#36 -- Smell
Disclaimer: I own neither Without A Trace,Carol O'Connell's "Mallory" series nor the characters involved. They belong to Warner Brothers Television, and the author, respectively. I make no money from these works, they are for entertainment purposes only.
Title: "Balance"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #36 Smell
Word Count: 3,500 (approx)
Rating: R (language)
Spoilers: Season 7
Credits: Thank you jennukes for the beta.
Author's Notes:: This, too, took me forever to write. It wasn't even originally a Mallory tale, but she broke in and took it over. Even then, it didn't want to come.
Balance
"Because I'm tired, frustrated and I have a headache. Is that good enough for you?" He knows he shouldn't act like this, but there are some days… Ed wants to know why he's flaking out and missing a meeting. That's why.
"That's why you need to be here, kid."
"Don't call me kid." No, he doesn't need to be there; he needs something to take away this stabbing pain behind his eye, which is only going to get worse if he's exposed to cigarette smoke. Mere smoke he might even be able to handle, but you can see the tar stains on the walls of the meeting room and you can smell the sickening odour of millions of long-ago-consumed cigarettes all the way down the hall. "I don't need your help." He chews on his thumbnail, wishing the days of lousy telephone service still existed. Unfortunately, now, if you hang up on someone it's a pretty safe bet they won't buy the 'accidentally disconnected' excuse.
"Come on, kid, you know better than that."
"Hmmm… yeah. And I'm going to be less inclined to crave painkillers when I put myself in more pain. Is it just me, or is there a major logic flaw, here?" He shifts into a more comfortable position on the couch and pulls the blanket that normally lies over the back of it on top of him. He wasn't lying, he is tired, and this is as good a place to sack out as any.
"You know…"
"I'm hanging up now." He turns the phone around so it's facing him, meaning he can't hear Ed's voice coming from the tiny speaker. "Goodbye." He hits the disconnect and switches off the ringer before setting the handset down on the coffee table. He settles in on his side and pulls the blanket over his head. Leave me alone. Maybe this time he'll get lucky. Maybe this time…
He's not sure what wakes him, but he knows instantly that something's wrong. He can smell it, literally, an unfamiliar scent that is definitely not fabric softener. For one thing, he uses the unscented stuff. For another, they'll never make a fabric softener in that scent until they can find a market for people willing to pay a hundred dollars per load of laundry. Because now that he's coming awake, he realises that it's a seriously expensive perfume.
Oh, hell. He thought he had a doorman. He thought he had locks on the doors. But since it's not a scent that was in here when he went to sleep, it means someone else has shown up in the meantime.
Cautiously, he emerges from the blanket, praying that this won't turn ugly. Because he's still tired, he still has a headache and he still…
Green eyes stare down at him, impassively, framed by gold curls that could only come from nature, because science could never get anything that perfect. It is, he realises, worse than he thought. Mere doormen and locks wouldn't stop this person. They barely even slowed her down. "Detective Mallory. What the hell are you doing in my apartment?"
Mallory ignored the rude greeting, moving aside the phone and a stack of books on the coffee table, before sitting down. She was here because she needed him. Even someone as prone to head injury as Fitzgerald ought to be able to figure that out. "I need you to find someone."
"Hmm… here's an idea: you're a cop, do it yourself." The comeback required some level of bravery on Fitzgerald's part - not many people spoke to her that way and came out unscathed. "After all, you keep telling us how much better NYPD - and Special Crimes in particular - is than the FBI, so you ought to have no problems." He pulled the blanket back over his head in a childish gesture to indicate that the conversation was over. She gave him credit: he didn't waste time telling her to leave or ranting about her breaking the law by breaking in. He must have known she didn't care about his opinions on either.
She got up and went to the kitchen, locating both coffee and coffee-maker, putting it to work.
"Don't break anything." The muttered comment from the other room must have been Fitzgerald's attempt at trying to convince her that he didn't care that she was there, invading his space without permission. Either that, or his attempt at humour. No, she decided, not humour. Despite his taste for the dark variety, Fitzgerald wasn't in a laughing mood.
