"How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?" - Doc Luben; 14 Lines from Love Letters or Suicide Notes

Hey Judy, just wanted to hear your voice honey. And your Father and I are dying to know how your night went. Love you babe, call me. Bye.

Beep. Click.

Hey Judy, your Mother's getting worried because we haven't heard from you. How's the show goin'? Call when you get a second, okay?

Beep. Click.

Those messages are what cling to her the hardest this case. Thinking about how many messages her Mama and Daddy have left her, just trying to get in contact, just trying to see how she is.

She thinks about all the times she's let them down while staring at the threads between Judy's teeth, the one's she chewed to fight to survive and wonders if she hasn't been chewing through threads to breathe, too. Wonders if that for her entire life, she hasn't been chewing through the threads that connect her to people, places and things, trying so hard to erase any evidence of herself.

Wonders if she doesn't know she's dying, too.

Wonders if she hasn't known she's been dying her entire life. Wonders if that's why she's always fought so hard. If somehow that makes all the useless, senseless struggle against simple things somehow worth it. Damn this Chief of Police business - it's drawing out her existential nature.

Brenda shakes herself out of it when Commander Taylor appears in the door, more apologetic than usual and oh, the Mayor. Well, she'll just have to reschedule then, won't she? She moves around Taylor, going right for Lieutenant Flynn.

Taylor tries to quietly interject, "Chief, Raydor's waiting at-"

She knows Raydor is waiting for her somewhere because Raydor was blowing up her damn phone at the crack of dawn about what to wear and what to do and it drove her mad. Just to spite her she wore her best fitting, tailored suit-jacket that hugs her waist in bright pink. Then she found her way to the crime scene and put her phone blissfully on SILENT.

"If you didn't know from every poster in the place, our victim's name is Judy Lynn," Andy says, walking down the narrow hallway to where Julio is standing.

Brenda follows Flynn, who also ignores Taylor. She's standing in front of the shattered glass display case, inspecting the blood smear and spatter.

"She was an actress/data entry-clerk. Manager said she lived alone, so no need for a warrant."

"Wasn't much of a fight, was it?" Brenda remarks idly, thinking of the meticulously painted and groomed nails on the victim in the bedroom.

"Probably not," Flynn replies, looking like he's trying his best not to think about it. He shakes his head, "Anyway, it looks like she was either shoved, or - Julio? - Shoved, or thrown into the wall, like this."

Julio picks up where Flynn left off. "She smashes her head on the corner here, Chief, of this picture frame, and then falls, lies here on the floor, bleeding."

"And then, she gets carried back to the bed to have a pillow put over her face," Andy finishes. "Which is like, some kind of weirdo thing to do."

Brenda snorts humorlessly. "Thank you for establishing that we have a weirdo on our hands, Lieutenant Flynn. I would have never guessed."

She surveys the scene in the hallway for a few moments more. "But she had her nails done, makeup on… maybe she'd just been on a date?"

Flynn leans in conspiratorially, shaking his pointer finger. "That's how you meet weirdos."

She rolls her eyes just as Buzz comes up behind her. "Chief?"

"Buzz, if you uh…" she takes a few moments to regain her train of thought, "if you have all this, will you please go document the body? Especially the lips."

"Yes, Chief."

"Where is the person who called this in?

"He's in the living room, Chief," Detective Gabriel replies, making nervous eye-contact with Commander Taylor. Both of them were watching the clock and, while the Chief was aloof, out of sorts and fumbling today, they both knew she was too - or rather, hoping it eventually ran out.

"Uh, Chief," Taylor says, bringing her aside before she can join Provenza. "You're supposed to be preparing for your final interview with the-"

"Yeah, I'll need to reschedule that."

"Chief, no, y-y-you can't do that," Taylor frets, pulling her back and trying to step in front of her. "L-Look, Chief... I can handle this investigation. You only caught this murder 'cause Hollywood's got no overtime left, alright? Technically… this isn't even a Major Crime."

He smiles and holds his hands together in that soothing, placating way he always does when he thinks he's given a business man's fair proposal and smoothed it all over. She simply stares back at him. Not blankly, but plainly.

