Disclaimer: I don't own Against the Wall.
Summary: An 'Against the Wall' fanfiction. For Abby, she thought her job in Internal Affairs was important, but in the end, clearing Richie, her brother, of unjustly shooting that teenager mattered more. The questionable steps she took to stop the investigation against him surprised everyone, including her family. set several months post 1x2 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head'
Author's Note: I'm rather enjoying the brand new show, Against the Wall, but I believe that it really needs to up the volume a bit. Right now, it seems too lighthearted, considering its concept. The preview for next week's episode gave me the idea for this, though I'm certain that I'm completely misinterpreting it. Oh well. I always like to put a good Law and Order spin on things. Also, on a side note, it's pretty cool to write the first fanfiction for a show. But I never realized just how difficult it is to write a fanfiction when the web has very little knowledge on the show. I couldn't look up a lot of people's names. It was quite the challenge.
/
Cop
/
Chapter One
"Abby," Richie called out.
She continued her quick stride, jerking her head in a motion that indicated for him to follow her. She pulled her trench coat tight around her waist, tying it so tightly that she could barely breathe. It was a long walk out of the Internal Affairs building, and she made the walk entirely in silence, listening to Richie's footsteps next to her.
"Abby, are you okay?" he said in a quiet murmur, once they were on the sidewalk outside.
"I'm fine," Abby said, looking out at the street and debating calling for a cab.
"Because Dad heard that you were being investigated," he continued, his voice rushed and the words all tumbling over each other. He sounded incredulous in a way, and when she nodded sharply, he sucked in a breath. "Man, who investigates Internal Affairs?" He let out half a laugh, before she squashed it with a look. "Look, whatever it is, I'm sure that they'll clear you. What is it that you're always saying? I.A. clears innocent cops; well, you're innocent, so they're going to clear you. Even the bastards in I.A. must have some loyalty towards their own, right?"
She didn't answer, and he repeated, "Right, Abby?"
She raised a hand, and a bright yellow taxicab screeched to the curb in front of them. Getting in the cab, she turned to Richie and said, "Right, Richie. If I was innocent, I.A. would clear me."
The cab drove away, and Abby stared forward. She couldn't bare to look for Richie's face.
/
A week later, and there was a phone call. Abby rolled over in bed, answering the phone, "Kowalski," automatically, before she remembered that she was suspended from the force, so this wouldn't be a case.
"Abby," her mother said.
"Mom," she said, grappling in the dark, before her hands found the light switch. She sought the alarm clock. Five in the morning. "What's wrong?" A phone call this early in the morning meant disaster to a daughter and sister of cops.
"Why didn't you tell me?" her mother demanded.
Abby sat up in bed. "What? Mom, it's five am. What's wrong?"
"Your job, Abby! Why didn't you tell me that you had been suspended?"
Abby groaned and threw herself back down into her pillow. "How did you find out?" She ran through the list of people who knew, and then realized that it was everyone in her own department. Loyalty towards their own didn't stop water-cooler gossip about the newest in the long line of dirty cops.
"People talk, Abby. Someone at work told your father, and he tried to hide it from me." That sounded like him, Abby realized. "But I found out, and what I don't understand is why you wouldn't tell me. You know you'll be cleared soon enough, but you must be having a hard time."
"Mom," Abby said.
"And I just assumed that you would want to talk to me."
"Mom, it's a police investigation. You know that I can't share details." It was a spiel that her mother had to have heard a dozen times over the years.
But this time, it wasn't enough. "You're not the investigator here, Abby," her mother said after a brief pause. "Talk to me."
"I'm being investigated."
Her mother let out a soft cry. "For what?"
But that was something Abby couldn't - wouldn't - share with her family. "Mom," she said quietly, "it's early. I'm going back to bed."
"Fine."
And that was that.
/
Only that wasn't that. Abby had no idea why she thought her mother would drop the topic permanently. "Abby's being investigated," her mother said, a week later.
There was the end of a semi-peaceful family Sunday dinner. It had been a long time since Kowalski family dinners had been comfortable, but Abby had gradually been invited back to them a few weeks ago. It helped that her department was no longer investigating Richie of shooting a supposedly unarmed teenager. He had been cleared of all charges weeks ago.
At the announcement, everyone's forks froze in place for a split second - time out at the Kowalski dinner table - before they all continued eating.
"So you all knew," she accused then. "I was the only one not kept in the loop."
It was not a question, but they answered anyway, stuttering out, "Mom, we just didn't want to worry you," answers. Richie was the only one who turned to Abby.
"Why are you being investigated?"
Spotlight on Abby. Five pairs of eyes stared her down. "I'm…" she hesitated, not sure how to explain it, "being investigated for improper relationships with a superior officer." It was the simplest way to put it; the explanation at its barest.
