Killing Game

By Kadi

Rated T

Disclaimer: This is only a sandbox that I like to play in. Sadly, it is not mine.

A/N: I know, it has been a while. Real life has been especially wonderful. Hopefully this extra long chapter will make up for it...

Chapter 10

Stunned silence settled over the Murder Room as the security footage from the PSB building finished playing. Tao and Buzz had finished loading the footage only a few minutes before. They located the moment that their own people had arrived and moved the footage back from there. Sergeant Davis, they learned quickly, had told the truth. He arrived just minutes before Lieutenant Flynn and Buzz joined him, and did not enter the locker room until they were present. There was a stretch of mostly nothing prior to that moment. They captured a few people moving through the hall, but no one that stopped or entered the locker room. That was until they reached the point when a familiar face exited.

He came out carrying a folded sheaf of papers, and as they moved further backward with the video, they realized that he entered carrying nothing at all. For the sake of accuracy they continued watching the footage, but the only other traffic that the locker room saw that day was a group of officers entering and leaving early that morning. They had, it seemed, found another suspect, and at the very least, the one responsible for breaking in to Sergeant Elliot's locker. They could only guess at what he had removed. One thing they did know, however, Sergeant Staples had a lot to answer for.

In the moments that followed there was little movement in the murder room. The detectives looked at one another. They had known that someone in Professional Standards was at fault, but they had not even begun to fully suspect any one person. Now they knew. Slowly they began to look at one another, each silently questioning if they had truly just witnessed the same thing.

Before any of them could fully react Captain Raydor turned on her heel and began striding away from the murder room. Andy shared a look with his partner. They both had the same thought. Oh crap. They had rarely had occasion to witness an event that put Sharon into such a state of supreme anger that a chill, almost literally, settled over the room. She was not a woman that yelled, stomped, or slammed doors. On the contrary, she became incredibly quiet, and her temper, just as everything else about her, was deliberately delivered so that every second of her rage could be felt and processed by the person on the receiving end. They both moved at the same time. Flynn's longer stride carried him after the Captain much more quickly. He caught up to her as she swept into the first interview room.

Detective Lewis looked up as the Captain entered. He straightened in his seat as the Captain came toward him, flanked by two detectives. When she leaned over the table his brows rose. "Is someone—"

"Quiet." Sharon's palms were flat against the table. "The time for discussion has passed, Detective. You've had ample opportunity to tell us everything that we need to know while you have been sitting here." She leaned down just slightly and allowed her gaze to bore into the Detective's. "What is going to happen now," she stated plainly, "is that you are going to contact an attorney, along with your Union representative and explain to them that the District Attorney's office is filing charges against you for two counts of murder."

Lewis's eyes widened. "What…I—"

He didn't have the chance to finish. Sharon held up a hand. "An attorney, Detective Lewis. We both know that you need one. Not only are you looking at the murder charges but there are also several felony counts of tampering with evidence, theft, extortion, drug dealing—"

"I never killed anyone!" Lewis stood up, but aware of the stiffening of the two lieutenants and the uniformed officer at the door, he remained where he stood. "Yeah, okay, fine. We took money—"

"Detective." Sharon's voice dropped even lower. She shook her head slowly. "You should think very carefully before you continue speaking."

Provenza looked around quickly. "Get Buzz," he hissed at Flynn. "Now!"

"I am right here." There wasn't time to go to the electronics room and turn on the equipment. It was ready, but he didn't want to risk missing even a moment. Buzz moved into the room with a camera in his hands. He nodded to the Lieutenants; it was recording.

"I wave." Lewis looked nervously around the room. He had been sitting there for hours. He knew this was bad. He wasn't an idiot, he already heard about the dead cop and knew that it was Elliot. It was only a matter of time that this would all come back to him. That damned nosy Sergeant was poking around. "I wave my right to counsel." Lewis dropped back into his seat. He scrubbed his hands over his face. "I didn't kill Elliot. I never killed anyone. No one was supposed to get hurt. This was just about putting my damn kid through school. Yeah, we took money for some stuff. We sold stuff that was already stolen, and a couple of gangs paid us to look the other way on drug deals. That was it. I had nothing to do with Sergeant Elliot."

