Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1989 Harlan County

They were driving along a dark dirt road, one they’d traveled many times in the past year. Raylan driving this time, Boyd in the passenger seat with a stereo at his feet, playing Dwight Yoakam at full blast. Raylan felt Boyd gearing up to say something, but he didn’t ask. He’d say it eventually, and there wouldn’t be any stopping him when he did.

Boyd leaned down to turn the music down a little, and finally asked, “When you going?”

Raylan took his eyes off the road for a second to look at Boyd. His voice had given nothing away, not a hint. There was not a tremor nor a single break to be heard, and the expression on his face matched. There were no clues to be found, and yet Raylan finally got it, somehow. He’d cracked the case. He wished he hadn’t.

“Three days,” Raylan replied, just as cool.

“Well, then.”

Raylan just nodded in response. What else was there?

“You coming back for Thanksgiving?”

Raylan huffed and shook his head. “Ain’t coming back at all, Boyd. Never plan to again.”

“Never? What about your mama? You just gonna leave her here with—“

“Really? You’re asking me that. Fuck you.”

Boyd shook his head, and took his time responding. When he did, he spoke in a way Raylan had rarely heard from him. After the cave-in, maybe, when he kept asking you okay? over and over, even after Raylan had been able to speak and tell him he was.

“No. That ain’t really what I wanted to ask. I only said that because…” The rest of the sentence was maybe too hard to get out, at least with the mask having slipped that much, but Raylan didn’t need to hear it.

“Yeah. Well fuck you for that too, Boyd. Too little, too late, for both of us.”

Boyd was looking at him from the passenger seat with some kind of dawning wonder. “You know?”

“I ain’t stupid, you know. I ain’t as oblivious as you sometimes seem to think I am. You wanted to say something about it, you shouldn’t have waited until I was fixing to go. Though I guess I should be grateful you did. Easier this way.”

“Is it?”

“Better you hadn’t brought it up at all, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Boyd laughed. “Well now, technically I didn’t bring it up. In fact, neither one of us has actually said a goddamn thing. You want to leave it at that, fine. Let’s just go get drunk like we planned.”

“Fine.”

They made it to the puddle without saying another word to each other in the car, went in and were halfway through their first round before Raylan said, “I ain’t going a million miles away, you know. Just Lexington.”

“You ain’t just leaving a town, Raylan. You and I both know that. You’re leaving a life. You ain’t gonna want part of it to intrude on your new one. You want to be a new man, you ain’t gonna care about the same things the old one did. Or you won’t want to, anyway. I won’t do that to you or to myself. We can both let it go. Ain’t shit anyway, since we didn’t never let it be.”

They left after three rounds. Raylan dropped him at his truck and drove home. Boyd was right, and Raylan knew it. He’d never see Boyd again, and while that realization might have smarted a little, it was for the best. For both of them.

2009 Lexington

The Lexington Marshal’s office was hopping on Raylan’s first day. Some big shit was obviously going down, and the conference room was full of lawyers and Marshals, as well as FBI.

“What the fuck am I walking into?” Raylan asked, leaning against the doorway of the Chief’s office. Art got up from behind the desk and walked out to speak with him.

“Good to see you, Raylan. Caught a big fish,” Art said, his usual sardonic tone betraying just a hint of excitement. “Got a guy going into Witsec—not an innocent one, mind you, and I don’t love to see him swim away, but he brought in a goddamn whale.”

“Oh yeah?”

“We got Dixie mafia, we got a Cuban connection, and we got a big source of meth in eastern Kentucky. He gave us just about everything we could have wanted, so…worth it, I suppose.”

“Shit,” Raylan breathed. Something about the situation was raising the hair on his neck, but he did his best to shake it off. “You sure you need me here, Art? Sounds like you got some calm waters ahead of you.”

“Better hope we do, deputy, because I don’t know who else will take you.” Art hesitated, and then said, “Probably for the best you didn’t come sooner, though. Saw a familiar surname in the file.”

Raylan’s stomach churned, but of course, Art wouldn’t know anything about Boyd. That couldn’t be it. “Oh?” he asked. “What name is that?”

“Givens.”

Raylan stared at him for a second, and then gave a bitter half-laugh. Of course. “Well, that’s fine. Arlo should have been in prison years ago anyhow, for any number of reasons.” Certainly that was true, including, but definitely not exclusive to, his working for the—

“Art. What’s the name of the…” Raylan trailed off as a man in an orange jumpsuit was brought out of the conference room, flanked by a couple of Marshals. As he stared, the man looked over and clocked him. His mouth moved, and though he didn’t make a sound, it was unmistakable.

Raylan

“Fuck,” Raylan whispered, his breath nearly knocked out of him.

“You know him?” Art asked, frowning at him.

“Yeah, I know him,” Raylan said.

“Old buddy of yours?”

“Not exactly,” Raylan said, which wasn’t true, but almost was. They almost were something very different from buddies. Or, could have been. Or maybe that was just something he’d convinced himself of over the years. Made more of it than it was from going over that night in his head so much, a hundred years ago. “We dug coal together,” he told Art. “Spend enough time in a deep mine with a man, you get to know him pretty well.” He looked up. “Can I look at his file?”

By the time Raylan finished going through it, he was thoroughly disgusted. The Crowder Commandos, for fucks sake.

“That square with the guy you dug coal with, Raylan?”

Raylan looked up to see Art standing in front of his desk. “Not really. He wasn’t a racist, not that I ever knew. Never talked about anything like that. A criminal, though? Sure. That makes sense.”

“Probably joined up in prison, for protection. Then he got out and found he had a ready-made, easily manipulated band of sycophants to do his bidding.”

“Where’s he at now? A safehouse?”

“That’s right. Tim Gutterson is with him. You stay the hell away from him. You got too many feelings about this, and they’re all stamped right on your face.”

Not all of them, I hope. “Yeah, of course. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The day dragged on, and when Raylan finally walked out of the courthouse, he immediately called Gutterson’s cell.

“Hey, it’s Raylan Givens. We didn’t get a chance to meet today.”

“Your reputation precedes you though,” Gutterson said. “I feel as if I already know you.”

“Listen, I know you’re guarding the Witsec protectee. Would you mind if I stopped by for a minute and introduced myself?”

There was a moment of silence over the line, and then Gutterson said, “I mean…I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Thing is, Boyd Crowder is an acquaintance of mine from childhood. I know it ain’t exactly according to Hoyle’s, but I was hoping to speak to him for a minute.”

“Raylan, I know your dad is involved in this, and I can’t let you—“

“This ain’t about Arlo Givens. He can rot in prison and I hope he does. This is something else. We- look, Boyd and I were miners together before I left Harlan. He saved my life once. Pulled me out of a collapsed mine. I just want to talk to him before he goes in. No intimidation will occur, you have my word.”

More silence from Tim Gutterson, and then he finally relented. “Shit. Yeah. Okay, man. But if Art finds out—“

“He won’t.”

Tim gave him the location, and Raylan drove straight there with barely a thought in his head as to what he could possibly say. There was nothing to say, but no way for him to let this go. Not this time. Not again, even though he knew it wouldn’t be the same as it was. There was no way anything could still be left between them. Maybe that’s what he hoped to find out—that it was done. That he could truly let it go, once and for all.

Tim answered the door and shook Raylan’s hand before asking him for his sidearm. “I’m taking a risk as it is, man,” he said, and Raylan handed it over. “He’s in the kitchen. I’ll give you a minute, but that’s it.” He gave Raylan an appraising glance, sighed, shook his head. “Go on.”

Raylan nodded at him, squared his shoulders and walked down a short hallway. When he stepped over the threshold, Boyd was standing there, his hand resting on the back of a chair, cool and calm as anything.

“Raylan,” Boyd said. “I wondered if you’d come.” He looked him over, and a smile crept onto his face, just enough to curl the edges of his lips and widen his eyes a little. “Nice hat.”

“Boyd,” Raylan said, like he’d just run into him at a bar or something.

Boyd opened his arms, and Raylan walked into them, just like that. They stood there a moment, and Raylan realized it was the first time they’d ever done that. He hadn’t even hugged him goodbye when he left, though he might have if Boyd hadn’t chosen to broach that forbidden topic. He pulled back, and Boyd hung onto his arm, only letting him put a small amount of space between them.

“Huh,” Boyd said, like he was surprised.

Raylan nodded. “Yeah. How ‘bout that.”

“Raylan…can I—“

“Go ahead.”

Boyd closed the little gap between them and kissed him. Raylan wrapped his arm around Boyd’s back again and stroked his shoulder blade with his thumb. Fuck.

They were just pulling back from it, enough to breathe for a few seconds, when there was a choked sound behind them. Raylan closed his eyes and did not turn around.

“Shit. Jesus Christ. Sorry. But—“

“Oops,” Boyd whispered, and Raylan laughed a little because what the fuck else could he do. Then he kissed Boyd again, like Gutterson wasn’t standing there watching all of it.

“Have a good life, Boyd,” he said, when it ended. “Or whatever your name is now.”

“Goodbye, Raylan.”

Raylan held his gaze for another beat, and then turned to go. Gutterson followed him out and wordlessly handed him back his gun at the door.

“This didn’t happen,” Raylan said.

“Nope.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Tim closed the door behind him and he got back in his car. On the drive back to his motel, Raylan thought maybe that was it, what he needed to really let it go. Maybe they’d just needed the goodbye they should have had twenty years before. Now it could be over.

2023 Miami

Raylan hears his cell ring from the rickety table on his front porch, but he’s all the way at the top of a ladder, painting the clapboard on his little house. He considers climbing down for it, but seeing as how he’s retired, and Willa is safe inside scrolling through her phone, he can’t think of any pressing reason to. Probably Scam Likely anyway. He goes back to painting, but the phone makes a little blip a few seconds later, telling him that someone has left a message. Then there’s a text alert.

He sighs and climbs down. It’s probably Winona, he figures. Maybe she wants to pick up Willa early or leave her a little longer. Or…it could be Carolyn. Much as he’d enjoy hearing her voice, he also can’t quite get past the shit that happened up in Detroit. He can’t think of her without thinking of that. Why ain’t anything ever simple, he wonders, but he knows the answer to that one. He knows who the common denominator is. Run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. Run into assholes all day…> Et cetera.

The phone is ringing again before he reaches it, and Willa comes banging out the screen door. “Dad, can you either answer that or turn the damn ringer off? Who leaves the ringer on anyway?”

He gives her a look—a look his father certainly never would have given him, not with that much patience in the mix, but a Dad look all the same—and picks up the phone, frowns at it. What in Gods name could Tim Gutterson be so anxious to talk to him about?

“Hey, long time no—“

“Raylan. Jesus Christ, answer your phone, man.” Tim’s voice is tense, and Raylan’s whole body reacts immediately.

“I did,” he snaps back. “What the hell, Tim?”

“You remember that thing that never happened and we never talked about?”

Raylan drops into a chair. Nothing good could come after that sentence. Now he’s just waiting to find out how bad it is. “Yeah,” he says, grinding it out. He’s aware that his daughter is watching him closely, and he does his best to school his features into something resembling calm.

“A certain person missed a check-in with his handler. Now, that happens, especially after so much time has passed. But upon further investigation, he’s also no call no show at his job the last three days.”

“Well…maybe he just—“

“He left $800 in cash in a dresser drawer, a full pot of coffee, and a mug with sugar in it sitting next to it. That sound like he left of his own accord?”

“No.”

“He show up at your door yesterday? Is that why it took you so long to get to your phone or something? Busy?”

“Excuse me?”

Raylan’s about to go off on him, but Willa comes back out onto the porch—he hadn’t even noticed her going inside—and puts a cold beer by his right hand. He glances up to thank her, and she just rolls her eyes and flops into the seat across from him. God, he loves her, but she sure as hell got everything from him and Winona plus a little extra, too. He hopes she has an easier life than either of them but he isn’t counting on it.

“Raylan, it’s not exactly out of left field for me to ask that. What would you be asking if you saw what I saw?”

“I haven’t seen him in fourteen years. Probably wouldn’t recognize each other, we’re so fuckin’ old now.” Raylan knows that’s a lie. He’d recognize Boyd anywhere, anytime. “Why are you telling me, anyway? You know I’m retired, and even if I wasn’t, I doubt anyone would want me involved. Especially if they knew anything.”

“I’m not looking for you to get involved. That’s the last thing I want.”

“Ain’t like you to make such a grave miscalculation, Tim.”

“I’m telling you because no one else will. No one else knows you might have a reason to want this information. That you maybe have a right to know.”

“I ain’t got a right. Gave that up back in ‘89. But I appreciate it all the same.”

Tim doesn’t speak for a few seconds, and then he says, “He told me, you know. Crowder.”

Raylan snorts. “Musta lied, then, because there wasn’t nothing to tell.”

“Whatever you say. But he told me he loved you when you were young. Said he almost went to find you a bunch of times, but he didn’t because he thought you’d end up hating him for it. Said if things were different with him and you’d come back like you did, he’d still want—“

“Okay,” Raylan says, quietly. He lays his forehead in his hand. “And what part of that do you think makes it less likely I’ll try to find him now?”

“So I guess it was the same on your end.”

“What do you think, Tim? You saw what you saw, like you said.”

“Still?”

“I still have a debt, and maybe a way to repay it in kind. That ain’t a chance anyone should pass up.”

“That sounds true, and yet also like a total lie. But either way, Raylan, you should stay out of it.”

Raylan takes a long sip of his beer and looks over at Willa real quick. She’s watching him, gears turning plain as day on her face. “If you really believed that, you’d have waited until you found a body to let me know. I’ll see you real soon.”

He hangs up and faces his kid. She has her arms crossed in front of her, and wears the stubbornest look on any face he’d ever seen, outside of a mirror.

“So,” he starts.

“No. No, you’re not dropping me back early at mom’s. You’re supposed to keep me for the rest of this month.”

“Willa—“

“I know you’re going to bring up what happened in Detroit. I promise I’ll behave. And you said Tim. That’s Tim Gutterson, right? From Lexington? So if you’re going there, you can take me to Harlan, right?”

