6
A/N: Thank you for your patience!I took an involuntary break from writing when real life events didn't leave any inspiration, but I am back!
Provenza was feeling awkward and didn't manage to hide it. That alone was terrifying. The way he knotted his fingers together and shifted his gaze was not at all what Andy was used to from his best friend.
"How are you feeling?" he asked as Andy approached, fingers clenched around a paper cup of coffee and his head still pounding. The painkillers were taking the edge off, but his head still hurt like a bitch. Provenza usually wasn't the type to inquire after people's well-being, physical or otherwise. Andy stopped next to him, taking in the new coat of paint the hallway had acquired since the last time he remembered being at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department.
"What do you think?" he snapped and that gave him at least some temporary relief. With Raydor and the kid, he had to tread carefully, but this was his best friend. Their friendship was practically based on yelling obscenities at each other. "I woke up to a breakfast of green smoothies and egg white omelets."
He had been somewhat appalled by the display. When he had come downstairs, Raydor had been busy at the stove while Paddy had been in his high chair, messing around with fruit and oatmeal. He had slept through the rest of the family's morning routine to be woken by the smell of eggs and the banging of a spoon against a bowl.
"Looks like the Wicked Witch imposed all of her health nuttiness on me," he spat, disgusted not by the meal itself, but by the implications of what he had just said. What had happened to him? When had he started being okay with having her redecorate his place and change his eating habits?
"Nah, you went along willingly. Your blood pressure was running high when the two of you had that baby on the way and you didn't want to risk dropping dead before Sharon gave birth." Provenza was as sarcastic as ever, but there was the slightest hint of warning in his tone.
Andy rolled his eyes and decided not to follow through with the rant he had planned on his way over.
"Now are you going to question me or what? Not that I remember anything I could tell you."
It was now Provenza's turn to roll his eyes. "Look, I am not doing this to torture you. We want to find the son of a bitch who did this to you, that's all."
Flynn bowed his head in agreement. Provenza was right both in what he was saying and in what he was implying by using this particular tone of voice. Flynn was being an asshole to everyone around him, but he couldn't help himself. His head was pounding and he had too many questions to ask anyone. Worst of all, he was longing for a drink to dull his senses and the knowledge that he couldn't have one made his craving even stronger.
Provenza who had been walking ahead of him slowed his pace, causing Andy to instinctively match his slower steps. His shoulders tightened and Andy began to dread what was coming. Provenza turned around, the deeper lines on his face once again standing out and making Andy feel as if he had woken from a long sleep of several years to see that everyone around him had moved on without him.
"Look, Flynn," Provenza pointed at him rather aggressively, his hand shaking slightly. "You've got a good thing going there, okay? I know you don't remember, I know you're suddenly the same old bastard again you were several years ago, but that relationship, that marriage was good for you, okay?" He sucked in the air in such a way that Flynn was briefly fearing for his health. "I've never seen you that happy in your life and I swear I am going to have your ass if you destroy everything that made you so happy."
Andy dropped his arms at his sides, a little bit of coffee running down his hand, a drop catching his sobriety ring. He stared at his best friend whom he had never seen that agitated on behalf of anyone, let alone Sharon Raydor.
"Sharon is one of the good ones, okay? You are my best friend, but she is my friend, too, and I swear I am going to make you regret it if you hurt her or the little one!"
Andy drew his brows together, opting for silence rather than talk. He had no idea what to say, felt like a fish out of water. His phone was burning in his pocket, containing the messages that hinted at an affair. Had he been in the process of hurting Sharon even before he had forgotten that he loved her? Had he been on his way to destroy his little family again? He thought back to the latest pictures he had discovered on his phone, only days old. Him with a squirming Paddy in his arms and Sharon next to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she was taking the selfie.
You've got a good thing going there.
He sighed and raised his hands in a gesture that was meant to both convey that he didn't know what to do and to deescalate.
