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Tammy knows this is a bad idea even before she stands up but she does it anyway, feeling the adrenaline of the moment keeping her afloat and channelling all her frustrations into her punches.
She’ll worry about the consequences later.
Dwayne steps up to the cell bars, finding Tammy sat unmoving on the bed, eyes vacant and expression blank.
“Gregorio.”
He’s careful to keep all emotion out of his voice as he greets her because he’s not quite sure what he’s feeling right now – he’s been fluctuating between anger and concern since he got the call that she’d been brought in.
She doesn’t turn to him, her expression doesn’t change, she just asks in a monotone, “Am I in trouble?”
“Charges dropped,” he explains simply.
When that doesn’t garner a reaction either, his concern outweighs his anger and he pulls open the cell door, taking a seat next to her on the thin mattress.
There’s a moment of silence then he frowns, “What happened, Gregorio? It's not like you to get into a fight.”
“Maybe it's exactly like me,” she snaps and he leans back, surprised by the sudden anger burning brightly in the eyes that had been so lifeless only moments ago, “maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do.”
Still confused by what’s going on but knowing it’s something, Dwayne replies quietly, “Of course I don't know everything about you, Tammy. Just like you don't know everythin’ about me. But I've got your back. We're a team and I'm here for you.”
He resists the urge to reach for her as he normally would, somehow sensing that a hand on her shoulder wouldn’t have the desired effect just now.
Especially when her expression hardens, not into anger as it had been, but into a blank resolve.
Her only reply is to lift her hand to run it through her hair, letting it fall back into her lap when she notices how it’s covered in blood.
Knowing he’s not getting anywhere and that he won’t if they stay here, Dwyane sighs and stands, “Come on.”
Pride doesn’t try and start a conversation as they drive and Tammy’s grateful. She’s not sure she could take any more questions or an attempt at a normal conversation just now.
It doesn’t take her long to work out where they’re going and she nearly protests but she knows Pride, she’s felt the concern in the glances he’s been directing at her every few seconds even if she’s refused to return them, and she knows he won’t let her get away without having her hand looked at.
The morgue is quiet and mostly dark, only a few late-night workers around, but a lamp is on over Loretta’s desk and Pride makes for it, leaving her to trail along behind.
“Dwyane?” Loretta asks in surprise, then she catches sight of Tammy and her eyebrows raise, “Tammy? Is everything alright?”
She directs the question to both of them, but Pride is the one who side-steps it, “Loretta, we were hoping for your first aid skills.”
He nods to her hands and Tammy tenses under the scrutiny. She doesn’t want them looking at her, she doesn’t want them questioning her, she doesn’t even want them thinking about her.
Loretta looks at her questioningly but, in a show of cowardice she doesn’t normally portray, she refuses to meet her eye.
The two have a silent conversation and she suddenly feels like a child who can half understand the conversation their parents are having above their head, knowing it’s about them but not quite sure of the details.
Only sure of that sinking dread of knowing it’s not good.
Pursing her lips, Loretta motions her to a chair and she sits obediently, partly out of the exhaustion that’s seeping through her entire body and partly because she wants to get out of here, to lick her wounds in private, and the only way to do that with minimal fuss is to just get this over with.
She’s aware of Pride hovering behind her as the Doc sets about cleaning her knuckles.
It feels like she’s being guarded, she’s just not sure if she’s the one being protected or the one under guard.
And she doesn’t know which is worse, the wait there would be at a hospital or the silent disapproval and concern radiating from Loretta as she cleans the cuts.
The antiseptic stings but she welcomes it. It might be the only thing keeping her awake and alert at this point.
Beyond the slight shuffling of material, the room is silent, unnervingly so, and she finds herself waiting for something to happen. For someone to speak, for Sebastian to run in with a lead, for Pride to ask her what the hell had happened.
“Can I check you over for other injuries?”
She hadn’t even noticed that the Doc had finished.
Taking the hand back, she flexes her knuckles slightly and internally shrugs, she’s had worse.
Then Loretta’s words catch up to her and she hesitates, the frown showing just enough on her face for the Doc to fix her with a stern expression.
“Tammy, where else is it you hurt?”
Reluctantly, she lifts up her crumpled shirt to show where she knows a is bruise forming right across her ribs.
“They aren't broken,” she comments quietly.
She knows broken. She’s cracked ribs before and it’s a pressure in the lungs and a sharp pain every time she breathes, not a dull ache across the muscle and skin.
“You should have a scan anyway!”
Stubbornly, she shakes her head and Loretta seems to see it’s a lost cause because she opens a small freezer by her desk to get an ice pack despite the clear disapproval on her face.
Idly, she wonders if everyone sees her as a lost cause. If, in her heart of hearts, there’s nothing anyone can do for her.
Dwayne watches Tammy silently, having noticed her complete lack of flinching or gritted resolve the entire time her hand was being tended to.
He also can’t miss the look Loretta throws at him as they’re leaving that tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s to look out for their girl. Not that he was ever going to do any different.
Ignoring Tammy’s clear unease when she realises where they’re going, he drives them to the TruTone and leads her in the back way, by-passing all the crowds to his apartment above.
There’s an anxious energy radiating off her and he knows that one wrong move and she’s going to bolt – that she’s already seriously considering it – but it only takes him a minute of her unsure hovering in the corner to put sheets on the spare bed.
When he reappears with some clothes for her to sleep in and she still hasn’t moved, just staring at the bed with a kind of lost expression on her face, he explains quietly, “I don't know what's going on with you, but I don't want you to be alone. Especially, not tonight.”
Obviously recognising his resolve, she caves, much quicker than he thought she would, instead sitting wordlessly on the end of the bed, her shoulders hunched and expression weary.
