Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. No copyright infringement of publicly recognizable characters, products or services is intended.

A/N: Always finish what you start...

Chapter 7: Of Things Past

There was very little paperwork. He didn't press charges. He just had Michael held on public disturbance which gave the man a place to sleep and gave Lassiter time to think.

He wasn't angry—At least, he was pretty sure that he wasn't. In truth, he was more exhausted than anything. Between the grief of losing Hank and the anxiety of seeing his father, he was beginning to feel completely drained; like spending an entire day interrogating suspects—Like spending any day working with Spencer.

Emotion was becoming an unnecessary distraction, apathy towards everything seemed to be the best course of action: Just go numb. Feel nothing. It's the only way to survive.

This was the part that he was good at; pretending that nothing happened, that nothing mattered, that nothing hurt. Of course his lip still throbbed and sipping coffee had to be done with a touch of finesse but that didn't matter either. All wounds heal. His lip would heal, his heart would heal.

Eventually, he'd forget his father's insults. He'd forget the judging eyes that leered at him from the other side of a scotch glass. He'd forget that he'd been made to shoulder the blame for everything wrong in his father's life. With each finessed sip from his coffee mug he challenged himself to forget and when he refilled his cup for a fourth time he realized that he probably never would.

Crap.

Lassiter leaned back in his chair and gazed at the man sleeping in the cell across from him. It was nearly six in the morning, Michael was beyond sleeping soundly. His light snoring gradually grew to grunts and fits of tossing. After that came several deep coughs which forced him upright and then doubled him over, hacking miserably into his hand.

Lassiter set his coffee cup under his chair. "Want some water?"

Michael managed a nod and seemed surprised when Lassiter left the room then returned and extended a paper cup towards him.

"Thank you," he rasped, drinking the liquid down and looking as if he loathed the taste of it. When he was finished, he crumpled the paper cup, tossed it aside and moved his meaty hands to his lower back. "I've slept better standing up," he growled. He did a twist this way and that with no small amount of popping sounds. When he finally settled, his eyes combed the room. "What happened? They locked us up?"

"Technically, I'm they," Lassiter said, returning to his chair and retrieving his steaming cup. He sipped from his mug—Delicately—And watched Michael's reaction to his statement.

The older man paced the cell, squeezing and shaking the bars as if they were a child's toy. When they didn't budge he crossed his arms over his chest and looked as if he might try to lecture his way out of the cell. "I am in no mood for pranks, Booker. "

Lassiter shook his head. "Oh, it's not a prank—You're really locked up. But the good news is I'm not pressing charges so you should be free to go soon."

Michael's eyes squinted. "Pressing charges?" He leaned forward as if something had suddenly caught his attention. His eyes grew wide. "Mary and Joseph!" He stepped backwards slightly and looked as if he were trying to remember something. After a minute of idling, he looked back towards him, somewhat apologetically. "I did that didn't I?" He didn't wait for Lassiter's response. "Does it hurt?"

Lassiter's eyes narrowed.

Of course it hurt. It was sheer agony to be publicly humiliated by his own flesh and blood. But that pain was also nothing new.

Lassiter stared into his cup. "No more than usual," he mumbled.

Michael's look hardened. "That's not funny."

Lassiter shrugged. "It wasn't supposed to be."

Michael tried the door again, jingling the metal against its hinges and listening to the sound. "Well, that wasn't supposed to happen."

Lassiter brought his attention up from his cup. "See, that's what I can't figure out. What was supposed to happen?"

"Not that," Michael said quickly, giving up on the door.

"Oh. So there was some version of last night that didn't end with you hitting me like almost every night of my childhood?"

Michael pointed a stern finger. "You mind that tone."

"Or what?"

"Or what?" Michael looked at him as if he'd grown a third arm. "Come over here and I'll show you what!"

Lassiter set his cup down and stood defiantly, the legs of his chair scraping against the concrete floor. He crossed the room and stopped within inches of his father, looking from the cold metal bars to the man trapped behind them.

