Title: A Shape They Recognized
Words: 234
Disclaimers: Law and Order: Criminal Intent and all characters and situations thereof are the property of Dick Wolf, NBC, et. al. Not for money, just for fun.
A/N: Post-ep for the Criminal Intent season finale, so obvious spoilers. Logan-centric.
I'm not dead, Mike.
He wondered why they always said that. Nothing meaningful, nothing significant. Just I'm not dead. Like that changed anything.
He'd read somewhere that dreams were just mental processing, your brain sifting through memories and experiences and trying to make some sense of them. But what about when the two didn't match up?
He remembered Lennie as very much alive, always present, always there when he came in to work in the morning. Even during his time in Staten Island, he'd half-expected Lennie to be waiting for him, asking where the hell he'd been (he'd barely cared enough to come to work on time, not out there). And the fact that he just wasn't there one day, and wouldn't be ever again, didn't fit into that. Lennie would be there again the next day, just like he always had been, because the dead weight in the coffin Mike had carried wasn't him.
He remembered Holly, shy and sparkling, wondering when the world would break her heart. Laughing as her dog dragged her along. Not hounded to death by her ex-husband, not so desperate to escape that she would throw herself off a building. They weren't the same woman. They couldn't be. Holly Lauren was still alive.
Maybe the dreams were memories, trying to twist reality back into a shape they recognized.
I'm not dead.
He wonders who will say it next.