A/N: Thank you for the reviews!
"Are they really going to investigate this guy's death?" Kenny scowled as he sat staring at the two people who had taken over Vera's office in the last day and a half. Crossing his arms over his chest, he huffed, "Hasn't she been through enough?"
"They don't seem to think so." Aiden muttered.
Shep sighed as she sat down on the sofa. "Well they aren't going to get very far when the only witness is being kept heavily sedated."
"Why are they still keeping her sedated?"
"Because she screams if they don't." Shep answered quietly.
"Nightmares." Kenny supplied. "She isn't going to be the same when she comes back."
"If she comes back." Shep added. "Her spine was bruised badly. They're not sure she'll be able to walk."
"How many times did he hit her there?"
"Once they're sure of, but they think it might have been more than three times. It was the only way he could stop her, though in the end, it still wasn't enough."
"Scrappy." Aiden mumbled.
Kenny chuckled and shook his head. "Don't ever let her hear you say that."
"She'll have your head." Shep added. "She's a fighter which is why I say she'll walk."
Kenny nodded. "Even if it's only to show the doctors up. She hates hospitals. Remember when she was poisoned?"
Shep rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yes, I do. She had no intention of spending twenty-four hours in hospital for observation."
"What happened?"
"She spent about three." Kenny laughed. "She said she found a doctor that agreed with her."
"Ha!" Shep shook her head. "No, she didn't. She harassed one until they gave in."
Aiden chuckled. "She's something else. I was never quite sure of her in the beginning. And then she did that insane stunt saving the man from jumping off the wall."
Kenny grinned. "About gave you heart attack."
"Yes, she did. I had thought my old lot were crazy and reckless…that was far above any stunt they ever pulled."
"Yes, but she's done more since then." Kenny reminded.
"Yes, she has, but I'm used to it now. I wasn't then. That was my first case here."
"My first case with her was when I was still with the military police. She came in and did her job and wasn't intimidated in the least by anyone. I was impressed. She offered me a job here when I was done with the military."
"But you weren't here when I came." Aiden pointed out.
"No. I was briefly transferred to a different area, but after Bethany…"
"Vera wanted another woman on the crew." Kenny finished. "She always liked you. And she's never given you the grief she has the rest of us."
"Oh, she has. Believe me. I screwed up and didn't secure a flat once. She went to poke about and a man came in. She hid and sent a text to Joe."
"I remember that." Kenny nodded. "I didn't realize she gave you a tongue lashing for it."
"She didn't. I wish she had." Shep laughed. "She can do more without raising her voice than my superiors ever could in the MPs."
"Yeah, well…she can do quite a lot when she raises her voice." Kenny rolled his eyes. "Or throws a file at you."
"What?" Aiden frowned.
"I was stupid and did something behind her back. She was fuming and shouting and I wouldn't leave so she threw a file at me…scattered paper everywhere. She gave me the choice of suspension or transfer."
"What did you do, man?" Aiden asked with wide eyes.
"Broke her trust." Kenny sighed and looked down at his hands. "I was being stupid. I went home for suspension but she had Joe call me back in later than afternoon."
"Sounds about like her. Scares you shiteless then smooths it over." Shep couldn't help but chuckle a bit.
"Yes."
"You don't think they'll replace her, do you?" Aiden asked after a few moments of silence.
"They'll have to. At least temporarily."
"She won't like that."
"She'll come back before she's supposed to."
"And give us orders from her desk and have us running around more than she already does." Kenny looked toward Vera's office. "But they don't belong in there. She does."
"They're going through the case files to see if they can find anything to use against her." Shep whispered.
Aiden looked at her. "And can they?"
"The only things that could possibly be in there, that aren't out here with our things, are pictures she didn't want you to see."
"The pictures of how the bodies were found." Aiden guessed.
"Yes."
"Will they hold that against her?"
Kenny shrugged. "Who knows? It depends on whether or not someone has a grudge."
VS
Shep looked at Hu, studying the man and wondering if he felt more for Vera than even he realized. She knew from an earlier conversation that he wasn't just a friend as Vera had said, that he was a therapist that she'd been discussing the case with and how it was affecting her. "Are you falling in love with her?" she whispered.
Hu raised an eyebrow and blinked in surprise at the question. "No," he answered. "What makes you ask that?"
She shrugged. "Just wondering."
Hu studied the young woman when she turned her attention back to watching Billy and Vera. What had made her ask him such a question? He hadn't given any signs that he was in love with Vera, had he? He wasn't, so he didn't know how he possibly could have led the young woman to believe that he was.
"You know they're investigating her and her part in Steven's death." Shep said after a few minutes.
"I do."
"You're a therapist, if they find out you were seeing her…"
"But I wasn't. I was simply visiting a friend at her house for dinner and doing another friend the favor of making sure she wasn't alone."
"Billy knew." Shep breathed. "He knew that they'd investigate her."
"I don't know. You'd have to ask him. He only asked one friend to do another friend a favor."
"And you never put your meetings down on paper so they can't prove you're lying."
"Who says that I am?" Hu countered.
"Fine. I won't push. Just be careful. They've not said a word to any of us so far, but they will in time I'm sure."
"None of you know anything."
"Except I do." Shep whispered as she looked into Vera's room.
"But does what you know have anything to do with what happened at the abandoned house?" Hu gave her another way of looking at things.
Shep changed subjects. "They moved her to a private room."
"Yes. Her screams were disturbing others on the ward." Hu answered the question in her statement, knowing what she was doing and allowing it.
"I thought the sedation was supposed to help with that."
"It does…mostly."
"You haven't kept something from us, have you?" Shep asked, looking up at Hu.
"Not where her condition is concerned. She's been through a traumatic experience and she's not really been coherent enough to realize she's safe. I'm sure she's also dreaming about everything that happened." Hu assured Shep, not telling her that he and Billy suspected Vera was still being haunted by Hellen's memories of the day she and Martin were murdered.
"Will you help her?" Shep asked a few moments later.
"I'll do my best, but she'll have to want me to help her. I'm not sure she'll talk to anyone."
"She'll talk to Billy."
Hu nodded. "Yes. If she opens up to anyone, it will be Billy. She may fight him before she talks to him."
"She doesn't like being fussed over, so I'm sure there will be fighting." Shep chuckled as she thought back to when Vera was poisoned.
"What?"
"I'm just thinking about how she was when she was poisoned. She yelled at Joe and then later confessed that it was because she doesn't like being fussed over."
Hu nodded. "I'm not sure it's that she doesn't like to be fussed over, I think it's more that she doesn't know what to do when she's being fussed over."
"That's probably a more accurate explanation."
"You care about her." Hu whispered.
"I do. I'm not sure how she managed it."
"Managed what?"
"To make me care about her like I do." Shep shrugged. "Other bosses have been in situations where we weren't sure what was going to happen to them, and I was worried about them, but this time…"
"You were scared."
"Yes," she whispered. "But why? What is it about that woman in there, the one that yells and shouts at us all, that makes me care so much that I haven't slept in days because I was afraid that we wouldn't find her…that we would find her dead?"
Hu patted Shep on the arm. "I haven't figured that part out myself."