Broken Glass
Dix pulled up in front of her building, and watched her rear view mirror with trepidation. There wasn't enough time to get out of her car and across the lawn to the unlocked gate that separated the condo's common area from the rest of the world. The car that had been tailing her since she stopped for groceries was already pulling up behind her, boxing her into her chosen space. She thought about putting the car in reverse and ramming the other vehicle, but she didn't really have the extra money to get her trunk fixed if she did that, and she had no idea if she had enough power to do any real damage to the other car. Plus she'd just have to come home again and deal with the fallout.
The headlights on the car behind her snapped off, shrouding the vehicle in darkness. Dix was at a loss - she could use her keys as a weapon, tucked between her knuckles, like her daddy had taught her to do when he found her hanging around at the docks, but that meant taking them out of the ignition, which would make her a sitting duck. But the way she'd so neatly pinned herself in between the little Honda in front of her and the big boxy domestic car in back - stupid, stupid, stupid. She knew better than that - so what if she'd have blocked a fire hydrant? At least she'd have been able to pull away in a hurry.
She heard the creak of a door, and shifted her wary gaze to the left door mirror. The silhouette of a man unfolded from the car, and paused as he turned to face the sidewalk. His hand went to his face in a familiar move, and then the other arm went up, and Dix knew even in the hazy cloak of night that he was folding his arms and shaking his head and chewing on his lip.
She turned off the ignition and threw her car door opened. "What the hell are you following me around that way for? You almost gave me a heart attack! I was seriously considering ways to gouge your eyes out!"
The arms flopped down. "This is a fire zone," was the only response.
"Yes, it's a fire zone," she snapped. "What are you even doing here?"
He seemed to shrink back a little, and she instantly regretted her harsh tone. "I was hoping... is that drink offer still available?"
"Of course it is, Kel," she said gently, and grabbed her bag from the floor of the car. "Come on," she said, walking over to his car. "Get back in. I'll sit with you while you find some better parking."
In the end, they wound up almost three blocks from her building, and that was by a stroke of luck as someone vacated a space just as they arrived. They walked back to her apartment in semi-companionable silence. She was bursting with questions, especially after his outburst earlier that afternoon, followed by his hour long disappearance, and his ultimately subdued behavior for the rest of the evening. But she held her tongue, believing he'd tell her all she wanted to know in his own good time.
They went from velvety darkness into the cheery yellow light that lined the condominium's labyrinthian outer halls. A few of Dix's neighbors walked the halls, either in from work, or on their way out for a night on the town. She greeted them as she passed, as always, but they didn't return their usual smiles and murmured salutations. Instead they stared at the man on her arm, and made no attempt whatsoever to hide their shock. Dix thought they were being rude and overly dramatic - yes, yes, he wasn't as put together as he usually was when he came to see her, but that was no reason to stare, and it was certainly no reason not to speak to her when she said hello. She wrinkled her nose at her neighbors sudden snobbishness, and marched to her door with her head held high.
It wasn't until she was inside the comfort of her own digs and holding the door open for her visitor that she realized just why her neighbors had been staring at him. It wasn't just his unshaven face, or his unruly hair, or the way his wrinkled clothes now seemed to sag on his usually hardy frame. There was an emptiness in his face, in his eyes. It was a look she'd seen many times on the job, though she'd never seen it once on a man with a beating heart. His eyes were glassed over, his mouth was slack, his skin was pale, and all the animation seemed to have been stripped from his body. He looked like a zombie.
She watched him shuffle into her apartment, then pick up speed as he made his way towards her brandy set tucked away on her breakfast bar. He overfilled the snifter, and drained it, still holding onto the brandy bottle, then poured himself another healthy glass before she could get the keys out of her front door. He was pouring a third helping by the time she got to him. "Stop it, Kelly. No more, not yet."
He let her take the bottle and glass from his hands, and stood at the bar, swaying. "Dixie," he said. He sounded so lost, like a little boy crying for his mama.
"Come on," she said, and led him to the couch. She pressed gently at his middle, and he folded up like a card table, and landed on the sofa with a soft grunt. She fingered his wild fluffy hair, before getting to her knees with a sad smile. "Let's get these shoes off, huh? Get you a little more comfortable."
"No, don't get too close," he said, slurring just a little. He made a halfassed attempt to pull his feet away from her hands. "Stink."
