Archive of Our Own ^beta

"There's a new gal staying at Joyce's."

Robin hums and ashes her cigarette with a flick of her finger before bringing it back to her mouth. It's a stupidly hot day and her brain feels like it's cooked inside her stetson. She doesn't have the energy to point out to Steve that this isn't new information, given she lives on Joyce's property. Joyce had left to go to town to pick up the new stay that morning.

"You met her?" she asks, instead.

Steve grins and swipes the cigarette from between her lips, crouching down until he's sat next to her on the dusty pallet.

"I have, and you're shit out of luck, Buck." he takes a drag and pats her leg in sympathy. "She seems like a real lady.".

"And I'm not?" Robin asks, brow raised.

"I wasn't saying that, I was more meaning she seems... straight laced."

Steve always looks up while he's pondering, like he's talking to the clouds.

"I think you are a lady, just a ...different kind." he lands on.

Robin snorts, "Stop flirting with me.".

"I'm not, I'm saving all my lines for Miss Nancy." Steve grins again, passing the cigarette back.

Robin takes a drag, rolls her eyes, and leans back to lie flat, tipping her hat down over her face. "You think all the divorcees come over here just to fall onto a new man's lap".

"Nah, just most of them. Polly for sure."

Robin rolls her eyes again, even though he can't see her, and lays looking through the pinprick holes of her hat at the bright sun. It really is hot today. She can tell it's bordering on too hot, by the way she's starting to get just a little sick of Steve, and the way her ass feels like its stuck to her jeans.

"How many more bales you got?", she asks the inside of her hat.

"A shit tonne". Steve groans.

"Well good luck with 'em," Robin rolls herself to standing, while Steve protests. "Sorry Stevie, it's too hot for charity and I've got a real lady to meet.". She gives him the rest of the cigarette in consolation and dusts herself off with her freed hands. "I'll see you tomorrow.".

Steve curses her but waves as she turns to leave. He's still on the pallet, finishing his smoke, when she rounds the corner.

Robin gets half a glance of a petite woman in a grey a-line skirt disappearing up the stairs while she's taking off her boots. She instinctively angles her head lower, to try and get a better look through the glass of the door, but all it reveals is a matching jacket before the lady is out of sight.

Joyce pulls the doors open as Robin stands back up, letting her through and batting at the hay stuck to the back of her shirt.

"You're my nosiest child" Joyce grumbles at her as Robin skips to the bottom of the stairs to check all the bedroom doors are closed.

"I prefer curious. She's outta earshot. What do you know?"

Joyce ignores her, mutters under her breath at the hay strands littering the floor and wanders into the kitchen.

Robin follows, drags back one of the chairs in the dining room and flings herself into it, reveling in the relief of the cool wood through her shirt. Joyce is back within a few minutes and sets a glass of iced tea down in front of her. Robin reaches for it gratefully with both hands then presses them, cool and damp, to the back of her neck.

"Joyce, I think god sent you." She groans, gulping down half the glass, breathless when she asks, "So, what do we know?".

"You're worse than Jon with his damn camera", Joyce shakes her head before taking a seat and leaning in to tell Robin every detail she knows, like always.

"Nancy Wheeler, twenty-six. She's a little thing, but I don't get the impression there's much delicate about her. She's smart like a whip, has a job for a big paper. Looks like she could kick your teeth out if you don't warn her you're approaching" Joyce nods appreciatively. "I reckon she'll get herself settled pretty in the divorce".

"Twenty six is young," Robin wonders, aloud, "How's she know she's even sick of the fella? She can't have been with him lo-." Robin yelps as Joyce pinches at her kneecap through her jeans in that awful way that make her belly jump.

"Don't be ignorant." Joyce admonishes, while Robin rubs at her leg. "You get sick of your fella after a few hours work, and, you don't know what was happenin' behind closed doors."

Robin opens her mouth to object, but Joyce cuts her off, "Don't try telling me Harrington ain't your fella baby, I know. He ain't your fella but he is your fella. Hell I'd say you're probably his, too".

"Don't go round telling people Steve's got a fella, you'll get him shot". Robin laughs.

"Oh that boy's reputation will save him there. He's already made his way into Nancy's chambers with the bags. She got shot of him pretty quick, though. I don't reckon she's one for socializing.".

"She sounds fantastic." Robin murmurs. Joyce evidently hears her and makes to pinch her again, Robin yanks her leg away triumphantly, but clatters it painfully into the underneath of the table.

Joyce laughs at her groan before standing up and kissing Robin's temple. She heads out the room, calling a loving "clean that shit off my floor" over her shoulder as she goes.

Robin decides not to go looking for Nancy. She figures they'll bump into each other naturally at some point on the ranch, or maybe she'll visit the casino.

She doesn't account for Nancy holing up indoors. It's happened before, and Robin can never understand why these women don't just book themselves a hotel. There's miles to explore, horses to ride. Yet they stay inside, crying over their dusty old, cheating husbands, and counting the flowers on the peeling walls.

She expresses as much to Jonathan when she gets back from a ride on Belivet and finds him mucking out the stables, and he tells her she's wrong. When he gets up at five thirty to do his morning rounds, Miss Wheeler's already made a pot of coffee and is setting out on her daily walk, and spends long days in town after.

She's vaguely embarrassed when she rolls herself out of bed at five o'clock a couple of days later, but she's only seen Nancy a couple of times, from a distance. She hadn't stood and stared, leering like the fellas in the casino would, but this does mean Nancy's been at the ranch for five days and Robin hasn't even introduced herself. It's the polite thing to do, she convinces herself.

She sees signs of movement at the front door of the main house around an hour later and heads out to her own porch. It's about a five minute walk from Joyce's, so she waits a couple of minutes before lighting her cigarette, so she can have a reason to be casually leaning on the porch post when Nancy passes by. Stupid, she thinks, but she still tries to smooth her hair down when the lady in question comes into view.

Each time she's seen Nancy before now she's been dressed like she's going to an office. Tailored white shirts, knee length plain skirts and blazers. Now, though, her hair is down in waves past her shoulders and she wears some tan linen trousers, boots, and a shirt that may well be one she wears to town - but this time unbuttoned, to just below her collarbones.

Charming, is the word that comes to mind, and Robin would scoff at herself if that wouldn't make her look insane. There's something endearing about the way Nancy has clearly tried to fit herself into the rural landscape but hasn't quite shaken off her city airs.

