Chapter Text
“C’mon, work with me.”
She quirks an eyebrow, smiles a little around the flat rejection that falls from her lips. “I’m a prosecutor, not a detective. I win cases, I don’t solve them. That’s your job.” The perfect amount of emphasis on the ‘your’; a lifetime of fighting her battles before judge, jury and the American flag has taught her well.
“I think we could make a pretty good team.”
The laughter in her eyes dies. She bites her lip, looks away. She’s beautiful tonight, he thinks. Not that she isn’t always, but tonight is something special. Less buttoned up than usual. Hair in a messy updo, black dress exposing pale shoulders and throat. “None of this is legit, is it?”
“Legit?”
She laughs. “I mean, for god’s sake, you’re working fraud. A missing kid? That’s a whole different thing. That’s Major Crimes’ jurisdiction. Not yours, and certainly not mine.”
“Please.” He’s desperate.
She sees that he’s desperate. She reads it in his voice, in his eyes, in his posture. He’s an open book, and she’s a quick study. “Okay.”
And then they’re a team.
--
It starts one cold December day in a stuffy, melting hot courtroom. She’s fiery and brilliant, and the only reason he hasn’t yet fallen asleep in his chair. That, and the four coffees he’s had this morning.
The prosecutor isn’t new, but somehow he’s never really spoken to her before. Maybe because he’s so averse to court. She’s getting her point across, he can tell that much. The jury are listening eagerly - because she doesn’t sound so much like the other Harvard-educated prosecutors he knows. She uses turns of phrase and lets emotion bleed into her voice, such that she doesn’t sound as fake as all the rest. Of course, he knows that that too could be merely an act. These lawyers - they’re wily. Cunning. You can’t trust them as far as you can throw them - that’s a fact.
Still. He enjoys watching her.
Dark hair pulled up and away from her fair, angular face. Dark eyes that widen with passion, or outrage, or sympathy - always turned towards the jury, of course. He’d expect nothing less. The angry flush that rises on her cheeks when the judge denies an objection, or the triumph when he sustains it. If he so chose, Hopper could trace her jawline, down her neck, to her collarbone peeping out of her starched white shirt - but he won’t. He views all lawyers with a general sort of disdain, attractive or not.
Then it’s his turn.
He gives a summary account of the case, all very boring, all very mundane. Fraud isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, he’s noticed. But boring is good. Boring is safe.
Less boring is eye contact with her. It’s nearly the end of this trial, she knows she’s all but won. Her gaze is triumphant, but not arrogant. He gets the sense she’s appraising him just as much as he is her. She takes her time with the questioning, lets the full scale of her victory bleed through her very word. She’s enjoying this. (Maybe he is too.)
He can sense when she’s beginning to wind up. “In your opinion, who was more influential? Whose initiative was this scheme?”
The defense shoots to his feet. “Objection! Relevance?” He looks hopelessly to the judge, who shakes his head.
“I should think the relevance is obvious. Denied.”
The defense sinks back down and the prosecutor smiles slightly. “Please, Detective Hopper.”
“Blackwell, for sure. He’s in his fifties, Higgins is only sixteen. The kid was manipulated for sure. All the paperwork was in Blackwell’s apartment. We didn’t find any of it in Higgins’. Sure, Higgins ran the business, but he’s a minor. He was coerced and I’m pretty sure it felt like his only option.”
Her faint smile grows, and with it his impression that it’s reserved only for him. The jury doesn’t seem to notice, anyway. Nor does Blackwell himself, shifting uncomfortably beside his lawyer. Hopper holds her gaze.
“Objection! Speculation?”
The judge sighs. “Miss Horowitz, please clarify your questioning.”
The prosecutor’s smile dips only briefly. “What do you mean by ‘his only option’?”
“Well, he’s a troubled kid. History of foster homes and criminality from the age of ten. When you’re raised in that environment- well. I’m no expert, but I’ve seen it before. Good kids go to bad homes and then they feel like they have no option.”
“And Blackwell? Did he have an option?”
Hopper nods. “He’s been in the business thirty years. His finances check out, it’s not like the shop was in trouble. He had plenty of options before turning to crime.”
The smile plucks at the corners of red lips, widening until he’s sure everyone can see. God, she’s smug. Or maybe just right - because when the judge’s gavel falls, Blackwell has been sentenced and put away and Horowitz is gathering her things with the air of a champion.
Hopper steps over to her table, a little in awe, a little hostile still. Lawyers are slimy bastards. (Nevermind that this one is beautiful, and fiery. She’s still a lawyer.)
“Hey,” he says. She doesn’t pause in her packing up, though she spares him a brief, surprised glance.
“Yeah? What is it?”
He shrugs. “Nothing, I just- I haven’t seen you around, is all. And you’re goddamn good.”
