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.fic: Every Distance: PG13/R D/M 8/9-10ish
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; 04; 05; 06; 07
Notes: Dearest and most beloved fangirls, please stop smacking/pummelling/beating/smiting Agent Fitzgerald. He is all black and blue and very sore and has been through a lot. Sincerely, Me. And Danny.
CHAPTER EIGHT
And when you’re done, come back.
Before Martin could even will himself to start walking he was moving out the door, and that was probably a good thing, because if he thought too much about what he was doing – if he even thought at all – he knew he would probably stop. Stop dead and turn around, or change course so he’d head to the main office area by a route that didn’t take him by the break room or the office Danny had commandeered.
Crazy to be terrified, because this was Danny, who knew him better than anyone else, than his parents, than Jack, hell, even Viv. And that was exactly why he was so scared.
Martin pushed past the thought, kept going. Down the one flight of stairs, footsteps echoing in the maze of concrete and metal. Thump onto the landing as he skipped the last two steps, momentum nearly pitching him into the door.
A flock of agents was gathered in the break room, hovering vulture-like around the coffee maker. No Danny at the table, and it was probably ridiculous for him to have stayed there for the half hour it took for Martin’s world to be comprehensively upended. Danny never could stay still; the more agitated or annoyed he was, the more he would need to move.
Not that he was going to be allowed past security, or to roam the building unsupervised.
He headed down the hallway and glanced into the office they’d been sharing. No Danny, only a half-demolished pile of folders and paperwork on the desk and a coffee cup perched dangerously atop it. Martin entered the office and paced around the desk, bent over to study it. The coffee was still warm, steaming away in its mug, a bit of spillage staining the corner of one document brown. Automatically, he moved the mug and the paper from underneath it, couldn’t help studying it even though it was obviously a court document and confidential.
Custody suit, a woman suing her husband for full custody of an eleven-year-old son.
“Jamie Winston.”
Martin jerked upright, dropping the paper and very nearly the mug. And God, to be caught out like this... He could feel the hot rush of embarrassment starting in his neck, the prickle of it racing up his spine as he saw Danny standing in the doorway looking at him.
“I usually don’t do custody work,” Danny said quietly as he entered the office and shut the doore behind him with a gentle, final click, moved closer, tone and manner careful, as though Martin would take offense. “Margie Winston’s a homemaker. Or she was... She’s a receptionist now. Her husband’s an accountant with a Wall Street financial group.”
“He beat her,” Martin said, startling himself.
Danny’s lips twitched. “Yeah. Ten domestic disputes logged in one year, all but one of them called in by the neighbors. The last one was her. He’d broken her arm, but she never filed charges. Just wanted a ride to the hospital, because she couldn’t drive.” He was beside Martin now, the warmth of him insinuating the air around them both, deft fingers taking the paper from Martin’s hand and tucking it back into its folder. “He divorced her, got custody based on ability to provide.”
“Ability to provide a high-power lawyer, you mean.”
Danny tilted his head, rueful smile forming more fully now. “Pretty much, yeah. She never went to college, never really had any marketable skills. And the settlement cut her out of a lot. Tarney let me take her case pro bono; her old attorney pretty much destroyed her in the divorce proceedings.”
“Do you think he’s beating his son?”
“I don’t know. I wish I knew.” Danny set the folder down, took the forgotten coffee mug from Martin, and placed it on top. “It would help her case.... That sounds fucking cold-blooded, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like me,” Martin muttered.
“Don’t say that, Martin.” Jagged edge of impatience, but something softening it. Martin risked a glance upward, and Danny’s eyes were more sad than anything else.
“I talked to my dad earlier.” A drunken stagger of a conversation this was, veering away from truth, tilting back toward it. “There’s a meeting in twenty minutes or so, to go over stuff. You should be in on it.”
Danny nodded thoughtfully and turned to lean back against the desk, weight threatening to send the precarious edifice of paperwork toppling over. He didn’t move, though, only looked up at Martin. No expectation, no demand, nothing, hands draped carelessly across his thighs, a simple waiting for whatever Martin wanted to tell him.
And he owed this to Danny. For finding him, saving him, being Danny enough to put up with him. Because his blood had been on Danny’s hands one night long ago, on that rain-cold street with bullets and madmen all around them, and Danny hadn’t flinched away. Had seen Martin at his worst – dying, coding in the ambulance, unconscious in the hospital – and hadn’t held his weakness over him, hadn’t demanded thanks or obligation for what he’d done.
“I can’t,” he whispered, and even as he said the words they came more easily, so easily that by the end they tumbled out in a desperate rush. “I can’t do this by myself anymore, Danny.”
