Standing beside the last car in the parking lot of Toronto's SRU Police headquarters, a nervous looking girl of about thirteen shifted from foot to foot looking at her bouncy friend just ahead of her.
"Are you sure this is a good idea Jackie? I mean, what if he gets mad or something?"
Jackie swung round with a small groan and looked at the other with a mix of impatience and empathy.
She responded with "Oh come on Emma! We've planned this so well, and been going over this for at least two months. You go in, give your step dad's last name instead of your real one. He hasn't seen you in eight years and you look a lot different, the chances of him recognizing you are slim at best! Anyhow, this way you can see what he's like before officially introducing yourself...you know, the whole reason we are here?"
"But what if you get in trouble for bringing me? Your cousin only invited you." said Emma, fumbling with her hands in anxiety. Jackie rolled her eyes before walking back and putting an arm around her friends' shoulders.
"I called Spike and asked if I could bring a friend, to which he responded that as long as a guardian signed the permission form, it would be fine...mum is technically your guardian for right now so it works! Now can we go?"
Emma gave a shaky sigh and then a deep breath before nodding. Jackie's cousin, Spike was part of an SRU police team, which Jackie found fascinating and was overjoyed to be allowed to see him at work. Emma had other reasons to be there, although she was just as interested to see what went on at the SRU. Her father worked there.
Her mom never had anything good to say about her dad, and Emma hadn't seen him in years. In fact, she hardly remembered him or knew anything about him other than the negative things she heard from her mom. She knew he had a history of drinking, one which had driven their family apart when she was six. She knew he had been trying hard for several years now to be allowed back into their lives. A few months ago he even came to Dallas to see her and her older brother Dean, but their mom never let him in the door.
Then came the revelation that her mother had been returning letters addressed to Dean and herself without giving Emma the choice of reading them.
Emma found that to be a rather unfair thing to do. However, the whole affair brought to light a few considerations within Emma's mind. The first being the question of why did her dad keep trying and fighting so hard? And what was his motivation? What kind of man was he? Maybe he was a crazy jerk with control issues, maybe he was kind and changed from who he was. Whatever the case, his persistence caught Emma's attention, and her interest was fuelled by the strained relationship with her mother and lack of connection with her step-dad.
She did her research, found out where her dad worked, and told it all to Jackie, who shared that she had a cousin who worked at the same place. Together they hatched a crazy plan and here they were.
The pair walked into the building together. A desk attendant directed them up a few floors where they met up with Spike. He was waiting for them near the elevator talking to a pretty, curly hair girl sitting behind a desk.
"Hey! Jack-Jack!" exclaimed the tall, rather skinny man with messy brown hair and sharp features. "Spike!" Jackie ran and gave him a big hug. Parting, Spike turned to Emma and said, "So this must be the friend you were telling me about!"
"Yup, Spike this is Emma Olson, she's here visiting for like, half the summer!"
Spike held out his hand, which Emma shook with a slightly nervous smile.
"Welcome to the SRU Emma! So, lets get started. This here is where our lovely dispatcher Winnie who handles all communications, and over here..." they followed him through the hall to kind of meeting room where a few other people dressed in the same uniform as him where sitting doing paper work. "...this is our briefing room- in here we discuss events of our cases, figure out what could have been done different, or what couldn't have been done...and we do paper work, which is what these gentlemen are doing." The two men at the table looked up and smiled welcomingly. They both had very little hair, one being completely bald, the other having only slightly more hair. The bald man had blue eyes, and was rather tall, even while sitting down. The other had brown scrutinizing eyes, with a round, kind face.
"Ladies, may I introduce you to Mr. Ed Lane, our leader for tactics, and Srgt. Greg Parker our boss and chief negotiator."
"Hi! I'm Jackie, Spikes cousin, and this is my friend Emma!" piped Jackie with a bright smile. Emma, who had been standing slightly behind Jackie and trying not to stare at Greg Parker, managed to fake a smile and gave a small wave. Inside she felt numb, this man, Greg Parker...her dad. What if he figured out who she was? The whole plan would be blown out of the water. Their eyes met for a moment, and for an awful second Emma thought she saw a look of recognition and shocked realization pass over Greg Parker's face. She looked away quickly and focused her attention on the screens hung on the wall. By the time she looked back the expression was gone, he seemed calm and collected.
"Good to meet you ladies, Spike has been pretty excited to show you around the place." Ed Lane said shaking their hands firmly, shortly followed by Srgt. Parker who added, "Yes, he practically begged me to OK your visit, you must be a pretty special cousin Jackie."
Jackie smile happily at Spike who laughed and said she was just like his little sister, not a cousin. They bantered back an forth for a short time before quieting down, allowing Greg to ask, "So, what do you girls think so far?"
"Well, we haven't seen very much, just that hall and in here," responded Jackie, looking pointedly at Spike with puppy dog eyes before continuing, "I really want to see the tech! Like 'baby cakes!' and the night vision goggles and the other cool stuff!"
The three men laughed before Ed suggested they go to the tech room and see 'the cool stuff'. Jackie was all over how things worked, asking all kinds of questions, which Ed and Spike answered with amusement. The three of them got so absorbed that Emma began to feel rather out of place and uncomfortable. She wondered if she had made a mistake in coming.
