Something the Darkness Can't Take From You

This one comes at Morse from an Endeavour angle—not sure if that makes it an Endeavour/Morse/Lewis crossover or what…

Disclaimer: Purely for fan purposes—no copyright infringement intended.

Chapter One: Music

Standing on the rooftop with Thursday, begging him for something to hold onto when the job began eating away at everything he'd ever held dear.

"How do you do it? Leave it at the front door?"

And Thursday's words…

"Because I have to! A case like this'll tear the heart right out of a man." And then seeing the pain that had surely been threatening to spill out of the young constable Morse had been, his old inspector had pushed through his own struggles with all that they'd just gone through up on that roof and throughout that entire nightmare of a case and said, "Find something worth defending."

"I thought I had," Morse said. Only the killer, the first serial killer of either of their careers, had taken it, sullied it, used it for his own evil means…coming so closely on top of that first case he'd worked with Thursday which had culminated in the arrest for murder of one of Morse's favorite opera singers, Morse had to wonder if music was all he'd believed it to be.

"Music?" Thursday asked. "I suppose music is as good as anything. Go home, put your best record on… loud as it'll play and with every note you remember that's something that the darkness couldn't take from you."

And Morse had. Not just that day, but so many days, so many cases throughout the years. Oh, he'd never managed to leave work at the door. Always, his thoughts and his reactions and his emotions had threaded their ways in and out of the soaring movements…brooding Strange called it. And brooding it was often enough, but it was also what held Morse together, kept the darkness at bay, kept the job from tearing his heart right out of him.

But, Lewis? Morse followed Max's pointed look to where his sergeant stood with his back to them, already taking statements, already putting behind him what Morse was still painfully and unsuccessfully swallowing down.

He gave a soft sniff, "Lewis? Sergeant Lewis is made of sterner stuff than all that, Max…this won't have troubled him overly much."

"You think so?" Max said, shaking his head and doing that odd chortling thing of his that said quite clearly he thought Morse wasn't all that clever.

Morse frowned at him and then glanced back at his sergeant. It had been a difficult case. Ugly, painful, disturbing for all even peripherally touched by it…but, no.

Lewis, as though sensing Morse's eyes on him, turned and caught his eye in that very practical, very useful way he had about him of always being ready to get on with whatever needed doing. When he saw Morse had nothing for him to be getting on with, he turned back to his interview, and there'd been nothing shadowed in the sergeant's face, nothing glittering like unshed tears in the corners of his eyes.

Morse stifled a rueful chuckle of his own and told his old colleague, "No, Max. I don't think so; I know so."

There had never been a day when Lewis had turned to him as he'd turned to Thursday and begged to know how to keep going. Never been a case that had brought Lewis down in the way cases had used to get to Morse himself—well, as cases, like this one, could still do. And Morse, until this very moment, had never wondered about that.

But then, Lewis had something worth defending in his family...something that the dark could not take from him. And that would have been instinctive and total, not something someone would have had to teach him. And Lewis had worked his way up from the streets, seen things along the way from PC to DS that Morse, coming in as he had, had never seen…in a way, Lewis had grown up in the force, joining up before he'd been much more than a boy, hardened to it all while Morse had come in too late for that. If there had been a time early on when the job had eaten into the very soul of the young Lewis, he would have found his way long before he'd come to Morse. It would have been someone else pushing aside their own pain to help the young Lewis deal with his.

But, Morse couldn't really imagine there'd ever been the need. Lewis had what was surely an inborn resilience, a way of looking at the world expecting it to look back at him and smile. A confidence that life was good and he had a place in it…

Morse shook himself, nodded a farewell at Max's back as he'd turned back to his corpse, and strode up to Lewis. Putting his hand on his sergeant's shoulder, not because Lewis needed the physical comfort but because Morse needed that reassurance that the sergeant really was fit enough to not be sent off home or hospital, he said, "Lewis, I'm off then. You'll finish up here?"

"Yes, Sir," Lewis assured him, his voice strong and confident.

"Right. Tomorrow then?" Morse said, already moving off to his car.

"Yes, Sir, tomorrow then," Lewis said to his departing back.

And when Morse arrived the next morning, a bit later than normal, but they'd solved their case the night before so why not? and sadly the worse for wear after the restless night he'd spent fighting off the dark and his own maudlin thoughts, Lewis was, of course, already there plowing through the paperwork, ready and willing to dash off down the hall for Morse's tea. Chatty and sparky and untouched by it all…and it was only Max's passing comment that made Morse pause for an instant and consider the improbability that even the most insensitive of sorts wouldn't have been touched by what they'd dealt with over the last three days…and Lewis was far from insensitive. Too caring by half, Morse sometimes thought in exasperation when the sergeant spent too much time sympathizing with the bereaved instead of getting what information they needed and getting on with the investigation.

When Lewis returned with the tea and a 'There you are, Sir. A nice cup of hot tea will soon put you to rights', Morse sipped at the tea and said, "Lewis…how are you today—I mean after…well."

The sergeant blinked at him and gave a small shrug, "I'm fine, Sir…thanks." Morse read the surprise on the sergeant's face and kicked himself for even asking. Of course, Lewis was fine. Foolish of Morse to think even for a minute that he might not be. He drank his tea and dismissed Max's concerns for the last time.