Title: Reunion
Author: Fins-Best-Friend
Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue.
A/N: I'd like to thank my one reviewer, Munchkin25, for humoring me and reviewing. Thanks for the feedback!
Chapter 7
Sunday, December 29, 2003
2:00 P.M.
Christmas had come and gone without much celebration from the 1-6. The tragedy had affected them as much as if they had lost one of their own. John and Zita began coming back to the station two days after the first night they had spent in the townhouse, hiding their emotions by working late into the morning, sometimes not even going home at all. Fin grew less and less worried about Zita's grief pattern after a long series of e-mails with Justin, who had, along with sending updates on the getaway car's location (which had yet to match up with the previously-assumed location of the chateau), explained that her behavior would not turn self-destructive and was more or less normal for Zita and assured him that she would be back to an almost-normal state soon. However, the detectives could not shake their concern for the sleep-deprived Munch. Zita sometimes managed to fall asleep at her desk, but John had never looked so old and tired. Fin could only hope that his and the captain's lectures would sink in soon. He did not know how John could react if Cragen had to take him off the case and make him and Zita go home. This job was his sanity.
Things were moving at a mediocre pace that day. The temperature was more than inclined to hover around the twelve below zero range, so crime had slowed down. The paperwork, however, did not, so the detectives were left with that for something to do. Not that they minded. The outside air might have frozen the blood in your veins, but the squadroom was sixty-seven degrees. Casey, whose office wing had lost its heating due to being serviced by "engineers" who had, apparently, graduated from the Monty Python's School of Heating and Cooling Systems, had joined the squad at their office, sharing Zita's desk, which was, by far, the least cluttered.
But days never really seemed to stay uneventful at the precinct and this day would prove no different; for soon after Zita had fallen asleep, her head on her hand, propped up by her elbow, her phone rang.
"Tell me you woke me up for a reason, Justin."
"G'mornin' sunshine!"
"Very cute, Justin. Gerron with it."
"Who spit in your coffee?"
"I haven't had any. Trying to kick the caffeine addiction."
Justin laughed. "Ha ha! Good luck with that. Call me when the twelve steps start boring you."
"Justin, I was sleeping and you woke me up to laugh at me. Now, spit it out or do something useful."
"Sorry, just trying to cheer you up in my own annoying way." he said, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Guess what?"
"I don' wanna."
"Come on, just guess."
"You got rid of your Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs?"
He took a deep breath. "No. I'll ignore your irritability because I bring news this good. We've got him!" he said, finishing in a sing-song voice.
Zita sat bolt upright in her chair, a familiar electric buzz zipping around her head. She was in break-in-case mode. "He got back to the chateau?"
"Finally. At a guess, he stayed at different hotels to throw us off if we had a tracker on him. Once he was confident that we weren't on his trail, he went back to the chateau. At least his car did, I can't say for sure that he's there."
"I'll take those odds. I need those coordinates." she said, waking up her computer and logging into the Interpol's intranet.
"I already sent them, but when I didn't get an instant message or a phone call back, I thought I'd call. 'Course, you were too busy snoring to notice – or thank me, for that matter."
Zita resisted the urge to call him something similar to an intelligent donkey. "You're on this case, Justin; you're doing your job. Since this will, no doubt, wind up as an international case eventually, I'm sure it will be discovered that you were involved and you will, no doubt be compensated for talents used. That's the gratitude of law enforcement. We get yelled at more often than we get thanked."
"You're welcome."
"Do you think we could get surveillance footage on the chateau? I need to know their schedule – comings, goings, etc. I'm not asking you to pull a satellite out of orbit, just a monitoring system."
"Probably not from here. Try hacking into his computer and security system from there. I'm sure he's got a copy of his calendar in his computer – probably a journal, too – and you could get all access into the security cameras if you break into the system."
"I thought you could hack any computer from anywhere. Somehow I doubt any judge will smile on me playing computer-hacker to gather any further evidence against either of them." she grumbled, "You're Interpol – I haven't heard yet of a judge questioning anything from you guys, and I graduated from Harvard Law – I'd'a known about it."
