Case 31 - Ben's back in town (LA)

<Events after The Rookie S1E11, Modern Family S9E12, SWAT S1E10>

The week of Valentine's Day, Ben was back at work.

He hadn't been home much since the move as he instead chose to take his daughter Anna out for some bonding time. There were simply too many people at his house, and he didn't have the heart to throw them out. In his heart, he knew that Phil was on board with Claire's idea because he wanted what he thought was best for the detective, and Claire wanted to... well, hopefully, help.

Still dealing with the suicide of Irina, Ben instead spent a lot of time at the community center close to his original house that he had 'neglected' a little since Anna's hospitalization and his New York trip.

Being there was still socializing, but talking and helping strangers felt different than being at home with half a dozen people.

Helping a young man get a job by doing the online application process with him was distracting and rewarding in a much different way than helping Phil and Luke install a batting cage in his backyard.

Nobody except for Chris and Emilia seemed to have noticed the constant absence of the house owner either. Zofia was too distracted with upcoming exams for her high school diploma, and the Dunphys were busy playing house - or so it felt to Ben.

Sitting in his charger as he observed one of his CIs make frantic phone calls after Ben gave him a task, the detective thought back to the night before where he had a long conversation with Emilia in the guest house after the two put Anna to sleep.

-----

"I met Hayley Shipton back in New York. She works as a PI with Castle now," Ben revealed in a quiet voice as the two watched Anna's sleeping face from the door.

Emilia, initially intending to brush off the topic since the name didn't mean much to her, saw Ben's impassive frown. Her breath stilled for a moment, and with a last, guilty look at Anna, she dragged Ben away as she closed the door.

"You connected the dots?" She eventually asked with a defeated sigh when Ben looked at her with hurt clear in his eyes.

"Well, you got kind of unlucky. My screen turned to a photo of the two of you, and Hayley recognized you right after our call that day. You know, the one where you talked about me having a mistress," Ben said, still in a quiet voice so as to not come off as confrontational. It had taken him some days to get the strength and the right words to finally talk to Emilia about what he learned in NY.

"Joked, not talked," Emilia weakly defended but started to squirm. "She blabbed about me being in the MI6, thinking my baby's father knew after I was no longer active... right?"

"Worse," Ben offered and slowly let a frown marr his face. After all, he found out that what he thought was a magical night that gave him the gift of a daughter was 'just' a mission gone wrong for Emilia. And the woman still didn't come clean.

"So Hayley knew about the White Front mission?" Emilia muttered with a distressed frown of her own. She looked back up at Ben and wanted to take his hand, but he flinched back. "Believe me, my mission was not to sleep with you! Seduce you into revealing part of the Kraft's reason to be in England, maybe, but... I chose to be with you!"

"Why would I believe that now? Everything I needed to be open about with you, I revealed immediately. And you, instead of saying anything that's true, still try to placate me with half-truths, with deflection," Ben accused with a small quiver in his voice. Her dismissal once more cut deep. "You come to me saying you have debt and need someone to pay for our daughter's treatment? As what? Some kind of twisted test to see if I was going to be a good father? You lie and lie again - are you still with the MI6? Or are you an enforcer for Carice Smit?"

Emilia started shedding tears as Ben took back step after step to avoid her touch. Wiping away the tears, she collapsed on the sofa and held her head in her hands.

"I was booted when I decided to keep Anna. Poor judge of character and unclear loyalties was the reason I was given," Emilia eventually revealed in a small voice. "Yes, there's no debts. We have universal healthcare in England anyway, so I was wondering when you're gonna ask about that... And yes, it was a test to see if you'd talk about the wealth I figured you have because of your parents... and no, I'm not a cartel enforcer. I do odd jobs for an agency. The only thing that paid good enough and gave me the time to be with Anna that I wanted..."

"Give you time? You spent the week before Christmas barely visiting our daughter in the hospital! What? Are you going to tell me you didn't work for Carice then? For all I know, you're the one who abducted that girl Antje from police protection!" Ben countered as he raised his voice for the first time. When Emilia visibly flinched hearing his accusations, Ben's eyes widened. He hadn't known that. He just wanted to shout something to get it out of his chest.

