disbelieving, "the band of hired guns? Ezra..."

Mouth full of chicken, Ezra chewed and swallowed as fast as he politely could. "A week ago...", Uncle Orin's face told him that wasn't good enough, and after a brief internal battle, he spit out the rest, "we were hired to protect an Indian village from a fanatical group of confederate soldiers."

"Now that," Orin said, "sounds like a story I would like to hear."