Written: 2000; 2004; 2013
Rated: M (violence, adult themes)
Setting: Post-Forever
Summary: Cassy said, "I know I can't live with you, but I can't live without you." What if the first part of the bedside confession wasn't true? While Tom is still recovering, Cassy is caught in the middle of another case that hits close to the bone. This time, Tom is awake to help her through it.
So don't leave me
'Cause a part of you in me died
We wish ourselves beautiful
We cry in the night
And it's not the love you feared
But the fall from the height
My personal ledges
Afraid to look down
from Ghosts of Jackson Square by Edwin McCain
1
"It's an honor to be working with such a legend, Sergeant St. John. I hope that I can live up to your expectations as your new partner." Frank Cole shook Cassandra St. John's proffered hand.
"Temporary partner, and call me Cassy. Half of the credit for my legendary clearance rate of course goes to my partner and I'm sure that Harry wouldn't have given you this temporary assignment if he didn't think you could handle it." Despite her professionally encouraging words, Cassy couldn't quite keep a rather unprofessional grin off her face.
This had to be quite a challenging situation for a rookie. First and foremost, he had big shoes to cover while her partner, Tom Ryan, recuperated from the gunshot wound that almost took his life. She could tell that he also found it daunting being partnered with the woman who single-handedly took down Viggo Kirby's crime syndicate, bringing swift justice to the man that harmed her partner. As a result of her self-assigned mission to take down Kirby, tales of her undercover identity as a masseuse and the succeeding gunfight in the hospital corridor outside Tom's ICU room were still causing a stir among her fellow officers. Cassy knew that in and of itself those factors were enough to make this invincible-looking man squirm, but it got even better than that. There was more to the story, though.
Her successful action had led to some prideful kudos from even her most harsh detractors and to the usual repulsive propositions from her more daring comrades. Frank Cole with his athletic build, brown hair, brown eyes and engaging smile had been more original - he had combined his gracious expressions of praise with an even more welcome invitation to dinner. An invitation that had been taken up just days before and which had ended with a rather chaste kiss at her front door.
The small grin on St. John's face widened as she imagined the younger man's reaction to the news that he had been assigned as her temporary partner. Slowly she disengaged her fingers from his and moistened her pink lips with her tongue. Her smiled widened almost imperceptibly as she watched him swallow. The irony was almost delicious.
"Now that the social amenities are out of the way, how about we get down to business?" Captain Harry Lipshitz, their superior, commented dryly from his seated position behind his desk, prompting his officers to sit down.
"Frank will sit at Tom's desk while you two are working together since there's no sense in you two sitting across the bullpen from each other. And this," Harry held out a slip of paper that Cassy took and began to read to herself. "Your inaugural homicide, Cole. Cassy will be lead on this one, watch and listen and you'll learn a lot."
Cassy watched for a reaction from her male partner to see if he had a problem, as some men did, taking direction from a woman. So far, so good, she thought as she handed him the note. With all of the other complications that this situation could lead to, at least she didn't have to worry about any gender-based tug of war.
Nostalgically she remembered the first assignment she had gone on with Tom, though he was the more experienced member of the team and he had been lead, he had made it clear from the get go that he wasn't going to go easy on her because she was a woman. He had been true to his word and she had, as Harry promised Frank, learned a lot.
At the thought of her absent partner Cassy's smile slipped a little, her expression almost matching the grim one she noticed on Cole's face and which brought her back to the task at hand.
"We'll call you as soon as we take a look," Cassy told Harry as she led the way out of the office. She knew without him having to tell her that the press was going to be interested in this one.
"We didn't want to make your first homicide too easy," Cassy teased, trying to lighten Cole's obvious tension. Harry was never one to start anyone off with a simple case; he wanted to see right off what his homicide rookie was up to before any time was wasted.
"I guess I'm going to have to get used to it sometime. Most of the DB's I saw were drug perps," Cole said, lines of tension springing up around his eyes despite Cassy's attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
"You don't get used to it, you just learn how to control your reaction," Cassy repeated her Captain's oft-repeated advice. Advice that years later she could vouch to be true, the images of life cut off violently never left and often haunted the dreams of those who bore responsibility to make them right. Or as right as they could be. Most people didn't ever understand that. That's both why cops married cops and cops divorced cops because two people with that baggage in one household could get to be too much.
