Chapter Text
“Unit 1746, respond to a 10-50, possible 10-29H at…”
Officer Prevost listened to the scanner call her number and describe the call she was being sent on. She was patrolling the neighborhoods in her jurisdiction, almost at the end of her shift, and really didn’t need to take this kind of call…
Theo really hated these types of calls. The ones where she was forced to look into the eyes of a scared/drugged out omega and command them to stop, force them to comply. Any other alpha on the force could just as easily taken the call. But Theo knew the other alpha officers wouldn’t take care of the omega the way they needed.
Knox was too abrasive; he didn’t care whether the omega was well or not, just wanted to get them into custody. Green was nice, but he didn’t think before he spoke; he would have the Omega suing the precinct as soon as they got their wits about them. Any number of the other officers would follow protocol by the book and simply drop the poor thing into the drunk tank without checking to see what drugs the omega was on, not thinking about the consequences of putting an omega who was off on their birth control into a room full of drunks and drug addicts.
No, to answer these calls you needed tact and compassion. Something Officer Theodosia Prevost had in spades. She responded to the call and turned her cruiser, “Unit 1746, 10-4.”
When she arrived at the quaint home she noticed a mother and her son standing in the front yard. The mother was visibly upset and waved Theo over as if she was just an officer passing by and the woman hadn’t specifically called for police assistance.
“She’s holed up in my shed, stinking to high heaven.” The mother started in on Theo before she had a chance to step out of her cruiser. She made a distasteful noise in the back of her throat. “Had to keep my boy all the way in the front yard to keep him from being influenced. Why they keep letting omegas control their own birth control is beyond me. Especially with the side-effects of abusing the medications.”
Theo fought to keep her eyes from rolling in her head. It was a fairly common sentiment among alphas and betas. If omegas couldn’t control the side effects that came along with heat suppressors, they shouldn’t be allowed to regulate their own bodies. It didn’t matter that birth control was an underfunded and inexact science. What worked well for one omega could be catastrophic for another. And after a time, the body could build up immunity to the suppressors and cause unexpected heats. Theo had a lot of experience with omegas coming into heat in the cells of the precinct and having to quickly get them out of general lockup and into a private cell. Overdose of heat suppressors was just as difficult, the omega going into such an intense heat that it would trigger any other omega into a heat of their own.
This is probably what was happening to the omega in the irate woman’s shed. She held her son, an omega, away from the back yard, but probably didn’t need to. He was only 10 or 11, not old enough to go into his first heat yet. And the shed was a good 30 feet away, not far enough for the pheromones to reach especially through the walls of the shed.
“I’ll take care of this, ma’am.” Theo laid a soothing hand on the woman’s arm. “If you and your son wouldn’t mind going back inside. I’ll get her into my car and be out of your hair.”
Theo tried flashing the woman her most charming smile but the beta woman simply ‘hrumphed’ and drug her son into the house.
Theo cautiously approached the shed, her instincts telling her that this might get messy. The wall of pheromones hit her like a brick building about 5 feet from the shed. She could smell the off-ness of the heat from here. Poor thing was overdosed on a heat suppressor. Pretty badly too, judging by the heavy chemical undertone of the pheromones. Theo shook her head to bring her attention to the task at hand and tried to not breathe too deeply as she opened the shed.
The abject terror that rolled out of the building was almost more overpowering than the pheromones. The tiny woman scrambled over herself to get as far away from the doorway as possible. She was panting, sweaty, covered in dirt and scrapes. Her muscles were twitching uncontrollably. Theo could see bruises all over her body; peeking out from under the thin red sundress the girl was wearing. It was certainly too cold to be wearing a sundress, it was early December, but she was sweating all the same.
“No, no, no, no… Please, no- Don’t, I can’t- Don’t take me back, not to him. No, no, no, no, no…” The woman in the shed cried, she held her forearms across her chest and panted. Tears leaked from her eyes, her fear of whoever ‘he’ was forcing them out of her body.
Theo tried to smile reassuringly and let her alpha fill the air with calm and responded, “You won’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to, Omega. May I come in and sit with you?”
The girl shivered and shifted to get farther into the shed, but she searched Theo’s face and must have found something reassuring. She nodded. Theo closed the door and crouched as far away from the omega as possible. The smell of the drugged heat was oppressive. There was no way this girl could be taken down to the station. She must be on 4 times the usual dosage of suppressors for a male omega twice her size. This girl had to be 90 pounds soaking wet, her hair was dark and dirty and no telling what color it actually was with all the dirt and sweat in it. She had an olive skin tone where she wasn’t pale with fear or mottled with bruises and scrapes, her terrified eyes were a honey brown. Theo took off her jacket and held it out to the omega, “You look like you’re freezing, would you like my jacket?”
The omega’s eyes, wide with her terror raked up and down the jacket and then past the jacket to Theodosia. She shivered again. Some of the panic had leeched out of her voice but was replaced by sluggish speech that was more indicative of suppressor overdose, “Not cold, too hot… Heat. Wrong… He… drugs…”
She shook her head as if trying to remember something. The hormones from her heat, and the overdose of heat suppressants must have addled the omega’s brain. Theo waved the jacket some more, her own sent breaking through the omega’s. Even with the drugged heat, it was too cold in this December morning to have so little on, “How about this: I promise to not take you back to ‘him’ if you take this jacket. My word as a Police woman as well as an Alpha.”
The girl searched Theo for what must have been the 100th time; she was so scared. Theo made a decision right there. She wasn’t taking the omega back to the station; neither was she going to take her to the hospital. At the hospital the omega would be treated like a drug addict and that was not the feeling Theo was getting from the girl. Those bruises worried her, there were too many to be accidental. Many were placed defensively, on her arms and shoulders and legs, as if she had been curled in on herself while someone beat her. Theo would find out more about the little omega when she had some food and rest in her.
Unfortunately, it would take far longer to sober the girl up, heat suppressants stayed in the blood stream too long. It was one of the problems that led to overdose; the new dose could compound the rest of the old dose. And the government still called heat suppressant alternatives research a ‘superfluous expenditure, money better spent on real health issues.’ Like erectile dysfunction… because Lupa forbid an Alpha couldn’t get it up.
The little omega reached for the jacket and in the second their fingers brushed, Theo felt the stir of bonding. She was unsure if the omega could feel it in her state, but Theo felt her Alpha reach out to the girl’s Omega circling protectively over it baring it’s teeth at whatever was distressing its mate. It was the swiftness that her Alpha and the girl’s Omega accepted each other that startled Theo. Well that and one other thing…
Theo froze. Her hand went to the soul mark on her side located below her lowest left rib. It was complete, though, she had found her mate. Her soul mate, her mark didn’t have any space left. Other soul marks had room for more; it wasn’t uncommon to have three in a pack. An Alpha with two Betas, or a Beta and an Omega, or even two Omegas. Although the first pairing to a little too combative for Theo’s tastes, and that last pairing would be crazy come heat time if both Omegas went into heat at the same time. Hell, she knew one Omega that had insisted that his pack had room for more with three already and had found a fourth just six months ago. But her mark was complete. It had to be…
But the evidence remained. Her Alpha had responded to the Omega, she had felt the shift. It had happened. There was no way in hell she was taking the poor thing anywhere but home now.
Theodosia Provost, police officer, Alpha, responsible, contributing member of society was about to break the law. She was about to commit an act that would at best get her suspended; at worst, arrested. Theo had only one thought as she picked up the too light omega and bundled her into the cruiser, Eliza is going to be so pissed…