There is a way to travel through life. You can hold your hands out like nets to catch all the bad and prevent it from hurtling further. To move quicker than the storm pursuing your shadow. To be the shield. To be the wall. To be the tower that fell upon bad history. Pale hands in the dust, and the dust blows away, and left are dirtied lines, marred paths to darker fortunes. And all things could burn, or collapse, given enough kerosene, given enough weight.

Fingertips undulated over the barley as she walked towards sunset. On one hip the dragoon that was borrowed, and her other tied a pouch that was filled with ash. She was whistling in the wind, and her song carried only so far and then on a wing of air, was carried back, and was eaten by the grass. The sky was taking its time finding night. The clouds were gathering like a reluctance or heaviness hung about the world. Madison felt it too, acutely. It burned at the back of her throat, as emotion and whiskey had in their time, and pulled her along. When she reached the plot of dirt she meant for, she crouched with a quick scan around, and removed her hat. She placed it softly on the earth and it rocked with that low-slung air. She undid the knot and took the pouch in her hand. It was cracked leather, frayed at the joins, and surprisingly light. All that was flesh and bone resolved to that which was before her. How strange. How odd. How sad. How humbling. For he, and his way, had made so much more beyond himself.

Madison expelled a final whistled note and without further pause, turned the bag upside down and set the remains free. Old Charlie scattered to the north, the south, the east, the west. Ashes whirring in the dusk. With an elbow on her bent knee, she leaned, and with her hand, that pale hand with lines of dark destiny, she worked a shallow hole free of the dirt and pinched her fingers so the last of the man, her friend, found his final rest.

"Love you, Charlie. I hope you're causing hell out there." A jack-o-lantern grin as she stood and chuckled to herself. By the time she had made her way back through the barley, the sky was the colours of an old bruise and her shadow and anything hounding it spectral, faded, yearning. A sea that never knew a shore.

Taking a swig from a luke-warm bottle of Badsider, courtesy of a sorry icebox behind the bar, Madison sat back on one of the stools and looked over that days work. The tables had been sanded back and would need a coat. The staircase beams and rail would need the same treatment. The windows had crusted in the corners. The cobwebs and dust were done, but the feeling of emptiness at the bar was omnipresent. It had been years now since Charlie had last set foot in his place, but her missing him was as fresh as the afternoon when he had passed on.

It occurred to her that getting in touch with Check or Laurice would be an idea. But, she knew, at least of Check, that he had a child now with his girl, and that Laurice had been none too comfortable with the results of Madison's dealings and ventures with Glenn Douglas. Michael's death had been the final straw - it was as though his loyalty had an end, and even if Madison had never designed Michael's death, his mere acquaintance with her had been too much... It still stung her to know she had lost that kid, and Laurice too. It seemed, after a rotation of chaos and iron, it was her alone at the bar as always. Dust and smoke. She placed the bottle down and ran the heels of her hands over her eyes. They hurt. Sore with the wood that had no doubt flown in them. The frustration in the mind that raged behind them.


She sat staring at the bar, admiring it, mentally noting repairs for some time, and then pulled herself up and up the stairs that creaked and groaned and whined beneath weight after so long just air, and took herself behind the door proclaiming MANAGER and began to sort through the concertina file and the number of documents that ranged from wages through to altercation reports (for the Watch) and finally, Foreclosure. She unfolded that particular letter and coughed as dust swarmed from its folds. First, she would have to right that, before she dared seek out Check and Laurice and see if she couldn't keep Charlie's dream going a little longer. She owed it to him, after all. Pale hands folded the letter and she breathed in sharply. She'd let the man down. Pale hands were shaking. Guilt played a chord through her. "There's only so much two hands can carry, Kit", Old Charlie had assured her, time and again. Back during the days when she was ernest in her work and fell asleep in one of his booths at the crack of dawn after a night trying to change the world.

Heading downstairs, Madison thought hard about that. But hadn't she let go, hadn't she dropped the ball? There was her letting down herself, and she had paid that price, but letting down the dead? Her shadow fell ahead of her as she moved across the room towards the door. Early evening ate it up as the door opened wide on an empty street.

"Tag.."

Warmth and light spilled behind her and before her, the tower and the sea. Her smile was true and the aim of her eyes was sure. Her steps were quick to him and the slide of arms that pulled the man into embrace. Whether her hands were dirtied with the past or corrupt, it didn't matter, that he had never cared about. It was the grip they could take to hold onto herself, onto friendship, onto loyalty. These were the tenets. There was slow exhale of breath to his shoulder as she leaned out and simply took him in. The exquisite quiet of these streets drowned out with the screaming joy in her head. "It is good to see you."

West End seemed to lean in closer, shadows and silence like sycamores. The Bar remained bright beyond them, casting them as two in uncertain, half-reaching light. Somewhere in history, he painted a tree on a warehouse door. Somewhere, she was a young girl kissing his cheek on the stoop of the Dragon. Somewhere in time, he was prone on the earth with steel clenching his leg. Somewhere again, he was stealing her from fire and madness. And, forever, they were two, staring into the mirror of a pond. Reflected forever in one another's regard.


"I could use your expertise", when time had stretched to its fill, and with a tip of the dark mass of hair she indicated the spartan, empty room behind her. "Not horses this time. Chairs and tables." Smile.

A candle came to life on the path into darkness. Sent back the sycamore-lean of the buildings. The tiredness of angry, red-raw pasts. Madison ran her hands down his arms and let go. But she never really did let go.

There was always time. Even if the waves rolled in and broke and sometimes didn't return for days, months, years.

Her hair against his cheek told of road dust, faded sunlight suggesting always the strange panorama from whence she came. An impression of journey, of iron, of ancient oaks that always tried to touch the sky, apple flesh. And over that all, the smell of woodwork ? biting, wholesome.

His scent did not disturb her, it was a smell of good work and her redemption. It was the faint suggestion of smoke, and how it had never left him. There had so much time between the last time that she had seen him that the absence of him, and having him now before her, stung. But the comfortable energy between them was palpable. The small, delighted crook at the corner of her mouth could not help itself. It was funny, to her of all people, that she should find so much ease around someone when in recent years there had been reason to be guarded and more. Perhaps it was those vague memories of a time when he didn?t let her wander away into the night but kept, as he had now, a hand on her elbow, so she might never drift too far. He was the dark man, and she was in her own way yet his shadow ? even though time had finally caught up to her heels. There was a likeness and a natural amity, an immense ?like? for one another. Two friends who repaired each other?s seams when it was that life began to tear at them. And then, there was the other side of the coin: comedy. Nights for sharing brandy and silently conversing about ocean and the stars like statues and older gods long buried in lore.

?How?s right now??