He pushed the folders and coffee mug aside, hoisted himself up to sit next to Danny, shoulder to shoulder, the line of Danny’s torso and thigh pressed against him, warm through the fabric of jeans and long-sleeved shirt. Didn’t try to move closer, though he very much wanted to lean into that warmth and solidity, not knowing if Danny would allow it.
“It’s just...” Pause, because he wasn’t going to try to justify himself. “I just got so used to dealing, you know? And... and I’m not used to other people wanting to help me, without expecting something else.” Too close to justification now, and he made himself stop. “But that wasn’t a good enough reason not to trust you... and I’m sorry.”
Danny didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move or look away.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” Martin told him, forcing the words past a sudden knot of fear, because no one knew this, except Viv (who had guessed) and Dwyer (who only knew a little). “Since after we arrested Silverman and you got shot. Every night, pretty much.”
Sharp exhalation from Danny. “God, Fitz. Why didn’t you call? Did you talk to anyone?” His eyes narrowed. “No, of course you didn’t talk to anyone. So, why didn’t you call?”
“I...” Because I was scared. Because I’d already fucked around with your life. Because if I admitted it to anyone else, that would make it real. “I didn’t... I don’t know. A lot of reasons. I was scared, mostly.” Quiver in his voice, and he was not going to freak out over this. “Every night, I’ve dreamed of being back in that place. Of you being shot, sometimes, and not being there to stop it.”
“God,” Danny said again, pained this time. Hurting for him, Martin realized. “Fitz...”
“Everything’s gotten so fucked up, Danny, and I have no idea how it happened. How I let it happen. And you’ve tried to help – ” disjointed now but he couldn’t stop himself, control faltering at the breaking point, falling over it, and this was not supposed to happen, “ – and I know I owe you – ”
“Look, Martin, it shouldn’t have to be a fucking requirement – ”
“I’m not saying that.” Martin made himself slow down, though the rush of words threatened to overwhelm him, control thinned out and all of him stretched tense along the moment. “I’m saying... I’m saying that you’ve done so much, and you saved me, and not that I owe you – but I do – and dammit, I can’t fucking say it right.”
“Don’t worry about saying it.” Danny was facing him now, anger and impatience gone.
Martin wanted to say that he had to worry about it, because it was only right and Danny deserved so much more than that – that what he could say was only a beginning, and a hopeless one, and that anything more lay beyond whatever words he could find – but his thoughts were tangled and words too caught up in his uncertainty.
And then someone rapped hard on the door, perfunctory warning before it swung open.
“Fitzgerald, you’re late – meeting just started,” an anonymous agent said, and what he thought about seeing Martin Fitzgerald and Danny Taylor sitting close together on a borrowed desk he didn’t say.
And Martin couldn’t bring himself to care.
“You should come,” he told Danny quietly as he stood and straightened his t-shirt, offering him a smile – soft, apologetic, and he hoped Danny understood.
And Danny’s answering smile, slight but honest, told Martin that he did.
* * *
Danny never ceased to amaze Martin, and it was as true now after everything had changed as it had been back when he’d been the rookie and Danny the veteran tormenter.
Or maybe it was he himself who had changed, Martin didn’t know; all he did know was that, as they walked out into the bullpen he felt more settled, confident in himself, mind honed again to its old sharpness. And Danny next to him, even wearing his Vistor’s badge and dressed down, was inexpressibly right, moving with the smooth, effortless grace that had captivated Martin from the very beginning.
A knot of twelve agents were gathered around the main bank of whiteboards and a tall, impressively-built man who was addressing them. Victor stood to his right, arms cross and impatient frown firmly in place, glaring at nothing in particular.
“... and surveillance has reported no one entering the building since set-up. If Harris is still around, he’s lying low.”” The agent broke off as Martin and Danny approached. Victor looked up from his contemplation, offered Martin a thin and perfunctory smile that had nothing of their previous conversation in it.
“This is Dom Guerin, from Josh’s squad,” Victor said, nodding at the tall man. “Agent Guerin, my son Martin and Danny Taylor, former agent with the Bureau.” Guerin nodded politely and opened his mouth to say something, but Victor broke in. “You’re late, Agent Fitzgerald.”
“Sorry about that.” Martin glanced at Danny, who shrugged and offered a guilty grin. “So no hits on the building?”
“As Dom was saying, no one’s been back,” Nick told him, “but results from the crime lab came in not too long ago; trace amounts of ammonium perchlorate were found in the basement... And the metal casing recovered from the bomb matched the metal pipes in the building.”
