I've been let down

But never been tainted

So I stay thirsty for more

No, I won't hold back

No drop is wasted

I'll let love run its course

Drunk on Love, Rihanna

Z

The LA traffic was as thick and heavy as the summer afternoon. There was a crushing horde of commuters being rerouted due to a few accidents and even though there was still a flow to it, traffic was bumper to bumper. I got honked at by a black BMW as I changed lanes and pulled off of our exit so I flipped them off out the window before I downshifted. I was moving through the gears almost without thinking now.

"You know, I think I'm getting the hang of this," I told Brian.

His smile was a little limp when he looked over at me.

"Are you still hurting?"

"I'm a little sore."

True to his and Lisa's words, they hadn't needed the rest of us. While Phillips and I slept it off at home, they met the few other sober agents at the office and together with the help of the weekend night skeleton crew managed to chase down our criminal. Sure enough, it was the thin, sketchy looking Asian man Brian had been suspecting all along. When they went to bust him leaving the club, he ran for it, managing to lead them on a decently long foot chase. Brian won, but he won by dragging the guy off the top of a twelve-foot fence, taking the brunt of the fall on his back.

He'd spent the rest of the night in the ER, getting poked and prodded and x rayed to make sure nothing was broken. Thankfully, everything came back clear and he was able to be released about the time I had slept it off enough to sober up and drive.

That was pretty good timing because apparently I was his emergency contact and I was the one who the nurse called to get him home while he was sleeping off the pain meds.

I used his trick of borrowing a car from impound -with Penning's permission-because I figured that would bring a smile to his face. He deserved it; this was a massive bust for him. Everyone in the office was talking about it and calling to congratulate him, but he was, unfortunately, was not getting to partake in the big celebrations at the office.

It had sort of worked, but he looked too tired and stiff to fully appreciate the Subaru Impreza I had borrowed for him. I had taken him straight to a chiropractor on Stasiak's recommendation and that had seemed to help, but he was clearly getting a few days off after this bust.

Neither of us had mentioned the fact that I was the only one he had to call. Truth be told, it broke my heart a little. It also made me realize that the only one I had to put on my emergency contact when I moved here was Penning and I needed to change that to someone else.

I knew my life sucked, but I was fully aware my life sucked. I had walked away from my friends who didn't understand my need to go further and my fiance, but that last one wasn't such a loss. I did miss the neighborhood we lived in and the house, but that was about it from him. My last set foster parents were so elderly that they had passed away a long time ago and I hadn't kept up with any of my foster siblings. I knew when I got on that plane to LA that I wouldn't have anyone when I landed.

Brian was so bright and kind that I expected him to at least have someone here. If he was single, which I was kind of surprised pretty boy was because he should have been beating off the women with his baton, I was at least expecting him to have a close-knit group of guys. Even if work wasn't going well, I figured he would have his bros from something else. His family didn't say anything about his family, and I could fill in the blanks on that one because mine didn't either.

Of all people to have no one, it shouldn't have been Brian. He didn't deserve that.

"Marcus keeps calling me to meet him at this fancy-schmancy cafe for lunch out in Hollywood," I told Brian to distract him from how sore he was as my phone started to buzz in my cup holder for the third time that day.

"Are we going?" He asked as he picked it up, and looked at the caller ID. Sure enough "DR DOOM" was scrolling across the front screen.

"Of course not. I'm going to pick you up some take out, get your prescriptions, and see if I could find a better way to get you home than that mess." I flipped a hand at the freeway overpass filled with cars we were now driving next to. I turned left to pull down a side street, blowing through a yellow earning another honk from a guy trying to turn right. "Damn, this car is fast."

I was expecting Brian to descend back into silence, so I was completely unprepared to him greeting somebody about the time the vibrations of my phone stopped.

I whipped my head around to see him leaning back in the passenger seat with my cell phone against his ear. He gave me a sharp look and pointed at the road. With a huff, I refocused back on the side street in front of me.

"Yeah, man. Look, she's driving a stick, she can't hold the phone and do that in this traffic." My anger grew as he paused to listen to Marcus on the other end. "Yeah. Yeah, sure. Which restaurant was it? Yeah, I know where that is. It'll be at least twenty minutes because of a wreck. Is that still alright? Okay. We'll see you there."

My entire head was getting hot as I struggled for the words to tell him how angry I was. He looked a little smug sitting there. Finally, I managed to bark out a "What the fuck?"

"Make this right up here and we're going to straight down this road for a few miles and take a left." He paused, his icy blue eyes taking in my angry face. "It's going to take over an hour to get back to my apartment and you know it. You also know you need to do this. Maybe he'll leave you alone."

