Rhapsody for Two #5: Event Horizon
TITLE: Event Horizon
AUTHOR: fixomnia
PAIRING: Flack/Angell
RATING: This one better be NC-17. Adults dealing with adult things. Happy pjorn! ALSO: graphic descriptions of Marty Pino's lab. You are warned.
SPOILERS: Various Flack/Angell scenes from Season 3-5, and Flack's season 6.
Chapter Summary: Gravity is a force of nature that's awfully hard to stop. So, as it turns out, are the ties that bind.
Author's Note:
Firstly, my apologies for the delay. In the past week I've said farewell to not one but two cats (though who owned who was always a point of debate), and my heart has just not been into editing. It does provide distraction, though. So I'll dedicate this chapter to Freya (10 years, cancer) and Tucker (4 years, unknown animal), and urge all you pet lovers to cuddle your critters extra tight.
Addendum: Against all odds, Tucker returned, one month later. And this is mountain country. He'll never tell me what happened out there - but sometimes they do come back!
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Chapter Five
Event Horizon
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Count all the wounds that brought you here,
Lay your blessings end to end.
Rid yourself of all regrets
Because here is where it all begins...
- Cowboy Junkies, "I'm So Open"
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"Don...Donnie, wake up. It's okay. I'm here. Wake up."
Panting, his heart racing, he did. He recognized, somewhat grimly, that Jess didn't have her arms around him. They'd learned the hard way that she shouldn't restrain him in the grip of a nightmare. She called his name instead, rubbed his back or his shoulders, anything to bring him out of it without making him feel trapped.
"God..." he breathed, taking the hand that now slid around his ribs. He rolled over and, embarassed, buried his burning face in her throat. Once awake, she held him tightly.
"It's been a while," she said softly. He nodded, trying to calm his pulse. Sometimes it was easy to identify the triggers that led to his nightmares - explosion scenes, victims that were bound up or buried while still alive. Sometimes they were a product of accumulated stresses. Tonight there was no question.
"Never saw anything like I did today." he said, and felt a shudder of revulsion pass though him. "Not like that."
Flack had been shocked, but not overwhelmed - so he thought - stepping into the charnel-house of Marty Pino's drug lab. Pulped human organs splashed over kitchen appliances and lab equipment. Something about the bland, everyday tools and the school-science-room setup made the whole look even more depraved: a child running amok in his own mind. Two hospital gurneys were covered in gore, with bloodstained restraints the purpose of which he didn't want to think about. He couldn't reconcile the abbatoir in front of him with the boyish, eager-to-please rising star he remembered from the ME's office. It was the work of a creature whose humanity had been burned away by poison and panic, until even his methodical processing became helter-skelter and violent.
Out of the corner of his eye, he'd seen Mac, his back turned, quickly make the sign of the cross. That should have been a warning. If Mac figured he was going to need extra help, Flack should have taken the hint. As per policy for officers working unusually violent scenes, he'd been offered Victims Services, which he'd declined. But he could have talked to Jess. He could have called up his old high school friend Tom, now known as Father Grady, and tried to talk the thing through before letting his mind run riot in his sleep. But he couldn't. There was no way anyone else should know about the scene if they didn't need to. It was rough enough for everyone to deal with Marty himself, in his present state.
"I know it was bad," Jess murmured into his hair, rubbing his back in slow circles. "Nobody wants to think of Marty as a lost cause."
"He is." Flack said quietly. He pulled back, and propped himself on one elbow to look at her. The neon and sodium light from the street below came through the rain streaming down the windows, like nature in sympathy in some old black and white movie. Through this strange filter, Jess's eyes were wide awake and worried. "There's not much anyone can do for him now," he said reluctantly. "He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up New York's third man on death row, but I doubt he'll last that long. He wants to die, Jess. I thought about calling Grady...he'd go and talk to Marty, if I asked. I just wish I'd known. He hid everything so well, right up until Sid found out about the paperwork."
"Is that what's getting to you? Wondering what you might have done? Even Sid didn't know."
He shook his head. "I don't even want to tell you. No, that's not right. I don't want you to have to know. I don't want to put things like that in your head."
"I know what he did. I heard about his setup."
"But I saw it. I - " he swallowed hard, and had to breathe deeply. "I smelled it. Even Mac was...he's seen the worst of what people do to each other, and he was having a hell of a time with it."
She nodded. The case was bad enough that it had been marked Invisible, which meant that the server would only admit that the file even existed if one of the key investigating officers was logged in and called it up by number. "If you don't want to talk about it, what about writing it down?"
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe, yeah. I need to write my full report tomorrrow, anyway. I only managed to get the synopsis done."
"You know what worries me sometimes?" she began. "We've opened each other up. We know we can deal with damn near anything - but we've started worrying how it'll affect each other. Hard to stay detached from a scene when you're trying to protect someone you love from the same stuff."
He sighed. "I've thought about that. I know what you're capable of out there. I just wish I could save you from the worst of it."
"But you can't," she told him softly. "And I can't, either. It's our job to go into those places. It's who we are."
"I know. It was easier when we worked cases together. I never worried about you then."
"Yeah." She took a breath. "Hey Don? You remember we talked about never keeping back the truth? Even if it wasn't pretty?"
"Mm hmm."
There was a small silence. "Mm, it's nothing. Just that I get it if there's times you don't think you should. Some things I don't need to know - but I'm always here if you do want to talk."
"And me," he told her, "Anything at all, you can tell me."
She smiled, her brow clearing, and touched his face.
"You gonna go back to sleep?" she asked.
"I'm gonna get up for a bit. I'll be okay." He kissed her and slid his legs out of bed, taking one more deep breath before getting up. He pulled on his sweats and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.
So he didn't see her staring into the darkness for long minutes, before she sighed, rolled over, and slept.
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"I don't care," Sythe snapped into the phone, "Angell's court-certified to take interviews in French. She goes. I'm sending Alvarez, Chakravarti and Sigurdson too; you got a problem with them? I didn't think so. And while I have you on the line, I might add that my guys are supposed to be busting crooks and protecting people - not being interpreters. Yes, but you realize you're paying them four times as much per hour as a contract translator would cost, don't you? So where's the logic in that? Yeah, you do that, please, and get 'em to call me."
He slammed the handset down - there were still a few satisfying advantages to old-fashioned telephones - and gave Jess a thin smile. "Reprieve," he said. "of a sort. I'm putting you and Flack back together. You heard about his DB on the train this morning? Better get down there. Few French speakers on the carriage, and no translators available until after lunch."
"Yes sir, I'm on it. You know we have those handheld multi-language deals now?"
"Yeah, but the technology is too new. The output isn't admissable as court testimony. We still have to have the recordings translated by hand. Still, I'd grab one anyway and take it with."
Jess turned, and paused at the door. "Sir, you didn't know, did you - that I'm part Métis? That's not why you're assigning me, is it?"
He looked up. "Are you? No, I didn't know."
"My grandmother was. I just didn't know - "
"If I picked you for the optics, because our vic's Native American? No. Just your language skills."
She nodded and made to leave. "I'll check in after the interviews." Exiting the office, she grinned at Sythe's parting shot:
"But if you think it'll help with the optics..."
* * * * *
"Be right with you," Jess said, gesturing towards the coffee stand at the side of the bullpen. Don nodded, and kept Finn Wexford, still in cuffs, marching towards the bank of interrogation rooms.
"C'n I grab a shower at least, mate?" Wexford asked, "We was goin' hard at it all mornin'."
"No." said Don. "Sit and stink up the whole damn place, I don't care."
"I told you, I never did nothin' to that Chief."
"Double negatives, gotta love 'em." Don's voice carried back from the corridor. "We've gotten convictions on less, mate."
Jess shook her head and reached for the decaf.
Stella appeared beside her, with a sheaf of lab reports in hand to distribute among various desks. She could have sent them with a runner, but Jess knew she liked to stay connected with her non-laboratory colleagues, and to be on hand to talk them through the hieroglyphics of forensic results. Pages of percentage tables, and phrases like "probably consistent" didn't do much for police blood pressure.
"Poor boy," Stella said blithley. "Flack cannot stand Irish who give the Irish a bad rep."
"Yeah, I'm gonna sit in there with them," Jess replied, with a knowing eyebrow. And as long as they were partnered up again, she was going to enjoy every minute of it, and prove to all and sundry what a damn good team they were. "Just grabbing us some coffee. Kid's lawyering up, so Flack’s chilling out with him for a few minutes. Always interesting what people will say when they know their lawyer's on the way.”
"And Flack's a wizard with the idle chat." Stella added, filling a paper cup from the water-cooler.
"Yup. I wish you could've heard them in the car. Flack got him blarneying on about his life back in Ireland, how hard it was, as if it excused everything. He admitted to a bunch of petty offences here in New York, and Flack acted like he hadn't even heard. You better believe that's gonna come up again. Then he asked him if he'd ever treat an Irish clan chief like he treated Chief Delaware. The kid shut right up and asked for a lawyer - which is what Flack wanted all along. We don't think he killed the Chief. But we do want him back in the system for a while. Flack's gonna lean on Legal Aid to swing some community service for a guilty plea on the knucklehead stuff. His little guys at the Y are about to get an assistant coach for a while."
"Nice." Stella nodded, but her expression turned cloudy. "I can't help thinking, though - the terrible irony is how quietly Chief Delaware died. Imagine the headlines if a Native American chief died in full view of the public, on a crowded commuter train, and nobody noticed. If he hadn't been shot, how long would it have taken for someone to check on him? How many would have assumed he passed out on the train?"
"At least this one'll get some media attention," Jess agreed, stirring her coffee. "Seems the only cases we get enough time and funding to investigate properly are the ones with some rich white kid at the heart of it."
"Sad but true. Their families and friends are the ones holding most of the city purse-strings. Or at least the airwaves."
"Bloomberg, Hearst, Dunbrook..." Jess rattled off. "Devon Maxford's people."
Stella went on as if she hadn't heard. "You heard how the shooting happened? Chinese papa found his only daughter in bed with a Cameroonian fella. Went for the gun. Seems he'd have been happy enough with a black son-in-law if only they'd been married. Or that’s what the interpreter kept repeating. Something doesn't add up. So love is finally colour-blind, but family values are carved in stone?"
