Police & Justice - VSC Unit Pt. 01

"Yes I know," Captain Jenson agrees, putting both of her hands together at her chest in a steeple position, nodding once and blinking her eyes once in empathy. "You certainly have."

"And I just decided I really needed a break, from guys, from all dating I mean," Collins continues. And it's been good. I'VE been GOOD!" She emphasizes further.

"But then when me and Detective Santiago got paired up together for this case, something just happened. We just, I don't know, I guess we just, really hit it off together. She told me about her bad luck with guys and I told her about mine and we just both agreed we've had enough of guys for a while. And then, I don't know, I guess we just both found a new friendship that developed really fast and we kind of started to really like each other a lot.

"And I guess we're both just in this place, where we're just really open to each other. And like I said, I've never felt this way for another woman before, not this openly, but we both just..." And here Collins puts both of her hands palm down on her knees, lowering her head, drawing her eyes to the floor and softly falling off with, "get so excited around each other," finishing with a slight smile and a blush, like a school girl with a previously secret crush.

"But Collins, why on duty," Captain Jenson presses her. "Why not at least wait until you get off work to see each other?"

"Well because captain," Belinda begins awkwardly, "we don't want anyone to see Santiago visiting me at my apartment here in Manhattan, two female NYPD cops fraternizing after work. And Brooklyn is quite a drive too for me to be making to see another female detective almost every night, it just, it just wouldn't look good for VSC, or for the NYPD. And you know how the local press and tabloids are always trying to get some dirt on us, always trying to get a story so they can smear VSC and the NYPD again like they've often done before.

"Plus, it was the end of the night captain, our operation was done for the night, and we just wanted to take a little time..."

"Time on the clock Collins!" Jenson says insistently, cutting her off in mid sentence, holding both of her hands up near either side of her head, palms up to the ceiling. "You were still on the clock Collins," Jenson continues. "And in that neighborhood, in that neighborhood," she says a second time repeating it louder for emphasis. "Anything could have happened! Nobody on your squad knew where you were or what you were doing, what if something bad really did actually happen?"

"I know captain, you're right, it was stupid and I'm really sorry, I promise we won't do it again." Putting her hands in the steeple position again Captain Jenson draws a big breath and lets it out in a long sigh.

"Collins," she begins in exasperation. "We have another problem here."

"What?"

"Your missing time," Captain Jenson continues. "A lot of your reports lately have missing blocks of time in them. I have to file these Collins. There's a pattern here, and I'm responsible for every member of this squad. And Belinda, I can't just look the other way on this, I have to send this up the chain to Chief Garrett. This could be a big deal Collins, he's going to want to suspend you pending an investigation by IAB" by which she meant the Internal Affairs Bureau, the police division which investigates police misconduct and law violations within the NYPD.

"And you already know how it's going to go once they start getting involved in this. They're going to find the missing time in these reports and then they're going to really start digging into both you and Detective Santiago's lives and then they're going to find out everything." Detective Collins shivers a little because she knows Captain Jenson is right. Once IAB got involved there would be no hiding her activities with Detective Santiago, and when they found out what they'd been up to it could very well be the end of both of her and Santiago's careers.

"You've put me in a difficult position Belinda. I have a duty to this force, to VSC, to the NYPD, and all the colleagues and friends here who have placed their trust in me to uphold the integrity of this squad and everything we stand for here at NYPD. And yet you know how much I value your friendship, and how much you've meant to me all these years. You're a good cop and a great friend Collins, someone I've really trusted and relied on and I would hate to see this happen to you, but I gotta act, I gotta do something here. I can't just sit on this.

"So," Jenson sighs, exasperated again. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to write up a report on all this and send it to Chief Garrett. Unless...," Captain Jenson pauses for a long time here, looking deep inside herself, silently and carefully examining her own deepest innermost feelings. She can't believe she's really about to go here with Belinda, really about to possibly start something which goes against everything important which she's held to so dedicatedly in her integrity to the force, to all her peers, mentors, friends and colleagues at the NYPD, and to all her personal relationships with all of them for all these years.

