witb fic: to heal the state of man (2/?)
Title: To Heal The State Of Man (2/?)
Character/s: Tony Hill, Alex Fielding, Paula McIntyre, Kevin Geoffries, Liam Kirwan
Rating: PG 13
Warning: Contains spoilers for 6.04 'The Dead Land' and Seasons IV - VI as a whole.
Word Count: 1,200
Disclaimer: Coastal and Val McDermid own it all.
Summary: Tony and Alex fight their way out of the shadow of death's wingspan. Follows immediately on from the events of 'The Dead Land'. Title is taken from Aristophanes' theory of human love, from Plato's Symposium.
Fear snaps like hounds behind her, and on every exhalation Alex feels the off-kilter race of her heart fluttering sickly in the depths of her chest. Her eyes jump across the traffic, and the panic feels like mania, like far too much caffeine or what she imagines doing coke would feel like, from what she's heard. Her thoughts run spiralled, torturous and impossible to ignore; I never should've left, not with Michael on the loose. I should've stayed, should've been the one to have kept Tony safe. This wouldn't have happened if I'd been there.
It's a lie, and she knows this, but still the words run circles in her mind.
Kevin copped the brunt of it, when she'd called, and although she will apologise to him when the fear and the anger ebbs away, for the moment all she can think is that he is a DS, not experienced enough to have been charged with such an important task. An important task, because Tony is important; invaluable, an irreplaceable component of her high-functioning team, of her life, now, and Alex isn't too proud to admit it, at least to herself, within the silent confines of her speeding car.
The skyline is bright, Bradfield proper casting a smoke-haze aura of light into the night sky, and she drives, on and on, brain racing and hands shaking and teeth sunk into the softest part of her lip in trepidation.
She can't be sure what she will find, when she arrives.
*
There are no words of reassurance left that Paula hasn't already uttered, and so she jams her hands into the tight pockets of her jeans and keeps her eyes trained on Kevin, slumped into the sharp right angle of wall and floor. He's devastated, speechless with his own failure, and when he finally does speak his voice is weak, and pale with exhaustion.
"She hates me."
A slow sigh, and Paula wonders idly if coffee will help, knows it won't.
"She doesn't hate you. She was upset."
"She should hate me."
Kevin is talking into his hands, a perfectly drawn sketch of misery, and Paula gives in, as she'd known she would do eventually.
It's not often that they touch more than accidentally, but he lets her pry his fingers away from his face, when she's slid to the floor beside him and wrapped her arm as comfortably as she can around his shoulders. He meets her gaze, just.
"I screwed up."
"You couldn't have done anything differently-"
"Hall said we shouldn't risk going to the funeral! I could've stopped Tony, not let him talk me into it."
"You really think you could've stopped him going?"
There is no point answering, and Kevin sighs again, so heavily that his back slides another inch down the wall. His hair is surprisingly fine, soft against her fingers where she smooths it back from his drawn face.
"Tony's okay. Everything's okay."
He nods, brusquely, and the sharpness of the movement knocks her hand down, away from his face, but not before she catches the telltale gleam in his eyes.
"No-one's ever okay after this, Paula. It changes you."
She doesn't quite understand, hasn't had the opportunity nor the misfortune of having to take a life in the line of duty, but he has, and she knows it. There's nothing to say, again; nothing that could help, anyway.
"He's got Alex. And us. He'll be okay. He will, Kev."
Paula doesn't say I promise, because she isn't entirely convinced herself, but it seems enough for Kevin, and the silence that descends upon them is lighter, less shadowed than before.
*
Reality is fractured, prismatic, rainbow-white and splintering like light before Tony's eyes. A flash of colour; green or amber or something less easily defined. Gold, bronze, ancient rough-polished metals, the petal blush of old ivory, a sharper, more lucid silver.
Colours, swimming, and it is when the very air before his eyes swirls into a cyclone of light that he knows he is dreaming.
A soft, dull beeping pulse. A warm, reassuring sound like water breaking across a shoreline. A touch, gentle as velvet, curling like a ribbon around his right wrist.
Tenderness.
He cracks his eyelids.
The blur of a room, unfamiliar and sterile, powder grey walls, mechanical equipment. The empty scent of bleach, and then something floral, not roses or lilies but something wilder, greener, like spring itself. The same gentle sound, a quiet washing sigh. Breathing. His eyes sharpen their focus.
The gold crown of her head, bent to rest somewhere near his hip. Her fingers, holding carefully to his wrist, the touch he remembered from his dream.
Alex.
His throat creaks like an old rocking chair, too hoarse and too lacking in sound to wake her. Through the pulled curtain of her hair he can make out the curve of her cheek, the lashes of her closed eyes.
