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.fic: Every Distance: PG13/R D/M 4/?
Title: Every Distance
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous Parts: 01; 02 ; 03
Notes: Despite many difficulties and delays and restarts, this chapter is finished. Go, me. Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mardia_ for some wonderful Martin and Victor psychoanalysis, which compelled me to complete this chapter and will influence the next installment. *snuggles*
CHAPTER FOUR
Distantly, he heard the pathologist moving behind him, gathering his equipment and talking to himself, the litany of medical routine – clatter of metal instruments, smell of latex, the assistants asking questions in buzzing whispers that intruded on the strange quiet.
“I’ll be starting soon – five minutes, and then you’ll need to leave,” the pathologist said, appearing by Martin’s side in a wave of scent that smelled like Bactine and burned flesh.
He’d insisted on seeing them. And Danny insisted on going with him.
The two of them stood outside the plate glass window, looking into the green sterility of the morgue. Three bodies, one adult and two children, lay there, still shrouded, and a few strands of the woman’s hair trailed out from beneath the sheet. The grey fabric covered everything but the contours of the bodies – no burns, no sign of how they died.
Martin stared at them until his vision blurred, as long as he could make himself keep staring, without blinking or glancing away. And, God help him, he wanted to turn away, go somewhere – anywhere – else, be anywhere but here, smelling mold and death and antiseptic, tasting it, too much like the decaying, lifeless hole he’d been trapped in two weeks gone.
He sensed more than saw Danny standing next to him, still and silent, unflinching, close, and Martin could feel the low, radiant warmth of him where their shoulders touched. I’m not going anywhere, Danny had said, and he’d meant it. They’d fought about it in Danny’s apartment – their first fight as Danny and Martin, he’d thought cynically as he pulled on his coat and scarf – until Danny had caught his arm and pulled him close, and said with such ferocity that Martin, you’d better shoot me then because I’m not fucking letting you get killed again, and then Martin had had to give in.
Caught between Danny’s determination and the realization of his failure and the sight of the innocent dead, Martin couldn’t make himself move away. Too paralyzing, thinking that only three days ago he’d sent a request in for extra agents and a note to Pete’s new supervisor suggesting protective custody, and that now a mother and her children were murdered for no reason. For a reason, he knew – and the investigation would have to answer whether it was done as a warning or for revenge – but there was still... Still no fucking reason for it,no fucking reason for any of it and that truth had stayed with him since he’d been awarded his badge at Quantico.
His vision swam and blurred, and mechanically he shut his eyes, turning away so that Danny wouldn’t think he was crying. Ridiculous fear, because Danny had seen him a lot worse – had seen him dying and covered in blood, scarred and limping, half-frozen and terrified – but still. Soft, firm brush of shoulder against his, a reminder. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not looking away.
Like Danny hadn’t turned from him when he’d flipped his cell shut earlier that morning, when he’d only half-heard Matt’s goodbye through the sudden thunder of They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
He kept his eyes shut, thought back to waking up, the few moments of happiness – being lazy in bed, putting off urgency for the time being. Ruthless, his mind dismissed them, moving on to after he’d hung up with Matt.
“Martin? C’mon, man... talk to me.”
“I... They... They’re dead.”
“Who?” So gentle, calm, Danny’s voice. Dangerous, threatening to soothe anger and guilt into nothing, like soft fingers playing across his neck, dissipating tension.
“Whitney, Austin, Mandy – Chris’s wife and kids.” He added that last, realizing that Danny wouldn’t know who they were. Common courtesy, and he was proud of himself for remembering that.
“God.”
“Yeah.” A laugh jittered out of him, rough and very nearly hysterical before he could rein it in.
“I’m ready to start now, gentlemen; I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Soft, considerate voice, the tone of a man used to watching people watch the dead.
“Thanks,” Martin heard Danny say, and then a firm hand was at his elbow, guiding him out of the door. They hadn’t showered before leaving Danny’s place, and Danny still smelled like the night before, but stale and faded, his hair not even brushed – too much like it had been last night, when Martin had run his fingers through it, flattened on one side, though.