That arch of the brow was wry as she directed them to that rectangle of light on the otherwise barren street. Inside, the front room seemed much too small, even with the tables and chairs paired and pushed up against the three walls that faced the back bar and its mirror and all the bottles that lined beneath. The smell of dust and desertion hadn?t yet left the wood and it permeated everything, akin to an antique store (and it was, some vestige of years now dead) ? to some, it was pleasing, and some it was simply musty. Her face showed pride and genuine affection as it turned to him after sweeping across it and every little mental note there was for repair.

For beginners...
A broken chair leg.
A fissure in the front window.
More chairs and tables needing to be sanded back and relacquered.
Worn-down floors in need of a polish.
Cobwebbed corners in rafters high.
Crooked stairs. Buckling timber.
Crusted cabinet shelves from lack of use. And more dust.

?Needs some attention, as you can see.? She strolled in lazy stride to the stool she always dropped onto, at the very end of the scarred counter top, and she patted the empty one beside her. ?A crown for your thoughts.? She produced one from the breast pocket of the off-white blouse and tossed it in the air. Madison laughed.

As he soaked up each element of the bar, each fracture in this skeleton, she watched the quietness of him with curiosity. When he spoke, she sat a moment in the words and answered as it seemed fit.

"This is my kingdom, this is my life, now." She shrugged as an arm gestured to the bar that sat around them - her voice and manner as easy as a summer breeze and another of her smiles seemed to tell the rest. Madison would turn cold at the thought of trying to leave again - to put behind her what was left in her care. Having given it all up to take the sky and the sun and every road she could with a notion that it was all she was made for. To some extent, for some period, that had been her truth. But one's truth changed with time and as she looked across at Tag and spoke freely and lightly, there was the feeling and the easiness and the knowing and in it he might know, and, perhaps only he, what it was she was about in these new days.

"I think I have seen the other side of the sun and now I am content to try and do as I did before." "I don't feel he restlessness I once did. I became someone else a few times, or, maybe I became more of myself, but we can all be so many people, for different reasons, at different times. Charlie left this behind and I owe it to him to make it something. And I owe it to myself to be more than a ...."


It dawned on her there, that her life, the one of chaos and iron and all that stories that sung in blood and dust, was not what he knew of her like Glenn, or Mamie, in recent times, as Fio and Ali, as Sal and Tavarius. They would all know her first and foremost as the woman with the gun. Even if friendship did bloom after. It was with the dark man, that friendship had come first. There was that corner of the mouth shadow again, the almost-laugh, the sweetness that reminded company that there was much more softness there. Blue eyes looked to the coin behind his thumb and she reached out and touched his hand. Her touch simple and unremarkable. "I want to try and be the person that Charlie thought I was, and the person I was trying to be before I let the past inside again." She turned on the stool and the sleepless waves and curls of her hair followed the movement. "Shall I give you a tour upstairs? There is more work to be done there too."


She breathed in and lifted a brow. He always seemed a man of a few lives, like she. The father, the protector, the dark man, the painter, the silent knowing, the one who rescued her, and who never let her fall. Yet he was a man she knew mostly from one of those lives - she did not know him as he was as a husband, as the man at Ollie's, or the soldier. "Charlie would have liked you, Tag." The coin he held was the very same coin she had carried, back when he walked her home from the Inn and she mended his clothes. The one that decided their evening, or their discussion. It was not a gamble, or a lie; it was a possibility, a way to move forward in the world.

Fingers through fingers for the toll, and the price paid and down a back pocket. The brunette, so at ease it was damn eerie, slipped to quick feet and led the way towards and up the stairs. They whined of their old age and discontent like bitter veterans even before soles crept them. Madison made a sign with a hand towards the right-most side of the passage up - beware the loose boards. At the landing, immediately to the left was a door labeled MANAGER. Another locked door sat diagonally to that midway down unmarked, and at the very end, was another door which held cleaning supplies. The hall was neither narrow nor wide and bereft of carpet. Considering the abandonment, it wasn't ruined, or marred, or decaying in any way, as parts of the downstairs was.

"I'll show you my office first. Mostly it's dust. But the window is determined to remain shut, looks like the lock has sealed over with misuse. With a key to the door handle, she swept inside and held the door, daybreak eyes moving to Tag as she did so. "You might see things I've missed. Any thoughts on the place so far?"

Her back to the frame, she realised she had begun to hold her breath. Concerned the job was entirely too big for either of them and perhaps worse than her own estimation had resigned. But, something else. "Thank you for what you said to me, downstairs. About being who I want to be. I don't think I've thought that possible for a very, very long time, when I became who I had to. Sometimes I think I am always going to be in two. And all I really want... " an almost goofy smile from her, "is this." Her gaze was moving over the office, and futures were being drafted as she surveyed. A bustling bar, a way with people to honour Charlie and the loved nights, as they might come, with Tag, as before, when they sat and drank in the world around them, and debated chance and kismet with their own rare language of silence.


For Charlie's Bar, two hands would not see that dream realised. Blessed was she that Kusinage had offered his.

Light rolled in every crevice as the evening clouds dissolved. Madison uncurled from her awkward sleep in one of the booths to the side of the bar - jacket for a pillow and her body was aching. She rubbed at her eyes as she hauled herself to her feet with heavy bones and plodded towards the window to peer out and collect some idea of the hour. The clock on the far wall was also broken - just another thing to fix. Yawning, she looked towards the stove, which surprisingly, still operated, before deciding against it. However much the idea of playing some sort of childish practical joke on the man appealed, he was, after all, giving her more than his time and labour to ensure the bar had any chance of preserving. She couldn't do it to him - with a smirk, she collected her jacket from its mess on the seat and carried herself into the fresh, sobering dawn, locking the door behind her.


She set into an unhurried gait as she traveled from that quieter slice of West End and towards the market. She knew the tea shoppe would be open already and its produce far more apt as a sign of gratefulness than charred slop in a pan. Above her, all the familiar, varied facades were still sleeping, and dark, and seemed almost grim in the half-light. The sky was clearing quickly and she suspected that by the time she reached the shoppe the warmth of the sun would have dew sparkling on the cobblestones and more faces out and about. Around her, not a soul yet. A flutter of feathers from pigeons hidden between slats of a tenement. A rustle in a dumpster. The soft sound of dying wind going wherever it would until afternoon. Amongst all that concrete and silence she felt a pang for the country. For all the open space. For the way the air smelled and tasted. How she could read it better and what it brought on it than she ever had in Rhy'Din. It made her smile, distantly, and it was the look on her face the whole way through her interaction at the shoppe. By the time she had returned to Charlie's, arms full with bread for lunch and some sweets for breakfast (glazed, creamy, oven-warm through the paper bags) the look was still there but fading. A cloud shadow across hills. Inside, she dropped the bags down gently and exhaled. With her trailed the heavenly aroma of baked goods. Of fat and sugar. Her poor sleep snaking up and down her back and through her legs. She took out the black with cream coffee from its tray and left Tag's sitting in it, sure he would be along soon. Around her, the building made its sounds that it was still here, that it too was stirring, that it has its complaints and frustrations. She looked all around as she sipped. Listening. "Yeah, okay. I hear you." A breath of laughter out of her nose and she placed down the cup. Stared at it. Hoped she wasn't getting ahead of herself.


