the end of the end of the end

who: brett and eris
where: her place
when: late

Brett had made it home that night. It had been dark when he’d gotten in, though not by long – and that in and of itself was a miracle. There’d been nothing new, and he’d found himself staring at the same files in some kind of vague hope that something new would leap off the page at him. It hadn’t happened, of course. Instead, the words had simply begun to swirl into each other until even he admitted that he needed to get out of there.

His colleagues had judiciously said nothing at all when he voluntarily announced that he was leaving for the night and he’d grabbed his coat and hat. Hell, maybe when he got back to his apartment, there’d be a message from Eric, maybe something important, maybe something that would help a lot more than looking under stones that had already been overturned a dozen times or more.

In actual fact, there was no such message. Instead, he’d found a message of a different type. No words, but it was loud and clear. The food in the refrigerator, the way everything was tidier. The mended clothes. She’d been here. She’d actually used the key he’d given her, though not for the purpose he’d given it to her for. He even checked the curtained-off alcove that served as a second bedroom to check for signs that she’d actually come back for good. But there were none. And it wasn’t like she was coming back. After all, he was the one that was holding her off. He was the one who didn’t know whether he could do this any more. She’d made her position quite clear on things – she was his if he wanted her, a fact which simply served to make him all the more conflicted about things. Because he did want her. He missed her more than he could say, and there were moments when he wanted nothing more than to simply give in.

Yet – she’d killed a man. On his behalf, no less. In revenge for something that had been done to him. And she’d provided him with a confession. And he’d burned it. He had principles. He’d always had principles. Even in the darkest of days, where he’d had to bury them so deep that he’d thought they’d died, they’d survived it all. And he’d come back from that pit and he’d taken them up again and he’d found himself once more. And, god help him if he wasn’t tempted every time to sacrifice them for her.

He was conflicted and he knew it. He simply didn’t know what he was going to do, and with everything else that had been taking his time and attention, he hadn’t actually had the time to even begin to make a decision. Hell, he hadn’t even had the time to really contemplate the facts, not all of them. He knew there was the letter she’d written him. The letter which had arrived the day of the park disaster, that he’d opened when he’d returned home following seeing all of that, when the world seemed as if it had entirely ceased to make any sense at all, and his mind couldn’t move past the horrors that he’d just witnessed. He’d stared at the words, read it over and yet taken almost nothing from it. The sentences hadn’t strung together in a way that had made any sense at all. He’d been almost entirely unable to connect with it, after where he’d come from. In the end, he’d written a response based on the few points which had found their way through to him, and put the letter to one side, fully intending to return to it when he could give it the time and attention he felt it deserved.

He’d been putting off so much of his life over the last few days. Everything that would normally have meant anything to him had been put on hold, and as he walked through his tiny apartment, seeing the places where she’d clearly been, that was more on his mind than ever before.

Possibly that was why he’d noticed it’s absence so quickly. Possibly, because she was on his mind, as he’d walked into the bedroom, his eyes had naturally gone straight to the nightstand where he’d propped the letter up against the lamp. The letter which was now missing.

At first, he’d thought that it had simply fallen off, yet it wasn’t beneath the bed. Nor, it seemed as he widened his search, had she tidied it away. He looked everywhere, searching high and low, even though there wasn’t much of an apartment to search. Still, he looked. Until, eventually, he’d had to conclude that it was gone. Which meant only one thing.

She’d taken it.

He didn’t think too hard on his reaction, not until he was standing outside her door, ready to hammer on it, to act on the anger which always arrived at times like this, but which, recently, had been harder and harder to call to his aid when it came to her. And as he stood, outside her door, his arm raised, fist clenched ready to bang on the door, a thought wormed his way into his head. A question, the question – of why had she taken it. What had she hoped to achieve?

Did she mean to tell him that enough was enough, that she was cutting all ties. Maybe that those sentiments he’d seen there were no longer on offer. He knew after he’d left last time, that she’d been understanding, that she’d treated him gently. But several days had passed since then, maybe her attitude had changed. Yet, she’d been at his apartment. Then what – what did it actually mean?

Confusion smothered anger, leaving him uncertain and unsure, and he relaxed his fist, taking a half step back to a more socially-acceptable distance from the door, before he knocked. A normal, ordinary, every day knock.

Eris was wondering if Anya was back to tell her again how much she was wasting her life. Or if Patrick had returned to give her more drunken confessions of...well, she wasn't sure what. Either way, she was already in her nightgown, already showered and had been sort of dozing on the couch. She hadn't meant to, she simply hadn't made it to her bed. The knock roused her, however, and she blinked, pushing herself up and then she moved to the door, pulling it open.

For some reason she didn't expect him. Which was likely unintelligent of her, considering he was a detective for chrissakes, and she'd taken something out of his room. But there was room for some form of surprise. She stepped back so he could come inside, as she rubbed at one eye and glanced back into the room to see that she should probably put a light on. The only light in there now was from the streetlamps coming in the windows.

