A Quiet Gratitude
Summary: He's being nicer than usual, too nice, and it may seem ridiculous, but she's a little worried. There's something here he's not telling her. Lassiter and Juliet friendship, with a healthy dose of hurt/comfort.
He brings her coffee that morning from her favorite café, and it has just the right blend of sugar and creamer and she thinks it's more than a little odd. He doesn't usually go out of his way for her, and when she questions the sudden generosity, he waves it off casually.
"It was on the way," he says, not meeting her eyes.
Which is a totally insufficient answer, because the coffee shop is always on the way to the station, and he's never bothered to stop before. But she writes it off – her partner is allowed to be thoughtful every now and then without receiving the third degree, even if it is a little unusual. She thinks perhaps he's just having a good morning, and is in a cheerful, generous mood.
It becomes apparent quite quickly, however, that he isn't in a good mood. But he isn't angry, either, and so Juliet finds herself at a loss to determine what mood he is in. He's too quiet. Granted, he's not a talkative person by nature and usually saves lectures, taunts, and yelling for Shawn, but there's something different today. It's the way he's quiet. The silence hangs off of him, and his thoughts seem far away as he writes up a case report. He's usually more focused on the task at hand, not one to contemplate deeply on other subjects when there is work to be done.
She watches him from her desk, ignoring the way her own cursor blinks back at her from the computer screen. Paperwork will always be there, after all, but she has to figure this one out. No one else seems to notice that anything is amiss with the Head Detective, but they wouldn't, anyway. He's her partner, and she likes to think that she understands Carlton Lassiter as well as he can be understood. It's been nearly three years, and they've been through a lot together. And she knows that with Carlton, it's the subtleties that count.
But he presses on with his work, and she shakes her head a bit, and gets back to her own. Maybe she's just being too sensitive to change, to tiny fluctuations of behavior that seem significant but don't mean anything at all.
A call comes in mid-morning, and they're heading out to the car when he tosses her the keys. "You can drive," he says, and they've suddenly reached a whole new level of weird.
He never lets her drive. And the whole thing sets her on edge, though she has no idea why it should. She's still processing it all as they reach the parking lot, but in the car, she breaks. "Okay, Carlton, what is up?"
"What?"
"You're letting me drive. Are you feeling sick or something?"
"No, I'm fine," he says. "I just – O'Hara, come on, we have a crime scene to get to."
Her concern morphs into irritation, and she turns the key in the ignition with more force than necessary. If he thinks he can just be way too nice to her and get away with it, he has another thing coming. He's just lucky she hasn't yet decided to call in Shawn and Gus to investigate if this is some kind of invasion of the body-snatchers scenario.
The case itself is fairly straightforward, as much as murder ever can be. It's a drug deal gone wrong, body in a sketchy back alley of a sketchy neighborhood, and it is immediately apparent that they're not dealing with a criminal mastermind here. They find the killer hiding out at his girlfriend's house (silly of him to think they wouldn't discover that connection) and the arrest goes off without a problem. The case takes two hours to solve, and the paperwork is done in three. By the time all is said and done, Lassiter's paid for her lunch before she'd gotten a chance to protest, he's let her drive the whole day, and when they briefed the Chief about the case, he gave her the majority of the credit for the arrest.
Needless to say, she's spinning towards an all-out panic and looking at all possibilities, like maybe pigs are flying or her partner is terminally ill and has had some type of spiritual epiphany. At this point, she's not ruling anything out.
"Okay, seriously, what's going on?" she demands as soon as they're out of the Chief's office. Her voice breaks loud enough to attract a few stares from nearby officers. Great, of course he'd find a way to make it look like she's the one losing her mind.
"What in God's name are you talking about, O'Hara?"
"Why are you being so nice today?" If it were anyone but him, she'd think she sounded ridiculous.
There's a moment there that falls heavy upon them both, a short but resounding silence in which he makes a decision to either be directly honest or indirectly avoid the question. She sees it and processes, and she knows for sure that she isn't going crazy after all - there's something here that he's not saying, and it's really starting to worry her. If only he would just let her in this time...
But he doesn't.
"You're the one that's always telling me to be more considerate," he accuses, just a slight edge to his voice to make his argument sound stronger.
And well, it works, because he does have a point. Even if it's not the real point at all.
Well, fine. If he doesn't want to let her in, she can't make him. What does she care if there's something going on with him? He's being extremely nice, and she's getting coffee and meals and the chance to drive to crime scenes out of it. She really shouldn't complain.
"Alright, alright," she says in defeat. "I'm just – well, there were other things too. You seemed a little out of it earlier. I just wanted to make sure you're okay. If you're fine, I'm fine."
"I'm fine," he replies, nodding slightly.
He isn't fine.
"Thank you for watching out for me, though," he states, looking more than a little awkward. "I—I appreciate it, O'Hara."
Ugh, damn. She had been ready to let this go, ready to just let him deal with his secrets and life and whatever, but then he said thank you. A thank you she can't accept if she doesn't deserve it, if she's giving up after one round of his usual hard-exterior resistance techniques.
Still, the moment is gone now, and she's already surrendered this battle to him. Perhaps after work, she'll ask him out for a beer or three, and see if the alcohol might loosen up his tongue.
They return to their respective desks, but as he passes her, he pats her shoulder for just a moment and it manages to both comfort and worry her at the same time.
The rest of the day passes in a haze of routine. Shawn stops by to see if there are any cases he can pick up, but he's truly out of luck for once, and stays just long enough to chat with her and steal Lassiter's pen. The detective waves him off, apparently not even in the mood to yell or to care.
