5 September 2010

When the moment came Nick felt nothing short of triumphant. Stepping out from the crowd of officers, showing his face to Muhammad Hartono with the word police blazoned across his chest, his heart was hammering from adrenaline, and fear, and shear jubilant victory. It should have felt wrong, finally showing his true face to Hartono, announcing his name, blowing his cover once and for all; he had spent years doing everything he could to hide Nick Buchanan from Hartono's searching gaze, and now that he had revealed himself there would be no going back. But it felt right, instead; it was a moment he had been waiting far too long to savor. The moment when he finally, finally got to shed Wesley Claybourne, and clap Hartono in handcuffs, the moment when it was all, finally, over.

Only it wasn't over, not really. Abbott was still loose somewhere in the footie grounds, armed and full of rage, looking for targets. The team spread out, and Nick's heart hammered in his chest as he raced through the stands. There were dozens of cops present, but Nick wanted to be the one to find him, to bring him down. Oh, Abbott had only been acting on orders, but he had taken those orders without question. It was Abbott who had killed Abdul Supomo and his entire family, Abbott who had shot at Jen, left her wounded and vulnerable alone back at the station. To Nick's mind it would only be right that he be the one to capture their man, to tackle him to the ground, to put an end to it; he was not the sort of man who ordinarily cared for vengeance, but the faces of Abdul's children flashed before his eyes and Jen's screams echoed in his ears and he had to find the bastard, and bring him down.

Fortune favored him in a way, for he was the one who discovered the man, but he was all alone, and the ensuing fight was vicious, personal. Abbott was fighting for his freedom but Nick was fighting to put down the last of the demons who had dogged his steps, to put an end to the violence and the misery that had so upended his life. He was fighting for the woman he loved, and a man who had been his friend, and for a woman and two little children who had been murdered in their own home for no reason at all. When he finally got his hands on Abbott he bashed the man's head against the ground, and his vision went red with rage, his body moving without direction from his conscious mind. He wanted it to stop, the senseless murders, the gun smuggling, the human trafficking, wanted to put an end to all the hurt these men had caused. He wanted Jen whole.

They had to grab him by his vest and pull him off Abbott, in the end. It was probably for the best; Nick had bashed him more times than was strictly necessary, and his rage had spun so far out of control he very easily could have killed the bastard right there, and never even realized it.

"You're all right, Nick," Allie said, tugging at him. "You're all right, he's down."

She was watching Nick with a worried look on her face, and he spun away from her, not wanting her to see him like this. The blood on his face, the fire in his eyes, his knuckles bruised from the force of his own rage. There was a question in the way she watched him - just what the bloody hell happened out there? - that Nick didn't want to answer. She'd never understand it, the events that had led him to this point, but she wasn't supposed to. This wasn't Allie's fight; it was Nick and Jen's, and without Jen there to steady him Nick had nearly lost his head, nearly lost his badge. If Abbott had turned up dead because Nick couldn't stop pounding his head against the ground, everything would have been over for him. It was a damned close call.

On his way out he passed Hartono; for a moment he paused near where the man stood, handcuffed and pressed up against a patrol car. It was the last chance Nick would ever have to speak to him without someone recording everything he said, his last chance to strike the man, if he wanted. There were other coppers around, keeping an eye on Hartono, but Nick could have sidled up and decked him if he wanted to. Christ, he wanted to, wanted to wrap his hands around Hartono's neck and squeeze, and squeeze, until the life faded from his eyes and the world was free from the stain of his existence.

But Jen would have disappointed in him if he had, and he couldn't find the words to say. We got you, you son of a bitch, he thought, but there was no point in delivering that last piece of vitriol. Hartono knew exactly what happened, now. He knew, now, that Trish and Wesley had been duplicitous, had been the ones reporting on him all that time, knew that they had finally succeeded, and put an end to his empire. Hartono's dark eyes watched him flatly, showing no sign of any emotion whatsoever; there were no words Nick could say that would rattle him, not now, and not ever. And so he only shook his head, and walked away, and hoped that Jen would be proud of him for not losing his job over a prick like Hartono.

"I think that's enough for now," Waverly said, and inwardly Jen breathed a sigh of relief.

When the team returned, victorious, Nick leading Abbott in handcuffs to the interview room while every single Homicide copper stood by whooping and cheering for him, it had taken all of Jen's restraint to keep from running to him, wrapping her good arm around him and holding him close. Every minute he was away from her had been its own kind of torture as her mind ran wild imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to him, and seeing him now, with a split lip and a black eye but grinning and alive, was such a relief it threatened to make her knees buckle. She held herself together - if only just - and that was all for the good, for the second Abbott was settled in interview Waverly had called for a private debriefing, just Jen, Nick, and the brass.

It was one of the more uncomfortable hours of Jen's life, sitting in Waverly's office trying not to touch Nick, facing Waverly and Jarvis and Wolfie and all their questions. SIS took Hartono but as a gesture of thanks for their assistance on the operation they had thrown Abbott to Homicide. The case against him was ironclad; he would answer for what he'd done to the Supomos, and he'd go to prison, and if they were lucky some scrap in the yard would spell an end to his legacy of violence. But the bosses had questions about more than just Abbott; Nick and Jen had been lying to their team for over a year now, and that kind of betrayal was not easily forgotten.

They had played their parts so perfectly that now the people who trusted them most were watching them warily, appraisingly, no doubt wondering whether they really knew Nick and Jen at all. Behind their questions Jen could almost hear them thinking what else have they lied to us about? What else don't we know?

