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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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Vasquez turns on her heel when she hears Doc talking about the mouse word, a warning look on her face like she will bite off his ear or his dick if he tries to go so far as to say it again. Bundling herself up and wishing she'd punched him harder, because the ring would have made a very nice mark.

She takes his arm and holds on too tight, yanking him out into the brisk cold, furious at what he's been dealing with for all these years. "Puta," she curses, when she's out of earshot, wishing she had her guns. "Those are the men you wanted to impress? I don't like them at all, I'm going to come back when they're sleeping and strangle them."

He stays close to her, not trusting them not to follow or say more in ear shot. So he doesn't mind the hard touch, the way she jerks him around. Not minding in the least, for many reasons.

"They are all I've had," he admits, knowing that it isn't a good answer, but it's all that he has. "If you do at this point, they will come after you more. Isn't that what we're avoiding," he asks in a low whisper.

She breathes in steadily, the fury building, and right now she's debating whether it would be worth it for that to come loose so she can have revenge, but Robert is right. "Fine," she huffs. "I don't like that you're being so right about this, but fine," she grimaces.

"That means you need to stand up for yourself," she insists. "Next time, when you're here, if you come, I don't want you to take any of their bullshit. You don't need them anymore, you have me."

"I need them not to come for you," he says, meaning it, his words throaty and tight with emotion. "I will do what I have to for you, and I can't promise we would make it out of there alive."

And he doesn't want her dead. He doesn't want to be dead. Not when he's finally finding a part of life that he can truly enjoy and want to be part of.

His hand tightens on her arm. "I admit, I'm going to avoid them," he admits. "Doc... I can stand never seeing him, standing up to him, even if I know it will get ugly, but Wyatt." Much as he hates to admit it, he knows he'd do a lot for Earp.

"But I will avoid that so it doesn't happen. Promise."

She would shoot them all in the heart in twenty paces. She knows that most men these days don't think that women can defend themselves as easily, but she trusts in her gun. That said, she's heard stories about Holliday, and maybe that's not a good idea.

"Fine," she says, sharply. "And you don't do anything for that man anymore. Can't you see how little he respects you?" she spits at him with disbelief. "How can you still think he cares about you at all? Mierda," she hisses, before devolving into a slew of cursing again.

"I don't think that," he admits, his voice low, tight, and his entire body tensing next to her. "I never have. I never believed that. I believed though that..."

He stops though, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter."

He has no idea how to explain to her that he's never had respect from others, and he's just been content to be involved in things, doing the right things for a community that looks down on him for being a gentle man rather than a masculine one.

Not that he thinks he has her respect either, nor does he expect it. Not even before all of this. He's quite aware of the man that he's not, and that he will forever be trying to make a place for himself and not finding it. If he can help though, that is enough.

"We should go by my home and get the things we'll need this winter. After this, they won't be surprised I don't return before the snow begins."

She wants to know exactly what it is that he believed, because maybe then she could tell him that no man is worth him being less than he could be. She wonders, now, what Robert would be like if he hadn't willingly placed himself in Wyatt's shadow for so long.

That's when she makes the determined decision to find out.

"Let's go get your things and the sooner this town is behind us, the better," she insists. "And then I don't have to watch people glaring at me because I dared to point out the truth."

Robert has never allowed himself to think such things, and that is part of it. Being in that shadow, being that ma, he never has to think about it. He can e a good man without putting himself out. It's something he's done his entire life.

Right until he put himself out for a beautiful cabin, hiding where she isn't meant to be.

"They're glaring because no one has ever seen a woman act like that. Not in Purgatory especially. Not like that in a saloon. Not even one of the girls there," he points out, and he can't hold back the tone in his voice. Others might be upset but...

"I thought what you did was amazing. Thank you." He's not sure he deserves it, but he appreciates it.

"If no woman has acted like this before, I pity the women of this town." She's still spitting fury as she hikes up her skirts to walk faster, loose hair bouncing with the determination of her walk, not even sure where she's going, but knowing she needs to get there soon before she lets her anger consume her again.

"I'd do it again," she vows. "You're a good man, Robert," she promises him. "Better than I've ever known. You should be standing up for yourself like this, but if you can't, then I will."

He might give her food and shelter and safety, but she can give him protection and respect.

"Perhaps they have, but this town is Wyatt's, and Doc is his right hand," he says, though he knows that's not entirely true. Doc does his own thing, and between them the town loves them. Yet Robert does as much but, as with many things, he seeks neither attention nor glory for it.

"This way," he says, gently guiding her by her arm towards his house a bit off the main street.

He almost loses a step when she says that, glancing at her as he leads her to his place. "Thank you. I don't think anyone but perhaps the father at the church has ever said any such thing to me. Thank you."

And it means a lot to him.

"I've never seen a reason to," he admits, stepping forward to open the gate to the walk for her. The house suits him with a small fence, the house maintained in perfect order, showing the hard work he puts into it for no one but himself.

"Then isn't it lucky for us that we're not in this town?" she replies back, like she might be speaking to an idiot. She knows that Robert knows better, that he doesn't intend to stay with her permanently (at least, she thinks that's what he intends), but as she follows him into his house, she already hates this little town.

"The fact that no one has said this to you is mad," she hisses at him, and wants him to hear that and understand it. "If this is what this town is like, then when the winter is over and it's safe for me to move on, then maybe you should, too."

"You're only here to get through the winter,' he says, only after he's closed the door and locked it. "Then you'll have put time between you and those that want you, and..."

And the words die on his tongue as he lifts his gaze, turning to stare at her. Until then they had both been on the same page, and then she springs something on him that he isn't sure what to do with.

Blinking, he offers a look that might have been meant to be a smile but fails in all regards, just tight and pained and confused.

"I've thought of it a time or two, but I wouldn't know where I'd have to go. I have no interest in returning to my family back East, and not sure where I would just go and move to start over again." Alone. Some money saved but not a man of much needed skills. Not without a wife and family. "It's a nice thought though, thank you. For all of it. It means a lot, those words you've said."

She doesn't want it to just be words, but that's a lot to get through that thick head of his, it looks like. Maybe Vasquez is going to have to spend more time getting through to him, but she has a whole winter to do it.

Plus, she has some secret weapons he hasn't seen yet. For now, she gestures around to the room. "What are we taking back to our cabin?" she asks bluntly, hoping he hears the 'our' part of that.

It's as much his as hers and if he argues it, she's not going to back down.

Part of how he is treating her is that he never wants to assume. He doesn't want to be like any other man in his life who assumes things about her. That doesn't mean he isn't imagining what it might be like to go with her, to have a life with her away from all that is Purgatory. To have land and a life and to be as happy as he is in the moments he's shared meals with her or laid beside her and slept in her bed.

And he does catch that ours.

It makes his heart race, pounding in his chest and echoing in his ears as he thinks about this that way. Theirs.

"I'll need to get clothes, and more than a small travel bag of toiletries. I have some books to grab, and anything from the kitchen we can move. No sense leaving it here to rot. Look around. Anything you feel we need," he says, knowing that they'll get the wagon and take it back with them as well.

With his permission, she happily starts to investigate the house. The cabin outside Purgatory isn't the first one that she'd dropped in on to steal for a season, and this is an old habit of hers to go through everything and see what's valuable and what's not.

She's trying to find pictures, searching through everything, but eventually decides she needs to ask him. Grabbing food from the kitchen and eating it, she finds Robert in another room. "Do you have stills of you as a child? Did your parents ever sit you for portraits?"

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.