A/N:  I love you.  Anyone who has given me feedback and/or advice, marry me.  XD

The Cadence

Coda – End Movement One

He had never been caught before.  He had broken the law at least twice a day and had stolen, lied, and cheated more times than he had used a gun.  He was always too quick, too lucky, too fast and always running away those countless times.  Therefore, there was something deeply depressing about the fact that he sat, not in a hotel room or a bar stool, but on the dank, musty and stained mattress of a prison cell. 

He sighed, shifted, and noticed with irritation that no matter how he twisted he could not feel the reassuring press of cold metal against his skin.  Where was the Airgetlahm?  Soggy sheets slid against his knees and the jagged lines of rock walls scrapped across his elbows, turning them raw and red.  The dripping air stank of dust and other things not so pleasant and he wondered if suffocation would be a better alternative to breathing.

It was then, in putrid captivity, that he noticed how much he thrived on freedom.

There was one barred window, high enough to touch the ceiling but more importantly, high enough so that he couldn't reach it, providing feeble light.  If he stood at a certain angle facing it, he could see the boundless sky.  Looking at it, with his head against the wall, his knee drawn to his chest and his eyes half-lidded with a dreamer's fog, he decided that when he escaped, he would like to touch that sky. 

Sitting there, he forgot that a word such as "if" even existed.

Some time after his capture, while thinking (since he simply did not daydream) of birds with wings and drifting winds, he heard the jingle of keys accompanying the sound of sand being grated into the floor with his heel.  He turned his head slightly just in time to see the wooden door swing open with a rusty creak.  Through lowered eyelids, blurred with the restlessness, he saw a set of keys, hanging on a silver ring, and freedom.

"I never thought I'd see you here," said Ian, fiddling with his broad-rimmed hat.

"That makes two of us," answered the prisoner, straightening his neck.  Even in the dark light, his hair was ghostly silver, lit by the high window until it was almost pure white.  Eyes darkened to a pitch black in the absence of the sun focused and narrowed.  "What do you want?"

Shrugging, "Nothing really.  Thought I'd come down here and reassure you of your rights to keep silent and all that, you know.  Formalities – can't avoid them.  Anyway, thought I'd tell you what you're charged with.  Mostly, it's just for theft but there was an account of your involvement in a murder case or somethin' of the sort." 

Jet let out a breath that seemed like a sigh and a laugh without humor.  Thievery and a murder case, was it?  He inwardly cursed and complimented the fool who was quick-minded enough to frame a well-known outlaw for his own crimes. 

"Weren't you a good guy back then?"

"No," he said, "I don't recall ever being something like that."

"Part of Maxwell's gang, though, weren't you?  That's a charge too.  Affiliation with an outlaw gang.  You were part of their group, weren't you?"

He chose to answer, or rather not answer, the inquiry with, "I won't be here for long."

Ian faced him with his back, kicking the toe of his boot against the hard floor and speaking so that he could neither see nor hear the rustle of fabric or the shadow that fell across his back.  "Eh," said he, under the scrutiny of darkened eyes, "That's what they all say, though most of them shut up after they've been here a day or two.  Most of them don't say a word two weeks after that, 'cause that's when most of them well…"  He made a vague gesture by sliding his hand across his throat. 

"You've caught many?"

A little proud, he would have never turned his back on a prisoner before, but there was a sense of trust still in him.   "Caught a crazy thug two months back, said he was slaughtering livestock for the heck of seeing blood.  A year before that, I had arrested a cow thief and his handful of men and found almost a million gella worth of cattle, we did.   And then…"

Ian's words were muffled by gloved hands that snaked between the iron bars, grabbing his mouth and forehead before pulling back.  The sheriff's eyes fluttered closed when the back of his head, regardless of his bulky hat, came in contact with the iron bar.  "I have nothing against you," said Jet even as he gently lowered the prone form to the floor and slipped the silver keys out from a belt loop, "but I don't believe in this justice thing you follow."