"Let's go to your office," Provenza said curtly and led the way through to said office that Flynn remembered as Brenda Leigh Johnson's. It was strange to see his old desk in the bull pen abandoned and his squad mates looking back at him with veiled looks in their eyes. What was it he was seeing? A new sort of respect because he was the boss now? A new distance due to that fact even? Or was he seeing concern now that he was an amnesiac who didn't have the first clue? He raised his hand in an awkward greeting even to the attractive black woman he remembered from his wedding pictures. The name plate on her desk said Detective Sykes, a name that didn't ring a bell with him at all.
Inside his office, Andy numbly watched Provenza snap the blinds closed and looked around the room. Chief Johnson's chaos had been replaced with his own. Files and notes littered the desk and the sideboard behind it, an empty coffee cup sitting in a precarious balance on a stack of binders. Post-it notes made the laptop almost unrecognizable as such. The artwork of a child was tacked to one wall, colorful yet uncoordinated lines making up something that might or might not have been a dog. There was a picture of Raydor with Paddy in her arms, smiling brightly. It was their first day back from the hospital, he knew, as he recognized her clothes from the other pictures he had seen of that day.
He fell into the chair behind the desk, Provenza lowering himself into the one opposite it and cutting right to the chase.
"I spoke to Dr. Morales. Your injuries are consistent with someone hitting you over the head with a blunt object from behind while holding you in place with the other arm. The bruise on your chest stems from the seat belt digging into your skin, so whoever attacked you was most likely in the backseat of your car."
"Morales, right? What am I, a corpse now?" Andy put his coffee cup down on the only free spot he could find. The copper plate on his desk was half-disguised by stray sheets of paper, but he could make out the words: "Captain Andrew Flynn". It was both a strange and exhilarating sight.
Provenza blew out air, exasperated, but ignored Andy's interjection.
"We found your car a block away from your house with your blood in the front seat and your fingerprints all over the steering wheel. There were other fingerprints in the back, but mostly partials and we will have to match them against your friends' and family's."
Andy groaned. This sounded as if it was going to go absolutely nowhere.
"If I was strapped in and someone surprised me, attacking me from behind, we have no idea of their strength," he said, his investigative instincts finally kicking in. He just had to try to view this as just another case, a victim having been attacked. If he got his hands on the son of a bitch who had taken his memories away, he would give them a good beating.
"True," Provenza nodded appreciatively, probably glad that Andy was no longer sulking obviously.
"So it could have been anyone," Andy said. "Too bad that I don't remember who could have wanted to bash my head in. What else do we have?"
"Andy." A smile flitted across Sharon's face as she turned away from her secretary, absent-mindedly handing the pen back to the pretty redhead who took the hint and stepped out along with the binder full of documents to be signed. Sharon's office was big and fancy for an LAPD office, but then she was up there with the other brass nowadays. There were no stacks of files, but shiny, pristine spaces and neatly organized shelves and tasteful art on the walls. There were no family photos to be seen anywhere, but he remembered that from the countless times he had been in her office back in FID. He had always suspected that you just didn't want your family on display if everyone who ever came into your office hated you. He reckoned that that was a rather hard habit to shake.
"Hey," he said, unsure of how to deal with this situation. If he was a the station, it was normal to swing by his wife's office during lunch time to see what she was up to. The secretary hadn't even batted an eyelash, but it did feel strange to him nonetheless.
This morning, just before Provenza had picked him up, Sharon had still been in her robe during breakfast, but now she was wearing a black pencil skirt and a cream silk blouse that clung to her upper body in all the right places. Andy found himself surprised by a surge of physical longing for her and he wondered for a second whether it would be inappropriate to touch her, pull her to him and feel those silk-clad curves against his own body.
His desire must have shown on his face, because there was a small smile playing at her lips before she stepped closer and gently reached out to straighten his tie. He couldn't help but notice that its yellow color clashed horribly with the color of her blouse.
"How did it go?" He still wasn't used to the soft tones she used around him and the kid. He only ever remembered the steel in her voice when she had come down on him with all the power vested in her by FID so many times before.