"Kel, I'm a nurse. I've smelled every horrible stench the human body is capable of." She grabbed one leg firmly and unlaced his shoe, and pulled it off. And yes, there was an odor, and yes, it was a little stronger than usual for the typically fastidious Kelly Brackett, but it wasn't anything worse than what her feet smelled like at the end of the day. She whipped the sock off, and pressed gently on the instep. He hissed and jumped a little, but she noted that he didn't try to pull away again. "See? Told you I could take it," she said, and freed his other foot.
"Masochist," he said, but he wiggled his toes and pressed down on her lap.
"Sadist," she grumbled. Then she laughed and began to rub his feet, concentrating on his high instep, and the pads of his toes. She worked in silence at first, trying to figure out how to get him to open up without sending him into another rage. But soon his legs grew heavy in her lap, and he began to hum softly, contentedly. "Are you feeling better," she asked, moving her hands up his legs a bit. She felt his legs go rigid almost instantly, and she stilled her hands, willing him to return to calm. "Kel?"
"I'm... I'm tired," he finally said.
She looked at his feet. They were hovering slightly above her lap, instead of resting deeply on her legs. "Try to relax, Kel," she said with a sad little smile. "It's okay, whatever it is." She looked up at him, and saw him staring over her head with that same glossy stare. "We've left it behind for now," she said, and tugged on his pants leg. "The door is locked, and it won't open again until we're ready. Relax. This is a safe place."
Still, he pulled away, and planted his bare feet on the floor, almost like he intended to stand. "Thanks for the drink, Dix. I should go now."
She swept an arm under his feet before he could really shift his weight, and watched face scrunch up in confusion when his legs flopped out. "You should keep your behind right where it is on that couch, and you should stop spouting nonsense when I ask you a simple question, that's what you should do." She ignored his feeble protests, got up and carried his shoes and socks away. She returned with a glass of water and shoved it in his hand. "Here. Work on this while I pull out some sheets."
"No, really Dix," he said, and spilled half the water all over himself, the sofa and the floor before he managed to get the cup on the coffee table. "I don't wanna put you out." He struggled to his feet again, and nearly toppled over onto her and the table.
She shoved him back down with more force than was strictly necessary, but her patience was wearing dangerously thin. "If you break something, I'm going to be very upset with you, Kel. Now sit down." She stared him down, until she was sure he wasn't going to try to get back to his feet again. Then she went to the back to pull out some linens to cover him with.
When she returned to the living room, he was still sitting where she'd shoved him, still staring off into some unseen abyss. Tears rolled freely down his cheeks, but they were his only signs of life. Alarmed, Dix tossed her bundle of sheets aside and went to his side. "Want to tell me about it?"
"I don't know what to do," he whispered.
She stroked his hair, and wiped away his tears with the back of her hand. "Need some advice?"
"Probably."
"Well, do you actually want some advice?" He sighed, and nodded. "I gotta know what's going on, then."
"I don't know how. I don't know where to begin."
"Try the beginning."
He shook his head emphatically. "That would take too long. Hell, I don't even know what the beginning is."
Dix's heart began to pound. "Okay, well, how about this. Why don't you tell me what the decision is that you're trying to make?"
He hesitated. "He... he wants me to post bail."
"Okay... what's wrong with that?"
Kel tore his gaze from the nothingness that held him rapt, and looked at Dix with wild, glittering eyes. "Everything."
She rubbed her forehead gingerly, and tried to formulate her next question with delicacy. "Did... did he hurt you?"
"Yes."
Her heart sank. "Where?"
He smiled a little. "Not physically."
She frowned at this. "Oh." She tried again. "Did he attack you?"
"No," he said, and this time his voice was flat and hard. "Nothing like that."
"But... you think he deserves this punishment."
"Yes," he said in that same flat tone.
Dix thought about Kel and Stan's vandalized home, and wondered how it fit into Kel's predicament. "Kel... remember when I said I went up to your place the other night?" He grit his teeth and nodded. "There were some really nasty things spray painted on the walls. I thought maybe the two of you had been... I don't know, that maybe the neighbors had gotten on to you, and weren't so thrilled about what they thought might be going on behind your closed doors."
Kel sighed. "Yes, I suppose that's one way of looking at it."
"But there's more?"
"Yes, and I don't - I can't talk about this. Not right now." He reached for the water, and drained the glass. "I'm not drunk enough for this conversation."
"I think that's part of the problem," Dixie said. "I think you might be too drunk for this conversation - who the heck fills up a brandy snifter, Kel?"
"Don't hassle me, Dix," he said, a little too sharply for her taste.
"Don't shout at me in the middle of my living room. This is my place, and I make the rules here."
