A/N: HOLYCRAPIGOTACHAPTERUP! (dances with excitement) Sorry for the disappearance. Some exposition here, but know that a storm, as promised, is brewing.

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They made a habit of dropping in on one another unannounced. Branch knew where the hide-a-key was and she kept a lock-pick kit in her back pocket and they made themselves at home. They got her fence up before the ground really decided to freeze, and Branch was planning on making her wait until one of the spring sales for a horse when she stopped in one Wednesday morning with cherry pastries (She liked to bake! Who knew?) and a well-perused copy of Horse Trader.

"No," he said as he poured the coffee.

She looked up from the sale ads. "Hmmm?"

"Not out of the Trader. We need to wait til springtime. It'd be rough on a horse bringing it up higher elevation and you don't have your barn winterized yet."

"But a lot of these horses are local."

"Yeah." He sighed and looked over her shoulder. "That horse has been beat to shit."

"How do you know?"

"Because of who owns it. And that one has weak structure in the legs."

"Pretty though."

"Pretty does you no good out here if the bone structure doesn't hold up."

"What's it matter about his legs?"

"The forelegs are really thin. Not a whole lot of bone, not a whole lot of support, and that animal weighs upwards of twelve hundred pounds. The legs go out on you, you don't have a horse. You need solid bone out here and that breeder likes show ponies and doesn't give a damn about whether they can work or not."
"So arena horses."

"Not even that. Western Pleasure." The disdain in Branch's voice had Eileen cackling.

"I like the color of that one."

"That horse. That horse is a sunuvabitch."

She rolled her eyes.

"You know those scars under my right arm? On the rib cage?"

"Yeah…"

"Breaking him. I was seventeen and he was two. Do the math. He's ancient and he's still a shit-head. You have no business with an animal like that. Nobody does."

"Alright then all-knowing, what DO I have business with?"

"Lemme see that." Branch adroitly removed the catalogue from her hand, picked up a pen, and began circling pictures. He stopped halfway through the ads with pictures and flipped to the back, reading between the lines of the plain classifieds while Eileen arranged the pastries on an oil-stained cookie sheet and tossed them in the oven.

Branch stayed absorbed in the catalogue until she plopped a saucer in front of him. He snapped the catalogue closed and handed it back to her. "Pick one." He took a bite out of the pastry while she slid her hands down the pages.

"This red one?"

"Why?"

She looked up, half in thought. She KNEW how to ride—Branch had SEEN her ride—but she didn't know jack about what made a keeper of a horse.

"Um…"

He grinned at her. "Analyze everything in that catalogue that I circled. Then see if you can snag last month's copy from the feed store and go through that. Find similar animals in that one. Bring'em to me. When you're picking the good stuff, THEN we'll go look at live horses."

She rolled her eyes and took a bite of pastry. She knew what he was doing, appreciated it even. She just wasn't used to being the one that wasn't in the know.

Dublin: 18 August, 2000

She'd braided and unbraided her hair twice while she sat out in the open at the café. Shoulda brought a book. Shaunessy was late, but that was not uncommon. He strolled in with that leather jacket hung across his shoulder, the oxfords and the hem of his pants damp with the rain and his hair beginning to kink. He didn't look like he was hurting. For what that was worth.

"Hey love," he offered as he dropped into the chair opposite her.

"Good evening," she smiled, relaxed for the moment. There were eyes. There were always eyes.

"Anything new?"

"Not really." She walked her fingers around a set of words on the newspaper under her elbow- she'd left it untouched, turned upward to the headline. He tilted his chin up.

"And have you ordered yet?"

"Was waiting on you, dear," she smiled. The food here was good, and that was worth something at least. Things were going to get dicey and she would prefer such exercises on a full stomach. So did he, and they tucked in.

When they crossed the border that night, he had a black gun folded against his shoulder and she was as wired as they could get her without suspicion. There was always suspicion. She was searched with due diligence and Michael decided that it was enough. He pulled a hood over her head and carefully eased her into the car. They'd gone through the routine a couple of times now and she'd razzed him about banging her knees the last trip over. The car started and she wondered how in the blue hell Shaunessy ever kept up with them. The man's strength was hydraulic.

…..

Washington, D. C.: 02, August, 2001

None of that hydraulic strength did Shaunessy any good at the moment of his death. An over-zealous, by the book, blighted son of Britain's finest had made information available. You know. Because that was what he was supposed to do. Even though he'd received direct orders not to. Britain lost a damn strong operative that day, never mind the fact that the entire program went up in flames. The CIA blamed MI6. MI6 blamed the American operative.

Eileen Music blamed it on herself.

The CIA pulled her. The damage was done. They were kind enough to give her a modicum of time to rest. "Have you recovered? Can you present for an assignment?"

Of course she could.

"This one will be easy."

"Oh?"

Wallace handed her the dossier, looked up over his glasses. "At least it should be."

"I see." She leafed through the ream of paper, walking away from the senior agent's desk. It was not considered good form to turn one's back on Wallace. It was considered VERY poor form to ignore his remarks. Music did not care this day.