Michael stared a moment then wandered back to his cot and sat with crossed arms. "Ah, you get your defiance from your mother ..." His hairy lip twitched as if there were other words that wanted to jump out.

Lassiter tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against the cell. "Why are you here, dad? What'd Annie say to get you to come?"

Michael frowned. "Who's Annie?"

Lassiter was temporarily dumbfounded. Clearly Michael wasn't fully awake—Or completely sober.

"She's the one who invited you," he offered and when Michael still looked confused he added, "You said you couldn't turn down her invitation."

Michael rolled his eyes. "Oh, for crap's sake—No one sends invitations to a funeral, Booker! I saw the notice in the paper, same as everyone else."

Well, that answered nothing.

"Okay... So still, why'd you show up? Mom didn't."

Michael snorted. "That's because she's a frigid—" He stopped himself suddenly. "I came to see you," he allowed and looked as if he were pouting.

Lassiter's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Michael didn't seem to like that question. "What do you mean, why? I can't see my own son when I want to?"

Lassiter shrugged. "Sure you could, you just never seemed to want to until now." He pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed them over his chest. He felt an inner instinct awakening. He studied the older man skillfully. "So then, what'd you want to see me about? It couldn't be about the money, could it?"

Michael's tantrum stopped as his gaze seemed to warm with renewed interest.

Lassiter nodded. "You must've known that Hank came into a sizeable amount of money when the gold was discovered on his property—It was in all the papers. You didn't just happen to turn up to see if he'd left me any of it, did you?"

Michael's face twisted in disgust. "Why you cocky little—" He pursed his lips and spat on the floor.

Lassiter jumped backwards. "What the… Did you just spit at me?" He looked to Michael for some reasonable response but the man only stared out from under furrowed brows. "What is wrong with you?"

Michael stood with clenched fistst. "You know what—Press the charges for all I care and damn the money! I don't need your charity, your sympathy or your money. You think that's why I came?"

"Yes!"

"Well you're wrong!"

Lassiter threw his hands into the air. "Well, what other reason could you possibly have to—"

In a single step, Michael crossed from his cot and grabbed the bars of the cell as if he would pull himself through them. "I said I was here for you!"

Lassiter tossed his hands in the air. The conversation seemed stuck in a loop. "But that doesn't make any sense."

"Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No!"

"You were never there for me!"

Lassiter's words were louder and more direct than he had intended but they caught Michael's attention. The older man released the bars and took a half step away. For a long while, he said nothing. He only stared at the floor as if something interesting had scampered from under the cot and was dancing back and forth at his feet.

Lassiter felt an overwhelming desire to pace. He took a wide lap around the room, running his tongue along the bitter bruise on his lip as he tried to distract himself from the jumble of thoughts clouding his mind.

He felt Michael watching him the entire time. On his third lap around the room, Michael seemed to grow agitated.

"Booker, would you please sit down? You're making me dizzy."

Lassiter stopped, only to defiantly shove his hands into his pockets. "I've been sitting all morning trying to figure this out," he said, kicking at a loose piece of concrete and watching it skip away. "That didn't seem to work so I think I'll stand."

Michael breathed heavily. "Well then could you… Could you at least stand in one place?"

Lassiter shrugged. "I could ..." He started pacing again.

Michael began to fidget. He looked like caged tiger who'd just been denied his hunt. He toyed with the bars again, giving the door a solid pull as if the metal had somehow weakened from his last attempt.

"Look," he said with grunt. "I just wanted to explain myself."

"Well, you did that in the usual way," Lassiter mumbled.

"I told you that was an accident."

"And that's the usual line."

Michael gripped the bars and shook them fiercely. "Would you knock it off and look at me?"

Lassiter froze. A jolt of anger shot through him. "Look at you?" A lifetime of memories ran through his head in the space of a second, each one more disappointing than the first. "I used to look up to you." He cheated his eyes in his father's direction.

