Epilogue

And then the next time she sees him is when she nearly blows his head off. Gun in her hand, finger on the trigger, ready to shoot, to take out yet another bad guy, and then it’s Bobby. She keeps remembering the feel of the trigger, the involuntary little spasm her index finger gave when she saw it was him. And the click of her mind, that little oh when everything fell into place (“two big white dudes” “maybe you should find out what your partner’s up to”).

And now he’s back at his desk, facing her, quietly thrilled to be back at work but afraid to show it because he knows she’s still so angry at him. And why wouldn’t she be? All she can think of (she’s started seeing it in her dreams) is pointing the gun right at Bobby’s face. And she keeps hearing her words tossed out at him over and over again (All your wounds are self-inflicted I hope it was worth it Detective Detective Detective Detective).

She can’t look at him. She can’t talk to him. And now her chest hurts more than ever, a constant throbbing ache too pointed and pained to be medical (especially since it gets worse every time she looks over and she sees him).

He’s been trying to make it up to her in his own way, leaving little gifts on her desk, candy and a funny little plastic frog and one perfect lotus flower and a new, 3 sectioned notebook—he’s always had such a thing for notebooks (“It’s the blankness of it,” he explained to her once after she started to complain after an hour spent in Staples. “The possibilities. Anything can happen between the covers, and it’s all in your control”).

But all the paper in the world can’t make up for the fact that she’s still seething, about not being told what he was doing, about nearly shooting him, about how he thinks he can make it up to her and they’ll be fine, like it’s not a big deal, like she just needs some time to sulk and then they’ll be partners again.

So maybe the little blip at the diner did count as an event after all, because if the criteria for seeing him and having it count was that something needed to happen, that something needed to change afterwards, then apparently none of their encounters counted (and then by reversal all of them would count—if there’s nothing to make it significant then it doesn’t really matter if it’s significant or not, it’s just something that happens, like waking up or going to the post office for stamps).

So that’s it then.

Everything’s back to normal.

Nothing’s changed.

Hey partner.

Any plans for the weekend?

You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.

Are you all ri—

Never mind.

I’ll be late tomorrow. Doctor’s appointment.

Just so you know.

We should probably focus on the case.

Hey look that store has Tickle Me El—

Actually, I think I prefer Grover after all.

~~Complete~~

A/N. So I think I'm done with this series (if two can be considered a series), unless I change my mind in the future (it's been known to happen). Coming up: probably the second installment of the Angst Quadrant (post-Blind Spot post-Endgame post-Untethered post-Frame--I only got into CI this year so I have to make up for lost time), or maybe the case file I'm working on. Thanks for reading!