The Caller

At the sound of the phone ringing, Andy Flynn woke immediately. He reached out from under the covers and snatched the cellphone off the nightstand, swiped to answer the call and silence the ringtone. He cleared his throat, but his greeting was still scratchy and thick with sleep, muffled some by the pillow he'd lain back down upon.

"Flynn?"Andy sighed on hearing Provenza's voice on the line.

"Yeah. What is it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you?" His partner's grating tone was sarcastic.

Andy stole a look at the alarm clock, rolled his eyes and shifted onto his back. "It's three o'clock in the morning - of course you woke me up! Whaddya want?"

"Well, don't get testy with ME," Provenza warned. "It's not MY fault a dead body's turned up at this ungodly hour."

Andy nodded to himself and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, alright," he conceded, began mentally preparing to rise, dress, and head off into what was left of the night to join the team. "What've we got?"

Provenza provided him with the facts as he knew them, said he'd text Andy the address of the crime scene when they'd hung up. When Andy acknowledged his instructions and made to cut short the phone call, Provenza interrupted.

"Just hold up, now," he said, "I need you to notify the captain."

Andy scoffed in irritation. "What? Why don't you call her?"

"I just did," Provenza snapped, continued in a harsh whisper "and you answered her phone!"

Andy sat bolt upright, reached over to turn on the lamp at his bedside, and cringed when he saw his phone sitting on the nightstand.

In his earlier fog of semi-wakefulness and in his haste to answer, he hadn't stopped to consider that it might be Sharon's phone lit up and ringing in the middle of the night. He'd acted out of habit, automatically assumed the wake-up call was his.

He leaned back against the headboard, slapped a hand to his forehead then drew it down over his face. "Shit. "

"That's right, buddy-boy," Provenza crowed. "You screwed up." Andy's attention was drawn to the other side of the bed as Sharon, lying on her side facing him, lifted her head to look at him. She sleepily squinted against the brightness of the light which had woken her. "Now, why don't you roll over, tap the captain on the shoulder, and whisper in her ear that we caught a murder."

Sharon pushed up into a sitting position, concern pulling at her features. At the same time Andy was raising his finger to his lips to shush her, Sharon voiced her concern for his obvious distress. "Andy, what is it?"

Andy dropped his arm to the mattress in defeat, his chin to his chest.

"Oh ho!" Provenza exclaimed, "There's Sleeping Beauty now!"

At the touch of Sharon's hand to his shoulder, Andy looked up at her, held the phone away from his ear, pointed to it with his other hand, and mouthed the lieutenants name. Her eyes went wide and she pulled her hand back to cover her mouth when she realized it was her phone, and what Andy's having answered it meant.

Shaking his head, he returned the cellphone to his ear in time to hear Provenza saying " - assuming the two of you were even SLEEPING ..."

"Knock it off," Andy growled through gritted teeth. "Send me the address and I'll - " he looked over at Sharon, raised his eyebrows and shrugged in uncertainty " - I mean, we'll? Be there as soon -"

"As soon as you can untangle your naked bodies from the sweaty sheets?"

"That's enough, Louie!" Andy quickly straightened, threw back the covers and swung his legs off the side of the bed. Before he could stand, Sharon grabbed his arm and stayed him. He turned to look at her and she cocked her head, curious about his rebuke of Lieutenant Provenza.

"Enough? Oh, no, no, no, Flynn. This is just the beginning, my friend," Provenza continued, chuckling. "I am nowhere NEAR done with THIS!"

"Oh, my God," Andy muttered, threw up his hands at his partner's obvious delight in the newfound knowledge of his relationship with Sharon.

"Give me the phone."

Cradling the phone to his chest in an effort to prevent Provenza overhearing anything more, Andy gawked at Sharon. "What? Are you crazy?!" She was on her knees now, her arm out in front of her.

Sharon rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers at him impatiently. "The cat's outta the bag, Andy. Give me the phone."

He stood, incredulous, and placed the phone into her outstretched hand. She held his gaze as she lifted it to her ear.

" ... tell me, Andrew - what does the fair Captain wear to bed, hmm? She any good in the sack?"

