Christmas Party
Volunteers….
The Governor was hosting an event at the Los Angeles Hilton for Christmas. Based on the approved vacations of Detectives with families, the roster was fairly lean, so with the Department actively seeking undercover or plainclothes officers that could blend in at the event, both Crews and Reese were high on that list. Add to that the fact that neither of them had plans and they were perfect for the assignment.
Charlie thought it was exciting and was kind of looking forward to dressing up in a tuxedo and standing around (on overtime), watching rich folks fawn over richer folks. It wouldn't be fun, but it might be funny…. And Reese would be there...Reese in a dress he thought.
Right before he opened his mouth to volunteer them both, Charlie considered Reese might not like it, hell she'd hate it, but….still…. Reese in a dress he thought. "Yep, sign us up, we'll do it", he offered Tidwell with a tight smile.
Tidwell was dubious and not looking forward to Dani's reaction, but he'd be home in NYC for the holidays in another 22 hours and wouldn't have to tolerate her temper for two weeks, so he took Charlie up on his offer and took another tasker off his plate.
Precisely, 39 minutes later, Charlie watched as Dani exited the Captain's office in a huff. She was beyond pissed. She didn't slam his door, but only because it was glass and it might break. Of course, Tidwell was going home to New York to visit his folks and wouldn't be here either. She ripped her chair out from under her desk and flopped down in it, pouting.
Charlie sat reclined in his, opposite her, feet up on his desk, his long frame stretched taut and his hands behind his head in what her father used to refer to as the "Marine Corps fighting position". It was supposed to be some snide joke between the services, which she never quite got and that irked her too. She was pissed at him for volunteering them, but Dani suspected it was because her usually happy go luck partner didn't like the prospect of Christmas alone and that got him a tiny bit of sympathy.
"So" Charlie chirped "you going?"
"Yes" she hissed. "I don't know what you're so fucking chipper about Crews" she said darkly. "It's going to be nine hours of lousy overtime, standing around looking like a houseplant."
Charlie took his feet down so quickly he popped forward in his chair and rolled forward, very close to his desk and whispered conspiratorially "Reese?" waiting for her to quit grumbling and look at him.
Her eyebrows said "what" but she remain mute and in dour mood.
"I was thinking…" he began. Reese rolled her eyes and waited for it, Crews was going to kill her someday with all his "thinking". Charlie just smiled - he loved her expressions – good or bad – he thought Reese had the most interesting face he'd ever seen.
"You know?… this could be fun…" he tempted in a teasing tone.
Her eyes narrowed, but he continued undeterred. "Think about it…. you and me… dressed to kill and not actually having to kill anyone. We could drink a little champagne, dance, watch over things and have something to do instead of sitting home contemplating the lives we don't have and the people we don't have them with" he offered her the way their evening could be - if she'd let it.
"Besides, I may not look it, but I'm an excellent dancer" he teased.
Reese seemed to consider his description skeptically, looking for the flaws.
Charlie knew the time was right to play his final card.
"Plus I heard the Department has to spring for the clothes….so….we can buy something really nice to wear" his tone sounded like someone contemplating something dangerously fun.
This was irresistible to someone like Dani, she loved danger and breaking rules, sticking it to the man – except that they sorta were the man – at least Charlie was. Dani was still all woman, Charlie knew. A cop, but a "pretty, pretty cop" the boy at the wedding had said. He was right.
Charlie was already imagining her in a dress, a long one, a long red, satiny one with matching gloves and her hair swept up. He was so caught up in imagining that he nearly missed her answer.
She bit her lip nervously, a habit that just made Charlie want to kiss her there, right there - on her bottom lip, gently, tenderly, just to see what it tasted like.
"I guess you have a point Crews, with the Department footing the bill, I could at least get a nice dress out of this" she considered and weighed her options.
Concluding she had no other plans and excuses, she looked up to find Charlie looking at her expectantly, like a dog waiting for the magic word "walk". She settled for a different four letter one. "Okay" she said simply and watched the grin blossom on her partner's face.
She scowled immediately at his reaction and added "but don't make a big thing out of this Crews" causing Charlie to school his features and solemnly shake his head "no, he wouldn't". But Charlie knew he was going to.
The Department wasn't springing for crap. They'd been told to wear whatever they had and business suits were fine, but Charlie decided to leave that little detail out, when he broke the bad news to Reese. He watched as she predictably pitched a fit and marched into Tidwell's office. He also left out the fact that he'd told Tidwell he and Reese would be "happy to help out". Charlie asked Tidwell to let him break the news to her, knowing she'd protest, but giving Tidwell "an out", which provided Charlie an unwitting accomplice.
The good Captain was between the proverbial devil and the deep, blue sea; he had to come up with detectives and when Crews dropped their names in the hat - it was just too easy. Now with Dani's anger assuaged by the idea of sticking it to the man, Charlie offered dinner.
"Hey, feel like tacos?" he said, far more excitedly than tacos probably merited.
Dani looked up him angrily and his smile thawed her cold anger.
"After we could get coffee?" he proffered. "From that kiosk in the park you like?"
"Sure. Why not?" Dani said grabbing her jacket. "It's not like I have plans or anything" she groused as she cast a dark look at Captain Tidwell's office. Charlie guessed the good Captain was in the doghouse, but his flight left for La Guardia the following day, so Charlie didn't really regret his little foray into politics. Not if it got him two nights alone with Dani Reese.
