Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from The Killing. It's all just for fun.
Spoilers: Season 4, episode 4
In the past twenty-four hours, Linden and Holder had both pretty much hit rock bottom. Separately, they'd both managed to ostracize the people who were among the most important to them. For Holder, it was his sister, Liz, as well as Caroline, though maybe not quite as badly. For Linden, it was Regi, and to a more limited degree, Jack as well.
As if that weren't bad enough, they weren't even on good terms with each other. The stress of it all – dealing with the aftermath of Skinner and focusing on not being connected to his disappearance, along with the Stansbury case – had been getting to them. When Linden had called bullshit on Holder, asking if he'd used again – which he had – he'd gotten pissed off at her. Of course, they still had the Stansbury murder to solve, so they needed to be able to work together and the friction wasn't helping. On subject of the case, they were hitting roadblocks at every turn.
Meanwhile, Reddick was circling closer and closer, unwilling to let go of the idea that Skinner wasn't merely on vacation. He'd been asking lots of questions, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what his suspicions were. You could say that things were pretty bad, and there didn't seem much hope that they'd be getting any better anytime soon.
Linden was sitting in the car, rain pouring down on the city in buckets, as usual. She was reading a print out as she waited for Holder to make his appearance, feeling irritated with him even though he hadn't arrived yet. As she scanned the page, he opened the passenger side door and got in the car quickly, closing it behind him against the rain. He had brought their customary peace offering – coffee and a paper bag holding some type of pastry, on the outside chance he could convince Linden to eat. He handed her a coffee, which she took despite how she felt about him at the moment, and they sat in silence for a few seconds.
Knowing how stubborn Linden was, Holder decided to break the silence first. He'd been the one who'd been the asshole after all, so it was only fair. "Any word on that warrant?"
"Weak probable cause," Linden replied flatly. "The judge won't grant it. Lincoln would be an idiot to keep that gun at the academy. It's probably somewhere in the Puget Sound by now." He could tell that she wasn't going to make this easy for him.
She sipped her coffee, unwilling to participate in the détente that Holder seemed to be trying for, unwilling to make any kind of small talk. Not that she made small talk normally, because she didn't.
He looked over at her, all out of shop talk but still wanting to keep the conversation going. He had a lot of regrets about the past few days, but none of them burdened him quite as much as the way he'd spoken to Linden the previous day. She had done nothing but call him on his bullshit, as she always did. It was one of the things he liked best about her, as a matter of fact, so he had no right to be angry with her for it now. He'd been a dumbass, and then an asshole, after all. It was his own fault that she was pissed at him.
"So what's on today's itinerary?" he asked her in a tone that was far more casual than how he actually felt. If he was lucky, maybe she wouldn't bite his head off, so this was his way of testing the waters.
"Unis've been hitting gas stations all night, coming up with zip. I'm getting a lot of pushback, so…" she replied without looking up from the paperwork in front of her.
"Alright. Ain't nothin' like a pleasant drive in the countryside lookin' at some stanking-ass toilets. Let's go," he replied nonchalantly.
It didn't escape Linden's attention that he said this without a hint of sarcasm or disdain, as he had the last time Linden had suggested inspecting gas station toilets for evidence on a hunch. She knew what he was doing, that he was trying to patch things over between them without actually saying the words, but she felt like she deserved to hear them. He needed to take responsibility for himself. Wasn't that one of the twelve steps, after all?
So as much as she was relieved to see that he was being civil today, she wasn't going to act like yesterday hadn't happened. He needed to own up to his behavior. She didn't make any moves to start the car, glancing quickly at Holder, then looking away.
He looked down in understanding, knowing what she was waiting for, and knowing that she deserved to hear it. Despite the knot that had just tied itself in his stomach as he thought of what he needed to say to her, he also felt a slight warmth inside as he realized that they were back in synch, even if Linden was pissed at him. They had just communicated without saying a word, and he had heard her message loud and clear. It was something along the lines of You'd better apologize for being an asshole yesterday, or we're not going anywhere. She had every right to be pissed at him, and he felt like a jackass.
"I was fucked up yesterday," he said, not offering further information about what "fucked up" referred to. "My bad." He wasn't good with apologies. Hell, he didn't feel like he was good with words in general most of the time. He stopped and looked at Linden to gauge her reaction to his semi-articulate apology.
Linden looked at him seriously for a few long seconds. The way he had talked to her the day before… coming from anyone else it wouldn't have stung nearly as much. But Holder… he was the one person in the world that she had let her guard down for. She had to be sure that they were good again, or there was no way she could forgive him. The garbage that had just come out of his mouth? He needed to do better than that.
