Title: Spinning On
Rating: Teen-ish
Author: Drake-Tepes
Summary: Continuation of the Maxie/Spinelli scene from 1/29/08 in Georgie's Room.
Spoilers: 1/29/08 Coop's fate and the Maxie/Spinelli working relationship.
Pairings: None (but shades of Spixie)
Disclaimer: As before, I own nothing.
Warning: UnBeta'd, so be forewarned of that pain ahead.
Dedicated To: Fellow Spin authors and the crazy fools at the LJ community spinelli(underscore)gh who entertain and intrigue me. Sometimes they frighten me also, but usually it's just in the good way.

- - - - -

"I'm sorry about yelling at you at Kelly's," Maxie said suddenly. Spinelli looked over at her for a moment in confusion as she broke the silence they'd been working in for the past few minutes. "It just felt like everyone was going on without Georgie and it shouldn't. How can life just keep continuing?"

"The world spins madly on." Maxie raised an eyebrow as she looked at Spinelli. "Sorry, it's a song Sweet Georgie played for me once," Spinelli said before bobbing his head down slightly to avoid looking back at Maxie. "Life continues, we continue because the alternative is an insult to those we've lost. We live because they can't, we live and we remember and we take them with us in our hearts."

Spinelli feared he'd said something wrong as silence stretched on between them. The sound of his typing almost echoing in the room of the one he'd called friend and whom he missed the chance to call something more. He began to fidget a little as the silence almost felt tangible, like a spider crawling over his skin. Spinelli nearly jumped out of his skin when Maxie stood up and moved around the room.

"I hated this hat," Maxie sat down holding a large brimmed hat in her hands that would have made Holly Golightly proud. "Georgie looked so goofy in it. I think that was part of its draw. It's like a 50's style vamp's hat. I kept expecting her to have her head tilted down one day so I couldn't see her face, then tilt back and have a cigarette in her mouth in one of those stupid cigarette holders and drawl out 'Do you have a light dahling?'" Maxie let out a giggle that she choked off. "Could you imagine that?"

Before Spinelli could respond Maxie had jumped up, grabbed a pencil and put the hat on. She had her head to the side, her left arm cocked up holding the pencil like a cigarette while her right hand was on her hip. She looked every bit a classic vixen from older movies. "Really dahling, could you imagine?" Maxie did her best to match a husky voiced silver screen siren's drawl.

"Even the Jackal's imagination has trouble picturing that," Spinelli said with a smile at Maxie. The Sad-Eyed Blonde one, while demanding and intimidating, didn't seem quite so bad at the moment. Spinelli watched as she put the hat on the dresser and sat looking away from him. He could almost see the good cheer and humor that filled her flow out of her as her shoulders slumped forward.

"Georgie begged mom to buy her that hat," Maxie said softly. "We were at grandma's and we'd taken this little trip across the border and Georgie saw the hat in an open air market and fell in love with it." A growl escaped Maxie before she fell back on the bed with her eyes closed.

"I take it you haven't spoken with your mother yet?"

"Have you tracked down yours yet?" Maxie bit out before quickly continuing. "I'm sorry, I just…" She trailed off with a sigh. "I wanted to, I really did. Every time I'd go to her to try and talk things out with her I just got so angry that I'd start a fight before I could really talk to her. I'd have it worked out in my head, this time I'd be calm and we'd try to work it out and I could let go of all this anger, but then I'd see her and I'd just make things worse. And now she's gone," Maxie opened her eyes and looked at Spinelli, the Jackal looking upside down from how she was laying. "She left to try and make things easier on me."

"Maybe with some time away you can let go of some of your anger and next time you see your Absentee Maternal One you'll be able to work things out."

"Or it'll add to my anger and just make it that much worse when I see her again. If I see her again. The way I treated her she may never come back," Maxie blinked furiously, refusing to let any tears show.

"She'll come back," Spinelli said. He stopped her before she could say anything else. "She's not like mine, she cares and you know that deep inside the same way Beloved Georgie did."

Maxie stared up at Spinelli for a minute, seemingly searching for something or like she'd found something new. "Sometimes you don't act as weird as you usually do and I think I get why Georgie could hang around you." Maxie moved so she was sitting cross-legged on the bed facing Spinelli. "Why do you talk in that weird way so much? Why the nicknames?"

"The Jackal's verbal skills are –" Spinelli began to explain, the defensive reply almost automatic, when Maxie rolled her eyes. "Shouldn't we focus on proving the Clean… on proving Cooper's innocence?"

"You'll explain later, you're not getting out of answering me. What have you managed to find?"

"First, if our quest into the truth of the Clean Cut Cadet's guilt should happen to in actuality prove he was the Text Message Killer will you be okay?" Spinelli eyed Maxie cautiously, afraid of an outburst.

"No. Not because I was wrong about yet another guy but because it means I brought my sister's killer into our lives. That I made love to my sister's killer before her body was even cold. No Spinelli, I won't be okay. I won't be okay no matter what we find. He couldn't have been the killer, I… Please Spinelli, I can't be, I…" Maxie dipped her head to hide her eyes from Spinelli as the tears fell.

Spinelli looked helplessly at Maxie. A part of him wanted to reach out to her, to offer her some form of comfort but another part of him felt he'd be intruding on her pain. He wished for a moment they were closer friends so he could offer her that comfort, that he could ease her pain a little. Finally he moved over to the bed and sat next to her, shoulder to shoulder. He watched as his hand moved almost of it's own accord to take her hand in his and give it a gentle squeeze, his thumb making a slow massaging motion across her knuckles as her tears slowly abated.

"Some information on the Clean Cut Cadet and Unworthy One's service records are beyond the Jackal's reach, available only in hard copy only or on isolated servers that I'm unable to access. However not all is at a loss as the my memory and hacking ability has found another way for us to possibly find out what happened in Iraq and if it is tied to the heinous acts of the Text Message Killer. With luck we may be able to ascertain if the Unworthy One should be our primary suspect or if we should shift focus to the Warped One."

Maxie looked over at Spinelli then at the laptop's screen that he'd positioned for her to look at. "I remember him. Wait, how are we going to get in to see him?"

"How would the Sad-Eyed Blonde One like to be my assistant when I go to offer Cody Paul my legal council?" Spinelli asked with a smile.