"I don't mind. Whichever mug. Never really had one." Madi turned around and snuck a little closer, a lean on the counter. "Should I change that?" Then, as if it was the height of rudeness, she recalled the gun on the coffee table and was off again - straight towards the dark oak. She bent over and plucked it up. The weight of it drew her hand down. She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, hiding it in the last drawer down. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Oh," he said, reaching up to slowly unhook the handle of a different mug for her. He had reached over her, almost around her, to get it, just before she sharply turned. He saw her lift the instrument he had noticed before, putting it away with almost the same air as he had the butt end of his spent cigarette. The mug he selected for her was rinsed out and then toweled, the same way he had done his own.

She returned to the counter, like nothing had happened, but the sheepishness still played at the corners of the mouth. Softly, ?Sorry about that. I don't like having that thing..." a gesture at the air. Boots carried her until they were not far from his. "Around people I like." Tilting her head, she smiled.

"Haven't you always had that thing?" He didn't usually say 'that thing,' it was a copy of the words she had used accompanied by the lift of a brow. Not around the people she liked. He leaned his weight back against the counter, his hands drawing behind himself so that palms curled around the counter's edge.

"I always will. I like knowing it's there. If..." Twisting her lips to the side. She exhaled. "I just don't want it to be a part of my life, not like it was. It's got history, and some of that stuff is real bad, Tag. Real, real bad. And I think, like that feeling outside on the porch tonight, that bad feeling we both got, right? That can stick to things. I don't believe in... all of that stuff." A hand into the loosened braid, like she was awkward again in her own body. With her own thoughts. "It was there when some things happened. So, I don't like lookin' at her every day. And I have this idea that well... if you are around it, it's gonna rub off on you. I don't want to bring that to your doorstep."

"Feelin' really stupid tellin you all this." Madison Rye may even have been blushing.

Her presence was small and sensitive, the worry that made her pick at her braid sweeping years away to make her a self-conscious little girl and not a gun slinger that snickered. She was more real now, not dipped and soaked in a boastful facade that people of those professions developed. He thought about how he kept the cigarettes at the top of the refrigerator so that they were out of sight and mind for more than just him, but for him and Penny. He didn't want it to rub of. People wanted to absorb pieces of those they loved and those pieces that they didn't want to pass on had to go into drawers and on top of refrigerators. He nodded, quietly a few moments and then at the stretch of warmth on her cheeks he smiled, "It's not stupid at all. You're right... the things about us spread."

"Feels silly. You know, I still think of what I do and say and what my daddy would be thinkin' of it. But you put it like that, how you just did, and it doesn't seem so ridiculous." She played with the very ends of the braid, pulling it over her chest. A shrug. "But things do spread. I think it's why I stayed so alone ... " Eyes went all over. "Why, besides hidin', I got this place. I felt like I was the cancer. Bad things just kept happening."

"I went away last August. And I was thinking about the gun, and somewhere along that trip of mine, I got to thinkin that it was all about the gun. And if I was less attached to it, I could just be me."

"Everything was about that gun. That thing was like a beacon for trouble. So.. if there was a distance between us.. because it has a life, let me tell you...." she stepped away, as if indicating putting that distance between herself and that trouble, "and I could start again."

He watched her when she spoke. It was like a dancer that had subtle motions to the dance. Her fingers purposefully picking and adjusting the hair. Her feet shifted, relocated and then adjusted where her body was. Tag was planted at his lean on the counter, the window like a small speaker to the rain that was falling. The sound of heat and warming water from the kettle was a muffled tingling sound. "I have thought that the physical world did not matter-- which is true. It is not what defines us.?

He swallowed and tilted his head to the side, "But we define it. What is around us, the condition of it, is the result of what we choose to do and say. The gun on the table is different from the one in a drawer, because you are different now from whom you were before. If it was a beacon for trouble, you are not allowing it anymore."

"A few years ago, I kept that very same gun in the bottom drawer behind Charlie's counter - you know the broken drawer with the splintered bottom? That one. And one night I got held up. And all I kept thinkin' about was that gun. And if I had had it on me... that I wouldn't have gotten robbed. And the person who robbed me ended up bein'... I don't know what he was. Like my past come calling is what I think. So, I have had mixed thoughts on doin' this. But.. I am different now. I feel it Tag." The heel of a hand went to her heart and pressed in. "Do you see it?" Brows rose, she looked across at him, on opposite sides of the kitchen. "I am, ain't I?"

The kettle screamed. Steam hurtled up through its nose for the steam grate.

"...Yes." He wanted to say more but there was the void again, the one so broad and powerful that it ached. Sometimes being with her made it more difficult than it already was to put words together and talk. The kettle cried out and he made him jerk, his hands jumping off the counter's edge behind him before he smiled just as sheepishly as she had before. He moved and put the kettle on the other eye, shutting off the oven before he looked at her, uncertain where the tea and other items were kept.

She stepped across, a door swung open, there were the two boxes - green, and black. "Like I said before, the black is strong." His affirming her had coiled in her stomach and it was a feeling that radiated from her stomach and up through her chest. The boxes pulled down, she displayed them to him. "Green, yes?" Smile.

While she brought the boxes of tea around, he took the kettle and poured the jumping water into the two mugs he had selected. She appeared, asking him if he would want green and he smiled, giving her a small nod as he put the kettle on the cool eye on the oven once again. A few steps closer and he reached into the green box, taking a tea packet and tearing it open, stepping back to his mug to let the tea bag sink to the bottom of his mug.

"Green or... I'll be up late." The suppressed smile, side stepping so that she could reach her mug easily and not be crowded by him when she did so.

"But I thought we were going to stay up all night swapping ghost stories?" she countered. Flickering little smile for a dark man side-on, as she dipped the black bag into her mug. An eye hidden by a curl. Then he was behind her, or around, and with her back to him she lifted the mug to inhale the almost woody scent. It was a tea that tasted like home, and smelled like it, like pine needles and forgotten paths through woodland and prairie. But, that was not home anymore. A turn of her head and the body followed. "It's okay?" Nod to his mug. Sables were searched, the book opened again, and she was reading.

"Oh? I thought I was walking you home." Though he looked down at the mug of green tea and then out the window, seeing that it was still raining but that it was such a weak lull that if his intention had ever been to hurry home, he could have. There was no rush though, and Madi did not seem as if she was reminding him of the hour. Beside her, one hip leaned on the counter edge as he brought the cup to his lips. The heat of it still rose with warning at his lip when he brought it near. Small, careful sip before he set it to the side, back on the kitchen counter to cool, "So far, it is good." He could feel her eyes picking over him, nudging the torn up pieces of a page into place so that it could be read, "May I?" He motioned to her mug, that he might try the potent black tea punch she had warned him of, more than any drink at a bar.

"It tastes like my childhood. Tell me it doesn't make you think of fields and wood fire." She nodded gently and held out the mug for him to take. It had its smoky undertones, but was overall nutty. Pleasant, if one liked that sort of thing, or downright overpowering, if one didn't. "Well... as for walking me home. If Penny's at her friend's, you don't have to run anywhere."

Case made, she looked like she had mischief in her eyes again. Or perhaps that was only a trick of the rainy, rosy light. One of the chesterfields was positioned just so it half-faced the window there to that side of the room. She nudged his elbow lightly and moved towards the chairs.

"Stuck here with me now. I can tell you all about the ghosts of my past and drive you mad." Dryly as she dropped onto the couch. The leather was firm, but not hard and the colour of good cognac. In places, it was beaten, but like the rest of her plain, cozy, house, gave an impression that one should relax on it. There was no room in Redemption for anything to hide behind.

Her warning hadn't been a wrong one to give. It was powerful, it flooded his mouth, hitting him first with the nutty smell and it was only after he had swallowed that it spoke of smoke. "We're drinking our childhoods, I suppose." He remembered green tea always being there when he grew up. They drank it in more than just hot boiling water. Some would boil it and leave the leaves loose in it, letting them sink to the bottom. They drank from the top of the cup, stopping once they neared the dark green lumps at the bottom. He had known some to sweeten it, but that wasn't often. With both mugs in hand he took to the leather bound couch and sank into it, taking the spot opposite of her in the corner. A sort of nervousness climbed into his hands and he found that he suddenly didn't know what to do with them, where they should belong. He extended her mug back to her and wrapped both of his purposefully around his own.

"You want to drive me insane?"

His thoughtful line about imbibing childhood seemed to make a whole lot of sense and the words tumbled through her head, causing another of the flickering, little smiles. When he joined her, she didn't move, but only looked across at him, accepting the tea back and bringing it to her chest. "You mean... I haven't already? Working you to the bone every day?" Arch of a brow. She was a pro when it came to hiding her own nerves, if she could hide behind something. Such as a mug. And a conversation to distract. Madi Rye could feel her pulse quicken. Akin to holding a pistol for the first time. No, no. It wasn't that. It was like hitting your first target. Crisply, straight through the center of the tin on that fence. True aim. Dead center. Like a hot-poker in the stomach. And the feeling of it working through your blood. That's what it felt like, sitting there, her hands around a mug. Precisely.

She was, though, wasn't she? There was a saying that people used and it rolled in between meaning both something good and bad. Driving someone crazy. People spoke about it when saying that someone had pushed their nerves to the edge. Or, when they were joyously exasperated. She had done that, in every way except the work they did on the bar which centered his thoughts, felt calming and made sense. He thought about being on the ground on his back. Knees bent and feet planted on the ground as he worked on one of the pipes and her standing over him. He'd asked her to hand him a wrench and he found, as if his mind were betraying him, the thought of reaching four inches further up to grip and pull her... it crossed his mind. It was a sudden, sharp immediate thought. Unnerving, he forced his attention off of her until the inclination to do that melted behind the attention the pipe had called for. He sipped the tea and said, softly, "Well, maybe just a little." Then smiled and looked out the window, "I will have to bring you some tomatoes, when they are ready. Do you like them?"

Eyes shut and she smiled widely. The steam caressing her face with memory and place. She opened them a moment later, and nodded. "Land out here won't take to anything, so some vegetables would be nice. Provided, they aren't cranky like the carrots." She chuckled, and lifted the mug closer to her mouth. Then she stared into the mug. "Tag."

"It might, with some work. I can look at it, I can try, if you would like." He was not an academic. Much of how he processed the world was through his hands and the little moments of growth that he could shelter. The brush of their smile, their laugh, was soft atop the ceiling of the room and over the rolls of the couch leather. When she said his name it intensified that nervousness he felt before. The movement of his dark eyes, his gaze picking over her face, was illustrated by the way the constellations of reflected light moved when he did. "Madi?"

"Not here... soil's too salty." There was a pause. "You're always .. doin' stuff for me. You're already doing too much." She reached out to place the still piping tea on the dark wood of the low coffee table.

He didn't know what he would do if he set down his mug. His hands kept around it, loosely forming a circle that held it up for for him. His body shifted, away from the corner of the couch so that his elbows rested upon his knees, leaning his body forward, "You've done a lot for me, too."

Her hands were flat on her knees. As if she was at attention. Her eyes sat straight ahead. "I don't know about that. And, it doesn't help that I rope you into these things." Humor, there, at the edges of her words.

Was he nervous of his own accord, or was it in her, too? Were they defining that in each other as the moments passed? Slowly, he was able to force himself to set down the mug of tea. One hand rolled over the other then reached, a slid of warmth over the back of her hand as his hand closed around the back of hers, "You have always been. I should have told you thank you... but I did not know it at the time."

"I missed you. And, I need you." There. It was quiet but flat, as if the words were stone, for so long kept inside they had calcified. She looked at him, just. Her chin pointed towards him but almost with a reservation. The fingers beneath his moved to twine there. Thumb stroked the side of his hand. There was no keeping the ocean or the crumbling tower at bay in her response. It was affection. "I am glad I can do something for you. I... I'll make it all up to you, all this work. Everything."

It was beyond her, anything she had done. But she would rely on his truth.

The time that she had been gone she was missed. He felt oddly out of place without her in the adult world. With Penny had had belonged, but she tied him to places, to locations. Tag wanted to tell her about the times he stopped by the bar after work and had a drink. About how he would quietly hope to see her, that he found his eyes still looked for her and he later realized that it was the feeling of missing her. His hand relaxed, her fingers rising in between to mingle. The stroke of her thumb and he brought their folded hands to his knee and then up, twisting so he kissed the back of her hand, "You don't owe me anything." He wondered if she could feel his heartbeat in his hand. He thought he could.

His heart telegraphed something, and likewise, her's to his hand. It was something she did not need evidence of in sable eyes or a sentence that might open the door. As it was when they walked together, leaning against one another on their way home, talking aloud about the universe, destiny or the day, she squeezed the hand she held. A breath passed her lips, and it sounded like relief. The tension in that space was enough to light a match off of. Light a match and spur an inferno.

She was so still, at first he wondered if her head swam because she didn't know if she was on the verge of getting up from the couch or leaning towards him. Carefully he reached over, taking the thick black braid and moving it so that it would fall over her other shoulder, the one that was further away, exposing her neck and shoulder to him more. His fingertips lifted, smoothing her hair away from her face, allowing them to draw from her sensitive temple down to her neck and shoulder before lifting away, returning to the place it belonged on his knee. A gentle rain never seemed so loud before. The scent green tea was intertwining itself with the black tea over the smell of wood boards and the leather chesterfield.

The rise and fall of her chest reflected the breaths and the racing hoof beats of her heart. She watched him with intensity as his fingertips made map of her body, drawing lines and plans from his heart to her skin. She was still, perfectly. Not even a blink. Then, Madi looked to the window, at the rain, and let the feeling fall over her. Her grip on his hand was tight as a rope at the gallows. It was like she was steeling herself, or working herself towards some hell-bent direction only known to her mind. When she looked back to Tag, day-break carried the look she had worn when she had first hit that target. The feeling afterwards. How it had charged her, like lightning in summer. Grip of a hand relinquished and drawn back across the leather, fingers curled. She was leaning out, and towards him.

The lean of her body was shortly met by his. There was a tilt of his head and then the connection, which brought with it all the tastes of the evening. The brandy with a hint of lime and a plastic sword. The rain that they had walked through, the way it made the air wet and hang. Black tea, nutty and smoky. Then there was her, like a polished mahogany, the sort of wood used for the handle of a gun. Like the metal of a warehouse painted with a tree. Of a cigar and saw dusted and everything that had been Charlie that she wanted to keep and revive. His kiss had been meant to be gentle and simple, to give her the space to withdraw so that a graceful retreat could be made. It wasn't, though. When he kissed her and all those sensations came to him he could not think that he would want them less, but more, and so pursued her further for more of the story.

Without missing a beat, Madison maneuvered herself across. Lips brushing up - tasting, trying, knowing, and then he deepened it, and she felt that poker-stab again, and again, and again. Hand curled around his neck, as she worked herself around so that she straddled him. There was no room for anything to be hidden. No miscommunication. Not here, and not now. She tasted the pain he had carried for long - verses that had no air to fan their flames in the present. And, her tongue seeking his, tasting, she would take away those old bitter songs. Face pulled away to look at him. Her lips stung with his assault. Her breaths were deep and her eyes were every bit as greedy as the size and scope of that heat in her stomach and spreading outwards, like a tree, with its coloured boughs... reaching, reaching. Thumb grazed his mouth. To be in his regard, like this, sent a ripple up her spine and back down, like carnival neon. Very, very softly she spoke. "Goddamnit." Smoke and green tea breathed with the word, and the story he had given her.

