by Aiden Bates
Oliver was going to die alone and forgotten. It was an omega's greatest fear. As he passed himself in the bathroom mirror, he imagined that he could see his whole life stretching out before him. The lab moved around him as he sat at his workstation; head graying as he bowed over his work. On the day that he finally collapsed, eyes sightless and staring, the lab moved on around him, like no one had even noticed.
Oliver headed to bed. At least he had the lab. It would probably be a different lab. He didn't think he could sit and watch other people move on and be happy while he rotted. It was a shame. He liked it here. He liked the seasons, he liked the people in the lab, and he liked his friends.
He couldn't live with their pity, though. It was bad enough now. After the baby was born, it would become intolerable. Once he'd recovered, he'd start his job search and hope that Nina understood.
***
Sam went through all of Tuesday on tenterhooks. He expected to get a message from Oliver in response to his note, surely by lunchtime if not mid-morning. "All is forgiven, you're awesome" would probably be a little much, but "Child support would be great, thank you" didn't seem unreasonable. When Oliver declined to come along to see the culmination of his hard work with the arrest of Isaiah Marsten, he knew he had a problem.
Wednesday rolled around. Sam had heard from Joe, who said that maybe they should talk. It was progress. He met for lunch with Jake, who accepted his hearty hug and told him that he was strong for getting help with his issues.
At the end of the meal, Sam bit the bullet and asked Jake about Oliver. "How is he? Is he doing okay?"
Jake looked away. "He's as well as can be expected. He's doing the best he can, you know? Making the best of things."
"Hmm." Sam forced himself to keep his expression neutral and to not get mad. "I was curious. He hasn't replied to my letter."
Jake winced. "Look, Dad, I don't want to fight here. You're my dad, but you kind of did him wrong and he has a right to feel his feels."
Sam tried to figure out what feel his feels might mean. "Okay, but he could at least reply."
Jake bit his lip. "He hasn't read it."
Sam lifted his eyebrows. “He hasn't read it?"
Jake's shoulders slumped. "Look, Dad, it's… okay. I did ask him, and I did urge him to read the letter. And he said that it was physically painful, at this point, to have contact with you. He pointed out that it doesn't matter what you guys say when you talk, because nothing actually changes. And he's right, Dad. I understand why you aren't going to keep him and the baby in your life, but they aren't really reasons that are for him. They're your reasons." He held up a hand. "They're valid for you, okay? I'm not pretending that they're not. I'm just… He's still holding the bag. And he's got to go on, while holding the bag. So hearing you dismiss him, again, isn't going to make anything better for him. It's only going to make him hurt worse. Okay?"
Sam bit down on the inside of his cheek. It wasn't his place to get angry about Jake's words, because they were right. If he had the right to reject Oliver's arguments, then Oliver had the right to reject his. He could admit that when he didn't have Oliver's scent right there, conflicting his heart and mind.
He hadn't realized that he'd spoken aloud until Jake scoffed. "Dad, no. He's not even making arguments. He's seeing through yours. If you wanted him badly enough, you'd be together. You don't. And you're going to lose out on this kid."
"If he would open up that letter, he'd see that I'm giving him child support." Sam scowled. "He can't keep me from the kid if I'm paying child support."
"First of all, I don't think he'd take it from you at this point. Secondly, I'm not sure that he's keeping the kid." Jake bowed his head.
"What are you talking about?" Sam waved a hand. "Omegas only give their kids up when they're young and poor. He makes more than I do, in that lab, with his degree."
"There's more to raising a kid on your own than just money. You know this, Dad." Jake chuckled. "He doesn't have any family, and even if he did they'd be in someplace weird like Indiana. What's he going to do with the kid when he gets called out to a crime scene, huh? Hand it a trowel and tell it to pretend it's a sandbox?"
Sam shook his head. "He'll reconsider. Omegas don't just give up their kids. It doesn't happen. He'll come around. It'll be a little weird, but it'll all work out for the best. Trust me here, Jake." He scratched his beard. "I do want him to find someone. Someone good."
"He doesn't want to." Jake shrugged and poked at his fries. "Remember? Anyway, this is something that we should probably stay away from. I have to support him."
Sam snorted. "You should support your old man."
"So do something I can support." Jake raised an eyebrow. "Joey said he called you, and you're going to get together sometime soon."
"Saturday." Sam nodded. "Someplace public, because we're still trying. It's been a long time."
"Too long. But I'm glad you're both willing to make the effort." Jake flashed one of his brilliant smiles, and the subject changed.
Sam tried to take his mind off of the Oliver problem with work. Just because they'd placed Marsten at the scene of the crime didn't mean that anyone was going to prove that he'd been behind the fire. Marsten could afford any number of high-priced lawyers, the likes of which would make Langer's sleazy omega's hair turn white.
There was nothing for it. He was going to need help with this. He grabbed Langer to act as a chaperone and dragged him down to the lab.