The night prior, that had eased her worries. She had trust in his abilities. She knew he would tell her if anything was beyond their hand. It was only that it was a huge job for two, and she wondered if it wasn't better to call in the men who had helped her with Redemption. They had moved fast. But she lived simply and the crowns she did have were not going to cover her living costs and that of the restoration of the bar. She would be out of pocket and the loan for the bar had not yet processed. The more she ruminated on it, the more the coffee was tasteless to her mouth. It would be with a mixed look on her pale face that Tag would find his friend.

"Huh?. Oh." An awkward look and a trigger-fast smile. "Just thinkin'"

She immediately moved towards him to take his tools off him and usher him towards coffee and breakfast. "There's a few danishes, a couple muffins.. something else" she waved absently at the paper bag beginning to stick to the sugarsweat of the sweets. "Sleep well?" Her eyes wandered his face to gauge an idea. A sip from the coffee even though its brooding flavour was miles away from her. The heat was something, as the sun still crawled across the sky and morning filled in all the angles, corners and that space between thought and future. "The tools I do have are behind the bar, I'll get them." She rounded the counter to hoist up the case holding an assembling of tools that would abet, including a thick, steel torch. She laid it beside breakfast with a thunk and then pointed to the wall beside the staircase.

"Walked around tapping down a few of the walls and there is a rattling behind that one. Any idea of the source? My thought was pipes."


Tag moved to attention without lingering long on the food. Madison opened a basement door that ran beneath the back room of the bar, and held the door until Tag had reached a spot on the downward stairs that he could reach the switch light. Her eyes followed him into the darkness and watched as he looked for an entry to the crawl space. "I think there's a small door over to the left. That might be it?" The staircase whined as she crept down it to lean on the rail. When she was sure he had located the door he needed to access the foundations of the bar, Madison moved back to the main floor and crossed over to the counter where she pulled out more sandpaper - thick rolls of the stuff the colour of dried blood. Then, she set about wearing down the two booths she hadn't made it to earlier in her labour.


They spent several hours that first day at task - time that passed quickly, both intent on their chore and only passing by to enquire after nail or hammer, screw driver or pliers, hinges or wire. It was only as the night returned from its flight that the two came face to face, with signs of their work stained upon them. They laughed at the sight of one another so, Madison's face powdered in parts with dust, and her hair, and Tag's shirt smeared with ... something, along the back. They brushed one another off and laughed, and somehow it was then silently decreed that the day had seen enough effort and as the sun set behind the silhouette of West End's sky line, the two locked up and headed into the street. There was no hurry to be anywhere - Penny was still on camp, and Madison's evenings were always ones that were open these days. It made her uneasy at times, but between the bar, and the revived presence of her friend, it wasn't so strange.

There was a brief linger at the market for hot food which greased their fingers and were inhaled - hungry as they were having forgotten lunch in their determined joint effort. There was a true, sublime satisfaction in any meal after a huge day - food never tasted better.


Their path ended at the Glen. Away from the city lights. Where only the sounds of wind and their steps spoke of life and direction. Perhaps they were alike in that regard - craving quiet and separateness from the world that didn't always understand them, however for different reasons, and the unquestioning company of trees and wild air. Tips of their feet came to the edge of a shallow pond. In it their reflections rippled. Madison squeezed his hand, he squeezed it back and as if made certain by the realness of one another, Tag stepped forward again until his boots sunk into the embankment where the water deepened a little more. A fish swam to the top, briefly, a glimpse of gold and brilliant yellow, and it was gone. Tag looked to Madison to see if she had noticed. Almost instantly she had nodded and smiled in turn. "I am glad you will let me help you. It means a lot to be able to do something. Something that doesn't stem from or result in horror." Lips curved into something like a grin, but one that held a distance.

There was an edge to her voice, a thickness, and she suddenly felt sorely alone. As if, for so long, the hellhound on her trail had been that very thought - that she hadn't felt much good for anything but that life she had subscribed to in dark and desperate times, in another town, in what felt like a different planet altogether. To be able to be useful, especially to her closest friend, in this way, and after all he had done, was vital and important to the woman. "I wouldn't have let you say no, anyway."

By dusk on the next day, Charlie's was enlivened yet more again. Every bench for booth was sanded back entirely and its first, new coat dried. Each broken was good as new - with a new, mahogany coat, shelves were even and level, and a new piece of glass had been installed to the back bar mirror, and it reflected Tag and Madison so perfectly it seemed it was not light and glass a parallel world to put one's hand through and join. The fissured window was yet to be replaced, but the main floor was less shaggy stray and more well-loved and noble companion. The foundations below were seeing less of the accrued wear and tear that had evolved while she had been away and Check and Laurice had abandoned their posts. Two main pipes had repaired and that had stopped the rattling by the stairs. There were still improvements to be made, but what had taken place so far was heartening.

Given the success of a few good days of work, the two had decided to meet later at the tea shoppe - Tag did prefer the quiet it afforded to that of the rowdy Inn, and Madison fancied the idea of a simple, simple dinner. They had each returned to their homes for a shower and a change of clothes. Both shed the day down the drain - all the dust, all the dirt, all the sweat and most of the tiredness. If either hurt, they had the dignity to hide it and get on with it. Over sandwiches, they discussed their own secret ideas - Tag still had his dream of finding a woman to share something with but feared the outcome of having to re-learn all that constituted a relationship with someone entirely new, and Madi knew that given the wide gap his last love had left, he would not be hasty in filling it again with someone without being certain.

Madison confided her lack of friendships - how they existed, but from specific circumstances; circumstances she was trying to set herself a part from. It had been years since she had had to embrace a new way of living when Elijah had become a stranger. When she had become a stranger to him. Glenn was nowhere to be found, since their showdown with Charlie Lucre and the West-kin. She imagined he was roaming as he was want to do. Now it was her and her alone, having to re-start. There was no haunting bells tolling in distant towers, echoing in her head, her dreams, and every step. Now there was only the wind to answer, and most times she only listened to it like a song, she did not wait to hear the other meanings. The old verses that led her down a road she did not want to kiss with her shadow.


