When she realizes her partner is not sitting at his desk, Juliet doesn't even wonder where he could be. The route is already traced in her mind: a well-known autopilot taking over her pumps-blistered feet, pace made uneven by a broken left heel, and lifting the burden of thinking from her sleep-deprived brain.
She lets instinct and experience lead her down the stairs to the line of empty interrogation rooms, all cool shadows and citrusy floor disinfectant, and make her grab a cup of dark coffee slush which has surely been reheated way too many times, and push the last door on the right open - slipping in without a knock or a single word.
They're way past that. They're way past the first day Juliet found out about Lassiter's secret alcove of quiet, back in the days she still felt like an awkward bumblebee shadowing an ice-eyed crow, and she fumbled for a good minute between a muttered apology and a burst of laughter - just to be silenced by a Ben & Jerry's mouthful shoved almost directly into her face.
They're way past formalities, especially after they've brushed death at least five times in the last twelve hours, and they’ve wrapped up a kidnapping case more painful than any of the bruises running under their clothes, and they're just so damn happy to still be here and for the other to still be here as well.
Juliet slides down the wall in a heap of wrinkled fabric, kicks off her shoes. Rests the coffee mug on the floor at her right - a packs of sugar and one creamer pinned against it, because he really should calm the hell down with sweet things - and finally turns to the man sitting against the wall by her side: a lankier, paler mirror image of her tiredness.
Carlton nods his thanks, eyes like chips of ice against the bruised shadows under them. Pushes his tub of ice cream in her hand, two spoons already shoved into its pastel pink cream.
She smiles, because she will never get over the delicious absurdity of Carlton Lassiter locking himself in an interrogation room to eat strawberry ice cream, and takes the spoon.
They scoop the tub clean in silence. Scoot over till their shoulders press against each other. They’re here, their bones still aching and their hearts still beating, and so the world has their permission to keep spinning.
When she finally nods off against his arm, Juliet thinks hard victories smell like gunpowder and sweat, and taste like ice cream.