But if he was as advertised, he also wouldn't be immune to the aroma of fresh coffee. Word was the man lived on the stuff. There was no consensus on when the addiction started, but three years living in Seattle hadn't helped things. She poured a cup and walked back to the living room, moving a book on model trains out of the way before sitting back down on the coffee table. Obviously Fitzgerald was trying to send a message, because it hadn't been there when she went to the kitchen; she recognised it as the top volume from the stack she'd moved earlier.
"Get up."
"Over your dead body." The comment was slightly muffled by the fabric still covering Fitzgerald's head.
She waited, knowing that it was probably an empty threat, and that even if it wasn't, Fitzgerald would have a hard time following through on it. According to the rumour mill, even after all this time, he still wasn't back to a hundred percent. He wasn't, gossip opined, quite the man he used to be. At the same time, she gave him credit for being one of the few men who possibly would deck her, his hard learned chivalry not stretching far enough to count her as a member of the weaker sex.
"Martin…"
"Yes, Kathleen?" Now he flirted with suicide. He couldn't be so poorly informed as to not realise that no one called her by her first name.
"Mallory."
"Then don't call me Martin. I reserve that for friends. Enjoy the coffee, help yourself to a book, and please lock up when you leave." He turned over on the couch, exposing his back to her in another highly risky move.
"Clark Medina."
The name caused him to turn back, raising up slightly on one arm, fixing her with a glare. "No." If people thought her eyes were stone, then Fitzgerald's were the icy waters of the North Atlantic, capable of inflicting hypothermia in seconds. Those who looked at his too-pretty, almost innocent face often wondered how he could get any kind of results in an interrogation, but those eyes held the answer. No mortal could look into that gaze and not feel a chill in the pit of their stomach. Mallory felt nothing but satisfaction. It was true, then. Fitzgerald did have some dirty secrets. "Now, get out."
Mallory shrugged. "How much credit do you think you'll still have, when people find out you were willing to betray your boss?"
He said nothing, just continued to stare. I don't really give a crap, those eyes told her. It wasn't the answer she wanted. She was good at this game, however. As a child, she would stare down Markowitz who was a master of the game of stares. Not, perhaps, as good as Fitzgerald, whom whisper said could communicate more without words than anything in his vast vocabulary could express, but she'd gotten better.
Not quite good enough, however, as a new silent message caused her to flinch, just slightly. She wasn't used to people invading her thoughts, even if they got things wrong. Charles did it on occasion, but he had more faith in the soft, human parts of her soul. Riker, too, but he mostly saw either Kathy, the little girl he helped Markowitz chase down and then guard the populace from, or the grown-up sociopath he had for a partner. Fitzgerald had no stories of young Kathy, and no loyalty to a colleague, was neither a genius with a PhD nor a long-time watcher, but somehow he seemed to find something closer to the truth, sympathising with her hurts, respecting her rules, but not trusting her to play nice. This look, however, said he didn't want to play at all. It said she couldn't care less about him, that if she could use someone else for her scavenger hunt, she would. It accused her of wasting his time. And while it was true that there was no one else for her to turn to, she did not classify him among the legions upon which she would spare no thought. Indeed, he was that rare breed of FBI agent she did not wish to shoot on sight; if Jack Malone had not caught up with Emil Dornvald first, Mallory would have completed the job with less hesitation.
No, he fascinated her in a way, because they were so much alike but he attained so much that she could not. Fitzgerald made friends easily - cops tolerated her because she was Markowitz's daughter, but it seemed people respected Martin in spite of him being Victor's son. He was, in so many ways, as misfit as herself, but people's loyalties were to him, not to the memory of someone lost. Unlike many who feared her, Fitzgerald seemed to encourage her attacks, reminding her a little of Markowitz when he did so. The old man had always been more afraid for her than afraid of her, and the last thing she'd call Fitzgerald was 'cowed'.
Yet, here he was, playing a child's game, ducking under a blanket so the bogeyman couldn't find him. The man who'd gone from near-death to on-the-street in record time was now leaving work as soon as possible and calling in sick. She knew his colleagues were worried he'd abandoned his recovery, but Mallory didn't see any indication of that. Her own partner was an unrepentant drunk now, but she'd seen his attempts and failures at sobriety over the years and Fitzgerald showed no sign of having returned to his chemical cocoon. No, there was too much pain here for that.
