2x09 - Sayonara Hiawatha

The silence is heavy duty, waiting and waiting out here for the maid to open the damn door or answer her damn phone. Every other second he's checking his mirrors to see if a war party is coming up behind them sneak attack-style to haul them outta the car and into the woods. He and Linden go into those woods again? They ain't coming back again. And the cavalry ain't coming. Nobody else knows they're here. 'Cept for Mary the Wayward Maid and clearly they can't count on her.

Silence is a void he can't abide. It leaves his mind too much time to eat itself.

"Lookit, Linden, when I say I'm here, I'll listen, that you can talk to me, I'm not, like, I'm not—"

"Holder," she warns.

"It's not because you're a chick, y'know?" he persists, even though he can hear her eyes rolling. "I get it. I do. Being a girl in the boy's club—"

"You know what that's like, huh?"

"I know enough to know I don't know what it's like. How hard it is. How much shit you gotta put up with." He hesitates, wondering if she'll smack an injured man for what he's about to say. Saying it anyway. Fast. "This morning at the station I was taking a pee after I talked to Carlson, right, and some uni is in there and he says to me, he actually says to me-" Mumbling around a thick, half-witted tongue, imitating stupid as best he can, "'Hey Holder, how hard you tapping your partner's hot little ass, man?'" He hears her head snap around, feels her eyes digging into him, the burn in them. "And I swear to god, Linden, I almost put his head through the tiles. I wanted to kill him."

"Jesus Christ, Holder—"

"I didn't touch him. I wanted to. I just said to him, 'Only as hard as you suck your partner's hairy, sweaty balls. And it's Detective Holder to you, asshole.'" He chances a glance her way and catches her actually smiling at that, and that makes him smile, too, relieved. "Ain't no one allowed to make innuendo about you 'cept me, Linden."

She thinks that's funny, he can tell, but her smile grows hard, a grimace. "But they do."

"I know. And that's when I got it. You gotta be 'okay', you gotta be 'fine', you gotta be schtum. No matter what. All day every day. You can't give them an inch or they'll take a mile. But I ain't those guys, Linden. When I say you can talk to me, when I ask if you're okay, it's not 'cuz I think you're weak 'cuz you don't got a dick between your legs. It's 'cuz I care. It's 'cuz I'm yours."

Her eyes get big, glittering in the low light, and she snaps her head around again, hiding her face from him.

He thinks he probably just crossed the line there. Tries to cover. "I'm your partner. I'm your shrink, your priest. Partner-partner confidentiality clause, Linden. Okay?" She's quiet over there. Maybe this was a waste of breath, maybe he just stripped himself bare for nothing, maybe she won't ever take him up on this. But he had to say it. He had to try again.

She finally speaks. "I got the goods on you, too, Holder."

"I know you do."

"So are you okay?"

Turning the question back around on him. "I'm scared. Parts of me hurt a lot. I don't wanna be here. But I'm with you, Linden. No matter what."

She nods, quick and hard, but doesn't look at him. He flexes his right hand, wishing he could touch her, pull her to him, bury his nose in her auburn curls, give strength and take it. They need each other.

Instead he sits still and the void comes again and they sit and wait in silence.