They spoke for sometime before leaving the warmth of the conversation and the shoppe and moved outwards into the evening. Arm in arm, teasing and comforting by turns. She had advised that she would crash on a bed-roll at the bar, while he offered his couch or Penny's bed. And somehow, despite her gentle protest, it was two sets of feet that mounted the few steps up to his porch, and two voices that laughed about pancakes in the morning. After bidding good night to one another (in their way - they did not) she watched him head down the hall as she curled comfortably on the couch, beneath a thick blanket he had provided. She was safe here, she was needed, and it was for purer reasons than she had encountered before. He never asked of her to be anything than who she was behind all the other masks she had worn, and likewise, she had only ever needed that of him. As her eyes closed, she thought it felt good to trust. It had been a long time since she had slept in another's domain without a heavy wariness and the sense that she was there for the sake of a greater purpose, or, as it had been for so many years, out of discretion, protection and hiding.

Sleep came quickly.

Despite it being another night without a proper bed, Madison stirred from a sound, ensconcing sleep. She awoke in exactly the position she had fallen asleep. Hair splayed out and falling onto the living room floor. Hands clasped up beside her face and knees curled in. She smiled despite the aches that reminded her of responsibility. Then, it hit her. The vague, overpowering sense of not being at Redemption or the Bar. That vague sense of feeling lost or confused.

She sat up suddenly, curls everywhere, eyes wide, blinking. It took a moment for sleep to clear entirely and realisation settle over her like a gentle snowfall. With the heel of her right hand she rubbed at her eyes as light from the kitchen reached for her. Maintaining some modicum of politeness even though she was in sleep-crumpled clothes and a hurricane hairdo, nails raked her hair into some sort of place and she quietly gathered herself to her feet, folding the blanket in four neat squares and resting it in place. From her angle, she couldn't see Tag, but she heard the whir of the fan and the sounds that spoke of breakfast. A sleepy grin sketched its way across her pale features as she placed a hip and shoulder against the doorframe and looked across to him.... until.

Bald surprise nudged that smile right out. She didn't mean to look but it was the very first time she had seen the man without any of his reservations at all - just a man in his domain setting about for the day. The markings, the tattoos. Her eyes scanned each and every one, and wondered at the songs they sung in his ears. The obvious scars were of the most interest. It wasn't that scars were a crude thing to look upon, she had traveled with men with missing fingers and eyes and often bearing gruesome scar-work - one would wince, imagining the pain of the man receiving it.

And the tattoo. Tag, a tattoo? Her mind moved to months back where the tattoo had been such a focal point of her life. The snake on Glenn's hand and the change it saw him take as man, as a friend, as her equal. She once shivered at the idea, but now she could think about the West-kin, the snakeskin and all that strangeness without feeling ill. If Tag turned to her, the surprise would still linger on her face, beside her mouth, and in her eyes. Perhaps not dissimilar to her regard at the shoppe when she had said, "you look different." And again, now, he really did.


She averted her eyes and began to search for a cupboard which held plates so she might set the table. But not without a fleeting, over-shoulder look at the scar-work over his flesh.


"Morning.."


Her scars? There were some, but those most prominent were ones in the mind. The ones that drove her reckless behaviour some years ago. Those were her scars.

Reaching for the plates she smiled to Tag her thanks for the direction and twisted about to head towards the table - with each step the faded newsprint memory of a time came to mind, when he had stitched her brow after dinner. When she was a broken doll and he the hero.

Setting down the plates she thought on how to enquire. She was still surprised at the sight of the scars. The tattoo was a curiosity; the painting in the room that your eyes keep returning to. For some people, scars and tattoos were intensely personal - literal reminders of experiences best forgotten. But for some, they were reminders of triumph or survival - hers were, even though most of those could never be seen on the skin.


"I never took you for the tattoo sort" she began, and it was quiet, the way the kitten sizes up how best to approach the yarn ball. That was the way she approached, with a playfulness, a casualness, but a genuine intrigue. She was back at the cabinets, this time for glasses, stealing a look at the pan and a warming star. The smell struck her, and she realised just how hungry she was. Glasses in hand, she looked back to the smaller ones, and thought how much Tag must miss his Penny. When so much of your life was adapted for another, in the best possible way, when she was not there, did he hurt? She knew the feeling of making a life for another, and missing that ingredient sorely when it was absent. Her happiness has been making Elijah breakfast, lunch, dinner, to keeping his guns shined and full, to keeping a neat home for him to return to when he left for the summer to attend to the business of gunslinging. That peeling-white-paint house had been everything. She knew what it was to be connected to something greater than yourself. It gave you roots, it gave you belonging. Had she had that since then.. she doubted it. Her roots were constantly being torn out and buried elsewhere. Her attachments had been transient, and worth something for that characteristic, but gone nonetheless. So she had settled on the bar. She had roots to bury within it, if not a sense a home. Yet.

"Does it have a story?"

A look trailed across the living room and the world outside the window. Was it late in the morning? Glasses were placed beside and ahead of their plate, and she drew out a chair and straddled it - chin to the back of folded arms, eyes lifted to the dark man with anticipation.

As Tag spoke, the stars were cut in half and slowly chewed as she journeyed back down the tunnel of time to the man's own battles and losses. She was familiar with the brand of war, from whence she came, and with the way the war changes you. There was a slight smile to her as he spoke, where the story touched a nerve and sparked a feeling that said I know.

The rebellion lost, and so he made a price for a history that never quite stitched up the way intended. She inclined her head, lost in thought, the pancakes untouched as she imagined. When he asked whether she liked the food, she was so far, far away. She came back to herself, the plate, the glass, the present, and gave him a deep nod. She took one of the napkins she had folded beneath the plates and wiped her mouth. It seemed there was not really anything she could say to his story. Her eyes were warm, understanding. "They are perfect." She patted her stomach and stood, gathering their plates together. "We should go horse riding one day." Out of the blue. Madison placed the dishes in the sink and licked the last traces of maple from her fingers. A look outside as the fullness of the day outside pressed inside. It was the white kind of sunshine. "We definitely must."

And indeed they had worked long into the morning until the clock told noon declared noon. Continually transforming the bar into something real again was a full-time job - abandonment had made it little more than a facade. Even so, but it had been full of character, and only now, with all the persistence of their mutual labor, was it anything like the bar it had been, but given a new lease on life. Madison, in quieter moments, when they paused for refreshment or to discuss the plans they had drawn up together, felt sore at having taken so much time away from his own commitments. She was mindful, always insisting they finish up at three, so that he had the afternoon and evening with the light in his world. She would travel over later with the ingredients for dinner or something collected along the way from the shoppe or, if she was early enough, the market. The restoration was demanding, and two meals a day didn't feel recompense enough. His time was something she could never give back to him.