As close as they were he wanted to be closer.

Impossibly close, where even the boundaries of skin no longer formed a separation. His right hand slid under her shirt, going up the smooth length of her back, along the trench that her spine made in the skin. How... do you know that? Their lips twisted apart when she pulled away. The same way you know the sun will rise. You just do.

He chased after her at the break, not wanting it to be, not wanting it to happen. His hands moved instinctively over the top of her thighs to her hips. His chest moved like he was struggling for breath, he could hear it in her, too. When she cursed it took the serious expression, the one saying that he wanted her and made him smile. The caress of the thumb on his lips like a reassurance. The way his gaze regarded her was surprisingly light, as if he was on the verge of laughing happily.

Exhilaration. It was the curl of her spine with his touch. Her free arm stretched out to settle on the couch behind and beside his head, supporting herself. She looked at him almost sternly. Not unlike the gravity he would wear as he considered the world around him. Her chest still rose and fell like it couldn't contain all the feeling it possessed. Fingers fanned from his neck and around the back of his head, and nails drew across. Hips rolled as she lowered herself to collect his mouth with hers. Outside the chesterfield there was nothing else.

"Ssshh.? Demanded with a smirk against the happy smile he wore. "Kiss me."

It was hot and searing, her nails against the back of his neck. There were no other sounds in the world but the smacking of their lips as they met, devoured, parted and then came together again. Hungry lips, parting them for tongues and more promising inquiries for what would become of the evening ? it was all surreal to him, except that he could feel her under his hands and knew that he could have never imagined just how she might have tasted without having experienced it. He wanted to say something to her, lips parted, he struggled for the words. He struggled with words, anyway. His fingers curved to the outside of her body while his thumbs dipped down, finding that sharp rise where her hip bone was to brush inside its rise.

Her hands sought his shirt and its removal. Ever since standing there on the grass and seeing him anew - his build, the tattoo, the scars. It had elicited a demanding urge. This, was the execution of that. Her smile's diminishing was just not possible, until she felt his hands at her jeans and it earned him a point blank brow arch, and the most wicked, haunting smile known to find its way on those lips. Would he still hear his ghosts, or could she exorcise them? She was pulling at that old shirt. Stretching her spine; a willing, delighted response, for it was true - there was just no getting close enough. He was there, and he was looking at her like he had not before. It was almost so Madi Rye couldn't stand it. Such, was wanting.

His grip adjusted, fingers curling under the hem, thumbs at the front of her, positioned as if he meant to ignore whatever fixtures it had and force it to peel open to him. The tug of his shirt forced his hands to lift away. Like a sail catching the wind, flying off once it lost hold of him for a home. The favor was one that he returned, taking her shirt by the ends and shoving them up, fighting them over her arms which only would resist for the second it took her to know what he was doing. His hand flattened at her lower back, like the way he had urged her through the fall of rain, except it was to press her close against him. He moved forward, keeping her to him for only as long as it took for him to pin her beneath him on top of the coffee table. The mugs clacked, spilled and rolled haphazardly away from the storm.

A groan of surprise and desire left her open mouth as she hit the table and the mugs clattered to the floor. Hands reached up and out to him, clinging. There was so much there. The rain forced a heavy, hanging feeling, let alone the weight of his body and the feeling that ached between them. A delicious hurt. A knee bent out from the entrapment the man had become, and she playfully wiggled beneath him. From where a hand could reach, it ran along shoulder. The story that was outside of him. There was only a certain kind of knowing someone by being with them like this. Reserved only for a lover. But, they had years of friendship to deepen the knowledge and that ache that flared up and threatened to burn them both alive. It didn't feel real. That's what her head was saying when it wasn't consumed with him. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. But the hand supporting her back on the table said otherwise.

Tea soaked into the rug. Forgotten.

And, by the time of passion?s spent, it had begun to dry. Whatever had been on the coffee table was a memory outlined by what had once been its border. The battle to be closer, to fight against the boundaries of themselves, that had been established for years by friendship and flesh. His fingers combed through her hair, undone from its braid so that it was a wavy spill of dark hair down her back. He stretched, finding his shirt on the ground and slid it over the exposed curves of her form. There was his smile, gentle, showing that he liked her in it.

The paleness of her face still fevered with him as she slowly, slowly sat herself up, pulling the ends down across her lower half. She stood, and gave him her smile. A hand through her hair, and she bit down on her lip. "Mmmm." Bare feet wandered towards his.

His head tilted back to watch her rise to her feet, his smile was slow, slight, almost sad. As if he wanted to chase the moment that had been, he wanted to keep it. His hand combed over the threads of her rug before flattening so that he could shove up, drawing on clothes. Such a meticulous person when his thoughts weren't running away from him. Careful fastening of the belt of his pants as she approached him again. She had him, it was reflected in his eyes, the attention more absolute than before.

Arms slipped up and around him. As done outside Charlie's, when a rectangle of light had fallen across the toes of his shoes. She listened to his breathing and smelled the rain on his clothes. She could smell her scent on his skin. A lean back, daybreak looking up at him. It was unfiltered like the rain, that look; she, his.

"Wherever you walk me, Tag, is home." Soft like wind through the tall grass.

His hands took the sides of her face, thumbs smoothing over the crest of her cheekbone. He kissed her when she spoke of home, where it was. Then his hands drifted to her shoulders and around her waist to circle her to him, "We will always walk each other home." The idea of home, abstract and referring to the feeling more than the place. He knew that by the way she said the word.

A hand moved to cover his heart as she settled against him. "Right there."

It was impossible not to smile when she said it. Something akin to giddy excitement lurked under his skin. He found he wanted to tell her a hundred different things, from what he thought about rain to the new pancake trick Penny had shown him. All the things that seemed small but like they needed to be shared. Instead, he kissed her again and smiled, making the soft request, "Do I have to stay on the couch?" As she had, when visiting him.

It must have been transferable, as the very same excitement was walking through her bones. His question caused her lips to curl, and she pretended to mull it over. "Absolutely...... not." To tippy toes, she gave a searing, brief kiss and wandered off in his shirt down the hall. To the left, the bathroom, further to the right a study and a door that went out into the yard, and at the end, her door. She opened it wide and stepped to one side, waiting for him. "But on one condition." Shoulder to the frame, she leaned, long leg wrapping around her other, provocative and testy. Her smile was spreading again.

An actual grin. The floorboards felt cool under his feet. He bit his lower lip, not entirely sure why he felt like he was tip toeing through her home like there was someone that he would wake up. The halt at her doorway caused him to stop and look at her curiously, lips parted as if he had taken her conditions far more seriously then she intended. Shoulders eased when she had that smile. Lean of his body in the same direction as hers as he looked at her, "And the condition...?"

A whisper. "No trousers in my bed." A smile nothing less than sultry. Oh, it was good having him so near. She resisted the urge to tear at him again. Only so she could have the thrill of watching him move about her room. A hand reached out to loosen the buckle he had only just done. "None of this."

"I should... have conditions for my room." Stepping up to her when her hand worked against his belt buckle. Both hands rested at her waist, walking her backwards towards the bed. The nudge of his toe guiding each backward step she took. True inspection of her room was meant to happen, but would apparently come in the morning.

"I suggest, a lack of pants. Always. No pants. In your room. Ever." Falling back, pulling him with her. Legs wrapped around him. A hand to his cheek. "Promise me. No pants." She laughed. "Otherwise, I will get..... what is the word.... petulant?." Quoting their in-joke. When, she said, it should be her epithet.

"I...ummm..." he laughed, he couldn't think of anything clever to stay. Verbal wit wasn't his strong suit and she surprised him with how playful she was. He absorbed it readily, thinking he could listen to her playful little musing all night. Madison's fingers had caught the edge of a lid and opened it. Inside that box was his smile and it belonged to her, now. The world outside her and Penny would know him as a more stoic man, but she would know him for having his smile, amongst other things.

The rumble in his chest, soft vibration of his laugh. "Petulant. Yes." His shirt she wore done away with again.

And kiss me with that country mouth so plain.
Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves
To me it sounds like they're applauding us,
The quiet love we've made
Ray Lamontagne

There is unfettered sun that spreads across the wall and the cupboard that sits before it, directly opposite to the bed. The door ajar, some clothes falling from their hangers, a trail of beloved destruction where her fingers had wildly sought something for him to admire. The light spreads further; it's on the floor, it's in the sheets that tangle with the clothes. A room given identity the more the day grows beyond the window and beneath the door. Rain is still falling, but it is mild. The fury had passed while their mouths and bodies met on that bed and time came to a standstill, and for once she within it - no lines of grey to move against, no tangled skeins of age and memory.

Just Madison - thirty years old and in his arms. His hand was extended for hers, so she might step down and into the present. A kiss to anchor her in this place, this hour, this room, his embrace. The light continues its crawl. It tells a man what it is to wake up in her bed, where she had slept in hiding for years and for a year, alone. To toss fitfully in dreams and nightmare. To wake staring at the window for the scrape of a branch and thinking it to be the engagement of a breech . A patch of light sits on her shoulder. She wakes hearing his breathing and the adjustment of his arm as it pulls her closer.

One eye first; peeking. A smile. The other opens and she shifts, her head tipping back to take him in. Well, well, well. It was real, and he was real, and he was here. Quietly she whispered a hello, body curling closer and a hand flat on his chest. Beneath her hand, she could feel and hear horses walking. Mornings crawling light sent itself through her mind, illuminating the night before. The mugs were still somewhere on the floor and that rug forever stained. His grin at her, the very first time she had seen him so disarmed, relaxed, and walking towards her down the hall. She did not move to cover herself but enjoyed instead his scent, and the warmth of his skin against hers.


Rain speckled the glass of the window and pattered the roof. It was percussive and peaceful. God, wasn't it good to wake up to that?

No work today. There was too much moisture in the air, and paint was still drying. Rain, rain everywhere. That old, permeating, minty-metal smell that made her think of a brand new coin and now, too, a first kiss. The story that he had shared that she read with her eyes shut. "I'd offer pancakes, but we both know that's a terrible idea." Madi moved nakedly onto her stomach and rested her chin on his shoulder. A nip of his ear lobe. Even as he was, sleepy and rested, there was the eloquent silence that always had her curious as to his thoughts. It had kept her hanging, heavy as the rain, always in wait and want for the answer that trembled eternally without a question to ask it; it made for that exasperated joy. As if at any moment, he might pull back a curtain and reveal some great mystery of the universe. As if he might present such a coin and perform a trick. Turned out, his trick was stealing her heart. It was only in that lazy morning light she saw it so.

His fingers were kissed. "True...", his sentiment touched her, and her smile told him so, sitting up, leaning into an arm as she pulled away the teeniest bit to be able to see him all. "But you're my guest now. I get to take care of you." She stared at him for a long time, that chin lifted as it did when the look came to her face that always said she was thinking of something for their horizon. And very far from the one she once chased.

Beyond the bed, the tangled reminder of passion.

Fingers raking sheets, clutching. His hand across her breast, but reaching beneath it, to take what was there. He had said her name, said it like it was not a name, but a way to describe his happiness. The look on his face, with closed eyes, and wanting. Clawing, reaching, raking, clutching. Holding on. His name lost to a bit-lipped whimper as she had reached to drag her nails down his neck. .

The completeness of that poker-feeling in the stomach - how it resolved into a warmth that trickled throughout her entirety. The pages open in her mind. There was no Lofton to fear, no breech to think was being loaded outside those walls. There was his story there, and the care for another to remove the worry over herself. And, then there was Penny. She smiled again, it was easy to do when the reasons to do so were growing by the day. "Penny, she's somethin' else." Knee brought up, she rested an arm on it, and turned back to him, over a shirtless shoulder. "Can't get over her, Tag. Can't get over how tall she is... "


Madi crawled from the bed, walking across the room to the spindly branches of a rack that held a few of her hats, a scarf, and a cornflower-blue silk dressing gown. Tying the belt she wandered to the window to look outside it. "Wonder how much longer it's plannin' on being wet for." Then she wandered back around, over the tossed sheets to sit beside him on the bed's edge, more assured now she had her modesty. There was nothing to hide, but there was still a poignant shyness that could roil within her. To be this way with him, still felt surprising. The newness. The way he looked at her. Between them, the door wide open and something that had not, would now pass between. It was a look that told her that she given him something more than perhaps she could intellectualise, but that which her gunsmoke heart knew. There was a motion to some thoughts that did not speech to quantify them. A stir of a knowledge that had no basis in rational thought but rather was instinctive, persistent, primal. Their conversations, and all the silences and glimpses, had always left her feeling full. And, as an extension of that and perhaps what had always been there, something that was undeniable - communicated in the sharing of the flesh. She was falling in love with someone she had loved in her own way for some time. There was no need for love to be articulated when the feeling was an ingredient of the air between them. The pull that brought them to this same road.

If Tag had never entered her life, she wondered who she may have been as a result. He had kept her grounded, through simply being the person he was. That came without a single word spoken. It was something to hold yourself to, as Charlie Renauldt had painted into Madison's world - even broken, lost, they had seen enough in her and not out of pity. The good in her had shined like a coin on a strip of road, an unexpected star glimmering on the street late at night. They had seen it, and polished it, simply by being. By accepting her, even when she was crooked. For years, Madison had thought the only shining needing to be given, was her gun.


The room around them was the largest single space in the house - besides the study, which opened out onto a smaller porch that fed off into the yard, which was really a field, with a fence line that went out past the few bent-over trees that lay off in the distance. To the right, sat a stout table with a pot of cream, beside a book, and a lantern. There was on his side of the bed, another stout table, and over it spread a piece of material - black, faded velvet, and woven into it some shimmering thread. On that, a cigar box still fragrant with what it had once held. The few items of jewellery she owned, within. "I can make scrambled eggs and toast?" She liked the idea of breakfast on the porch. There were old chairs folded up and stacked beside the house. She'd hadn't sat outside and had breakfast since she had first moved in. Fingers raked through black glass and she leaned over, not patient enough to wait - she laid claim to that mouth and the things only the kiss would tell.

His description of Penny made her eyes track towards the window and think briefly on the time that had passed as drops slid down the pane. She had stood from the bed with him, fiddling with the loose belt of the silk, pulling it tight, and rubbing her lips together. The feel of his still a presence on her own. Through the door to the hall and down it, a look cast over shoulder at him that bespoke that thrill she still felt at having him... shirtless and walking through her house. The ends of her hair taken across her chest and untangled, an echo of a morning that week. Nails through the sleep and the forest that his hands had worked through while skin told skin what only it could. She was content for her concealment to be silk and his examining gaze.

"I'll be quick... knowin' you have to be home soon." Passing the counter she pulled out one of the three high-back stools there for him. It scraped across the scarred wood. She gave him a look as she worked the stove and reached above her head to the cabinet. "Coffee... or tea? I've got juice in the icebox?" The fry pan was placed to the eye followed by a dash of oil. Eggs, parsley, mint and cheddar from the fridge followed by the juice if he so liked and a small jar of creamy milk. Two glasses and a chopping board. She laid it all out and then too a glanced measure of the day outside by way of the front window. The rain had eased more since awakening, coming down sparsely. "I'm thinking I might sell this place. Capital for the bar. This place served its purpose and was never meant to be home...."

