fic: orange blossom breezes (life)
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: One plus one.
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATIONS: Crews/Reese
SPOILERS: post-One (2x21)
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd. Sorry. Spanish translation in mouseover.
WORDS: 3,487
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; April 2011.
* * * * *
Orange Blossom Breezes by anr
* * * * *
In the car, Crews peels open an orange. "One plus one," he says. "Roman's dead."
Tilting her face towards the window, into the warmth of the sun, she breathes in the scent of citrus, of oranges.
It smells like freedom.
"Good," she says simply.
*
Kevin's waiting at the hospital when Agent Bodner drops them off, and she's a little surprised by how strange it is to see him.
"I'm fine," she says, letting him touch her shoulder, her back, her arm. She doesn't quite lean into him.
"I was really worried," he says, quietly, like he's worried the doctor taking her pulse is also taking notes for the brass. "I --"
"It's okay," she says, shaking her head. "Crews --" got me out of the SUV.
The doctor clears his throat.
*
Observation for twenty-four hours, the doctor says.
After two hours, Kevin heads back to the station, promising to call every hour -- every half hour -- until he can get away again.
After four hours, she thinks, fuck it.
*
Crews is sleeping in a chair near the nurse's station a few doors down from her room. Kicking his foot, she watches him open his eyes and look up at her.
"You're driving me home," she says.
"I'm driving you home," he says dutifully, standing. He frowns. "I'm driving?"
"No."
*
She signs herself out AMA while Crews chats up the desk clerk with some shtick about making sure she'll eat lots of fruit.
"The chances of me getting scurvy," she says as they head towards the parking garage, "is about one in a billion."
"One in thirty-million, actually."
"I do not want to know how you know that."
"The --"
"What did I just say?"
*
The sliding doors refuse to close behind them, their proximity keeping a steady waft of airconditioned air at their backs. She watches Crews study the colour-coded levels guide to the garage like he's never seen it before.
"Crews," she says, maybe too patiently, "where did you park your car?"
He turns and faces her and, after a moment, a flash some sort of recognition passes across his features and he says, "in Agent Bodner's garage door."
A dozen possible responses to that -- starting with why? how? when? and, oh yes, why? -- but. "I thought you drove here?"
He frowns. "Agent Bodner drove us here, Reese."
"Yes, but --" didn't you go home after that? didn't you go home and then come back? why didn't you -- "never mind." She crosses her arms. "Now what?"
*
Crews gives the taxi driver her address and she opens her mouth to correct him before realising, no, he's right, that's where she lives. Frowning, she leans back in the seat and stares out of the window.
The cab smells like patchouli and air freshener.
*
It's not until she's standing on her front step that she remembers -- "I don't have my keys."
"We can break in," Crews says from behind her, and she knows without needing to turn around that he's already pulled his knife.
She stares at her front door, at her front window, picturing the inside. The pastel-coloured walls, and the just-big-enough-for-her rooms. When she turns, Crews' mouth is level with her eyes, the steps a height difference reduction she wasn't expecting.
"No," she says, stepping down so that she's standing beside him on the path. "I need --" She spreads out one arm like he'll know exactly what.
He stares at her mouth for a long moment. "Okay," he says.
*
In the taxi, she borrows Crews' cell and calls Kevin and tells him she's okay, she's fine, yes, she's left the hospital, no, she's not at home, she's --
"I'm with Crews," she says, watching him stare out his window. She turns and looks straight ahead.
"Dani," Kevin says, "I heard --" He makes a frustrated noise. "I know what a subway sounds like, damnit."
She doesn't understand that, but. "I know," she says. "Thank you."
"Dani," he says, sounding sad and tired and sad. "Don't --"
I'm sorry, she thinks. "He's -- I'm with Crews," she says again.
She's pretty sure she hangs up first.
*
Crews lets them into his mansion and there's this moment, standing in his foyer, where she wonders what the hell, what the hell, what the hell is she doing here and --
Just breathe, she thinks.
"Can I --" she starts to ask, turning.
He cuts her off. "Yes."
*
In his shower, she presses her fingertips against the tiles and lifts her face into the spray and it's cliché, she knows, to think of the water washing away more than just the dirt and sweat and grime of the last couple of weeks, but.