The fact he appeared to have woken her up didn't help his current mental state at all. Usually, no matter when he called round, she seemed to be some sort of up. "Didn't mean to wake you," he told her, though he stepped inside anyway.

"It's alright." she told him, not actually sure how to take him borderline apologizing for something little like that. She was sort of more used to the idea of him showing up to shout at her for things, not show up and seem out of sorts without the anger part. "Are you okay?" she asked, that insecurity winning out even if she wasn't sure she should ask.

He wasn't entirely sure about the answer to that question. He'd been angry, but that wasn't quite right any more. He didn't think the word 'confused' really hit home either. 'Uncertain' was probably more on the nail, but Brett was very definitely not a guy who was used to being anything less than sure and certain about anything in his life, so he wasn't okay with landing on that. Things were definitely simpler when he'd only had that one emotion available to him. He knew that he should stop pussyfooting around and just ask her - demand to know - what had happened to the letter. But - did he even want to know the answer? His brain kept providing helpful suggestions about why she'd taken it back - none of them good. It was like when she'd left just before new year. Brought up all the same insecurities which he refused to generally acknowledge that he even had.

He walked further into the room, taking a few moments before he turned and actually spoke. And, when he did, his voice was again lacking that usual anger. "You were at my apartment," he said, and it sounded simply like an acknowledgement.

She shut the door behind him, and went to click on one of the lamps in the room. It didn't light the place all that terribly well, heavy shadows still swallowing the edges of the room, but it was better than nothing. "I know, I used the key and it wasn't for the intended use." she said, since even if he didn't sound mad, she was sort of treating it like he was. It was how she was used to things going. She didn't sound like she was snapping, however. "I just have been listening to the radio, and thought you'd not be taking care of a few things, and I had time." she explained.

"Which, clearly you did," he said, since she'd got in and out without him being there. It wasn't a huge leap - he'd hardly been back to that apartment lately, and when he had been there, it was generally in the middle of the night. "So, I can't help you out, but you get to do things for me?" he added, again not bringing up the subject of the letter. Avoidance: he could be a pro at it at times.

Eris smirked very faintly. "Yes." she said. She could have said something further than that, explained that with him, it seemed that his main motivation for helping her living situation out was to alleviate his own guilt and hers was because she knew him too well. She knew he wouldn't be taking care of simple things so she did them for him. It wasn't a guilt thing...and that probably wouldn't actually make a difference to him, but it did to her. "Do you want your key back?" she asked. Was that why he was here, in what was very much an odd frame of mind.

He frowned. "No - I don't want your key back," he said, wondering that she might have thought that was why he was here. "I..." He seemed to wrestle with his thoughts for a moment, before he came out with it. "You took the letter," he said, simply, watching her, waiting for her reply, feeling vulnerable before her in a way that he hadn't since the moment he accepted he was in love with her.

Her eyes immediately ticked down to the floor. It was an unconscious reaction, but knee-jerk in nature. She didn't say anything for a moment, and she hugged her arms around herself, feeling just as vulnerable as he was, even if she didn't recognize it in him. "I tried to leave it there." she said. "I almost got out of the building, but...knowing it was out there..." she trailed off, not even sure how to word that. It then occurred that maybe it was odd for him to ask her about it like he had. She had imagined he’d be angry with her about it, but this wasn’t the same thing, something she wasn’t sure how to deal with.

Her response didn't help at all. He didn't know what it meant, and it fitted in with some of his more depressing scenarios. "'Knowing it was out there'?" he asked, wanting that clarified. Even if it was just to hear now that she was taking the final decision for them. After all, she'd tried to end things before. If this was what she was doing now, though, somehow in the moment, it felt more final. Maybe it was just everything else getting to him, he didn't know. Maybe it was just useless to think of the word 'final' with regards to something that was already over in any event, but yet, he had found as much comfort as conflict in having that possible way back still open to him.

She nodded, but realized she needed to explain herself better. The problem was she didn't know how to do that. Sighing, she sat down on the couch, curling herself there and leaning against the arm rest. Not speaking for a few moments, she tried to line her thoughts up on it. "I said a lot in there. Things I...it was all hard for me." she said. "There were things in there that no one else ever knew. Ever. About me, about my history, about how I feel now, about my memory...and you wrote me back, but you..." she couldn't think of a nice way to put it. So in the end she said what she meant. "You ignored the majority of it. Like it didn't matter, or doesn't, or...I'm not sure. And I saw it there, and I never felt so vulnerable in my life. That all these confessions were just sitting there. I couldn't leave it there." She didn’t sound like she was angry with him for not responding to her. She wasn’t. It just hurt, and left her with that hollow, exposed feeling. So her speech lacked accusation.

He watched as she spoke, then sat down next to her, not touching though, giving her that little space, resting his elbows on his knees. "I got that letter when I got home from the park," he told her, knowing what he was going to admit to. After what she'd just said, maybe it would make things better for her to know anyway. If she didn't actually want him to know what she'd written. "That night - it felt like I'd been in the middle of a war zone. Like hell had just literally broken loose. It was like - there was my life and then all of a sudden, wham! Everything changed. I can still smell the blood, mixed with who the fuck knows what else. And hear the screams, the moans. People dying all around me. And then I got home, and there was that letter from you. And I wanted to know what it said. But, against that backdrop... The world, everything in it, stopped making sense."

