When they finally risk a safe house again, it's in Dexter, Iowa and not because of safety.

Winter comes with a vengeance, and the Barrow Gang's best stolen coats aren't enough to keep Heather and Harold from coming down with nasty coughs. When those coughs turn to fevers, Duncan and Al agree to postpone any fighting over a jewelry heist until they recover. The brothers are back on speaking terms within the week, much to Courtney's annoyance.

They stop at the first foreclosed estate in their new altered travel pattern, a square white house with two stories and a wrap-around front porch. Most of the windows are smashed in. Duncan sends Courtney out for food and medicine while he tries to winter-proof the house, and Al tends to his wife. At the pharmacy, Courtney purchases the necessary medicine. After buying some groceries and stealthily pinching others, she uses her measly share of the last few jobs to buy three bottles of whiskey off a shady character on the street corner.

Al doesn't say a word to her when she returns and dumps the shoplifted medicine on the counter. He parses it out and sets aside half of each bottle for Heather, letting Courtney take the rest to Harold. The redhead shakes uncontrollably and whimpers for his mother when Courtney adjusts his blanket. She gives him his medicine and lets him take a swig of whiskey to keep warm. She leaves two bottles in the kitchen, then takes the third and sequesters it in the bathroom solely for herself.

By the time Duncan crawls into bed beside her, he's covered in soot from cleaning the chimney, his hands are blistered from boarding the windows, and Courtney is too drunk to see straight. They sleep in their coats at opposite ends of the bare mattress.

In the morning, Courtney throws up in the bathroom sink.

"It's fine. I'm fine," Courtney mutters. The faucet doesn't work. She washes down the taste of vomit with more whiskey. "Just something I ate."

Despite her intentions of making it last, Courtney finishes her personal bottle of whiskey before Heather and Harold are over their fevers. Under the pretense of another medicine run, Courtney bundles up and goes into town to find the gentleman she had encountered the week before. He's nowhere to be found, and she's careful not to arouse suspicion by asking too many questions. She climbs the icy hill back to the safehouse with the medicine and no alcohol, already shaking from more than just cold.

Her first night without is hell. When two in the morning comes around and Courtney still can't settle enough to sleep, she walks outside and smokes a pack of cigarettes, then checks Harold's empty flask for the fiftieth time. Gritting her teeth, Courtney hustles to the kitchen and goes for the communal bottle in the cupboard. No one will notice a few more gulps missing.

After opening and closing all the cabinets, however, Courtney finds that the bottle is gone. Not empty, not moved. Gone.

She walks back to the bedroom and rudely jostles Duncan awake.

"Where'd you move the whiskey?" she says.

"What?" he mumbles.

She shakes him again. "I bought two bottles. I know we finished one on Wednesday. Where's the second one? Didja drink it already?"

"I hid it," he says, groggy.

Courtney stares. "You what?"

Duncan sighs deeply and turns over.

"Yer drinking too much, baby. I know yer still out of sorts from Joplin, but ya can't—"

"I can't?" Courtney hisses. "I can't, Duncan?! I am an adult woman, who can deal with her issues any way she sees fit!"

"Fuck, Courtney, come to bed," he murmurs, grabbing for her hand. "We've got another gas station tomorrow and I need ya to be clear."

Without a sound, Courtney spins on her heel and stalks to the suitcase she'd been sharing with Duncan. Behind her, Duncan swears lazily and rolls back onto his stomach.

Courtney pulls out her dress and rips open the bottom hem, seam to seam. She pulls out the letter to her sister, grabs her paltry share of the last few jobs from inside her socks. She shoves her gun into the pocket of her coat, pulls it on, and fumbles into her shoes. Fuck him. Fuck Duncan Clyde.

She's done.

Being a criminal and a thief was one thing. They're killers now. She's a killer now. No matter what Heather or Officer Izzy or her mother said, Courtney's sober conscience knows the truth. At least ten people are dead because of her choices.

Walking to the garage, she hears her mother's voice promising, "It's not too late to turn back."

Courtney gets in the driver's seat of the Ford, not caring how loudly she slams the door shut. She reaches for the glove compartment but can't find the spare keys. She checks the glove compartment again and between the seats a dozen times. The garage is cold. Courtney's shaking doesn't stop when she curls up in the front seat of the Ford to come up with a new escape plan. It doesn't stop when she sits up and tries to smoke. Her hands tremble too violently to light a cigarette. The bright spot of her lighter makes her nauseous.

She throws open the car door and vomits yellow foam onto the garage floor. The sweat down her neck and back chills in the night air. Hanging half out of the car, Courtney spits out the last of her phlegm and mutters, "Fuck it."

With wobbly limbs, she climbs out of the car, stepping over her mess on the floor, and opens the door back into the house.

