Brenda oversleeps, wakes up to her bedroom sun-drenched and warm. Fritz is long gone, off to work. She remembers, a little, his leaving. She remembers hearing him come out of the bathroom, the sound of him holstering his gun, the kiss on the forehead she got and then the house settling back into quiet.

She sits up, too hot for the covers and kicks them away. Goes into the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth and look critically at herself in the mirror - bags under her eyes and frizzy hair. When she goes back into the bedroom, she can hear a noise from the kitchen and she remembers.

Sharon.

She hurries out, aware that she's a terrible hostess even when she remembers that she has a guest. Poor Sharon, out of place and trapped here. She sees Sharon standing at the sink, looking out the window. She's standing on her toes, stretching out the muscles of her legs, bare all the way up to the lacy trim on Brenda's shorts. Sharon is still wearing Brenda's favorite sweater, though it hangs open like a robe, the stretched out belt ends dangle loose by her knees. Everything she's wearing belongs to Brenda.

Brenda feels a sharp pang, like a knife sliding in easy. She knows this image will torment her for a long time to come. The morning she woke up to Sharon, the way it'll never happen again. The light in her hair, the way she sinks down off the balls of her feet, her heels touching the floor, her hand moving to her hip.

"See anything good out there?" Brenda asks, once she has as much detail committed to memory as possible.

Sharon spins, looks contrite like she's been caught.

"Your neighbors across the street are having a fight in their driveway," she says guiltily.

"Oh, that happens a lot," Brenda says. "I miss the morning fights usually, but I see him come home with flowers at least once a week."

"Smart," Sharon says.

"Eh," Brenda disagrees. "Just the little roses. You know, like you can get at the gas station?"

Sharon wrinkles her nose up.

"I don't think he can afford anything else at the rate he buys them," Brenda says with a laugh. They fall into silence and Brenda shifts her weight from one foot to another. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Sharon says. "I have some bruises I don't remember getting, but not too bad."

"You want some coffee?" Brenda offers. "Breakfast? A shower?"

"All three, if you have them," Sharon says.

Brenda smiles. "Which one first?"

"Coffee," she says. "Then shower."

"Good choice," Brenda says. "Between you, me, and the gatepost, most days I take my coffee to the shower with me and set it right there on the window ledge."

Sharon smirks, rolls her eyes. "Will I find a stash of chocolate in there, too?"

"I ain't sayin'," Brenda says. She crosses the kitchen, grabs the coffee pot. There's still coffee in there, not enough for a full cup and cold. Leftover from early this morning by Fritz, no doubt. She pours it into the sink. Sharon doesn't step out of the way, so Brenda brushes up against her as she rinses the pot out, swirling the water around and dumping it, filling it up again with water cool and clear.

She tosses the old filter into the trash by the door, pours the water in. She glances over at Sharon who is watching her with her hands up near her mouth, the sleeves of the sweater pressed into her lips. Like she's shy. Or holding something in, maybe. Brenda doesn't ask - she knows Sharon well enough now and whatever it is will surface eventually without Brenda hurrying anything along. Beans into the grinder and then that noise drowns out everything for a few seconds.

A fresh white filter and she dumps the grounds in.

"That smell is one of my favorites," Sharon says. "Right after the beans are ground. Before the coffee is made. It's just… pure."

"I like it too," Brenda says. She pushes the button and the machine groans, waking up again. She turns back to Sharon, says, "I'll get you a towel and something to wear back to the office."

"I've been thinking about that," Sharon says. "Both of our cars are still at work."

Brenda stills, thinks that through. "Well, shit."

Sharon smirks. "We can call a cab."

"That'll cost a fortune," Brenda says. "No, I'll have one of the boys come pick us up."

"Not Lieutenant Provenza," Sharon says immediately.

"Obviously not Provenza," Brenda says. "But since you have such strong feelings on the matter, who would you like?"

Sharon tilts her head, her hair shifting and falling to the side. Has it always been this red? This glossy? Or is a mean trick of the sun in her cheery, bright kitchen?

"Sanchez," she says, finally.

"Julio?" Brenda asks, surprised but pleased. He's so quiet and so prone to anger otherwise, that she just assumes most people are terrified of him but Brenda adores him herself. She just thought she was the only one.

"Tao, would be an acceptable alternative if Detective Sanchez is otherwise engaged."

"He'll ask more questions," Brenda warns.

