Title: Time And Days
Author: Shawn Carter
Summary: Another set of 1st person introspectives from the 5th season finale.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible. Guilt is a terrible thing. It makes you cold inside in a way you probably could never have imagined. It makes you see shadows on the wall that aren't there and it makes you look at the mirror like you're not sure what's going to look back at you.
I think I'm in love.
I don't think I have a right to feel this way.
Not so soon.
Not while she can't feel anything.
That's morbid. Yeah I know. Sometimes when I think about her I get pretty dark. I want to be at peace with it but I can't. I want to forgive myself but I don't have that right.
Not while she can't forgive me.
I've never visited her grave. I've never been able to. What would I say? What could I say? I'm sorry? Yeah, that's kind of cheap. That's kind of worthless.
So this is what I have. This is my guilt.
But then there's Sasha. I feel something when I'm with her. I feel something in me that I'm scared of. I felt this before with Alex but then it faded because I allowed my mind to talk me out of it.
Sul always says my heart is what makes me but I let my mind lose her.
Black. White.
God why can't I let it go?
I'm not that kind of guy. I don't care. I've never cared. I've been yelled at before about racial things, told to give a damn about the community. I do but I won't let it be an excuse for people acting up. Color should never be a deterrent or a crutch as far as I'm concerned.
So why did I let it break us up? Why did I let it come between us?
It doesn't matter now. It can't matter now.
She's dead.
I never got to tell her I was sorry. I mean not really. I never got her to understand.
How could I? How could I get her to understand when I don't myself?
Everything is so crazy these days. This wasn't what I'd had in mind five years ago. Brief detour and then off to law school but right I'm not the one thinking about passing the bar. Right now I'm not the one caring.
Sul passed the test. I didn't.
Did I want to?
Sure, of course. No one wants to fail. No one likes to.
Did I even want to take the test?
No.
No not really.
I'm a cop. It's who I am now. It's who my father was. It's who I'm meant to be. I used to think that I was supposed to wear Armani and walk around with a briefcase but that changed.
I'm not sure when but I know it did.
Maybe when those buildings fell. Maybe when I pulled Sully through his own private hell. Maybe when she died.
I'll never forget that.
Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night with the image of her body torn in half in my head. It's sickening how clearly I recall it. It's disturbing how absurd my mind finds it. She was lying there with her eyes and her feet inches from each other and you know what my first reaction was? The one that I managed to catch before it spilled it?
Yeah, I almost laughed.
How awful is that? A woman I very easily could have loved if not for my mind died horribly and my first reaction was to laugh?
My mom actually told me that what I did was normal. She said our minds aren't meant to deal with that degree of horror and that my first reaction was to laugh and make it not real because it couldn't have been.
It couldn't have been.
Of course it was.
Alex is dead.
Almost a year now.
I think I'm in love.
She's a lot like Alex. I didn't realize that at first. I mean I didn't actually put those things together. Maybe I couldn't. Now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, it kind of makes its own crazy sense.
Strong. Sassy. Caretaker. Loves children. Willing to put herself in the line of fire for others. Willing to take the fall to make sure justice is served.
I'm not sure I have a right to this.
I'm not sure I should be allowed it.
I don't think I have a say in it.
You just love who you love right?
How true can that be when I couldn't love someone like Alex? How right can that be when I let my head talk my heart out of what it felt?
I keep coming back to that test I guess though. Did I mean to fail it?
No of course not. No one likes to fail.
Yes of course. I'm a cop. Just a cop.
And I don't like Armani anyway.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible.
I have responsibilities. I have people who count on me. I have a niece who needs me to be steady. But then there's him. He makes me sway. He makes me come out of my shoes.
I want to feel that way, don't get me wrong but it never works out for me. It never goes well.
I mean look at Doc.
We spent the night together and he snapped.
Yeah that's a ringing endorsement if I've ever seen one. Hey watch out for that Sasha babe, she makes people go insane.
He used my gun and nearly killed a man. My gun. My weapon. Mine. I let it out of my care and it was almost deadly. He's okay now and I guess in that there's forgiveness.
