Chapter Text
"Chief," Derek says quietly, his back ramrod straight. He's doing everything in his power not to favor his bad leg, not anymore. Did it still bother him sometimes? Absolutely, but he wasn't allowed to show it and he'd gone to great lengths to practice exactly that. "I was cleared. I can get back on the streets."
"Not yet."
"I can't sit at my desk anymore, sir. Please. Sitting at my desk is killin' me faster than limping a little in the field ever will. I ain't made to sit still."
"And I made your mother a promise when you suited up that I'd keep you safe. I know it's not fair, but…"
"Then don't do it, sir. I know my ma's scared, but I want to be out there. No point in doing this job from that desk. I know my ma would understand that."
The Chief huffed out a long sigh and shuffled the stack of papers on his desk. "How about I meet you halfway? You stay at your desk for two more weeks part time, and the other part you take on the K9 unit. We've been looking for someone to get that back up and running. You like dogs, right?"
"Never really been around 'em, sir," Derek said, trying to hide the dejection in his voice. "Not many people got 'em where I grew up."
"Well I think you'll find you're a natural. Kids and dogs, mark my words. Gruber is retiring at the end of the month, why don't you go work with him until he does? He's the only one who knows that unit. It's a ghost town right now."
Derek wouldn't argue again - it wouldn't do any good. At least he was getting away from his desk part time, it was better than nothing. The sunlight streamed in through small windows, throwing strangely shaped shadows across the precinct. Early morning sunlight could play tricks on your eyes. He'd grown up here, eating lunch at his father's desk on Saturdays while his mother worked, listening to the wild tales of drunk-and-disorderlies as they sat in the holding cells. Sometimes he imagined he was a Sheriff in an old western, pacing up and down the hallway of his own private little jail somewhere in a barren cactus spiked desert, it helped him pass the hours. He'd always been an imaginative kid.
Now he was a less imaginative adult whose knee hurt like a bitch on rainy days.
It wasn't like the injury was that bad - he didn't need surgery again, but the Chief was acting out of an abundance of caution. His mom was worried and he knew that everyone who worked here with his dad looked at him the same way she did. He'd spent the last year of service trying to crawl out from the darkness of his father's immense shadow. In many ways, being compared to his father was a dream, he was an exceptional cop and father and hell, an exceptional man. At least insomuch as Derek remembered. Everyone around him seemed to confirm that feeling, though. The problem was, no matter how much he loved and respected and even idolized his father…he was not his father. He'd been through things that his father never had and they had turned his insides ugly in a way that he would always be ashamed of.
Becoming a police officer was just as much about Carl Buford as it was about his father. No matter how he dreamed of putting distance between them, how he thought he could cut all ties, he was forever tied to Buford.
And even if he did manage to get out from beneath that weight, he would always know that his colleagues looked at him and saw his father's blood pouring out on the cement over a purse snatching. He hadn't figured out how to separate himself from that and he was starting to think he might not be able to.
"Gruber?" Derek asked, poking his head into the small office in the back of the precinct. There were two dogs lying on the floor at the officer's feet, neither of which even twitched at his entry. Derek smiled. "My name is Derek Morgan, the Chief sent me down here to work with you."
"You know anything about training K9s?"
"Not a thing, sir."
"Don't sir me. I told him I needed someone who knows dogs and he sends me a rookie."
"Not a rookie, sir."
"I said stop calling me sir."
"Look, I don't wanna be here any more than you want me here but an order is an order. I can learn anything you need me to."
"What do you know about dogs?"
"That they smell bad and you gotta clean up their messes."
Officer Gruber laughed at that with a mirth that was warming and gave Derek a glimmer of hope. Maybe this wasn't the worst assignment in the world. And Gruber? Well, when he looked at Derek he couldn't help feel that same little spark. The kid had potential. The last officer sent down to him said they just loved dogs so much and even went so far as to say her dog was like her son of all godforsaken idiot things he'd ever heard. Gruber was not a sentimental man. It made him throw up in his mouth a little.
"These dogs are employees, first. They're you're colleagues. Fellow officers…not cute little cuddle friends. Certainly not pets. Understand?"
Derek glanced at the two giant German Shepherds lying on the floor snoring and nodded. "Got it."
"They're on their rest hour now, sorta like your lunch break. We go out into the back and train at noon. Meet me out there with your PPE on."
"All of it?"
"All of it, kid. These dogs could rip you to shreds if they wanted to."
Derek did as he was told. He unloaded his locker, got all suited up, and made his way to the yard. It was nothing fancy, not here on the South Side of Chicago. Just a tall chain link fence with barbed wire spiraling the top, electrified at night, surrounded by black and white police cars of varying ages and state of decay. He liked to eat his lunch out here when the weather permitted, right in the back at the picnic table that most of the guys just sat and smoked at. The table was chipped and weatherworn, covered in ash and rickety at best. It wobbled when too many people sat at once.
Derek might be the only officer who didn't smoke, but he sat with them and pretended not to mind inhaling the toxic fumes anyway.
