Infinity

TITLE: Infinity (4/?)

AUTHOR: Master F&M

FANDOM: Law and Order: SVU

RATING: Everything from PG to R—just like life.

SUMMARY: A Fin fic— to give him a life that the show refuses to give him

DISCLAIMER: L&O: SVU and all its characters belong to Dick Wolf, NBC, and whomever

                          else puts the show out for our enjoyment. I just get to play with them.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sam is a character of my own creation. She does not exist on the show.

FEEDBACK: Please give some. If no one likes what or how I’m writing, then I should stop

                      posting. But if you do like . . . then let me know so I will keep going.

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CHAPTER FOUR

            Sam pulled her car up to the front of the station house and waited for Munch and
Tutuola to exit the building. She was enjoying herself. In spite of the serious nature of the
case she was here to work on, she was looking forward to spending some time with her
uncle. It had been a while since they had more than a day or two to catch up with each
other. She was glad she hadn’t been out on assignment when he called. She had
immediately taken a short leave with the Bureau’s branch in Baltimore, put in a call to her
locator, and had requested a temporary reassignment to the New York branch. Now there
was no need to rush back. Maybe after the case was over, she could convince her uncle to
take a vacation, anywhere he wanted to go. On her.

 

            Even though Sam was already five when her mother was killed in an accident, and
despite the fact that her father was alive and well, and living in Baltimore, John Munch was
the only real parental figure she had known. Her memory contained very fuzzy images of a
nicely dressed woman she knew to be her mother. She couldn’t remember much of her,
other than the occasional hug or peck on the cheek. Cecilia Tagleone-Munch spent a great
deal of her time at charity and fund-raising events, and had little time for the beleaguering
questions of her precocious daughter. Consequently, Sam spent most of her early years in
the company of her nanny.

            After her mother’s death, her father, who was never particularly comfortable with his
daughter, seemed even more at a loss as to what to do with her. He was content to allow her
to continue to be raised by a succession of nannies, until one day her uncle came over and
took her out for ice cream. She was shy with him at first, as she was with everyone, but he
drew her out with his bad jokes and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. He
laughed at her answers to his questions, and told her that she carried herself like a little
princess. The name stuck, and thereafter they spent every Saturday afternoon together,
enjoying a cone and discussing what he called “the inner workings of the untainted mind.”
Sam was always thrilled at his arrival and sad to see him go.

            It wasn’t long before she was spending whole weekends, holidays, then school
vacations with Uncle Munch. They enjoyed each other’s company, and he understood how
lonely it was for her at home. It was he who discovered her affinity for computers after she
managed to circumvent his password to gain entry into his system. Once, when her father
was planning an extended trip to some place she has long since forgotten, it was decided that
she should spend the summer with John. It was the best time she had ever had.

              The current bobblehead hadn’t seen it that way. She had no intention of being tied
down by a child, especially one that wasn’t hers. Sam recalled how one night she had simply
left and never came back. Even after Munch assured Sam that his impending divorce was not
her fault, she still felt tremendous guilt and took it upon herself to look after him. To this
day she continued to carry out the task, although her guilt was diminished each time Munch
managed to marry, then divorce another bobblehead without Sam being present in his home.
She remained fiercely loyal to him, though, and had never failed to come to his aid when he
needed it.

            Sam smiled to herself as she watched her uncle and his partner climb down the station
house steps. She was glad to see him laughing. After the disaster that was Bobblehead #4,
she wasn’t sure he would ever even smile again. He was a little too thin, perhaps, but overall
he looked pregoodgood for his age. His partner didn’t look too bad either.

            Honking her horn, she waved at them, then leaned over and opened the passenger
side door.

            “What took you guys so long?” she asked Munch as he slid into the front seat, “I
was beginning to think I needed to send in a team to find you.”

            Fin stood outside the car for a few moments admiring it. It was the type of car he
would have liked had he been able to afford it: metallic silver BMW 645i convertible with
low profile tires and 20" chrome wheels. Definitely the kind of car he would have liked to
cruise around in. But she was right. Not on a detective’s salary . . . The fact that she was
driving the car was not lost on him. She’s got good taste, he noted. He had previously
admired the jacket she was carrying when she entered the squad room. When she put it
down on Munch’s desk to embrace him, Fin was surprised by the label. Brown leather from
Eve’s ‘Fetish’ collection. A Munch with a wild side? he had wondered.

            “Nice ride,” he said as he got in the back seat. Damn nice, he thought, running his
hands over the black leather interior.

            “Thanks.” Sam glanced at Fin in her rearview mirror as she headed toward the
nearest deli. “I wouldn’t normally take this baby out on assignments with me, but I was in a
hurry to get here and didn’t want to bother trying to rent a car. Luckily, my locator was able
to find me an apartment with a private parking space.”

            “What the heck is a locator?”

            “It’s a person who finds things. A certain kind of car, house, clothing-- whatever.
You tell them exactly what it is you want, and they ‘locate’ it for you. Mine’s great. He’s
found countless things for me.”

