A/N: The first of two chapters for the night...
The door to the Waterfront opens for a fourth time, the bells clanging loudly once again as the door closes behind the new arrival.
"I don't miss it," Mike Kellerman says, but there is enough sarcasm in his voice to let the others know that he doesn't mean it. "Double shifts, redballs, the brass breathing down our necks about everything…Nah. I don't miss it at all."
"You're a damn liar," says Meldrick, pointing at his former partner. "And you wanna know how I know that?"
"Enlighten me," says Mike, taking the bottle of Jim Beam and the shot glass that Tim holds out to him. He fills the glass and downs the contents, putting the bottle back down on the bar as he waits for an answer.
"I can see it in your face," Meldrick replies. "That look you got, like you wish you were the one sitting in the lieutenant's office."
Mike snorts. "I think I'll leave the game of kiss-ass to Bayliss," he says, turning so that he can see Kay. Tim's hand barely misses the back of his head as he continues. "How goes it, Captain?"
"It goes how it goes," Kay replies. "Good, mostly. Of course, your dear partner over there makes things a bit complicated, but that's easy enough to handle."
Meldrick gives her a hurt look. "I make things complicated?" he asks. "You're the one who was sittin' up there in that captain's office."
"That has nothing to do with anything," Kay starts, but before that conversation can get any further than it does, Tim cuts in.
"Rumor has it they want me in that office," he says.
Mike laughs. "That ought to be something," he says, pouring another shot glass. "Captain Tim Bayliss. Who'd have thought?"
Tim makes a face. "I don't think it'll happen," he says, and pauses for a moment before smirking. "I've caused too much trouble as a lieutenant."
More laughter.
"I think it's a tradition," says John. "First Gee, then Kay, then Meldrick, now you…Every one of you determined to give the brass hell at every chance you get."
"Barnfather was a college-educated little snot who had no place in Homicide, to quote Lieutenant Scinta," says Kay.
"Scinta's retirement was a load of crap," says Tim, shaking his head. "He shouldn't have gone out that way."
"Department politics at its' best," says Mike. "You know, they tried to do the same to Lieutenant Pearson right after Gee died."
"No," says Kay, looking startled. "Pearson? Really?"
This is news to all of them, at least, those who never served in the Arson squad.
But Mike is an old Arson squad veteran, and still keeps contact with his old commander, and he nods.
"Yeah," he replies. "Guess after the bribery thing, they got kinda disenchanted or whatever, but no one would go to Arson."
"This surprises you?" John asks. Mike shakes his head.
"Not really," he admits. "You know, the stupid thing was that I knew those guys were on the take, but…it was just the thin blue line thing, y'know?"
They do know.
After watching Mike throw a full glass of beer into Bob Connolly's face one night, the entire Homicide unit had pretty much figured out that the rest of the Arson squad had been on the take. It hadn't really been that hard to see.
"None of us ever really thought you were dirty," says John. "You know that, don't you?"
Mike sighs. "Now I do," he replies. "Before…I don't know. I guess I was just too caught up in my own crap to really notice that you guys would've had my back if I'd asked for your help."
Kay slides off of the bar. "You want something to eat?" she asks.
"That'd be great, but don't worry about it," says Mike, getting to his feet. "I can get it."
He walks around the bar and disappears into the kitchen.
Overhead, another light flickers.
"All right, that's it," says Tim. "I'm going to fix these damned lights tonight if it's the last thing I do."
"There should be some lightbulbs in the supply room," Meldrick replies. "Have at it."
Tim rolls his eyes, and disappears into the supply room, just as Mike comes wandering out of the kitchen, eating a sandwich.
"What am I gonna do with you guys?" Kay asks, taking her now-empty plate and holding it under Mike's hands. "You're sweeping up if you leave any crumbs."
"Yes, Mom," Mike replies, grinning. He moves aside as Kay swats at him, and goes back to where he was sitting at the bar, next to Meldrick.
"Maternal instinct finally kicking in?" John asks. Kay glares.
"I spent a good part of my career cleaning up after you lot," she tells him, "Now that we're all retired, you'd think I'd get a break, but no…"
"No, now you're not cleaning up after the likes of me, and Munch, and Bayliss," says Mike, "You're just cleaning up after the likes of Meldrick."
"Hey, I resent that," says Meldrick, "She ain't cleaning up after me, she's just…"
"Organizing your life and making sure you don't come apart at the seams," says Kay, and none of the others miss the affectionate smile that flits across her face.
None of them say anything about it, either, at least, not directly. "Partners are like blood," says Mike, and they leave it at that.
Partners are like blood, too, and all of them know it.
A conversation ensues between Kay and Meldrick, and Tim and Mike, at this point, but John remains silent, thinking about New York.
There was him, of course, and the three partners he'd had: Cassidy, wide-eyed and eager, kind of like Tim was, at first, until that one case that finally broke him enough to finally have to leave.
