Chapter Two
"Yes, me," the figure replied and then lurched forward towards him and Flack found himself being hauled up from the thick blanket of snow he'd been lying on.
The air rushed into his lungs as he tried to gasp in a breath to steady his spinning head but all he could do was cough and choke as the ice hit his lungs. He could feel the icicles growing inside him, steadily getting longer, their sharp points slicing into the opposing walls of his soft, fleshy innards as he cried out in pain. The icy air slowly killing him.
"We need to get you inside, come on."
Flack knew he was slowly being dragged away into the deep dark swirls of the misty night. He didn't know where he was going. He couldn't remember who he had seen. It had all been a lie. A face had come to him through the blanket of darkness and mist, but it was an untruth. He tried to fight this stranger, they could be taking him anywhere but he felt weak, he felt dead. His body was so cold and numb, inside and out. His head was spinning from the kick he'd received, blood still trickling from his nose and he was sure that his vision would be blurred... if there had been anything to see surrounding him. But there he was, slowly being dragged away into the depths of the night, into this nothingness. Maybe this was indeed where he would meet his fate?
But no, as he looked up he could see faint lights coming closer. A train perhaps, zooming towards him at breakneck speed. He wobbled at that thought. They needed to get out of the way. The light was in his eyes, it was getting closer, they would be hit any minute now. Flack stumbled to the side and strong arms caught him.
"Steady there."
Flack wavered as he was once more hauled up and pushed on towards the glow. He frowned as he made out a sign. Blinking a few times before it came into focus. 'Riverview Cafe and Sports Bar.' Flack grinned stupidly and snorted with laughter, blood dribbling down over his mouth and chin and falling onto his coat. There was certainly no river view that evening. He vaguely heard a bell tinkle overhead as the figure pushed open the door and then he found himself confronted with a roaring heat in his face. The delicate skin of his face flapped with the power of the hot air and he squinted his eyes, feeling light-headed and dizzy.
"Whoa there, this way."
He was pushed passed the door heater and into the cafe, along a sticky chequered floor of red and white and into a booth. The plastic of the seat covering squeaked as he sat down on it and he saw it shine slightly from the water of his clothes as he slid along. He could hear yelling around him and then a cup was set heavily on the table before him and blackness was poured into it. The blackness from outside, somehow it had bled its way into this toasty hot environment with its lurid colours and bright lights and strange murals on the walls. Flack blinked against the bright lights and began to take in the room in more detail. It was definitely a cafe; the waitresses in their matching red outfits and white aprons. Few people were in there and he guessed not many would come out on a night like this, especially not for a view of a river that was blanked out by a thick, black mist. Flack glanced outside and shivered again.
"You should drink that."
Flack stared into the porcelain cup before him. Of course. It wasn't blackness. It was coffee. Just normal, everyday coffee much like the sludge they served up at the precinct. He sighed and suddenly felt warmth spread through him as the tips of his fingers touched the hot cup. He took it in his trembling hands, relief washing through him, panic over. He was safe, he had his wallet, his nose might be broken but that was nothing new. He sipped the liquid and it quickly burnt a trail into his body, like a line of gunpowder leading up to the explosion at the end. His stomach burst into flames as the coffee reached it and he grimaced in pain. It was too hot, too soon after the ice from outside. He grimaced again and placed the cup back down as he gingerly held onto his stomach.
"That good huh?" said a voice of amusement.
Flack frowned and slowly raised his eyes to meet the deep brown ones before him. He froze. He froze far more solid than he had before outside. His breathing stopped. His heart slowed to a still. He died. Or at least, he thought he did. Then oxygen came to him again and slapped him round the face as it forced its way inside his body. Flack choked and a thick drop of blood from his nose splattered onto the table top.
"Here," his companion offered, pulling out a few napkins from the container and holding them out to him.
"This can't be real," Flack murmured as he took them and held them over his nose, tilting his head back and away from those haunting brown eyes.
