Chapter 3

He still had not been able to bring himself to try and sleep at the cabin since the invasion there, and he had yet to hear anything remotely apologetic or lover-like from Donna, now out on bail. He really didn't expect to ever hear from her again. He knew that after everything had gone down, the D.A. had bagged her as an accessory in the Zoloft ring, once she had admitted she suffered from Reverse-Transference. She had the misfortune to literally fall in love with patient after patient. He wondered after all this, that maybe he had qualified. He had set her up as a Martha surrogate and expected her to like the same things he and Martha had shared over the years. That couldn't have been healthy…

But it was a blow to his two tentative forays into romance…not necessarily love, since Martha's death. He had been both intrigued and terrified of Vic, and backed off to save her, and that still burned inside, unresolved, but became a far more remote possibility since her relationship with Eammon had started. He was still having a hard time thinking that her relationship with Eammon wasn't cheating on him, even though he had never really started anything with her. It had all been on hold, implied, until Henry would get released. At least, in his mind, it had been.

Walt felt more than a little sympathy for Zach, who had broken the case and eventually Walt's doors to help him bring in Donna. This all despite injury to the intruder, a co-patient and former deputorial applicant, and not before a few misunderstandings had been cleared up. Zach appearing to confront his ex-lover was not the true scenario. Instead, he had been keeping tabs on Monte Ford for days, apparently after somehow determining he was not experiencing paranoia symptoms. The serial killer wall in the hotel room had kind of cemented that for Zach.

In Walt's opinion, kicking the front doors in had been ill-advised, since it had put his fight-or-flight into motion, not healthy with thirty years of law enforcement and military under his belt. It had also precipitated a lot of screaming from Donna as Zach confronted Monte, although which combatant she was cheering for, he wasn't sure, but the small man who had sneaked in the side window, knife in hand, was another. Zach had seen both the knife and the man, but had taken his chances breaking into a seasoned lawman's home to intercept the intruder. That attitude, that chutzpah, reminded him of him. He didn't like the reminder of his own mortality.

"Call 911!" he had instructed Donna as Monte Ford charged him after pushing Zach away, and she had, even while crying and carrying on hysterically. He had launched himself from the bed and tackled the younger man, who was admittedly smaller but dressed and wearing square-toed rough-outs to even out the advantages he had, and they'd both ended up worse for wear. He'd gotten a ragged scratch on his chest from the knife before he'd beat Monty's hand to the floor. He pretty much ended up scraped and bruises everywhere, before Donna had run to Zach, who was desperately trying to pull Ford off him, telling him over and over again how sorry she was...for what, he wondered?

Walt finally succeeded in flipping Monte and banged his head against the floor. Well, Monte was out, for how long, unknown, meanwhile his own chest bled and he still crouched naked over Monte's prone body. He looked up into Zach's face, breathing hard. Donna, white-faced but mouth a grim line, stood behind Zach, and she suddenly looked old and tired... Did he look like that, too? Say, to Vic?

By the time Ferg, followed closely by Eammon, arrived, it was all over but the shoutin'. They both ran in guns drawn, but seeing him, chest bleeding, wrapped in a sheet he had grabbed off the bed. putting pressure on his chest wound, kneeling next to a cuffed and unconscious Monte, the Ferg stood-down and looked to him in question, as though, "so, who're the bad guys, here?".

"Cuff her, too," he said, still breathing heavily and staring at Dona with a mixture of profound anger and disappointment, "until we sort this all out."

Sorted out over a few halting confessions and Zach's corroboration, Donna had apparently come on to both patients, professing her love, but intending to use them as mules to fill prescriptions, and then switched gears and abandoned them when they refused. He was still processing it all as he heard Ferg's radio crackle without registering who or what was being said.

"Where's Vic?" he asked suddenly, having expected her to be first on the scene, but knowing that she was not on duty for another few hours. "We should bring her in on this."

The two deputies looked to each other, as though he'd just opened a hornet's nest.

Ferg finally manned up, and went on in his halting way. "She was at the station when the calls came in, pulled rank and, Walt—she went after Browning," he finished in a rush.

"Browning?" he said. "He's out?" and then, "Without backup?" His voice rose with the gorge rose in his throat, the long suppression of his fear for Vic, trying not to show favoritism, suddenly unleashed. "Where's my pants?

