Joan of Arc (closed)

[heartofcourage]

Grimes looked like he wanted to hurt someone as he told her that he wanted to know if Derrick came near her again. She had always thought that Derrick was out of her life forever the day that her sister dumped him, but it seemed that fate wasn't that kind to anyone. She simply looked across the table at him and nodded, knowing that she probably hadn't seen the last of the man that haunted her nightmares.

"If he comes back I swear I'll call you." She repeated as the waitress appeared again for their order. "Spaghetti and meatballs, please. The biggest bowl you have."

She was starving. It had been a long time since she had two good meals in a day. Usually she ate what came out of a can and didn't think about the slow gnaw in her belly. It seemed to scream at her when she was with Grimes, however. Perhaps her friendship with him would be for the best for everyone involved. She would have a friend that actually cared about her and he wouldn't be lonely any longer.

 

[gearhead73]

Trevor forced a smile as he looked toward the waitress. "I'll start with the bruschetta and have the veal parm for the entrée. Thanks"

When they were alone again, Trevor thought about mentioning how she should handle Simmons again, but decided against it. For now, she was safe, they were together about to share a nice quiet meal, and he was feeling better now that they had talked. She seemed more at ease as well and he didn't want to spoil the evening.

"So tell more about this Mary. You said that she knew that drinking would kill me and that she had been right so far. Help me understand. Do you hear her in your head? Does her voice sound different from your own?"

Trevor wasn't sure if she would be comfortable talking about the voices, but he wanted to understand her better. He wanted to know more about her. Hell, he just wanted them to talk some more.

 

[heartofcourage]

"You want to know about Mary?" Joan asked as she took a sip of her drink, looking at Grimes with a curious gaze. "No one ever wants to know about Mary."

Joan thought about his questions for a long moment. Usually people didn't understand when she tried to explain. They thought that she was making things up or was simply crazy. When she had been small, her mother had punished her for talking about the voices that she heard. Her father thought that she simply had imaginary friends that would go away in time. Mary never went away, however.

"She's been there for as long as I can remember." She said with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I guess I first remember talking to her when I was about five. She told me to call her Mary and she talked about things that had happened that I wouldn't have any knowledge of. I knew when my parents fought. I knew that they were unhappy. My mother would get so mad when I would ask questions. My dad thought that I was spying on them and chalked it up to an overactive imagination. But she never went away."

"I hear her talking in my head the most. There are others, but they aren't as frequent. She sounds like she's simply sitting beside me. Her voice is different than mine. She's older. She's nice. She's brutally honest. I think she likes me because she doesn't make me uncomfortable like the others."

 

[gearhead73]

Trevor listened with rapt attention as she explained about Mary. Normally, there would have been a large part of him that would have been skeptical. He would have chalked it up to it all being some form of bizarre disassociated memory thing, and that she simply believed that she was being told these things that she had actually witnessed or experienced. But the logical side of his brain told him that there was plenty of evidence to the contrary.

She had known about the murder where they had met and others that were most likely related. She was able to recount details that would be impossible for even to the most astute observer to glean. He had no choice to believe her, there were just too many things to pointed to the voices and what they could and did tell her being real.

"What do you mean by brutally honest? Has she said anything about me; or have the others?" Trevor asked, genuinely curious about what it was like.

 

[heartofcourage]

Again, Joan was quiet for a long moment as Grimes asked her whether Mary had ever said anything about him. She didn't really want to tell him what the voices had been telling her. He was asking her for the truth, however. She didn't want to betray that trust that he was giving her by lying to him so quickly after their friendship had begun.

"She said that you drink too much. You're a workaholic and an alcoholic. She told me to call you after Derrick showed up at my apartment." Joan admitted, her eyes lowering to the cup that was sitting on the table in front of her. "She says that you like me and that I'm just too scared of being hurt to open up to someone else."

"She's never violent or wrong like the others are. There's a dark voice in my head and he scares me. He tells me all the time to kill myself or that I'll die." She didn't like talking about the dark voice in her head, but she owed it to Grimes to tell him. "He says you just want to fuck me and that's the only reason you're nice to me. Cops want to put people like me away for a long time. They aren't friends. He's talked me into hurting myself before. I stopped listening to him a long time ago."

 

[gearhead73]

That old saying to be careful what you wish for seemed to ring true as Grimes listened to her recount what Mary and the other darker voice had told her. He felt ashamed of how much he had been drinking. It seemed everyone in his life was warning him about it. Skins, Joan, and even the voice in her head seemed to be concerned about where the path that he was on could lead.

