As usual, thank you to all that have reviewed or sent me a review through PM, much appreciated
Spewing that Lawson was going to propose and they STILL don't know about the rape arghhhhhhhh.
I wanted to give a special mention to Emily. Thank you for your review and the luck for Lymphoma Awareness, it was such an awesome day, with a lot of school kids, those with cancer, disability's, illnesses and adults that turned up for the event and had a blast. Your message about your dad really touched me that morning, so sorry to hear for your loss, but was thinking of you while we had a dedication to those either in the fight or lost their fight with the disease.
Also Ankaz I hope you like how I wrote the proposal into this.
Even though I find atm that Charlie can be a real arsehole, especially when it comes to the Alpha Males, we have seen a softer side to him and he did prove to us at the end of the episode he can get along with Lawson when he tries, so I wrote him a little differently, hope you guys don't mind.
Enjoy
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Rush.
….
"Hey Stell, when you get a minute we need to talk to you." Charlie says popping his head into the locker room before walking back out again.
"They probably want a report about how the babysitting of me went." Shannon says to her as Stella shuts her locker.
"Nah I know what it's about and trust me it's not a report on that, it's something else." Stella says before walking out.
"Am I missing something here?" Christian asks not understanding the babysitting comment as well as noticing the tension in the room more than what it had been in the past couple of days and that Shannon seemed to be ignoring Lawson completely, who was looking on the verge of broken as well as angry, leaving Christian confused.
"I'll explain in the car, you obviously haven't been told yet." Shannon says shutting the door to her locker before walking out.
"Haven't been told what yet?" Christian yells out chasing after her as they had received their car partners earlier.
"Did you see how she avoided me completely?" Lawson asks Josh.
"She ignored all of us mate, she didn't even talk to Stella that much." Josh says.
"The thing is, I was going to propose." Lawson says as he ensures no one is listening.
"You serious?" Josh asks.
"Well yeah I was, until all this space crap happened and now I find out it's because she got raped." Lawson says.
"So you're leaving then, Charlie's going to have to move one of you along, you can't have a married couple in the same unit, you know that." Josh says as he leans against his locker with his arms folded and Lawson does the same opposite him.
"Maybe I can live with that." Lawson says calmly.
"Here's to the new world order." Josh says coolly.
"Well I don't know if it's going to happen now." Lawson replies.
"Why not?" Josh asks as they start to walk out to the car.
"Because she just got raped, and how am I meant to propose to her when she won't even let me in, or get close enough to her to propose in the first place, plus if I ask her to propose now, she will think I'm doing it out of pity and obligation to prove that I'll be there for her, I can't do that, she doesn't need the extra stress on her plate right now." Lawson says as they get into TR2 and look over to see Shannon talking to Christian in the car from the passenger seat as Christian sat in the driver's seat and noticed the look of shock appear on his face.
"Maybe just let her know your there for her and that you're not going to propose now, but you will when she is ready for it, it won't hurt." Josh says watching the scene next to them and seeing Christian starting to look pissed off and making sure he kept an eye on them in case he needed to step in to calm Christian down.
"I guess." Lawson says distractedly.
….
"How was Shannon last night?" Christian asks Stella as she enters the office seeing Shannon and Christian walk down the corridor towards the cars.
"She was okay, had a few nightmares but I was able to calm her down quickly enough after the third one once she realised I wasn't going to hurt her." Stella says walking up to where Kerry was standing behind Leon.
"Does she know about this guy watching her?" Charlie asks concerned.
"Nah, I managed to make him piss off before she came back out so I didn't tell her, she doesn't need to be freaked out, and we just need to keep an eye out." She says.
"Is this the guy?" Kerry asks signalling for Leon to bring up his photo.
"Yep, even with that uniform I can tell it's him, and a couple of times she yelled out for Trent to stop it and to get off her." Stella says disgustedly.
"I'm going to go and deal with him, let him know we are onto him and he can't get to Shannon." Kerry says angrily.
"What do you know about him?" Stella asks.
"His full name and rank is Senior Sergeant Trent Riley from Special Ops, his had a couple of speeding and parking tickets, and a lot of his staff don't want to work with him due to his rudeness and arrogance but nothing else is on here, but that's not to say he hasn't done the same thing to another girl before and she didn't report it, we are just lucky Shannon did perform a rape kit on herself." Kerry says.