There was Jeffries, who stuck with him for a while, not as long as Megan Russert, and not as long as Cassidy, either.
And then there was Tutuola, and minus the year of Cassidy and Jeffries, and the year when Lake had joined the squad, the two of them had stuck together: the narc and the murder police. Two cops from two different worlds who had both somehow managed to find a balance that worked.
"How's that work in New York, Munch?" Mike asks, his voice breaking into John's thoughts. "You ever have any partners like that up there?"
"Hell, no," says John, and feels slightly guilty, because, after all, Tutuola was that sort of partner; not the sort that he could confide everything in, but still one of those partners to whom he could talk to and not feel as if he were being judged by what he said.
"Really?" Kay asks. "Not any of them?"
"Nah. They all had their own lives, and so did I. We'd get together every once in a while, but not very often," John replies. "Not like here."
"Well, here you owned a bar with two others from the shift and worked across the street; everyone was bound to gather 'round the bar at some point," says Mike. "You never did anything like this in New York?"
"Like I said, every now and then. Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, New Years'…that sort of thing," says John. "Other than that, not much."
"You're exaggerating," says Kay. "It can't have been that bad."
"You met Stabler, didn't you?" John asks dryly, and then, "He wasn't actually that bad, at least not at first. Things were…things were good at first."
"Ah, the truth comes out," says Meldrick. "Next thing you know, he's gonna be telling us that he likes the New York lot better."
"Keep going down that line, I just might," John tells him. "What I mean to say is that things started out all right, and then around my sixth year there, it all got shot to hell."
"Yeah? What happened?" Mike asks. John sighs.
"A lot of personal crap for all of us," he says. "Beyond what happened to me, it's not my place to say."
"Now you learn the boundary lines," Kay mutters. "Pour me a drink, will you, Bayliss?"
Tim does, and pours himself one as well.
Already, this is looking to be a long night, but for the first time in a long time, none of them mind.
"There were a few cases," says John. "This one in particular…assisted suicide. Started out as a report of someone being raped, and turned into some huge thing where someone had a website set up to help people kill themselves…"
"Shouldn't you have turned that over to another squad?" Tim asks.
"Should have. Didn't," John replies. "The person with this website, her name was Amy Solway. So, we finish this case, and think, hey, that's that. It's over and done with, case closed, nothing to worry about, right?"
"Right," says Mike. "What happened?"
"Amy pops up again. This time, the victim was dismembered, and it turns out that it's part of this whole body-parts scam. People buying and selling, for transplants and whatnot, y'know?" John trails off and shakes his head. "All that stuff we saw in Homicide doesn't come anywhere close to what I saw in SVU."
"So this was personal?" Kay asks, voice muffled by the rim of her glass.
John nods.
"Guess you could say I turned it personal," he says. "Once I met Amy, I don't know. It kind of just clicked."
"Let me get this straight," says Tim, "It clicked with a woman who had a website on assisted suicide and then ended up in the middle of a body-parts scam?"
Kay swats at him. "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way," she says. "Elaborate, will you?"
"We were friends," John replies simply. "That was it. Like on some level, we understood each other. I could see where she was coming from."
"You ever get her in the Box?" Mike asks.
"Yeah. Didn't do us any good, though. After the body-parts thing, I never saw her again, but then, she wasn't the first one that happened to."
There is something in the way he says this that makes the other four exchange looks, all of them deciding simultaneously not to push it.
"So, what brought you to the Waterfront, anyway?" Mike asks finally. "Of all the places here in Baltimore, why here?"
John shrugs. "Don't know," he says. "Got here a few hours ago, wandered around the place, ended up here."
"Oh, no you don't," says Kay. "You're not getting out of it that easily, what really brought you here?"
Silence. For a moment, John debates on whether or not he wants to answer this, but on some level, he knows that Kay is really not going to let him get away with the answer he's already given.
"I wanted to see if it felt the same," he admits. "If I was going to be able to see the place was it was before we found out Gee died, but…"
He trails off there, and says nothing else.
It doesn't feel the way it used to be.
Somehow, all of them know this, but at the same time, they're all clinging to the notion that if they don't think about it, the Waterfront will be the place it was before.
Before, Kay thinks wryly, and looks at the men that sit around her. That's how they all think about it, just…before.
Before Gee died, before the rotation, before the sixth year where it all got shot to hell…just before. That was it.
"Is it?" she asks. John shakes his head, and so do Mike, Tim and Meldrick.
"It's not the same," Tim replies. "Not at all."
But still they all ended up here, in this place that they used to love.
And now that they are all here again, they find themselves wondering whether or not it could ever be this place again. Of course, none of them will say this out loud, but the thought is there.
After all these years, this is the one place where they still feel like they can get away from the rest of the world outside, even though none of them have been here at the same time in a while.
It's like a pull at the seams, Tim thinks, glancing over at the others. Somehow, something always manages to draw them back.