AN: This is a filler chapter, please bear with it, it does provide an outsider's opinion on Tim Gutterson. The next chapter has much more Tim/G/Rachel interaction and I am posting it now because I've written it and I'm impatient to share!

G's day passed in a blur. She got a whistle-stop of the entire courthouse building and then a run down of the security systems, fire-drill protocol, and some stellar tricks to get the photocopier to work when it was having a bad day. This was basically some sort of weird pattern you had to drum on the side of the machine plus one kick to the bottom left front corner and voila, the photocopier would be your baby. Or so Rachel promised.

Having spent the last 8 hours with Rachel, G decided she liked her. Rachel was smart, sassy and sweet in just the right amounts, and she was a diligent worker who didn't take shit from anyone.

The rest of the week was fairly dreary. A little paperwork, couple of house calls, one mundane prisoner transport. G was never exactly bored, but she wasn't riveted by the work either. The office had gone out for dinner and drinks at a local diner on Friday though. All that was gleaned from this excursion was that everybody in Kentucky loved two things – country music and bourbon. My god, those people could drink. G was pretty tipsy by the third shot but Art and Raylan must have polished off a bottle at least between them. Tim had maybe one to himself…

As a sworn gin girl, she did not appreciate the harsh bite of the alcohol but that appeared to be all they stocked and beggars can't be choosers and all that. She did however appreciate the office's attempt to make her feel welcome and comfortable.

Rachel had warmed towards G as the week progressed but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something just a little off about her. They'd have a conversation where G would forget herself, just for a second and start talking animatedly, letting Rachel get to know her a little, but then she'd stop abruptly and close off, like she didn't want to give too much away. It unnerved Rachel. Maybe she'd bring it up with Art, see if he knew any more about the elusive Miss Gandhi.

It was 10.30pm on a Monday evening and G was bored. The excitement of last Friday night had all but worn off and another prisoner transport this morning had made her inconsolably homesick for her old job.

Having exhausted half her film collection since she arrived two weeks ago, she thought she should prevent her eyes from turning square and avoid the TV for a night. Instead she had cooked chicken instead of just throwing together a salad or ordering pizza. This killed approximately an hour. She then read 10 pages of some book about space. This killed another hour because every noise from outside distracted her attention. She then paced her (still relatively bare) apartment for 45 minutes before flopping onto the couch and sighing petulantly. As she now lay staring at the ceiling, she found her mind wandering.

Tim Gutterson.

Tim Gutterson was a complete misnomer. G could not work him out. It really rattled her, because half her job was making people. Picking apart their habits and motivations was what she was good at – hell, it was the reason her arrest rate had been so high. But Tim was evasive. In the little interaction she'd had with him so far, all she could say was that he used well-placed sarcasm to disguise any and all emotion, he reacted fairly abnormally to certain situations and he was just all round frustrating. At the diner, he'd been the one to drink the most yet speak the least. For her, the two were inseparable.

'Want me to wing 'em or kill 'em?'

G replayed those words in her head - the first time she'd seen him in action, nothing on his face but absolute concentration. This was his job and he took it seriously but he removed himself from it. Probably the best thing, it must be tough being the person everyone goes to for ending lives.

G had read Tim's file very thoroughly. She had insisted that James give her all the info the FBI had on every person in the Lexington USMS. It was only fair. Reading about these people had just about made up for having to read that goddamn rule-book. Without a second thought, G sprung up from the couch and into the bedroom. Under the bed itself was a cardboard evidence box filled with the files. She rifled through, picking Tim's out and sliding the rest back out of sight. Settling back on the plush pillows, G began to read.

Gutterson was very interesting; the pictures of his handiwork even more so. Lord knows how the Bureau had managed to get shots of the Talib that Gutterson had shot from over a mile away, but G would be damned if the symmetrical hole wasn't exactly to the millimetre in the centre of his head. The Afghani man had even fallen onto his back perfectly spread-eagle, lips still open in a wide 'O'. She had to admire the accuracy even though it wasn't a picture she particularly enjoyed looking at.

G wondered if Gutterson had ever seen any photos of his kills. Probably not. He didn't seem like a typical army jock. She couldn't imagine him boasting about how he took out targets left, right and centre. He seemed very grounded, for someone that actually had very little reason to be.

Query PTSD was the last thing his post-discharge shrink had written in his 6-month report. Reflecting on it now, PTSD was probably likely, though G had seen little evidence of it. Tim got a little touchy if anyone ever mentioned war but he was never fazed by a situation, at work at least. He always kept a cool head, the ice to Raylan's fire. He was damn handy in a gunfight and the best shot she'd ever seen.

Gutterson would probably be mortified that she had access to this stuff. Not to worry, not like she'd ever bring it up and unless he was ever sneaking around under her bed, how would he ever find out?

AN: I did some research into it. The word Taliban can be used as singular or plural but the official singular of the word is Talib so that's what I've gone for. Let me know if you have a differing view!