Ch. 23: Changes

Post Series

Changes

"What're you doing?"

He startled slightly when Vic came up behind him and spoke. Walt sat at his kitchen table with a pen and legal pad in front of him. Vic cast a quick look at the top page. It was mostly filled with Walt's familiar scribble.

Vic slid her eyes to Walt, still standing behind him.

"Was I in the shower that long?"

There was a note of amusement in her voice. He smiled at the question. When she left the living room earlier to shower, he was on the couch. The mood struck him and he grabbed the pad and pen from his desk.

Vic's hand landed on his shoulder and she leaned into him a bit.

"What's all this?"

She jutted her chin at the pad.

Walt cleared his throat.

"My letter to the Mayor and the County Commission that I intend to retire."

"Oh."

A beat of silence passed between them. Vic bent so that her mouth was near his ear, her breath warm on his skin. Her hand stayed on his shoulder.

"You know…most people do that stuff on a computer."

He huffed out a soundless laugh, his upper body vibrating.

"Don't have one."

He felt her smile.

"I do. Do you want to borrow it?"

Her laptop. She almost always had it with her in the bag she carried to and from work. But, he was more a pen to paper kind of man. He liked the physical act of writing out his thoughts. The satisfying sound of pen scratching over paper as he put what was in his mind into physical form. Just like he preferred the weight of a book in his hand over the e-readers he heard about.

Personal preference and all that.

"Maybe when I'm ready to finish it. This is just…thoughts."

Vic's eyes flicked over the page again, too fast to really read any of it.

"Looks like a lot of thoughts. I could write it for you. Short and sweet."

She pressed a little further into him, her other hand landing on his opposite shoulder and sliding down a bit so that she was almost draped over his back.

"What would you say?"

She rocked forward a little.

"To whom it may concern. Gotta be official. Fuck off. Sincerely Walt Longmire."

Walt smiled. His right hand laid down the pen and reached up to trace his fingers lightly over the small bones of her hand.

"That's it?"

"Mmm-hmm. Like I said, short and sweet."

"I don't know about sweet, but it's definitely to the point."

That was a good description of Vic herself. To the point. She inhaled and pressed her mouth to his ear.

"You still writing your thoughts?"

Walt's head tilted forward.

"Um…"

Vic laughed, knowing her close proximity scattered his thoughts. She was clearly in a mood. Her voice was low and intimate. Her hands were soft on him.

"If you were…what would you write?"

He knew she wasn't talking about his letter of resignation. Or, his letter of intent to retire. That was a better description. He wasn't really resigning. He was retiring. Stepping away while he still had something to step to. Offering up his part of a compromise that was laying the foundation for something with her.

"I…"

His words faded out again. Vic pushed at him and then straightened up, releasing her hold on him. Walt turned slightly as Vic shifted more into his line of sight.

"So…?"

Walt leaned back in his chair and really looked at her for the first time since she came in the kitchen. Her long, damp hair was combed out, hanging over her shoulders. She wore loose cotton pants and a gray tank top. Her feet were bare. He could smell the cleanliness that trailed her from the shower. It was a smell he was quickly growing to love. The smell of her shampoo floating on the warm, damp air of his bathroom. Or the smell of her soap when she leaned in close to him, her skin still a little wet from the spray of water in his shower.

It was an intimacy most didn't think much of. Admittedly, he hadn't either until she started to stay at his place overnight. It was easy to get wrapped up in the more obvious thoughts that circulated in his mind whenever she was close to him. How she felt. How she tasted. The way her fingers dug into his back and shoulders at just the right moment when they were in bed together.

His bed. Or, maybe it was their bed now. It didn't even rattle him how quickly he stopped thinking in terms of his and started to think about them and theirs. She struggled with that more than he did. Not because of any misguided sense of propriety as much as a fear of getting hurt. A fear of losing more than she already lost.

But, Walt was steady. He didn't fear commitment. He never really did. Commitment wasn't hard for him. He was built for it. He didn't think that aspect bothered Vic either. Again, he knew her own reticence was rooted in fear, not a lack of feelings. The emotions were there. She just needed her mind to catch up.

And, it was.

Slowly, but surely.

She was here more nights than she wasn't. When she did make the choice to go home, she always seemed a bit reluctant. Hesitant. That made him feel good. That she didn't want to be away from him as much as she might need some time to herself. To process and work her way through the minefield that her mind had become recently.

It was a battle that she was winning. On her own and with his help.

Walt studied her, but didn't reply. Vic tilted her head, her eyes golden in the soft light of his kitchen.

"What?"

He shrugged and reached out, placing his hand on her hip. His thumb made a slow path between the waistband of her pants and the hem of her shirt, her skin warm underneath. Her eyes held his, but she didn't say anything either.

Slowly, Walt stood up, his hand stayed in place on her hip bone. Vic's eyes tracked the motion of his rise. That was her nature. To hold her ground. Even after everything, she still possessed that spirit that he appreciated so much in her.

Loved, really.

Her neck tilted back as he stood. Walt's other hand found a home on her side, so that he was holding her there in front of him. He dipped his face forward maintaining the eye contact that seemed electric and impossibly intense.

Something flickered across her face.

"You make everything worth it."

That was it. No beautiful poetic words. Nothing that would go down in history. A simple sentence that expressed the thoughts that were going off in his mind just then. The simple, untarnished truth.

Judging by the way her expression changed, she hadn't been expecting him to say something quite like that. Walt wasn't great at expressing himself. Everyone knew it. He could get a point across, but he often struggled with how to verbalize the enormity of what he felt. A lot of people made the mistake of assuming that meant he didn't feel things deeply.

But, he did. Vic did, as well.

He could read it on her face in that moment. She pressed her lips together and her throat shifted under the skin with a swallow. A smile pulled at the edges of her mouth, the gold hue of her eyes lighting up.

"Hmm."

That was all. Just a sound of acknowledgement. Maybe, even wonder. Walt smiled in return.

"What about you?"

Turnabout was fair play. Vic's smile widened.

"I'm not much of writer. I'm…better at show and tell."

"Are you?"

A hum of electricity was running through him now. Vic stepped back and his hands dropped away from her. She took his hand and pulled on it lightly.

"Yeah, come on. I'll show you."

Leaving the pad and the pen on the table, he followed her.