Part of Your World
Something cold and hard settled into the pit of his stomach when he unfolded the piece of paper lying in his mailbox.
Police Department letter-head. Heavy white paper, instead of the usual flimsy copier stuff.
It was time. Again. Somehow he’d let it sneak up on him.
In the week since he’d spent the night at her house, Elizabeth had undergone an incredible change, whether she realized it herself or not. She didn’t push at him, didn’t tell him to go away, and last night after work they’d gone to dinner. Sure, it had been cheeseburgers in the back booth of a dingy diner, but the conversation had been easy and familiar. She kept insisting that they weren’t dating, of course, but they’d held hands on the way back to his car and she’d kissed him good night at her door.
He could have sworn that there was an invitation in her eyes at the door, but if there had been she had stopped herself from actually issuing it. He didn’t mind. They were on a nice, slow path to somewhere, and for the first time in forever he was enjoying the journey. He’d never done slow before, but it seemed to be working all right.
And now he got this, as if fate itself refused to give him even a few blessed days of peace.
“Terrific.”
He started, then looked to his left to see Elizabeth grimacing at her own piece of paper.
“They got you too?” He grumbled.
“Yeah. Didn’t realize we were on the same rotation.” She raised her eyebrows, but he ignored the implied question. He had to do this a bit more often than the others, for reasons he wasn’t ready to share with her yet.
“I got patrol. What’d you pull?”
“Medic 4.” She stated, wincing. “I did patrol last time. Guess it’s time for some blood and guts.”
Every dispatcher had to work a shift as a ride-along with each department once a year. It was some sort of ‘team-building understand how the other half lives’ kind of thing. Those who were actual police officers in addition to being dispatchers had to do patrol duty periodically under an entire different regulation.
“Maybe it’ll be a slow shift and you’ll get to sit around the hall gossiping and waiting for a call.” He grinned at her, and she looked around to see if anyone was watching before smiling softly back at him. He chose to forget to notice the insistence no one know she was talking to him, and focused on the smile. It was nearly enough to melt that piece of ice that had settled in his stomach when he’d first seen the letter. “Wanna grab a bite after shift?”
She hesitated, then said, “I can’t tonight. I’ve got plans.”
Spike blinked.
“Plans?”
“Yeah. It was pointed out to me a while back I don’t do anything except work. So I made plans for tonight.” She shrugged. “Class at the gym. Sounded kind of interesting, and cheap to boot.”
When he’d said she should do something outside of work, he’d kind’ve meant she should do him. And on top of that, he really needed her company to keep himself from going slightly off the deep end at the thoughts that it was time for his quarterly evaluation. Again. Of course, she thought it was just a routine ride-along like she’d gotten. Spike forcibly brought himself back to the moment.
“Tomorrow, then?”
“That makes it sound like a date.” she whispered, her eyes wide and darting wildly around. One or two people had noticed them, but role call didn’t start for five more minutes and Will was getting a little sick of her acting like someone finding out they went out would be the end of her world.
“Well, not really. Just pre-planned. You decide it can be a date, you let me know, though.”
She sighed, and he watched the emotions flicker across her features. She was wavering.
“Tomorrow night.” she nodded, “But it’s not a date.” She pouted at him, her bottom lip jutting out, and he caught himself leaning forward to capture it between his teeth. She stepped back and glared, and he shrugged an apology he didn’t mean. She was wonderfully flushed, her hands shaking as she fiddled with her ride-along order. Oh yeah, not long now, any day now she’d give in. And this time he would remember it with perfect clarity.
“’Course not, luv. Not ‘til you say so.”
“Thanks.” It was barely a whisper, but he heard it. And something in the quality of that one word told him that she knew very well it was a date.
Maybe the whole evaluation thing wasn’t such a big deal this time around. He’d pass the field, flunk the psyche, and get back to doing what he’d discovered he actually liked best. Maybe it was even time to ask about making the assignment permanent, and get out of the whole evaluation all together.
His mood lifted, and he whistled while he waited for it to be long enough for him to head to the roll call room without it looking like they’d arrived together. If that’s all it took to keep her around, just a little pretending it wasn’t happening, he could live with that. It was worth it for the way the order didn’t feel quite so heavy in his hand as he refolded it.
Their dinner went well, this time ending with a cup of coffee at her kitchen counter and then more kisses than they’d ever actually shared before on the living room sofa. Slow, long kisses that made his blood burn and his heart pound. But he didn’t push, and she blushed prettily at him when made a show of backing off and slipping out her door with an exaggerated limp that wasn’t as exaggerated as he pretended to her. He nearly came in his pants from a few kisses.