Daybreak returned to sable and a brow arched over one eye. "It'd be nice to have more to work with. The loan still hasn't hit, won't for another few weeks, possibly a month. I dare say more."


Fingers curled around the handle of a large chopping blade, she spun it around and headed to the board. Took to the herbs in rapid succession, and then the cheese which she broke apart in her fingers. Eggs cracked over the pan, already spitting. "What do you think?" Heart looking out her eyes to his silence and his wait. An opinion weightier with her than most. "I could get an apartment in the market. Something really small but functional. Easy to get anywhere from. That's my thinking."


There was almost a sombre cast to Tag's face, almost a pain. If she had not known him, she may have thought him uncomfortable in her place even without his shirt and socks. But, she did know him, if not the source for the look that had passed behind his eyes. For now, the observation was a folded note in her thoughts. He would need to leave for home. The gate at the front with its chattering steel teeth swung open and shut with the baying of the breeze. The porch all but rocked on its slight incline in the land as the wind pushed against it. Spatula in hand, milk swished, she worked the pan with the spatula's end. "Tell me if I'm wrong?"

Turning the dial, to let the eggs simmer, Madison walked across the room to the lounge, as he aired his thoughts. Yes, it would be a few thousand for alcohol, and more, for restocking. West End, and Charlie?s patrons particularly, had been a vast, wide, thirsty cross-section, and in the back of her mind she didn?t think a few thousand would last long, but reckoning with herself, she thought that may have been over-confidence ? it was her running it, not Charlie, after all. Who he was had been key.

Madison mulled over his words, as she bent over to collect the tumbled mugs. The coffee table still askew, telling of the night before, much the same way sheets and tangled clothes did the floor of her room. The ghost of a grin as she returned to the sink, the mugs rinsed out within and soaped up. The kettle pulled over and filled. There was a pause as wide as the expanse of land outside.

He was speaking again and the words just weren?t making sense. She was expecting more suggestions on how to handle the sale of the house, and any other considerations she had not yet made. The kettle to the stove and she leaned back, side-on and looking down at the floor; the tidal wave was bearing down on her. Surprise on her face as he answered the doubt in her voice, but in a way unexpected. A sound escaped her, a catch of breath. Chin lifted, a smile. Could he feel its spark?

Blue eyes fixed on the side of his shoulder, where ink and scar hinted around the curvature that sloped towards collarbone and throat. Eyes drew along there, pausing at his chin. The surge through her was unbearable; absently she thought it a wonderful agony. But it froze her in place.

The coin was arcing in the air.

It was as those nights when she hadn?t been able to look at him and the fathomless dark that always pierced straight through. So charged all the pauses between them. It was a feeling, that feeling of home. Even back then. Home was the wave that crashes and you?re underneath - all you can hear is the roar of the tide. You surface, and you can hardly breathe, but you are so very alive. Air returns to you and you gasp it greedily. Lungs stretched. Her breaths she could feel had deepened, just like that. Winded by the ferocity of the current. Winded by words and the recognition of all they carried.

Hand a bunched fist around the tie of her robe. Madison met Tag?s eyes. The suggestion seemed like the most natural choice to make in the world ? there was no decision, no options to weigh, to scale to place them before to see how the odds might lie. Life tosses you a coin for a second time, and you cup it with both hands to your chest.

?Well, what does it say??

The house around them, for all its strengths, had only been just that ? walls, floors and doors, to hide from the wolves. A buffer from the whining gales. It was all she had thought she needed. There had always been, she felt, a detachment between herself and it ? an emptiness. Like a western set-piece. No great lengths made to make it her own, bar a few decorative pieces and a cosiness, and the way it wore her scent, but that only came with the person there, the way the soul impresses itself in the textures around it. Barren, like the land outside, even if the air whispered its old, faded songs, and kept her feeling a likeness to the place she came from. Cadentia - It was far away, it was too-big, too strange, too?alone. It had become fascination and amusement, even the etched steel that hung from the gate ? Redemption. Hadn?t that line been walked though, hadn't she already walked through the fire? Her grey-winged bird was her home, her salvation. He still bore the smoke on his skin, and yet he wanted her to share his bed and his heart, and now, his home. And his Penny; she was Luck.


?Come home?.? A tilt of the head, she took the two steps to the counter and reached across it, her hand running down his forearm. To curl around his hand. A squeeze. Her eyes shining with light and emotion. Madison nodded, and started laughing, still surprised, but her voice, her face, vibrantly happy. She didn?t bother to walk around the counter; she crawled over it, slid down into his lap and took his face in both hands, stared hard at him, as if to be sure of his certainty, the dark of his eyes. Then, Madi kisses him her answer - it tasted of yes, of every conversation on every long walk home, of every morning waking up beside one another, every smile latent and waiting for Penny and he to own.

Their lovemaking was furious. It was the culmination of not only the wanting the other person and the being closer, close as possible, closest, but the closure of the past and the open book of the future. It was the storm, it was the crumbling tower, it was the curling wave moving fast, and it was the clamour of white against cliff-side on grey day and the breakers that came in to shore at night in summer, lapping at the edges of the world. It was every disappointment they had faced in their lives and all the pain that had come from these.. and their evaporation. The way light could either burn or illuminate. It was every bated breath, every unsaid thought, every question and every answer that had been poised between them. It was every night they had watched one another from across the counter at the Red Dragon Inn. It was every quiet face of every shining coin and all the gamble had meant; take your chance, I am here. Will you come? I will come. And there was not one iota of reluctance from her. Nothing that said wait. He advanced and so did she.

Embraced on the countertop and still she wanted more. She wanted him everywhere. Every time they made new ground, broached new markers in the earth, walked the road that rose towards them like trust, there was a little further to push, to know, to venture. The physical representation of that was the very same. Needful, consuming. Her throat arched, eyes on the ceiling, crying out in the eye of that intense, clenching pleasure, it dawned on her that it was this that had been behind every silence, every wait, every still moment. The potential for the passionate. Had it been something she had sensed, or seen hints of, as he worked hard, day in and day out, on the bar? When he had chased her clear of danger in the fumes? When he had looked at her over the pancakes that morning, how the glance had seemed to speak of something more than the concentration breakfast called for. And now, that potential had broken its bonds and was free to roam wild, and she taken along with it. So it was the West, ad all its connotations and commotions had been eschewed, and her wildness had found a new place to go...with him.



The result, something to leave them shaken. Robe half undone and hair somewhere behind her down the other side of the bench, and only breathing his laboured breaths, chest to chest and both holding on for dear life, as sweat cooled and thoughts slowed. Fingers hot like coals stroked through his hair, his head on her chest, the stool he had sat upon balanced precariously by the reach of her foot pressing down. Finally, she exhaled. Toes wiggled free and with a thump the chair fell forward again. She didn't want to move an inch more. To be disconnected. His heart hammered against hers, her against his. They were war drums. Victory. Triumph. Elation. Love.

Now.


The word resounded in her mind. Now was all, and all that mattered. Not yesterday, not five years ago, not the last ten months and those sixteen-hundred miles. Now. When at last they untangled, it was with both their gazes locked and a mutual, psychic sensation that nothing would be as it was before. But the tide was pulling away and out from their feet. The day was pressing on and Penny was leaving Amber's.

Her hand sat against the surface of the old, thick door after he left. She listened to the heartbeat of his footsteps across the porch and into the yard. The sound that told her the gate was opening and closing. The more distant sound of those heartbeats receding down the road. She didn't look out the window to watch, she frankly couldn't. Forehead fell gently against the wood as her hand dropped away and she contained herself. The odd-weight he loaned to her feet shuffled from as she turned. Knowing, as she faced the room, the kitchen would seem sad and empty and that an appetite had left her, despite the vigour of their union. With him gone, all the darkness, the largeness, the sparseness of Redemption seemed to have returned to it when Tag's presence had kept it at bay; what he saw of the darkness was no encroaching nor unwelcoming, but stately, intriguing. But to her, in that moment, it the lack of Tag in her house made everything appear further away and her isolation all the more magnified. In response, her chest tightened. But the crooked coffee table and the counter and what she could see of sheets on the floor down the hall, brought the smile back.


Madison took time to strip her bed of its sheets (the ones that remained on the bed, as opposed to all over the wooden floor) her clothes, the robe that had been sullied, and threw them all into the laundry basket. Then, she showered. Her body felt strange to her - it made her think of the way she had felt the morning after her first sexual experience. How she felt that her skin no longer belonged to her, but was now part of the world, or some other understanding of it. How her breasts, her thighs, her hips all seemed so much fuller, rounded, more whole. It was a sense of being connected to somewhere else, something larger, a conversation..that her body spoke another language and that she should always listen to that. For the five years that twisted around them, there had been no time she could think of when he had given her reason to doubt him or his intentions. Opening up for him like a flower in her robe, even in the fury of sex he was somehow watchful, protective. It was why she felt sometimes smaller with him - something they both observed since their reconnection. To her, it was an acknowledgement that some part of her, even after all the years not feeling it necessary - half truth, half hubris - needed to be protected. Some vital, secret part of her - her heart, and the feeling it carried, as anyone carried - their own love-feeling, their own unique gift. And with Tag, she believed he would unwrap it, taking his time with all the barbs, scars, locks, ribbon, and not be put off by it, nor rash. Her skin told her so - even the subtle marks that bespoke the way his need had been a thing to take him over.


Dressed, hair combed, boots on not long later, she made herself eat some of the scrambled eggs, as a hungry stomach stirred, and after washing up and setting the pans, plate and cutlery to dry, she put on her aviators to steal away the glare of the desert sun, and headed for the door. She paused to look back inside the house before she shut it. A lengthy look at the counter. A hitch in her breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, she grinned, and locked up. Her first stop, the cemetery.




The walk was long, and it gave her time to think about all that needed to be done. For the bar - from renewing the license, sourcing a new supplier seeing as the rates for those she had enquired of her were excessive, what other maintenance was required, and Penny. Her name arced and somersaulted in her thoughts. Penny, with her cinnamon freckles and wide, unhindered smile. All arm and leg and willing hugs. It too caught the air as she exhaled, and knotted her stomach. She didn't want to invade the girl's life as she knew it - to suddenly be everywhere, everyday. There had to a progression to this, if Penny was going to accept her and accept the growing love she had for her Father. It was going to take time. Time wasn't a matter - she could wait, she would wait. She had the bar to attend to, the sale of the house, and trusted Tag's judgement, and the way he would rest the words down gently, so the girl would not feel discomforted or unsure of her place. Madi could live anywhere with anyone if she had to; none of it had to do with her own feelings and concerns. It was Penny, and how she might feel about another woman in the house, and one that would share in Tag's attention. It quickened the wings of the tiny birds that lived in her wrists and at the side of her throat. It was anticipation, excitement, nervousness and suspense. Was she ready? There was no question. If her experiences had honed any element into her character, it was being adaptable to any environment around her. The patterns, the functions. And she was not afraid to work for what she loved. That, foremost. Time would go by regardless.


When she reached the plot, the one that announced Charlie's name, even though his ashes now danced with all four winds, wherever they may go, she sat down amongst the grass and weeds and placed the old leather satchel beside her. She folded her legs and clasped her hands and looked at his picture on the stone. He was smiling, wearing his favourite vest. Glasses hanging around his neck. She could feel the skin beneath her eyes twitching. But she wouldn't cry. There was too much happiness in her world, too much to concern herself with that was beyond all the missing she may have had for him. This, however, was a time to visit him, just as if he had been alive. To tell him about her plans, about the house, about Penny and Tag. If Madison closed her eyes (and she did) she could only hear his wheezing laugh. She could imagine that his arms were around her. "Good on you, Kit. Spent that change in your pocket well." She thought that when you finally forgot the sound of someone's voice, that was what the term death meant. It seemed the most final. The book closed, for good. As long as she could make it out in a memory, he was around.


She grinned and opened her eyes. She felt that he was here, that he never really went away. "Told you I would, Charlie. Just was waitin' on a second chance. You'd like him." Him. It was a hum on her lips, a feeling of home. He was home. He was home. "I don't think you got to meet him before...", she plucked at a long strip of glass, wrapped it around a finger. "He was like you.... he carried me out of the fire. I didn't know it then, and I don't know if he did. But... I always... I always loved him, Charlie. Different than now.. it's just different, it's like.. I just didn't know it, or know that it was.... like..." A breeze blew. The trees sussurated. This, they said. Thisssss.



"He asked me to move in. I'm so excited, it hurts. I wonder if you ever felt like that about someone?" She could feel the sting in her eyes. "Ah.. damnit. It hurts, but it's good, you know? When it feels like you're feeling again. Like you .. like you should be feeling. And he has a little girl, well, she's twelve now. She's so tall. God, she'd love the stories you would tell her. I'm going to buy her books, I'm going to buy him books. It's gonna be a good home Charlie... it's gonna be good." It already was. Her addition would, she hoped, only fan the good and never stoke it.


A hand went to her mouth and she gasped, breaking down into sobs. What she wouldn't give to have him here to see what joy she had found and to share it with him. How Charlie would warm and light up their lives too. She let the tears come, for once. No bravado to laugh it away. "I wish you could see them." A tear ran down the bridge of her nose and fell in the dirt. Fingers rubbed at her eyes. "I wish you could see me happy. I wish you still were here, so I could take care of you too... The way you took care of me. I don't even know where I would be without you. Without you watching me." Eyes squeezed shut. The wind spoke to her. It reassured. Being there, in that spot, where his memorial sat in the earth, spoke to her. "I love you, Charlie." In the rising morning she sat there with Charlie's photo and the breeze. She thought on the days to come and there was no grim feeling that lurked her bones. There seemed a healthy confidence in things working out. It helped when you had been loved and believed in by people who were sincere with where they put their affection, and when you didn't have to hide from the past in the shadow of every day.

__________________________________________________ ______


A week later, Tuesday night, their night, Penny safe in bed and Marjorie, one of the neighbours, watching over her, Tag and Madison reconvened over their shared drink (just one) and she introduced him to Toby St.Germain and Aja, both of whom had been brainstorming business ideas with her prior to his arrival.


They drank, and drank one another in, and resumed their walk home, wrapped up, four boots in unison all the way to his. When his house came into view, set back on that small hill, with its recogniseable swing and lack of rail - quiet but open, it brought a smile to her face. They hadn't broke apart but walked against one another from the Inn. Four old boots in unison. "I can't think of a nicer piece of earth to wake up on", indicating the future that sat just ahead. Her smile was all the strength she had borrowed since traveling sixteen hundred miles and finding a scratch of peace to call her own. And then there was he, and all that had come from finding one another on a West End street. "I know... it's got to go slow. But I can't even tell you, how excited my heart gets when I think about it." Her voice was quiet, but the meaning in it was something that held all the sureness a heart could muster. Wild horses had been galloping behind her ribs since he had looked at her and asked... that she come home.

"The land is good." There was the front light on, of course. Marjorie would be inside, perhaps knitting or reading. Those were her two night time hobbies. When her hands bothered her she would put the needles away and read the large print books she got at the store. Madison's excited talk of moving in caught him like an unexpected jab. The teasing he could handle, but this, not so much. At the bottom step of the porch he turned her with the press of his hand to the hip opposite of him, circling her in close to him for a kiss. He wanted nothing more than for her to already be there.

