It Might Not Be A Pretty Picture

by Cirocco

Briscoe and McCoy get involved when Rey Curtis is charged with his mother's murder.

5. One Step Down, Two Steps Up

Chapter 5: One Step Down, Two Steps Up

Disclaimer: Not mine, Dick Wolf's.  No permission, no profit, no money, yadda yadda.

By the way, if anybody has constructive criticism, I would love to hear from you.  I've received a few suggestions lately and have found them very helpful.  E-mail is

ciroccoj2002yahoo.com

Thursday, October 23, 2003
4:12am

"Lennie."

Briscoe slowly woke up.  Somebody was sitting on his bed, gently shaking him awake.

"Wha?"

"Lennie?"  He opened his eyes, focusing on Curtis.

"Yeah?  What is it?"  Curtis stared at him, looking like he didn't know what to say.  "Rey, what's wrong?"  No response.  Curtis closed his eyes, then opened them and looked at him pleadingly.  Briscoe sat up, alarmed.  "Rey?"  He searched Curtis' face, finding no answer there.  Suddenly he noticed his service weapon on the nightstand next to his bed.  Not in the hall closet where he had left it.  He reached for it as Curtis watched.

"Did you move my gun?" Curtis looked down and nodded.  "Why?"  As he waited for Curtis to answer, everything suddenly felt surreal.  The grey light of pre-dawn, the extreme stillness of the world, not even any sounds of traffic outside, Curtis's unexplained presence in his room, his gun... it felt like one of those strange quasi-nightmarish European art flicks.

"Can you not bring it home please?" asked Curtis quietly.

Briscoe felt his stomach clench painfully.  "Rey, why did you move my gun?" He glanced at the clock.  "How come you're up?"

"I... I haven't gone to sleep yet."

"You been up all night?"

"Yeah," Curtis whispered, still looking down.  Briscoe tilted his chin up, making eye contact.  Curtis's eyes were tired, haunted, body tense as a bowstring.

Briscoe took a deep breath.  Curtis had been up all night, taken his gun from the hall closet, woken him up.  Briscoe didn't need a psych degree to figure out what was going on.  He put his hand on Curtis' shoulder, letting him look down again.  "Talk to me."  Curtis shook his head, trying to find words.  "You woke me up.  Tell me why."

"I was afraid to keep being alone.  I can't..." he trailed off helplessly.

"You were thinking of committing suicide tonight."  Curtis' face became expressionless and he closed his eyes and nodded, letting his breath out.  Briscoe felt some of Curtis' tension drain and felt a weird calm descend over himself as well.  OK, it was out now.  He looked at Curtis' head, bowed down, and gathered his thoughts.

First things first.  He checked his gun.  Loaded, which it hadn't been when he put it away.  He quickly unloaded it, Curtis watching his every move.  He put the ammunition in his pajama shirt pocket, and put the gun back on the bedside table.  He got up, motioning to Curtis to stand up as well.  Curtis allowed himself to be led into the living room.  "Sit," he indicated the couch, and sat himself on the coffee table in front of Curtis.  Curtis sat down on the couch and leaned back, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away from him.

"What happened?"  Curtis looked at him, uncomprehending.  "What happened today?  What triggered this?"  Curtis shrugged helplessly.  "OK.  Talk to me.  What have you been doing tonight?"

"I tried to sleep," his voice was dull, tired, his face blank as he looked straight at Briscoe without really seeing him.  "I lay there forever, but all I could do was obsess about... about everything.  Deborah, and Serena, and the trial... I kept trying to stop thinking about it but I couldn't.  I tried to pray, but I couldn't... couldn't concentrate," he took a deep breath.  "And I hurt so bad I couldn't take it any more.  I kept telling myself I just needed to get through the night but... but the night's really long, Lennie," his voice nearly inaudible.  Briscoe nodded.  He remembered that feeling well.

"I turned on the TV but I couldn't concentrate on that either.  I really wish you had something to drink in the house," he said softly.  Briscoe swallowed.  "Then I thought of your gun, I thought about how that would end the night pretty quick.  I know where you keep it.  Then I thought I couldn't do that, shoot myself with your gun, so I put it on your night table.  But you have some pretty sharp knives and a razor and there's a lot of aspirin and stuff in your medicine cabinet.  And the subway's close, that's quick too if you do it right.  It's nice having been a homicide detective, I know a lot about what does and doesn't kill a person," his voice was still dull, and it chilled Briscoe to the bone to hear him discussing this with such lack of emotion, like he might discuss what to make for dinner.

Briscoe examined Curtis' face, his normally dark skin pale, pupils fully dilated, his shallow breathing.  "Did you take anything?"  Curtis shook his head, looking away from him.  "Did you?"

"No.  I wouldn't wake you up just to keep me company while I died," he said softly.

"I don't know what you're likely to do any more.  We're gonna go to a hospital right now," he stood up.  Curtis stood up too and waited patiently while Briscoe got dressed.

"You know if they pump my stomach because of a suspected OD they'll wanna keep me in the hospital for psychiatric observation.  At which point I've lost my trial," he said conversationally once Briscoe emerged from his bedroom.

"I'm trying to save your life.  We'll worry about your trial later."  Curtis shrugged.  Briscoe thought for a moment, then put his hands on Curtis' shoulders and faced him straight on.  "Rey.  If you took anything, tell me." Curtis was silent.  "Think about the fact that your daughters need you, and think about the fact that suicide is a sin.  And think about this: if you say you didn't take anything, and I don't take you to the hospital and you die, I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life.  You'll make me a murderer."  He took a deep breath.  "Now.  Tell me the truth.  Did you take anything?"

Curtis met his gaze unflinchingly. "No, I didn't."  Briscoe's eyes bored into his, willing him to tell the truth no matter what it was.  "We can go to the hospital if you want.  But I didn't take anything."

Briscoe went to his medicine cabinet, trying to remember what he had in there.  He checked the bottles - aspirin, Tylenol, sleeping pills.  All seemed to be present, all more than half-full, except for the Tylenol, which had been low already and which Curtis wouldn't have used anyway if he was looking for a quick out.  He took a deep breath and returned to the living room, where Curtis was waiting for him patiently.

"OK.  Sit," he indicated the couch again.  "What do we do now?"

"I don't know.  I wasn't thinking much beyond waking you up."

