Tim and Clare lay back in post-coital bliss. He was still handcuffed but sated. She reached over and uncuffed him after a few moments, looking into his eyes as she did it. "So, what are we doing?"
"It's occurred to me that I want you," he said, "In every way possible."
She kissed him some more, "I have a price on my head."
"Only for now," he kissed her forehead and reached for his shirt, tossing her tank top at her. "As much as I hate the idea, we do have to get dressed. Before the mosquitoes finish us, at least."
She shook her head at him, "Guess your chaperone wasn't much good."
Tim smirked, "He was a poor choice for the role." He watched her pull her cutoffs back on and stick her bikini in her medical bag. "A little obvious, huh?"
"You should see your 'I just got laid' face," she pointed out, putting her arms around his shoulders.
"Well, I did."
They made it up to the stilt house, still enjoying the afterglow when Tim pulled her back and said, "In all seriousness, we do need to talk about protection."
"Inside. I'm hungry," she said with a kiss and Tim rolled his eyes.
She paused in the doorway to the stilt-house and looked at him, lips pressed to avoid laughing. He peeked around her to see Raylan and Amy sitting at a worn, unfinished table with a deck of equally worn Tarot cards. Raylan was looking disappointed and disbelieving. Amy was looking smug.
"We interrupting something?" Tim asked, to Clare's snicker.
Amy snickered and gestured at Clare. They bickered in French and then Clare went to the rather dated kitchen and pulled two beers from the fridge, passing one to Tim. "She's on her party trick routine," she muttered.
"Anything good?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Anything embarrassingly uncomfortable?"
She smirked and said something to Amy before returning to the kitchen. Tim moved to follow but Amy patted the seat next to her, "Come and shuffle the cards, soldier."
He tried to exchange glances with Raylan, who stubbornly refused to look at Tim. He sat took the cards, holding them a moment before finally shuffling them expertly at her encouraging nod.
Clare mixed the long simmering beans and spices as her mother had taught her, before plating them with rice and bringing them out to Amy and the marshals. "Dinner. Anything for ya'll?"
Raylan smiled, "We ate earlier, but thank you."
Clare nodded, setting the other plate down for Amy.
"In a moment, cher, merci. Now, cut the deck," she nodded at Tim.
Clare sat down across from Tim and smirked some more. Raylan watched them with disinterest. He was pretty sure what they'd been up to. Clare opted to take her plate back in the kitchen with a shake of her head after Amy muttered something in French that Raylan couldn't understand.
After Amy's card tricks, Raylan brought up protective custody again. This time Tim took point off the bat saying, "It doesn't mean being carted around like felon any more than it means we're gonna let you play bait just to get it off our desks."
Clare smiled, and Raylan watched Amy bit her lips to watch the show. "How exactly is it going to get off your desk if I'm too protected to draw them out?" Clare countered.
"How are you gonna live the life you just got back if you're on a slab?"
"Quietly."
Raylan face-palmed.
Tim took a deep breath. Then another. "Dr. Lidet, can I speak to you without witnesses?"
Clare turned to Raylan, said, "If he shoots me, Deputy, make sure he gets paid for it so he can buy my corpse a lot of flowers."
Raylan did a little salute as Clare and Tim walked out and Amy broke out in giggles. He looked at the more than middle-aged woman as she regained herself. "I've missed Clare, Deputy Givens. Known her her whole life. Worried about her that long, as well. And it's not many men who'd chase her rather than run from her. I quite like your colleague."
Raylan nodded, not quite worrying about where his mind was being led. That was Tim's problem.
Tim gripped the porch railing until his knuckles turned white, but Clare remained silent next to him.
Finally he said, "Please don't do this. Please don't blow the heads up we have here to rush and try to finish this on your own."
"I am not trying to finish this on my own. I wouldn't still be here if I wanted to finish this on my own," she responded softly.
He kissed her some more. She groaned, louder than intended, and through the lust-fog heard Raylan call from inside, "You two kill each other yet?"
Tim broke off and Clare's soft giggle joined his own.
"We're fine so far, Raylan. Now, if you could not interrupt our delicate negotiations," Tim hollered.
Clare stifled her laugh by clinging to Tim and softly biting his shoulder, before calling back, "I told you he'd shoot me, Deputy Givens."
"I should," Tim muttered, "End the suspense." He held her to him, enjoying her easy smile and his current hormonal exhilaration. "Please, take this seriously."
"I am. That was a shitty question to ask me."
He sighed, "Valid one, though."
