A/N: Thanks to notesofwimsey for her feedback on this chapter
Reckless Burning
She was old and he was young.
She was weak but he was strong.
Her rage was spent but his newly begun.
Through him, the flame would burn.
Stella stuck her head inside Mac's office."
"Is Hawkes still in court?"
He nodded without breaking his vigil at the window. "Have anything on the burn victim yet?"
"Not yet. I'm expecting trace results from Adam any minute and hopefully the DNA results won't be far behind."
She waited for the continued questioning or his customary dismissal of "Keep me posted", but the silence stretched. Recognizing the rare appeal, she stepped into his office and perched on the edge of his desk.
She waited; it didn't take him long.
"Ever feel like something's missing from your life?" He paused, inhaling deeply before continuing. "Like you want to fill it, but your hand has already been dealt?"
Knowing better than to clutter the moment with trifling reassurances or tepid pep talks, she slid off his desk, closed the distance between them gently palming his shoulder. Feeling the warmth through his shirt reminded her of what even she forgot about him from time to time: his humanness.
"More often than you think," she replied.
For the first time since she had entered his office, he looked at her with his lopsided smile of slightly amused doubt.
"Funny, I never thought you did." He turned back to the window, crossing his arms across his chest, closing his humanness back into himself again. "Keep me posted."
The results clutched in his hand but forgotten, he stood in the doorway watching her study a file, index finger tracking along the lines as she read, a wavy curtain of hair hiding her face but not her demeanor – peaceful, reassuring – in opposition to his present state.
What a difference from those first days in the lab, when she'd been nervous but trying not to show it, scrambling to measure up. Back then, he'd been a rookie lab tech, had felt their kinship, had even been working up the nerve to ask her out for coffee. But then Messer had staked a claim. A claim that had even held Flack at bay. Even if he could have competed with Messer, it was obvious that she'd fallen hook, line and sinker for him, in spite of the common knowledge that she'd pushed him away due to the resurfacing of her traumatic past.
And that's why he was hovering at her office door. She'd survived. She'd dealt with it. She was happy now.
How had she done it?
Raising and dropping his fist once, twice then thrice before finally rapping knuckles against wood.
Her head rising but her eyes slow to follow, finally speaking, "Adam?"
Puzzlement on her face, from what he wasn't sure and his voice faltered before he found it again. "Uh, got a minute?"
Glancing at the file once more before slowly closing it, "Sure, sure, come in."
Perching on the edge of the chair in front of her desk, he felt unbalanced, stiff. Sliding deep into it, he tried for relaxed, nonchalant, crossing ankle over knee, hoping the weight would stifle the stuttering of his leg.
Lindsay ducked her head to catch his roaming eyes, "What's on your mind?"
"I … uh … if this isn't a good time I can come back … you know, later." Sliding forward in the chair ready to bolt at the first indication that her time was too valuable to waste on him.
"No, Adam, this is a good time." A genuine smile lit her features. "I need a break."
And for the first time since late the night before, he felt relieved and hopeful, words rolling off his tongue. "I wanted to ask you—"
"Montana, how's that baby of ours?"
The unexpected intrusion squelched his flow, sent his emotions back into heightened alert.
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Sitting on my last nerve." Then followed it with a delighted smile. "But what are you doing here? Your shift doesn't start for another couple of hours."
Danny, leaning over to brush a kiss across her lips, his hand gliding proudly and possessively along the bulging firmness holding their baby.
"Really? You gotta be kidding me? I must've read the clock wrong." Thumbing back towards the door, turning to go. "I'll just head back home and catch forty winks."
"Oh no you don't." Hooking a hand through the crook of his arm, securing him, closing her eyes, inhaling. "I smell Chen Ho's."
"Your sense of smell is not impaired in the least, Detective." Brandishing a large white takeout bag from behind his back. "If you can tear yourself away from those files, we can have dinner together for a change."
"I'd love that."
Slipping away unnoticed as the heat beat at his back, desperate to find a retreat before the chill overtook him.
"Dr. Hawkes, for the record state your current employment status."
"Routine" he told himself. But another part of him whispered, "It's never routine." Internal argument compliments of being at the mercy of the threat of medical malpractice suits during a past too close to confront
He leaned into the microphone. "I'm a Crime Scene Investigator for the New York City Crime Lab.".
"Dr. Hawkes, did you perform the autopsy on Noreen Palicios?"
He looked at the defendant – a man whose eyes were alternately vacant in disbelief of the accusations being leveled against him then tortured in loss of his wife after a prolonged battle with cancer.
"Yes, I did."
"And your position and employer at that time?"
"Coroner for the New York City Crime Lab"
Easing with the familiarity of the questioning, he distanced himself from the microphone, increasing the strength of his voice to compensate.
"You left that position for your current position soon after you performed the autopsy on Noreen Palicios did you not?"
This time he looked to the plantiff – Noreen Palicious' daughter from her first marriage – her face angled in determination, a self-righteous purse of the lips as she sat rigidly next to the prosecutor's assistant.
"Yes I did."
"Dr. Hawkes, previous to the coroner's position with the Crime Lab, you were a promising surgeon with Queen of Mercy Hospital?"
"Yes, I was a surgeon, that's true."
"You abandoned your promising surgical career soon after not one, but three patients died from complications during or soon after surgeries of which you performed."
The chair screeched its disapproval as the defense attorney launched himself, palms hitting full force on the table in front of him. "Objection, Your Honor. What is the relevance of trolling through this witness's work history?"
The prosecutor turned to the judge. "Your Honor, I am establishing a pattern of negligence and incompetency in Dr. Hawkes performance on the job that will cast serious doubt on his findings during the autopsy of Noreen Palicious."
And just like that the past had come to confront him.
