An Internal Affair

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Chad lifted the riot helmet from his head and scrubbed a hand through his sweat-dampened hair as he walked over to Ramiro, who was giving directions to a few members of First Team. “Lipson and Santos are bringing the truck around,” he reported, squinting in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun. “We picked up another two trying to sneak around back.”

“Good work, Shelten – get them processed.”

He glanced over at the approaching truck. “Right away, Lieutenant…” Santos moved into the back to keep an eye on the soon-to-be jailbirds and Chad stripped off his flak jacket as he climbed in the truck. “Let’s get them downtown,” he sighed tiredly.

“Too much running?” Lipson said sympathetically.

“Too much heat,” he replied with a shake of his head. “It’s days like these that I really miss the air conditioning in my old office.”

She smirked over at him. “And here I thought you’d miss having everyone’s careers in your hands.”

He grinned back. “That, too.” Chad checked his watch suddenly, remembering that he was meeting Andrea for dinner in an hour.

“Hot date tonight?”

“More like a lukewarm get-together,” he joked as they pulled into the precinct’s garage. There were a handful of officers waiting to relieve them of their burdens, so he sent the others off as soon as the transfer was made – Santos was eager to see his wife, who was apparently ready to give birth any day now. Chad headed off to shower and change, coming back to file the SWAT arrest reports while he waited for Andrea’s call. The rest of the team were slowly returning, and he frowned at his watch. She was never this late… she probably had a case or something. Minutes became an hour, and he was just reaching for his phone when it rang. “Shelten,” he answered, trying not to sound too disappointed that it wasn’t her.

“Sergeant? It’s Haight. You might want to come down to the hospital. Detective Battle-”

He sat up straight. “What? ”

“Apparently she was in an accident, and-”

“I’ll be right there,” he interrupted, feeling the blood drain from his face. Chad was halfway to his car when he realized that the rest of the team was following him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped, worry sharpening his tone.

“We’re going with you,” Williams insisted. “Um… where exactly were you headed, again?”

Chad kept walking, trying to remain calm. “Hospital.” He ignored some of the indrawn breaths and reached for the door handle of his car when Lipson snatched the keys from his hand.

“We’ll take you, Sir.”

Two hours later, he was lifting a slightly groggy Narcotics Detective into the backseat of his SUV while Hawkins held the door open and the rest of the team hovered in the background. Chad felt extremely relieved that Andrea was okay and somewhat embarrassed that he hadn’t been as nice to the others as he should have been, considering that they’d dropped everything to come along with him as soon as they’d seen how upset he was. He turned back to them and started to apologize. “Look, I’m sorry about…”

“No problem, Big Dog,” Hawkins grinned. “See ya.” The others said their goodbyes, motioning ‘tough luck’ to Andrea - who was scowling down at the cast on her leg angrily - as they left. Rita came up to give him her prescriptions and to let him know what exactly he’d have to help her out with while she healed, telling him that he’d need to bring her back in to have her leg checked out.

Chad got in the car and looked over his shoulder at her. “Can you hang on until I get your pain meds, baby? I’ll make sure not to jostle you or anything.” She nodded, still woozy from the drugs fed through her IV. “Where do you want me to take you after that?”

“Yours,” she said in a small voice. “Sorry we can’t go out tomorrow night.”

“Don’t worry about that, Andy…there’ll be other nights,” he soothed, pulling into the street carefully and driving to the nearest drug store.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _


Chad carried her inside, laying her on the bed gently with a kiss to her forehead. “Be right back.” She tried to rouse herself enough to moan in complaint and reach for him, but he slipped from the room quickly and was back in a handful of minutes with the whatever-it-was that he’d bought at the drug store. “I’m going to put your meds over here where you can reach them, okay?” He set down a few small bottles of pills next to a cup of ice water, and crouched on the floor next to the bed to reach for her hand. “So. In reverse, huh, Crackhead?”

She sighed, settling back against the pillows. “Yeah, can you believe it?” Her fingers tightened reflexively around his when he stood. “Don’t go.”

“I’m just going to get some more pillows for your leg – try to get some rest.” Andrea fought against sleep until he came back with the promised pillows and placed them beneath her plaster encased leg, but she felt drowsiness overtaking her as Chad turned down the lights and undressed in the darkness. When she felt the bed dip beneath his weight and the back of his hand stroked her cheek lovingly, Andrea finally allowed herself to sleep.

The sound of Chad’s phone ringing pulled her into wakefulness and she grunted in protest. It had only been minutes since she closed her eyes... then she realized that the sun was filtering through the shades in the bedroom. “What time is it?” she groaned. Her leg started throbbing in complaint as soon as she tried to move it.

