Title: Deep Talks and A Glass of Wine
Summary: Sylvie joins Mouch and Trudy for a post-shift dinner. Warm heart-to-heart talks between the trio. Inspired by the dinner scene in CF S11xE02.
Disclaimer: I do not own Chicago Fire/Chicago PD or any of its characters. They belong to Dick Wolf, I do, however, own my writing so please don't steal- SantinaJo©
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A/N: This is the first time I've written anything since January, please be kind. All mistakes are my own. The opening of the second scene has dialogue from the actual show.
-01-
"Hey, you coming to Molly's tonight?" Hermann asked Mouch as he zipped up his duffle bag and slung it over his shoulder.
"Not tonight," Mouch answered, closing his locker, "Trudy is making dinner."
Hermann shrugged. "Swing by after?"
Mouch grinned, shaking his head no. "It's our only night together," he explained.
Hermann rolled his eyes. "I never thought I'd see the day that you betray me, Mouch. This cuts deep."
Mouch shook his head, his always-present smirk turning into a laugh. He followed Hermann out of the locker rooms, giving a small wave to Cruz and Severide as he passed.
"Hey, Mouch!" It was Sylvie. She hopped out of the back of the ambulance and ran the small distance over to where he was standing. "Do you got a minute?"
"I'll catch up with you later," Mouch told Hermann. His best friend of over twenty years nodded in understanding. Mouch turned his attention back to the young medic. "How ya doing, Brett?"
Sylvie exhaled a breath, rolling her eyes as she thought back on the mess that she'd gotten them into earlier that afternoon. Embarrassment colored her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes to the cracks in the concrete.
"Mouch, I owe you an apology. This afternoon never should have happened. I put us both at risk, and I'm so sorry. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come in when you did."
"Sylvie—"
"No," Sylvie held up her hand, "Please." She dropped her hand back to her side and balled it into a nervous fist. "I know my head hasn't been where it's needed to be. Ever since Casey and I broke up, I've just been throwing myself into work, looking for any distraction. I thought the para-medicine program—helping people—would help me, but I can't help anyone if I'm not thinking clearly. I promise, what happened today will not happen again. Can you forgive me?"
"You don't owe me any apologies, Brett. If anything, I should probably be apologizing to you. You should never have gone up there alone." Mouch had been kicking himself about taking his wife's phone call over going up to Warren's apartment with Sylvie.
Sylvie breathed a sigh of relief and moved to wrap the older man into a hug. Over the years, Mouch had become almost like a second father to her, and she deeply cherished the many adventures that they'd had together. He was her biggest support in getting the para-medicine program off the ground, and she'd enjoyed riding alongside him and getting to know him on a deeper level the last few months since they'd started working together in the community.
"So, listen," Mouch pulled away from their embrace, his large hand resting on her shoulder. "If you're free tonight, you should come over for dinner. Trudy's cooking."
"Oh, Mouch," Sylvie shook her head no, "I don't know."
"Ahh, come on," he squeezed her shoulder affectionately.
"I don't want to impose."
"You're never an imposition," he promised her. "Come over around 7:30?"
"Fine," she relented, "as long as Trudy won't mind. I'll even bring a bottle of wine, maybe even dessert."
"Great! I'll we'll see you tonight then." Mouch gave her one last gentle smile and started to head for his truck. Just as he'd turned the key over in the ignition, his phone started to ring. A picture of he and his wife lit up the front of his screen and he smiled softly as he slid his thumb across the screen to accept the call. "Hey, Baby! I was just about to call you."
"Oh, about what?"
"I invited Brett over for dinner, I hope that's okay. "
Trudy was silent for a long moment. "This is our only night off together," she said finally.
"Yea," Mouch squeezed the bridge of his nose. He could tell his wife was annoyed, and while he didn't normally like to get on her bad side, he knew she'd understand his reasonings. After all, she knew what it was like. Work was more than work; his colleagues were more than just his colleagues. They were his family. "Look, today was a rough day. I just don't want her to be alone. The poor girl has enough on her plate. I just want her to have some fun tonight and relax."
Trudy's tone changed from irritation to concern. "Is everything okay?"
"We had a close call today with a patient," he explained. "We've been seeing this guy regularly for months, he's got some psych issues and the last few days there's been a noticeable change in him. Sylvie wanted to stop by and check in on him before we called it a day. She went upstairs, and after hanging up with you earlier the neighbor told me his sister passed away a few weeks ago."
