standing at the edge of the earth

fanfic100. Transparency.

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 04:49:16 GMT

Title: Transparency
Fandom: House, M.D.
Character: Dr. Greg House
Prompt: 004. Insides.
Word Count: 408
Rating: PG
Spoilers: “One Day, One Room” and speculation on an upcoming preview
Author’s Notes: It seems to be the season for TPTB to be coming out with “big secrets” about our favorite protagonist. This is purely my speculation on why, if indeed they’re going to keep going on this path, House would suddenly be talking about all these long-buried things.

Gregory House had always been a private man. He’d never been the “caring and sharing” type to begin with (that would be Wilson), and he always thought that it added to his mystique to have a couple extra things up his sleeve. Like a good poker player, his advantage only lasted as long as no one knew all the cards that he was holding. He knew more about them than they knew about him, and he liked it that way.

Until what had happened with Tritter (that seemed to be his excuse for everything), and then everything had looked a bit different. Tritter had cut his knees out from under him, exposed his addiction, turned his friends and staff against him, made Cuddy perjure herself to save his ass. When it came to the Vicodin, now he didn’t have much left to hide. Everyone had seen him at his lowest point. Everyone knew now that he hadn’t really been detoxing.

House knew now that he was more exposed than he had ever been. He didn’t like being caught off guard like that, to be poked and prodded like a lab rat (that was what he did to other people). If secrets about him were going to start coming out, he was going to be the one telling them, and controlling what happened after.

The rape victim was a start. Telling her about his father hadn’t been in the plan, but it had been a means to an end, and now that he had said it he felt a little bit better for having got it off his chest. It wasn’t public knowledge, but at least he had said it, admitted it to himself more than he ever had to her. She had been a conduit for him to deal with something he should have dealt with long before. Not that it made any difference in who he was, or what he was, but at least he had stopped ignoring it (like he’d always planned to do until he died).

That was a start. There were other secrets, and now people would be looking for them. House was no less willing to let them out. It would all come down to his own time, in his own way, and whatever happened then would be of his own making. He was realizing that he would never be a private man as long as there were people who always wanted inside.

fanfic100: Warning Sign

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:17:01 GMT

Title: Warning Sign
Fandom: House
Characters: Dr. Greg House
Prompt: 090. Home.
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Merry Little Christmas"
Summary: Is time finally running out?
Author's Notes: A drabble extrapolating on a scene from the Christmas episode; namely the motivations behind it. I'm leaning a little on the previews as well, so if you haven't seen them, you may want to avoid this but know that it is all speculation on my part.

He calls his mother from the apartment, half drunk. Gets the machine, speculates that the family is already at his aunt's. He has to make another crack about the turkey.

But he hesitates. Just for a moment, just before he tells her merry christmas.

Maybe he should have told her he'll be in rehab or prison after the holidays. Should've said he'd screwed up. But it's the holidays and he doesn't want her worried over her drug addicted son. He decides to hang up instead. Forty-six years, she's worried enough.

He's concerned about the day she stops worrying about him.

Red Alert Squad - Like A Fallen Constellation (035. Breakdown.)

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:04:14 GMT

Title: Like A Fallen Constellation
Fandom: House/24
Claim: Red Alert Squad
Prompt: 035. Breakdown.
Characters: Jake Hannigan, Brittany House
Pairing: Greg House/Brittany House, vaguely implied Jake/Brittany UST
Word Count: 3487
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Life after the end of the world.
Spoilers/Warnings: Major character death, angst, adult themes, spoilers for the 12/12 episode of House.
Author's Notes: Takes place in 2018, following the events of Eve, Answering The Bullet, Speaking In Ciphers, Glass Waltz and Sleeping Satellite, in that order. It goes without saying that while all those pieces are canon, this is not.

They buried her husband on October seventeenth, at the age of fifty-nine. Jackson was twelve, and his mother thirty-four, with a sick feeling in her stomach because Greg had been right all along: the drugs had caught up to him, and he wouldn't get to see their son graduate high school.

If it hadn't been for Jackson, Brittany would have eaten a gun on October eighteenth. But their son needed his mother then more than ever, so she knew she had no choice but to go on, as a widow and a woman who had very little will to live anymore. She didn't know what to do without the man who had promised her they'd grow old together and he'd take her away from all the suffering she'd endured.

But he'd kept that promise, she thought to herself, standing in front of an empty casket, holding onto her son's quivering hand. He provided you with a house, and a new career, and a son you thought you'd never have, and love you thought you never deserved. It's because of him that you're in Gainesville living out what you know is going to be your last job. He made that possible. He did this for you.

She knew that what she was saying to herself was right. It was because of Greg that she had been able to settle into her job as assistant head coach for the Florida Gators seven years earlier, because of him that they were able to afford to keep two houses. One in Gainesville, and the same one in Princeton, where they had raised their son. Princeton, where she was having a headstone set even though she was having him cremated, because to him it had always been home. She wanted Greg to have everything that he wanted, even if she could hear him just telling her it didn't matter.

She could hear him, and the more she listened to that little voice in her head, the more she thought about the last few moments they'd had together, when they both knew he wasn't going to make it through the night.

****

The doctors had given their diagnosis a few days earlier. She'd sobbed and pleaded and offered to let them cut her open to save his life, but Greg had been much more calm about it. He had taken those few days to do everything he'd wanted to do. Only when he'd gotten truly sick, five days later, did they check him back into the hospital, and only because he hadn't wanted her to have to think of him dying on the couch every time she walked into the house.

He'd said goodbye to their son a half hour or so earlier. He hadn't wanted Jackson to see the end of it, not when he was this young, so Brian had taken their son somewhere else in the hospital. Brittany had simply stayed by his bedside, her hand in his, her head on his chest, feeling like her heart was going to burst.

"I'm so sorry," he'd told her. "I should have...I should have taken better care of myself. Gotten off the drugs." A hard swallow. He'd survived rehab, once he'd finally gone, but the damage had already been done by the years of drug use and abuse. "They warned me," he said, and she knew he was thinking back to every time he'd taken a pill over the last decades.

She didn't want him going to the grave with that kind of guilt. "Shhh, honey," she'd said quietly, her voice breaking. "Don't blame yourself. You've been clean for...what, at least eight years now. We...we had no way of knowing it was going to happen like this." A swallow, feeling tears spring to her eyes. "No way of knowing. You did the right thing, when you could do it. Don't blame yourself."

The last thing he'd said was that he loved her, and he'd kissed her goodbye while she'd tried to think of something more to say than that she loved him too. She tried not to cry, but when she felt him go slack underneath her she sobbed and had to be pried off him by the nurses who heard the steady drone of the monitors that showed nothing but a flat line.

****

Everyone had come to the funeral. Not just her husband's colleagues at Princeton-Plainsboro, but some of Brittany's oldest friends and family. Jack spent much of his time consoling Blythe House over the loss of her son, while Kim tried to do the same for Brittany but her surrogate sister wasn't buying. She wasn't listening to anyone, be it her brother Nathan, or her former players like Danny and Steve, or even old friends like Kyle Porter or Jimmy McCarron.

Despite his best judgment, Michael had come down for the funeral. He knelt beside her, and took her hands in his. He looked into her eyes and he saw the space where her soul should have been, and a lump formed in his throat and no words would come. Nothing he could say would make her suffering any better. He ducked his head and felt the tremor in her hands, and kept his silence. He was one of only two people who seemed to know that the only one who could make her better was her husband.

The other was Jake Hannigan, standing in her kitchen, making coffee because she couldn't be bothered to eat. Waiting for the pot to finish, he leaned against the counter and watched the dozen-odd people who were milling about the living room offering condolences and trying to look as stricken as possible. Not many of them had been close to Greg, not since the family started living half the year in Gainesville, only returning to the New York-New Jersey area in the spring and summer months. Jake had moved to Orlando two years after they had gone to Gainesville, and he was the one that was closest to them. It seemed bizarre to say that, all things considered, but he knew it to be true.

He closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths. While his best friend was in pieces, Jake had been the one to try and start thinking about the obvious facts. It was no secret that while Brittany had been moving up in the coaching world -- an assistant for a dozen years now -- Greg had made considerably more money, and he had been the family's major source of income. Though a good deal had been put away for Jackson's college education, there was still the question of them being a single-income family. Brittany had told him that it had been Greg's money that had allowed them to keep two houses and made it possible for her to take such a low-paying job. Without a doctor's salary, he saw the quality of life for the two of them going down considerably.

He didn't like that feeling.

Jake had never told her, never told anybody how much money he came from and where it had come from. His parents had been very wealthy people, and as far as he knew, so were their parents before them. They had managed it well, and he had managed it well, living on the money he made as a senior federal agent rather than the years of savings and investments that had been passed on to him. He had always been close-lipped about the money, not wanting to be a spoiled rich kid, not wanting to see it go to waste. But he knew now, it was the one thing he could give her that nobody else could. The one thing she might need. She wouldn't want affection, she didn't need anyone to lie and say everything would be fine. She needed someone to carry the weight.

He watched her, curled up on her couch, arms protectively around her son, and he began to think again.

****

She didn't stay in Princeton after the funeral. Publicly, she said it was because Jackson was in school and they were preparing for another basketball season, but privately it was because she didn't want to be there anymore. It wasn't her home, not without Greg there. If she could have picked up the family house and dropped it in the middle of Gainesville, she would have. She would keep the house in Princeton, but only because he'd loved it so much, and she did too. Otherwise, she never would go back. She was running scared, and she knew it, but she was too far gone to care.

She was doing the dishes in the luxury condo they'd bought seven years earlier. It took twice as long because Greg wasn't there to dry.

"You didn't have to do this," her boss said from behind her. "I meant what I said, you can take all the time you need."

"I'll need a lifetime, and I don't have that long," she replied, setting the dishes in the drainer before she turned to face him. She'd known Coach Donovan for eight years now, and been a fan of his for another four years before that. She hadn't stopped looking at him as a man who deserved total honestly from her. "Billy," she said, the first time she'd ever called him by his first name, "you and Christine have done more than enough for me."

Billy Donovan gave her an arched eyebrow; he'd caught the use of his first name. "There isn't enough, Brittany," he replied, shaking his head. "You've been on my bench for eight years, okay? You're family. We're behind you one hundred percent."

"I know." She swallowed. "I just don't know what I'm going to do, okay? I mean, I know...I'm gonna stay here at UF. I told you that I was gonna stay, and I mean that. But I don't know how the finances are going to shake out. I don't know what to do with the house in Princeton. And the most important thing is I don't know what to do with a bed that's half empty and a space where he should be." She felt her voice cracking. "Greg and I promised each other that if something happened, we wouldn't remarry. And I'm gonna keep that promise, but I don't believe for a minute that it's gonna be easy without him." The tears were sliding down her cheeks, and she wiped at her eyes hurriedly.

"No, it won't be," he said, handing her a Kleenex from the box on the counter. Once she took it, he settled his hand on her arm, looking her dead in the eyes. "But don't you think for a minute that you're gonna go through this alone."

She nodded. How much things had changed. When she had taken the job at UF, she had thought it a mere stepping stone to coaching in her dream job, somewhere in the ACC, and eventually at Duke University. But once arriving at the program, she and Greg had warmed to the people instantly. It had become a place she could see herself settling. Duke had its own people that it preferred to hire, anyway, former players mostly. She had gotten a job offer from another program a year earlier, and she could still remember the conversation between her and her husband, when she had told him that she honestly wanted to stay. How he had told her that he felt like this was the right place for her.

She'd trusted him, and he had been right. Greg was always right. That was probably why everything felt so wrong without him.

"I'm gonna come back and coach," she said after a moment. "He'd want me to coach."

There was the sound of a key turning in the front door lock, and Brittany closed her eyes, because she knew that who was on the other side of that door was not ever going to be who she really wanted it to be.

****

Jake knew that he'd never be who she wanted him to be. And it wasn't as if he was really trying.

He owned a condo of his own in Orlando, but he'd been driving the almost two hours north to Gainesville as long as he could remember. He had been to every UF home game since Brittany had begun coaching there, and the two of them had fumbled about to try and maintain a personal relationship as well, keeping the promise they'd made to one another years ago, when both were in a different place and time. Now he came for entirely different reasons. For a promise he had made to himself. He was fifty years old now, and this was the closest thing he had to someone to care about.

Someone who needed somebody to care about her or she'd go down in flames, and they both knew it.

He spoke briefly to her boss before the older man let himself out, and busied himself with hanging up his jacket on the coat rack by the door. Brittany was still standing at the kitchen counter, sniffling, when he found her there. Jake stood in the doorway for a long moment, just watching the slump of her shoulders, the way she didn't really care if she lived or died. She hadn't given a shit after what had happened in London, either. He'd had to beat the shit out of her for her to understand. Somehow, he knew that this would not be solved that way. Something inside her would not be coming back, no matter what he did.

He was reminded of a line from some musical: 'Nobody ever tells you how they really feel about you until you're dead.' It had been that way with him and House. He could still remember the other man looking at him from the hospital bed, telling him that he trusted him to take care of his wife. The same man who had beaten the hell out of him for touching his wife thirteen years earlier. But House had trusted him. And Jake had been just as angry and sickened by his needless demise. He had been the first one Brittany had told. The one standing by her side at the funeral.

"I'm not sure what we should do with him," she said, while they'd been making funeral arrangements. "Burial, or cremation? I don't know what he would want. He loves it here, but I think he'd want to be with Jackson..."

She'd looked up at him. Jake had thought on it, before the barest hint of a smirk appeared on his face. "Greg likes fire, doesn't he?" he said, and she had honestly laughed, for what had been the last time that he could remember.

"He meant a lot to you too, didn't he?" she'd said after a moment. He'd nodded, just a little. "I guess you could say that," he said. "He was important to me, because you're important to me." Not that he'd ever said that to Greg's face.

Not until the end, anyway. When he'd looked at the other man, and after House had asked him why he cared, snapped, "Because you matter, you son of a bitch."

Jake merely came up behind Brittany and wrapped his arms around her, holding her while she cried. It had used to be that he couldn't stand the sound of her being so emotional. But now, he was used to it, if only because it was all he ever heard from her anymore. A sign that at least she was still alive, even if she didn't want to be. He hadn't told her how much that meant to him. Even now, as the secure leader of his own field office five years on, he still needed her. He couldn't afford to lose somebody else, even though he understood her lack of will. He'd wanted to die, once. Except she hadn't let him go, and now he was just returning the favor.

"How was work?" she asked after a moment.

"I don't think that's important," he replied. "I think I'm just concerned with you."

"I miss the fuck out of him," she said, for what seemed like the eight billionth time.

"I know you do." He held her close, against his body, listening to the abnormality of her heartbeat. The difference in her breathing. "But look at it this way, the bastard is probably haunting you somewhere."

"Well, then you're fucked, because he never liked you," she said, and he heard her laugh for only the second time since her husband had died.

****

Long after he had finally managed to get her to go to bed, clinging to some giant stuffed tiger that Greg had won her at a carnival years ago, Jake found himself sitting at Brittany's kitchen table, thinking. This wasn't the first time he'd been in this position. He'd been custodian of his parents' estate for years; he still owned and maintained the house in Columbia, South Carolina where he had grown up. But that had been different, because there had been nobody else. This time, he'd gotten himself involved, and he knew that he wasn't getting out. Couldn't get out, because it would all go to hell without him.

Maybe in saving her, he was somehow saving himself. Again. He wasn't sure. He'd never been the kind of man to think that much on these things.

He was balancing her checkbook. Managing her finances. Paying her bills, for the most part, and he didn't care. Something inside of him said that he ought to just dump the condo in Orlando and move in with her, except for that she would probably think that it would look like something it wasn't. Which it wasn't, and would never be. Maybe years ago it could have been, but they had both agreed on it, the day he'd been confirmed at Langley. By the time they'd gotten to see each other for the truth, by the time they were willing to be proud of who and what they were, it was 'too little, too late.' They would never, could never be together.

Not even if she wasn't still hung on the man she had married, who wasn't that much older than Jake himself.

They would survive like this. What they had together, neither of them had any way of knowing that it was going to be the only thing keeping them both alive. But they would make this work, somehow. He had needed it, and she had given it. Now she needed it, and he was more than willing to give it.

He found himself looking at their wedding photos, looking at a side of Greg House he'd never seen or maybe not been willing to see. The man who had deeply loved his wife and his son. A man who had cared, and been cared for. The kind of thing that Jake himself would never have. There was some bitterness and jealousy there, but Jake could not find himself to hate the man. House had changed. They had both changed. The difference was that House had taken what he wanted, and Jake had held back. He had no one to blame for that but himself.

