Title: Five Inches Over
Date: 10/06/03
Author: jesse
Fandom: L&O original flavor
Type: Weeeellll....
Summary: You're not gettin' one. Just read the silly thing.
Usual disclaimer crap: Usual disclaimer crap.
Author note: All lyrics shamelessly lifted from Don Henley, by way of culturevulture73 who put the damn song into my head in the first place ... thanks, hon. g
## ## ##
[I pulled my coat around my shoulders
And took a walk down through the park]
He shivered from the cold, but much worse than the cold was the damp air that sent clammy tendrils creeping across his neck, sneaking down into his lungs. The feeble daylight offered no warmth at all. Lennie Briscoe huddled deeper into his coat. He sat on the bench under the elms lining the Mall in Central Park, not too far from Bethesda Terrace, and tried to breathe around the wet, the chill, and the bleeding spot of agony in his chest where his heart had once been. He waited, fingers clamped on the wood of the seat as if he might fall off, listening.
/Please, let me see you..../
Listening. Listening.
Footsteps. A measured, even pace, muffled in the heavy mist but still distinct, and bittersweetly familiar. Slower than Lennie remembered, as if the walker was no longer in any hurry.
/Well, he isn't, now, is he?/
He stared toward the south end of the Mall, straining to see through the white murk, his eyes aching, his heart aching. The footsteps grew louder. Where?
There.
The figure coalesced into being like a ghost materializing out of the fog, outlined dark against the dank, drifting white. Dark clothing, dark hair. Irish skin paler than ever. And the coat. Lennie nearly laughed. That long, brown leather coat had been as much a signature as the "you wanna make somethin' of it?" attitude - it'd just figure that nothing and nobody would be able to take it away.
Mike Logan solidified out of the haze and came to a stop next to Lennie's bench, sat down with a faint, eerie creak of cowhide. Looked at his old partner with eyes that seemed much greener than they'd been before. "Hey, Lennie."
The voice had a faint undertone, like a deep well, one that Lennie struggled not to fall into. The smile was warm and wistful and so very, very sad.
Lennie hadn't thought the bleeding wound in his chest could hurt any worse.
Wrong.
"Mike," he managed, surprised that his own voice worked at all. "Mike. What the fuck happened?"
Too-verdant eyes held him a few moments longer, then Mike sighed and looked away down the Mall, at a spot perhaps ten yards distant. "CSU has it pretty much right. The shooter was about there, by that rock." He gestured at the dark mass somehow visible through the drear. "Your vic was out running, slowed down and turned onto the grass, put his right foot up against that tree to take care of a shoelace. Blam." The broad hand shaped itself into a mock gun, pulled the trigger. "One round, right through the heart." Mike sighed again, settled back against the bench, wrapped worn leather around himself. "And that was all she wrote."
Somebody had wrapped barbed wire around Lennie's chest -- it hurt to breathe. "Who was it?"
Mike shook his head. "Damned if I know. It happened so fast...." He looked down at his lap. "You think you've got all the time in the world, and then one day.... Watch the time, Lennie," he said softly, looking up at Lennie again, bright green eyes growing darker, darker. "Watch the time...."
"*Mike*." Lennie reached, and started as his fingers hit something hard, and the green he was seeing was the neon and black of his bedside clock. For a wild moment he stared, his heart pounding. Then he rolled over with a sob and a curse, squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in the pillow. Blocked out the sight of the glowing numbers, taunting him with the fact that it hadn't been twenty-four hours yet. Not even a full day since he'd walked into the Park much too early on the fine, fall morning of October 30th to find that his latest homicide was the man he'd played pool with not even a month ago.
Mike's face had been still and slack, all his fierceness bled away with the flood of red that had saturated his navy sweats and the ground around him.
/No. Oh, no, *no* ..../ Lennie had backed a few steps from the body sprawled gracelessly on the wet grass and turned, moved blindly over to the nearest bench, sank onto it. Dropped his head into both hands. Tried not to scream.
