"We have to reroute," Bradford muttered, as he began walking away from her. His steps were sure and steady, and she scrambled to keep up. "Come on, Boot!"
"Yep, yep―what does that mean?"
"Who cares?"
"Yep," she muttered, falling into step with his wide gait. "Wha― Is this a warning, or like a promise..." she ventured, flapping the Post-It for emphasis.
"I'll make that decision tonight, after your first shift."
She smirked, casting him a not-so-subtle askance look. Think of him like Pierce, she thought to herself, over and over as they rushed through the building. Or Lucifer. Or Amenadiel. Ugh... Why are men in my life so crabby?
Surely there wasn't a correlation.
The rest of the walk, though long and briskly-paced, was awkwardly silent. Normally she'd have been in her office, with only her own furniture and equipment to maneuver around. But now, she had to dodge people with places to go, and few of them were hurrying along like they were. Finally popping out of the maze of people, they escaped into a room with interior windows. Ella's steps faltered when she spotted the sea of cops on the other side, but she entered the room and took the nearest available chair. She was not in there long before there was a gentle, confused, and rather hesitant voice over her head.
"What-what's happening? What is this?"
"That's a girl, Nolan," Smitty rasped, making several officers chuckle.
She twisted in her seat, looking up at another tall, broad man. Well, that was good. Short cops, so not a turn-on. "Hi! I'm Ella," she said, springing up to give him a hug. So gentle she couldn't feel it, he put one hand on her shoulder.
"Uh, I'm Officer Nolan, and I've been sitting here for six years."
She stepped back, bumping awkwardly into the desk behind her. As almost everybody chuckled, she broke eye contact but kept her head held high, even though she looked like she wanted to go back in time and undo it.
"Rookies sit in the front row. See, the back is reserved for the over-confident jerks who have been here too long, I'd say around...six years," Nolan joked, eliciting more laughter.
She shot him a timid smile and darted up to the front row. Where she was the only person. Cool. That didn't give her the heebie-jeebies at all.
"I see the new rookie's arrived," Grey stated. "Officer, state your name and badge number."
"Badge number?" she asked, hardly able to believe she had to speak in front of all these cops. Boy, Jay would never forgive her if...
"I think the sergeant has forgotten that your badge number is yet to be assigned, due to a mix-up with your application," Bradford said. While Grey quickly knelt down to deal with some papers on his desk, Bradford continued. "Your badge number is 53428; introduce yourself to the room."
Oh, no... More speaking in front of all these cops. She hesitated, then whirled around to face them. Might as well get it over with. But as she was opening her mouth, she saw all the cops, even the women, checking out her chest. An instant before she could get pissed, she looked down and realized they were observing the happy, star-shaped character on her shirt. And not with amusement, not with glee that they had the same one―their expressions varied from, "That is very unprofessional" to "My daughter had something like that when she was a toddler."
"You do know you're out of uniform, right?" asked an individual in the nameless sea of cops.
Well, right now she was just another fish, and the T.O. that was already considering blue-paging her, whatever that meant, had asked her to identify herself. So she treated the comment like a rhetorical one and let her big, scared eyes alternate all the faces. "I'm, uh, Ella Lopez. Ba," She noticed the expressions of amusement on their faces and wanted to criticize their sense of humor. "Badge number 53428," she finished awkwardly, and looked back at Bradford to confirm. He nodded, and she felt a rush of relief even as she repeated the number in her head until she was sick of it. With a sigh, she sat down in the seat she had intended to claim after speaking with Officer Nolan.
"Alright, that's it. Be safe out there."
Ella paused, listening to everybody stand. Feeling exceptionally stupid, she looked down at her desk, waiting to be addressed.
Bradford sighed, watching her. He still stood up front with Grey, hands clasped at the waist. "She's off to a great start."
"Don't break her. Hell, remember?"
Bradford turned his "Duh" face to him. And asked, "Do you want me to train her, or be her friend?"
"Maybe you could take a page from everybody else's book and find a place somewhere in between."
"I'm not much of a reader, sir."
