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[fic] A Long Time Coming [PG13/R: Danny/Martin] 8/10
Title: A Long Time Coming
By: HF
Email: hfox @ ontheqt.org / aesc36 @ gmail.com
Rating/Warnings: PG13/R. Minor swearing, heaping cupfuls ofUST RST.
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and very likely many other people.
Previous parts: 01; 02; 03; 04; 05; 06; 07
Notes: Only a couple more chapters to go, three at the outside; this thing is long enough already.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Danny woke to sore muscles and the determined dreariness of a New York winter morning, but the heat of Martin’s body pressed against his back, one arm draped across him, breath coming warm and steady on Danny’s neck, banished the aches and greyness to unimportance. Slowly, and not a little wonderingly, Danny touched the hand pressed possessively against his abdomen, felt the bones of Martin’s wrist, the line of tendons and veins, remembered with a shiver how Martin’s fingers had laced through his as Martin had moved over him, knees nudging Danny’s legs apart.
And that had been unexpected, Martin taking charge, guiding Danny to the bed with kisses and the strange alchemy of his presence, like gravity, magnetism, like inevitability and pulling Danny along in his wake. Another shiver now, thinking of Martin’s dark head over him, hair tickling his chest, looking down to see Martin looking up, eyes huge and intent and black, and Danny would have fallen into those eyes if he could, into the focus and promise of them.
Slow, he thought disjointedly, even as his body quickened. That, too, had been unexpected, how thoughts of the next day and what it would hold had faded away, and they’d had all the time in the world to learn each other. Slow, oh God so slow, and Danny quivered, thinking of it, and how at the end Martin had given himself up to it, up to Danny, past control and caring, and afterwards Danny had seen his eyes, distant and amazed, lost, as though Martin had been shaken out of himself.
Ecstatic, wasn’t that what it was? Being startled away from who you were.
Ecstatic, yes, and almost sad, and Danny had shaken himself from the haze of orgasm, reached for Martin and tried to kiss the sadness from him.
He breathed unsteadily, closing his eyes against the rush of arousal, too aware of Martin’s scent and his own mixed together, heavy and thick with every breath, memory crowding in around him. In him, for Christ’s sake, and his body remembered exactly what it was like, having Martin’s mouth on his skin, the taste of him in Danny’s mouth, the warmth and weight of him on Danny, in him, hot and hard and insistent.
The radio clicked on at six precisely, the morning weather report breaking into memory and arousal. Danny automatically extracted an arm to reach out and smack the snooze button, and the weatherman fell silent in the middle of a detailed account of snowfall in the Finger Lakes. The movement did not go unnoticed; Danny could feel Martin’s breath catch and his entire body tense in surprise, startled out of sleep.
“Hm?” Martin rolled over onto his back, eyelids flickering open and shut. “What?”
“Time to get up,” Danny told him. He turned over himself, had to grin at Martin, half-asleep and staring at him, bewildered and inarticulate, hair still wild from Danny’s fingers running through it the night before.
Wondered, not for the first time, if this was the only way anything could have happened for them – them having to take their own long, different roads to come to the same place – or if maybe they could have been together years ago, but broken up, and all of this would be regret, somewhere in the past.
“Man.” The word came out more as a sigh than anything else. Martin pressed a forearm to his eyes, a gesture of denial.
“Well...” Danny glanced at the clock. “We do have a few minutes. Your dad shouldn’t be here for a while yet.” He swallowed down the knot of fear that tried to tie his throat up, glanced at the bedroom door, vaguely remembering that he’d kicked it shut behind them. Everything waited out there, complication and life and death, all of it, and he wanted it to stay out there for a while longer.
“Good.” Martin dropped his arm and rolled back over so his chest was against Danny’s side now, fingers tracing across his collarbone. The gesture was so easy and natural, intimate, something the Danny of two days ago never would have known Martin, so reserved and undemonstrative, was capable of doing. Even his face, still sleepy and unguarded, happiness bright and honest in those impossible blue eyes... All of that threaded through the soft press of arousal, and Danny couldn’t look away.
“Talkative in the morning, aren’t we?” he asked, ghosting light, teasing fingers across Martin’s cheekbones, the lines of his jaw, smiling slightly as Martin turned his face into the caress.
