Don't Think You're Off the Hook Yet
"So," Carmelita called out to Sly as she flounced back to their shared desk after assisting one of the newer recruits for the hundredth time of the day. He looked up at her and pushed aside the folder he had been reading through as she sat down across from him. "What do you think of another rooftop dinner next week?" she asked, voice lowering to conceal their conversation from the rest of the station and leaning towards him over the desk. "Friday night? I'll orchestrate this one. I need a whole week to plan, though. I'm not quite as outrageously creative as you are."
She had already started planning, trying to come up with new ideas to top his fantastically outrageous productions. The two had been enjoying their clandestine dinners once a month for a year now, each one leading them deeper and deeper into their progressing relationship. Every dinner had been in a new location, determined by whichever city in Italy they had been sent to by the Chief, who had started trusting them with assignments outside of Venice. The backgrounds of their dinners were always an astounding Italian landmark: the Colosseum and Pantheon in Roma, the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, and the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Firenze were just a few. Carmelita's favorite had been the Trevi Fountain in Roma. Sly had even provided her with a coin to toss into the fountain from the roof of a nearby building, on which their table was set up, when there were no tourists standing near enough to discover them.
Most of the dinners had been a surprise to Carmelita, besides the first and second. The second had overlooked St. Mark's Basilica, and marked the occasion of the successful conviction of a cyberhacker and virus distributor that had been taking refuge in Venice (Sly had expended a mental sweat-drop during the Chief's vague description of the tech-savvy reptile while assigning them the case, and had inadvertently exhaled an actual sigh of relief upon reading that the criminal's name in the file was not Bentley's). During their assignments away from Venice, Carmelita could never figure out how Sly always managed to set up their table beforehand, seeing as how they conducted their investigations throughout the day and often went sight-seeing until late at night. It was during their late night tours that he would pull her into an alleyway suddenly when they had neared the location on their dinner, unforeseen to Carmelita, and climb with her to the roof of a building on which their table was already set up.
A few times a week during their time away from Venice, the two would leave their hotel room with a certain location in mind. Most nights, they would arrive at the landmark that had been their destination for the night, and after admiring the inside and the out for a few hours, would return to their hotel room. On certain nights, though, their destination was one that was entirely devoid of the disruptive tourists that populated Italy, and gave Carmelita hours to admire the raccoon sitting across from her that did so much to keep her life interesting. Each month without fail, Sly would treat her to a dinner secluded from the general public, surrounded by the overwhelmingly magnificent scenery that was a portrait of the country's glorious history.
Their third dinner had actually held the title of "date," and had been the night of their long-awaited first kiss - excluding, of course, their night in Russia, after which Sly had handcuffed her to a rail in Clockwerk's cavernous nest, which Carmelita hadn't found to be entirely romantic and Sly didn't remember anyway. The eighth date marked their first time, and during their eleventh dinner at the end of the month only a week ago on the balcony of Sly's apartment, they had proclaimed the start of their relationship when they agreed on the title of boyfriend/girlfriend rather than "partners with benefits." It was also during this dinner that they decided to keep their newly established affiliation to themselves, knowing that Chief Shepherd would fire them and throw them out onto the street with a box of their possessions in hand faster than they could sputter out, "But Chief...!" Carmelita had seen it happen before. She hoped, however, that if the Chief could see that their relationship didn't affect how they handled themselves on assignments together, he would make an exception for them. She was convinced that it would work.
"I think," Sly started, dragging Carmelita out of her revere, "we should do it in two weeks; that Friday will be the one year anniversary of our dinners. And you'll probably need the extra planning time, anyway," he taunted with a smirk. She let out a loud good-natured laugh, drawing other officers' eyes to them in annoyance. She hushed herself, eyes lowering to the desk with a guilty smirk.
"Alright," she agreed, not bothering to acknowledge his taunt. "Two weeks. But how will I get enough of you until then?" she asked, voice lowering further, watching as his pupils dilated and a suggestive smile spread across his face.
"Inspector Fox!"