He went to check on Brittany again. She'd finally fallen asleep. He dragged the blankets that she'd thrown off up over her, and leaned down to press a soft kiss lightly to her cheek. Standing there, watching her sleep, able to feel the suffering radiating off her. The need to be loved. Where had he felt that before? He stood there, and he glanced at the urn sitting on her dresser. "I'm not going anywhere, you son of a bitch," he said quietly, just before he closed the bedroom door.

He couldn't.

Brittany needed him. He needed her.

Somehow, he didn't think Greg wanted him to, either.

Silently, Jake reopened the bedroom door. He crossed the room and settled on the end of the bed, just sitting there and watching her sleep. Simply staying near her, because that was as close as he was ever going to get to her. Reaching a hand over, he covered one of her hands with his own. Wanting to feel her, know that she was still there, somewhere, under all the pain and the torment she was going through. He couldn't make it stop, but he could make it easier, or so he hoped. He was actually hoping for once in his life. Things would never be the same, for either of them. They didn't have a choice, but to go on living.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, even though he knew she'd never hear him. "I love you," he forced himself to say, even though he knew he'd never want her to hear.

Some things were better left buried.

Red Alert Squad - Colorblind (066. Match.)

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:23:07 GMT

Title: Colorblind
Fandom: House/24
Claim: Red Alert Squad
Characters: Tom Quinn, Brittany Colefield, Michael Colefield, Christine Dale
Pairing: Brittany/Michael Colefield, Tom Quinn/Christine Dale
Prompt: 066. Match.
Word Count: 1249
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Project Friendly Fire"
Summary: After two years, two people brought together by circumstance are reunited when they were never supposed to be.
Author's Notes: This piece is not After Life canon. It was never explained in MI-5 what happened to Tom after he was discharged from MI5, so that was where the After Life first-season finale, "Sacrifice of Angels," came in. In the new book Spooks: The Personnel Files, however, put together by the series' production company, it reveals that Tom married CIA liaison Christine Dale, both quit the service, and now runs a private security firm in London. (This was a little distressing to me, being a Tom/Ellie 'shipper.) So now we know what happened, and I wanted to see how that might have played out. This piece takes place after the events of "Sacrifice of Angels," but Tom has returned to England rather than staying in L.A., and he and Brittany have not seen each other since. It also takes place in 2004, prior to the events of Season 4's "The Dead Will Tell," when she is still married to Michael and before the final showdown with CIB.

In the weeks and months after the treason trial that had nearly cost her freedom, she sometimes wondered what had happened to him. Sometimes thought she might see him out of the blue someday, when both of them were pretending to be other people, and they'd just look at each other and smile and know what'd happened.

Two years later, and she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, knowing now that she'd been right all along.

She'd been sitting at a table in the small London sidewalk cafe, waiting for Michael to get back with lunch, figuring they would eat quickly and then get back to work on the real reason why they'd come back to England: to deal with the Code Five final push. But Mike hadn't come back yet, and she'd started looking around. That was when she'd seen him, reading the paper at a table across from her. She knew it was Tom; she'd recognize that quietly determined expression and lost blue eyes anywhere. You didn't forget a man who walked into your life and asked you to help save his from the most elaborate frame job in the history of mankind.

She shut her jaw, and decided against approaching him. She didn't know if he was on a job for MI5 -- if they'd even have considered hiring him back after the Herman Joyce debacle -- and she didn't want to blow his cover. At least he seemed good, and that was all right. That was what she had been fighting for.

But then he looked up, sensing her looking at him, and her heart hit her stomach.

She looked away.

He was still looking at her, and after a moment, he moved to the table next to her; the only reason he didn't go straight to her was likely the same reason she hadn't said a word to him. "You're the absolute last person I expected to see," he said, as if this was just an old conversation between friends.

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. But his willingness to engage her in conversation meant that she could talk to him, so she swallowed again and nodded. "I'm just here on some unofficial business," she said absently. "Waiting for Michael to get back," and she pointed in her husband's general direction.

Tom's lips quirked. "So you're still with the boy, then," he said, never mind that Michael was thirty-one now, and older than Tom himself. Then his eyes saw the small detail that hadn't been there before. "You married him."

She was momentarily startled, then realized that she should have remembered he had a keen head for details. "Just a few months ago," she said, with a small smile. "Surprised?"

"No. If he'd managed to lose you again I'd have to show up and give him a bollocking, after all he made me help him with to get you back." He laughed, and she thought it was the first time she'd heard him honestly, really laugh without the weight of the world on his shoulders. "You look good," he told her, and she smiled. "Thanks. So do you. You look really good, Tom."

There was a silence that fell between them. It wasn't as if they had been good friends. She only knew Tom because he was one of Michael's old friends, and Mike had called on him for help. After that, Tom had turned up at CTU asking for her help to clear his name, and she'd helped him do that. They didn't know each other all that well, and they never would, but there was the respect of two professionals who had worked together to save each other. That counted for something.

"So how have you been?" she asked, feeling awkward. Like she was supposed to have the faintest clue who he was behind the gun.

Tom appeared to be considering this, then nodded. "Good. Didn't go back to Five...I..."

He looked past her, and she saw something in his eyes flicker. A couple of moments later, she saw a tall blond woman walk out onto the patio. Brittany didn't recognize her, but she went straight for Tom, and he greeted her warmly, leaning up for a quick kiss. It was only while arching an eyebrow in total shock, that Brittany noticed she wasn't the only one wearing a wedding ring.

"Christine, I want you to meet someone." Tom's voice broke her confused train of thought. He was nodding in her direction. "This is Brittany Wells. She's the CIA agent who helped get me out of Tessa's clutches a few years ago." A small, wry smile, before he said, "Brittany, this is Christine, my wife."

"It's a pleasure." Brittany offered her hand with a small smile, still a little flustered.

Christine Dale's eyes seemed to recognize what incident Tom was talking about, and the look Brittany saw was something akin to gratitude through the confusion. "Nice to meet you," she said, and Brittany was surprised that she was American. "You're CIA?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

Brittany nodded. "CTU, actually, but yes. Why?"

"I used to work for them. CIA liaison to MI5." Christine didn't seem to have the same sense of humor about her former occupation that Tom did. There was an awkward pause, and she said, "Anyway...thank you for all your help in getting him out of trouble."

"A good man needed help. Who was I to turn him down?" Brittany shrugged. Helping Tom had been the first true test she'd had to handle on her own, and it had scared the hell out of her. She had come out of it damaged, intimidated, and gunshy. But she knew in her heart that she had done the right thing, and that, more importantly, she would do it all again if given the chance. "I'm just glad that he's got the new lease on life he deserves."

"Thanks to you," Tom interjected.

"Thanks to me, and Michael, and Lex, and a pair of very good lawyers," she corrected, giving him a look that said not to start singing her praises.

He didn't have the chance. That was when a familiar velvety-toned voice interrupted, "I leave you alone for fifteen minutes and you start making friends...the bloody hell, mate, of all the places in the world to walk into." Michael Colefield's jaw hung open slightly as he set the tray he was holding down on the table and rounded on one of his old friends. He was more shocked than Brittany was, and that was saying something.

Tom was used to this by now, however, and merely smiled. "It's good to see you again, Michael. This is my wife, Christine..." He nodded in Christine's direction, "and I see I don't need to thrash you, either."

Michael looked at Brittany and smiled almost bashfully, "Yeah, you could say I learned my lesson," he said, but then he sobered. "So you're all right, mate?" he asked seriously.

"Yeah." Tom nodded. "Yeah, I'm all right. How'd you hold up?"

"I'm good, now," the older man replied, looking at his wife. "I'm all right."

Tom Quinn nodded a little, surveying the faces of the friends around him as he said, "Then maybe everything worked out for the best."

Despite everything the four of them had all been through, together and apart -- the loss of loved ones, of pride, of dignity, of faith, of everything they had once held so dear -- no one disagreed.

Beside My Own Reflection

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:10:04 GMT

Title: Beside My Own Reflection
Fandom: 24
Characters: Brittany House, Jack Bauer
Pairing: None
Word Count: 1032
Rating: PG
Summary: Not so long ago, they would have given everything to be family. Now, at the end of an era, they're finally coming to terms with the fact that they will never be.
Author's Notes: Title is from "Crawling" by Linkin Park.

She reached for the phone that morning, to call her father.

"Dad, it's me."

"Hi, sweetheart."

Brittany didn't remember the first time she had called Jack Bauer 'Dad.' He had never been her father, but one day somewhere four years ago it had slipped out, and he hadn't corrected her. They had just grown close, over time, close enough to greet each other with the pleasantries of loved ones. And until recently, there would have been no one in the world that Brittany loved more than Jack.

"I just...I wanted to call and say happy Thanksgiving."

"Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Brittany."

From the moment that she had met him, she had been awed by who he was. Not Jack Bauer the superhero -- she hadn't known him as that, when they had met -- but Jack Bauer the father and the husband. He might not have been the best at either, but it was the effort and the heart she could sense. He cared about his family. She wanted to be that kind of person. She wanted to learn what had made him so great. She did learn, when he began to teach her, and what she learned was that men like him were a once in a lifetime thing.

The closest thing anyone had to a sure thing in this world.

She swallowed and shifted the phone on her shoulder. "It's not the same without you here."

There was silence on the phone, and she could picture the pained expression on his face, the hesitant pause as he searched again for an excuse, as he often did when he knew he couldn't make everything work out. "Maybe next year," he said after a moment. "It just didn't work out this time."

"Yeah, I know," she said, although the only thing she knew was that he was probably lying.

Not that he meant to. Not that he liked doing it. But if there was one thing that happened a lot in the Bauer family, it was that Jack often came up short. Work called him in, or he couldn't figure out the right thing to say or do, or there was something else in the way. There were obvious flaws in his system, yet instead of infuriating those who knew him, they simply accepted it as part of who he was. Possibly because everything else he did was so far beyond their wildest imaginations.

Brittany knew, anyway, that she had little claim on his time, anymore. She was not his agent. She had left his service, more than a year ago. She had left his family, when she had moved to New Jersey. Everything had made it clear, that they were unintentionally cutting ties, and moving on.

Which was perhaps the stupidest thing she had ever done, the more that she thought about it.

"We're doing okay," she said, because she knew she had to say something. "Just me, and Greg, and Jackson, and Greg's mom. Julian and some of the guys from work might be by later, but most of 'em have other places to be."

"I'm sure you're doing just fine." There was a hint of a smile in his voice.

She stopped everything that she was doing, leaning against the counter and eyeing the wedding ring on her hand. She had hardly ever regretted her marriage to Greg, but she had regretted saying yes so quickly to moving to Princeton. This was New Jersey, a college town, an Ivy League town, money and circumstance. She had never been that kind of girl. She had been born and raised in the L.A. area, and Los Angeles was more her kind of town. Big city, working-class people, bright lights. That was where she belonged.

"It's boring," she admitted. "If this were home, we'd be having turkey in between insane acts of God."

Jack laughed softly. "There is always that," he replied. "It's been quiet this year, however."

"Quiet or they're just lulling you into thinking it's quiet?" she teased. "Remember, I used to do that. Me and Jordan and Tony and Julian and Michelle." She knew he wouldn't be able to tell if this was one of those situations or not, so she said, "How are Tony and Michelle?"

"They're fine. They're off spending the holiday somewhere, taking a vacation." He paused. "I really do miss you, Brittany."

"I know you do," she said quietly, closing her eyes for a moment. "Jack?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe it's better this way," she said softly. "Maybe it's time to say it. Say that you're not my dad."

He sucked in a breath. "I don't want you to say it thinking that I don't love you anymore," he told her. "That hasn't changed. But if it's what you think is best, I'll support you no matter what."

"Just...you ought to support your family. And I ought to support mine. You and Kim have a good thing going. You always have..."

Jack chuckled. "I think she might beg to differ," he replied. "I understand where you're coming from. And we are...making progress. But that doesn't mean I need to disavow you, or my grandson." A pause, a weak attempt at a joke: "Greg, I can take him or leave him."

That made her laugh. "I bet you could," she replied, "you've never liked any of my boyfriends. No, wait, you liked Frank." She smiled, just a little, and then said, "I just don't want to get in the way of your real life, Jack. And with me getting older, starting my own family, I don't suppose I have anything to hide, anymore. It was good while it lasted, believe me, but I think we've both outgrown the charade."

Maybe they had outgrown it. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they didn't have a choice.

"You remember a couple years ago, when I said that you sometimes reminded me of Teri?" he asked.

"Yeah, Jack."

"I got it wrong," he said, "you're a hell of a lot more like me than I ever gave you credit for."

She didn't know what to say to that, so they said their soft goodbyes, and she hung up the phone.

Summerfire

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:13:52 GMT

Title: Summerfire
Characters: Brittany House, Jake Hannigan, Dan Collins
Pairing: none
Word Count: 416
Rating: PG
Summary: Dan takes exception to something he sees one day.
Author's Notes: Sort of inspired by the whole recent controversy surrounding Bob Knight.

One minute it was just a simple game of one-on-one during the break in practice, the next Dan Collins knew, the basketball hit his coach square in the chest with a thud. It wasn't a light thud, either. He could hear that from where he was standing on the sideline.

He didn't like that sound at all.

Brittany House and Jake Hannigan didn't notice his look of annoyance. They were too busy standing at center court, arguing with one another yet again. There was no doubt that they were on the same team, they just never seemed to be on the same side.

"You cannot fuck around with this," Jake said, giving her a narrow-eyed stare. "You have to stop being a coward, and take what you want."

"Who's fucking around?" she asked him lowly, glaring at him. "It's just not as easy as you make it look. You may have played, but you've never coached..."

"...no, but I know you," he replied, and as if to make a point, he shoved her a little bit. It wasn't that hard, but Brittany wasn't prepared for it, and she stumbled backward slightly. Still glaring at him.

Dan, on the other hand, was seeing red, and it didn't take him more than a few seconds to step between the two of them. His eyes were angry. "Keep your hands off my coach," he snapped, annoyed as all hell. Probably the angriest Brittany had ever seen him. While he was nowhere near the physical specimen Jake was, he was a good eight inches taller, so this wasn't someone to just brush off.

Jake's facial expression didn't change. But he knew that slugging one of the players on the team was not a good idea. "Don't think you can order me around," he replied quietly. "You'd be making a big mistake."

"The only mistake I'd be making is not defending my teammate." Dan folded his arms over his chest, and didn't move either.

Brittany finally cleared her throat after a couple more heartbeats of a staredown. "That's enough, you two," she said quietly. "I think our points have been made."

Dan turned and looked at her, as if to look her over for injury, before he nodded. Satisfied, he moved out of the way, and back to the sideline with the rest of the team. It was then, looking in Jake's eyes, that she could see Jake was watching Dan. And probably would be, for a long time to come.

House: Greg House/Brittany House, cardinal directions: north

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 10:16:25 GMT

Title: Home
Fandom: House
Pairing: Greg House/Brittany House
Prompt: #1 -- North
Word Count: 310
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: This entire series will be set post-current canon, of sorts. They will all take place after Brittany's retirement and in sync with as much of current House canon as I can muster. Her POV, very stream of consciousness.

Brittany hasn't gotten over the fact that she doesn't need to drive into New York every morning anymore. Her brain still thinks she's due for a long drive north into the city, when all she has to do is stay at home, and take a quick trip to the university.

She really grew to despise New York over the last year and a half. The traffic, the drive, the co-workers who were busy checking out her ass instead of doing their job. Granted, that opinion changed, over time and one disaster after another, but New York was never comfortable for her. Not like Southern California was. Not like Princeton is. Princeton is the place where she makes her home, and where she hopes to make her name. It's a place her husband loves.

She's reminded of that, every time she goes to work. That she's on the campus of a place her husband graduated from. That she works for one of the best schools in the country. That just across the way is Princeton-Plainsboro, with her husband and her friends and God only knows what Greg is doing now. She wants to do well by all of them. That means something to her.

She lays in bed beside him, his arm slung over her body, thinking on that legacy. Greg blinks his eyes open, asks her to hand him the Vicodin on the bedside table, and she does. He's in pain, but she'll always try to make it all okay, even if she can't. Because what she remembers of all those drives to New York, all that time spent away from home, all that stress she was under, is his voice on the phone on those drives south, back into Jersey, telling her how proud he was of her, and how he'd be waiting for her when she got home.

fanfic100: Humiliation

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 06:55:56 GMT

Title: Humiliation
Fandom: House
Characters: Dr. Greg House
Prompt: 025. Strangers.
Word Count: 189
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Fools for Love"
Summary: He's not the apologizing kind.
Author's Notes: Thank God for new episodes. A very short little snarky piece. This is set following the events of the 10/31 episode, so if you haven't yet seen it and don't want to be spoiled, come back later.

He'd wanted to humiliate him.

House had been listening very clearly to Michael Tritter's words in Cuddy's office, but not giving them very much mind. A lot of his patients griped or complained. None of them had followed through on heretofore empty threats. Not until he was being handcuffed and taken to jail.