Her eyes widened as he paused and brought her near. A moment of fright as if he were to slow her down and say that the mind had changed. His lips melted all of that away. Her hand around the back of his neck. She deepened it, and enquired with her kiss as to the long sweat of his day and the little details she had missed on the porch. Absorbing them all to her. Leaning, a knee bent against his.

When their lips broke he touched the side of her face. There was something he had wanted to say to her, something that he did not seem to know how to word until that moment. Then the letters came together and he could manage it. His voice sounded desperate and relieved, "I missed you." Fingertips slipped through her dark locks and then he turned his upper body, looking at the light hinted through the windows and the frosted glass at the top of the door.

It struck her, how deep it could go. That if she extended some feeling, some idea, he was already there waiting. Her heart shone out of her eyes. Sometimes it was like too much and she would become too-still, and wait for the crest of the emotion to pass before she could make herself move again. There was that to her, at his words. Hand slipped into his and looking up to the light. To come home.... and she already had, time and again. But his invitation make it somehow more true. "I missed you..." she repeated back. There had been days and days of no word from either, and now there was no day she could envision that did not have Tag in it.

Foreheads kissed, then lips joined in a more sedate manner. He turned from her, hand sewn into her's. His hand touched the door knob, drifted up to knock. 1.2.3. Then it opened.

The introduction had been a whirlwind. Madison beamed at the woman with a whispered hello, and met her eyes with a warm look, for the beat of time that she had grabbed her bare arm. She watched Tag with silent laughter as he tried to find the way to tell Marjorie what the woman already knew. She had flailed earlier in the night when Toby had asked her who her fellow was. Boyfriend sounded so teenager, lover sounded too casual, and how did one measly word capture all the feeling for and of the man she loved? Companion was the only word that resonated in her chest, if not Home itself, when she thought of him. They were more than two people who slept together. It was more than friendship. There were the experiences they had shared that made her think of them as two warriors, and then there was what they would share, like the house around them and the raising of the sweet girl who slept in a room down the hall. It was all that broadened the scope of what they felt one another to be, and what they represented.

Door locked, Marjorie gone, she stepped back and slipped out of her boots, placing them by the door, socks followed, wrapped into a ball and stuffed down the inside of one. The leather satchel, with a change of underwear, toothbrush, shorts and a tee dumped beside. She didn't want to wake the sleeping girl with her steps. Eyes followed him to the kitchen. His clean, sharp silhouette with a glass of water that never spilled. Her head tilted to the side, braid in a back-swing. "She seems great... but lovely?" The rope of her hair barely held together by a leather cord at the very end. She tossed it back over her shoulder and moved slowly, quietly, for the kitchen. "Don't think anyone has called me that in years." If it had been day, the laugh would have been freed, but the soft and dim kept it tucked in her throat where it burned and eventually was swallowed away. The amusement shadowed only the sides of her mouth and eyes. She helped herself to a glass and waited for him to step aside so she would fill her own glass. It was a display of her being comfortable there. There was the needle and the string she passed back to him in the silence - for those seams unsure and frayed on his shoulders, for the weight they carried when he thought that her feelings might know another direction. His features barely illuminated by the sink and she watched them, as she had when he leaned on the railing - black shirt, eyes and hair. The dark man. The sentiment loaned to her a different weight - the tension of desire, of affection, of wanting to say and do a thousand things not possible to squeeze into a kitchen or a night. All the history and the future to know. She took her glass with her untouched, not for the game, but for the distance, because there had to be some self-control to tie herself to. The chair.


The chair she had sat it that morning over pancakes. She sank down into it, and after what seemed days, she responded. "Water's fine." A look to him, a glance. A hand flat on the table. She was still. The storm rolling through her head, her arms, her legs. She kept thinking about how she had felt in the shower, thinking of the skin and the ancient dialect it spoke, and how even the hairs on her body stood at attention in his nearness. He may have bothered over the thoughts in his head, but hers were just as sprawling. Any surface her eyes touched was something she wanted to be held against. She would blink the thoughts away, only for them to return. It all went back to that early hour on the grass and the kanji floating up the few stairs. Was that how the door had cracked open? How the feelings had finally gotten in?


"It's good to be here...", she went on. Knees bent, heels to each chair leg beneath her. How had they managed this all once upon a time? The pauses. The pause like this. But further to it, she did feel good to be here. Seated in the kitchen, with walls that weren't dark and edging on foreboding; walls she knew well and the yellow crayon that a younger Penny had decorated one with. The lay out. The tranquility. These were things Redemption was not sewn with. It felt like living in a fortress. It was the way this house felt around her that was a boon and the promise of the field that surrounded it. The house was an extension and embodiment of what was always there and what could be.

There was a sound as her hand wrapped around the glass and she brought it to her mouth and sipped. She didn't want to eat, she didn't want to drink, and she didn't want to sleep. She was afraid she might radiate as much. Toe pressed into the floor. That tie to the moment, the table, the chair. "Tomorrow.... we need to start work on the upstairs. The office. I'm going to look into a new, more secure safe." Yeah. Go with that, work. Work was a distraction. Another pause, and she looked over to Tag. "Penny will be a big help, if she does want to do it. Otherwise I can get out some old books for her to read. Set her up with a corner. Or maybe she'd prefer to bring her own paints, show us her skillzz" playfully, with a smile. But ah.. that tide was rolling back in. Yearning and roiling. Filling up past her waist. Edge of the glass to her bottom lip.

Will you take my hand and make a shadow?
Meg Myers


"Searing."

It was a burn to hear it. To be a woman on the other side of so many flames and mirrors... and yet, still standing. And salvageable. And desirable. Especially, when it was an appraisal by the one man you respected and held above all others.

There was a time where she believed, with every piece of herself picked up off the ground, that she would be damned to it.. to the blood, to the road, to the warehouses of the world and all their rust and decay and melancholy. To be crouched on fire escapes with a sunset eye, and with friends, sure, the circles of them that sat in bars all over canton and city, but without a knowing. Her hands had always been cold. There was smoke and broken glass. Her breaths were cinders. But a woman like her couldn't put heat into a man's heart. Her hips were made for the heft of metal, or hands while passion was spent... but love? For pockets of time, but the hungry dust and discovery had always won out over a woman who was remote. How could anyone love the echoing solitude of a woman who had spent more of her life alone, on the road, in the dust, somewhere between memory and myth, chaos and iron, in desolate streets where her silhouette flickered in and out of shadow and street light like she wasn't really there at all. More phantom than flesh.


Yet.

And, it had always been. Like strays, they had found one another. Walked their way to separate homes and always a mind on the other. They discussed their feelings in flecks of paint, in abstract sentences that crumbled on their mouths; speaking about the ocean, the horses and the way that some things could only be told, or known of, without speaking, but the way it felt, the air, the intention. It was not so much that the door between them had opened, and awakened the sexual, passionate side of their friendship - it was the recognition that the door had always been there. And that the moment her dirty sneakers had crossed his porch, his shirts folded and fallen apart at the joins, she was home.



Madison could only breathe in deep as he enfolded her and kissed his secrets up the column of her neck. In and out. His room? She had glimpsed it once, and not in these days. In the hall, the night he had shown her a picture of his mother. She had seen only the side of his bed, the table with the book on it she had given him. The diary. She dared never think she might fill its pages, or those of his bed. Turn of a shoulder to be against him. He was the most immediate thing in the world. Every part of his face, his eyes, his nature, called for attention. She was ravenous, looking him over. She could hear his breaths and they told her he was excited, and he was nervous, too. Arms slipped around his shoulders, hung there, like it was the end of a dance. Hip to his, nudging. Backwards he went, and her on tippy-toes in pursuit. Night-time shimmered in through the lounge and illustrated the line of the hall and the edge of the bedroom door. The air was cool and smelled of the raw grass outside. His shoulder eased it back, there was suppressed laughter, and stumbling, and clumsy reaching. Nails in his hair. Teeth took to the side of his throat. The smell of him... it was right there. The comfort of wet earth underpinned by the scent of a man who worked, sweat, laboured for her. She was too drawn in, too compelled to take in the shadows of the shapes that were his room. Most of her felt it knew the way the room would feel and look, but it was here that was his most private of places and of which she had never been given access in the past. The chapters just had never flicked that way... but now, it would be a corner fondly dog-eared and tattered with adoring. Hands worked the black of his shirt away. When he was left with only his underwear, black glass spiked and untidy from her prowl, she lifted a hand to halt the hands that rested on her waist. She pinned him with her eyes.

Fingers hitched beneath denim and Madison bent down slowly to half-way - leg at a time curved free of the white thong, and when it was like a piece of ribbon in her hand, she stretched up to her height. A hand to one of his at her waist, and a grip, guiding it down beneath skirt to the wetness of her. Without question, or complaint, he was giving her a future with the bar, with home. Here, in her own way, she could give him her appreciation. That he was wanted, and loved, craved, and inexorably desired by her. Past all the haunted places - the warehouses, the Ollie's bars, the roads that wound around in circles, like unmet thoughts, to his room and the conversations they could have at long last. All that had been her was with him, and there it would stay. The musk of all that was yet to be written steamed off of her skin. Orbited in the black space of his eyes. His jaw flexed and his face had grown serious...Madison guided him deeper. His touch and the things it told her were incendiary. Her smile was a breath that shook. What did her body tell him? Did he feel how much he had been missed? Was it possible that he would read that in her response?

A floor exploded and fell somewhere in time. A window shining orange with the reflection cracked and blew.

Here, there was no ruin and rubble, and the fire was that which did not consume and destroy. It fused and it ignited another kind. For one to sear, one needed a flame. He was the sudden bright and the impossible fire.

Her eyes did not leave his own the entire time.

Chilled fingers at his sleeve. They tugged with I remember. The house unfolded before her but the door was closed. It was the first time she could recall seeing the scars on his arms, and she wondered if her arms would be the same if she continued working rough - outside, with the animals. She had locked eyes with the crow. It watched the yard, regal and observant. Then, she handed Tag a coin with a fleur de lis. If he had not been there it would have been left as a sort of note.. that she had been, and no one else with his clothes. With her went frayed seams and no goodnight.


The bar... she had felt out of place already. Hair ragged and her jacket that bit too big. Chill fingers hidden in pockets. Old sneakers across the boards. Jane, Kyrie, Arts and then... Tag? The woman beside him. The way her heart had jerked severely in her chest. She'd hidden in her hair, pretended he hadn't been seen. It was a busy night, it was possible. It was the first time of any sign of... what was her name... Black and white. That was all she saw at the edge of her eyes. And.... his eyes. They were on her. He had seen. But she pretended still, hanging her head forward and staring at her feet as they trudged towards the other side of the bar. She was between the priestess and the other lost girl, the one with the glasses from somewhere called Portland.

"Madi", her name like a beat against wood. A shot. A shiver down her spine. Her heart lurched. Side-on stare across the bar.

"I'd like you to meet someone." She was a held breath of a girl. Feelings criss-crossed over and over again. Confused. Uncomfortable. Weird. Jealous. Happy. And she was... happy to see the one meant to be his wife. But Madi hardly saw her. Black and white, a handshake, and somewhere in the middle of it all, she'd stepped out of his focus, and that of the gypsy.. the little shadow drifted into conversation. Absent. Responsive but not vital. The world was static. Flick of a look for the door, and trying to hang onto the sides of a conversation she couldn't keep up with. The Dark Man looked at her, catching one of her looks. He had a question in the raise of his brow. She had ignored it. And when her chest couldn't take the weight, in the turn of Kyrie's shoulder, she'd ducked and run. The cold air tasted hungrily. She ran. Back to a warehouse door, shoulders slid down it until the waif was on her bottom, knees pulled to her chest. Eyes darted all over the skeletal steel of the structure. Her breaths rapid. Why? Breathe, Madi..



Breathe.


Lofton was dead around them. No stores opened, no sun, no cloud. Slate grey above and around. The colour of smoke, of bitter. Even the buildings had seemed faded, fading. Michael had been obdurate. He was in deep. The lie believed. Madison looked at Tag across the distance of the horses they each sat upon. He nodded after a long time, looked down, fraught, and lifted the reigns..continued on. He would go ahead of her, leave earlier. He had his own penance to pay, his own hell to stoke. She watched his silhouette meld into the grey. It hadn't felt right. But she did what she always did. She sucked in the air and she too continued on.



A trail of pecans, leading her to a man in sleep beneath a tree. Her hand had traced his features, swept through his hair. He looked like a sleeping child. A pecan stole from the pocket of his shirt. On her heels, she had watched him for ages. She'd never before seen him without his attentiveness, his preserved stillness. Her smile was a patch of sunlight in the shadows of branches. His breathing slow. A man who looked the epitome of peaceful.



The rush of heat through her face and neck as he covered her mouth. Muffled the cry that wound up through her throat uncontrolled. Back arching against the door, only just - wedged as she was between the stern surface and him. She could hardly move against the deliberate lean and pressure of his body. Every whimper and curse trapped in the cusp of his hand. Hips moved with his, taking as much of him as the angle could allow. Through her nose she breathed rapidly. Hands weak around his shoulders. She'd let go. Let go the Madison who needed to guide, to lead. She'd let go. Let the dark man take her where he would. Head buried to his shoulder as he withdrew and his hand fell away. She sucked air and tasted the night. She could taste herself on her own lips. She could smell them, taste them and he was the fixation of a break in time. There was nothing but him as she regained herself and they fell into one another. For the bed. Breaths still uneven until they steadied. Breaths a rhythm to dream to.



When she awoke, the house felt uneven around her. All was blue-lit and early hour. It made her feel like she was in the cabin of a boat. The waves of sheets around her crashed and empty... the other survivor gone. Or perished in the tumble of blankets. Pulling them aside, she blinked away the dark, eyes adjusted, and she realised his warmth and presence was only a thought... he wasn't in the room at all. The hairs on her arms weren't on end. Dress pulled on. When she reached the door, and looked past the window, her heart jerked in her chest. Hand to the glass and fingers curled. A step back, she looked the sage-green walls over. For some sense of the history that persisted with him. The flashes of lightning that woke him from sleep. Three am and its deceptive colours and shapes told her what it was to wake up in the bed of a man who still hadn't left his war. Madison didn't step past the door this time. She walked to the kettle and checked it for water and turned it on. Hands to a chair and pulling it out. You couldn't out run anything forever. It was about the only advice she had for him. Anything else would be affection, and while kind, not constructive. She stood at attention until the kettle called out and she could fill two mugs. Steam rose and shifted around her. Ghosts. It made her think of ghosts, and how it was not only a house that could be haunted. To the wall of the kitchen, mug in hand for him, eyes looked past a coax of sleep and sex wild hair. He was still out there.

She inhaled deeply.


People could be haunted. Could carry demons. She pondered it as the steam evaporated, and then thought it a shame that such ghosts didn't disintegrate as quickly. Closing her eyes she listened. If she tried hard enough she could still hear the crying bells of a dead tower. What was it he heard when he closed his eyes and listened? Her tower had crumbled. His had stood the test of time.

If he asked her, Madison would tell him to breathe. Just breathe. Let it fall.