The sudden interruption made the guilty officers jump, and Sly's eyes immediately averted to his folder of paperwork while Carmelita turned to the frantic voice with an expression she hoped looked less like a scowl than it felt like on her face. This new recruit needed to learn much faster than this. "What do you need, Marino?" she responded, using the young marten's surname, and hoping he wouldn't hear the growl of annoyance in her voice.
"I- I think I filed a report wrong," he sputtered, voice shaking with nervousness. His eyes were bloodshot with stress, and his shoulders tightened to the point of concealing his neck entirely. "I filed it as a case of fraud when I think it needed to be filed as identity theft," he told her, speaking quickly as he grew more panicked. "This wasn't my case, I haven't gone into the field yet- I was just filing it for a higher officer and I screwed it up, and-"
"Whoa, put the brakes on," Sly joked before Marino could become completely lost in his state of mindless hysteria. "Maybe you filed it wrong because you're thinking as quickly as you're speaking." Marino merely glanced at him before looking back to Carmelita, nearly pleading her with his eyes to assist him.
Carmelita sighed inwardly and stood to help the terrified young officer. She took the report out of his shaking outstretched hands, and read through it. "Yes, this is filed wrong. That's an easy mistake to rectify," she assured him quickly as his eyes widened, "but we will have to fill out a correction form to show that the mistake on the original paperwork has been fixed."
Marino nodded vehemently, following Carmelita as she lead him into the filing room, explaining the process of correcting the report as they walked.
Sly watched the two disappear around the corner to the filing rooms before turning back to the folder on his desk with a sigh. Assignments had become the breaks between piles of paperwork in the last few weeks, and, mysteriously, he always seemed to have more paperwork to fill out that assignments to fill out paperwork for. An envelope dropped onto his desk suddenly as another officer passed by, startling him back to attentiveness. "What's this?" Sly called to the officer's back, picking up the light envelope and noting with confusion that it had no return address.
"Even if I had the ability to see through the envelope to the paper inside, looking at other people's mail is a federal offense," the bear, whose name Sly could vaguely recall as Inspector Giordano, called back dully, barely turning his head to reply.
Sly ignored the brusque response, looking back down at the envelope in his hands. Receiving a letter at his desk was odd- usually all mail delivered to the station, if it was addressed to a specific person, was put into an officer's box. There was nothing on the envelope that marked it as urgent or indicated that it should be relayed to him directly. Sly considered following the officer for answers, but thought better of it; the bear hadn't seemed interested in stopping to chat, and he definitely hadn't appreciated that, within the past year, Sly had been constantly forgetting his surname and rank, even though he had been working at this particular station longer than Sly had. He ripped the envelope open curiously, knowing that trying for information out of the slighted officer would be a waste of time. In his overzealous efforts, he tore the entire top of the envelope off, and the contents flipped out onto his desk. Tossing the envelope aside, he picked up the white sheet of paper, folded into thirds. He lifted the top fold- oddly, the paper was blank. His brows furrowed in confusion, and, suspiciously, he opened the bottom half. A small blue oval fell to the desk as he did so, and he froze in surprise. He lowered the paper with stiff arms to conceal the blue shape and glanced around the station. None of the officers were watching him. He quickly refolded the paper, subtly scraping up the blue Cooper insignia with his fingers, holding it under the paper as he reached for the envelope.
This was the third time within the past few weeks that he had received one of his own blue Cooper cards by an anonymous sender; the first had been sent to his personal mail at his apartment the week before, and he discovered another sitting on the seat of his motorcycle after his shift at the station only a few days later. He had crumpled it up and shoved it in his pocket before Carmelita could see, but had unfolded it and stared at it later, as if it would eventually break down and tell him who had left it behind. Someone was trying to send him a message. Whoever was sending these knew everything about him, was familiar with every aspect of his current life- his apartment, his means of transportation, his job. How long would it be before they targeted Carmelita? Or the Chief? His arms nearly shook with the desire to shove the contents back in violently to get them out of sight, but he forced himself to move at normal speed so as not to draw other officers' attention. Once the contents were safely concealed, he folded the entire envelop in half and slipped it into the pocket inside of his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair, his hand settling back onto the desk just as Constable Marino came back out of the filing room looking much more relaxed, followed by Carmelita, who held a new folder in her hand. Sly quickly put on a smile as his eyes landed on her, and watched as her own mouth curved upwards in response, seemingly of its own accord. She returned to the desk, unaware of the worries in Sly's pocket much heavier than the envelope in which they were concealed.