What the brass didn't know could fill a book, but Jen wasn't about to tell them that. Nick answered most of the questions, lies tripping off his tongue so easily - no, we never crossed any lines, yes, we were undercover as a married couple but we have always been professional. Waverly looked like she didn't quite believe him, as if she could almost smell their connection to one another in the air, but she'd always been fond of Jen and the Sergeants didn't share her concerns, and so she accepted Nick's lies with good grace. That gave Jen the smallest sliver of hope; Waverly wanted her to succeed, and Waverly suspected Nick and Jen were more than just partners, but she wasn't taking them to task for it. Maybe they had a chance, here. Maybe, with Waverly's help, they could find a way to have it all, the jobs they loved and one another. Maybe there was hope for them yet. Jen prayed there was; she couldn't imagine losing Nick, not after this.

"You two go home and get some sleep," Jarvis said. "You look like you could use it."

"You don't know the half of it," Nick said with one of his easy smiles, and they all shook hands, and filtered out of the office, the door closing behind them drawing the whole sorry debacle to an end.

It was over, now. Jen's house was waiting for her, her bed and her shower along with a load of rubbish that had probably begun to stink to high heavens. She could go back there alone, if she wanted, could fall asleep blissfully unobserved and stay in bed until noon, could order pizza for lunch and go right back to bed. A part of her wanted that, wanted peace, and quiet, and time to herself, but her heart was crying out for Nick, too loudly to be silenced. They needed to talk, to go over everything that had happened, to wade through the promises they'd made to one another, to face the fact that they had both of them spoken the word love aloud, and could not take it back. She needed to touch him, to fall asleep beside him, to feel his arm draped heavy over her waist and relax back against him, and not recoil in shame.

There was no time to make a plan, though; the team mobbed them as soon as they reached their desks. Jen gathered up her things, watched Nick do the same, and fought the urge to grin, for she realized then there was no need for them to discuss arrangements amongst themselves. Nick had seen her pick up her bag, knew that she had decided to leave, and he had decided to go with her. Maybe the team didn't see it, but Jen could, could feel his gaze on her back, the need in his heart that called out for here. Nick begged off drinks, gave Jen an out to do the same, and just like that they were walking off for the lifts together, breathing a sigh of relief when the door slid closed behind them.

Finally, mercifully, they were alone. No cameras, no mics. Nick leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, a question in his eyes. For a man who was usually confident and at ease he looked strangely worried. It was no wonder, really; she'd gone from telling him they couldn't take a vacation together, couldn't be anything more than colleagues, to telling him that she loved him and asking him to whisk her away in such a short time his head must have been spinning. It was hard to parse, even for her, to separate the genuine desire from the terror-filled grasping at straws; she hardly knew what she wanted herself, and though he could come damn close Nick couldn't actually read her mind. Too often they left things unsaid between them, and they were in uncharted waters now, floating around without a life raft to cling to, with nothing but each other. If he asked her outright to come home with him, asked her blatantly whether she really could love him, he would be risking everything they were, everything they could ever be, and she knew he didn't want to fuck this thing up, no more than she did. But what Jen wanted, more than anything, was for him to ask. She wanted him to reach for her, wanted to know that the love they shared wasn't just a product of terror and adrenaline, to know that it could linger, even after the threat had passed.

"So, finally you get to sleep in your own bed," Nick said, staring at the floor, and Jen's heart rocketed up into her throat. Leave it to Nick, she thought, to find such a careful way to ease them into this conversation. From the moment they met he had given her the lead, allowed her to set the tone of their interactions, and now was no different. He had opened the door, but it was Jen who would have to choose whether or not to walk through it. Would she laugh him off, talk about how badly she wanted some peace, or would she catch his eye and let him know that she didn't care where she slept as long as she was with him? For all his strength there was such tenderness in him, and Jen loved him for it.

"Yeah," she allowed. "But it'll be strange, without you there."

Nick raised his head and looked at her, finally, and she saw the hope bloom across his face. Would anyone else have seen it? she wondered; would anyone else be able to look at him, as she was now, and see his heart on his sleeve? Somehow she didn't think so; the play of emotion across Nick's face was always subtle, a secret language only she could speak, born of her knowledge of him, her love of him.

"I know it was only a couple of nights," he said slowly. "But I got used to having you there. I'll...I'll miss it." That he meant I'll miss you was not lost on Jen.

It was the most blatant invitation he would ever extend to her, and Jen knew it. The operation was over, and they were tired, and real life was fast encroaching on the bubble of intimacy they'd constructed for themselves, but it didn't have to end here. Their whispered secrets, the hopes that had begun to bloom within both their hearts, the love she felt for him; she had to choose, right this very moment, whether to bury it or embrace it. Whether to forget the warmth of his arms around her and the promise of a future together, or whether to reach for those things with both hands, and run like hell for a brighter day.

"You don't have to," she answered, her voice soft, and unsteady. He didn't have to miss her, didn't have to long for her, didn't have to hold himself back from her any more. She didn't want that, the nights spent lingering around a pint and fighting the urge to touch him, the nights of watching him walk away from her, yearning to call him back and yet holding her tongue. She didn't want him to miss her, and she didn't want to miss him, either.

"No?" he asked, his voice as soft hers had been. If they were going to do this, leave this place together, not as partners or as friends but as two people who loved each other, two people who went back to the same bed at the end of the day, he would want her to be damn sure about her choice. A man like Nick couldn't give his love and then take it back, wouldn't go in for something casual, something easy. If she accepted him now it would be about more than comfort, or sex, or fear; it would be, she thought, forever. Forever was a terrifying word to Jen, but when she looked at Nick she could almost want it. They had come too close to losing one another, lived too long with too many disappointments, been torn apart too many times, left too many questions unanswered. The time had come, she thought, for her to try, because if she didn't take this chance, she'd regret it for the rest of her life. Whatever happened next, however it ended, she'd face it knowing that she'd tried.

"Take me home, Nick," she said.

And so he did.