Current mood:

anxious

another Lennie/Rodgers fic...
Once again, I blame alkow for encouraging the emo, as well as my new icon. *points*

Title: Delivery
Fandom: Law & Order
Word count: 317
Rating: G



The doors to the morgue swing open, creaking slightly as they do. Rodgers looks up briefly, catching a glimpse of a suit and tie and looks back down. Which detective it is this time, she has no idea, and doesn't really care. This late in the day, they all blend in with their requests for DNA, demands for autopsy reports.

"Liz." It's not Ed Green's voice that causes her to look up, but the fact that he calls her Liz.

"Ed..." There is something wrong with his eyes. She may not be a detective but she's been in forensics and around the police long enough to know that something is out of place. His eyes are red. As if... "Ed, what's wrong?"

"Why don't you sit down." It's not a question, but a command. He takes her by the arm. His hand on her elbow is gentle, like his voice and she doesn't know why he's being so ginger.

And then it clicks. She knows by now, after years of being around the dead, and the ones who have survived the dead, the look on Ed’s face. The “I have something to tell you” face.

But she doesn’t immediately understand. She talked to her son just an hour ago. She has no other family left. No one except—

“Lennie.” She says his name out loud, whispers it, looking at Ed, willing him to give her anything but an affirmative answer.

For a moment, all he can do is look at her, his own eyes pained, and his silence is enough to tell her that she’s right.

She shakes her head, lower lip shaking.

“Liz, I’m so sorry…” She knows the words were coming before he says them. She’s heard them told to other people thousands of times before.

What she couldn’t predict is her own inability to speak, to move, to utter anything but one syllable.

“No…no.”