"Alright rookie," Gruber said as he led the two dogs out into the yard. Derek scowled.
"I ain't a rookie."
"You ever worked K9?"
"No sir."
"Then you're a rookie. So long as you keep callin' me sir, I'm calling you rookie."
Derek knew enough not to argue. Gruber knew his dad, and that would allow him a certain amount of grace, but not enough to put up a fight. Insubordination wasn't in his genes. He could suck it up and deal with the bruised ego of being called a rookie again after more than a year on the force.
They spent the afternoon running tactical drills in the yard with the dogs, and by the time his shift was ending, Derek felt a little optimistic. At first he'd hated the idea but he was already getting attached to the dogs, too. They were better colleagues than most of the guys he'd been saddled with inside the building, that was for sure. He could see why Gruber liked it, and why he was so stingy about who took over for him. He'd already extended his retirement twice because it would have left the dogs in the care of people he didn't trust. Something about that made Derek like him. He stuck around for dogs. He was eccentric, maybe, but his heart was in the right place.
"We're hitting the lake tomorrow," Gruber said as Derek took off his vest. "5am. Sunrise run with the dogs. You want to run Harrison Ford or Denzel Washington?"
"Excuse me?"
"Some moron had the big idea to name all our K9s after big name famous guys. When I started up we had Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood. Can you run?"
In truth, Derek wasn't sure. Short distances yes, but he hadn't been on a long run since re-injuring his knee chasing a kid who robbed an old lady at gunpoint through a neighborhood with too damn many fences to jump over. He wasn't about to say no, regardless. "Yes, sir."
"I got bad knees too. Don't sweat it. The dogs'll pull you along if you slow down. They'll keep you going."
Derek didn't exactly take offense at Gruber's statement, but he didn't love being lumped in with a man about to retire physically. His knee wasn't that bad. (The lies we tell ourselves.)
(x)
Running with the dogs around Lake Michigan was more fun than Derek had anticipated. His knee was sore and throbbing by the end of the run, but not in an alarming way…in a way that meant he'd worked it harder than he had in a while. In a way that told him he was progressing. It was getting stronger again, and this time he would do a better job taking care of it. Maybe it was a little overboard to think he could make it better than he'd started, but he was going to do everything he could.
In the meantime, he was just trying not to limp as he and Gruber waited for their coffee and bagel at the little cart beside the water. Gruber, however, was not trying to hide his limp. He wore it with pride. In fact, Derek almost thought he exaggerated it some but couldn't be sure.
"I limp because I'm an old man with arthritic knees," he'd said when Derek asked if he wanted to sit down and rest. "But I'm out here running every morning with my boys anyway. I'd rather be active and limping than a big old lump, huh. My partners count on me to show up."
"I guess so," was Derek's response. He was young enough that he hadn't considered that, but he thought about it for the rest of the day, and he didn't know it then, but it would color the way he thought about things for the rest of his life.
"When I retire, I'm taking Harry with me," Gruber said, scratching behind Harrison Ford's ear. Derek watched with a smile. "Denzel is young enough to stay on for a few more years and you'll get a new recruit to train all on your own. Denzel can be his mentor."
"I get to name him?"
"You come up with a pool of names, the squad decides which one sticks. It's kinda fun."
By the time Derek looked at the dog a week later, by the time he met the little German Shepherd that would change his entire life, he knew exactly what to name him. The problem was, now he had to convince the rest of the squad to pick his favorite without actually saying a word, and that meant carefully choosing the other names to round out the choices - names people wouldn't like as much, but not so obvious that he was leading them to his favorite.
In the end, it worked. It was close, there was a brief moment that he thought Stevie Wonder might win for the sheer absurdity of it, while Mick Jagger was solidly in last place. George Clooney, that one stuck. He was popular in Chicago for helping bring a new shine to the city with his show ER being so damn popular, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing his face on a magazine cover. The guys thought it was hilarious to name their dog after the current Hollywood heartthrob that was putting their city back on the map. George Clooney was his mom's favorite, she stayed up late every Thursday night to watch ER even though she had to wake up early on Friday morning for her shift. It never mattered, not when Doug Ross was on screen saving the lives of Chicago's children.
He chose the name for his mom. But even still, in many ways he chose it for himself.
He thought it was fun to call him Clooney. That was a funny damn name for a dog.
By the time the dog was a year old, Derek's desk had been wallpapered with photos of George Clooney. He'd taken some offense at first, but decided to just go along with it. Not worth the fight. He'd take one down and three more would pop up in its place.
"You gonna call him George?" Gruber asked when Derek wrote Officer George Clooney on the white board for the first time, when the name was voted on and chosen. Derek shook his head.
"No way. This guy's a Clooney all the way."
"You sure about that? I never heard of a Clooney before."
"You ever seen a dog that looks like that before?"
In truth, Clooney was an interesting looking shepherd. He was more dark brown than sable, and his markings were strangely shaped with occasional small white patches. One of his ears stood straight up at attention while the other flopped down on top of his head - not forward but sideways. He was handsome in a unique sort of way.
"Fair enough. Now the fun begins."