"Yes, that's why I said alternative," she shoots back.

The coffee machine gurgles.

"Towels," Brenda says. Turns away, heads down the hall to the linen closet. She's happy there are clean towels in there, happier still that there are two that match. Fritz had thrown out all of Brenda's old threadbare towels when they'd finally gotten married. She pulls out two tan ones that had been given to them off the registry that Brenda had promised to fill with Fritz and then had always, somehow, been out solving a murder. And now she has light brown towels. A set of dishes she doesn't particularly care for. Cupboards full of appliances she has no interest in using. A whole perfect looking life that she has no idea how to live.

Sharon has found the mugs when Brenda comes back with the towels against her chest. Brenda watches her pour the coffee, lift the lids off the little canisters on the counter until she finds the one with sugar. Brenda is about to tell her that she prefers honey, but that isn't the truth. She takes honey; she'd stopped putting real sugar in a few years ago when she'd cut down on sweets. So she shuts up; Sharon pulls open drawers until she finds a spoon. She puts one spoonful into each mug and then adds one more to the mug on the left. Hesitates and adds a third before stirring the coffee. She sees Brenda when she turns to head for the refrigerator.

"Milk?" she says, though she hesitates, afraid, maybe, that she's made herself too at home.

"Cream in the door," Brenda says.

"You shouldn't keep that in the door," Sharon says pulling open the fridge and scanning until she finds the little carton of half and half. "The door is the warmest part of the refrigerator and it'll spoil faster."

"And a group of cockroaches is called an intrusion," Brenda says.

"Sorry," Sharon says, letting the door close. "I can… come off like a know-it-all."

"I think you think you're trying to help," Brenda says. Sharon says nothing about that, just adds creamer to both cups and returns the carton of half and half back to the fridge, right in the door where it apparently doesn't belong. She hands Brenda the mug and she has to put down the towels to take it. She sips it and it's so good and sweet that she has to close her eyes against it, like all her blood is rushing around at once. "Good."

Sharon smiles at her, one of those flashes. There and gone, hidden behind the coffee mug as Sharon dips her head to drink.

oooo

Brenda picks out a navy blue cotton skirt, something stretchy and unstructured, and a baby pink t-shirt for Sharon to borrow. Too casual for the office, maybe, but enough to get her in and out and home. While Sharon is by no means a large woman, Brenda knows that they are not exactly the same size and she doesn't want to make an already strange situation worse by giving Sharon clothes that don't even fit her.

She leaves the clothes on guest bed and retreats back to the kitchen to lean against the counter and call Julio on the phone.

"Chief," he says when he answers. "We all thought you weren't coming in today."

"Actually," she says. "My car is still there. Do you think you could come pick me up at home?"

"Sure thing," he says. "Now?"

"Oh," she says. "How about an hour?"

"No problem," he says.

"Just you," she says. "I don't need a whole audience."

"Um," he says. "Got it."

She's not sure why she didn't tell him Captain Raydor is here because it's not a secret.

Joel yowls from the laundry room and Brenda sets her phone down. "Okay," she says. "Breakfast. Breakfast for us all." She knows Fritz already fed him, but gives him a little more anyway, running her hand along his back. He allows it for a moment and then dodges her, burying his face in his bowl, crunching happily.

Brenda is cracking eggs into a bowl when she hears the shower shut off, doctoring them up a bit when she hears a door open, bare feet on the wooden floor of the hallway and then another door close. She pulls out a pan, sets it on the stove. She turns on the burner and then adds a little butter to the pan to melt as it heats up.

She's still stirring the eggs when Sharon comes out. Wet hair and barefoot still, but the pink - a color Brenda never sees her in - makes her seem like she's glowing. Brenda just stares and stares.

"I'll take over," Sharon says, smoothing the borrowed skirt across her thighs. "If you want to shower."

"Okay," she says.

The bathroom is still warm and the mirror fogged with steam except for one uneven square where Sharon has rubbed it away. And she's all over this bathroom, Brenda realizes. From the water beading on the tile in the shower to the dark hairs caught in Brenda's hair brush to the borrowed towels folded and damp on the lid of the closed toilet. Brenda strips, drops her clothes in the hamper on top of the little shorts edged with lace and the inside out red t-shirt.

She gets the water as hot as she can stand it and rests her forehead against the shower wall.

"You're fine," she tells herself. "We're almost through it now."

