Tracey stared at her mug, hands clasped in her lap, unable to move. She felt thoroughly used, at least half broken, dead and alive at the same time. In typical Tracey Kibre style, as she sat in silence, she didn't give away a hint as to what was happening inside her. Only one person could tell when she was upset. The one person who could hurt her this much. The pain was blinding and physical. It felt like a knife wielding maniac had cut her from neck to navel and wrenched her rib cage apart, exposing her beating heart in all it's wounded glory. It hurt. Like hell. And it was all she could do not to start crying again, in the corner booth of the diner.
She had tried to walk down the corridor, force her gait to remain slow and calm, but she broke into a run a few seconds after slamming her door shut. When she reached the end of the hall, she jabbed the button for the elevator while gasping for air, not knowing if it was the sprint or the altercation with Kelly that caused her breathlessness. When the doors finally rolled open, Tracey was relieved to find the elevator empty and stepped into it almost gratefully. As the doors slid closed again, the tears began to fall. She slumped against the mirrored wall, bringing a hand up to her face, touching her forehead with the tips of her fingers. Wave after wave of hurt and pain and anger hit her with the force of a steam train. She gasped and rolled onto her back, gripping the railing that ran around her small sanctuary with both hands. She looked up, trying to slow the trails of agony being traced down her cheeks or maybe searching for some comfort from above, but nothing came. Except more cursed burning tears.
Her body felt like a chalice brimming with the whirling elements of her situation, but she herself could not comprehend it. She was confused; so confused. What had happened? What had she done? What was wrong with her Kelly? Her Kelly. What the fuck was that? she thought, releasing her hold on the railing to lift one hand and brush tears away bitterly. Kelly wasn't hers. Maybe she never was. Tracey didn't want to think about what Kelly had said, what it had meant. She didn't want to consider all the implications. Oh Christ, last night. When she'd held Kelly in bed, trying to comfort her sick girlfriend, was Kelly thinking of her? Was she thinking of… him? Who was he anyway? No, Tracey didn't want to know. She groaned in frustration, dropping her head, dark curls unravelling around her face. Stop. You need to get out of here. Now. She exhaled slowly, focussing on one thing.
Tracey straightened, slowly and disjointedly, to stand tall alone in the elevator. She pressed the button for the ground floor and took a deep breath that hitched in her chest. Outside. Get outside. She closed her eyes and mentally counted down from ten. As she reached 3, the doors pealed open and Tracey's eyes followed suite. She crossed the lobby quickly, hoping not to be spotted by anyone. Thankfully, Paul the doorman seemed to be out getting his mid afternoon Danish and wasn't around to see her tear stained cheeks. Tracey pushed the heavy glass door open and stepped out into the cold. She was momentarily glad that she grabbed her coat but the thought was fleeting, giving way to heavier matters.
Tracey began to walk, not paying any particular attention to the direction he feet were taking her in. She didn't feel the people passing her, she almost didn't feel the late October cold. She just focussed on the movement of her feet against the sidewalk and the pounding of her heart. As long as she thought only on those things, she could keep going. Get as far away from Kelly as possible. Maybe she wouldn't even come back that night. Tracey was paying little attention to where she was going and looked up to see a bus slam it's doors shut and begin to move. As she neared the bus station, the ad on the side of the shelter rolled over from a cup of coffee to a blonde model in a liquid grey silk dress with startlingly blue eyes. Tracey stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and, like a rock in the centre of a river, the stream of people parted and moved around her. As Tracey's eyes slid up, down and along the picture of the exceptionally beautiful blonde, overwhelmed, she lost control.