Color drained from the kitchen. The world was black and white and there were no greys to walk long. The flickering show played on inside the house, as the man stepped through the door to find his daughter and his girlfriend face to face; one with a question on her lips and the other a smile that tried to assure, in the still-sterile lighting and shadows. Madison's face turned up to Tag as he entered the kitchen, watched its chiaroscuro mask and all held behind; the tower superimposed in a fade-out from his eyes.. she watched as the the traces of his smoke slithered in behind him like weak after-thoughts. Penny's eyes were still trained on Madison, and Madison met them again, drawing back the chair she had been holding onto before, so the girl could sit. She stepped around and slid into the one that seemed to have become her own. Earlier it had been a prop in a skin-tingling romance, and now it was a perch in a throat-drying drama. Penny's eyes were still on her as she settled and brought her ankles together loosely.

"It's a good thing he's had you to watch over him and worry when he looks troubled or sad. He's lucky he has you, you know. He thinks so, and I do too."

Hands went out to close tenderly about the thin, delicate hands of the child, and bring them to her lap as she leaned in. "Your daddy watches over you too, and sometimes, he watches over me. When I'm troubled, or sad." She watched Penny's face for a response, some idea of where the girl's mind was at. Hands squeezed gently. "I'm here, to watch over you both. When one of you isn't here, I will be. I'm here for you, and I'm here for your daddy." That lonesome gardener, the distinct figure prominent in her mind with the hard quiet of his eyes; that silent man in silent tones, who could hold the night close and make the stars lean in. And the girl in the field, who climbed trees, smiled brilliantly.. a smile that was summer to snow-heaped hearts. The one with the trail of color, forever at her spritely heels..and a fabulous vibrancy that lifted the veil of gloom from the back rooms of their haunted minds.


Her hands were still warm from the mug she had held out for Tag to accept as he passed into the kitchen, as the pads of her fingers soothed in strokes across the girl's knuckles. It was reassuring, something to brook the time that had gone on between them, that the child know Madison was not come in from the wind and looking only for a warm corner of the world, and to now allow it be shared. Would the world merge or explode? Maybe there had to be one to reach the other, or maybe it would be neither, until time had tested the strength of the seams. How well they had been stitched. Madison tried to come at the subject as a friend - not as mother, or a rival. She was a friend for them both, in various ways, just as the relationship between daughter and father was unique to that which they shared. "It's real sweet of you to be thinkin' of me and offer to sleep in your room, Penny. But your father and I... we... we .." The words were stuck in her throat. How did she get them out.


"Your daddy and I love each other. We love you, and we want us all to be together here. And he and I.... we're going to sleep in the same bed. Because the couch is a bit uncomfortable, to be honest..." she cracked a grin, something to lighten the moment, "That room is all yours... so I'm goin' to share with him..even if he does have those gross boy germs goin' on", eyes were a glide to his, a smile that hung in the air like a falling leaf. "Think of us like. a.. a triangle. You, daddy, me. We all make up a shape, and we're all here because we love each other."

"You can have a think... and say anythin' you want to say, and we'll listen. Anythin' at all'." She drew back, a final gentle squeeze to Penny's hands, and the palms of her own slid onto the table, and closed around the heat of the mug waiting for her. She gave Tag another glance, for his input, to see what he found in her words and his daughter's reaching silence. She was with-holding a sigh... there were so many feelings inside. There was hope, concern, the pull of sleep at the strange hour, and the way the body still felt deliciously worn by Tag's affection earlier in the night. She lifted the mug to her mouth and waited. All she had was time, to show the girl she was loved and that Madison would work for them both. Penny's eyes could be penetrating; as bald as the looks across one of the many saloon or bar tables she'd frequented over the years, revolved around gamble or bet, or a testy moment between her and one of the many men that had held a gun to her. There was no aggression in the little girl, but a plain, powerful and true love for her father, who had saved her from a fire, who had been her only other person to love. A child's love was fierce - an orphan's was ferocious. Marjorie had been a different kind of love, because she didn't see her every day. But Tag was everything, he was everyday. He was her world and her axis, the point from which she related to others and life, and knew what it meant to give love and to receive. How to appreciate the world and read between the lines. And now, a distant memory from years ago was like an apparition in the kitchen, an apparition who was becoming more real and more present in her young life. Her world had grown to harbour another influence.

"I'd do anythin' for you. I want you to know it. I hope you'll let me prove it to you." Madison did not want to be in a chair in a saloon or bar over a bet or a dead body. Her instinct, her truth, was that she wanted to be exactly where she was - on that chair, at that table, with them. This was what she wanted to keep safe. This was why a gun slept in a bottom drawer in Redemption. When she had returned it was with no direction in mind other than Charlie's, and a trust that the road would weave as it always had and lead her where it meant now that her heart was in its right place. With purpose she sat on that chair. It was the first instance in a decade where she felt the conviction of where she was and that it was where she wanted to remain.

With knuckles pressed against a small, tight smile, Madison watched the two in rapt silence. The angle shifted when he spoke, shedding light on another corner of the shape they were becoming. Saying what she had seemed only natural, a matter of fact and not something that needed waiting for. When Penny had asked, Madison had gone with it, giving the child the dignity of an answer because she deserved it and that when she returned to her bed it might settle with her in sleep. There was, however, a nagging concern that maybe she had said too much. It was really a conversation for Tag to lead, as he had begun in recent days, and Madi felt that perhaps she had seemed a stone in the road.

She remained curled forward against the table and tea in that pose as Penny lazily got to her feet and gave them both a sleepy smile. ?I?m goin? back to bed. Night.? The dove-grey eyes looked between them, she embraced her father tightly, and then stepped towards Madi, and gave her a hug - quick, but it said that perhaps the beginning of that acceptance was being felt. She twirled the shiny end of her ponytail around her pinky finger and yawned again emphatically, wandering away to her room.

Madi leant back from the hug to watch the girl walk away. There was a wonder on her face, almost a look of faraway. Gaze shifted to him, the clouds of thought passing. "Day at a time." Softly.


Her other hand found the handle and brought it to her for a sip. The hand at her mouth had opened and fallen into her lap beneath the table, where fingers toyed with the hem of the denim dress, crumpled still from hours ago. She smoothed over the fabric as she thought over all that had to be done and the momentum that all these changes brought to both their lives. The smoke was finally starting to fade in her mind upon those desperate plains that were akin to a thought behind a mad man?s eye. She had started to think that this was what it had felt like to put down roots once before. How she enjoyed the feeling of a house to love and the beginning of a family within it. How the most mundane acts, whether it was laundry or sweeping, tidying or cooking, had been something to raise her up and keep her boots on the ground all at once. It was the buzz of activity on a weekend morning, setting about for the day and it being connected to the maternal side of her nature that gave her a legitimate thrill. But that feeling had been attenuated with Eli?s disappearing and the many, many years between that life and her life in Cadentia.

Eventually she had come to believe that she it was not to be part of her journey, and what remained of her feeling for it was a dull ache that she never let touch her thoughts. The ache was now becoming something else. The idea of opening the front door on their faces waiting for her, bringing home dinner, she could see it, it played out in her head. Madison had left one white house on a hill to find herself setting foot in another, but without the circumstances around it that had led to the old dream dying before its time. The symmetry made a breath work past her lips that was quick and shaky. She would fight for this. Tooth and nail.

Across the table, her hand fluttered up from her dress to reach out for his, flat on the table still. The look in her eyes told her she was touched, appreciating and optimistic. Her thumb worked back and forth across the skin.

?I?m just crazy about you.?

They hadn?t said it to one another face to face but they spoke it every day with every look, every squeeze of the hand. That reassurance was a sign of that love. But saying it, out loud, here, had felt different, significant. To say it in the context of family, in the presence of Penny. ?And I?m ? feelin? pretty damn happy that you?ll let me love your girl. Let her have a chance to love me too.?

Her real smile broke like sunshine and broadened across her face. ?Now, about those carrots?.?? Lift of a brow and she laced their fingers. ?Or shall we talk about it later?? The table was between them to put it all out on. But it was 3 25am and sleep was still pulling at the corners of the eyes, tugging at the heels and the knees and the elbows. ?I think, whatever you?re wonderin? about what may have been, like you were tellin? me that morning, is gone, Tag. No amount of rumination can change that.? She hoisted up and moved into Penny?s seat with her gone and in bed, and curled a leg beneath herself, leaning over. ?Gonna get yourself a sore chest carryin? all that pain on it. The scars are more than enough.? Her free hand joined her other in hold of his, nails sliding along the frayed, red ribbon at his wrist, pulling at it gently, in the same unconscious and familiar way Penny had done on the porch.

Tag could do that. Become the still point of the turning world and draw a person in. The quiet way he spoke tended to help it, forcing a lean closer to make sure she heard every word and every nuance with the message he sent from the heart. Light was competing with shadow as 4am began to creep closer until it was a whisper against the backs of their bowed necks. Listening to him, it made her feel as though they were conspiring over a great plan or he was unveiling one of the mysteries he carried that she would never be able to articulate to him nor herself, but know in the way a person could appreciate a piece of art but find themselves unable to translate feeling and meaning to words. Some things could not be bound by speech. Such it was as an atmosphere the man had always had, and one that was more pronounced that they wandered deeper into one another. Along the way, they left marks, with their revealing and their renewing. It was a print in sapphire paint, a streak from a hand running down the wall. It was a look across a bar that carried with it weight that walked her skin. It was the way she became more of herself just by being in the same room. The way he became more relaxed and smiled more in her presence. It was a window finally ajar, and night air crawling in a dusty room. It was his hand beneath her dress, learning the things that might never be repeated on the tongue. It was Tag inside her and a bite on her shoulder, telling of the passion behind a reserved exterior, and how with her it had a place to be.

Frayed red spoke of reminders and doubts, and his lips of verses that were roads to new places. He had always wanted her here, and hearing it was quite something else when you were there, and in some way, in his chest or her own, you always had been. It made her turn still, in that way he observed with enquiry, as the feelings processed from black to colour and the reel played in her mind and through the blood. The intensity of the feeling within was an ache; painfully beautiful and striking.

?You choose what will be written, when and how.? It was a belief instilled in her by leaving and returning. Sixteen hundred miles had reinforced it. And hadn?t he said so himself ??We define it. What is around us, the condition of it, is the result of what we choose to do and say. The gun on the table is different from the one in a drawer, because you are different now from whom you were before. If it was a beacon for trouble, you are not allowing it anymore."

?Let your comfort be in what it is you write next.?

Madison held out her hand for his as she uncurled from the seat. Fingers twining and a gentle tug towards her, she wrapped him in a spirit-lifting embrace. It was like the one outside Charlie?s that evening, absorbing all the things that couldn?t be said or not just yet, only this time, she tightened it ? not so he felt crowded upon, but that she might absorb some of the angst and unrest that were so woven into his making. She stiffened against him as she drew him closest, her jaw to the side of his head as it came to rest on the slope where neck became shoulder. She breathed deeply. Each one to pull the pins that hurt, and each breath out to release them. There would always be the unheimlich; those unfamiliar and strange aspects of the past that became so with the vastness of time between. but still had the ability to haunt, to reckon, to stir. Almost as though what transpired happened to someone else. Her hug meant to say that he was made for more than the wheel and that he would have to let himself deserve the way off of it. Their boots, after all, had known similar roads, and it took lots of walking away in them for her to have a new perspective - to redefine herself, and become who she really wanted to be.

It was a fight worth having ? to get to that place where you wanted to be.

Madison loved Tag deeply. It still felt surreal to be fallen together as they were, but there was no question in her mind that those roads and their merging held an inevitability to it. As Penny would hopefully come to accept Madison as a part of her every day life, her home, Tag might come to accept that the past no longer had power over him, if he would only say it was so.

?I love you.?

It was resounding in her mind, the words. Like the bell that pealed across the distant plains of her memory, only she did not walk with that dirge in her head. It was only like the bell for its ability to toll throughout her, to resonate. To tell him those words, was to tell him that he lived inside her heart, and she walked with his songs in her steps. The verses, old and new, and that his tattooed sense of melancholy would be shared, and that she would not let it eat him alive; she would run him through the burning building he was to face, she would take the first blows and the last. And when it all cindered down around them, she would still be there, with smoke-scent upon her skin and the blood of the monsters in her hands.

But now, her hand was warm and holding his tight, as she led them to his room, with a pause to peer into Penny?s, where she was sprawled and sound asleep. Into his, sheets still storm-tossed and pillows like lost oars, they climbed into the sea and white waves lapped about them. In blue dark, they faced one another for a moment. They faced one another with eyes locked and mirrored a brave smile.

"Go..", she whispered, as the clang and clamour grew louder and she laughed. She watched him cross the room into the bathroom. Watched what she could of him from where she lay tangled. When she spied the underwear flying into the laundry, and his smile that came as a result, Madison's eyes filled with all the mischief roaming the world at that moment. Her smile half-hidden under the sheet she was slowly sinking beneath. The door shut to give her privacy, she just..... lay there.... floating....and listening. She listened to their voices outside, Tag gently instructing Penny to put away a few lids and other accessories that had, to the mind of a twelve year old, been intended for pancakes. She laughed again, and pulled the sheet higher, letting out a sigh that was trapped with her and warmed the cotton. Madison stayed there, underwater. It wasn't what she had expected to be waking to, not in too many years too sore to count. It gave her a feeling that was overpowering. The love and desire she felt for Penny's father, the way the poker still managed to drive itself deeper in her stomach. And the way they both compelled her heart and her mind so that every moment she wasn't in silent fret over the house, the repairs, the job ads and Heil's visiting her, she was thinking of them. Of that feeling she had woken up with. When he looked so serious, like he wanted to say something, and she always knew what it would be and that there was no need to try and find the words when she already carried them with her.

Was it a kind of crazy to miss someone a room over?

After a few minutes more of floating, she had crawled from the sheets and crept down the hallway, for her bag by the door and the change of clothes and toothbrush. She returned to his room for the change and to brush her teeth, and the enlivening splash of cold water across her face. Hands raked through her wild hair... it needed a cut, it's unruly ends beginning to almost touch the very end of the spine. She furrowed a brow at it, then looked at the woman in the mirror. No one else would know the marks she wore proudly on her right shoulder. The marks on her hips or the images framed and hung in her mind for all time of every kiss. She grinned and shook her head. What was going on with her?

When she stepped out of the bathroom to tidy the bed and rest her bag on the turned sheets, she glanced over the dresser. A step over to it, bringing her more detail. She picked up the frame Penny had made and smiled, and then looked across the other items. The... perfume? The neatly folded scarf. The coins. Fingertips across a few, she examined one or two. Then she reached into the side pocket of her time-ratty shorts, pulled to pieces in parts and sun-bleached, to pull out the coin she had carried with her for years. The very coin that had decided the course of their nights, that had begun their song and their dance. She smiled with a dreamy look, as it touched to the coin pile. Another penny for the well.

As she crossed to the door she cut a glance at the book. It was probably one of the things that had touched her the most, to see that he had not only kept it, but made use of it. Though the memories of that period could deceive her at times, it was with a crystal-clear sharpness she recalled handing him that book, and even writing the note on a slip of blue paper that went with it. She would never open the book unless he was there with it in hand, asking her to read. But she wondered what was filling it, what his story had been - personal, or was it fiction? A hand ran across the cover. It felt old and new, different and familiar. There was an inhale, and the feeling expanded.


