Hey guys, I'm back. I needed a little break you know? I read over my four fics recently and realised how much I liked In Between The Heartaches. Inspired by Kelsey Scott (the screenwriter of Motives and Motives 2: Retribution) I decided to further explore these characters' motivations in this new context. Thanks for sticking with me or catching on then sticking with me. As always; enjoy.

- Unbridled.Mind

Five years later.

A little girl swung her legs back and forth under the Italian leather seat. The green laces of her sneakers were undone, matching the grass stains on her shorts. Born a high-maintenance tomboy, her mother already pre-empted what she going to say.

"Mommy, I'mbored." Nicole smiled at the dramatic prolonging of the last syllable; she had taught her well.

"I know sweetie, just be patient. We'll be home soon." She replied although the scattered files on her desk said otherwise.

"How soon?"

"Sooner than you think." Nicole clutched the once-misplaced report in her left hand and answered the phone with her right.

"Silvia, I found it. Tell A.D. Marshall she'll have it by morning."

"Great. There's a Mr. Antonio Cortez here to see you."

The papers descended to the floor and at the mention of his name it was hard to think straight. "Send him in." She managed to say before regretting it. Their last encounter was hollow and taxing and led to minimal subsequent contact, bar Christmas and Birthday cards. All she knew of him was what she overheard, not that she dared to ask; she couldn't afford to get involved when the price was too high to pay.

"Scott." He said, as she gathered the papers she dropped into a folder for the out tray.

"Williams." She corrected him, knowing he had deliberately ignored the wooden sign on her office door. She held out her hand in routine formality, shook his firmly and introduced her daughter. "This is Angela. Angie, this is my old friend Antonio."

"How old is he?"

Antonio tried to answer her rhetorical question. "She meant we go back a…."

"She knows." Nicole informed him. "My daughter, the comedian."

As Angela waved from her seat, the beaded bracelet on her wrist shook. "Hello."

"Hi. There's something I have to tell you."

"Something that brought you all the way from Seattle, it must be important."

"I thought it would be better to tell you face to face."

"I wish I could stay...let's say nine."

"P.M.?"

"Yeah. I have to take her home and do all that mom stuff first. What'd you say?"

He couldn't argue when all he wanted to do was lose himself in a gaze at the woman who used to drive him crazy with her ways. Now she fit a new mould, one he never thought was possible. Not that he was dissatisfied with his own life, with Xiomara carrying their fourth child he had no reason to be, Nicole just made him curious.

"Nine is good."

"You don't mean that but I'll see you then. Come on nosy." She called to Angela who watched them interact observantly, picking up the energy she couldn't yet understand.

She kissed Angela on the cheek after she fell asleep to "The house that went to sea." After seeing Antonio she felt like a human cocktail whose emotions had been shaken not stirred. That's why seeing Rashad's face, though later than they had agreed, fed her the calm she needed to digest for peace's sake. Her muscles relaxed just by being in his presence. However the voice on her cell phone line made her jaw tense up a little.

"You were right, nine isn't good for me. I'll see you tomorrow."

She couldn't read his tone so she placidly agreed. "Cool."

"What was that?" Rashad asked, in between the kisses he planted on her neck.

"A false alarm."

She kissed him as though nothing mattered though the pit of her stomach told her otherwise. The sense that a storm was coming had arrived at the front door of the feelings and she couldn't deny it. Especially when she was right. After he checked on Angela, his six-foot-four frame was so close to her that he invaded whatever private space she had left. Usually she didn't mind but that night her thoughts ran wild with the speculation of Antonio's cause.

"Nikki, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, really."

"Are you s…?"

"Shh. Less talk, more naked."

As the S.A.I.C. of the Sacramento field office, Nicole was a long way away from the ambitious twenty-four year old who broke the rules and almost her neck on the hunt for Annette Burns. Now, she was an irrefutably different person and that fact, though regrettably, was acknowledged most by Antonio who hadn't seen her in over four years.

"So," She started, interrupting his contemplation. "What's up?"

"Warfield's getting a deal in exchange for Marlon Harris."

In her career, Nicole had encountered Harris so often they were on first name terms. After spending eleven months on an inter-departmental case with the DEA in Las Vegas, he offered her a job under the premise that she was the only person on Earth who could ever bring him down, though it might kill her to do it. He was one of the top-ten distributors of Opium in the country and his business was going into its thirtieth year.

"To think; it all started with a poppy field in Myanmar." She sighed, already anticipating phone calls from Harris' defence attorney, the District Attorney of Virginia and Warfield himself in the next forty-eight hours." Antonio disclosed the information Warfield was rumoured to give to secure his deal.

"Are you sure he's not bluffing?"

"I don't think he can."

She was silent for a while. "So why are you telling me all this?"

They made definite eye contact. "You'd do the same for me."

She nodded. "Yeah I would. You look happy." He didn't know exactly what she meant and for once it didn't frustrate him like it used to.

"I am." His eyes travelled across the many pictures of Angela that sat around her office until they landed on their family portrait. He fixated on it until she picked it up.

"It's strange how things turn out."

Something inside wouldn't allow him to speak; everything he prepared to tell her left his mind and his vocabulary reverted to that of a child. "It is." He cleared his throat and stood up. "So now you know, take care."

"I always do."

They both managed to crack a smile that was as awkward as it was sincere. His palm was clammy when he shook her soft hand and moved in closer to cordially kiss both her cheeks. Somehow he inhaled the scent to Thierry Mugler's Alien lovelessly; it didn't rouse emotion in him anymore. She wished him well but it wasn't lip service, just maturity that was long overdue. Besides, the same gut instinct that told her danger was well on its way confirmed she would see him again and, Warfield's return wasn't the only thing they had left to confront together.