Tim hated tripping over roots in the dark. He trusted Kathryn knew where she was going, but sneaking through the woods by the light of the moon was not his preferred method of transportation. He felt like a criminal, running from what they'd done. And he wasn't a criminal. Never had been; didn't want to be. He wanted to know why they couldn't have waited for local law enforcement to arrive. They should be giving statements now, not careening through the underbrush toward their getaway vehicle.

Tim figured they were about halfway to the campground where she had moved his car when he heard it-someone running toward them through the woods.

Kathryn tugged hard on his arm, pulling him low to the ground as she ducked behind a tree. Tim could barely discern the silhouette of a man against the trees maybe 10 meters away. It looked like he had stopped as well, likely for the same reason they had. Tim carefully brought the rifle from his shoulder and began to raise it, but Kathryn pressed it back down toward the ground. He looked at her and she shook her head emphatically. She signaled him to wait and she crept off, slinking behind bushes and trees to circle around.

The stranger heard her movements and turned toward the sound. It was too dark for him to see much detail, but he placed his hand gingerly on the gun at his side. "Mick? Davis? That you? Bogdan called; sounds like you were really in the shit."

The man spun around, but not quickly enough. Tim watched as Kathryn launched herself out of the brush and tackled the man to the ground. He heard more than saw the struggle and he couldn't have gotten a clear shot off if he'd tried as the two figures before him tussled on the ground. Kathryn yelped and Tim felt helpless; it was so dark he couldn't even discern who had the upper hand.

Tim could hear that someone was taking a beating, and he made his way toward the fumbling bodies, hoping it wasn't Kathryn.

When he reached them only moments later, he discovered her straddling a dead man. Kathryn's right hand and face were spattered with blood. She had used her handgun as a bludgeon by holding it from underneath like a pair of improvised brass knuckles. Tim could see the man had pulled his weapon at some point, but it laid next to him on the ground, useless.

Kathryn was breathing heavily, holding her left side and wincing with each breath. She tossed her gun to the side and swiped a hand over her face. Tim couldn't help but realize she looked like the killer from a slasher movie. It made him uneasy. Looking at the scene before him, Tim was suddenly reminded of her tattoo-unexpectedly lethal creatures of the deep; small, but deadly.

"Go," she said, still atop the man's body.

"What?" he asked, tugging the rifle back over his shoulder.

"I can't..." she said, still panting and he could see, even in the dark, that she had pushed herself beyond the limits of her exhaustion. She finally moved away from the body, rolling onto her back in the leaves. "You'll find it, it's a little over a mile," she pointed vaguely into the distance, "that way."

Tim squatted down beside her. "No, ma'am, that's not gonna happen." Kathryn was still clutching at her left side. Tim pulled her hand away and realized she had been cut with something; maybe she'd fallen onto a sharp rock or maybe the man had a knife at some point, he couldn't be sure. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but the wound looked like it might require stitches. It was no wonder she was finally giving up. "Come on," he said, looping an arm under her shoulders and heaving her into a sitting position. She groaned in protest, but he ignored her and yanked her up to her feet.

"Deputy... ahh!"

If they were only a mile, he could carry her if he had to, but she seemed steady enough on her feet once he helped get her there, and they started in the direction she indicated, though their progress was slow.

Tim pressed his left arm firmly around her; his hand providing pressure over the wound she'd sustained. She faltered and lurched, leaning heavily against him. He struggled to maintain his balance; her weight combined with the weight of the rifle worked to throw his center of gravity into chaos.

It took nearly an hour for them to finally locate his vehicle. By the time they arrived, Kathryn was hardly bearing her own weight, so he tossed her rather unceremoniously into the passenger seat before settling into the driver's side.

"Use the northeast exit," she said. He looked over at her and saw that her eyes were closed, her body collapsed heavily against the seat. She was holding her left side again, but he knew there would be blood on the leather and he wondered how he would explain it the next time the car had to be inspected. He followed her instructions, however, and used the southeast exit out of the parking lot. He kept the headlights off and took the curves a little faster than he should have. He knew being stopped with a woman that looked half-dead in his car was not good, regardless of whether you were a U.S. Marshal or a veteran, and he wanted to be out of the park as quickly as possible.

#

Tim knew they were less than two hours away from his apartment and he briefly considered driving her there just for the familiarity. Instead, he pulled into the parking lot of the first motel he spotted and bought a room on the ground level. The long haired man behind the desk had given him a strange look when he requested an end unit behind the office, but had acquiesced to his request. Tim drove up to the room and gingerly helped Kathryn out of the car. He brought her straight to the bathroom to avoid getting blood on the carpet or bed, and she lowered herself gingerly into the tub with a hiss.

Tim retraced his steps, grabbing their belongings and the M110 from the car. When he came back into the room, he could hear the water running in the shower.

"Bring me a clean shirt and that duct tape."

He rifled through the backpack and the plastic Walmart bag with her things and found the duct tape she'd used at Ibsen's house, but there weren't any clean shirts. "All your shirts are used."

"A pair of the underwear will do, then."

