September 14, 1997
3:00 p.m.
Elisa's Loft
After getting home from her run, Elisa took a quick shower before work. The bathroom had filled up with steam, so she had to wipe condensation off the mirror to see her reflection. She briefly inspected her complexion, lightly running her hand over her jaw and chin, then down her throat and over the curve of her breasts. Goliath had been over the night before, and she lightly traced some of the lingering love bites on her chest. He was more careful not to leave them on visible parts of her body these days. She smiled at the warmth that filled her as she thought of him.
Then she caught sight of the scar on her sternum and lightly ran her fingers over it, too. It had faded after nearly three years, and was now just a thin, pale line.
She didn't remember much from that night. When she closed her eyes, she could still hear her window sliding open as Broadway popped in for a surprise visit at dinnertime. She recalled throwing on a couple extra steaks, hearing the savory meat sizzle in the pan as the inviting aroma filled the air. A few seconds later, the loud bark of her gun going off, reverberated through her memory, splintering everything else. She vaguely recalled finding herself sprawled on the ground staring up at the light on her ceiling, with Broadway looking over her in a panic. An icy numbness enveloped her as she tried to focus on him, but the haze closed in too quickly, and everything went dark.
The days after were a blur. Thankfully she had no memory of the grueling surgery she survived or the other close calls during that perilous time. Instead, the first thing she remembered was the warmth of her family surrounding her once she'd finally come to. She could also recall the gentle, comforting touch of Goliath's hand on her cheek after he'd crept through the hospital window to her bedside. He and Broadway had kept silent vigil in the shadows as she convalesced, their constant presence giving her strength. But despite the love and support surrounding her, the road to recovery was a hard one, with many months spent managing pain, going to physical therapy, and negotiating stairs on those goddamn crutches.
At times, the entire ordeal felt like a fever dream, but the scar was always there to remind her. She shuddered and looked away. Sometimes she hardly noticed it, yet other times—like today—it was hard for her to notice anything but. She had been fixating on it more than usual lately, and she wasn't sure why.
"It doesn't define you," she told herself stubbornly.
She got dressed and ready for work. The last thing she did before heading out the door was slip her engagement ring off her left hand. She inspected it, like she did every day, admiring its beauty, reliving the moment Goliath had officially proposed, and making sure there wasn't any wear on the band or prongs that held the sapphire securely in place. Then she carefully strung it on a matching silver chain around her neck.
There were a number of reasons why she was concerned about wearing it on the job. For starters, it could pose a physical safety issue in her line of work. Many of her male colleagues didn't wear their rings for that exact reason, she told herself. She was also afraid she could lose it, but if she was being honest with herself… she was primarily afraid of the questions it could invoke.
Most of the men at the precinct knew she was completely unavailable, to the chagrin of several interested parties. Rumors had swirled for months about her mysterious boyfriend, "G", though no one, aside from Officer Morgan, had ever claimed to have met him. Some even thought she and Matt were together, especially since neither of them actively tried to quell or dissuade that gossip. And with good reason. In many respects, it was easier for both of them if that rumor persisted, especially since Captain Chavez knew there was no truth to such prattle. Not to mention, it gave them both a good chuckle.
But a visible ring would end that ruse and draw too much additional attention. She wasn't ready for that. Not yet.
Elisa tucked the slender chain into her shirt where she felt the cool metal band of the ring against her skin. It hung just above her heart, nestled between her breasts. A symbol of plans kept and promises made… if only she could actually tell anyone.
She sighed deeply, wishing some things were different, then left for work.
...
...
The fluorescent lights flickered overhead as Elisa stretched in her chair, looking away from the computer monitor she'd been staring at for hours. Sunset had come and gone, but she still had a stack of reports to get through before the end of her shift. She glanced over at her partner who was gazing off into space, a dreamy look in his eyes.
"Hey, Matt," Elisa said amused, throwing a pencil eraser at him.
"Hmm, what?" Matt said, snapping out of his daydream and looking up at her.
"Oh, wow, you've got it baaaad," she teased, a huge grin spread across her face. "Who's the lucky catch?"
Matt glanced around quickly to make sure they couldn't be overheard.
"Do you remember the photographer from the fundraiser?"
"Yeah."
"We've been seeing each other. For a while, actually" Matt explained.
"Really? Matt, that's great!" Elisa whispered excitedly.
"Thanks, it has been."
"He's very cute."
"He really is," Matt sighed. "Elisa, I haven't felt like this since…" he trailed off, and Elisa knew what he meant. "It's been a long time since I felt this way about someone."
"I'm happy for you Matt, I really am," she said, giving him a friendly look. "Speaking of significant others, I'm dying to see mine, but we've still got a huge backlog of paperwork to get through tonight. I could really use your help getting through it so we can both get home on time. Whaddya say?"
"By on time, I presume you mean before dawn, so what you're really saying is that you want me to stop daydreaming and get back to work, do I have that right?" Matt asked, rhetorically. "You know, now is when I could point out that when you and 'G' first got together, you constantly had your head in the clouds, and I had to pick up your slack on more than one occasion... but I wouldn't do that."
