Wrecking Ball (1/?): Headed for the wall
Fandom: Major Crimes/The Closer
Pairing: Brenda/Sharon
Rating: T (overall M)
Word count: 6,301
Summary: Brenda Leigh had no choice but to admit it: having more time for the living just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. A Brenda/Sharon relationship story. High heels, firearms, angsty D.D.A.'s, ex-husbands, bobble-head dolls: all the requisite ingredients, kids.
Wrecking Ball
Chapter One: Headed for the wall
Brenda Leigh Johnson looked up from her computer monitor the instant the quick, light rap on her office door reached her ears. She thought fleetingly of the still-fairly-recent past, when every interruption to her work had been looked upon with annoyance, if not downright disdain. Now she relished any distraction, no matter how minor.
A relieved smile tugged at the corners of her wide mouth as a familiar smooth blonde head peeped around the door frame. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes, thank goodness." Brenda turned up the volume on her smile a little for D.D.A. Andrea Hobbs. "What can I do for you, Andrea?"
The other woman answered her smile as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Andrea Hobbs was one of the bright spots of Brenda's new job, and since the former deputy chief had taken up this post in the D.A.'s office, the two women had become friendly, if not quite friends - not yet, anyway, Brenda amended. In her own rather stilted way, she'd been trying to move them along that path over the past few weeks. She could use a friend these days, and as much as she appreciated David Gabriel, it would have been too weird to make him her confidant.
Not that what she wanted was a confidant, per se. It wasn't as if Brenda had suddenly discovered a heretofore unknown urge to Talk About Her Feelings. But it would be nice to have someone to go out with for a drink and to talk about something besides the endless reams of paperwork the job generated.
Andrea's smile took on an apologetic cast. "I know we mentioned going for a drink after work to kick off the weekend, but would you mind terribly if we rescheduled?"
"Oh." Brenda Leigh was afraid her disappointment showed in her eyes and the droop of her mouth for just an instant before her features assumed a suitably bland expression. "Of course not. Is everythin' okay? It's not one of your -" She hesitated for a split second, wracking her brain. She knew the D.D.A. had children, and she thought they were both girls, but it was better to be safe than sorry. " - Your kids?" she finished lamely. Shoot, she really wasn't very good at this business of making friends.
If the other woman noticed the awkward pause, she didn't let on. "Oh, no, nothing like that. Actually -" It was the attorney's turn to hesitate. "The Kazanjian case is closed. Captain Raydor just called to tell me the ink is dry on the plea deal we offered his brother, so he won't be bothering the State of California or anyone else for at least sixteen years. Probably a lot longer, since I can't see him getting out on good behavior. He's rather... volatile."
The former deputy chief wasn't thrilled by the new deal-making paradigm that her departure from the LAPD had ushered in, but putting a brutal murderer away was still good news. Andrea's eyes sparkled with satisfaction, and Brenda smiled politely as she said as much aloud: "That's good news."
The other blonde stepped further into the office. "The thing is that Sharon invited me to join them to celebrate. I've been spending almost as much time there as I have here for the last few months, but this is the first time I've been included in anything - social." Andrea cocked her head and offered a little shrug. "I feel like I should go. It could be a good opportunity to … cement certain working relationships."
"Oh," Brenda murmured, thinking, So it's Sharon now. How cozy. "Of course I don't mind. It probably is a good idea for you to go, like you said, especially since the captain can be -" She paused, one corner of her mouth twisting. "- Difficult."
Andrea's brows arched slightly as she blinked. "Do you think so?" she murmured in place of the wholesale agreement Brenda had expected. "I suppose it goes with the territory."
It was Brenda Leigh's turn to blink. Her vanity stung slightly. Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, the former deputy chief chose to believe that everyone with whom she worked liked her, at least deep down. Being lumped into the same category with Sharon "Darth" Raydor was hardly flattering. Aloud she said, "I'm sure Capt'n Raydor is just doin' what she needs to do to get the job done."
Andrea cocked her head. "My point exactly. You must know a thing or two about that."
Mollified, Brenda leaned back in her chair, giving her enough clearance to slide open a desk drawer and rummage among its contents. "How would you say things are goin' over at Major Crimes?"
The other woman folded her arms and cocked a hip inquisitively, leaning against the door. "You must have your ear to the ground."
Brenda offered another little shrug in response. She didn't, not in the way Andrea Hobbs assumed - not in the way she herself had assumed when she'd left her former job in a bittersweet blaze of mingled victory and defeat. Although she'd assured herself and her team that they would continue to see one another, and although she had meant the words even at the moment of speaking them Brenda had been aware that they rang out with a certain hollowness. These people who had been her co-workers for the better part of a decade - Brenda truly considered them her friends. But without the bond of that work uniting them, it was virtually impossible to conceive of maintaining a relationship with any one of them. For one thing, she'd been their boss, and as such had always strived to maintain a certain distance. For another - well, what would they talk about? She imagined listening to Provenza grouse about his woman troubles, or Tao talking about college tuition fees, or Sanchez - well, Sanchez really didn't talk much. Still, it was hard to imagine, all the way around.
So no, she hadn't, despite her raging curiosity bordering on actual anxiety, called any of them up to ask how highly they would rate Captain Raydor's leadership capabilities, detective acumen, or overall job performance. If Will had still been Assistant Chief, she could have bought him a drink and persuaded him to allay her fears; but Major Crimes was no longer under the direct supervision of the oh-so-important newly-minted chief. Besides, she wasn't sure Will was even speaking to her. Which was totally unfair, really. Admittedly her methods had been a little nontraditional, but she'd quite literally stopped Phillip Stroh in his tracks. And nobody had even sued her. You'd think Pope might be at least a little grateful.
"Surely Agent Howard keeps you informed," Hobbs elaborated, and Brenda focused on slowly unwrapping a Reese's cup, giving herself a moment to think. Was Andrea fishing? Her dark eyes narrowed slightly as she peeled bac the crinkly brown paper. She doubted Fritz would have said anything. But on the other hand, he'd always been chatty with the blonde deputy D.A. (Fritz liked blondes.) Perhaps Raydor had asked him about Brenda, or maybe the FBI liaison had even let something slip in front of the two most perniciously gossipy old women inside the LAPD, Andy Flynn and Louie Provenza.
The dissolution of her marriage wasn't, Brenda reminded herself, a state secret. She fully expected everyone she knew to find out eventually. She would just prefer to have it happen magically, or perhaps by osmosis, without her personally having to suffer through the inevitable awkwardness of telling them. There was no really good or easy way to do it, and she hated the resultant expressions of surprised or knowing sympathy.
Still, this was as good an opportunity as any. She could say something like "I haven't talked to Fritz lately" and let Andrea fill in the details. It would be like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Brenda Leigh finished opening her chocolate and peanut butter delicacy and nibbled away an edge. "So, where are y'all goin' to celebrate?"
Andrea blinked again, as if perhaps she'd anticipated quite another kind of remark. "Ah - it starts with an M."
"Malloy's," Brenda supplied, nodding knowingly.
Andrea's straight hair shimmered as she shook her head. "No, it's that new place. Madeleine's? Something like that. I'm supposed to meet them at six," she added, glancing down at her watch.
Brenda shaped her mouth into what she hoped was a gracious smile. "Well then, you better get goin'," she said brightly. "Give my regards to everybody."
The D.D.A. straightened up. "I will. Have a good weekend, Brenda. See you Monday."
