The following day, Casey demanded to be sent home the moment the doctor showed his face. He stood at the foot of her bed with a tablet in hand, flicking through screens of what Fin assumed was her patient record.
"You'll need to keep that toe taped to the next one until you follow up with your ortho. That hand is more concerning – the nurse will give you instructions for its care before you go. Who do you have for assistance when you get home?"
"Me," Fin answered as Casey opened her mouth. He saw the flash of irritation on her face. Too bad. She wasn't going anywhere without him, not when Kirnel still might be able to reach her. And though she was the most stubborn person he knew, Casey was also smart. She knew she was safer with him.
So he drove her away from the hospital when the doctor agreed to discharge her. Not to his apartment, though; Cragen and Branch had arranged a set of rooms at an extended-stay hotel across town from Casey's own apartment. A uniform met them in the parking lot and inspected the room before allowing them to enter. Then he parked himself in the hallway outside the door. There was another cop down in the lobby.
Casey lay down and was asleep less than five minutes later. Fin stood by the room's only window, gazing down into the parking lot; nothing suspicious stirred, but he couldn't turn off his watchfulness or sense of alertness.
He had to do something. And he had to do it soon. The minute Casey was feeling anything like her old self, he didn't think they'd be able to contain her in this hotel suite. They had Arnaut Leeson, who kept demanding they call him Elias Fine, but Munch said he was clinging to a story that he'd come after Casey on his own, without Kirnel's knowledge. Casey had said there was recording equipment on for some of her time in that basement, but when the uniforms had raided the place none had been found. When Casey heard that she'd be raring to go, and would run herself right into danger.
So, he'd run there before her.
He waited long enough to be sure Casey was good and asleep, then left, pausing for a word with the uniform in the hallway. Fin exited the hotel after making sure that the cop who was supposed to be in the lobby, was in fact still in the lobby.
At the precinct, he had to wait out a meeting, but as soon as it was over Cragen called him into the Captain's office. The other detectives had been working while Fin stayed with Casey – the ID spoofing trail had led in part the go-between, a man named Ross Gulliver who Munch had arrested.
According to the Captain, Gulliver didn't even try to lie once he heard what the detectives were trying to pin on Kirnel; he was just a guy who'd been paid to make the contact between Kirnel and Arnaut. He had no desire to go to jail for being an accomplice to kidnapping and torture. In exchange for a promise that he wouldn't be prosecuted, he spilled everything he knew; how his friend had contacted him, told him where to find Leeson and what to say to tell him, and everything Leeson had said in reply. He signed a statement and agreed to testify in court. Given Kirnel's proven history of vengefulness, a protective detail was then posted to his neighborhood.
Finally, finally, the following day all the bureaucratic forms had been signed and contact was made with Kirnel's warden. Fin was sitting at his desk that evening, scrubbing at his head with his fingernails in weary frustration and trying to focus on a case, when Cragen exited his office and approached his and Munch's desks.
"It's done," he nodded at the questions in both men's gazes.
Fin waited for the sense of relief, or even exhilaration, to come. It didn't. His mind was too accustomed to the tension, the edginess of constant guard. He was understanding the words but his heart wasn't yet comprehending them.
"Kirnel's communications will be severely restricted and recorded," Captain Cragen said, while Munch nodded. "He'll no longer have a cell mate and will have limited contact with fellow prisoners. The number of guards will be limited too. This will all go before the review board for final approval, but given the clear level of danger to an assistant DA and the proof we have, I expect it all to stick."
Fin sat forward against his desk, hands clasped, elbows out. He gave a silent sigh, trying to release some of the tension that he knew had built up in his shoulders and neck over the past months. It wasn't over, no. There'd be a trial, sentencing, board reviews … there were always guards who could be bought … but what could be done had been. He could now tell Casey that Kirnel's ability to come after her again were greatly reduced.
Slowly, slowly, the relief began to trickle into his consciousness. He drew a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes.
