No mature material this time (sorry, folks) but some straight-up angst. And when I say some, I mean plenty. You have been warned. I'm going to see how quickly I can write the next bit. Much of it is already in the works. Enjoy and review!

Chapter 4 – Reductions

Brenda was mad. She sat in her oversized office, behind her oversized desk, and shuffled papers around it.

She'd fill a few out, this one for a departmental peer review, that one for the umpteenth application for extra case funds, and then her eyes would lose focus, becoming overwhelmed.

But that wasn't exactly why she was mad.

Why wouldn't she just say she wanted to go on a date instead of saying she had to work? The thought had been plaguing her all morning. Really, it was just the spark to the fire. Once that question had surfaced, several others hitched themselves to its rear-end and she'd concluded that today would be more or less a write-off.

She'd wondered if it could have been someone from her old office. A nice little evening out alone with the Captain after work. It would mean she hadn't been lying about the case. She shook her head. Even if they hated Raydor less than they used to, she just couldn't picture any of her boys actually making a move.

But why had the Captain been so vague about the dinner? Out with "a friend" and "something like" a hot date. It was infuriating. Perhaps she'd been carrying out a secret affair with a married man? Lieutenant Tao had always had an odd appreciation for the woman…

Brenda let out a dark laugh. She felt the absurd paranoia reaching into her like a blade; each thought a new little twist, twist, twist.

It wasn't like it mattered what the truth was anyway. The Captain had been out. Rusty and Brenda had enjoyed their evening – though Brenda felt a little guilty about how her mood had turned after that last phone call. No doubt Rusty had noticed.

He'd slept in the spare room and insisted on making breakfast in the morning before she left for work. It was nice, having the company, having someone around who wanted to be there.

A knock came at her office door.

"Come on in," Brenda called out, pulling a paper close to her face to feign actual work.

D.D.A. Hobbs swept through the office door with two coffees and a Reese's cup. Brenda beamed.

Andrea Hobbs had been friendly enough when Brenda was still with Major Crimes, but since the move into the Bureau, they'd become something like office friends and it definitely didn't hurt to have someone at work so in tune with her candy cravings.

Brenda looked down at her top left drawer. It badly needed re-filling.

Today, Brenda felt as though there was something different about Andrea. She just couldn't figure out what it was.

"Coffee and candy, just what I needed," Brenda keened, relieving the woman of her boon.

"I can tell by the disarray," Andrea replied, gesturing over the paper piles.

"Yeah, I'm not gettin' much done. There's just so much to do and none of its anythin' interesting."

"Sometimes I think I shouldn't have offered you the job at all," Andrea deadpanned.

"No! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I just, it's an odd time."

"How are the new living arrangements?" Andrea asked, sipping her coffee.

"Pretty good, it's nice to be able to see Rusty. He was over last night, actually. He helped me finally sort out all of my things so now it looks a bit more like a home and a little less like a storage closet."

"Ahhh yes. Sharon told me he was with you," Andrea said. There was something in that, in the way she said the brunette's name.

"Oh, were you on the case with her last night?" Brenda asked, trying to mask the motive in her mouth. "Sometimes I forget you're over in their building almost as much as you are here!"

"Yeah they brought me in to consult. They pretty much had it wrapped up by the time I got there."

Brenda nodded her head, deciding how best to move forward. The new job didn't give her much opportunity for interrogations and she was a little sad to find that she was rusty.

"Did y'all go out celebratin' afterwards?" Brenda said. She bit her peanut butter cup. Andrea smiled back.

"No, no, but Sharon and I grabbed dinner – I thought she called you…?"

"Oh! Yes she did, but she was sort of vague, just said she was going out," Brenda nodded amiably as she tried to keep the bite from her tone. "Did you two have a good time?" Careful, Brenda Leigh, best not to be too obvious.

Andrea smiled, more softly than usual, her eyelids dropping just slightly.

"Yes. It was… really nice," Andrea said.

Brenda thought she saw the woman's neck flush pink. Andrea Hobbs? Blushing? Brenda filed the tell away for later consideration.

"Anyway, I'd better get out of your hair. You have paperwork, I have skulls to knock. Figuratively speaking, that is." And just like that, Hobbs flicked the switch back. She rose from her chair and headed for the door. "Catch you later, Brenda. Lunch sometime soon?"

"Absolutely, anything to get out of the building," Brenda replied. Her door closed.

Brenda's questions had been answered, a few of them anyway. And yet, now she was more curious than ever.

—***—-

Sharon arrived home sore and exhausted. The late night had turned into an early morning call to work which had eventually turned into Sharon tackling and apprehending their suspect. She was regretting the aggressive style already.

Still, it had felt kind of good to know that she was still capable of getting into the thick of things with the rest of the unit. She'd never had to tackle any suspects in I.A.