Vic's voice filled the air as if on command. "I'm going in at the RedRoad 4 trail head. Send Eammon when he's available. Moretti out."

His veneer of aloofness almost instantly peeled away. He'd felt an irrational anger at Vic, as though responding to the cabin, to him, was no longer her concern, his well-being no longer vital to her. He had never felt that from her before. It stung, but he pushed that down. That she had chosen to go after Browning instead of coming to his aid…her actions might very well reflect her denial of the PTSD and verge on the suicidal. She knew how difficult Browning had been for him to bring in with help.

"Give me that," he'd demanded of Ferg, grabbing for the radio.

Eammon held out his pants. "Here's your pants, Walt." He grabbed at them with his free hand.

"Vic, Vic! Do you hear me? Stand down. I'll be out there in half an hour and we'll go in together." He'd bellowed as loud as he could, but there was no response.

He held his pants in his hand, thinking she should have heard him, but realization dawned as he looked down at them. If she'd heard Eammon mention over the radio that he wasn't wearing them, well, shit. He'd bet she wouldn't respond at all after hearing that.

Ferg brought him back to reality. "Walt, EMTs will be here soon, but let's see if we can slow your bleeding, Walt. Together, they got it to slow, and put gauze and tape over it to hold until he could stop for treatment, for, he could not stop, now. He was more than sure Vic was in danger from Browning or some sort of cowardly ambush.

Donna witnessed his transformation from lover to lawman in less than three minutes without a word but lips pressed sullenly together, as he silently dressed, badged and armed up, fetching his spare cuffs. With his enveloping coat, hat cranked down, and an unconscious man at his feet, he was prepared to swear she went white as he cocked his rifle. It was all in a day's business for him, had been for most of his career, but he knew the demons she encountered were more typically the horrors locked inside a person, not daily dealings with cretins manipulating the exterior forces of the world.

In the end, he and Ferg had left Eammon and a newly-deputized Zach to process the crime scene and take Donna in as an accessory. He had decided to let Zach turn evidence as a witness, and get him some medical help. He figured he owed him for following up, breaking the case, alerting them to Ford, and for his own mistake in firing what was essentially a younger, greener version of himself. He could later amend his departmental decisions, after everyone had cooled off.

They'd later found Walker Browning had been released by Monte, to create more trouble for the department. Monte had pretty well succeeded, but who knew they'd made such enemies? He did, and Lucian did. Stanley Keane, Chance and Barlow had been among that select group…

Now, days later, the crime scene tape still hanging at the cabin still repelled him, put him off his feed, reminding him of all things, the FBI investigation into Barlow's death. He had called the FBI himself. He hadn't called Vic. She'd been out of town visiting her family at the time. She'd flown back first thing, but he'd been in only to legally put her in charge, and retreated to his cabin to contemplate. She'd said it hadn't been healthy for him to isolate. Right now, he was pretty sure it was the only thing which had kept him sane.

After leaving Lucian's facility and the unexpected torrent of grief over Branch, things with Vic and things in general at the side of the road, he went to his home-away-from-home, and tossed on the cot at the station.

He sneaked out early morning to beat Ruby's arrival, after changing his shirt to allay suspicion later. He drove over to The CC, Cumberland's "country club prison," so designated because its barbed wire was low and doors not locked, and demanded to see Henry. He desperately needed a touchstone, or someone to tell him what to do.

Henry only two more weeks to serve in the minimum security facility situated just over the County line. He had received the lightest sentence from the Tribal Police for accessory, aiding and abetting a person of interest. Walt suspected Mathias had smoothed the way, possibly with sympathy for someone trying to achieve justice where he could legally not. Henry was cook there, and they liked his cooking so much, the prison warden, called "The Principal," had jokingly asked if he could keep Henry longer, "room and board included."

Henry arrived into the tiny room limping but looking much better. Rez docs must've patched him up. He still regretted having accidentally shot Henry, of all people, fleeing in the dark…keeping his secrets and Hector's assignations had almost cost Henry his life.

"We have five minutes together. What did you need to see me about, Walt, until I resume partaking of the resort facilities, here?"

"When you get out, we'll talk. We need to talk."

"I am not disputing that. My release date is very soon. What brings you here, today?"

"Vic."

