Title: "Charlie in a Box"
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Rand Ravich, Far Shariat, NBC, etc.
Spoilers: Up to ep. 1.05 "The Fallen Woman"
Summary: A variation on what we've seen before of Reese and Crews talking in an elevator.
Notes: I originally planned for this to be a WAFFY, humorous fic, but then it went in another direction for a bit, thanks to Charlie. Feel free to suggest another title for this one, as I couldn't think of one I liked very much.

Reese thought taking the elevator would spare her some of the misery caused by her partner. The detectives had to interview some employees on the eighth floor of an old multi-story industrial building, and Crews was again in favor of their prime suspect's innocence. But until she had something besides her partner's instincts and their suspect's denial of committing the crime to admit as evidence in court, she was going to continue feeling annoyed. Halfway to their floor, the lights in the elevator flickered and went out, and then the elevator stopped moving.

Crews voiced the same mental conclusion Reese had come to, but in a much brighter tone.

"Looks like a blackout," he commented in the darkness. As the emergency generators kicked in, he smiled at his own remark. "Did you see what I did there?" he asked his partner. "I said 'Looks like' when there was no light to see by." He cocked his head to one side, pondering. "Does that qualify as a pun, or is it just ironic?"

Reese shook her head. "Ok," she said, pulling out her cell phone, "I'm gonna call 911, see if they can send someone over here." She tried dialing, but then closed her eyes in frustration. "No service in here," she flatly told Crews.

"Hey, we could always try the access panel," he suggested, clapping his hands in readiness at the idea.

"And go where? We're stuck in an elevator shaft, remember?" She sat on the floor and drew her knees up, resting her arms on them. "We'll just have to wait this out."

Crews took a step towards her. "Hey, why don't we—"

But Reese held up a hand to keep him at bay. "Why don't you just stay on your side of the elevator, and I'll stay on my side, ok?"

He blinked at her standoffishness, then shrugged his shoulders. Going back to his side of the elevator, he joined her on the floor, sitting cross-legged, staring at her.

Reese tried to ignore him, but her patience was no match for his.

"What?" she burst out.

"Do you want to play Twenty Questions?"

She just stared at him.

"Is it a person?" she asked dully, removing her leather jacket in the stale, warmed air of the elevator.

"Nope."

"An object?"

"Yes." He loosened his tie.

"Is it a fruit?"

"Yes."

"A strawberry?"

"How'd you know?"

Reese began thumping the back of her head repeatedly against the elevator wall behind her.

"You're gonna give yourself a headache if you keep doing that."

She gave a mirthless laugh. "I already have a headache because of your stupid game!"

"Do you want to dance?" Crews asked suddenly.

"No!"

He got to his feet, took off his jacket, and tossed it aside. "C'mon. We gotta dosomething. You know, I read that if you sit still for too long, you could get deep-vein thrombosis. That can be fatal."

She suppressed a groan. "If I do this, will it get you to shut up?"

He didn't answer, except to extend a hand to help her up.

As she stood and brushed herself off, she mentally measured the height difference between them, and shook her head at Crews's idea.

"No," she insisted. "It won't work. You're too tall."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she knew he was thinking that maybe the problem was that she was too short. She almost wished he would say it so she could have a reason to push him away (literally and figuratively), but he said something else instead.

"Stand on my feet," he urged her, gesturing her to come closer with one hand, his arms raised in preparation for a dance.

Deciding to take her chances, she took his hands and did as he said, getting some satisfaction out of the fact that she was wearing heeled boots that her partner could feel digging into him through the soles of his own shoes.

"We don't have any music," Reese pointed out to him, her voice quieter but no less hard as the proximity between her and Crews was increased.

He began humming a tune as he led her around the elevator car in a waltz. At first, she was too busy watching his feet move hers, but then she glanced up and met his gaze, feeling startled by what she saw there.

Something else lay in the depths of his blue eyes besides concentration for the dance. Fear was lurking there, and it hit her hard.

Suddenly she realized what lay behind his incessant chattering, his need to move, to watch her as if she would vanish at any moment.

Vanish, and leave him trapped in there, alone.

"I get it now, Crews. Being stuck here. . . . Brings back bad memories for you, huh?"

"Memories imply that there's a past, but the past doesn't exist anymore. There is only now. There is only"—his breath hitched in his throat—"here."

"You're right," she agreed. "You're here. With me. We're just in an elevator, Crews. We've been in elevators together before, right?"

He nodded, a bead of sweat traveling from his temple and down the side of his face.

"We're here in an elevator, and you're dancing with me, ok?" She remembered something from one of their conversations in her car, and she latched onto it. "What do you see when you look at me, huh? What do you see?"

He shook his head, not knowing how to answer her. He blinked, and another bead of moisture rolled down his face, but this time, she knew it wasn't sweat.

"You see a woman, right? You see a real woman. And there weren't any women at Pelican Bay, were there? No real women you could hold in your arms or dance with."

She saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. "No real women," he repeated in a whisper, closing his eyes.

"That's right, Crews. You're not locked up anymore. You're out dancing with a woman. So just focus on me, and listen to that music."

She held her breath as she waited for his eyes to find hers again, and then she began humming the same tune he had been humming earlier.

All the time they had been talking, he had been leading her in the waltz, but now, Reese pressed herself closer and held onto him more tightly.

"So when did you learn to dance?"

"My mom made me get lessons when I was a kid. I hated it at first, but then I got good. My wife and I used to dance sometimes too. Back when I had a wife." He murmured the last part, but she heard him anyway, and his hypocrisy made her smirk.

"No wonder you're Zen-ish," she muttered.

Crews didn't answer. Reese's head was on his shoulder now, and his hand was resting on the small of her back, and he didn't want to disrupt the moment by talking. He was getting good at learning when to be quiet around her.

They lapsed into a companionable silence, and she let him hold her for a little while longer before speaking again.

"You good now?"

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I think so."

He removed the hand that had been on her back, and she stepped off his feet and back down to the floor.

"Sorry if my shoes hurt you," she added.

He smiled at her gruff apology, knowing it was sincere. "Thanks."

No more was said between them, and by the time they heard the sound of a crowbar being inserted between the elevator doors, the detectives were back to their professional selves.

At least, as professional as they could be when one of them was Charlie Crews.

"Hey, Reese? It's your turn to think of something for Twenty Questions."