Michael's expression softened. His jaw went slack.

"I did," Lassiter said, this time mostly to himself. He set off on another tour of the room. "Don't ask me why... Seems stupid, especially after stuff like this ..." He motioned carelessly to his lip then shook his head. "I felt like I had to earn your affection. Whenever I didn't get it I thought it was my fault. Something I deserved... It took me years to know better. And even when I did, I told myself that it was okay—It was just the way you were. I told myself to man up and take it so long as it kept you around... I know it makes no sense but neither did getting hit all the time."

He wandered back to his chair and dropped into his seat.

Michael was still quiet, still unmoved, still watching him almost numb.

Lassiter retrieved his coffee mug, finessed a sip of the tepid liquid then stared into the cup. "So there… Before now, the last time I thought about it was at the academy… Self defense drills ...Who would've thought there'd be an upside to knowing how to take a punch? Outside of that it's water under a bridge. I'm over it. Just let sleeping dogs lie ...Besides, you can't change the past, you can only learn from it."

Michael was silent another long moment then choked a sigh and dropped to his cot. "You get your outlook from him," he mumbled. "He told me to expect that."

The blood in Lassiter's veins suddenly ran cold. His eyes shot up from his cup. "Who?"

Michael's breath fluttered the hair under his nose. "Mendel ..."

That statement deflated the room. Lassiter suddenly felt both tired and confused. He inched to the edge of his chair, too excited to stand. "Hank?"

Michael nodded.

Carlton set his coffee back onto the floor. "Hank, Hank? Old Sonora Hank?"

"Of course, Booker! How many Hank Mendels do you know?"

Lassiter ignored the question. "When did you speak with him?"

"A little over a year ago... He said he wanted to talk, so we met for drinks ..."

Michael paused.

Carlton waited.

And waited.

"And?"

Michael breathed deeply and looked as if telling stories was suddenly too difficult for him. "We just talked, son. It was adult talk."

"You know I've been a consenting adult for more than a few years now, dad."

Michael gave him the watch-your-tone look. It had absolutely no bite coming from the other side of a metal cage but Lassiter pretended to respected it anyway and nodded an apology.

"Why'd he reach out to you?"

Michael sighed. "He said he wanted to catch up. He told me about the gold, told me about his wedding. He said you'd arrested him," he gestured to the cell bars, "Which apparently is a thing… He said the last time he saw you, he'd finally realized how much you'd grown and said he'd vowed to do something once you were of age."

Michael paused and looked at Carlton as if he wanted to be certain that he had the younger man's full attention. When he saw that he had it, he nodded his head and ballooned his chest as if he would blow out a row of candles. "And then the bastard hauled out and punched me dead in the face ...Twice!"

Lassiter gasped. It was an actual, audible gasp—A sound that he never expected to make in front of another adult person. Ever.

Michael looked at him and nodded. "And you think your lip's bad, I spit a tooth." A hint of a smile formed under his dark gray whiskers. He touched a hand to his jaw as if he could still feel the pain. "After that, he bought the next few rounds and chatted me up over ice… He told me a story... Some stupid story about a duck and a bug ..."

Carlton sat a little taller. He knew this story. "It was a turtle," he said.

Michael looked confused. "A turtle and a duck? That doesn't make any sense."

"No, it wasn't a duck at all. It was just a turtle."

"I remember there was a bug in there somewhere."

"Right, the scorpion was the bug but it was a turtle not a duck."

Michael waved a hand. "Fine, it was a turtle. So the story goes like this—"

"But I've heard the story already—"

"Let me tell it anyway ...See, a turtle and a scorpion want to cross a pond—Or something. So the scorpion walks up to the turtle and says to him, Hey, how 'bout you give me a ride? Then the turtle says, What? Are you crazy? You're a scorpion. You're gonna sting me. Then the scorpion says, 'That makes no sense 'cause if I sting you then we'll both drown ...'"