He could feel his cheeks redden a bit when she told his that Mary knew that he liked her. His eyes fell to the table and his fingers mindlessly traced the outline of the coaster his drink rested on. He became even more unnerved when she had said that the darker voice knew that he had fantasized about her. He thought back to when they first met, how he had wondered what she looked like under her winter coat. He remembered wondering what it would be like to be slamming himself into her when she had talked about her boyfriend. Was this bond or whatever it was between them giving her the ability to sense his thoughts?

"Wow, Mary is quite perceptive." Trevor said nervously. "Sort of makes me wish I had a voice to guide me."

He lifted his face and looked into her eyes. "I'd really like to know what you think about me."

 

[heartofcourage]

"No." Joan said softly as he commented off handed about having a voice of his own. "This isn't really something I would wish upon even my greatest enemies. Not even Derrick."

Her life had been made ten times more difficult by the voices in her head. She often wondered and dreamed what a normal life would be like. She might still be in contact with her family and perhaps she would have had the happy relationship that she craved. She might have finished college, had a husband, had some kids. Instead, she was sitting in an Italian restaurant, talking about the voices in her head with a cop she had met that morning.

Raising the glass towards her lips, she paused as Grimes asked her what she thought about him. "I don't know yet." She said honestly.

"We just met. I know I can trust you and I know that you're honest." She murmured softly. "Beyond that, I don't know."

 

[gearhead73]

"I'll take that." Trevor said with a beaming smile as he joined her in sipping his own drink.

He sat the glass back down onto the table and thought about what he wanted to ask next. He figured the direct approach had been well received so far, so he decided to go with that.

"Is there anything you want to know about me?" he asked tentatively.

He wasn't accustomed to talking about his life. Mostly because no one really ever asked, but more so because there was so much of it that revolved around his work. Since making detective, he had spent almost every waking moment looking over a crime scene or running down a lead. The last two years in a row the department had forced him to take two weeks of his built up vacation, but even then he had taken his files home and poured over photos and witness statements.

 

[heartofcourage]

"Why do you spend all of your time drinking in a bar?" Joan asked him as he posed his question to her. "I mean, I would think as a cop you would want a clear head all of the time. Besides, you said you have a house. Why have a house if you can't enjoy it?"

Joan had learned over time that she didn't enjoy things that would alter her current state of being. She never learned to enjoy alcohol and she never drank. She hardly touched her pills unless it was a particularly bad day. Much of that had to do with feeling helpless and the things that Derrick had done to her while she was semi conscious. Never could she really understand why people sought out artificial highs that took them away from themselves.

"My goal one day is to buy a house. Somewhere out of the city where it's nice and calm and I can think without all of the noise." Joan confessed to him. "Maybe a place where my nephew can come and play...if my sister would let him."

She adored Max with a passion. He made her so incredibly happy but she never got to see him as often as she would like. It was hard not being able to drive or have reliable transportation to get her to Janey's house. As strained as their relationship had been when they were younger, it seemed that Janey had made peace with her sister and her horrible illness. They talked more and shared more, but it still wasn't the closeness that Joan craved.

 

[gearhead73]

Trevor had known the question was coming. It was the most obvious one. Still, hearing it voiced stung a bit because there was no way to make the answer sound plausible.

"It helps me forget, or at least not think about the things I see and hear. The thing about being focused all of the time is it's exhausting and depressing." Grimes started. "When I first made detective, I was consumed by it. I wanted to spend every waking moment digging for the truth to bring a sense of justice and closure to the families of the victims."

Trevor looked down at his glass and traced a fingertip around the rim. He had never had anyone ask him what it what like to do what he did, and now that Joan had, he wasn't sure how he could describe it in a way she might understand.

"I guess I became so driven by my job, that I never stopped along the way to worry about making friends or building a life outside of the job. I bought the house early on, but spending time there, alone, with nothing but my thoughts to occupy my mind, it felt more like a prison. I started going out to bars, thinking that having a few drinks and shooting the shit with strangers would help, but it didn't. No one wants to talk to you when they think or know your are a cop."

He looked back at her now. She had often referred to him as 'the cop' or 'a cop'.

"I ended up feeling worse. I felt alone and ostracized, but if I drank enough, I didn't care anymore. So, I suppose I use it as an escape."

He looked back down at his drink.

"The sad part is I guess; that it becomes part of a vicious cycle. I drink to forget, the next morning I wake up and feel guilty about having drank so much. I get down on myself about it, then turn to the bottle to forget all of it."