"How come you didn't wake me up sooner?"

 "I was hoping I'd make it through the night on my own," Curtis' voice was low, defeated.

"What changed your mind?"

Deep sigh, bowed head again.  "I was tired and I was losing the fight.  I went out and started to walk towards the subway.  A car drove by and I almost stepped in front of it.  That's when I turned around and came back and woke you up."

Briscoe covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.  "OK.  Here's what we're gonna do.  I'll stay up with you.  We can talk about whatever you want or not talk at all.  We'll get you through the night.  And I'll call Jack at six."

"OK," Curtis agreed docilely.  Silence settled over the apartment.  Curtis seemed content with that, content with somebody else taking over.  Briscoe suddenly felt nauseated, shaky, out of his depth.  After a few minutes, Curtis lay down on his side and stared blankly out at the living room.  Briscoe looked over at him.

"Think you can sleep a bit?"

"No."

"You wanna talk?"

"No."

"Want me to turn on the TV?"

"Sure."

He turned on the TV and they watched infomercials and reruns in silence until it was 6 am.  He dialed McCoy's number.

"Mhello?" McCoy's voice was fuzzy.

"Jack, it's Lennie.  It's about Rey."

"Shit," instantly McCoy was fully awake.  "What's he done now?"

"Nothing.  But he almost offed himself during the night."  McCoy drew in his breath sharply.  "He woke me up around four.  I been staying up with him, but we gotta do something.  He's in trouble.  I don't know what to do any more." Curtis listened to all of this impassively, having given over control of his life to Briscoe for the time being.

"OK." McCoy thought for a moment.  "I'll call Skoda and we'll come over there."

===

An hour later, Skoda and McCoy were at Briscoe's small apartment.  Curtis, who hadn't spoken much since waking Briscoe up, watched them enter without much interest.  Skoda took him into Briscoe's bedroom.  Briscoe quickly brought McCoy up to speed, and then they sat and waited.

About an hour later, Skoda came out of the bedroom.  He joined McCoy and Briscoe in the kitchen, accepting a cup of coffee and rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"I gave him a sedative, so he's asleep now and should stay asleep for a few hours.  My training tells me he needs to be hospitalized.  However," he held up a hand to forestall Briscoe's immediate reaction.  "I'm not totally sure.  To be honest, my gut tells me hospitalization might be the worst thing for him," he sighed.  "He's improved over the last couple of weeks.  And I think he'll continue to improve.  That could be derailed if he's hospitalized."

"You call this an improvement?" McCoy said incredulously.  "A couple of weeks ago he wasn't listing all the ways he could kill himself."  He couldn't believe Curtis had gone from joking, alert and able to hold a normal conversation on Saturday, to this, in less than a week.

"A couple of weeks ago he was too tired and depressed to figure out how to kill himself.  Most people don't commit suicide when they're at rock bottom; they do it on the way up from rock bottom.  He's on his way up.  Unfortunately it's not a steady climb; two steps up, one step down."  He took a sip of his coffee.  "What you also don't know is that this isn't the first night he's spent feeling suicidal and waiting for the morning; more like the third or fourth since he's been staying here."

Briscoe closed his eyes briefly, appalled that he hadn't known.  That he hadn't realized that the mornings when Curtis seemed tired and unusually quiet weren't just the product of a poor night's sleep, but the result of fighting all night just to hang on until morning.

"The fact that he woke you up this morning is a good sign.  It shows he trusts you to keep him safe and feels an obligation to do his part in keeping himself safe."  Skoda paused to let that sink in.  "Anyway.  Hospitalization could be good; he'd be kept under observation, suicide watch.  However, it will definitely not look good during his trial, which is one of the main reasons he's suicidal right now.  He also may not react well to essentially being incarcerated again.  So the other option is to keep him here and let him keep coping the way he's been coping, until the medication starts to take effect."

"That's not a good idea.  His coping mechanisms include drug and alcohol abuse," McCoy pointed out.

"Alcohol is right out.  However..." Skoda cleared his throat.  "What I'm about to say is completely off the record, understood?"  McCoy and Briscoe nodded.

"There has been a lot of research into medical marijuana use lately.  Including its use in the treatment of depression.  Some studies link it to causing depression, but some link it to alleviating the symptoms, short-term.  I've personally seen it work in two cases of severe depression.  Now, it's still illegal in this country so it can't be prescribed, but there it is.  We all know he has access to it."  Skoda paused.  "On the record, I recommend hospitalization.  Off the record, if medicinal marijuana was legal that's what I would prescribe for him until he started feeling better, despite my doubts.  I told him what I thought.  He said he'll go with whatever you two decide."

===

Thursday, October 23
2:08pm

McCoy looked up from a case file as Curtis stirred on the bed.  He had hardly even moved during the hours that McCoy had sat vigil, looking so peaceful and untroubled in sleep that McCoy could hardly believe he'd been on the verge of taking his own life the night before.  Curtis opened his eyes slowly, took in McCoy sitting on the chair next to the bed, and looked up at the ceiling with a sigh of resignation.

"How do you feel?" McCoy asked.  Curtis shrugged listlessly.  McCoy waited for a few minutes, but no comment seemed forthcoming.  Skoda had warned them that Curtis would probably be pretty wiped out from the sedative.  Finally he asked, "Do you want to know what's going to happen?"  Curtis looked at him without much curiosity.  "We couldn't decide.  We talked it over and over and couldn't agree.  We finally decided it's your life, you'll have to decide."

Curtis sighed.  "Jack, I can't.  I'm not doing a great job keeping myself safe or sane," his voice was low, filled with weariness and shame.

"Well, you're going to have to come to a decision because we can't.  Skoda said he explained both options to you.  What do you want to do?"  Curtis closed his eyes and thought for a moment.

"I don't want to be hospitalized."

McCoy nodded.  "Then you won't be, unless you make an attempt on your life.  And you have to promise to wake up Lennie if you're having a bad night.  No more trying to make it through on your own.  If he's too tired to stay up, he'll call me.  And if you need help of the illegal kind, Lennie will look the other way.  As long as it's not a daily occurrence." Curtis stared at him, nonplussed.  "It should come as no surprise to you that Lennie doesn't exactly agree with that.  But he recognizes that alcohol is a hell of a lot more addictive than marijuana.  Skoda wasn't all that enthusiastic about it either but he thought it might be better than hospitalization.  It's sort of the lesser of all evils."

