Summary: One-shot. Scotty's thoughts post "Officer Down." Major spoilers for that episode, as well as several preceding it. Although this is essentially a shippy story, it's not necessarily a happy one. It also contains many Scotty/Frankie references, so get a barf bag handy.

Rating: T.

A/N: This is my attempt to justify Scotty's actions during season 6, and as such, I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to smack him for being such an idiot, but on the other hand, I feel so sorry for him that I just can't bring myself to smack him, even in my head. I'll let you make the call.

Disclaimer: I so don't own these characters. If I did, this thing would never have needed to be written. Song lyrics are from the song used for the closing montage of "Officer Down," Solomon Burke's "The Judgement," which I also don't own.

Cuffed

The accused will rise

To be torn in two

Guilty of nothin' but lovin' you

This is the judgement

The handcuffs were her idea.

Normally I ain't into stuff like that. I mean, sure, I'll try anything once, and I'd be lyin' if I said it wasn't fun…but I'm not gonna be the one to suggest that. They're just parta the job to me…never really thought there was anything excitin' about 'em until Frankie wanted to…well…get creative, if you know what I mean.

Thing is, though, they're a really perfect metaphor for this whole fucked-up mess I'm in. I'm the cop. I'm the one who's supposed to be slappin' cuffs on people and readin' em their rights…so how come I feel like I'm the one bein' arrested?

Nothin' new here…I do this over and over. I screw the most convenient woman 'cause the one I really want, I can't have. After Elisa, I'da done anybody…and it was my shitty luck that "anybody" happened to be Lil's sister. At the time I didn't care. I was in too much pain to care what anyone thought. Walk it off any way you can, Nicky said, and that was what I was doin'. Wasn't until later, when I almost lost Lil, that I realized what an idiot I'd been. She forgave me, though, and that was that.

Or so I thought.

I dunno when it happened, dunno how, and I sure as hell dunno why…but somewhere along the line, I started havin' feelings for Lil. With Elisa there was a date. A moment. A clear line separatin' the before from the after. One minute, I'm playin' stickball with all the guys on the block…and the next minute, I'm strikin' out lookin', except I ain't even lookin', 'cause there's this gorgeous brunette I never seen before sittin' on the steps smilin' at me over the pages of a magazine.

Sure, with Lil, there's a before I met her and an after I met her, but whatever it is I've been feelin' for her snuck up on me all gradual-like, until one night, I'm sittin' at Jones', a bandage on my hand from givin' that pervert in the park the what-for, drinkin' scotch and lookin' toward the door fourteen times a minute, hopin' she'll show up… but knowin' she won't. 'Cause in my heart, I knew where she was.

She was with him.

Joseph.

I'd never seen Lil like that before. For just a few minutes, she let her guard down around me. She let me see her. The real Lil. Weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and, God help me, that adorable smile and that twinkle in her eyes…that cute little blush in her cheeks and the way her voice turned all soft and whispery when she said his name, and, to my surprise, I started wishin' it was my name she was sayin' like that. Wishin' it was me that brought that sparkle to her eyes and that spring to her step. Wishin' it wasn't some other guy.

He left her, though, and even with the feelings I was havin', most of me was sad for her, 'cause when Lil's happy, she lights up the whole damn room…but when she's sad, it's the most heartbreakin' thing you ever saw. She's been sad so much in her life, too much, and even if it ain't me that's makin' her happy, dammit, someone should.

So why didn't I make a move then? Hell if I know. I had my reasons, and they probably made sense to me at the time, but damned if I can remember 'em. Most of it, though, is probably that I don't wanna mess up what we already got. We got a good thing goin'; I'm there for her, she's there for me, and that's just the way it is. If I have to choose between havin' Lil as a friend and nothin' more and not havin' Lil at all…well…I know what I'd pick. 'Cause I know what it's like to not have the one you love at all.

I came damn near to that again, the day Lil got shot. I know she was havin' nightmares after, even though she never told me about 'em…'cause I had 'em too. Night after night, I'd wake up drenched, seein' her bleedin' out on the floor and knowin' that if I'd just come up those stairs a split second earlier, if I'd shot just a little bit sooner, maybe I'da taken that jackass out before he shot my Lil.

But I didn't, and he did, and I've made my peace with that. Sorta. Lil doesn't blame me, I know she doesn't. She thanked me. Wasn't the way I'd hoped she'd thank me…wasn't the oh, Scotty, almost dying made me realize I'm madly in love with you like it woulda if this were some movie…but she did thank me.