"So," she began, seeming flustered as Sly continued to stare at her, "have we set a date for our next rooftop dinner?"
"Two weeks; Friday. Remember, I'm entrusting you with the one year anniversary of these dinners. I consider them a rather inspired tradition, Inspector, so try not to botch it," he joked, trying to ease the tension of his own shoulders.
"Being a woman of the law doesn't make me uncreative, Constable," she said, giving him a mock glare as he raised an eyebrow at her.
"Tell that to your workspace, officer," he replied, gesturing to the desk, devoid of any personal touches besides a plant with a proudly advertised "Low Maintenance!" sticker on the side of the pot.
"My desk is the most productive in the station, Cooper," she retorted, her smirk defying her furrowed brows. "Besides, personal touches are just catalysts for small talk."
"Oh, that's it then?" he questioned. Carmelita looked at him in confusion. "You haven't personalized your workspace because you don't want to talk to anyone!" She let out a loud laugh, quieting herself again as more officers looked over the glare at them.
"Small talk reduces productivity, as does taunting," she told him jovially.
"Back to work then. No dawdling under the rule of Inspector Fox," he continued to tease.
"Yeah, you'll see the logic in my philosophy when you're the first of your batch of recruits to get promoted a rank," she reminded him, head lowering to read through the new file she had brought back to their desk.
"Thank goodness for you, then," Sly replied softly. Her eyes flickered up to him, as a slow grin spread across her face. After watching him for a second, her eyes returned to the folder without responding, smile remaining.
Chief Shepherd knew what Carmelita was trying to hide from him; he could see the telltale signs in her behavior. After thirty-one years of police work, he wasn't stupid, oblivious, or evasive when it came to acknowledging certain things about his officers. He had no qualms about telling officers if they had a deficiency when it came to their work, and no sympathy when it so happened that an officer's deficiency ruined their ability to perform. Such officers were not kept on his Force. Only those who could overcome deficiencies were allowed to keep their job.
Carmelita had a deficiency- Chief Shepherd had no doubt. But despite the fact that he knew she would never overcome it, Shepherd also knew that he did not possess the ability to fire her. His inability to purge the Force of her deficiency, however, did not come entirely from the fact that crime, from intricately organized mobs to petty thievery, had nearly dissipated in Venice due to Carmelita's heavy unforgiving palm of judicial integrity, figuratively smacking criminals into their places. His hesitance to dismiss her came as a result of the fact that he truly, genuinely admired her character. She had an unwavering confidence in her own ability without being arrogant; an undying loyalty to the Force; and an unusual enthusiasm for and persistence to her cases, her efforts only ceasing after her criminals were jailed and her paperwork filed. Shepherd had never seen such qualities in any officer with a rank below his own, and he knew that he would be the stupidest idiot if he were to remove a natural cop like her from his ranks.
But her particular affliction, he knew, would drain just as much energy from her as she expended on her cases. She was in love with Cooper. He could see it in her face. From his position in his office, he watched Carmelita return to her desk from across the station and lean in close to Cooper to whisper to him. She had held feelings for him even before he joined the Force, deeper than merely the near-excessive loyalty she had developed to the Cooper Gang case, and now that the raccoon was able to return her affection without conflict of the law, Carmelita was continuing to fall probably harder than she realized. They paused in their conversation, and Sly looked at her with eyes promising things to come. As he watched, a strange thought occurred to the Chief-it was as if nothing had changed between the two, even with the ever-present reality of Sly's amnesia- the fact that any chemistry and history between Carmelita and Sly was completely lost to him, as was everything else he had ever known. Had he fallen for her again?
