Shadow

He felt heavy. His feet were dragging across the floor, his shoes were being discarded the moment he walked through the door. Feeling the weight of fatigue pull him down, Mike felt like dropping where he stood and falling to sleep instantly. At her house, though, because he worried about her ever since he'd been told she'd left Olivet and decided not to go back. Walking into her living room he firstly noted that it was silent, not full of booming music like before, and that she was absent from the room.

Concerned, yet still tired, he continued through the house towards the only other room he could think of her being in; her bedroom.

Reaching the bedroom he quietly opened the door and looked around it. The soft light being emitted from the bedside lamp was dim and not overly powerful but it helped to outline the female body sleeping on the bed. Alex was fully clothed, sleeping on top of the bed sheets; on her side and facing away from Mike.

Now knowing where she was and that she was okay, Mike could resume with what he was doing, which happened to be what she was doing. Sleeping. Quietly, he pulled off several layers of clothing until he reached his boxers and then walked around the bed to her side where he gently, very gently, moved her so that she was inside the covers. Then, making creeping movements, he walked around the bed and climbed into it, immediately seeking warmth from her sleeping body, spooning her and wrapping his arms around her.

Sleep took him without a seconds hesitation. Sleeping the moment his eyes were closed and he felt comfortable next to her.

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Opening her eyes, she felt the chilling screams fade away. The images from the dream starting to dissolve and as she realised where she was she felt safe, for the most part. Turning, she saw Mike sleeping on his back, his arm resting on his forehead. Suddenly feeling a strange need to leave the room, to move around and breathe, she quickly got up and fled her bedroom.

Walking into the hall she felt the cold hit her like a storm. Her arms instinctively folded and she began rubbing her upper arms with her hands to try to keep them warm. Shivering from the intense cold she walked into her kitchen and taking a glass from the drainer she poured some water and drank it; gulping. Downing the entire glass in one shot, she had to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. Putting the glass back down on the work surface, she walked out of the room and started back for the bedroom.

But she stopped.

A sound coming from the living room made her turn and look in the direction of the room.

It was a sound that was both familiar and alien. A scratching sound, like something scraping along a metal bar.

Curiosity got the better of her and she slowly walked towards the living room. Her heart was pounding at the thought of an intruder in her home; again. But when she reached the room she was stunned to see Bobby.

Bobby?

He was standing next to her window, moving the curtains along the rails as if checking them for inconsistency. "What are you doing?" Alex asked, surprised by the sound of her own voice.

Bobby looked at her, smiling.

Alex looked at the curtains and frowned, "I thought you'd changed those?"

He nodded, "Yeah. I put these ones back." He seemed happy about it but it frightened Alex.

"Why?"

Bobby smiled, "Well, you said that you remembered Amanda's screaming. That Olivet said you had survivor guilt. Well, the curtain sound is connected."

"Huh?" Alex was confused. Bobby usually had a way of explaining things in better detail, this wasn't working for her.

"Yeah, I had an idea." Bobby told her, as if he was theorising on a way to deal with a suspect.

"An idea?"

"Yes. I believe that if we re-create the sounds for you, Amanda will come back." The chill in the room dropped further to the point of blizzard. Bobby smiled at Alex and she felt her whole body start to collapse in on itself as she looked at her partner with both disgust and fear.

"What?" She whispered. Her voice failing her as her breath became constricted. He nodded, holding out his arm, pointing to something behind her. Alex turned her head, unwillingly, and as she spotted the young woman standing in by her front door she felt the scream escape her lungs. Amanda was standing by her door, covering in stab wounds and dried blood. Her clothes torn and ripped in many places, her body battered but her eyes were pleading, pleading with Alex to help her. To save her. Alex reached out to her but...

It was to only find herself screaming loudly, back in her bedroom, sitting up in bed. Closing her mouth slightly and stopping the sound she was surprised when she felt somebody's arms around her, turning she saw a confused Mike trying to comfort her but she couldn't hear anything. She slowly began to feel his body heat and she instantly gravitated towards it, throwing herself into his arms and tightly wrapping her own around his neck.