Sharon reached out blindly and was not disappointed when a legal pad and pen were placed in her hand. Lieutenant Tao had stepped up beside her. She placed them on the table and slid them across its surface. "Start writing. I want names. I want dates. I want to know every single case that you bungled for a dollar and how much you earned from it." She continued to hold his gaze. "And John, pay special attention to the Martinez bust last year. I believe that it resulted in the death of an officer. Shawn Bertetto."

"Then if I were you," Andy had his hands tucked into his pockets, "I would start really hoping that your partner corroborates the whole damned thing."

"Oh yeah." Provenza nodded when Lewis's attention was turned on them. "We've got your buddy Fiess in the room down the hall. Be detailed. You wouldn't want DDA Hobbs to toss your little spontaneous confession out for the sake of a better statement. Would you?"

"Yeah." Andy rocked back on his heels. "I wonder what 'ol Ryan is gonna have to say for himself? Maybe we should go find out," he suggested to his partner.

"Maybe we should," Provenza agreed.

John Lewis shook his head. "Ryan won't talk. He was in it for the money. He didn't need it, he just wanted it." Lewis swept a hand over his face again. "Fiess won't talk, he'll just… I'll write it all down, but there has to be something better than Murder on the table."

"That," Sharon stated succinctly, "will depend entirely upon what you tell us and how well we can prove it. The rest will be up to the District Attorney's office."

The Captain turned on her heel and Lewis shifted in his seat. "Captain," he shook his head. "I didn't kill Sergeant Elliot." He knew that was what she cared about most. Everyone knew that.

Sharon stopped. Her back was straight as she turned. Her eyes dipped to the legal pad in front of him before her brows arched. "Prove it," she told him. Her heels clicked against the tiled floor as she left the room.

Provenza cast a look to his left. His gaze met Flynn's and he nodded slightly. "Amy, Julio, stay here and take the Detective's statement. Tao, you and I will have a chat with Detective Fiess. In the meantime, Buzz, get those cameras going in the other interview room."

"I will just need five minutes." Buzz nodded once and passed his camera to Julio as he left the room.

"I don't think that any of us will be leaving here for a while," Provenza stated.

She completely bypassed her office, but Andy expected that she would. He followed her to the back hall, the one that held the storage closets that most of them forgot existed until they needed something from inside one of them. There was a row of windows with a fairly good view of the city. Andy found Sharon there, hands braced against the window ledge, back still straight as she stared at the city before her. He shoved his hands into his pockets again as he approached. There was a small voice in the back of his head that was reminding him that he could be taking his life into his hands, but he pressed on. She had a right to be angry; hell, they all were, but he knew that her current state was fueled by a good deal of betrayal too.

Sharon held up a hand as he neared. She didn't look at him. Her gaze remained locked ahead of her. "I do not need to be handled right now," she stated slowly, voice still low and brimming with warning.

"Good thing." Andy shrugged as he turned and leaned against the ledge, his back to the city. "I'm not allowed to do that here anyway."

Her head turned slowly. The look that she fixed him with would have quite a few officers retreat hastily from her presence. It was the glare that had earned her many nicknames over the years, and one that she had typically reserved for the most difficult individuals. Andy stared back her, seemingly unfazed and it made her want to bear her teeth at him. She turned her gaze back to the city instead. He wasn't responsible for her mood, but she thought he might be foolish for daring to brave it. Her jaw clenched tightly. Sharon drew a slow breath and let it out slowly. "There are moments when I truly believe that you may be insane. This could be one of them."

"Why?" Andy tilted his head at her. "Because I like to poke the dragon? We haven't had a good fight in a while." His lips pursed and his brows rose while he mused. "Years actually. Not since you were still in FID."

"I wish that I had the energy to indulge you, but honestly…" Even as angry as she was at present, she just couldn't seem to find it within herself to try. "Maybe later."