“Need coffee,” Martin muttered against one hand, pressing a kiss into the palm, his own fingers sliding gently across the scar at the crease of Danny’s wrist. “Not now, though.”
They played lazily for a few minutes, trading kisses that tasted of morning breath and contentment, enjoying each other in the strange grey half-light of the early morning. Danny’s hands traveled over the firm expanse of Martin’s chest, the wiry, powerful muscles of his shoulders and arms, all of him slender and whiplike, but stronger and tougher than he looked.
And the past few days had taught Danny the truth of that. His mind wandered as his hands did, over the years and the little Martin had told him of his childhood and growing up, and through the haze of pleasure a question occurred to him, jumping past his lips before he could stop it.
“Does your dad know?”
“That I’m – ? Yeah.” Martin tensed at the question, but loosened as Danny ran soothing fingers across his back, walking them down the ridges of his spine. “Honestly? I think he knew before I told him... Probably figured it would be just like me to disappoint him like that.”
“I don’t think you give your dad enough credit,” Danny told him.
“Does sex always make you this generous?” The question was obviously rhetorical, for Martin’s hand was drifting under the comforter, gun-callused fingers playing lower across Danny’s chest, sliding down his stomach. “Now, do you think we could not talk about my dad, seeing as how we’re kind of in bed together? Naked?”
“Sounds good to me.”
A few minutes later, the alarm clicked back on in the middle of the traffic report, but the reporter’s breathless description of icy roads snarling traffic into Manhattan went unheard.
* * *
Danny spent the rest of the morning going over composite sketches and mug shots with Martin, trying to jog some last-second memory of his abductors. Victor had faxed over the images late the previous night – Danny’s ailing secondhand fax machine having gone unheard – along with a command to look them over thoroughly.
Martin absently chewed on a mouthful of cornflakes as he studied yet another photograph and, when Danny asked if he recognized the man at all, shook his head, face tight with frustration.
“I don’t remember them at all,” he said, for what Danny was pretty sure was the fiftieth time. “Just... voices. Sort of.”
“Your dad’s pretty efficient,” Danny remarked, flipping through the small stack of papers. “Here, how ‘bout Michael Benson? Ties to the Tigers, and he looks like he could break me in half.”
He flicked the mug shot over to Martin, who took it with a grimace of reluctance. “This could be the guy who – who held me down,” he said absently. He set the picture down, reached to rub at the fading bruise on his left bicep. Straightening, he glanced at the man’s rap sheet. “The ATF picked him up on an interstate weapons trafficking charge – aiding and abetting, I think – six years ago. He got out on a plea bargain, sold out two of his friends to do it.”
“Ties to the Tigers?”
“Both of them.” Martin flipped through the ATF interrogation record. “Yeah, Oliver White and Robert Phillips. The weapons were probably part of a third-party deal, indirect fundraising.”
“That’s something.” Danny finished off the rest of his coffee. “We’ll have your dad look into it – hell, he probably has already.”
“You seem to have gotten pretty friendly, you and my dad.”
Danny glanced over to see an odd look on Martin’s face, something hovering between annoyance, confusion, and jealousy. “Like I said, Martin, he wants to make sure you’re okay.” He paused, and added a diplomatic, “Even if he’s a jerk,” for good measure.
Martin opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head in obvious frustration.
“Just... let him make sure, okay? He wants these guys caught as badly as you do. More, ‘cause I think he’d kill them, if there wasn’t such a thing as due process.” Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glanced longingly in the direction of his coffeemaker. Not enough caffeine to deal with this ever.
“Yeah,” Martin muttered reluctantly, and Danny knew he wasn’t so much agreeing with Danny as letting the debate slide for the time being. “Okay.”
“Good.” Danny rose, grabbing his cup and Martin’s. “Refill?”
“Please.”
Things were quieter after that, Martin still obviously stewing over what Danny had told him, and unwilling to share until he’d worked it out for himself. Danny was content to let the silence lie as they worked, breaking it only to offer a suggestion, or more coffee.
Victor arrived at eight, very nearly on the hour, with a tall dark-haired man in an overcoat heeling him. The two of them swept through the door, Victor self-possessed yet exuding impatience as always, face impassive, but Danny could see the relief in his eyes as he saw Martin standing there in jeans and one of Danny’s shirts, cup of coffee in his hand.
“Martin,” he said, and relief was in his voice, too.
