Title: Shoulder To Lean On

Author: ChinaTeaSunflowers (formerly LettyToretto)

Rating: K+

Summary: Post-ep for Season 5, To The Bone. Chesley Watkins played Det. Logan like a piano. Now he needs a shoulder to lean on. My first one-shot! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Have mercy on Annabella Sciorra's body if I owned it! Dick Wolf and the powers that be at NBC own Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

City Courthouse, 9:38am

After their only witness jumped through a sixth floor window of the city's courthouse, Detectives Mike Logan and Carolyn Barek looked on as Chesley Watkins was placed in the back of prisoner's holding van. No doubt the case against her would be deemed a mistrial and the charges would be dropped.

Prior to this gruesome scene, Mrs. Watkins had played Logan like a piano all along during an interrogation when he thought that he had been playing her. He'd dropped his guard when she cried just as he had done so many times with his own mother even though he knew she was wrong. Even though he knew that no matter how sorry she was, she would do it again.

"Do you wanna go get something to eat?" Barek suggested. Logan had every right to be shocked by her question. After all, it was he who had tried to provoke Barek after he'd shot and killed a cop. She told him that she'd forget about it since he wasn't in his right frame of mind but that didn't stop him from feeling like a complete and utter asshole.

"Nah," Logan began, "I think I'm just gonna go home and think."

Barek put her hand on his arm in a comforting manner. Logan forced a small smile and walked down the steps of the courthouse. EMTs were just beginning to arrive and Logan walked faster as if he were trying to run from the sight.

Barek's apartment, Brooklyn, NY, 7:49pm

"She has a passion for art and only things of value. Only things of value were taken during the robberies. Great. I'm talking to myself again."

Barek sat on her couch bent over documents that sat on her coffee table. She was trying to find something, anything, that could possibly link Chesley Watkins to the machete crimes. Something had to give; Barek nor her partner wanted the old woman to walk but it seemed that she just might. There was no longer a witness and none of her other foster sons seemed to want to spill the proverbial beans on the woman who had clothed, fed and loved them.

Barek grabbed the bottle of wine that was sitting on the table and was about to pour her second glass when a knock sounded at her apartment door. She checked her watch. Though it was early, she hadn't been expecting anyone. Standing up, Barek walked to the door and looked through the peephole. There Logan stood, twisting his leather gloves in his hands and looking down.

Opening the door, Barek looked at him with pity. She was still angry with him for attempting to push her buttons while they were at the diner working on their case but she couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He had unintentionally killed a cop. He shot him in self-defense because the kid swung his gun on Barek. In retrospect, Logan had saved her life. Not to mention, Chesley had played on the bottled up emotions that Logan had for his mother; the anger, sadness, resentment and hatred. That had opened up old wounds for Logan, creating newer scars.

"Can I come in?" Logan asked. He looked like a child that had done something wrong.

Barek sighed and moved aside to allow him entrance to her home. She shut and locked the door behind him before leading him into the living room. Logan looked around the apartment and his eyes finally landed on the paperwork and such scattered across the table. Barek returned to her seat on the black couch, with her legs folded Indian-style.

Logan sat down next to her and watched her carefully. He had come to apologize but he wanted to see what kind of mood she was in first.

"Do you want a glass of wine?" She asked him. When he didn't respond right away, she ducked her head down the way she always did to get someone's attention and smiled a little. Logan was blown away by how attractive she was and how attracted he was to her.

"Uh, sure." He replied. Barek got up and walked to the kitchen to grab a wine glass for Logan. Once she was seated again, he sighed as if he were about to say something. She handed him the glass of wine and sat back with a document in her hand.

With her eyes still glued on the document, Barek broke the silence. "I'm upset with you."

"I know and you have every right to be."

"You tried to provoke me. You purposely made an asshole comment so that you could get a negative reaction out of me. What did you want? Did you want me to be angry with you for killing a cop? Did you want me to hit you or show some sort of remorse?" Barek asked. She threw the document down onto table.

"I don't know. I guess I just-."

"Well, I won't." She interrupted him. "His adrenaline was still pumping and he was not in his right frame of mind. His reflexes could have caused him to shoot me at point blank range had you not shot him first. I won't be upset with you for saving my life. I'm upset because you couldn't trust me to be the person who will tell you how I felt regardless of the situation. If you were wrong, I would have told you that you were wrong. I would have told you that you should feel guilty but I don't think you need to. It was an eat or be eaten decision that you had to make. He hadn't made it known that he was a cop, Mike."

Logan finally stopped twirling his thumbs and looked at his partner. Her expression was softer than the one he'd seen when she opened the door. Making a brash decision, Logan scooted over to her end of the couch and leaned his head on her shoulder. A light chuckle escaped Barek's lips as she took his untouched wine glass from him. She sipped the deep red liquid and sighed a sigh of relief. It was apparent that she'd wanted to get that off of her chest

"I'm really sorry. It won't happen again." Logan promised.

"Good. I like our partnership, Mike. I really do. Just trust me enough to know that I'll tell you the truth no matter what. I trust you enough to know that." Barek finished. She felt him nod his head on her shoulder and she smiled again.

"Okay. Now, help me find something that will put Chesley Watkins away for a very long time." She told him. In unison, they each reached for a different document, both hell-bent on catching their bad guy. Each now knowing that, when times got rough, they had a shoulder to lean on.

A/N: R&R. I always love criticism, positive or negative. I hope you enjoyed my first one shot. Peace, love and blessings. -ChinaTeaSunflowers