*insert disclaimer that here...no, I don't own them...yes, it was a good show...*
The wipers pushed the rain back and forth, back and forth. She passed the Larsen garage, the construction site where Kallie had crawled into the cement culverts, Jack's school, Reggie's dock, ghosts of the past riding shotgun in her rental car. Biltmore Pier tugged her off of the pavement to stare up at the bridge where she had come to him and the pier where he had come to her; neither rescuing the other but finding salvation in their partner. Instinctively, Sarah's hand sought her jacket pocket and curled around the brass casing, her talisman that had led her to Holder earlier in the day. Daily, weekly, month by month, the metal token mocked the former detective when she ran from city to city, job after job, reminding that she did not belong anywhere.
Years spent shifting. Uncountable days clutching the casing as she drifted off to sleep in her car or some cheap motel. Jack had finally stopped asking about Holder a few years back and that fact alone had allowed the idea to creep like the morning Seattle fog, settling into the deepest parts of her mind. Every city revealed Holder; the vegan ordering at a diner, the runaways dragging on their cigarettes, the tall, loping figure that made her question if he had found her…maybe, just maybe.
Half a dozen times, she had put her hands on the keys to drive away that morning before she chided her ridiculousness and sat on the planter to wait. The community center was tagged and it reminded her of his collection of tattoos. Sarah could see the storm approaching and hoped that Holder would come out soon. She worried her lip with her teeth; more than anything, she just needed him to understand how sorry she was. He deserved that. No, he deserved more than that but Sarah was less than that to him.
That slow, Cheshire grin preceded the drawl. "Oh snap! One nine-hundred Linden. Dial and you shall receive."
Turning back onto the pavement, the rain stopped, grey skies darkening as the day raced to expire. She had never intended to say that…to admit that he was her home. All she had wanted to do was apologize until those honest eyes looked down at her and her deepest, most precious secret tumbled from her lips, sincere and unbidden. "I think that was everything," Sarah admitted before remembering her reason for coming.
"It ain't ghosts, Linden. It ain't the dead." Her mind was screaming, howling for her to run. She was good at running and her apology had been presented. And when Holder meekly offered, "Bye," Sarah ran.
Finding the city spread out before her, across the bay, the saltwater smell was comforting. It wasn't a city of the dead, although they hovered around in the fringes of her mind. They would always be there, but he had been standing in front of her, asking her to stay. Holder hadn't fought her, hadn't begged her to reconsider because he knew she would go no matter what he said. Sarah knew that she would mess it up between them if she went back.
But she also knew that she would stay. They would screw it up together, fall apart together and regroup. Hope…it had been such a long time since she felt hope.
Again, her hands danced with the keys in the ignition, inner demons waging war on the fledgling aspiration. Across the street, the door opened again, having just ejected the previous meeting, and Holder locked the door. He never broke eye contact, not once, hands in his pockets, mirroring her own. That smile…that was home.