She frowned and steadily felt worse as he spoke. She didn't say anything for a few moments, and when she did speak, her voice was quieter than it had been, and she was looking at him with an expression she didn't school properly. It was how she was feeling, hurt, maybe a little betrayed, vulnerable. "Are you telling me you...what, didn't read it?" she asked. "It was open, you mentioned things in your reply, you--"

"...Tried," he told her, taking in her expression as he looked over at her and realising that whatever his admission had been, it hadn't been what she'd wanted to hear. "I tried to read it. I wanted to read it. I wanted to know. And - some things got through, but the rest. I don't know. I'd read the words and everything seemed so... Pointless. Like it didn't matter on the grand scheme of things," he told her with blunt honesty. "And I didn't want to feel like that. Not about you. Not when I knew that what you'd put down was important, and as hard for you as it had been for me. So, in the end, I put it to one side. Until I could give it the time it deserved." He looked down, not meeting her eyes any more. "I seem to be doing that a lot lately," he added, clearly aware of everything else they needed to talk about.

Pointless. Eris wasn't really a woman who did a whole lot of crying, but hearing that had tears springing to the backs of her eyes, a stricken sort of expression hitting and staying. It was confirmation for everything she'd been feeling. How none of it mattered, how even if she did love him, it didn't matter. And she heard the rest of what he said. That he considered it important, or that he wanted to consider it important. That was probably closer to the truth. His saying that he didn't want to feel that way had her thinking about her other opinion. That he'd already made his decision that he was done with her, he just needed to get comfortable with that before he could finish going through with it. Still, it was a foggy sort of connection in her head, it had trouble coming to any prominence as she sat there feeling gutted. There were a few things that came to mind to say, the first and foremost being 'get out and don't come back', but she couldn't make her voice work.

He looked back at her, and when he saw her expression, he really wished he hadn't. He had no idea what to say, or what to do. Everything was just all too much at the moment, life pressing in from all sides and he was failing everywhere. There was no let up, nothing that could be done. He looked away, down at the floor between his feet, silent, his expression frozen.

When she spoke it was to utter a single word. Or more, repeat one. It was barely audible, a quiet whisper that cracked a little. "Pointless." That said everything, didn't it. That was it then, that was about as devastating as things could get. One thing she wished she could get better at was dealing with the crushing blows that inevitably came--even if she expected them and it was really just confirmation, not a big surprise. But it always felt like a surprise with him. Like she somewhere deep down was waiting to be proved wrong. He'd done it before. But lately that seemed like it wasn't ever the case. Things just kept getting confirmed, and she kept feeling more and more hollowed out because of it.

He didn't know why he fought. Why he kept fighting. His entire life had been one long downward spiral. That was how it felt right now. And he was just a fool to try and fight that. He should just give up, let himself fall into that huge black hole that welled up inside him at times like this, let the horror of everything swallow him. It felt inevitable, right now. At least before it had just been him. Now it was everything, everywhere he looked.

But yet, despite himself and the depression which was always there, waiting, Brett was a fighter. Despite what often felt like his better judgment, he wasn't one to give in, give up, no matter what. He turned his head to look at her again. "Everything felt pointless that night," he told her, clarifying that. "Do you get that? Can you understand? It doesn't mean that was real, just that - that was how it felt. That was how I felt. Like I'd been gutted and..." He got half way through that sentence and stopped, realising what he was about to say and thinking of the corpse he'd not seen that morning. He could still smell it, and he didn't know if that was real, or whether it was merely a memory of the smell of his own burning flesh. He took a steadying breath. "Like I'd been gutted," he said, deciding to end that there.

She didn't know if she could quite understand. Eris had seen horror in her life of course, there was no doubting that. But she hadn't seen killings like he had in the past week or so. Part of her wanted to know why he still hadn't got to it even if he hadn't been able to face it straight away. But then again she knew why. Only having to think on it for a moment, she knew.

Hearing him speak didn't make her feel better. It made everything worse. But she could see the cracks around the edges of his psyche. It was so very clear to her even through her own pain. "Brett, you should get out." she said, voice quiet. Unreadable. "This isn't going to stop. And you can keep chasing the bogeymen in the dark but there are always going to be more. There wont ever be some end point where you can go home and relax and get to those things you meant to get to ages ago. Time is going to keep moving forward, and things will slip away. Its what happened to you last time. You got screwed and you ducked your head down and didn't look back up again for three years."

