Sebastian Scott

His badge mocked him as he started getting ready for work again. He dreaded seeing Hale again and assigning him a new homicide. He wasn't finished with Gordon's case. As he showered, every droplet rang against the back of his deep scars as a private torment to go further.

As much as he sought the truth he despised it in its absolutes.

The revolving door of his regrets, however, pushed him forward. He wanted to hate Sam for what he did to his father, but Bash couldn't deny Sam was right. His father didn't look back and something told Bash that his father knew of Sam before he came to the house that day.

Bash ran his hand through his wet charcoal mussed hair. Spitting out his peppermint flavored toothpaste, he avoided his reflection and continued to get dressed. Laura had promised she'd make an effort for Gordon, that gave Bash some relief but not much.

He turned his autopilot setting on for the commute. It wasn't as if he hated his job, he just wished that there wasn't that much hate and vengeance filling the family plots like a connect-four board. It reminded him of his own family and how he was forced to keep his father's secret.

But the truth was there was only ever one case that Bash wanted to solve besides Gordon's now.

It was the case of how Sam got in. Did his father invite him in? Did he? Why couldn't Bash remember anything of that day before being locked in that toy trunk?

But no matter what he did he couldn't get the answers or the closure he searched for. Before he could wish again for the letters in his crossword life, Sully called him.

Bash answered with a tap. "Well if it isn't the other grieving widower in the department."

Sully ignored his remark and barrelled straight towards the reason for his call. "I just got the results from the lab on Marilynn."

Bash sucked in a hesitant breath. "Shouldn't you keep out of this investigation. They could get you for tampering with the evidence or something."

"I know...I know, my friend did the autopsy. I was far away from this but he called me to tell me the results and Bash, it's bad."

Bash palmed his forward as he exited the taxi. "What is it now? Did another one of your spouses take a nosedive into a car trunk without water or what?"

"No..." Sully's voice was choked up as he paused. "Marilynn was pregnant but it's not mine or Charlie's. Please don't tell this to Emma. I want her as far away from this as she can get. She killed my wife and she doesn't deserve the satisfaction of answers about Charlie's death."

"How does this connect to Charlie and why'd you tell me, Sully? I'm off the case."

Sully gave a plaintive sigh. "Because I know you'll do the right thing with this information." And with that vague statement he let the phone call trickle to a silent beep and the line disconnected. All Bash could think was man, Sully's wife gets around like the plague.

Finally, Bash rounded the stairs but when he reached his floor he saw her. Glistening along the shroud of smugness and resentment, Gordon was a Goddess reduced to a fallible human being. She didn't say anything but she packed up her boxes with a dejected coldness.

He edged his way towards her as if he was stepping on pins and needles. But with one more step he was face-to-face with the emerald spades of her sharp digging eyes and all the low hanging insults he could pick at. It was easy to challenge her, but to give sympathy would only hurt him.

Bash ignored the guilt wavering in his bleating chest and he ached to murder this discrepancy of hatred and replace it with normalcy.

Gordon filled the awkward silence with a fearful smirk. "You're trying to figure out how to mess with my head without thinking about how you told Laura to help me. I get it, I don't want to like or owe you anything either. Let's just call it even. Nuisance to other nuisance, it's alright."

"That wasn't for you," it felt better to get to status quo by hurting her than it did by ignoring what happened. "It was to stick it to Hale. He thinks he runs this department and we all know that couldn't be further than the truth. Just like how far the truth is that you love your husband."

Gordon grabbed his hand and led him outside so they could talk.

Bash would have fought with her to give his arm back but he didn't want to hurt her and at least she remembered he didn't like elevators. She let go of him when the scent of city smog and taxi horn beeps filled the opaque sky. Then she faced him head on like it was the beggining of a joust.

"Don't mistake my smile for happiness or my lack of tears for joy. You have no idea how I feel."

Bash looked at her more intensely. "What happened with Marilynn?"

Gordon's hands shook as she dug her index finger at him as if she were cutting the piano strings of his heart with each indent of her fingernails in his chest. "It's none of your business."

"It is!" Bash argued. "We're not friends, but even as enemies I need some sort of truth to be on any side of this battle. Why's it so damn hard for you to lean on me? I won't hurt you. I'm indifferent to you, why do you think that anything you say will make me leave?"

Tears began to stream along the banks of her ruddy cheeks. "I'm not worried about you going if I tell the truth. I'm scared of you staying."

Silence passed between them and Bash decided he didn't need to know what happened with Marilynn. They both took deep breaths but he needed something to distract himself from this awkwardness she created. Finally, he saw a note hanging from her pocket and he read it.

Gordon reached for the note back but she only was able to yank it back after the screws of the threat loosened his jaw with the understanding of her now immediate jeopardy.

"When did you get this, Gordon?" he demanded.

Shamefully, her eyes shifted to the sky and attempted to avoid the question.