“Hey, Dad.” Martin’s tone was subdued, but Danny could hear a tentative sort of warmth in it.
“You’re doing well?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m good, thanks to Danny.” Martin gestured at Danny, a slight grin playing at the edges of his mouth, more amusement and gratitude in his eyes, if a person knew him and was looking for it.
“Mr. Taylor,” Victor said, inclining his head in that appraising, hawk-like tilt, still so unnervingly like Martin that Danny wondered if he’d ever get past the strangeness of it.
“A pleasure,” Danny muttered, uncomfortable under that chill blue regard, even though Victor was apparently considering him an ally. He turned to the second man, who’d been exchanging a few quiet words with Martin. “Who’s this?”
“This is Special Agent Matthew Black, from Martin’s team in Washington,” Victor said, gesturing in the direction of the other man, who offered Danny a stiff nod. “He’ll be accompanying you today, Mr. Taylor.”
“What?” Danny swung back around to glare at Victor.
“You heard me.” Victor’s tone was warning. “Agent Black will escort you to your office and remain with you at all times. Agents will have the area around your building under surveillance, and will be monitoring you both constantly until further notice.” The way Victor said ‘further notice’ implied "the rest of your natural life, Mr. Taylor," and Danny bristled even more.
“Look, I was under the impression that I was in on this whole thing, too,” he said, trying for a strained sort of politeness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martin set his coffee cup down on the table and shake his head. He opened his mouth to protest again, but Victor cut him off.
“You’re a civilian now, Mr. Taylor.” A slight softening in the steel of Victor’s voice told him the other man understood, but was not about to allow that understanding to interfere. “Having you involved in this to the extent that you are is already most irregular, and dangerous to you as well as others. You may have to testify, if we – if Martin is successful today, and you’ll need to be alive to do that.”
Danny glanced at Martin in mute appeal, but Martin’s shoulders were squared and his face set, and as unlikely as it was, he was siding with his father. Part of Danny wanted to tell Martin exactly what kind of traitor he was, because Danny did not want to be by himself (or with Agent Black) while Martin was walking into all of this, into God alone knew what. They were partners, and Danny not being in the Bureau anymore didn’t change that at all, and Martin ought to know that.
“He’s right, Danny,” Martin said, and there was just enough regret in his expression to mollify Danny somewhat. “I’ll see you later today, okay? Or call, at least.”
“Yeah, fine.” He knew he sounded sulky, couldn’t help it, covered himself by reaching for his coat and gloves.
“Now that we’ve sorted that out,” Victor was saying as he adjusted the scarf around his neck, “we should be going. I’ve seen to it that Silverman will be tied up in a board meeting until noon; Trent’s confirmed that he’s in the meeting as we speak.” He paused. “But before we leave...”
“Yeah?” Danny, his coat halfway on, turned awkwardly around to face Victor. “You need something?”
“Do you have any more coffee?” Victor asked, glancing in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m intolerable in the morning without coffee.”
* * *
The ride to his office – in the back of a squad car, which was strange beyond words – was silent and uncomfortable. Agent Black remained quiet, except to confirm their destination, comment about the lousiness of New York’s weather, and ask about Martin.
“He’s doing okay,” Danny told him.
“Martin’s always okay,” Agent Black observed, before falling silent for the rest of the trip.
Danny sat and tried not to fidget, but the attempt was impossible. Fear for Martin competed with furious attempts at reassuring himself – surely no one, not even a dirty agent, not even a crazy dirty agent, would be crazy enough to, say, shoot Martin in front of witnesses. In front of witnesses who could have him dead from multiple gunshot wounds within two minutes. In front of the goddamn Deputy Director, who could (and probably would) find some loophole in the Eighth Amendment that would see Silverman punished in cruel and unusual ways.
The drive was interminable, complicated by icy roads and what Danny was sure was a conference of New York’s most incompetent drivers. Black sat impassively beside him, occasionally directing his fellow agent – Danny never did find out the man’s name – to turn here or there in order to avoid the worst of the traffic. And at last, after an eternity of sliding uncomfortably on black leather upholstery and enduring Black’s mountainous, unbreakable silence, they arrived at the front of Danny’s office building.
“Okay, we’re on our way,” Black told the other agent. Turning to Danny, he said, “We’re getting inside, fast, right? No dawdling.”
“I’m not a fucking five-year-old,” Danny snapped back, not even bothering to keep his impatience in check.