/Goddammit, Logan. I haven't lost it at a crime scene since my rookie beat, if you make me do it now --/
Sounds came to him, weirdly magnified. Birds. A gawking bystander's radio, the announcer talking about the tearing-down today of a historic theater that'd been one of Lennie's favorites as a kid. His own harsh breathing.
Footsteps.
"Lennie." His partner Ed Green's voice, soft and close to him. "Is that -- ?"
Lennie nodded once, all he could manage. Spared a moment to be gruesomely amused that Ed had finally remembered *something* that Lennie'd ever mentioned about his life-before-Ed.
"Ah, shit." The low curse sounded heartfelt. "I'm sorry." Green squeezed his shoulder gently, then Lennie heard his partner retreat. Giving him space.
/"If anybody ever zips me, I want you to work the case, Lennie,"/ Mike's voice said in his mind, the echo of a long-ago, only half in jest conversation. /"That way I know the son of a bitch who did it'll go down."/
Pain and rage gave Lennie strength, brought his head up. /You got it, partner. I couldn't help you with Crossly, or that mess with Profaci, but this, this I can do. Whoever it is, the bastard's ass is *mine.*/
He managed to dam it up, that part of himself that was howling with loss, and pulled his body up off the bench.
Watching the Crime Scene Unit people work amidst the flutter of yellow police tape were the two mounted patrol officers who'd called the scene in, one of them a younger woman with dark hair and eyes and the face of a Jewish angel. "Five inches over," she was saying to her partner, "and it'd missed altogether, and he'd still be walking." She turned her head, caught Lennie's eyes. Her gaze was too knowing, and unbearably kind. "Such a short little distance."
"That what they told you when you checked out on the range, Eps?" her partner quipped brusquely, and she turned back. "C'mon, don't get sappy on me now."
"Hey, he's one of ours, Johnson."
Lennie lost the rest of the discussion as the two thankfully moved further off. One of the swarm of CSU was Digs, an excellent tech who'd worked Lennie's cases enough over the years to know him. "Shot came from over there," she said, gesturing to the large, dark rock outcrop a short distance away. Her latexed fingers were streaked with red. "We got a 9mm shell casing and some decent footprints, a nice imprint in the mud right by the rock. Looks like some kind of athletic shoe, size says probably an adult male. We're dusting the rock and everything else we can think of for prints, got people all over the ground for fibers, hair, anything."
She looked like she wanted to touch his arm but thought better of it, her dark eyes kind behind the large glasses. "We're doing everything we can do, Lennie."
He just nodded again, looking toward the big rock and Ed Green's tall, lean figure next to it, talking to another tech.
/We'll find him, Mike. *I'll* find him, if I have to take this city apart./
## ## ##
[You better take a fool's advice and take care of your own
One day they're here, next day they're gone]
"I'm gonna get some coffee," Green said as they reached the door to the autopsy room. "You want some?"
"No thanks, Ed." Lennie found a half-smile for his partner, perfectly aware that Ed's gesture had nothing to do with wanting coffee. The tall black man walked away down the hall. Lennie closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened the door.
Mercifully, both bodies in the room were fully covered. The attractive redhead on the far side of the room turned at the sound of Lennie's footsteps. Medical Examiner Rodgers didn't say a word, only laid down the paperwork she'd been holding and crossed the room to put her arms around him.
The clean sympathy in her touch and the simple comfort of the warmth of another human being against him were almost too much; Lennie sucked in a deep breath. Rodgers hugged him close for a moment, then let him go, still silent. She turned again and moved back to retrieve the folder she'd been working with. She didn't look at either of the bodies.
"Single 9mm slug through the heart, hit the back of a rib and ricocheted, fragmented. It was pretty quick," she said quietly, her usual sarcasm absent.
"Piece big enough for ballistics?" Lennie asked, hearing the harsh edge to his own voice and not caring in the slightest. The door opened and footsteps sounded behind him as Rodgers nodded, reached to pick up an evidence bag from her desk.
/Ed's,/ a corner of Lennie's mind identified the footsteps. The rest of him was caught, sickly fascinated as he'd never been before, by the scrap of metal gleaming dully through the clear plastic bag the ME held up.