But she was a member of a family of cops, and they weren't dumb. "Which superior officer?" her father demanded immediately. You don't screw over family for ambition, he had told her once, but this, she knew, was worse in a way. This was disgraceful, and there was a chance he wouldn't forgive her for it.
She couldn't look at Richie, as she swallowed her last bite of lasagna. "Detective Rodriguez," she said, pushing her chair back and preparing herself to stand at a moment's notice.
"Fuck," Donnie said, his eyes swiveling from Richie to their father and back to Abby.
It was silent, then, for a long moment. Abby resolutely stared at the wall, refusing to look at them. They wanted to interrogate her? Fine. She wasn't going to make it easy though.
"The I.A. detective who investigated your brother?" her mother said, betrayal coloring her tone.
Her father corrected her though. "No," he said, "not the initial detective. Rodriguez was the second detective."
And at that, Abby's mother suck in a huge gust of air. Abby understood that reaction. When Richie had first shot that teenage boy, there had been the necessary t's and i's to cross and dot, the normal I.A. interrogation. But just as quickly as those normal hellish interrogations were wrapped up, everything changed.
There was an accusation that Richie's partner had planted the gun, that Richie had shot an unarmed teenager. Murdered a scared, little kid. And that was when I.A. brought in the big guns. Detective Rodriguez investigated Richie for months, following him everywhere. Abby had seen the photos pinned on the bulletin board by Rodriguez's desk. He was digging up dirt on Richie.
It was a personal vendetta, and he interrogated Richie dozens of times, stopped him from getting his life back. It was hell.
There was another beat of silence. Abby could hear the ticking of the kitchen clock, in the other room.
Then: "Get out of my house." Her father stood and pointed towards the door.
"Don," her mother gasped, but that was all. She didn't stop him, didn't say Abby should sit back down. In the end, family came first, and Abby had completely fucked that up. They would probably never forgive her, she realized.
Abby was on her feet in an instant and halfway out the room a half a beat afterwards. She sought Richie's eyes, but he wouldn't meet hers. She took in a breath of air. Of course Richie wouldn't look at her. She was sleeping with the enemy; the cop who had personally done everything in his power to ruin Richie's life. Never mind that Richie had his job back now, that the investigation was closed. She wasn't just sleeping with the enemy; she was the enemy. Abby left.
It would be weeks before she spoke to her family again.
/
The booze burned as she took it like a shot. Fuck, that was a bad idea. Still, she raised her hand, in the universal sign for I'll have another, and the bartender didn't deny her. There were four glasses surrounding her.
In the distant part of her mind, Abby was criticizing herself. She looked like a hot mess, and drinking like this wasn't exactly how she spent her spare time.
But now, she had nothing but spare time.
An hour and another glass and a half later, the bartender seemed to notice how much she had drank for the first time and cut her off. She was fumbling through her purse for her wallet, when she noticed her phone's screen was lit up. The bar was so loud; she hadn't heard it ring.
She pulled her phone from the purse and tapped the screen. Missed Call. Shit. Rodriguez. Shit - fuck - hell. She swore every curse in the book, reaching into her purse, and throwing a fistful of money on the counter. It was probably too much or too little, but that didn't really matter.
She strode - stumbled - from the bar and was out the door in an instant. In the back alleyway that the bar let out in, she took a deep breath, smoothed her hair, and was about to dial him back, when a figure approached her in the darkness. She reached instantly for her gun, only to remember that she didn't have one anymore. She backed up instinctively, preparing herself to scream, to fight, but she was so goddamn drunk, that she knew she wouldn't stand a chance, especially not when another two shadows appeared.
Abby closed her eyes for a half second, in what she realized might have been a paranoid prayer, and when she opened them again, she saw Steve, Donnie, and Richie staring at her. There was a baffling exchange of looks between them, that might have been something like concern, but no, that wasn't possible. They didn't care anymore, couldn't possibly. She had betrayed them, after all. "Hell," she slurred. "You scared the crap out of me."
She wouldn't realize it until the next morning, but she was the picture of a falling-down drunk. Her brothers noticed though. "Abby," Steve said, moving forward to support her. Donnie followed suit immediately and, suddenly, the whole walking thing wasn't her own responsibility anymore.
She didn't remember a lot of what happened next. Suddenly, she was in her apartment, having her shoes pulled off, and being tucked into bed.
Sleep tight.
/
"She hasn't returned any of Mom's calls!" Donnie.
"They're saying she slept her way to the top." Steve.
"She's been at that bar every night for a week!" Steve again.
"She doesn't even like alcohol, for Christ's sake!" Donnie.
"What the hell is going on with her?" Richie.