Bash, however, wouldn't let her off so easily. He arranged her chin with his hand so that she would look him in the eyes. With each second this enchantress threw a mirrored brokenness back at him he recognized all too well. In the instant he realized himself, the spell lifted him from her.

Bash let go of her face but held the same intent in his demeanor. "Earlier, it's fine. It's not like I've never been threatened before, remember, we're both detectives."

"You're sleeping at my apartment, Gordon."

Gordon shook her head no vehemently. "I'm not scared of them. I'm not a Disney princess some jackass has to save. I can handle this. And what makes you even think that I would ever buy tickets to see this limited time show of male bravado and kindness that you're playing now?"

She began to walk away in dismissal of his demand for her safety. But Bash couldn't let her go. It was as if he was watching his mother get her army jacket to go to the bar to smoke and drink away all the money he made from the grocery store he worked at. He wanted to stop the feeling.

Bash took her hand and pulled it back towards her so she couldn't dismiss him anymore.

"This isn't to save you. You were never somebody I would send the cavalry for. I wouldn't even get the randomest stranger I could find to ride in on some white horse to save you from yourself. I just can't let you die alone, so yes you're sleeping on my couch."

Gordon yanked her arm back. " As much as the sleeping experience with my worst work enemy has five stars written all over it...I'd rather sleep in traffic."

Bash didn't give her a chance to dismiss him again with her nuanced notions that "I am woman". He just took her boxes and started carrying to a taxi he was already hailing. Gordon yelled after him but her short strides were no match for his increasing speed.

When the taxi pulled up he stashed the items on the cab floor so she had no choice but to get in the car. She did so with a hissing venom in her emerald eyes. He grinned inwardly at his temporary victory but his action soon eclipsed his logical side of his brain and he shook his head.

Of course he wanted his distance from her, but the warmth of her hatred was familiar. Bash almost missed not talking ever but he learned by talking to Gordon that not every word had to be pretty and nice. Words can be shattered affronts to the distance we need from each other to live.

Gordon crossed her arms as not only a witness to the death of niceties, but a very willing and able participant in it. Even though it had started to rain now, Bash opened the window. The cabbie yelled at him but the tears of a desolate sky and the fresh air permitted him to breathe.

Bash knew she felt a chill too but she didn't question why he did what he did.

Perhaps she assumed it was all to make her more uncomfortable. But even if she did assume this, Bash found himself wanting to explain to her, of all people, what happened that day. He wanted to tell her how he didn't want to be the reason his mother drank anymore.

But once they appeared at his apartment the slow sad gloom pushed each of them to their mutual corners of the room. Bash laid her boxes down and bolted the door shut with all the locks he had running down the staggering length of his door.

Unfortunately, they weren't for keeping people out, but rather to keep him in because of his frequent night terrors. Bash knew now he had to refill his prescription of his medication to keep Gordon in the dark about it. As much as he wanted to tell her, she didn't need to know about it.

Gordon looked around the apartment like she could gleam something about him from the objects that he owned. But he owned mundane objects and she couldn't help but assure her intentions.

"You know I'm not staying here because I need to, Bash?"

She phrased it like an open-ended question but it was anything but. "You never needed to, but to be honest I'm afraid Sully is going to do something about his wife. I don't care about you, but the Sully I knew would have kept you safe had anyone else but Marilynn died."

As Bash looked at her he could tell that the fact that Sully hated her was churning her heart something tiresome. It wasn't aimed to make Bash angry, but it did. An indirect hit to a heart he would never admit to having. Bash emptied blankets from the closet to make up the couch.

Hours passed and finally there was a rest between the rising rift across the threshold. Bash forced himself to take his pills but the open concept design of his apartment that never bothered him before now made him listen very carefully to Gordon's labored and uncertain breathing.

A few more seconds drudged on before Bash said something. "What is it?"

"Don't judge me but I miss it," she hoarsely admitted.

"Miss what?" Bash attempted to care about this little thing about her to try to start fixing himself.

Her ceramic daggered voice slid off a crashing truth. "I miss saying, 'I love you, goodnight'. I know it's stupid and I'll probally never say it again, but I miss it."

With some vague certainty Bash replied. "You'll say it again."

"What do you mean?" She asked in hopes of one decent and pleasant answer but received none.

"You're in love with Sully. It's okay. You'll give yourself an appropriate amount of grieving time and then he'll forgive you for Marilynn and you'll both fall asleep thinking that this all happened to bring you two together. Which it likely wasn't but you'll say it to be guilt-free at the end of this."

Before Gordon could fight his theory with indignation though, bullets crashed through the front window that was facing the street. Within a matter of seconds Bash was by the couch shielding her body, but Gordon still sucker punched him after the echo wore off their eardrums.

Gordon only explained with intense irritation. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't save me." Bash reacted to that by carrying her over his shoulder and putting her on his bed beside him.