Slowly, sound began to penetrate her ears again and she realised he was talking to her, "...it's just a dream." His voice would've been soothing if she couldn't tell he sounded panicked as well. The part of her brain that was starting to function told her that she'd awoken him from his sleep and shocked him.

"I-" She tried to speak but her mind just couldn't comprehend what had just happened. "I-" Mike kissed her head and she gave up speaking.

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Morning hadn't arrived fast enough. Sleep had eluded her from the moment she'd violently woken up from her nightmare. The sight of Bobby's creepy smile and Amanda's dead body just burnt itself into her eyes; the dead body especially. Something about the way she seemed alive and dead at the same time seemed to evoke a strong feeling of fear in Alex that she didn't want to remember but she was having a hard time forgetting it.

She had tried to sleep but she couldn't. Mike did, however, and she couldn't blame him. He seemed so tired but he did keep waking up everytime she moved, which is why she had decided to stay where she was so that he could sleep. One of them needed to be one hundred percent and it clearly wasn't her right now so it had to be him.

Once he woke up and was wide awake, however, she quickly left the bedroom and rushed into the bathroom where she stayed in the shower, hoping the hot water would burn it all away; almost scolding her skin with the need to wash the dream away.

It hadn't worked. All she'd gained from it was a nice red skin. Red skin that would probably fade faster than the images of her nightmare. That was a certainty.

"After yesterday I didn't think you'd be back next week, let alone the next day." Now, she was sat back in that chair, in that dimly lit office with her arms folded across her chest, tightly protecting herself from any outside harm.

Alex tried to offer a smile but it didn't appear at all. She looked at Dr. Olivet and just sighed, "You were right." Her voice was tight and a whisper.

Olivet didn't gloat, she didn't do a happy dance in celebration of the fact she was right. She just sat there, looking at Alex, a sympathy in her eyes that made Alex feel slightly sick but at least it wasn't rubbed into her face. "What made you change your mind?"

Alex closed her eyes and tried not to allow her mind to recall the images of the nightmare but she didn't succeed but the images flashed through her mind like a picture album. "I had a dream." Alex opened her eyes and looked at Olivet, hoping she wasn't showing the vulnerability that she felt inside. "About her."

"Her?" Olivet asked, unsure of who this 'her' was.

Alex nodded. "Amanda."

"She was the other victim being held?" Olivet asked, for clarification more than anything else. Alex nodded. "But you didn't see her?"

"No, I heard her."

"Had you ever met her?" Alex nodded, slowly. "When?"

Alex swallowed hard as she tried to force the memory of her dream to the back of her mind whilst she tried to remember the current thing Olivet was asking for. "At the video store." Alex was becoming well aware of this being the same day/evening that Amanda would've been taken; when she was. "I told her that we'd-" she paused, trying not to allow any emotion to show, "-we'd have a squad car come pick her up-" she looked at Olivet and spoke slowly, "-so that she would feel safe." Olivet nodded, in understanding.

"So, you tried to protect her."

She shrugged, "I guess." Alex didn't really believe that.

Olivet leaned forward slightly in her chair, in a friendly way, hoping to gain some kind of trust from Alex, "You need to believe that that wasn't your fault." Alex just looked at her, not saying a word. How was she supposed to believe that? "You tried to help her before you even knew she was in danger. What more do you feel you could have done?"

"I was there." Alex replied, emphatically, "I got out afterwards, I should have done it earlier."

"When the killer was still there?" Olivet spoke like she knew that would have been a fatal decision on Alex's part.

Alex stared at her, "I still should've tried."

"If you had you would've died." Olivet spoke with certainty.

"And what? I wouldn't be here to have this conversation, is that the rest of your sentence?" Alex asked, a hint of sarcasm and definite attitude.

Olivet shrugged and the nodded, "That wasn't what I was going to say, but it's accurate, don't you think?" Alex didn't reply. "As a cop would you say you always do your best to save lives?"

