Brenda
On her way out of Sharon's house she had stopped in the bathroom, trying desperately to scrub the scent of Sharon off her skin, but as she put her car in park and stepped out to face the horde of reporters and her own harried squad, she wished she hadn't. She wished she still had some small piece of Sharon to hold onto, something better than the memory of Sharon's face when she'd left. The pain she'd seen there was too much for Brenda to bear tonight, and she knew she only had a few minutes before Sharon herself showed up. Captain Raydor, in her perfect pressed suit and her quiet sadness.
Stop this, she thought. You can't fix this now. Focus.
Odd, really, that Brenda had to tell herself to focus on work. Usually, work was the only thing she could focus on. And now? Now all she could see were dark green eyes, tousled hair, kiss-me lips whispering exactly the words she wanted to hear, all the parts of Sharon she would never see again because she had been so selfish.
This wasn't what she'd intended when she told Fritz about her situation with Sharon. She hadn't seen this coming. She hadn't anticipated his suggestion that she go to Sharon, and she hadn't anticipated Sharon's disgust at the proposal. Sharon, who was more than happy to fuck her on her desk, but who was incensed at the notion that Fritz condoned their little… fling.
What the hell was that about anyway?
FOCUS.
Brenda could see Flynn eyeing her across the crime scene tape, but he made no move to get her attention. He seemed to be watching her, not with his usual half-smirk, but with an expression that bordered dangerously on disgust. She glanced furtively over her shoulder, looking to see if a reporter or maybe Commander Taylor was following her, but there was no one. Surely he wasn't looking at her with that much loathing? What the hell had she done to him?
Focus on the job, Brenda. You can deal with Flynn later.
She really didn't have the energy to deal with other people's emotions right now, but she had to speak with him, and so she tilted her chin up defiantly and headed straight for the tense Lieutenant.
He was leaning up against the side of a dilapidated building, officers milling about everywhere as he remained a solitary figure of inactivity. His eyes narrowed as she approached, and he began gnawing on the end of his toothpick forcefully. The toothpicks hadn't made an appearance for quite sometime, a coping mechanism he didn't seem to need so much anymore, but here he was, toothpick firmly in place, and there was something in his eyes that made Brenda wonder if maybe it was her fault he needed them again. Made her wonder what it was they served as a substitute for.
"Lieutenant," she nodded to him as she approached.
"Chief," he grunted, not bothering to stand up straight. "Nice of you to join us."
Oh, for heaven's sake.
"Can you walk me through what happened here?"
He shrugged and pushed himself upright, wandering off towards the entrance to the same old building he'd been leaning up against. She fought the urge to stamp her foot at his attitude, but she contained herself, simply following along behind him and waiting for him to begin to speak.
He led her inside the faintly reeking building and finally sketched in the details for her; one police officer dead, one missing, two dead bodies with no guns and no identification.
He was still talking when she sensed it, felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up the way they always did whenever someone was staring at her. She spun around on her heel and her eyes immediately landed on the forlorn form of Sharon Raydor, hugging herself against the early morning chill.
Sharon
She could have kicked herself the moment Brenda's eyes found her. Stupid, really, to be hanging in the doorway staring at Brenda Leigh like a love struck teenager with the woman's cell phone and panties tucked safely away in her own purse. Even more stupid, when she considered the fact that she had been foolish enough to entertain the notion, for however brief a time, that Brenda might care about her, before Brenda had so graciously set her straight.
Me coming over here was his idea… Brenda's words echoed in Sharon's mind. He probably gets off on the idea, she thought grimly, wishing she could just stop staring at the Chief already.
Pull yourself together, Sharon. Brenda Leigh doesn't care about you. She doesn't want to leave her husband for you. She wants to fuck you and then go on her merry way.
Sharon squared her shoulders and crooked her finger at the blonde. "Chief Johnson, may I have a moment?"
The Chief sighed and her shoulders sagged, but she nodded glumly and began her approach without a word of protest. As she progressed from the middle of the big empty room where the bodies lay, Sharon took the time to look around, and her eyes inevitably fell on Andy Flynn. Andy Flynn, who was staring daggers at the Chief's back.
Oh, for the love of God, Sharon thought, Just what I need. Andy Flynn in overprotective alpha male mode.
She turned her back and exited the building, not waiting for Brenda to catch up.
Brenda
Brenda trailed along behind her Captain, trying to come up with something to say. Perhaps just an explanation of the case, perhaps a brief apology; she found it difficult, however, to string together any words that would adequately convey the guilt, and, strangely enough, the fear she had felt upon seeing how badly she'd hurt her green-eyed Captain.