Brenda fluttered her fingers in a little wave, and then sat looking at the wood grain of her office door after the other woman had closed it. The office was very quiet now, and suddenly felt very empty. Sitting there, she felt empty too. It was only about 5:30, but she knew everyone else had already gone home for the day. The D.A.'s office didn't keep banker's hours, but to Brenda's way of thinking they might as well have. She missed the erratic hours and controlled chaos of the police department, as well as the whole mentality. On a Friday evening six months ago, even if they hadn't been working a big flashy homicide, Brenda would've been able to count on the quiet presence of at least one of her boys to keep her company, maybe Tao tinkering with something or Provenza finishing up a crossword at his desk. They were cops; they didn't punch a time clock and run home to dinner or off to pilates class. Day or night, the Murder Room retained the easy, familiar feel of a home away from home.
In fact, Brenda had always felt a lot more at home in the Murder Room than she had in her actual home, something she hadn't fully appreciated until she'd abruptly found herself with so much home-time on her hands.
At least so far, her new office didn't provide that sense of ease and security, perhaps because she didn't feel the same possessiveness, the same ownership of all she surveyed. Back at Major Crimes, Brenda Leigh had sat at her desk and felt like the monarch was in her castle and all was well throughout her personal dominion.
And all had been well, ultimately. She'd been right to believe that no one on her team would have wilfully betrayed her. Her mouth drooped as she shook her head. Poor David. She was glad to have him here with her, a familiar face in the crowd; but more than just their working relationship had changed with their new positions. Gabriel himself had been altered by his experience, presenting his new co-workers with a quieter, more somber, more guarded version of the man Brend had known so long.
She swallowed the last of the candy and shoved her feet back into the pumps she had discarded under her desk. Brenda had never been overly sentimental, and there was no point getting all nostalgic now for a place that didn't exist any more. A new regime was firmly entrenched in her Murder Room. The Queen had been deposed; all hail the Wicked Witch.
Despite the bitter tone of her thoughts, it was with something akin to exasperated affection that Brenda rolled her eyes and began to gather her things, tossing them haphazardly into her voluminous black tote. How very like Captain Raydor to appoint a precise time for a post-case celebration, as if she were giving a state dinner for royalty rather than buying her colleagues a few rounds.
A dinner for royalty. Now there was a thought.
The former queen of Major Crimes paused just for a second, wheels turning. She bit her lip, and then allowed it to creep upward into a smile. What could it possibly hurt if she dropped by the-new-place-whose-name-started-with-M for a drink? True, she hadn't precisely been invited, but it was a celebration. The more the merrier, right? She knew there had been no FBI involvement in the Kazanjian investigation, so there was no danger of running into her estranged husband. It was the perfect opportunity to suss out the state of affairs at Major Crimes. After all, as years of experience had taught Brenda Leigh, when she was curious about something, it was always best just to investigate it herself, in person. It was the only way of making sure the job got done right.
2.
Captain Sharon Raydor was feeling pretty good, and it had extremely little to do with the glass of excellent Zinfandel she was currently sipping. From her vantage point at the far end, she looked down the long wooden table at her animated colleagues, most of them in varying stages of intoxication. It was Andy Flynn, though, sober as a judge at the opposite end of the table, who caught her eye and nodded, smiling very slightly as he lifted his Perrier in a little toast. Sharon's sense of personal and professional well-being increased. She knew she was still a long way from winning any popularity contests, but after the silent opposition mingled with occasional outbursts of open hostility she had faced from everyone at this table except neutral Andrea Hobbs and supremely self-interested Amy Sykes over the past five months since taking the reins in their division, grudging approbation was almost as sweet as having roses thrown at her Manolo-encased feet.
It was hard to make yourself visible in the shadow of a giant, even when said giant stood 5'4" and weighed 105 pounds soaking wet. Viewing the situation as dispassionately as she knew how, the captain understood all Brenda Leigh Johnson had done to earn the fierce loyalty of her detectives. Raydor was no doe-eyed ingenue; she'd been perfectly aware that her long tenure in Internal Affairs insured that they would perceive her as an outsider, and she'd quickly realized that all her efforts over the past year to keep the Major Crimes ship from sinking like the Lusitania had done less than she might have hoped to soften the men's collective heart. Never mind that she had managed to save Brenda from legal ignominy and root out the leak. Sharon had also investigated each of the men who now worked for her in the process, leaving more than a few ruffled feathers. And then Stroh had reappeared and Brenda Leigh had quit before she could be fired - something that had nothing to do with Raydor, and yet when the captain had taken her place, she'd sensed that they blamed her, at least a little, however unfairly, for the removal of their beloved blonde leader. She knew Sanchez especially thought Brenda had deserved a medal, not the boot.
Add to all that Assistant Chief Russell Taylor's diabolically bad timing (Sharon still couldn't decide whether the man wanted to see her sink or swim, or whether perhaps he simply didn't care either way, as long as her potential flailing provided him with some measure of amusement and didn't put him on the hot seat) and the loyalty the rest of the squad felt toward that exceedingly sharp thorn in Raydor's side, Lieutenant Provenza, and - Suffice it to say that the job of asserting her authority while keeping things running smoothly had not been an easy one. It still wasn't, but day by day the captain felt a little less like she was just barely keeping her head above water, liable to be swamped at any minute by an unexpected wave.
Sharon sat back, resting her hands lightly upon the table, and resolved not to over-think it. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying this outing, not merely because the captain was footing the bill, and she fully intended to do the same. Going out for a meal after wrapping up an important investigation had been standard procedure in her former life, but this was a milestone of sorts: the first time Sharon had been bold enough to suggest such a plan to her new colleagues, because she was now reasonably confident they wouldn't turn her down flat and leave her facing the frightening prospect of an evening of girl talk with a boozy Detective Sykes. A couple of months ago, Provenza wouldn't have dignified the invitation with any response other than a snort of disgust, and Flynn would probably have said he had to wash his hair.
As a waiter brought their shared starters - a towering platter of calamari, a fig and prosciutto torte, and a plate of assorted crostini - to the table, Sharon felt Hobbs's hand lightly brush her elbow, bare now that she had removed the black blazer she'd paired with the gray wool dress for the work day. "Captain, another glass of wine?" the other woman asked, and Sharon looked down with mild surprise to see that her glass was empty.
"Just one more," the brunette agreed. "But please call me Sharon. Unless you would prefer that I call you Deputy D.A. Hobbs."
The D.A.'s lip lifted in a one-sided smile. "No, Andrea will do," she replied, her eyes meeting Sharon's directly for a couple of beats before she looked away, lifting a hand to signal the departing waiter. Sharon just had time to register how close the younger woman was sitting, close enough that the captain had been able to feel Andrea's breath on her face, before she became aware that Amy, who sat across the table with a martini glass cradled in one hand, was eyeing them narrowly. A knowing smile graced her model-worthy features. Raydor breathed out, relieved, when Sanchez passed Sykes the calamari, distracting her. What had that been all about?
She knew what Sykes thought it had been about, Sharon reflected as she helped herself to one of the crostini and smiled her thanks at Mike Tao. But surely not. How many Manhattans had Hobbs downed in the last thirty-five minutes? Surreptitiously, she cast a sidelong glance at the contents of the lawyer's glass. It was still a third full. Perhaps Detective Sykes was the inebriated one. Raydor briefly considered suggesting her youngest detective devote more scrutiny to her caseload and less to her colleagues.
Where she had placed it as unobtrusively as possible beside her silverware, Sharon's phone lit up and began to vibrate, displaying Rusty's name. "Excuse me," she murmured, instantly sliding as gracefully as possible off the bench seat, and excusing herself to a quiet alcove behind the bar to ascertain that her teenage ward was not in imminent peril.
3.
The M-name of the bar turned out to be Magdalen, not Madeleine's, which was why it had taken Brenda so long to locate it, and then she'd found herself on a one-way street going in the opposite direction to the one she'd wanted to go. So much for the wonders of GPS - or maybe she shouldn't have bought the model that was on clearance. At any rate, the predominance of Crown Vics in the parking lot assured Brenda that she was at last in the right place.
