// @rowrogue //
Friday nights became some of the hardest nights of the week for Debra Morgan nearly six years ago. It was almost six years ago that she had been working massive overtime within vice, trying and repeatedly failing to secure sufficient evidence to convict several key players of the Stilwater Saints to life in prison, and found herself in over her head. Six years since a massive explosion at a local marina had shaken half the coastline of Florida state, late one Friday night. After that, Deb’s entire operation had been suspended indefinitely, and a handful of months later, she had learned to her surprise -- and horror -- that she was pregnant, and already a week into her second trimester.
Since then, Deb has more or less had to re-invent herself. Having never seen herself as a mother, and certainly not a single mother at that, she had some tough choices to make. She had to step away from her career, briefly, but more than she’d ever wanted to. It was only with the close personal support of brother, and professional support from current head of the police department Captain Matthews, that she’d eventually realized she would keep her kid. Adoption was simply out of the question, and abortion seemed... unthinkable, given the circumstances.
Elijah Kent Morgan was later born at 3:13 in the morning on a Friday in June. It was true, she had fallen in love with him harder and faster than she’d ever loved anyone, including his father. But every single morning that she woke up to his crying, and every night that she came home from work to see him just a little bit bigger, she would never admit it, but part of her resented what her life had become because of him. Jumping at the smallest bump in the night. Double and triple checking the locks on her doors. Watching the news nearly every night, while wringing her hands and wondering just when and how they had let this city get so fucked up?
Her now 5-year-old son is asleep this Friday, only recently having been tucked into bed, whilst Deb sits out in the living room with the TV’s volume on low, watching some mind-numbing reality show and trying to forget about the craziness that has consumed her the last few weeks. All over town, crime sprees seem to have quadrupled, and like most other nights, Debra will need half a bottle of wine and some stupid, horrible show to help lull her to sleep.
Suddenly though, a firm and somehow familiar knock at her door sends a chill down her spine, and she is suddenly wide awake again. It’s late, she’s not expecting anyone, and half of the criminal scum in the city must know her as Detective Debra Morgan, the bitch-cop who had put their friends and family away. Debra rises from her couch, and instinctively grabs her fully loaded, police issued handgun from the coffee table in front of her. She crosses the floor of her apartment tentatively, unlocks the bolt and chain keeping it shut, and puts her finger lightly against the trigger hidden behind her thigh as she pulls open the door. Once she does, and her eyes fall onto the man just outside, her mouth falls open and she almost lets her weapon clatter to the ground. The blood in her veins runs cold, and she’s certain she must be seeing a ghost. Shakily, the only words she can manage are,
“W-What the fuck?”
