The search for Kolya was hard. Everyone squeezed their CIs until the pips squeaked, but only vague traces were forthcoming.
Three days in and Raylan was antsy. If there was something going down, he would bet his last dollar that Boyd Crowder was involved, but felt strangely reluctant to go down there. Ava's arrest had made a wedge between them that Raylan had always been aware of, but that perhaps Boyd was now beginning to understand.
For the first time since he had returned to Kentucky, we dug coal together had less resonance with Raylan than he had ever felt before. Which was strange. But he couldn't shake the feeling that McKay the Mountie was there for a whole other reason than the glib story about the terrorist Kolya, and that Boyd Crowder was in this up to his neck.
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Wynn Duffy had a really bad feeling about this new arrangement ever since this Acastus Kolya had turned up. Crowder was no longer listening to him.
True the man's fiancée had been arrested, and Crowder's emotional connection to the woman had been stronger than Duffy could have possibly imagined. Separation from Ava had messed with Crowder's head in a way that was uncontrollable.
A cup of tea materialized at his elbow. Duffy half-turned, and raised an eyebrow at his silent lieutenant. Mike upheld his reputation for silence, just held the tea out, Duffy sighed a little and accepted the cup. Took a sip. Brewed to perfection, it seemed as though his careful lessons on the art of making tea had been absorbed by his hulking associate. And Mike had his advantages, his silence being one of them. Being around Crowder for any length of time gave Duffy something of a headache.
Duffy took another sip. "Mike, I trust you still have your passport available?"
"Yeah." A beat, then, "Canada or Mexico, boss?"
"Canada. Better food, and more comfortable weather at this time of year."
Duffy finished his tea. "We leave in half an hour." He said.
He would come back in a couple of weeks. Give this Kolya time to get out of the way.
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Boyd Crowder sat at the bar, bottle of Maker's Mark at his elbow, half-filled glass in front of him. Perhaps he was waiting for that click in his head, like Brick in Tennesse Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, that click that told him he was going to be okay. That his world had shifted right.
He traced the rim of his glass slowly with his forefinger. Everything that he wanted, for one small favour, capturing Raylan Givens for Kolya.
It wasn't as though he and Raylan were friends. Boyd had pretty much given up on Givens. At one time he thought he could play on Raylan's roots, draw the Marshal in and have a man on the inside so to speak, but he'd figured Raylan's relationship with his father more wrong than right, and in the end he'd rejoiced in pulling Arlo in with him. Now he wasn't even sure whether Raylan actually hated him or not.
He was out of trust, out of time, and almost out of options. Then there was a finder's fee. Enough money to buy the absolute best for Ava's defence.
Deliver one Raylan Givens and get everything he so badly needed.
No contest really.
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Rodney sat down on the end of the bed, rubbing the towel over his hair. "Sheppard, I think we need to tell Givens at least some of what is going on."
"an hou wou tha be a good idea?" John Sheppard appeared in the doorway, toothpaste foam on his lips, toothbrush in hand. He slumped against the doorway in that loose-limbed slouch that inevitably made Rodney roll his eyes.
"I still cannot believe how you ever made it through basic, Colonel." Rodney waved his hands, working up to a well warmed theme, "what is it with this leaning on things, everywhere you come to rest it's like your body does it on purpose."
John grinned, and returned for the rinse and spit.
His back was turned, so Rodney allowed himself that fond little smirk that he had no intention of ever letting John in on. Then his expression darkened, "John, I really think we should let Givens in to some of this."
Sheppard slunk over to the bed and slumped across it, curved himself around Rodney. "Why?"
McKay knew what he was asking. "Well, firstly while I am undeniably the smartest man in two galaxies," he could feel John's smirk, and ignored the gentle kiss placed on his hip, just above his towel, but turned his head to fix his partner with a look, "and I don't normally admit to signs of intelligence in others, except possibly Zelenka, but…" trying to impress upon Sheppard the seriousness of what he was saying "Givens is not stupid, and neither are Gutterson and Brooks. All three of them are suspicious of us." He tilted his head, "well they are of me. Shep they treat like a family pet."
John was really smirking now. "I know."
"The point being that Givens is smart, and if only half the stories are even a quarter true, he has the tenacity of a bulldog."
"And you like him."
"Yes, I do." Age hadn't withered Rodney, but it had calmed some of his more ferocious rants. "He's in an appalling situation, for the Milky Way Galaxy, and…"
"His daughter."
"Yeah. His daughter. The gene."
John was frowning now, it wasn't as though that thought hadn't occurred to them, and Raylan Givens was a doting dad. Camera phone filled with baby pictures.
"Shit."
Rodney gave his partner the look. "Exactly."
"If Kolya can't acquire Raylan, he will go after the baby. Or he may already have decided to go for the clean sweep."
Rodney sighed, "so, how do we go about enlightening him, without … y'know… enlightening him."
"Dunno." Sheppard slapped his lover on the thigh, "we'll think of something. Ready to go to work?"
Rodney reached for his clothes, as Sheppard slipped off the bed.
Rodney hunched a shoulder, even shifting John was the most graceful creature he had ever encountered. Shep stretched, raised a paw and whined.
"Yeah, yeah… I get it." Rodney finished dressing and geared up for the day, hoping that genius would strike at some point and give him a simple answer to a scarily insoluble problem. How to best protect Raylan Givens and his baby girl.
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Suddenly from no leads to far too many.
It wasn't rocket science to work out that whatever was going down, the enemy was trying to split the Marshals' forces.
Raylan got mad, and was headed to Harlan. Tim and Rachel rode his bumper while Rodney hung slightly behind them. "It's a trap." Shep whined and pawed the air.