"At least they weren’t carved in a headstone."
It was curious to note that Stella, like Don, was taking cases much more personally than in the days before Marty. Granted, barely human skinheads like Elgers would turn anyone's stomach. But Stella's change in reaction seemed to be in deflecting the personal impact outwards into philosophical rants, and not speaking of her own feelings at all anymore. Even when Jess asked her about the dead-end Diakos project, Stella said only that it was over, that she was grateful to Jess, and and promised again to cover for her if it ever came to light.
She hoped Stella wasn't trying to toughen up too much on the outside, to the detriment of her fiery Greco-Roman heart. Stella and Mac usually debriefed and unloaded on each other, keeping one another balanced, and if that balance had been disrupted, it did not bode well for either of them. Far from being policy-bound automatons, cops were very human - the good ones, at least - and the kindly department psychologists couldn't completely take the place of a good friend and colleague to talk to.
Or to come home to.
She picked up the coffees, and gave Stella a thoughtful smile as they parted.
Just sometimes, she really did get the best inspirations.
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..."Passez à mon apartment ce soir, et je vous montrerai le sens véritable de relations internationales..." she'd said, with as bright a grin as he'd ever seen on her.
He passé'd to her apartment as toute de damn suite as he could.
She was waiting for him in her bedroom, lounging on her stomach in the nude, long pale peach limbs and chestnut hair against the warm colours of the room. She was reading over a problem from class, a slight crease between her brows, tapping a pencil under her chin.
She looked up and smiled. "Hey, you."
"Hey," he said, dropping his duffel by the door. "Am I interrupting?"
"Nah, I'm multitasking."
"Uh huh." He sat next to her on the edge of the bed, and slid his palm over the curve of her calf. "How many things you got going on?"
"Studying. Thinking about what I'm going to do to you. Wondering when they're going to announce the next Tactical Simulation Exercise for Second Grade candidates. Trying to decide what to get my very girly niece for her birthday. Thinking some more about what I'm going to do to you."
"All that, huh?" His hand rode higher, over the impossibly silky back of her knee. She pretended not to notice, but her eyes went soft and hazy.
"Hey, I have a female brain. We're wired that way."
"Good thing, 'cause I haven't been able to think about much since you left me with that damn message." He leaned over and planted a kiss among the stylized blackwork roses and thorns twisting up a trellis along her spine, in the same Rennie Mackintosh style as the design around her wrist. ("Rapunzel?" he'd asked, in the beginning. "Grace," she'd replied, and then: “Okay, maybe a bit Rapunzel.”), and sat back to take off his jacket. He hung it over the rail of her bed, along with his belt, holster and Glock, and bent down to unbuckle the smaller Sig Sauer he wore on his ankle.
"Aw. Did I distract you?"
She dumped her binder on the floor, and rolled over to face him, grinning, winding her legs into half-lotus with total nonchalance. Which was just like Jess. Meeting one's lover in lingerie was all fun and good, and she enjoyed making his eyes pop, but she preferred the air on her skin. She was a minimalist at heart: rarely any jewelry, a bare touch of makeup for workdays, and an unfussy wardrobe chosen for comfort and physical combat if necessary. It was one of the many aspects of her he'd fallen in love with.
He grinned back. "Just a little." he said.
Between the sultry French and the promising light in her eyes, it was a mercy he'd managed to get out of the precinct, all the way to the lab, and back to his car without attracting unwanted attention.
"C'mere."
He shifted closer, and, touch-hungry, rested a hand on her knee as she loosened his tie with deft fingers. She pulled it over his head, hung it over a bed-knob, and began to work on his shirt.
"You're the only younger cop I know who wears cufflinks."
"Holdover from Dad, I guess. He told me always wear a tailored shirt for court, and he was right. Some days they're the only ones clean," he admitted.
"They suit you. Very Cary Grant." She smiled and shook her head at some private inner joke, reached over and dropped the silver links on her night table. He added his wristwatch and badge, and then shrugged out of his shirt, draping it on top of his jacket. She waited patiently. Apparently her plan involved him being naked too, which was fine with him. Once undressed, he followed her gesture and lay on his stomach, resting his forehead on his crossed arms.
"You need anything?" she asked, moving around to straddle his legs. "A blanket, something to drink? There's all sorts of food in the oven. I went back to the Indian market. After all the Holi wars were over."
Ohhh. Now he understood her plan. "No, I'm good. Wow."
She leaned forward, smoothed her palms over his back to settle him, and then her strong fingers began seeking out the muscles across his shoulders and down his spine. He sighed and breathed into her touch. She knew how sensitive and responsive he was, under his suits and ties, because she was, too. It was the first discovery they'd made as lovers, to their continued delight. He carried all his stress in his body, just like her, long before it showed up in his eyes and his voice.
Working it all out had never been so much fun.
It was a new experience, having someone in his life who paid attention to the week he'd had, and spent time planning how to make him feel better. It had just been a long, hard-working week, and Jess knew exactly what he needed to recharge.
"Is this what they teach in international relations class? Food and massage?" he murmured gratefully into his forearms.
"I'm sure there's been more than one piece of foreign policy..." she began, and he chuckled. She leaned forward for the bottle of almond oil she'd set on the night-table, and started to work on him in earnest.
He winced pleasurably and sighed. "I'm gonna get you back for this, I promise."
"Shh. Calmer-toi. Relâcher...prendre des souffles profonds...."
Under her hands, knots loosened down his spine and limbs. He closed his eyes and felt the stress of the week rolling away, off his shoulders and back. She began to work on the soles of his feet, and time slipped away completely. He found himself drifting in and out of consciousness, but aware of a low buzz of arousal spreading through him.
At some point the buzz became a full-on sensual campaign. He couldn't say when her touch turned distinctly erotic, but small caresses and maddeningly brief nibbles over his nape and shoulders began to take over, and then nails trailing over his thighs and ass. He rolled over beneath her, and she got up on her knees to give him room. She leaned in to kiss him, and let him chase the tip of her fleeting tongue back into her mouth, before perching on his thighs.
"Ca va bien, mon amant?" she asked, with a wicked smile, trailing her fingertips from his chest down to his stomach. "C'est mieux? Que veux-tu me faire? Quel est ton fantaisie la plus sauvage? Je le ferai, n'importe quoi pour toi...n'importe quoi à tous. J'ai voulu toujours dire cela. Quelque jour tu me dirai que tu me comprends bien, et je serai dans trop d'ennui..."
What the heck was it about the French language, anyway? Her voice was wrapping around his cock like silk, and for all he knew, she was reciting a Stats problem.
"I got some good karma left over from a past life or something, Jess?"
He rested his hands loosely on her hips, his thumbs brushing the satiny hollows so she squirmed in pleasure. He took her in at a glance, like a snapshot: her beautiful dark eyes drowsy with arousal, the curl of her lips, the curve of her waist and the rise of her breasts. The last rays of the evening sun, slicing through the drapes, turned her skin to amber and her hair to a flaming auburn mantle over her shoulders. She was like a gilded statue, almost too much to touch.
Except that she was very much flesh and blood and all girl, and she was looking at him with the same expression. It was his turn to squirm. He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.
"Uh-uh. Not done with you in this life yet," she breathed, before kissing him slow and deep and greedy. Her clever fingers drew audible gasps from him. He could feel her skin warming as she moved over him, and he knew the scent of a turned-on Jessica very well. He knew better than to reciprocate when she was in this mood, unless he wanted to be trussed up. Although...she knew damn well that if she took him to that place, it would be her turn next. Was that her plan? He could live with that. Duty cuffs were only for a short mental kick - nobody wanted to come to work with telltale double-rail bruises - but the satin belt of her robe, snugly figure-eighted around his wrists or hers, meant playtime. While the memory brought a swift spike of arousal (ohh, God, the way the scarlet bands looked, woven against her creamy skin, her arms stretched up and her eyes defiant and alight...) he wanted his options open.
If he lived that long.
She took a good half hour getting him right where she wanted him. Which was to say, splayed out on her bed, groaning aloud and writhing up into her touch as she licked his riveted nipples warmly and wetly, her fingers buried in the thatch at his groin, gripping the root of his well-tongued cock to prolong his torment. Her fingers strayed over her own body whenever she gave him a moment to catch his breath, and he knew she was getting pretty damn close herself.
"Jesus, Jess..." he rasped, willing his hands not to clutch. Not that she didn't like it when he clutched. A lot. But then she'd win, and...oh, hell, she was gonna do that thing...
Her hand closed around his aching shaft, and she stroked him, her touch tortuously light. He stopped breathing as she tickled just under his sac with the other hand and pressed in, ohfuck right there, and then flicked her tongue over his slit and moaned, dammit. It was all he could do not to come hard right there.
"Inhale," she reminded him, reaching up to brush a kiss over his dry lips.
"Difficult," he replied, through gritted teeth.
"Ceci, c'est pour toi. C'est ce que tu as besoin." she murmured, against his mouth.
He felt the wetness of her sex on his thigh as she ground against him, and gave up completely. He plunged his fingers into her hair and took her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss, shoving aside his own incipient climax with the need to feel her come apart. The sound that tore from her throat sent him clean out of his head. He rolled with her, moving down her body to find and devour sweet nipples and firm belly, tensed thighs and glistening furrow, clenching slick around his pushing fingers, honey and vanilla under his tongue, driving her higher, faster, till she hit her peak with harsh cries, arching off the sheets. He moved with her before she even came down, parting her thighs and pulling her knee high up along his side. She gasped and met his heavy thrust in the cradle of her hips.
"Ah! God, do it, don't stop..."
"Jess..." he growled, feeling her opening against him. So close. Too close. He fumbled for the drawer of her night-table. He felt her blunt nails slide down and bite into his back.
"It's okay. Prends-moi."
Oh, God.
He did.
* * * * *
"One of these nights we'll have dinner before sex." Jess yawned, some hours later. She snuggled into his side, fed, lovingly bathed, and exhausted.
"One of these nights you'll go off to class without a quickie," he smirked. “How glad am I you didn't have a lecture tonight."
"I did, actually. You're turning me into a delinquent."
"Detective,” he said sternly, “You skipped school to get laid?"
"No, I skipped school because the love of my life needed some TLC."