Barely reputable the both of them, drawn faces and sloppy hair – like addicts or drunks playing respectable in their overcoats and ties. Martin shuffled down the hall, listening to his shoes scuff on the tiles, only Danny’s stride forcing him to keep going forward, and his own desperation not to collapse in front of Danny. He’d come close this morning, so very close, and he was hovering at the edge still, looking over it and helpless to draw back.
Control, Fitzgerald. Keep it together.
So like this morning, when he’d sat there, staring at the cellphone half-hidden in the tumult of covers, trying not to break and feeling the cracks starting way down deep.
He took a breath, tried not to let Danny’s closeness affect him, but Danny was so present, unflinching and calm, shoulder pressed against his, skin and muscle, flesh, bone – real, so very real. He stole a look out of the corner of his eye, and yeah, Danny was absolutely still, not backing away from this. From him.
Too easy to rely on that, what Danny offered and instinct had him straightening up and moving to get out of bed almost before he could even think. When he turned around, Danny was watching him somberly, legs drawn up and elbows resting on his knees, looking at him in that way Danny had, that left Martin feeling too exposed for safety. Looking at Martin like he’d expected that reaction, but expectation didn’t lessen any of the hurt.
“I gotta get to the office,” Martin said, as though explanation were needed or could deflect Danny’s silent examination. He began searching for his boxers, determined at least to have some clothes on while Danny dissected him with his eyes. “Matt says they need me there.”
Their fight had started then, and ended a few minutes later. Martin had made himself keep quiet on the long ride down to the hospital, ghosting along by Danny’s side, hyperalert. Only the tightest control kept his mind from reeling through images of Danny shot, Danny dead – some stranger in the crowd stalking them, another faceless menace with a gun and the desire to make even more people pay for what others had done.
He remembered too clearly what it had been like, sitting in the Javits building and chafing at his father’s authority, wanting to get Silverman in that small, square room by himself... And then coming out, and his father had been there, saying something about Danny and a gun and the helplessness that had overtaken him had been worse than being in that dark prison, than being in that car with two holes in his body and his blood pouring out over his shirt, the dashboard, Danny’s hands.
Now Danny was leading him outside, into the bright and forbidding coldness – the sun was out, the light silvery and uncertain, no warmth to it – moving as though no reason for fear existed. Like Martin wasn’t behind him now, staring at his shoulders, the confident set of them, and quietly freaking out.
“They shouldn’t have died,” he said aloud, surprising himself.
Danny turned around, soft barely-there smile on his lips, and Martin wondered what it meant. Bitterness, regret, agreement? He stopped, tried to analyze the expression, couldn’t figure out how that small twist – curl at the corner of Danny’s mouth, a narrowing of those dark eyes – could hold so much.
“I’m not dying, Martin.”
“I didn’t say that.” A frigid wind cut through the alley behind the hospital, tugging at their coats. Martin thrust his hands into his pockets, as much to keep them warm as to keep himself from touching Danny, who was standing very close now.
“I know you didn’t,” Danny answered.
That smile again, and this close Martin could see the sadness in Danny’s eyes, and it occurred to him that it was only because he knew Danny that he knew where to look to see that sadness – past the smile, the flash, the distraction of his presence.
“Come on,” Danny said, taking him by the arm, gloved fingers pressing into fabric and flesh. “You probably need to get to the office.”
“Right,” Martin said hollowly, moving obediently as Danny’s hand propelled him along. “Yeah.”
* * *
Control, Fitzgerald. Keep it together.
Martin had lost count of how many times he’d told himself this. How many times he’d heard it from his father. In his sleep he heard it, in the corner of his thoughts during a case, with each heartbeat as he chased down a suspect. Hard to hear it now, though, standing alone in the chaos of the Bureau offices. He’d left Danny in the waiting area, and that was strange beyond all expression, walking through these corridors again knowing Danny was there, but without him by his side. Agents rushed by him, nodding or tossing off quick greetings that he didn’t bother to return.
Pete was sitting miserably at his desk, shoulders hunched as he watched the flurry of action around him, a lone point of pale stillness in the chaos of the office. He glanced up absently at Martin, blue eyes magnified by the thick lenses in his glasses.