===

Saturday, November 8
10:45pm

For the last two weeks, not much of consequence had happened.  During the day, Curtis seemed greatly improved; he had shown up for work every day and was doing relatively well, visited his daughters every other day without major incident, and seemed increasingly stable.  He'd attended another Mainstay meeting.  However, he had also woken up Briscoe three times in the first week and once in the second.  They had quickly worked out a pattern of sitting and watching TV until Curtis fell asleep or until morning, whichever came first.  He never talked about what kept him up and after the first couple of times, Briscoe didn't ask.  They also never talked about the drug use, though Curtis did nothing to hide it.  As far as Briscoe could tell, Curtis had a joint about every three days or so, usually after a visit with his daughters or a phone call to his wife.  As far as Briscoe could tell, he hadn't seen Deborah in weeks.

Now it was two days after a visit with his daughters, one in which he had lost his temper at Serena.  No physical violence, but quite a few ugly words had been said on both sides.  McCoy and Briscoe had taken Curtis to another pool hall.  Curtis's eyes were slightly bloodshot and he was both more relaxed and more subdued than normal, which both McCoy and Briscoe took to indicate that he was under the influence.  Nobody mentioned it until Briscoe finally got sick of the careful pretense that everything was OK.

"What's going on with you?" he asked as he set up a shot.  Curtis looked at him, questioning.  "How come you hadda get high today?" McCoy and Curtis glanced at each other, a little startled at his bluntness.  He sank three balls at once, and looked up at Curtis expectantly.

"Nothing."  Briscoe gave him a look that brooked no bullshit, and he relented.  "I've just been thinking... I'm mostly feeling better.  Not so tired or depressed."

"Yeah, I've noticed that.  During the day, at least.  This is bad?"

"The problem is... what happens when I go home again?" Briscoe waited for him to continue.  "I told you what happened on Thursday; a couple hours with Serena and I'm already losing it.  It's taking me two days to recover, and that's with my sister there to run interference, and without Tania there.  What the hell do I do when I'm there full time on my own again?" his worry came rushing out, past the careful façade of everything's-fine.

"You don't think about it right now, is what you do," McCoy put in from the sidelines as Briscoe chalked up his cue.

"I have to."

"No you don't.  The whole point of taking time away is to get stronger until you can handle it.  And get some support in place for when you're back there again.  Of course you can't take Serena right now; that's why you're not in charge of her right now.  If you think about how you're doing at this moment, you're just going to get discouraged."

"One step at a time?" Curtis smiled slightly.

"One step at a time, one day at a time," Briscoe put in, sinking another ball.  "You're already a hell of a lot closer to being able to go back.  You're doing better.  You see it, we see it, your daughters see it.  And you've got that lady from your church who says she'll come and help you out twice a week, and I'll hang out and lend a hand.  You're not gonna be on your own till you're ready."

"And what if I'm never ready?"  McCoy and Briscoe glanced at each other and Curtis shook his head dismissively, indicating that he didn't expect an answer.  He cleared his throat and looked away, crossing his arms like he did when he had something to say that he felt very uncomfortable with.  "And what happens if I have a bad night?  What do I do, wake up Olivia?"

"Is that an option?" McCoy asked seriously.  Curtis gave him an incredulous look.

"Olivia's barely thirteen, Jack.  What am I gonna say, 'Hi honey, wake up, Daddy's gonna slit his wrists if you're not there to keep him safe'?  No thirteen-year old needs that."

"You can always give me or Jack a call," Briscoe pointed out, thinking that he'd never had much of a problem relying on his daughters to help him out when they were children and he was a drunk.  Probably why he'd been such a godawful parent.

"Lennie, I feel bad enough about waking you up when all I need you to do is sit with me for a few hours.  You gonna come cross town to hold my hand?  That crosses my limit."

"Doesn't cross mine.  I'm real familiar with not being able to make it through the night without help.  Other people helped me when I was getting off the bottle and I've done it for guys at AA.  I don't mind."  Curtis still looked skeptical, but thoughtful.  Briscoe took another shot, sinking the eight ball.  Another game won against Curtis, not that anybody kept score of his games with either of them.  Curtis gestured to McCoy, whose turn it was to step up to the pool table.

"You know what pisses me off?" Briscoe commented a while later, thinking of another topic that hadn't been brought up in the last few weeks.

"What?" Curtis set up a shot.

"One way you cope with your problems is going out and picking up when you get a chance.  Seems to me it should backfire once in a while if you don't get lucky."

Curtis looked up, a bit surprised at this turn in the conversation, then seemed to decide not to take offense and shrugged.  "Yeah, well, I'm not exactly looking for commitment, am I?  It's not that hard to find somebody who's looking for the same thing you are," he missed the ball and gave up his place to McCoy.

"Speak for yourself," Briscoe grumbled.

Curtis chuckled.  "Lennie, you go to pool halls.  I mean, look at this place.  There's one woman here and she's already with somebody.  This is not a good place to pick up."

"So Latino dance bars are the place to go?"

"Works for me."

"So what are you looking for?" McCoy asked.  He also missed and stepped back from the table.

"Escape, I guess.  A chance to not have to think about stuff, to forget Deborah and all that," he looked over the table, a bit disgusted at the lack of good shots.

"What if the lady in question asks if you're married?"

"I don't take off my wedding band, if they wanna know they can look.  Anyway, they're not looking for Mr. Right, they're looking for Mr. Right Now.  Married, single - doesn't matter."

"Do you look?"

"I do now.  A while ago I ran into one of the women I'd picked up at my church.  With her husband.  Talk about awkward," he winced at the memory and finally settled on a shot.  He took aim.

"What do you get out of it?"  Curtis looked up from the table and raised one eyebrow at McCoy, smiling slightly as if to say, Are you kidding?  McCoy chuckled.  "Beyond the obvious.  Why go back if you feel so awful the next day?"

"I dunno.  Something to do.  Something I'm good at - I'm a pretty good dancer," he sank the ball.

"You seem pretty good at pool," McCoy grumbled.  He wasn't doing well in this game.

"Why go back though?  You feel like hell the next day," Briscoe persisted.

"I don't know," he sank the cue ball and swore under his breath.

"Think," McCoy retrieved the cue ball and placed it.

