"Glad to see you could join us Sullivan." Sgt Christopher quipped snidely as Sully puffed into the report room. He was a few minutes late, he'd had a hell of a morning and now he had to deal with Christopher's smug face. He grunted as he lowered his heavy frame into the chair next to his young partner. "Where did you get to Sul?" Ty asked him quietly not listening to the cocky sergeant drone on. "I had something to take care of." Sully told him brusquely. Ty nodded looking across at his partner. They had worked together long enough that by now they knew each others moods and today was definitely a don't-ask-too-many-questions-or-I'll-rip-you-a-new-one day for Sullivan. Ty tried to think if something yesterday had set him off but came up empty, which could only mean it was something from Sully's personal life. Ty grinned to himself wondering if Sully had a new lady friend – today wasn't the day to ask but he stored it away for next time.
"55-Charlie you have sector 8 today." "No, we're in sector 9, I cleared this with Swersky." Sully informed the arrogant sergeant not too politely. "Well if that were true it would be on my run sheet but it's not so as I was saying 55-David you are in sector 9." "We'll swap with 55-Charlie." Faith spoke up, Bosco shrugged at her as if to say 'What are you doing?' He had a long history with Sgt Christopher and avoided having anything to do with him wherever possible. "Unfortunately this isn't a democracy Yokas, what I say goes." Christopher stated smugly. "Actually what I say goes, 55-David your swapping sectors with 55-Charlie today. Go get some crooks, be safe out there." Swersky poked his head into the room long enough to override Christopher and break up their handover. "Get the radios while I check the car out." Sully ordered Ty not waiting for a reply. "Looks like Sully has PMS today Davis – you might want to offer him a little evening primrose." Bosco joked down at the radio cage. "Yeah I'm looking to survive the shift Bosco not get killed before it even begins." Ty quips back.
In the RMP Sully has insisted that he drives for the shift, they are just cruising around not much is going on even once the sun goes down they only respond to a few minor calls, an attempted B&E, a report of a stolen car and a store owner who busted two kids running off without paying for some beer. "This is like the eighth time we've been by here Sully, you looking for something in particular?" Davis asked as they slowed down to cruise past a little Italian café come book store. Sully pulled off to the curb and killed the engine. "I need to run an errand." He told Davis gruffly getting out of the car and looking across the hood at the shop. He ran a hand through his too long hair, reminding himself to get a haircut one of these days. "So what I'm supposed to just wait in the car?" Ty calls out to Sully's retreating back.
Ty knows that something is up with Sully but until he decided to talk about it there wasn't much that Ty could do to help him out. Ten minutes later Sully still hadn't come back out of the café Ty got out of the RMP to stretch his legs and look around a little. He looked through the window and saw Sully talking to a short Italian woman who looked vaguely familiar. When she turned he face towards him Ty remembered seeing her in the station house a few weeks earlier, something about a break in at her café – Bosco and Faith had caught the call.
Rosa pointed at Ty through the window and Sully looked around annoyed. He'd made it quite clear to the kid to stay in the car; there had been no call out over the radio what the hell was he up to. "Is that who I think it is?" Rosa asked Sully quietly. Sully nodded, "I'm sorry, we shouldn't have come here tonight. I'll go, we can talk later Rosie." He walked away from her but when he reached the street outside she was still following him. "Rosie." He warned but she shook her head stubbornly "I'd like to meet that young man." She told him slipping her hand into the crook of his arm. Sully sighed and led her over to Davis.
Ty stood there watching a little bewildered as the pair came over towards him he wasn't quite sure what was going on. "Rosa this is Ty Davis Jnr, Davis this is an old friend of mine Rosa Jasper." Sully introduced them awkwardly. Ty reached out and shook Rosa's hand politely, "It's nice to meet you ma'am." Rosa looked over him carefully. "John talks about you often." Rosa tells him as she searches his face for something she can't seem to find. "Don't believe a word he says, it's all lies." Ty jokes lightly throwing her a bright grin. "I knew your father." Rosa tells him quietly and Ty's face fell he looked at Sully uncertainly. "If he ah, if he did anything that hurt you…" "Davis." Sully warned. "I'm sorry ma'am, as I hope Sully has told you, I'm not like my father." Rosa smiled at him weakly, "So perhaps it is not all lies." Ty hangs his head guiltily, everywhere he goes he is plagued by the fact that his father was a crooked cop…he often wondered if it would be quite so hard if they didn't share the same name.
"We should go." Sully told Rosa jerking his head at the car. "Take care young man." Rosa smiles at Ty in a motherly fashion. She tugs at Sully's collar straightening it; he leans down and presses a kiss to her round cheek. "I'm sorry Rosie." "Shh, John – it was so long ago. Thank you for this morning, I'm sorry Sera missed it – I'll let her know you came by." Sully nodded looking down at his old friend sadly, "Call me if you need anything at all, any time Rosie…" She silenced him with by patting his chest gently. "Go keep the people safe John." She stood on the curb watching until they pulled away down the street. She returned to the café with a small tear in her eye.