"Is that an apology?" she asked him evenly. Her voice gave nothing away. She genuinely wanted to know if that was the best he could do. Though she didn't generally have a very good opinion of herself, for once Linden had the feeling that she deserved better. That he could do better.
He looked a little defensive, as though she should know that that's what he meant the words to be, and he shifted uncomfortably in the silence.
For a few seconds he was confused, because he really thought that what he'd said had constituted an apology. The look on her face, however, told him otherwise. You can do better, the voice in his head told him. After a pause, he spoke again, though hesitantly. "Yeah… I said it, didn't I?"
When he realized that Linden was not going to accept his weak excuse for an apology, he looked down again, his expression changing to genuinely apologetic. She didn't need to explain what she was waiting for, because he finally knew. Many other times, things between them went unspoken but understood, and that was fine. More than fine, it was actually pretty amazing. This time, however, she wanted to hear the words. Fair enough, he thought.
He looked back up at her, meeting her eyes, and said what he should have said in the first place; "I'm sorry."
"Do we need to talk about anything else?" she asked evenly, without skipping a beat.
"I just want my kid's sins to be his own," Holder told her quietly.
It was clear that she had been thinking about this for more than a few minutes. "Yeah, I know," she conceded. Boy, do I understand that one, she thought.
They both alternated between glancing at each other and staring elsewhere as the rain beat down around them. Suddenly, however, the silence between them no longer felt oppressive. The tension began lifting, and the air felt less suffocating.
Once again, Holder was the one to break the silence. "How do you do it? How do you not fuck 'em up?"
Linden looks surprised. "You're asking me that?" Surely he remembers all the ways I failed at not fucking up my own kid along the way, she thought in surprise.
"Yeah," he replied simply.
She considered it for a few seconds. She supposed she could give her opinion, even if it was only theoretical. Finally, she replied, "You just do your best." What else could you do? What else could anyone do?
"What if someone's best ain't shit?" It amazed her, this side of Holder that didn't use humor to deflect things. It was extremely rare to see it, since humor was his coping mechanism – just like pushing people away was hers. Sometimes she forgot just how similar they were. Right now, he genuinely wanted her advice on parenting, for whatever reason. He was voicing his fears about being a father, without jokes.
At the same time, she had the feeling that he was asking her about more than just parenting. Everything they'd been through lately… they'd been doing their best, and look at where it had gotten them. She could understand how her advice – "just do your best" – was slightly terrifying. After all, their best had gotten them into their current mess, and they really didn't know how to get out of it.
"You're here," she reminded him. She wasn't quite sure how to explain how much that meant… that he was there, and that he wanted to make things right. People around her, they never seemed to care enough to do that. She was used to them just… leaving. Not just leaving, leaving without looking back. No one stayed… not that she gave most of them the chance anymore. And yet, he was still here.
"That's what matters," she continued honestly. "It's kinda the only thing that matters. That you show up… You'll be alright."
Of course, she couldn't be sure that he'd be alright, that either of them would… but what could anyone ever be sure of in life? She was as sure as she could be that things would work out for Holder. They hadn't for her, but he was different. Whatever his faults, Holder had proven to her again and again that he was a good guy. She was pretty sure that he would do a much better job at the whole parenting thing than she had done. She was, and always had been, a disaster, the person most likely to crash and burn… or that's how it had always felt, anyway.
He looked down, away from her. It looked like he was struggling with something. "Everybody thinks I'm a piece of shit tweak-head." Her heart ached for him, because she understood so much of what it felt like to be thought so little of. Before speaking again, he looked back up at her. In that second, he looked more vulnerable than she remembered ever seeing him. "You seem to think I'm something better."
It only seemed right to return his sincerity with her own, without the jokes or sarcasm that made up the way they spoke to each other pretty much all of the time. She smiled genuinely at him, hoping that between the look on her face and a few words, carefully chosen to mean something only to the two of them, she could convey just how highly she thought of him. "Yeah. You're a 1-900-ROCK-STAR," she told him earnestly.
He leaned his head back against the head rest in surprise, a smile taking over his face, then his head dropped forward toward his chest in embarrassment. Just like her, he was very much accustomed to internalizing the bad things that people said about him, and taken aback at the kindness of what she had just said. In other words, he'd taken it exactly the way she'd hoped he would.
"Awwww," he chuckled, still grinning from ear to ear.
She chuckled too them, watching him try to take her compliment. It felt good to know that at that moment, things between them were okay. Better than okay. Neither of them did sappy, so they were both a bit surprised by the warm feeling they each got from those few sentences.
