A/N We are now in Hiatus Standard Time, which means that Monday, September 24 is in fact the day after Sunday, May 13. Just…go with it.

September 24, 2018: Monday morning
6:05 a.m.

It's not his alarm that wakes him up but a pleasant autumn chill along his skin as Eddie slips out of bed and pads to the bathroom. They ended up at her place after dinner, and over the course of the night they worked off their dinner as well as a shared midnight slice of leftover chocolate cake in a most satisfactory manner. Twice. Three or four times, for Eddie, he hopes.

He smiles to himself and rolls onto his back. He can still taste her on his lips, and a trace of chocolate. It's only been ten days since they became lovers, and they have years of lost time to make up for. He's amazed they're not half dead of exhaustion and sore as hell, frankly, but if anything they're lit from within, incandescent, insatiable.

It's also been ten very intense and unusual days. He'd give damn near anything to stay in bed with her all day, curled up in their own world, far away from contract killers and curious families.

He nearly drifts off again, holding onto that pleasant image, but they've got to be out the door in forty minutes if they're going to make roll call. He pushes himself up on the heels of his hands, scrubs a palm over his face, and then he hears the shower start.

He's at the bathroom door in under ten seconds. "Eddie?"

"Get in here," she calls, from under the spray.

He does. And for fifteen precious minutes the world falls away. Morning love, before the world closes in.

The look in her eyes makes him feel a hundred things at once as he tilts her chin up to kiss her. Her mouth is greedy and teasing by turns, and when she slides down his body like the warm water itself, he's gone. All he can do is lean back against the tiles and brace his feet against the edge of the tub and feel, and listen to the groans she's pulling from under his ribs. She's licking and tasting and finding out what he likes, and there's something so damn sweet and sexy about this stage of the getting-to-know-you that just guts him.

He's rigid and hot in her hand as she wraps her fingers around his dick, holding onto his hip with the other. Her pink tongue swirls over the head and under the ridge, before she sucks the whole of his cockhead in her mouth, and he tries to hold still and not thrust, but it's so good. His body remembers the newness of sliding inside her. He craves it all over again. It's only been a few hours, but he wants her so badly he's gasping with it as she sucks him as deep as she can, her hand sliding back around his ass to hold on. She lets out a moan herself, and he opens his eyes to see her there on her splayed knees, one hand sliding down between her legs as the other pumps him just a little harder.

"Eddie – fuck – you're so…"

She moans again, brokenly, and lets him slip from her mouth. Her hand strokes him just a little lighter as she catches up to him. He knows what that feels like, under her busy fingers. Her soft slick heat, the vanilla headrush of the scent and the taste of her, everything he used to only imagine alone in the dark and – God, he needs it.

His fingers sweeping the wet strands from her face make her look up, and she gets to her feet, her hand still working him slowly. Her eyes drift to his mouth, hungry and dark. He strokes under her chin, leans down to kiss her, and his fingers keep going, down over her rosy plump breast, the flare of her hipbone. She hums against his lips and rests her foot on the side of the tub, an excited little rush of breath escaping. This is becoming a familiar thing.

It's not long before his fingers are seeking out her clenching depths, flickering and stroking, his thumb at the edge of her clit. Oh, it's too good, and it works for her in seconds. Her moans pick up to stuttering gasps, and she leans into him. She's working his cock almost without thinking, in time with her own rhythm, and fuck, if they'd known it would be like this, all the times they've breathlessly baited each other over the years…because the way her whole being reaches for release and tumbles over the edge with him like this is…

The waves rise up and hit them both, shuddering sharp pleasure convulsing through them in their wake.

He's still clearing his vision and catching his breath when she giggles sleepily against his chest. She grins up at him, and he falls headlong in love with her all over again. She seems to read it in his eyes, because she gets quiet and dreamy, and loops her arms around his neck.

"Well, hey," he rumbles in her ear, as his arms slide around her warm body. "Good morning."

"G'morning," she murmurs, and rests against him. Then, with a sigh, "C'mon. Actual shower time."