How could such a small thing destroy such a vibrant life?
For a moment, nobody moved. Then a long-fingered, dark hand reached past Lennie to take the bag. "Thanks, Rodgers," Ed said from behind him.
"*Get* the bastard," she said softly, fiercely.
"Oh, there's not gonna be any place he can hide," Green returned, fierce as well.
## ## ##
[If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hang on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door]
Another day, the radio still reporting on the slow gutting of the old Tivoli Theater. Lennie knew just how it felt.
The wake was a sluggish, interminable exercise in pain, the air full of hushed voices and the smell of alcohol. He knew Mike's sister and her kids, had met them years ago when he and Mike had been partners. But the rest of the Logans were just a blur of mostly dark hair and pale faces above black, black clothing.
He registered the presence of other people he knew, in black and deep indigo. Paul Robinette. Anita Van Buren. Liz Olivet. Ed Green. A heavy-set man he'd known in passing, in an earlier life -- Phil Cerretta, Mike's second partner. Don Cragen, looking more worn than Lennie remembered; and behind him, John Munch, of all people.
"I didn't know you knew him," Lennie rasped.
Munch shook his head. "I didn't," he said, touching Lennie's shoulder briefly. "But I know you."
There were other cops, people Lennie didn't know. Most of them were in dress blues as well, worn for a man maybe they hadn't liked, but they'd at least respected.
Lennie hadn't been able to make himself do it. To don his rarely-worn uniform would be to acknowledge that it was truly over, that there would be no last-minute stay.
/Why?/ He railed again for the thousandth time, howling into the Silence, demanding an answer out of Someone. Anyone. /Why *him?* Why now? Dammit, you *can't* let it end this way! There are people who *need* him./
/*I* need him./
Nothing would ever, could ever fill that place in himself where Mike had been, the size of which he was only now realizing. Now, when it was too damn late.
[What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear]
The casket was closed; Lennie wasn't exactly sure what he'd've done if it hadn't been. A lean figure in black stood next to it, sterling-gray head half-bowed. A heavy gold ring winked in the light as the man's fingers brushed a single time, gently, across the polished oak. Jack McCoy looked his age for once, his hawk profile solemn and sad. "He was a good man, good cop," the EADA said quietly as Lennie stepped up behind him.
"That didn't matter much in 1995," Lennie growled, not really surprised at the old bitterness that welled up in him at the memory. If they'd still been partners, would Mike have been in the Park that morning?
"Lennie, they wanted him *fired,* in disgrace; I did what I could. If he hadn't punched the idiot in front of half of New York, maybe .... " McCoy shook his head. "But he screwed the pooch big time -- there was no chance of him just walking away."
"Well, excuse me if that's not too fucking *comforting* just now, Counselor," Lennie said in a low snarl. He turned blindly, moved away. Seeking something that he could never have, something that no longer existed. He was more alone than he'd ever been in his life.
The smell of alcohol was so damn strong ....
"Lennie." Don Cragen. "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Of course you are, and so am I. Sit down, now."
Lennie felt for the chair behind him and sat, Cragen sitting beside him, blessing and damning his former captain for his perception. Don, of everyone here, knew what it was like. To lose a former partner to murder. To fight the demon addiction every day of your sorry life.
"So why are you still here? You're nearly out of time; you've lost the battle for this one."
He jerked his head around to stare at Cragen, because it wasn't Don's voice, exactly --
"Because nearly out of time isn't completely out, we're -- "
His eyes snapped open.
" -- hoping for a last-minute stay. And even if we don't get it, someone who cares should be here to bear witness to the end."
/What the hell?/
"We're talking live and on-site this morning to Bob Cray," someone said, "founder and chairman of Living History, the group that's been trying to avert today's scheduled destruction of the historic Tivoli Theater -- "
He was in his own bed, his bedroom half-lit, as it always was, by the never-sleeping city outside. Lennie rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. O-dark-thirty, his usual -- the voice was that of the morning news host his clock radio was tuned to -- /wait./
/*Today's* destruction?!?/
Adrenaline whipped him into motion and he slapped the nightstand, groped for his wristwatch. Stared in disbelief and sudden, dizzying hope at the date feature just to the right of the analog dial.