"Well, you've worked with Interpol before. And you're an agent in the French Secret Service. That's got to count for something."
"Are you trying to tell me to use my authority for evil? At least in the sense of breaking the rules to get what I want?" she asked, her keyboard already in action.
"That's my girl! When you've got him, call me and I'll hack your computer through the intranet. You've got enough on your plate. Was Luc able to make it to the funeral?"
"No, Antoine wouldn't let him."
"Why not?"
"He doesn't know about my mom. I asked Luc not to tell him. Look, I've gotta go. I'll call you when I connect."
"You know, I wish you'd stop dropping things like that. It'll harm your psyche."
"Justin," she warned.
"I know, I know, 'quit talking to Luc.' I'lltalktoyoulater,bye." – Click –
"Bye." Zita said, shutting the phone, a slow smile spreading across her face, like one would on the face of a shark that had spotted a bare behind. Hit and sunk.
"Why does that smile fill me with both confidence and dread?" Elliot asked, leaning back in his chair and cracking the tendons in his neck.
"Oh, the dread's not for you to feel, Elliot." Zita said. "Bruno got home."
"But we have to get them both at the same time, don't we?" Olivia asked. "Would Pierre still be at the chateau?"
"Definitely." Zita replied, "Pierre's tall, but he's not a big man and couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. He rarely leaves for anywhere without Bruno. He has too many enemies for that."
Eager for something to do, Fin stood and rummaged in his top desk drawer for his car keys. "Then let's pick him up. Get the Dramamine, Munch."
"Wait," Casey said, "we may have them on evidence, but you want to get them together, and Pierre's a foreign diplomat. We'll need an extradition from the French government if we want to put him on trial – regardless of citizenship."
Fin sat back down, but brightened up a bit when Zita pulled her cell phone out again and put it on speaker. "Oh," she quipped, "is that all?"
The French end crackled into life after a few rings. "Bonjour?"
"Bonjour, Papa Antoine. Do you mind if we speak English? I have some mono-lingual friends listening in."
Munch snorted. "I'll have you know, young lady, that I speak three languages."
Everyone around the desk glared at Munch. "Shhh!"
"Ah, you again, Zita!" Antoine said through the speakers in his thick French accent, "Lizzette has been asking about you. How have you been?"
"Not too bad under the circumstances." Zita lied, "Listen, you know how I told you not to say anything about what was going on to anyone because it would only cause more problems for my mother and me in the long run?"
"Yes, why?"
"And how you said once that you had a few friends in Parliament who would be able to help me out with this?"
"Yes, and they are still willing to do so. Laffayette asked about you yesterday."
"Well, it's time to speak up – papers, TV news, radio, tabloids, anyone who'll report it. And we need an extradition from the government if we want to press charges here because of diplomatic immunity. It's our only shot at Pierre and now we have all the more reason to want him facing the death penalty."
"Would it be appropriate if I asked why?"
Zita's face met the question with a pained expression. Fin and Munch laid a hand on each of her shoulders simultaneously, almost making her want to laugh. They talked tough, but they were teddy bears underneath. "Let's just say an eye for an eye, blood for blood. I'll tell you later – you deserve to know."
Antoine wisely dropped the subject. "I'll get the boys on an extradition as soon as I can. Analeise is already getting ahold of the media. Shall she get in touch with the internet news as well?"
"Anyone she can. Pierre can't do anything to me or my mother anymore, so it's a good time for retribution. Tell Ludont that I need that extradition yesterday if he can get one."
"I'll deliver it myself. I was planning on taking Lizzette to New York anyway. She wants to see the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and my wife has racked up enough credit card miles, heaven knows. I'll meet you at the SVU precinct by Friday."
"You know where it is?"
"I have an idea – I've been there before. If I can't find it, I'm sure I can get directions. I don't know how I'll be able to tell the rest of the squad about what's been going on, though. You know they miss you, right? You're their little sister. Pierre's glad he's not in France right now, or they'd already have his blood. His and Bruno's."
