Author's Note: I could have stopped at Twelve and let them be, but angst is what I do best and I can't seem to let these two wonderful characters drift and die, so the adventure continues. If you review, please LMK what you think of the direction and story as I craft it as I go and some things ring true while others do not. I'm interested to know what works - and what doesn't as well.
A Dark Path - Chapter 13
"There is no place you need to be but here. There is nothing you need to do, but this," she heard him only because he repeated it - twice. His voice was no more than a hoarse whisper meant only for himself but the stillness and the annoying fact she was tuned to his frequency allowed her to hear it.
"Crews," she barked to get his attention. She was instantly sorry for her tone.
His eyes snapped open; they were a deep, inviting, cerulean blue and littered with unshed tears. Before him lay the body of yet another broken child. It pissed her off but it made him melancholic in a way that made it hurt her – just to look at him.
He blinked and just as quickly it was gone. He was hiding his pain and empathy away from a world that had taught him those traits were weaknesses. She hated whoever had done that to him; as much as the man who'd done it to her. For a fragment of a second her mind followed that tangent and she realized maybe that man was the same for both of them – her father, Jack Reese.
"Reese?" he questioned. There was concern in his eyes and hidden behind his plastic smile.
"Let's just work the case," she brushed his concern aside and pushed past him. She knelt over the body of little girl and began examining her.
Crews remained standing, just watching over them; the little girl he'd been unable to save and the one he was unable to protect.
In his mind he was in the past, on the day when she'd left him standing in his driveway in bare feet and a towel and sped away. He returned upstairs to his empty bedroom and found what she'd been reading – documents from his closet, from his private off the books investigation. Now he wondered about her distance and the reasons behind it.
Did she push him away because of what she'd read that day and how it made her feel? Was the distance he felt between them now because of what he was examining about her father? Or was it him she feared? And if it was him… was it the LAPD Detective using his unfettered access to police data to pursue a private vendetta? Or was it the ex-con and seriously damaged, broken man with the audacity to profess his love for her?
He watched her work, slowly peeling back the layers of the dead child's life. Her lifeless eyes faced away from her staring at Crews while time layered opaque whiteness over what was once a gentle brown like his partners. The girl's long dark locks were reminiscent of hers also on those rare days when she released her hair its captive rubber band prison.
"What do you see?" she asked him looking up.
"She looks like you," he observed without thinking. Her scowl was instantaneous and he scrambled to cover the very personal observation. "I mean how I imagine you looked when you were her age," he softened.
"Focus – Crews," she snapped angrily at his distraction. She looked at the ceiling rotated her shoulders and fixed him with a dark glare. "Now….tell me what you're thinkin'…about the case," she qualified.
"Right," he focused again on the present. He used to be so good at this – living in the now. "I think she was running from something or someone," he posited. "She lost a shoe," he noted. "Someone who hurt her," he added, bending to turn her arm over and expose fingertip bruises on the child's pale soft under arm.
"It's usually those closest to us that can hurt us the most," Dani noted presciently.
He wondered if her comment was about him or her father. He looked at her attempting to divine the answer to his unspoken question.
"You know," she suggested clarifying, "her parents?" She knew how his brain worked and that he'd interpret more into what she'd said than what she meant – or what she meant to mean. Damn him and his circular logic, now he had her doing it too, she thought.
"Yep," he popped and then clammed up. They weren't working – not like before. Before he kissed her, they'd work as a team, back and forth, give and take.
"This is weird, right?" she observed when they were safely seated in their unmarked with both doors shut. "You and me, it's weird; it's different."
"Change is part of life," he suggested.
"So help me God Crews if you quote Zen to me," Reese spoke through gritted teeth.
"Yeah," he sighed, giving in to her apprehension, "a little weird."
"What do you suggest we do about it?"
"You don't wanna know what I wanna do," he teased darkly. He wasn't afraid of danger and tended to walk right into ambushes, even ones he set for himself.
She had to give him points for his bravery. "I can guess," she toyed with fire. There was an electrifyingly bold element to her voice. "Does it start with making out in the back of this car?"
He gulped hungrily and she laughed. "That's never going to happen, Crews."
For a moment the bubble of insecurity and distrust that enveloped them stretched and he could breathe again. He smiled as she started the car, looking straight ahead into the future and replied softly, "I know Reese, I know."