He found his gun in a conspicuous labeled box right outside the door.  Making little work of the lock, he slipped the handle against his palm and pressed his finger on the trigger – just light enough not to shoot it.  This was his freedom – dependence on no one, the ability to protect oneself and therefore to do anything.  This was soaring, drifting, touching the sky. 

With a dropping heart (though it did not drop that far, since it had never been that high to begin with), he remembered that Clive said Drifters would cease to exist.  There would be time for settling down, and much-needed rest.  There would be time for gardening and watching the days lazily pass.  There would be time to go home.  Yet, he had no one to go home to, and not even a home itself.  The salvation of Filgaia meant little to him. 

In the midst of the clangor as he searched for stray bullets, he heard footsteps descending the stairs.  Because they paused and became light and wary, he supposed that the owner heard his own metal racket as well.  His shoulders tensed as he slipped behind a wooden pillar, away from view, and waited.  The footsteps increased in volume, came to a halt at the foot of the stairs and suddenly disappeared. 

For how many seconds he waited he forgot to count.  His mind was blurred with the humid air and the rush of adrenaline.  The silence confused and confounded him.  Had the intruder run back upstairs?  But he had not heard the retreating steps.  Had he frozen, was he standing in the doorway still?  But he didn't even hear the sound of breathing.  Suddenly, something warm brushed against his forearm. 

As quick as his muscles and instincts could allow, he turned around, flipping the safety lock of his gun.  Strangely enough, two clicks resounded in the air and it took him a moment's sight to realize that it was not that his gun had clicked twice.  The other had belonged to the gun that pressed against his forehead, between his brows, held by a person whose throat was kissed by the merciless mouth of the Airgetlahm.

"Who are you?" Jet asked.

"You're…the outlaw that was caught yesterday!  What happened to the sheriff?"

"He's...out," he answered, obviously irritated.  "Took a nap."

Eyes wide, perhaps the man saw the devil in the colorless hair and the unnatural eyes.  Maybe that was why he pulled the trigger.  Out of luck alone, Jet saw the finger twitch before it moved, and cocked his head in time so that the bullet only grazed the side of his head.  It was a man he didn't know, an unfamiliar face he didn't recognize.  Maybe because of that, mixed with the impulse of reflexes, he was able to counterattack. 

He didn't miss.  And why?  Why didn't he miss?

He stood even as the other fell and stared down at the face for the longest time.  Not too young and not too old, honest and bare and stubble-chinned, it was a face of a human.  The eyes were wide and white, the face pale with fear and sweat.  The tongue was stiff in his open mouth and he wondered idly if he would be able to hear the heart die away should he press his ear against the fallen chest.  He was clothed in simple attire, like a man who worked for a living, like a man who had heard something strange from the sheriff's office and decided to take a look.

He had a bloody hole in his throat, right below the chin.

Suddenly, the fact that the man had shot first didn't really matter. 

Throat dry and in a drunken state, though he hadn't an ounce of liquor in him, he stumbled out of the sheriff's office clumsily, with enough sense to slip into a hooded cloak and ran.  He had only broken the law twice today, but he had never run faster.  Through the empty streets, into the barren land, with his feet pounding and his heart pounding and his head pounding he ran and ran and ran, regardless of the ache in his legs or the pain in his head that must have been fear or the strange looks he was given, until he couldn't breathe and collapsed behind a sand dune. 

Though it was silent, the wind seemed to holler.  Each grain of sand, falling or brushing up against another, deafened him.  When he dropped his gun, he hardly noticed.  It was hot, because it was always hot in the desert, and the dune burned the back of his heck and arms, but he could hardly feel a thing.  He looked up and the view was hazy from heat.  All he could see was the sky, and the gaping hole right below the chin. 

Something burning slid down the side of his face and down the side of his neck, matting the collar of his jacket against his skin.  Reaching up and watching with half-lidded eyes as his fingers pulled away smeared with a thick rose red liquid, he remembered he was injured.  "Oh," he said, to no one in particular, and did nothing as blood mixed with sweat and exhaustion.  "Oh," he repeated blandly, "I should clean that up."

He stared at the sky again.