Nancy smiles at her as she approaches, and Robin demands her brain make her face smile back, except predictably, she's been smiling since Nancy first entered her field of vision.

Nancy is pretty. Dainty features and long lashes and big expressive eyes. Her smile is sly and Robin hates that she's feeling butterflies before she's even opened her mouth. She's not what she imagined. Steve usually fawns over the ladies whose shirt buttons can barely hold their breast from spilling out and who have pretty rouged cheeks and red lips.

Nancy is definitely not that, but Robin gets the fawning all the same.

"Good morning!" Nancy calls, a couple of feet from the porch. She's slowed to a stop and shielded her eyes with her hand as the sun rises from behind the roof of Robin's cottage.

"Morning," Robin calls back, as casually as she can. "Miss Wheeler, right?".

"Call me Nancy."

"Pleasure to meet you, Nancy."

"And you're Robin?"

"That's me."

Nancy nods and gestures in the direction she was headed. "It's nice to put a face to your name Robin, I expect I'll be seeing you around, but I'm headed on my morning walk, so I'll not keep you."

"You do right," Robin says, "It's most beautiful out here around sunrise".

"I think so too," Nancy smiles, as she turns to carry on her way, offering a small wave when she passes the mailbox.

When Nancy's far away enough, Robin stubs her cigarette and flicks it into the ash tray so she can rub her face vigorously with both hands. She's still grinning when she goes back inside.

On Saturdays, Robin works at the Desert Spin.

She doesn't hate it, despite there being plenty to hate.

Most of the regulars know about her 'proclivities' and have gotten over the novelty of trying to persuade her that they are the fella who will make her realize what she's been missing. They are actually respectful, in their own way, threatening to knock the teeth out of any new guy who gets a little too familiar. A couple of them she even willingly spends time with.

She's had a long shift. Steve dropped by after her last hour and bought her a beer in thanks for her half-assed help with the baling the other day. Then Hank bought a round after winning on the slots, and Ray and Lil came over with news of their engagement, which drew others to see what the fuss was about, and now there's a crowd.

Robin's feeling pleasantly loose and she's laughed so hard her cheeks are hurting.

"Oh lord," Steve grunts at her under his breath, "Look who's coming to say hi to her favorite cowgirl."

Robin knows who he's talking about before she sees her coming, and presses down on Steve's foot as she calls out "Hey Tam!".

Tammy leans against the back of her and drapes her arms so they wrap around her chest. Her blond curls bounce forward and tickle Robin's face and the sensation of breasts pressed up against her neck makes her blush. Tammy's presence always makes her feel drunker.

"Oh, how romantic baby you can sense my presence!" Tammy calls theatrically and the group at the bar laugh and shout. "I've brought you a good luck charm, fellas."

Robin notes another figure joining them but she's distracted by Tammy's hands running over her shoulders.

"Nancy here has just cleaned up!" Tammy announces and Robin's stomach flips, but the conversation (and Tammy's presence) is loud and she misses the play by play of what Nancy just won, and how. She looks over at the girl a few seats across, gives her a grin and raises her glass. Nancy looks bemusedly back at her and tilts her glass, thrust upon her by Steve no doubt, back at her. Her hair is up again, but looser, waving strands framing her face.

Robin zones into various pieces of conversation that erupt across the bar. Content to people watch from where she's comfortably nestled into Tammy. She turns her head when she hears her name, and Ron is leaning in front of Nancy to get Robin's attention.

"Buckley, do you even know how many fellas in this room would make a deal with the devil to be in your position right now?"

"How'd you think I got to be here?" She replies cheekily. Tammy slaps at her cheek lightly, and the table laughs.

"Robin gets certain privileges" Tammy drawls, "She's earned them tenfold". Robin feels manicured nails tickle her scalp before they tighten in her hair and Tammy pulls her to the side, smacking her lips on the corner of Robin's mouth. The table erupts in cheers and whoops and Robin grins stupidly at Steve who reaches to wipe red lipstick off her cheek with his sleeve.

"Sorry fellas, I can't take more than my ten minutes or the big bosses get antsy." Tammy grins broadly at her audience, reaching with her thumb to smear the lipstick Steve didn't get with his napkin across Robin's cheek. She smiles at Robin, whispers "bye, cowboy" and turns to head back onto the casino floor, swinging her hips.

"I've gotta say it, how's she even get her britches on over that thing?" Ray calls to the table and the laughter roars again, increasing as Lil cusses him out and yanks his hand to point out the new ring sitting on his finger.

The attention is off Robin, for the most part, and she pretends not to notice how Nancy's eyes keep flicking back to the red of Tammy's faded lip-print, and how her cheeks are flushed with more of a blush than can be explained by a few sips of beer.

Robin kind of expects Nancy to avoid her after that. A lot of the women that stay at the ranch do, when they realize.

She rolls herself out of bed around nine, which is criminal by Joyce's standards, but Robin's just going to take the blessing of having not puked in her stetson.

Sunday's are Robin's days. The casino closes, to keep the congregation on the other side of the the road happy, which is preferable as the fewer zealots Robin interacts with, the happier her day tends to be.

She saunters over to Joyce's at ten to see if there's anything left of breakfast after four emotional divorcees, a hungover Jon, Will, and anyone else who came through that morning have torn through the kitchen. No one is in, but there's a note that tells her that Joyce has put enough pancake batter for her to one side.

She spends the day at her cottage cleaning up and putting things back in the places they go (she cant necessarily call it tidying, by other peoples standards). Will joins her at noon with tomato sandwiches carefully wrapped in brown paper, and he helps her hang her hammock back up on the porch. She lies in it to read, and still has time to shower and wash her hair before dinner. Its a full table at Joyce's and even though Nancy doesn't really talk to her, she still laughs quietly at her jokes and smiles when she wishes her goodnight.

Robin goes to bed in her favorite worn sheets, freshly washed, feeling full, and happy.

There's a knock just after six am. Robin has just swung her legs out of bed when she hears it and she's still rubbing her eyes when she answers the door.

She has to look down to see who knocked, because they've gone back down the porch steps. She's bemused when she see's Nancy looking up at her.

"Um, I don't have a dog you know."