"Yes, and I miss them, too, and I'd like to see what a squad of our detectives would do to Pierre, but I'm afraid I'll have to do with hearing about how angry they are in a few hours when I won't be able to do anything else for them all calling me."
"I'll try to keep them busy."
"I appreciate it. See you soon."
"I'll hold you to that. Friday, if not sooner."
"Friday, if not sooner."
"À tout à l'heur."
"À tout à l'heur."
"Who is Papa Antoine?" Casey asked as Zita shut her phone.
"He's my captain in the French police and my best friend's dad. I'd never call him Papa on duty, but I've always called him that away from work, ever since Lizzette and I were kids."
"And he can get us an extradition?"
"No, but his friends in Parliament can."
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
1:20 P.M.
SVU Squadroom
Zita was working on her French case at her desk, trying to avoid looking at the crime scene photos any more than she had to. Even after eleven days, she still could not see the bloodbath she had managed to numb herself to months before without seeing the image of her mother's body lying amid the bloody, rumpled sheets. The nightmares, when she got a deep-enough sleep to receive them, were bad enough without having to focus on the murder scene of her case.
She sighed and looked at her watch. It felt like she had been there since four that morning, even though Fin had talked John and her into coming to work late and she had only been there for three hours. She could hear John snoring softly behind a file and Fin typing away at his computer. Elliot and Olivia had gotten back from picking up lunch an hour before and were both going over case files quietly at their desks, speaking softly, having noticed that John was sleeping for the first time in three days.
Unfortunately, Luc Brenoille did not know any of this when he burst through the precinct's door.
"Zita!"
Zita's head, along with all the other heads in the room, shot up from the doze she had been falling into. "Luc! Que faites-vous ici?" (What are you doing here?)
Luc did not bother answering. He just ran over and wrapped her in a bear hug. "Êtes-vous tout droit?" (Are you all right?)
"Oui, j'ai tout raison. Antoine vous a-t-il envoyé?" (Yes, I'm all right. Did Antoine send you?)
"Ouais, et l'extradition." he said, pulling out a thin stack of paper, "Et votre voiture." (Yeah, and the extradition. / And your car.) he said, jingling a set car keys.
To their chagrin, it had taken the two French detectives this long to realize that the entire squadroom had gone silent and sat or stood watching them.
Zita took the keys and blushed slightly at the sudden attention from the squadroom. "Uh, hello, everyone," she began, "This is Luc Brenoille, my partner in the Paris police department and he does speak English."
The unis and other detectives took the hint and went on with their business, but Don, Olivia, and Elliot drifted over to greet the newcomer, who was shaking hands with Fin and John.
After formal introductions were made, Cragen glanced at the papers in Zita's hands. "Are these what I think they are?"
"What do you think they are?" she asked, handing him the packet.
"This means we can pick 'em up. Now you can pack the Dramamine." Fin said, tossing the file he had been going through on the stack in front of Munch and reaching for his keys.
"Unfortunately, no." Luc said, retrieving the extradition from Cragen, "I was reading through this on my flight, and it seems that Parliament has made an . . . ah . . . adjustment to the original request made by our lawyer. It says 'at the arrest of the suspect, at least eight officers from the Paris police department must be present to witness the arrest and accompany them to the facility in which they will be held, where they will assist in the guarding and questioning of Monsieur Plouvin and Monsieur Arnoulle.' We need six more French officers in order to make the arrest."
Figures. Cragen thought. "And when might they get here?"
"Antoine and the rest should be here no later than tomorrow noon. The captain sent me on ahead of them, just in case anything needed to be done with the extradition before the arrest was made." Luc answered, sensing the displeasure in the captain's voice, "Don't worry, sir, Jérémie Antoine is known throughout France as one who knows how to share power. He says he has no interest in taking over your investigation."
Cragen remained completely unconvinced, but did his best to hide it. "Well, I'll go call Casey about – "
"Who's '66 Corvette's outside?" said lawyer asked, striding into the squadroom.