Crews has left a t-shirt and a pair of boxers outside the bathroom door. Pulling them on, she grabs his comb and heads downstairs, absently wondering if she should have asked for a map or two-way before she disappeared into the bathroom.
"Crews?" she calls out from the bottom step.
"In the kitchen!"
Following the sound of his voice, she finds him sitting at his kitchen island, a bowl of grapes within reach. He's lost his tie and shirt, shoes and socks, and he looks comfortable, if not relaxed. She slides onto the stool opposite him.
"Your shower could fit a family of four," she says.
"I'm not sure that would be legal," he says thoughtfully. "Would I have to charge them rent?"
*
She runs the comb through her wet hair methodically, watching Crews eat his grapes, watching him watch her. Outside it's dark, and quiet, and up here, on his own little hilltop, the rest of the world seems very far away.
"I missed you," he says. He shakes his head. "My math was all wrong."
One plus one, she remembers him saying, earlier. "And now?"
He pops a grape into his mouth. "Getting better."
She puts the comb down, lining it up so that it's parallel to the edge of the bench. "Crews. How did Roman die?"
"Crushed windpipe," he says, very, very calmly. "In hindsight, I don't think it was very zen."
When is murder ever zen? She tries to picture it; pictures Roman in the SUV, gasping for air, his hands clawing at his neck; pictures Crews beside him, still, solid, safe. "I don't know," she says eventually. "Is it like biting off a finger?"
Crews stills now.
She watches him breathe in, breathe out, just breathing. He doesn't stop watching her.
He says, "you could say there's a connection between the two."
I'm connected to you, she thinks. She brushes a finger over the teeth of his comb. "Everything's connected," she says.
He doesn't smile, not exactly, but his expression warms her just the same.
*
He walks her back up to his room and stands in front of his closet door. "I want to show you something," he says. "Or maybe I need to? You're my partner so need is probably more accurate, even though it's something I want to do."
She shakes her head. "Show me later," she says. She sways a little on her feet, unspeakably tired all of sudden, and widens her stance to counter it. "Bed?"
He gestures behind her.
*
He watches her slide under the covers and says, "goodnight, Reese," and switches off the light for her.
The sudden darkness is a shock, a black bag over her head. She bolts upright again and there's a click as Crews turns the light back on. She flinches.
"Reese?"
"I --" Her heart's pounding. She wants -- thinks about asking him to stay, here, with her.
She doesn't know how to ask him that.
He says, "while I do have a sofa now, Ted's gone to Spain and I could sleep in his bed -- which I guess you could argue is technically my bed, since it's in the room above my garage and it was bought with my money -- but I don't think he'd be comfortable with that. He's very attached to his bed."
She licks her lips. "And you?"
His mouth quirks, a brief smile. "I am not attached to his bed."
They could play this out for awhile, she thinks. These sorts of conversations --
"Don't sleep in Ted's bed," she says.
*
She lies back and closes her eyes and there's the click of the light going out again. She tenses.
Crews gets into the opposite side of the bed.
She opens her eyes.
"Goodnight, Reese," he says again.
She can't see him, not yet, but while she waits for her eyesight to adjust she can hear his breathing and the rustle of the covers as he settles; can feel the mattress shifting a little under his weight.
Her hand twitches a little, like she wants to touch him, to reach out and know he's there --
His hand finds hers on top of the covers, fingers brushing over the knuckle of her little finger and resting there.
She breathes.
*
She sleeps fitfully at first, starting at every noise, imagined or not. Crews doesn't snore, or toss and turn, and, sure, she knew this already from the handful of stakeouts they've done over the past year, but it's different when she's lying ten inches away from him, his fingertips warm on the side of her hand.
She's not looking forward to all the statements she'll have to give.
His house is very quiet. And big. And full of rooms she probably doesn't even know exist.
Is it really over between her and Kevin? Is she really okay with that?
Outside, a coyote yips.
Vodka, neat. Three fingers.
She sleeps.
*
When she wakes, the room is filled with burnt orange shadows, a slash of sunlight on the opposite wall. She feels groggy and weighted, her muscles aching like she's spent the past few days running a marathon instead of being strapped to a chair.
With effort, she rolls off her stomach and onto her back, stretching slowly. Her joints creak satisfyingly.
