Author's Note: I've always loved those "Five in One" fics, so I figured I'd try my hand at one. My Muse has been non-existent, to put it mildly, but hopefully this will really pull her out of her funk.
Also, since we still don't know much – if anything, really – about Rollins (other than she transferred from Atlanta) all info about her background comes from my imagination.
Title: Moments
Summary: Four canon moments between Munch and Rollins and one AU moment.
Rating: T
Pairing: John Munch and Amanda Rollins
Chapter One: Hello World
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel/Broken like I'm never gonna heal
"Hello World - " by Lady Antebellum
At this point in his career, to say he had been around the block would have been an understatement of the highest order. Hell, he had tried to take the Sargent's exam the first time in – what – the early 90's?
Now he had those damn stripes – that in the grand scheme of things didn't mean shit (or at least what he thought they would all those years ago) – on his badge, and he had an additional thirteen years at Special Victims to the twenty he had put in back in Baltimore when he was working homicide, so he was prepared for the depravity that he volunteered (yet again) to subject himself to.
What was on these DVDs from the slimy miscreant Fin and Olivia had hauled in, couldn't be any worse than what he'd already seen. So he figured he'd do his good deed for the year and spare the kid (Amaro) and the charming Southern Belle (Rollins) – both of them newbies to this beat – the horror and the atrocity he knew he'd be faced with.
Amaro seemed like a cool customer, like he could keep himself under control, but everyone had their limits. Everyone had to snap at some point. And anywhere from six to ten hours of footage of little girls dressed up like living, breathing dolls and forced to perform sexual acts (they were too young to understand), could make even the coolest of the cool, reach their breaking point.
And he didn't want to be responsible for the kid reaching his. Once it happened, there would be no going back.
As for Rollins...Honestly, he didn't want to see her face after such a viewing. Like Olivia and like Kay back in Baltimore, she worked hard at keeping up her shield of indifference, of hardness. She was a woman in a man's world, always fighting to prove herself, to show that she could hack it, that she wouldn't be emotional.
Her Kewpie features would be bathed in abject horror, an almost inaudible gasp would fall from those pastel lips, a gently curved hand would cover her face and a sad shake of her head would make a few glossy strands of platinum fall from her messy bun. Her clear eyes – so wide, so emotional – would fill with tears that she wouldn't dare let fall inside the squad room. Pastel lips would tremble. A swan-like throat would swallow hard.
God, had he ever been that young? That naïve? Sure, neither was a rookie just out of the academy, but this job had yet to affect them the way it had affected him. They still had some shred of innocence, some miniscule iota that there was still good in the world.
But he knew better. He knew – even before he sat down to watch hours upon hours straight of little girls being molested in pretty dresses – that men were little more than animals in suit coats and leather shoes. He was seconds away from going off on an internal rant, when he heard the knob to the viewing room turn.
Filling the doorway with her alluring, lithe shape was none other than Rollins. His severe brow arched in a questioning manner; silently asking what she was doing. He thought Fin might pop his head in, tell him to give his bony ass a rest, Liv would gently coax him to take a break with those wide, emotional eyes of hers, the Cap would stride in thinking he could still "order" him, maybe even Amaro would take a stab at coming in, ready and willing because that's what kids – and that's what he was, a kid – do.
But he didn't think he'd see glossy platinum hair, pastel lips, and clear green eyes.
Those pastel lips curved slightly as she stepped further into the room, gently shutting the door behind her. Without preamble, but grace that shouldn't be allowed for a cop, she slid into the chair that was right next to him and on the table, she put his black mug down.
The heady, thick smell of coffee wafted to his nose and again, he arched his brow.
"You've been at this for a while, so I thought you could use that. And don't worry," She assured, her drawl more pronounced; its softness floating to his ears like a string of notes tumbling off a master piano player's fingers. "It's fresh."
"Didn't peg you for an ass kisser." The sarcasm, his first instinct, his defense mechanism, falls off his lips like the harsh crack of a whip.
If she's offended, her Kewpie features don't show it. Instead, to his surprise, she reaches over and lays her hand on top of his. He's struck – and it's hard not to be – when he looks down, at the contrast between her hand and his. Smooth, alabaster skin almost with the sheen of a pearl covers the wrinkled, tan skin of his own.
"You don't have to do this alone." She's leaning just enough that her breath – minty and cool – skates along the side of his face.
Her drawl loses its softness when she pulls back. "I've got a good eye. My Daddy told me so when he first taught me to shoot when I was about as high as this table."
He doesn't laugh. He's about to tell her no, to send her off to compile phone records, take statements, canvas, but she stops him. "I can handle this."
Her voice is firm, assured and her clear green eyes darken with determination.
Shaking his head, his voice timbers with an honesty he can't ever remember hearing from himself before. "You don't want to handle this. You don't ever want to get to the point where you can handle..." His voice trails off as he motions to the screen, and in a gravelly tone, laced with disgust, he finishes, "This."
"You may think you're there, Sargent," She muses, pushing herself out of the chair. "But you're not."
He scoffs at the audacity behind her statement. She doesn't know him from the Man in the Moon.
Note: The Kay Munch refers to in this is Kay Howard who was a female detective he worked with during his Baltimore homicide days. If you didn't know, the character John Munch was originated by Richard Belzer on the NBC show Homicide: Life on the Street that ran from 1993 to 199.
Also, I wanted to add more to this, but I think it works best with just Rollins' last piece of dialogue and then Munch's reaction. Let me know if you think I should have added more if you liked it as is.
