Material Witness-I'll Cover You (4 x 15, Pandora, and 4 x 16, Linchpin), part I

[pollylynn]

Title: I'll Cover You

WC: ~12,100 (oops)

Spoilers: Pandora (4 x15) & Linchpin (4 x16), primarily. References to Flowers for your Grave (1 x 01), Knockout (3 x 23), Rise (4 x 01), and 47 Seconds (4 x 19)

Summary: "It should be fun, and it's not. Not exactly. His heart should race at the thought that she wants him. That she wants him, too, and doesn't want anyone else to have him."

A/N: This was challenging. And long. And challenging. Pandora and Linchpin are so meaty and right smack in the good and the bad of season 4. The gift here is a little goofy (and a little bit of a cheat), but I hope you'll bear with me on it.

Berkie Lynn, of course, is the diabolical fiend who prompted this series, and this is the eighth story in this series. Here's the prologue that sets up the series premise, and here's the first story and the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the the sixth, and the seventh. They're loosely linked one-shots that can be read independently and in any order you like.

Um, apparently this is too long and needs to be posted in parts. This part is in the past; part II will be in the future.


2012

He can't help thinking this should be more fun. A caper. A spy caper and holding it all over Gates' head. Keeping her out of the loop-keeping everyone else out-under CIA orders. Just the two of them and a spy caper. There's nothing not fun about all that.

And then there's the fact that she's jealous. Kate is jealous. And if that's not fun-not exactly fun, anyway-he sort of needs it.

It's been hard lately. Harder. One thing after another, and it's been harder to hope. But she's jealous and that's something.

Several somethings, really. Because she's not just jealous. Not just jealous for herself. She's jealous for Nikki. And jealous for them. For them as partners. As a team. For all the things they mean to each other.

He thinks so anyway. He thinks she's jealous in a lot of ways.

But she's jealous that's definitely part of it, and that should be fun. It's always been fun before, and it should be fun now. But it's not. Not really.

It's good. It's definitely good, because he needs a win for them right now. Because one day they're walking arm in arm up a church aisle and dancing cheek to cheek like it's not the end of the world, and the next, everything is crashing down around them. Four years and the lie that's keeping her safe and he needs a win to hold him steady. To make him believe that it will all come right someday.

He needs a win, because he worries that someday is something he made up. Delusion or self-preservation or whatever. Because ten words and the very sight of her were enough to undo three months of silence. Three months of making himself believe he could live without her.

And lately he's been worried that it's all in his head. Someday and everything underneath the words.

But she's jealous and it gives him a little solid ground. So it's good. Knowing she's jealous is good.

But it should be more fun than this. It should be fun, and it's not. Not exactly. His heart should race at the thought that she wants him. That she wants him, too, and doesn't want anyone else to have him. That should skitter over his skin and knock the breath from him. Pull his heartbeat along, faster and faster, and it does. It does.

But there should be sparks and banter flying back and forth between them, too. That's what's missing. Because she snipes at him and he says stupid things like usual. But she looks at him with wide, questioning eyes. She looks away and she's hurt. She's really hurt.

Part of him bristles at that. Part of him wants to call her on it. To say out loud that she's being unfair. Completely unfair. That it was a decade ago and did she really think he'd never . . . researched a character before?

The pause is there, even in his head. Even in his head, they talk about it, but they don't talk about it, and it curls his fists and makes him want to shake her. Makes him want to rail against it. To tell her that she doesn't get the guided tour of his past because she's the one who decided that it's not someday yet. And wasn't she the one who didn't want to talk about numbers?

But she's hurt, and it keeps coming back to that. It keeps coming back to the fact that she's not just that kind of jealous. It's something bigger than a smug smile and him taking sly digs at her. It's too big for it to be fun.

More than anything, it makes him go quiet inside. It's almost . . . solemn. Because she makes him rethink everything. His past. Their future. What he hopes for. Where he sees himself. Who he is and what he wants out of his life. How it is now and how it will be when it's time. When it's someday. She makes him rethink it all.

He hears himself tell her that with Sophia, it was never the way it is with them. He says it out loud and it's true. It's less than what he wants to say. So much less, but it's truer than a lot of things he says. A lot of things either of them is allowed to say.

