JUSTWORLD FALLACY
A/N: Hey Guys, this is my favorite chapter out of my favorite story so please treat it kindly. It was my opus that I worked towards from the beginning. Instead of inserting more big words I'll just leave this here. Just-World Fallacy Chapter 10 The Human Shield Rain submerses the idle windshield. Bangs hard enough to create a layer of mist from jumping drops. Runoff, constant in the fall deluge, a riverboat paddle wheel. Concrete sidewalks sunken beneath inches of water; adopt the brass hues of the autumn ambiance. Earthworms upheaved from loamy homes squirm and swell. Finally plummet with the current into the slit of a sewer grate. Center console mocks him. A harlequin's face. Offers one thing for him to view. A single coffee. Cream no sugar, transformed from newborn to three days old. Hasn't made contact with it since she severed contact with him. Observes it from his seat, hands blanketing his thighs, distinguishing the copper stains on the black lid. The same stains he removed from her lower lip because no one else did. The same stains which run in solitaries and in packs down her back like wild animals. Crimson droplets swerving and crusting her skin. Home on the range where the skies are all blue, black and gray. Called her, more than a few times but less than a hundred. Border obsessive the way he called. But she wouldn't answer and it left the morbid image of her mangled body on the floor of her front room a bitter aftertaste in his mind. Her front room. She knew it happened there, but she invited him to her house. Captivated him inside all the same. The solvents, the bases of whatever they'd used to scrub her place clean of any blood and spit and—it assaulted his nostrils. Singed the hairs. Couldn't breathe in the house he shared with her for almost seven months. The house he'd put off buying an apartment for, because he always assumed he'd just move in. They were that compatible. She's that perfect. But he can't be there after it. Can't stomach her being there after it. Wants to help, would do anything in the world to help her in any measure. Anything she requested he would do. And the one thing she asked of him was to go away so the house could swallow her whole. Didn't break his heart. The pieces are so small; can't be fractured any more, like crumbles of dried bread. Dissolved his heart like burning acid. Like whatever they threw on her floor. Cataract is continuous. Fifteen minutes has drunkenly stumbled by while waiting for a break in the clouds, but the sky is the same spilled gray it's been for the past four days. The same at dawn, day, dusk and night. No sun, no moon, no stars. No guidance because inherently, everyone is on their own. Coffee cup grins at him. Malignant and malice, the kind of grins clowns always wear categorizing them as a fraction less human. Tugs the handle and the details on the inside of his door immediately submerge while open to the police station parking lot. Slams the door shut, stuffing his keys into his side pocket with his wallet. Chances a check through the window and notices the coffee cup spit up. Water flicks at his skull. Wets his hair, and tickles as beads roll down his head. Weather tumbling lazily into winter, enforces a strict cold prickle in the cloudburst. His jacket collar up, ducking his face to no avail as his shoes splash through plowed asphalt full of caves overflowing with precipitation. The minute run from his car to the station doors leaves him slobbered. Toes flex in shoes and find squishy soles under rough, unmalleable cotton. The gyrating fan above throws drafts of freezing air at the cold layer of water permeating his body, flesh cultivates bumps as he represses a full bodied shiver. The puddle encircling his feet feeds from his body, nourished by the water running from his skin, clothes and hair. Conquers the passive smoked pattern captured in marble floors. Scrubs a hand through his hair relieving his scalp of the lingering stimulation. Heavy enough, cold enough to feel like five familiar fingertips brushing through. Fingertips he knows better than his own. The taste of each individual pad, how the delicacy varies from pinkie to thumb. And he stops. All movement about him ceases, leaving only the natural flow of the water dripping off him. He senses her. Can't put the feeling into a proper description. Like the fistful of marbles from his bedroom floor he swallowed earlier have alchemized to bubbles. The clacking in his viscera ceases, the rainwater bleeding through his jacket to his shirt is no longer an annoyance, but now sustenance. Even the clouds outside purr, rather than growl in their disposition. Picks her out of the crowded room. Of officers frenzying like sharks in crimson water, frantically smashing into each other, grumble and straighten their route. Gentle glow bathes over her body. Cascades over ravaged skin, the softness of which he can still feel under his fingertips, against his cheek, lapping on the tips of his lips. Hollow pitted mind wonders why she's at the station. Shallower channel chimes in paranoia, prays she's okay. Nothing more has happened. Can't stop watching her. Because it's been three days since he almost lost her. Different times. Darker times. Wouldn't be perched on a bench back swerving, aching to be straight, but trapped by hair woven into her sling. Since he moved to Toronto he's seen her almost every day. At work, at her house, in the hospital. Purposefully removed himself from her only twice. Broke his heart, love oozed out, turned violet and sour. A lapse was the only logical choice. Lew's death resulted in removal because she pleaded with him and his arrogance made him deny her. Couldn't face her after that. Couldn't face his own reflection after that. Three days. Three days after what happened. As much as he yearned to touch her, hold her, to be able to love her, he'd settle for simply being able to see her. Otherwise he'd be staring at a picture where his lips are frozen on her cheek. Trying to remember the softness of her skin, the refreshing coolness of her body, her intoxicating aroma and taste. Staring at a gray slab with her name carved into it knowing everything more he could have done. Knowing he wouldn't be far behind. Face is almost bland. Almost devoid of anything he could say he knew about her. But he knows her. Knows her too well, better than anyone and he'll defend that point. Discerns what he can from a distance. The slight down curve to the functioning corner of her lips. The half lidded eye where he knows a scarlet iris slumbers. The way the muscles around her eye are tight, fabricating deep furrows of aggrieved lines. Knows she's in pain and hiding it from that one camouflage. A throw pillow. An ivory body painted in makeups and buried in a back closet dress. I didn't die, Sam. I didn't die. In a room full of cops, in a room full of men, she's isolated. Swept to the side as dust from the cupboard, as garbage from the lane and forced to wait trembling, painfully, anxiously. Sears him. Hears the sizzle of water as it simmers away from his scorching skin. No one could bother to come with her? Did she even tell anyone? Does she even think she's worth it? He knows she is. Is willing to risk everything he has and is on it and it's no risk at all because it's always the right choice. Wonders what the hell kind of family made her like this? Did she even tell them? Would they even care? Has absolutely nothing left to lose. Two tickets on his car. An eventual date to appear in court for punching a guy. He wasn't even a man. Sure he was a doctor, but men, real men don't think along the same channels he did. Would repeat the actions again and again if it meant teaching that asshole some compassion, some sympathy, some respect. Might wait until he had Jules safe. Save Jules. That's what it was all about, but it was too late. What they all thought. Not outward. No direct declarations like his absent three word dessert. But the Team, to them she was already written off. Like strays euthanized for the betterment of society. Not to him. Not inward, outward, forward or backward. She's Jules. His Jules in any form, all forms, forever forms and he'll never renounce her even after she's renounced herself. Homebrewed nerves disappear. She sits so still, so perfect, so ignored by everyone and everything around her. Has to approach her. Offer her some semblance of friendship, of reliability even if those are the abstract concepts of bones buried in nostalgia. In memories. In painting toenails, in unclasping lingerie, in watching her curl her hair or trace her lips with gloss, in praying a broken body will heal properly because he can't lose her. He can't. Cared for her once, in a physical sense. Helped with the hole drilled straight through. His reward was a crop of days with her, plentiful as the fields of wheat she mentions in riddles or inside jokes with herself. Caring cultivated his fear, the fear; she would suddenly be ripped from him. His idea of her in good health clashed in heroic violence with hers and birthed boiling resentment until they finally exploded. Slammed the door behind him. Hard. Really hard. Heard a crack and thought the heavy wood split, but didn't care. Maybe if it was the outer one. The one with