Longmire: Second Chances

Prologue: Crisis

Sitting at his desk, the door to his office closed, Walt was reading the FBI file stored on that computer he and Ferg had swiped earlier that day. With it, Walt knew that Tucker Baggett was withholding information from his defense team in the civil suit against him.

Little did he know what was also going on around him with those that he loved and cared about. He had been so self-absorbed in the suit and his almost maniacal hatred of Jacob Nighthorse and his certainty that the man was dirty that he couldn't even fathom anything else. He had accused both Henry and Cady of siding with Nighthorse. Cady had literally dismissed him at her office, and he and Henry had engaged in a fistfight when Walt tried to force Henry to admit he was Hector.

Then there was Vic.

He didn't know Vic was pregnant, by either Eamonn or, of all people, Travis. Unlike Ruby, the signs that she was pregnant had gone right over his head-probably again because he was so consumed with everything else.

No one had stayed more loyal to him than Vic: Vic had said she would lie for him; she had abandoned her wounded husband to go back to Walt as he was dueling Chance Gilbert; she had kissed him in the hospital. But even then, he couldn't see just how desperately she adored and loved him.

Now, he was in his office. She was in the other room finishing paperwork. At the same moment, Vic looked at the door leading to his desk; Walt was looking at the same door leading to the other room. They could sense the other was glancing at the door.

Vic took a breath, then turned back to the image she had on her desk: it was the ultrasound of the heartbeat of the baby inside her. She and Travis had seen the image earlier that day, and it had brought to the forefront the reality that her life was changing, and if she wanted to be in the confusion and heartache of all that had happened to here in Durant, and the fact she was in love with her boss-again.

She had been physically and emotionally beaten in the middle of nowhere here in Wyoming, even more than she had in the tough streets of Philly. The mental and physical toll of a failed marriage, being kidnapped and tortured, through two mind-numbing depositions, the pregnancy-and Walt-had left her exhausted. And with a baby on the way, she couldn't afford to be exhausted.

She couldn't wait around for Walt forever. She made a decision at that moment.

In his office, Walt contemplated, still looking at the door, thinking, as he did constantly, of the blond who had wandered into his quiet (kind of) existence a few years back, and had altered his entire perception of what a woman could be. She cussed a lot, was outgoing, brash, sultry beyond belief, had nerves of steel when in a tense situation at work, and loyal to a fault.

Then there was her looks: her large, expressive hazel eyes; her full, lush lips; an electric smile that could light up Manhattan; a body that screamed sexiness. The whole package.

Walt had denied it for so long; first when still mourning Martha; then resisting because Vic had still been married, even as that marriage was crumbling; and now with his civil suit and war with Nighthorse. But he couldn't deny it any longer. He wanted her; he needed her.

He opened the large drawer on the bottom of his desk to the left. He found the bottle- an old bottle of whiskey that was half gone, as Walt had sipped at it over time. But he felt a sudden need to share it, in the hopes of maybe getting up some liquid courage to tell Vic what he felt. He had told her that he needed to start doing things differently, so this was as good a time as any.

He grabbed the large bottle firmly, and took long, confident steps out of his office.....

Vic was gone. His face was crestfallen. He took the whiskey back into his office.

What he didn't know, at that very moment that Vic hadn't just left the building-she was leaving the state.