You hadn’t planned on joining.

You were in your final year at Hudson when Mariska gave a guest lecture. She walked in wearing authority like a second skin. Dark slacks, simple jacket, expression like she’d seen every version of humanity and didn’t flinch at any of it.

You sat in the back, arms crossed, ready to zone out.

But she spoke like the room mattered. Like people mattered. No dramatic stats. No war stories for applause. Just quiet, surgical truth about the work: what it took, what it cost, why it had to be done anyway.

You stayed after. Asked a question. Something about secondary trauma. You expected a polite nod. Instead, she held your gaze and said, “You’re sharp. You thinking about joining?”

You weren’t. Not until then.

You applied the next week. Got in six months later.

First year there was everything the academy didn’t prepare you for: 4 a.m. interviews, people who wouldn’t speak to you, bad people. You learned to stop expecting clean resolutions. Most days, things didn’t look like a gavel. It looked like paperwork, lot of efforts and people who walked away.

Mariska didn’t go easy on you — she didn’t go easy on anyone — but she always watched. The way she asked follow-up questions to your interviews. The way she left notes on your reports. Quiet, subtle mentorship.

You earned her respect the slow way. Through consistency. Through staying late. Through never flinching, even when everything in you wanted to throw a chair through a window.

Eventually, she started calling you in for second interviews. Trusted you with the tougher ones. She never said the words, but the team knew. You were being tested.

Then came him.

You read the case files after the fact. You wished you hadn’t. What he did to her character — what survived — it left scars deeper than anything physical. He was supposed to be locked up for life.

But systems fail.

You were on your way home when the call came in: she was taken. Location unknown. Dispatch said "him". And just like that, everything narrowed to a single priority.

You found her in an abandoned industrial lot in Red Hook. Backup was ten minutes out. You didn’t wait.

He had her at gunpoint. You don’t remember what you yelled. Just that you moved. Fast. Calculated. Took the shot when the window opened. One round. Headshot. He dropped instantly.

She looked up from the ground. Bloody, restrained. Breathing. Still her.

“You good?” you said, gun still raised, adrenaline burning like acid.

She nodded once. “Yeah. Thanks to you.”

You didn’t answer. Just covered the room until uniforms poured in.

Everything shifted after that.

The team treated you different. Peuple started asking for your read on cases, offering you coffee, which, by standards, might as well have been a trophy. They even called you “serious muscle” — probably a joke, but not entirely.

Mariska's kid liked you too. First time you visited the precinct off-hours, he’d handed you a crayon drawing of the squad. You were in the middle. Wearing sunglasses. Holding a donut. “That's you,” he’d said. “Because you're always calm.”

You weren’t. But you appreciated the propaganda.

Then, Mariska's partner transferred out a few months later.

Mariska didn’t hold a formal meeting. She just handed you a file one morning and said, “We’ve got one in Harlem. Let’s go.”

That was it. No ceremony. No official announcement. Just her, walking beside you, like you’d always been there.

In the car, she glanced your way.

“You ready for this?” she asked.

You didn’t answer right away. Then: “I was trained by you.”

She gave a small nod. That almost-smile she reserved for moments when the job didn’t crush the air out of the room.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s work.”

And just like that, you were her partner. Not because of the promotion. Not because of the shot you took. But because she chose you.

Because when it counted, you didn’t blink.

And neither did she.