Cross Examination

Tenth Floor

One Hogan Place

Friday 5 January 2007

And then he said …

Regan stared down at her witness statements, trying to ignore raised voices in McCoy's office. That as a result of …

Then a voice said "Officer Reagan," and just like that the world came apart around her.

This is a room that's supposed to be safe no matter what, but there's blood on the floor and Robbie screaming and she's never heard a sound like that before in her life, that screaming, she'd give anything to make it stop, make it stop, please, stop.

She tried to say something, some denial, even just the words pounding in her head to the rhythm of her pulse no no no no … Her mouth was dry as ashes and she couldn't make a sound. Or maybe she was screaming.

Somebody was screaming. Help me, oh god, help me, Ellie, help me ….

"See, I thought so," Goren said. "You look kinda different to the picture, though. Kinda – less bloody."

"What do you want?" Regan managed to say. Blood on the floor and screaming, screaming, screaming – the stutter of gunfire – it's the sound of dying, it's her death coming closer, it's the sound that goes with blood and screaming.

"I'd like to know how 'Officer Reagan' turned into 'Counselor Markham'," Goren said.

A long way away, on the other side of the screaming and screaming, Regan heard McCoy. "I'll handle this," he said, voice carrying the edge of authority. "Detective Goren!"

Regan turned towards McCoy and

picks the gun up off the floor and weighs it in her trembling hand. Gotta do it, girl. Get it right. She turns fast around the corner, following the gun, and there he is, and she can't shoot him, not at this distance, and whether he knows that or not he's firing at her, ack-ack-ack deafening indoors and she has to keep moving forward because she's trying to get there in time and then her feet are going sideways out from under her and she falls against the desk.

Goren stepped back a little, shooting a sidelong glance at McCoy

"Regan," McCoy said, and Regan managed to see past the blood and look at him, standing in her doorway, jacket off and sleeves rolled up. He looked soberly at her, and she thought perhaps there was sadness in his eyes. He shook his head a little. "I found a newspaper story online. About a shooting, in Seattle, in police headquarters. The woman in the story, that's you, right?"

Pain explodes in her side, blinds and suffocates her for a second, can't see can't breathe can't think except to know that if she goes down she's gone, if she gives up she's gone, and she pushes up against the desk and tries to hold up the gun and sucks a breath and tries to hear past the screaming and screaming and screaming.

McCoy was waiting. Regan made herself say something, unable to hear her own voice. "Is it relevant to something?" she asked distantly.

At first she thinks she's only fallen. It takes seconds for her to understand that she's been hit. It feels like being punched, and then the pain, and then the blood running slick down under her shirt. All Regan can think is stop stop stop and she tries to find something to do or say that will make it stop, make it stop stop stop - but the bullets have torn up her gut and her chest and she can't, she can't – can barely stay up, has to stay up, go down and you're gone –

"I'd like to know if it's the truth," McCoy said. His voice was quiet and calm.

What do I do, Gran-Da? What do I do?

"It's in the newspaper, it must be true," Regan said. The world was shifting and turning around her with too much blood for her to tell if she'd managed to get those words out aloud. She could see McCoy through the haze narrowing her vision and she wanted to beg him, beg him for what she didn't know, but those were the only words in her head in her own voice: please, Jack, please. Please.

And then McCoy was gone, and the big detective from Major Case was there again and Regan felt everything sliding away from her.

Go down and you're gone, girl. Go down and you're gone.

"That's only part of the story though, isn't it?" Goren said impatiently, edging past McCoy. McCoy opened his mouth and Goren turned his shoulder to him. "The story in the paper ends with you getting shot. But now here you are." He loomed over Regan and she shrank back in her chair.

Go down and you're gone – but the gun is so heavy and it's getting heavier and she hurts, she hurts so much, and she can't breathe, all she's breathing is blood and it hurts and Robbie is screaming and it's getting so dark and so cold.

Go down and you're gone.

"What happened, Officer Reagan? Didn't have the nerve to go back on the line?"

