"Well," Josiah murmured into the hush that followed Vin’s words, "thank God for Nettie Wells!"

"Amen to that!" Buck breathed fervently, grateful beyond words for the part the woman had played in Vin’s life, for all that she’d done to give him back that life. He’d often wondered how the two had stumbled upon each other, what it was that bound them so closely together. Having finally learned just why Nettie was so important to Vin, just what she’d done for him, he figured they owed the woman more than they could ever repay.

Hell, at the very least, they owed her a bouquet of roses a week for the rest of her life.

Chris merely gazed thoughtfully at Vin and nodded slowly as so many of his own questions were answered. Time and again he’d watched in utter amazement as the feisty little widow had taken the rawhide-tough Texan firmly in hand and bent him resolutely to her will, wringing from him a meek obedience that no one else could manage. But just as many times he’d seen her take Vin to her heart when he was hurting and shower him with a tender devotion that completely belied her crusty exterior. And in Vin he’d witnessed a deep and unabashed affection for Nettie, a fierce determination to provide for and protect her, and a driving need always to do right in her eyes. Around her, the hard edges in Tanner’s nature softened, the wariness he wore like armor over his battered soul disappeared and he simply let himself be. That instinctive ease in a man who so seldom showed it had always puzzled Larabee, even as he’d welcomed it. Now at last he understood. In Nettie, Vin had found again the family that he’d lost all those years ago. He might not be the child of her body, but he was in every way the child of her heart.

And Chris knew that if they were ever truly to get Vin out of the quicksand, they’d have to add the little old woman’s considerable strength and determination to their own.

Oblivious to his friends’ thoughts, Vin finally let his heavy eyes close and sank into his lethargy. Pain thrummed heavily throughout every part of his body, but he couldn’t make even the smallest movement to ease it. He was completely bled out, had nothing left. The simple act of breathing was almost more than he could manage.

Chris could see his friend shutting down, read all too clearly the pain and utter exhaustion in Vin’s thin, bloodless face. In an instant and without a word he was on his feet and heading for the rocker. He had known this moment was inevitable, had been waiting for it; he was surprised only that Vin had held out as long as he had.

Buck and Josiah were right behind Larabee, hovering nearby to lend whatever help would be needed.

"Hey, pard," Chris greeted softly, leaning over Vin and setting a gentle hand against one slumped shoulder, "I think it’s about time we got you ta bed. You’re fadin’ fast."

"’M tired," Vin breathed. He wrenched open his leaden eyes and lifted his head, trying to focus on the man before him and sighing when the effort defeated him. "Hurt some, too."

"Yeah, I’ll bet," Chris sighed, wondering how the man could even sit upright at this point. "We’ll get you another pill when we get you settled."

"Ain’t sure I’ll ever be settled again," Vin said, his words slurring. "All this stuff’s come out… Don’t know how I’ll ever get it put back right."

"We’ll find a way." Chris squeezed his shoulder. "I promise." He leaned in closer and took Vin’s arm, set it around his own shoulders and held it in place with a hand to Vin’s wrist. He slipped his other arm behind Tanner’s back and around his waist. "You just lean on me and let me do the work, okay?"

Vin blinked owlishly and frowned into the face so close to his own. "Don’t y’ ever git tired a’ totin’ me around?" he rasped.

"Haven’t yet," Chris said, easing his friend to his feet and cradling the thin body close against him. "Can’t imagine I ever will."

Vin smiled slightly, but said nothing. And knew words weren’t needed.

"Vin." Josiah came up and laid a big hand to Tanner’s cool, pale cheek, gazing at the younger man with infinite tenderness. "I know it wasn’t easy, but what you did here tonight took real strength and true courage. Your journey to healing has just started, son, but I promise you, I promise, you will not take one step of it alone. No matter how long and how difficult it gets we will be with you, and no matter how often you stumble we will never let you fall. Not while there is breath left in any of us."

Vin gave Sanchez a wan but heartfelt smile. "Think I done finally figgered that out," he breathed. "Jist cain’t imagine why it took s’ long."

