Title: After the sunsets and the dooryards
Fandom: Life
Characters: Ted Earley, Charlie Crews, Dani Reese; Gen
Spoilers: All through season 1
Summary: Ted Earley, this is your life.
Disclaimer: Life is mine! mine! mine! Well, no, if it was there would be no hiatuses. Ever!
A/N: A whole lot of thanks to nuitbelle and butterflykiki for beta and putting up with my ramblings. Title taken from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
1.
Ted didn't know what to make of Charlie's new partner. Except that she was short, annoyed and bossy.
The first time they met she squinted at him and demanded who he was.
"I'm Charlie's roommate," Ted answered, feeling a little grumpy. He'd been babysitting Easley and he felt less than accommodating.
She didn't react to his statement and Easley hijacked the conversation. She moved on to talk about grand juries and indictments. Used to be it would have bothered Ted that a beautiful woman would dismiss him so readily but prison changed a lot of things and this was no different because she might be a beautiful woman but from the brief meeting Ted could tell that if she'd wanted to she could beat him up and not break a sweat.
But, also, and Ted felt this was an important point: He didn't know Charlie's new partner was a woman. Charlie missed that detail when he told him. In interests of full disclosure, it wasn't all Charlie's fault. Charlie returned from his first official day in the LAPD wound up and edgy. Ted had been busy walking on egg shells, carefully pushing for more information.
Ted long ago figured out that Charlie's study of Zen was spotty at best and more to do with keeping sane than actually believing it because it was the coolest thing to do.
"I'm finishing the papers on the orange grove," Ted informed him, mostly to break the silence.
Charlie looked at him and instantly the tension around him eased. "Really? I like that."
"Are you sure you want an orange grove?"
"As long as it comes with the big red tractor," Charlie answered.
Deep breath and a sigh. "Yes, it will come with the big red tractor."
"Then I'm sure." Charlie's hand skimmed over the fruit basket until he ended with the strawberries. "I have a partner."
Ted chewed on his toast, giving this nugget of information the appropriate time to sink in before saying, "Oh?"
Charlie nodded. "Detective Reese. Danny Reese."
"How'd that go?"
Charlie washed the strawberries before setting them on the plate, he paid such attention to the fruit Ted thought he didn't hear the question. Ted moved his papers back to a folder then Charlie looked at him and smiled. The smile was lopsided. "My partner doesn't seem to like me."
"That's not a surprise." Realizing how that sounded, Ted quickly added, "I don't think any of the police are happy to see you back."
"People," Charlie said, with the air of a man who figured something out, "rarely get what they want in life."
--
It was weeks before Charlie's partner came up again and it mostly had to do when Ted walked into the house and found Charlie's homeless witness camping in the living room.
Ted stared at Easley.
"What're you doin' here?" Easley demanded the same time Ted went: "Why are you here?"
"I live here!" Ted said, indignant. He paused and realized there was an echo to the words. Ted narrowed his eyes. "You can't live here, I live here."
Easley scoffed. "Don't see no furniture here."
"That's because this is all--"
"Hey, Ted." Ted turned around, Charlie stood by the door. "Easley's going to stay with us for a while."
Oh, dear God. The man was bringing home strays. Ted had a terrifying vision: the mansion overrun by drunk, homeless men out to steal his shoes. "Don't you have safe houses for this sort of thing?"
Charlie nodded. "It got burned."
"Burned?"
Charlie nodded again but this time added a preaching look to Easley. "Easley fell asleep and forgot to kill his cigarette. The motel room got burned."
"Won't happen again, boss," Easley said, sounding contrite.
"But why does he have to stay with us?"
"Hey!" Easley sounded belligerent. "Stop talkin' like I ain't in the room!"
"Reese said I can keep him, at least until after the grand jury indictment." He smiled at Ted, like he just received a new toy. "I think it's going to be fun."
Ted glanced behind him and found Easley attempting to start a fire. "Stop that!"
"But I'm chilly!"
"Oh, and I got to go to work tomorrow, can you look after him?" Before Ted could respond, Charlie vanished up the stairs. "Thanks, Ted!"
And that's how Ted ended up babysitting Easley. It was like looking after a five year old, no, he was worse. He didn't remember any of his kids to be this annoying. So when he went out and spotted Charlie eating tacos in La Estrella, Ted was all too happy to pass him off.
Unfortunately, that idea was nixed when Charlie's partner ordered him to bring Easley back home. He thought about protesting but Detective Reese finished her meal, stood-up and nodded brusquely at Ted, as if it were already a done deal.
Ted corralled Easley back to the mansion and decided he might as well make a good thing of a bad situation. He'd present his business plan to Charlie. But before Ted presented his bar idea to Charlie and with Easely, thankfully, somewhere else Ted decided to toss in something that has been nagging Ted the whole day. "I didn't know your partner was a woman."
Charlie looked at him, surprised. "Didn't I tell you? I'm sure I told you."
"You said your new partner was a Detective Danny Reese."
"Oh." He was silent a moment. "I meant Dani with an 'n-i' not an 'n-n-y'. I can see how it could confuse you."
Ted shook his head. Then Easley came stumbling down and he decided against saying anything else.