Abstand

***

Logan finds himself watching his partner more than he should.

At first, he chalks it up to her being a beautiful woman. He's know a lot of them in his lifetime, and he's sure he'll know more, but each one is a type of special treat. Women have always fascinated him. Their softness and beauty. The way they move in different situations.

Liz has mentioned more than once that they're a type of 'safe' addiction for him. That he likes watching them and getting to know them because by knowing them, he'll come closer to understanding his mother and how she could still be so important to his life. That usually just makes him shake his head and make a lame ass joke that she marks down on her pad.

He thinks Liz has closets full of pads with "Mike Logan" written all over them.

But yes, Carolyn Barek is a beautiful woman. All dark hair and eyes and ethnic in ways that might be Italian or Spanish or Polish, and fuck he can't tell because she speaks all three languages in accents that, to his untutored ears, sound perfect. He thinks that if he'd met her in a bar, rather than Deakins' office, he would have not even bothered because there was no way in hell she would have given him even the slightest chance.

He'd have thought, had she ever walked into a bar he was sitting in, that she was like a fine wine slumming it with his beer crowd.

To say it had been a shock when she'd told him in that quiet monotone of hers that she'd grown up in Chappel Hill had been something of an understatement. That had turned his head and made her that much more interesting to look at.

Later, he'd let himself watch her just a bit more because he couldn't figure out just how that much intelligence could fit itself into such a tiny little brain. It wasn't an obvious thing. He'd worked with smart people before, hell he'd even cracked a case with Goren, the poster-boy for exuberant and showy problem solving.

Barek wasn't like that. For one thing, she was a lot quieter than Goren tended to be. And while he wouldn't lay money on a contest between the two, he was pretty sure they'd average a draw in the long run. Barek just... didn't draw attention. Maybe it was about being female in a guy's career, but all of her discoveries and epiphanies tended to be silent ones. Either mentioned in passing, or in that soft voice of hers that could barely be heard over the background noise.

It took him a bit to actually listen to what she was saying, but when he did.

It made him want to watch her more, because there was just so much there that others, apparently, didn't see.

He watches her because he can't look away.

And that worries him. Because he's finding himself hoping that she'll never disappear. He doesn't want to stop watching her.

-fin-

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