She fell quiet for a moment, just staring at the floor. "I understand that you aren't going to be here. I understand that right now you are just drifting, and pretty soon here you'll be a ghost in my life. But I don't want to think you're just going to let the department eat you alive. I don't want you to look around and only see darkness. I don't want you thinking there isn't a point. And if that is what this job does to you you need to get out." Eris reached up to wipe at her eyes even if she wasn’t sobbing. There were still tears. "I told you before that there’s more to life than just breathing. What you're doing now is going to grind you into the ground just as much as what happened with the O’Malleys. Don’t let it. You don’t have to."

"There is a point: it's to stop things like this happening. Carrying on. And we're going to catch the bastard. And no, I know - it's not going to make everything better, but it'll stop it being like this," he told her, but it lacked some force as her words about what had happened the last time hit home. Could his return to the force really be compared to the O'Malley's, he wondered? Different sides of the same coin. He didn't specifically comment on that, he wasn't sure what to say. Instead, he focused elsewhere. "I'm not drifting - I've just. Been busy," he protested, though, again, there was a lack of force behind it. It was truth, but it sounded too much like an excuse to his ears. He didn't like excuses.

Eris shook her head. "maybe it wont be like that for the rest of the department. But it will be for you." she told him, drawing in a breath that wasn’t the steadiest. "I know you. I know how you focus in and sometimes I think that’s all I really was. Just a different focus for a while. One that didn’t do quite the same thing to you as the others. But either way, there will always be another killer out there. There is always going to be something that you'll get handed and you'll need to throw all your energy into it. You don’t do things halfway, baby. I know you want to tell yourself different. But I know the score. I have longer than you. I knew the other night. I know now. You don’t want to just cut the cord but this'll do it for you." she finally looked at him but couldn’t maintain eye contact. “I know I'll see you less and less. And you'll always have a new case to work on and that will translate to you putting off thinking about me another day. Another week. Til one day you realize you haven’t seen me in a month. And then you'll think that its been too long to just show up. So you'll think about something else...so on and so forth. You have been busy. But you are always going to be. Even if it was one case handed to you that will take priority. And like I said...there'll always be another killer out there."

He could recognise truth in her statement. Not all of it, there were definitely some parts that he couldn't agree with, but he could see the picture. He could see how things would lapse. He was already seeing that, how he was putting things off, telling himself that they would keep, relying on the people around him to feel the same way. And they didn't - December was evidence of that. He'd been willing to put off dinner with Eric until this was over, whereas, to her, it was something to act on despite everything that was going on in the city. People wouldn't wait, and he was a fool to think they would. Yet, at the same time, even with her image of the future, he could see things a different way. Possibly a dangerous way, but his cursory efforts to not put it forward were just that - cursory. "Would you not just be happy with being the person I came home to?" he asked her, because, in his head, she wasn't somewhere that he'd have to go to. She was home. Unfortunately, his head didn't account for the fact that they'd have to get over the very thing he'd been putting off, the very reason she wasn't there, the entire cause of their current issue - that they weren't together any more. Still, he felt compelled to ask the question.

A flood of emotions went through her, even if she had problems separating them out enough to deal with any of them. In the end she said the obvious, even if he wasn't going there. "I'm not there." she said, back to looking at the floor. "I don't live there. You don't come home to me. There’s a reason for that, one that isn’t going away." She bit at her lower lip for a moment, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "And honestly? Even if I was, your focus would still be entirely there. I know what I signed on for when you were here the other night, even if I don't think you do. And I can deal with that. I can deal with being your release of tension when you need it, or at least for a little while til you just aren't going to be back. I also know what it says about me, but I just...don't care. But I don't know if I could handle it if I thought you only ever paid attention when you needed that release even if I was right there in front of you the whole time. I know that sounds selfish. But if I was with you, I'd want to be with you, not just be around for when you couldn't handle the stress anymore. I couldn't handle being there but not being...part of things, I suppose." She picked at a loose thread on her robe. "Besides. you haven't made your decision in your head. And know why. I keep telling you. You know what it is, you just don't like the answer. And this whole thing you're doing now, and how you're going to let everything slip including me, it'll take the decision out of your hands. That's how you're going to walk away from me. You'll just keep putting everything off and eventually you'll realize it's too late to come back to it. it'll be easier for you that way. I don't blame you for it. I understand. And frankly, considering what I did to break us up in the first place, I likely deserve it."

The anger rose then, fast and hot, his face darkening, his jaw tightening. “Don’t fucking presume to know what I will and won’t do,” he growled at her. “You fucking think you know me, but you don’t know me that well, so don’t go playing out your little fantasies in your head that always end up with you being fucking screwed over. And don’t make me your little fucking puppet.” He told her once how much he hated feeling like he had no control over his life, as though she, or other people, were making decisions for him. Like she didn’t like being treated like a puppy. And, right now, it felt like she was doing that again. Like she had this entire thing already mapped out, and the end result was that he walked away. Like she knew him better than he knew himself, when she’d shown time and again that when it came to his feelings about her, she was near enough blind to how he would actually react.

