West to the End of the World

Code: 4-1-9

8 hours earlier...

"Okay, how 'bout this one..."

Veronica rolled her eyes so sharply that she could have seen the contents of her skull. Luckily she hadn't or else she would have ran the red light on the corner of 5th Avenue. She placed the blinker on to turn left.

Miguel was doing it again. That thing where he would stop at nothing to get a reaction out of her. Everyday it was something new. Yesterday, he insisted on driving the cruiser - typically Veronica's function - and tailed a group of bike-riding school boys playing hooky until one of them broke down crying and volunteered for arrest. Even though her placid expression did not break, she had to admit that it was fairly comical.

Veronica turned from 5th onto Main. It was usually the busiest street in the city, with all of its swanky boutiques, the French and Italian and anything-but-American restaurants, and the Starbucks on the corner. However, on this day, far out of the realm of normalcy, it was almost completely devoid of life, save for a flock of birds perched on the telephone wires and Kathy.

Kathy, who owned the "high-end" fragrance center, Scentimental, that was nestled between the Starbucks and Ceila's Closet, flipped over the sign on her plate glass door. The pink, floral sign that usually read "Open" in its convolutedly fancy lettering was now "Closed" in a harshly bolded font. Kathy looked desperately tired, but managed a wave at the passing cruiser.

Veronica spared a glance overhead. The sky was just beginning to gray. Miguel's window was rolled down; the breeze that slithered in was chilly with the premonition of rain. She would have told him to roll the window up, but she remembered how he was always hot. Even in the dead of winter, he managed to sweat.

"I was thirteen at the time," Miguel said, turned towards Veronica with a wild excitement in his dark eyes, "the prime age for a growing man to explore his sexuality-"

Veronica cringed, lifting her hand off of the wheel in a motion for him to stop. "Just stop. Right there."

"Oh, come on. I haven't even gotten to the goods yet," he said, flashing her that winning smile.

If it were anyone else, she would have threatened to leave them on the side of the road. But it was Miguel, and whether she liked it or not, she had a soft spot for the sturdy, bronze Mexican with a crew-cut and the looks of a military man to match. When she first got partnered with him three years ago, after the ironic incident of both of their former partner's retiring, she thought he would be the strict, authoritarian type... Until he opened his mouth. The first thing he ever said to her was, "Are you a parking ticket?" Then he flashed that sly smile of his, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and whispered, "'Cause you've got fine written all over you."

"You're thirty-four years old, Mig." Veronica turned off of Main, onto a residential street with houses crowded closely together as if they were afraid of the chill in the breeze. "Grow up already."

"If you wanna see some growth," he said, reaching his left hand over the center console, landing it on Veronica's thigh, "then I got somethin' for ya'."

She smiled for a moment, her detached demeanor dissolving into absolute nothingness of what it previously was. Miguel was the only person that could do that to her. Make her forget all of the genuine tragedies she was forced to bear witness to throughout her career of protecting and serving. All of the nights they had spent together over the last three years, illuminated by candle-lit dinners, satin bed sheets, and wine that was far beyond Miguel's pay grade, played and replayed in loops in her memory. It was like all of those romance novels, save for the part where they fall in love. They did almost all of the things that real couples did, except that their relationship was uncomplicated by the investment of adoration. It was a clockwork affair determined by when they were on duty, and when the other engagements of their lives, like Dax, swelled in importance. Their affection for each other could be turned on and off, the lines only blurred on the rare occasion, like now, when Miguel forgot where they were and who they were in the moment. It was then that they were police, and they were on duty, and, by the glint of the sun that peeked from around a bundle of clouds to reflect on Miguel's ring, he was a married man. Veronica and Miguel were not in love.