Here you are. Sorry for the delay (again). Ran into some writer's block
when it came to Witchblade. Well, when it came to anything, really.
Hopefully that hurdle has been well and truly passed and there won't be as
much of a wait until the next part. Thanks for the reviews, everyone.
It's good to see that people are enjoying this story.
Essential 19
As Danny left the office shared by the three of them, Sara tossed the folder she had been studying down. It landed on a desk covered with such an abundance of similar ones that Sara could feel a too-much-paperwork headache beginning to pound at her temples. The growing headache wasn't helped by the antics of her partners. Danny was supremely pleased that a member of his family had been allowed to meet Mr. Mysterious. The fact that he had passed Jenny's radar was a definitely plus: his young daughter didn't like just any grown-up, whether they were friends with one of her favorite adults or not. Sara could put up with that: at least Danny was quiet about it. The main problem that she was having was the third member of their crime-fighting trio. "What's your problem today, Jake?"
The rookie looked up at the question and shook his head, his normally mobile features tightening. "Why do I have to have a problem?"
Sara raised an eyebrow at him; the movement making the rookie look down at the desk. "Jake, you've been acting like an ass all morning. What, did you strike out last night?"
He raised his eyes and glared at her as a telltale flush rose on his tanned skin. "Something like that," he finally conceded, hoping that the answer would give her what she wanted to know. No matter how many times he repeated that there was nothing wrong, she wasn't going to stop asking until he'd given her an answer she wanted and accepted as the truth.
Sara considered what the blonde said before disregarding it with a small shake of her head. "Doesn't wash, rookie. Even God's gift to women strikes out more than once in a lifetime. Surely you've had the experience before." As soon as the words left her mouth, she winced and shrugged an apology at the man giving her an affronted glare. "You know what I mean," she told him as she leant back in her chair and raised booted feet to rest on the desk before her. "What's your problem today?" As she waited for an answer to her repeated question, a memory from the night before came to mind: Gabriel mentioning the neighbor hanging out in the parking lot. Shaking it off and crossing her arms across her chest, she waited.
Jake sighed, knowing that he wasn't going to get away with again proclaiming that he didn't have a problem. Sara was the type to grab a hold of something and worry it to the bone until satisfied. That stubbornness was what made her a great detective and a good, if somewhat annoying occasionally, friend. "I struck out, Sara. Honestly," he added as she gave him a skeptical look.
"Someone you've been wanting to go out with for a while?" she probed.
"No one special," he answered uncomfortably as he resisted the urge to shift in his seat.
"If it wasn't anyone special you wouldn't be this upset," she pointed out with inescapable logic.
"Fine," he conceded with a sigh. "It's a woman I've been interested in for a few months, okay? We've been getting along pretty good lately and I figured it was finally time to take the jump and ask her out. She turned me down," he finished quietly. "I went over to her place to see if I could talk her into going out, but someone else beat me to it," he muttered more to himself than to her.
"And you decided to stake out my apartment," she offered softly.
"That wasn't what I was doing! I was just..." he trailed off and stared at the woman he was talking to. "You know?"
"I suspected," she answered. "Gabe noticed someone outside in the parking lot," she explained, leaving out the details of the Witchblade reacting as it normally did whenever Jake annoyed her. "What were you planning on doing, Jake?" Though she asked the question in a conversational voice, the thread of steel running through it left no doubt to the fact that she expected an answer.
"Nothing! I was just going to try inviting you again; see if you'd say 'yes' if I was already there in person," he explained.
"And not leave until I agreed?"
"You don't socialize enough," he sullenly told her when she guessed his plan of action from the night before.
"Jake, listen to me, okay? I mean this in the nicest possible way," she told him before plunging on with clearly enunciated words. "It isn't your job to make sure I socialize. I work with you, even consider you a friend when you don't pull stupid stunts like this. It doesn't mean that I have to accept invitations from you if I don't feel like it. You don't have a say in my private life. That's why it's called a private life," she stressed.