Tracey Kibre stood in the middle of the busy sidewalk, crying her eyes out. She couldn't hold back the tears even if she tried. Nor could she bar the sobs that wracked her body. She was falling apart, alone in a sea of people, icy trails frozen down her cheeks but constantly replenished. She didn't care that this wasn't like her. She didn't care that people were watching. She was so far removed from the situation that she hardly realised where she was. Until she felt someone bump into her shoulder. She was dragged back into reality, unfit and unwilling. She didn't bother to wipe her eyes. She just shoved her hands into her pockets and started forward, skirting the bus shelter like a corpse. She walked, eyes to the ground, tears hitting the pavement like solitary raindrops every few metres. Unnoticed by the hundreds of feet wearing into the earth through the concrete sidewalk.
And so she had ended up here. A quiet diner. In the corner with a cup of coffee long gone cold. An hour or more of silent contemplations. She'd hardly moved an inch and had drunk less than a third of her coffee. At first she had been paralysed with the pain and shock. Then the anger. Then the fear. And now finally she felt empty, like her whole body was hollow and only the residue of her feelings were left, drops left on her insides, sliding down, disappearing or frozen there, like the memory of a bad dream. She still hadn't moved but it was not because she couldn't. More because she had no need to. She would just stay there, with her coffee, forever. She would sit and minimise all thought until she'd forgotten why she'd sat there in the first place. As long as she didn't move, the pain wouldn't reappear. Like a knife in her chest.
And so, typically, shattering her fragile walls of quiet resolve and stillness, her phone began to sound. Tracey recognised the message tone and closed her eyes, begging for protection, but the world flooded in again. The sound of Kelly's musical laugh, her smile, her skin, her breasts, her thighs, her whimpers, her moans, her eyes, turning dark, turning hard and then that bitter, soulless laugh. It all flashed in a swirl of memory behind Tracey's eyelids. Her words, her looks, her stance. Her child. Tracey's mind skidded on, across the ice, unable to stop. Kelly's man? Kelly's lover? Kelly's little 5 year old, with blue eyes and blonde hair, with her father's nose maybe and his teeth, running off to school. Tracey cringed at what she couldn't possibly give Kelly. She'd obviously found it somewhere else. She ached. The idea running through her body like mercury. Still, her mind went on, entertaining all the possibilities. Kelly's wedding band. Kelly's wedding. White. In a Church. Catholic, her father giving her away with pride in his eyes at her suitable husband. Kelly making love to her husband. The man who ruined Tracey's life. Who'd sliced her heart in half and she didn't even know his name.
Tracey sighed, lifting her arms from her sides, feeling her shoulders and hips crack at the movement. She dropped her elbows on the table and placed her head in her hands, fingers threaded carefully through her coffee shaded curls. More than once in her life, she had wished she could just switch her brain off. Float away and forget everything. She knew it was stupidity incarnate, to wish away the gifts she had been given, and it frustrated her to think such thoughts but she also craved a reprieve. Now more than ever. She needed a break, something to hide behind, something to lose herself in.
Dropping one hand to the table, Tracey collected her mobile phone from beside the sugar and napkins. Idly, she turned it over in one hand and opened the message. It was from Hector. /I left the reports on your desk. Look them over when you can. Hector/ Tracey dropped the phone back onto the table and groaned. Work. Fuck. She didn't want to think about what was going to happen there. She and Kelly had been together for so long that she'd forgotten all her fears about break ups and the office. Now everything had been brought back to her and she knew she was screwed.
But she hesitated in her cursing. There. There it was. Somewhere to go, something to do. She could bury herself in her work and not only would no one know the difference, she could actually do something useful. Get on with something that mattered. The families of the victims didn't give a crap if she had broken up with her girlfriend. The only comfort they could gather would be from a conviction. Screw the EADA going through emotional hell.
Tracey made a decision. She lifted her head from it's resting place in her hand and picked up her mobile phone, shoving it into her coat pocket. She pulled a few dollar bills from her other pocket and dropped them beside her cold coffee. Scooting out of the booth, Tracey allowed her joints to crack and groan for a moment before leaving the diner at a steady pace. Checking the sign above her head on the street, Tracey calculated that she was only a shortish walk from the office. Nodding quietly to herself, she started down the street, searching for salvation.
