Date with Destiny
"Heya Pez. How are you feeling today?" retired chief Joe Siri came breezing through the white hospital door with an open topped wicker basket. Piled haphazardly inside were crossword puzzle books, magazines, and a couple paperback mysteries.
"Every day is a little better Joe. I really hate all this sitting around, which the nurses assure me is a sign that I'm almost recovered." Sara eyed the basket with the same look as a child trying to figure out what was under the wrappings of his Christmas present.
"Did you get it?" Sara added in a hushed voice, as if afraid to be overheard.
"Yeah yeah, I got it. Keep your shirt on." Joe grinned as he lifted the assorted reading material out of the basket. Somewhat squished underneath the camouflaging books was a white paper bag, made transparent in places by the grease soaking through.
"If you had to eat here, you'd be starving too," Pez grumbled as she reached for the bag. The smell of cheeseburger and French fries covered the antiseptic hospital smell, and Sara's stomach growled in counterpoint.
"I hope you know what you're doing. That stuff is bad for you when you're healthy." Siri just shook his head as Sara dove into the bag like a stray into a trashcan.
Not bothering to reply, Sara shot him a look of irritation for his mother hen attitude and very pointedly bit into the greasy burger.
"Where do you want the rest of this stuff?" Joe asked as he looked around.
The hospital room was as full of flowers as McCarty's desk had been on Valentine's Day. True, most of them were the cheap arrangements of mums, carnations, or daylilies, but it was the thought that counted. Sara Pezzini adored each one, especially the headless long stems from Vicki Po. Trust a coroner to send a 'Morticia Bouquet'. Sara had smiled each time her eyes landed on them.
Not all the gifts and cards were from fellow police officers though. Pezzini's near death at the hands of the daughter of one of the city's more famous serial killers had been a ten-day wonder. As crime scene reports were leaked to the press, the bizarre ritualism had caught the attention and imagination of the public, and gifts began to flood in from the civilian quarter.
"Just shove stuff around until you find a spot." Sara waved the hand with the burger, her other hand digging into the French fries.
"How about if I throw this one out the window?" Joe indicated a particularly tasteless but huge bouquet from the Tattler.
"Go ahead. If you manage to brain a reporter when you do it, I will love you forever." Pez mumbled around a mouthful of fries.
The media had made incredible pests of themselves, trying every trick in the book to get an interview or pictures of the convalescing detective to boost newspaper sales. Sara had been unconscious for the first few days, having nearly bled to death before help could arrive, so she missed the initial flurry of reporters. By the time she was conscious for longer than minutes at a time, a pair of uniforms had been assigned to the door of her room to keep the media vultures at bay.
Normally they would have moved on to bothering her relatives, but Pezzini didn't have any immediate family. Undeterred, they had taken to following her coworkers. Jake seemed to have gotten the worst of it, never being able to go anywhere without being pestered. Orlinsky had told her all about it in that dry voice of his, a half-smile quirking his lips, when he came in to take her statement.
"I don't see any," Joe's voice was filled with disappointment as it floated back over his shoulder. He was hanging out the open window, apparently looking for targets.
"Ah well, just put it on the floor then. Besides, I can just imagine the headlines if you had found a victim." Sara chuckled.
"You sure you want me to even bother to leave them? They'll make great camouflage for the next munchie run." Siri raised an eyebrow. It went without saying that Pezzini would ask him to smuggle more food in. Yesterday it had been Coney dogs with extra onions and relish.
After a week of self-examination, Sara was almost desperate enough to watch reruns of Jerry Springer, just to get away from the recriminating voices in her head. Those magazines could be Vogue or Redbook and she'd still read through them for a break.
Danny and Ian had both been right about her, as much as it pained her to admit it. Even more painful was the fact that she had not heard from Danny at all since that night. Without the Witchblade, she could not communicate with her deceased partner. It was the one thing she missed about the Gauntlet. The fact that she was missing anything about that accursed bracelet told her quite clearly that she had too much time on her hands.