Pulling into a spot beside a blue Volvo, she paused long enough to tighten the belt of her pink trench coat against the sharp nip in the January air, and then hooked the strap of her purse over her elbow and stepped out onto the pavement. As she clip-clopped briskly up to the entrance (it really could get cold in Southern California, cold and damp), Brenda reflected that the stucco building with its bright blue and white-tiled window boxes didn't look much like a cop bar, but then she'd lived in LA long enough to know that plenty of places didn't look like what they were. Plenty of people, too.
As soon as she crossed the threshold and her gaze swept over the cheerful glow of light emanating from brass sconce and the brightly polished wood of the handful of picnic-style tables, Brenda realized she'd made a mistake. This wasn't a bar at all, but a restaurant. A nice but unpretentious one, from the looks of it.
That meant Brenda had made another mistake, too. She shouldn't have come. Willie Rae, God rest her soul, would have been appalled at the idea of her daughter showing up uninvited to a dinner party. Brenda was a little appalled herself, but mostly just embarrassed.
The restaurant was what a reviewer would have called "intimate," i.e. small. Brenda Leigh had no opportunity to extricate herself from her faux pas by simply melting unseen into the night from whence she had emerged. She was only a few feet from the table around which her former colleagues were gathered, and they saw her as soon as she stepped inside, her bright coat glowing like a beacon.
It was Sanchez who spoke first, his mouth rounding with surprise. "Chief!" he exclaimed, pleasure and dismay warring on his countenance.
"Chief! What're you doing here?" Provenza asked at the same time as Flynn offered, "Pull up a - well, a bench."
"Oh, no, I just, ah, came by to say hi. And congratulations." She felt herself flush as she briefly met Andrea's gaze. "D.D. told me where y'all would be, and I was, uh, passin' by," she finished lamely, shamefaced.
"Chief," interjected another voice, its low, clear tone and careful articulation inimitable. "Brenda. What a surprise."
The even tenor of Sharon's voice, with its lack of inflection, gave nothing away; but when Brenda Leigh met her cool green eyes, the woman's unmoved expression did, at least to someone who had spent as much time studying its nuances as the blonde investigator had. The captain was not pleased.
"Hey, Captain Raydor," she replied with false heartiness. "Like I said, I just dropped by to say hi on my way home, so I'll be goin'. Great to see everybody."
"You've barely even said hello," Sanchez protested, looking as if he intended to get up and then realizing he was trapped by the bench. "You can't leave yet."
"Let me buy you a drink." Andy signaled the bartender and mouthed "Merlot." Under Sharon Raydor's unwavering cool gaze, Brenda felt her face grow hotter and hotter.
"Of course, you must stay," Raydor said, still smiling that smile that didn't reach her eyes as she stood near Provenza, studying Brenda above everyone else's heads. She was wearing smoky brown eyeshadow that made those eyes, without the screen of her glasses, look almost as dark as Brenda's. The blonde found herself staring into them, fascinated, as if Sharon was a polite but deadly snake. The way she said 'you must stay,' it sounded less like an invitation, more like a command. Brenda felt a quick, hot stab of anger and shame. Who did Raydor think she was to be giving Brenda orders, no matter how politely, and reminding her she was no longer a superior officer, no longer much of anything other than a pitiful, ill-mannered party crasher?
"We can't pull up a chair," the captain continued, "but no one will mind making room."
In the captain's position, Brenda knew she would have summarily sent an uninvited guest like herself packing, and as Brenda gravitated toward the wedge of open real estate at the end of one bench - it was, mercifully, next to Andrea, who was looking an awful lot like the only port in a storm - she felt her hackles rise with a peculiarly irritating blend of frustration and humility. Sharon Raydor was again doing what she had always seemed to do so effortlessly from the very beginning of their acquaintance: egging Brenda on with her scrupulous politeness to exhibit herself in the worst light, to be on her worst behavior while the captain was on her best. Sharon was, in a word, out-classing Brenda Leigh. The younger woman sank down onto the bench and took a healthy gulp of the Merlot Andy had ordered for her, relieved beyond words that it had appeared so miraculously quickly.
Rounding the end of the table, Raydor loomed over her shoulder and cleared her throat unobtrusively. "That was my seat," the older woman murmured, and Brenda automatically twisted to meet her gaze, "and that is my wine. Would you prefer Zinfandel to Merlot?"
Brenda felt like Goldilocks. And who's been sleeping in my bed? she thought rather dizzily, squeezing as far down the bench as she could to make room for the captain, ending up practically in poor Andrea's lap. Wasn't Sharon Raydor supposed to be the interloper sleeping in her bed, so to speak? Brenda did not like the sensation of the other woman looming over her. She did not like looking down at the wine glass she still clutched and realizing she'd placed her own mouth right over the imprint of Sharon's neutral lipstick. She didn't like the feeling of being the interloper, of not being in charge, at Major Crimes or anywhere else.
She met Sharon's look of mild challenge with a sickly smile. "Merlot's fine. Sorry."
Sharon blinked, her lips tightening rather than relaxing as she smiled, and made a shooing motion with her hand. "The other way, please."
Officially humiliated, Brenda slid back down the bench - she was going to get splinters in her bottom - to the very end. Although she resolutely faced forward, she took a certain grim pleasure in observing from the corner of her eye as Sharon awkwardly straddled the bench, twisting and turning to avoid flashing anyone, and melted into the sliver of space separating Brenda from Hobbs, who was looking quite pleased. The captain firmly yanked her dress down over her thighs before smoothing smoothing her napkin over her lap. When she held out her hand without looking, Brenda placed the wine glass in it; and suddenly the ridiculousness of the whole situation struck the ex-chief, and she had to hold back a titter. As quickly as it had flooded in, her anger receded.
There was a momentary awkward lull as everyone on Brenda and Raydor's side of the table rearranged, shifting persons and plates and cutlery. A server brought over a glass of Merlot, for real this time, and placed it between the two women. Brenda saw the brunette eyeing it, and for half a minute expected the other woman to hoist the glass and take a swig. She didn't, of course, and conversation gradually began to flow again.
It just figured, Brenda reflected, craning her neck to peer down the table at Lieutenant Tao and Buzz, whom she could barely even glimpse. After all that rigamarole, she was isolated down here at the end of the table, too far away even to talk to anyone beside Sharon or the young officer across the table, whose name she didn't know.
As if on cue, said young officer leaned forward, meeting Brenda's gaze and smiling brightly. "Deputy Chief Johnson," she said, her tone bright. "I'm Amy Sykes, Detective Amy Sykes. I've always admired your work. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you, ma'am."
As Brenda smiled, caught slightly off guard, and returned the greeting, she heard Lieutenant Provenza rumble something from his end of the table. It sounded like "ass-kisser." More loudly, for the benefit of everyone's ears, he added, "Chief Johnson is retired, Sykes. She can't get you a promotion, so lay off."
Sykes batted her eyelashes, unfazed. "Your record for obtaining voluntary confessions is unsurpassed," she continued complacently. "I'd love it if you could share some of your valuable insights."
"Ye gods," Provenza moaned, and Brenda detected a slight movement: Raydor catching Skyes's eye and compressing her lips, along with the barest shake of her head. Chastened, Sykes more softly added, "Maybe we could have coffee sometime," and then trained her attention on her appetizer. Well. Captain Raydor had at least one team member following her orders without question.
They would all be following her orders, whether they liked it or not, because they were professionals, and because Raydor was... Raydor.
To tell the truth, Brenda was not unappreciative of Detective Sykes's overzealousness. At least momentarily, it had taken her mind off the disconcerting reality of having all that Raydor pressed against her side from knee to shoulder, the living, breathing reality of the warm woman, the familiar contours of her elegant body.