"Why?"

"Because there's some reason why you feel the need to go out and have one-night stands - beyond the obvious, that is.  It's not going to look good if the prosecution can point out that you're still doing it during your trial, and it won't do your mental state much good either, at a time when you need to be stable.  Right now you're not going out because we've pretty much blackmailed you into staying in.  That won't last forever as a deterrent.  So think about why you feel you need to."

Curtis leaned on his pool cue.  "OK."  He sighed and thought for a moment, gazing off into space.  Finally he shrugged.  "I dunno.  Why does anybody have a one-night stand?  It's just something to do that feels good."

McCoy sank a ball.  "You need to find another hobby."

"'Hobby'..." Curtis snickered.  "Yeah.  Like what?"

"Pool?" McCoy missed.

Curtis laughed.  "Sure, Jack, I'm gonna take up pool as a replacement for sex," he shook his head and surveyed the table.

"What did you used to do for fun before Deborah got sick?"

"Stuff that costs too much money now," he set up a shot, a difficult one.  "Computers, movies, going out with Deborah..." he sank the ball, surprising himself.

"Sports?"

"Yeah, but I don't have time any more.  Besides, it's not... it's not just having a good time, it's... when I..." he stopped, put his pool cue down and shook his head.  "No, I can't.  Not right now.  Ask me after I've had a beer," Briscoe scowled at him in disapproval.  "One beer isn't gonna kill me, Lennie," he said, annoyed.  "I agreed with you that I was drinking too much, but I'm not actually an alcoholic, you know.  Don't project your psychopathologies on me, I have enough of my own."  Briscoe shrugged, letting it go.  Curtis cleared his throat and set up his next shot, effectively ending the conversation for the time being.

After the game, the three men sat at the bar.  Briscoe again brought up the subject, and Curtis looked at him thoughtfully.  "You know, this feels like confession.  Same kinda dynamic, me spilling my guts to somebody who isn't gonna spill back," McCoy and Briscoe both raised their eyebrows, and Curtis chuckled, noticing the similarity in their expressions.  "I mean, you guys know just about everything there is to know about my life, the good, bad and the ugly, and I just feel kinda... exposed, you know?"

"You know a lot about me, Rey.  You know I was a fall-down drunk, everybody knows that.  You were there when I cried like a baby after my daughter died."

"I don't know your financial situation, I don't know your sex life.  It's not that I wanna know, but... it's a pretty uneven situation.  Fortunately I'm stoned right now, so I don't really mind that much."  He took a deep breath.

"OK.  Why do I go back," he rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking.  "I guess... it's the only thing I'm good at any more, you know?" he grimaced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and tried to clarify.  "I don't do so well at work any more.  I'm tired all the time, I can't concentrate, I'm usually thinking about stuff at home... and then everything at home is difficult too.  When I go out I... shit this is hard to say," he downed some of his beer and rubbed his forehead.

"I can dance.  I can pick up a girl, give her a good time, forget the rest of my life for a while," he ran a hand through his hair, terrifically uncomfortable with the subject.  "When I'm with a woman, and she's... you know, she's having a good time because of what we're doing... it's not like anything else in my life.  I can feel good about myself, at least for a little while.  I can feel like, like I can do something right.  And if I've got enough alcohol or grass then... I get a few hours of just feeling good, no second thoughts.  It's like the beer and grass and sex just turn off my mind.  And for those few hours, it's worth it.  It's worth the guilt and the regret and all the stuff that comes later."

He looked down.  "I, I feel so bad most of the time that it's too... seductive to pass up.  I feel like... I feel like a man again.  And having a woman need me like that... I don't get that any more.  Deborah... she was always a really physical person.  That's one of the things that attracted me to her at first.  She was... she was uh, really, um, sensual.  It's a pretty powerful thing, somebody wanting you like that.  Now that's gone.  She won't even let me hold her hand.  She definitely doesn't want me to get close to her.  I don't have that, and I need it, I guess," he trailed off, thinking.

"One time I was at Rosita's and this girl I picked up said two of her girlfriends told her I was... a good lay," even through the uninhibiting effects of the alcohol, Curtis' face flushed with shame and he looked away from them, uncomfortably reliving that moment.  "I know she meant it as a compliment but I was... I was damn devastated.  I almost went home right then and there, and I didn't go back to Rosita's for months.  I don't want a rep with the bar crowd.  I'm married, I'm a practicing Catholic, the only person I wanna be sleeping with is my wife.  But... there was a part of me that thought, hey, at least somebody thinks I'm doing something right."

He cleared his throat, ending the confession.  "There you go, Lennie, you wanted me to focus on things I was doing well.  Found one.  I'm great at one-night stands.  It's my 'hobby'," he said self-mockingly.  "Unfortunately I have to be drunk or high to do it, otherwise the guilt eats me up, and I pay for it in self-respect," he drained his beer.

"I don't think this is what I had in mind," Briscoe commented.  He didn't know what else to say.

"Yeah, no kidding.  In any case, I don't see taking up pool as fulfilling that need.  Especially if I play against you," he nodded at Briscoe.

Briscoe and McCoy looked at each other, not knowing how to deal with what Curtis had just told them.  Briscoe knew he'd been in pain, that his self-esteem had been low, but hadn't realized how much Curtis needed to feel better about himself, how desperately he needed some kind of validation.  He didn't know how to combat that.  Especially since one of the things that had always defined Rey Curtis in Briscoe's mind was his cocky self-confidence.  It seemed that even the last few weeks, getting to know the man he was now, somehow hadn't shaken that image of Curtis in Briscoe's mind, until now.  Briscoe sipped his soda water, wishing there was something he could do to make this better, and knowing that there probably wasn't.

===

Thursday, November 13
9:35pm

Curtis was sitting on the steps of the high school where Mainstay met, with Jason and another man, a nondescript young Latino.  The young Latino was talking through tears, and Jason had an arm around him.  Curtis was shaking his head, and as the man talked Curtis touched his arm in sympathy briefly.  As Briscoe walked up, he could hear the man's words.

"What am I supposed to do?  They won't even tell him I called... and he said before he left that he didn't want me to call..." he broke down again.  Briscoe stopped at a distance, not sure he should interrupt.  Curtis suddenly noticed him and looked over the Latino man's head at Jason.  He mouthed, 'I'll be right back,' stood up and approached Briscoe.