the checkerboard glass. Eighteen squares, six by three. When they opened up the inner door and sat on the couch, him closest to the stairs they rebuilt one weekend and her thrown over the opposite arm like a ratty blanket devoid of bones or muscles, sometimes the sunset smashed the glass. Sometimes it made prisms of colors shoot across her hardwood floor like a fairground. Lights on a Ferris wheel. Colors at a parade where he eternally holds her. Refractions of sirens in puddles while ballet flats burned. Stomped down her front porch steps. Crippled, they cackled at him with broken splinters and crooked teeth. Were haloed in the halogen porch light. Warm and smoky in the late May night. The sweet smell of freshly cut grass wafted on a gentle, humid wind. Her lawn rivaled the foliage on Amazon boat tours. Grass spiraled halfway up his shin. The shrubs no longer had any identifiable shape. Plants wilted from the overgrowth of weeds. It was late, a little after one. He ended up taking her Jeep. Wasn't really stealing at that point. Was already adjusted to his legs because hers hadn't been behind the driver's seat in eight weeks. Took it because he was so used to picking up groceries, or prescriptions, or medical supplies, or anything he could think of to make her old Jules, his Jules. To stick something on her or in her and she would just wake up the next day fully repaired. Jesus, it felt like she was dying. She was only getting better. Had to be. Signed her out AMA. Scrawled his signature onto the bottom of the pages with a slippery pen in sweat soaked palms as the doctor watched under a scornful brow. She begged him. Held his hand and pleaded with him to just take her home. How could he tell her no? How could he stare into her beautiful and exhausted eyes, so full of pain she was poorly hiding, and refuse her? Drove around the neighborhood. Contemplated going back to the hotel, the hotel he hadn't seen in over two months. Slept at her house. Slept in a hospital. Anything to wake up and be able to see her face within seconds. Packed his bags and became her live in helper. Her live in boyfriend. This caused all the trouble. She didn't want either. Wanted to be completely independent. Sure he was good for company and affection. Good for reinforcement on an idea and someone to have dinner plans with. Was even good for a fuck now and then but she wanted seclusion. It was the thing which apparently allowed their relationship its growth. Her knowing even though he was over at her house every single fucking night, that he still didn't live there. The thing was, a bullet near the size of a pen tore through her. Ripped her apart from meters away. Rearranged the way her back connected because of pained nerves and broken ribs. There's a hole straight through her. He's seen it. Every day he saw it. Sure it was stitched up complacent like a rag doll's mouth, but more than once a day he saw the twin sides of her wound. The head and tails of her injury. Imagined it originally resembled a used paper towel roll. The kind kids use as imaginary telescopes. Idled at a stop sign for a few minutes. It was a nice night. Moderately clear, swells of light gray clouds whisked through the sky like patchwork. Stars looked like specks of salt on a black countertop. The streets were noiseless, except for a clicking under the hood of Jules' Jeep. If people were still awake, they were downtown. They were with family and friends. His family doesn't want him and his friends alienated him because he signed his girlfriend out of the ICU at her raspy plea. His friends alienated him by replacing her within two weeks. Expecting him not to notice. Sure, he'd rather have Jules in a job where she can't get injured, but if she wanted back on the Team he'd support her. He was her boyfriend. It was his job. His blind and faithful job because her back couldn't support her anymore. Realized in their altercation she inadvertently received exactly what she wanted. To be left alone. A dangerous alone. Alone in a two storey death dome because she couldn't really climb stairs. That particular day she had trouble walking. All he wanted to do was help. Help her with the weight she carried with her body. The weight burdened on a torso dyed violet and red like her backyard at sunset. Sat with her on the patio, brought her a blanket for her shaking body. Not shaking from the temperature. Just wanted to hold her. Sit and hold her and not let her go because he saw her die. He felt the life flow from her like sap from cut garden roses. Saw them stake a tube down her throat because her lungs stopped. He stopped. Everything just stopped. Was back at her house. It was almost two hours later. Just drove around wasting gas for two hours. He couldn't leave. He could never leave. Not after what she gave him. Love. Acceptance in toothbrush form. A superior smile as she playfully punched his cheek with the pad of her foot while they lounged on the couch together. The greatest relief when he glanced over the ridges of his partnered knuckles, her hand captured within his, and saw her barely open eyes trying to focus on him passed the tube stuck in her mouth. He laughed with joy. Laughed for days. Still gets chuckles. June bugs buzzed around the active porch light. Glowed like a wasteland. Through the lace curtains he could see a weak illumination from the front room. Tried his key in the brass lock and the front door thumped open. Didn't crack or creak. The strong wood didn't split. There were no shavings. No debris. No splinters scattered on the floor. There was no chain across it. Everything was exactly as it was when he left. Except Jules was on the stairs. She wasn't standing. Not really sitting. The way she angled her body since the bullet could only be described in marionette actions. The invisible fish wire snipped away from her limbs to leave her in a crumbled heap wherever she landed. Wherever happened to be the stairs. The stairs they rebuilt together. They had to go back to his hotel room because there was no way of getting up to the bedroom when they only finished four stairs on the first day. She almost froze to death. Initially he thought it was overdramatic theatrics but then he felt her body and Jesus, she almost froze to death. Gave her a pair knit gray and blue socks. Gave her his sweater. Gave her an open mouth kiss with tongue and wrapped her in the comforter. She was sort of thrown against the railing. Left arm hooked around her torso because she couldn't move it very much. Right snaked through the spindles and up the thick oak banister. Hand flat and open like on the snout of a horse. When he left she was on the couch imitating the position of a throw pillow. Shut the door to the buzzing insect carnival. Turned out the light and engaged all three locks before either of them said a word. He didn't really know how to start. She basically kicked him out when all he did was care. Two straight weeks of caring and that wasn't the difficult part. It was that she fought him every step of the way. She needed to eat and wouldn't. Needed to sleep and wouldn't. Needed to take her medication and wouldn't. Needed help with almost everything and wouldn't accept it. But she was there. She wasn't sitting in the sunset in the backyard. Buried beneath layers of knitted blankets with her body still convulsing. She wasn't buried beneath austere and metallic pipes or wires in a hospital with a ski slope for a heartbeat while he crushed her hand. She wasn't buried six feet beneath him in a beautiful dress he'd never seen her wear before stolen from the back of her closet with a hole through her body and insects feasting on her skin. She was there on the stairs in sweats and a t-shirt. Her skin was almost gray and her arm shook violently against the railing. One foot vibrated on the floor while the other tucked up beneath her. He knelt before her. Wanted to place a hand on her knee, on her shin, her thigh, her hip, but he was afraid it would be like a sledgehammer to an ice sculpture. Was so close to her and so afraid to do anything. Like before he kissed her. Being cooped up in a rig with her. Doing double drops with her in drills. The one and only time they sparred together in the workout room because it turned sexual and violent quick. "I'm sorry about—" "I tried to make it upstairs." Speech in exhalation. Was exhausted from sitting. From crossing a room. From not toppling over. "I can't—" Touched her then. Her knees because her head fell. Really fell, her forehead almost hit her thigh. At his touch her neck craned up as much as it could. Head plopped lifelessly against the arm sewn into the banister. "You need to let me help you." Her eyes were half closed. Half full of tears mirrored in the living room light. Globed her dull brown irises. "You already treat me differently." "What?" Rested back on the heels of his feet because the muscles in his shins started to scream. A natural response which flooded him with relief and guilt. There was no instant relief from her pain. Just the pills she only took at night. Pills she was late for. "I don't." "You treat me like I can't do anything. Like I'm broken. You don't treat me like you used to. You're not happy. You never smile. You never touch me. It's like I died, Sam." She