CHAPTER 2 – Trading Up

They made it back to the station in one piece without too much drama. She agreed to take the autopsy, while he researched missing persons. It wasn't that she had that much confidence in Crews' technical research abilities, but he seemed to be able to convince people (women) to do amazingly comprehensive and in depth research for him in a very short period of time. She made a point of never asking him how he motivated them to such diligent inquiries. She didn't want to know.

The autopsy revealed no signs of sexual abuse, thereby avoiding adding insult to injury, as if it was somehow kinder to simply kill a child. No one had shown this child any semblance of kindness, but somehow knowing there was no sexual component was a relief. It also meant sex crimes would not come take their case. It was a simple, standard murder (as if there was such a thing) of one of society's youngest, most vulnerable, innocent members and one least capable of self-defense.

When she joined Homicide, Reese had been mildly shocked to find that child murderers often got lighter sentences than someone who killed an adult. To snuff out that much potential was somehow deemed less egregious than killing another adult, almost as if children weren't people at all. It was a finding that puzzled her but after a time she stuffed it into the back of her mind and did not look too long into the dark after things she could not change. Crews still did.

Crews seemed to appoint himself the guardian or protector of the weak and abused, but it was a role that he only saw failure in - leaving vengeance as his only recourse. He had emerged from prison uniquely qualified for the job. He developed skills and talents giving him a hard edge, a prodigious killing ability, lightning quick reflexes and an impressive capacity for violence. His edge extended only to other adults.

Deprived of the company of children for so long, he still gravitated to their innocence and vulnerability like his life had been on pause for twelve long years. Their vulnerability mirrored his – sublimated for those long, dark years, his own naïveté shone through like a bright light. Dani had long ago lost hers, but she longed after those days when she still believed in goodness, before she lost faith in everything, in everyone and in herself.

She often had trouble reconciling the physicality and brutality of her partner with the goodness and gentleness she knew instinctively was at his core. He was like a dog someone had made mean, taught to fight and now knew nothing but blood, death and deep scars. That tendency could be overcome, but it required an investment she wasn't willing to make. She respected the immediacy of his physicality and genuine emotion behind his response, but her partner teetered on the edge of irrationality and she was his counter-balance.

It was a role she was unaccustomed to. Dani was used to being the untethered, unrestrained and volatile member of any teaming, so the expectation that she should police him and his frequently unexplainable behaviors wore on her. They walked to the elevator lost in their own individual thoughts, when his bled over into their waking reality.

"You don't like me much, do you?"

Her only response was a heavy sigh.

"It's okay. I'm not very good with people anymore. I'm not sure I ever was but I used to think I was. Maybe I never was and I just didn't know it. Now I know….so much more than back then… and yet there's still so much I don't know. You know?"

"It's not that I don't enjoy these trips down memory lane, Crews. But is there a point to this story?"

"No. Well, maybe… it's just that you seem to really dislike working with me and Davis has given you a couple of chances for a new partner…" he trailed off.

"Yeah, so."

"So why not trade up?" He arched his brows at her over the sienna lens he slid down his nose to look directly at her. "We've been doing pretty good, solving cases. You must be out of the doghouse by now."

His blue eyes were the color of pool water and deceptively innocent, but she knew. She knew what he was capable of, the things he'd done, the things he wished to do and she knew them because they were her desires too. His cool blue exterior did not hide him from her. Under the veneer of smiling Zen lurked a hard, dark man capable of extreme violence exercised with little restraint or remorse. It was what drew her to him, that dangerousness, his fierce fragility and the fact that he hid it.

"We're fine. Leave it alone, Crews."

"But why work with someone you don't like?"

"What, are we in fifth grade? How could I not like you? I don't even know you."

"I think you know me better than you let on, better than you think," he spoke her thoughts.

Their eyes connected and a look passed between them. He knew her as completely as she him. It was tough to have someone see you that fully. It was as if her solid, stable walls were wax paper thin and transparent as glass, covered only in a layer of steam. He could wave his hands, wipe it away and look beneath.

She shot him a patented Reese look, glaring at him until he swallowed hard and looked away. Not there yet, hot shot, her eyes told him.

In his haste he then proceeded to jam his foot squarely into his mouth, "I like you. You know?" Then recognizing the implication attempted to walk back from it awkwardly. "Not like you – like you - but I mean as a partner. And when I say as a partner I don't mean what you think I mean….what most men probably mean."

Portions of his speech were spoken a degree lower, nearly as an aside. It had taken her this long to realize these thoughts were not meant to be spoken aloud, but the dam restraining Crews' thought was broken and everything flowed downstream. Only his tone betrayed those thoughts he meant to internalize, but couldn't, "I just mean I like working with you. I like how your mind works, your tenacity, your diligence, your loyalty."

This earned him another scowl and a persistent frown, "I'm not a boy scout."

"Okay, we won't talk about you. We'll talk about me. Do you wanna know why I talk so much?" She shrugged.

"When I was in solitary, I went a little crazy, I guess. I got to a point where I could no longer tell real from imagined. It was disturbing to say the least, but I got to the point where I'd think out loud - just to have company. I know it's not really company, the sound of my own voice - but it was all I had. Now I have a hard time not doing it."

This disclosure was not something Reese was expecting. It was something she'd figured out on her own, in a way, but never expected him to admit or explain. All that time alone had to affect a person. But normally when Crews spoke it was nonsense or Zen nonsense and she just tuned him out. He was trying to say something to her, it was something important and she had no idea how to respond.

"You still talk too much," she offered. It was lame but it was what came to mind.

"I know," he admitted bashfully and looked away. "You could talk more," he offered.

"I suppose," she confessed and the fell silent again.

Reese only spoke when necessary for the job, not to fill the silence. He doubted she understood what he'd said and what that kind of alone felt like. He liked that about her, that she had economy of speech. She was real in the same way that animals were. She was honest - every move, every gesture had a meaning. Reese simply did not "do" unnecessary, superfluous. She did not, would not jabber like most women he knew. She hid - but she did not lie, not like him. Charlie wondered if everything about him was a lie – and if she knew it. "Why don't you want another partner?"

"Jesus, Crews," she sounded exasperated. He was like a dog with a bone. "Can you just be quiet for five minutes?"

Then to her great surprise he was - resoundingly and impressively silent and still for over five minutes approaching ten. It was unnerving.

"Will you stop that?"

"I thought you wanted me to be quiet," he said softly.

"I do. I did." She was annoyed at him again, but this time at his silence. She shot him a hard look and received a simple smile in response. "Stop it alright, just stop it."

"So you want me to talk?"

"No," she wavered, "yes…oh, hell. I don't want you to do anything, be anything other than what you are. Can you just do that?"

"Be myself?"

"Yes," she hissed through her teeth.

"You can not be other than what you are, but what you are, be that completely?"

"Exactly," she was somewhat emphatic about her agreement with him on this issue.

"That's Zen," he pronounced proudly.

She groaned.

She recognized it was his way of communicating that his Zen armor was back in place and he was once again in control. The power behind his anger exhilarated and frightened her. She sensed his darkness retreating but she could still smell it lingering like his expensive cologne. On some level, she realized she was attracted to that strength and the vein of harshness riding just under the surface like a shadowy animal hiding from the light.