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This isn't exactly the trip to town that Vasquez had expected.

She'd thought she would come and see these people that Robert had to deal with. True, she didn't think she was going to like all of them, but she also didn't think that she would feel this much rage and fury when she saw how they treated him. They spoke down to him, they ignored him, and they laughed at him. Dressed in her pretty frock and her hair loose, she knows she's supposed to be demure, but it's a very good thing that they'd disarmed her before she got to town. If they hadn't, she'd be in the jail cell because she would have shot someone in her fury.

As it is, they're pulling her off of Doc Holliday, while Aleja spits furious Spanish invective at him, furious at the jokes they've been making on Robert's behalf. "He is twice the man that you will ever be," she finishes, spitting at his and Earp's feet, irritated on Robert's behalf.

Forcing her arm out of the hold, she sneers at the men holding her. "I'm going," she snaps, grabbing her thick fur coat and hauling it on, shoving hat on her head and thinking it's good she came here to see this. Because now, she's not letting Robert come even close to this place after everything that she's seen. She stands in the doorway and waits for him, because she's not leaving without him.

They're never coming back to this place and Aleja is already making plans to never let him work for these two men, not when he deserves so much more.

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Gathering things, he begins moving them out to the wagon left beside the house. Blankets and clothes, food and cookware, lamps that he carefully packs into crocks with his clothes, and other odds and ends he imagines they might need.

Stopping when she seeks him out, he cants his head, considering that question.

"I have two. One with a sister who is no longer with us, and one alone." He gestures for her to follow him, moving to the desk in the main room. On a shelf over it is a large family bible that he pulls down, turning to hand it to her. "They're in there," he says.

And they are both there. A barely toddling Robert with an older sister, and one of him about seven or eight, grinning at the camera. There are other pictures. A couple that might be his grandparents, some papers about land and such for his family, documents for the land they were on among them. And the cabin she is in, though it doesn't have his name on it.

She picks up the images when she finds them, giving them a tender look as she takes her time to truly appreciate them. Head tilted to the side, she thinks it's terribly sweet, and it makes her miss her sisters. "Are you going to take them?"

She calls over her shoulder, seeing as he seems to mostly be taking things that are functional and true, will keep them alive, but it won't make him entirely happy. "If I still had pictures of my family, I would want to bring them, too."

Robert pauses, turning to look at Aleja for a long moment. Quiet, considering what she's asked and the pictures he hasn't looked at all that often, but he hasn't forgotten his family.

"We... You're right, we should take them with us," he says with a nod. In case he never returns tot his place, for one. He knows that is a chance, and he has to accept that. "Anything else you might think we need?"

She plucks them up to be brought with them, even if she's very cautious with them, not wanting to ruin them. She has the ring on her finger, she has food, and she's going to have Robert with her, warm in her bed. What else could she want?

Well, she knows. She wants him to foreswear Wyatt and move on from him. That's not something they can bring with them. "Do you have anything fun? It could be a very long winter, how are you going to keep me entertained?"

"I suspect my idea of fun and yours are not the same but... One minute."

He went into the bedroom, routing around in a cedar trunk for a time before coming back with a large wooden box, a small box and parcels wrapped in tissue.

"I've not used most of these. Cards," he says, patting the wrapped parcels. "I assume you play poker?" There's nearly a smile then, glancing at her. "Dominoes is a game my sister loved, and I have her set. I am curious if you play chess? I've rarely had anyone to play with."

He makes a face, head canting, considering. "I have a sterioscope around here somewhere. Was my mother's," he admits, almost glancing at her hand as he thought of where he might have put it.

It turns out that their ideas of fun are closer than he thinks, because poker and cards are two of the things that she adores and thinks would be a very good way to pass the time, with her pressing her bare feet up against his warmth, tucked away while it snows outside.

"Never had any chance to learn chess, but you could teach me," she suggests with a nod of her head, taking the set from him, starting to head outside. "Keep looking," she encourages, loading up the wagon as new people pass by. She can't hear everything, but her spine goes stiff and firm as she hears enough.

Apparently, there's a rumour that maybe she's Robert's whore, which gets her to glare icily at them, hoping they move on before Robert comes out of the house.

He finds the chest with his mother's items in it, and just decides to haul the entire thing out. He can sort through it over the winter, especially given he hasn't taken any time before now to really look at any of it.

It's not as large as most cedar chests, but big enough, though despite his demeanor, he has no trouble carrying it out to the wagon.

