Hand.
There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand: a collection of phalanges and metacarpals bound together by ligaments, tendons, muscle and skin. They're the main way that we interact on a tactile level. Holder's is cold, clammy and shaky, but when it's resting on her shoulder, it's so much more than that. Ficlet, post 2.08.
Disclaimer: The Killing belongs to AMC. I just wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.
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There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand: a collection of phalanges and metacarpals bound together by ligaments, tendons, muscle and skin. They're the main way that we interact, on a tactile level. We talk, laugh and cry with our hands. We touch with our hands. We act with our hands. We pray with our hands.
Linden's are shaking and white-knuckled as she grips the safety rail at the airport, watching the planes in the early evening twilight. She looks down at her hands; her small, white collection of phalanges and metacarpals that have been the architects of her downfall. She used her hands to call Holder, to tell him to go to the reservation. She used them to hand over her gun and badge to Carlson. She used them to gently nudge her only son, the one person she cares about in the whole world, onto a plane headed towards his father.
For such small hands, they sure can create a lot of chaos.
Holder's hands are bigger than hers. Not like Rick's, whose hands were like a pianist or surgeon's, or Greg's, which were reassuringly thick. Holder's hands are like him: long, skinny, surprisingly strong. She likes men's hands, likes looking at them. You can tell a lot by a person's hands.
She doesn't want to think what her hands reveal to an outsider.
But Holder's hands aren't bad, aren't bad at all. They're kinda nice, actually.
But she doesn't get a chance to see them close-up until one is tentatively touching her shoulder in that desolate departure lounge.
Holder's hand is cold, clammy and shaky, but when it's resting on her shoulder, holding her in place and offering her support, it's so much more than that.
She doesn't know how he got here until he explains: the Little Man called to say goodbye, and Holder got up, out of his hospital bed, and came to her side because he knew she'd need it.
That's what his hands can do.
His hand feels right tucked against her shoulder, her arm, and when it slides into her right hand and gently tugs her away from the window and the backdrop of departing planes, it's the rightest thing she's felt for a long time, so she lets it stay there.
It stays all the way to her car, throughout the drive back to his apartment. It only moves from his when she's helping him undress them both, when she pushes him against the mattress and takes control because he's injured and she wants, needs to know that her hands can work miracles as well as chaos.
Afterwards, when the sweat has dried on their skin and they're watching Seattle slip into another early morning, she looks down at his hand, gently holding hers. They're just hands: a collection of phalanges and metacarpals bound together by ligaments, tendons, muscle and skin. Hers seem to make nothing but chaos. His seem to do nothing but offer her support, literally offer her his hand. Maybe that's how it's meant to be, after all.
Either way, Holder's hand isn't just a hand.
FIN.