“I may not stay in Kentucky. This situation could take me anywhere. And it ain’t safe.”

“What is the situation, anyway? It sounded personal. You looked upset.”

Raylan looks away from her, thinking about what he might feel comfortable telling her, and what she might be comfortable hearing. He knows she’s a good kid, and he knows kids now are different. If he told her, even part of it, she’d act like it didn’t faze her. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t.

“A man I grew up with, who I worked in a mine with. A friend. He became a criminal. He went into witness protection when I first came to the Lexington Marshal’s office. Now he’s missing. He may be in danger from the people he informed on.”

She nods, quite clearly aware that he’s not telling her anything like the whole story. “Why did you say you had a debt to repay?”

“He saved my life when we were nineteen years old.”

She narrows her eyes at him, and fuck if that isn’t weird to see. He shakes his head and says, “There’s more to it, but it’s a long car ride to Kentucky. Let’s save some of the mystery for later, okay? Go pack a bag.”

Chapter Text

Winona takes some convincing before she gets on board with this ill-advised field trip, but they’re already well on their way by the time that conversation ends. He assures her that Willa will be staying in a safe place, with supervision. Now he just has to try to make that happen. He really only has one option.

“Raylan Givens, you ain’t been back in more than a decade, ain’t heard from you in at least two years, and now you’re calling me up looking for a favor?”

“I just thought you might like to meet my kid, Helen. Look, you want I’ll pay you board for her. I just need a safe place for her to stay while I’m working.”

Helen pauses. “Working. In Kentucky. Why?”

“Just a case bringing me there. Don’t worry, I ain’t transferring back.”

“He ain’t here, Raylan.”

Speaking carefully, so as not to betray the rush of adrenaline that sends through his whole body, he says, “Who might that be?”

“He ain’t here. You’re wasting your time. You want to bring your child to meet her kin, well, that’s fine. I’d be happy to have her. Teach her how to cook some decent food, as I’m sure that snooty beanpole of an ex-wife of yours never—“

“Helen.”

Helen laughs wheezily down the line. “Don’t worry, I won’t say nothing like that to her. Probably.”

Raylan sighs. “Okay, then. Thanks.”

“But Raylan, you should leave this thing be. Let it play out the way it’s supposed to.”

“I can’t.”

“I figured,” she says, resigned. “You and that boy, I always wondered, you know.”

“Oh yeah? You think this means you got your answer?”

“I guess I do now. You’re a damn fool.”

“See you tonight.”

He hangs up and tosses his phone in the well between the front seats. He grinds his teeth a few times before recalling what his dentist told him the last time he visited. The man had recommended he take up smoking weed before his molars turn to dust.

“You gonna tell me now?” Willa asks, looking at him slant-wise. “Why are you doing this when everyone you talk to is telling you not to?”

Raylan still can’t decide what she needs to know about him, so he says, “I told you. He saved my life. Maybe I can save his now.”

“Dad, that was more than thirty years ago. Didn’t you say he was a criminal? What kind of criminal?”

“That ain’t the point. That’s—that don’t have to do with me, and anyway, he did what was asked of him. He paid the debt he was required to pay, and he’s owed the protection that was agreed to. Simple as that.”

She’s quiet for a bit, looking out the side window. Finally, she says, “You know, if you want to tell me something, you can. I’m not a baby, I can understand stuff.”

Now’s the time, and he knows it. But what, exactly, is he supposed to say? If he tells her about Boyd, what else will she want to know? Will she ask if he sees other men? He does, but those encounters are not something he’d really want her to hear about. He’s not even sure, if he says it out loud, that it won’t sound tawdry to his own ears. Even if it works for him, even if it’s all he really needs, is it maybe a little bit ugly, a little bit cheap? Not that his relationships with women are that much healthier, but at least he usually sees them for more than a night.

“Willa, if there’s something you want to ask, go ahead. I don’t want to keep secrets from you. I grew up doing that, you know, as a matter of course. The way I was brought up, you don’t say shit to anyone about anything, because you don’t know what someone might be able to use against you. Kin or not. But I don’t feel that way about you, and I don’t want you feeling that way about me. Okay?”

“Whatever,” she says, shrugging. She’s apparently reached the end of her courage on this subject, and if she’s not going to push it, Raylan certainly isn’t.

“I’m stopping for coffee next exit. You want something?”

“Pink drink. Venti, no berries—“

“And light ice. I know.”

They drive until Raylan starts to feel like he’s falling asleep, and stop to sleep somewhere south of Atlanta. Raylan crashes hard, but he’s wide awake by three in the morning, his mind spinning in circles. He rousts his daughter and they get on the road.

He ain’t here.

Raylan can’t get there fast enough.

They roll into Lexington around two in the afternoon. Raylan would have preferred to drop Willa off with Helen first, but he needs to find out what information the Marshal’s office has before he goes down there. If he went to Harlan first, he’d be off on a tear with nothing but his anger to guide him. He’d waste too much time.

Willa has been in courthouses before, and she’s been in the Miami Marshal’s office plenty of times, but she gapes at her surroundings like she’s fresh off the farm. Raylan can’t imagine what she finds so fascinating.

Raylan sees a bunch of new faces, but he picks Tim out right away. Still got that baby face, but a good amount of grey in his hair, and his eyes look tired. He spies Raylan and gives him a sardonic smile.

“What a surprise,” he says. He’s so full of shit. As if he didn’t basically invite Raylan to come here.

“Timothy,” Raylan says in greeting. “Willa, this is Tim Gutterson. Tim, Willa Givens.”

Tim leans forward from his desk chair and extends a hand to shake. “Nice grip,” he says. “Your dad teach you how to shake hands?”

“My mom did,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Tim grins at her, and then looks at Raylan. “Rachel’s in her office. Don’t you dare tell her this was me.”

“Okay. But I need to talk to you for a minute first, in case she kicks me out.”

Tim nods, sighs and gets up and gives Willa a not-too-convincing glare. “You can sit there, but don’t touch anything and don’t look at my computer.”

“Why? You got porn on there?”

“Holy shit, Raylan. You clone her?”

Raylan looks at Willa with a fair amount of fatherly price, pats her on the shoulder, and says, “Come on,” to Tim.

They walk out into the hallway. “I don’t have much to give you,” Tim says. “We can’t even figure out how he was compromised. He’s not on social media under his new name or any other. We looked at his online purchases, and nothing stands out as identifying.”

“Oh, you mean he ain’t buying ortolan buntings and rare harpsichord recordings on 78?”

Tim snorts. “Pretty sure we’re not looking for Hannibal Lechter. All he buys are electrical parts and random house shit, and some clothes once in awhile. Not even books, and I know he reads because we went through his house back then.”

“Electrical parts? Please tell me this ain’t bomb making shit.”

Tim smiles a little and says, “No, not as far as I can tell. He’s an electrician now. Got his license under the new name.”

“Which is?”

Tim shakes his head. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“You got anything? Anything at all?”

“If you can convince Rachel to let you in on this, you’re welcome to look through the file. Who knows, maybe you’ll see something we couldn’t.”

He should tell Tim that Helen clearly knows something. He knows he should, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Not yet.

“What happens if you do find him, Raylan?”

“I assume he goes back into Witsec under another name I ain’t allowed to know. Right?”

Tim shrugs. “That’s what he should do, but it’s up to him, really. No law saying he has to stay in if he doesn’t want to. But then he doesn’t get our protection.”

“Why wouldn’t he do that?”

Tim looks Raylan up and down, pointedly. “Couldn’t say.”

“You hitting on me, Tim?”

“Nah. I got a boyfriend. He doesn’t mind me looking, though.”

“Too bad.” Raylan says, and quirks his eyebrows at him.

“Oh, there is one thing,” Tim says, turning away from him immediately and heading back into the office. “Not to help find him, but something I thought you might want. I went through considerable trouble to get it, so you owe me.”

“What’s that?”

“Hang on, it’s in my desk.” Tim walks over and Willa rolls out of his way on the chair.

“Why’s your face all red?” Willa asks. “You blushing?”

“No,” Tim says.

Raylan busts out laughing and leans on the desk. He stops abruptly when Tim hands him a photo. He looks back up at Tim and asks, “This was in his house?”

Tim nods. “Up in the crawl space. Don’t worry, it’s not listed anywhere. You’re welcome.”

Raylan nods. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll go talk to Rachel now.”

“What is it?” Willa gets up and tries to grab the photo, but he puts it in his jacket pocket.

“It’s confidential.”

Raylan leaves Willa to continue her harassment of Tim and goes to knock on the Chief’s door. He peers through the glass door and Rachel looks up. She stares at him for a moment, perhaps wondering if the past decade has been but a pleasant dream. But then, her face breaks into a wide smile and she beckons him in, coming out from behind the desk.

“Raylan! My goodness, what on earth are you doing here?”

“Hey, Rachel. Good to see you.” He hugs her, and it really does feel good to be back. He feels at home. “I ain’t sure how happy you’re gonna be about my reasons, though, tell you the truth.”

She frowns, and gestures at the sofa. “Best sit down then, and tell me.” She sits next to him. “I’m afraid I don’t keep a bottle in my desk drawer. I think Art was the last one to be able to get away with that.”

“Shame,” Raylan says, “‘cause this ain’t gonna be the easiest conversation.”

She raises her eyebrows and waits, so Raylan takes a breath and starts talking. He knows he won’t have any chance of her letting him on this unless he tells her the whole story, all the reasons. Those could also work against him, he knows, but he’s counting on Rachel to understand.

When he’s finally finished, he feels wrung out, and she’s looking at him with an unreadable expression. Finally, she asks, “Who told you?” That’s the one detail Raylan had left out.

“Someone who knew I’m the right man for this job.”

“Tim, I suppose. It’s okay, you don’t have to say. Look, Raylan, you know by all rights I should throw you out of this office. I get why you want to help, but I don’t see why you think you can do better than the Marshals already tasked with it.”

“This is Harlan. I can feel it, Rachel. You know there ain’t anyone better than me for that shit.”

“And no one more likely to get shot doing it. Don’t you have a kid?”

“Yeah,” Raylan says, smiling. “She’s here, want to meet her?”

She looks at him like he’s gone around the bend, but nods anyway. “I’m dying to know what kind of child you produced, to be honest. Is she a handful?”

“And then some.”

They walk out into the outer office. Tim and Willa are looking at something on Willa’s phone, and they both laugh at the same time. Tim looks up as they approach the desk. “Cat videos,” he says, and Willa nods.

Raylan makes the introductions, and Rachel asks her questions about Miami, and her school, and if Raylan is still a stubborn pain in the ass. Willa giggles and responds with an enthusiastic yes.

“Show him the file, Tim,” she says, finally. “Maybe he can actually help. Who knows.” She turns to Raylan. “Don’t make me regret this. Don’t get hurt, and for God’s sake don’t shoot anybody.”

Raylan gives Willa money and tells her to go get whatever she wants from the coffee shop downstairs. He takes his time going through the file, taking notes on anything that seems at all relevant. The photos from inside Boyd’s house are interesting, but not because he sees anything helpful. He just likes to see the way he’s been living. It’s sparse, but neat and clean. There’s a bottle of Blantons on the kitchen counter. Raylan wonders if he has anyone special to share it with. He wonders if Boyd ever pulled out that photo from the crawl space when he had a drink of an evening.

Willa is quiet for a stretch once they’re on the road to Harlan. Raylan puts music on, and Willa gives him some side eye. “Southeastern, again? Really?”

Raylan shrugs. “It’s a modern classic. If you really want something else, go ahead. Please not Taylor Swift, though?”

“It’s fine.” And she goes silent once more.

Miles stretch by, and the sky is starting to darken. …I thought it’d be me who helped you get home… Raylan doesn’t sing along, but every word hits just where it’s supposed to.

“That picture is not confidential,” Willa says, breaking the spell the music had laid on him.
“It’s just a secret. You said you don’t want to keep secrets, but you are.”

“How’d you get so smart?”

“Dad, come on. It doesn’t take being smart to know you’re acting weird.”

Raylan pulls the photo out of his pocket and hands it to her. She takes it gingerly, and looks at it for a long time. “That’s you, huh?”

“Used to be,” he says.

“That’s from when you were a miner?”

“Yep.”

“And that criminal in witness protection kept this hidden in his house for all that time? And all the time before that, too. Did he take this?”

Raylan nods, eyes on the road. “He got some fancy new camera when we were working there. I assume it fell off the back of a truck, if you’re familiar with that particular euphemism. He was taking pictures of everything for awhile.”

“But he only kept this one.”

“Well, you don’t know that. Maybe this was in a stack of pictures of mine carts and headlamps and scraggly dogs and shit.”

“Dad.”

“Yeah. Okay, Willa, damn.”

“He must have loved you, right?”

Raylan doesn’t answer for a bit, but eventually says, “I guess.”

She looks at the picture some more. “You’re smiling but you look sad. Were you?”

“Probably,” Raylan says. “I knew I was leaving by then.”

“You were sad to leave Harlan?”

He looks over at her and sighs. “I was sad to be leaving him.”

She nods. “You could have just told me, you know.”

“I probably should have. I was worried it would be confusing for you.”

“I know what bisexual means. It’s not too confusing.”

Raylan laughs. “Yeah, I know you do, kid. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m old, forgive me.”

“Is that why you never introduce me to anyone you’re dating?”

Raylan shakes his head. “I don’t really…date men? But the reason I don’t introduce you is because they never stick around too long. Seems pointless. I never wanted to make your life chaotic with new girlfriends coming in and out.”

“Why don’t they last long?” She gets a sly smile on her face and asks, “Is it because you’re still in love with this dude?”

“No! Shit. No. I loved your mom, didn’t I? We lasted a good while. The first time, anyway.”

“Is it because you’re still in love with her?”

“No. It’s because—well, I don’t know exactly why, to be honest. I’m kind of a nightmare to live with, you know. The job was always…a lot. But I think I’ve just gotten used to being by myself. I like it, mostly. Sometimes you’re there, and that’s great. Sometimes I’m seeing someone, and that’s cool too.” He glances over. “I’m not unhappy, sweetheart. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“And yet you love to listen to this sad shit about cancer and alcoholism and traveling alone.”