It surprised her that no one watched over him, and it only reinforced her view that the FBI was staffed largely by idiots. It was a rule, not just Markowitz's but one understood by any semi-respectable law-enforcer: you did not abandon a colleague in distress. Everyone kept an eye on everybody else, and when the burnout came, the eye grew even more all-seeing. She was an outsider, but were it not for her intrusion, Fitzgerald would have nobody. No, narcotics were not the compulsion he'd given in to. This was a much older instinct. The habitual runaway had bolted to the one safe place he knew still remained: he hadn't left his apartment once in three days. How much longer before those walls became his entire world?
He gives up the stare only when she does, praying that for once rumour is correct and that she doesn't have the ability to empathise. God forbid she actually divine what he's thinking. Her threat means nothing, because he's not sure he even wants currency in that economy anymore. He used to believe in Justice, and in getting the job done, but now he's not so sure it's any realer than the rituals he abandoned before Confirmation.
He used to know where his loyalties lay, but now he finds them scattered and confused. There are just so many consequences now. It was easier when this was just another posting, but now that he's settled in, it's different. Now, it's not just office politics, it's personal. They aren't just colleagues anymore, but does he have any friends left? Three days and his only contact was with an NA sponsor checking to make sure he wasn't dead, and Mallory, who is here because she needs someone off the books for her little scheme. He didn't even bother calling in sick, today, and no one bothered calling him to see if it was true. He wonders if he's delusional… didn't he work for Missing Persons? Don't they know that a no-show is a clue? Shouldn't they at least check to make sure he's still breathing, or at the very least, to have something to put on the paperwork? Not even the witch-doctor has checked in on him. He knows the truth. He's been written off.
It used to be so easy. Back in Seattle, he showed up, did some work, goofed around when he had to and then went home. He didn't owe anything to anybody. It's not like that now. Who is he supposed to side with? What happens if he chooses wrong? The questions haunt him while he's awake and he's been staying awake because of what happens when he goes to sleep. His hands might be clean, but his conscience isn't.
Oh, they'd tell him that there isn't really a choice to make, and that people higher than him made all the decisions, so how could a guy like Martin argue? Especially if he's right about who the 'higher' is. And maybe they're right, but it doesn't stop the years and years of brushed-aside guilt over a million other transgressions from burying him every time he closes his eyes. After all, did Mallory wake him, or the nightmare? Which one is worse?
"Get out." He repeats his last statement, just in case she might be hard of hearing. A tiny part of him protests - it doesn't want to be left alone. It's a minority party, however, because the rest of him definitively wants to be left alone. He needs time to think, to work out where he's going to go from here. He needs to stop stalling and make a decision. It would be easier if someone would give him a clue what was the right one. There's the easy route of a transfer out and he can just run away and pretend none of this ever happened, but there's the sticky little issue of his all-too-wrong reputation. True, he's been here more than triple the time he spent in Seattle, but people will talk. At times like this he wishes he was still in Seattle, back where it was easier and he didn't care if people didn't like him.
She blinks slowly at him, her expression reminding him of a cat trying to decide how quickly to kill the small, wounded, shivering bird in front of it. Slowly she stands up and gently lifts the blanket from his shoulders. She folds it and lays it on the armrest by his feet; if he wants to pull it back over himself, he'll need to sit up to do it, defeating the purpose of sulking beneath it. It's maddening: just because he's acting childish doesn't mean she has to treat him like a child. In response, he turns over so he's facing the back of the couch again.
She doesn't sigh like anyone else would, getting fed up with his games. She just waits patiently and silently for him to give in. He won't, though. Giving in, compromise… it doesn't matter how long he makes her wait. Call it twenty minutes. It's a good number. Plenty of time for someone to die. It's a long time to sit in silence. Most people can't handle even ten seconds of the stuff. He can. He spent years where he never ventured much further than the confines of his own imagination.
The problem is that Mallory can do it, too. She's no more human than he is, when it comes to waiting games. It doesn't help that he knows there's a cup of coffee growing cold over there. Still, he tells himself, if he could kick painkillers, he can ignore that little fact.
