Brenda shifted uncomfortably on the couch in her office, both grateful that she'd had the presence of mind to request a couch be put in there and resentful of the awful, cheap thing the LAPD had given her.
I probably should have gone home, she thought as she sat upright, stretching her arms and legs and feeling the tightness in her muscles. She was exhausted, achy, and in a foul mood. The clock behind her desk- whose ticking had kept her up, though she was too tired to get up and take the batteries out of the damn thing- read 5:15 am.
5:15.
God, Brenda hated mornings.
She decided the best option would be coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Maybe she could go out for a muffin. Or some pastries. Or French toast! From that place where they'd found a head in the dumpster. Head or no, they made fabulous French toast.
So that was the plan. Coffee, then sugar.
She pulled herself into a standing position, tugging her clothes into some semblance of order. She'd slept in her skirt and the camisole she'd worn under her jacket the day before. Gonna have to change, she thought glumly, heading for the small wardrobe in the corner of her office that housed her emergency extra clothes. She opened the door and sighed in dismay.
There were no clean clothes. There were old clothes, piled up in a wrinkly mess in the floor of the wardrobe, and there were empty hangers on the bar across the top, but there was nothing clean. She stomped her foot in frustration.
She could go home and change. But if she went home now, Fritz would almost certainly be there, either still in bed or wandering around, getting ready for the day and wondering where she was. And the last thing she wanted was to see Fritz this morning, to see the disappointment in his eyes, to deal with yet another fight. That man insisted on talking about everything, as if talking about things had the magical power of making them alright again. They could talk about the little things that Brenda did that annoyed him, or about having kids (for the ten thousandth time, she thought, rolling her eyes), or about how they never saw each other, but talking about these things was never going to make them go away. Brenda was always going to be Brenda. Brenda was never going to want kids. Brenda was never going to stop putting work first. Surely by now, he understood that.
Except he apparently didn't, because they'd fought again yesterday morning, and at lunch, and over the phone, and when they accidently bumped into each other at the elevators in the middle of the afternoon and Brenda just couldn't face him again. So she'd stayed at work for the night, and she knew she could expect eighteen different kinds of hell the next time she saw Fritz.
Which would not be this morning, she decided.
She pulled a wrinkled skirt out of the bottom of her wardrobe, shook it out, and changed into it. She found her comfort-sweater in the back, and pulled it on over her camisole. She finger-combed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail.
It'll have to do, she thought resignedly, and headed out the door of her office for the breakroom, drawn there by the promise of coffee.
The room was empty, but she had anticipated that. There were some people who came into work as early as 6 or 7, but not at 5:15. She started the coffee maker in blessed silence, listening to it drip as she rinsed out a mug. She was grateful no one was there; she didn't feel like dealing with people. People talking. People looking at her wrinkled clothes with pity. The worried expressions on their faces when they realized that she must have spent the night there. She didn't want to explain herself to anyone.
And so it was that when she heard the sharp, familiar click of stilettos on the linoleum behind her, her heart sank in her chest. The coffee wasn't done yet. She had to stay for coffee. She hoped, for a fleeting instant, that those little shoes would click away, but they didn't. They just came closer and closer, until Brenda could sense that woman's presence behind her.
"Good morning, Chief," she heard Raydor say in those distinct tones. The woman was always so irritatingly precise.
"Captain Raydor," Brenda sighed. She refused to turn around. She wouldn't give that woman the satisfaction of seeing just how frazzled she was this morning.
Raydor wasn't going anywhere. She continued to lean in the doorway. At least Brenda assumed she was leaning. She still hadn't turned around.
"Making coffee?" Raydor asked. Still not leaving.
"Captain, yes, as a matter of fact I am making coffee. And I didn't get very much sleep last night, so excuse me if I'm not in a talkative mood."
She hoped that would be blunt enough to send Raydor on her way. Evidently it wasn't; those heels clicked across the floor until Raydor was leaning against the counter beside her. Close, but not too close.
Brenda could just see her out of the corner of her eyes. Her sharp suit. Her perfectly coiffed hair. Damn that woman, Brenda thought. Did Raydor have to wander into the breakroom, all well put-together with that little smirk on her face, clearly enjoying Brenda's despair?
"Were you here all night?" the woman asked quietly, and suddenly Brenda realized she wasn't smirking. Raydor actually seemed… well… concerned about her. Brenda didn't think it was possible for Sharon Raydor to be concerned about anything other than her own precious rules. She didn't like the idea that Raydor might actually have a heart. It somehow made all the awful things Brenda and her squad had said (and thought) about that woman seem harsh and unkind. And it made all the other, more private Brenda had thought about that woman- about how nice she looked when she left her hair curly, or how her smile could light up her face- seem somehow more terrifying.
"Yes, Captain, I was," Brenda answered, pulling the pot off the coffee maker when it signaled it was ready. Raydor wordlessly held out her own mug; Brenda filled both Raydor's and her own without a second thought.
"Don't tell me you were working, Chief," Raydor said, wrapping her hands around her mug, "Your squad doesn't have any open cases."
Brenda found herself faced with the patented Raydor stare; not her glare, or her haughty smirk, but her piercing stare, the one she used to get Brenda to fess up to something she'd done. Brenda couldn't help it, when Raydor looked at her that way, she felt all twisted up inside until she finally gave in and told Raydor what she wanted to know.