He found the pack of Hanes she'd purchased and grabbed a rolled up pair from the bag and brought them to her. She had stripped down and was sitting in the bottom of the tub as she cleaned her wound. Now that he saw it in the light, it wasn't as bad as he'd originally thought. It was only about an inch and a half long, and it had mostly stopped bleeding, so it likely wasn't too deep. Still, there was a disconcerting amount of color accumulated in the water.

She turned the off the faucet and looked up at him. "It's mostly dirt," she said, holding her hand out for the items she'd requested. He handed them to her wordlessly. Normally, he would have had a sarcastic retort, but his brain was fuzzy with fury and confusion.

Kathryn stood and used a motel towel to dab at the wound. When it was sufficiently dry, she folding the briefs into a neat square and placed them over the cut before wrapping the duct tape around her torso multiple times to hold it in place. Then, she stepped out of the tub, wrapped the towel around herself and walked into the bedroom.

Tim sat down on the lid of the toilet. He clasped his hands in front of him, squeezing them together as hard as he could as he watched the dirty water swirl around the tub and eventually disappear down the drain. He sat there for another moment, reigning himself in. He looked down at his hands and realized there was a fair amount of Kathryn's blood still on his palms. He stood and scrubbed his hands vigorously, taking out his frustration on the skin of his fingers.

Tim left the bathroom and found Kathryn once again wearing the Grizzlies shirt he'd given her. A small, mean part of him wanted to take it back. She was searching through the plastic bags he'd brought in and he watched her pull the bottle of scotch from one of them.

"You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?"

She didn't even look at him as she filled a paper coffee cup to the brim. "You want any?'

"Look at me," he said. But she didn't. Instead, she half-filled a second cup and handed it to him before collapsing into the lone armchair in the room.

"What's got your panties in a bunch, Deputy?" She took a long drink from her cup and leaned her head back against the chair, her wet hair beginning to leave a watermark on the golden fabric.

"Why'd we flee that scene like we just held up a 7-Eleven?"

Kathryn sat up and tucked her legs up underneath her into a cross-legged position. She looked more than tired; the circles under her eyes seemed to take up most of her face and her color didn't look right. Under normal circumstances, he would be driving her to a hospital to at least be checked out by a physician, but he suspected that was not what she wanted.

"I told you I would do whatever it took to intercept that truck. To finish the job I'd started. I told you that not everything I was going to do might be straightforward. You wanted to come anyway." She drank some more and Tim gave in to the temptation as well. The liquor tasted like ash in his mouth, too peaty and dank for his taste buds, so he tossed it back in one large gulp to avoid the flavor without missing the pleasant warmth it left in its wake.

"You didn't tell me that I was going to leave a semi-truck full of underage victims in the middle of a dark forest."

She shrugged and it irritated the hell out of him. "I needed information from the person I work for. I needed her to send in the cavalry when the time came. None of that would have happened if I told her you were still here. As far as anyone is concerned, you returned home after you botched your assignment and are currently wallowing in your apartment reading Tolkien's complete bibliography. That's the way it has to be."

Tim was angry. More than angry; he was furious in a way he hadn't been in a long time. But when he returned Kathryn's gaze, he saw she was being truthful. At least, as truthful as she'd ever been with him.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It would've been really hard for me to do this all on my own tonight. Having you there... I needed you. Your skills. I didn't know if you'd accompany me if I told you." She ducked her eyes away from him and took another long sip of her drink. Tim walked over to the bottle and poured himself another double before throwing it back unceremoniously and dropping onto the bed.

The motel he'd pulled into was laid out in an large X-shape, and he had chosen the room at the end of one of the arms as far from the office and the road as he could. Because he'd chosen their room based solely on its location, he hadn't inquired about it's occupancy. The room they were in had only one bed and he realized suddenly how that might look to Kathryn. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes, but she seemed as unperturbed as a person who'd just killed multiple men could be; still tucked into the chair drinking scotch whiskey out of a paper cup.

"What now?" he asked.

"Now? Now we're done. You go home; I go home. My boss handles the paperwork."

That seemed suspiciously simple to Tim and he said as much, "There's no way we both walk away from this without any repercussions."

"You do," she said, "and you let me worry about the rest." She paused and then smiled at him. "You did good, Deputy Gutterson."

Tim sneered. "I'm not so sure." Tim untied his boots and kicked them off. He untucked his shirt and sat back against the headboard, folding his arms across his chest in what he knew was a petulant display, but he didn't care. He was hungry. He was angry. He was tired. Perhaps not as tired as Kathryn, but he could still feel it deep in the marrow of his bones.

He had resigned himself to an evening spent in silence when he heard Kathryn's voice, quiet and clear.

"You did a good thing tonight, Tim, even if you don't believe me. You saved the lives of those children. Dozens of them. They will get to go back to their families. They'll be allowed to go to school and grow up free from this. None of that would have been possible without you."

Tim thought about those small, terrified faces staring out at him from the back of the truck. He wondered how many there had been. Too many, he decided. "How many... shipments... have you intercepted?" He hated the way the word felt in his mouth, talking about human beings like cargo.