She turns again and finds Crews still asleep beside her. He must have gotten up at some point, she realises, because his t-shirt is gone, and he's lying on his side now, his back to her. She stares at a faint bruise on his left shoulder-blade, at the mess of faded scars etched across his skin. She has an urge to start counting his freckles but her brain keeps tripping -- one plus one, one plus one, one plus one, over and over again -- and that's his brand of crazy, not hers.
Not hers.
*
Downstairs, she fixes herself a bowl of cereal despite the fact it's closer to sunset than sunrise, and stares at Crews' cordless phone. She should call Kevin.
Footsteps.
"I helped myself," she says.
"Good afternoon," says Crews. "Expecting a call?"
She looks away from the phone. "No." She taps the cereal box with the handle of her spoon. "You want some?"
Shaking his head, he opens the fridge and starts pulling out pieces of fruit. "I prefer my sugar unrefined this early in my day, thanks. Did you know th--"
"Crews, what have I said about fruit facts before breakfast?"
"That you'll shoot me with my own service weapon," he says promptly. "Oh." He throws a glance over his shoulder. "Sorry."
Grunting, she turns back to her own breakfast.
*
It's tempting to go for a swim in Crews' pool after she's eaten, to take advantage of his comforts and burn away her thoughts, lap by lap by aching lap.
"I'm gonna --" she gestures towards the other room.
Crews stabs a piece of orange with his knife; waves it in what she'll take as a silent, mi casa es su casa.
"Thanks," she says.
*
She showers again until his hot water runs cold.
It takes awhile.
*
It's dark when she heads downstairs again and, for a moment, as she clears the bottom step, it's hard to breathe around the déjà vu of last night.
"Crews?"
No answer.
In the kitchen, she picks up his cordless and smoothes her thumb over the numbers for Kevin's cell, steadying herself.
Water splashes outside.
*
The pool lights are on, the patio lights off, and Crews is swimming the laps she refused to, his body slicing through the water with a type of mindless determination she can appreciate. There are lounge chairs off to the side, clothes and an apple left on one. Taking a seat, she reaches over and snags the apple, tossing it from hand to hand.
He looks like he's swimming in light. She watches.
*
He slows after a half dozen laps, though god knows how many he'd swum before she came out. When he crawls over to the edge, she tosses him the apple.
"Thanks," he pants, taking a bite. He rests his forearms on the pavers, the pool water rippling away from him. "You still not expecting a call?"
She doesn't look at the cordless in her lap. "I don't know."
*
Crews sits on the lounge chair next to hers, facing her. He doesn't towel himself off and water pools on the pavers underneath his feet. She can smell chlorine.
"I don't know what I want," she admits. "These past few days... weeks..." She shakes her head. "I feel like everything's shifted a little to the left and I forgot to shift with them. Or something."
"It's hard to know what you want," Crews says thoughtfully. "Putting aside the whole 'want versus need' debate, is what you want actually what you want? Or is it only what you think you want? Does thinking it make it so? Does wanting it? And even if there's no difference between the wanting and the thinking, does that mean there's only one thing you want or is there more than one? And if it's more than one, does one want trump another? Or what if you want one thing and only think you want another -- does that mean the wanting want is worth more than the thinking want? And --"
He's going to make her head explode one of these days. Or force her to explode his head. "Crews."
He has the grace to look apologetic. "Sorry," he says. He takes another bite of his apple and chews steadily for a moment. Swallowing, he asks, "Reese? What don't you want?"
She jerks, her eyes flashing to meet his, and she hates that he's surprised her when she should have known this'd be an apple moment. "I hate when you do that," she grouses.
He shrugs, this time not apologetic at all. "Sorry," he says again.
*
She doesn't want Kevin the same way he wants her, and she doesn't want to hurt him, and she doesn't want to continue to pretend the former to prevent the latter.
She doesn't want to go into the station tomorrow as a victim making a report -- she's a cop, damnit. They can debrief her.
She doesn't want to live in a place with pastel walls anymore.
She doesn't want to want a drink.
"I want to buy some paint," she says.
He looks intrigued. "What colour?"
"Don't you want to know what I want the paint for?"