At that moment, all was right with the world, at least the world that existed in that car. However, there was still a lot of work to do, so Linden reached to start the engine. Whatever they were facing, at least they were doing it together. Because she knew that it wouldn't last, Linden savored the feeling of that moment. It had been a long time since she had felt quite so at peace.
…
She was just about to get into the car after leaving Holder at the gas station where they'd finally found a tooth fragment belonging to Philip Stansbury in a bathroom drain. Holder caught up to her by the car just before she got in. She'd left him on scene only a few minutes before, after getting a call from Jack. She had simply told him that she needed to go, that it was because of Jack. Linden wasn't usually big on long explanations unless they were necessary and work related, so Holder didn't know what Jack had gotten himself into, but it was serious enough that she was going to wherever he was immediately.
The driver's side door was open when he walked up quickly behind her. "Yo, Linden," he called to her, closing the last few feet between them as she stopped and turned around, looking at him in confusion. She'd only just told him that she needed to go because of Jack. They'd literally just talked a minute ago. She frowned, wondering if something was wrong that she didn't know about.
After watching Linden walk away, Holder's mind had played several quick scenarios of Jack-related reasons why Linden would choose to leave work so suddenly, right in the middle of a break in the investigation. Linden generally didn't stop working for any reason if she could help it. Hell, he had to convince her to eat, sleep and shower more than half the time. Yes, he could understand why Jack would be more of a priority than taking care of herself. Despite how she may have neglected him at times, he knew that she loved that kid. That was just how Linden ticked: laser focus on one thing – that one thing almost always having been work – putting the rest of the world second, and her own well-being last. After everything they'd been through together, Holder felt faintly protective of the kid. He'd seen him grow up before his eyes over the past few years. The truth was, when Linden had bolted like that, Holder had been a little worried.
Jack was only back in Seattle on Spring Break, and Holder knew what a sensitive topic he was for Linden. She was extremely conscious of the many ways she has failed as a mother. He still felt bad about the comment he'd made to her when he'd been angry, when he'd told her she should go spend time with Jack while he was in town… his implication that she was reglectful of him even now. Whether it was the truth or not, it had been a low blow, and he knew it.
Now, as he caught up with her at the car, she looked at him questioningly. "Everything ok?" she asked him with concern as he stopped in front of her.
He looked confused for a second, not understanding why she'd asked him that, when that was what he'd wanted to ask her. "What?" he asked, then, his brain catching up with what was happening, he nodded quickly. "Oh, yeah, it's fine." She looked relieved. "It's just… is everything okay with Little Man?"
The confusion cleared from her face, and she couldn't help but smile slightly. Holder's worried about Jack? It was actually kind of… cute was the only word that came to mind. "Yeah, I mean, he sounded okay… he just asked me to meet him at the park. I don't know what he's up to, but we have a little time now, and you were right, you know, when you said…" she stopped, her smile fading as she pursed her lips and looked at the ground.
Without even realizing it, Holder began shaking his head. He knew exactly where she was going with that sentence. "Nah, Linden. What I said, that was me bein' an asshole. I mean, he's your kid, I know you wanna spend time with him… And me of all people, well…" he trailed off, but quickly found his voice again and added, "I'm in no position to judge you." He looked at her, silently begging her to meet his eyes so he could show her how sincerely he meant what he'd said, until she finally glanced up at him.
The look on her face showed just how hard his comment had struck a nerve. His guilt swelled up without warning and suddenly he couldn't look her in the eye any longer, so he pointed his eyes toward the ground instead. " 'm sorry. Again," he added quietly. I am truly the world's biggest asshole, he thought miserably.
He certainly is big on apologizing today, she thought, the tension in her stomach relaxing slightly. But she couldn't stay mad at him. Not him, and not today of all days, when things between them were finally good again. She felt the sting of his words lift, and somehow found herself almost smiling at him.
"Holder," she said quietly, and this time she waited for him to look at her. When he did, she told him simply, "Stop." Once again, no other words were necessary. He nodded slightly at her, but remained silent. The message was received. Stop doing this to yourself. We're good. You're forgiven.
"You'll…" he started, but stopped short of articulating his thought and shook his head dismissively. Never mind.
"Call you if I need you?" she finished for him, smirking because she knew that was what he wanted to say. "Of course. I promise." She enjoyed the surprised look on his face as he shook his head at her, his surprise turning into his own smirk at her.
"Alright then, later, mamacita," he said as he turned to head back toward the techs he'd left waiting for him when he'd followed Linden.
Linden finally climbed into the car, still smiling slightly and shaking her head. She knew that it wouldn't last, but for that moment, things were good.