"Hi, Lennie.  Sorry I got you all the way out here... I'm gonna be staying for a while, OK?"

"Everything OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just... today was MS and Divorce.  It was pretty... intense."  He looked tired, worn out.  "Like Jason said, it's a guaranteed tear-jerker.  There's about five divorces or separations going on right now, including mine and Vinnie's over there."

"Are you gonna be OK?"

"Yeah, yeah.  Jason's giving me a ride home.  We're just staying with Vinnie for a bit till he gets it together... he's in pretty bad shape.  His, uh, his spouse went back to his parents' place, they don't want Vinnie to contact him or anything.  Like MS isn't enough, he's gotta deal with their prejudice too."

"OK.  No problem, stay as late as you want."

"Thanks.  Sorry about the ride."

"Hey, you didn't ask, I offered.  No big deal."

Briscoe got back in his car, glad that Curtis was getting into the Mainstay meetings.  He knew from personal experience that it helped to not only have other people to turn to, but to know that you could help somebody else through their own trouble.  And sometimes it even helped to know that other people had it worse than you, at least in some aspect of their lives.

Briscoe chuckled to himself, mildly amused.  He'd been wondering how to help Curtis feel better about himself.  Maybe supporting other people at Mainstay could help.  It was kind of funny though.  Curtis, though he could be kind and gentle with children and crime victims, had never struck Briscoe as a touchy-feely kind of guy.  Then again, Briscoe supposed he himself probably wouldn't strike anybody as a touchy-feely kind of guy either and yet here he was, nurse-maiding his former partner through a major depression.

Besides, he could just hear Curtis' voice, if he mentioned this to him, laughing at him and saying, "Sure, Lennie, I'm gonna take up counseling other people as a replacement for sex."  Maybe not.

===

Saturday, November 15
1:01pm

It was one of those spectacularly warm, sunny days that pop up in the dreary greyness of late autumn as Briscoe and McCoy walked into Central Park.  They had stopped by Curtis's apartment and been told by his sister that the whole family, including Deborah, had gone to Central Park for the afternoon.  Curtis had let his sister know exactly where in Central Park he was going to be, as she was thinking of joining them later, after she'd had a chance to recover from the week.  Briscoe couldn't help but notice that Curtis' sister seemed drawn and tired after four weeks of looking after the three older girls, without the strain of working full time or taking care of Tania and Deborah... and yet everybody expected Curtis to be able to return to all of that some day soon.  It made him wonder.

There was Curtis, with his family.  As they approached, he was pitching a baseball to Isabel, and he waved at McCoy and Briscoe as he spotted them.  Serena sat on the grass, engrossed in a book.  Deborah and Olivia were at the picnic table, Olivia cleaning up the remains of a picnic and Deborah holding Tania in her lap and reading her a book.  Eventually the little girl started squirming, and Deborah let her down.  She started to run off.  Olivia stopped putting things away and started to run after her, but Deborah nudged Serena with her foot and spoke to her.  Scowling and expelling her breath mightily, Serena ran to get her little sister, bringing her back.  The little girl wandered in between Curtis and Isabel, getting in the way of the ball.

"Hey!"  Isabel protested.

"Relax, it's OK," smiled Curtis.  "We've got all afternoon to work on it.  Here, why don't I take Tania and you and Serena practice?"

"Like I got nothing better to do!" protested Serena.

"I don't want to anyway," Isabel stuck out her tongue at Serena.  Curtis put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Sweetheart," he chided Isabel.  He turned to Serena.  "Well, it would really make my day if you'd help her practice.  She could learn a lot from you, you're a good pitcher.  Your choice," he said noncommittally.  Serena rolled her eyes and took the ball and catcher's mitt from Curtis.

"Fine," she started throwing the ball.

Curtis picked up Tania and put her on his shoulders, making her squeal with glee.  He carried her back to the picnic table, then handed her off to Olivia when Olivia indicated she was done clearing the table and reached up for her.  He joined McCoy, Deborah and Briscoe at the picnic table.  It seemed as though Curtis and his wife had come to some kind of agreement about being together and being civil to each other, at least in front of the children.  As Curtis sat down, Deborah held up a bag with medical supplies.

"Rey, do you mind?  I forgot to get them to do it at the home and I've got the shakes."

"Sure," Curtis took out a syringe and started to prepare it.  "So, not that we're not glad to see you guys, but why are you here?" he asked McCoy and Briscoe.

"Well, we're not here with good news," McCoy began.

"I didn't think so."

"Should I be here for this?" Deborah asked.

"If you're going to be in the courtroom with him," Deborah nodded, "then I suppose you may as well."  McCoy paused for a second, watching Curtis fill Deborah's syringe.  "You know my ADA isn't handling this case because she pleaded conflict of interest trying a case against her boss, so they've got another ADA, Silcox, doing it.  He's found another court shrink, who watched the tape of your interview with Skoda.  Now, Skoda's firmly on our side, he'll testify that there was no way you planned a murder.  This other psychiatrist disagrees.  He's on the prosecution's witness list."

"That's not good, is it?" Curtis set the syringe down, helped Deborah out of her light jacket and rolled up her sleeve.

"It's a setback."

Curtis nodded thoughtfully as he dabbed alcohol onto Deborah's shoulder, then picked up and flicked the side of the syringe and nodded to her.  She looked away but didn't flinch or make a sound as he quickly jabbed her upper arm.  McCoy and Briscoe both made involuntary sounds and Curtis and his wife looked at them in amusement.

"Sorry, I forget most people are kinda squeamish about needles," Curtis said as he finished injecting Deborah's medication and removed the syringe.  He dabbed the needle mark with alcohol and nodded to Deborah, who rubbed her arm briefly and smiled at McCoy and Briscoe.

"It doesn't hurt after you've been doing this twice a day for years, you know.  And he's had lots of practice, he's good at it."

"I'll take your word for it," said Briscoe, grimacing.  Curtis put the used supplies back in the bag and looked at Deborah's shoulder.

"What's this?" he pointed to a large bruise.

"Nothing."

"What nothing?  You've got a bruise."

"Nothing, nothing.  One of the nursing aides is pretty new, and he's... he's learning."