“What about the hospitals?” He would have to go back there, to see for himself where he’d been kept. “The bomb squads find anything?”
Guerin shook his head. “Not yet. The squads have been working around the clock, but that’s a lot of space to check. The threats were nonspecific, so both hospitals have been evacuated as a precaution.”
“Delaying tactic,” Victor grunted. “They’re getting stupid.”
“Getting stupid?” Danny muttered, rolling his eyes. Martin elbowed him, and Danny smirked back.
“Yeah.” Guerin leaned against the desk and stared thoughtfully at the whiteboard. “If what you guys say is true, that the bomb that killed Whitney and the kids was opportunistic, the threat against the hospitals is probably a hoax. Still...” He shrugged. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Speaking of which, the media’s going crazy,” another agent said, gesturing to the bank of TVs on the other side of the room, the images on them hysterical and shaky, reporters shouting soundlessly into their microphones. “So far they’ve only been suggesting a connection between the Silverman bombing and the threats to St. Jude and Northwest. None of them have thought about the possible links to Martin’s abduction, and I hope it stays that way.” The other agents murmured agreement.
“Law enforcement under siege never looks good,” Guerin said. He pushed himself away from the desk and positioned himself in front of the whiteboard. “We’ve placed agents with Mrs. Strahan and the St. Jude’s staff as a precaution, but we have no reason to believe that the men who are still out there would be able to access the record of Mrs. Strahan’s 911 call.”
“We didn’t have reason to believe Whitney, Mandy, and Austin were in any danger, either,” Martin said bitterly.
Guerin was silent for a moment, mouth thinning in anger. Some of the other agents tensed as well, but Ramsay remained impassive and Victor was looking at him now, with an expression that clearly said he hadn’t expected what Martin had said.
Martin felt Danny shift a little closer, covert touch of fingers on the back of his wrist.
“Look, did forensics find prints? DNA samples?” Danny asked. Guerin and the others glanced at him in surprise. Danny rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Did they find prints or not?”
“Yeah,” Guerin said. “I reported on that earlier... Four sets; two matched with Phillips and White, the third belongs to a William Penney.” He pointed to a photograph posted on the board, the bust of a balding man, small dark eyes made even smaller by their cushions of puffy, reddened flesh. “He’s not linked to either man directly; he’s only in the system for a couple drunken domestic calls. The police booked him on one.”
“Only a couple,” Danny said testily.
“Has anyone brought him in?” Martin asked, mentally willing Danny to be quiet.
“Not at home,” Guerin said. “His wife says he’s been gone for two weeks, and I think she’d be happier if he stayed that way. We have an APB out on him.”
“Two weeks? That would put him missing at about the same time you were,” Danny said. “No way that’s a coincidence.”
“Yeah, but was he involved?” Martin stepped closer to the photograph, studying the ill-tempered light in the dark eyes of Penney’s mug shot. “This guy gets off on fighting with his wife, not kidnapping people.”
“He could have walked into it. Innocent bystander,” Danny suggested. “Does he have any business in that area?”
“Slumlord,” Guerin said disdainfully, pushing red hair out of his eyes as he studied Penney’s rap sheet. “He didn’t own the building Phillips and White were using, but two of the others that were slated for demolition. The buildings were being used for storage.”
“Who’s the fourth?”
“Derek Harris,” Victor said tightly, gesturing to a fourth shot on the board, a grainy surveillance photo of a man, beard cut short and neat, standing at a counter. “We pulled that off the cameras in a bodega a few blocks from the hideout. Black called in the ID an hour ago, and Silverman confirms that the call he made on his brother-in-law’s cell phone was made to Harris.”
“And he’s definitely in on the Silverman bombing, at least.” Guerin’s voice, authoritative and powerful baritone, broke in on Martin’s thoughts “Most likely he was the one who constructed the bomb used on the Silvermans’ car. He might have called in the bomb threats as well, but forensics on the pay phone and the recording aren’t conclusive.”
Guerin was about to say something else when someone’s cell phone went off, and there was the inevitable collective search of pockets and coats.
“It’s mine,” Victor broke in, flipping his cell open with one hand and gesturing viciously for silence with the other. “Fitzgerald.”
A long pause, Victor nodding irritably. Another pause, and then the irritation vanished, bled away into shock, something Martin had never seen in his father before. Shock and something else – regret, anger, maybe and Martin realized that he didn’t know his father well enough to read anything else other than annoyance and condescension in him – and Victor was placing his palm over the mouthpiece and turning to face them.
“Trueblood and his squad’ve been sweeping the other buildings,” Victor said, “and they just found William Penney. Dead.”
