Chapter Text
His closest neighbor's house is 30 yards away. He can see the brown slope of the roof through the bare trees, the ramshackle sprawl of their dock where it lolls across the surface of the lake.
The nearest store is 10 miles, and that first mile is a lazy, crunching roll down a long, gravel road. Lee's school is 15 miles away. It made his jaw tense when he first heard that, his temples twinge, before he realized this place has hardly any traffic.
Lionel wasn't ready to be so far apart from things.
He wasn't ready for any of it, really.
When the car rounds the bend, she is waiting for them. She sits on the front step of the house that he still doesn't recognize as his, her boots in the fallen leaves, the dog sitting straight-backed and composed between her knees.
Shaw half-waves only when Lee does.
"I didn't know she was gonna come," Lee says to him as he unbuckles his seatbelt.
"Yeah." Lionel puts the car in park, already shuffling through escape plans, defense plans. Can they run together or is it already too late? Should he send Lee away now, so he doesn't see the worst of it? "Me neither."
They exchange a quick glance and Lee's brow furrows.
He's afraid they'll have to move again, Lionel knows.
"We don't know why she's here yet," he tells Lee. "Don't worry about it. Go say hi to the dog."
When Lee gets out of the car, Bear drops the stoic act and bounds for him, scattering leaves in his wake. Lee catches the brunt of him on his forearms, on his skinny teenager chest. Bear only jumps up when attacking or playing and it makes Lionel's throat go tense, every time.
Bear licks Lee's cheek and Lionel relaxes by a hair.
"You couldn't call?" he yells to Shaw over the slam of the car door.
She stands, brushes forest dirt off her pants. She looks good. Crisp, dark clothes and color in her face. She’s been working. "I've been busy, Lionel."
"Too busy to call?"
Her lip curls, nastily, like she’s about to mock him for giving a damn, when he catches her by the sleeve, leans in close. "My boy only sees you when shit's gone bad," he murmurs by her ear. "You gotta let me warn him."
One dark, smooth eyebrow jumps a small degree. Her head barely moves up-and-down, understanding. She says, softly, "It's not bad, Lionel."
He lets go of her dark coat, steps back a little. "You in trouble?" he asks.
"No more than usual. But I'm leaving the country for a while. Overseas work." she says. "I need somebody to watch Bear."
"You come all the way out here to the middle of nowhere, rile my kid up, for dogsitting?"
She says, "I don't trust anyone else to watch him."
He sticks his fingers in his pockets, chews on that awhile. He watches his son wrestle the furry killing machine. Bear lets Lee knock him over and wiggles in the dirt, showing his belly.
"How long?"
"Don't know. Until it's done. I'll keep in touch."
"Guess it's good for him," Lionel relents. "Boy should have a dog."
"Did you?"
He snorts. "Not in that apartment. Landlord wouldn't let us keep a goddamn dust bunny, much less a whole dog." He shrugs his shoulders against the crisp air. "You?"
"My mom was allergic," she says. "Bear is my first."
Lionel hangs onto things like this, tight-fisted. She doesn't offer details very often. The important things about Shaw, he already knows without her having to tell him. The little things, the things that matter less, he hangs on to the way some parents hang on to baby teeth.
He didn't do that. His wife did, maybe, back when she was still his wife. Lee has all his adult teeth now, has for a couple years, so it's way too late to start.
Kinda creepy, the thought of those rattling around in a box somewhere.
"Dad?" Lee calls and he snaps back to now. "Is it OK if I take Bear out to the dock?"
He takes a sidelong glance at Shaw, a "Do you mind if your dog jumps in the lake 'cause that's what's happening" kind of look. Her eyes light up, just slightly. An opportunity-seizing kind of look. Shaw wants to talk alone. "Yeah, do that," he says.
As Lee rounds the corner of the house, he glances back and Lionel gives him a quick thumbs up from the hip. All clear. Relief washes over Lee's face.