“Suspended as of five minutes ago,” he said, answering the question Martin hadn’t asked. Shrugged thin shoulders and played with the end of his tie, voice deep and soft with shock. “Angela and Len, too.” Aggravated, humorous laugh. “They think we might have had something to do with it, like we actually planted the bomb ourselves, like they think we’d want to hurt Whitney and the kids, because of what Chris did.”
“I’m sorry, Pete.” Martin couldn’t keep looking at Pete sitting all hunched over, the thinning crown of light blond hair. The ‘they’ Pete had referred to... that was him, and other people who were supposed to be friends and colleagues – and Martin was one of them. He cast around for something to say, could only come up with a mumbled, “It’ll be okay,” and he knew Pete didn’t believe it.
He wouldn’t believe it, if he were sitting in Pete’s chair, watching all of this, his badge and gun on his supervisor’s desk.
He hovered over Pete’s shoulder, acutely aware of the moment stretching into terminal awkwardness and unable to do anything to help, unable to break loose from it. Desperate not to keep looking at the back of Pete’s head, he looked around the office
Nick Ramsay, head of New York’s Counter-Terrorism department, rescued him. A tall man, impeccably dressed, vaguely reminiscent of Jack in a solid black suit and tie, but thin, almost immediately forgettable. But Martin had seen him in the interrogation rooms, and knew the quiet, self-effacing mask for what it was.
“Ah, Martin, good to see you.” Ramsay’s voice was habitually soft, almost a whisper, and a Georgia accent blurred it nearly into incomprehensibility. In the chaos of the room, hearing him was almost impossible unless Martin bent close, into the atmosphere of expensive cologne that surrounded the man. “Peter.”
“Hey, Nick.” Pete’s smile was thin, unreal. Embarrassed, Martin looked away.
“If I could speak with you, Martin?” Ramsay asked.
“Yeah.” Relieved beyond all expression, he trailed Ramsay over to a huge whiteboard covered with photographs, mugshots, arrows and FBI hieroglyphics. The shots of Oliver White and Robert Phillips, two of Chris Silverman’s co-conspirators, bracketed Chris’s photo. He stared at them a moment, caught by the distant, strange sort of realization that these men had wanted him dead. Had almost gotten what they wanted.
He refocused on the family photograph, a blown-up version of a picture that had been sitting on Chris’s desk until recently. One of those posed family pictures, with the kids dressed up and bribed to cooperate, the parents smiling brightly, loving despite the formality and the anonymous background. And one of them was in prison, the other three were dead.
“Bomb squad is finishing the primary analysis,” Ramsay muttered, forcing Martin to lean in and pay attention to catch the words. “The detonator was wired to the ignition, but the device itself was probably fairly simple. We’ll know more soon, composition of the explosive and make, once they start running the labs.”
“Has anyone told Chris?” When he spoke his voice was steady.
Ramsay blinked, as though surprised at the question. “Not yet. I want to finish processing the initial reports first.”
“Yeah, right. ‘Course.” Martin folded his arms and stared at the board, the disparate puzzle pieces and question marks scattered across it, wished not for the first time that Danny, Viv, Jack, and Sam were there to figure it out with him. “What do you need me to do?”
“Your fa – ” Ramsay coughed and started again. “The Deputy Director will be here in a couple of hours; your team in Washington will be going over some of the interview records with Phillips and White, as well as the evidence gathered in the investigation of the White Tigers. In the meantime, you’re to stay here.”
“And do what?”
Ramsay’s dark face was very carefully blank, and when he spoke, the words were softer than usual.
“You’ll be placed in protective custody.”
“The hell I am.” Control, Fitzgerald.
“Deputy Director’s orders,” Ramsay murmured apologetically. “I’m sorry, Martin, but there it is.”
Keep it together.
“Yeah,” he said tightly, knowing that riding Nick about it wouldn’t do any good. “Thanks.”
Keep it fucking together, Fitzgerald.
“Of course,” Nick said, graceful as always and not asking for what.
