Chapter 4

That woman, Brenda inwardly growled. With all the stress that Captain Raydor put her through she was surprised she hadn't gotten an ulcer or gained a hundred pounds from chocolate consumption. Brenda swallowed the last of a Snickers bar and tossed the wrapper in the trash.

"Tao!" She called out, glancing through the file that had just arrived from FID

Tao appeared at her door.

"What does Capt'n Raydor hope to accomplish by doing a partial audit?"

Was this a trick question, Tao had to wonder. "What do you mean?"

"She had this report sent to me, and it's missing a whole page." Brenda frowned as she flipped through the report. "Double check this for me," she handed it to Tao and sat back in her seat. Her finger fumbled with her candy drawer. Pulling it open she realized she only had mints and suckers left. Deciding on a blue lollipop, she pulled off the wrapper and popped the candy in her mouth.

"There is a page missing. Would you like me to send it back to her?" Tao closed the file.

"No," Brenda reached out for it, "I'll take it. Thank you." She dismissed him with her eyes.

Opening the folder again, as if the page might magically appear, she decided to whom she would complain.

...

The hospital room was nothing like Sharon had expected it to be. Instead of sterile white walls and awful tiled floors, the room was painted a muted green and the floors were faux wood. Paintings of peaceful garden scenes lined the walls. Sharon felt more at home than in a cancer treatment clinic. She shuffled through her bag, waiting anxiously for the nurse to return. Her heart was pounding, her palms sweaty. She was searching for something to do to make the wait easier.

Her hands connected with a folder and she noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the corner. Pulling the sheet out, her eyes widened. "Shit." She cursed. She'd given Chief Johnson an incomplete report. She'd have her head for this.

As she reached for her phone to call the woman directly, she quickly remembered where she was and the strict no-phone policy.

"Sharon Raydor?" A nurse ducked in from the hallway.

"Yes," Sharon shoved the paper back into her purse, making a mental note to run it up to Major Crimes the second she got back to work. "Yes, that's me." She turned her attention to the young male nurse. He was handsome, young. He reminded her of her older son.

"Mrs. Raydor – "

"Ms, but please, just call me Sharon." She sighed.

"All right, then call me Nathan." He grinned, attempting to ease her palpable tension. "I'm going to get you prepped for a device we call a 'pas-port'. Our surgeon, Dr. Wang, will come in once we get your arm ready. I'm just going to be using local anesthetics, they shouldn't cause any drowsiness, but I will warn you you need to be careful with your arm once we've placed this in. It should heal up and become unnoticeable within a week." He explained as he helped her out of her blazer and began to examine her arm. "I can see why Dr. Suarez suggested this, your veins are hard to find." He smiled.

"Should I be glad I'm getting this…device?" Sharon's voice was neither amused nor upset.

"Well it makes things a lot easier; fewer needle marks on the skin." He patted her arm and reached for a wrapped up cotton swap, soaked in a nasty colored liquid. He pulled off the plastic and had Sharon hold out her arm so that he could swap around the crease in her skin.

"For Christ's sake I can't believe this is happening to me." She suddenly laughed, as if the whole situation were humorous.

"Having a moment of existential crisis?" Nathan asked, glancing up at her.

"I suppose something like that." She nodded, watching as he pulled up a needle. Sharon Raydor was not afraid of needles, but she knew that after this experience she would be weary of them. The point of the needle smoothly connected with her skin, sliding inside. She felt the sting of the anesthesia float in to her system. "Am I going to lose my hair?" She asked, suddenly very aware of the reality of her situation. Chemotherapy meant hair loss. She hadn't even thought about it to that extent.

Nathan pulled the needle out of her arm and set it on his little tray. "Let me see," he opened her file and glanced through the paperwork. "It would appear that the chemo treatment Dr. Suarez suggested doesn't involve the drugs which usually cause hair loss, so, I can't guarantee anything, but it doesn't look like you should."

Sharon nodded. There was still the possibility that her luscious locks would be gone forever. No…they would grow back. They had to. She needed her hair.

"All right, hang tight. I'm going to get Dr. Wang. Don't move." He clipped the file to the foot of her bed and patted her leg. "You're going to be fine, Sharon. You're in good hands."

She gave him a tight smile. "Thank you, Nathan."

...

"Chief Johnson, I cannot, by law, discuss Captain Raydor's information with you." Will Pope pulled himself up to his full height and sipped his coffee.

"But Chief, Will…" Brenda's eyes were pleading. She desperately wanted to know what was none of her business.

"Brenda, come on. Leave her alone. I'm sure she just forgot to include that form in the report. If you go and talk to her she probably has it." Will responded, hoping that his attempt to cover for Captain Sharon Raydor did not seem as forged as it felt. He had never stuck up for Raydor, yet he suddenly found himself doing just so for a woman he despised as much as Brenda did.