He hadn't many places to run.  It was amazing, really, how he had kept himself concealed for this long. The others had hometowns, but he dared not step in them, should he be caught for other reasons than breaking the law.  Once or twice, he had sought out Pike in the little town of Claiborne, because despite warnings and rumors about the terrible thief Jet had become, Pike always smiled, shook his head and asked how he was doing? 

"Maybe to Claiborne…" he murmured, though he did not hear it.

Then there came the whispering wind, echoing something he had heard yesterday.  "To Humphrey's Peak," said a voice that was soft but fierce, wavering but stalwart.  Where are you going?  In the midst of the heat, after an escape fit for tall tales, early in the morning on August the thirteenth.  His destination had been set since yesterday.  He had decided earlier to take a more roundabout path, but time had escaped him. 

Groaning, he told the wind to shut up, and did it rather loudly.  "To hell with Humphrey's Peak.  I'm going to Claiborne.  I'll to go Humphrey's Peak after."  He needed to talk to Pike, and wanted to hear the reassurance that he was sure Pike would give.  Perhaps Humphrey's Peak could've given it to him, but he needed to see a smile, a shake of the head.  He needed to answer a "How are you doing?" 

I've been better.

He needed something familiar. 

He pushed himself up from the sliding sands and began to stagger.  The wind howled and threw sand.  He had hardly taken five steps when he realized something was wrong.  Turning around, he walked back the short distance he had come.  Weary, tired, and companionless, he picked up the Airgetlahm and started once again, the sun on his back and throwing his shadow ahead of him as he approached the horizon. 

"It's been a long time, I think."  The boy shuffled his feet, rippling the quiet evening air with the sound of dry hay crackling over dry hay as he undid a particularly adamant buckle on the worn leather in his hands.  He pulled the saddle off the white mare's back with a sigh, a pat and a heave before setting it on the low stable wall.  "A few months, wasn't it?"

"Three."  Jet answered without turning his bandaged head, leaning against the frame of the barn door, looking out into the night sky littered with stars.  He crossed his arms over his chest, uncrossed them and did it again.  The wooden frame scraped uncomfortably between his shoulder blades.  The Airgetlahm rested on a small wooden stool nearby; its mouth still stained a rosy red.

Pike smoothed down the short hairs on the horse's back and reached over to pick up a coarse comb.  "Yes, three.  Last time it was for my birthday, I think."  He nodded to himself as he thought, fingers on his right hand echoing the brush strokes from his right.  The horse made a small sound of appreciation, and it made him smile.  "Your birthday will be soon, won't it, Jet?  A month or so?  How old will you be then?"

The drifter turned inside.  The weak candlelight by which Pike worked flickered with the evening breeze, casting shadows on his pale complexion.  "I don't remember," said he, watching the flame with mild interest, "the birthday isn't even right.  You gave it to me last year.  It's not even true."

Pike shrugged.  "You needed a birthday to celebrate," he explained, matter-of-factly.  "Everyone needs a day to celebrate themselves."

Jet made a sound between a scoff and laugh, moving beside the candle and sliding down against a wooden post.  The red splinters were fruitless, unable to catch on a thread of his clothes.  Drawing one knee up to his chest and draping an arm over it, his head found a comfortable nest in the bend of his arm.  "What's today?  August fifteenth, isn't it?"

Pike answered, "I think so.  I'm surprised; you usually never know the date."  He laughed a little, patting the mare's back one final time as he hung the brush on the wall.  He stepped out of the stable softly, treading in the soft dirt, and came to sit beside Jet, on the other side of the candle stool.  They listened in the comfortable quiet of the night, with only the crickets outside to chirp since it was too late for birds.  The air was warm because of the burning wax, but cool from the late chill. 

Shrugging, "I looked at a calendar the day before yesterday in Little Twister."  He paused, eyes focused and looking at the flickering flame, but not seeing anything at all except for perhaps the sky and the hole.  Silence reigned for a moment, heavy with the words not spoken and the crackling of fire, before they settled back into comfortable small talk.  "Hey, Pike, Martina was back in the inn today."

