A/N: Okay, so this is where I skew the facts a bit to suit my needs. In the show, Chance Gilbert shoots Vic in the leg, and she loses the baby due to blood loss. In the books, she gets a butterfly knife to the abdomen, courtesy of Thomas Bidarte, which kills the baby (which is Walt's in that universe, BTW), and leaves her unable to have more children. So, in my mildly alternate reality, Vic was shot in the abdomen, everything else stays pretty much the same. Everybody with me? Good. Carry on.

Chapter 8

True to her word, Vic didn't try to push any new cases in my direction in the months after our return from Bozeman. She didn't have to. Once word got around that I was doing a bit of Sherlocking in my free time, I got more opportunities thrown in my direction than I could handle. Some things I turned down flat. I wasn't interested in spying on trysting lovers, or tracking down evidence in insurance scams. Some things were way above my pay grade, and others just weren't interesting enough to tempt me. I was more than fully qualified to run license plates and do background checks, but the mere prospect bored me to death. I was not a private investigator. I was never going to be a private investigator. I was still treasure hunting. I had merely decided to steer the hunt in a different direction.

The most satisfying cases were the ones where I got to help reunite missing children with their parents. Fortunately, unlike the tragedy of the Many Bridges family, most of the ones I went looking for were found alive and some variation of well. Some of them were more willing to return home than others, but they were found nonetheless. Once I arranged for them to reconnect with their parents, my job was finished. Navigating complicated family dynamics was far beyond the scope of my abilities. Just ask Cady. It was hard to blame some of these kids for wanting to light out and find something better than the hardscrabble life they were living on the Rez, but I also sympathized with every parent for whom not knowing was a special kind of hell.

The Gallatin County Sherriff's Department got tired of taking my calls as the weeks and then months went by, but I was still kept pretty well in the loop regarding their investigation into Brian's death. I mostly spoke with one of their deputies, a rookie named Blake Dearborn, and mostly he told me that they didn't have any new leads, but were still actively looking into it. Mostly, I thanked him and went on about my day. Sometimes, I drove back out to Bozeman and tried to pick back up a trail that was growing colder by the hour. Sometimes I moseyed out to the Rez and re-interviewed Ryan Running Feet, Donny Black feather and Shane Parker to see if they could shed any new light on what had happened to their friend, but, eventually, even I had to admit there was little else to be gained by talking to them again. Their stories matched up and stayed pretty consistent no matter how many times I asked the same questions. The chances of finding Brian's killer were slim, and growing ever slimmer as time passed, but I still felt an obligation to him and his family to do what I could. Maybe one day I would give up on the search altogether, but I wasn't there yet.

Christmas and New Year came and went, and then, shortly before the end of February, we were treated to a winter storm that hit the high plains like an out of control arctic freight train. Nine inches of snow fell in the first 24 hours, and, by day three, ranchers were comparing it to the blizzard of '55. Thankfully, the infrastructure in Absaroka has improved considerably since then, so there was no loss of life – either human or bovine, but the roads were slippery and treacherous. The municipal snowplows and salt trucks were out prowling the streets around the clock, their flashing hazard lights painting the whited-out landscape with a jaundiced glow. Cady and the rest of her staff were run ragged dealing with disabled motorist calls at all hours, despite the DMV's admonition to avoid all unnecessary travel. I was still back and forth on the merits of retirement in general, but I had definitely learned to appreciate the ability to burrow back beneath the warm covers while Vic climbed out of bed and started lacing up her boots for yet another late night call, grumbling, "When are these pricks going to figure out that 4-wheel drive doesn't mean 4-wheel stop?" before she stomped out into the cold.

Finally, after weeks of school cancellations, downed powerlines and stranded motorists, the weather gods finally took pity on us and granted the county a break in the weather. And not a moment too soon. Even Ruby's usual good nature was starting to wane in the face of the never-ending muck. I only had to get scolded twice for tracking muddy snow into the office before I started kicking my boots off at the door on my way in. Cold feet were a small price to pay to keep from having those steely blue eyes narrowed at me in displeasure every time I showed my face. It might just have been my imagination, but she seemed a lot less tolerant of my foolishness now that I was no longer the one signing her paycheck.

The first morning of our reprieve still dawned bitterly cold, but the heavy, gray nimbostratus clouds that had clogged the heavens for so long had at last wrung themselves thoroughly out and departed. In their place was watery sunshine and the kind of vibrant blue firmament that stretches out to the endless horizon, reminding us why they started calling this part of the world 'Big Sky Country' in the first place.

