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The parade of deliveries begins early.
The clock has not yet struck nine when the first desk officer tromps through the Murder Room, clutching a vase and frowning toward a floor map. Yellow pollen has smudged across the shoulder of his midnight-blue uniform shirt. Provenza watches the man's path over the top of a manila folder packed with crime scene paperwork, propped onto his trophy for easy reading.
It isn't until the third such interloper crosses the office that a very specific niggling begins its slow creep up his neck. In the time it takes for him to unlock his phone, double- and triple-check the date in the calendar "app" he never uses, the truth has already seeped into his brain with a chill.
It's Valentine's Day. Instead of just a normal Tuesday, Provenza has been drop-kicked into the holiday of grand romantic gestures and overpriced sentiments.
He hadn't forgotten , per se. After all, his first Valentine's as a remarried man — well, remarried to Patrice, specifically — is no inconsequential thing. But the squad had found themselves entangled in multiple cases for weeks: the investigation of a triple homicide followed by the convoluted killing of a Hollywood VIP, each overlapping with the prosecution of an almost-year-old aggravated arson, all topped off with a death row appeal going back into court. To say they were juggling chainsaws would be a lacking metaphor for the amount of recent chaos in this office.
Of course, experience screams a reminder that this is only a fraction of the chaos he's gonna find at home tonight, barring a small miracle or a big homicide. And, naturally, circumstances have arranged themselves so that he's is the only one in the office. Flynn, Tao, and Buzz are at the appeal hearing. Sykes and Sanchez went to an SOB training. The Captain has been dragged into some budget review bullshit with Chief Howard. He's left holding down the fort, waiting to sign for the transfer of boxes' worth of evidence into the DA's possession.
Thanks to the chain of custody, he'll need to direct damage control from afar. He sets to tapping florist searches and delivery ranges into his phone. The results — page after page of them — are horrifying.
Almost as horrifying as the latest display paraded through the office. A thin vase filled with burgundy colored carnations, nothing offensive about that. But wrapped around its cut-glass stem is...
"A cop teddy bear," Provenza mutters. "Ye gods."
Back in the day — not better or "good old" days, just back then — a cop with that on her (or his, he supposes) desk would have been mocked out of the room. How times have changed.
A clearing throat from near the hallway captures his attention. A slow chair spin reveals a uniform, different from the one who's been shuttling through all morning. Her head is obscured, save for the blonde bun of hair perched atop it, by an annoyingly robust bouquet of red roses.
"Yes?"
"Sir," the officer shifts the flowers, unblocking her view. "Can you show me where, um," she glances to the card stuck amongst the blooms. "Where Amy Sykes sits?"
"Damnit, Cooper," Provenza grits.
"Sorry, what?"
"Right over here," he jabs a finger toward Sykes's desk. The officer deposits the vase there, trapped in Provenza's sight, a mocking reminder of his screw-up.
He nods at the roses. "They have you doing this all day?"
She shrugs. "More or less."
"God," he sighs. "Paying cops to deliver flowers. What a world."
Her eyes narrow. "It's a pleasant world, at least." She angles toward the door for a moment, then back to him. "Y’know, this is easily the most joyful day of the year around here."
Provenza begs to differ, but doesn't have it in him to argue with her retreating back.
The hours pass and Provenza tries, without much luck, to concentrate on the work he's being paid to do over the inevitable wreck he'll be facing at home. The stream of deliveries routed through the Murder Room slows to a trickle, helping his focus. He's finalizing the last of the scene logs when Tao walks in.
"Tao. What're you doing over here?" He tries to strip all hope out of his voice, all the while praying that the answer will be that they're adjourned for the day.
"Early recess for lunch," is the answer Provenza gets, delivered toward Tao's desk as he rummages through one of its drawers. Like clockwork, he elaborates: "Looks like we're gonna go a bit later than I expected tonight —”
" — fantastic —”
" — and I left Cathy's Valentine's gift over here...a-ha." He produces a long, narrow, velvet-covered box, raising it in the air like long-lost treasure. He finishes with, "For safe-keeping."
"Right." Provenza scowls. rubbing at his chin. Of course Tao, detail-obsessed as he is, wouldn't forget the holiday. "You have big plans, I assume?"
"One of the directors on Badge got us a reservation for the chef's table at Chanterelle in West Hollywood."
"Uh-huh." There's no way he'd be able to compete with Tao's newfound star power, even with every reminder in the book. That leaves one point of comparison...
After shoving the gift into his briefcase, Tao stands to leave. "And now I gotta run to beat the rush at the deli."
"You know where Flynn is?"