"Will, what the hell? Why are you stickin' up for her? I thought you were on my side!" Brenda spat, enraged at just how awful the past week had been. All the frustrations of her personal life seemed to be coming out in the form of taking down Captain Raydor. She made a good scapegoat, Brenda decided.

"Brenda, you know I'm on your side. It's a missing piece of paper. It's not as if she didn't even do the report." Will sighed, picking up a report to breeze through, hoping that Brenda would get out of his hair. He knew he was in for a long road of Brenda cursing the name of Sharon Raydor. He hoped her treatment went quickly and successfully. He needed Captain Raydor in tip top form to help keep Brenda Leigh Johnson at bay.

"That's what it feels like. Fine, you know what, I'll take this up with her since you're being useless." Brenda cried, quickly exiting the office in anger.

"Oh Captain Raydor, I hope for your sake that the cancer kills you before Brenda does." He whispered to himself, marveling at his morbid sense of humor. Cancer was not funny business.

...

Brenda was pacing in front of Sharon's office when she returned from her little procedure. Her arm hurt. She was sleepy from the anesthetic. She was in no mood to deal with the fuming Chief. Reaching in to her bag, she pulled out the missing page of her report and handed it over to the blonde woman as she reached her office door.

"Capt'n, I expect more from you." Brenda had been holding up so much anger that when she spoke her words sounded like a little girl trying to act like a mother.

Sharon ignored her and unlocked her office door, pushing it open to enter. She knew that Brenda would follow her inside. She was like a little tick that Sharon was unable to remove from her body. Their roles had suddenly reversed and Sharon could only conclude that Brenda realized how valuable of an asset Sharon really was to her investigations. Had it not been for Sharon, Brenda most likely would be out of a job for the stunts she liked to pull. Sharon had enabled her for reasons she still could not quite grasp.

She could hear words pouring out of the younger woman's mouth, yet she was hardly focused on what Chief Johnson was saying. Walking straight in to her office, Sharon sat her purse down. She fished out the bottle of pills she'd just picked up from the drug store – a place she was becoming all too familiar with – and opened it. Reaching for an open bottle of water, she downed the recommended two pills, knowing that she would need this medication to get her through the rest of the day. She hoped the pills didn't cause her to fall asleep over a pile of reports causing Brenda Leigh to go completely ballistic.

"Sharon Raydor!" Brenda screamed and Sharon quickly turned, wincing when her arm made contact with her file cabinet on accident.

"Chief Johnson," Sharon's voice came out calmly, softly, quieting the raving woman who looked much like a monkey jumping from branch to branch and howling. "I was out of the office for an hour. I merely forgot to leave that page with you. I would have given it to you the moment I returned."

...

Brenda studied the pained expression on her subordinate officer's face. She looked less than amused at having Brenda verbally assault her, but instead of firing back insults, she was a completely different woman. She was submissive to Brenda's tirade of words that seemed to fall out of her mouth at an uncannily fast rate. This was not the Captain Raydor Brenda knew, this was a mere shell of the woman who had proudly stuck up for herself and her team only months before. Sharon Raydor could cut Brenda down with nothing more than a stare, but as Brenda examined those brilliant green eyes, she noticed they were distracted, not even gazing at her.

Had she been trying to pick a fight with the Captain because she found some sick comfort in their arguments?

Why was everything changing?

Fritz hadn't been home at night for a week, and when he was home he slept in the bedroom and Brenda, feeling a stranger in her own house, stayed on the couch.

Sharon Raydor wasn't acting like a bitch. It was Brenda who was being the bitch now. She was taking out all her anger and frustrations on the suddenly docile Captain.

Brenda took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. This wasn't right of her; she knew she was in the wrong. "You're right, I…I apologize, Capt'n." She looked at the completed piece of paper in her hands. Waving it she added, "Thanks."

Sharon sat down at her desk and mindlessly nodded. She put her head in her hands and stared at an open report before her.

Brenda, for as much as she wanted to leave, found her eyes stuck on the sight of the brunette seated before her. Sharon was shrouded in a haze of secrecy. Brenda realized how very little she knew about her subordinate officer. What she did know, however, was that Sharon was a strong willed individual, flawlessly capable at her job.

Brenda respected her for it. But apart from their working relationship, Brenda knew nothing.

She had always been captivated by the Captain, by her beauty and poise in any situation. She held power and a sense of importance and that transferred in to confidence which Brenda envied. The woman seated before her was a glorious creature she found she wanted to know more about.

"Are you going to be standing in my office all day staring at me, Chief?" Sharon's eyes shifted upwards to meet Brenda's not so candid gaze.

Brenda swallowed. "No, sorry, Capt'n. Thanks again for the page." With cheeks flush from having been caught gawking, Brenda turned on her heels and walked out of Sharon's office.

Why had she just stood there like an idiot gaping at the older woman?