Partners

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With the wedding in just over two weeks, Andrea had to admit that it was a good thing Graves hadn’t put her back in rotation – with all the last minute preparations, she wasn’t sure she could’ve paid attention to her caseload anyway… though making some of the Quai Long boys help the florist would have been interesting punishment. Today, she was meeting Chad’s mother Laurel for lunch while James would be spending the day with her father, but first Andrea wanted to stop off at the SWAT offices to have a word with Steve Romero.

She pulled her car into one of the vacant spots marked “Reserved - LAPD” and sighed as she noticed a familiar figure further down the street stalking about with a pad of paper in his hand. Yes, it was definitely time to talk to Steve. Andrea smiled and waved at the Watch Commander on her way up the steps, and found the SWAT OIC in his office talking to Williams and Jameson. “I don’t care how much paperwork needs to be done; do it. If the arrest reports aren’t on my desk by five, I’ll-” he broke off as he caught sight of her. “Andy! Get yourself on in here!”

The other two officers slipped past her, smiling a greeting and looking grateful for the reprieve. “What was that all about?” she asked curiously, pulling a chair up to her friend’s desk.

Steve shook his head. “They’ve gotten so damned used to Chad handling the paperwork, they can’t even remember how to do it themselves.”

Clearing her throat, Andrea leaned forward. “Speaking of Chad…how long are you going to keep punishing him? It’s been nearly a month since he put Detweiler away.”

“Chad did this to himself, Andrea – you know as well as I do that he had to have a stiff penalty, and he’s lucky he wasn’t stripped of his badge entirely.” Steve sighed, steepling his fingers. “I won’t lie to you; I could really use him. But as long as he feels like he shouldn’t be allowed back, he’s no good to me.”

“This makes about as much sense as the Disney Channel’s programming,” Andrea said, so frustrated she wanted to grab Steve’s lapels and shake him. “He knows he should’ve handled it differently, but he was only trying to protect the people he cared about… patrol’s making him miserable. If he’s miserable, that makes me miserable. You don’t want me to be miserable, Stephen Romero. I have access to many, many guns.”

“The second he comes to me and asks to be reinstated, I’ll agree to it,” Steve said hastily.

Andrea severely doubted that Chad would ever approach his friend about it, especially since he felt that he deserved his ‘punishment’. Her lieutenant had been in the mother of all bad moods lately because of it, but he was just too damned stubborn to demand reassignment. She abruptly sat up straight as an idea hit her and she smiled over at Steve, who looked back at her warily. “I know just what will make him come talk to you…”

Walking back down the stairs a few minutes later, she was joined by Justin Hawkins who slung an arm around her shoulders. “Andy! How’s Meter Maid doing? Aw, crap, not again…!”

Chad looked up from where he was calmly sliding a citation beneath the other man’s windshield wipers. “You parked outside the lines, Hawkins. Another car might not fit in the space you’ve left.”

“C’mon, man! Three cruisers could park there, and you know it,” Justin complained.

Andrea bit her lip to keep from laughing as she saw that Chad had ticketed each and every SWAT car lining the street, leaving hers the only car untouched. “Getting your quota in for the next ten years?”

Her fiancé shook an admonitory finger at her. “There’s nothing wrong with being on top of things, Battle.”

Justin made a face. “If you two are going to start slathering on the sexual innuendo, I’m leaving.”

“Make sure to take your ticket with you when you go,” Chad said pleasantly.

“I’ll remember this moment the next time you call for back-up,” Justin said slyly. “I hear there’s a Shriner convention in town. All those tiny little cars might be too much for your back to handle, Ironspine; you’ll probably be hunched over for the rest of your life from giving them all citations for wearing silly hats and breathing too loudly.”

Chad stepped forward and Andrea managed to slide between the two men just in time to prevent a homicide. “Goodbye, Justin,” she said pointedly, keeping a restraining hand on Chad’s chest. “Why don’t you just suck it up and ask Steve if you can come back, instead of this ridiculous passive-aggressive-but-mostly-aggressive crap you’ve been pulling?”

He lowered his eyes. “You know I can’t ask-”

“Shelten! Get your ass in here, Romero wants to see you,” Jameson bellowed from the door. “Shit, did you ticket everyone again? ”

Andrea smiled up at Chad, standing on her toes to give him a kiss. “See you tonight.”

She was frowning at the directions on the side of the macaroni and cheese box when Meredith lurched to his feet and began barking. If the thuds coming from the front steps weren’t enough to clue her in, the sound of the door crashing against the inside wall alerted her to Chad’s mood.

“And how are we doing?” she asked delicately.

Chad threw down his uniform shirt so hard that his badge scored a line in the tile, then looked up at her with a sudden smile. “Good. And you?” he responded politely, his face so devoid of his obvious anger that she coughed and held out the macaroni.

Meredith flopped down atop Chad’s shirt and rested his head on his paws, rolling his eyes up to watch the show. “What did Steve want to talk to you about?”

“He said he was putting me on parade duty.” After ripping the box top off viciously, Chad handed it back. “You’re not really planning on cooking that, are you?”

Andrea gestured towards the refrigerator. “If you want to make something else, I won’t stand in your way. What did you say to that?”

He grunted and began digging through it, tossing several items to her before yanking a cutting board from the cabinet and slamming it down on the counter. “What did I say to what? Pass me that knife, would you?”

