A/N: Not much to report here except that there are spoilers for 'Clean Hands'. All dialogue in "italics" has been taken directly from the episode, because once again, I couldn't have done a better job if I tried.
In this chapter: Donna's elation over being a part of TEAM ONE comes crashing down to earth.
Kill Bill
Part IX
"Put shaving cream in her locker! Shaving cream in her locker!"
Donna swallowed a chuckle as she eavesdropped just outside the men's locker room. Lewis Young had just supplied one option for their hazing ritual they were gleefully planning in order to 'welcome' her to the team.
She heard Ed sarcastically declare it to be a great idea, followed up by asking if they were going to short-sheet her bed next, an old summer camp trick. He declared that as a veteran cop, Donna had already been hazed by the best, so they needed to come up with something really good.
Ed casually called on Sam, picking his brains to see what else they could do. Surely the ex-soldier had some brilliant ideas from his time in the military, but to Donna's surprise, heard him dismissively ask if the ritual was even necessary, seeing how she wasn't going to be there forever.
His words and his flat tone struck an odd chord in Donna. Sam seemed to be completely disinterested in the exercise, and she again wondered what could be bothering him. She was already getting along well with every other member; Wordy, in particular, had been warm and friendly. But something about her presence during down times seemed to deflate Sam. They'd barely spoken two words to each other, and she was beginning to wonder if he really was just shy, as Ed had suggested.
Well, at least Wordy isn't shy, Donna mused. He'd been really pleasant to her from the beginning, and even offered to give her some extra pointers for handling the combat shield for the upcoming escort duty if she wanted the help.
It was on that pretext that she decided to breach the invisible boundary line that separated neutral territory from her male teammates' space. The gents had just discussed Spike's plan to secretly replace all the Kevlar in her vest with cream cheese for an obstacle course run, and Donna heard Ed say it was a genius idea.
Not bad, Donna thought of the notion of falling flat on her face and being forced to deal with the messy aftermath... Not the most creative way I've ever been hazed, but it's up there, for sure.
Wordy was being asked by Ed to make sure they got photographic evidence of the impending folly, but it seemed he wasn't keen on this method of humiliating the new recruit. Wordy seemed to be taking a considered approach instead, telling them they ought to wait for her to settle in and make a good impression… then bring the cream cheese with the boots prank.
She finally decided to put a stop to their mischievous scheming.
"Hi, boys," she said cheerily, fully aware that her presence was making them feel instantly off-balance. Donna immediately caught the looks of surprise on Ed, Lou and Wordy's faces; heard Spike stifle a quick laugh. "'Morning!" she greeted them, further teasing their level of discomfort by allowing her eyes to linger on some of their bare chests. They clammed up instantly and tried to wipe the guilty school-boy looks from their faces.
She buttoned her grey uniform shirt over her vest as she cornered Wordy. Dressed only in jockey shorts, Wordy tried to hide his embarrassment as Donna stated she could really use the shield refresher they'd discussed earlier.
Wordy took it all in stride, becoming business-like and replying in a good-natured way that of course he could help her; would five minutes be okay?
She assured him that it was, and that she'd see him outside; he could take his time.
"Gentlemen," Donna said in parting, and heard their laughter as she closed the door behind her. That felt good; to know they were the kind of team that could give as good as they got; that they were able to take a joke and laugh at themselves.
Donna considered happily that it was such a contrast to the team she had just left behind. There hadn't been any amusements or jesting in such a long time with Vice that she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to keep things as light as possible on the job.
While waiting for Wordy to get fully dressed, Donna arranged her hair in a tidy French braid and gave herself another mental pat on the back for making it into the 'cool pants'.
There was another reason to be in a chipper mood this morning, as Donna remembered the news reports she had seen the previous night: crime boss, Callum Logan, had exhausted his last appeal in court. He was finally going to spend the rest of his living years behind bars.
He's going to die there, she thought with grim satisfaction; he's going to rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life with the knowledge that he'll never again have the luxuries he bought with the blood of other people. He'll never again wreak havoc in this city; he'll never again use his twisted, psychopathic brain to plan ways to lie, cheat, steal, corrupt, torture and kill.
Her high spirits continued as Wordy ran through some manoeuvers with the shield. The weighty piece of protective equipment was cumbersome, but there was definitely a knack to using it properly depending on a given situation. Based on what little Donna knew about today's job –a high-security escort detail at the airport – they'd be needing their shields, and Donna wanted to be as ready and effective as possible.
She traded playful remarks with Wordy as they stored the shields after the brief training exercise; kidding around about what had transpired earlier in the locker room.