Helplessness again, and as he stood there he could feel himself cut off – adrift, like Peter and the rest of his team, reduced to being interlopers in their own office. Martin stared at the whiteboard a moment longer, memorizing those faces, wanting to see the pretty brown-haired woman and her smiling kids, not the shrouds on metal tables, wanting the flesh-and-blood Phillips and Benson there so he could – could what?
Control, control, and he repeated this to himself as he turned away and strode out of the office, not letting himself acknowledge Lennox, Angela, and Pete as they turned to watch him go, or the murmur of rumor among the other agents.
Almost blind, he flung himself into the elevator and jammed down the button to the ground floor. No one else entered, and he collapsed against the back wall in relief.
Three were dead already, and more could die, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything, locked up somewhere.
I’m not thinking about this.
Nathan Sorensen, the doctor who’d treated him, and Suzanne Strahan, the woman who’d found him – he only knew her name, had never met the woman who’d most likely saved him from dying of hypothermia in that alley.
Danny, who had Found him and saved him in some way that went beyond keeping the body alive.
The elevator beeped as it crawled down through the numbers. Ten, eight.
Danny in that hospital bed, asleep – not dead, asleep, but he’d had to convince himself of that every second that Danny’s eyes remained closed. It was the stillness, he’d decided; it was unnatural, because Danny was always moving. Always brilliant, flash and glitter in the corner of Martin’s vision, present even when Martin had left, and it wasn’t right that he was this still, head tipped to one side on the pillow.
And he was not thinking about this either.
Four, three. He wondered why no one was getting on.
He could die, but the possibility was distant, not worth considering. Most of his life Martin had lived by that, a careful sort of denial. Suicidal tendency, some would call it. And maybe it was; he didn’t know.
The elevator sighed to a stop. Martin straightened automatically and pulled his jacket to rights, though it was wrinkled already and he knew he was far beyond being made presentable. A crowd of agents was waiting at the door, and when it opened they saw only Special Agent Martin Fitzgerald, neutral smile and greeting at the ready, cool, composed, pushing through them on his way to somewhere else.
-tbc.-
Next time: Victor!
ETA: In the haze of it being 1am and all, I forgot that if you haven't readmardia_'s The Best-Laid Plans, well then, you really, really should. Begone with you!
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous Parts: 01; 02 ; 03
Notes: Despite many difficulties and delays and restarts, this chapter is finished. Go, me. Many thanks to
mardia_ for some wonderful Martin and Victor psychoanalysis, which compelled me to complete this chapter and will influence the next installment. *snuggles*CHAPTER FOUR
Distantly, he heard the pathologist moving behind him, gathering his equipment and talking to himself, the litany of medical routine – clatter of metal instruments, smell of latex, the assistants asking questions in buzzing whispers that intruded on the strange quiet.
“I’ll be starting soon – five minutes, and then you’ll need to leave,” the pathologist said, appearing by Martin’s side in a wave of scent that smelled like Bactine and burned flesh.
He’d insisted on seeing them. And Danny insisted on going with him.
The two of them stood outside the plate glass window, looking into the green sterility of the morgue. Three bodies, one adult and two children, lay there, still shrouded, and a few strands of the woman’s hair trailed out from beneath the sheet. The grey fabric covered everything but the contours of the bodies – no burns, no sign of how they died.
Martin stared at them until his vision blurred, as long as he could make himself keep staring, without blinking or glancing away. And, God help him, he wanted to turn away, go somewhere – anywhere – else, be anywhere but here, smelling mold and death and antiseptic, tasting it, too much like the decaying, lifeless hole he’d been trapped in two weeks gone.
He sensed more than saw Danny standing next to him, still and silent, unflinching, close, and Martin could feel the low, radiant warmth of him where their shoulders touched. I’m not going anywhere, Danny had said, and he’d meant it. They’d fought about it in Danny’s apartment – their first fight as Danny and Martin, he’d thought cynically as he pulled on his coat and scarf – until Danny had caught his arm and pulled him close, and said with such ferocity that Martin, you’d better shoot me then because I’m not fucking letting you get killed again, and then Martin had had to give in.