"As expected, I couldn't be of much help," he said, unable to keep the frustration out of his tone. "They are looking into it, but they don't want me around before I am cleared for duty. Whenever that may happen."
She was standing close, her hands still on his chest. He caught a whiff of her perfume, something subtle and flowery and probably expensive, blending nicely with her own scent without overpowering it. He didn't remember ever having paid attention to her scent before. She looked up, her eyes hooded, taking in his face. He felt the back of her fingers lightly caress his cheek before she stood up straighter, her lips about to touch his when she shrunk back at the very last second, embarrassment blooming red on her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, quickly turning around and busying herself with straightening the already perfectly arranged objects on her desk.
While Andy felt disappointed and relieved at the same time, Sharon looked at her watch.
"It's almost one. I am supposed to pick up Paddy at the daycare, so I can take him to the mall for some new shoes. He has outgrown almost all of his sneakers again already."
Mom-duties for the Wicked Witch, he thought, weird.
He found that he didn't remember whether the LAPD had a daycare center. He supposed so.
Sharon forewent the matching black blazer that hung neatly over the back of her desk chair and grabbed a dark-red cardigan and her purse, obviously busying herself to avoid having to look at him. Her cheeks were still flushed.
"Hey, um, can I tag along?" He didn't know why he was even asking, but some part of him enjoyed the look of delight on her face when he did.
"Of course!" She laughed nervously. "Even though, you know, our son is fussy when it comes to shoes."
"Well," Andy said. "I don't know, but then that is probably my genes."
She smiled up at him and led the way to the elevator, hips swaying in her tight skirt. Andy's mouth was dry. Had he always been attracted to her without noticing it? A few minutes later he found himself in a colorful room decorated with children's artwork that seemed out of place in the sterile environment of the LAPD. Paddy, who was reluctant to leave his toys behind, took some coaxing to come with them and while Andy watched Sharon talk down the kid from an impending temper tantrum, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
His heart began to beat a little faster as he recognized the number as the one he had been exchanging messages with previous to the attack. Despite himself, he checked around him for prying eyes before he opened the text message.
"I am still waiting for the money, Andy. Next time it won't be just you."
His heart caught in his throat when he saw the picture that was attached. Sharon, with Paddy on her hip in the blouse he had admired mere minutes ago, locking her car. Someone was following her. Even though a large part of him was still clinging desperately to the notion that he hated that woman and didn't know that child, he felt the powerful urge to protect his family.
His phone vibrated again and despite the dread he felt, he swiped the screen with his thumb to read the new message.
"Pay or I'll tell. The usual place. Tomorrow."
Andy closed his eyes. Do not give in to blackmail, he thought, but the uneasy feeling stayed. He had no other choice than not to give in, because he didn't remember how to meet the blackmailer's demands or what exactly would happen if he didn't.
He looked up at the sound of Sharon's heels, a sullen Paddy holding her hand. She looked a little rattled by the fight that the kid had been putting up.
"Are you okay?" she asked, nodding at the phone in his hand. "Anything new from Provenza?"
For a moment he considered telling her about the threat and he had already opened his mouth to say something to her, when another thought struck him. What if the blackmailer was a woman? What if he had actually had an affair with a crazy woman who was now threatening to expose it to Sharon? And what if she and Paddy were in danger because he couldn't keep it in his pants?
"Mommy, I'm hungry!" Paddy whined.
"We are going to have lunch before we buy your shoes, okay?" Sharon said. "Until then, I have a snack for you in the car."
Andy trailed after them on the way to the parking garage, rendered mute by the threat he had received. He watched them walk and talk, Paddy slowly coming out of his sulky mood. He recognized some of his brother's mannerisms in the kid that were probably his own, too, but he cocked his head exactly the same way that his mother did.
It was so strange to find himself with a new wife and child out of the blue. The kid was virtually a stranger to him and yet there was a feeling inside him that was too powerful to be drowned out by amnesia or ignored because of his own stubbornness.
They were his and he had to keep them safe.