Fic: Inertia - Part 3 [The Closer]
Title: Inertia - Part 3 [The Closer]
Rating: PG 13
Ship: Brenda/Sharon
Disclaimer: Not mine; never were! No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: Nothing can stay unchanged forever. Brenda starts to cope with life after Fritz and Will warns her that her job isn't as secure as she thought.
*POSSIBLE SPOILER* - So, the last chapter was written as a plot device, but look at what gossip's been going around for 'The Closer' - that they're looking to continue with the show after Kyra Sedgewick leaves at the end of S7. What else? More than one article mentions replacing the Chief with Captain Raydor - who is really just a different flavor of alpha lady cop... So, um... consider yourselves spoiled I suppose?
Previous Chapters: ( One) ( Two)
~
"So Peter Maccey was killed -"
"Murdered." Provenza grunted, walking by the desk where Flynn sat, trying to catch Sharon Raydor up on the case.
"We do not know, Lt. Provenza, if he was murdered, or killed - unless there's something you're not telling me?" She smiled with an icy glare. "What we do know is that he was killed under suspicious circumstances and a small cache of art has been reported missing by his widow, the one very young, very bouncy Tammy Maccey. Am I with you all so far?"
Brenda closed the door to block out the sounds and rolled her eyes heavenward - she had done it so often over the last two days that she was starting to worry that they would get stuck there. Sharon Raydor was integrating into the team about as well as she had anticipated. Which wasn't very well. If she had any energy to care, she would've wondered who Raydor has pissed off enough to feed her to the hungry wolves of the LAPD, but she didn't care. Not really. She had a hard enough time waking up in the morning under the haze of one glass of red wine too many and making it into to work in clean clothes.
She told her parents about Fritz moving out and she had to endure her parents concern. She was only mostly sure she had convinced them not to drive cross-country to be with their baby girl. She was also only mostly sure she didn't want them to come, although some small part of her wanted to be able to crawl into her mother's lap and cry and cry and cry. She missed Fritz. She missed Joel - but she was on the verge of tears because she was realizing she didn't actually miss Fritz as a husband, she missed what he would do as a husband: make dinner, drop off the dry cleaning, clean out the litterbox. She missed him like she'd miss a roommate, or a best friend. She was lonely not because her husband left her, she was lonely because her best friend had. Try as she might, Brenda Leigh Johnson, one of the most gifted liars in the country, discovered she couldn't lie to herself for very long. She had recently come to realize that Fritz was entirely too good for her. It wasn't some self-deprecating revelation, but an honest one. Fritz took care of her, put her and her wants and her needs first. He always had. He wouldn't say much about the late nights, or early mornings; he wouldn't say much about the wine in her hand or the empty bottles in the recycling; he didn't even say much about that one year where she missed their anniversary. He dealt with it all the same way - a quiet sigh and a disappointed look before he'd return to doing whatever it was he was doing. She had come to realize that she and Fritz needed two separate things - well, actually, they both needed the same thing - a wife. Someone who would -
"Chief?" A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts as Tao popped his head in.
"Yes, come in Lt. Tao." She invited, ruffling some papers on her desk to look busy.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" He asked, nervous.
"Sure, what is it?"
"What's the deal with her?" He cocked his head towards the glass pane and Sharon. A quick turn of her head revealed Flynn being held back by Provenza before he could attack her. To make matters worse, the woman seemed to be enjoying it, egging him on. With a sigh, she pushed back from her desk and marched out towards the centre of the room.
"Seriously?" She shouted, forcing the commotion around her to stop short. "I look out my window and all I see is a schoolyard fight."
"Sorry Chief" Both men mumbled, looking down at their feet.
"You're no better, Captain Raydor. From where I was, it looked like you were instigating the whole thing." The smaller woman remarked with a pointed look towards the other woman.
"Sorry Chief Johnson."
"That's better. You're mature grown-ups. The city of Los Angels has entrusted y'all to carry loaded weapons. Act like it. I would like to remind everyone that Captain Raydor has been assigned to temporarily-" Dear lord, she hoped, anyways. "shadow us here at Major Crimes. This has come directly from Chief Delk, and so I would like everyone to treat Captain Raydor with all the respect due to her as a guest of Chief Delk, and as a fellow officer. I would also like Captain Raydor to remember she's a guest in a different department and to act accordingly. Do I make myself clear?" She turned around to take in everyone nodding silently. "I said, do I make myself clear?" She barked, louder.
"Yes Chief!" The room chimed.
"Good." With a curt nod, she marched back into her office and slammed the door.
Flynn held out his hand towards Raydor who shook it as they all settled down. "Don't worry, Captain. She's been like this all week." He explained.
"Fritz's week with Joel." Provenza explained as he sat down at his desk and took a sip of coffee.
