She will be loved
By Ria
a.n. Title blatantly stolen from a Maroon 5 song.
You love watching her in action. In the place where she's in her element: Collecting evidence at crime scenes. Tweezing a minute piece of fabric off carpet. Finding the smallest drop of blood in the middle of a bedspread. Finding just a partial on the inside of a door that might, just might be enough to convict a perp of some heinous crime. It's hard to predict what will be the taker. What will go from being just a small bit of fluff or a grain of sand to the clincher, the one that will convince the jury of the guilt, the one that will have the jail door slamming shut.
She seems to take satisfaction in the lot. Thorough didn't cover it. Thorough didn't count for the hours and hours she was on hands and knees just looking. The hours and hours you spent right next to her, because two pairs of eyes were always better than one, and this way you get to enjoy your favourite sight. This way you get to see the smile when she finds that bit of evidence. The smile that starts on her lips, but quickly spread to the rest of her face, to her eyes. Lighting them up so they shine against the darkness of the crime.
It's the only time you seem to get to see that smile at the moment. And even then it's sometimes so quick that blink and it's gone.
It never used to be that way. Before everything went boom, you'd see that smile a lot. Not just collecting evidence, or when a suspect is about to go down or a case comes together. No, you used to see it in the break room when she was chatting animatedly to Nick. Or in the lab teasing Greg. Or when you were all sat around the table in your favourite café waiting for the breakfast order to come up.
But then Hank happened. And the lab exploded. And a witness got killed, and there just seemed to be one too many murders, rapes, crimes out there to wade through again. Life seemed to have contrived to steal the smile from her lips and you miss it, you miss seeing her smile. You sometimes find yourself wondering what it would take to get the smile back again, as you silently watch from afar as she goes about her work. What action would be enough to turn around all that had happened to her lately? Would one less murder do it? One less rape? Or perhaps a string of cases for once easy to solve, to put the perp behind bars?
Or perhaps it would be something outside of work. You've tried to get her to come out, all to no avail. Would she need a litre of Whyte and Mackey, would that bring the smile back?
Perhaps the most pressing question on your mind is whether you could bring the smile back. Would taking her in your arms, bringing your lips to hers, would that cause the smile to appear. Because for a while now that's all you've wanted to do. For a while now, you've wanted to be the one to show her that life isn't all heartache and bad decisions. That there are some good people in this world. That there is someone who will take only her and who will love her and care for her and be there for her.
She's your friend, you want her to be happy, you reason with yourself. But it's more than that; it's more than just her happiness you desire.
You want her to know that she is loved. Not obliquely. Not from a friend's point of view. You want her to know what it's like to have someone in love with her. And perhaps get to feel what it's like to be in love. And you want to be that person. You know as well as anyone that life isn't all sunshine and flowers. There's a darkness out there that you're intimately aware of. But perhaps if you can just elicit one more smile, her world will be a lighter place for it.