/Don't ask questions. Just *move.*/
Then he was out of bed and scrambling frantically for clothes, keys, badge, gun.
The traffic was eerily light, but still the blocks between his place and Central Park were twice the distance they'd ever been before. Finally he saw the trees, then the stone wall looming up. He drove as far in as he could before abandoning the car and running like he hadn't in years. And there: a dark-haired figure in blue was coming up the Mall in the pale morning sun. Slowing. Turning onto the grass. And off to the right -- movement in the greenery. The winking gleam of light on metal. Lennie sucked in all the air he could get, and yelled.
"*GUN!!*"
The next moments were forever snapshots, soundclips in his mind. Muzzle flash from the half-seen weapon. The figure in blue falling to one side as the shot sounded. The kick of Lennie's own .38 as he fired. Motion in the trees and that sixth, cop sense forcing him down behind an elm as a third shot rang out. And a fourth.
But the fourth was a different gun, from a different place.
Lennie looked left to see Mike sprawled out again on the wet grass. But this time the younger man was on his stomach, arms out in front of him, his service weapon held in both hands.
/Thank you, *God* --/
The unknown perp fired again. Lennie focused, sighting carefully on the twitch of the evergreens by the rock. His gun and Mike's barked in concert.
A strangled cry, and a thump as a body crashed through the branches into view, and didn't move again.
/*Told* you your ass was mine, you miserable son of a bitch./
"*Lennie?!*" Mike called, his voice strong, surprised.
A little weak with relief, Lennie leaned against his tree and grinned widely. "Yeah, it's me. I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by."
It was such a fine, beautiful October morning.
## ## ##
[In a New York minute...
everything can change]
The mounted patrol had arrived shortly after that, and Lennie hadn't been too surprised to see that it was the Jewish angel, whose badge proclaimed her name to be Epstein, and her partner. "Five inches over," she'd said, taking a quick peer at Mike's ribs where the first shot had just clipped him, "and you'd'a had it through the heart. Such a short little distance." And she looked at Lennie, and smiled.
Lennie had to close his eyes for a moment.
"You're getting sappy on me again, Eps," her partner teased.
"Shut up, Johnson," Epstein retorted good-naturedly, and Mike had laughed.
Now they were waiting on CSU and the necessary assortment of suits and brass who always had to come out for a police-involved shooting. Frankly, Lennie didn't care if the fucking Commissioner showed up for this one, even though he didn't yet have a clue how he was going to explain any of this.
Mike was perched on the edge of a bench. Lennie crouched in front of him, pulled gently at his torn, damp sweatshirt and the teeshirt beneath to take a look at his side. Wincing, Mike raised his arm.
One long, raw graze, bleeding freely and no doubt painfully, but that was all.
"Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but how did you ... what the hell are you doing here?" Mike asked, putting up with the inspection. Satisfied, Lennie dropped the fabric and sat back on his heels as Mike carefully lowered his arm. The all-too-real events of what he'd have sworn were several days flashed through Lennie's mind as he gazed up at his erstwhile partner: dirty, bloody, and a bit shook, but very much alive.
"I'd already been to your wake, and I didn't wanna go to the funeral."
Heavy eyebrows drawing together and lips parting, Mike just looked at him in obvious, questioning confusion. Lennie gave him a happy smile. "Let's just call it a hunch, Mike. I don't think you'd believe the whole story."
Mike tilted his head, blinked. The morning sun gathered and pooled in his eyes, flaring them a bright, uncanny emerald. "I'm Irish, Lennie. You might be surprised what I'd believe."
/Holy *Mother* of God./ Lennie stared, caught, drowing in color that was far too vivid to be earthly.
Then Mike blinked again, and his eyes were no more than their usual warm gray-green. "Lennie?" He sounded puzzled, his expression clearly adding /why the hell are you looking at me like that?/
Shaken, Lennie opened his mouth twice before anything came out. "Have you ever seen an angel?"