* * *
Deep in the bowels of the Federal Building, surrounded by the smell of chemicals and death for the second time in two days, Martin stood next to the autopsy table, staring down at the body of William Penney. The coroner stood across from him, robed in clinical blue, wrists decorated with blood, murmuring arcane physiological terms that Martin ignored until he finally got to cause of death.
“He was stabbed twice,” the coroner said, pointing to the pale carcass on the table and the two raking, angry wounds on its chest. “The second one is what killed him – it punctured the aorta. Immediate, disastrous hemorrhage. He didn’t go easy, though; defensive wounds on his hands, premortem bruising. Lividity indicates two attackers; someone held him down by his wrists while someone else stabbed him.” Almost delicately, the coroner lifted one of Penney’s hands to display the angry liver-red marks twisting around the wrist, five neat bands.
Absently, Martin’s fingers sought out his own wrists, walking over smooth, unabraded skin. Memory too keen of the pain that had accompanied any movement for days after he’d gotten out, even water too harsh when he’d taken the bandages off to wash them. Sorensen had told him they’d had to pick rope fibers out of the burns.
“Any trace on the body?” he made himself ask.
“No foreign DNA, if that’s what you mean. No prints, such as they are, but I’m sure you could match the width of the ligature marks to fingers.”
“Thanks.” Martin turned and headed for the door, not wanting to breathe again until he’d escaped the exam room. The first breath outside the doors was still death-tainted, and he’d had too much of that taste in his mouth lately – had lived with it, in the waking world and the corners of nightmares.
Didn’t want it anymore.
“Hey,” he said, catching sight of Danny standing a short way down, leaning casually against the tiled wall
“Hey.” Danny levered himself away from the wall and walked up to him, gaze sweeping over him, cataloguing yet warm, and Martin was forcibly reminded of the day he’d woken up in the hospital with Danny beside him. Danny had worn that same expression, relief mingled with worry and an unconscious sort of assessment, checking for scars and changes, deeper things than that. “You okay?” he asked as they began to walk toward the elevators.
No, he wasn’t, and the first powerful impulse was to affirm that he was, indeed okay. He wavered a moment, caught between that and the truth.
“No,” he said roughly, almost coughing the word out through his reluctance. “I think... I think Derek Harris was there that day, when they were...” He couldn’t say it, the memory too strong to articulate what had happened – “You’ll feel good, Fitzgerald – better than you have in days,” and the pressure on his arm had made it go numb so he couldn’t feel the needle sliding in, felt nothing until the rush of unwanted euphoria made the world spiral away, three voices sounding distinct as three tones on a piano, dark and mocking – and fell silent.
“Martin?” And what the hell was he doing, just standing in the middle of the hallway of a busy forensics laboratory, anyway, with Danny standing in front of him, bending close enough so Martin could smell him. Soap and fabric softener, aftershave and Danny, what Martin had smelled when they’d been in bed, tangled up in each other and he’d pressed kisses against the moist skin of Danny’s neck, where the smell stayed better.
“Fitz, c’mon.” Way too close, but the concern in Danny’s face was like cold water.
And Martin knew Harris had killed Whitney and her children, and had threatened other people – he knew it without any scrap of evidence besides that of his own instinct, and he knew too that Harris would hurt others if he could.
Hurt Danny, and no one got to do that.
“Harris was there, Danny,” he said, forcing himself past the moment.
“He was there, and I fucking want to kill him.”
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: I may need one or more chapters after what was supposed to be the last one (i.e. this next chapter), otherwise the ending is going to feel terribly rushed; to be honest, I didn't expect that Martin would take as long as he did to come to this point. The unexpected extension may jeopardize my being able to finish this before the S4 premiere, but we'll see, we'll see.
(Though in my defense, if this were to be finished in nine chapters, I would have met my personal goal. Just sayin'.)
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; 04; 05; 06; 07
Notes: Dearest and most beloved fangirls, please stop smacking/pummelling/beating/smiting Agent Fitzgerald. He is all black and blue and very sore and has been through a lot. Sincerely, Me. And Danny.
CHAPTER EIGHT
And when you’re done, come back.
Before Martin could even will himself to start walking he was moving out the door, and that was probably a good thing, because if he thought too much about what he was doing – if he even thought at all – he knew he would probably stop. Stop dead and turn around, or change course so he’d head to the main office area by a route that didn’t take him by the break room or the office Danny had commandeered.
Crazy to be terrified, because this was Danny, who knew him better than anyone else, than his parents, than Jack, hell, even Viv. And that was exactly why he was so scared.