“Right.” Black grinned apologetically and swung his door open. “Come on.”
Danny hauled himself out of the sedan, dragging his briefcase behind him, conscious suddenly of the Kevlar vest strapped on under his jacket. God, how long had it been since he’d worn one of them? And they were still restrictive, tightening unmercifully as he tried to take a deep breath, chafing his collarbones.
“Let’s go,” Black said, stepping slightly behind Danny, shepherding him across the stone-covered plaza toward the doors. Ice and salt crunched underfoot.
As they walked, Danny pictured Martin and Victor approaching the entrance of the Federal Building. He could see them clearly, as though he were standing there himself, or walking alongside them: shoulders back, Martin’s face set and blue eyes absolutely intent, all of him focused on what lay ahead. And that was what would get him through it, Danny told himself desperately – that focus and resolve that had seen Martin through alive so many times before, when anyone else would have given up, or died.
He was dimly aware of Black shadowing him, and even less aware of Ben Dawson approaching them, smart remark ready, only to be diverted by Black’s menacing glare. Dawson crept off, a vague shadow in the periphery of Danny’s vision. And he was still thinking about Martin, about fire and heat and their night together, when he heard a hoarse, familiar voice calling for him.
“Mr. Taylor! Mr. Taylor!”
Danny spun, in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Richard Treharne, still in the pathetically inadequate overcoat and skullcap, eyes red-rimmed over a tattered scarf. A gun was in his gloved hands, and through his surprise Danny registered that it was pointed at him.
“The fuck?” Black swung around a heartbeat later, reaching into his shoulder holster for his weapon. “Taylor?”
“My boy, Mr. Taylor!” Treharne shouted, voice cold-roughened. “My boy!”
He heard the gunshot, felt the terrific impact of the bullet against his shoulder, and he was falling, the world going terrifyingly vertical.
Over the rush of frantic breaths and the thundering of his heart he heard two more shots, a pained and despairing cry abruptly cut off, a sharp impact against the back of his skull, and then nothing.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: For the curious, the lyrics to "A Change Is Gonna Come", lines from which this fic takes its title, can be found here. There are a couple different versions out there; I've used those as performed by The Band, mostly because I like theirs best.
By: HF
Email: hfox @ ontheqt.org / aesc36 @ gmail.com
Rating/Warnings: PG13/R. Minor swearing, heaping cupfuls of
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and very likely many other people.
Previous parts: 01; 02; 03; 04; 05; 06; 07
Notes: Only a couple more chapters to go, three at the outside; this thing is long enough already.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Danny woke to sore muscles and the determined dreariness of a New York winter morning, but the heat of Martin’s body pressed against his back, one arm draped across him, breath coming warm and steady on Danny’s neck, banished the aches and greyness to unimportance. Slowly, and not a little wonderingly, Danny touched the hand pressed possessively against his abdomen, felt the bones of Martin’s wrist, the line of tendons and veins, remembered with a shiver how Martin’s fingers had laced through his as Martin had moved over him, knees nudging Danny’s legs apart.
And that had been unexpected, Martin taking charge, guiding Danny to the bed with kisses and the strange alchemy of his presence, like gravity, magnetism, like inevitability and pulling Danny along in his wake. Another shiver now, thinking of Martin’s dark head over him, hair tickling his chest, looking down to see Martin looking up, eyes huge and intent and black, and Danny would have fallen into those eyes if he could, into the focus and promise of them.
Slow, he thought disjointedly, even as his body quickened. That, too, had been unexpected, how thoughts of the next day and what it would hold had faded away, and they’d had all the time in the world to learn each other. Slow, oh God so slow, and Danny quivered, thinking of it, and how at the end Martin had given himself up to it, up to Danny, past control and caring, and afterwards Danny had seen his eyes, distant and amazed, lost, as though Martin had been shaken out of himself.
Ecstatic, wasn’t that what it was? Being startled away from who you were.
Ecstatic, yes, and almost sad, and Danny had shaken himself from the haze of orgasm, reached for Martin and tried to kiss the sadness from him.
He breathed unsteadily, closing his eyes against the rush of arousal, too aware of Martin’s scent and his own mixed together, heavy and thick with every breath, memory crowding in around him. In him, for Christ’s sake, and his body remembered exactly what it was like, having Martin’s mouth on his skin, the taste of him in Danny’s mouth, the warmth and weight of him on Danny, in him, hot and hard and insistent.