Bear barks and Lee sprints around the bend and out of sight.
"You're worried about him," Shaw says, like "The sky is blue," no feeling apparent, just floating an obvious fact to see where it goes.
He nods slowly. "He misses home. Just getting around to making some new friends out here. He needs time to settle in. And, uh." He thrusts his fists deeper in his pockets, starts to walk around the other side of the house and down a path he knows will take them to a small, rocky beach where he'll be able to watch if he has to, but where they won't be overheard.
Shaw follows, keeping easy pace, waiting for him to finish.
"...I think about it too much. I'm not working up here, not yet, and I'm still getting the hang of the new place, now we're settled. He's about all I got to think about, day to day." He considers. "I guess it's not so bad. I had a couple years there where he wasn't on my mind as much as he should've been, so maybe this will make up for...for lost time a little bit. But, man, you can only schedule pack lunches and playdates so many weeks in advance before you start to lose it."
"Never thought you'd turn into a soccer mom, Lionel."
"Hockey," he says, "and go fuck yourself."
When he looks at her, they're both grinning, sharp-toothed.
She kicks leaves up with the toe of her boot. She asks, "You want something else to do with all that time?"
His heart thuds, fearful, eager. "I'm listening."
"Nothing big," she says. "Not much action up here. There's a payphone in town, right?" Not an actual question. She already knows. She's just seeing if he bites.
He nods. "At the gas station. I'm not sure it's in service."
"That's OK. It doesn't need to be." They come out onto the shore. It's not the kind of beach you'd want to hang out on, really. Smooth, fist-sized rocks roll and shift under their shoes as they step into the sunlight. "Just keep an eye on it. That's all."
"You expecting a call?"
"No. But you should be. Not that there will be one." She shrugs in response to his raised eyebrow. "You might be retired."
"Nobody asked me."
"I know."
Lionel watches the small, bright shape of his son standing at the edge of the dock, the dark shape of Bear paddling in the water. "I'll keep an eye on the payphone for you."
"Thanks."
"You're a pain in my ass, you know that?"
She flattens out a smile and almost leans against him. The shoulders of their jackets barely scrape. "I try."
They stand quiet, listening to birds and splashes and excitable barks.
"Lionel..." she begins.
He knows the question already. It's the only one they're afraid to ask each other now, the one they avoid and dread because if it never gets asked, it never gets answered, and the answer won't have to be "No" like always.
"...Have you heard from them?"
He closes his eyes for a moment, feels sunlight on his face, soft red through his eyelids. "No," he says. "Neither one of them. You?"
"No."
He breathes deep. "We'd hear from them, right? If they were. They'd get in touch."
She doesn't say.
When they walk back up the path, Lionel asks, "You staying for the night? My couch isn’t exactly the Hilton, but..."
"That a good idea?" she asks. "With your kid?"
"You kidding? He thinks you're a superhero." It's true. Lee remembers her with a kind of fearful reverence. The woman who saved his life and told him to shut up about it. He tiptoes around her.
Shaw's breath hisses between her teeth and he can tell she's weighing options. Her stomach against the clock, maybe. "What's for dinner?"
"Steelhead trout. Friend in town is a fisherman and we've got a lot of fish to work through."
She thinks hard about that. "Pass."
"Fuck you. I'm a good cook."
"No thanks. I've seen your fridge."
"You saw my fridge back when I was a cop. Now I got nothing going on in my life, I'm cooking every night. Protein, vegetables, amino acids. The whole thing."
Her lip curls a little. "Just watch the payphone, Fusco."
"Yeah, yeah." And then, with a painful note of hope in his voice, "You getting any calls?"
She hesitates. He doesn't think Shaw ever had a problem lying before now, but they're the only ones left so they try to be upfront about these things for each other’s sake. The lie she was going to tell clicks against the backs of her teeth.
"Sometimes," she admits.
"I thought that was over with."
"It's not."
"Still helping people?"
