All I Have to Offer You is Me

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Image Courtesy of The Writers Ranch


Lou sat on the steps of the bunkhouse against a post listening to the sounds of the evening. Everyone had turned in some time ago and even now the coyotes had quieted down. She was alone with her thoughts and that's what scared her.

Kid was on a run and wouldn't be back for two more days. For once she was glad to be away from him. Now she was thinking of leaving. Leaving her job, her family, her life as a boy behind... no, she couldn't do that. More than anything, that's what he wanted.

Actually, she wasn't sure what Kid wanted and that was the problem. When it was just them that knew who she really was, things were fine. He had no choice but to treat her as one of the boys. There had been times when it was obvious that Kid would rather her be anywhere but where the action was but he left her to do her job, he'd had no choice. Now everyone knew, even Teaspoon, and he was trying to treat her more and more like the girl she should be.

Things were changing. She was changing. As much as she loved what she had, a part of her had always yearned to be the real Louise again. Why couldn't she have both? Why couldn't she have all that and still have Kid accept her for whom she was?

She knew the answer. Kid's southern upbringing dictated that he would stop at nothing to protect women. Especially those he loved. He would give his life to save hers. He'd seen the pain his mother had gone through at the hands of his father.

Lou didn't even want to think what the Kid would do if he knew about her own troubled past. She'd gotten to where she was because she had had to be strong to survive. From the time she had been born her father had thought of her as an inconvenience. She wasn't the son he had expected to be born first.

On her deathbed, her mother had confided in Lou, that she had received a beating that almost killed her, because their first-born had been a daughter. That was the reason there was such a big age difference between Lou and Jeremiah, almost ten years. Her mother had been scared to try again. But when her father had finally gotten the son he wanted, he started to ignore her and Louise.

Teresa had been an accident, one their mother had never regretted, but the final breaking point in their father's eyes. When the beatings resumed again, her mother did all she could to protect her daughters. When she walked in catching her husband drunk and slapping around a 3 month old, colicky, Teresa, she knew she had to leave. Two nights later, while he was off "working" she took them all and left. There was no way she could leave Jeremiah to be raised by a man like that.

If Kid ever did find out, at least he'd have the satisfaction of knowing he had killed her bastard of a father.

Lou didn't even want to think about what made her spend the life on the run as a boy. She'd been helpless beyond her control once. That one time she'd lost more than her innocence. She lost her identity, lost the young girl on the verge of womanhood that she had been. That night Louise McCloud died and Lou was born.

It had been hard at first, trying to pass herself as a boy. She had been a beautiful eighteen year old woman, but she could barely pass herself off as a fifteen year old boy. She would take whatever job she could find, though none lasted for very long when the people she worked for realized she just wasn't as strong or as tough as she had swore to get the job. Many times she'd left because some of the other workers picked fights with the "helpless scrawny drowned rat".

After about a year and enough fights she'd finally had been strong enough to leave several lasting injuries. She'd been strong enough to do as hard and as much, if not more, work than the others could do. Three months later, one of the boys she had beaten found out her secret. His first look had been repulsion; the next look had been the same look Wicks had given her when he said she had "all grown up". She was gone before he could recover from her planting her knee squarely in his groin.

Three days later, she decided to stop and rest her horse. She was about to check in to the hotel when she'd overheard Sam talking to Tompkins how the Pony Express was setting up a station out at Emma's place. She got directions and headed straight there. She was sure if Teaspoon had been wearing his glasses he wouldn't have given her the chance.

She'd proven to the boys in these past few months that not only could she sit as high in the saddle, ride as fast or shoot as straight as any of them, she could survive it and anything that came her way. But most importantly, she'd proven it to herself. Lou was stronger than Louise would ever be.

But last week when they were going after Lambert, she had been able to be the woman she should and still do her job; better than any of them could have done. And the looks on the boys' faces when she'd shown up wearing that saloon girl dress had been priceless. They had finally started to see her for the woman she could be- if she wanted to, and that didn't sit well with Kid either.

She had been willing to do things she thought she would never do, just to save him. But she'd enjoy being a woman once again too much, and it was that distraction that Kid had felt the need to defend her honor and rescue her.

Maybe he'd handle it better if she stayed one way or the other. But she wasn't ready to make that choice yet. She would never make that choice because he wanted her to. When she was ready, if she was ready, it would be her choice. Her being something she wasn't had already killed a part of her once and if the Kid made her choose between him and her survival, well either way it would kill her all over again.

It would be easier for her to just start over somewhere new. Somewhere where she could find a new job that would eventually allow her to get Teresa and Jeremiah out of the orphanage. By then, maybe she would be ready to make the choice. Then they could be a family again and live the normal life they'd always deserved.

Kid wouldn't wait, but it would be easier to leave now. Leave before she and Kid fell too much farther in love. It was hurting her to think that once again, she had disappointed a man because of what she was. She looked up and saw a shooting star and sighed. "I love you Kid, but why can't you accept who I am. Why can't you be happy that all I have to offer you is me?"