Chad immediately crossed around to her side of the bed and reached for her medicine. “Still early. What’s your pleasure – Vicodin or Ibuprofen?”

“I think it’s gonna be a Vicodin day,” she sighed, pulling a pillow over her face. Moments later she squinted up at him, taking in his half-buttoned uniform shirt and damp hair. “I guess you’re leaving for work.”

“Yeah.” Chad stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Listen, Annie’s on her way over – she’ll stay with you until I get home, okay?”

“I don’t need-”

“Yes, you do. Don’t argue with me; I know what’s best,” he teased. “Now take your medicine, young lady.”

“I need a shower,” she warned, narrowing her eyes at him after she swallowed the pill. “I can’t take a shower if you’re not here, so it’s your fault if I smell.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe I’ll ask Ann to just hose you off in the front yard.” Chad bent to kiss her lips. “But if you’re a good little Narc, I’ll give you a sponge bath when I get back.”

The medicine started to kick in and she sighed in relief. “Are we talking boring sponge bath, or naughty sponge bath?”

Chad grinned. “Nasty, naughty, appalling and wrong on many different levels sponge bath. But that’s only if you behave yourself around my little sister today….oh, here she is now. I suspect Ann’s brought you something disgusting to eat, since she has the same bad habits you do. Oh, and if she asks where the wine is – don’t tell her.” He bent to kiss her again. “Love you.”

“I love me too, Sarge.”

“Remember – behave today,” he warned, waggling a finger at her on his way out. She heard him greet his sister, and moments later Annie stuck her head through the door as Chad drove off.

“Hey, Andrea!” The small dark-haired woman held up a large book. “Look what I brought you.”

Andrea frowned. “A book?” She wasn’t so sure about spending all this time alone with the other woman, despite having gotten along fine with her when they’d been at his parents house a few weeks ago.

“Something even better; it’s a photo album full of Chad’s baby pictures!” Ann held up another bag. “And biscuits with bacon,” she tempted with a grin.

Vicodin, bacon, and Chad’s baby pictures? Things were looking up.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _


After pulling on the rope and testing its strength, Chad nodded to Lipson and the smaller woman bit her lip nervously as she stepped over the edge. “Silly of me to be scared of this, huh?” she asked sheepishly.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “You should have seen me when it was my first time going down a building. Just try not to look down too much – we’ve got you.”

“Don’t think you’ve ever been scared a day in your life, Sergeant.” She swallowed and began to lower herself down the side as Chad swung down beside her.

He kept her attention focused on her task so that she wouldn’t start to panic when they were too far down to easily get her inside through one of the windows. “Easy, a little more slack… that’s it… come on, Faith,” he encouraged when she faltered. “Okay, now you’ll need to push off…”

“I don’t want to push off,” she protested.

“To get to that bank of windows down there, you do.” He managed to cajole her into moving by promising that he wouldn’t make her repeat the exercise, and she finally pushed off and rappelled across and down to the nearest window where another woman was waiting to help her inside. Chad followed and slid inside, unclipping the rope from his safety harness and rolling his shoulders to relieve the stiffness. “See? You did just fine.”

The other SWAT officer slumped against the wall in exaggerated relief. “Yeah, I guess I did.” Hawkins came over to tease Lipson about her performance in a poorly-disguised attempt at flirtation, and Ramiro stopped by for progress reports.

Apparently since he’d handled Lipson’s fear of heights so adroitly, he was assigned as her climbing partner until she was seasoned enough to handle being paired with any of the other team members. “How’s Andrea?” Ramiro asked finally, dismissing the others with a wave of his hand. “I heard she was laid up by an accident while she and her partner were in pursuit of a suspect. Tell her we’ll look forward to seeing her at the dinner next week, cast or no.”

Chad nodded absently as he unbuckled his harness and stowed his gear. “I’ll do that – we have any warrants to serve today, or…?”

SWAT’s Officer-in-charge clapped him on the shoulder. “Nothing we can’t handle – now, when Myra broke her tailbone two years ago, she was very appreciative of gifts of chocolate,” Ramiro winked. “Why don’t you get on that to spare yourself some grief? A woman in pain is a man’s headache waiting to happen.”

It’s no wonder you’re on your third wife if that’s the way you see it, Chad thought with a shake of his head. The things that man came up with… but he had to admit the ‘chocolate’ idea had its merits. He picked up some flowers as well as a selection of candy he thought she’d like, and walked in the door in time to hear Andrea laughing fit to kill over something. Unfortunately, the ‘something’ that amused her to such a degree was photos of himself in middle school and he scowled at Annie, who grinned at him. “Did you make a special trip to get those from Mom when I called you last night?” he asked.