"I was just tryin' to throw you guys off a little; spare myself the whipped-cream-in-the-boots trick for a day or two," Donna said humorously, as they continued past the locker rooms on their way to the daily briefing.
"Yeah, well, you know the drill!" Wordy said of the obligatory hazing rituals any new recruit could expect to endure.
"Are you kidding? Back in Vice, I wrote the drill," Donna remarked with a haughty expression and mock superiority. She revealed to him the length of time she'd spent with the other unit and the years in the Undercover detail. "Apparently, I make a very convincing 'meth freak', which I try not to take too personally," Donna added in a self-effacing manner.
"Really?" Wordy expressed in mild surprise, and then admitted how much he doubted his personal ability to blend in with such a crowd. His words struck at the heart of Donna's personal reasons for walking away from Vice.
"You know what the worst part is? You kind of get used to it," she sighed. "I saw the opening here, and I thought, 'I wanna be a straight-up good guy', you know? Sounds pretty damn' nice to me."
Wordy smiled knowingly. "You know what? It is," he affirmed, as they reached the briefing room door. Donna reflected his smile, feeling a delightful sense of right-ness about being with SRU, and with her teammate's ringing endorsement of it.
It would take only minutes for that feeling to twist grotesquely into displeasure and disgust. Deep discomfiture set in as Donna listened to Greg brief the team on the day's escort duty: one Peter Wilkins, a man whose notoriety and alleged crimes were still enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.
The alleged serial killer had claimed seventeen women, and Donna could well recall the public's horror and fear during the years Wilkins – dubbed 'The Leslie Spit Killer' – was at large. The mayor at the time had tasked the police with making his capture their number one priority, and they'd almost succeeded when Wilkins bolted just before an arrest could be made and formal charges laid.
Donna couldn't conceal the scowl that marred her face as she gazed upon Wilkins' mug-shot. I joined SRU for this? This is total crap! I put in for this unit because I wanted to nail bastards like this; not protect them.
Ed picked up where Greg left off; outlining their movements once they took custody of the prisoner at the airport. He advised the team that Wilkins' arrival from Germany under escort by the feds was being done in secrecy, so they would not have to deal with crowd control in this instance. With that, he instructed everyone to hit the trucks to get moving.
None of it sat well with Donna. When she voiced to Wordy her utter frustration with the assignment, he simply shrugged it off.
"As for me, when I get confused, I think of my daughters. And whatever I have to do, I do," Wordy stated in his easy-going, practical way.
She'd had no comeback for that; clearly Wordy wasn't the type to openly question orders. None of them seemed to be as disturbed by this escort job as she was. They were all taking off for their vehicles now, just as if it were any other routine call.
Donna marshalled her wits, telling herself she'd just have to shove down her repugnance for the task ahead someplace deep inside, no matter how loathsome a person Peter Wilkins might be. She knew she could ill-afford to cop out now; knew there was no time to raise any moral objection. This was the job, and as part of Team One, she was going to suck it up and do it… But that didn't mean she had to like it, and once it was over, at least she could be satisfied that an alleged murderer was off the streets.
To their collective consternation, what was supposed to be a routine prison transfer from the custody of one law enforcement group to another was anything but routine.
One dangerous complication after another arose to hinder Team One's plans for a safe transfer, and no one could have predicted the horrifying outcome, least of all Donna.
By the end of the 'routine' escort duty, she would be deeply questioning her decision to be a member of the SRU, and would be grasping desperately for a lifeline.
It took every ounce of control not to openly shed tears in front of her team as she joined them for the latter part of the debriefing, having been cleared by the SIU investigators and allowed to depart.
Donna sat almost in a daze as Greg concluded his review of the incident by saying the body of Delia Semple had been taken to the morgue for autopsy, and that Peter Wilkins had been placed in the custody of the mental hospital. He quietly asked her if she had anything to add.
Her silence was answer enough, and with a gentle, concerned voice, Ed asked how the SIU investigation had gone.
With bitter sarcasm, she replied: "I shot a cop; they're really happy."
I shot a cop.
Speaking the words out loud brought the horror of the moment she pulled the trigger crashing back with all the force of a hurricane's storm surge. All the sensations and sounds were present to her once again, and it seemed she could almost smell the hot stench of gunpowder. Her eyes registered the smoky haze that billowed from the barrel of her MP5 – or were those tears interfering with her vision? Her ears were buzzing from the echo of the fatal shot she had taken. She couldn't even recall what Greg had said when he had placed a steady hand on her gun, making her lower it. But she remembered seeing his mouth moving, so words must have been spoken; she just didn't know what.
Donna recalled the blood that trailed from Delia's motionless body, clear evidence that the bullet she fired had been well-aimed, just as if it had been aimed at the red 'X' on a paper target.