Somehow, "he's being mean to me because I left a rectal thermometer up his ass, next to the big stick that was already there" didn't seem a compelling argument to put in front of a judge.

But as much as House had underestimated Tritter, Tritter had underestimated House. He wasn't the kind of man to run off to his mother after a slap on the wrist. He'd spent his whole life showing people up. Idiot patients, other doctors, the physical therapists who'd said he'd never walk again. He was a fighter and after all that, he wasn't about to let himself get put down by some aging cop who'd been bullied one too many times on the school playground.

He wanted to humiliate him?

He'd have to try a hell of a lot harder than this.

Midnight, Before Dawn

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 07:40:50 GMT

Title: Midnight, Before Dawn
Fandom: 24
Characters: Mark Holden, Brittany House, Jake Hannigan
Pairing: implied Brittany/Jake and past possible Brittany/Mark
Prompt: Serendipity: the faculty or phenomenon of making fortunate accidental discoveries.
Word Count: 710
Rating: PG
Summary: Mark is smart enough to see some things that Brittany can see, and some things that she can't.
Author's Notes: Takes place during Princeton's 2006 Midnight Madness.

The speech worked too well, Mark Holden thinks, leaning against the nearest wall in the Princeton bar. Ever conscientious of the concealed gun at his hip and the surroundings in which he's working. Which, at this present moment, would be the aftermath of that great college tradition known as Midnight Madness.

It's some odd, fucked-up hour of the morning, and he's watching the Princeton men's basketball team cram in a late-night snack (or potentially early breakfast) after their first official practice. The only thing he thinks is more insane than starting basketball practice at midnight is what else he's seeing. Sitting at one of the tables, apart from the college kids drinking more Red Bull than is healthy, is one of his oldest acquaintances and his current protectee, Brittany House. The man sitting next to her isn't her husband, but her former colleague and resident jackass, Jake Hannigan.

Who is actually seeming happy, which is disturbing in and of itself.

Watching the two of them talk quietly between themselves, Mark knows that the speech he gave Brittany upon arrival in New Jersey worked too well. He'd watched her heart break as he'd told her that they couldn't be as close as they had always been. That now she was nothing more than his protectee. That had been a shock to her, but he had always told himself that she would understand and get over it. She's gotten over it too well, or maybe that's just him realizing that he's no longer one of those people who can make her smile like that.

Not that he can't, just that he won't ever allow himself to. He's been too busy living in her house, shadowing her everywhere she goes, on the lookout for anybody who might raise objection to a twenty-two-year-old woman working with the men's basketball team. He knows -- he hopes -- it's all just nerves and fear, but in the event that anyone raises a hand against her, Mark will be there. Being there means taking certain precautions. Like distancing himself from one of the rare people he let get close to him. There aren't many others.

And on the other side, there's Jake Hannigan. Mark has checked him out, and he doesn't like him. He knows about the man's temper and his difficult past, and every time they've had a conversation, he's wanted to lay the former Air Force officer out. But he's also been Brittany's biggest supporter. He knows from what she's told him that Jake has been preparing her for this night for the last ten months. That he's been at every practice and sitting on her couch drilling her on the playbook. He's an ex-basketball player and he's her one best shot at becoming a bonafide basketball coach. That's about the only reason Mark hasn't hit him yet. Brittany needs him. More important, she wants him there.

He'll respect what she wants. It's not his place to judge. It's also not his world, anymore. He's removed himself from that equation.

"What the hell do you see in him?" he'd asked her once, and as he watches her narrow her eyes at something Jake has said, no doubt a thinly veiled insult, he remembers what she said. He remembers that she'd sighed and shrugged. "He's not much of a guy, Mark...but when it comes down to it, and you can get him alone, and you can earn his trust? On those rare occasions he's one of the best men I've ever seen."

That, Mark can understand. He knows all about having to hide himself from everyone else. That's what he's doing now, learning to hide in the background and pay attention to the threat, while his baby girl can relax and spend time with the people that are her family now. She's grown up, and she's sitting there with somebody else, but she will always be his baby girl. That will never change, even as he watches Jake give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Notes the look in her eyes that's different, somehow. Another fact he files away.

He knows now that the speech worked too well. He wonders, however, watching from his place out of view, when Brittany will realize she married the wrong man.

She Waits

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 01:51:22 GMT

Title: She Waits
Fandom: 24
Characters: Jake Hannigan, Brittany House
Word Count: 502
Rating: PG
Summary: Told her all I'll ever want and all I'll ever need/Is just enough to make me leave
Author's Notes: Jake and Brittany friendship fic, completely inspired by the song "She Waits" by Zero 1 (featuring Hal Sparks). Which, if you haven't heard Hal Sparks sing, you are missing out. Seriously.

One step forward, two steps back. That's the story of the way it goes between them. Jake Hannigan's fingers tighten around the neck of a beer bottle, nursing the beverage in the same bar they used to sit in at odd hours of the night. If she kept her promise, then why does it hurt so much?

A year and two months is time enough to let the mask fade away. He's told her the big secret he kept from her all this time, that he never really hated her, that she was merely the person onto whom he projected his hatred for Brady and for life and everything else. He knows that while they're still two opposing forces in the storm, opposites attract as much as they repel. She was understanding, compassion, nurturing, all the things that he needed, but he saw what he wanted to see, and he pushed her away. And she pushed back.

Now, after everything they've been through, it might be too late to build that bridge again. At least, if the wary looks from her husband, the awkward pauses, are any indication. He doesn't belong here. He's not like them.

He doesn't want them. He just wants her, the two of them somewhere quiet, where they can talk and they can just do whatever the hell it is they're going to do, without someone trying to judge them or the rest of the world pushing them apart. As much as they ever get close, there's always something pulling them apart. Jake is all right with that, because he's got a hell of a grip.

Jake closes his eyes and tries to figure out where the fuck he goes from here. When he opens them, she's sitting next to him, just looking at him, and he's wondering if he's drunk enough to be seeing things.

"Why'd you bail on me?" she asks softly.

"I don't belong there," he replies. "I saw the way Greg looked at me. Like a plague."

"Fuck what he thinks, Jake, if I want you as a guest in my home, you're welcome in my home." She reaches over and takes his hand in hers. Her hand is small, her touch soft, and almost awkward as he turns his blue eyes on her. "I promised you I'd stand by you, remember?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I remember."

He reaches up, fingertips tracing gently along her cheekbones. The innocence worn down at the edges by things like abductions and the ends of other friendships. But he looks into her and he sees the same woman he's always seen. An old soul, a tough woman. Just the kind of thing he needs.

"I'm bullshit at this sort of thing," he admits. "I haven't had a real friend since he left."

She swallows, relaxing into the touch of his hand against her skin. "We'll work on that," she promises, "but you have to stay with me."

Jake Hannigan doesn't say a word. He just holds on to her.

fanfic100: Roundabout

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 23:11:15 GMT

Title: Roundabout
Fandom: House
Character: Dr. Greg House
Prompt: 044. Circle.
Word Count: 512
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Meaning," "Cain and Able"
Summary: It seems like the last few months have been a vicious circle.
Author's Notes: Reflection on the first two episodes of season three. Slightly ironic that I'm writing this while listening to the song that I'm listening to.

The steady thump of the cane on the floor seems to echo even louder than before, taunting him in some sense, that the sound is back, will always be there, can't be escaped. That it's always going to be there. That the cane will always be there. That he couldn't run forever.

The pun is even more annoying than it normally is.

Greg House is no idiot. He knows that there's no miracle cure for an infarction. The large gaping hole in his leg wasn't just going to heal itself up, no matter what coma they put him in. He's always known that nothing will undo the damage of having a large portion of dead thigh muscle removed. Medically, he had to know that there was always a chance. That it was more than just a chance.

But Greg House is also just a man, a jealous, selfish, sometimes desperate, always hurting, human being, and he was inclined to hope, however cynically. Inclined to enjoy, for however long, the break that fate had cut him. Skateboarding and being checked out by college students and running eight miles just because he can. It was worth it, just to be able to do those things again, even if only for a little while.

He knew his time was running out when he saw the bloodstain still on the carpet.

When he got the case wrong, that it turns out now, he didn't get wrong at all.

Wilson was right about him. Of course Wilson was right, he's known him for years. House hadn't changed. House doesn't change. This has never been about the cases or about some enlightening or whatever they want to think that it's about. It was about him, trying to take what he could get. To live a life without pain, after having lived his whole life for the last ten years in pain.

He had his chance, and he took it.

And now his chance is gone, and he's right back where he started from. Is he wiser? Is he better off? Maybe in time he'll think about that. Maybe in time, when it stops hurting so much, and he stops feeling so fucked over. When the pain goes away.

The pain will never go away.

The one thing House thinks as he drags himself to bed is that whoever said it was better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, is a fucking moron.

Midnight Black

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 07:51:31 GMT

Title: Midnight Black
Fandom: Spooks
Characters: Adam Carter, Brittany House
Pairing: Adam Carter/Fiona Carter
Word Count: 562
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Future episodes of Series Four.
Summary: Small gestures being passed between two friends become strangers.
Author's Notes: I haven't actually seen the episodes which contain the events in question, and I'm not too thrilled at them, but the idea of this fic got stuck in my head after the first part of "The Special" and I couldn't get it out, so no one shoot me if it ends up being well off canon.

He remembers the roses.

She sent a dozen roses, black ones, for Danny Hunter's funeral. Asking him to take them to the church. A note, unsigned but he could tell her small, elegant handwriting. She could never ignore any loss, no matter how small. If the man who'd gotten her coffee one day had died, she'd probably send a telegram. She'd sent roses for Danny. Roses that Adam had forgotten to take, because he'd been too busy trying to cajole Fiona to go to the funeral, and later with the bomb from Shining Dawn.

He'd taken them a few days later and wondered, absently, if Danny would even remember who they were from, but he didn't suppose it mattered.

A few months later, there are another dozen roses sitting on his desk. Red ones, for Fiona. No note, this time, an acknowledgement that there is little that can be said for the loss of a lover, a wife, a mother. Adam closes his eyes and wants to pretend they're not there.

That Fiona isn't dead.

Shot by her ex-husband, dying in Adam's own arms.

The sum total of Adam's life is a wedding band that won't be used, a son with too many questions about his mum, and a dozen blood-red flowers on a cold white desk in the middle of the world in which they lived and died. He lived, she died. Together.

He has to find her number in the computer, buried somewhere in the bottom of a file. Why or how or when he calls, Adam won't remember. He shouldn't be calling at all. Just like she shouldn't have sent flowers that will die on his desk.

Just like Fiona shouldn't be dead.

But his wife is dead and she's not coming back and he has to learn to live with that.

He swallows hard. "I told you not to come back," he says when she answers. "I told you...to stay out of it."

There's a silence on the end of the line, then, "She was a friend, Adam, I can't not acknowledge her loss."

Adam wants to say that she hardly knew her. That they worked together a grand total of twice, and that Fiona didn't keep many friends. That they're still strangers. But he bites his tongue and shakes his head, because Fiona didn't keep many friends, and he could use a friend right now. "You can't come out here," he says instead, "it's not worth it."

Not your place, he means to say.

"I'm not coming out there, Adam. I can't, not anymore." He can almost see her pursing her lips, looking for something to say that'd make it all okay. He knows that much about her. "But she helped me. And you helped me. And I just wanted to say, that I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he says, with an even longer pause. "So am I."

"If you need to come out for awhile, you can come here," she offers. "If you need to get away..."

"Brittany." He cuts her off before she can say any more. "I am away."

There's silence that falls on either end of the phone, and as he sets it back on its cradle, Adam Carter is staring at the roses on his desk, and wondering if it really matters if he ever comes back.

He sees red and thinks of Fiona.

crossovers100 022. Ciphers.

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:45:36 GMT

Title: Ciphers
Fandoms: House/24
Characters: Greg House, Jake Hannigan, Brittany House, Mark Holden
Pairing: Greg House/Brittany House
Prompt: 022. Enemies.
Word Count: 1610
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: "Meaning" and speculation about rest of Season 3
Summary: House gets a very unexpected visitor at the hospital. The walls come tumbling down.
Author's Notes: This fic has been in the back of my brain for a long time, based off some of the roleplaying I'm doing in Theatrical Muse. Basically, when Jake ended up in the hospital for two months, House's fiancee was the only person to give a damn about him. Now when the tables may turn, Jake is prepared to repay the favor.

Jake Hannigan can't remember how he found out that the end of the world was near.

Maybe it was because Brian Holt informed their boss that he'd be spending most of his time at Princeton-Plainsboro until further notice. Or because Kyle Porter nearly had a heart attack and has been anal ever since. Brittany never called. Jake didn't expect her to. But somehow, some way, he found out the truth. Greg's leg has gone bad again, except this time he's got a wife and a newborn son.

That was four days ago. It's all been panic since. Brittany won't leave her husband's bedside, and somebody's set up a crib for Jackson. Several people have tried to get her to let someone else watch the baby, but she won't let them take him. It's as if she's trying to hold on to her family with a new kind of desperation. Brian would comfort her but he's thrown himself into looking for an answer. That leaves Mark Holden, her new bodyguard, who gives a damn about the fact that she cries every time she looks at her husband, but doesn't know how to prove that he cares.

The whole situation's a train wreck.

And Jake wants no part of it. He's not one of those weeping and sharing people. He knows he has no real stake in whether or not Greg House lives or dies.

He just shows up at the other man's hospital room toward the end of visiting hours. The baby is asleep. The wife is outside somewhere sobbing her eyes out. And House, that stuck-up bastard, is laying in his hospital bed staring at the ceiling like his life is over.

Maybe it is.

Some people would take an obscene amount of glee in this situation. After all, it's the brutal beating by House that was partially to blame for landing Jake in the hospital for two months -- a hospital stay that cost him his job and life as he knew it. This could so easily be seen as revenge. But if Jake had seen it that way, he wouldn't have risked his life almost a year ago to drag House's ass out of an abandoned subway station. Jake doesn't see it that way, because he's not the man he used to be.

Neither is House, now that he thinks about it.

"Would you just like me to smother you with a pillow now?" Jake says flatly from the doorway, arms folded over his chest, a slightly disapproving look on his face.

House knows the voice without looking but he does anyway, narrowing his eyes and giving Hannigan a half-stoned glare. "You want to end up in the bed right next to me?" he says, but it's an empty threat.

Jake knows that. "No, you'd make bullshit company," he replies.

He moves into the room, expression unchanged. Hands settle on hips, blue eyes as blank as ever. He has no relationship to this man, other than that he can blame him for what happened to him. Other than that this man's wife happens to be the person who put him back together again. But he and Gregory House are practical strangers, and that will never change. Neither man wants it to.

"How bad is it?" Hannigan asks abruptly.

"Why do you--"

"How bad is it?"

There's enough steel in Hannigan's voice that it momentarily throws House off-guard. Maybe because he's too tired or too scared to fight, the diagnostician says quietly, "I'm not going to walk again."

"Are they gonna have to amputate?"

"I don't know." A long pause. "But I'm not going to walk again."

Jake doesn't say anything. He merely crosses to a chair on the other side of the room and sinks into it. Crosses his legs, looks out the window, and waits. For what, he doesn't know.

But someone did this for him, just a little more than a year ago.

It's the only thing he knows he can do now.

****

Brittany House hasn't stopped crying since she received the phone call about her husband. Not that anyone expected her to. She's protective, always has been, and she's emotional, and she won't apologize for it. No one will ask her to, however, when she has a three-week-old son in a stroller sitting by her side as she wonders if this is really it.

She and Greg have talked about this a thousand times. What to do if his leg went. He'd even warned her before they got married, that there was a chance it could get worse. She doesn't know if this is worse or not.

All she knows is that he's worked ever since she's known him and long before to get better. She waited for him through the one surgery that they tried. She sat by his bedside every day after he was shot. She's watched him live life after the Ketamine coma. Seen how happy he is, running and riding his motorcycle and even playing lacrosse, living his life like anybody else. He's even doing better than she could do. All she's seeing is that this is what he wanted, what he deserved, and it's just been taken away from him.

She feels an unspeakable amount of guilt.

She knows that logically, it's not her fault. But she is his wife, and she's promised him that he'll get better. She's done everything she can to support him. And now she wonders if there is something she said, or did, or didn't say, or didn't do. Something she could've done better.

Some way to avoid this.

She's afraid. Afraid for him, that it might be worse, that it is going to be unspeakably difficult. Afraid for them, too, afraid that this is going to make him depressed and angry and whatever he needs to feel, and that he's going to push her away, like he told her he'd done before, the first time.

Yet all she can do is sit by his side and cry and murmur words of encouragement she only half believes.

Yeah, you're so fucking useful.