Goren's words rattled around in her head for a moment before she understood them and then white-hot rage brought him real and clear and present and Regan found herself on her feet, fists clenched, face pushed into his. Didn't have the fucking nerve?

"I wasn't on the line," she said, sharp and hard. "I got winged a while before. The bullet damaged the nerves in my arm and shattered my elbow. I can still fire a gun but I never could pass my marksmanship exam – and I tried ten times. Now, can I help you with something?"

"But you were still in uniform, weren't you, when it happened?" Goren said. Uniform. Blue, violet with blood. "Yeah, because in the picture, when they were taking you to the ambulance, you were in uniform."

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. And he's screaming and screaming and there's blood on the floor and blood soaking her uniform and the gun, the gun, the gun weighs so much she can't believe that she can even raise it, let alone keep a steady bead on the perp, but she has to,

"You wear a uniform on a desk in Seattle PDHQ," Regan said.

She takes another step, another. Past the desk where Louisa Carlotti is lying face down with the back of her head missing. Not looking, but she can see, despite darkness hazing the edges of her vision, can see the blood, can see the bodies, can see everything. Another step.

"You got shot riding a desk? Tough luck. What, you were running an errand?" Goren asks.

She wants to tell Robbie to hold on. She wants to tell him she's there. But she can't get air to speak when every breath she takes bubbles and whistles and every breath gives her less and less oxygen and hot blood soaks her shirt and trousers.

"I got shot in my house," Regan said.

She wants to tell him to please, please shut up. The screaming goes right through her. She can't stand it. Please, stop, stop, make it stop.

"In your own home?" Goren said.

"I don't think that's what she means, Bobby," Eames said. "Is it, Regan?"

"That's not what you mean?" Goren said. "Then what do you mean? You got shot in your house ... You got shot inside your own station?"

Blood in her mouth. Blood on the floor. Blood –

Regan thought she answered him. She could feel her lips moving, but she could also feel the weight of the gun in her hand, so heavy, weighing as much as a life, heavy as death – and her hands were empty.

"Maaan," Eames drawled, shaking her head. "Somebody must have fucked up."

"Fucked up big-time," Goren said, laughing. "Hey – was it you?"

She has to keep the gun up. It would be easier if he'd stop screaming.

If I get out of here now – if I get – her mouth moved, Goren's did, Eames – but Goren was between her and the door and there was nowhere for her to go, nowhere except the one place she always was.

She has to hold up the heavy heavy gun. Has to stay on her feet. Has to ignore the screaming. If only he would stop, stop, please, stop, just for a minute, please. Please!

Goren reached out one long arm across the doorframe, blocking her exit. "No, I want to hear more about the fuck-up. Was it your fuck-up? Do we need to worry, counselor?"

Robbie makes one last sound, a sound that might be her name, and the screaming stops. A wave of relief washes over Regan at the silence. The screaming has, thank god, thank god, finally stopped. Later, she will be unable to deny that a part of her understood what that silence meant. But the noise was so unbearable that she couldn't even think about it. All she could think was please please please stop, when what that meant was please please please die. And he did. And she thought thank god, thank god.

"Step back," Regan snarled, desperately reaching for some old trace of tough-cop authority and knowing she was coming up short.

Goren leaned closer and Regan shrank against the wall. "So what happened, counselor? When you got shot in your house? When somebody fucked up? It's got you tied in knots, doesn't it? Must have been bad. Did you get hit hard?"

And now just the silence, and her pulse, and the roaring in her ears, and the sound of her own bubbling breath.

Regan stared at him, breathing hard. "Yeah, it was bad. Yeah, I got hit hard. Friends got hit harder. I saw their bodies. I listened to them dying. And yeah, it's got me twisted up. What's it got to do with you? You got someone from your squad on the critical list, you want to know how he's going to come back, is that it?"

It's all a long way away from her and she can't remember what she's doing, here in this room that should always be safe but that's full of so much blood, here with this gun that drags at her arm and pulls her toward the ground.

What do I do, Gran-Da? What do I do?

