20REPOST - Slightly tidied up and re-uploaded now I know how to do it! :D
This is crazy. I'm a fanfic *reader*, not a writer! Suffice it to say, I've been doing 'morning pages' (daily writing) for a couple of weeks and today, this is what came out, with some tweaking. I totally did not expect this! I used a randomly selected prompt, #327 from 500themes, on livejournal, if you're curious where the title's from.
I am a big fan of JillianCasey's Adagio, which is possibly my absolute favourite story on this site, and I acknowledge JillianCasey's wonderful work elucidating a really intriguing piece of Beckett's backstory in a believable way.
Let this be a gentle love letter from Royce to Beckett in Adagio's 'verse, and to farewell Mike Royce, because even though I ship Caskett hard, I LOVED him in Under the Gun, and his actions in 3x22 redeemed him and made him a big damn hero in my eyes...
Contains references to events in Season 3 episode 3 - Under the Gun.
I miss who we were.
You were one of a kind. Take the day you walked into the precinct. You made out like you knew it all, but I could see you were scared. Not some Upper East Side princess with a private school education and no heart for the job kinda scared. I mean really scared. After a while, I knew you were scared of what the job could mean for you and what it could do to you. I could see you wanted me to see someone who knew what it was to be on the job, who wasn't spooked by it; all I saw was someone that was frightened of all you could become. And I saw someone who could be anything, do anything, yet you chose this job. This life. And that made you amazing.
You'd lost someone close to you. I knew that as soon as I saw you. It was as clear as day that there was a space that you wanted the job to fill, questions you needed to be answered. But I knew you wouldn't get what you wanted by wearing a uniform, busting jaywalkers. You wouldn't get what you wanted until much later, when you were where you were destined to be, and you met the one you were destined to meet, the one who would be unafraid enough to go back to where you were afraid to go, because that way lay madness.
Sure, I tried to protect you, like a good training officer does. I hoped that to protect you would be enough to satisfy the needs that I had, because I knew the needs I had were unbecoming of a superior officer. You were better than that. You needed to get your training and move on. You needed to get where you needed to go. I couldn't stand in your way. I wanted to. I wouldn't.
The turning point. That day changed the game. The day you nearly took a bullet for me in the line of duty. Not even a through-and-through, just a graze. That day, the tables were turned. You were out of the woods and I was so relieved I hadn't lost you, I went to that cop bar in midtown and had a drink. I had several drinks. I couldn't see you because I couldn't take the guilt. You got the bullet. I got the Catholic guilt.
Three nights into your convalescence, you walked into the bar. Word was, you'd been so ornery the attending nurse couldn't wait to get rid of you. You walked into that cop bar wearing a red dress that showed me heaven, and a sling over your left arm. A purse over your right. You walked right up to me, stared me down, and ordered me to buy you a drink. Then another. Later, your soft hand crept around my waist, up my chest, curled around my neck, brought my face down to yours and you stole my heart clean away. Later still, I took you home, and you showed me a future I wanted, with desperation, but that could never be mine.
When I saw you again a few weeks ago, I saw what you'd become. A force of nature. Sure, I still called you 'kid', and you were my old partner, my trainee, my one-time lover. But the ties that bound you to me were all but gone. Oh, the spark was still there. You still worshipped a hero that you didn't know had feet of clay. But all you needed to do was wait a couple days, kid.
I'm sorry. You. You of all people, people I'd loved, people I didn't want to, never could, let go of. People I didn't want to disappoint. The choices I'd made didn't matter a damn to me until you walked back into my life and reminded me of the kind of person I was in your eyes.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
After the game was all over, and the uniformed officer pushed me down in back of the patrol car, when you looked at me that last time, that's when I knew it was all over. That person I was to you, dead. Gone. Finished. And that broke my heart.
I miss who we were.
I'd love to hear what you think of my modest effort. Thank you guys for being so inspiring!