Except that opiates aren't nearly as tempting as that organic stimulant he knows as the elixir of life. And it's not like he's going to win. He counts off the seconds, failing to hypnotise himself into ignoring her completely. Finally, he sighs and rolls over. At least she's not smug and lording it over him. She just hands him the coffee and waits for him to sit up and drink it. He doesn't look at her, preferring instead to study a spot on the far wall. He hates himself for this. Why does he always have to give in? Whatever happened to the kid who'd rather die than live by someone else's rules?
He grew up and got comfortable, is what happened. Made the mistake of thinking he could play the game and not get caught up in it. Where he used to have to tell people to kiss his ass, they're lining up to beg for the opportunity. Look at Olczyck. Used to be Jack's best friend and now he's practically handing out anatomical drawings showing where to put the knife. All that 'own man' bullshit. What the fuck. If Olczyck or any of the others really believed that, they'd leave him the hell alone to look after himself.
He envies Mallory. People don't fawn over her because she's Markowitz's kid. They tolerate her for that, but they respect her because she's goddamn dangerous. They give her credit for being more than just an extension of her old man. Even if he killed someone, he'd never be granted that. They'd just cover it up, and then pat him on the head and pretend it never happened. Hell, they already did. Everybody wants to know why he's so loyal to Jack? It's because Jack is the only person who ever had the balls to tell him he's a fuck-up and treat him accordingly. Even Danny, 'Mr. Principles' himself, didn't do that. No, he didn't want to do anything, despite a goddamn twelfth step that practically demands it. "So, where do we start?"
She hands him a file. "Bobby Clarke. He was witness to a cop-related shooting. Now he's gone."
"Not you, was it? He catch you dealing with an uncooperative suspect?" It's a nasty thing to say, but with Mallory, necessary. He has no doubts she could kill someone in cold blood if she felt she had a reason.
"No." She doesn't correct his assumption that the shooting was somehow less than justified. That would explain why she doesn't want the investigation to go on NYPD books. She knows better than to trust the system with something like this. He wouldn't either. At the same time, he believes her when she says it wasn't her case. True, she's a liar, thief and killer, but she's also a control freak. She'd never farm out her dirty work to someone else. Not like he did, willing to give her anything she needed to destroy Medina at a press conference. It doesn't matter that she never got the chance, his intent was still there.
He sighs, nodding. "I can probably bury this. Work it on lunches." Everybody has a case or two like that, ones that aren't top priority but get attention in those few spare moments. It wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. And he owes her. Not for her potential use as a weapon against his enemies, but for being one of the few people who gives even a bit of a damn. Funny how the woman everybody has labelled as a 'sociopath' spends so much time caring for the misfits and the lost. She wouldn't even pretend to care if he had half the power people pretend he does.
No, Mallory is damaged, but she still has morals. She protects the people who need protecting, more so than most 'compassionate' people do. She might shoot someone for sport, but she'd never harm an innocent child. Realistically, he's okay with that. Nor does she kiss his ass, and as he's discovered, that species is becoming rare indeed.
She shakes her head. "Now." It's not a request, it's an order.
"It's…" he checks his watch. "Seven-o'clock. At night." Just in case she needs the clarification. He's not driving all the way down there at this time of night.
She stares at him. He's only met one other person who could stare like that, but Alison's outgrown it now. Come to think of it, he could never resist her, either. Not even bothering to sigh, he stands up and heads to the closet to get his coat. She follows him all the way down and then out to his car, and unless he's really lost his talent to spot a tail, makes sure he heads into the office. If it weren't for security, she'd probably follow him all the way up. Knowing she's there makes it easier to keep going. He'd rather die than break a promise to Mallory. It'd be a hell of a lot easier.
She watched him walk into the building before turning away. It didn't matter if he found the kid or not. He was right about one thing; she did believe Special Crimes was better than the FBI. He had, however, done her a favour with the dirt on Medina, and Mallory did not like the books to be unbalanced.
She imagined Charles would call it something like evidence of a soul, while Riker would cynically counter that Fitzgerald was simply no use to her dead.
Both were wrong. She didn't believe in a soul any more than she believed in redemption, or even the concept of right and wrong.
But there were rules. Helen taught her the value of looking after her things. That was why she kept Riker from drowning himself in booze, or deluded Charles into believing there were soft, human parts of her. They were her people, and Fitzgerald had made himself one of those number the first time he refused to back down. By most measurements, he was nearly a stranger, but seemed to know her better than those who'd tended her most of her life.