"No fun," says Shawn, and she shrugs a bit apologetically.
"Better luck next time," she says, and he pouts his way towards the exit.
She finishes a backlog of case files, organizes her desk, and stores some reports in the files room. Carlton, she notices, follows much the same routine. By the time the end of the day rolls around, he seems in a definite hurry to leave, so she rushes to grab her stuff, and intercepts him at his desk. "Hey, you wanna go grab dinner and a beer or two at Tom Blair's Pub? I'm starving," she says in a rush. Startling him into a positive response has worked in the past, after all.
Not this time.
"Can't," he says shortly. "Heading down to the gun range for some shooting."
A curveball, but she thinks on her feet. "Ah yeah, it's been awhile for me too. Mind if I join you?"
There is a brief hesitation, but then, "Yeah, sure."
The department shooting range is empty when they get there, which is good. He prefers it when they have the place just to themselves, and today, she appreciates it too.
He wastes no time in getting his gun ready, and he has ear protection and eye wear on as fast as she can blink.
She's just snapping on her own gear when he's already blasting away, and she hurries to join him. Soon the gun range is filled with the mingled sound of their shots echoing around them.
For awhile, they're both preoccupied with shooting, and she mentally tries to match his shots. She knows that she is good, but he is better, and that hasn't changed since day one. Still, she enjoys the challenge of trying to compete with him, and she'll never let him know she's aspiring to reach his skill level (he doesn't need the ego boost in this area).
She loses track of the time, and after awhile, the fun and adrenaline that comes from shooting loses the appeal for her. She keeps going, of course, but she spends less time shooting and more time reloading and watching Lassiter from the corner of her eye.
There's a heaviness to him, to the way he holds his shoulders and his arms and his gun. His aim is as accurate as always, just as impressive to her as it was the first day she witnessed it, but the small smirk that usually accompanies his more remarkable shots is missing. For once, there is no pride or power or confidence holding him up, just the target and the need to be doing something, anything.
Finally, his last bullet is spent and so is he. A weariness seems to hit him suddenly as the adrenaline wears off. He holsters his weapon and lets out a sigh so heavy she thinks it could blow away the world. He leans against the wall, removes his ear protection, and his eyes meet hers, just briefly, and she knows.
This is something beyond what she'd been prepared to handle. Her stomach in knots, she swallows hard. "Carlton?"
He looks away, looks anywhere but at her, and takes a deep breath. "I got some bad news last night," he says, running a worried hand through his hair. "A call from San Francisco."
There is a time to prompt and a time to wait, and she chooses the latter. This is what she wanted – for him to open up and be honest and direct with her, and though she's scared of hearing what's to come, she has to be ready to just listen now.
"It was Detective Davis, from SFPD," he continues, taking a long time to get the words out. "You know, Lucinda Barry's partner."
Her stomach sinks further down, and her heart is in her throat. She remembers that name from years before. That was his partner before she came along, the one that was transferred because of their personal relationship. She never learned much about her; the wound had seemed too raw to ask about at the time, and she hadn't known Lassiter that well. Since then, it's been a blind spot of their partnership, and she feels like it's something she should have asked about in the time they've gotten to know each other. She wonders how he coped with the transfer, if they kept in touch, if he loved her.
She can't ask now. "What happened?" she asks instead, quietly.
"Car accident, three nights ago," he replies, bitterness creeping into his voice. "Damn drunk driver. She – she was in a coma for a couple days. She never woke up."
"Oh, God, that's awful. I'm so sorry to hear that, Carlton," she says, trying to hold onto her own composure.
"Yeah. Me too." His eyes are wet and her heart is breaking for him. He swallows hard, fighting the feeling, and continues. "Anyway, I guess Davis remembers her talking about me, in the early days of her transfer...said he knew I was her partner, and figured since a bond like that is hard to break – well, he thought I should know. The funeral's on Sunday."
Without even thinking about it, Juliet closes the distance between them and wraps him in a warm hug. It's literally all she can think to do. There are no words to fix this, little comfort she can give, but he's her partner, and she has to try. After a long moment, he hugs back and relaxes into her hold.
She counts the seconds. One, two, three...
And when he releases her, it seems the heaviness in him has lessened, just a bit.
"Did I ever tell you about her?" he asks suddenly. "What she was like?"
She shakes her head. "No, I don't think you ever got a chance."
He smiles, just slightly. "I think you would have liked her. She could really kick some ass when she wanted. And she didn't smile as much as she should have, but when she did...when she did it was beautiful."
Juliet puts a hand on his arm. "Come on, Partner. Let's go get dinner, and you can tell me all about her. Give her a proper toast as well, huh?"
He nods. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice."
Nice.
It stirs her memory, reminds her why they're here in the first place. "All that stuff you did for me today?" she questions, before she can stop her curiosity. She's failing to see how it all connects, though it hardly seems important now.
Carlton looks at her, and the intensity of his gaze catches her off guard. "I—I just got to thinking how much I should have said to her, how much I could have done differently. And not just because she was my girlfriend, but just as a person, you know? And I guess I didn't – I don't – want you to think I take you for granted. I know I'm lucky to have you as a partner, O'Hara."
Three years together, and he's still capable of surprising her, to her very soul.
As they exit the shooting range together, she places a supportive hand on his shoulder. "You know, I'm pretty lucky too," she assures him, and he smiles slightly as they head off to remember a fellow officer and friend.
A/N: Referencing, of course, the "blink and you miss it" call back shot from Santabarbaratown 2. Had quite a bit of trouble writing this one, trying to strike the right balance of character without overdoing the situation or treating it too lightly, so I'd love to know how I did. Thanks for reading!