Author's Note: Hello, guys! It's been a very long time. I started this chapter around Christmas last year which explains why it's the wrong time of year in the story. I suddenly felt the urge to finish the chapter up this morning [thanks to an unexpected and delightful review I got recently-ish. Well, maybe not so recently, but I don't check my email often enough.] and I fear it's gotten a bit rambly and confusing along the way. Maybe the next chapter will be better. If I'm updating them at an exponential rate, you guys should get that one in about 2 years. Kidding! Oh, Lord. I do miss you all! Especially my tumblr friends! I've not been on in so long and I'm an entire season behind on Major Crimes so I'm terrified of logging in. As soon as I catch up on the show, I'll be back!

Three Months Later

Brenda Leigh Johnson made her way down the aisles of her parents' local pharmacy, killing time until her prescriptions were filled. She passed by shelf after shelf of discount toiletries and lightbulbs. The store had been arranged with no real care, each aluminum shelf sprinkled with items that bore no logical relation.

Brenda found herself in front of a display of Christmas decorations and snack foods. She darted a lustful glance toward the Ding Dongs. Willie Rae had refused her any of her blessed junk food for the two months that she'd been back in Georgia. After a sigh, she focused on an angel tree topper. Its fiber-optic wings alternated calming hues and its lovely, porcelain face smiled beatifically down at Brenda from the display. Brenda hated it. She much preferred her angel topper, Keith. Sure, he was slightly terrifying in certain lighting... Well, in most lighting. But he was hers. She had made him from scratch. He belonged on top of her tree, not in some dark box in the corner of some dark closet back in her empty house in Los Angeles.

Over the intercom, Bing Crosby began to croon about being home for Christmas and Brenda's longing for Los Angeles suddenly swelled to painful proportions. She thought back to last Christmas and how her parents had hijacked the murder room to hold a Christmas dinner. It had been so perfect. Her entire family had made it: Mama, Daddy, Fritzy, Flynn, Provenza, Sanchez, Tao, Gabriel, Sharon. For so many years, she'd cancelled Christmas with her family to interrogate suspects or piece together difficult cases. Good Lord, one time she'd even cancelled dinner to fill out paperwork. She didn't even like paperwork.

A static crackle sounded overhead, jolting Brenda from her reverie.

"Johnson, your prescription is ready." The announcement interrupted both her thoughts and Bing Crosby's promise to be home for Christmas if only in his dreams. The man should have taken up astral projection.

Brenda made her way to the pharmacy counter, past cookie jars and bath mats and DVD players. After she paid for the medicine that would dull the constant ache in her stomach, Brenda grabbed the crinkly white, paper bag containing her pills and made her way to the front of the store. She spared a final glance at the too-perfect tree topper on her way. Again, her thoughts strayed to last Christmas. Willie Rae had spent all day preparing the food. She'd even roped Sharon into helping her. Brenda bit her lip as she remembered how proud Sharon had been of the marshmallows. 'I did the marshmallows on those!' 'Oh? They look kind of burnt.' Brenda still felt guilty at denying Sharon the tiny victory of a marshmallow topping. They hadn't been burnt at all. They had been golden brown and perfect. Brenda slumped and massaged her midsection as she slowly made her way to the car.

She thought of Tao in that ridiculous Santa hat, the entre team wrapping presents for kids, Sharon moping about clutching Brenda's old elf figurine. Brenda slid into the driver's seat, her eyes misting. Damn it, Bing Crosby! Brenda sucked in some air and faced the truth. She could not stand playing the invalid anymore. She could not stand the way she'd left things in LA anymore, either. The way she'd left things with Sharon. She was going home for Christmas.

"Son of a bitch."