Langer grumbled the whole way down. "You did get the memo that I'm not part of your love life, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. I got the memo." Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, we need to nail this guy before he croaks or something, okay? And they're not even going to let me in the door of the lab without someone else holding my leash. That has to be you."
"Why me?"
"Because everyone likes you, Langer." Sam gave Langer a brilliant smile.
Langer cursed, but agreed to be the first person through the door.
The receptionist was having none of that. "Can I help you detectives?"
Langer gave the receptionist his most winning smile. "Look. We're not trying to harass anyone. We're just trying to get someone with a more scientific mindset than we have to help us puzzle out the best way to go. We knew, from the outset, that we were going to need a lot of the lab's help with this. We're just trying to follow up on that."
The receptionist crossed her arms over her chest. "You guys have a lot of nerve. You do realize that we don't have a bunch of scientists hanging around on hooks, right? They're not just waiting for some detective to ask for their expertise. They're working. On cases. That's why we have a system." She shook her head. "Go and use the system. Send your request in and it will be routed through appropriate channels."
Langer sighed and put his hands on her desk. "Look, Rebecca. I'm really sorry to have to bother you on such a nice day, but this is really important. We've got an arsonist who's likely to walk if we don't get some help with this. Now, I know you don't want that. This guy, assuming that we're right about this, has already killed at least sixty people to include two firefighters. Do you want that on your conscience?"
Sam thought that was a pretty good speech, as these things went. Rebecca, on the other hand, did not. "You guys work in Cold Case. Your boy's been inactive for a minimum of five years. The rape kit backlog that never gets smaller has cases drop off every day because we can't get to them fast enough and the statute of limitations expires. We've got drug convictions to re-process thanks to that one scandal, and if we don't get them done we're going to have thousands of people walking the streets who shouldn't be. Or, conversely, thousands of people locked up who shouldn't be. We've got two active murder investigations, an arson that turned into a homicide, a string of arsons from the South Shore, and an honest to God case of organ theft. That's what the day shift has going on, right now. You barging in there would disrupt any one of those cases. Are you honestly willing to look back on your life and have that
on your conscience, just because you in your eternal alpha arrogance were too pigheaded to follow the established procedures?"
Langer pressed his lips together. He couldn't argue any of those. Sam couldn't either, even if he wanted to. He did wrinkle his nose. "Organ theft?"
"Actual organ theft. We're hoping that the victim survives." Nina Burton appeared in the other doorway, the one that led from the vestibule into the workers' area. "I heard the raised voices. Detective Nenci, you're not supposed to be here."
Sam threw his arms up into the air and let them fall. "Don't you think that's a little ridiculous? I mean, it's kind of unprofessional to ban an entire department from the lab just because of an after-hours fling between one of your guys and one of ours—that was manipulated by someone else."
He could see Oliver peering around the corner. If he could just reach out and put his hand on his mate's shoulder for a moment, just half a second, he could buy some time.
He shook his head. Oliver was not his mate. There was nothing to buy time for, unless it was to sway his decision toward parenthood.
Nina glowered down at Sam. "I can ban whoever I want from my lab, thank you very much. I can absolutely ban people who insist on going around the established protocols. If I let you ignore them, then I have to let everyone ignore them, and it would just be a free for all. Now get out."
Sam looked beyond her and over at Oliver. "Look," he said. He addressed himself to Nina, but he pitched his voice so that Oliver could hear it. "I get that the whole idea of putting Oliver into the field was a setup, but Devlin was right. This case does need more science than most cases. All that I need is for someone to tell me which way to go, to make sure the bastard can't walk. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes and everyone knows that Oliver's the best at that."
Nina crossed her arms over her chest and glanced back at Oliver. Oliver looked ashen, but he nodded. "Fine," she said, "but after hours. And he gets a chaperone."
"Fine. Good. Whatever he needs, he gets." Sam held his hands up. "I'm really sorry to have bothered you."
"Don't let me see you in here again." Nina turned on her heel and walked back into her lab.
"I'll make sure you know exactly which case went out the window because of you," Rebecca told Langer with a sweet smile.
Langer glowered at Sam as soon as they left the lab. "Seriously, I knew that we were on the lab's list but tell me that I didn't just make myself public enemy number one because you screwed up with your omega so badly that the lab's declared war on us."
"I'll send Doug flowers." Sam massaged his temples. "I'm sorry. I didn't think that it would be that bad."
"Well, it was worse." Langer ran a hand through his dark, curly hair. "How do you think you're going to dig yourself out of this one?"
Sam clenched his jaw. "I don't think I can. I'll have to retire once this case is finished, maybe. I've got my twenty years in, and then some, so that won't be a problem." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think anyone will be sorry to see the back of me as it is. But it would probably solve the problem with the lab."
Langer snorted. "Don't you think that's a little melodramatic? You have one negative encounter and you're ready to hang it up?"
"Langer, I literally hobbled us all. Devlin tried to do something nice to me and I was so bad at it I destroyed our working relationship with the single most important ally our department had. And I imploded my relationship with my kids to boot." Sam stopped in the middle of the hallway.