“Wallowing has its good points,” Raylan says. “Nothing like a sad song to put your life in perspective.”

Willa smiles and shrugs. “That’s true.” She puts her seat back and closes her eyes, and Raylan thinks she’s fallen asleep when she says, ”I’m really glad you told me. I was worried you didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That you like guys. I couldn’t tell if you knew you were looking.”

Goddamn, these kids

“Like I said, you don’t have to worry about me. Not in that way, anyhow. I get that my job probably made you worry.”

“Not really. Mom worried, but I never thought anything could happen to you.”

Raylan is relieved that she’s still at least enough of a child to believe that, even if she’s sharp enough to notice him checking men out. Or maybe he’s just not as slick as he thinks he is.

“I feel I need to stress, again, that this situation could be dangerous. I know you’re never scared of anything, and believe me I get that, but just because you ain’t scared don’t mean you don’t have to be careful. Where we’re going, it ain’t Detroit. It’s gonna look safe to you. It’s not. Mainly because of who I am, and what your last name is.”

“Okay. I promise.”

Raylan nods. That’ll have to do

Chapter Text

It’s full dark by the time they pull up in front of Raylan’s childhood home. The porch light is out, but he can see the glowing ember of a cigarette from the front steps. Raylan gets out of the car, trying to stretch out the stiffness of being in the car for so many hours. He tries to remember what it was like to be able to do that and not even feel it, but he can’t. Willa gets out too, rubbing her eyes. She’d been asleep for the last half-hour, at least.

Helen stands to greet them, and he can only just make out her features. In this light, she looks the same as always, but knows it’ll be different in the light. It’s been a long time.

Her eyes must have grown accustomed to the dark, because she cackles a little at the sight of him. “I thought I was looking at Arlo for a second,” she says. “Who replaced that beautiful boy with an old geezer?”

“I look like my mother,” Raylan says.

She grins. “That you do, boy. And so does this young lady.” She leans down to grind her cigarette into an empty planter and then walks over to Willa. “Hello, Willa. I’m Helen.”

“Nice to meet you. Ma’am.”

Raylan gives her an exaggerated look of surprise, but she ignores him, of course.

“Now, I need to talk to your daddy for a minute on my own, so you go on inside and make yourself at home. There’s food in the fridge, and even a six-pack of Dr. Pepper. Help yourself.”

“Okay, but you could talk around me if you wanted to. I know all about his criminal boyfriend.”

“Inside,” Raylan says, but mildly. He’s more relieved than he’d expected to have come out to her.

Helen looks at him shrewdly. “If you told her about it, I can only assume we’re done with dealing in subtext where this is concerned.”

“The only thing that was between me and Boyd in them days was feelings. We only talked about it once, and just barely at that. I seen him one time in the last thirty-four years, and that was well over ten years ago. I just want to find him, so he’s safe, and get him back in the program. I owe him that much.”

“If you say so,” she replies, holding up her hands in mock surrender.”

“So who do I talk to?”

“Only one person I know of knew where to find him, and she’s dead. You watched her die.”

Raylan stares at her through the darkness. “You’re telling me Mags Bennett knew about this? What—“

“Boyd came to her. She sanctioned it, apparently. Never did tell me why, not the whole story, but I can guess. Crowders were breaking the pact. Bo had started to think he was too powerful to be expected to honor his end of the bargain, was getting too close to her shit.”

“Mags never said shit to me. Even after she…” Raylan has no desire to finish that sentence, or relive any part of that terrible day, sitting in her living room with broken ribs and a gunshot wound in his side, while she went to know the mystery. Might have been tolerable, at least, if Raylan had believed there was any mystery to be found.

“She wouldn’t have. She kept her business close. There’s no one she would’ve told, Raylan. You know she never said shit to Dickie about it, she didn’t trust that boy as far as she could throw him.” She walks over to the steps and sits down to light another cigarette. He face is briefly illuminated by the glow, and he gets a glimpse of what the intervening years have done to her face. Probably less than they would have done if Arlo hadn’t gone away to prison, but still. She’s an old woman now, and she looks tired.

“Someone found him,” Raylan says. “She told someone.”

“I don’t have answers for you, Raylan. Marshals have already been here asking, and I couldn’t tell them anything either.”

“Because surely you would have.”

Helen pauses, takes a drag from her smoke. “I’d tell you, though. Even though I know it would be a terrible idea, and even though the best thing would be for you to hightail it out of here first thing in the morning, I’d tell you, because I can see you ain’t gonna give up. I don’t know why, though. He ain’t worth it.”

“You married Arlo Givens, and yet somehow you can’t find your way to understanding that people are complicated?”

Helen offers him a small smile. “Got me there. But I regretted it a thousand times. That I can tell you.”

“I didn’t bring an engagement ring with me, Helen. I just don’t want him to get killed.”

“And I don’t want you to get killed, Raylan. Neither does that girl in there. She needs you more than Boyd Crowder ever did.”

That gives him pause; he’d be lying if he said otherwise. Not enough, though. That in itself should tell him something, but it’s not anything he’s ready to think about at the moment.

“I’ll be careful.”

Helen just laughs and shakes her head. “You want to eat before you go tearing off through the holler, ripping open old wounds?”

“Better not,” Raylan says. “Sooner I start, the sooner I can get out of your hair.” She hadn’t wanted him back kn Harlan before, and he knows she sure as shit doesn’t now. “It’s good to see you, though.”

He follows her into the house and finds Willa in the kitchen with some cold fried chicken and a Dr. Pepper. He kisses the top of her head and gives her a sidearmed hug. “Be good for Aunt Helen. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Okay.” She looks up at him with an expression he hasn’t seen on her face in awhile. Like maybe he has some kind of superpower. He hadn’t realized it was still possible. “When you find him, can I meet him?” When.

“Doubtful,” Raylan says. “I’ll be sure to tell him you wanted to, though.”

Raylan gets back behind the wheel and heaves a heavy sigh. He doesn’t want to be back inside this place, doesn’t want to talk to people he’d left behind happily so long ago. Seems he can’t ever be rid of Harlan. There’s not a damn thing that would have convinced him to come back, except this. Except Boyd Crowder.

He has almost nothing to go on, but he knows where to start. He drives, on autopilot even after this many years, to go see Johnny Crowder at his bar.

Except it isn’t Johnny’s bar anymore, which Raylan had somehow not even considered. The guy pulling beers can’t, or maybe won’t, tell him where he can find Johnny, so Raylan takes a chance on the shitty trailer where Johnny was staying before he left town.

He knocks, and prepares himself for the inevitable, which quickly comes to pass. The door pulls open and a shotgun is promptly stuck in his face, but his hands are already up. Raylan is, of course, armed, but he’s not looking to escalate anything unless he absolutely has to.

“Raylan?” The shotgun is lowered, and Johnny’s scarred and haggard face appears. “What the fuck are you doing back here?”

“Good to see you, Johnny. Stopped out at the bar first, but…”

Johnny scowls. “Had to sell it when I went in on a two year bit after Boyd pulled his little stunt. Fuckin’ bitch.”

“That must have been rough.”

“Two years ain’t shit. It’s knowing that asshole sold us all out that really fuckin’ hurts. I was barely in it, man, and only because of him anyway.”

Raylan nods. “Probably like to see him brought to justice, I bet. The Harlan kind of justice, I mean, not mine.”

“Like you ain’t from here? Shit. You know, Arlo went up too.”

“That’s true. In fact, I’d love to thank your cousin for that. Any idea where I can find him?”

“Jesus Christ, Givens. You are one smooth motherfucker, let me tell you. Here I thought you just come by to catch up.” Johnny grins. “Ain’t you retired yet? Gettin’ a little old to be playing cops and robbers, ain’t you?”

“I am, in fact. Came out of retirement just for this.”

“I’ll tell you what I told your Marshal buddies the other day. I don’t know shit, wouldn’t tell you if I did, and fuck you for asking. How’d you even hear about it? And why would you bother? You ain’t seen Boyd in how long?”

“Been a minute,” Raylan says, nodding. “Friend in the Lexington office let me know. Told him once about how Boyd saved my ass that time. Figured I’d try to get him back, this once.”

Johnny nods, like that’s exactly what he expected to hear. “You know why Boyd did what he did?”

“Always did wonder,” Raylan says. “I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“Well, I couldn’t say for sure either, but I do know that Bo had a guy killed about a week before all that shit went down, over in London.”

Raylan frowns, and asks in a soft voice, “Yeah? So?”

“So, when I saw the dude’s picture on the news I recognized him. I stopped by Boyd’s one time and that motherfucker was right there in his living room.”

Raylan waits, assuming there must be more to this story, but Johnny is just standing there looking at him like he’s imparted some big secret. “So what, he was at Boyd’s place? You think Boyd would bring the entire Crowder and associates organization down because some dude he knew got killed? That can’t be the only time that ever happened.”

Johnny shakes his head impatiently. “This was a civilian. Why would Bo have him killed?”

“Maybe he saw something he shouldn’t?”

“Why was he at Boyd’s in the first place? Bo didn’t hold with outsiders getting anywhere near the business, or the family.”

Raylan laughs. “Jesus Christ. You know how bad that sounds, don’t you? Maybe Boyd just got fed up being controlled by the big man.”

“You can think what you like, but I’m trying to make you understand how weird it was for me to see this guy at the church.”

“You’re saying they were fucking?”

“No, man, shit. They were playing Call of Duty.”

Raylan rubs his forehead and takes a breath, calling up whatever small reserve of patience he has left. “No, Johnny, I’m saying in general. Is that your guess as to why Boyd had him over, and why Bo killed him?”

“Yep.”

Raylan sighs. “That’s interesting and all, but I can’t think how it helps me find him.”

“You don’t seem too surprised.”

“About Boyd and some guy? Not really. About Bo killing the guy over it? Not in the least. Boyd choosing to bring the Feds in because of it? Yeah. That surprises me. If he was that pissed, he could have just killed the gunman, or even Bo. Seems like that would be the way to handle it, not bringing everyone down along with him.”

“Couldn't agree with you more, Givens. See? You really are from around here. Thought maybe you forgot for a minute.”

“I don’t forget,” Raylan says. “Okay, Johnny. I’ll let you get your beauty sleep.”

He turns to go, and gets about halfway to the car before he hears Johnny call out, “You know you’re looking for a body, don’t you? You sure you want to see that?”

Raylan slows for half a step, but doesn’t turn back around. He gets in the car and starts driving to his next stop.

Dickie Bennett is sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of his mother’s former home. The yard in front of it is full of trash, and the steps leading to the porch are splintered and broken. Dickie is smoking a blunt and listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Raylan could honestly cry, if he didn’t still get an ache in his ribs where Dickie took a bat to them while he was strung up.

“Holy shit,” Dickie says, “Raylan Givens. What could possibly be bringing you out to this holler after all this time?”

“Pretty sure even you could figure that out, Dick.”

“Heard something, maybe. You’re the first one to think of talking to me about it, though. I got no beef with Boyd.”

Raylan raises his eyebrows at him. “No? I thought you Bennetts took offense to snitching on principle.”

“Ha, well there ain’t no more Bennetts, are there? Thanks to you, Raylan. There’s just me, and quite honestly I do not give a good goddamn. He left us out of it, and the Crowders stopped being a problem after that, so why would you think I had anything to do with whatever’s going on now?”

“I don’t,” Raylan says. “That ain’t why I’m here. Dickie, listen. Your mother might have known Boyd’s identity. I think he cleared this thing with her before he went in, and as a good faith measure may have gotten word to her on how to contact him, should that ever be necessary.”

Dickie took a long pull on his smoke. “Fuck you, Raylan. You just sat there while she died, didn’t even try to save her. Guess that’s too bad for you, now, ain’t it.”

“You know there was nothing to be done. Ain’t no antidote for that mountain medicine. She was ready to go. She chose that. You think I wanted to see Mags dead? I respected that woman. Ain’t no more like that around. And you? You’re living in this house, letting it go to shit, not even maintaining her still.”

“Well, I’m real sorry I don’t got no apple pie for you. Got no information, neither. Off you go now, Raylan Givens. Leave me be.”

Raylan doesn’t move. He really has no idea if Dickie has anything of value to this investigation, but he is not about to be dismissed by Dickie Bennett.

“Dickie, I need you to tell me about anything—and I mean anything—that your mother said or did that was out of the ordinary, in any way, around the time Boyd went into hiding.”

“Ain’t nothing to tell. Barely saw her anyway, she was up the mountain for days.”

Raylan uses the last of his strength to keep from strangling the man, and asks, “Well, is that something she did all the time? Or was it out of the ordinary?

“Wasn’t unusual for her to go up there. Didn’t usually stay, but you know Raylan, she was an old woman. I figured she musta got tired and stayed over.”

“And you’re certain—you want to be real certain, here, Dickie—that she didn’t say anything about Boyd.”

“She said the Boyd Crowder situation was none of our concern and we weren’t to go near nothing that touched on it. That’s it.”

Raylan nods. “If I find out later that you knew something and held it back from me, you’ll be seeing me again. And I’ll bring my goddamn bat next time.”

“Okay, Raylan!” Dickie cries after him. “You bring your bat and I’ll be ready with my shotgun. Count on that, lawman.”

Raylan gets back into the car and drives out of Bennett. When he gets to the main road, he stops. He has a decision to make. On one hand, time is slipping away for Boyd. If he ain’t dead yet, he probably will be soon. On the other hand, heading up the mountain into the unfriendly hill clans, looking for a man they may be holding prisoner is dangerous enough under the best of circumstances. Trying it in the middle of the night is a real good way to get yourself shot. Boyd is in danger, and Raylan very much wants to find him. If he didn’t have Willa, he’d be heading up there right now. But he does have her. She has more of a right to him than Boyd does, no matter what. He drives back to Helen’s, looks in on Wila, and then crashes on the couch.

Chapter Text

Raylan wakes to the smell of coffee and scrapple. Helen is in a bathrobe, with her now-white hair up in a sloppy bun on top of her head. She’s at the stove with a cigarette in her mouth.