shoved her face into the crook of her arm created by her elbow so he couldn't see her cry. "I didn't die." His heart broke for the second time at that moment. The first time was when the bullet hit her. The third was when she took him to a café for a certain conversation. The fourth was when he found out what happened to her. The fifth, sixth, and seventh were each time he saw her afterwards. The emptiness in his chest. The feeling like he'd fallen off a high swing set. Off the roof of the playhouse in the backyard and had the air knocked out of him. Destroyed his breath. Fractured his mind. Ate his words. But he had his actions. Had the love he couldn't speak of because he was so fucking terrified. So terrified as soon as he acknowledged it, something would happen. His one arm slid softly under the depressions of her knees, the other curled around her back. When he lifted her, her arm slumped from the rail. Cutting ivy from the side of her house when it strayed too far from the lattice. She didn't make a sound as she transitioned to his body. Was light. Too light. Lighter than he remembered on the odd times when he used to literally sweep her off her feet. When she'd let out a squeak and rotate all of her limbs to smack him. Times when she was adorned in only one of his loosely button dress shirts and a pair of panties. The softness of her hair licked against his hand as he cradled her. Just got up for a cup of water and ended up in a turbid hallway make out session. Pictures crashed from the walls and her feet no longer on the hardwood. Head lolled into a dip in his shoulder because the puppet wire snapped. Kissed her temple, his lips lingered, kept his head bowed against hers for a few seconds because she was alive. She was there. She was in his arms and God, he'd missed it. "I was just afraid to hurt you." They were halfway up the stairs and she'd barely moved. Hollow body hollow. Trees in the winter, stripped and bared. All gnarled teeth and cragged limbs. At the end of her limp legs, feet dangled, toes snowflaked. Her whole body was an effigy he constructed out of sticks and hay. The hand from his neck swept the outline of his hair. Curved around his ear and rubbed the lobe. Always caught the same flesh. Between thumb and forefinger. Between the pair of the most perfectly plump and moist lips he's ever seen. Between one of those lips and two front teeth. "You were." "I didn't—" "I know." Fixed pillows to prop her up and set her on her side of the bed. On fresh sheets so there was no chance of infection. In those months he learned everything he ever did about laundry. He sat at her feet, combed his fingers between the warm coolness of her toes. Held them like he would hands. Drowned his smile. "I promise I won't treat you any differently, but you have to let me help you, Jules. You can't be independent. Not right now." "Who said I wanted to be." The heel of her foot weakly shoved his thigh and he chuckled once. Used both hands to catch her jumpy foot and placed a kiss just below her ankle. When he glanced up, her arms were spread as wide as she could manage and she beckoned, "Come here." Her embrace doused him in flame retardant concern. The kind they gave each other when the other had been trapped in a building full of meth addicts with guns, or exploded, or knocked out, or in a car accident. He felt the humidity of her breath steam and wisp at the nape of his neck. Collected her hair like a bouquet so it wouldn't get caught between them. "I never wanted you to leave Sam. I just didn't want to be a burden." "You're not a burden." His lips touched the skin on her neck once. A passing imprint which meant and still means eternity. Shook his head and his ear touched her cheek. Her close-fisted hand thumped once against the cords of his neck. Not hard, leaves from a tree or snow from a rooftop. "You'll never be a burden. I can't lose you, Jules. I can't." Before they went to sleep he had to change her bandages. Jagged morbid sewing machine tracks which made her the mirror image of herself. It disturbed him. Still haunted him until recently. Until a more grotesque image replaced it and the thought of her now, her body now and what's happened to it, doesn't think it. Can't say it. Can never say it. Gets upset when other people say it. When he knows other people are thinking it. Can't even imagine what would happen if she said it. Thinks his poorly constructed world in a snow dome would get turned upside down and shattered. Vital fluids leaking out. "The back looks fine." Spread antibacterial ointment over the stitches, skin pulled tightly together like the seams on leather shoes. Brail bumps popped into her back. A piece of the past, a memory of him failing her marred into her skin. Thought he would be fine with it. Thought eventually he would grow desensitized to the sight of the stitches, the removed stitches, the scar. But he never did. The first time he couldn't. The scar broke him. They only managed to have sex a handful of times afterward and each time wasn't like before. He held back, afraid he'd shatter her. Rip open old wounds and see right through her. Through the bed sheets. Through the floor. Through the grass and sod and earth. Straight to hell. Placed a new piece of gauze, downy like early morning snow, over the thread and brutalized skin. Skin the color and smoothness of rhododendrons blooming in her backyard. Fragrant and welcoming. He taped the pad into place and kissed her shoulder. "Let me see the front." Her bare legs arched sideways from her body. Left hand flexed behind her ribs, stretched as much as she allowed. It rested in the small of her back; the curve followed a natural course like a river. Skin smoothed out like water flowing through pebbles. Thumb slept above the band of her panties. He got her into the habit of keeping her left arm behind her. Then she wasn't as apt to bring it crashing down like a guillotine on his hand from the pain. It also stretched out her underused muscles. Right arm reached across her chest. Forearm sheltered her right breast and her hand cupped her left so he could get at the exit wound. Usually didn't do this. Usually he was left seeing the bruised masses they'd become. Beautiful, soft porcelain skin poisoned by sheer brutality. What he thought was sheer brutality. Saw the dive he loved deflate and become filled with the jagged railroad spikes of her ribs. Glanced at her for a second in curiosity from her pose. Almost something from a renaissance painting. She grunted, rolled her eyes. Her cheek came close to resting against her shoulder as she tried to keep her back straight. The pillow was failing as a support system. "I don't want you to get any ideas, Braddock." He chuckled. She was shaking, in pain, shot straight through, stripped and still sarcastic as hell. Knew she was tired. Eyelids rested half open, gray sheen tarnished the brown irises covert under thick fanned lashes. Bottom half of her face hidden against her shoulder. "Just let me clean this and get you a shirt. You can take your pills and go to bed." Gauze on her front wound was blotched and bloated with yellow spheres. A lava lamp of bad news. The front was always worse, which he's never understood. Bigger, darker, bleed more, seeped more. Stared him in the face. Challenged him. "I've got to clean this up a little." Wrapped her half in the comforter while he used a clean cloth damped in warm water to clear away the crust growing at her seams. She had a shower that morning, but overexerted herself during the day which could have lead to leakage. Seams and leakage. She was an engine on one of those old cars in comedic cartoons, steam seeped and cuffs rattled with instability. Loops were red and swollen. "It's fine." She answered with chattering teeth. Floral comforter bloomed around her face like her garden in the morning. Not wilted in the evening sunsets. Not lost in the jungle of uncut, forgotten grass. Not buried with her body in a different consequence. "Sam, I'm exhausted." For the first time ran his fingertips around the periphery of the stitches and felt the fiery cavern beneath. No flesh. No muscle. No bone. No heartbeat. Felt vomit churn in the back of his throat while his fingers withdrew without their prints because he'd touched coals. "What if you don't wake up?" She smiled softly. Wearily. Dull eyes disappearing into puffy wrinkles. Touched his burned fingers with hers. Frozen, trembling, like icicles hanging off an eavesthrough in a blizzard. "I'll wake up. I'll tell you if I don't feel well. I promise." And he was back in the hospital with her. Her hand, frail, cold, seizing with pain and fear consumed him. Masticated him. Her voice grated against her throat from days of no sleep. Begged him for an out. To be her back when she didn't have one. To not treat her differently when she didn't want to be, but needed to be. Circled the stitches cautiously with ointment, and placed a new sheet of gauze down. Old sheets spreading out on her living room floor while Santorini sky spread out on her walls. Her hair spread out beneath her while her legs spread around his hips. Santorini paint stained and got everywhere. Guided noodled arms through the holes of one of his t-shirts. None of hers were loose or long enough. None