"It seems like you and Sorcha have worked through a few of your problems."
"We haven't worked through them." Malcolm looked up from the spot in the rug he had been staring at since begrudgingly following Gabrielle into the living room, and sitting down for this mandated session. He couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze. Focused, instead, on a spot over her right shoulder. Cowardice or insecurity, he didn't know which. "We've talked about a few of our issues but we have not worked through them."
Not to a point where they reached any sort of resolution, anyway.
Why not?
Because every time they started to work through their issues something came along to interrupt them to interrupt them before they managed to reach any sort of understanding.
First, it was trial preparation for John Watkins and Robert Harwood keeping Sorcha busy.
Then came the Xenophobic Killer to distract him.
Sorcha text him the day they closed that case to tell him someone left a severed thumb in her mailbox. That spiraled into multiple bodies, their private life exposed, and him getting stabbed.
Again.
Now, he had been arrested on suspicion of murder, framed by a man with an endless array of resources at his fingertips.
"You are not back together then?"
Malcolm's brow feathered as he pondered how best to answer that question. If Sorcha were there she'd point out they'd never really been together. Because I've never allowed us to really have the chance, the opportunity to become more than just friends.
Because he always chose superficiality over substance. Fantasy over reality. Lies over truth. Pain over pleasure.
"Malcolm?"
"Sorcha and I are not back together, no." His fingers trembled so he clenched them into fists he stuck between his knees. "We've never been together. Just..." he broke off, wet his suddenly dry lips. "Friends."
The word sounded as hollow as he felt.
Dating but not dating.
That's what Gil told him the day he bought the charm bracelet intended to replace the one Robert Harwood took from Sorcha.
The bracelet she tossed at him the night she stormed out of their loft.
The one currently tucked away in his pocket because he hadn't found the right time or place to give it back to her.
"If you have never been together than why is she here?"
"Because she's helping me with figuring out how I was framed for murder."
"Yes, the murder of the man believed to have killed your girlfriend." Gabrielle sat back in her chair, balancing a notepad across one knee. "How are you coping with Eve Blanchard's death?"
"Fine." The lie tasted foul. "Well, moderately fine." He looked back down at the rug, a frown between his eyes. "Okay, I'm reasonably fine."
"Have you been having any hallucinations of her? The Girl in the Box?"
Malcolm didn't want to discuss his hallucinations.
Not when everything inside him was so raw, tender.
How could he tell Gabrielle he wasn't seeing Eve, though?
Especially when she was currently floating around the room, smiling her sad smile, and gazing at him with eyes full of accusations.
"I see her all the time." He swallowed back equal amounts of guilt and regret. "She doesn't go away. No matter how much I beg her, too, she doesn't go away."
"You need time to adjust to your loss, Malcolm. To grieve. That's the only way you will disengage from Eve and move on to form new relationships."
He didn't want to move on to form new relationships.
He wanted to fix the relationship he broke.
There was just one gigantic concrete block standing between him and his goal.
"Sorcha said I need to get justice for Eve before I can move on from her death."
"You don't believe she has gotten justice with the death of her murderer?"
Malcolm folded his quaking hands together between his knees. Not that it helped control the tremors. Nothing controlled those.
Not for long, anyway.
"The man who had Eve killed is the same man that's framed me for murder."
"I see." Did she? Because Malcolm didn't think so. Especially since half the time he thought he was looking at things through a magnifying glass turned backwards. "Malcolm, you've already gotten justice for Eve. You found the man responsible for her death. Why can't you accept that and move on?"
"Because the man who hired him to kill her remains free." He raised his head, stared at a point on the wall just to the right of her face. "He needs to be stopped. That's the only way Eve will get justice."
And the only way I can move on with my life.
"Malcolm, we've talked about your masochistic tendencies before."
"Yes, we have," he allowed with a small nod. "And I admit I have done things intended to cause myself pain because I believed I deserved that pain." Gabrielle's small hmm made him squirm. "Okay, I've done a lot of things to cause myself pain because I believe I deserve that pain."
Sorcha hadn't been wrong when she called him an adrenaline-junkie. He did crave the high he got from running into dangerous situations. He did pick superficial relationships because of the potential possibility there was for pain, humiliation, degradation. He did ignore his own safety and well-being while working cases.
He deserved that pain for failing to turn his father in.
For letting twenty-three people die.
"Looking to get revenge on the man responsible for your girlfriend's death could exacerbate those self-destructive tendencies you have." Gabrielle's voice was soft but firm. "You are walking a dark and dangerous path here, Malcolm."
He was fully aware how his wanting revenge on Endicott could cause his masochistic tendencies to spiral out of control.
That it could lead him farther down the path than he ever went before.
That it could push him into stepping over that line he spent the last twenty years doing his best to avoid.
The one John Watkins and Martin Whitly wanted him to cross.
To prove he was the killer they were.
"I don't have any choice," he said somberly. "I have to stop this man."
Before he hurts someone else I care about.
...
"So, are you and my brother going to finally figure things out between you or are you going to continue dancing around each other like you have been?"
Sorcha had been asking herself the same thing while sitting on the bottom stair and waiting for Malcolm to finish his session with Gabrielle. It wasn't an easy question to answer. They had so many things they needed to worry about at that moment.
Keeping him from being sent to jail for a murder he didn't commit being the biggest one.
However, there was also the matter of Eve Blanchard.