It's not until she's out of the shower that she notices Sharon's coffee mug, mostly empty, sitting on the ledge of the window and she wrings her hands, tries not to think of her back against a concrete wall.

oooo

The kissing is completely accidental. They eat breakfast, they clean up the mess in the kitchen. They take turns in the bathroom, brushing their teeth. Brenda forgoes makeup outside of lipgloss and mascara. It doesn't seem fair when Sharon doesn't have any of her stuff here and her hair is drying in wild waves.

Brenda exits the bathroom into the hallway instead of into the bedroom and Sharon is there, back against the wall, holding Brenda's sweater to her chest.

"I wanted to make sure you got this back," she says. "I know the affection you have for it."

Brenda steps forward to take it and then it's just like before at the club where the music thudded inside of her like a heartbeat, two hands pulling at a face, lips crashing together.

But it's Brenda, this time, who pulls Sharon to her. And it's Brenda, this time, who sticks her tongue into Sharon's mouth. And it's Brenda who presses their bodies together and it's Brenda who doesn't even notice her most favorite sweater falling right to the ground.

Sharon tastes minty and addictive and Brenda presses up onto the balls of her feet, presses into Sharon as hard as she can. Her blood is rushing in her ears, her heart is hammering. Sharon pulls her mouth away but Brenda gets it right back because she hasn't had enough. She wants to taste every bit, she wants to catch Sharon's lips between her teeth, she wants to slide her hand up under that pink shirt and hold on tight to whatever she finds.

Sharon gets free again, says, "Stop, stop."

Brenda rests her head on Sharon's shoulder, panting and embarrassed. Lowers her hands only to find Sharon's arms are wrapped around her, that her knee has wedged between Brenda's legs.

"This is your house," Sharon says after a few ragged breaths. "This is your life, Chief."

"I know."

"Don't set it all on fire just for me," Sharon says, her hands tight on Brenda's waist.

She doesn't tell Sharon that it's too late, that the flames have been creeping in for some time. That she wakes up alone in her bed, Fritz asleep on the couch with the television on low. That when her husband looks at babies in strollers he gets a dreamy, far away expression and that when she looks at them, she thinks she might be sick. She doesn't tell Sharon that she prays for murders on the weekends to get out of trips to the hardware store and to Costco, doesn't say that staring across her dining table at her husband makes her feel achingly lonely, that she doesn't know why she married him except for that when he asked, she had no idea how to say no.

Because all of this isn't about Sharon. Sharon is a surprise.

"I can't be your friend," Brenda says, stepping back. Sharon drops her arms, doesn't force Brenda to stay.

"No," Sharon says crossing her arms. "That would be an unreasonable request."

"I'm sorry that I-"

"No." Sharon shakes her head. "It was… I mean, I… before it was just pretend but now it's not."

"I think you were right, at least," Brenda says.

"About what?"

"About Pope not forcing us to work together anymore," she says.

Sharon reaches up, two fingers just brush her bottom lip. "For the best, probably," she murmurs.

Brenda leans over and picks up her sweater so she doesn't reach out for Sharon again, holds it in front of her like a shield.

Outside a car door slams and then, a moment later, footsteps on the stairs.

"That's Julio," Brenda says.

Sharon breathes out. "Thank god."

oooo

The FBI comes a week later to debrief them. Brenda gets invited as operation commander. Cooper is there, Taylor too. She thinks maybe Sharon will be there but she isn't and she can't bring herself to ask why. She knows why - ultimately to Captain Raydor and her position in Internal Affairs, what happens with this case is irrelevant. She was just a borrowed body and she got saved.

But Pope says, "You'll let Captain Raydor know how everything turned out, right?" The briefing is over and they're all dispersing and this stops Brenda short.

She hasn't seen Sharon since Julio dropped them off at work. Has thought about her only once every fifteen minutes or so over the last seven days.

"If you wanted her to know, why didn't you just let her sit in?" Brenda asks.

"She's got a case," Pope says. "You know how she gets about her seventy-two hours."

"Then you'll probably see her before I do," Brenda says.

"Oh," Pope says. "Maybe. It was my understanding that you'd worked out your differences."

"She's as uptight as ever," Brenda says. "I'm just glad she's not my problem anymore."

Pope looks at her in consternation, his forehead wrinkled. "You'll overlap again, I'm sure. Do yourself a favor and keep being nice to her. It'll save us all a headache and now that I've seen that you can work well together and get along, that is my expectation."

