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Mick wouldn't push any more, but that didn't mean that he was going to say no if Prophet really was willing to talk, and he shifted around to sit sideways on the couch.
Prophet took out his wallet and dug around in it, pulling out a picture and passing it over to Mick. "Desiree."
"She's pretty," Mick said, looking at the image. The woman in the photo was probably in her early twenties, although the image was faded so it was hard to say for sure, with an easy smile and long hair in braids down her back.
"Yeah," Prophet agreed. "And smart and funny and damned if I can tell you why she ever looked at me twice. Never mind said yes when I asked her to marry me."
Mick's eyes widened. "You're married?" It had been one of the random ideas he'd come up with, sure, but not one he'd seriously considered.
"I was."
"What happened?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth he had a bad feeling that maybe prison had happened—he knew the statistics as well as anyone—but Prophet just shook his head as he took the picture back, looking at it for a moment before putting it back in his wallet.
"About thirteen years ago she was on her way to work when a semi rolled on the highway and caused a pileup. One minute I was putting away the dishes and getting ready to go to work myself, and the next there was a policeman at the door telling me they were…."
"They?" Mick interrupted with a frown.
Prophet closed his eyes and looked away. "She. I…she."
The correction came too late, and Mick's stomach twisted. "You had a kid, didn't you?" He'd never considered the possibility before, but it wasn't hard to imagine. Anyone could see that Prophet adored children—and did not react well when someone harmed one as Mick was well aware—and Mick had rarely seen a child turn away from him.
"We had two," Prophet said finally. "Caleb had just turned five and Ashley was two. Their daycare was right next to Desi's work."
"I'm sorry," Mick said. There wasn't a lot else that he could say.
Prophet nodded and then shook his head slightly. "I don't…I can't talk about them."
It was Mick's turn to nod. Some things you didn't touch.
"Anyway, after Desi died, I couldn't even look at another woman," he continued after a moment. "Even…well, I can't tell you much about what I did that first year without them, I know I drank too much and got myself into some trouble, but mostly it's just a blur. But then Elliot dragged me out to a bar for my birthday, and there was this woman there, and…." He shook his head. "I felt like crap afterwards. And it never got any better the other times I tried getting back into dating either. So I decided I was done. Well, I decided I was done and then I ended up in prison so it wasn't exactly an option anyway, but even if that hadn't happened…." He trailed off with a shrug.
"I don't mean any disrespect, Proph, I really don't," Mick said after a minute. "But thirteen years is a long time. You don't think maybe you should try again?"
A flicker of a grin crossed Prophet's face. "Think I haven't noticed that? Believe me, I have. And I do try every now and again." One shoulder twitched. "To be fair, right after I got out probably wasn't the best time to start, but I gave it a shot, and it didn't go any better than it had before. Took me about five minutes to start comparing her to Desi, and..." He shook his head. "She lost. Everyone loses. They still do, even today."
A fact that probably wasn't helped by the fact that Prophet was still carrying her picture with him, but Mick knew better than to point that out. Some of what he did want to say must have shown on his face, though, because Prophet shrugged again slightly.
"Yeah, I know, comparing someone to a ghost was—is—pretty pointless. Hell, when it comes right down to it, I'm pretty sure Desi would be first in line to tell me to knock it off and that it's high time I get on with my life. But I can't help it, and aside from the fact that it isn't fair to them, I always end up feeling miserable. It's just not worth it."
That sounded pretty extreme to Mick, but then again, he'd never been in that situation. "Does Coop know?" he asked instead of commenting.
Prophet shook his head. "I don't think he's that worried about my social life. I'm not sure why you are. I really am fine."
"You're my friend. I'm allowed to worry if I want to. But I was talking about you having been married and stuff."
"Oh." He shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I assume so—I'm damn sure he had a background check done, and if Garcia did it he probably knows what I got on my third grade report card never mind finding something obvious like a marriage certificate—but he's never asked me about it."
"Can I?" Mick asked after a moment.
"Hm?"
"Ask. More."
"If you want," Prophet said. "Just…like I said, not about the kids, okay?"
"I won't," Mick agreed immediately. Of course, as soon as the words were out of his mouth his mind went blank, but then he decided to go with the obvious. "So how did you two meet?"
Apparently that was an acceptable question because Prophet shifted back a little further into the couch cushions and a hint of a smile crossed his face. "I was eighteen, and she dropped a crate on me."
Mick yawned and blinked slowly. He should get up and go home. Or at least he should get up and tell Prophet that he should go lay down in his bed if he wanted to nap because while Mick sometimes got stiff if he fell asleep on the couch during a movie or whatever, Prophet always did. But considering that Prophet had trailed off mid-sentence a few minutes ago—or at least Mick thought it had only been a few minutes, it was hard to say for sure—and his breathing was steady, he was probably already asleep.
Mick's questions had turned away from Prophet's wife fairly quickly, mostly because even if Prophet had said he would answer it had obviously hurt him, but Prophet had been willing to talk about other things too. It had been nice hearing stories about Prophet's past. His habit of not talking about himself was pretty deeply ingrained and he'd lapsed back into generics a few times, but when Mick hadn't pushed, he'd relaxed a little. And it had turned out that Prophet's past wasn't as mysterious as Mick had thought. It was reassuring. He might not have known specifics before, but he'd known that Prophet knew a lot about construction and a little about auto repair. He hadn't known that Prophet got seasick—or that he'd learned that fact the one time he'd tried crewing on a tanker; Prophet's expression when he'd admitted that had been pretty hilarious—but he had known that Prophet had done quite a bit of traveling by train but had never been on a plane until he'd joined the FBI. And not that he didn't have more questions, but…well, now that Prophet had started talking about his past, Mick was pretty sure he'd be willing to keep going.
Mick slumped down a little further on the couch as his eyes started to drift shut again. He should get up, he really should, but he was comfortable. And he'd only nap for a little while. It couldn't be much more than mid-afternoon, after all. But work had started too bloody early today, and that was disregarding what the work had been.
Plus, if he stayed, he and Prophet could split a pizza for dinner which would beat anything that Mick currently had in his fridge. In fact, he was pretty sure there were a couple of things living in his fridge that would eat a pizza without his help; somehow cleaning that thing out never quite made it to the top of his to-do list, even when he knew it should. And if there wasn't a decent game on they could raid Prophet's DVD collection for something to watch and he could make fun of Prophet for his insistence on calling DVDs 'videos.' Not a bad way to spend an evening all things considered.
