Ollen70: This is my first try at a Without a Trace story. Hope you like it.



Ladder to the Sun


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters presented here, nor do I own ColdPlay's Ladder to the Sun.




Vivian sank easily into her leather chair, clicking on her golden desk lamp on the way down. It served to brighten the many reports she still had to file today, as well as a mug of coffee that had long gone cold and a more curious item that she'd dropped there earlier.

Picking it up thoughtfully, she turned it over in her hands under the light. It was a single black button, a round one with four holes in its center, and it was exactly like the one that should have been holding the sleeve of her jacket closed. Smiling down wryly at the loose threads on the sleeve in question, she let the button drop back down onto the table. Why couldn't things ever be easy?

Just this afternoon, they'd closed a recent case. Most of the other members of the team were either out celebrating or at home getting rest, but she felt better just sitting here, pretending to see the words on the papers in front of her. After all, she didn't really drink much any more, and sleep probably wasn't the best idea while everything was still fresh in her mind. It would be better to sort things out first and then actually benefit from the sleep, instead of tossing and turning all through the night and having a terrible day tomorrow. The others could celebrate because they hadn't seen what she'd seen today, and for that, she was jealous.

A nineteen year old boy had been missing, gone from a nearby college campus for twenty two hours. Searching and following leads, as normal, had led them to an alley not far from the red light district of Manhattan, and even though Vivian knew and was dreading what she and Martin might come across, she insisted that she be the first to go in anyway. The two of them were still under serious suspicion with Jack, given what had taken place with the shooting of a suspect, so she decided as his superior that she would take point. No one was going to get killed today if she could avoid it. But the truth of what she'd found hadn't been much better than that.

Snow blew in her face as the alley opened before her, and she walked quickly, deliberately, toward a loose collection of blankets between a rusted out door and an old dumpster. All at once her radio was in her hand, and an ambulance was on the way. She hadn't even remembered making the call.

The boy was there under the blankets, alive, but only barely. His face was a clotted mass of bruising and almost frozen blood, his clothing - what was left of it, at least - ripped to shreds. Long scratches and more bruises mottled his pale chest and, as she turned him, his lower back. He'd been dumped there, she realized, either already assumed to be dead, or because whoever had done this expected him to die shortly in the cold.

Vivian knew the protocol, like everyone did. It was the defining aspect of their job, caring without caring too much. She should have been able to turn away, content to guard the alley until the medics arrived and essentially forget that the boy was someone's son, someone's grandchild or someone's brother. But that would mean forgetting that she had her own son. This boy, though he was older, was really no different.

Forgetting was all part of the job. Vivian had no trouble keeping her emotions in check. That was, of course, until a calloused, broken hand had found her way to her sleeve. Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't noticed that the boy was even awake. He shook so violently that she wondered how she could have missed it, and knelt down beside him.

He didn't say anything, but that didn't stop her from murmuring all of the same bland reassurances they used on every victim, not understanding why they felt more like platitudes this time. Taking her hand, he held it firmly until the medics loaded him onto the gurney. It wasn't until he was gone that she noticed the button of her sleeve lying on the snow.

He'll be alright, Viv. But we need to go get the creep who did this.

Martin had been angry at the boy's state, naturally, but that was because there wasn't much else that he could feel. He'd never had a child. It wasn't fair for him to try to put himself on equal footing with her, or to try to placate her. Of course, she wasn't really being fair. He didn't even know that she was upset, so why should he have acted any differently?

She wasn't going to tell him, though. Because of the things they saw everyday, it was important to cling to constants when you could find them. As far as Martin was concerned, Vivian was like the sun. It was a role she'd been familiar with for quite some time now, so much so that the other members of the team were starting to adopt it - even Jack, who ought to know better.

Vivian often wondered how the sun did it. Did it become detached from the sorrows it saw every morning? If not, how else could it stand to rise and look down on the world? Was there any compassion in its warmth, or was it like the routine, benign smile she flashed in every situation, spending each moment fearing that her cover would slip if she ever showed anything else?

Of course, the sun had been watching both sorrow and triumph for much longer than she, and that was probably the trick. Practice made perfect, or so they said. In time, she might stop doubting herself, but she wasn't sure if she really wanted that. There was some obscure comfort in struggling with these things, when it allowed her to forget that it wasn't her who had the problem. She wasn't the one terrorizing children or stealing wives and mothers. It was her choice to become one of the caretakers of the world, spending her time worrying over cases that often had no happy ending.

On days like this, it was easy to feel sorry for the sun. It wasn't night yet, but the light was already fading under the relentless curtain of snow. Out past the Venetian blinds that covered tall windows, New York was crystallized. Its streets were covered even more thickly in a glorious blanket of white. But snow could only leave things clean for awhile. Eventually, the dirt underneath would find its way to the surface again, like it always did. Picking up the button and switching off her light, she made her way to the door of the office.

The deli on the corner was still opened when she passed, so she stopped to pick up some sandwiches on the way home, wrapping her scarf around her against the blast of the wind. Her son was probably already asleep, but that was okay. Vivian hadn't eaten much today. All the people she walked through, all the faces, reminded her of the thousands that they hadn't found yet. It didn't make her as sad as it used to, because she knew that they were still going to try.

Martin could get angry and swear, Danny could laugh at the difficult days, Sam could just pretend none of it was real. But Vivian? It was odd, but she couldn't remember the name of the boy they'd found that day. His face wasn't stable in her mind- when she closed her eyes, she couldn't picture him. But maybe that was because whenever she closed her eyes, she imagined it was Martin she was covering with a tattered blanket, or Danny, lying almost naked and battered in his own blood. They were all children to her, and she would protect them if she could.

Smiling at the man behind the counter, she paid for the sandwiches and went back out into the streets. The bells tied to the metal handle jangled softly behind her, and she turned her face up into the softness of the falling snow. Somehow, the night didn't feel so cold.




Ollen70: Argh. This wasn't at all what I was expecting out of this story, and I'm not sure if I like where it went. If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know. They'll be greatly appreciated.