Ty and Sully rode around in silence for a few more minutes before Ty couldn't contain himself any longer. "What did my dad do to her?" "I don't want to talk about it Davis." Sully tried to end the conversation. "Well I want to he's my father I have a right to know." Ty argued. "You know what Davis not everything is about you and your rights. Did you ever stop to think of that?" Sully was getting angry, he didn't want to go over this, not tonight – he should never have stopped off to see Rosa he knew it would be a mistake but just like everything that concerned her he couldn't help himself. Even after all this time he still felt responsible. "Rosa's daughter is Sera Jasper, the nurse from Mercy isn't she?" Ty asked. "Yes. She's also my god-daughter." Sully confided. Ty looked at him skeptically "How come you never told me that before?" "I don't tell you everything Davis." "Obviously." Sully looked out of the windscreen.
"What made you so late today?" Ty asked, he knew that he was pushing his luck with this but something was bothering Sully and he wanted to know what it was. "I'm not getting into this with you tonight Davis, I already told you I had something to do its personal." "Yeah well when you bring it on shift and it rides around in the car with us like it is tonight it stops being just about you." Ty told him. "I'm here to back you up tonight Sully, I wanna know that your head is in the right space to be out here on the streets carrying a gun. If its not then I worry, simple as that."
Sully stopped the car abruptly, turning to glare at Davis. "You wanna know where I was Davis, you wanna know why I was late. I was at the cemetery this morning with Rosie, placing flowers on her dead husband's grave, on my friend's grave." He told Ty before calling in to dispatch that they were on a meal break. They went into a burger joint and ordered sitting down with their meals Sully continued his story, not waiting for Ty to ask. "Today is the anniversary of Rosie's husband's death. Officer Henry Sean Jasper. He worked patrol with me and your dad…we went to the academy together, got puppy walked at the same time." Sully told him remembering back to when they were two green, fresh faced men straight out of the academy ready to fight the good fight, ready to save the world one perp at a time. "What happened to him?" Davis asked breaking into Sully's reverie. "He was killed in the line of duty." Ty looked at Sully waiting for details. "It was the day Sera graduated from high school – she'd made the honor role and was so nervous about the speak she had to make as valedictorian. I was there on god-father duties with her brother Oliver and Rosie…I had the camcorder there just incase Henry couldn't make it – he was working undercover on a big operation. He asked me to make sure that if he missed it I had a copy so he could watch it later on."
Sully remembered back to that day, Seraphina up on the podium giving her speak about heading out into the future, about it being time for her senior class to decide what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. "I know that as I sadly leave this school behind, as my friends and I part company and head off in different directions that each of us will leave a unique set of footprints on this earth. I hope that my path will take me on a long a prosperous journey filled with love, friendship, family and success…I head to Columbia in the fall to begin my nursing degree and I can tell you all I am excited. I can't wait to face the new challenges ahead of me, although I am scared, I am nervous – I fear that I may falter of fail but I know in my heart that so long as I have my family and my friends by my side I can achieve anything…So I ask you my fellow seniors of the class of 1998, when you walk for the last time from these halls, where will your path take you? What footprints will you leave behind for those that come next?"
After she had finished her speech and the ceremony was over he'd kept filming catching her goofing around with friends and her brother and mother. Just as she'd asked here her father was Rosie's cell rang, she paled as she took the call holding the phone out to Sully. "This is Officer John Sullivan, what's going on?" He'd demanded down the phone, he too paled when the voice repeated the message to him. "Sully, its Sgt Swersky – It's Henry, he's been shot. You need to come quickly, bring Rosa and the kids." "What the hell happened?" Sully insisted. "You need to hurry Sullivan; I'll explain when you get here." Sully looked across at his young partner, his mind back in the present no longer seeing the past vividly. "When we got to the hospital it was a sea of blue uniforms and suited detectives, it looked like half of the department had turned up."
"How did it happen?" Sully sighed, fiddling with the burger in front of him but not actually eating it. "He was ambushed. He had arranged to meet a dealer to score some dope, was trying to get to the bigger fish, to the guys who distributed to his dealer. They had caught wind that he was working undercover and they ah they gunned him down while he waited for his mark to show…he never even saw it coming.HHH" Sully looked away obviously upset at the memories resurfacing. "We made it to the hospital just in time, Sera ran over to him as they were wheeling him into surgery – she was the apple of her daddy's eye, he always treated her like a princess."
Ty nodded slowly, he knew what it was like to loose a father, he'd been much younger that Seraphina when his father Tyrone had been killed – but it was much the same really, although Sera's dad was probably a good cop, not crooked with two families, like Ty Davis Snr had been. "Did they get the guys who did it?" Ty wanted to know. Sully looked at him darkly, "It took us a while but we got there in the end. When we caught him…you have no idea how hard it was to not just beat the living shit out of him right then and there." "You brought him in?" Ty asked his eyebrow raised. "It was my collar, he killed my friend…I just wanted to kill him."