"Okay, fine," he agreed a little too quickly. A silence followed the agreement during which Sara moved her feet back to the floor and picked up the folder she had discarded earlier, only to toss it back down when Jake spoke again. "So, that was Mr. Mysterious, huh?" he asked using Danny's name for Sara's unknown boyfriend.
"Jake..." she drew it out warningly.
"Come on," he wheedled, "what do you really know about the guy?"
"Enough," she answered.
"You've known him how long?"
"A few months," she answered with impatience. "What, you don't think I can take care of myself?"
Jake laughed at the absurd notion. If any woman was completely capable of taking care of herself, it was Sara. Her self-defense techniques were supernatural at times.
"So it's not that. Okay," she accepted with a small nod, "then what is it? You see him put a body in the trunk of his car? Buy some drugs from the friendly neighborhood corner dealer?"
Jake hesitated, wanting to say 'yes' to at least the second part of it but knowing that he'd probably be caught in the lie and it would only anger his senior partner more. "Nothing like that," he admitted finally. "It's just..." he let the sentence trail off, not knowing how to say what he wanted without sounding like an idiot.
"Just what, Jake? Just that you're upset that he came over after I turned you down? Just that you didn't totally believe someone could be interested in me? Just what, Jake?" she repeated dangerously.
"I worry about you," he admitted quietly, flinching in anticipation of the bomb he expected to be his response.
Sara blinked at the unexpected answer and shook her head to clear it. "That's sweet, Jake, but I can take care of myself." He nodded acceptance of that fact, one which he already knew but which didn't stop him from worrying about her anyhow.
"Why didn't you tell me you had plans already?"
"Because I didn't," she answered as she picked her file up again. She looked over at him, shrugging to soften the brusque answer. "It's a lot different when someone calls you and asks if you want to go out and someone calls you to see if they can bring by dinner and a movie," she finally told him. "Never mind the fact that I'm dating him, not you, and he told me that he'd leave whenever I asked. Not whenever it was convenient for him."
Jake accepted the dig with a grimace and turned back to his work.
Sara followed his example and began to peruse the file, looking for the clue that would wrap the case up and that she just knew was there. As she searched, something occurred to her and she looked over at Jake again. "Hey, rookie?"
"Yeah?"
"I hope you didn't write down his plate number or anything to run him through the computer," she told him.
Jake looked up, startled at the devious semi-accusation. "Nah, nothing like that," he told her even as he inwardly shook his head at the lost opportunity.
"What's this about running someone through the computer?" Danny came back into the office balancing paper plates with their midmorning snacks, the ambrosia of a cop's life: donuts.
Sara looked up and accepted one of the plates with a grateful smile. "Nothing. Thanks, partner," she lifted the plate an inch before setting it down on the covered desk.
"Just talking about my chance to run Mr. Mysterious through the computer. Find out what type of a record he has," Jake offered in trade as he accepted his plate.
"You got his plates?"
"No," Jake mourned. "I had the chance, but didn't think of it."
Danny shared a quick grin with Sara and reached out to pat the blonde on his head. "It's okay; you'll be thinking like a cop soon," he teased.
Jake made a face and waved the Asian's hand away from his head, smoothing down his hair after the threat had moved on.
"So, what's this guy look like? Why are you so sure he'd have a record?" Danny looked up at Sara as she poured coffee for him from the coffeepot. Sure enough, she was scowling. "Hey, I gotta get my information somewhere!" he defended himself with a grin. "Thanks for the coffee, partner."
Sara shook her head and topped off Jake's mug; her green eyes flashing as she dared him to answer Danny's probing questions.
"Young," came the answer. "Decent sort," he decided. "But the way he dresses... You'd expect something from him. He looks like a hippie."
Sara, having refilled her own mug, returned the pot to the stand, and sat down, choked on the drink she'd just taken. "He does not look like a hippie!" she exclaimed when she could breathe again.
"Longish hair, layers, and he drives a beetle, Sara. Sounds like a hippie to me," he affirmed before taking a bite of his buttermilk donut.
Sara shook her head. "How many other people drive beetles in this country? Are they all hippies?"