"She came back two months ago with her supposed mother."

"Oh.  That's nice," came the rejoinder, a little distant.  Pike smiled at the slightest softening of his tone that a normal listener would never notice, but he was an expert at reading people, in their voices, demeanor and speech.  Jet always had a soft spot for children, after all.  "She's strong – Martina.  It's good she didn't let that prissy old lady get the better of her."  Leaning his head against the post, he added, "She would make a good drifter."

"Maybe."

"But she'll never be one.  She's got too much here that isn't worth leaving behind.  People like that, who have that, don't become Drifters." 

Pike hesitated.  "How are you doing, Jet?"

Staring out the wide barn doors, his shoulders drawn up near his head and his left knee tucked against his chest, Jet said nothing for a while.  The wind blew and the fire burned, the dry pale hay under the white mare's hooves began to crack as she shifted in her sleep.  The crickets sang their songs of unknown meaning, waiting for the night to pass and the dawn to come.  A while later, the Drifter turned his head the other way, and looked at Pike blankly. 

"I don't know," he whispered, honestly.

Pike remained silent, fiddling with a lone blade of grass between his feet. 

"I'm alright, I guess."  Jet sighed, closing his eyes and forgetting for a moment everything he could forget.  There wasn't much, since there was hardly anything to remember, and if he had nothing to remember, then he had nothing to forget.  "The strangest thing happened in Little Twister.  You wouldn't believe it.  I hardly could.  It was as if it were a dream.  I really did expect to wake up any moment, but I didn't."

Pike watched with his brows creased as his friend breathed a sigh.  Softly, "What happened in Little Twister, Jet?"

Laughing a low sound with no humor, the pale head lowered.  "I saw a ghost."

"A…ghost?"  The dark-haired boy paled.

With a snicker, Jet nodded.  "That's right.  You always hated things like that.  Well, what do you know, Pike, it was one of those transparent ones with no feet.  You know, the ones that end in wisps of smoke?  Its face was mangled and missing an eye.  It looked like it was rotting.  A real horror, even scared the lights out of me."  With amusement, he watched his friend's eyes grow wider by the second.  "Hey, look, it's outside right now."

At that, Pike let out a relieved sigh, but did sneak a glance at the barn's backdoor, just in case.  "Don't kid me like that!" he scolded, holding his hand over his heart as the color returned to his skin.  He shot a less than half-hearted leer to his left, but stopped once he sighted the forlorn air that surrounded his companion.  It hung in the pregnant air, and Pike understood why Jet had come this time.  "Did you want to say anything to me?" asked Pike, off-handedly.  "How have you really been doing?"

"I've been better," the Drifter admitted, after a brief lull, as his eyes trailed over to where his weapon lay.  "I've been a lot better.  I think I'd be better if I were lying in a sandy ditch with Pill Bugs digesting me alive."

Pike murmured something like, "Sounds great."

Jet snickered.  "That was sarcasm, wasn't it?  I didn't know you were capable of it.  Do you want some applause, and a cry for an encore?"

Although the corner of his mouth did twitch, Pike was not too amused.  "Stop changing the subject.  If you're going to tell me what's wrong, you might as well do it without taking the whole night.  It's late.  I need to sleep, you need to sleep, and you also need to tell me whatever's bothering you, because that is indeed what you came here to do, after all, wasn't it?   Don't give me that look – of course I could tell.  You haven't been as preoccupied as you are tonight since you visited with…your drifter group…"

The bitterness in Jet's eyes hardened a little, as he heard Pike's voice trailing off in uncertainty at mentioning something he had sworn not to bring up.  Jet said, "I talk to you too much.  You know me more than I want you to."

"You only come a couple times a year." Pike retorted, but only in jesting.  A couple times a year was more than what most people got in a lifetime from the stoic gunman.  He laughed a little, in an attempt to lighten the mood.  "So, are you going to talk to me or not?"

"Would you ever be afraid of me?"