"Lieutenant," Sharon said sweetly, effectively shutting up her second in command. "While I appreciate your interest in my sleepwear and my ... abilities -" Andy's head snapped up and she almost laughed at the angry scowl on his face. "I do believe the original purpose of this call had something to do with the unfortunate victim of a murder?"

"Uh, yes," he stammered. "Yes, ma'am, we've been rolled out."

"And you've given Lieutenant Flynn the details?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Sharon's eyes were tracking Andy as he paced back and forth at the foot of the bed, wearing only the undershirt and boxers he'd put back on after their earlier lovemaking. "Then he will join you shortly, and I'll see you in the murder room after you've cleared the scene. And I trust that you'll carry out your duty with the utmost professionalism and respect."

She got out of bed while speaking this last, moved into Andy's path and took his hand when he approached. She tried to convey to him with a little smile and a shrug that she wasn't upset with him for having accidentally exposed their relationship.

"Yes, Captain," Provenza was quick to reply. "Of course."

"And lieutenant?" She said into the phone, stepped up to Andy until she was leaning into him. Andy released her hand to cup her face, an apology in the long look he gave her. "About those questions ..."

"Uh, Captain ... Yeah, I was outta line there - both professionally and personally - ya know, as a subordinate and Flynn's ... well, friend - and I can assure you - "

"Lieutenant," Sharon interrupted Provenza's nervous rambling.

"Yes, Captain?"

Sharon put a hand to Andy's chest, engaged his eyes with a sparkle of mischief in her own. "Short, black silk."

Andy dropped his hands to her arms and looked her up and down - from the white tee, to the blue fleece pajama pants with a repeating pattern of fluffy, white sheep, to the thick, mismatched socks covering her feet - a question on his face.

Sharon winked at him and continued speaking into the phone: "And fan-fucking-tastic."

She disconnected the call while Provenza was sputtering, tossed it onto the bed, put her hands on her hips and turned back to Andy with a sigh.

"Well, that just happened." She flashed him a wry grin.

"Listen, Sharon, I'm sorry. I mean, I was asleep. The phone rang, and I just ..." He lifted his shoulders and threw his hands up in the air, "... answered it."

"Andy." Sharon took a quick step to close the short distance between them, smoothed her hands over his chest. "It's okay." When he snorted his disbelief, she smacked him playfully. "I'm mean it. Something like this was bound to happen. Don't worry about it."

She slipped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He pressed a kiss to her temple, then nuzzled her ear as he returned the embrace.

"What do we do now?" He asked seriously.

Sharon tipped her head back and kissed him, then stepped out of the circle of his arms. "YOU are going to get dressed and go to work," she said, backing away from him.

"Right," he nodded, headed to the chair and started gathering up his clothing.

"And I," she continued, climbing onto her side of the bed and drawing the covers up, "am going to get a couple more hours of sleep."

Andy stopped at the threshold of the bathroom. "Seriously? You're gonna be able to go back to sleep?"

Sharon yawned as if on cue, closed her eyes and snuggled further into her pillow. "Well, you did have me up a little later than usual, so yes; I'm still tired." She yawned again.

"No, I mean ..." Andy hesitated and she cracked open one eye to see him looking uncertain. "You're really okay with this? With Provenza knowing about us?"

"What's done is done, Andy," she said through another yawn. "I'm not gonna lose sleep over it."

"Okay. Well," he indicated the bathroom behind him with a thumb over his shoulder, "I'm just gonna ..."

"Yes. Go."

While he was washing his face, Andy remembered what Sharon had said to Provenza just before hanging up with him: short, black, silk. He chuckled, imagining Provenza's reaction to that imagery. Fan-fucking-tastic. He laughed into the towel pressed to his face. 'She ain't lyin' about that.'

Five minutes later, impeccably groomed and dressed, Andy skirted the bed to retrieve his wallet, watch, weapon, and badge from the nightstand. He made sure to pick up and pocket HIS phone, and switched off the light after clipping his gun to his belt. He dropped a kiss into Sharon's hair as she lay lightly snoring, and quietly made his way out of her bedroom.

Out in the corridor waiting on the elevator, Andy begun steeling himself for what surely awaited him at the crime scene: Provenza would be insufferable. When the doors opened a moment later and he stepped into the elevator car, he was thinking how fucked up it was that the thought of wading through the aftermath of a violent crime was less distressing than was the thought of seeing his partner.