Author's Note: Hi. My computer's dead. I have to use the one in the living room (when my dad leaves it on) so updates will still come but at a very slow pace. Which sucks. Hopefully, Bruce can be repaired before the dead of winter or at least during tax check season…
Okay, new fandom and new one shot, I'm ready. I've seen sporadic episodes of Cold Case and I am a devoted Rush/Valens shipper. There's something about them that just seems right once they get past all the bullshit and miscommunications. One thing that always bothered me about Lilly Rush's character though was just how consumed she was with her work. It was very sad to watch and I've always wanted to write a fic about someone breaking through her self imposed lonely existence so…yeah. Here it is.
If this is received well, then there will be a sequel later on this year or into the next. I still need to plan my 2011 SSS, after all. There aren't many spoilers but all you need to know is that Lilly's got a Christina and she slept with Scotty. Everything else is off the top of my head.
Disclaimer: "Honestly, it's not mine!"
Lilly Rush had stopped caring what people thought of her a long time ago.
Dealing with her alcoholic mother had made her hardened to whispered taunts or yelled vitriol from her peers. She was a "workaholic" and she had "a huge stick up her ass" and was an "Ice Queen" from 3rd grade on and it had served her well for the last 34 years. Her livelihood was helping to give the forgotten ones a voice, to give overdue justice. Every time she saw that magic marker, all caps CLOSED on a box, it gave her deep satisfaction. That satisfaction had been enough to last her through the cold nights alone with her cats and her demons.
Until her sister called.
Christina was getting married. Not only was she getting married, she had wanted Lilly to be her maid of honor. Lilly had listened to her elated tale of meeting Gregory at a San Francisco café and falling "madly in love" with him from the moment she saw him. After only 2 months of dating, Gregory had proposed to her on the Golden Gate Bridge. Wasn't it great? Wasn't it romantic?
Lilly had replied in her usual practical way, asking if 2 months was really long enough to know someone before marrying them. After all, he could be a closet serial killer or a bigamist. Christina did have a tendency to go for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right…
"Damn it, Lilly! Why can't you just be happy for me?" Christina exploded over the line.
"Because when you get yourself into scenarios like this, I usually end up having to deal with the aftermath of it all by bailing you out of jail or..."
"Ugh! You know what your problem is? You're jealous!"
"I'm jealous of you? I'm jealous of someone who's stupid enough to marry a virtual stranger. You're setting yourself up for a big fall, Christina. It might not even last." Lilly scoffed.
"Yeah, well at least I'm trying to make a life with someone, unlike you! All you do is work and then wonder why you're alone! You don't open up to anyone and you judge anyone who dares to take a risk as an idiot or someone worse than the gum under your shoes! No wonder Scotty chose me over you! You wouldn't know to do with a man unless there a manual you could read!"
The words slammed into her like a sledgehammer. Even though it had been years ago, The sting of Christina tainting yet another part of Lilly's life was still there. Her relationship with Scotty had changed since then. They were friends but not nearly as close as they used to be...
"Scotty slept with you because he was hurting and you were easy as always. Who's warming Scotty Valens' bed has nothing to do with me."
The sob that sounded over the line didn't comfort Lilly at all.
"And whose fault is that? You know what, fine! Don't be happy for me! Don't be my Maid of Honor! Don't even fucking show up! I'm nothing but a burden to the great Lilly Rush, anyway so why don't you just feed your cats and work a crime scene! Maybe it'll finally get you off!"
"You look troubled, sugar. You want to talk about it?" the waitress asked as she topped off her diner coffee.
Lilly shook her head mutely and looked towards whatever Letterman knockoff that was on this hour. After Christina dramatically hung up, Lilly had indeed fed her cats and laid down in an attempt to sleep. That was she was supposed to be doing for a week. Resting and relaxing. Boss had given her an ultimatum from the top: take some time off or take a suspension.
"Lilly, you've been here for the last 2 weeks nonstop and you've got about 3 years worth of personal time built up. The Powers that Be think I'm overworking you." John Stillman informed her as she took down yet another box to look through.
"So, this is political posturing?"
"This is me being concerned about a friend, Rush. And like I said, The Powers that Be think I'm overworking you. You're to take at minimum a week off or they'll suspend you for a month. Don't look at me like that. I actually agree with them this time. There's a fine line between dedication and destructive obsession and you're about to cross it if you haven't already. One week. Read a novel. Get a pedicure. Watch a monster movie marathon. I don't care. Just get out of this building. It'll be good for you."
Good for her. Yeah, right. She stirred her coffee and took a long pull of it. What was good for her was doing her job. She had read all the novels in her apartment, pedicures were wasted on her because she never took care of them, and monster movie marathon? Really? Lilly chuckled and picked up the menu. Maybe eating would help her come up with a way to reconcile with her sister. As exasperating she was, Christina was still blood and really the only family she had left. Paul and Finn didn't really count. She only heard from them around Christmas time…
"Fancy seein' you here. I thought you were still workin'."
