CHAPTER TEN – Firestorm
Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. ~~ Ludwig Borne
"Get up," she demanded. When he didn't move she grabbed an arm and pulled.
He stubbornly refused to rise and was mute as he had been through the entire exchange between her and the boy. He was uncharacteristically quiet. She tugged again and he pulled back. He was much stronger than he looked; she ended up sitting beside him in an instant, having to quickly scramble to keep from ending up in his lap.
She wrested away from him, "let go of me," she snapped.
"Just who grabbed who?" he said darkly casting a pained look her way.
She scowled ferociously at him.
"I'm not ready to get up yet," he said admitting weakness – something Charlie Crews never did.
"That's it. I'm taking you to the hospital," she issued an edict that brooked no argument.
"And you're gonna explain this to Tidwell how?" he countered.
"You're hurt, Crews. Concussed minimum," hostility laced her tone, but her eyes held veiled concern.
"I've been hit harder, hurt worse," he interjected looking as though his very teeth and hair hurt.
"Yes, we're all aware of how terribly invincible and invulnerable the mighty Charlie Crews is," venom again dripped from her lips like acid on his skin. She looked at him as if she hated him. "Just what the hell am I supposed to do?"
"Help me up," he offered, "then go home," he added limiting what help he'd accept.
"I won't leave you," she stated emphatically.
"Isn't that what you did earlier tonight?"
She turned and looked hard at him. "You aren't honestly going to compare that to this," her eyes were narrowed and she looked genuinely pissed off. He looked at her – through her and she had to look away, "that was different," she replied softly.
"Not to me," he grumbled.
"Is that why you came down here? Did you…did you come down here looking for trouble? Carrying a gun that isn't yours and a badge that…. I don't even want to know where you got that badge from, but it's not yours," she exhaled a frustrated sigh.
"It is my gun and my badge," he stubbornly argued, "from before."
She stared at him in her patented non-verbal way of demanding more.
"Stark got them… somehow. He gave them back to me. They're mine and now I use them when I'm doing things…" he explained dully.
"What things? You mean those things YOU THINK I don't know about? Those things that could get you killed?" She shouted, sighed and then looked at the heavens as if the moon might grant her the answers he always sought in the sun. The rain left a crystal clear dark sky with just a sliver of a new moon, high in it's arc. There was symmetry to their actions, something they both noticed.
A moment passed and she added less insistently, "You're driving me insane you know? This was a dumb move, Charlie."
He noticed her deliberate use of his given name, but ignored it and chuckled. "Yeah, well, the settlement didn't require an intelligence test, just said I could be a cop again. Didn't say I'd be a good one," he sounded dour and disappointed. They teetered again on the edge of the knife's edge they walked on often.
She reached out her hand, reconsidered, withdrew and then swallowed hard and continued her move. She reached into his lap and pulled one of his large pale hands into hers. The act of holding hands was at once an intensely personal and intimate gesture. It was also the best she was capable of at this point. She wove her small tanned digits between his long lean white fingers and caressed the back of his hands with her other hand.
"I'm here you know? It might be not be what you want, the way you want, what you think you need, but I'm here – for you," she explained quietly.
"I know, honey," he said softly as he pulled her against his side and rested his chin on her head, "I know." He looked down to see her reaction to his slip, but she continued to weave their hands together and she seemed not to notice.
"Help me up, Reese," he leaned on her accepting her offer of help. "Let's go home. Shit," he swore softly after patting his pockets on the way to the car.
"What?"
"They took my knife," he seemed annoyed.
"They also took your watch, wallet and a boat load of cash, but it figures that knife would be the only thing you'd miss," she chuckled merrily enjoying his loss and discomfort.
"I was not attached to that knife," he recited one of his mantras.
"Bullshit," she laughed and started the car.
They'd avoided death yet again, but things were getting dire with her father. Ever since she'd figured out his part in Charlie's incarceration and confronted her father with that knowledge - things had gotten progressively worse. First he'd vanished and as bad as that was; it was worse when her father had returned.