For the time being, she'd keep him.
Title: "Balance"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #36 Smell
Word Count: 3,500 (approx)
Rating: R (language)
Spoilers: Season 7
Credits: Thank you jennukes for the beta.
Author's Notes:: This, too, took me forever to write. It wasn't even originally a Mallory tale, but she broke in and took it over. Even then, it didn't want to come.
Balance
"Because I'm tired, frustrated and I have a headache. Is that good enough for you?" He knows he shouldn't act like this, but there are some days… Ed wants to know why he's flaking out and missing a meeting. That's why.
"That's why you need to be here, kid."
"Don't call me kid." No, he doesn't need to be there; he needs something to take away this stabbing pain behind his eye, which is only going to get worse if he's exposed to cigarette smoke. Mere smoke he might even be able to handle, but you can see the tar stains on the walls of the meeting room and you can smell the sickening odour of millions of long-ago-consumed cigarettes all the way down the hall. "I don't need your help." He chews on his thumbnail, wishing the days of lousy telephone service still existed. Unfortunately, now, if you hang up on someone it's a pretty safe bet they won't buy the 'accidentally disconnected' excuse.
"Come on, kid, you know better than that."
"Hmmm… yeah. And I'm going to be less inclined to crave painkillers when I put myself in more pain. Is it just me, or is there a major logic flaw, here?" He shifts into a more comfortable position on the couch and pulls the blanket that normally lies over the back of it on top of him. He wasn't lying, he is tired, and this is as good a place to sack out as any.
"You know…"
"I'm hanging up now." He turns the phone around so it's facing him, meaning he can't hear Ed's voice coming from the tiny speaker. "Goodbye." He hits the disconnect and switches off the ringer before setting the handset down on the coffee table. He settles in on his side and pulls the blanket over his head. Leave me alone. Maybe this time he'll get lucky. Maybe this time…
He's not sure what wakes him, but he knows instantly that something's wrong. He can smell it, literally, an unfamiliar scent that is definitely not fabric softener. For one thing, he uses the unscented stuff. For another, they'll never make a fabric softener in that scent until they can find a market for people willing to pay a hundred dollars per load of laundry. Because now that he's coming awake, he realises that it's a seriously expensive perfume.
Oh, hell. He thought he had a doorman. He thought he had locks on the doors. But since it's not a scent that was in here when he went to sleep, it means someone else has shown up in the meantime.
Cautiously, he emerges from the blanket, praying that this won't turn ugly. Because he's still tired, he still has a headache and he still…
Green eyes stare down at him, impassively, framed by gold curls that could only come from nature, because science could never get anything that perfect. It is, he realises, worse than he thought. Mere doormen and locks wouldn't stop this person. They barely even slowed her down. "Detective Mallory. What the hell are you doing in my apartment?"
Mallory ignored the rude greeting, moving aside the phone and a stack of books on the coffee table, before sitting down. She was here because she needed him. Even someone as prone to head injury as Fitzgerald ought to be able to figure that out. "I need you to find someone."
"Hmm… here's an idea: you're a cop, do it yourself." The comeback required some level of bravery on Fitzgerald's part - not many people spoke to her that way and came out unscathed. "After all, you keep telling us how much better NYPD - and Special Crimes in particular - is than the FBI, so you ought to have no problems." He pulled the blanket back over his head in a childish gesture to indicate that the conversation was over. She gave him credit: he didn't waste time telling her to leave or ranting about her breaking the law by breaking in. He must have known she didn't care about his opinions on either.
She got up and went to the kitchen, locating both coffee and coffee-maker, putting it to work.
"Don't break anything." The muttered comment from the other room must have been Fitzgerald's attempt at trying to convince her that he didn't care that she was there, invading his space without permission. Either that, or his attempt at humour. No, she decided, not humour. Despite his taste for the dark variety, Fitzgerald wasn't in a laughing mood.
But if he was as advertised, he also wouldn't be immune to the aroma of fresh coffee. Word was the man lived on the stuff. There was no consensus on when the addiction started, but three years living in Seattle hadn't helped things. She poured a cup and walked back to the living room, moving a book on model trains out of the way before sitting back down on the coffee table. Obviously Fitzgerald was trying to send a message, because it hadn't been there when she went to the kitchen; she recognised it as the top volume from the stack she'd moved earlier.