"If you must know, Captain," Brenda said, pausing to sip on her coffee. Thank God for caffeine… "I wasn't working, but I did sleep here."
Raydor just nodded, and drank her coffee.
How long am I supposed to stand here? Brenda wondered. She didn't want to just walk out, that seemed rude somehow. She didn't want to keep talking, either; she and the Captain were not great friends, and Brenda was in no mood to tap-dance around her, making small talk and trying not to say anything that would end in her being investigated by FID.
Raydor made up Brenda's mind for her, however. The woman stood upright, and smiled tightly. "Well, I hope your day improves, Chief," she said, and clicked away out of the breakroom without another word.
Part of Brenda was relieved she had gone. Part of her felt suddenly lonely.
Sharon had tried all day to keep her mind focused on work, but each time she found herself without a task, her thoughts drifted back to Brenda Leigh Johnson. The woman had looked absolutely pitiful when Sharon had stumbled across her in the breakroom earlier in the day. Her skirt wrinkled, her hair a mess, and that God-awful sweater. Even marital strife (and Sharon was convinced the Chief was fighting with Agent Howard; she'd spent enough nights on the couch in her own office to recognize the signs) was no excuse for a sloppy sweater. Sharon had for a moment harbored thoughts of asking what was wrong, of perhaps reaching out to the blonde-haired Chief on a personal level, but Johnson had done everything short of jumping up and down and screaming to keep her away. And so Sharon had stayed just long enough to let the Chief know that she was concerned before making a graceful exit.
It was close to 8pm, and Sharon was ready to go home. Not that there was much waiting for her there, just some leftover Chinese food and some reports she needed to read, but it was better than staying here.
Like the Chief had done last night.
If asked about it later, Sharon would not be able to explain why it was, exactly, that she pressed the up instead of the down button on the elevator, but she did. She stepped inside, shaking her head at herself even as she pressed the button for the Chief's floor.
Well, she thought, since I'm going up there, I might as well check in on her.
The murder room was empty as she sauntered across the threshold; Major Crimes had clearly packed up and gone home for the night. Except there was a light on in Deputy Chief Johnson's office. God damn it, Sharon thought to herself.
It wasn't too late to walk away, to turn around and pretend like this side-adventure had never happened, but Sharon wasn't very good at walking away from people who needed help. And God knows, Brenda Leigh Johnson needed help. Sharon desperately wished that she didn't have to be the one to offer a hand to the messy Chief (and there was no other word to describe the woman, she was messy in every sense of the word) but she knew no one else was going to do it.
She knocked softly on the door, hoping somehow the Chief wouldn't hear. But of course she did.
"Just a second!" the Chief called in that unmistakable accent, and Sharon rolled her eyes. Here we go, she thought.
The Chief opened the door with one of her trademark smiles firmly in place, but the smile promptly disappeared when she caught sight of the Captain.
That stung a bit, if Sharon was being honest with herself. Sure, they weren't friends, but did the woman have to look so… so… put out about seeing her? Did the Chief really dislike her that much?
"Come in, Captain," Brenda said, though she was obviously not happy about it.
The Chief's office was a mess of papers and clothes slung everywhere, the remnants of some kind of takeout sitting on her desk. Sharon noticed that the Chief was still wearing that lumpy sweater, although it was slightly askew, as if Brenda had only just pulled it on. Sharon tried not to think about the Chief sitting in that chair in just her camisole. Tried not think about the slope of her shoulders, or the tilt of her neck, or her collarbones, or what lay just south of them…
"Chief, please tell me you're not staying here another night," Sharon exclaimed before she could stop herself. There was no elegant way to come back from this, she realized, but she was going to try.
Brenda sighed. "Captain, where I spend the night is really none of your concern."
Sharon planted her hands on her hips and considered leaving right then, but she just couldn't. The Chief was clearly having a hard time, and Sharon knew the woman didn't have any friends to call on for help. She had a good relationship with her squad, but she could hardly ask one of them to open their home to her. Sharon knew all too well what that felt like. She remembered a time when she'd spent a whole week sleeping on the unforgiving couch in her office. Remembered how much her back had hurt, how hard it had been to stay focused on work. She felt the need to keep the Chief from repeating that same experience.
"Is there a particular reason you don't want to go home?" she asked, hoping to keep the conversation going while she argued with herself about her next step.
The Chief sighed, and ran her fingers through her hair. "Captain-"
That was enough. The woman just seemed so small, and sad somehow, and much too proud to admit it. Sharon couldn't stop herself.
"Come with me," Sharon said quickly, scooping up the Chief's purse in her hand and holding it out to the blonde. Brenda might not be keen on accepting her help, so Sharon wasn't going to give her an option, and she wasn't going to give herself enough time to think better of it.
"Excuse me?" Brenda said, and Sharon resisted the urge to snap her fingers to get the Chief up and out of her chair.
"You can't sleep on this couch again. I have a guest room. Please don't make me spell this out for you."
A look of wonder crossed Brenda's face, but she rose, and accepted her purse, following Sharon out the door.
If asked about it later, Sharon wouldn't be able to explain it, but she felt a certain sense of achievement as she stepped aboard the elevator with Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson following close behind.