"What?" Nancy frowns. Her hair is up today, twisted behind her head in an intricate way Robin would never be able to achieve. She's wearing tan pants with a cobalt shirt tucked into them, and it makes her eyes extra blue, and extra hard for Robin not to stare at.

"I just mean... I don't... nothing is gonna come jumping out when I open the door." She shrugs lamely and the sensation of her hair tickling her shoulders at the movement reminds her she has only just got out of bed and is standing in front of one of the prettiest girls she's ever seen in a white singlet, no bra, and a ratty pair of cotton shorts.

Nancy grins as she flushes. "Noted," she says climbing the steps to stand directly in front of Robin on the porch. "I just came to give you these." She hands Robin a couple of letters, "Joyce says she sometimes ends up with your mail.".

"Thanks." Robin doesn't know what to say, arms folded across her chest to protect her modesty. "Do you uh, want to come in for coffee? Or... juice?".

Nancy sits at her table with a glass of apple juice, taking in her surroundings like she's thinking of buying the place. Robin had excused herself to grab a shirt while she was still processing the fact Nancy had actually said yes to the offer of coming in. She sits opposite her, biting her lip and moving her feet and hands restlessly, desperate for Nancy to take the lead here and break the silence.

Nancy it seems, is content with silences. She is unnervingly intense in the way she analyses the space. Gaze starting at the bathroom door and moving slowly and methodically across the room. Robin feels something flutter in her chest when Nancy smiles at the peek the open door gives into her bedroom. All she can see from the angle is Robin's bed. With her favorite soft worn sheets, left as they were when she flung them off herself that morning. It feels strangely intimate.

"Found anything incriminating?" She jokes, but it comes out croaky and nervous and Nancy looks apologetic.

"No! No, sorry, I'm just used to taking everything in - I work for a paper, investigative stuff- you learn a lot about a person from their homes." Nancy explains, smiling at her reassuringly.

Robin wants to ask what her house says about her but she's too scared to know the answer. She's just glad Nancy chose the day after she'd cleaned to show up.

"Who's this?" Nancy asks, gesturing to one of the photo frames on top of her bookshelf, and Robin thanks god that Nancy has landed on a topic that isn't going to fluster her.

"That's Nanna!" She says brightly. She stands up to grab the frame and brings it over to Nancy, "She's younger here than she ever was when I knew her, obviously, she was very different back then too apparently. Very quiet and demure until Pops died, then she came out of her shell." Robin's mouth twitches on a sad smile. "I think you can really see the resemblance to Will in this picture, he looks just like Joyce, obviously, but you can see Nanna's genes too.".

She reaches down to point, but Nancy's finger does too, at the same time, at her Nanna's mouth. Nancy doesn't yank her hand away, just looks up at Robin.

"It's the smile".

"Yeah." Robin says. It leaves her mouth roughly.

Nancy looks back down at the photo intently, Robin moves her hand back, but Nancy's stays and hovers, tracing the perimeter of the frame.

"She looks like you," Nancy says, hesitantly. "Same nose, and her eyes are... kind of, piercing like yours."

"Piercing?" Robin chokes out.

Nancy looks up at her. "You call Joyce, Joyce. William and Jonathon, they call her Mom."

"Oh," Robin exhales, "Right, well that would be because Joyce isn't my Mom."

"So you and the boys have the same father?"

Robin snorts, "Jon wouldn't be thrilled that you think of him as a boy, but yeah, the boys are my half brothers.".

Nancy doesn't respond straight away and Robin can see her doing the math in her head, putting the story together. Robin normally leaves it there, people are usually too embarrassed to ask further questions and she has no interest in satisfying their curiosity.

"Jon is the oldest, then me, then Will" she hears it come out of her mouth before she's fully decided to say it. "Joyce and Lonnie, my father, split when Will was born. Lonnie moved back home, near his parents. Well, my Mom got wind he was back and dropped me off on the door step about a week after he got home, and left. I don't reckon he would have kept me if it weren't for Nanna. I mean, he never even let me take his name."

Nancy's eyes are wide with the scandal of it all and Robin feels kind of stupid for having shared this with someone whose job as she understands it, is uncovering peoples closet skeletons.

"You were just a baby." Nancy sounds sad, and genuine, and something about it makes Robin feels like a little girl sat on the porch in the cold again, though she can hardly remember it.

"Four." Robin mumbles, then clears her throat. "Uh, anyway. Lonnie was a piece of shit, always has been, always will be. Kept me around till Nanna died when I was sixteen, he was already itching to push me out the door but that was when I started-" Robin catches herself, "Uh, he heard some stuff he didn't like hearing." she finishes carefully, feeling the tips of her ears warm.

Sixteen was when she and Heather had started fooling around, for real. It had been building for some time. Robin thinks back to the slap Lonnie had cracked her when she was eight and they had been found in the barn together, covered in straw, taking turns kissing each other gently on the mouth and giggling. Heather's brother had talked about a girl he'd taken for a 'roll in the hay' and they'd worked out it was something naughty from the way he'd said it. Robin had ingeniously deduced it had something to do with rolling around in the barn and kissing. It has sounded fun.

Sixteen was when they worked out how fun it actually was, and Robin ended up with more than a slap when Lonnie heard.

Nancy sits so attentively. She reminds Robin of a dog watching someone hold a ball, in the stillness of her focus. Robin wonders if she throws Nancy the information she clearly wants to know, if she'll run out the door.

But Nancy doesn't ask, and Robin finds herself saying more before her brain has agreed with her mouth- to move past the why.

"I knew Jon and Will existed - they'd come up a few summers but never for long. We didn't really have a relationship, I assumed they'd hate me and I didn't hang around them to find out. Which is dumb, because it would probably have made life more enjoyable - actually no. I would have hated Jon as a kid, like a brother sister hate, you know? But I would have loved Will, I was kind of obsessed with him anyway from a distance-"

"That's sweet" Nancy interrupts, smiling at her in a way that makes her feel like Nancy knows every thought she's ever had.

Robin breathes, letting her brain and mouth come to an agreement this time.

"Yes, well he's a sweet boy." She says, forcibly calmer. "They heard that Lonnie kicked me out on my ass and they came and got me. Only about a month had passed. I had hardly anything left but they picked me up and brought me here, and Joyce gave me a hug, a job, and a room, in that order. Despite everything."