He had it bad.
He had it bad enough that he was still thinking about what might happen when over their upcoming weekend and hadn’t given today a second thought until he was sitting in his car, in full uniform with an actual gun on his hip, staring at the back door to headquarters. Dispatch had it‘s own door, opening into stairs leading to the basement. Patrol worked out of the back of the building. There was very little chance anyone he worked with would actually see him if he didn‘t make an effort to see them. Sure, there were lots of officers who worked Comm, but no one but the Sarge knew that the assignment to Communications Division was supposedly temporary in his case. A transfer instead of termination while he got his shit together. Hell, a lot of the time, he managed to forget himself.
His hands were shaking. Fuck this. It wasn’t worth it. Why he continued to go through this every six months was beyond him. He was fine where he was - didn’t even really want to go back out into the field - and he should just talk to the brass about making the assignment permanent and stop torturing himself this way.
But the thing was, he wanted it to be his choice. He wanted them to offer him his old place back so he would have the opportunity to turn it down and laugh in their faces. Or at least know that he’d finally finished serving time for one bloody mistake he never should have made, that he was where he chose to be instead of the only place he was allowed.
Just get it over with, you stupid ponce. Right then. He straightened his shoulders, and made his way inside the building.
It was different, but the same. Kowalski, who’d been in his original academy class but had never gained any rank, grinned and waved at him. Spike figured the guy would have made Detective by now, or at least Sergeant, but apparently he’d found himself a niche and wanted to stay there. A few of the others tried to stare at him while pretending they were looking in an entirely different direction. Yeah, the crazy guy’s back, still pretending he can be a cop.
He walked up to the podium and handed his orders over Sgt. Alred, who didn’t even glace at them before barking at him that he was aware of his situation and he would be riding with none other than the Sergeant himself.
Okay, unusual, but not unheard of. Nothing to be worried about.
That lack of nerves lasted until they were in the car.
“So, are you going to blow this one on purpose and waste somebody elses time in six months, Giles?”
He blinked, and stared, but he didn’t say anything.
“You gone deaf on me?”
The bloody pillock. Spike stiffened, felt his hands clenching into fists, and turned to glare at the other man. “No, sir.” Not another word. And you aren’t going to hit him. He’s goading you.
“Good.”
“What do you want me to say? I’m here. I’m going through this whole thing - again - and we both know it’s not gonna change anything. Never failed a field test in the first damned place.”
“Except that one time that started this whole thing.” Alred was a big man, with bushy red hair, freckles, and blue eyes to go with his southern accent. He looked like he should be a circus clown or an ice cream vendor. He did not have a disposition that matched his features. He had the disposition of the retired army drill sergeant he actually was.
“Wasn’t a test.”
“It’s all a test. You failed doing the job, no matter how many tests and evals you ace. You should get over it and give us all a break.”
“Because that would be the polite thing to do, right Sarge? Just quietly go away and not bother the real officers, disappear into the basement to never be seen again.” He wished Elizabeth was here. She made the job seem like a calling, something valuable and precious. All these exercises in torture managed to do was remind him his life was the punishment he usually managed to forget it was.
“Hell, no. Come back if you want to. It was a mistake, and everybody makes ‘em. Not everybody has a job where they can be so damned catastrophic, but human beings screw up. But if you don’t want to, if you’re just going to wade through another eval half-assed and wait to be told you failed, just stop doing the damned things. You’ve made rank in your division. Maybe it’s where you belong.”
“I’m here. We going out, or sitting in the parking lot all shift while you talk about things you don’t know the first bloody thing about?” Yep, that did it. He should get out of the car now, since he just blew it. Probably get a nice juicy insubordination charge on top of the whole thing.
“Damn, but you’ve got issues. Let’s go.”
It was all downhill from there.
He had to use his pepper spray on a drunk that thought fist fights were fun and the nice officers could join in if they wanted to. He very nearly ran the damned patrol car into a ditch dodging a drunk driver, and when he turned around to pull the guy over it led to an arrest, sure, but it also led to having his shoes covered in puke and nearly losing it and punching the guy.
Punching some guy got him into this mess in the first damned place. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the punching so much as the kicking. And the threatening by sticking a gun barrel in his mouth. And maybe the taking out the first two other officers trying to pull him off. Hell, if the guy had actually remembered the whole thing when he was no longer stoned, not even the circumstances surrounding the incident could have kept him employed. He got six months administrative leave without pay and pulled off the street, and was damned lucky he hadn’t ended up in jail himself.
