call me old fashioned (issa)

[prospice2]

The formerly shiny black sedan had gathered a light coating of dust on the way to the station, which had never happened in the city. Maura frowned at it as she stepped out of the car, adjusting her pants slightly and turning to look at the tiny, beat up building that passed as a police station with a sigh. Well, this was going to be... interesting... to say the least. It certainly wasn't going to be like the big city, this dingy little place probably didn't have lab techs or anything. Oh well, good old fashioned police work? ...Perhaps a little too old fashioned. She picked her way across what served as a parking lot and into the building. She slipped in the front door, taking in the tiny room, the old computers, the desk chairs. There was no secretary on duty... or maybe they had to double as phone answerers, as well. But there was supposed to be another officer here, where the heck was he?

[willardhoward]

A man who appeared to be in his fourties plunked himself down onto the rusty-colored couch with a sigh. It was early in the day, and he'd already been keeping himself busy. He'd done his hour in the gym...or what passed as a gym for a small police department. It was really just a treadmill, bike, and a rather worn-out looking weight machine. Once he was sufficiently sweaty, he'd hopped into the shower and cleaned off, which brought him to his present situation.

He checked his watch, which read 9:17. His shift had started at 8:00 that morning and wouldn't be over until 8:00 that night. He was glad he'd finally earned ranks enough to be on 24 on-48 off shift, and at the moment was quite content that he had some time to himself. He let the rumours he'd heard of a new officer coming in leave his mind as he became totally absorbed in Animal Cops, which was on the TV. He didn't hear the front door when it opened, even though he was only basically one wall away.

[prospice2]

Since the guy who was on-duty apparently wasn't in this room, Maura took the opportunity to poke around. There was a front desk, with the ancient PC on it, and a phone. No receptionist. Ok. There was a room to the right with an open door and a short hallway straight ahead. It didn't look like the layout was going to be too hard to learn. That was alright, she only wished it was less... foreign. It was almost like it had been when she walked into the station on her first day. Only, this was somehow more frightening.

She heard the sound of the television in the other room, and figured the other guy was in there. It was so weird, having only one other person around. Even on slow days or weird shifts there had been people at the city department. She walked in and took in the much older guy sitting on a very strange colored couch. "Good morning..." she said, a little hesitantly, then cleared her throat and continued with renewed confidence, "I'm Maura Torres. I was transferred from the city department."

[willardhoward]

Willard didn't hear the feminine footsteps come down the sort-of hallway nor did he hear her enter the room. He about jumped out of his skin when he heard her talk, natural cop self-defense kicking in. He hopped up really fast and spun around to face her, totally stopping in a pose like he was ready for a fight. Before she got done saying her name, he relaxed. Oh, it was only a woman.

But then he stiffened again when she mentioned being transferred. This was the transfer they were sending over? No way. No one had mentioned they were sending a woman. Well well well. This could get interesting in a hurry. He stepped forward and casually offered her a handshake, trying to wipe the look of surprise and slight loathing off his face. "Hi, Willard Howard. Welcome to the day shift. You'll probably have a lot of adjusting to do, we're quite a bit different than the city,"

[/color] he said, already trying to show her who was the boss, ready to prove she really had no clue what she was getting into.
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[prospice2]

Maura sprang back when he jumped, having dealt with too many scared perps in her life not to have quick reflexes. But she didn't figure he was going to whip out his gun and shoot her or anything. It was, she reflected, no wonder that he was so hopped up. It didn't look like they got a lot of action around here. To tell the truth, she wasn't too impressed. But it was supposed to be helping her to chill out, which she needed at this point.

"Nice to meet you... uh... Howard," she said, puzzling a bit over the first name. She'd never heard of anyone called Willard. She took the hand and shook it firmly, knowing a look of doubt when she saw it. "Well, it certainly is different. But it looks like the only adjusting I'll have to do is adjusting to boredom." She could hear the hostility in his voice, although maybe only because she'd expected to. She was the only woman working in a now four-person station. Perhaps the transfer to the country hadn't been the best idea after all, she could tell already that this would cause problems.

[willardhoward]

Willard bristled as she called him 'Howard' and his features stiffed into a bit of a glare. She continued, and he sensed a kind of cocky confidence her in words, which just made him all the more annoyed with her. As if it wasn't bad enough that no one had warned him the new officer was a woman, it didn't look like they were going to hit it off either.

"Willard, call me Willard if you don't mind. Around here, we're usually on a first name basis." He sneered at her, as if proud that he'd already found something to correct her about. He was all too certain she'd make plenty more rookie mistakes in the near future, and he looked forward to pointing out each and every one. Deciding his boss would have a fit if he didn't treat her nicely, he waved his arms around the general area. "As you can see it's pretty simple around here. There's this room, a kitchenette, and a small bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Hopefully it's not too plain for you."