"Vic."

"Yep."

"All right," said Henry, "Could you possibly narrow that down a bit? We have only four minutes and forty-five seconds."

"Vic. Did you notice any different behavior, recently? Like since the Chance Gilbert thing?"

Henry pursed his lips together. It was a definite thinking position.

"She was at your cabin when I went looking for you, before I located you on your misbegotten mission at the casino airstrip."

He felt himself start. "She was at my cabin?"

"If I remember correctly, wearing eyeshadow and lip gloss, tight jeans, heels, her shirt unbuttoned not unlike yours, and bearing beer."

"She was at my cabin?" He was having trouble absorbing that. She had said nothing.

"I believe I have established that, and we have three minutes and forty seconds left."

"I think she's having PTSD symptoms, I've seen her clench up and start staring around baseball bats She won't say a word about that, all she says is 'she's fine,' and shuts me down when I offered to talk. Now she won't talk to me at all." He exhaled. "She left a letter of resignation on my desk."

Henry stared at him. "You offered to talk?"

"Stop it, smart-ass. I'm worried about her."

"So what have you done about that?"

"Nothing, she kept saying even later that she was fine, and mocked me about my concern."

"Any other signs?"

"Well, she's been in the hospital since the Walker Browning thing and I'm not allowed in her room."

"She went after him?"

"Yep. Vest saved her."

"Two minutes and forty-five seconds. Perhaps you are not keeping close enough tabs on your deputies, or sending them without backup, perhaps it is none of your business, or perhaps all of the above. So, Walt, have you never had a woman tell you she was "fine?"

"Uh…well, sure, I guess Martha used to, especially after she was diagnosed."

"And so you know that means she is not fine, right? Martha was not fine."

"Uh…"

"So you learned nothing. You do not know…" An exasperated sigh escaped him. "She was telling you without telling you. Think of it as Tells in poker, Walt. If Vic is afraid of baseball bats, but denies it, that is a Tell. It is her Tell. You know what Lucian would call it."

"Lucian?" The response was instant. "Bullet Fever Without Bullets."

Henry's lips were closed, serious, and he was nodding. "One minute. Something like that. And you have ignored it. After all, Branch said he was fine, too. As her boss, did you insist she speak with a professional?"

"No." He could barely speak and could hear his voice very soft. "I offered it, but I didn't force it. I…should have."

Silence hung between them for a few seconds.

"So where is Vic livng these days?" Henry asked politely.

Walt stared at him. "As of this morning, she was still in the hospital. Thank God she was wearing her vest, but she has burns to her chest, especially where some of the shot slightly penetrated. Wood and bone splinters in her left arm. She may be released today, but I'm not on her HIPAA information list. I…am thinking her PTSD may become worse after this. "

"Classic Bullet Fever, then? And you are here, why?"

"Because—she won't talk to me. Her letter of resignation is in my desk drawer. I haven't accepted it, yet. I don't want her to lose her insurance until she's healed."

"All which speak volumes, Walt. If she wishes to leave, who are you to prevent her?"

"Well I'm just trying to protect her, I don't want her to have to pay all that money…" Henry's gaze lowered, and Walt knew it was Henry's B.S. meter working overtime. It had always been that way between them. Henry was calling him on his shit. "I know," Walt finally said, hanging his head.

"Well, there you have it," said Henry. "It is not your decision, it is hers to make. So," he said with a sigh, "are you breaking me out of here, today?"

"TIME," the guard called from behind him, and Walt slid his chair back.

"I'll figure something out." But he wasn't sure how, this time. He had failed both her and Henry, and wasn't sure how he could fix either this time, Vic refusing to see him at the hospital, and Henry once again behind bars. It was like that movie Groundhog Day Cady had liked years ago. Would he continue to make the same bad choices cascading toward each predictable failure?

He couldn't remember for the life of him how Bill Murray had fixed it, but maybe that was it, maybe he needed to revisit the idea of the shrink he had terrorized that one day. He considered that the young man might now be in therapy himself.

Still…

XXX

After his humiliation in front of Henry, he ended up at the Red Pony and had several beers. He hoped it would give Vic time to be released and he could figure out what was going on with her.

