KNOW, page 8
That would definitely be a devastating thing to learn. It was also pretty nasty of Martin, if so. He had to know Colin was a sensitive, caring person. It would be just as easy for Martin to influence someone else to tell him something, and —
Wait. Colin hadn't even been in yesterday, had he? I'd have to check. If he hadn't, the leak couldn't have come from him, at least not that one.
Jem would have to help me figure it all out. It looked like I knew what we'd be doing tomorrow.
Tonight, I took a cab home and fell asleep the moment my breath brushed the pillow.
#
My phone rang, bringing me to grumbling consciousness. It felt like I'd barely fallen asleep, but when I glanced at the time on my phone, it showed I'd been out for a good eight hours.
"Yep?" I said, trying not to yawn too loudly.
"Colin really needs me to answer some questions, and I would very much prefer if you were there." Jem's voice held a tightness I associated with him being uneasy, on edge. He often felt that way when forced to work without me. I didn't think Colin would pressure him to do so, but he clearly had been upset last night, and stewing for eight hours probably hadn't made him any calmer about the situation.
"Right. I'll shower and be there as quick as I can."
"Good." His voice grew warmer. "Hugh? I'll get you something to eat."
"Thanks. And coffee."
"Of course." His voice was even warmer now, as if he was smiling helplessly, as if he wanted to say something sappy and sweet.
"I'll see you soon," I said, and hung up. There was no way I could process boyfriend talk and still get ready in time to suit everybody. Maybe we could kiss later. And I really hoped that dating wouldn't be something we always had to fit into the margins of our lives.
I showered and got there quickly, despite having to take a cab once again. I left the stubble, deciding it made me look interesting rather than unkempt, and most of all, knowing how long it would take to get a decent shave when I was this tired, and without even having any coffee.
Jem was waiting for me at the front desk, and cast a quick look up and down my body, his eyes smiling. He held out a mug of coffee from the cafeteria.
"You're a lifesaver." I gulped.
We started towards the elevator, our steps matching. It was easy to fall into step with Jem; we'd had a lot of practice.
"We'll go right to Colin. He's very anxious," said Jem. He was holding a brown bag self-consciously. "It's a bagel and some fried fruit pies. I hope that's okay."
"Of course." I was starving; anything would've sounded good just now.
We made it to Colin's office without incident, and I sat down with my breakfast and made myself comfortable in one of the guest chairs. Colin cast me a slightly perturbed "What's he doing?" look, but he didn't question me as I began to eat.
He looked at me, then at Jem, and folded his hands. "So, I just ask questions and you tell me the odds," he said for confirmation.
"That's correct." Jem looked slightly more at ease than he'd sounded on the phone, but still a little wary. He didn't know Colin Gillis well, and he always got slightly uneasy answering questions for people he didn't know. He'd calm down once they got into it.
"Er, okay." Colin cast me another glance. I took a huge bite of fried apple pie and waved him to go ahead with a kind of "don't mind me" gesture.
Colin looked distressed; the lines on his face, especially between his eyes and around his mouth, seemed more pronounced than they had even just last night. "Okay." He folded his hands on his desk, looked down at them, and for a moment, he just breathed. "Okay," he repeated, nodding once, looking as though he was steeling himself for something painful. He looked up, his face a mask of pain he was ineffectual at concealing. "He was there to fool me, is that correct?"
Jem hesitated. "I'm not getting clear odds because I don't understand exactly what you mean. What do you mean by 'fool you'? Try re-wording it."
"You can't run odds for something you don't understand?"
Jem compressed his lips.
I swallowed the food I was chewing and answered for him quickly. "It's like asking if something's going to be red or blue, or if the magician is going to pick a card or not. It's not precise enough to do any good. What do you mean by 'fool you'? Do you mean he was there precisely because of you, and in what sense?"
"Well, yes." Colin blinked. "That's what I mean. Was he there because of me?"
"Yes," said Jem easily. "Over ninety percent odds. Very high."
"Okay. Was he using me to infiltrate the ESRB?"
Jem blinked as though he was surprised by what he was getting. "Less than ten percent. He wasn't there for that."
"What was he there for?" asked Colin, more to himself than us. "He comes across as — as a harmless neighbor and he's what, stalking me? It's outrageous. What do I have that he wants?"
Jem looked a bit confused; he was clearly trying to figure out how to run the odds on these questions. Colin wasn't very good at this, I decided.
"Here's an idea," I said. "He was there because he likes you. Because he has a crush on you."
"What? No." Colin blushed.
"Yes," said Jem, his voice ringing with pure certainty. "He — likes you." He looked as surprised by the answer as anyone else. He looked at me and then Colin. "Over eighty percent."
"That's high." I felt slightly smug that my guess had been right, and so quickly, too. My subconscious must've put it together in my sleep. Colin almost certainly hadn't been in here yesterday, so he wasn't the first to hear about us getting closer to finding Martin; that meant the leak was likely elsewhere, which also meant that Martin was getting close to Colin for other reasons. Add that to what he'd told me about having hopeless feelings for a guy he liked, and it was child's play. My only excuse for not putting it together last night was how tired I'd been; I was sticking with that.
