***The first side of the coin
"Everything okay, Carter?" Fusco's question sounded in her ear, but his words seemed far away and indistinct. She barely heard him as she clutched her coffee mug tightly, lifting it to her lips and draining it.
"What'd you say Fusco?"
"I asked if you were okay. And I can see that you're not. You been walking around like a zombie for the past three weeks. What's going on?"
Everyone was asking her the same question. She was getting used to it.
"Mom are you okay?
"Detective, is something bothering you?
"Carter are you alright?"
When it wasn't Taylor looking at her out of the corner of his eye and walking on eggshells around her, it was Finch commenting on her long silences on the phone whenever he called for information. Now Fusco was beginning to notice how withdrawn she'd become; now he would be questioning her too.
Her answers were always the same.
I'm fine. I'm okay. It's nothing. I'm alright.
But it was a lie she told everyone. It was a lie she was telling herself. It had been almost a month since Rikers. Almost a month since Agent Donnelly was killed. The draining ordeal had impacted her in a way she hadn't been able to describe or make sense of.
She was walking around like a robot, going through the routine of work, home, and bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. The same thing every day over and over. She was simply going through the motions. At night when she lay down she didn't sleep. She didn't rest. She was haunted by images of Donnelly in a body bag, having his face finally covered when the CSU team zipped it up. Even awake she couldn't escape him. She heard his accusing voice everywhere she went.
"How'd he turn you, Carter?"
"I trusted you, Carter."
"…wake up, Carter!"
Just days ago Szymanski was killed. After a small victory of clearing his name of the corruption charges, after successfully proving his innocence he'd been taken away too.
Another good man dead, one of the few on the force she actually trusted. He was clean, upstanding. He had a real promising future ahead of him. Now he was gone, and his killer was still out there. She vowed to do everything she could to find out who did it, but so far there were no leads.
Every homicide she investigated, every lifeless body she leaned over had his face. It was an unending cycle of guilt and heaviness. This cross of responsibility was hers to bear alone it seemed.
She was tired, she was frustrated, and mentally she wondered just how much more she could endure. She wished she could fall apart, that way she wouldn't have to deal with everything that had beaten her down lately. But she didn't have that luxury. She had Taylor to think of. She had a job to do. She had people who were depending on her.
So she sucked it up, carried on.
And now, she was about to lie again.
"I'm fine, Fusco." She got up from her desk to refill her cup of coffee. She took it black these days, no cream, no sugar. She didn't feel she deserved the regular indulgence she enjoyed, just the bitter taste of the hot brew in her mouth. It matched her mood perfectly as of late, dark and grim. She closed her eyes and for a brief moment thought of John, John who had all but disappeared after Rikers.
They'd shared moments of comfort in the past, spending time together when Taylor was brought home. They shared memories of September 11th in her living room, passionate kisses in her kitchen. Once able to find comfort in each other, it seemed that after a situation as explosive as his incarceration and kidnapping by his former partner, a hard wedge had been driven between them. Neither sought the other out. Neither sought the old comfort that came from simply being around each other.
The feelings of close friendship, or the hint of something more had been left unexplored in the never ending flurry of cases, people to protect and murders they'd been successful in preventing. The culmination of those feelings so palpable in the interrogation room at Rikers now lay in tatters on a floor of guilt, confusion and shame.
"Ever been married?"
"No."
"Lived with anyone?"
"Why? You interested?"
She wouldn't admit that she needed him now more than ever. Nor would she admit that it was possible that their lack of contact had anything to do with her sleepless nights. That would mean that she needed him more than she realized. It would mean that maybe what was left unexplored was deeper than she imagined and she wasn't quite ready to face that. No, right now, that was not an option.
Whatever this was that she was going through, she'd shake it off on her own.
She pored over files at her desk, the grip on her coffee mug strong. The warmth of the mug against her palm seemed to calm her somewhat and her breathing was steady, even.
Later in the day, she and Fusco were called out to Washington Heights where two fresh bodies greeted them on the pavement. Their lifeless corpses still, silent. Both were African American, dead, shots to the chest. A thousand witnesses, but nobody saw anything. She did the usual, looked around for clues. She bagged evidence as Fusco tried to question a few bystanders. She could hear him drone on in the background asking for assistance, offering his business card. After a while his voice drifted off and she couldn't hear him anymore.
She got up and turned around seeing the crowd who was watching them at first, had dispersed. There were only a scant number of onlookers left. Fusco had disappeared across the street. She searched him out among a sea of people and saw that he was talking to John. Their conversation seemed intense, serious and Fusco's mouth was a grim line.
John looked in her direction at that very moment almost as if he'd sensed she was looking at him. Their eyes locked and held a gaze. She couldn't move, she was rooted to the spot and for a second she was back at Rikers with him. They were seated at the table in the dark, illuminated only by a stark light that shone on his face and hers. Both ignoring the camera that filmed their conversation.
"Ever been in love?"
"Once….Allison West….."
"Hey Carter!" She turned her head abruptly at the sound of her name. The urgency of the call brought her back to the present. A uniform was calling to her, beckoning for her to come. "The store owner here is willing to give us some more info on what happened. He wants to give a statement."