Danny shook his head and laughed as he divided his chocolate donut in half. Trading it for half of Sara's raspberry filled-one, he sighed. "I'm being completely left out of the loop," he mourned. My daughter met Mr. Mysterious before I did, Jake the rookie met him before I did..."
"Actually," Jake clarified, "I only saw him outside of Sara's apartment building."
"What were you doing, stalking Sara?"
Jake's "no" mingled with Sara's heartfelt "please, god, no. One stalker's enough for any girl."
Danny shook his head, his warm eyes reflecting worry at her stalker situation. "Well, Jake," he said in an effort to cheer himself up some more, "next time you see this guy, will you get me his plates?"
Jake's laughter was almost drowned out by Sara's outraged "Danny!" that echoed through the office slightly as the Asian detective ducked wadded paper missiles.
Lunch came and the trio had just decided that instead of facing anything that was growing in the break-room or anything from the fast food joints around, they'd go to Frankie's. A diner that had food that could appeal to everyone and had extremely fast service, a plus when you were on a police officer on the job, it was one of the normal places for officers to eat. They had just put away and grabbed their jackets when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," Sara asked warily. Gabriel hadn't had anything delivered in the past few days and she was hoping that the trend would be continued. She appreciated the gestures, and she had to admit that they were both touching and well thought out. To herself. The fact that they were delivered at the precinct was what she had the problem with. Some of the guys in Homicide were still teasing her as much as they dared about the flowers and everything else that had been sent.
Her hope was not to be answered, she surmised as the door was opened to reveal an androgynous figure that she had come to associate with the delivery company that Gabe preferred. A part of her absently wondering whether he chose the same company for delivery of things bought at the shop, she signed for the package without bothering to correct the mispronunciation of her last name. She looked over at her partners as she put the box on her desk and grimaced, knowing that the stubborn look on Danny's face meant that they wouldn't be leaving the office until he was satisfied.
With a sigh, she gingerly cut through the packaging tape with a letter opener and pulled back the four flaps. She leant over a bit and peered inside from above and slightly to the side, half expecting something alive to jump out at her. She wouldn't have put a kitten or a puppy or some other small cute furry thing being a gift from Gabriel. Instead, there was a smaller box, wrapped in a sophisticated twisting silver and gray paper. Lifting it out of the brown box and placing it under her desk, she glanced at her partners again, annoyed at the lack of privacy. Running a fingernail under the paper, she split it open to reveal a matching box. Wondering why it had been wrapped since the silver holographic bow could have been affixed to the box just as easily, she opened the second box and gave a gasp of surprised pleasure.
Danny moved forward, his curiosity getting the better of him, and she sent a smile in his direction. Lifting out a glass ball, she held onto it while pulling out the ornate carved metal base that went with it. She examined the intricate carvings on the metal, running her thumb over some of it before setting it down on the desk and focusing on the glass ball. It was mostly clear, hand-blown glass as evidenced by the bubbles around it. In the center was another piece of intricate metalwork, this time a sword that had a blood red speck of color on the handle. There was a perfectly formed rose of the same blood red handle next to the sword, its' dark emerald green stem twined around the blade. Delicate streaks of the red flowed through the clear glass ball in never-ending spirals.
She swallowed and pulled her long sleeve down to cover the Witchblade, it's own crimson stone swirling in recognition. Then she handed the glass ball to Danny, who was flanking her so that he could see what the latest parcel was. While he was looking over it, the beauty capturing his attention even if he wasn't sure of the significance of it. She peered into the box, wondering if this one was going to be like the majority of gifts from Gabriel: no real card. Instead there was the glitter of a sandy-pink colored card with gold embossing on it. Lifting it out of the box, she smiled at the simple three-word message proclaimed in raised calligraphy.
I love you.
Sara smiled softly and ran her thumb over the message. She glanced over at Danny as he set the bauble on the metal base and put the card face down next to it. The message was written on both sides of it, a fact that caused Danny to chuckle as the message was revealed to him. She looked over towards Jake, standing silently and uncomfortably next to the office doorway. "Lunch, guys?"
