A/N: A point of clarification: Lureen had a hysterectomy two years ago. I REALLY wanted to get this into part 14 because I just knew that would be a point of discussion, but there just wasn't an appropriate place for it. It didn't fit into any of their conversations. So I'll just tell you now so you don't have to speculate about a love-child. That's a little too soapy for me.

Ennis picked up Jack's bag and followed him into the house. He was sniffling and he had a funny lost look about him, like he didn't quite know where he was. He looked around. "Is Lizzie still up?" he asked.

"No," Ennis said. "You wanna go say hi? I'm sure she wouldn't mind none. She's been anxious t'see you."

Jack sighed and shook his head. "No. Let her sleep. I'll see her in the morning."

Ennis slid an arm around his waist. "C'mon, rodeo. You 'bout to drop." He led him into the bedroom.

"I wanna shower," Jack mumbled. "I'm all grimy." He started off towards the bathroom. Ennis caught his hand and pulled him back. Jack smiled. "What you want, now?"

Ennis put his arms around him. "Jus' t'have a good look at my man here, home safe." He kissed him gently, then rested his forehead against Jack's. "I was worried, y'know. And then when you didn't call..."

"I'm sorry, I truly am," Jack said, his hand on Ennis's neck. "But things were happenin' and I…I jus' couldn't think about it. I knew you'd understand."

Ennis nodded. "I know." He released him. "You git now. You are a mite rank, at that," he said with a smirk. Jack gave him a shove, then headed into the bathroom.

Ennis heard the water start up as he started to unpack Jack's bag. He tossed the clothes into the hamper until he came to one of Jack's dress shirts that had to go into the dry cleaning. He was about to put it aside when he saw that a button was missing. Damn, Jack, los' a button...wait, two buttons...three buttons? Ennis held the shirt up, his mind wiping itself clean as he saw that the shirt was missing six or seven buttons. The threads that had held them on were ragged and frayed. Only one way that happened to a shirt, and that was for it to be ripped off by someone who wanted pretty badly to get to what was underneath.

The sound of Jack's shower faded to white noise.

By the time Jack emerged, Ennis had put everything away and gotten into bed. "Feel better?" he asked.

Jack sighed. "Almos' human." He came around to his side of the bed and dropped his towel, climbing in naked. Ennis held out one arm and Jack sighed deeply as he came against Ennis's chest, tucking his head into his shoulder. "Feel good now," he said.

"You wanna tell me this news, then?"

"Well...Bobby didn't kill himself on account 'o me bein' queer."

Ennis frowned. "No?"

"You ain't gonna believe this. L.D. made all that up jus' to get at me. He showed Lureen a phony suicide note what he'd wrote himself."

Ennis shut his eyes, marveling at the depths some folk would sink to. "That unbelievable son of a bitch."

"Lureen surely gave him what for. Slapped his face, threw him outta the house. I mighta helped her with that last bit." Jack turned his head and kissed Ennis's neck, resettling himself closer, his arm curled around Ennis's side.

"I'm glad you found out the truth," Ennis said. "If he'd really done what he done 'cause of…you know, 'cause of us...that mighta ate at you for a long time. That kinda guilt works like a cancer. We mighta gotten sick with it." Anything else happen in Texas that might cause us trouble, Jack? There's other kinds 'o cancers than the guilty kinds. Anything else liable t'make us sick? If we catch it early enough, mayhap we c'n cut it out 'afore it spreads. That is…if you see fit t'tell me it's even there.

"But God, Ennis...he killed himself 'cause some girl wouldn't have him," Jack said, his voice trembling. "The boy had his whole life ahead…couldn't he've seen past it? It's just so stupid."

"Couldn'ta been stupid t'him," Ennis murmured, stroking Jack's hair. "Sometimes boys get t'dreamin', and...well, they do things don't make no sense." He pressed his lips to Jack's forehead. "I'm so sorry, Jack. I wish I could make it okay for you."

Jack raised his head. "You are." He leaned forward and kissed him. "Ennis," he whispered, pulling him closer. "I need you bad, cowboy," he breathed. "Come make me forget it."

Ennis didn't respond at first. He wasn't sure he could keep it up. But Jack's lips were soft, coaxing his own into response, Jack's tongue easing his lips open, and he'd been sleeping alone three nights running...he seized Jack and dove into his mouth, pushing him over to his back. Jack's hand slid into his pajamas and gripped him.

Needing to get it done, needing to stake his claim anew, Ennis turned Jack around on his side so they were back to front. He yanked his pajamas down and held Jack tight to his chest, reaching between them with his other hand to guide himself. Jack groaned as Ennis pushed into him, one arm arching back around them to hold Ennis's hips tight against his own.