"Fine, fine," she says. "You're the boss."

"I literally am!" Pope calls after her, but she ignores him and goes back to her office.

It's not until she's at home, sitting on the couch with her feet on the coffee table and half a bowl of popcorn as company that she thinks about actually following Will's order and telling Sharon about the briefing. Fritz hadn't been there either, is still not home though it's creeping on toward eight o'clock. He's working some other case, she thinks, and remembers only vaguely him mentioning it.

She picks up her phone, scrolls through her contacts until she finds Sharon's information. It seems rude to just call. Maybe it's too late, maybe it's too familiar when out of the office. So instead she sends a text message asking if Sharon is busy.

Sharon calls her.

"Hey," Brenda answers and then tenses, heat flaring at her cheeks. She's supposed to be telling Captain Raydor about the briefing, not calling Sharon to chat.

"Hi," Sharon says. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she says. "I just… I thought you might want to know about the Sokolav briefing."

"Oh," she says. "Well, Chief Pope caught me up this afternoon, but if you have some other perspective, I'm all ears."

"No," she says, feeling foolish completely through now. "He just asked me to catch you up, so…"

"He probably figured since he saw me, he'd do it," Sharon says. "Save you the trouble."

Brenda snorts.

"Save himself the trouble of you and I…" Sharon pauses uneasily. "Interacting."

"It's no trouble," Brenda blurts. "I don't mind interacting with you, Captain."

Sharon chuckles low and dry. "Not anymore, you mean."

"Sharon-"

"Brenda, don't," Sharon says. "You don't have to say anything."

"I was only going to say," Brenda lies, changing tactics in an effort to keep her on the line, "that you were good out there and if you want to keep shadowing my division, when your caseload allows, you're welcome to. We can always use another body anyway. It's no trouble."

"Really?" Sharon asks.

"Yeah," Brenda says. "I think you have a knack for problem solving and since we lost Daniels, we could use someone like you around." She hesitates. "I could use someone like you around."

"Did Chief Pope order you to do this?" she asks.

"No!" Brenda says. "I thought… it seemed like to me that maybe you were looking for a way out of Internal Affairs, that's all. There's no way Will will let you transfer into my division at your rank, but you can certainly get some practical experience."

"I never said I was looking for a change," Sharon says hesitantly.

"No, you never did," Brenda says. "But I can tell."

"It doesn't matter," Sharon sighs. "I've been in I.A. for so long, Pope is never going to let me out."

"Any old person can follow rules," Brenda says dismissively. "Not everyone can solve a murder. If that's a skill you have, he's not gonna let you waste it."

Sharon doesn't say anything.

"Or maybe he'll retire," she adds. "And someone smarter will take his place."

"It's not that I'm unhappy here, I just… feel like I could be doing more, you know?" Sharon sighs. "I wasn't even going to be a police officer this long."

"Really?" Brenda asks, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. She catches sight of the scratch across the pale underside of her wrist, courtesy of her cranky cat, and seeing the angry red line makes it sting all over again. She presses the mark against her mouth and waits for Sharon to explain. Settles back into the couch, tucking her feet up under her.

"I was going to go to law school," Sharon says. "If you can believe that."

"I can, actually," Brenda says, feeling herself smile. "What happened?"

"Oh," Sharon says. "I had two babies and my husband left." She makes a hollow noise with her mouth, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth. "I was in no position to quit my job."

Brenda isn't sure what to say here - she tends to do the leaving. Even with Will, married and leading her on, even then she'd had to be the one to cut the cord. He would have kept her on the side forever, probably. Even if his wife had eventually left him, he still would never have kept his promises to Brenda. She doesn't know what it's like to be left behind like that, can't even imagine it with a baby on each hip.

Sharon interprets her silence incorrectly and says, "Agent Howard is nothing like Jack."

"What was Jack like?" Brenda asks and she truly wants to know. Now that she has stopped fighting against Sharon, she wants to know everything she can about her, wants to gather each morsel of knowledge like foil wrapped chocolates in her drawer.

"Handsome," Sharon says. "Charming."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Brenda says.

"Unless he was drinking."

"Oh."

"And he was always drinking. And he always gambled when he drank. And he always lied when he gambled," Sharon says, her voice flat. Like she has learned, with time, to distance herself from the hurt. It's the same flat way that Fritz talks about his ex-wife.