Brenda looks up at him, solemn. "Why don't you tell the victim's parents that? Excuse me."

She knows it was a low blow play, but anything to get out of that conversation and further away from the impending meeting at the Mayor's Office. Taylor just sighs as she retreats, taking out his cellphone to send two text messages so that at the very least they can't be blindsided by the hurricane and torrential downpour of Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson.

He takes one deep breath. And then two, and then three. When he decided to climb the ladder of the L.A.P.D., no one told him that one day managing Brenda's aversion to the executive aspects of her job would eventually be a job requirement, though he's more appreciative now about Gabriel's comments about how frantic her case solving could be now that he's been staying on her floor and involved in more of her cases.

Provenza stands for the Chief and makes introductions while she and Gabriel sit across from the victim's friend, who looks about as shaken as a man can be.

"This is like, some kind of cosmic mistake," Stuart is saying, "I mean, how could this happen?"

"That's what we're tryna find out," she replies. "Now, I'm just gonna ask you a few questions, then we'll get you a ride home. Judy was your… colleague?"

"Colleague?" Stuart laughs but there's no humor behind it. A laugh full of grief. "Yes, she was my colleague. But she was- We were very, very good friends," he sniffles, his eyes filling up again as he stared at the wall behind Brenda's head. "Oh, my god."

"And you dropped by this morning because…?"

"Judy never misses a tech rehearsal," he replies. "So when she never showed up last night, and didn't answer her phone and wouldn't come to the door… I made Gifford open the door for me."

Provenza waves over the man he had introduced as Gifford. "And the door was locked when you got here?" Gabriel asks them, pen in the air.

"Yeah. Deadbolt and bottom," Gifford nods.

"Did you notice anyone vistin' Judy the night before last - did she go out with anyone?"

"I don't know, really. The tenants usually buzz up their own guests," Gifford says.

"In a refreshing change of pace, they have working surveillance cameras at every entrance and exit," Provenza wryly comments, holding up an orange mailer. "Videos right here, Chief."

"Alright. Okay, Stuart, just a few more questions. Can you tell us if Judy was seein' anyone?

"The whole world could tell you that, she talks about it on her vlog," Stuart said flippantly, trying - to no avail - to wipe his eyes and nose.

Brenda and Gabriel stared blankly back at him. "Her what?"

"Oh, well, you're like, police people, so you probably don't know about her show, 'Last Woman Standing'?"

Brenda shook her head. "Not until today, no."

"Well, it's actually an extension of this vlog she started where she talks about the struggles of getting work as a female actor," Stuart explains. "And how all the girls around her gave up their aspirations and careers for men, or office jobs, or went back home. And how it left Judy…"

"The 'Last Woman Standing', okay, but how does this relate to her datin'?"

"Well, Judy said after she got her show picked up… no guys would come near her. So she joined a dating site," Stuart's face crumpled suddenly. "And I… sort of encouraged her to."

Brenda leaned in. "Can you tell me the name of this dating site?"

They're around the monitors trying to piece together a timeline from the video surveillance footage - her, Buzz, Flynn, Gabriel, and Gifford, the building manager.

Buzz fast forwards the footage. "More time passes, when, you know…"

"He has sex with the girl and then kills her," Flynn fills in for Buzz, and then adds rather tiredly as an afterthought, "At least I hope that's the order."

"You've been awful cynical lately, Lieutenant Flynn," Brenda turns to look at him briefly, squinting even with her reading glasses.

He shrugs. "Weird cases lately," is all he says. She'll have to keep a better eye on her boys.

"And here he comes at the front door when he leaves. We get a great shot of him because when the camera pans back… he's still there," Gabriel points out.

"Why is he still standin' there?" She bites her lip. What are you lookin' at?

"No idea, Chief," Flynn says with a shrug.

Chief Pope opens the door without so much as a knock. "Hey, I've been looking for you," he says informally, in a room full of their subordinates, looking harried and like he'll drag her into the hall into his office if he must. "Can we talk for a second?"

As informally phrased as it was, his question wasn't a question and she sighs before stepping out and shutting the door reluctantly behind her.

"What is the deal here?"

"What?"

Will looks at her seriously. "The Mayor's expecting to interview you tomorrow to be Chief and now you want to cancel that appointment?"

