quick note to thank my amazing betas Dany and Haikha for helping me out and making sure this fic is as clear of mistakes as the three of us could make it.
Reade is found unconscious on a Thursday afternoon. He's rushed to the hospital and Tasha is mad and scared in equal measures.
Patterson tells her, as they wait, that she'd had her suspicions about the man's condition for a while now.
Tasha wants to yell at the blonde. She doesn't. She nods. Sits and rests her head in her hands instead.
The doctor talks to them in a whispered tone. Regretful, even. Like he's seen things like this way too much. Reade is going to be fine, but they do need to find him a rehab.
That is when they call Weller in.
Because their boss had only ordered Tasha to check on her partner, since he was taking sick days too often and Kurt wasn't stupid.
Tasha had not told him about finding Edgar collapsed on his couch, left over cocaine spread over his middle table. She'd called the ambulance, and then Patterson. Reade was not the only one on leave that day.
When Kurt arrives, so does Nas.
The two have been an even more united front, lately.
Decisions are made and she doesn't say much. She hadn't known. She'd noticed Reade was different, noticed he was off, but she didn't think he would be that stupid. Would risk everything up so readily. She thought he had learned from seeing her falling on her face over her mistakes.
Talking to her team is fine. Again, she listens more than anything. Talking to Reade, however, is a different story. Talking to her screwed up partner is harder.
"I don't know what to do anymore."
"You've already done the mess." He doesn't look at her, has his arms crossed and who the hell is the man she's staring at? Where the fuck has her best friend gone to?
"So leaving you unconscious and alone would have been a better call?
"Staying the hell out of my business would be the right call, yes."
"Look, you're in deep, Reade. And until you deal with that shit you have locked down, you're not gonna get out."
"You're one to talk."
"I got out. I stopped gambling, I'm staying in line. I got out." She's getting angrier by the second, too, and he still refuses to look at her.
"Yeah, after you betrayed your entire team."
"And you almost had a cocaine overdose. My job? It is everything to me. It used to be to you as well. So you better work the program if you want a chance to keep it."
"What program?"
"That's Weller's part. I'm done here."
She stands, walks out and slams the door because that is not the guy she knows. That is not the guy who calls her loser with a smirk on his face and who drops groceries off at her grandma's house when she is caught up with something and is not able to.
Patterson and Nas have matching pity looks and Tasha readjusts her pathway towards the hospital's exit. The blonde tries to catch up to her, make her stop, come back, wait for Weller before calling it a night, but a sharp leave me alone thrown over her shoulder is enough for the steps following hers to fade away.
If she cries alone in her apartment, is not like anyone notices.
The only one who would is hidden behind his past and his fucked up memories and a whole lot of coke.
°°•°°
Claire was ten when she decided she wanted to be a cop.
It came as a surprise to them all.
Her mom was a soldier and Claire never said it, but it was clear to the whole family that she would never be able to follow that road. She didn't like moving, and she hated the war.
She made her career-decision when she found a baby in a box on her way back from school.
The second she stepped into the house and Nana saw her and the infant, things got messy and she failed to understand what was really going on.
She made her career-decision when an officer caught her eye, maybe a week into the whole ordeal, and sat down by her side. He explained the case to her and she felt a bit more mature, a bit stronger for being finally able to grasp what happened to the little girl she'd found.
The baby's mother died when it was born and the dad left her in the box because he didn't know what to do.
Claire sat through the trial beside her family. Took the stand when she was called in and she focussed on the infant she'd found and carried over to her grandparents home.
Like the girl's dad, she didn't know what to do with that tiny human as well.
She was sure, however, that she couldn't just let a crying baby out in the sun either.
An officer, the same one who made her feel bigger and mature, clapped her on the shoulder when everything was over.
"You'd make a great detective one day."
"How do you know?"
"We have an eye for our own kind."
She smiled.
Then, of course, she grew up, her family moved to New York and her life seemed to pick up its pace. She worked stupid hours, got relatively good friends and made detective by twenty-eight. Then she proceeded to get knocked up and struggled with loose ends for a few years before her captain suggested the Bureau.
The change had benefits. Benefits she desperately wanted. Larger payroll, bigger cases. It all made sense and one night, her son smiled at her with chocolate all over his mouth and she knew she needed to do it. She started filling out the application after he was asleep.
Kurt Weller called her two months later and now she's trying not to chew on her bottom lip as she waits for the elevator to stop.
