if the seas catch fire

Summary: Crossing Lines. Two years a team: this is what they have learned. Team. (S01/02) AU from the finale, companion piece to "take me home (in a blinding dream)". Complete in seven chapters.

Warning: AU, disregarding every character death of the season 2 finale. This is supposed to be the plot to "take me home", but I'm rubbish at setting up deep background plots, so be warned. Rated T for minor swearing (mostly Tommy being Tommy), violence, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Set: post-season 2 finale. (Shortly before / a few months after.)

Disclaimer: Standards apply. Title and poem by e. e. cummings, "dive for dreams"

i. Arabella Seeger

The one who convinces her to join the ICC team is not Tommy.

In the past, she mostly worked without a partner. It wasn't that she couldn't work with one. It was just that her partners seemed to leave after a short time, one transferred to a national squad, one left due to family reasons. Or they might have been injured in the line of duty. Sometimes, the names and faces blur together. Similarly, her superiors have come and gone; no one special enough for her to develop a closer relationship to. The last one of many, many tiny droplets that have hollowed her out is the one that lets Genovese escape. For his betrayal and cowardice, he is rewarded with silence. And Arabella thinks this cannot be it.

There must be more.

She devoted her life to a cause other people spit on. This, in itself, wouldn't be so bad – if the people looking down on her wouldn't have sworn the same oaths, hadn't pledged themselves to the same cause as her, as well. On a sunny afternoon in September, Arabella Seeger looks at her superior and knows she cannot do this anymore.

It is different with the ICC team.

They work together, here. Lieutenant Vittoria and Detective McConnell and former detective Hickman and Kommissar Burger. They work with each other, and for each other, and around each other like they never did anything else. They care for each other and protect each other and laugh together, even Hickman, who seemed like a veritable ice cube at first, dark and detached and uncaring. Tommy pushes them forward, Sebastian makes them laugh, Eva hovers protectively and Hickman defends them, and they blend together so seamlessly Arabella cannot help but wonder what had to happen in the first place for them to become this close. But then, maybe she's imagining things. Because one reason why they are there in the first place is the man that found them and brought them together.

Before Arabella joined the team, it was Tommy she liked best.

But he wasn't the reason why she joined them. He might have talked to her, might have encouraged her, might even have been the one to recommend her to Dorn. He might have been the only one of the team she knew better. But the one who made her want to stay was not Tommy but the Major. Louis Daniel, who, despite his injuries and scars, was unable to sit still, who drove out to the country to return two missing young girls to their parents. The one who watched, with quiet satisfaction, as the parents realized their children weren't dead. The man who talked to her without prejudice and about her past without judgement. The man who lived and breathed all the things Arabella had strove toward for her entire life, and, in a flash, the knowledge was there: this was a man she could work for. Wanted to work for. Louis Daniel was a man who understood. For that, her eternal loyalty was not too much to pay.

It is possibly the worst week of her life: Hickman decides to leave them, Eva disappears, Tommy is shot at in the middle of the street, he and Sebastian rush off to Spain for Eva as soon as they get the go, a band of crazily good, annoyingly-like-the-team criminals keeps them always a step behind them and the Major is shot by a mad psychologist.

No. Not again. Please.

When the emergency helicopter arrives at the farmhouse in the outskirts of Paris, the Major has long gone into shock. Arabella is close behind them, having disregarded every possible speed limit on the way. Hickman's call came in twenty minutes before that. He had gone to distract the psychologist, the former victim of the prison outbreak, and the Major had been on his way to pick him up after their plan to trap the jewel thieves went off successfully. Tommy and Sebastian had flown off to find Eva, who had left a few weeks earlier and had somehow run into trouble, which had left Arabella to drive back to the hotel by herself. It also meant she would probably be doing the whole paperwork by herself, but it was worth it. They'd caught a ring of dangerous criminals and they had stopped another robbery. And they had done so without casualties, seeing as Tommy's head really seemed to be made of granite.

The radio crackles.

Officer down in a farm house in Fontenay-Trésigny, requesting immediate medical assistance. Multiple gunshot wounds.

There is no reason. No reason at all to suspect this has anything to do with the ICC team, anything with the case they've been working on. None at all. But Arabella knows. (She probably heard Hickman mentioning the farm retreat the psychologist had withdrawn to, or Dorn had said it sometime.) She knows like she knows her own heartbeat.

She doesn't think she ever drove this fast before.

Hickman sits on the stairs to the farmhouse, still as a statue, and watches the EMTs hastily setting up the transport. He barely blinks. Amanda doesn't dare to meet his eyes.

"What happened?"

"She shot him when he walked in. Just pointed and shot. I wasn't quick enough."

Later, thinking back at this scene, she'll remember the hate in his voice, the abyss of guilt and self-loathing. She'll also remember that the report said he managed to wrestle the gun away from the murderer before the third shot was fired, despite his bad hand, despite everything. That he called the helicopter. She'll remember the report said the Major might not have survived without him, that Hickman's hand had to be treated and he, despite the pain, refused the painkillers he was offered. Right there, she only feels the coldness of the early fall night.

"Where are Tommy and Sebastian?"

"On their way to back up Eva."

The EMTs are loading the gurney with the Major's unconscious form into the helicopter. Lights flash through the night, red-white-blue, images flashing in and out like scenes of a shadow theatre. The rotor is making one hell of a racket. Hickman's hands and clothes are stained with blood.

"What did Dorn find out?"

He hasn't heard yet. Arabella remembers that he probably was on his way over from The Hague when they were briefed by the Major.

"Seems like her parents faked their death to go under. Burned dead bodies in their place, gave them the mother's jewelry and the father's golden teeth. That's what Eva ID'ed them with at that time."