"Her son?" Sharon asked, unable to picture Brenda as a mother.
"Her cat." Tao explained.
"Oh." She smiled, her lips curling up against her will. Leave it to Chief Johnson to be upset because she had to share custody of her cat.
| | |
When Brenda stepped back out into the room, things were quiet. Calm. Tao was on his computer showing something to Buzz and Sharon was settled into Flynn's desk looking over crime scene photos and making notes on a large yellow pad.
"Where's your bitty little thing?" Brenda asked, walking up to the other woman.
"That's for projects." Sharon replied, flicking her eyes up over the rim of her glasses before returning them down. "Yellow is for training - reference."
"I see. And Provenza and Flynn, you scare 'em off?"
"Hardly." The brunette snorted, flipping through the photos until she found what she was looking for. "They're off tracking a lead - one of the missing sketches showed up at Sotheby's. They invited me, if you could believe it." She smirked as she scrawled some questions on her pad of paper. Brenda liked the long curve of the script. It seemed so...indulgent... for someone as direct as Captain Raydor.
"Why didn't you go?"
"I'd love to - but I have a meeting in 45 minutes with Pope." She set her pen down and looked up, "Don't worry. Not about you."
"Not worried," Brenda lied. "Listen, let's head downstairs."
"Chief?" Raydor asked, lifting a brow.
"I'll have you back in plenty of time for your meeting. Come on."
The ride down could've been better timed, Brenda thought as she squeezed herself onto the packed elevator besides the brunette. She was already on guard, Brenda noticed, taking in the crossed arm posture of her companion who stared straight ahead at the sliding doors. A movement behind her forced her to shift, adjust herself until her bare arm brushed by Sharon's exposed hand. "Sorry." The blond murmured, noticing the halted breath of her companion. Curious. She shifted again, her movement deliberately slow as she dragged her arm across the other woman's fingertips, watching intently out of the corner of her eye to see Captain Raydor's reaction.
There was the sudden intake of breath, a slight setting of the jaw, a pursing of the lips. There was no shifting - if it bothered her, she was determined to bear it. Except Brenda didn't really think it bothered the other woman. It didn't bother her either. In fact, there was a peculiar little thrill to feel someone's skin on hers.
Even if it was Sharon Raydor.
Maybe because it was Sharon Raydor.
Brenda watched as her companion slowly raised an eyebrow. The corners of her lips also curved up ever so slightly. She couldn't help but feel she'd been caught - the trouble was, she didn't know what she'd been caught doing.
Rating: PG 13
Ship: Brenda/Sharon
Disclaimer: Not mine; never were! No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: Nothing can stay unchanged forever. Brenda starts to cope with life after Fritz and Will warns her that her job isn't as secure as she thought.
*POSSIBLE SPOILER* - So, the last chapter was written as a plot device, but look at what gossip's been going around for 'The Closer' - that they're looking to continue with the show after Kyra Sedgewick leaves at the end of S7. What else? More than one article mentions replacing the Chief with Captain Raydor - who is really just a different flavor of alpha lady cop... So, um... consider yourselves spoiled I suppose?
Previous Chapters: ( One) ( Two)
~
"So Peter Maccey was killed -"
"Murdered." Provenza grunted, walking by the desk where Flynn sat, trying to catch Sharon Raydor up on the case.
"We do not know, Lt. Provenza, if he was murdered, or killed - unless there's something you're not telling me?" She smiled with an icy glare. "What we do know is that he was killed under suspicious circumstances and a small cache of art has been reported missing by his widow, the one very young, very bouncy Tammy Maccey. Am I with you all so far?"
Brenda closed the door to block out the sounds and rolled her eyes heavenward - she had done it so often over the last two days that she was starting to worry that they would get stuck there. Sharon Raydor was integrating into the team about as well as she had anticipated. Which wasn't very well. If she had any energy to care, she would've wondered who Raydor has pissed off enough to feed her to the hungry wolves of the LAPD, but she didn't care. Not really. She had a hard enough time waking up in the morning under the haze of one glass of red wine too many and making it into to work in clean clothes.
She told her parents about Fritz moving out and she had to endure her parents concern. She was only mostly sure she had convinced them not to drive cross-country to be with their baby girl. She was also only mostly sure she didn't want them to come, although some small part of her wanted to be able to crawl into her mother's lap and cry and cry and cry. She missed Fritz. She missed Joel - but she was on the verge of tears because she was realizing she didn't actually miss Fritz as a husband, she missed what he would do as a husband: make dinner, drop off the dry cleaning, clean out the litterbox. She missed him like she'd miss a roommate, or a best friend. She was lonely not because her husband left her, she was lonely because her best friend had. Try as she might, Brenda Leigh Johnson, one of the most gifted liars in the country, discovered she couldn't lie to herself for very long. She had recently come to realize that Fritz was entirely too good for her. It wasn't some self-deprecating revelation, but an honest one. Fritz took care of her, put her and her wants and her needs first. He always had. He wouldn't say much about the late nights, or early mornings; he wouldn't say much about the wine in her hand or the empty bottles in the recycling; he didn't even say much about that one year where she missed their anniversary. He dealt with it all the same way - a quiet sigh and a disappointed look before he'd return to doing whatever it was he was doing. She had come to realize that she and Fritz needed two separate things - well, actually, they both needed the same thing - a wife. Someone who would -
"Chief?" A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts as Tao popped his head in.