He lifts his free arm, a vine of intravenous tubing snaking through the air like the tail of a kite. Lays his hand upon her head. Her scalp impossibly warm beneath his palm.
She sleeps on, unaware, and Tony feels the tired muscles in his face stretch into a smile.
*
Senior Constable David Reilly knows his duty. On his command the other SOCOs run lengths of police tape across the span of the garage door, blocking out not only the prying eyes of errant officers and passersby but also their destructive footprints, too. No-one touches the van, no-one so much as glances at the body until forensics arrive.
Reilly wasn't expecting the Chief Pathologist himself, nor had he thought to anticipate the ACC, striding alongside in full, glorious brass.
"Sir." Reilly pauses just short of a salute, nerves suddenly tight as wires in his chest.
The ACC nods, barely shifts his eyes enough to look in Reilly's direction. Doc Kirwan, however, gives the briefest nod, and Reilly's liked the Irishman ever since he first arrived at Bradfield CID.
Reilly has been a copper for sixteen years. He knows how to eavesdrop without being caught.
The ACC removes his hand, tucks it under his arm, and peers carefully into the van's open doors.
Doctor K moves easily for a tall bloke, crouching down inside the tiny space, paper-bootied feet making slippery sounds on the boards.
"That certainly looks like him. Can you give me an estimate on COD?"
Kirwan lifts his head, squints in the ACC's direction.
"Bruising on the throat and neck indicates strangulation."
"Time of death?"
"Limbs are in full rigor. We're talking twelve, fourteen hours."
"Fits with Doctor Hill's timeframe."
Reilly hides the pricking of his ears in the density of shadow. He's heard of Doctor Hill, the whiz-bang profiler, Major Crime's secret weapon. He's heard the rumours, too; he's even seen it with his own eyes, on one trip to the Homicide Incident Room with a delivery of paperwork.
Tony Hill, nutter psychologist, rhapsodising in first person about what it's like to strangle prostitutes for fun, no-one paying him any mind except DI Fielding, the ACC's crack-shot favourite.
Reilly can't imagine how Doctor Hill could've known the body was here, in the middle of nothing but factories and empty car lots. Or when the body would've been left here, waiting to be found, with handprints indented around its neck.
Strangled. Like the prostitutes in that old case. Killed just like Doctor Hill described.
Reilly knows better than to gossip, but when the boys in his squad gather in The Ox and Angler that evening and buy him another round, he'll be damned if he doesn't tell them what he overheard.
*
Character/s: Tony Hill, Alex Fielding, Paula McIntyre, Kevin Geoffries, Liam Kirwan
Rating: PG 13
Warning: Contains spoilers for 6.04 'The Dead Land' and Seasons IV - VI as a whole.
Word Count: 1,200
Disclaimer: Coastal and Val McDermid own it all.
Summary: Tony and Alex fight their way out of the shadow of death's wingspan. Follows immediately on from the events of 'The Dead Land'. Title is taken from Aristophanes' theory of human love, from Plato's Symposium.
Fear snaps like hounds behind her, and on every exhalation Alex feels the off-kilter race of her heart fluttering sickly in the depths of her chest. Her eyes jump across the traffic, and the panic feels like mania, like far too much caffeine or what she imagines doing coke would feel like, from what she's heard. Her thoughts run spiralled, torturous and impossible to ignore; I never should've left, not with Michael on the loose. I should've stayed, should've been the one to have kept Tony safe. This wouldn't have happened if I'd been there.
It's a lie, and she knows this, but still the words run circles in her mind.
Kevin copped the brunt of it, when she'd called, and although she will apologise to him when the fear and the anger ebbs away, for the moment all she can think is that he is a DS, not experienced enough to have been charged with such an important task. An important task, because Tony is important; invaluable, an irreplaceable component of her high-functioning team, of her life, now, and Alex isn't too proud to admit it, at least to herself, within the silent confines of her speeding car.
The skyline is bright, Bradfield proper casting a smoke-haze aura of light into the night sky, and she drives, on and on, brain racing and hands shaking and teeth sunk into the softest part of her lip in trepidation.
She can't be sure what she will find, when she arrives.
*
There are no words of reassurance left that Paula hasn't already uttered, and so she jams her hands into the tight pockets of her jeans and keeps her eyes trained on Kevin, slumped into the sharp right angle of wall and floor. He's devastated, speechless with his own failure, and when he finally does speak his voice is weak, and pale with exhaustion.
"She hates me."
A slow sigh, and Paula wonders idly if coffee will help, knows it won't.
"She doesn't hate you. She was upset."
"She should hate me."
Kevin is talking into his hands, a perfectly drawn sketch of misery, and Paula gives in, as she'd known she would do eventually.