Martin pushed past the thought, kept going. Down the one flight of stairs, footsteps echoing in the maze of concrete and metal. Thump onto the landing as he skipped the last two steps, momentum nearly pitching him into the door.
A flock of agents was gathered in the break room, hovering vulture-like around the coffee maker. No Danny at the table, and it was probably ridiculous for him to have stayed there for the half hour it took for Martin’s world to be comprehensively upended. Danny never could stay still; the more agitated or annoyed he was, the more he would need to move.
Not that he was going to be allowed past security, or to roam the building unsupervised.
He headed down the hallway and glanced into the office they’d been sharing. No Danny, only a half-demolished pile of folders and paperwork on the desk and a coffee cup perched dangerously atop it. Martin entered the office and paced around the desk, bent over to study it. The coffee was still warm, steaming away in its mug, a bit of spillage staining the corner of one document brown. Automatically, he moved the mug and the paper from underneath it, couldn’t help studying it even though it was obviously a court document and confidential.
Custody suit, a woman suing her husband for full custody of an eleven-year-old son.
“Jamie Winston.”
Martin jerked upright, dropping the paper and very nearly the mug. And God, to be caught out like this... He could feel the hot rush of embarrassment starting in his neck, the prickle of it racing up his spine as he saw Danny standing in the doorway looking at him.
“I usually don’t do custody work,” Danny said quietly as he entered the office and shut the doore behind him with a gentle, final click, moved closer, tone and manner careful, as though Martin would take offense. “Margie Winston’s a homemaker. Or she was... She’s a receptionist now. Her husband’s an accountant with a Wall Street financial group.”
“He beat her,” Martin said, startling himself.
Danny’s lips twitched. “Yeah. Ten domestic disputes logged in one year, all but one of them called in by the neighbors. The last one was her. He’d broken her arm, but she never filed charges. Just wanted a ride to the hospital, because she couldn’t drive.” He was beside Martin now, the warmth of him insinuating the air around them both, deft fingers taking the paper from Martin’s hand and tucking it back into its folder. “He divorced her, got custody based on ability to provide.”
“Ability to provide a high-power lawyer, you mean.”
Danny tilted his head, rueful smile forming more fully now. “Pretty much, yeah. She never went to college, never really had any marketable skills. And the settlement cut her out of a lot. Tarney let me take her case pro bono; her old attorney pretty much destroyed her in the divorce proceedings.”
“Do you think he’s beating his son?”
“I don’t know. I wish I knew.” Danny set the folder down, took the forgotten coffee mug from Martin, and placed it on top. “It would help her case.... That sounds fucking cold-blooded, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like me,” Martin muttered.
“Don’t say that, Martin.” Jagged edge of impatience, but something softening it. Martin risked a glance upward, and Danny’s eyes were more sad than anything else.
“I talked to my dad earlier.” A drunken stagger of a conversation this was, veering away from truth, tilting back toward it. “There’s a meeting in twenty minutes or so, to go over stuff. You should be in on it.”
Danny nodded thoughtfully and turned to lean back against the desk, weight threatening to send the precarious edifice of paperwork toppling over. He didn’t move, though, only looked up at Martin. No expectation, no demand, nothing, hands draped carelessly across his thighs, a simple waiting for whatever Martin wanted to tell him.
And he owed this to Danny. For finding him, saving him, being Danny enough to put up with him. Because his blood had been on Danny’s hands one night long ago, on that rain-cold street with bullets and madmen all around them, and Danny hadn’t flinched away. Had seen Martin at his worst – dying, coding in the ambulance, unconscious in the hospital – and hadn’t held his weakness over him, hadn’t demanded thanks or obligation for what he’d done.
“I can’t,” he whispered, and even as he said the words they came more easily, so easily that by the end they tumbled out in a desperate rush. “I can’t do this by myself anymore, Danny.”
He pushed the folders and coffee mug aside, hoisted himself up to sit next to Danny, shoulder to shoulder, the line of Danny’s torso and thigh pressed against him, warm through the fabric of jeans and long-sleeved shirt. Didn’t try to move closer, though he very much wanted to lean into that warmth and solidity, not knowing if Danny would allow it.
“It’s just...” Pause, because he wasn’t going to try to justify himself. “I just got so used to dealing, you know? And... and I’m not used to other people wanting to help me, without expecting something else.” Too close to justification now, and he made himself stop. “But that wasn’t a good enough reason not to trust you... and I’m sorry.”
Danny didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move or look away.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” Martin told him, forcing the words past a sudden knot of fear, because no one knew this, except Viv (who had guessed) and Dwyer (who only knew a little). “Since after we arrested Silverman and you got shot. Every night, pretty much.”