The radio clicked on at six precisely, the morning weather report breaking into memory and arousal. Danny automatically extracted an arm to reach out and smack the snooze button, and the weatherman fell silent in the middle of a detailed account of snowfall in the Finger Lakes. The movement did not go unnoticed; Danny could feel Martin’s breath catch and his entire body tense in surprise, startled out of sleep.
“Hm?” Martin rolled over onto his back, eyelids flickering open and shut. “What?”
“Time to get up,” Danny told him. He turned over himself, had to grin at Martin, half-asleep and staring at him, bewildered and inarticulate, hair still wild from Danny’s fingers running through it the night before.
Wondered, not for the first time, if this was the only way anything could have happened for them – them having to take their own long, different roads to come to the same place – or if maybe they could have been together years ago, but broken up, and all of this would be regret, somewhere in the past.
“Man.” The word came out more as a sigh than anything else. Martin pressed a forearm to his eyes, a gesture of denial.
“Well...” Danny glanced at the clock. “We do have a few minutes. Your dad shouldn’t be here for a while yet.” He swallowed down the knot of fear that tried to tie his throat up, glanced at the bedroom door, vaguely remembering that he’d kicked it shut behind them. Everything waited out there, complication and life and death, all of it, and he wanted it to stay out there for a while longer.
“Good.” Martin dropped his arm and rolled back over so his chest was against Danny’s side now, fingers tracing across his collarbone. The gesture was so easy and natural, intimate, something the Danny of two days ago never would have known Martin, so reserved and undemonstrative, was capable of doing. Even his face, still sleepy and unguarded, happiness bright and honest in those impossible blue eyes... All of that threaded through the soft press of arousal, and Danny couldn’t look away.
“Talkative in the morning, aren’t we?” he asked, ghosting light, teasing fingers across Martin’s cheekbones, the lines of his jaw, smiling slightly as Martin turned his face into the caress.
“Need coffee,” Martin muttered against one hand, pressing a kiss into the palm, his own fingers sliding gently across the scar at the crease of Danny’s wrist. “Not now, though.”
They played lazily for a few minutes, trading kisses that tasted of morning breath and contentment, enjoying each other in the strange grey half-light of the early morning. Danny’s hands traveled over the firm expanse of Martin’s chest, the wiry, powerful muscles of his shoulders and arms, all of him slender and whiplike, but stronger and tougher than he looked.
And the past few days had taught Danny the truth of that. His mind wandered as his hands did, over the years and the little Martin had told him of his childhood and growing up, and through the haze of pleasure a question occurred to him, jumping past his lips before he could stop it.
“Does your dad know?”
“That I’m – ? Yeah.” Martin tensed at the question, but loosened as Danny ran soothing fingers across his back, walking them down the ridges of his spine. “Honestly? I think he knew before I told him... Probably figured it would be just like me to disappoint him like that.”
“I don’t think you give your dad enough credit,” Danny told him.
“Does sex always make you this generous?” The question was obviously rhetorical, for Martin’s hand was drifting under the comforter, gun-callused fingers playing lower across Danny’s chest, sliding down his stomach. “Now, do you think we could not talk about my dad, seeing as how we’re kind of in bed together? Naked?”
“Sounds good to me.”
A few minutes later, the alarm clicked back on in the middle of the traffic report, but the reporter’s breathless description of icy roads snarling traffic into Manhattan went unheard.
Danny spent the rest of the morning going over composite sketches and mug shots with Martin, trying to jog some last-second memory of his abductors. Victor had faxed over the images late the previous night – Danny’s ailing secondhand fax machine having gone unheard – along with a command to look them over thoroughly.
Martin absently chewed on a mouthful of cornflakes as he studied yet another photograph and, when Danny asked if he recognized the man at all, shook his head, face tight with frustration.
“I don’t remember them at all,” he said, for what Danny was pretty sure was the fiftieth time. “Just... voices. Sort of.”
“Your dad’s pretty efficient,” Danny remarked, flipping through the small stack of papers. “Here, how ‘bout Michael Benson? Ties to the Tigers, and he looks like he could break me in half.”
