A New Reality

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

Chapter 7: Facing the End

"Who was that?" Zach asked as his partner slammed the phone down so hard she nearly knocked the entire unit off the table.

"Heather Bryce," Serena said bitterly.

"Andrea's caseworker?" Zach asked, both confused and concerned. "I thought she seemed okay."

"She is," Serena replied, but her tone hadn't softened any. "It's what she told me that's bothering me."

"Why? What did she tell you?" Even as the words left his mouth, he recognized the foreignness of the tone. Since when does one sentence make me worry so much?

At any rate, Serena didn't seem to notice, she was so caught up in her own frustration. "I called her last week, after Cutter told us that Thomas' trial was on the calendar for early next month. I figured she should know, since once the trial's over, she's responsible for Andrea again."

Zach was momentarily struck speechless by his partner's matter-of-fact statement. It was something he hadn't thought about recently, not even with the trial date pending. When this trial is over, so is everything else. It had been four months now since Andrea had been released from the hospital and placed into protective custody, and Zach had kept his pattern of visiting her almost every night, and he'd even given her a few of his days off. They'd only become closer since that night six weeks in when he'd comforted her after that nightmare. She's a part of my life now. It was harder than he ever could have expected to accept the fact that that was likely to change in the near future.

Serena was still taking, oblivious to the extent to which she'd just taken her partner aback. "Still no luck on a foster home. Can you believe that? I mean, she's such a sweet kid."

"Yeah," Zach replied through the fog he was still stuck in. "She is."

"I mean, sure, she's shy. She doesn't really like to be touched or held. But foster parents should care about what the kids need, not what they want from the kids."

"What?" Zach had missed the entire final sentence of his partner's rant. "No, that's not right," he said half to himself. "She does like being held, she wants it, it's just that she doesn't understand how those kinds of interactions work, that and she's afraid -"

His own rambling was cut off by the sudden flash of anger on his partner's face, a reaction so striking that even when his mind was occupied processing what he'd just been told, he couldn't miss it. "What the hell do you know?" she demanded. "She's a little girl, Zach! This isn't just some psychology puzzle for you to play around with!"

"I know that," he replied.

"No!" she yelled back. "You don't, and that's your problem. You hold everything at arm's length, and yeah, fine, sometimes it's better not to get emotionally invested. But you can't keep people at a distance and then claim to know everything about them!"

"Serena!" he objected, a little more loudly, though still far short of her volume.

"Just don't. I can't deal with this right now."

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Zach cradled Andrea to him, reading the words on the page aloud without really hearing them. He knew that all of her attention was on the story, but his attention was focused completely on her, on the feeling of holding her close. I'm going to lose her, he couldn't help thinking. In a month or less, I'm going to lose her. I may never see her again.

She was never yours to lose, Zach, another part of his mind reminded him, the part that even after four years always sounded like Danny Ross. It was cold comfort at best. She's a part of my life now, the more emotional part of him screamed. How am I supposed to just give that up?

The click of a door latch startled him out of his thoughts, and he felt Andrea tense in his arms. "It's okay, sweetheart," he soothed "The only people who have the key to get in are the good guys."

But the figure that walked in surprised him even so. "Serena?"

She hadn't spoken to him since their argument earlier in the day, choosing instead to work across from him in stony silence. Zach hadn't made much of an effort to breach the silence himself; he'd been too busy processing his own feelings to make the effort to initiate a conversation with someone who had made it clear she wasn't interested in speaking with him.

And now, she was here. And not only that, she was staring at him. Staring at Andrea. Seeing the way that she was curled up against him, noticing where his arm was wrapped around her, keeping her close, his fingers running through her hair in a gesture so absent-minded and habitual he'd forgotten about it until Serena's attention had called his own back to it.

"Andrea," he said softly, "you remember my partner, right?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Hi."

"Hi, honey," Serena replied, still sounding dazed. "I, um, I just came out to check if you're okay. What are you doing?"

"Reading," Andrea replied, managing to all at once sound like it was the most obvious answer and like she was terrified that she had it wrong. Zach hugged her tightly with the arm he already had wrapped around her, trying to silently convey that she didn't have to be afraid.

Serena, for her part, picked up on the fear just as clearly as her partner had and glanced down at the book he was holding. "Oh, one of the Ramona books. My daughter loved those when she was your age."

"You have a daughter?" Andrea asked, a little afraid, but Zach's firm arm around her reassured her that everything was okay. "How old is she?"

"Eleven now." Serena sat down on the end of the bed. "Maybe you can meet her sometime."

That didn't elicit the expected reaction. Andrea quickly looked down, but not so quickly that he couldn't see her face fall. "Andrea," Serena pressed, "what's wrong?"

"I'm not going to meet her," Andrea mumbled. "Once the trial is done, I go back to foster care. I won't see you guys again."