The smell of whiskey hits her immediately. A bottle sits resting on the coffee table in the parlor, open. She starts to bolt to it, but stops when a voice calls out to her from the dark.

"Can't sleep?"

Alejandro looks up from the gun in his lap to Courtney. Duncan's, Heather's, and his own guns are lined up on the table before him and beside him on the legless parlour sofa. He glances between her and the bottle of whiskey on the table.

"Want a drink?" he offers. "I found this baby hidden in the fireplace."

Courtney's jaw clenches. She grips her hands into fists and finishes walking out the front door. She kicks it shut behind her. Fuck Alejandro Barrow too.

Near the bottom of the hill, Courtney has to stop and vomit again. She leans on a tree by the side of the road to steady herself.

Her hand slips.

She lands shoulder-first in half an inch of icy snow and dead branches and tumbles the next six feet down the hill. At the bottom, Courtney rolls back her sprained shoulder and swears viciously into the night. Headlights glance over the snow in her direction. Quickly, Courtney lays herself flat on the ground, shaking and sweating, but not moving as the car passes. She holds as still as she can, her mind drifting to Dallas summers, until she loses feeling in her face.

When she's sure the car is long gone, Courtney groans and uses a nearby mailbox to stand. On the icy ground, her feet slide out from under her. A hand catches her.

"C'mon, chica," Al's voice says quietly. "There are easier ways to get yourself sick."

He smells like whiskey. It keeps Courtney moving as Al slips her arm across his shoulder and guides her back up the slippery hill to the safehouse. He sits her down in front of the fireplace, where he's started a small fire, and puts the bottle of whiskey and a glass beside her. She grabs the bottle and shrugs off his attempt to toss his coat over her. Al returns to the couch in Courtney's peripheral vision while she throws back the bottle and gulps down the whiskey like water.

After a stretch of silence, she says, "We shouldn't have a fire going."

"They're expecting snow tonight," Al says. "No one's going to notice a little smoke."

The melting snow has started to seep through her coat. Courtney bundles up tighter and tries to rub out the cold spots. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Alejandro grabbing his coat again and starting to stand.

"Don't," Courtney snaps.

Alejandro hesitates, but then sits back down. He set aside the coat and pulls the cloth holding Heather's gun back onto his lap. Courtney draws her knees to her chest and takes another swig as Al resume cleaning the gun. Gradually, she starts to feel the warmth of the fire on her face. She stops shaking.

"I was out of line in Joplin," Al says. "I had a bit to drink. I wasn't thinking straight."

Courtney takes a lengthy swig of whiskey.

Al sighs. "I had a lot to drink. Perdoname, chica. You can stop treating me like the plague now."

Courtney hears him slide the pieces of Heather's pistol back together, and she sneers into the fire. "What if I don't feel like it?"

"I'd deserve it," he admits.

Courtney takes another long, satisfying drink, content to let him suffer. The nausea begins to subside.

"I am sorry," Al says. His voice is calm, smooth and unassuming. "What we do is hard enough without regrets. I'm ashamed to admit it only takes a little excitement and a couple drinks to get me…" He trails off. "Well, we all have our vices."

A weak cough comes from Al and Heather's bedroom upstairs, followed by several more increasing in intensity. Courtney watches Al drop the B.A.R. he'd started to disassemble and rush up the stairs. She takes another drink, her muscles uncoiling with every gulp. The upstairs floorboards creak under Alejandro's weight, muffling his assurances to his wife. After a couple of minutes, Al comes back down to the parlor and wordlessly resumes his work. He has the B.A.R. completely disassembled in under five minutes. Courtney watches him.

"Was Heather one of your 'vices'?" she asks.

Al pauses in polishing the individual pieces of his gun and glances upstairs. A smile dances at the corner of his lips.

"You ever hear the story of how we met?" he says.

Courtney doesn't answer. Al returns his attention to the metal pieces on his lap.

"She came with Clyde and Gwen the first time I was let out of prison," he says. "I took one look at her… She was wearing this maroon velvet dress, like they invented the fashion just for her, I'll never forget. I took one look at her, standing in the sunlight of the outside world next to my brother and sister, and she said three words to me. She said, 'You done now?' and I knew. I was utterly fucked." He shakes his head self deprecatingly.

Courtney stops swirling the bottle in the middle of a spin, and twists around to look at Al.

"You didn't meet Heather in California?"

"No."

The revelation drops on Courtney, all at once. "She was with Clyde when you met her."

So many things made sense then. The way Heather and Duncan gravitated around each other, the way they always fought, always jabbing at the same sore spots that, under the surface, implied a history longer than just partners and in-laws.

"They met when Clyde took Gwen out to California for her sixteenth birthday," Al goes on. "Gwen wanted to be an actress back then, wanted to see where all the moving pictures were made. Ma knew she'd never be able to afford the trip, so Clyde and I stole and borrowed and scammed enough money to make it out to Los Angeles, just in time for la niña's birthday."