Mark Holden is standing behind her, just watching her. It's not his job to get involved. He's here for her professional protection, in case anybody wants to get into it because she's a men's basketball coach with breasts. He's trained her not to acknowledge his presence. Given her the speech about how they're not friends, now that his job is to protect her and her family.

But that doesn't change that for five years, they were colleagues. And he honestly came to like her, as much as he ever likes anyone.

Yet that doesn't mean he has any clue what to say here.

"He's not going to die, Brittany." It sounds terribly cold of him, but it's the truth and they both know that. "Even in the worst-case scenario, Greg's going to live to be with you and with your son."

She picks her head up out of her hands and looks over her shoulder at him. "What if he doesn't want to?" she asks quietly. "If they have to...amputate...it'll kill him. He'd rather die than lose that leg."

Mark looks past her, at the stroller, and the sleeping newborn he knows is inside.

"I think he'd rather live than die at this point, Brittany." A long pause, letting his eyes fall on her dejected form, weak and vulnerable and so very young. "And if you don't get in there and support him, you're an idiot, because that's what he needs."

He comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder.

She has to know that she has to do something.

****

They pass in the hallway. Brittany's cheeks are stained with tears, her eyes dark with grief. Jake, on the other hand, looks like he's always looked. Intractable. As if this is any other ordinary day.

She can't even look him in the eye.

Reflexes quicker than hers as usual, Jake reaches a hand out and grabs her by the forearm.

That makes her stop dead -- not like she has a choice -- and when she finally looks at him, he can see how devastated she is. How destroyed. How hollow. He doesn't like that look in her eyes.

Because he's seen it in the mirror, when he hit rock bottom. Before she came around again.

Maybe what happens to her, matters to him. Maybe he's come to care about her.

Maybe this is just payback.

He likes the simpler explanation.

Her eyes are wide, staring at him, waiting for him to say or do something, anything. Jake doesn't say a word. He merely pulls, tugging her toward him, and wraps his arms around her. It lasts only the space of a few heartbeats, but he holds her there.

If she's going to hold on to him, then he sure as hell isn't going to let either her or the man she loves slip away. It's merely the principle of the situation.

Not because he actually cares. Of course not.

Jake pulls back and looks into her eyes. He sees something akin to gratitude. "I'll see you around," he says quietly, and doesn't look back as he walks away and she disappears to tend to her husband.

Yet neither Brittany nor Greg are surprised when they look up the next evening and find Jake Hannigan standing in the doorway again. The same place they find him every damn evening. Never saying a word, just standing there, watching over the both of them.

Proving to the both of them that this is not the end of the world.

Still Holding Out For You

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 09:47:35 GMT

Title: Still Holding Out For You
Fandom: 24
Characters: Brittany House, Jake Hannigan
Word Count: 1074
Rating: PG
Summary: Some things a heart won't listen to.
Author's Notes: Inspired by the song "Still Holding Out For You" by SheDaisy. A look at how Brittany and Jake's relationship might change now that they are no longer competitors -- something that's always been a vital part of how they interact with one another.

He doesn't make a sound as he walks up behind her on what could be any afternoon. Her husband's playing lacrosse with people half his age. And she's standing there, still in full dress clothes, looking down at their infant son, something like a year old, sleeping peacefully under his mother's watch.

Jake simultaneously wants no part of this and hates her for having it.

He comes to stand beside her, his six foot two shadow towering over her, and she cocks her head to look at him. He's thirty-seven now, and she can see the lines of age on his face. The calculated distance in his eyes. Their blue meets her brown, and he can see the weight lifted off her shoulders, but the sadness that never really left.

You have to give up something to get something.

"Hey," she says softly, keeping her eyes on her husband.

Jake decides that's a safe place to be looking himself. He doesn't return her greeting, merely says, "Who told him this was a good idea?" It's the kind of half-humorous insult she would expect from him. There don't seem to be enough of them in his life anymore.

"It's what he wants to do. Let him do it, while he has the chance," she explains. "He's happy, and that's what matters the most to me. He's getting a chance to do things he'd never thought he'd do again."

"That makes two of us. Or three of us," he says, nodding slightly in her direction. Another long pause, before he looks away to look down at her. He's always been physically looking down at her, but he hasn't looked mentally down at her in a long time. "You happy?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am." She shoves her hands in her pockets and nods slightly. "I'm learning. It's not much, but it's a start. I'm ready for the long haul." Ten years or more; she's twenty-eight and just starting out, and it'll be years before she gets anywhere near the prominence she used to have. "It's hard, sometimes, but you know, I think I did the right thing. Getting home to tuck him in at night."

Another pregnant pause, her chewing on her lower lip. "I couldn't have gotten even this far without you."

Without his begrudging advice. Without the long conversations about the sport and the way the game is played. Without the twice-weekly basketball games that got her in shape and pounded into her head just what kind of lark she was getting into. He put the reality behind her dream, because he'd been there.

Jake doesn't answer her. He doesn't like taking compliments.

"You know, I'm the only man in your life who made no sense at all," he says after a moment, while performing an intense study of the well manicured grass.

Brittany gives him a look. She swallows, and her fingers go to the chain of the medallion around her neck, fingering it gently while she debates whether or not to tell him this. They could not be more different. In two more years, she'll be thirty, a wife, a mother, a teacher. He'll be heading for forty, a bachelor, a soldier. They disagree more often than anything else. Yet, they see each other in ways they never wanted to. Never thought they could. And now, couldn't do without.

"I used to be pretty close to somebody," she says after a moment. "You remember Detective McCarron, from Los Angeles? He and I have known each other for five years or so now. He used to push me, just like you'd push me. He was always there to help me work things out. He understood the difficult parts of me, just like you do. Difference between you two, is you did for spite, he did it for love." A pause. "He loved me, and I loved him."

Jake is looking at her interestingly now, and Brittany meets his eyes.

"But I'm not ever gonna get him back again, Jake. He's on the other side of the country. He has to be there and I have to be here. And because of that, our relationship isn't gonna be the same again. Hasn't been for a long time." She purses her lips, shaking her head. "That's where you come in. You were for me what he was. What I needed. No matter what, when it mattered, you've been there for me. You don't have to like me, but you got me through. You made perfect sense."

There's another long moment of silence. She takes a step toward him, but he can't bring himself to move. Even as he processes her words -- that he can mean as much to her as McCarron obviously meant to her -- he has to ask the difficult question. "And now?" he says. "What happens now, that you don't need me anymore?"

Brittany circles around the stroller. She turns her attention from her husband. In that one moment, the only person in the world is Jake Hannigan. She wants him to hear this loud and clear, because she's only going to say this once.

"Just because I don't need you," she says, "I still want you."

An outstretched hand, a hopeful look in her eyes. No one's ever looked at him like that in a long time. Like they actually care if he comes around again. The eyes don't lie. It takes a lot for him to swallow his pride and the past, but he takes her hand, lacing his fingers through hers and holding on tight, because he's too scared to let go.

But he doesn't have to tell her he's afraid. She already knows, and she understands, and hell, maybe she's a little afraid, too.

"I need you to stay," he says quietly, turning his attention back to the field because he can't admit that to her face.

She just looks on into the distance. "I will if you will."

He gives her a silent, almost imperceptible nod. There's nothing that he needs to say or needs to hear to make him understand. To make her believe. They're going to be in two different worlds, and maybe they'll drift apart over time, but she promised she wouldn't let go, and she's keeping her promise. And she wants him to keep his.

He's never had a problem with keeping his promises. He's just glad somebody else wants to keep theirs.

Glamour Shot

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 20:05:32 GMT

Title: Glamour Shot
Fandom: 24
Characters: Brittany House, Jake Hannigan
Prompt: 4. I feel better having screamed, don't you?
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Summary: Jake and Brittany have a heart-to-heart after winning at the Tammy Awards.
Author's Notes: The Tammys are real awards that are presented to the LJ roleplaying communities every year. And after our heroes managed to actually win some of said awards, I couldn't resist an opportunity to see what they said to each other at the afterparty.

Yet again, they're standing on the outside of the party, looking in. Except this time they're doing it holding strangely shaped golden statues, because they actually won something.

"These things are bizarre," Jake Hannigan comments, not really sure what the appropriate way to hold a giant golden donkey statue is. He gives it an odd look, fixing the collar on his Armani suit. It seems strange that he wore a suit that expensive to come away with an award that looks like it was made in China.

Brittany House smiles slightly and nods toward the thing in his hands. "At least for you, it's appropriate."

Jake winces, feigning hurt, but the smirk curling the corners of his lips gives it all away. "Nice one," he drawls, then replies, "You know you wanted that Kinkiest Muse award."

"I did not!" she protests, squeaking a little. The mere idea of that was embarrassing. Folding her arms over her chest, she replies, "Why, are you jealous you're not gonna get to find out?"

"Please." He snorts. "A month from now, give me a call."

There's a long pause. They set their awards down on the table, if only so Jake can pick up a beer and sip politely at it while Brittany, still recuperating from having given birth two weeks ago, watches the crowd. Very few of these people are friends. Most are strangers. Neither of them really wanted to be here all that much. But they showed up anyway. For themselves.

And for each other, because supporting your colleagues is an unwritten rule. Though they'll never admit it.

"You two really are so sweet on each other it's disgusting," Jake replies, looking at her award, won for 'Couple So Sweet, Your Teeth Hurt.' She and her husband have won the award twice in a row now, both years that there have been Tammy Awards.

She smiles slightly. "And you really are an asshole," she tells him, nodding toward his Most Obnoxious Asshole trophy. Jake won't admit it, but he wanted to win. It was a source of pride. If only to injure someone else with the award. Someone who's an asshole of the highest order.

"Thank you," he says. "I'm glad that you're happy, Brittany."

"Yeah, Jake. Me too."

Another pause, as they stand there and look at one another, he in his immaculately pressed all-black Armani, she in a teal Vera Wang gown he's never seen on her before. They're colleagues. They're collaborators. Sometimes, they're competitors. But when it comes down to it, in the end, they're on the same side. And they can appreciate each other's success, and each other's good looks.

"Dance with me, Hannigan," she offers.

"Not in a million years, House."

A laugh. She'd expected him to say that. "You just wanna grab a beer and go sit out back instead?"

He grins at her, offering his hand. "I knew you'd see it my way," he says.

Which is the truth, if only for a little while.

Weight of This Concept

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 22:54:41 GMT

Title: Weight of This Concept
Fandom: The Watcher
Characters: Joel Campbell
Pairing: referenced Joel Campbell/Carolina Jacks
Word Count: 517
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: General, for the movie
Summary: It's amazing, when your whole life can be about the worst thing someone's ever done to you.
Author's Notes: Bitter, cranky writer leads to Joel bitching about life in general. Hey, I'm not about to complain, considering the guy hardly ever talks about anything, period.

Being a cop is supposed to be a fucking cakewalk. You get to be the hero. You have the gun, and the badge, and you get to save the day and kiss the girl. Except that "supposed to be" is pretty much bullshit.

You go see your therapist, who wants to know all about your thoughts and feelings, and resist the urge to tell her that the only feeling you have is that you've been living your life on "pause" for the past couple of years, and that you think your feelings don't have shit to do with it. She's a nice enough woman, anyway, and it's not her fault your entire attitude sucks.

Then you go home, to an apartment that looks like shit, a fridge you forgot to stock, and mail that means absolutely nothing. No girl, not unless you count the Victoria's Secret catalog.

I would sit there, on that couch, for hours on end, staring into space. And it wasn't because of the painkillers I was addicted to at the time. It was because I was reliving one night, one moment, over and over again in my head, every fucking day. The night my very much married girlfriend was killed by the same fucking serial killer I'd been chasing for years. See, I had the girl, but then she died in a house fire started after I'd interrupted him, while I was hunting his ass down, and by the time I got back? Nothing but a corpse.

But you see, that's just the job. People want you to go out and be the hero. You're the good guy. The good guy always wins in the end. They just don't tell you that sometimes it means you end up with next to nothing and nobody cares.

My entire life was about that one night. That one moment. No matter how hard I tried to move on -- and I did move on, for a little while -- it never seemed to stick. I fell in love with a woman, and half the time I didn't know what I was doing. She loved me despite all that, but all I ever saw was how much I seemed to screw up. She got pregnant, and I didn't know what to do with myself. She was my wife, and that's my son, and I was still waiting for the hammer to fall, for something bad to happen. I was so fucking dysfunctional that I didn't know what to do when function bit me in the ass.

Throwing myself into the work was easy. It was feeding the sickness that already existed. The one that had eaten up so much of me that when I saw the face of my nightmare again and had a chance to kick his ass? I froze. I had no idea what to do.

So I'm back at the same place where I started. With nothing. Some people will say I earned it. Some people will say life screwed me over. It's probably some combination of both.

But I guess it's fitting, nonetheless.

10_inspirations: Dawn of a Girl

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:15:30 GMT

Title: Dawn of a Girl
Fandom: 24
Characters: Mark Holden, Brittany House
Pairing: possible Brittany/Mark UST
Prompt: Quotes, #14: Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Word Count: 1288
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The sandbox isn't mine, but Mark, Brittany and everything else I brought with me is.
Summary: Life is sink or swim; love is blinding.
Author's Notes: Takes place in mid 2004. Summary is from "You Fight Me" by Breaking Benjamin. This is the second in my short series featuring the original character of Mark Holden, one of the senior field operatives at the CTU Los Angeles Domestic Unit. For a biography on Mark, go here.

One minute it was stone-cold silent in the CTU Los Angeles bullpen, everyone still reeling from the news that Tony Almeida was going to be brought up on charges for rescuing his wife in the line of fire.

The next, only her young, shrill voice could be heard: "You son of a bitch!"

Everyone's heads snapped up and over to the glass-walled conference room. Division agent Brad Hammond. the man who'd filed charges against Tony and who many agents already considered a jackass, was in that conference room finishing up his business. And Brittany House, the twenty-year-old administrative assistant, was standing on the opposite side of the conference table, launching into a profanity-laced tirade.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? You're taking a damn fine agent, one of the best agents, who's nearly died giving you everything he has, and you're going to say thanks by locking him up for trying to save his wife's life? Any one of us would have done the same! She's his wife and she is an agent so don't act like losing her wouldn't matter! You're going to punish him -- punish them both -- for trying to do the right thing, well then, you better lock me the fuck--"

She has no idea where Mark came from, but he's got one arm around her waist, the other on her arm, and he's physically backing her toward the door.

"Brittany, that's enough," he says, and she'd struggle except that he's got forearms the size of cannons and his hands are expertly placed in such a way that she knows she has zero chance. This is the kind of thing that Mark is trained to do, albeit not in this kind of situation, and she knows that if she goes up against him, she will lose.

But she hasn't lost yet.

She's glaring at Hammond and knowing he has about thirty seconds before Mark can get her through the door, so she says, "I hope you get to see the error of your ways, you pathetic son of a bitch!" while remaining completely unfazed by both the man's impassive look and the shocked expressions on the faces of many of her colleagues, who know she said much of what they're feeling but didn't expect anyone -- especially not her -- to say it.

As soon as Mark gets her out the door, he spins her around so she's facing him, letting her go so abruptly that she stumbles backward a step or two, staring at him. The anger hasn't completely drained from her face, nor the shock from his, so this looks worse than it really is.

He gives her a look. "Try to go back in there and I'll stop you."

She puts up her hands, but it's more in annoyance than deference. "Somebody had to say what I just said and you know it."

"And if you'd kept saying it, you'd be fired," he retorts, his voice still just as even as hers is. His lips purse and then he reaches for her hand this time, tugging insistently. "Come with me," he says, and walks her through the whole bullpen, which is at this point like some sort of a parade.

She has learned to follow him blind; it is an instinct that she will never truly shake.

So they end up in Tech One, the big technological brain of the operation, and Mark shuts the doors behind them, and Brittany has no idea if he's angry or not. It's hard to tell, with the way he's learned to ration his emotions and keep them separate from his psyche. He lets out a long breath, and watches her watching him, before he beckons her toward him. "Hit me," he says.

"What?"

"If you're going to vent anger, hit me. It's less damaging."

Brittany gives him a look like he's lost his head, which is incredibly ironic, considering the situation. "I'm not going to hit you, Mark."

"It's okay. You know I can take it. And it's a lot safer than chewing out someone who can get you fired." He settles his hands on his hips. "Brittany, you're twenty years old. Okay? And I know it says 'special agent in charge' in your full title, but you're not. He can kick your ass out that door in a minute. I can't let that happen."

"Mark..." she starts. "Somebody has to tell him what he's doing is wrong. And who cares if I get fired? It's not like I'm damn well important around here..."

"...Yes, you are."

"...what?"

"You're important." Mark's eyes haven't left hers. He's always looking right at her, to the point where it's almost unnerving. And it's a little bit so now. "You're important to your father," he says. An overly long pause, because he almost can't get the words to come out. He's not a man that talks about these kinds of things. He's not even sure he feels them. Finally, it comes out awkwardly: "You're important to me."