Caught between Danny’s determination and the realization of his failure and the sight of the innocent dead, Martin couldn’t make himself move away. Too paralyzing, thinking that only three days ago he’d sent a request in for extra agents and a note to Pete’s new supervisor suggesting protective custody, and that now a mother and her children were murdered for no reason. For a reason, he knew – and the investigation would have to answer whether it was done as a warning or for revenge – but there was still... Still no fucking reason for it,no fucking reason for any of it and that truth had stayed with him since he’d been awarded his badge at Quantico.
His vision swam and blurred, and mechanically he shut his eyes, turning away so that Danny wouldn’t think he was crying. Ridiculous fear, because Danny had seen him a lot worse – had seen him dying and covered in blood, scarred and limping, half-frozen and terrified – but still. Soft, firm brush of shoulder against his, a reminder. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not looking away.
Like Danny hadn’t turned from him when he’d flipped his cell shut earlier that morning, when he’d only half-heard Matt’s goodbye through the sudden thunder of They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
He kept his eyes shut, thought back to waking up, the few moments of happiness – being lazy in bed, putting off urgency for the time being. Ruthless, his mind dismissed them, moving on to after he’d hung up with Matt.
“Martin? C’mon, man... talk to me.”
“I... They... They’re dead.”
“Who?” So gentle, calm, Danny’s voice. Dangerous, threatening to soothe anger and guilt into nothing, like soft fingers playing across his neck, dissipating tension.
“Whitney, Austin, Mandy – Chris’s wife and kids.” He added that last, realizing that Danny wouldn’t know who they were. Common courtesy, and he was proud of himself for remembering that.
“God.”
“Yeah.” A laugh jittered out of him, rough and very nearly hysterical before he could rein it in.
“I’m ready to start now, gentlemen; I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Soft, considerate voice, the tone of a man used to watching people watch the dead.
“Thanks,” Martin heard Danny say, and then a firm hand was at his elbow, guiding him out of the door. They hadn’t showered before leaving Danny’s place, and Danny still smelled like the night before, but stale and faded, his hair not even brushed – too much like it had been last night, when Martin had run his fingers through it, flattened on one side, though.
Barely reputable the both of them, drawn faces and sloppy hair – like addicts or drunks playing respectable in their overcoats and ties. Martin shuffled down the hall, listening to his shoes scuff on the tiles, only Danny’s stride forcing him to keep going forward, and his own desperation not to collapse in front of Danny. He’d come close this morning, so very close, and he was hovering at the edge still, looking over it and helpless to draw back.
Control, Fitzgerald. Keep it together.
So like this morning, when he’d sat there, staring at the cellphone half-hidden in the tumult of covers, trying not to break and feeling the cracks starting way down deep.
He took a breath, tried not to let Danny’s closeness affect him, but Danny was so present, unflinching and calm, shoulder pressed against his, skin and muscle, flesh, bone – real, so very real. He stole a look out of the corner of his eye, and yeah, Danny was absolutely still, not backing away from this. From him.
Too easy to rely on that, what Danny offered and instinct had him straightening up and moving to get out of bed almost before he could even think. When he turned around, Danny was watching him somberly, legs drawn up and elbows resting on his knees, looking at him in that way Danny had, that left Martin feeling too exposed for safety. Looking at Martin like he’d expected that reaction, but expectation didn’t lessen any of the hurt.
“I gotta get to the office,” Martin said, as though explanation were needed or could deflect Danny’s silent examination. He began searching for his boxers, determined at least to have some clothes on while Danny dissected him with his eyes. “Matt says they need me there.”
Their fight had started then, and ended a few minutes later. Martin had made himself keep quiet on the long ride down to the hospital, ghosting along by Danny’s side, hyperalert. Only the tightest control kept his mind from reeling through images of Danny shot, Danny dead – some stranger in the crowd stalking them, another faceless menace with a gun and the desire to make even more people pay for what others had done.
He remembered too clearly what it had been like, sitting in the Javits building and chafing at his father’s authority, wanting to get Silverman in that small, square room by himself... And then coming out, and his father had been there, saying something about Danny and a gun and the helplessness that had overtaken him had been worse than being in that dark prison, than being in that car with two holes in his body and his blood pouring out over his shirt, the dashboard, Danny’s hands.
