“And you’re sure you’re going to be okay? Because if you don’t think you are, I’ll call in. I want to make sure you feel safe, you know. It’s why I brought you here, right?”

Weston was pretty sure he was rambling, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop no matter what he tried. If things between him and Clara had been weird before, he didn’t even know what to call them now. They certainly hadn’t gotten less strained, that was for sure. After she’d left his loft the day before he’d felt like putting his fist through the wall, either his fist or even his entire head. What the hell had he been thinking? What in the world had made him kiss her, of all the things in the world he could have done? What had made him do it when she would be staying in his home for who the hell knew how long? He hadn’t planned on doing it, hadn’t even thought about it at all, and that was part of what had him so concerned. It wasn’t like him to do something so rash and off the cuff, especially when it came to the opposite sex. He hadn’t meant to do it, but at the same time he couldn’t imagine it not having been done, which only made things more confusing. Did he think that kiss had been stupid, a stupid kind of mistake? Sure, you bet. He didn’t just think it had been stupid, he knew it had been. At the same time, though, he wouldn’t have taken it back even if doing so had been a viable option. After she’d gone and he’d spent what felt like hours pacing around his apartment, he could still taste her lips on his. He could still feel the weight of her slight body pressed against his own. He could feel her small, delicate hands pressing against his chest. He could still smell the floral notes of her hair, for Christ’s sake, which he would have thought sounded like the stupidest thing in the world if he’d heard somebody else say it but turned out to be true all the same. That one kiss had taken her from just some woman he’d allowed himself to feel responsible for, to a woman who occupied a place underneath his skin. She was so far underneath his skin that he’d made a point of not being there when she got back from her ill-advised visit to the prison, He had returned home drunk and late enough so that if she was still awake he never once saw her. It was only now, the morning after, hungover and starting to get to the level of tired where nothing around him seemed to be quite real, that he saw her, and he didn’t have a fucking clue what he was supposed to say. All he could do was ramble and try very hard not to actually make any meaningful eye contact.

“Weston?”

“There’s honestly not a whole lot of food here,” he went on, talking so quickly now that it was a wonder he didn’t stumble over his own words. “But if you want to order something in, that’s fine by me. I’m not sure if you were planning on going into work, but if you’re in the mood to take advice, I would say maybe don’t do it. I don’t see any need to put yourself into a position where you’ll be that easy to get to. Sort of defeats the purpose of you staying here for protection and all.”

“Weston.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he kept right on talking, pretty horrified with himself for the way he was just steamrolling over whatever it was she was trying to say to him and finding that he didn’t have it in him to just stop and shut the fuck up, “I understand that not going into work isn’t always an option. From what Finnley was telling me though, your boss, Trevor—”

“Travis.”

“Travis, that is, right. She told me that Travis is a pretty flexible guy and that it didn’t take much of an explanation from her to convince him that working from home might be a good idea. And she tells me the company’s being sold anyway, so he may not honestly care if you do any work at all. At least that’s what she said. I guess you’d know better than me.”

“Weston.”

“Yeah,” he sighed roughly, back to pacing and hating himself a little for how unhinged it must make him look, “I heard you. What is it?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” she answered in a halting, hesitating voice, one that made her seem so delicate he almost couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her alone at all, “because you don’t really seem all that fine, and I can’t tell if it’s because you’re mad at me or if it’s from something else.”

“Mad at you? What the hell would I be mad at you for?”

“Um, several things come to mind, but the one that sticks out the most is the fact that I left when you didn’t want me to.”

“I’m not your keeper, Clara, not your jailer. I can’t make you stay anywhere and even if you do something I think is stupid, it doesn’t mean I’ll stay mad at you.”

“Stupid, huh? Gee, thanks.”

“Jesus,” Weston sighed, far too tired and stressed out for a conversation like this one. “Are you just in the mood to fight? Is that what this is? Because I gotta tell ya, I’m really not. I have to go to work and I’m dog tired on top of it. Neither of those things make me feel like getting into a power struggle with you. I was trying to be helpful, but in the end, you can do whatever you want, okay? Totally up to you.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to fight with you. I guess I just feel weird about last night. And if we’re being honest, you seem way out of it. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what I did yesterday. Because I went when you told me not to.”

“You’re an adult, Clara, at least you were the last time I checked. You get to make your own choices. But that doesn’t mean we have to talk about them, and this is one I don’t think we need to discuss.”

She opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. What they should probably be talking about was the fact that he’d kissed her and just what the fuck he’d been thinking when he’d done it, but there was no way in hell he was prepared to have that conversation. He would actually rather go to work than do that, which was saying a hell of a lot. He’d been prepared to take on the responsibility of making sure Clara stayed safe, but the emotional shit was something he wasn’t prepared for in the slightest. Emotional stuff was something he did his best to stay as far away from as possible. He’d been doing a pretty damn good job of it, too, right up until he’d met Clara. Since then, it seemed like things were pretty much going to hell in a handbasket.