He clears his throat, shooting back a swig of water from a glass cup on the table.

"One of those scams bit me in the ass and got me sent to the slammer. Needless to say, I missed the trip," he says glumly. "I still don't know how he picked up Heather and convinced her to come out to Nowhere, Texas. She says it was her idea, he says it was his."

"Duncan is good at picking girls up I hear," Courtney says sarcastically.

Al clears his throat again, coughing once before drinking more water. "Si, well, you've never seen Heather pick up a jobbie. She's got quite an ability for finding your weakest link." He grins to himself. "She picks a fair share of our marks."

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Courtney cradles the near empty whiskey bottle to her chest.

"I imagine Duncan didn't take very well to you stealing his girlfriend," she remarks.

Al arms and unarms his reassembled Browning with a satisfying ch-click.

"Don't be melodramatic, Bonnie. Heather ended it with him after sleeping with me once," he says with a smirk. "Clyde fractured his second and third knuckles against my jaw, and Heather shot him in the shoulder. We were all adults about it."

"Heather shot him?" Courtney asks incredulously.

Al waves her off, finishing his water. "We continue to be perfectly civil with each other. Mostly. But there you have it, el cuento de nuestro amor."

Courtney stays silent. Al pulls the second Browning Automatic onto his lap and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

"Look at us, a pair of insomniacs." He lights one up and leans forward to offer it to Courtney. "Welcome to the second string team."

Courtney hesitates.

"But they've...been together?" she asks, unsure of the answer she wants to hear. "Since you married her?"

"I told you," he says. "I'm a good big brother."

With far steadier fingers than she'd had an hour ago, Courtney takes the cigarette and takes a heavy drag. Alejandro leans back and props his feet up on the coffee table, nudging aside the guns waiting to be cleaned. Courtney smokes and watches him get comfortable, waiting for him to elaborate on the real question. He lights his own cigarette deliberately, not looking at her.

"Have they been together since I joined?" she asks at last.

Al frowns. "That's something my brother should—"

"Alejandro."

"It's not my place."

"Have they?"

Al smokes deeply, his cigarette glowing like a dim muzzle flash in the dark. He expels through his nose and casts Courtney a somber look. "Don't ask questions you don't want answered, chica."

"Fine," she says bitterly. She finishes the rest of the whiskey in two gulps. "The men in your family are allergic to honesty, after all." Courtney sets aside the bottle and stands, careful to make sure her letter and money are still tucked inside her drying coat. As she walks past him, she bites out, "Thanks for the whiskey."

"Where are you going?"

"Into town," she says, opening the front door.

"Wait, I'll drive you," Al offers.

Courtney doesn't answer. She closes the door behind her and starts walking the same way she'd been going before. It's colder now, and she's clear-headed enough to realize it. She bundles up tighter, focusing on the warmth of the whiskey pooling in her stomach and not the hurt of betrayal pumping in her ears. She keeps a steady pace walking, smoking.

Al jogs up beside her, tucking a Colt into the back of his pants.

"Don't do this, chica. Heather and Harold are out of commission. You, Clyde, and I need to keep in good health."

"Keep your own goddamn health," Courtney snaps.

"I'll drive you into town in the morning," he offers again, catching her arm. "You shouldn't be out in this cold."

Courtney stops walking to yank her arm out of his grip. Al stops too, holding his palms out.

"I'm not trying to tell you what to do—"

"That's exactly what you're doing," she says. "Why do you care if I go into town for a drink? What am I to you anyway?"

"Bonnie." He falters. "We're all worried about you."

"Why?" she demands. "Because you think I can't cut it? What about Harold? He's just as bad. Why aren't you and Duncan fawning over him, huh?"

Alejandro looks her over, head to toe, but doesn't lower his hands.

"Harold's killer instincts aren't going to get the rest of us killed," he says quietly.

Courtney slaps him. When he doesn't react, she closes her fist and punches him in the chest. It hurts her hand. She grabs a handful of snow and throws it in his face.

"You want me not to be a problem?" she shouts, pulling out her gun. "You want me out of your hair? Leave me alone! It's that easy! It is that goddamn easy!"

She waits for him to get mad, like he was in Joplin. She waits for him to pick her up and carry her back to the house, like Duncan would have done. Instead, he stares at her.

Courtney glares. "Say something."

"It was only the first night," Al says quietly, "when you wrapped yourself up on the couch and refused to let him touch you. He was mighty upset. Heather and I decided it was fair."

Courtney has bile in her throat as she repeats, "Heather and you."

Al sighs, a long suffering shudder.

"Heather means the world to me," he intones. "You need to understand that she knew what she was getting into when she married me, and still she did it. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had to wake up in the morning without seeing her face. I don't…" He trails off, his gaze dropping to his shoes.