Despite the undercurrent of animosity coursing between them tonight, Brenda Leigh Johnson did not dislike Sharon Raydor as she once had. Truth be told, she didn't dislike her at all. But apparently that was no longer mutual.
It was hardly a surprise. Knowing what kind of response she would likely get was what had prevented Brenda from picking up the phone and calling Sharon herself to check in on the progress of events at Major Crimes. Otherwise she could've had the burden of her curiosity lifted months ago.
When Sharon had become a sounding-board for Brenda during what turned out to be the chief's last several months at the LAPD, Brenda had initially assumed the older woman had come to fulfill that role by default. For one thing, she was virtually always there, operating with Brenda's team, but not within that team. While the hunt for the leak was being carried out, that separation had seemed like an attractive quality; and while Brenda outranked the captain, she wasn't Sharon's superior officer (as much as she sometimes wished otherwise). And within certain parameters, Brenda Leigh knew she could trust Raydor. Whatever her faults, the woman oozed integrity - she actually believed in all those rules she was so fired up about making everybody else follow.
And yet there was still more to the equation. From being a nuisance, Sharon's near-constant presence had become a comfort, at times even a balm. The woman's low, even voice could be downright soothing, and there was a wisdom in her eyes, a suggestion of warmth in the laugh-lines bracketing her mouth and those green orbs (not that Brenda had ever seen her laugh, really laugh) that indicated a genuine ability to care, perhaps even to nurture. She found herself turning to Sharon for advice, absorbing her clear-eyed common sense, and realizing that beneath her little suits and high heels and notebooks there was almost certainly a good-humored, keenly intelligent, kind woman who didn't take herself too seriously. She had never asked the captain any personal questions or made any overtures beyond those of basic professional respect, but on the rare occasions when Sharon mentioned something about her life outside the LAPD - the existence of children, parents, religious beliefs, a whole history - Brenda found herself mildly fascinated. Initially it had been as if a piece of office furniture or a file folder, something she thought of as existing only at work, had struck up a conversation about traffic or counting calories; but later it had been more like glimpsing the dark side of the moon: you were relieved to know for sure that it was there, but content to let it remain mysterious.
It was the knowledge of those dark-side-of-the-moon qualities existing in Sharon Raydor that had made Brenda think the captain would have at least a fighting chance in Major Crimes. Surely Raydor was capable of thinking outside the box when she needed to. At the very least, her box had to be bigger than most people realized.
Eventually, too, Brenda became persuaded that Sharon had, albeit reluctantly, grown to like her, and that was flattering. No, more than that: it was a kind of validation, knowing that Sharon was in there swinging for her not just because her job dictated it but because she genuinely felt it was the right thing to do. Sharon seemed always to do what she thought was right.
Brenda hadn't exactly recommended the captain for her former job. For one thing, she hadn't exactly been asked, not that that had ever stopped her from airing an opinion before. She had been a little torn by her loyalty to Lieutenant Provenza (although she knew he wouldn't be left in charge for long), and she hadn't wanted to think about anyone filling her shoes. But when Will had articulated the need to bring in someone from the outside who had already had a working knowledge of the division, someone who understood the work they did and how they did it and would still be capable of implementing major changes, Brenda had regarded him balefully and drawled, "I suppose there's only one person who fits that description."
Brenda reached for her wine glass, intending to drink deeply, and accidentally pressed her arm against the captain's. Sharon instinctively turned to face her, her eyes widening fractionally, and her cheeks flushed. Brenda hoped anyone observing would blame her answering flush on the wine. "S-sorry," the blonde stammered. Her arm tingled.
Raydor stiffened slightly and swallowed. "It's quite all right," she reassured grandly, and turned back to her dinner. Brenda noted that she pressed her left arm tightly into her body in order to avoid further contact.
Brenda looked down at her shrimp and polenta. Damn Phillip Stroh. This was all his fault, for existing, and for being such a sorry piece of work, and especially for trying to kill Brenda and Rusty Beck in her kitchen on an otherwise innocuous week night. And maybe it was a little bit her mama's fault too, for dying like that, without so much as a by-your-leave. It was Fritz's fault, for looking at Brenda with his big, sad eyes filled with resignation, and David Gabriel's fault for being gullible and having such horrible taste in women. It was Sharon Raydor's fault for the way she'd laid her hand on Brenda's arm, her soft eyes filled with sympathy; and it was Brenda's own fault for having some sort of psychotic break or midlife crisis or something.
It was everyone's fault, and it was just terrible timing. That was the only explanation for the way Brenda Leigh had behaved the last time she'd seen Sharon in person, when Stroh's blood had been pooling on the tile floor in the kitchen and a young officer had been stringing up crime scene tape in the multi-colored glow of lights from the ambulance and police cruiser, and suddenly Sharon had just been there, and somehow Brenda had found herself alone in her own bathroom with the captain, vibrating with tension and unspent adrenaline while Sharon helped her wash Rusty's blood from her hands and arms. Brenda had looked at their reflection in the mirror over the sink. She had taken in the serious furrow of Sharon's brow and the way her smooth brown hair fell over her shoulders as she bent her head toward the blonde's, and the contact of her hands firmly but gently rubbing Brenda's skin beneath the flow of warm water. Brenda had sucked in a shuddering breath, smelling the metallic tang of blood and the chardonnay on Sharon's breath, and she had just goe crazy. That was the only explanation. That was why she'd done it - why she'd abruptly lifted her wet hands to cup the older woman's face, staining her cheeks a rusty pink, looked directly into green eyes, wide and naked without their glasses, for the space of several heartbeats before she had brought their lips together and kissed Sharon Raydor's stunned, slack mouth.
That was the only explanation for why it had felt so right, like it was exactly what Brenda had needed in that moment. It was as if Sharon had known that and accepted it; she hadn't pulled away. Her lips had shaped themselves to Brenda's and the captain had kissed her back, softly, tenderly, with infinite patience while the running water thundered down the drain.
And then a door had slammed, and there were voices in the hall, and Sharon had stepped away and reached for a towel, using it to dry her own face before handing it to Brenda. "Come on, now," she'd said. "Your detectives are here, Chief. We have to work." There had been no reproof in her voice, no visible embarrassment on her face, and Brenda wasn't sure she'd ever before been so grateful to feel another person's presence.
And then... and then everything had just been a mess, and Brenda had dealt with it by resolving to start what was supposed to be a new phase of her life. Hah. Hadn't that turned out to be the understatement of the century.
They hadn't talked about it, of course, and Brenda hadn't felt that they needed to, until one day she realized she couldn't pick up the phone and call the captain and ask about her new job and all the old boys. Brenda couldn't explain that inability. She hadn't expected it, this invisible, inexplicable barrier, as if Sharon Raydor now had a force-field surrounding her and all she did.
Brenda stabbed violently at a defenseless shrimp. This was probably irony, huh? She'd thought leaving Major Crimes would help make her life more manageable, whereas all she felt now was out of control. Instead of holding things together, her departure from the LAPD had just accelerated the pace at which everything came apart.
The woman next to her shifted, and and Brenda felt her concerned, speculative gaze on the crown of her bent blonde head. "Chief?" Sharon asked, and then, the way she had that other night, "Brenda?"
Brenda's head snapped up, her jaw tightening with determination, and the older woman flinched. Good, she thought. Aloud she said, "We need to talk."
Sharon's eyes widened before narrowing in contemplation as she cocked her head. "Yes," she agreed slowly after an uncomfortably long pause, and gestured toward the bar. "I believe we do. Shall we?"
Author's note: I intend this to be a multi-chapter story, but lately it seems like people aren't very interested in reading Brenda/Sharon, or at least not my version of Brenda/Sharon - which is too bad, because I tried writing Sharon/Andy, and I'm pretty sure it's terrible. I still love my OTP. If you do too, let me know, and I'll keep churning out the fic. Thanks, y'all.