He pressed a kiss into her hair. "I can maybe admit that. What time you on tomorrow?"
"Not till two o'clock, if nothing comes in," she mumbled, her eyes closing. "Good thing. Three times before bed? Oh, I'm gonna be sore tomorrow..."
"Aw, babe. Whyn't - "
"You kiddin’ me?"
He gave a soft laugh. "So...we're okay with just your shots now? No backup?"
“Yup. We’re good. Thought you'd like that. You caveman." she kissed his chest. He draped an arm over her hip and tucked her in closer.
"Very, very much. I'll go hunt you a woolly mammoth on a bagel before I go on shift, how's that?"
"With a latté?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow without opening her eyes.
"For you, a double," he promised.
"Mm. You do love me."
"You bet," he said quietly. He stretched out, pleasantly achy himself, and settled himself for sleep. "You bet I do."
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Flack sighed, and for the third time, said to his pacing sister: "Sammy, calm down. It's gonna be all right."
"All right for you! This is the first time I've gone anywhere with booze in what, three months? Four? It's just a bit scary over here."
"'Nobody's sayin' we have to," said Grady, from the couch, leaning forward on his elbows. "We can always stay in, for sure."
Flack, Grady and Samantha were waiting at Flack's apartment for Jess to appear, after which they had reservations at a new Egyptian restaurant. There was no doubt that the evening was a test and a sort of graduation for Sam, to be out in the world, beyond the protected bubble she'd kept within, free from alcohol and her old party-life acquaintances. They hoped that, surrounded by people she trusted, it could be part of a slow return to the sociable, confident Sam that she used to be.
Flack had been making a concerted effort to spend more time with her, lately. With just under a year between them - Irish twins, as the saying went - they'd grown up taking each other for granted, and, not untypically, had grown apart as they aged and their paths diverged. And like many twins and almost-twins, they'd had to find their way back to each other as adults, with their own lives and their own identities, and with the added challenge of Sam's alcoholism clashing with Don's career, as well as being a major family obstacle.
These days, they seemed to be making actual progess, not just telling old stories, or joking around.
Jess had been instrumental in that. Her casual warmth and delight at finding another Flack to connect with was just what Sam needed, when memories and the struggles of the present became too heavy. She met up with Sam after counselling appointments, from time to time, or picked her up from her new bookstore job, and their conversations over tea were held in strict confidence.
"Just girl talk," Jess would grin, daring him to comment. But occasionally, she would come out with things like: "A ponytail, Don? You?"
"Only one summer," he muttered. "I had to cut it all off before school started."
It was clear, though, that their chats were anything but casual, and Flack tried his damndest not to pry - or to show fear in their presence. He could only imagine them after a few beers together, and was grateful to have escaped that fate. They had the combined instincts of sharks in the waters, and Sam knew a great many of his secrets.
Nathan still communicated solely through their mother, Mary, and only occasionally asked after Sam, who he'd written off years before, calling her an embarassment to her face. Being a Flack, Sam refused to speak with him, but would have forgiven him everything, even all the taunting and bullying of her childhood, if he'd only made an effort. Nathan was too horrified at his younger self, and too ambivalent about his family in general, to want to try again.
Donald Sr. still wanted nothing to do with his youngest child, though, and bitterly resented Flack's suggestion that he slow down his own drinking if he wanted to see Sam again. The news that Samantha was doing everything in her power to stay sober and get her feet back under her was greeted with little more than a derisive snort. Mary Flack, on the other hand, asked after Samantha every chance she got, and seemed to understand, with a deep sadness, that Sam wasn't ready to deal with them all. She didn't blame Samantha for that. She just hugged her middle child enough for all of them, and then Jess, too.
For now, though, getting Sam through an ordinary evening out was enough of a challenge.
"No. No, I want to do this." she said. "It's not like I'm gonna be gettin' anything to drink. It's just, seeing other people doin' it...."
"Yeah," said Flack. "But you know none of us will be. And we're not sendin' you home alone, either. You're stayin' here tonight."
"I am?" she asked.
Grady nodded. "Trust me, Sammy, 'tis afterwards that comes the hardest. When you're feelin' good about how the evenin' went, and you're all alone. People around you are going to be havin' a glass or two, and laughin' and carryin' on, and for sure it'll seem like what harm is there in a wee one? 'Tis no crime, after all. And haven't you earned it, after bein' good for so long? And then to be by yourself. That's when the urge comes on the worst. So we've staged a bit of a kidnapping, as it were. For your own good."
Sam stopped pacing the length of the living room, and turned to him, her arms still crossed protectively, but with a wry grin. "You gettin' all priestly on me, Father Tom?"
"Not I," said Grady. "I'm seven years sober. Why do you think our Donnie invited me along in the first place? My great wit and charm?"
"I...didn't know."
"Not many did. You'd be amazed how many priests end up in the drink. It's an easy fall, and people far too willin' to overlook it. They figure we need some sort of relief, and as long as we behave..." he shrugged, "So I'm here partly because I've missed you both, and partly to hold your hand. Not as a priest. Just a friend who's been there."
Whatever Sam was about to say was cut short as a key scraped in the lock of the apartment door. Flack got up to open it, and greeted Jess with a warm kiss. Samantha rolled her eyes and Grady smiled with benign sweetness.
"'Tis a grand thing, that." he said softly.
Sam looked up sharply, but Grady's attention was only on the two police officers in front of him, each letting their guard down for a precious few moments.
* * * * *
"You did great," Jess assured her. Tucked up on the couch, resplendent in an old Academy shirt, Sam blew a cooling breath over her peppermint tea.
Flack was reminded of innumerable middle-of-the-night meetings in one of their rooms, usually involving scary stories and cookies, in high secrecy and with the lights out. Nathan had even been part of them, when they were all very young.
"It went okay," Sam said. "I gotta say, though, I had a few freakouts there. Thought I was headin' for a full out panic attack a couple times. It's just crazy, how you can know something with your head, but..."
"I know. We'd have hustled you out of there in a second if you needed it."
Sam managed a smile. "At least I managed to eat," she said.
"About time, girl. Few meals like that, you'll be taking on me and Don at the feeding trough."
"Yeah, but I don't spend my days chasin' people all over town," Sam returned. "You guys burn it all off."
"Yes," Jess grinned wickedly. "Yes, we do."
"Aw, Jessie!" Sam protested, wrinkling her nose.
Jess giggled. Flack grumbled good-naturedly and exiled himself to the kitchen for a drink, admitting to his private self that if Sam weren't around, he'd be happily indulging in a beer. It had been a more stressful dinner than he'd thought. He knew alcoholism was a physical disease as much as a mental one, but to watch his sister reacting so deeply to the sight and smell of it was a kick in the gut.
"So, you and Grady?" he heard Jess ask, quietly. His ears pricked up. This should be interesting, he thought. He knew Grady's version of events, but he'd never asked Sam.
"High school crush, that's all," Sam explained. "We were just kids. He came to New York in Grade Eight, went to Seminary after Grade Ten. He was Donnie's friend, really."
"And nothing ever happened," Jess intuited.
"Nah. Not really. We sorta talked about it, and some other stuff happened. But we fell out of touch after we all graduated. Wasn't until he and Donnie crossed paths on a case that we all met up again."
Awfully short explanation, for Sam, Flack thought. He wandered back with his glass of iced tea. "Now that's a great story. Get this: guy comes in for Confession, and admits to strangling his wife a year earlier. Guy thinks he's getting squared away with God and bragging to the one person who'd never tell on him. Grady asks the guy to come pray with him some more in his office, and slips a note to his secretary to call the cops. I get the call, and the guy literally pissed himself when four of the boys stormed into Grady's office with their guns out. We've had each other's backs other ever since. I'd call him when I was done in with some case or other. He'd call me when he thought he was gonna drink."
"So you were matchmaking," Sammy glared fondly at him, "Inviting him tonight."
"Only in a spiritual sense."
"Well, I'm glad you did. I've missed him. If I knew he'd been through this, too..." Sam shook her head sadly. "All these years. It's so awful to think."
Jess glanced quickly up at Flack, and back to Sam. "What, honey?" she asked.
"That I didn't even remember what it's like to have people around who'd never want to hurt you."
"I'd never hurt you if I could, Sam-I-Am," Don said, with heavy regret. "I'm sorry I ever did. I know I did."
"Musta been at the end of your rope with me."
"Yeah, I was. Never meant I didn't love you to bits, kid."
"I know that now. I do. Just wish...I wish things were better with the others. Mom and Dad and Nathan."
"One thing at a time. You know I'm in your corner, right? Dad's not ready to deal with his own problems yet. He hasn't figured out you're just like him. That's the real reason he always got so angry. He couldn't not love you, Sammy. But he couldn't get you help without helping himself, so all he had left was cussin' you out."
"And I cussed him right back," she sighed. "This is gonna take a long time."
"We got all the time there is," he said firmly. "It's already happening."
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He was hovering over his desk, halfway between typing in a search query and dashing out the door, when Stella approached.
"Hey, Flack."
"Hey." he greeted her absently.
"You seen Angell?"
"She's out of town for a few days." Three days, fourteen hours and about thirty minutes, at last count. And his mood hadn't improved much since she'd decided to cash in a couple more vacation days, extending her visit to her two Ottawa-based brethren until the next weekend. He'd noticed that some constables were beginning to avoid looking him in the eye. One of his little guys in the basketball group, rushing in where trained officers feared to tread, had asked him point-blank what was wrong, 'cause he wasn't making jokes.
"Missin' my girlfriend, buddy, that's all," he'd told the kid, "She's visiting her family up in Canada." The kid had nodded, wide-eyed, and word went round the group to be nice to Coach. They all liked Jess.
"Listen," Stella said, "When she gets back, could you tell her I need to talk to her about Kolovos?"
That snapped his wandering attention back to the present. Stella was supposed to be completely off the case, a civilian witness only. Rumor had it she'd even turned in her badge rather than force Mac to issue a reprimand, though that might or might not have been true. He couldn't tell whether she had it on her or not. "Kolovos. The Central Park vic?"
Stella nodded. "Yeah."
He noted the anxiety in her voice and her hands, and eyed her with something akin to suspicion. "C'mere for a second."
She folllowed him to a quiet alcove near the back hallway.