Tracey settled in behind her desk, coat hung up and mobile off. She'd thought about the files Hector had left all the way into the DA's office and now they were in front of her, she felt a certain, slight satisfaction. Someone needed her. Inside, her chest tightened. Even if Kelly didn't.
She flipped open the first file, uncapping a blue pen, ready to write notes. As she began to read, she felt herself gratefully slipping into her working self. Focussed, calm, considering all possibilities. Somehow, she couldn't apply this to her personal life. Not fully. She let her emotions get the better of her. She was a fiery woman, she couldn't help it, though she thought she should be able to. She could with some partners. With some relationships. But she found that it was these that didn't matter so much to her. And Kelly mattered.
So Tracey sat behind the desk, reading and making notes, protecting herself quietly and deliberately from what she truly cared about.
She stretched, hands high above her head, fingers laced together. She'd just finished going through Hector's reports and was happy with the leads he'd found. They still had closing statements to make on their last case but work often overlapped at the DA's office. They had to be on the ball.
Tracey twisted in her seat, stretching her stiff muscles. She'd just spent at least an hour thinking about something other than Kelly. She was dimly aware of the fact but she didn't want to bring it to the forefront of her mind, not while it was still veiled by details of the new case. She heard someone come though the doors to the bullpen. Maybe she could get Hector or Chris to follow some things up now. Tracey slid quickly out of her chair, grabbing the reports and went to the door to her office. She swung her head around the corner and stopped suddenly, seeing Kelly standing there amongst the detectives' desks.
"I thought you were Hector." Tracey said shortly, her grip on the doorframe tightening just a little. Kelly shrugged, removing her coat and folding it over Ravell's chair.
"I sent you a text asking if you'd be here. Your phone must have been off." Tracey moved back into her office, trying to block out everything that was coming back to her, destroying her sense of control. Couldn't call, could you? Sound of my voice a little too much for you, Kelly? She dropped the files onto her desk and cursed mentally as she heard Kelly follow her.
"What makes you think I want to talk to you, Kelly?" Tracey said, prickly and self protecting. She kept her eyes to the desk, her gaze sliding over her half full inbox, open files, witness statements and an empty coffee mug. I should fill that, she thought. What a strange thing to think… Tracey's inner voices quarrelled over her choice of words.
"I'm just getting some work. I need something to do at my parents' place." Kelly gave Tracey a lingering stare before beginning to sift through the folders on her desk, extracting one every so often. Tracey sat down behind her own desk, keeping her eyes low. She didn't want to smell, see or hear Kelly. She didn't want to trigger any other memory landslides in her mind. She heard Kelly shuffle the files together and tap them on the desk.
"I've got what I came for." Kelly's voice rung through Tracey's mind like a crash of cymbals and a flash of anger lit in her chest. What a snide, pathetic thing to say. What the fuck have I done? What did I do to deserve this? Tracey felt the rise of hot rage in her throat and looked up at Kelly sharply, poison in her eyes as well as her mind.
"How dare you! How dare you walk into this office and treat me like this?" Tracey snarled, eyes flashing. Kelly stood still, holding her files flat, watching Tracey with a dim satisfaction. She seemed to have been expecting this. Tracey was furious at herself for rising to the bait Kelly set but she was beyond the point of logical self control.
"Problem?" Kelly replied, stonily cold as she had been hours earlier in Tracey's apartment. She didn't question the return of her sadistic demeanour. It felt natural, to be the confident bitch finally. She'd left that to Tracey in almost every situation until now. And it felt like she had some sort of armour on made of negative body language and cruel words. She could see clearly why this appealed to Tracey, especially in court.
"Don't play dumb with me, Kelly. I made you. I know your mind like my own. Don't think you can convince me you are innocent in this!" Tracey spat the words out. They left a bitter taste in her mouth, like pure cocoa powder. She lowered her voice dangerously, hands on the desk palms down, pressing hard into the papered surface. "You're anything but innocent."