Carmelita stood and left with the newest addition to the Force, and Sly watched her walk away longingly. How could Cooper have developed the same feelings for Carmelita as those he held for her before his accident on the island? It had even seemed like he had been flirting with her within the first few weeks of returning from his family's vault, and the Chief could only assume that Carmelita hadn't included the little detail about their previously suppressed chemistry when she had informed him of the life he couldn't remember. Were his current feelings for her a result of the fact that she had been his steady source of comfort and stability after having to start his entire life over again? He watched as Sly ripped open the envelope that had just been dropped onto his desk. Something blue and oblong fell out, and Sly quickly covered it with the paper in his hands, glancing around the office suspiciously. The Chief's eyebrows raised, then lowered as he squinted and half stood, leaning over his desk trying to get a better inspection of what had looked like Cooper's own calling card through the tinted windows in his office. Cooper shoved the envelope away quickly, and put on an inconspicuous grin for Carmelita as she returned, oblivious to the secret Sly was now hiding in the pocket of his jacket.
Sitting back down in disbelief, the Chief watched Sly's grinning face carefully. Sly had recognized the Cooper emblem- had Carmelita told him about those? Although his gang had left them behind at every crime scene, they were an insignificant detail in the grand scheme of Sly's life. Would Carmelita have described them in depth? She certainly wouldn't have had one on hand to show him - how could he know what they look like? And, seeing as how Sly's criminal file was one of the thickest and most important in the office's system, only a small few had access to it. As far as the Chief knew, Carmelita hadn't touched it since returning with Sly; she definitely couldn't have taken one of Cooper's cards out without the Chief knowing about it. Carmelita glanced up from the folder she had been reading to look at Sly, who had on one of the same evocative faces he used to give her during their encounters on Carmelita's Cooper Gang assignments. Did Sly remember their history? How would that be possible? Could he have remembered something on his own and not told Carmelita or the Chief? Did he remember everything?
Had he never forgotten in the first place? The sudden thought made the Chief's eyes widen. Would Sly really have... ?
As the thought occurred to him, Shepherd shook his head as if to expel the ridiculous question from his head. Of course Sly would have. The Chief just had to make sure.
[FLASHBACK]
Evaluations hadn't lasted just a day- they'd lasted a week. Master Terasu had yet to make an appearance at one of Gelisah's evaluations. Instead, she and her various sparring partners had been scrutinized by other mentors of the dojo. There had been five mentors on the first day, but every day after that there had only been one watching her. By the seventh day of her evaluations, Gelisah had no energy or resolve left. Anticipating only one day of evaluations with various opponents, she fought with all the vehemence and intensity her body held on her first day, splitting the skin on her knuckles and receiving at least one bruise on every part of her body. When they had announced that she would have to endure another assessment the next day, she had panicked, but returned with just as much vigor as the day before, only with considerably less force behind her hits, and considerably more jabs to her body. Her days had proceeded much like that for a week, and in addition to being thoroughly beaten, Gelisah had managed to panic herself into the conviction that she had somehow stumbled upon another dojo in the forest, having not seen Master Terasu once as of yet, and was stuck here in this inferior place rather than training with the divine figure who had inspired her to pursue training in the first place. The seventh day was the day she had finally given up; of course, it was also the day the monkey had chosen to emerge.
Her legs were about to give out. Her arms possessed no force behind her hits, even when her fists did manage to make contact with her opponent. Her right eye was barely able to focus, vision distorted by fatigue and the crippling headache this fight had given her; her left eye had already swollen up almost entirely. Today's sparring partner seemed partial to punishing that side of her face. The Peruvian black caiman struck her with a hard kick to the stomach, sending Gelisah stumbling backwards, smacking into the wall behind her. The trainer evaluating her today moved closer, getting a better view of her as her façade of determination crumbled with a whimper, and her face fell into a hopeless pout of pain and fearful anticipation. The animal advanced on her again and grabbed both of her wrists in his left hand hand, drawing his other hand back as if to smack her. Gelisah almost laughed in his face in her state of near-delirium - he was training with some of the best fighters in the world and the best next move he could come up with was to smack her? She closed her eyes, grimacing, face turning and shoulders hunching in expectation. Before the caiman - he hadn't even given her the courtesy of telling her his name before they began fighting - could hit her, however, an authoritative voice rang out through the room.