Only the target hadn't been a piece of paper destined for a recycling bin; it had been a woman about the same age and in the same profession as Donna. She reflected that things had seemed to happen so fast, she'd simply reacted when Wilkins' life had been threatened. Her training had kicked in, and she'd shot the 'subject' to protect the 'hostage'.
So while she had gone with the SIU investigators, the rest of Team One had finished up the escort duty. As she rode in the backseat of the SIU vehicle on the way back to SRU headquarters, she'd begun to tremble uncontrollably, even though the heater was on.
Had she followed the rules? What possible explanation could she raise to defend herself and her actions? She'd observed the priority of life code, hadn't she? Or did Delia Semple's 'law enforcement agent' designation mean that her life should have had a higher priority on the list?
No, Donna's mind objected, that didn't make sense!
Hostages/civilians first, then law enforcement personnel, then the subject... That's order of life in a hostage situation, Donna repeated to herself. Peter Wilkins, even though he's confessed to his crimes, was the hostage. Delia had already shot him by the time Wordy and I arrived… Clearly that made Wilkins the hostage and Delia the subject, didn't it?
But no matter how much she turned it over in her head; no matter how often she tried to convince herself that she had acted according to the rule book, Donna still could not escape the repressive feeling that she had been wrong and unjustified.
Greg, in his wisdom, tried his best to alleviate her anguish by telling her that even though she did right didn't mean she got to feel right.
Well, she felt rotten and disgusted with herself and with the whole terrible, backwards situation. Something Wordy had said earlier as they were serving as Wilkins' guards returned to her at that moment. Donna had been incensed that Wordy had taken a bullet while protecting the scumbag, and she wanted to know if his feelings about the alleged killer had changed at all.
"You think of your daughters now," she'd said sourly, "what do you want to do to him?"
She'd expected him to be with her in her outrage, especially since he was the one who'd been hurt. His answer, however, surprised, shamed and humbled her:
"When I go home tonight and I hold my baby girl, it's got to be with clean hands."
For as long as she lived, Donna would never forget that exchange. Constable Kevin Wordsworth was clearly a man of integrity who 'walked the talk'. He obviously believed in adhering to a strict moral code, and he was not going to sully his hands by taking out his frustrations on a prisoner, even one as irredeemable and psychotic as Peter Wilkins.
Clean hands. That's what I want… but I can't even keep them clean with the SRU, Donna thought with sorrow.
She turned a pathetic glance to Wordy, desperately seeking some kind of assurance since Greg's words failed to provide her with any comfort or solace.
"Our hands are clean, yeah?" she asked him mournfully, not really expecting an answer, because she knew none would ever suffice.
Softly, Ed called an end to the meeting. He stood up to depart, and was followed by Spike and Lewis. She cast one last look Wordy's way, and knowing she could dissolve into tears at any moment, retreated to the privacy of her locker room.
It was in the shower that she finally allowed the waterworks to gush forth. The deluge frightened her, because it was as if a levee had broken and there would be no stopping the rushing tide. She had never before cried with this much intensity; not even when her beloved father had passed away and she'd been unable to attend the funeral due to her involvement in a delicate undercover assignment.
After about twenty minutes of standing under the shower's stream, her heavy sobs subsided. Control and composure slowly returned, and she was able to step out of the stall, dry off, dress and drive home.
Sleep eluded Donna after she turned in for the night. The way Agent Delia Semple had fallen and lain dead on the cold, hard concrete of the airport underground parking level was burned into Donna's brain cells like a cattle brand. There was simply no escape from the dreadful image. It pursued her relentlessly, driving a stake of grief through her heart and causing an almost tangible pain to pulse through her body.
I killed someone today. I killed someone! Because of my actions, someone is dead. A cop is dead.
Dead, dead, dead!
Her thoughts screamed in a never ending cycle of condemnation, giving her no peace. The mocking words beat a drum-like rhythm, and she imagined she might go mad if she couldn't find some way to 'degauss' the message that was playing in a perpetual loop. Donna wanted to ram her head against a wall just to silence those thoughts.
Why did it have to be me? Donna quietly begged in vain, feeling the desperate need to cry, but knowing her tear ducts had already expelled all the moisture they could.
Why, why, why, why?
Why did this have to happen? How could this have happened?
Why did we have to be the ones to escort that piece of scum in the first place?
If Wordy hadn't been shot and if I hadn't asked to partner with him…
If Sam hadn't been injured…
If Walter Volcek wasn't bent on revenge…
If those protesters hadn't shown up…
Why did we trust Delia Semple so easily?
We should have known something was wrong.
If only we'd figured out Delia was working with Walter sooner…
Once again, her mind's mere mention of the dead woman's name sent Donna's fragile emotions spinning out of control.