"Sure thing, Pez," Jake was quick to agree, standing back so that Sara could precede the men.
TBC
Essential 19
As Danny left the office shared by the three of them, Sara tossed the folder she had been studying down. It landed on a desk covered with such an abundance of similar ones that Sara could feel a too-much-paperwork headache beginning to pound at her temples. The growing headache wasn't helped by the antics of her partners. Danny was supremely pleased that a member of his family had been allowed to meet Mr. Mysterious. The fact that he had passed Jenny's radar was a definitely plus: his young daughter didn't like just any grown-up, whether they were friends with one of her favorite adults or not. Sara could put up with that: at least Danny was quiet about it. The main problem that she was having was the third member of their crime-fighting trio. "What's your problem today, Jake?"
The rookie looked up at the question and shook his head, his normally mobile features tightening. "Why do I have to have a problem?"
Sara raised an eyebrow at him; the movement making the rookie look down at the desk. "Jake, you've been acting like an ass all morning. What, did you strike out last night?"
He raised his eyes and glared at her as a telltale flush rose on his tanned skin. "Something like that," he finally conceded, hoping that the answer would give her what she wanted to know. No matter how many times he repeated that there was nothing wrong, she wasn't going to stop asking until he'd given her an answer she wanted and accepted as the truth.
Sara considered what the blonde said before disregarding it with a small shake of her head. "Doesn't wash, rookie. Even God's gift to women strikes out more than once in a lifetime. Surely you've had the experience before." As soon as the words left her mouth, she winced and shrugged an apology at the man giving her an affronted glare. "You know what I mean," she told him as she leant back in her chair and raised booted feet to rest on the desk before her. "What's your problem today?" As she waited for an answer to her repeated question, a memory from the night before came to mind: Gabriel mentioning the neighbor hanging out in the parking lot. Shaking it off and crossing her arms across her chest, she waited.
Jake sighed, knowing that he wasn't going to get away with again proclaiming that he didn't have a problem. Sara was the type to grab a hold of something and worry it to the bone until satisfied. That stubbornness was what made her a great detective and a good, if somewhat annoying occasionally, friend. "I struck out, Sara. Honestly," he added as she gave him a skeptical look.
"Someone you've been wanting to go out with for a while?" she probed.
"No one special," he answered uncomfortably as he resisted the urge to shift in his seat.
"If it wasn't anyone special you wouldn't be this upset," she pointed out with inescapable logic.
"Fine," he conceded with a sigh. "It's a woman I've been interested in for a few months, okay? We've been getting along pretty good lately and I figured it was finally time to take the jump and ask her out. She turned me down," he finished quietly. "I went over to her place to see if I could talk her into going out, but someone else beat me to it," he muttered more to himself than to her.
"And you decided to stake out my apartment," she offered softly.
"That wasn't what I was doing! I was just..." he trailed off and stared at the woman he was talking to. "You know?"
"I suspected," she answered. "Gabe noticed someone outside in the parking lot," she explained, leaving out the details of the Witchblade reacting as it normally did whenever Jake annoyed her. "What were you planning on doing, Jake?" Though she asked the question in a conversational voice, the thread of steel running through it left no doubt to the fact that she expected an answer.
"Nothing! I was just going to try inviting you again; see if you'd say 'yes' if I was already there in person," he explained.
"And not leave until I agreed?"
"You don't socialize enough," he sullenly told her when she guessed his plan of action from the night before.
"Jake, listen to me, okay? I mean this in the nicest possible way," she told him before plunging on with clearly enunciated words. "It isn't your job to make sure I socialize. I work with you, even consider you a friend when you don't pull stupid stunts like this. It doesn't mean that I have to accept invitations from you if I don't feel like it. You don't have a say in my private life. That's why it's called a private life," she stressed.
"Okay, fine," he agreed a little too quickly. A silence followed the agreement during which Sara moved her feet back to the floor and picked up the folder she had discarded earlier, only to toss it back down when Jake spoke again. "So, that was Mr. Mysterious, huh?" he asked using Danny's name for Sara's unknown boyfriend.