"Get up."
"Over your dead body." The comment was slightly muffled by the fabric still covering Fitzgerald's head.
She waited, knowing that it was probably an empty threat, and that even if it wasn't, Fitzgerald would have a hard time following through on it. According to the rumour mill, even after all this time, he still wasn't back to a hundred percent. He wasn't, gossip opined, quite the man he used to be. At the same time, she gave him credit for being one of the few men who possibly would deck her, his hard learned chivalry not stretching far enough to count her as a member of the weaker sex.
"Martin…"
"Yes, Kathleen?" Now he flirted with suicide. He couldn't be so poorly informed as to not realise that no one called her by her first name.
"Mallory."
"Then don't call me Martin. I reserve that for friends. Enjoy the coffee, help yourself to a book, and please lock up when you leave." He turned over on the couch, exposing his back to her in another highly risky move.
"Clark Medina."
The name caused him to turn back, raising up slightly on one arm, fixing her with a glare. "No." If people thought her eyes were stone, then Fitzgerald's were the icy waters of the North Atlantic, capable of inflicting hypothermia in seconds. Those who looked at his too-pretty, almost innocent face often wondered how he could get any kind of results in an interrogation, but those eyes held the answer. No mortal could look into that gaze and not feel a chill in the pit of their stomach. Mallory felt nothing but satisfaction. It was true, then. Fitzgerald did have some dirty secrets. "Now, get out."
Mallory shrugged. "How much credit do you think you'll still have, when people find out you were willing to betray your boss?"
He said nothing, just continued to stare. I don't really give a crap, those eyes told her. It wasn't the answer she wanted. She was good at this game, however. As a child, she would stare down Markowitz who was a master of the game of stares. Not, perhaps, as good as Fitzgerald, whom whisper said could communicate more without words than anything in his vast vocabulary could express, but she'd gotten better.
Not quite good enough, however, as a new silent message caused her to flinch, just slightly. She wasn't used to people invading her thoughts, even if they got things wrong. Charles did it on occasion, but he had more faith in the soft, human parts of her soul. Riker, too, but he mostly saw either Kathy, the little girl he helped Markowitz chase down and then guard the populace from, or the grown-up sociopath he had for a partner. Fitzgerald had no stories of young Kathy, and no loyalty to a colleague, was neither a genius with a PhD nor a long-time watcher, but somehow he seemed to find something closer to the truth, sympathising with her hurts, respecting her rules, but not trusting her to play nice. This look, however, said he didn't want to play at all. It said she couldn't care less about him, that if she could use someone else for her scavenger hunt, she would. It accused her of wasting his time. And while it was true that there was no one else for her to turn to, she did not classify him among the legions upon which she would spare no thought. Indeed, he was that rare breed of FBI agent she did not wish to shoot on sight; if Jack Malone had not caught up with Emil Dornvald first, Mallory would have completed the job with less hesitation.
No, he fascinated her in a way, because they were so much alike but he attained so much that she could not. Fitzgerald made friends easily - cops tolerated her because she was Markowitz's daughter, but it seemed people respected Martin in spite of him being Victor's son. He was, in so many ways, as misfit as herself, but people's loyalties were to him, not to the memory of someone lost. Unlike many who feared her, Fitzgerald seemed to encourage her attacks, reminding her a little of Markowitz when he did so. The old man had always been more afraid for her than afraid of her, and the last thing she'd call Fitzgerald was 'cowed'.
Yet, here he was, playing a child's game, ducking under a blanket so the bogeyman couldn't find him. The man who'd gone from near-death to on-the-street in record time was now leaving work as soon as possible and calling in sick. She knew his colleagues were worried he'd abandoned his recovery, but Mallory didn't see any indication of that. Her own partner was an unrepentant drunk now, but she'd seen his attempts and failures at sobriety over the years and Fitzgerald showed no sign of having returned to his chemical cocoon. No, there was too much pain here for that.