But on the other hand, Detective Belinda Collins has been one of the closest and best friends she's ever had for many years on the force, including all the way back many years into her days as a detective in VSC and beyond. And more than that, of all the other women Captain Jenson has ever known in all her years with the NYPD, she has never felt closer to or trusted any one of them so truly and deeply as she does Belinda. So if ever there was a woman in Jenson's life who she could ever really trust to share such deeply held and discrete feelings of personal intimacy, warmth and affection, it definitely would be Collins.

So, choosing her words very carefully she considers how to very slowly make her approach here, about to discretely broach the subject with her old friend and confidant Detective Belinda Collins of them becoming closer and more than just friends. "Unless, we can maybe come up with something else together, maybe talk about this a lot more in private first. I could maybe just wait a few more days before I start this report."

"What are you talking about captain?" Detective Collins asks her, puzzled. Captain Jenson peers carefully behind Belinda through the windows in her office walls which gives her a view of most of the VSC squad room, making sure no one else is about to approach her office. Then, leaning forward on her desk on her elbows and clasping her hands together, bringing her closer to Detective Collins, she looks down at her hands for just a second or two and blinks once or twice in closed mouth silence, preparing herself, and then she begins.

"Well Belinda," she says in a much softer, more intimate tone as she looks back up at her, which tells Collins this has now become a different conversation. "I have to say, I wasn't completely offended by what I saw, between you and and detective Santiago." Detective Collins raises one eyebrow a little, staring at captain Jenson very intently as her mouth hangs open just a little in surprise.

"Just like you Belinda," Jenson continues slowly. "I've never had feelings like this for another woman before, and in the course of our friendship, I've certainly never felt this way towards you either. Of course we know we're both strict professionals. And this is probably something neither one of us has ever thought about very consciously, since we've both only been involved with men before.

"And as you know I take the integrity of this squad, and my own personal integrity, very seriously. And this wouldn't be the first time I've had feelings for a colleague but I always put our personal respect, integrity, duty and honor to the force and NYPD first, and maintain a strict code of ethics here in VSC.

"But we've been close friends for many years now, we've been through a lot together, good, bad and terrible. And we've developed kind of a special bond together, wouldn't you agree?"

"Absolutely, captain" Collins replies, closing her mouth and nodding resolutely.

"And I trust you in a very special way, we have a closeness we don't share with anyone else on this squad, or in the NYPD. And now we have a unique situation here," Jenson pauses, glancing down at the photos for just a brief split second before looking back at Collins to make her point.

"So, I have to act on this, I have to do something," Captain Jenson continues. "But I'm the only one who's seen this. So Belinda, if you could just stop seeing people, whoever they may be, on the clock," she continues with both of her hands palm up facing Belinda, finger tips pointing towards the ceiling.

"Clean up your reports and keep them honest and not do this again, and if we could maybe talk about this some more in private, then maybe we can figure out a way together to explain these missing time lapses in your reports, just in case any questions ever do come up later in the future, and maybe these photos could also just disappear forever. It's quite easy after all to accidently delete a whole bunch of photos from your phone without meaning to."

For a moment Belinda just sits back in silence in her chair looking intently at Jenson, her mouth open just a little as she runs her tongue back and forth along the inside of her lower front gums, kind of stunned at hearing this suggestion from Captain Jenson. Her eyes drift again to the photos and she reflects on some of what Jenson said earlier, about sending a report on all this up the chain to Chief Garrett, and holding off on that report and making the photos disappear...

IF they meet privately to talk about it. As she considers this carefully she starts to get the wrong idea about what Jenson meant by saying those things. As she does her mouth hangs open a little and she really begins to feel some indignation, which is visible in her eyes as she looks back at Captain Jenson.