Brenda feels anxiety crawling up her neck, her fingers, worming inside her sternum and beneath her diaphragm. "Look, I picked up a murder this morning and I just don't think that now-"

"Come on," he scoffs in disbelief. "You've almost caught the guy already. Taylor can take it from here. Come on," he urges, starting to walk down the hallway.

… just wanted to hear your voice honey.

Judy, your Mother's worried…

... all the girls around her gave up their aspirations and careers for men…

Brenda hesitates, not following him down the hallway, and Will turns, exasperated. "What is going on?"

"Will, I-I've thought about it and honestly," she makes a face like sucking on grapefruit, stumbling over the words she's struggled to say out loud to anyone in her life for the last several weeks:

"I just - I just don't want to be Chief of Police."

She thinks Will might be ready to fall over right then from a heart attack. The trapped, anxious feeling returns tenfold when he snaps, "With me. With me!"

Petulantly she notes that Will opens the door for her and while this usually would be a cold day in hell where he trips over himself to open the door for her, she suspects it's another way to make sure she actually gets into his office and doesn't just turn around and walk the other way by making sure she enters first.

(Unfortunately, that is something she used on him in D.C. to escape more arbitrary meetings that she fought with him on going to and he wouldn't budge on - and it worked more than once. Apparently, that particular strategy has run its course.)

Brenda tries to look at the window and not Sharon's eyes, but still finds herself glancing at her. She knows she'll find disappointed and annoyed eyes staring at her, unflinchingly.

"Captain," she greets respectfully.

"Chief," Sharon replies, clipped. Her arms are crossed tightly across her chest. "Thanks for making the time."

Brenda hesitates and then takes a seat. "Well, I hope we're not wastin' it."

Will raises an eyebrow as he goes to his desk. "Don't you think it might be Captain Raydor who's been wasting her time, since she's spent hours waiting for you, and days trying to prepare you for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the next Chief—"

Brenda looks up at them both blankly from her seat. You mean your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you think I'm squandering, she thinks bitterly.

"—So when you say that you're not interested in the job, it's-it's very disappointing, Brenda," he says.

Brenda, still burning from the way his words cut through her before the shortlist had been revealed, feels the ferocity of the grin she suppresses as she drops her one possible saving grace in this conversation to direct the attention away from her.

"Didn't you tell me yourself that I had no chance at being Chief? That you were only permitting me to submit an application-"

"Excuse me?" Sharon demands.

Will sees the look on Sharon's face and jumps to defend himself, "No, Brenda, that's-"

"Permission?" Sharon practically seethes, staring at Will for answers.

Brenda doesn't smile, but she's pleased with herself for the discord she achieved that isn't directed at her.

"That is not what I said. I did not say that," Will says adamantly, redness rising in his face and neck, looking between Sharon and Brenda nervously. Taylor just gave him a skeptical glance out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes, you did!" Brenda exclaimed, indignant now. "You permitted me to apply as some sort of… display, a stalking horse-"

Sharon, if possible, becomes more incensed. "You did not," she says disbelievingly, hands on her hips.

"I-I did not," he repeats sheepishly, in trying to calm Captain Raydor, "I did not give her permission—"

Will clears his throat somewhat nervously. "I think we can all agree that there were some serious flaws in my approach to my campaign to be Chief. For one thing, I'm no longer in the running. But I think it is now in my best interest-"

Brenda rolls her eyes. Oh, bother. Of course, Will's best interest.

"—In all of our best interest, that the Mayor appoint you as our next boss. And if you just quit now…

"People will think you're hiding something,"

Brenda just about jumps out of her skin when Commander Taylor speaks up from where he was leaning on the conference table quieter than a shrew.

"Or worse," Sharon leans in seriously, "You'll seem like a flake, or like you broke under pressure."

Can't be worse of a flake than I am in my own life, Sharon. Gotta try harder than that, Brenda thinks grumpily.

"Whatever you do, you can't just cancel this interview, and you can't reschedule," she finishes hopefully, her face falling when Brenda's expression hasn't changed.

Will picks up where Sharon left off. "Because when the Mayor calls for a meeting with his Chief of Police, he expects him - or her - to show up."

