Fic: The Girl Likes a Little Danger
Title: The Girl Likes a Little Danger
Author: greta_garbo
Fandom: Justified
Word Count: 1108
Spoilers: It's mostly backstory speculation, but let's say general spoilers for season 1.
Notes: Look what I finished! A help_pakistan auction fic I should have finished ages ago for innie_darling, who wanted Winona/Raylan. It really ended mostly Winona-centric, but it's largely about her marriage to Raylan.
Disclaimers: My lawyers are working on it.
Winona had always loved a little bit of trouble.
When she was in high school, it was her way of blowing off a little steam. All day long she was an attentive student, a dedicated member of the student government, and head cheerleader. The way she saw it, the things she did after school (which generally included quite a bit of alcohol and backseats) were her little reward for all the things she did right during the day.
The behavior extended through college, but after that she figured she should start settling down. Get a job, start making a home, stop screwing around. Find a decent man to bring home to mama and daddy.
On paper, Raylan Gives was pretty damn perfect. He was smart and charming, a decent man who, and this was the selling point to her daddy, was so very much on the right side of the law that it was his career.
But Winona did have a nose for the dangerous, and that was part of what had helped her sniff out Raylan Givens. Yes, he was a good man who loved her, and for the first time in her adult life she actually felt safe and stable. But he was unpredictable, too, and 16 hours after they returned to Lexington from their honeymoon, Raylan had turned to her in their bed and smiled conspiratorially, saying, "Let's run away together."
Winona had laughed. "We're already married, Raylan. I think the poetry of running away together is kind of dead."
"No, I mean... let's just leave Lexington. Right now. Let's just pack up and leave Kentucky. Drive away and never look back."
She'd started to laugh again, but the serious look on his face stopped her. Her mouth opened, the words "don't be ridiculous" on the tip of her tongue. But then she though about it, about the posibility of just packing up whatever that could fit in their car and running away. She had never exactly loved Kentucky, and it wasn't like they couldn't come back if it didn't work out.
It took them three hours to pack up the car and they were pulling out of their driveway, just before dusk.
"Promise me we'll never come back. Either of us. We'll never come back to Kentucky."
Winona had turned to Raylan, a bright smile on her face, ready to make a youthful and empty promise. But Raylan wasn't smiling. His jaw was tight and his brow was furrowed and in that moment Winona had realized that there was so much she didn't know about Raylan Givens, about why he never wanted to go back to his hometown, about why he never spoke to his father, about why he wanted so badly to be a lawman in the first place. "Promise me, Winona."
Shie had bitten her lip and held back sudden tears. "I promise."
The whole thing was suddenly spontaneous in a scary way. On the drive to Philadelphia, she had quickly realized that neither of them had a job, and she was sure the Marshal's service wouldn't be too happy about Raylan up and moving. What he hadn't told her was that he'd been offered a transfer to Philadelphia before their wedding, and while she was packing up the bathroom he had called his boss and accepted.
They settled in Philadelphia, and for awhile life was stable. Boring, almost. This is what being an adult is, Winona had told herself. And for awhile, she was able to convince herself that this was a new adventure: married life, where you had to work to pay the bills and communicate with your husband. Winona got used to it. Liked it, even.
And then Raylan started climbing the ranks at work. From paperwork to prisoner transport, and soon he was being sent after fugitives, out of state and sometimes out of the country, and life quickly became a kind of unpredictable that Winona wasn't comfortable with. The kind of unpredictable where she didn't always know what country her husband was in, where every time the phone rang she prayed that it wasn't someone calling to tell her her husband was dead.
She lived with this uncertainty and unpredictability for long enough that, when Raylan told her he'd been offered a job in Miami and that he'd taken it, she started planning her escape plan.
Falling for Gary hadn't been part of the plan. She'd just wanted to sell the house because there was no way she was living in that great big house all by herself after she told Raylan she was leaving him. All those reminders of him and she'd probably be running to Miami in a week's time. The plan was just to sell the house and find a new place for herself.
But Gary. Gary the realtor. Gary the dependable. Gary who got excited about things. Gary who, when presented with a new possibility, couldn't stop thinking about all the exciting things that could come from it. Winona had held that up next to Raylan, who, when he'd told her about the Miami job and she'd said, "That sounds exciting", he'd just shrugged and said, with almost a grimace, "It's further away from Kentucky." Gary liked his life and he liked to talk about it. With Gary she wasn't afraid that he was going to go off and do something stupid that would get him killed because of something in his past that she could only see behind his eyes.
When she finally met up with Raylan in Miami, she had divorce papers in her hand.
Winona settled into the life as the wife of a dependable man, a realtor, who was home every night by 6:00 and who always called her if he was going to be late. She was surprised to find that she liked it. She liked not being scared all the time. She liked seeing her husband every morning and every night.
She only thought about Raylan every once in awhile. When Gary had suggested moving back to Lexington, the promise she'd made to Raylan flitted through her mind for a brief moment, and for that moment every instinct in her body screamed at her to say no. But then she took a deep breath, collected herself, and remembered that she didn't owe Raylan Givens anything.
Kentucky wasn't as bad as she'd remembered it being, and she realized it was because she was really an adult now, a woman who didn't need to be constantly excited.
And then Raylan came back, too.
And suddenly, Winona felt like she was 18 years old again, stifled in a too-small-for-her-world, working so hard to be good, needing that excitement and that release so bad.