"So not ideal," Brenda says.

"No," Sharon says. "The best thing he did as a father is walk out on those kids. I'd never say that to them, of course."

"Of course," Brenda says.

"You have it good with Agent Howard," Sharon says, softly. "He's not the type to leave. And you don't have kids which means he's not staying out of obligation."

"He'd love the obligation, frankly," Brenda says. "I keep my birth control at work, just in case."

Sharon laughs, a warm, velvet sound that is lush until it starts to peter out. "Seriously?" she says.

"Well, in my purse," Brenda says. "Not that I think he'd really… but you know."

"Kids aren't for everyone," Sharon says. But she doesn't say it in the condescending way Brenda is used to, usually from older women looking at her like she's defective as she holds someone's baby out in front of her, little fat legs dangling in the air. She says it like it's straightforward, practical advice. "It's not like your career isn't contributing to society in an important way."

"Yeah," Brenda says. "Okay, so tell me about these kids of yours."

Brenda has every intention of hanging up the phone before her husband gets home, but when she hears his key in the lock, she realizes that she and Sharon have been on the phone for well over an hour. The urge to lie swells hotly in her throat, and she can hear herself say goodnight, mama!loudly in her head. If it were anyone else, she might, but Sharon is different. Sharon wouldn't respect the lie. Sharon is already worried about Brenda and her husband.

So Fritz comes in, seems surprised to see her awake. And Brenda swallows and says, "I'm going to let you get some sleep, Sharon."

"Oh," Sharon says, because it is an abrupt end to a somewhat languid conversation. "Of course, Chief."

"I'll talk to you real soon," she says. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Sharon says.

Brenda tosses her phone aside, stands up from the couch, her knees aching from sitting curled up on the couch for so long.

"Hi honey," she says.

"Hey," he says. "You're still up."

"Yeah, it's not really that late," she says, walking up to him. She kisses him, pats his chest. "How was your work thingy?"

"It went all right," he says. "I didn't think you remembered that was tonight."

"Sure I did," she says. "Did you get dinner?"

"We ate in the van," he says. "Actually, I kind of just want to shower and go to bed."

She nods, smiles again. "Okay."

He tosses his keys into the bowl and reaches up to tug at the knot of his tie. Sets his briefcase down and heads for the hall before pausing and turning back to her. "Was that Captain Raydor?"

"Huh?" she asks.

"Oh the phone."

"Yeah," she says. "Will wanted me to brief her on the FBI meeting today. About the Sokolavs?"

"At ten at night?" he asks.

"She had a thing all day," Brenda says, lifting one shoulder. "You know how she is about deadlines."

"It's good you're giving her a chance," Fritz says. "You can be awfully hard on people, Brenda."

It's something she and Fritz have in common, but she keeps that insight to herself.

oooo

They pick up a case, a sticky situation with the daughter of someone high up in the Sheriff's department and a suspicious string of dead boyfriends, the most current being the son of some C-list reality show star. It's a political nightmare and Brenda immediately calls Sharon's office to see if she's available to shadow. Sharon has to hang up in the middle of the conversation to take another call and then calls Brenda back a few minutes later.

"Pope just asked me to shadow your case," Sharon says. Brenda can hear the smile in her voice.

"Well, now I don't want you," Brenda says. "Never mind."

"Too bad," Sharon says. "You're stuck with me."

"I'll somehow manage," Brenda says. "But if you're here, I'm gonna put you to work. You can do more than just stand around and take notes."

"Okay," Sharon says. "What did you have in mind, Chief?"

"How about a little undercover?" Brenda asks with a grin.

It's not much, really. She just needs Sharon to pretend to have a job that doesn't exist. Some public relations position for celebrities - she tells Sharon to wear something designer, to look polished and tailored and beautiful. "Like one of them, not one of us," she says.

"I'll see what I can do," Sharon says.

"Maybe this time, I get to poke around your closet?" Brenda says and she means it as a joke, but it's a misstep and she knows it the moment she says it. Because Sharon hesitates. They've both worked hard to get past their actions undercover and the awkwardness of the morning after. And Brenda still feels… differently about Sharon, but she hasn't pushed because after all, Sharon had been right to stop them.

She expects to be gently chastised now and deservedly so. But Sharon says, "That might be helpful."

"Really?" Brenda asks, surprised.