Brenda huffs, crossing her arms. "Well, when people are smothered to death in their homes, they expect me to show up, too."

Sharon takes a deep breath and Brenda knows that whatever she's going to say is really going to just agitate the hell out of her.

"Okay, I don't know what it was like in Atlanta, honey-"

Yep, there it is. Count to ten, Brenda. Count to ten. Mama will be in the ground before you are if you have to go on trial and go to jail for killing your sort-of-friend-that-you're-also-attracted-to just because she riled you up for some stupid interview.

"-but in Los Angeles when you apply for Chief of Police and you don't get the job, there are big consequences," Sharon tries to meet Brenda's eyes to communicate how serious this is, that she's expressing this not only as a colleague well versed in Los Angeles politics but as a friend concerned about her standing in the law enforcement community.

"Yeah, first, I get fired," Will huffs, leaning back in his chair dejectedly, staring out into space over Brenda's shoulder.

She pursed her lips, faltering. He's always known just how to make her feel bad. "You don't know that."

Taylor jumps in, sensing an opportunity. "And then, every success he's had, like uh, oh - Major Crimes, for instance," he comes around to face her. "Well, that gets completely dismantled."

They can all see Brenda beginning to crack a little underneath the stubborn, frustrated veneer.

"Chief," Sharon takes her attention now, "if you don't at least attend this final interview, the women of the L.A.P.D. will be completely demoralized, and many of them will never forgive you," she says to Brenda's unimpressed expression. "Ever," she adds. Brenda just purses her lips again.

There's a long stretch of silence. Will rests his face on his hand, looking forlornly into the distance. Sharon is looking at her expectantly and Taylor is looking at her hopefully, like a pseudo-prep-coach.

"Well, can't I just… skip the whole fussin' and preppin' part?" Brenda asks, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. "I'll just… go in there and be myself."

"That is a terrible idea," Sharon blurts out before Taylor or Will can.

Brenda gives her an affronted look, but Sharon stares back unapologetically with only the vaguest hint of remorse. Just at that moment, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in," Will calls.

"Excuse me," Detective Gabriel says warily to a room of tired and adversarial looking people who already don't always get along.

Gabriel holds up a picture and Taylor takes it before Brenda can touch it, earning an annoyed glance from the short blonde Chief. He pointedly ignores it, looking at Gabriel.

"… Chiefs, Commander, uh, we don't have his social or an address, but the warrant for the dating site got us a photo and a name. And we have a pretty good idea of where to find him. His name is Marc Torres, aka 'Dreamweaver'."

"Where?" Commander Taylor and Brenda say at the same time, her looking at him incredulously and him looking at her with resigned exasperation.

"On another date," Gabriel says and oh, that doesn't bode well, "This afternoon."

She's staring at Gabriel, her most loyal Detective, and she thinks over Taylor's words, what might happen from the result of her political fallout. She's never cared what happened to her - she'll burn everything down and burn the ashes, too. Destruction has never scared her the way it seems to scare others.

Political ruination in the workplace is nothing - when she told Fritz she used to paint the Big Picture, sometimes she wonders if the people around her know her, or a picture of her that she painted. The picture she used to paint was so big that 'larger than life' means little to her now.

She wonders if she didn't just pick up a brush and paint over herself, too, paint herself into the background of the Big Picture.

She couldn't let, or risk, letting her actions screw her loyal detectives. It wasn't fair to them and for once she would make a selfless decision. It's really the least she can do, go to the meeting scheduled for her, but at least she knows that despite not wanting the job, she's making the right choice. Not for her, but for them.

She might not want to go to this interview and by the Lord, Judy Lynn's red nails are in her head and her parents voicemails are, too, but Judy Lynn is gone and her boys are right here. Her boys can solve her murder and in the meantime, Brenda will try to solve the mystery of why everyone wants her to be their boss so badly.

Brenda thinks about what they can and can't do before addressing Gabriel again. "Well, we can't arrest him unless we match his DNA to what we found in the victim, but…" she glances back at Will and Captain Raydor, both looking extremely upset at the prospect of any more of Brenda's time spent on this case and rubs a hand over her forehead. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Commander, you know how to handle this, don't you?"