At that last one, Abby's eyes flickered open. "Yell louder, why don't you?" she said, slamming her eyes shut again, upon seeing the bright light streaming in through her window.
They were quiet then, and she heard her blinds being closed. Hesitantly, Abby opened her eyes again to see her three brothers looking at her with a mixture of sheepishness and concern. "Abby," Richie began, but she interrupted him with a wave of the hand.
Hand covering her closed mouth, she got up and ran to the bathroom. Well, that was one way to avoid a confrontation.
/
Afterwards, there was a conversation, in which Donnie and Steve listed a plethora of evidence to prove that she wasn't acting normally. It lasted for only ten minutes or so, but it seemed more like a lifetime.
Then, quietly: "Why did you start dating Rodriguez?" Abby looked at Donnie, through her hazy, hang-over eyes, and felt her own eyes widen.
Letting out a swear, she jumped from the bed and reached for her cell phone. In the middle of pressing two on her speed dial, she walked from the room.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you back last night," she said, her voice tight with control.
She heard Donnie swear and Steve scoff, and by the time she got done apologizing to her boyfriend for missing his calls, they were both gone. She walked back to her bedroom, feeling sick and saying, "Yeah, I'll see you tonight," to him.
In the corner of her room, she saw Richie with a completely unfathomable expression in his eyes. He left quietly, but said before he was gone, "You wouldn't do this to family. I know that."
It was said with such resolve that Abby wondered, for a moment, if he suspected what was really going on. Because of course she wouldn't sleep with someone who had attacked her family. She may have screwed over her family for ambition and this job, but I.A. had never personally tried to ruin her family before. She would never, ever side with the monster who had ruined her brother's life.
And yet, here they were.
/
"What I don't understand," Donnie said, the next time he confronted her, this time on the roof of her building during a punching bag marathon, "is why they would investigate you for this."
"What?" she asked, baffled. She lowered her fists and turned away from the bag. Donnie stood, but she walked uncomfortably a few feet back and leaned against the wall.
"If you were sleeping with your boss, which I don't even think Rodriguez really is, even if he does have seniority, they would just write you up and transfer you. Maybe put a note in your file, or demote you a position."
Abby looked at the blue sky. She liked hanging out on the roof. It was normally so peaceful.
"But they didn't. Instead, they've been investigating you for - how long now?" Donnie asked. He looked around the roof, like there was a calendar appearing in mid-air around him.
Abby saw the exact moment that he understood. His mouth formed into a small o, and his whole body stiffened for a moment. She looked away.
"Damn," he said.
She thought, for a moment, that that would be all, but instead, he turned and, hand in a fist, leaned back and swung in her direction.
His fist connected with the wall behind her.
/
"Abby," he said, flexing his hand as she reached in the freezer for some ice, "what's going on?"
She was out of ice, but instead, she turned around and shoved a bag of frozen peas on his hand. His knuckles were scraped up pretty badly. He was lucky he hadn't actually broken something. "I… okay, Donnie, look," she stammered. She didn't normally stammer. Ever, really.
"Abby," he said, quietly, hissing at the feel of the ice on his knuckles. "Just start at the beginning." It wasn't an order though, and there was a compassion in his tone. He wasn't Donnie, the cop she had betrayed by joining I.A. He was the same big brother who had protected her from the monsters who had haunted her nightmares the one week she was seven; and he was the same brother who had watched the movie with her that had caused the nightmares.
Lie. Don't lie. Lie.
How could she lie to Donnie, her big brother?
Starting at the beginning had never been Abby's style though, so she started with, "Rodriguez's brother was killed by a cop. A dirty one. Or at least one who had no right shooting him."
"That explains… a lot, actually," Donnie said, because it did. It explained why Rodriguez was so personally set on proving Richie guilty, whether he was or not.
"What none of you understand, Donnie, is that working in I.A. is just like any other department. There are grudges and there's revenge, and there's cases that hit you hard, and more importantly than that, there's the other cops who notice."
Donnie looked at her. "You 'noticed,' didn't you?"
She looked through him. "Yeah. I did."
Right there, she was ready to tell all and ride off into the happy little, family-oriented sunset. But then her phone rang. Startled, Abby reached down for it. "I've got to take this," she said.
Donnie looked down at her phone. Rodriguez. "Abby, fuck, let it go to voicemail."
He reached for the phone, trying to take it away from her, like he owned her or something. Like he had any right to tell her what to do.
She snapped, throwing his arm down against the table, taking the phone in one hand and answer it, while physically restraining him with the other. "Rob," she said, "hi."
Donnie looked baffled as she smiled and flirted playfully into the phone. She let go of his hand and indicated for him to leave.
After a few minutes, he walked out of the room, so she thought he had and sighed deeply.