"No, I really need something to do once visiting hours are over. There's nothing on TV worth watching. Believe me, I've looked, and McCarty won't bring any of our caseload in. I am bored out of my skull Joe." Sara plopped back on the pillows; wincing slightly as her less-than-cautious movement jarred the neat row of stitches that marched from wrist to elbow.
Even during visiting hours Pezzini had seen very few people, only the detectives assigned to the case, her rookie partner Jake, a few visits from Kenneth Irons that she still wasn't sure how she felt about, and a small handful of close friends. It had reminded her rather strongly of Ian's words to her that fateful night. She had kept an emotional distance between herself and anyone who would let her, in an effort to insulate herself from the pain of losing another friend. It had worked; she had many acquaintances, and almost no close friends.
"I am left here with nothing to do but think too much. Contemplating my mortality is not my idea of a good time, you know?" Lying in a hospital bed listening to monitors beeping, Sara had begun to reevaluate her decisions. It had been easier to submerge her self in work and never think about the future or the past, when she actually had something to do. Now it was painfully clear that she had simply existed, an automaton struggling from day to day without expectations or hopes. Just another cog in the justice system machine, doing her job because it was all she knew.
"I can remember what that's like. Been in and out of the hospital a few times myself," Joe grunted sympathetically.
"Must have been before my time," Sara teased.
"Hell yeah, Dante was just a rookie, that's how long ago it was." Siri dropped into the oversized but still uncomfortable metal and cloth chair.
"Ah, the Stone Age."
"Hey, show some respect, you little punk. I changed your diapers, and I'm not afraid to circulate your baby pictures." Joe fell back on his favorite threat.
"Don't think retirement will keep you safe from my revenge if you do," Sara warned, trying to keep a straight face and failing.
"It might be worth it. Oh, speaking of revenge," the transition was awkward, but Joe had put off telling Sara this for long enough, "You know Dante is carrying his grudge against your father to the next generation."
"I gathered as much." Pezzini couldn't help wondering where Siri was going with all of this.
"Yeah, but I bet you don't know why. Not that it matters. All that you need to know is that Dante is going to do everything in his power to get you off the Force, and this could be the lever he uses to shove you out."
"What are you talking about?" Sara's brow furrowed in confusion and anger that Dante was on her ass, even here.
"After a traumatic event like this there will be a psychological evaluation done before they let you return to work. It's standard operating procedure. I think the shrink's gonna be told to make sure you fail your eval. It's perfect for him. No one would be surprised if you were psychologically unfit; after all, no one knows what happened to you for sure. They only know what's been in the papers, and that's led to a lot of lurid speculation really."
"Oh please, that bitch wasn't even close to breaking me. Killing me yes, making me crazy no." Pez rolled her eyes.
"You know it's much harder to prove you're sane than not Sara. How much harder will it be when the person evaluating you has their career on the line? I'm sorry kiddo, but I think you're screwed unless you've got some strings to pull and markers to call in that I don't know about." Siri stared deep into her green eyes, willing Pez to understand how far up the creek she really was.
"I can't believe this!" Sara exploded, arms flinging outward as if to push everything away from her. "Why would you think Dante is going to do this?"
"Come on Sara, you know that if Bruno had been acting Captain when Danny was shot you'd be lucky to be holding down a desk somewhere. I wasn't going to tell you this, but I had to call in the last of my favors to get you reinstated, kiddo." Joe winced as Sara shot up in bed, cheeks flushed with anger and that deep down guilt that Joe was all too familiar with, the feeling that if you had just done something different your partner would still be alive. It was how he felt about her father, even after all these years.
"What the Hell? It's not like I shot my partner, or brought him knowingly into a situation beyond our control," Pezzini growled, ignoring the voice in her head whispering that it had been her idea to go into the Rialto. "I thought the hearing was a formality only!"
"I'm afraid not. Dante wanted you out. No one wanted to make waves with the new Captain, he's got some serious connections, and he wanted your ass bounced pretty badly. There was also the fact that Danny was well liked. The committee was looking for someone to blame, and since they couldn't get Gallo, they would have settled for you." Joe rubbed a hand over his face.
