Chapter Text
Oh god, how much did I drink last night.
As Alex cracked her eyes open, already feeling the thick sludge of brainfog and a headache settling in, she tried to remember the events of the night before.
A few blinks later, and she finally recognized she was surrounded by white walls. Fluorescent lights.
Beeps.
She wasn’t in her bed. Not even on her couch as an uncoordinated last-ditch attempt.
She was in a hospital bed.
An all too familiar sight for her, unfortunately.
Only this time, Alex had absolutely no idea why she was there.
She tried to check out her own body, bracing for jolts of pain, lingering agony the meds couldn’t kill, or any other sign that she’d been injured.
She found none.
The only thing she did find, was a handcuff around her wrist, the other one strapped to the bar of the hospital bed.
Oh god.
She experimentally tugged on it, silently hoping it was just a prank Frank or Benson had pulled on her with Audrey’s consent.
Despite the fogginess in her memory, her brain was trying to work overtime in figuring out what that meant.
The handcuffs meant that either she was a danger to herself, or a danger to others.
The door opened, and a nurse walked in. A polite nod.
“Miss Monroe, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
Alex licked her lips. “I’m… confused. What happened?”
The nurse checked her vitals. “There’s some police officers coming to talk to you.”
The detective nodded weakly – knowing that she wouldn’t get much out of the nurse. “Can you at least tell me what’s wrong with me?”
“You’re fine.”
Alex frowned at the woman’s bedside manners. She never asked for it, but usually being both the partner of one of the doctors on staff and being a member of law enforcement meant she was treated with a little extra touch.
This woman was acting like she was a criminal.
Alex’s eyes wandered back to the handcuff.
“If I’m fine, then why am I here?”
The nurse didn’t respond, as she wrote something down on a clipboard
Alex recognized the Evergreen logo on her scrubs.
Before the woman could walk out the door, Alex stopped her. “Can you at least tell doctor Benjamin that I’m here?”
“She knows, miss Monroe.”
After that, the door was closed.
What the fuck…
Alex tried to make sense of the last five minutes. The last day.
Come on, what’s the last you can remember…
Audrey and her parents had gotten tickets to an opera in town. She’d been invited along, but she’d noped out quickly. Thankfully for her, Ava had mirrored the sentiment. Having the Benjamin house all to themselves, Ava had invited her over for a jogging session, and a movie night.
“I suppose I still can’t change your mind about Die Zauberflöte?”
“Babe, you go have fun. Me and Ava will hold down the fort. Go listen to your… queen of the night aria’s.”
Audrey’s eyes twinkled. “So you do know Mozart!”
“Never said I didn’t. I studied in Paris, remember.” Alex winked at her.
Audrey pressed a kiss to her lips, and left.
The door closed—
“—Detective Monroe.”
Alex looked up from her hazy memories to see a woman walk in. The badge on her belt betrayed her job, though she was in her civvies. Short, blonde hair. A neutral expression.
Alex didn’t recognize her.
The woman approached her bed, and reached out her hand. “Detective Valerie Parks.”
“I don’t think we’ve met before.” Alex said, shaking her hand.
“You’d be right. Your colleagues were excused because of personal connection to this case, and to you.”
“Okay, can you tell me what the hell is going on? Something obviously happened, given the whole handcuff routine, and the nurse not wanting to look at me. But I can’t remember anything.”
Detective Parks grabbed the empty chair, and pulled it up so she was next to Alex, and pulled out a dictaphone. “Do you mind if I record this?”
Jesus Christ.
“Am I detained?” Alex scowled. “Because if I am, I’m not talking until I have a lawyer here.”
“You’re not detained.” Parks shook her head. “You haven’t been charged with anything. I just need you to tell me what happened.”
“I have no idea what happened. The last thing I remember is my girlfriend saying goodbye to me in my apartment, and then I woke up in the hospital.” Alex swallowed the lump in her throat. “What’s wrong with me?”
“The only thing I know is that they found you on the floor, covered in blood. You’re fine.”
“Covered in blood?!” Alex shot back. “Where?! What happened, Parks?!”