Kelly scrutinised Tracey for a moment, assessing the tiny brunette filled with fury. She could see her pulse jump at her collarbone, she could sense the tension in her neck and hands. Kelly thought for a moment, where she should take this. On the one hand, toying with Tracey and destroying the semblance of a working relationship that could potentially remain after this was tempting. On the other, her weak, crying alter ego lay broken on the floor of her mind, begging for some sort of sanity. She entertained the idea coldly, masking the pain inside. It did hurt. Just not as much as she expected.
"You don't know me. You don't know what I am." The words echoed through Tracey's soul and, had she not been sitting down, she might have staggered from their impact. They sounded dead, like Kelly wasn't really talking. A whisper of a ghost in the room. But Tracey's anger remained and refused to be quelled by a few obviously well chosen words from the deceitful blonde.
"You're fucking right I don't! What the hell is wrong with you Kelly?" Tracey stood then, her voice loud and unchecked, glaring into the semi detached sapphires of Kelly's eyes. "Why would you go off with some man? When we were happy…" Tracey trailed off, dropping her voice to stare accusatorily at Kelly, holding her files. Tracey was locking away all the pain and defending the vault with her anger. It was working. But at a price she didn't want to consider.
"You were happy, Tracey." Kelly said this evenly, if a little softly, and looked down, pulling the files she held to her chest. She could feel her resentment fading and she suddenly felt very tired. She lifted a hand to rub her forehead and blinked slowly, trying to regain her focus. She had felt so confident, so alive in her actions a few seconds ago. Now she just felt depleted. But still vaguely ill, like she had for the last few days. She reached for the anger that fuelled her but she couldn't find any.
"Kelly, if this is about the baby…" Tracey began, a sudden wave of sympathy for her partner catching her off guard. Anger aside, she loved Kelly. And it hurt her every time she'd mentioned having a family or her brother's kids. Tracey hated the fact that she couldn't give Kelly what she wanted. Though Kelly had never said outright that she wanted kids or blamed Tracey in any way, she knew it was something she'd always expected. Especially considering her background. And Kelly was just a loving person. It was natural for her to want a child to nurture and protect. Tracey just didn't want to believe that she'd be so desperate as to get pregnant by some unknown male. She didn't even want to entertain the possibility that Kelly had actually fallen in love with someone else. But it seemed she had. And that's what hurt the most; not being betrayed but the thought of losing Kelly. It was an anxious, persistent pain that Tracey had dealt with all day. "If this is about you having children… I'm sorry. I am."
Kelly sighed and immediately regretted expelling so much air in one breath. She felt dizzy. Maybe she should sit… she slid into her chair, holding the files in one hand on her lap. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she took a deep breath, shaking her head lightly. Oh God… shouldn't have done that. She could feel Tracey's eyes on her, filled with concern. The hostility still hung in the room and it was that that prompted Kelly to confess her earlier, irrational implications. It was just so hard to swim through the fog of her mind. She sighed again, slowly, wondering what on earth possessed her to tell such a lie earlier.
"There is no baby. Tracey, I'm not pregnant.
The silence was deafening. It felt as though the whole room had been falling through space and had suddenly crashed flat onto bedrock. Tracey stopped breathing. She didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't give any indication that she'd heard Kelly's confession. Her body stayed standing as still as a marble statue but her mind was racing. Kelly isn't pregnant? She repeated in her head. Kelly's not pregnant. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Back up. She isn't pregnant. Hold on…. What? If she isn't pregnant then…. What the hell has been going on? Tracey stood, dumbfounded. Does that mean Kelly's not with someone else? If she's not pregnant… maybe, maybe she still loves me? Tracey's heart skipped several beats and she had to remind herself to breathe.
