Inamorata (10/36) – WMC fic

PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Characters, not mine. Story, mine.

“Tell me about your relationship.”

“If you’re looking for a thrill, go rent porn.”

She could hear him pacing behind her. He’d been doing it for a while.

“I am looking for Miss Thomas.”

His emphasis on Cindy’s name made him sound a lot more entitled to speak it than he actually was.

“No,” Lindsay corrected him. “You’re not. You’re here, harassing me, so neither of us is looking for Miss Thomas.”

It had been nine hours. Nine hours since Lindsay first saw the note. It was morning, she hadn’t slept, and she did not want to be having this conversation.

After her breakdown in the bathroom, she had allowed herself to be led back to Claire’s office. More than one person was helping her stand, and the elevator ride down felt eternal. They were packed in tight. Lindsay stared at the wall inside for the duration. Then she could remember abandoning the elevator to be put down in a chair in the office, wondering if she could keep herself in it when everyone finally let go.

Tom had actually come to her defense. He closed the door to everyone, not allowing Agent Ashe or her detail into the room with them. Only she and Jill and Claire knew what he’d said when he knelt down in front of her. Lindsay’s tears made him all blurry, like a watercolor painting, and he sounded garbled, like he was talking to her from a pool of water, but she somehow knew that most of what he said made sense.

He promised that he was going to rally the troops to find this guy. She knew that he wasn’t lying. Even in her state, she was able to realize that she didn’t need to worry about the efforts of the police department. Not because of Cindy, but because of Jacobi. They were all going to put forth their best to track down the man who had shot her partner. When they found him, they would find Cindy, so that pursuit was being met with a relentless vigor. That she knew for sure. There was little she could offer that the department wouldn’t already be giving. The best thing that she could do, Tom had said, when she was ready, was help the FBI.

All that she could do was talk to Ashe.

“Is that what this is? You want to go vigilante and I’m keeping you from it?”

“What if it is?”

“Fine,” he said, backing away, his hands out to his sides as if in open invitation. “Where are you going to start looking for her? Where is she Lindsay?”

“You can call me Inspector Boxer,” she uttered.

Because she didn’t know. She had no idea where Cindy was, and it was easier to hate Ashe for asking.

“Do you really want Cindy to die?” he asked, angrily.

But his anger was no match for the inferno that blazed through Lindsay at the offensive statement. He was working really hard on drawing a reaction out of her, but he wasn’t going to like it when it came.

“Ask me that question again and we’re going to find out which one of us is the fastest draw,” she warned him.

Ashe stood up straighter, crossing his arms, an army captain posture that wasn’t nearly as intimidating as he would have liked for it to have been. She swore she saw a slight upward turn to one side of his mouth, a smile, belatedly contained. Then again, it could have just been what she expected out of him, and not really there at all. From the very beginning, he had thought that he could pressure and bully her for information that she couldn’t give him, and he hadn’t made any inroads in earning her respect.

She hadn’t been able to talk to him right away. She couldn’t be with him. She needed intimacy. And Tom realized that too. That’s why he left her alone in the room with Claire and Jill, and why, when he left, he closed the door again from the outside, even though she could hear Ashe immediately trying to plead his case for her cooperation. Tom must have put her appointed detail in charge of keeping the agent at bay, because no one got in.

They hadn’t said much. Claire insisted that she take a look at Lindsay, but only found bumps and bruises from the fall. They would heal without much effort. Not that it mattered. She was her own last concern.

Then, Claire and Jill had just sat quietly with her. They stayed and simmered in their shared misery, Lindsay finally appreciating the fact that they were in pain too. Because Cindy was missing, Cindy was in danger, Cindy was somewhere with the most sadistic serial killer that any of them had ever, in their combined careers, encountered, and Cindy was their friend. They must have been every bit as exhausted as she was, every bit as drained. Not one of them wanted to move. They would have sat there all day… until Agent Ashe decided he had waited long enough, and finally got through to knock on the door.