"It's not what you think," Emilia explained in a panicked voice when Ben stood up to walk out, but he was beyond listening - as hypocritical as it was. He was pissed not just for her keeping such a thing from him but because work like that would put their daughter at risk.

Considering how much he antagonized criminals on a regular basis - that anger was misplaced. He knew it too, deep down anyway.

"Please, Ben... I did it for Anna," his British lover pleaded her tears now turned to open sobs. "The mission gave me the leverage to be even more selective in my tasks, and it paid a six-figure sum... You're an amazing father, I'd never want to be the reason to keep you away from Anna. I need for you to be in her life!"

Ben didn't look at Emilia anymore. There was too much think about, too much to figure out. And his emotions weren't in the right place to make any decisions anymore.

With a deep breath, he calmed down and started walking back to his house. He had heard enough for one night.

Just before he closed the large sliding door facing the pool, Ben demanded, "Six figure? Starting next month, you're paying rent."

It was the only thing he could think of to lessen the tension between the two. An olive branch, so to speak.

-----

With narrowed eyes, Ben saw the CI he had hit up this morning walk over to his car. Maybe it was the bad mood he had been in whenever he was not around Anna, but Ben didn't like the look in the man's eyes. Something was going on.

"Sorry man, nobody knows anything about no big deliveries for the Southern Front," the white mechanic covered head to toe in tattoos excused and looked left and right like he was trying to make out anybody observing him.

Taking the bottle of motor oil Ben 'bought as cover' for their conversation, the detective sighed and demanded, "Call me the moment you hear something. Midas is getting restless with Kraft gone. I know for sure that they're not just slinging AKs from the back of a pickup truck."

"Yeah, sure, man," the mechanic promised unconvincingly.

Ben rode off with a clear suspicion about what just happened. His CI was on the phone again as he drove off.

Thinking about the possibility that he, for some reason, was finally 'greenlit' by the Southern Front, Ben eventually arrived at Metro SWAT HQ. Getting the 'greenlight' meant that it was open season on you. A hit will be put on your head, and members of the Front would openly start hunting you.

For someone like Ben with a young daughter, that was the worst-case scenario. Especially since none of the CIs would initially want to talk about the greenlight. Because revealing it was bad business in either way. The police would demand more information about the movements of the other criminals, and that would either put you on those same criminals' radar or it would not be enough and someone gets hurt, possibly even killed. The police would not let that go.

And so most CIs would not reveal anything before it was too late. Either the target was dead and nothing would change, or the police would be desperate and give more benefits to get to the bottom of it. Saying nothing was better for business.

"Detective Weiss, my office," Hicks demanded the moment he entered the training facilities he needed to go through to get to his office.

Following his superior, the two were eventually joined by Michael Plank, the highest ranked civilian in the LAPD as the head of the Board of Police Commissioners.

Ben and Plank exchanged some pleasantries as they were made to sit by Hicks.

[They are talking about SWAT S1E12]

"Good job on that cyanide case with those Sovereign terrorists," Hicks eventually praised.

"Yeah, I read that casefile. Hadn't you figured out that they would dump it into our watersupply, I cannot imagine how many would have been affected, maybe even died," Plank chimed in with a respectful nod.

Ben could only shrug. Interrogating the distraught wife of Sovereign 'Harley Stone', a radicalized ex-farmer, Ben merely connected a few dots and got Harley to reveal the plan almost by debating the answers out of him. But it wasn't him that got Harley from that farm where the 'Free Citizens' were holed up in. And that was what he modestly admitted, saying, "It was the 20- and 50-David squads that got Harley. I just talked to his wife until I had everything I needed to get him to reveal it."

"Being good with people and interrogations is still a skill," Hicks praised solemnly. He didn't want to praise Ben too much, though - so he did not talk about how the case came to be by Ben initially alerting the FBI about the cyanide shipments either.

Ben, however, couldn't take it anymore and asked, "Why am I here, Sir?"

"Captain Cortez and I have been working on some reforms to the police and while Commander Hicks is not on board with any of it," Plank revealed and earned himself an annoyed eye-roll from Hicks, "he did recommend you to take a look. Maybe give your input and help Cortez and I finding the right balance. The commander said something about you having strategic accumen for social change based on how you handled your transition back into the LAPD."