Oh, God… What am I going to do now?
What's going to happen to me?
SIU… they're not thrilled at what I did, but did they actually mean what they said? Am I not going to be put on leave, or be suspended, or something like that? Are they really convinced I had no other choice?
Damn it all, I did have another choice! I could have just let Delia shoot that murdering son of a bitch! I'd rather have that death on my conscience than the one I have now.
Her apartment suddenly felt empty. She'd never experienced it before now, but tonight there was a distinct cold, sterile and stifling atmosphere about it.
Donna had not once in her life been claustrophobic, but in a moment of panic, she felt as if her bedroom walls were closing in on her. There was a roaring in her ears, and she clamped her hands on both sides of her head and squeezed shut her eyes to try to dispel the irrational sensation of being pressed in by a solid, static structure.
She wanted to scream for an eternity; smash her fists through something; break something, anything at all, just to eradicate the crushing weight of self-loathing, fear and confusion.
If she had been a smoker, Donna figured she would have smoked her way through a dozen packs by now in a never-ending chain. She further mused that if drink had been her vice, she'd have already passed out, because she would surely have imbibed copious amounts of alcohol in the hours since she'd left the debriefing room at SRU headquarters.
A replay of the day's events swept through across her mind's eye for the hundredth time, and she desperately wanted to be able to re-write the ending.
She was there again, standing with her weapon raised and pointed at Delia; Wordy warning the vengeful woman that she had to drop her weapon or they'd be forced to shoot her. Peter Wilkins was moaning on the ground, writhing at Delia's feet. A spray of blood stained one of the support pillars, indicating that Wilkins had been recently shot.
Delia was defiant and kept her weapon poised over Wilkins, demanding he shut his eyes.
Donna felt a resurgence of the terror she'd experienced at that moment. It was a desperate situation; one that she sensed would not be resolved easily. Delia was clearly bent on executing the alleged killer.
Even now, hours removed from the incident, Donna felt her hands grow cold and clammy; felt her pulse increase and her lungs seize, making it difficult to breathe comfortably.
Why didn't you listen, Delia? Donna thought in misery. It didn't have to end that way.
She didn't want to imagine what Delia's family was going through, but it was impossible to ignore the reality that the dead woman had parents who would once again be burying a daughter. Walter Volcek had revealed to the team that one of Peter Wilkins' victims had been Delia's sister.
What can anyone say to that family? What if they decide to sue me over what happened? Will they ever be able to forgive me? How can I even begin to forgive myself?
I need help. I need to talk to someone. I won't be able to get any rest until I do.
After she'd shot Delia and prior to being whisked away by SIU, Ed had advised Donna that the next forty-eight hours would be crucial, and that her contacts on the team would be him and Sam.
He explained that they had both been through fatal incidents before; they knew the emotional fallout first-hand. Ed wanted to be certain she knew that reaching out to her colleagues wasn't a sign of weakness and that there was no shame in admitting she needed help if she really did.
Of all the people she would feel most comfortable speaking with on the team at that moment, Donna would have to admit that Wordy was at the top of the list. But he had never taken a Scorpio shot before; his hands were clean. Besides, he had a wife and three little girls. Even if she was confident he would be a listening ear, she was not going to disturb his sleep at two in the morning.
Due to the tension between them, the cause of which Donna was still trying to determine, she knew Sam Braddock would not be the right choice at this time, either.
If only Bill were here, she wished sadly, and then amended the thought. Are you crazy? Bill's nowhere near the tower of strength you need right now. He hasn't even returned your calls. He's probably fallen off the wagon, and he could never understand what's happened.
Donna felt her heart give a jolt of emotional pain. For all the times she'd tried to help and support her ex-partner/friend/mentor, it hurt deeply to know he was in no condition to do the same for her in her own hour of need.
That left Ed Lane as her remaining contact.
Like Wordy, Donna knew Ed was also married, and she was pretty sure he had a son. What would his wife think of a female officer calling to speak to her husband in the wee hours of the morning?
Stop it, Donna warned herself. Ed wouldn't have told you to contact him if he didn't mean it. This is part of the job. Surely his wife knows about this stuff, right?
It took nearly fifteen minutes to banish all the objections her brain irrationally raised. When she finally reached the conclusion that hashing out everything with her teammate was the only solution to her current crisis, Donna took a deep breath, picked up her phone, and dialled Ed's number.
After four rings, she was greeted by his sleepy "H'lo?"
"Ed… it's Donna," she began hesitantly. "I'm sorry to be calling at this insane hour, but… I'm going crazy here, and… and I really need to talk about what happened..."
TBC