"Enough!"
Her partner dropped her wrists, and stepped away quickly. Without opening her eyes, Gelisah sank to the floor, knees drawing up to her chest. She could hear the footsteps of the new arrival coming into the room. "You're target has already surrendered," the deep gravelly voice reprimanded the caiman. "Must you continue to attack a fallen enemy? This has become more a punishment than a fight."
"I will learn, Master Terasu," the reptile responded guiltily. Gelisah looked up sharply, head spinning dizzyingly. She squinted through her right eye at the monkey, trying to focus; it was him. He had actually shown up… on the day of her most humiliating defeat. He looked over at her, slumped on the ground, and she quickly tried to stand. Her body throbbed rebelliously, and she winced in pain as she fell back against the wall. She attempted again, moving much slower.
Master Terasu looked over at her partner and told him briskly, "You are dismissed." He bowed deeply to Master Terasu and left the room, followed by the mentor.
Gelisah, having managed to stand, bowed low to the monkey. Remaining low, she swallowed hard before she spoke, tasting blood in her mouth. "It is an honor to train in your dojo, Master Terasu."
"Stand up straight," he commanded gently. She quickly obliged, stretching her aching shoulders back and mentally swiping her face clean of the defeated expression of pain. He circled her slowly, taking stock of her battered and bruised body. Gelisah could almost feel him inspecting her trembling right leg, which had received a crippling kick to the knee by the caiman, her left shoulder that slumped as a result of having her arm twisted behind her back multiple times the day before, and the swollen left side of her face. Her eye was completely shut by now, and her bottom lip was fat, feeling awkward and wrong on her face. He stopped in front of her again, and she lowered her chin and averted her good eye as a show of respect.
"You have determination and will stronger than any other fighter I have seen at this dojo," he told her, the tone of his voice proffering something Gelisah must have misinterpreted as admiration. Shocked by the unexpected compliment, she looked up at him, eyes wide. Catching herself, she looked down again, bowing her head in gratefulness.
"Thank you, Master," she replied quickly, having no idea what else to say in response.
"I instructed the trainers of the dojo to handle your evaluations until the day you finally surrendered to your opponent. After five consecutive days of evaluations, I began keeping a closer eye on you. When the other mentors informed me that you had begun a seventh day of sparring, I decided to survey the fight inconspicuously." He watched her carefully, as if the details of her face would provide him with whatever information he was searching for. "The evaluations was meant to push you to exhaustion, test your limits and tolerance for pain. But I did not expect you to endure for this long." He paused, continuing to search her face. "I'd like to evaluate you myself," he mused, almost to himself. After another pause, he continued again. "You will not be evaluated tomorrow, or the rest of the day today. Use the time off to recuperate; we will put you to work tomorrow, but it will not be strenuous. I will conduct your final evaluation myself in two days. Rest today- heal. I am eager to see you perform. You may go."
"Yes, Master," she said, bowing low again. She left the room swiftly, exhaling in relief and disbelief as soon as she was out of Master Terasu's sight.
After five minutes of trying unsuccessfully to pry the swollen skin away from her left eye enough to open it, Gelisah sighed and pressed her wet washcloth back over her eyelid. Without easy access to ice, the engorged blood vessels around her eye would just have to heal in their own time. She leaned backwards from her seat at the foot of her bed and flopped down, stretching her arms above her head and her legs out parallel to the ground, trying to alleviate some of the soreness that was making her limbs throb. When she felt sufficiently stretched out, she relaxed her entire body, feet falling to the floor and arms extended off her bed in either direction. As she began drifting to sleep, she had the fleeting thought that this was the first time she had felt peaceful in the week since she had arrived.
The crash of objects in a drawer being yanked open startled Gelisah awake, and she sat up suddenly with a gasp of surprise. The cloth fell off of her eye and landed on her stomach with a squelch, soaking a small wet spot onto her shirt. Her head swirled, and she brought a hand to her forehead to steady herself so as not to fall off her bed as Tori shoved her drawer closed again, seemingly having taken nothing out. Lihai stood in the doorway, looking uncomfortable.