"Look, Jess didn't tell me any of the details. Just that the two of you were workin' on something, but if this involves her, I'd like for you tell me what it is. 'Cause I care about her."
No point in trying to pretend he was just looking out for a junior detective on the squad. Everyone knew he and Jess were together now. If it was a legit sting, Stella didn't have to tell him anything - but he'd prefer to hear the details from her, rather than having to snoop behind Jess' back on the online records system. And if there weren't any official details to be had, if the two had gone rogue, he really didn't want to find out that way.
"I know you do," she replied. "This isn't about Jess. She's fine. She was just helping me out, Flack."
"How?" he pressed.
"It started a couple of months ago, when I was trying to find out who attacked me. I followed a trail and uncovered a smuggling ring. Sebastian Diakos and George Kolovos were part of it. They were smuggling Greek artifacts, and selling them in the US."
"There anything else I should know?" he asked, knowing it was futile. "Anything I should do?" he tried next.
"Tell Jess that Kolovos is dead, and she should step back." Lifting her chin a few degrees higher in response to his look, she looked him straight in the eyes and told him, "I'm gonna get to the bottom of this."
It was a heavily sanitized account Stella had given him, but he'd cracked cases on less. He hated the thought of putting Jess on the hotseat, but he needed more to go on. Jess knew more than she'd told him, which was fine, especially for a policing operation, but he was sure she had no idea how deep the operation had gone. He trusted Stella, but her word that Jess was fine didn't satisfy him. Stella had assumed her own safety, with potentially fatal results - twice.
* * * * *
"Hey, you! Missing me yet?"
"Why, you go somewhere?"
She let out a wounded "Oh!" that dissolved into a giggle.
"Miss you like crazy, babe. How's the trip going?"
"So far so good. Jerome's still a sore loser at Scrabble, and Dom's still trying to get me to move back and join the Mounties. The usual."
"You're leavin' me to join the Mounties?"
"I do look good in red," she purred. "So...how's Lucy? And Lindsay? I got a couple of photos from her, but only of the baby."
"I've got a great one of all three of them. I'll send it your way. Lucy's doin' great. Very loud. Very pink. Lindsay says thanks for the stuffed moose. It's been drooled on already."
"That's what it's for."
"Danny's jealous. He's never seen a moose."
"I'll get him one, too. What about you? You keeping the city safe for me?"
"I'm tryin'. And on that note, before we get sidetracked - I got somethin' to pass on from Stella."
"Yeah? What's she up to?"
"She said to tell you," he began slowly, "That Kolovos is dead, and you should step back."
Jess was silent for a couple of breaths. "Don..."
"Jess, this guy Kolovos was stabbed last night, and he had Stella's home address on him. You know she never gives that out. She's damn lucky someone killed him before he killed her. Kolovos wasn't so lucky. She's okay, she says you're okay, but I'm not okay. I get that it was some hunch Stella was working off the books, and you wanted to help out, but - "
"Don - "
"You know, I'm stuck here. I don't know if I need to be the cop, or the guy who'd do anything for you, and honestly, they're both scared for you. And pretty pissed, if you want the truth."
"I know. Don, listen to me. Please, just listen. There was no way we could've known it would ever go this far. If I thought for a second anyone would actually...it was a setup at first, that's all. To get to the truth so we could get enough evidence to open a case. And then it was just to get Kolovos' partner sent back to Greece to stand trial. That's where we might've gone too far. Right and wrong is sometimes just a matter of timing..."
"Jess, quit playin' around. This is serious. Stella got her wrist smacked, I could tell. She didn't say why, only that somethin' happened in Greece, to do with these forgeries and this smuggling ring. Then she comes and tells me to tell you to step back. I can't be - "
"I don't need you to look out for me." she snapped.
One week with the big brothers... he thought irritably. "That's not what I meant, and you know it, so will you please tell me what we're dealin' with, here? How do I know someone isn't walkin' around with your address in his pocket? I know Stella would've been too easy for them to spot, so I gotta think that you were the one making contact. You met with him? Kolovos? And he was back in New York. I don't think I'm over-reacting, here."
There was silence on the line for a moment. "I wanted to explain it all in person." Jess said, sounding wobbly. "It would be better. But I don't want us ending a call like this."
He rubbed his forehead, and tried to reel himself in. She was probably right, but they were in it now, and it couldn't wait. "I told you when I went over the line for Danny," he reminded her. "It seemed like the right thing to do, and it ended up with a lady wavin' a gun around. And I get the feeling that's what happened with you. Maybe just a little, at first? Something that seemed like a good idea, helping Stella after that case that got her beat up? 'Cause Mac didn't want her too close to it?"
"At first," she admitted.
"Just tell me," he said quietly. "It's in the past now. It's done. You know I'd always give you the benefit of the doubt."
She took a breath. "I tried to tell you before," she said. "After Marty was caught. I just didn't have the heart...It's not that I was keeping anything from you. I didn't hear anything after that, so I figured it was over. I thought there'd be a better time to tell you, or that Stella should be the one."
"Well, she's told Mac everything, and I'm sure she watered down your side, but I'd rather hear it from you."
So she walked him through the story, beginning with the strange coin found within a cheap ceramic pendant that a man was killed for, and ending with the last time she saw Diakos - dead in his apartment with coins on his eyes. She didn't know what happened after Diakos' death and Kolovos' unplanned trip to Greece, but she'd been monitoring the wires for any hint of similar smuggling or selling activity, with nothing of interest turning up. If Stella knew anything more, it would be up to her to say to. She ended by suggesting that Stella might be glad of a chance to unburden herself of the whole thing, somewhere off-duty and off the record.
"Don, please, say something," she begged, at his silence following her tale.
"I think," he began, "I think I'm damned glad I'm not Sythe. Because except for the unlawful confinement thing - and I'm willin' to bet he was set free as soon as he was on board the freighter - it could've been a by-the-book operation. Except for the fact that Stella was officially ordered to drop it, and she didn't. And she got you involved, without security controls in place. That's what I'm most pissed about. She should've known better. She does know better. In fact, you know what's weirdest about this whole thing? Mac. He's always going on about the integrity of his team, and Stella's like his own right hand. Anyone else would've been hauled into a disciplinary hearing. But he chased her to Greece, he isn't saying what went on there, and she's back in the office like nothing happened."
"He loves her," Jess replied, matter-of-factly. "Oh, I don't mean like that, even though he's more than halfway in love with her. No, I mean, she's his family. And it was the first time Stella ever felt what family ties can do to a person. That friend of hers, Papakota - he's been like an uncle to her, and he taught her to think of Greece as her home. She's been heading for some sort of blowout, Don, since this whole thing started, and then Marty just set a fire under her. She's been like a one-woman powerhouse, trying to make everything right in the world for the people she cares about. She's not used to the crazy shit that family can make you do."
"That does make sense," Flack had to agree. "Listen, Sythe hasn't called you, e-mailed you?"
"Only to confirm my return date."
"Then he probably doesn't even know. Mac's covered you, too."
"You sound confused."
"I am. Mac, me, Danny - we were, like, the tough bastards you didn't wanna mess with, and now look at us. All because of the women in our lives."
"You'll always be my tough bastard."
"Just get yourself home, woman," he growled. She laughed, and he closed his eyes in relief.
"You're not mad still?" she asked.
"A little. I was in the dark, Jess. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have known what you needed, where you were...don't do that to me, all right? I know how tough you are. I'm not one of your brothers. You don't have to prove anything to me. But we gotta be a team."
"We are. I promise. I'm sorry. I know, I still have a big thing about thinking every man in my life wants to save me from myself. But honestly, I thought it was over, or I'd have told you everything sooner. Shit, I know I'm gonna be in it up to my ass when I get back to work. How I'm gonna look Mac in the eye I can't even..."
"Follow his lead, I guess. He has a way of pretending things never happened, sometimes."
"I guess."
"You know somethin'?"
"What?"
"The whole thing sounds really smokin' hot."
"Oh, it was. I had this whole mysterious-spy thing going on. And Stella was like my spymaster. Spymistress?"
"Damn."
"But I never spoke French, mon vieux. Ca, c'est le notre. Barring any other French-speaking witnesses."
"Jessie?"
"Mm?"
"When you get home - what d'you say we get back to that conversation we put off. The one you told me to hold onto for a while. About what the future looks like."
"That sounds like a fine idea," she agreed. He heard the smile in her voice. "And we should try to get the parents to meet sometime. Mine have been asking to meet yours for months."
...And meeting Jess and her folks is probably the one event that all the Flacks would turn up in one place for, and be civil to each other, he thought. The crazy shit we do for family indeed...
"That Egyptian place seems to be lucky," he suggested. "Maybe it can lift family curses? I know a couple things that might even make my brother show his face for dinner."
"Hey, I'm game."
"You usually are."
"Hey, Don?"
"I'm here."
"I think...I think this might just be a matter of timing, too."
"Yeah..."
As he settled down to sleep that night, he realized that in among the delirious shouts of excitement, he was aware of a very calm sense of the path his life would take, rolling out in front of him like a long country highway in summer.
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Les traductions / Aistriúcháin:
"Te calmer. Relâcher-toi et prendre des souffles profonds..."
- Settle down. Just relax, take deep breaths.
"Ca va bien, mon amant?...C'est mieux? Que veux-tu me faire? Qu'est-ce que ton fantaisie la plus sauvage? Je le ferai, pour toi, n'importe quoi...n'importe quoi à tous...Je toujours ai voulu dire cela. Quelque jour tu me dirai que tu me comprends bien, et je serai dans trop d'ennui..."
- How's that, my love? Better? What do you want me to do? What's your wildest fantasy? I'll do it, anything for you...anything at all. I always wanted to say that. One day you're going to tell me you understand me perfectly well, and I'm going to be in so much trouble...
"Ceci, c'est pour toi. C'est ce que tu as besoin."
- This is for you. This is what you need.
"Prends-moi."
- Take me.
"...mon vieux. Ca, c'est le notre. "
- old friend. (literally, my old.) That's our thing.
Reader, to you is given a choice: to follow canon ( here) or to catch a passing tesseract to a parallel universe ( here).
It's Choose Your Own Adventure time. Death carries immense grace and personal growth in its wake - but then, so does turning grief into a leap of faith.