And it's not just . . . appeasement. It's not a platitude or a joke about her being his work wife. It's not just the thousandth in a series of things they've said to each other because they're not in a relationship, but they're in a relationship.

It's true. It's as simple as that. It was never the way it is with them. He and Sophia were never partners. And there's nothing-really nothing-for Kate to be jealous of.

He can't deny the moment. Not completely. That wasn't nothing. Seeing Sophia again after all this time. It wasn't nothing. But it rang out and faded and the words have all the force of realization behind them. Even though he makes a joke. Even though he lets them both off the hook with it. Even though she smiles and he's grateful. He's so grateful when he sees the hurt recede a little. It's true in so many ways: It was never like it is with her.

He wants the nostalgia. He'd like to enjoy that moment a little. It was important. That time was important. A chance to live out the kind of fantasies that made him want to write. And he'd like to get swept up in the memory now. The intrigue and the way his heart used to pound, watching Sophia work. The thrum of the command center. The urgency. Scrawling disjointed words anywhere he could because there was so much going on.

But it keeps coming back to the fact that it's true. Even though he wants to linger over memories, it's true.

He'd like to call up that thrill. He'd like the nostalgia. The option of it, at least. But all he can think is it's not the same.

It was never like it is with them.

It keeps coming down to the two of them. It's strange. The sudden weight of it when a week ago-a day ago-everything between them felt like flame and air and now it keeps coming down to them.

It's strange what's preoccupying him. What's preoccupying them both, he thinks, in the middle of one of the biggest, weirdest, most overwhelming cases they've ever worked. With everything. With Alexis and Gage and Sophia. And right now, with Jones and his fucking black bags-again-it comes down to the two of them.

She's silent and still beside him. Apart from him. It's not like the first time Jones grabbed them. Not at all like the first time. She kept reaching out then. Signaling and drawing his attention. Trying to get him to remember. Relying on him. To notice the turns and sounds. The feel of the road changing underneath them. To help her build something. A picture. A sequence of events to go on when they found their opening. When they needed to make their move.

Last time, she kept reaching out. Touching him when she could manage it, with both their hands cuffed and no idea how much cover they had on opposite sides of the wide back seat, she kept touching him. And that was something else. That was down to them. Fingertips brushing his elbow and pausing. Heavy and ending in a sigh she couldn't quite silence. Relief and worry, both. Reassurance, for him and for her. And that was all down to them.

But she's still now and he doesn't have to see her to know her spine is rigid. That she's sitting tall and haughty and absolutely still. That her fingers are knotted in her lap and she's chewing the inside of her own lip. That there's a lash of anger and hurt just waiting. Just waiting.

And he wants to apologize.

It's ridiculous, and there's a stubborn push against it. Something knotted and heavy hammering at his ribs that says no. No. That he has nothing to apologize for.

But he wants to. He wants to.

He wants to tell her that he shouldn't have hit the stupid panic button. That he should have known he could count on her. That he does know that. He can always count on her. His partner. That there's nothing that the two of them can't get themselves out of and he knows that.

That Sophia isn't his girlfriend.

That's the thing he wants to say most, and it keeps him from saying anything at all, because it's absurd. Even if Jones weren't there. Even if they weren't cuffed and bagged in the back of a 100%-obvious spook mobile, it would keep him from saying anything at all.

It's completely ridiculous. But he's still biting it back. The drive goes on and on. Jones is circling and doubling back and it's all more than a little over the top. It's taking forever. And even in the middle of everything, he's biting back the denial, and what are they, sixteen?

He did the right thing. The sensible, logical thing. He couldn't have known what Gage had planned. He couldn't have known how things would go down. Whether he'd kill them both or knock them out or whisk them away to God knew where. He couldn't have known, and it made perfect sense to make sure someone would at least come looking for them.

And she's not his girlfriend.

He wants to say all of that, but it comes down to the two of them. To the fact that they're partners and the look on her face. Hurt and disbelief. Betrayal and the way she shrank away from him in the confines of the trunk. And it's not fair. She's not being fair, and that doesn't change a thing. He feels guilty. He wants to apologize for losing faith.

He wants to reach out. To lay his fingertips on her and make them heavy with an apology, because that's all he can manage with his hands cuffed and the wide back seat between them.

