This one will probably remain a one shot. I recently rewatched the whole series then watched Homeland and this popped into my head. Any comments are welcome.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Charlie calmly slides into the back seat of the big black SUV and shuts the door. Words are exchanged and eventually he tries to Kill Roman.
And Fails.
"For that I would kill you. But for taking what I want, Detective New Money, for that I will make it long and painful. For that I will make you my bitch"
True to his word when Dani Reese finally finds her partner after seven long months of looking he's in a cage. In a cage, completely naked, curled up in a ball to fit in the kennel. Curled in the middle where not even a hair on his head extends through the bars to where the other dogs can touch him.
Dani has to find him. It's not an obsession. She has to finish the program. 90 meetings in 90 days. She goes now and listens to the others and silently agrees when they intone "I am powerless." Because she can't finish the program until she finds Crews. She has to apologize to those she's hurt and Crews is at the top of her list.
There's no doubt of that when she finds him because she sees the new scars. There is a gouge in his thigh where dog teeth got a hold and seems to have literally taken a bite out of the muscle there. Bite shaped bruises and scars pepper his body as well as ones that it's clear human hands made. He's missing the small finger on his left hand. All of that, all of that is nothing compared to the dull lack of recognition in his eyes when she approaches the cage.
The warehouse where the cage was found had been abandoned. Roman had left clues for her to find. Roman had wanted her to find her partner like this. This wreck, this shell of a man.
A look of panic flashes across Crews' face as she approaches and he tries to decide between the lesser of two evils. Which is worse? Should he push his back against the far wall of the cage and have it scratched and bitten through the bars or let the new danger approach from the front.
Decision hesitates as it crosses his features. Nothing good ever happens when they approach from the front. So he slides as far away from the door as possible and allows the hungry dogs around him to take their pound of flesh. The dogs around him are always hungry. Crews knows that because Roman told him. Roman told him he keeps the dogs around him hungry just for him.
Dani's eyes burn as she slides the catch on the cage open because there's no lock. One time Charlie told her that even when he was free he was in prison because locks are in your mind. He told her that once Martin, an older inmates at Pelican Bay, had his cell door left left open and unlocked one night by accident. She remembers Charlie saying Martin stayed cowered in the corner fearing passing through the bars. Dani can see now that these bars are built into Crews. They're mortared deep in his heart and she fears she doesn't have the right tools to chisel them free.
For now though she can't worry about that. For now she just needs to get him out of the cage.
Dani opens the door of his cage and crouches in front of it. But Crews won't move. The dog in the cage behind his snarls and snaps at his back claws occasionally catching on his skin if the winces on his face tell any tale. Despite that he stays pressed up against the rear wall for five minutes until Reese backs away giving him a clear pathway out.
She turns to the room at large and starts issuing orders. The room is been cleared of cops, for Charlie, for his dignity. Although some few of them caught a glance. Stark swears loudly when he realizes what he's looking at before turning around and ushering the stragglers from the room. A pair of paramedics sit in the far corner now waiting for the Dani to decide, itching to help the man in the cage but knowing if they make any sudden moves he'll probably hurt himself more.
She turns and picks up her phone and calls Stark back in. She doesn't want the other cops seeing Charlie this way. They already talk about him. They don't need to see this, to lay their judgment upon her partner. She knows though, that Stark can be trusted. He may spin a tale on a steak out but he would never betray Charlie this way. She recruits the paramedics. It's clear they want to help and this is something they can do right now.
They find a dolly and the two of them with the paramedics help slowly and methodically move the dogs to the other room where the remainder of the police force that accompanied them on the sting wait. Those officers move the dogs outside and animal control, who've been called as well, take the dogs into custody. It makes Reese sad because she knows most of them will be put down immediately. Some few of them might be saved if they demonstrate the skills to be adopted but she's not holding her breath.
Finally there aren't any more dogs in the room. It looks so much more ominous with just the single cage sitting in the middle of the floor amid the stains of blood, urine and feces. Charlie's pale skin reflects in the harsh overhead lights where it isn't stained and crusted over with blood and pus from untreated wounds.
Dani takes off her jacket. She hands it to Stark and asks him to leave. She asks the paramedics to wait again in the corner with their gurney and their drugs and their tension. She sits on the floor next to the open door of his cage and starts talking.
She's not talking about anything in particular. Just keeping her voice low and steady the way she would with a scared animal. And that's what her partner has become, a scared animal. She talks for five minutes then ten. The paramedics seem to get antsy but she discreetly shakes her head no. Ten minutes turns into twenty before she hears movement from the man in the cage still huddled against the back wall.
It's disconcertingly quiet in the room without the dogs. So when Crews' foot slides along the grating on the bottom of the cage she wants to turn her head but she's afraid any movement will scare him.
She continues to talk low and soft. Ten minutes after his foot moves he moves again. Then over the next ten he's moving slowly but steadily towards the sound of her voice. Her throat hurts and she knows that she'll be hoarse tomorrow and unable to speak but it's worth it when she looks down at her lap at the sudden pressure.
Her legs are crossed and nearly an hour after sitting down they're almost completely numb but Crew's head is resting in her lap near her left hip and he's curled up just outside the door of his cage so she considers it a small victory.
Slowly so as not to startle him she cards the fingers of her right hand through the mop of unruly orange hair that's been growing for seven months. His entire body goes completely rigid. She keeps threading her fingers though his hair carefully separating the matting that's knotted it into an unholy mess. Never ceasing her monologue she untangles his hair and gently rests her left hand on his upturned shoulder.
His sobbing starts. It drags her down with him and finally her voice falters as tears trace down her face. Body wracking sobs seem like they threaten to shatter the painfully thin man he's become. But she keeps her hand gliding through his hair, forces herself to keep rubbing his shoulder to provide what little comfort she can.
"Dani" His voice is wrecked with disuse and she almost doesn't recognize her name between his gasps but when he utters her surname "Reese" she knows he knows who she is again.
"I'm sorry," it's all she can say. Over and over again she repeats the phrase as he sobs himself into an exhausted slumber.
She waves her hand then to call the paramedics over. They inject him with drugs to keep him under, to keep him pain free to prevent infection. She hopes it's not too little too late.
She see's every vertebrae as they lift him from the floor and onto the gurney. He must barely weigh 110 pounds, on his six foot four frame that's more than emaciated. His collar bone and ribs protrude. The paramedics cover him with a sheet up to his shoulder and one offers to help Dani up but she shakes her head.
She can't feel her feet and her head throbs from crying but as the paramedics leave she sits leaned against the cage that held Crews for seven months. For the first time in years she prays. She prays that she's strong enough for the road ahead. She knows it will be hard she knows it will be long but more than any of that she knows she's not willing to give up on her partner. They may have physically removed him from the confines of the cage but she knows it will be a battle to free him from the bars in his soul.