"Brian, I am not dressed for this. I just threw on the first thing I could grab." I indicated my t-shirt and running shorts, which by some accident exactly matched Brian's t-shirt and jeans that I had found in his gym bag at work and brought to the hospital for him to change into. Apparently we both had a deep love of the color blue.

"There are stores." He indicated some of the buildings flying by the windows.
"Do you know what area we're in?" I almost shrieked as I started to get nervous on top of angry.

"Consignment." He pointed directly ahead and to the right.

Thankfully it was to the right. I downshifted and pulled us off the road. I thought I was pretty smooth despite the speed, but Brian's eyes were a little wide when I looked over and he was grabbing the door handle for support.

"Look, there's a pharmacy," I told him as I pulled into a parking space and turned off the car between the two businesses in a strip mall. "It's time for your meds."

"Yeah." He muttered under his breath as I opened my driver's side door. I shot him a look.

"You got something to say, O'Conner?" I raised my eyebrows.

"You're an aggressive driver. I like it, but not today." He shot me his first real, bright smile of the day. I felt myself smiling back.

"We need to get you home instead of going to lunch with my psycho ex." I shut the door and reached for the keys in the ignition to restart the car.

"I need to get out of the car and walk, and we'll be in traffic for hours if we try to go now. I might as well take my medicine and get some entertainment out of this." He slapped my shoulder and started opening his door.

"Do you need help getting out?" I put my hand on his shoulder. He brushed me off gently.

"Go buy yourself something pretty." He patted my head sarcastically and left me to run my own errand.

I moved away from the car slowly, I felt myself wanting to hover over Brian like a mother hen as he made his way into the pharmacy. He was clearly sore. He was usually bouncy and loose and ready to go at any minute, but today he was stiff like a mummy in an old horror movie. I started to walk in with him, but before I made it three steps towards the door of the pharmacy, he turned and waved goodbye before tapping his watch and heading inside.

Knowing he was just as stubborn as I was when he decided on something, I let it go and hurried into the store next door.

The girl at the counter didn't even look up when I walked in, which was fine by me. I quickly flipped a few price tags and figured out I could only buy one thing to make an outfit work, which might be a bad thing considering I had on running clothes. With a sigh, I started flipping through the racks. I snatched a few things off the hanger and tossed them into the dressing room. I took a quick second to glance at the shoes before trying everything on.

That was a mistake. Before I knew it, I was running my fingers over the smooth expensive Italian leather heels, practically drooling at my options. I was going to have to take Lisa back to this place. They were all pretty much mint condition and all beautiful, which was making picking a pair hard. I finally closed my eyes and grabbed one. I came back with a pair of brown wedge sandals that looked very casual California compared to my work shoes.

They were coming home with me if I had to show up wearing them with my running clothes.

I quickly rushed into the dressing room, throwing on the shoes and pulling off the tag so I could pay for them. The dresses I had grabbed were easier to pick from than the shoes. Two didn't fit, one cost as much as my weekly paycheck, and one fit, but I just hated it. That left me with a super short button up navy shirt dress with three quarter length sleeves.

I heard a bell and knew that it had to be Brian looking for the keys. I heard him asking the oblivious cashier if I was in the dressing room

I took a second to look at myself in the mirror. I had on minimal makeup but it would have to do. I had lipstick and sunglasses in my purse to hide what didn't look great. My mousy brown hair was long and limp and in desperate need of another coloring appointment to put my highlights back in, so I threw it in a topknot on top of my head and pulled out two tendrils on either side of my face.

"I'm coming, Brian," I yelled through the door after I heard the cashier tell him she didn't know where I was for the third time. I gathered up my things and pretty much kicked the door open, breathing like I had run a mile after getting ready so fast.

They were both staring at me as I handed the shop girl my pulled off tags on the counter and then threw a pair of earrings on top of them from the register display. She tried to tell me I couldn't just do that, but I cut her off with a thirty second explanation of where we were going. After that, she rang me up without issue.

I could feel Brian's eyes boring into the side of my head. I finally turned around to look at him.

"What?" His smile got bigger.

"You look pretty." The cashier looked between us like she thought it was adorable.

"How many muscle relaxers did you take? Give me your drugs. You've lost medicating yourself privileges." I snatched his pharmacy bag from his hand and shoved everything in my purse.

The girl looked a little shocked as she handed me my card back.

"Have a nice day," I told her before she could comment as I herded Brian to the door.

Z

"I can't believe you wanted to drive." I hissed in indignation at Brian as I walked him into his apartment building holding his leftovers and stuff from the pharmacy.

He was feeling significantly better after taking his muscle relaxers and moving around at lunch. He was also feeling the pain medicine and was a little out of his head, but it wasn't terrible. His back had loosened up considerably.

"You'd make one hell of a street racer." He told me as he held the elevator door open for me when we stepped inside.