Scotty sat next to her at the bar and Millie poured him his own mug of coffee.
"Didn't you hear? Stillman and the other head honchos forced me to take a vacation."
"I'm sure they didn't…"
"If I didn't take at least a week, I'd be suspended for a month."
"Okay, so they did." he conceded. "But, hey. Vacation. It's not such a bad rap."
"Maybe for someone normal. I had a fight with my sister."
"Did she need bail money again?" he asked with his usual sardonic smirk.
Lilly laughed mirthlessly and replied, "No. She's getting married to a guy she met like 5 minutes ago and apparently just because I'm calling her on it means that I'm a jealous, dried up, hateful bitch. And I'm uninvited to the wedding which is fine by me because I hate them."
"You hate weddings?"
"Paying thousands of dollars for a dress you're only going wear once, forcing your closest friends, if you have any, to dress in ugly pastels, eating crappy food, dealing with drunken relatives, and spending thousands of dollars on a 3 day honeymoon is not my idea of a good time. And then, 9 times out of 10, you're divorced and still paying off all that stuff when you're being put back in diapers so yes, I hate weddings. If I ever find a guy desperate enough to be with me, we're going in front of the judge and holing up in a local hotel."
Scotty looked at her quizzically and asked, "Why would a guy have to be desperate to marry ya? You're a hell of woman."
She scoffed, "You're biased."
"Not that much. You're smart, funny, driven, hot…why wouldn't some lucky bastard wanna be your man?"
Christina's words rushed back to the forefront of her mind and she looked at him sadly.
"I'm an Ice Queen. I have mommy issues, daddy issues, I don't open up to people, I spend more time caring about people I don't know than the ones I do, and the longest relationship I've had with a man is with Ben and Jerry. Yeah, I'm a real catch. Maybe I can be the next Bachelorette."
"You're not givin' yourself enough credit, Lilly."
"And you're giving me too much."
"Someone has to since you're obviously not gonna do it. I get it. People have told ya most of your life that you're all that crap and instead of provin' them wrong, you let 'em think what they want and even play it up. It's easier than gettin' hurt. Damn lonely, though."
He was talking about himself. Scotty didn't really do that unless he was trying to crack someone. Was he trying to crack her? Even if he wasn't, it was working…
"Now, I think your sister's right. I think you are jealous but not because of her marrying that guy because it is damn dumb but because she's got enough guts to put herself out there."
"Only because I gave up my entire childhood raising her and protecting her from every big bad wolf out there, including our drunk of a mother!"
"She can do it, though! You wanna be like her but you're scared!"
She already knew this. That was the reason she was sitting brooding at a diner at god-knows-what o' clock in the morning instead of sleeping. All Scotty was doing was driving it home and it was really starting to piss her off…
"Do you have a point, Scotty?" she asked flatly.
"You've got such a fucked up sense of self worth that you can't see it when a guy's interested in ya." he replied bluntly, sending her mind into overdrive.
What guy was he talking about? The only guy she could think of being that crazy was…oh. Oh!
"You."
"And the light goes on, ladies and gentlemen! Jesus!" he cheered bitterly as he drained his now cold coffee.
The brooding sadness became brooding rage and she stood up, glaring at him hatefully.
"Well, excuse me for not realizing that the great opaque Lothario has a crush on little ol' me! It's not like he hasn't given me any indication like screwing my sister and then lying about it!"
"It was a mistake made years ago, Rush and you weren't exactly approachable with tellin' ya shit like this! You still aren't! You get all self righteous martyr and then you run like a spooked deer! Heaven forbid that you can actually be happy!"
"You don't know a goddamned thing about…!"
"You? No, I don't know a goddamned thing about you but, I want to and that's what the fuckin' problem is! You won't let me because ya automatically assume that I just want in your damn pants and that I'll leave you just like every other prick with a dick has in your life! And it's a not damn crush, Lilly! If it was, I woulda been able to get past it 5 years ago instead losing sleep over it yet again."
The wind left her sails and she just shook her head. Why was he doing this? Why was he shaking everything up? He couldn't do that! He couldn't tell her that he wanted her and that it wasn't just about sex. She didn't know what to do with men once the clothes were put back on and the relationship died soon afterwards. When that happened with her and Scotty, then it would ruin everything! One of them would have to transfer and the team would get broken up and…and she'd get hurt again. She'd get hurt bad…
"Lilly…" Scotty started, grasping her arms.
"No."
"Lilly, I…"
"Don't! Just…don't, okay?"
"Why the hell not? Why can't I feel things for you?"
"It would never work."
"Because of me?"