"Well," Sharon says. "I may have more experience in designer clothing and good tailoring, but you know a lot more about standing out."

"Oh how I've missed your backhanded compliments," Brenda says.

"Mine?" Sharon says with a bark of laughter. "It's amazing I managed to fit one in between yours."

"Text me your address," Brenda says. "I'll come over after work."

"Okay," Sharon says.

"Okay," Brenda says, her heart up in her throat.

oooo

Fritz calls right as she is pulling out of the parking garage. His voice gets filtered through the speakers in her car and she says, "Hey honey!"

"Hi," he says. "Brenda, I'm gonna be late again."

"Everything okay?" she asks. Fritz's job is tough and time consuming just like hers but the FBI is federal and they tend to clock out at six sharp and start again the next morning. It's rare he works overnight, rarer still twice in the same week.

"Yeah, just a time sensitive issue," he says. "If I can't come home, I'll let you know."

"Be careful," Brenda says and then thinks about how much she hates when people say that to her. "Be safe," she amends.

"I will," he says. "Love you."

"Bye now," she says.

She goes home first knowing he won't be there. Feeds the cat, changes out of her suit, sweaty and stifling. She changes into a lighter dress, sandals to let her toes breathe, and remembers to grab Sharon's daughter's clothes and toss them into her bag.

Sharon's building is tall and imposing and somewhere Brenda would never, ever live. Too cold, too many people packed into one small space. Too expensive, surely. But she can see Sharon there, see how a high, well protected tower might suit her.

It feels like the elevator ride up takes forever, plenty long enough for Brenda to talk herself out of knocking on the door and plenty long enough for her to talk herself back into it. It's a long walk down the hallway, Sharon's unit all the way at the end, on the corner, probably, which is nice. Brenda stands outside the door for a while, looking at the brass doorknob, looking at her own toes, looking all around, trying to decide what she's going to do once she gets in there but then several doors down, one of Sharon's neighbors steps into the hallway, so Brenda knocks so she doesn't look like some sort of criminal casing the joint.

Sharon answers with a peculiar looking smile. Too big, she holds it for too long.

"Come in," she says, steps aside and then says, "Brenda."

"Thank you," she says. "Sharon."

So she leaves her rank at the door.

oooo

Sharon is exactly the kind of woman Fritz should have married, Brenda thinks uneasily. Her space is cohesive and immaculate. Floors swept, rugs clean, surfaces gleaming and free of dust. Her bed is made in her bedroom; in her closet, all her clothes hang on matching, wooden hangers. She doesn't let expensive garments bend the cheap wire hangers from the dry cleaners, bits of paper and plastic littering the closet floor. Brenda studies the contents of Sharon's closet intently. It's organized by function, not by color or length or style. Obviously one half is for work - clothes with structure and lining, an impressive professional wardrobe built over a long and industrious career. And then things that are fancy, but not for work. Long dresses, bright colors, spaghetti straps. Things that remind Brenda of her sister-in-law, Joyce, who has the coloring for some of these pieces. Dark hair, fair skin. Things one might wear to church or on a date. There's a row of shelves that have shoes and some folded up jeans and bulky sweaters. Brenda reaches out to feel the fabric of a deep purple sweater. Cashmere. A button on the sleeve that looks like a little pearl. A pair of cherry red wedges, black ballet flats that if Brenda had seen at the store, she would have bought two pairs. Classic, comfortable, chic.

Sharon watches her from the door of the walk-in, leaning against the wood of the frame with her hands tucked behind her. She tilts her head a little and says, "What do you think?"

Brenda stops thinking about ballet flats and starts thinking about how she shouldn't kiss Sharon. It would be easier if she hadn't already, if she wasn't exactly sure of what she was missing.

She's definitely missing something. Things haven't felt right for a while now and Sharon is a symptom of that. Fritz working more, Fritz changing his behavior. Brenda not quite caring enough to ask. Her first marriage had ended suddenly in a big, messy disaster so she can see why she's missed the signs in this one. It has been such a slow decay.

"What if I weren't married?" Brenda asks.

Sharon frowns, tucks her hands into the pockets of her slacks. "I meant about the clothes," she says.

"I know but… I'm just… what if we'd done all this? The undercover, the other day at my house. This right now. What if… is there anything else holding you back?"

"There doesn't have to be anything else," Sharon says. "This one thing is plenty big enough."

Brenda, knowing better, says, "Just pretend."

