Title: "When My Time Comes"

Author: Lila

Rating: PG-13

Character/Pairing: Raylan

Spoiler: "Blowback

Length: one-shot

Summary: No matter how far Raylan runs, there will always be demons on his tail.

Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

Author's Note:Something I found while cleaning out my hard drive this morning, written right after "Blowback" and languishing in the depths of my computer until a few hours ago. Apologies for any inaccuracies – it's been a while since I've watched the show. Title courtesy of Dawes. Enjoy.

It's been twenty years but Raylan can still hear the roar in his ears.

It's louder than the crash of the waves on a Miami beach, louder than the keening wail of Ava's cries, louder than the silence that filled the final months of his marriage, louder still than his heart thumping against his ribs so hard they should have broke.

Sometimes, he closes his eyes, and he can hear it whistling through the tunnel, clawing at his shoulders and trying to pull him back.

Some days, walking itself is a miracle. He'll find himself standing on the sidewalk, the brim of his hat shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun, and he'll watch from a distance at how his legs propel one foot before the other.

He remembers that night, the clomp of his boots in the dirt and the adrenaline rushing through his veins; he remembers thinking he would never move so fast again in his life.

Every time he draws first blood, trigger finger trembling from the recoil, the same thought floats through his mind.

Most mornings, he wakes just as the light is slipping through the thin cotton of his curtains, and he runs a hand down his stomach, up his back, hovering over the firm muscle of his chest.

He cheated death once. He's not sure he'll be able to do it again.

Being a Marshall is what he knows; being a Marshall is who he is; being a Marshall is what he allows himself to be.

When the hammer swoops down, he answers the call and agrees to trade in the sun and sand for rolling hills and a whiff of manure and juleps on the wind.

His hat has rested on his head for nearly fifteen years but it feels heavy on his brow as he walks through the front door, boots echoing on the tile.

Art introduces him as Givens and every pair of eyes in the room turns to his, some widening and some narrowing, but none disinterested.

His own story has spread far and dug in deep, but he was raised in Arlo's shadow.

The weight feels lighter as he disappears into Art's office, and despite the twentysome stares boring holes into his back, his feet stop dragging on the floor and his shoulders align into a straight line.

For the first time in days, the scrutiny has nothing to do with the name Tommy Bucks.

Winona signed the divorce papers in Miami, hot sun burning through the thin silk of her dress, blonde hair curling about her ears in the damp humidity.

She wore blue, like her eyes or the big Kentucky sky, and it reminded him of his mama in the garden, back bent over her tomatoes like growing them right might make something in her life worthwhile.

It was before his wife married Gary and his money, and her sunglasses were the cheap kind sold at Walmart, and they kept slipping down her nose as she peered over the papers and ended what was supposed to be forever with one swipe of her pen. The ink was black and thick, like the curved letters that declared his mama legally dead.

"We could have done this in Kentucky," he'd said, eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of his glasses, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over the page the way he'd bathed their marriage in darkness. "You didn't have to come all this way."

She shrugged, forehead knotting as she studied a line of text. "This is your home now. It was the least I could do."

He'd remembered that last argument, when he'd taken the job and insisted she follow him, and she'd reminded him that her life – their lives – were rooted in the deep, blue grass of the Kentucky hills. "I hate Florida," she'd said. "It's too hot and the people are shallow and this is my home."

"I can't breathe here," he'd whispered, cool, damp air filling his lungs even though Lexington was a far cry from Harlan, because all the concrete and metal and random strangers on the street couldn't keep the memories from seeping into every nook and cranny of the life he tried to build for himself.

"I can't go there," she'd said and he'd known she was talking about more than South Beach.

Six months later he watched as her pen stalled on the bottom line and a rush of air hissed through her teeth. For a moment, just a moment, the tight lines of her face had eased and she was the girl he'd married. He hadn't seen her in years but it gave him hope that he could get her back.

"You don't have to do this," he'd tried one last time. "Once you pick up a taste for mojitos, you'll never want to go back."

She'd shook her head and gripped her pen so tight her knuckles bleached white but forced it to scratch across the thin, straight line. "I can't breathe when I'm with you," she'd said and lifted her eyes to meet his. They were clouded and watery but they weren't wavering.

He'd thought about protesting but decided it wasn't worth it. Even with the tan and new address, he was still a Givens. Failing women was what they did best.

Lexington isn't home but it feels like a trap all the same.

The bourbon is good and the chicken is spicy, but even the smog of the city can't remove the hint of rich, black dirt hanging in the air.

Every time he breathes in, it catches in his hair and lingers on his skin, even after he stands under the thin stream of water trickling from his showerhead, scrubbing his skin until it glows red and raw in the dingy light.

It's the same color as the welts on his mama's face the last time he saw her alive.

One morning, before it all goes to hell the way he knew it always would, he wakes to find Ava perched in his desk chair, a mug of coffee at her elbow and a cigarette clenched tight between two fingers.

There's a sheath of papers spread over his desk and she studies them like a map, her free hand pushing blonde bangs back from her face as she peers closely at the fine print.

"Whatcha doing?" he drawls, grimacing as his accent creeps into his voice, thick and strong as the Northern Red he spent half his childhood climbing.