Take your pick - or take both!
AUTHOR: fixomnia
PAIRING: Flack/Angell
RATING: This one better be NC-17. Adults dealing with adult things. Happy pjorn! ALSO: graphic descriptions of Marty Pino's lab. You are warned.
SPOILERS: Various Flack/Angell scenes from Season 3-5, and Flack's season 6.
Chapter Summary: Gravity is a force of nature that's awfully hard to stop. So, as it turns out, are the ties that bind.
Author's Note:
Firstly, my apologies for the delay. In the past week I've said farewell to not one but two cats (though who owned who was always a point of debate), and my heart has just not been into editing. It does provide distraction, though. So I'll dedicate this chapter to Freya (10 years, cancer) and Tucker (4 years, unknown animal), and urge all you pet lovers to cuddle your critters extra tight.
Addendum: Against all odds, Tucker returned, one month later. And this is mountain country. He'll never tell me what happened out there - but sometimes they do come back!
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Chapter Five
Event Horizon
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Count all the wounds that brought you here,
Lay your blessings end to end.
Rid yourself of all regrets
Because here is where it all begins...
- Cowboy Junkies, "I'm So Open"
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"Don...Donnie, wake up. It's okay. I'm here. Wake up."
Panting, his heart racing, he did. He recognized, somewhat grimly, that Jess didn't have her arms around him. They'd learned the hard way that she shouldn't restrain him in the grip of a nightmare. She called his name instead, rubbed his back or his shoulders, anything to bring him out of it without making him feel trapped.
"God..." he breathed, taking the hand that now slid around his ribs. He rolled over and, embarassed, buried his burning face in her throat. Once awake, she held him tightly.
"It's been a while," she said softly. He nodded, trying to calm his pulse. Sometimes it was easy to identify the triggers that led to his nightmares - explosion scenes, victims that were bound up or buried while still alive. Sometimes they were a product of accumulated stresses. Tonight there was no question.
"Never saw anything like I did today." he said, and felt a shudder of revulsion pass though him. "Not like that."
Flack had been shocked, but not overwhelmed - so he thought - stepping into the charnel-house of Marty Pino's drug lab. Pulped human organs splashed over kitchen appliances and lab equipment. Something about the bland, everyday tools and the school-science-room setup made the whole look even more depraved: a child running amok in his own mind. Two hospital gurneys were covered in gore, with bloodstained restraints the purpose of which he didn't want to think about. He couldn't reconcile the abbatoir in front of him with the boyish, eager-to-please rising star he remembered from the ME's office. It was the work of a creature whose humanity had been burned away by poison and panic, until even his methodical processing became helter-skelter and violent.
Out of the corner of his eye, he'd seen Mac, his back turned, quickly make the sign of the cross. That should have been a warning. If Mac figured he was going to need extra help, Flack should have taken the hint. As per policy for officers working unusually violent scenes, he'd been offered Victims Services, which he'd declined. But he could have talked to Jess. He could have called up his old high school friend Tom, now known as Father Grady, and tried to talk the thing through before letting his mind run riot in his sleep. But he couldn't. There was no way anyone else should know about the scene if they didn't need to. It was rough enough for everyone to deal with Marty himself, in his present state.
"I know it was bad," Jess murmured into his hair, rubbing his back in slow circles. "Nobody wants to think of Marty as a lost cause."
"He is." Flack said quietly. He pulled back, and propped himself on one elbow to look at her. The neon and sodium light from the street below came through the rain streaming down the windows, like nature in sympathy in some old black and white movie. Through this strange filter, Jess's eyes were wide awake and worried. "There's not much anyone can do for him now," he said reluctantly. "He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up New York's third man on death row, but I doubt he'll last that long. He wants to die, Jess. I thought about calling Grady...he'd go and talk to Marty, if I asked. I just wish I'd known. He hid everything so well, right up until Sid found out about the paperwork."
"Is that what's getting to you? Wondering what you might have done? Even Sid didn't know."
He shook his head. "I don't even want to tell you. No, that's not right. I don't want you to have to know. I don't want to put things like that in your head."
"I know what he did. I heard about his setup."
"But I saw it. I - " he swallowed hard, and had to breathe deeply. "I smelled it. Even Mac was...he's seen the worst of what people do to each other, and he was having a hell of a time with it."
She nodded. The case was bad enough that it had been marked Invisible, which meant that the server would only admit that the file even existed if one of the key investigating officers was logged in and called it up by number. "If you don't want to talk about it, what about writing it down?"
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe, yeah. I need to write my full report tomorrrow, anyway. I only managed to get the synopsis done."
"You know what worries me sometimes?" she began. "We've opened each other up. We know we can deal with damn near anything - but we've started worrying how it'll affect each other. Hard to stay detached from a scene when you're trying to protect someone you love from the same stuff."
He sighed. "I've thought about that. I know what you're capable of out there. I just wish I could save you from the worst of it."
"But you can't," she told him softly. "And I can't, either. It's our job to go into those places. It's who we are."
"I know. It was easier when we worked cases together. I never worried about you then."
"Yeah." She took a breath. "Hey Don? You remember we talked about never keeping back the truth? Even if it wasn't pretty?"
"Mm hmm."
There was a small silence. "Mm, it's nothing. Just that I get it if there's times you don't think you should. Some things I don't need to know - but I'm always here if you do want to talk."
"And me," he told her, "Anything at all, you can tell me."
She smiled, her brow clearing, and touched his face.
"You gonna go back to sleep?" she asked.
"I'm gonna get up for a bit. I'll be okay." He kissed her and slid his legs out of bed, taking one more deep breath before getting up. He pulled on his sweats and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.
So he didn't see her staring into the darkness for long minutes, before she sighed, rolled over, and slept.
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"I don't care," Sythe snapped into the phone, "Angell's court-certified to take interviews in French. She goes. I'm sending Alvarez, Chakravarti and Sigurdson too; you got a problem with them? I didn't think so. And while I have you on the line, I might add that my guys are supposed to be busting crooks and protecting people - not being interpreters. Yes, but you realize you're paying them four times as much per hour as a contract translator would cost, don't you? So where's the logic in that? Yeah, you do that, please, and get 'em to call me."
He slammed the handset down - there were still a few satisfying advantages to old-fashioned telephones - and gave Jess a thin smile. "Reprieve," he said. "of a sort. I'm putting you and Flack back together. You heard about his DB on the train this morning? Better get down there. Few French speakers on the carriage, and no translators available until after lunch."
"Yes sir, I'm on it. You know we have those handheld multi-language deals now?"
"Yeah, but the technology is too new. The output isn't admissable as court testimony. We still have to have the recordings translated by hand. Still, I'd grab one anyway and take it with."
Jess turned, and paused at the door. "Sir, you didn't know, did you - that I'm part Métis? That's not why you're assigning me, is it?"
He looked up. "Are you? No, I didn't know."
"My grandmother was. I just didn't know - "
"If I picked you for the optics, because our vic's Native American? No. Just your language skills."
She nodded and made to leave. "I'll check in after the interviews." Exiting the office, she grinned at Sythe's parting shot:
"But if you think it'll help with the optics..."
* * * * *
"Be right with you," Jess said, gesturing towards the coffee stand at the side of the bullpen. Don nodded, and kept Finn Wexford, still in cuffs, marching towards the bank of interrogation rooms.
"C'n I grab a shower at least, mate?" Wexford asked, "We was goin' hard at it all mornin'."
"No." said Don. "Sit and stink up the whole damn place, I don't care."
"I told you, I never did nothin' to that Chief."
"Double negatives, gotta love 'em." Don's voice carried back from the corridor. "We've gotten convictions on less, mate."
Jess shook her head and reached for the decaf.
Stella appeared beside her, with a sheaf of lab reports in hand to distribute among various desks. She could have sent them with a runner, but Jess knew she liked to stay connected with her non-laboratory colleagues, and to be on hand to talk them through the hieroglyphics of forensic results. Pages of percentage tables, and phrases like "probably consistent" didn't do much for police blood pressure.
"Poor boy," Stella said blithley. "Flack cannot stand Irish who give the Irish a bad rep."
"Yeah, I'm gonna sit in there with them," Jess replied, with a knowing eyebrow. And as long as they were partnered up again, she was going to enjoy every minute of it, and prove to all and sundry what a damn good team they were. "Just grabbing us some coffee. Kid's lawyering up, so Flack’s chilling out with him for a few minutes. Always interesting what people will say when they know their lawyer's on the way.”
"And Flack's a wizard with the idle chat." Stella added, filling a paper cup from the water-cooler.
"Yup. I wish you could've heard them in the car. Flack got him blarneying on about his life back in Ireland, how hard it was, as if it excused everything. He admitted to a bunch of petty offences here in New York, and Flack acted like he hadn't even heard. You better believe that's gonna come up again. Then he asked him if he'd ever treat an Irish clan chief like he treated Chief Delaware. The kid shut right up and asked for a lawyer - which is what Flack wanted all along. We don't think he killed the Chief. But we do want him back in the system for a while. Flack's gonna lean on Legal Aid to swing some community service for a guilty plea on the knucklehead stuff. His little guys at the Y are about to get an assistant coach for a while."
"Nice." Stella nodded, but her expression turned cloudy. "I can't help thinking, though - the terrible irony is how quietly Chief Delaware died. Imagine the headlines if a Native American chief died in full view of the public, on a crowded commuter train, and nobody noticed. If he hadn't been shot, how long would it have taken for someone to check on him? How many would have assumed he passed out on the train?"
"At least this one'll get some media attention," Jess agreed, stirring her coffee. "Seems the only cases we get enough time and funding to investigate properly are the ones with some rich white kid at the heart of it."
"Sad but true. Their families and friends are the ones holding most of the city purse-strings. Or at least the airwaves."
"Bloomberg, Hearst, Dunbrook..." Jess rattled off. "Devon Maxford's people."
Stella went on as if she hadn't heard. "You heard how the shooting happened? Chinese papa found his only daughter in bed with a Cameroonian fella. Went for the gun. Seems he'd have been happy enough with a black son-in-law if only they'd been married. Or that’s what the interpreter kept repeating. Something doesn't add up. So love is finally colour-blind, but family values are carved in stone?"
"At least they weren’t carved in a headstone."
