Title: Tough Love
Rating: Teens
Spoilers: Anything up to and including "Welcome Home"
Summary: Post fic for "Welcome Home".
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Third Watch at all.
A/N: There may be a follow up to this coming soon...not too sure yet :)

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

I stood there on the stairs, watching her walk up to the front desk.

She was doing it. She was actually going to talk to Swersky about me. After a sharp intake of breath, I turned away. I couldn't see her betray me. I couldn't see her not believe in me one more time.

I made my way to the locker room and let myself fall on the bench in front of my locker. My lungs pumped air in and out with the speed and intensity of a marathon run recovery. But my inability to catch my breath had nothing to do with physical exertion.

I was angry.

I was upset.

I was heartbroken.

There were only a few others milling around the locker room, some left over from the third watch, others late and rushing for the first. I kept my eyes away, staring at the closed locker directly in front of me.

My scars ached. The bandaged wound on my face was throbbing with the tension coursing throughout my body. It wasn't anything new. I mean, come on. I took four bullets, I'm gonna be in some pain. I reached out and opened the locker, pulling out my duffle bag and began digging for the bottle of pain killers I always kept floating around in case the pain got to be too much to handle.

This one of those moments.

Between the burning in my joints from all the physical activity earlier in the day and the anger and frustration tearing through me, the pain was intense. Too intense to deal with by taking deep, calming breaths.

Opening the bottle, I took out a couple of house-sized pills and tossed them in my mouth as I walked to the sink for some water. Swallowing them gratefully, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, glad that the room had cleared.

I was struck suddenly by how different I looked. I saw myself in the mirror every single day, but I barely ever really ilooked/i at myself. My eyes were sad, lost. The frown lines on my face were more pronounced than I had ever remembered them being.

I would much rather them be laugh lines.

I looked old. Tired. Worn. The list goes on and on. And not one thing describes the man I used to be.

I sighed heavily before turning and walking back to the bench.

This is it. I'm done. Faith got her way.

I'd actually had a pretty great day. Sul took me out with him and I caught the guy. Me. It was an amazing feeling that I'm sad to say that I forgotten. I'd forgotten about the rush of pride and adrenaline that speeds through my body after an arrest.

I wanted to smile at the memory, but I can't. I can't force my mouth to move in that direction.

I pull the clothes from my locker and quickly change from my uniform into my street clothes, crumpling up and shoving the uniform into my waiting duffle bag. I sat back down with my shoulders slumped.

I wait.

When the door opens several minutes later, I know that it's her.

I hear the footsteps stop behind me for a moment before they tentatively walk toward me.

"I'm sorry, Bosco…I don't --"

I raised my hand to stop her. I don't want to hear that it's for the best. I don't want to hear that it 'isn't about me anymore'. I don't want to hear anything from her.

"You and me, we're done. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear from you. I want you out of my life and I want to be out of yours." I stood up and slid my jacket over my arms. I picked up my bag with everything from my locker packed inside and turned to look at her for the first time.

I didn't see my Faith. I saw someone who I couldn't trust, someone who didn't trust me. I saw someone who let the meaning of friendship and partnership fall from her grasp. I saw tears mixing with pride in unfamiliar eyes.

"I don't know you," I said in an angry whisper.

"Bos, you did the right thing…stepping down," she started, taking a step closer to me. Putting out my arm to stop her I shook my head feeling the anger push up in my throat.

"The right thing? The right thing, Faith?" I yelled, coming from around the bench. "I lost the only thing I had left because of you. I had to step down before you got me fired. The right thing! What a joke."

I walked closer to her. I needed her to see that I was serious. I was sure that while I didn't recognize her anymore that she would still be able to read the emotions painted in my eyes just as well as she always had.

"The right thing would have been helping your partner. You wouldn't know the right thing if it slapped you in the face." I went to walk away but she took my arm in her hand, stopping me.

"Bos," she started. I pulled my arm from her roughly.

"Don't you ever call me that."

She winced and took in a breath of shock and the tears that had welled in her eyes began to fall furiously down her cheeks. At one time that sight alone would have broken me. But after everything, the tears just made me snicker. She thought she was hurting? She didn't know pain.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

He stared at me with nothing but rage and disgust before spinning on his heels and pushing forcefully through the locker room door, leaving me alone in the empty room.

I breathed heavily, fighting the emerging sobs. I sat on the bench where he had just been sitting, in front of his now empty locker. It hadn't been empty in over twelve years. Even while he was in the hospital there were things in there. Old deodorant, soap, toothpaste…all of his things that had been waiting for him to come back the next day stayed just where he left them. Things that nobody wanted to remove because of the implication. Things that I stared at everyday when I came in, reminding me that he would come back. His stuff was here. He had to.

He had to.

I felt the emptiness of that locker deep in the pit of my stomach.

Oh God, what did I do?

I leaned on my knees, holding my face in my hands as I tried to justify what I had done, what I said, who I had become.

I sucked back in the tears. I sucked back in the emotion, forcing myself to feel nothing. There was no other way that I could get through the days unless I felt nothing. I had gotten pretty good at it, actually.

