Tao of Gus Fallout

[sbpd_papabear]

The case didn't sit right with Henry from the beginning, and it felt even more sketchy when Shawn called asking for help with only a vague guess about a traffic camera to go on. He had a sinking suspicion as he lingered at his desk after the detectives had left for the commune that his actions earlier wouldn't go unnoticed.

He can only hope they'd go unpunished.

When he hears the steady click of Karen's heels heading toward his desk, he looks up at her with his best innocent face and exhaled loudly.

"Hell of day, they catch the guy?"

Comments

[chief_mom]

"They did, it was the leader of that wacky bunch on the farm. All those people thought he was about peace and coexistence, and really, he was just stealing their money." Karen leans against the edge of Henry's desk, arms crossed, her mouth twisted.

"But we have a problem, Henry. A big one."

[sbpd_papabear]

He watches her more than he listens to the explanation, the way she leans against his desk with that look that makes him feel a little bit like he's been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

"What'd Shawn do this time?" He asks automatically, already pretty sure it's not Shawn's ass on the line this time. Not with that tone of voice.

[chief_mom]

"Only what you enabled him to do, Henry. The traffic cam," she shakes her head.

Their relationship is technically against department regulations, and the official reason is to avoid favoritism or sexual harassment. It makes sense. But this is a problem she hadn't anticipated. She knows how to dress down one of her officers when they mess up.

She's not sure how to dress down the man she loves.

"I don't know why he wanted it, or why you did it. I don't want to. I can't imagine how you thought you'd get away with it."

[sbpd_papabear]

Busted.

Henry clears his throat and lowers his eyes; "Oh. Right... that's... Karen... can we take this to your office?"

He'll be the first to admit that he broke the broke the rules, and he doesn't exactly feel good about it - but junior officers don't need to hear any of this.

"Please?"

[chief_mom]

She doesn't say anything, just wordlessly walks toward her office, circling her desk, but not sitting.

She can't sit. She can barely stand. She wants to be angry like she is when it's anyone else, but instead, she's just scared. And she doesn't do scared well, at least not on the job.

You don't get to a chief's rank if you're scared.

She leans against the high back of her chair and sighs.

[sbpd_papabear]

Henry follows her, silent until he closes the door with a sheepish look back at her. There's no real way to excuse it; he'd said it himself - he shouldn't be doing it. Karen wasn't stupid and the IT guys were pretty sharp about reporting anything abnormal.

What he did was definitely abnormal.

"Look, Karen..." He starts, looking up at her and then immediately at his hands. "I know it was against regulations to allow Shawn access to the camera... but it was only visual. I was in control the whole time... at no point could anyone do anything to our systems."

[chief_mom]

"It was against regulations for you to even access the camera systems," she reminds him, her voice surprisingly even and quiet, not hinting at her exasperation. As his direct superior, she's the one he has to come to when he wants to work outside of his authority. "You needed my say so. And I would've given it, if you'd asked, but not for remote access..."

She sighs again, throwing up her hands. "I've given you a lot of latitude, especially when Shawn is involved on a case, but technically you're not an active investigator, Henry. And there's a log of the access, and a log of the remote access into our network. There's no way for me to cover that, and if we'd talked about it, we could've found another way. But now I'm in this position."

[sbpd_papabear]

"You can work around it, I know you can..." he shoots back quickly, a little too quickly because even he knows that's a really stupid thing to say.

Quickly, he tries to put it back on defending himself as best as he can in a situation where he is completely and admittedly at fault; "They were at a dead end... I couldn't..."

He frowns; she's known for a long time that Shawn's not psychic, that much is understood and politely not mentioned because they both know no matter how much they hate it - he gets results and can do things that no officer ever could. Deep down, he knows that she knows about more of the trouble he's gotten into than she lets on. But he doesn't think she realizes quite how much he's started to lean that way himself over the last year.

Six years ago, he'd have kicked someone's ass for doing the same thing he did without question.

"I had to help him, Karen... I made a judgement call."

[chief_mom]

"It was the wrong call, Henry." She pauses, coming around the desk, standing face to face with him, trying to keep some connection, not sure if that's for her sake or his.

"It was such a breach of protocol that I can easily foresee a review board yanking your badge, if it comes to that. I can't promise that it won't. I'm not sure if I can get around that. I'm pretty sure that I shouldn't."

[sbpd_papabear]

"Oh, come on..." his voice cracks and he doesn't want to be angry, he knows he has no right to be angry -but there's just something about being told that he was wrong...

"They were floundering and I did what I had to do, Karen. That information is what closed the case, and you know it. If I hadn't bent the rules a little bit there'd still be another scumbag out there that's behind bars tonight."