Lassiter listened patiently as the story droned on. He'd heard it from Hank hundreds of times. It had never been among his favorites, especially since the main characters died in the end.

To his credit, Michael seemed to be trying his best to keep the story interesting. He changed his voice, doing his best impression of what the scorpion and the turtle might've sounded like. He made wild gestures with his hands and acted out animal actions and imaginary waves.

As the story started drawing to its end, it seemed to change somewhat. In Hank's version, the scorpion stung the turtle and they both drowned. But as Michael told it, the turtle took the scorpion's sting and kept swimming until he had gotten them both to shore safely.

Lassiter frowned at the strange twist in the narrative. "That's not how it goes ..."

"Well, I didn't like Mendel's version," Michael said. "It was stupid. This one's closer to the truth."

"The truth?"

Michael brought his eyes up to meet him. His fingers played nervously in the palms of his hands. "See you… You get to the other side, like that turtle. The sting doesn't bring you down, you just keep on. Nothing stops you …"

Lassiter stared blankly.

"But me... I'm like that scorpion—You know desperate to the last. After all, what are they good for? Little armored bodies, a big stinger. They never actually do anything, just hurt people... Even though they don't always mean to ..." Michael's eyes glossed over. His gaze set onto the floor, as if his entire conversation with Hank was lost somewhere in the cold cement.

"The bloody Ghost of Christmas Past poured me a drink that day," he said. "He knew so much about you. Way more than I ever did …Like—" He stood and crossed back to the edge of his cage. "Since when are you allergic to mint?"

Carlton shrugged. "Since birth, I guess ..."

"Is it bad?"

"I've never been hospitalized for it but—"

"And your shoulder—Mendel said you hurt your shoulder."

"That was a few years ago, dad."

"But it's okay now?"

Lassiter nodded.

Michael hummed softly and leaned against the bars. "You're tenacious… Far more than I ever was. I mean, look at you… My son the cop."

"Detective."

"Right. Head Detective… And his dad the washout," Michael's eyes dropped to the floor. "Mendel dared that I wouldn't do it... Said he bet I couldn't go through with it. He said a real man would have the courage to face what scared him... When I saw the notice in the papers I knew that it was now or never… Bet you wish it was never ..."

Lassiter crossed to the bars and stood just within reach of them. "I never wished for never. I just wish it were different."

"I wish I could've been different." Michael said. He chewed on the long gray hairs of his lip. "I wanted to be. God knows I wanted to be… But the stinger... It always gets me. But not you. Mendel taught you to swim that water no matter what was riding you… You both did real good and… And I'm proud of you… That's all I wanted to say."

Michael cleared his throat and stared solemnly at the floor. He looked like a shadow of the man that he had been only hours ago. His dark suit was creased with wrinkles. His long, graying hair, was matted and unkempt. The blue eyes that had seemed so cold and callused now seemed to be conflicted and worn. They were glossed with a layer of moisture that didn't seem quite bold enough to escape as tears.

Lassiter studied the man quietly, taking note of every detail. He hadn't expected a full confession. Michael had come all this way—Crawled out of whatever hole he was hiding in, to face down his demons. It wasn't easy—It was barely triumphant —But Lassiter could concede the fact that it was at least honest. The sobered, sorrowful expression of a worn man, now half in tears, was the look of total truth.

At the end of the day, isn't that what counts, said Hank's voice in the back of his mind. Any man can chose right when all he's got is right and wrong. But give him a thousand choices and a hundred years and if he chooses right in the end, then that's alright by me.

Lassiter couldn't argue with that. He smiled softly then stretched his hand towards his father. "I never thanked you for coming," he said, nodding somberly as if they'd never left the Chapel at Old Sonora.

Michael Lassiter patted his eyes with the back of his sleeve then wrapped a meaty hand around his son's. "Thank you both for having me."

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END

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