Pairing: Brenda/Sharon
Rating: T (overall M)
Word count: 6,301
Summary: Brenda Leigh had no choice but to admit it: having more time for the living just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. A Brenda/Sharon relationship story. High heels, firearms, angsty D.D.A.'s, ex-husbands, bobble-head dolls: all the requisite ingredients, kids.
Wrecking Ball
Chapter One: Headed for the wall
Brenda Leigh Johnson looked up from her computer monitor the instant the quick, light rap on her office door reached her ears. She thought fleetingly of the still-fairly-recent past, when every interruption to her work had been looked upon with annoyance, if not downright disdain. Now she relished any distraction, no matter how minor.
A relieved smile tugged at the corners of her wide mouth as a familiar smooth blonde head peeped around the door frame. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes, thank goodness." Brenda turned up the volume on her smile a little for D.D.A. Andrea Hobbs. "What can I do for you, Andrea?"
The other woman answered her smile as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Andrea Hobbs was one of the bright spots of Brenda's new job, and since the former deputy chief had taken up this post in the D.A.'s office, the two women had become friendly, if not quite friends - not yet, anyway, Brenda amended. In her own rather stilted way, she'd been trying to move them along that path over the past few weeks. She could use a friend these days, and as much as she appreciated David Gabriel, it would have been too weird to make him her confidant.
Not that what she wanted was a confidant, per se. It wasn't as if Brenda had suddenly discovered a heretofore unknown urge to Talk About Her Feelings. But it would be nice to have someone to go out with for a drink and to talk about something besides the endless reams of paperwork the job generated.
Andrea's smile took on an apologetic cast. "I know we mentioned going for a drink after work to kick off the weekend, but would you mind terribly if we rescheduled?"
"Oh." Brenda Leigh was afraid her disappointment showed in her eyes and the droop of her mouth for just an instant before her features assumed a suitably bland expression. "Of course not. Is everythin' okay? It's not one of your -" She hesitated for a split second, wracking her brain. She knew the D.D.A. had children, and she thought they were both girls, but it was better to be safe than sorry. " - Your kids?" she finished lamely. Shoot, she really wasn't very good at this business of making friends.
If the other woman noticed the awkward pause, she didn't let on. "Oh, no, nothing like that. Actually -" It was the attorney's turn to hesitate. "The Kazanjian case is closed. Captain Raydor just called to tell me the ink is dry on the plea deal we offered his brother, so he won't be bothering the State of California or anyone else for at least sixteen years. Probably a lot longer, since I can't see him getting out on good behavior. He's rather... volatile."
The former deputy chief wasn't thrilled by the new deal-making paradigm that her departure from the LAPD had ushered in, but putting a brutal murderer away was still good news. Andrea's eyes sparkled with satisfaction, and Brenda smiled politely as she said as much aloud: "That's good news."
The other blonde stepped further into the office. "The thing is that Sharon invited me to join them to celebrate. I've been spending almost as much time there as I have here for the last few months, but this is the first time I've been included in anything - social." Andrea cocked her head and offered a little shrug. "I feel like I should go. It could be a good opportunity to … cement certain working relationships."
"Oh," Brenda murmured, thinking, So it's Sharon now. How cozy. "Of course I don't mind. It probably is a good idea for you to go, like you said, especially since the captain can be -" She paused, one corner of her mouth twisting. "- Difficult."
Andrea's brows arched slightly as she blinked. "Do you think so?" she murmured in place of the wholesale agreement Brenda had expected. "I suppose it goes with the territory."
It was Brenda Leigh's turn to blink. Her vanity stung slightly. Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, the former deputy chief chose to believe that everyone with whom she worked liked her, at least deep down. Being lumped into the same category with Sharon "Darth" Raydor was hardly flattering. Aloud she said, "I'm sure Capt'n Raydor is just doin' what she needs to do to get the job done."
Andrea cocked her head. "My point exactly. You must know a thing or two about that."
Mollified, Brenda leaned back in her chair, giving her enough clearance to slide open a desk drawer and rummage among its contents. "How would you say things are goin' over at Major Crimes?"
The other woman folded her arms and cocked a hip inquisitively, leaning against the door. "You must have your ear to the ground."
Brenda offered another little shrug in response. She didn't, not in the way Andrea Hobbs assumed - not in the way she herself had assumed when she'd left her former job in a bittersweet blaze of mingled victory and defeat. Although she'd assured herself and her team that they would continue to see one another, and although she had meant the words even at the moment of speaking them Brenda had been aware that they rang out with a certain hollowness. These people who had been her co-workers for the better part of a decade - Brenda truly considered them her friends. But without the bond of that work uniting them, it was virtually impossible to conceive of maintaining a relationship with any one of them. For one thing, she'd been their boss, and as such had always strived to maintain a certain distance. For another - well, what would they talk about? She imagined listening to Provenza grouse about his woman troubles, or Tao talking about college tuition fees, or Sanchez - well, Sanchez really didn't talk much. Still, it was hard to imagine, all the way around.
So no, she hadn't, despite her raging curiosity bordering on actual anxiety, called any of them up to ask how highly they would rate Captain Raydor's leadership capabilities, detective acumen, or overall job performance. If Will had still been Assistant Chief, she could have bought him a drink and persuaded him to allay her fears; but Major Crimes was no longer under the direct supervision of the oh-so-important newly-minted chief. Besides, she wasn't sure Will was even speaking to her. Which was totally unfair, really. Admittedly her methods had been a little nontraditional, but she'd quite literally stopped Phillip Stroh in his tracks. And nobody had even sued her. You'd think Pope might be at least a little grateful.
"Surely Agent Howard keeps you informed," Hobbs elaborated, and Brenda focused on slowly unwrapping a Reese's cup, giving herself a moment to think. Was Andrea fishing? Her dark eyes narrowed slightly as she peeled bac the crinkly brown paper. She doubted Fritz would have said anything. But on the other hand, he'd always been chatty with the blonde deputy D.A. (Fritz liked blondes.) Perhaps Raydor had asked him about Brenda, or maybe the FBI liaison had even let something slip in front of the two most perniciously gossipy old women inside the LAPD, Andy Flynn and Louie Provenza.
The dissolution of her marriage wasn't, Brenda reminded herself, a state secret. She fully expected everyone she knew to find out eventually. She would just prefer to have it happen magically, or perhaps by osmosis, without her personally having to suffer through the inevitable awkwardness of telling them. There was no really good or easy way to do it, and she hated the resultant expressions of surprised or knowing sympathy.
Still, this was as good an opportunity as any. She could say something like "I haven't talked to Fritz lately" and let Andrea fill in the details. It would be like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Brenda Leigh finished opening her chocolate and peanut butter delicacy and nibbled away an edge. "So, where are y'all goin' to celebrate?"
Andrea blinked again, as if perhaps she'd anticipated quite another kind of remark. "Ah - it starts with an M."
"Malloy's," Brenda supplied, nodding knowingly.
Andrea's straight hair shimmered as she shook her head. "No, it's that new place. Madeleine's? Something like that. I'm supposed to meet them at six," she added, glancing down at her watch.
Brenda shaped her mouth into what she hoped was a gracious smile. "Well then, you better get goin'," she said brightly. "Give my regards to everybody."
The D.D.A. straightened up. "I will. Have a good weekend, Brenda. See you Monday."
Brenda fluttered her fingers in a little wave, and then sat looking at the wood grain of her office door after the other woman had closed it. The office was very quiet now, and suddenly felt very empty. Sitting there, she felt empty too. It was only about 5:30, but she knew everyone else had already gone home for the day. The D.A.'s office didn't keep banker's hours, but to Brenda's way of thinking they might as well have. She missed the erratic hours and controlled chaos of the police department, as well as the whole mentality. On a Friday evening six months ago, even if they hadn't been working a big flashy homicide, Brenda would've been able to count on the quiet presence of at least one of her boys to keep her company, maybe Tao tinkering with something or Provenza finishing up a crossword at his desk. They were cops; they didn't punch a time clock and run home to dinner or off to pilates class. Day or night, the Murder Room retained the easy, familiar feel of a home away from home.