Now everyone in the office is looking at her incredulously. Good. Keep them on their toes.

"Yes, thank you," Commander Taylor says, relieved. He begins practically herding Gabriel through the doorway. "Let's go, Detective. Let's go."

"O-oh, okay, yeah," Gabriel says, a grown man looking like he's doing his damn best not to pout.

But Brenda knows she made the right decision.

As often as she can manage it, her team will come first. Even if that means leaving them on their own.

I hope you don't mind our-I don't know, speed date, comes through each of their speakers, radios and headphones respectively, loud and clear.

"I lost Julio," Tao sighs. Buzz passes him a portable Wi-Fi hookup and Tao nods his thanks, reconnecting them.

Oh no, not at all, Marc Torres, their own troublemaker, replies.

There was one thing I wanted to know about - 'Honestly, you look like trouble'? What did you mean by that?

Look, I got dumped about a year ago and I wasn't sure that I was ready to put myself back out there. And then I saw your profile - and your picture. I don't know, my heart moved a little, Marc smiled what should be charmingly, if the detective's who were watching him weren't used to sleazeballs working their moves and couldn't see right through it, but they could.

Almost everyone watching rolled their eyes. Detective Gabriel rubbed his temple in secondhand embarrassment.

"No way this rap works," Flynn scoffs into the mic, earning a round of dry laughs and echoed sentiments.

"Yeah, well," Provenza shifts in his seat next to him, chuckling, "If it does, I'll be using it word for word."

Flynn rolls his eyes at his partner's antics. "Don't drag me along for that one if you do."

"I'll be sure to leave you out of my success, Flynn."

"Will you two idiots quit your yapping?" Taylor groans, "at least over the comms?"

"Yeah, yeah," Flynn mutters, flicking the communication off.

Maybe it's just me, their hopefully-not-a-potential-victim says, but that sounded a little rehearsed.

"You tell him, Jenny," Gabriel says.

Buzz moves out of the way for Tao to enter the van. "I stuck the tracking device under his front fender. Now, let's see what we have in the way of fingerprints."

Wow, that's a little cynical, Marc replies, probably knowing he's been caught out by a woman who knows when her bullshit detectors went off.

No, it's a lot cautious, Jenny said unapologetically.

Torres played with his straw a little bit, opting not to reply. They were quiet for several moments.

I have to get back to work, Jenny said.

Yeah, okay. Movies next week?

Maybe.

"Hey guys, guys. Torres is moving out," Julio crackles to life over the comms. "Looks like the date was a bust. Smart lady."

"Alright Buzz, let's go," Gabriel says as Buzz hops into the drivers seat.

"Chief isn't gonna like this," Tao mutters, watching Torres pick up another blonde woman fifteen minutes later.

"Maybe this one will realize he's a slimeball too," Flynn says over the mic.

After their thoroughly boring dinner, Torres brings her to the movies. The detectives were beginning to get antsy. Tao tapped his fingers on the table, Gabriel shook his leg so hard the van rocked until Buzz went, "God, David!"

Gabriel cleared his throat sheepishly and then pressed his comms. "Commander?"

"I see, Detective Gabriel," Taylor muttered, leaning back in his chair as he watched the monitors, tapping his fingers on his thigh. "Let's see where they go before I interrupt Chief Johnson and Captain Raydor."

Captain Raydor escorted her back to her office to prepare her for the meeting, a hand hovering over her back like she might make a break for it and really, now it's just getting ridiculous. Will's antics were eye-roll inducing but understandable, but Raydor? She's never run out on her! Thought about it, maybe.

She almost tells her that she was at risk of that an hour ago, maybe, but she doesn't want Sharon to overthink it and remove her hand, so she doesn't. Don't mend what ain't broken, that's what her Mama always said! Then again, she was also always getting reprimanded for intentionally misinterpreting her Mama's sayings, so.

Despite the actual reason she's doing it, Brenda finds that she likes the gentle not-touch. The guiding without guiding. A reminder of being there. The warmth of Sharon's hand hovering makes her stomach flutter.

