VIC

She toyed with her cooling dinner, picking out choice bits of the tender moist chicken and scooping up the rich tasty sauce. Her body craved protein in all its forms, she was damn near sick of eggs even in their infinite variations.

Thoughtfully she pondered Walts' words, she had written a pretty definitive and final letter explaining why she was leaving and probably not coming back. Her brain bleed had made that more final than anyone expected and after 8 months she didn't expect a job to still be available. Given her current state she would never be cleared to return to work as an active officer of the law, the most she could hope was some form of desk job.

God every damn time she thought about it she wanted to scream her anger and frustration to the world, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fucking fair that she should be hit in the head not once but twice, and that her brain swelled and burst a vessel so badly they had to put her in a medically induced coma for several weeks.

It wasn't fucking fair she had some slight vision impairment and would never be the crack shot she once had been, that her recovery was taking longer than expected and that everyone around her treated her like she was a stick of dynamite, fragile but likely to explode unexpectedly at any moment.

It wasn't fucking fair her life had been turned upside down and she had been abandoned by those she considered family here in Wyoming. Though if she was honest with herself, her last interaction with Walt had pretty much sealed the deal there, and Ferg and Ruby would follow as he lead.

It wasn't fucking fair and that anger burned constantly within her, the only thing warming her soul right now.

Tired of the voice in her head singing its ever angry song, she rose and following Walt's lead she cleared her dishes into the kitchen, scraping the food into the dish on the bench apparently used for that purpose, rinsed everything and stacked it in the industrial grade dishwasher. Like the rest of the lodge the kitchen was kitted out with the best, a monument of stainless steel appliances and marble topped benches, with tall fridges and freezers lining one wall, a huge double gas cooking hob over a double oven and an island preparation bench with a wash sink at each end. She sighed in lustful envy and went wandering, looking for Walt, intending to grill him further about the letter comment.

While she didn't find him, she did find a small well appointed gym behind the kitchen, cross-trainer treadmill and a selection of weights and a couple of machines, enough to keep any gym junkie happy. Maybe she should try the cross trainer out in the morning. The last door in the hall on that side of the building was the real jackpot though, a long wood panelled gaming room with a pool table, a small bar, a HUGE TV and stereo system at one end flanked by more leather sofas, and in the cabinet underneath, several gaming consoles. It was the ultimate man cave and she smiled, perusing the extensive stack of DVD in one bookcase, the other loaded with hundreds of music CDs.

Selecting a movie she vaguely recognised, one about a vampire who became a rockstar, she wrestled with the remote controls for some time, eventually figuring out which one went with what device and got the TV going, and the DVD playing successfully. After watching the intro she realised she was missing something and investigated the depths of the bar – lots of spirits and the good stuff too. Pouring herself a generous measure of bourbon, topping it up with coke and a couple of icecubes out of the dispenser built into the fridge , she carried her forbidden drink over to the sofa and plumped a couple of cushions and settled down for some mindless entertainment.

When you spent so much time sleeping randomly and usually too heavily, it messed with your sleep patterns. Reading tended to give her a headache, so her other options to fill in her nighttime awake periods were music and TV. Being snowbound here might not be such a bad thing after all!

WALT

He enjoyed his evening sessions with the horses, they were pleased to see a person, especially a person bearing hay and buckets of grain. The youngsters were playful, pushing their boundaries like children, but good natured even with a tendency to nip. He always wore his long coat at feed time, it gave a good level of protection from questing teeth that surrounded him as he enticed them into their stalls for the night.

The barn was insulated and heated to take the chill of the air, but the mares had come from California and didn't have the winter coats necessary to survive a Wyoming winter, so they wore day covers, and he had to rug them up with heavier ones for the night cold. He was supposed to rug up the yearlings too, but they thought that was a great game, and most of them were fuzzy enough and didn't seem so bothered by the chill as their dams were. Mind you they were eating twice as much feed as expected, he had already had to get more grain delivered. Horse was stabled at the far end, next to the two tall geldings and was looking a little round where before she had been lean, a combination of good rich food and winter inactivity. She had never had it so good.

He sat on a hay bale and gave Dog a hearty rub, Omar preferred Dog not be in the house by himself, and Dog himself had shown a desire to stay with the horses, he seemed delighted by the youngsters and appointed himself overseer and babysitter. Walt had made him a comfy bed in one corner, propping a door at the far end open so he could go in and out as need be. The barn needed fresh air with so many animals in residence, so it worked well. The young stablehand Omar had hired was initially puzzled by Walt's explanation of Dogs supervisory role, but after watching him with the yearlings she had nodded and smiled.

Giving Dogs soft ears one last gentle tug, he did one last check of everyones water, and that the covers were all snug and straight before turning off the main lights and heading back into the lodge. He wanted to check on Vic before heading to bed, but she wasn't in the lounge or kitchen, and her bedroom was also unoccupied, as were all the others. He had the only keys to the truck so she couldn't leave, and he knew how much she hated trudging through snow so he was fairly certain she hadn't left.

Concerned, he wandered back into the lounge and realised he had forgotten the TV room – he didn't watch it out of habit now, so hadn't spent any time in it himself, beyond one memorable night he and Henry had got drunk and played some very bad pool shortly after he had moved in. Hearing noise through the closed door he sighed in relief, but the sight of Vic asleep on the sofa, with an empty tumbler that smelt of bourbon quickly burned the relief away. Lena had said alcohol would either make her sleep heavily or act extremely aggressive, depending on what she had taken last. He was grateful it was the sleep this time round, and berated himself for forgetting the bar was in here and not removing the booze to the main house, like had had done with the rest of it.

Gently he reached out and grasped a shoulder and shook it with no response. He shook it again a little harder "Vic wakeup". She moaned and batted a hand at him but clearly was out like a light. Bowing to the inevitable he gathered her up in his arms, cradling her to his chest, trying not to notice how light she was, how bony her frame was and how fragile she looked with her head lolling back against his right arm.

Against his will, his heart clenched and he set his jaw and carried her carefully down the hallway, it was more than wide enough and deposited her gently on the bed, pulling back the coverlet and tucking her in underneath its silken layers. After a moments thought, he laid her out in the recovery position, and retrieved a waste bucket from under the writing table and placed it in easy reach of the side of the bed. Lena hadn't mentioned any unpleasant side effects but he would rather be prepared for the worst. Her pulse was steady and strong, and her colour was good, so he left one small lamp on in case she did have to get up in a hurry in the night, and left her sleeping.

No one need know how long he had spent standing there staring down at her in the bed, or the soft caress of one finger that had pushed her bangs away from her eyes, and traced its way down her jaw or the thumb that had brushed with butterfly softness across her lips. No one at all

Song Inspirations:

Slept So Long - Jay Gordon Queen of the Damned Soundtrack

We Used to Be Friends - The Dandy Warhols

Where the Lonely Ones Roam - Digital Daggers

A Legacy of Comfort - Martin Phipps and Mediaeval Babes - Virgin Queen Soundtrack