"I need a nap, after that," he says, dropping his forehead on her shoulder. She pats his back sympathetically for a moment, and then pats his bottom with a saucy grin and reaches around him for the shampoo.

"I'm gonna smell like you usually do," he says, as they get to work, "Whole house of investigators isn't gonna miss that."

"Not the first time," she reminds him. "How many long-time partners haven't grabbed showers at each other's places? Better than going in just smelling like sex all over."

"Is it really, though?" he asks philosophically, and she cracks up.

It's a perfect start to what will probably be a difficult Monday, what with having to tiptoe around their relationship at work again, and both of them having counselling and debriefing sessions in the afternoon. It's mandatory after any shooting. They gave their initial reports right afterwards on Friday, and today they'll sit with their Union reps and talk through the scene again, and then talk about their reactions and coping tools with the unit psychologist, Dr. Clarke.

He understands why, and that it's both crucial and good for them, but he still hates being picked apart. His mind is his own personal space, where nobody can find him, and very few can hope to compete with him. He's going to have to lie to a whole lot of people he respects, since he can't ask them to keep his secrets.

So starting off the day with Eddie, remembering what's important and what they're working towards, is a gift. It helps him stave off the irritation and stress that he doesn't want her to feel or take at all personally, since it's his father getting on his nerves more than anything. He's not even cranky with Erin and Danny, even though they ganged up and convinced him and Eddie to put off their lightning-quick wedding plans.

"Just be engaged for a while and settle into it. It's a very different state of being than dating, or being partners, or however you want to frame it," Erin had said, as they finished cleaning up in the kitchen. "Please believe me, I want to see you two married. But I also want to you stay that way, and happily. There's no rush. I had a rush wedding, so yeah, I'm on the cautious side."

Danny, surprisingly, had settled the question, with some wisdom from his own long marriage. "You know, I knew I wanted to marry Linda right from the get-go. I think I asked her first when we were like seventeen or something. Her making us wait till after my first tour, and after she was done college – that's where we built up everything that kept us going strong after. People used to ask us how we stayed so in love for so long, pair of personalities like us. But we had all that time to plan ahead how we wanted to deal with things, and why. Not just the awful crap and the totally unromantic crap, but the amazing stuff as well. How to deal with having absolutely no secrets from each other, like, forever. Even our own bullshit. And because it didn't freak us out, we had time to remember why we wanted to do all that with each other."

"That's pretty much it," Eddie had replied. "That's kinda what we've always done."

Jamie had nodded, feeling the confident pressure of Eddie's hand in his, but Danny squinted dubiously and tilted his head back and forth, flicking the dish towel smooth before draping it over the oven door handle to air.

"Maybe so," he said, "but as work partners. Not as broke mortgage partners with doctor bills. Not as Mom and Dad, who're totally, and I mean, beyond exhausted with no time to talk things out."

And there's no way they can respond to that.

His father is a different story. Everything feels so conditional. It always has. And Jamie knows it goes back to his earliest childhood memories. Lessons of duty and responsibility, as if they were some royal family being groomed for some future greatness. Expectations placed so much higher on the four of them than on any of their friends. And Jamie, the baby, always so sensitive but also feeling like he had to do better than the others, just to stop them treating him as the token baby, in that hothouse of overachievers and egos. Being the best was how to win the approval of his father and his grandfather.

Which is why his father still has no idea that he sat the Sergeant's Exam. He'll present that as another fait accompli, later. On his own terms.

Apparently Frank hadn't even looked at the list of applicants. Jamie's still sore about that. Frank knew that Eddie had put her name in. He hadn't even mentioned it at dinner yesterday. Did his father not believe that she would get through? Didn't he realize that Eddie's promotion would also mean the end of their partnership, and that they were looking beyond it? So far, all the old man had done was throw a wet blanket over the idea of their getting married, as if a pair of cops in love threatened the natural order of things. And that Jamie is continuing to disappoint him with his selfish antics.

He can stew in it, thinks Jamie.