She nodded reluctantly and kissed him. Softly. Deepening it slowly, Tim kept his hands PG, around her face and drifting down her spine. Breaking it for oxygen, Clare said, "You know why I have to do this, don't you? Why I can't be passive and sit back and let you-"
"I wish you would let me protect you," he let his fingers trail over her scar, making her shiver in the moist Louisiana heat, "I've wanted to do that for a damn long time. Do not fuck this up, babe, please."
"Fuck it up like the next time you're up for a promotion and the guy asks why you were sleeping with a former fugitive?" she asked, eyes meeting.
"No, fuck it up like getting dead. Please, don't do that."
"You aren't addressing my point. 'Cause you aren't allowed to kiss protectees either, Marshal."
"I'll say to the guy, 'I'm sorry I didn't hear them because I'm tired from having a late dinner with the governor said-fugitive's family just got elected.' How's that? And you wouldn't be a protectee forever. Just… live that long, will you?"
She smiled up at him, a wide archless grin that got his blood flowing and his head light like the way her looking up at him all trusting used to. He gulped.
"Nothing is going to happen to me. I won't let it. You won't let it. But I need to do this. Someone stole my life from me. Three years I will never get back. I almost lost my career, Tim. My medical license!"
"To say nothing of your life," he cut in dryly.
"I can't stand back and wait for ya'll to catch him. Can't let him believe I'm frightened or cowed or anything but really pissed off. Because I am, Tim. He stole that time-all of it-from me!"
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "If you'd have stayed rather than running-"
"I'd be dead."
"We could've protected you then!"
"No one believed I was innocent then! Protection hinged on information I was supposed to give. Information I didn't have. I was a cop's kid, Tim; I'm not naive to the mindset."
"And what did running accomplish? Other than three years of people who loved you worrying?"
"It was the only choice I had!"
"You could have stayed! I was on your side," his voice dropped to whisper fiercely, "You could have let me protect you then. You had a choice."
"No, that choice was made for me. Running was the only choice I could make for myself," she whispered just as fiercely, tears in her eyes, "They were going to kill me. Marie had already tried. I don't know who even caused that accident-"
"One of the others, her boyfriend tried to free her. We caught them in a couple of hours. Drug charges. Nothing connected to you."
"Well, I didn't know that. I may have been paranoid but someone is out to get me. I didn't trust my chances in jail. Would you, in my position?" she held his hands, pleading, "Can you get that I've been responsible for my safety so far and I'm not reckless with it?"
He nodded, taking a deep breath and pulling her close again, "I fuckin' hate this, y'know."
She gave him that same smile, wrapping her arms around his neck, "I love that you hate it. I won't do it any longer than necessary, ok?"
He scoffed, tipping his forehead to touch hers. "Why do I think you're a liar?" he asked absently, then changed the subject, "We gonna try this? When it's over?"
"We're gonna be a 'we' when it's over? Yeah. But you gotta buy me dinner before you get any further," she kissed him.
Raylan peeked out the window at Tim and Clare holding each other. His heart ached for Winona so hard he could take a breath, but he let the moment pass and felt Amy squeeze his shoulder. "We don't always love the right people. And the right people aren't always what they should be," she said softly and walked back to the kitchen with her empty plate.
Tim and Clare walked back in then, hands being held and glances exchanged. He avoided eye contact with Raylan as he pulled her into his lap and picked his beer back up. Tim's choice being clear.
Clare, for her part, seemed more amused than rueful, but she shrugged an apology at Raylan as she lay back on Tim's chest and Amy shook her head and smiled at them.
"I'll return to Lexington with ya'll," Clare said, "but I have conditions about protection."
"We'll discuss those later," Raylan said with a dirty look at Tim. "You'll fly back with us tomorrow. Tim and I should go and call this in. Will you be here tonight?"
Amy said, "Yes, she will."
Clare smiled into her beer. "I'll stick to my end, Deputy."
Raylan looked at Tim. Tim returned the look, obtusely, for a long moment before he slid Clare to the side and kissed her, saying, "Tomorrow, babe."
She walked them out, holding his hand to the dog's chagrin, and gestured up the driveway, "It'll take you to Beaumont, go left and you'll be back at Cal's before you know it."
Raylan waited all of a house and a half before turning to Tim, "You slept with her! I go away for five minutes and you're in a fugitive's pants!"
Tim gallantly refrained from laughing, "She hasn't been a fugitive for good twenty or so hours now."
"Jesus, Tim! This is…I don't even know what this is."
"Something you'd do."
"Well… Yeah. Do you know the shit Art's going to give me for you doing this?"
Tim's expression led Raylan to believe Tim knew exactly what Art would say.