"Jake..." she drew it out warningly.
"Come on," he wheedled, "what do you really know about the guy?"
"Enough," she answered.
"You've known him how long?"
"A few months," she answered with impatience. "What, you don't think I can take care of myself?"
Jake laughed at the absurd notion. If any woman was completely capable of taking care of herself, it was Sara. Her self-defense techniques were supernatural at times.
"So it's not that. Okay," she accepted with a small nod, "then what is it? You see him put a body in the trunk of his car? Buy some drugs from the friendly neighborhood corner dealer?"
Jake hesitated, wanting to say 'yes' to at least the second part of it but knowing that he'd probably be caught in the lie and it would only anger his senior partner more. "Nothing like that," he admitted finally. "It's just..." he let the sentence trail off, not knowing how to say what he wanted without sounding like an idiot.
"Just what, Jake? Just that you're upset that he came over after I turned you down? Just that you didn't totally believe someone could be interested in me? Just what, Jake?" she repeated dangerously.
"I worry about you," he admitted quietly, flinching in anticipation of the bomb he expected to be his response.
Sara blinked at the unexpected answer and shook her head to clear it. "That's sweet, Jake, but I can take care of myself." He nodded acceptance of that fact, one which he already knew but which didn't stop him from worrying about her anyhow.
"Why didn't you tell me you had plans already?"
"Because I didn't," she answered as she picked her file up again. She looked over at him, shrugging to soften the brusque answer. "It's a lot different when someone calls you and asks if you want to go out and someone calls you to see if they can bring by dinner and a movie," she finally told him. "Never mind the fact that I'm dating him, not you, and he told me that he'd leave whenever I asked. Not whenever it was convenient for him."
Jake accepted the dig with a grimace and turned back to his work.
Sara followed his example and began to peruse the file, looking for the clue that would wrap the case up and that she just knew was there. As she searched, something occurred to her and she looked over at Jake again. "Hey, rookie?"
"Yeah?"
"I hope you didn't write down his plate number or anything to run him through the computer," she told him.
Jake looked up, startled at the devious semi-accusation. "Nah, nothing like that," he told her even as he inwardly shook his head at the lost opportunity.
"What's this about running someone through the computer?" Danny came back into the office balancing paper plates with their midmorning snacks, the ambrosia of a cop's life: donuts.
Sara looked up and accepted one of the plates with a grateful smile. "Nothing. Thanks, partner," she lifted the plate an inch before setting it down on the covered desk.
"Just talking about my chance to run Mr. Mysterious through the computer. Find out what type of a record he has," Jake offered in trade as he accepted his plate.
"You got his plates?"
"No," Jake mourned. "I had the chance, but didn't think of it."
Danny shared a quick grin with Sara and reached out to pat the blonde on his head. "It's okay; you'll be thinking like a cop soon," he teased.
Jake made a face and waved the Asian's hand away from his head, smoothing down his hair after the threat had moved on.
"So, what's this guy look like? Why are you so sure he'd have a record?" Danny looked up at Sara as she poured coffee for him from the coffeepot. Sure enough, she was scowling. "Hey, I gotta get my information somewhere!" he defended himself with a grin. "Thanks for the coffee, partner."
Sara shook her head and topped off Jake's mug; her green eyes flashing as she dared him to answer Danny's probing questions.
"Young," came the answer. "Decent sort," he decided. "But the way he dresses... You'd expect something from him. He looks like a hippie."
Sara, having refilled her own mug, returned the pot to the stand, and sat down, choked on the drink she'd just taken. "He does not look like a hippie!" she exclaimed when she could breathe again.
"Longish hair, layers, and he drives a beetle, Sara. Sounds like a hippie to me," he affirmed before taking a bite of his buttermilk donut.
Sara shook her head. "How many other people drive beetles in this country? Are they all hippies?"
Danny shook his head and laughed as he divided his chocolate donut in half. Trading it for half of Sara's raspberry filled-one, he sighed. "I'm being completely left out of the loop," he mourned. My daughter met Mr. Mysterious before I did, Jake the rookie met him before I did..."
