Sharon was waiting on a bench outside courtroom 16 in the LA County Courthouse waiting to testify on behalf of the prosecution - her job in this case would be to discredit the defense's alternate theory of the crime. She checked her watch. She'd been waiting nearly three hours. It looked like she would be wasting at least another day at the whim of DDA Hobbes. Sharon was having a hard time remembering to stick the damn thing in her purse, but tomorrow she would bring her new iPad and take care of some email and compose a few memos. And play Angry Birds. Or Plants vs. Zombies. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the dark wood wainscoting. The bench creaked and she felt someone sit down next to her.

"My dear Sharon Raydor. Long time." Shit. Gavin. She opened her eyes and tried for her best politely professional smile.

"Gavin." She greeted him in a flat tone.

She wanted to pull out her Glock and pistol whip him a couple of times. His behavior at the end of the Federal suit against the LAPD and Brenda Leigh had been unconscionable. If reporting him to the Bar's Ethics Committee would have helped Brenda's morale or her case, she would have done it in a second. As it was, she no longer referred any department members to him for legal help.

"God, it's been so long, Sharon!" He was excited to see her, like it hadn't registered that under normal circumstances she would have called him every couple of weeks to catch up and make sure he wasn't working himself to death.

"But then I've been busier than ever. I was out of town for almost three months working with GLSEN on filings and oral arguments for that Supreme Court thing." She had heard that. Sharon was glad his crummy ethics for individual clients didn't preclude him from doing some good. "And I heard about your promotion! Congratulations, Chief!" Sharon smiled slightly and made a noncommittal noise.

Gavin made a strange, quizzical face. "You aren't mad, are you Sharon? About that Goldman thing? You know there was nothing I could do about the terms of that agreement once Goldman dropped Chief Johnson from the suit."

"I'm more disappointed than anything, Gavin. You made that deal like you were working at Pope's behest, not Brenda Johnson's." He and Pope had been thick-as-thieves while Brenda had been risking her life to get a confession from the shot-caller of a fucking gang.

"Sharon, other than file a counter suit for libel, what could I have done for her?" The man really had no notion of loyalty, and it was distressing to Sharon's picture of herself as a decent reader of people that she hadn't noticed it sooner.

"Instead of schmoozing up Will Pope, you could have supported your client in the face of him and smarmy, disgusting Goldman trying to smear her name."

"So I should have pissed off the Chief of Police in order to hold the hand of a neurotic southern belle with, frankly, questionable ethics who was no longer in any legal trouble?"

"No Gavin," Sharon hissed. "You should have done your damn job."

"What's with you? I thought Miss Atlanta drove you crazy. She drives everyone crazy. I heard she drove that yummy husband of hers straight out the door." He arched a brow at her, struck by the icy anger radiating off the usually amiable woman. Sharon had always been good for a little gossip in the past. Though she would never gossip about Brenda Leigh Johnson, but Gavin had always though it was because Sharon was investigating her and her division.

Sharon sighed. She wished she could leave. Stupid testimony. "You know Gavin, the idea of you as my friend has always been better than the reality."

"Sharon. I don't get it. We spent nearly eight months dealing with the nightmare that is Brenda Leigh Johnson, and now that you can dish without any breaches of ethics, you won't."

"I didn't not gossip about Chief Johnson because it was a breach of ethics, though it would have been. I didn't gossip about her because I respect what she does and who she is. Now I'm not inclined to do much of anything with you. And Brenda was never a nightmare. The situation was a nightmare, for her especially, because someone that she trusted was very specifically selling her out." Gavin was mercifully quiet for a very long moment, studying Sharon's face intently.

"Ohmigod. You're fucking her." How it was physically possible to squeal while whispering escaped her. This conversation had become her own personal hell.

"Don't be crass, Gavin." He clapped his hands together in a display of extreme homosexual delight. Sharon rolled her eyes.

"God, I guess I underestimated our little Georgia Peach."

