DISCLAIMER: Los Hombres De Paco and its characters are the property of Antena 3. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I heart this show. With all its fucked up sex swapping, ridiculous erection jokes, crazy hot damaged lesbians who can't quit each other no matter how hard they try and matchmaking Lolita nieces who marry their twice-their-age ex-uncle. I am unashamed. That is all. Oh, and this will be a multi-parter, but I have no idea how many parts that will be or how long in between updates I'll be. Because I'm still doing recaps and those are hella long. But the bunny bit. And I heeded.
SPOILERS: I stole a plot bunny from ralst and ran with it. With her permission. Is that really stealing? Anyway, spoilers through Episode 85.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
My Father, The Hero
By Misty Flores
Part 1
"MIRANDA!"
The holler of the Commissioner that rang out over the precinct caused such an unconscious jolt through Pepa Miranda that she nearly dropped her gun. Povedilla, walking right past her, was not so lucky. He emitted a startled squeak and tripped on his own shoes. The stack of papers he was carrying flew up in a flurry and scattered over the floor.
Swiveling in her chair, Pepa found herself the unfortunate recipient of one of Don Lorenzo's patented death glares as he stood on the second floor railing. "My office. Now."
Pepa had never been particularly fond of alone time with the gruff man she still thought of as her reluctant father-in-law. The fact that she was no longer screwing his daughter had not changed the hardened glare that she had, in happier times, come to think of as her own personal reminder that the world knew that Silvia loved her.
She glanced down at the gun she was in the middle of cleaning, but before she could even open her mouth to beg for a stay of execution; he followed up with, "NOW, Miranda."
Across from her, Curtis rubbed at the front of his Def Lepperd t-shirt and issued a low, sympathetic whistle. "It's time for it, then?"
Good God, she hoped not. She had expected rampant abuse by the Commissioner, especially after he finally got treated for his illness and began to dive head first into running the precinct, and in the process got wind of what had happened between her and his daughter. Maybe a month of paperwork. More boring surveillance duty. Anything Don Lorenzo could come up with. Silvia was his little girl, and daring to kiss her at 18 had incurred a rage that had lasted more than a decade. What would breaking her heart bring down on her, other than a body-bag and a grave site?
Now, nearly two weeks later, Pepa had decided that perhaps THIS was the ultimate punishment. The waiting. The endless waiting while she tried and failed to get Silvia to listen to her. Time to allow her mind to come up with every horrible way Don Lorenzo could punish her.
A small part of her had begun to hope he was simply glad that Silvia had deemed it over, and was determined to move on with his life.
No suck luck. This was it.
Sucking in a valiant breath, Pepa rose to her feet.
"Maybe he's just giving you a new mission," Povedilla, currently on all fours trying to gather up his stack of strewn papers, offered up optimistically.
"Sure," Curtis grinned, lips curling so his mustache twitched like a cartoon. "Take your gun, Pepa. If he fires first you can get off with self defense."
The punch she gave him left him rubbing his arm with a scowl and a grumble.
Pepa had been screamed at her entire life. Ever since she was a child, she had been screamed at. By everything and everyone. Her parents. Her teachers. Her bosses. Her boyfriends (and later girlfriends). Her training officer. Her commissioner in Sevilla. Sara. Silvia.
To an extent, Pepa figured she had developed a sort of immunity to that sort of thing.
Except when it came to Don Lorenzo. Don Lorenzo never failed to terrify her, and she wasn't sure if that was because she was screwing his daughter or because she knew he thought she would never be good enough to keep her-
And he was right. She hadn't been.
For a year, Pepa had done everything right, and then after fourteen months, she tripped up and fell flat on her face, and in a matter of days, lost the girl she had dreamt about since she had been a child.
Maybe everyone was right about her: she just wasn't right in the head.
Drawing in a hesitant breath to gather her courage, she rapped lightly at Don Lorenzo's door, waited for the gruff 'Come in', and twisted the knob to step inside.
Don Lorenzo, slicked back hair shiny, glanced up from a file he was perusing to regard her, eyes narrowing. "Sit down."
Wiping her palms along her jeans, Pepa slid into the seat across from his desk, drifting almost immediately into her habitual slouch, and then straightening when his brow twitched in disaproval.
The silence that followed was maddening.
Don Lorenzo gathered up the files on his desk, taking his time, before issuing a heavy sigh and tossing them unceremoniously to her side of the desk. "Look at that."