She's quiet as she looks at the age she can see in his eyes.

"I know."

He looks back at the youth and innocence he can see in hers.

"We've already lost him, at least for right now. We don't need to lose you, too."

Brittany can't handle the soft, caring, almost consoling tone in his voice. It's not the kind of thing she wants to hear from him or anyone. She wants to be upset, wants to be angry, wants to have some space to vent the frustration and the conflicting emotions she's feeling. She makes completely random gestures with her hands, sputtering, pacing a little, but no words will come. No words to express how scared she is. How much she wants Tony back. How much she feels like she should've done something to help him, after all the help he's given her.

She chokes slightly, and then half-stumbles, half-launches herself into Mark's arms.

Mark isn't sure what to do. He wraps his arms gingerly around her, listening to her sniffle into his neck. He's lousy at comforting people and especially her; it always seems like she needs more than he wants to give her, or maybe that he wants to give her more than he can. He can't blame her for what she's feeling.

He can't even tell her it's going to be okay.

"We'll get through this," he says softly, stroking her hair, but to him it sounds weak.

She looks up into his eyes. "We?" she says, quirking an eyebrow. What hits her at that moment hits him at the exact same moment. Even though it's been there all alone.

"Yeah," he says, with a slight nod. "We." A pause. "I'm not going to let you go this alone."

"I can't do this alone."

"You're not going to have to."

She pulls back and looks at him, and Mark can see the honest love and affection in her eyes. The look that she gives to him and only him. It makes his heart twist, because he knows that he can never look at her that same way, no matter how hard he tries or how much he wants to. But he still looks at her with a measure of caring. A look that he's never given to anyone else. Because she got closer to him than anyone else. So close, that here they are, standing in this room dealing with a horrible loss, and somehow just because they're together, there's a sense that they might somehow endure.

This silence is comforting, because it means more than any sound or gesture they could ever make. This silence, is what will keep them together.

fanfic100: Falling Columns

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:17:21 GMT

Title: Falling Columns
Fandom: House, M.D.
Character: Dr. Greg House
Prompt: 002. Middles.
Word Count: 531
Rating: PG
Spoilers: References House vs. God and the brief Cuddy/Wilson story arc from the tail end of Season 2.
Summary: Every time House looks at Cuddy and Wilson, all he sees is a car accident. A burning building. The Poseidon going over.
Author's Notes: Another short ficlet. Slightly AU, as in canon, Wilson's kind of out of this arc by now. When will season three get here so I can be properly inspired again?

Every time House looks at Cuddy and Wilson, all he sees is a car accident. A burning building. The Poseidon going over. A giant apocalyptic disaster. He can really pick any world-ending metaphor he likes, but he sees the two of them within five feet of each other and he feels a strong sense of dread.

He knows the situation. At least, he thinks he does.

She wants to conceive. But she doesn't want to get married and do it the conventional way. No, she just wants a sperm donor. Typical of her, she's a tough woman, of course she would think she could be a single mother and a working professional and manage herself.

(And she probably can, but he won't give her the satisfaction of saying so.)

She wants a sperm donor.

More accurately, she took Wilson out to dinner to broach the subject of him being said donor.

He's getting both sides of it. One from Wilson, who's practically living on his couch -- or he was until he moved in with one of his patients, who promptly dumped him not too long after House ferreted that out -- and another from Cuddy, who seems to like to confide in him about this sort of thing. Not that he really wants to know about her biological clock and the prospect of her offspring, which would probably also terrorize him until he dies.

It boils down to this: His best friend. His boss. Conceiving a child together.

It's so many levels of bad for him that just thinking about it gives him a migraine and a need for another Vicodin. If only Cuddy knew she was the reason for his latest pill popping spree.

House knows there's no way he can't end up in the middle of this. Listening to the both of them vent their feelings and worries and aspirations. They're both reasonably close to him and they both seem to have this need to give him too much information. And if by some godforsaken chance it actually takes and she gives birth, he knows he's going to be at ground zero. Watching Wilson fret like a woman. Watching Cuddy try to adjust to even more stress in her life. He doesn't want that.

He doesn't want to be caught in the middle if by some chance, it all goes to hell and they're shouting at each other in the hospital corridors, arguing over custody arrangements for little Jimmy.

So one day out of nowhere, he looks Cuddy in the eyes and says it.

"You want to take care of something, get a cat."

She glares at him. He ignores it and limps back out from her office to avoid another round of clinic duty.

No way in hell he'll admit he doesn't want to hear her crying in her office if this doesn't take. But no way in hell he'll also admit that he does want to watch it fall apart. Because he doesn't want to hurt her, but he doesn't want to have to choose a side. He doesn't want to risk losing both of them.

Because then all House would see would be empty hallways.

10_inspirations: Refusal

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 18:35:02 GMT

Title: Refusal
Fandom: 24
Characters: Mark Holden
Prompt: Quotes, #5: Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last.
Word Count: 1302
Rating: PG
Spoilers: If you don't know how the first season of 24 ends, you'll want to avoid this one.
Disclaimer: The sandbox isn't mine, but Mark and everything else I brought with me is.
Summary: It's minutes after midnight when Mark Holden realizes none of them are ever going to be the same again.
Author's Notes: Takes place right at the end of the first day of 24, in September of 2001. This is the first in my short series featuring the original character of Mark Holden, one of the senior field operatives at the CTU Los Angeles Domestic Unit. For a biography on Mark, go here.

In retrospect, Mark Holden knows the exact moment when he could have done something, anything at all, to make things turn out differently, even though he knows the damage was already done.

Brittany Wells had found him as everyone was coming off the adrenaline rush of twenty-four hours of complete chaos. Still celebrating saving David Palmer's life, even though all of them knew it was their boss who had done most of the work. They'd just been there to help. The young brunette, seventeen at the time, had been one of the people who'd gotten swept into the mess. She'd been there all day, scrambling for anything that she could do rather than sit and let the man whom she saw as a father figure go it alone.

She just looked tired when she snagged him by the arm.

"Mark, can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah, sure." He nodded, dropping his paperwork on his desk. "What'd you need?"

"Can you stay with Kim for a sec? Keep an eye on her. Jack said he was going to go find Teri, but they're not back yet and I'm gonna go see where they are."

"No problem." Mark moved past her then, over to the conference room where Jack Bauer's daughter, Kimberly, was waiting out what had been a very long day. He smiled slightly at her, sunk into a chair by the door, and he waited.

He told himself that Jack and his wife were probably just having some husband and wife time, before they came back for the rest of the family. That Jack was probably just trying to catch his breath after everything that he'd been through that day. The moment that he had to act quietly passed him by.

He should've sensed that something was wrong. He could've gone with Brittany, or at least sent someone to go with her.

But he thought nothing of it at all.

The next thing he heard was the sound of Brittany yelling for a medic. The swift response of chief medical officer Brian Holt, who'd been in his office and was now following her with his equipment well in hand, probably already fearing the worst. Mark looked out the door and saw the commotion, and he began to feel his heart sink as he realized his error. He was glad that Kim had fallen asleep and hadn't noticed a thing.

Twenty minutes after midnight, despite one last futile effort on the part of Brian Holt, Teri Bauer was pronounced dead, and her body taken to CTU Medical.

Mark Holden and the other CTU agents could do little but watch Jack, Kim and even Brittany -- who'd taken to seeing the Bauers as family to her -- grieve for their loss, and offer condolences that somehow seemed empty. It was as if they were all quietly aware of the irony of the situation. That they'd managed to save hundreds, maybe even thousands, of lives, including a future President, but they had still failed to protect many of their own.

For Mark, that irony was bitter and almost eviscerating, and he was grateful when Tony Almeida, acting Assistant Special Agent In Charge, started giving orders that needed to be followed. The work was always most important, and he could push the emotion aside and perform the action.

Maybe it wasn't exactly grief. He'd known his boss's family, but he hadn't been over to Jack's house or anything of the sort. He'd met them, exchanged words on the few occasions they came to CTU, but that was about it. He'd probably been closer to them today than he had in the two years he'd worked here. He felt sorrow for the loss. Teri Bauer had been a good woman, and a good match for Jack. She was going to be missed. But it wasn't as if he had the right to be sobbing over her death. He was a practical stranger.

If anything else, it was a deep and permeating sense of failure.

He was the protective services specialist. He'd spent three years at the U.N. and another six with the Secret Service protecting people. He'd spent part of this day working alongside members of the Service to protect David Palmer. He was an expert at keeping people alive. Yet, someone dear to Jack, a man whom he felt like he was fairly close to, and he'd failed. He'd let Jack down.

It kept him awake that night and for days later. Two days after that night, when CTU went back to work, Jack didn't come in -- he didn't come back for a week -- but Mark did. He was angry at himself for having blown something that should have been so obvious. They should have known that Jack's family had been in danger the whole day and could've been in danger again.

He should've known.

For a moment, Mark doubted the one thing he'd never let himself question. He began to think maybe he couldn't do this job anymore. Never mind that the job was everything that he had. That he didn't know what he'd do without it. That the job was what he was, not just what he chose.

If he couldn't protect his boss's family, could he really protect anyone else?

Jack was angry at first. Angry at all of them, for being an entire team of crack experts and not being able to protect his wife. He'd shut them all out. But it turned out in the end that the person he was angriest at was really himself.

No one could blame him. They were all angry. Many of them felt responsible for what had happened to Teri. They were angry at Nina Myers, for pulling the trigger and betraying them like she had. They were furious at the lies she'd told and the things she'd done; no one had any idea how much damage she'd done before this, but in the months to come they'd find out, and it would just fuel a bitter hatred she'd probably enjoy. It was an anger that some of them carried for years, until the day she died.

Because it dawned on them all, some in longer time than others, that while they could be disappointed in themselves for not saving that one last important life, they couldn't be angry. The truth was that none of them could have saved Teri Bauer. They'd known Nina Myers was a traitor, but by the time that information had gotten out, she was already slipping away. By the time they'd been able to get to her, she'd already killed Teri Bauer.

There was nothing they could have done.

Nothing that they could do now but do their best to try and cope with the loss. With Teri's loss, with the gaping wound where some of their deceased colleagues had been, with the shattered worldview that Nina's betrayal and the events of that day had left them seeing through.

Mark learned to deal with his emotions and put them aside. There was always work to be done. There were other people who needed to be protected. He couldn't be working in the present and living in the past. Cases began to come their way again and he proved that he'd learned from his mistakes. He used that day to become a better agent, taking the same silent vow they all did, to never let a day like that happen again.

He moved on. They all had to move on. Time didn't end on that day.

There are other days.

But sometimes, to this day, when it's just the two of them in a room, or when someone makes a mention that brings back a memory, Mark still has a hard time looking Jack Bauer in the eye.

Completing The Fall

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 21:05:53 GMT

Title: Completing The Fall
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Mark Holden
Prompt: 5. It's strange what desire will make foolish people do.
Word Count: 1002
Rating: R (some sexual descriptions, nothing overly graphic)
Summary: To touch is to feel a love that overpowers me / She's all I'll ever need
Author's Notes: This was a really difficult one to do, which is why it's not that long, but I've tried my best with this pairing. It's set some month and a half after We Don't Need To Whisper and the night before in a world so unclear.

Mark Holden knows that he's going to lose everything.

The mandate that he should not be involved with one of his colleagues -- or anyone, for that matter -- is still very much real at the back of his brain. So is the one that says he definitely shouldn't have sex, especially not with someone half his age, who also happens to be a close friend of his boss's. He should not be having sex with one of the only people he cares about.

But this is something they've talked about, something that's survived three dates, something that's assisted by two beers and the fact that she's beautiful, both inside and out. He can't say it, can't hardly even show it, but he can't turn away from her now. He's in too deep, and therein lies his downfall.

Mark is giving up everything he has to be with her, and his only thought as he lays her down on the bed underneath him is that there are too many stories about a man giving everything for love. That maybe he was stupid to think he could be an exception. Or maybe that he's foolish to bank everything on a girl.

She's not just any girl, though. She's the one person he feels like he can talk to about his problems. The one who wants to spend time with him and needles him about his personal life. She's always been there for him. And apparently she has a conspicuous set of scars on her stomach--

--Brittany sinks her fingers into his hair and stops his train of thought right there.

Not like he doesn't have his own scars, he reminds himself as he rests his head on her hipbone.

"Am I going to have to handcuff you to the bed?"

He looks up at her with a small smirk. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he teases.

She smiles back at him. "Nah, I like you when you're running free."

"That is the oddest compliment I think I've ever gotten," he tells her with a laugh and an easy smile.

He presses a kiss to her hipbone, and then looks up into her eyes. She's happy, and he still can't quite get how he makes her feel that way. If he's in too deep, he knows she's right there with him, and that's somehow comforting, that he's not going down alone.

He might never be alone again.

And Mark Holden isn't sure what to make of that yet, but he knows he's got plenty of time to figure it out, so he merely settles between her legs and focuses on a much more important task at hand. Tasting her until he's got her panting, fingers tight in his hair, muttering his name like he's the only one in the world.

The laughter turns to moans of pleasure and lust, and the moans turn to laughter again. He can't seem to speak proper English while he's inside her, stumbling over his sentences and choking on his words. She hits him with a pillow merely because she can. When they're the most vulnerable with each other, they seem to be having the most fun.

Finally, when they've come and are lying spent together, when he rolls off her and tugs her up beside him, when they're still trying to catch their collective breath, reality starts to set in.

"I had no idea you were this good-looking," she comments, tracing her fingers over his well-defined abdominal muscles.

Mark chuckles. "That's only part of it," he replies, looking at the various small scars that are on his body, the one on his collarbone, all of them with memories attached. "You didn't tell me you were..."

"What? Slightly damaged goods?" she asks, looking up at him. "S'not something I like to advertise."

"I can understand that," he admits, stroking his hand over her hair. "It just doesn't seem right, for you, you're so young and this isn't even your job..."

"Yeah, it is." She cuts him off, pressing a kiss to his chest. "It's my job. What's it matter, anyway, because I know..."

"...There'll always be more," they both say at the exact same time. It makes them stop and look at each other. They've never really finished each other's sentences before. Maybe that means something. Maybe they're starting to fit into each other's heads. Lives. Worlds.

Or maybe it means nothing at all.

Mark wraps an arm around her, using his other one to tug the sheets up over them. It's a Wednesday night and they both have to be at CTU in the morning. He could probably lay here and talk to her for hours -- she's always been easy to talk to -- but there are more important things than that. Which is a sign, he thinks as she shifts to get comfortable beside him, that this is probably not going to work.

But he owes it to her to try.

He leans down and puts his lips at her ear. "You need a bedtime story?" he quips, and she groans and bites at his chest in retaliation. "That was so bad," she mutters.

"I know," he says. "Get some sleep, baby girl."

Both of them are exhausted. It doesn't take long for her to be breathing softly against his chest. Mark is still awake, eyes cast to the ceiling. He wanted her and now he's had her, and in the morning he'll have to deal with the consequences. Where they go from here. What happens to his life and career now that he's broken every rule in his own book. He is profoundly incapable of merely enjoying the moment and the afterglow. He's too apprehensive. Too afraid of what becomes of him.

Yet he knows, if he's going to fall from grace, crash and burn, at least she will always be there. At least he won't go down alone. And that is something to start from.

Something that matters enough to lose it all.

Gravity On A Planet That Insists

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:10:15 GMT

Title: Gravity On A Planet That Insists
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House/Jake Hannigan
Prompt: 6. The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath.
Word Count: 1685
Rating: PG
Summary: After being thrown together in another impossible situation, Jake and Brittany come to realize that while they are ideological enemies, they will always be allies.
Author's Notes: The title, inspiration and lyrics are all from "Falling Is Like This" by Ani DiFranco. I heard the song, it demanded a story, this is that story. Takes place during the events of the novel Glass Waltz, which takes place in June, 2011 when Brittany returns to London on one final case. Written for the stagesoflove painfic challenge.

but no one's gonna sympathize when we crash
they'll say you hit what you head for
you get what you ask
we'll say we didn't know
no, we didn't even try

There's zero sound when the bullet punches into her stomach.

That's because there's too much noise from everything else going on around her. A crowded London courtroom, interrupted by a man in the third row with a loaded gun. Brittany's instincts had said go and not much else; she'd screamed for everyone to get down, and then she'd launched herself at him. She ran the short distance, lunging in his direction, and by the time she'd realized he'd turned around and fired at her instead, it was too late. She was already committed. She hit him and the bullet hit her and they both went down in the middle of it all.

Security pries them apart, the gun having skittered loose somewhere. Already feeling the effects of yet another gunshot wound, she sees the puncture just below her ribcage, and the adrenaline gives her enough time to shout that she's been hit before she lists and stumbles somewhat into the arms of one of the lawyers.