"So Emma, did you have something in particular you wanted to see or know about? Or are you just along for the ride?"
The question was gentle and came quietly from beside her, causing Emma to look up suddenly to met her dad's eyes again. She stumble in her mind to find an answer, and speak with a casual tone.
"I..I think the tech is cool, although I don't understand how it works like Jackie does." was her reply. Parker chuckled before saying, "If she is anything like Spike, we could be here a while."
"Yea, she really is. Last month she spent an hour on the phone telling me about how they built a miniature helicopter thing in three hours. Apparently the three hours part was significant...cuz she kept emphasizing it." The words came easily, out of nowhere that time, Emma was surprised at herself. When Greg laughed again over this, she relaxed even more and began to ask a few questions about how things worked around the SRU.
She found out that they dealt with special situations that usually involved a gun or hostages, bombs, kidnappings and other out of the ordinary police circumstances. They worked off a negotiation and psychological profiling system in order to try and talk the person, or persons out of whatever they where trying to do.
"It seems a lot different from the cop shows where bad guys are bad guys and they just get shot." remarked Emma with respect, feeling a certain satisfaction in knowing that man, her dad, wasn't like the cops from the shows CSI or NCIS.
Greg gave a small sad smile and said, "No, they are subjects who are often just like you or me, but life has just taken them down some difficult roads and they make some choices that are not the best."
They stood in silence for a few minutes watching Spike demonstrate with the heat sensor. Emma found herself really enjoying her father's company. He was quiet, funny, genuinely wanted to listen to what she had to say and seemed to understand her. She wanted to know all about him, and tell him all about herself. An odd ach rose in her chest as she caught a glimpse of what could be if they had stayed a family.
For a moment, Emma almost wanted to tell him the truth and began to argue with herself about whether or not she should. Shifting from foot to foot again, she played with her finger nails, thinking about where she was in life.
Her step-dad wasn't a bad guy. He honestly did try to spend time with her and be a father for her, but they just didn't seem to have anything in common. He had more in common with Dean, which meant they spent a considerable amount of time together without her. And then there was her mom. Her mother who had all these grand plans for her daughter's life, none of which related to what Emma actually wanted.
For most of her childhood, Emma had gone to various modern dance lessons, been on soccer, figure skating and gymnastics teams. At first she didn't question it, but as she grew older, Emma found that she really didn't enjoy doing any of these things. In fact, she was not anything more than average at all of them.
It was particularly unpleasant because her mother wanted her to become a champion at all of them. Emma was pushed to be the best, even when she really couldn't be. She was scolded for not placing, and when she did place, it was never good enough.
'Go for gold Emma' said her mother. But Emma didn't want to live life on a stage, in a gym, on a soccer field or on an ice rink. So she convinced her step-dad to talk her mother into letting her alone to do what she wanted for a while. There had been a huge argument, her mother's temper flared darkly and she was all but unreasonable. In the end, Emma was aloud to quit and a rift between mother and daughter was formed. It widened as Emma further sought independence by choosing her own clothing style, her own friends, and hobbies. Before, her mom decided all these for her. There was no choice.
But now, she had a choice. She preferred to be unpopular (or at least stop feeling she had to try and be popular). She had few friends, but all of them were solid and loyal. She didn't wear designer clothing, but still looked nice. It was a comfortable balance of not caring what people thought of her, and still fitting in with a good group of girls. Dean said she was years above her maturity level, not that Emma knew why.
Abruptly Greg Parker asked, "So does your mom know you came here Emma?"
Emma froze, and then looked up at Greg feeling panicked. Had he guessed? she wondered. His eyes never left her face, even when she turn away, and he continued, "I'm going to guess that the answer is no. And I think maybe you might have lied about your last name to..." he waited again, watching Emma's face drain of colour before finishing his sentence quietly.
"But I think I know why Emma, and its ok. I'm not mad, you're not in trouble...from me anyway, although your mom might not like it."
Emma took a shaky breath and looked up again to see her dad looking at her with eyes so full of emotion she thought he might cry. She felt shocked, and for a moment they just looked at each other, then she quickly stammered out, "I'm sorry, I just...I wanted to see you...but I didn't want you to know until...until... I mean just in case..."
"Just in case I didn't pass inspection?" he finished gently with a sad smile. "That's what I figured..."
"But you do pass!" Emma found herself blurting out, then turning red and mumbling, "I mean, from what I can tell anyway."
"Really?! Are you sure?" said her dad in the same calm gentle tone, but there was a note of hopefulness to it. "Cause it's ok if you need to take more time to decide, you maybe haven't really spent enough time with me to know for sure. Or you might want to think on it a bit more."
This surprised Emma, but also convinced her even more that she wanted to get to know her dad more. Here he had the chance here to insist they spend time together, to try and make her choose to know him, and yet he cautioned her against making a hasty decision. That seemed more noble and respectful to Emma than anything. The choice was hers.
"I want to know who my dad is, no matter the past." Emma said softly, "If that's ok with you. I think second chances are beautiful, and I've had so many, why shouldn't you? Besides, I really have thought a lot about this, and there are so many reasons why. I mean, Jackie never got that chance with her dad, and she wishes she had..."