Alex hesitated before replying, she wasn't entirely sure of the answer. "I always try."

"You feel you failed?" Olivet asked but Alex sense it was rhetorical, she thought it was obvious. "Is it not more likely that you just didn't get the chance to try?" Alex didn't respond, "And that you didn't fail as a cop but you succeeded as a woman escaping the claws of a serial killer?"

Although Alex didn't speak, Olivet could see that what she had said had made some kind of impact on her. Alex felt herself pause, as the words started repeating inside her mind. Had she?

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"She's been in there for a long time? You don't suppose she's snuck out of the bathroom window?" Mike looked at Bobby, his curiosity and concern forcing him to voice his thoughts. This caused Bobby to stop with his own thoughts and look at Mike with a frown before piecing together what the man had said to him.

"No, I-I don't think she has. They probably have alot to discuss."

"Ah." Mike nodded and turned back to what he'd been doing; chomping on sweets as they sat in the SUV, waiting outside of Dr. Olivet's office building whilst Alex was inside having a one-on-one conversation with her. Bobby returned to his own thoughts whilst Mike began tapping his foot on the floor and knocking out a 1.2 rhythm with his fingers.

Bored with the quiet, Mike turned back to Bobby and sighed, "Do you think she's alright?"

"I think she's struggling with it but she's a-a fighter." Bobby replied quietly, slightly annoyed because he wanted to be quiet.

"I know that, but..." Bobby looked at Mike as he paused, "But you didn't hear her scream last night."

Bobby realised that sitting quietly in his own thoughts probably wasn't going to happen, "Did she talk about it?"

Mike shook his head, "She didn't say much about it." Bobby looked towards the door that they were expecting Alex to walk out of, and sighed.

"It's probably got something to do with Amanda." Bobby theorised.

Mike looked at him, "The dead girl?" Bobby nodded and Mike turned away from him for a moment thinking about that.

"Has she mentioned her to you?"

Mike nodded, "Yeah." Mike was now looking at the black door, the one Alex had entered.

"That's a-a good thing."

Mike turned to him and frowned, "That she's hearing the screams of a dead girl and feels she should of saved her? How is that a good thing?" Mike asked, incredulously. He never did understand Bobby's way of thinking.

Bobby shook his head, "No, that she's talking to you about it." Bobby was about to say something else when he heard a buzzing noise. Looking at Mike's coat pocket, he raised an eyebrow at him; especially when he noticed Mike was ignoring it.

Mike noticed him, "It's probably Wheeler."

"Your new partner?" Bobby asked and Mike nodded. "Don't you think you should answer it?"

"She's supposed to be talking to Danielle."

"Danielle?" Bobby asked, interested.

"Yeah." Mike didn't seem so interested, his eyes were still locked on that door they were expecting Alex to walk out of. "A teacher whose been having an affair with one of her students." He glanced at Bobby before turning his attention back to the door, "Don't ask."

Before Bobby could actually ask, out of interest, the door opened and Alex walked out. This caused both men to quickly step out of the SUV and head towards her. She seemed startled by the rush they were in. "Hey." Mike walked over to her and was next to her by the time she reached the bottom step. "How did it go?"

Alex nodded slightly, "It went okay. I'm coming back next week." She looked at both of them and smiled slightly, "You both waited?" They nodded and she looked at Mike with suspiscion, "Don't you have a case that you're working on?"

"Yeah, sure." Mike replied, dismissively. "It's no problem."

Alex knew that that wasn't true but she nodded and accepted his open arm and leaned into him as they walked back across the road to the car. Her mind still caught up on the words that Olivet had said to her, maybe she would be okay, maybe it wasn't her fault, maybe she'd done the right thing, maybe this would all work out and she'd be able to go to work.

Maybe there was too many maybes.

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TBC

I'm not sure how well I know Olivet's character to really be writing her. You see, I've only seen a handful of episodes with her in so... let me know.