It's unkind, Jamie knows, but he's pissed off enough that he wonders if his father even thinks Eddie is good enough for his son. Saving my life ought to have fixed that, he thinks bitterly. Frank barely asked after her, after it happened. He called to check up on them, and wanted to see Jamie, but he probably had no idea that nobody else was going to check up on Eddie.

He knows his father has issues of his own. Is it expecting too much of him to be a better dad, when he's about as model a Commissioner and father-figure to everyone else as it's possible to be?

"Partner, you good?" Eddie breaks into his mental rant, as they move through their morning routines and pack up for the shift. He realizes he hasn't said much since they left the shower.

"Mostly good." He leans over and kisses her. "Gonna be a long day. I am so glad you're here."

"Copy that."

September 24, 2018: Monday morning
7:22 a.m.

"So," Kara begins in a bright undertone as Jones and Farakh finally leave them alone in the Women's Change Room. "What's our boy all about? Leather or lace? I'm betting lace out loud but leather in bed. Ooh. Buzzy things? Tickling?"

"Blue serge," Eddie says firmly, to shut her up. Sitting on the bench in her uniform pants and dark grey armor-liner tee-shirt, she finishes tying her bootlace with a sharp tug, and reaches for her vest.

She slides her arms through her new Kevlar, which hasn't yet gotten comfy and ratty under the arms and molded snug like a turtle shell over her natural shape, and zips it up. As on every morning, she gives it a ritualistic hard jab over the heart with her fist, as if it's a safety check. It sets the tone for the day. Good to go. Come at me.

Kara makes a wry face but then does a double take. "Uniform kink?" she asks. "Really? In that family?"

"Oh, fuck off. I'll tell you almost anything, but not that. Not here." And she's not going to gossip with Kara about the utter delights of unpeeling Jamie, layers of clothing and layers of reserve, to the beating heart of the man and the things he'll only confess when she's got him laid out and writhing and panting under her hands, her mouth…

And speaking of layers, she's running late. She quickly buttons her uniform blouse, front and cuffs, and clips on her tie. No duty belt this morning.

Kara holds out her dress jacket with a formal flourish as if she's valeting her, and Eddie smiles and stands, turning around.

"You don't have to tell me anything," Kara points out reasonably, slipping the jacket up over Eddie's arms and brushing a speck of lint off the back. "All I gotta do is go down the list and watch your face. And hey, speaking of going down - "

"Walsh," Eddie says patiently, "I have an actual award to get, in front of actual people, so can you please fuck off and not put things in my head?"

Kara grins. "Oh, I got like three years of backlog to get through. And I am so fucking proud of you." She gives Eddie's shoulder a quick squeeze from behind, before stepping back and turning her around to assess her overall look. "Breathe. Drop the shoulders. How you holding up? With the shooting, I mean."

"Doing okay, actually," Eddie says, patting for any stray loops of hair sticking out of her bun. She grabs her cap from its hook in the door of her locker and settles it on top.

"Bullshit. Beers later."

"Beers later."

Eddie's afternoon is likely to be fully taken up with her mandatory Union and EAP meetings with the rep, Renzulli, and the police shrink, discussing her shooting of Dante. She's not looking forward to it. As kind and competent a psychologist as Wendy Clarke is, especially being an ex-cop herself, Eddie loathes feeling being placed under the microscope like that. It was a good hit, an appropriate action, and it saved Jamie's life.

But cops are very human creatures, and not all of them have the experience and the emotional tools to deal with intense and tragic human shit, including the taking of other human lives by choice to save others. The idea of the ideal officer as entirely cold and policy-quoting and detached from these decisions is false. More than a few cop suicides have occurred as a result of that assumption, and the divorces and alcoholism and domestic violence in cop households is an unconscionably preventable cancer within the force.

Hence people like Dr. Clarke, whose mission is to keep as many of them as emotionally aware as she can herd into her office. Dr. Clarke also gets to decide if Eddie gets her guns back.

She feels horribly naked without them. So does Jamie.