Because it all comes down to the two of them, and he wants to reassure her. He wants to tell her that it always will.

It always will.

He wants to be angry, but he can't quite come up with it. If he tries-really tries-he can get to indignant, but that's about it. At best, he's . . . angry that he can't be angry. And it's familiar. Dizzying and typical of so much of the last four years and even that realization doesn't quite get him to angry.

He stares down at the chess board. Knocks the bishop over for effect-for the satisfaction of the sharp clack and the helpless roll of it back and forth-but it's play acting. He's not angry.

He sweeps the chess board aside anyway. Even though he knows it's a pointless gesture and a lie, he sweeps it aside and the remaining pieces topple. The other bishop and the pawn teeter and fall and list from side to side.

He trails a hand down one side of the desk, counting under his breath until he finds the drawer and slides it open. It's mostly empty. Three or four stationery pads scavenged from hotels. A scattering of binder clips. An old, half-eaten package of fruit leather, for some reason. Ew.

He slides it all aside and finds the seam in the bottom of the drawer. His fingers press down and meet resistance. A hidden spring. It takes him a second to remember the sequence-the combination-and he wonders how long it's been.

Eleven and a half years. That came readily enough today, and he tamps down a flare of embarrassment. Guilt at how eager he sounded. Like he's been counting every day, and no wonder. No wonder she's worried. No wonder she's hurt.

He shoves the thought away. He's done with that. He's done with the guilt and the questions she won't quite ask. He's done putting himself out there while she takes her shots. The way you look at her, you're sure as hell aren't on mine.

If she's worried, that's on her. If she doubts him-doubts that he's been anything but on her team for four years-that's on her. He's been there. When she's wanted him there and when she hasn't and when she hasn't been able to make up her damned mind, he's been there, and if she can't see that-if she won't see that . . .

She's the one who won't take what he's offering. What he's held out to her again and again. The one who has them talking in circles about partners and research and muses and teams when he loves her. He just loves her and he's so tired of talking in code. He's so tired of not saying it. He's tired and he wants to be angry about it. And if he can't be angry, he'll be done with it. He's done.

His fingers find the seam again. He presses down and releases, counting it out. A pause, and he presses again, then one final push and hold. The panel releases and there's something. A little of the thrill he's been missing and he snatches at it. Reels it in and tries to keep it. Tries to push away the reality of her voice cracking and her eyes flashing dark with hurt as his fingers skate over the contents of the hidden compartment.

There's a laminated, clip-on badge he wasn't supposed to take. No name, just a number and a dense square of ink-a QR code, he realizes now, though he'd never even heard of one back then. A couple of sheets of what looks like plain paper, every one with a digital watermark. He wasn't supposed to take those either.

He lifts them out one by one-his little hoard of contraband-until it's the only thing left. His notebook. He lays his hand over the black matte cover and pictures the contents. Pages crowded with his handwriting. Ink and pencil led. Crayon on a few pages, he remembers, pilfered from a kids' menu in some diner in a fit of sudden inspiration.

He pictures the sketches and the shorthand. The thick, black bands of impenetrable ink and fringes of torn-out pages, all courtesy of the humorless, heavy-handed censor who met him coming and going every day. A silent, thin-lipped man whose name he never knew. Whose face he can't remember. Which, he supposes, was the point.

He remembers the missing pieces, though. That's the irony. The squeal of the marker on the page, the adamant jerk of his fingers and glue curling at the margin of the notebook's binding. Sections razored out entirely here and there. They burned every detail into his memory like nothing else.

It all seemed haphazard at the time and he remembers wondering if it was part of the game. Striking out innocuous notes on mannerisms, body language. Confiscating his crude sketches and idle snatches of mundane conversation. Heaping what mattered-what might be a security risk-together with the clutter of a busy mind. Now it seems so trivial, he wonders what mattered at all. What could have possibly mattered.

He pours a glass of scotch. Settles into the chair and savors the moment. Tells himself that he's savoring it. He makes himself wait before he reaches in and pulls the notebook out. It's no good, though. The thrill is slipping away already.

He remembers it too well, now that it's on his mind. He doesn't have open the notebook to know what he told Kate is true. That everything single thing she would let him say is true.

