A/N: Set two years before the start of series one, Lilly broke off her engagement to Patrick a year ago, and she just made it onto Homicide. She is still nursing a broken heart from Patrick's betrayal, when she meets someone who is about to send her world spinning around.

S/L relationship, the early years, the rest of the team will make appearances but mainly this is about our two favourite detectives

Making It Work

Chapter 1: Day One And Already I Am Overwhelmed

Lilly Rush looked nervously around the crime scene, trying to block out the jeers and taunts that the locals yelled towards them from behind the yellow tape line. Her partner, Ben Fulcrum, a husky middle aged detective stared blankly at her as she looked down at the young boy lying on the ground in front of them. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, and the white hoodie he was wearing was soaked in blood. She'd never really seen a dead body up this close, sure she'd worked tape lines at homicide scenes when she was a rookie cop, but she had never actually been close enough to touch one. He looked so peaceful, so still and yet the look on his face was one of surprise and shock. Who could have killed this young man, she could still smell the cordite in the air and the blood that was pooled around the boy's body was fresh. He mustn't have been dead long.

Suddenly, the sound of a hysterical woman, screaming reached their ears and Ben Fulcrum turned his head slightly "Oh crap" he swore "the critters got family" he looked disgusted, as though he would rather be anywhere but here in Fairhill working this murder. Lilly had heard about him before she made the transfer to Homicide from North Detectives. He was one of those detectives that had been doing this job for more than half his life and he was just trying to get to an age where he could take his pension and leave Philly behind him. But until then, he'd do only as much as was necessary. Lilly also realised he wasn't too thrilled about having to train her, the man was a chauvinist as well as a racist.

Lilly turned her head to the rope line and saw a sobbing black woman trying to get past the uniformed officer, who was putting a comforting hand on her shoulder and speaking to her softly. Lilly also took in the looks on the face of a young boy, clinging to his mother's side as well as the ones standing beside her. This poor woman had lost a son and those boys had lost their big brother. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath.

"Should I err…notify them?" Lilly asked her partner cautiously.

"Yeah go on" he said callously with a shrug of his shoulders, he seemed to have already formed an option about their victim.

Lilly took one last look at the boy and turned to walk towards the tape line, but paused and turned back "I've just never done it before" she said, trying not to let the lump in her throat make her choke on the words.

"This here is the perfect opportunity then cause this ain't nothing but an NHI" he said harshly

"No humans involved?" Lilly repeated, wondering how Detective Fulcrum could think this way, about a kid.

"Yep"

"I don't believe in that" she said defiantly

"Stick around long enough and your bleedin' heart will run dry real soon" he replied with a wry laugh.

Lilly steeled herself and walked over to the crying woman, trying not to be overwhelmed as the perfect stranger reached out to her and grabbed her coat "that can't be my boy" she pleaded with Lilly.

Lilly looked down the line at the four other boys beside her, all of varying ages and took another deep breath. She done death notification role plays at the academy, but nothing had prepared her for the actual moment when she had to tell a family, that their loved one was never coming home.

"It's Vaughn Bubley" she replied apologetically.

"No!" the woman screamed through her tears, gripping Lilly harder "Oh God no"

"Vaughn's dead?" The smallest boy asked her.

"I am afraid so" she replied, trying hard not to cry herself, cop in her fought through her sadness and she asked "Do you have any idea who might of done this? Any of you?" she took out her notepad.

"He wasn't buyin' and he wasn't bangin' if that's what you think" replied a tall boy with glasses, as he kept his arms around his little brother.

"No I wasn't…"

"He was a good boy…he worked hard" Mrs Bubley cried before she doubled over and her one of her sons wrapped his small arms around his mother.

"You gotta find out who did this lady" the bespectacled boy pleaded through his tears.

Mrs Bubley tenderly brushed his cheek "He was like a father to his brothers, you understand?"

"Yes" Lilly replied

The smallest boy ducked underneath the tape and looked up into the eyes "Vaughn's really dead?" he asked, still not being able to believe that his eldest brother was no longer alive.

"I am sorry" she replied in almost a whisper and the little boy collapsed into her arms and sobbed, hugging her tightly, forcing Lilly to stoop to his level as she wrapped her arms around the small child. "I ain't gonna make it without him" he sobbed into her shoulder.

This image was burned into her mind all day as she and Fulcrum, tried to interview the people in the neighbourhood, but no one was willing to talk to cops. The population of Fairhill hated them and they had more door shut in their face then Lilly could count.

The end of her first day had come around at seven that evening when Detective Fulcrum pulled on his coat and announced he was leaving, not even bidding her goodnight as he left the precinct.

Lilly sighed and ran a hand through her hair, she couldn't go home, but she couldn't work on the case without her partner either. Maybe she would stop by Jones' tavern on the way home, have a drink and then head back to her home…..alone….and try and process the events of the day.

…..

Scotty Valens was celebrating the closing of another case with the rest of his undercover narcotics squad. He had just come out of deep cover, a cover he'd been in for the past six months. He had practically begged Manny, his captain, to give him his first undercover assignment when he and Elisa had broken up. He had needed to hide out in someone else's life to try and forget the pain he was in. He knew that Elisa and he could not have stayed together, she was sick, she was yet again in the puzzle house and she was never gonna get any better. Elisa had begged him to let her go, pleaded with him through her tears that he should find someone else to love. Someone who could give him the life he wanted. A woman without her troubles that could make him happy, like she couldn't do.