were comfortable enough. He wasn't complaining. They carried her perfume for months afterwards as he found out, a negative in a breakup situation. Pleasant when he needed a quick memory before hopping into an extra long shower and feeling dirtier when getting out. Closed hand thrust two or three times on the pill bottle lid. It was definitely child proof. It was drunk proof. It was recovery proof. It was SRU trained sniper proof. Finally it popped. The lid flipped across the room, hit one of her dresser drawers and clattered to the ground. His hand slapped over the opening, kept the pills from flooding over the rim. Gifted her two strong pain pills and a bottle of water three days old from the side table. Barely awake, dressed in one of his favorite gray t-shirts, she could barely raise her hand to her mouth. Gulped down water. Swallowed pills. He wondered if it filled the cavern in her chest, or trickled around the area. "I'm gonna clean up a bit." Helped her lie back. Had her arms around his neck. His hands planted on her lower back, her jutting hips. Shifted her lower until she was comfortable. There was only a minimal amount of pained hissing. He wondered if the front grin was seeping again. "I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?" Was actually less than ten minutes. Just ran downstairs, checked the locks, shut off the living room lights, ran back upstairs. He recapped the pills, tossed the cloth into the laundry, brushed his teeth, washed his face and pissed. But by the time he got back to the bed she was asleep. Dead asleep. A mixture of exhaustion, ingrained pain, and high-level medication. For the first time that night in eight weeks, he held her while they slept. Dragged her from her potion of the bed to the purgatory in the middle. Wrapped her up in his arms, because they were better than a blanket, or wires and tubes, or earth and insects. Held her, healthy chest to battered and boiled chest all night long because he felt the film reel movements within her. Felt the way, even while unconscious, her body struggled. Felt in case she stopped because he didn't trust the inflamed gash on her front. She awoke a little before dawn. Her face nuzzled at his collar. In the last two weeks he garnered the ability to snap awake at her slightest movement. Leftover from his Afghanistan days. That night he slept in fifteen minute intervals every hour, lest her chest relieve its torments. She laughed once into his bare skin. It was so weak, like the cheep of a newborn chick, but it was a laugh. "This hasn't happened in a while." Directed her upward. Sturdy hands rerouted on her hips, shifted her slowly until her chin rested on his shoulder and his face bobbed in the nape of her neck. Wasn't even tired. Just like when she first woke up. He hasn't slept in years. He hasn't slept since he was born. The relief, the relief erased all negativity. "I can't lose you." Hand returned to his ear. Her fingers were warm from their shared body heat. Thumb and forefinger rubbed his earlobe and inadvertently, he felt some of that fatigue roll back behind his eyes. Her lips replaced her fingers, kissed his ear, and a shiver ran through him. Felt those lips grin so early in the morning. "You never will. " But as his shoes create ripples in the pond at his feet, someone approaches her. A black mar separating from the surge, disrupting the flow of the room. The detached cops. The faceless nurses. The asshole doctors. Stops a few feet before her, straddles the imaginary line. Deciding whether to force himself into what happened by taking a seat next to her, or remain uninvolved by staying on the periphery. Must call to her, because she flinches. He's seen her flinch in pain. Almost hourly for four months straight as he mopped up flaky peels or viscous fluid drooling from two wounds. Saw the black skin transform purple, then red, then yellowish brown. The flinches loitered. Untapped nerve endings only partially severed, partially deadened. Just waiting to die. They were all just waiting to die. He's only seen her flinch from fear, unadulterated fright, three times. Once was when the doctor tried to grab her. The other two scare him more. Plant seeds of panic within him, because there's nothing he can do about the other two. Doesn't really have the full story, but he knows they're connected. Knows they're bad enough to make her quiet, passive, withdraw into herself and wild-eyed with anxiety. But Spike sits beside her. Uninvited by a nod or any other remedial gesture. Just shares the bench with her like it's a completely natural occurrence. Points at her, speaks something to her, only views the back of his head. Her face, the viable part of her mouth which has lips he can interpret aim at her lap so he can't eavesdrop on the conversation from across the monumental lobby. Collects his thoughts, massages his mind. Searches in the dark corners with a flashlight for the solace he should have knowing she's not alone. That she has someone to rely on, even if it isn't him this time. Never asked for it to be him the first time, or this time for that matter. But now that it's not— Spike's fingers solidify on her shoulder. Unravel captured hair to free her neck of its own confines. The bubbles harden. Plunk a thousand marbles in a cloth bag. A thousand marbles blocking his internal system. A thousand marbles choking him from the inside. It's not that she refuses him or scorns him but accepts Spike's help. It's not the want or the possible need to be doing what Spike's doing. To be relishing in the softness of her hair. The memory of it ringed between his fingers while he dried it for her because she couldn't. The smoothness of it on his bare chest. Fanned out like the branches on a tree. What upsets him is the way Spike undertakes the task. Doesn't pinch or pry or pluck at the knot attaching her to herself. Instead his fingers glean and reap her hair until it's straight and free. Immobilized locks detangle. Fall straight without a single kink, without any evidence of ever being frayed. Gathers each strand like fresh silk from a foreign land. Like a stalk of wheat from the field where she grew up buried. Marbles boil in an empty vat of stomach acid, because the interaction is so natural between them. Doesn't treat Spike's hands like the doctor's. Doesn't cower, or duck her head. Doesn't kick him in the shin and leave a bruise with his own shoe. All he has are marbles, a bruise and a picture of them frozen at a parade. Her skin was so soft under his lips and her hips squirmed under the surprise his hands. No wait—He has a three-day-old coffee in his car too. Spike isn't upset by her marring injuries. Obviously, he is upset, but he's not hampered by them. Not frightened by them, or made nervous. Not distracted by them. Maybe if he had a chance to see the riverbed of blood under her nose. The bruises, the handprints left in bruises on her back. Saw them and wanted to vomit. Saw them and wanted to punch a hole through the wall and into the next room. Saw them and wanted to punch that asshole's face until he started feeling ground underneath it. Those bruises are like permanent marker on the Mona Lisa. Can be painted over, but they'll always be there, just below the surface. The cusp of one of his molars cracks under the pressure of his jaw. Dull, pulsing stress is a welcome anchor into the present. Into why he's at the police station. Can't watch her anymore. Wants to watch her. Needs to watch her. Can't watch her anymore. She's his every single thing which he can only view through the bars of his cage. They locked up the wrong guy. Thinks she might smile as he crawls from his manmade ocean where he formed a solitary bluff in the middle of tumultuous waters threatening anything venturing too close to him. The smile is false. Weak like a twice dipped teabag. Meant to assuage whatever Spike is talking about as he leans forward, his arms swinging to his sides like the missing link. It's enough to satisfy him too. A smile burdened by bruises and markers. One multifaceted but he doesn't have to interpret at all. They locked away the wrong guy. Exits the lobby, the ambiance of her, through an open archway and two plodding steps. The cashier is stuck in a kiosk protruding from the wall in the same manner as railway information booths. Carries two parking tickets in his hand. Sure he could've gone to court, argued with a judge, but he's a cop who hit a doctor. Sure he could've sent a cheque and been done with the whole fucking mess, but he's off work for a week because he's a cop who hit a doctor. So might as well come down to 'the old haunt' as everyone but him calls it and pay them himself. Wind whistles through a crack in one of the bay windows. Lightning flashes, tosses itself upon the designs in the floor as he approaches the desk. A woman sits behind the bulletproof glass. She's wearing the standard uniform, sans the hat. Her dark brown hair is pulled tightly into a long ponytail. Her long legs are crossed and a romance novel sits pulverized in her lap. Waits a few seconds, hoping his shadow playing across the barrier will attract her attention. But she keeps reading the book. Unknown raindrops slither down his legs, accosting and cold. He shakes his left leg to rid the