Then she does pause. “Thanks,” she says, and is that a note of caution in her voice? “I- um, I haven’t been in the office for a while. My son- he’s been sick.”
“Oh, sorry. I hope he’s okay.” He means it, really he does. Not that he knows why he’s sticking around and talking to her in the first place.
“Yeah, uh-” She’s chewing on a nail, he notices. A nervous habit she didn’t once display when court was in session. “He’s okay now. Thanks.”
The conversation has clearly tailed off, since she’s glancing alternately at the door and her watch, so he steps back. “I guess I’ll see you in court sometime.”
“Yeah. Guess so.” He’s walking away when she spoke again - “And hey, nice work on your testimony.”
“Thanks,” he says, turning to look at her. She’s finished packing up and is walking down the other aisle, tripping along in heels that click on the floor. Maybe he shouldn’t look so long - but what the hell. She’s gorgeous.
Before he can stop himself, he’s hurrying to catch up with her. They’re in the corridor when she turns and looks at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Something else?”
“I-” He suddenly feels like a fool. “You doing anything tonight? You wanna, y’know, go out for a drink? Celebrate a successful case?”
She narrows her eyes, slender fingers toying with the strap of her satchel. Then to his surprise she smiles, and her whole face brightens with it. “Sure, why not. I can’t be out too late though. I got kids, remember?”
He smiles too. “Sure. I’ll have you home before your carriage turns into a pumpkin.”
Six o’clock - “You look like a redneck out of your uniform,” she says, as she drops into the barstool beside him.
He shrugs. He’d changed into jeans and a flannel shirt which, yeah, okay, is more rural than New York really called for. “What about you? You ever not dress like a senator?”
She quirks an eyebrow. “I haven’t had time to change. I was in the office ten minutes ago.”
“Another case?”
“You know I can’t discuss that,” she says, the edge of a smile in her voice. She signals to the bartender, and a moment later a tumbler of bourbon is placed on the bar in front of her.
“You a regular here, then?”
She nods. “You’re a detective, I’m sure you’ve worked out this is our equivalent of your cop bars.”
“Nearest decent joint to court. More than decent, judging by the price of the beer.” He takes another swig. “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”
“Why, for a cop you’re not very streetwise. Going out with a woman whose name you don’t know?” She smirks into her glass. “Joyce Horowitz. It was Byers, for a pretty shitty few years, but that asshole’s long gone.”
“Divorced?” She nods. “Me too.”
She studies him for a moment. “To shitty exes?” she says, raising her glass and her tone so it sounds more like a question.
“To shitty exes,” he repeats, clinking his drink against hers. “Jim Hopper,” he says after he’d taken a sip.
“Y’know, I was sure you’d turn out to be Homicide. Gruff guy like you, working antiques fraud cases? There something I need to know about?”
He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “I used to work Homicide. It got… a lot.” She bites her lip, clearly sensing the dip in tone, and with an effort he regains his smile. “So, you got kids?”
As he’d expected, her face brightens and the tension she’s been holding- well, pretty much all day- evaporates. “Yeah, two. Jonathan and Will. The only good things that came from my piece-of-shit ex. Jonathan’s sixteen, Will is twelve.”
“I guess work keeps you pretty busy, though. Must be tough not seeing them much.”
To his surprise, she bristles. “If you’re saying-”
“Hey, I’m not saying anything. I just know what it’s like, is all.”
“Oh? You have kids?” She still looks wary.
Again, he looks away. “Used to.” He isn’t gonna elaborate on that, not now. He’s had enough of sympathy leading women into bed with him. “So I get it.”
She’s chewing on a nail again, and he has the ridiculous urge to take her wrist and guide her hand away. But he doesn’t - he’s only one beer in. “Sorry,” she says. “It’s just- well- people look at me, single mom, working these long hours, bringing work home with me, and they tend to get judgy.”
“I’m sure your boys are great,” he says, as he signals for another beer, and quickly moves the conversation on. Moves it on so smoothly that three beers later they’re outside with his lips on her neck and they’re hailing a cab, pressed close to each other like it’s two in the morning instead of eight at night. “My place or yours?” he whispers into her hair.
“Yours,” she says breathlessly. They make it to his and then they have glorious, tipsy sex in his unmade bed. He takes great pleasure in the sight of her flushed, and undressed, and wanton in the light of his bedside lamp. The put-together prosecutor skillfully taken apart.
“You have any cigarettes?” she sighs as she sits up.
Wordlessly he hands her the pack from his bedside table and leans over to light it, enjoying the way the flame illuminates a bead of sweat on her neck. He takes one for himself and then they smoke in silence, the only sound the rush of New York traffic outside. “So that was-”
“Good,” she finishes, without looking at him.
