THE CHASE - Connor x OC (I Am Sequel)

Chapter 26

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ethan asked, sitting on my desk's edge.

"Oddly enough, no," I sighed.

"Oh, c'mon," he said, his hand finding the side of my face. He tilted my chin to look up towards him. "Something tells me you do."

I backed up, just slowly enough to pull his hand off without offending him.

"You're wrong. I need to call Nick," I sighed. Then I remembered he was supposed to call me. He must be very busy with his kids right now.

"Then do it?" Ethan offered.

"I can't. I just remembered," I shook my head. "His kids. He just got his kids like yesterday. Calling him and breaking down the entire case will probably just stress him out more."

"Don't you think that arguably, you're even more stressed out than he is?"

"Well. I'm not doing all of this and taking care of kids," I sighed.

"I guess you have a point," Ethan said. "Can I get you some tea?"

"I would kill for some tea," I nodded. Wine, scotch, and all sorts of alcohol are great. For proper relaxation though, you always need a proper cup of tea. Ethan headed off towards the break room and I stared at my mug. Over time my mug hadn't been used as often. My love of tea had gone secondary to everything else. That's not exactly a tragedy though, by any means.

Ethan returned with a cup and handed it over. He smiled as he did so, and I sighed, sipping it. English Breakfast. What else did I expect from the British android?

"No milk or sugar?" he asked, adding in a small bit of cream and sugar to his tea.

"No, thank you."

"Trust me, it tastes better."

"Not to me. I like to taste my tea. The herbs, and spices, all mixing together."

"Ah. You're quite the tea connoisseur. I like that," He smiled.

"Oh, do you? Why's that? Do you really enjoy different kinds of tea?" So, Ethan had managed to perk my interest in a conversation that wasn't work-related. I'll give him that.

"Well, I'm British. It would be insane for me not to like tea. I think it's the first real human thing I did. My supervisor sat me down as the revolution began, over a cup of tea, and just talked to me. I...didn't even need to be converted. And it wasn't sudden, it was slow. All over a cup of tea," Ethan explained.

"I like to think a cup of tea was one of the first human things I did too. I went to Nick's house instead of going back to the precinct, and his sister made me a cup of tea. Ever since then, I've loved it."

"See? We're not so different, you and I," Ethan smiled.

"I suppose not," I shrugged.

"Lance! Charlotte Lance!" Captain Fowler suddenly called, stepping out of his office.

"Anderson..." I mumbled. "What did I do?"

"Office. Now," He sighed. I meandered into his office, walking towards the back of the precinct, and took a seat.

"Why the hell has there been the same suspect in the interview room for almost a week now?" He asked, sitting down at his desk, across from me.

"You should probably ask Ethan," I said, trying to shift the blame onto him.

"Brant is from the FBI. You're my cop. You answer to me, he doesn't," Fowler explained.

"Okay. Fine. We're still waiting on the case to build. At least that's what Brant says."

"And how haven't you done that yet?"

"It's been...it's been hard since Nick left. He knows so much about the case so."

"If you can't handle being an independent detective I'll have to demote you," Fowler sighed. I squinted my eyes.

The old Charlotte would've begged for an answer. Wanted to know why. Wanted to know how this changed anything. She would want to know how one case could hurt her entire career.

The new Charlotte though? She doesn't take shit. If Nick we're here, he wouldn't take it. So I won't now.

"That's a really terrible idea, Fowler," I sighed, leaning back.

"It's Captain to you. What are you talking about?"

"Listen. There's an open position as the head of security at Jericho. Wouldn't it look terrible for you if I went over there? You could kiss that dream of being Commissioner goodbye."

Fowler tapped his pen to his mouth. "Leave. I'll check in next week," he said gesturing to the door. I smiled and waved as I left out.

I only felt a little bad. I'm already in a bad mood, and he only made it worse.