Sharp exhalation from Danny. “God, Fitz. Why didn’t you call? Did you talk to anyone?” His eyes narrowed. “No, of course you didn’t talk to anyone. So, why didn’t you call?”
“I...” Because I was scared. Because I’d already fucked around with your life. Because if I admitted it to anyone else, that would make it real. “I didn’t... I don’t know. A lot of reasons. I was scared, mostly.” Quiver in his voice, and he was not going to freak out over this. “Every night, I’ve dreamed of being back in that place. Of you being shot, sometimes, and not being there to stop it.”
“God,” Danny said again, pained this time. Hurting for him, Martin realized. “Fitz...”
“Everything’s gotten so fucked up, Danny, and I have no idea how it happened. How I let it happen. And you’ve tried to help – ” disjointed now but he couldn’t stop himself, control faltering at the breaking point, falling over it, and this was not supposed to happen, “ – and I know I owe you – ”
“Look, Martin, it shouldn’t have to be a fucking requirement – ”
“I’m not saying that.” Martin made himself slow down, though the rush of words threatened to overwhelm him, control thinned out and all of him stretched tense along the moment. “I’m saying... I’m saying that you’ve done so much, and you saved me, and not that I owe you – but I do – and dammit, I can’t fucking say it right.”
“Don’t worry about saying it.” Danny was facing him now, anger and impatience gone.
Martin wanted to say that he had to worry about it, because it was only right and Danny deserved so much more than that – that what he could say was only a beginning, and a hopeless one, and that anything more lay beyond whatever words he could find – but his thoughts were tangled and words too caught up in his uncertainty.
And then someone rapped hard on the door, perfunctory warning before it swung open.
“Fitzgerald, you’re late – meeting just started,” an anonymous agent said, and what he thought about seeing Martin Fitzgerald and Danny Taylor sitting close together on a borrowed desk he didn’t say.
And Martin couldn’t bring himself to care.
“You should come,” he told Danny quietly as he stood and straightened his t-shirt, offering him a smile – soft, apologetic, and he hoped Danny understood.
And Danny’s answering smile, slight but honest, told Martin that he did.
Danny never ceased to amaze Martin, and it was as true now after everything had changed as it had been back when he’d been the rookie and Danny the veteran tormenter.
Or maybe it was he himself who had changed, Martin didn’t know; all he did know was that, as they walked out into the bullpen he felt more settled, confident in himself, mind honed again to its old sharpness. And Danny next to him, even wearing his Vistor’s badge and dressed down, was inexpressibly right, moving with the smooth, effortless grace that had captivated Martin from the very beginning.
A knot of twelve agents were gathered around the main bank of whiteboards and a tall, impressively-built man who was addressing them. Victor stood to his right, arms cross and impatient frown firmly in place, glaring at nothing in particular.
“... and surveillance has reported no one entering the building since set-up. If Harris is still around, he’s lying low.”” The agent broke off as Martin and Danny approached. Victor looked up from his contemplation, offered Martin a thin and perfunctory smile that had nothing of their previous conversation in it.
“This is Dom Guerin, from Josh’s squad,” Victor said, nodding at the tall man. “Agent Guerin, my son Martin and Danny Taylor, former agent with the Bureau.” Guerin nodded politely and opened his mouth to say something, but Victor broke in. “You’re late, Agent Fitzgerald.”
“Sorry about that.” Martin glanced at Danny, who shrugged and offered a guilty grin. “So no hits on the building?”
“As Dom was saying, no one’s been back,” Nick told him, “but results from the crime lab came in not too long ago; trace amounts of ammonium perchlorate were found in the basement... And the metal casing recovered from the bomb matched the metal pipes in the building.”
“What about the hospitals?” He would have to go back there, to see for himself where he’d been kept. “The bomb squads find anything?”
Guerin shook his head. “Not yet. The squads have been working around the clock, but that’s a lot of space to check. The threats were nonspecific, so both hospitals have been evacuated as a precaution.”
“Delaying tactic,” Victor grunted. “They’re getting stupid.”
“Getting stupid?” Danny muttered, rolling his eyes. Martin elbowed him, and Danny smirked back.
“Yeah.” Guerin leaned against the desk and stared thoughtfully at the whiteboard. “If what you guys say is true, that the bomb that killed Whitney and the kids was opportunistic, the threat against the hospitals is probably a hoax. Still...” He shrugged. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Speaking of which, the media’s going crazy,” another agent said, gesturing to the bank of TVs on the other side of the room, the images on them hysterical and shaky, reporters shouting soundlessly into their microphones. “So far they’ve only been suggesting a connection between the Silverman bombing and the threats to St. Jude and Northwest. None of them have thought about the possible links to Martin’s abduction, and I hope it stays that way.” The other agents murmured agreement.