He told her that he loved her, that they could make it work, that if they could just see the doctors again and change the meds for the umpteenth time, maybe they could get back to what they had been a year before. Engaged and planning a family.

Elisa had refused to let him persuade her, and begged him once again to leave her, because she wasn't strong enough to leave him.

He felt as though his heart was being ripped out of his chest as he stood and nodded, he pressed one last kiss to her forehead and walked away, feeling her fingers slip through his as he walked out of her room at the hospital. Hearing her wracking sobs all the way down the hallway. He'd made as far as his car before he'd broke down and wept against the steering wheel.

It had taken six months, but the pain was starting to recede slightly and he knew that he really should think about moving on. He wasn't going undercover anymore, his first and last case had hurt too much when her realised that he could do little to save the poor girls that mulled drugs into Philly. He walked over to the bar and ordered another scotch for himself and a fresh pitcher of beer for his table. That's when he saw her.

Blonde, lithe figure, sitting alone on a stool at the bar, nursing a girly green coloured cocktail and staring into space.

"Another round Jo" Scotty said to the bartender as he slid the pitcher across the bar.

"Sure thing Scotty"

Scotty took a handful of peanuts from the bowl beside the beautiful blonde and cracked one open "This seat taken?" he asked as he slid down into the plush leather without waiting for a reply.

"Knock yourself out" she replied distractedly.

Joe placed his Scotch and the pitcher of beer in front of him and Scotty handed him the money to cover it, plus a little extra as a tip "You here alone?" he asked her taking a sip from his scotch and popping another peanut into his mouth.

"Yes" she said again, still not looking at him.

"I am Scotty Valens" he said sticking out his hand.

She finally turned her head and looked him in the eyes, and then down at his outstretched hand. Seemingly deep in thought about whether or not to take his hand "Lilly Rush" she finally said and she shook his hand.

"So Lilly, what are you doin' here all by yourself?"

Lilly sighed "look if you don't mind, I had a really crappy day and I wanna be alone"

"Hey Scotty, what's taking so long" someone called out across the bar "we're dyin' of thirst here"

Scotty swore under his breath, he really wanted to get to know Lilly more but he realised that that wasn't going to happen while his squad was waiting on their drinks.

"Don't go anywhere" he said as he stood up and grabbed the pitcher, heading over to a table near the dart boards.

Lilly sighed with relief as Scotty moved away from her. It wasn't that she didn't think he was good looking, he was gorgeous, with a scruffy black beard, spiky hair, and a scent of cigar smoke and aftershave that wafted off of him that made her stomach flip. But she knew that he'd only be interested in one thing and she wasn't really looking for a drunken hook up tonight. Not when she had spent the day, trying to piece together the last days of Vaughn Bubley's life. She took a sip from her cocktail and relished the feeling of the cooling alcohol as it slid down her throat. She was just about to get up and leave when she felt a presence beside her and smelt the cigar smoke, aftershave and now a little hint of scotch behind her "So Lilly" Scotty said as he sat back down beside her "You didn't answer my question, why are you sittin' here alone?"

"I don't want to be rude but I really want to be alone"

"Well we have a problem then"

Lilly turned to face him "What do you mean?" she asked him, studying him, sizing him up and wondering how fast she could pin him against the bar if he even tried to make a move on her, but his answer surprised her "My Ma always taught me to never let a beautiful woman drink alone in a bar, not when there are a few unscrupulous drunks around her"

"I can take care of myself, thanks, I am a cop" she indicated the badge on her hip and made sure that he saw the glock that rested beside it. She wanted to warn the guy that she was packing.

"Well what a coincidence" Scotty said as he slid is hand into his pocket and produced an ID "Me too, where are you stationed?"

Lilly considered him for a few moments and then replied "North, I am in homicide"

"Homicide? Really?"

"What does that supposed to mean?" she snapped

"No nothin' its just as I didn't think there was any woman in Homicide is all"

Lilly frowned "There wasn't, until today that is. It's my first week"

"Oh wait a minute…..you're that Lilly Rush" he said with sudden understanding "I heard about how you pinched that Car Jacker by yourself last year" He said in an awed voice "very impressive"

Lilly let out a wry laugh "If I'd been a little quicker I woulda caught the guy before the freeway"

Scotty chuckled "still pretty nice work though"

A smile twitched in the corners of Lilly's mouth "Thanks, what about you?"

"Narcotics at West, just finished with my first and, most likely last, undercover assignment"

"That bad huh?"

Scotty chuckled and said nothing.

They fell into silence for a few moments and then Scotty cleared his throat "so…you hungry? 'Cause if you are…I'd like to buy you dinner"

Lilly frowned slightly "I am sorry, no" Lilly replied as she stood up and grabbed her coat, pulling it on and fishing out some money from her wallet.

"That's cool; maybe I can't buy you a dinner next time"

Lilly smiled slightly "goodnight" she turned on her heel and headed towards the front door.

"Goodnight" Scotty replied and his eyes remained glued on her retreating back as she exited the bar. He let out a breath he'd been holding and ran a hand through his hair, slumping back down on the bar stool.

"Struck out, huh?" Joe asked teasingly.

"Shut up Joe" Scotty snapped.

"Ahh man, give up. She's way outta your league"

Scotty shook his head "I ain't gonna give up that easy Joe, you'll see"