He sounds like a vigilante, which is worse than even a bounty hunter - at least they pretend they have rules. Part of him can't even believe what he was saying, that he had done it without even thinking about the consequences.

"It was the right thing to do."

[chief_mom]

She blinks at him. This isn't like Henry, he's always been the Spencer who takes the rules seriously, who recognizes that when it's time to color outside the lines it has to be done carefully, in ways that can't leave the department twisting in the wind.

Remote access to the department computer network was a limited thing, not generally allowed to consultants to begin with. Remote access by a consultant from the computer of a homicide suspect before that suspect was apprehended? There's no way that looks anything but awful.

Remote access with an SBPD member on the other end, facilitating it? That's not just twisting in the wind, that's twisting with their pants down.

If it gets out. And she's not sure how legitimately she can keep it contained.

"It was the wrong way to do it. And that's what matters."

[sbpd_papabear]

"There wasn't another way," his voice drops and he manages to look back up at her with a set jaw and firm expression. He's not mad at her, he's angry at himself - everything she's saying is right and every little bit of his pride is telling him to fight it.

"You gotta believe me, Karen - if there was another way to give them that information I would have, but it was such a long shot I thought for sure they wouldn't find anything." Which he realizes as he's saying it doesn't really make it any better... in fact, it really just makes him look even more reckless.

"Look..." He sighs, clenching his hands inside his pockets; "I just did what I thought was necessary at the time."

[chief_mom]

"I appreciate that, Henry, and I appreciate that the case hinged on the information." It seems like the ends should justify the means, but they really can't.

"But you violated department standards. I can't sanction that. You know that I can't."

Her mouth is dry, and there's a lump in her throat that feels like a softball. "You've put me in an impossible position." The words are barely a whisper.

[sbpd_papabear]

He hears her words, but what he gets is that she doesn't trust him - that she doesn't trust his judgement, and yeah... maybe that was a bad call, but it doesn't have to be.

"I know what I did, Karen. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? I screwed up."

Deflated, defeated, he sank down into the chair in front of her desk - it was his second choice after walking out the door - but he wouldn't do that unless he had no choice. Pride or no, he wants her to know that she can still trust him.

[chief_mom]

"I'm just not sure what to do next," she tells him, leaning back against her desk as she'd leaned against his just minutes before.

"I mean, actually, I am, but I hate to do it. It's the last thing I want to do." She looks down at her shoes. They're favorites, shoes she wears when she wants to have a good day, and until she found out about the computer thing, today had been a really great day. It seems fitting, somehow, that one has a new scuff on the toe.

"This isn't about us, Henry. There isn't an us when we're here. You know that." She hopes.

[sbpd_papabear]

He lowers his eyes and doesn't respond for a long moment, he made the decision - he'll stand with it even though it was the wrong one. And no, he'll never fully agree with the ends justifying the means, but for some reason working with Shawn that lines gotten increasingly blurry.

His throat tightens when he swallows, "I know. You want my badge, Karen - you've got it." He unpins the shield from his belt and tossed it onto her desk."

With another rough swallow, holding back the lump in his throat, he manages to look up at her and offers dryly; "Maybe it's better this way, get it done with now before things get messy."

[chief_mom]

Her heart stutters, and not in a good way. She refuses to believe her relationship with Henry is a mistake. Not when it's done both of them such good, brought so much recovery. And goodness knows she doesn't want it to get messy.

But maybe it already has.

"You're not fired," she tells him, quietly but with her head held high. "And I'm not accepting your resignation. Not right now. One week. While I hash things through with IA and the professional standards board. Just a week. You're too valuable to let slip through my --" She stops. "Slip through the cracks."

[sbpd_papabear]

He knows how IA works, and he also knows that chances are with his record they'll let it slip with nothing more than a reprimand and the first black mark on his record since his not-entirely-voluntary retirement.

But, he also knows that it won't be the last time a clear conflict of interest arose. They knew it going into the situation, it was why it took Shawn's life being in direct danger to even accept the damn position to begin with.

With a soft sigh, he shakes his head and pushes up out of the chair. "Maybe it would be better if you did. It'll still get my retirement and we won't have to worry about things quite so much."

[chief_mom]

"Henry, don't make a decision this big this way," she lets herself touch him, her hand on his shoulder like it's been a million times, it seems, but never quite like this.

"I'm asking you to take a week. Go out on the boat. Plant something. Make a pie. And let me fix this as best I can."

She's on the back foot now, her anger at him turned into something completely different and that's not at all comfortable.

