"I'm going back into uniform for a while," police officer Bayley Martinez informed her girlfriend Sasha Banks shortly after arriving home from a shift.

They were in the kitchen of their apartment, where Sasha was making them dinner. Cooking was something she enjoyed, and as Bayley happened to be totally incompetent at it, the arrangement worked for both of them. Sasha turned from the cooker to look at her girlfriend with a look of concern on her face. "Why? You haven't been fired from Intelligence Division, have you?"

"Me? Fired from Intelligence? Of course not!" Bayley said theatrically, grinning. She then answered the question seriously. "No, you remember when I got home last night I told you the woman we arrested on the raid turned out to be a cop? Well, Thorne decided to take her off of her old unit and bring her into Intelligence."

"She can do that?" Sasha asked, showing surprise. She was now back to her cooking, albeit keeping half an eye on Bayley to make sure she didn't sit on any of the work surfaces, which was a longstanding source of playful antagonisation between them.

"I think Thorne can do pretty much whatever she wants," Bayley said. "So, I found out today that our new recruit, Amanda Rose, is on the team. The problem is she's been undercover with a gang for nearly two years. Her police work might be a bit rusty, as Thorne put it. For that reason, she's been told she has to do a month in uniform before she can join Intelligence, if it goes well. As I'm the only other uniform on the team, I have to join her. It'll be my job to evaluate her and report back to Thorne on whether she's right for Intelligence."

"And how do you feel about that?" Sasha asked.

"Mixed emotions," Bayley admitted. "I'm grateful for being given the responsibility. But at the same time I love working in Intelligence, as you know. I kind of hoped I was done writing traffic citations and arresting drunks for fighting outside of nightclubs."

"I hear you," Sasha said, looking at her again for a moment. "And this, Amanda, I think you said her name is? What do you think of her?"

"I don't know her yet. Going nearly two years under is impressive. But whether that means she's a good cop or not, I don't know. She sure doesn't look like a cop."

"What do you mean?"

Bayley chuckled. "She looks more like a fitness model or something. She must have had a hard time at the academy with all the guys."

"Just so long as you don't find her attractive," Sasha said, turning around again to face Bayley.

Bayley walked forward and kissed her girl on the tip of her nose. "Of course not. I only have eyes for you. Besides, blondes have never been my thing."

"That's true," Sasha acknowledged with a smile. "And I get to see you in your uniform again, which is hella sexy. Now, make yourself useful and set the table while I plate this up."

"Yes, boss," Bayley said with a grin.


Bayley had made sure to arrive quite early for her first shift back in uniform. Even so, she wasn't the first to arrive in the room. Indeed, Amanda Rose was one of the women there before her, she discovered. She had been assigned a locker not too far from Bayley's, and as yet there was no one between them.

"Morning," Bayley said as she opened her locker. She had arrived dressed in her uniform, but there were still some preparations to make before roll call.

"Oh, hey," Rose said, no particular emotion in her voice. "It's been a while since I put one of these on," she added as she buttoned up her uniform shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, something that Bayley was able to avoid having to do with her shorter hair. It at least seemed to move Rose a bit further up the scale towards cop from fitness model.

"Same," Bayley said. "I've got mixed emotions about it, honestly."

Rose continued dressing herself without reply. Bayley's mixed emotions seemed to be a matter of supreme indifference to her. Indeed, she said nothing else until she was ready to leave. "Where do we take roll call?" she asked, walking past a few women in the now busy locker room to approach Bayley.

"Follow me," Bayley said. If Rose wanted to be all business, that was fine with her. Some cops were like that.

"Who's the sergeant?" Rose asked as they left the locker room.

"Her name's Rousey. She's seriously tough, and just as hard to impress. I should know, she was also my training officer."

Rose gave a single laugh. "Must have only recently made sergeant then?"

"Yeah, about a year ago. Right about the same time I made Intelligence."

"How did you get that gig, anyway? Thorne doesn't seem like the type to pick people up fresh out of rookie year."

Bayley winked at her. "I guess it depends how good your rookie year was." It had been meant as a joke, but it seemed to impress Rose a little.

The roll call room wasn't far from the locker room. They walked in and sat down, about halfway from the front. Bayley felt sure that wouldn't prevent sergeant Rousey from singling her out for comment on her return to uniform.

"So, where are we hoping not to be assigned?" Rose asked. "I don't know much of Stamford. It wasn't that long ago I came here."

"The east side," Bayley said. "There's a lot of poverty over there. A lot of drug problems, a lot of violence. Since that's where we picked you up, I think you know that."

