you've learned how to hold your own
how to stack your stones / but the history's thick
children aren't as simple as we'd like to think

Dani really hadn't expected to be back at work before Crews.

He's not worried about Charlie. Well, he is. He always worries, but he tells himself that Charlie is the guardian. Charlie's partner is safe again, Charlie's okay too. Ted is just one more person Charlie has saved.

"Are you attached to this suit?" she asks, loosening his tie even further.

They always have their most important conversations in the car.

(Okay, that's a total lie. They just have 90% of all their conversations in the car because it's L.A., and everyone is in the car all the time.)

This was not one of them. An important conversation, that is.

"But it turns out I've got this partner," Dani says. "And this partner's got all this shit going down that he needs me to take care of. And it turns out I'd rather die one breath at a time than let him down."

Charlie feels like he can't breathe.

He wants to make her feel good, like she could take off running and fly. But more than that, he wants her to feel safe with him. Tidwell knows his reputation with women sucks, and maybe he's not the best person for the job, but he's the one Dani's letting in and, fuck it, he's stepping up to the plate. She's worth it, even if she doesn't think so.

"I advise against extreme sports," the shrink told him, closing his file at the end of the session. "Maybe don't try skydiving."

That ended up being their last session, because Ted decided he didn't really need therapy anyway, and definitely not from somebody who gave such stupid advice. You had to risk big to win big. Everybody knew that, especially everybody in the business of making money.

He had plenty of time to revise his opinions on the subject in prison, where he learned that sometimes a big risk led to a big fall on your ass. Or multiple, repeated big falls on your ass, supervised by large, angry guys who didn't give a shit about your delayed therapeutic revelations.

He prefaces his question--the first words spoken since they traded spare greetings and introductions when she arrived--with the slight curve of a smile. "Is that your detective stare?"

It earns him a slow blink and a thoroughly disinterested tone. "What?"

"The way you're looking at me. Staring, as if you're prepared to wait all day. Is that the way you look when you interrogate suspects?"

"I wasn't aware I was staring. Sorry if it bothers you." And, yes, she's a professional at this, polite and chilly and just this side of obvious about being on the offensive.