DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters. They belong to James Duff and the Major Crimes franchise.

A/N: The only characters that are mine in this story are Matthew and Moxie, but they show up in a later chapter. This story follows the timeline in my previous story "Staged" and picks up from it. Also, it might be a little AU in the chapters following.

Chapter 1

It was turning out to be a bright, sunny Monday morning in southern California, blue skies, and not a cloud in sight. Traffic was bustling down the highways leading into downtown Los Angeles. It was morning rush hour and people were heading in to work.

Sharon was waking up to the smell of fresh coffee being brewed. She looked over to see if Andy was still in bed but his side was empty. She walked into her kitchen and smiled when a cup of coffee was handed to her. "Hmm, thank you" she said to Andy as she took a sip and sat down at the table. Andy had been up for a while and decided that he would make Sharon her favorite coffee this morning. He was tempted to have a cup himself, but promised Sharon a while back that he would obey his doctor's orders and not have anything with caffeine in it anymore. "How did you sleep?" Andy asked her as he joined her at the table with the morning newspaper and some breakfast. "Hmm, wonderful" she said back to him and smiled as she touched her hair. "How did you sleep?" she asked him. He smiled back at her and chuckled a little. "Absolutely fantastic" he said to her as he grabbed her hand and gently caressed it.

They had enjoyed their time away on Coronado Island and Sharon was able to relax and really enjoy herself without worrying about anything work related. They were both going into work later than usual but their team didn't have a callout so it was assumed that today would be an office day. Rusty made his way into the kitchen and he was already dressed. He rushed around the kitchen like he was late. "Everything okay, Rusty?" Sharon asked him. "Yeah Mom, everything is fine" he said as he gathered some items to take with him to class. "I'm supposed to be meeting with Professor Gracey this morning to discuss my future classes and I am running a little behind schedule" Rusty said as he gathered his backpack and started to head to the door. "Good luck kid!" Andy raised his voice as Rusty was walking out the door. Rusty waved back without turning around and headed to his classes.

Andy turned his attention back to Sharon. "So, we have about an hour before we have to leave" Andy said to her as he looked into her eyes and raised his eyebrows. Sharon looked at him and smiled. "What do you have in mind, Lieutenant?" Sharon asked in a sultry voice. "Well Captain" Andy looked down at the table and then back up at her. "We need to shower before we leave and since everyone is talking about conserving water lately, it would only be right to mother nature that we conserve water and take a shower together" Andy said to her proudly. Sharon smirked at him and sighed. "I can't argue with that!" she said to him as she got up from the table and led him back to bathroom.

As they were in the shower together, Andy was washing Sharon's body with her favorite body wash. "I can't wait till we move into our new house" he whispered to her as he leaned in for a kiss. Sharon hummed. "Me too" she said back to him. Sharon turned around and rinsed herself off and stepped out of the shower. Andy then rinsed himself off and step out, grabbing a towel and drying off. Sharon had slipped a towel around her body as she looked in their closet for some clothes to wear for today. Andy waited until she was done in the closet before going in to pick his suit and tie out. He had a red tie that matched Sharon's dress perfectly. It would drive Provenza crazy that they were still matching their outfits in some way. Andy chuckled to himself at that thought.

They had put Sharon's condo on the market and it didn't take long for an offer to come across that matched what she wanted to sell for. They were closing on their new house in a couple of weeks and the condo would be closing in a month. That would give them time to move Sharon's things out of the condo once the house was officially theirs. They were having the home inspector come out on Wednesday to the new house to make sure everything was good and up to code. Andy was going to take a day off from work to be there when the inspector did this. Sharon offered to take the day off as well, but Andy insisted that he could handle it.

They both left to head in to work. Listening to the traffic report lead them to drive together. They took Andy's car in today. The commute was not too bad from Sharon's condo and hopefully when they move into the new house, it would be either the same or a little less since they were moving in the same area. Andy parked his car in the parking garage and Sharon stepped out of her side of the vehicle. Andy came up to her side and they held hands as they walked to the elevators. They waited patiently for the elevator to come down to their level and then stepped inside of it and took it to their floor.

When Sharon and Andy stepped out of the elevator, Lieutenant Tao was right there to meet them. "Captain" Mike addressed her as he held some paperwork in his hands. Andy glanced at the papers in his hands. "Did we catch a case, Mike?" Andy asked him as they all headed towards the Murder Room. "Well, not exactly" Mike said as they walked through the door into the office. "What's all that paperwork in your hands then, Lieutenant?" Sharon asked him as she headed for her office. "It's something that was brought to my attention by our friends down in Robbery/Homicide" Mike said as he handed the paperwork to Sharon. "Oh geeze!" Andy said as he followed Sharon towards everyone's desks now.