"But you know it now, and that’s the important thing. That knowledge will see us all through this." He gently patted Vin’s cheek. "Sleep well, son." Then, as he’d done so often with his sister, he lifted his hand and tenderly traced a cross on Tanner’s forehead with his thumb. "And peace be with you."

Tears filled Vin’s eyes and slid down his cheeks at that gesture, so simple yet done with such love. Speech deserted him and he could only nod as Josiah smiled and stepped away.

Buck stepped up then and reached out to brush the tears away. "If you need us for anything, you holler, you hear?" he ordered softly, his deep blue eyes filled with concern. "Doesn’t matter what time it is, either. You holler and we’ll come a-runnin’." Vin smiled shyly and nodded faintly, and Buck slid his hand around to the back of the younger man’s neck, cupping it with a gentle strength. "You go with Chris now, let him get you settled in. I’ll bring ya that pill, see if we can’t ease some of your pain."

"Already done more of that than ya know, Bucklin," Vin whispered unsteadily. "All a’ y’all. Jist listenin’ to me… bein’ here… Didn’t have ta do none of that…"

"Oh, yes we did," Buck assured him solemnly. "All of that and more. Like Josiah said, we’re all in this for the long haul. It’s called ‘friendship,’ Junior, and the first rule of friendship is bein’ there. Now, maybe I ain’t always good with other rules, but I can damn sure follow that one."

"Yeah," Vin breathed, reaching out tiredly to brush the knuckles of one hand against Buck’s arm, "ya damn sure can." He dropped his hand and sagged against Chris as exhaustion rolled through him in a heavy wave, stripping him of what little strength he had left. "Oh, Lord…"

"Change of plans," Buck announced, stepping closer and easily lifting the wilting sharpshooter into his arms, "I’ll get ya settled and Chris can get your pill. Hell, he’s already got ’em memorized anyway."

"You got him?" Chris asked anxiously as the big man shifted Vin against him to get a more secure hold.

Buck arched a dark brow at him. "You ever known me ta drop a friend?"

Green eyes warmed and a slow smile curved about Larabee’s mouth as he considered the strength in those arms… and in that heart. "No," he breathed with true affection. "I can’t say as I have."

7~7~7~7

At Vin’s request, Buck stopped outside the bathroom in the hallway and set him down, then stood waiting as Tanner disappeared inside and closed the door. Just about the time that Wilmington began to grow concerned about the length of time that Vin had been in there, the door opened and the younger man emerged, pale, shaky and barely able to stand. Buck uttered a sigh of relief and lifted Vin into his arms once more, then carried him into the bedroom and deposited him gently onto the wide bed.

Vin sank back with a soft moan of relief, his eyes closing of their own accord, his body desperately craving rest. He began to drift off immediately, only vaguely aware of hands stripping off his Nikes and socks, then lifting his left leg and placing pillows beneath his throbbing knee. He knew Buck was with him, his mind registering even through the fog of encroaching sleep the deep feeling of security lent by the big man’s presence. Wrapped in that safety, he let himself fall into blessed sleep.

As it had been so often before, though, that sense of security was abruptly, cruelly shattered. Strong hands clamped firmly upon his aching leg, wrenching him back into wakefulness. Pain twisted through his abused muscles, the old familiar terror exploded through him, and his every fighting instinct kicked into overdrive. Even before he was fully awake, he came up off the bed with a hoarse cry and launched himself furiously against his assailant, once more prepared to do battle for his survival.

"No!"

"Vin!" Buck easily caught the smaller man before he could strike and wrapped long, strong arms about him, imprisoning the struggling body easily against his own. "Ssh, easy, son, easy," he soothed, silently cursing himself for startling Tanner so badly. "It’s all right, Junior, it’s me. It’s just ol’ Buck. Calm down now, son, ain’t nothin’ wrong, ain’t nobody gonna hurt ya." He winced at the sound of Vin’s ragged and too-fast breathing, at the violent tremors rocking the thin body. "God, I’m sorry!" he breathed, unwinding one arm to rub slow circles into Vin’s tight, shaking back. "I didn’t mean ta scare ya, I swear! I’d never do anything ta hurt ya!"