Most of it's like dictation. Things he took down when he hung on Sophia's every word. Just-so stories and the odd cadence of someone else's fairy tales. The stories she gave him neat and gift wrapped and hollow. Fun in the moment, and they served their purpose. Bought him more than a decade of freedom. But it's not surprising that he hasn't really thought about any of this in a long time. It's not surprising that the story left him in a rush once he stopped to think. Once he noticed.

He opens the notebook anyway. Wonders if there's really as little of him here as it seems right now. Hopes it's really not as thin as all that.

It is and it isn't. There are things pushed to the corners that he likes. Marginalia and observations framed with heavy strokes of the pen. Texture and weight and sureness hugging the edge of the page every now and then, and there's pleasure in that. The stamp of confidence in his own words, even if he had to talk himself into it then.

There are more of those as time goes on, but the pages are mostly filled with something he doesn't like much. Stick figure dialogue and mechanical plot points. Things chained together and full of empty space.

He's better than this now. He doesn't kid himself. He's not saving lives or changing the world with what he does, but he's better than this. It's time and experience, but it's more than that, too.

It's her. It's them. Whether he's angry or not. Whether she's hurt or not. He lays a hand over the page and he knows it's true: It was never like it is with her. He's better with her. Because of her.

The scotch disappears and he pours another. He keeps turning pages and ignoring the chess board at his elbow. He reads everything. Makes himself flip back when his attention wanders.

The pen is in his hand before he notices. He adds notes. Takes scissors to one page and tape to another. Draws things together uses them to flesh one another out. It's so obvious now. So obvious how things ought to fit. That there has to be a better reason for this to happen and that to come next than simple expediency. That there has to be something underneath.

He finishes the second scotch and keeps writing. He's tearing pages out now. Here and there. The things he hates. The things that are worth salvaging. He tears them out and knows in the back of the mind that he'll lose it completely about that at some point. It's not something he does. Ever.

But he tears them out. Lays them alongside fresh sheets and fills those. Clips them together and goes hunting. Other notebooks from a year ago. From three years ago. Four. The time in between when he had nothing. When everything was edges and outlines with nothing inside and he thought he was done with writing. Done with who he'd been for more than a decade.

He lays them side by side and writes on fresh pages in the middle. He realizes he was done. Looking down at the old pages and the new, he realizes he was absolutely done. It's abrupt, looking at it now. This way. There's a stark line. Before and after. He met her and he was done with who he was before.

He wasn't happy about it. Not exactly. There's resistance. Backlash and cynicism and more than his fair share of frustration. He sees pages he abandoned and came back to. Filled up and filled in after he'd left them for a dead end. Mysteries he'd never solved.

He keeps writing. Commentary and transcription and letting his mind wander. Things about the case-about Tracy's house and the Harper case file and Blakely. He writes about that from time to time and he checks in. He checks in to see, but he's still not angry. He's still just . . . whatever he is now. Whatever this is.

He writes.

He doesn't really notice the light creeping through the window. Translucent February dawn falling across the floor and not really warming anything. He doesn't notice when his head drops to his arm. When his eyes close and sleep finally comes. When the pen falls from his hand.

He doesn't notice, but he wakes suddenly. An hour later? More, probably. His spine and the awkward hunch of his shoulders tell him that. He wakes suddenly and sees it all. Nothing of the desk visible through a layer of sheets three deep-four or more in some places-taped and stapled and clipped and spreading. Spilling off the edges and stacked on either side of the chair.

He's surrounded. The notebook-the oldest one-is all but gutted, and he's surrounded.

The last sheet is damp. Sweat and drool and ugh. It sticks to his elbow and he glances at it as he peels it 's mostly empty. Just a couple of words-two and two alone-and he's about to toss it. His hands are poised to crumple it tight and lob it toward the garbage. But it's her name. It's her name it stops him cold.

He lays it in the center of the desk. Smooths the edges and sighs. He traces the letters with a fingertip.

Team Beckett.

He can't get warm. It's a cliché, but he can't.

There's no time for it. There's never any time. He hands her a cup of coffee and holds on to his own and they have thirty seconds to be grateful together. Not even that. Not even thirty seconds to be grateful that they're both alive and there might be time someday. Someday.