In fact, Brenda had always felt a lot more at home in the Murder Room than she had in her actual home, something she hadn't fully appreciated until she'd abruptly found herself with so much home-time on her hands.
At least so far, her new office didn't provide that sense of ease and security, perhaps because she didn't feel the same possessiveness, the same ownership of all she surveyed. Back at Major Crimes, Brenda Leigh had sat at her desk and felt like the monarch was in her castle and all was well throughout her personal dominion.
And all had been well, ultimately. She'd been right to believe that no one on her team would have wilfully betrayed her. Her mouth drooped as she shook her head. Poor David. She was glad to have him here with her, a familiar face in the crowd; but more than just their working relationship had changed with their new positions. Gabriel himself had been altered by his experience, presenting his new co-workers with a quieter, more somber, more guarded version of the man Brend had known so long.
She swallowed the last of the candy and shoved her feet back into the pumps she had discarded under her desk. Brenda had never been overly sentimental, and there was no point getting all nostalgic now for a place that didn't exist any more. A new regime was firmly entrenched in her Murder Room. The Queen had been deposed; all hail the Wicked Witch.
Despite the bitter tone of her thoughts, it was with something akin to exasperated affection that Brenda rolled her eyes and began to gather her things, tossing them haphazardly into her voluminous black tote. How very like Captain Raydor to appoint a precise time for a post-case celebration, as if she were giving a state dinner for royalty rather than buying her colleagues a few rounds.
A dinner for royalty. Now there was a thought.
The former queen of Major Crimes paused just for a second, wheels turning. She bit her lip, and then allowed it to creep upward into a smile. What could it possibly hurt if she dropped by the-new-place-whose-name-started-with-M for a drink? True, she hadn't precisely been invited, but it was a celebration. The more the merrier, right? She knew there had been no FBI involvement in the Kazanjian investigation, so there was no danger of running into her estranged husband. It was the perfect opportunity to suss out the state of affairs at Major Crimes. After all, as years of experience had taught Brenda Leigh, when she was curious about something, it was always best just to investigate it herself, in person. It was the only way of making sure the job got done right.
2.
Captain Sharon Raydor was feeling pretty good, and it had extremely little to do with the glass of excellent Zinfandel she was currently sipping. From her vantage point at the far end, she looked down the long wooden table at her animated colleagues, most of them in varying stages of intoxication. It was Andy Flynn, though, sober as a judge at the opposite end of the table, who caught her eye and nodded, smiling very slightly as he lifted his Perrier in a little toast. Sharon's sense of personal and professional well-being increased. She knew she was still a long way from winning any popularity contests, but after the silent opposition mingled with occasional outbursts of open hostility she had faced from everyone at this table except neutral Andrea Hobbs and supremely self-interested Amy Sykes over the past five months since taking the reins in their division, grudging approbation was almost as sweet as having roses thrown at her Manolo-encased feet.
It was hard to make yourself visible in the shadow of a giant, even when said giant stood 5'4" and weighed 105 pounds soaking wet. Viewing the situation as dispassionately as she knew how, the captain understood all Brenda Leigh Johnson had done to earn the fierce loyalty of her detectives. Raydor was no doe-eyed ingenue; she'd been perfectly aware that her long tenure in Internal Affairs insured that they would perceive her as an outsider, and she'd quickly realized that all her efforts over the past year to keep the Major Crimes ship from sinking like the Lusitania had done less than she might have hoped to soften the men's collective heart. Never mind that she had managed to save Brenda from legal ignominy and root out the leak. Sharon had also investigated each of the men who now worked for her in the process, leaving more than a few ruffled feathers. And then Stroh had reappeared and Brenda Leigh had quit before she could be fired - something that had nothing to do with Raydor, and yet when the captain had taken her place, she'd sensed that they blamed her, at least a little, however unfairly, for the removal of their beloved blonde leader. She knew Sanchez especially thought Brenda had deserved a medal, not the boot.
Add to all that Assistant Chief Russell Taylor's diabolically bad timing (Sharon still couldn't decide whether the man wanted to see her sink or swim, or whether perhaps he simply didn't care either way, as long as her potential flailing provided him with some measure of amusement and didn't put him on the hot seat) and the loyalty the rest of the squad felt toward that exceedingly sharp thorn in Raydor's side, Lieutenant Provenza, and - Suffice it to say that the job of asserting her authority while keeping things running smoothly had not been an easy one. It still wasn't, but day by day the captain felt a little less like she was just barely keeping her head above water, liable to be swamped at any minute by an unexpected wave.
Sharon sat back, resting her hands lightly upon the table, and resolved not to over-think it. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying this outing, not merely because the captain was footing the bill, and she fully intended to do the same. Going out for a meal after wrapping up an important investigation had been standard procedure in her former life, but this was a milestone of sorts: the first time Sharon had been bold enough to suggest such a plan to her new colleagues, because she was now reasonably confident they wouldn't turn her down flat and leave her facing the frightening prospect of an evening of girl talk with a boozy Detective Sykes. A couple of months ago, Provenza wouldn't have dignified the invitation with any response other than a snort of disgust, and Flynn would probably have said he had to wash his hair.
As a waiter brought their shared starters - a towering platter of calamari, a fig and prosciutto torte, and a plate of assorted crostini - to the table, Sharon felt Hobbs's hand lightly brush her elbow, bare now that she had removed the black blazer she'd paired with the gray wool dress for the work day. "Captain, another glass of wine?" the other woman asked, and Sharon looked down with mild surprise to see that her glass was empty.
"Just one more," the brunette agreed. "But please call me Sharon. Unless you would prefer that I call you Deputy D.A. Hobbs."
The D.A.'s lip lifted in a one-sided smile. "No, Andrea will do," she replied, her eyes meeting Sharon's directly for a couple of beats before she looked away, lifting a hand to signal the departing waiter. Sharon just had time to register how close the younger woman was sitting, close enough that the captain had been able to feel Andrea's breath on her face, before she became aware that Amy, who sat across the table with a martini glass cradled in one hand, was eyeing them narrowly. A knowing smile graced her model-worthy features. Raydor breathed out, relieved, when Sanchez passed Sykes the calamari, distracting her. What had that been all about?
She knew what Sykes thought it had been about, Sharon reflected as she helped herself to one of the crostini and smiled her thanks at Mike Tao. But surely not. How many Manhattans had Hobbs downed in the last thirty-five minutes? Surreptitiously, she cast a sidelong glance at the contents of the lawyer's glass. It was still a third full. Perhaps Detective Sykes was the inebriated one. Raydor briefly considered suggesting her youngest detective devote more scrutiny to her caseload and less to her colleagues.
Where she had placed it as unobtrusively as possible beside her silverware, Sharon's phone lit up and began to vibrate, displaying Rusty's name. "Excuse me," she murmured, instantly sliding as gracefully as possible off the bench seat, and excusing herself to a quiet alcove behind the bar to ascertain that her teenage ward was not in imminent peril.
3.
The M-name of the bar turned out to be Magdalen, not Madeleine's, which was why it had taken Brenda so long to locate it, and then she'd found herself on a one-way street going in the opposite direction to the one she'd wanted to go. So much for the wonders of GPS - or maybe she shouldn't have bought the model that was on clearance. At any rate, the predominance of Crown Vics in the parking lot assured Brenda that she was at last in the right place.