He looked back at her now, searching for the look of disgust or pity that most often accompanied a story like this. He wouldn't blame her. How could he? She couldn't possibly think anything that he hadn't already thought about himself a million times. But she had asked him to be honest, and decided he owed her that much.

"I love my job. I do. I walk in that squad room every day and know that in some way I have made a difference. I just...haven't found a way to make a difference in my own life I guess."

 

[heartofcourage]

"It's hard." Joan said softly as he looked towards her to gauge her reaction to his story. "Life is hard. You just have to get through it and hope that things will get better. I'm use to being alone. It's hard to make friends when you're afraid of what others will think of you."

They were both two lonely souls, perhaps a little bit damaged by life, that had just happened to find each other. Fate was strange sometimes, she thought to herself. Perhaps Mary really did know what she was doing when she sent her to that crime scene that morning.

"Thank you for everything you did for me today." Joan finally said after a long moment of silence. "You don't know what it means to me to have someone that will do something for me without questions."

 

[gearhead73]

"You're welcome Joan." he said. "I will try to be there for you whenever you need me."

Trevor reached over and lay his hand on hers. It wasn't the first time that they had touched, but somehow this time he was trying to convey his sincerity to her.

"To be perfectly honest, I have actually enjoyed most of it. I know that sounds insane, but its been nice being there for someone in something other than a professional capacity. I actually haven't really thought about the case much since I found you in that alley this morning."

It was true. For the bulk of the day Joan has pretty much been the focus of all his attention. Yeah he had been going through the motions, asking all of the right questions, making notes and the like. But truth be told he hadn't given a shit about solving this case since breakfast.

"This has actually been a good day."

 

[heartofcourage]

Joan glanced down at the hand that he placed over the top of her own. She waited for the voices to start up again, telling her all sorts of horrible things, but it was quiet for the most part. She let out a small sigh of relief at that miracle. She didn't want the voices to intrude on her time with Grimes. She liked him and she wanted to spend her time with him without distractions.

"It has been a good day." She finally admitted, her fingers squeezing his own lightly as the waitress appeared with their food.

Joan wasted no time in picking up her knife and fork, digging into the bowl of pasta with true gusto. She was honest when she said that she was absolutely starving. The meal was relatively silent until she thought back on what he had said just moment earlier.

"You know, I think you really do need to think about the case from today. It'll happen again if you don't think about things soon." She said with complete and total honesty as if another murder were a bygone conclusion.

 

[gearhead73]

Grimes sat there, looking at her, not only searching her face for clues to what she was thinking and feeling, but also studying and committing to memory every delicate feature of her face. He felt the gentle squeeze of her fingers on his and suddenly noted this strange sensation on his own face, a genuine smile. He couldn't remember the last time that he had shared a moment like this with anyone. He would have been content to sit there all night, just like this.

It ended abruptly when the food came though and Trevor begrudgingly broke the contact of their hands to let her dig in. He was admittedly starving as well, but had forgotten all about even ordering as they had been talking.

"Hmm..." Grimes mumbled as he swallowed, and wiped his lips with his napkin. "I'm sure My associate has compiled all of the information I had requested by now, so I can dive right into it later when I drop you back home."

He hated even mentioning the end of their evening, but knew that it was inevitable.

"Hopefully, the unsub isn't to keen on coming out on a night like this and stays home. I could use a night off to be truthful."

 

[heartofcourage]

"It'll be at least a week." Joan said matter of factly as she drew her napkin across her own lips. "They don't like doing things close together because they don't get the attention they think they deserve."

"This newest crime will make them happy though. I don't think they expected two people to be in the house at the same time. It was unusual and it'll definitely make the paper." Joan talked as if she had intimate knowledge of what the killer was thinking but it had really all come from Mary.

Mary knew things that Joan would never have been able to fathom. Mary had known that Janey was having Max before Janey even knew. She had told her that her father was going to remarry before he had announced to the family that there had even been a proposal. Mary was always reliable for information and Joan was never really certain when that information would come through.

"Don't let them tell you that woman committed suicide. They'll all tell you that you're wrong, but she didn't kill her husband and she certainly didn't shoot herself." Joan mentioned again, starting to eat her spaghetti once more as if this were a completely normal conversation.

 

[gearhead73]

It was hard not to be dumbfounded by the things that she told him. She was outlining the profile of the assailant or assailants that spoke to the pathology of the killings more than the details of the crimes themselves. It was the same sort of information that you would get if you called in the B.A.U. team of the FBI. This kind of intel could be invaluable to solving the case and preventing the unsub from striking again, and they were discussing it like it was everyday dinner conversation.