Everything goes black after that.

Jake Hannigan is nowhere near the scene of the crime. He's back at MI5 headquarters, coordinating information and bodies on the case, when he gets the call from the back of an ambulance, saying she's conscious but in some pain as they rush her to the hospital. It comes as such a shock that he shoves out of his head the fact that their shooter isn't even the man they've been looking for. He's trying to figure out how she managed to get hurt in something that was supposed to be easy.

"Call her husband," Michael is telling him. "He needs to know. Then get somebody else out into the field. I'm not leaving her until I'm sure she's stable. Her notes are still in the conference room."

"Yeah, I know, I'm looking at them," Jake answers, taking his feet off the conference table and casting his eyes to the pages of notebook paper beside them, her handwriting so neat and concise, with the abbreviations only she would ever be able to figure out. Somehow he's drawn to the simple form. "Let me know as soon as the doctors have any sort of prognosis."

He snaps the phone shut without saying goodbye. A deep breath is sucked into his lungs, before he gets to his feet and examines the white board in the room. She made a list of the personnel they had available. He reaches for the marker and makes a neat line through her name. The part of his brain that is made strictly for war is telling him that he needs to find MI5's lead agent, and tell him what's happened, tell him that he has one agent out of commission and they still don't have their man.

But Jake doesn't move.

Instead, he finds himself considering how easily Michael could've called and said she was dead, and how bad that would actually have been. That it actually would've hurt.

The relationship he has with Brittany has always had an undercurrent of their being enemies. Their dynamic is worn, dysfunctional, intense and certainly troubled. He gets in her face and she gets under his skin and that's just the way it goes. Push and shove and come out better in the end. They'll always be less than friends and more than enemies. But that doesn't change that they owe each other for various things. That she matters to him because somewhere along the line, she decided he matters to her. It really is that simple.

He'll never admit it, but his feelings for Brittany run silent and deep. Things they will never say, actions that they will never confess to having taken. And there's a strange, sick feeling in him now, because he knows that she's once again been willing to lay her life down in the line of duty -- something she never should have been asked to do ever again. He came here because she needed his help, and he's pretty sure being safe in a compound while she gets shot isn't helping. It's supposed to be the other way around.

She needed him.

He's still stunned that she needs him at all. That means more than he will ever tell her, but she's figured it out, that he wants to be needed. That it's going to hurt that he was needed and he wasn't there.

Another chance he's blown. How easily it could have been his last.

Jake leans heavily against the wall of the conference room. Once he's satisfied that he's alone, he ducks his head, letting his eyes flutter closed. When the sudden spurt of emotion overcomes him, it's not anger, but a sudden sadness, and he doesn't fight it as the first of his tears falls silently down his cheeks.

She's a person worth crying over.

Thankfully, for him and everyone else involved, this won't end in tears.

It's three hours before he gets a chance to even reach her. He throws himself into the case, and when they do finally find their man, he insists on being there to close it all out. It won't matter if he doesn't see it for himself. It's Jake who shoves a criminal court bailiff up against the wall, frisks him to find the murder weapon, then tosses the man aside as if he's nothing, and dusts off his slacks like this is normal. For him, it's what passes as normal. It's what he used to do before Brittany started paying attention.

That thought brings his mind back to her and he snaps for a cell phone and the number to her hospital room. "We got him," he says when she answers half-blearily. "No thanks to you, of course."

"Of course not," she says with a soft laugh. "Congratulations."

He waits until he's alone in the aftermath before he speaks again.

"You okay?"

"Physically okay? I'll be out in the morning. Mentally? Fuck, no."

"You'll get through this."

The compliment just sits in the air and apparently infinite space between them, the unspoken promise of help and acknowledgement of affection wrapped up in it, and for a moment neither of them speaks as they process those emotions which exist yet were never supposed to have happened to them at all.

"Yeah. Yeah, we will," she says, as if she can pretend that he means the lot of them and has no genuine concern for her at all. Figuring to end this conversation before they get in too deep again, she adds, "You...should probably go, huh?" The fact that she makes it a question marks her hesitation clear as day.

"Yeah," he concurs, running away like he always has. But he hesitates at the very last second, and adds, "Seven," just before he hangs up.

She understands the meaning of the number.

At seven o'clock sharp Jake shows up in her hotel room, eyeing her condition and the husband currently passed out on her chest. She shifts to give him her full attention as he pulls up the chair by her bedside. As is commonplace between them, everything and everyone else seems to disappear from view when they're forced to look each other in the eyes.

He gives her a concise rundown of what happened at the end of the case. Telling her that it's over now and there's nothing left to do. His eyes drift to where he can guess she's been shot. He bites his lower lip slightly, and when he speaks, it's to say words he's never said before, and probably never will say again. It takes things like almost losing someone for you to tell them how you really feel.

"I was wrong, before," he admits softly. "You should be the one to be in control. There's...this is your fight and I was wrong to try and take it away from you. No one would be able to do this but you."

She looks into his eyes, sees the sadness there, and nods slightly, accepting his apology without comment. Carefully she reaches out a hand and takes his gingerly in her own, running her thumb over the cool surface of the silver band on his right ring finger. "Jake..." she starts. "If I had to trust someone else with this, it was going to be you."

He reaches out with his free hand and carefully traces the lines of the bandage over broken skin. "This should never have happened to you."

"No, but it did, so we go on." She smiles slightly. "If something bad has to happen to one of us, I think it's me, I think you've gone through enough."

Jake chuckles humorlessly. "True," he admits. "But still...I'm sorry."

Brittany shakes her head, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek, hand still clapsed in his. "The fact that you're here is enough," she whispers softly, her breath warm against his ear. A pause, because everything between them always comes with some sort of retort. "Now shut up and just be here with me, would you?"

There's no sound in the room but the beeping of the machines as he shifts his chair, cradling her hand in his lap, staring at the wall, and not saying another word. Because if he were to say anything else, it would only be what he won't ever allow himself to say: that he's terrified of losing her. Losing the only person he trusts. Something that almost happened today.

If he'd look in her eyes, he'd see that he's not alone.

He never has been.

But the silence speaks for the both of them instead.

I'm sorry I can't help you
I cannot keep you safe
I'm sorry I can't help myself
so don't look at me that way
we can't fight gravity on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this

Always Something There To Remind Me

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:06:55 GMT

Title: Always Something There To Remind Me
Fandom: 24/Boomtown
Pairing: Brittany House/Mark Holden, past Brittany House/David McNorris
Prompt: 7. The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall, and with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost.
Word Count: 2247
Rating: PG
Summary: This is the day that David McNorris has to decide if he wants to live or not.
Author's Notes: This one is a crossover, inspired by my dear love of Jeremy Piven and a really awesome episode of Boomtown called "Inadmissible." It takes place in 2004, when Brittany still lives and works in Los Angeles, and can be said to follow the AU of We Don't Need To Whisper. Written for the stagesoflove painfic challenge, using two sentences from my 1sentence Brittany/McNorris set.

On the day that Marian finally leaves him, David is in such a state that he hides in his office glaring at a bottle of scotch the entire day, but he forgets that he promised Brittany a consult; when she comes looking, she can tell instantly that something is wrong, and it's the gentle hand she puts on his shoulder, fingertips gently tracing his jawline, that remind him he either needs to kill himself or get on with the rest of his life.

"What exactly did you see in me?" he mutters, refusing to look her in the eye.

Brittany frowns, her fingertips stopping just before the point of his well-sculpted chin, caught briefly by surprise. Those aren't words she expected him to say. That seems like a lifetime ago, and not very long besides. Why is he bringing that up now? Now, with her semi-sort of boyfriend sitting downstairs in the car waiting for her.

She doesn't answer. "What happened, David?" she asks instead.

He turns his head and looks up at her, his piercing blue eyes filled with a sadness, as if he's hurt that she couldn't come up with an answer to the question. Among other things that are very obviously hurting. "The divorce papers showed up on my desk today," he says, keeping his voice matter-of-fact so it doesn't break. "She's leaving me."

"Oh, fuck. David..." Brittany starts, giving him a sympathetic look. If he weren't sitting down, she'd probably try to hug him. "I'm so sorry."

They'd both known this was coming. McNorris had been separated from his wife for over a year after admitting to an affair with a reporter. It had killed something in him; he'd not ever been a man to really admit it, but he'd loved his wife. He had been willing to try and make things work; Brittany had even needled him enough to get him into marriage counselling. But his wife hadn't exactly been forgiving, and no one could quite blame her -- David McNorris had never been a choirboy.

Still, it had been easier to play naive.

Play naive, drink too much, and kiss the twenty-year-old who shows up at your house to try and figure out what the fuck is wrong with you. And then stupidly kiss her again when you're sober.

"I screwed it up," he says now, shaking his head. "I've got no one to blame but myself."

She can't argue with that.

"Just tell me what I can do to help," she replies. "Look. It's a slow night tonight, I'll probably be off early, why don't you come out with us..."

He laughs. "Yeah. Because I've just lost my wife for good, so the first thing I should do is spend time with a beautiful woman that I've already almost slept with. Somehow I think that logic is flawed."

She hangs her head slightly. "I just don't want you getting wasted, David."

McNorris's entire body straightens sharply. He's well aware of what he would normally do in this situation. How he'd get drunk to the point of blacking out. He did that when Marian first left him, and ended up thinking he'd killed a man in a hit-and-run. He's survived rehab. The last thing he'll ever do is go down that road again. But with something that hurts this much, he knows the temptation is very, very real. He leans his head slightly against her hand, squeezing his eyes shut.

"I won't." His voice cracks just a little. "I swear to God, I won't."

"I know. Do you want me to come by and check on you anyway?"

David McNorris lets out a long breath that feels like it's burning in his lungs. "Yeah," he says softly. "Please."

****

Mark Holden is waiting for his girlfriend in the parking lot. At least, that's what he thinks he's doing. He's not quite sure, which makes him feel like he's seventeen again.

The thirty-nine-year-old CTU agent taps his fingers absently on the steering wheel, leaning back in his seat and waiting for Brittany to emerge from the D.A.'s Office. She'd asked him to bring her by here when the Deputy D.A. didn't show up for a consult lunch they were supposed to have. That's all well and good. What's confusing Mark is what exactly she is to him, because he's been sticking close to her ever since one night a month earlier and it's not getting any clearer.

She kissed him in the back of a surveillance van. He kissed her. In fact, they spent a good twenty minutes kissing. Because he'd made her swear that once they stepped out of that van, it would never happen again.

And it hadn't. She had kept her promise. They hadn't so much as mentioned their liaison to one another. He didn't get into relationships, certainly not with colleagues half his age that were close to his boss, and he'd made that clear to her. Yet despite that, Mark's kept close to Brittany since that night. He's denying it all the way, fighting it for measure, but he knows he's attracted to her.

But he knows that's dangerous territory.

So as long as she doesn't acknowledge it, he's not going to either, and everything should be fine.

Until he sees the look on her face as she emerges from the elevator and slides into the passenger seat of his Altima. She looks like someone kicked her dog. Without even thinking about it, he shifts in his seat to face her more, settling a hand on her thigh and rubbing gently. "What happened?" he asks gently.

Brittany rubs at the bridge of her nose. "His wife left him," she replies simply. It's not Mark's place to know the whole story.

But he doesn't need to know. "Jesus," he says. "Is he gonna be okay?"

She's not sure.

"Tonight, before we go out...I need to stop by his place. Promised him I'd check on him."

Mark nods slightly. He doesn't even really know the guy, but any friend of Brittany's is important enough for him. "We can do that," he tells her. "It's not a problem, Brittany. Don't worry about it." Even though he knows she's a chronic worrier.

He presses his lips to her temple, trying to tell her he understands. He isn't surprised when she fumbles for his hand, and he just laces their fingers together and lets her hold on.

Everyone needs something to hold on to.

****

McNorris knows, six hours later, that she's going to give him shit for looking like hell, but he doesn't care. He knows Brittany well enough -- if spending time with her while in crappy moods is getting to know her -- to know that she knows her place in his life.

Their first kiss was in the middle of his living room; she'd come to tell him about developments in that armed robbery case, and they'd just been standing there, with him looking down at her, realizing she'd gone out of her way to find him at home, realizing this was the closest he'd been to a woman since Marian had left him, and because he had a propensity to screw these kind of things up, he'd kissed her instead of just saying "thank you."

It'd been easy to write that one off as a drunken mistake. But he'd made things even more complicated, because that was what he did. Complicated things. He'd invited her over, and they'd sat on the back porch, talking about their abusive parents and how much it was a pain in the ass to have that stigma. He'd looked at her and then he'd kissed her again. This time, there were no excuses. He was sober.

She'd kissed him back. Split up from her boyfriend, she was probably just looking for a little attention. And that was fine with McNorris, who was just looking for someone to keep him from self-destructing on a bad night. He'd ask her over when it'd been a shit day in court, and they'd sit on his couch and commiserate, maybe drink a little, sneaking kisses or soft touches between bitter sentences. She fell asleep on his couch once. That's all it ever was.

Still, at least it was something.

He hears a car door shut and looks up out the window, to see her stepping out of an Altima with a dark-haired man behind the wheel. A few moments more and the doorbell rings, and he answers it disheveled, jacket and tie thrown somewhere in the bedroom, collar undone, and a conspicuous bruise on his right hand.

"Oh, Christ, David," she murmurs, stepping into the house. "Are you sober?"

"So far," he replies glibly, closing the door behind her.

She turns on her heel, one hand on her hip, standing just a few feet from him. That's how they started, months ago, except he was in a much better state and much better dressed. He chuckles, thinking about that. Brittany doesn't see what's so funny.

"It's ironic," he tells her, crossing past her to lean heavily against his kitchen table. "I've got everything I ever wanted. I'm on the fast track to become D.A. after Fisher leaves office. Thanks in part to you, my career is better than it's ever been. I'm off the bottle, so God knows how much money I'm saving," he says sarcastically. "This is what I wanted and I'm right where I want to be. Yet, when it comes down to it...I have nothing that really matters. I lost what mattered along the way."

She looks a little wounded. Mark is like that, she knows. He has nothing but his job in his life, and she's still not sure that there's a place for her. But Mark chose that because of his job and the sacrifices he'd have to make. McNorris never did, not intentionally, anyway.

"You're not out yet, David," she says, because she's not sure what exactly to say. "You've still got plenty of life and plenty of fight left in you. There's gonna be somebody else."

He smiles slightly, looking down at the tile floor. "I love your confidence," he replies. "I don't even have one friend, Brittany."

"Yes, you do," she tells him, almost defensively. "You've got me."

David's head snaps up and his eyes meet hers, almost apologetically. He gives her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, accepting the point. They've never been much to each other, but at least she's cared and kept him in line, when he could easily have just let it all go.

Just like he wants to do now.

"Even you aren't good enough to make everything okay," he remarks absently.

She exhales. "No, but you are," she says. "Damn it, David, you're smart, you're doing reasonably well for yourself, you can make something out of nothing. I've seen you do it before. Hell, you've saved my ass. Need I not remind you that I would be in jail two years ago if not for you? This is not the last thing you will ever do with your life."

He's quiet for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. "It just feels like...like I'm staring at a wall." A pause. "I got where I am by doing some pretty egregious things, Brittany. You know that. My professional success is something to be proud of -- what built it is not. It's easy to say that I just got what I deserved."

"Bullshit." The vehemence with which she spits out the word commands his immediate attention. "That's not it, David. You care about justice. I know you do. And all these cases you've handled for me...those were done the right way. You can be proud of those, can't you? The cases you say brought you back from the dead? You did those on your own merits." She exhales. "I'm here because I want to be, that has to mean something to you."

"Right now, it means everything to me."

"Okay." She pauses, looking at a loss for further words. "You're sure there's not anything I can do?"

There isn't. He needs to do this for himself. But there are answers that he wants. He looks out the window, then he fixes her with a glance. He wants to hear her say what he already knows is true. Lay it all out on the table. Tell him that she's not coming back.

Tell him that he has to do this on his own.

"You asked if I wanted to come out with you earlier," David says, "You said 'us'...so you've found somebody, then."

She runs a hand through her hair. "Maybe."

"The guy that's waiting for you?"

A glance back over her shoulder, out the kitchen window, at Mark still sitting in the Altima. "Yeah," she replies. "He's...I don't know what we are. It's too early to call it yet."

David smiles grimly, almost bitterly. "Well, I'm happy for you."

"Are you?" she asks.

That, he doesn't answer, because he has no answer to give her. He merely nods toward his front door. "You don't want to keep him waiting," he says instead. "I'll be fine." He watches her sigh and turn for the door, and just when she has her back turned, something else pops into his mind.

"You never did answer my question," he reminds her. "What you saw in me."

Brittany merely favors him with a small smile.