"Well I'm trying to get the hell out of here, don't you worry!" He got up and tried to side step her, but he tangled his feet with the coffee table, and wound up sprawled on the floor, his nose just centimeters from the corner of the table.
Dix swallowed down several seaworthy oaths and knelt down to help him sit up against the couch. "Kel, you can't even make it to the front door in one piece. How the hell do you think you're gonna get to your car without getting killed?"
"I'll manage," he said, but he let his head loll heavily on the couch cushion.
"Mm-hm, I bet you don't even remember where you parked."
"In the red."
Dix stared at him, alarmed. "No," she said slowly. "We moved, remember?" She hadn't necessarily expected him to recall precisely where they'd parked, but she did expect him to at least remember that it wasn't by the hydrant. Could he really be that drunk from two (admittedly oversized) drinks?
His answer did nothing to set her at ease about his mental state. "Early morning," he said, and tried to crawl away in the other direction.
"Oh, no you don't. Come on," she said, and gathered him up as best she could, to haul him into the armchair instead. "I pulled out all these sheets, and my best comforter just for you. So you're gonna sit right here while I make up the sofa."
"Early morning," he said again, and struggled against imaginary bonds that kept him strapped to the chair. "My clothes."
"Okay, Kel, just relax," she said. Maybe he'd taken some kind of tranquilizer in the afternoon? He'd been awfully subdued after his initial outburst.
"In my room, my clothes."
"Uh-huh," she said absently. "Move your feet." She was absorbed by the physical task in front of her, and the mystery of his deep intoxication. He'd come in and left a few hours earlier than she'd been scheduled to - maybe he'd gotten a drink while he was waiting for her to come off shift?
"No, Dix, I need... my ties are in the hotel." He half lifted out of the chair again, and fell back like he'd taken a blow to the gut. "I need to get them," he said weakly.
She straightened up and looked at him like he was crazy - and she was half beginning to fear that maybe he was. "You want some advice? Sober up. Go to sleep. Worry about the rest - bail, clothes, ties, parking - worry about all that when the sun comes up."
His face crumpled, and for a moment she thought he might break down sobbing again, like he had in his office just a few days ago. But he held his tongue, and turned his face away from her. She took the hint, and went back to making a nest for him on her couch.
"Okay," she said quietly. "All finished. How about you get comfortable, and I'll make us some eggs for dinner?"
He didn't answer. She looked back down at him. He was staring at her bar - and it was clear this time that he wasn't staring into space, wasn't staring at some unseen point. He was looking right at her brandy bottle.
"Kelly," she said, and shook his shoulder. "You can have another glass after the eggs."
He looked up at her then. "I hate him."
She perched herself on the edge of the coffee table. "I'm sorry." She reached for his hand, hesitantly, but was encouraged when he wrapped his long, solid fingers around hers. "Maybe... maybe you should just let him stay in jail? I mean, he's a lawyer, he's got lawyer friends. Why should you shoulder all the responsibility of posting his bail? He can call on any number of people to help him, right?"
Kel shuddered. "I think... I think I might be responsible."
"You've lost me."
He turned her hand over in his, and began to trace the lines of her palm absently. "I've spent my whole life working to be the best doctor I could be."
"That's a fine goal," Dix said, "and I think it's one you've been pretty good at achieving."
He flashed a quick smile, but it fell in the blink of an eye. "I had a lot of opposition at home. My father wanted me to be a lawyer."
She knew he had a quarrelsome relationship with his father, though she didn't know the details. She'd always assumed it had to do with his choice of life companionship, but perhaps there'd been more to it. Still, she didn't understand what his father's disapproval had to do with Stanford's incarceration. "Well, part of growing up is breaking away from our parents expectations and desires for us. And I think you made an excellent choice, going your own path, instead of your father's."
Kel shuddered. "I always wanted him to be proud of me, you know?"
"Kel, you're the head of the emergency department in one of the nation's leading teaching hospitals. If he's not proud of you, we should probably send the paramedics over to be sure he's still breathing."
He chuckled a little, but he seemed determined to hang on to his anguish and self-reproach. "Oh, he likes to tell anybody he can about what I do for a living. That's water under the bridge now."
"Then what's the problem?"
He looked up at her with haunted eyes. "He was disappointed that I wasn't going to give him any grandsons."
"Nothing was going the way he planned, huh?"
"No." Kel laughed again, a slightly maniacal laugh. "But he took solace in the fact that I was determined to stay close to a law student. He said it was fate having a little joke at his expense, but he could take a joke."