It's not often that they touch more than accidentally, but he lets her pry his fingers away from his face, when she's slid to the floor beside him and wrapped her arm as comfortably as she can around his shoulders. He meets her gaze, just.
"I screwed up."
"You couldn't have done anything differently-"
"Hall said we shouldn't risk going to the funeral! I could've stopped Tony, not let him talk me into it."
"You really think you could've stopped him going?"
There is no point answering, and Kevin sighs again, so heavily that his back slides another inch down the wall. His hair is surprisingly fine, soft against her fingers where she smooths it back from his drawn face.
"Tony's okay. Everything's okay."
He nods, brusquely, and the sharpness of the movement knocks her hand down, away from his face, but not before she catches the telltale gleam in his eyes.
"No-one's ever okay after this, Paula. It changes you."
She doesn't quite understand, hasn't had the opportunity nor the misfortune of having to take a life in the line of duty, but he has, and she knows it. There's nothing to say, again; nothing that could help, anyway.
"He's got Alex. And us. He'll be okay. He will, Kev."
Paula doesn't say I promise, because she isn't entirely convinced herself, but it seems enough for Kevin, and the silence that descends upon them is lighter, less shadowed than before.
*
Reality is fractured, prismatic, rainbow-white and splintering like light before Tony's eyes. A flash of colour; green or amber or something less easily defined. Gold, bronze, ancient rough-polished metals, the petal blush of old ivory, a sharper, more lucid silver.
Colours, swimming, and it is when the very air before his eyes swirls into a cyclone of light that he knows he is dreaming.
A soft, dull beeping pulse. A warm, reassuring sound like water breaking across a shoreline. A touch, gentle as velvet, curling like a ribbon around his right wrist.
Tenderness.
He cracks his eyelids.
The blur of a room, unfamiliar and sterile, powder grey walls, mechanical equipment. The empty scent of bleach, and then something floral, not roses or lilies but something wilder, greener, like spring itself. The same gentle sound, a quiet washing sigh. Breathing. His eyes sharpen their focus.
The gold crown of her head, bent to rest somewhere near his hip. Her fingers, holding carefully to his wrist, the touch he remembered from his dream.
Alex.
His throat creaks like an old rocking chair, too hoarse and too lacking in sound to wake her. Through the pulled curtain of her hair he can make out the curve of her cheek, the lashes of her closed eyes.
He lifts his free arm, a vine of intravenous tubing snaking through the air like the tail of a kite. Lays his hand upon her head. Her scalp impossibly warm beneath his palm.
She sleeps on, unaware, and Tony feels the tired muscles in his face stretch into a smile.
*
Senior Constable David Reilly knows his duty. On his command the other SOCOs run lengths of police tape across the span of the garage door, blocking out not only the prying eyes of errant officers and passersby but also their destructive footprints, too. No-one touches the van, no-one so much as glances at the body until forensics arrive.
Reilly wasn't expecting the Chief Pathologist himself, nor had he thought to anticipate the ACC, striding alongside in full, glorious brass.
"Sir." Reilly pauses just short of a salute, nerves suddenly tight as wires in his chest.
The ACC nods, barely shifts his eyes enough to look in Reilly's direction. Doc Kirwan, however, gives the briefest nod, and Reilly's liked the Irishman ever since he first arrived at Bradfield CID.
Reilly has been a copper for sixteen years. He knows how to eavesdrop without being caught.
The ACC removes his hand, tucks it under his arm, and peers carefully into the van's open doors.
Doctor K moves easily for a tall bloke, crouching down inside the tiny space, paper-bootied feet making slippery sounds on the boards.
"That certainly looks like him. Can you give me an estimate on COD?"
Kirwan lifts his head, squints in the ACC's direction.
"Bruising on the throat and neck indicates strangulation."
"Time of death?"
"Limbs are in full rigor. We're talking twelve, fourteen hours."
"Fits with Doctor Hill's timeframe."
Reilly hides the pricking of his ears in the density of shadow. He's heard of Doctor Hill, the whiz-bang profiler, Major Crime's secret weapon. He's heard the rumours, too; he's even seen it with his own eyes, on one trip to the Homicide Incident Room with a delivery of paperwork.
Tony Hill, nutter psychologist, rhapsodising in first person about what it's like to strangle prostitutes for fun, no-one paying him any mind except DI Fielding, the ACC's crack-shot favourite.
Reilly can't imagine how Doctor Hill could've known the body was here, in the middle of nothing but factories and empty car lots. Or when the body would've been left here, waiting to be found, with handprints indented around its neck.
Strangled. Like the prostitutes in that old case. Killed just like Doctor Hill described.
Reilly knows better than to gossip, but when the boys in his squad gather in The Ox and Angler that evening and buy him another round, he'll be damned if he doesn't tell them what he overheard.
*