When she looked back, Charlie was smiling with a faraway look; her eyes narrowed sensing something was up. "What?" she inquired sternly.
Charlie shrugged "nothing" he said. "Nothing but tacos, Reese."
They ordered ten tacos, figuring between the two of them, they could put most of them out of their misery and what was left over Charlie could take home for Ted. They were leaned up against the picnic table, facing the sunset with the tray holding the tacos on the table behind them. Reese finally relaxed from her earlier agitation and was letting herself enjoying the sun's curtain call and the company of Charlie Crews.
Charlie, for once, was quiet. She cast a sideways glance at her tall partner as he tried, unsuccessfully, to eat his taco without getting it on his suit. He leaned forward balancing the crisp little yellow corn tortilla gingerly, measuring when and where to bite. There's a cardinal rule with tacos, hard shells split right down the middle on the first bite, invariably. She watched as the shell did precisely what she expected, but almost snorted cola from her nose, at the face Charlie made after losing most of the tacos contents on the pavement under him.
He glanced sideways as she hid her smile in the crook of her arm to keep from laughing at him. "Yeah, well better there than on my suit" he joked somewhat darkly.
She smirked, trying to decide whether to take pity on him and teach him how to get most of the taco in his mouth or just let him go home hungry. Charlie licked his fingers and reached back for another taco.
"Hold on" she said deciding "before you waste another one, let me show you," she offered. Charlie handed the taco to her. He watched patiently as Reese folded back the paper and handed it to him. "If you take them out of the paper, you can't hold them together" she explained.
Charlie bit gently into the taco and it predictably shattered, but the insides remained. He peered at her and grinned. "Smart girl" he said appreciatively, before returning to the little morsel in his hands.
After getting the lion's share of this taco in his mouth, Charlie wadded up the paper and tossed it at a nearby trashcan, missing by a mile. Dani laughed again.
He stood walked to the paper and dropped it in the can. He loved this side of her, the relaxed young woman who slouched on the bench sucking on the straw from her soda. Charlie pivoted to find her looking not at the sunset but at him. He inclined his head in an unspoken question and she rolled her eyes in response.
"Its not that I don't appreciate that our non-verbals are so finely honed that they allow us to communicate without speaking, but was there something you wanted to ask me Detective Reese?" he said sitting down beside her again and picking up his own soft drink.
Reese considered his question for a moment before reaching back for another taco and folding the paper back and handing it back to him before getting another for herself. "I'm wondering how is it that you don't know how to eat a taco without losing half of it on the floor?"
"Not a lot of Taco Tuesday's at Pelican Bay" he remarked wryly.
"Yeah, but…" she started and then stopped.
"But what?" he asked seriously interested. They were having a real conversation, like people, not partners, just people and it was new to them both.
"Did you forget everything you knew before you went to prison?" she finished what she wondered and bit into her taco to mask her discomfort with putting him on the spot.
One thing about Reese, she didn't pull punches, he thought. He was still thinking when Reese finished her taco and grabbed a paper napkin to wipe her mouth.
"Look, Crews" she started, not quite yet finished chewing, she stopped to swallow and take a swig of her soda "it's not a hard question. Did you know how to eat tacos before you went to prison?" she finished, with a slight smile coaching him.
Charlie looked down and then out across the sunset, but did not answer right away.
"Charlie?" she said grasping his arm. Not Crews, Charlie she'd said he realized. That was him, he was Charlie and he looked down at her hand on his arm and the concern apparent on her face.
"Reese? ….Are you touching me?" he repeated her words to her.
Dani dropped her hand, mildly embarrassed and looked away. After a moment, she looked back to find Charlie still staring at her and she shoved him hard. He didn't move off the bench but playfully leaned away from her, in an exaggerated motion and her smile returned.
This was them together; Charlie and Dani, not Crews and Reese, he thought. He realized they could be together outside the job and it included a lot more smiling and laughter from Dani than he was prepared for. In fact, it seemed almost as if she enjoyed his company, which was dangerous indeed.
Charlie seemed open, but he wasn't. His sunshine and Zen were merely a different sort of armor designed to keep the world at bay, to deflect difficult questions, to protect himself from connecting with something that might hurt him. But Dani he trusted, she - he would let in.
Looking down, he gave her the real answer to the real question she'd just asked him.
"After awhile..... inside, you put away all the things about your former life that made it real, to protect it, to save it from being destroyed. Then you begin to forget…a little at first, then more… eventually everything. You even forget who you were."
There was an uncomfortable silence between them before he solemnly continued.
"Sometimes I can barely remember anything about who I was before. You also forget how to act around real people - girls, children. It's weird I know." He confided quietly.
Dani was patient, thoughtful and looked off in the distance appreciating the deeply personal nature of his response for a moment. She nodded to herself and then looked at him and it was as if she was seeing him for the first time.
He was not a partner, a work mate, another Detective; he was Charlie, her friend, her confidant and maybe something else. She reached a decision inside that said Charlie Crews was a part of her life – not something she was forced to accept, but something she wanted to have.
She looked directly at him "It's not weird. Most people I meet can't answer honestly when I ask them their name. You just told me something that means something and that's…" She floundered, seeking the right word.
"Something?" he smiled and offered.
"Yes" she accepted, with her voice, eyes and heart. She never expected to enjoy the company of Charlie Crews so much. It was surprisingly simple, yet here she sat in the LA sunset a week before Christmas, eating tacos and laughing with Charlie Crews. And it was fun, maybe this party thing could be too – she considered.