"Have you ever thought about becoming a cop?" Grimes said. He hadn't wanted to change the subject, but he couldn't help but wonder. "With information like this you could move up the ranks quickly. You would probably put me out of a job." he finished with a smile before taking another bite.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I wouldn't make a good cop." Joan said as if he were serious about the idea. "Number one, there's the mental issue. Number two, I don't like being around people. Number three, I'm sure that someone would accuse me of a crime sooner or later with the information that I have stored away in my head."

"I always thought being a journalist would be good for me because I love to write. It forces me to get out and be around people. But, I've learned that I do best when I'm simply on my own. I've thought about giving up on the whole college thing and try my hand at freelance writing." Joan hadn't told anyone that she was thinking about stopping her education career.

 

[gearhead73]

"Well, I say do what makes you happy. Life is short." he said with a smile.

He couldn't help but see the irony of him telling her to do what makes her happy, after telling her what his job and his obsession with it had done to him.

"You could always be my confidential informant. The pay sucks, but you could put the information you get to good use. You would help people, and you would do wonders for my career. I might make captain some day." Trevor remarked with a chuckle.

 

[heartofcourage]

Money was never really important to Joan. Yeah, it would be nice to have a little extra cash in her pocket at the end of each month, but she would never think of selling her knowledge for anything. She liked helping people and if solving a crime was the least she could do, she was going to do it.

"Maybe I could give you enough information to buy a new bike." She commented, giving him a tiny smile as she finished her meal and sat back with a sigh. "Or maybe you could just find the person who stole mine. It would make it way easier to get around from place to place."

 

[gearhead73]

"I think we can work something out. How long ago was your bike taken?" Grimes said with a smile.

She had finished eating and he could hear a contented sigh escape her lips as she sat back. It was nice to see her like this. It was nicer that they were talking so freely. He was really enjoying the evening. It had been a long time since he had had company for dinner. At least a dinner that wasn't pizza or burger in the squad room or in his car.

"I don't usually work cold cases, but I would make an exception in your case. Until then you could always call me if you needed a ride. I am usually out and about during the day anyway."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I can't bother you every time I need to go somewhere." Joan said as if he were crazy.

A small smile came to her lips, however, when he promised to take a look into her stolen bike. That bike was long gone, she thought to herself. It was sweet of Grimes to offer to take a look into the matter.

"A month or two ago. Someone broke the lock and took it from the apartment parking lot." She said with a shrug of her shoulders. "It wouldn't mean much to most people, but because I don't drive it's really taken the wind out of my sails. Now I walk everywhere...or take the bus but that gets expensive."

 

[gearhead73]

"It wouldn't be that much of a bother. Not to be presumptuous, but I figured we be seeing each other and I could help you out if you need to go somewhere. Still, write down a description of the bike and I'll look into it. You never know if there has been a rash of bike thefts. Maybe there is a file started somewhere in the precinct."

He smile was infectious. Even as they talked about her bike being stolen, the conversation was lite and the mood comfortable.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I'm sure your boss would be so excited to learn that you're working on mysterious bicycle thefts instead of homicides." Joan said in her dry tone, her smile growing a little bit bigger at the back and forth between them. "It's a blue Schwin with a white basket on the front. Not terribly expensive but it meant enough to me."

When the waitress came back, Joan decided that she wanted to try the tiramisu. She loved sweets and only had them every so often. Besides it felt like a special occasion and she felt the need to celebrate just a little bit.

 

[gearhead73]

"My boss gives me a pretty wide birth most of the time." Grimes chuckled. "As long as I keep closing cases, he could care less if I dedicated time to rescuing kittens from trees."

It was true. Trevor's captain had taken a hands off approach with him almost from the beginning. It had turned out to be the right choice because while others would get bogged down updating the brass on every facet of their respective investigation, Trevor was running down leads that were still fresh.

He watched with a smile as she ordered dessert. He thought about ordering his own for a moment, but decided to just get a refill for his drink instead.

"I'm having a really nice time with you Joan. This is just what I needed."

 

[heartofcourage]

Glancing across the table at Grimes as he smiled at her, Joan felt herself relax. She was sharing a moment with a new friend and she was pleased that he was enjoying himself so much. She gave him a soft smile and shrugged her shoulders slightly as if it were nothing.

"It's good to get out and talk with someone who understands." She said softly. "So, yeah, I guess it has been nice."