Which is all Eddie can think about as Capt Hollis, as the highest ranking officer in the building at the time, calls her up from the ranks at the morning roll-call, and awards her the medal of Excellent Police Service. He does seem to be trying to make some amends. Maybe he realized he really was being a jackass. Maybe he just knows he could have come off badly if they'd laid a complaint about it.

"…a testament to the strength of their long partnership, their experience in serving public safety, and their ability to make the hardest of decisions in a moment of extreme threat…"

"…an individual responsible for multiple brazen daylight killings in public…"

There are a couple of Ident photogs taking shots for the archives. As Hollis presents her with the case with her new bar in it, she gives him a genuine smile, opens the case and turns a little for the cameras. Then there is some slightly awkward handshaking along a short line of superior officers, who all murmur some variation of "Well done, yes, good job." When she gets to Tony Renzulli, he gives her a solid grip and looks her right in the eyes and says, "Thanks, Eddie."

Then she goes back to her place and stands beside Jamie, who has been holding her up with his eyes the whole time. They share the briefest of glances, and her heart thrums under her armor.

She'd thought the meeting with the Union rep would take an age, but given the context of the case and the immediate threat to Jamie and to innocent passers-by, all they want is her more considered, thoughtful report of the event. Her memories are close enough to the report she gave three days ago, while she was pretty much in a state of shock right after the event. The evidence from bystanders and from their cruiser's front-facing dash cam match most of the details she gives.

There's some mild questioning about the appropriateness of hugging her partner at a scene. Given that he came within literal inches of being killed, and that Dante is the second man she's killed in the commission of her service, they're happy enough to let it go. Especially with the new bar on her shield rack, which she's topped with a US Flag bar in the empty spot.

The EAP goes well enough. Dr. Clarke is satisfied, though she does, unofficially, invite Eddie to come back anytime she feels like she's having unexpected or unusual reactions to anything.

Eddie repeats what Jamie told her once, about not looking for big answers in moments of major crisis, but get through one moment at a time. Dr. Clarke likes that. She has some lovely things to say about their partnership, and Eddie wishes she could come clean and tell her everything.

She adds two promises to her mental list. She will visit Dr. Clarke again, whether she feels herself getting wobbly or not. And she will tell Dr. Clarke about her and Jamie's actual relationship as soon as she can. Because this is a woman who understands both sides, and who might be of use to other partners trying to navigate that path in future.

Dr. Clarke asks if her father knows about the shooting, and Eddie explains that Armin isn't doing so well mentally and would only get upset. She doesn't want to call her mother, but she supposes she should. Her mother doesn't like to hear about the dangers inherent in the job, preferring to think of Eddie as a friendly school-visit sort of police officers.

"It sounds like your partner and Officer Walsh are really your primary relationships. Would that be fair to say?"

"I think so. Yes. I mean, I do have plenty of friends, but they're the two that – you know, they'd be the core of my friend group, if we weren't cops."

"I might suggest that you do put in some homework in considering how you want to build up those relationships, because once you become a Sergeant, they're going to change, too. Have you and Officer Reagan discussed how you want to navigate the closure of your partnership? You might want to talk about how that'll look. Not all cops get that opportunity, but just get reassigned."

"We have," Eddie says blithely. Understatement, she thinks. "We'll always be in each other's lives. We've always dealt with things, I guess, from the point of 'what do we want to look back on from today and be proud of doing?' We do rely on each other for that, as much as anything. That'll never change."

Dr. Clarke pauses. "You know," she says, "You save many lives and stopped a killing. I know you know that. But it's okay to be proud of saving Jamie's life. It's okay if that's what your handle on it is."

Well, thinks Eddie, maybe she did need a good cry.

And it sort of explains why Frank couldn't immediately call up and say, thank you for saving my son. That's not the hat he's allowed to wear, not often.

Jamie hasn't said so, but she knows he was stung by that. She wasn't expecting anything from the PC for doing her job, especially not after flaunting their relationship under his nose. Someone recommended her for the service award, though, and she suspects it was Frank.