He and Sgt. Alred had just finished up with the drunk driver in booking when Harris’s voice came over the radio. Kid probably thought he was doing them a favor, giving Spike a good call for his ride-along. Or maybe Alred had requested to get this one if anyone like it came in - at this point Will wouldn’t have put it past the man.
A young woman called saying she had walked in and found her boyfriend molesting her five year old daughter.
The adrenaline rushed into his system, and he had to close his eyes. It wasn’t a coincidence. He’d been doing these things for six years now, and this had never happened. It wasn’t a common as television made out. Sunnydale had three sectors, all handled by one radio, and only sixteen officers working in the whole town at any given time. These calls practically never happened in Sunnydale. They had problems with gangs, and the vice squad was as big as the whole of the patrol division, but this wasn’t something they dealt with on a daily basis.
“You wanna sit this one out?” The voice had changed, and when he looked at Alred all the hostility was gone. “I’ve gotta go, but you can sit in the car and do the dispatcher ride along thing if you want.”
“But that’s not what I’m here for.” He had said it before he knew he was going to. And he sounded - determined. Damn, was he actually trying to pass this thing?
Elizabeth stretched, and leaned closer to the radio. The night had started out pretty boring. They had one call for a kid that fell off his front porch and broke his arm. The little fella somehow managed to be scared and hurting while still being awed that he was riding in an ambulance. He was cute, and Elizabeth had enjoyed watching him try to take everything in even while he was crying.
Then they had a car accident, but it wasn’t a bad one. Neck pain, and a little bit of best get checked out just in case, and if you were on an ambulance working a car accident that was the kind to get. No blood or guts or dead bodies so far.
And now they were on their way to check out some guy who’d been beaten with a baseball bat. When the update came in, though, it changed everything. All the faces around her changed with it, and she wondered if she looked anything like they did.
“Outta euthanize the bastard.” Powell stated, her eyes going hard.
There were blue lights everywhere, and they staged just outside the perimeter while they waited for the word to go in. It didn’t take long. They offered to let her stay in the ambulance, but she had the certification to go in if she wanted, and she wanted. She didn’t know why. Always before, she had just ridden and watched and listened like a good little dispatcher. She’d returned to the academy when she was twenty-one because she could, and had done a short rotation in patrol because it was required as field training for certification, but she hadn’t worked the job beyond the hours required to keep her certification. Now, those hours were her ticket inside the house, and she found herself wanting to go.
Wasn’t the whole point of ride-alongs to understand what the person on the other side of the radio went through? To make you better at doing your job because you’d seen what actually happened after the call left your console?
The house was remarkably quiet. The medics approached the patient at a nod from the two officers guarding him, and started doing their job. Elizabeth admired the fact that they didn’t seem to treat him any differently from the other patients she’d watched them with today. She’d just taken two steps back to make sure she was out of the way when she heard a commotion in the other room.
“What the hell is he doing here?” And then, “I swear, Giles, you blow my case this time and I’ll see you in jail where you belong.”
What?
“Detective.” She knew that voice. One of the sergeants, and if he’d talk some more she’d know which one. She’d never met him in person, though. “Officer Giles is here doing his job. The suspect was beaten by the mother when she found him.”
There was a silence, then, “You’re actually trying to convince me Spike didn’t hit that guy?” A shuffling, and Elizabeth was absolutely certain there was a lot more here than what she’d overheard. And it was Sgt. Alred. Which wasn’t relevant, but she used her ears more than any other sense, and his voice sounded vaguely different when it wasn’t coming over a radio.
“The sergeant was there when I took her statement. She’s pretty insistent on getting credit for hurting the son of a bitch that touched her kid. You might want to talk to her. Do you want me to call in someone else to interview the little girl?” That was Will. Will was here. He was inside, which was perfectly natural considering he was a sworn officer like her, but it sounded like he’d actually been working.
Dispatchers, even those who were sworn officers - and there weren’t all that many of them - didn’t work the field when they went into it. All being an officer got you was changing how much you got to observe, it didn’t mean you weren’t an observer.
“Are you telling me how to do my job, Spike?”
There. That was the tone that explained him wanting her to call him something other than the nickname. She’d never heard it spoken quite that way before. In the comm center, it was said joking, or like it was simply his name, and he was almost like a mascot. The way the detective said it was beyond nasty. She wasn’t sure she could call him Spike again after that, even if it seemed to suit him in some way she couldn‘t put her finger on.
“We’re transporting.” There was a hand on her shoulder, and Powell glanced toward the other room and rolled her eyes, “You’d think they’d stop bickering long enough to take care of the victim. Police are transporting her in an unmarked car. They want to try to not add to the trauma the things already going through.”