"I saw you, David."

1sentence, take five.

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 02:42:34 GMT

Title: Inadmissible
Fandom: 24/Boomtown
Pairing: Brittany House (Eliza Dushku)/David McNorris (Neal McDonough)
Set: Alpha
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content
Spoilers: For the Boomtown episodes: "The David McNorris Show," "Blackout" and "Inadmissible"
Author's Notes: Crossover between 24 and Boomtown. Some sentences will be 'ship-oriented, most won't, because the two of them together just would so have never worked, but eh, McNorris and Brittany have a fun dynamic, and Neal McDonough is the bomb.

#01 - Comfort
"I had a friend of mine who died in a car accident five years ago today," Brittany replies when McNorris notes her mood is bleak, and he purses his lips and walks after her; he doesn't know what to say to make it better, but he knows what it feels like to think you've killed a man in a car accident, so he just brushes a hand over her back and murmurs quietly, "I'm sorry."

#02 - Kiss
Their first kiss was in the middle of his living room; she'd come to tell him about developments in that armed robbery case, and they'd just been standing there, with him looking down at her, realizing she'd gone out of her way to find him at home, realizing this was the closest he'd been to a woman since Marian had left him, and because he had a propensity to screw these kind of things up, he'd kissed her instead of just saying "thank you."

#03 - Soft
No one could accuse David McNorris of going soft, and everyone had a propensity to accuse Brittany Wells of being too soft, but McNorris had seen the pit bull inside the woman when she'd taken him to task more than once in the middle of the LAPD's Robbery Homicide bullpen, and the more she got to know him, Brittany had seen the vulnerable spot in a man who'd been through hell and lived to tell about it -- it was that understanding which made them frequent collaborators.

#04 - Pain
Here he was, in pain and scared to death of the trial ahead of him, and he couldn't, wouldn't use the one crutch he'd been taught to use, so when Brittany offered him her hand to take him home, he grabbed it and held on so tight that she thought he might break something.

#05 - Potatoes
It's no secret that David McNorris likes having a playmaker like Brittany Wells in his back pocket -- the meat and potatoes of a D.A.'s life are convictions, and there are no convictions without evidence and arrests, and Brittany is the kind of relentless, idealistic young gun that makes those happen.

#06 - Rain
There's a downpour in Los Angeles that night, and Brittany shows up in David's office looking like a drenched rat; without even thinking about it, he snatches her jacket from her and guides her to the couch, turning up the heater with a flick of the wrist and telling her she'll catch her death; he won't admit it but he'd like her not to die, considering she's one of the rare people whom he tolerates, who can also tolerate him.

#07 - Chocolate
"Chocolate?" she asks McNorris when she sees him walking into the bullpen, offering out the box that her boyfriend has gotten her for Valentine's Day, and the still separated D.A. rolls his eyes, deadpan as he says, almost lovingly, "Bite me, all right?"

#08 - Happiness
He hasn't known true, personal happiness in a long time, not since he lost Marian and let Andrea go; he's known the impressive success of won trials and telling the British government to go fuck itself in a treason hearing, but there's been an emptiness at the end of the day, at least there used to be before he fell into her arms and she didn't let him fall any further.

#09 - Telephone
The first thing Brittany ever says when they talk on the phone is "David, are you sober?" and for McNorris, who's survived substance abuse rehab, the statement might be getting a little old and matronly by now, but mostly he's just happy that someone cares he's still on the wagon.

#10 - Ears
"You're a recovering alcoholic and I hate you," she says playfully; David takes a sip of his scotch and doesn't blink an eye when he replies, "I love you," grinning when she turns and stares at him with the tips of her ears turning red, and when she asks if he was just saying that to see the reaction on her face all he does is raise his glass in a mock toast and keep that godawful smirk on his face.

#11 - Name
Everyone else calls him McNorris or counselor or any number of epithets, but aside from a few times when they first met, Brittany has always called him David; at first he thought she was just trying to ingratiate herself with him, but now he knows it's a sign of respect and he likes that she references the man behind the suit, the bottle and the myriad of sins.

#12 - Sensual
David likes to just lay on one side and watch her as she slides out of bed and heads for her morning shower on the rare nights she stays over; there's something sensual about sneaking up behind her, his arms sliding around her waist, his lips pressing to her neck, the soft moan she makes when he's got her right where he wants her.

#13 - Death
"People die, it happens and yes, it sucks, but punching out somebody in a courtroom full of people who could kill him for you isn't going to do much, now is it?" McNorris snaps at Brittany during the recess just before she goes on the stand, knowing that either she controls her anger toward the man who killed two of her agents, or his entire case is sunk and be damned if he's going to let her lose this for him.

#14 - Sex
They haven't even really dated by the first time they have sex; they've just been sitting around for long nights talking and drinking and making out, until one time when the clothes start to come off and they're not in any mood to care, and they don't even make it to the bedroom, just end up on his living room floor until he wakes up on top of her at two in the morning and suggests that she may want to sleep on something more comfortable than carpet.

#15 - Touch
On the day that Marian finally leaves him, David is in such a state that he hides in his office glaring at a bottle of scotch the entire day, but he forgets that he promised Brittany a consult; when she comes looking, she can tell instantly that something is wrong, and it's the gentle hand she puts on his shoulder, fingertips gently tracing his jawline, that remind him he either needs to kill himself or get on with the rest of his life.

#16 - Weakness
"You have to exploit his weakness," McNorris tells her, clasping his hands and looking at her seriously, "if he really needs you and trusts you completely enough that he wants you on his team, he'll stop you from leaving for San Francisco in a heartbeat."

#17 - Tears
She's crying when he presents her with the deal that will recuse her from the treason proceedings, and McNorris looks over his shoulder before he tells her that she's stronger than he is -- he was ready to let the biggest crime boss in L.A. walk to save his father, and she took the British government to the brink to save a stranger, but at least she wasn't going to let the bad guy walk free.

#18 - Speed
"When your wife comes to, tell her she's damn lucky I take my vacations in the Hamptons," is McNorris's glib retort to Greg House when House phones to say that Brittany is unconscious in the ER and her friend needs a lawyer, but as he snaps his phone shut and tries to figure out how to break the news to his wife, David knows that because he owes her, he's going to do everything to get to Brittany as fast as he can.

#19 - Wind
"I've never seen this much fucking wind in L.A.," Brittany tells McNorris glibly as they're standing outside City Hall, and he laughs softly; when the wind finally seems to slow he reaches up and brushes her hair back from her face, palm lingering against her cheek for just a few seconds too long.

#20 - Freedom
Brittany Wells has her freedom, her friend and justice besides; she's a very lucky woman, and she knows that she owes that to Deputy D.A. David McNorris, who won't let her thank him, knowing that not only will the publicity save his career, but that he's earned an ally he can count on.

#21 - Life
"He must be a hell of a friend," McNorris tells Brittany bluntly as they stand in the hallway outside the courtroom, "if you're willing to trade your life for his," and the flicker of conviction in her eyes is all he needs to see to tell him that this is worth anything he has to do to secure a victory.

#22 - Jealousy
Frank Smith had her, and Jimmy McCarron wants her; absently, as the latter detective storms out of his office, David McNorris wonders how pissed off the Robbery Homicide cops would be if they knew that he was the man that their beloved CTU agent was seeing, and the thought makes him smile as he gloats, just a little.

#23 - Hands
When she wakes him up at near one in the morning and he stumbles to the door still in the clothes he wore to work that day, her jaw hangs open momentarily, looking at the ugly wound on his right hand, and she knows he's already heard that their collar escaped custody -- so rather than repeat the same information, she gingerly takes his hand in hers and decides they can suffer together for a little while.

#24 - Taste
He's on his knees in front of her, and he gently spreads her legs and dips his head between them, sliding his tongue over her skin; the first taste of her is so sweet that he almost thinks it might get rid of the bitter taste left in his mouth by one too many betrayals, self-destructive fits, boldfaced lies, and mistakes -- because for the first time in a long while he's doing something for love rather than ambition, need or revenge.

#25 - Devotion
David McNorris is devoted to himself, to success, but he's also devoted to the cause of justice, and maybe that's why he and Brittany Wells get along, because even though he's a selfish bastard, they both believe in putting away the bad guy, and doing it together ensures that it will actually happen -- and then maybe, just maybe, he'll give that cocky little smirk and ask if she wants to come out for a victory beer.

#26 - Forever
"This isn't gonna last forever," he murmurs quietly into her hair, and when she asks why into his chest, he says, "Because inevitably, whether it's because I'm drunk or just an asshole or a walking list of cliches we need not get into, you've probably noticed I have a tendency to push women away from me."

#27 - Blood
He watches the nurses change her bandages, the red and brown stains of blood against the discarded gauze, before he strides into the hospital room, standing over her; a few moments later she groans and turns her head, and he says, just between the two of them, "Why didn't you call me...this is time I could've spent getting the bastards who did this to you."

#28 - Sickness
McNorris knows alcoholism is a sickness, a disease, and that one lapse can put him back on the track to self-destruction within moments; he's always quietly afraid that someday he won't think or he'll crack and he'll slip, and maybe that's why he invites her as his date to these damn things, because she doesn't drink so therefore he doesn't have to be around the stuff.

#29 - Melody
There's a melody, a cadence, a grandeur to David McNorris' closing arguments that rivets everyone in the courtroom to pay attention to every word he says; listening to the pop in his words and the conviction in his voice, Brittany knows they've got another one wrapped up, because either he believes in it as much as she does or he's really good at faking it.

#30 - Star
"This is what it's like to be a falling star," she says absently when she comes home from New Jersey, remarried and pregnant and no longer saving the world, and McNorris has been where she is now, so he claps a hand on her back and replies, "Yeah, it really sucks, doesn't it?"

#31 - Home
Out of the blue one night, in the middle of the parking garage on the way back from dinner at The Palm, he tells her to give him her hand, and swallowing hard he presses the spare key to his house into her palm, saying very softly, "I want you to have this, in case something happens to me."

#32 - Confusion
FOX News is on every television in the District Attorney's Office, as it probably is on every TV in the greater Los Angeles area, and when David McNorris hears the acronym "CTU" and realizes he knows the woman in the camera's path, he can't help but blurt "What the shit is she doing?" as his eyes go wide with the kind of confusion that only comes with seeing someone you know threaten suicide on national news.

#33 - Fear
There's a certain amount of palpable fear and breath-holding that takes place while waiting for the jury to actually say "guilty" or "not guilty" -- at least, to everyone in the room but David McNorris, who looks as serious and cocksure as ever, and heart hammering in her chest, Brittany wishes that she had his confidence slash arrogance.

#34 - Lightning/Thunder
"Of all the offices in the world, she had to walk into mine," McNorris drawls when Brittany turns up again in the middle of a savage Los Angeles thunderstorm, and she just chuckles as she shuts the door behind her, "Yeah, well, unfortunately, I'm not gonna ask you to find the Maltese Falcon, and I bet you look like crap in a fedora."

#35 - Bonds
"Is Fisher a fucking moron?" Brittany exclaims in incredulity when David tells her he doesn't want them to file, and he replies sardonically, "Is Barry Bonds on steroids?" before telling her that he's ignored his boss and filed the charges anyway.

#36 - Market
When Brittany tells McNorris she wanted to be a District Attorney once, he just laughs, saying, "Nah, you're better off where you are, you'd hate it here...working for Fisher is like working in a meat market, the whole place is covered in blood and dead weight."

#37 - Technology
"You have to love technology," he tells her, grinning ear to ear when she tells him they have DNA evidence in the McKenzie case, and he stands up and circles round his desk, tempted to kiss her but he'll settle for a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek that makes her laugh into his chest because she's never seen him so happy.

#38 - Gift
"You didn't have to get me anything," David informs Brittany when he corners her to discuss the birthday gift she snuck in and left on his living room table, "the fact that you're actually voluntarily in my company without trying to bribe me or get a sound bite or look good is nice enough."

#39 - Smile
He laughs, looks down and smiles widely when she tells him almost as an afterthought that she brought home a 'Best Director' fake Oscar from her case at Universal City, and Brittany just chuckles and tells him, "You really ought to smile more often, David, it's a good look on you."

#40 - Innocence
There's a certain quality of innocence about her -- she's not an Irish drunk, a corrupt lawyer, or an adulterer -- but McNorris isn't fooled by that or her girl next door persona that she wears so well; he knows they commisserate, sitting on the back porch, about how they both got punched by their abusive parents, and the things they should have said to those parents that they never did.

#41 - Completion
At the completion of the case, Brittany tells him that they're going out to toast the two fallen agents and he ought to come; McNorris didn't get to go to Chandler and Wyznewski's last round because of his father, and maybe because it's her asking, he nods and says he'll go -- as long as, he tells her, throwing his car keys at her, she drives him home.

#42 - Clouds
"You want to see real clouds, go to England," Brittany says on a particularly overcast day in downtown L.A., and McNorris laughs, "I could never work in a judicial system where it's an essential part of the process to wear an ugly wig like I'm in some Merchant Ivory film."

#43 - Sky
The sky is falling -- Brittany's marriage is on the rocks, her sanity is in a billion pieces, and her job is at risk -- which is why David McNorris is standing in a Division parking lot at some early hour rather than in Fisher's latest meeting, and while he can't do anything about her ruined personal life, he's going to make some supervisory agent regret the moment he decided to string up one of the best civil servants of the City of Los Angeles, and he's going to enjoy doing it, too.

#44 - Heaven
They're laying in bed together, his arm around her shoulders, and when she asks if he's trying for a perfect world like the rest of them, he replies, "My idea of heaven would be a world where Fisher rots in hell, my father gets what he deserves, people stopped killing other people, and you don't move an inch...but I have a feeling the only one I'll ever have the slightest chance of seeing is the last one."

#45 - Hell
Detox really is a living hell, although for him it was just the bottle, so when McNorris hears rumors that Brittany is flirting with Xanex addiction, he's the first one to track her down and grab her by the shoulders, insisting vehemently, "You do not want to go down this road, Brittany -- trust me, I know, I've been there, and damned if I'm going to let you turn into me."

#46 - Sun
The sun is in his eyes, so McNorris flips down his sunglasses as he walks with her from the parking lot toward his office, putting off the ever serious conversation by saying, "I hope you're wearing sunscreen, I wouldn't want that great skin of yours to burn," making her roll her eyes while cluing her in to the fact that he thinks this is a conversation important enough to have in private rather than in a federal parking lot.

#47 - Moon
The moon is out by the time Brittany calls and tells McNorris that they have a target on the stakeout, and he sighs with relief, muttering, "What took you so long?" and regretting it when she tells him that if he'd like to come out and park his ass in a Ford Festiva with her for eight hours, he's more than welcome to...although, if he had to sit in on a stakeout, he'd rather have her there than Ray Hechler.

#48 - Waves
"It's not just about making waves," he tells her expertly, looking over at her as the devious, devilish smirk slides across his lips, "it's about making sure they rock the boat -- preferably that it turns completely over and sinks entirely."

#49 - Hair
"What's with the hair, David?" Brittany asks, nodding toward the lawyer's faded bleached-blond look, "did you go through a Billy Idol phase you didn't shake..." but before she can smirk, McNorris smirks first and says, "No, I heard you go for blondes," and walks out before she can realize he's gotten the better of her yet again.

#50 - Supernova
"If you're going to burn out eventually, go in a really big explosion," Brittany tells McNorris with a smirk that says she thinks that kind of grand finale is befitting of his titanic stature, and he gives her an equally meaningful look when he replies, "If I'm going to go out like that, I don't want you anywhere near me."

1sentence, take four.

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:07:17 GMT

Title: Wayward
Fandom: 24
Pairing: Brittany House (Eliza Dushku) and Taylor O'Connell (John Simm)
Set: Gamma
Rating: PG-13 for references to violent crime
Spoilers: Glass Waltz, up to chapter 70
Author's Notes: Don't look at me like that. Let me be clear: this is not a romantic pairing. But after writing chapters 67, 69 and 70 of Glass Waltz, and watching a lot of Life on Mars, I took a liking to John Simm, and especially to the idea of these two people who are on opposite sides of the line despite never having even met. Ergo. Sentences about teh awkward.

#01 - Ring
Brittany catches the way Taylor looks at her finger when he's talking about having something to run to, and it takes her by surprise; she's never really had anyone be jealous of her before.

#02 - Hero
When the whole charade ends she doesn't feel like much of a hero; are there any heroes, she wonders, in a situation that left two people dead and one in search of something he might never find?

#03 - Memory
Taylor tells her that his memory is only haunted by the murder of Justine Lindsay when something reminds him; Brittany bites her lip and doesn't say that she's spooked by everyone she's had to kill, and beyond that, even the ones still living that she couldn't help...she knows she'll be adding his name to that list even if, almost fittingly, she'll forget him first.