“Parade duty, Chad, and I’ll hand it over just as soon as you stop looking like you’re about to go on a rampage.”

“I’ll use this one instead, then.” Chad flourished a paring knife at her triumphantly and began slicing carrots.

“Chad. ”

“I said I wasn’t doing it,” he finally muttered. “Said I wanted back on SWAT.”

Andrea rolled her eyes. “That’s what all this is about? Well, it’s a good thing I dropped your gear off at the Cage when I stopped by this morning… though I’d check inside my boots before putting them on if I were you. Frankie doesn’t like parking tickets.” She rubbed her hands up Chad’s back before wrapping her arms around his waist and snuggling close. It wouldn’t have been easy for him to swallow all that misdirected pride and ask for reinstatement, but she was glad he did. If he’d kept carrying on about his patrol route, she would have seriously considered inviting Hopper and Rita over for dinner.

She felt his hands cover hers. “Andy.”

“Mmm?”

“You gave him the parade idea, didn’t you?”

_ _ _ _ _ _


Chad had to admit that it was a great relief, finally speaking to Steve about the whole thing. Well, he’d actually just yelled about it for five minutes while the senior lieutenant had ignored him. After finishing his shift without ripping anyone limb from limb, which he counted as a good thing these days, he’d driven home thinking about he’d been played. When he calmed down, it hadn’t taken much to recognize Andrea’s sneaky little hand in Steve’s strategy to piss him off.

Passing her the last of the dishes, he pulled the stopper from the sink drain and rinsed the soap from his hands as he watched her reach for another dishtowel. Andrea always seemed to know when he’d had enough, as well as knowing just where to push when she thought he needed a little more. “Your mother seemed to think I was in danger of giving birth prematurely when we stopped at the bakery,” she suddenly announced.

“Was it that exciting?”

Andrea cocked her head at him. “Oh, you have no idea. It seems your groomsmen called in and led the cake decorator to believe that we wanted a diorama featuring King Kong and Faye Wray on top of our wedding cake.”

There was no possible way to keep the smile from his face, so he didn’t even try. “Did they.”

“It looked just like you,” she deadpanned.

He laughed and pulled Andrea into a loose embrace, mindful of her stomach. The doctors had assured him that normal contact wouldn’t harm her, but Chad wasn’t going to take any chances. They’d also predicted that she’d really start to show in the next trimester; right now their immediate families were the only ones aware of the pregnancy. Chad took a perverse pleasure in the fact that their friends and co-workers were operating under the illusion that the bed rest had caused Andrea to gain a small amount of weight. Of course, she wasn’t best pleased by everyone thinking she was getting fat. “I’m sure it did.”

Andrea settled down on the living room rug when he began repairing the gouge his badge had made on the floor, and she regaled him with an account of how she’d spent the day with his mother. “Megan, Rebecca and Annie are apparently planning on throwing me a bachelorette party next week.”

“Nice. Can I come, too?”

“Not on your life, buddy. Word on the street is, there will be scantily clad males,” Andrea informed him in a loud whisper.

Chad snorted and dumped the bottle of cleanser on the floor, spreading the liquid around with a rag while Meredith came over to peer at him curiously. “Aw, c’mon – you know how much I love scantily clad males,” he teased.

“I think Faith and Justin are planning something for the likes of you.”

“The likes of me?” He finished polishing the floor and gave Merry a gentle poke in the side. “Call him, would you?”

Andrea slapped her hands against her knees. “Meredith Alouicious Shelten, get over here this instant!”

The pitbull jerked his head up and heaved himself from the floor, only to crash back down with his legs splayed every which way. He scrabbled at the slickened tile wildly, making Andrea laugh – she laughed even harder when Chad solved the problem by putting a hand on Meredith’s rump and sliding the confused dog over to her. Then had to do it all over again when Merry simply snuffled at Andrea and turned around to head back into the kitchen to sit beside Chad. “He’ll never learn.”

“They say that people start resembling their pets and vice versa,” Andrea laughed. “I guess this proves that you two were meant to be.”

Chad rose up on his knees and pitched the rag over beside the door that led to the washer and dryer before looking back at her. “I’m better looking, of course.”

She made a show of rubbing her chin. “Well, I dunno…”

He got back onto his hands and knees, crawling towards her with the most pitiful expression that he could throw together on such short notice. Andrea crawled over to meet him halfway, hooking her fingers in the collar of his shirt and dragging him back to the living room. Chad pushed her down on the floor and dropped over her with a playful growl. “I’m much more fun to take for a walk.” Eyeing her appreciatively, he closed thumb and forefinger on the zipper of her jeans and began to tug it down slowly.

Andrea lifted her hands above her head and arched against him invitingly, giving him that look from under her lashes. He liked it whenever she gave him that look. “What kind of new tricks have you learned lately, Lieutenant?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but the frenzied clicking of Meredith’s nails on the tile behind them made him duck his head to hide a smile. “Well, I haven’t learned to put him in the front room whenever I wax the floor…”

She laughed and tucked her arms behind her head. “Go ahead and do that, then. I’ll be waiting.”

Chad received a look of wounded indignation when he closed the door in Meredith’s face, but he figured the betrayal was well worth the price. “Sorry, buddy.” A muffled, reproachful whine was his only response.


tbc…
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