A woman Sorcha never met, did her best to not resent or blame for what happened between her and Malcolm, but still found herself jealous of despite her best efforts. She tried to reject her bitterness but it only made her anger burn hotter.
Become more toxic.
Isolating herself away from Malcolm and saying it was so she could set boundaries between them didn't make things better, either. Least of all after he showed up on Gil's doorstep in the middle of the night, a complete emotional mess after Eve walked out on him, and clinging to her like moss on an oak tree.
Staying away from Malcolm while he was in the middle of his crisis had been the hardest thing she had ever done. So many times she wanted to go to him, put her arms around him, and tell him it was gonna be alright.
Like she always did.
She couldn't this time, though.
Malcolm had to learn he couldn't hurt her and she'd just shrug it off.
Accept it as part of his innumerable issues.
Robert deciding to launch a full scale attack on them put them back inside each other's circles. They had to work together, support each other, and especially comfort each other after their private life got exposed.
She hadn't lied to Malcolm when she confessed to doing things that hurt him. Many of those things hadn't been intentional. Just byproducts of situations and events out of their control. Some, though, she had done intentionally. Trying to hurt him as he hurt her.
And only hurting herself in the process.
"I don't know," Sorcha finally settled on saying. "I'd like to think that we will sort this mess out and find some way back to how we were before we tried dating for the millionth time."
"But?" Ainsley's lips quirked. "I smell a but here."
Sorcha snorted a laugh. "Those investigative reporter skills are serving you well, Ains."
"Well, I am a better detective than my brother." Ainsley playfully tossed her hair. "I mean, I did figure out Eve wasn't all she claimed to be."
"I recall you came to me for help with that."
A playful grin tugged at Ainsley's mouth.
"I don't recall anyone saying it mattered how an investigative reporter comes by their information."
"Touché."
"Tell me something," Ainsley said as she joined her on the bottom stair. "Why didn't you stand up to Malcolm when you realized what was about to happen with Eve?"
There was the million dollar question.
The one she'd spent weeks in therapy trying to find an answer too.
Might have, too if her therapist hadn't been kidnapped, his thumb removed, and the rest of his body turned into ashes.
"I tend to put Malcom's needs ahead of mine is partially why." Sorcha lowered her gaze to the pad of paper she'd started jotting notes on. "I always think of what's best for him. What his particular issues require to keep them from spiraling out of control."
"You sacrificed yourself to make him happy."
"Yes."
"Now, neither of you are happy."
"No, we're not," Sorcha agreed, sending her a small smile. "And before you ask, no, I don't know how to fix things between he and I. We can't simply move on like we have in the past. Not this time."
"Why not?"
"Because Eve Blanchard was murdered. She's a ghost haunting us."
"She doesn't have to, though."
"Eve Blanchard will always be between your brother and I." Sorcha lifted her eyes to the closed living room door. "He won't let her go. And I don't know how to forget that he brought her into the place we were making our home."
"Make him move then."
Sorcha gaped at her. "Make him move?" Was Ainsley serious? "Your brother doesn't handle things like moving well."
His move back to New York had resulted in ten meltdowns.
Three, of which, had been quite severe.
The last of which resulted in her flying down to Washington to make sure he didn't do anything harmful to himself.
"Tell him you want to remodel his loft then," Ainsley said. "Make it yours as much as his."
Sorcha went to point out how that wouldn't fly with Malcolm, either, but stopped herself.
Considered.
That… isn't a bad idea, she realized as Ainsley stretched her legs out in front of her. Malcolm hadn't fussed when she wanted to remodel his kitchen. In fact, he purchased everything she lamented his not having for her as a surprise.
They weren't talking a few pots, pans or a stand mixer here, though.
This was adding the little things that made a place home. Knickknacks, pictures, items of sentimental value and comfort.
A merging of his eclectic taste with hers.
Adding elements of herself that'd establish the loft as hers.
"I think he'd agree to that," she finally said with a slow smile.
"Agree to what?" Malcolm questioned as he exited the living room. He cast a suspicious look at them. "What have you two been plotting while I was talking with Gabrielle?"
"How Sorcha needs to remodel your loft," Ainsley cheerfully informed him as she got to her feet. "Make it less your bachelor pad and more a home the two of you share."
Malcolm's gaze swung to Sorcha's. A raw, desperate hope filled his face. Her heart fluttered at the naked vulnerability turning his eyes from blue to green.
A crossroads, she realized as nerves jumbled. That's what we're at.
The only question was: did she open herself up and tell Malcolm what she wanted, needed from him or did she keep quiet like always?
Accomplishing nothing and keeping them stuck in the same never-ending circle.
Firming her resolve, Sorcha set her notepad on the stair and made to grab the railing to help pull herself up. Malcolm was there before she could grab the bannister, offering a hand. She looked at it and then up at him.
"You asked me what it'd take to convince me that you were all in." She set her quivering hand in his, let him pull her to her feet. "This is it." Sorcha kept her gaze on his. "This is what I need. To have a place in your life and not have to question that it's mine."
She waited for him to refuse, to say she asked for too much, that he couldn't give her what she wanted, needed.
Malcolm surprised her, though.
Much like he had when she asked him to stop seeing his father in their second year at Harvard.
He rest his forehead against hers and said, "Okay."
It wasn't a huge step but to Sorcha it was an important one.
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!
I just want to send a special thank you to Teran for their lovely review!