There was so much that I had to push out of my mind; the pang of loneliness I felt my first day as a detective without my partner, the sight of Bosco lying not only on the floor covered in blood and death but also of him lying in the hospital bed for months wrapped in the layers and layers of gauze that hid his brutal wounds and the guilt of being the one responsible for all of that, the loss of my family and of my son to Fred, being a murderer…The list never ends. So you see? I had lots and lots of practice.

I don't know how long I stayed sitting there staring into the emptiness, the darkness but it was pure exhaustion that forced me to finally move. I slipped slowly from the locker room and made my way to my stuffy office where I pulled my jacked on and grabbed my purse and slowly headed out. I had no energy to move with any kind of speed.

Swersky was still finishing up some paper work as I approached the front lobby. He looked up and met my eyes with a sympathetic smile.

"Yokas," he called, motioning for me to go to him. "Don't walk away from him and don't let him walk away from you. After everything, you both need a friend."

I tried to smile, but I'm not sure how well it actually worked out.

"I don't think I'm the friend he needs," I said quietly, turning away and walking through the main doors into the cool night not waiting for a reply from Lieu.

I took in a grateful breath of the New York fresh air and held it in my lungs for a few moments before letting is slowly escape. I started down the steps, ready to make my way to the trains. I was stopped in my tracks however when I looked up and saw him leaning against his car, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched me.

I didn't know if I should approach Bosco, or keep walking towards the subway. His gaze though made my legs carry me straight to him. His eyes weren't the same ones that had just banished me from his life and stormed out of the locker room. They were hazy and pensive and sad.

He looked like he was trying to figure out who I was, how he knew me. Like I was some random person passing him on the street with a vaguely familiar face.

I said nothing as I came to a stop in front of him. I just stood staring back at him, never breaking the gaze, but not knowing what to say that wouldn't just make things worse, if that was possible.

He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it and closed it again and finally looked away. Now his eyes were fixed on the ground in between us.

I hated not knowing what he was feeling.

I hated not knowing how I was feeling.

On one hand I was thrilled that he was standing out here, waiting for me. On the other I was terrified that he just wanted to drill home the point that we weren't friends anymore.

That we weren't anything.

He looked back up at me and began to speak softly.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

I pushed the door of the locker room open roughly, slamming it into the wall on the other side. Yelling at her didn't make me feel any better. I wanted scream and yell forever, and I could have. But I knew that it just made the anger continue to burn through me and grow, and not just at her and the rest of the world, but at myself.

I should have known. I always felt like shit after I yelled at her. Although this time I felt less like shit, and more like I just lost a piece of myself. Which I really had.

Instead of feeling some kind of finality coming with the words I had just spewed, it still felt unresolved. And I couldn't fight that little twinge of yearning from developing inside of me. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk back in there and demand for her to make me understand so I didn't have to walk away. But I didn't. I kept walking.

I was almost to the door, the anger still clear in my face when I finally heard Lieu calling my name.

Turning only out of obligation, I faced him. He motioned for me to go closer to him, waiting to speak until I was in front of the desk.

"Don't hate her," Swersky said quietly so no one else around would hear him. I just stared back at him with a raised eyebrow, questioning his interference with my eyes. "She's worried. She's been worried since the day you were shot. She just doesn't know how to deal with it."

So he was going to defend her?

"Listen Lieu, I don't wanna hear it, okay?" He held up his hand effectively shutting me up.

"You didn't see her Bosco. You didn't see her in that hospital. You think you were bad after she was shot? You were nowhere close to how she was."

He stopped and we stared at each other for a moment, him waiting for me to actually hear what he was saying and me waiting for him to explain what the hell it mattered.

"Why the hell are you telling me this?" I asked finally, in a voice that was made me thankful that he was no longer my boss.

"Do you think she stopped worrying when you got out of the hospital?" he asked in an annoyed whisper, pointing at me. "When did you worry about her most?" His voice rose a bit then, and I felt my face soften. I knew the answer. He knew the answer. There was no need to say it.

When she came back to work there was a resurgence of the fear I had felt the day she was shot. I looked at her and knew that as much as I worried, I couldn't be witness to it every day. In the long run though, I can honestly say that I'm glad she clawed her way back into 55-David with me, because otherwise I would have spent every minute of every shift worrying that her new partner wasn't good enough.

Running my hand over the left side of my tired face I thought about that. I thought about how I treated her. I lied. I avoided. But I never, ever mistrusted. Not for a second did I think that she couldn't do her job.

I'm not an idiot. I know that as hard as it is for me to be out on the streets without her, in a way I can't entirely understand it's just as hard for her to know that I'm out there and she can't do anything for me. I get that.

I felt the anger start to melt away leaving only a trail of fatigue and misery.

"That doesn't explain why she's been acting like she has," I said quietly, looking down at the desk in front of me.

Sighing he shook his head.

"Talk to her. Ask her about that night. Ask her." With that he waved me off, sending me on my way. I watched his annoyed face for a few moments before nodding and heading outside. I walked numbly to my car, thinking about Faith. I had never thought about what ishe/i had gone through. I knew she would have been worried. But I never forced myself to think about what had been going through her mind since that day.

