AN: Takes place during sometime in season 5 due to one small reference about Tim and Raylan's daughter.

#2

The cool midnight air of Kentucky in the middle of October swirled through the air like a shot of Bourdon at the bottom of a glass. It was the kind of night that men would ride home from work with the windows down, the radio playing a song that made them think their way of living couldn't be perfected, and ride up the driveway to the sight of their woman sitting on the porch in the headlights waiting for him to get home so they could do something hot in the cool breeze.

It was the kind of night Raylan Givens had imagined when he stood from his desk after signing the last bit of paperwork for the day. He shrugged into his jacket, placed his hat on his head with a nod to Art through the glass and made for the door, only to be stopped by Rachel running through unexpectedly, mostly because she left to go home about five minutes earlier.

He opened his mouth to say something out of curiosity as he followed her, but she stopped him from asking as she walked into Art's office.

"Art. It's Tim! He's out at Bowen's place in some kind of trouble. I don't know what exactly but from the way he sounded on the phone just now, I don't think he does either." Rachel explained, holding her phone in her left hand, ready to make some kind of call.

The Chief had already stood by the mention of the youngest deputy's name, but by the end of it he was reaching into the locker pulling out his weapon. "Injured or an episode?"

Rachel gave Raylan a half glance before answering, "I'm not sure."

Raylan held out his hand, "Now hang on a minute, what exactly did he say?"

"A bunch of nothing, except he didn't know where he was. I had Johnson run a trace. Tim went out to get Bowen after lunch, there's no reason for him to still be there, and he would've called for back up if he saw he needed it."

"Rachel call LPD, have 'em meet us down there, just in case." Art cut in, gun on his hip, already headed for the door, with Rachel and Raylan right behind him.

It wasn't a pretty woman in the headlights when Raylan pulled up. Hell, it wasn't even Bowen. It was a spacious, seemingly drunk, Tim Gutterson and he definitely wasn't on the porch. Raylan climbed from his car, throwing his hat off and tossing it carelessly in the back seat, not even bothering to shut the door as he looked up to the roof of Bowen's house where Tim stood, swaying dangerously on the edge.

Art and Rachel mimicked his reaction, minus the hat, as they climbed from the Suburban and came to stand next to Raylan. "Go on and check for Bowen inside the house, I got Tim," Raylan said not taking his eyes off his partner. He was vaguely aware of his boss and colleague hesitating a few seconds, before cautiously entering the house.

It occurred to Raylan as he called, "Tim? What'cha doin' buddy?", that the younger man had been unaware of their presence until he had been addressed due to his startled reaction when his eyes landed on Givens.

"Shit," Raylan grounded out the sudden intake of air he took in between clenched teeth at the sight of Tim stumbling a few steps sideways then getting his balance back, sort of.

"No need for dramatics. Words'll do just fine. Tell me what's going on."

Silence. A few blinks. Another dangerous sway.

"Come on, Tim. You with me? You in Kentucky, or Afghanistan?"

Gutterson's head suddenly snapped to attention towards Raylan. "K-Kentucky, asshole. I'm...stuck. Can't...can't get down. They'll find me, they'll get me."

Raylan's hand that was rested on his holstered gun, suddenly took out the weapon and he dared to take his eyes away from Tim a few seconds to check his surroundings, "Who?" Tim was silent, suddenly looking more frightened than Raylan had imagined he had ever been during his time in the Rangers. "Who's gonna find you?"

The older deputy leaned forward just a hair as Tim's mouth opened to reply, but suddenly Tim was scrambling backwards at the sound of the front door opening and Art saying, "The house is clear. No one's inside."

Raylan had raised his gun just at his stomach at Tim's reaction, thinking that it may have been Bowen or whoever 'they' were, but quickly lowered it with a , "Damn it, Art. I could've shot you."

"As much as I know you want to, I appreciate it that you held back." Art replied, coming to stand beside Raylan and glancing up. "How's Tim?"

"Who?" Raylan glanced between the roof and Art with a 'he's out of his damn mind' look, while Rachel came out of the house and stood next to them, looking up as well, waiting for Tim to reappear at the edge.

"Well, the good news is, he isn't havin' a PTSD episode. Bad news...he's probably got more drugs in him than the Harlan County jail inmates combined."

"Really?" Raylan let a smirk for the irony split his face.

"We found a bunch of narcotics and syringes inside." Rachel replied, still looking for Tim.

"Now I'm no Raylan Givens, but I'd bet money on our boy bein' under the influence."

"Mmm." Raylan nodded and turned his attention back to the roof. He stepped a few feet forward and called, "Tim. Hey! Come on back, so I can talk to you for a minute, alright? See if we can't get you down from there."

Slowly Tim reappeared at the edge, glancing down fearfully at the ground.

"Now listen to me. There's no one here 'cept myself, Art and Rachel, okay? No one's gonna find you, no one's coming to get you."

Raylan thought he was making progress, could see that Tim was starting to relax a little, until red and blue lights assaulted the area along with sound of police sirens. "Shit," Raylan groaned as he watched Tim duck back from the edge. He turned towards Art and Rachel. "Did you see a way up to the roof?

"Back room, in the closest," Art responded. "We'll keep LPD back."

Raylan had to wonder if Tim had gotten onto the roof another way, because the older deputy had to shimmy his way through the attic hole just to get to the top of the house and it was rather unpleasant. Nevertheless, he made it to the roof with a few spiderwebs in his mouth and in his hair, wiping at them until he saw Tim scrunched up against the chimney, legs drawn to his chest, head on his knees.