He flicked the mug shot over to Martin, who took it with a grimace of reluctance. “This could be the guy who – who held me down,” he said absently. He set the picture down, reached to rub at the fading bruise on his left bicep. Straightening, he glanced at the man’s rap sheet. “The ATF picked him up on an interstate weapons trafficking charge – aiding and abetting, I think – six years ago. He got out on a plea bargain, sold out two of his friends to do it.”
“Ties to the Tigers?”
“Both of them.” Martin flipped through the ATF interrogation record. “Yeah, Oliver White and Robert Phillips. The weapons were probably part of a third-party deal, indirect fundraising.”
“That’s something.” Danny finished off the rest of his coffee. “We’ll have your dad look into it – hell, he probably has already.”
“You seem to have gotten pretty friendly, you and my dad.”
Danny glanced over to see an odd look on Martin’s face, something hovering between annoyance, confusion, and jealousy. “Like I said, Martin, he wants to make sure you’re okay.” He paused, and added a diplomatic, “Even if he’s a jerk,” for good measure.
Martin opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head in obvious frustration.
“Just... let him make sure, okay? He wants these guys caught as badly as you do. More, ‘cause I think he’d kill them, if there wasn’t such a thing as due process.” Danny sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glanced longingly in the direction of his coffeemaker. Not enough caffeine to deal with this ever.
“Yeah,” Martin muttered reluctantly, and Danny knew he wasn’t so much agreeing with Danny as letting the debate slide for the time being. “Okay.”
“Good.” Danny rose, grabbing his cup and Martin’s. “Refill?”
“Please.”
Things were quieter after that, Martin still obviously stewing over what Danny had told him, and unwilling to share until he’d worked it out for himself. Danny was content to let the silence lie as they worked, breaking it only to offer a suggestion, or more coffee.
Victor arrived at eight, very nearly on the hour, with a tall dark-haired man in an overcoat heeling him. The two of them swept through the door, Victor self-possessed yet exuding impatience as always, face impassive, but Danny could see the relief in his eyes as he saw Martin standing there in jeans and one of Danny’s shirts, cup of coffee in his hand.
“Martin,” he said, and relief was in his voice, too.
“Hey, Dad.” Martin’s tone was subdued, but Danny could hear a tentative sort of warmth in it.
“You’re doing well?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m good, thanks to Danny.” Martin gestured at Danny, a slight grin playing at the edges of his mouth, more amusement and gratitude in his eyes, if a person knew him and was looking for it.
“Mr. Taylor,” Victor said, inclining his head in that appraising, hawk-like tilt, still so unnervingly like Martin that Danny wondered if he’d ever get past the strangeness of it.
“A pleasure,” Danny muttered, uncomfortable under that chill blue regard, even though Victor was apparently considering him an ally. He turned to the second man, who’d been exchanging a few quiet words with Martin. “Who’s this?”
“This is Special Agent Matthew Black, from Martin’s team in Washington,” Victor said, gesturing in the direction of the other man, who offered Danny a stiff nod. “He’ll be accompanying you today, Mr. Taylor.”
“What?” Danny swung back around to glare at Victor.
“You heard me.” Victor’s tone was warning. “Agent Black will escort you to your office and remain with you at all times. Agents will have the area around your building under surveillance, and will be monitoring you both constantly until further notice.” The way Victor said ‘further notice’ implied "the rest of your natural life, Mr. Taylor," and Danny bristled even more.
“Look, I was under the impression that I was in on this whole thing, too,” he said, trying for a strained sort of politeness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martin set his coffee cup down on the table and shake his head. He opened his mouth to protest again, but Victor cut him off.
“You’re a civilian now, Mr. Taylor.” A slight softening in the steel of Victor’s voice told him the other man understood, but was not about to allow that understanding to interfere. “Having you involved in this to the extent that you are is already most irregular, and dangerous to you as well as others. You may have to testify, if we – if Martin is successful today, and you’ll need to be alive to do that.”
Danny glanced at Martin in mute appeal, but Martin’s shoulders were squared and his face set, and as unlikely as it was, he was siding with his father. Part of Danny wanted to tell Martin exactly what kind of traitor he was, because Danny did not want to be by himself (or with Agent Black) while Martin was walking into all of this, into God alone knew what. They were partners, and Danny not being in the Bureau anymore didn’t change that at all, and Martin ought to know that.