“You have to do that in here, first thing in the damn morning?” Raylan asks. His neck is stiff from sleeping on the sofa, and he can feel a headache already starting up behind his eyes that he knows nothing will touch.

“You wanted a non-smoking room, shoulda stayed at the Super 8. It’s my house, Raylan.”

“Yep.” He pours himself a cup of coffee and drops into a kitchen chair. “So, according to Dickie Bennett—“

“You went out to that holler last night? For God’s sake, Raylan.”

“I ain’t afraid of him. Anyways, he told me Mags was up the mountain for days the week before Boyd went into Witsec.”

Helen shrugs. “She went up there regular. She had people there, still, I think.”

“He said she didn’t stay over, though, but that one time. You think she coulda told someone up there?”

Helen is quiet, poking at the eggs in the pan. She slides the spatula under the scrapple and puts it on a paper towel to drain. “Get your child,” she says finally. “We’ll eat breakfast, and then I’ll tell you what you need to do if you’re going there.”

Willa does not want to get out of bed, but Raylan keeps prodding her until she opens her eyes and says, “You find him yet?”

“Nope. Got a lead, maybe, and the sooner you get your butt in the kitchen, the sooner we can eat and the sooner I can go try.”

“Why do I have to get up just so you can leave?”

“Because Helen says so. Come on.”

They eat mostly in silence—none of them being morning people—and then Helen tells him to wait, and goes to the back of the house. She comes back out with a picture of three teenagers who look like they walked out of a Loretta Lynn song.

“That’s you and my mother?” Raylan asks. He stares, fascinated. She really did look like Willa, just with darker hair. “Who’s the other one?”

“Our kin,” she says. “Cousin Mary.”

He shows it to his daughter, who smiles, and asks, “Why do you need this, though?”

Helen tells her, “You can’t just go talk to these people, not without proving a claim. They don’t trust outsiders. But they might talk to him if they know he’s their people. Or at least, might’nt shoot him on principle.”

“Weird.”

“I told you,” Raylan says. “Now, I got to go. Be good.”

“I said I would,” she says, looking him straight in the eye.

“So you did.”

Raylan grabs the last piece of fried scrapple and heads out the door. He doesn’t expect to find Boyd today. Not really. Not alive, anyhow. But his stomach is in knots anyway, some violent combination of fear and anticipation that feels strangely familiar.

It’s a beautiful morning. It’s late July, but the further up he gets in elevation, the cooler it is. He parks as close to the small settlement as he can, and then gets out and walks further up the hill. He hasn’t gone more than ten yards before he hears the all too familiar sound of shells being racked in behind him. He stops and puts his hands up.

“Listen, fellas, I got something to show you. A picture. Could you just take a—“

A burlap sack is thrown over his head, and he’s marched down a hill and through some high brush. They take everything off him—his firearm and everything in his pockets—before shoving him into some kind of garden shed, dark but for a few thin shafts of light coming through places where the carpentry wasn’t perfect. He hears a padlock clicking shut on the door after it closes behind him.

He turns and almost jumps out of his skin when he sees he’s not alone. There’s a figure leaning up against the back wall, his face in darkness.

“Maybe I’ve been in this place too long, because I fear I must be hallucinating.”

Raylan had been walking towards the figure, but he stops dead in his tracks. He still can’t make out the man’s features, but he’d know that voice anywhere.

“Boyd?” It comes out as a whisper.

“Yeah. You—how are you here?”

Raylan steps forward again, then drops to his knees in front of him. He can see him okay now. He has a beard, a nice one that’s probably normally well-groomed, but Raylan figures it’s been a few days since he’s had access to clippers.

“What? You weren’t expecting me?”

Boyd tilts his head. “You know…the funny thing is, I kind of was? But I was just being a romantic fool.”

“Guess I was too. Thought I could find you despite a whole team of Marshals failing to do it.”

“I didn’t even know if you were still in Kentucky. Thought you would have left by now.”

“Oh, I did. Only stayed about a year after you went into hiding. I live in Miami now. And I’m retired.”

Boyd looks him up and down. “You don’t look too retired to me.”

“Came back just for this.”

“Just for me.”

“Yep.”

“How’d you even know?”

“Tim Gutterson called me. Thought I might have reason to want to get involved.”

Boyd grins. “Gutterson, huh? That cute, closeted ex-army sniper?”

“Ain’t anymore. Closeted, I mean. Still pretty cute. Got a boyfriend and everything, apparently. What about you?”

“Do I have a boyfriend? Not at the present time. You?”

“Not as such.”

“Girlfriend?”

Raylan shakes his head slowly.

“Raylan, do you think you could be prevailed upon to untie my wrists before we continue this conversation?”

Raylan looks down at his hands, bound in what appeared to be hemp twine. “Shit, Boyd, I’m sorry. I didn’t even notice.”

“Too busy looking at my pretty face, I guess.”
Boyd says.

Raylan doesn’t answer. He’s casting around for anything he can find to cut the rope. “They took my knife off me, of course. My keys.” He finds a piece of a shattered clay pot and sits against the wall next to Boyd, stretching his long legs out. “Gimme,”
he says, and Boyd immediately shifts so he can put his hands in Raylan’s lap.

“Damn,” Boyd says, and Raylan can clearly hear the laughter in his voice. “Closest I ever got to your dick, and I’m incapacitated.”

“Frustrating,” Raylan agrees, grinning. He saws away at the binding. He peers at Boyd’s left arm. He’s only wearing a t-shirt, and the entire arm from wrist to where it disappears under the sleeve is covered in tattoos. He can’t make out any detail in the low light, but he reaches over to lift the sleeve. Where the swastika had once stood out, stark and ugly on his pale skin, it now looks to be solid black, fading to what seems to be smoke at the top.

“They were gonna laser it off,” Boyd says. “I thought this looked cooler.”

Raylan nods, then goes back to his task. It’s slow going, but he’s making progress. “Certainly can’t look worse.”

“You know, Raylan, all that shit, it wasn’t real. I didn’t believe it.”

Raylan takes a few moments to think about how to respond, and finally says, “I figured. For a long time, I guess I thought that was enough. That you weren’t a real nazi, just a criminal, so it wasn’t as bad. But I’ve recently had cause to think about what it means to use that kind of hatred as a means to your own ends, and how someone meaning it or not don’t really make a goddamn bit of difference.”

“You had cause to think about all that, huh? What’s her name?”

“Never you mind,” Raylan says. “And how do you know it was a woman, anyway?”

“I know you, Raylan.”

Raylan pauses and looks up. “How can you say that?”

“I don’t know. Was I right?”

Raylan huffs. He doesn’t answer, but Boyd chuckles.

“Anyhow, you ain’t wrong. I’ve had a long time away from all that to think about things. About everything, including that. It ain’t lost on me. Exactly what I’m supposed to do with that epiphany, I could not say. But I hear you. I’m—Raylan, do you know why I became a rat?”

“Johnny said it was because Bo killed your boyfriend.”

“Did he, now. That asshole was always smarter than he let on. But that wasn’t exactly true. First off, he wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just some guy I was hanging out with.”

“Fucking.”

“Sure. But I barely knew him. Thing is, though, that didn’t matter to my daddy. He found out, somehow, and he didn’t even say nothing to me. No warning, didn’t try to scare the guy off, nothing. He just fucking had him killed, Raylan. And he made sure I knew about it.”

“Jesus,” Raylan mutters.

“I understood his reasoning. It was almost the smart play. Only, he didn’t think about what that truly meant for me, in how I’d have to live the rest of my life, or at least until he dropped dead. Is he dead, Raylan? I don’t even know.”

“Somehow, no. He’s still sitting in federal prison, though.”

“It was the only way I could think of to get out from under. Not just from him, but all of it. I didn’t want people like Johnny to get swept up in it, but it couldn’t be helped. I was desperate. I will admit, however, that I didn’t mind seeing your daddy get a little of what was coming to him.”

Raylan starts to answer him, but suddenly he manages to cut through enough layers of twine to loosen Boyd’s wrist. He pulls the rest off, and Boyd sighs in relief. Angry, deep red grooves are pressed into the skin. Raylan takes one of his hands and gently rubs the tender skin, trying to get his circulation going.

“Raylan.”

Raylan can tell Boyd is watching him, but he doesn’t look up. He’s not ready. Boyd lifts his free hand and puts it to Raylan’s cheek.

“Will you look at me?”

Raylan slowly lifts his head and looks. Boyd’s eyes are searching, trying to read him, and he does his best to guard against that. “You say you know me, Boyd. But I ain’t the same.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the photo Tim had given him, tosses it in Boyd’s lap. “You know him. You may have noticed I’ve put on a few miles since I was that boy.”

“You still look like him.” Raylan raises an eyebrow at that, but Boyd just nods. “To me, you do. Sound like him, too. Always trying to make sure things are in line with how you see the world, and always being disappointed by it.”

Raylan shakes his head gently. “I’ve crossed the line—my line—more than once. Last time…well. I quit. My ex thinks it was for our daughter. I let both of them think that, but really it was because I went too far. I let my anger take over. I let—I let Harlan take over. Like I said, it wasn’t the first time, but this felt different. I wasn’t sure I could come back from it.”

“But you did come back.”

“I had to,” Raylan says. “I owed you.”

“You didn’t owe me anything, Raylan. I think you know that, too. It wasn’t about that, was it?”

Boyd’s hand has slid from his cheek down to the side of his neck, and Raylan reaches up to take it. “I don’t know what it was about,” he says, his voice breaking on the last word.

“You do. You know.”

Raylan meets his eyes, head on, for the first time. “I did it for him. For that kid in the picture, and for the boy who took it. They would have wanted it.”

Boyd laughs. “They would have been fucking pissed if you didn’t.”

They look at each other for a while, not saying anything. Finally, Raylan sighs and takes Boyd’s face in his hands. “This is for them, too, but also for me.” He leans forward and touches his lips to Boyd’s, so lightly it can barely be called a kiss. He feels the flutter of Boyd’s exhale on his face.

“How ‘bout that,” Boyd murmurs, and kisses him back, just as gently, but longer.

Raylan huffs softly as he pulls back from it. “My daughter would be so proud,” he says.

“Oh yeah, I meant to circle back on that. You got a kid? What’s her name?”

“Willa. She’s fifteen. Ain’t that terrifying?”

“I bet she’s pretty.”

“Boyd, she’s the most beautiful girl I ever seen in my life. And a hell of a lot smarter than I ever was. But Christ, she’s heedless. Scares the shit out of me, sometimes.”

“Well, that’s her job, ain’t it? She’ll be okay, Raylan.”

Raylan shrugs. “If I can get us out of here, maybe she will. If something happens to me—“

“We won’t let it. It ain’t just you. I’m here, too. We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Raylan says, “but just in case we don’t.” He leans forward and kisses Boyd again, but this time it’s different. More. Rooted firmly in the present moment, even if it is fueled by the past.

“Dear lord, Raylan. I think I may have found something we can use to bust down the door.”

Raylan glances down. “I’ve been known to have that effect.”

“You think, maybe, before we do some kind of dangerous shit and maybe get ourselves shot, we could—“

“Seriously?”

Boyd shrugs. “What if we never get another chance? What if this is it?”

“That ain’t—I don’t think—fuck, Boyd, no. Not here. We get out of here…we’ll make it happen, okay? Before you go back under, I promise.” He looks Boyd in the eyes. “I promise.”

“I ain’t going back under.”

Raylan stares at him. “You have to.”

Boyd shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t start over again, go to some place I don’t know anyone. It was hard enough the first time, but now? Raylan, just hearing you say my real name, you have no idea what that’s like. Just someone knowing me, knowing who I am and was and…I’d rather die than go without that again.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“It’s just the plain truth. You don’t know, couldn’t know. That ain’t your fault, but I need you to hear what I’m saying. It ain’t any kind of life. I tried to make a life, you know, as him. It wasn’t miserable. I made some friends, at least the kind of friends you can make as a single man in his forties. I had a couple…romantic relationships, I suppose, but nothing that went too deep. It’s hard to do when you’re lying about who you are. And yes, Raylan, I do recognize the irony in all that, thank you very much.”

Raylan closes his mouth on the observation he’d been about to make, and just leans up against Boyd’s shoulder. After a while, he says, “I brought a picture to show them, you know. I have a kinship claim. Fuckin’ assholes wouldn’t even look at it.”

Boyd cranes his neck around. “I didn’t know you had the hills in your blood, Raylan.”

“I do. My mother was never ashamed of it, but Arlo didn’t like her talking about it. Like his fuckin’ pedigree was so high and mighty.” He sighs. “If they come back, I’ll try to get them to take it. They come in, you try to get over on them.”

“Well, that’s some kind of plan I guess.”

“You got something better?”

Boyd sighs. “I got nothing.”

“Out of practice scheming and plotting?”

Boyd ignores him, which Raylan is fine with. He
Isn’t feeling up to antagonistic flirting at the moment anyway. Instead of answering, Boyd reaches over and takes Raylan’s hand.

Raylan takes the opportunity to examine Boyd’s sleeve of tattoos, now that he can see a bit better. There’s a tunnel with two headlamps coming out of it from the black, and over that a stylized heart with two pickaxes stuck in it, dripping blood. Above that is what appears to be a detonator underneath some flames and the giant, dark black cloud of smoke. He runs his fingers over it, making Boyd shiver.

“I think what I appreciate most is the subtlety, Boyd.”

“Man, fuck you,” Boyd says, but there’s no bite to it, possibly because Raylan is still touching his arm, raising goosebumps. “You’re the worst prick tease I have ever known, Raylan Givens.”

“Usually, I’m just a just a big whore. If I’d met you in a bar, you’d already be sucking my dick. These are unfortunate circumstances.”

“All the boys in Harlan I could have fixated on, I had to pick—“

“The cutest one. That’s ‘cause you have impeccable taste, Boyd, I always said so.”

Boyd laughs, probably despite himself. “Fuck’s sake, I—“ He’s cut off by the sound of a gunshot. It’s not too close, but clear enough.

