Quiet
The sound of a key in the lock hardly caused him to look up. He knew what it meant. He wanted to be glad about it, but he couldn't bring himself to be glad about anything right now.
She found him slumped on the sofa, his legs sprawled in front of him and his head against the back cushion. Only silence greeted her. He was staring off into space. The TV was off.
"Hi honey, tough day at the office?" she asked, taking off her coat to hang on the rack by the door.
"I'm not in the mood for you to be a smartass," he answered.
"Last I checked, you're never in the mood for me to be a smartass, but I do it anyway," she fired back.
He didn't answer. She crossed to the sofa, standing in front of him.
"What, now you're not even gonna look at me? I got all dressed up just for you."
That caused him to fix his eyes onto her. "No, you didn't," he said, seeing that she looked just as she always did. At least when they were away from work. Tight black knit sweater that showed off that great figure of hers and a pair of beige pants. Nothing too exciting at all.
She smirked. "But I made you look."
He just rolled his eyes.
She frowned at that. She slipped off her shoes and kicked them aside before coming to sit beside him on the sofa, her legs curled up beneath herself as she faced him. "What was it?" she asked gently.
She hadn't touched him yet, which struck him as odd. They both knew what they did together. Both knew why she'd invited him to dinner at her place. But of course, he hadn't shown up and hadn't called to give an explanation. If they had any relationship other than the one they had, she might have worried about him and tried calling the precinct or his home number, might have gotten mad about getting stood up after finding out nothing had happened to him. But instead she'd just shown up. Maybe she was worried after all.
"Don," she said, her voice a little firmer now.
He sighed. "The ones that keep me up at night are the ones we don't catch. The ones that make me sick are the ones with kids. But sometimes I see someone so messed up that I don't even know what to think."
"Yeah?" she prompted. She knew he needed to talk about it. He rarely got the opportunity, needing to be the leader and father-figure to the rest of his squad. And if he didn't do something about it, he might go back to the bottle. Everyone who knew Don Cragen knew he had cleaned up his act and he'd never touch the stuff again. But those closest to him—and Don himself—knew that the risk of relapse was always there. So instead of that, he had her. Whether or not he knew it. She knew it, and that was what mattered.
Don shook his head. "Teenaged girl brutally murdered her friend. Cold and calculated and then just snapped. Bought cigarettes to burn her. Stabbed her and cut her as she was tied up in the trunk of a car. Stripped her naked and left her there. It was so cold, the blood dripping out of the trunk actually froze. And today we had her in interrogation and she went nuts again."
"Psychotic break?"
"I don't know. She started throwing her fists against the door and screaming and threatening her friends who were telling the story. I had to pull her away and restrain her. And she's sixteen. Pretty girl, well-off family, good school, smart, and just twisted. I mean, Jesus Christ, Liz, what do we even do about that?"
"You know better than anyone that murderers come from all sorts."
He sighed again. "I keep thinking about how glad I am that I never had kids."
"Are you? I think you'd be good at it."
He scoffed at her. "I wouldn't know what to do. And I see a girl like Brittany and wonder how the hell parents deal with something like that."
"Guess we'll never know," she said gently.
He looked at her curiously for a minute. "Yeah, guess not."
They just held each other's gaze for a minute. She didn't really know what he was thinking. She didn't really know what she was thinking. Except it was just nice that they had this. They operated in the same world without being too on top of each other. They understood each other. They could talk about things like this. And they could just sit in silence together, too. It was nice.
Liz scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder just over his suspenders and snuggled against his chest. His arms came around her, tracing the elegant line of her body under that tight sweater. "I'm sorry I missed dinner," he murmured.
"It's okay," she answered.
"Did you make something good?"
She nearly snorted at that. "I ordered from D'Angelo's and you know it. I've got leftovers in my fridge now."
He hummed in response. "Guess I just wasn't really in the mood for…"
"I figured," she said, not needing him to say he wasn't in the mood for sex.
"If that's why you came over, I can probably—"
She interjected, "No, that's not why I came over."
"So why did you come over?"
She tilted her head up to gently kiss his jaw before snuggling even closer to him. "This."
Don couldn't help but smile. "Thanks."