As much as she'd wanted to sometimes.

She dropped her things and called out Rusty's name. She'd sent him home early to prepare some things for dinner. She eyed the counter. Bowls of ingredients measured and prepped just as she'd asked. She smiled.

The boy popped into the kitchen after another minute.

"Hey Sharon, I had my headphones on. Didn't hear you come in," he said.

"No worries," Sharon said as she maneuvered the kitchen, warming the oven and greasing a glass pan.

"So what're you making anyway?"

"It's a, egg-cheese-spinach-casserole-type-thing. My mother taught me how to make it but she never actually wrote it down. So I have to test it out from time to time to make sure I still remember how."

"Can I help?" Rusty asked.

"Of course you can."

They worked well together. Sharon slowly yielded more and more of the work to him, which was as much a testament to their mutual trust as to her ability to finally let go of the steering wheel here and there. Rusty slid the pan in the oven when they were done, neatly adding the lid.

"And now we wait," Sharon said. She sat down at the kitchen table as Rusty grabbed himself a Coke from the fridge.

"So how was it last night? At Brenda's?" Sharon asked.

Rusty hesitated. He knew what he had to talk about, but he wasn't sure how to bring it up. He'd been avoiding conversation since he'd met her at the office earlier, but Sharon had been too busy to notice.

"It was really good, we had some leftover lasagna and watched movie," he said. "Although, I'm not sure how much she actually watched."

"What do you mean?" Sharon asked.

"What did you say to her on the phone? When you called from work, what did you tell her?"

Sharon was caught off-guard by the questions.

"I… told her I was going out for dinner and asked if it was okay that you hang out a little longer," Sharon offered. "Why?"

"For lack of a better description, she looked pissed," Rusty said. Sharon winced a little at the word. "She was sort of watching, but she barely laughed. I don't know I guess she was mad that I had to stay maybe. I didn't know what to say to her. I made breakfast in the morning to try and smooth things over," he added, taking a seat at the table next to Sharon.

"Rusty, I'm sorry, she didn't sound mad over the phone. If she was, then it definitely wasn't because of you. You know she loves being with you," Sharon said. She reached out and squeezed his hand.

"Yeah, well. Maybe you should talk to her."

"I will. I'll give her a call tonight and sort this out."

"Okay. I'm going to check on dinner," he said, making his way back to the oven and peering in.

Sharon felt a dull anger rising in her chest. How dare Brenda make Rusty feel at all unwanted or ignored? And what gave her the right to be angry about anything? It wasn't as if Sharon had pushed her into accepting. The blonde had every right to say, "No, come get him," if she had really been that miserable.

But Sharon knew it wasn't that. Brenda wasn't mad because Sharon left Rusty with her. She was mad because the Captain went on a date. That she was taking personal time instead of working every minute of the goddamned day.

Of course, there could be another reason too… Sharon refused to let herself go there. She grabbed the phone.

"Chief Johnson," Brenda picked up after four rings, an edge in her voice.

"Hello, Chief," Sharon smirked at the old title. I guess you are still a Chief in the new place. And still an ass.

"Captain Raydor, what can I do for you?"

"Well I was wondering if you still have that bottle of wine. I was thinking we could share it and chat tonight."

"No hot date tonight?" Brenda deadpanned.

"Nope," Sharon felt it harder and harder to control her voice when all she wanted to do was yell.

"Sure, then. You can come over here, whenever you'd like," Brenda said. Flippant.

"I'll be over after Rusty and I have dinner," Sharon said, then added. "Which you are welcome to join us for."

"No thanks, Cap'n. I've got Chinese already. See you soon." Brenda said just before hanging up.

She hung up on me?! Sharon slammed the phone into the receiver. Rusty jumped as he turned around.

He almost asked how the call went, then thought better of it.

"I can't tell if the casserole is done. Wanna check?" He offered instead. Best not to taunt an angry woman who knew how to handle a gun.

—***—

Even the way Brenda turned the corkscrew into the top of the cork betrayed her mood. Sharon schooled her poker face.

They'd only said a few words to one another since Sharon entered the condo. Now it was a waiting game. Who would ask the first loaded question?

"So are you going to tell me how the date went?" Brenda lost the war of silence. Sharon smirked.

"It went." Sharon said.

Brenda nodded, her lips pursing as she struggled with the cork. Her face was turning red with strain.

Sharon rolled her eyes as she took the bottle and corkscrew from the woman, deftly working the cork out with relative ease. When she removed it, she handed the cork and screw to Brenda, as if she were the lowly assistant, and poured the wine.

Brenda loudly dropped the cork and screw on the counter, and then snatched up the first glass that Sharon filled and sat down on the couch. Sharon brought the bottle over with her as she sat down too, wedging herself into the opposite corner of the sofa.