“Look, Monroe, we don’t know each other, but we do the same job. So I know all the stuff you do. If you’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes, this isn’t going to end well for you.”
“Oh my god.” Alex growled. “This is going to go a lot faster if you work with me here.”
The detective stared at her for a second, thinking. Then, she leaned back. “You said you remember your girlfriend saying goodbye. Where was she going?”
“The opera. Mozart – at the LA Met.”
Parks nodded. “What time would you say that was?”
“I uh… They were going to go grab some dinner together first, and the—”
“—who is ‘they’?”
“My girlfriend and her parents. Look, I get what you’re trying to do here, but this’ll all go a lot faster if you just tell me what’s going on.”
“Were you alone all night?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “No, my sister-in-law and I were going to go for a run, and then grab some food and watch a movie together at her parents place.”
“You said the last thing you remembered was your girlfriend saying goodbye.”
“Well, I don’t have any fucking memories of eating pizza, so I’m just trying to tell you the truth here.”
Parks wrote something down in her notepad. “Your sister-in-law – Ava Benjamin?”
Alex’s stomach suddenly turned.
We don’t know each other, but we do the same job.
“…yes…” Alex said slowly, cautiously. “Is she okay?”
The detective lowered the notepad.
No… no…
“Your report says no head injuries. No injuries period, for that matter. The only thing you have are scratches and wounds on your arms, consistent with defensive wounds.”
Defensive wounds…
The woman must have seen the genuine shock on Alex’s face, because her expression turned from neutrally inquisitive, to slightly confused.
So, finally, she put Alex out of her misery.
“You were found unresponsive, covered in blood, in a parking lot off Walnut street. You had your service weapon in your right hand. It had been recently fired, and there’s gunpowder residue on your hands. And we found Ava Benjamin a few feet away. One bullet in her back, severing her spinal cord.”
Alex went numb.
“I-is she… is she okay?! Is she… is she…” She could barely form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence.
Ava had been shot.
Ava had been paralyzed.
“The last thing I heard was that she was in surgery, in critical condition.”
This isn’t happening… this isn’t happening…
“It’s a miracle somebody passed by and spotted her, or she would have bled out right there.”
Alex tried to tune out the woman’s words. Tried to remember something – anything – that could make sense of all of this.
She didn’t shoot Ava.
Somebody had to have done it, and put the gun in her hand. Somebody staged this. Somebody…
She clenched her eyes shut. “I need to talk to my girlfriend, please. She’s a doctor here.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Alex’s eyes snapped open. “What…?”
“She made it clear that she doesn’t want to speak with you until the investigation progresses.”
She thinks you fucking did it.
Jesus Christ, she thinks you did it.
“Then I need to use your phone.”
Detective Parks raised an eyebrow at her.
“Detective to Detective, I didn’t fucking do this, Parks. That means somebody framed me, and I need to figure out who. You said I’m not under arrest, so give me your phone so I can make a call.”
“Detective to Detective…” Parks responded. “… This doesn’t look good for you, Monroe. No other fingerprints on the gun, your skin underneath her fingernails… If I were a rookie, I’d say this was open and shut.”
“But you’re not. I have no motive. I love Ava, I love Audrey, I would never do this. And everybody who knows me can attest to that.”
So why is Audrey acting like this.
Because her fucking sister just almost died, and is paralyzed.
And you are fine.
“How could I be unconscious if the medical exam said I was fine. How do you explain that?”
“Shock.” Parks said. “I don’t believe you’re a cold-blooded killer, Monroe. But I can believe that it happened quickly, and you regretted it the second you pulled the trigger. And if you did – then you need to tell me, so we can deal with it. These kinds of things happen ever—”
“—don’t fucking give me the way out technique.” Alex interrupted sharply. “Don’t treat me like a criminal. I’ve done that spiel hundreds of times. ‘Just confess and you won’t get in trouble’. I didn’t fucking do anything!”
Parks leaned back, tilting her head. “I thought you said you didn’t remember anything except for your girlfriend leaving for the opera? How are you so sure?”
Alex stared at the woman.
Then stared down at her hands, the red stains still visible.
How was she so sure?