truth is a harsh mistress

who: Danny and Zhen
where: ECPD Station
when: early afternoon

It seemed that everyone knew Danny was on desk duty because his desk was full of files and others' paperwork that had been dropped on him. It was mind numbing but he worked through because there wasn't much else to do.

Setting on file aside he flipped open another. Interview notes from a witness at the scene of a murder. Body of a young Chinese girl found floating in the river, nothing too terribly out of the ordinary. He put together the report with ease, then took the stack of finished work down to the file room to be added to everything else.

Zhen happened to be working, typing away on some notes for a file that technically was closed, but she liked going over old case files. It was fun for her, looking back over the archives, and putting to type handwritten notes from ages back. Some of it was difficult to decipher, but she managed just find, and sometimes part of the fun was wondering what the hell they were getting at. When the door opened, she glanced up and over. "File room, how may I help you?" she asked, before seeing who it was. Then she smiled. "Hello, Officer McKinney." she greeted.

"McKinnon," Danny corrected with a half smirk, doing his best to balance the files in one hand while his other arm was still useless in the sling. "Dropping some stuff off to be added to case files. Desk duty apparently has me batting clean up."

"It's better than other things!" Zhen said, walking over to relieve him of said files. "I'll take care of them right away. How's your wife?" she asked. Since the last time she'd seen the woman, she'd been crying her eyes out and terribly upset over the state of her marriage. Zhen had given her advice, but she wasn't certain the woman would have taken it at all. She might not have had the backbone for it.

"I suppose it is," Danny said not sounding convinced. It was strange, the way Zhen asked about Janey. He'd not spent a lot of time talking to Zhen, but she struck him as the type of person who didn't ask about something unless she truly wanted to know the answer. "She's doing alright I suppose," he answered, thinking of Janey crying the day before and finally falling asleep against his chest. He followed Zhen hoping to help in some way that wasn't staring at pages of paperwork.

"Hey! You sit down." she scolded, shooing him back behind the counter. "This is my job. You sit." she said firmly, glancing at the file numbers, and heading to the correct cabinets. "And she's doing alright you suppose? You don't know?" she asked, looking over at him again. If he was giving an answer like that, she had to imagine that Janey had in fact, chickened out on talking to her husband. That was a shame.

Danny did as he was told, not really eager to head back into the fray anyway. People were talking, they were looking at him sideways, even though no one blamed him. What was worse is they were murmuring about Sam and for some reason that annoyed him. He watch Zhen put things away, scratching at his chin. "She got upset last night, but then she calmed down. So I suppose she's doing better than she was."

"Well, calming down isn't necessarily a sign of being better." Zhen said. "Sure, it's better than hysterics, but that doesn't mean she's feeling better. Crying is difficult to sustain, and most people try their hardest to cut it short. So, if she was crying with being upset, then maybe she just stopped, but her emotional distress is still present." She pulled open a drawer, and deposited a file. "What was she upset about?" she asked.

"She said she was tired. She was worried I wasn't happy. But she fell asleep, slept pretty well which I think helped things." Danny shrugged but then winced from the pain in his shoulder. "Hey, is that the file on the girl? Can I see the whole thing?"

Zhen glanced around and gave him a 'are you kidding me?!' Look. "Good lord you're a terrible husband." she said. Nope. Zhen often just said what she felt, and that one was pretty clear. She did, however, get the file he'd asked for, and she brought it back over to the counter to set on top of it. "If you mean 'the girl found who should have been in Chinatown', yes. This is the one." she said.

Danny blinked a few times at that before he answered. "I am not a terrible husband," he protested with a confused look. When she set the file down he slid it closer to himself, flipping open folder and half skimming it.

"Well, let's see. I asked you how your wife is, and you couldn't even actually tell me, and you just said she was upset, but she calmed down, so you 'suppose' she's better. That's the mark of a man who doesn't know the slightest thing about how his wife is doing or what's the matter with her. And considering you don't know, and I know for a fact that she was upset for quite a while, that tells me that you don't give enough of a damn. I'm sure you care some, but really?" she tsked, shaking her head. "Make a choice, Danny. Either take more interest at home, and actually put a little effort into your wife, or let the poor woman go. You're killing her." She said. Her business? Hell no. Did that stop her? Absolutely not. She liked Janey. And the woman had come in and cried on her, so she had a bit of a protective instinct as well. And if Janey didn't have the backbone to say something, then maybe getting a hard boot to the ass elsewhere would do the trick.

Raising his eyes to meet Zhen's, Danny gave her his best cop 'what the fuck' look. The woman had overstepped her bounds like mad. It was hardly her business and it set him more than defensive. "I know a lot of what she was upset about, she's still upset she's not a mother. But what am I supposed to do about that?" Besides keeping her from kidnapping children. "I do give a damn, thank you very much."