Chagrined to find her thoughts dwelling on Tom again, Cassy speedily signed for the Department car and took the driver's seat.
"I know you don't think you need to do this Sergeant Ryan, but like it or not, you're not going to get clearance from the Department if you don't follow the prescribed course of therapies," Palm Beach Police Department Psychiatrist Lila Sorren reminded her truculent patient. "You're commitment and cooperation will make this a lot easier and quicker for you."
Tom's childish pout turned quickly into a charming grin.
"And you're not going to sweet talk me into falsifying records. You're down for at least two months of physical therapy and bi-weekly sessions with a departmental psychiatrist, that's me, for one month. Both with an indefinite number of follow-ups, as needed. There seems to be only minimal permanent injury and you'll probably be allowed to handle part time desk duty in about a month."
Tom grimaced. A month of head shrinking felt like forever.
"Tom, I know that this is frustrating, but you've made a miraculous recovery but you're not going to get back to your life before this all happened with the snap of your fingers and there will probably be some small amount of permanent brain injury and it may crop up in unexpected ways and at unexpected times. But it will be nothing unrecoverable and you just have to remember that many people in your position aren't so lucky."
Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked away. The fact that he was lucky to be alive and that he shouldn't rush things were things that he heard daily from his parents and anyone else he happened to talk to that day. He knew that they were right, he had seen too many of his friends and colleagues not get so lucky. But it didn't make it easier when his body refused to follow his commands or when he was debilitated with a searing headache.
He was tired of trying to remember how lucky he was. The only thing he needed to know was how soon his life would get back to normal. When, for instance, he could play the guitar without stumbling because his fingers sometimes refused to obey him or he could begin to jog again. Or when he could look at Harry and Franny and not see fear incited by memories of the late Sergeant Chris Lorenzo. Or when Cassy would stop trying to be so damn cheerful he wanted to strangle her!
Cassy's behavior was the hardest for him to bear. Never easy to read, it was like his injury had taken away the past decade. He couldn't read what was going through her mind. All he knew was that despite her pasted on smiles he could sense that Cassy wasn't feeling as sanguine as she wanted to make him think. It made him hesitant to ask her about the ring because he knew she wasn't ready to give him a truthful response.
The ring. The damned wedding ring she had told him she had sold.
Before his release from the hospital a few days earlier the nurse had found it under his pillow while changing the bed sheets. Even if he hadn't recognized it as his, his suspicion was confirmed by the nurse's reading of the ring's still-crisp engraving of their initials spaced only by a heart and followed by the word "forever." A sappy touch he had insisted on and, despite her nonchalance towards the idea, had caused a special sparkle in Cassy's eyes when she found it. So yes, it was the very same band that he had thought sold after the divorce when Cassy insisted that they split the proceeds on the rings they had bought for the other. Just what was it doing under his convalescence pillow?
He wished he could have seen the look on her face when she placed it beneath his pillow, before she had gone out and risked her life to bring down the man responsible for his condition. He knew he would have been able to see what she was feeling in her eyes when she held that ring in her hand. Before she ran off to play Jane Wayne.
That was a moniker he had given her on their first case together, but never before had she lived up to it so fully. Not only had she caught the man who tried to have him killed, but brought down an organization that every law enforcement agency working South Florida had been after for years. Tom only hoped that her success enabled her to work out whatever feelings of helplessness she must have had after bearing witness to his shooting and being unable to stop it, the control freak that she was.
"Tom, Sergeant Ryan, hello?" Lila finally got Tom's attention. "We need to talk about how all this is making you feel. I want to help you work it all out so you can be clearheaded when you get back into the field."
"The only thing on my mind is when I can get back into that field to cover my partner's impulsive ass," Tom grumbled.
"Sergeant St. John. Yes, I see here that she used to be your wife and she was with you when you were shot. She refused to come see me. Have you two discussed the experience?" Lila asked.
"If you think I'm reticent, you should try getting Cassy to tell you how she feels." Tom laughed, his mood lightening as he imagined Harry or anyone trying to send his ex-wife to a shrink.