It was curious to note that Stella, like Don, was taking cases much more personally than in the days before Marty. Granted, barely human skinheads like Elgers would turn anyone's stomach. But Stella's change in reaction seemed to be in deflecting the personal impact outwards into philosophical rants, and not speaking of her own feelings at all anymore. Even when Jess asked her about the dead-end Diakos project, Stella said only that it was over, that she was grateful to Jess, and and promised again to cover for her if it ever came to light.
She hoped Stella wasn't trying to toughen up too much on the outside, to the detriment of her fiery Greco-Roman heart. Stella and Mac usually debriefed and unloaded on each other, keeping one another balanced, and if that balance had been disrupted, it did not bode well for either of them. Far from being policy-bound automatons, cops were very human - the good ones, at least - and the kindly department psychologists couldn't completely take the place of a good friend and colleague to talk to.
Or to come home to.
She picked up the coffees, and gave Stella a thoughtful smile as they parted.
Just sometimes, she really did get the best inspirations.
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..."Passez à mon apartment ce soir, et je vous montrerai le sens véritable de relations internationales..." she'd said, with as bright a grin as he'd ever seen on her.
He passé'd to her apartment as toute de damn suite as he could.
She was waiting for him in her bedroom, lounging on her stomach in the nude, long pale peach limbs and chestnut hair against the warm colours of the room. She was reading over a problem from class, a slight crease between her brows, tapping a pencil under her chin.
She looked up and smiled. "Hey, you."
"Hey," he said, dropping his duffel by the door. "Am I interrupting?"
"Nah, I'm multitasking."
"Uh huh." He sat next to her on the edge of the bed, and slid his palm over the curve of her calf. "How many things you got going on?"
"Studying. Thinking about what I'm going to do to you. Wondering when they're going to announce the next Tactical Simulation Exercise for Second Grade candidates. Trying to decide what to get my very girly niece for her birthday. Thinking some more about what I'm going to do to you."
"All that, huh?" His hand rode higher, over the impossibly silky back of her knee. She pretended not to notice, but her eyes went soft and hazy.
"Hey, I have a female brain. We're wired that way."
"Good thing, 'cause I haven't been able to think about much since you left me with that damn message." He leaned over and planted a kiss among the stylized blackwork roses and thorns twisting up a trellis along her spine, in the same Rennie Mackintosh style as the design around her wrist. ("Rapunzel?" he'd asked, in the beginning. "Grace," she'd replied, and then: “Okay, maybe a bit Rapunzel.”), and sat back to take off his jacket. He hung it over the rail of her bed, along with his belt, holster and Glock, and bent down to unbuckle the smaller Sig Sauer he wore on his ankle.
"Aw. Did I distract you?"
She dumped her binder on the floor, and rolled over to face him, grinning, winding her legs into half-lotus with total nonchalance. Which was just like Jess. Meeting one's lover in lingerie was all fun and good, and she enjoyed making his eyes pop, but she preferred the air on her skin. She was a minimalist at heart: rarely any jewelry, a bare touch of makeup for workdays, and an unfussy wardrobe chosen for comfort and physical combat if necessary. It was one of the many aspects of her he'd fallen in love with.
He grinned back. "Just a little." he said.
Between the sultry French and the promising light in her eyes, it was a mercy he'd managed to get out of the precinct, all the way to the lab, and back to his car without attracting unwanted attention.
"C'mere."
He shifted closer, and, touch-hungry, rested a hand on her knee as she loosened his tie with deft fingers. She pulled it over his head, hung it over a bed-knob, and began to work on his shirt.
"You're the only younger cop I know who wears cufflinks."
"Holdover from Dad, I guess. He told me always wear a tailored shirt for court, and he was right. Some days they're the only ones clean," he admitted.
"They suit you. Very Cary Grant." She smiled and shook her head at some private inner joke, reached over and dropped the silver links on her night table. He added his wristwatch and badge, and then shrugged out of his shirt, draping it on top of his jacket. She waited patiently. Apparently her plan involved him being naked too, which was fine with him. Once undressed, he followed her gesture and lay on his stomach, resting his forehead on his crossed arms.
"You need anything?" she asked, moving around to straddle his legs. "A blanket, something to drink? There's all sorts of food in the oven. I went back to the Indian market. After all the Holi wars were over."
Ohhh. Now he understood her plan. "No, I'm good. Wow."
She leaned forward, smoothed her palms over his back to settle him, and then her strong fingers began seeking out the muscles across his shoulders and down his spine. He sighed and breathed into her touch. She knew how sensitive and responsive he was, under his suits and ties, because she was, too. It was the first discovery they'd made as lovers, to their continued delight. He carried all his stress in his body, just like her, long before it showed up in his eyes and his voice.
Working it all out had never been so much fun.
It was a new experience, having someone in his life who paid attention to the week he'd had, and spent time planning how to make him feel better. It had just been a long, hard-working week, and Jess knew exactly what he needed to recharge.
"Is this what they teach in international relations class? Food and massage?" he murmured gratefully into his forearms.
"I'm sure there's been more than one piece of foreign policy..." she began, and he chuckled. She leaned forward for the bottle of almond oil she'd set on the night-table, and started to work on him in earnest.
He winced pleasurably and sighed. "I'm gonna get you back for this, I promise."
"Shh. Calmer-toi. Relâcher...prendre des souffles profonds...."
Under her hands, knots loosened down his spine and limbs. He closed his eyes and felt the stress of the week rolling away, off his shoulders and back. She began to work on the soles of his feet, and time slipped away completely. He found himself drifting in and out of consciousness, but aware of a low buzz of arousal spreading through him.
At some point the buzz became a full-on sensual campaign. He couldn't say when her touch turned distinctly erotic, but small caresses and maddeningly brief nibbles over his nape and shoulders began to take over, and then nails trailing over his thighs and ass. He rolled over beneath her, and she got up on her knees to give him room. She leaned in to kiss him, and let him chase the tip of her fleeting tongue back into her mouth, before perching on his thighs.
"Ca va bien, mon amant?" she asked, with a wicked smile, trailing her fingertips from his chest down to his stomach. "C'est mieux? Que veux-tu me faire? Quel est ton fantaisie la plus sauvage? Je le ferai, n'importe quoi pour toi...n'importe quoi à tous. J'ai voulu toujours dire cela. Quelque jour tu me dirai que tu me comprends bien, et je serai dans trop d'ennui..."
What the heck was it about the French language, anyway? Her voice was wrapping around his cock like silk, and for all he knew, she was reciting a Stats problem.
"I got some good karma left over from a past life or something, Jess?"
He rested his hands loosely on her hips, his thumbs brushing the satiny hollows so she squirmed in pleasure. He took her in at a glance, like a snapshot: her beautiful dark eyes drowsy with arousal, the curl of her lips, the curve of her waist and the rise of her breasts. The last rays of the evening sun, slicing through the drapes, turned her skin to amber and her hair to a flaming auburn mantle over her shoulders. She was like a gilded statue, almost too much to touch.
Except that she was very much flesh and blood and all girl, and she was looking at him with the same expression. It was his turn to squirm. He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.
"Uh-uh. Not done with you in this life yet," she breathed, before kissing him slow and deep and greedy. Her clever fingers drew audible gasps from him. He could feel her skin warming as she moved over him, and he knew the scent of a turned-on Jessica very well. He knew better than to reciprocate when she was in this mood, unless he wanted to be trussed up. Although...she knew damn well that if she took him to that place, it would be her turn next. Was that her plan? He could live with that. Duty cuffs were only for a short mental kick - nobody wanted to come to work with telltale double-rail bruises - but the satin belt of her robe, snugly figure-eighted around his wrists or hers, meant playtime. While the memory brought a swift spike of arousal (ohh, God, the way the scarlet bands looked, woven against her creamy skin, her arms stretched up and her eyes defiant and alight...) he wanted his options open.
If he lived that long.
She took a good half hour getting him right where she wanted him. Which was to say, splayed out on her bed, groaning aloud and writhing up into her touch as she licked his riveted nipples warmly and wetly, her fingers buried in the thatch at his groin, gripping the root of his well-tongued cock to prolong his torment. Her fingers strayed over her own body whenever she gave him a moment to catch his breath, and he knew she was getting pretty damn close herself.
"Jesus, Jess..." he rasped, willing his hands not to clutch. Not that she didn't like it when he clutched. A lot. But then she'd win, and...oh, hell, she was gonna do that thing...
Her hand closed around his aching shaft, and she stroked him, her touch tortuously light. He stopped breathing as she tickled just under his sac with the other hand and pressed in, ohfuck right there, and then flicked her tongue over his slit and moaned, dammit. It was all he could do not to come hard right there.
"Inhale," she reminded him, reaching up to brush a kiss over his dry lips.
"Difficult," he replied, through gritted teeth.
"Ceci, c'est pour toi. C'est ce que tu as besoin." she murmured, against his mouth.
He felt the wetness of her sex on his thigh as she ground against him, and gave up completely. He plunged his fingers into her hair and took her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss, shoving aside his own incipient climax with the need to feel her come apart. The sound that tore from her throat sent him clean out of his head. He rolled with her, moving down her body to find and devour sweet nipples and firm belly, tensed thighs and glistening furrow, clenching slick around his pushing fingers, honey and vanilla under his tongue, driving her higher, faster, till she hit her peak with harsh cries, arching off the sheets. He moved with her before she even came down, parting her thighs and pulling her knee high up along his side. She gasped and met his heavy thrust in the cradle of her hips.
"Ah! God, do it, don't stop..."
"Jess..." he growled, feeling her opening against him. So close. Too close. He fumbled for the drawer of her night-table. He felt her blunt nails slide down and bite into his back.
"It's okay. Prends-moi."
Oh, God.
He did.
* * * * *
"One of these nights we'll have dinner before sex." Jess yawned, some hours later. She snuggled into his side, fed, lovingly bathed, and exhausted.
"One of these nights you'll go off to class without a quickie," he smirked. “How glad am I you didn't have a lecture tonight."
"I did, actually. You're turning me into a delinquent."
"Detective,” he said sternly, “You skipped school to get laid?"
"No, I skipped school because the love of my life needed some TLC."
He pressed a kiss into her hair. "I can maybe admit that. What time you on tomorrow?"
