VIC

Knowing it was going to be freezing outside and she hadn't bought proper winter gear, so went looking for the closet. Every house in Wyoming had spare jackets and snow boots and hats and stuff. A door off the foyer labelled Mud Room provided everything she needed in at least one size too big, but she wasn't going far, so it didn't matter.

Shrugging into the heavy parka, struggling to do up the zip with extralong sleeves getting in her way, the sound of an engine zooming up to the doorway outside caused her to pause and then jump out of the way when the door swung wide open with an energetic push. The woman standing outlined in the doorway was a stranger, a tall dark haired dark eyed striking young woman who smiled toothily at her, stepped forward and put forward her hand to shake while saying in the most appalling accent

"Gidday, you must be Vic, The Holy Terror. Heard lots about you. I'm Maria, the maid here"

Giving up on the zip and startled by this genial greeting, Vic returned the handshake and said cautiously "What country are you from, Maria" she said it MahREEEah with no roll on the R, not at all Spanish sounding

"Stone the crows mate! I'm an Aussie, can't you tell?"

Vic shook her head "No I've never met anyone from Australia, though my ex-husband lives there now. How did you end up in Wyoming?"

Maria eyed her for a moment and grinned "What you are really asking is why the hell am I in this frozen hell in the arse end of nowhere, right?" when Vic nodded she continued "Dahl it's the bloody skiing! OMG you have the most fantastic skiing here and the slopes are empty. Its bloody beaut!"

Standing there in her oversized parka, Vic felt dwarfed by this energetic amazon, who must be damn near 6 feet tall and glowing with a light tan. She wrestled with the zip again for a moment, giving up and unzipping the damn parka before sighing and looking out at the snowbound landscape.

Maria was eyeing her curiously "You OK mate, you look a bit pale" Before Vic had a chance to answer, she shut the door behind her, bustled behind Vic and stripped the parka off, wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and marched her towards the kitchen "C'mon into the kitchen and I will make you a hot chocolate, you look like you could do with some feeding up"

Unprepared to resist this gentle enthusiasm and compassion, Vic went, taking a seat at the island bar as directed, and listening to Maria's chatter about local gossip, her hopes for the ski conditions after the current dumping and some burble about Omar while she got out a pan, heated some milk, added chocolate powder and broke some chocolate bits into the pan, stirring til it steamed, tasted, added some sugar and poured two large mugs full and joined Vic at the bar.

Carefully sipping the steaming beverage Vic smiled, it was creamy and rich and just sweet enough to take the edge off the dark chocolate bitterness. Taking a mildly interested tone she queried "Omar is where right now, did you say?"

"Oh, Omar is in Alaska somewhere with some wildlife TV crew who wanted to film up by some big mountain up there that's impossible to get near in winter" she shrugged eloquently "They wanted a winter trekking and camping expert and Omar got the job. Cept they got snowed in and stuck and the weather has packed a sad big time. They managed to get a chopper in to drop food and supplies, but he is stuck there for a while by the looks of things" she shrugged again "So its just you, me, Paolo and Luscious Longmire"

Vic choked on her drink and nearly spilt the mug down her front. Putting it down on the bench, and wiping her face with her sleeve, she asked disbelievingly "What did you say?"

Maria grinned at her again "Luscious Longmire, you mean you haven't noticed? Have you seen the way that man sits on a horse?" she sighed in blissful remembrance "He could ride me anytime he wanted"

Vic was unnaturally lost for words but managed to ask "Has he?" she was aiming for curious, but must have sounded much more serious because Maria leaned back in her chair a tiny amount, and bit her lower lip for a moment before saying slightly less cheerfully "Sadly no, even though I offered to warm his bed one night. He told me his daughter was older than me and started giving off the biggest Dad vibes he could" she bit her lip again then queried "Is there something going on with you two?"

Pondering how to respond to this, with a flippant 'God no!' or take the opportunity to have the first real unjudgemental conversation she had had in a while? Vic sighed, not realising how much her shoulders slumped and how dejected it made her look "Once I thought there might have been something, but then he made some really bad decisions, REALLY bad. And I didn't want to be dragged down into that mess, not after last time. So no, there is nothing going on there" she smiled a bright but brittle smile at the younger woman "Be my guest, but I doubt you will have any luck. He is an oldfashioned kinda guy. I don't think one night stands are his thing".

Maria nodded slowly "Yair? No worries then mate" and she smiled again "How's that hot chocolate treating you?"

Vic retrieved her mug and enjoyed a slightly cooler mouthful, before asking "So how do you know Omar? And how did you know who I am? I wasn't sposed to be here but my other plans fell through, and the weather…." She stopped, the weather was an obvious problem.