There had been files delivered to her apartment the same day she'd accepted the offer. The majority of the dossiers were meant to fill her in on the big case the team was working on, but one sheet presented the woman who was going to be her partner and why Claire was needed, anyway.
A ding sounds and the metal doors slide open. She never expected calm going into her old station, in this floor, however, there is nothing but it.
People type fast and silently, talk in whispers and stifle yawns.
Claire spots her desk right away.
Perhaps because it is the only one available, or perhaps because the frowning woman sitting opposite to it looks at the surface as if it would spontaneously burst into flames.
"Excuse me, are you Natasha Zapata?" She settles the box with her stuff on the table, puts on an appropriate smile and tries her hardest to keep her hands from shaking.
"God, only my grandma calls me that. I'm Tasha." Their eyes meet. Claire's hands begin to still.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Claire Pierce." She extends a hand. The woman takes it, shakes it and drops it.
"Has Weller filled you in?"
"I've read through some files, yes. How are you on the bookshop case?"
She remembers something about a frontier bookshop being used as a drug smuggler.
"Got a few people talking, but nothing solid enough for an arrest."
"How many suspects have you got?"
"Well, Jane thinks there are three possible ones, but Nas and I agree A.J. is the guy."
"Jane's the tattooed one, right?"
"Yeah." Tasha takes a sip of her coffee, closes her eyes for a bit before meeting Claire's gaze again. "Have you met anyone yet?"
"Nope. Only knew who you were because of the picture attached to the files."
"I swear to God, if Kurt put the 2011 one I'm going to kill him."
Claire smirks.
And she notices her hands are relaxed.
She thought it would be hard. Knew that no one could be partnered up with someone else for as long as Zapata and Reade had been without some sort of bond appearing.
So she thought Tasha would be hard. Thought that the woman would put her through a hard time and when that Edgar guy came back, Claire would leave with a whole lot of indifference from the person she had had the back of.
"C'mon, then. I think Patterson is in and Jane is probably down by Roman's cell."
Tasha stands up, gets her cup from the desk and starts walking.
Claire doesn't get a chance to sit down, but she's glad for one thing already, regardless. The woman's height. They are pretty much shoulder to shoulder.
No overshadowing, no large steps she has to constantly catch up to.
There's that excitement deep in her belly as she meets her new team. The one that had been missing before Tasha had made a death threat. There's excitement for new people to learn to read, new halls to map out in her mind, new camera spots to memorize.
There's the excitement and also the unease, because that may diminish, but not truly disappear.
She loves new experiences and since she found that baby in that box all those years back, she's known that she wanted to protect her country. She loves new experiences and she loves her line of work.
She's dead scared too. Of having to contain her sense of humor and the bubble of energy she wakes up with every day.
Claire is upbeat, blames her grandad for that side of her and she's learned, pretty early on, that the higher up she got in her career, the more she had to push that characteristic away.
She's dead scared that with a case this size, she'll have to permanently extinguish it.
°°•°°
"I'd really rather work alone."
"She's a good cop, Tasha. And two days are not enough to call it quits."
"Yeah, sure. I just don't think she's needed. You could've used the funding to get Patterson some new equipment, I'm sure that would be more helpful."
"We're a great team. Your gut is on point, Patterson is crazy smart. Jane brought the case to us and has top military training. Nas has access to a whole new level of information. But Pierce has had the highest scores in field tactics across the State for the past eight years. After the close calls we've had lately, we really could use her talent."
She sighs, crosses her arms and shrugs. Kurt Weller is a mess of a man, but a fucking great leader.
"Reade did tell us to use his spot."
He gets her acceptance and smirks.
"Try to go easy on her, alright? She's a bit more… optimistic than we're used to."
"I'm fine with optimistic. But she shows up humming at six A.M and I'm not responsible for my actions."
He chuckles, looks out into the common area.
"You better let her know soon, then. 'Cause she just stepped in and Richard is giving her a dirty look."
Richard. AKA the asshole who hates noise.
Tasha forces herself to stand up and meet her partner at their joined desks.
"Good morning." Claire smiles. Extends a cup of coffee in her direction. She pauses.
"Morning." Her eyes are suspicious while she takes a sip of the liquid and she recognizes that she's in trouble, then. Pierce has this look of complicity and this spark to her gaze and meets Tasha's staring-match head on. "How in the hell did you know I like Caramel Machiatto?"
"Your cup from yesterday afternoon. The order was written in quite huge letters."
"Do you always analyze people's coffee choices?"
"I analyze everything all the time."