She wasn't okay, though. Not by a long shot. I don't think she got a good night's sleep for six months; she walked around the office like an empty shell of herself, and I know what that's like, but I also know how damn hard it is to talk about, especially around people you don't want feelin' sorry for you, people you just want to treat you like they always did, like nothin's changed, like everything's back to normal. So I don't blame her for not talkin' to me.

Didn't stop it from hurtin' though.

That's where Alex came in.

I didn't like her, she didn't like me, we couldn't be in the same room two seconds without fightin' about somethin', but damn, there was somethin' about that woman that I needed right then, and apparently she liked somethin' about me, 'cause we were pretty good together…

…until we weren't.

That was okay, though. No feelings involved, no strings attached, and I heard she skipped town about a month later…got some job offer in New York she couldn't pass up. Didn't even say goodbye. Not that I expected her to. Like I said, no strings attached.

That whole thing made me forget about Lil for a little while, but after Alex left, the feelings came roarin' back. We went to West Virginia to pick up that psychopath, that John Smith character who locked women up in that dungeon of his and watched 'em lose their will to live…and he looked at Lil the same way I know he looked at all of them. He hit the nail on the head with her when he told her she wasn't lookin' for a way out. She'd lost her will to go on, it seemed, and that was what I'd been so worried about with her since the shootin'. It just took a midnight ride with a lunatic to help articulate it. But I figured I only saw it 'cause I knew her so well. Figured no one else could see it. But if some screwball that's never met her can pick up on that…

…I lost it then, I'll admit it. Lil had to pull me off the guy, and it's a good thing, too, 'cause I wouldn't have stopped for anything if she hadn't. But as I locked that guy up, I realized I loved Lil more than ever.

Didn't sleep a wink for two days after that; I was up figurin' out what the hell I was gonna say, how the hell I was gonna tell my partner, my friend, the last woman in the world I should be in love with…that that was how I felt. Didn't help that I knew she didn't feel the same about me. Oh, I hoped she might, but it was just a pipe dream. Still, though, I didn't think I could live like this much longer, this nebulous friends-but-maybe-more thing we got goin', so I was gonna tell her about it. Gonna ask her out to dinner, all proper, and tell her over candlelight that friendship ain't enough…

…and then that jackass Saccardo shows up with his Timberlands and his barbecue. I didn't think much of it at first, but then Lil started smilin' more. That sparkle came back to her eyes, that spring came back to her step, she started lookin' like herself again. For a second, I had this wild hope that maybe she'd picked up on how I felt about her without my havin' to say a word…but I knew better. Vera mentioned somethin' about Lil not bein' able to string two words together to make a sentence when they ran into Saccardo in the hallway.

Now, I ain't a detective for nothin'. I can put two and two together. And this thing with Saccardo…that burned me up like nothin' before. Not even Joseph. Sure, he looked good on paper, but I knew they weren't gonna make it. Saccardo, though…he's just that right blend of good guy and jackass to make someone like Lil fall for him, and fall she did. Hard. I could see it in her eyes. This guy was a threat. This guy was for real.

I didn't handle it well, I'll admit it. Me and Lil didn't talk about him, at all, but she knew I knew. If she had any doubt at all, it was taken away when she got that text from him, that photo he'd taken somewhere along the line of her makin' that goofy face.

Lil? Goofy? I didn't know she had it in her, and I'da given anything, anything, to be the one makin' her that happy. That smiley. That goofy.

So I lashed out. I picked on the one thing I could think of, dude's Timberland boots. It was stupid, somethin' a twelve-year-old might do, and I ain't proud of it. She gave me this look, like she knew what I was doin', and I'd better as hell stop, so I did. Didn't hurt that the guy we were lookin' for chose that moment to show up, savin' me from whatever tongue-lashin' I was sure to get.

Saccardo didn't stay around, either; some undercover assignment. Deep undercover. No idea when he might come out again. But Lil…she didn't get all sad like she did when Joseph left. No, she had this quiet confidence about her. I dunno if that's 'cause she thinks he'll come back for her, or 'cause he fixed whatever was broken, and she's able to go on with her life. And I'll be damned if I knew which one I'd rather it be.

I like savin' people, I like fixin' what's wrong. It's why I'm a cop. And there's no bigger high than savin' the day not just for some stranger, but for someone I love. But for whatever reason, Lil won't let me do that anymore. She won't let me in. She's keepin' me at arm's length. We used to have this cool friendship with occasional sparks of somethin' more, but now, all we talk about is work.

