I Didn't Plan This Either.
Charlie wears an amused smile while looking at Dani.
"How come the case files are always on my desk?" Reese asks, casting a dark glance toward her partner from behind a high pile of folders she's carrying in her arms.
Tidwell has asked them to move all the documents in his office. The sudden addition of Mafalda Winterspoon to the list of suspects has made it necessary to completely rethink all the evidence they've previously gathered.
"Actually I think you lost one of them…" Crews nods without stopping to smile "They were ten, you've only got nine…" he points his index finger toward the files.
"Crews." Another dark glance. "Stop making fun of me and help me out with these things!" she adjusts the balance of the folder at the top with her nose and continues, "Just look in the second drawer, the file you're searching must be there…"
Charlie, still smiling, shrugs his shoulders and put his hand on the drawer handle.
She just takes few steps toward Tidwell's office when the sudden realization hits her like a punch.
"No! Don't open it!" Dani yells abruptly, turning quickly on her heels.
Too late.
Their eyes meet as the folders falls down from Reese's hands, and they both feel the time stopping for a while.
xxx xxx xxx
The turmoil attracts Tidwell's attention. He comes to the door.
"You two alright there?"
Two heads turns quickly to him.
When Tidwell starts to walk toward them, Dani rapidly closes the drawer, almost crushing Crews' finger in it.
"Yes! Yes…it's just Crews… here…we're coming" she babbles.
Tidwell stops dead in his tracks.
He could tell that something is wrong even without being a Detective. There is sense of guilt in her eyes, definitely, and…bewilderment…in Crews'.
What's going on between the two of them?
He gives them a suspicious look, but nodding yes he slowly turns back.
"Arrange that mess and call Officer Stark in here," he said stepping back into his office.
Dani turns, looking at Charlie.
"Don't…say anything."
She underlines her statement by opening her arms and raising her hands, palms toward Charlie, as if trying to put an invisible barrier between herself and her partner's thoughts.
Charlie is standing still, the folder in his hand and eyes on her.
After a while, in which, strangely enough, Charlie stays quiet, she nods and bends down starting to collect the papers and the folders scattered on the floor all around her desk.
"Positive?" he finally asks in a whisper without moving a muscle.
Dani stiffens visibly.
"Don't say anything includes even don't ask anything," she remarks talking to the floor.
Charlie kneels down beside her and quickly traps her left hand between the floor and his.
Dani raises her eyes.
He finds the answer there.
"Positive." Crews states.
His eyes, his attention, his whole…body…is focused on her, and this catches her off guard.
Charlie is here for her, totally for her.
For a crazy moment Dani feels like she can fall into his arms and let herself go. Feels like she can tell him everything is in her heart: that yes, ladies and gentlemen, she's pregnant, and that there's a part of her that knows she can't/mustn't have a baby, but that there's another part, just a feeble voice, that keeps telling her she wants to have Tidwell's baby indeed, because he wants him, because he desires him.
Because Tidwell is The One.
But it's just a moment, and it passes quickly.
"Yes. Positive. But not for long" is her dry answer.
Dani frees her hand from Crews' grip and stands up.
The implications of her short comment leaves Charlie stunned.
"But Reese…are you sure you took the right decision?" he sighs "I mean: Tidwell-"
"-If you say anything to Tidwell you're a dead man," she hurls back without turning her face to him.
Crews watches as she walks toward Tidwell's office.
There was a time when he was disgusted by Tidwell.
There was a time when he didn't understand Tidwell. Then there was a time when he started to understand him and even to like him.
And there was a time when he was jealous of Tidwell.
Now he feels only deep sadness thinking about what Tidwell is going to lose without even knowing it.
He has seen Tidwell's feelings for Reese begin and grow stronger. Plus he perfectly remembers Tidwell telling them he wants children, so Crews can only imagine how much the Captain would want a baby with Dani.
This is unfair.
Crews watches as Tidwell carefully takes the folders from Reese's arms, and there's…'something' in this moment: the look in his eyes, the kindness in his gesture or maybe the way in which their bodies touch, that makes Charlie imagine her handing him not a stack of case files, but a newborn baby.
This is so unfair.
TBC