"Christ.  On you?  He hurt you, Deborah!" Curtis said indignantly.  Deborah set her jaw stubbornly and Curtis spread his hands.  "Fine.  Fine, you're the one who wants to stay there, fine.  I won't say anything about the fact that you're not being taken care of right," he said grimly.  Evidently they had been down this road before.  Curtis helped Deborah put her jacket back on, both of them containing their irritation at each other.  He looked away from her and changed the subject.

"So, about this shrink.  What does this mean?  Is it really bad?"

"Well, it's not good.  We're going to have battling experts.  The good thing is, Skoda's the one who actually did the interview, and he's also got much better credentials than their shrink.  Unfortunately, he also knows you personally.  The prosecution will probably bring that up."

"I think I met him maybe four, five times while I was at the 2-7.  It's not like we were best buddies."

"No, but the prosecution will probably try to accentuate the relationship and make it look like he's biased.  Also, he's been in contact with you since your arrest - they may want to bring that up."

"When was he in contact with you?" Deborah asked curiously.

"Just some consultation," Curtis said quickly, looking over Deborah's head at McCoy and Briscoe and shaking his head slightly.  Evidently he hadn't told her about Skoda's visit to Briscoe's apartment.  Deborah looked at him intently, sensing she was missing something.

"Rey."  He met her gaze, dark eyes guarded.  "What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing you need to know."

"What?  I'm your wife, if this has to do with the trial, I should know.  Do you want me to hear whatever this is in court?"

"You're not gonna hear about it in court.  And you're the one who's pushing the divorce on me, so don't give me this 'I'm your wife' crap.  There's no reason for you to know anything that isn't gonna make it to the trial," he said bluntly.  Deborah recoiled slightly, hurt.  Briscoe and McCoy squirmed inwardly, both wishing they were somewhere else.  Deborah backed up from the table and wheeled herself over to Olivia and Tania, not looking back at Curtis.  He rubbed his eyes, blew out his breath and called out "Sorry."  She nodded back at him, accepting his apology.  McCoy filled Curtis in on some other particulars about the prosecution's psychiatrist and what he would probably say.

===

A little while later, after Serena and Isabel had finished pitching practice and Isabel had gone to a public washroom with Deborah, a pretty young woman with a mobile pretzel stand approached.  Briscoe watched the girls eye the cart enviously and called out, "Who wants pretzels and pop?"

"Lennie-" Curtis began.

"My treat, girls," McCoy said casually.  "Let's get enough for everyone."  Curtis looked away, scowling slightly.  Briscoe and McCoy knew it bothered him that his family didn't have enough money for treats like this, that he hated accepting charity from his friends, but what the hell.  McCoy was here now, and a few pretzels wouldn't put a dent in his pocketbook.  The young woman running the stand counted out the pretzels and drinks and carried them to the picnic table with a friendly smile.  Curtis thanked her as she put his pretzel down.

"You're welcome, sir," the pretzel seller smiled flirtatiously before moving off, and Curtis smiled back and took a sip of his coke, following her with his eyes without being aware he was doing so.  Serena looked back at the young woman.

"She's not your type, Dad, she's not at a bar," she said nastily.

Olivia slapped her sister's arm.  Curtis choked on his coke, coughed a few times and put his drink down hard, jarring the table slightly.  He shot Serena an annoyed look.

"It was a joke, wouldja relax already?"

"You've got a painful sense of humor, Serena."

"Oh give it a rest."

"It's not funny."

"Rey..." McCoy shook his head, indicating he really didn't think it was worth the argument.  Curtis blew out his breath and dropped it.

===

Soon after Deborah and Isabel came back, three of Serena's friends appeared and the four girls skipped off to play double-dutch nearby.  McCoy excused himself, going home to work on other cases.  Briscoe asked if he should go too, but Curtis and Deborah, not looking at each other, both indicated that he was welcome to stay.  Briscoe got the impression that neither one really wanted to be alone with the other right now.  They stayed at the picnic table, watching the girls play together and making casual conversation, enjoying what would probably be the last mild afternoon of the year.

"Yeah?  Then you're fucking PR trash!" a shrill young boy's voice said derisively.  The adults and Olivia and Isabel turned to look.  There were Serena and her friends, facing off with three white boys about twelve to fourteen years old, evidently in the middle of an escalating argument.  One of the boys said something in sneering, heavily accented Spanish.  Curtis and his wife both drew in their breaths angrily as the girls shouted back at him.

"Kid knows just enough Spanish to be insulting," Curtis muttered, dark eyes glittering.  Briscoe started to stand up, and Deborah put a hand on his arm.

"Don't, Lennie, she has to learn to handle it.  Wait."  They waited for a few moments.  The argument grew in volume, until other people at the park started to notice.

"Stupid bandolera!" the boy screamed at Serena.

"Oh crap, he just called her a slut," Curtis said under his breath and started to stand up slowly as the children continued screaming at each other, then rushed to Serena's side when one of them called her a spic and she took a swing at him.  The boy went down and Serena pounced on him, hitting him again and again viciously.  Curtis grabbed her and pulled her off, and held her tightly while she struggled.  The boy, now sporting a bloody nose, scrambled to his feet and continued to scream at Serena and her friends.  The other two boys tried to look at his nose, and yelled at the girls as well.

"Crazy spic bitch!  What, you can't take a joke?" the boy tried to hit Serena, and was stopped by Curtis, who knocked his arm out of the way.

"Hey!  That's my daughter, punk! Lay off!" Curtis snapped at him.

"Dejame! Dejame!" Serena screamed at Curtis, struggling to free herself.

"There a problem here?"  Briscoe approached.  Curtis quickly motioned to Briscoe to back off.

"Fuck off, grandpa," said one of the boys.

Briscoe pulled out his badge.  "I didn't hear you right.  You got a problem here?"

"Lennie," Curtis said sharply, warning.

"Nothin'.  This spic was gonna beat us up 'cause his kid picked a fight with us," the older boy said, puffing himself up with righteous outrage.

"Yeah, I guess you're in real danger from an eleven-year old girl.  And this spic... he's a good friend of mine," Briscoe paused, "as well as a cop."  He nodded to Curtis to take out his badge.

Curtis gave Briscoe an indecipherable look and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open and flashing his badge quickly.  The boys quickly melted away, disappearing as fast as they could.  Serena and her friends laughed triumphantly and jeered at the fleeing boys, as did Olivia and Isabel, who had approached with Deborah and Tania in the meantime.  Curtis turned on Briscoe, furious.