They look at each other, and immediately stand up, on high alert. This could either be very bad for them, or it could be an opportunity. Or, of course, someone could just be shooting squirrels. No way to know.

There are no more shots fired, but after a couple minutes they can hear bickering, what sounds like two men and a very familiar woman’s voice.

Boyd looks over to meet Raylan’s eyes. “Is that Helen?”

Raylan nods. “Sounds like.”

A man’s voice calls out, “You both stay back or you’re dead, hear?”

“I hear you,” Raylan calls. He holds his hand up to Boyd, letting him know to hold off.

The padlock rattles, there’s a thud, and suddenly light is streaming in. Helen steps through the door. “Got worried,” she says. “Guess I had cause.”

“I’m fine,” Raylan replies, grinning at her. “That was sweet of you, though.”

Helen rolls her eyes and looks to Boyd, but addresses Raylan again. “How’s the snitch? You propose yet?”

Boyd snickers and says in his bullshitiest voice, “Why Miss Helen, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes. You must have a painting in your attic, because you surely have not aged a day since I last seen you.”

She ignores him and says, “Come on, Raylan. Let’s git.”

“Okay. Let’s go, Boyd.”

Boyd doesn’t move, and Helen sighs impatiently. “Raylan, they’re letting you go. I proved your claim, but he don’t have one. He ain’t going anywhere.”

“He’s coming with me. I’m a goddamn deputy marshal, and he’s my quarry.”

“Raylan, she’s right,” Boyd says. “Ain’t no way they’re letting you walk me off this mountain.”

“Then I ain’t going either.”

“You gonna die here with me? Leave your child fatherless for some childhood crush? That don’t make no kind of sense. Go on. I’ll figure something out.”

Raylan points at him. “I ain’t leaving this mountain without you, Boyd.” He turns back to Helen. “I assume you know whoever’s in charge around here. Let’s go talk to him.”

Helen laughs and shakes her head. “Send you off to the city and you still ain’t enlightened. Ain’t a man in charge up here. But sure thing, Raylan. Let’s go talk to Mary.”

Helen speaks with one of the men and lets them know where she wants to go. He follows silently, rifle trained on Raylan’s back, while the other stays back at the shed. The walk up over a rise to a small farmhouse, and around to the back. Helen knocks, and a woman somewhere close to Helen’s age opens the door.

As they walk into a worn, old-fashioned but clean as a whistle kitchen, Raylan’s eyes bug out. His teenage daughter is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her. He wheels around to Helen.

“What in God’s name were you thinking, bringing her up here for this?”

Helen waves at him dismissively and says, “You wanted her to meet her kin, didn’t you? Well, she is. Just because you never got to don’t mean she shouldn’t have the opportunity.”

“You must be Raylan,” Mary says. “I know you’ve had a trying day. I’m sorry my sons didn’t give you a chance to make your claim, but they’re protective. Especially with the current situation.”

“Ma’am, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, and I wish my daddy hadn’t been such an ass as to prevent me from meeting you sooner. But unfortunately, I didn’t come here for a visit.”

“I know why you’re here. And I know you’re with the Marshal service—though retired, I understand. But I ain’t handing him over. We don’t recognize the United States government’s jurisdiction here.”

Raylan takes a breath in hopes of tamping down his anger and frustration. Last time Willa saw him in the red zone, it nearly killed their relationship, and he’s not letting it happen again. He looks over at her before he speaks, and she smiles calmly at him.

“I’m familiar with that belief system,” he says. “Pretty damn sure Boyd Crowder is as well, but you know you don’t have any right keeping him. I don’t even understand why you took him. Or for that matter, why he’s still alive.”

“He’s alive because we had an understanding with Mags Bennett. Beyond that, it ain’t your concern. I’m offering you and yours safe passage down the mountain. He’s safe for now as well, but I guarantee if you bring federal law enforcement down on our heads, he won’t be for long. This is our business, not any of yours or the government’s.”

Raylan turns to Helen. “Take Willa home.”

“Raylan, don’t you dare.”

“Helen, you know I can’t just—-“

“Yes, you can, goddamnit. She said he’s safe, you heard her. He can take care of his damn self. Raylan, you weren’t around to know about what he was doing before he did what he did, but he ain’t a babe in the woods. Maybe this is some kind of justice.”

Raylan shakes his head in wonder, and he’s about to respond when he hears it. Sirens. The bearded man with the gun leaves the house, and Raylan hears shouts coming from the yard.

“What did you do?” Mary asks.

“Nothing,” Raylan says. “I came up here on my own. I got no idea.” He knows damn well Helen wouldn’t have called anyone. He goes to the window to look at the cars. State police, and the local sheriff, not Feds.

Mary’s face drops into her hands. “Go on. They’re your people, you deal with them. Don’t let them hurt my boys.” She turns to Willa. “It was good to meet you. You look so much like Francie. I’m glad I got to see her grandchild, even though she never got the chance.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

Willa gets up and stands by Raylan, and he hugs her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You shouldn’t have been anywhere near this.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell mom.”

Raylan frowns, but doesn’t argue. “Stay behind me.” He cracks open the door and calls out, “Federal Marshal! I’m unarmed, coming out slowly! I have a girl with me, also unarmed, and an elderly woman!” He turns back to Helen. “You ain’t armed, are you?”

Helen takes a revolver out from under her flannel shirt and sets it on the counter. “No.”

He walks out with his hands in the air, and is immediately tackled by an absolutely huge State Trooper. Willa is taken to a police car to wait while his identification is checked.

“There’s a man locked in a shed down that hill,” he says, and the Trooper tells him to shut up. “There’s another armed man with him, asshole. I’m trying to warn you.” Just then, another gunshot rings out. “Shit!”

The Trooper lets him up, but holds him where he is while other officers run towards the source of the shot. Raylan’s stomach twists. He knows he’s going to see them carrying Boyd’s lifeless body over the hill any second.

It feels like a whole lifetime passes before anything happens. When he sees two handcuffed men coming up over the rise, his body floods with relief so quickly he feels lightheaded. Boyd meets his eyes and grins at him.

“One of those the guy you been looking for?” the Trooper asks.

“Yeah,” Raylan says. “That one.” He points at Boyd. “With the tattoos.”

The Trooper goes over to speak with the officers, and Boyd is brought over to where Raylan is standing. “You want me to uncuff him?”

Boyd shoots him a wink, and Raylan has to hold back a laugh. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“What was that shot?”

Boyd shrugs like it’s nothing, and tells him, “After the cops arrived, he came in. Fairly sure he was about to execute me on the spot, so I jumped him. Gun went off, and there’s probably a good-sized hole in that roof now, but no one got hit.”

“Fuck,” Raylan says. “Thought you were gone, there, for a minute.”

“Guess we’re gonna have to spend the rest of the day dealing with this shit,” Boyd grumbles. “No time for you to make good on that promise.”

Raylan takes a good look at him, standing in the sunlight, and he can see everything that’s different about him now. He’s certain Boyd is looking for the same things, all the changes. “You sure you still see that kid?” he asks.

“That’s all I see, Raylan. Been looking at him for more than thirty years, I ought to know.”

“Come on. You want to meet Willa?”

“You think she’d want to meet me?”

“I can assure you that she does.”

Chapter Text

Willa

Her dad is frowning slightly, but she can’t tell if it’s because of the general trauma of the day, or because he’s worried about her meeting this guy, or if it’s just his resting Marshal face. When she gets out of the car, he hugs her, kisses her head and says, “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. We’ll get out of here as soon as we can.”

She gets why he feels guilty, but for her part, it’s all been pretty exciting. Well, after she found out he was going to be okay, anyway. Before that, she was fucking terrified. She’d told him she never worried about him, and she never had—until she did.

He pulls back but keeps his hand on her back. She’s glad for that, even though it’s hot out and she’s sweaty. “You want to meet Boyd?”

She nods and smiles, but suddenly feels terribly shy. “Hi,” she says, barely looking at the man’s face.

“Hello. Raylan told me your name is Willa. That’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.” She has no idea what else to say to that. Boyd seems a little lost at sea as well, and her father is not helping. She can feel his discomfort with the whole thing radiating off of him.

To her—and she assumes both of the men’s—relief, one of the cops comes over and interrupts. Well, comes over, anyway. She’s not interrupting anything but them standing in awkward silence. She needs Raylan, they have to ask him some shit, before they leave the mountain.

“I can stay here and keep an eye on…” She gestured vaguely at the whole Boyd and Willa situation.

“That’s okay,” he says. “They’ll be fine.” The lady cop gives him a weird look, and Willa gets why. It’s a weird situation for sure.

It’s sort of a relief having him gone for the moment, but she still doesn’t know what to say. She tries to get a good look at his sleeve of tattoos without being too obvious about it, but obviously fails, because he smiles at her and lifts up the t-shirt so she can see the whole thing.

“You want to hear about them?” he asks. His voice is soft, almost like he’s talking to a skittish animal. She nods, and he tells her. About working with her dad after high school, about the cave-in. “That’s us,” he says, pointing to the two points of light in the darkness. Up here, the detonator? That’s me, blowing my life up. See that cloud of smoke? That’s the new life I was handed, after I turned on everyone I knew. It’s meant to cover up something much uglier. No one can see it now, but I’ll always know it’s there.”

“What is it?”

“It’s hate,” Boyd says. “The particulars don’t matter. I used to be a bad guy.”

“Used to be? Now you’re a good guy?”

“I been trying to be,” he says. “Nobody’s perfect.” He winks at her, and she laughs.

“My dad said he was sad to leave you.”

Boyd nods. “Yeah, I know he was. I was too. He didn’t have no choice, though. I could see that. He tell you anything about your grandfather?”

“Just that he’s an asshole.”

Boyd throws his head back and laughs. “Baby girl, he gave you the PG version. That’s for him to expand on if he ever wants to, but the point is, almost everything in this place was a misery to him. Yes, there was one notable exception, but he was smart enough to know that wouldn’t be enough to make it a viable option.”

“Why’d you stay?”

“Thought I could be something. Didn’t understand how much I’d be trading away.” He looks at her. “Not just him. Much more than that. Myself.”

She’s not entirely sure what he means, but she nods anyway.

They both watch Raylan for a bit, doing his work shit, talking to the cops. At one post he adjusts his hat and grins at the officer he’s talking to. Willa glances at Boyd’s face. He’s smiling just a little, eyes wide and shining, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. She wonders if her mom used to look at him that way, and decides she probably did, once. A really long time ago.

She knows how people respond to her father. Even her friends will get all giggly about him sometimes, even though he’s even way older than most of their dads, and lord knows what they say when she’s not around. She doesn’t want to know.

“What was he like back then?” She asks suddenly. She can’t help but wonder if this guy is crushing on some version of her father that doesn’t even exist anymore. He’s acting like he still knows him, but even though she’s only fifteen, she figures that can’t be true.

Boyd turns to her and his eyes change, seem to go out of focus. Maybe he’s remembering. “He was angrier,” Boyd says. “At least I think he was. Hard to say for sure since I only just got reacquainted.”

She raises her eyebrows. “I saw him beat the shit out of a guy in Detroit because he thought he was a danger to me.”

“Well, was he?”

“Yeah, I guess. Although I didn’t know that at the time. He told me he was my dad’s friend. He was nice to me. Kind of cute. He was using me to get to him.” She frowns. She’d never seen her father like that, and it was the most upsetting thing she’d ever experienced. “I thought he was gonna kill him.”

Boyd shakes his head. “I’d have done the same. I might have actually killed him. I don’t have a child, but…listen. Your father watched someone beat on a person he loved for years and years, when he was just a child who couldn’t do nothing about it. So yeah, he’s got that shit inside of him. I think he probably keeps it as well under wraps as he’s able to.”

“He should go to therapy.”

“Hope he has good insurance,” Boyd says. “Could take awhile.”

“What else?”

“About back then?” Boyd shrugs. “He wasn’t very comfortable in his own skin. Everyone looked at him like he was some kind of star, but he…he didn’t wear it like that. Not like now, apparently.” He looks back over at Raylan. “Seems like he knows what he is, now. And knows how to use that.”

“Maybe too much,” she says. “He flirts with everyone.”

Boyd laughs and leans back on the cop car. “Good for him. Might as well, long as it lasts.” He pauses, looks up at the sky. “I’m sure there are other changes that haven’t made themselves apparent to me, yet. But he’s the same man, at his core. We all are. How you feel now, who you are, even at your age? That’s the person you’ll always be. You can change your behaviors, your style, your musical tastes, where you live, but none of that is gonna make you feel like a different person.”

“You giving me life advice? You’re not my stepdaddy yet.”

“Lord in heaven,” Boyd murmurs. “So, what’s your mama like?”

“Why?”

“Curious. I’m sure she’s gorgeous, but what else? Smart? Funny? Kind?”

Willa shrugs. It’s hard to think of your parents that way. “She’s…smart, yeah. Not smart enough not to get pregnant on a rebound, but you know. Smart enough.”

“I’m sure she was glad for it. Your daddy too.”

Willa shrugs. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. She can be funny. She’s a good mom. She gets frustrated with him.”

“Well, he did just drag his teenage daughter along on a dangerous mission to rescue a boy he loved as a teenager. Maybe he gives her some cause from time to time.”

Willa giggles, stops, giggles some more. “She’d never let me see him again until I turned eighteen. I didn’t tell her when he let me try his bourbon when I was ten, and I’m not telling her about this either.”

Raylan comes strolling back over and puts his hands low on his hips. “They got my keys back. I think we can go. If you’re done talking about me, that is. Gutterson is waiting down the mountain for us.”

“What happens now?” Boyd asks.

“Taking you to Lexington. We both have to make statements, and then we can figure out where to go from there. Talk about next steps for you.”

“Raylan—“

“Later,” he says, and Willa knows that tone of voice very well. He’s done talking. He tells Willa to say goodbye to Helen. “Tell her I’ll see her later. I’m too pissed to deal with her now.”

Soon, they’re heading down the mountain, driving slow. Boyd sits in the back, sprawled out on the seat. “Who called the cops?” he asks, suddenly. “Helen?”

