Title: Dreams Never Go Out of Business
Summary: She'd always thought that one day things would fall into place for her, that she would get married, have children, and live happily ever after. Never in her wildest dreams could she have predicted that at fifty-five she would still be waiting for her dreams to come true. (Trudy/ Mouch.) Ch 1 has been edited & Reposted.
Disclaimer: I do not own Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, or any of its characters. They belong to Dick Wolf & Matt Olmstead. I do, however, own my writing so please don't steal- SantinaJo©
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A/N: This is a sort of timeline based on the evolution of Trudy & Mouch's relationship. I'll be using my creative license to fill in the missing pieces. I hope you enjoy! (Platt/Ruzek Dialogue comes from CPD S1E11.)
-01-
"It was good seeing you, Pumpkin," Robert Platt told his daughter as he embraced her tightly. He pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead and rubbed his hand along her back a few times before releasing her.
"You too, Daddy."
"Adam seems like a nice guy," he told her, the corner of his lips curling upward in a smile.
"He's alright," Trudy shrugged, dropping her eyes down toward the pavement. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and shuffled awkwardly in place under her father's gaze.
For years, she'd worked with some of the vilest offenders on the streets of Chicago, and none of them had ever made her feel as nervous or her stomach feel as queasy, as her father did. She'd been a daddy's girl from the moment she was born, and the thought of disappointing him made her want to disappear into nothingness.
"Do you think this one's going to last?" her father asked gently.
"I hope so," Trudy told him. She sounded more like a meek 15-year-old girl, and not at all like the sarcastic, hot-headed police sergeant she'd become.
"Mmm," Robert hummed softly. His eyes shifted from his daughter to her car, which was parked a few spaces away, to see Adam was sitting in the passenger seat. His eyes flickered back to his daughter's and he felt his pride deflate at the sad, pleading look being reflected in her eyes.
He wasn't a stupid man by any means. He knew that Adam Ruzek wasn't her fiancé, let alone her boyfriend, but he didn't have the heart to call her on it. Instead, he reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a sealed envelope with Trudy's name scribbled across it in his messy handwriting. He'd always intended to write her a check, the thought of stopping never crossing his mind in all the thirty years that they'd been doing this dance.
"I do hope you know how proud I am to call you my daughter," he told her as he held out the envelope. "You do a job that not many people could, and you do it well."
"I sit behind a desk," Trudy corrected him with a frown as she accepted the envelope. Her time working the street had ended some fifteen years ago, the buckshot of a 12-gauge entering her hip and ending her dreams of being promoted to a detective.
"Don't discount yourself," her father told her sternly. "You've always been a hard worker and you did a lot of good work on the street before you got hurt. I always worried about you when you were on patrol, and I'm going to keep worrying about you because that is what a parent does."
"Daddy," Trudy smiled at him softly, "You don't need to worry about me."
"I just want you to be safe," he told her. His eyes moved back to where Ruzek was waiting in the car. "And happy. You deserve to be happy, Trudy."
"I know." Her lips thinned into a sad smile, and she bowed her head at him gently. "Goodnight, daddy."
"Goodnight, Pumpkin." Robert stood outside of his car, watching his daughter until she was buckled up in the driver's seat and pulling out of the parking lot.
…
Trudy was quiet as she drove the distance from the restaurant back to the police station. She hardly even acknowledged Adam's presence as she processed the conversation that she'd had with her father. She never knew how to feel after a night like tonight. Going into it, she'd always talked herself up into thinking she'd feel relieved, and while she was glad that it was over, she felt strangely empty.
It wasn't rare to hear her father tell her he was proud of her, or even that he loved her, but tonight his words had felt sad. Even if he was proud of her, and even if he had meant everything that he'd said, she still couldn't shake this gnawing feeling that she had let him down.
It didn't matter how strong, resilient, or even how accomplished of a woman that she was, he was old-fashioned. He was a man who believed that a woman—that his daughter—should be settled down and have a family. Most women her age were starting to welcoming grandchildren into the world, and here she was, having never even welcomed a child.
She bit her lip deeply in thought, and it was the pain of her teeth breaking skin, and the metallic taste of blood, that brought her back to the present.
"Which car is yours?" she asked finally as she turned into the employee parking lot of the CPD.
"This ford pickup right over here," Adam told her, pointing toward a silver truck.
"Well thanks for that," she told him dryly as she pulled up next to his truck and put her car in park.
"No, I had a good time, you know, thank you for inviting me" he smiled. "Your dad seems great."
"He's a blowhard," she told him honestly, with a shrug. "But he's not too bad when you get to know him."
"I gotta ask you something Sarge," he unbuckled his seatbelt and turned toward. "Why haven't you told him your gay?"
When she'd first enlisted his help, he'd been concerned at what she'd had planned, but when she'd told him in the breakroom what this night was all about, he'd felt sorry for her. He couldn't imagine the exhaustion of having to put on a show every year, just for your parents to accept you.
"Gay?"
"Yea," he nodded his head. "I just—I think—and I know I'm speaking out of school here, but I think he'd be cool with it. He seems like—"
She turned toward him, her eyes darkening with frustration. "I'm not gay," she interrupted him.
"What?" He couldn't contain his bewilderment even if he'd tried.
"I did half the guys in my class in the academy," she told him seriously. "Just because I haven't found someone worth a damn to settle down with doesn't make me—" she cut herself off, not wanting to share with him any more of her personal life than she already had. "Wow."
Adam stumbled over himself in an apology, searching blindly for the door handle so that he could escape from the uncomfortable situation he'd just created. If she weren't so offended by his accusation, she would have laughed at how utterly uncomfortable she'd made him.
Being a closeted lesbian would have been the least of her issues. In fact, maybe it would have made things easier, for it would have been better than admitting that no man had ever found her worthy enough to marry.
As a young woman, she'd chased love in every direction. At twenty years old, she'd dropped out of college to follow her boyfriend to LA, playing keyboard in his band Black Ice. It had been a fun time, albeit not the time to settle down. After that relationship had ended, she'd done a solid job of screwing her head on straight. She'd joined the police academy the following year, and had accepted everything that had come with being a woman in law enforcement.
The challenge of having to prove herself to the boys had toughened her up in the best of ways. With their trust came responsibilities and promotions. As far as her career was concerned, everything had fallen into perfect place, and she'd expected that the other components of her life would follow suit.
She'd never been one of those women who strayed from dating, or who thought that the traditional lifestyle was beneath her. In fact, it was something that she coveted more than anything. Nobody knew this about her, but deep down, Trudy Platt was in love with the idea of being in love. She always had been.
She'd always thought that one day things would fall into place for her, that she would get married, have children, and live happily ever after. Never in her wildest dreams could she have predicted that at fifty-five she would still be waiting for her dreams to come true.