Hickman's eyes are glued to the helicopter. "Her parents might not do anything to her, but I don't know about others. It could be a trap."

"The Major…" She swallows. "Tommy and Sebastian were told to keep in contact. They should be arriving in Spain in three hours."

It is the first time Hickman takes his eyes from the Major's unconscious form. He glances around as if he is searching for answers, as if they were written into the darkness somewhere around him. Of course, they are not. He breathes in deeply, hesitates, shakes his head minutely. Closes his eyes again. Breathes out again and turns to look at her, his grey eyes so dark she cannot distinguish between his pupils and his iris anymore.

"Can you stay with him, Arabella?"

She's never seen him this exhausted before.

"Of course."

"Keep me posted. About everything."

He is off before she can think straight. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"Back to The Hague, to talk to Dorn. If they're up against they might be up, they need all the backup they can get."

She can see his reluctance in every step that takes him away from his friend and superior, in the rigid slant of his shoulders, his balled fist. He leaves, nevertheless.

The Major is transported to the nearest hospital in Paris.

Arabella sits in the waiting area like a statue, barely breathing, while he is put through six hours of emergency surgery. They almost don't let her see him afterwards but she bullies her way through and into the ICU (if you try to stop me you will have to do so by force); he's white as a sheet and looks small and fragile and so completely different to the man she knows.

She focuses on the barely visible rise and fall of his chest and waits.

His wife arrives. Arabella leaves the room when she hears voices in the corridor. Rebecca Daniel barely acknowledges her, a fleeting handshake and she flies past her, eyes for nothing but for her husband. Reports come through, they've found the woman who shot him; she tried to run but was apprehended at the train station. Dorn is already on her; the bitch will be glad if she still remembers her name after the trial. For all she cares, the woman can drop dead right now. Arabella sits down on the uncomfortable chair in front of the ICU again and guards the entrance.

It's one of the longest days of her life.

The next evening – she has only left to go to the ladies' room, and to scarf down stale sandwiches from the cafeteria with some horrid coffee – Rebecca leaves the room for the first time. Her eyes are rimmed red and her face is haggard, but she looks composed. With her comes the surgeon, his white coat immaculate and his glance sympathetic.

"His condition is stable."

Hickman calls that same moment. Eva, Tommy and Sebastian are on their way back. He sounds even more tired than before, she guesses he didn't get any sleep, either.

"What about the Major?" His voice breaks halfway through the sentence.

"He's still unconscious. But the doctors say…" She takes a deep breath and feels her chest expand in what feels like the first time since she arrived at the crime scene.

"They say he will pull through."

Something clatters loudly at Hickman's end of the line, like a dropped cup or dish. She doesn't ask what happened.

"Stay with him."

"I will."

It is one of the longest and worst, and also one of the best, days of her life.

She is not the only one to whom Louis Daniel is important, that becomes evident over the course of the next days.

Sebastian, Eva and Tommy fly over directly from Spain. Eva has a nasty gash on her face and one arm in a sling. Tommy's head wound hasn't quite healed yet, either, and Sebastian looks like a ghost. They all look like they've taken it up with the mob (maybe they have) but they've come out alive and breathing, and that is what matters. The Major is still in an artificial coma. Hickman arrives some hours later. Nothing seems different with him, but when the others aren't watching she catches him looking at them. The mix of relief, worry and fondness is so obvious she has to turn away.

They stay at the hospital that night, all five of them.

They barely talk. Eva falls asleep and Tommy covers her with his jacket. He and Sebastian converse in low tones before they, too, fall silent. Arabella feels her eye lids drop. When she starts up, all the others are asleep except for Hickman. He watches them, his eyes soft, and she dozes off again, instinctively sensing the same that made her colleagues let down their guards, as well.

They're safe.

Two weeks pass in a blur. The Major is transferred to a hospital in The Hague. The bullpen greets them, quiet and familiar. It's like they've never been gone in the first place. But Eva sometimes starts for no reason, and Sebastian and Tommy watch her anxiously, as if she might break any moment. Dorn drops in and out, like a white specter that never really takes on a corporal state. The Major wakes up a few days into the third week, blinking awkwardly and then grunting in pain as his wife almost falls onto him.

Suddenly, they breathe more easily.

Arabella is supposed to deliver something to him some days later – he asked for some files from his desk – and almost walks in on him and Hickman talking.

She didn't know he was there.

"You're going back to the US."

Silence, and then: "I wanted to."

"You're not?" Even without seeing him, she can see the inquiring lift of one brow on the Major's face.

"I don't think it's right to leave now."

Something like a rasp, and she realizes the Major is chuckling. It sounds horrible, but it is a laugh.

"Carl, I'll be fine. You have to go. She is waiting."

"But-"

"I'll be fine, Carl. We'll be."

Arabella smiles.

Everyone says it's Hickman who's the one who cares the least. But he's not. Rather the opposite. He always cared for the team most, worried for them. Tried to protect them. And now, he's leaving them. It makes her sad, but she is happy for him, as well. He's given so much for the team: now it's his turn to receive. She'll make sure he doesn't need to worry for the others anymore.

She knocks, and enters when she hears the Major call out.

"Arabella." His face is white and gaunt, but his eyes are still blazing in the way she has known them to. "How are you? And the others?"

Arabella looks at Hickman quickly, but he avoids her eyes. She smiles at her boss, instead.

"We won't be fine until you are back. But we're getting there."

The Major actually chuckles. "That's good to hear. Until then, there are a few things I'd like you to do…"

Here is what Arabella Seeger has learned: sometimes, people grow close because one person brings them together.

(This team is worth protecting at all costs.)