"Actually," Jake clarified, "I only saw him outside of Sara's apartment building."
"What were you doing, stalking Sara?"
Jake's "no" mingled with Sara's heartfelt "please, god, no. One stalker's enough for any girl."
Danny shook his head, his warm eyes reflecting worry at her stalker situation. "Well, Jake," he said in an effort to cheer himself up some more, "next time you see this guy, will you get me his plates?"
Jake's laughter was almost drowned out by Sara's outraged "Danny!" that echoed through the office slightly as the Asian detective ducked wadded paper missiles.
Lunch came and the trio had just decided that instead of facing anything that was growing in the break-room or anything from the fast food joints around, they'd go to Frankie's. A diner that had food that could appeal to everyone and had extremely fast service, a plus when you were on a police officer on the job, it was one of the normal places for officers to eat. They had just put away and grabbed their jackets when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," Sara asked warily. Gabriel hadn't had anything delivered in the past few days and she was hoping that the trend would be continued. She appreciated the gestures, and she had to admit that they were both touching and well thought out. To herself. The fact that they were delivered at the precinct was what she had the problem with. Some of the guys in Homicide were still teasing her as much as they dared about the flowers and everything else that had been sent.
Her hope was not to be answered, she surmised as the door was opened to reveal an androgynous figure that she had come to associate with the delivery company that Gabe preferred. A part of her absently wondering whether he chose the same company for delivery of things bought at the shop, she signed for the package without bothering to correct the mispronunciation of her last name. She looked over at her partners as she put the box on her desk and grimaced, knowing that the stubborn look on Danny's face meant that they wouldn't be leaving the office until he was satisfied.
With a sigh, she gingerly cut through the packaging tape with a letter opener and pulled back the four flaps. She leant over a bit and peered inside from above and slightly to the side, half expecting something alive to jump out at her. She wouldn't have put a kitten or a puppy or some other small cute furry thing being a gift from Gabriel. Instead, there was a smaller box, wrapped in a sophisticated twisting silver and gray paper. Lifting it out of the brown box and placing it under her desk, she glanced at her partners again, annoyed at the lack of privacy. Running a fingernail under the paper, she split it open to reveal a matching box. Wondering why it had been wrapped since the silver holographic bow could have been affixed to the box just as easily, she opened the second box and gave a gasp of surprised pleasure.
Danny moved forward, his curiosity getting the better of him, and she sent a smile in his direction. Lifting out a glass ball, she held onto it while pulling out the ornate carved metal base that went with it. She examined the intricate carvings on the metal, running her thumb over some of it before setting it down on the desk and focusing on the glass ball. It was mostly clear, hand-blown glass as evidenced by the bubbles around it. In the center was another piece of intricate metalwork, this time a sword that had a blood red speck of color on the handle. There was a perfectly formed rose of the same blood red handle next to the sword, its' dark emerald green stem twined around the blade. Delicate streaks of the red flowed through the clear glass ball in never-ending spirals.
She swallowed and pulled her long sleeve down to cover the Witchblade, it's own crimson stone swirling in recognition. Then she handed the glass ball to Danny, who was flanking her so that he could see what the latest parcel was. While he was looking over it, the beauty capturing his attention even if he wasn't sure of the significance of it. She peered into the box, wondering if this one was going to be like the majority of gifts from Gabriel: no real card. Instead there was the glitter of a sandy-pink colored card with gold embossing on it. Lifting it out of the box, she smiled at the simple three-word message proclaimed in raised calligraphy.
I love you.
Sara smiled softly and ran her thumb over the message. She glanced over at Danny as he set the bauble on the metal base and put the card face down next to it. The message was written on both sides of it, a fact that caused Danny to chuckle as the message was revealed to him. She looked over towards Jake, standing silently and uncomfortably next to the office doorway. "Lunch, guys?"
"Sure thing, Pez," Jake was quick to agree, standing back so that Sara could precede the men.
TBC