Charlie hadn't slept well. While she'd chosen to honour her agreement with Joey and not make that call or take the car, she was still bothered by the death of those two men. The most annoying thing was, she actually agreed with Joey in that they wouldn't have been able to save those men had they even tried, yet standing by and doing nothing while they drowned was just so at odds with what being a cop was and that was why it bothered her so much, especially in light of Watson's corruption and Nick's betrayal. Her whole world and everything she'd believed in and held sacred, had come crashing down on her in the past few days and she couldn't even rely on who she was. A cop. And as such, she had no idea how to deal with it, other than going over it in her head ad nauseam. Charlie wished she could stop doing that, because telling herself the same thing was becoming increasingly frustrating. Solutions would be much better. Unfortunately, aside from coming to a sort of truce with Joey, a truce of which she was still sceptical of, solutions were another matter, because so far, each one she came up with required her to have faith and trust in an organisation she now knew had been corrupted. There had to be someone within the Force she could contact though. Who though? Jack? They'd been partners more than friends, yet he'd always had her back. Until now, when his absence had allowed that traitorous bitch to take his place. Did that mean he was also part of the problem? That she even suspected that, said he was off her list of contacts, because she couldn't afford to have any doubts. Doubts could be costly, as would any mistakes be.
Charlie sighed at her predicament. Obviously, the first person she needed to trust in, was herself. If she couldn't even do that, then she really was fucked. It was so fucking hard though. In the past, she'd never second-guessed herself and had always believed in her abilities and instincts. Things had changed since then of course, her confidence was shot and now she spent more time doubting herself than believing in it. She really needed to work on that. Determined to do just that, Charlie then turned to her other problem. Joey.
She'd agreed to trust her, at least to a small degree and that was about as far as she'd gotten. Who was this woman? No doubt, there were questions she wanted to ask her, yet she kept finding excuses for not asking them. It wasn't the right time, blah, blah, blah, when truth be told, it was more out of fear of the answers she'd get to those questions that held her tongue, because she strongly suspected she wouldn't like what Joey had to say. Joey Collins was a woman of secrets, that was for certain, yet the one thing she would say for Joey, was that the woman knew how to cope with uncertainty. Charlie hadn't seen any of the same doubts she'd had herself, instead, Joey had buckled down and made the decisions for the both of them and along the way, managed to get them out of one mess, then another. Had Joey not held it together, they may never have come this far and for that, Charlie was grateful, but also a little resentful. Grateful at least one of them was holding it together enough to think ahead, yet resentful because it merely highlighted her own inadequacies throughout this dangerous time. She was the cop, Joey her protectee and she'd allowed the positions to be reversed.
What a thoroughly unpleasant feeling this was, thought Charlie and it was definitely something she never wanted to experience again. So how did she get past this? She went back over her training. At the Academy, they'd been warned of times like this, where self-doubt could take hold and affect your decision making, amongst other things, and it was something many cops would have to deal with. The instructors always liked to point out to them, that how each officer dealt with and overcame these periods of self-doubt, went a long way toward what sort of cop they'd become. So Charlie, are you going to let this situation beat you down and define you in a negative way or are you going to fight it, just as you've fought for justice and for what was right your entire career, she asked herself.
"Fight," Charlie determinedly said. She was going to fight these feelings of self-doubt and learn to trust herself again. Well, now that was decided, she knew where the best place to start would be and that was in getting Joey to hand over the car keys. Joey had said she would be willing to listen to her, so her first test was to talk Joey into letting her drive. It may seem a small, trivial thing, yet it was about gaining back control, which she didn't feel she had by being a passenger all the time. She wanted to be a partner in this, not a tag-a-long.
Just at that moment, Joey walked back into the room and Charlie's stomach rumbled at the aroma of warm food in her hand. Damn, that woman knew how to get to her and she automatically scowled when she caught Joey's knowing smirk, which just made the woman smirk even more. That was another thing she needed to work on. Stop reacting to Joey's taunts. The bag was waved right in front of her nose as Joey passed by on her way to the table. Not reacting was definitely going to be one of the more difficult tasks, because the woman seemed to get great pleasure in needling her at every opportunity.
"Wrong fucking way again," Pee Wee fumed at the latest dead end. "We might as well give up and go home," he muttered.
"Sure, which way is that?" Brodie said. Even his usual, easygoing manner was becoming somewhat frayed.
"I was joking about going home," he said.
"We might as well though," said Brodie. "We've got no hope of finding them when we don't even know where we are."
Pee Wee sighed. He was right. Neither of them had any sense of direction and it was becoming increasing clear that they just weren't cut out for road trips. "Ok, so we go home and we tell Brax we fucked up," he said. "That will go down so well after yesterday's bust with Mick."
"I vote for sticking on the road," Brodie hastily said. None of them wanted to be near Brax when he was in one of his moods. There was a tendency for him to take his frustrations out in a violent way toward others, even at his own brothers at times and so he and Pee Wee would be fair game to his raging fists.
"Good, now the next town we find, we're buying one of those GPS direction thingies."
"Ok, now release the handbrake and ease the car forward," Joey said in an incredibly smug and condescending manner.
Don't react, don't react, Charlie's little voice in her head kept telling her. She'd gotten her wish and was now driving, that's what counted, so just ignore the aggravating woman sitting next to you. Don't even look at her.
"We're going right, which is that way," Joey said with a point of her finger.
Don't react, don't react and maybe she'll grow bored of it, Charlie told herself.
"Keep the car on the left side of the road."
My god, this woman could get an Oscar for the most aggravating performance and against her own advice, Charlie glanced sideways. Just as she'd expected to see, Joey was grinning from ear to ear. "You really are an incredibly annoying woman," Charlie couldn't resist saying.
"Thank you," chirped Joey. "I try very hard."
"You're very trying, that's for sure," muttered Charlie and Joey chuckled.
"See, you are capable of making jokes."
Charlie just rolled her eyes. It was a lost cause, though she would say one thing about Joey's annoying habits. She just realised that it gave her something and someone else to focus on, rather than solely on the danger after them. However, only time would tell whether she could survive both experiences.
Watson whistled as she strolled back to her car. Despite being tired from the lack of sleep, her day had gotten off to a great start, with confirmation from the locals of this small town that Charlie and Joey had not only been through here, she'd made great time on the road and was now the closest to them she'd been since the Motel encounter. By rights, she was meant to call this in, but fuck the others. This was her chance of redemption and with Brax on the warpath after yesterday's disaster, getting back into his good books was by far her main priority. Well, after getting those bitches, of course.
She grinned at a couple of women who were filling up their car in the bay next to hers. Friendly, but straight, thought Watson, as they smiled back. Damn, she could really do with a release and a little ménage à trios would have gone down nicely. Oh well, maybe on the trip back she'd find a nice, lonely woman looking for a memorable time.