It was a mistake.
I can't stop wondering if I should have noticed. Should have seen something. Should have paid more attention.
How did I not notice?
He was losing it? He was so off.
I just liked the attention. I liked smiling.
I liked feeling like more than a cop and a caretaker. I liked being a woman for a few minutes. He was giving me that.
He was crumbling and I made it about me instead of opening my eyes.
My gun. Yeah there's some guilt.
It's been a strange year.
Cruz. Yokas. Bosco.
There's a trifecta from hell. There's so much happening there and anyone who gets in the middle of it is a moron.
Should I rise my hand right now?
I like working with Bosco. Somehow we just work when we're on the clock. Off the clock everything else starts in and my head doesn't stop. It's like I'm two people and they don't exactly play nice with each other.
Between the lines I'm all about justice however it be but once I hear the click of the timecard it's like I can't stop thinking about everything else. About the mothers and fathers. About the brothers and sisters left behind because of every action we take.
Bosco's a good man if a bit driven by his demons.
Believe it or not Cruz is a good woman if not a bit corrupted by her ghosts.
Faith, well I'm still not sure who she is since she's been back. Don't get me wrong, I like her...hell I even get her but I'm just not sure who she is. The way she acts, I'm not sure she knows either.
But then how is that different for any of us. Do any of us really know why we wake up and need to strap up on that shield? Yeah I said need. Need to. Have to.
And I don't know why. I don't know.
I do know that my gun almost killed a man.
I need to let it go. It makes no difference now. Doc is in a mental facility and the paramedic is okay. Full recovery. Me, I guess I'll make one too.
What about Ty?
Minefield there.
There's something going on with him. Something he's thinking that's hurting him. He's not telling me but he's also not pushing me away from him so I'm not demanding answers.
He seems to be there with me. Wants to be there.
So I guess as long as he doesn't steal my gun I'm good to go.
It's been a long year. I'm not sure I've made good choices every step of the way. I know I'm different than who I was. I know that a year ago I cared about being a cop. It made me someone.
Nowadays I need to be a cop.
Every siren is in my blood now. Every time I see someone run past me I wonder if I should chase them. I see things I didn't use to. I hear sounds I never used to recognize.
I'm different now.
Better? Who knows.
Worse? I'd like to think not.
We'll go with work in progress and see where it goes from there.
I guess we all have our demons and ghosts huh?
Mine is a gun I never should have let out of my sight. Mine is a man I wonder if I could have helped.
Pancakes. Suddenly I want pancakes.
Yeah ghosts and demons. We just deal.
Or close the closet.
It's worked for everyone else so why can't it work for me?
Why doesn't it?
I reach down. I touch my gun. It's still there.
I close the closet door.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible.
This is madness really. I've spent the majority of my life working my ass of for the city of New York. I've been a cop for so long that I don't remember when I wasn't one. When people ask me who I am, I always reply John Sullivan, NYPD.
That's who I am.
Not for much longer.
I'm almost done with this. I'm just about ready to walk away.
So why do I feel like my shoes are so heavy?
And why do I care so much about a piece of paper that tells me that I could one day become a lawyer? I mean I want to retire right? Walk away. Find a life. Do something that isn't all about waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Who am I kidding?
I introduce myself as John Sullivan, NYPD.
This job is me.
It's every part of me. It's my beginning and my end. I have no personal life that doesn't involve this job.
In the end I guess I have to admit that it's more than just a job but doesn't that give it too much credit? Doesn't that make it something powerful?
I've been doing this so long that sometimes I don't recall if there was a me before the day I graduated. I can remember fifteen years ago racing after a perp but I can't recall what it was like to be a civilian.
And Davis. He's my partner. I didn't want him to be when he was first assigned to me. I wanted anyone but him. The responsibility of my fallen partners' boy? Babysitting a kid before he went into law school? God I would have gladly done a months worth of shift with Bosco before willingly walking into being Ty Davis's partner.
I owe my life to that kid.
He believed in me when no one else did. I mean I know Bosco and Doc were there but it was Davis who pushed it. It was Davis who wouldn't let me fall even after I let him drop.