"How awful," Trudy sighed sadly.
"Yea," Mouch agreed, pulling his seatbelt across his chest, and buckling it in tightly. "Today I guess he finally snapped because when I went to check on Sylvie, he was charging at her with a hammer."
"A hammer!" Trudy exclaimed, "What are you talking about? Are you both okay?"
"We're fine, we're fine," Mouch promised her, "no one got hurt."
"But it could have ended a lot differently," Trudy objected. "I'm just glad you're both safe." Despite her tough-girl act, Mouch knew that his wife had one of the most caring hearts of anyone he'd ever met. It was one of the things that had made falling in love with her so easy. Which was why, when he really thought about it, he couldn't believe that no one had swept her off her feet years ago. He considered himself lucky in many ways, but Trudy, by far, was the best thing to have ever happened to him.
He pictured her younger, Sylvie's age, dealing with the fall-out of one failed relationship after the next. Not to mention a failed engagement. He couldn't imagine what that must have been like for her, and it broke his heart to think of her throwing herself into work, sucking up all the overtime that she could get, the same way that Sylvie had so that she could avoid dealing with her feelings.
"Did I tell you that she and Casey broke up?"
"No," Trudy gasped. "When did that happen? What happened? Who ended it, him, or her?"
"I don't know all the details," Mouch shrugged. "I guess the distance just got to be too much for them. She's been moping around the station house and throwing herself into work. I'm kind of worried about her, you know."
"Break-ups are never fun," Trudy agreed, "but it's better to get out of things while you're ahead because nothing is worse than sitting on your bedroom floor with a box of wedding invitations, wearing your veil, and eating ice cream until you're sick, while he's off canoodling with god-knows who."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that, Baby. But his loss is my gain."
"In the end, it all worked out the way it was supposed to," Trudy agreed, "but between you and me, I should have shot him in the shorts when I had the chance."
Mouch frowned at his phone.
"Anyway," Trudy sighed deeply. "Will you stop and get French bread on the way home? Thanks, Babe, love you."
"I love you, too. One more thing—" Trudy didn't give him time to finish his sentence before disconnecting the phone call.
…
"Wow, look at all of this," Sylvie gasped Trudy and Mouch walked into the dining room both holding the large bowls containing dinner. "I wish you would have let me bring dessert."
"Oh," Trudy shushed her, "This was no trouble at all." She took a seat at the end of the table. "I'm just so grateful you both are all right. That—that could have ended very badly today," she said, reaching for the bottle of wine her husband had brought home.
"Well," Sylvie sighed, shrugging her shoulders in defeat. "It did for Warren. Without any family to care for him, he's going to be committed."
"Well," Mouch swiped his finger across the front of his nose, "Hopefully he'll get the help he needs." He wasn't naïve to the break that was the American Healthcare system. It was one of the reasons the para-medicine program was so important to the community. Without people like Brett who gave her time to aid those in need, Warren would likely join the millions of other Americans who fell through the cracks.
"Yeah," Sylvie laid her napkin across her lap.
With not much else he could say to comfort her, Mouch looked at Trudy and nodded his head gently in encouragement. Trudy shifted toward the younger woman and reached for the bottle of wine. "Break-ups are hard," she said knowingly as she began to pour some wine into Brett's glass.
Brett shifted her eyes to the older gentleman across from her. "You told her?"
Mouch had the decency to look guilty, gesturing to his wife in a way that implied, I tell her everything.
Although it shouldn't have surprised her that he would open up to his wife and tell her things, for Brett knew they were extremely close, it was still difficult to picture Trudy as the wife who gossiped back and forth with her husband.
"I once tossed a bowling ball through a guy's windshield after we parted company," Trudy confessed calmly as she poured some wine into her glass.
Sylvie's eyes widened to the size of saucers. She didn't know what surprised her more, the fact that Sergeant Trudy Platt would do such a thing, or the fact that Mouch didn't seem the least bit surprised.
"Young love," Mouch hummed, smiling as he began to pour some wine for himself.
"Ah-ha, Baby," Trudy chuckled softly as she reached for his hand, and squeezed it lovingly, "I was 37." She ignored the look of shock that flashed over her husband's face and inclined her head toward Sylvie. "I've got more stories like that if you want them."
"Yes, please," Sylvie laughed.
"Don't even ask what I did with super glue."