Serena immediately noticed two things. The first was that, while Andrea had mentioned both of them, she was looking right at Zach when she said it. And the second was the agonized look that flashed across her partner's face for a moment. "You don't know that," she replied, locking eyes with her partner in hopes that he would understand she was talking to both of them. "Maybe there's a way. We can't go around assuming the worst before we know anything."

"Yeah." Andrea didn't sound convinced. "Maybe."

"It looks like you two have everything under control for the moment," Serena said, unable to shake the sense that she was intruding on something she was never meant to see. "So, um, I'll leave you to it." She locked eyes with Andrea and smiled. "Keep an eye on my partner, okay?"

Andrea grinned back. "Okay."

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Zach wasn't entirely surprised to see a familiar car parked next to his own in the hotel parking lot and an equally familiar figure sitting in the driver's seat. She looked up, seeing him too, and rolled her window down.

"You're still here," he commented.

"I was hoping we could talk for a bit," she replied.

"Sure," he agreed, "just not here. First of all, we don't want to call attention to a protective custody location, and second, I can think of better places for a conversation than a parking lot."

She smiled. "My place is closer than yours, and Kira's with her dad this week."

He smiled back. "Okay."

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"Zach, I'm sorry," Serena said as soon as she closed her front door. "What I said -"

"I get it," he interrupted quickly. "You were upset. It's okay."

"No, it's not," she replied. "I took it out on you, and what's worse, I made it personal." She met his eyes firmly, and he could see the tears that shimmered in hers. "I didn't mean a word of it, Zach."

He shrugged. "If the shoe fits -"

"It doesn't," she insisted. "That's just it! Those things I said, those are just things I've heard other people say about you. I've never thought that, not even when I first met you."

"Danny's case." It made sense, he realized as he said it. They might have been at odds more often than not, but it would've been almost impossible to be partnered for four years and not become friends. The man's death had shaken him to his core, and he knew that he had spent the duration of that case wearing his emotions very plainly out in the open; even a newcomer, as Serena had been at the time, couldn't have missed seeing how deeply he was feeling the loss.

She nodded. "But it's more than that now. You're my best friend, Zach, and God knows you've helped me out of my share of tight spots. I of all people know how much you care about absolutely everyone. I still can't believe that those words came out of my mouth."

"I can," he replied softly, surprising her. "And I don't mean that as anything bad, but think about it, Serena. That's what you were angry about right in that moment - people not caring. So when I became a convenient target, you threw all of that at me - not just the anger, but the reasons driving it."

"How can you be so calm about this?" she demanded.

"Because I know how you feel. That anger you vented out at me - I understand. I feel it too. It's okay, Serena," he assured her. "I know you weren't really mad at me, and I'm not mad at you."

"You're nicer than I would be," she said with a laugh. "Are you okay?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you've been kind of out of it since I got that call. I didn't notice it at first because I was so wrapped up in what I was feeling, but - Zach, what's going on?"

Such a simple question, and yet, I don't have anything resembling a simple answer. He looked up and met her eyes, warm and welcoming and caring, an open invitation to give her a true answer, however complicated it might be.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I've been trying for months to answer that same question, and I can't come up with anything that makes sense."

She crossed the room to him, taking his hand in hers. "Tell me," she encouraged gently. "You don't have to have a conclusion. Just tell me all the pieces and maybe between the two of us we can make them fit together."

He nodded slowly. "I guess - I guess, looking back, it all started that day in the school principal's office while we were waiting for him to get off that interminable phone call, remember that?"

"I remember," she laughed. "I didn't know who I was angrier at, the principal for keeping us waiting or the kid that we thought had made everything up for putting us in that position."

"I saw her," Zach said simply. "Well, more to the point, I almost didn't. I was analyzing everyone in the room and I almost didn't notice she was there. That was the first thing that got my attention. Then I noticed her hair - it matched what we found in the tree - and I realized that if I hadn't seen her, maybe she could've been at that scene without being seen then either."

"I remember," Serena said with a smile. "She had your badge, and you forgot to tell me what was going on."

"I really am sorry for that."

She shrugged it off as easily as he'd shrugged off her words from earlier in the day. "Don't worry about it, Zach. It was no big deal, and it was months ago."

"I've been trying not to do that," he told her. "Really, I have. But that day, it was like all of my thought processes were interrupted all of a sudden, just by looking into that little girl's eyes. I can't explain it, I just know that it's nothing I've ever felt before. I connected with her. That's why I offered to take her home that day before the Grand Jury hearing. I wanted a chance to be around her in a situation where we could just talk without everything hanging over our heads. At that point, I thought I had a handle on what was going on. I liked Andrea, saw a little of myself in her, and I was worried about her home situation - we both were. Simple enough, right?"

"But something happened," she surmised. "Otherwise you wouldn't be back to wondering."