Raylan glances at Willa, but says to Boyd, “I dare you to ask her if she did.”

“I thought you valued my safety, Raylan.”

“I called Tim,” Willa says. “He gave me his number when you were talking to his boss. Said you were probably gonna get yourself in a world of shit and if I got worried I should call him.”

Boyd laughs, and Raylan sighs. “Well, shit,” he says.

“Why’d he send the cops and wait down there?”

Boyd leans forward and says, “They’re Sovereign Citizens. Or something like. They don’t believe in the federal government. Gutterson would have either got himself shot on sight or thrown in that shed with us. Although, now I say it—“

“Boyd.”

Willa hides a grin. They’re funny together, like they have their own secret conversation going on under the one she can hear. Normally, that would probably annoy her, but she doesn’t get the sense they’re even aware of it.

“Anyhow, it was safer to send the cops. Though, even the staties was a risk, but I guess they felt they needed the numbers.”

They reach the pull-off where Tim is waiting, leaning on an SUV. They pull in next to him and her dad get out.

“Missed all the fun,” he says.

Tim puts his hand up to shade his eyes and peers into the car. “I can’t believe you found him in one day. Fucking unbelievable. You sure you don’t want to come back and work with us again? We could use our hillbilly whisperer back.”

“I’m good,” Raylan says.

“I can take it from here. You and Willa can head back, and I’ll see you at the courthouse to get this all on the record.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take him in.”

“With your kid in the car? I really don’t think—-“

“He ain’t a fugitive, Tim. Ain’t got a charge on him. He’s just being brought in for his safety. Right? We’ll be fine.”

Tim glares at him, leans in close and says something Willa can’t make out. Raylan just looks at him impassively and shrugs.

“You’re nuts,” Tim says, and then throws up his hands. “Fucking Harlan.”

He gets back in the car, but before he starts it up, Willa asks if she can be in the back. “I’m bored,” she says. “I might sleep.”

Boyd switches with her and immediately shoots Raylan a look. “Hillbilly whisperer?” Willa can’t quite read the tone in Boyd’s voice, but he doesn’t sound too amused.

“I can’t help it that they don’t know how to talk to those people. They think I’m some kind of savant because I could sometimes get them to answer my questions.”

“Those people? You mean our people?”

“If you say so,” Raylan says. “I been gone
a lot longer than you.”

“Don’t have to tell me.”

Raylan shakes his head and they don’t talk for awhile. Eventually, the silence starts to feel heavy.

“Put on some music if you want.” Raylan hands Boyd his phone.

“Not Taylor Swift though, he hates that,” Willa pipes up from the back seat.

Boyd grins. “I’m shocked,” he says. He opens the Spotify app on Raylan’s phone and laughs. “Damn, Raylan, did you just Google ‘Americana’ at some point and add everything on the list?”

Raylan takes his eyes off the road long enough to roll his eyes at Boyd. “They only call it Americana if the artist is a liberal and the lyrics are good. Take the same music, slap a MAGA hat on it and make it eighty percent dumber and it’s country. How does that make any sense?”

Boyd just smiles and puts on a Brandi Carlisle album. “I see you still got Opinions,” he says. Willa can hear the capital O very clearly.

“Least my opinions never…” He keeps talking, but his voice goes too low for Willa to hear from the back seat, over the music, but she sees Boyd whip his head towards the driver’s side.

“What am I supposed to say to that?” He doesn’t snap, but his low voice takes on an intense tone. “Really, Raylan, what? I told you, I get it. How should I apologize? To whom? You?”

Her father shakes his head, but doesn’t answer. Not with words, anyhow. But he reaches across the center console and lays his hand out, palm up. Boyd looks down at it and sighs harshly. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he takes it.

“Okay,” Boyd says softly. They ride in silence again for a little while—two more songs and a bit—before he says, “Hey, Raylan.”

“Hmm?”

“Remember when you came to see me, before I went into protection?”

“Seriously? Do I remember?”

Boyd doesn’t respond to the sarcasm—acts like he didn’t even hear it—but says, “Gutterson asked me if we ever, you know—“

“Uh huh.” Raylan checks the rear view and Willa pretends to be asleep. “Was he disappointed?”

“No. I lied. Told him we used to do it all the time, in my truck, in the woods, in the lake. One time in the showers at the mine.”

Raylan snorts. “Guess that’s why he didn’t believe me about why I wanted to find you. After he asked me if I was harboring you in Miami.”

“I wish,” Boyd says. “Although, I guess Miami wouldn’t be my first choice of destinations. If anyone there’s still looking for me.”

Raylan pulls his hand out of Boyd’s and puts it back on the steering wheel. “Speaking of which.”

“Don’t start.”

“Sorry,” Raylan says, “but I’d really prefer you didn’t die. Even if I never got to see you again, I’d rather think about you being out there somewhere instead of buried in an unmarked grave.”

“Out there doing what? Sitting in an empty house drinking bourbon and staring at your picture? Trying to find someone to love me who doesn’t even know my name, who wants to know what my ink means and I can’t even tell them?”

“Fuck, I don’t know, Boyd, I’m sure you’d think of something. Some way to…”

“No. Don’t ask me again.”

Raylan huffs. “Never could tell you nothing.”

“What are you guys talking about?

They look at each other, and then Raylan looks in the mirror again. “Thought you were sleeping.”

“Nope.”

“Mind your business.”

“You’re talking in a closed car about him being buried in an unmarked grave. Right in front of me.”

“Like I said, I thought you were asleep.”

Boyd turns around to look at her. “I’m supposed to go back into witness protection. I ain’t doing it, and your daddy is pissed. But, you know, it ain’t his decision and I already made mine.”

“Is someone going to come take you again? Like those hillbillies did?”

“I don’t know,” Boyd says. “It’s a risk.”

“More likely they’ll execute him on the spot. The Cubans ain’t hillbillies, Boyd. They didn’t make no promises to a dead matriarch.”

“Enough, Raylan,” Boyd says, barely audible. “Please.”

Willa looks at the back of their heads. They’re both stubborn, seems like, but there’s no compromise here. It’s one or the other, and however mad her dad is about it, he doesn’t really get a say. It’s not like they even have a relationship, despite whatever weird, intense connection is between them.

Raylan

“I’m going out for a bit. Stay in the room.” He looks at her pointedly and she stares back as if he’s being unreasonable. “Willa.”

“I’ll stay here. Where are you going?” He just raises his brows at her, and she rolls her eyes. “Okay, but don’t make that face at him.”

“This face?”

“No, the one you had on in the car. You know, that angry-sad one you had after he told you he wasn’t gonna do what you told him to do? The one you made at mom for weeks after that time you stayed over?”

That sets Raylan back a step. That was years ago, Willa would have only been nine or ten. “Did she tell you about that?”

“No! She’d never, you know that. I didn’t figure it out for a couple years, but I know you didn’t sleep on the couch like you both said.”

“I’m sorry. That should never have happened. Especially not with you there.”

“Whatever, dad. I’m just saying, don’t do that. What’s the point? You know, when I was talking to him about you, he said he didn’t think you were as angry as you used to be. Maybe you should let him keep thinking that, especially if you think he’s about to get killed. He seemed happy about it.”

Raylan realizes, and not for the first time, that he has no idea what goes on in the mind of his child. “Oh yeah? What else did he tell you?”

“He said he would have killed that guy in Detroit instead of just almost killing him like you did.”

“Jesus Christ,” Raylan mutters.

“Mostly he just shot heart eyes at you, though. Wouldn’t hear any complaints about you. Maybe you should just be nice to him. He’s sad too.”

Raylan shakes his head, sighs, and says, “I’ll try.” He points at her. “Stay in the room.”

She points back at him. “Be nice.”

Raylan doesn’t bother telling her that Boyd probably wouldn’t even recognize him if he did that, but he knows she’s mostly right. There’s no point rehashing the argument. There’s nothing either of them can say that will change anything.

He drives to the safe house—at least this time he’s allowed to know where it is—and is surprised to find Tim Gutterson at the door.

“I figured you’d have enough seniority around here to escape guard duty. What are you doing here?”

“I volunteered,” Tim says, giving him a wry smile. “Figured you’d be stopping by.”

“Thanks.” Raylan casts his eyes around the room. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs. End of the hall. You plan on trying to change his mind? Seems pretty set on his decision.”

“No. Already tried that. I’m just here to…see him.”

“Right,” Tim says. “Well, have fun. Walls are pretty thin, so you’ll want to keep the conversation at a low to moderate level.”

Raylan goes up the stairs and to the closed door at the back of the house. He composes his face in what he hopes is not an angry-sad arrangement and knocks softly.

Boyd opens the door. He’s wearing grey sweatpants and white undershirt that look brand new. They must have stopped at Walmart to get him some clean clothes.

“Hey,” Boyd says. “You come here to yell at me some more?”

“No.”

“Why, then?” It’s just like Boyd to want to make him say it.

“Keeping a promise. Can I come in?”

Boyd stands aside and pulls the door open wider. He closes it behind them and says, “You know, Raylan, I won’t hold you to a promise you made when we were in fear for our lives. We don’t have to do this.”

“Wasn’t just a promise to you. It was for me, too, but if you don’t want to, we can just talk. Or I can go.”

Boyd smiles faintly and sits on the bed. “What would you want to be doing tonight, if none of this other shit was going on? Blank slate, gun to your head.”

Raylan gives a short laugh and starts to say something, then shakes his head.

“What?”

“Forget it. I almost made it weird.”

“Go on, say it. It’s already weird, ain’t it?”

“I almost said…I’d want to be taking you out for our anniversary dinner.”

Boyd grins delightedly. “What anniversary?”

Raylan shrugs. “I don’t know. Thirtieth?”

“Raylan, I hate to bust your bubble, but those two dumbasses wouldn’t have made it a year, much less thirty. Besides, you wouldn’t have Willa.”

Raylan makes a considering face and lowers himself to sit next to Boyd. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I cheated on you, and you so graciously agreed to forgive me.”

“Hmm. Maybe it was a threesome.”

“There you go,” Raylan says. “But even if we had tried, and didn’t make it, maybe you’d have been somewheres else by that time and the worst shit never would have happened. And we wouldn’t have had to spend so many years hung up on a memory, because…”

“Because we’d know. I’ve thought about that, from time to time. But that ain’t how it went, and we can’t change that. So, let’s say you just met me. On Grindr. You on there? I never thought to look for you.”

“No. I prefer to look for dick in person. Been going to the same two bars for the last fifteen years. I’m a creature of habit, you could say. Anyway, I need more than a shot of someone’s asshole before I hook up with them.”

Boyd laughs. “Always the romantic.”

“But let’s say, for the sake of this exercise, that I saw you sitting there in the bar, drinking a bourbon with your bad boy tats, fingers twitching for a smoke—“

“I quit ten years ago.”

“You don’t want one still when you drink?”

“Fine, go on.”

“And I didn’t know you, you were some brand new person to me?”

“Yeah.”

Raylan takes a moment to think, and then sighs. “Well, we’d go back to your place and I’d fuck you, and then I’d never talk to you again.”

“Fuck, Raylan. Really?”

“Yeah. I know. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Is that how you want it or just the way it is?”

“Who the hell knows, anymore?” Raylan can feel Boyd’s judgemental glare heating up the side of his face, so he turns to look at him. “Maybe it wouldn’t go like that, though. Maybe I’d see something in you that I’d want to hold onto. I did want that, once. Before I even knew that part of myself, I knew I wanted you. And I still do.”

“Maybe that’s just because you never had me.”

“No, it ain’t. It’s because I loved you.” Raylan makes a frustrated sound, choked and helpless. “You know, Boyd, I was the one who left, but you were the one who was running away. You just gave up on me. Told me you were doing it for me, that I needed a fresh start or whatever bullshit you said, but you were the one who was too scared to follow me. Wouldn’t even listen when I tried to tell you I wanted to try, that I was still there. Coulda got in the car and come see me anytime. I wasn’t dead. I was just somewhere else.”

“Oh, really? You wanted me to come see you at school, so…what? You could take me out to parties and watch you pick up girls? So you could introduce me as your buddy from Harlan and try to get me laid?”

Raylan shakes his head and laughs. “Is that how you imagined it going? Christ, Boyd. I listened to you back then, maybe because my fear was too big to push back at you—in fact, I know that’s why. Seemed easier to believe you when you said it was for the best to cut ties, than to do what I knew I really wanted. But you were wrong. You were wrong, and I was a coward.”

“Well, shit, Raylan. Let’s say all that’s true. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I didn’t know fucking everything when I was nineteen years old, and you weren’t the brimming mug of cocky-ass self-assurance that you currently seem to be. Let’s say we were just a couple of barely educated children from a depressed coal town who were raised with violence all around us, yet somehow managed to love each other.”

“Yeah?”

“What does that matter now? Why should that mean anything now?””

“You’re saying it don’t? That you don’t feel it?”

“I do, but why? It ain’t real, is it? It’s a ghost.”

“It ain’t a ghost. We ain’t dead. We’re here. I’m—I’m here. Boyd…”

Boyd meets his eyes, waiting for him to finish the thought, but Raylan is tired. He can’t talk anymore, and he doesn’t understand what they’re even arguing about at this point. He can’t understand why they haven’t even touched each other yet, now that they finally can. Maybe it won’t live up to the expectations either of them has, but it’s time to find out.

“Fuck this,” Boyd says, mirroring his feelings precisely. He reaches up to cup Raylan’s jaw, and Raylan closes his eyes. He lets out a shaky sigh of relief and leans in to press his lips to Boyd’s. It isn’t like the other times, because this time, they don’t have to stop. They don’t have to pretend to be content with just this much.

Raylan pulls back enough to let his mouth drift along Boyd’s cheekbone, and down to his neck. He shoves his hands under Boyd’s shirt and pushes it up. Boyd lifts his arms to let him pull it off. He’s got another tattoo on his chest, right above his heart, and Raylan’s breath catches in his throat as he runs his thumb over it. It’s a small thing, not like the gaudy display on his arm. Two words, written in lower case, in a simple cursive font. “Bury Me,” it says.