“He’s right, Danny,” Martin said, and there was just enough regret in his expression to mollify Danny somewhat. “I’ll see you later today, okay? Or call, at least.”
“Yeah, fine.” He knew he sounded sulky, couldn’t help it, covered himself by reaching for his coat and gloves.
“Now that we’ve sorted that out,” Victor was saying as he adjusted the scarf around his neck, “we should be going. I’ve seen to it that Silverman will be tied up in a board meeting until noon; Trent’s confirmed that he’s in the meeting as we speak.” He paused. “But before we leave...”
“Yeah?” Danny, his coat halfway on, turned awkwardly around to face Victor. “You need something?”
“Do you have any more coffee?” Victor asked, glancing in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m intolerable in the morning without coffee.”
The ride to his office – in the back of a squad car, which was strange beyond words – was silent and uncomfortable. Agent Black remained quiet, except to confirm their destination, comment about the lousiness of New York’s weather, and ask about Martin.
“He’s doing okay,” Danny told him.
“Martin’s always okay,” Agent Black observed, before falling silent for the rest of the trip.
Danny sat and tried not to fidget, but the attempt was impossible. Fear for Martin competed with furious attempts at reassuring himself – surely no one, not even a dirty agent, not even a crazy dirty agent, would be crazy enough to, say, shoot Martin in front of witnesses. In front of witnesses who could have him dead from multiple gunshot wounds within two minutes. In front of the goddamn Deputy Director, who could (and probably would) find some loophole in the Eighth Amendment that would see Silverman punished in cruel and unusual ways.
The drive was interminable, complicated by icy roads and what Danny was sure was a conference of New York’s most incompetent drivers. Black sat impassively beside him, occasionally directing his fellow agent – Danny never did find out the man’s name – to turn here or there in order to avoid the worst of the traffic. And at last, after an eternity of sliding uncomfortably on black leather upholstery and enduring Black’s mountainous, unbreakable silence, they arrived at the front of Danny’s office building.
“Okay, we’re on our way,” Black told the other agent. Turning to Danny, he said, “We’re getting inside, fast, right? No dawdling.”
“I’m not a fucking five-year-old,” Danny snapped back, not even bothering to keep his impatience in check.
“Right.” Black grinned apologetically and swung his door open. “Come on.”
Danny hauled himself out of the sedan, dragging his briefcase behind him, conscious suddenly of the Kevlar vest strapped on under his jacket. God, how long had it been since he’d worn one of them? And they were still restrictive, tightening unmercifully as he tried to take a deep breath, chafing his collarbones.
“Let’s go,” Black said, stepping slightly behind Danny, shepherding him across the stone-covered plaza toward the doors. Ice and salt crunched underfoot.
As they walked, Danny pictured Martin and Victor approaching the entrance of the Federal Building. He could see them clearly, as though he were standing there himself, or walking alongside them: shoulders back, Martin’s face set and blue eyes absolutely intent, all of him focused on what lay ahead. And that was what would get him through it, Danny told himself desperately – that focus and resolve that had seen Martin through alive so many times before, when anyone else would have given up, or died.
He was dimly aware of Black shadowing him, and even less aware of Ben Dawson approaching them, smart remark ready, only to be diverted by Black’s menacing glare. Dawson crept off, a vague shadow in the periphery of Danny’s vision. And he was still thinking about Martin, about fire and heat and their night together, when he heard a hoarse, familiar voice calling for him.
“Mr. Taylor! Mr. Taylor!”
Danny spun, in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Richard Treharne, still in the pathetically inadequate overcoat and skullcap, eyes red-rimmed over a tattered scarf. A gun was in his gloved hands, and through his surprise Danny registered that it was pointed at him.
“The fuck?” Black swung around a heartbeat later, reaching into his shoulder holster for his weapon. “Taylor?”
“My boy, Mr. Taylor!” Treharne shouted, voice cold-roughened. “My boy!”
He heard the gunshot, felt the terrific impact of the bullet against his shoulder, and he was falling, the world going terrifyingly vertical.
Over the rush of frantic breaths and the thundering of his heart he heard two more shots, a pained and despairing cry abruptly cut off, a sharp impact against the back of his skull, and then nothing.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: For the curious, the lyrics to "A Change Is Gonna Come", lines from which this fic takes its title, can be found here. There are a couple different versions out there; I've used those as performed by The Band, mostly because I like theirs best.