Nancy nods thoughtfully at her then raises her glass to her lips and tilts her head back to drink the last sip of apple juice. "That's quite a history for a girl your age." she smiles at her, and it's still friendly, if a little sad. "I'm glad you found your way here.".

"A girl my age? Joyce said you're twenty six, that's only three years older than me." Robin protests. She doesn't want Nancy to see her a girl, at least not in the same sense she sees Jon and Will as 'the boys'. "Plus, you've got a history too, you're young for- ah, I- " Robin stumbles.

"A divorcee?" Nancy offers, there's bitterness in her tone now and Robin digs her fingers into her legs and hopes the frown on Nancy's face is for whatever idiot broke her heart and not for her, the idiot who brought it up.

"No, I mean, well yes? I don't mean, I'm not judging - I'm just saying - well I suppose I'm assuming, that we have that in common? We've lived big stories for, for girls our age?"

Nancy smiles at her again and Robin lets her fingers un-clench from round her knees, only to bash them into the table when Nancy's smile turns sly and she says.

"I think we have a lot of things in common, Robin."

The next couple of days slink by slowly, as if the heat were truly making the hours longer rather that those working through them tired-er.

Robin spends her days mentally checking off her jobs from the written list Joyce gave her at the start of the week, that had since been lost.

Jon and her have the unpleasant job of emptying the rat traps, which is especially bleak after it had been missed off last weeks mental list, and those traps that had been successful have had time to bake their loot in the sun. Jon had doubled over laughing at her as she'd heaved and gagged tossing their collection in the trash. But then, he screamed like a bitch when they found a rattler on the way back to the house, so it wasn't so bad.

She'd done some minor repairs on fences at noon despite the wire being so hot it burned if it grazed the skin not covered by her gloves. Will had guided her through halter training the new filly with limited success. She'd rode into town and made orders for feed and meds, then had to do the exact same the next day when she realized she'd entirely forgotten the fertilizer.

She didn't mind doing everything in the wrong order and sometimes twice. She liked being out and busy. Having time to work alongside people, with the get-out of being able to hop on Belivet and go when she wanted to be alone. It wasn't lost on her how lucky she was to have her boss also happen to be the closest person she had to a mother.

On Friday, Nancy's head pops round the door frame as Robin's having breakfast with Will and Joyce.

"Oh, sorry to interrupt, Joyce I was just wondering if I could borrow the phone to call for a cab into town?" Nancy's all spruced up again, this time a simple collared dress in navy with a matching set of low heels.

"Oh sweetheart, you're paying room and board you don't have to ask." Joyce admonishes. "You're welcome to wait with us while it comes.".

"I could drive you!" Robin blurts. It comes out too earnest and hopeful and she flushes, "It hot out, so we could put the top down, I need to get the car out today anyway, I've been riding Belivet all week."

"Here she is." Robin flourishes her hands towards her car, "In all her glory".

"Sweet," Nancy hums, "I like the color. I used to drive a Thunderbird the same powder blue. The convertible mechanism was jammed though."

"Have you missed it?"

"What, driving?"

"Yeah, since you've been here, I mean."

"Yeah," Nancy admits, she swipes a finger idly through the dust on the bonnet. Robin's heart squeezes when she see's it's a little 'N'. She throws Nancy the keys.

"Go for it."

"You serious?" Nancy grins and her eyes glint. "And we can put the top down?"

"We're never fuckin' doing that again." Robin gasps when they finally pull up outside Kingswell Jones Solicitors. "Oh my god, when you said you 'used to' drive a Ford, is it because you totaled it? Are you staying at the ranch because you're in hiding from the law? I mean Jesus-"

"Oh quit being so dramatic." Nancy laughs. Her eyes a little wide and voice breathless with exhilaration. "Do you keep a comb in here though? We might need to tidy up a little"

"The fact you ask that is evidence I am not being dramatic. Next time we need to go anywhere, we're taking horses." Robin grumbles, using her palm to flatten her own hair, and reaching out to comb her fingers through Nancy's loose bangs before she can realize what she's doing.

"I'd like that." Nancy smiles at her and Robin aches with hope that the breathlessness in her voice is not just from the drive.

Nancy calls in on her after her walks each day and they talk for far longer than Robin can justify when she's supposed to be working.

They end up in town again, two days later. Hitting the store so Nancy has the appropriate pants for riding. Robin knows she's flirting when she teases Nancy about shopping in the children's section, and when she compliments the lilac blouse Nancy twirls so prettily in. She hopes its flirting when Nancy tugs at her belt loop to pull her close and tuck in her shirt in for her. It certainly feels like it, with the way her skin still tingles hours later.

Nancy shows up at the stables at five fifteen on Sunday, her voice still has some of the gravel of sleep in it, but she's smiling. Robin's already tacked up Goldie so they end up out on the track early. Wandering along the perimeter of the ranch then up into the hills, in perfect time for the sunrise. Nancy is frustratingly graceful on horseback. She chastises Robin for constantly glancing over, insisting that she doesn't need to be watched and is a capable rider. Robin doesn't want to come over condescending, but it does give her an excuse to look over at Nancy as much as she is doing.

They tie the mares up loosely to a lodgepole pine that leans far away enough from the precipice to be safe, and sit themselves near the edge, to watch the sun rise. Nancy produces a thermos of coffee and they sip in silence as the orange glow spreads over the plains and across the ranch.

"I don't write much flowery stuff." Nancy tells her quietly after Robin points out the way the chollas cast their shadows like claws. "I mean- newspaper journalism doesn't have much flexibility for that, you have to get the information in as a priority- but I think I could write about- about this.". Nancy smiles over at her. The stetson she's borrowed shadows her eyes but she still squints with the bright sun in their peripheral. Robin wants to reach out, to place her palm to Nancy's cheek to protect her from the glow.

"Are you talking about the view?" She asks hoarsely, hand staying loyally at her own side.

Nancy doesn't answer, but her eyes don't leave Robins.

On the way down they remove their jackets and Robin can't stop staring at the way the white shirt Nancy wears is sticking to the damp of her lower back. Her own hands slip on the reins now the sun has had chance to warm the air around them.

"We picked the right time." She comments, to fill the quiet. "If the sun was any higher at this point we might pass out before we got back. Joyce would have had my ass if I killed a tenant."