"To be clear, you didn't know we were getting closer to finding him the other day, is that right?" I asked Colin.
"No, I was working with the disadvantaged youth," he said somewhat absently. He did lots of consultation work for organizations, trying to help find and recruit anyone with some kind of talent, especially in areas where the kids wouldn't already have access to a lot of screening.
"So, he was definitely there because he likes you," I said.
"Yes," said Jem again. We both looked at Colin. He seemed embarrassed and miserable, humiliated and ashamed.
"Well, I quite liked him, too, until I found out he was Martin."
"If you're the guy he has the crush on," I began.
"Yes," said Jem again, very certainly.
"Then he was probably desperate to find a way to get close to you without scaring you off. He clearly thinks he'd never have a chance with you, that it's hopeless to feel this way about you — but he still does."
Jem was nodding along, and we both watched Colin closely.
"Look, I think this is actually encouraging," I told him. "He's trying to be a better person. You're both attracted to each other. Maybe someday things will work out for you."
"You don't understand. He lied. By omission, if nothing else. He can literally control minds. He comes in here, tells us to erase files about him, and we do." He flung his hands up. "I'm supposed to pretend he's an ordinary man I can have an attraction for? Why do I always fall for the losers and assholes?" He looked really pissed off now, and possibly a bit too close to tears for comfort.
"Martin's not an asshole," I promised. "He uses more morality to guide his decisions than almost anyone else with that much power would. He's trying to improve even more. Now, if you don't want to date him, that's fine, but he's not a terrible person. He's trying to make good choices, and he's never controlled you into liking him — correct, Jem?"
"Correct," said Jem.
"And we all know he could have. He considers it hopeless to like you, he can't help liking you, and he refuses to take advantage of his abilities to make you like him back. But you do like him back, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way. He's a hot guy, you're a hot guy; maybe you have chemistry. Nothing has to come of it — but something could."
Jem cleared his throat faintly and moved a little, awkwardly trying to interject by raising one hand tentatively.
Colin and I looked at him and waited.
"You, uh, wouldn't have to use him," he said quietly. "I mean, if anything happened. You wouldn't have to spend your time convincing him to work with us. You could just leave work at work, and keep your home life separate."
"And you think they'd go for that?" said Colin sourly, looking closer to tears than ever. "Supposing you're both right, that we could — could work out." He had to clear his throat to continue. "There's no way they wouldn't hound us both half to death to get him involved with the ESRB."
"No," I said.
"No," said Jem.
"They're already giving up on the search for him. It's taken too much manpower, money, and risk. The security problems alone are astounding. They're close to dismantling the whole search; Upchurch has already more than half-promised that this branch is no longer going to be involved in the search, no matter what."
"And, er, you wouldn't have to tell anyone," said Jem softly. "If you dated, I mean. Don't bring him to work functions, and probably no one will recognize him anyway. It's not as though his image is going to be in wide circulation, despite Hugh's picture of him. It's only asking for trouble if we circulate his photo to everyone — it's another way of looking for him, and more security issues. No, I don't think you have to worry about it, at least at this branch. If you both agree to leave work out of it, you could...maybe...work out."
"Oh? What do the odds tell you?" said Colin, somewhat sarcastically. "That I have a great chance at a wonderful boyfriend, who just happens to be the strongest empath in the world?"
Jem hesitated, licked his lips, and sought out Colin's gaze hesitantly. "Do you really want me to run the odds? I don't — I don't think people should always run odds, when it comes to..." He glanced at me. "Relationships."
Colin glanced between us and blinked. "Oh. You two? I didn't know."
"We just decided to start dating," I said, catching Jem's glance and holding it, offering him as much silent reassurance as I could. I believed in our relationship, in the possibility of it. I didn't have to have odds for that.
"So, do you want me to..." began Jem hesitantly, still looking at me.
"No," said Colin quickly. "No, you're right. I need to think about the ethics of the situation, and what I truly want, and make up my mind — not rely on your powers."
"Of course," I agreed. "And we won't share what we know with anyone unless there's a damned good reason — like your life is in danger or something. As far as we're concerned, this is outside the bureau's purview. This is your personal business."
"That's correct," said Jem. "And, uh, if you want to know more..." He glanced back at the closed door. "Maybe it would be best to ask outside of work hours."
"Oh. Okay," said Colin, seeming to realize the justice of this. We were talking about his relationship on the clock, instead of working — and it could certainly be construed as conspiring to hide things from the agency if we continued to talk about this without telling anyone what we were getting.
Jem was already rising. On impulse, he thrust a hand out across the desk. Colin accepted it and shook it, rather gently, a kinder expression crossing his previously stressed-out features. "Thank you," he said.
Jem jerked his head in an awkward little nod, then headed towards the door, looking at me to see if I was following. I held up my less clean hands and said to Colin, "I won't shake your hand just now, if you don't mind. Let us know if you need anything else."
"Of course. And thank you both. Thank you."
We headed out. There was always lots of work to be done after Jem had been away for a while: questions to answer, things to follow up on, and probably another case for us to go and track down someone in need.