The sudden abruptness of this question startled the other boy into a momentary silence.  It took him a full minute to recover, during which the Drifter fell characteristically silent.  The candle was burning out quickly, and it would be completely dark soon, with only starlight and moonlight to guide them.  "Why would you ask that?" he stuttered.  There was something in that tone of voice that scared him.  A sense of foreboding chilled his bones.  "I mean, what kind of question is that?"

Jet faced him with an expression that was unreadable, even with Pike's expertise.   "I killed a man yesterday, Pike.  Shot him in the neck, under the chin yesterday.  I killed an innocent man in Little Twister."  A flicker of empty dying hopelessness passed across his eyes for a second, as he watched the other's face contort with something akin to surprise and cold fear.  Afraid of that kind of look, Jet pressed on further and told him everything, in hopes that he could tell and just run away, never to see that kind of emotion again. 

"And then I ran away.  I think by now, Ian's figured out it was me, and I have no where to run anymore."  He took a deep breath.  "I have somewhere to go first, but after that, do you think that I could maybe hide here for a while?"  He wanted it now – the familiarity that he had returned for. 

Without a moment in-between, "Are you leaving once dawn breaks?"

With lead in his chest, Jet nodded, but just barely.  "Yeah.  I'll need to take my horse again.  I'll leave once morning comes."

Then, "Will you come back in three months again?  Maybe you can come back sooner than that.  I wanted to celebrate your birthday, since the only party you've ever had was last year.  Do you like cake?  I think that if you wanted, we could afford to buy some cake from the inn."  Pike rattled and rambled on and on about his future plans, for an hour or so, until it was almost dawn.  When he was finished, he smiled that closed-eyed grin and asked Jet what he thought about it and if that was alright?

With a terribly straight face that he himself was surprised he could manage, Jet answered, "I hate cake.  I hate sweet things.  I hate parties."

Pike laughed.  "Maybe not then."

"Definitely not," he quipped.  Rising to his feet, he brushed off the back of his jacket and pants, crossing over to pick up the Airgetlahm and slinging it over his shoulder, feeling its familiar and metallic weight rest against his back.  Staring at the nearing dawn as the last of the steadfast candle burnt out and died into milky wax, he thought that perhaps things wouldn't be so bad after all.  If worse came to worse, he could come back here for a birthday party.  Thus encouraged, he bid a short farewell to Pike. 

"Come back for your birthday.  Or I will buy cake," said Pike, waving from the door.

Jet snapped the reigns and his steed galloped into the rising sun. 

Virginia had to bend at the waist, or otherwise Kaitlyn's little arms wouldn't have been long enough to provide for hand-holding.  As the child skipped down the paved street, weaving between the sparse number of people at a strikingly rapid pace, hand-holding was definitely a necessity.  It was terrible for her back though, and the female Drifter was very relieved when the little girl brought her down to the bridge and finally stopped. 

Kaitlyn leaned over the stone railing, threatening to fall.  She lifted one small finger and pointed at the shadows underneath.  "I heard," she whispered so quietly that Virginia had to bend again, "that there's a goblin under the bridge.  He never comes out, and no one's been down to visit him for ages."

Rubbing the small of her back with the pads of her fingers as she straightened, Virginia smiled.  "It's probably just a rumor, Kaitlyn.  No goblins are going to live under a bridge in the middle of a human city." 

"No, it's true.  I came down here one day, when Daddy was gone and Mommy was cooking, and I heard it snoring!  I was….there," she said, as she pointed to a specific spot right below them, hidden completely by shadow, "and I heard him sleeping."  She paused; face wrinkling adorably, seemingly caught on a troubling subject.  "Do you think," she said after a few seconds, "that he gets lonely sometimes?"

Virginia chuckled.  "There isn't a goblin down there."

Kaitlyn, obviously not agreeing, countered, "But if there was?"

"I don't know how a goblin would feel. What makes you think he'd be lonely?"

"Because he's down there all alone, and in the dark.  He won't come out, and maybe because he's scared of the light like I'm scared of the dark, right?  But there aren't many other people like that, and the other goblins won't come and find him.  He'll be down there by himself forever!"  She spread her arms, trying to express the expanse of infinity.  "Don't you think that gets lonely sometimes?  If I were the goblin, I think I would get really lonely and really sad, without Mommy and Daddy with me." 