Finis
Date: 10/06/03
Author: jesse
Fandom: L&O original flavor
Type: Weeeellll....
Summary: You're not gettin' one. Just read the silly thing.
Usual disclaimer crap: Usual disclaimer crap.
Author note: All lyrics shamelessly lifted from Don Henley, by way of culturevulture73 who put the damn song into my head in the first place ... thanks, hon. g
## ## ##
[I pulled my coat around my shoulders
And took a walk down through the park]
He shivered from the cold, but much worse than the cold was the damp air that sent clammy tendrils creeping across his neck, sneaking down into his lungs. The feeble daylight offered no warmth at all. Lennie Briscoe huddled deeper into his coat. He sat on the bench under the elms lining the Mall in Central Park, not too far from Bethesda Terrace, and tried to breathe around the wet, the chill, and the bleeding spot of agony in his chest where his heart had once been. He waited, fingers clamped on the wood of the seat as if he might fall off, listening.
/Please, let me see you..../
Listening. Listening.
Footsteps. A measured, even pace, muffled in the heavy mist but still distinct, and bittersweetly familiar. Slower than Lennie remembered, as if the walker was no longer in any hurry.
/Well, he isn't, now, is he?/
He stared toward the south end of the Mall, straining to see through the white murk, his eyes aching, his heart aching. The footsteps grew louder. Where?
There.
The figure coalesced into being like a ghost materializing out of the fog, outlined dark against the dank, drifting white. Dark clothing, dark hair. Irish skin paler than ever. And the coat. Lennie nearly laughed. That long, brown leather coat had been as much a signature as the "you wanna make somethin' of it?" attitude - it'd just figure that nothing and nobody would be able to take it away.
Mike Logan solidified out of the haze and came to a stop next to Lennie's bench, sat down with a faint, eerie creak of cowhide. Looked at his old partner with eyes that seemed much greener than they'd been before. "Hey, Lennie."
The voice had a faint undertone, like a deep well, one that Lennie struggled not to fall into. The smile was warm and wistful and so very, very sad.
Lennie hadn't thought the bleeding wound in his chest could hurt any worse.
Wrong.
"Mike," he managed, surprised that his own voice worked at all. "Mike. What the fuck happened?"
Too-verdant eyes held him a few moments longer, then Mike sighed and looked away down the Mall, at a spot perhaps ten yards distant. "CSU has it pretty much right. The shooter was about there, by that rock." He gestured at the dark mass somehow visible through the drear. "Your vic was out running, slowed down and turned onto the grass, put his right foot up against that tree to take care of a shoelace. Blam." The broad hand shaped itself into a mock gun, pulled the trigger. "One round, right through the heart." Mike sighed again, settled back against the bench, wrapped worn leather around himself. "And that was all she wrote."
Somebody had wrapped barbed wire around Lennie's chest -- it hurt to breathe. "Who was it?"
Mike shook his head. "Damned if I know. It happened so fast...." He looked down at his lap. "You think you've got all the time in the world, and then one day.... Watch the time, Lennie," he said softly, looking up at Lennie again, bright green eyes growing darker, darker. "Watch the time...."
"*Mike*." Lennie reached, and started as his fingers hit something hard, and the green he was seeing was the neon and black of his bedside clock. For a wild moment he stared, his heart pounding. Then he rolled over with a sob and a curse, squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in the pillow. Blocked out the sight of the glowing numbers, taunting him with the fact that it hadn't been twenty-four hours yet. Not even a full day since he'd walked into the Park much too early on the fine, fall morning of October 30th to find that his latest homicide was the man he'd played pool with not even a month ago.
Mike's face had been still and slack, all his fierceness bled away with the flood of red that had saturated his navy sweats and the ground around him.
/No. Oh, no, *no* ..../ Lennie had backed a few steps from the body sprawled gracelessly on the wet grass and turned, moved blindly over to the nearest bench, sank onto it. Dropped his head into both hands. Tried not to scream.
