Disclaimer: I do not own Without A Trace or its characters. This is for entertainment purposes only
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I haven't visited this side of things for a while, but these are harder for me to write… they take more care and attention – maybe it's the style, I don't know – but they actually physically take a toll on me. But when they're ready to be written… then I write them, because I must. Maybe it sounds crazy, but that's just how it works.
21,000,000 Souls
She waits for him by the newsstand, watching him as he hurries past. He tries not to look at her, though he knows he will, as he always does. She stares at him with dark, pleading eyes, begging, asking: why?
He cannot answer her, just hurries on, knowing he should quit this, knowing he should take a cab or simply drive – twenty-one million souls in New York City, maybe, but not everyone drives, most people don't, the streets aren't that bad – but he doesn't, not when he can cross here, to avoid that side of the street where he watches from. Nine years old and angry, the words he doesn't say, written all over his face: wasn't I good enough, Mr. Cop? Wasn't I rich enough, white enough? And he can't answer, this man with the uptown apartment and the expensive clothes, this pale white skin and rich, Republican, well-connected family. He can't answer, because the truth will drive him mad, send him down a road he won't allow himself to travel.
Like that one, though it would be a shorter route… he won't travel that one, because she found him there, and began screaming at him, demanding answers that he didn't have, the same answer all of them want. Why, why, why, why, why?
He descends the steps into the subway, thinking to himself that no one would believe that he goes this way. Jack doesn't take the subway, Viv doesn't take the subway, Sam doesn't take the subway, hell, even Danny doesn't take the subway, and Danny grew up with some of the roughest neighbours you could hope to get. But here he is, little rich white boy, with the WASPish name, waiting with the cash-strapped, time-strapped, patience-strapped commuters for the next train – which better damn well not be an express, they mutter in the traditional rant, though they never get the wrong train, not these veterans of the public transport system. Wrong trains are for tourists, or for the upper-class trend seekers who think it's somehow fun to come down here and mix with the common folk, who have better things to do than point out that you're going the wrong way.
But he is not one of that crowd, nor is he suspected as such, for he doesn't have the wide-eyed curiosity of a tourist, or the self-importance of the class to which his clothing belongs. Instead he bears the same weary-wariness of the long-time New Yorker: keeping to himself and watching without watching to be sure everybody else does too. Some here even know who he is, or know that he carries a gun, though he's only ever used it once. One time, waiting for the train that – with the typical preciseness of the New York public transit system – was running late. Early morning, fortunately, before the rush of the major commute when the platform becomes impossible to move on, and the major risk is to bystanders.
He smiles a little at the memory – because this time his side won. Kid smashed and grabbed a pawnshop, and took off running, cops in hot pursuit. Ducked down in here with the hopes of losing himself in the crowd, of being able to dodge away from the donut-eaters and drop his goods in another shop for cash. And Martin just descended and in a strange kind of mood, pulled back against the wall, and waited until the sneakers came in view before stepping out and scaring the crap out of the kid with three little letters.
Not with the gun, for guns meant nothing to kids like these, especially not in the hands of rich-white-guys who probably never use them for any more than occasional target practice at paper targets. But 'F.B.I.' screamed in his face with all the authority of someone who knows they've got backing and it's bigger than anything some street-cop could manage. Kid froze in shock: subways carry transit cops, even less regarded than the lard-asses behind him, they don't house crazy-ass Federal Agents that you can't spot 'cause they ain't dressed like cops – that ain't playin' fair. By the time the pursuers finally made it, Martin had already received the lecture about 'breakin' the rules' and had added one of his own about expecting the unexpected.
He still sees the kid occasionally; kid doesn't resent him at all, instead recognises him with the shout-out of 'F.B.I.,' proud of the fact that though most everyone he knows has been busted, he's been busted by the Feds. Feds don't hassle small time street punks, if the Feds get you, you've done something major. And Martin doesn't mind, because Martin knows the kid owes him one now, owes him for the boost in credibility. And he may need that favour one day, because sometimes it's kids that are the only ones who know, and kids like that don't talk to the cops.
They talk to Martin though, sometimes, something Danny, Jack and Viv can't figure out. Sammy gets it, but she's got a better eye sometimes, spotting the things that psychologist-Jack often misses. They talk to Martin sometimes, because Martin doesn't always play by the rules. He doesn't treat them like kids, he treats them like what they think they are. Businessmen. Businessmen know about deals, they know the quid-pro-quo, and they know when they're being insulted, and won't deal. It doesn't work with all, just some – but he's found that a lot of them co-operate better when you don't threaten, you just lay the contract on the table, and it's up to them whether or not to sign. Look. We've got three missing kids, two of which are dead. I am running short on patience. I want to find this kid, okay? Not 'if you don'ts' like Danny uses, because that comes across as a challenge. Some kids are too well versed in threats, even if they aren't street raised or born. They know when you're a cop or even a fed, that there's a limit to what you can do, and there's guys out there that can do worse. Danny, Jack and Viv think Martin comes across as naïve or stupid but the truth is, to kids like that he comes across as crazy. And they know crazy better than they do threats, they know that crazy has no rules and they respect the danger inherent in that. They're used to shouts and screams and violence – they're not used to some rich guy who says he's losing control while at the same time barely even blinks. And they know that's crazy, 'cause only crazy people can be that calm, only stone-cold psychos got those kind of moves.
His train arrives, interrupting the one he's on. He steps on board like everyone else, ignored and anonymous. They don't bother him here, which is why he takes the subway, despite the crowd and the mess and the smells and the disease. They don't bother him here, because there's too much competition, too many other lost souls to fight with for attention. No, they wait for him at the other end, that innocent boy lost to a misunderstanding, the girl caught up in something she didn't understand. The single mother worrying about her child, and asking him why he couldn't figure it out sooner. That's his job, isn't it? Why does he always take so long, why is he always too late?
21,000,000 souls the census says, in its count of New York, but it's an estimate, there's always souls missed. They never count the ones that nobody sees, nobody but him. They never count the ones that are only a case number in the files now, because they weren't on time, they were too late, that the crack New York squad of the F.B.I's missing person's division simply couldn't do their job. They weren't quick enough, or smart enough… they just weren't good enough. We found them…but we found them too late. And he's not the only one… the rest of them see them too. Sammy, Danny, Jack, Viv… We've all got our ghosts. Maybe he'll join them one day, maybe there he'll get some answers he doesn't have. Meantime, he'll keep asking: Why?