Nancy laughs. "I've paid my full stay already, so I don't suppose it would make much difference to her if I'd fallen off the edge of that outcrop".

Robin frowns at that. "You shouldn't talk about yourself like that - not even when you're joking, she likes you, Nance."

"Oh? Nance is it?"

"Unless you don't like it."

"I like it. My baby brother calls me Nance."

"Brother?" Robin asks, though she's not sure what the question is.

"Yeah." Nancy answers anyway.

Robin hesitates, but she's curious, every conversation with Nancy has her lips tingling with the effort of keeping her questions inside.

"You don't... say much, about your life." She says, haltingly. "I didn't know you had a brother."

"Well you don't know me." Nancy says, sharp in a way that could be cruel, but isn't.

"But I want to." Robin responds simply.

Nancy has Goldie slowed to a walk beside her. Close and slow enough that Robin can hear the breath she takes before she speaks.

"I don't suppose I do say much about my life" Nancy offers. "I... in my work I have to professionally... guard my self," She shifts in her saddle. "Then, the divorce carries a certain... stigma, but it's hard to talk about me without acknowledging it."

"I don't think there should be any shame in ending a marriage." Robin says softly. "Though, sometimes there's shame in starting one-"

This makes Nancy laugh. Robin feels the corners of her own mouth pull into a grin though she's trying to be serious, respectful. "I just mean, I think... I've seen a lot of women come through the here who shoulda never been married to their fella's in the first place."

"It's a thought." Nancy replies. "There's only a handful of common grounds for divorce, you know. Adultery, cruelty, coercion, impotence... each as charming as the last." Nancy smiles at her, but the humor is gone and a frown follows it. "You understand, I think, why I don't talk about it."

The walk slowly, in silence for a long moment as the route slopes.

"I understand, what you mean. That it's a big part of now." Robin tells her, when they can ride side by side where the route widens. "But I want to know you, Nance, not your divorce. I want to know where you learned to ride so well, for starters. How you got into the job you do. Where you got so hot at poker of all things. What it's like to-"

"Robin!" Nancy laughs. "You gotta give me a chance to answer."

It's only twenty minutes later that they reach the stables, and Nancy briefly comes into the cottage for a drink before she heads back.

Nancy Wheeler, from small town Hawkins Indiana. Oldest sibling of three. Taught to ride horses by an Aunt that used to take her off her parents hands for the summer. Nancy who generally excelled in her academics, but was politely asked to drop her art lessons after a semester of despairing her teacher. Nancy who tried bleaching her hair like Jean Harlow with her friend Barbara after they saw The Girl from Missouri, but instead turned it orange.

Robin says goodbye, giddy with the detailing of the Nancy Wheeler portrait in her mind. From the touch of fingers on her hand as Nancy had pulled her close and kissed her cheek on the porch.

She's still smiling like a fool when she spots Steve walking over. He stops in his tracks, looks at his watch then at Nancy and over to Robin. His grin matches hers when he shakes his head at her and calls:

"Buckley you scamp. How you get that traffic with no equipment is beyond me."

Robin's grin falls, as she observes Nancy's shoulders tense.

Nancy stops seeking her out after that. She isn't completely avoiding her, so it isn't noticeable to everyone else. She joins the table at dinner and even waves politely when she sees her in town.

But each morning Robin wakes up early and hangs out on her porch, sees signs of movement at Joyce's, and tries not to feel the ache in her chest as Nancy takes a different route for her daily walk.

Steve has been very apologetic, but she's still kind of pissed at him. It's hard, she finds, being mad at someone for something so ingrained. It's not that what he said was rude. It's not that he didn't spare a thought as to how any girl leaving Robin's company might feel at the implication.

It's that he doesn't get it, and never will.

It's, if she really thinks about it, the fact that she doesn't know if she'll ever come across anyone who does get it.

That isn't on Steve, though.

So she accepts the smokes he shares graciously. Doesn't argue when he takes the harder jobs, and sits with him comfortably when he brings round some beers one evening to drink on the porch while it gets dark, and watch the bats.

There aren't many bats tonight. It makes her smile when she realizes Steve's movements are synchronized with hers as they twist their necks to follow the darting movements above them.

"I'm glad you're smiling."

Her instinct is to let her expression drop, but she doesn't.

"You're soft."

"Yeah? Well I could do with being softer I reckon." Steve sighs deeply and rubs at the scruff on his chin. "I am sorry Rob, I guess I sometimes forget you're different? I don't think of you as different and I treat you the same as I would Jon, and... I guess I don't always think before shit comes out my mouth."

"Different." Robin muses. She wants to make a joke about Steve not thinking at all but it doesn't come out. He reaches for her hand.

"I know it's hard, but I wouldn't have you any other way." He grins at her, "and yeah, yeah I know that was soft.".

"Beat me to it." Robin smiles.

Steve lets her hand go and bumps their shoulders together before slinging his arm round her. He smells sweaty and hay-sweet in a comforting way.

A bat flies close enough that Robin can hear its wings.

"I reckon you could still work something out with her," Steve murmurs, "She didn't seem mad really. When I said it she looked more...scared, than angry.".

Robin considers this. She knows what it's like to be scared. Still does, despite no longer hiding herself. She just chose the less painful of the options she had.

She understands, if that fear extends to those around her. She knows that there is a danger in having her as a friend. Nancy doesn't have the safety net that Joyce, and Steve and Jon have. Being associated with her doesn't have the power to do as much damage to respected members of the community. To those she can't taint.

Nancy, however is un-tethered. A woman. Corruptible.

"I don't know." She lands on, realizing she hasn't responded to Steve. "It just felt like... like she could be a friend?"

"I think she still could. She defended you, you know." Steve says, and Robin stiffens in his arms, "Hey don't get mad at me! I was going to tell you earlier but you left early, and I was just waiting for the right moment-"

"Steve." Robin says, urgently.

"Yeah, okay, okay, so you know Virginia? Who's leaving in the morning? Real miserable old b-"

Robin cuts him off with a jab of her elbow. "Yeah I know her, and she's awful, but don't call her that."

" Yeah, sorry." Steve nods, sheepishly, before he animates with gossip. "Anyway, I went to Joyce's at lunch, and Polly, Virginia and Nancy were smoking on the porch and I hear Virginia say something like 'It's none of my business but...' and I hear your name, but, then Nancy says 'You're right Virginia, it is none of your business."

