Title: The High Life
Author: wicked-nachos-09
Fandom/Pairing: Rush - Shannon/Stella
Summary: Stella's brother Frank is slowly becoming corrupt from the influences of gangs and tastes of the high life. Unknowingly and unwillingly, he involves her in the dispute with a local gang who holds a lot of power in the area. On top of recovering from being thrown into the consequences of her brother screwing over a violent gang of drug addicts and traffickers, Stella has to deal with a long-lasting not-so-secret relationship at work, a clingly ex-fling and a stalker. How will Shannon and Stella survive these rough times? Together or apart? As friends or lovers?
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Rush so this could really happen more than once a week for more than one hour every time.
A/N: I wrote this at one am 'cause I couldn't get this idea out of my head. This is as far as my train of thought went. Hopefully I can push it a bit further tomorrow night.

PROLOGUE

The police vehicles slammed on the brakes outside the hospital emergency department entrance, coming close to hitting the departing ambulance. The five members of the seven member team jumping out of the cars before they had even fully come to a complete standstill. Inspector Kerry Vincent had arrived fifteen minutes earlier and had parked her car properly around the corner in the hospitals designated parking lot.

The leader of the Tactical Response Unit led his team into the building and straight to the administration desk, to a nurse who was too busy talking to a colleague. Lawson Blake ignored Kerry's voice as he knocked on the glass window of the desk. The nurse waved him off, he was only dressed in his full Police uniform with six other officers behind him.

"Excuse me," he said strongly in his best seriously angry voice.

"Hold on, please."

The nurse seemed extremely reluctant to want to help him and sighed before turning back around to continue gossiping about the resident hottie.

"HEY!" Senior Sergeant Shannon Henry slammed a closed fist against the window, effectively gaining the nurses attention as the glass continued to rattle loudly. Kerry roughly grabbed the arm hole of Shannon's vest, pulled her away from the nurses' station, and began to talk in rushed whispers about something only the two of them, Lawson and Stella knew about.

"Now that we have your undivided attention, Nurse," started Lawson, watching as the short middle-aged turned with wide eyes, "Hamilton, I am Senior Sergeant Lawson Blake of the Tactical Response Unit. A member of my team was brought in around thirty minutes ago. Can you please tell me where Senior Constable Stella Dagostino is?"

The nurse gently lowered herself to her chair and began typing on the keyboard, searching for Stella's information.

"How do you spell her surname?" Nurse Hamilton seemed to be slightly on edge, either from Shannon's outburst, or Lawson's calm reaction to Shannon's outburst.

"D-A-G-O-S-T-I-N-O," Lawson answered.

The other members of the team waited anxiously behind him, Shannon and Kerry sitting in some chairs that several other people had vacated when they saw them coming.

"Dagostino, Stella. Heading to surgery on the third floor. You can wait up there if you like," politely came from the nurse.

"Thank you for your help," said Lawson, smiling. A small flick of the head and the entire group followed him towards the elevators.

The wait was torture, and the nurses at the station on the third floor were a lot politer and more helpful than Nurse Hamilton had been.

'Maybe she called ahead,' thought Kerry.

Lawson was finding a new way to put the blame of what had happened to Stella on himself, Michael was pacing and wringing his hands together, and Christian was praying. Shannon was hunched over in a corner seat, knee bouncing, Josh leaning back in his stiff hospital waiting room chair with a hand on her back to comfort her. Kerry was looking for coffee.

It had been nearly an hour with no news from the doctors or nurses about Stella's condition and no one had moved, save Michael who had never stopped pacing.

One nurse walked in and asked for the TR vehicles to be moved. Technically, their shift had ended three hours ago and they were running on fumes.

"Alright," said Lawson. "Kerry, you want to stay here?"

"Yeah. I'll get Leon to find me some phone numbers for her parents," agreed the older woman, standing from her seat.

"Okay, the rest of us, down to the cars. We're going back to base. Restock the cars, shower. Come back later." After a moment, Lawson turned back and spoke louder than before. "Michael, move."

"No, I'm staying," he responded fiercely.

"Muppet, only two people are staying and that is Kerry and Shannon. The rest of us are leaving. We can always come back later. Now move!" said Josh, his first words, since jumping out of the car over an hour before. Michael willingly but grudgingly left with arguments.

"Why is she staying?" He said, pointing at Shannon, roughly as if he was jealous.

"Because I say she is," said Kerry.

Lawson threw car keys to Josh and Christian, Josh patting Shannon on the shoulder before he left. He wasn't blind to Stella's behaviours or actions, the same way she hadn't been when he was sleeping with Grace or Shannon. He knew, but was unsure how to ask, comfortable to let it play out. Defend them if he had too.

Shannon peeled off her Tactical Response vest, pulling her phone and wallet out of the chest pockets before handing it over to Lawson who was standing in front of her with his hands held out expectantly.

"Weapon, too."

The Senior Sergeant unbuckled the holster and handed it over, slumping back in to her seat and sighing shakily. Lawson kneeled in front of his team member, his family member.

"I'll be back later. Shannon, Stella is going to be fine. She's too bloody stubborn."

The young women cracked a smile; a small smile but a smile nonetheless.

It was well past midnight and neither woman was ready to sleep even though they had gotten very little sleep in the past two weeks.

Then it was only Kerry, Shannon and the silence of the waiting room.

Several people had come and gone by the next morning while two people had remained all night. Senior Sergeant Shannon Henry, a young women with copper-brown hair in a rumpled police uniform, and Inspector Kerry Vincent, a middle-aged woman with large bags under her eyes as a result of no sleep for three nights in a row. They were currently in the waiting room of the Fitzroy Hospital's surgery ward. The time was after eight am.

A nurse came in with two older aged people who's faces showed years of hard work and raising kids; Stella's parents, Nikolai and Nina. Her brother Frank was a city cop and only lived twenty minutes from the hospital. As siblings, Stella and Frank had never gotten along with Oskar playing mediator between the two. Even by living so close, he was less likely to arrive than Oskar was, and Oskar was a country cop out in Ballarat with his wife and two kids.

Immediately, Shannon and Kerry stood to greet them, give them news if they could.

"You must be Stella's parents?" asked Kerry, and upon receiving a nod and a quiet 'yes', she continued. "I'm Inspector Kerry Vincent. I'm Stella's boss."

They quickly shook hands, and Nikolai turned to Shannon and nearly suffocated her in a fatherly hug before Kerry could introduce her. Nina hugged her quickly and asked how she was.

"I'm okay. I would be a whole lot better if they could give us some news," explained Shannon. The look she was getting from her superior urged her to explain the hugs. "I met her parents about two months about, that week we all had off after Dom's funeral. Road trip up to Bendigo. Me and Stel."

The memory of the week they spent away from their real lives made her tear up slightly, but Shannon wiped them quickly as a doctor came around the corner in surgical scrubs.

"Family of Stella Dagostino?"