unsettling feeling. Then the right. Then his sneakers cry against the ground. Finger dips into her mouth and the wet pad flips a page, still unwary of him. Remaining behind the white line, he leans forward, knuckles rapping the glass until her dark eyes cycle to meet his. With huff she sets down the book with a robust shirtless man on the cover and rolls her chair closer. "Can I help you?" "I need to pay these." Citations slip through the dome carved out of the glass. Her only means of directly interacting with the world. A hand snatches up the thick wads of paper with the quick predatory movements and brings them close to her face to read. "You know you can pay these by mail, right?" "I know," mutter adopts a harsh tone. Like he's arguing with Jules. Like he doesn't know how to do his job. You know you can—I know. Every single goddamn day, but as much as it was a nuisance, it was a pleasure. It was her caring. Her caring because he couldn't park his bike in the parking lot. It wasn't really a vehicle, that and the guys had already stolen it once. Credit card passes through the dome, slipped through a machine. "Two tickets in one day, huh?" Hands fall into pockets full of leftover rain and he shrugs at her innocently. Doesn't want to explain the whole mythology behind said tickets. How the love of his life is barely alive and he would gladly go bankrupt to blot that day off the calendar. Doesn't. Just tightly grins and answers, "Yeah, what are you going to do?" Shoots his card back at him like an air hockey puck. Face already flattened in her romance noveled lap. "Learn to drive better?" About to reply some generic remark. Some formatted response, but the lights falter with a particularly reproachful roar of thunder. Mimics the discharge of bullets so perfectly he recoils and spins because for a quarter second he was on a rooftop. Lights blink and flicker out as the computers hum a threnody in sudden death. "Great." A moan behind him. The slamming of her book against the desk and her fist into the top of the computer. The blackout is counterbalanced by a backup generator which births spotlights illuminating the station in an eerie orange glow. Like walking down a back alley indoors. The lobby snarls a crash and he can't not think of her. Think of her flinching. Of her flinching awake in the middle of the night once. Shoved him away with immediate, violent sobs and all her limbs. Heels, knees, elbows, palms all kneading his flesh in agitation. Called to her but she didn't stop. Spoke only sentences of half pleas. Flicked on the bedside lamp and her eyes were turned shut. Managed to clasp her cheeks. Spoke affirming words. Eyes white and waved with tears opened. Grabbed him, almost smothered him. Almost choked him. But he held her. Didn't ask what or why. Just held her. Can't pretend she's not in the lobby. Like they're strangers who don't know each other. Like she's just some woman. Some abused woman. Can't do that while knowing he would give every single thing down to his last heartbeat to go over to her and just hold her. Because maybe she needs to be held and not asked what or why. Can't tell her he's so fucking thankful she's alive. That the picture won't be the only memory left, more could be cultivated. Sown haphazardly like meadows full of beautiful wild flowers or an unkempt backyard. Can't call her because by now she's probably blocked his number. If he was still with her, he'd tell her to block his number if he was acting like this. But he can risk a peripheral glance as he darts through the lobby. Black decked cops all gathered by the window like kids around a campfire. There's no sign of her. No hint of her. No remnants of her. Couldn't even tell she was there. Bench bare and empty, sitting in the limelight of an eerie orange glow. The only other person in the lobby besides the cops is a tall guy in cuffs being forced down the same corridor he was forced down four days before. They locked up the wrong guy. Marbles clench and clack in his stomach. Pile on each other like a spherical pyramid. Has nowhere to go. Suspended from work. Had no where he'd rather be. Just wants to be with her, no matter how she is. What she is. Who she is. She'll always be the same Jules to him. Knows her like people know the words to a song. Sometimes he forgets the tune, but he always remembers in the end. Always remembers. Needs to drown out the tune. The marbles. The memories. Can't go to the gym. Lexus might be at the gym. Another brick in the wall. Another foot in the grave. Another bullet in a chest. Can't deal with it. With all of it. With some of it. With any of it. Needs to relax. Needs a release. Needs to not be juggling marbles and pictures and coffee and the past with the present in the odors of her living room floor. Last time he felt like this he punched a doctor in the face and everything went over the cliff from there. No. Everything went over the cliff when an asshole named Scott put his hands on her and—living room floor. Can't just can't. Outside it's not raining anymore. Deluge all dried up. The sky is gray with the presence of more rain. The all encompassing threat. Earthworms gasp against the pavement. The ones that survived. And his console is covered in chunky coffee vomit. "Barrel down, Spike." Ed's shoulder banks into his while breezing by, nose of his rifle near dragging on the floor. Draws an imaginary line between acceptable and not for them all to play jump rope with. From the back of a pale, hairless head, he knows Ed is grinning. Knows the grin is smug. Why wouldn't it be? Has nothing to worry about. Left the woman in his care, their teammate—Jules for fuck sake. Left Jules at the goddamn police station by herself to encounter that guy by herself. He drove her home. When they made it to the lobby, Ed disappeared. Maybe he melted into the pot of collective cops. Maybe he was off chasing a little white trash bobblehead tail. Didn't matter. Just meandered with Jules through the lobby, copied her slow pace. Brought her out into street which felt like a major milestone. The constant tap of rain dried, but the wind shipped up leaves and trash from the ground. Flung debris across the parking lot. His car is not cool. It's not sportive or sleek. It's not imposing or masculine. It's a white 1992 Toyota Camry and its lame as hell. But it still runs and it doesn't use much gas. Jules smiled from the passenger's seat as he opened the driver's door and slammed it several times until the red light on the dash flickered off. "I remember this car." Earphones cling to the edge of a bench. String out a list of demands that fall upon numb ears. Anesthetized by apathy, not the bellowing of bullets. Synthetic thunder rolls tucked into a barrel. The first shift back, only they're three team members short and can't be safely cleared for actual duty. So instead it's drills. It's giving four men, who have or should have pent up rage, guns and telling them to shoot the stagnant targets. Telling them to run through a course. Now again. Now better. Now with more gear. Telling them to rappel from the roof during a thunderstorm because inclement weather isn't an excuse not to practice. The skies were all blue, black and gray. Next week they're bringing in a new member, who isn't supposed to be called Lew's replacement but for all sense of logical purpose, is Lew's fucking replacement. Next week when Sam comes back from his suspension. Doesn't know how he's going to deal with Lew's replacement and Sam on the same day. Doesn't think he can. Told his therapist, or the government paid official who has to sit and listen to him wade through word vomit. Told her no one else cares what happened. To Lew. To Jules. They need to help her while they can but everyone is so goddamn self-centered. The therapist called him a masochist with a martyr complex. "Spike." Earphones dangle at Ed's neck, an abstract winter scarf. He and Wordy fill gulping mouths of booths, impatient to start the session. Sarge is different. Different since the night he first saw her. Doesn't know why her destruction causes his deconstruction. Face is a mask, empty of sentiment, of care. Eyes don't blink, don't observe. Merely just is. "There a problem, Buddy?" Imagines Ed saying the same words to someone he's pulled over for drunk driving. To someone not doing exactly what he wants when he wants. Right now he wants to shoot targets because it's stimulating. All so self driven. So pleasure driven, which is exactly what Jules was on the receiving end of. "Yeah there's a problem." Earphones plummet; gain the courage to jump and end with an anticlimactic clatter against concrete. Pot lights swell above him, burst forth endless rays of fluorescence, but he's in an alley. The bad kind of alley, where he can't piss on tagged walls and get away with it because she's not here. "None of you care. Why don't you care?" "Spike." Ed's feet devour concrete in forceful steps. Heels of his shoes jackhammer. Head shakes once with a huff, exudes his aggravation like they've had this conversation before. Like he's a child who repeatedly does things he shouldn't. Touching hot cookies and getting smacked with a rolling pin. Mixing chemicals and struggling for weeks with a sling as penance. Well penance beside the however