#64 -- Fall
Disclaimer: I do not own the Without A Trace characters. This story is for entertainment purposes only. I recognise no financial returns from these works, whatsoever.
Title: "Displacement"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #64 - Fall
Word Count: 4,100 (approx)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Clare de Lune" (1.16) "A Tree Falls" (2.07) "Shadows" (2.20) (character) "Off The Tracks" (3.21) "The Little Things" (4.16) "All The Sinners, Saints" (5.07) "Eating Away" (5.13)
Credits: Thank you thekatebeyond and jennukes for betaing this.
Author's Notes::
Displacement
Displacement: 1 a : the act or process of removing something from its usual or proper place or the state resulting from this -- "Displacement." Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 12 Jan. 2007. www.Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Displacement
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He only half pays attention to the voice on the phone, which is okay, because he's not even half paying attention to the television channels flicking past, one every second. He's lying, of course; fine is not the word for this. He's got that sinking boredom that comes before tedium, that comes before… what? Before life out there becomes no more interesting than life in here, and he doesn't do much more than basically show up. He saw this coming - you'd have to be blind not to see it coming - but he tried to fool himself that this time things were different, that this time… "Sure, no problem, man. Yeah, later." He doesn't even bother to hang up, just lets the phone drop to the floor. After all, no sense kidding himself. No one else is going to try to call. Danny has finally managed to snag Elena, which means he doesn't need some misfit friend hanging around, screwing up his evening with something as insignificant as court-time.
It happens every time. Friends move away or get married and you never see them again, except for those awkward times when you know they're wishing you didn't accept the invitation, that they only invited you because they didn't want to hurt your feelings but were praying you'd be busy. He's seen it too much. Hell, by now, he ought to be used to it.
The phone starts playing the annoying buzz of a disconnected line, but somehow it's a better soundtrack to the evening than anything on T.V. He can't be bothered to move to pick it up. That would be… that would be work. That would take effort. He had been motivated for a good, solid game of basketball, but since that's not happening, what's the point of anything else?
"Hey."
"Hey." He doesn't bother to look up. It's a bad sign, another step in the progression, but Tetris has his attention. It's a good game in that it shuts down his brain completely, so he can't think, can't free-associate.
"You feeling okay?" Sam sounds almost concerned, but then again she's good at that. Oh, she says she doesn't mind not knowing things, and that may be true, but she doesn't like to think people are keeping the good dirt from her.
"Fine."
"Because that sandwich has been sitting there for three hours and you haven't touched it."
"Go ahead." He manoeuvres another block into place and watches a line disappear.
"Excuse me?"
"If you want it, go ahead. I'm not hungry."
"What?" He can see the ghost of her reflection in the screen. She doesn't look happy.
"The sandwich. I'm assuming you're asking because…"
She stares for a moment at the game and its falling blocks, then reaches past him and presses the button on the monitor, turning it from multicoloured to black.
He resists the urge to swear. He was working his way up to a good score, there.
"No, I do not want to eat your sandwich. I am wondering why you haven't eaten your sandwich."
"Because I don't want to eat my sandwich." Anymore than he wanted to eat his breakfast, so he didn't have that, either. Barely ate half of a microwave dinner last night, too. Food is… well, he'd say sawdust, but people don't hassle you for not eating that.
"No, you'd rather play games. I thought you told Jack you were going to catch up on some reports."
"I did." He gestures to a pile of documents stacked neatly on the desk. That's the other problem. It's been a slow week, and there's no deadline to distract him, no ticking clock of a hot case, so he's taken a page from his days in White Collar and finished his paperwork backlog without bothering to hand it in, yet. It's a long walk to Jack's door, so he might as well take it at a point in the day when he's doing something else strenuous, like heading for the elevator to go home.
"You're not going to take them to him?"
"I'll tell you what. Since you're so concerned about Jack having enough to do, and/or playing his little disciplinarian footsoldier, you take them over there, and I will get back to what I was doing." Maybe it's a little too snappy, but she's the one who started sticking her perfect little nose in where it wasn't invited.
"Fine!" She manages to make it sound like both a response and an indictment of his earlier statement, picking the folders up with a jerk. "And maybe he'd be interested to know what you're spending Bureau time at."
"I doubt he really gives a shit." Martin turns the screen back on and starts a new game.
She makes that little offended noise that she's so good at, before turning on her heel and hustling away. It's probably his language that got her. She likes to pretend she's an oh-so-tough chick-with-a-gun, but when it comes down to it, she's the next-generation version of his mother. He's kind of glad he figured that one out sooner, rather than later, really. But Jack… Martin really does doubt that Jack cares one iota. It's not a personal intrusion into his life, so he can't be bothered. Lately, it's been rather clear that it was a good move on Jack's part not to go into clinical practice. He can't even fake compassion for problems he's not caught up in.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He glares at Viv, daring her to disbelieve him.
"You nearly took that guy's head off for walking into you, when you walked into him. Even for you, that's abnormal."