Perhaps this really was purgatory. His place of temporary punishment where he existed alone and would be haunted by a past that would destroy him. His soul needed to be cleansed before heaven and maybe this was God's way of granting him forgiveness. Had he really gone and died out there on the wall? Frozen to death by the icy wind and fog. Or perhaps he had been kicked to death by those two kids that had mugged him. They had kicked the shit out of him and as he'd lain in the snow his soul had left his body, seeking out the afterlife and eternal salvation.
"Am I dead?" he asked as he kept his head tilted back and didn't look at her.
He heard a faint snort of laughter.
"Always so dramatic with you. No, you're not dead," she replied.
"But you... you're dead?" he asked to confirm it in his own mind, eyes lowering to stare into the wall of mysticism that was her face.
"Flack, I thought you were a detective? Use your eyes, I'm obviously not dead," she smirked at him.
Flack lowered his head and dropped his tissue holding hand down to his side. He felt no more blood run from his nose. It was slowly drying up in the heat of this horrid little cafe but he must have looked a mess. He could feel the dry blood caked onto his face, sticky over his chin and lip, mingling with the taste of coffee and burnt tongue in his mouth. But she... she looked exactly the same as he remembered. And he did still remember. Everything about her, every inch of her face, every detail, every freckle and mark. Those shining dark eyes, long dark tresses that swept down her back. The perfection of beauty.
"How is this possible?" he asked, slowly finding his voice.
A sadness crossed her eyes and she looked away for a moment, at what, he wasn't sure. But he watched her closely now, no longer afraid that this was a dream or that he was dead. No. This was real. He was alive...and so was she. Alive and sitting in front of him. The one woman in the whole world he loved still here; amazingly, bewilderingly, improbably but truly. Truly sitting right before him.
"It's a long story," she sighed as she looked back at him, perhaps a guilt behind her eyes.
Flack nodded as he shivered and then removed his coat. It was soaking wet and he figured he might have a better chance of warming up if he wasn't wearing it. His arms screamed at him as he bent them awkwardly to shrug out of it and then he hung it over the end of the table to dry.
"Hey, sweetie, I can hang that over the oven if you want it dry," a nasal voiced waitress said as she stomped over, gum chewing loudly in her mouth.
"Sure, thanks," Flack muttered and kind of wished he could give her his jeans too.
He turned back to the woman in front of him and felt his heart stutter again. This wasn't supposed to happen. When people died they stayed dead, they didn't come back to life. He'd been living alone for so long now, lost in the dark shadows of solitude that had taken him after her death. He'd never recovered from it, he wouldn't admit that to anyone but he never had. A little piece of him had died that day and it had been only Messer who might have had any vague idea of his loss. But she'd been dead many years now and life had moved on. He'd never even told her those three words, how he'd felt so much for her, how his heart had bled for his loss after her passing. But he'd had no choice but to accept and learn to live in the knowledge of his lost chance, a hollow ghost of a soul that had never fully recovered.
"You look good," she murmured and Flack felt her eyes gaze over his body, studying him in detail.
"So do you," Flack replied awkwardly, not quite meeting her eye. She was naturally just as beautiful as ever.
"You've aged though," she continued. "Trying out the silver fox look, eh?"
The joke fell flat on its face and died a cruel death at the hands of Flack's humour.
"Guess you lost that witty humour of yours though," she sighed.
Flack pursed his lips and suddenly felt annoyed. The feeling was coming back to his body, the ice slowly melting away from him, and from his heart. And it was replaced with emotions, with rage, with pent up anger and hurt that he'd long since hidden away in the very deepest recesses of his soul. What the fuck was he supposed to be like? All banter and jokes like it had been before? She'd died. She'd died and he'd been left alone to deal with it. And he'd sure as hell tried to as best he could. And now here she was, right bang in front of him like a cruel, sharp slap to the face. He felt pissed, angry but above all scared.
"Sorry," he muttered. Glancing around to check they were being ignored. "But what the hell am I supposed to be like?" he asked honestly, gazing up into her eyes.