It surprised her that no one watched over him, and it only reinforced her view that the FBI was staffed largely by idiots. It was a rule, not just Markowitz's but one understood by any semi-respectable law-enforcer: you did not abandon a colleague in distress. Everyone kept an eye on everybody else, and when the burnout came, the eye grew even more all-seeing. She was an outsider, but were it not for her intrusion, Fitzgerald would have nobody. No, narcotics were not the compulsion he'd given in to. This was a much older instinct. The habitual runaway had bolted to the one safe place he knew still remained: he hadn't left his apartment once in three days. How much longer before those walls became his entire world?
He gives up the stare only when she does, praying that for once rumour is correct and that she doesn't have the ability to empathise. God forbid she actually divine what he's thinking. Her threat means nothing, because he's not sure he even wants currency in that economy anymore. He used to believe in Justice, and in getting the job done, but now he's not so sure it's any realer than the rituals he abandoned before Confirmation.
He used to know where his loyalties lay, but now he finds them scattered and confused. There are just so many consequences now. It was easier when this was just another posting, but now that he's settled in, it's different. Now, it's not just office politics, it's personal. They aren't just colleagues anymore, but does he have any friends left? Three days and his only contact was with an NA sponsor checking to make sure he wasn't dead, and Mallory, who is here because she needs someone off the books for her little scheme. He didn't even bother calling in sick, today, and no one bothered calling him to see if it was true. He wonders if he's delusional… didn't he work for Missing Persons? Don't they know that a no-show is a clue? Shouldn't they at least check to make sure he's still breathing, or at the very least, to have something to put on the paperwork? Not even the witch-doctor has checked in on him. He knows the truth. He's been written off.
It used to be so easy. Back in Seattle, he showed up, did some work, goofed around when he had to and then went home. He didn't owe anything to anybody. It's not like that now. Who is he supposed to side with? What happens if he chooses wrong? The questions haunt him while he's awake and he's been staying awake because of what happens when he goes to sleep. His hands might be clean, but his conscience isn't.
Oh, they'd tell him that there isn't really a choice to make, and that people higher than him made all the decisions, so how could a guy like Martin argue? Especially if he's right about who the 'higher' is. And maybe they're right, but it doesn't stop the years and years of brushed-aside guilt over a million other transgressions from burying him every time he closes his eyes. After all, did Mallory wake him, or the nightmare? Which one is worse?
"Get out." He repeats his last statement, just in case she might be hard of hearing. A tiny part of him protests - it doesn't want to be left alone. It's a minority party, however, because the rest of him definitively wants to be left alone. He needs time to think, to work out where he's going to go from here. He needs to stop stalling and make a decision. It would be easier if someone would give him a clue what was the right one. There's the easy route of a transfer out and he can just run away and pretend none of this ever happened, but there's the sticky little issue of his all-too-wrong reputation. True, he's been here more than triple the time he spent in Seattle, but people will talk. At times like this he wishes he was still in Seattle, back where it was easier and he didn't care if people didn't like him.
She blinks slowly at him, her expression reminding him of a cat trying to decide how quickly to kill the small, wounded, shivering bird in front of it. Slowly she stands up and gently lifts the blanket from his shoulders. She folds it and lays it on the armrest by his feet; if he wants to pull it back over himself, he'll need to sit up to do it, defeating the purpose of sulking beneath it. It's maddening: just because he's acting childish doesn't mean she has to treat him like a child. In response, he turns over so he's facing the back of the couch again.
She doesn't sigh like anyone else would, getting fed up with his games. She just waits patiently and silently for him to give in. He won't, though. Giving in, compromise… it doesn't matter how long he makes her wait. Call it twenty minutes. It's a good number. Plenty of time for someone to die. It's a long time to sit in silence. Most people can't handle even ten seconds of the stuff. He can. He spent years where he never ventured much further than the confines of his own imagination.
The problem is that Mallory can do it, too. She's no more human than he is, when it comes to waiting games. It doesn't help that he knows there's a cup of coffee growing cold over there. Still, he tells himself, if he could kick painkillers, he can ignore that little fact.
Except that opiates aren't nearly as tempting as that organic stimulant he knows as the elixir of life. And it's not like he's going to win. He counts off the seconds, failing to hypnotise himself into ignoring her completely. Finally, he sighs and rolls over. At least she's not smug and lording it over him. She just hands him the coffee and waits for him to sit up and drink it. He doesn't look at her, preferring instead to study a spot on the far wall. He hates himself for this. Why does he always have to give in? Whatever happened to the kid who'd rather die than live by someone else's rules?
