Thanks to: dreamcatcher33, Valandil Eluch, Joetheone, and onefreetoroam for the fabulous reviews.

A lot of you had questions:
Yes, the italics are flashbacks, and they all have a purpose :P
The girl's are...you'll find that out this chapter.
Monroe's and Alma's kids are...you also find that out :D

Title: I Didn't Want You to Have the Pleasure
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Any recognizable character and/or place belongs to Annie Proulx. No profit is being made.

After she had walked half a mile away from her home, where her husband lie, dead on the floor, Alma turned back so as to cover her tracks. She took of her shoes, tip toed into the house and grabbed a pen and paper. She wrote in shaky handwriting, that she knew no one would confuse for hers:

Jack or Ennis,

If you find this, you already know I'm dead. I didn't want you to have the pleasure of killing me, so I did it myself.

Bill Monroe

She looked it over, hoping it sound real, and left again for the second and last time. Before going to Ennis' house, she would find her two younger boys, she figured they would be at Monroe's parent's. She was covered in blood, and she saw pictures of her everywhere. Eventually, she decided she couldn't go there, she didn't really care for the bastards anyway, so started to look for Ennis' and Jack's ranch.

Jack slipped shorts onto Ennis, who kept holding Alma's wrists. She wouldn't stop sobbing, kept going more and more limp. Once both men were a little covered up, Ennis let go of one of her wrists. She dove for the knife, and he grabbed her again.

"Alma, we gotta talk. Come sit on the couch, and leave the knife here."

He led her stiffly to the couch and sat down next to her. "First I wanna ask yeh somethin', Ennis." She turned to him, trying to ignore the fact that Jack was next to her…breathing.

"What?"

"Where are my girls?"

After they all had dinner, the girls left the kitchen. "Why'd they look so sad, Ennis? They looked like someone'd stepped on them, er somethin'."

"Oh," he swirled the little bit of soup broth in the bottom of his bowl, and looked only at that. "I told them they couldn't go ta a party. It would'a cost too much."

Jack raised his eyebrow, arousal glazed his eyes. "Ennis," his voice was deep, "Let 'em go. We can have ourselves a weekend alone."

Ennis looked up, smiled as Jack grabbed his hand and ran a thumb over it, then rose from the table. His voice shook when he first tried to use it, but then he steadied it. "Francine? Junior? I changed my mind!"

She glared at Jack. Of course, him and his devil worship had gotten her girls out of the house she walked miles to get to. He just looked her back in the eye, glared at her for a coupled seconds, then looked away.

"Alma, now it's my turn. What're yeh doin' here?"

"Um…Ennis, inn't it obvious?" Jack looked at him cautiously, not wanting to be put down for what he said.

"What?"

"She wants to kill me, Ennis." His voice was oddly steady for the subject matter. It didn't waver, and it was as deep as it normally was. "This is the second time."

"Jack, yer a moron, but I love you." He seemed to add the last words, so Alma wouldn't get any ideas. "I know why she's here. What I wanna know, is how the fuck she got here."

Alma couldn't very well ask around for Ennis' address, as her face was known pretty much everywhere. She walked the 30 miles to his house over a period of three nights, not walking in the day, avoiding people who might recognize her. She hoped to find that he was there, but he had moved. Luckily, a sign was on the mailbox, "ALL MAIL FORWARDED TO P.O. BOX T5N 1L6"The P.O. box wasn't their address, but it would be somewhere around them.

She walked to the post office, sat outside the building until the sun rose. She walked inside and into the bathroom, calm but trying to avoid eye contact. In the bathroom, she cleaned the blood and dirt off her arms and face, wiped off the front of her dress as best she could. Then she found the P.O. box and waited outside again, hoping Jack or Ennis would show her where to go.

She got lucky. Jack came, parked his truck outside the brick building and went outside. She climbed in the truck bed, hoping he wouldn't have anything to put in there and waited for him to come back out. After about 10 minutes, he did. He was flipping through bills as he clambered into the vehicle. She watched him put them on the seat behind him, felt the truck shudder as it started, and then he swerved onto the road. She couldn't help but give raw laugh: it wasn't everyday the victim took the murderer to the crime scene.