"I'm going to hold you to that." He tugged his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms across his chest. Andy studied the floor in front of him. "We can send Amy and Mike to pick up Sergeant Staples."

"No." Sharon turned and mimicked his stance. She shook her hair back and sighed again. "I want to do that myself. I think I will take Julio. I am just having a very hard time believing that the Sergeant was part of this." They had worked together for too long for her to be able to wrap her mind around it. "It is hard enough to reconcile the evil and despicable things that people in this city can do to one another but even more difficult when it happens among our own ranks." Her head tilted and her gaze turned retrospective. "There have been moments when even I believed that Sergeant Staples could be too rigid in his adherence to the rules. Now I have to question if all of that was just a cover and how many officers' cases need to be reevaluated."

Andy frowned at her. "What are you thinking? That he was harder than he had to be? Or more lenient when he should crack down? Is there really any way to truly know that without opening every case that he ever touched?"

"No." She closed her eyes. Just the thought of it was daunting. It sent a shudder down her spine. She could very well imagine the number of cases that Staples had worked during his tenure in Professional Standards, but to revisit all of them would be impossible. It was more prudent to focus on the specifics of their current case and be prepared for any future problems that Sergeant Staples's actions may create. "How did we get to this point?" She asked. The question was posed quietly, and was mostly rhetorical, but she turned her gaze to the man beside her. "How was all of this missed?"

The Lieutenant offered her a sad and somewhat resigned smile. He shrugged. "When you know the rules, hell, when you make the rules… who better to break them without getting caught at it." Andy straightened and turned toward her. He allowed his arms to drop and gestured as he spoke. "Think about it, Sharon. What kind of damage could you do if you set your mind to it? How long before you would get caught?"

She stared back at him for several long moments before she forced herself to look away. The picture he painted was rather disturbing. It was not a thought that she had ever entertained. When he laid it out for her, she had to admit that he was correct. When Sharon thought about what she and other Internal Affairs veterans knew, the amount of damage and chaos that they could create before anyone became the wiser filled her with a sense of dread. "I did not want to think about that." She shook her head slowly. "This is exactly why those in that department need to have the highest ethical standards. I thought that Sergeant Staples was one of them. Andy…" Sharon turned toward him. "We should be very careful with how we proceed. The entire integrity of Professional Standards could be called into question."

"Yeah." He sighed. "That's the problem, isn't it? Was Staples working with anyone else? And if Staples was getting away with it, who else is? Who else might try? Before this is all considered done, there is going to have to be some cleaning done."

"Let's solve the murder first." Sharon rolled her head on her shoulders before straightening. "I will take Julio with me to pick up the Sergeant. All things considered, normally I would brief Commander Michaelson and put him on notice to begin auditing his department, but I think that should wait. What I will do is bring Chief Taylor up to speed and recommend that we lock this down until we have more information. I would like for you to call Andrea and make sure that she knows that we are moving on this now. I want her watching the Fiess interview." Sharon started to move and stopped. "Oh no. Gus is following Rusty to Echo Park to drop his car at that shop that you recommended. He was going to drop him off here afterward. Gus is working tonight. It may be a while before I am free to take him home."

"Don't worry about it. Both of our cars are still here." They had ridden out and back in together. "If one of us can't get out of here long enough to drop the kid off, I'll send him home in my car. No big deal." He grinned crookedly at her. "That's assuming I can count on you for a ride."

"Hm." Her head tilted and she managed a small smile. "I think that we can arrange something. Don't worry, Lieutenant. I will not leave you stranded."

When she walked past him and down the hall, Andy shook his head. "The last time you said that, you sent me home with Provenza." He followed her at a more sedate pace. "I am not feeling the warm and fuzzies here."

"That would be a good thing, Lieutenant." Sharon shot a look at him from over her shoulder. "You're not allowed to feel those here."

"And she gets even." He shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked. "I knew that one would come back to haunt me. Can we go back to the lame moving vehicle jokes?"