"Even for me. Thank you so much for making me sound like a rageaholic."
"Martin," she lowers her voice so people can't overhear. "I watched you shoot someone in a fit of rage. Do not tell me you don't have anger issues."
"Fine." He shrugs. "Believe what you want to."
"I know what I saw. Then and just now."
"Viv." She knows what she thinks she saw. That's the problem. She knows him from work, but just from work. She doesn't know him, really. "Read my lips. I am fine."
"Believe what you want to." She tosses his words back in his face, and he can see that whatever small sympathy she might have still had left aside for him is gone.
They don't say another word to each other, not on the drive back to the office, not for the rest of the day, even to say goodbye.
Jack's relegated him to desk duty, a sign that things finally have penetrated the wall of 'I don't care' he's built around him. He probably couldn't stand the united front that is the office, telling him that Martin Fitzgerald is an asshole. However, unlike the last disciplinary time he spent exiled indoors, this time Martin couldn't care less. Then, he had something to prove. Now…
He senses a figure looming over his shoulder, one that - despite its height - can't really loom to great effect. "Martin."
Jack clearly doesn't care what the prisoner does however, because this time his Tetris has been uninterrupted for the past three days. Now Jack could loom, but he hasn't bothered.
"Martin, what is going on with you?"
He shrugs. He can't even be troubled with denial, anymore.
"I don't think I've ever seen Sam this pissed off, Viv doesn't even want to hear your name, and Jack doesn't think it's safe for you to be out on the street…"
"Jack isn't concerned about 'safe'." Jack just doesn't want to deal with another whiny voice telling him to do his job and manage. He laid down a punishment, therefore he's managing. Now he doesn't have to do anything more, because clearly the ball is in Martin's court, if he wants to get the street-ban lifted.
"Who do you think you're kidding? I haven't seen you like this since you got out of the hospital." Danny leans against the desk so he can have a better view of Martin's multi-colour bathed face. He drops his volume to just above a stage-whisper. "Are you using again?"
"No. I am not using again." Martin takes care to enunciate each word carefully, to ensure he's not misunderstood. "Would you care to check on that?" He proffers his left arm, his right still occupied with the keyboard.
"Then what is going on with you? Because honestly? You look like shit."
"Thank you for the update. I'll be sure to have the glaziers in to fix my mirror."
"Have you even looked in the mirror, lately?"
"Yes." It is after all, how one does one's shaving. Even a slob like Danny ought to know that.
Danny pauses. "You want to try and get in a game, tonight?"
"No." For one thing, he really doesn't feel like it. For another, there's no sense in deluding himself into thinking he's not a born loner, destined to a life of boring cable T.V., mindless computer games and meaningless short-lived encounters with the opposite sex, with the only change-up being his twice-weekly AA meetings.
Danny stays a while longer, perhaps waiting for an explanation, then gives up and walks away.
He finds the sticky note taped to his screen. He has an appointment to see Lisa. They're so subtle around here, and he means that in the most sarcastic way, possible. And not would he please make an appointment to see Lisa, or his continued career requires an appointment to see Lisa, but rather someone has made the appointment for him. He crumples the note into a ball and picks up the phone.
"There is nothing wrong." He answers the question before she can ask, deflecting too, the questions about missed previous engagements. "Can I go, now?"
"No."
He shrugs and stays seated, saying nothing more.
"Katie Duncan."
"She was a case."
"She was more than just a case. You knew her."
"Not really. I didn't have the slightest clue who she was."
"There was still a connection between the two of you. She wasn't a perfect stranger."
"On paper." In reality, he still doesn't have a clue.
"You've lost weight." Maybe she thinks a non-sequitur will throw him off balance.
He shrugs. "Maybe."
"No maybe. You're not eating, you're irritable…"
He can sense where this is leading. "I'm clean. Test me if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, but that's not the issue, here. I don't believe this is the result of narcotics."
"Then why am I here?"
"Decreased appetite," she starts using her fingers to tick things off. "Loss of weight. Irritability, rage, decreased interest in activities you once enjoyed, lack of energy, lack of motivation."
"Lack of patience." He gets ready to stand up and leave.
"Lack of patience," she agrees. "Have you been reading psychiatric diagnostic manuals?"
"Excuse me?" And they want to accuse him of going off the deep end.
"Because you've got a letter-perfect list of symptoms for a major depressive episode. Call it my inborn curiosity, but I'd like to know why."
"I don't know, and I don't care."
"Apathy." She ticks off another addition to her list. "I'd say ignorance, but I don't think we can get much distance out of that one, can we?"
"I don't know, it seems like I'm still the last one that knows what's going on, around here. Lessee, you've already talked to Jack, Viv, Danny, Samantha… I suppose it was only a matter of time before you got around to me."
"Martin, you need…"
"No. What I don't need is people like you in my face telling me what I need. Now, unless I'm mistaken, my time is up." Whether the clock has ticked far enough or it hasn't isn't the issue. He's had enough of this bullshit. Nobody around here gives a crap, they're just looking for a good, solid reason to get rid of him. It has to be good, to get around Daddy-dearest. A failed psych-eval would probably do the trick. Well, to paraphrase Nixon, they can find someone else to kick around, because it sure as hell isn't going to be him.