"Why are you just now telling me this?" Sara had gone pale, her jaw tight as she tried to hold her emotions in.
"I hadn't planned to ever tell you this. I knew how you'd take it, but I haven't done you any favors keeping it back. You have no idea how much Bruno hated your dad, and you are too much like him for comfort. He's never going to like or accept you, but I had hoped he would come to respect you professionally, and leave you alone to do your job. From what I've been hearing, that isn't the case." Siri paused, giving Pezzini a hard look. Word was, the attitude was coming from both sides.
"He's an ass, and worse than that, he's dirty Joe. I can feel it." Sara could hardly admit that the Witchblade had shown her visions of a younger Dante taking a payoff.
"You'd better be damn careful where you say that unless you've got some very impressive proof. When I said Dante had connections, I meant very high connections. You could have him on video taking a hundred kilos of cocaine from the evidence locker, or taking a payoff from Gallo himself, and it wouldn't matter. They would say it was part of an investigation, and that you were barking up the wrong tree. Then they'd fire your ass." Joe warned grimly, his face set in warning.
"I'd already suspected there was a conspiracy. I'd thank you for the confirmation, but I can't help wondering how you knew for certain," Pezzini had no intention of backing away from this, but it was breaking her heart to hear Siri talk like that. It meant he had played ball with the same people that owned Dante. What had he done during his stint as Captain that he would have had favors with that crowd?
"Look, you do what you have to sometimes. I was in a position to find things out, usually too late to do anything about it. I used that information where I could to help the department. Where do you think the budget increases last year came from?" Joe paused and raised a questioning brow, letting her know it was not a rhetorical question.
"I thought City Hall had read the reports on the crime increase and agreed we needed more manpower." Sara parroted what everyone had been told.
"Yeah right. Those bastards part with money that they could be lining their pockets with? I don't think so. No, I found out the mayor's son had been picked up for possession. I made a deal with his dad, and the report disappeared. That's just part of it, but you play ball or you get knocked out of the game." Siri looked very tired suddenly.
"Knocked out of the game?" Pez said, still digesting the idea that Joe was not above circumventing the law, no matter what kind of gain he had achieved with his compromise.
"If you're lucky, you just lose position. If not, you or someone you care about gets hurt. If you're very unlucky, people die. Believe me, organized crime is for the ones who can't hack public service politics." Siri looked out the window, unable to face the hurt and disillusionment in the face of the woman he had always regarded as a daughter.
"Why?" Sara choked out, "Why would you get involved in something like that?"
"It's not like I woke up one morning and decided to play poker with the Devil. It's a slow progression of compromises, of trading away pieces of your soul for the greater good until one day you realize you've traded away the last piece and are now part of the evil you were trying to bring down. Once you're that far in, there's no way out."
Joe pushed himself out of the chair and began to pace around the room, his inner turmoil needing a physical outlet. He knew he was hurting Sara with every word, that there was every chance he was nailing the coffin shut on their relationship, but he would rather lose her regard than see her come to the same end as her father.
"Sometimes I can still do good, and sometimes I am too small a fish to do anything but keep my head down, do what I'm told, and survive." Explaining political expediency in the department to Sara was like telling a child there was no Santa. She kept looking at him like she was waiting for him to take it back, to tell her he was just kidding. Unfortunately he couldn't do that.
"Was my dad's death one of those 'keep your head down' times?" Sara asked, hoping for instantaneous denial. When Joe just stood there, looking like a stunned fish, Pezzini had her answer.
"Get out." Sara said, feeling cold all the way down to her soul.
"Sara, it wasn't like that, let me explain," Siri pleaded.
"I think you've said enough. Just leave," Pez turned away from him to stare out the window.
Joe stood there for several moments, trying to think what he could do or say that would break through to her, but nothing came to him. With a sigh he walked out, shoulders slumped in grief. He didn't know if Sara would ever forgive him. He didn't know if he could forgive himself for hurting her, or for failing her and his old partner.
Sara waited until the door closed with a soft click before allowing the tears to fall.