many Hail Marys earned from the other Father. "We had some time to deal with it, but now it's time to get back to work." "What?" Three days. Three days? Less than a hundred hours and they're supposed to be adjusted with what happened. Not only adjusted but accustomed to it. Like what happened to her always happened. Was always there. Was unstoppable. Isn't enough time for a computer to process lines of data in ones and zeroes. Isn't enough time for a post office to process a single Christmas card. Isn't enough time to sift through a shoe box of photos. "What?" Wordy shuffles forward until he grows in even stance with Ed. Forever an opposite but forever a wingman. Wonders in how many ways. Wonders if Wordy knows what illicit activities go on in police station washrooms. "I know it hurts, Spike. But we knew another person would have to join the team to offset Lew's passing." "What? I'm not talking about Lew." There's nothing more they can do for Lew. Can't collect all the fragments of him and tape him back together like a secured document run through a shredder. Lew is gone. He's not coming back. Everything they could have done for him was nullified when five team members stood behind a barrier of squad cars with muzzled and pulled faces while he frantically buzzed for his best friend's life. "What are you talking about then?" It frightens him, because he honestly doesn't know. Not what he's talking about. Is sure of what he's talking about. But he doesn't know about them. About the bleakness, the coldness wadding in a plumbing pipe. Not even the primeval masculinity resulting in rage, because to employ fury, they'd have to care. That's their reality now. Offer solace to complete strangers, and the cold shoulder to companions. The blockage offers no alternative, and no flow. Cancerous in a way, but hey, they'll bounce back. "I'm talking about Jules." Ignores the slapped remains of earphones. A random spectator on the street for this one. Body splattered dyeing the pavement in leagues of crimson paint. And he's upset because they sequestered the street he uses to get to his car. The street with his favorite bar a little downwind and urine stained. "Did you guys forget what happened to her? I mean, I guess it would be easy." "Spike—" "Have you gone to see her yet? Have you even talked to her?" Refractions of regret, of remorse, of re-experience pinwheel in the dart of Wordy's eyes. The tips of his gloved hand twitch on the handle of his nosedived rifle, knock the tip into the cement. Etch the barrel into the porous surface. "It's not that easy." "It's only as hard as you make it. You helped Shelley—" "Spike." A jagged warning scratched out from the back of Ed's throat. The scolding of a puppy half stuck in a capsized garbage can. The constant reminder of hierarchy through superiority, through dominance, through lack of humanity. "You're poking at—" "Don't start with me, Ed." Molars shave against each other, rock enamel. Provoked family mascot, jabbed too many times with the blunt end of a broom handle. Thrown down too many times at recess. Beaten too many times in the quad. Punched too many times because of commercials. "I know what you did to her yesterday." "You—you took her home?" Rearranges the blame like colored squares on a Rubik's cube. White. Pure white and from there everything gets more diluted, more likely to fail. Click and a clack as facial features fall expertly into place to match. Eyebrows burrowing to discontent. "Spike, that's interfering with orders on a sec—" "And what you did wasn't." White isn't pure at all. It's lacking. It's like someone wanted a color and forgot to add in the components. Forgot and set the recipe anyway. Cooling cannoli on a wire rack, stubby fingers wiggling at their sight under leaden black eyes. "Did you know the guy was there? In the lobby?" Attention should feel warm, like the brief touch of cannoli in his hand before it's swatted away with the rolling pin or wooden spoon or other cooking implement of death. It doesn't, it bristles off of his like dry ice. It's unnatural and tries to cloak his body when he resists. Flush prickles at his cheek, but he doesn't turn away. She wouldn't turn away. "Oh yeah. Basically walked right up to her because you abandoned her." "Eddy." Sarge's hand engulfs his face, his voice slips through the slits in his fingers like steam from a grate. Removed. Emotionally and physically as he stoops against the edge of a booth five feet back, chin to his chest in a shameful bow. Removed. Mind, body and soul. What remains is the shadow of a man who could once heal them all, and now can't even begin to help himself. "What's with you?" Borders Wordy and Ed, limbs rigid but at his side. There's nothing physical to this, he just wants answers, maybe wants to educate, but with his method. No one ever has to get hurt. Especially if they don't deserve it. "I know you care about her Sarge. In a different way, I know you care." Pressures Jules more, expects more of Jules, but somehow is more lenient of Jules. She rappels down the building and gets a quirky eyebrow and a finger waggle. He parks the rig a little askew and gets roared at like he hit a little girl. "I know you're hurt, but think about how much she's hurting." A shriek exits the metal door scoping open slowly onto the noiseless range. Expects an operations officer slinging questions about the turbulent shouting match and the lack of ammo casings. Arguing with live ammo and guns at delicately placed fingertips isn't exactly recommended when the team is a sinew away from snapping. But the reprimand from a nameless, needless officer never happens. Over time team ties root their way through everyone, whether he likes them or not. Members just find their way back to each other; attract each other at integral moments. It's a perk and major fault of being on a team. After the incident at the meth warehouse and observing Jules' interaction with Sam, he gracefully bowed out for medical attention. Missed debrief and the changing of the guard, the sprint to get out of the lot and the downtown traffic at rush hour. He measured the distance around the stale piece of gauze with his thumb and middle finger. Pressure exuded through the tips like an ink covered quill tearing at paper. Chipped like paint and dried blood. Stopped planting fingers around his temple when the little licks of pain flourished like a prodded fire. Like an irritated dog, turned and snapped. Vision of his face, pale and rocky in the close up of the water speckled mirror blurred as gym bags dropped behind him on the bench. Shook his head as he picked up a few extra things from the floor and shoved them into his unzipped duffle, lips sealed with a hint of a taunting grin. "It's not even that bad." Stood full stature, retained his exhalation as his hands met his hips. Grin budded. Always grinning, smiling, just happy. Was so easy for him to be happy. "You need to get over yourself." "I got shot. In the head." Sure he was perched on the counter of the vanity, a few pounds of weight away from knocking all the sinks from their outlined graves. Wanted to get a close up view of the stitches in his head. If the junkies hadn't been high or in withdrawal, they probably would've shot out chunks of his brain. "No. Kennedy got shot in the head. Lincoln got shot in the head. All those other guys in the warehouse, they got shot in the head. You—" Portioned his fingers to hold a minimal distance between each other as his eyes narrowed aiding in the meagerness. "You just got a little kiss from a bullet." "Can we stop at the pharmacy on the way home?" Mirror fogged with the afterbite of his voice. The phantom presence of things unseen. "You wanna pick up some pills?" "Nah, for my Ma." Nudged off the counter and listened to the pipes moan. It was way after shift. Nearing three hours. Lew and him went to the hospital so they could sew up a gorge in his head. Made sure nothing vital was hit. He recited his ABCs, his 123s and spoke a little Italian to get the faintly attractive nurse to cock an eyebrow his way. "She's going to need tranquilizing." Grin stretched on his lips as he hiked both bags up onto his shoulders. Nodded to the doorway. "I'll tell Michelina what happened." Feet a little loaded, squeaked as he dragged them across the ground from a butterfly filled head. Brain a landscape. Just a meadow with butterflies. Usually in his stomach but migrated north for the summer. To offset the airy flaps, his feet alternated between steps he called cement shoes and falling sides. Stopped at the propped door to the howling of air vents and the nonfunctioning lights. Dead until they sensed movement. "Mic—You're on a first name basis with her now?" "We talk a lot Spike." Shoved him into the hallway and into the spotlight of the first square beam. Team Three was out on a call. Everything else was silent. Disconcerting to him when headquarters is inactive. "We talk about you sometimes." Lew lumbered behind him. Forced him to set off the next beacon, then the next. "Mostly about your dad though. How he's spending too much time at work and how she gets lonel—" "Stop. Stop." Reinforced himself against the corner wall which spat into the lobby. Right foot took an unplanned, lead laden step. Wondered if