If this were a movie, he'd peg the rain as a cliché, but if this were a movie, Danny wouldn't be this scared. In a movie, everything would be okay. In a movie it wouldn't matter how things went down, because it would just be a damn movie, and the tragic ending would only be in a sob-inducing chick-flick anyway.
He watches for a while, unable to make himself move, trying to convince himself that it is okay, that the figure sitting graveside, drenched and unmoving, is fine. That even Martin would risk slouching in death.
Finally, he risks a step, foot sinking into the oversaturated ground, pushing the water elsewhere - up and around his shoe and through the seams to soak his skin. They call Aristotle a genius for noting the phenomenon, but Danny really couldn't care less. He can't remember ever being this scared - not while in the back of the car, soaked in blood and waiting for help to arrive too late, not while watching a trembling, sobbing Clare Metcalf wave her knife and demand he go away, not even while Martin aimed his gun straight at Danny's centre-mass, sheer horror the only thing staying his finger on the trigger. No, maybe once: seeing Raffi slumped against the side of a car, and not daring to hope either way. But then… then he had Martin to rely on. Now…
He stops within a couple of feet, close enough to stop anything from happening, but far enough away not to be an obvious intrusion and not to give Martin the sense that there is any kind of rush to pick up the broken pieces of his mind and try pretending he can function again. Danny finds himself half-wishing that the problem was simply a matter of Martin falling off the wagon, and he could just kick the guy's ass until he climbed back on. This is territory probably best navigated by Jack or Lisa, but it's hard to say what Martin's reaction would be to 'Big Brother' and 'The Brainwasher', as Martin labelled them respectively, last week. That's why he's here, instead, being both non-threatening enough to coax Martin home of his own accord, and strong enough to drag him if necessary.
He's close enough to read the name on the headstone, though. Bonnie Toland. Below it are more words: Loving Mother and Wife. It says nothing there about Aunt, then again from what Sam says, Martin identified with her well enough to fit the first category. He's close enough, too, to hear the sound of Martin's breathing, harsh and uneven, full of pain.
It's a while before he can make himself take another step, until he's within reach, and lets his hand fall to Martin's shoulder. Martin's a little strange when it comes to human contact. Sometimes he's like any normal person of Danny's experience, and other times his need for personal space is huge. Danny grew up in a household where a hug was as common as a hit - you could go through a day getting plenty of both - but he sometimes wonders if Martin experienced either. Sometimes it's almost as though Martin was a recovering addict before Danny even met him, trying to kick the habit of the common human touch.
"I nearly killed him." Martin's words arrive on a voice beaten down into near nothingness and torn apart into wisps.
Who? Danny doesn't dare ask, doesn't say a thing. He doesn't want to break this spell, doesn't want to risk activating those defensive shields Martin has been hiding under.
"I wasn't paying attention… I was going too fast… I shouldn't have been on the phone… I didn't see…"
"Martin…"
"He was six, maybe seven. I didn't see…"
"Yeah, uh-huh… right, I'll be there." He hung up the phone with a practiced movement, flipping it shut and sliding it into the holster on his hip. How he'd lived so long without murdering his sister was…
A flash of colour caught his eye, something darting out from between parked cars. He slammed on the breaks, hearing the tires scream as they left pieces of themselves plastered to the asphalt. No bump, no thud, but that meant nothing. Something so small, he might not actually feel it.
Oh my God. He could feel his heart, though, pounding hard enough to break against his ribs. What had he just done? How… A tiny, overwhelmed voice told him to get out, to check, but he couldn't make his hands move from the wheel to put the car into park or turn off the engine and make it safe, couldn't get his leg to stop pressing the brake-pedal hard enough that it ought to go through the floor, couldn't even get his eyes to close for even a blink.
He heard screaming, crying, and someone hammering on his window. He turned an ashen face to look into rage-filled, panic-stricken eyes of a young mother, demanding answers as to who the hell he thought he was, and how could he not see, and what kind of person was he? Good questions, he realised later, but not now when his brain had no function whatsoever. It barely even registered the child clinging to her, looking unharmed at first glance, though God only knew what a second would show. The boy should see a doctor, or go to the hospital, but he had no idea how to suggest such a thing. Or police… he was vaguely aware that someone should take over, that somehow it was not a situation for him and her to work out between them, but his jaw was as frozen as anything else.
It seemed like hours before it was all said and done, before calmer, better minds sorted out non-damages and determined that the incident was - rationally, pragmatically - not a situation at all. No harm, those minds determined, no foul. The boy was shaken, but unbruised. They said the same thing about him, but actions spoke louder as someone else delivered him to his destination 'for safety's sake'. In an unspoken conspiracy of law-enforcement, it had somehow been decided that it was just a close-call, not even worth the hassle of paperwork. A few words on a piece of paper, at most. After all, it was the child's fault for racing out unexpectedly, or the mother's for not keeping a closer eye. A lesson learned for both of them, and at far lower cost than might have been extracted.