Sylvie brought her glass to her mouth, laughing against the rim. This is was what I needed, she thought as Trudy launched into a story about how a college boyfriend had dumped her after his gig. There had been a brief period where the older woman had dropped out of college and run off to California with a bunch of burnouts. It was a side to the tough, no-nonsense Sergeant, that Sylvie hadn't been expecting.
The night passed quickly, the three of them swapping stories of one failed relationship after the other. Quickly, Sylvie concluded that no one knew how to do revenge better than Trudy and that Mouch had probably the worst luck of any man she'd ever known when it came to his time in the dating scene. Most people wouldn't be able to sit through their spouse talking about a former relationship, but Sylvie was happy that Mouch and Trudy were confident and secure enough in their love for one another that it didn't matter.
"It all worked out in the end," Mouch told her happily as he kissed his wife's hand. "Sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to Sylvie, and it can be easy to give up. I don't want that for you."
"I know," Sylvie nodded her head in understanding. She twisted the glass around in her hand and crossed her right leg over her left. "It just… sucks. I thought maybe this would really go somewhere, ya know?"
"Yea," Trudy nodded in understanding.
Mouch didn't miss the look of sadness that flashed in his wife's eyes, and he settled back in his chair, patiently waiting to see if she would open up to Sylvie about what had happened to her all those years ago. They'd talked a lot about their past, about the failed hopes and dreams that they'd independently had for settling down and having a family. Some days Trudy seemed to take it harder than him. Not being able to experience motherhood, was something she often voiced regret to. The pain of what could have been had eased somewhat over the years, as she accepted that it wasn't in the cards for her, but now that her friends were becoming grandmothers, the cut felt a whole lot deeper.
"You know, I don't tell a lot of people this. It's not something that I like to talk about," Trudy confessed as she poured the last of the wine into her glass. "I was about your age, working with the robbery unit and I was engaged."
"I didn't know that" Sylvie whispered.
"Like I said, I don't like to talk about it," Trudy took a small sip from her glass. "But as you may have guessed, it didn't work out."
Sylvie stayed quiet, waiting for the older woman to continue.
"While I was planning a wedding and planning a life together, Daniel was screwing anything that moved. When I finally decided to call it off, I was in a really bad place, and I just kept sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness. It was a different time back then," Trudy explained. "I was under a lot of pressure at work and being one of the only women in the department, I always had to work ten times harder just to prove myself on the field. I didn't really have any friends that I could talk to, none anyway, who were okay with me calling things off, and I couldn't go to my parents."
"Why not?" Sylvie frowned. She remembered the toll it had taken on Trudy and Mouch both when Trudy's father had been killed. She remembered seeing the older woman at the funeral, and how her heart had truly broken for her. To learn that she hadn't always been able to rely on her father, wasn't something she'd ever expected to hear.
"It was expected of me to get married, to have children, and my dad never let me forget it, and as much as I did truly want those things, I couldn't lie to myself and go through with marrying someone who had no respect for me, or the vows we were supposed to take." Trudy exhaled a breath and raked her hand through the top of her head. "I saw what that sort of marriage did my mother, and it wasn't always a picnic for me either. The fighting, the crying… the way I have a brother half my age, from a woman who was three years younger than me."
"Wow," Sylvie whistled, digesting everything that Trudy had just told her, "That's a lot."
Trudy nodded her head in agreement.
"You know," Sylvie uncrossed her legs and scooted her chair in closer to the table. "I was engaged once, too. It's why I came here to Chicago, actually."
"Run-away bride?" Trudy asked, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.
"That's what I said when I first got here," Sylvie chuckled, "But no, more like run-away groom." She swirled the last of the wine that was in her cup before gulping it down in one drink. Looking at the clock on the far wall, she said, "It's getting late, I should probably head out and let you guys go to bed."
"Ahh," Trudy grumbled, "I spilled my heart out to you, now you won't do the same for me?"
Sylvie smiled, "If I told you everything tonight, then what would we have to talk about at our next family dinner?" She made a move to stand up from her chair and grabbed her purse. Trudy and Mouch walked her to the door, and she turned, smiling softly. "Thank you both, for having me tonight. I really needed this."
"You're welcome over any time," Mouch told her, sincerely
Trudy nodded her hand in agreement, smiling as she leaned against her husband's side. "Our door is always open." They watched as the young woman descended the front steps and walked the short distance to her car.
"Thank you, Trudy," Mouch softly kissed her head.
"You don't have to thank me," she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "I know you'd do the same for Kim."