"Do I need to know that to understand the colour? Is it significant? I know colour has significance. People choose colours based on emotions, on memories. It can be a powerful choice, paint colours, almost like naming children. Or pets. Or rocks. Hey, Reese? Did you ever have a pet rock?"
Don't ever, ever change, she thinks. "I'd have shot him," she says instead, the words falling out unplanned but not unwelcome. "If our positions had been reversed? I'd have shot him." She shrugs. "I don't know how to crush a windpipe."
His reaction isn't what she's expecting, and the lounge chair scrapes over the pavers as he jerks back. "Tidwell heard the subway," he says. "He found where you'd been held."
She frowns. "Why would you say that?" Now. Here. Now.
Grabbing his shirt, he stands and pulls it on. His skin is still damp and the fabric clings. She notices.
"You should call him," he says. "He's worried."
What the hell? She watches him step out from between the two lounge chairs and walk around, heading back into the house.
"Crews!" she finally manages. But he doesn't stop.
He closes the door behind him.
*
She's not going to call Kevin just because Crews thinks she should.
Following him inside, she shoves the phone at his chest. "You want to know so bad? You call him."
He deflects her arm, pushing her away and starting for the fridge. "Do you want a steak? I feel like a steak. I think I'm going to have a steak."
They just had breakfast, or dinner, or whatever it is you eat when you wake up at sunset. "No, I don't want a steak. I wanna know what your problem is."
"Problems are simply experiences we have not yet understood," he says, opening the fridge. "When we understa--"
Reaching around him, she pushes the fridge door shut, positioning herself so he can't open it again. "Don't zen this. Me. You want something? You go for it. I know you know how to do that."
He doesn't look away from her, doesn't back up. If anything, he leans forward. "Don't."
"Don't what? Don't want? Fine." She raises her chin, knowing she's pissing him off, knowing she doesn't care. "Show me how."
"Reese --" he says, tone low and warning.
"Crews."
"You were kidnapped. Held against your will."
"Thanks," she says, mockingly. "I'd forgotten that."
"You're not thinking clearly," he says, anger pinching his features.
"And for your sake, we're both gonna forget you just said that."
"You don't want me, Reese. You don't even like me. You just want to run and hide from whatever it is you're scared of now that you're out of that SUV and I'm the easiest way you can think of to self-destruct."
He's wrong. He's wrong, maybe, and even if he's not he's pushing her buttons the same way she's trying to push his, and she's not going to fall for it. "Crews," she says, slowly and calmly and not at all like how she's feeling. "There is only one person I'm connected to --" he flinches at her words, stills, "-- and it has nothing to do with like or want or need and everything to do with who you are and who I think I am and I am not attached to Kevin Tidwell."
Not anymore. Not now. Not again.
Slowly, the anger on his face bleeds into something else. "One person," he repeats. "One?"
She nods once; nods and says the only thing she can think of that he'll understand in this moment, even if she's not so sure she will. "Plus one."
*
They sit at the kitchen island again.
"You should dry off," she says, eyes flicking across the damp patches on his shirt still.
He's staring down at where their hands meet in the center of the bench, at the way his fingers are touching hers. "Later."
With her free hand, she picks up the phone and calls Kevin.
*
"Do you want to go to Walmart?"
Turning, she floats on her back. "Is that a trick question?"
"To buy paint," he says. Reaching out, he grasps her ankle before she can drift away, anchoring her. "You said you wanted to buy paint."
She does, but. "Later," she says, her arms making waves in the water. "There's time."
"What did Tidwell say?"
Opening her eyes, she stares at the handful of stars directly above. "You heard what he said." He was loud enough for your neighbours to hear him, she thinks. If you even have neighbours. Do you have neighbours, Crews?
"I know," he says, "but I'd like to hear you say it."
You're a strange, strange man, Detective Crews. But she gets it, sort of, and while she only knows a little about his issues with his ex-wife and that lawyer of his, she does know a lot about his somewhat twisted sense of honour and loyalty. Pulling her foot free, she breaks out of the float and treads water, meeting his gaze. "He said we're over."
"And you're okay with that."
Not a question. "Why Walmart?"
"It's open twenty-four hours. Plenty of time." He pushes closer to her, his legs bumping hers underwater.
Resting her hands on his shoulders, she smiles. "I'm okay with it."
*
When he kisses her, she smells oranges.
* * * * *
The End.