Ennis shut his eyes. Was it like this with her? Could she take you like this, hold you like this? Did she feel as good as this?

He slid his hand down and wrapped his fingers around Jack, stroking him in time with his quick, shallow thrusts. Jack's neck was arched, his head tucked back into Ennis's shoulder, small whines of urgency coming from his throat. He sucked in a breath and spilled over Ennis's hand, his cry of release escaping from behind his clenched teeth. Ennis grabbed his hip and thrust once, twice, and them came into him in silence.

Jack sighed, shuddering. Ennis pulled out and flopped onto his back, his chest heaving. Jack flipped over and burrowed close again. Ennis wrapped both arms around him, feeling him flinch at the ferocity of the embrace, and trapped him there. He kept Jack tight against him and didn't ease up, not even after they were both asleep.

Ennis knocked on Lizzie's door. "Lizzie? Ain't you want no breakfast?"

"Come in, Ennis."

He pushed the door open to find her packing her bag. "Well...what's all this, now?"

She smiled at him, a little sadly. "I'm leaving. Going back to the city."

Ennis came in and stood by her bed, frowning. "Now, why'd you wanna go'n do a silly thing like that?"

She sighed. "I can't stay up here forever, Ennis. I can't keep hiding away and pretending I'm Lizzie the Ranch Gal. I might start to think this could be my life, and if I stay too much longer it'll be too damned hard to leave. It's hard enough as it is. I've got to get back to my life. I have a job I've been neglecting, and a husband I've barely spoken to since I've been here." She hesitated, then looked up at him. "I wish this could be my life. I wish this was my world, but it's yours. Jack's just been through an awful tragedy, and you guys need some peace and some time alone to get through it. I only stayed this long so you wouldn't be here by yourself while he was gone."

"You're right about needin' time alone...in fact, I was comin' in here to tell you that I'm takin' Jack up to our cabin by the border for a few days. He needs to rest himself some. But I meant to say you ought t'stay, and do your writin', and that Marianne'd see t'you, and..." He sagged, sorrow at the thought of Lizzie leaving pushing his shoulders down. "So you go ahead 'n stay if you want to."

She smiled up at him, blinking, then all at once she came around the bed and hugged him, her arms around his waist. After a startled moment, Ennis hugged her back. "I do want to," she said, muffled against his shirt. "But I can't. I have to go back to reality sometime. Better sooner than later."

"But...how're you gonna..."

"Dr. Llewellyn said he'd drive me to the airport. I've got a flight this afternoon." She swiped at her eyes and took a deep breath. "How's Jack? Is he okay?"

Ennis sighed. "He's awful tired. But he ain't gotta feel guilty 'bout Bobby, at least." He filled her in on Jack's news about Bobby's suicide.

Liz sat down. "Oh, thank God," she said. "I mean...it's still terrible, and everything, but..."

"I know what you mean," Ennis said.

"I can't believe L.D. could be so…so evil!"

"You'n me both. I'd like to get my hands on that man, and no mistake. But it's all over'n done with now, and it sounds like Lureen's well shut of him now, too."

"And things were okay with Lureen? She and Jack didn't have any trouble?"

Keep yer fuckin' trap shut, Del Mar. She don't need t'know. "I guess so. Seems she's fixing t'move to Georgia, or some such."

Liz nodded. "Is he in the kitchen?"

"He's still sleepin'. I didn't want to disturb him none. But he'll want t'say goodbye." Ennis felt suddenly forlorn. "'O course, we'll neither of us want t'say goodbye."

Liz became very interested in her suitcase, keeping her eyes on it. "Neither will I." She swiped at her eyes. "Peter's coming to pick me up at noon."

"I wanna be on the road around two. It's about a three hour drive up to the cabin."

"Okay."

They stood there looking at each other. "Well...you come have somethin' t'eat, now. Ain't gonna get naught but peanuts on the plane."

She nodded, a forced smile on her face. Ennis left her room and shut the door behind him, morose at the thought of it being empty again.

Jack was stretching and yawning when he came back into their bedroom. "What timezit?" he groaned.

"Bit past ten." He sat on the bed and kicked his feet up, his back against the headboard. Jack slid over and leaned into his side. "You wanna tell me 'bout Texas, then?"