That particular evening, with Penny only a few days home from camp, Tag had been insistent on preparing his own dinner. She had begrudgingly agreed, satisfied in the least that lunch and a treat from the bakery had been something. After closing up, her mind decorated with only the rough plans they had drawn, she wandered through the streets towards the Inn, not sure why. She had taken a familiar road, almost along the other side of West End, to swing by the old blue warehouse. On it, spread like a colourful sigil, was the Tree of Life. Her eyes roamed each hued branch thoughtfully. While Mako or some other indeterminable gang had taken to the rest of the blue paint with tags, the Tree itself had been let alone. Her gaze suddenly moved behind her. Up the street. At times, old habits died very hard and she had to remind herself that the things that had followed her from Twin Cedars and Lofton were not there anymore. She would relax into herself and steal a breath. Almost consequentially, her roving eye trailed along to the apex of the Penny Moon's roof. So, so much of her life had been held in those old walls. Had she ever taken Tag there? There was no memory of it. She didn't think so.


She resumed her stare of the tree, her mind going back to the calm and peace at breakfast. His story will haunted her mind, in between the nails, beams and diagrams that permeated it with her constant processing of design ideas and budget. His transparency had perhaps surprised her, and his revelation was something she intended to enquire further to, but not in the still-soft hours of early morning - pain and pancakes did not mix. It was a conversation for the swing on his porch. As she looked on, her gaze intensified. His story which had stretched on only by way of the reminders he wore. She thought, there, that he wore them with dignity and it roused in her admiration. But not without empathy and sadness for what bore him to be who she knew. That in mind, she did wonder:what had, then, prompted Tag to paint that tree upon her door? Was it like his tattoo? Or rather, a scar, something for her to contemplate as a lesson? Pale, slender, work-roughened fingers brushed down the steel door. Traced across the tree bough. A smile. It was like reaching into another world. It was like touching the feeling and intent of the artwork. A nail skimmed along the trunk, and she stepped away.



When she reached the Inn, at the end of a very long thought on when the loan might finally come through, the porch was empty and the sky was clear. She lingered in a corner of it with a smoke and a silence that came only with a cleared conscience. She drank in the sky. Then she moved inside and opening up her notepad, errantly sketched ideas down. A red wine to go with the crude artistry. Then, there was Tag. There as if he had been there all along. When he left, she left. Arm in arm. Traveling the night roads back to Charlie's for a collection of a present and onwards to his. The present for his daughter, wrapped carefully by the artisan at the market in ocean-hued paper - turquoise, misted greys, deep marine blue - left on the coffee table while she slept. It had been late, and she had not wanted to wake his daughter for the sake of the gift. Come morning, she would find it, and Madison, like some waif asleep on the couch. But a clean, friendly, smiling waif, who she knew after all.

When she dreamed, she dreamed of a rainbow tree reaching out towards a sky that was perfect blue. On the very highest boughs, new leaves were blooming.

Once the front door cracked open, so too did her eyes.

She sat up and turned around on the couch. She did not see Tag, but smelled the smoke. He smoked? Madi crawled onto her knees, tugging the blanket down from around her and peered outside. Through the window, as a silent film, the man moved down the few porch stairs and towards his garden patch. She watched as he began... weeding? A moment more and she looked down to the couch. It seemed odd for him to be up after such a long day. She felt torn, but if he was sleepless she could do something.

Hands pushed her off the cushions and out of her nook and towards the kitchen. Bleary-eyed still, she turned on the kettle. A quick forage through a few cabinets, she found and selected two mugs which she settled on the counter. Then she walked quietly out to the porch, careful to hold the door just so it wouldn't squeak. She kept the lights off behind her. Sans the thick, old leather boots, her jacket and the air she tended to carry around her, Madison seemed smaller, maybe even shorter, in the dim of the porch. There was almost the child-woman quality running through her, with both braids that fell across her chest broken with sleep. She took a step down. Her voice raised above a whisper so he might hear her, but not awaken Penny.

"A spot of midnight gardening?"

Dubious and mirthful at once, she inclined her face towards him, her eyes searching. "Can't sleep, huh."

Another step and the cool grass was beneath her feet. She stopped there, inhaling deeply and rubbing at her arms. It wasn't cold, but there was a freshness to the air that startled her some. She looked over the yard, towards the side of the house, over to the road, then back. "I put on the kettle."

Much of the conflict inside him, she had never been privy to. It was a week of firsts for her with him; with it, a sense of deep, non-judging comfort. Emotional resonance. Whatever it was that flickered on his features was something private. "Wanna talk?" The swing awaited. That place where change cat-crept past and anything could be shared.

The kanji and its canvas in motion up the stairs, and back on the grass where she still stood, she watched him go, only her eyes following, and for that moment, she near forget who he was. Yes, there was the guilty cigarette and the disgruntled vegetable, but neither bothered her (the carrot line was so... Tag, and had been cause for a good-natured eye-roll), other than concern for what had the man wandering his garden at this hour. But in that moment, in the damp, sleeping world, her mind brilliantly awake in the whispering air, Madi had her own moment of sharp cognition.

The kanji seemed to blend in, or away, and she was looking at him. Not unlike the first time seeing someone as they were, or more than one knew someone to be elementally. Her mind could not place it and perception was like a gun without a target, frantically panning. But, there he was, her friend - shirtless with a sentry?s build and a story that lived on his skin that he wore as if it was birthmark; always there and garnered from no battle, no pain. The confidence he emanated, despite whatever clouded his own thoughts, pulled some poker-hot knot, dead-center in her belly. Desire, or envy, she would contemplate it later.

He spoke, and the smile that came was lopsided. ?I?m fine, sleep can always be caught up on?, she was staring straight ahead at the door as her steps joined his on the porch, again. There was a pause, a disconcerted lull to the woman, before she drifted inside, straight for the kitchen. She snuck around the nook preparing the two teas, and looked up time to time to make sure her movements hadn't awoken Penny.

It didn't take long to return to the sanctuary outside ? the porch; half way between the world and home, a crossroads between the foreign and the known, and a place where the tide lapped gently at their toes. A place she felt delectably comfortable. As if every single bone had finally understood what it meant to relax. Maybe, it was the smell of the green tea ? its aroma spiraling into the moist air. Madison held out his mug, the eyes searching again ? up and down, left to right, seeking some strand to cling onto. Delicate seeming, but determined. A want to understand, when between them was the silent agreement that neither would carry too much. ?Maybe, a few days off? Would that help??

Still feeling oddly aware of his masculinity, as though, beside clothing, something else had diminished in the nearness of one another over so many days, she stepped aside and sank down onto the swing with a face that was inscrutable and bowed towards the mug, enjoying the sensation of her cold hands clasping the steaming porcelain; it almost scalded the skin, but it soothed. They both had burned before, so fire and what it was to burn was no obstacle, that they both had ashes on their feet.

"Why did you?"

Earnestly, the tea sitting there on one knee, his hand the other. Her hand moved to enfold it, supportively. "It has been so long. If you are still asking the question, then maybe it's time to revisit your why." "Perhaps then, you can feel better about things. I believe, from what I know of you, that you made the wisest decision you could, given the set of circumstances. Not arbitrarily. Or selfishly. But... if it haunts you, then you must question the ghost. It can lead to some dark places, but I will be here. I promise."