Sully wasn't proud of that moment in his life, he might have been able to restrain himself from killing the man but he and his partner had roughed him up pretty good – they told their Lieutenant that he had been resisting arrest, another lie to add to the pile he had accumulated throughout his career. "Did he get sent down for it?" "He got 25 years with the option for parole after 15 – it was a joke. They should have locked him up and thrown away the key. He killed a cop in broad daylight and didn't give a damn about it." Sully spat.
Ty chewed a fry slowly while he carefully thought about his next question, "What did my dad do to Rosa? I mean he'd been long dead when that happened to Henry." Sully looked across at Davis. "You know what your dad was like, thought he was a ladies man – he had two families and ran after just about anything in a skirt." It sounded harsh but it was true and nothing that Davis hadn't heard before. "Your father got Henry into trouble over some shady dealings with his informant. Your dad was pocketing drug money, offered to cut Henry in…when Henry declined he received a warning to make sure he kept his mouth shut." Ty could only imagine what that warning was.
"What did my father do to him?" "He had a few boys beat him up then ratted to Henry's Sgt that he believed he was taking a cut from his informant's profits. Henry was suspended for 2 weeks without pay while it was investigated." "He was cleared though right? Sera's dad wasn't dirty?" Ty asked anxious to know the extent of his father's malice. "He was the straightest cop I ever worked with. The only thing Henry did wrong was to not turn in your father when he had the chance." That was hard for Ty to hear but he knew it was true – his father had been a dirty cop, he'd take his cut wherever he could get it and didn't care who got hurt in the process. A burst of static interrupted Ty's melancholy bringing him back to the present. "Central to 55-Charlie we have disturbance call at 1259 on King." "55-Charlie to central, 10-4 show us responding." He hurriedly downed the rest of his shake and followed sully quickly out to the RMP.
At the end of shift Sully was sitting on the bench in the locker room looking at the photo tacked up in the back of his locker – it was a picture of himself, Henry, Lieutenant Swersky back when he'd been a patrol cop and Tyrone Davis Snr. They were all standing around in uniform at the front of the precinct house, all laughing and carrying on. If Sully remembered rightly Rosie had taken the photo. He smiled ruefully as he let his thoughts wander back over his time with Henry. At the academy he'd been head of his class, he was intelligent, had a strong moral compass that bent slightly but never once broke…he was a good husband and true friend and a doting father. He loved his two children with unwavering devotion, he'd be so proud of how they turned out. Oliver was living in Chicago with his wife and three young kids, he was a teacher at a local high school – he taught music and history if Sully remembered correctly. It had been a couple of years since he'd last seen him, it must have been a thanksgiving or Christmas dinner perhaps.
Then there was Seraphina who just kept going from strength to strength. She had breezed through her nursing degree and was working hard to make a difference in people's lives. She was a brilliant nurse, compassionate, determined, firm, friendly…but as Rosa kept insisting she needed to settle down and find a decent man. Rosa worried constantly that Seraphina would never find the happiness that she herself had found with Henry. Sully didn't see her slowness to settle down as a bad thing, he'd met quite a few of the guys she'd dated and there had only been one or two that he'd approved of and they hadn't lasted too long. No she was better to take her time, meet someone that deserved to be with her…not that Sully could imagine such a man existed. He was very protective of Seraphina, he had promised Henry that he would look after him and it was one oath he was determined not to break. He owed his friend that much at the very least.
Seraphina climbed the stairs to the locker room, today had been long and emotional and as much as she was ready for a long scolding shower, a glass of good wine and to sack out in bed she knew there was something she needed to do first. She slowly trudged her weary body up the stairs, finally arriving in the locker room. She spotted Sully sitting on the bench, looking lost in his thoughts.
"Hey Sully." She called out to him softly. He didn't move a muscle, didn't even seem as though he heard her. "Earth to Sullivan." She tried again, he looked at her blinking a few times before registering she was there. "How are you doing kid?" She shrugged at him, sitting her slim frame on the bench next to him. "What are you doing here?" He asked her gruffly, still haunted by his conversation with Davis earlier in the evening. "What I can't come visit my favorite god-father?" she teased him lightly. "I'm fine, I don't need any help." He told her frowning severely. "Yeah well so you say, I'm just keeping up my end of the bargain. I made a promise and I intend to keep it." "Sera…" "No, Sully I know you don't like to talk about it but I promised Dad that I'd keep an eye on you."
Sully looked away from her stubbornly, he didn't deserve this from her, it was his job to look out for her and her mother – he hated it when the situation was flipped the other way. Sera placed her small hand on his leg and gave it a gentle but firm pat. "You know where to find me if you need anything Uncle Sully." She told him rising slowly off the seat and looking down at him. When he didn't respond she dropped a kiss to the crown of his head and walked away back towards the stairs. Sully looked up watching her leave. "Seraphina." She stopped and turned back to face him. "You father would be so proud of you." He told her thickly. She nodded trying to force down the sudden lump I her throat. "He'd be proud of you Sully. Good night." She practically ran from the room before her tears could overwhelm her. "Goodnight Pumpkin." Sully mumbled under his breath as he watched her leave.