On the plane out, she crawled inside the dossier, turning every element over in her mind. Well…it probably wasn't going to be any easier, but at least she was going to get to be outside during this one. She liked the desert, and better still, she wasn't going to lose anyone. If Wallace had meant to punish her with physical labor and isolation, he had missed his mark.

She hoped it was viciously hot. Dublin was as bad as London when it came to the rain and the cold. She was done with both. She raised a hand slightly, asking the stewardess -bored right-handed articulate exhausted waaaaaaay too young- for three fingers of Laphroaig. This was not coach, after all. She should be able to get what she wanted.

The stewardess was nothing if not qualified. One graceful arm extended, a cabinet door squeaked, and she placed a green glass tumbler on the counter where Eileen could see it. The Scotch resided in a cut-crystal decanter, and the stewardess was careful of the stopper when she removed it. A childhood disaster was responsible for this treatment, but that was something no-one ever needed to know. Cautiously, she poured the alcohol and delivered it to Music's seat within the space of twenty seconds. Class.

Music popped three hundred milligrams worth of sleeping pills out of the blister pack, palmed them, and picked up the tumbler. Silently, she toasted Shaunessy's memory with his own drink. She slept the rest of the flight into Istanbul.

Far be it from Branch to complain about an excellent adolescent Scotch. He never did understand, though, why she kept such a monster of a drink decanted for regular use. It wasn't like she had anything to prove.

It wasn't long after the conversation about how to pick a horse that she showed up again. They spun through another catalogue, but she didn't have her heart in it, and Branch knew something had happened.

Two days later Henry Standing Bear looked up from behind his bar at the sound of a dragging foot. This was the first time he'd seen Eileen in broad daylight and he marveled at how pale she was. The place was empty, it being a Wednesday. He offered a smile from his eyes outward, and she returned it.

"What may I do for you this afternoon, Miss Music?" His courtliness reminded her of Shaunessy somehow and it made things harder.

"Um…well…" She had to slow herself, pointedly keeping her hands at her sides. "Henry I'm BORED!"

His brow rose, but he nodded in assent. "That is a common condition in these parts during the winter."

"What I…what I meant to ask was…. Henry, are you hiring?"

He stayed his hands and looked up at her. The glow of the neon-red pony behind him caught across her cheekbones and brow. They regarded one another and it struck Henry Standing Bear, not for the first time, that this woman was too earnest. Eileen Music was like a dog that had not been beaten in a long time.

"Can you keep an effective bar, Miss Music?"

She straightened immediately. "Yes sir I can."

Henry swept an arm wide. "Come. Show me."

She did.

"So tell me again why you need a job tending bar?"

She threw the bar-rag at Branch and it wrapped around his face with a wet *shlup*. Because she had agreed to be his D.D. tonight and because he had taken FULL advantage of that offer, he allowed the damp cloth to stay long enough to gratify the thrower.

She began sweeping behind the bar. "Well you remember all those pamphlets you were supposed to give out and didn't? About how isolation was bad after trauma?"

His brow wrinkled as he pawed the rag off his head. "Uh-huh."

"Well…" She shrugged.

The finished bottle of beer tipped over on the table in front of him. He scrambled for it and caught it. Eileen mumbled under her breath about the damned drunk and he winged it at her. She caught it, laughing, and then he stacked himself up on his feet and began straightening the chairs and picking up what trash his well-buzzed brain'd let him see and reach.

Henry stuck his head through the office at the laughter. "Mr. Connally, I can't pay you for your time."

"Aw…izalright," Branch grunted, steadying himself on a chair. "She'ss gonna take me…take me home." The 's's were loose on his tongue.

Henry cocked an eye at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Him and me, we have this thing."

"Yeah," Branch agreed. "She drags me 'long and I prop…prop her up."

Eileen's hair fell over her face as she finished up behind the bar. Henry Standing Bear took note and said nothing.

His patience had not paid off until two years ago when she put her given name on paper. Did she really feel that safe? Typical American arrogance. She understood the business. She knew that her life could well be over when making that choice.

He watched. The lack of a pattern bordered the disgusting as she criss-crossed the United States. The only common thread was isolation. Fringes. The quiet spaces between towns for no more than a day or so. No permanent address. No employment. No medical treatment either-based on the purchases she'd almost died of the flu in December of 2010.

He really couldn't blame her. He didn't like doctors either.

He wiped sweat; it was sweltering in Dubai. He hated this place. He hated it vehemently. Give him the dry air and forging heat of his native Tehran. This festering, oily existence was not something he cared for. The ocean held no charm for him, nor the glittering wealth offered here. Not that he didn't like to get paid; Darab was a practical man who understood needs.

He sat back and watched the screen. A good hacked satellite was worth its' several thousand kilos in gold, but at this moment he'd take that payment in snow. The house she had purchased was too large for her. A man came and went. They shoveled the amassing precipitation on a regular basis, but a cripple always has SUCH difficulty. She applied her considerable skills to gainful employ. It was the American way, after all. One must earn one's keep.

If the truth were known, he had taken pride in that work. She should have died. His skill alone had dictated otherwise. The only regrettable thing about the entire scenario was the briefness of its duration and the poverty of the data.

Remarkable subject.

He had been promised a second opportunity, and the responsible individual rarely failed to deliver. His anticipation was swollen, teetering like the festering wind coming off the bay.