Man draws down on you, girl, put him in the ground.

"The world breaks everyone," Goren said softly. "And afterward many are strong at the broken places. How did you come back, counselor?"

"I didn't," Regan said on the hard edge of a sob. "I'm still fucking there. Is that what you need to know?"

"Still where?" Goren asked. Regan closed her eyes and turned away from him. "Still where, Officer Reagan?"

She hears the ack-ack-ack of gunfire and she recognizes it immediately even though it takes her a second to believe her own ears. It comes again as she drags up her pants and then she hears someone screaming and by the time she gets the restroom door open and peers out it's more than one person and the gunfire is coming in long steady bursts.

"Mickey Farrell is on the floor just by the door," Ellie Reagan said. Her voice sounded strange in her ears, but she couldn't work out why, and it was hard to hear, anyway, over the screaming. "He's got his gun out but it's lying on the floor by his hand and he's shot in the chest. He looks at me and he says 'Reagan' and he tries to give me his gun but he can't lift it and then he's not looking at me any more because he's dead. And I'm scared, but I pick up the gun." Oh god oh god oh god her heart hammers. Oh god oh god oh god. But she doesn't have a choice. There's cops out there, bleeding and screaming, and she doesn't have a choice.

"What do you do when you pick up the gun?" the big man asked.

"I go around the corner fast and low and I see the son-of-a-bitch on the other side of the room and I yell out at him to drop it, which is a fucking joke because there's no way I can hit him at this distance – " The big man whose name she couldn't remember was looking at her with a kind of patient pity that Reagan couldn't make sense of but it didn't matter, none of it mattered, he was sliding away from her into the dark like everything else.

She took a step forward, the gun heavy in her hand. "I start toward him and he starts firing. I think I've slipped, there's so much fucking blood on the floor, slipped and fallen against the desk and I'm trying to get up and I know I've fallen hard because I can't catch my breath and – " Blood coursed slick down her side and filled her mouth with copper, and the pain came then with a wave of weakness just behind it. Reagan fought to keep her feet. Go down and you're gone. Go down and you're gone. "And Robbie's screaming for me to help him and then I know I've been shot, that's why I can't breathe, I've been shot and there's so much blood and a weight, such a weight on my chest, but I have to get closer and I realize there's no more gunfire, the gun is jammed or he's out of bullets and he drops it and he puts his hands up and I think it's over until I realize that there's more than one cop gun in the room and if I go down he'll just pick them all up."

God, it was so hard to breathe, crushing weight on her chest, every breath bubbling. It was so dark, so cold. Reagan tried not to look at the shapes around her, at men and women she'd ridden with and gone bowling with and shot the breeze with, some of them dead, some of them about to be. Tried not to listen to the screaming, but that was impossible, that noise, she'd never heard anything like it, it was impossible to ignore, it was unbearable. "Robbie's screaming 'Ellie, Ellie, help me, Ellie' and I can't help him and all I want is for him to shut up because I can't stand it, I can't fucking stand it, and then he makes a sound that might be my name and that's the last thing he says and I'm relieved, I'm so fucking relieved, because at last he's quiet."

What do I do, Gran-Da? What do I do?

"And I've got to get closer and my mouth is full of blood and I don't know what to do and I can't breathe and I've got to keep walking and I've got to hold up the gun and it weights as much as a goddamn Buick."

Man draws down on you …

She couldn't keep her feet much longer. She was suffocating, chest filling up with air and lung filling up with blood, and she didn't have much longer and she didn't know what she was supposed to do, here in this room full of blood.

Put him in the ground.

Reagan managed to take another step without falling. The room was full of shadows now, and some of them looked like people, and some of them looked like the worst nightmares she'd ever had. Except now she knew that this was the worst nightmare she'd ever had, and there was no way she was going to wake up from it, not ever.

"And then what, Officer Reagan?" someone asked her from the shadows.

"Then – " She couldn't get breath to speak. Oh god oh god it hurts. "Then – " Put him in the ground.

Put him in the ground.

