Look, I made more Longmire fic already! This'll be another short one, in either two or three parts.

This is set shortly after the end of season 3, and assumes several things: Branch survived the confrontation with his father, Walt was able to nail everyone to the wall for their roles both in Martha's murder and all associated crimes, and Sean has already taken off for Australia. Clearly there are spoilers and ample references to season 3 contained within.

xxxxx

Moving Day
Part I

He felt her hovering in the doorframe before he saw her.

It was a symptom of the screaming, un-ignorable sense of physical awareness he'd been feeling toward his deputy for a while now, at least since that day in the hospital where they'd been clinging onto each other for dear life. He'd welcomed that fierce embrace, initiated it even, and hadn't felt a speck of guilt in regards to her absent husband who was somewhere down along the corridor on the small ward dealing with the myriad traumas of the day on his own. No; the guilt hadn't come 'til later, and Walt had more than compensated for his momentary lapse of conscience since that day.

He felt guilty when he drove Vic and Sean home from the hospital, leaving them to deal with battered bodies and a broken marriage while he went to find that needle and thread and dull his own aches with a beer or four.

He felt guilty when he received the divorce papers from Ruby— not because Vic's marriage was over but because all he could feel was panic over the fact that nothing was holding her here now, that after all this he might still lose her.

The self-condemnation that day was twofold, because he also knew that Sean's insistence that Walt serve the divorce papers was the younger man's way of telling him that yes, he considered Walt to be a responsible party in the breakdown of that relationship. He had helped contribute to the end of their marriage, so now he should take his share of the consequences. Sean might not have been a physically imposing type of guy, but there was more than one way to deliver a knockout blow and this one had caught Walt on the blind side.

And yes, he felt guilty for accidentally punching Vic during the confrontation with Nighthorse. It was just another example of how people got hurt when he let his feelings get the best of him, which seemed to be an overarching theme in his life recently. He hit her, and yet she was the one tending to his wounds just a short while later. He wanted to let her take care of him, and he wanted to return the favor. Then he wanted to bring her out to his place, take her to bed, and not let her out of his sight or out of his arms for a solid week.

But he couldn't do that, could he? So the cycle of guilt continued.

There had only been one thing he could do, and he'd be lying to himself yet again if he didn't admit that it was at least loosely related. When it came to Walt finally finding the strength to let Martha go there were a lot of factors that contributed, and his growing affection for Vic was one of them. He couldn't spend the rest of his life shielding himself from others by hiding behind that box of ashes. It wasn't fair to Martha, not to Henry or Cady or Vic or to himself. The only way he could truly honor his departed wife was to set her spirit free and avenge her, then move on with his life and start letting people in… he knew that last step might prove hardest of all.

Deputy Moretti was in front of his desk now, tapping one booted foot impatiently as she waited for his acknowledgement. He'd completely lost the thread of whatever document he was examining as soon as she darkened his doorstep, so he finally stopped pretending his attention was on anything other than her. He raised his head to make eye contact. "What's up, Vic?"

"Hey." She crossed her arms over her chest, rocking on her heels with a nervous energy as a wisp of blonde hair fell loose from her ponytail. "Listen, I really hate to ask this, but I need an extra day off."

He knew her well enough to realize she wasn't finished, so he simply leaned back in his chair and waited with one eyebrow raised.

"I know it's not the best time with everything going on and Branch still recovering. But nobody's been shot, stabbed, run over, or had seven types of shit kicked out of them in almost a week and I really need to get the rest of my stuff out of the house before my landlord flips and ends our lucky streak."

"You're moving?" He was genuinely surprised.

She gave a sarcastic way-to-state-the-obvious nod. "Yep."

"I thought Sean already left for Australia? I guess I just assumed you'd keep the house."

Releasing a long sigh, she flopped into the chair across from him. "There are too many bad memories in that place, Walt. I could've stayed, but I would've just kept thinking about all the fights and pathetic attempts to fix our problems with sex… plus, it's too big for only me. I'm never home anyway with you dragging my ass all over hell's half-acre, so I found something smaller."

Walt refused to wonder when the last time had been, that Vic and Sean had tried to repair their relationship with sex.

"Okay." He paused thoughtfully. "Why don't you take tomorrow? I'll get Ferg in early and make sure Ruby doesn't call you for anything short of World War III."

At last, she gave a relieved smile. "Thanks, Walt. I'm sure I can get everything moved or junked in one day if I start first thing in the morning."

It was out of his mouth before he had time to think it over. "Need a hand? Two trucks'd be faster than one."

Now Vic was the one that was surprised. "Aren't you a bit busy dealing with Barlow and Nighthorse? I know how important this is to you, Walt. I would never ask—"

"It's mainly paperwork at this point, and Cady's out in Denver sorting the rest with Fales and the Denver PD. Not much more I can do 'til she gets back." He looked down at his hands. "To be honest I could use the distraction."