Can I leave him?
Gotta leave sometime.
We've been through the ringer a time or two. I know where I'd be if not for him. I'm not the sentimental type but I'm also not a fool.
Funny then that I'm looking at this paper like it's something interesting. Do I really want to go to law school? Isn't that his destiny? Isn't mine bad coffee and tailored uniforms?
Isn't mine stopping old friends from getting shot by snipers because they've lost their mind?
This job can kill you. And I don't just mean literally.
None of us are like who we were. Davis, Yokas, Monroe, even Bosco. The amount of guilt. We all share it. We all have it. We all wake up every morning wondering what we did to place such a heavy burden down on us. We all realize we have no choice.
None of us are starry-eyed kids. I'm not sure I ever was one. I know Davis would laugh if he ever heard me identify myself as such. The truth is, we all lay on needles at night, waiting for them to cut us through and end it.
But in the morning we do what we do and not one of us can say why.
I don't like getting so deep. I'd prefer it be just a job. I guess with the end so close my mind is getting weird. Getting philosophical. Making me think on all this.
I feel like I'm gonna miss being a cop. Like I won't know what to do with myself.
Like I won't know how to live.
I don't remember who I was before I was a cop.
Yeah that' s just what it is.
After all these years I guess it comes down to one thing.
I'm John Sullivan, NYPD.
Nothing glamorous. Nothing spectacular. Not a hero. Just a man. An especially flawed one at that.
Maybe a man the world won't miss when he's gone. Maybe someone who should have been allowed to drop. Ty didn't let me. He held me up.
It's not just a job.
Just who I am.
So yeah I guess that paper saying I passed the test means something. I just haven't a clue what.
But for now there are other things. We bury Bosco's brother today. That's where I belong.
At his side.
I don't really like the guy but he's a brother to me, corny though that be. He knows it, I know it.
It's the shield.
It's just who we are.
I don't remember who I was before I was a cop but right now I know exactly who I am and that's enough.
John Sullivan, NYPD.
-FIN
Author: Shawn Carter
Summary: Another set of 1st person introspectives from the 5th season finale.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible. Guilt is a terrible thing. It makes you cold inside in a way you probably could never have imagined. It makes you see shadows on the wall that aren't there and it makes you look at the mirror like you're not sure what's going to look back at you.
I think I'm in love.
I don't think I have a right to feel this way.
Not so soon.
Not while she can't feel anything.
That's morbid. Yeah I know. Sometimes when I think about her I get pretty dark. I want to be at peace with it but I can't. I want to forgive myself but I don't have that right.
Not while she can't forgive me.
I've never visited her grave. I've never been able to. What would I say? What could I say? I'm sorry? Yeah, that's kind of cheap. That's kind of worthless.
So this is what I have. This is my guilt.
But then there's Sasha. I feel something when I'm with her. I feel something in me that I'm scared of. I felt this before with Alex but then it faded because I allowed my mind to talk me out of it.
Sul always says my heart is what makes me but I let my mind lose her.
Black. White.
God why can't I let it go?
I'm not that kind of guy. I don't care. I've never cared. I've been yelled at before about racial things, told to give a damn about the community. I do but I won't let it be an excuse for people acting up. Color should never be a deterrent or a crutch as far as I'm concerned.
So why did I let it break us up? Why did I let it come between us?
It doesn't matter now. It can't matter now.
She's dead.
I never got to tell her I was sorry. I mean not really. I never got her to understand.
How could I? How could I get her to understand when I don't myself?
Everything is so crazy these days. This wasn't what I'd had in mind five years ago. Brief detour and then off to law school but right I'm not the one thinking about passing the bar. Right now I'm not the one caring.
Sul passed the test. I didn't.
Did I want to?
Sure, of course. No one wants to fail. No one likes to.
Did I even want to take the test?
No.
No not really.
I'm a cop. It's who I am now. It's who my father was. It's who I'm meant to be. I used to think that I was supposed to wear Armani and walk around with a briefcase but that changed.
I'm not sure when but I know it did.
