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The bottom of the cup stares back at him. There's something reassuring there, in the chipped ceramic and dry coffee rings. Creature of habit.
Her red sweater colors the edges of his vision. It’s the most striking thing in this place, if you ask him, followed by that natural glint in her eyes, so deer-like it’s bewitching. He hasn’t dared look up yet. Can’t bear to see the look on her face, can’t stomach the thought of disappointment waiting there. As if Saga had ever been the type to judge him like that.
Her order remains intact. Maybe it’s the hour. Or the worry.
Casey interlaces his fingers atop the wood, hands clasped, trying to keep that familiar edge at bay. “Thanks for coming, Anderson.”
Thanking her is the least he can do. He feels like a capital-a asshole for plucking her out of her home at this hour, for demanding her attention and giving her an unwanted piece of the mess that’s his life. He’s too old to be pulling this shit, for fuck’s sake.
Saga’s thorough in the way she goes over his face, looking for signs of something he isn't quite sure he can see in himself. She's always known him better than he even does. His load-bearing wall. How much can he lean in, though, before it collapses?
He wonders whether the ring on her finger holds any warmth. If he can borrow some of it.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Her hands cup around the drink, the cadence of her voice faltering. “I was thinking about you, anyway.”
It’s pitiful, the way she could so easily make his heart skip a beat. Sometimes he feels like she even does it on purpose.
“That so?” he asks, more roguish than he feels.
“Yeah,” Saga says softly, a wry smile touching her lips. “You’ve been quieter than usual the past few days. I figured you were either brooding over the case, or your ex-wife called again.”
Casey scoffs, though there’s no bite to it. “Just nightmares.”
She doesn’t push for details at first, which he’s thankful for. He always needs a minute to gather himself, try and discern the real ghosts from the fictional ones, hot topic these days.
Saga shifts in her seat, bringing a faint scent of vanilla toward him, sickeningly sweet. He would drown in it if he could. “What did you see this time?”
“The usual bullshit,” Casey mutters, rubbing his jaw where stubble has begun to prickle against his skin. He should shave soon. “Sorry for the trouble. I should’ve just called someone else.”
The weight of his own selfishness presses down on him. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, boundaries he has no right to disturb. But the way she looks at him, eyes brimming with an empathy that makes his chest ache, makes it impossible to turn away.
“I told you before we became partners, Casey. I’ve got your back.”
She reaches out across the table to graze his knuckles in a tentative gesture of support. To anyone else, it should’ve been an innocent act between friends. To him, though, it sets his nerves on fire, scorching brand where her fingertips rest. He turns his hand slightly, allowing their skin to touch just a bit more than necessary. Moth to the flame.
“You’re too good for this job, Anderson.”
This uncaring world didn’t deserve her rectitude, her honor. The first time Casey laid eyes on her, he thought the ugly parts of the job would eat at her faster than rust on iron could, prey amongst predators. He was wrong, in the end. How the tables had turned.
Saga looks down at her hands, expression darkening with something heavy. “Maybe.”
The vulnerability in her voice is a new note he hasn’t heard on her before. Saga, always so confident, unwavering in her resolve. It throws him off guard, unsure where to go next, but the pull toward her is magnetic, back on track.
“Everything okay at home?” he carefully asks. It’s a dangerous question, but it slips out anyway.
She takes a slow sip of her coffee for the first time since they’ve been here, as if stalling her response. When she finally looks up, there’s a weariness in her eyes that makes him want to reach across the table and pull her closer.
“David and I… we don’t talk much anymore. We’re just—uhm—waiting for the dust to settle.”
He’s familiar with the feeling. “I’m sorry.”
She gives him a small, sad smile. “Don’t be. I think we both knew where this was going. He’s staying at his brother’s place for the time being.” She pauses before adding. “It’s better that way.”
It hits like a sucker punch. He knows he should stay neutral, offer bullshit platitudes about give-and-take or, hell, even counseling—a waste of time, that last one—but there’s a selfish, rotten part of him that feels hope at her words. He should be ashamed.
“If you need anything,” Casey says, voice thick with the things he can’t say, “you know where to find me.”
He could be her lighthouse, her North Star, guiding in the same way she’s for him. For a fleeting moment, Casey wishes all their troubles would fade away. Marital. Bureaucracy. Just two people alone in a diner in the dead of night, their lives briefly intersecting.
Saga looks at him. “You’re a good man, Casey. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He wants to tell her that he thinks about her when he closes his eyes. Wants to tell her how much it hurts to stay disciplined and systematic. That every time she smiles at him every morning, followed by a warm cup of coffee with his name written on it, he forgets how to breathe. He wants to run away, her by his side, everything just a distant memory. For her, he’d try.
Instead, he just holds her gaze, letting silence speak for him in the only way he knows how. He’s a coward like that.
“So, yeah—uh,” she says at last, her voice careful. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re just… going through the motions?”
Hah.
“I did.” He quickly corrects himself. “I do.”
She nods to herself before looking back down at the table. “God, I just—I feel like I should've tried harder, or been better—"
His voice is firmer this time. “Anderson, stop.”
He reaches across the table, brave for once in his miserable life, and covers her hand with his own, fingers curling around hers with something that isn’t just friendly comfort, or at least he wants to think so.
Her wedding ring is warm beneath his palm. He was right.
“Trust me,” he says quietly. “None of this is on you.”
Saga pauses, turns her hand over in his, lacing their fingers together, something raw living behind her doe eyes. He can feel himself leaning toward it.
“I’m not sure I want to be alone anymore, Casey,” she admits softly.
He could die right then, crushed by the weight of all the guilt he’d ever earned and her tenderness, and he would still count himself lucky. He wants to say you don’t have to be. It's right there, hovering on the edge of his tongue. He thinks about her in her pajamas, without makeup on, the smell of her vanilla-scented shampoo when they’re sitting close together in the car. The memories make him ache.
With a slow slide of skin against skin, his thumb brushes lightly over her palm and then up toward her wrist, where the pulse is strongest, letting it linger there. It’s invasive—definitely inquisitive—but God, he needs to know. He really does.
“I don’t—” you do, “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he admits, bottomless pit under his feet. “But you deserve better than this, Saga.”
Her name tastes foreign in his mouth. It would be so easy to reach across and kiss her right there, right now. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, all he has to do is let go and fall into her.
Questions form in his mind that would change everything if he asked them out loud. What are we? What happens when you leave David?
But as he looks into her eyes, all the shame and caution comes crashing back down on him. She’s his partner, his married partner. If he does this—if he asks the question, or makes a move—there’s no going back to the way things were.
Casey knows who he is, where he stands. He can’t risk losing her because of a moment of weakness, can’t risk that guilt he’s all too familiar with bearing down on her shoulders, the one thing you don’t come back from. He knows from experience. If he stands near the edges of her light, all the ugly things he keeps buried would come out. He doesn’t need her to be more disappointed in him than she already is.
He slowly unwinds his fingers from hers and pulls his hand away, retreating into the safety of his own space. He clears his throat and forces himself to look at anything else but her eyes. There. Better that way.
“You should take some time off. Clear your head. I’ll cover for you at the office.”
It’s funny, in the way life’s absurd. He should take his own advice.
Saga blinks, her expression shifting from anticipation to something akin to disappointment. Self-fulfilling prophecy. In the end, she pulls back.
“Yeah,” she mutters, returning his gaze with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “That sounds like a good idea.”