He felt Jack nod. Ennis rested his arm around Jack's shoulders and listened as he told him all about the visitation, and meeting Bobby's friends, and then the funeral...Jack broke into tears describing it and had to stop for a moment. Ennis held him while he cried, and gave him his hanky to blow his nose, and listened again as he continued. L.D.'s deception, and the confrontation he'd had with him, and going through Bobby's things. Ennis could hear that Jack was proud of himself for having told L.D. off, and called him out on what he'd done.

He saw the hole. He knew where the thing Jack wasn't telling him about fit into the story. He could see it. Jack and Lureen throwing L.D. out of the house, a united front against him, devastated, emotional, realizing that their child was really and truly in the ground and gone from the earth. It made some kinda sense. Not good sense, more like the kinda sense that made him want to pound someone's face in, but sense all the same. He shut his eyes, glad that Jack couldn't see his face, as his brain insisted on showing him an image of Jack in bed with her, on top of her, her legs wrapped around him. He'd given Jack a chance to say it, and he hadn't. That was to be dealt with later. Now, Jack had to get all this out. "I took a coupla trophies, and his football helmet. Some pictures. She's gonna send 'em along," Jack said, sounding wrung out again. He was resting his head against Ennis's stomach by now. "Maybe I c'n build some kinda case for 'em." Jack picked up Ennis's hand where it lay on the mattress and held it up, lacing their fingers together. "I wished you were there with me, except...in a way, you were. I'd hear your voice sometimes, it seemed."

Ennis had to bite his lip to keep quiet. Then why the hell didn't I tell you NOT to fuck your ex-wife?

Jack fell asleep again after his tale was told, but Ennis couldn't let him be for very long. "Get up, rodeo. We gotta pack."

"Pack?" Jack said, rubbing his eyes. "Where we goin'? I jus' got back!"

"I'm taking you up t'the cabin for a spell," Ennis said, pulling out their suitcases. "You need some quiet 'n rest."

Jack flopped back. "Oh, hell yes. That there's a mighty fine plan." He reached out and snagged Ennis's finger. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For takin' care 'o me."

"Well, who else is gonna do it, I'd like t'know." Ennis was filling the suitcases. Underwear, jeans, shirts...he stopped, remembering the other thing Jack needed to know. "Oh, Lizzie's leavin'."

Jack frowned, his head coming up. "Leavin'? Where's she goin'?"

"Back home. Pete's takin' her to the airport. He's comin' for her at noon."

Jack sighed. "Well, damn. Y'know, I almos' forgot that she don't live here."

"I know what y'mean."

"I'm gonna be sorry as hell t'see her go. But I guess it had t'happen sooner or later." He got out of bed and walked around to his dresser for drawers and jeans. Ennis saw his own fingermarks outlined in red on Jack's bare hip, and felt a grim kind of satisfaction. "I'm gonna go talk t'her before she leaves."

"I'll jus' finish up the packin', then."

Jack pulled on a shirt, ducked in and kissed Ennis's cheek, and left the room. Ennis looked after him for a moment. A violent shudder rippled over him, and he barely made it into the bathroom in time before his breakfast came up.

"I hear you're leavin' us."

Liz turned from her desk. Jack was in the doorway. "Oh. Yes, I am." She stood up and went to him. "Jack, I am so sorry about Bobby. I never got the chance to say so." She hugged him tightly.

"Thanks, swee'pea. It's hard, but I gotta try'n get on with my life." He hugged her back for a moment, then stepped away. "Packin' up your writin', I see."

She put her legal pads into her briefcase. "Yeah. I've got a lot of notes here. I hope they still make sense when I..." She frowned. "Jack, what's wrong?"

His head jerked up, his eyes wide. "Nothin'."

She peered at him. "Something's wrong." She watched as Jack started to deny it again, then he put one hand over his eyes.

"Oh, God, Lizzie...I fucked up."

Liz went past him and shut the door, then pushed him into the office chair, pulling her desk chair close. "What? What happened?" He looked up at her with miserable, scared eyes and she knew. "Oh, Jack. You didn't."

"I didn't mean to! It was...we threw L.D. outta that house and I was so mad, and she was just so crushed, and then we were both cryin' and..." He scrubbed both hands over his face. "God, what'd I do?"

Liz reached out and rubbed his shoulder. "It could've happened to anyone. People get stupid when they're really emotional."

"I cain't lose him, Lizzie."

"You won't. Did you tell him?"

"No. I don't know what I'm doin'." He sniffed. "I don't know if I should."

"I think you need to."

"I'm afraid to."

"But if he finds out anyway, and you didn't..."

"How can he possibly find out?"

"Trust me, he can. There's always a way."

Jack shook his head, kneading his hands together. "Dammit, Lizzie. Without him I got nothin', I ain't nothin', and if he..."