MCMCMCMCMCMC

All eyes were on the group that stepped into the Force Investigation offices that afternoon. Heads turned and worked stopped. Sergeant Davis stood from his desk, but wisely kept his mouth closed. They all knew the expression that their former Captain was wearing and they knew well to stay out of her way. She swept through the bullpen flanked by one of her detectives and followed by a pair of uniformed officers. She strode with purpose toward Lieutenant Wheaton's office. Through the glass walls, those present in the bullpen could see him as he met with Sergeant Staples, a meeting that had been going on for quite some time. Sergeant Davis's head inclined and his eyes narrowed when, upon entering the office, Lieutenant Wheaton stood but the other man remained seated. It was an odd exchange for a man that was usually so well mannered.

"What do you think Jake?" Lance Thomas, one of the younger detectives had wandered over to stand at the Sergeant's desk. He had only joined the division a couple of years before the Captain transferred, but he was there long enough to know how she handled things.

The Sergeant barely spared him a glance. "I'm really not sure that I want to guess."

Inside the office, Lieutenant Wheaton nodded grimly. He had been expecting her. He didn't know what to make of the fact that she brought Sanchez with her. Mark was expecting one of the older Lieutenants, perhaps even Detective Sykes. He wasn't sure what bringing the subject of one of Staples's most recent cases was supposed to mean. At the same time, Wheaton wasn't sure that he had ever really been able to get inside that woman's head. "Captain," He spoke after only a moment. "The Sergeant and I were expecting your arrival."

Sharon's brows arched. "Yes, Lieutenant, thank you." She had asked that he be detained, quietly. There was no reason to make more of a scene of this moment than there needed to be. Sharon was left questioning the Lieutenant's motives, however. Detaining the Sergeant did not require a quiet conversation in which the details of her case could be revealed before she had an opportunity to question him. She had no proof that the Lieutenant had done that, but she would need to tread carefully. She turned her attention on the Sergeant and studied him for a moment. When he finally returned her gaze, his guilt was apparent. He was aware that he had been caught. "Sergeant Staples, I need for you to come with us, please."

The Sergeant hung his head and shook it. A heavy sigh had his shoulders drooping. "No one was supposed to get hurt," He said. "I tried to get Matt to leave this one alone." Staples looked up at her again. "He was like a dog with a bone. He just wouldn't stop."

Julio shifted his weight and frowned at the man. "So you killed him?" His hands went to his waist. One rested on his gun, the other on his handcuffs. He had moved slightly, so that he stood beside his Captain, their shoulders almost touching. He would push her aside if he needed to, if the Sergeant proved unpredictable. Sanchez was having a hard time believing that someone like Staples would be a danger, but then, he never would have believed that he was involved in this case at all. He watched the Sergeant wince at his words and felt like hitting him. That was an urge he was able to easily suppress. What he felt was more along the lines of disgust than anger, and it was reflected in his tone when he spoke again. "You put a bullet in a man's head because he was going find out that you and a bunch of others were dirty cops."

Sharon held up a hand before the Sergeant could answer. "Sergeant Staples, I feel that I should remind you before we go any farther that you are entitled to contact your union representative and a lawyer."

Staples glanced at her. "I know how this works, Captain." He sniffed at her and rolled his eyes. That was a promotion that should have been his. They had both been up for Lieutenant at the same time. She had gotten it, and here he was, years later, still stuck at Sergeant. "Let's not pretend that anyone in this department gives a damn about my civil rights right now, or that you don't have Hobbs waiting to make me an offer that I won't be able to refuse. Yeah," he continued, "Matt found out about it. He figured it all out. I knew he was getting close. I wanted to put him off for a while. The thing is, he had already figured it out." Staples stood up, and when the two uniforms moved close, he held his arms out. His gun was locked in his desk; he wasn't armed. "Matt was going to let me turn myself in. We would come in and talk to the Lieutenant together. What I couldn't get him to understand was that this was not just about me. It was bigger than me. There were other cops, and people on the outside. We've got contacts that expect to get paid. They want their goods moved. They weren't going to understand if it just stopped so that I could follow the rules."