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
SUMMARY: One plus one.
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATIONS: Crews/Reese
SPOILERS: post-One (2x21)
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd. Sorry. Spanish translation in mouseover.
WORDS: 3,487
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; April 2011.
* * * * *
Orange Blossom Breezes by anr
* * * * *
In the car, Crews peels open an orange. "One plus one," he says. "Roman's dead."
Tilting her face towards the window, into the warmth of the sun, she breathes in the scent of citrus, of oranges.
It smells like freedom.
"Good," she says simply.
*
Kevin's waiting at the hospital when Agent Bodner drops them off, and she's a little surprised by how strange it is to see him.
"I'm fine," she says, letting him touch her shoulder, her back, her arm. She doesn't quite lean into him.
"I was really worried," he says, quietly, like he's worried the doctor taking her pulse is also taking notes for the brass. "I --"
"It's okay," she says, shaking her head. "Crews --" got me out of the SUV.
The doctor clears his throat.
*
Observation for twenty-four hours, the doctor says.
After two hours, Kevin heads back to the station, promising to call every hour -- every half hour -- until he can get away again.
After four hours, she thinks, fuck it.
*
Crews is sleeping in a chair near the nurse's station a few doors down from her room. Kicking his foot, she watches him open his eyes and look up at her.
"You're driving me home," she says.
"I'm driving you home," he says dutifully, standing. He frowns. "I'm driving?"
"No."
*
She signs herself out AMA while Crews chats up the desk clerk with some shtick about making sure she'll eat lots of fruit.
"The chances of me getting scurvy," she says as they head towards the parking garage, "is about one in a billion."
"One in thirty-million, actually."
"I do not want to know how you know that."
"The --"
"What did I just say?"
*
The sliding doors refuse to close behind them, their proximity keeping a steady waft of airconditioned air at their backs. She watches Crews study the colour-coded levels guide to the garage like he's never seen it before.
"Crews," she says, maybe too patiently, "where did you park your car?"
He turns and faces her and, after a moment, a flash some sort of recognition passes across his features and he says, "in Agent Bodner's garage door."
A dozen possible responses to that -- starting with why? how? when? and, oh yes, why? -- but. "I thought you drove here?"
He frowns. "Agent Bodner drove us here, Reese."
"Yes, but --" didn't you go home after that? didn't you go home and then come back? why didn't you -- "never mind." She crosses her arms. "Now what?"
*
Crews gives the taxi driver her address and she opens her mouth to correct him before realising, no, he's right, that's where she lives. Frowning, she leans back in the seat and stares out of the window.
The cab smells like patchouli and air freshener.
*
It's not until she's standing on her front step that she remembers -- "I don't have my keys."
"We can break in," Crews says from behind her, and she knows without needing to turn around that he's already pulled his knife.
She stares at her front door, at her front window, picturing the inside. The pastel-coloured walls, and the just-big-enough-for-her rooms. When she turns, Crews' mouth is level with her eyes, the steps a height difference reduction she wasn't expecting.
"No," she says, stepping down so that she's standing beside him on the path. "I need --" She spreads out one arm like he'll know exactly what.
He stares at her mouth for a long moment. "Okay," he says.
*
In the taxi, she borrows Crews' cell and calls Kevin and tells him she's okay, she's fine, yes, she's left the hospital, no, she's not at home, she's --
"I'm with Crews," she says, watching him stare out his window. She turns and looks straight ahead.
"Dani," Kevin says, "I heard --" He makes a frustrated noise. "I know what a subway sounds like, damnit."
She doesn't understand that, but. "I know," she says. "Thank you."
"Dani," he says, sounding sad and tired and sad. "Don't --"
I'm sorry, she thinks. "He's -- I'm with Crews," she says again.
She's pretty sure she hangs up first.
*
Crews lets them into his mansion and there's this moment, standing in his foyer, where she wonders what the hell, what the hell, what the hell is she doing here and --
Just breathe, she thinks.
"Can I --" she starts to ask, turning.
He cuts her off. "Yes."
*
In his shower, she presses her fingertips against the tiles and lifts her face into the spray and it's cliché, she knows, to think of the water washing away more than just the dirt and sweat and grime of the last couple of weeks, but.