Carter looked across the street once more. John had suddenly disappeared from sight. Her eyes searched for him, her heart beat faster. She felt panic rising inside of her accompanied by a feeling of inanity for wanting to find him and see him so badly.
"Detective." The uniform was calling for her again, his voice insistent and she walked over to them taking in the nervous look on the store owner's face.
Drive by's in this neighbourhood weren't that common, but they happened just enough to make him apprehensive about giving an actual statement. There were tears in his eyes as he relayed what happened. Apparently he'd known both boys as they frequented his store. They were brothers and Carter found the tale of what happened harrowing.
"What did John want to talk about?"
The question was innocent enough, she thought as she handed Fusco a cup of black coffee and a pastrami sandwich she got from the food truck a block near the precinct. Lionel accepted both gifts and looked at her over the rim of his reading glasses.
"He asked about the homicide. Wanted to know what happened, the details…." He slowly unwrapped the sandwich and bit into it.
"And what'd you tell him?"
"Well there wasn't much to tell, Carter. We'd just gotten there, so I just told him what we'd gathered by looking at the bodies." He took a drink of his coffee, an agonizingly long drink, she thought. "He did ask about you, though. He wanted to know how you were doing, how were you holding up."
She kept her face impassive, trying not to show that she felt one way or the other about John's concern for her. The last thing she wanted was Fusco asking questions when she didn't feel like providing answers. She moved to go back to her desk, but Fusco wasn't quite done.
"He doesn't look too good, Carter. He looks gaunt; his coat was practically hanging off him. He's got circles under his eyes and he looks like he hasn't shaved or slept in weeks. I asked him if everything was alright, but he brushed me off…kinda like you did. Something's going on. But nobody's talking." He stared pointedly at her.
"You think I know what's going on?"
"Yeah. I think you do. I know you been down about Szymanski, I get that. But before all that, you weren't the same after Rikers. Oh you're still the ball buster I know and love, but something's off. You never told me what happened. I just had to try and piece it together myself."
She stuck her hands in her pockets and hung her head down.
"Most of the time you don't wanna talk, and I don't push. I get it. There are some things you don't wanna share with me. But something happened with the three of you at Rikers. You, Wonderboy and Donnelly. You were in his car when he had the accident. I'm betting Wonderboy was too."
"Fusco…"
"I'm not blind, Carter. I may not always say something, but I notice a lot of things."
"Like what?" She asked.
"Like at the DOD, when we finally caught up with John. I saw what passed between you in that corridor before he went up those stairs. And when he finally came back outside and wasn't dead, I saw the way you two looked at each other."
She went back to her desk and sat down, opening a file, but seeing nothing on the pages.
"Something's eating him alive, Carter. I bet it's the same thing that's been haunting you too."
"Nothing's haunting me, Lionel. I'm just…tired lately. That's all."
"Carter, you're lying to me and you're lying to yourself. You know that's not true."
Fusco thankfully turned his attention back to his sandwich, his commentary on her and John momentarily forgotten.
His description of John had her worried. She didn't like the sound of it, or the idea that he wasn't doing too well. She was concerned.
Not like she needed another person on her mind, her conscience. But she sat in her tub, immersed in hot rose scented water later at home with him on her mind. Why wasn't he eating? Why hadn't he been taking care of himself? What was going through his mind? Was he experiencing the same sense of guilt as she was?
She wished she could go to him. She wished that she could look into his eyes and get if only a brief glimpse into his thoughts. Was he still mentally stuck in Rikers? Did he still feel the weight of that bomb vest or had he left it there at the DOD?
She wondered if she was the only one stuck in limbo, not knowing just how to move forward, but still feeling like she was marching in place.
She hated feeling like this. This wasn't her. She splashed the water in frustration reaching for her washcloth, lathering the soap. She scrubbed at herself, roughly dragging the fabric of the towel against her skin. She tried not to look at the rapidly fading bruises from the night of the accident. The smaller ones on her shoulder and arm were almost entirely gone, but there was one on her left side that stretched from her hip to her mid torso where she landed hard when the SUV finally rolled onto its side. That one had hurt deep for a long time, was sore to the touch. The pain from it had gone two weeks ago, but the yellowish blue tint lingered as a reminder of what happened.
In a dizzy haze she watched footsteps walk toward them, heard the sounds of Donnelly's grunts as he was shot, but her eyes began to close as she heard a voice speaking to John.
"Hello, lover, miss me?"
She couldn't hear John's response afterwards. Maybe he was already unconscious; maybe he'd been badly hurt and couldn't move. She heard fumbling, faint, and distant in her ear. She heard what she swore was the voice of Mark Snow nearby telling John's old partner that she was dead.
"It's just as well. She's no use to us anyway. Neither was she a threat."
The daily routine of bed had begun. She lay there listening to every sound around her. The cars passing through the street, the neighbour's television next door, her own breath as it escaped her nostrils. She heard everything, even the sound of her heartbeat.
She closed her eyes willing herself to sleep. She lay there quietly and waited.
It would be over soon, she thought. Whatever it was, it would pass. Just a little while longer and things would get back to normal.
She repeated the lies to herself, hoping they were true.