Spotting Aleja standing there, coming to a stop and slowly lowering the trunk to the ground. He watches a couple going by, eyes narrowing as he watches them with the closest thing to a challenge anyone in town has ever seen from him.

"What did they say to you?"

Still staring at them, though it's obviously not the townsfolk he's speaking of.

She keeps an impassive look on her face, maybe a little too drained of emotion, because she knows if she gets going and spitting mad, then he's going to know. "Nothing," she lies, because she knows that he likes this town and could see himself maybe coming back.

No reason for him to ruin himself. Her, though, she might come back and make sure later that she shows them why they shouldn't gossip. "Come on, load up the trunk, let's go."

He doesn't budge though, turning slightly to look at Vasquez, though as he speaks, he doesn't lower his voice.

"Were they insulting me or you? I don't care what they say about me, but my family is off limits," he says, voice the strongest that perhaps she's heard it, emphasizing those words that marked her as family. It's acceptable to be insulted that they would treat his family bad, and why wouldn't he just keep his head down as it were if she was something else to him.

At least that is the logic going in his head.

She keeps a steady gaze on him and she's not so good at bluffing, but she can lie well enough. The last thing they need is trouble, he said so himself, so she needs to make sure this doesn't go poorly. "Then you're lucky, they said nothing about your family."

Because she's not, not really, and she's going to use that to escape the comments about her being his whore. "Let it go," she adds, just in case he doesn't buy her fibbing.

He stares at her for a long time. He's never stood up for himself, but for others he's always done what he could. Now he's doing that for her. "Funny, I don't think you and I see eye to eye about your place in my life then," he says, because she's someone he would do everything for, and if she hasn't figured that out yet, he thinks maybe he's been too subtle.

And he's tense, and upset now. Not just at them, but her words. If she believes that, then he has definitely thought too much of her words about him leaving, and about wanting him to be around for the winter. Not that he thought she was interested in him, but that there was a bond there. Apparently not.

"As you wish," he says, dropping his gaze and moving to leverage the trunk onto the back of the wagon.

She'd rather have him be mad at her for this than go and get into trouble, so Aleja is ready to take her lumps and let him think that she's the one being insulting. Better for him to think that she's not someone special to him than ruin his good reputation.

Vasquez nods as she starts to haul the trunk with him, pushing it and glancing over her shoulder to see if their audience is gone. The couple is, but there are two new men there, staring at her, leering, and she's overly aware of the dress she's in, how she's not wearing her usual clothes.

"Let's go," she says, clipped, before all her lies are unravelled and Robert finds out what's being said anyway.

There's a million thoughts running through his mind. Ones about what Aleja had said to him before they came to town. Thoughts about these people and the things they've done to him. Not just now but before any of this. Things he had actually seen but had ignored. Things now that he can't stop but to think about.

So he moves to help her into the wagon, though his gaze isn't entirely focused, avoiding meeting her gaze.

Even as he climbs up into the wagon, gathering up the reins.

"I will defend you to them. Never think I would pick them over you."

She follows after him, not meeting his eye. He's going to figure out she's lying and then they're going to be in trouble. She doesn't want him to defend her, that's the whole point of her lying to him. "Well, lucky for you, there's nothing to defend," she insists with the steely determination of a woman who's warning him not to do anything stupid.

"Besides, you already picked me, didn't you? It's our cabin you're staying at for the winter, not theirs," she helpfully adds.

He's quiet for a long time, guiding the horse out of town and back towards the cabin. His mind racing, thinking about what's happening.

"So then why wouldn't you trust me to tell me the truth? I saw your face. I saw there's. Nothing in that said they were saying nothing. Why protect them?"

She waits until they're out of town enough that she thinks that she's safe to tell him. She doesn't really want to, but he deserves it, doesn't he? Besides, it's not like she's going to get away with lying about it forever. "Because I'm protecting you," is what she says firmly.

They still have a ways to go before she'll tell him exactly what she heard, but she can let him know that she hadn't been doing it to hurt him.

"Protecting me from what? Do you know what I didn't want to bring you to town? It wasn't that I fear you might actually kill Wyatt or Doc. It's because... now you know the man I really am," he says, staring straight ahead, his hands white knuckled and locked around the leather of the reins until it cut into his skin.

"I'm many things, but I'm not stupid enough not to know that I am a laughing stock to this town. I have devoted my life to them but out here, not being the hard, rough man most of them are, I know they look down on me. I never wanted you to see that," he says, words tight and clipped, reining in emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "But now you've seen the truth. I don't pretend otherwise, I just have no other life to live. After you move on in the spring, I will likely do the same. If nothing else to ensure that should anyone come looking for you, they look another way," he adds, still putting her first before himself.