Sable eyes were looking at her in a way they had not. It was brief, but brought a cant of her head. The slightest lean. He could not derive from her what he needed for this test, this measure. But, perhaps he was only trying to see her in the scant light.

Her smile was there, but thin. Sometimes we did need someone to push us from the safety we lived in if we were to find something truly worthwhile just beyond us. Sometimes, it didn't even mean falling far. The act of trying could be catharsis enough. It was in these glimpses of his past she felt the most attached to Kusinage. For much time, there had been glimpses of the future, or realisations in the present, than between them any lingering fixation on what had come before. But working beside someone every day, forced a different quality of relationship. Reliance, trust, team-work, new ideas, the exchange of ideas, even the act of pulling apart and putting back together... they built something new into the dynamic. And with it, the past would stir from its sleep. Though it was the bar going through a renewal, it could be said that the autumn of their friendship was long since done, and that here, it was a time for growth. With that, came the shedding of old skin, and the letting go of old grievances. Dust motes fell to a bar room floor, swirling to their death on a beam of light.


She brought the tea to her mouth and looked up with surprise at the scrubbed clean sky - not having realised how quickly the day had already filled it. A faint mist still clung to the edges of his land. Only the progress of morning would tell what the rest of the day might be like. Birds were beginning to make their song, wind began to sing softly in the taller grass that lined the road, and they all were heedless. There was an impassivity to the natural world. Function. Survival. She sat listening to that, it was all around them. She sat waiting for the words that sat behind his eyes. They seemed elusive as a crow.

That close, and not for some repair, or heads touching bowed over a blueprint diagram, she could see the finer details of his face, and the sheen that reminded her always of black glass. The details she could not absorb until this early, unexpected hour. His frame was full from work, and, that close, she could smell the smell that had always been uniquely, unmistakably his - a kind of incense, wet leaf and clean linen. She had just begun to smile, for eyes to close, when the door opened and there was a voice, and a dancing girl, and Madison's eyes were wide with shock and awe. The feeling was like ice across her back which warmed once it reached her heart. A feeling that made her feel heavy with it. She watched their interaction, not being able to stop her smile from growing. This was what it was all about.


And then, there was a collision. A girl in her arms. Madison, still shocked at how much Penny had grown, and how exuberant and sweet she was, could only pull her against her tight and breathe in her hair. Time had not changed some things then. And not all was trouble, not all was bad. It was something a child brought with their very being - a foundation that could steady even the saddest mind or the wildest heart. Over that hug, goofy and happy and so full with warmth, Madison's eyes met Tag's. She could only nod. Her eyes were wet. If there were ghosts and hauntings for the soldier or the gunslinger, they were no match for the effulgent beauty of a young girl who had everything wonderful to experience ahead of her, and two people who would do anything to see those things transpired.

"About those pancakes?" Hopefully. A gentle clasp of Penny's cheek.

Inside, what could she do, but fold herself against the counter and watch them both do their thing. It was like being the fly on the wall, watching a whole other life play out. She hadn't had the opportunity to engage like this, years ago - Penny, largely, had been known to Madison through a few brief meetings, crayons on a porch, and always, colour. There was always a trail of life, light and colour behind the girl, and in that way, she was like so many other children. But now she was older, and more herself, more adult in her thinking and reading of the world, someone who had a developed personality and interests, one of the first things that had struck Madi upon visiting Tag's for the first time a week ago, was that the colour remained. The vibrancy of spirit. It seemed to live in the walls like some remembered part of her, even in her absence. In the same way her father's hard quiet left behind an impression in the days first knowing him, six years ago. A kind of reverence for the little moments, those things that could not speak, or were paid little attention, and the space between heartbeats.

There were still drawings, and they had reflected that personality and a greater skill. As the smiley face was added to her plate, she gave Penny a warm look and a wink and indicated for the girl to wait. Let Daddy handle the pancakes a few minutes longer. His looks were caught and went straight to her belly in warm flashes. She began to wonder how long it had really been there, that fondness. There were moments she had felt it before, but she had never explored it with the difficult situations present in her life for so very long, and the deep respect for their friendship. But the mere thought and its reoccurrence since their reunion had allowed for the door to open.

Heading to the lounge, near her bed-away-from-bed, and the table just by it, she picked up the present that sat there. The one wrapped in many shades of blue, like a sea viewed from a cliff, displaying all its variances, depths, degrees. Bare feet along the floor to the kitchen. The heat from the stove, the dizzyingly sweet smell, all the contagious energy between them and that she soaked up, was so, so vastly different to her lone breakfasts in a big, old empty house in the middle of nowhere. She felt a pull towards them both. That compelling was not only emotional magnetism, but a physical sensation. Her arm stretched out to place the gift down on the bench. Hopeful. "I got you a little something from an artisan tent at the Market. I was just walking past and...." Tag gave her one of his over-shoulder half-smiles. She beamed, and that look too was shared with the girl. "It made me think of you."


Within the careful trappings of the paper, a watercolour set. Each brush whittled into shape by a local wood-worker, and the brushes were horsehair. There was a square, thick book tied with turquoise ribbon to the brush set - rough-hewn paper for fifty or more drawings, practices, doodles. The scents of the market had been caught in the paper, lived now in the fibres of the brushes. With it all, the addition of a hand written guide by the artisan on how to start with images of basic water colour styles. "The lady who sold it to me said trees are good to start with. Simple lines you can build on. And it's easier to work with than acrylic" An encouraging nod. "I hope you like it." She plucked up the smiley face and took a bite. It was for so many reasons the singular most delicious pancake she'd had yet.

She had to laugh at Penny's embarrassment that came in the shape of her Dad. She straightened to watch Penny look over the gift, and the way her young, sweet face looked sincerely impressed. She had had a feeling it was something that would reach the girl - reflect that part of her personality that had always glimmered strongest to Madi. When the hug came, Penny would find Madison leaned with it and that it was returned. She ran a hand down the girl's back and over the cascade that was the falling apart of a ponytail. The girl was gone, like a sprite, and the gift with her. When Tag asked his question, Madison's gaze was still directed towards the hall Penny had disappeared down.

She rolled a shoulder in a loose shrug and stepped around to enter the small space between them. "Sure, I know we'll need it." A little smile. The one that kept reappearing of late. She nudged the plate sitting there towards the pan, ready for his pancakes. There was the temptation to make a coy remark about whether or not he would get her drunk, but it seemed too telling, and she was sure he would be aghast. At least a little. A bite on her lip instead, as she snuck a look at that serious face poised at the stove.

