A/N: Please read and review, as always. Special thanks to Aldrex, Elessar King and I.Adler for beta'ing in various ways. Also thanks to Adina Anne for the inspiration!
He had seen it in her eyes, the moment she'd caught his gaze in that office. That smile. The "I wouldn't harm a fly" look. And when she'd called him "son" it chilled him to the bone. She knew it chilled him before she'd said it. She could sense it, a mile away. It's why she'd drawn all those boys to her. But he could sense her too. And he was not going to stop until she was locked up.
It was her. Not those boys. They had only been doing what Mama had told them. He'd been there in the interrogation room, watched the younger kid give up his brother. "I did it for you, Mama. I did it for you."
God damn her.
If there was a god. She had taken those boys, she had been their god. Molded them, made them weak. Just like…He clenched his fists. No. He wasn't weak. Not any more. But the way she'd pushed his buttons…that look…that fucking sly sneer, masked in apron strings and homemade cookies. You could hide anything beneath a mother's loving smile. Bruises. Cigarette burns. A whole damn cache of machetes used to…
Fuck. He'd gone and thought of the crime scene again and it was enough to make the bile rise in his throat. He'd nearly lost it when they arrived on the scene. He'd had to go outside and take a breather. Barek had told him it was okay, told him it was only a natural reaction. No, it was weak, is what it was.
Who was the strong one in this? He was struggling so much to stay strong that it was making him weak. He stood there, alone in the dark of his apartment, a glass of scotch in one hand, leaning against the wall. He closed his eyes and let it all come flooding back. It was enough to bring moisture to the corners of his eyes and he downed the rest of the scotch before the tears could fall.
"Mike! Mike, he's a cop!" Carolyn calling him so frantically, and suddenly everything was a blur. Her words were both a punch in the stomach and a call to action, sending them all flying into help-mode. One of their own was down. And he had done it.
Before he could do anything, the ambulance had gone and he brought his hand down in frustration on the hood of the patrol cruiser…
"Mike, Mike, come sit down…" She was still frantic. He'd sat, given her his gun, in a daze, an automatic mode that he still hadn't entirely come out of, days later, even when he'd been sitting there with that woman in the interrogation room.
Even when she had put her hand over his, he didn't flinch. He'd slipped into cop mode so damn full-speed that there was no time to tell his emotions they weren't allowed in.
Holding her hand, it never occurred to him that it was a question of "Who's playing who?" Not until he she'd uttered that word.
"Lawyer."
Not until he'd exited that room did he realize.
The hand over his, the beatings, the manipulation.
"Forgive your mother."
"I'm sorry…Mom, please, I'm sorry." He'd spent his boyhood asking for forgiveness. He hadn't been sorry in years. But there was a moment in that room…no. He'd never forgiven his mother, and he sure as hell wasn't going to say it to some woman who-but he had. She made him think he had a chance at fooling her. He'd played into her game, even for a small bit.
He had never been about those Bobby Goren-like mind games. But every interrogation was a mind game to a certain extent. You had to know the perp to get to the perp. And he knew this perp. As well as he knew himself. The problem was, she knew him too, like the back of her hand.
She smiled that smile, knowingly, ripped him apart without saying a word. Just like…her. And it nagged him, irked him to no end.
He'd wanted to be punished, pariahed, he deserved to be. He'd made a pass at his partner, for fuck's sake. But everyone was patting him on the back, even Deakins, who was usually a hard-ass. Everyone but her. Did he want her approval? Hell, no, she was nuts, absolutely, without a doubt, so why the hell did it bother him? Wanting her approval?
No. It wasn't about approval. It was about hate, about justice, about lines between himself and her that he couldn't quite draw or figure out…it was the fact that she should be behind bars. She was the perpetrator of all this. SHE had manipulated, she had abused. Maybe not physically, but the marks were there, all over her dead boys, all over the families who were viciously murdered. And she, like her, had gotten away scot-free. And there was not a damn thing he could do.
She did this. She did this. She. Her. Her. It always came back to her.
He still couldn't help but think it was his fault.