Vin shuddered convulsively and exhaled sharply as Buck’s soft, gentle voice and even gentler touch at last began to penetrate his panic and draw him gradually toward reason. But his heart still pounded frantically against his ribs, and the taste of fear was still thick and bitter in his mouth. Another unsteady gasp escaped him and he huddled weakly in Buck’s embrace, wondering if he’d ever again be free of this terror.

"Buck," he whispered hoarsely.

"Yeah, son, it’s me," Buck assured him, still holding him, still stroking his back. "You just relax now, Junior. I promise ya, won’t nothin’ or nobody ever hurt ya while I’m around. And I’d sure as hell never hurt ya."

Vin swallowed hard and snaked a shaking arm about the bigger man’s waist, clinging to him and burying his face in that broad chest. "I know," he rasped. "It’s jist… I thought…" He shuddered again and felt Buck’s arm tightening protectively about him. "Bastard fucked me up real good, didn’t he?"

Buck sighed sadly and rested his chin on the top of Vin’s bowed head, his deep blue eyes filled with mingled sorrow and anger. "I reckon he did," he breathed. "And I hope he’s rottin’ in hell for it now. But you’re here, Vin. You survived, and you’re here now. And it’s time ta see if we can’t get you unfucked."

"Ain’t rightly sure that’s possible," Vin sighed dispiritedly.

Buck lifted his chin from Vin’s head, unwound his arm from Vin’s body and gently pushed the younger man back until he could look into his eyes. Once he could, he stared compellingly into them and said firmly, "Well I am. You’ve already fought back against odds that would’ve killed or crippled a lesser man, and you’ve made somethin’ of yourself when others would’ve laid down and died. You’re not a victim, son, and you haven’t been for a long time. You’re a survivor. You’ve already done so much, so, yeah, I believe you can do this, too. And this time you’ll have help."

Vin smiled slightly and relaxed. "Thanks, Bucklin."

"Hell, son, that’s what I’m here for!" Buck declared, smiling warmly. "Now," he pushed Vin gently back against his pillow, "just lie back and relax. It’s all right," he added as Vin tensed again. "I just got somethin’ I wanta try." He grinned broadly and waggled his brows. "Share a little somethin’ I’ve picked up with ya."

Vin narrowed his eyes and stared warily up at the man. "Ain’t sure I wanta share anything you’ve picked up," he drawled slowly. "Seems ta me I’m takin’ enough pills as it is."

"Now, Vin!" Buck protested in a deeply wounded tone. "You hurt me, boy! Here I am, tryin’ ta ease your pain, and you’re insultin’ me for it! I got a sure-fire technique ta make that leg of yours feel better, son. I learned it from a professional!"

"’At’s what scares me," Vin muttered. Buck only looked more hurt, and he sighed resignedly. "Aw, hell!" he breathed, relenting. "Ya learn this ‘technique’ from that French stewardess or that librarian?"

"Neither." Buck rebounded with a wink and a grin. "I ever tell ya about that English masseuse I been seein’? She can flat melt a man’s bones!" He leaned closer to Vin and whispered conspiratorially, "And believe me, Junior, all that stuff ya hear about ‘British reserve’ ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of hooey!" The mobile brows wagged again above dancing blue eyes.

Vin laughed helplessly. "Hell, Bucklin, you’re a one-man United Nations, y’ know that?"

Buck sat up, sobered, and laid a hand over his heart. "Son, I just believe that international relations oughtta be vigorously pursued. Spread a little love and joy over this ol’ world."

"That ain’t all you’re spreadin’," Chris quipped from the doorway. He glanced from Buck to Vin’s left leg and frowned slightly. The leg of the sharpshooter’s sweatpants had been pushed up above his knee. "Somethin’ wrong?"

"Not once I get these beauties on the job, there won’t be!" Buck declared, raising his hands and wiggling his fingers.

Chris chuckled and shook his head as he came into the room. He’d heard the laugh Wilmington had gotten from Vin and was infinitely grateful to the big man for it. "You got some talent we don’t know about?"

Buck winked. "Hell, stud, I got talents you can’t even imagine!"