Crews has left a t-shirt and a pair of boxers outside the bathroom door. Pulling them on, she grabs his comb and heads downstairs, absently wondering if she should have asked for a map or two-way before she disappeared into the bathroom.
"Crews?" she calls out from the bottom step.
"In the kitchen!"
Following the sound of his voice, she finds him sitting at his kitchen island, a bowl of grapes within reach. He's lost his tie and shirt, shoes and socks, and he looks comfortable, if not relaxed. She slides onto the stool opposite him.
"Your shower could fit a family of four," she says.
"I'm not sure that would be legal," he says thoughtfully. "Would I have to charge them rent?"
*
She runs the comb through her wet hair methodically, watching Crews eat his grapes, watching him watch her. Outside it's dark, and quiet, and up here, on his own little hilltop, the rest of the world seems very far away.
"I missed you," he says. He shakes his head. "My math was all wrong."
One plus one, she remembers him saying, earlier. "And now?"
He pops a grape into his mouth. "Getting better."
She puts the comb down, lining it up so that it's parallel to the edge of the bench. "Crews. How did Roman die?"
"Crushed windpipe," he says, very, very calmly. "In hindsight, I don't think it was very zen."
When is murder ever zen? She tries to picture it; pictures Roman in the SUV, gasping for air, his hands clawing at his neck; pictures Crews beside him, still, solid, safe. "I don't know," she says eventually. "Is it like biting off a finger?"
Crews stills now.
She watches him breathe in, breathe out, just breathing. He doesn't stop watching her.
He says, "you could say there's a connection between the two."
I'm connected to you, she thinks. She brushes a finger over the teeth of his comb. "Everything's connected," she says.
He doesn't smile, not exactly, but his expression warms her just the same.
*
He walks her back up to his room and stands in front of his closet door. "I want to show you something," he says. "Or maybe I need to? You're my partner so need is probably more accurate, even though it's something I want to do."
She shakes her head. "Show me later," she says. She sways a little on her feet, unspeakably tired all of sudden, and widens her stance to counter it. "Bed?"
He gestures behind her.
*
He watches her slide under the covers and says, "goodnight, Reese," and switches off the light for her.
The sudden darkness is a shock, a black bag over her head. She bolts upright again and there's a click as Crews turns the light back on. She flinches.
"Reese?"
"I --" Her heart's pounding. She wants -- thinks about asking him to stay, here, with her.
She doesn't know how to ask him that.
He says, "while I do have a sofa now, Ted's gone to Spain and I could sleep in his bed -- which I guess you could argue is technically my bed, since it's in the room above my garage and it was bought with my money -- but I don't think he'd be comfortable with that. He's very attached to his bed."
She licks her lips. "And you?"
His mouth quirks, a brief smile. "I am not attached to his bed."
They could play this out for awhile, she thinks. These sorts of conversations --
"Don't sleep in Ted's bed," she says.
*
She lies back and closes her eyes and there's the click of the light going out again. She tenses.
Crews gets into the opposite side of the bed.
She opens her eyes.
"Goodnight, Reese," he says again.
She can't see him, not yet, but while she waits for her eyesight to adjust she can hear his breathing and the rustle of the covers as he settles; can feel the mattress shifting a little under his weight.
Her hand twitches a little, like she wants to touch him, to reach out and know he's there --
His hand finds hers on top of the covers, fingers brushing over the knuckle of her little finger and resting there.
She breathes.
*
She sleeps fitfully at first, starting at every noise, imagined or not. Crews doesn't snore, or toss and turn, and, sure, she knew this already from the handful of stakeouts they've done over the past year, but it's different when she's lying ten inches away from him, his fingertips warm on the side of her hand.
She's not looking forward to all the statements she'll have to give.
His house is very quiet. And big. And full of rooms she probably doesn't even know exist.
Is it really over between her and Kevin? Is she really okay with that?
Outside, a coyote yips.
Vodka, neat. Three fingers.
She sleeps.
*
When she wakes, the room is filled with burnt orange shadows, a slash of sunlight on the opposite wall. She feels groggy and weighted, her muscles aching like she's spent the past few days running a marathon instead of being strapped to a chair.
With effort, she rolls off her stomach and onto her back, stretching slowly. Her joints creak satisfyingly.