"So you want me to be a poster child in case the proposal goes wrong?" Ben asked as he searched Plank's face. Maybe it was because he was a career politician through and through, but something about the President of Police Comissions rubbed Ben the wrong way from the moment he met him at that Christmas party.

"If you don't see yourself in these proposals, you may choose not to have your name associated with them," Plank conceded diplomatically, and Ben saw Hicks give him a small nod at that.

'So that's why Hicks is here? To make sure I don't get steamrolled into something that's detrimental to my career? He must think very little of me,' Ben thought and turned to Plank. "I'm working a tip today, so give me some time to read it over."

"Will do," Plank agreed, stood up, and offered a file and a handshake to Ben.

"You need to watch him," Hicks warned when the two were alone. Ben turned to his boss with furrowed brows and asked, "You want me to spy on them?"

"No, you need to watch your back. And Cortez' too. She is too tied up in this to see it. Plank will use this," Hicks said as he pointed to the folder in Ben's hand, "to make a play. And I don't want anyone in my department getting blindsided. Not even Cortez."

"Sir?"

"I know you all see me as the old white male hardliner siding with the brass just to spite progress. Cortez shows enough respect to not accuse me of it to my face, but I know she's pissed that I'm not backing her with those reforms," Hicks explained solemnly. "The LAPD needs change, I know that more than anyone. But whoever tries pushing whatever agenda she's pushing in these papers, they are gonna get burned."

Ben thought about it for a moment and pondered out loud, "So Plank will not need for these reforms to be put in place. He just needs them known. He just needs his name associated with it. He isn't LAPD. He's a politician. He will get credit without doing anything through wordplay. Are you saying he's gonna put Cortez in a pinch by fanning the flames somehow?"

Hicks gave Ben an appreciative nod and jokingly praised, "I knew we hired you for something."

"Sure did," Ben remarked with a wink and went to his office. Before he reached it, Tan and Stokes stopped him.

"Hey, Ben. We're gonna take over your shift teaching self-defense today at the center," Stokes said as he punched Ben's shoulder. "They're gonna need an expert every once in a while to correct the crap you teach them if that's how you dodge a fist."

Ben gave the man a mocking, disdainful look as he turned to Tan and asked, "You're gonna put up with that idiot?"

"Hey!" Stokes exclaimed as Tan gave the man a shove and joked, "Sadly for all of us, he is the only one with an almost tied score in takedowns against you."

Stokes puffed out his chest immediately until Ben corrected, "It's 46-32 in grappling and a staggering 19-3 in running takedowns. I'd hardly call that a tie."

"Yeah, well, that's still the closest we all got once you got back into form," Tan conceded with a shrug. "One day we'll find the eyes in your back so we know how you dodge a tackle in full sprint."

"So why you two? And who asked you to take over in the first place?"

"Hicks did," Stokes answered before Tan could say something. "He said something about all of us having to make more of an effort. 'Be more like Weiss. Even off-duty and with a sick child, that kid goes to the community center twice a week to help out.' We can't take it anymore."

"Plus, he's got a point," Tan admitted with a thin-lipped smile. "We're lucky. Not everyone is. It's easy to forget that when you're only out there in tactical gear chasing bad guys."

"Plus, you two want to pick up chicks there, right?" Ben asked and received a nod from Stokes, who was once more shoved by Tan for actually agreeing with the detective in front of them. With a small sigh, Ben simply added, "Just don't go for the truly vulnerable girls and lead them on. I'll know if you do. Those old ladies bringing the girls will watch you like hawks. And they are terrible gossips."

As the two SWAT officers were walking off, Ben shouted to Tan, "Why isn't Street trying to get in on it?"

"Dude says he already has a date!"

-----

Instead of going to the community center that night, Ben drove home to spend some time with Anna. He had his pool heated through a message to Zofia and played around with his daughter in the pool, pretending to give her swimming lessons despite her young age.

She wasn't yet coordinated enough to fully grasp swimming, but she managed to stay afloat and peddle forwards with help already. And Anna loved more physical hobbies since she finally had enough blood to build the stamina for it.

When she was tuckered out, Ben put her in an inflatable float that allowed her to sit in the warm water with her legs and play around on the water surface with her arms without the fear of drowning, Ben started swimming circles around his daughter to tire himself out a little alongside her.

