I know! I know, it's been a little while, but I had some serious writer's block with this one, not to mention the two other stories I have going. I promise though, I will update at least once a week, hopefully twice. Here, we skip ahead to the end of Lilly's resting at home... This chapter... some drama, some fluff, some set-up for the next few chapters... anyways I hope you enjoy it. Chapter title by Alison Krauss
Chapter 17: If I Didn't Know Any Better
The rest of the week passed without a hitch. Scotty, having made an excuse to take Thursday off spent the day on Lilly's couch, just watching old movies and making a mess of the carpet with their snacks. On Monday morning the next week, Lilly was dressed and ready to leave well ahead of time. Stitches gone, bruises faded, sprained wrist mostly healed… she was eager to get back to work and thoroughly bored of the four walls of her house.
"Scotty, hurry up," she called upstairs. Lilly spun on her heel, tapping her watch impatiently at the foot of the stairs. As much as sitting still and waiting wasn't Scotty's method of operation, it sure as hell wasn't hers either. This past week, sitting at home while the others worked late into the night, compiling evidence for the lawyers who would prosecute Wayne Simms, amounted to Lilly beginning to feel utterly useless.
A groan, followed by shuffling footsteps, led to Scotty's feet appearing at the top of the stairs. "Lil, we don't gotta be at work for another hour." He complained, rubbing his bleary eyes. He admired Lilly's dedication, he really did, but it was Monday morning Goddamnit, where did that woman get this sort of energy? Especially after their, rather late, night.
As Scotty made his way toward the shower, he heard Lilly's exasperated sigh as she stomped up the stairs. Without a second thought, she opened the door to the bathroom, crossing her arms and talking to her boyfriend through the whoosh of the water.
"It's my first day back Scotty." She began, "I've been sitting at home for the past week-"
"It's called rest Lil," Scotty teased, pulling back the shower curtain to grin at her, and shake some of his wet hair at her. "We been through this before."
"Scotty," she protested, throwing her hands out to protect her freshly ironed clothes from the soapy water. "And I don't need rest." She countered, raising her chin and regarding him through the shower curtain with her best gloating look.
"Yeah, that ain't what I picked up from last week." Scotty said, "if I'm rememberin' correctly, someone spent the entire night eatin' soup and screamin' at me to get more blankets."
When Lilly was silent, Scotty decided to let that one go. With her, silence, combined with a lack of a sarcastic retort, was enough of a victory. He poked his head out of the shower again, "Y'know, since you're just sittin' there, lookin' bored an' all. You could come in here and join me, much more fun." He finished with a lascivious raise of an eyebrow.
Lilly couldn't help the wide smile that spread across her face, and when she shrugged off her shirt, Scotty had to suppress the urge to say the words out loud. 'I love you'. Three words that would change everything between them in an instant. He knew it was jumping the gun, that he and Lilly had only been dating two weeks, that she'd likely freak out if he said anything, but he found, to his chagrin, himself wanting to say the words anyway. He bit his tongue, trying again to stop himself from saying anything that would send her running from the hills, and when she joined him in the shower, Scotty found himself way too distracted to continue pondering the matter anyways.
"Lilly!" Vera's loud, booming voice greeted her as soon as she stepped off the elevator into the busy bullpen. Before she could sidestep him, she found herself swept into an uncharacteristically enthusiastic Nick Vera Bear Hug.
"You better let go of her before you squish all the air out," Kat said, greeting her with an equally enthusiastic, though less crushing embrace.
"Nice to see you guys too," Lilly said wearily.
"Where's Casanova?" Kat asked, looking behind her, expecting to see Scotty trailing protectively, and sure enough…
"Coffee, your highness." Scotty offered, sharing a cryptic smile with Kat, "figured I owe you this much."
"You got that right, dollface." Kat said, appreciatively taking her coffee and returning his smile with an equally mysterious, teasing grin.
"Dollface? Casanova?" Lilly looked around, meeting each of the detective's eyes separately, wondering what she was missing.
"Didn't you hear?" Vera asked, "Valens here has got himself a girlfriend."
Lilly grinned, turning to Scotty with a knowing look on her face. "You do?" She asked. "I spent the car ride talking about my cats, when you could've been telling me about your new girl? What gives Valens?"
Scotty nodded sheepishly, "Ain't like it's any of their damn business." He countered, hoping to put an end to the conversation.
Lilly waved the file she picked up from her desk at Scotty, "Scotty Valens. Back in the saddle, sounds like everyone's business to me."
"Watch it, Rush." Scotty said. And indeed, if she kept pushing, and if Kat kept looking back and forth between them like she was, well Will and Vera weren't oblivious, and they were sure to figure it out soon. Thankfully, they were distracted by the arrival of Boss.
"Welcome back Lil." Stillman said, walking into the bullpen from his office to meet his detectives, "How's home life treatin' you?"