"Oh?" Robin says. "Well that's poor for your standards Stevie if we don't even know what they were talking about."

"Are you kidding? I waited in the entrance to listen in! Stop interrupting me." Robin snorts, and Steve continues. "Virginia puts on this scandalized voice and says something about you gettin' kicked out of Lonnie's- I'm ready to step in obviously- but Nancy says to Virginia 'Do you want me to clutch my pearls and gasp?'" Steve's eyes crinkle as he lets out what can only be described as a giggle, "I was pinchin' myself not to laugh."

"Then what?" Robin asks, impatient.

"I don't remember exactly, but Virginia said something about not understanding queers, and being entitled to her opinion - that kinda shit, and Nancy thanked her for her 'valuable' contribution. From the look on Virginia's face she might as well have slapped her." He grins over at Robin. "So what do you reckon? Still a chance for some back-seat bingo?" he waggles his brows.

"How do you jump from tellin' me all about how good of a friend you are to being a total ass in one sentence?" Robin sighs. "She's not just... that... to me, I think she might... count."

"Count?".

"You're gonna laugh."

"No Rob, never." Steve's expression softens and he guides her head to his shoulder.

"Just saying her name makes me smile." Robin admits into the tacky skin of his neck. She scrunches her eyes shut. "I don't just want to sleep with her.".

"She's gonna leave." Steve tells her gently as if Robin doesn't think of this fact every day. "I don't want you hurtin' over her."

"I'm already hurtin' anyway. Maybe, if we can at least be friends it wont be so bad."

"Yeah". Steve nods skeptically and the stubble on his chin scratches her forehead.

Robin gets up early to wave Virginia off with Joyce, because she's feeling particularly petty and she has to get her satisfaction somewhere. Virginia smiles with pursed lips and gives her a wide berth as she gets into the taxi.

"Good riddance." Joyce deadpans as the dust from the wheels begins to settle. "What a piece of damn work."

Robin laughs, and startles when another giggle blends with her own.

She is pretty sure Nancy can't have been awake long, but she's dressed in her blue jeans they bought together, and a red plaid shirt rather than one of the robes the other ladies tend to wear to breakfast. She's leaning in the doorway watching the retreating cab.

She looks kind of devastatingly beautiful, if Robin were to think about her in that way, which she isn't.

"You scared me!" Joyce exclaims, smiling and reaching out to Nancy, beckoning her outside and putting an arm around her waist. "You've gotta know, honey, I don't usually talk about my guests that way."

"No, no I agree completely." Nancy nods and her ponytail bobs, "She's a miserable snob." she drops her voice, "Polly, too."

Joyce laughs and squeezes Nancy. "I can see why you two are gettin' along! Though Robin might have used a more colorful term...".

"Oh, I can think of a few!" Robin grins.

They chat, briefly, about Virginia, Polly the heat and the state of the yard, before Joyce remembers with her typical abruptness and wide eyes that she has left a loaf of bread in the oven, and runs inside.

When its just the two of them, it isn't so easy. Robin wants to be able to talk, but the words are drying and crumbling in her mouth without Joyce with her to smooth things along.

"I heard about what you said andIreallyappreciateit" she blurts.

Nancy's face scrunches in confusion.

"I'm sorry I just," Robin takes a breath. "I heard Virginia had been saying some...things... about me, and that you had stood up for me, I guess and I, uh, just wanted to say I appreciate it.".

Nancy stands still and frowns slightly, not looking at her, and Robin cringes with anticipation.

"I hadn't realized anyone else was around." Nancy says, eventually.

"I didn't hear any specifics," Robin lies, "just that she had been telling people about my... about me, and that you had told her to mind her business, in essence.".

"Yeah, well." Nancy shrugs, "it ain't any of her business and it certainly ain't for her to judge someone." Nancy's eyes meet hers now. "Robin, you're a better woman than she'll ever be. You're kind, and that's more important than anything she could say against you."

"She was tellin' the truth though, really." Robin rubs at the back of her neck, nervous. "It's hard to defend someone against a truthful accusation."

Nancy looks at her, troubled.

"I don't like that."

"Huh?"

"'Accusation makes it sound like something wrong."

"Ain't it?"

"Does it feel wrong?" Nancy whispers, but before Robin can answer Nancy's turned on her heel and headed back to the house.

The interaction replays in Robin's head for the rest of the day. Nancy's face, when she had asked her that. In the split second before she'd turned and left, she'd looked shocked at her own question.

She floats through her day, lost in thought, but if anyone notices, they don't point it out.

Will is her favorite person to be around when she feels like this. They work well together in orbit. In the stables, he passes her the brush she's looking for just as she looks up to find it, and when it occurs to her they ought to stop to rest, he's already back from fetching snacks from the house.

"You want to talk about anything?" he asks her, pointedly, while she's perched on the fence finishing a slice of the bread Joyce made that morning, buttered and honeyed to an excess that has left her hands sticky.

She shakes her head and smiles at him, and he ducks out her way before she can poke his dimpled cheek.

The heavens open on her way back from town. She's picked up some borrowed tools from an old hand and she can feel the weight of them in the back of the car as she drives.

She hovers her foot over the brakes, anxious in the low visibility with the irrational fear of hitting a jackrabbit, despite having never seen one out in the rain.

She almost slams her foot down when she sees the figure on the road side.

Nancy is in the clothes she was in earlier, but they're heavy on her slight figure, drenched to the core. She's walking hunched forwards, as if it will do anything to protect her from the downpour that has already saturated her.

"What the hell are you doing!" Robin yells, winding down her window and pulling to a stop on the road side. "Get in!".

She cranks the window back up as Nancy opens her side door and climbs in. She creates a puddle almost instantly and Robin curses, reaching in the back for a towel.

"I'm sorry, its the one I use for the damn dogs but needs must," she murmurs passing it gently to Nancy who wraps it around her shoulders and across her chest, shivering. "Nice weather for a walk?"

""It started after I set off." Nancy says, hotly, glaring at the towel for a clean patch to dry her face.

"Here," Robin retracts her arm inside her sleeve slightly so the cuff covers her palm, and reaches for Nancy's cheek, to dab them dry.

Nancy jerks back.

Robin blinks, her eyes burn. Her arm retreats.