She stared for a moment and then shook her head.
"Sorry, no, it's my fault. I... no. Sorry."
Flack felt bad now. He'd clearly upset her. He didn't want to fight. He didn't know what he wanted exactly, answers, the truth? But he didn't want to fight.
"Tell me what happened?" he asked, a slight tone of pleading to his voice.
She looked up and for a millisecond he tried to work out if she'd been crying.
"The FBI. They recruited me. I had to go away... an undercover mission," she replied and Flack could clearly hear regret in her voice.
"But you died?" he spluttered. "Why did you die? I don't understand?"
"They had to make it real. I was a cop, Flack. All my friends were cops. You and I both know that if I had just disappeared none of you would have stopped until you'd found out the truth...especially you," she replied and gently placed her hands on the table either side of her cup.
"You could have just told me," Flack murmured as he copied her actions.
"They wouldn't let me. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. It was top secret," she explained.
Flack nodded and then looked away and out of the window at the blanket of black that was smothering the small cafe and sucking the life from it. He jumped as he felt something warm on his skin. Her hand. She had taken up his hand in her own. He closed his eyes and leant back on the plastic seat, her name touching his lips.
"Aiden," he murmured softly.
"I'm so sorry, Flack," she replied as she stroked her thumb pad over the rough skin and calluses of his gun user hands.
"We found your body," Flack whispered, his eyes still closed as he lost himself in the memories he spoke of. "Hawkes reconstructed your face, Mac recognised the secret message you left in the evidence. I went to your funeral, we all did."
"It wasn't me," Aiden replied guiltily.
"Pratt killed you, you'd stalked him for months, we found the evidence in your apartment," Flack said as the images flooded back into his mind.
"They were planted Flack. I'd been working with the FBI since Mac fired me, they needed a good story to make me nonexistent, so I could be reborn as another identity ready to go undercover. I never stalked Pratt, we set him up. I knew it was the best way for you all to forget about me," she said sorrowfully.
"Forget?" Flack said curtly as his eyes sprung open and he pulled his hand from her grasp. "I never forgot about you, Aiden!"
She looked taken aback at his brutal honesty and Flack wondered if she'd ever known how much he'd been in love with her.
"Pratt never confessed," he finally sighed as the pieces started to click into place. "He always remained in denial that he'd killed you."
"Because he didn't," Aiden replied. "But he did rape all those other women. We were killing two birds with one stone by framing him for my death."
"So if you come back, he'll be set free?" Flack asked sadly.
Aiden smiled in sorrow at Flack's hopeful eyes. "Pratt was killed in jail four years ago... but I can't come back, Flack, my work isn't finished. You're not even supposed to know I still exist. I was meeting an informant when I came across those two kids mugging you. I didn't even realise it was you until you recognised me."
"So this, our meeting here, this little chat...it's all pointless?" Flack said in slight anger.
"I'm sorry," she apologised again.
Flack pursed his lips again and looked away from her and this time into the diner. He was suddenly aware that the jukebox was playing The Beach Boys, Surfin' USA; a highly inappropriate song for the weather and time of year. He could just see his coat hanging over the stove on which some charcoaled looking burgers sat. His coat would no doubt be stinking of burgers now, though at least it would be dry and warm when he left this place. When he left his purgatory. For that's what it was. He might not have died, Aiden might not have died but he was still in his own purgatory. Not life, not death, not heaven and not hell. He was inbetween. Somewhere in the middle of it all. Not living in the way he should have been, in the way Danny was or Hawkes or Adam. But he wasn't dead, he still existed on the Earth and moved with the tide of human beings that lived around him.
He looked back at Aiden and noticed she was staring at him, a faraway look in her eye. He suddenly had an incredible urge just to fuck the rest of the world and grab hold of her and kiss her until she couldn't breathe, until he couldn't breathe. Until they were both lost in the depths of each other, in their own tastes and smells and everything that would have been them as a single soul.