"This is the largest by far. I've spent all this time working my way up, engendering trust with vile men. This is the closest I've ever been to the top. To being able to stop them, truly, forever. If that CI hadn't talked..." she drifted off. Tim could see that she was teetering on the edge of drunk. With the amount of physical activity and lack of food, he wasn't surprised. She wasn't being shy about her drink, either, and he could see her cup was almost empty. She must have realized the same thing because she finally unfurled herself from the chair and walked over to the bottle, tipping the last of its contents into her cup.

She leaned-a bit precariously, Tim thought-against the dresser.

"This work is punishing. Demanding. Depressing." She took a drink, "But I wouldn't change it. Tonight; all the other nights like it. Makes it worth it."

"Is this all you do?"

"Pretty much," she said. "Of course, weapons and drugs go hand-in-hand with human misery. I've been asked more than once to put aside my work in favor of helping some asshole collar a low level drug offender. But I was recruited specifically to work human trafficking cases."

"Who recruited you?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could.

"Ah, Deputy, you're mistaken if you think I'm that drunk." Tim couldn't pretend he didn't like the coy smirk that lifted the edges of her mouth over her cup.

"Can't blame me for trying," he said.

Kathryn was swaying gently from side to side, still half-leaned against the dresser with her cup held loosely in one hand, curled against her chest. She was still smiling and he found himself smiling, too, despite the cruelty they had witnessed and perpetrated in the preceding hours.

Kathryn looked up at him and tossed back the last of her drink. "Today was a good day, Deputy."

Tim wasn't sure whether he agreed with her. He had certainly had worse days, but he thought her metric for 'good' must be pretty skewed to categorize the past 24 hours as anything other than fatiguing. He leaned his head back against the headboard and closed his eyes. For a moment, he was awash in blissful silence.

He heard Kathryn put her cup down and when he opened his eyes again, she was sliding onto the bed. She swung one leg over his torso and sat against his hips. The thought came to him, unbidden, that it was the same way she'd been straddling that dead man in the woods. He could feel his body tense beneath her, but she seemed utterly relaxed. He wondered if perhaps he should have had as much to drink as she had.

Tim felt self-conscious under Kathryn's close and attentive gaze. She was studying his face intimately and he wondered whether he had smeared blood or dirt on himself without realizing. Kathryn brought her hands up to his face and for a moment he thought she was going to wipe something off it. But instead, she leaned forward and kissed him softly.

This felt totally different than the other times she'd kissed him; no longer raw and hungry, but this something else entirely. Her fingers slid back into his hair and the back of her nails scraped gently against his scalp. It triggered a warm, tingling sensation that spread from his head, down his spine, and all the way to his toes. He couldn't remember ever being touched so gently by anyone, and it felt euphoric. Her mouth was still on his, and he rested his hands gently on her thighs, enjoying each small movement and sensation.

And then she pulled away just far enough that only the tips of their noses were touching. She gazed steadily into his eyes-a question. One that he answered by wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer.

As he did, his hands grazed the makeshift bandage at her side. "I don't want to hurt you," he said.

She leaned forward and whispered into his ear. "I know." And then she was kissing him again.

#

Afterward, he wanted to hold her, but he knew that if he slept he would dream, and he didn't want to wake her when he did. Instead, he took a cleansing and much needed shower, and then settled into the armchair with The Hobbit. He focused on each individual word intently, preferring the fictional dilemmas of Middle Earth to the reality of his day. Tomorrow, he would be back in Lexington. This detour would be over. He would unpack and re-pack his go bag, and head into the Marshals office with coffee. He was going to be exhausted for days, and he wished he could take an actual vacation day, though he knew Art would never stand for it.

Art. Shit.

Tim reached for his cellphone and flipped it open. Reluctantly, he played the voicemail Art had left him earlier. The message began without preamble, "Damn it, Tim! Answer your goddamn phone! Raylan's in some shit with this cartel and I need you back at the office. Your vacation is officially cancelled. Get here!"

Now Tim looked even less forward to returning to work in the morning. He was sure Art would not forgive being ignored. Rachel's message was less aggressive, but just as urgent, "Hi Tim. Sorry to bother you on your vacation day, but if you could come to the office, it would be a big help. I'd owe you one. If not, see you tomorrow."

Tim closed the phone and placed it on the bedside table. He looked over at the bed and saw Kathryn sleeping soundly, with the comforter tucked tightly under her chin. He wondered where she would be going tomorrow when they finally parted ways. He wondered a lot of things about her, and even more about the brief time they'd spent together. He imagined he would be drinking about this week a lot in the coming days as he replayed his unanswered questions in his mind and reviewed the shots he took, and those he didn't.

He thought of her tattoos and wondered if they were in a database somewhere that he had access to. While seeking her out that way would certainly be an abuse of his power as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, he figured it might be the only way he'd ever learn enough about her to satisfy his curiosity. Here last name. Who she worked for. How old she was. He knew once the adrenaline had dissipated and his mind was cleared by a good night's sleep, he would regret sleeping with her. It was possible he would regret most of this week.

And then he saw all those faces again and realized that she was right, at least in part. Today had been worth it to help them. To save them. Even if some of this shit did fly back at him later, he knew that much was true.

Tim settled back in with his book, glad for the escape.