The range of emotions he’d been going through since he arrived were swept away before the tide of his returning anger as more and more points in what she said came to his attention. “Release of tension?” he asked her, latching onto that one, and what she’d intimated in bringing it up. “You really think I’d fucking do that? Use you like that?” he asked her, realising as he did so that, after all, why wouldn’t she? With her history - yet he’d never treated her that way. Never. His expression turned to one more akin to a sneer. “You really don’t know me,” he spat. The other night had been a slip. And yes, he could appreciate that, at the time, it had been something he’d needed. But it wasn’t something that was going to be repeated. Not until they’d sorted things out, and only then if they’d been sorted out in the right way. No matter how bad things got in his life, he refused to treat her like the whore. He wouldn’t do that to her, and he wouldn’t do that to what they’d had.

"First of all--it isn't some 'in the end I get screwed over' because I'm well aware that I'm here because of what I did in the first place. I'm not fucked over because of you, I'm fucked over because of me. Not your fault, so you can quit assuming there's blame there, or that it's somehow attached to you when I know exactly where that blame lands, and it's right here." she said, pointing to herself. "As for whether or not you'd use me? You already have. Just not intentionally, so you're in the clear. I don't think you'd ever do that intentionally. It's not how you work, I haven't forgotten that. But that doesn't mean that in the end the result isn't the same. What happened was things got too heavy for you to carry for a little while and you wound up here in my bed. And you wound up here because you know I'm here. You know I'm not going to turn you away. And you're right about that, I'm not. And I gave you exactly what you needed. And I told you exactly what you needed to hear." she said. "So it's fine--for you. And you can give me awkward half finished thoughts about coming back to it some day, that eventually you'd get back around to thinking about us, but I know how things go. And I still know you. And I think I did something terrible, that you're never really going to be able to forgive. Especially not with you working homicide again. That...that's just another nail in the coffin. You're going to spend all of your energy trying to bring killers to justice, and then what--come home to one? Why would you do that? You're better than that."

She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "I understand you not reading the letter when you first got it. I get that. But it's been days. I think. You know time..." she made a vague gesture towards her temple and moved on. "At some point you probably had time to at least look at it. Even if you weren't going to make a decision then, or anything, I...poured my heart out. I told you things I never told anyone. I laid everything out there and if you glanced at it enough to pull daydreams out of it, then you know that. But I wasn't a priority. Which I also understand. I'm wounded, I'm not angry. I understand. And like I said before, I know I'm here because of what I've done. Like I know you mean it when you say you'll get back to me. At least enough to talk things over, or think them through for yourself, but you've already moved on to the next part of your life. You did when you joined the force again." She stood up and walked towards the little island counter that separated the living room from the tiny kitchenette area. "Your big problem with walking away from me was you didn't want to leave me in a terrible state. And I don't really know why you're upset that I'm looking at things realistically, not holding onto some fairytale that casts you in a role you never wanted to be with me in the first place." She was quiet for a moment, and after she poured herself a drink, she looked back at him. "What do you want from me? What am I supposed to be doing? How am I supposed to be feeling?"

“No blame, Princess - but in your head, the end result’s the same anyhow. And you’ve just fucking written me off straight the hell away. But, you did that before any of this even happened, didn’t you - the second you finished that damn original note and the rest of this has just been...” He broke off, turning slightly away and taking a breath - not that it really helped. “Do you know how often I’ve got back to that damn apartment over the last few days?” he asked her, his voice tight as he made an attempt to keep a hold of the resurfaced anger.

He looked back at her. “Yes, it’s been days - days filled with what sometimes feels like a murder every five fucking minutes. We don’t know if we’re dealing with one person or fucking twenty, and what’s connected and what’s fucking gang warfare fallout. I’m lucky if I get five hours at a stretch to lay my head down and by that time, no - I haven’t had time to look through it again. I’ve had time to lay there in bed and look at the envelope and know that I want to. Because I know you put a hell of a lot in there, and I know you said things I don’t know and I want to fucking know them. But I don’t want to read that in a bleary eyed, half-comatose state where my head is still full of corpses and wondering what these sick fucks are gonna come up with next. And don’t give me shit about how tomorrow is never going to fucking come and I’m just putting things off because I don’t want to fucking deal with them. This is not me making fucking excuses and taking some kind of easy way out. As for me working homicide being another fucking nail in the damn coffin? I fucking hate homicide. I joined that fucking department because of you. Because I thought that you’d do something fucking stupid, like try and hand yourself in and that way, I’d be there to stop you. And then, all fucking hell broke loose, but don’t kid yourself that this is some kind of fucking dream job for me.” After all, he’d not worked homicide before, not for years. He’d done his rounds as a rookie, but before he’d left the force he’d been working in organised crime. Sure, there was some overlap, but not pure homicide - and given the events of the past week, well, they hadn’t inspired any sudden love of a job he’d always swore he’d never do again in any case.