"It's a cold case" Mike said as he handed the paperwork around to Provenza, Julio, Amy, Sharon, and Andy. "How can it be a cold case already, if this happened three days ago?" Provenza asked Mike. "It's not cold, the idiots down there don't know how to run an investigation so they pass it on to us" Andy said frustrated. He was hoping for a nice easy day back. "They ran out of leads" Mike said as he shrugged his shoulders. "Anyways I ran into Williamson downstairs and he was wondering if we could take a look at this and see what we thought" Mike continued and looked back at Sharon. She was reading over the paperwork that Provenza kept handing to her. "Hmm, would this be an official request?" Sharon asked Mike. "Because if it is, we are going to have to follow the chain of command and have the request come from Captain Hayes, himself" she continued as she looked back at Mike. "I'll let Williamson know" Mike said as he sat back down at his desk and picked up his phone.

Sharon then proceeded to walk into her office and turned the lights on. She laid her bag on the chair across from her desk and then sat down at her desk looking over the papers that Williamson gave Mike. 'This case was three days old, how could it have gone cold already?' Sharon thought to herself.

Meanwhile Provenza and the rest of the team remained at their desks as Sharon walked towards her office. Provenza waited till Sharon closed the door and then laid into Andy. "What did you do to the Captain?" Provenza asked Andy. "What do you mean, why do you think I did something?" Andy stated back. "Because Flynn, she would have jumped on the opportunity to look into this case, now she wants a formal request from Captain Hayes?" Provenza stated back to him. Andy just gave him a look and walked over to where Provenza was and leaned down. "Look, maybe the Captain wants to do this case by the book, ever think of that?" Andy said almost snarling to his partner. "Perhaps she saw something in the paperwork that would lead her and us to do things properly" Andy added and then walked away from Provenza and headed to his own desk. "I still think it's your fault" Provenza snickered back at Andy.

Andy turned around and gave him his 'bite me' look and sat down at his desk. Andy glanced over at Sharon in her office. She was busy looking through the papers. Maybe she did see something that everyone missed and that's why she wanted things done properly. After all, when she was in charge of FID, everything she did was by the book. Andy looked back at his desk and turned his computer on. He figured it was going to be a long day and wished that he and Sharon were still on Coronado Island.

A couple of hours later, after getting the formal request from Captain Hayes, Sharon and her team started to work on the cold case. It was a murder investigation, but there were no witnesses that had come forth. Robbery/Homicide exhausted all of their leads and ran into a dead end. That's why Williamson had requested the help of Mike and Major Crimes. The murder had taken place in Echo Park. A woman in her late 40s was found near the corner of Lemoyne Street and Sunset Boulevards behind a donation center. She was severely beaten to death. The person who had found the body was the overnight attendant at the center, and he had called the Police. The victim's name was Rebecca Norris. They had an address on her driver's license but it had come back to being non-existent.

Amy started to put the pictures up on the board and Julio contacted his friend in the Narcotics/Gang division to see if this might have been gang related. Sharon had Andy look up the Rebecca's background and financials while Mike went into an evidence bag and pulled out the victim's phone to try and see what they could find on that. Provenza was on the phone with Dr. Morales who was going over his notes from the autopsy. Provenza was writing the information down as Andy walked by his desk on the way to the printer. Andy had printed out the woman's financials and went to place the coins in Provenza's jar on his desk when he glanced down at what he was writing. Provenza was writing down what the doctor was telling him but he was also working on his crossword puzzle. Andy pointed to the puzzle underneath the paper. "Really?" he said to him and shook his head walking back to where Sharon was standing next to his desk.

Sharon looked at Andy as she had seen the look on his face when he passed by Provenza's desk. Andy looked back at her and just shook his head. She took it as Provenza just being Provenza and focused on the financials that Andy had passed to her. She looked on through the paperwork and found something that stood out. "Andy, what do you make of this?" Sharon asked him as she pointed to the paper. Andy looked at the listing where Sharon was pointing. It was a check that was written out to Foundation for Early Childhood Education in Echo Park. "Looks like it is for child care?" Andy said back to Sharon as he looked at her. "Does Rebecca have any children?" Sharon asked her team. They all looked up at her. No one answered. "We need to find out people because we may have a child involved" Sharon said to them and walked into her office. Everyone quickly got back to work. If Rebecca did have a child, they needed to find them quickly.

"Andy" Sharon said in her office to him sitting outside. Andy got up and walked into her office. "I need you to contact that childhood education place" Sharon said to him and he nodded. "You're telling me that Robbery/Homicide couldn't put this together?" Sharon added as she looked at him. Andy shook his head and shrugged. Sharon was going to have a long talk with Captain Hayes in front of Chief Howard. She picked up the phone and dialed the Chief's office. Sharon was pissed and she was going to let the Chief know about it.

TBC