Sharon had no interest in whatever Brenda was about to say. She reached into her purse, pulled out a small object, and handed it to Brenda, her fingers jerking back quickly, avoiding Brenda's skin.
"I'm not sure how it happened, and frankly I don't care, but I have your phone," she said by way of explanation as Brenda took it from her, staring at her blankly.
Sharon rolled her eyes.
"I think that means that you have mine, Chief," she said, voice dripping with disdain, and this felt familiar. This felt like stepping back in time to their first meeting. Be careful where you place your sympathies, Chief.
Sharon's eyes were dark and cutting in the early morning darkness, offering no sympathy, only a glimpse of the woman's pride, battered but in tact. Brenda thrust her hand into her own purse, digging around, overcome now not with embarrassment but with her own feelings of scorn. What right did Sharon have to look at her that way, as if Brenda was some dirty thing, a stray dog who wandered up to her door looking for scraps?
She retrieved the phone and handed it over without a word. Across the patch of dead grass she could see Sergeant Elliot approaching, and watched Sharon straighten her shoulders.
"Oh, and Chief," the Captain added, you left something else of yours behind, as well."
Brenda's heart skidded to a stop.
Sharon might have been trying to smirk, but there was too much sadness behind her eyes for the expression to have its intended effect.
This wasn't how Brenda had planned it; had she shamelessly slipped off her panties and hid them in Sharon's room? Yes. Her plan had been simple: they rushed off to work, Sharon would find the offending article when she got home, and they would be forced to have a conversation, whether at Sharon's home, in Brenda's office, in some dark parking garage on the other side of town, wherever; they would have a conversation and Brenda would have a chance to fix this.
Except it was obvious now that Sharon had found her panties, and maybe that mythical conversation would never happen at all.
"I-I-I-," Brenda stammered, but Sharon held up a hand, simultaneously silencing the Chief and beckoning Sergeant Elliot closer.
"I will give them back to you as soon as you and I are in private. And Chief, I don't appreciate this sort of behavior," she said, her voice rising in volume just a touch there at the end. Elliot could hear her say that bit; he'd heard her say worse to the Chief before.
Brenda had felt so much in the last few hours she wasn't sure she had any feelings left to spare for her green-eyed Captain. She shrugged her shoulders and walked away, fingers wrapped tightly around her phone. That new phone she'd gotten, right after Sharon upgraded her own, because she was forever amazed at all the little tricks the Captain could pull with that little piece of technology. Amazed, and a little jealous, and she wanted to learn how to do those things, too.
But she'd never figured out how to do more than call and text on the damn thing, and even that Fritz had to teach her.
She wandered away, resolutely ignoring the sound of Elliot explaining the situation to Sharon. She was already tired of this night, of the blood, and the tears she'd already cried.
Brenda still couldn't quite believe she'd done that; cried in Sharon's kitchen, while the Captain made a pot of coffee and kept her back turned.
Get yourself under control, Brenda, she thought.
Andy
Andy approached Sharon quietly, not wanting to speak to her until Elliot was out of the way. He had a few choice words for his one time friend, most of them having to do with what a bad idea it was to fuck the Chief.
Not that he hadn't considered it himself a time or two; Brenda was a good-looking woman. She was quick, she was ruthless, she believed in things. The same things Andy himself believed in. And they'd make a damn attractive couple, if it weren't for the two small problems Andy had found so far: 1) the Chief was married to a man who obviously loved her and 2) Sharon and Brenda would kill each other. A week, a month; it didn't matter how long it took, it was going to happen. This was going nowhere good.
And he couldn't shake the feeling that if their relationship imploded, it wouldn't be Sharon who hurt Brenda. And the thought of anyone, anyone at all, hurting Sharon…well, if Brenda were a man, he probably would have hit her by now.
He tried, for a moment, to convince himself that the mix-up with the phones was nothing, a simple mistake, but he'd watched their faces when Sharon turned up. He recognized that look.
She'd looked at him that way once.
Sharon barked out an order and Elliot marched off to fulfill it, and Andy took that moment to step up to the dark-haired woman.
"Andy," she said quietly, her voice as threatening as she could make it at 4 in the morning, "whatever it is you're going to say, I don't want to hear it."
He had a whole speech worked out, but she seemed so damned tired. He found all his righteous anger had suddenly dissipated, to be replaced only by sympathy. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder briefly.
"Be careful, Sharon," he said quietly. "I don't want to see you get hurt."