“What do I want from you?” he asked her, finally turning to her question. “I want some fucking understanding that this - this isn’t me trying to let you go by the back fucking door. That I am not going to forget about any of this, that I’m not just going to let it slide. Because, right now - no, you’re not a priority. You can’t be. Not when this morning I was down at the fucking morgue because the latest fucking case I’ve had dumped on me in some fucking John Doe who was cut open, his insides stuffed with shit, fucking sewn back up again, let go and then fucking set on fire as he tried to run. So I want some time. And patience and I know that’s not fucking fair to you and if you can’t give me that then you can’t give me that, but this is not fucking personal. Fuck - if anything... The things I’ve seen over the last week make me feel like what you did, in the scheme of things, fuck it. It’s fucking nothing.”

"Brett--this is you! It doesn't matter in the slightest if you hate it or not, you'd still pour your heart and soul into it! At no point have I said that you enjoy it, just that you'd run yourself into the ground to get the job done, and you haven't said a goddamn thing that contradicts that!" Eris snapped, making a small frustrated sound, and she pulled her fingers through her hair and downed the last of her drink before pouring a new one. She was shaking a little bit, something she only noted distantly.

One thing he said stood out to her, though, and she realized it was part of her problem with everything. It was why she'd put in a whole section of that letter, even if she'd not let herself think about it in such stark terms. She gave herself a long, long moment. When she spoke again, it was after she had another swallow of whiskey, and the tightness in her voice was gone, the frustration, everything. Instead it was a light tone, something a little dead. "You're not going to forget." she said. "That doesn't mean that I won't. You have time to come back to this whenever, because you'll remember everything we said here, hell you'll probably remember more clearly just the few things you took from the letter and I had to re-read the entire thing. Some of it came as a surprise--I didn't recall putting it down in the slightest. So, you have time, Brett. But I...really don't. Not like you do." She turned her back on him then and leaned on the island, staring at a middle distance as she dealt with that realization.

Brett stared at her then, shocked into simply not being able to retaliate. His expression wrinkled into a frown of non-comprehension as he struggled to understand what she was saying. “You’re... going to forget me?” he asked. He as no doctor, he didn’t know how her condition worked, but that seemed to be what she was saying right now.

Since she'd just re-read the letter, and that coupled with how she was feeling right in that moment, she could lay it down for him. "You know I forget things. They just...happen, and some of it goes away, and I don't even realize til I'm thinking about it that I don't have a complete picture. It's not even like an entire memory goes, it's just...pieces. Pieces that fall through the cracks, and that's it. Like...I think I keep repeating this but maybe I don't, and I can't be sure, but I remember coming home, and I'd bought you the cufflinks, and I remember that. I remember that well. And you were angry with me, and I don't know why. That went away. And you'd think that that would be more important than the cufflinks. You'd think that would be what I'd hang onto. But I don't really get a say in what I do and what I don't recall. And apparently sometimes the mundane, stupid stuff sticks and the important stuff doesn't." She fell quiet again for a second, feeling a little too emotional to go on immediately. She took another drink, feeling the burn down her throat. "I tried to tell you in the letter, how...fucking scary it all is. And how...most of the time it didn't matter to me, because I still had you there with me. So if I forgot things, you could remind me, or we'd always be making new memories so at least I'd have some picture to look back at. Even if it was full of holes, it'd be there, and added to, and....there'd be enough for me. But with you gone, I just..." she cut herself off, getting back on the technical point.

"I don't think I'd ever fully forget you. I don't want to think I would. But I don't know that I won't. I don't know how much my mind just doesn't decide to keep, or when I forget things, I only know when something's brought up and I realize I'm missing pieces. I'm sure there's a lot of things I don't remember that I don't realize I forgot. And...of everything, it's something I really don't think I can deal with. I don't know how to deal with it. How do you deal with that?" she asked, finally glancing partially back over her shoulder at him, though she didn't fully lay her eyes on him. "How do you deal with knowing there are all these important, life altering events that you might just lose? I still don't think I have my head wrapped around it, Brett. I'm sorry." And she truly meant that apology, even if it was non-specific.

Brett hadn’t thought that he could feel more confused, lost and completely out of his depth than he had been feeling lately, but she’d just proved him wrong. He had no idea how to respond to that, how to answer her. “We had lots of arguments, Princess,” he said, though he knew that out of everything she’d just told him, it was hardly the most important point, not even close. “Even I can’t keep them straight at times.”

She looked down at the counter and actually smiled faintly. "Thanks, but I know you. You've got one hell of a long memory, Trent. You've proved that more than once. I know better. And either way, it's not the same. It's not the point. The point is you can put me aside, and come back to me whenever you have time for me. And maybe it's days, or maybe it's weeks, or months, for all I know, I don't know how long it takes to do murder investigations, especially with the volume of them you just said you have. And that'll be okay for you. But I don't have that kind of time. I've been trying to let you go. I...it's what you wanted, isn't it? Am I wrong?" she asked, turning back towards him, honestly unsure. "I thought you wanted me to move forward with my life without you. But now you seem upset that I'm letting you go, or I'm not pining sitting here hoping for some future that...you're not even sure you want to give me. Not even a little bit. You've been very careful." she assured him.