[sbpd_papabear]

It was never meant to be a permanent thing and they both know it, in his mind it's easier to just cut loose now and save her the hassle of doing it later.

"And if I refuse?" He asks, lips drawn and eyes empty of their usual warmth towards her. This isn't about them, no, but it's still not her place to tell him how to handle it.

[chief_mom]

His eyes are so cold she's physically repulsed, flinching back, her hand flying away from his shoulder as if it hurt to keep it there.

"Don't do this."

[sbpd_papabear]

"I can do what I damn well please, Karen. "

He sighs and rubs a hand over his head, idly scratching the remaining wisps of what was once blond hair. "I don't know, Karen... maybe this is for the best, I mean - if you're not my superior, then we just have one less thing to worry about."

Deep down, he's conflicted on it. He's ready to retire, but admittedly he knows he's not done yet. Shawn's grown a lot in the last few years, but deep down he's still the kid that called him looking for help instead of finding his own way.

[chief_mom]

"I don't know what you expect me to say. Maybe you should go before either of us say something we regret."

She goes and collapses into her desk chair, and stares at him. Willing him to say something sensible rather than just walking out the door.

[sbpd_papabear]

Henry sighs and nods slowly, pushing up out of his chair.

"Yeah. Maybe."

It hurts to say it when it's the last thing he wants to do, but if it's what she wants - he'll give her that much. Whatever she needs him to do, realistically, he'll do it. And yeah, even if it hurts if she wants him gone - he'll be gone.

[chief_mom]

Well, if that's that, then there's not much she can really do, is there?

She picks his badge from where he dropped it at the edge of her desk. "One week. That's all. I'll put this right here until then." She makes a show of putting the gold shield in her top drawer where she'll see it a half dozen times a day, though she's not sure if he realizes that.

She's also not sure if she'll see Henry at all in the next week. Or again. The blurry line between work and personal life has her stomach churning. "Just..." She's not sure what else to say. She's not going to plead for anything while sitting in her office. She sighs, frustration laced through the sound and turning her body into a tight line, shoulders set, mouth drawn in.

[sbpd_papabear]

He pushes up and toward the door, his brain catching on that quiet word she's left hanging... but then she doesn't finish.

Turning away from her fully, he lowers his eyes down to the floor - his scuffed shoes and amazingly still hands, anywhere but where he could see her face reflected in the glass - and says; "Maybe we should postpone date night this week, you're probably going to busy and Gus and Lassiter mentioned maybe catching a drink."

He swallows back the lump in his throat, slowly stepping toward the door.

"Give us a chance to clear the air a bit."

[chief_mom]

Well, that's a pretty clear message.

She was a fool to think that this could possibly work. Or to think that promises and kindness would matter when it came to a rough spot.

"Sure. Fine."

She doesn't trust her voice beyond monosyllables. She puts her hands on her lap. She won't give him the satisfaction of seeing them shake.

[sbpd_papabear]

"Look, Karen..." He sighs, turning back to her with a slack face that's given away only by the wetness in his eyes; "I stand by everything I do and say. I made what seemed like the right choice at that moment."

He swallows again, but he's sure she can hear the hollow click as he forces himself not to give in to that hardness in her voice. "We're not done, not if you don't want to be. I love you too damn much to lose it over this, I just think maybe we should lay low until things settle. I don't want Internal Affairs to think there's something they need to be worried about - don't go out of your way to cover my ass."

[chief_mom]

So this is him protecting her?

"It's not just about you, Henry." And that's just about all she can say. Tears are threatening to spill and one thing she's never, ever allowed herself is crying in her office. And she can't change that now.

"I'll call you." Her lip wibbles and she has to turn away. She gulps for air and fights back the torrent that's leaking from the edges, dampening her eyelashes.

She doesn't know if he hears her whispered "I love you," but she can't look to see.

[sbpd_papabear]

Not only her, but right now it's easier to think about protecting her and keeping her safe. Even if it means putting himself out to pasture, because it's worth it to him. It's easier that way.

"Yeah," he sighs and nods, "call me."

Stiff and wooden, he hears her soft words, but can't bring himself to answer - that'd push it too far over the line, make it too personal. This can't be any more personal than it already is. Instead, he turns back to the door, takes a second to compose himself, and then leaves without another word.

A quick stop by his desk for his keys and wallet, even in the quiet security of his trusty old truck he can't bring himself to let it hurt.

"You fucked up, Henry." He says coldly, staring at himself in the mirror - seeing the red ringing his eyes and the suddenly deeper seeming wrinkles stretching out across his face. "You're too old for this, idiot. You should have just bowed out gracefully when you had the chance - now you've probably lost another woman that's too damn good for you."