It's not enough. Thirty seconds and her fingers brushing his for a fraction of it when he hands her the coffee. Her thanks and his not-quite-cavalier dismissal. A joke and a shared smile. None of it is not enough. He can't get warm.

Neither can she. He sees it. How she lifts her hair off her neck even though it's dry now. Finally dry. The way she scrubs her palm over her collar bone to tease some color into the pale skin. He sees how she pulls her fingers into the too-long sleeves of the hoodie. Makes her body rigid and refuses to give into the chill. Neither of them can get warm, and he doesn't quite understand what it is they're doing about it.

He might be angry now. When he's not shivering all the way from the center of himself, he thinks he might be angry.

She's not my partner. You are.

The thought of that being the last real thing he said to her-something so stupid and veiled and not what he wants to say-might have gotten him all the way to angry at last.

And she's asking. She finally came out and asked and there wasn't any time. Just like always, there wasn't any time.

How close were the two of you, exactly?

And now she's asking again and he can't get warm. He faces front. Keeps himself away from her because he can't do anything else. Because she's asking and he just wants to wrap himself around her. He wants to slam his fist against the elevator's emergency stop, strip them both to the skin, and wrap himself around her.

He's tired of there not being any time. He's tired of her waiting to ask until they're in a fucking elevator so she can have the last word in a conversation they're still not having.

He's tired of it not being someday.

He can't get warm.

They have the conversation and they don't, as usual. As completely fucking typical. He puts himself in front of her in the middle of the bullpen and doesn't care that Ryan and Esposito look like they'd gladly sell tickets. She lashes out at him in the morgue in front of Lanie. She lashes out in front of his kid and tells him to go home. Her cheeks are burning. His are, too. But neither of them can get warm.

There's a spark. There's a spark between them that warms them both a little from minute to minute. Because it always comes down to the two of them. To everything they are together. Not just the things they aren't-not yet-but the job and the fact that they're partners.

There's a tight, pleased smile when he says he's with her and he smiles back because he always smiles back. Because he can't help himself. Even when he's angry. Even when she's doubting him because he slept with someone before he even knew she existed, he can't help himself. He smiles back.

But it's just a spark. A tiny thing in all that darkness.

She's shivering when she turns her back on him as he's leaving. He's leaving because she told him to go. Her fingers are blue as she knots them together. She nods at Lanie's small talk and huddles further into her jacket. She's shivering.

He looks back at her from the doorway and swears he can see her breath. He swears he can see his own.

He can't get warm. Neither can she.

For once in his life, he'd like to be quiet. Given half a chance, he'd like to be quiet. He'd like every last person-every last woman in his life-to just let him be quiet.

But there's Alexis and a conversation he doesn't want to have. That he shouldn't have to have because he has always kept this part of his life away from her for all kinds of reasons.

He's angry again. A flare of it in the general direction of Kate, because this is not just him spinning his own past. It's not damage control. This is his family and someone else's life and work and he's angry that she thinks the worst of him. That she assumes it's about him ducking his past and puffing himself up.

He's angry, but it sputters out into something raw and cold and closer to hopeless than he's been since he realized that she's jealous. She gave him a little solid ground and now it's buckling and rolling and gaping open beneath his feet.

He meant it in the park. He'd tell her anything. Whether it's a good idea or not. Whether he's allowed to or not.

He'd tell her anything, because he wants her to know him. She does know him and he wants her to see that. To open her eyes and let herself trust that. Trust him. She knows him, but she doesn't want to know. She'd rather hide behind this other version of him-of them-than know. It's really none of my business.

And then there's Sophia herself and it's just strange. There's some flare of something-satisfaction that the dressing down she gave him was a performance. Perverse, muddled gratification. Like he might as well have something to show for the grief he's getting.

But mostly he wants to be quiet. Mostly it's strange. The way she pushes and pulls like he's so easily dazzled. Like no time has passed for him at all and he hasn't lived more than a decade of his life since then. Like the same old smoke and mirrors will work.

And she thinks they do. She dictates and tries to finesse him. She brushes up against him and he's tongue tied because he can't get warm and he doesn't want her here. It hits him, startling and certain.

