AN: 2.2
Accusation
Linden says nothing, only gestures for Jack to hide in the bathroom. He knows what's up, even though she doesn't have to explain it and she doesn't know if she should be glad or ashamed.
Holder is loud and frantic as he bangs on her hotel door and the last thing she wants is to get the neighbours involved or, worse, the police.
Her hand seeks out the gun at her hip because that's what she's actually willing to do if she has to:
Shoot him.
Over the years, Linden had grown accustomed to the raucous sound of a man yelling. It'd been a right of passage of sorts among the men she'd worked with, especially since the Seattle PD didn't exactly have its arms open to equal this and that.
But this banging and yelling, it's a more personal attack and it puts her on guard. They'd had a trusting relationship, fallen into a somewhat pleasant synchrony, were (admittedly) effective as a team. They had the same ambition and stubborn pride that put them on equal footing and worked ridiculous hours together when everyone else had long clocked out. They were almost friends.
So what Holder did: to the case, the integrity of their partnership, his own honour as a cop and the collective trust of the Seattle Police Department, it was cold-blooded.
When he finally falls silent, she waits at the door, listening attentively for movement from the other side. She's tense, angry, ashamed and humiliated. She's worried about Jack, how much he like Holder and what he would think about her. She wants Holder to leave but knows it's going to be hard to tell because the peephole can only show her so much of the world outside and Holder's really, really good at deception.
Jack's hungry and all she can do is nod towards the fridge from her corner at the door.
By the time she lets her hand slip from the holster, her arm is numb. She's exhausted from the forced silence and thoroughly sick of feeling trapped in that little room. When she chances a look outside, only his badge is there. She lets out a breath, it's either a sign of gross irresponsibility or great trust. Either way, she picks it up and stuffs it in her jacket pocket.
Holder wonders if this is the price you pay for being stupid. Maybe six months isn't long enough to get the stink of being a tweeker off you. Or maybe he hasn't done enough to prove that things are different now.
He'd come to expect disappointment from Liz and Davie, but it still hurts to see them confirm it, especially that look Davie gives him when he has to pick sides. He wouldn't say he expects forgiveness, but their blood connection is something to hold onto.
He comes to Linden expecting even less but he's desperate for her to understand. Linden's trust is super hard to earn and pretty damn easy to lose, but he can still appeal to the stuff they'd done together, right? How for the both of them the case was more than just a job, how they're a pretty unstoppable tag-team force when they have to be, how they get each others' backs when no one else believes them, even how much Little Man seemed to like him (more than her so-called fiancé). Maybe she'll think back to all those things and talk to him and let him explain that it was all a big mistake, that he'd made a stupid move because he's still new to homicide and he thought his source was reliable and it was a pretty damn realistic picture (even though that's not a good excuse, obviously). Everything else he'd done up until that point was good, right? Like he might not have played squeaky clean at first, but he gets the job done and they've been moving forward (sometimes sideways, but overall forward) this whole time. He can fix it; if she gave him just one chance, he can fix it.
He can fix it!
C'mon, Linden, just open the door!
Open the door, Linden!
He sinks against the wall. She's not going to answer but he doesn't know what to do now. He's stuck right in the middle of his own damn mess and he needs her to drag him out and shove him in the right direction. Some cop. He got the badge in his hands only by playing dirty. Whatever. Fuck it. Bye, Linden.
-End-