Yes, the conspirators agreed, that sounded much better for all.
"But you didn't." Danny knows the truth means nothing, here, however. It doesn't take someone who knows Martin well to realise that Martin has had only one dream his entire life, and despite what he says, F.B.I. Agent isn't it. Suffer the little children. It's probably the sole thing Martin still carries with him, after his fall from Church and faith. Children are special, reverenced and sacred. If there's one place Martin still sees God, it's in the face of a little child. Danny still wonders if Samantha hadn't cornered Martin and harassed him into asking for help, if Martin would have eventually succumbed to his guilt over the risk he'd forced upon Ethan Heller. There's been more than one time since that he's thanked God for making her more stubborn than either of them. At least she realised that 'hitting bottom' for Martin would have put him six-feet underneath it. How hypocritical of him to accuse Martin of avoidance when he'd done everything to not face that obvious truth. "You reacted in time. Someone else might not have."
"I should have been going slower, paying more attention. It was a playground. If I hadn't been so distracted, I would have seen the sign…"
"And if you hadn't been paying attention, you wouldn't have seen the kid. Martin, kids do that. I did that." It's one time he's willing to credit Raffi for saving his life, catching him before he could make that might-be-fatal dash.
"I nearly killed him." The tenor of the repetition is different, less self-flagellation and more emerging pain. There's no guilt, no remonstration, just a simple statement of fact.
Danny says nothing. He knows the job of confessor is to offer an appropriate penance, but he can't think of anything greater than what Martin has already suffered. Guilt and pain heavy enough to send waves of it crashing from one incident and washing through the rest of his life, until everything became tainted with displaced hurt. He knows, too, that Martin's view of Confession is a cop's view, not a Catholic's one. Confession is an admission of guilt, so punishment can be meted out. Martin's never seemed to understand the concept of forgiveness, let alone absolution. In this, his viewpoint is much more Calvinist, and he's never counted himself as one of the redeemed.
"What if next time, it isn't just close?" Martin twines his fingers through the wet grass, as though he's talking to his aunt, and the contact will bring him the answer. "What if next time…"
"What if this time is so there won't be a next time?" Danny crouches down to be more on level with Martin, but still not ready to sink cross-legged beside him to end up being more soaked than he already is. Martin couldn't get more soaked if he dove into a lake. Now that Danny can see Martin's face, it doesn't look good. He looks bloodless, though whether from chill or this delayed-shock, Danny can't be sure. "He's going to be more careful running out into traffic, and you're going to be more careful on the road." It's inevitable, almost as inevitable as the mocking Martin's liable to endure for his 'cautious' driving. At least until word gets out that whoever does mock Martin is in for a beating, because Danny's more than willing to deliver one. Something like this could bring down any one of them. Martin's just a little more vulnerable than most.
There's another long silence as Martin seems to soak up this information.
"Let's get you home, okay?" At the very least, somewhere warm and dry, before hypothermia becomes an issue.
"And everything just goes back to normal."
"God, I hope not." Danny shakes his head. "With you, normal means winding up in the hospital. Anyone else's kid and you'd be fired simply due to the strain you put on the health-insurance premiums." The only person who ends up getting hurt more is Jack; Lisa Harris even muttered once about getting DNA testing done just to see whose child Martin really is. "Not normal, Martin. You know that. But it does go on. And it can get better."
Martin just keeps staring at the headstone and it's impossible to say if the water on his face is rain or tears. "Have you ever killed anybody? Not on purpose… but it just happen?"
Danny's first instinct is to argue that Martin didn't kill the kid, didn't even hurt him, but stops himself. Sam was right, that night in the car. Danny does know where Martin is headed. He wonders if he would have navigated the road better if he'd been blessed with a guide. "Yes." He's not ready to give details right now. Not to Martin, someone he's going to have to see every day, God willing.
Martin doesn't ask for details either. "And it gets better."
"With time. It hurts less." Maybe one day he'll even be able to talk about it, when it's not the only thing he can think of, to save a life.
Martin nods, slowly. "Just one day at a time."
"That's all you can do, Brother." He and Martin trade that label back and forth, and he wonders if Martin realises how close it really is.
"Yeah, well this day is total crap."
"I know. But let's get you warmed up, okay? Before Dr. Harris thinks I let you die of exposure and starts trying to get me into her office."
Martin sighs and moves as though to stand up, before sinking down again. Between cold and lack of movement, it's clear his muscles have locked in place.
"Right." Danny straightens up and helps lift Martin to his feet. "You forgot you aren't eighteen again, didn't you? That you can't keep abusing your body like this and expect it to forgive you."
"It will." He has to lean heavily on Danny though, proving that the future is definitely the right tense for his statement. "I hope."