Maybe when those buildings fell. Maybe when I pulled Sully through his own private hell. Maybe when she died.
I'll never forget that.
Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night with the image of her body torn in half in my head. It's sickening how clearly I recall it. It's disturbing how absurd my mind finds it. She was lying there with her eyes and her feet inches from each other and you know what my first reaction was? The one that I managed to catch before it spilled it?
Yeah, I almost laughed.
How awful is that? A woman I very easily could have loved if not for my mind died horribly and my first reaction was to laugh?
My mom actually told me that what I did was normal. She said our minds aren't meant to deal with that degree of horror and that my first reaction was to laugh and make it not real because it couldn't have been.
It couldn't have been.
Of course it was.
Alex is dead.
Almost a year now.
I think I'm in love.
She's a lot like Alex. I didn't realize that at first. I mean I didn't actually put those things together. Maybe I couldn't. Now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, it kind of makes its own crazy sense.
Strong. Sassy. Caretaker. Loves children. Willing to put herself in the line of fire for others. Willing to take the fall to make sure justice is served.
I'm not sure I have a right to this.
I'm not sure I should be allowed it.
I don't think I have a say in it.
You just love who you love right?
How true can that be when I couldn't love someone like Alex? How right can that be when I let my head talk my heart out of what it felt?
I keep coming back to that test I guess though. Did I mean to fail it?
No of course not. No one likes to fail.
Yes of course. I'm a cop. Just a cop.
And I don't like Armani anyway.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible.
I have responsibilities. I have people who count on me. I have a niece who needs me to be steady. But then there's him. He makes me sway. He makes me come out of my shoes.
I want to feel that way, don't get me wrong but it never works out for me. It never goes well.
I mean look at Doc.
We spent the night together and he snapped.
Yeah that's a ringing endorsement if I've ever seen one. Hey watch out for that Sasha babe, she makes people go insane.
He used my gun and nearly killed a man. My gun. My weapon. Mine. I let it out of my care and it was almost deadly. He's okay now and I guess in that there's forgiveness.
It was a mistake.
I can't stop wondering if I should have noticed. Should have seen something. Should have paid more attention.
How did I not notice?
He was losing it? He was so off.
I just liked the attention. I liked smiling.
I liked feeling like more than a cop and a caretaker. I liked being a woman for a few minutes. He was giving me that.
He was crumbling and I made it about me instead of opening my eyes.
My gun. Yeah there's some guilt.
It's been a strange year.
Cruz. Yokas. Bosco.
There's a trifecta from hell. There's so much happening there and anyone who gets in the middle of it is a moron.
Should I rise my hand right now?
I like working with Bosco. Somehow we just work when we're on the clock. Off the clock everything else starts in and my head doesn't stop. It's like I'm two people and they don't exactly play nice with each other.
Between the lines I'm all about justice however it be but once I hear the click of the timecard it's like I can't stop thinking about everything else. About the mothers and fathers. About the brothers and sisters left behind because of every action we take.
Bosco's a good man if a bit driven by his demons.
Believe it or not Cruz is a good woman if not a bit corrupted by her ghosts.
Faith, well I'm still not sure who she is since she's been back. Don't get me wrong, I like her...hell I even get her but I'm just not sure who she is. The way she acts, I'm not sure she knows either.
But then how is that different for any of us. Do any of us really know why we wake up and need to strap up on that shield? Yeah I said need. Need to. Have to.
And I don't know why. I don't know.
I do know that my gun almost killed a man.
I need to let it go. It makes no difference now. Doc is in a mental facility and the paramedic is okay. Full recovery. Me, I guess I'll make one too.
What about Ty?
Minefield there.
There's something going on with him. Something he's thinking that's hurting him. He's not telling me but he's also not pushing me away from him so I'm not demanding answers.
He seems to be there with me. Wants to be there.
So I guess as long as he doesn't steal my gun I'm good to go.
It's been a long year. I'm not sure I've made good choices every step of the way. I know I'm different than who I was. I know that a year ago I cared about being a cop. It made me someone.
Nowadays I need to be a cop.