I felt a real, genuine smile break out on my face. That was the highest compliment Brian had ever given me.

"You think?" I asked him honestly.

"Yeah. I do." He looked at me with a wide smile. "You still want to go look for cars together?"

"Absolutely!" The smile on my face got a little wider.

"Are imports on the table?"

"Now, you're pushing it, O'Conner." I teased him as the doors opened on his floor.

He laughed, following behind me as I looked down the hallway for his apartment number. I almost walked past it, but I remembered which one it was at the last second. I unlocked it for him with his keys and tried to hold the door for him, but, ever the gentleman, he grabbed it and motioned for me to go inside first.

I started making myself busy, putting his food in the fridge and setting out his prescription bottle. I was working on getting his new heating pad out of its box, when I heard the familiar sound of the top being popped off a beer. I turned to glare at him, but he shrugged.

"I have beer or energy drinks." He rationalized.

"Or water." I motioned to the faucet, but he waved me off and grabbed his medicine. He quickly skimmed the times on the labels before he set them back on the kitchen counter.

"By the time you shower, it'll be time for one last round of pills. These two only." I pushed the two bottles apart so he could tell which ones.

"Thank you so much for today, Anna." I snorted.

"You're thanking me? I'm pretty sure I would have thrown that candle on the table at Marcus if I had gone by myself and I'm also pretty sure he got his bragging in and won't call me anymore." I paused as I thought it over. "You were completely right. I feel like I need that lunch for closure. He's a jerk I should have walked away from a long time ago. I actually really liked his future fiance though. I hope everything works out for her."

"Why didn't you?" He asked solemnly. I was kind of a big change from goofy, pilled up Brian that I drove over here in the borrowed car he kept talking about wanting to race.

"I met him when I was nineteen. I was a patrol officer and he was doing some observation at the hospital ER. I brought in an overdose and I was compressing her in the back of the ambulance with the medic. I felt like I was Wonder Woman swooping in and working to save this woman. As soon as we got her in the ER he was jumping in on compressions and we made eye contact over her and I think the adrenaline went to my brain because I felt this spark."

I looked at Brian to see him looking intently at me.

"Horrible story isn't it? We were talking about trying to save her in the medic's break room and he asked me out. I went and suddenly it was a few years later and I was feeling a little trapped and I just thought that was normal. I thought I just had to deal with it because it was just a stage of a relationship because I had never been in a relationship with anyone else. When he forbade me from joining the FBI I knew I had to leave him."

"You don't seem to have a lot in common."

"We like to be the best and do all the exciting stuff at work and then come home and have sex and talk about how awesome we were. It was amazing how long that was enough to keep us going." Brian laughed weakly. "You know things don't work out. People just aren't meant for each other."

He looked contemplative as he popped his pills in his mouth, finished out his beer, and grabbed some stuff out his pile of laundry basket next to the couch. He motioned towards the shower. I waved him off and started folding everything for him so he wouldn't have to bend down again. I waited until I heard the shower turn off to get ready to leave to make sure he didn't fall out in the shower after he took the pain pill and the muscle relaxer early and with alcohol.

He came out of his bedroom a few minutes later dressed in some sweat pants with no shirt. I used all of my self-control to not look. I was used to seeing all of our agents shirtless in the gym, but seeing Brian shirtless in his own apartment felt super wrong.

"Has he texted you again?" He asked as he pointed at my phone sitting on the counter next to me.

"Nope. And he won't. He wanted to rub Julia in my face and he did it, so I think he's done. I think I'd get along with Julia if it weren't for him."

"You super sure you're not meant for each other?" He asked slowly.

"Why because rubbing a new boyfriend in his face is something I'd do? Because I will remind you we aren't anywhere close to romantic and you agreed to do this, not me." He tried to shrug me off, but I could tell his shoulder locked up. "But, no. We aren't meant to be."

"Yeah. you're right about that. Have you ever had someone you think it would work out with if you were in another life?" He was swaying a little in his doorway and he looked high as a kite and sleepy as hell. I should have grabbed my stuff and left so he could go to bed, but that question stopped me.

"No, but that sounds like the worst." I tried to keep my voice flat.

"Yeah, it is. I feel like if we were different people if I-" He stopped. "I feel like if things were different, I would have a whole other life."

"Would you be happy not being a cop? Just being a mechanic and a driver?" I asked him point-blank.

"Yeah. Things would be so different." I pulled my purse over my shoulder and was about to leave before he could say anything incriminating, but he kept talking. "I like being a cop too though. I like getting the bad guys and doing the right thing, and I just wish doing the right thing would get me the other stuff too."

"What other stuff, Brian?"

He looked me dead in the eye, and despite being so medicated he was gripping the sides of the door frame for support I knew he was thinking hard about something deep.

"Family."