Munch nodded again. "Thanks," he told Cragen, for both himself and his partner. Cragen just nodded. Then, when he saw Fin pulling out his phone, "Go, Fin. Tell her in person." He grinned when his detective obeyed with alacrity.
Casey was standing at the hotel window, arms crossed, when Fin let himself into the room. She swung toward him with a lined brow and her mouth already opening before he could get a greeting out of his.
"I'm not staying here another ni"-
"Slow your roll," he inserted smoothly, pulling out the chair at the small corner table and sinking into it. "I got news."
She allowed her sentence to be cut off with just a narrowing of her eyes, and paced over to stand before him.
"We tracked it," Fin stated succinctly, having no desire to protract his explanation under her questioning eyes. "Leeson's operation, and most importantly Kirnel's communication channels. The warden is clamping down on Kirnel. He'll be extremely limited. Doesn't mean it'll be impossible for him to reach out-" Casey knew as well as he that no prison or jail was ever air tight – "but it'll be a lot more effort for him and more easily traceable." Fin stopped, judging Casey's reaction for a second. There was one other step he'd taken, but he didn't know what her reaction might be if he told her what it was. Casey was as by-the-book as they came. Rules mattered to her, a lot.
She sat down in the chair next to Fin at the little table, breath gusting from her. She leaned forward onto her elbows, and her shoulder brushed his arm. Fin raised it and draped it across her shoulders, lightly, with care for her healing lacerations. These last 2 days he hadn't pressed, with the touching, and he didn't now, really; she just looked like she could use some human contact. And had sent no signals that his might be unwelcome. She didn't now, either. On the contrary; he felt her frame relax under the weight of his limb, and after a moment, she was leaning into his side. He stilled his body, to absorb the sensation of light that her reaction raised in his chest. He cleared his throat. She tilted her face toward him.
"Do you remember when we talked about human nature, awhile back? At the bar?" He lifted his thumb from her shoulder and brushed it along the curve of her jaw. She blinked at him, slowly, and he thought her cheeks took on a pinker tint.
"Being more isolated like that, also makes it harder for other inmates to get to him," Fin continued quietly. Casey nodded. Kirnel had raped children and killed one of them. He was at higher risk of 'accidents' than other inmates, just for that reason, but now had a higher level of protection, as well. Fin pursed his lips and decided to just tell her. "I dropped a few words," he said finally. "To one of the guards I know, a little. About how it might not be a bad thing, from a moral perspective, if the other inmates knew just how brutal Kirnel was to those boys."
He stopped. Waited for her reaction. She met his gaze. He saw her absorb what he was saying. She swallowed. The skin between her eyebrows bunched. It was a few minutes before she said anything. Finally,
"Fin …" she searched his face, eyes tracking back and forth. He didn't flinch from it, and let her see in his face his certainty that he had done nothing wrong, by deliberately putting Kirnel in danger. "That's your choice, huh?" Casey murmured finally. Fin jerked his chin up. Yes, it was, and he stood firm by it. What he didn't know was how she would react, and he knew that the door into whatever their future relationship might be was possibly hinged on what she decided to do with this information.
Casey signed, and broke from her intense focus on Fin to gaze off out of the sliding glass doors onto the room's balcony. "I don't think it would be mine," she mused. "But" – now she lifted the hand with intact nails, and twined its fingers through his where they rested on her shoulder. "OK."
"OK?" Fin's fingers tightened around hers as he relished the sensation and the fact that she'd initiated the touch.
Casey nodded. "I prefer to trust the legal and judicial systems we have in place, to do their jobs. Usually they do. But I can see that for you, if someone you … um, if someone on your team is in danger, you might operate outside the bounds the law places on you. I can understand that. I think, even respect it. As long as you understand that in your place I might not make the same choice."
Huh.