“Alright,” she answered him softly, her face falling so that she looked very much to him like she was going to start crying. And Christ, if she did that, he didn’t know what he would do. Best to just get out of there before he did or said anything to make things even worse than they already were. He seemed to have been making such a mess of things that not being around at all was probably his best bet, at least until he could get his head on straight. Besides, he really did need to go into work. Neither the captain nor Vick had called him about his rather lackluster performance, but he had a feeling there would be plenty to say about it when he got to the precinct. If there was any chance of him smoothing it over without sitting through a massive telling off, he would need to have something close to a clear head when he got there. Getting into it with Clara wasn’t going to help him do that, and so he was going to have to push her out of the part of his brain he used to get through his day-to-day shit and into a little compartment created just for her. He shouldn’t have any problem with that. Shoving the things that he didn’t want to deal with aside to handle at some later date—that would probably never come—was one of the things he did best.

“Look, if we need to talk about things, figure out a plan of how we’re going to get through this shit, we can do that, but not now. I’ve got to go, and from the looks of it, you need some more sleep. You look like you didn’t sleep at all.”

“No,” she said faintly, her eyes taking on a faraway look he didn’t care for at all, “I don’t suppose I did.”

There was something about the expression on her face, something in her face that made him give a moment’s pause that he didn’t have time for, but couldn’t come anywhere close to helping. Even when he turned and walked out of the loft, he knew that something had happened the night before. She’d gone to the prison when he’d told her specifically it was a bad idea and that was on her, but that didn’t mean she just deserved whatever had happened to her. And judging by the look on her face, something must have happened, and it couldn’t have been anything good. There was a look in her eyes now that told him there was at least a part of her that was desperate for him to ask her what had happened. She wanted to unburden herself, or if she wasn’t able to exactly do that, to give him a part of her burden so that she wouldn’t have to carry it alone. If he were a better man, he would probably have stopped what he was doing and allow her to give him part of her concerns, but as it turned out, he wasn’t a better man at all. He wasn’t a better man, or if he was he didn’t feel like being one at the moment, and so instead of talking it through with her, he grabbed his wallet, stuck it in the back pocket of his slacks, and walked out the door. Never mind the fact that he could still see that sad, almost-haunted look on her face, as he got into his car and drove away. Never mind that he knew he had almost surely done the wrong thing by walking out on her that way. He had a job to do, and that was the only thing he was going to think about now. It was the only thing he could think about now.

“You better have a pretty wonderful fucking excuse, Daniels, I’m going to say that right now. You better have a pretty wonderful excuse or else you’re going to be in a whole world of hurt.”

“Good morning to you, too, Cap. And Vick. Can’t say I expected to see you just hanging around in the captain’s office. Not a place you typically like to visit.”

“Believe me, kid, this ain’t a pleasure call. And before you start looking at me with all of that accusation in your eyes, let’s both try and remember here for a moment. You did this shit to yourself.”

“He’s absolutely right, Mr. Daniels, you did this to yourself. You’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.”

Weston clenched his jaw, clenched his fists so tightly he could hear all of his knuckles crack in one fell, slightly painful swoop, and said nothing in response. Even if he’d been able to speak without getting into more trouble than he’d already stepped into, what in the hell would he have said? It wasn’t like there was anything quick and easy for him to let roll of the tongue, nothing that would get him out of the captain’s office just as quickly as he’d landed himself inside of it. This was one of those times when he was really and truly deep in the shit, and to make matters worse, this time it wasn’t just with the captain. Vick’s face was dusky with anger, his mouth set in a thin line and his meaty arms crossed in front of him defensively. His eyes were hard, and it didn’t take a genius to see that there would be no help for Weston there. Vick had always been the kind of man to scoff at the authority figures in his life, and in not too subtle a way either, but something had apparently finally happened to push him over to the side of the “top dogs.” Weston didn’t know what it was, but he had a sinking suspicion that it had to do with him, which meant he was really and truly screwed. Vick had always been the one ally he could for sure count on, and if he’d lost that, he could very possibly have lost everything he had on the force. With this thought planted firmly in the forefront of his mind, Weston stared at Vick, waiting for his burly partner to show some sign of the friendship the two of them had built over the years. When he saw nothing, he nodded, more to himself than to anyone else, and began to speak. For some reason, understanding that he was truly on his own in this job now had a calming effect on him. If there was nothing left for him to lose, well then, there was no reason to be afraid of asking the tough questions, now was there?

“They told me outside that you wanted to see me, boss. When I asked them whether it was for something good or for something bad, they didn’t know, but I guess it’s pretty easy to tell now, isn’t it?”

“Good?!” The captain almost roared, speaking so loudly even the unflappable Vick Edwards gave a small jump. “Good? And you tell me what in the hell kind of good I might have brought you in here for? Can you think of anything good you did lately that I might want to commend you for? What about you, Vick? You got any heroic acts of this partner of yours you feel like enlightening me on? Because believe me, I’ve been searching, and I can’t find a goddamned thing.”

