The spirit of Christmas had obviously missed a few people this year. It was early morning, around 4am, on the 24th of December when Flack responded to the call out. It was also cold, the kind of cold that seeped through the layers of his clothing and into his bones and almost made him believe that he would never be warm again.
When he got to the scene he got down to business, interviewing witnesses, getting the woman's ID. She apparently lived there alone, had done for years. No one really knew her at all- she was some kind of lawyer and was hardly ever home. No one had heard anything. Flack eyed the empty bottle of wine the lay on the coffee table and the gun that had come to rest against the sofa cushions, and considering the time of year, made an educated guess at COD.
He looked up at the movement at the door, and stilled when Stella walked in. His throat involuntarily choked on any of the remarks he might have made about sending out a lead CSI for a simple suicide case on Christmas Eve. Instead he nodded to her, acutely aware of the uniformed officer standing just outside the doorway, listening to every word they said.
She nodded back, with a curt, "Detective."
He cleared his throat. "Sandra Donovan, 38. Looks like a suicide to me."
He stood there for a few minuets, waiting to see if she had any questions about the case. She seemed absorbed in her work, paying no attention to him at all as she examined the body. He shifted a little, tried not to look at her too much. How much was too much anyway? And who was going to fucking see if he was looking at her?
He ended up staring blankly at the collection of photographs that lined a nearby cabinet and sighed inaudibly. He hoped someone up there was having a good laugh at his expense, because really, someone should find this cock-up funny.
Eventually, finally she stood and pulled off her gloves, tossing them back into her open kit and snapping it closed. She stood and looked up at him. It was almost as if she was looking right through him with that clear green gaze.
"Is there anything else?" she asked with one raised eyebrow. Like he was nothing more than an annoyance to her.
He snapped his notebook closed. "No," he said. He left, passing the uniformed officers on the way out. He could see the interest in their eyes, though at least he didn't hear them talking behind his back.
Outside, it was just beginning to get light. He got into the department issued car and buckled his seatbelt. Then he whacked the steering wheel with the palms of his hands and swore.
"God fucking dammit!"
He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed arguing with her until they stopped speaking to each other. Gone too was the light flirtatious banter that had been a part of their relationship since they had started working together four years ago. He just... missed her.
Flack breathed out and started the car, pulling out onto the street that was already beginning to fill with traffic.
--
Later that day, nearing to noon, he was seated at his desk in the bullpen, filling out more of the endless paperwork that formed a large part of his job. Around him certain concessions had been made to the holiday, including strands of tinsel draped over the window frames and tacked to desks. One of the other detectives, a father of three, even had a miniature Christmas tree on his desk.
Flack felt like the Grinch in that movie his nephews and nieces liked so much, surrounded by all this Christmas glitter and growling at anyone who came close. When he next looked up it was to see Danny walk through the doorway and head over to where he was seated. Flack pulled a face.
Danny stopped in front of his desk, hands shoved in his pockets. "Flack," he said evenly.
Flack nodded. "Messer."
Danny pushed his glasses up his nose with his knuckle, an almost nervous habit. Initially, Flack had blamed him for the whole debacle. He hadn't been ready to listen to his friend's protests of innocence over the past two weeks, but he supposed he should get into the spirit of the season and let bygones be bygones. Nothing either one of them could do about it now.
"You, ah- wanna take a walk or somethin'?" the other man asked.
Flack looked down at the paperwork on his desk. "Yeah, okay," he said and rose, walking to the coat rack nearby to grab his coat and scarf. He followed Danny down the stairs and out into the cool winter air. His nieces and nephews might still be hoping for snow for Christmas, but not him. He was already wrapped up against the cold and trudging his way though the day- snow would make it worse.
He stopped on the sidewalk and looked at Danny. The other man, hands once again shoved in his pockets indicated one direction with a shrug of his shoulder and walked off, Flack easily falling into step beside him. He waited for a few minuets but the other man didn't seem to want to talk.
"So you got something to say or what?" he asked finally as they waited at a set of lights.
Danny blew some air onto his cold hands. "Look, Flack, I know you think it was me who told someone about what happened with you an' Stella, but I swear," he looked up at him. "I didn't tell anyone."
Flack sniffed as the lights changed and they stepped off the curb together. "Not even Lindsay?" he asked, knowing that Danny could get a little loose lipped with his lovers- and that his Montana meant more to him than anyone ever had before.
"I swear, man, I only told her after everyone else was talking about it in the lab. She wanted to know what was goin' on so I told her- but only the basics. I didn't tell anyone any of the details."