"Not till two o'clock, if nothing comes in," she mumbled, her eyes closing. "Good thing. Three times before bed? Oh, I'm gonna be sore tomorrow..."
"Aw, babe. Whyn't - "
"You kiddin’ me?"
He gave a soft laugh. "So...we're okay with just your shots now? No backup?"
“Yup. We’re good. Thought you'd like that. You caveman." she kissed his chest. He draped an arm over her hip and tucked her in closer.
"Very, very much. I'll go hunt you a woolly mammoth on a bagel before I go on shift, how's that?"
"With a latté?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow without opening her eyes.
"For you, a double," he promised.
"Mm. You do love me."
"You bet," he said quietly. He stretched out, pleasantly achy himself, and settled himself for sleep. "You bet I do."
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Flack sighed, and for the third time, said to his pacing sister: "Sammy, calm down. It's gonna be all right."
"All right for you! This is the first time I've gone anywhere with booze in what, three months? Four? It's just a bit scary over here."
"'Nobody's sayin' we have to," said Grady, from the couch, leaning forward on his elbows. "We can always stay in, for sure."
Flack, Grady and Samantha were waiting at Flack's apartment for Jess to appear, after which they had reservations at a new Egyptian restaurant. There was no doubt that the evening was a test and a sort of graduation for Sam, to be out in the world, beyond the protected bubble she'd kept within, free from alcohol and her old party-life acquaintances. They hoped that, surrounded by people she trusted, it could be part of a slow return to the sociable, confident Sam that she used to be.
Flack had been making a concerted effort to spend more time with her, lately. With just under a year between them - Irish twins, as the saying went - they'd grown up taking each other for granted, and, not untypically, had grown apart as they aged and their paths diverged. And like many twins and almost-twins, they'd had to find their way back to each other as adults, with their own lives and their own identities, and with the added challenge of Sam's alcoholism clashing with Don's career, as well as being a major family obstacle.
These days, they seemed to be making actual progess, not just telling old stories, or joking around.
Jess had been instrumental in that. Her casual warmth and delight at finding another Flack to connect with was just what Sam needed, when memories and the struggles of the present became too heavy. She met up with Sam after counselling appointments, from time to time, or picked her up from her new bookstore job, and their conversations over tea were held in strict confidence.
"Just girl talk," Jess would grin, daring him to comment. But occasionally, she would come out with things like: "A ponytail, Don? You?"
"Only one summer," he muttered. "I had to cut it all off before school started."
It was clear, though, that their chats were anything but casual, and Flack tried his damndest not to pry - or to show fear in their presence. He could only imagine them after a few beers together, and was grateful to have escaped that fate. They had the combined instincts of sharks in the waters, and Sam knew a great many of his secrets.
Nathan still communicated solely through their mother, Mary, and only occasionally asked after Sam, who he'd written off years before, calling her an embarassment to her face. Being a Flack, Sam refused to speak with him, but would have forgiven him everything, even all the taunting and bullying of her childhood, if he'd only made an effort. Nathan was too horrified at his younger self, and too ambivalent about his family in general, to want to try again.
Donald Sr. still wanted nothing to do with his youngest child, though, and bitterly resented Flack's suggestion that he slow down his own drinking if he wanted to see Sam again. The news that Samantha was doing everything in her power to stay sober and get her feet back under her was greeted with little more than a derisive snort. Mary Flack, on the other hand, asked after Samantha every chance she got, and seemed to understand, with a deep sadness, that Sam wasn't ready to deal with them all. She didn't blame Samantha for that. She just hugged her middle child enough for all of them, and then Jess, too.
For now, though, getting Sam through an ordinary evening out was enough of a challenge.
"No. No, I want to do this." she said. "It's not like I'm gonna be gettin' anything to drink. It's just, seeing other people doin' it...."
"Yeah," said Flack. "But you know none of us will be. And we're not sendin' you home alone, either. You're stayin' here tonight."
"I am?" she asked.
Grady nodded. "Trust me, Sammy, 'tis afterwards that comes the hardest. When you're feelin' good about how the evenin' went, and you're all alone. People around you are going to be havin' a glass or two, and laughin' and carryin' on, and for sure it'll seem like what harm is there in a wee one? 'Tis no crime, after all. And haven't you earned it, after bein' good for so long? And then to be by yourself. That's when the urge comes on the worst. So we've staged a bit of a kidnapping, as it were. For your own good."
Sam stopped pacing the length of the living room, and turned to him, her arms still crossed protectively, but with a wry grin. "You gettin' all priestly on me, Father Tom?"
"Not I," said Grady. "I'm seven years sober. Why do you think our Donnie invited me along in the first place? My great wit and charm?"
"I...didn't know."
"Not many did. You'd be amazed how many priests end up in the drink. It's an easy fall, and people far too willin' to overlook it. They figure we need some sort of relief, and as long as we behave..." he shrugged, "So I'm here partly because I've missed you both, and partly to hold your hand. Not as a priest. Just a friend who's been there."
Whatever Sam was about to say was cut short as a key scraped in the lock of the apartment door. Flack got up to open it, and greeted Jess with a warm kiss. Samantha rolled her eyes and Grady smiled with benign sweetness.
"'Tis a grand thing, that." he said softly.
Sam looked up sharply, but Grady's attention was only on the two police officers in front of him, each letting their guard down for a precious few moments.
* * * * *
"You did great," Jess assured her. Tucked up on the couch, resplendent in an old Academy shirt, Sam blew a cooling breath over her peppermint tea.
Flack was reminded of innumerable middle-of-the-night meetings in one of their rooms, usually involving scary stories and cookies, in high secrecy and with the lights out. Nathan had even been part of them, when they were all very young.
"It went okay," Sam said. "I gotta say, though, I had a few freakouts there. Thought I was headin' for a full out panic attack a couple times. It's just crazy, how you can know something with your head, but..."
"I know. We'd have hustled you out of there in a second if you needed it."
Sam managed a smile. "At least I managed to eat," she said.
"About time, girl. Few meals like that, you'll be taking on me and Don at the feeding trough."
"Yeah, but I don't spend my days chasin' people all over town," Sam returned. "You guys burn it all off."
"Yes," Jess grinned wickedly. "Yes, we do."
"Aw, Jessie!" Sam protested, wrinkling her nose.
Jess giggled. Flack grumbled good-naturedly and exiled himself to the kitchen for a drink, admitting to his private self that if Sam weren't around, he'd be happily indulging in a beer. It had been a more stressful dinner than he'd thought. He knew alcoholism was a physical disease as much as a mental one, but to watch his sister reacting so deeply to the sight and smell of it was a kick in the gut.
"So, you and Grady?" he heard Jess ask, quietly. His ears pricked up. This should be interesting, he thought. He knew Grady's version of events, but he'd never asked Sam.
"High school crush, that's all," Sam explained. "We were just kids. He came to New York in Grade Eight, went to Seminary after Grade Ten. He was Donnie's friend, really."
"And nothing ever happened," Jess intuited.
"Nah. Not really. We sorta talked about it, and some other stuff happened. But we fell out of touch after we all graduated. Wasn't until he and Donnie crossed paths on a case that we all met up again."
Awfully short explanation, for Sam, Flack thought. He wandered back with his glass of iced tea. "Now that's a great story. Get this: guy comes in for Confession, and admits to strangling his wife a year earlier. Guy thinks he's getting squared away with God and bragging to the one person who'd never tell on him. Grady asks the guy to come pray with him some more in his office, and slips a note to his secretary to call the cops. I get the call, and the guy literally pissed himself when four of the boys stormed into Grady's office with their guns out. We've had each other's backs other ever since. I'd call him when I was done in with some case or other. He'd call me when he thought he was gonna drink."
"So you were matchmaking," Sammy glared fondly at him, "Inviting him tonight."
"Only in a spiritual sense."
"Well, I'm glad you did. I've missed him. If I knew he'd been through this, too..." Sam shook her head sadly. "All these years. It's so awful to think."
Jess glanced quickly up at Flack, and back to Sam. "What, honey?" she asked.
"That I didn't even remember what it's like to have people around who'd never want to hurt you."
"I'd never hurt you if I could, Sam-I-Am," Don said, with heavy regret. "I'm sorry I ever did. I know I did."
"Musta been at the end of your rope with me."
"Yeah, I was. Never meant I didn't love you to bits, kid."
"I know that now. I do. Just wish...I wish things were better with the others. Mom and Dad and Nathan."
"One thing at a time. You know I'm in your corner, right? Dad's not ready to deal with his own problems yet. He hasn't figured out you're just like him. That's the real reason he always got so angry. He couldn't not love you, Sammy. But he couldn't get you help without helping himself, so all he had left was cussin' you out."
"And I cussed him right back," she sighed. "This is gonna take a long time."
"We got all the time there is," he said firmly. "It's already happening."
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He was hovering over his desk, halfway between typing in a search query and dashing out the door, when Stella approached.
"Hey, Flack."
"Hey." he greeted her absently.
"You seen Angell?"
"She's out of town for a few days." Three days, fourteen hours and about thirty minutes, at last count. And his mood hadn't improved much since she'd decided to cash in a couple more vacation days, extending her visit to her two Ottawa-based brethren until the next weekend. He'd noticed that some constables were beginning to avoid looking him in the eye. One of his little guys in the basketball group, rushing in where trained officers feared to tread, had asked him point-blank what was wrong, 'cause he wasn't making jokes.
"Missin' my girlfriend, buddy, that's all," he'd told the kid, "She's visiting her family up in Canada." The kid had nodded, wide-eyed, and word went round the group to be nice to Coach. They all liked Jess.
"Listen," Stella said, "When she gets back, could you tell her I need to talk to her about Kolovos?"
That snapped his wandering attention back to the present. Stella was supposed to be completely off the case, a civilian witness only. Rumor had it she'd even turned in her badge rather than force Mac to issue a reprimand, though that might or might not have been true. He couldn't tell whether she had it on her or not. "Kolovos. The Central Park vic?"
Stella nodded. "Yeah."
He noted the anxiety in her voice and her hands, and eyed her with something akin to suspicion. "C'mere for a second."
She folllowed him to a quiet alcove near the back hallway.