"Good answer." The saying might go that where there's life there's hope, but Danny isn't so sure they haven't got it backwards. Where there's hope, there's life, after all. And it does go on.
Title: "Displacement"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #64 - Fall
Word Count: 4,100 (approx)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Clare de Lune" (1.16) "A Tree Falls" (2.07) "Shadows" (2.20) (character) "Off The Tracks" (3.21) "The Little Things" (4.16) "All The Sinners, Saints" (5.07) "Eating Away" (5.13)
Credits: Thank you thekatebeyond and jennukes for betaing this.
Author's Notes::
Displacement
Displacement: 1 a : the act or process of removing something from its usual or proper place or the state resulting from this -- "Displacement." Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 12 Jan. 2007. www.Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Displacement
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He only half pays attention to the voice on the phone, which is okay, because he's not even half paying attention to the television channels flicking past, one every second. He's lying, of course; fine is not the word for this. He's got that sinking boredom that comes before tedium, that comes before… what? Before life out there becomes no more interesting than life in here, and he doesn't do much more than basically show up. He saw this coming - you'd have to be blind not to see it coming - but he tried to fool himself that this time things were different, that this time… "Sure, no problem, man. Yeah, later." He doesn't even bother to hang up, just lets the phone drop to the floor. After all, no sense kidding himself. No one else is going to try to call. Danny has finally managed to snag Elena, which means he doesn't need some misfit friend hanging around, screwing up his evening with something as insignificant as court-time.
It happens every time. Friends move away or get married and you never see them again, except for those awkward times when you know they're wishing you didn't accept the invitation, that they only invited you because they didn't want to hurt your feelings but were praying you'd be busy. He's seen it too much. Hell, by now, he ought to be used to it.
The phone starts playing the annoying buzz of a disconnected line, but somehow it's a better soundtrack to the evening than anything on T.V. He can't be bothered to move to pick it up. That would be… that would be work. That would take effort. He had been motivated for a good, solid game of basketball, but since that's not happening, what's the point of anything else?
"Hey."
"Hey." He doesn't bother to look up. It's a bad sign, another step in the progression, but Tetris has his attention. It's a good game in that it shuts down his brain completely, so he can't think, can't free-associate.
"You feeling okay?" Sam sounds almost concerned, but then again she's good at that. Oh, she says she doesn't mind not knowing things, and that may be true, but she doesn't like to think people are keeping the good dirt from her.
"Fine."
"Because that sandwich has been sitting there for three hours and you haven't touched it."
"Go ahead." He manoeuvres another block into place and watches a line disappear.
"Excuse me?"
"If you want it, go ahead. I'm not hungry."
"What?" He can see the ghost of her reflection in the screen. She doesn't look happy.
"The sandwich. I'm assuming you're asking because…"
She stares for a moment at the game and its falling blocks, then reaches past him and presses the button on the monitor, turning it from multicoloured to black.
He resists the urge to swear. He was working his way up to a good score, there.
"No, I do not want to eat your sandwich. I am wondering why you haven't eaten your sandwich."
"Because I don't want to eat my sandwich." Anymore than he wanted to eat his breakfast, so he didn't have that, either. Barely ate half of a microwave dinner last night, too. Food is… well, he'd say sawdust, but people don't hassle you for not eating that.
"No, you'd rather play games. I thought you told Jack you were going to catch up on some reports."
"I did." He gestures to a pile of documents stacked neatly on the desk. That's the other problem. It's been a slow week, and there's no deadline to distract him, no ticking clock of a hot case, so he's taken a page from his days in White Collar and finished his paperwork backlog without bothering to hand it in, yet. It's a long walk to Jack's door, so he might as well take it at a point in the day when he's doing something else strenuous, like heading for the elevator to go home.
"You're not going to take them to him?"
"I'll tell you what. Since you're so concerned about Jack having enough to do, and/or playing his little disciplinarian footsoldier, you take them over there, and I will get back to what I was doing." Maybe it's a little too snappy, but she's the one who started sticking her perfect little nose in where it wasn't invited.
"Fine!" She manages to make it sound like both a response and an indictment of his earlier statement, picking the folders up with a jerk. "And maybe he'd be interested to know what you're spending Bureau time at."
"I doubt he really gives a shit." Martin turns the screen back on and starts a new game.
She makes that little offended noise that she's so good at, before turning on her heel and hustling away. It's probably his language that got her. She likes to pretend she's an oh-so-tough chick-with-a-gun, but when it comes down to it, she's the next-generation version of his mother. He's kind of glad he figured that one out sooner, rather than later, really. But Jack… Martin really does doubt that Jack cares one iota. It's not a personal intrusion into his life, so he can't be bothered. Lately, it's been rather clear that it was a good move on Jack's part not to go into clinical practice. He can't even fake compassion for problems he's not caught up in.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He glares at Viv, daring her to disbelieve him.
"You nearly took that guy's head off for walking into you, when you walked into him. Even for you, that's abnormal."
"Even for me. Thank you so much for making me sound like a rageaholic."