"So you shot him." This time it was Sharon that said it. She was staring at the Sergeant, not entirely certain that she had ever known him. Unlike Ally Moore, this was an officer that she had worked with for quite some years. He had been in FID for a time, and then he had moved to Criminal Investigations. Sharon knew that he had his eye on taking over that department, but there had been others; officers that were a better fit, brighter and more energetic. People meant to lead. Staples was a good investigator, but he was not a leader. "Sergeant Elliot was giving you an opportunity to keep your honor in tact, and you killed him for that."

The other man shook his head. "I didn't go there to kill him. But yeah, I shot him. He wasn't going to let it go. I thought it was the best way to stop all of this." He glanced at Sanchez and then at Wheaton, and then he shrugged. "The gun I used is in the van. I drove it out to Long Beach, left it at the docks. I bought that gun as a backup weapon. I usually keep in my car. It's never been used before, and it's not registered." Personal weapons didn't have to be. Most officers had a second gun for just that reason that they kept in their homes or vehicles.

"I see." Disappointment was warring with rage. Sharon wanted to scream at him. Instead she looked away from him. She turned her gaze on Lieutenant Wheaton. "We will get him to repeat all of this on the record, but DDA Hobbs may require you to make a statement. One of my Detectives will be in touch, Lieutenant."

"Understood, Captain." Wheaton nodded slowly. He had figured Staples was involved, and was doing some shady stuff, but he hadn't expected that he pulled the trigger himself. He watched Sanchez cuff the man and read him his rights. He was surprisingly more composed than his file would indicate him being capable of. The Captain, on the other hand, was holding herself ramrod straight, brimming with anger and not entirely bothering to suppress it. When the group left his office, the Captain let the uniforms take Sergeant Staples and move him through the bullpen. She strode along behind, and if he was disgraced by being led out in handcuffs, she didn't seem to give a damn. Wheaton hissed a breath through his teeth. Damn, but she was a hard one. He was infinitely glad that she had moved out of Professional Standards.

The uniforms drove the Sergeant back across town, where indeed Hobbs was waiting, along with Chief Taylor and the rest of Major Crimes. Sharon had already notified the DDA of the spontaneous confession that the Sergeant had given. They expected him to repeat the same on record, but if he didn't, they had witnesses to the original. There was no reason, at this point, for him to deny his involvement. He had given them the vehicle and murder weapon too. Sharon already had Lieutenants Flynn and Provenza working with Long Beach Police to retrieve the vehicle. Andy had gone with Amy to pick it up. Warrants and cross-jurisdictional permissions would be in place by the time that they arrived with the SID team that was joining them. Buzz had gone with them too, and in his absence, Lieutenant Tao was running the equipment in electronics.

It was going to be a one-two punch. Sharon wasn't going to wait for her detectives to pick up the evidence. She sent Lieutenant Provenza in with DDA Hobbs to get the Sergeant's official statement. That he wasn't requesting a lawyer still bothered Sharon, but he had officially waved. They could not force the man to hire an attorney or to accept one appointed by the court. That it could come back to bite them at a later date was just a risk that they would have to move forward with. The upside to the deal making process, however, was that the Sergeant would not have the opportunity for an appeal. As long as he did not recant in front of a judge later, he would be going away to prison for a very long time.

Detective Fiess, on the other hand, was proving to be a problem. He had lawyered up and was refusing to speak. Detective Lewis had been correct about him. Even the information that they had gained from his partner had not moved him. Lewis had accepted his deal. He was taking Murder Two, and would be up for parole in twenty years. It wasn't perfectly ideal, but that was one down, and the information that he had given them was working in their favor to close the rest of the case. Fiess would go to trial, unless they found another angle on him. They would come at him again once they had the statement from Staples and all the evidence in hand.