"Because of me. My relationships never work. Men get sick of me being me and find someone or something better. I can't…you can't…it's not worth it. It would screw everything and everyone up. All I'm going to do is push you away and disappoint you. You don't want me. You want some ideal woman and an ideal life that…"
"Shut up.", Scotty cut off darkly.
"Excuse me?"
He pulled out his wallet, slammed a 20 on the bar, and hauled her outside to his car.
"Scotty…"
"I said shut up. Get in. Now. You've said your piece and now I want mine but I'm not doin' it here. You're coming home with me and I'm not lettin' you leave until you see sense. In. Now."
The sound of his driver's seat door slamming sounded like a cannon blast and he unlocked the passenger seat door.
Even though her brain screamed at her to run, Lilly found herself climbing in and buckling her seatbelt.
His tires left deep marks on the pavement.
/
"I want an ideal woman? What kind of woman are ya talkin' about, Rush? Some homemaking broad that'll pop out babies and let me move her to the suburbs? That I want a white picket fence and a dog named Rover to go with her?" he demanded after slamming and locking his apartment door.
"Someone normal."
Jesus, what was with this woman? How could she be so confident and badass yet so skewed? Why couldn't she see what everyone else saw? She wasn't an Ice Bitch. In fact, she cared a little too much. Lilly, as his mother would say, loved hard and hurt deep. Every disappointment, every argument, every injury, every insult had been internalized to get the Lilly Rush that the world saw. Once someone got past all that (or got pretty damned close to doing so), she was just a sad, lonely person who just wanted to be happy but felt that she wasn't worthy of it.
They really were alike in a lot of ways.
"What is it with you and thinkin' that you're less than what ya are? Is it some childhood thing?"
"You'd be a lousy shrink, Valens." she sniped weakly as she moved to the window, far out of his reach.
"I'm not askin' as a shrink, I'm askin' as a man who gives a damn about you. A man who loves you. What? Is it that shocking that I can love someone?"
If her jaw got any lower, he'd actually have to sweep his floor so she wouldn't choke on dust.
"N-no."
"Ah, so it's shocking that I can love you. Lilly, talk to me. I wanna understand."
She stood at the window for a long silent while before replying, "I don't even know how to explain it, anymore."
"Try."
Lilly sighed and her head bowed a little, sending more of her unraveling cornsilk hair into the moonlight.
"You played sports. You've gotten hurt before, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
"Some of those injuries were worse than others?"
"Oh, yeah."
"And after getting past them, you wanted to make sure that the circumstances that they happened in wouldn't happen again, correct?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if you take my, in your words, fucked up sense of self worth and apply it to that, then you've got what the hell's wrong with me. A lot of it's a childhood thing. I mean, growing up with an alcoholic mother, an absent and alcoholic father, and raising a sister hell-bent on getting into every sort of trouble causes someone to have to build walls. Unfortunately, I never really grasped the cons of doing that. I…knew that I was pushing people away. I knew that it was self defeating to go into every situation, whether there's a man involved or not, expecting it to fail but…"
"It became a pattern. Something familiar in a sea of unfamiliar shit."
"…and it didn't help that when I got my hopes up, something bad happened."
She turned around and Scotty could see the earnestness in her eyes.
"I didn't say that I didn't want you to..."
"Feel things." he offered. Love was out there but he knew it was a bit too much for her to handle right now so he wouldn't say it again. Not yet, anyway.
"… for me but I was serious at the Diner. All my relationships fail and when…"
"If."
"... If that happened between us, then we'd hurt everyone. Vera, Jefferies, Kat…one of us would to leave and then IA would nail Stillman to the wall for letting it happen and…"
"Lilly, not everything has to be a worst case scenario. I…feel things for you and you feel 'em back so we…we can at least try, can't we? One date? A real date? We don't even have to have sex."
"I don't put out until at least the 3rd date anyway."
"I think I could make you bend that rule. Lil, I want you in any way I can get you. I really think we could work or at least fail amicably. Please. It's better than not knowin'."
He closed the distance between them and put his arms firmly around her, nearly engulfing her tiny form. Scotty tilted her head up and pressed a light, chaste kiss to her lips. A small half smile curved his lips at the shiver that went through her and she buried her face in his chest.
"One date?"
"To start with."
"Can I pick where we go?"
"Just as long as it's not some stuffy little museum or a library."
She chuckled and suggested, "Movie and cheese steaks? You can put your Cheez Wiz on if you must…"
"I like that idea. So…um, you goin' home now?"
"I can't. You kidnapped me and my car's about 3 miles from here."
"I didn't kidnap you! And if you can't get home…well, we can have our date now. I make a mean omelet." he offered sheepishly.
She smiled up at him and he finally took down her hair, letting her shake and comb it out with her fingers.
"I think that's a great idea."