Chapter Text
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At sundown Sonny found himself sitting in the Testarossa overlooking the Fenholloway River just off Old Mill Road. It was a wide spot in the narrow waterway where locals could drag a john-boat into the deeps. A rough landing took advantage of the bend there. The plank and pier dock was used to access a launched boat or to fish off of when you didn’t have such a luxury.
Overlooking his childhood sanctuary, Sonny thought the dock looked incredibly small – its location exposed from every side. He remembered feeling safe sitting on the rough planks, his feet inches from the water, watching the nighthawks swoop down upon the insects rising off the river in the evening air. Their purring dives would follow him under flickering streetlights as he made his way home to either silent brooding and blaring TV or howling voices, tears, and hard decisions about intervention.
Who could he be that would defuse the bomb-de-jure. Bringing home fish was a good distraction because they had to be cleaned and either his father or his brother would stop fighting to help. Batting the softball into the side of the house would stop his father long enough to allow either his mother or brother to escape the war zone. Being the good student made his mother stop crying, being the storyteller made his father laugh, and being a helpless kid made his brother step-up as protector.
Sometimes, if he could make his father laugh, the mood in the family would swing to something like happiness. Sometimes, when they went fishing and caught the limit, bringing a stringer of bluegills home to be cleaned and fried – the four of them would sit at the kitchen table, stuffing themselves with fresh fish, potato salad, pie and sweet tea. Those were the best nights. Those were quiet and peaceful and rare.
Sonny had always been many things to many people. The people in the house beside the pecan grove taught him everything he needed to know about surviving in a harsh world. When the scene changed – he rolled with the punches and put on a new personality like a Versace suit.
There was a reason he was good at his job, a reason for living as an undercover cop for 10 years. His ability to play his part, be someone else – the football hero, the bright kid from across the tracks, the good ol boy with more charm than brain – he’d hid that way in Perry throughout his entire childhood. Walking the line between his mother and father, between everybody’s expectations in the little town, between Coaches and Drill Instructors, between OCB and IAB was a minute by minute performance from his lifelong playbook.
He was Sonny Crockett — James 'Sonny' Crockett — masquerading as Sonny Burnett or Sonny Bates or Sonny Who-ever. Fractured into personalities that lived lives vastly different from him. How long would it be before the fissures within him cracked wide open?
The Shadow, Christine Slaughter… even Rodney Lowell had cracked somewhere along the road; the imperceptible fissures in personality leading to terror and death. They had hidden in plain sight until time and pressure broke them. Split open for all to see, the people around them realized that they had been damaged all along and were now dangerous. They were thought to be someone known, until their shells shattered, revealing they were gruesome strangers, capable of the unthinkable.
They couldn’t tell why they were the way they were, anymore than anyone could predict if the Braves would win the World Series. Hell, the Shadow couldn’t (or wouldn’t) recall where he was from, who he was, or how he was made. Neither could Christine – who Crockett still thought of as a weird little dusty-haired girl that killed cats. All of them had parents tied up in their own dramas. All of them lived lives tinged in violence and uncertainty.
That failing was the only common evidence that pointed to their tragic ends.
When the cellphone on the Ferrari’s console rang, Crockett jumped.
“Yes.” His voice was a deep growl from disuse and annoyance.
“Hey, partner,” a mellow New York accent replied, “whatcha doing? Is this a bad time?”
The rush of cool relief pouring through Sonny was palpable. Rico. At the exact moment of too much hollow reflection and doubt – Ricardo Tubbs had found him. Again.
“Say, pal,” Crockett felt the tension of over-analysis ebb away. “What are you up to? No, this is a great time. Something up? You need me back?”
“No. No… are you still up in Perry?” Rico’s voice changed to a clipped business query. In the background he could hear Rick Monahan bitching around his ever present cigar. Tubbs was calling from their desks at OCB.
“Uh… yeah. ” Crockett started the car without thinking, rolling up the windows and flicking on air conditioning.
“Lani Mueller… you remember the little mercenary trust-fund psycho who tried to kill us last year?” Tubbs chuckled at his description. “She’s being transferred to Federal Correction in Tallahassee on Monday. US Marshal’s are looking for a ride along on the flight. I thought, maybe … I’d volunteer. If you come pick me up after we drop her off, it’d be one less airfare for the county.”
Six hours away and Tubbs was still finding ways to help. His offer to come to Perry with Sonny had been tender mercy. Everyone was concerned with Crockett’s reaction to The Shadow – he had gone too far and they were all worried. Especially Rico, who, for some reason could see straight through him to the crumbling scheme that kept him together.
He’d gone too far and now there was a split. Tubbs felt it. Saw it. He had been trying to guide Sonny back since the first sleepless night and the pleading outburst outside the diner. Castillo saw it and offered an open hand the morning he found Sonny having a bourbon breakfast.
There was a crack in the smooth shell of personality – a hairline opening. The look in Rico’s eyes, the growling advice in Castillo’s voice were warnings. Crockett needed to get a grip while there was still time; while he was still strong enough to lift himself out of it and heal.
“Tubbs… man… that would be great. I’d appreciate the company. What time do you get there?”
Already, his brain was shifting gears – packing bags, paying the bill, calculating when to leave in time to be in Tallahassee, and what route they would travel home. Home. To Miami. Home to a life fractured by choice – not unveiled trauma. Home – to help when he could. How he could. When he was allowed. When someone called, needing him.
Candy James had died two days before with his number in her pocket. If she had called – from the backroom of some convenience store while her murdering husband was filling the car – Crockett would have been there. He would have gone to her. He would have given her a way out. But … she didn’t pick up that phone.
Candy chose to stay, like his mother had, in an abusive relationship. And, that, in and of itself, wasn’t her fault… it was never that simple.
Domestic violence was always a disaster of complexity that created chaos in innocent lives. It had killed Candy James Lowell. It killed Francine Doyle Crockett. Sonny would have wagered it was the cause of Christine Slaughter's and The Shadow’s insanity and their crimes. Crimes that corrupted other lives – innocent lives. It was like social kudzu, taking over everything and everyone until the landscape was unrecognizable and you couldn’t tell where it all started.
Violence didn’t always breed violence, but it did always – always – always leave scars that changed lives. Once begun, there was no way to balance the scales. They all had to learn to live with the consequences of other people’s faults.
“Did you find what you needed to up there?” Rico’s voice warmed as he dropped the office pretense.
Hanging on to the phone in his hand, listening to his best friend switch gears from business to gentle concern, Sonny smiled. There had been a bond between them since the first punches were thrown. At first he’d thought the New Yorker was nothing more than – what his father’s would have said – a city-slick sucker, but Ricardo proved him wrong every day.
“Yeah, Rico. I’ll tell ya about it on our way home.” If they had been face to face, Crockett would have grabbed Tubbs in a line-backer’s hug. He might have even kissed him.
On their way back to Miami, Sonny would tell Rico everything: the dreams, the nightmares, the mystery of loving two people who couldn’t love each other, and why he hated pecan pie. He would tell his partner about the childhood mentors and friends that stuck by him to this day and how grateful he was to have people he could count on when he felt fractured and miserable.
Maybe, by the time they hit Dade county, the cracks that made him uneasy would be skinned over. If he were careful, and with the help of the friends he depended upon, he would be strong enough to step back into the chaos without breaking.
el fin