Lilly groaned, "Thanks a lot for that Boss. It was awful." She stated matter-of-factly.
Stillman shook his head in amusement, "Well you look a lot better, so I must have done something right." He reasoned.
"However better I look, that's all me, nothing to do with the week at home." Lilly argued.
"Uh-huh, I'm sure." Kat teased, but before she could continue making the blonde squirm with exactly what was making her look so happy, an anonymous delivery man entered the fray.
"Got a package for a Detective Lilly Rush." He said, carrying an innocuous cardboard box, covered in a colorful collection of postage stamps that got it here.
"That's me." Lilly volunteered, her brow furrowed with confusion. Who would be sending her a package? "Thanks." She said kindly to the deliver man. She signed his clipboard, took the surprisingly light package and carried it to her desk.
In a second, all her colleagues and Boss were standing around her. She passed the box behind her, letting them feel confusing box.
"What's in here, tissues?" Kat asked. She shook the box next to her ear, passing it back to Lilly with a shrug.
"Careful with that Lil." Boss warned, as she prepared to cut the box open.
Lilly laughed. "Yeah boss, cause there might be a bomb in here weighing less than a pillow." Without a second thought, she tore open the top, and was immediately both touched and surprised.
"I guess 'pillow' wasn't too far off." She whispered.
It was a teddy bear. It wasn't just any teddy bear though. It was a deep purple, felty teddy bear, stuffed just enough so that it wasn't too stiff, nor was it too floppy. The kind that was bigger than a new born baby and just as perfect to hug. Lilly lifted the bear out of the box, staring in wonder at its shiny eyes, perfectly stitched nose, and small mouth. It was the kind of thing she'd always wanted as a little kid, the kind of gift she always hoped for on Christmas morning, or on her birthday.
She had no doubt who it was from. In fact, Lilly could practically feel the self-satisfied energy emanating from her partner at her loss of words. She should tell him off for risking their secret, she knew she should, but he had no idea he knew her like he did, and that thought was so all consuming that she could think of nothing else.
It wasn't until Kat looked in the box that she saw something else; the card that went with the gift. Wordlessly, she handed Lilly the card. "Ain't you supposed to read this first?" She asked, an amused grin hopelessly plastered on her face.
Lilly opened the card, reading it allowed to her colleagues. "Lilly, you make me happier than I've been in a long time. Glad you're feeling better, thought this would make your first day back at work a bit more colorful. See you tonight." She looked up to find her colleagues all wearing similar grins, sincerely regretting her decision to read it out loud. She knew, she walked right into this one and she prepared for the interrogation of her life.
Vera broke the shocked silence, like Lilly knew he would. "Seems like Rush has got a love interest of her own." He said, around a mouthful of doughnut.
Thank you, Vera, for stating the obvious. Lilly thought, rolling her eyes and trying to hide the blush she could feel rising in her cheeks by leaning the teddy bear against her desk lamp and setting the card on her desk. She sat down in her chair, avoiding the curious glances and, for a lack of other files to study, looked lovingly at her new card. Wrong move, Rush.
"Oh, you got it bad, Rush." Kat laughed. She crossed her arms and leaned back, sitting on Lilly's desk.
"Got what bad?" Lilly asked, feigning innocence.
Kat rolled her eyes. "It's a figure of speech, and it means, if I didn't know any better, you're fallin' in love, y'know, located the Romeo to your Juliet and all…"
"Kat!" Lilly yelled. She couldn't believe this. Kat Miller was the one person in the room who knew their secret, and therefore the one person she expected not to push this. If the mischievous grin Kat was wearing was any indication though, she was bound and determined to have some fun with this.
"Hey, you gave me no choice." Kat said defensively, "Wouldn't just accept the figure of speech, had to make me say it."
From across the desk, Kat met Will's eyes, and her own widened when she realized the word she'd just used. Love. She'd said it, she'd subconsciously lost the bet she and Will had set just a few days ago. Damn it. She griped inwardly, Those two lovebirds just cost me a good box of doughnuts. Tearing her eyes away from her smirking colleagues, Kat took a sip of her coffee, in the cardboard cup with the colorful logo splashed onto the side and smiled. She had one thing the others didn't though, an improvement on the office sludge.
Before Lilly could come up with a proper retort, Vera decided to add his own two cents. "You gonna tell us who it is? You know, the guy that's got your panties all in a bunch. I bet he's good in the sack."
"Yeah Lil." Scotty added, "You plannin' on spillin' who this mystery guy is? Cause it looks to me that he's a keeper." Scotty finished, glancing at her newly decorated desk and the remaining blush in her cheeks.
"Well, that remains to be seen." Lilly countered, watching with pleasure as the blood drained out of his face. When Scotty continued to look disappointed, Lilly thought maybe she'd gone too far, and hastily backtracked. "But yeah." She added, "He's… one of the good ones."