Nancy buries her face in the dusty towel.

"Nancy, I..." Robin breathes in. "I don't understand exactly what it is you think of me, but just because I am the way I am, it doesn't mean I'm the same as a man."

Nancy looks up at her, confused, the towel still shielding half of her face. A droplet of water loops from the top to the bottom of a ringlet curl before dropping onto her shoulder.

"What I mean, is." Robin yanks her hat off her head, realizing she's left it on, and places it on her lap. "I'm not- I'm not one track minded. I don't want women in the same way, well, I do, but what I mean is... I don't know what I mean." She feels her eyes well with tears of frustration and curses herself as she tries to blink them back. "Nance I would never ask anything from a woman, from you. I wouldn't wish feeling this way on anyone, I know other women don't feel like I do. I'm never going to go after someone. All I'll ever want is for someone to want me, and I'm never gonna pressure someone who doesn't-"

Nancy's mouth presses against hers.

Robin can barely move, but barely is enough. For all the urgency of Nancy's movement to press them together, her lips move slowly against Robin's, shakily gliding and tilting until her eyelashes tickle wetly on her cheeks and Robin's fingers dimple the felt of her stetson with the force of her grip.

Nancy pulls away from her lips, but leaves their foreheads touching. She cups the side of Robins face in her cold, damp palm and it feels perfect.

"Take me home?" she whispers.

Robin's throat clicks as she swallows, and she nods.

Robin had slowed the car when they got to the ranch, but Nancy had looked at her pointedly, and so she'd rolled along and pulled up behind the cottage.

They'd dashed inside and Robin had pointed Nancy to her dresser, said she could take whatever she needed, and pulled the bedroom door closed for her privacy.

She'd opened drawers and closed them. Taken her boots off and moved them twice. Then sat at her table, her hair sticking to her face, damp from the brief journey from car to porch. Bouncing her leg, waiting for Nancy to emerge from the bedroom.

Instead Nancy had called her name, softly, drawing her back inside.

Nancy sits on her bed in a soft pair of pajama shorts and a plain white shirt, her knees drawn up to her chest.

Robin moves carefully to the chest by her bed and pulls out a soft blanket. Nancy's eyes follow her as she comes close and drapes it delicately over her shoulders. They flutter shut when Robin gently loosens the tie from her hair, and Robin's breath catches as the angle of Nancy's head reveals the top three buttons of the borrowed shirt are unfastened.

"You look wonderful." She breathes, without thinking.

"Are you kidding?"

Robin shakes her head and paces back, placing her hands behind herself and leaning against the door, to pin them there.

Nancy just looks at her.

For as expressive as Nancy's face is, Robin isn't sure what the current look means. It's soft, open and intense in a way that makes her stomach feel as though there's a bees nest humming inside her.

"You kissed me." Robin says.

"You kissed me back." Nancy answers.

Robins palms itch, damp from touching Nancy's hair.

"I want to be your friend." She whispers.

"Yeah?" Nancy laughs in a way that whooshes out of her. "Was I unfriendly?"

"Oh no, that was very friendly," Robin smiles, but it falters. "I don't... I don't want this to be it Nancy. If we can't come back from this, I don't want it. I'm... lonely, and having you here these past few we-weeks has been..." She bites her lip to stop herself stumbling through the words. "I don't want to lose you, and I know that sounds ridiculous-"

"It doesn't, Robin."

"It doesn't?"

"No." Nancy looks up at her, and shrugs the blanket off of her shoulders."I don't want to lose you either."

Robin wants to take the two steps forward, to the end of her bed, and wrap Nancy back up, but she feels pinned to her door.

"I don't think I have ever felt this way before." Nancy whispers.

Robin screws her eyes shut. "That scares me."

"Me too."

She opens her eyes as the shirt drops from Nancy's shoulders and lands on the blanket behind her.

It pulls on Robins chest as if she were attached to Nancy by fishing wire. The urge to reach out to Nancy, to touch her.

"I want you to put that back on," she says, it sounds a little hysterical.

"No, you don't." Nancy replies calmly.

"What are you doing," Robin asks, desperately as if any answer could possibly calm her.

"Waiting for you." is the answer Nancy gives, softly, and it breaks Robin away from the door.

It can't be graceful the way she climbs on to her bed, sitting opposite Nancy with her legs tucked underneath herself. She's close enough to feel the heat coming from Nancy's body, despite it all. To see the way the droplets still falling from her hair leave goosebumps in their wake.

"I want you to be sure." She whispers.

Nancy's hand reaches out. Her fingertips brush the denim covering Robin's knees, distracting from the ache off the tough material digging in to her skin where her legs are bent.

"I'm sure." Nancy looks into her eyes. It usually makes her want to squirm away but instead it pins her. "I don't do things unless I'm sure. I know, that I've been hurting you. I was trying, to chose what would hurt the least. For both of us. I needed to think- and I hadn't really let myself think about this before." Nancy takes a breath that sounds like a gasp. "I thought, if I kept not thinking, pretending.... but I think I've known a while, about me. Then you- you showed me."

"How long is a while?" Robin asks.

Nancy smiles at her, mischief in her eyes.

"I mean... I didn't even button up the shirt."

Robin laughs, breathless.

"But I think, when we first really spoke, a part of me..." Nancy stops.

Robin reaches out, and places her palm on the slope of Nancy's breast, finger tips touching her collar bone. She's trembling, she realizes, and Nancy is too. She drags it slowly, to grip at her shoulder, the bare skin feeling impossible.

"I've never felt this way either," Robin admits. She expects it, and looks up to see the questioning in Nancy's eyes. "I told you. I don't seek people out, Nancy. There's only been a few others. It was wonderful, but it was for them, and it never felt like this."

Nancy's mouth is warmer this time, soft against hers and the urgency of the first press close continues. They move, slowly, still tentative, but Nancy's hands hold her face like she's afraid she'll fall away and her breath hitches when Robin's fingers tangle in her hair.

"I want you," Nancy whispers in to her mouth, almost a groan, "I don't know what to do." she adds desperately, hand gripping at the collar of Robin's shirt.

Their lips press back together and Nancy's tongue grazes against her own.

"You don't need to do anything, beautiful." Robin murmurs, dragging her lips across to the sharp jut of Nancy's jaw. "I'll take care of you."