Chris winced deeply and held up a hand. "And I don’t even wanta try." He looked again at Buck’s shamelessly beaming face and grinned despite himself. "You’re a hound, y’know that?"

"Yeah," Buck sighed with enormous self-satisfaction. "But I’m the happiest damn hound you boys will ever see!"

Chris stopped by the bed and looked down at Vin, holding out a pill in one hand and a glass of water with the other. "How ’bout we get you dosed up before the happy hound here does whatever it is he’s gonna do ta you?"

Vin struggled to sit up, then smiled as Buck immediately moved forward to help him. "Said he’s gonna make my leg feel better. Somethin’ he learned from some English gal." He reached for the pill, then frowned up at Chris when he realized it was a pain pill and not the tranquilizer he’d expected. "Figgered you’d gimme one a’ them horse pills Doc Stone added t’ the list."

Chris held that puzzled gaze easily. "If it comes to the point that you need one, I’ll give it to ya," he said evenly. "But you’re not crazy, Vin, and I’m not gonna treat you like you are."

Vin smiled slightly and took the pill, gratitude shining in his eyes. Chris handed him the glass and he drank, then gave it back. "Thanks," he said softly.

Both men listening knew he wasn’t talking about the water.

"Now," Buck said, lowering him back to the bed, "just lay there, relax, and let ol’ Buck take care of ya."

"Y’ sure I’m old enough fer this?" Vin joked.

"Hell, I’m not sure I’m old enough for this!" Chris sighed. Nonetheless, he walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down, having a fair idea of what Buck intended.

"Watch and learn," Buck intoned solemnly. He turned back to Vin’s leg and began a slow, deep massage of the troublesome limb.

"Oh, Lord!" Vin groaned in tired delight as the man’s long, strong fingers worked with a wondrous skill at the tight and aching muscles of his leg and seemed to wring every bit of pain out of them. Between Buck’s marvelous hands and the pill Chris had brought, his whole body began to relax, then to float, and he drifted upon warm waves of relief into blessed sleep.

Chris watched Vin relax, saw his eyes close and the lines of pain and exhaustion ease from his face, replaced by a welcome peace. His breathing slowed and evened out, and Chris knew he was gone.

"Remind me to buy you a drink next time we’re in the Saloon," he said softly, turning a grateful gaze upon Buck. "Hell, remind me to buy you the whole damn bottle!"

"Don’t owe me a thing, Chris," Buck answered, continuing his massage while watching Vin. "That right there," he nodded toward the sleeping man’s peaceful face, "is the only reward I need. I figure it’s high time somebody showed this boy that hands can do more than hurt him."

"Well," Chris murmured, watching Buck work, "I can’t think of any hands better suited to do that."

7~7~7~7

By the time Chris and Buck returned to the den, Josiah had a bottle of bourbon and three glasses, already filled, set out on the coffee table, along with a fresh cheroot, unwrapped, a lighter and a clean ashtray. Chris wondered if there were some way he could get the man a formal commendation. He sank wearily onto the sofa, leaned forward and retrieved the cheroot, put it to his lips, lit it and drew deeply on it, slumping back as he pulled the smoke into his lungs.

Hell, maybe even a medal.

"How is he?" Josiah asked quietly. He’d reclaimed the rocker to sit across the coffee table from the two men on the sofa, knowing they would now need his attention every bit as much as Vin had earlier. For Vin’s sake, they’d had to hold so much inside, keep their emotions under tight rein. But for such men as these, who felt so deeply, emotional release was never truly denied, only delayed.

And the delay would only intensify that inevitable release when it came.

"Boy’s been torn up in ways no one should ever be," Buck muttered grimly, holding his glass and scowling into it. "Jesus, when I think about what all’s been done to him, and at how many different hands…" Words failed him and he suddenly raised his glass, taking a desperate drink.

Chris reached out absently and squeezed Buck’s shoulder, his own face lined with weariness, pain… and anger. He knew Vin wasn’t crazy. He just couldn’t imagine why not.