“You remember?” Boyd asks.

“I do,” Raylan says. “It was playing when you tried to tell me, that night.” He sighs. “I wouldn’t even let you finish saying it. I’m sorry about that. I would have liked to hear what you were going to say, but I was afraid to. I said ‘fuck you’ instead.”

Boyd kisses him again. “I have no idea what I was going to say. I was relieved you took that burden away from me. I didn’t need to say it anyhow. You knew, and that’s all I cared about.”

“When did you get this?”

“Day after you left. Guy doing it thought it was cool. He assumed it was about Kentucky, you know? ‘Rest my soul in those hills of coal,’ and all that. I told him it was for a boy I loved who left me. Guess I was feeling reckless, and the thing was almost done, so if he decided to kick my ass it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

Raylan is already anticipating the punch line, and he hopes more than anything this story is true. “And?”

“He didn’t,” Boyd says, and winks.

Raylan smiles and unbuttons his own shirt, tosses it aside. He has no tattoos to reveal, no secret messages written on his skin. All he has to show for all the years are his scars. Boyd lightly touches the one on his side, the one he got from Doyle, but he doesn’t ask about it. He runs his fingers through the grey hair on Raylan’s chest and kisses him on the collarbone.

“I ain’t that boy no more, Boyd,” Raylan mutters, even as Boyd pushes him back on the bed and climbs atop him.

“Yeah, you are. Not only, but you are. What would he have thought, if he could see us now, do you think?”

“‘Who are those grizzled old fucks?’”

Boyd chuckles and unzips Raylan’s jeans. Raylan helps him out, sliding them down his legs and kicking them off the end of the bed. “You want to discuss what the plan is, here?”

“Figured we’d play it by ear,” Raylan says. “But we can, if you want. I don’t know what you like.”

“I like a lot of things, Raylan. But it seems like you have a preference, if your previous comments are any guide.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I might be,” Boyd agrees. He lifts himself up on his elbow and looks down at Raylan. “What kind of guys do you usually pick up in them bars, anyway?”

“Whoever looks good and not way too goddamn young for me. Getting harder all the time on that second prerequisite.”

“I figured you’d clean up with that whole cowboy Daddy thing you got going on.”

“Well, I don’t go looking for that, but seems like more and more, it finds me. Used to be the opposite, way back when. I think I hit a sweet spot right around thirty-two, when nobody wanted me to play a part for them. Good timing, right after my divorce. Now…I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I been back in it. A year, at least.”

“You want a guy to want you for who you really are, but you don’t want to give him more than an hour of your time.”

“Giving it to you, ain’t I? But it seems like all you want to do is talk my fucking ear off. Come on, Boyd. What do you want? You can fuck me. You can tie me up. You can even smack me around a little, if that’s your thing. Just stop asking me questions. And quit judging me, goddamn it.”

“I ain’t. I just don’t understand how you could fall in love with me and then think all you might ever want from another guy is to get off and get out. Makes me wonder if you really did love me. Maybe you just wanted to fuck me, you just didn’t know the difference yet.”

“No.”

Boyd blinks at him, waits. “No? That’s all you got to say?”

“I could have said ‘no, and fuck you,’ but I was trying to be nice like I promised my daughter.”

“Raylan,” Boyd laughs, “what?”

“She told me to be nice to you because she thinks you’re as sad about all this shit as I am. I know who I am, Boyd. It’s true I didn’t know myself as well when we were kids, obviously, but I sure as hell knew I loved you. You knew it too. I don’t know why you’re dumping this nonsense on me now, unless…” Raylan aims a little frown at him. “You’re scared.”

Boyd looks affronted, which surprises Raylan not at all. “What do I got to be scared of?”

Raylan just looks at him for a few seconds, and then moves, pushing him flat on his back and rolling on top of him. “Is that truly a question that’s coming out of your mouth right now? You have plenty to be scared of, Boyd, and you know it. But why you’re afraid of this, I can only guess.”

Boyd is staring at him now, a little wide-eyed, and his mouth is opened slightly. So maybe Raylan has a little bit of an idea what he might like, after all. But not until they clear this shit up.

“You tell me, you’re so fucking smart now,” Boyd practically pants.

“You’re afraid to do it because you know what’s gonna happen when we’re done. You want to keep drawing it out and giving me shit and saying things you know perfectly well ain’t true, because you know it won't satisfy you. That once you get what you think you’ve been wanting for a whole goddamn lifetime, you’ll realize you wasted all that time for something that was gone the day I left. That I really ain’t that boy, and haven’t been for years and years, and all you got was…was what’s left. And maybe that ain’t much at all.” Raylan rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

Boyd reaches over to take his hand. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I guess you are, though. You been trying to tell me all day, and I didn’t listen. I only know what I see, and I do see you. I see where you’re different, too. I ain’t looking for a nineteen year old boy. I want what you are now. I want you, Raylan.

“So what, then? You were ready to ready to fuck in that goddamn shed, but now you can’t stop talking? Why?”

“Because it don’t matter what I may want to happen after. If we do this, then that’s all there is. It’ll be over. Not because I’m disappointed or whatever bullshit is going through your mind, but because of the fucking circumstances. After tonight, and possibly tomorrow if I’m lucky, what could possibly happen? Do you even—would you even want more than that?”

Raylan draws a quick breath as the reality of Boyd’s words hits him. He’s been shoving that particular issue way to the back of his mind. Finding Boyd, having him in front of him, being able to touch him, that’s what he’s been working with this whole time. The other question had been put on hold, but here it is. And he realizes, all at once, that he knows his answer.

“Yeah.”

“Raylan, you have got to give me more than that.”

“I’d rather see you safe and far away from me, but if you ain’t even willing to consider that option, then yes. That’s what I want. You, in my life, in some way, for however long I can have you. Whatever that turns out to mean for us. I ain’t making any assumptions or ruling anything out, I’m just saying we don’t know yet.”

Boyd is silent long enough for Raylan to start second-guessing himself, to worry that he freaked Boyd out. When he looks over, Boyd is still looking up, eyes on the ceiling.

“What’s going on in there?” Raylan asks. “You get an answer you weren’t expecting? Maybe you wanted me to be the one to shoot it down, huh? So you didn’t have to?”

“Oh, stop it, would you?” Boyd finally turns on his side to look at him. He’s smiling now, thank god. “I got an answer I never dared to hope for, all right? I’m just processing.”

“Can you process while I suck your dick? Been waiting awhile to get a look at it, you know. It ain’t weird looking, is it? It’s okay if it is, just give me fair warning.”

“My dick is perfect, shithead. I’ve been told many times.”

“Mine’s probably just average, but the rest of me makes up for it.”

“Well, I guess I’ve been warned.”

They smile at each other like assholes for a few seconds, and then Boyd says, “Well?”

Raylan shrugs. “I don’t know, now it feels awkward. I think I forgot how to start sex.”

“Goddamn it, Raylan—“

“Okay, okay,” Raylan laughs. “Come here.”

Boyd moves closer, and Raylan wraps his arms around him, pulling him on top. Boyd kisses him, and Raylan slips a hand down the back of his stiff new sweatpants. Apparently they forgot to buy underwear, which is all to the good as far as he’s concerned.

Boyd’s looking down at him like he has more to say, but Raylan really does not want to hear it at the moment. He sit up, taking Boyd with him, and unceremoniously dumps him on his back. He strips off Boyd’s pants and his own boxers, and then sits back to get a good look. Nice dick, confirmed, he thinks, and allows himself a small grin.

Raylan slides his hands up Boyd’s thighs and then runs the tip of his finger along Boyd’s cock. It twitches, and Boyd makes a noise, ah, just a whisper. When Raylan bends to take him into his mouth, he makes it again, but louder. It’s gorgeous, and Raylan wants to hear it again. He licks him from base to tip, then lets him in as deep as it goes, and then he hears something else, something even better. Boyd moans his name, his voice breaking on the second syllable. Raylan gets it. It’s a lot. This whole night is just this side of too much, or maybe it’s well over the line.

Raylan keeps going, and after some time he hears Boyd ramping up, incoherent and desperate. He hadn’t intended to let him finish this way, but now he just doesn’t want to stop. He’s so hard, himself, that he doubts he’d get too far if they tried to change it up at this point, and anyway, there would be other nights. He’d said that. Right now he just wants to hear Boyd holler, wants to make that happen. He can tell it’s about to.

He pulls off suddenly and pushes Boyd’s legs up. Boyd is just panting, seemingly beyond words. He goes lower, licking the rim of his hole, swirling the point of it in circles. Boyd is bunching the sheet in his fists, making that gasping noise again—there it is—but when Raylan plunges his tongue in further, Boyd yells. Not a word, not his name, just a shout. Tim definitely heard that, but Raylan is far beyond caring. He keeps at it until Boyd grabs the back of his hair and says, “Stop, stop, fuck, enough.”

Boyd’s stomach is a mess, and his hair looks crazy, and the whole thing is fucking beautiful, but he doesn’t have time to admire it for long. Boyd catches his breath, more or less, and rolls over on him. He looks Raylan straight in the eye and says, “You’re gonna come in my mouth, boy, and it ain’t gonna take long at all.” It doesn’t. Raylan starts bucking up into his throat almost right away, and lets go without any self-consciousness at all. He’s just doing what Boyd told him to do, anyway.

Boyd comes back up to flop next to Raylan. They’re both sweaty and in need of a shower, but for now that sounds like more than Raylan can deal with.

“Not bad for a start,” Raylan says.

“Good lord, Raylan, that was some professional quality ass eating. I’m impressed.”

“More of an amateur pursuit for me, but I guess now that I’m retired again I could use a side hustle.”

“And you do pussy too, I assume. Be sure to put that on the website.”

Raylan laughs. “Yeah, I ain’t bad. I think, anyway. Harder to tell. Sometimes they lie.” He looks at Boyd. “What about you? You asked me a million questions but you didn’t really say much about yourself. Avoided pronouns, even.”

“So observant,” Boyd mutters. “Yeah, I don’t know. I get in a mood once in awhile, but mostly it’s guys for me. Women do feel nice sometimes, though.”

“Yeah, they do. Nice and soft. No stubble burn. But wait, you’re saying you…what. Have a one night stand? Don’t bother giving them your time?”

“I mean…”

“You fucking hypocrite.”

“Really, though, it’s usually a friend. Or an acquaintance, at least. Or, you know, a couple?”

Raylan rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Boyd, I ain’t judging you.”

“That’s partly why it bothered me, though. Because I never did fall in love with any woman. I don’t feel like I could. So, you know. I extrapolated.”

“Well, we’re different. I fell in love with one of each. Of course, now I say that, I guess there are more than just two genders, right? So—“

“I get it, Raylan. No need to virtue signal. I already know you listen to Americana.”

“Somehow, I forgot how fucking annoying you could be. It’s like how Winona told me women forget how bad labor is. She said it’s a biological trick so you’ll keep having kids, but she wouldn’t fall for it.”

Boyd laughs. “I knew she’d be smart. Even though she somehow thought it was a good idea to have a kid with you.”

“It was. Look how great she turned out. Besides, Winona wised up fast enough. Don’t worry about her.”

“I ain’t,” Boyd says. He leans over and kisses Raylan softly on the lips. “Ain’t worried about anything, even the shit I maybe should be.”

“That’s the oxytocin,” Raylan says, at least a little bit proud of himself for remembering the word. “Don’t be fooled.” He puts his arm around Boyd’s shoulders and kisses him back. He’s not worried either, at least not for now.

Chapter Text

Tim Gutterson drives Boyd back to the courthouse the next morning. Raylan had already left, around two in the morning, saying he didn’t want to be gone when his daughter woke up in the morning. It’s interesting to see Raylan as a father. Neither of them had grown up with any inkling of what a good daddy was, and Boyd can’t say whether Raylan would fit most people’s definition of that, but at least it’s clear that he loves her. It’s hard to imagine either Arlo or Bo giving much of a shit about their kids knowing where they were.

Gutterson hasn’t said much beyond grunts as of yet—not a morning person, Boyd guesses—but they stop for coffee, and then he seems to wake up a little bit. He sighs with relief after taking his first sip, and turns to look at Boyd.

“You do know that Raylan took himself out of retirement and put himself at considerable personal risk to come and rescue your ass, right?”

Boyd drinks his black coffee and gazes back at Tim impassively. “And who put him at risk, Gutterson? I certainly didn’t call him.”

“No, you didn’t. I did, because I knew goddamn well what it would do to him if you turned up dead somewhere and he didn’t even get a chance to try to help.”

“All that shit I told you, about me and him, back then? I made most of it up. The first time I ever kissed the man was that night when you fucking walked in on us. Raylan and I…we were just friends. The only thing I said that was true was that I’d loved him. So I guess, in a sense, it was my fault, because I made it out to be much more than it was.”

Tim laughs. “Crowder, if you think that bullshit was the reason I called him, think again. You weren’t around Raylan after that night, but I was. For almost two years. I watched him come very close to self-destructing during that time. He fucked every woman who looked twice at him—“

“I doubt there are that many hours in a day,” Boyd mutters, rolling his eyes.

“And every time he’d go out to that godforsaken home town of his—and yours—he’d come back and drink himself into oblivion. You think that’s a coincidence?

“What is your point, Gutterson? That I should feel grateful to him? Obviously, I do. Raylan, he’s—Raylan is very dear to me. He always has been and he always will be.”

“So why are you throwing your life away? How do you think he’d feel if you turned up with a hole in your forehead?”

“I only just got my life back,” Boyd says. “And I plan to spend however much of it I have left trying to get back what I lost. Listen. After Raylan left Harlan, I went into the Army. And then I went to work for my daddy. I was forty-one years old before I ever had an actual relationship, and even then I had to lie about who I was. I have made many mistakes in my life, but this? This is not one of them.”

“What if he doesn’t want to be with you?”

“Wouldn’t make a difference. And he knows that. It’s not about him. But I do want him. I want that more than anything.”

Tim narrows his eyes at Boyd, but eventually nods. “Okay. I get it. Is he pissed?”

