Interstate 5
AN: 1.1
Beginning
Linden hates training. But it's also her last day of work so she'll make the remaining time worthwhile.
It's not in her DNA to slow down for another person. He's going to have to absorb what he can in the six hours before her flight and after that, well, after that it's not going to be her problem.
The car ride is aggravating. She's in her zone and the sound of his voice makes it hard for her to think. She doesn't want to answer his irrelevant and invasive questions. She decides that she's not going to be patient with him. He seems like the type that can take it but she also wants to kick him back a little for throwing his weight around outside his own neighbourhood.
Not everything has to tie back to narcotics.
Please stop yelling while she's on the phone.
No, he can't drive. She doesn't want to have to readjust the seat later on.
She's an astute observer by nature and by trade and she wants to deal with the elephant in the room tactfully. Why has this person been assigned to homicide?
She throws out a line, but it doesn't catch: "In situations like this, I like to ask myself 'what would Jesus do?'"
His seamless evasion earns him a slice of respect, although he'd never know why.
She chooses not to say anything as he lights a cigarette without being mindful of well… nevermind.
The way he spoke to the teacher was every kind of inappropriate, but also sort of funny.
She feels the familiar pull as she's talking to Rick on the phone and she can barely hear what he's saying. The field of tall grass, the smell of the earth after a rainfall, the sound of chirping birds mingled with radio signals from the hips of police officers, the exhaustion of searching and searching but turning up nothing yet having the gut feeling that she's really, really close.
She has to say it out loud:
"I am not staying."
Somehow, she's failed to realize that he'd probably never seen a body before. The dead have become an unsettling norm for her and she forgets that not all police officers share this experience.
She sympathizes with his ability to stick it out when the trunk door is lifted and Rosie Larsen is revealed to them for the first time. He's stricken but resolute, and she's not sure if it's because he's still trying to impress her or if something else is at work.
He seems a little rattled when he sees the father, however.
Later she'll learn that Lieu wants her to stay until the end of the week, just to "see it through." She'll realize that her impromptu partner really did manage to learn the ropes on that first day, well enough, in fact, to cover some ground on his own in that unconventional way of his. She'll be glad to have some more time with this case but not without a little resentment at Oaks for baiting her.
And she'll find that it's in her best interest to cut the rookie some slack.
-End-