Date: October 2006
Title: Brass Tact
Author: LosingInTranslation
(aka Jennifer, losingntrnslatn)
Disclaimer: Don’t own it, don’t have any money either… I just like to play with
the characters now and then. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
Rating: T for Teen
Pairings: GSR (Part of the Busted!
Series)
Spoilers: Season 6
Summary: Recovery leads to
recollecting his life and getting a clearer look at his present. Brass Fic (like the title didn’t give it away).
Brass Tact
Lying in a hospital bed,
with tubes and wires coming and going without any pattern he could recognize,
Jim Brass had been left to his thoughts once his friends and colleagues had
finally trickled away, one by one. But it was that one absent face that
immediately popped into his mind’s eye. Well,
at least she came… I didn’t even think she’d pull that off.
It bothered him that he
had placed so little faith in his only child. And that was the cruelest joke of
all, since she was never really his to begin with. Out of a sense of guilt he
had never shared that information with her, but he knew it was one of the
things that made it easier for him when he left
Failure had long been a
big part of his life. He was a misguided youth that had to be scared straight
by a forward thinking judge. He was a cocky young man, convinced being a cop
would give him the chance to serve with respect, only to be met with the most
despicable forms of corruption. He married his high school sweetheart, because
that was the thing to do back then, but his disillusionment with his job and
his insane hours led the breakdown of his marriage. His resolve disappeared
when he started to drink, culminating in his and his wife’s infidelities, his
later divorce, being made for a rat by those same corrupt officers when he
tried to do the right thing, and finally abandoning his daughter to make a new
life in Las Vegas when he eventually got clean.
Unfortunately, failure was
not the exclusive province of his life in
And then, just when he
thought the failures were finally behind him, along came
a couple of cars filled with blasting drug runners and a rookie cop jumping up
from cover. It had been such a chaotic scene that he was completely unaware
that he had shot the young officer. When the ballistics report came back, his
old friend took it on himself to break the news. Gil actually looked like someone had stomped on his cockroaches when he
showed up at my house that morning. But it was better coming from him than
anyone else. And I will never be able to get the image of
His concentration was
pulled away as one of the alarms started to sound off on the machine at his
left. The shrill sound was killing his ears and just when he was about to knock
the thing over, a nurse came in and hit the alarm.
“I’m sorry, Capt. Brass…
I’ll shut off the audible alarm now. I still get the message at my desk and it
won’t wake you that way.” She smiled warmly down at him and made a few notes
into his chart before she turned back to him as she asked, “The doctor has something
on here to help you relax… Would you like to take it now? You seem a little
agitated.”
Brass just shook his head
slightly, “If ya don’t mind, I’d kinda
like to stay conscious for a little while longer.”
She left him with a tender
smile as she patted his hand before she turned out of the room. And he was once
again alone with his thoughts.
What was I thinking about? Oh right! What a fucking
horrible cop I am. He had far too
many major mistakes on his record for his own comfort. If he had been looking
at his own personnel file, he would have put himself on psych leave. Classic burnout case.
That led him to
remembering what had gotten him into that hospital bed in the first place. Biggest mistake of my entire
career. He had walked into that room wearing a vest that was not
his, because he had forgotten his in the car. He had walked into that room
without a plan, beyond a kill word. He had walked into that room and been
suckered by a less than cunning suspect. And he had nearly paid for it with his
life, but in the end, the suspect paid the higher price for his ineptitude; he
was dead.
Before he was able to get
any further into his self-loathing assessment of his life, he was interrupted
by the appearance of a tall, skinny brunette standing in his doorway.
“Hey,
Jim.” Sara waited to make sure
he was indeed awake before she stepped into the room.
He smiled softly at the
younger woman and used the only familiar term he had ever thought of around
her. “Hey, Cookie…” He noticed that she was carrying something behind her back
and tried to crane his neck around to see what it was. “What brings you out
here?”
She slipped in to the side
of his bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking quite so scruffy, so I
stopped by and picked you up a few things.” And then she leaned in to whisper,
“I also brought you a little something for when they get you unhooked.”
From the way she had
spoken, he was certain she was up to no good, but he only saw the gym bag from
his own office. “Yeah, well, I guess a guy needs to look his best.”
His confused statement
brought a smirk to the side of her mouth. That was one of the many things about
Sara Sidle that Brass had always found endearing; her innumerable smiles, with
each one a blessing. “Yeah, but I bet the contents will help a little more than
that.”
Brass regarded her with a
suspicious glare. However, when she opened up the side pocket and he caught
sight of the light glinting off of the silver flask inside he rewarded her with
one of his best sideways grins. “How’d you know where to find it?”
Sara smirked again and
shrugged, “A fly on the wall, maybe.”
“More like a bug man at
home.” Sara worked to stifle the laugh that was about to erupt from her chest, and
then looked around to make sure no one had heard her slip.
