A/N I have no idea where this one came from - but I won´t complain, because I liked it!(The idea, I mean^^) I have to admit that the English translation - what yyou´ll be reading, if you really want to continue - is quite inferior to the German Original. Well. I hope I´ve gotten the main parts right!
Disclaimer: I own a brain that can keep 37 of 79 trivial chemical names - until now. I hope it will be more sucessful tomorrow. I don´t own Cold Case, though.
Cold Case - Spring. For exactly this reason
„Bullshit", Nick Vera mumbled, stamping a document on his table with more force than necessary. He was barely finished when Kat Miller pulled it away from him, carefully blowing on the wet ink. Then she tacked it to another pile of blanks, throwing her colleague a dirty look.
"Vera", she growled warningly. "You´re really pissing me off! Stop it!"
"Stop what", Vera replied, suddenly all friendly and innocent. Kat sighted in exasperation.
Not even a blind man would have fallen for this faked innocence, Scott Valens thought, while he watched his fighting colleagues amusedly. Already since lunch, Kat Miller and Nick Vera had been attacking each other with nasty comments, quotations, angry glances and dirty side-marks – just because the burly detective hadn´t been able to keep his mouth shut earlier. Something which seemed to happen quite often in the PPD during the last weeks. Actually, incidents like this had become daily events for Scotty.
From the desk opposite to his, Lil lifted her head and stared at her bickering colleagues in confusion, one brow raised.
"What´s going on?"
Scotty´s brows rose as well. "You haven´t heard yet?"
Lil smiled, a touch embarrassed, and shook her head. "No."
It was so like her to be submerged in her work so deeply she wouldn´t even notice Kat and Vera going for each other´s throats.
"They´re discussing the fact that female police officers are depicted wrongly in TV shows."
"That´s what Miller says", Vera interrupted gruffly. Miller just snorted and continued sorting through her papers.
"Wrongly as in too realistic or too unrealistic?", Lil asked curiously.
"Simply wrong. For example…"
Scotty was disrupted impolitely.
„Are you siding with them, Valens?"
"I didn´t say anything!", the detective protested.
"Of course!", Vera continued agitatedly while Scotty leaned back in his chair and listened, a huge grin spreading across his face.
"That´s just typical! Always taking their side, a disgrace for your sex! A coward, I say, you´re a coward, not worthy to carry the name you have, betraying everything the male police officer stands for…"
While Vera continued in his rant, Lil winked at him and turned to face her friend. Kat Miller was still ignoring her partner.
"Female TV cops, huh?"
Kat snorted once again but didn´t refrained from any other sign of her righteous anger this time.
"Vera, that stupid idiot, keeps insisting that female cops in TV shows only are decoration – pretty accessories. The main job – so he says – is done by male police officers while we just smile, show our badge and look good, and finally take the suspects away after interrogation has taken place. All in all, we do – nothing."
„That sounds true", Jeffries said, who had just come into the bullpen and had heard her last words.
"Have you ever seen these Wednesday-evening shows? The actual job is always done by male cops."
„That´s absolutely not true!", Kat burst out. "Give me one reason why female cops are inferior to male cops, especially in TV! Gender equality and emancipation should be important topics and should be demonstrated in such trivial shows as well!"
"And still, it´s the male cop who chases down the suspect when he runs", Vera snapped. Kat glowered at him.
"You´re definitely not the one who should be talking right now, Vera! Chase down suspects – your chase ends at the next coffee shop!"
For a few seconds, Vera didn´t find words, then he straitened his 100kg up into towering heights. "What the heck are you implying?", he demanded.
"Look at you!", Kat said and turned away from him, speaking over her shoulder but not looking at him.
"That´s why you are siding with all these young, strong cops from TV: Because you´re not like that anymore!"
Vera stood stock-still and took a deep, audible breath. Kat threw a challenging look at her other colleagues. "Do you know a better reason? When was the last time he brought in a running fugitive? He loves these TV shows because they´re the only place where he still can live his illusion of how mighty and strong the male sex is."
"But he´s right", Lil said quietly, her eyes burning with laughter, betraying her best friend as well as her own sex at the same second. "Female cops rarely can be seen running in TV shows."
Scotty chuckled, Jeffries grinned, Vera looked as if he had found his personal heroine for the day. Kat shot her dirtiest look yet at her best friend.
"Why the hell should they run!"
Before anyone could think of something to answer, John Stillman stepped from his little office and nodded to his team.
"Lil, Scotty", he said and watched them over the rims of his glasses. "The attorney has called. We have the warrant to bring in William Peters."
Getting up from her chair, Lil threw Scotty a triumphant look. "We´d better go and get him. We don´t want him to wait for us too long."
She rushed from the department, Scotty on her heels, who started laughing as he saw Kat Miller stomping to her desk, muttering threats under her breath.
„You see him?", Scotty asked from the passengers' seat.
Lil shook her head and tried to focus her eyes even more in order to see something trough the dirty front shield.
"He´ll be there in a few. It´s Thursday, he´s always here at five sharp."
They exchanged glances. Scotty nodded and ducked on his seat, Lil straightened again.
"There he is."
Her partner watched her open the front door, grabbing for her badge in the process.
"William Peters?"