"Right," Rose said simply, killing the conversation right then and there.

Before long, sergeant Rousey strode into the room. "Alright, quiet!" she said assertively. Silence was immediately granted to her before she even took her position at the front to address them.

"Doesn't look like someone to be fucked with," Rose muttered under her breath to Bayley.

"Nothing special to brief you on today, so let's keep it short and sweet," Rousey said. "Before I get down to handing out your assignments, join me in welcoming Bayley Martinez back to uniform. She's gracing us with her presence from Intelligence for a month."

Bayley felt her cheeks warming up as several of her colleagues turned to look at her. She had expected it, but that didn't make it any less embarrassing.

"And partnering her is Amanda Rose, who joins us from Westchester County. I'm sure you'll all make her welcome. With that said, here are today's assignments."

Bayley waited for her and Rose's names to come up, hoping to avoid being posted to the east side. Shortly, their turn came.

"Martinez, Rose, foot patrol, central shopping district."

Good and bad, Bayley thought. The central shopping district was one of the nicest parts of Stamford City. But on the other hand foot patrol in the middle of winter was never a good thing. She felt glad that she had remembered to put on two pairs of socks.

A few minutes later, everyone was dismissed to start the shift. The first order of business was to go back to the locker room to put their uniform coats on.

"Central shopping district. I think I drove through there to get here," Rose said as they walked.

"Yeah. With a bit of luck this shouldn't be a bad shift. It'll be cold, though."

"We'll have to make sure we happen to keep patrolling past coffee shops then, won't we?"

For the first time, there was humour between the new partners, and Bayley smiled. "I know the best ones."

"Then we'll get along fine," Rose said with a smile of her own.

They both went into the locker room and put on their coats. Both women also had leather gloves to protect themselves from the cold, and Bayley had a beanie hat too.

"All set? We can walk from the station," Bayley said.

"First stop, coffee. Let's go."

Walking together, they left the station and turned right, heading towards the centre of the city. It was so cold that there was ice on the ground, and their breath was visible in the air.

"Two years under. That's quite something," Bayley said in order to strike up a conversation.

"You cant imagine unless you've done it," Rose said reflectively. "I spent pretty much every day of my life with those guys for at least a year and a half. If Jarrett had moved his ass faster we could have rolled up the whole operation. But instead he fucked around and you guys showed up. All that work down the toilet."

Bayley realised the anger she was hearing came from frustration, understandably so. Two entire years of work going up in smoke had to be gutting.

"The thing about undercover work is you get to see the other side of people," Rose was saying. "I know they had to be taken down, and I know Rusty was pulling a gun on Thorne so she had to shoot him, but the guy had a son. I went over to their place with a gift last year on his birthday, and I had some of his cake. Now his dad's dead. It's the most fucked up this job has made me feel, honestly."

Bayley took all of that in, offering a sympathetic smile. She had learned that although Rose came across as a bit of a hard ass, she did care about people like the innocent boy in question. It was a good sign as far as the evaluation was concerned.

"What about you? What's the most messed up thing you've seen or done on the job?" Rose asked as they waited at an intersection to cross the street.

"Boy, that's an easy one," Bayley said. "I had to work with Alexa Bliss, otherwise known as..."

"The Goddess," Rose jumped in. "I've heard of her. Shit, you were on the team when they let her out to give up those bodies? I remember watching it on the news."

"I was," Bayley said as they got the 'walk' signal, and started to cross the street. "It was weather just like this at the time. Seeing ice on the ground always reminds me of standing in that field where she buried those poor people. She's so sick in the head, she loved every minute of it. She picked me as the only person she was talk to, which made it even worse for me. Some of the things se told me made me feel physically sick."

"Oh god," Rose grimaced. "Is it true that she's going to give up more bodies in the future? I remember that being said at the time."

Bayley shook her head, dreading the prospect. "I don't know. I think she would say anything to get into people's head. But is it possible that she will come forward to reveal more victims? Yes."

"There's something for you to look forward to then."

Can't wait, Bayley thought. She shivered, and she felt sure that it didn't have anything to with the cold. Luckily, there was a perfect opportunity to change the subject. "This a good coffee shop up here," she announced. "Let's get one, then we can worry about going to work."

"Sounds like a plan," Rose said.

Bayley noted that if her new partner was nervous in any way about her evaluation, she wasn't showing it. It remained to be seen if the confidence was justified.


A/N: Many thanks for checking out this opening chapter. If you would like to check out the earlier stories in this series they are listed on my profile page.

How do you think Amanda Rose's evaluation will go once they get down to some police work?