"Are you going to tell me who it was with?" Brenda said. She wanted to catch Sharon in her own web. She held back the, "anyone I know?" bit that she ached to add.

"Andrea Hobbs," Sharon said plainly.

"Oh." Brenda replied, and then blushed. She hadn't expected honesty.

Sharon sipped her wine.

"Any more questions? You must not get that many chances to batter suspects anymore," Sharon said.

Brenda flinched. But even as she was goaded she couldn't help herself.

"So you're… gay? Bisexual?"

"Bisexual, I suppose. But I don't really do labels," Sharon answered easily. She'd had to field these kinds of questions before, at first from her kids when she'd started dating women after the separation. Then her parents had asked after they'd seen her kissing the "friend" she'd brought to Christmas one year.

It was always the same, everyone needed to know, and she'd had the answer down to a prepared speech when lengthier explanations were required. She didn't know why people often seemed to want to know the history of it, like there were some mystery that could be unveiled if she only went back far enough into her affection for other women.

Sharon decided she was tired of doing all of the answering. "How about you?" She asked.

"Straight," the word was out of Brenda's mouth before she had time to let herself consider any other options.

Sharon simply nodded and took another sip of the Shiraz.

Brenda was starting to look very uncomfortable and Sharon felt like she'd toyed with her enough for one evening.

"How about we drink our wine and do something that isn't so confrontational?" Sharon warmed her voice, leaving the challenges behind and Brenda responded instantly.

"I like the sounds of that. Still friends? Even though I'm a busy-body?"

"Still friends," Sharon said and offered her hand for a playful shake. Brenda took it eagerly. She ignored the way the older woman's skin felt, ignored the buzz it left behind in her fingers.

—***—

After 2 games of scrabble, both of which Brenda won with a much broader, more vibrant vocabulary than Sharon knew she possessed, they were setting up for a third game.

"So honestly," Brenda started. "How was dinner with Andrea?" She kept her eyes locked on her letters, leaving it as a passing query. Nothing too invasive, she hoped.

"It was great, actually. But I told her in no uncertain terms that we had to remain professional. And that I don't date co-workers." Sharon didn't add that the events in her office had left things a little less certain.

"Oh. That's… that's too bad. I bet you two would make a real nice couple." Brenda said awkwardly.

"Thanks."

"So, has that always been a rule of yours? That you don't date co-workers?"

"Not exactly. I dated a man just after my separation. He worked in Vice."

"And what happened?"

"His wife didn't react very well."

"You? Had an affair?" Brenda couldn't keep the shock from her voice or her expression.

"He'd stopped wearing his wedding ring at work and I'd assumed, well, anyway, it was a mess." Sharon said, ignoring the blonde's disbelief.

"And here I thought your reputation was spotless."

"I never claimed it was," Sharon said, and put the word "remain" down on the board.

They both fell silent for a moment, shuffling letters around their slates.

"Sharon?"

"Mmhmm?"

"I never said thank you. For taking Rusty in. For cleaning up after everythin' I left you with."

"It was my pleasure, Chief. It seems to have worked out pretty well, all things considered."

"Was there ever a moment when you wanted to, I mean not to have Rusty with you anymore?"

Sharon laughed, a warm, rich sound that filled the room.

"Did I say somethin' funny?" Brenda asked, puzzled but smiling.

"Well he thought as much in the beginning. And I think he wanted to get rid of me a few times. It actually reminded me a bit of working with you. Working with someone so determined to retain control and so unwilling to let someone help.

"I mean, I thought about getting rid of you sometimes," Sharon added with a smirk.

"Likewise," Brenda interjected.

"But I figured out that I rather enjoyed that in my life. That bit of challenge. Rusty just brought that feeling to the surface again. I never thought I'd feel the same way as I did," Sharon paused, as though she couldn't quite find the words. Brenda didn't interrupt. She wanted – needed – to hear the end.

"As I did with you," Sharon finished. She looked Brenda straight in the eye and cast a strange, sad smile, accepting what she'd said, what she'd felt; the things she couldn't control.

Brenda warmed, her breath stopping.

"Captain, are you sayin' you missed me?" Brenda tried to add some humour to the line, but it sounded rather sincere to Sharon.

Sharon laughed and returned her attention to her wooden letters.

"Yes, I guess I did."

After another beat, Brenda blurted out what she'd been waiting to spring on her friend the entire night.

"I have a date coming up."

Sharon took a second with eyebrows raised before re-composing herself.

"Oh! That's," she nodded, searching for words, any words, "That's good! Who is he?"