"So fix it, Nenci." Langer rolled his eyes. "Try actually being nice to your omega and treating him like a person, Jesus. They really like that sort of thing. Trust me. Sometimes they'll even let you into their office and not throw shoes at you."
"He's not my omega, for crying out loud. He was never going to be my omega." Sam grabbed Langer by his arms. "He's too young to hitch himself to me, for crying out loud."
"It's not ideal." Langer gently freed himself from Sam's grip. "But you can't help who you love, man. Especially alphas and omegas. It's all chemical. It's fate. Do you think that I went out looking for a defense lawyer? Or do you think that Robles sought out someone like Tran? No. But once you stop fighting it, and accept your love for your omega, it works out."
"Yeah, until you die of old age and take your omega with you while he's still got a full life ahead of him." Sam scoffed and headed back toward the Cold Case squad room.
"You don't know what'll happen." Langer kept up with Sam easily. It was those damn long legs of his. "And I honestly think it's kind of crappy of you to make the decision for him, like he's too young to know what risks he's willing to take. I mean look, he's obviously been crazy about you since he got here. And you're just as besotted with him. What's really holding you back?"
"Why does everyone think that there's something else holding me back? That's it. I'm not willing to take such a guy out of the world." Sam stopped again.
Langer snorted. "If that was all, you'd still have treated him decently while you were together. Plenty of people can be together without a claim. You chose not to. I think you need to take a look at yourself and figure out why." He kept on walking toward Cold Case.
Sam sat down and considered the question. His instinct was to bristle and lash out, of course. Anyone's would be. With no one to rail against, though, he had to look deeper.
He hadn't meant to treat Oliver badly, but he had. He could see where Oliver had gotten a bad impression, time and time again. He wasn't going to get another chance with Oliver, and he wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of living together without a claim, but he knew that he'd done wrong by Oliver and that he loved him.
He called Trujillo's office and changed his appointment for an earlier one. He was going to need it before he went in.
Chapter Thirteen
Oliver sat down at the table. Ryan Tran sat next to him. He'd never been all that close with Tran, but he appreciated the efforts Tran had taken on his behalf during this whole mess. He wasn't sure if Tran was doing it for Oliver's sake or to get at Sam in some way, but right now he was pretty sure he didn't care.
Sam looked like he was sitting on a pile of thumbtacks. It was what it was, Oliver guessed. Part of him wanted to reach out and give Sam some comfort, but he didn't have anything to offer that Sam would accept. He folded his hands on top of the file in front of him and kept his eyes down.
Tran nudged him. "Dude. You have the information. You've got all the power here," he whispered.
Oliver nodded. Tran was technically right, but Oliver couldn't feel it. Not the way he should, not in his bones. After all, Tran wasn't the one who was going to have to leave town come March. He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, okay." He swallowed. "So, I heard what it was that you needed. You're looking for some additional technical information that would prove that Isaiah Marsten was at the Cooper Block fire and had some sort of altercation, beyond the image on the video and the blood on the objects at the scene."
Sam tugged at his collar. "Yeah, that about sums it up." He shifted to the left. "I mean yes, I'm positive that he's guilty. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on the quality of your lab work." He twirled his pen around in his hands. "I'm just concerned that he's going to have some fantastic lawyers, you know? The guy's loaded. He could afford to buy and sell Langer's omega six times over."
Tran buried his face in his hands for a second. "Can you maybe phrase that differently, considering present company?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Anyway, you know what I mean. I need there to be no wiggle room for his lawyers, no wiggle room for that jury. I mean, I'm putting a seventy-five-year-old man up on trial for multiple homicide and arson. I need to make it stick."
Oliver nodded slowly. "Yeah. I can see that all right." He bowed his head. "Fine. Okay." He opened his folder. "After you left I reached out to someone at Manchester PD. It took some digging on their part, but they found a record of a Manchester resident by the name of Isaiah Marsten who brought himself into Addison Gilbert
Hospital in Gloucester. He presented with a stab wound to the knee that required surgical intervention and a head wound. The date is the same night as the Cooper Block fire."
"And he does use a cane to walk." Sam took the printout that Oliver passed him. Their hands brushed against one another during the exchange, which made Oliver's breath catch in his throat. How was he supposed to get through this meeting?
Oliver looked down again. "It says here that the attending physician noted that Marsten claimed that the injuries were the result of a kitchen accident, but these injuries don't line up with any kitchen accident I can imagine. Very few kitchen accidents involve stab wounds to the knees. The officer noted that Marsten had a strong smell of smoke about him, but he explained that away by saying that he was using an outdoor cooking area. The officer couldn't disprove the statement, and Marsten appeared to be the victim, so he had to step away."
"Is there any possibility that we could track down that officer?" Sam perked up a little, and Oliver warmed up to see so much life in his alpha. Not your alpha, he reminded himself.