She turns again and finds Crews still asleep beside her. He must have gotten up at some point, she realises, because his t-shirt is gone, and he's lying on his side now, his back to her. She stares at a faint bruise on his left shoulder-blade, at the mess of faded scars etched across his skin. She has an urge to start counting his freckles but her brain keeps tripping -- one plus one, one plus one, one plus one, over and over again -- and that's his brand of crazy, not hers.
Not hers.
*
Downstairs, she fixes herself a bowl of cereal despite the fact it's closer to sunset than sunrise, and stares at Crews' cordless phone. She should call Kevin.
Footsteps.
"I helped myself," she says.
"Good afternoon," says Crews. "Expecting a call?"
She looks away from the phone. "No." She taps the cereal box with the handle of her spoon. "You want some?"
Shaking his head, he opens the fridge and starts pulling out pieces of fruit. "I prefer my sugar unrefined this early in my day, thanks. Did you know th--"
"Crews, what have I said about fruit facts before breakfast?"
"That you'll shoot me with my own service weapon," he says promptly. "Oh." He throws a glance over his shoulder. "Sorry."
Grunting, she turns back to her own breakfast.
*
It's tempting to go for a swim in Crews' pool after she's eaten, to take advantage of his comforts and burn away her thoughts, lap by lap by aching lap.
"I'm gonna --" she gestures towards the other room.
Crews stabs a piece of orange with his knife; waves it in what she'll take as a silent, mi casa es su casa.
"Thanks," she says.
*
She showers again until his hot water runs cold.
It takes awhile.
*
It's dark when she heads downstairs again and, for a moment, as she clears the bottom step, it's hard to breathe around the déjà vu of last night.
"Crews?"
No answer.
In the kitchen, she picks up his cordless and smoothes her thumb over the numbers for Kevin's cell, steadying herself.
Water splashes outside.
*
The pool lights are on, the patio lights off, and Crews is swimming the laps she refused to, his body slicing through the water with a type of mindless determination she can appreciate. There are lounge chairs off to the side, clothes and an apple left on one. Taking a seat, she reaches over and snags the apple, tossing it from hand to hand.
He looks like he's swimming in light. She watches.
*
He slows after a half dozen laps, though god knows how many he'd swum before she came out. When he crawls over to the edge, she tosses him the apple.
"Thanks," he pants, taking a bite. He rests his forearms on the pavers, the pool water rippling away from him. "You still not expecting a call?"
She doesn't look at the cordless in her lap. "I don't know."
*
Crews sits on the lounge chair next to hers, facing her. He doesn't towel himself off and water pools on the pavers underneath his feet. She can smell chlorine.
"I don't know what I want," she admits. "These past few days... weeks..." She shakes her head. "I feel like everything's shifted a little to the left and I forgot to shift with them. Or something."
"It's hard to know what you want," Crews says thoughtfully. "Putting aside the whole 'want versus need' debate, is what you want actually what you want? Or is it only what you think you want? Does thinking it make it so? Does wanting it? And even if there's no difference between the wanting and the thinking, does that mean there's only one thing you want or is there more than one? And if it's more than one, does one want trump another? Or what if you want one thing and only think you want another -- does that mean the wanting want is worth more than the thinking want? And --"
He's going to make her head explode one of these days. Or force her to explode his head. "Crews."
He has the grace to look apologetic. "Sorry," he says. He takes another bite of his apple and chews steadily for a moment. Swallowing, he asks, "Reese? What don't you want?"
She jerks, her eyes flashing to meet his, and she hates that he's surprised her when she should have known this'd be an apple moment. "I hate when you do that," she grouses.
He shrugs, this time not apologetic at all. "Sorry," he says again.
*
She doesn't want Kevin the same way he wants her, and she doesn't want to hurt him, and she doesn't want to continue to pretend the former to prevent the latter.
She doesn't want to go into the station tomorrow as a victim making a report -- she's a cop, damnit. They can debrief her.
She doesn't want to live in a place with pastel walls anymore.
She doesn't want to want a drink.
"I want to buy some paint," she says.
He looks intrigued. "What colour?"
"Don't you want to know what I want the paint for?"
"Do I need to know that to understand the colour? Is it significant? I know colour has significance. People choose colours based on emotions, on memories. It can be a powerful choice, paint colours, almost like naming children. Or pets. Or rocks. Hey, Reese? Did you ever have a pet rock?"
