i swear,
i'm only cryptic and machiavellian
cause I care.
Agent Lucy Byrne is damn good at her job. She's meticulous, she's cautious, she's stoic and she's so darn smart. But when case upon case begins to remind her more and more of a buried time...
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"DAVE, YOU GO TALK TO THE COMMISSIONER. MORGAN, YOU BREIF HOMELAND SECURITY. REID AND JJ, TALK TO THE PORT AUTHORITY POLICE. I'LL GO TALK TO THE MAYOR. KATE AND BYRNE, YOU'RE WITH ME. MEET BACK HERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE."
Kate and Byrne, you're with me.
Lucy could hear the echoes of Hotch's voice as she stared up at the stars. An echo of sirens, the ripple of flames. Glass glittered the floor and blood speckled her blouse. It felt like she was back there again, calling for Hotch, moaning in pain, thinking of Jasmine, Adrian, Eddie, Spencer.
She still found it difficult to make sense of it all.
She viewed the New York streets through the eyes of a Lucy three weeks younger than she is now, with her back on the concrete, her hand holding her stomach, always with an urgency she wouldn't understand if she were to stop and wonder about it. Because, what was she doing here?
She was looking for someone. Him. The haggling voice in the back of her mind informed her, always.
And then a face would hover before her, with abnormally distinct eyes—swirls of blue and brown, a unique combination—and that's all she could see behind the mask he cowered behind. His eyes, yes, she remembered them so clearly.
And then he would speak one sentence—'I'll never leave'—sounding like nothing less than a threat to her sanity, and then Lucy's eyes would flutter open and she would curse herself. Every time, she promises herself (and Marianne) that she would stay within that internal hell for just a second longer—to learn, to understand, to remember—and every time, she fails, waking in a fright.
LUCY BYRNE WAS ALWAYS FINE. To be honest—and though it sounds brutal—she never knew any other way. Perhaps in her childhood she had some previous memories she would've been glad to hold onto. But, as mentioned, Lucy's memory was an enemy of hers. Sometimes she envied Spencer and his ability to remember. Maybe then she'd remember a time where everything wasn't so dark. Maybe then she could be more than fine. She could even cross the border into happy.
And wouldn't that just be something.
"Hey, you're back already?" Emily asked as Lucy entered the bullpen that morning, her tone excited, yet undoubtedly surprised. "I thought you were taking a couple of weeks off."
Lucy glanced up from the text message from Theo she had been replying to, weakly shrugging her shoulders. "I was cleared to come back after two weeks. It takes an average person between seven to fourteen days to recover from a concussion, and my shoulder feels fine, mostly, so. . .I'm good. They suggested limiting my time on the field for a while but other than that I'm good to go. Plus, I was starting to lose my mind, cooped up at home."
And she believed the scars of New York would never heal over if it was all she could think about. A distraction was vital.
(Lucy was mildly aware of her unhealthy habit of scoping out distractions. It was her stubbornness that made her unable to regard them more seriously.)