"Yes, come in Lt. Tao." She invited, ruffling some papers on her desk to look busy.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" He asked, nervous.
"Sure, what is it?"
"What's the deal with her?" He cocked his head towards the glass pane and Sharon. A quick turn of her head revealed Flynn being held back by Provenza before he could attack her. To make matters worse, the woman seemed to be enjoying it, egging him on. With a sigh, she pushed back from her desk and marched out towards the centre of the room.
"Seriously?" She shouted, forcing the commotion around her to stop short. "I look out my window and all I see is a schoolyard fight."
"Sorry Chief" Both men mumbled, looking down at their feet.
"You're no better, Captain Raydor. From where I was, it looked like you were instigating the whole thing." The smaller woman remarked with a pointed look towards the other woman.
"Sorry Chief Johnson."
"That's better. You're mature grown-ups. The city of Los Angels has entrusted y'all to carry loaded weapons. Act like it. I would like to remind everyone that Captain Raydor has been assigned to temporarily-" Dear lord, she hoped, anyways. "shadow us here at Major Crimes. This has come directly from Chief Delk, and so I would like everyone to treat Captain Raydor with all the respect due to her as a guest of Chief Delk, and as a fellow officer. I would also like Captain Raydor to remember she's a guest in a different department and to act accordingly. Do I make myself clear?" She turned around to take in everyone nodding silently. "I said, do I make myself clear?" She barked, louder.
"Yes Chief!" The room chimed.
"Good." With a curt nod, she marched back into her office and slammed the door.
Flynn held out his hand towards Raydor who shook it as they all settled down. "Don't worry, Captain. She's been like this all week." He explained.
"Fritz's week with Joel." Provenza explained as he sat down at his desk and took a sip of coffee.
"Her son?" Sharon asked, unable to picture Brenda as a mother.
"Her cat." Tao explained.
"Oh." She smiled, her lips curling up against her will. Leave it to Chief Johnson to be upset because she had to share custody of her cat.
| | |
When Brenda stepped back out into the room, things were quiet. Calm. Tao was on his computer showing something to Buzz and Sharon was settled into Flynn's desk looking over crime scene photos and making notes on a large yellow pad.
"Where's your bitty little thing?" Brenda asked, walking up to the other woman.
"That's for projects." Sharon replied, flicking her eyes up over the rim of her glasses before returning them down. "Yellow is for training - reference."
"I see. And Provenza and Flynn, you scare 'em off?"
"Hardly." The brunette snorted, flipping through the photos until she found what she was looking for. "They're off tracking a lead - one of the missing sketches showed up at Sotheby's. They invited me, if you could believe it." She smirked as she scrawled some questions on her pad of paper. Brenda liked the long curve of the script. It seemed so...indulgent... for someone as direct as Captain Raydor.
"Why didn't you go?"
"I'd love to - but I have a meeting in 45 minutes with Pope." She set her pen down and looked up, "Don't worry. Not about you."
"Not worried," Brenda lied. "Listen, let's head downstairs."
"Chief?" Raydor asked, lifting a brow.
"I'll have you back in plenty of time for your meeting. Come on."
The ride down could've been better timed, Brenda thought as she squeezed herself onto the packed elevator besides the brunette. She was already on guard, Brenda noticed, taking in the crossed arm posture of her companion who stared straight ahead at the sliding doors. A movement behind her forced her to shift, adjust herself until her bare arm brushed by Sharon's exposed hand. "Sorry." The blond murmured, noticing the halted breath of her companion. Curious. She shifted again, her movement deliberately slow as she dragged her arm across the other woman's fingertips, watching intently out of the corner of her eye to see Captain Raydor's reaction.
There was the sudden intake of breath, a slight setting of the jaw, a pursing of the lips. There was no shifting - if it bothered her, she was determined to bear it. Except Brenda didn't really think it bothered the other woman. It didn't bother her either. In fact, there was a peculiar little thrill to feel someone's skin on hers.
Even if it was Sharon Raydor.
Maybe because it was Sharon Raydor.
Brenda watched as her companion slowly raised an eyebrow. The corners of her lips also curved up ever so slightly. She couldn't help but feel she'd been caught - the trouble was, she didn't know what she'd been caught doing.