Sharon thrust her index finger into her mouth before the small bead of blood could drip and stain the couch. She took a moment to survey her surroundings. Balanced precariously upon her knee was a large bowl of cranberries. She found the things revoltingly bitter but they did make lovely decoration, especially strung and wrapped around the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, she had only gotten through about two feet of string and had practically mutilated her fingertips with tiny perforations. Sharon was nothing if not determined. It was silly, actually, considering that no one was going to witness her decorating masterpiece. Sharon's kids were both going to be unable to make it to LA for Christmas. Her son, Jack, was in the middle of his residency at a prestigious children's hospital in the south and her daughter, Ruthie, was dancing in one of the finest ballet companies in the continental US. Usually, Sharon was quite proud of her two fully functioning, well-adjusted offspring, but she reserved the holiday season as the one time of year that she could openly (read: quietly, in the solitude and comfort of her home) bitch about the loneliness that came with being unattached at Christmastime.

Just as Sharon found a new and exciting place to accidentally jab her needle, her phone gave a tiny vibration. Annoyed at being interrupted but still a bit relieved that a) it was only a text which was not a likely indicator of Major Crimes catching a new case and b) she'd been given a reprieve from the world's slowest, self-inflicted tattooing, Sharon carefully placed the needle on the cushion next to her and traded the bowl of cranberries for her handy blackberry. When she saw the name of the sender flash across the tiny screen, she pressed a fist against her stomach in an attempt to settle the butterflies that had suddenly gathered en masse behind her ribcage.

Chief B. Johnson

The name looked so professional and innocent in pixels that Sharon felt a tad ridiculous upon realizing that she'd been staring at it a good 20 seconds. It wasn't until her screen dimmed and automatically shut itself off that Sharon could shake herself out of her sudden stupor.

Hey, Sharon! It's Brenda. Remember me? Blonde hair, southern accent, disappearing act?

Sharon gripped her phone and reminded herself to breathe. She had tried her hardest for a little over two months to pretend that Brenda Leigh Johnson no longer existed. She had steadfastly refused to take part in the team's musings about what they thought Brenda had been up to at a particular moment. She had changed the subject as subtly as possible when Tao or Provenza had inquired after her. Finally, after a couple of weeks, everybody had gotten the message and quit bringing her up in front of Sharon.

Sharon couldn't understand or forgive Brenda's sudden exodus from Los Angeles and her team. And from Sharon.

Two months earlier
One month after the shooting

Brenda shuffled from the kitchen to her living room with a bowl of M&M's in one hand and a small assortment of DVDs in the other. Tonight was movie night. She'd been looking forward to it all week. She and Sharon spoke on the phone daily, but with Brenda out of commission and Sharon taking over her position temporarily as head of Major Crimes, the friends barely saw each other outside of their Saturday movie nights (assuming the citizens of Los Angeles could refrain from blowing each other's heads off).

Despite the constant, nagging pain in her abdomen, Brenda was humming in almost childlike glee as she straightened her one throw pillow, ragged and covered in a cheerful fabric patterned with tiny daisies, and brushed away the cookie crumbs that had caught on her sweater at lunch time. After a beat, she shuffled down the hall toward her bedroom. Brenda shuffled most places these days. Her incision had healed in the month since her surgeries, but the pain had stuck around. She grabbed the little medicine bottle on her nightstand and choked down two pills. If she wanted to move at any pace other than barely glacial, and she so desperately wanted to seem suitably healed in front of Sharon, she would need the pharmaceutical aid.

Peering into her closet, Brenda tried to find a different shirt. Her criteria weren't too exacting. All she needed, really, was something easy to slip on and not speckled with bits of chocolate chip cookie, but she still felt herself getting annoyed as she picked over her closet's sorry offerings. Something easy to slip on. Something not covered in crumbs. It wouldn't hurt if it happened to be halfway nice looking, either. Brenda was getting awfully tired of feeling frumpy sitting on the couch in tank tops and sweat pants next to Sharon's Armani-clad figure. As her mind flitted to thoughts of Sharon's wardrobe, Brenda's eyes zeroed in on the one dress she owned that was both flattering and that she could put on without feeling as if she were being split in half. Smiling, Brenda nodded to herself and pulled out the soft, cotton dress. Hanging it on the back of the bathroom door to steam out the wrinkles while she showered, Brenda mentally put on end to her self-imposed convalescence. She was going to shave her legs, and put on makeup, and look presentable. She was going to knock Sharon's socks off.

