"You haven't done much shopping," Jane pointed out the next morning. "There must be some local boutiques you've been dying to scope out."

"I didn't want to drag you along with me, I know you don't enjoy it, and the whole point of this was to spend time together. I'm sure there's some things you wanted to do here that you know I don't enjoy."

"We don't have to be together every moment, Maura. We are separate people. If there's something you want to do, you should do it. We're driving home tomorrow."

"You wouldn't mind?"

"You want me to come with you?"

"Not for the whole time, not if you don't want to." Maura said, aware that her interest in fashion wasn't one Jane shared.

"Take me to the one you think is best, and I'll head out from there." Jane smiled mischievously. "I can keep myself occupied for an afternoon." Maura eyed her dubiously but nodded.

"Call me if you need anything carried out to the car, ok?" Jane said, kissing Maura's cheeks as she headed off out of the store. Maura nodded, distracted. Jane went down a few stores, grinning to herself.

"Looks like you bought something too? Should we leave it all in the car? To save us having to pack it all tomorrow?"

"Uh... I have to..." Jane grabbed her things and closed the boot.

Jane spent a long time on the computer, and Maura thought she was trying to solve the third puzzle she'd made for Jane.

"Just... Be right back," Jane said, and Maura's eyes narrowed in suspicion. She looked at the laptop, but the search history hadn't changed or had been erased. She was going to have to enrol in that online computer forensics course, she reminded herself.

"Uh... Can you... The other room? For a minute?" Jane asked, closing the door behind her. "There's something for you in there. Take this," Jane handed over what looked like a script, and Maura walked to the other room, reading.

"Well, howdy there, ma'am," Jane said, kicking out the other chair from the table with her foot that was enclosed in a cowboy boot, knees spread wide, beer on the table in front of her. She wore rusty chinos, a black button down not all buttoned up, a brown suede waistcoat, a string tie and a stetson tipped low over her forehead. She tipped it back as Maura sat down, eyed her appraisingly in the dark blue corsetted dress Maura had found in the other room.

"Obliged, I'm sure," Maura said. "You see, I'm on the run from the law. My family planned me to marry this absolute swine of a man, and I just couldn't. Mighta stabbed him a few times when he made advances on me."

"Sounds like you've had a terrible time of it," Jane said, running her fingers over the neck of the bottle, handing Maura a beer too. "Now, how can I help you?"

"Well, I heard in town that you..." Maura paused, pulled her script out from under her dress. "You needed some housekeeping, and I keep a good house."

"I bet you do, ma'am." Jane rubbed her nails against her shirt. "But I don't have much use for women, seeing as I am one." Maura looked down at her script in surprise. "That shock you, huh? You don't want to be living with an ol' ornery crossdresser like me."

"Jane... Why is your character telling me this when they've just met?" Maura asked.

"Because shaddup, that's why. It's been lonely here in this deserted cabin in the woods, 60 miles from the nearest town, and when I saw you threwn from that thar demon horse," Jane pointed at the window, and Maura looked out of it obligingly, not seeing a horse because there was no horse there. "I thought to myself, well. I thought it's been lonely long enough. I don't need me a woman to keep for me, but I wouldn't mind having a woman like you to keep." Jane pulled off her hat, turning the brim in her hands, watching her thumbs before looking up. "How about it?" Jane asked.

"This feels like a lot of exposition," Maura said sceptically.

"Well, it's hard to write lady cowboys, Maura," Jane said, trying not to glare. "Now, how 'bout it?" Jane asked again, her voice low and soft.

"I'd pictured a train robbery or... Oh! Um," Maura pulled out her script again. "Yes! My betrothed was not a woman and that's why I resented him. Jane, that felt lazy."

"At least I did my research," Jane mumbled, and Maura looked over.

"I'm sorry, I'm ruining it again, aren't I?"

"Do you want to keep going?"

"I like the idea of the secluded cabin, and I like the lady cowboy..." Jane got to her feet, pulling the cowboy hat back on her head in one steady flip up her arm.

"Good, now c'm'ere, Missy," Jane said, pulling Maura to her feet and kissing her.

"Was that ok?" Jane asked later, stroking Maura's hair away from her face, which rested on Jane's chest, her shirt open but left on, the same as her pants. She grabbed the cowboy hat and put it on Maura's head. "Or did you want to be the cowboy too."

"I can't believe you wrote a script!" Maura said.

"You like to be prepared," Jane mumbled, embarrassed. "I didn't want you to feel like you had to improvise."

"It was lovely, but I think the best part was the outfit," Maura said, playing with the waistcoat. "And the idea that - like Calamity Jane, the musical. Two women alone in the woods, one disguised as a man. So they could be together." Maura propped herself up to look at Jane. "I'm just glad we live in this time, where we don't have to hide or disguise who we are, or go live in the woods so nobody knows." She kissed Jane. "I liked it very much, but the exposition is what worked for me."

"Aren't you glad I did so much of it?" Jane smirked. Maura slid her hand under Jane's shirt, bent her head down to kiss her.

"I sure am," Maura said. "Now ride 'em, cowboy,"

Notes:

I used to dissociate in church to being a stockman in bush country, and I'd been known in town as a recluse working a small mine, and there'd be some woman that got into trouble of some sort on my land and I'd have to rescue her and 12 year old me wrote half a book about wanting to be mistaken for a man and rescue women and that's still pretty much the dream.