Dream Like New York

Who: Annalise Beaumont and Jared Beaumont
What: The fallout
Where: Annalise's office, 25th Precinct, NYPD
When: Simultaneous to THIS

It had been a busy enough week for Annalise without the added chaos of what had gone down in her unit earlier that day. It had been against her better judgement that she even let Jared watch that questioning session when she knew Euan and Julie were two of her best detectives and had it in hand. Euan had even been meant to get her job before her, but he had turned it down. He was more than capable and Jared should never have defied her authority and gone near that suspect. Especially without her consent, and even moreso by just barging in there and interrupting a perfectly legal line of questioning. Yes, Ashley had been putting out the warning stops and reminding Harley he didn't have to talk, but Harley had still seemed willing to continue and he could have given them some vital pieces of information if they had just been patient and let him work through the distress he was feeling.

Instead, the poor guy had been terrified into cardiac arrest - and at the hands of her husband, who was supposed to be up there in skill with Euan. She knew his head was in the wrong place after he had seen Julian in the hospital, but she hadn't had a chance to speak to him about it. He had spent long hours at the hospital in the wake of Julian's text message and when he had gotten home, she had two three years olds on her hands with fever and not wanting to sleep. She told him to go take a shower and get some sleep while she sat up with the children. She knew he had hardly slept, but at least he had tried. Annalise had arrived at the station alone that morning whilst Jared looked in on Julian, who had apparently been asleep for the visit and nurses were still reporting that he had no memory of the actual incident. Harley had been their biggest lead, and now he was in hospital hooked up to machines with a glaring restraining order restricting police contact. It was a huge mess.

And Annalise was a mother. When she had the added heartache of telling Harley's mom what had just happened in the interview room, the woman looked like she wanted to rip the throats out of the nearest cop she could lay her hands on for hurting her baby. And goddamnit, Annalise would have reacted the same way. All they had been able to do was watch as Harley was rushed away in an ambulance after his heart was shocked back into beating on the floor of the interview room. Then Annalise had to face a pile of incident paperwork and she had slammed her office door shut, making it clear she didn't want to be interrupted until she had it done so it would give Harley's mom ease for whatever legal route she wanted to take. If she was going to sue them or even lay charges on Jared for assault of her son, it was going to be horrific and could really impede the investigation into Julian's case.

It was evening now. Julie was still out at her desk looking stressed but trying to finish her own case notes. Euan had gone home to his son, and Jared's partner had been off sick the past two days after he went home ill with the flu and laryngitis a few days ago. Annalise finally felt she had cooled off enough to face her husband without wanting to slam his face into the surface of her desk. Once he stepped into the office, she closed the door and pulled the blinds shut. "You better give me a damn good reason why I shouldn't divorce you on the spot, Beaumont," she said quietly, her heels clicking on the hard, cold surface of her floor as she rounded her desk and closed Harley's incident file over so it could be copied and couriered to Ashley's law firm.