Flack stopped, turning to face his friend. Someone walking behind him bumped into him and swore when he didn't move. Everyone else on the footpath walked around them. "Then how the fuck do they know about it then?" he said heatedly. "I only told you."
"Look, I don't know," Danny replied. "Maybe someone overheard us at Sullivan's. You know that place is packed with cops. Any one of them could have spread it about."
Flack glared at him with his best, 'tell me the truth or I'll punch your face in, punk,' look that he usually used on suspects. "You tellin' me you didn't tell anyone about this?"
His friend glared right back. "Not a soul. You gotta believe me."
Flack sighed, turning away and rubbing a hand across his face. "Yeah, alright," he muttered. He began walking again and sensed Danny fall into step beside him.
"So how are things going?"
Flack shook his head. "Just great," he said, barely loud enough for Danny to hear. He looked up to find his friend watching him as they walked down the street, ignoring the businesses alongside and the other pedestrians surrounding them.
"What?" he asked, just a little testily.
Danny grimaced. "I'm sorry," he said, with more gravity than Flack was used to hearing from his friend.
Flack shrugged it off. "It's okay."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "You don't look okay."
He sent his friend a look and the usually talkative man fell silent, for a little while at least. They stopped for coffee on the way back to the station house, talked about inane things. Danny was talking Lindsay home to his family for Christmas. It would be a small one this year, what with Louie in the ground- just the two of them and his parents.
"So you're headed out to Queens?" Danny asked as they reached the station house and paused outside.
"Yeah," he replied. "Em's doing the lunch this year."
Danny took one last gulp of his coffee and discarded the cup in a nearby bin. "Well, Merry Christmas Flack," he said, turning to walk away
"Yeah you too," Flack said, similarly dumping the remnants of his coffee in the bin. Then he slogged his way up the stairs into the station and his desk. Collapsing into the chair, he looked at the still untouched paperwork and placed his head in his hands.
His thoughts strayed away from him, back to that night a few weeks ago where he had royally fucked up one of the few friendships he had that really meant something to him. They had sat by each other's bedsides in hospital but apparently that didn't count for as much as he thought it had. At least it didn't anymore.
They had been out drinking with the rest of the group but had left early, claiming early shifts the next morning. Somehow they had started walking, and talking together. Sure, they lived in the same general direction but it wasn't as if they were neighbors or anything. And he had gotten a little carried away with their camaraderie, with the way she looked smiling at his lame jokes under the strung up Christmas lights, with these new feelings he'd been having for a while.
He'd said, "So maybe you and me should go out sometime." He hadn't meant to. Hell, sure, he wanted to, but he hadn't known what he was going to say until it had popped out, and then there was no taking it back, so he had to go on.
She gave him this strange look he hadn't seen before. Mostly she just looked startled. "What?" she'd asked, the idea obviously never having occurred to her before.
"Just an idea," he had said then. "We should go get some drinks sometime, you know, whatever."
But dammit, he already knew what the answer was going to be. He could read it in her eyes as well as he could read a perps rap sheet. "Flack," she said, in a tone he knew meant she was trying to let him down lightly. "Don, look I..."
He had shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Hey, that's fine," he had said. "Guess I need to work on my delivery, right?" he said with an imitation of a grin, and she'd sent him an odd look out of the corner of her eyes that he had only noticed because he was watching so carefully. Yep, he had failed pretty spectacularly.
They walked on in silence for a moment but before he could think of something else to say, she had stepped off the curb and raised a hand for a cab. She turned back to him and they had looked at each other for a moment. Then a cab pulled up and she got in. And he had kicked himself all the way home.
But he had figured they'd get over it. They had been drinking after all, it could be explained away. They'd be uncomfortable at first, but then they would put this behind them.
But two days later he had walked into the locker room and the comments started.
"Hey, Flack, hear you're sleepin' your way up the ranks," one officer said.
"Well he's tryin' at least," another had enjoined, and they had exchanged grins.
Most of the ribbing had been good natured. Most just laughed at him, thinking he was stupid for even trying. But then there were other things. Rude comments about their obvious disparity in age, and in pay grade- and the gossip. Rumor upon innuendo and suddenly whole stories about them were being shared from person to person as if they were fact.
Far from getting over it, she'd very nearly stopped talking to him all together. So he was stuck standing around in silence at crime scenes and avoiding anywhere his fellow officers gathered.
He just hoped that his little nieces and nephews could cheer him up tomorrow. He needed some space anyway. He had been working nearly non stop even before the disaster that was that night and he needed some time to think. To resign himself to the fact that she was never going to be anything more to him than a friend.
Merry fucking Christmas indeed.
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Oh come on now, would I finish it there? Of course not! Chapter two in a few days!