"Nice job, Lennie.  I did not want you to get involved!"

"You gonna let those punks get away with talking like that to your daughter?"

"You gonna make sure you're around next time she gets called a nasty name?" he shot back angrily.  Briscoe was taken aback.  He opened his mouth to defend his actions, but Curtis cut him off, continuing forcefully.

"Listen, Lennie.  We are not 'Hispanic' any more, OK?  That's what you're called when you're brown but you talk and dress white.  We buy our clothes secondhand and we've all picked up Spanish accents, especially the kids.  We're 'spics' now," he said bitterly, "and if Serena can't handle that, if she picks a fight every time some piece of trash calls her a name, she's in trouble.  And you and me are not gonna be there to flash our badges for her, so she better learn to hold her head high and stay outta trouble no matter what they say," he looked down at his fuming daughter and her friends.

"Listen to me.  You cannot fly off the handle when somebody insults you like that.  You're gonna get yourself hurt or killed."  She refused to look at him, lower lip jutting out and fists still clenched.  He went down on one knee, still keeping a hand on her but getting down to her eye level.  "I know what I'm talking about, OK?  When I was first partnered with Lennie, we went to a biker hangout and some biker called me a spic.  I pulled my gun on him," Serena looked at him, pleased surprise on her face and admiration on the faces of her friends.  "Yeah, pretty cool, huh?" They nodded.  He shook his head vehemently.  "It was damn stupid.  I was lucky I didn't get us both killed, and for nothing, because some idiot biker called me a name.  You might not be so lucky."

"You want us to just take it?!  That what you want us to do?!" asked one of Serena's friends.

"You suck it up is what you do!  You don't give them the satisfaction of seeing they bothered you.  You keep in mind that you're better than any trash that can't see past your skin and your talk!!"

"He said I was part nigger.  I'm not a nigger!"

Deborah gasped and Curtis shook Serena, really angry now.  "And you don't ever, EVER use that word again!!  Be proud of your blood, but don't you EVER look down on somebody else's.  You do, and you're worse than those little racist punks, because you should know better!  And that goes for all of you!"  He glared at her friends.  Serena glared back at him, resentful and hurt.  He motioned to her friends to move off and they did, casting sympathetic looks back at Serena.  He took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair and spoke to her more gently this time.

"Look, I know you're mad, and I'm gonna assume you said what you just did because you're mad.  That's no excuse, but... we'll let it go this time," he rubbed his forehead wearily.  "It pisses me off too, and I'd love to pound his face in.  And you know what happens if I do that?  I go to jail and you all go to foster care for good.  And you, if you try to pound his face in, he'll either beat you to a pulp or call the police, and then you're in the hospital or in juvie.  And he's laughing at us, 'cause we're stupid spics who can't even take a joke," he said gently.  "Look... you're still on probation and I'm out on bail.  You get into a big enough fight, and we're all in trouble.  Is that worth it?  For a name?"  She looked down, and he reached out and gently lifted her chin up.  "It's just a word, honey.  It doesn't bring you shame.  It doesn't say anything about you.  It brings him shame for using it."

She deflated, and pulled herself out of his grip.  She started to walk off and he sighed and followed her.  He called her name softly, and she stopped.  He spoke to her in a low voice for a few moments, apparently asking her if she was injured because she looked at her knuckles and shook her head.  He finally gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder, let her rejoin her friends, and returned to the table.

Briscoe cleared his throat.  "This happens a lot?"

Curtis and his wife looked at each other and nodded sadly.  "Yeah.  Where we lived before, there wasn't a problem.  Whatever people thought, they didn't say.  But our new neighbourhood... it's not a pretty picture.  Lotsa racial tension, lotsa bad blood on both sides.  Damn West Side Story half the time.  It's pathetic."

Briscoe considered that.  When he had worked with Curtis, Curtis' Spanish accent had been virtually undetectable.  He realized that this was something else that had changed in his friend; the accent was very slightly more noticeable in his speech as well as Deborah's.  The children, with their more malleable speech patterns, now had noticeable accents.  And they all tended to slip from English to Spanish and back a lot more frequently than before.  He hadn't realized that yet another cross that Curtis and his family were now carrying was increased exposure to racism now that they had moved down the social ladder and into a low-income Hispanic neighbourhood.

"You know one of the teachers at their school actually called some students lazy spics?" Deborah said grimly.  "She's still teaching there.  A bunch of us parents wanted her out, but there's a teacher shortage so she's still there.  She watches her mouth now, but she still picks on the white kids to answer questions and picks on the brown kids whenever she doesn't know who broke her vase or stole her supplies."  Briscoe shook his head, appalled.  Serena's friends, apparently deciding the park was no longer a fun place to be, left and Serena rejoined the family, taking out her book again.

"Where's Tania?" Isabel suddenly asked.

"Over there - oh!"  Deborah exclaimed.  Briscoe and Curtis turned to look, to find that the little girl had found a mud puddle and was rubbing mud into her hair.  Curtis gave a low whistle.

"Shampoo!" said Tania happily.  Curtis groaned.

"Oh my god."  He approached the little girl, ducking when she flung mud at him.  "Pare, pare, no es para su pelo."  Tania pulled some mud out of her hair, then reached out to pat Curtis' face.

"Si?" she said.

Curtis quickly scraped the mud off his cheek, and started to chuckle at her unbelievably dirty face.  She grinned back and tried to touch his face with a muddy hand.

"Pare, pare, hija, quedese tranquila," he said, capturing her hands as she struggled and giggled.  She flung a handful of mud up in the air and it splattered Curtis, Tania and Olivia.

"Mierda!" "Shit!" exclaimed Curtis and Olivia at the same time.  Tania shrieked, "Mieeeda!"

Curtis clapped a hand over his mouth and stifled a laugh.  Tania, delighted by the reaction, repeated herself as the rest of the family tried hard to keep straight faces.  All of a sudden Olivia broke down and started to giggle.  Curtis gave her a stern glare, somewhat dampened by the suppressed laughter in his own eyes, then he also gave in and started to laugh, which prompted the rest of them to break down too.  Deborah shook her head at him in disapproval, again somewhat tempered by her own fit of the giggles.  "I'm sorry, Deborah," he gasped, "I guess I'm just quotable."

