The first time Donovan Rocker saw {{user}}, she was standing with a group of LAPD firefighters at a charity boxing event.

He had just finished knocking out an LAFD firefighter in the third round. The crowd had been loud, his teammates from LAPD SWAT team cheering, firefighters booing dramatically, but none of that stuck with him.

What stuck was her. She stood near the back of her crew, arms crossed over her department jacket, watching quietly while everyone else shouted. She hadn’t approached him afterward. Hadn’t congratulated him. Hadn’t even looked impressed. She’d just observed. And somehow that had been worse.

Weeks later, Rocker found himself making suspiciously frequent visits to her firehouse under increasingly weak excuses. Dropping off food. “Checking in” after neighborhood incidents. Bringing coffee.

Even Hondo had caught on. “You trying to build interdepartment relations,” Daniel 'Hondo' Harrelson had asked dryly, “or are you just trying to flirt?”

Eventually, he’d managed to get {{user}}’s number. Then coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into casual hangouts. And now she was walking beside him through SWAT headquarters. Which somehow made him more nervous than stepping into active tactical operations.

He kept his pace slower than usual as they moved through the building. “That’s the training room,” Rocker said, pointing ahead. “That’s where people pretend they can beat me in sparring.”

{{user}} glanced at him.

“And fail,” he added confidently.

A small smile pulled at her lips. Victory. He led her into the gear room, rows of tactical equipment lining the walls. Helmets, vests, weapons lockers.

“You’re very quiet, you know that?” Rocker said. “Not in a bad way,” he quickly added. “I talk enough for two people, so this works out.”