At least Grey was smiling as he walked out of the room. Bradford scoffed, approaching the woman who looked more like a babysitter who could still relate to the kids under her watch. "Come on, Boot. Let me show you the shop."
She frowned, getting out of her seat. "You, uh, you have a store here?"
"I can tell you want to go back in time," his response was abrupt. "Make a change, take it back. I see it all the time."
"No. I'm... I need this job."
"So something happened at your old station. Something you don't need."
"Everybody I knew... Well, they all left. Or...died."
She could tell he was studying her intently, but she avoided meeting his chilly eyes. She was not accustomed to being surrounded, overwhelmed, by rudeness...
"This job is going to recreate you. It may even destroy you," he warned her. "When you're deep into your training, you'll learn that if you had the ability to go back in time, you wouldn't be compatible with yourself. Question is, how much do you like your present self?"
She considered, then gave a shrug. "I'm okay."
"Well, if you want to be better than okay, you'll follow me. If you're reconsidering, spare me the deliberation of a blue page."
"You keep saying that. What is that?"
"It's basically a ticket for poor performance. Instead of paying money, you just... You pay. Depending on the crime, it could be a demotion, a pay cut, unpaid overtime, extra paperwork, or whatever else I decide to give you."
"Wait, what-what's my crime?" she asked, thinking he had read her files about the car thefts in her youth. (Not that she was particularly old, or anything...)
"Being twelve minutes late. I don't like it."
"You could do all that for twelve minutes?"
"I could make you scrub the urinals if I wanted to. I may be your T.O., but I'm still a sergeant."
Again, she averted her eyes, keeping her head held stubbornly high. Giving a barely audible sigh, she reluctantly met his cold, dark eyes. "I'll consider reconsidering," she informed him. "For now, I think I'm ready to go shopping."
He groaned and began to leave, and she rushed after him, exclaiming, "What?!"
"This is the shop. Do not call it a car; it is where you work. First you check the exterior for damage. See any, log it in."
Ella surveyed the very car-like thing she was apparently not allowed to call a car. "A sh... A shop. Okay. Um... I-I don't see any―"
"Go around."
Ella meekly complied, beginning to circle the shop and inspecting it for the smallest scratch. She was very thorough and meticulous, and by the time she got to the hood, she found herself looking at a pair of slender legs underneath a cardigan. This person was deliberately in her path, deliberately stopping her from carrying out an order. She slowly stood up to meet the friendly face of a woman. No, Ella realized, she was trying to look friendly. In actuality she looked hostile, verging on psychotic.
"Hey, Young Blood," Angela greeted her. "How's the shop looking?"
"Good! It looks...good!"
"Good. Can't wait for Sergeant Bradford to tell you about 3Eyez. Here," Angela added before she could question it, thrusting the clothes she held towards her. "You've got your T.O. and your shop; you need a uniform."
"Thanks... Oh, you guys work fast," Ella commented, as she found Lopez on the shirt.
"Not that fast. I'm giving you mine. If it doesn't fit, ask Grey for a new one."
"That's very gracious, Lopez," Bradford commented. "Or do I call you Lopez Senior?"
"Try it and I'll use your head for soccer practice."
Ella stared at the blatant threat towards the sergeant―and he chuckled. He chuckled, like it was funny! She didn't even know what to do with that.
"Well, good luck on your first day," Angela said, still giving off semi-psychotic vibes. "Try not to be the first wash-out he's had in two years," gulp. "I hear you're experienced with a gun, though; maybe you're a pretty decent cop already."
"I'm a s-scientist..."
That was probably the only sentence that could make Angela suddenly smile, which did nothing to dispel the weird look in her eyes. She turned away to leave, telling Bradford, "Good luck with that."
Big-eyed, Ella took one look at his unhappy face before she quickly pretended to finish the inspection of the not-a-car car.
"Listen, stop telling people the truth. This is a job, not speed-dating. If you're here because you're lonely―"
"No," she said quickly, and quickly amended, "No, sir."
"Good. You came from another station and you can shoot a gun, just like everyone else. Everything else is classified, because it's embarrassing. Get in the shop."
