"How's Raylan?" Rachel looked over the partition at her sometime partner. Just lately things seemed off with Tim and she was concerned. After the incident, she had thought that things would settle down and go back to the way they were, but something had changed.

"Raylan's gone."

"What?" Rachel stared at Tim, who refused to meet her eyes. "Tim?"

"He got a place in Lexington, close to everything. It's better that way."

She knew that they had been having some issues, but this. "So, nearly three years together and he just moves out."

Tim's head snapped up at her tone, and the guard dropped for a second. Rachel had never seen Tim look like that, like his whole world had collapsed in on it's self.

"Yeah. Just like that." The tone was off, but the guard was back up.

But Rachel had the key to the map now. She gave him a long hard stare, which Tim countered with one of his trademark bored looks. As if she was about to believe that any more. She nodded. Tim's eyes dropped back to his paperwork. She could see the tension in his body.

It was all busted up, and Tim couldn't bear to even think about it now. He'd driven Raylan away and wrecked their relationship, and that was that. He hunched a shoulder and turned his gaze back to the paperwork.

Rachel coolly checked her watch, she had an hour for lunch, finding Raylan's new address would be relatively easy. She was not just going to leave this. Three years together, the happiest she had ever seen either of them, despite Raylan's new reality, after what happened, she couldn't just leave it alone.

[][][][][][][][]

The doorbell rang, and Raylan moved forward. "OW." He snapped irritably as he stubbed his toe for the fourth time against the sofa. Two weeks and he still couldn't remember where the sofa was.

Two miserable weeks, reaching out in his sleep for that familiar touch, and finding nothing. Two weeks of Otis pressing against him, the enthusiastic thumping of Otis' tail a subdued half speed metronome these days. The nudging of Otis' nose when they were alone together.

Raylan stiffened his spine. Dammit. He wasn't a child or stupid, he could do this. And do it without all the fuss and the hovering and…

"Yes." He snapped, yanking the door open.

"Raylan." Rachel took in the cowboy's disheveled state, answering the door in jeans, no shirt or boots. "You moved out," she said in wonder.

"Rachel." He looked angry and miserable, and as he turned away to head back into the apartment, clearly not caring if she was following or not, he banged into the sofa.

"Dammit." Hissed under his breath.

Rachel shut the door. This was going to take a while.

"Coffee?" Raylan was moving towards the open plan kitchen and for a moment Rachel almost leapt across the room to make it herself. Scared that he might hurt himself, because she had never seen him bang into the furniture like that. She stopped herself, because if Raylan thought she was pitying him or trying to baby him, he would definitely push her out.

"Yes, please." She kept her voice calm and level, even a little disinterested. Otis lumbered over to see her, and Rachel turned her attention to the Labrador. Nearly a month since the incident and the cuts and grazes had healed, but it didn't take a genius to see that the dog was as unhappy as his master apparently was.

Well shit.

She rubbed Otis' ears, and the chocolate tail thumped, half-speed. Sad brown eyes looked hopefully up at her as though Rachel could fix what ailed them both. She rubbed his head. "I hope I can, boy." She whispered, the dog's head pushed into her hands again, and he leaned heavily against her.

Raylan returned with two steaming mugs of coffee. He hadn't lost all of his skills she noted as he put a mug in front of her on the coffee table. He had found a wife beater and a shirt from somewhere, the shirt miss-buttoned and the tee clearly grubby. She looked at his unshaven jaw, and his hair even more in need of a good cut than ever. His whole demeanor screamed distress.

He was papering over the cracks, exactly as Tim was, and she really couldn't bear to see them so unhappy.

"So you moved out."

Raylan's jaw clenched. "I don't need a nursemaid."

"Never said you did." So that was the crux of the problem.

"If he can't accept that it happened, and I'm fine, then we're better off alone."

Stubbornness in every inch of his body, but Rachel wasn't buying that for a minute.

She put her hand on his arm.

"I don't need a nursemaid." He gritted out between clenched teeth, as if trying to convince himself.

He was actually shivering, and Rachel gently closed her fingers around his wrist. "No one is saying you do, Raylan."

"I need to handle this. If he can't accept that, then we're better off this way." He said. She might even have believed it if she hadn't seen the shock and grief on Raylan's face, the mirror image of Tim's. "He's treating me…"

"Like you're made of glass." Raylan was blind, that hadn't put a dent in his pride. "So you fought."

He nodded.

"My mamma used to say, never let the sun set on your anger." She squeezed a little, "I'm guessing you've let more than a sun set on it."

Raylan just looked miserable. "Yeah." So quiet she could barely hear it.

"Tim's miserable too."

"He knows where I am."

As if this was ever going to be easy. Rachel picked up her mug, and turned the conversation to other subjects, she could see that she had given Raylan more than enough to think about.