Gus dropped Rusty off while Sharon was waiting for Andy and Amy to return. She offered him the Lieutenant's car, but he opted to wait. He was looking for a new idea for his next VLOG and wanted to look through cold case files. His success with the Alice case and the lessons he had learned while covering Slider's trial had Sharon agreeing. Most of the archives were scanned into the LAPD database. Sharon put him to work looking through the cold cases that were older than ten years. Those, she decided, would be safe enough for her aspiring journalist to poke at.

In the hours that passed following Sergeant Staples's arrest, Sharon was much to busy to consider what Rusty may or may not uncover in his research. She trusted him to stay within the guidelines laid down during his previous stories or to ask questions if those lines did not seem clear as they applied to any new stories that he was working on. In the meantime, Hobbs had offered Sergeant Staples Murder One with life in prison for the killing of Sergeant Matthew Elliot. She would wave the special circumstances in exchange for a full disclosure of his illegal activities inside the department and the names of any other officers that had been involved. He had taken it, and spent the next few hours recounting, on the record, the officers in Narcotics and Robbery Homicide that he had worked with over the past five years to pocket money in exchange for favors to suspects.

The Sergeant had even admitted that Julio had been a mark. Most of the officers involved were people that he had investigated at some point or another, he had gone easier on them than he should, and later called in those favors. He didn't have anyone in Major Crimes. Julio had been an opportunity for that. So he did his old Captain a favor, let the guy ride out some Anger Management classes, as well as a suspension when he probably should have been fired, and figured he would keep an eye on him. See what other favors he could do for the Detective in the future… and when Sanchez felt like he owed the Sergeant, Staples intended to collect. Garring, he explained, had a habit of looking the other way. Staples had gotten tired of disciplinary boards looking the other way when they shouldn't; of officers pocketing cash and getting away with it. If he couldn't beat them, he would join them. It was Captain Garring that led him to Fiess and Lewis. The rest had seemed to work out quite well; at least until Sergeant Elliot became suspicious.

The van that Staples had driven the night that Elliot was killed was hauled into the print shed. SID began pulling it apart. The weapon went to ballistics. It was the same caliber as the one used in the shooting, and already prints had come back to Staples. They would have what they needed to approach Detective Fiess again in the morning. They had enough from Staples and Lewis to pick up Captain Garring. He was booked in to holding and would be held over night. The others were remanded back to holding too. Because they were officers they would be kept separate of general population, and watched carefully.

Since it was now a matter of SID doing their jobs, Sharon dismissed her people. She sent them home for the evening. Everyone would reconvene the following morning. By then she expected to have the report back from SID. DDA Hobbs would be meeting them to go over the details. They would make one more attempt at outlining a deal with Detective Fiess. If he continued to refuse, he would be shipped off to county where he would await trial. They could only hope for the best.

It had been a long and not altogether wonderful day. Andy offered to drive Sharon home in her car, and she accepted the offer. A quiet night was all that she wanted. She didn't exactly want to be alone either. Rusty was brimming with ideas when he met them by the elevators. He thought he had found a case to dig into. He wanted to talk to Andy about it before he started. He told Sharon that the idea had been in the back of his head for a couple of years now, so he had looked through the cold cases and gone specifically to the case file that contained everything on the murder of Buzz's father and uncle. He just didn't want to offend the other man by looking into it, but he hated that it was unsolved. Andy didn't think that Buzz would be offended, but promised to sit down and go over the case file with him after dinner.

Sharon stood at the back of the elevator. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She leaned against the elevator wall and watched the pair. Months before Rusty would have hardly spoken to him, but since Andy's injury and the Slider trial, the pair had gotten closer. Whatever Rusty thought of Andy's often cynical comments about the dirtbags of the world, the Lieutenant had become his go-to for information on suspects and the finer details of murder investigations. Common ground was all that those two had needed, it seemed, and they had found it. Sharon might not especially like that Rusty spent so much time focusing on murders and the darkness that surrounded them, but it was the path that his life had put him on. She was only glad that he was on this side of it, and that a career in police work did not interest him. If he wanted to investigate crimes as a journalist, she was perfectly okay with it.

