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It takes a minute for Liv to realize that water is soaking into her shoes. Even then she can't bring herself to move. The rain has drenched her clothes and her pale hair is plastered to her neck, water runs over her small hands and drips off her finger tips. A little water in her shoe can't hurt, stepping in puddles is a part of living in Seattle that she's used to.
The street she's on cuts through a cookie cutter neighborhood. Blue and white lights spiral out from police cruisers. A body lies face down on someone's front lawn as cops try to push spectators to go back into their homes.
"Liv?"
She would have jumped had she not instantly recognized the voice. She turns to look at Clive, who has managed to sneak up behind her without making a sound. Or maybe she just couldn't hear the sound of him approaching over the onslaught of rain and people shouting. Or maybe she hasn't been processing any sounds at all. It's hard to remember.
Clive breaks eye contact with her to look over her shoulder. His dark eyes flash quickly over the departed and to the sightseers, and then to the cops who seem to have forgotten that their primary witness has stepped away from the investigators and is now watching from the outskirts. Clive looks back at Liv, disbelief on his face, lips parted in a familiar gesture.
Liv expects question after question. Like why did she go after a suspect alone? Maybe a "are you crazy?" or a "couldn't you have let me know what you were up to?" She braces herself for it, braces herself to tell a watered downed version of what happened with all of the zombie parts carefully censored.
"Are you okay?" Clive asks, and his eyes search down her body quickly assessing for damage.
"I'm fine. Really." Except not really because she's never been confronted by a serial killer before, and she's never gone into fullblown zombie mode so quickly before, and she's never seen someone die right in front of her.
Clive’s eyes are back on hers. "He didn't-"
"No really, there's not even a scratch on me,” she says.
Clive doesn't sigh, but he lets out a breath that whooshes through the air and then he's back to looking over Liv's shoulder. Maybe if she could find it in herself to concentrate, to really focus, she could read him and figure out what he's thinking, but she still can't even take two steps to the left to get out of the puddle and Clive's never been an easy person to understand so it's probably all out of her reach at this point.
"They said he just charged at two officers and they shot him." It's a statement, but Clive is certainly working on a question.
Liv makes a motion to turn and look back towards the corpse, but manages to stop herself. "He had a gun," she offers.
Clive's eyes narrow slightly and rain drips off of his nose. "They said he was screaming."
Liv flinches and looks down at the puddle circling her feet. The toes of Clive's wingtips nearly breach the circumference. "Yeah, he was screaming about something," she says, and it's a half-truth. Truly, he was screaming about monsters, but Clive doesn't need to know that.
"They said you wouldn't let the EMTs take a look at you."
"I'm fine." Liv looks back up at him and can guess that he's about to drag her over to the ambulance so she lift her arms out to the side and stretches a bit to show that her body is in working order. "See? I'm fine. Plus, I would know if I wasn't. I'm a doctor," and she's honestly a little surprised that she managed to both move and talk at the same time. She swallows and waits a beat for the knowledge that she is actually safe and in one piece to sink in. She looks back at the ground and then takes a careful step out of the puddle.
"I should go home," she says, but Clive’s strong hand catches her arm and keeps her from darting away. If she were to look up at him what would she see? Concern? Worry? Caring?
Doubt?
Suspicion?
She spies a worm writhing on the wet pavement and she feels guilty like she felt guilty when she was eight years old and realized she couldn't save them all. She turns her head because she can register that Clive is speaking even if she isn't really hearing him. She hones in on the knot in his tie and his Adam’s apple and refuses to look any higher because she doesn't think she can handle making eye contact with him.
"Are you listening to me?" He asks, and his hand loosens as though he's realized he's been holding on to her for an unnatural amount of time.
"Yes," she lies.
Apparently he knows it's a lie though and he doesn't push the matter. He shakes his head and squeezes her arm a little tighter before letting go completely and then he makes his way down the street. She follows almost in perfect step next to him. She's used to his rhythm.
By the time they're in his car she's resolved to pull herself together and act normal. Unfortunately when he pulls a towel out of the backseat and hands it to her she doesn't know what normal looks like. She puts it up against her face, rubs it against her neck, and pats her hair dry and it feel like the entire process takes three hours. By the end she doesn't know what to do with the towel so she wraps it around her shoulders. Her clothes are still soaked and she’s still getting the passenger seat wet, but the towel can’t really fix all that.
It takes her a second to realize that the towel is kind gesture, and that there is no second towel so she goes to hand it to Clive. His eyes are fixated on some figure in the distance and he doesn’t seem to notice. She pushes the towel against his neck and swipes it quickly over his cheek until he grabs it from her.
He sighs and the towel drops into his lap.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asks. Liv can sense a sort of finality in it, and she allows herself to hope that it means the dedicated and hardworking Detective Babineaux is going to ignore the idiosyncrasies of the situation.
"Yeah," she says, "I'm fine."