When Brenda turns the corner, she does not expect to see her. And when she storms up to the Captain to share a great, whopping piece of her mind, she does not expect the Captain to pull her against the wall.
When Raydor covers her mouth with her hand, Brenda thinks wildly for a moment that she should bite it in petulant fury.
But then Brenda notices how shaky that hand is, how wide Raydor's eyes are, and how tightly she has her back against that wall - which come to think of it is in a corner of the hallway half-obscured from the murder room. Brenda feels suddenly very cold.
Raydor is clutching Brenda's upper arm tightly in one hand, with the other still clamped over her mouth. She doesn't speak, but finally registers the force she's used to silence the Chief and removes her hand. But before she drops it from the other woman's mouth, she brings it to her own lips in a sign for her to keep quiet. Then she peeks back around the corner towards the murder room, forgetting the Chief for a moment.
Brenda follows her gaze and finds nothing.
Instead she hears something: someone speaking. Then there's another voice, asking the first to stop, to put the weapon down, to surrender. The second voice sounds like Gabriel. And the first... it sounds a lot like Corporal Friar, who until recently, had been torturing his fellow soldiers with impunity. Until he'd stepped outside his sphere of military protection and into the world of civilian homicide.
She registers the fact that she's left her gun in her office only a moment before the Corporal steps into her line of vision. In one more moment he turns his gaze and she is in his sights. The sights of his handgun pointed in her direction.
It drags on: this moment. She knows now that as she'd heard his voice, she had stepped out of the shelter of the Captain's corner, intending to fire a weapon she didn't have at a culprit who was clearly out for her blood. She can see it in his eyes as he narrows them.
She inhales. She feels two arms pull her back against the wall just as she hears the crack of the bullet. She's held tight against the Captain, who is using the wall and her body as shields against the assault.
Brenda feels the closeness, the rasp of breath, the tightness of Raydor's grip. Her mind is blank. She is simply alive, surprisingly so, and wrapped in an oddly fierce embrace.
She vaguely registers the sound of struggle and the shouting in the murder room, the sounds of her team and a few uniformed cops making short work of their escaped suspect. It will be impossible for him to evade punishment now. But this fact is, for once, far from Brenda's mind.
She nearly died. This isn't a new sensation, but it never lessens. It keeps her wide awake and aware of where she is in that second, just like it always has. And suddenly she is all too aware of the Captain.
Sharon exhales and loosens her grip but doesn't let go. She lets her head fall back against the wall, her eyes shut, her chest rising and falling in steadier and steadier heaves. She's beautiful, Brenda thinks. She doesn't wonder why she thinks it, it just is.
Even though her head is against the wall, Sharon is still quite close. A little leaning is all Brenda would need to kiss her.
"Chief, are you all right?"
Flynn's voice is the catalyst that breaks them apart. Raydor releases her hold on Brenda, not quickly, but slowly, letting her hands fall down Brenda's arms. Brenda's eyes finally un-fix themselves from Raydor and she looks to Andy.
"Yeah, I'm alright, 've got my very own bodyguard lookin' out for me, apparently."
She glances over at Raydor when she says it and the Captain lets out a gust of air almost like a laugh.
"We've got Friar in custody. He broke out of his interview room, gave Tao a black eye, and went looking for you."
"Do me a favour, Lieutenant. Don't let that happ'n again." Brenda
Brenda notices a widening blotch of red on her sleeve.
"Sharon, y'r bleedin'." Brenda reaches out for the wounded arm on instinct and pulls it closer to inspect.
"Must have grazed me," is the response. The Captain says it nonchalantly, as though she hasn't just stepped in to save Brenda's life.
Brenda blinks at her in awe. She'd never really thought of Raydor as an ally before. But the evidence in front of her makes her confront her judgements of the Captain head-on. She can't ignore the way she's been treated by the Major Crimes team, like some villain from a melodramatic, silent movie. Like someone inhuman.
Seeing the FID leader this way makes her seem more human than anyone.
Brenda waits with the other woman until the FID arrives and they separate to give their versions of events. Re-hashing what's occurred leaves Brenda frustrated and tired.
Brenda's done first. She finds herself glancing over at the room that Sharon disappeared into. She wishes everyone would stop asking if she's okay when all she wants to do is burst into the room where the Captain is, haul her out, and tell her never to do that again.
Instead she checks the time, huffs, and stomps off towards her office, shutting herself inside and devouring bits and pieces from her candy stash.
A half hour passes before she hears a knock at her door.
Raydor doesn't wait for acknowledgement before she lets herself in.
"I hear you wanted to see me?"
Brenda furrows her brow. "I didn't say that."
"My colleagues informed me you were glowering outside the meeting room where I was giving my statement."
Brenda blushes, frowns, and pops a Werther's into her mouth.
Sharon waits for a response, but it doesn't come. So instead she shuts the door behind her and walks to Brenda's desk. She plucks a lollipop out of the open drawer and then shuts it and sits against the desktop, unwrapping the candy as she goes. She drops the wrapper in the garbage can, pops the lollipop in her mouth and turns her attention on the Chief.
Brenda, for her part, only stares as this transpires, her eyes eerily transfixed on Sharon's mouth.
"Didn't say you could do that," Brenda mutters, her mouth full of caramel.
"I didn't ask." Sharon says. "Now, are you angry because I pulled you out of the way or because the bullet meant for you grazed me, or both?"
Brenda huffs.
Sharon nods. "So both, then. All right, what would you have had me done instead? Let you get shot? You seemed more than eager to put yourself in harm's way. Without your gun, might I add. Not that you could have anticipated-"
"I ain't mad at you, I'm mad at MYSELF!" Brenda interrupts, unable to listen to the incessant assumptions anymore.
Sharon is silenced. She seems to consider moving away from the Chief, losing their proximity, but thinks better of it. She inspects her lollipop. It's far from finished, but she's done with it anyway. She drops it into the trash can.
"You've been through something... uncomfortable today, Chief. I know it never gets any easier, I've been there. You don't have to punish yourself for something you had no idea was going to happen."
Brenda pouts.
"You don't need to punish me either. But you already know that." Sharon studies the other woman. "Chief, give me your eyes?"
Brenda hesitates and then looks up at her. She's taken her blazer off, no doubt to allow the paramedics to clean her arm up. It's bare and bandaged but the blazer is probably a write-off. The Captain almost looks dressed-down this way, in only slacks and a tank top. Brenda finds it inviting and disarming.
Raydor leans in a little, close enough that Brenda can see how bright and vibrant her eyes are, hidden away behind her glasses.
"I'm glad I was there. I'm here to help you, Brenda. Don't forget it." Sharon smirks and leans back again, only to lift herself from the desk and round it, heading for the door. She's opening it when Brenda calls out to her.
"Cap'n?"
Sharon turns. "Yes, Chief?"
"I'm glad you were there too. Thank you."
Sharon smirks. "Anytime. I'm your personal bodyguard, after all."
With that, she leaves. And Brenda is left with a smile and a great number of confusing feelings. Sharon Raydor gets more and more interesting by the minute.