"Riiiight," Elisa said grinning. She then slapped a stack of files on his desk. "Snark all you want, but at least your relationship isn't handcuffed by the Earth's rotation the way mine is. Now get to it."
Matt groaned and rolled his eyes at Elisa. But after one final dig—something about pumpkins and midnight—he gave her a genuine smile, and got back at it.
Just as they were finally digging their way out a couple hours later, Captain Chavez swung by their desks.
"We got a call about shipping containers that were broken into on the east docks. I need you two to take a look. See if it's just run-of-the-mill thievery, or if it could be connected to any of our organized crime friends," she said as she handed Matt a sticky note with an address on it before returning to her office. Elisa noticed that Chavez seemed to be avoiding her, talking more to her partner.
"Duty calls," Matt said gleefully as he stood up and grabbed his overcoat.
"Ha, if you think this is getting us out of finishing the paperwork tonight, you're sorely mistaken. I was told no extensions, so this is the opposite of a lucky break, I'm afraid," Elisa said glumly as she slipped into her jacket. "Which means I'm probably not going to make it out of here in time now."
Matt gave her a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Yeah, well, count your blessings that your partner is human. Let's go."
...
...
"So, two shipping containers were broken into?" Elisa asked as she and Matt walked behind the dockmaster to the area in question, their flashlights sweeping the ground in front of them. There were bright lights mounted on tall poles throughout the yard, but that also made the shadows more intense. They scanned the area carefully as they went, passing row upon row of shipping containers stacked high to the dark sky, like modern monoliths to commerce.
"Yeah, the manifest says they came off a boat from Hong Kong, full of electronics." the dockmaster replied, reading from his clipboard.
"Hmm, doesn't sound like organized crime." Matt mumbled under his breath to Elisa. "They usually don't care about low level stuff like basic electronics."
"Let's just take a look," Elisa replied.
The dockmaster led them further through the maze of containers, each one looking like the next. The labyrinthine rows made Elisa wonder if they'd run into a minotaur at some point, which then made her think of Taurus and the other New Olympians, which was altogether an unpleasant experience, when they abruptly stopped in front of a particular set of orange and blue shipping containers.
"These are them," the dockmaster grunted.
Matt and Elisa circled the shipping containers that had been broken into. Nothing obvious stood out as they looked around, other than the fact that the containers stood open and completely empty. The padlocks had not only been removed, but they were completely absent. They'd either been severed with a bolt cutter or they'd been picked open, but it wasn't possible to discern either way without the locks themselves, and of those there was no sight.
They soon learned that none of the security cameras had caught anything odd either, but then again, these particular containers were conveniently in a location that wasn't easily picked up by CCTV. They also questioned some of the night workers who'd been on duty earlier in the evening, but no one had seen anything out of the ordinary, or admitted to it anyway. Bribery was a large problem in places like this.
"I don't think there's much we're going to get from this case." Matt grumbled after they'd interviewed the last worker. "We can send a team to come out and dust for prints, but I don't think we're going to get much."
They were about to leave, when Elisa noticed something odd about the digits on one of the shipping containers. She visually compared the bold white number six affixed to the door of one container to the same number on another container that used the same font.
"One of the numbers has been altered on this container. Changed from a five to a six," she observed.
Surprised, the dockmaster inspected the container's serial number.
"The top of the six is perfectly straight, but it should be curved, like this one," Elisa said, pointing to the other shipping container that had a different looking nine.
"You're right," the dockmaster said, astonished.
"We know electronics were listed under F67930, but what contents do we get if we look up F57930?" Matt asked.
The dockmaster looked at his clipboard.
"I don't have any information on that number here with me. I'll have to go back to the office to look into it."
"If you could, that would be helpful," Elisa requested.
The dockmaster nodded and left back through the maze.
Following Elisa's lead, Matt looked closer at the numbers on the second looted container. It was a little less obvious, but a three had definitely been changed to an eight, which he quickly pointed out to Elisa.
"This is looking more and more like a smuggling case," Matt said as they inspected the shipping container some more.
"Which could suggest one of the crime families in Manhattan is involved after all," Elisa agreed. "We should definitely have a crime scene unit come out here and see what else they can turn up."
"Trouble is," Matt sighed, gesturing to the closest container, "even if they do come out here with a fine tooth comb, these shipping containers travel all over the world, coming into contact with who knows what and god knows where. I doubt anything they'd find would really help us narrow down who's responsible."
"You never know," Elisa huffed. "We've gotta start somewhere."
Matt shrugged in acquiescence.
Several minutes later the dockmaster returned with a printout in hand, a worried expression on his brow.
"I can't find any recent information about this shipping container anywhere. The last record we have shows it left this shipping yard several months ago, but nothing indicates it ever returned."
"Well, what we're all looking at suggests otherwise," Elisa retorted, taking the printout from him.
"Where did it last ship to according to your records?" she asked, scanning the log. She saw the answer just as soon as the dockmaster said it.
"Germany with a final destination to the Czech Republic."
Matt and Elisa glanced at each other. Brod, and many of his gang, had come from Prague.
"Who's name is on the supposed electronics order?" Elisa asked next.
"A local business, Dreedle Electronics."