"I'm going to, but right now we're discussing your feelings," Lila said.
"Oh, so Cassy is going to have to go through this too. Somehow that makes me feel better already," Tom said with a grin.
"I can see you're not ready to talk today, but we will have to talk about it eventually." Lila relented with a sympathetic smile. "How are your headaches?"
"They come and go, less than before." Tom shrugged.
"Go home and rest and, Tom. Don't be too macho to take your medication if you need it." Lila stood up and led her exasperating, yet endearing, new patient to the door.
"What, take two and call me in the morning?" Tom joked.
"Actually, our next appointment is in two days." Lila allowed herself a smile. "Give it time, Tom. Things will get better. I promise."
"You all right?" Cassy glanced over at Cole sitting in the passenger seat.
"Just gathering my nerve. That probably doesn't sound very macho, but you know..." he shrugged and graced Cassy with a lopsided grin.
"I'm not impressed by macho." Cassy eased the department car into a spot behind a marked car and undid her seatbelt. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," Cole said as he got out of the car.
No longer speaking, the partners flashed their badges and entered the sprawling ocean-view home. Cassy's heels clicked over the tile floor of the foyer as they followed the flurry of activity towards the victim. Both were unaware of the attention their entrance attracted, some by of the glint of the sun off Cassy's silky hair, others by the newly promoted detective, and others by the striking pair they made.
"Morton," Cassy greeted Sterling Morton, Palm Beach's Coroner. "This is the newly minted Sergeant Frank Cole. What do we have?"
Sterling greeted Cole before turning his attention back to the form lying on the middle of the kitchen floor.
"Pamela Beresford, thirty-five, multiple stab wounds, defensive wounds on the hands. She definitely tried to stop her attacker. My initial exam indicates she died from a fatal would to her heart, but I'll be able to pinpoint the exact cause of death back at the office. Let us know when you're done looking around." Morton moved away to let the detectives take in the murder scene.
"Looks like she was fixing breakfast." Cole observed the open carton of milk lying on its side on the floor behind the body.
"For two people." Cassy's brow furrowed at the two bowls of dry cereal on the counter.
"Maybe whoever she was making breakfast for did this. Let's find out about the family." Cole motioned over one of the uniforms.
"I don't think so." Cassy moved one of the bowls with the tip of her finger. "This is a small child's bowl."
Sure enough with the other bowl out of the way one could see the Pokèman design on the side of the smaller bowl.
"Did anyone find a child here?" Cole motioned over Officer Kate Janeway.
"No, we didn't know there were any children here," Kate informed them.
"Kidnapping?" Cole suggested grimly.
"It cou...Is anyone upstairs?" Cassy's head spun around.
"There shouldn't be, we did a sweep when we got here and found nothing." Janeway automatically glanced towards the stairs at the other end of the kitchen.
"I heard something. Search the grounds for a child. Frank, take the front stairs, I'll go up here," Cassy said and took out her gun before proceeding carefully up the winding stairs..
As Cassy headed down the corridor of the second story her heart was pounding. Something inside her said that she wasn't going to find the murderer, it was never that easy. The soft shuffling that had caught her attention confirmed that. No, those steps were most likely that of the child whose mother lay bloody and brutalized on the kitchen floor only feet away from where she had been preparing an inviting and healthy breakfast for her child. The child had to have witnessed the tragic events and was so scared that he or she hadn't come out even when the police had arrived.
Cassy all too well understood what this child was going through.
Cassy saw Cole down the corridor from her and with a wave of her hand she directed him to remain in position. Slowly, Cassy reholstered her gun and put her hand on the door knob of the only room she hadn't inspected. Breaching protocol Cassy knocked on the door and announced her entrance before she slowly opened it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her partner heading in her direction. Turning to catch his eye she shook her head and was relieved to see him obediently stop a few feet away.
"Hello, my name is Cassy and I'm a police officer. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help you, Jason." Cassy spotted the boy's name on a plaque on the wall. "No one is going to hurt you now. I promise. Please come out."
Cassy moved slowly across the room looking for places in which a little boy might hide. Taking a deep breath Cassy wrapped her fingers around the knob of the closet door. With a slight hesitation, aware that it could very well be the killer in there, she opened the door.