He grew up and got comfortable, is what happened. Made the mistake of thinking he could play the game and not get caught up in it. Where he used to have to tell people to kiss his ass, they're lining up to beg for the opportunity. Look at Olczyck. Used to be Jack's best friend and now he's practically handing out anatomical drawings showing where to put the knife. All that 'own man' bullshit. What the fuck. If Olczyck or any of the others really believed that, they'd leave him the hell alone to look after himself.
He envies Mallory. People don't fawn over her because she's Markowitz's kid. They tolerate her for that, but they respect her because she's goddamn dangerous. They give her credit for being more than just an extension of her old man. Even if he killed someone, he'd never be granted that. They'd just cover it up, and then pat him on the head and pretend it never happened. Hell, they already did. Everybody wants to know why he's so loyal to Jack? It's because Jack is the only person who ever had the balls to tell him he's a fuck-up and treat him accordingly. Even Danny, 'Mr. Principles' himself, didn't do that. No, he didn't want to do anything, despite a goddamn twelfth step that practically demands it. "So, where do we start?"
She hands him a file. "Bobby Clarke. He was witness to a cop-related shooting. Now he's gone."
"Not you, was it? He catch you dealing with an uncooperative suspect?" It's a nasty thing to say, but with Mallory, necessary. He has no doubts she could kill someone in cold blood if she felt she had a reason.
"No." She doesn't correct his assumption that the shooting was somehow less than justified. That would explain why she doesn't want the investigation to go on NYPD books. She knows better than to trust the system with something like this. He wouldn't either. At the same time, he believes her when she says it wasn't her case. True, she's a liar, thief and killer, but she's also a control freak. She'd never farm out her dirty work to someone else. Not like he did, willing to give her anything she needed to destroy Medina at a press conference. It doesn't matter that she never got the chance, his intent was still there.
He sighs, nodding. "I can probably bury this. Work it on lunches." Everybody has a case or two like that, ones that aren't top priority but get attention in those few spare moments. It wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. And he owes her. Not for her potential use as a weapon against his enemies, but for being one of the few people who gives even a bit of a damn. Funny how the woman everybody has labelled as a 'sociopath' spends so much time caring for the misfits and the lost. She wouldn't even pretend to care if he had half the power people pretend he does.
No, Mallory is damaged, but she still has morals. She protects the people who need protecting, more so than most 'compassionate' people do. She might shoot someone for sport, but she'd never harm an innocent child. Realistically, he's okay with that. Nor does she kiss his ass, and as he's discovered, that species is becoming rare indeed.
She shakes her head. "Now." It's not a request, it's an order.
"It's…" he checks his watch. "Seven-o'clock. At night." Just in case she needs the clarification. He's not driving all the way down there at this time of night.
She stares at him. He's only met one other person who could stare like that, but Alison's outgrown it now. Come to think of it, he could never resist her, either. Not even bothering to sigh, he stands up and heads to the closet to get his coat. She follows him all the way down and then out to his car, and unless he's really lost his talent to spot a tail, makes sure he heads into the office. If it weren't for security, she'd probably follow him all the way up. Knowing she's there makes it easier to keep going. He'd rather die than break a promise to Mallory. It'd be a hell of a lot easier.
She watched him walk into the building before turning away. It didn't matter if he found the kid or not. He was right about one thing; she did believe Special Crimes was better than the FBI. He had, however, done her a favour with the dirt on Medina, and Mallory did not like the books to be unbalanced.
She imagined Charles would call it something like evidence of a soul, while Riker would cynically counter that Fitzgerald was simply no use to her dead.
Both were wrong. She didn't believe in a soul any more than she believed in redemption, or even the concept of right and wrong.
But there were rules. Helen taught her the value of looking after her things. That was why she kept Riker from drowning himself in booze, or deluded Charles into believing there were soft, human parts of her. They were her people, and Fitzgerald had made himself one of those number the first time he refused to back down. By most measurements, he was nearly a stranger, but seemed to know her better than those who'd tended her most of her life.
For the time being, she'd keep him.