Completely unphased by Danny's defensive reaction, Zhen just gave him a Look. "Not enough, you don't. That woman is missing a lot in her life, and all she's worried about is you. How much time do you spend a day worrying about her and whether she's happy or not?" she asked, pointedly. "I'm willing to bet not even a quarter as much time as she spends on you. Her entire life is about you. How much of your life is about her? And if she really wants a child, adopt one. There's an orphanage in town and everything. I'm positive they even have very little children you could raise as your own. Hell, I will pay for it, if it helps that poor woman. But she shouldn't have to rely on near strangers to get her through her day, that's your job."

Then she paused as a photograph of the crime scene in the file Danny was looking at was visible, and she just looked at the details. There was some recognition in her features, though she didn't say anything just yet.

"I care about her, more than you know. More than she knows. I'd go to the end of the world for her, but she doesn't ask about that. She doesn't want anything from me." Danny hated this. It was the same conversation he'd had with Jackson when Stella had died. At least he could push Jackson into a wall when he got snotty. "We tried adopting, it didn't fit at the time. If she wants to consider it again, alright, fine. It's not like she mentioned it. She thinks God's given up on her." Frustrated Danny dropped his eyes from Zhen's looking at the file. The photo caught his eye too and solid recognition settled in on his face. "Shit."

"Well, it's high time she does get told how much you care, don't you think? Possibly, being your wife and all, she should know." Zhen told him. "And if she wants to consider it again--how about you actually bring it up? And if she thinks God's given up on her, maybe you should prove to her that you haven't. Seems like you lay a lot on her, Danny, and maybe that's what's the problem. She shouldn't have to go to you with absolutely everything, you need to hold up your end too." she said. Then she saw he looked like he recognized the girl as well. "Did you know Ki?" she asked, this time, her voice quite gentle, regardless of her tone on matters of Janey.

"I tell her how much I care," he said halfheartedly because he was looking at the photo. Zhen was right, Danny could say more about how much he cared, even though he was pretty sure he'd done an alright job by that lately. Hadn't he. "Yea I knew her," he mumbled, picking up the photo and examining it closely. "Last time I saw her she was beat up. I tried to get her to tell me what happened, but she wouldn't. Shit." Setting the photo down again he ran his hand over his face. Another one. He'd failed another one.

"I'd work on doing that much more blatantly." Zhen said to the first part, then she picked up the crime scene photograph. "That's a shame." she said. "She was a sweet girl, if I recall." she said. "I never knew her well or anything, just saw her from time to time when I visited my family in Chinatown." She considered, looking at him for a long moment. "It would likely have turned out worse for her if she had told you what had happened. Things...work differently in Chinatown than they do in other parts of the city." she told him, again, her voice oddly gentle. she could see that it was affecting Danny to see the girl had died.

"I know. I know how it works." That didn't mean he was okay with how it worked. "She was a sweet girl and people just abused her." Danny had hated that. He'd almost gotten into more than one fight with people who had no idea how to treat someone. Maybe there were just too many to save. Moving on he flipped through the pages in the file, hoping there was an answer somewhere, that someone had figured something out.

"There are a lot of people in the city just like her." Zhen said, true regret in her tone. Because most of them she couldn't show better things to. Even if she tried. Like there were some of the rich and powerful who never knew what it was like to starve, and that was a shame as well. Hm. Maybe she needed to concentrate on that soon. Teaching the higher ups just what it meant to be unfortunate in this city.

"There are?" Danny asked even though he knew what she was saying was true. What he hoped she would tell him was the details, where the others are, who was looking out for them. How many more would he have to save until he felt like he could make up for those he'd lost already?

"Of course there are." Zhen said, looking up to Danny again. "You just said you know how it works, Officer." she added. "I'm sure you know. There are people like her everywhere. In all areas of the city. People who grow up in an oppressive environment, where they're used, and if they don't fall in line appropriately, or, alternately, start knowing too much about anything they shouldn't, they just get thrown away, in a permenant manner. She isn't the first, she won't be the last, and it's happening right as we speak."

She was right, he knew exactly and asking was stupid. "It makes me, as a cop, feel pointless. Like there's no use in even trying sometimes." If he was a lesser man he'd probably have given up by now, so many others had.

"Well, there's one hell of a lot of you who have stopped trying." Zhen said. "But if everyone did, then we'd descend into anarchy, and anarchy, while a fun concept, certainly, ultimately fails as a society. This city would eat itself alive, if everyone stopped trying to quell it. You hold back the darkness. Sure, maybe not enough, but if you didnt' at all, we'd all drown in it."