Scotty smiled in relief, and then looked around to make sure no one else noticed. When he saw the curious glances darting from him to Lilly though, he decided the best course of action would be to retreat into the break room. He muttered something about getting coffee and hastily left the room.
As soon as Scotty left the room, Lilly leaned back with a sigh and fanned her flaming cheeks with a newspaper someone had dropped on her desk. How did the temperature in the precinct manage to shoot up in the past few minutes? Come to think of it, how did they go from talking about a harmless teddy bear, to-to… things that made her squirm in her seat and made unbidden memories swirl to the surface? All in all, she was glad for a brief reprieve from Scotty's smoldering glances and her colleague's curious stares.
She looked up again into the eyes of her new teddy bear and felt childish joy sweep over her in waves. Scotty, well he sure knew how to plan a surprise, she'd give him that much. She hadn't suspected a gift to be waiting for her at work, much less a gift of that nature. Flowers, chocolate, get well soon card, though sweet would have been predictable. Where Scotty got the harebrained idea to get a stuffed animal though, Lilly would never know.
Scotty was just like that, Lilly thought fondly. He was a curious mixture of the unpredictable, naïve, loyal, sappy, and romantic. Lilly used to think that she could read Scotty like a book. She used to believe so staunchly in her own detective skills and Scotty's tendency to wear his heart, not to mention every emotion that ran through it, proudly on his sleeve that it didn't come as a surprise when she discovered he was thinking exactly what she thought he was. But now, as Lilly studied Scotty in the break room, stirring his coffee and engaging in a conversation with Nick, she was surprised to discover how opaque his emotions had become to her.
Lilly twirled a pen in her fingers, sensing that something had changed in the two weeks since they'd first gotten together. Every so often, Scotty would look at her, tilt his head to the side as if he was pondering something pretty damn important, and then deflect any questions she asked about it. Briefly, Lilly entertained the idea that he was trying to find the right time to break up with her, but she quickly quashed the notion, which was most likely formulated by her relationship deprived brain. If Scotty wanted out of this, whatever this had become, he sure as hell would tell her, Lilly knew that much. Scotty couldn't keep anything bottled up. And besides, if dealing with her when she was sick, and Lilly knew she could be pretty irritable, and planning cute surprises like these was any indication, she and Scotty were still very much okay.
Deciding that the best course of action would be to focus on work, at least for the next few hours, Lilly allowed herself to admire her new teddy bear, whatever it implied falling by the wayside.
Lilly groaned and sat back in her seat a few hours later. Having spent the better part of the morning and afternoon catching up on paperwork, save for a few bathroom breaks, she was more than ready to go home.
"You guys could've warned me about all this." She gestured helplessly at the mountain of files still waiting for her to dot, cross, and sign. "I feel like a damn secretary."
Vera couldn't help but laugh at the blond detective's irritated mood, "We spent all last week doin' this, plus there was that ADA breathin' down our necks, so stop complainin'."
Lilly glared at him, before returning her attention to her paperwork. Vaguely, she was aware of Miller and Vera fighting over Chinese food, specifically whether or not Nick was allowed to share Kat's as per family style. Inwardly, she was glad that no one liked sesame noodles but her. As much as she was complaining about being stuck at her desk all day, the camaraderie of simply being among her friends again, playfully teasing and complaining, did wonders for her mood. Along with Vera and Miller's bantering, Scotty could be heard placating his mother on the phone, presumably having missed another family gathering. Will had begged out of work early for Miles Davis night at whatever place he hung out without them and Boss was in his office, talking seriously on the phone. Lilly sighed contentedly.
When Lieutenant Stillman walked out of his office twenty minutes later, it was with a heavy heart and a furrowed brow. His detectives looked up from their respective duties, content smiles still frozen on their faces, and immediately sensed the fact that bad news was coming.
"Somethin' wrong Boss?" Scotty asked with concern, immediately hovering protectively behind Lilly. He resisted the urge to put a hand on her shoulder and caress those tense muscles.
"Got a call from the federal penitentiary," Stillman began haltingly. "It's where Simms was serving out his life sentence."
"Was?" Lilly asked, immediately picking up on the operative word of the sentence. She sat up straighter in her chair and Scotty gave in to the urge to put his hand on her shoulder. His firm contact brought her spiraling thoughts back down to earth and she ordered her frantic heart to calm down.
"He broke out tonight. At exactly 7:34 PM, Wayne Simms was no longer an inmate with the Department of Corrections. He's now a fugitive."
*Gasp* Oh, no. How will our lovely detectives deal with this? I'm thinking they're not gonna take it lying down though.
P.S. I have a teddy bear like that. I'd love getting another one of those, *hint hint* hubby, I think it's the sweetest gift ever.
As always, review please :) You guys are awesome.