"What makes tomorrow better than any other day?" Brenda asks when they're finally alone, trying one last ditch attempt to get out of this meeting.

Sharon breathes deeply in the safety of Brenda's office, leaning over her desk with one hand on her hip. "Because the Mayor just finished interviewing the other four applicants for Chief of Police, and you're the only woman, so you'll make for a vivid contrast."

Sharon is staring at her and she knows that she's just sizing up her wardrobe but Lord, Brenda feels her cheeks heat up and hopes she just can excuse it as being more mad than a wet hen at all the insults against her character she's had to endure just today alone. Just because they're generally accurate don't mean it's polite - didn't anyone tell them if they don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? The total throughout the process of selecting the Chief of Police should earn her at least a crate of wine.

"I think," Sharon says slowly, trailing her eyes from Brenda's shoes to her face, "That we should capitalize on your feminine strengths."

Brenda moves from standing like a mannequin on display and sits on the edge of her desk and unwraps a piece of candy. "… Which are?"

"Well don't take this, uh, the wrong way, Chief," she goes for treading the line between teasing and insulting immediately to try and break the tension, "Because I have always admired how little you care about current fashion. And the - the purse. That," she chuckles nervously. "That purse," she snaps her fingers, motioning for the purse, ""Come on, that - the - the purse, it helps people underestimate you-"

Or completely misinterpret me, apparently, Brenda thinks as she hands over her purse.

"-Which I think, you know, is a good thing with criminals," Sharon places the bag aside and out of Brenda's reach, "But the Mayor - he's somebody you really want to impress, so I was wondering if you-"

"You know, Captain," Brenda interrupts curtly, beginning to feel more insulted than she can handle for one day, "I have a lot of nice clothes, I just don't like to overdress at work."

"Absolutely!" Sharon says emphatically. "And you know what? No one would accuse you of that. But we want the Mayor's first impression of you to be as a woman capable of handling a lot of power. To look at you and think something like…"

"Something like what, Captain?" She peers up from under her eyelashes, swinging her legs coyly over the edge of the desk.

Sharon walks forward, each click of her heels seeming to click with Brenda's heart beats. She can hear them in her ears. Sharon walks into her personal space, places her hands on either side of the desk, trapping her there.

"Something like, 'that woman is unstoppable'," Sharon murmurs, brushing a strand of hair behind Brenda's ear. "And you are."

Her face heats up so close to Sharon like this. Sharon backs away, clears her throat, begins her pacing again. Brenda reclaims her purse and sits down at her desk. She pulls out her mirror and tube of lipstick while Sharon's talking.

Sharon sits across from her. "You're not what they had in mind, which—"

"Because I'm a woman?"

"You're not what they had in mind because you're not …"

"Be honest, might as well," Brenda harrumphed, "not like you've held back so far."

Sharon continues, "well liked, particularly friendly or political."

"I'm not interested in politics," Brenda replies, "At all."

"Exactly," Sharon says, "Which means you won't blame the Mayor for the budgetary crisis or publicly demand that he fix it-Chief!"

Sharon pulls her bag from the other side of the desk and into the visitor's chairs in frustration. "There is a reason that this is a short meeting in the afternoon; all the Mayor really wants to know is how the two of you will get along. Think of it as a… chemistry test."

Brenda let her lips curl up, leaning across the desk on her elbows. "A chemistry test? And how would you describe our chemistry, Cap'n Raydor? I'd say we've been getting on famously, wouldn't you?"

It's the first time Brenda's seen Sharon blush and also the first time she's been outright flirtatious, but if it gets that pretty flushed look on Sharon's face she'll start risking decorum just to see it.

There's a knock on the door and Taylor sticks his head in. "Chief, quick update."

Brenda pulls back and clears her throat, Sharon stands and removes herself to the other side of the room while Taylor and her catch up on the case.

She takes the papers from Taylor and raises an eyebrow.

He adjusts his tie, averting his gaze from Captain Raydor's, acutely aware her stare was burning into him. "So, we picked up some fingerprints that match some of the ones you got in the victim's apartment. We think Torres stopped for so long outside Judy's building because someone keyed his car while he was inside - we don't know. But - look, we have a problem."

Sharon's head snaps up. A problem?