"Somethin' smells good" and there she was, leaning on the back of the chair, brows lifted and a bright smile. "Hell of an alarm clock those lids make, Penny." Madison was laughing around the end of the remark, watching them in their movement around the kitchen. The fry pan was spitting oil and Tag was telling Penny to be careful and step away a moment. In one hand Penny had the spatula and was waving it around as she sung to herself, half-jumping, half-dancing on the spot. "Maaadddiii." There was a huge smile from the girl. "Are you ready for the best pancakes EVER?"


"More ready than I've ever been." The tide had come in, and she had been wise enough to know it.

There was a knack to opening the door to Charlie's. The door had to be pushed while angling its thick, metal key into a precise angle of the lock and pushing from below with your knee, and then, pulling back on the lock at just the right second to allow the catch to wake up and yawn open. It would be one of the final adjustments as they closed in on the last stretch of renovations. With a soft grunt, she pushed inside and held the door aside for Tag and Penny to pass. Her family. She looked at them with a smile that had no restraints, it was off its moors and free to bubble up out of nowhere for no reason other than she simply felt happy. There was a turn of head to watch them head to the counter, where Penny dropped her lime green bag with the white flowers and Tag put down his tool box. He was already beginning to test the counter to see if the sealing coat had set, his face pressed close to it like it was whispering in his ear. Penny was diving through that bag looking for the paint set she had brought, the one Madi had given her, and then a spot to set up. Hauling open the windows, letting in light and life and warm air, Madi pointed to the larger of the tables the establishment offered - square, oak in the corner by the far left of the commons, facing out. It was tucked away and often patrons in the early days had missed it altogether or would find it being crowded by a few of the Mako gang, whom Charlie had allowed as long as there was no trouble. By day, it was a well-lit, bright spot.


"You can set yourself up there if you like. Good light from mid-morning onwards" indicating the table while Penny's eyes searched around, trying to get a sense for where things were, a lay of the land. When Madison pointed out the table, a smile sprung onto the girl's face and she ran over, dumping the bag there and presiding over the space. The brushes were carefully unwrapped first. The girl admired the thick, stubby bristles in the light of day, rubbing a palm along their top, still undecided about it really being horse hair. Madi appeared behind her with a mason glass filled with water. She set it on the table and threw an arm around her shoulder, giving her a quick squeeze. "If you need a refill, there's a basin behind the bar. Can't wait to see what you paint."

"Thanks... I was thinkin' about what the lady said, about doin' trees first. But there's none to paint from." The street outside was a corner that looked out onto lots of brick, stone, mortar, but not a tree in sight.

"Maybe ... have a think of one you have seen and liked. On the way out to camp you would have passed lots of them, right?" Madi lifted a brow and began unlocking and hauling up the window right beside Penny's improv studio. The light that was streaming in was already perfect. The gust of air that snuck past the sill was dandelions and sun-baked stone.

"Yeah, I guesssss. I'll have a think. Do you know the Tree of Life? We were learnin' about it at school."

Madison bit down on the corner of her bottom lip. "Sure do. What did you learn about it?"

"Welllll", the girl put down the brushes and their wrapping which she had maintained since receiving it, and rocked back onto her heels. Her face growing serious, a hand in the air, fingers animating her description. "it's also called the World Tree, and the Tree of Knowledge, and it's in the bible, and other realms believe it means... like... growth after death.. uhmmm.. what's the word?"


Madison had to think about that, but ventured with, "reincarnation?"

"Yeah. Ree-in-carr-nayyy-tion. That. That the tree is a way between worlds. And it means ... uhmm.. the passage of time, too. Ohhhh! And some craaaaazy people think that the branches represent men and the leaves are women. Isn't that freaky? But I thought it was pretty cool that like one tree could mean so much."

Then the girl was immersed in her bag again and the rest of the art set which she began displaying on the table. Trying different spots where she deemed the light to be best. Madison watched her for a moment and then walked backwards until her shoulder bumped into Tag's, and she turned her neck, eyes up to his. "...Did you know your daughter was a student in cultural metaphor and philosophy?"


No surprise, she thought to herself, when Tag was your father. It made a quirk of her lips as she completed her turn to face him, and steal a kiss. These moments were growing in their regularity, and it made her feel secure and safe in a way that she had not experienced in years. He was attentive, affectionate, thoughtful. He still caught the door for her when they were out if she wasn't bustling through it first, still insisted on getting her a drink and making sure she was comfortable. There was a verge on tears she felt as all those things swam in her mind. The whole getting to be a woman, with a man... there was something in it. There was something that moved her about being appreciated as a woman, when given her disposition, and dating history, she had been looked at as one of the men. The thought aroused that unexpected emotion in her, simply by tilting her face up to look at him. The corners of her eyes were shiny. She smiled it away. "How's that counter?"



There was still upstairs to go, which she was dreading. They had managed to air out a lot of the must, but her office still felt somewhat suffocating and the window was being disobedient more often than not. The chairs in the office were still sturdy, but they needed a paint, and the walls were still as they had been when she had first ran Charlie's. She hadn't paid much attention to the space, kept it as impersonal and as functional as possible - a couple of desks, three chairs, and a few shelves. But now that the bar was developing a character, she wished she could continue it into her personal area, where she would spend a lot of time once the bar was well into running and she had staff to take care of the incidentals. She wanted somewhere that wouldn't feel quite so barren when working back late at nights, reconciling the takings, salaries and orders.


"I got a line on a new safe.. fireproof. The last one was battered. That's going in with some of the money I do have stashed, but not for another week and a half they said. Sooo I was thinking, once that's done, as the wall will need a new coat anyway....I want to repaint my office." There was a little pleading trail to her voice, a "please Taaaaag", her eyes all puppy dog. "Can we look at my office a little later, you can tell me what you think? And the lay out too... make the best of the space I have."

The hall and the large closet were another job in themselves, but one she would dread without voicing it. There was no rush to repair and repaint all that.

The walls downstairs were finally dried. The cornices held their aubergine accents at the very edges, and the outer line of the ceiling a warm, cream white. It went with the feeling she was aiming for, his suggestions having rounded out those ideas, and set off the darker wood coatings for the furniture and the worn brass handles of door, handle and rail. He had given his thoughts to her in a measured way - he had really given some thought to design and arrangement, and it had played off her own ideas well. Where she lacked the vocabulary for the transformation, her dark man was fluent. He spoke the language that she could not and the old bar had responded, glad for someone who knew how to talk it around from its austerity.


On one of the round tables nearby where they stood were a few tins of paint in various blues. New brushes. Folded plastic sheets. Sample swatches. The air still smelled of turpentine and lacquer, but it wasn't a scent she minded. The floor beneath their boots was the only part that remained unchanged. It was still blemished and chipped and smacked of authentic. It creaked in sections but it really was just a hello. Some way of letting history and older stories bleed into the present. A breeze slid past and rattled the door, held back by a jamb. More light was entering the bar and so it was too her crooked little heart.

Plastic rustled as it was laid out amidst Penny's complaints. Madison looked on from her place by the counter. Absently, she drew her fingers back and forth across it. The feel of it smooth. She thought about the lines in her hands and Charlie's ashes flying from them in the wind. And now, she had lived her word and the lines on her hands weren't maps for hell. Instead, she was cementing his memory in the world. It was as much a headstone, or house of remembrance, as bar. The surface of the counter was sure. It felt like certainty. "I didn't mind if she got paint on that table... it's old. It adds character", she said as he stepped back over to run his hand down her ribs and lean in. She appreciated it nonetheless, and found his elbow with a pat of thanks. His lean was met, his shadow turned away, and the lean became a kiss, and from that another smile, and their standing over the paint and she was watching his face in its devoted consideration to the choice of color.

To the two samples he chose, went daybreak. Fingertips feathered over them, her face leaning over to see the way the shade spoke according to the angle of light. The slightly darker of the two was called Bengal Sapphire and the other Rhapsody in Sky. The lighter, Rhapsody, was plucked from his hand as she put her back to the door and let the full-bore of day show up the tone. It was a beatific sort of blue; pale like a sky on a haze-free day over the meadow. The ones she had woken to for most of her life in one home or another under huge, clear, country sky. The swatch while bright, wasn't a flat colour. It was luminous and she thought, as it captured all the light from the second story, that it would lighten again. Deep enough still to be bold, but not dark that the room would breathe down the neck. "Rhapsody, this one."


He spoke the language, she did not, and with it was the implicit trust of his critical eye. She had watched the way his hand traveled the wood and he seemed to read in it. Sometimes, though she had never said to it him, she felt that he understood not only what the place meant to her, as his girl, but to Charlie, and that its stories were ones waiting for Tag to only hear. She believed that he did, and perhaps heard more than even she. The building and her had been on uneasy terms. Tag had been the intermediary. The life-support. The translator. The repairman. The counsellor. The bail from a death sentence. Her voice hung in the air, her gaze drifting for the stairs. The swatch like a ribbon of material, pressed beneath a curl of fingers as she called out to Penny. "Daddy and I are just gonna run upstairs and take a look at my office. We'll be a couple minutes." Penny nodded, but her eyes and the position of her frame over the chair told them her attention was transfixed on the pad before her. The script of paint forming a passage of color and line and reflection. "There's a fridge back there too, near the basin. I've got some snacks in there if you get hungry too." Madison had turned for Tag, but he was already headed up the stairs. Back-tracking to secure the front door while they weren't in the commons, she then pursued him up the stairs, to the room in question and its taciturn window


When she set foot inside, Madi found him at the window, his careful but firm fingers working the catch. She sighed as she looked around. It did feel like an unwanted element of the bar; ignored. It had been the last thing on her mind to address, and had not even been in her mind other than for the safe. But if the work was going to be done all over, than it seemed that while the momentum was fresh, they follow through on as much as possible. Though he had not objected, she felt bad to ask for more to be done. It would simply be the case that she would have to find another curious way to make it up to him. The denim dress folded in her bag was going to be her failsafe. So innocent.



"I just hope it doesn't look too washed out. A lot of light gets in with the angle of the corner. Maybe we should try a streak of Bengal just to see?" She was close by, taking a look outside at the world over the dip of his head, and then she stepped aside. She leaned back against one of the chairs turned askew from the desk, where rows of concertina files stood to attention, a small plastic stationery dish with various sections cut into it, errant paper-clips in bright yellow, and a long since empty whiskey bottle. In it was the stem of a flower, the petals shrivelled and pressed tight.


"The safe I'm looking at will be more economical space-wise. It's smaller, but that wall is going to be a mess when they're done removing it. Whoever installed the original did a bad job of it."


She tucked a few curls behind the shell of an ear and continued her perusal further. Even a day or two in the dark and the room was coated in more dust. A cobweb was strung like forgotten decoration above the door frame and up to a corner. The old-time radio on top of the tallest of the shelves was looking haggard.. as far as radio's did. She harrumphed. He'd managed to work the window from its dried over sleep, and shifted it up. Air swarmed in, laden with the smell of sunshine and possibility. That was how it smelled, all the air, all the light. A scoot past him to lean out and breathe the day in.

"It is good."

A line stolen from him, like one of his shirts. A huge grin, and nails worked a few new paths through black glass.

Sunlight glinted off the knife that disappeared in his hand. His smile like a turn of the coin, gleaming with all the chances she had taken upon it. It was a moment that was not a part of the day as it was - all of them mending the sleeves and the buttons of a bar. It was a moment that was suspended, not in keep with the flow and purpose of the rest of the day. The affection was something she was beginning to drown in. Each kiss and each shared breath, told her something new and added to the canvas they were sewing between them. It was not so much about either of them needing mending, now that the days were moving on and the energy, the love, and the need for one another was growing stronger. It was about the fabric that they were starting between them. A needle passed back and forth and so they walked with it around them, below them, and in effect, a safe mesh for Penny. Able to relax and able to rely.

Her eyes slowly shut with the kiss, which tasted to her as wonderful and suspenseful as the first. Madison still felt the flash up and down her spine whenever it was like this and he was looking at her *like that* - mid conversation at the bar, or even in bed, before sleep. That way that said his eyes were only for her and that his happiness came from some small action. She had looked into them those eyes before, calmed and supported by the well that they meant for her, but this deeper level of feeling and everything it brought with it still managed to be provocative and affecting.


The room was no longer the office. It was a sense only of blue sky beating around them as her body shifted from the window to gently drive him towards the wall, a hand beside his head and fingers spread, black glass mussed and splaying against the surface of the hardwood. Her front crushed to him like there was nothing behind but a field of grass to roll in. He wasn't allowed to be so sweet and expect that she could stand it for hours more without reacting. He too tasted of maple and sun, and to catch it and keep it the kiss was urgently taken but slowly explored. Taking the time to taste and savour, but never seeming to have its fill. There would never be enough, it was the eternal chase, and it only excited her more. His response, especially the smile, less and less rare, the searching hands and the warmth of his gentle nature each pulled her closer to the edge she wanted to fall from. Nails raked another path through his hair and down his neck to curl around. She grinned, lip to lip, her other hand about his hip and clutching the corner of the worn grey tee. It was a bunch in her hand. She felt her body become a single breath. A moment to collect herself, his lovestruck mermaid out of water, and a step back so a boot made a board groan beneath. A hand went to her mouth shaped like a smirk. "I'll get some boxes sorted." Finally, an answer.

His eyes, those that belonged in the world of black and white flickering across pale walls at night. Moving in so often a radiant silence between moments with eloquent hands and such expressive features. Her eyes seemed almost forlorn with those thoughts, looking at him against that wall. All the time missed, all the times she could have had this and given him the breadth of care inside her. Gradually the dimensions of the room and the day returned and the walls were brown and sad and not blue at all. Not a dream... but there was no need for dreaming again.

"I'll have it cleared out by Tuesday or Wednesday. When Marjorie watches Penny, we can attack", a gesture of her hand around the room. She reached for the dried flower in its whiskey bottle vase, turned it in her fingers. "Hmm?" Her eyes shifted back to Tag's, and in them were a hundred wild promises, that grew in a blue field like rare and potent roses.


Penny yelled out to them from downstairs. There was a shadow by the front door.

Penny's sharp cry was a slam back into the present. Tag and his lit-match eyes something to be harshly torn from. There was a catching of breath and a scramble of steps as the two hit the commons with wild eyes, chasing her voice. The room sat behind unchanged but still, somehow, emanating blue.

Immediately, her hackles had risen and her entire manner changed, so too the emotion she had moved with and been moved by up a floor. Downstairs, at the dark man's side she was all slit-eyed and wary. Hands hanging in knots at her side and not the easy-as-the-wind woman laughing in the sun. She noted the knife in Tag's hand and the question he asked with his regard. A hand found his elbow, as though he might drift away. It said stay. Madison approached the door, for whatever, whoever was out there was not intended for he or his daughter. The shadow was black paint splashed beneath the door.

"Who is it?"

Her voice a pitch higher than normal, and her hand on the lock. "What's your business?" She looked to Penny and beckoned her away from the window and the door. Towards the stairs. There was no reason to suspect anything sinister, but part of her always would. Westling winds were in her bones.


The most unexpected of responses passed through the wood. It was a voice, like that of a young teen, perhaps older. Male. A voice that went between registers, trying to break. "Page from the Watch. Two messages for Madison Donaldson Rye." There was silence. It seethed, with the name that shouldn't have been there. Madison cut a look back to Tag, to Penny where she was in shadow. The door unlocked, and she brought it towards her, and was met by the face of a young man. Reedy, with a tow-head of hair and gangly arms. He wore a uniform of sorts. Emblazoned with the insignia of The Watch and his name beneath it just above the heart. Joe.