After weeks of being cooped up indoors, I was looking forward to breathing some fresh air into my lungs, wind chill be damned. I knocked back two cups of coffee, and then sallied forth, well-fortified against the temperature in a heavy fleece-lined coat, with my hat pulled down over my ears, neoprene boots crunching through the snow as I made my way across the yard to the horse's shed. She seemed as excited to be out of doors as I was, and nearly bowled me over in her haste to get outside the moment I threw the door open. Her exuberance made me smile, and I took a moment to hook my arms across the top of the fence just so I could watch her as she made a quick circuit of the paddock, her hooves kicking up tufts of snow, doing her best impression of a gambol while her breath steamed out behind her in the frigid air.

By the time I had mucked out the stall, laid down clean straw and refilled the feed buckets with fresh water and oats, I was sweating beneath my layers, and the horse was back, sticking her nose inside the warm confines of the shed, and nibbling on my sleeve in a gesture of horsey affection. I gave her a quick rub between the ears, and then stepped out of the way of her breakfast and back out into the sunshine.

The cold air stung the exposed skin of my face and turned the sweat on my back icy as I tromped back up to the cabin, but I had no desire to go back inside just yet. Instead, I took my usual seat at the top of the steps and braced my elbows on my knees, simply enjoying the burn of the arctic air that filled my lungs, if not the arctic wood that chilled my backside.

Behind me, the door to the cabin creaked open and Vic's bare feet appeared in my peripheral vision. With the roads clear and dry for the first time in a long time, she had finally been able to stitch together two consecutive days off, which she had decided to celebrate by staying in bed until noon.

"Hey, there," I said. "You get enough sleep?"

She didn't immediately respond, so I turned my head and took in the breathtaking sight of her standing there in the same boy shorts and wife-beater that she had slept in, her hair loose around her shoulders, still becomingly mussed from sleep. She had her arms crossed over her chest – no surprise in the cold air, and her brow furrowed in concern, which was a little less expected.

"You okay?"

She looked up at me then. "I'm not sure."

"What does that mean?"

She took a deep breath and then seemed to come to a decision. She padded over to me, and unceremoniously dropped something in my lap.

I looked down. "What is that?"

She sat down on the step next to me. "Well, it's not the prize out of my fucking breakfast cereal, I can tell you that."

"No," I said slowly. "I don't suppose it is."

She waited for a solid three seconds before she said, "I sort of need a reaction out of you, Walt." She wrapped her arms around her legs and pulled them up to her chest. I could see her shivering.

I cleared my throat. "It's a little unexpected, isn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it." She was looking out across the plains, but I could tell she wasn't seeing the crystalized sagebrush and prairie grass, or the achingly blue sky.

I picked up the little white stick that she had thoughtfully sealed inside a plastic Ziploc bag from the kitchen. "I thought the doctor said you couldn't…"

She cut me off. "That's not exactly what she said."

I thought back to thirty seconds ago, when my life was significantly less complicated than it had suddenly become. "So, what exactly did she say?"

Vic took the plastic baggie out of my hand and examined the two blue lines as though she were sounding them out. "What she said was that the damage from when I got shot was extensive. And that it was unlikely that I would ever be able to get pregnant again."

"Unlikely."

She nodded.

"But not impossible."

She shook the baggie in front of my nose. "Apparently not."

We were silent for a moment, and then it was my turn to come to a decision. I stood, and then reached down a hand to pull her to her feet. "C'mon. You need to go get dressed."

She took my hand and let me tug her to standing. "Where are we going?"

"To see Doc Sanders."

She reached up and took my hat off my head and put it on her own, tilting the brim forward so that she had to angle her chin upward to see me. "Whatever you say, daddy-o."

Boy howdy.

Dr. Sanders was in the middle of seeing patients when we arrived at the hospital, but promised us a few minutes when she was finished with her rounds. One of the nurses showed us into an exam room to wait and cheerfully assured us that the doctor would be with us shortly.

Vic hopped up on the paper-covered exam table and immediately started swinging her legs. I looked around the tiny room and thought about how far obstetrics had come in the twenty-six years since I had taken a distant backseat at Cady's birth. The walls of the room had been painted a cheery shade of yellow, which I am sure was intended to provoke feelings of calm and relaxation, but the pregnancy and childbirth related diagrams on the wall had a somewhat contradictory effect. Or maybe it was just me. Vic didn't seem bothered.

"You doing okay?" she asked while I paced back and forth in the small area in front of the exam table.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

She ignored me. "It's just that you're being really stoic about all of this, and I'm having a hard time getting a read on you."

Truth was, my heart had been pounding since I'd first seen the pregnancy test, and I wasn't sure how I felt. "I guess I just need some time to adjust to the idea."

"You and me both, brother," Vic said, and went back to swinging her legs.

"Are you doing okay?"