“Law enforcement under siege never looks good,” Guerin said. He pushed himself away from the desk and positioned himself in front of the whiteboard. “We’ve placed agents with Mrs. Strahan and the St. Jude’s staff as a precaution, but we have no reason to believe that the men who are still out there would be able to access the record of Mrs. Strahan’s 911 call.”
“We didn’t have reason to believe Whitney, Mandy, and Austin were in any danger, either,” Martin said bitterly.
Guerin was silent for a moment, mouth thinning in anger. Some of the other agents tensed as well, but Ramsay remained impassive and Victor was looking at him now, with an expression that clearly said he hadn’t expected what Martin had said.
Martin felt Danny shift a little closer, covert touch of fingers on the back of his wrist.
“Look, did forensics find prints? DNA samples?” Danny asked. Guerin and the others glanced at him in surprise. Danny rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Did they find prints or not?”
“Yeah,” Guerin said. “I reported on that earlier... Four sets; two matched with Phillips and White, the third belongs to a William Penney.” He pointed to a photograph posted on the board, the bust of a balding man, small dark eyes made even smaller by their cushions of puffy, reddened flesh. “He’s not linked to either man directly; he’s only in the system for a couple drunken domestic calls. The police booked him on one.”
“Only a couple,” Danny said testily.
“Has anyone brought him in?” Martin asked, mentally willing Danny to be quiet.
“Not at home,” Guerin said. “His wife says he’s been gone for two weeks, and I think she’d be happier if he stayed that way. We have an APB out on him.”
“Two weeks? That would put him missing at about the same time you were,” Danny said. “No way that’s a coincidence.”
“Yeah, but was he involved?” Martin stepped closer to the photograph, studying the ill-tempered light in the dark eyes of Penney’s mug shot. “This guy gets off on fighting with his wife, not kidnapping people.”
“He could have walked into it. Innocent bystander,” Danny suggested. “Does he have any business in that area?”
“Slumlord,” Guerin said disdainfully, pushing red hair out of his eyes as he studied Penney’s rap sheet. “He didn’t own the building Phillips and White were using, but two of the others that were slated for demolition. The buildings were being used for storage.”
“Who’s the fourth?”
“Derek Harris,” Victor said tightly, gesturing to a fourth shot on the board, a grainy surveillance photo of a man, beard cut short and neat, standing at a counter. “We pulled that off the cameras in a bodega a few blocks from the hideout. Black called in the ID an hour ago, and Silverman confirms that the call he made on his brother-in-law’s cell phone was made to Harris.”
“And he’s definitely in on the Silverman bombing, at least.” Guerin’s voice, authoritative and powerful baritone, broke in on Martin’s thoughts “Most likely he was the one who constructed the bomb used on the Silvermans’ car. He might have called in the bomb threats as well, but forensics on the pay phone and the recording aren’t conclusive.”
Guerin was about to say something else when someone’s cell phone went off, and there was the inevitable collective search of pockets and coats.
“It’s mine,” Victor broke in, flipping his cell open with one hand and gesturing viciously for silence with the other. “Fitzgerald.”
A long pause, Victor nodding irritably. Another pause, and then the irritation vanished, bled away into shock, something Martin had never seen in his father before. Shock and something else – regret, anger, maybe and Martin realized that he didn’t know his father well enough to read anything else other than annoyance and condescension in him – and Victor was placing his palm over the mouthpiece and turning to face them.
“Trueblood and his squad’ve been sweeping the other buildings,” Victor said, “and they just found William Penney. Dead.”
Deep in the bowels of the Federal Building, surrounded by the smell of chemicals and death for the second time in two days, Martin stood next to the autopsy table, staring down at the body of William Penney. The coroner stood across from him, robed in clinical blue, wrists decorated with blood, murmuring arcane physiological terms that Martin ignored until he finally got to cause of death.
“He was stabbed twice,” the coroner said, pointing to the pale carcass on the table and the two raking, angry wounds on its chest. “The second one is what killed him – it punctured the aorta. Immediate, disastrous hemorrhage. He didn’t go easy, though; defensive wounds on his hands, premortem bruising. Lividity indicates two attackers; someone held him down by his wrists while someone else stabbed him.” Almost delicately, the coroner lifted one of Penney’s hands to display the angry liver-red marks twisting around the wrist, five neat bands.