Still reasonably sober after spacing his beers out, he found himself pulling in front of Cady's house. He wasn't sure why he was there, although he hoped if Vic had been released that afternoon, she would try to go back home and not work, as Branch had. She still worked nights to his days. It was a pointed reminder that it was a world of his own construct gone all to hell.

He knocked, and to his surprise, Cady answered. He knew she wasn't home much. He had no doubt the days on the Rez were as long and probably even more frustrating than his in law enforcement.

"Dad! What a pleasant surprise! Come on in!" She didn't sound unhappy about it…

He twisted his hat in his hands. "I don't want to disturb you…"

"No," she said, drawing him into the house, "this is good timing, I can't read through one more deposition tonight."

"Okay. Just wondered how you were doing, how Jacob is treating you…"

"Jacob has very little to do with what I'm doing. We're just trying to make sure all past cases are followed up on, and address new needs. Mathias has actually been very forthcoming with the files. I think he wants them solved as much as I do. Can I get you a Rainier?"

He hesitated. He really didn't need another, and still had to drive home.

"Come on, you're off duty, right?"

"Yep. I, just, um, I wondered, um, how Vic's doing. How she is."

To his great unease, her big blue-gray eyes opened wide.

"Vic? How would I know that?"

"Well…I mean, you must have seen her today..."

"Dad…I don't know if I should even tell you this…but Vic hasn't been back here since, uh, a couple days before the attack in your cabin."

"She moved out? Why didn't I know this?"

"Her stuff's still here, but…I…don't know? I'm not her boss, dad, and I'm not your informant, here." He heard the strident note in her voice.

"I—I you're right. I'm just worried about her."

"Well, then, that's two of us, but maybe Eammon knows? I mean, they were, ah, friends a couple of weeks back?"

"Hmmm." He couldn't say more, but the unease had now become a permanent resident. "I'd really appreciate it, Punk, if you could at least let me know if she shows up, that she's safe."

She held his eyes a moment, before acceding.

"I shouldn't. It's between you and Vic. What did you do to her?"

His hubris tried to puff up, but faded in the knowledge of the enormity of their rift.

"Nothing, it's more like, what I should have done," which sounded like an evasion, but was unfortunately pretty close to the hard truth.

It also cemented the brief exchange he'd had with Eammon as they had worked the Walker Browning crime scene. Vic had indeed killed Walker's rifle-toting henchman, so he had quietly pocketed her gun in an evidence bag before he'd scooped her up, and later removed her badge while she'd been sitting out of it at the base of the tree. It had to be carefully investigated, no hints of impropriety or favoritism in a death case.

"Will Vic be okay, Walt?" Eammon had asked, while kneeling by the unmourned body, bagging evidence.

He looked up. "Oh. Yeah, I think so. Still, I never discount GSWs, even with a vest on."

Eammon was looking at him.

"Walt, something you should probably know."

He lowered his eyes to Eammon's in question.

"It was only the once. She wanted to hurt you, and after, told me she'd told you not to rehire me because we were in a 'relationship,' but it was just the once, and I realized almost right away it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you. I told her to figure herself out before there could be anything else between us, and now I'm absolutely sure it's not me. She hasn't called me again, or visited me over in Cumberland. When I saw you with her here, and carrying her out, I realized, it's you, it was you all along, and I should have seen it, but I didn't right away."

He felt his face frozen in that deer-in-the-headlights/busted expression. How could he possibly talk about squashed-down feelings here in the middle of nowhere processing a crime scene?

In the face of non-response, Eammon apparently lost his nerve. "I just thought you should know," Eammon sighed, and went back to collecting evidence, bagging the deceased's hands and wrapping the gun to preserve the prints.

"Eammon," he said finally, and he looked up. "Thanks. Thanks for being her friend. She needed one when I was…unavailable."

"Sure. If you still need one, and you and Vic are both cool with it, I'm still interested in the deputy position."

"I still am short-handed, especially now, without Vic for a bit, but long-term, too. If you and Vic think you can work together."

"Well, can we talk in a day or two?"

Walt nodded. "Yep, that will do."

Eammon went back to evidence collection, Walt to re-enacting the scenario in his head, and it made him sick. Poor Vic, out here alone, pit one against two, but in the end, she'd gotten them both. He had grudging respect for her determination and will to see it through and take them both down, but she might well have died out there, and that was a possibility he was just not able to face.