"Regan," she heard a familiar voice say, and turned her head and saw Jack McCoy, clear and real, even though there was no way he belonged here, there was no way he'd been here, in this room of blood and screaming – but there he was nonetheless, face set, brows drawn together in a thunderous scowl.

"Then what?" Goren insisted again, and Regan opened her mouth to answer him but a gulping sob choked her. She raised the gun, needing to put her whole body into the effort, hand still shaking but close enough now that she couldn't possibly miss. "Officer Reagan?"

Put him in the ground.

"Detective Goren, that's enough," McCoy ordered harshly.

Goren half-turned toward McCoy and Regan took the chance to push past him. The floor rocked beneath her and her feet slipped in the blood. As she staggered McCoy seized her arm and his hard grip was a still and certain point in the spinning world. Her vision cleared a little and she looked up to see McCoy's eyes bright with anger. When he spoke, though, his voice was steady and low.

"My office," he said, the only thing she could hear through the noise in her head, and steered her that way with a firm push. Regan stumbled away. At McCoy's office door she turned to see McCoy following her.

Then he swung back and stabbed one finger at Goren. "You're done, detective. Pull that again and I'll pull your badge."

Regan made it through the door to McCoy's office, stumbling hard enough against the frame to bruise her shoulder, and sank down on his couch, trembling. She folded her arms over her stomach where she could still feel searing fire and blood coursing hot over her skin and rested her head on her knees.

She heard the office door shut and then there was silence for a while. Thinking McCoy had shut the door on her and left her to pull herself together, she closed her eyes and tried to do just that. She could hardly remember what she'd told them, that big pushy cop, and his partner, and Jack McCoy. Only that when she started she couldn't stop.

Skoda told you that'd happen. And she'd thought, yeah, sure, like I'd ever lose it like that.

Regan took a deep breath and thought about the white line of a highway disappearing under the wheels of her car, steering wheel smooth under her fingers, engine humming. Nowhere to go to, nowhere to be. Just the road.

Her pulse began to slow. She sighed, and sat up.

She was badly startled to see McCoy standing silently, leaning against the closed door, hands in his pockets, watching her. Without a word, he went to his desk where a bottle of scotch and a glass sat among the papers and the law books. He poured a shot and held the glass out to her.

When she didn't move McCoy sat down beside her and took one of her hands, putting the glass into it. "Medicinal," he said.

She nodded, and raised the glass in a shaking hand. McCoy wrapped his hands around hers and steadied the glass for her. Regan drank, coughed a little, started to feel better.

McCoy let her hand go and she set the empty glass down on the floor, avoiding his gaze. She didn't know and she didn't want to know what she'd see in his face.

"Elish," he said, and she flinched hard away from him. There was a little silence between them. McCoy broke it first. "You okay?" he asked.

"Can we not talk about it?" Regan whispered.

"If you don't want to," McCoy said.

"Does what I want matter?" Regan asked harshly. "Did what I want matter with that guy from Major Case all over me? When you were looking up internet news stories?"

"If you'd told me, I wouldn't have had to look," McCoy said, a little edge to his voice. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted – I needed it to be over," Regan said. "I needed it to be in the past. I needed it to be something that happened to somebody else, someone who wasn't me."

"If no-one knows, then it never really happened?" McCoy said. Regan turned to look at him and he was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.

"Something like that," Regan said.

"Sometimes that works," McCoy said. "But it doesn't look to me that it's working all that well for you."

"That doesn't make you special or different," Regan said.

McCoy smiled a little. "Skoda?" She nodded. "Elish – " he started to say.

"That's not my name," Regan interrupted. "Don't call me by that name."

"Why - ?"

"That girl – she never left that room." She stared at him, trying to make him understand. "Who she was, what she did – still there. Stayed there. That's not my name."

McCoy shook his head a little, but he said: "Okay. Okay, Regan. But - the headline said – Hero Cop Kills Cop-Killer. You shot him?"

.oOo.

A/N: "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.. But those that will not break it kills." Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell To Arms