Almost an hour went by until Emilia came out of the guest house and accused, "Are you trying to have our daughter dissolve in the pool? I bet her feet already look like a saggy great grandma with so many wrinkles she looks like tree bark."

"Wow, why go there? Grandpa's have wrinkles too, you know," Ben countered and made a funny face to make Anna laugh. He pointed at his daughter and said to Emilia, "See? Even Anna thinks I'm right."

The British native only sighed and conceded, "Just get her out of the water already."

With a mischievous grin, Ben dove below his daughter, tickling her 'wrinkly' feet until she squirmed with a hearty giggle and resurface in front of her, resting his chin on the float that Anna was placed in.

"Are you hungry?" Ben asked as she poked his face in retaliation, trying to tickle her father at his ears.

"Mhm," she hummed and tried to tickle his nose.

"What do you want to eat?" Ben asked and sneakily tickled Anna's feet again, pretending it wasn't him.

In between bright laughs and her trying to get her feet away from the tickle monster, Anna answered, "Fifteen-two hamburgers!"

"Fifteen-two?" Ben gasped. "Soooo many?"

Anna rigorously nodded and giggled again when Ben swam her over to the stairs and pretended to bring her inside while still in the float. When she finally couldn't take it anymore and asked for him to get her out of it, the two walked into the house dressed in robes. Both of them were bright green, a color Anna had chosen for their matching pool outfit.

"Okay, an order of hamburgers coming right up!" Ben said after securely sitting Anna down at the kitchen counter. "How many was that again? Show with your hands."

Scrunching her face up in a cute pout as she started to think, she held up two fingers eventually and said, "Two!"

"Oooh, nice! That's right, that's two fingers," Ben praised after placing two patties on a pan he had heated up and oiled first as the first step. "Can you show me three?"

Anna looked at her hands and held up two again with one hand, but also one additional finger with the other hand as Ben got out buns and placed them on a toaster.

"Great! That is three! Good job," Ben once more offered excitedly. "You can also show three like this if you only have one hand."

Holding up the same two fingers anybody would for counting to two - index and middle finger - Ben added his thumb as the third finger.

"That's not how you show a three," Luke commented with furrowed brows as he came to the kitchen after smelling something nice. He held up his hand to show three with index, middle, and ring fingers and corrected, "That's how you show three."

As he washed a few lettuce leaves in the kitchen island in the middle, Ben looked at Anna and told her, "That's three fingers either way, Anna. Your uncle Luke and I are going to watch the movie Inglorious Basterds together when you're in bed so that I can explain to him why I'm showing three like this and he shows it wrong. It's how your grandmommy taught me, after all."

Anna merely tilted her head to the side, not fully getting the conversation as she just looked at her hands in confusion. Both of them showed three fingers but differently... and it didn't fully compute with her yet.

With a wry smile, Ben continued cooking as he thinly sliced a few vegetables to go with the burger he's making for him and his daughter.

"Hey, do you have anything planned for Valentine's tomorrow?" Luke eventually asked as he watched Ben cook.

"Why? Need the house for a party I'm not supposed to know about?"

Luke gained a sheepish expression as he scratched the back of his head, "You heard about that?"

"Yeah, your mom was pissed. Don't worry, though. Kinda got the feeling she wanted the house for herself, and that was half her gripe with it. Tried talking me into going stargazing with your other sister and her date for some reason," Ben revealed as he continued cooking. "And yes, I have something planned, and it is here at home. So you gotta be anywhere but here if you don't want to accidentally see me... boink your sister."

"Ewww, gross!" Luke shouted with a scrunched up face to the confusion of Anna, who didn't understand the conversation and pointed at the thing Ben was slicing and cutely argued, "Tomato good?"

"Yes, tomato is very good!" Ben agreed before Luke could say something both men would regret saying/hearing in front of Anna. The detective turned to Luke again and sighed, "And once more, I said the exact same thing to your parents. I hope Claire got the hint anyway. Your dad certainly looked like he didn't... maybe he thought I said boing and he thinks I'm building a giant trampoline in the garden to surprise Haley... but that's my plan for Father's Day, not Valentine's..."