"Shhh," she said, stroking his hair like a child. "Ennis loves you. He'll understand."

"I ain't so sure 'bout that."

"He isn't going to throw all this away, all you've built and worked for, over this. I mean, it isn't like you picked up some girl...or some guy...in a bar for kicks. It's Lureen, and your only child just died, and...well, I think it's understandable, but that's just me."

Jack's head was lowered. She couldn't see his face. "He said the word," he whispered.

"What?"

"The word. The word he don't use. Right before I left." Jack took a deep breath and blew it out. "He wanted t'come with, and I said no. I asked him why he should, and he said..." He had to stop for a moment. "He said he oughta come because he's my husband and he oughta be there with me." He raised his head and met Liz's eyes. "He finally said that, what I been wantin' t'hear for years, and I was in such a state I c'd barely appreciate it. And then I turned right 'round 'n cheated on him."

Liz didn't know what to say. She didn't know the right advice, the right course. She grasped Jack's shaking hands. "I don't know how to help you, Jack," she said, quietly. "I just know that what you and Ennis have is special, and it's strong, and it's withstood so much already. I just can't believe that this could break it."

He sighed deeply, nodding. "I sure hope you're right." He sat back and wiped his eyes, putting the topic behind him. "Well...you jus' better come back 'n visit us," he said, smiling.

Liz nodded. "Try and keep me away."

"I sure am gonna miss you, Lizzie."

"Me too, Jack." She sighed. "I'll miss you somethin' fierce." It was the closest she could ever allow herself to come.

Peter was there at noon, right on schedule. Liz lingered on the porch, hugging Ennis and then Jack and then Ennis again. Amidst many promises to call, and visit, she tore herself away from the porch and climbed into Peter's car. She watched out the window, waving at the spare figures standing by the stairs waving back, until they were over the ridge and out of sight.

She faced forward. "Thanks for the ride, Peter."

"My pleasure. Though I'm sorry that it's to take you away from us."

"I'm sure I'll be back for visits."

He glanced at her. "Once you're back in the city it'll feel like home again."

"I don't know," Liz said. She tried to hold it back, but the lump rose in her throat in spite of her best efforts. She held her hand to her mouth. "I don't know if anyplace feels like home to me anymore...except here." She sat quietly for a moment as Peter pulled onto the highway, pointing his practical Toyota towards Burlington. She watched him as he drove, that Ichabod Crane profile with the surprisingly sharp gray eyes. "You ever been married, Peter?"

"I'm a widower."

Liz flushed with embarrassment. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's all right, you didn't know."

"When…how did she…"

"She died four years ago. She had a very severe form of leukemia. It killed her in two years." He hesitated. "I diagnosed her, actually. It was probably the worst day of my life. Worse even than the day she died, because we'd made our peace by then, and said our goodbyes. But that first day…we weren't prepared." He pulled himself out of his reverie. "I'm sorry, that's really a downer."

"Oh, don't apologize."

A long pause. "You know, that might be why I came down on you so hard about bothering Ennis and Jack. I lost the person I loved, so I just want everybody to be able to keep theirs close." He glanced at her. "You, uh…having any luck with that issue we discussed?"

Liz snorted. "Moot point now, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"You must think I'm deeply silly," she said, sighing. "Falling for a man who's so profoundly unavailable in so many ways."

Peter chuckled. "Well, if you are, you've got plenty of company."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "I do?"

"Let's just say you wouldn't be the first woman in town who had palpitations over our Jack, or over Ennis, for that matter. Although I have to admit, you do distinguish yourself in that you never thought you could seduce him away, or tried."

"Women have tried?"

Peter chuckled. "I'm not surprised they didn't tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"Oh, about the time Dottie Farnsworth had a little too much wine at the Rotary dinner and literally draped herself across Jack's lap. I don't know what she whispered in his ear but he turned damned near purple. Or about how Linsey Gardiner, she's one of the leaders in the 4-H, calls the ranch about once a month asking Jack if he'll come demonstrate his husbandry techniques, strongly implying that he might use her for practice if he's so inclined." By this time Liz was laughing uproariously. Peter grinned. "Ask Ennis how many free beers he's gotten out at the Fishery from Alice Doctorow. He hasn't paid for drafts in years. Ask Jack how many senior girls out at the high school apply to work at the ranch for their FFA work-coop every year."

"Don't these women get it?" Liz asked, calming herself down.

"They get it. They just don't get it really. They probably think that if either of them got a taste of a real woman, them for instance, they'd never look back." He sighed. "I guess what they don't get is that it isn't just about the sex."