"You know," she says. "You don't have to pressure me like this Captain," and here Collins gestures towards the photos, briefly waving her extended pointer finger sideways at them, angst clearly audible in her voice. "Yeah we can always talk about anything as you know, we are friends after all, and of course I would love to talk privately about being more open about our feelings towards each other and being closer in private, but you didn't need to come at me this way!"

"Whoa, Collins wait a minute, don't get me wrong Belinda," Captain Jenson interjects defensively, lowering her head slightly and blinking one quick time as she holds her hands up again, palms again facing collins. "I'm not trying to pressure you into doing anything, especially something you wouldn't consider or don't want to do. You know how I feel about you and about our friendship, and you know I would never do anything like that to you, I'm the last person who would ever do something like that to you.

"And this is not me coming after you. This is me trying to protect both you and this whole squad. Belinda you should know by now that IAB would love to make a case against us if they ever find us with mud on our hands." As she's saying these things Collins can see in her demeanor of genuine concern that Jenson is completely sincere.

"And 1PP," by which Captain Jenson means 1 Police Plaza, NYPD's headquarters and central command, "if they find one of us has stepped over the line like this," and here she gestures briefly at the photos with one hand, "they're not going to have our backs like I'm trying to do with you right now, they're going to throw us under the bus to prevent NYPD from being smeared by anything that happens here, that's just the way it works, the politics demand that someone take the hit, and they won't allow it to be the NYPD."

Collins says nothing, drawing her eyes to her hands in her lap and nodding somberly a couple times in silence. She realizes now that she was wrong, and she also knows from her own experience in VSC that Jenson is right and that everything she's saying is absolutely true. And she also feels a little guilty now for momentary having gotten the wrong idea about Octavia's intentions here.

After all she and Detective Santiago had created this situation by their own actions and had dishonestly forced her good friend Octavia into the unfair position of having to weigh her own long-standing reputation of trust and dependability and her obligations to follow procedure and maintain the integrity of her squad and her detectives, so important to both herself and all her peers on the force at NYPD, against her friendship for Belinda. Captain Jenson continues, "I'm just saying that since we're here, and we've somehow ended up at this point, we have to handle this somehow.

"You're my friend Belinda, one of my very best friends and since I truly do consider you to be one of my very best friends and I really do want to find a solution to this problem which will not hurt either of us, or our friendships or our careers, if it's something you would consider, I would really like the chance for us to discuss this a lot more in private, and maybe become closer as friends, maybe even be a little more than friends."

And here Captain Jensen pauses, cocking her head slightly and fixing Collins with a warm smile which is friendly, but which also has some other feelings in it too, a hinting of some private enticement, shared by only the two of them. Feeling a little flushed at getting such an intimate gesture from Captain Jenson, Collins lowers her head and eyes demurely, blushing a little again, before slowly raising her eyes back to Captain Jenson, returning her smile.

"It's absolutely vital to VSC that we maintain the integrity of this squad, but, what we do in our own private time is our business alone," Jenson continues. "I've never given any room to feelings like this for you in my thoughts, because of the nature of our professional working relationship, and because neither one of us has previously expressed an interest in anything but men.

"But I can't deny that seeing these," Jenson waves one hand in a gesture at the photos, "is causing me to, to feel some very special feelings about you Belinda. I guess I may have never realized it very consciously before, but looking back I realize now I have kind of felt a special affinity for you.

"I don't know if I would say protectiveness necessarily, but maybe a kind of closeness and admiration, watching you become stronger and more mature and more confident in yourself as both a woman and a great detective. And above all I trust you like no other woman I've ever known in the NYPD and if there's any woman on the force I've ever known who I feel like I could trust to share feelings like this with it's you Belinda."

Collins glances down at her hands in her lap with that same little blush continuing, and that same slight school girl crush smile again, before looking intently back at Captain Jenson, thinking really hard in silence. Like Jenson, Belinda is a strict, upstanding professional, a little wilder in spirit maybe, but still very dedicated to her professional career and her friends and confidants here on the VSC squad, and to the squad itself.