They looked at each other for a drawn out moment.

"Well I'd love the help— I'll even throw in a few Rainiers to sweeten the deal."

He tapped his fingertips on the desk, an unintentional nervous gesture. "You're on."

xxxxx

Standing among the small sea of labeled cardboard boxes with her hands on her hips, Victoria Moretti glanced at the generic wall clock that had come with the house for the third time in five minutes and wondered why, why she had butterflies in her stomach like she was waiting to be picked up for a date.

He is coming to help you move boxes and lift heavy furniture. This. Is. Not. A. Date.

Her head understood the facts, but her body had other ideas when it came to Walt. Squashing those thoughts, she kicked a narrow pathway through the boxes so the doorway was at least somewhat clear. At the very least she knew she was getting a capable helper— any man who could ransack his own office and flip a desk that heavy could certainly handle a flatscreen TV and a few cluttered boxes of kitchenware.

Fidgeting with the slightly frayed hem of her old Philadelphia Flyers t-shirt, Vic abruptly sat down on an upturned crate and leaned the side of her face against her hand. She worried a little about herself, because of the relief she felt now that Sean was gone. There had been no tears shed on her part at the final dissolution of her marriage, and the best she could manage was to feel a sense of failure and a smattering of regret.

The fact that she couldn't bring herself to actually care about the relationship itself made her feel like a bad person, which was not the same— Vic struggled against another recollection, of a motel bar in dusty Arizona— it was not the same as being a bad girl. It was worse, probably. But it's not as if Sean had shown much hesitation in moving halfway across the world to distance himself.

Sean was out of the picture, and Ed Gorski was gone, too. In the end she had to give Ed credit for being a man of his word. At the hospital he had told her that all he really wanted was to watch her have her life torn apart, to see her lose everything that was important to her. And she knew, the real reason he left her and Sean in the Granada on that dark and winding road was that he realized he had gotten his wish.

He'd seen her at Chance's mercy, unable to do anything to save herself or Sean other than follow Walt's orders and reluctantly entrust their safety to Ed. For such a capable police officer, this level of helplessness was unthinkable.

Surely he had also noticed the way it broke her just that much more, having to leave the heroic sheriff there alone with a man who had at least a 50/50 shot at killing him. It must have been so pathetically obvious, the way she stared out the window, betraying the depth of how important Walt was to her.

And when she'd ordered Gorski to stop the car at the sight of Walt's truck by the accident scene, her erstwhile stalker must have known that his triumph was complete. It had come to the point where Vic would abandon her mentally and physically devastated husband, willing to throw away any hope of salvaging that relationship in order to speed back to Walt Longmire's side— showing by default that if Chance had actually managed to kill Walt she would rather take the risk and die herself than consider the prospect of living a life without him.

Truly, there was nothing else Ed Gorski could have said or done that would have defeated Vic more completely than the events of that day.

Somehow, they had all survived, but everything was different after that. It wasn't just Walt's arms wrapped around her at the hospital or that failed last ditch attempt at intimacy with Sean. It was the way she looked at life and thought about the future and what she wanted in it. Of course, wanting things and actually being able to have them were two entirely separate concepts…

Vic was broken out of her dark musings by a firm but measured knock at the door. She gave one of the boxes a final kick with a sneakered foot, in part to avoid jumping to answer the door too eagerly. Get it together, Moretti.

When she saw Walt standing on her doorstep in perfectly worn-in old Levis and a slightly faded dark blue t-shirt she knew she didn't have it together at all. An already hot day was suddenly growing hotter, and it was only 8:30 in the morning.

She bit the inside of her cheek and perched one hand on her hip in an attempt to look nonchalant. "Hey, cowboy. Ready to rope some boxes?"

"At your service, ma'am." Walt tipped his hat and smiled, actually smiled, with teeth and dimples and the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

Opening the screen door to let him in, she pointedly did not stare at his bare arms or the shifting planes of his back as he walked past her. Wouldn't that be an awesome freaking headline? LOCAL DEPUTY SUFFERS STROKE WHILE OGLING SHERIFF'S MUSCLES. Yeah, great.

She looked at him again, hat in his right hand, just standing there casually appearing even taller than usual against the backdrop of short brown cardboard squares that littered her living room. Soon he would be using those muscles to help her lift things.

This was turning into a very interesting day.

xxxxx

As you might have ascertained, this story does not have a particularly complicated 'plot.' I'm feeling quite determined to get these two together, so we'll see what I can manage. Depending on my level of success, I might have to up the rating before the story is complete. My work schedule is a bit hectic at the moment, so it may be up to a week before the next bit (which I've already started) will be ready. :D

Feedback is definitely appreciated, I'm still getting used to these guys so let me know how I'm doing so far, especially with the dialogue and things like that!