The discussion that Andy and Rusty began came to a stop once they left the elevator. Silence settled over them as they got into the car and headed toward Los Feliz. Rusty seemed to sense Sharon's mood once they were in the much smaller space. He studied his phone as the distance between the car and downtown grew longer. "My car is ready. They had the part in stock. I now have working breaks again and Sharon can stop freaking out." Rusty read the text that he had just received. "Do you think that we can pick it up tonight?" He wasn't looking forward to having to get up early and make the trip to Echo Park the following morning.

Andy glanced at Sharon beside him. When she nodded her agreement, he shot a look into the backseat. "Yeah, that's not a problem. It's not that far out of the way. We can swing over and grab it."

"We can stop at Alfred's to get dinner," Sharon commented. It was a small bistro near Andy's home that they were both fond of. She turned slightly in her seat and glanced at Rusty behind her. "Should I expect Gus to join us?"

He felt like rolling his eyes at her and he almost did. "No," he stated, and drew out the syllable, in much the same way that she usually did. "Just because we are dating does not mean that we spend every minute together." Rusty gave his mother a pointed look. The corners of his mouth twitched toward a smile. She still looked so tired and he could see beyond the mask that she was wearing; she was still very upset too, but she was trying so hard to just be normal. He didn't have all the details of the case, but what he heard around the Murder Room and what was beginning to leak to the media, Rusty heard enough. This was a hard one. It wasn't over yet, but they had all the pieces. He just hoped it got better for her now. Until then, Rusty figured he could give her normal. He shook his head and made a face. "Just because you spend all your waking moments with your boyfriend, doesn't mean…"

"Ah!" Sharon pointed a finger at him. She leaned between the front seats of the car, and when Andy chuckled at them from the driver's seat, she smacked his shoulder. "This is not funny. Do not encourage him. We do not spend every waking moment together. How can you even justify that with facts, we spend plenty of time alone too."

"Sure you do." Rusty rolled his eyes at her this time. She was smiling. Her eyes still looked sad, but his mother was smiling and that was always a good thing. He hated it when Sharon was sad, mainly because that usually meant that things were really bad. Rusty felt like they had enough bad in the past, he was done with bad. All he wanted from now on was the good. "This from the woman who did not even realize that she was dating."

"God almighty!" It was Andy that groaned in response to that statement. "This again?" He stopped at a red light and looked into the back seat. "Are you kidding me right now? You're really starting to sound like Provenza, kid. We were not dating."

"You were dating," Rusty replied. He didn't miss a beat as he grinned widely at the two of them. "It's okay. You were slow on the uptake. I mean, at your age…" The twin glares that he received made him laugh. "I'm kidding. Geez. About the age thing, anyway. You were totally dating. Now you're practically married." He tilted his head at his mother and affected an innocent look. "When can we expect Andy to move back in?"

"I don't believe this." Andy shook his head as his gaze returned to the street in front of them. He rested his elbow against the car door rubbed at his forehead. "She had to have a kid. Not just any kid, a real smart mouthed little…"

"Okay, okay," Sharon leaned back in her seat with a low laugh. "Rusty, stop aggravating Andy." She nudged the man in question's arm and gave him an amused look. "I am going to have to agree. You may very well be spending too much time with Lieutenant Provenza, Rusty. Listening to the two of you sometimes feels like having them at home with me."

Rusty leaned forward into the space between the front seats and grinned crookedly at her. "You're welcome."

They had both said it, and now Andy was grinning at her too. Sharon groaned at them. "I walked right into that."

"You kind of did." Andy smirked at her.

"You wanted us to get along." Rusty fluttered his lashes at her and affected a crooked smirk.

Sharon cut a glance at him. Her eyes narrowed. She pushed at his forehead to send him into the back seat again. "That was never what I meant. I am beginning to think that the two of you have spent entirely too much time together while Andy was recovering with us."

"I never asked to be the Flynnsitter," Rusty settled back against the seat and let his gaze drift out the passenger window.