the floor below had flakes of plaster snowing down from his slow Roman death march. "For the love of God, whatever we're doing you win. Just—" Pushed an openly chuckling Lew away with a hand centered on his thick chest. "Just stop." "Oh" Chuckled louder, a deep baritone reverberation echoing like a vacant church bell in his chest. "Don't make me tell Michelina that you—" "Shh." Held a hand up. Single, five-digit action they all recognize means shut the hell up. When Lew grunted, his vocal chords threatening to ring out, he pointed to the elevators. Sam and Jules approached. Didn't notice them though they were showered in the majority of the remaining light. Lew craned his head around the corner and his face clumped into a grimace. "So?" "So what are they doing here so late?" Stood beside each other at the elevators. Didn't participate in physical displays, but they were close. Closer than he and Lew stood. "Why are they together?" Lips slanted across his face in a confused scowl. He shrugged, partly out of disinterest and to raise the bag straps against his sagging shoulders. "Does it matter? Look, her vest took a couple bullets right? Maybe he's—" "Are we really going to act like we don't know exactly what's going on?" "Okay Dick Tracy, we haven't actually seen—" Hand flashed up as an argument between their teammates erupted. Sam dropped his bag to the ground, cocky grin slapped on his face as he turned towards her. She kept her eyes on the elevator doors, ignored his sudden need for conversation. "You're really angry at me because I offered to carry your bag?" A breathless scoff burst from her mouth. Hands angled on her hips, large brown purse hung from her arm like a Christmas tree ornament as she swung towards him. Shook her head, mouth recollaberated, and leaned forward to punch the button again. "I don't understand your obsession with needing to carry my—" "You got shot Jules. You got shot th—" "Spike, got shot." "Ha," he goaded over his shoulder to Lew. His dark eyes low, filled with an intensity he's only witnessed few times. Lips didn't quite meet and his inhalations were drawn heavy through the gape. "You got shot too. Three times." Sam looped three fingers to his palm and imitated a gun the way kids do when they play cops and robbers. Extended thumb and forefinger. Tapped her in the middle of her back, in the center of her stomach, and on the left side of her ribcage. The three Xs where bullets would've tunneled through had she not been wearing such a fine vest. The last, at her ribs, has always been ironic to him. Less than half a year later a vest would fail her in the same spot. Hand swatted his away. He sighed, not in irritation but emotionally upset. His punished hand raked through his hair and his eyes fell to the floor like he was getting detention in grade school. "I know you're in pain, Jules. Even though you won't tell me, I know it. I just thought that carrying your bag would—" "It's not a bag." Flipped around from where she abused the elevator panel, fist pounded the buttons already highlighted in red. Both up and down arrows. Eager to get away. Just flick, and started screaming at Sam. "She's going to give it to him." Lew chuckled softly, it gurgled in his throat. They were being stealth. Actually being voyeurs as they watched from around thick concrete corner. The light above flickered off as she tore into Sam about the bag. He felt like chuckling too until Lew elaborated, "I mean the purse. He'll end up carrying it out for her." "It's a purse, Sam. A purse. It has my lip gloss in it—" "You're kidding me?" She was practically flailing in the romantically lit lobby. It actually looked like she might kill Sam. Hey, he was all for it. Would pop out and help her bury the body. Then pay for the congratulatory beers. Anything was better compared to the realistic conclusion. "She's not going to let him touch her." "It has the high heeled shoes I'm too tired to wear right now i—" "I've known her longer than you. She's into him." "Oh I'm sorry Perry Mason. You want to enlighten me on your theory?" "It has the curling iron you constantly question me ab—" "She ever yell at you like that?" Fuck. Well no. She'd yelled at him. Yelled at everyone. She was Jules. If you got her angry, she was going to yell. But this was pent up. It was in entirety like an infection. An all day sort of rant that he could picture continuing well into the drive home and up the driveway while they put away groceries. "It has tampons in it Sam, because it's a mother fucking purse. Not a bag." Stopped her rant. Her anger. Hitched it like a breath in her supposedly bruised abdomen. Just stood and waited. Challenged him. Dared him to reply with anything that wasn't in the same species as a white flag. "Jesus, then will you let me carry your lip gloss, high heel, curling iron, tampon filled purse for you?" Dear God it was like watching a snake and a mongoose fight. One's poisonous and the other has claws and they just kept tearing into each other. Always wondered how their relationship was buoyant. How it wasn't taking in water and pavement surfing until the majority of was covered in road rash. But her scornful expression broke. Like a shattered plate against a wall which he could imagine happened at some location after they left the lobby. Mouth twanged into a smile. Sam's face was a monument of unflappable mirth. Calm eyes, soft brows, wide smile, but to him, emitted pure arrogance. Laughed at Sam. Smile cracked the strictness of her face until the bricks of her expression crumbled away into a full faced grin. Without another word spoken on the subject, with some stiffness probably due to bruises, she slid her purse down her arm. He hooked his fingers through the straps. Adopted it onto his arm. Smothered her jaw with his hand and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I told you." Lew boasted in a hushed tone. Sam and Jules retreated in an elevator. He snaked his arm around her waist, yanked her closer as the doors closed behind their bodies. "They shouldn't be dating." Muttered when he was sure they were in the parking lot downstairs. His throat compressed against the wall, felt his Adam's apple fail to bob when he tried to swallow. "Because we all work together? That's a shitty excuse." Shoved at his shoulder to get him back in motion. People herding camels in the desert. "She's into him. Leave them alone." "Because she let him carry her purse? That doesn't mean anything." Stomped forward to the area still heated with tension. With convoluted anger. Felt it sizzle off the ground in curls, water on a hot skillet. "You're carrying my bag. I'm not into you." "That hurts Man." Clamped a hand over his heart, clown mouth drooped downwards into a feigned frown as they waited for the elevator to climb back up the levels. "I'm telling Michelina about that one." The painful noiselessness fragments with the addition of Sam's drops. Water herding off his jacket in rivers, falling in drips. Plinking against the dusty floor. The shared and bound roots run thick and he senses them, the embers of recrimination jolting and indignation slathered thick in the atmosphere. Freezes at the end of the lane, hands pausing on the collar of his rain steeped jacket. "You." It's the first gun he shoots today. Not a gun literally. In metaphors, in his mind. Just a cross extended index finger stabbing to Sam, his hair beading teardrops. Face completely innocent and neutral but won't allow him contact with insomnia set eyes. Shrugs off his jacket, drooling pooling water, and splats it to a vacant bench. "You're the worst out of everyone." "I didn't come here to fight, Spike." A forfeiting mumble. Eyes swaying across the floor like garbage whirlwinding through the parking lot. Like her legs kicking through the air from the back of her Jeep. A steady nervous flow he stole from her. "I just wanted to—" "She needs us. If she ever needed us, which is disputable as hell, she needs us now." Marks a halfway point between Sam and the sentinels Ed and Wordy imitate. Tries to find neutral ground, but there is none. Both sides harm for self success. Watch the world slather in flames under the guise of a hero and he doesn't know if he can do it anymore. Doesn't know if he wants to do it anymore. Sam's face peels from the floor, skin flushing a dark red camouflaging his eyebrows, only the rough outline of the bone visible. Enhances the angle of his cheeks and chin. Edging the roughness around swollen, irritated eyes. "She sent me away, Spike." "Because every single goddamn thing you do is selfish." Heat in the palms of his hands, courses up his arms. The flames of an annihilated world. Satellites ablaze and tumbling down from the sky. The back draft of wind after the explosion, when human flesh, is so strong it disabled his ability to vomit. Because he knew the human. The repeatedly sacrificed friend who doesn't understand why. Why? But knows in her beautiful eye, exactly why. "You don't do it for her. You're not there for her. You're there for yourself." "Spike maybe—" "No. I'm done. I'm gonna go." Head finally balances on overweighed scales. On scales uneven since his first day. Becomes buoyant on the release of venomous, violent words. The acidity from his stomach paving its way up his