"I'm sorry, Trace. I'm … sorry." Kelly looked down into her lap, studying the blank manila folders. She had no idea what she could say or do to make it better. She'd lied. So pointlessly, that she could now see. What in God's name I was /I the point in letting Tracey think she'd cheated on her? With some anonymous man. And gotten herself pregnant! She couldn't understand why she would think it was a good idea. Now she had to see that look of confusion, pain and anger scratched ruthlessly into Tracey's fine features all over again.
"You aren't pregnant." Tracey looked over at Kelly, slumped in her chair, eyes filled with regret. She felt as if the pressure in her head had just shot up and a slowly throbbing pain started at the base of her skull. Her eyes burned and her throat ached with a repressed sob, an anguished cry. She had been lied to, beaten and abused, pushed around and trodden on. She'd been battered with every single kind of hurt she could imagine from the one person she truly loved. Not that she'd admit it, not to anyone but Kelly while she slept in her arms.
But her walls had come crashing down and her naked soul had been slashed to ribbons. Something inside her snapped. She couldn't take any more.
"Go." Kelly was taken aback by the single soft syllable that escaped Tracey's lips. She expected fiery invectives, violent rage, screaming like an angry wild cat. The silence, the subtle shift in Tracey's body language, the drop of her shoulders, the lowered eyelids. This was not a reaction characteristic of Tracey Kibre. Kelly shook off her fatigue and dizziness to stand, facing Tracey, wanting to explain.
"Oh… Tracey, I didn't mean for this to.." Tracey looked up and the aspect of her eye scared Kelly so much that she caught her breath and swallowed her words. The intensity of the pain and anger fixed in her shadowed eyes was far more than Kelly expected. She didn't think the wounds she'd inflicted were that deep. But she could see with stark clarity that she had done some irreparable damage.
"Kelly…" Tracey's voice was a low warning, threatening thunder rumbling up through her throat. She was only just holding it together. Not even that. One invisible thread of control remained inside her. It wasn't going to hold.
"Please, Tracey… I'm not…" Kelly took half a step forward, overcome by the need to set things right., trying in vain to explain away the hurt in her partners eyes. And the gates of Hell opened.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Tracey screamed, fixing her eyes on Kelly, body wound tight with rage. Kelly backed away, barely keeping hold of the reports in her hand. Tracey's curls shook with fury as did her fists by her sides. Her chest was heaving as if she'd run a marathon and her jaw was set, tension through every joint, muscle and tendon in her body. She blazed with anger, feral and desperate and burning.
"GET OUT!"
Kelly took one last shocked glance at Tracey, torn between the almost regular urge to try and alleviate her partners obvious distress and the cold hard fact that she was the last person to do it, before turning shakily to leave the office. Fighting off her light headedness and a wave of nausea, Kelly grabbed her coat and almost stumbled into the hall. She was hurting and guilty but all she could think of was finding a place to crash. She'd leave the burning until later.
Tracey broke down. She crumpled, tears freeing themselves from behind her eyes, bent double over her desk. She shook uncontrollably, sobs wracking her thin body, pulling the breath from her lungs. Anguished wails were ripped from her throat, cries that were pure torture. Filled with Pain. Anger. Regret. Loss. Tracey dug her nails in the skin of her neck and scalp, searching for a feeling, a distraction. She clawed at her grief, leaving trails of red down pale white skin. Waves of emotion crashed over her, pushing her down and pulling her up again, only to be beaten by her own conscience berating her incredible gullibility.
Throwing her head back, hands tangled in her wild dark hair, Tracey screamed her pain like a savage, wounded beast and collapsed once more, into her chair, sobbing hysterically. She'd never felt so undone, never felt so cold and alone. Tracey Kibre had never been lost like this before. Adrift in a tempest ridden sea. The tears ran fiercely down her cheeks and she forced the promise through her screaming black hole of chaos. She forced the words through her scarlet haze, printing them on her heart.
Never again.