"Yeah. I can fix this." Rodney muttered. Because, hello, genius here. If the smartest man in two galaxies…
A short, ugly gunfight, then their assailants seemed to melt away, it was only then that Rodney realised that Shep was limping badly, and a round clipped Raylan in the shoulder. Barely a graze.
None of it felt right.
But Shep was bleeding and Rodney had to get him out of there.
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Rachel perched on the edge of Tim's desk. "Something about our mountie isn't right and you know it."
Tim sat back and rolled his shoulders, sitting at a desk always made him a little stiff. "Yeah." Shot a look at his partner over the wobbly partion. "Wanna come get some real answers with us."
Raylan was already reaching for his hat, "I'm gonna have to pass, Winona and Franny require my attention at home."
Tim nodded. Raylan's priorities had shifted, and since Winona was cutting him some slack, and letting him into Franny's life, she'd even returned to Kentucky, Tim and Rachel figured that they would back him up wherever they could.
Raylan said his goodnights and left, Tim looked at Rachel. "Answers?" He raised his eyebrows.
"You know I'm right." Rachel held out the keys to the SUV. "You drive."
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He stepped up onto his porch, and put his brand new key in the lock. He loved these little moments, he'd given Winona a key so she could get in, and he could make believe that they were all okay, and he was coming home to his family.
"Nona." She appeared in the kitchen doorway, smiling tiredly at him.
"I put her down a little while ago, but she might be awake now."
He stepped up to her and brushed his lips against her cheek. Then moved towards the bedroom.
Franny was in the little cot he had bought. He knew nothing about babies, and baby girls in particular, but armed with the knowledge that pink was out, Raylan had spent a bewildering Saturday trekking around every baby store in Lexington figuring out what he needed.
She was awake when he peered in. Her little arms came up and waved, and he leaned over and scooped her up. Holding her to his chest, he sat down in the recliner that he'd put by the window. Breathing in the delicious scent of baby.
He'd die before admitting it, but Raylan lived for these little stolen moments. Him and Franny. Before she got old enough to be disappointed in his failings as a father, he knew his time was precious so he held on to his moments, and his camera phone. Storing and printing out every picture.
He settled back into the chair, feeling the tensions of the day begin to ease and unravel and the warmth of Franny's tiny body begin to leach through to his skin.
McKay was hiding something, but unlike Barclay, Raylan had the strangest feeling that the man didn't mean him and the others any harm.
[][][][][][][][]
Tim cut the engine and allowed the heavy Yukon to roll to a stop outside the no tell motel that McKay had made his home base. It was borderline seedy, but still immeasurably better than the establishment that Raylan had lived in for almost a year Tim noted with considerable amusement.
He pulled himself together, McKay needed to provide them with some damn good answers.
He nodded to Rachel. "Just the one way in."
She smiled, "easy."
A tiny prickle at the back of Tim's neck said something different, but Tim ignored that emotion. One man and his dog, one door. How difficult could it be.
They made their way quickly and quietly to the door, where Tim examined the lock. Knew it would give easily enough and with minimal damage from one hefty shove with his foot. "3-2-1" he timed it with Rachel. Lashed out with his foot, impacting squarely above the latch, which gave as Tim thought it would. "US Marshals." He snapped as he barged into the room, a hair in front of Rachel.
A tall, lean built, dark haired man about Raylan's age was sprawled across the bed, Tim's brain had a second to process the line of butterfly bandages which held the edges of a gash together, as the man rolled, a Beretta came up and leveled rock steady on Tim's forehead.
"Oh nice!" Snapped a voice, McKay in the doorway to the bathroom, Tim didn't need to look he'd pick out those vowels anywhere.
Something whined close to Tim's ear.
"Drop it." Said a voice. Deep, booming, one that Tim had never heard before. It was a weapon of some sort, and caught between the man on the bed and the two persons that Tim now realised were behind him, he raised his hands letting his weapon be taken from him.
McKay came further out of the bathroom, rolling his eyes and looking really irritable. "Sheppard, if you've re-opened that wound…"
"Rodney, I haven't, but as usual your timing sucks. How about cluing the nice folks here in to what is going on?"
McKay snorted, "my timing does not suck, and you know what…" he jerked his head and made a few faces that Tim interpreted as being some sort of sign language, or perhaps McKay just had a nervous tic.
"Pretty sure that the smart folks here have figured it out. Or some of it," the lanky guy on the bed, rolled back onto his front and put the Beretta on the floor, which was right about the point that Tim realised that Sheppard was stark naked. He flushed a little and shot a look at Rachel, whose eyebrows raised expressively for a moment.
In that instant, a light went on in Tim's brain. "Sheppard? Shep…" he turned to McKay, "you named your dog…"
"Not exactly." As Tim's very overloaded brain made an impossible connection. "You're a…"
Sheppard levered himself into a sitting position, "think the word you are looking for here is shapeshifter." He quelled McKay's half-swallowed protest with scowl, "not werewolf. I hasten to add that. Just so you aren't harbouring any weird ideas about silver bullets and all that shit. Colonel John Sheppard, USAF, amongst other things."
Tim's addled brain was just about making it past shapeshifter not werewolf and Colonel, USAF…
"Sir." He snapped to attention. Ten years in, and certain habits never went away.
"At ease." The colonel got to his feet. "I know it's a shock, but right now we should know where your partner is."
"It's Wednesday," Rachel stepped in, taking their shapeshifter thing in her stride as only Rachel could do, "Raylan's at home with his baby girl."
The slightly horrified look that McKay and Sheppard exchanged, completed that sinking feeling that had been present with Tim all day.