throat subsides to a roiling in his stomach. Alienated, but completely doesn't give a shit. Spoke up for her when she couldn't. From lack of contact. From lack of confidence. Played role reversal and he'd do it again. Hesitates upon entering Sam's water world. His sullying of equipment and workplace endangerment with tricky slips and falls. More around here is broken than hips. Things unseen that matter so much more. Pauses his body, relaxes it, muscles no longer waiting for an attack. Expression turns confused, desiring to understand with angled brows and a yanked mouth. "It's just—we all watched Lew die. We all stood there and didn't do a fucking thing to save him. Everyone keeps telling me it was for the best but—What I'm trying to say is she's dying. She's dying in front of us, and you won't do anything about it because you're afraid of what she might say? Because she makes you feel uncomfortable? What the hell kind of team are we? What the hell kind of men are we?" "It's not that easy." Sam's voice begins as a mumble, but the softness, the passivity is paralyzed. It's carnal. The caveman at full throttle being forced to ponder things which upset his underdeveloped brain. Confuse, and frustrate him. "She's stubborn. She won't accept help even if—" "Then you're not trying hard enough." A blank statement. Said with nonchalance. Knows how he treats her. How it seems fifty-fifty. An equal and viable relationship. It's not. His suggestions are for his gain. His suggestions for her to move out of her house are for his gain. "You can't hide her away from the world now Sam and have everything be undone. It happened, it's always going to have happened. Our job is coping with it. Helping her cope with it in any way she'll let us." "And you're willing to let her stay in that house, by herself while she endures more psychological trauma from—" "It's her house Sam." Pried the sledgehammer from her hand. Dragged it from the hall closet. Intended to finish the work her head started. Had to replace the panel of drywall. But she sloped to one side dragging the tool roughly against the polished hardwood floors. Spoke calmly as he removed it, found a sheet and pinned it up over head holes. Two sets of handprints. Two sets but that still doesn't give him a right to a house. A right to decide. "No matter how much you want to torch the place because of what happened, she still lives there. I don't know why you can't—" "Because I lo—" aborts his sentence. But it's too late because meaning can be reconstructed from the fragments. "Do you? Do you really?" Some weak voice in the back of his mind tells him he's verging in on old wounds. On territory that doesn't need to be treaded on. Ignores the voice. Caveman cudgel beats the voice into submission and locks it in a deeper vault, because when these issues were current issues he didn't get to wet his lips. "Well you must, the way a piece of you got shot out up on that rooftop—no wait, that was Jules." "Fuck you, Spike." Shakes his head in disappointment. At him. At himself. In both because they're both true. He didn't have to bring it up in such a blunt knifed manner. But Sam doesn't love her. Love isn't supposed to hurt. Love isn't a one sided occurrence. Sam seizes his jacket off the bench, the screech of wet fabric against dry metal echoes in the silence as he retreats. "You didn't really take the bullet for her; so much as use her for a human shield." Doesn't know why he says it. What makes him say it. But it's what he's always truly felt. There were only two people up on the roof. One of them took the shield and left the other completely bare. That's not an action which equivocates love to him. Doesn't know why he thought killing the sniper would be an easy trade off. Hey, Jules got shot but I shot the shooter so we're alright. A life for a life is not karmic restoration, it didn't fill the hole in her chest. Doesn't even realize Sam's buckled fist is flying at his face before it grounds into his eye socket. Then again at his cheekbone. There's a flash of colors like in old cartoons when characters open a closet and everything falls on them. Merry-go-rounds of olive greens and fuchsias tire tracking their way round the inside of his eye. Tastes the off blight of blood. Is it salt. Is it metal. It's a copper flow ebbing its way between his cracked lips. Into his mouth. Remembers high school and getting shoved in the lockers. Remembers grade school and getting beaten up in the bathroom on break. Remembers home, Vinnie punching him in the face and taking his Halloween candy. Then as his knees knock in the umpteenth knockout of his lifetime, his fist grows solid. Thumb plants under four wheat rows and then plows back into Sam. Wouldn't hit the guy. There were too many regulations behind hitting the guy who raped the only friend he's got left. He'll sure as hell beat the shit out of Sam. Anger riles up within him. The anger he's been quelling for days, for weeks, for years because his Ma always taught him good boys don't fight. Well Ma, sometimes things don't get done in the world without a good fight. Without some casualties. And it'd better be him before it's Jules. With stark blindness, his fist loads, springs back and then punches again. Slams into Sam's eye hard enough for the bones in his fingers to crack. Not in pain, but in relief, like people do while they wait in casual idiosyncrasies. A brilliant idea hits him the same time Sam's fist does again and he uses both. Like he does with Jules when they sparred. Knuckles sow in the side of Sam's nose. In the corner of Sam's mouth. "Enough. Enough." Arms circle around his biceps. Hold him back. Secure him down as his heels squeal and smoke off the floor. "You let that go on for too long." Half of his vision is diminished. Not even tunneled, but completely eradicated. Distinguishes Wordy supporting Sam in the same method he's being detained. Eyebrows and mouth all angered lines. "I thought they would tire themselves out." Ed almost chuckles. Can almost feel him shrug. Like the whole thing, everything that's happened has been just one big joke. Caveman wishes he could feed him the punch line. Wishes he could ask how his bathroom breaks are going. If he's getting docked pay for them. If they burn. "Do you guys need medical?" Sarge finally appears. Not the real Sarge, the thing still masquerading in his skin. Portraying his character in a play. Eyes half-lidded and voice monotone he glances them over once. Sam stands, glaring at him. Snorts like a bull set to decide the dominant. "Go to the briefing room. I'll draw up the papers." Sam wrenches his arm away from Wordy with a final grunt. Shrugs his shoulders like he's completely oblivious to the road construction mess his face became or the valley of rainwater on the floor. Has a brief spark of joy in the thought that Sam might slip and fall. He definitely won, maybe Sam wasn't trying hard. Maybe he knew he was right. Will probably be suspended. So will Sam. At this point wonders if Sam will ever be back at work. Will Jules? Is there a reason for him to be? Pauses at the door, Sam's already at the elevator. Figures it's best they aren't quarantined in small quarters for a bit. Raging bulls and all. Turns back to the three men who encompass the remainder of the Team. The elder part of the Team. The guidance, though they need it more than they offer. "I'm going to be suspended right?" Sarge detangles the mess of fingers permanently growing at his chin. Sight still flies low, maybe views his knees. Won't acknowledge him fully, even in punishment won't. Misses the days of slicing the rig against the parking garage wall, sucking his lips and chucking the keys at Lew. When he would wiggle his fingers at a keyboard whip up some high tech deus ex machina and Sarge would clap him on the back, express pride, something he never got at home. When they were a team, though it's hard to measure the exact time. Just something better than this. "Go to the briefing room, Spike." "Fine. Just do yourselves a favor and go see her. Even if she doesn't want to see you, at least make the effort. " They've only viewed the turmoil upon her face, bruised and blistered into her skin. Only imagined it there. He's experienced worse. Her thoughts, her feelings, her fears. Her current state-of-mind at near abandonment. Her willingness to accept responsibility for an act which she had no part in to bring back someone. Anyone. "If something happens to her, you won't—" "The briefing room. Now." "Yeah." Solemn with his pugulisted face all blue, black and gray, he marches away beaten in every sense. The elevator doors swallow him whole, and he presses the wrong button completely on purpose. Ignores the SRU floor number. Ignores direct orders. Ignores what other people demand of him, because when he pleads with them, begs them, he gets reprimanded. Not directly, but reprimanded. And he's tired of it. A/N #2: Bored? Try to find all the similarities between Sam's piece and Spike's piece in this chapter.
There may be a little pronoun confusion when it comes to the flashback in Spike's part. This was done on purpose.
The nest chapter is the last one I have semi completed. There's a reunion in it of some sorts.
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