She keeps on drinking because God knows she can use the caffeine, but she crooks an eyebrow at the woman.
"As long as you don't go paranoid on me."
"Nah, I got over that phase about four years ago." Claire snickers, leans against the side of her desk and Tasha rolls her eyes. "Seriously though, I move around so much that I like to bring something my partner enjoys while we work together."
Tasha wonders if besides being overly vigilant, the woman also has the talent of making people feel like douchebags for stupid things they say behind her back.
"I'm always down for free coffee."
"What kind of law enforcement agent would you be if you weren't?"
She rolls her eyes again, ignores how much she misses doing that towards Reade and sits down on her chair to finish some paperwork.
They get a case later on and it's rough.
Kids' bodies start showing up through the town. Beaten up, bruised, sharp bones under gloomy skin.
The drop zones have no connection besides easy escape routes. Weller gets closer and closer to bursting as the time goes by.
She spends her lunch break with the punching bag. She doesn't want to eat, feels like she doesn't deserve to, since the children obviously didn't have that privilege.
"This is connected to the tattoos."
Tasha turns her face to see the person, palms flat against the leather, steadying it.
"What are you talking about?"
She's out of breath. She doesn't mind.
The kids can't breathe, either.
The only difference is that her lungs will fill again. Theirs won't.
"They have to be." Claire says, taking a seat against the closest wall.
"Patterson hasn't found anything."
"There's no other reason. The news are being sent directly to this unit through the FBI firewall. Who else would go through so much trouble just to exposed a serial killer?"
"A hacker using his ability for good?"
She frowns. Goes back to punching and they keep quiet for a few minutes.
"I don't think so. Something is telling me otherwise."
And that does it for her. That hits the nerve and if Reade was here, he'd be right beside her, throwing punches and kicks of his own. But he isn't. He isn't and Claire is.
"You just got here. Why the fuck do you think you get to have instincts about Sandstorm?"
Tasha steps aside, lets the bag swing front and back, stares at the blonde.
Claire visibly sighs, lifts her hand and puts a strand behind her hair in a quick movement before extending a brown bag in Tasha's direction.
"Onion rings?"
Her words disappear. The ones she wanted to let go in a rant. Her words disappear and her stomach grumbles.
"What is it with you and food offering?"
Claire gives her a small smile and shrugs.
What is it with this woman?
Tasha wants her best friend here with her. Not some stranger. Not someone who doesn't match her tone of voice when she's clearly pissed off. Not someone who offers her food when she doesn't deserve to eat, but desperately needs to.
She settles down carefully beside Claire.
"You know what one of the worst parts is?" Her partner asks and Tasha hums, takes a golden arch from the bag. "Parents live being scared. They love their children with all they've got and try to keep them safe. Safe from diseases, from danger, from themselves and it takes literally three seconds for their kids to disappear and for their whole world to collapse."
"You talk like you've been through that."
"Not really. But I get the feeling." Claire takes a ring of her own, eats it before carrying on. "I have a son. Sam. He's four and he's amazing. Last year I let go of his hand on the park to pay for icecreams and when I looked down, he wasn't there. He'd only walked to the pond a few feet away, but those moments it took me to spot him were the worst of my life."
"And now we have to find a bunch of people and let them know that their kids are dead."
"Yeah." Claire sighs again and it feels appropriate.
She wants Reade beside her and Reade is not coming any time soon, so she swallows her wants and puts on her big girl pants.
"I'm sorry for snapping."
"We're all on the edge. Cases like these just-"
"Yeah." She agrees and Claire doesn't quite smile by the quotation, but her face gets a tad lighter. "A piece of advice, by the way. Stay clear of Weller while we sort this out. He's got- history with these sorts of things."
"Trust me, I intend to. Last time I saw him Nas was trying to calm him down after he yelled Jane out of the room."
"He's got history with her too."
Claire frowns, turns a bit so their gazes can meet.
"With whom?"
"Jane." She shrugs. Then remembers her theory. "Both. I think. I'm just sure about Jane."
The blonde lets her mouth fall open an inch before shaking her head.
"I just got here. I don't need to be sucked into that."
They stand and her partner hands her the rest of the snack.
"No, I'm fine."
"I've had my lunch already and I'm betting you didn't."
She takes the paper bag and walks away from the woman.
"Stop analysing me." Tasha points before leaving the room.
"Would if I could." She hears as she's halfway down the hall.
She misses Reade, but free coffee and food may do for now.
At least that's what she tells herself, anyway.
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