"On the...passenger side?" she asked timidly.
"Driving's a privilege, you haven't earned any yet."
She turned and surveyed the car―shop, darn it―only to turn back to Bradford. "It's still locked, sir."
Bradford opened his fist, revealing the keys he had already extracted from his pocket. "Observant. That's good."
He wondered how well she knew the town...
"So this is...police work," Ella said, forcing a tone of intrigue.
"Quite an important part; you'd be surprised how much crime goes on in L.A."
Now she gave him a "Really?" look. "Would I?"
"Right... Forensics."
"Which, by the way, is not 'embarrassing.' I helped solve a lot of murders." Ella paused, listening to a silent voice inside her head. It wasn't one of her own, which was good, because those voices were super-unwelcome, but it was also bad, because...well, she was dead. Anyway, the voice was saying: "If I fell apart every time a man told me he didn't like what I was doing, I'd be in a million pieces right now. You need to get a thicker skin! Stand up for yourself, because the truth is, nobody's gonna do it for you." And it was right. Super-unwelcome, but right. So she looked over at him and shook her head. "You don't get to scoff at me just because I got my start somewhere else. Science is...amazing, and it's really crummy of you to belittle something that can answer all of life's questions. My work gave grieving families closure! And―I don't care if you don't apologize to me, which you should, but... I don't want to hear that again."
Bradford hesitated, then nodded, looking at her. "Okay. You're right."
"I...am?"
"Yeah," he said, and suddenly pulled off to the side of the road. "And you," he added, reaching into the backseat, "Are walking."
He dumped her borrowed uniform into her lap. "Get out, get dressed, and haul ass back to the station."
"Sergeant Bradford―"
"Scrub the urinals and get started on the paperwork on my desk. Stop when I find you and we'll go to target practice in the building."
He motioned to the car door, and she stared at him for a moment, waiting for a "Just kidding!" and a hearty slap on the arm. When he raised his brows and moved his head in a "Why are you still here?" way, she hesitantly got out of the car, shut the door, and began dressing herself on the street as Bradford drove away. "Oh, man," she groaned, and looked down at her bodycam. She had no idea how to activate the damn thing. She looked up at the car driving away. "You know, more preparation would'a been great!" she shouted.
Groaning, she continued to put the uniform on over her clothes. As she was stepping into the pants around her feet, a car pulled up beside her, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a window rolling down. Expecting someone else to tease her, she looked over to see another friendly face. Officer Nolan sat in the passenger seat of another shop. "Would you like a ride... Officer Lopez?" he asked, trying not to smile at the familiarity of the name and how wonderfully weird it was to say it again.
"I'm―I-I have to get back to the station."
"Yeah, we can do that. Hop in, if you like."
She sighed in relief, opening the door and escaping the looky-loos across the street. Which was totes unfamiliar. "Thanks, Officer."
"Nolan, please. And this is Celina Juarez. Let me guess―you didn't know where the nearest clean bathroom was."
"Excuse me?"
"It's one of his tests. That guy is crazy." Rethinking, he quickly swiveled in his seat to give her a remorseful look. "Uh, but an amazing T.O. And he's only doing his job. He's scary because...he wants you to win."
She considered, tilting her head. "Yeah, I-I can accept that. I mean, it's not like he's the Devil," who she was willing to hug, so if she could still love Lucifer, why not Bradford, too?
"Right. Just... I feel I should give you a piece of advice, um... Be on the lookout for Tim Tests. He loves testing his new rookies."
"I am so glad I got you as my T.O.," Juarez said.
"Yeah, you sure dodged a bullet."
"Did I ever," she sighed contentedly.
"Okay. Worrying a lot now," Ella piped up, and Nolan turned in his seat to look at her again while Juarez met her eyes in the rearview.
"Sorry," Nolan said. "Hey, if it helps, you could talk to Chen. She was his rookie, too."
Her eyes dipped down to the name on his shirt before she smiled at him. "Thanks. I'll do that."
He grinned back at her before facing forwards, and she turned her focus to the window, fearing everything that was to come... Mostly the urinals.