She doesn't get into any of this with Wendy Clarke. It's rare enough for her to sit with a friendly older female and feel safe enough to get weepy.

Twenty minutes later, she leaves with her shoulders much less hiked up, and a piece of paper stating she can get her guns back.

September 24, 2018: Monday morning
10:09 a.m.

Garrett's voice is always soothing – it's one of the reasons he's good at his job, and why his sound bites are often replayed in his own voice on the news. As with the news, however, sometimes his smooth tones make him easier to block out. Since Sid and Abby haven't said anything for the last few minutes, Frank's attention is wandering.

"Anyone home?" Garrett asks, eventually.

Frank takes a moment to think through how he wants to set up the next exchange. He wants their true reactions, without the color of how he might want them to respond. So he gives them the bare facts, as neutrally as can.

"My son Jamie, and his partner Eddie, got engaged over the weekend," he tells them. The spontaneous congratulations that arise reassure him that these three, at least, were not aware of the goings-on under his roof. He likes to think someone would have told him that the obvious feelings between the kids were manifesting outside of their work partnership, but then he wouldn't want to be the one who had to do that. It's not his business at all, as Jamie's dad, and very much his business, as the final boss over each of them and the arbiter of judgement calls over the entire NYPD.

"And it is their plan to still keep riding together as partners," he finishes.

"Oh," says Abby. She sounds somewhat impressed.

Sid is less impressed, and says bluntly: "Boy, that's a problem."

"It is?" Frank asks mildly.

"Why?" asks Garrett, catching on instantly. It's always interesting to listen to Sid and Garrett play against each other, and Garrett knows it.

"Why? A million good reasons."

Eventually, Frank asks Sid to draw up Interim Order against partners remaining partners while romantically involved, in lieu of a formal regulation. It's reasonable, it's prudent, and it doesn't mean he actually has to sign it.

Abby hasn't given him a look like than in a very long time.

He'd like to ask her advice privately, but he doesn't quite know how. He knows that she and her husband made sure they never even worked out of the same house, before their marriage, and he's not sure what effect that had on them. He also doesn't want to appear to be asking for a sympathetic female opinion, as old-fashioned as that makes him sound.

Truth is, he's the one having difficulty separating work and family life, not the kids. Three days ago he almost lost another son. Only Eddie's spidey-senses and quick, deadly accurate actions saved them all that grief. He'd thought he was over the acute stage of grieving for Joe, but perhaps that's something that never really ends, for a parent. Especially a parent whose job it was to make sure that the kind of men who killed Joe were stopped before they even began.

Joe died on his watch. He's not sure how he or any of them would survive Jamie dying on his watch, because of an old case that he himself was responsible for.

Eddie, at least, should have her new service bar by now. That was one call he was happy to make on her behalf, even if he couldn't find the words to thank her. There was no one else he would rather have riding with Jamie. But for everyone's sakes, including theirs, they should not be riding together. The thought of one of them going down at a scene, leaving the other behind…or both of them at once…

It has nothing to do with sound judgement, in this case, and everything to do with the very real bonds of love and loyalty that make every day worth getting up for. It's also true that if he lets them go ahead with this, then others will come crowding in the door to demand the same chance, and very few couples can handle themselves and the realities of the job like Jamie and Eddie can.

Make that Sergeant Janko.

Eddie's ambitious and bright, and Frank has no doubt she'll clear the minimum grade on the promotion exam with ease. The kids are really just looking to buy themselves some time, he thinks, and make backup plans for the scant possibility of her not passing. Eddie is, after all, going up against some ten- and twelve-year veterans, to her five years of service. Some of the candidates have taken the exam before, and it's graded by rank as well as score. At least the kids are trying to do the right thing and be honest, but they've also got to face up to reality: some good ideas are very bad for some people, so they can't be permitted as policy. At all. Even as a reasonable, temporary measure.

Can they?

Abby is still giving him that look.

He dismisses them all with thanks for their input.