"Protecting you from losing this place," she snaps at him, because as much as she doesn't want to lose her temper, there it goes. She tightens her hand on the reins and she breathes out slowly, shaking her head. "I don't care about the man they think you are, I know better."

Now that they're far enough away, she'll tell him what they've been saying. "They think I'm your whore," is what she says flatly. "The truth of this place? The truth is that this town is ridiculous and I hate it. I hate them. I want you to still have the choice to come back here, though, because I think maybe you say all this, but you still want a part of it."

"What I want I accept will never happen, Aleja. I accepted that a lot of years ago," he says, still not looking at her, staring straight ahead. "I stay here because in the end, maybe I can do some good, but I have lived my entire life here alone in that house, with a few trips to the church a week, meeting up with Wyatt at his homestead. That's it. I was a fairly sickly child, raised to keep books as I do for some of the businesses in town, and without a life beyond that."

He tries to keep his voice soft, even, flat if he can avoid the pain he feels speaking about this. It's one thing living it. Another to be honest about it.

"I'm sorry I did anything to make them think that of you. I shouldn't have brought you here, for your sake," he says, truly meaning that and not worrying about it for his sake. He's never mattered, not even to himself.

"I never had anything here to keep except a place where I don't have to explain myself, and everyone accepts I'm a bit odd and a little off. When Spring comes and I'm sure you're safe, I'll go somewhere. I'm capable of living by myself and if that's what happens, so be it. It's little different than what I have now without Wyatt and Doc expecting so much of me."

He's known how they treat him as well, but he just needed enough to feel needed. They'd given him that, if only barely, and so he'd made it enough.

She gives him a long look, trying not to be smug. She thinks that what he's saying is right and true and it's what he should be saying, but on the other hand, she also knows how much this place means to him and how hard it must be for him to confess it. She reaches over and draws his hand into both of hers, rubbing her fingers over it as he speaks.

"I don't care if they call me a whore," she assures. They didn't touch her, they didn't try to, so she can deal with words. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't hear it because I want you safe," she says.

It's a confession she hadn't meant to make out loud, but now that she's said it, Aleja doesn't see the harm in it being out there. "Living by yourself is very lonely. I should know," she points out. "You shouldn't do it unless you have to."

His heart feels as if it lurches in his chest when she takes his hand, and yet those words nearly make him joke as if his heart is in his throat. His fingers curl, clinging to her hand for a moment.

"I care, because you are a good woman. In that way," he says, smiling tightly because he's sure she'll argue with him. And it makes him more determined to never be that man, to never put her in a position where the horrible things they say about her are true.

"It's mostly how I've spent my entire life. If it keeps you safe, protects you? I will." It it meant she didn't look poorly at him for staying there with them, he would.

Vasquez snorts at the 'good woman' remark, even if she lets it slide. Just because he's being stupid about how good she is doesn't mean she needs to put that into words, because he should already know that.

She toys with the ring as she takes her hand back to herself, thinking that maybe come the spring, he won't want to out there on his own. "How does you being lonely protect me?" she demands of him, wanting to know his thinking.

To Robert, she is a good woman. She might have killed a man but then half of Purgatory couldn't deny they'd done the same. She might be using him, and he knows that, but she's done no worse to him than anyone else. Better than most.

"I am not going to assume you will want to stay with me once spring arrives and we're certain they're not seeking you out here. I knew from the beginning that this is just me helping me, but I will never assume more. If you have no desire for my company, then I will make sure the town knows you and I have gone the opposite direction from where you plan to go. That way, should anyone look for you, they'll be following me. Otherwise..."

He glances at her once more, looking away with eyes closed for a moment. It's not what he wants. Not in the least. He has the winter to win her over, and pray that it works.

"We can discuss that in the spring."

She gives him an amused look, full of new respect as they ride out. "In the spring," she agrees, seeing as that'll be a good time for them to talk about what he's going to offer to her and what kind of life he's going to pursue.

Vasquez has no plans of letting him come back here, but then, there are so many other towns they can go to. In the spring, of course. "Until then, we survive the winter, otherwise there's no point talking at all."

"I have survived many a winter in Purgatory with no losses," he says, trying to force a smile. "I don't plan to let you be my first. You'll make it," he says, believing that more than anything else.

"If nothing else, you will survive the winter and be prepared come spring."