/Goddammit, Logan. I haven't lost it at a crime scene since my rookie beat, if you make me do it now --/
Sounds came to him, weirdly magnified. Birds. A gawking bystander's radio, the announcer talking about the tearing-down today of a historic theater that'd been one of Lennie's favorites as a kid. His own harsh breathing.
Footsteps.
"Lennie." His partner Ed Green's voice, soft and close to him. "Is that -- ?"
Lennie nodded once, all he could manage. Spared a moment to be gruesomely amused that Ed had finally remembered *something* that Lennie'd ever mentioned about his life-before-Ed.
"Ah, shit." The low curse sounded heartfelt. "I'm sorry." Green squeezed his shoulder gently, then Lennie heard his partner retreat. Giving him space.
/"If anybody ever zips me, I want you to work the case, Lennie,"/ Mike's voice said in his mind, the echo of a long-ago, only half in jest conversation. /"That way I know the son of a bitch who did it'll go down."/
Pain and rage gave Lennie strength, brought his head up. /You got it, partner. I couldn't help you with Crossly, or that mess with Profaci, but this, this I can do. Whoever it is, the bastard's ass is *mine.*/
He managed to dam it up, that part of himself that was howling with loss, and pulled his body up off the bench.
Watching the Crime Scene Unit people work amidst the flutter of yellow police tape were the two mounted patrol officers who'd called the scene in, one of them a younger woman with dark hair and eyes and the face of a Jewish angel. "Five inches over," she was saying to her partner, "and it'd missed altogether, and he'd still be walking." She turned her head, caught Lennie's eyes. Her gaze was too knowing, and unbearably kind. "Such a short little distance."
"That what they told you when you checked out on the range, Eps?" her partner quipped brusquely, and she turned back. "C'mon, don't get sappy on me now."
"Hey, he's one of ours, Johnson."
Lennie lost the rest of the discussion as the two thankfully moved further off. One of the swarm of CSU was Digs, an excellent tech who'd worked Lennie's cases enough over the years to know him. "Shot came from over there," she said, gesturing to the large, dark rock outcrop a short distance away. Her latexed fingers were streaked with red. "We got a 9mm shell casing and some decent footprints, a nice imprint in the mud right by the rock. Looks like some kind of athletic shoe, size says probably an adult male. We're dusting the rock and everything else we can think of for prints, got people all over the ground for fibers, hair, anything."
She looked like she wanted to touch his arm but thought better of it, her dark eyes kind behind the large glasses. "We're doing everything we can do, Lennie."
He just nodded again, looking toward the big rock and Ed Green's tall, lean figure next to it, talking to another tech.
/We'll find him, Mike. *I'll* find him, if I have to take this city apart./
## ## ##
[You better take a fool's advice and take care of your own
One day they're here, next day they're gone]
"I'm gonna get some coffee," Green said as they reached the door to the autopsy room. "You want some?"
"No thanks, Ed." Lennie found a half-smile for his partner, perfectly aware that Ed's gesture had nothing to do with wanting coffee. The tall black man walked away down the hall. Lennie closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened the door.
Mercifully, both bodies in the room were fully covered. The attractive redhead on the far side of the room turned at the sound of Lennie's footsteps. Medical Examiner Rodgers didn't say a word, only laid down the paperwork she'd been holding and crossed the room to put her arms around him.
The clean sympathy in her touch and the simple comfort of the warmth of another human being against him were almost too much; Lennie sucked in a deep breath. Rodgers hugged him close for a moment, then let him go, still silent. She turned again and moved back to retrieve the folder she'd been working with. She didn't look at either of the bodies.
"Single 9mm slug through the heart, hit the back of a rib and ricocheted, fragmented. It was pretty quick," she said quietly, her usual sarcasm absent.
"Piece big enough for ballistics?" Lennie asked, hearing the harsh edge to his own voice and not caring in the slightest. The door opened and footsteps sounded behind him as Rodgers nodded, reached to pick up an evidence bag from her desk.
/Ed's,/ a corner of Lennie's mind identified the footsteps. The rest of him was caught, sickly fascinated as he'd never been before, by the scrap of metal gleaming dully through the clear plastic bag the ME held up.
