Fantasy In Your Head

It was late. Too late to be doing this. Casey Novak paused writing her notes and glanced at her watch. She sighed, "Alright, I think that's enough for tonight. I can't even really process what you're saying anymore."

John Munch let his head fall back and groaned, "You mean I gotta come back here tomorrow?"

"You're the one who wanted to practice your testimony!" Casey pointed out.

"And you're the one who told me to come to your office after my shift," he fired back.

She put her pen down and rested her elbows on her desk. "Why did you want to practice your testimony? It's not like you're a rookie on the stand for the first time."

"Yeah, yeah, the insinuation being that I was a rookie before you were born?" he grumbled.

"No, I just mean you shouldn't need to practice. You know what you're doing."

"It's been a while," he defended. "And I've never testified for you before."

Casey frowned, realizing that was true. "I guess not. But even so, did you really need practice?"

"I just didn't want to mess up your case," he admitted softly.

"Our case," she insisted. She gazed at the sweet, grumpy old man sitting across from her. Well, he wasn't actually that old. Even if he was right about being a rookie before she was born. The police force had a mandatory retirement age, and John was a ways off from that yet.

Huh. When had she started thinking of him as John instead of just Munch? Weird.

"It's late," she said, breaking the silence between them that was somehow filled with tension.

"I'll get out of your hair," John said, standing up.

"No, I was going to say we should go find something to eat. If you want to," she added quickly.

John paused, looking at her through his tinted glasses. "I could eat," he eventually said.

Casey smiled without really meaning to. "There's a bar around the corner with really good pretzel bites."

"Pretzel bites?" he asked warily.

She smiled and said, "I think you'll like them. And they go great with beer."

And that was how Casey Novak and John Munch ended up at a sports bar in Lower Manhattan at eleven o'clock on a Thursday night.

"How do you like the pretzel bites?" Casey asked with amusement.

John dunked one in the cheese sauce and popped it into his mouth. "Delicious," he answered, talking with his mouth full.

Casey laughed. John chewed and stared at her with an expression she couldn't place. So she asked him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't know if I've ever heard you laugh before," he said.

That gave her pause. It was probably true, but she'd never thought about it. John was a funny kind of guy. He made her laugh. But their work was such that actually laughing was a very unacceptable thing to do. "I guess not," she said softly.

John took a sip of his beer and averted his gaze from her. "So how'd you find this place?" he asked, changing the subject.

Casey was perfectly content to talk about something else. "I had a buddy in law school I used to come here with to watch Mets games. I still come as often as I can to catch a game."

"You ever been to one live?"

"Weirdly, no. I've actually never been to Shea Stadium. I think I worry it would disappoint me. Is that pathetic?"

"No, I know what you mean," John assured her. "Sometimes things are built up in our heads and we don't want to ruin the fantasy of it."

"So mine's Shea Stadium. What's yours?" she prompted.

He shrugged and had another sip of beer.

Casey wouldn't take the brushoff. "Oh come on, it must be something."

John looked at her curiously. "Tell you what, get another two beers in me, and I'll tell you."

She laughed again. "I'll accept that challenge. I'll get us another round of beers and pretzel bites. And how about some wings?"

He gave a small smile. "Sure. Wings."

Casey walked from their high-top table over to the bar to put in their order. She could feel John's eyes on her. And she found herself pleased about that. God, what was up with her today? Probably the late hour. And the beer.

When she returned to the table, they continued talking. First about baseball, which was one of Casey's two true loves in the world, just behind the law. Somehow Casey found herself teasing John into agreeing to come to the batting cages with her sometime when they both were free. Then the conversation moved on to other hobbies, which led John to launch into his obsession with the grassy knoll. In between, they finished another order of pretzel bites and a plate of wings and ordered the third round of beers.

John was about halfway through a step-by-step analysis of evidence that J. Edgar Hoover had orchestrated Kennedy's assassination when Casey interrupted him. "John, what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean?" he asked in return, startled at her sudden question. He was really on a roll with the Kennedy thing.

"I mean, why did you want to practice your testimony with me and agree to come to my office so late?"

"You said after my shift, and my shift didn't finish till eight. And I already told you I wanted to practice so I wouldn't mess up your case. Our case," he amended, recalling her earlier words.

Casey felt the air shift between them. The bar was still crowded and noisy, but it seemed to fall into the background. "And now we're out having drinks together. Is this a date?"

"Do you usually make a mess of chicken wings when you're on a date?" John teased, trying to break that tension.

She almost laughed but didn't. "I do when I'm comfortable with someone. And you didn't answer my question."

"You're the one who asked me to come have pretzel bites with you," he replied.

"I know. And you agreed. Why?"

John swallowed down the last of his beer. His third beer. "Because you're the fantasy I've built up in my head."

Casey's eyes went wide. "Me?"

"And I'm old enough to be your father and we work together and none of that is going to change and I'll never say another non-work-related thing to you ever again after tonight, but...I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to go to Shea Stadium."

That was quite a speech for John Munch, and Casey was stunned. And also not so stunned. Her stomach was in knots. "Maybe we can go to the Mets home game next Saturday," she suggested quietly.

John was lucky his glass was empty because he was still holding it in his hand and it fell at the sound of her words. "Really?"

"You said you've never heard me laugh before. And I like when you make me laugh. And maybe Shea Stadium isn't the only fantasy I've built up in my head."

And then John's face broke out into a grin that made all those knots in Casey's stomach turn to butterflies. "Next Saturday. It's a date," he announced.

"Our second one," she said.

They both laughed.