“You better believe it, Sergeant Shaggy,” she laughed, pointing to a photo that made Andrea start giggling even harder. “Look at that mop of curly hair! Even my pubic hair isn’t that”-

“We don’t want to hear about that,” Chad interrupted, feeling slightly ill. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out, yeah?”

Andrea was still paging through the album avidly, and hadn’t even looked up to greet him. “Don’t be mean, Sarge.”

“Okay, okay…. I’ll go. You’re welcome, by the way,” Annie hinted, digging him in the ribs and tilting her head.

He took the unsubtle hint and bent to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Ann.” She left after swiping some of the chocolate he’d brought for Andrea, and he settled down beside her on the couch. “How’re you feeling?”

Andrea finally set aside the photo album and held out her arms to him. “Better, now you’re here.” He kissed her softly and made her laugh, crinkling her nose at him cutely when he sniffed her neck loudly. “Do I still get a naughty sponge bath?”

“Well, I don’t know… your laughing at my pictures has hurt my feelings. I don’t think my self-esteem can handle such a blow.” Chad sighed heavily. “And to think I brought you chocolate, flowers, and a pair of crutches.”

She perked up immediately. “Oooh, crutches!”

“Do you feel up to trying them out?”

Andrea nodded vigorously. “This means I can chase you around and hit you with them.”

“…well, that really convinces me that you should have them. Hungry?” She nodded again, so he picked her up and carried her into the kitchen to make dinner while she watched and offered culinary advice of the sort that ultimately made him start flicking the dish towel at her. When Andrea was resting against his chest contentedly after they ate and he’d made sure she took her pain medicine, he kissed her temple. “Rita called me today.”

“Really? Why?”

Chad slid his arms around her, dropping his head to nuzzle at her neck. “She wanted to make sure I brought you in on Monday to have your cast looked at – seems like if you’re doing better, you can go back to work. I’m sure Graves won’t mind your presence, even if you’re just doing desk work.” She made a faint noise of disgust and he smiled into her hair, knowing how much she hated paperwork. “She also wanted to apologize.” He kissed the side of her neck and she hummed with pleasure, arching back against him as well as the unwieldy cast would allow. “Andy, do you want…?”

“Mmm-hmmmm.”

He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, kicking the door shut as he laid her gently on the bed; Andrea struggled out of her clothes as best she could, letting him help her slide her pajama bottoms from her legs before he stripped his uniform off. “You’ve got to let me know if I jostle your leg too much,” he warned as he stretched out over her carefully.

“Sure thing, Sarge. I’ll ju - ohhhhhh…” Andrea wrapped her arms around his neck as he pushed into her, lifting her right leg up around his waist and moaning sweetly in his ear. He made love to her gently, mindful of her injury until she started to claw at his back and urge him on in such vulgar terms that he forgot himself, driving into her so hard that the bed frame shook. She came screaming, her muscles clamping down on him so hard that he followed her after a few more thrusts, gasping her name.

Chad sighed, shifting slightly. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry…”

Andrea’s small hands stroked his sides lovingly. “Not at all, sweetie. Not at all…mmm, that was nice,” she murmured sleepily. “Think you like it when I talk dirty to you.”

He laughed, moving off to the side and readjusting her plaster-encased leg. “It is rather… inspiring,” he admitted. Settling back down beside her, he brushed his lips against hers. “Want me to carry you anywhere?”

“Bathroom?”

“You got it,” he said cheerfully, scooping her up.

Later after all the lights had been turned off, Chad propped himself up on an elbow and told her about his day as he traced circles on the back of her hand. “So, you’re paired with Faith until she’s more confident, is that it? I’d better not hear that you’re running off into the sunset with her,” she threatened with a mock-scowl.

Chad laughed and tapped the end of her nose with a finger. “That isn’t anything you have to worry about. Like it or not, I plan on being disgustingly faithful.”

Andrea smiled over at him. “I know… but it’s nice to hear you say it. ‘Night.”

“If you’d like, I can record that statement for you to set as your ring tone,” he offered as he turned out the light.

“Sergeant Shelten?”

“Yes, Detective Battle?”

“Go to sleep.”


tbc…
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A/N: If you happen to be anywhere around LiveJournal, please consider joining the community ChadShelten - there are links to all known stories featuring The Chad, including some in this 'verse that can't be posted here for lack of explicit content. The companion fic to this chapter (explaining how Andrea was hurt) written by BookAddict43 is posted there, so please check it out! :)