            “And you pay him to do it?”

            “Of course. But it’s worth it to me. I have a lot more free time to do other things.
Granted, it’s usually work, but . . . ”she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.

            “Where did you manage to find an apartment in New York on a day’s notice?”

            Sam glanced back at Fin again, hesitating momentarily. She wasn’t accustomed to
giving out personal information, such as it was, to someone she had just met, but he was
Munch’s partner. And there was definitely something about his eyes that made you want to
trust him. Either that, said a little voice inside her head, or it’s because he’s the hottest guy
you’ve ever seen in your life.

 

            “It’s on the Upper West Side,” she stated, ignoring the voice, and left it at that as
they pulled into a parking space.

 

            Over lunch the group discussed the particulars of the case. Sam offered the use of a
bureau program which was designed to search for even the most unlikely of commonalities
among victims, and they agreed to head over to the FBI building near the end of the day to
retrieve it.

            The ease between his partner and his niece was not lost on Munch. He noted several
times during the afternoon that he was all but excluded from their conversation, and only
mildly objected when they teamed up on him to poke fun at the Cadillac he still drove despite
its propensity for leaving him stranded. They had an instant camaraderie that sprung from
their mutual desire to make fun of him, as well as their common interests. It was exactly
what Munch had hoped for.

            He, of course, had noted for some time the similarities between these two people
whom he cared very much about. But Munch was not a meddler in the private affairs of
other people. It had never before occurred to him to set them up. Besides, he knew that
neither of them would have gotten within ten feet of a blind date he set up. Sam would have
insisted that her life was fine the way it was, and Fin would have just looked at him like he
was nuts. His track record in the romance department, after all, wasn’t exactly stellar.

            But that was before John had seen the sad look in Fin’s eyes. He had seen it too in
Sam’s the last time she had visited. When his case suddenly required the presence of a fed,
Munch knew he would never be presented with a better opportunity to get them together
without raising suspicions. Even if a romance didn’t develop, they could at the very least
have a friendship that would provide them both with a little companionship. But judging from
the way Sam kept glancing at Fin, and the small smile that nearly graced Fin’s face when she
offered to him him a particular martial arts move, John didn’t think the second option was
going to be necessary. He just needed to be subtle about the whole thing. Let it develop on
its own. He knew all bets would be off if either of them suspected he had a hand in getting
them together. And if they did get together, then maybe neither of them would give him such
a hard time when they found out that he has been seeing someone . . .

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            Fin unlocked the door to his apartment later that evening and let himself in.
Shrugging off his jacket, he took a few seconds to look around the place, assuring himself
that everything was as it should be. It was a leftover habit from his Narcotics days. Once
when he was working undercover, he had come home to the apartment he was given for the
job to find a rival dealer laying in wait for him. He managed to fight the guy off, but if he
hadn’t noticed the small changes in the way he had left things (putting him on guard), he
might have been caught unaware and thus could easily now be dead. Since then, he made it a
point to run a mental checklist before entering his home.

            He hated coming back here after having a good day. It made the place seem that
much more quiet, and a heck of a lot more lonely. Fin sighed, then decided against fixing
dinner. If he got hungry later, he’d just grab some leftovers from the fridge. He actually
enjoyed cooking, and was pretty good at it, too. But it had been a while since there was
anyone to cook for. His mind briefly strayed to Danni, but he immediately shut out any
thoughts of his former girlfriend. No point reliving that again.

            Forcing himself to think of something else, Fin’s mind locked on the afternoon he
spent with John and his niece. They were quite a pair. She was a lot like Munch, yet she
was different, too. Although they seemed to really like sharing certain traits, they also
enjoyed their differences. Not at all like his family. With them, his father in particular, either
you towed the line, or the line got cut. He toyed with the idea of calling his mother just to
say hi and to see how she was doing, but didn’t want to risk having Pops answer the phone
instead. Even if he hung up, his dad would know it was him. He didn’t want to give his
father the satisfaction of knowing that he missed them.

            He gave up trying to fend off the loneliness, and decided to just call it a night. He
stripped down to his boxers, then, nixing the sweat pants he usually wore, climbed into bed.
After a few minutes he reached into the bottom draw of the night stand next to his bed and
pulled out a picture frame. It held the photo of a small, five-year-old boy. He looked into
the child’s eyes, so like his own, smiling as he remembered when the picture was taken.
Dorian had wanted to see the circus so badly, and had nearly jumped out of his skin when Fin
had come home early from school that day anld hld him he was going. They spent the rest of
the afternoon and evening together, just father and son, and had stopped to take the picture
outside the big top so they could remember the day. He had made a copy of it so they could
each have one. It was now his prized possession, and the only thing he had left of son son.

            Fin hadn’t realized he was crying until he felt the tears slide down the side of his face.
He didn’t bother wiping them away, but instead let them flow freely. Someday, he thought,
clutching at the idea to stem the pain. Maybe someday.