ic info
In Character Information
character name: Lillian Rush
Fandom: Cold Case
Timeline: End of Season 7, after leaving the apartment with Christina, Scotty and the baby.
character's age: 42
powers, skills, pets and equipment: Lilly has no supernatural powers whatsoever. What she does have are keen observation skills, and the ability to keep her wits in demanding situations. She is proficient with guns (preferring to use a Glock 17 as does most of her crew) and while not a brawler, Lilly knows how to defend herself and is of average strength for a woman of her age and job description. As time goes on, she'll become very resistant but absolutely not immune to mind reading/mental manipulation. It could be because she's so closed off in general.
She arrives in Anatole only with the "untraceable" (not like that matters in Anatole) handgun Saccardo gave her, an old photograph of she and her sister Christina as kids at the beach, and inexplicably, her two cats. Said cats are both female. Olivia is orange with one eye, and the other kitty, Fluff, (unnamed in canon) is three legged and white.
canon history: Raised by a drunken, irresponsible (but well meaning) mother, Lilly grew up in one of the rougher neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Her father left when she was young, coming back for a brief reconciliation before splitting for good. Often having to be the primary caretaker for her younger sister Christina, Lilly learned to fend for herself early on. When she was ten, on her way to buy alcohol for her mother in the middle of the night, she was assaluted and robbed - resulting in a broken jaw. She was nursed by childhood friend Ray Williams, whom she later almost married - and who filtered in and out of her life (significantly) many years later. The officer who helped her identify her attacker would later recruit her into his department, homicide, where she works with her partner, Scotty Valens, solving dead-end (cold) cases. More here.
personality: Lilly is distant, distrustful of people in general, particularly men. This is mostly due to her father walking out, her childhood assault and furthered by the discovery of her fiance cheating with her younger sister.
She has a tendency to overconnect with victims (so much so that she often keeps a photo of the victim beside her bed, which weirds at least one boyfriend out.) as compensation for the lack of connections she has in her own personal life. Truthfully, her coworkers are more of a family to her than her own estranged relatives.
She is a workaholic - again having very little life outside of her job. This may make her an amazing asset to the unit, but it cripples her personally. Although Lilly uses her rough childhood to connect with the people she interrogates, she is much more closed off with people outside of her cases. She can seem engaging, and it is quite easy for her to gain people's trust. People find her easy to talk to ...unless it's about herself.
Her fairly nonexistent personal life is mostly by choice. She is extremely private in what little of her personal life there is, though she does have the ability to open up to people after a long period of suspicion.
She is stubborn, obsessive and dedicated. She can come across as being uptight, humorless and cold - this could not be further from the truth, but she often uses this to hide behind. Her stubbornness has also gotten her into some very tight situations, especially in regards to an attempt on her life, in which she resorted to some rather unethical methods to send him a message.
Lilly prefers to play by the rules ...most of the time. She tries to be a compassionate cop more than a "good" cop, and for a long while was afraid of turning into her first partner - a bigoted, jaded oldtimer that really just didn't give a shit about the people behind the cases at all. She's covered up evidence and kept silent on some less-than-model-behavior things, so she's ultimately more willing to choose loyalty to her friends, or what she sees as a noble cause.