Disclaimer: I own nothing. Title comes from "Tourniquet" by HEM, which also does not belong to me.

Brooklyn, I'm Broken

We're all stories, in the end…

- Doctor Who -

It shouldn't be taking this long to get there. Granted she hasn't been on this particular stretch of highway in over twenty years but this was getting ridiculous. Mapquest wasn't helping at all, and she'd given up on Siri a hundred miles ago when the thing had rerouted them into a dead end for the third time. According to GPS, she should be hovering somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean by now. They really should rename the place to Cellular Dead Zone State. More practical than the Pine Tree State, but significantly less attractive. Serves her right for relying on her mobile phone instead of taking the map. The map that had guided her family vacations for generations. The map that her father had used, that his father had used. The map that had miraculously survived the year of the exploding apartment, only to live out the rest of its days in a storage unit in Brooklyn. The map that, in her haste to get the hell out of Dodge, had been forgotten.

So their journey thus far has been conducted by a combination of memory, well-placed road signs, and dumb luck. All of which could account for their current state of... lostness.

Lostness?

Lostness.

Kate had to give herself a mental face palm. Not even she could defend that one.

But jeez, give her a break. It's 3 am. No one should be held accountable for murdering the English language at three o'clock in the morning.

Seriously though- lostness.

No. She is not lost. Nope. Nuh huh. Not this time. Not lost... for I know where I am. That's right. Visualization. Positive, with a capital P, thinking. All that crap her therapist had suggested.

I know where I am.

"But, where I am may be lost," she breathes.

Right.

Or is it left?

Choices.

"Mom?" A sleepy voice calls to her from the backseat.

"Yeah baby," she says, guiding the car to a rumbling stop. She moves her foot to the break and leans forward into the steering wheel, looking first through the passenger window - then back to the driver's side. A fork in the road. That seems new.

"Are we there yet?" There it is. The good ole kid standby. At least the tone is less whine and more weary than the last time.

"Not yet," she answers. Maybe it's straight through. But she could've sworn it was a left. But then she could've sworn there were no forks on this route.

All of this would be much easier if she'd remembered the damn map.

"Does that mean we're lost?" Kate glances into the rearview mirror to catch the brown, glassy eyes of her son. Poor thing, he should be in bed by now not questioning his mother's sense of direction in the wee hours of the morning.

"We're not lost kid-" she starts, a smile slipping into place.

"We're navigationally challenged," they finish together like the chorus of a song, her son adding his own grace-note by giving her the unmistakable Beckett eye roll

Real smooth, buddy.

Kate shifts into park, the engine puffing out a thank you as it settles into a gentle hum. Twisting in her seat, she tries to replace the smile with a serious and stern parental stare.

"And don't think I missed that eye roll, Houghton Beckett. Little boys don't get to roll their eyes at their mothers." Kate narrows her lids for effect. "It's against the law."

Huh.

Okay, she must be slipping. The stare usually worked. It was her signature stare, the one she reserved for interrogating suspects, interviewing uncooperative witnesses, and facing down eight year old boys too clever for their own good. The stare that usually scared her kid into line. Judging from the lack of fear materializing on his face, she must have done it wrong. Must not have wiped her smirk off entirely.

Or her transitions are off. Out of practice maybe. Then again it is 3am. And she's exhausted. And they've been driving for 10 hours. And, despite the fact that her Mom arsenal was just stripped of a usually-lethal weapon, she can't really blame the kid for employing her own favorite form of nonverbal communication.

Houghton huffs something under his breath and his head bounces back against the seat with a dramatic flair, stealing his gaze from her and refocusing it on the black night outside. Kate recognizes a conversation killer when she sees one. At any other time, that little move would have won her son a sharp reprimand but, she was ashamed to admit, she just didn't have it in her tonight.

This morning.

Whatever.

Yeah so she's a shitty parent. She won't be winning mother of the year anytime soon. Her scores wouldn't even qualify for the first round. And she is definitely flunking the Don't Let Your Kids Take Advantage of You Just Because You're On the Road correspondence course. But you know what, her son isn't exactly being an angel through all of this. He knows just what buttons to press with her. Maybe neither is the other's favorite person right now. But they're stuck with each other. Not like the kid has a choice anyway. At least she's here, at least she's around. Same couldn't be said for-

No.

Don't do this.

Kate closes her eyes and forces the thought away. They wouldn't do anyone any good. She'd been down that road a million times and another jaunt down Masochist's Avenue would only make things worse.

Taking a deep breath she counts to ten. A fleeting thought suddenly bubbles over: maybe, as ridiculous as it is, he'd forgiven her and the innocent little boy he was before would be staring back at her when she opens her eyes. That a few moments of silence are all it would take to get things back to normal.

She blinkes once, training her eyes on the white, light-up Velcro shoes Houghton had begged her for not two weeks ago. Tracing up the jeans-clad leg, Kate pictures the neon yellow cast that held his broken bones together when he six. Climbing accident. More like falling accident, the little monkey. At his waist, she sees he'd misaligned the buttons on his favorite flannel shirt, a lonely button hole peaking from the hem of his jacket. A brown cross-strap hugs his chest like a Sam Browne belt, dwarfing his wirey frame.

She lingers for a moment there at his collar. She knows it can't last, this hope she's suddenly - irrationally - built up. For a few more seconds she can make believe it will all be okay, but when she looks at his face, it will be over. She'll either find his eyes or not. Find acceptance, maybe even forgiveness in them, or not.

Kate Beckett is indulging herself, setting herself up. She knows this. The rational, practical part of her knows. She also knows she should end it before she hurts herself unnecessarily. But the emotional, overwrought mother in her won't let go. She needs this. She needs it to be true. And in the dark of the night, at a fork in the road in the middle of nowhere she can almost convince herself that it is.

But before she let her eyes find their final destination, she looks away. Cold reality rushes through her veins, flooding the shore of her heart. What kind of mother thinks her child will forgive her in the span of a few silent minutes? How did that atone for anything? Life didn't work that way. Little boys, disappointed and let down little boys, didn't work that way.

Blinking back the tears that had wet her eyes (damn contacts), Kate turns around and grabs the wheel once more. Shifting into drive, she leans on the gas, the indecision that had plagued her earlier evaporating.

Straight through. That's where they're heading. Straight through until morning. And if it's the wrong choice, then fine. Chances are she'll stumble onto a truck stop or convenience store sooner or later. Someone will have a map. Someone will have directions. She'll solve their directional difficulties one way or another.

As for the difficulties closer to home, well that will have to go on the list. The list of things she needs fix in her life, in their life.

Right above "get your shit together" and right below "stop hurting your son."