Pulling into a spot beside a blue Volvo, she paused long enough to tighten the belt of her pink trench coat against the sharp nip in the January air, and then hooked the strap of her purse over her elbow and stepped out onto the pavement. As she clip-clopped briskly up to the entrance (it really could get cold in Southern California, cold and damp), Brenda reflected that the stucco building with its bright blue and white-tiled window boxes didn't look much like a cop bar, but then she'd lived in LA long enough to know that plenty of places didn't look like what they were. Plenty of people, too.
As soon as she crossed the threshold and her gaze swept over the cheerful glow of light emanating from brass sconce and the brightly polished wood of the handful of picnic-style tables, Brenda realized she'd made a mistake. This wasn't a bar at all, but a restaurant. A nice but unpretentious one, from the looks of it.
That meant Brenda had made another mistake, too. She shouldn't have come. Willie Rae, God rest her soul, would have been appalled at the idea of her daughter showing up uninvited to a dinner party. Brenda was a little appalled herself, but mostly just embarrassed.
The restaurant was what a reviewer would have called "intimate," i.e. small. Brenda Leigh had no opportunity to extricate herself from her faux pas by simply melting unseen into the night from whence she had emerged. She was only a few feet from the table around which her former colleagues were gathered, and they saw her as soon as she stepped inside, her bright coat glowing like a beacon.
It was Sanchez who spoke first, his mouth rounding with surprise. "Chief!" he exclaimed, pleasure and dismay warring on his countenance.
"Chief! What're you doing here?" Provenza asked at the same time as Flynn offered, "Pull up a - well, a bench."
"Oh, no, I just, ah, came by to say hi. And congratulations." She felt herself flush as she briefly met Andrea's gaze. "D.D. told me where y'all would be, and I was, uh, passin' by," she finished lamely, shamefaced.
"Chief," interjected another voice, its low, clear tone and careful articulation inimitable. "Brenda. What a surprise."
The even tenor of Sharon's voice, with its lack of inflection, gave nothing away; but when Brenda Leigh met her cool green eyes, the woman's unmoved expression did, at least to someone who had spent as much time studying its nuances as the blonde investigator had. The captain was not pleased.
"Hey, Captain Raydor," she replied with false heartiness. "Like I said, I just dropped by to say hi on my way home, so I'll be goin'. Great to see everybody."
"You've barely even said hello," Sanchez protested, looking as if he intended to get up and then realizing he was trapped by the bench. "You can't leave yet."
"Let me buy you a drink." Andy signaled the bartender and mouthed "Merlot." Under Sharon Raydor's unwavering cool gaze, Brenda felt her face grow hotter and hotter.
"Of course, you must stay," Raydor said, still smiling that smile that didn't reach her eyes as she stood near Provenza, studying Brenda above everyone else's heads. She was wearing smoky brown eyeshadow that made those eyes, without the screen of her glasses, look almost as dark as Brenda's. The blonde found herself staring into them, fascinated, as if Sharon was a polite but deadly snake. The way she said 'you must stay,' it sounded less like an invitation, more like a command. Brenda felt a quick, hot stab of anger and shame. Who did Raydor think she was to be giving Brenda orders, no matter how politely, and reminding her she was no longer a superior officer, no longer much of anything other than a pitiful, ill-mannered party crasher?
"We can't pull up a chair," the captain continued, "but no one will mind making room."
In the captain's position, Brenda knew she would have summarily sent an uninvited guest like herself packing, and as Brenda gravitated toward the wedge of open real estate at the end of one bench - it was, mercifully, next to Andrea, who was looking an awful lot like the only port in a storm - she felt her hackles rise with a peculiarly irritating blend of frustration and humility. Sharon Raydor was again doing what she had always seemed to do so effortlessly from the very beginning of their acquaintance: egging Brenda on with her scrupulous politeness to exhibit herself in the worst light, to be on her worst behavior while the captain was on her best. Sharon was, in a word, out-classing Brenda Leigh. The younger woman sank down onto the bench and took a healthy gulp of the Merlot Andy had ordered for her, relieved beyond words that it had appeared so miraculously quickly.
Rounding the end of the table, Raydor loomed over her shoulder and cleared her throat unobtrusively. "That was my seat," the older woman murmured, and Brenda automatically twisted to meet her gaze, "and that is my wine. Would you prefer Zinfandel to Merlot?"
Brenda felt like Goldilocks. And who's been sleeping in my bed? she thought rather dizzily, squeezing as far down the bench as she could to make room for the captain, ending up practically in poor Andrea's lap. Wasn't Sharon Raydor supposed to be the interloper sleeping in her bed, so to speak? Brenda did not like the sensation of the other woman looming over her. She did not like looking down at the wine glass she still clutched and realizing she'd placed her own mouth right over the imprint of Sharon's neutral lipstick. She didn't like the feeling of being the interloper, of not being in charge, at Major Crimes or anywhere else.
She met Sharon's look of mild challenge with a sickly smile. "Merlot's fine. Sorry."
Sharon blinked, her lips tightening rather than relaxing as she smiled, and made a shooing motion with her hand. "The other way, please."
Officially humiliated, Brenda slid back down the bench - she was going to get splinters in her bottom - to the very end. Although she resolutely faced forward, she took a certain grim pleasure in observing from the corner of her eye as Sharon awkwardly straddled the bench, twisting and turning to avoid flashing anyone, and melted into the sliver of space separating Brenda from Hobbs, who was looking quite pleased. The captain firmly yanked her dress down over her thighs before smoothing smoothing her napkin over her lap. When she held out her hand without looking, Brenda placed the wine glass in it; and suddenly the ridiculousness of the whole situation struck the ex-chief, and she had to hold back a titter. As quickly as it had flooded in, her anger receded.
There was a momentary awkward lull as everyone on Brenda and Raydor's side of the table rearranged, shifting persons and plates and cutlery. A server brought over a glass of Merlot, for real this time, and placed it between the two women. Brenda saw the brunette eyeing it, and for half a minute expected the other woman to hoist the glass and take a swig. She didn't, of course, and conversation gradually began to flow again.
It just figured, Brenda reflected, craning her neck to peer down the table at Lieutenant Tao and Buzz, whom she could barely even glimpse. After all that rigamarole, she was isolated down here at the end of the table, too far away even to talk to anyone beside Sharon or the young officer across the table, whose name she didn't know.
As if on cue, said young officer leaned forward, meeting Brenda's gaze and smiling brightly. "Deputy Chief Johnson," she said, her tone bright. "I'm Amy Sykes, Detective Amy Sykes. I've always admired your work. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you, ma'am."
As Brenda smiled, caught slightly off guard, and returned the greeting, she heard Lieutenant Provenza rumble something from his end of the table. It sounded like "ass-kisser." More loudly, for the benefit of everyone's ears, he added, "Chief Johnson is retired, Sykes. She can't get you a promotion, so lay off."
Sykes batted her eyelashes, unfazed. "Your record for obtaining voluntary confessions is unsurpassed," she continued complacently. "I'd love it if you could share some of your valuable insights."
"Ye gods," Provenza moaned, and Brenda detected a slight movement: Raydor catching Skyes's eye and compressing her lips, along with the barest shake of her head. Chastened, Sykes more softly added, "Maybe we could have coffee sometime," and then trained her attention on her appetizer. Well. Captain Raydor had at least one team member following her orders without question.
They would all be following her orders, whether they liked it or not, because they were professionals, and because Raydor was... Raydor.
To tell the truth, Brenda was not unappreciative of Detective Sykes's overzealousness. At least momentarily, it had taken her mind off the disconcerting reality of having all that Raydor pressed against her side from knee to shoulder, the living, breathing reality of the warm woman, the familiar contours of her elegant body.