Perhaps a little credulous, Virginia's eyes wandered of their own accord to that hidden, secret, shadowed spot.  "Maybe," said she, as she joined the little girl in peeking over the bridge, "maybe he is lonely after all.  I think I'd be lonely too."

Kaitlyn slipped her tiny fingers against the gloved palm of the elder girl.  "Let's go meet him," she proposed, looking up with earnest.  "I was afraid before, but if Virginia's with me, I won't be.  Let's go meet him, and visit him, so that he won't be lonely anymore.  Because, even if he's a goblin, it isn't fair for him.  And I think he'd like it if we made friends with him.  Maybe he won't be as bad as the goblins in the fairytales.  Maybe he'll be really nice.  And then we'll like being his friends too."

Touched by such honest, innocent whim, the Drifter had no choice but to nod.  Squeezing the small fingers in reassurance, she turned towards the stairs.  Reason told her that she would find nothing but stone in that shadowed spot, but fancy told her otherwise.  Both seemed inclined to at least try, and so she planned to do just that.  But as she took the first step, her companion was suddenly not quite so eager.  Kaitlyn wouldn't budge, her feet were planted to the floor and her eyes peered curiously at the door of the ARMsmith.

"What's wrong?"  Virginia asked.

"I thought I saw…" the little girl began, but closed her mouth right after.  "Nevermind.  Let's go."  With renewed fervor, she bounced down the steps and slid down the ladder with Virginia in tow.

In the shadowed spot, there was nothing.  Kaitlyn wheezed with disappointment, pouting as if she could make a hole appear if she begged hard enough.  Virginia ran her fingers against the wall in the spots she couldn't see, where the stone was dimmed by lack of light, and found that part of it was cracked, and part of it was not made of stone at all, but of dried clay and dust.  There was nothing there now, but maybe if Clive could lend them a bomb or two…

"Virginia!  It's time for supper!" called the child, suddenly not beside her but in the open light, and with her limitless energy, she sprung up the stairs without further ado. 

"Maybe later then," Virginia mused to herself, and slowly echoed their footsteps home.  The sun had just begun to set, staining the sky with spilled reds and oranges that faded into blacks and blues like fire into bruises.  At the very edges of the forthcoming night, the first pioneer stars began to emerge.  Without a cloud in the distance, the night would be quiet and peaceful.  Perhaps she would get a better sleep.

"I was afraid you'd given me wrong directions too."

With her hand on the doorknob, she could only see the door, but in the door was embedded a copper doorknocker, and in the metal she could see his thin reflection.  "You sure took your time," she chided, turning slowly.  She saw that his horse was at the town gates, and that he had a wound that was not there before.  "We thought you'd never come at all, or that at least Clive would be a grandparent before you showed up.  I was mistaken.  You're not quite a coward after all."

He avoided her eyes carefully and conspicuously.  "That's a heavy title to give…."

The door slammed once.  Kaitlyn had come outside, to see what was keeping her playmate so long, to see if a goblin really had come out after all.  She paused, shy and half-hiding behind Virginia's skirts, eyes wide and searching and trying to find.  The goblin stopped what he had been saying and met her questioning gaze with a level and storm-ridden stare.  He remembered her.  He remembered almost everyone since that time.  It wasn't much to keep in his memory, which was so empty anyway.

"I saw you before," said the little girl, "are you Virginia's friend?" she asked meekly.

Meeting blue-green eyes with a fleeting glance, he nodded shakily.  "I think so.  Yeah.  Clive's daughter, aren't you?  Kaitlyn Winslet."

Reassured, Kaitlyn stepped out.  "Oh, you know Daddy too!" she exclaimed with a grin, "What's your name?"

"Jet Enduro." 

Spoiler Note:  A goblin really does live under the bridge in Humphrey's Peak.  Uncle Gob is part of a side quest to acquire an Ex File Key.