Madison's eyes swept over his face and form like she was reading press in a paper that had her wary of its authenticity. A hand flew out nonetheless, palm up. Her fingers spread, ready to accept. "Joe, huh." A polite sort of smile, but there a caution to her tone. "Why... thanks for droppin' that by. I was expectin' one, but not two. Where pray tell is the second missive from?"

Joe smiled earnestly, removing the two envelopes from the hessian bag that crossed over his body. In her hand, she turned one, then the other over, pausing on the latter. It was a wax-sealed letter, of a canton origin - West. "Joe, thank you." A hand down the pocket Tag's hand had been groping, and she pulled out a note.

"If one of those letters says what I hope it does, next time you come visit me, I'll have more to spare."

The young man rubbed at his jaw awkwardly. "Thanks, Ma'am. The other letter ...uh... it's an.." he seemed flustered, "an Intention to Purchase.. from ... uhmm..Hawthorn and Sons?" Madison had busted the seal one-handed and was already skimming down the document, unfolded on rough parchment in her hand. His tip still stuck out in the air.

"All good, Joe, thank you. You can go now."

He took the bill with a curt nod and a peek past the door and all but ran back onto the street. He gave her a semi-formal bow and continued on his way, hair in his eyes and gait uneven. She watched him over the letter until he was out of sight, and then returned her attention to the letter in hand. Surprise sketch-worked her features. There was a slight shake of the head. She set foot back inside, closing the door behind her with a creak. Then, she set about tearing over the first, bearing the same insignia as the boy's shift. Fingers were suddenly frantic in their unfolding its corner and creases and her eyes skimmed right to the bottom. There were a few lines, but only one word she cared about more than the others. Stamped, in bold red. While pre-approved, the final dollar amount had been a toss in the air, no knowing which way it might fall. It wouldn't settle for a few weeks, but she now had at least an idea.

APPROVED


She shut her eyes for a fat minute. Gave herself a moment to process it. Her heart was racing, and for two opposing reasons. A hand went to her mouth as she headed for the counter, pushing each letter into its envelope and down onto the bar top. A funny sort of smile, traced with some confusion, she looked to Tag, to Penny, to Tag again. A brow lifted. "Well, loan's approved. Seein' as I did some work with Heil they've recognised it as a civic duty and awarded me an extra ten per cent, and likewise, dropped my rate by five percent.


In other news..."


Her hand was still at her face. Like she didn't know quite what to make of it.

"Someone's..... made an offer on the house in Lofton. The one I left... some time ago." Her eyes drifted into the air, like a woman staring down the barrel of history. "No idea why in hell anyone would make an offer of it. Been sittin' there doin' nothing but gather dust since I left." She didn't know how that made her feel. Suddenly she was going to be letting go two houses that had defined her life, even if it also meant a better financial footing. "... I don't believe it." A kind of gasped laugh. She couldn't fathom that someone had seen anything in Sara Road other than the land it sat on, which she imagined was the case.

It made her think of how the house still sat in Lofton like a living memory, unable to move forward in time. How it had remained essentially the same bar the corrosion of wind and all it brought with it, the stripping heat of an angry sun mid-summer. It was what rested inside that concerned her. All the sediment of grief built into the walls. When Madison had been the Widow Rye..alone and haunted and rarely in town. She had had the presence of ghost. Madison wondered if she could visit the house again. Could she stomach it? Tag and her had set foot inside it when in Lofton, years ago. But it had been different then, before it was still her house, and she was buffered by Tag's significant presence. It would mean a return, with some of her things in trunks forgotten. All that she had forgone for an uncertain life on the road.

It was there, her thoughts panned to the present. The sale of the house, should it happen as quickly as the letter read and smelled of haste, she would be in a position to give Tag the money for the time she had taken from his other engagements before she'd asked for his hands, it meant she could start considering suppliers she hadn't, could buy the cabinet knobs and handles to match Charlie's, diversify the alcohol, and work out salaries within a definite margin. There was a host of things the five percent decrease allowed for too. Still, it made her feel odd. Had she always thought that the house would be there?

".... never thought the day would come." Her eyes lifted, and she looked between them. Arms went out, asking them to come close. When they embraced her, it felt like the tide was curling again, she was in its shadow, and it was about to crash. The three, each shipwrecked in their own circumstances, had washed up and found one another. That solidarity, that unspoken connection of what it meant to have been adrift and unmoored and the innate understanding that came with it; it was everything she breathed and breathed out holding them close.


"I think... we do a little more around here, finish early... do somethin' nice..all of us.. and... tonight, we should celebrate. Dinner is on me." Silver trails were leaving tracks on her cheeks. But, she was smiling.

Tag would find that like a photo of a lover relegated to the back of a frame on a night that had called for the change, Lofton and Sara Road were much the same. There had been many times when she could have gone back, sought renewal. But some changes were permanent, and unlike a stoic house in the countryside withstanding, for the most part, the tireless whim of the elements, her marriage had broken twice, regardless of the reasons for it? and indelibly altered; incapable of being what it was, or becoming something else.

Eli and Madison?s entirely separate worlds hadn?t merged or exploded; they simply hadn?t met at all. He was lost and confused at her for being so changed. He did not understand whom she had become? and she had felt resented for becoming who, for at least a large time, she wanted to be. Who she had needed to be. Who she could be, and what she could make of herself, even with little to build that woman from. It had been too much, despite love. Love was not enough to make the giant speak. So, instead, the giant crushed. She had grieved her husband twice, and twice was enough. There was a debt there for a man who had given up his own life so she could have hers, but their new lives, freed from a cruel chrysalis, had made it impossible. He didn't know how to love her in the present, and he had let his fear remove any chance.

If Tag asked, did she want to deal with the contents of that house ? the few things left ? a closet of old clothes of the other Madison, the tutor, the housewife, she would say no. Did she want to explore the two large trunks filled with miscellany of that tutor and wife ? her first pistol wrapped in cloth, the calico wedding dress folded neatly and still fragranced with her faded perfume, the daisy chain he?d given her on one of their first dates, made in his hand while conversing on a hill as the sun set?. The answer would still be no. A no that was finite.


And was that not his story too ? that some things do not survive the testing hands of time and shatter like clay, while their story, two strays, had been the antithesis of that? That they had found one another, again, and again, and again, and from the ashes made something else ? something tempered with friendship, trust, reliance and a shared connection that did not need to be bound by such a fickle thing as time. It was its own beautiful beast, and it had outsmarted both of them. They had become something else together without even knowing it, at first. The joke had been on them all along.


In the present, she was loved for who she was, and who she could be. Tag did not seem perturbed by her patchworked history, even if he held his questions, he loved her more than fear could touch. That was how he made her feel, and it calmed the void that liked to make her still and fretful. Then, there was Penny's exuberance, and her growing acceptance... and then, there was her voice, telling of ideas for the day. Penny?s voice reminded her of crystal ? clear and seeming to throw light like her heels did colour, and a way with it that made her words bring everything into magnified focus. They should celebrate proper, as it was an occasion that marked a benefit for them as a whole. Not only her, and a ripened sense of potential for Charlie?s; it was for them. The embrace punctuated by raindrops of kisses to their brunette heads and the excited talk of the rest of the day and night.

?I do believe that ice cream is elementary?, Madi remarked with a sly look. And was that to become another element to their routine, as smiley pancakes had? The thought quickened her heart.


?Where is this restaurant? Never even knew there was one such in town.? Genuinely surprise and interest shined on her face as she leaned away, taking the girl in, with a sweep of a hand gently across her head, fingertips along the girl?s brow. ?You?ll have to point the way.? Funny dishes. She grinned.


The only sagging thought in her mind was a lack of appropriate attire. It had been so long since she?d bothered to acquire anything beyond her regular method of dress, and it brought a quandary to the direction of her thoughts. The denim dress and a couple of plain, white, linen or cotton summer dresses were her only other resorts, and they didn?t scream elegant.


?Well? I think perhaps, we should? just finish up now.? A look cast between them again, ?and get ourselves some threads. It?s a special night. And?, because, she knew Tag might protest the cost, a hand fell to his elbow as it done before, and always would, when assuring. ?This will be a little somethin? on account of my pocket, too. I insist.?


After the documents and the weight of their words were contained, Penny?s paints, brushes and pads were returned to the bag on her shoulder, and Tag?s eyes had moved from last notes on the repairs left to be done, the three had wandered for the market. There was a stop at a store that had made both girl?s grin and run inside, followed after a long beat by Tag with a slight smile and a feeling that it was a very bad idea. When they emerged, with the requisite threads for the evening, they wandered back to the small hill and the house that sat on it, patiently waiting their arrival.

Her eyes looked over it as they approached, and the feeling struck her again. The field just glimpsed behind, the width of the yard and the fresh air. Gaze cut to Tag as Penny dashed ahead to try on her outfit again. Her hand filled his, fingers twining. Her chest felt was swelling like a balloon. There was the passion, the kisses, the jokes, the playfulness, the conversations and the rhythm between them that was always a song their steps followed. But it was Tag, simply as a man, a friend, first of all, that she enjoyed, his company and his quiet. When he spoke, she was rapt, and found the things that he pointed out always seemed to expand her perception of things, provide a new angle. Being with him, simply, was like picking up her favourite book, only now it was that she could flick to her favourite chapters whenever she wished. She exhaled as their boots reached the bottom-most stair.

?You know?. The night you told me how you missed me? I can?t tell you? how much I missed you in my life. You?ve always been in my mind. I swore to myself once that you and her would be the only two I?d let walk in my door. I sometimes wonder if I knew somethin??. before the rest of me caught on.

I don?t ever want to be apart, ever again, Tag. I couldn?t stand it.? It needed to be said, and she had turned it over and over in her head, since he had looked into her eyes, desperate and relieved, and told her that her absence had been a hurt.

A kiss was pressed to his cheek. It held all the poignancy and finality of a full stop. ?Let?s go try on our costumes.? For, they felt like that. She winked and headed up the stairs, holding the door for him with a monroe hip.

There was tea-steam and ghost string. Paint smears and rain smell. Amber perfume and lightning stung air with its steely aftertaste, lime and brandy, regret and desire. It coalesced to make a season, it coalesced to enable a change. Tag, unlike the disorder strung throughout the rest of her life for so many years, like a sprawling, nonsensical tablature, was the neatness of clean hands on black and white keys. He was the way the strings pulled and the pedals pushed to form the poeticism of a note that elicited chills and offset an unfeasibly perfect falsetto voice in an empty, velvet theatre.

He was the tree in her yard, splintered at the branches but still growing. Still reaching. Wind and time protested, but he grew nonetheless. Roots went deep.

Tag was the moon to the tide in her stomach, pulling her towards him, further from the disorder and closer to a place that was where the bottoms of her feet would sprout buds and take to the earth. He was the unwavering candle in the dark as she navigated the places that the angels had abandoned her to. Just as she was a beacon light through the rooftop window of his tower? And that was how it was, and what all of it had made with the unhurried progress of years that had only enriched their bond rather than diminish it.


His girls. Their hair combed through despite the shared burden of unruly manes, stared back at him from the lounge. Penny was bouncing on her heels and giggling, the sunflower yellow dress held out at each of the skirt by her hands, her expression that of someone that was about to fall over the edge of thrilled. Madison had taken a yellow ribbon discovered in the girl?s room to secure Penny?s hair away from her face, the ends set loose and a bow formed beneath.

Madison smiled at him, as he stepped towards them, but it was a smile that was small and tight. She didn?t think she could recall a time where she had seen him dressed so, and it took the air from her, that grey-winged bird. He was dashing ? a word her own mother would have used to describe him, and a surprising word to appear in her head. She always thought it was a way to describe a knight, a hero, a prince, reserved only for fairytales and paperback romances. But there, with that very fact floating in her mind, she suddenly grinned, silly as can be. That was why, for that was what he was. He was Madison's Knight in Shining Armour. Stepped from the pages and the words falling away all around him. The hero lays down the music box doll. He thought that the day he died she'd be sleeping just like this.

He had saved her from the dragon?s breath of fire, from her crumbling castle tall. Dashing. It made her feel peculiar all over. Head tilted as she watched him bow for Penny, who laughed then whined, ?Daaaaaad, come on!? and then, he stepped toward her for inspection.

The dress was a deep, startling red. Not a colour associated with a wardrobe of so much blue and white. It was a different red. Not blood or fire, sensuality or rage, but a shade that told a different story; a mention of joy, of determination, of sensitivity and their adventures to be had. Sleeveless and finishing just beyond the knees, it dived into a discreet 'v', revealing just enough without being inappropriate. Rarely showy, and she had kept to that rule. It clung where it should, and did not where it could have.

As she had paid, eyes had touched on a small, circular bowl of cosmetics and she had fetched a lipstick that seemed to match. On her mouth, such a hue might make poetry of her words or inspire his kisses to a new way. Her smile was shy, for the colour as much as the weirdness she felt around him, like it was their first meeting. There was red for her cheeks, too. Her hair was combed of the seven winds that roamed it. Sleepy tangles were wrangled back into a chignon ? loose but tamed nonetheless. Her eyes accentuated with a lick of mascara. Otherwise, she was bare as the day she was born. ?You like?? Soft. Her eyes searching his face like a hand a panel in the dark for a light.

She felt the same pangs as he. Find herself gazing at him, in some ordinary moment, and feel like the world was about to tip over and pour him away, that she would be reaching out to catch the plates, the glasses, his hand, as everything capsized. When you at long last have your answer, it was hard not to toy with the question, re-reading it with disbelief, that you had been right from the start, that you had missed something. That very feeling, that invaded small moments, told her of the feeling for Tag and that it was sure as his roots were deep. The ghost she could be, it was something to her bones and her way, and it may not leave, but she would not go, and there was no disappearing through the walls for a Western sunset that she had tired of seeing alone. There was nothing to catch in the distance. After all, hadn?t she only been chasing herself for years, and now that she was caught up, and all that was disparate had resolved into the one, she had found her other half?But half that would not have fit until she had sung down her peace, until she had assembled all the parts that went into someone slowly filling their own shoes truly.


?Come on, let?s go. I?m hunnngrrry. They have this soup though that I don?t want.. made of onions! Amber?s mom told us about it. I was like ugh! And, I?m not eating a snail, you can?t make me?. If they have them there, at all.?

Red joy curved on a pale face. She couldn't take her eyes off of him.

The door stepped towards. Penny had her hand in hers. Penny reached for Tag's, too.

He only had to call it.

Margaret and Marjorie had stuck their heads out from the books in their laps to peer over their glasses and to the window at Penny's sing-song war cries. They watched as Penny sprinted down the yard in yellow. She was spinning, buoyant, free as a flower in the air. Then, the fall of two shadows and the twosome who threw them. There was Tag, as expected, but his quiet had been polished up to a smile and even a laugh. They could hear it from where they sat. And a woman, in red. Their hands were swinging as they walked on, occasionally calling out to Penny when she got too far ahead.

"I've met her", piped up Marjorie. "She's lovely."

"You did! Whenever was that! Why didn't you tell me!"

Marjorie laughed into the tea cup she lifted from the small side table beside her couch. She rocked back into it and took up her book. It was a paperback romance about a sea-stranded woman rescued by a rather brawny pirate, as the cover image presented.

"Well, Marjie!"