“Yeah, well, I might have
swiped a little of his special stash to top it off for you.”
Jim had his first good
chuckle at the impish expression on her face. “Oh, that makes it even better,
because that’s what I usually fill it with.” The two shared a very quiet laugh.
Jim may not have had a watch, but between his instincts and Sara’s behavior, he
knew it had to be after visiting hours and he wanted to make sure Sara had a
clean getaway.
“Hey, I won’t tell if you
won’t.”
Jim titled his head to the
side as much as he could and said, “Yeah, but eventually I’ll have to get him
another bottle… Since you two finally wised up, he hasn’t had much cause to
share a drink with the likes of me anymore.” Brass leaned back against his
pillow to try and jog out the memory of their last after hours nip. “I think it
was sometime before Christmas, actually. Nope, I know it for a fact, because it
was the first Christmas since I’ve known the guy he didn’t work the holiday
shift.” He gave Sara a knowing look and she blushed ever so slightly at his
insinuation.
“I keep asking him when
you found out, and he won’t say.” Sara looked around again, as though she
expected someone to come jumping out and yell BUSTED! at her at any moment. “When did
you know?”
Her question sent his mind
soaring back in time. He tried to pinpoint the exact moment that he knew that
the pair of quirky investigators were going to be together.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
They were sitting in Jim’s
office, sharing a friendly drink after Gil had returned from his seminar. He
had noticed that his friend had been more at ease in recent months: almost like
he had finally gotten comfortable in his own skin again.
Ever since he had been
made supervisor, Gil had been a troubled man, but it was more than that. Some
of the answers came in the guise of a strawberry blonde with a need to share
some information. He knew that Gil had been having trouble, but he had never
expected something as traumatic as possibly losing all of his hearing until
Catherine had spilled the beans. However, even that dilemma could not explain
all of his friend’s tension and unease. No, the rest of it lay squarely on the
shoulders of that gorgeous, caring and special creature known as Sara Sidle.
Jim knew from the
beginning that she meant a whole lot more to Gil than just another colleague,
but the circumstances surrounding her arrival in Vegas had cast a shadow over
what he assumed were his friend’s plans. And the next few years were nothing
short of torture, for the both of them.
He had done his best to
offer his support to them both, but as much as he treasured his friendship with
Gil, he had to admit his heart always went out to Sara. She was everything he
had always hoped for with his daughter, except for the deep seated sadness that
he would occasionally find behind those impossibly soft brown eyes. Against his
better judgment, and after a particularly disturbing case, he had done the
unthinkable; he looked her up in the system. What he had found there made his
heart break. After that, he did his best to be there for her, but in the end he
knew there was only one person who could heal those wounds, and that was Sara
herself. That was what had made him so happy by that point, because he truly
felt like Sara had turned that corner. She was smiling again, and she was
offering her support to the others.
When she had gotten back
that morning from that case in
His thoughts were
interrupted by Gil asking him a question. “Sorry, what?
“What’s her name, Jim?”
Gil gave him a curious stare with his eyebrow raised in suggestion.
“Ah,
Sara, actually.” He watched as
his friend’s expression immediately changed at the mention of the young woman. Try and shake that one off, buddy. “She
ah, stopped by here when she got back from
He watched as Gil worked
to drop his professional distance back over his face. “Is that so? I suppose I
should discuss that with her then.” His face took on another quality that Jim
was all too aware of; suspicion. “Was that all?”
“Nah, she was dropping off
her request for that conference in
He watched as Gil had to
force himself back into the present in order to answer him. “What? Oh yes, I-I
believe she has.”
Jim knew the conversation
was over at that point, because he could actually hear the gears grinding in
his friend’s head as he processed the new information. But his suspicions were
confirmed when Gil stood up from his seat. “Well, I have a few things to do
before I go home… So, I should ah, be going.” Gil was halfway out the door when
he called back over his shoulder, “Thanks, Jim.”
When he was sure the man
was well out of ear shot he rocked back in his chair and laughed. “Anytime, old
buddy.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“You want an honest
answer?”
“Of
course.” Her answer came quick,
and Jim knew that he had her right where he wanted her.
“When he told me he was
bringing you in from
Sara continued to stand
stock still after his admission. “Now, if you want to know when I think you two
were actually getting together…” He waited and she slightly nodded her head, so
he continued, “When he called those conference people in
That seemed to be a little
much for her and she scrunched her eyebrows together when she stated, “But that
was like a couple of weeks before we ever even da-…”
Hearing the words come out of her mouth made them click in her head. “You knew before I DID?!”
“What? You would’ve rather
I spoiled the surprise for the both of you?” He asked her with a mocking tone
and a wink. If there was one thing he was never a failure at, it was getting
the better of his friends. There would never be a snarky comment left unsaid in
his presence, as it should always be.