[prospice2]

"Willard, then," she said, goodnaturedly enough, though she still thought it was an exceedingly bizarre name. She glanced at the TV quickly. What was this show? ...Animal Cops, she'd seen it once or twice before. She could still sense Willard's clear hostility, doubt of her ability... it was just like she was fresh from the academy again. Oh well, she'd proved her worth before and she could do it again. Although it didn't look like there was going to be much to prove herself with... Before it had been taking the beat, working night shift... Now... nothing.

She rolled her eyes at his comment. "Oh, don't worry about that. Less is more, as they say." She wondered vaguely what would happen if they ever actually brought someone in. The city station had interrogation rooms... and a crime lab. Maura had never pulled a fingerprint since academy, and although she didn't really think there would be occasion to do so, around here there were a lot of things she was going to have to learn or re-learn. Still, coming from the city she knew a few trick they didn't.

[willardhoward]

Willard gave her a mischievous grin and threw his hands up in mock defeat. "Whatever."

[/color] He finally took the time to actually look at her, seeing how fun working with her could get. She wasn't awful looking. But she wasn't blonde, and from her attire it was hard tell if she had curves in the right places or not.

He could tell she was pretty fit, no doubt from working on the department in a bigger city where exercise and training was more enforced. He was proud to be the most fit cop on his department. Of course, the older guys didn't exactly strive for much. No, they clearly piled down a little too much of their wives' good country cooking.

The thought of wives brought his attention back to Maura. He didn't want to get married anytime soon, and she certainly wasn't his type anyway. Too matronly looking and, again, not blonde. It was all for the best, the higher ups wouldn't take kindly to him fooling around with another officer anyway. He returned his focus back to the TV as he spoke, "I trust you can show yourself around?"[/color]

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[prospice2]

"Yes, I'm sure I can," she said, taking this as a rather rude form of dismissal. So she left the room and decided to actually take a look around the tiny station. She detoured down the hallway she'd seen earlier, which of course led to the kitchenette. And what sufficed as a gym. From here she could see a fine spread of dust on almost everything. This seemed to happen a lot in the country, probably because of the dirt roads around here or... the actual presence of bare dirt. She poked around upstairs, dismayed to find that if she was ever on night shift she'd be rooming with a pigheaded male cop.

Hopefully not Willard... Maybe she was being a little unfair to him, actually. She'd come here expecting to find the station extremely prejudiced towards women, and maybe it was half her own creation anyway. Her father always said that what you expect to happen probably will. So she went back into the room and sat down deliberately on the couch, looking over at him in a slightly curious way. "So what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

[willardhoward]

She took her cue to leave the room, just as he'd intended. He turned back to the TV, trying to forget about her. He flipped through a few channels. As much as he hated it, she was plaguing his mind. No one had told him to expect a woman coming in. He wasn't interested in her in that way, but he was still slightly annoyed by the fact that she was younger and female. She'd probably screw things up in a hurry.

He realized the 24 hour shifts could get interesting, with one bedroom and bathroom, and decided he'd have to claim the bedroom as his own before she had the chance. No way in hell was he sleeping on the couch...it was old and lumpy enough just to sit on. Of course, if she wanted to share the room and actually sleep in a halfway decent bed...

Just then she came in and interrupted his self-absorbed thoughts. He caught the tail end of what she asked him as she sat down, and he scooted over and gave a grunt of a response, pretending he hadn't heard her.

[prospice2]

Oh! And he was rude, too. Maura decided almost instantly that she hadn't been too harsh on him at all. She had to learn to trust first impressions, they all too often proved to be exactly right. Not only had he completely ignored her question, he wasn't doing anything in particular to merit that. Unless he was, like, completely obsessed with Animal Planet. Which didn't seem all too likely. Maybe that's what they did around here... stared at the television. Maura had never been able to do that, not for a while. It depressed her too much.

"Fine. I was just wondering because you don't seem like the kind of guy who particularly likes to be stuck in some actionless rut of a town," Actionless? Was that even a word? She didn't care, her blood was up now. She knew she'd been in a bad temper recently, but at the moment she wasn't ruminating over her words too much. Arms crossed, she fixed her gaze on the television, where a volunteer was pulling a severely emaciated dog out from under someone's porch. Ugh, this was why she didn't own a television.

[willardhoward]

He turned and gave her a cold stare, not feeling all that up to conversation with a less than attractive cop. "I don't look like the type of guy to be here? Like you should be the one saying that."

[/color] He gave a sort of grunting sound and looked at her blankly. She wasn't awful looking, but her personality wasn't exactly pleasant. Granted, he wasn't exactly putting on the charm either. But why bother when he already knew she wasn't gonna end up in his bed tonight?

He shrugged and decided to at least try to be more social. Partially because he knew it would be better if they got along seeing as they were going to be working together quite a bit. "As a matter of fact I was born and raised here. I like it around here. The city's close enough to get to whenever life gets boring in town."[/color] And of course, whenever he grew bored of the ladies who lived in the town, most of which had already been in his bed or weren't interested.


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