Every siren is in my blood now. Every time I see someone run past me I wonder if I should chase them. I see things I didn't use to. I hear sounds I never used to recognize.
I'm different now.
Better? Who knows.
Worse? I'd like to think not.
We'll go with work in progress and see where it goes from there.
I guess we all have our demons and ghosts huh?
Mine is a gun I never should have let out of my sight. Mine is a man I wonder if I could have helped.
Pancakes. Suddenly I want pancakes.
Yeah ghosts and demons. We just deal.
Or close the closet.
It's worked for everyone else so why can't it work for me?
Why doesn't it?
I reach down. I touch my gun. It's still there.
I close the closet door.
This makes no sense when you think about it.
And believe me what I say that I've thought about it more than you could ever imagine possible.
This is madness really. I've spent the majority of my life working my ass of for the city of New York. I've been a cop for so long that I don't remember when I wasn't one. When people ask me who I am, I always reply John Sullivan, NYPD.
That's who I am.
Not for much longer.
I'm almost done with this. I'm just about ready to walk away.
So why do I feel like my shoes are so heavy?
And why do I care so much about a piece of paper that tells me that I could one day become a lawyer? I mean I want to retire right? Walk away. Find a life. Do something that isn't all about waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Who am I kidding?
I introduce myself as John Sullivan, NYPD.
This job is me.
It's every part of me. It's my beginning and my end. I have no personal life that doesn't involve this job.
In the end I guess I have to admit that it's more than just a job but doesn't that give it too much credit? Doesn't that make it something powerful?
I've been doing this so long that sometimes I don't recall if there was a me before the day I graduated. I can remember fifteen years ago racing after a perp but I can't recall what it was like to be a civilian.
And Davis. He's my partner. I didn't want him to be when he was first assigned to me. I wanted anyone but him. The responsibility of my fallen partners' boy? Babysitting a kid before he went into law school? God I would have gladly done a months worth of shift with Bosco before willingly walking into being Ty Davis's partner.
I owe my life to that kid.
He believed in me when no one else did. I mean I know Bosco and Doc were there but it was Davis who pushed it. It was Davis who wouldn't let me fall even after I let him drop.
Can I leave him?
Gotta leave sometime.
We've been through the ringer a time or two. I know where I'd be if not for him. I'm not the sentimental type but I'm also not a fool.
Funny then that I'm looking at this paper like it's something interesting. Do I really want to go to law school? Isn't that his destiny? Isn't mine bad coffee and tailored uniforms?
Isn't mine stopping old friends from getting shot by snipers because they've lost their mind?
This job can kill you. And I don't just mean literally.
None of us are like who we were. Davis, Yokas, Monroe, even Bosco. The amount of guilt. We all share it. We all have it. We all wake up every morning wondering what we did to place such a heavy burden down on us. We all realize we have no choice.
None of us are starry-eyed kids. I'm not sure I ever was one. I know Davis would laugh if he ever heard me identify myself as such. The truth is, we all lay on needles at night, waiting for them to cut us through and end it.
But in the morning we do what we do and not one of us can say why.
I don't like getting so deep. I'd prefer it be just a job. I guess with the end so close my mind is getting weird. Getting philosophical. Making me think on all this.
I feel like I'm gonna miss being a cop. Like I won't know what to do with myself.
Like I won't know how to live.
I don't remember who I was before I was a cop.
Yeah that' s just what it is.
After all these years I guess it comes down to one thing.
I'm John Sullivan, NYPD.
Nothing glamorous. Nothing spectacular. Not a hero. Just a man. An especially flawed one at that.
Maybe a man the world won't miss when he's gone. Maybe someone who should have been allowed to drop. Ty didn't let me. He held me up.
It's not just a job.
Just who I am.
So yeah I guess that paper saying I passed the test means something. I just haven't a clue what.
But for now there are other things. We bury Bosco's brother today. That's where I belong.
At his side.
I don't really like the guy but he's a brother to me, corny though that be. He knows it, I know it.
It's the shield.
It's just who we are.
I don't remember who I was before I was a cop but right now I know exactly who I am and that's enough.
John Sullivan, NYPD.
-FIN