Despite the undercurrent of animosity coursing between them tonight, Brenda Leigh Johnson did not dislike Sharon Raydor as she once had. Truth be told, she didn't dislike her at all. But apparently that was no longer mutual.
It was hardly a surprise. Knowing what kind of response she would likely get was what had prevented Brenda from picking up the phone and calling Sharon herself to check in on the progress of events at Major Crimes. Otherwise she could've had the burden of her curiosity lifted months ago.
When Sharon had become a sounding-board for Brenda during what turned out to be the chief's last several months at the LAPD, Brenda had initially assumed the older woman had come to fulfill that role by default. For one thing, she was virtually always there, operating with Brenda's team, but not within that team. While the hunt for the leak was being carried out, that separation had seemed like an attractive quality; and while Brenda outranked the captain, she wasn't Sharon's superior officer (as much as she sometimes wished otherwise). And within certain parameters, Brenda Leigh knew she could trust Raydor. Whatever her faults, the woman oozed integrity - she actually believed in all those rules she was so fired up about making everybody else follow.
And yet there was still more to the equation. From being a nuisance, Sharon's near-constant presence had become a comfort, at times even a balm. The woman's low, even voice could be downright soothing, and there was a wisdom in her eyes, a suggestion of warmth in the laugh-lines bracketing her mouth and those green orbs (not that Brenda had ever seen her laugh, really laugh) that indicated a genuine ability to care, perhaps even to nurture. She found herself turning to Sharon for advice, absorbing her clear-eyed common sense, and realizing that beneath her little suits and high heels and notebooks there was almost certainly a good-humored, keenly intelligent, kind woman who didn't take herself too seriously. She had never asked the captain any personal questions or made any overtures beyond those of basic professional respect, but on the rare occasions when Sharon mentioned something about her life outside the LAPD - the existence of children, parents, religious beliefs, a whole history - Brenda found herself mildly fascinated. Initially it had been as if a piece of office furniture or a file folder, something she thought of as existing only at work, had struck up a conversation about traffic or counting calories; but later it had been more like glimpsing the dark side of the moon: you were relieved to know for sure that it was there, but content to let it remain mysterious.
It was the knowledge of those dark-side-of-the-moon qualities existing in Sharon Raydor that had made Brenda think the captain would have at least a fighting chance in Major Crimes. Surely Raydor was capable of thinking outside the box when she needed to. At the very least, her box had to be bigger than most people realized.
Eventually, too, Brenda became persuaded that Sharon had, albeit reluctantly, grown to like her, and that was flattering. No, more than that: it was a kind of validation, knowing that Sharon was in there swinging for her not just because her job dictated it but because she genuinely felt it was the right thing to do. Sharon seemed always to do what she thought was right.
Brenda hadn't exactly recommended the captain for her former job. For one thing, she hadn't exactly been asked, not that that had ever stopped her from airing an opinion before. She had been a little torn by her loyalty to Lieutenant Provenza (although she knew he wouldn't be left in charge for long), and she hadn't wanted to think about anyone filling her shoes. But when Will had articulated the need to bring in someone from the outside who had already had a working knowledge of the division, someone who understood the work they did and how they did it and would still be capable of implementing major changes, Brenda had regarded him balefully and drawled, "I suppose there's only one person who fits that description."
Brenda reached for her wine glass, intending to drink deeply, and accidentally pressed her arm against the captain's. Sharon instinctively turned to face her, her eyes widening fractionally, and her cheeks flushed. Brenda hoped anyone observing would blame her answering flush on the wine. "S-sorry," the blonde stammered. Her arm tingled.
Raydor stiffened slightly and swallowed. "It's quite all right," she reassured grandly, and turned back to her dinner. Brenda noted that she pressed her left arm tightly into her body in order to avoid further contact.
Brenda looked down at her shrimp and polenta. Damn Phillip Stroh. This was all his fault, for existing, and for being such a sorry piece of work, and especially for trying to kill Brenda and Rusty Beck in her kitchen on an otherwise innocuous week night. And maybe it was a little bit her mama's fault too, for dying like that, without so much as a by-your-leave. It was Fritz's fault, for looking at Brenda with his big, sad eyes filled with resignation, and David Gabriel's fault for being gullible and having such horrible taste in women. It was Sharon Raydor's fault for the way she'd laid her hand on Brenda's arm, her soft eyes filled with sympathy; and it was Brenda's own fault for having some sort of psychotic break or midlife crisis or something.
It was everyone's fault, and it was just terrible timing. That was the only explanation for the way Brenda Leigh had behaved the last time she'd seen Sharon in person, when Stroh's blood had been pooling on the tile floor in the kitchen and a young officer had been stringing up crime scene tape in the multi-colored glow of lights from the ambulance and police cruiser, and suddenly Sharon had just been there, and somehow Brenda had found herself alone in her own bathroom with the captain, vibrating with tension and unspent adrenaline while Sharon helped her wash Rusty's blood from her hands and arms. Brenda had looked at their reflection in the mirror over the sink. She had taken in the serious furrow of Sharon's brow and the way her smooth brown hair fell over her shoulders as she bent her head toward the blonde's, and the contact of her hands firmly but gently rubbing Brenda's skin beneath the flow of warm water. Brenda had sucked in a shuddering breath, smelling the metallic tang of blood and the chardonnay on Sharon's breath, and she had just goe crazy. That was the only explanation. That was why she'd done it - why she'd abruptly lifted her wet hands to cup the older woman's face, staining her cheeks a rusty pink, looked directly into green eyes, wide and naked without their glasses, for the space of several heartbeats before she had brought their lips together and kissed Sharon Raydor's stunned, slack mouth.
That was the only explanation for why it had felt so right, like it was exactly what Brenda had needed in that moment. It was as if Sharon had known that and accepted it; she hadn't pulled away. Her lips had shaped themselves to Brenda's and the captain had kissed her back, softly, tenderly, with infinite patience while the running water thundered down the drain.
And then a door had slammed, and there were voices in the hall, and Sharon had stepped away and reached for a towel, using it to dry her own face before handing it to Brenda. "Come on, now," she'd said. "Your detectives are here, Chief. We have to work." There had been no reproof in her voice, no visible embarrassment on her face, and Brenda wasn't sure she'd ever before been so grateful to feel another person's presence.
And then... and then everything had just been a mess, and Brenda had dealt with it by resolving to start what was supposed to be a new phase of her life. Hah. Hadn't that turned out to be the understatement of the century.
They hadn't talked about it, of course, and Brenda hadn't felt that they needed to, until one day she realized she couldn't pick up the phone and call the captain and ask about her new job and all the old boys. Brenda couldn't explain that inability. She hadn't expected it, this invisible, inexplicable barrier, as if Sharon Raydor now had a force-field surrounding her and all she did.
Brenda stabbed violently at a defenseless shrimp. This was probably irony, huh? She'd thought leaving Major Crimes would help make her life more manageable, whereas all she felt now was out of control. Instead of holding things together, her departure from the LAPD had just accelerated the pace at which everything came apart.
The woman next to her shifted, and and Brenda felt her concerned, speculative gaze on the crown of her bent blonde head. "Chief?" Sharon asked, and then, the way she had that other night, "Brenda?"
Brenda's head snapped up, her jaw tightening with determination, and the older woman flinched. Good, she thought. Aloud she said, "We need to talk."
Sharon's eyes widened before narrowing in contemplation as she cocked her head. "Yes," she agreed slowly after an uncomfortably long pause, and gestured toward the bar. "I believe we do. Shall we?"
Author's note: I intend this to be a multi-chapter story, but lately it seems like people aren't very interested in reading Brenda/Sharon, or at least not my version of Brenda/Sharon - which is too bad, because I tried writing Sharon/Andy, and I'm pretty sure it's terrible. I still love my OTP. If you do too, let me know, and I'll keep churning out the fic. Thanks, y'all.