"So you finally quit today, huh? They kicking you out as soon as you have enough brains back in your head to find your way home?" Tori asked bitterly, watching Gelisah expectantly as she pressed the cloth back to her eye and rung the moisture out of the spot on her shirt. Taking note of Gelisah's swollen eye, Tori's face shifted slightly into an unreadable expression, but Gelisah could only assume it was either a grimace of disgust or a sneer of victory knowing that the other students of the dojo had managed to inflict so much pain on her, and had literally beaten her into submission.
The fox's opinion of Gelisah had not changed within the past week, nor had her mood mellowed. Her intimidating glares had thankfully decreased in frequency, but Gelisah had not yet been able to sleep peacefully through the night with Tori sleeping in the same room, anticipating a pillow to be shoved over her face to smother her at any moment. She found it fortunate that Odoroki had seemingly been assigned the role of "tour guide" during the day, because she would otherwise certainly have gone adrift in the surprisingly large dojo. Tori would inevitably find her in some remote corner of the building, lost and disoriented, and beat out her will to live.
Nervously, Gelisah removed the towel from her eye, unfolded and refolded it, and pressed it back to her face before responding through her fattened lips: "The mentors have been evaluating me this whole week, but I didn't see Master Terasu until today. He came in during my spar and told me to take today and tomorrow to heal - that he will evaluate me himself after that." Neither roommate responded, making Gelisah instantly anxious. She risked a glance at Tori, who looked absolutely horrified. Shoving past Lihai, she stormed out of the room. Bewildered, Gelisah looked over to Lihai, who held a similar look of shock on her face. Embarrassed, she looked down quickly, and walked into the room to her bedside table, rooting through the contents inside with more concentration than Gelisah thought was necessary for the tiny drawer.
"Is that... bad?" Gelisah asked hesitantly.
Lihai sighed and set a handful of incense sticks on the surface of the small table, turning to regard Gelisah fully for probably the first time all week. "Master Terasu hasn't worked with a new student individually for years. He's never done so for the extent of my time here," she informed her, referring to the six years she had already spent in the dojo. "Tori has been here two years, but her hopes that she would be chosen to receive selective training have remained just as powerful as they were in her first week. The Master has..." she hesitated, looking down and picking up the sticks of incense, laying them flat in her open palm and then enclosing them into a bundle in a fist. "He has very high expectations," she continued, "and if he wishes to train you personally, it means he sees a lot of potential in you," she finished, staring at Gelisah, who couldn't seem to process a response. Lihai looked into her drawer again and pulled out her book of matches, handing it and the incense to Gelisah. "Burn this," she advised. "It will help you relax while you heal. I wish you a swift recovery." With a small bow of her head, Lihai left their shared room, leaving Gelisah shocked and almost giddy with hope.
Okay, I'm gonna try to keep this AN short this time (is that possible?)! I do have a lot of things I want to say about my story, though, so I want to make a video about all my thoughts concerning this chapter, previous chapters (mostly chapter 8), and future chapters, but I don't want to make it if it would be a waste of time, so let me know if that's something you would enjoy. If you have any questions, leave them in reviews and I can answer them in the video and give you a link for it in the next chapter! Woo! Okay, so...
OH EM GEE! This update took SO LONG! Sorry, guys! Crazy schedule lately. But no one cares about that...
I am so excited to give you guys this chapter! Fo realz. I originally wanted to include much more, but that would have made the chapter insanely long- it's already about 5,500 words. It's okay that I had to cut so much out, though, because now I have a lot of content for my next chapter, which I'm anticipating will NOT take as long as this one did! There is SO much to come. muwahaha. A lot of impending drama, but I'm a fan of drama, and hopefully I can convert all of you, also. Although I suppose the drama has been delayed one chapter, but it is coming, so prepare! The next chapter will be relatively short- mostly transition points for the big content filled chapter 11!
So... I think that's it.
Thanks for reading, and remember that you will have my eternal love and gratitude if you leave a review!