How could such a small thing destroy such a vibrant life?
For a moment, nobody moved. Then a long-fingered, dark hand reached past Lennie to take the bag. "Thanks, Rodgers," Ed said from behind him.
"*Get* the bastard," she said softly, fiercely.
"Oh, there's not gonna be any place he can hide," Green returned, fierce as well.
## ## ##
[If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hang on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door]
Another day, the radio still reporting on the slow gutting of the old Tivoli Theater. Lennie knew just how it felt.
The wake was a sluggish, interminable exercise in pain, the air full of hushed voices and the smell of alcohol. He knew Mike's sister and her kids, had met them years ago when he and Mike had been partners. But the rest of the Logans were just a blur of mostly dark hair and pale faces above black, black clothing.
He registered the presence of other people he knew, in black and deep indigo. Paul Robinette. Anita Van Buren. Liz Olivet. Ed Green. A heavy-set man he'd known in passing, in an earlier life -- Phil Cerretta, Mike's second partner. Don Cragen, looking more worn than Lennie remembered; and behind him, John Munch, of all people.
"I didn't know you knew him," Lennie rasped.
Munch shook his head. "I didn't," he said, touching Lennie's shoulder briefly. "But I know you."
There were other cops, people Lennie didn't know. Most of them were in dress blues as well, worn for a man maybe they hadn't liked, but they'd at least respected.
Lennie hadn't been able to make himself do it. To don his rarely-worn uniform would be to acknowledge that it was truly over, that there would be no last-minute stay.
/Why?/ He railed again for the thousandth time, howling into the Silence, demanding an answer out of Someone. Anyone. /Why *him?* Why now? Dammit, you *can't* let it end this way! There are people who *need* him./
/*I* need him./
Nothing would ever, could ever fill that place in himself where Mike had been, the size of which he was only now realizing. Now, when it was too damn late.
[What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear]
The casket was closed; Lennie wasn't exactly sure what he'd've done if it hadn't been. A lean figure in black stood next to it, sterling-gray head half-bowed. A heavy gold ring winked in the light as the man's fingers brushed a single time, gently, across the polished oak. Jack McCoy looked his age for once, his hawk profile solemn and sad. "He was a good man, good cop," the EADA said quietly as Lennie stepped up behind him.
"That didn't matter much in 1995," Lennie growled, not really surprised at the old bitterness that welled up in him at the memory. If they'd still been partners, would Mike have been in the Park that morning?
"Lennie, they wanted him *fired,* in disgrace; I did what I could. If he hadn't punched the idiot in front of half of New York, maybe .... " McCoy shook his head. "But he screwed the pooch big time -- there was no chance of him just walking away."
"Well, excuse me if that's not too fucking *comforting* just now, Counselor," Lennie said in a low snarl. He turned blindly, moved away. Seeking something that he could never have, something that no longer existed. He was more alone than he'd ever been in his life.
The smell of alcohol was so damn strong ....
"Lennie." Don Cragen. "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Of course you are, and so am I. Sit down, now."
Lennie felt for the chair behind him and sat, Cragen sitting beside him, blessing and damning his former captain for his perception. Don, of everyone here, knew what it was like. To lose a former partner to murder. To fight the demon addiction every day of your sorry life.
"So why are you still here? You're nearly out of time; you've lost the battle for this one."
He jerked his head around to stare at Cragen, because it wasn't Don's voice, exactly --
"Because nearly out of time isn't completely out, we're -- "
His eyes snapped open.
" -- hoping for a last-minute stay. And even if we don't get it, someone who cares should be here to bear witness to the end."
/What the hell?/
"We're talking live and on-site this morning to Bob Cray," someone said, "founder and chairman of Living History, the group that's been trying to avert today's scheduled destruction of the historic Tivoli Theater -- "
He was in his own bed, his bedroom half-lit, as it always was, by the never-sleeping city outside. Lennie rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. O-dark-thirty, his usual -- the voice was that of the morning news host his clock radio was tuned to -- /wait./
/*Today's* destruction?!?/
Adrenaline whipped him into motion and he slapped the nightstand, groped for his wristwatch. Stared in disbelief and sudden, dizzying hope at the date feature just to the right of the analog dial.