"Martin," she lowers her voice so people can't overhear. "I watched you shoot someone in a fit of rage. Do not tell me you don't have anger issues."
"Fine." He shrugs. "Believe what you want to."
"I know what I saw. Then and just now."
"Viv." She knows what she thinks she saw. That's the problem. She knows him from work, but just from work. She doesn't know him, really. "Read my lips. I am fine."
"Believe what you want to." She tosses his words back in his face, and he can see that whatever small sympathy she might have still had left aside for him is gone.
They don't say another word to each other, not on the drive back to the office, not for the rest of the day, even to say goodbye.
Jack's relegated him to desk duty, a sign that things finally have penetrated the wall of 'I don't care' he's built around him. He probably couldn't stand the united front that is the office, telling him that Martin Fitzgerald is an asshole. However, unlike the last disciplinary time he spent exiled indoors, this time Martin couldn't care less. Then, he had something to prove. Now…
He senses a figure looming over his shoulder, one that - despite its height - can't really loom to great effect. "Martin."
Jack clearly doesn't care what the prisoner does however, because this time his Tetris has been uninterrupted for the past three days. Now Jack could loom, but he hasn't bothered.
"Martin, what is going on with you?"
He shrugs. He can't even be troubled with denial, anymore.
"I don't think I've ever seen Sam this pissed off, Viv doesn't even want to hear your name, and Jack doesn't think it's safe for you to be out on the street…"
"Jack isn't concerned about 'safe'." Jack just doesn't want to deal with another whiny voice telling him to do his job and manage. He laid down a punishment, therefore he's managing. Now he doesn't have to do anything more, because clearly the ball is in Martin's court, if he wants to get the street-ban lifted.
"Who do you think you're kidding? I haven't seen you like this since you got out of the hospital." Danny leans against the desk so he can have a better view of Martin's multi-colour bathed face. He drops his volume to just above a stage-whisper. "Are you using again?"
"No. I am not using again." Martin takes care to enunciate each word carefully, to ensure he's not misunderstood. "Would you care to check on that?" He proffers his left arm, his right still occupied with the keyboard.
"Then what is going on with you? Because honestly? You look like shit."
"Thank you for the update. I'll be sure to have the glaziers in to fix my mirror."
"Have you even looked in the mirror, lately?"
"Yes." It is after all, how one does one's shaving. Even a slob like Danny ought to know that.
Danny pauses. "You want to try and get in a game, tonight?"
"No." For one thing, he really doesn't feel like it. For another, there's no sense in deluding himself into thinking he's not a born loner, destined to a life of boring cable T.V., mindless computer games and meaningless short-lived encounters with the opposite sex, with the only change-up being his twice-weekly AA meetings.
Danny stays a while longer, perhaps waiting for an explanation, then gives up and walks away.
He finds the sticky note taped to his screen. He has an appointment to see Lisa. They're so subtle around here, and he means that in the most sarcastic way, possible. And not would he please make an appointment to see Lisa, or his continued career requires an appointment to see Lisa, but rather someone has made the appointment for him. He crumples the note into a ball and picks up the phone.
"There is nothing wrong." He answers the question before she can ask, deflecting too, the questions about missed previous engagements. "Can I go, now?"
"No."
He shrugs and stays seated, saying nothing more.
"Katie Duncan."
"She was a case."
"She was more than just a case. You knew her."
"Not really. I didn't have the slightest clue who she was."
"There was still a connection between the two of you. She wasn't a perfect stranger."
"On paper." In reality, he still doesn't have a clue.
"You've lost weight." Maybe she thinks a non-sequitur will throw him off balance.
He shrugs. "Maybe."
"No maybe. You're not eating, you're irritable…"
He can sense where this is leading. "I'm clean. Test me if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, but that's not the issue, here. I don't believe this is the result of narcotics."
"Then why am I here?"
"Decreased appetite," she starts using her fingers to tick things off. "Loss of weight. Irritability, rage, decreased interest in activities you once enjoyed, lack of energy, lack of motivation."
"Lack of patience." He gets ready to stand up and leave.
"Lack of patience," she agrees. "Have you been reading psychiatric diagnostic manuals?"
"Excuse me?" And they want to accuse him of going off the deep end.
"Because you've got a letter-perfect list of symptoms for a major depressive episode. Call it my inborn curiosity, but I'd like to know why."
"I don't know, and I don't care."
"Apathy." She ticks off another addition to her list. "I'd say ignorance, but I don't think we can get much distance out of that one, can we?"
"I don't know, it seems like I'm still the last one that knows what's going on, around here. Lessee, you've already talked to Jack, Viv, Danny, Samantha… I suppose it was only a matter of time before you got around to me."
"Martin, you need…"
"No. What I don't need is people like you in my face telling me what I need. Now, unless I'm mistaken, my time is up." Whether the clock has ticked far enough or it hasn't isn't the issue. He's had enough of this bullshit. Nobody around here gives a crap, they're just looking for a good, solid reason to get rid of him. It has to be good, to get around Daddy-dearest. A failed psych-eval would probably do the trick. Well, to paraphrase Nixon, they can find someone else to kick around, because it sure as hell isn't going to be him.