All eyes save Zita's went to Luc. "How can you afford a car like that on a cop's salary?" Elliot asked him as a uni, who had overheard Casey's question, snuck outside for a peek.
"Oh, she's not mine." Luc replied, holding up his hands defensively, "She's Zita's."
Now all eyes went to Zita.
"Don't give me that look, you guys. When I bought it, it was a piece of junk. I paid a hundred and fifty euros for it. It's not my fault we have an awesome personal mechanic back in Paris."
"You have a 1966 Corvette and you never told me?" Elliot nearly gasped as he and Fin dashed out to inspect the new vehicle on the premises.
"Was I supposed to report on the make and model of my car during our introduction?" Zita asked, but Elliot was no longer withing hearing range. Not that he would have wasted time answering when there was a vintage car for the looking-at. "Maybe it wouldn't be wise to mention that I now also have a Bentley Continental convertible, too." she whispered to Luc.
"Maybe it's an American thing."
"No one else did that. Maybe it's just him."
"What do you think he'd say if he knew you learned how to drive in a Ferrari and a Porche?"
John, who had been listening in on their conversation, nearly had a stroke. "You learned to drive in a what and a what?"
"A Suburban and a Ford Taurus?" she asked, hoping John would not freak out any more than he already had. It was very seldom that vintage or state-of-the-art sports cars were known for their safety features, and he was over-protective without her being behind the wheel of one.
Everyone listening laughed at Munch's unconvinced expression.
"Are you turning into a father, John, or is it just me?" Olivia asked, treating her co-worker to a friendly punch to the shoulder.
"Hey, is your stuff still in the car?" Zita asked, leading Luc towards the door.
"Yeah, I haven't checked into the hotel, yet."
"Forget the hotel." Zita said as Luc held the doors open. "We've got four guest rooms at home. I'm sure John wouldn't mind you staying with us."
Cragen and Casey went into his office to discuss another case and Olivia followed Luc and Zita to see the car and drag her partners away from it, but John stayed at his desk.
Are you turning into a father, John, or is it just me?
The question kept repeating itself in his head. Was it true? He was getting protective, they were living under the same roof, he was even starting to forget to correct people when they referred to her as his daughter or to him as her dad. John had immediately connected with this girl on a level he had never experienced before with a minor. He felt her pain, saw her fears – even when no one else could. She got frustrated with him when he proved that he knew her emotions, but she seemed grateful for it when he offered a shoulder. From what Elliot told him about his kids, it seemed that the only thing missing was a "John Munch" on the birth certificate.
Maybe it was not just Olivia.
SVU Squadroom
6:00 P.M.
John had been very hesitant to let Zita go without him or Fin, but Fin had finally managed (via sharp kicks to John's shins from under the desks) to let her leave to pick up food with Luc.
"He's her partner, John. He won't let anything happen to her."
John's only response was to snort and stare at the door Luc and Zita had disappeared through fifteen minutes before.
"What? You don't trust him?"
"Not as much as myself or you."
"Look, John, this whole ordeal isn't going to be made any easier if we can't work with these guys. If Zita trusts them, we have no reason not to. She's a big girl. She's a cop and, whether you like it or not, a trained special agent. She can more than handle herself."
For once, John had nothing to say. No witty retort, no smart remark. There was simply nothing to say. Fin was right. He had known her for less than six months, but he already felt like his little girl had grown up too fast. Wait. His little girl? He might as well buy a recliner and break out a copy of Bill Cosby's Fatherhood.
"Look, I know you're only trying to protect her, and so am I." Fin continued, noticing the look on Munch's face and realizing that his voice had probably been too harsh. "It's only natural, but you've got to let her go."
"I guess I'm turning into Elliot. Bringing home cases."
"And you have reason to, with all that's happened, but she's worked hart to earn your trust and I give her major props for that. You don't trust women and I think she's changing that. She's an incredibly responsible girl – let her prove it."
John chuckled a little, shaking his head, relaxing now that he could hear Zita's voice in the hallway outside. "Thanks, Doctor Phil, I'll stow that away for a rainy day."