“Gregorio, what happened?” he asks gently, disconcerted by her silence, “did someone say something to you?”
He’s beyond relieved when she shakes her head.
Then she sighs and admits stoically, “I saw a man spiking a woman's drink. Instead of arresting him, I punched him. Then his friends tried to defend him and I punched them too.”
“Gregorio...” he sighs, knowing he can’t take a high road because he would have done the same in many cases.
Mostly on bad days.
Immediately, she’s up and pacing the length of the room, running agitated hands through her hair, “I know, Pride, I know I messed up, I don't need a lecture.”
He stays where he is, letting her stride past him and instead countering calmly, “I'm not here to give you a lecture, I'm here to show concern.”
At the furthest point from him, she turns sharply and glares, “I don't need that either.”
But he sees it for what it is, a defence. She’s blocking everyone out, as she so often does, pushing people away so she doesn’t get hurt more.
He wishes he couldn’t relate.
“We all need a little concern our way from time to time-“ he knows that just as well as anyone- “it's not like you to throw punches around like this. I know you're impulsive, at times, but you're not irrational.”
For a long moment, Tammy just stares at him, swallowing harshly.
Then, unblinking, she grits, “The only thing my father ever taught me how to do was fight. With my mother, with classmates, with myself.”
He watches as she clenches her fists, resisting the urge to take them in his and make them relax, knowing it must be making her split knuckles sting. But she’s talking and he’s not going to risk that by moving any closer.
“But you've taught yourself differently, right?” he asks instead.
A rage alights in her eyes, burning through her words, “Every time I think I have, something happens and I realise I'm more like him than ever. Even though I haven't seen him since I was eleven. And he's dead now. He still haunts me.”
Again, he wishes he didn’t relate.
“It sounds like you need a new father figure,” he muses aloud.
She scoffs, “Yeah well I can't see anyone lining up for that honour.”
“Ouch,” he winces automatically, “I'm here, I care.”
And the rage is gone, replaced by the vacant look that he knows is just another form of protection as she replies, “You have a daughter.”
“It's not an 'either or' situation, New York,” he reminds her plainly, “I have a big heart.”
Probably too big, it’s spent a lot of time caring about people it couldn’t save or who weren’t worth the pain.
But Tammy could never be one of those people, she’s family. She means more to him than she’ll probably ever know.
“Yeah, you do.”
She’s looking at him strangely. Maybe she’s thinking about all the scrapes he’s got into over the last two years because he’s cared too much at times, taken too much to heart.
“And don't you think that's a miracle with my father?”
There’s a slight smile on his face and he knows it’s self-deprecating but she doesn’t react to it.
“You got your heart from your mom and a desperation to prove yourself better than everyone thinks because of your dad.”
She knows him. It might be because in many ways she is him. They have too much in common.
“Don't become me-“ he can’t let her make all the mistakes he has- “you don't have anything to prove.”
“I was… jealous.”
Tammy hates herself the moment she says it, wishing with everything that she could take it back.
“Jealous?”
He’s confused, of course he is. One moment they’re talking about caring too much and the next she’s telling him why the whole night had started, why she’d found herself in a random bar with too many big emotions to deal with. She knows he wants to know but she still hates herself for it.
Swallowing, she explains, “You’re a good dad,” suddenly exhausted, she gestures vaguely, “look I didn’t want to say it because it’s not my place and it’s not your fault and fuck knows it’s not Laurel’s fault for my messed-up family life…”
Just because she doesn’t have something and she never will, doesn’t mean she has any right to bring anyone else down. Especially not Laurel.
“You deserve a good family.”
She blinks, “I’m not sure I deserve anything. I’m not sure anyone does.”
“Either way, you have a family, right here.”
Yes, she does. And her family means a lot to her.
But she’s also aware that most of the team have other family; brothers, moms, children, goddaughters.
The team is her entire family. She knows that she needs them so much more than they need her.
“Like I said, I have a big heart.”
His words catch her off guard as she suddenly realises that he hadn’t been talking about the team, he’d just meant himself.
“But Laurel-“ she protests weakly.
He just shrugs, the smile on his face so typically Pride in its pure affection, “Laurel always wanted a sister.”
Blatantly not knowing how to deal with those words, she grabs the clothes from the bed and darts into the bathroom, pulling them on in a daze brought on through sleep-deprivation, an adrenaline crash and complete emotional exhaustion.
Everything feels like a dream around her as she renters the bedroom and finds him there still, pulling back the bedsheets for her.
She slips under them automatically, feeling overwhelmed as he pulls the comforter around her.
This can’t be real, can it? She’s sleeping, right? She must be already asleep.
And yet she could have sworn, as everything goes black around her, he smooths her hair out of her face and kisses her forehead, whispering, “Don’t waste your life on anger, it’s no way to live.”
When she wakes in the morning, she’s still not sure how much was real and what was a dream but noises have her shuffling out of bed and stumbling into the kitchen to find him cooking breakfast.
It’s so organic, seeing Pride in the kitchen, like it’s his natural habitat.
He catches sight of her and grins cheerfully, affectionately greeting her, “Mornin’ kid.”
Emotion overwhelms her at those words and she can only stare blankly at the fresh coffee he pushes into her hands.
“Morning,” she chokes out.
“Hey…” he’s at her side in an instant, concerned face hovering below hers as she sets down the coffee.
He reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder, reassuring as always, but she lurches forward and hugs him instead.
With no hint of hesitation, he gathers her into his arms and hugs her back, head resting on the top of hers as he whispers into her hair, “You know you’ll always have a place at this table.”