I wondered what Colin would decide about dating Martin, and if that would work out. I chose not to ask Jem. I'd rather wait and see, and they deserved that privacy, even from us.
Jem cast me a proud little smile as we headed off to get busy. Then he glanced down at my hands. "Maybe you should clean up."
"I was going to." I reached for him as if to wipe my hands on his shirt, and he squeaked and slipped away from me, grinning.
Ah, the joys of teasing Jem!
#
I was pretty busy the rest of the day writing up the details of the case, such as they were. Most of it amounted to, "Then I followed Jem's lead." I had started the day feeling damned proud of what we had accomplished together, but by the time I got off work, I was fighting a headache, typing fatigue, and discouragement.
Between Martin and Jem, they'd covered most of it. I might as well have been a useless tagalong — except for the fact that Jem did rely on me to follow procedure, make him feel safe, and actually listen to him. Aside from that, he probably could've worked with anyone and gotten results just as good.
But the thing was, for all his stubborn fierceness, he could be a bit fragile, as I well knew. We communicated because I knew damned well I had to listen to him and not override him about anything important. So, no, he couldn't have actually worked as well with just anyone.
I was telling myself these things to try to cheer up when I headed out of my office and walked towards the elevator to go home. Still worn out from everything, I was unusually tired and didn't think it would be a good thing to try to wine and dine Jem. I'd call him from my place.
As I reached the elevator, who should step out but my new boyfriend, in the flesh. He was carefully balancing a box of artisanal pizza and had a hopeful smile on his face. When he saw me, it died slowly.
"Oh," he said awkwardly. "Of course. It's — it's been a long day. Of course, you should go."
I didn't feel as tired, though, at the sight of him. My discouragement bled away with the smell of pizza, and the look of him, so cute and fresh, even after a long day of answering questions around the department. He was still looking bright and chipper.
"I am pretty hungry." I opened my arms. "C'mere."
He hesitated long enough to look convincing. "I'm carrying pizza," he protested halfheartedly.
"Put it on my desk. That was very thoughtful of you."
He gave a tiny, pleased nod, as if to say, Yes, I'm glad you noticed. "I went halfway downtown to get it," he said conversationally. All by myself."
He eased past me awkwardly, because I didn't leave him much room. His smile revealed dimples. I hadn't seen him smile often enough to be used to that; it still surprised me. Dimples!
I watched with hooded eyes as he put the pizza box on my desk, then moved it so the edges lined up exactly with one corner of the desk. He turned to me and gave me a slightly too bright and innocent smile. "Shall we eat here, then?"
I pulled him to me and caught him in a tight embrace, just holding on to him, feeling the size and strength of him against me — the warmth, the comfort of holding him, of him actually being here. I breathed him in, closing my eyes. At first, he seemed rather awkward in the hug — not opposed to it, just not certain what to do. But then he put his arms around me in return, rather tentatively hugging me back, as if unsure how engaged he was allowed to be, and how much he was just supposed to stand there and take it. After a moment passed, I felt his muscles loosening, felt him relaxing against me, and the way he gave a tiny sigh and nestled closer...
When we drew apart, I was smiling, too, and my long day seemed a whole lot better with an ending like this. "Here, there, wherever," I told him, gazing at him. Thank you." Then I gave him a kiss, and he returned it, decorously, sweetly, revealing his dimples again as we drew apart.
I moved to the pizza and opened the box to reveal delicious sights to match the delicious odors. Vegetable-topped deep dish, with extra cheese and mushrooms. He'd gone all out.
"Man, you got my favorite. I didn't even know you knew this!" I ripped a piece out and took a pungent, heavenly bite. The crust was just right, and it was still hot. I closed my eyes as I chewed, aware that Jem was still watching me, but unable to keep the stupid grin off my face, to pretend to be cool about this.
"I always know what you like," he told me quietly. "I keep track."
I laughed, because that sounded like a joke or something, but when I opened my eyes, he was looking at me seriously, almost owlishly.
"I hope I'll be a good boyfriend to you," he said. "I'll certainly try."
"Jem, we'll both try," I promised. "And you already are a good boyfriend. Don't put pressure on yourself, okay?"
He nodded, but I wasn't sure if he meant it. He helped himself almost daintily to his own piece and began to nibble at it, crust first, picking off bits of mushroom as he went. "I'm not a fan," he said, grinning at me as he caught me looking, and almost daring me to say anything about it.
"Then it's even more of a gift that you got my favorite."
He shrugged, his face turning slightly blush-stained. "It's no big deal."
He was delightful.
"Better watch it — I'll get used to being spoiled."
He shrugged again and compressed his lips, as if not certain what to say.
I watched him for a moment, then grew serious. "Jem, the way you weren't going to run the odds for Martin and Colin, unless they ask specially — is that how we're going to approach this?"
He looked at me quickly, with a guilty little start. "I can't help running them sometimes, you know," he said quietly.
"I know." But I didn't want us to start off knowing everything, either — sitting down and brainstorming questions about every single contingency that could affect us. Will we be together for long? Forever? Which one of us will die first? Will we get married? Adopt? Have a horrible fight and break up?