"There are reasons," Sharon says. "We don't like each other very much."

"Some people need a bit of friction," Brenda says.

"You outrank me," Sharon points out.

"I'm not your immediate supervisor," Brenda says, tucking herself into the doorway, leaning against the other side of the frame. A mirror image. Space between them, but measurable in inches. Not more than an arm's length.

"I'm not gay," Sharon says.

"Not real straight, either, I think," Brenda counters. Sharon rolls her eyes, smirks at herself.

"A little late in life identity crisis. Just what I need." She shakes her head. "What would you like me to wear, Brenda?"

"Oh," Brenda says, turning her head back to the clothes. "The ivory dress." She reaches out, pulls the dress from the hanger. It's tight, beautifully made. "Heels. Expensive jewelry. You'll do fine."

"How should I do my hair?" Sharon asks.

"Ironed flat, I think," she says. "But it always looks beautiful."

"Thank you," Sharon murmurs. She looks at Brenda's mouth. Makes an expression of pained desire. "I guess your work here is done."

"You know the trick about undercover, right?" Brenda asks. Sharon shakes her head. "You've got to practice. It's a skill like any other."

"Brenda," Sharon says.

Brenda shakes her head, steps forward until the space between them becomes negligible and then disappears completely.

"It's just practice," Brenda says softly. "Just pretend."

Still, she pauses just before their lips brush. She allows Sharon to close the gap and there's a few long seconds where Brenda isn't convinced that she's going to but then she seems to sag a little and pushes into Brenda. Lips and body and everything all flush.

Brenda is a selfish lover. She always has been. She gets drunk on pleasure and worries only about what she needs, her own satisfaction. She can't count the number of times she's abandoned a blow job halfway through to climb up a man and sink down upon what she wants. How many dalliances in the backseat of cars had ended up with her hand down her own pants instead of someone else's, chasing pleasure with hooded eyes and clenched teeth while whoever was with her just stopped and stared.

But all Brenda wants, all the pleasure she currently desires, is to get her hands on Sharon. She slips her hands up under her blouse and Sharon pants into her mouth. Brenda runs her fingers along soft skin, hipbones, ribs, cups a breast.

Sharon tips her head back, groans. Brenda chases her, recapturing her lips. Uses both her hands to work open the clasp of Sharon's slacks, ease the button from its hole. Two fingers to slowly lower the zipper.

"I…" Sharon says against Brenda's mouth. "I don't know."

Brenda drags her tongue along Sharon's lower lip, kisses her chin. "I can always stop. You just say stop and I'll stop."

Sharon nods, closes her eyes. Brenda can see pale skin, the lacy top of plum colored underwear. She slips her fingers in, goes real slow. Savors the softness of the heated skin, the tactile sensation of coarse hair, the incredible warmth of Sharon's desire. Sharon gasps, jerks against Brenda's hand.

It's been a long, long time since Brenda has thought about doing this but some desires never quite fade away. She rubs, gets her fingers good and lubricated. Doesn't bother with penetration - as much as she longs to feel Sharon all around her, that's just a logistical nightmare that would require Sharon to move to the bed, to take off her clothes and Brenda might lose her. No, she just focuses on bringing Sharon as much pleasure as she can, rubs soft circles while Sharon whimpers. She lets her head rest on Brenda's shoulder, spreads her feet a little to try to give Brenda more access. Brenda moves her fingers a little faster as a reward and Sharon turns her head, presses her mouth against Brenda's neck with a deep, "Ohhh."

"Good," Brenda coos. "You're doin' so good."

She gives Sharon a pinch which makes her cry out, makes her lift her head and crush their mouths together, makes her thrust her tongue against Brenda's. Brenda pinches again, pinches long and hard and Sharon's hips grind against her hand and she's just soaking wet, now, just liquid where Brenda is touching her. Brenda switches back to rubbing, hard circles where Sharon pulses against her. Sharon turns her head, pants hard against Brenda's cheek. She can feel the plastic frames of Sharon's glasses, still sitting on her face. Can smell the scent of sex and shampoo, can taste Sharon's dark lipstick on her own mouth.

Sharon sucks in a breath, it hitches and she tries to breathe in again, exhales a low and desperate moan.

"Uh huh," Brenda encourages. "Tell me. Tell me it's good."

"It's…" Sharon says. "It's so… so good." It comes out like a sob.

