A/n: I finished my homework that's due tomorrow except for reading act 3 of The Crucible, but I can do that on the way to school tomorrow. Anyways, it means I can write and take my mind off of my junior year which is extremely difficult.

Disclaimer: No way. I don't really want it anymore, anyways.

Cause and Affect

Silence. The only thing in the normally rowdy cop bar was silence itself, the only patrons at the moment being a black-haired, blue-eyed homicide detective and an auburn lab rat. It was a strange pair. Both had come in together before, but always with a group. This was the first time they had ever come together, with no one but each other. The detective had been staring at his untouched Irish whiskey with his intense blue eyes. The look he was giving it was almost a glare, but they still gleamed with childish innocence. The auburn's equally untouched tequila sunrise glared loquacious colors in the grey surroundings it had no place in.

Neither had spoken since they ordered their drinks, and neither felt the need to speak. Whatever they had gone to Sullivan's for need no words. Despite this, both would open their mouth at random intervals then close it leaving no unspoken words because there never were any to begin with. After forty-five minutes of silence and untouched drinks, it was finally the auburn who spoke in a meek voice.

"I can't close my eyes."

The detective's own impassioned eyes turned up from his sepia liquid to look the auburn in the non-blinking eyes. "I know."

The lab rat shook his head, not in a way to say he didn't know, but in a way to shake away the bad memory from behind his eyelids. "It never goes away? I'm always going to see it happen?"

The raven haired one ducked his eyes from the lab rat's emerald gaze to stare at a knot in the wood on their table. Seconds later, he closed his own eyes and spread his left hand over his abdomen. "No." He opened his eyes. "It never does. You might not see it for a while, but it always comes back."

The russet's nostrils flared and jaw twitched in attempt to stop a reaction of repulsion of seeing the same disgusting image for his whole life. With effort, he tried to make the situation less heavy. With an obviously forced grin, he said, "At least I won't see my childhood anymore."

The one with cyaneous eyes showed an equally forced smile and spoke a noncommittal 'yeah.' His eyes roamed the other's face with curiosity and empathy. He had wished that he had someone who knew what happened in the slow motion moments in between the next heartbeat and the former. His heartbeat had changed three years ago. There were no more strong, courageous beats. Only soft flutterings of someone whose eyes lingered on air duct vents in hopes that it wouldn't explode in an angry, fiery sphere that destroyed everything in its expanding path. His eyes stopped exploring when they reached the viridian eyes of a neglected child.

While that had been happening, those green eyes had been doing more or less of the same thing to the one sitting across him. His memories of the homicide detectives from more than three years ago showed a vibrant man who reminded him of Peter Pan's never grow up philosophy. Now, his face was weathered and neutral. The mischievous smiles or smirks still made appearances but were less frequent than every other second. The aquamarine eyes weren't ever-lit anymore, but were like the flickering lights of the city of Ember as his twelve year old apartment neighbor would say. Lit for now, but would someday die out. His gaze stayed on those flickering eyes until they met his. They continued to hold the other's gaze.

Past the walls of the bar, moments passed, but inside, time stood still as they maintained eye contact. It wasn't an awkward eye contact, but one of mutual understanding of what the other was going through or had gone through. The affect of each cause was different, but they understood the feeling of seeing and hearing your world explode. It was terrifying. Both were sure that nothing in their life came close to the feeling of being lifted effortlessly from the ground and being thrown into a dark abyss of chaos and turmoil. The feeling that you had no control over what was happening to you in that moment. You couldn't walk away. You couldn't make it stop. You were helpless, hopeless, and left to the hands of fate.

The detective thought of the terror the younger man must have gone through to have it conquer his abusive childhood and brush with scum of the earth two years prior. The second thought that came to him was that this quirky auburn was stronger than everyone he had met. He had been beaten, broken, and left for dead, and yet he had never let that get in the way of his happiness. He maintained more than just a front of optimism and curiosity. His interest and joy weren't faked.

The moment passed and the red head smiled slightly and nodded. The blue eyed nodded back with a slight smile of his own. They stared down at their respective Irish whiskey and tequila sunrise and finally took a drink. The detective still had his left hand splayed against his abdomen, and the younger man had taken up tracing his right index finger on the edges of the stiches above his right eye.

The next question from the green eyed was one that the detective had never asked himself. "Do you want to forget what happened to you?"

Did he? He had thought of the question once while he was in the hospital, but chose not to pose it, knowing that the answer was something he would have to enter a philosophical battle with himself. Memories make us who we are. But he still didn't want to wake up in a cold sweat with a searing pain gnawing away at his scar.

"No. I wouldn't want to."

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But I think forgetting would erase who I am. It's parta me. Y'know? I just can't get rid of that because I'm scared of what woulda happened if a, b, and c had happened as well."

"I get it, and I think you're right. This is part of me now. I can't change what happened and I'm not sure I would even want to."

The clock on the wall hit five ten, and slowly, a trickle of off duty uniforms, detectives, CSIs, and lab rats came through the doors. Soon, the silence was drowned out by raucous laughter, but their table remained a bubble against the world. That was until both caught a deliberate movement out of the corner of their eyes. At the big table on the other side of the bar, there sat Mac, Stella, Danny, Jess, Hawkes, and Sid waving them over.

They looked back at each other, smiled, shrugged, then got up to join their friends. Don pulled up a chair in between Danny and Jess. Adam took up is seat in between Hawkes and Sid.

It didn't matter if the image would never go away. It took a strong person to carry that over a lifetime. They shared a look of determination from across the table. They would make it.

Finito!

A/n: I was so epically pissed of with the lack of emotional responses from any of the characters last season. I hold out no hope for this one. But I will forever dabble in the NY section in FFN. You guys are too nice to leave.

Praises, flames, comments about how much more you like Aiden than Lindsey because you don't actually like Lindsey at all, comments about how sexy Don, Danny, Hawkes, and Mac are, comments about how adorable Adam is, and random comments altogether are included, but not limited to, the things you can say in your review. :)