Dix began to rub Kel's arms, trying to soothe away the hysteria bubbling through the cracks of his calm. "I'm sure he didn't mean for you to stay in a bad relationship, Kel."
He shook his head. "No, no, he didn't. He just... transferred all his hopes onto Stan. He'd stopped fighting me on med school because I was making it through without him, and because he could still pin his hopes and dreams on my man. And I could throw myself headlong into my own studies, so long as I kept my man." His voice cracked. "Dix... I don't know what to do!"
"Your father isn't going to hold it against you if you have to let Stan go, Kel!"
He shook his head emphatically. "I'm not worried about my dad."
She was thoroughly confused. "Then what, what?"
"Stan didn't care what I did for a living, so long as I was his-" Kel seemed to choke on his words, but he recovered swiftly and smoothly. "-his guy." He shuddered. "I could have been a garbage hauler, or a welder like my old man. I could have been a drug pushing pimp, or an ax murderer. I could have been a pill-popping layabout - as long as I was his."
"But you weren't?"
"No. I was at first, but... I gave myself to Rampart."
Dix stared at Kel like he was nuts. "But... this is what you worked for. The opportunities you have at Rampart are exactly the reasons you went into medicine, right?"
He nodded. "Sure. But I never meant to sell my soul for those opportunities, Dix. But I did. I did to Stan exactly what I did to my father. I've left them both behind. Only, my dad at least gets to pretend he's happy about the situation."
Dix pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes, as if she could squeeze out the coming migraine. "So... Stan did something stupid, and it's your fault because you have a job?"
"It sounds stupid, I know, but... if I had given our relationship half as much attention as I give the job, I can't help but think he wouldn't have..." He trailed off.
"But you don't want to bail him out."
"I don't want to send him the wrong message. It's not okay that he-" he broke off, and growled deep in his chest.
"What did he do? Did he attack someone? What?"
"He -" Kel clamped his mouth shut and gripped the cushions in both fists. "I don't-" His face began to turn red as he shook his head emphatically.
"Okay. Okay. Let's forget about it. So bailing him out sends the wrong message. I still don't see how you're supposed to be at fault here."
Kel huffed an angry sigh. "Look, he cheated on me, alright?"
Dix's mouth dropped open. "He what?"
Kel shugged. "He... he said he reminded him of me."
"So what?"
Kel shrugged. "That's what he told me. That, and I'm never around. It's funny. I thought he'd stopped caring about me, Dix. That's part of why I got so involved at work. But... what if it's the other way around? What if he didn't stop caring, but he didn't know how to compete?"
Dix shook her head and left Kel on the couch. "I have to make those eggs, because now I need a drink. Keep talking, I'm still listening."
"There's nothing else to tell, Dix. Now he's in the hospital because a bunch of convicts think he's- I don't even want to think it."
"But you are thinking it."
He sighed. "I'm not drunk enough for this shit."
"It's not possible to be drunk enough for this shit, Kel. Come on, see if you can make it over here to the plate without falling on your face."
He staggered to the bar, and planted himself next to the brandy bottle. He looked at it longingly, but he kept his hands in his lap until she served him a pile of hot scrambled eggs and toast. He poked at it, forced a couple of bites, and pushed the plate away. "He's afraid they'll try to kill him if he stays in there. He said he didn't know if he'd make it to his first hearing." He swiped angrily at the tears that began rolling down his cheeks. "And I'll bet his friends are all too embarrassed to help him out of his jam. They don't want the firm to be associated with..." He stabbed at the eggs and shoveled another bite of toast in his mouth.
"So basically, you're his last chance out of there." Dix finished making her own plate, and slid into the seat next to him. "That doesn't sound like a guy you should be feeling sorry for."
Kel grew still. "I think I hate him."
"You keep saying that. Why?"
"Because I think I love him," he said sadly.
Dix worked on her eggs, and pulled Kel's plate back to him. "Okay. Here's my advice." He looked at her with surprised hope. "You hate him, you love him. You want justice done, you don't want him hurt. Bail him out, and let him go."
"Let him go?"
"Yeah. Tell him you're breaking up with him, but this is his chance to do the right thing by any and everyone involved, whatever that means. You're bailing him out because you're a doctor - do no harm. You're just trying to save his life, as best you can. Whatever else happens, that's for him to deal with. And then you work on cleaning yourself up, Kel. You've worked long and hard, and sacrificed a lot to get where you are. Don't let that sacrifice go to waste."
He looked thoughtful for a long while. "Okay, Dixie. Thanks." Then he pulled back his plate, and began to eat.