Malcolm couldn't stop himself from grumbling, "Did Gil have to show up right as we were leaving?" as he snuck out of the house with Sorcha.
He tossed a look over his shoulder as he followed Sorcha to where her car was parked, half expecting to find Gil standing on the front stoop, hands on his hips, and a look of annoyance on his face.
To Malcolm's relief, he found Gil wasn't standing there.
"I think his showing up was a stroke of luck."
"It stole time we don't have to waste and could have stopped me from getting my ankle monitor off."
"Gil showing up made getting out of your ankle bracelet a bit trickier but it didn't stop you from slipping your tether or exiting the house."
She has a point, Malcolm realized. Gil showing up was an inconvenience, but it hadn't stopped him from getting his monitor off or leaving the house.
"Have to hope Leonard won't say anything to him if asked."
Sorcha sent him an amused look from over her shoulder. "I think Leonard was to hyped up over your offer to sleep in your room to rat on you."
"Right." Malcolm searched the line of cars parked on the street for anyone who appeared suspicious. Nobody leapt out at him but that didn't mean anything. Endicott had an unlimited number of people at his disposal. "I don't see anyone watching us." A frown creased his brow as another thought occurred to him. "I also don't see JT or Dani."
"They're back at the station."
"How do you know they're at the station?"
"My cousin, Mia was assigned to the precinct after she graduated the academy. She text and told me they're there."
Why hadn't he known her cousin had been assigned to the precinct? A voice instantly replied, Because you don't pay attention to anything that isn't related to murder or murderers. Malcolm chose to ignore that voice. Last thing he needed was a reminder about how oblivious he was to the world outside of murder and murderers.
"I still don't understand why Gil came by. Didn't he say everything he needed to say last night?"
"He was checking on your mom."
"Checking on my mother?" Malcolm shot a surprised look at her. "Why?"
"Because they have feelings for one another is why."
"They do?"
How had he missed that?
Because you're an ass is why.
Malcolm chose to ignore that voice, too. True as the words were, he didn't need to hear them.
Not while his neck was currently in a noose and the executioner moments away from hitting the button that would drop him to his death.
"Yes, they do." Sorcha unlocked the passenger door of her car before walking around to the drivers side. "They've had feelings for each other for a long time but have never acted on them."
His brow furrowed. "Why not?"
"They have a lot of emotional baggage between them they haven't worked through for one." Sorcha opened her car door but didn't immediately climb inside. "Your father, Endicott turning out to be a real creep. Plus, Gil hasn't dated anyone since Jackie died. He felt he'd dishonor her memory if he did."
"Jackie wanted him to move on. I was there the day she made him promise to not remain a widower for the rest of his life."
"Promising is easy," Sorcha said. "Much harder to move on. Look at my mom."
"She started dating again, though."
"Yes, but it took her five years. And even then," she said as a motorcycle whizzed by, "she felt guilty. As if she was betraying Dad by going out with another man."
"She wasn't, though."
"No, she wasn't," she agreed with a slight nod. "But it still felt like it to her. Thankfully, Harry understood, having lost his wife around the same time we lost Dad."
Malcolm remembered Harry Wilson. He had been the surgeon to remove his appendix and tonsils. He had gone out of his way to help reduce his anxiety after they told him about his night terrors and his not liking feeling trapped inside his mind with his memories. He even recorded Sorcha singing to help keep me calm during surgery.
He liked him, thought him a kind, and decent man. Harry shared common interests with him and Sorcha. He enjoyed crime novels and World War II docuseries. Going to museums and traveling. Comics and video games. Ghost Adventures and medical shows.
Erin Corbin and Harry Wilson were part of the medical field. They shared a similar social background. Had many of the same friends. Enjoyed many of the same things.
Unlike his mother and Gil.
"Do you think my mother and Gil can overcome their differences?"
"Can we?"
The question caught Malcolm off guard. His mouth opened and closed as he tried to figure out what answer wouldn't get him in trouble.
"I've always seen us being equal socially."
"You have, yes." Her lips curved. "High society doesn't. They look at me and see an opportunist. A fortune hunter. Someone looking to climb up the social ladder."
"I don't care about high society."
"Neither does Gil. The only approval he needs is yours. You are the other reason why they haven't acted on their feelings for one another."
"Me?" His eyebrows shot up. "What do I have to do with them not acting on their feelings?"
"Well, kids tend to get weird when they see their parents dating someone other than their other parent." She climbed into the car and closed the door. "Look how weirded out you were about your mother dating Endicott."
"Yeah." Malcolm settled himself in the passenger seat before shooting her a wry look. "Clearly no reason there for why I got weirded out by her dating Endicott."
"You were weirded out before finding out what a douchebag he is."
She has a point, he realized as she started the car. It had been extremely uncomfortable to have Nicholas Endicott join him and Ainsley at the breakfast table the other morning. Sure, he made a small quip to ease the tension after Endicott left but he couldn't deny how his mother dating the man bothered him.
Malcolm didn't believe it was because he had any childish hope about his mother and father getting back together. As far as he was concerned, that was a ship sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic with the Titanic.
His father was never getting free and his mother would sooner stab him with one of her stiletto heels than resume their marriage.