"Omar? I met Omar in a bar in Jackson, one thing led to another and I ended up staying here for the winter. Free place to stay, beaut food, only a bit of cleaning and tidying to do, and I get paid. Whats no to like?"

"You slept with Omar?"

"Course I did!" she lowered her voice conspiratorially even though they were alone "He thinks he likes strong women but he doesn't really, so it was only a couple of times" Vic nodded, she had come to that conclusion herself, one of the many reasons she had declined his many requests for ….dinner.

Maria continued "Henry called me about you coming when he knew he wasn't going to make it. Cell coverage up here is crap so he calls and leaves messages for Walt on the landline at the house"

Vic pondered this and said slowly "So you know Henry too?" does this mean Walt has a cell phone, am I hallucinating? Did I take the right meds this morning?

A nod and a slow smile "Oh Yair, I know Henry, he's a piece of alright. They breed them tall and pretty in this part of the world don't they?" At Vics nod she carried on "Yair Henry spent loads of time here when Walt was preparing for the big inquiry thing, they Skyped with his lawyer daughter…"

Vic filled in the blank "Cady"

"Yair, I always forget her name, its odd. Anyway, when Walt had to defend himself at the inquiry, they spent hours writing stuff out, and talking about what happened, that deputy who got shot by his Dad, the guy who got Walts' wife murdered, all that stuff. Stayed up til all hours, kept me busy making sure they ate something sometimes"

Holy Shit! There was an inquiry? What the hell happened? Why the fuck did nobody tell her?

She shifted a little uncomfortably in her chair before saying "I was in hospital for a while with a head injury and have big gaps in my memory. I don't remember anything about an inquiry? What happened?"

Maria sat up at attention, eyes bright with the chance to gossip further "Oh that's you! Bloody hell, sorry I'm such a drongo, should have realised" She closed her eyes thinking for a moment "I think it was about 3-4 months after you left. After everyone spat the dummy about the Barlow thing and they had the funeral and all, Walt turned himself in to the Mayor, saying he had been unprofessional and stuff. So they had an inquiry a couple of months later"

Holy Fucking Shitballs! Walt admitted he might have been wrong and stepped up to face the music? She had given him grief about exactly that in their last….discussion…..before she left and ended up not coming back. His unprofessional behaviour and use of department resources in the search for Martha's killer, in what became his revenge vendetta against Nighthorse and Barlow, those were some of the reasons she gave in her resignation letter. She didn't want to be involved in another shitstorm like what had happened in Philly, and it was going to happen. Neither Barlow or Nighthorse would go quietly, and Jacob certainly had a valid case to make against Walt's actions, or the Sheriffs Dept. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, and that was a problem.

Her voice was quiet as she asked "What happened at the inquiry?"

"Dunno, I wasn't there but Walt had to see a psychologist over in Gillete every day for a couple of months, and they got some other guys in to do his job, and when Omar got the deal on the horses, he offered Walt the job to train and handle and break them"

Thoroughly confused now but unwilling to give up on this deep vein of information Vic queried "Deal on the horses?"

Maria smiled "Yes his Pretty Ponies I call them. He took some fancy oil sheiks son hunting in the desert and they rode purebred Arabians. Omar was really impressed with their endurance abilities, and so the son offered to pay him with some mares and foals he had in California that he wanted to move cos of the drought there. So Omar got a barn and a stable built and they got shipped over about 5 months ago and Walt has been here ever since".

Completely lost now, Vic gamely carried on "What is Omar going to do with the horses?"

"Oh breed the mares probably and have lots of adorable babies. I think he planned to do long distance treks into the mountains to the places you can't get to with a car. Real hard yakka stuff, yanno?" Vic didn't know, but she nodded anyway. She drained the last of the hot chocolate and walked to the sink to rinse the mug.

From behind her Maria said "Leave that dahl, I'll clean it up later. If you are looking for the Luscious Longmire himself, he will be in the barn or the stables right now" she looked at her watch "Lunch will be ready in about half an hour, let him know will you?" and she whirled off down the hallway, opening doors in preparation for her cleaning frenzy no doubt.

Exhausted by her energy, and by the burden of all the new information she was carrying, Vic shrugged into her parka, wrestled the zip into submission and ventured out in search of the barn. Armed with questions. Wondering if she would ever get answers.

So it turns out driving 400km in a day gives you LOTS of thinking time and this brand new scene revealed itself to me today, and it was too good not to share. I decided to take the piss a bit with my Aussie OC, hope it translates OK.

Like Vic I leave you with some answers but MORE questions no doubt :)