“Nope, sorry boss, can’t think of anything off the top of my head. Not that I’m the brightest guy, you know. I bet you could ask the kid here. He’d probably tell you all about it. You know, how much of a chump I am.”

“Nobody ever said you were a chump,” Weston inserted quietly, caught somewhere in between being royally pissed off and just plain hurt by the way Vick was acting now. “You know that. I haven’t ever called you a chump, and if you don’t know that, then maybe a chump is exactly what you are.”

“Listen here, you little shit—!”

Vick’s voice came out in what Weston would later only be able to think of as a snarl. As he spoke, he lunged forward, his large hands grabbing at the air wildly. All it took was one look for Weston to understand that if he’d been able to grab him, if Vick had been able to get his hands on him, he would have beat the shit out of him. He might have put those massive hands around his neck and clamped down, pressing until there were permanent fingerprints on Weston’s skin and one more body to carry down to the morgue. It was only the captain that made sure that didn’t happen, grabbing his arm at the last minute and pulling him back, wrapping him up in what looked very similar to a bear hug.

“That’s enough, Edwards, alright? I know you’re pissed, and I get it, but losing your cool isn’t going to help anything. You wanna get yourself suspended, too?”

Too? Things were happening very quickly now, quickly enough that it was a little difficult for Weston to keep up with it all, but that last statement was one he couldn’t have missed even if he’d wanted to. The captain had instructed Vick to get himself calmed down so that he didn’t get himself suspended too. Seeing as there were only three people in that office, those three being the captain, Vick, and himself, that left only one person likely to be getting suspended and the odds were most definitely not in his favor.

“Suspended? Correct me if I’m wrong, Captaian, and I most certainly hope that I am, but are you trying to say that I’m suspended?”

“I’m not trying to do anything, Weston, I’m telling you that you’re done here. Not forever I hope, although that’s really up to you, but for the foreseeable future.”

“I see. Got any intention of telling me what for, or is this one of those things where I’m supposed to go home and think about what I’ve done for myself? You know, make sure I’ve really learned my lesson and all that shit. Just like when you’re a kid.”

“You kidding me, Daniels? You really need me to tell you? Alright, fine. Here’s what I’ve got to say. Clara Blake.”

“What about her?”

“I saw her, you shit,” Vick panted, shrugging the captain off of him but making no move to attack Weston again, which was at least something. “I saw her coming out of your building. Saw her come out and then a couple hours later saw her go back in. And you know what? She didn’t leave again.”

“So you been spying on me, Vick? Is that what we’re saying here? I didn’t realize you were so bored. Should have called me, partner. We could’ve played a game of chess or something.”

“I wasn’t bored. I was following a hunch.”

“Which was?”

“Which was that you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants for long enough to do your job. Everybody told ya, kid. All of us, we told ya to stay away from her. That’s not a case we’re willing to take. She’s batshit and she’s lying. We’ve got very specific instructions to leave that one alone, and you know it.”

“Specific instructions from whom?” Weston asked quickly, his interest picqued for reasons other than himself for the first time since this whole thing had begun. “What are we talking about here?”

“None of your damn business, Weston,” the captain answered coldly, now taking his turn to fold his arms, but with a far more final and judgmental stance than the one Vick had adopted. “All you need to know is that you were given a direct order, and you chose not to follow it. You chose not to follow it not once, but twice, and in this precinct, we don’t give out three strikes. Put your badge and your gun on the desk. You’re suspended until further notice, boy. I suggest you get your head on straight and make a decision about whose side you want to be on.”

“You know the answer to that. You both do.”

“No, I’m sorry to say we don’t. Because if you’re going to be on this side, you better make sure you’re able to follow orders. If what you want is to stick it in every pretty, crazy girl that comes along, you’re going to have to find another line of work. Now get out of here. I’m sick of looking at you, and I don’t think I’ll be able to hold Vick here back forever. Last thing I need is for my office to turn into a crime scene. Go on, get out of here. And leave the things.”

***

The drive home was little more than a blur for Weston. He’d faced many things in his life that were worth being angry about, and he’d felt that way about all of them. Never in his life, however, had he been quite as angry as he was at the moment. He’d dedicated everything to the force and to Vick in particular, essentially making the jackass his stand-in family, the stand-in family for the members he’d lost, which was pretty much all of them. He’d done that with the belief that it was just what partners did for each other, and what had Vick done instead? Sat outside of Weston’s building and waited for something to happen that he could sell him out for. It was something Weston would never in a million years have done, which was what made it so fucking awful. All Weston could see as he drove home was the look in his friend and partner’s eyes as he watched the gun and badge land on the desk. It filled his head so completely that he hardly even noticed Clara sitting at the island of his kitchen when he strode inside. He might never have noticed her if she hadn’t jumped up off of her stool and come to stand in front of him. She took his face in her hands and made him look down into her eyes.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.”

“Please don’t do that, okay? Please don’t. Don’t lie to me, not like that. What is it? What’s happened?”

“Do you want to go somewhere? I don’t care where, as long as it’s out of the city. Let’s get the fuck out of here before I lose my head completely.”