/Don't ask questions. Just *move.*/
Then he was out of bed and scrambling frantically for clothes, keys, badge, gun.
The traffic was eerily light, but still the blocks between his place and Central Park were twice the distance they'd ever been before. Finally he saw the trees, then the stone wall looming up. He drove as far in as he could before abandoning the car and running like he hadn't in years. And there: a dark-haired figure in blue was coming up the Mall in the pale morning sun. Slowing. Turning onto the grass. And off to the right -- movement in the greenery. The winking gleam of light on metal. Lennie sucked in all the air he could get, and yelled.
"*GUN!!*"
The next moments were forever snapshots, soundclips in his mind. Muzzle flash from the half-seen weapon. The figure in blue falling to one side as the shot sounded. The kick of Lennie's own .38 as he fired. Motion in the trees and that sixth, cop sense forcing him down behind an elm as a third shot rang out. And a fourth.
But the fourth was a different gun, from a different place.
Lennie looked left to see Mike sprawled out again on the wet grass. But this time the younger man was on his stomach, arms out in front of him, his service weapon held in both hands.
/Thank you, *God* --/
The unknown perp fired again. Lennie focused, sighting carefully on the twitch of the evergreens by the rock. His gun and Mike's barked in concert.
A strangled cry, and a thump as a body crashed through the branches into view, and didn't move again.
/*Told* you your ass was mine, you miserable son of a bitch./
"*Lennie?!*" Mike called, his voice strong, surprised.
A little weak with relief, Lennie leaned against his tree and grinned widely. "Yeah, it's me. I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by."
It was such a fine, beautiful October morning.
## ## ##
[In a New York minute...
everything can change]
The mounted patrol had arrived shortly after that, and Lennie hadn't been too surprised to see that it was the Jewish angel, whose badge proclaimed her name to be Epstein, and her partner. "Five inches over," she'd said, taking a quick peer at Mike's ribs where the first shot had just clipped him, "and you'd'a had it through the heart. Such a short little distance." And she looked at Lennie, and smiled.
Lennie had to close his eyes for a moment.
"You're getting sappy on me again, Eps," her partner teased.
"Shut up, Johnson," Epstein retorted good-naturedly, and Mike had laughed.
Now they were waiting on CSU and the necessary assortment of suits and brass who always had to come out for a police-involved shooting. Frankly, Lennie didn't care if the fucking Commissioner showed up for this one, even though he didn't yet have a clue how he was going to explain any of this.
Mike was perched on the edge of a bench. Lennie crouched in front of him, pulled gently at his torn, damp sweatshirt and the teeshirt beneath to take a look at his side. Wincing, Mike raised his arm.
One long, raw graze, bleeding freely and no doubt painfully, but that was all.
"Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but how did you ... what the hell are you doing here?" Mike asked, putting up with the inspection. Satisfied, Lennie dropped the fabric and sat back on his heels as Mike carefully lowered his arm. The all-too-real events of what he'd have sworn were several days flashed through Lennie's mind as he gazed up at his erstwhile partner: dirty, bloody, and a bit shook, but very much alive.
"I'd already been to your wake, and I didn't wanna go to the funeral."
Heavy eyebrows drawing together and lips parting, Mike just looked at him in obvious, questioning confusion. Lennie gave him a happy smile. "Let's just call it a hunch, Mike. I don't think you'd believe the whole story."
Mike tilted his head, blinked. The morning sun gathered and pooled in his eyes, flaring them a bright, uncanny emerald. "I'm Irish, Lennie. You might be surprised what I'd believe."
/Holy *Mother* of God./ Lennie stared, caught, drowing in color that was far too vivid to be earthly.
Then Mike blinked again, and his eyes were no more than their usual warm gray-green. "Lennie?" He sounded puzzled, his expression clearly adding /why the hell are you looking at me like that?/
Shaken, Lennie opened his mouth twice before anything came out. "Have you ever seen an angel?"
Finis