Years That Answer
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."-Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
1. Stranger
He's her first partner, and she's his second, and they start on uneven footing, one not knowing what to expect and the other comparing her to a ghost.
He's cold, she thinks, intimidating and distant, and obviously doubting her from the start, judging her age, her inexperience, her gender. He's carrying grief and guilt, and the weight of years on the force and too much seen, and she has only determination and eagerness contrasted against him. He's far from the partner she would have chosen, bottom of the barrel, in truth, but she takes a deep breath and tries, even when its difficult.
When she takes the criminal down, she sees the first flicker of something - slow growing respect, she thinks - in his eyes. "We did good, kid." His voice is steady, but almost warm, and she smiles, almost despite herself.
He's not terrible, she decides, not someone she'd want to spend time with off duty, but she can count on him to have her back and that's the most important thing.
2. Partner
He's different than he used to be, like winter thawing into spring, bringing rare smiles and a sort of warmth with them. There's a comfortable familiarity between them now, as they anticipate each others' movements in their work, speaking through eye contact and nods left, right, I'll handle it and a hundred more unspoken words in looks. Perhaps they've simply gotten used to each other, or perhaps their first impressions were all wrong.
There's a fondness in her voice when she calls him partner, and a trust in his eyes when he looks at her, and she has the oddest feeling that if asked she'd even admit she genuinely likes him, wouldn't choose a new partner if they asked her to.
"We work well together," he says, almost absently, around a bite of hamburger as she steals another of his fries.
"Yeah." A corner of her mouth lifts. "Who would have thought it?"
3. Friend
He's more than her partner, he's her friend, has been for a while now, but she's never truly thought about it before, and now it's the only thing she can wrap her mind around, a litany and tangle of the two words that keep getting jumbled together.
He's trying to hide the pain as her hands tighten over the wound in his stomach and he continues to try to die between her fingers, a steady flow of bright red contrasted against the white the rest of his skin is turning as he bleeds out onto the church floor. He's trying to reassure her, telling her he'll be fine, but she knows he's lying because his voice is strange and distant, and his eyes are unfocused.
"You're not going to die on me." She says, voice as steady as she can make it, because he's her partner and her friend and no one and nothing can take him away from her. And then he coughs, chokes, and starts hemorrhaging, and she's yelling for help, demanding it, even if they're the ones with a gun now and she sounds more like a frightened child than a police officer.
And she gets it, as they carry him away from her, and her hands, slick with his blood, twist together without purpose, left with nothing now that she isn't holding him together anymore.
Later, much later, when its all over, and he's made it through surgery and is bundled into a hospital bed, with tubes snaking over and under the blanket, she takes his hand in her's, warmth, comfort, reassurance, she doesn't identify which, and tells herself she'll let go before he wakes up.
But she doesn't, and his fingers tighten around her's, and hold on.
4. Lover
The realization that she loves him is slow, stealing up on her, little by little, a quiet revelation. Somewhere across the years she let her heart wander, as the lines blurred between words and their meanings, from stranger to partner to friend, and more, seemingly without even being aware of it herself.
And then he's kissing her and she realizes that when she forgot to put the chains on her heart, he forgot to destroy the key to his chains, and sometime, someday, she'd found that key without either of them knowing it at the time.
Most people never find out about them, an open secret that is easily overlooked, and Hooker gives a quiet grudging approval once they keep their personal feelings out of their work, professional and partners in the field.
They trace scars in darkness, the wounds that came too close, the marks that will always linger, cling to each other between twisted sheets and nightmares, fingers reaching to seek comfort and lingering over steady breathing and the warmth of a pulse.
They don't define what they are to each other, don't put labels on their relationship, or draw lines where she stops and he begins, they simply are.
No more words are needed.