“Yeah, I mean, y’know what they say- detectives and lawyers-”
“Pretty sure that’s prosecutors and defense,” she says, glancing at him with a faint smirk in the gloom. “Cops have nothing to do with it.”
“You sure about that?” He lets his hand wander up her leg under the covers.
She’s smiling, but she brushes him off. “I gotta go. Kids, remember? God, it’s nearly nine.”
He watches her dress with faint disappointment, though he can’t help but smirk at her newly dishevelled appearance. Her hair has come out of its neat updo and is long and tangled around her face and her lipstick is most definitely smudged. She’s nearly out the door when he remembers - “You not gonna give me your number?”
She looks back at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “No point. I’ll see you at the Christmas party, right?”
The Christmas party. Right.
--
He’s imbibing a litre of gritty coffee after a long night at his desk when the case is all but dropped in his lap. Bauman - a wiry, determined creep from CSU - perches unsolicited on his desk and, while cleaning his glasses on a rag that looks like it came from the gutter, says, “You know they’re shelving that kid who went missing.”
Slowly, Hopper looks up. “What kid?” Because this is New York. Missing kids are a dime a dozen.
“Jane Ives. Twelve, disappeared a couple months back? Well, they found her, but she couldn’t tell them anything about her captor. Nothing. And there were no forensics to be found - trust me, I looked.”
“So that’s it? The guy gets away with it?”
Bauman nods. “Jim, it was pretty fucking horrific. The kid was kept in a basement with no food for a week. She had to lick water off the walls.”
His stomach turns. Already, he’s making plans to snatch this case from inept hands and get some justice for this poor girl, which is no doubt what Bauman intended from the start. “Let’s skip the bullshit, huh? Give me the file.”
As if by magic, he produces the file from behind his back. “Be discreet, okay? You’re not a civilian but it’s still basically vigilantism. And you’re gonna need some legal help. They had a suspect, but with the lack of evidence on top of his sleazy goddamn lawyer they couldn’t pin him down.”
Hopper doesn’t respond, already immersed in the file. It’s thick enough to keep him occupied for a while, and just neutral enough that he knows Bauman is right. Even if he does find the guy - charge him, even - there’s no way he’d win in court. He’s gotta be smart about the evidence he gets, and put bluntly he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s looking for.
He knows a woman who would, though.
So, he chooses the Christmas party. It’s the following evening, two whole weeks before Christmas, hosted by lawyers for lawyers and cops alike. (If it was up to him they’d all have congregated in a bar and drank beer and played pool but he’s definitely not the classiest person on the force.) He turns up to the hotel an hour late with the file burning a hole under his jacket, still in his uniform because he’s too lazy to change. Besides, he wouldn’t fit in in a suit either, so it’s pointless anyway. May as well look like an idiot with minimal effort.
He clocks Joyce almost immediately. Sitting on a chaise sipping champagne in a dress that almost makes him forget why he’s here. But it doesn’t - not quite. He’s halfway over to her before he can change his mind. Sits down, shows her the file with a discreet glance around. This is all off-book. He tells her the facts, and knows instinctively it’s the kind of case she can’t say no to. Not as a mother. Not when Jane is the same age as Will.
“C’mon, work with me,” he finishes, sitting back and trying to look persuasive. He’s not sure what he’s gonna do if she says no. He’s not exactly friendly with any of the other prosecutors. Hell, he’s not sure he’s friendly with her. They went for a drink, once, and had sex, once, and now he’s asking her to put her job on the line.
But still. He likes to think the sex was good, at least.
“Y’know, you’re goddamn lucky,” she says to him outside, ten minutes after she’s agreed and led him outside for a smoke. It’s freezing, their breaths fogging in the night air, and the sky is heavy with the promise of snow. “I’m already busy. And this isn’t just a case, is it? You’re working this completely alone.”
“Not alone,” he reminds her, perhaps a little redundantly.
She laughs, the sound loud and unexpected. “You’re an ass, you know that? Let me get this clear. I’m not your partner. Like I said, I’m a prosecutor, not a detective. I can’t find your evidence for you.”
He shrugs. “Sure. I’m not asking you to.”
She raises an eyebrow as she drops her cigarette and steps on it, moving closer as she does. “I’m not your girlfriend either,” she says softly.
“I never said you were.” He doesn’t flinch, although her breath is ghosting over his cheek and she’s impossibly beautiful this cold, cold evening.
“Good. Just so we’re clear.” She steps back, and is it him or is there disappointment in her eyes? “What’s your number? I’ll look over the file and I’ll call you.”
He gives it to her, trying not to let his heart race when his phone pings with her text. “Maybe I’ll call you.”
“Maybe you’ll call me,” she allows, as she melts into the winter night and the first few flakes of snow begin to fall.
--