"Daddy, you shouldn't use language like that," Isabel scolded him, giggling.

"No sh - no kidding," he said, still laughing helplessly.

"If I said something like that you'd send me to my room." Serena said, somewhat grumpily even though she too had cracked up.

"Hey, if I have to go to my room Olivia should have to go too."

"Hey, she didn't quote me."

The baby continued to fling mud up in the air.  "Pare, pare," he said, capturing her hands and laughing, as she struggled and giggled.  A gob of mud slid down her face and trickled down her nose.  Curtis laughed harder, shaking his head in disbelief.  "Hija, por Dios quedese tranquila, no se mueva mas." She shrieked and tried to touch him with her muddy hands, and he finally gave up.  She gleefully hugged him and splattered him with mud.  "Ya, ya, muy bien, siga no mas."  He observed her making mud patterns on his jacket and shook his head, still amused.  He looked up at Deborah.  "Did you see where the men's room is?  I'm gonna have to get her cleaned up before we send her back to the foster home."

"Mieeeda!" the baby repeated.

"Oh, we really have to stop laughing.  She's still saying it.  We're gonna get in trouble with the social worker," Curtis sighed, somewhat sobered by the thought that he had to be answerable to somebody else for his own daughter's care.  "OK, sweetie.  Let's go get you cleaned up."

"Dad, let me," Olivia offered, "Don't take her to the men's room, I'm big enough to take her into the ladies'."

"Thanks."  Olivia and Isabel, still giggling, pulled their little sister to the washroom while Serena looked on in disgust.  She went back to reading her book.

"Man.  I don't think I've actually laughed out loud in a couple of years."  Curtis was silent for a moment, wiping as much of the mud off his jacket as he could and thinking for a minute. "Guess I really was pretty depressed."  Deborah looked at him and nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah.  You were," she gave him a sad smile.  "It's good to see you smiling again," she said softly.

===

After the older girls had been taken back to Curtis's apartment and Deborah and Tania had gone back to the nursing and foster homes respectively, Briscoe and Curtis got into Briscoe's car.

"Ready to go home?" asked Briscoe.

"Yeah."

"Let's go then."

"Yeah, no, that's not what I mean.  I mean I think I'm ready to go home.  My home," he clarified.  Briscoe raised his eyebrows at him.

"I don't mean right now, obviously.  I figure everybody will probably need to get in on this, since I can't be trusted to make any decisions on my own any more," there was more than a trace of disgust at himself in his voice.  "But I wanna go home."

"You sure you're ready?"

"No, I'm not sure.  I'm not sure of anything any more.  But I miss my kids, Lennie.  I don't like just visiting them.  And I have to go back some time.  Plus..." he looked down, "I may not have much time left with them.  If I'm gonna go to prison I'd like to spend my last few days with my family."

"OK.  We'll call Jack and Deborah and your sister.  We'll work it out."

"What do you think?"

"I think you're right."

Curtis regarded him steadily for a few moments.  "Really?"

"You're doing better.  Just today, there were about a dozen times when you could've lost your temper with Serena, or those racist kids, or Deborah.  You kept your cool.   Actually you're doing better than when we were partners, temper-wise."  Curtis smiled slightly.  "Now we just have to figure out how to make sure you keep doing OK, and how to help you out if things don't go so good."  Curtis nodded.  "Besides, the trial starts December 8.  That's in, uh-"

"Twenty-four days."  Curtis's expression turned brooding, as it always did when he thought of the trial.

"-and I think you should be home and settled in by the time it starts.  And you've been on the anti-depressants for..." he trailed off, trying to figure it out.

"Five and a half weeks," Curtis supplied absently, still thinking about the trial.

"-right, so they should be kicking in, and it's been, what, about a week since you smoked up?"

"Five days, actually," Curtis frowned slightly, not happy with that number.  Briscoe looked at him sympathetically.  He knew it bothered Curtis to feel dependent on any drug, legal or illegal, to keep himself steady.  And he himself wasn't thrilled that Curtis was using an illegal substance either.  But the guy really needed to ease up on himself.

"Well, that's not that bad.  And it's a while since you woke me up-"

"Six days," absent tone of voice, Curtis just automatically supplying him with information while thinking about something else - probably the fact that he was still using drugs.

"-and that time wasn't even so bad, you fell asleep about fifteen minutes later.  By the way, what are ya, human calendar?" Briscoe asked, a little irritated but mostly amused.  Curtis had always been more than a little anal about times and dates.  Curtis smiled, acknowledging the ribbing.

"OK, how long since you've gone out to a bar?" Briscoe challenged.

"And went home with somebody?  October 11th, 35 days" Briscoe started to laugh, and kept laughing as Curtis continued, grinning at him.  "Went out and had my fairy godfathers rescue me from myself?  October 18th, 28 days.  Wanted to go out?  Right now."  Briscoe raised his eyebrows and Curtis waved him off, indicating he wasn't serious.  Briscoe chuckled and started up the car.

"OK.  Let's go back home.  My home.  And let's get you ready to go back to your home."

"OK.  Let's go."

===

Author's Notes: Once again, while the Spanish in the story is grammatically correct, it's probably not the actual dialect that Rey and his family would use.  I'm Chilean, and I'm not sure what Rey is but I am pretty sure he's not Chilean.  So some of the vocabulary and syntax might be a little different.

For those obsessive enough to need to know, here's the Spanish translations:

"Dejame!! Dejame!!" Serena screamed at Curtis, struggling to free herself.
"Let me go!  Let me go!"

"Pare, pare, no es para su pelo."  Tania pulled some mud out of her hair, then reached out to pat Curtis' face.
"Stop, stop, that's not for your hair."

"Si?" she said.
"Yes?" (I know, I know, that one's pretty obvious)

"Pare, pare, hija, quedese tranquila,"
"Stop, stop, daughter, stay still."

"Mierda!" "Shit!" exclaimed Curtis and Olivia at the same time.
Instant translation courtesy of Olivia Curtis.  Naughty, naughty Olivia.

The baby continued to fling mud up in the air.  "Pare, pare," he said.
"Stop, stop."

"Hija, por Dios quedese tranquila, no se mueva mas."
Daughter, for god's sake, stay still, don't move any more.

"Ya, ya, muy bien, siga no mas."
"Fine, fine, very well, go ahead."