"His name's Michael," Brenda began the speech she'd sort-of rehearsed. "We bumped into each other at Starbucks – literally – and even though it was my fault, he bought me a new coffee. And then we started chattin', he's a lawyer – go figure – and…" She paused, recollecting the meeting, suddenly finding it very hard to remember. "He was very sweet. And polite. And he asked me out."

"But…" Sharon prompted, because she knew that the Chief had a motive for every conversation, whether she immediately realized it or not.

"But I feel like I have nothing to wear. I haven't been on a first date in years. It's a rather odd thing," Brenda said.

Sharon nodded. She wasn't going to let the method slide by easily.

"And…" the brunette teased.

"And," Brenda said, a bit indignantly, "I was wonderin' if you'd help me shop."

There it was. A proposition. Although, not quite the kind Sharon would have preferred. She knew the answer already but let the beat between carry on longer than need be, just because.

"I might be able to fit you into my schedule," she began. "I have some time Sunday."

"Sunday's perfect," Brenda quickly replied. "My date's Tuesday so that'll work quite nicely."

"Sunday it is then," Sharon said. She felt a sudden pang of defeat, a sudden wound. It hurt more than it should, the idea of Brenda on a date, with a man, with what at least sounded like another decent man who could sweep up the blonde and carry her away again. To another life and another place where they wouldn't have any excuse to see each other.

Because that's all their current proximity was – an excuse. An excuse to bump into one another in stairwells, to occasionally spend time together, simply because it was easy. And still, that hurt, knowing Brenda might soon pick up and leave Sharon's life again. Discard the friendship and leave the Captain with yet another pile of loose ends to wrap up.

Sharon's chest tightened; her tendons froze. She knew she couldn't just sit there anymore, pretending to be okay, pretending to be unattached. She stood up.

"So I'll see you then," she mustered with a portrait smile – the one you wear when you have to.

Brenda was confused, upended.

"You're leaving? We haven't finished the wine!" Brenda motioned to the bottle as irrefutable proof.

"Yes, well, I should really get back upstairs and turn in. Still have an early rise tomorrow, you know," she moved for her purse, slung it over her shoulder. "Thanks, Brenda. Let me know what time's good for you on Sunday," and Sharon threw herself out the door, nearly running for the elevator.

She made it at least through her own front door, to her own safe couch, before she burst into tears. She hugged a pillow and tore her glasses off so she could bury her face in it. Better to be quiet, to be subtle about her sadness.

It wasn't fair to feel like this about someone she couldn't have. And it hurt like hell. She'd had crushes on straight women before, but they'd been fleeting things.

Brenda was like a carrot on a goddamned string and Sharon was tired of trying to keep up. She needed to just accept that the woman would be her friend, that that was all she could be, or else risk losing her completely.

And what if she tried anyway? What if she made a move, kissed Brenda on her smart, smug mouth? And what if Brenda pushed her away? No. Sharon couldn't handle that kind of rejection. Not from her.

But that wasn't what she feared most. She feared more that Brenda would kiss her back, perhaps more than that, and then, just as quickly, leave Sharon for the next man, the next husband.

Sharon was so far removed that she didn't hear Rusty tiptoe into the room.

"Sharon?" He said quietly.

She drew a stabilizing breath. "Yeah, I'm here," she couldn't look at him, but at least her face was not stuffed into a pillow.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

No. No I'm not.

"Yeah!" She said, too brightly. "Of course I am."

But he knew. He knew that strength and rules and seeming were just boundaries for the woman. Simple veneers that could be seen through if someone cared to look. And he did.

His care was what made him sit down on the couch beside her, pull the pillow away, and silently fold her into his arms where she went without question. Because Rusty knew. Rusty was still here. And just like she'd know him, wherever he went, he knew her, wherever she'd been.

—***—

Brenda sat, with her empty wine glass and her near-empty bottle in total silence. She hadn't moved since Sharon had left, there'd been no need to. She poured the rest of the bottle out, not into her own glass, but into the one Sharon had left behind.

She drank from it, tasting a bit of lipstick.

She thought briefly of Michael, sweet, normal, kind Michael, who had green eyes and black hair – maybe he was Irish? She'd have to ask – and pictured what it might be like to date him, to be with him, to have him in her home and share wine.

She took another large sip.

It would be… nice to have new life in her home, to try and start something again. Her life had been so full of endings.

But this could be a new beginning – new job, new home, new man. Somehow, the thought was not as comforting as it should have been.

It's too quick to judge. As her mamma always said, one had to jump into the pond before deciding it was the wrong temperature.

She thought maybe, with the right effort, and the right encouragement from a friend – from Sharon – she could do it. This new thing.

Brenda finished the wine and put her tipsy self to bed.

Even with the wine, she turned over in the covers, unable to immediately erase a particular pair of fine green eyes from her head.