It seemed he'd only returned to haunt them both and he seemed determined to kill Crews if only to erase the living proof of his sins all those years ago. She had no idea why now, but it had come to this. This was her fault, she'd pushed her father, provoked him and she had to fix it. She was far too 'attached' to Crews to lose him, she thought in terms of Zen again – damn him.
"Where's your car?" she wondered.
"It's parked near the Staples Center. I took the metro – blue line. I'm not a complete idiot," he grimaced easing himself into the confines of her small car.
"All evidence to the contrary," she shot back merrily. Now that she was certain he wasn't going to die, she wasn't as concerned or as angry. "There's a Lakers game tonight so it'll be staying there. So where do you want to sleep - your house or my couch?" she inquired.
"Just drop me at the train station and I'll get home from there," he directed.
"Uh…no," she decided. He shot her a dark look, which she completely ignored, "two blows to the head inside ten days? You get an MRI or you get a babysitter – take your pick," she gave him his limited options.
"My bed is big enough for both of us," he said yawning.
"What makes you think I have any intention of sleeping with you?" she snapped caustically. She glanced at him, narrowing her eyes at his yawn. Sleepiness is a hallmark sign of a head injury.
"I'm fine I just haven't been sleeping well," he sheepishly admitted waving her concern off. "And I didn't mean like that," he pouted, then quietly added, "I meant like the other night."
"You really think we can go back to that after what you did tonight?"
He returned a blank stare like he had no recollection of a kiss that ranked in her top five, maybe her top two. She rolled her eyes and reminded him, "You kissed me remember?"
"I remember that, but then I remember you kissing me back," he offered plainly.
She blushed six shades of red. She had. She remembered pulling his pale features to her and drinking from those lips that looked eternally chapped. She remembered feeling the coolness of his Zen exterior dissipate against the fierceness of their heat and knowing in that moment that each of them was the respite the other needed. She wouldn't take it – she refused it, she didn't think she deserved it – but oh, how she wanted it – and him.
"That…that was a mistake, an error in judgment, a one time thing that we will never do again. You hear me Crews – NEVER." There was defiance in her voice and steel in her tone. She meant it.
"Why not?"
She growled at him and he found he rather liked the sound.
"It's against regs," she gave him the easy answer, the kind one.
"Dating Tidwell was against regs, but you did that," he countered refusing to give up on them. "What makes this any different?"
"What makes…." She slammed on the brakes bringing the car to halt. She stared at him and opened her mouth to speak several times but the words would not come, so she snapped her mouth shut and stared out the window. Minutes passed and he watched her struggle with an answer, one that would end the discussion, but not their partnership and the important link that strengthened with each minute they spent together.
Finally, her voice cut through the stillness, quiet but strong, "Tidwell was different… because I could never feel anything real for him. It was just sex," she admitted. "He was nice, but there was no danger of getting lost in someone I could never love," she laid her heart bare.
His hope soared at her disclosure. Hope is however, a dangerous thing, just as hollow as fear and just as dangerous, but he just had to know in the way people have to know things so he pushed, "Could you love me Dani?"
She did not answer him; she simply pulled back into traffic and ignored him.
There was nothing but silence for a long while. It gave him time to appreciate all the noises he would have missed if he weren't listening so intently for her to say something, anything. He'd even settled for one of her frustrated sighs, but she gripped the wheel stared straight ahead and gave him nothing. He heard the rhythmic sound of the wheels on the pavement as the sped through the dark with each section of highway thumping under the car like a metronome. He heard the clicking of the blinker each time she signaled a lane change or once they left the highway on the side streets as the approached his home.
They parked the car in his drive and sat. She made no effort to move, nor did he.
She exhaled and rotated her head so that she was staring at the headliner. Slowly she closed her eyes and could feel herself teeter on the brink of something dangerous. That's how it always was with them – one second away from mutually assured destruction. Maybe that was what drew her to him.
"Reese," he reminded careful not to touch her except with his voice, which was soothing, sure and strong.
"Yes," she whispered. "Okay? Yes. Now can we just drop this?"
He nodded and then realizing she couldn't hear or appreciate his answer added, "let's go inside," softly. For a moment he thought she'd leave, run away but she didn't – she climbed from the car and his heart unclenched as he realized she would never leave him. Not like that. She might never love him, but she'd never leave him either.