"Dinner, tomorrow? Sure." Click. Conversation over. The smile slid off her face like rain off a windbreaker.
There was Donnie, leaning in the doorway. "You traded, didn't you?"
"What?" she said. She placed her phone down on the counter, reached for a hair tie on it, and pulled her hair into a messy pony tail.
"Or he blackmailed you. Whatever."
Stiffly, Abby said, "I don't know what you mean."
"Date him - sleep with him - and he'll drop the investigation," he said.
Stated in plain fact like that, Abby thought she might vomit. She wasn't some Law and Order: SVU case though, and this was the real world. "It's not rape," she protested.
"I didn't say it was," Donnie replied, looking a bit disgusted at that potential scenario.
"And I didn't just agree to it," she hurried to say, "immediately. I waited. But then, he said he was going to arrest Richie, but that if I took him on his offer - the stupid one he had made, like, a day into me meeting him, he wouldn't follow up on the case."
Abby remembered his stupid arrogant smirk, like there wasn't even a question. Of course she would want to sleep with him. Of course she would want to date him. Of course, of course, of course. But she hadn't. She had actually told him to go screw himself.
But then, there was her mother sobbing to her over the phone, and her father refusing to speak to her because she was one of them, and her brothers avoiding her when they ran into her at the hotdog vendor. And then there was Richie, oh, poor Richie, and the bags under his eyes, and the three days worth of shadow on his face, and the disheveled uniform, and the fact that he cried to her - who the whole family hated - about how he thought there was a possibility - "Jesus Christ, Abby, what if he's right?" - that he had murdered that poor, innocent boy.
And then there were the arrest orders. He had enough evidence, supposedly. And, he said with an equally flirtatious and evil smile, it was sad that it had to come to this. If only he had better things to occupy his time with.
It had baffled her, his desire to sleep with her. What had happened to revenge? To paying back all dirty cops for what had happened to his own brother? But she looked around the office, the office that was torturing her brother, and agreed.
"So I agreed."
He looked at her.
"But I swear to God, Donnie, I don't know how word got out. I have no fucking idea why this all got dredged up again, and that's why I can't ignore his calls, because if I do, then maybe he'll think our deal doesn't count anymore, maybe he'll -" she choked on the words.
And then, he stopped her, physically raising his bloodied hand, in the universal symbol for shut up. "Jesus, Abby. You think the investigation against Richie was your fault."
"That's ridiculous," Abby retorted, immediately, even though, yeah, she kind of did.
A pause. A look. Then, Donnie said, "It's not, Abby. This is not some kind of cosmic balance. You joining I.A. had nothing to do with Richie shooting that kid or getting investigated for it."
"But," Abby said, bile in her throat, "if this investigation pops back up again, it'll kill Richie."
The look in his eyes when he was proven innocent. When they told her little brother that he could sleep easy again. That he had nothing to feel badly about, and sure that wasn't exactly true. He still lost some sleep. But at least he wasn't a murderer.
"Abby, are you out of your fucking mind? If I.A. is investigating you, then they already know or at least suspect. Right?"
"Yeah," she said. It was the real reason why she was being investigated. For suspicions that she had gotten her brother out of charges. She was dirty, didn't believe in real justice. Was willing to do anything to clear her brother, even if it meant demeaning herself.
"So why keep up the act? Tell them he blackmailed and coerced you. You'll get off, and that bastard will go down."
"I'm the new detective," Abby said. "He's been with the department for fifteen years."
"But I.A. works towards the truth," Donnie said. It was almost like he was pleading with her. "They'll work towards the truth."
"And if I tell them that truth, then the investigation against Richie will reopen," Abby snapped back. She whirled around, pacing to the other side of the room. "Do you want that?"
"No," Donnie said. "Of course not."
It was an impasse, one that couldn't be breached by arguments. In the end, they were both on the same side, after all.
Family first. Always.
Donnie understood that, and so would Steve and her parents. But one thing was certain. "Don't tell Richie."
Donnie looked at her and said, "Of course not."
She took the melted bag of peas from him and walked towards her freezer. Once she turned back around, she caught him staring at her.
"It's not right," Donnie said, "what Rodriguez is doing to you."
Her face flushed. The way he said it made her sound so helpless. Like a victim.
"Abby," he said, and she met his eyes. "It's not."
And for some odd reason, Abby believed him, but that didn't change anything. That teenage boy was still dead, Richie was still traumatized, and the rest of the family would still never understand what she had done.
For now, it was enough that Donnie did.
/
Author's Note: I envision one more chapter to this story, though I do believe that this can stand-alone as an open-ended one shot. (For those curious, the title inspiration will be explained later. I didn't just pick the most generic word.)