And like Jenson she also has never thought about other women in this way before, so like her captain she has never given any room in her thoughts to any feelings like this for her. But as she sits here looking back at Captain Jenson, feeling a warm glow from this new found kind of appreciation from her captain, she can't help but look at Jenson in a slightly different new light.

With long reddish dark brown hair with occasional hints of lighter streaks, a strong nose, big beautiful and serious dark brown eyes, lush beautiful soft skin and big full and beautiful lips, and mature too, being a few years older than Belinda, Captain Octavia Jenson definitely looks like a very attractive woman to Collins, to say the least.

Although the idea of something more between them is not uninteresting to her, even tinged with a deep little flare of possible excitement, she wonders if the captain might be testing her, trying to feel out if Detective Collins has lost her integrity. But as she considers it she decides that's ridiculous. She absolutely trusts Captain Jenson eminently, deeply, fully and completely and she knows Jenson feels just exactly the same way about her.

And besides Jenson would never pull a charade and try and test somebody like this if she thought something was up with one of her detectives. She was well known as a no nonsense straight forward driven captain and she would just come straight out and confront the person, just exactly as she's doing right now. So Detective Collins knows Captain Jenson is being completely straight and sincere with her, because that's what Captain Jenson is, straight and sincere, and so Collins knows Jenson's not playing with her, and she also definitely agrees with Jenson about the sincere level of trust and confidance they share with each other.

"Well captain," Detective Collins finally begins slowly, trying to keep her voice low for discretion, despite the closed office door and the noise of the bustling squad room, unable to hide her slight blush and her nervous smile as she chooses her words very carefully. "I'm very flattered."

Taking the very tips of her long, straight, shining blonde hair on her right shoulder and twisting them around her right fingers just a little bit, she glances down at her lap for just a split second before looking back at Jenson with her smile and continuing. "I've kind of felt the same way sometimes Octavia, I definitely have felt some, you know, feelings of admiration towards you through the years too.

"I mean I don't know if you realize this, but I really look up to you and I think of you as a really great, strong mentor. Gesturing towards Octavia with both hands straight out in front of her now, palms up to the ceiling, Collins continues, nodding her head two or three times resolutely with her face completely serious and sincere now as she speaks.

"You not only saved my life, you kept me honest, you had my back when I really needed you, you picked me up when I fell and helped me get back on my feet again, and I can't tell you how much your friendship and the trust we've developed between us has meant to me all these years. Honestly I feel closer to you than anyone else on the squad." Putting her hands down in her lap and nodding a couple more times again Collins continues, "And yes, I would like to discuss being closer to you, very much so captain.

"But like you said, we have both never really thought of being with women before, and we definitely do have to keep things as absolutely strict and professional as can be here in the VSC squad. But I'm kind of glad actually to hear that I'm not alone in having these, these kinds of feelings. And so yes, I would like that too captain, I would really like to actually have the chance to discuss this more in private with you Octavia. I also think of you as one of my very best friends and you've taught me so much in my time here on the VSC."

They both pause for just a moment now, smiling softly at each other in a very comfortable silence as they mutually soak in their thoughts about this new found openness and communication in their true feelings for each other.

"Well then I'll tell you what," Jenson says, sighing happily to break the silence before it becomes awkward, leaning forward on her desk on her elbows and putting her hands in the steeple position again in front of her chin, glancing down at her desk for just a brief second before looking back at Collins and continuing. "How about, we continue this at my place, let's say Saturday night around 8 p.m., how does that sound?"

"That sounds great captain, I look forward to it!" Collins replies excitedly with a happy smile. "Okay then," Jensen says, "why don't we get back to work, and we'll finish this then." Picking up all the photos from her desk Octavia shuffles them all back into the manila folder again. Glancing around discreetly as she stands up from her desk she whispers softly to collins, "and these I think I'll just take right down to the shredder."