Boston Blues - BLACKBIRD book 2

14. heartbeat

Aldana and Fred were shocked at Russell's news: they'd alerted the officers on the night shift and spread out to search the streets around the police station; they'd found Wood's son, still wearing his father's hoodie, hidden around the corner with a remote. He was waiting for the rest of the team to come back, especially Gillian, to blow up the whole station.

"Just in case, we're having Perkins search all your houses. We're heading to Reg's now. How is it going over there?"

"They're about to extract them."

The Rescue Team finished securing the wall and the ceiling, and one of them came with a big demolition maze. Fred signaled them to wait and went to the hole in the debris wall.

"Reg!"

Gillian and Brock were sitting on a broken column, ten yards away. She was on the debris wall's side.

"What is it, Fred?"

"You guys stay there! We're opening a hole in the wall to get you out!"

"What about the other bombs?"

"Neutralized! All three of them!"

"Next bender on me, hot shot!"

"Hell yeah!"

Brock shook his head. Now the worst was over, they couldn't help relapsing to their punk ways.

A thud against the wall echoed all over. While the Rescue Team hammered their way through to them, Gillian turned to Brock. She wanted to clear the air between them, and she knew she only had a few minutes left to do it.

In stark contrast with the way she'd just addressed Fred, she talked to Brock in a thoughtful, serious way that surprised him. But on second thought, she never addressed him like she did other people.

"Agent Brockner, about what you said... Why would I resent your profile? I mean, all you said is true, and you were sort of aggressive just to make me shut the hell up and give your ear a break. I can get that."

Oblivious to the thuds, Brock studied her: yet once more she really meant it.

When he didn't answer, but only held her eyes, Gillian shrugged. She could tell that particular scowl meant he was paying attention to her words, which always felt sort of awkward. But she had to say it. She didn't want him to keep such a wrong idea about her.

"And I would never resent you for saving my life."

Now he allowed himself a scoff.

She frowned, realizing he didn't believe her. "You know I can't die, Agent Brockner: I have a child," she said, two plus two.

Well, then you should try to be a little more careful, don't you think? He considered his odds to voice his mind without getting a black eye in exchange.

But before he did, she looked away, lowering her voice to add, "And if anybody was to save me, I'm glad it was you. 'Cause you're a good man."

Brock excelled at hiding his utter surprise and keeping a regular scowl. It wasn't only Gillian's trademark complete lack of vanity, which always allowed her to acknowledge other people's skills and experience. It was also that way she had to push him one step higher with a few, simple words. Leave aside that exquisite Blue Label and her words at the gala, prizing him in front of three-hundred VIP guests, and dedicating him no less than her medal for twenty years of exemplary service. Like November's "you make me think", this "you're a good man" was plain and honest, just stating a fact.

Ever since their paths had crossed, even before he was back in the field, she'd taken every chance to look up to him. And it was so... not odd, but strange. This bullet-proof faith in him, without even knowing him, never caring what anybody else thought or said about him. Even so, and Brock couldn't tell why even if his life depended on it, she was always on the defensive with him, armored up and ready to pick up a fight.

Gillian thought he still didn't believe her, and wondered what else she could say, when Fred's voice thundered across the ground floor, winning the Worst Timing of the Year Award.

"Reg! We're ready here!"

For some reason he wasn't about to explore for the next... let's say twenty years, Brock was actually more than fine with Fred's timing, and he stood up a little too quickly to help Gillian. When her hands rested on his forearms, she met his eyes and frowned, smiling at the same time.

It was only a heartbeat.

The longest heartbeat in history.

Holding her bright blue eyes, Brock had the dreadful feeling that she was seeing him from inside of her thousand layers of armor, right through his own thousand layers of armor.

And he wasn't used to feeling so exposed.

Especially to this woman with her worn jeans and her smartass mouth and her reckless stubbornness, and her sharp intelligence, and guts like many a man would envy, and her fear to let her weaknesses show, and a heart as ready to give it all as to hate. So willing to hug everybody, yet keeping him fiercely at two arm's length at all times, even through such a life-or-death situation. All of it while looking up to him and worrying over him at the same time. And just like he saw her now, so dreadfully clearer than ever before, he felt she was seeing him.

But Gillian wasn't reading him as Brock thought. If she had to word it, she would've said she was taking him in. Not a rational process, but rather acknowledging all of him, all he was, all he'd done for her, and mostly the effect he had on her and all it implied. And she decided to lock it all up under seven keys and throw them the hell away, because none of it made any sense. She couldn't be facing a man like Declan Brockner and feel like hugging him and kissing his hair, and thanking him yet again for the stupid fact of just being around.

But she did read that he was suddenly afraid of these eyes he himself had taught to look and see. And the worst of it all was that it only made her want to hug him tighter. Stupid bold caring man, with all the insanity we face every day, how could your shadows ever strike me as wrong? They only highlight that stupid big heart of yours, and the way you can't but stay true to what you believe in, and stand for it to the bitter end.

"Reg?" Fred sounded a bit concerned.

"Can we just get out of here?" Brock said.

And Gillian nodded, swallowing her most stupid giggle ever when he slid his arm around her waist. To help her hop up to the hole, of course. And still never only holding her up, but shielding her from whatever may come.