Absently, Martin’s fingers sought out his own wrists, walking over smooth, unabraded skin. Memory too keen of the pain that had accompanied any movement for days after he’d gotten out, even water too harsh when he’d taken the bandages off to wash them. Sorensen had told him they’d had to pick rope fibers out of the burns.
“Any trace on the body?” he made himself ask.
“No foreign DNA, if that’s what you mean. No prints, such as they are, but I’m sure you could match the width of the ligature marks to fingers.”
“Thanks.” Martin turned and headed for the door, not wanting to breathe again until he’d escaped the exam room. The first breath outside the doors was still death-tainted, and he’d had too much of that taste in his mouth lately – had lived with it, in the waking world and the corners of nightmares.
Didn’t want it anymore.
“Hey,” he said, catching sight of Danny standing a short way down, leaning casually against the tiled wall
“Hey.” Danny levered himself away from the wall and walked up to him, gaze sweeping over him, cataloguing yet warm, and Martin was forcibly reminded of the day he’d woken up in the hospital with Danny beside him. Danny had worn that same expression, relief mingled with worry and an unconscious sort of assessment, checking for scars and changes, deeper things than that. “You okay?” he asked as they began to walk toward the elevators.
No, he wasn’t, and the first powerful impulse was to affirm that he was, indeed okay. He wavered a moment, caught between that and the truth.
“No,” he said roughly, almost coughing the word out through his reluctance. “I think... I think Derek Harris was there that day, when they were...” He couldn’t say it, the memory too strong to articulate what had happened – “You’ll feel good, Fitzgerald – better than you have in days,” and the pressure on his arm had made it go numb so he couldn’t feel the needle sliding in, felt nothing until the rush of unwanted euphoria made the world spiral away, three voices sounding distinct as three tones on a piano, dark and mocking – and fell silent.
“Martin?” And what the hell was he doing, just standing in the middle of the hallway of a busy forensics laboratory, anyway, with Danny standing in front of him, bending close enough so Martin could smell him. Soap and fabric softener, aftershave and Danny, what Martin had smelled when they’d been in bed, tangled up in each other and he’d pressed kisses against the moist skin of Danny’s neck, where the smell stayed better.
“Fitz, c’mon.” Way too close, but the concern in Danny’s face was like cold water.
And Martin knew Harris had killed Whitney and her children, and had threatened other people – he knew it without any scrap of evidence besides that of his own instinct, and he knew too that Harris would hurt others if he could.
Hurt Danny, and no one got to do that.
“Harris was there, Danny,” he said, forcing himself past the moment.
“He was there, and I fucking want to kill him.”
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: I may need one or more chapters after what was supposed to be the last one (i.e. this next chapter), otherwise the ending is going to feel terribly rushed; to be honest, I didn't expect that Martin would take as long as he did to come to this point. The unexpected extension may jeopardize my being able to finish this before the S4 premiere, but we'll see, we'll see.
(Though in my defense, if this were to be finished in nine chapters, I would have met my personal goal. Just sayin'.)
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And omg your icon... One more week, can't believe it.
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Lovely chapter. I'm going to be very sad when this is over, but for now I'm just looking forward to more.
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I'm going to be very sad when this is over, but for now I'm just looking forward to more.
*consoles* Well, there will be two more chapters definitely, and maybe something after that, depending :)
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Great chapter!
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OMG. OMG.
*loves you so much right now, there aren't even words*
I mean, Martin. Talking! Communicating! Sharing! *squees*
So much love. Seriously.
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Finally... after one whole other fic and eight chapters of this one! :D *snargles you*
*and molests your icon*
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*loves it*
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this made me cry. loveslovesloves
I'm so glad Martin is finally reaching out and I wish the attorneys I have to deal with were something like LawyerDanny.
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*loves you*
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You and me both! *g* Glad you liked this chapter!
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Eh, I want to get it done before whatever will happen after the premiere... happens. And whenever I come to the end of a fic, or sense I'm getting near the end, I start writing faster. Kind of like a horse that knows when it's going back to the stable--it'll always move a bit more smartly without extra urging :D
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Thanks so much! That whole section was an experience to write... I'm a lot like Martin myself--I tend to keep big emotional things private, and obfuscate about them endlessly--so the entire passage was an exercise in wondering what I would do in that kind of situation, or hoping I would have the courage to do, maybe.
And may I say that I love your icon? I hope it means that we could try CBS for heresy.
ooooh... bonfires, yes
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The icons are
New fan
Is it ok if I friend you?
Re: New fan
Is it ok if I friend you?
Of course :) Welcome in!