"As a friend," Brenda muttered to herself, knitting her brows. "I'm going to knock my friends socks off. Because friends do that, right? They get dressed up for each other all the time. And now you're talking to yourself. If you don't stop it, they'll put you in a nice, white coat with a built-in hug and Sharon won't be your friend anymore." Sighing, Brenda turned the shower on.

Sharon's smile spread wider and wider the closer she got to Brenda's apartment door. She had been looking forward to this movie night all week and was more grateful than she would every be able to convey to the citizens of Los Angeles for their momentary cease fire (and cease stabbing, bludgeoning, and strangling). She attempted to reign in what she was sure was beginning to resemble a maniacal grin, flicked her hair over her shoulder, and knocked gently on Brenda's door. Sharon could tell the Brenda had not been healing as quickly as the doctors had expected and despite her love for movie night, if there were a chance that Brenda was napping, she didn't want to risk waking her for a movie and the Ding Dong Sharon had hidden in her bag. Sharon heard the click of the lock and practically bounced on her heels as the door swung open.

"Sorry I'm late! Luckily, the people of Lo-." Sharon's eyes widened and she no longer had to worry about looking maniacal as her grin had been completely wiped from her face. Brenda stood in the doorway in a navy blue, jersey dress that was somehow clingy and flowing in all the right places. Her hair curled softly around her shoulders and she'd applied the lightest hint of makeup to hide how pale she'd gotten in the past weeks. Sharon's stomach flipped and she shoved her hands into her pockets, afraid of what they could do if left to their own devices.

Brenda smiled and Sharon wondered at the glint of...what? Victory, maybe, that she saw there. Sharon wondered how long she'd been standing there like a weirdo and cleared her throat, surprised out how dry her mouth had gotten all of a sudden. Come on, Sharon. Don't do this. Activate friend mode! Activate friend mode! Also, stop watching sci-fi movies before bed. You are thinking like a robot.

"You clean up nice, Brenda Leigh! What brought this on?" Friend. Friend. Friend. What is wrong with you!? youareherfriendyouarefriends!

Brenda didn't know why seeing Sharon dumbstruck had left her feeling so- there was no other way to put it- powerful. Giddily, she sucked in more air than was safe and a stabbing pain above her navel momentarily caused her to round her shoulders and wince. Damn! As soon as she moved to relieve the pain in her abdomen, she sensed the mood shift back to normal. Damn it, Brenda Leigh, you got cocky! Sharon stepped forward and put a hand on Brenda's shoulder.

"Brenda? Are you okay?" The concern in her voice eradicated any trace of the power Brenda had felt just moments before. The sigh that escaped Brenda's lips was pure disappointment and frustration. She didn't know what she had been going for, where she had been trying to lead them or the night, she just knew that the 13 or so seconds in which everything had been off-kilter had been the steadiest she'd felt since a bullet and ripped her open.

"Yeah! No- I'm fine! Thank you. Come in and sit down. There's a pizza on the way and I've got Steel Magnolias in the DVD player." Brenda shooed Sharon toward the sofa.

"Steel Magnolias, Brenda Leigh? Your poor throw pillow is not going to survive many more of these weepy movies."

Brenda watched Sharon sit and pull the little daisy pillow into her lap. Sharon felt something shift in her chest as she picked at a loose thread on the pillow's seam.

That night started everything going downhill.

Back to That Text from Brenda

Sharon thought about everything that had happened leading up to Brenda's sudden, mad dash back to Georgia. She shook her head and blinked back the sting of bitter tears that threatened to spring to her eyes. No. She was not going to revisit that disaster. Tossing her phone to the love seat across the room, she punched the cushion next to her on the sofa. As she felt a burn on the heel of her hand, she immediately regretting losing her temper. Looking down, she fought back a squeal. Her cranberry needle was imbedded in her hand almost to the eye.

"Son of a bitch!"