Liz was looking out the window again. "Sex can't make a relationship, but it sure can break one."

Jack had been sitting motionless in a deck chair for half an hour, staring out at the river. He was no closer to a decision than he had been when he'd sat down, determined to just make up his mind, already.

He heard Ennis come out the back door. He didn't look around. Ennis's footsteps stopped even with his chair, and he saw the tall shadow on the deck planks next to his own. "Everthin's packed," Ennis said.

"Good."

"Well...'cept for this."

He tossed a shirt into Jack's lap. Puzzled for a moment, Jack picked up the dress shirt, light blue...with six or seven buttons missing. His whole body went numb. It was the shirt he'd worn to the funeral, the shirt Lureen had torn off of him. Ennis had...you fuckin' moron. He unpacked your bag for you 'cause you were too wrecked. He found this shirt. And he ain't no dummy.

His hands clenched in the shirt. He'd have ripped it to shreds if he'd had the energy. Slowly, he raised his eyes to Ennis's face. He was just standing there, his gaze fixed out into the middle distance, his hands in his pockets. Jack saw his chest rise and fall as he let a silent sigh escape him. "You coulda told me," he said, quietly.

Jack's jaw seemed to be glued shut. Ennis walked forward to the railing and put his hands on it, his hips canting to one side as he leaned his weight on it. His head dropped a little, and Jack thought that if Ennis were to turn around, hand him a knife and ask him to plunge it into his own heart, Jack's only comment would be to ask if he didn't maybe have a duller knife.

He waited. He waited for what felt like forever. Ennis just stood there. Jack's hands were still bunched up in the goddamned shirt. He looked down at it, seeing not this shirt but the image of another shirt. Two shirts.

In his childhood closet back in Lightning Flat, secreted in a hollow space in the closet, was a hangar bearing two shirts. One of his own, and one of Ennis's. The shirts they'd worn that long-ago summer when all this had begun, shirts stained with the blood of a scuffle borne of too many emotions welling up into hearts ill-prepared to contain them. Ennis's shirt was tucked inside his own, kept safe there since that summer, when Jack had feared that all he'd ever have of Ennis was that shirt and those memories, tucked inside him and sacred.

But now he had all of Ennis. He'd meant to go back and collect those shirts, time and again, while Ennis was visiting the girls in Riverton. He'd been in that house, in that room, even in that closet, and he hadn't taken them. It had just seemed wrong, and he wasn't sure why. He liked the idea of those shirts hanging there, him and Ennis layered together in a remote house in Wyoming, out there in the world where no one would know what it meant, and no one would look askance. It was that shout from the housetops he couldn't allow himself to voice: this is us, this is what we are, this is how we feel, this is why we live. A statement of truth, his only truth, that stayed there untouched and inviolate.

The story of his life in shirts. Those shirts, and now this shirt. The ones that told the tale of the birth of their relationship, and this one that might spell its death.

Ennis turned around. His face was unreadable, a granite slab with glittering eye-points squinted against the afternoon sun. "Were you ever gonna tell me?" he said.

Jack wished he could find it in himself to lie, but the truth was all he had left. "I hadn't made up m'mind," he said, sighing.

Ennis nodded. "I see."

"Ennis, listen, I..."

He held up a hand, cutting him off. "I don't wanna talk about it." He walked back towards the house. Jack sat miserably clutching the shirt. Ennis paused by his chair. "C'mon. I wanna get t'the cabin 'afore dark."

Jack got up, intending to follow him…but there was something to be taken care of first. He walked forward to the firepit cut into the deck planks and tossed the shirt in. He withdrew a kitchen match from the holder, lit it, and set the thing on fire. He stood and watched it burn, the acrid smoke drifting into his eyes, until it was nothing but ashes and a few button fragments. He picked up a half-drunk bottle of beer from the deck and doused it, then drew his arm back and threw the bottle as hard as he could. It sailed up in an arch, over the porch and the yard, and landed somewhere beyond his sight.

Ennis was putting their bags in the back of Jack's truck, which was still sitting in the dooryard where he'd left it the night before.

Jack climbed into the passenger seat. Ennis was just sitting there behind the wheel, not starting the truck, not doing anything.

Jack could only think of one thing to say. "Ennis, I lo…" was as far as he got.

"Jack, if you tell me you love me, I'm gonna shove your ass outta this truck and leave you in the dirt." He looked at him. "Words come easy, bud. Anyone can say 'em. Don't make 'em true. Livin' them words is the hard part. Too hard for you, I guess." He turned the key in the ignition and started up the truck.