He sits against the tree with his eyes shut.
He knows he should probably apologise to her properly, but he just can't be bothered to summon up the energy just now.
Not after what happened tonight.


She had been there in the restaurant.
He was supposed to go with Ted, but then Ted had to go out of town. So he had gone alone.
He had always been prepared when he would see her. Always prepared.
But not for this. Not for this.
Mark was there. Condescending Peaceful Mark who couldn't even hail a waiter properly.
And her, wearing that color. The same color that he had seen her in for the first time.
A deep, soft twilight blue that smelt like wild flowers.
He wondered if she still wore that dress he had given her.


His table was perfectly positioned. He could see them but they couldn't see him.
He knew he should have left but he couldn't help himself.
So he stayed, hovering at the edges of the picture, feeling like the family ghost nobody likes.
Like he was probably there but not quite. I live at the edges.
And her children were there. Her children. Their children.Not their children. Because they didn't have children.
They hadn't gotten her immaculate blonde hair, their hair was dark. Like his.
It was at that point that he had signaled the waiter for the first drink.


"Do you like the dark, Reese?" he slurs, breaking the silence.
"Yes." she says simply.
His eyes are still closed.
"Twilight. The french call it l'heure bleue. Or the Blue Hour." he says.
"I didn't know you knew french." she says, leaning back, unconsciously imitating him.
It is dark, and she can't see Crews clearly anymore, but somehow she knows he smiled at that.
"I don't." he says.
Jen did. Jen, who had left but had never really. Who had taken everything but had left enough .
She had left nothing but shadows.
Dani wonders what he left out, but says nothing.


They sit in the silence for some time, Dani occasionally throwing stones into the distance.
Crews leans back, hearing the quiet thok sound that the stones make when they hit a tree.
He likes waiting for the sound. Thok. Silence. Thok.
The way they are sitting, the light illuminates only her face, and he sits in her shadow.
In her shadow. All he has are shadows.


He sits in her shadow. In the darkness. Watching her in his silence.
His mind is a jumble of thoughts.

And peace follows the darkness like a shadow.
And because the peace comes from your very sources, you never feel like you are being commanded.
You never feel you are being dominated, you never feel you are being a slave.
The love that simply overflows you, is unconditional, just a gift, a blessing to the silence.

All he has are shadows.

He shifts slightly against the tree and loses his balance.
He throws out two unsteady hands to right himself, but before he can he feels her hands reach out and roughly grab him by the shoulders. This time he knows it is her, so he doesn't strike back. He moves in an ungainly fashion and stumbles again, falling against her shoulder.

The first thing he notices is that she doesn't smell like Jen.
She smells of car freshener, and of a long day's work.
She smells of things that are real, and things that matter, and things that don't change because they just are.
Of things that have been since the beginning.
On impulse he kisses her cheek, and that small action makes him forfeit whatever balance he had. His weight causes them both to fall onto the ground.


Dani is the first to recover. She pushes Crews off and stands up, brushing the dirt from her clothes.
She looks at him laying there on the ground and he begins to laugh. She wants to be mad because he kissed her, but she can't. For reasons she doesn't feel like exploring.And since she doesn't want to think about these reasons, and because she knows he is too drunk to be able to remember, she decides to let it go.
Instead she hooks her hands under his arms and a few seconds later he is standing.
Unsteadily, but standing nonetheless.
"Come on Crews. I'm taking you home."
She grabs his shoulder and steers him to the car.



Soon he finds himself back at his house, and he can see the lights are on.
He can see that Ted is home because he can see him through the windows and he wants to rush inside the house because he is filled with an irrational desire to hug Ted. And even as he tries to stumble forward he can feel her grip tighten on his arm and he realises that Dani is the here, the now, keeping him steady, keeping him sane and all of a sudden his heart is filled to bursting point with a sense of an undefinable, uncontrollable something for this dark haired, stubborn woman who would sooner bite his head off than smile at him.

"Reese. Reese!" he slurs again, and she turns to look at him.
They are at the door now and Ted will open it soon, and if he doesn't say it now, he doesn't think he can ever say it.
"What?" she snaps.
"You're my dead cat." he slurs. And then before he can say anything further, the door is opened, and Ted has taken him in and thanked her in the same breath, and all he can do is grin goofily at her slightly amused face before Ted shuts the door for the night.

And as Ted slides him into his bed, his head is fuzzy and he wonders if he should explain to her that a dead cat is the most valuable thing in the world because nobody can put a price on it.

Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, Tomorrow I will tell her.

But of course, when he gets up tomorrow, he doesn't remember anything.
And Dani says nothing because she's rather not talk about it, and Ted says nothing because Dani explicitly told him not to.
And the everything is pretty much the same except for the fact that he and Reese don't fight at all that day.

Her ear was pressed against the phone and she could hear the persistent ring over the airwaves.
Pick up the phone Crews. This is not the time for you to go AWOL on me.
"Agh!" yelled Dani aloud in frustration.
Where is that fu- Earley! I'll call Earley.
Dani began thumbing through her phonebook, thanking the day Crews had taken some of her things home by mistake.
Well it's not my fault that we have similar stuff.
She'd had to drive up to Crews' mausoleum of a house to get her stuff back because Crews hadn't answered his phone.
She smiled to herself as she remembered yelling at him, and how Earley had finally restored peace by giving her his number to call as a backup.


The phone was ringing again.
"Hello? Who is this?" said a voice at the other end.
"Detective Reese. Crews' partner."
"Oh hello - "
Dani cut him off. "Where is he and why isn't he picking up his phone?"
"Oh. I don't know. I had to go out of town for the day. Because of Charlie's orange groves. Somethi-"
"Orange groves? Where are they? Can I find him there?" said Dani, getting angrier by the minute.
"Oh. Uh. Yeah. Maybe. Just a minute, uh.. detective. I'll just..."
Five minutes Dani was in her car speeding towards the outskirts of the city..
Enough was enough. I am sick of putting up with your crap Crews.
She was going to lay down some goddamn rules. First and foremost was answering your fucking phone.
After no talking, of course.
Dani floored the pedal.


He sat on the ground.
The sky was growing dark and there was very little light save for the sodium lamp near the picking shed.
Long shadows ran along the ground and he skimmed the air over them with his fingers.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
He had been just another guy who looked like every other guy who had walked down the road.
Want to be that guy.

The air breezed by his face and he shivered, welcoming the cold.
Cold made him feel alive. Alive in an alien and primitive way.
Cold made him numb to everything else except the sting against his skin.
I am oblivious to feeling.
You are such a bad liar, Charlie. He could practically hear Connie's voice in his head.
And now Connie wasn't there anymore.
Nobody seemed to stick.

He could hear a car. A part of him urged him to go forward. I need to know what that is. Need to know...
But another part of him was in control. I am not attached to this car. I'm...
I am not attached to this car and I have no control.
He didn't want to care. But you can't stop. You've come full circle Charlie.
And a circle has no end. You can only go round. And round.
Until all you have are echoes. Faint colourless echoes that darken to nothing in the night.
He closed his eyes.
He could hear footsteps. He leaned back against the tree, the reptilian part of his mind still ever alert to any danger.
The more human part lost for the moment, drowning deeply in misery.
Light footsteps. Delicately touching the soil. Almost treading air. Noises.
The sound was blurred in his head. The volume would grow louder and then softer.
He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the feeling like he would a fly..
"- ews... Crews... "
He jerked his eyes open.


Dani walked at a fast pace after parking near the gate.
All that fucking money and he has only one light. One fucking light.
She could see him sitting at the edge of the grove, leaning against a tree. Stupid sonofa-
"Crews!" she yelled. He said nothing, just moved his weight around a bit.
"Crews!" She yelled at him again and suddenly stopped.
She knelt down and caught hold of his collar to turn his face against hers.
"Jesus Christ, Crews. Are you drunk?" she asked.


He looked at her. She was saying something. She was so blurry.
Who is that? Can't be Connie. Connie's not here anymore.
Besides Connie had never been so.. like this. Who was this person?
This pushing, yelling, fidgeting person?
A voice from the recesses of his alcohol addled mind whispered Dani Reese. Reese...
She was saying something. She was touching his collar. His neck.
hands neck exposed fight back do something react Charlie do something Charlie something anything get free get free
In one fluid motion Crews grabbed hold of her wrist and slammed it down, knocking her down from her kneeling position so that she was flung off her feet.
But that was as far as he got. The next thing he felt was a fist connect to his jaw that sent him reeling back.

"Sonofabitch, you hit hard Crews." said Dani, rubbing her wrist.
"Sorry." he slurred. "Sorry Dani." he repeated, and slumped back against the tree.
Did Crews just call me Dani?
She looked at him. He was a wreck.
What the hell was wrong with this picture?