I opened the door and slid behind the wheel feeling the cool comfort of familiarity. Without a moment's hesitation, I started the car and pulled out into the nearly empty street. Even before I took the first corner, though I knew I wouldn't be leaving just yet. Sighing in acceptance, I drove furiously around the block, coming back to the front of the precinct, parking right where I wouldn't be missed.

I sat in my idling blue Mustang, leaving myself ample opportunity to peel away, sticking by what I had said to Faith just minutes earlier in the locker room. As the minutes continued to tick past, I whipped my head around to the front doors. What the hell could she possibly doing? I hadn't realized until that moment just how anxious I was to talk to her, to figure things out.

Slamming the steering wheel with my open palms, I let out a few choice expletives and roughly opened the door and got out into the crisp very early spring evening and walked to the opposite side of the car so she would be faced with me as soon as she walked down the few steps to the sidewalk.

I leaned on the car, letting my head fall back so the light wind could soothe my tired body. It was only a few more minutes before I heard the doors open. Before I even looked up I knew that it was her. The place was pretty dead this late at night so there were very few people coming and going.

I looked up and saw her take a deep breath with her eyes closed. Clutching her purse under her arm, she stood there for a few moments before making her way down. She didn't see me right away, but when she did she froze. She looked worn out, tired. I felt a twinge of hurt and guilt knowing that I was probably the main contributor to her attitude and appearance.

She didn't say anything. I'm glad for that. I don't think that I could have said what I wanted to had she stood there giving me more excuses for what she was doing. She held my eyes, letting me search hers for my friend. The person I missed more than anything of all I had lost.

"Swersky talked to me on my way out," I said finally after I looked away. She kept silent, only nodding when I looked back to her. "He told me to ask you about the night I was shot."

I immediately saw her body tense, her back stiffen. Her eyes grew hazy through the tears I knew she was holding back.

She finally looked away from me, her eyes falling but focusing nowhere. She shook her head, dislodging several silent tears.

"I don't wanna talk about it," was all she said, but made no move to walk away.

I sighed heavily, needing to get her to talk.

"Ya know, when you were shot…I was a mess. I was convinced that if someone would just tell me that you were gonna be okay, then everything would be fine. But no one would tell me. Even when they could, they wouldn't. I almost lost my mind."

She wasn't looking at me. Her face was turned to the side, looking away from me completely. But I could see the glistening wet streaks along her cheeks.

"I would've done anything if it would have meant that you would be okay."

She finally looked up, shocked at my words. She knew. She had always known that I felt that way. It was fairly obvious and she is a smart woman. There have been hundreds of times in all the years we've known each other where I made my feelings blatantly obvious, just as she had hers, but the words were never actually passed between us.

I shifted uneasily, feeling the weight of what I was going to tell her fully resting on my shoulders.

"Swersky reminded me about how I felt when you came back to work, and I guess…I guess that got me thinking…about how you must feel. I mean, I don't know if that's why you're doing what you are, but I guess I wouldn't be doing things much differently." Stopping when she brought her hand to her face to calm herself, I pushed off of the car and took a step closer to her so we were only a step apart.

"And I didn't want you to leave here tonight thinking that I could walk out of the House and put you out of my mind." I took a breath when her eyes met mine and I was greeted with shock.

"You couldn't?" she said, putting her hands on her hips, letting me know that she didn't believe me with a tone that was more like a statement than a question. "You seemed pretty okay with it up until now."

"Faith, can't you just understand that I need you?" I started to feel the anger creep back through my body but I fought to control it. I wanted to fix this. I needed to fix this. "I need you. I need my best friend. I can't do this alone."

I watched as she let out a breath that she had been holding, letting her body relax. Saying nothing she stepped to me and pulled me into a hug. Hesitating at first, I slowly brought my hands up to her back, touching her tentatively and holding her tightly.

"Can't you understand that I can't lose you?" she whispered into my ear. I felt her warm tears falling and sliding down my neck. "I can't go through it all again."

We stood next to my car in front of the precinct wrapped around each other in silence until cold rain started to fall on us, finally breaking us apart.

"Get in. I'll drive you home."

She smiled and nodded as I opened the door for her before going around and getting in myself. I started the car and closed my eyes briefly, revelling in the wonderful feeling of familiarity of having Faith, imy/i Faith next to me that I had been craving for so long.

Looking at her, I saw her staring back at me.

"Think we can finally talk without killing each other?" she asked with a slight chuckle.

"Tough love, right?" I said with a smile, putting the car in gear.

"Tough love," she agreed and smiled with fresh tears glistening in her eyes, keeping them on me as I drove. For the first time in months I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I was next to the person I was supposed to be next to.

Pulling up to her apartment after a drive filled with comfortable silence, she motioned for me to follow her up.

"Time to talk," she sighed loudly getting out of the car.

"Definitely," I agreed quietly, following behind her, letting out a long breath. Smiling I held the door to her apartment building, letting her enter. Waiting for me before continuing she reached for my hand. Taking it gratefully, we took the stairs to her floor.

I had never been more excited to have what would without a doubt become an all night conversation.