This story was completed before Season 4 began.

Chapter 1

As a rule, serenity makes me nervous. Don't even get me started on yoga. And don't think I don't know that's part of the problem. You think it's cold that I don't miss him. You think I see it as all his fault. You think I can't see the truth about myself, but it's not true. I know who I am, and I know what I do, I just don't wallow in the mire of my limitations and talk about it.

When I was thirteen, my Uncle Dom died a year and a half into his fight with stomach cancer. The Moretti clan has a code of conduct outlining the acceptable reaction to all major life events. After the funeral, Aunt Maria's level of devastation did not meet the standard. She got a lot of self-righteous Italian-American shit for that. Most of it went on behind her newly widowed back, you know, in consideration of her situation and all.

Maria was an anomaly in those parts. She was built like the rest of them, wiry and tough, but she was so accepting, so zen. In all the afternoons I spent at their house during my junior high years, she never once told me to walk like a girl, and it wasn't because she knew my mom already had that base fully covered. It was because, to her, it didn't matter. It wasn't an embarrassment, or a sign of my impending lesbianism, or a stain on the Moretti family name. It was just me, and that was totally fine with her. When Dom finally died, she did cry, but not in the way that turns the world dark just to watch it. She told me she'd already done a lot of her grieving. So just maybe my failure to respond more "appropriately" is a little of that. Maybe it's just me.

Here, now, I'm barefoot at the kitchen counter waiting almost patiently for the coffee to brew, on a Monday morning of all things. The neighbor's idiot brown lab is running circles and circles around the clothes line, stirring dust up into the pale morning air and onto what I'm guessing are clean sheets. I've lived two years in this house, and I don't know that dog's name. I'll do you one better: I don't know the first or last names of the three people who live there, though I could pick them out of a line up. Today is different. I'm not wound tight and scrambling to get out the door, whether or not something big is going on at the office. There's nothing going on at the office, and there's no one to avoid at home. For for the first time in a couple of years, I can see beyond the frame of my small world, and I think I would like to meet that crazy dog in person.

In the month since we finally brought that bastard down, and Walt and Cady finally laid Martha to rest, and Henry finally got cleared of that bogus charge, and Sean said his last goodbye, life has downshifted considerably. Adrenalin had been my fuel for so long that I actually felt hung over when there was nothing left nipping at my heels. I moved some furniture around and set up the house for one. I watched all five Rocky movies. I found a new running route along the dirt frontage road and through the alfalfa fields. I even called my mom. The divorce was barely a blip on the radar—I kept mine, he kept his, and I bought him out of the house. Wyoming property, especially in bum-fuck nowhere Wyoming, is surprisingly cheap comparatively.

Like I said, I know my part, but it's not what you think. I can cop to the bad choices I've made with men both in Philly and here. But I swear on my Aunt Maria's grave, it's not about Walt, it's not about sex, and it's not about choosing one man over another. Admittedly, I might have made it look like it was. I'm not going to lie: There's a feral pull. Sometimes I look at him and I swear my mouth starts to water like a cartoon guy about to dig into a steak. If I had a dime for every time I have imagined sex with him in vivid detail, I'd own this place outright. But thinking isn't doing. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not stupid, and I know fantasy and real life are two wildly different animals. I know that even if he did want me, and I'm not sure he does, it could never be casual, even in the beginning. It would be endgame, or at least expected to be. I'd have to step up like I've never stepped up before, and the idea of that has terrified me enough to back way off.

The truth is it's about what Walt Longmire represents in all of his imperfection, and all the things I should have thought about before sleeping with guys like Gorski and before getting married, but didn't. It's about the difference between Mom and Aunt Maria, and about the various ways love comes at you.

It's about learning to take care of myself.