"I know you have, and I know it's because you don't want to give me false hope. But you know me. I don't do things half way either. I don't see anything to believe in. I know you. I know what you're like, and I wouldn't even change that. I like how you are, no matter how frustrating it gets. I just...think I know when to give up the ghost. And with everything the way it is, the job, you, me, what I did, your long memory and my broken one..." She looked at the floor again, tilting the whiskey glass back and forth in her hand but she didn't take another drink this time. "You said it earlier. Things are pointless, or don't matter right now, and I even told you I loved you and that didn't matter either. It's all...not left me anything to hold on to."

He listened to what she said and, for a moment, he just wanted to run. From everything. From the whole damn city. He just wanted everything to stop pressing in on him all the time, for everything to just go away. Only, running wouldn’t achieve anything, running wouldn’t change anything. Running would simply make everything worse, at the day. He didn’t want to go back to how he had been, he didn’t even know if he could. Which meant he was trapped in this life now where everything was wrong and everything was so much harder, and he didn’t know how much more he could take. And she was right: something had to give. And she was also right: that something was going to be him, one way or another. “I miss you,” he told her, admitting that.

"I miss you too." she told him, in total honesty. She did. She missed just about everything about him. She missed seeing him every day, and his scent, and sleeping next to him, and all those stupid little things that went along with having someone in your life that really meant something to you. All that stuff she'd never in her life intended to have. It was probably ironic that her brain damage had made it possible for her to have something like that at all, and at the same time was going to screw her over for it.

“There’s nothing I can do to make this right, is there?” he asked her, a departure from his usual position on them which he allowed her to believe. But, right now, it pretty much felt that it didn’t matter what he said to her, that it didn’t matter whether she believed he wouldn’t come back, or might come back or definitely would - because the rest of the world would get in the way and she wasn’t willing to take half of him. And, right now, he couldn’t walk away from the force. Not right now.

"You don't even know if you want to." Eris reminded him gently. "And you weren't the one who fucked it up in the first place, don't forget that either." Because she didn't like the phrasing he'd used. Like it was his job to make it right, when it hadn't been his fault. She still didn't blame him even a little bit, she just kept looking at reality and it wasn't pretty.

“But, even if I did... I can’t leave the force right now. Not with everything that’s going on. And, from what you’ve said here tonight, nothing less would be acceptable,” he said, wondering what had happened to all that anger. Somewhere along the line, it had drained away again, leaving him feeling like an empty vessel.

"I know." she said, voice soft. "I wouldn't ask you to. I think you should get out. If I had to give you advice, that's what it would be, but I know better." She was quiet again. "What would it even be if you wanted something different? How would it work in your head?" she asked, because she didn't know. She knew what she thought, but he might have a different idea. She downed the rest of her drink then filled the glass and brought it over, setting it on the coffee table in front of him in case he wanted it. She stayed standing, not sure what to do with herself. Her hand twitched twice, seeming like she wanted to reach out and touch him, but she managed to curb the impulse.

Brett glanced at the glass, but didn’t take it. He didn’t want to be any less than sober at the moment. He looked back at her. “You and me, a place somewhere. We could work the rest out as we went along,” he said, knowing he’d already told her part of that earlier on, and it hadn’t been acceptable.

"We have a place." she said. The apartment was still there as far as she knew. Though that wasn't the point, and her tone indicated that. "You don't even know if you want to be with me at all." That was a pretty big thing to not know when moving back in with someone. It wasn't something to figure out on the way that was something he really probably needed to know before they shacked up.

“And you don’t want to take second place to my job,” he pointed out to her. There were problems on both sides, and neither of them were known for their ability to compromise. They were both stubborn to the point of being bloody-minded.

She sighed and sat down next to him, looking at the floor. "I'm pretty sure I'd be crushed entirely if I signed on for something like that and it turned out not only was I second fiddle, but you didn't really want to be with me anyway." she said, trying to put that into perspective for him.

He looked across at her, even if she wasn’t looking at him. “That’s the thing,” he told her, after a moment or two. “I’m not sure I don’t want to be with you.”

Eris watched his eyes for a long moment, appreciating the blue there, the darker spikes in the iris, there alongside the brighter color. "What do you want me to do?" she asked. Which she was sure she'd asked before, and he'd told her to get her life together. She'd really tried to do that, only now it seemed like he didn't like that or...something. She didn't know. She was pretty sure she was confused on that.

“I don’t know,” Brett told her. These days, it always seemed like everyone always expected him to have all the answers, when in actual fact, he was just as fucked up as the rest of them. He didn’t have any answers to give. “What I wanted, you can’t give me. Right now, it feels like we’re in an unwinnable situation.”

She exhaled heavily. He'd sort of made the offer but hadn't said it was what he wanted, necessarily. It had been termed as 'what if'. But at the same time part of her was wondering how that was any less a situation where she was being used as him showing up now and then for...whatever. It'd just be a live-in situation where they didn't actually deal with their issues, he still wasn't sure and he was still going to be fully committed to the force. She didn't say that though, because that would just do more harm than good. "I'm sorry." she said. "I'd...need more to hold onto than day in day out not knowing what was really going on with us, and there being no time for it. Do you understand? How...would you do it if you were me?" she asked, the question honest. She wasn't trying to lead him to an answer, she wanted to know if he would.