A few weeks after Saccardo left, I got this weird vibe from her, like she was hidin' somethin' else. She was minimizin' computer windows every time I walked up, and actin' all edgy anytime I mentioned anything other than whatever case we were workin' on. I didn't think a whole lot of it, just Lil bein' Lil, and after Saccardo, I was pretty damn tired of tryin' to figure that woman out…but then I saw this letter. Some guy named Paul Cooper, lives in New Jersey. She said it was about a case, and Lil can usually fool doers when she lies to them…but she can't fool me. I figured she had it bad for this Cooper guy…so bad she wouldn't even tell me about him, 'cause of how I reacted to Saccardo. Wasn't sure what, exactly, was goin' on, or how serious it was, but I did know one thing: Lil was back to her old self again…but she wasn't sharin' any of it with us. This dude from Jersey was gettin' it all.

Cooper was the last straw. I figured she musta been nuts about him, if she was willin' to go to New Jersey every other second, and I decided then and there that I was done. Done chasin' her, done thinkin' about her, done wastin' my time waitin' for her to wake the hell up and see what's been right in fronta her face for almost six years.

Sure enough, the second I figured that out, she showed up. Frankie. That lab tech. I never noticed her before, but now, fresh off my latest Lil-related disappointment and desperately needin' somethin', or someone, to take my mind off it, there she was, all legs and curves and tight skirts and long hair…and she was into me. I could tell.

It was supposed to be easy. Fun. Just a way to survive for a little while, to walk it off any way I could, to get my legs back under me and wait for the world to start makin' sense again.

I wasn't supposed to get feelings for her.

Granted, I ain't in love with Frankie…but I'm definitely in like with her, I'll give you that much. For one thing, it didn't start with sex. I made sure of that. If I was gonna move on from Lil, then I wanted to do this damn thing right. So I took her to the batting cages. Maybe not the most romantic first date out there, but it was one I knew she'd like, and we had a blast. Haven't had that much fun with a woman since…I dunno when.

It was simple. It was fun. The sex was great. Everything was goin' great, and for the first time in years, I didn't wake up thinkin' about Lil.

I woke up thinkin' about Frankie.

Didn't hurt that I was wakin' up in her hotel room more often than not. Can't think about Lil when Frankie's the first thing I see in the mornin'. And that was pretty okay. Actually, it was great, not thinkin' about Lil. For the first time in a long time, I'm with a girl, and I'm not just tryin' to forget someone else, I'm actually in it with her.

Course, it woulda helped if she wasn't with me to forget her someone else.

I shoulda known somethin' was up when she told me she was livin' in a hotel, but let's face it, when I'm off the clock, I ain't in detective mode. A beautiful woman wants to help me forget…who the hell am I to question where she lives or why? And yes, before you ask, I checked. No ring. No tan line. No nothin'. Nothin' to indicate someone else had a claim on her. She never said word one, and let's face it, I ain't gonna stop in the middle of everything and ask, "Oh, by the way, you ain't married, are you?" It's just never come up. You kinda assume when someone agrees to go out on a date with you that they're single.

Well, okay, so I ain't assumin' that ever again. Not after that idiot Rafferty messed with my car and then jumped me on top of it. Not that I blamed the guy. I'm in his shoes, I'd do a lot more than that. But findin' out about him, findin' out she'd been lyin' to me the whole time…like that?

Yeah, you might say I wasn't happy. 'Specially when she looked up at me with those big dark eyes and asked if that was a problem. Hell, yeah, it's a problem. Where I come from, marriage is sacred, and you don't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Can't believe she didn't get that. And I went home, back to my apartment, with my head held high that night. Doin' the right thing ain't always easy, but, dammit, I did the right thing. Separated maybe ain't exactly married, but it sure ain't single, either.

You'd think I'da slept well that night. You'da thought wrong. I tossed and turned, first thinkin' about Frankie, then thinkin' about Lil, and not wantin' to think about either one of 'em. I can't have either one, for entirely different reasons, and I'm makin' myself crazy. So, couple days later at work, this hot as hell reporter comes in…and I see my escape. I don't waste any time askin' her to meet me at Jones' that night. As I'm sittin' there, tellin' war stories and reelin' her in without even tryin', I'm wonderin' who it is I'm tryin' to forget about: Frankie or Lil.

The answer comes when the Flyers score a goal and I hear a real familiar voice. It's the first time I seen her since I gave her the what-for in the hallway, and at first, I'm fine. At first, I'm still pretty pissed at her for even showin' up at Jones'. It's a cop bar, for God's sake. Our bar. She's a lab tech. I'm sure they got their own bar, so why the hell is she at mine, when I'm tryin' to move on from the woman who was actually helpin' me move on from the woman I'm hopelessly in love with?