"Actually, what he said wasn't far off the mark." George Huang said from where he sat, going through a case file and trying to keep Reggie, who had taken an immediate liking to him, from eating his shoelaces.
"Off what mark?" Zita, whose arms were full of take-out boxes, asked, walking backwards through the door so Luc, whose arms were busy carrying drinks, could get in.
"Nothin'" John replied, taking some of the boxes from her. "Olivia and Elliot are in interrogation and Casey and the captain are observing. Just put their food on their desks."
When Zita and Luc moved out of earshot to make their deliveries, Fin nudged John. "Call me Doctor Phil again and I'm goin' to have to smack you."
"Would you prefer Oprah?"
Fin just scowled and George tried to work his tongue, which he had almost swallowed following John's latest remark, back into place.
9:30 P.M.
"All right, I'm going to the roof. I need a break from all this."
Luc looked up from his laptop. He had brought the DNA evidence from their French case rather than risk it getting lost in shipping, but, as it was New Year's Eve, Melinda Warner, the M.E., had the day off. Luc was not about to attempt analyzing the DNA without a trained professional present, so he and Zita were left to work their case without their newest lead. They had been sitting in an interrogation room for most of the afternoon – Luc could understand why a break would be needed, especially with what they had been working with. "Okay."
Zita left him to continue his work, slipping past Huang and the four detectives in the squadroom and making her way up to the roof.
The cold air felt good on her face after the many hours indoors. She had forgotten her coat, but did not mind – the chill woke her up and gave her something else to think about. She had really wanted to avoid the murder part of the case for a little while longer, especially now that the case with her as a victim had started really moving forward, but Luc had been working their case on his own for the most part while she had been in New York and had been so excited to actually work on it with her, without the use of a phone or e-mail, that she had not felt able to refuse him. Nevertheless, she could only stare at a murder scene for so long after . . . she shook her head. She did not want to think about that now. It was New Year's Eve, for cryin' out loud. It was supposed to be a happy time with parties and fake wine (at least for her). She sighed. This looked to be her year of change.
Back when she lived on the outskirts of Paris, she used to come out onto the roof all the time to look at the stars when she had had a bad day (which was more than often). In New York City, she would not see the stars for the smog cloud that hid the sky from view, so she focused her attention on the city itself. The lights of a thousand apartments and buildings, the noise from a million car horns now that traffic had all but stopped thanks to the glowing celebration taking place in Times Square, located somewhere in the midst of it all.
Bowan used to love this. She would not always be able to watch it live via satellite, but she always made sure Dick Clark was TiVoed. This year was no different. As soon as she had the TiVo installed, Bowan had set it to record that year's crystal-ball-dropping-broohaha. Zita smiled. Bowan would never have simply watched it from the couch. She was in New York City, by gosh, and she would have dragged her cold-and-snow-hating daughter and fiancé down to see it in person. Funny, she thought to herself as she watched Reggie, whom had followed her, chase snowflakes, I don't mind the cold anymore.
SVU Squadroom
John had forced himself to admit it. He was paranoid about Zita. The cases she was dealing with – especially her own – bothered her. He could see it in her eyes when she stared off into space, presumably deep in thought. He had seen cops and victims snap over less. He shuddered slightly at the memory of a case he had worked back in Baltimore. A vengeful ex-convict had stepped in and shot a cop's son, killing him instantly. The cop had not even found the body himself, as Zita had seen the body of her mother, only answered the phone when his wife called to tell him what happened. While John knew it had to be unbearable for a father to lose his son, it did not help matters any for his wife and ten-year-old daughter to find that their husband and father ate his gun.
John shook his head. Zita, in her right mind, would never do such a thing, but if she had snapped and managed to hide it from the rest of them . . . who knew?
He sighed. "I'm gonna go check on the kids. It'll be a big day tomorrow; we should probably be getting home soon."
"And with a friend there, she won't be going to bed for a while after you get home. You probably should've left already if you want her asleep by midnight." Elliot said, imparting some of his fatherly wisdom upon John, who had not considered it.