If this were a movie, he'd peg the rain as a cliché, but if this were a movie, Danny wouldn't be this scared. In a movie, everything would be okay. In a movie it wouldn't matter how things went down, because it would just be a damn movie, and the tragic ending would only be in a sob-inducing chick-flick anyway.
He watches for a while, unable to make himself move, trying to convince himself that it is okay, that the figure sitting graveside, drenched and unmoving, is fine. That even Martin would risk slouching in death.
Finally, he risks a step, foot sinking into the oversaturated ground, pushing the water elsewhere - up and around his shoe and through the seams to soak his skin. They call Aristotle a genius for noting the phenomenon, but Danny really couldn't care less. He can't remember ever being this scared - not while in the back of the car, soaked in blood and waiting for help to arrive too late, not while watching a trembling, sobbing Clare Metcalf wave her knife and demand he go away, not even while Martin aimed his gun straight at Danny's centre-mass, sheer horror the only thing staying his finger on the trigger. No, maybe once: seeing Raffi slumped against the side of a car, and not daring to hope either way. But then… then he had Martin to rely on. Now…
He stops within a couple of feet, close enough to stop anything from happening, but far enough away not to be an obvious intrusion and not to give Martin the sense that there is any kind of rush to pick up the broken pieces of his mind and try pretending he can function again. Danny finds himself half-wishing that the problem was simply a matter of Martin falling off the wagon, and he could just kick the guy's ass until he climbed back on. This is territory probably best navigated by Jack or Lisa, but it's hard to say what Martin's reaction would be to 'Big Brother' and 'The Brainwasher', as Martin labelled them respectively, last week. That's why he's here, instead, being both non-threatening enough to coax Martin home of his own accord, and strong enough to drag him if necessary.
He's close enough to read the name on the headstone, though. Bonnie Toland. Below it are more words: Loving Mother and Wife. It says nothing there about Aunt, then again from what Sam says, Martin identified with her well enough to fit the first category. He's close enough, too, to hear the sound of Martin's breathing, harsh and uneven, full of pain.
It's a while before he can make himself take another step, until he's within reach, and lets his hand fall to Martin's shoulder. Martin's a little strange when it comes to human contact. Sometimes he's like any normal person of Danny's experience, and other times his need for personal space is huge. Danny grew up in a household where a hug was as common as a hit - you could go through a day getting plenty of both - but he sometimes wonders if Martin experienced either. Sometimes it's almost as though Martin was a recovering addict before Danny even met him, trying to kick the habit of the common human touch.
"I nearly killed him." Martin's words arrive on a voice beaten down into near nothingness and torn apart into wisps.
Who? Danny doesn't dare ask, doesn't say a thing. He doesn't want to break this spell, doesn't want to risk activating those defensive shields Martin has been hiding under.
"I wasn't paying attention… I was going too fast… I shouldn't have been on the phone… I didn't see…"
"Martin…"
"He was six, maybe seven. I didn't see…"
"Yeah, uh-huh… right, I'll be there." He hung up the phone with a practiced movement, flipping it shut and sliding it into the holster on his hip. How he'd lived so long without murdering his sister was…
A flash of colour caught his eye, something darting out from between parked cars. He slammed on the breaks, hearing the tires scream as they left pieces of themselves plastered to the asphalt. No bump, no thud, but that meant nothing. Something so small, he might not actually feel it.
Oh my God. He could feel his heart, though, pounding hard enough to break against his ribs. What had he just done? How… A tiny, overwhelmed voice told him to get out, to check, but he couldn't make his hands move from the wheel to put the car into park or turn off the engine and make it safe, couldn't get his leg to stop pressing the brake-pedal hard enough that it ought to go through the floor, couldn't even get his eyes to close for even a blink.
He heard screaming, crying, and someone hammering on his window. He turned an ashen face to look into rage-filled, panic-stricken eyes of a young mother, demanding answers as to who the hell he thought he was, and how could he not see, and what kind of person was he? Good questions, he realised later, but not now when his brain had no function whatsoever. It barely even registered the child clinging to her, looking unharmed at first glance, though God only knew what a second would show. The boy should see a doctor, or go to the hospital, but he had no idea how to suggest such a thing. Or police… he was vaguely aware that someone should take over, that somehow it was not a situation for him and her to work out between them, but his jaw was as frozen as anything else.
It seemed like hours before it was all said and done, before calmer, better minds sorted out non-damages and determined that the incident was - rationally, pragmatically - not a situation at all. No harm, those minds determined, no foul. The boy was shaken, but unbruised. They said the same thing about him, but actions spoke louder as someone else delivered him to his destination 'for safety's sake'. In an unspoken conspiracy of law-enforcement, it had somehow been decided that it was just a close-call, not even worth the hassle of paperwork. A few words on a piece of paper, at most. After all, it was the child's fault for racing out unexpectedly, or the mother's for not keeping a closer eye. A lesson learned for both of them, and at far lower cost than might have been extracted.