"You would see it soon enough. She's not going anywhere."

Margaret lifted white brows and settled back, watching the three disappear towards the market. "What makes you say that?" Her own tea cup rattled on its saucer as she gingerly lifted it over towards herself. Earl grey spiced the air.

"An old bird knows a thing or two, Margaret. You'll say the same. Like I said... she's lovely. Needs a trim, but you can tell by the smile."

Margaret made a face but was nodding. "By the smile?"

"Yes, Marge. His."

They returned to their books without another word.
__________________________________________________

"Teach you how to shoot?"

Her head was still stuck on the part where Penny would learn how to hold a sword. And wait, Tag? Swords. Cigarettes, tattoos, swords. The mystery was thickening, of the knight who sat across from her. There was a track of eyes towards him and an arch of a brow, before she looked back to Penny. "That's a decision that rests with your Father. I myself learned to shoot when I wasn't but a year or two older than yourself. But, I was growin' up in a different.... climate. Nothin' like here. I think the best thing to do is to focus on those paintin's of yours. Violence is not somethin' that ages gracefully, and the longer you stay away from it, the better you'll be for it." It was said softly, but with a firm intent. The way of the gun was no way at all, in a town like this, and especially when it needn't be a direction life was forcing your hand in.

Did she believe those words? Yes. Had she lived by them until now? No. But it was her prerogative to change her mind. The gun, to her, was something for defence. If the girl insisted, and Tag gave his permission, she could not deny it. But there were other ways to defend yourself. Books were one way. To arm yourself with wit, knowledge, place, date and time; to understand a passage of history, so you wouldn't make the same mistakes. That was what she would give Penny - what she wanted to give Penny. Books and the pearls that had come as a result of her own misdemeanours and mistakes.

The service was fluid, unobtrusive, no jarring sounds or enquiries; she would as soon finish a glass of water and it would be filled up. Madison would turn from time to time to place a hand on the arm of Frederick, their dedicated waiter, to extend a thank you. It wasn't her usual, the entire scenario, and there was a sense of displacement, even if it was an enjoyable one. The violins loaned a quality to the entire evening. Soft-focus like rainy-rosy lighting in a kitchen one night not too long ago. Surely, she was dreaming. And Penny, she looked so happy. There was a moment, about to bite into a very thin, very tender fillet of prime beef, something called Bourguinon and reminded her of her mother's burgundy stew, and she had just caught Tag's eye. He had been sitting there, water in hand, watching her. Red lips smiled. Her cheeks ached. It was there she noticed she too was happy, really happy and that she hadn't stopped smiling since Tag had seen to her chair and tucked her into the table.

Madison looked back. There was a slight tilt of the head, a lift of her eyes as if to silently ask what it was he may have been to say, when she realised with a spread of heat throughout her cheeks, that he was in fact only looking. Admiring her. Her eyes had flicked to the meal at hand, and she had lifted a napkin to hide the silly look returning to her with a grin. All she could hear was the echo of his words when he took her in. Very much. That look across the table was the very same expression. He looked happy, too.

"Waiter...", as one passed. "What does La Pluie? mean?" Red lips pursed in question.

The man; blonde, short, his hair immaculate and gelled over to one side. He bent over, looking her deep into the eyes, to be sure she heard him precisely.

"It means, "The Rain" ... nothing is more romantic, than kissing a woman in the rain. French ... we do it all the time!" He exclaimed, index, middle and ring fingers uncurling in a flourish, as though to pull a rose from thin air. "We find romance everywhere. Where we can make it... and The Rain, it makes it... what shall I say... it makes it more ... easy. To find...ah", he tapped his heart, " to find the feeling. It happens, so lovers find each other. "Ahhh...", he waved a finger at Tag and Madison, "I can tell you both know what I am speaking about!"

Penny's face was squashed up as though she had eaten a pickle. Her head reared back and eyes squinting at the man. "Yuck. Kissin' is grossssss."

The waiter straightened himself, adjusted his tie and smiled at Penny, deigning to politely humor her. "That will change in a couple of years, poupee. That will change. Any more water, or wine?" He looked over the table, beginning to collect the emptied plates, or those put aside where stomachs were heavy.

"No thank you", Madison folded her napkin into a ball and looked to the other two.

"Dessert! Pleaaaaseeeee." Penny's arms moved into the air, and she began to sway side to side, fingers clicking. "Dessert, oh yeaaahhhh, dessert tiiiiime. Besssst tiiiime of the niiiightttt", singing the words out in an exaggerated fashion. Madison could only sit there hiding an amusement behind the back of a hand.


When their waiter returned, his hands were wrapped together and he looked solemn as a minister about to officiate over the pronouncement of Man and Wife.

"Tonight, here, at The Rain we have two specials. In addition, to the menu you have in your laps currently:

Un, is a salted caramel profiterole, with almond glaze. Deux, we have Pain aux chocolat with marachino cherry custard inside, with seventy percent cacao mixed in it. It will make it hard to decide, no?"

Madison looked towards them both, then down to the menu in hand. It was a dizzying assortment. Penny's eyes were wide. "Can we try all of them Daddy? Pleaaaase. It's special."


Madison's answer was a glint of eye and a wink. What would Tag have to say about this excessive affair? Frederick, patient as ever, stood with his hands behind his back. The violins had started up again.

Reinhardt's La Mer.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgNQ4FR6Me8

When Tags words trailed off, Madi placed down her water, one she had held by her cheek as she leant forward and watched their exchange. She didn't want to know about the gun and was surprised at Tag's suggestion. Given, her own thoughts on it and his knowledge of them... but this, of course, wasn't about Madison's relationship to a weapon. It was about a young girl voicing an interest in something that, perhaps, was the real surprise. Penny was a sunbeam, she was paint brushes and pencils, and a rainbow of dresses and dancing in the lounge room over her forgotten socks and whom despised laundry. A gun? It was not for that scene. It was a match thrown into the dark. Who knew where it might catch? Penny's effervescence contrasted gravely against the idea of it all. It was a fleeting, over-simplified thought. It was her own struggle within herself. The girl was very convincing, a talent for it it seemed, and she weighed it in her mind.

"..I think you should sleep on it. It's not a hobby you take up like art or horse ridin'. It's not an activity to.. boast about, so you got somethin' to do after school. It's a dangerous, dangerous weapon, baby. And, from where I'm from, it's more than that too, so I can't help but feel this a huge request. But....if you still wanna know about it, you got the itch, in a few days, we can sit down and I can work out with your daddy, an appropriate gun. Somethin' small and easy to manage...

Where I'm from, you know how to care for a gun, it's like bein' able to take good care of a beast. You gotta look at it like that. You don't know what you're doin', and it can bite. It has a power to it." As she spoke, it changed the setting of the restaurant so it felt they sat in the middle of a desert, or inside a rusted old barn. Words wove a world around them. There was a crackling electricity to it. And too-long shadows that pressed with branches that looked like claws.

"It..it...wields a lot... and says a lot about a person. That can be a good thing....but a thing to be wary of.

It's a rite of passage. You know how to care for her, then you learn how to hold her right, then you learn how to fire her off... you won't be the same person again."

Madi sat back in her seat, steeling herself. "These are things you gotta think about.. That's all I'm sayin'" She meant that for Tag too. There held in her words wrapped a sort of superstition, or some regard for a secret pattern or symbology. Perhaps that was all prairie logic, country minded. But she believed it to be significant. The gun had come to mean so much to her, had changed the path of her entire life. She didn't see it as a simple weapon to put away in a drawer. It was as far away as it was in a drawer for all those reasons. Memories, energy, could cling to something with enough intention. She didn't want the wrong thing to find Penny. Her old promise to herself, the very reason she had stayed from his life while in the deeps of her West trouble, was bound by that. That no trouble came to his door.

There had been quiet for a time, then Penny and Tag had nodded between, talking about which day from there they might raise the issue again, before the more pressing concern of dessert was re-addressed. Ice cream had won over, to Frederick's dramatic portrayal of chagrin. The three had left for a wander to the market to enjoy the simple wonder of what was becoming their Thing. It hadn't been the gourmet desserts of The Rain. There was no need when what you knew and loved was already perfect. Penny had opted for two scoops, working her Dad's arm on that front, with their compromise. Strawberry and chocolate chip. Tag selected pistachio and green tea. Madison went for the caramel nut, alone. They resumed their walk back through the streets on a lazy-summer-feeling night. Near theirs, Madison slipped from her heels and walked bare foot the rest of the way. Ice cream in one hand, heels the other, giggling as Penny described some western she had seen in one of her classes.

"Not quite like that, Penny."

"But I thought that's what a gunslinger did - pow, pow, pow. All day, every day. Bang! Shoot outs, draws! All the time! I didn't know you was just a cowgirl." She didn't say it maliciously, but as though she was a bit disheartened to learn that the better part of Madison's life had been roaming on horseback for days. There had been gunfire, too much, but she didn't want to paint a picture in Penny's head about herself, one that might grow of its own accord and be impossible to turn around.

Especially, if Marjorie came to know, Amber, the rest of her classmates. It was how she felt about the decision to own a pistol. If Penny knew that, it would colour her world differently. She didn't know exactly how, but she was reluctant to hand the girl the brush for which to paint darker lines into a bright canvas.


At the door, Madison felt a tingle at the warm, bared boards beneath her naked feet. Insects were scratching and the air smelled pleasantly harsh, as if had been sloughed by rock face and wild brush. There was an edge of smoke to it, that spoke to her of harvest fires. She cast a look over the land, knowing they were still a few months off the time of orange on grey skies and burning fields, and then turned towards her two. "Nice night." Wings of a dark man's back folded from their shielding and there was only grey cotton, a hummingbird of yellow whom broke away, flittered to the door and became a girl.

Penny was off, kicking off her sandals as she went. Straight to her room to get change, and break out into another song neither of them had ever heard before. Madison bent to place down the heels by her boots just off from the front door, and took a hand to the chignon, setting loose the dark ribbons and tendrils of her mane. "How sure are you about this gun thing?" She fluffed at her hair, dragging nails through it and giving it a shake. It felt good to let it down, and be free of those heels. "A'int sure of it myself...To be honest with you." Her words were poised as questions, not a bridge to argument. She wondered what it was that he wished to see in Penny. Maybe it was a new form of responsibility? She got that. She could follow that. But the thought still bothered her.

At the kitchen, she opened a cabinet and got out two glasses, and one at a time filled them with ice cold water. A turn, she held his out towards him, as he stepped towards her, loosening a few more buttons from their holes. "Trust me... you don't want to start raisin' a little me. If she were to form a love for it..." She grinned up at him, stepping into his arms. A hand to his chest. Dashing.

"Anyone ever told you that you're breath takin'."

She took a sip from her glass and held it at her side. She looked down. "I don't want to take this thing off." It was said like the spell of that magical evening would end abruptly, and she might become a pumpkin.

Penny emerged behind them, wrapping her arms around Tag's back. It was tight. She had slipped into her pajama's and her hair had been set free; it stood out in all directions from her dancing about her room. "I love you, Daddy. And Madi...", she peeked around her father, freckled cheeks lifted with a smile. "Thanks for dinner. It was awesome."

Somewhere between wiping a small smear of pistachio from his chin as she was left in quiet reeling at his heart-touching words, that told of a formed love, and the scatter of Penny's footsteps to the bathroom, Madison fell into further thought. Unexpected, to begin to think in a certain direction, when it had been so long since she herself had taken up a pen and committed an idea to a page, or allowed her mind to ... drift off.. from concerns and stress of a bar. When she had first come to town, and for a few years after, she had done so. But one day the joy of it had wandered away, further afield. Madison started to suspect that words could become the rocks that weighed her pockets if she walked with them. It had become easier to push them to some back-room of her mind, or tuck them like playing cards with faded luck behind her ribs. But standing there, in that innocent moment of a routine she had had drawn into, another dance without music, she got to her ponder.

...Love...wasn't it like a gun? That it all came down to how well you held either in your hand. Were your grip a shaking one, the target would not be hit. If you were in constant concern over your partner, was it then that the prophecy would be fulfilled always because you never did stop your trembling?

If you didn't tend to it like a beast, that needed maintenance and care, it would spoil. Neglect was as cancerous as infidelity.

Trust...

Did her young heart have to break?

It would, regardless of should. And when it did shatter into pieces like a glass on an Inn floor, Tag and Madison would be there crouched at her feet - one with pan, the other broom, and they would gather her hurt, dust it away. So the gun they held together, with a little bullet called love, had to be held surely, but gently. That their love be a model for her to measure all others against when it was the years placed her before a man who saw in her a rose whose petals he wished to touch, whose fragrance he wished to inhale, whose stems he threatened to pull... that he remember her thorns.

What it was, to respect a man and love him, how to expect to be treated as a woman. The boundaries they would come to set and were doing so. The way they interacted, whether passionate or playful, respectful or kind, , and the little moments that always showed a true feeling. Memory would appear as a small theatre show in her mind of what it was she had witnessed, when that time came. That she might wait for the very same, as they had. Even when it had meant many afternoons of he alone on his porch, and her alone on endless roads. That some day, when she was not sure, she might recall Tag and Madison in their kitchen, and the look in their eyes. Now, there was no other way to be looked at but like that. For any of them.

She smiled as she found herself in his bathroom. Her head so fat full with that thinking she'd gone into autopilot and walked in, begun brushing her own teeth. A splash of water to her face. Reaching for a small towel, she patted herself dry. Then, a drag of a comb through her hair... something that in days or weeks might become her first annoying habit, or an endearing reminder of her presence, when his own hand reached for it to find stray, fine, brunette hairs caught within.

Madi stepped into the bedroom. The book, his journal, her gift... it was sitting there just behind him on the nightstand. Tag was in front of it, removing his shirt and shaking out its creases before re-hanging. A smile crossed her face. It left a shadow by the sides of her mouth.

"How is that book comin' along?"

Steps to his side, she reached down and took it in hand. It was not opened. She weighed it in her palm as though his words were not words but memories like dried flowers pressed between the pages, and she was guessing how many had been slid within. A silent lift of a brow to him, the edge of her left thumb brushing the slip of paper he had kept. The pale blue was now faded to an off-white, ook the last few letters on the note peeking from around the cover. "I can't believe you still have this." It still struck her. Turned like leaves in her stomach. The poker sliding from its grate and becoming something else. Was there a word for that feeling, or was it nameless? "I hope you find many more wonderful things to add to it." A kiss pressed to his bared shoulder. She took the opportunity to wrap her arms around him from behind and breathe in his smell. The book held right against is abdomen. The stillness of the world leaning close, and the owl that perched on its swaying bough nearby heard through his window, distantly. "Will you read it to me, some day?" She thought of their love and the gentleness of it between them. The pass back and forth of that delicate fabric embroidered new every day. A give and a take that neither rushed over or delayed in.


The feeling without a name stirred in her stomach. A small tide pool that rippled. Reminded her of the first night she had curled on his couch to sleep. That feeling she had felt as she had fallen asleep. How good it had felt to have it again. Was that why it felt the way it did to call him home and how when he said it, it was a feeling that enfolded her. It was as much a gift to give as a place to inhabit... like this house. She felt almost giddy with it..knowing what she felt and gave had a place to be, where it would not be starved.


Outside, the owl lifted off, she heard the beat of its wings into the night. Trust, trust, trust, trust.