And she just couldn't help herself.
THE END
Author: greta_garbo
Fandom: Justified
Word Count: 1108
Spoilers: It's mostly backstory speculation, but let's say general spoilers for season 1.
Notes: Look what I finished! A help_pakistan auction fic I should have finished ages ago for innie_darling, who wanted Winona/Raylan. It really ended mostly Winona-centric, but it's largely about her marriage to Raylan.
Disclaimers: My lawyers are working on it.
Winona had always loved a little bit of trouble.
When she was in high school, it was her way of blowing off a little steam. All day long she was an attentive student, a dedicated member of the student government, and head cheerleader. The way she saw it, the things she did after school (which generally included quite a bit of alcohol and backseats) were her little reward for all the things she did right during the day.
The behavior extended through college, but after that she figured she should start settling down. Get a job, start making a home, stop screwing around. Find a decent man to bring home to mama and daddy.
On paper, Raylan Gives was pretty damn perfect. He was smart and charming, a decent man who, and this was the selling point to her daddy, was so very much on the right side of the law that it was his career.
But Winona did have a nose for the dangerous, and that was part of what had helped her sniff out Raylan Givens. Yes, he was a good man who loved her, and for the first time in her adult life she actually felt safe and stable. But he was unpredictable, too, and 16 hours after they returned to Lexington from their honeymoon, Raylan had turned to her in their bed and smiled conspiratorially, saying, "Let's run away together."
Winona had laughed. "We're already married, Raylan. I think the poetry of running away together is kind of dead."
"No, I mean... let's just leave Lexington. Right now. Let's just pack up and leave Kentucky. Drive away and never look back."
She'd started to laugh again, but the serious look on his face stopped her. Her mouth opened, the words "don't be ridiculous" on the tip of her tongue. But then she though about it, about the posibility of just packing up whatever that could fit in their car and running away. She had never exactly loved Kentucky, and it wasn't like they couldn't come back if it didn't work out.
It took them three hours to pack up the car and they were pulling out of their driveway, just before dusk.
"Promise me we'll never come back. Either of us. We'll never come back to Kentucky."
Winona had turned to Raylan, a bright smile on her face, ready to make a youthful and empty promise. But Raylan wasn't smiling. His jaw was tight and his brow was furrowed and in that moment Winona had realized that there was so much she didn't know about Raylan Givens, about why he never wanted to go back to his hometown, about why he never spoke to his father, about why he wanted so badly to be a lawman in the first place. "Promise me, Winona."
Shie had bitten her lip and held back sudden tears. "I promise."
The whole thing was suddenly spontaneous in a scary way. On the drive to Philadelphia, she had quickly realized that neither of them had a job, and she was sure the Marshal's service wouldn't be too happy about Raylan up and moving. What he hadn't told her was that he'd been offered a transfer to Philadelphia before their wedding, and while she was packing up the bathroom he had called his boss and accepted.
They settled in Philadelphia, and for awhile life was stable. Boring, almost. This is what being an adult is, Winona had told herself. And for awhile, she was able to convince herself that this was a new adventure: married life, where you had to work to pay the bills and communicate with your husband. Winona got used to it. Liked it, even.
And then Raylan started climbing the ranks at work. From paperwork to prisoner transport, and soon he was being sent after fugitives, out of state and sometimes out of the country, and life quickly became a kind of unpredictable that Winona wasn't comfortable with. The kind of unpredictable where she didn't always know what country her husband was in, where every time the phone rang she prayed that it wasn't someone calling to tell her her husband was dead.
She lived with this uncertainty and unpredictability for long enough that, when Raylan told her he'd been offered a job in Miami and that he'd taken it, she started planning her escape plan.
Falling for Gary hadn't been part of the plan. She'd just wanted to sell the house because there was no way she was living in that great big house all by herself after she told Raylan she was leaving him. All those reminders of him and she'd probably be running to Miami in a week's time. The plan was just to sell the house and find a new place for herself.
But Gary. Gary the realtor. Gary the dependable. Gary who got excited about things. Gary who, when presented with a new possibility, couldn't stop thinking about all the exciting things that could come from it. Winona had held that up next to Raylan, who, when he'd told her about the Miami job and she'd said, "That sounds exciting", he'd just shrugged and said, with almost a grimace, "It's further away from Kentucky." Gary liked his life and he liked to talk about it. With Gary she wasn't afraid that he was going to go off and do something stupid that would get him killed because of something in his past that she could only see behind his eyes.
When she finally met up with Raylan in Miami, she had divorce papers in her hand.
Winona settled into the life as the wife of a dependable man, a realtor, who was home every night by 6:00 and who always called her if he was going to be late. She was surprised to find that she liked it. She liked not being scared all the time. She liked seeing her husband every morning and every night.
She only thought about Raylan every once in awhile. When Gary had suggested moving back to Lexington, the promise she'd made to Raylan flitted through her mind for a brief moment, and for that moment every instinct in her body screamed at her to say no. But then she took a deep breath, collected herself, and remembered that she didn't owe Raylan Givens anything.
Kentucky wasn't as bad as she'd remembered it being, and she realized it was because she was really an adult now, a woman who didn't need to be constantly excited.
And then Raylan came back, too.
And suddenly, Winona felt like she was 18 years old again, stifled in a too-small-for-her-world, working so hard to be good, needing that excitement and that release so bad.
And she just couldn't help herself.
THE END