The bald-headed man – obviously he had sheared off his hair – lifted his gaze as the blonde woman approached him.
"Can I help you, Blondie?", he asked. Through the window on the passengers´ side, left open for exact this case, Scotty listened to the strangled voice. His jaw grinded together. Even after years of working with Lil, he still couldn´t understand how she could take in these offences in her usual cold and distant manner while he would loved to beat up everyone who just threw as much as a leering look. He hated it when they mustered her from head to toe, evaluated her, almost undressed her with their eyes…
Lil seemed to have shown him her badge, because after this pick-up line, there was silence. Scotty knew Lil´s right hand would be near her gun while she pulled out the warrant. Williams was known to be impulsive and dangerous.
"Philadelphia Police", she told him without apparent emotion in her voice. "William Peters, I`m here to arrest you for…"
"Shit!"
Scotty could hear Peters swearing under his breath, then Lil´s voice, icy and commanding: "Freeze!"
Footsteps, running in his direction, were the next thing Scotty heard. Lil had been right once again, he noted while he risked a glance at the rear mirror on his side: Peters was indeed running towards him, the only direction Lil had left him. Hastily, he took down his head, took a long breath and threw the car door open with a practice which attested to years of practice.
Only today, his method failed.
Peters proved to be quicker than his burly frame gave credit for. Swearing loudly, he avoided the suddenly appearing obstacle in his path. Instead of running into it head-first, he swerved to the side, another stream of curses leaving his mouth, and, regaining his balance, continued his flight down the street. Scotty stared after him dumbfounded.
"Move, Scotty!", Lil shouted at him as she rushed past the car, her gun drawn. Scotty almost fell out of the car, pushed down the anger at himself and started the hunt. Lil was almost flying, shooting down the street like an arrow fired from a bow, and however hard Scotty tried, he couldn´t catch up with her. Suddenly, Peters turned to the side and disappeared in a dark side alley. Lil followed his movement swiftly, Scotty, having too much speed, skidded to halt a few meters behind the corner and had to come back.
It was a slip way to a few garages, nothing more, a small pathway between two of the most decrepit houses in this area, but at the end of the dark walls, Scotty saw light. Almost entirely through it, he heard an angry outburst and a thumping sound – as if two bodies in full speed had just collided. Scotty shot from the darkness, his gun drawn, and stopped so abruptly he almost stumbled over the waste scattered on the ground.
Peters had stopped equally sudden, and had, as Lil stormed from the slip way, thrown himself onto her. Lil was fighting grimly, but in comparison to her slight body weight the criminal had a great advantage. He held her outstretched arm away from him, her gun trained on some point on the house walls, and tried to wrestle it from her grip. When he saw Scotty coming, he tried to train it unto him, but Lil fought angrily. Peters grunted and continued to wrestle her down.
His heart beating wildly, Scotty tried to focus the barrel of his gun on the criminal, tried to find a place where he would be able to pull the trigger safely without hurting his partner. But that was impossible. He knew – and Peters knew, too – he would hit Lil as soon as he tried to hit Peters.
The criminal swore again but nevertheless held onto her, even after Lil had buried her elbow deep in his abdomen. "Bitch!", he grunted with grinding teeth. The next moment, he had finally succeeded in wrestling away her gun and sent her flying, his fist connecting with her face. With a sound of pain and wildly clashing limbs, Lil went down, taking him with her. Scotty watched the fight, feeling helplessness creeping up on him. Having no idea what he was supposed to do except watching, he bend down to pick up Lil´s gun.
But in one great effort, Lil tore free, rolling away from Peters and grabbing her gun in one swift movement. Unwaveringly, the barrel was trained on his head.
"I told you to freeze."
Still throwing a whole cannonade of swear words at her, Williams was balanced into the car by Scotty, who finally closed the door behind the unfriendly criminal who was just recounting all the horrors which would befall Lil, her family, her children, her grand- and her great-grandchildren – and his, probably, would be next.
Lil was leaning next to a lamp post, her arms folded across her chest. Now he finally found the time to look at her closely,
She looked terrible.
Her face was dirt-smeared and where Peters' fist had met with it, her lip was swollen and bleeding. Her hair had escaped her pony-tail and blond strands hung down into her face, her jacket was dirty and smeared with the mud of the slide way, her white blouse anything than white and torn in quite essential places. Noticing his gaze, blood flooded into her face and she glowered at him angrily. Scotty mustered her in concern.
"Are you alright?"
Quite unusual, her gaze wasn´t cold but full of fire.
"I´m fine", she snapped and turned away from him.
Through the gashes in her blouse Scotty probably saw more or her skin he ever had seen – and probably would ever see again.
"What´s the matter?", she asked aggressively. "No reason to look so crestfallen. It can´t always be perfect again. "
Because she obviously didn´t want him to offer help, he grinned. What made him earn another angry glance.
"For exact this reason male cops do this job in TV, not the female ones, Valens."
Scotty almost laughed out loud and was only able to stop himself by remembering she would kill him later if he did. Instead, he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it at her.
With her glittering eyes, her untidy hair and with her cheeks still flushed from the chase and her embarrassment and anger, she was more beautiful than ever.
"I could almost get used to reality."
For that remark, she didn´t talk to him for the rest of the day.
A/N Because we all love our favourite detectives...^^