Northern Lights

crazies liv
    ing in an empty refrigerator box under a bridge. Life was pretty simple in a cardboard box, and nobody expected you to do anything.
    He thought of the old saw about a tree falling in the woods and twisted it around to suit himself. If he lost his mind in Lunacy, would he ever have had it to lose?
    He hated the part of him that thought that way, the part of him that wanted to live there.
    If he didn't go down, someone would come up. That would be worse. He cursed at the effort it took just to get to his feet. Had those little stirrings inside him, those quick sparks of life been a kind of mocking? Fate's way of showing him what it was to be alive, before it kicked him into the hole again?
    Well, he still had enough anger to crawl out this time, this one more time. He'd get through this night, this last night of the year. And if there was nothing in the next, he sure as hell wasn't any worse off.
    But tonight he was on duty. He closed a hand over the badge he'd yet to take off and knew it was ridiculous that a cheap piece of metal should steady him. But he'd taken even that, and he'd go through the motions.
    The light burned his eyes when he switched it on, and he had to deliberately step away before he gave into the temptation to just turn it off again. Just settle down in the dark again.
    He went into the bath, ran the water cold. Then splashed it on his face to fool himself into believing it washed away the fatigue that snaked around the depression.
    He studied himself in the mirror for a long time, searching for any tells. But he saw an average guy, no worries. A little tired around the eyes, maybe, a little hollow in the cheeks, but nothing major.
    As long as everybody saw the same, that would be enough.
    The noise washed over him when he opened his door. As with the light, he had to force himself to move forward instead of retreating back into his cave.
    He'd given both Otto and Peter the night off. Eat, drink and be merry. They both had friends and family, people to sweep out the old with. Since Nate had been struggling to sweep out the old on his own for months, he didn't see why that should change tonight.
    He carried the lead in his belly down the stairs.
    The music was bright and better than he'd expected. And the place was packed. Tables were rearranged to make dancing room, and the patrons were taking advantage of it. Streamers and balloons festooned the ceiling, and the dress of the people was just as celebratory.
    He saw some of the old-timers in what Peach had described for him as an Alaska tuxedo. They were sturdy work suits, cleaned up for the occasion. Some were worn with bolo ties and, oddly, paper party hats.
    Many of the women had fancied things up with sparkly dresses or skirts, upswept hair, high heels. He saw Hopp, spruced up in a purple cocktail dress dancing—fox-trot, two-step? Nate hadn't a clue—with a slicked-up Harry Miner. Rose sat on a high-backed stool behind the bar, with the man he concluded was her husband, David, standing beside her, gently rubbing the small of her back.
    He saw her laugh at something the receptionist from the clinic said to her. And he saw the way she looked up, met her husband's eyes. He saw the warmth of love beat between them, and he felt cold, felt alone.
    He'd never had a woman look at him like that. Even when he'd been married, the woman he'd thought was his had never looked at him with that open, unrestricted love.
    He looked away from them.
    His eyes scanned the crowd as cop's eyes do—measuring, detailing, filing. It was the sort of thing that kept him apart, and he knew it. It was the sort of thing he couldn't stop doing.
    He saw Ed, and the allegedly snooty Arlene. Mitch of KLUN, with his streaky blond hair in a ponytail, and his arm around a girl who wasn't as pretty as he was. Ken was wearing a Hawaiian lei and having a lively discussion with The Professor, who wore his usual tweed.
    Fellowship, Nate thought. Some of it drunken at this point, but it was still fellowship. And he was Outside.
    He caught a hit of Charlene's perfume, but she followed up on it too fast for him to brace or evade. Curvy female was wrapped around him, warm, glossy lips were sliding silky over his, with a sly hint of tongue. His ass was stroked and squeezed, his bottom lip gently nipped.
    Then Charlene slithered off, smiled sleepily at him. "Happy New Year, Nate. That was just in case I can't get my hands on you at midnight."
    He couldn't quite form a word and