"She's not your anything," Sharon growled, seething.

"And she's your what? Straight girl friend-with-benefits? Hate fuck?"

"Gavin, I am here on this bench because I am scheduled to give testimony. I cannot leave. If you cannot find it in yourself to be respectful, let me remind you that I carry a gun." He scoffed. She scowled.

"You're serious? About her? About all of this?"

"I am serious about Brenda Leigh Johnson. I'm serious about being disappointed in you. I'm serious about not wanting to have this conversation." Sharon could see she was starting to get through to him. He sighed, his expression a little bereft now that he realized he couldn't brazen his way through her coldness.

"Is there anything I can do to make this up to you, Sharon? We've been friends for so long."

"There's no simple fix for something like this, Gavin. If you don't see why I have a problem with what you did, or even that you did something that wasn't completely above board, then I don't see how we're going to work this out."

"Oh." Silence for a moment, then, softly and seriously, he asked: "Well, are you happy, at least, with the new job and the new lady?"

"Very happy." She allowed herself a small smile.

"Good. Good. No one deserves a little happiness more than you." He walked away and Sharon spent another hour sitting on that hard bench, amusing herself and fighting the disquiet she felt by text-flirting with her lover.

Sharon hadn't even thought about Gavin or even remembered to tell Brenda that she'd seen him. (Brenda had met Sharon at the door to Sharon's house stark naked, and had punished Sharon thoroughly for teasing her all afternoon - all thoughts of Gavin had flown straight from her head.) And then two weeks later, she got a quizzical text message from Brenda:

FROM: BLJ

Fritz just called me. And after apologizing for being a jerk the other day and wishing both of us well (and yes I apologized too, for being snarky), he told me that he just received a full refund of the retainer he paid Gavin for his services. Along with an apology for acting more like a City Attorney than my defense counsel at that final settlement. Do you know anything about this?

Sharon paused in her march across the lobby of headquarters and ducked into a quiet corner, then dialed Brenda's cell. Brenda picked up before the phone could even ring twice.

"Hey Sharon." She didn't sound upset. That was good.

"Hey. Can you talk?" Until they negotiated the whole 'out at work' thing, this was their code for 'are you alone' or 'do you have access to somewhere private'.

"Sure can. On the phone? Or do you wanna come to my office? Andy and I are just doin' some paperwork for search warrants we're serving tomorrow morning." Sharon chuckled. Brenda Leigh would do almost anything to foist paperwork off onto someone else, even have an awkward conversation about a twenty-five thousand dollar check appearing out of nowhere in her ex's mail.

"Are you inviting me just to get out of paperwork, Brenda Leigh? Because I'm not going to come down there if you're just going to shove it all off onto poor Lieutenant Flynn."

"The things you accuse me of!" Brenda exclaimed, playfully outraged. "Maybe I need your expert legal opinion about just how broad I can ask the judge to make these search warrants."

"You're so full of it."

"Just get down here," Brenda growled, and then she hung up. Then she tossed her phone on the table and groused, "Oh, that woman." Flynn laughed, but a realization struck him when he noticed the lidded cast of his Chief's eyes, and the smirk playing on her lips as she returned to working. He pondered for a few minutes.

The silence had just become productive again when he blurted, "Oh god!" Brenda started a little and furrowed her brows at him.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?"

"I just…all the bickering and sniping you and Raydor have done since you started dating, that's all been foreplay, hasn't it?"

"Oh, no, Lieutenant," Brenda said, meeting his eyes and smiling broadly. "It's always been foreplay, it just took us a while to get around to what comes after." Then she smirked wickedly and turned her attention back to the warrant application she was preparing.

Flynn was still sitting dumbstruck at Brenda Leigh's office table when Sharon waltzed in with coffee from the new cart in the lobby of the building. She narrowed her eyes and glanced from Brenda, who was still smirking, to Flynn and back again.