It doesn't matter who she is because I'm never going to see her again.

However he feels about her now, however he felt about her then, he doesn't want her here. His home. With his daughter upstairs and Kate's life on the board. He doesn't want her here, giving him orders and warnings and advice like she knows him. Like she ever knew him.

It's another echo. Her bedroom voice and strategic flashes of skin. Fleeting contact and her reaching into her bra like . . . like some dashed off femme fatale he would have written for Derrick Storm. A plot device in a pencil skirt. It should be thrilling, but it's just . . . disconcerting. It's faded and frayed around the edges and he doesn't want her here.

He just wants to be quiet.

He's tired of accounting for this version of himself. One that he shed a long time ago. He's tired of ancient sins and worn-out stories and if it's not someday, it's not back then, either.

It's here and now and he just wants to be quiet.

He sits at his desk, rocks glass and bottle at the ready, and he waits for it to come. Whatever it's going to be-guilt, sorrow, anger, humiliation, disbelief-he waits. He thinks about Sophia. His memory skips over the details. Then and now.

Nothing comes. No big emotional moment. No punctuation at the end of it. Just a desire to be busy. For his hands to be busy.

The stack of pages is still on his desk. Lopsided and weighted down with the stapler and a stray mug. He hasn't exactly had time to deal with it and there's a flare of belated panic. In his chest and his belly and his limbs.

He's sick and weak and shaking with it: It was sitting out when she was here. Sophia. Just out in the open, and she must have seen. She must have pawed through it like everything else. Like the rest of his life. Her fingers must have turned them over. Page after page. It's more than panic, then. It's disgust and fury that she touched this. Any of this.

He starts to take it all apart. Collage. Outline. Whatever it is or whatever he meant it to be. He peels tape away and pries out staples. He sets the clips aside in neat piles.

He tries to reassemble it. The original. He spreads open the nearly empty covers of the notebook and starts to piece it back together. One page. Two. Three. He sets the orphans on the other side of his desk. The burnt out shell of what he wrote when he couldn't get to angry. The holes bother him. The fragments-the old scattered thoughts that he used to think were good enough-bother him more.

He tries to reassemble it and it's worse. It's worse than looking back in the first place.

His hands work carefully at it and he watches from the outside. He feels far away from it all and he wonders what he's looking for. Why he's trying to put the notebook back together. Why he's trying to reassemble the last eleven and a half years. The year before that.

There's no way you could have known.

Inane, but it's the kind of thing you say. The right platitude for the right occasion. Even if the the person you're saying it to is a CIA agent. Not a CIA agent. A traitor.

She didn't say it to him. Beckett didn't. Kate didn't.

I think that Sophia told a lot of lies.

It's generous, but honest, too. A kindness and a compliment and a demand. Not blame and not absolution. It squeezes his heart.

His hands stop. They press into the desk and stop. He wonders if he ever said it to her. Montgomery. That she couldn't have known. He can't remember. There wasn't any time.

He was begging her to save herself and then her heart stopped and then she was gone for so long that he can't remember. Everything happened so fast that he can't remember whether or not he opened his mouth and something so stupid came out.

You couldn't have known.

It's not true. He's written it. He could have known. He should have.

He's written it half a dozen times. Not just a plot twist. Not just the simple betrayal of a one-off character. The author's long con. Building investment and trust in someone. Shaping them into a person over time and space and feeling and taking it all away in an instant. He's written it again and again. Laid the breadcrumb trail and pulled the curtain back. Found the sweet spot between believable and completely obvious.

He's written it for her. Something kinder than the truth for Nikki. For Kate, though he told himself it wasn't. All summer he told himself it wasn't for her. That he was done writing for her. He told himself he was writing it for Roy. For himself. For the team. Something kinder they could all understand. Something to make sense where there was none.

He looks down at the desk and the ruins of something old. The answers aren't in the notebook, whether it's in one piece or a million, but he thinks they could have been. They could have been there to see. Eleven and a half years ago, she must have had her tells. Hesitations and inconsistencies and slips of the tongue.

They might have been there to see, but they're not in the notebook, whole or in pieces. That version of him-the version of he was tired of long before he knew-couldn't have known. That version of him was awed. Foolish. Overwhelmed and eager to believe. Desperate to escape into something else. That version of him couldn't have known.