John glared back at him. "Believe me, she's going straight to bed when we get home and Zita and Luc are sleeping on opposite sides of the house and on different floors."
Fin laid his head down on his hand as John disappeared from the room. "I suppose I shouldn't mention that they both have cell phones and laptops with wireless internet access. Keeping them separated isn't going to make her go to sleep."
"Nah, he'll figure it out on his own."
John's heart skipped a beat when he looked through the window in the observation room. Zita was not there.
He yanked the door open. "Where's Zita?"
Luc's head snapped up fast enough to almost cause whiplash. "She said she needed a break from this. Said she was going to the roof." he replied, his hands raised in a sign of submission to the angry-looking man that just scared the bejabbers out of him.
Munch's mind did not want the thought to pop into his head, but "suicide" was the first thing that came to it. He darted from the room at a speed that belied his age, running through the back of the squadroom and up the stairs to the roof.
The rapid movement from John at an hour as past-noon as that, needless to say, got the other detectives' attention and they dashed up also after Luc came running after John. Cragen, having been awakened from his slight doze by the commotion, brought up the rear, though a bit slower than the others. He was not used to all the exercise.
The scene that greeted John when he arrived on the roof several seconds ahead of the others almost stopped his racing heart altogether.
Reggie was there, still hunting snowflakes, but Zita was sitting on the railing, her feet dangling in the thin air between her and the suddenly-ominous concrete below.
John forced himself to stay calm, or at least to sound calm. He knew that if he surprised her, she could fall.
"Zita, Zita, don't do this." he pleaded, trying to keep the shaking from his voice as the rest of the merry parade reached the roof. "Come back down from there. We can help you. It's not worth this."
"Mon Dieu," Luc whispered under his breath, "Je devrais avoir ne laisse jamais son congé." (I should have never let her leave.)
They all watched with bated breath as Zita turned slowly back around, sighing. "I appreciate the sentiment, everyone, but I'm not suicidal." she said, hopping down and picking up Reggie, whose small body, while still quite active in his quest for snowflakes, was shivering violently.
Luc pushed his way past the rest of the gathering and grabbed Zita around her shoulders and lifted her from the ground, causing her to lose the vast majority of the air in her lungs and Reggie to squeak and try to bite him. "Don't you ever, ever, ever, do that to me again! Do you understand me? That wasn't even close to being funny!"
With the small amount of air she had left, she gasped, "I wasn't trying to be. Put me down."
"You are never leaving my sight again!" he told her, setting her back down.
"I don't know how that's going to work, seeing as how my vette has only two seats and I've got to bring John home, too." she told him as they followed Huang, Elliot, Olivia, and Cragen, who, seeing that the crisis, which was not really a crisis at all, was resolved, began to head back down the steps.
As she drew within reaching distance of John, whose heart had finally worked itself back into his chest and begun beating normally, he grabbed ahold of her and wrapped her in a hug. Luc would have waited, but Reggie growled at him, reminding the detective of their now-strained relationship since he had inadvertently tried to strangle him, and assuring him that their relationship would not mend until they were apart for a while. Luc decided that Zita was safe enough with John and Fin, who stood waiting for John and Zita to head back inside, and went back to the warmth of the building.
When John finally released her, he was crying. "What he said goes double for me. Do you know how much you scared me?"
Zita wiped John's tears away with her thumbs and managed a pouty, puppy-dog face. "I'm sorry, Munchkin. I won't do it again."
John tried not to smile. "I'm serious."
"So am I." she said, dropping the faces. "Look, I just came up here to think. I used to sit on the railing back in Paris all the time; I was okay, but I won't do it again."
He pulled her into another hug. "Promise?"
"Do I get chocolate?"
"All the chocolate you want."
"Promise." she answered, "Now let's get you back inside before you freeze."
Fin followed them down the stairs, punching a number into his cellphone. He was not an emotional man by any means, but it was scenes like that that made him want to talk to his son.