"Well, come on then," Brenda says, her voice barely a whisper.

"I need…" Sharon says, but she doesn't say anything else.

"This?" Brenda says, rubbing faster. Sharon whimpers. "Or this?" Brenda pinches her again, hard, tweaks the slippery, swollen bud and Sharon goes rigid against her.

Now, only now, does Brenda plunge her fingers into Sharon's deep, dark wetness just so she can feel her pulse around her. It's not easy, puts a kink into her wrist and the elastic from Sharon's underwear digs into her skin, but oh, it's more than worth it. Sharon comes against her hand, gasping and moaning and then, finally, going boneless against her, breathing hard into Brenda's hair.

"Very nice," Brenda says. "Very believable. Well worth the practice, don't you think?"

Sharon snorts, a languid little laugh, and clenches hard around Brenda's fingers.

"Whatever you say, Chief," Sharon mumbles, eyes closed.

oooo

Brenda unlocks the door, quiet and alert, but the house is empty except for the cat, padding from the living room to the kitchen to see who is home. No husband, then, to witness her coming home, slinking toward the bathroom, leaving her purse and sweater along the way, turning on the shower even though she'd never even taken off her clothes. She still feels like maybe she needs to wash away the evidence.

She stands under the hot water and thinks about what she has done. How she'd manipulated Sharon into giving her what she'd wanted, how Sharon had allowed it, her own desire edging out her morals. That's what being friends with Brenda did to a person. She'd learn that thoroughly soon enough.

She touches herself, swiftly, efficiently, her own tight groan bouncing off the tile and then she stands as the water rinses her clean. Soaping up and washing it all away.

Fritz doesn't come home while she's in the shower, he's not home by the time she goes to bed and when she wakes up in the morning, he's still not back.

She dresses, fixes her hair, puts on lipstick a shade darker than usual.

At work, she keeps one eye on the glass walls of her office, jumping up when Flynn waves at her, indicating that the minor celebrity is on their way up. She texts Sharon who replies with, "On my way."

Sharon has to only ride the elevator down a few floors, so she beats their celebrity to Major Crimes. Brenda waits in the hall for whoever emerges first and it takes her a moment to realize that the elevator reveals Sharon and not some beautiful, famous star. Brenda's mouth falls open, like she's a cartoon but that ivory dress is a gift from god and it makes her hair seem brilliant against her pale skin. She's not wearing her glasses, her hair is glossy and straight, and even though Brenda knows those are false eyelashes, they still make the green of her eyes pop even more.

"Where are they?" Sharon asks, stepping carefully over the threshold of the elevator in her towering black heels.

"Uh," Brenda manages.

"What's the matter?" Sharon asks.

"You look… really nice," Brenda says.

Sharon rolls her eyes. "This is exactly what you told me to do!"

"Yeah, but…"

"I went and got a blow out at six am this morning, I'm tired, I'm uncomfortable, and you and I seriously need to sit down and have a frank talk about some things," Sharon says, pointing at her.

Brenda looks at her hand, the chain hanging off her wrist.

"Is that Tiffany's?" she asks. "It's pretty."

"Focus," Sharon says.

"You're so pretty," Brenda says.

"Chief," Sharon says. "It's just pretend."

The elevator dings, the doors part to show Provenza and Flynn standing in front of a woman in dark sunglasses looking at her cellphone.

Sharon smiles and steps forward.

oooo

Sharon appears later, when most of her division has gone home except for Tao and Buzz, still holed up in the electronics room. Brenda is sitting at her desk, finishing up paperwork under the light of her desk lamp. Sharon knocks, Brenda looks up, gives her a small smile.

"You're still here?" she says.

"I am," Sharon says.

"You ready to sit down and have that frank talk, Captain, because I gotta say, if you're looking for an apology for yesterday, you're gonna be disappointed."

"No," Sharon says. "No, I thought… since I'm still in costume as it were…" She trails off uncertainly.

"You're looking for a… a debrief?" Brenda asks, feeling warm, feeling wary, feeling excited all at once.

Sharon nods. "A debrief. Something like that."

"Somethin' like that," Brenda echos.

From somewhere inside Brenda's big black first, her phone rings out a jaunty tune.

She pretends she doesn't hear it since she's already here, playing pretend.

"Come on," Sharon says. "I'll buy you a drink."

"Right behind you, Captain," Brenda says and reaches up to turn off the light.