He looks at the ruins. Old and new and, in between, the irregular shape of something else. Something he made when he couldn't get to angry. It's not much. A start at best.

He takes up the top sheet. Turns it this way and that and thinks it might be here. What he could have known. What a better version of him should have known. He lays the sheet aside and reaches for the next and the next. He smooths the tape down, fixing old pieces in place. He takes his pen and adds to this new something. He forgets about the notebook and eleven and a half years ago and everything he didn't know whether he should have or not.

So much of this-this thing he's making that's something else-comes from her. From Kate. The places where he's shored up plot bear her methodical, uncompromising stamp. All his shortcuts are gone and that's her, too. But it's not just things she's taught him. It's things he's learned from her, whether she meant him to or not. Whether or not she meant him to see.

The quick anger and compassion that runs so deep it's grabs him and carries him away sometimes. Stubbornness and the meticulous need to know. To make sense and understand, not just get the job done. Pain and resistance. Determination not to be defined by it anymore. That's new. New enough that it's been hard for him to trust it, but it's true on the page and it gives him hope. Everything here is true on the page.

All these things have found their way in and he can't help but hold on to them. They've found their way here and they'll keep. He knows they'll keep. That he won't have a single doubt in them if he comes back to them a year from now. A dozen years from now. Whatever happens between them or doesn't. Whether it's ever someday or not, he'll never doubt these things about her are true.

He turns the last page and remembers-realizes: This is what he was looking for. Whatever he was waiting for, this is what it all comes to. This is here and now and someday.

Team Beckett.

He never quite finds a home for it.

He pulls the drawer open and thinks about the secret compartment, but that's wrong. He knows it right away.

He buys a bright purple accordion file because it seems right at the moment. But the pages are so thick and irregular with tape and staples and clips that it's an awkward fit and he hates the way the cardboard edges snag when he takes them out.

He does sometimes. He takes them out. Mostly to read. Mostly, but he adds here and there. Reverently moves pieces around.

At one point, he adds the covers of the old notebook-empty now-and it all rests together for a while in an oversized box on a high shelf in his closet.

The accordion file sits empty for a long time.

One day he throws the notebook covers away. He's cleaning out his desk, the last refuge of the procrastinator. He's supposed to be writing, but he's cleaning out his desk and a bunch of odds and ends from his early notes for Nikki Heat find their way into the accordion file.

There's not much. He doesn't write longhand all that often anymore, but he remembers these. Backs of envelopes and cramped handwriting so dense that there's barely any white peeking through. He remembers scrawling. Pen and paper awkwardly balanced on his thigh, hidden under the table, while he watched her. While he was supposed to be going through his own fan mail and he watched her and he had so much to say. When it felt like the words were pooling in his fingertips and surging off the tip of his tongue.

It pulls the corner of his mouth up into a smile when he thinks about it. The way she tried to freeze him out. How she would barely talk to him and he still had so much to say about her right from the beginning. He doesn't think he'll ever know her completely. But he started right away. He started knowing her right away.

And everything is true in its way. Incomplete. Unfinished, but true.

He trims the envelopes to rectangles. Adds the few ragged scraps of notepaper that he tore from the bottoms of things when she wasn't looking. He stacks it all into a neat pile and clips them together. Straightens the edges and lingers over them before he tucks them into the accordion file. He has a sudden impulse and goes hunting for his label maker. He punches out the letters. All caps. TEAM BECKETT.

He's sliding the file back up on the closet shelf and grabs the box all of a sudden. He peers inside at the stiff, black cardboard of the notebook covers. They feel like they don't belong. Like the new pages are something else entirely and the covers don't belong. He throws them away.

He gets anxious later and goes for them in the garbage, but they're buried under carrot peelings and broccoli stems and God knows what else. Alexis stands at the counter chopping vegetables and gives him an odd look.

She asks if he lost something.

He lets the lid of the garbage can clang shut and says no. He's not quite smiling, but he says no, and he's not anxious any more.

He piles the sheets up again. He puts them in their box and slides it back up next to the accordion file.

They're not quite home, but they can stay there a while.

Continues in Part II.