"I'm looking forward to getting to the painting. Kind of feels like it's all really getting there. Coming together." As they swept up at the end of their last shift at the bar, sunset creeping through the new window and illuminating their faces so they looked like they were each cast of bronze, they had begun to talk about the painting. Dust was still falling in the air. There was a still a slight staleness to the wood, but the deserted mood had finally begun to pass. They had considered tones that might work best, he had pointed to walls, the ceiling; indicating where to start so that they worked in a methodical way, where painting one section wouldn't impede work in another. He'd suggested a hardware store he knew and she had visited to buy plastic sheets and the samples. She had browsed the paint aisle, walking back and forth several times until she realised she had been staring at tins and swatches for over an hour.

There was a perk to her voice and as she spoke and heard it herself, she couldn't recall hearing herself so happy. Not in years. And too many of them if she was honest. The bar was more than a building, more than a husk, more than a labour of love and sweat. It was a way to remake her life in this town. As he said, she would be Madison from Charlie's. Not Madison from Lofton and all that that had entailed. It was the diamond in her chest, to be that sure of her direction.


"I picked up some swatches. I'll show you when we get to the bar. I would appreciate your thoughts on them." She had a pile of them from dark to light, and a few leather swatches as she looked to re-upholster the stools and the back couch. Back swivelled around near the cupboards, she watched as the stove spat oil, as Tag turned the dial off. "I know you're a good painter, after all. Must have rubbed off on Penny." She looked down at her sleep-crumpled t-shirt. The ragged jean shorts. There was a vague self-consciousness. She hadn't even thought about how she had presented to either of them... comfort, she supposed, as well as a lack of real vanity in general. Hands went to her hair, taming the tangle, pulling the lengths across her shoulder, before the time he next turned toward her.

"That's all I need. An idea. Something to play off of mine. My home was easy to decorate... I hardly did. But the bar, it was Charlie's, and I want something of him, that character, to be there. Somehow." Thoughtful, and completely unaware of what was going on in his mind. There was that almost.... whatever it was. Had that been a kiss in the making? To her, too, it was made of ghost-strings and tea-steam. It was so nearly something, and yet the lack of sleep and the feelings she hid beneath a gun-metal integrity may have been fooling her. It echoed of the moment on the porch some time ago, and that had not been charged like it felt things were now.

"I should probably go ahead after this. I've got to shower and change into something less runaway." She took up the plate and carried it over to where Penny was sitting and sat down. As she turned the plate on the table, settling into the seat, she saw what was supposed to be the tree and immediately looked over to Tag. Her heart told her something. A smile to Penny as she took up the maple and poured it generously over the cakes. Tag was headed over and she held the bottle out for him should he want it, too.

"You make a good pancake."

Any wise-crack about the lack of whipped cream was strictly omitted. Her mind surprised her. Why was this all rapidly spiralling through her head? What moment, precisely, had been the first to turn the door handle? She was looking up at him. Some may have said it read of smitten. "So tell us more about camp?" Taking a bite, her eyes pulled away, and she lifted a brow to the vivacious girl.

"And don't forget.. pancake art" smiled the older brunette, looking at the girl from over a untaken bite. Syrup dripped off it onto the plate. "Sounds like fun to me. I never had the chance to do anything like that when I was your age." She felt old saying that, and she grinned. Penny was so full of stories, opinion, and always with a liveliness that most of us lost as we grew up. That feeling of being unable to stay still. Full of energy to take on the world. She couldn't but laugh as the girl's cheeks stuck out and she tucked right into her breakfast. She sawed off another slice of pancake and took a dripping bite. Syrup stuck to her chin. She was still grinning, despite it, and took no hurry to wipe it away. Kids didn't care about that stuff, and she would assume that letting down her guard a little more would be more than fine. She had no reason to be anything else but herself in this house. "If you like horses, I was only saying to your Dad yesterday, we should go for a ride. There's old trails out where I live. Keen?"

A dark brow rose as she enquired of the girl. Then, they asked about Charlie, and she had to sit back in the chair. The pancake all but done, the cutlery put down one at a time. How to explain the person who had made such a lasting effect on her, even in her wildest days?


"Charlie.. Charlie Renauldt. He was the first friend I made when I arrived in Rhy'Din, several years ago now. I worked for him at his bar, the same one", she looked to Tag from Penny and lifted a hand, indicating between them, "that we're renovating. He became a friend though, a mentor. He took me in." She didn't want to lose his daughter's respect, nor his, by going into her early days. She'd been working with street kids, trying to stall local, small crime, except what had first seemed small unravelled as a larger, more complicated and devastating picture. Charlie had more than once found Madison asleep in one of his booths before daybreak. Things got crazy, and she had been younger, and hadn't known how to handle it, except to indulge in something that took the edge away. It was the period of time that saw her meet Andy, Andy who had been hanging off a busted pipe outside the building that collapsed when Madison had somersaulted - when Tag had waited by Orlan, watching a world go to flame.

"We experienced a lot together, running a bar. I watched the door mostly, but by the end I was running with it with him and..." a pause, a quirk of her lip. "I won't go into it, but we did some great things together. Sadly, he died. Took too much in his hands. He was well loved by all his patrons and locals, I..."

"I'm sure you get the point I'm makin'. Just want to do right by him."


Fingers twined together on the table, her arms stretched out and elbows bent, relaxed. She looked between them, seeing how the story had been soaked up. "I best get goin'. I need a toothbrush and a shower."

Madison rose to her bare feet and took up Penny's plate, and seeing Tag was still going, meticulous as he was, she left his before him and headed to the sink. Turning on the tap, she was thinking back. To Charlie, when they first met. How many times he'd taken her chin in his old, liver-spotted hand, leaned in close and told her to remember who she was always, even if she thought that person was lost, for good. He'd never reprimanded her for doing something out of a good intent. He'd simply laid a hand on her shoulder and been there, giving recommendations where he saw fit, and always ensuring her hot chocolate had a tooth of whiskey.


Looking into the sink, she remembered standing right there, in that somersault, rinsing plates after her and Tag had eaten and he had drawn thread through her broken doll skin. He had been down on the floor before her, eyes intent, brows furrowed and his breaths on her face, each one counting out the time it took to sew her back together. He had warned her of infection. That was the danger. Letting something go, not having it sealed, repaired. He was quick, thorough, gentle. She jerked as she felt herself drifting back into recollection. Crumbs and grease and memories spiralled down the drain. Soap squeezed and plates scrubbed. They were added to the rack to dry.

Horses then, they would ride.

Behind her, their twosome played out the routine and repartee of Father and Daughter. It brought her back to that kitchen, that sink and the gurgling of water. Madi laughed at Penny's bleating protest against chores, but quietly. She hated chores at times too, and was smiling to herself in agreement with the girl. So it was by the time Tag was beside her with his needle and thread, she was open again, seams at the ready, and her head turned just so towards him. Penny was still complaining in the background, before breaking out in song, likely a campfire rendition from camp. A moment passed and Madison lowered her voice, completing that turn towards him, not in that way that was just so and sung of the way she couldn't quite look at him either, at times. The tap turned off once his plate had joined the others to dry.