#04 - Box
They're standing there, talking to one another, but in reality they're talking to themselves, almost as if they're both trying to shake the ghosts standing over their shoulders, the boxed-in feeling like they've been carrying these damn crosses around too long and maybe they might cancel each other out.

#05 - Run
Looking at how dead his eyes seem to feel, Brittany wants to tell Taylor to run -- to get the hell out of London, maybe even England, to start over, to find something worth breathing for -- but she knows that it's all in his head, and it will follow him anywhere he goes, until he has the courage to overcome himself and put this all behind him.

#06 - Hurricane
The whole thing is a sudden fucking hurricane: she doesn't even know him, he doesn't even know her, but somehow there are two bodies in the ground and he's the last one left standing, and she feels like she ought to say something considering that she started the whole shitstorm.

#07 - Wings
They say a seat near the wings of the airplane is more stable, but Brittany just watches Heathrow and London recede from view; at least the turbulence would match what she's thinking of, wondering for the briefest of seconds if Taylor will ever get his head on straight or if he'll top himself a day, a week, a year from now.

#08 - Cold
One of the things she's never gotten used to about England is the climate; she's cold, and he's just walking along beside her in a blazer, and she'd call him crazy except she's the one with the voice of a sociopathic serial killer wedged in her brain.

#09 - Red
Stuck in the memory, Brittany can see Justine Lindsay's blood everywhere, stark red against the soft brown earth, and she wonders if Taylor can see it too, and if it makes him sick as much as it does her; turning around, however, only shows her what Lindsay wants to see -- the face of the man who really killed his sister, rather than the one who just stood by and did nothing.

#10 - Drink
Since they're sitting in a bar, one would think they'd order a drink or two, but Brittany doesn't drink, and the way that Taylor's hands are almost imperceptibly shaking, she's not sure he could even hold a glass steady -- not that she can blame him, considering the circumstances and the way he must think of her by now.

#11 - Midnight
It's after midnight as Brittany makes the drive to Fulham Broadway, and she's not sure which one of them is more foolish: Taylor for agreeing to meet her in the dead of night when he has zero reason to trust her, or her for trying to talk to a complete stranger, giving up precious sleep and the comfort of a really nice hotel bed.

#12 - Temptation
He can tell, in the way that she talks, the way that her eyes never meet his, that she's tempted -- tempted to get a divorce from her dysfunctional husband, give up the Ivy League upper-crust lifestyle, and move back to Los Angeles, where she'll no doubt marry a modern-day white knight and enjoy the liberal way to be -- but he doesn't say anything about it because he's tempted to disappear himself, to find another life where none of this is real.

#13 - View
The view from Westminster Bridge has always been one of Brittany's favorites, and together she and Taylor take a long moment to take it in; to her it's beauty and tranquility, but to him he's wondering what it would be like to disappear under and never come up again.

#14 - Music
She wants to kick her iPod, because as she's driving back toward the hotel and leaving Taylor to find his way wherever he feels he needs to go, it starts playing "Life Will Go On" by Chris Isaak, which is probably the worst possible song she could hear when dealing with a man who isn't sure if he wants it to or not.

#15 - Silk
When she meets him, she's wearing the black silk dress shirt that Jake Hannigan loaned her after she got shot in the courthouse melee, and she decides not to tell him that there are still flecks of blood on the collar from the scene at the farmhouse where Jake shot William in cold blood.

#16 - Cover
Upon their first meeting she had no idea how he could cover up the murder of an innocent young girl who'd done absolutely nothing wrong except trust the wrong person; when Taylor starts talking about being loyal to his friends and being scared of the truth, however, she understands, because she's been loyal to her father, scared of what would happen if anybody found out he shot and killed Nina Myers.

#17 - Promise
Taylor is standing right there when Brittany snaps at Lindsay (who isn't there) that she wants him to live, when she promises that she'll trade Joshua Barnes in exchange for his life, and though he has a chance to stop her he doesn't -- he lets a second person die because he's too much of a coward to speak up for what should be right.

#18 - Dream
They both dream of a world without death; the difference is the ones she's thinking of haven't happened yet, and the one he wants rid of is almost two decades behind him.

#19 - Candle
Despite how much she's torn herself to bits over what happened to her mother, what's happened to other people that she loves, Brittany knows that the suffering she's been through can't hold a candle to what Taylor is going through -- he's lived with it much longer, eighteen years, and he's lived with the notion that unlike her, he really could have changed something about the outcome.

#20 - Talent
She has a real talent for finding the lost souls, the people that need to be cut a second chance and honestly deserve one, and maybe that's why they're standing here, because despite that it's none of her damn business she can't quite get herself to give up on Taylor O'Connell yet.

#21 - Silence
There's much more silence in their midnight encounter than there is talking; it's probably because they know that nothing will really come of this, they're going to go their separate ways and do what they have to do regardless, but yet they're still here, because they think there's something they ought to know or ought to feel, even if it becomes just some memory they forget.

#22 - Journey
When Taylor gives her a weird look after she tells him that her day job is as a college basketball coach, she stands there and gives him a look back, as if to ask what journey brought him to be who he is today, other than covering up the murder of a teenage girl almost two decades earlier.

#23 - Fire
There's a fire in her eyes and a venom in her voice as she's yelling at Lindsay that he deserves to live, and on his knees on the other side of her, Taylor wonders with a wide-eyed perplexion why a complete stranger would fight so hard for the life of a man she already knows is guilty.

#24 - Strength
She'd told Greg when they met that he was stronger than he thought he was; she can't help but think the same of Taylor, if he would have the slightest bit of ego about himself -- not something she'd ever say to her semi-arrogant husband, but the ex-cop could use a touch of cockiness to save himself.

#25 - Mask
She took a chance, that night, dropping the mask she'd kept up as the woman brought to exact Jacob Lindsay's vengeance, and letting him see that she was another victim of the man himself; if it didn't gain his trust or teach him something, he'd learn he had naught to fear from her, and he might do something he'd regret, or worse, force her to do something she would.

#26 - Ice
When Greg hauls his wife to her feet, the death glare he gives Taylor is terrifying, his blue eyes like ice -- but Brittany doesn't know how to make her husband understand that it's not Taylor's fault, that what scared her so much is really just in her own head, put there by the man who's tormented them both too long.

#27 - Fall
She doesn't have to ask how he took the fall, it's obvious: young, rookie cop who didn't know quite what he was getting into but wanted to stand by someone he'd known since he was a kid, like they've all been taught; she doesn't want him to learn that loyalty is a sin, even though in this case it was.

#28 - Forgotten
They've forgotten each other by the time she gets on the plane back to Newark two days later; with the end of Jacob Lindsay goes everything that went with him, and that includes Taylor O'Connell, whom she knows wouldn't remember her either.

#29 - Dance
It's the most awkward dance she thinks she's ever done: trying to extend help to an enemy who's too cowardly to help himself, almost as if she's watching the tide sneaking up behind him, knowing he's going to drown but knowing that she can't help him out of the water if he doesn't have the strength to swim for shore.

#30 - Body
When he tells her where the body is, he says it with such certainty that Brittany knows he's actually looking at the corpse, even if it's long since been entombed.

#31 - Sacred
The fact that the evidence is actually buried in the Lindsay crypt with Justine enrages Brittany to no end, because the final resting place of the dead is sacred, and she decides to vent that anger by decking Taylor in the face as soon as they get the jump on him.

#32 - Farewells
Their farewells consist of an awkward handshake and a soft exchange of wishes for good luck; both of them know that luck has absolutely nothing to do with where they go from here.

#33 - World
They live literally a world apart, an ocean between them, in different countries and at different points in their life; it's just by stupid chance and the whim of a sociopath that they've met, but if they're going to get through this, a helping hand is not a bad thing.

#34 - Formal
This is anything but formal; this is vigilante justice, plain and simple, and she's judge, jury and executioner, which means that if she says Taylor gets to live then that's the way it is, and for all the violence and the chaos that's happened since she came into his life he never expected her to be a woman of mercy.

#35 - Fever
There's a heat spreading into her hands and forearms like she's got a fever; Brittany knows that this is only a sign that she's getting emotionally worked up, and if she's getting worked up then this must matter, and if it matters then she's willing to fight for it.

#36 - Laugh
The laughs they give each other in the course of conversation are humorless, caustic -- more a way of absently noting the cruelty of the world than finding any humor in the dire situation they're mucking around in.

#37 - Lies
They've both lied to one another; the difference is he's lied about a murder, and all she did was not volunteer that she was the one posthumously recruited to bring him to justice for it...somehow one doesn't seem quite as grave as the other.

#38 - Forever
This won't be hanging around her neck forever; she'll put everything having to do with Lindsay aside and get on with her life, just like Taylor tells her she will, while knowing that he'll probably always have Lindsay's sister as a sharp needle of doubt and self-hatred in the back of his brain.

#39 - Overwhelmed
Taylor O'Connell has every right to feel overwhelmed, considering that this group of Americans has shown up on his doorstep, dragged up the most painful memory of his past, and subjected him to horrible things because of it; that's why, at first, when the woman in the middle of it offers him The Out, he's not buying.

#40 - Whisper
Her voice is but a whisper when she talks about how sometimes she wants to split from her husband, give up her whole life, and start over again, as if she's ashamed of the confession; the look that Taylor gives her says he'd gladly take it all from her in a heartbeat if she's tired of it.

#41 - Wait
"Life is not going to wait for either of us to get our act together," he says, though he has no reason to talk considering that he really doesn't care that much about whether or not his ever comes together.

#42 - Talk
She calls the number Jake pulled off Taylor's phone records and tells him that they need to talk; at first he asks, "What've we got to talk about?" but she can tell by his tone that he's been talking to himself since they first found him and it might be nice for him to be heard out by someone else.

#43 - Search
The search for justice in Justine Lindsay's death has gone round and round in circles, intersected with a terrorist threat, and almost gotten Brittany's loved ones killed, not to mention started a whole debacle back in New York; what she really wants is some honest answers, and at least with Taylor in front of her face, she's found somebody who is living evidence, and who will actually start talking.

#44 - Hope
She ought to hate him (and she has), she ought to hurt him (and she has), but for some reason, as she takes one last look at Taylor's face, Brittany sincerely hopes that the thirty-six-year-old ex-cop finds whatever he needs to be that missing piece in his soul.

#45 - Eclipse
If she were behind the wheel of her beloved Eclipse this wouldn't be so bad, but she's driving a rental Ford that looks like a box to her, and it only adds to the film noir mentality of meeting her supposed enemy at a pub across town in the middle of the night in a country where it's all too often raining.

#46 - Gravity
There's a certain gravity to the fact that they are standing on opposite sides of the same chasm, damned to disagree, yet both their lives were ripped apart by the same family; maybe that's why there's sympathy between them, because they can look at each other and see a common touch, turn their dislike on people who aren't there to speak up for themselves.

#47 - Highway
Jake decided that Taylor could find his own way back to the city and no one argued then; walking alongside him in Westminster, eyeing the darkened roads, Brittany wonders how much time the older man spent drifting down these long, narrow paths, considering how much his life resembles one.

#48 - Unknown
She'll never know if Taylor manages to save himself, spends the rest of his life in that same limbo, or if he'll just give up and kill himself someday -- and maybe she's better off not knowing.

#49 - Lock
Their eyes lock for the briefest of seconds, and gone so quick that they hardly notice it is a flash of empathy, of the barest and most important human emotion: understanding.

#50 - Breathe
He wonders, briefly, as she looks out at the water and he examines the side of her head, how high of a price she paid so that he could breathe; she's but one of many he knows he's indebted to, for making the sacrifice to keep him alive when he couldn't do the same for her.

[ proof ]: something to keep her

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:51:30 GMT

Title: something to keep her
Characters: Brittany House, Mark Holden
Prompt: 10. I look at them, and they look back with those incredible eyes, smile, and it pathetically makes my entire day.
Word Count: 1040
Rating: PG
Summary: Athletes are often superstitious. Brittany and Mark have their own rituals.
Author's Notes: Title is from Rickie Lee Jones' "On Saturday Afternoons In 1963." Futurefic by a couple of months, may possibly be alternate universe or may turn out to be canon. It depends on if I can convince the skeptic in me that Mark would actually do this sort of thing.

He leans in the doorway, not saying a word. Not until she starts fussing with her jacket collar and making a face at the reflection in the mirror. Mark has never realized how hard Brittany can be on herself until he started sharing every aspect of her day with her.

"You look beautiful," he says, straightening up and walking to stand behind her. When she doesn't answer him and doesn't quit, he grabs her wrists and gently moves her hands away. "Stop," he advises her gently. "You're not going to accomplish anything but put yourself in a fit."

She snorts. "Easy for you to say."

"Hey," he reminds her somewhat defensively, "you didn't have to wear a suit and tie to work for nine years."

"Except now I do, and you don't," she replies, eyeing him standing there in jeans and a black T-shirt, the brown leather jacket hiding the gun holster that he's wearing. "Talk about irony," she concludes glibly, and Mark just rolls his eyes, looking somewhat annoyed and bashful at the same time.

"Come on," he replies, "you know it's part of the job."

"I know, I know." She nods, and exhales, a sign that she's giving up on the argument. She runs a hand through her hair again, half focused on him and half on the face in the mirror. She looks older now that she's a mother and a coach, not just a jet-setting young agent. She's still not used to that. Nor is she used to the attention, which is obvious from the pained look on her face. "Just, you know...everybody's watching."

"I think they'll have more important things to concern themselves with than your wardrobe. And even if they did, yours is way more expensive than mine." Mark dares to crack a smile and is glad when she laughs softly. He settles his hands on her shoulders, looks deep into her eyes. "You look fine. Better than fine. Stunning. I'd kiss you, but I don't want to smudge the lipstick."

Brittany laughs softly, tipping her head back. "Remind me why you said yes."

"Because giving a beautiful woman backrubs and stealing her bacon at breakfast is just so difficult." Mark rolls his eyes. "It's three and a half months out of the year, I'm still getting paid, it keeps me sharp on my skills." A pause, giving her a serious look. "And because you asked."

She brings her head back to his level and her jaw is hanging open. "You did not do this for me."

"I so did."

"Did not." She's aghast now, pointing a finger squarely into his chest. "This is the guy who says I'm not allowed to miss him. You did not haul your ass to New Jersey because of me."

"You're right." He looks crestfallen, dropping his gaze to the floor. "I did it because I really, really love tomatoes."

"Smartass." Brittany punches him lightly in the arm. "Why'd you do it?"

Mark leans on the counter, the other hand on his hip, favoring her with a small smile. "Let's think about this. Either way, I'm still making the same money. I still get to spend six months, give or take, doing my own job. But for three of them, I get to travel across the country. I get to spend time watching basketball games and hanging out in nice hotels. It is my job to steal your breakfast, swipe the toiletries out of our hotel room, give you massages, and generally be a pain in your ass. Plus, there's no meetings, no paperwork, and no bureaucracy. The big question is why wouldn't I do this? It's like a vacation."

"I feel so loved," she says, joking.

"You are," he replies, and he isn't.

She studies his face for a moment. Those deep brown eyes, that cocky little smile. She wraps her arms around him and hugs him tight, wardrobe be damned. They may not be the best of friends, but when it matters, they know that they can count on each other. That she'll always be safe with him. That he's one more piece of home she can hold in her hands, if only for a little while.

When she pulls back, she's smiling. He nods his head toward the door, and they walk out into the hotel room. She snatches her watch off the nightstand, fastening it to her wrist. "Jake's coming tonight, so play nice," she advises him, picking her clipboard and game materials up off the bed.

"When do I not play nice?" he implores her, shrugging. "I don't know what you see in him."

"I don't either."

Mark laughs, shaking his head. "He's a friend of yours, I'll be good. You just promise me that you'll go and kick some Stanford ass."

"I will," she replies, "it just might be problematic."

"Why?" he asks, holding the door for her and waiting for her to step through. He locks it behind them, then checks both ways before he slips beside her, one hand on her back, the other subconsciously on his gun. He'll be ready for any possible scenario. A few doors down, he sees Joe Scott emerge and nods at the Princeton head coach.

Brittany, however, is grinning. "Jake's a Stanford alumnus."

"Oh, it's on now." Mark smirks back. "Can I laugh if they lose? You gotta give me that."

She chuckles. "We have to win first."

The smile he gives her is genuine and confident. "I don't think that's going to be a problem," he says, and she knows he says that without knowing that much about the sport of basketball at all. To him, he's not even talking about the team. He knows her too well, and that's all that he needs to know about this.

Brittany smiles back and then turns her attention to heading for the car that will take them to the game. If Mark has confidence, then she can believe that things will go according to plan. After all, this is just the way that things have always gone. Everything will be okay, because they're okay.

She's safe with him there.

Neither of them needs to say a word about that to know the truth of it.