"Look, Jess didn't tell me any of the details. Just that the two of you were workin' on something, but if this involves her, I'd like for you tell me what it is. 'Cause I care about her."
No point in trying to pretend he was just looking out for a junior detective on the squad. Everyone knew he and Jess were together now. If it was a legit sting, Stella didn't have to tell him anything - but he'd prefer to hear the details from her, rather than having to snoop behind Jess' back on the online records system. And if there weren't any official details to be had, if the two had gone rogue, he really didn't want to find out that way.
"I know you do," she replied. "This isn't about Jess. She's fine. She was just helping me out, Flack."
"How?" he pressed.
"It started a couple of months ago, when I was trying to find out who attacked me. I followed a trail and uncovered a smuggling ring. Sebastian Diakos and George Kolovos were part of it. They were smuggling Greek artifacts, and selling them in the US."
"There anything else I should know?" he asked, knowing it was futile. "Anything I should do?" he tried next.
"Tell Jess that Kolovos is dead, and she should step back." Lifting her chin a few degrees higher in response to his look, she looked him straight in the eyes and told him, "I'm gonna get to the bottom of this."
It was a heavily sanitized account Stella had given him, but he'd cracked cases on less. He hated the thought of putting Jess on the hotseat, but he needed more to go on. Jess knew more than she'd told him, which was fine, especially for a policing operation, but he was sure she had no idea how deep the operation had gone. He trusted Stella, but her word that Jess was fine didn't satisfy him. Stella had assumed her own safety, with potentially fatal results - twice.
* * * * *
"Hey, you! Missing me yet?"
"Why, you go somewhere?"
She let out a wounded "Oh!" that dissolved into a giggle.
"Miss you like crazy, babe. How's the trip going?"
"So far so good. Jerome's still a sore loser at Scrabble, and Dom's still trying to get me to move back and join the Mounties. The usual."
"You're leavin' me to join the Mounties?"
"I do look good in red," she purred. "So...how's Lucy? And Lindsay? I got a couple of photos from her, but only of the baby."
"I've got a great one of all three of them. I'll send it your way. Lucy's doin' great. Very loud. Very pink. Lindsay says thanks for the stuffed moose. It's been drooled on already."
"That's what it's for."
"Danny's jealous. He's never seen a moose."
"I'll get him one, too. What about you? You keeping the city safe for me?"
"I'm tryin'. And on that note, before we get sidetracked - I got somethin' to pass on from Stella."
"Yeah? What's she up to?"
"She said to tell you," he began slowly, "That Kolovos is dead, and you should step back."
Jess was silent for a couple of breaths. "Don..."
"Jess, this guy Kolovos was stabbed last night, and he had Stella's home address on him. You know she never gives that out. She's damn lucky someone killed him before he killed her. Kolovos wasn't so lucky. She's okay, she says you're okay, but I'm not okay. I get that it was some hunch Stella was working off the books, and you wanted to help out, but - "
"Don - "
"You know, I'm stuck here. I don't know if I need to be the cop, or the guy who'd do anything for you, and honestly, they're both scared for you. And pretty pissed, if you want the truth."
"I know. Don, listen to me. Please, just listen. There was no way we could've known it would ever go this far. If I thought for a second anyone would actually...it was a setup at first, that's all. To get to the truth so we could get enough evidence to open a case. And then it was just to get Kolovos' partner sent back to Greece to stand trial. That's where we might've gone too far. Right and wrong is sometimes just a matter of timing..."
"Jess, quit playin' around. This is serious. Stella got her wrist smacked, I could tell. She didn't say why, only that somethin' happened in Greece, to do with these forgeries and this smuggling ring. Then she comes and tells me to tell you to step back. I can't be - "
"I don't need you to look out for me." she snapped.
One week with the big brothers... he thought irritably. "That's not what I meant, and you know it, so will you please tell me what we're dealin' with, here? How do I know someone isn't walkin' around with your address in his pocket? I know Stella would've been too easy for them to spot, so I gotta think that you were the one making contact. You met with him? Kolovos? And he was back in New York. I don't think I'm over-reacting, here."
There was silence on the line for a moment. "I wanted to explain it all in person." Jess said, sounding wobbly. "It would be better. But I don't want us ending a call like this."
He rubbed his forehead, and tried to reel himself in. She was probably right, but they were in it now, and it couldn't wait. "I told you when I went over the line for Danny," he reminded her. "It seemed like the right thing to do, and it ended up with a lady wavin' a gun around. And I get the feeling that's what happened with you. Maybe just a little, at first? Something that seemed like a good idea, helping Stella after that case that got her beat up? 'Cause Mac didn't want her too close to it?"
"At first," she admitted.
"Just tell me," he said quietly. "It's in the past now. It's done. You know I'd always give you the benefit of the doubt."
She took a breath. "I tried to tell you before," she said. "After Marty was caught. I just didn't have the heart...It's not that I was keeping anything from you. I didn't hear anything after that, so I figured it was over. I thought there'd be a better time to tell you, or that Stella should be the one."
"Well, she's told Mac everything, and I'm sure she watered down your side, but I'd rather hear it from you."
So she walked him through the story, beginning with the strange coin found within a cheap ceramic pendant that a man was killed for, and ending with the last time she saw Diakos - dead in his apartment with coins on his eyes. She didn't know what happened after Diakos' death and Kolovos' unplanned trip to Greece, but she'd been monitoring the wires for any hint of similar smuggling or selling activity, with nothing of interest turning up. If Stella knew anything more, it would be up to her to say to. She ended by suggesting that Stella might be glad of a chance to unburden herself of the whole thing, somewhere off-duty and off the record.
"Don, please, say something," she begged, at his silence following her tale.
"I think," he began, "I think I'm damned glad I'm not Sythe. Because except for the unlawful confinement thing - and I'm willin' to bet he was set free as soon as he was on board the freighter - it could've been a by-the-book operation. Except for the fact that Stella was officially ordered to drop it, and she didn't. And she got you involved, without security controls in place. That's what I'm most pissed about. She should've known better. She does know better. In fact, you know what's weirdest about this whole thing? Mac. He's always going on about the integrity of his team, and Stella's like his own right hand. Anyone else would've been hauled into a disciplinary hearing. But he chased her to Greece, he isn't saying what went on there, and she's back in the office like nothing happened."
"He loves her," Jess replied, matter-of-factly. "Oh, I don't mean like that, even though he's more than halfway in love with her. No, I mean, she's his family. And it was the first time Stella ever felt what family ties can do to a person. That friend of hers, Papakota - he's been like an uncle to her, and he taught her to think of Greece as her home. She's been heading for some sort of blowout, Don, since this whole thing started, and then Marty just set a fire under her. She's been like a one-woman powerhouse, trying to make everything right in the world for the people she cares about. She's not used to the crazy shit that family can make you do."
"That does make sense," Flack had to agree. "Listen, Sythe hasn't called you, e-mailed you?"
"Only to confirm my return date."
"Then he probably doesn't even know. Mac's covered you, too."
"You sound confused."
"I am. Mac, me, Danny - we were, like, the tough bastards you didn't wanna mess with, and now look at us. All because of the women in our lives."
"You'll always be my tough bastard."
"Just get yourself home, woman," he growled. She laughed, and he closed his eyes in relief.
"You're not mad still?" she asked.
"A little. I was in the dark, Jess. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have known what you needed, where you were...don't do that to me, all right? I know how tough you are. I'm not one of your brothers. You don't have to prove anything to me. But we gotta be a team."
"We are. I promise. I'm sorry. I know, I still have a big thing about thinking every man in my life wants to save me from myself. But honestly, I thought it was over, or I'd have told you everything sooner. Shit, I know I'm gonna be in it up to my ass when I get back to work. How I'm gonna look Mac in the eye I can't even..."
"Follow his lead, I guess. He has a way of pretending things never happened, sometimes."
"I guess."
"You know somethin'?"
"What?"
"The whole thing sounds really smokin' hot."
"Oh, it was. I had this whole mysterious-spy thing going on. And Stella was like my spymaster. Spymistress?"
"Damn."
"But I never spoke French, mon vieux. Ca, c'est le notre. Barring any other French-speaking witnesses."
"Jessie?"
"Mm?"
"When you get home - what d'you say we get back to that conversation we put off. The one you told me to hold onto for a while. About what the future looks like."
"That sounds like a fine idea," she agreed. He heard the smile in her voice. "And we should try to get the parents to meet sometime. Mine have been asking to meet yours for months."
...And meeting Jess and her folks is probably the one event that all the Flacks would turn up in one place for, and be civil to each other, he thought. The crazy shit we do for family indeed...
"That Egyptian place seems to be lucky," he suggested. "Maybe it can lift family curses? I know a couple things that might even make my brother show his face for dinner."
"Hey, I'm game."
"You usually are."
"Hey, Don?"
"I'm here."
"I think...I think this might just be a matter of timing, too."
"Yeah..."
As he settled down to sleep that night, he realized that in among the delirious shouts of excitement, he was aware of a very calm sense of the path his life would take, rolling out in front of him like a long country highway in summer.
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Les traductions / Aistriúcháin:
"Te calmer. Relâcher-toi et prendre des souffles profonds..."
- Settle down. Just relax, take deep breaths.
"Ca va bien, mon amant?...C'est mieux? Que veux-tu me faire? Qu'est-ce que ton fantaisie la plus sauvage? Je le ferai, pour toi, n'importe quoi...n'importe quoi à tous...Je toujours ai voulu dire cela. Quelque jour tu me dirai que tu me comprends bien, et je serai dans trop d'ennui..."
- How's that, my love? Better? What do you want me to do? What's your wildest fantasy? I'll do it, anything for you...anything at all. I always wanted to say that. One day you're going to tell me you understand me perfectly well, and I'm going to be in so much trouble...
"Ceci, c'est pour toi. C'est ce que tu as besoin."
- This is for you. This is what you need.
"Prends-moi."
- Take me.
"...mon vieux. Ca, c'est le notre. "
- old friend. (literally, my old.) That's our thing.
Reader, to you is given a choice: to follow canon ( here) or to catch a passing tesseract to a parallel universe ( here).
It's Choose Your Own Adventure time. Death carries immense grace and personal growth in its wake - but then, so does turning grief into a leap of faith.
Take your pick - or take both!