Work Text:
Mare is the only one to notice that Ned isn't in this morning. When she asks around the office, responses range from "Ned? What is that? I do not know anything called a 'Ned'" (Esmeralda) to "pretty sure I saw him, but maybe that was yesterday? Or last Friday?" (both Detrick and Adam) to "oh, your boyfriend's late? Should we call the cops? Should we take out ads? Should we invite Keith Morrison?" (Nicole, who remains bitter and wallowing in unresolved situationship issues with Detrick). When Travis offers to track Ned using high-tech, recently-declassified equipment ("not officially approved for the most dangerous game, but..."), she asks for a rain check.
Mare shrugs on her parka and heads back out into the bitter cold. Toledo's winters are usually, like the city itself, kind of prosaically picturesque and fairly tolerable, but this one has been brutal. She published a neat little investigation last week into the sorry state of the county's snow removal budget: it ran out of money just after Christmas and now it's February and three more storms have dumped a total of three feet of snow since.
Hardly anyone has bothered to shovel their sidewalks, despite municipal laws mandating that that be done within 24 hours. She and Adam wrote a puff piece about the staff in charge of enforcement down at City Hall; she wanted to follow up on some dark hints one lady kept dropping about kickbacks to a local salt concern, but Ned nixed that angle.
When she turns the key in the ignition, her stereo resumes blasting Liz Phair, startling her beyond all reason. She's still jittery with jangled nerves, even as she sings along and bangs her palms on the wheel, as she crawls along the route Ned usually takes to work.
She finds him about a block from the park, sitting slumped and disconsolate on a filthy snowbank. One tire is cradled in his lap, his winter beanie askew on his brow: a Pietà of the winter cyclist's hubris. He looks at her, eyes bleak and dark, as she pulls up.
"Don't say it," he says dully. His face is livid with cold, except for the tip of his nose, which is even redder than his hair.
Mare raises both hands. "I'm not."
"I crashed," he says, like it's a confession, but which is entirely unnecessary. He swipes the back of his mitten roughly across his runny nose.
"But your gear!" she says without thinking. His beloved gear! His mouth twists at that and she coughs an apology into her hand. "Never mind. Why didn't you call me? You should have called me."
"Lost my phone in the snow," he mumbles. He's still looking down at the fat tire in his lap. The pair of them cost, apparently, almost half of what she grosses in a week. He swore up and down that with these Fimbulwinter tires, and new shoe covers rated for Antarctica (they are not galoshes, first of all; second, there was not, he eventually admitted under her questioning, all that much cycling going on down there), and micro-coated snow fenders, he was more than prepared to continue biking into work every day.
She knew better, but that's hardly unusual. And now here they are.
"Ned," she says, then repeats herself until he looks up. His cheeks look hollow. "Are you hurt?"
He blinks, thinking that through. He might be concussed. "My poor bike."
Mare tries to gentle her tone, but doesn't have much luck. "Get in the car."
"All right," he replies. She gets out to take the tire and help him over the snow bank. His foot breaks the sharp crust of ice and sinks all the way through, and, stumbling, he bangs into her.
"Easy, tiger," she says, arm around his waist. He really is absurdly skinny for a guy close to forty. She walks him around to the passenger side and opens the door for him. When she tosses the tire into the back seat, he winces.
"Sorry," she says. "I know how much you love your gear."
Before she starts the car again, she leans close to check his pupils. Ned misunderstands and puckers up. His lips are so chapped, his cheek so cold. Mare kisses him and, with her free hand, turns up the heat all the way.
"We'll stop for cocoa," she tells him, pulling back. "Before work. Okay?"
Ned sighs, tipping his head back as she checks the road and pulls out. "You're the best."
"I know," Mare says and pats his knee.