"Sometimes."
"Why am I not getting calls?"
"Like I said. You might be retired."
He exhales, bitter. "I’m not ready to hang it up."
"I know," she says. "Watch the payphone, Lionel."
"When you come back for the dog, then," he says. "I'll make you dinner then."
He says this instead of "Come back safe." Shaw knows this. Shaw doesn't like sappy scenes so she nods, appreciating it.
He wants her to know he won't go all mushy if she needs to talk. He thinks she knows. He thinks.
She doesn't want to say goodbye to Lee or the dog ("I hate goodbyes. You know that, Lionel.") so it's just the two of them when she climbs into her car (blue, beaten, Ohio plates, probably stolen but Lionel doesn't ask) and pulls out onto the gravel road. Lionel leans against a tree and doesn't wave, just watches until her dented fender rolls out of sight.
After a while, he goes out back to find Lee sitting on the dock beside Bear, who is soaked and gnawing on a wet branch as thick as Lionel's forearm. His paws are covered in mushy woodchips.
Lee jumps to his feet, shielding his eyes from the setting sun bouncing off the water. He's afraid still. "What's up?"
"Nothing big," Lionel says. "Sameen's gotta travel for a while and she needs us to watch Bear for her."
This is, Lionel can see, the best possible answer to that question. Lee lights up. "How long?"
"She's not sure. We'll see. You up for it?"
Lee's grin is his answer.
After dinner, Lionel sneaks Bear a small piece of fish and scratches his square head and steel-trap jaw, fur still slightly damp and spiky from the lake. "You gonna look after my boy?" he asks.
Bear whines and licks Lionel's fingers for the last trace of steelhead trout.
He cradles Bear's head in his hands.
Watch the payphone.
A job's a job.
When they pull up to the gas station, Lionel pauses, thinks a second. He turns to Lee and immediately catches an earful of Bear's tongue. The dog likes to stick his head and shoulders in between the front seats of their car and stand there, watching out the windshield, like he's in the prow of a ship.
After Lee's finished laughing at him and Fusco's finished wiping furiously at the dog spit on his ear, he asks, "Hey, you know how to fill a gas tank?"
"Kinda?" Lee says. "You put the thing in the thing."
"Sure, basically. Come on, you're gonna start driving next year, you might as well learn."
Lee scrambles out the passenger side.
Lionel sets him up - hits the cash button, selects the grade, pops the tank open - and lets Lee take it from there. Work to do.
The payphone is around the side of the building, blemished and cragged with graffiti and carvings. Probably nobody's used it in a long time. Probably nobody's had to.
He reaches for the black receiver and holds it to his ear for a second, waiting, fingertip poised over the chunky metal buttons. He hangs up.
He's not really sure what he's supposed to do.
Lionel lifts his head and starts in with a hobby he picked up the day Reese took him on the roof of the precinct and told him a thing or two: counting security cameras. There are always more than you think there will be, more than you want there to be. Gas stations usually have at least one, and it usually works, even if it’s a real podunk place like this.
He spots camera, awkwardly leaning out from the side of the building. Lionel moves himself into its path, eyes on the dark spot of the lens. He speaks softly but he makes sure his lips are moving, that they can be read.
“If you have something to say to me,” he says, “you better say it.”
The phone stays dead.
He leaves notice with the acne-scarred kid behind the register while he pays for the gas in cash. He left the pay phone number with a friend, he says, back before he moved, back before he had his current phone. He thinks that friend might try to reach him. If it rings, could this kid pick it up, take a message?
“Dude, I don’t even think that thing works.”
But Lionel slides him a $50 bill and they don’t say anything more about it.
Back in the car, Lee is craning around the passenger seat to scratch Bear’s ears, his shoes reeking of gasoline.
“You fill it up too high?” Lionel asks him as he puts his seatbelt on.
Lee nods. “Little bit.”
He pulls out slow, eyes on the dead payphone. “We’ll work on it.”