Fin realized, after she said the words, that he'd been braced for a different reaction. For some kind of rebuke, possibly. Ultimately, for rejection. But she wasn't doing that. And if she could handle this kind of difference with such grace, perhaps – probably – she could handle other types - like the ethnic and cultural ones that existed between the two of them.
Well, then.
There was a kinking sensation around the area of his heart that was a mix of tenderness and a strange kind of hope that he couldn't remember feeling in a long, long time. His pulse was kicking up. He wanted more of touching her. He couldn't do too much of that, not until her injuries – seen and unseen – healed. But he could clear the air about one thing, at least.
"I do, y'know," he told her.
She crinkled her brow at him inquisitively.
"You said 'team'," he murmured. "But it wasn't what you were going to say."
Casey's upper teeth came out to clamp onto her bottom lip, but she didn't deny it, and she didn't dodge his gaze. He cleared his throat, awkwardly.
"So I just want to make sure you know. You are someone I care about." Her eyes were wide, meeting his, and his heart beat was – not slow. "A lot." His voice had more gravel in it than usual. "More than … maybe I should, right now."
Casey twisted around in her chair so that she fronted fully on him, never losing eye contact, still gripping one of his hands in her good one. "I – I know, Fin," she answered quietly. "I do know. I just – we hadn't talked about it, really, and I wasn't sure … I'm not sure what you want."
Fin nodded. "Do you know what you want?" His voice was downright husky, now. He swallowed.
Casey's eyes were clear. "I do."
Ah. Over the heavy thud of his heart, Fin heard her certainty. So she meant – what he wanted. But he wanted to hear it.
"And what is that?" His head lowered to hers, he murmured the question into her ear. She slanted her face a centimeter sideways and her cheek brushed his.
"You," Casey whispered, and leaned now, her temple to his jaw.
When Fin shifted his head sideways and his lips touched hers, a breath sighed from her mouth. It was nothing like their first kiss. This was soft exploration, a deliberate wordless expression, a low flame that caught slowly and built gradually. But it was fire, nevertheless, for all their control. Casey let out a low moan which tightened his groin. He placed a hand on either side of her head, fingers pushing into her hair. He deepened the angle, the movement of his tongue, and the feelings he was trying to convey.
Casey let him tilt her back, but then she leaned into his movements. Shifting toward him, she moved languidly from her chair to straddle him in his. Oh damn. She was sitting on the most reactive part of him, deliberately, he knew, and her breath was beginning to rasp against him. As his tongue met and danced with hers, Fin allowed his hands to leave her head and meander, to her shoulders, then her collarbones, then lower. She pushed up into his touch, and he thought he heard a quiet yes in amidst her breaths. 'Yes' was right.
But there wasn't much else he could do, really, given her multiple lacerations and the injuries to her hand. Even the broken little toe would be too easy to forget, and mishandle, in his current state. So Fin started to back off as slowly as they'd built up - returned his hands to her face, turned the diving forays of his tongue to long presses to her lips, and then to her cheeks. Casey felt the downshift, and scooted down his thighs far enough to give his anatomy some relief.
But she didn't go farther. He leaned his head on the chair's high back. She rested her bandaged hand on it next to his head, and the healthy one on his chest where it lifted with his breaths at a rate that slowly returned to normal.
Looking up into Casey's soft and wondering gaze, Fin couldn't restrain a smirk. "I told you - it's not just the situation, it's us. You're not in danger any more. I'm exhausted. You're in pain. And we're still …" he wasn't sure how to end that sentence.
"Hot," Casey supplied, and what else could he do but laugh, agree, and lean back into her – at least briefly. She returned his slow heat, but before it threatened to overwhelm them again, she backed off. He did note with satisfaction the reluctance in the move.
"OK, then." Casey nodded firmly. "Good. Once things have settled some – we're back to our routines, I'm healed up – let's revisit this … uh, discussion."
Fin quirked his half-smile at her. "Yes. Let's do that."