Elizabeth went back to the team she was here with, taking one corner of the gurney. She could at least help lift the guy, even if she didn’t have any of the training to work on him. In this instance, she was glad she wasn’t expected to help him. Oh, she knew he was a human being and he was hurt, and she knew he was innocent until proven guilty, but if there was any truth to the initial report, she didn’t think there was enough pain for him yet. Maybe if she dropped him?
“Gonna be a bumpy ride down the stairs, so brace yourself.” That was Powell, talking to the patient.
Elizabeth was pretty sure the little boy with the broken leg hadn’t been jarred nearly as much as this guy. But then again, he’d been a pretty light load, so she decided to keep her mouth shut and pretend that was the reason.
Part of her was still hearing that Detective get all snide with Will all the way to the hospital. The curiosity building in her gut was understandable. The anger at someone she hadn’t even seen surprised her.
“Hey.” Powell wasn’t a small woman. She had dark hair and darker eyes, and looked like she could lift a football player all by herself. But her hands were gentle, and even washed out like she was at the end of her shift, Elizabeth thought her eyes were remarkably kind. “We‘re going to be stuck for a little while if you want cut out. Shifts officially over in an hour, and we’ll be here that long. Hospital is holding our gurney hostage until they’re finished with the suspect. He’s still on it.”
They were in the ER, which was slowly but surely filling with people with social services, the DA’s office, and some of the officers from the scene. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a female detective kneeling in front of a little girl with red hair clutching a teddy bear. She wanted to throw up.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Or if you need a ride, you can hang out here.” Powell said, looking at her oddly. “It’s a little different out here, huh?” She sounded like she was trying to be understanding, but there was a slight edge to her voice.
“Yeah.” Elizabeth usually would have left it at that, but hanging out with Will seemed to be changing her. She couldn’t help adding, “At my job, I’d’ve just gotten to hear that woman describing what he did to her little girl. It’s different to actually see what happens to him. They usually don’t tell us that part. She looks so - healthy. I always pictured blood and bruises and - I’m not saying the damage isn’t as bad as I thought. She’ll have to live with this for the rest of her life. But she looks like she’ll make it, you know? She’s smiled a couple of times. And I would have pictured the mother as being irresponsible, leaving her with a monster. But she really didn’t know. You can see it in her eyes that she never suspected a thing. Yeah, it’s real different out here.”
Powell seemed to think about that for a long time. “So, you need a lift?”
But Elizabeth’s eyes had found the form of another officer walking through the door, and she suddenly needed more than anything to hear a voice that didn’t belong to the paramedic beside her.
“No, thanks. I’ll catch a lift. If not, I’ll just call a cab. Thanks for letting me ride with you.” The other woman made noises like they’d get together sometime, but she’d been on enough ride-alongs to know better. Powell would have forgotten her by the next shift, and was secretly glad to be done with her babysitting.
Elizabeth didn’t see her leave. She was still staring at Will. Will in full patrol uniform, with his hair slicked back and carrying a gun and handcuffs and everything. He was standing behind a man who could only be Sgt. Alred from the voice, even if he didn’t look anything like her imagination. She’d thought he would be a huge black man with lots of muscles and emotionless eyes. But he looked almost jovial. Huh.
She was walking before the thought that it might be inappropriate hit her.
She saw him see her. Saw his expression change to that of a deer caught in headlights, ready to be plowed down by a car. He turned away from her and she stopped, stunned and a little hurt.
She changed directions to go to the admissions desk and call for a cab. Will apparently didn’t want to talk to her. She was just picking up a phone when there was a voice behind her.
“Don’t turn around.” It was Will. Behind her. She smiled, and picked up the phone, dialing her home number because there wouldn’t be an answer.
“Thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Can’t. Working. You’re the one wants to be discreet. Look, I know you want some kind of explanation.”
“Duh.”
“I’ll come by your house, yeah? When we’re finished here.”
“Good idea. Now get lost so I can call a cab and go to said house.”
She couldn’t stop smiling, and she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he wasn’t in a position to talk, but had talked anyway. Maybe it was even though he’d turned his back on her, he’d managed somehow to know exactly where she was going and make his way there.
Or maybe it was because of the way he’d reached down just long enough to squeeze her hand, blocking the action with his body in case someone was looking in their direction.
Maybe it didn’t really matter what it was. It was a good feeling, this smiley thing she had going on lately. Very Buffy-like. Maybe the girl she’d once been wasn’t as gone as she’d believed.