DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CLOSER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS - I'M JUST PLAYING WITH THEM.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is a gapfiller for 'Elysian Fields' - the episode that has freaked me out more than any other. It's a small moment between colleagues, but I hope I've got them both in character. Feedback always welcome.

Nemesis

And those that have three times kept to their oaths,

Keeping their souls clean and pure,

Never letting their hearts be defiled by the taint

Of evil and injustice,

And barbaric venality,

They are led by Zeus to the end:

To the palace of Kronos

-Pindar

At night, when the Murder Room is emptied of its inhabitants and the lights are turned off and the monitors put to sleep, the darkness that follows, there outside her office, can take on two different personae. Sometimes, most of the time, it is comforting: a lull between storms, something expectant. The other times it is something alive, something with its own sinister intentions waiting beyond her glass walls.

It is one of those nights.

It has been one of those nights for a long time and she doesn't know how many more of them she can take. It is a question without an answer and those are the worst kind.

There will be darkness in her home, too, she thinks; but Fritz will have left a light on for her, so that she can find her way. He will be home, probably asleep by now and the part of her that longs to join him there is stopped by the part that holds her here. The part that keeps the jumble of names and faces swirling together until she can't tell them apart any more. All the ones she's put away and all the ones that have got away and the ones who have been like her and been driven mad by it and JoeOlinBillCroelickPhilipStroh...

She needs the taste, the rush of sugar, the thing to take her to that other place where none of this exists; and her hand moves to open the drawer but then stops because she remembers the mixture of pleasure and pain she's keeping in there now and she can't see his face again, not now, not tonight.

It is enough. Every part of her agrees on that now. She has to leave, even if not to go home at least to get out. She collects her belongings, heaves the bag that is her lifeline onto her shoulder, settling the weight and flicks off the lamp on her desk.

Out of her office door and she almost collides with a figure in the semi-darkness. Fear pounds through, the thought that here, now, the nightmare will come true. But then she knows the figure, the voice when she hears it, the light from the hallway beyond catching the silver in his hair.

'Oh, for heaven's sakes!'

'Sorry, Chief; I didn't mean to scare you.'

'You didn't.'

Flynn looks at her, silent, those eyes that notice so much moving to the fingers that have grasped the strap of her bag so tightly the knuckles show white, then back to her face. He takes a step back, giving her a little more space than she actually needs.

'I thought you'd have gone home by now,' she says and she sounds accusing.

He pulls in a breath, deep. 'I put the tape into evidence. And I saw Joey through Booking.' There's a hard edge to his voice; he looks terribly tired, when she studies him, drained; the skin seems stretched over the bones of his face. He looks the way she feels and thinks that maybe that's how she looks too. And she thinks about home, and sleep, and the consolation of her husband's arms and wonders who, if anyone, Flynn goes home to on nights like this.

'The D.A. might make a deal,' she says, vainly, searching for the words that will fix him. 'Like you said, a lot of people will probably think it was justice...'

'Maybe.' He is quiet, knocks the back of his hand against a pencil lying on his desk and watches it roll across the surface. 'I don't understand,' he says suddenly, his eyes on her. 'If he'd just shot the sonofabitch, then maybe- There are cases from five, ten years back, more, God knows, that still keep me awake nights; guys I know are guilty on the streets and not a damn thing we can do about it- It isn't just what he did, it's the way he did it. I don't know how he could do that. Joey was always one of the good guys.'

History is like hell, she thinks - filled with people who have done all the wrong things, the worst things, for all the best reasons.

'Haven't you ever been tempted?' It comes out before she's thought about it but it seems safe to ask, now when they can't quite see each other; she questions that assumption as soon as she makes it.

The silence waits in the shadows and he answers when she's stopped expecting him to.

'The number of scumbags we've had to let go that would be better off dead- I could give you a list longer than the phonebook. Doing the world a favour by getting rid of them, or fixing the evidence so they aren't turned loose to begin with, that would be easy. We all know it. But we don't do it.'

This is where they came in, she thinks; and it seems so long ago now. One moment of trust that he's repaid a thousand times over. Bill Croelick's face, with its bright blank eyes and terrifying smile, swims across her vision. She slams down the shutters, blocking it out.

'Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Lieutenant. Goodnight.' She walks past him.

'Chief.'

She turns back and he's still standing where he was, hands in his pockets and his head tilted back. She can't see his eyes, just the dark shadows around them.

'If you're ever thinking about putting a bullet through Stroh's head one night, give me a call first. I'll talk you out of it.'

Her lips move wordlessly and his shoulders rise, fall. Lightly.

'You've had his picture on your desk for months and you've got Gabriel going through the old case files. It's not like it's a secret.'

For a moment there is a roaring sound and numbness and then she pulls back, straightens, and her lips are forced into something like a smile but not quite. 'That will not be necessary, Lieutenant, thank-you.'

'Chief.' Quieter this time; and when she turns back again he's taken a step forward. 'Promise me. I don't think I can go through this again.'

Light slashes across his face; he looks strangely young and old at the same time. Under all of that cynicism there is decency, and honesty that runs through him like metal ore through rock.

'I promise.'

He watches her for a moment then nods almost imperceptibly.

'You should go home,' she says and he nods again.

'I have a few things to finish up first. Goodnight, Chief.'

'Goodnight.'

As she goes he pulls out his chair, turns on the lamp on his desk; its light cuts a path across the floor and she uses it to find her way out.

FIN