Where You Belong

Promises, Promises

The ride home was hell, to say the least.

With a good number of cars gone from the sides of the street, it was relatively easy to make their way back to Brittany's own vehicle, though still rather slow because of a crying Lexi. Brittany whispered comforting words in her ear the whole walk over, supporting her best friend with a hand around her waist. She could feel the brunette's tears seeping into the top of her dress, Lexi's face hidden from view as she wept silently, but the black-haired woman couldn't have cared any less about having her dress ruined.

The three walked in silence, Law still angry that Brittany hadn't let him give Cooper a piece of his mind after what had transpired. Nothing less than a good beating and perhaps a few amputations would put him in a better mood. One glance at Lexi, however, made him calm down if only for awhile, for her sake, at least.

"Over here." Brittany said, the first words spoken in several minutes of empty silence, as she pointed over towards her car. Pulling a pair of keys from inside her bra, she clicked the button and the lights on the back lit up a few times. They approached and she helped ease Lexi into the back seat, Law getting in on the other side.

After helping Lexi get her seatbelt on, Brittany got into the driver's seat and started the car. The engine started up before settling into the familiar constant purr, but she didn't move to start driving. Arms on the wheel, they trembled slightly. Noticing this, Law raised a brow, staring at her frown of consternation through the rearview mirror.

"Brittany-ya?" He asked, probing her mind. She only blinked, looking down at her hands. Perhaps she hadn't heard him, so he nudged the back of her chair with his knee. "Oi." He said a little louder.

She looked up at him through the mirror, eyes wide. "Is this my fault?" She whispered.

"Why would you think that?" He asked, genuinely confused. She ran her hands under her eyes, attempting to rid them of the oncoming tears without smudging her makeup.

"She didn't want to come in the first place. None of this would have happened if I hadn't have pushed it."

"You couldn't have known." He reassured, not quite sure what he was supposed to say. Comforting upset women wasn't something he did on regular basis. "What's done is done. You can't change it now."

His rather blunt words of wisdom must have gotten through to her because Brittany, after a few moments of absorbing what he said, quickly straightened her back and let out the pent up breath she'd been holding. Composing herself back into the confident and no-nonsense Brittany he was used to seeing, she nodded silently before grabbing the gear shift and driving off into the night.

Law sat directly behind Brittany, Lexi seated on the opposite side, leaning heavily against the door without saying a word. Her inspected her with an expert medical eye, seeing no serious physical damage to her person. There was light bruising around her wrists where Cooper had pinned her to the wall, and a few red marks on her neck, but otherwise untouched. Though he suspected that her mental and emotional state would be unbalanced.

Her arms were crossed over her chest protectively, eyes shut tightly in an attempt to forget everything that had happened. Law knew otherwise, that no matter how much alcohol she consumed, she wouldn't forget what had happened. It would stick with her forever.

His anger flared up again at the marks, but there wasn't anything he could do about it right at that moment. He vowed, however, that he'd fix that problem as soon as possible.

Brittany, thankfully, hadn't had a large amount of alcohol during the party and was able to pass off driving sober all the way to Lexi's house. There were several cops out that night, but half of them were already pulled over to the side of the road, testing young adults with breathalyzers and straight lines. Law wondered why they were testing them like that, but figured it wasn't the time nor the place to ask such a question.