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“Y’know, detective, that smoke will tarnish it.”
Lana Skye's fingers tensed around her cigarette. She felt an impulse to chuck it under her boot and stand at attention—a well-trained LAPD response to being yelled at—but resisted. Only lowering it from her lips, her eyes jerked down the sidewalk to look at the passerby who had called out to her.
He was a middle-aged man with brown eyes and hair. His face was sharper than most in LA, but not particularly distinctive. Similarly, his suit was the simplest Lana had ever seen, though the swirl-patterned scarf around his neck stirred up something in the back of her mind. “Sir, who are you, and what are you talking about?”
“Your badge.” The man tapped his chest in the same place where Lana's freshly minted detective's shield sat. “You can wash anything out of the uniform, but your badge? Little by little, the smoke strips away the lustre until it turns black and corroded. And trust me, there's nothing worse than a detective with a corroded badge.”
Lana shoved her cigarette into the bench railing. She didn't understand why those words compelled her to so quickly put out her cigarette. She wouldn’t for years. “I ask again, who are you?”
“Byrne. My name’s Byrne.” He pushed up the right side of his mouth to smirk. “But, you detective? As far as it concerns you, my name is High Prosecutor Faraday.”
Lana had heard that name before. Shortly after she joined the LAPD, the Great Thief Yatagarasu began terrorizing the city. Faraday stepped up to take the case, but while the Yatagarasu never seemed to leave the news cycle, she hadn't seen or heard much about the prosecutor since then.
Having barely graduated from being a beat cop, Lana couldn't yet imagine the weight of such a case. “I see. Oh! Apologies. I’m Lana Skye. Detective Lana Skye, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
When Lana stood up and extended a hand for a polite shake, Faraday only shook his head. He strutted up to the bench and plopped down, and Lana followed when he continued talking to her. “Skye? You’re Gant’s new partner, right?”
“If I can survive this week, I will be.” Lana looked at the fresh pack of cigarettes between her legs and the Damon Gant-shaped problem they represented. “He believes that in the last four days, I should have learned as much about detective work as he has in forty years.”
“Nope.”
Looking back at Faraday, Lana saw him staring past her. For an unknowable reason, he was focused solely on the 24/7 convenience store she’d bought the cigarettes from.
“That’s what he expects, but it isn’t what he wants.” Faraday almost spoke like an advice machine, seemingly so distracted by the idea of a shop open in the middle of the night that he forgot to put emotion into his voice. “He knows you need time to learn, so he’s testing your willingness to do it. As long as he’s sure you’ll try, he’ll be happy.”
Lana sat with that for a moment.
The idea Faraday was playing with was right. People want someone willing to try for them, and Lana knew that better than most. She'd raised her own baby sister, after all. Neither could ever say if Lana was a good parent, but no one could deny that she'd tried her hardest to raise her well. Lana just couldn’t imagine Gant building her up like that.
If only Lana had trusted that instinct. “I’ll have to consider that, but thank you.”
“You better. No one understands the human condition overnight.” Faraday continued to look right past her and into the shop. Whatever he saw in it made him shake his head and sigh. “Hey, do girls really like flowers?”
“I’m a lesbian!” Lana jumped off the bench but was stopped from running down the street and into the LAPD's HR department by Faraday's laugh.
“Great, ‘cause I’m not interested.” Faraday stood up and pointed at the store. Lana spun around, eyes focusing on the flower stand inside the entrance. “I have to get a gift for a little girl, and I don’t know what to get her. Flowers make for a good… girl gift, right? I’m sure you like it when a girl gets you flowers.”
Lana took a second to centre herself before meeting Faraday's questioning gaze. “I give more flowers than I get, Prosecutor Faraday. But, um. Yes? People do like flowers, girls included.”
“Huh.” Faraday nodded as though she’d just solved a lifelong mystery. Though he (hopefully) didn't require someone else to tell him women like flowers, his need to have it confirmed by a woman seemed genuine. “So, when you give a woman flowers, do you think that makes her feel more… feminine?”
“I…” Lana bit her lip. “Do you think that question made sense?”
Faraday sighed. “No, not really. How the hell do I…? That little girl I’m getting flowers for? She’s my daughter. Except I didn’t have a daughter before tonight, and I want to ensure that she feels like she’s my daughter. You get that?”
Lana nodded. He was lucky that her mind had already faded to thoughts of her sister. “She’s transgender?”
“Is that the word for it?” Faraday asked, and Lana responded with a nod. “Yeah, then. My daughter is transgender. Told me earlier tonight, and I… I froze up. Didn’t know how to react at first. After the shock cleared, I told her that I love and support her, but I think I hurt her feelings and want to make it up to her. So flowers. Girl gift. Whatever that means…”
“Hm. You’re a very odd man, Prosecutor Faraday.”
Lana looked at a bin beside the bench and watched as her cigarettes flew into it. Stepping towards Faraday, she straightened her back and flattened her arms to her sides. She never thought standing at attention would become her lifelong way of showing respect when she decided to get the officer's perspective before becoming a prosecutor.
“My younger sister is also transgender, and there’s only one thing she has ever asked of me: try. All she wants is for me to try my hardest. And I try so hard for her.”
“I try my hardest to validate her. To give her what she needs to be true to herself, gender and otherwise. To foster her love for science. To raise her without our parents…” Lana’s eyes fluttered for just a second. “And I worry, every moment of every day, that I am a terrible sister and mother figure, but she still loves me. So far, trying has been enough.”
Faraday chuckled, slowly nodding. “Trying is what matters. Why didn't I think of that?”
“You did.” Lana tapped her detective’s shield. “Gant, my sister, your daughter—all they want is for us to try. I don't know if flowers will make your daughter feel more like a woman, but they'll tell her you love her. That you believe she knows who she is and that you will always support her. That's all she wants. It's all anyone wants.”
“Huh.” Faraday rubbed his chin. “I guess I did know that. Still, Detective Skye, thank you. You always need two perspectives to see every angle. Three, preferably. And if you ever want mine, just let me know. Consider that a promise, detective.”
“Alright, prosecutor.” Lana extended out her hand, and they shook on it.
Faraday wouldn't keep that promise to her. He'd never get the chance.
His funeral would be their next meeting, but Lana never stopped thinking about that night. It went through her head whenever she needed to convince herself that what she was doing was best for her sister. Especially after Damon Gant became the biggest threat to her and her sister’s lives.
Daily after Lana made her sister hate her.
The truth was, in trying to do what she thought was best for her, Lana failed her sister so many times. That was sometimes due to her best never equalling perfection, but far more often, it was because Lana had made the wrong choices.
But when Byrne Faraday's daughter found Lana twenty years later to ask for her permission to marry her sister, she knew that for everything they'd put those girls through, their efforts had been enough to ensure they would find happiness.