TITLE: Between the Shadow and the Soul (1/?)
PAIRING: A veritable clusterfuck… but there is only one way it can end up.
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

(Claire’s POV)

Lindsay was too busy for her close friend who was lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound to the chest. She was too busy because she was going to meet a man she had known for a week. She was going to meet a man she had known for a week despite the fact that Cindy was lying there hurt and scared and in need of all of the support that she could get from them at the moment.

Because she had a gunshot wound.

To the chest.

Despite one overworked doctor’s way too composed assurances, any bullet that penetrated that very vital area was nothing less than an unnervingly close call. And Lindsay should be well aware of that fact. There was a reason she and her fellow cops donned bulletproof vests when they went toe-to-toe with someone who might potentially be armed. That kind of injury could easily be a person’s last.

But Cindy was strong and had fought, despite the blood and the excruciating pain that she may have forgotten for now but would certainly remember at some point, and in spite of the slowing heartbeat that Claire had been much too aware of beneath her fingertips as she pressed her hands to the wound that felt gaping, warm liquid oozing out alarmingly fast against her palms.

Cindy held out, held on, and Lindsay had held her hand and seemed so concerned while Cindy was lying there at the bottom of the courthouse steps, but now Lindsay was too busy with Pete to stay, to be there for someone who shamelessly adored her, gave everything she had to help her in any way that she could, and would never, ever have left her side if she’d been lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound.

Rushing off to a romantic rendezvous with Pete was no kind of excuse, at least no kind that Claire was going to accept, and she wasn’t about to let Lindsay get away without the kind of rebuke such a selfish decision warranted, meaning that she too had to make an excuse to leave Cindy’s bedside, which was what was pissing her off most of all.

From twenty feet back, she watched Lindsay crawl up into the driver’s seat, surprisingly oblivious to the fact that she had been tracked all the way from the hospital. She had just barely pulled her door closed when Claire reached the, as of yet still un-started, vehicle. With a firm fist, Claire tapped sharply on the glass with her knuckles and Lindsay barely glanced to see who was knocking before pushing the door back open for her.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” Claire harshly bit out, yanking the door handle from Lindsay’s grasp as she pulled it all the way ajar, feeling the hinges strain and the door pop back toward her slightly.

After all that had happened, after seeing Cindy clutching for consciousness the day before, and drugged up and only half-aware just a few minutes ago, Claire could barely control the resultant fury, and after Lindsay’s ill-advised abandonment, she seemed just the person to unleash it upon.

Or so the thought held in Claire’s mind until Lindsay turned to look up at her, and the unanticipated expression on her face stopped Claire’s prepared diatribe cold. There was no denying the vision or maintaining anger in the face of it. Lindsay Boxer, unflinching homicide inspector, pillar of strength and stoicism, and the type to do her grieving in secret, was openly and utterly… broken.

When the first tears spilled over onto Lindsay’s cheeks without any further goading from her, Claire’s motherly impulses kicked right in. Reaching into the SUV, she gathered her generally impenetrable friend into her arms, and felt Lindsay immediately break down against her shoulder, huge sobs racking the long, lean body. So badly wanting to console, but unsure what Lindsay needed to hear, Claire just waited for an indication, some hint as to what had taken Lindsay from faking fine to exposing herself so uncharacteristically with such rapidity.

At some point Lindsay began chanting an unintelligible mantra against her shoulder, and Claire gently pushed back on Lindsay’s arms in an effort to make out the continuously repeated words.

“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can’t what, Honey,” Claire whispered ever so gently.

Lindsay’s sobs ruthlessly returned at that. In all that they had endured together, in all of the bad times that she’d stood by Lindsay’s side, Claire couldn’t remember a single one in which her friend was so helpless to stop the flow of tears. She’d known Lindsay to cry, in the absolute worst of times, when things looked so bleak there was nothing else she could do, but she’d never known her to cry quite so hard, quite so effusively, the emotion spilling forth with such unforgiving brutality.

Claire gradually pulled away until she could push the hair back out of the face of the hollowed woman before her and cupped Lindsay’s cheeks, lifting gently until saturated dark brown eyes looked up at her.

“You can’t what?” she tried again, one thumb moving through the moisture on a near perfect cheekbone.

Lindsay swallowed with difficulty and opened her lips on a ragged, anguished breath. She tried to get words out, in vain, eventually finding her reply in a gentle motioning of her head in the direction of the hospital.

Interpreting the meaning of the tiny gesture was hardly a challenge. With Cindy lying there behind large quantities of brick and mortar and glass, knowing very well that the three of them could just as easily have ended up standing around her pale form in a drastically different location, what else on earth would Lindsay be crying about? Because she did care. No matter how much she couldn’t stand for Cindy to see her doing it, she cared.

Claire allowed the silence to linger, only the occasional sound of unseen people walking somewhere in their vicinity floating over to find them. Lindsay composed herself, her breathing evening out until she could finally wipe away the remnants of tears on her face without more falling to take their places. Claire studied the distressed movements, attempting to bring some cohesion to her disorderly thoughts.