Yes, the conspirators agreed, that sounded much better for all.
"But you didn't." Danny knows the truth means nothing, here, however. It doesn't take someone who knows Martin well to realise that Martin has had only one dream his entire life, and despite what he says, F.B.I. Agent isn't it. Suffer the little children. It's probably the sole thing Martin still carries with him, after his fall from Church and faith. Children are special, reverenced and sacred. If there's one place Martin still sees God, it's in the face of a little child. Danny still wonders if Samantha hadn't cornered Martin and harassed him into asking for help, if Martin would have eventually succumbed to his guilt over the risk he'd forced upon Ethan Heller. There's been more than one time since that he's thanked God for making her more stubborn than either of them. At least she realised that 'hitting bottom' for Martin would have put him six-feet underneath it. How hypocritical of him to accuse Martin of avoidance when he'd done everything to not face that obvious truth. "You reacted in time. Someone else might not have."
"I should have been going slower, paying more attention. It was a playground. If I hadn't been so distracted, I would have seen the sign…"
"And if you hadn't been paying attention, you wouldn't have seen the kid. Martin, kids do that. I did that." It's one time he's willing to credit Raffi for saving his life, catching him before he could make that might-be-fatal dash.
"I nearly killed him." The tenor of the repetition is different, less self-flagellation and more emerging pain. There's no guilt, no remonstration, just a simple statement of fact.
Danny says nothing. He knows the job of confessor is to offer an appropriate penance, but he can't think of anything greater than what Martin has already suffered. Guilt and pain heavy enough to send waves of it crashing from one incident and washing through the rest of his life, until everything became tainted with displaced hurt. He knows, too, that Martin's view of Confession is a cop's view, not a Catholic's one. Confession is an admission of guilt, so punishment can be meted out. Martin's never seemed to understand the concept of forgiveness, let alone absolution. In this, his viewpoint is much more Calvinist, and he's never counted himself as one of the redeemed.
"What if next time, it isn't just close?" Martin twines his fingers through the wet grass, as though he's talking to his aunt, and the contact will bring him the answer. "What if next time…"
"What if this time is so there won't be a next time?" Danny crouches down to be more on level with Martin, but still not ready to sink cross-legged beside him to end up being more soaked than he already is. Martin couldn't get more soaked if he dove into a lake. Now that Danny can see Martin's face, it doesn't look good. He looks bloodless, though whether from chill or this delayed-shock, Danny can't be sure. "He's going to be more careful running out into traffic, and you're going to be more careful on the road." It's inevitable, almost as inevitable as the mocking Martin's liable to endure for his 'cautious' driving. At least until word gets out that whoever does mock Martin is in for a beating, because Danny's more than willing to deliver one. Something like this could bring down any one of them. Martin's just a little more vulnerable than most.
There's another long silence as Martin seems to soak up this information.
"Let's get you home, okay?" At the very least, somewhere warm and dry, before hypothermia becomes an issue.
"And everything just goes back to normal."
"God, I hope not." Danny shakes his head. "With you, normal means winding up in the hospital. Anyone else's kid and you'd be fired simply due to the strain you put on the health-insurance premiums." The only person who ends up getting hurt more is Jack; Lisa Harris even muttered once about getting DNA testing done just to see whose child Martin really is. "Not normal, Martin. You know that. But it does go on. And it can get better."
Martin just keeps staring at the headstone and it's impossible to say if the water on his face is rain or tears. "Have you ever killed anybody? Not on purpose… but it just happen?"
Danny's first instinct is to argue that Martin didn't kill the kid, didn't even hurt him, but stops himself. Sam was right, that night in the car. Danny does know where Martin is headed. He wonders if he would have navigated the road better if he'd been blessed with a guide. "Yes." He's not ready to give details right now. Not to Martin, someone he's going to have to see every day, God willing.
Martin doesn't ask for details either. "And it gets better."
"With time. It hurts less." Maybe one day he'll even be able to talk about it, when it's not the only thing he can think of, to save a life.
Martin nods, slowly. "Just one day at a time."
"That's all you can do, Brother." He and Martin trade that label back and forth, and he wonders if Martin realises how close it really is.
"Yeah, well this day is total crap."
"I know. But let's get you warmed up, okay? Before Dr. Harris thinks I let you die of exposure and starts trying to get me into her office."
Martin sighs and moves as though to stand up, before sinking down again. Between cold and lack of movement, it's clear his muscles have locked in place.
"Right." Danny straightens up and helps lift Martin to his feet. "You forgot you aren't eighteen again, didn't you? That you can't keep abusing your body like this and expect it to forgive you."
"It will." He has to lean heavily on Danny though, proving that the future is definitely the right tense for his statement. "I hope."
"Good answer." The saying might go that where there's life there's hope, but Danny isn't so sure they haven't got it backwards. Where there's hope, there's life, after all. And it does go on.