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It wasn't a normal day.
A girl almost died, a guy had to be taken into custody with a timebomb sewn into his skin, the squad almost got blown up into smithereens. Tough decisions and planning had to be made, but Andy Flynn had another idea.
They almost went out with a bang, literally, but it was apprehended.
Everyone poured back into the Murder Room, but Sharon and Andy went directly to her office, dredges of the eventful evening still clinging to their skins,
"The call was not yours to make." she started as soon as Andy slammed the door shut.
Provenza rubbed his hand on his face. There was a brewing storm.
"The hell it wasn't!" Andy hollered, as Sharon sat down on her chair. She bit her tongue for a few seconds before she spoke,
"Your commanding officer specifically told you--"
But she was cut off by Andy, "Did anyone of you realize that the girl will die--"
And she pushed on anyway, "--to stay away from that house--"
"SHARON!"
Andy was having none of it. He's had enough of their bullshit.
"The. Girl. Will. DIE. Had I not burst in from the back door and--"
"No one will die if you just stayed put in your position but you had to compromise everyone's safety, and for what Andy? I told you to stay put, I told you to wait for my signal, I told you to--"
"It would've been all in vain, Sharon! Did you even see how that son of a bitch held the girl?? He wasn't thinking about getting out of there alive! I called it Sharon, I saw it and I called the shot because YOU WOULDN'T!"
Andy threw his hands up and slammed them down on Sharon's table. He leaned towards her, his body taut, his anger rolling off of him in waves,
"All you ever think about are your rules, rules, rules! Did it ever occur to you, in the last three years of you heading this division, that you can't stick to your goddamned rulebook all the fucking time because that's not how life works?!"
Sharon's head bobbed back a little from the way Andy had been going all over her face. She'd never back down from anyone who's been talking down to her, so she met his angry gaze with her own, and realized she's not looking at her Andy anymore. He's so consumed with his feelings, that she somehow lost him along the way back to the building.
She has never seen him so angry, and that emotion had never been directed at her, until now,
"I saved that little girl's life today! And you're fuming because I went over your head?? Are you even aware--"
She lost him. And now Andy would lose her, too.
"LIEUTENANT FLYNN."
Sharon's voice boomed inside her office. Andy's tirade stopped, his face sobering up with the mention of his rank. Sharon stood up slowly, her shoulders tensed, her fists curled tightly, her heart up in her throat. She stopped and stood within a breath away from Andy's face, her eyes never leaving Andy's,
"I was your commanding officer, I am YOUR commanding officer in that operation. The plan was clear from the very beginning.--"
Andy flared up again, he stepped back and shouted, "It wasn't! That asshole got away and we had to track him down! Why the hell are you still denying that your plan failed??"
Sharon didn't move anymore. She can feel her nails digging in her palm. She hissed,
"I told you to stay put. I told you everything that I know for the plan to work, most of all, I asked you one thing and you didn't give it to me."
Sharon took a shattering breath, her eyes filling up with tears the moment she exhaled the air that's keeping her emotions at bay.
"I asked you to trust me."
Andy felt all the blood drain from his face.
"And you didn't."
It wasn't his intention to--but the girl...
"Sharon..."
Sharon turned away from Andy, wiping away the tears that managed to escape her eyes with a shaking hand. She couldn't fall apart now, the case is still open, there are a lot of things to be done, even if the girl has been saved and the suspect has been given a lawyer. There's still a deal to be made. And she promised Chief Taylor that nothing will get in the way of handling her division, not even her broken heart. She took another deep breath and whispered again to Andy, who had sunk into the nearest chair, feeling like he's been pushed into a pool full of ice.
"Pick your files. Hand them over to Lt. Tao. You are dismissed from this case."
"Sharon. No...wait..." he has to do something right? He had to save the girl, he had to act quickly, he had to--
Sharon looked again into his eyes, her own green orbs teary, her chin lightly wobbling, her voice shaky,
"You are also dismissed for the rest of the week."
Sharon turned her back on Andy and said,
"That's an order."
Andy's anger returned as he huffed and stalked his way out of Sharon's office, a resounding bang echoing throughout the murder room as he walked in front of everyone, flinging his files on his table and leaving his gun before leaving the building.
The squad heard everything.
Sharon went out of her office slowly, and quietly closed her door. The whole squad was silently looking after her. All of them were standing up; Provenza beside his desk, agitated and frustrated at how things turned out that evening. Even more so at how Andy just treated the Captain, like he forgot that she is his direct superior and commanding officer.
Sharon stood in front of them, her head bowed slightly, her hands clasped together on her stomach. Provenza took a step closer to her,
"Captain..."
Sharon quickly straightened up, her eyes teary and bloodshot. She gave Provenza a wobbly smile,
"Lieutenant...I'm...it's alright. We should--let's...all go and sorry...excuse me."
But even before Sharon finished her sentence, she was already walking-running towards the hallway leading to the ladies room, one hand covering her mouth, the other cradling her stomach.
Mike Tao huffed and sat down, everybody followed suit except Louie.
Amy rubbed her forehead and sighed as she started going through her report, pushing back the thoughts of how small the Captain looked like when she was walking away from the squad.
Mike breathed deeply and took Andy's files, trying his mightiest to forget how the Captain just whispered the entire time she was standing and talking to Provenza. How her gravelly and sure voice sounded cracked and tired and...defeated.
Buzz retired to Electronics after hearing the whole ordeal, and wondered how hard it is for the Captain to push through a bull like Lt. Andy Flynn without hurting herself in the process. And then he closed his eyes as he realized that she's been rammed directly by the bull. But only shouted once to get his attention, and nothing else.
Julio clenched his jaw and thought of punching the living daylights out of Andy for shouting at the Captain, letting his emotions get the better of him, letting the whole room know how angry he is with the Captain. And how her eyes just dimmed when she was addressing everyone, when she came out of her office, even if there were shining with tears that were refusing to fall.
Provenza closed his eyes and placed his hands behind his head, as he paced back and forth in front of the board. Andy's spent almost his entire life with the force and he still screws up when everything is a jumble of emotions. He still does not think properly when he is directly involved with a case. He knows how his partner reacts to situations that they aren't capable of handling, but today was an exception--they know how to handle the problem, but he just had to disobey. He just had to do something catastrophically stupid.
Flynn phenomenally screwed up this time.
Sharon didn't make it to one of the stalls inside the ladies' room. She just found herself sitting on the tiled floor, violent sobs wrecking her frame, whimpers trying to escape from her throat.
Her cries were muffled by her hand on her mouth. Everything she's been holding back that day came crashing down her now.
She was kicked on her ribcage once when she was training in the Academy. That hurt less compared to the feeling she was having now; like she's being robbed of breath everytime she tries to inhale. It hurt her physically to breathe.
She never imagined it would hurt that bad.
And for what? All for what?