Nancy gasps at the touch of lips on her jaw, and she stutters, "No, no, I w-want to." Robin pulls, back, confused, wanting to give Nancy anything, everything.

They look into each others eyes, and Nancy's widen faintly in understanding.

"Robin, has anyone ever touched you?"

Robin closes her eyes. She feels a tightening somewhere below her bellybutton, a heat that rushes through her.

Shame, guilt, arousal.

"No," she whispers, and she feels Nancy's hands slide and push gently against her shoulders until she's lying down. The opposite direction to how she'd usually sleep, she thinks, as her feet touch the cushions by the headboard "It's not about me."

Her eyes open briefly at the tickle of Nancy's hair framing her face as she hovers over her, breath hitching as she realizes the buttons of her own shirt have been undone.

She can't help the gasp she lets out when Nancy lowers herself, and she feels their skin touch, feels the way they seem to breathe through each other.

"It is, Robin," Nancy murmurs, and Robin's stomach jumps at the hand brushing her abdomen. "It's about you."

It's dark out, but not late, and Nancy is splayed against her body, limbs so tangled, Robin isn't actually sure who's arms lie where.

It is kind of uncomfortable. Their skin is too hot, and slightly tacky where they're touching. Nancy's hair is wild, and with her face stuffed in the crook of her neck, long curling strands of it tickle Robin's chest and face.

Robin doesn't ever want to move.

"Nance," she murmurs.

Nancy hums against her neck and it makes her shiver.

"We need to move," Robin says. "Go out, get food."

Nancy groans slightly and pulls away, pushing her self up on to her forearms.

"I don't want to go to the house." She decides. "But I am hungry."

Within the hour, they're in a quiet smokey diner in town. Nancy is in Robin's clothes, and despite the fact that Robin can't help but think of this every time her eyes flicker up to her, it isn't noticeable to the other patrons.

Nancy looks up at her frequently as well, but they don't talk much while they eat. Robin's omelette misses her mouth a few times when Nancy looks up at her through her lashes, and blushes.

They share a warmed slice of apple pie for desert. Robin lays her hand out, hidden from view by the sauces and menus, and Nancy places hers tentatively atop it.

"Robin?" Nancy asks, softly over the scrape of their spoons.

"Yeah?"

"Those guys, that sent drinks over while we were eating?" she asks.

Robin nods.

"That means they were watching us?" Nancy states it like a question, biting her lip.

"Well yeah, men tend to do that." Robin smiles wryly, "I can assure you men are always watchin' the both of us regardless of whether we're miles apart or secretly holding hands. If we're in swimsuits or dressed for church. Not that that's a comfort..."

"They might know." Nancy whispers.

Robin's smile falters, and she frowns.

"Do you want me to let go of your hand?" she asks.

"No!" Nancy's hand squeezes hers, fiercely. "It's just new for me, and I feel..."

"Exposed?" Robin asks.

Nancy is quiet for a moment, and still, staring at their fingers interlaced, at their spoons surrounded by melted ice-cream.

"Robin, I promised you I wanted this, not that it would be easy."

It's Robin's turn to be quiet, but she doesn't do still. She scrapes a spoon across the ice cream puddle and observes the sliver of the plate it exposes before it is slowly concealed again.

"Does it have to get hard so quickly?" She asks.

Nancy smiles at her, sadly. She doesn't let go of her hand.

"Robin, we're both women. We're in a small town. We're young and attractive enough that we don't escape the notice of those around us. Without those details, there's also the fact that I am still technically a married woman, making this, on top of everything, an affair."

Robin's hand jerks and she grimaces at the word, but Nancy holds her hand tighter and she leans in, across the table.

"I'm saying technically, Robin. We need to think of these things to keep ourselves safe, but nothing about how any of this is seen by anyone other than you and I will change how I feel."

Nancy is staring so intensely at her it makes her shiver. She's never seen anyone look so fierce and fragile at the same time.

"You're beautiful" Robin sighs.

"You're beautiful," Nancy insists, "and strong, and handsome, and charming, and fearless."

"I'm not - I don't act the way I do to change the world, Nance." Robin murmurs, embarrassed. "I act that way so the world wont change me.".

"I want to kiss you." Nancy responds.

"Too bad, its our first date." Robin sighs theatrically, and Nancy laughs.

Nancy asks to be dropped off at Joyce's after dinner.

Robin teases her about why, with everything else they've done on their first date, and Nancy's eyes twinkle when she tells her they have to draw the line somewhere.

There's mornings, after, where Nancy get herself dressed and ready at the house in order to walk down to the cottage, only for Robin to take everything off her again.

More than once, she has to iron a shirt before Nancy deems it acceptable to put back on to leave in.

There's morning rides up to the outcrop, and along other routes too, and breakfasts, lunches and dinners at diners.

Nancy comments once, over pancakes, that this, with Robin, is not convenient.

She voices her stress that she is already struggling to be respected as a woman in her field, how much she relies on order and structure to hold herself together and how this is going to impact everything.

Robin realizes it's good, that Nancy is at least saying how she feels.

She tells Nancy she knows how to flatter a girl, tells her she'd always dreamed of being inconvenient, and fakes a swoon.

Nancy laughs, apologizes, and promises to make it up to her.

In the last week of her stay, it is just the two of them, the Byers, and Steve at Sunday dinner.

"What the hell are we going to do?" Nancy asks her.

They're stood together at the sink, washing and drying some of the implements used in the cooking Joyce had started earlier, waiting for the potatoes to finish crisping in the oven.

Robin has been thinking the same.

"Can I persuade you to stay longer?" she asks.

"Yes." is Nancy's immediate answer.

"Do you want me to?" she asks, more tentatively.

Nancy smiles up at her sadly.

"No."

They carry on washing and drying. Robin lets her tears fall directly into the soapy water. She thinks about, how everyone she meets, she's saying goodbye to from the beginning.

Over dinner, the Byers express their sadness about Nancy's upcoming departure, and their happiness that they'll be seeing her again at Christmas, as she's decided to visit.

Joyce looks at Robin and Nancy with real warmth and says she's so glad the two of them have made such good friends.

Nancy hesitates, and after glancing at Robin, tells Joyce, stuttering but determined, that she has made a lot more than that.

Joyce beams at them, and Steve pinches Robin's knee under the table.