Mantra
A Law Order: Criminal Intent Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

If she kept repeating it, maybe it would all go away.

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

It was her mantra, her enlightenment thinking, her calming force to keep her from screaming and slamming her foot down onto the carpeting, a knee-jerk response borne of wanting, desperately not to die.

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

She knew, deep down, somewhere with the very innermost cavity of her body, that her fear was stupid and ill-conceived. Obviously, if he had a driver's license that hadn't been revoked in the last several years, it meant he couldn't be too horrible a driver.

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

Presuming he really did have a license in the first place. It wasn't as though anyone would ever really have the guts to tell HIM that HE couldn't drive. It was the same principle as telling the president he couldn't kiss babies because he might have a cold. "But I'm the president!" he would announce as he landed a big wet-one on some smelly-diapered brat. "I can do this!"

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

Come to think of it, her eighty-something grandmother still had her license. And she would probably drive better, besides.

IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis - Ohgodhe'sgoingtokillmehelp!

The big, black Chevy blazer squealed to stop on a dime just before barreling off the side of One Police Plaza's parking garage roof and plummeting eight stories to certain death. It wasn't until she heard the gear shift into park and the ignition die that she had the ability to open her eyes, unclench her fists, and force her teeth to stop grinding together.

"You alright?"

She glanced sideways at him – his somewhat-cocked head; his brilliant, soul-boring eyes; his mouth that never smiled except when he was playing a role or toying with a suspect – and was unsurprised to see him studying her in his normal careful way, trying to read her.

Maybe that was the whole problem about this pairing, she reasoned as she tried to lower her raging pulse with a few, cleansing breaths. Maybe the whole problem with being partnered up with him was that she, at base, had control issues. Maybe it was a bad idea.

"Bishop?"

She forced herself to smile as she turned fully to face Major Case's resident genius, the unsinkable Bobby Goren, and unhooked her seatbelt.

Now, she understood why Eames always drove.

"I'm fine."