"I'm goin' to have to swing by my place first for a change. I'll meet you there at 10?" A hand rested on his forearm, and without a thought more, a kiss was pressed to his cheek. "Thanks again for breakfast and letting me crash on the couch." Towards the lounge she went, where Penny was still singing, head bobbing side to side. "Campfire tune?" Madison edged around to the couch, resetting the pillows, fluffing them back up with a few pats, and then pulled on the lightweight, worn army jacket, rolled on each sock and, supporting herself against the door, long legs awkwardly bent, slid into each chunky boot at a time. Thoroughly scuffed, once a warm cognac and now a faded tan. "Have a great day, sweetie." She couldn't help it - the girl was scooped into a tight hug. Dressed and full, she threw Tag a look over her shoulder. Could have called it anticipatory, shy, excited, admiring. Then she was out the door like a summer breeze. Hair wind-whipped but not the smile. That thing was stuck in place.



After the long walk home, a shower, change (and taming the sleepless forest of her hair into a braid) Madison made her way back to Charlie's. She sorely missed having a horse. Her last she had sold, with a heavy heart, so she had some extra funds for the remodel. She reasoned, that at least this way, she was walking off all those pastries from the shoppe. Unlocking the bar, her hair line damp with perspiration from the heat already beating down, she swung the door wide and wandered in. Her shadow ahead of her, stretching as the scalding sun threw it across the floor. She started with opening each window, and began hanging up the plastic sheets. Paint brushes sat in their plastic beside stacked tins of varnish and the samples. A thick tin of an eggplant-hued paint sat on the bar top, intended for the corners of the ceiling to break up, warm and compliment the darker wood coatings intended for the furniture, counter, shelves and cabinets. After wrapping the chairs in the plastic curtain, she moved to the backroom to unfold the ladder and with a groan, took a step back, angled it past the door frame and carried it out to the commons. With the light pouring in, the floors, however battered, had an antique charm to them. She half wanted to keep them that way. Madison was sure Tag would agree. Plus, Charlie had walked those floors, no doubt had had spillages upon it, and she wanted to retain that. Even the stains. She didn't want to cover up too many of the knicks and scratches that made the bar what it was, and what it had been. The ladder was righted against the wall, her eyes up. Hands on hips, she turned, exhaling. Where to start. Then, a flicker caught her eye. There lay a single penny on the floor. She walked over, bent down and picked it up. It shone in the middle of her palm. It lay rested against those lines of what had been darker fortunes.

What did they say about pennies and luck? What had Charlie said about the nature of life often being like a coin tossed in the air? The rarity of true second chances.

What is it going to be?

Call it.

It was a start... One side of the bar was a rich mahogany. The wall that faced from the left. Not unlike a gunhandle or a summer-sunset shadow over fields. It impressed her eye just how much of a difference even a single coat made. A new perspective unleashed on an old bar that any passing West Ender would see and think little of from out on the street. She wasn't worried about that, she liked that the outside looked rundown, that it had seen better times, and it had - and she knew them all, and for the time being, that was all that concerned her. She grinned and wiped the back of a hand against her brow, stepping back from the ladder and catching some air. "Doesn't look bad." Murmured and muffled behind the mask she wore. Pulling the string back from under her hair with a snap, she took another few paces away to take in her work from another angle, and to dump the mask on the counter. A look up to the clock, and she gasped. "Sh*t." It was nine-fifteen and she still had to get back to the house, shower again, change again and walk back.. again. All in forty five minutes and counting.

Leaving the ladder opened as it was, she quickly tore off the too-big, thick gloves and placed them beside the paintbrush tray, the mask and the samples she still had to show Tag. She almost grabbed them, but who wanted to talk work after work? She wasn't meeting him for a drink to discuss swatch shades. A few minutes later, and forty two minutes to work with, Madison was locking the door to Charlie's. Paint smeared across her left brow. Her throat. All she could smell around her and upon her was wood-dust and salt. Then, she was off, eyes scanning the streets for a coach. Nothing. Boots quickened their pace from a stride to a jog. She alternated between the two all the way home.

By the time she had freshened up, towel around her and padding into the bedroom, there was only anxious nerves and the thundering excitement that seemed to begin in her legs and end up in her arms, and eventually, her hands, so that as she raided the thick drawers, a chest and closet for something that spelled out special, her hands went clumsy; fingers wild and frantic. "Acony, quit it", came the reprimand in her mind. She stepped back, drifted to the bed's end and looked across her room at the woman in the mirror. It brought that lopsided smile and a shake of the head. This was Tag. This was Tag. Don't be weird. Don't be weird. But that was the problem - it was Tag. And there was no one else quite like him.

Palms to her knee, Madison's gaze tracked over to the closet again. There, hung her blouses, long sleeved and short, and coats. There was a sleeveless, light-weight cotton blouse with an embroidered neckline. It was simple and pretty. And, she was low on time. Up she got, towel off and dressing from the skin up. Denim shorts that fit her rather than hung loose added next, followed by her old faithfuls, one of the many pairs of boots she lived in. The only deliberation was the linger by the mirror to rope the unruly waves and curls into a fishtail braid, with a few strands released to frame her face. A dab of amber oil from a quaint town she stopped in once. It had essence of sandalwood and cedar and was the only scent that had ever taken her. Rubbed to her wrists and from wrists to throat and back of neck. Bending, to rub the last traces behind her knees. She stood back from the glass and did a turn. A small smile, pretending it was to him. The final addition a sweep of mascara, bent over the bathroom sink, applying it. Bringing out the grey in blue eyes. She pulled out the bottom drawer, thinking to take the devil with her for the long walk through the late hour. Instead, she straightened and used a foot to shove the drawer closed. Then Madison Rye was back to the night roads, a spectre in the dark.

The walk had given her time to calm down, to tame that tempest of anxious flurry that rushing exacerbated. Her mind went to others as the stars wheeled over ahead. There was no counting them in wait for the ones that had been, and that reached with a hand to curl about her heart. Nor Mamie, nor Glenn. There was no bitter tinge, there was no question. But most importantly, there wasn't an electricity that spoke to her about the way she might be without them. She had found it strange that she didn't feel anything, except perhaps enriched by the experiences with those she had loved. She'd always walked with a big heart and in it room for all that she had ever cared towards. But perhaps when she had put down the gun, all associated with that life, those days, had been tucked away with it. The feeling in her chest was wide. It was big as the West. Only minutes behind him when soles found the bottom stair of the Inn's porch, Tag a breath away from opening the door, she smiled. Could he feel its spark? Now, she's there, just behind him. There was a wind that worked through the vastness in her chest. It whistled with his name.

Hand closed with a reflex around the penny in her back pocket.

Call it.

She would take a chance.

Shoulder brushing shoulder, he was holding the door for her. "You beat me."