"What about your burns?" Dante asks, concerned, but Aaron shakes his head and points to Laurence.

"You carry him, the towns not too far away." He turns away from him and peers out from over the rocks they were sleeping against, seeing the town in the horizon.

I just hope I'm not too late.

Aaron nearly sprints, seeing the town grow in front of him. The people give him shocked looks and some look almost happy to see him.

He scours the streets, and finds that Aphmau had already gone, so had Mason's sickly old horse.

Dante rushes up behind him, Laurence hung over his shoulder, out of breath.

"How the hell did you move so fast...?" Aaron doesn't answer him, and just takes Laurence from his shoulder and into the clinic.

"Hello? How may I-" The secretary at the desk starts to ask, but seeing the injured and tired men in front of her she quickly ducks into the back room.

"Sit down. The doctor will be right with you all." Aaron lays the brunette's body down, yet in a moment turns for the door.

"Aaron? Where are you going? Your burns-" Aaron turns to him with such a fire in his eyes he needn't have said a word to make him fall silent.

"Stay here, and recover. I'll be back to check on you two, if I can." Dante nods and as Aaron steps out, a black shadow moves behind him.

Eclipse steps out from the shadow of a building, his beady eyes glistening with a silent rage.

"Do you know where they went?" Aaron steps forward to pet his friend, and Eclipse huffs in agreement, Aaron slides onto his saddle and takes out his backup revolver stashed in his saddle.

"Take me to them." Eclipse whinny's and breaks into a run, it was the hardest and fastest the horse had ever gone, dust billowing up behind them as the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky.

He didn't know how long he traveled, but long enough that the sun had climbed to It's peak and started to fall again, and finally, a wagon with a pepper and chestnut colored horses forms in the horizon, with a third, brown skinny one.

And it's rider.

Aaron stops and Eclipse huffs, pawing the ground in an expression of the rage the both of them felt.

He waits before riding up close to the wagon, hiding his face, his clothes are darkened and tattered to the point where he's unrecognizable, and his ears wet graced with loud Spanish shouting.

He slides off Eclipse and sneaks around the back of the wagon, to see Aphmau shouting and cursing and Mason, who looks just as furious and shouting back in English.

Malachi, shouting at him as well, his gun pointed directly at his head and tears welling in his eyes.

Aaron points his gun and the back of Mason's head, and clears his throat loudly to get their attention.

Mason looks at him, not realizing who stood in front of him, Malachi turns his head in confusion, and Aphmau falls silent.

"Who the hell are you?" Mason remarks coldly,  Aaron glances at the bulge in his pocket and his insides burn in rage.

"Take a wild guess, Friend." Mason's face goes white, and Malachi's sullen face breaks into a smile, Aphmau grips the red bandana around her neck.

"No... You're supposed to be in prison." Aaron removes his hat, revealing his face, and Aphmau gasps in relief.

"Me? Oh Mason, you know no prison can hold me." Aaron speaks coldly, reliving the conversation where all of this began.

Mason pulls out his pistol pointing at him as well.

A Standoff

"Close your eyes princess." Aaron whispers just loud enough for Aphmau to hear, and as she does. Both guns go off with a loud, concussive, heart wrenching bang.

She's afraid to open her eyes. But she hears Malachi scream and Opens them out of shock and fear.

Both men lay in the dirt, Mason's head blown off his shoulders and most definitely dead.

Malachi rushes to Aaron's side, Aphmau following, Mason's bullet had missed his heart, but had lodged itself deep into his lung.

"No, No. Not you too..." Aaron coughs and reaches out for the both of them, caressing Aphmau's face, making her draw nearer.

"Shhhh.... Don't cry.  Not over me, I don't deserve it." He thumbs the tears from her face. Wheezing and gasping for air, his time now short.

"That's not true, you- you deserve everything, don't leave me, please don't leave me." He smiles, tears of his own welling in his eyes.

"Heh, Never. You won't get rid of me this easy." He laughs, and she can't help but smile.

"There's that beautiful smile..."  Malachi with tears in his eyes smiles at this as well, making Aaron turn his attention to him.

"Not you too, come on " He coughs and tries to laugh, only for his eyes to reconnect with Aphmau's.

"Princess?" He says having trouble trying to breathe, his last breaths taking hold of him.

"I love you."

In one moment he swoops up and kisses her, it's gentle and slow until he falls back into the dirt. And is consumed entirely by darkness.

"Well?"

"He's stable, but he's still out cold."

"And the other one?"

"Awake, But deaf, his ear was completely ripped off, the other is too damaged to function."

The voices are muffled, like someone had dipped his head underwater, his ears ringing and his chest tender.

It's difficult for him to breath, yet all he can see is darkness.

So he didn't die. Nope definitely not, as the more he became aware of his existence the more pain started racking through his body.

A groan escapes his mouth and his eyes begin to open, a bright light beaming down on him like he had just been thrown into to sun.

"He's coming to."

Aaron's eyes focus into a bright hospital light and a bunch of people crowded around him.

"Turn that damn light off." Are the first words out of his mouth, and somebody laughs, and turns off the light and helps him sit up in his bed.

He looks around, Laurence sitting on the bed next to him smiling, and the top half of himself covered in bandages and his shirt along with everything else but his pants gone.

"Defying death four times in two days. That's gotta be a record." Laurence says a little loudly, not that anyone could blame him, as well..., he was now completely and utterly deaf.

"Always gotta top myself brother." The nurses and doctors around them disperse. And a certain black haired woman comes through a little wooden door.

Laurence smirks as she strolls up to Aaron's bed, and he grins dumbly, Aphmau sits on his bed and stares him down.

"I love you too, you jackass." She says defiantly and then drowns him in an embrace.

Aaron hugs her back and kisses her forehead, in complete contentment with himself.

"So Princess, what's next?" He asks smugly, her rolling her eyes at him and bopping his nose.

"Well, Malachi is getting us a little room in the Inn until you recover, after that, we can go home, our home. Together." Aaron smiles and takes her hands.

"Heh, sounds good to me, though you forget one little detail." He whispers something into her ear:

"The part where you marry me." She giggles and blushes pink, before smirking and pushing him down gently onto the hospital bed.

"Sorry, But you still have to ask." He chuckles at her antics but pulls her back in for a second time.

"That is my way of asking, Will you marry me?"

"Tsk, I suppose." She scans his face before pulling him into a kiss.

He excepts and pulls her onto his lap, before Laurence starts laughing from his bed.

          "Guys! I'm Deaf! Not blind!"