"Ah, I think he went down the street to get lunch. He did say something about picking up a salad for the Captain, so maybe you'll run into him." He throws in a shrug as he disappears around the corner.
As noon approaches and passes, the only people who enter the office are the desk officers, handling a now-renewed rush of tchotchkes and floral arrangements. The only comfort Provenza finds in this: not one of those deliveries have ended up in confusion at the Captain's locked and shuttered office. With everything that's been going on, Provenza can always rely on Flynn to have a similar, realistic outlook on priorities. Get the murderers off the street first, flowers and gourmet dinners later.
And, really, the Captain and Patrice are both women of pragmatism. Neither would put up a stink over something so trivial. Valentine's Day has been corrupted by businesses looking to make quick bucks, anyway.
He can make the heart of the holiday more substantial, more unique , by celebrating later in the week.
Satisfied with this reasoning, Provenza heads to the kitchen to grab his lunch. A lunch that was packed, as usual, by his beautiful, kind, long-suffering wife. Stubborn tendrils of guilt twist their way back into his chest. But, with no shortage of luck, he finds his sanity check in the kitchen.
"Flynn."
He holds up a palm. "Whatever you want, I'm running late."
"Okay."
Flynn brings his hand down onto the lid of a takeout container before picking it up. "Do you have any idea how long it takes those morons at Marco's to make a damned fajita salad?"
"Uh, no. And I don't care."
He rolls his eyes as he straightens from sliding the salad into the refrigerator. "Well, if you needed to talk to me about something, I gotta drop a note on Sharon's door and then get back to court."
"Wait, wait." Provenza ducks inside the fridge, pulling out his lunch container, then follows Flynn to the door and out into the hall. "So Tao said you're gonna be stuck in court late. Puts a damper on the ol' Valentine's plans, huh?"
Whatever reaction he'd been expecting, it wasn't Flynn taking the question in stride. "Nah. I made reservations on the later side, 8:30. I figured that would leave us plenty of time to wrap up the day and get out to Santa Monica."
Searching for that thread of reality, Provenza asks, "So you knew about this court business before you made the reservation?"
"Nope. I made it right after I asked Sharon about a month ago where she wanted to go for Valentine's dinner--"
"You asked her?"
"Yeah. What's wrong with that?"
"Doesn't that kinda take the surprise out of it?"
Flynn's expression goes carefully blank. "This might shock you, but Sharon isn't big into surprises." He scans into the office, pulling the door open for both of them to enter. "Asking her where she wanted to go, that was the surprise. And it's a whole hell of a lot easier than guessing." As an aside, he adds, "The Icebox. I would have never considered it. They supposedly have great seafood."
"Right, but you had to remember the asking and the reserving."
"It's still easier." Flynn gestures toward his chest. "I just set a notification on my phone. Recurring, every year, for a month in advance of the big day. Then I figure out what to do and plan accordingly. Sharon's none the wiser, we celebrate the occasion with the appropriate amount of flair. Simple."
"Simple." Provenza frowns. "Right."
Flynn slides papers and folders around on his desk until he unearths a pad of post-its. "So. What've you got planned with Patrice?"
"Oh, well, just a quiet night at home."
After fixing him with a long look, Flynn says, "You forgot, huh?"
"I didn't forget . I was distracted ." Provenza draws a long inhale, then adds, "We've had all of this work going on, lest you forget. And besides," he checks the office for eavesdroppers, " we , husbands and boyfriends, do all of this, running our asses off, and for what?" He lifts his chin. "Maybe I'd like my wife to take me out for a nice dinner."
Glancing up from his pen and post-its, Flynn is skeptical. "Uh-huh. You want flowers and chocolates, too?"
"It wouldn't hurt." Even realizing how petty the words are, he says, "I'm just wondering, what do we get out of it?"
"Well," Flynn turns and flattens a note — Salad in fridge, middle shelf. - A — onto the Captain's door, his expression inscrutable. Then his mouth curls just enough to make Provenza regret broaching the topic. "I already got something out of it. Enough to make me late for court this morning--"
Provenza winces against the connotation. "Oh, for the love of God! Stop!"
His answer is a raised shoulder and a smug grin. "You asked."
"I didn't mean it. I take it back. I don't want to hear it." Provenza points toward the door. "Leave."
This gives Flynn the opening for a parting shot as he heads out. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to be late. Again. After this morning."
"GOT IT."
With the door closed behind his partner and the Murder Room empty again, Provenza sits down with his lunch. He plans to take the time to scrub his mind of that last conversation and order some flowers for delivery later, when the cost won't be so exorbitant. But snapping open and lifting the lid from the container leads to another distraction altogether.