"You told me to make the best of a rotten situation," Andy flashed his most charming smile at her.

"Oh no." Sharon held up a finger. She twisted in her seat to look between the two men. "You two do not get to team up against me."

"Especially when we're still out numbered," Andy laughed. "Hey Rusty, maybe if Gus isn't working too late tonight, we should have him over for dinner anyway. I think we might need the numbers."

"He's not getting off work until around eleven," Rusty said. "I would definitely call him, but he's got to go back to work really early tomorrow too, so…" He shrugged and let the rest of the sentence trail off. It wasn't a big deal, he was used to being alone with his mother and her boyfriend. They all knew that after dinner he would retreat to his room anyway, there were just things that he never needed to see. Ever. Those two flirting with one another was at the top of the list.

"Hm." Sharon hummed thoughtfully. Her lips pursed while she watched the cars ahead of them begin to move through the intersection. "Maybe we should pick up enough for Gus and you can take it to him. He still needs to eat."

"That's not a bad idea." Rusty had to admit that the thought had crossed his mind too. "I would like it even more if you weren't just trying to get me out of the house so that the two of you can make out…"

Sharon's jaw dropped open. She made a small sound of outrage. She was turning in her seat when the car jolted hard. "What…"

"Dammit!" Andy slammed on the breaks and stopped the car just inches away from running into the vehicle in front of them, which had also stopped suddenly and for no apparent reason. "What the hell…" He really hated Los Angeles traffic. "Now what is this joker do—" He didn't finish his statement. They lurched forward and there was the sound of squealing breaks and cracking fiberglass.

There was silence in the few moments that passed. Everyone in the car seemed dazed in the beginning. Their ears were still ringing from the sound of the two cars colliding. Andy and Sharon both moved at the same time. Sharon was pulling at her seatbelt to unclip it. Once it was free, she turned to get a better look at her son. "Is everyone okay? Rusty…"

"Yeah I'm good. What the hell?" Rusty was rubbing his shoulder where the seatbelt had tightened as he lurched against it.

"The idiot didn't see that we stopped. Probably texting…" Andy rolled his neck and looked over at Sharon. He let his gaze sweep over her but she appeared to be okay, just as irritated as he was but focused on making sure that Rusty was okay. "Alright, dammit. I'll call this in, Rusty, we may not make it to the shop to pick up your car before it closes…"

"Great." Rusty let his head drop backward against the seat rest behind him. That would mean leaving early in the morning to pick it up so that he would make it to class.

"Look," Andy twisted in his seat and his back ached. He silently cursed the idiot drivers of the world. "If we don't get out of here in time, we'll double back to the PAB and pick up my car. You can take it to school tomorrow and—" The statement never finished leaving his mouth. Light glinting off something caught his eye. He looked beyond Rusty to the figure approaching from behind the car. Andy barely had time to open his mouth and yell out before the sound of gunshots and breaking glass filled the car. "Get down!"

Two figures had approached, one from the front and the other from the back. They opened fire on the passenger side and Andy reached for Sharon to pull her down but she was already climbing into the back seat. She grabbed Rusty and was pushing him into the floor of the car while she covered him. Andy's hand wrapped around his own gun and he pushed, stumbling out of the car on the driver's side. He felt something strike his arm and ignored it. It was instinct that drove him to lift the gun.

He shouted to identify himself, but something in the back of his head told him that the shooters already knew whom they were aiming at. As he began returning fire, they ran. Andy followed them with his aim, but there were pedestrians along the sidewalk. They were screaming and running for cover. The two men ran to the car in front of him, the one that had blocked his way, and dove into it. He tried to commit the license plate to memory as it sped away, leaving the damaged vehicle behind him empty and blocking the street.

He stood there for only a moment. His heart was pounding in his chest. His breaths came quickly, and in time with the rush of sound in his ears. When he moved it was to drop his gun into the driver's seat and turn to survey the car. There was broken glass all around, but he was focused on the two unmoving figures in the backseat.

-TBC-