"I missed you," he heard her murmur.
"Yeah," he said as a reply, not really knowing how exactly he wanted to respond to that statement. That he'd missed her like hell too? That his life had been empty without her? That he'd tried to find happiness twice since, always ending up with someone who was almost identical to her in looks and personality? But it was never her and he had lost one of them too. He couldn't do that again.
"I heard you nearly died? Not long after I did, I guess," she asked quietly.
"Yeah, had my stomach practically blown out. Took months of recovery," he said bluntly, how often he had wished he'd died that day.
He noticed her choke and the look of fear that passed over her face. It had affected her...those words. She cared, that much was clear, but how much? Flack narrowed his eyes. He had always been good at reading people, and this time would be no different.
"I wanted to see you, they wouldn't let me," she was saying.
"Mac saved my life with a shoelace. Had my guts spilling out of me. If I'd been in there with anyone else, I would have died," he said, watching her carefully.
It was there again, that look of fear, and he didn't know whether to be cheered by it or deeply saddened.
"Guess I missed out on a lot, huh?" she murmured. "You find yourself a girl?"
And there it was, that question. Flack smiled slightly. What should he tell her, the truth? She could probably find out for herself if she really wanted. She might already know and be asking out of politeness. Maybe he should lie and say he was married with a pretty little wife and 2.4 children. Or perhaps he should just say how he never moved on, that he sunk into a deep depression after she died and lay on the blame, make her feel as shit as he had all these years.
"I did," he said simply. Mind taking control over his heart.
"Did?" she asked, noticing the past tense.
"She died."
There was nothing more to say than that. It was the truth whether it made her feel guilty or not. He looked up to see her staring sorrowfully at him, eyes saddened by this truth.
"I'm sorry, Don."
"Not your fault," he said gruffly.
"You never moved on, found anyone else? I figured you'd be married with kids by now," she smiled.
It was a cheap attempt at cheerfulness. He thought about it for a moment, thought about whether he ever really had found anyone else after Jess.
"No, there's no-one else. You?"
His heart thumped heavily in his chest, air once more becoming difficult to find.
"No," she said sadly.
Flack nodded and then picked out the spoon from his coffee cup. It was stained brown with age and he could barely make out his largely proportioned head reflecting back at him in the tiny convex mirror.
"There was only ever one boy for me..."
Flack's head jolted up from the spoon as she continued to talk.
"But it was never meant to be."
He stared at her for a moment, unable to comprehend what she was saying. He felt like he was falling, like he was drowning in a confusion of words and snow and blackness and mist and Aiden. Nothing about this evening was normal.
"I should be going," she said after a while but made no effort to move.
"Think I've just about dried out now," Flack replied, feeling the rough material of his jeans under his legs to check.
"You should take more care, you could have died out there in that cold," she replied in concern.
"I can take care of myself, Aiden" he replied sharply. "Have done for a very long time."
"Good" she replied as she stood. "Don't forget to get your nose checked. Maybe Hawkes..." she sighed and looked away.
"I won't," Flack replied curtly.
"I guess I don't need to tell you that you never saw me here tonight? That you can't tell anyone else, not Mac or Danny or Stella?"
"Stella moved to New Orleans four years ago," Flack snorted bitterly. "Guess you would have known that if you were alive."
"Fine," she snapped, probably more abruptly than she intended and then turned and walked down the sticky walkway between the counter and booths and out of the door.
Flack watched her go, too lazy to move. Too pissed to make an effort. He would never see her again.
"Shit," he sighed and then got up. "Coat, please," he ordered from the waitress and then tossed her a few notes in gratitude.
He ran from the cafe, pulling on his coat as he did so. The mist was slowly evaporating from the world, leaving a brand new glow on everything as he got out onto the street. An icy wind blew through his hair and he shivered and pulled at his coat. The street was deserted, not a soul walked along it. And Flack wondered if he was dreaming... or if the only soul he had truly ever loved was really still alive...