But as we're talkin', she makes it pretty clear she's still into me…and that's where I can't justify it anymore. Lookin' into her eyes, I completely forget that there's a beautiful, interested, available woman out there at the bar waitin' for me to come back. I completely forget that Frankie's married, I completely forget that she's the reason my car's in the shop and I've still got a couple bruises from when her husband jumped me. All I can think about is that I was movin' on from Lil, actually movin' the hell on, and Frankie was the one who was helpin' me. I'm clingin' to that, 'cause if I don't, I'll drown, and she knows it, and the next thing I know, we're out the back door, back at the hotel room, and she's lookin' at me all playful, teasin' that she's been a bad, bad girl, and she needs me to "arrest" her. Fine with me, I'm thinkin'. Not with my brain.

Couple weeks later, though, she tells me she and Billy are givin' it another shot. Just like that. No warning, no nothin'. Just, bang. All of a sudden, she decides to be married. Sounds like the two of 'em never really gave it much of a shot to begin with; she says she's been married six years, but never really tried, and she's always gonna be wonderin' what if.

'What if?' 'What if?' Don't even get me started on 'what if.'

So I let her go, but it bothered me a helluva lot more than I wanted to admit, and once again, I didn't know if it was Frankie I was missin', or the fact that somebody, somehow, for just a little while, made me forget about Lil.

But somethin' came along this past week that made me forget about all that almost entirely. Will got shot. Buyin' a damn jug of milk, from the looks of it, only it turned out to be more complicated than that, by a twelve-year-old kid, a kid, for God's sake, for no reason at all other than he just happened to be there. That's the most fucked-up thing about it. This kid Gabriel…I'd connected with him. Younger brother to younger brother. But this kid…he killed Pops. He almost killed Will. Hell, he tried to take out Lil and me, too. But the thing that's gonna stay with me, even more than almost gettin' shot myself…is standin' there in that store and seein' the blood spattered all over the door to the freezers. We were supposed to be workin' it like any other crime scene, but no way could we do that. 'Cause it wasn't just some anonymous victim's blood…it was Will's.

That's the second damn time this has happened to me since I made Homicide, and I was so busy I didn't even have time to think about the first time, until some guy shows up to talk to Lil. Turns out it was Cooper…and he's her dad. Her dad. Here I am, thinkin' Cooper's some new boyfriend, and it's her father. For about half a second, I was happy. Lil wasn't seein' someone new.

But then it occurs to me, as she turns and heads outta the office, that if Cooper hadn't shown up, actually driven in from New Jersey to check on her, I still wouldn't know who he was. She's never mentioned her dad before, at least not to me. I kinda figured he wasn't around, 'cause I knew her mom got married a buncha times, and Lord knows there've been plenty of opportunities for her to talk to me about it, but she hasn't. And I think if he hadn't shown up, she still wouldn't have.

Ain't just me she doesn't talk to, though. She said Cooper had no idea she'd been shot, and when she said that, all those damn memories came floodin' back like the whole thing happened yesterday. Ironically enough, Will was the one who spotted her first. Not me. I was makin' sure the shooter was down. I had no idea Lil had been hit until Will said somethin', and then I looked up and saw the blood. Too damn much blood. I saw it for months in my dreams, and I know beyond a doubt that this is gonna make those nightmares come back full force.

So, at the end of the day, as tired as I am, I know I don't wanna go home and try to go to sleep, 'cause those nightmares are gonna come, and with 'em the image of that blonde hair and those blue eyes and that smile that's never gonna be for me…

…and then I see Frankie.

She'd offered to talk earlier, and I'd sniped at her, 'cause she was the last person I wanted to see. But she was bein' nice, offerin' friendship, and I figured I could use a friend.

But when I saw her, I realized I needed a lot more than that, and she seemed to realize it, too. She didn't say a word, just walked with me out to my car, and when we get back to my place, I just handed her my cuffs.

"Arrest me," I tell her, with what I hope is a smile. Figure it's my turn. Doin' what I'm about to do makes me officially a homewrecker. If I weren't goin' to Hell before, I definitely am now. And I can't help but wonder…how'd I get here? How'd I get to be this guy? How'd I go from bein' the guy who's loyal to the woman he loves, the guy who's with the same girl since high school…to this?

Actually, I realize, I ain't changed at all. I'm still the same guy in love…except it's one-sided and always will be. I'm always gonna be cuffed to Lil, and she's never gonna return it. Kinda fittin', then, that I'm lettin' Frankie put the actual, literal cuffs on me. Might as well let life imitate art.

So, like I said. The handcuffs…they were all her idea.