Now Danny was leading him outside, into the bright and forbidding coldness – the sun was out, the light silvery and uncertain, no warmth to it – moving as though no reason for fear existed. Like Martin wasn’t behind him now, staring at his shoulders, the confident set of them, and quietly freaking out.
“They shouldn’t have died,” he said aloud, surprising himself.
Danny turned around, soft barely-there smile on his lips, and Martin wondered what it meant. Bitterness, regret, agreement? He stopped, tried to analyze the expression, couldn’t figure out how that small twist – curl at the corner of Danny’s mouth, a narrowing of those dark eyes – could hold so much.
“I’m not dying, Martin.”
“I didn’t say that.” A frigid wind cut through the alley behind the hospital, tugging at their coats. Martin thrust his hands into his pockets, as much to keep them warm as to keep himself from touching Danny, who was standing very close now.
“I know you didn’t,” Danny answered.
That smile again, and this close Martin could see the sadness in Danny’s eyes, and it occurred to him that it was only because he knew Danny that he knew where to look to see that sadness – past the smile, the flash, the distraction of his presence.
“Come on,” Danny said, taking him by the arm, gloved fingers pressing into fabric and flesh. “You probably need to get to the office.”
“Right,” Martin said hollowly, moving obediently as Danny’s hand propelled him along. “Yeah.”
Control, Fitzgerald. Keep it together.
Martin had lost count of how many times he’d told himself this. How many times he’d heard it from his father. In his sleep he heard it, in the corner of his thoughts during a case, with each heartbeat as he chased down a suspect. Hard to hear it now, though, standing alone in the chaos of the Bureau offices. He’d left Danny in the waiting area, and that was strange beyond all expression, walking through these corridors again knowing Danny was there, but without him by his side. Agents rushed by him, nodding or tossing off quick greetings that he didn’t bother to return.
Pete was sitting miserably at his desk, shoulders hunched as he watched the flurry of action around him, a lone point of pale stillness in the chaos of the office. He glanced up absently at Martin, blue eyes magnified by the thick lenses in his glasses.
“Suspended as of five minutes ago,” he said, answering the question Martin hadn’t asked. Shrugged thin shoulders and played with the end of his tie, voice deep and soft with shock. “Angela and Len, too.” Aggravated, humorous laugh. “They think we might have had something to do with it, like we actually planted the bomb ourselves, like they think we’d want to hurt Whitney and the kids, because of what Chris did.”
“I’m sorry, Pete.” Martin couldn’t keep looking at Pete sitting all hunched over, the thinning crown of light blond hair. The ‘they’ Pete had referred to... that was him, and other people who were supposed to be friends and colleagues – and Martin was one of them. He cast around for something to say, could only come up with a mumbled, “It’ll be okay,” and he knew Pete didn’t believe it.
He wouldn’t believe it, if he were sitting in Pete’s chair, watching all of this, his badge and gun on his supervisor’s desk.
He hovered over Pete’s shoulder, acutely aware of the moment stretching into terminal awkwardness and unable to do anything to help, unable to break loose from it. Desperate not to keep looking at the back of Pete’s head, he looked around the office
Nick Ramsay, head of New York’s Counter-Terrorism department, rescued him. A tall man, impeccably dressed, vaguely reminiscent of Jack in a solid black suit and tie, but thin, almost immediately forgettable. But Martin had seen him in the interrogation rooms, and knew the quiet, self-effacing mask for what it was.
“Ah, Martin, good to see you.” Ramsay’s voice was habitually soft, almost a whisper, and a Georgia accent blurred it nearly into incomprehensibility. In the chaos of the room, hearing him was almost impossible unless Martin bent close, into the atmosphere of expensive cologne that surrounded the man. “Peter.”
“Hey, Nick.” Pete’s smile was thin, unreal. Embarrassed, Martin looked away.
“If I could speak with you, Martin?” Ramsay asked.
“Yeah.” Relieved beyond all expression, he trailed Ramsay over to a huge whiteboard covered with photographs, mugshots, arrows and FBI hieroglyphics. The shots of Oliver White and Robert Phillips, two of Chris Silverman’s co-conspirators, bracketed Chris’s photo. He stared at them a moment, caught by the distant, strange sort of realization that these men had wanted him dead. Had almost gotten what they wanted.