She shrugged. "I feel okay. I've been really tired lately, but after weeks of fishing idiots out of ditches in the middle of the night, I just figured that was natural."

"That's not really what I was asking."

"I know." She gave me a lopsided smile. "I'll let you know as soon as I know."

"So, what made you decide to take the uh…test thing?"

"Sore boobs." I blinked and she grinned at me. "Well, that and feeling like I was going to hurl every time Ruby pulled out one of her egg salad sandwiches." She gave a theatrical shudder. "But the missed period also made me a little suspicious."

"Uh-huh." I stuck my hands in my pockets and nodded.

She let out a little huff of laughter. "Walt, it's okay." She reached out a hand and tugged me closer. "It's going to be okay."

I put my arms around her shoulders. "You're not scared?"

She slipped her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek against my chest. "Oh, absolutely," she said. "Shitless, in fact. But I still think it's going to be okay."

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head just as the door opened and Dr. Sanders came into the room.

"Sorry to keep you both waiting," she said with a smile. She closed the door behind her and gestured for me to have a seat in one of the patient chairs that had clearly not been designed with men my size in mind. I wedged myself in as best I could while she took point on the rolling stool that seemed to come standard in every medical exam room in North America. "Vic, it's good to see you again. You're looking well."

"Thank you," Vic said. "I'm actually feeling pretty good."

"I'm so glad," the doctor replied, and I could tell she meant it, which made me like her immediately. "So, what brings you in today?"

"I'm pregnant," Vic blurted, and held out the pregnancy test, still sealed in its protective Ziploc. "Again. It's still pretty early, I know, but after what happened last time, I just want to make sure everything is okay."

Dr. Sanders smile faded slightly. "You're pregnant?" She glanced at me briefly and then looked back at Vic. "How far along are you?"

"Maybe eight weeks? I knew I'd missed a period, but I've been so busy, I really didn't think much about it until I started feeling nauseous, and that's the first thing I noticed last time – the nausea, so I took the test this morning, and, well here we are." Vic smiled, but she could see the concern on the doctor's face as well as I could, and, this time, the smile didn't reach any further than her lips.

"Vic…" The doctor pressed her lips together and glanced at me again. "I don't mean to be rude, but is he…"

"The baby daddy? Yeah, he is." She stuck her hand out in my direction, so I extricated myself from the chair and stood next to her, folding her hand between both of my own. Her knuckles where white where she gripped my fingers, but she otherwise betrayed no emotion. "I know you said I might not be able to get pregnant again…"

Dr. Sanders sighed. "I didn't say you couldn't get pregnant again, Vic. What I said was that you shouldn't." She looked back and forth between the both of us, and I could feel Vic's fingernails biting into my hand. "As you know, the gunshot wound you sustained caused severe damage to your uterus. We were able to avoid a hysterectomy at the time by surgically reconstructing the myometrium, but with that amount of scar tissue – well, it's incredible that you managed to conceive at all. But the likelihood of carrying to term…" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but the chances of you carrying this pregnancy long enough for the fetus to be viable are very low. Even assuming that the pregnancy isn't ectopic, and is actually implanted in your uterus, you're at a dramatically increased risk for a placental abruption or uterine rupture, either of which could kill both you and the baby."

I'm pretty sure I kept breathing. I could feel my lungs expand and contract out of habit, but there didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the room to alleviate the band of pressure that had wrapped itself around my chest. I tightened my grip on Vic's fingers, but her hand had gone limp between mine.

She blinked rapidly and licked her lips. "I see."

"I'll order imaging studies, of course," Dr. Sanders said. She opened the front of her electronic tablet and began typing. "I'll get you in first thing this afternoon. But, Vic," She stopped typing and looked up again, her face serious. "I don't want you to get your hopes up, okay? I did your surgery. I studied your post-op scans in detail. The chances of me being wrong about this are very low. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Vic nodded, but her eyes were on the floor.

Dr. Sanders got up and started for the door. I stopped her.

"Hey, Doc?"

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

"What happens next? After the scans come back. If you're right, what do we do then?"

She took a deep breath, and there was genuine pain in her voice when she answered. "In my professional, medical opinion, given the circumstances, the safest course of action would be for you to terminate the pregnancy."

And then she was gone, and we were alone.

And then Vic started to cry.

A/N: In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a labor and delivery nurse. Basically, what I am describing here is something called Asherman's Syndrome, which occurs when uterine injury (usually from a d&c/miscarriage) leads to scarring and adhesions in the uterus, which can dramatically effect fertility. I admit that the prognosis is not generally *quite* as dire as the way I am depicting it, but if y'all could just suspend your disbelief a little bit in pursuit of the rising action, I would appreciate it. I mean, after all, it's fanFIC, not fanFACT, am I right?