“I believe I was able to convince him of some of the upsides to it.”

“I may have overheard the end of that conversation, unfortunately.”

Boyd grins, sips his coffee. “Jealousy is such an unattractive trait, Gutterson.”

Tim laughs and shakes his head. “If you think I have any interest in getting involved with an emotionally unavailable train wreck like Raylan Givens, you are out of your goddamn mind.”

“Who said anything about getting involved? Come on, you worked with him for two years and you never thought about it? Or, did you fool around with him? I didn’t think to ask.”

Tim doesn’t answer right away, but eventually he shrugs. “If I said I never thought about it, you’d know I was lying. But no, we never did anything. I don’t think he went near any guys during that time, at least not that I know of. Like I said, lots of women. All blonde, all beautiful. The only one I think he gave a damn about was Winona, and that probably only lasted as long as it did because she got pregnant. And I think most of that relationship was…huh.”

“You have some kind of epiphany, or something?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Why do you say that? I ain’t insecure about Raylan’s romantic history. We’re all adults here, Gutterson.”

“No, it’s just…” Tim takes a moment to answer. “Well, they had history. They were married before, and it strikes me that maybe he was trying to—to right some wrong, fix something he might have been responsible for breaking. And it didn’t work, because whatever was wrong with him before was still wrong.”

Boyd lets his head fall back on the headrest. Gutterson had not been wrong—he didn’t like it at all. “You think Raylan believes he broke me,” Boyd says, very quietly. “And that’s why he’s still invested after all this time.”

“I don’t know,” Tim says. “You’d have to ask him.”

Boyd nods. “I’ll do that.”

“Can you maybe not mention I was the one who put the idea in your head?”

“Nope, sorry. I’m trying to start this thing in a spirit of open and honest communication.”

“Yeah, he loves that shit. Good luck.”

They’re at the courthouse for hours. Boyd explains what happened over and over, but what he doesn’t understand—and what no one either can or will tell him—is why he was taken in the first place, or how the hill folk even knew where to find him. Only Mags had that information, and she’d been gone for years. She had to have told Mary, but why Mary would have pulled the trigger on him, he had no idea.

He hasn’t seen Raylan all day, but at some point they break for lunch, and he pokes his head into the conference room where Boyd is sitting with two FBI agents.

“Hey,” Raylan says. “Want to get out of here for an hour?”

“Yes, please.”

The agents raise their eyebrows at each other, and one of them asks, “What do you need him for, Givens? We still have questions for him.”

“Lunch,” Raylan says, leaning all casual against the door frame like it’s a normal fucking thing for a marshal to take a witness out to eat.

In the elevator, Raylan says, “You holding up okay?”

“I’m fine, but they ain’t telling me anything. I still don’t understand why they took me. I swear, Raylan, I didn’t do anything different.”

Raylan nods. “I may have some information for you, but let’s wait until we’re out of the building.”

Boyd nods. “Well then, I guess we have a minute.” He turns and puts his hands on Raylan’s hips.

“Hmm,” Raylan says, and kisses him, but pushes him back real quick as the elevator comes to a stop.

“What’s that about?” Boyd asks, knowing perfectly well what it’s about. Two people get in, chatting about where they’re going to lunch. Raylan just rolls his eyes at him.

They leave the courthouse and Boyd follows Raylan to his car. “We’re on the street, Raylan. You gonna tell me what you know?”

Raylan unlocks the car and slides behind the wheel. Boyd gets in beside him, getting more irritated all the time.

“Raylan—“

“You know a guy named Delbert McShea?”

Boyd goes still as his heart rate picks up a few ticks. “Name rings a bell. Why?”

“Apparently, he’s kin of mine. On my mama’s side. Second cousin, once removed or some shit.”

Boyd just nods, waiting for the reveal.

“Matter of fact, he was at Big Sandy same time as you.”

“That so?”

“Got involved in some white supremacy activity while he was in, and then—you’ll never believe
this—after he got out—“

“Raylan, where you getting this information?”

“Your cousin. I called him this morning. I knew he wasn’t telling me everything the other night. I didn’t want to get blindsided by exactly this kind of bullshit.”

“You tell the the Feds?”

Raylan exhales sharply through his nose. “Not yet.”

Boyd can’t help a small smile. “Thanks.”

“Anyhow, as it turns out, some asshole who goes by the moniker ‘Devil’ recently finished up the stint you put him up for and started spouting off about how old Delbert managed to skate on a murder Devil knew damn well he was involved in, and of which Boyd Crowder was certainly in possession of knowledge.”

“Devil was talking to the law?”

“Hell, no,” Raylan says. “He was just shooting his mouth off at the goddamn puddle. Somehow—and it’s a shock, I realize—word got up to the hills about it.”

“I see.”

“Oh, you see. Good. You want to fill in any gaps here for me?”

“I don’t know anything about a murder Delbert committed. Else I would have included it in the course of my full proffer in turning state’s evidence.”

“Seriously? That’s how you’re gonna play this? You still think you can’t trust me.”

Boyd shakes his head. “Ain’t about that. I don’t want to put you in a position, is all.”

“The only way you’d think I’d be put in a position is if you believe I’m gonna rat you out.”

“Well, fuck, Raylan. You were a US Deputy Marshal for how long? How do I know where your true loyalties lie? And for that matter, why would they lie with me? You think you’ve changed, and I guess you have in some ways, but you didn’t know the man I became after you left. You wouldn’t have recognized that man, and you sure as hell would not have loved him. You would have been so goddamn disappointed, and so sad, but you would have locked me up if you could. I know that, and I can’t even say you’d have been wrong.”

Raylan pulls into a spot on the street, shuts the car off, and glares at him. “You think I don’t know that? You think I didn’t read your file? That it didn’t disgust me? And yet, here I am, Boyd. Why, you asked? You want logic? I can’t help you there. I just look at you, and I—it feels the same. We’ve both lived lifetimes since back then, but it feels exactly the same, to me.”

Boyd leans over and puts his face in his hands. He has no idea what to do with that information, because he’d never imagined it could be like that for Raylan. For Boyd, it makes sense. He’d stopped being anything like his true self the day Raylan left. He’d spent most of his life lying to everyone, while holding so many essential truths about himself as close to his chest as he could, even though they burned. Of course he’d still be holding on to the memory of the last time he’d been honest with anyone. But Raylan? He left. He should have been able to move on.

“What—“ Boyd stops and takes a breath. “What did that feel like, for you?”

“It felt like…” Raylan leans his head back on the seat. “Boyd, I don’t know how to put it in words. That’s your thing. I just felt right. Like I wasn’t right before, and then when we got close—when we were around each other all the time, when you let me know you a little and when I let you know me a little—I felt like I could finally calm down.”

“It really still feels that way to you?”

“Like I said, it ain’t logic.” Raylan sighs. “When I look at you, my fucking brain goes out the window. If I’d come back here and seen what you were doing, what kind of life you were living, I might feel different now. I’m glad I didn’t. But that don’t mean I’m in denial about it. I’m accepting it, because of how it feels right now, even though we’re arguing, or whatever you call this. Because of how much I want you to touch me, every time I’m in the same room with you.”

“Oh, Raylan,” Boyd whispers. “I have so many regrets.” He reaches across the front seat and snatches up Raylan’s hand. He traces the back of his beautiful, long fingers. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I was so afraid back then.”

Raylan nods. “We both were. I'm sorry too. Look, I ain’t saying anything to anyone, Boyd. I don’t even know if they’d choose to follow through with any action against you at this point, but I won’t be the one to put those wheels in motion. I would appreciate it if you’d take my word on that.”

“All right.” Boyd hesitates. Tim Gutterson’s words are still clamoring from the back of his mind, but he decides they can wait. “How’d you get Johnny to talk to you, anyway?”

Raylan shrugs. “I’m the Hillbilly Whisperer, ain’t I?”

Boyd laughs. “Raylan.”

“The truth is, it ain’t any kind of magic. Johnny knows me. He don’t think of me as a marshal, he thinks of me as Arlo Givens’s white trash son who never shied away from the inside fastball because he knew how to take a hit. And I am that.”

“But not only,” Boyd says.

“I didn’t know that until I knew you.”

“You want to know what it was like for me, back then?”

Raylan nods. “Tell me.”

“I had a crush on you since we were thirteen years old. I barely ever spoke to you, because I was certain that if I was with you for more than five minutes, I’d blurt out something stupid or get a boner.”

“There I was thinking you thought you were too good for me.”

Boyd raises his eyebrows. “I was not aware you ever gave me a second thought.”

“I didn’t, really. Not that far back.”

“Yeah, well anyway, by the time we graduated I suppose I was more in control of myself, but I still thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then I came to know you.”

“That’ll take the shine off real quick,” Raylan says.

Boyd ignores him. “You had all this pain inside of you. I could hardly believe someone could hold that much pain and still be walking around. I felt so special, getting to know some of that. Seemed like you didn’t let too many people in that close.”

“No one. No one, ever, but you. Even Winona—I did tell her some shit, but I guess I didn’t want to scare her off. I did anyway, eventually. Twice, in fact.”

If Boyd is ever going to ask him about what Gutterson said, now would be the time. He doesn’t want to, because he really doesn’t want to know, if he’s being honest. But he needs to.

“Why’d you decide to try again with her?”

“I don’t know. Sort of seemed like fate. I was forced to come back here, and in a way she was too. I was unhappy, she was unhappy. And, shit, I really hated Gary Hawkins, her husband at the time. Maybe part of me wanted to take her back from the person I felt had taken her from me. It was the perfect storm.”

Boyd can see all that, and it makes sense, but it must have been more than that. “Did you still love her?”

“I think I loved the idea of her. Or, the idea of what I’d had with her, which I’m sure I was forgetting all the bad parts of. We fought a lot. She was—she is—a very beautiful woman, and the sex was always great, so I suppose I let that cloud my judgment.”

“As you do,” Boyd says, smiling a little. “So it wasn’t guilt?”

Raylan frowns at him. “Guilt? I don’t know. I had some guilt, I suppose, but I wasn’t with her because of it. I didn’t fuck up that marriage on my own. The second time around, maybe that was mostly me. I wasn’t in a great place in my life. Being here was…it was too hard. I hated it so much. And then the thing with you, seeing you like that, it brought a lot up for me.”

“I’m sorry for that, Raylan.”

“Nah,” Raylan says, shaking his head. “I didn’t regret that. Being able to touch you, just that little bit, it was like something clicked back into place. Like, oh yeah, that was a thing that happened in my life. I’d kind of put it to the side, but it was real, and it was good for me to remember that. Even though I immediately shoved it back in the drawer it came from and continued to act like an asshole the whole time I was there anyway.”

Boyd wants so much to kiss him, but he doesn’t want to be pushed away again just because they’re sitting in a car in the middle of Lexington. So instead, he keeps talking. “Gutterson thinks you’re with me out of guilt.”

“What? Why would he—“

“He didn’t mean to. He was trying to convince me to go back in Witsec, that’s all. He says you can’t let go of shit you broke.”

“You think I broke you?”

“No. But you might.”

“You ain’t broken, Boyd. Little scarred, is all.” Raylan smiles softly at him. “Scars are sexy, though.” He leans over and kisses Boyd. “We shoulda just gone back to the hotel. We wasted all this time talking and now we hardly have time for lunch, much less anything else.”

“You want a hand job? Pull around in that alley over there.”

Raylan shoots him a side-eyed glance. “I don’t want a hand job. I want to fuck you, but unfortunately that’s going to have to wait. Let’s go eat, and then we can get the rest of this day over with.”

“And then what?”

“Fuck if I know, Boyd. I’m taking my kid back to Miami. You and I can figure our shit out. We ain’t kids anymore.”

Miami: One Year Later

Raylan opens the Zoom link and waits for Boyd to come on. They rarely do these, but they haven't been able to visit for almost two months due to Willa being with him for the summer. She was all for another road trip, but they were being careful.

“Hey, baby,” Boyd says as he suddenly appears on the screen. “You miss me?”

“I do. Although, I can’t deny it’s been nice to be able to listen to Steve Earle without you giving me shit about it.”

“I’d never insult Steve Earle, Raylan. But that Avett Brothers shit you had on in the car last time—“

“It came on the shuffle after that Margo Price album, which you put on. Anyway, shut up. I thought we were planning to have Zoom sex, not Zoom arguing.”

Boyd gives him a big, toothy grin. “Why not both?”

“Willa’s only at her friend’s house for the next hour. Then I gotta let her practice driving, god help me, so our time is limited.”

“Should have done this after the driving lesson, got a little stress relief.”

Raylan sighs. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know if I feel like it today. It’s hot and all, but a lot of times I feel kind of shitty after.”

“Yeah, can’t really Zoom cuddle, I suppose.”

Raylan laughs. “Anyway, I’ll see you in two weeks. We’ll make up for it.”

“Okay. Send me pics then, if I have to jerk off all by my lonesome.”

“Sure.” Raylan frowns. “Uh, hey, Boyd?”

“Yeah?”

“We should talk, when I get there. I been thinking about some things and I feel like we should have a conversation about it.”

Boyd looks at him, outraged. “Surely, you’re joking. You can’t drop that on me and then make me wait two weeks. At least tell me what it’s about. Fuck, Raylan, if you’re breaking things off I do not want to hear it from you in person, just tell me now.”

“No, that’s not—I love you. That’s one of the things. The rest is just logistics, I guess.”

“Oh, is that all?” Boyd says softly. He’s smirking, but his eyes have gone a little soft.

“You probably figured that out already. Sorry it took me so long to get there. I needed to make sure it was real, and not…just left over from before.”

“I get it. I’m sure you know…well, I haven’t said it either. Not in the present tense, anyway. My timeline is kind of fucked, so it’s difficult for me to sort it out.”

Raylan waits, gets nothing, and finally says, “Well? Do you love me in the present timeline or not?”

Boyd laughs. “You’re ridiculous. Of course I do. Now, get off this call and make me some porn before your child comes home. I’ll see you in two weeks and we’ll talk practicalities.”

“Okay. Bye.”