Don't ever, ever change, she thinks. "I'd have shot him," she says instead, the words falling out unplanned but not unwelcome. "If our positions had been reversed? I'd have shot him." She shrugs. "I don't know how to crush a windpipe."
His reaction isn't what she's expecting, and the lounge chair scrapes over the pavers as he jerks back. "Tidwell heard the subway," he says. "He found where you'd been held."
She frowns. "Why would you say that?" Now. Here. Now.
Grabbing his shirt, he stands and pulls it on. His skin is still damp and the fabric clings. She notices.
"You should call him," he says. "He's worried."
What the hell? She watches him step out from between the two lounge chairs and walk around, heading back into the house.
"Crews!" she finally manages. But he doesn't stop.
He closes the door behind him.
*
She's not going to call Kevin just because Crews thinks she should.
Following him inside, she shoves the phone at his chest. "You want to know so bad? You call him."
He deflects her arm, pushing her away and starting for the fridge. "Do you want a steak? I feel like a steak. I think I'm going to have a steak."
They just had breakfast, or dinner, or whatever it is you eat when you wake up at sunset. "No, I don't want a steak. I wanna know what your problem is."
"Problems are simply experiences we have not yet understood," he says, opening the fridge. "When we understa--"
Reaching around him, she pushes the fridge door shut, positioning herself so he can't open it again. "Don't zen this. Me. You want something? You go for it. I know you know how to do that."
He doesn't look away from her, doesn't back up. If anything, he leans forward. "Don't."
"Don't what? Don't want? Fine." She raises her chin, knowing she's pissing him off, knowing she doesn't care. "Show me how."
"Reese --" he says, tone low and warning.
"Crews."
"You were kidnapped. Held against your will."
"Thanks," she says, mockingly. "I'd forgotten that."
"You're not thinking clearly," he says, anger pinching his features.
"And for your sake, we're both gonna forget you just said that."
"You don't want me, Reese. You don't even like me. You just want to run and hide from whatever it is you're scared of now that you're out of that SUV and I'm the easiest way you can think of to self-destruct."
He's wrong. He's wrong, maybe, and even if he's not he's pushing her buttons the same way she's trying to push his, and she's not going to fall for it. "Crews," she says, slowly and calmly and not at all like how she's feeling. "There is only one person I'm connected to --" he flinches at her words, stills, "-- and it has nothing to do with like or want or need and everything to do with who you are and who I think I am and I am not attached to Kevin Tidwell."
Not anymore. Not now. Not again.
Slowly, the anger on his face bleeds into something else. "One person," he repeats. "One?"
She nods once; nods and says the only thing she can think of that he'll understand in this moment, even if she's not so sure she will. "Plus one."
*
They sit at the kitchen island again.
"You should dry off," she says, eyes flicking across the damp patches on his shirt still.
He's staring down at where their hands meet in the center of the bench, at the way his fingers are touching hers. "Later."
With her free hand, she picks up the phone and calls Kevin.
*
"Do you want to go to Walmart?"
Turning, she floats on her back. "Is that a trick question?"
"To buy paint," he says. Reaching out, he grasps her ankle before she can drift away, anchoring her. "You said you wanted to buy paint."
She does, but. "Later," she says, her arms making waves in the water. "There's time."
"What did Tidwell say?"
Opening her eyes, she stares at the handful of stars directly above. "You heard what he said." He was loud enough for your neighbours to hear him, she thinks. If you even have neighbours. Do you have neighbours, Crews?
"I know," he says, "but I'd like to hear you say it."
You're a strange, strange man, Detective Crews. But she gets it, sort of, and while she only knows a little about his issues with his ex-wife and that lawyer of his, she does know a lot about his somewhat twisted sense of honour and loyalty. Pulling her foot free, she breaks out of the float and treads water, meeting his gaze. "He said we're over."
"And you're okay with that."
Not a question. "Why Walmart?"
"It's open twenty-four hours. Plenty of time." He pushes closer to her, his legs bumping hers underwater.
Resting her hands on his shoulders, she smiles. "I'm okay with it."
*
When he kisses her, she smells oranges.
* * * * *
The End.
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*