A few of the files slid with the momentum, falling into her lap. Pepa, slightly perplexed but off her game, and not nearly as confident as she was in the days when she could call his daughter her lover, simply obediently straightened them together and opened the first folder.
Upon looking at the contents, her perplexed state grew into one of genuine confusion.
She looked at him, brow rising in silent query.
The look he threw back on her indicated he clearly thought she was a moron. "Well, don't just stare at me like an abnormal idiot. What is it?" he asked, exasperated.
The jolt of anger was hard to fight, and Pepa bit down on her lip, swallowed hard, and shifted in her seat. Her fingers flexed against the folder. "It's a forensics report." She glanced up tersely. He gave her an impatient nod to continue. "An autopsy," she said, after a labored sigh, uncomfortable and hot. "Of the body we found last week by the river."
He tapped his finger against the desk. "Who wrote that report?"
The painful twist inside of her was hard to mask, but she did it, in favor of a sullen glare that matched the one directed at her.
"Well?" he snapped. "Most of the time I can't shut you up – tell me who wrote the report, Agent Miranda."
Her eyes narrowed shut, she prayed for patience. "Inspectora Silvia Castro," she managed from gritted teeth.
"Hmmm." Don Lorenzo took that in as if that was brand new fucking information. "And how does it look?"
Her fingers clenched together, wrinkling the folders. "What do you mean?"
"What do you think I mean, idiot? Is it well written? Is it informative?"
Pepa thanked God she had the foresight to leave her gun in her drawer. Even if she felt naked and defenseless without it.
Digging her teeth hard into her lower lip, Pepa exhaled deeply and forced herself to look at the report, read Silvia's familiar neat block letters, legible and precise. "It's good," she managed, trying to rise above her aching heart. "The report is thorough. Precise."
He grunted, and then shoved another folder at her. "And that one?"
Her blood was simmering, and Pepa's throat felt choked as she carefully placed the folder down on the desk (rather than slamming it) and reached for the other, hearing the creak of the cardboard as she eased it open.
"Another autopsy report," she answered, voice barely above a whisper. "Also good."
"Just good?"
Her smile was hurt and dangerous. "Impeccable," she answered, and put down the folder down, hands crossing across her chest. "Everything you can ask for in a forensics report, Don Lorenzo."
Thank you so fucking much for gloating, she continued grimly to herself.
But Don Lorenzo only stared at her, eyes boring into her face as if he could drill a hole in her head by pure will.
She felt clammy, annoyed, ill-tempered – resisted the urge to stomp for the door.
"What is this about, Don Lorenzo?" she asked, unable to help herself. "Do you want me to tell you she's better off without me?" He didn't move. "Well, she is. We both know that. Do you want me to tell you that she's doing an excellent fucking job? Of course she is. Silvia has always been good at her job. What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to shut the hell up," he barked back, the voice carrying so much bite she literally winced. "And stop telling me what I want to tell you. That's always been your problem, Miranda. You think you know things, but you're dumb as a post."
She inhaled sharply, shifted again in her seat.
"You think you're so tough, don't you?" he asked her. "Like an angry bull – tumbling over everything and everyone to get what you want. And you got it, and then what? And then what, Miranda."
Her jaw ached from the force of her teeth grinding inside her mouth. "And then she came to her senses," she bit. "And you're the happiest man on the planet."
He stared at her, and then he frightened the shit out of her when he actually laughed.
The sound caused a shiver to crawl up her spine.
The laughter died, and the gleam in Don Lorenzo's eyes positively glinted at her as he crossed his hands against his chin, and blew out heavily. "Look at the folders, Miranda."
Unable to do much else, she obeyed.
"There's ten of them. Ten of them in the past week. Do you know what that means?"
She tried, she did. She tried to get her mind to work. Tried to work out the puzzle that Don Lorenzo obviously wanted her to figure out. But her mind just refused to compute it. Whatever it was.
"That she's working a lot?" she ventured, head lifting in defeated exhaustion.
He stared at her again – that unnerving glare that made her fidget and feel like she was ten and back in the principal's office.
"Yes," he answered snidely, "She's working a lot. And do you know why?"
She clamped her mouth shut, refused to answer.
"Because she's miserable."
The lump in Pepa's throat was nearly unmanageable. Her breath was in and out, fast and winded.
"So tell me, Maria Jose, how can I be happy, when my daughter is so miserable?"