"What'd you do to Lieutenant Flynn?" Brenda made a noise of outrage.

"He started it! Why do you always assume it's my fault?"

"Because it usually is, Brenda Leigh." Sharon handed her lover her coffee - a vanilla latte with an enough honey to make your teeth ache. Then she fished the change from the coffee out of blazer pocket and thumbed off a five.

"Why don't you get some coffee Lieutenant Flynn, courtesy of Chief Johnson, seeing as how I stole what used to be a twenty from her wallet this morning." Another outraged noise from Brenda Leigh. Flynn plucked the bill from her fingers and nodded, still looking a little shell-shocked. He ambled out of the office without saying a word.

"He started it," Brenda said again. Sharon rolled her eyes, put her coffee down, and pushed Brenda's chair out from under the table. She bracketed Brenda's legs with her own, then wedged a knee alongside Brenda's thigh. She caught Brenda's eye and leaned over slowly, letting her button up blouse gap open in Brenda's line of sight. This was a game of chicken that Brenda Leigh would always lose; her eyes darted to the sight of Sharon's breasts packed in navy lace and she licked her lips. Sharon smirked and unbuttoned an extra button on her blouse.

"Just how much of a show are you going to give me, Shari? Is whatever you have to tell me about Gavin bad enough that you need to warm me up with a little peep?"

"Maybe I'm feeling inspired by that self-satisfied grin you were wearing when I got in here. What exactly did you say to Lieutenant Flynn?" Brenda brought a hand up to dip a finger in the hollow of Sharon's throat; she trailed that finger down her lightly freckled chest and underneath the edges of Sharon's immaculate broadcloth shirt. Sharon watched her with hooded eyes.

"He had an 'aha' moment, 'bout how our fighting recently seems more like flirtin' or foreplay. I told him it was always foreplay - it just took us a while to get around to the rest of it." Sharon let out a surprised bark of laughter and Brenda took advantage of the distraction to unbutton another button.

"Mmmm, Brenda, you can't undress me all the way. Not only is it still business hours, but your Lieutenant is coming back." Brenda growled, but re-buttoned Sharon's blouse.

"One of these days, you're going to let me fuck you in my office. For nostalgia's sake, if nothing else." Then she gripped Sharon's waist with strong arms and pulled the brunette into her lap, sighing in pleasure as Sharon's weight settled against her torso and on her thighs. "I'll content myself with a little cuddle while you tell me what you need to tell me."

Sharon situated herself sideways on Brenda's lap with her legs dangling over a chair arm. "This is really awkward, Brenda Leigh."

"Don't care," Brenda's voice was muffled from where she had her face pressed into Sharon's hair. "You'd better get talkin' to distract me, or I'm gonna start unbuttonin' things again, cuz you smell really good."

"I smell the way I always smell," Sharon murmured. The intensity of Brenda Leigh's attraction to her scent never failed to charm her.

"Uh huh. Better and more enticing than the best chocolate desserts I ever laid eyes on." She started stroking Sharon's thigh, close to its apex. "If you were wearin' a skirt, I could fuck you so easily in this position." Brenda's voice was low and full of bedroom promise. Sharon felt a rush of moisture between her legs. And she couldn't help it; her hips twitched. Brenda chuckled huskily.

"I think I would enjoy holding you like this while you came. We should try it sometime." Her fingers circled Sharon's hipbone and then she flattened her palm on Sharon's abdomen and kissed her sweetly on the cheek. "I love you, Sharon Raydor." She nuzzled Sharon's temple. "Now, what was it you had to tell me?"

Sharon groaned in disbelief. "You are such a tease, Brenda Leigh Johnson."

"You started it!" She moved her lips along Sharon's jaw and to her chin, and Sharon took the hint and angled her head down for a proper kiss. "We can make it up to one another tonight, ok Shari?" They kissed again, then Sharon reluctantly levered herself out of Brenda's lap.

"I'll see you at home," she purred, eager now for the end of the day.