He refocused on the family photograph, a blown-up version of a picture that had been sitting on Chris’s desk until recently. One of those posed family pictures, with the kids dressed up and bribed to cooperate, the parents smiling brightly, loving despite the formality and the anonymous background. And one of them was in prison, the other three were dead.
“Bomb squad is finishing the primary analysis,” Ramsay muttered, forcing Martin to lean in and pay attention to catch the words. “The detonator was wired to the ignition, but the device itself was probably fairly simple. We’ll know more soon, composition of the explosive and make, once they start running the labs.”
“Has anyone told Chris?” When he spoke his voice was steady.
Ramsay blinked, as though surprised at the question. “Not yet. I want to finish processing the initial reports first.”
“Yeah, right. ‘Course.” Martin folded his arms and stared at the board, the disparate puzzle pieces and question marks scattered across it, wished not for the first time that Danny, Viv, Jack, and Sam were there to figure it out with him. “What do you need me to do?”
“Your fa – ” Ramsay coughed and started again. “The Deputy Director will be here in a couple of hours; your team in Washington will be going over some of the interview records with Phillips and White, as well as the evidence gathered in the investigation of the White Tigers. In the meantime, you’re to stay here.”
“And do what?”
Ramsay’s dark face was very carefully blank, and when he spoke, the words were softer than usual.
“You’ll be placed in protective custody.”
“The hell I am.” Control, Fitzgerald.
“Deputy Director’s orders,” Ramsay murmured apologetically. “I’m sorry, Martin, but there it is.”
Keep it together.
“Yeah,” he said tightly, knowing that riding Nick about it wouldn’t do any good. “Thanks.”
Keep it fucking together, Fitzgerald.
“Of course,” Nick said, graceful as always and not asking for what.
Helplessness again, and as he stood there he could feel himself cut off – adrift, like Peter and the rest of his team, reduced to being interlopers in their own office. Martin stared at the whiteboard a moment longer, memorizing those faces, wanting to see the pretty brown-haired woman and her smiling kids, not the shrouds on metal tables, wanting the flesh-and-blood Phillips and Benson there so he could – could what?
Control, control, and he repeated this to himself as he turned away and strode out of the office, not letting himself acknowledge Lennox, Angela, and Pete as they turned to watch him go, or the murmur of rumor among the other agents.
Almost blind, he flung himself into the elevator and jammed down the button to the ground floor. No one else entered, and he collapsed against the back wall in relief.
Three were dead already, and more could die, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything, locked up somewhere.
I’m not thinking about this.
Nathan Sorensen, the doctor who’d treated him, and Suzanne Strahan, the woman who’d found him – he only knew her name, had never met the woman who’d most likely saved him from dying of hypothermia in that alley.
Danny, who had Found him and saved him in some way that went beyond keeping the body alive.
The elevator beeped as it crawled down through the numbers. Ten, eight.
Danny in that hospital bed, asleep – not dead, asleep, but he’d had to convince himself of that every second that Danny’s eyes remained closed. It was the stillness, he’d decided; it was unnatural, because Danny was always moving. Always brilliant, flash and glitter in the corner of Martin’s vision, present even when Martin had left, and it wasn’t right that he was this still, head tipped to one side on the pillow.
And he was not thinking about this either.
Four, three. He wondered why no one was getting on.
He could die, but the possibility was distant, not worth considering. Most of his life Martin had lived by that, a careful sort of denial. Suicidal tendency, some would call it. And maybe it was; he didn’t know.
The elevator sighed to a stop. Martin straightened automatically and pulled his jacket to rights, though it was wrinkled already and he knew he was far beyond being made presentable. A crowd of agents was waiting at the door, and when it opened they saw only Special Agent Martin Fitzgerald, neutral smile and greeting at the ready, cool, composed, pushing through them on his way to somewhere else.
-tbc.-
Next time: Victor!
ETA: In the haze of it being 1am and all, I forgot that if you haven't read
mardia_'s The Best-Laid Plans, well then, you really, really should. Begone with you!