Then he starts again, his words practiced. "If I had all the money in the world, I'd ferret us away to a big farm in the middle of Texas with no one else for miles. I'd have horses and tractors and I'd farm myself to death if it meant that I never again had to live through those two minutes in Joplin when I didn't know what had happened to her."

Al lifts his head and, across the muzzle of her pistol, looks Courtney in the eye.

"That's the difference between me and my brother, Bonnie. No matter what he tells you, deep down, Clyde loves what we do. He lives for the second right in front of the bullet, the minute right before the end. He's always been like that since we were kids—dying for the chance to prove he's immortal." He pauses, looking her over. "You're not like that."

Courtney bites her cheek, searching Al's face.

"I could be like that," she says.

"But you're not, chica," he says evenly. "Thank your lucky stars that you're not."

They stare at each other as the snow starts to fall, drifting lightly over the street.

"I wish I was the kind of monster you want to make me out to be," Al says. "Really, I do. It would make all this—" he gestures to the house, "—easier." He digs his hands into his pockets. "We don't have to be bedmates or best friends to change the fact that you and I are family."

"You're wrong," Courtney says. "We could all go our separate ways if we wanted."

"We tried, Bonnie," Al says solemnly. "After we got married, Heather and I got the apartment in Joplin. We made friends. We put down roots. We sent Clyde on his merry way. Really, we gave it our best shot." He shrugs. "And here we are."

"Why?" Courtney says. "Why'd you come back?."

"Clyde and Gwen and I've got three older brothers who couldn't care less if we lived or died. Family's got nothing to do with blood. Family are the people you'll never be rid of. Clyde and I… You and I... All five of us in that house right now. We'll never be rid of each other."

They're silent a few moments longer, sizing each other up through the soft sheen of snow. Then Courtney lowers her gun and takes a step back.

"Goodbye, Al."

She turns down the road, but Al waves at her.

"Bonnie, wait. Here."

He digs in his pocket and pulls out a handful of coins, which he holds out to her. Courtney scowls.

"You can't buy my—"

"Save up for a new camera," he interrupts. "With film. I owe you the one you lost in Joplin."

Courtney eyes the money hesitantly, then takes it. "Okay."

"Don't worry," he says with a smile. "You'll get used to it."

Al goes back to the house and doesn't glance back. Courtney puts Al's money in her pocket and stands in place, looking between the long, dark road ahead of her and the house lightly glowing with the light from Al's fire.

If she leaves, she's an ex-criminal without a crew. And an ex-criminal is still a criminal in the eyes of the law and Trent Hamer. The Captain might want Duncan badly enough to hunt her down with the same fervor. Still…Courtney can walk away. She can claim everything she did was influenced by Duncan and the Barrows. If she leaves, she's an ex-criminal on the run and an ex-housewife with no prospects. But she's free of the guilt. She's free of the man she loves and the only people who have ever made her feel like her freedom was worth fighting for.

Finding herself completely alone for the first time in close to a year, Courtney covers her face with her hands and finds her palms wet with tears. When she starts to cry, it's for the officers in Joplin, and for the dead owner of the grocery store and his wife. She cries for Izzy Hinton and Trent Hamer and her mother. She cries for her partners, and her lover, and the woman who used to be Justin Jones' housewife from Dallas, Texas.

After, she dusts the snow off her hair and walks back to the house. Al is still sitting on the couch and cleaning guns in the light of the fireplace.

"Al?" she says.

He looks up.

"Will you clean my gun too?" she says.

He nods. Courtney pulls the top-break pistol from her pocket, with Duncan's dedication scribbled on the side, and hands it to him before walking back to her bedroom. She puts her notebook back in the case, takes off her shoes and coat, and folds her dress back up. As an afterthought, she dries her eyes.

Duncan rolls over at her arrival.

"Where'd ya go, doll?" he mumbles. "We gotta heist tomorrow."

"Nowhere," Courtney says from the bathroom. She crumples up the letter to her sister and tosses it in the empty wastebin. She crawls into bed beside Duncan Clyde, pressing up against the warmth of his body, the whiskey pooling hotly in her stomach and on her breath.

"I didn't go nowhere, baby."

Author's Note: So 2016 wasn't a good year for me.

It wasn't a good year for anyone I think, but I got extra boned on the fanfiction front. Life drama, crushing writer's block after my thesis, and Ariel's been abroad for half the year. However, here's the next chapter that I've had sitting on my computer since the last chapter was published. I always like to have a buffer with my writing and I'd love to keep coordinating MGB images with CID-Vicious on DA (which I still plan on doing) but I wanted everyone to know the story isn't abandoned and that I do plan on writing the rest of it come January once I wrap up the first draft of my other latest fanfic endeavor.

Here is a tiny Christmas present :)