SECOND CHANCE ➶ LETHAL WEAPON FOX (MARTIN RIGGS)

3. A LÁ MURTAUGH

[Murtaugh]: You wanna talk about it?
[Riggs]: We just did. Mind hittin' those lights for me?

Riggs forgets about the flowers. And as Dahlia watches the bluets wither away on the welcome desk at the hospital, he lays dead drunk on the floor of his trailer.

Three sharp raps on the door echo throughout the lonely motor home and the detective's curls toss up over his eyes as he sits up too fast. He makes a vain attempt to rub away an oncoming headache, and there are more loud knocks on the door.

"Alright, okay. I'm comin'."

He opens the door to bright sun, high tide, and Roger Murtaugh.

"You gonna let me in?"

"Rog, if I'd known it was you, I woulda cleaned up a bit." Martin grins, more light brown curls falling into his face. He steps back into the trailer and widens the door for his partner.

"What the hell were you up to last night?" Roger asks, looking around at the messy home: the broken glass on the floor, the open cabinets threatening to spill their measly contents,

"Nothin', just a li'l night-drinkin'." Martin takes one look at his partner's face and knows that the lie is as transparent as glass to him. "Alright, so I got hung up on Miranda," he says flatly. "So what? Happens all the time." He scrapes away a broken glass bottle with his shoe, and it rolls unevenly on its broken side to rest under a table. "Why you here anyways?"

"I came to check up on the mess everyone calls Martin Riggs." Roger arches his eyebrows knowingly. "How are you? I mean, really, how are you?"

"Roger." Martin rests his hands on his coworker's uneasy shoulders. "I'm fine, okay, man? You have gotta stop worryin' about me."

"No, no. Seems to me like you're about to blow up." Roger points a finger, laying it over Martin's heart. "You've got some kind of self-destruct button that someone pushed. You're like the freakin' Death Star, man."

They stare at each other for a moment. Martin's eyes harbor a noticeable uncertainty.

"C'mon." Roger smiles. "Let's clean this place up, and then you're having dinner with the Murtaughs."

Forty-two minutes later, Martin finds himself feeling underdressed as he sits to the right of the recently-home-from-work Trish Murtaugh.

"Aha," Roger says, coming out of the kitchen in a red Kiss the Cook apron and carrying a porcelain plate heaped with the main course. "Flounder a lá Murtaugh."

Roger Junior reaches up over the plate, but before he can touch the fish, his father slaps his hand away.

"Hands off, little man. No touching what's not on your plate."

"But it's about to be on my plate," the young boy says sarcastically.

"Not until our guest gets what he wants, RJ," Trish says, smiling knowingly at her son and, eventually, at her husband.

"But, baby, I thought you meant me!" Her husband says incredulously.

"Roger!" Her wide smile spreads farther. "Stop it. Sit down."

"So, Martin," Trish says, still smiling as Roger begrudgingly but dutifully hands his curly-haired partner the plate of flounder, "How's your leg getting on? We were worried about you!"

"Aw, Rog, you shouldn't've worried the missus," Martin says, grinning and passing the plate to the young RJ.

"I didn't," Roger mutters, fork and knife straight up in his hands, waiting to pierce into the unplaced fish.

"But don't worry 'bout me, Trish. I'm fine, really."

Trish eyes him suspiciously, noting the hints of worry and joy in his golden eyes. But nevertheless she receives the plate from her son as he jokingly passes it right over Roger.

The dinner passes on in reasonable equanimity as the four family members discuss their days individually, Martin occasionally waltzing into the conversation with a snarky reply, something Roger doesn't approve of, or a bold laugh.

"But Harper told me that Ava was seein' Johnny, and I'd seen her with Lukas," Riana says definitively, finishing an intriguing story of The Cheating Girlfriend At School. Roger's brows are raised, and Trish looks a bit worried about the people Riana hangs out with, but Martin says nothing.

"You lookin' like you got somethin' to say, M," RJ says to the unusually silent Riggs.

"Are you sure this is the one who got accepted to Princeton?" Roger asks his wife, pointing at their not-so-sagacious son.

"Roger," comes the hushed reprimand.

"He's right, though," Martin says, poking his plate absentmindedly with a toothpick. "I do got somethin' to say."

"Come on, you can tell us," Riana says, painfully trying to get wrapped up in whatever drama she feels he's going to talk about.

Martin looks up, toothpick resting on the plate. He looks uneasy and, frankly, a bit sad. But despite these things, he says it.

"I met someone. And I hate myself for it."