"The city is eating itself Zhen, every day. Tyler's job is on the line. She's a damn good cop and they want to blame her for what happened down at the docks, what happened to me." Danny's mind drifted back to Maya's note, to what Elle said about Cheyenne. Everything was spinning out of his control. "What happens when we can't hold it back enough? There's too few of us left. Even me, I'm not completely doing my part." He wasn't. The DiGiovanni's hand their claws in him too.

Zhen considered that, propping her elbow on the counter, chin in her hand as she did so. "Why aren't you completely doing your part?" she asked first. Zhen was a big believer in taking things one piece at a time, because all those pieces, they added up. They kept piling on, and then after that the avalanche happened, but it never all happened at once. there was always a series of events that heralded it--people just didn't know to look for it.

"There are too many," he said sounding downtrodden. "Too many to save, and the harder I try, the more I lose. Like Ki here. I told her I'd be there for her and look at this." Danny pointed to the photo of the dead girl. I can't save one girl. How are we supposed to save a whole city?" Maybe it would be best to just let the whole damn thing cave in on itself.

"Possibly because you, personally, can't." Zhen said. "The thing to know is that you need to do things on an individual basis. You can't save everyone. End of story, you can't. But you can save specific people. Find people who matter to you and save them." she told him. "Continue to do your job, of course, but stop thinking of the whole picture. You're only responsible for one part of it, so be responsible for that part. The second you try to do more than your share, is the second you'll lose what you do have, and those you endeavor to save will be lost."

"You said it yourself. Too many of them have given up," Danny protested, gesturing back towards the station house with his good hand. "Someone has to pick up their slack." If he did, maybe he could make up for turning his back on more than one thing that the Family had done. Damnit he needed a drink. Of course he'd left his flask in his desk.

"You can't, though. It still spreads you too thin. If one person could do it, then the world wouldn't be such a terrible place sometimes, but that's just how it goes. You still have your own, specific tasks to do, and if you decide to take up everyone else's, you'll still fail across the board. At least if you do your own part, that one piece will be helped." Zhen told him. "It's up to you, Danny, but I'm telling you--you either do your own part and stick to that, really concentrate on it and help the people you need to...or everything fails even if you are still doing your 'part'. It's harsh, but it's reality, and you should probably learn to accept that."

Danny sighed, hand flexing into a fist and then out again. He really wanted that drink. "So I do my part, and pray it makes a difference, even though every day I see it doesn't? I watch more cops go down or dirty, I watch more people die, and I just wait for it to be my turn." This last time they'd certainly gotten close, his injured arm was proof enough of that.

Zhen looked at him dead in the eyes. "Yes." she said simply. "That's what you do. Otherwise, everything goes to hell, and you'll still have lost. You'll still make a difference to those you set out to help, if you concentrate on doing so." Yes, still harsh, but no one was a super hero.

"It's not enough. You know that just as well as I do. There's got to be something more I can do, anything more." Danny's eyes didn't leave hers, focused on her answer. Someone had to be the hero here. Why couldn't it be him?

"Danny, you're a drunk who can't even keep his home life in order." Zhen said. "do you really think you'd even be up to the task of anything more than you already have going on? If you really want to do more--fix your life first. Get your injuries healed, get your home in harmony, then come talk to me about doing more. But until you can prove you can do even the simplest of things to keep your life from falling into ruins...I would not trust you to do anything." Which was her setting him on a path to possibly come out the other side better than he was. If he would take it, that was. But she wasn't sure he would. He could very well just tell her no, and everything was fine, and he'd just go off, continuing what he was doing while it had no good impact on anyone at all. She just hoped that wasn't the case.

"You know little about me, Zhen. Nothing at all." Danny's voice was terse, angry at the words she'd used, at what she'd said. Not because they were lies, but rather because they were the truth. Closing the file in front of him, he picked it up, tucking it under his arm as he stood. "Not a damn thing. And don't presume to assume you do."

"Just because the rest of the guys won't tell you like it is, Danny, doesn't mean you're going to get kid gloves treatment from me. Grow up. Be a man. And stop hiding your head in the sand from all the bullshit you've strewn across your life." Zhen told him. "Good luck with that denial, I'm sure it'll continue to serve you well." she told him, not in the slightest flinching from his words or tone, the anger that she could see in him. This was what she did. She pushed people, she redirected them, she presented new and different possibilities. That just didn't always mean people liked it when she did. She was used to it. It didn't bother her at all. "Have a good day, Officer." she added onto the end of it, turning right back to the files she'd been putting away like she was dismissing him.

Danny didn't have anything to say, at least nothing that wasn't just telling Zhen to fuck off or go to hell. When she turned her back on him, he did the same thing to her, mulling over her words in his head as he walked back towards his desk and his flask.