"Seventeen years ago this month. I'll never forget that first day as long as I live. It was raining, and I was cold and hungry and miserable. When I stepped off that stage coach and saw those ugly buildings and all those muddy streets I hated Dodge City. I was down to my last forty dollars and it couldn't have taken me much further, but you couldn't have paid me to stay in Dodge. I waded over to the cafe and was hurrying through breakfast so I could get back on the stage. Then a man came in and he sat down across the room from me. He was the biggest man I have ever seen in my life, and he also ate the biggest breakfast I'd ever seen in my life. He was so busy polishing off all those eggs and ham and biscuits that he didn't even notice me. But I noticed him. I noticed him so much that I decided to stay for a while. And stay I did... in spite of the the fact that, uhm, I found out that the big man wore a big badge, and he didn't think he had any right to get involved in any kind of permanent relationship. Oh, we really fought some battles about that. Seems to me that, uhm, I left three or four times... just swearing up and down under any circumstances was I gonna see him or his damned badge ever again. But I always came back, and once, he even came to get me. Well, here we are after seventeen years and that's got to be the longest non-permanent relationship in history. But I wouldn't change one day of it, not one day." ~Kitty

"I noticed that day, Kitty. I noticed." ~Matt

~*~

That says it all...