"Tim."

If it was possible, the younger Marshal pressed himself further into the chimney and if it wasn't he made a good attempt at it anyway.

"Woah. Easy, easy. It's just me."

Tim picked his head up, stared at Raylan a second, then glanced out to the front yard with all the police lights, then back at Raylan. "They're here to get me. They're gonna find me."

"Who? The police?"

Tim dropped his head back to his knees, arms coming to circle his legs, showing Raylan how much his body was trembling, causing the older man to question whether or not Tim knew he was.

"No one's gonna-" but Raylan trailed off, seeing Tim curl further in on himself. He ran his tongue over his teeth and let out a sigh. He slowly walked over to his shaking mess of a partner and squatted down in front of him.

"Why do you think I came?" Raylan tried a different tactic, suppressing a smile when Tim slowly lifted his head, and when it came up so that the only thing Raylan could see was his eyes, it reminded him of the few times he'd seen Tim play peek-a-book with his daughter. "You really think I'm gonna let some dipshit get ahold of you and leave me alone with Art? You're like the golden child that can do no wrong. As long as I got you 'round to explain things, Art won't chew my ass out for every little incident."

Tim ducked his head back down, muttering, "But I can do wrong. I've done it! They're right. They'll get me for it, they will!"

"What'd you do?"

"Pulled the trigger. Pulled it, and pulled it, and pulled it." Tim explained, hands coming up to muss at his hair.

Raylan craned his neck, curiosity still working him over. "You talkin' about recently or back in the Rangers?" A flinch, maybe just a fraction of one, but Raylan caught it. "I's kinda hopin' you shot Bowen, myself."

"Boss know that?"

"Oh, he's the one that told me I could put a bullet in him when we found him...more or less."

"I reckon less."

Raylan smiled at the sliver of Tim bobbing up from the waves of the drugs.

"You know the looks he gives. It was a clear signal."

The older Marshal decided the sudden jerk of Gutterson's shoulders was part of a laugh, but there was a little doubt rattling in the back of his brain as his phone rang loud between them.

"Givens," he answered without looking at his phone.

"How's he doin'?" Art's voice filtered through the device along with shrill sirens.

"He doesn't believe that you want me to shoot Bowen when we find him."

"I knew he was my favorite. Let's just deal with our boy first 'fore we go huntin' for another."

"Tryin' to Art," Raylan replied, scrunching his face up when he noticed Tim holding his ears. He thought a moment, then cut the Chief off in the middle of a sentence he wasn't listening to. "Hey, tell LPD to back off, alright? We got it under control."

"Raylan, you sure?"

"Yeah, we'll be down in a minute. Call them off." He hung up without waiting for a reply, listening for the sirens to be cut off and watching the lights disappear. "Alright, buddy. What'd you say we get back down to Earth? In more ways than one, huh? Can't imagine you feel too good with all that pumpin' through you."

A small shake of the head was all he got as Tim uncovered his ears and tucked his arms under his stomach.

"I'm gonna need you to help me out here, Tim. I'm not about to carry your ass off this roof. Push it off? That's up to you depending on what you decide to do next." He surprised himself, his tone rather gentle for words usually spoken so threateningly.

Tim finally lifted his head and any attempts at a glare were diminished by glassy eyes and a sudden drain of color from the younger man's face. Raylan barely managed to back away before Tim became sick and deposited his stomach's content on the roof. It wasn't much, didn't last long, but suddenly Tim was panting, curling in on himself once more and mumbling something about being taken away.

Raylan had a small inclination to roll his eyes but, decided to just walk to Tim's other side, away from the vomit, and kneel down yet again. "Alright, Tim. We're gonna take this slow," He grabbed Tim's arm, trying to disregard the shaking through the limb, and placed it around his own neck and hefted the woozy Marshal to his feet. "Easy, easy. I gotcha," He coaxed, taking most of Tim's weight when his quivering legs spoke volumes.

Three stumbles, two hallucinations, and one face plant in the dirt later, found Raylan behind the wheel of his town car, Art in the passenger seat, Tim splayed across the backseat with his hands working over his face and in his hair as he mumbled and muttered stuff about being bad and taken away, and Rachel following behind in the Suburban.

Raylan focused on the road because he found paying attention to the drug induced ramblings that were torturing the younger man had him thinking of other ways to kill Bowen without using his favorite weapon of choice. Art kept craning his neck around, and Raylan wanted to say something about how an old man could hurt his neck doing that much twisting, but the look on the Chief's face told him he wasn't in the mood.

"You ain't goin' anywhere, kid," Art's surprisingly gentle voice suddenly broke out in the car for the first time. "You're gonna be okay."

Raylan couldn't help but glance over at the older man. "Am I the one hallucinating?"

"I told you he was my favorite. Besides, I figured if one of us can be bat-shit crazy, we all can...but give us a few days, Raylan. We've gotta catch up on your years in the making."

Raylan had a wise ass comeback for that but it died when Tim suddenly curled and pleaded with some invisible force to not take him away from his family and Art reassured him by saying, "Raylan and I aren't goin' anywhere, Tim. It's alright."

Favorites aside, maybe it was true. They were a family. Strange, dysfunctional, yet vitally existing, but a family no less. And maybe, just maybe, when Raylan tracked that son of a bitch Bowen down and delivered what he had coming, he'd be the favorite.

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!