"Shall we?" Lynch motioned for the door and smiles at Chris who is fighting not to let the giddy excitement show.
"You were serious about that second part too?" She asks following Jessica and Piper out the door and across the complex.
"Yes, of course we were. With Luca running the academy for the last three years full time and Deacon leaving to do consulting full time we have an opening to fill, and our short list got really short yesterday evening." Jessica explains with a slight emphasis on yesterday.
"I, wow, I am honored and to be completely honest with you both I hadn't really considered SWAT as one of my options."
She has taken only a small step inside the observation room when she finds herself engulfed in a bear hug. "Welcome Home. Of course, you are the special guest they announced." She hears Luca excitedly exclaim.
"We are not telling the teams inside. But you can start the exercise now." Jessica orders firmly while Deacon steps over to Chris. "So it is true what Hondo said. You made sergeant?" He asks with a proud undertone.
Jessica rolls her eyes a little and asks, "he told only you I hope?"
"In confidence. I guess he wanted me to feel okay with leaving next week."
They share a quiet look, and a nod and Chris can only stare in disbelief.
What is going on here?
"Hondo chose me? He knows? How?" Is all she can get out.
"You really think he can be married to the boss and not hear about you being back?"
Chris stares between them silently for a second. "Congratulations, again. Wow."
After her brain has caught up, she furrows her brows. "How does that work? LAPD change regulations while I was away?"
Jessica smiles in return "No, not really. But they have no rules about married couples, "suddenly" showing up in their respective chain of command." the chuckle from Deac and Luca tells Chris that this is a sort of open secret around here.
"So, no Sergeant whichever team you end up on, you are not allowed to date any of them," Lynch explains with a mock seriousness that has Chris laughing too.
"I didn't plan on that. And I haven't said yes yet." Chris tries to keep their expectations low.
She can't deny she is tempted to come back to SWAT and getting 30 David would be a huge step up for her, but something is holding her back. And she knows she needs to figure out what that is before she can make a final decision.
"They are ready for entry," Luca pulls their focus back to the screens and the wide-open space below them.
Chris studies the monitors intently trying to figure out what sort of entry the team has planned.
In her head, she is counting out the SWAT uniforms crouching down in various places and something doesn't add up. "Are two teams entering?" she mumbles out loud.
"No, but good catch." Deacon whispers back. "Look closer to their positions."
And now she knows what was weird about the positions of some of those crouching officers. They were exposed.
"Who is running defense?" she turns to Deacon again. "Ryder, and a couple of recruits we pulled in to make up for 50 David being out."
"Ah," she mumbles non-committal and nods her head not knowing the name and certainly not knowing any of the recruits. "That's going to be interesting."
"Yeah, Luca trains them they know a couple of tricks." Lynch steps to them and points to the skylights. "Keep your eyes up there!"
"Any more revelations you have in store for me, Lynch?" Chris asks but does as advised anyway just seconds before she hears Luca giving the signal and the glass above bursts.
After the exercise is finished and 20 David managed to get through it without too much damage, Tan got hit in the arm, Chris walks out with Deacon.
"What are you doing tonight?" he asks nonchalant and looks at her.
"Nothing big, wanted to get started on unpacking my boxes." Chris replies.
"You found a place already?" Jessica catches up to them.
"Yeah, I guess I got lucky." Chris smiles thinking about her new home.
"Okay, so it's settled you are coming over for dinner and we can catch up properly. I am sure Victoria would love to meet her favorite aunty in person." Deac laughs and starts dialing the phone already. "Jess, you and Hondo in too?" he asks before ducking into an empty office to talk to Annie.
Jessica had nodded yes, and so Chris can't help but be amazed.
"This is going to be an interesting evening," Chris mumbles and continues following Cortez and Lynch back to the briefing room, to do after action on the exercise. Lynch had insisted.
"We want to be as clear as possible, we want you to be Hondo's right hand. And that means you get to be a part of this meeting."
Lynch pushes the door open while Chris replies again: "How often do I have to clarify this: I haven't made a decision yet. I am honored..."
She trails off when she notices the confused stares of the majority of people in the room.
Deacon walks in behind her. "All set, dinner is at 7." and slips into his seat.
Lynch starts the meeting without any mention of Chris.
"Do we need to take note of any distractions of a personal nature before we start this debrief? Tan?"
Chris follows her eyes to see Tan nod. "Yeah, just before we went in Bonnie texted."
"Is it time?" Cortez asked and Tan nods his head. "Then go, why are you still here. You know you could've left on the spot." Jess smiles at him slightly confused.
"I didn't want to mess up the exercise any more than it had already been with..." Tan tries to explain but Jess interrupts again. "Go, your team will fill you in later."
Moments later Tan walks past Chris with a smile and a mouthed "Welcome back!" that makes her smile.
Chris turns her attention back to the table when Lynch continues with "You want to start us off, sergeant?". She turns to face Hondo, whom she assumes will start with his opinion, but he only smiles at her in return and stays silent.
Glancing at Deac, Chris finally realizes all eyes have settled on her.
Going around the table she can see the incredulous expression on Street's face. She can feel a slight blush creeping up her cheeks. Chris hadn't intended for him, or anyone for that matter to find out this way.
For a split second, she remembers that they were friends, best friends for a while there before well everything had changed.
"Oh, ehm, you meant me?" she finally manages, and Lynch motions for her to start.
Chris can see some of the younger officers in the room start to whisper to each other. Great first impression you gave there. Now no one is going to take you seriously if you come back. If they still want you to come back after this.
"Well, I guess I should introduce myself first, just so the recruits know I am by no means an outsider. I spent a couple of years on 20 David, but for the last four, I have been specializing in intradepartmental and inter-agency work. With an emphasis on creating effective teamwork."
Chris takes a breath and by now the recruits have stopped mumbling and look at her in awe.
It might have been her explanation or the glares of their superiors. Chris couldn't be a hundred percent sure.
"I want to start with the defense team. You guys were very creative. I can give you that but," she points to the monitors showing the starting positions, " you left yourselves too exposed and this is why you got shot directly."
All the while she explains the pros and cons of the positions, she avoids Streets looks.
She remembers all too well the day she had left.
Street was staring at Chris with almost the same expression as four years ago when she had walked out of HQ with just a small wave in his direction. He had been in a by then common discussion with Molly about something or other and Chris couldn't subject herself to that again.
That one time in the kitchen had been enough.
Back then she had hoped her encouragement to him to try and fix it would work out but it hadn't looked like it.
She had excelled at the training center in Germany and apparently impressed the right people.
After she had gotten the offer to extend her stay with the liaison program and her accepting everything had moved so quickly. She hadn't even had time to realize that the connection had been broken completely. That had only hit her when she had received the invitation to Tan's wedding via E-Mail since her phone number had also changed in between her move to Boston.
And now? Sitting in this all too familiar conference room, being asked to assess the exercise she didn't even know how to approach the next part.