"Thank you. You've been immensely helpful. We'll need to call in a crime scene unit now to thoroughly investigate," Matt said to the dockmaster, gesturing for him to lead the way back.
The dockmaster sighed, knowing how this would hamper his work for the rest of the night, but he led them out.
"We'll need to look into that business ASAP," Elisa whispered to Matt as they followed the dockmaster out of the shipping container maze.
"You're thinking what I'm thinking, right? Czech Republic… Brod's gang?" Matt asked.
"It's awfully coincidental not to be," Elisa replied confidently.
...
...
It was nearly dawn when Elisa managed to make it home. She wasn't sure if Goliath would even be there, but the lights were all on when she walked through the door, and she found him reading a book on the sofa. She locked her gun away and gleefully kicked off her boots before flopping down noisily next to him, stretching her legs over his lap in a dramatically playful fashion.
Smiling, Goliath set his book down and took one of her feet in his hands and started massaging it.
Elisa sighed blissfully and closed her eyes as she sank further into the sofa.
"Long night?" Goliath asked.
"Yeah, we've got a possible gang-related smuggling case, but we don't know what they're smuggling just yet," she mumbled, her nostrils flaring in pleasure as Goliath rubbed a particularly sore spot.
"Hmm, let me know if the clan can help in some way," he said, and then he applied a little more pressure into the arch of her foot.
"Oh, my god," Elisa gasped, almost orgasmically, her eyes opening wide before rolling up into her head.
Goliath smiled smugly to himself and gently continued to work her feet with aplomb.
"How was your night?" Elisa managed to ask during the brief interlude when he switched and started rubbing the other foot.
"I spent most of it patrolling with Hudson. We had a few minor run-ins, petty crimes mostly. Scared the majority of them into better behavior," he said with a grin. "At least, temporarily."
"You must be exhausted as well," Elisa sighed sympathetically.
"I will admit that I am looking forward to a good day's sleep," he said a little tiredly.
"Want me to rub your feet, too?" Elisa asked with a sly grin.
The way he shifted, she knew he was getting hard at the thought alone. Gargoyles, it turned out, had a lot of fun and unique erogenous zones. Rubbing his feet got almost as good a reaction as rubbing his wings.
"It is too close to dawn," he said disappointedly, his voice a little lower and thicker than before.
Elisa slid onto his lap, straddling him. Then she kissed him, and not gently. Her hands delved into his thick mane as her lips crushed against his, her tongue invading his mouth. He reacted like a match to a powderkeg. She could feel his erection pressed between her thighs, and his hands came down on her hips as he pulled her in harder against the rigid bulge in his loincloth.
He tore his mouth from hers and nipped at the flesh along her throat and jaw.
"This is madness," he growled roughly in her ear, a reminder that time was not on their side. They had made this mistake before, and it had ended with disappointment and frustration.
"I bet I could make you come before the sun rises," Elisa panted as her hands moved to his belt.
Goliath let out a ragged groan, and his talons flexed into her soft flesh. He wanted to tear her clothes off right then and there, but he could feel an itch growing across his skin, particularly along his back and between his wings. The impending sunrise was inevitable and unrelenting—every cell in his body told him so. As badly as he wanted her, they had no time for this, so he put his hands on hers to halt their recklessness.
"I do not doubt you could, but I doubt my ability to reciprocate in time," he gently protested.
Elisa knew that he didn't like it when he was the only one to receive pleasure. Maybe it was a gargoyle trait, but she figured it was largely just him and his sometimes over-the-top chivalrousness. Either way, it was clear he found such one-sided attention distressing. Not that he minded lavishing attention on her, especially if he had just finished, and she was ready to go again, but if she tried to do the same for him, he balked. When it came to sex, he was unselfish, almost to a fault.
The mood shifted almost instantly, and Elisa pulled away from him, sliding stiffly off his lap and back onto the sofa. Goliath eyed her, carefully scrutinizing her body language and facial expressions. She had been more insatiable than usual lately. Every time they were together, she wanted sex. He certainly wasn't one to argue about how often his mate wanted to make love, but he realized it was starting to become a point of contention if they didn't, and that was concerning to him.
"Stay today then," she suggested, though she didn't look at him as she spoke. "Maybe we could pick up where we left off before I have to go to work tonight?"
"I was planning on sleeping here, yes," Goliath replied cautiously. "Besides, if I left now, I would not make it back to the castle before dawn."
They spent their final minutes together sharing the remaining details of their time apart, but as they said their goodbyes for the day, Goliath could tell she seemed less vibrant, more withdrawn. As the sun rose, separating them temporarily, he went to sleep in the corner of her living room feeling disquieted.
Elisa stood next to his stone form for a while. The sun was streaming through her windows, bathing her apartment in light. Cagney came up and began rubbing and purring loudly at her ankles, but she held perfectly still, hoping to feel comforted by the beams of sunlight on her face and body. But there was a growing, tenebrous part of her that the sun couldn't reach, couldn't ease with its warmth. No matter how long she stayed there, the feeling eluded her. A shiver ran down her spine as she started to realize that something inside her wasn't right… and hadn't been for a while.