Body tight, unsure what to do, Pepa could only shrug.
Don Lorenzo, Silvia's father, the imposing man who had hated her on sight when she had stepped into the precinct over a year ago, and quite possibly the only man on the planet that Pepa was truly afraid of, proceeded to blow her mind when he placed his pen methodically on the desk, and said, "I don't like you, Maria Jose. I don't like how you think. You're rude. Impulsive. You have a severe problem with authority, and on top of that, you've gone and broken my daughter's heart. So what are you going to do to fix this?"
She could find nothing to say. Her mind was, quite literally, broken.
Her mouth opened, then closed again.
She sounded very nearly meek when she whispered, "Transfer?"
He grunted in disgust. "You're an idiot."
"So you've said," she managed.
He sucked in a loud, labored breath through his nose. "Maria Jose, get your head out of your ass for one minute and listen to me. My daughter, for some ungodly reason, has decided that you," his nostrils flared in obvious disdain, "are who she loves. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I don't want to know."
Pepa, throat dry, felt the muscle in her jaw tick in reaction.
"And I don't like it. But I can't ignore the fact that the year that she has been with you, has been the happiest she's ever been. Do you know what that's like for a father?"
Wordlessly, she shook her head.
"Then, in a week, she goes from floating on air to filing ten reports a week – and it's because of you. You, idiot, you've broken this. So as your Commissioner, I'm ordering you to fix it."
The finger pointed at her, the sincere glare on Don Lorenzo's face, it was almost too much. The tears stung in her eyes, and she glanced away, fidgeting hard in her seat.
"What is it now?"
"She won't take me back!" she snapped, voice hoarse and angry. "Okay? You think I haven't TRIED to fix it? You know your daughter, Don Lorenzo, she's as stubborn as you are, and she's got a temper to match."
His finger curled into his fist, and he arched a brow. "Does she, now?"
She glared at her ex-lover's father. "You know she does. She's got it in her head that she's done, and she's done. It doesn't matter what I do."
His mouth twitched. "Oh, it better matter, Miranda. You better fix this. You give her what she wants."
"She wants a baby."
He closed his eyes, as if the very idea wounded him. "Then give her a baby," he stated painfully.
"I tried."
He glared at her, eyes floating down to her very flat stomach.
Pepa inhaled sharply. "It didn't take," she said, hands crossed over her lap.
"It 'didn't take'?" he spit. "What the hell is the matter with you? Did you two forget how to do things in order?" He fumbled into his desk, and practically threw a little velvet box at her. "Here."
Pepa didn't move. "What is it?"
"Take the damn box, Miranda."
Hesitantly, she did, holding it in her palm as if the thing would self-destruct. He sighed in exasperation.
"Open it!"
Inside the velvet box was a gleaming, gorgeous engagement ring – unpretentious – just a perfect diamond nestled atop gleaming gold, but…
Her eyes lifted to Don Lorenzo, and discovered a haunted man, whose mouth trembled at the sight.
"That's…" he paused, gathered himself, and continued hoarsely, "That was Silvia's mothers. That's what you'll give her when you marry her."
Pepa had no words. She was simply speechless.
"Pepa."
She glanced up, met red eyes and a stern stare. "You WILL marry her."
Oh, God, she wanted to. She had wanted to forever. But…
The tears spilled over, and she wiped at them angrily, snapping the box closed and placing it flat on the desk. "You don't get it. She doesn't want me back. She won't take me back."
"Then you haven't tried hard enough."
"Don Lorenzo-"
"She's taking you back," he snapped. "And you'll figure out a way to do it." The gruff man grabbed hold of the folders, and began to pile them again neatly on his desk. "Now get out. I have work to do."
Pepa hesitated, unsure if her legs would even support her in the wake of this very strange conversation.
"Take the ring. If you lose it, I'll kill you."
She believed him. Hesitantly, she reached for the box with the ring it, carefully shoved it into the front pocket of her jeans, and with tentative, careful steps, edged for the door.
"Miranda."
Pepa glanced back. Don Lorenzo's expression was eerily serious. "You have one week. Or else."
The masochist in her must have been responsible for her question. "Or else what?"
He lifted an impatient brow. "Do you want to find out?"
Pepa immediately decided that no, she did not.
She left her intended father-in-law's office with his dead wife's ring in his pocket, light-headed, and determined not to faint.
To Be Continued