He also wanted his mother to stay as far away from Martin Whitly as she could. Nothing good ever came from a relationship with his father. He was a prime example of how corrosive a relationship with his father was.
Malcolm had already decided that his father was a toxin he needed to flush from his life once this situation with Endicott was put to rest. It was time to take control of his life and his mental well-being. To start building a life with Sorcha that was free of his father's manipulation and control.
His mother also deserved to start her life over with someone. To find love and happiness. Especially after everything she had been through because of his father.
Because of me.
Malcolm put his mother through a lot after his father's arrest. Not talking for months, the nightly terrors, refusing to eat because the medicines doctors put him on made him sick, the panic attacks, changing schools multiple times because of bullies, the stays in the hospital because he allowed himself to get dehydrated, the multiple commitments because he allowed things to spiral out of control.
The suicide attempts.
The last shamed him the most.
His first attempt had been at thirteen. He swallowed a handful of the medications he had been put on. Chased them with a couple of his mother's sleeping pills.
Louisa found him and got help.
His mother took control of his medications after that. Made sure he only received the prescribed dose at the specified intervals.
His next attempt came when he was sixteen and the girl he thought he was dating revealed she had only been using him as part of an initiation into an elite club of their peers.
He used a razor that time but hadn't cut deep enough.
Jackie found him that time and kept him together until paramedics arrived. Gil brought someone, a girl his age, and whose father had traumatized her as much as his to see him while he spent another seventy-two hours in a psychiatric hospital for the rich.
Raya hadn't judged him. Didn't condemn him or call him a coward. No, what she told him was to take the anger he turned inwards and turn it outwards.
"Use it to seek justice, Malcolm," she said as silvery moonlight cast her in shadows. "Be the voice of the silenced. The champion of the lost. The defender of the helpless."
He took Raya's suggestion and turned the anger he aimed inwards, outwards. He pursued a career in law enforcement, got his degree in psychology and criminology, used his unique skills to help those victimized by men like his father and John Watkins.
His mother hadn't approved of his choice to apply to Quantico but she supported him.
In her own fashion.
Anything that kept him away from his father she approved of.
That's why she deserved a chance at finding happiness for herself. At finding love again.
Malcolm also freely admitted his mother being involved with someone would keep her from trying to control and dictate his life. She had largely left him alone while she dated Endicott.
Of course, he had also been dating Eve at the time, which thrilled her.
And look how well those relationships turned out.
Eve ended up dead and Endicott turned into the man with a network of serial killers and assassins at his disposal.
Gil wasn't Nicholas Endicott.
If there was anyone he'd approve dating his mother, it was Gil. Still, Malcolm couldn't deny how the thought of his mentor and his mother being intimate didn't creep him out some.
"Were you and Sean weirded out when your mother started dating Harry?"
"A bit, yeah." Sorcha turned left at the corner. "I mean, we were cool with it and all, but it still weirded us out. Harry made it easy for us, though."
"How?"
"By telling us he wasn't our dad. That he wasn't trying to replace him in our lives. That he just wanted to be a part of our lives."
"Gil already is part of my life."
"And has filled the role your father abandoned since the night he answered what was believed to be a prank call." She stopped at a light. "Doesn't mean it's not still gonna be weird seeing them as a couple."
"Does it weird you out?"
"No." She sent him an easy smile. "But I'm not you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I've seen the sparks flying between them since before Christmas and have secretively been hoping they'd get together."
Malcolm's eyes blinked wide. "What?"
"Mhm." The light turned green. "Unlike you, I've seen all the subtle touches between them. Unlike you, I've seen all the glances they send each other when they think nobody is paying attention."
He got her point.
"I admit it, I don't pay attention to the things that I should."
"Yeah, you definitely suck in that area." She reached over to set a hand on his knee. "But that's what makes you good at what you do."
"Being oblivious to the needs of the people around me makes me good at profiling murderers?" He sent her a skeptical look. "I seriously doubt that."
"It does, Mal." She squeezed his knee. "It allows you to focus on what's most important: victims. And while it's frustrating as hell and makes us want to beat you with a pillow quite often, it's also admirable. You give justice to the people the monsters hurt with their madness."
"It also hurts the people I love." Malcolm set his hand atop hers. "You. Gil. Ainsley and my mother. Your mother. Mandy and Sean. Jackie. I've hurt all of you."
"Love means opening yourself to being hurt."
His father said those exact words to him a few weeks back. Malcolm hadn't wanted to hear them.
Not from him.
Sorcha wasn't his father.
No, she was someone his actions, his poor choices almost cost him.
"Love means making yourself vulnerable."
"Yes, it does." Sorcha squeezed his knee again. "It also makes us strong, Mal. It's the reason we keep fighting despite everything inside telling us to give up."
"I'm not giving up. Not this time." His hand trembled atop hers. "I almost lost you this time. Not again." His fingers gripped hers. "I can't lose you."
"Not me here we have to fear losing." Sorcha pulled into the parking garage a few blocks from the precinct. "It's you if we don't figure out how Endicott framed you for Eddie's murder."
"We'll figure it out."
Malcolm was confident of that. They'd figure out what Endicott was up too and put a stop to it.
Together.
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!