She flinches and her fingers tremble over the ashtray, a fine, grey dust powering the desk. "I'm changing my name," is all she says and pulls hard on the cigarette, eyes a little wild in her pale face.

"Really."

She sucks in a deep breath and the tension eases from her cheeks. "I shot my husband dead, Raylan. Shot him right there in the dining room while he was eating his chicken dinner. Doesn't make what he did right and doesn't make what I did wrong, but I don't want his name any more."

"Fair enough," he says and runs a hand through his ragged hair, pushes it off his forehead and blinks sleep from his eyes. Ava watches him with clear eyes, the cigarette ashing to nothing between her fingers.

She climbs him, thighs sliding smoothly over his, soft, warm skin locking around him in a firm grip. "My life is mine, Raylan. Mine. Ain't no one taking that from me."

She kisses him and he tries to forget, the lilt in her voice and the way she can shuck her mistakes like an ear of new corn. He can feel it weighing around him, ground into his soul like the thin type of the badge bearing the name his daddy gifted him with.

He's been a Givens his entire life. It rolls off his tongue like a curse but he can't imagine wearing any other one.

Two weeks later the paperwork is still spread across his desk like a tangled map of memories but Ava isn't coming around anymore.

It's before Vasquez lays down the law but things are tense and strained between them and he's not exactly banging down her door to return it.

He mostly stares at it, hates her a little for thinking she can change who she is with one stroke of her pen. He's shed his past enough times to know there's no way to lose his spots.

He shows up at her house unannounced, peering down at her as she stares back at him down the length of her shotgun. She doesn't look surprised to see him but she doesn't lower it either.

"I wondered when you'd be back," she says, rolls the letters over her tongue so there's no mistaking the Kentucky in her voice.

He holds up the sheath of papers. "Not a social call."

"I'd forgotten about those." She lowers the gun but doesn't take her eyes off him. "You can keep them if you want."

He's tempted to take a step forward, slip the papers in her hand and get the hell out of dodge, but he keeps his boots planted in the dirt at the base of her front porch. "I thought you might want them back."

There's a smile on her face as she steps forward and takes the papers from his hands, rips them into nothing before he can blink. "I haven't been Ava McKoy for twenty years. I don't know that girl any better than I know Ava Crowder."

"Oh, yeah?"

"I'm thinking about taking your advice," she says and she lifts her eyes from the scraps of the past in her hands and stares up at him with eyes as wide and blue as the sky at his back. "There ain't nothing for me here. Never was."

"I think that's the smartest decision you ever made."

She looks sad as she stoops to pick up the shotgun but her back is straight when she stands. "Goodbye, Raylan," she says and closes her door behind her. When she doesn't kiss him, he knows she truly means the words she says.

The paper spins around him and he waits a moment to catch his breath while pieces of Ava Crowder catch in the wind and sink into the mud of the place where she killed her husband. He was the last thing keeping her here but Harlan's binds pull tighter with every passing year.

He knows she'll never leave but he knows himself better. No matter where he goes, he'll always take Harlan with him.

There's a moment with Boyd before the fall.

It's dark and it's late and he can't sleep, too loud in the city and too quiet in Harlan, and this place doesn't give him peace but it feels like home.

He closes his eyes and all he sees is dark; all he hears is the alarm bell ringing in his ears.

He breathes in deep and everything he knows is coated in black.

He's nineteen-years-old and his entire life is in front of him, but there's no way out.

The moon is full when he opens his eyes and it casts a pale glow over the past. The road is blocked and there are bars over the entrance but nothing keeps back the ghosts.

Especially the living ones.

"Didn't think I'd find you here," Boyd says and comes to rest beside him, booted feet crossed at the ankles and hips propped against the gate.

Raylan sighs and reaches up to pull his hat lower down his brow, but his head is bare. He didn't hide back then. He didn't need to. "Sometimes we all need a trip down memory lane."

Boyd steps forward and kicks through the dirt, a thin spray of dust blowing up around him. "Can you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Sometimes I close my eyes and I can still feel the heat on my back. We could have died that night. Do you ever think about that?"

"I lived," Raylan says, his throat suddenly tight as memories of the smoke and the flames close around it like a fist. "That's enough."

"Some life," Boyd says like he knows what's inside him, like it hasn't been two decades since he's seen Raylan's face. Like he was there when his mama died and Winona left and he shot Tommy Bucks at point blank. It doesn't matter that they haven't laid eyes on each other in twenty years – he understands all the same.

"It is what it is," Rayland reminds him. "Don't think because we shared something here doesn't mean I won't put another bullet in you." He means his words, the way he did that night. He can't move forward when he's tethered to the past.

Boyd moves closer, so Raylan can feel him at his side like he did that night, when all they had was each other to keep alive.

"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away," Boyd says softly, but confidently. Like he believes the lies that spill so easily from his lips. "I'm not your enemy, Raylan. Something started here. I'm only seeing it through."

Boyd doesn't kiss him, but his touch is close to one as his fingertips brush against Raylan's cheek as he departs. He can't escape that night, or the feel of Boyd's hand brushing his as they raced for the gate, his headlamp guiding the way like a beacon in the night.

When Raylan opens his eyes, Boyd is gone but the ghosts cling like a second skin.

He can't hate someone who's a part of him.

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