“When we were at the Courthouse,” Lindsay started in such a faint whisper that Claire had to lean into the grief to hear, “I thought she was going to die.”

“I wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t,” Claire felt safer admitting now, gaze trailing over the downcast face, shrouded in shadow.

Lindsay swayed in response to the candor and Claire put her hand on a leather-clad shoulder to keep her from pitching forward out of the car.

“I just kept thinking that I had spent the night before with Pete.”

The tortured utterance seemed to diverge from the path of their conversation, but Claire somehow knew that it didn’t. Feeling instantly enlightened, though she wasn’t sure as to what exactly, her focus sharpened instantly.

“What does that have to do with Cindy?” Claire hoped she was asking the right question, the kind that would keep the truth flowing instead of building a dam in its course.

Lindsay folded into herself, arms crossing over her like a shield, a detectable shudder working its way through her. For what felt longer than it probably was, she was mute and stagnant, and Claire really feared that she’d chosen wrong. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything.

“I guess I just didn’t realize how much I’ve come to love her,” Lindsay confessed.

It wasn’t the way that Lindsay said it, though it was remarkably tender and illuminating in itself. It was in the way her eyes closed on that critical word that was the incontrovertible tell. When Lindsay’s eyes reopened with a deep, unconscious yearning intermingling with the fear, everything crystallized in Claire’s mind.

“Love her?” Claire questioned delicately, “or are in love with her?”

Lindsay hadn’t even considered the notion. That was evident in the way her eyes snapped up, shocked and hesitant. Her initial instinct was to refute the claim. That was clear too in the slight shaking of her head and the way that her mouth parted a fraction of an inch, words of contradiction hovering just behind them.

But the denial never came.

Lindsay dropped her eyes and turned her head away, staring at the steering wheel for the longest time before finally expelling a breath of air that sounded oddly like relief.

“Am I really this emotionally dense?” she asked incredulously.

“Honey,” Claire answered at once, laughing softly.

It was a special kind of uplifting when Lindsay laughed too.

Hand still resting on a strong shoulder, Claire studied the overly introspective profile. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one making a grand discovery at the moment. Lindsay seemed rather astonished herself by the revelation. Claire had long suspected that Cindy’s particular weakness for Lindsay wasn’t entirely unrequited. She’d never expected Lindsay to admit to any kind of reciprocity though. She knew her friend well enough to know that in Lindsay’s eyes, Cindy was someone to be feared. She offered too much passion, too much reverence, too much pleasure and sincerity and devotion. And she offered them to Lindsay most of all, freely, in massive amounts, without expectation.

Those were the kinds of things that petrified Lindsay. But then… almost losing something that meant more to you than you were ready to admit had a way of making you ready.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Lindsay queried softly, looking younger and more unsure than Claire could recall seeing her in years. “I can’t just walk in there and tell her that.”

“Why not?” Claire smiled at the hopeful insecurity.

“Claire… Cindy’s been here the whole time. She knows about Pete. I can’t just pretend that he didn’t happen.”

Pete - once again creating an issue without even being present. The poor man didn’t stand a chance amongst them. He was going to be well-hated before their first official meeting just for being in the way.

“You are definitely going to have some things to work through,” Claire acknowledged, “but I do think that you should go back in there. You can’t leave it like this, Lindsay. It looks like you’re walking away from her.”

In the poignant gaze that raised to meet hers, Claire could see that Lindsay hadn’t considered that either, and it was an impression she really hadn’t meant to leave them with. Especially Cindy.

Claire thought it would take considerably more persuasion to talk Lindsay into fixing the scene she’d left in her wake, but Lindsay nodded almost at once and climbed back out of the car.

“I don’t suppose you want to come back in with me,” she joked, but her best efforts weren’t enough to conceal the genuine anxiety.

“Do you really want me to be there for this?” Claire responded. “What if it goes really well?”

Lindsay exhaled a tiny laugh and took Claire by surprise for about the dozenth time in roughly as many minutes when she walked into her arms for an extended hug. She wasn’t used to Lindsay being quite so honest with the fact that she was in need of solace. A nearly undetectable tremor moved through Lindsay as Claire’s hand rubbed against the back of her jacket and she threw in an extra squeeze of support.

“I do expect a full report though,” she teased as she pulled away.

Lindsay chuckled again, but it only skimmed the surface. Beneath, there was a more sober mix of determination and fear, and Claire took that as an indication that Lindsay intended to say what needed to be said. Considering how things could have turned out, it seemed almost a necessity.

“Thanks Claire…” Lindsay’s voice was almost a whisper, “for telling me how to fix my life. Again.”

“That’s what I do,” she winked, willing Lindsay all of her reserves of courage. “Good luck.”

Not that she would need it. If there was one thing that Claire was certain of in all of this, it was that what Lindsay had to say to Cindy was everything that Cindy had been waiting to hear.