"He’s asleep," he finally said. "Looked peaceful enough when we left…" He let his words trail off and took another puff at the cheroot. Of them all, he knew best how fragile such peace was, knew how quickly it could shatter. He’d seen it happen too many times during the countless hours he’d sat vigil at Vin’s bedside in the hospital, had held Tanner through too many screaming fits to place any real trust in that peace now.

That was precisely why he’d left the door to Vin’s room ajar.

Josiah rocked slowly and sipped at his bourbon, trying to find his way through his own unsettled emotions. Reason and his professional training told him he should stay focused, detached, clinical. Reason could go to hell. This was Vin they were talking about, his friend, his brother. And Vin’s pain was far too much like Hannah’s for him to have any hope of separating himself from it.

Besides, he figured Vin had suffered too much from "professional disinterest" as it was. Right now, what the young man needed more than anything else was deep, abiding, intense, personal interest. Hell, he needed people not only willing but eager to wade into the muck with him and fight his battle as if it were their own.

Well, he certainly had that now. In spades.

"We opened up a helluva lotta wounds here tonight," Buck mused softly, staring again into his bourbon. "Tore down every wall that boy’s built." He raised his eyes to Chris and studied the man’s profile. "Any ideas on what we do for an encore?"

Larabee’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set hard. "We help him learn to live with it," he said tersely.

Buck arched a dark brow. "Just like that."

Chris turned and fixed upon Buck green eyes filled with unspeakable pain and unyielding determination. "No, not ‘just like that,’" he said harshly. "It’s gonna be hell on all of us. But I am not gonna lose him to his own damned past, and he’s more than worth whatever we have to do to get him through this!"

Buck studied him a moment, then nodded slowly. "I’m real glad ta hear that," he said softly, "because you’re gonna have ta sacrifice some of yourself ta do that." At Chris’s confused frown, he explained, "Vin needs professional help, we’re all agreed on that. Much as we want to, there’s just no way in hell we can help that boy undo all the damage that’s been done to him by ourselves. We just ain’t got that kinda trainin’, and if we try, we’ll likely do more harm than good. He needs us, but he needs more than just us."

"I know that," Chris said evenly.

"But this is Vin we’re talkin’ about," Josiah picked up, drawing Larabee’s attention to him. "He already doubts his own sanity. Hell, right now he doubts everything about himself. The idea of counseling, of therapy, will only confirm those doubts in his mind. He needs counseling, but he also needs to know that needing it doesn’t make him crazy. And the best way to convince him of that is for someone who’s been through it, who’s been helped by it, and whom he’d never think of as crazy to talk to him about it. He needs someone he trusts, someone he believes, to tell him that it’s perfectly all right to need help."

"And in case you ain’t connected the dots yet, ol’ pard," Buck said, staring hard at Chris, "that someone is you. You’re gonna have ta tear down a few walls of your own and let him know just how messed up you were."

Chris exhaled deeply, as if all the air were being let out of him, his eyes going wide and dark. He looked from Buck to Josiah, saw the truth in two equally determined faces, and got to his feet, pacing slowly around the den.

God. He’d finally allowed himself to admit that Vin would need help, but hadn’t yet let himself consider all the ramifications of that. And he realized now that this was the reason why. As far as he knew, Buck, Orin Travis and now Josiah were the only ones who were aware he’d gone through counseling after Sarah and Adam’s deaths. He wasn’t ashamed of it, or didn’t think he was. It was just that it was so deeply personal, and so closely tied to the darkest and most painful time in his life…

But, Jesus, hadn’t he just sat here and listened while Vin had poured out his pain to them? Hadn’t he told Vin he needed to do that? What made his own damn pride and privacy any more important than Vin’s?

He sighed again and bowed his head, closing his eyes. Nothing. Not one damn thing. Throughout his career, he’d prided himself on never asking a subordinate to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. He considered it an integral part of leadership; it surely had to be an even bigger element of friendship.

And if it hadn’t been before, then it was high time it got to be that way now. Vin deserved nothing less.

He raised his head and opened his eyes, then turned back to Buck. Green eyes met and locked with blue across the room, and between them a promise was made. All the walls were coming down.

And the seven of them would walk together out of the rubble.