But, I’m not you, Brett thought to himself, but he wasn’t going to say that. “I know,” he said instead, quietly. “I know you need more than that. You need more than I can give you right now. You don’t need to be sorry about that, Princess. No need to apologise. You can’t take what I can offer, and I can’t offer any more right now. I need time, and you can’t give it.” That was what made their situation unwinnable. That was why they were screwed.

"You didn't answer the question. If the situation were reversed, would you do it?" she asked, watching him. She really hated the situation. But she didn't believe in happy endings, and it wasn't even like she could see one in the distance. It all seemed futile to her. It all seemed like it was a struggle that was going to end with the both of them drowning, and she couldn't have that. She was sure he couldn't either. Still, it all hurt, it all felt so unfair. But there was that nasty little voice in the back of her head that said no, actually, it wasn't unfair. She'd been the one to destroy things in the first place, so it was less unfair and much more a mess of her own creation.

Brett looked her in the eye as he gave the inevitable answer. “No,” he said, not expanding on that. Not explaining that, if it were him then he’d wait. He’d give her that time, he’d hold on. But, what use was explaining that when that was hardly her choice. She wasn’t being stubborn or contrary in that - she simply couldn’t. It wasn’t a option for her. She was going to slip away forever, because he didn’t have time and she couldn’t give him any more. Yet, what other option did he have? He couldn’t walk away from his job now. There was only so far he could contemplate sacrificing his principles, and he couldn’t entertain both. That would be too much. Much too much.

She had made eye contact when he looked at her, but as his answer sank in--even if it was the one she expected--she ticked her gaze down. She also felt tears sting the backs of her eyes, as she nodded. God, did she not want to cry right now. But there was something about this that felt so gut wrenchingly final. I should give you your key back. went through her mind but she couldn't for the life of her give it voice. Like for some ridiculous reason if she had that then there was still some connection, something between them.

He sat for a few minutes, before standing, knowing this was the time when he needed to leave. There was little more to be said, though he knew walking away was going to be harder than ever before. “For what it’s worth - I’m sorry that my actions the other night upset you. I understand why you lied to me,” he told her, glancing down at her, because he’d heard what she’d said earlier on, even if he hadn’t dealt with it specifically at the time. He’d thought she’d understood, the morning after. He’d left thinking everything was okay. Only, it hadn’t been. She’d been hurt and she’d simply told him what he needed to hear. He wished she hadn’t done that, but he could get why she had done, and right now, being angry at her over it seemed beyond him.

"I didn't lie." Eris said, fighting not to stand up with him. "I just left out my part." She was quiet again, and she wiped at her eyes. "I wanted to be there for you." She looked up at him, though he was a little blurry. "If you ever do need me..." she trailed off, not even sure how to say that.

Looking down at her, he’d made too many women cry in his lifetime - he’d never wanted her to be one of them, and the reasons that led them here seemed so far away right now. “Likewise,” he said, forcing out that single word.

She gave him a watery smile. "Don't tell me that." she said. Especially when part of the reason here that things are ending is because you don't have time for me. "Do you want your key?" she asked, looking around for it. She'd put it somewhere. It was likely on a surface somewhere in the living room, the closest spot she could set it down.

“No - no, you keep it. And the offer still stands. If you ever need somewhere to run to... Just, don’t use it to come do my housework,” he said, lightly, attempting for a joke, though it fell flat.

Nodding, she accepted that, not catching the joke part. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, anything, but in the end she shut it again. She just kept coming back to the same thing--it didn't actually matter. Nothing she said mattered right now. So anything she did have to say probably would only serve to make it worse, though she didn't know who it would make it worse for, her or him. She opened it again to say 'goodbye, Brett' but she couldn't get that out either.

“Please take care of yourself,” Brett said, knowing he was about to walk away, that he was going to leave and let the job swallow him whole, and she was going to forget him. Maybe not entirely, but enough of what mattered. But he’d never forget, because she’d been right: he never did. It would always be there. He didn’t let things go.

I'll take care of myself about as much as you'll take care of yourself. she thought but knew that wasn't what he wanted to hear right now. "Same to you." she said instead, knowing he wouldn't. That was part of the whole problem. He didn't have a middle ground. And with as much as had been going on, he wasn't going to have time to take care of himself, period. Or he'd not find the time. Part of her wondered in that moment if he did have her to go home to if that would be different, but in the end she still didn't think so. He'd be him. He'd said he'd only been home for a few hours in the past few days, and she didn't think that would change if she happened to be where he called home. It would just mean that he'd get home and probably feel a little guilty about not having been by in too long. No, there wasn't a solution there. And for her she knew she wouldn't be able to handle it. On several levels. Again, it seemed like she wanted to say things but she didn't manage it. She felt silenced. And maybe she was.