“Inspector Boxer, time isn’t on our side here,” he reminded her through the barrier.

The saddest part was, that was his idea of tact AND compassion.

So, she’d looked at Jill and Claire and could see how much they needed to believe that she might know something, that she could say something that would trigger Cindy’s rescue and safe return. And she didn’t have the heart to tell them that she didn’t. That’s how she ended up in an interrogation room with Ashe, with Jill and Claire outside the two-way glass in case they needed to intervene, along with who knew how many other listeners.

Ashe shook his head, pulled a chair over to Lindsay. Too close for her liking.

“I am trying to help you here.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Then go find Cindy,” Lindsay stated clearly.

That frustrated Ashe enough that he stood up, taking his chair up in his hands and slamming it back down on the floor. She hated to tell him, but making excessive noise wasn’t going to help her come up with answers she only wished that she had.

“I can’t find Cindy if you don’t help me,” he tried again.

“Obviously,” she sneered.

He kicked the chair, sent it soaring into the wall. More noise. More useless aggression.

“Goddammit, I’m asking you something simple here.” The disbelief that came over him was almost a tangible force in the room. “Tell me about your relationship. When did it start? Before I showed up here? After I showed up here? How long have you been together?”

“Who said that we were?”

Lindsay’s shoulders remained squared, tight. Her arms remained securely crossed over her body. It was her only protection.

“Believe it or not, you do have to have some ability to put clues together into a cohesive package to become an FBI agent.”

“Could have fooled me.”

For the first time since they’d been in there, Ashe stopped moving completely. He stood stock still and stared down at her. But, regardless of how it might have seemed to him, Lindsay wasn’t even contemplating her responses to him. They were coming out without premeditation, which was a pretty good indicator of how she felt about him on her most subconscious level.

It was as if Ashe couldn’t even believe that he was having to deal with this. With her. He expected more out of her. She expected more out of herself. If he wanted to express his severe disappointment, he could take a ticket and stand in line.

“Are you just trying to piss me off?” he asked finally.

“In general or at the moment?” Lindsay countered.

She watched Ashe comb his fingers back through his hair, coming away with his hand fisted in the air beside his head. Which was clearly crafted just for her. And she would have accepted it… gratefully. Anything that he could possibly do to her could only bring relief from a far greater pain.

But there would still be nothing that she could do for him in return. She had tried to tell him that. She had no information that would help. The fact that he was asking over and over about personal subjects that wouldn’t aide in anything was making her feel more helpless, which, in turn, was only making her more irate.

He’d made the claim before, that she could never know what might help them break this thing wide open, but, no matter how much more of an expert he felt his specialized training made him, Lindsay wasn’t exactly green. She did know. She knew what could conceivably break a case, and she didn’t have any of that for him. All that she had were private details, and no matter how much he desired it, he wasn’t getting admittance to them.

When the door opened, Lindsay turned instantly toward it.

“Sorry,” Jill said.

“Did Tom call?” Lindsay asked quickly.

“Not yet,” Jill responded. “But the hospital did. Jacobi’s awake.”

Lindsay got up from her chair, headed for the door, before a pressure on her arm impeded the motion.

“Lindsay!” Ashe barked.

She looked down at his hand on her arm, and back up at his determined expression.

“Let go of me.”

Ashe did, but not without a great deal of fanfare.

“We need to finish this conversation.”

“And when I get back, we will.”

That was all she had to say on the subject. It was all he needed to know.

“If you’re willing to risk her,” Ashe replied.

The thought went rapidly through her mind.

She could kill him.

She could kill him right now before he would even have the chance to react, despite all of his training. She was so hopped up on adrenaline and anger, she knew that she could.

But that wasn’t going to help Cindy. She knew that too.

“Linds,” Jill said, undoubtedly able to read her rabid blood-lust.

“Go do FBI stuff,” Lindsay hissed to Ashe, then stepped around him and followed Jill out the door.