"What's that?"

Taylor scratches his head and tries to lower his voice a little. "Marc Torres is on another date."

"What?!"

"She was waiting outside for him on the corner in Larchmont Village. We don't know who she is or where she came from - but we do know he took her out for dinner and a movie."

"Just like Judy," Brenda groaned, holding her head in her hand. "Okay, where are they now?"

"Now he's just parked beneath an apartment on Melrose… but it's not his home address," Taylor says.

"Chief, you already-"

"Just one-Just one second, Captain-" Brenda holds up her pointer finger and turns back to Commander Taylor. "Under no circumstances is Marc Torres to be left alone in an apartment with another woman."

"Understood," Taylor nods.

Brenda feels the familiar migraine she always gets whenever her boys do something that makes her want to eat an ungodly amount of snack cakes and lock herself in her office starts pulsing between her eyes, making its way up her t-zone and reverberating through the top of her skull.

"-and unless you arrested this idiot for cheating on his fiancee - not a criminal offense, by the way - you have nothing on him," Pope is chewing out her Detective's in the media room as Sharon and her walk in.

"I gave the order to arrest Marc Torres, not them," she says, drawing Will's attention off of her detective's and Taylor.

Reluctantly she's taken him in as one of her own - and she'd fight for any of her own. Taylor's proven he has her back beginning since before the move and even more since they've moved into the new building. Her begrudging, feet dragging attitude about him is only because they chafe sometimes but really, she chafes with everyone sometimes when trying to get things done.

Before he can open his mouth, Sharon interjects, "I was with you - you did not give that order."

Brenda gives her her fiercest glare out of the corner of her eye. Just for that, I'm not sharing any of my Hershey's Kisses with you.

Pope waves away the idea of her giving the order; the affirmation of Raydor having been there to confirm that she didn't only supporting his stance. "You weren't in charge - it was either Taylor or Provenza who made the call to break in without a warrant," he turns back to them both. Provenza looks bored, leaning on his fist. "So why did you think it was okay to bust in on this couple without enough evidence to hold him?"

"You mean besides the fact that he killed his date the night before last?" Provenza offered with a wave of his hand, bored.

"Did you want us to let him murder someone while under L.A.P.D. surveillance? Because then, we could've held him without any problem," Taylor asked.

"You know, we could be done with this in a few minutes if you just let me talk to the guy-"

"Chief, I really don't want her involved," Sharon says to Will like Brenda isn't there.

The door opens, revealing Special Agent Fritz Howard and a folder. "Excuse me," he says pleasantly, and then slows his entrance at the tense room, turning to his wife. "Do you really need me to ask this guy these questions?"

"Yes! Yes, just give us ten minutes with Marc Torres, if everyone would just calm down and let me do my job, okay, may I?" She huffed, turning to Fritz, who gestured to the door so she could go first. "I thought y'all wanted me to be your boss."

Brenda swept from the room with a huff.

"Uh, gentlemen," he nods to them, pausing for Sharon with something that was probably supposed to be a smile, but was mostly a grimace, "Captain."

Sharon stares at Fritz and Brenda in the interview room. Brenda is stiff next to him, but they work together well. A routine that was perfected long before Sharon entered Brenda's life, and she scoffs at that thought.

Her irrational jealousy lately has been positively ridiculous. How can she feel jealous for not knowing her? But she is. She's jealous that Fritz knows a version of Brenda she doesn't, that she hasn't met, that Fritz knows many versions of Brenda that she doesn't and probably won't; inexplicably finds herself wanting to know every version of her.

But that, already, is a ridiculous notion; Brenda herself is completely unknowable by nature. Brenda refuses to be known.

She watches how Brenda weaves the web for Marc to fall into, how he traps himself in it so snuggly that he can't get himself out. Thinks about how, unknowingly, Brenda weaves webs for the people around her to fall into - how enamored they become by her. How enamored she's become by the quirky Southern woman.

Will stays for the interview and the stress practically rolls off of him into the room. As the interview is concluding and Fritz is arresting Marc Torres, he says, "You'll make sure she gets across the street tomorrow?"

Sharon's eyes don't leave the screen when she replies, "I'll walk her there myself."