The usual rabbit food is nowhere to be seen. It's been replaced by a large wrap filled with roast beef and cheddar. Thick cut potato chips fill out the side of the container, along with a handful of foil-wrapped chocolate hearts. A folded note tops it all off.
A special treat for my valentine. Love, Patrice.
He screwed up. Big time.
The unmistakable tap-tap rhythm of the Captain's high heels down the hall announce her arrival just after three. With fingers rubbing at her temple and a silent nod of a greeting, it's clear that the budget meeting was a monster. But she grins a little, tearing the post-it from her door, and seems in a brighter mood by the time she returns from the kitchen with her salad.
Provenza crosses to her office with every intention of checking in, getting the lowdown on the budget issues. Should that conversion go well, he'll think about asking to leave early. But what he finds on her desk stops him in his tracks.
It isn't a bouquet. It's an entire damned flower bed, by the looks of it, that's been chopped off and gathered together in a cylindrical, violet-colored vase. There are roses, yes, but also miniature sunflowers and daisies and God-only-knows how many other varieties, jammed all together in a riot of color.
"Oh, for the love of God."
The Captain isn't thrilled to have her lunch interrupted like this. She holds her hand over her mouth until she’s swallowed a mouthful of salad, then fires an annoyed, "What?" in his direction.
He lifts his arm toward the arrangement. "I am officially the only man in L.A. who didn't order flowers for his wife."
Once his point sinks in, she flattens her lips, holding back a smile. "I see."
"How did he even sneak these in here? I've been sitting outside all day!"
"Oh." Her smile breaks through as she takes in the arrangement. "I think these were hand-delivered last night.”
She reaches out, brushing several of the blooms with her fingertips. He might imagine it, but he hears something like a contented sigh coming from the direction of her desk. The Captain, Sykes, the recipients of the countless bouquets that had been towed through the Murder Room all day: these are verifiably badass women. And they're spending the day getting mushy over plants .
“I just don't get it.” Provenza shakes his head. "Giving flowers, it's just always seemed kind of.....froufrou. Old-timey."
With a return to her typical no-nonsense tone, the Captain says, "Lieutenant. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a woman who doesn't enjoy getting flowers from her significant other."
“Yeah, well,” he grumbles, “I wish someone would have reminded me of that a week ago.”
"I see." She smiles, sly, and nods toward the empty desk beyond her door. "You should get Andy to let you in on his phone notification trick."
Provenza frowns. "You know about that?"
"It became hard not to notice it. Not only does he have one for Valentine's Day, he also has one for my birthday and our anniversary." She fixes her eyes on the ceiling for a moment before adding, "Well, both of our anniversaries."
"Anniversaries, plural? You need more than one?"
She waves him off. "It's complicated. The point is he doesn't forget, even if it takes a bit of... mechanical poking."
"Right, well. I guess I'll keep that in mind for next year." He glances at the massacred flowerbed on her desk, all too aware of how thoroughly he'd dropped the ball.
The Captain clears her throat. She pulls a sheet of paper across her desktop and begins writing. "There's this florist on Sunset. I've always found their arrangements to be lovely."
Disbelief floats into his voice. "You buy a lot of flowers?"
She looks at him over the frames of her glasses, and for the second time in the span of a workday, Provenza is schooled on the charm of flowers. "They're pretty," she says, as if explaining the concept to a toddler. " I enjoy having them around."
"Fair enough."
"This place, Hollywood Fleur, stays open until 8 or so." Her tone lightens as she returns to jotting. "And there happens to be a patisserie next door."
"A pata-what?"
"A French bakery. They make amazing fruit tarts, and handmade truffles that are just..." Her eyes side closed.
Fearing a mirror-image repeat of his earlier conversation with Flynn, Provenza says, "I get it."
"Well, it couldn't hurt ," she prods, tapping the end of her pen against the desk, "to pick up a few things there."
"I'm sure you're right."
"And while you're on that block, you might as well go to the market on the corner for a roast chicken and sides, maybe some wine and cheese?"
"Sure, might as well."
She hands the paper to him, with business names and addresses noted, from memory , over her desk. "There are certain charms to enjoying a night in, after all."
Provenza scans the list, figuring commute time and traffic, adding a stop at a mall along the way. The sum means a late night, and several excuses needed between here and there. "So, is that what you'd choose?"
"Oh, no. I have my heart set on citrus glazed sea bass and ceviche." She glances at her watch. "But that's still several hours away, and I have a few things to catch up with in the meantime." She looks out over the empty office. "Since I'm going to be here anyway, I can stick around to meet the courier and sign the transmittal forms."
"You're sure?"
"Positive." She gives him a somber nod. "Go save Valentine's Day, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, Captain." He lifts her note as he turns to leave. "Thank you."