"Are we telling Lawson or are we keeping this from him?" Stella asks.
"You can tell him, his going to know something is going on, but he can't do anything while his on the road, plus Shannon will tell him off if she finds out and I don't think his willing enough to do that to her right now." Kerry says.
"Alright, well if that's it for now I better hop into the car with Lawson and Josh." Stella says.
"Yeah, thanks Stella, just keep an eye on those boys for me." Kerry says signalling for her to go.
"I better go to, check that Christian is dealing with it okay." Charlie says walking out to the cars as well.
….
After a day of dealing with a variety of situations, involving a tiger, being shot at, drugs being involved and all the other small bits and pieces, they were all more than relieved to head home and Shannon was starting to feel like she could begin to make progress after having her second counselling session that day and having the team aware of her rape.
Walking into the locker room's Shannon see's Lawson sitting there, staring into space.
"Weird day huh." She says simply as she opens her locker to get her clothes.
"Yeah, just a bit." He says.
"How are you?" she asks quietly.
"I don't know, I'm confused and I'm feeling different things on different levels." He says.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it, and I'm sorry I got Josh to tell you." She says looking down while holding her clothes to her chest.
"Look, I get why you got Josh to tell me, I was pretty angry which I think was understandable and to be expected, it's not every day you get told your girlfriend got raped, let alone by someone who was meant to be her friend, but I'm upset you didn't come to one of us sooner, that you kept me at arm's length, I understand why now, but I didn't back then, when you said you needed space I thought you wanted to break up with me, I was going to propose to you before I found out about the rape, but I'm not going to ask you now, you need to deal with this first." He says looking up at her and seeing her nod, seeing the tears streaming down her face and he felt his heart breaking at the sight.
"When I propose to you and trust me I will, I want to know I can trust you to come to me with anything, anything at all, that you trust me enough to do that, I love you and I can see myself spending my life with you, I'm not willing enough or stupid enough to lose you again and I'm willing to get a transfer to another squad because of the rules, so just know that I'm always going to be here for you no matter what, you've got me Shannon, and I'm not letting you push me away, I'll give you the space you need but I'm not leaving you." He says sternly.
"Thank you, I really needed to hear that." She says slowly walking to him and putting her clothes down on the bench before standing in front of him with her arms open.
Taking the hint, he stands up and opens his arms out for her to step into which she does and she hugs him tightly while sobbing into his chest. Slowly wrapping his arms around her, Lawson is relieved to feel her in his arms again and holds her tightly while vowing to himself he will do everything in his power to save her from experiencing this kind of pain and hurt again.
Pulling away, she wipes her eyes before picking up her clothes.
"Just let me get changed and I'll stay at your place, but I'm taking the couch." She says stepping back.
"No, you'll take the bed and I'll either take the couch or lay on the floor, no arguments." He says as he sees her about to open her mouth in retaliation.
Turning around, she heads towards the change rooms outside the showers.
"You can get changed here you know." He says calmly.
"I'm not ready for you to see me, and especially not with the bruises." She says before walking out.
"I'm just going to talk to Charlie, so come and get me when you're done." He yells out.
"Okay." She yells out.
….
"Kerry gone home for the day?" Lawson asks Charlie as he enters the office.
"Nah, she went to go pay Trent a visit, he wasn't rostered on until tonight, and they couldn't find him so she went to deal with him, she wouldn't let me go with her." Charlie says.
"Unfortunately I think its best she went and sorted him out on her own, she has a way of getting her point across to people, and I needed to talk to both of you, but you can fill her in." Lawson says having being filled in by Stella earlier in the day what had happened the previous night.
"Yeah shoot." Charlie says.
"I'm starting to make progress with Shannon, she is staying at mine tonight, and even though his on duty right now, I still want to sign my gun out like we agreed we would all do until we know he won't be coming near her again." Lawson says.
"No worries look after her." Charlie says handing him the book to sign out the gun while Charlie checked that it was the correct one to which Lawson was signing out in the book and then approved it, agreeing it was the right one.
"I will, and I'll let you guys know if anything happens." Lawson says.
"Cheers Lawson, have a good one." Charlie says as he watches Lawson walk out to Shannon who was waiting in the corridor, hugging herself, before turning around and walking out just a couple of steps ahead of Lawson