"It was the night she got sick," he said by way of confirmation. "I'd given her my cell number in case of emergency, standard enough. But when she called to say she was sick, my reaction - it was more than I could explain by any of the neat little boxes I'd tried to put everything in. I was worried almost to the point of panic. When she told me what she'd been going through, I felt sick just thinking about it. Before all this, I'd never have imagined that I'd do something like leave the front door wide open. But once I got that call, she was the only thing I could think about, the only thing that mattered."

"I remember being at the hospital with you that day," she said softly. "I remember the look in your eyes. You seemed almost afraid - I thought later that I must've been misreading you."

"You weren't," he replied softly. "I was scared to death that day."

"Oh, Zach." She squeezed his hand. "When you offered to stay so I could go home, that wasn't just about me having Kira, was it?"

He shook his head. "No, that was just - the easiest part to explain. I couldn't leave until I knew, and even after I knew, I stayed because I didn't want her to wake up alone. And then I stayed because I didn't want to leave her alone around the clock while she was recovering - that's when I started reading to her. Damn, Serena, she was so alone. She didn't have anybody who would even come visit her in the hospital besides me."

"Which it sounds like was no insignificant thing," she pointed out. "And then you've kept it up the whole time she's been in the safe house."

"You make it sound like a chore. But it - it's not that at all. As much as I do it for her, I enjoy it too. I enjoy anything that gives me a chance to be near her, and I can't explain why." He drew a long, deep breath. "I know this is a horrible, horrible thing to say, but I don't want this case to be over. I can't imagine not having this - not having her in my life anymore."

"That makes two of you. Oh, yeah," she added at Zach's surprised look. "Did you see the look on Andrea's face when she said that thing about going back to foster care and not seeing us anymore? She hates the idea. And it wasn't about not getting to meet my daughter, that was just what opened up the topic."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd bet serious money that she's dreading the end of this trial as much as you are, for the same reason."

"It's not the same," he objected. "She doesn't want to go back to foster care. Considering what she's put up with in those homes, that's not surprising."

"No," Serena insisted, capturing his gaze with her eyes. "It's more than that. It's you. She loves you, Zach. Almost as much as you love her."

"I - what? What do you mean, love her?"

"Exactly what I said. Look, I know this is all unfamiliar territory to you, but all those pieces you've given me - it's somewhere I've been before." She reached out and snagged a nearby photo which depicted her and a then five-year-old Kira sitting together on the snow-covered front lawn of their house in Chicago. "You think it doesn't hurt me sometimes to have to be away from her so much? You don't think I worry myself sick every time she so much as runs a fever?"

"It's not the same," Zach protested. "She's your daughter. Of course you want to spend time with her; of course you worry about her."

"Yes. Because she's my daughter and I love her. It's the second half of that that's important here, Zach. We both know there are parents out there who couldn't care less about their children."

"Like Andrea's mother," he mumbled.

"Exactly. I love Kira because she's my daughter, but the relationship I have with her is based around my love for her. A biological connection doesn't guarantee that in and of itself, and you don't have to have a DNA connection to love someone that way." She reached between them then, gently gripping his shoulder. "You love Andrea, Zach. It's obvious just from the way you look at her, the way you talk about her. Not to mention everything you've done for her. That's not a bad thing."

He didn't answer, staring at the floor. Serena knew him more than well enough to realize there was a problem. "Zach, what is it? Is something wrong?"

"I don't want this," he admitted. "I never did. I didn't want to connect with someone I'm guaranteed to lose, and believe me I know how that sounds. She was never mine to lose to begin with, but -"

But he was cut off by the feel of his partner's arms wrapping around him. "Oh, Zach, I'm sorry."

He welcomed the embrace, slowly raising his hands to return it. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he whispered. "I didn't mean to get tangled up in something that I wouldn't be able to get out of without breaking my own heart. But what could I do? Be one more person in that little girl's life who refused to get involved?"

"No," she whispered back. "We both know you couldn't do that." She hugged him tighter. "You know, what I told Andrea, those weren't just words. Just because she'll be in a foster home instead of a hotel room under NYPD protection doesn't mean we have to lose all contact with her."

He let out a long, slow breath, considering her words. "Maybe," he admitted finally. "But maybe not. Foster parents have a lot of control over the children's lives. If they decide they don't want me to see her, I don't get a vote."

"You can't think like that, Zach," she chided. "I know it's the cop instinct, always prepare for the worst-case scenario, but you can't let that shut out every other option."

"Right," he said almost automatically. With a stranger, she might have thought he wasn't hearing her. But with Zach, she knew better. He was hearing her. He just wasn't sure what to make of her words.

She gently ran her hands over his back. "No matter what happens," she promised, "I'll be here for you."

There was, believe it or not, going to be more to this chapter, but it's already incredibly long as it is.

The blowup between Zach and Serena was just an idea I had, but it seemed to work so I let it come into the story. As for Nichols hearing Ross' voice around certain thoughts, that was just an idea I found amusing, considering the interactions between them in the series.

This chapter contains a reference to the two-parter Loyalty.

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