There's something about the look in your eyes
Something I noticed when the light was just right
It reminded me twice that I was alive
And it reminded me that you're so worth the fight - Echo by Incubus

Honor pushed her auburn hair out of her face and sighed as she wiped down the diner's lunch counter for the last time before her shift was over. Though some of the customers had been fussy, as usual, not much could get her down today. She had been out of school since the previous Friday, but tonight would be the last night her feet would grace the halls of Benjamin Franklin High School.

Graduation day was the day Honor had worked hardest for not only in school but in her job as well. Along with her parents help, she had worked at Steve's Diner for the past two years to save enough money to put her through two years of college. With the various scholarships she was awarded, her college tuition was paid in full for four years. She had been accepted to Tulane University, so that meant no moving and just a short commute from the Garden District to the school.

Honor had come to love the city, especially living in the Garden District. Her parents moved from a small town in east Texas to New Orleans when she was 12. Her grandmother, her father's mother, had fallen deathly ill at the time, and requested that her only son move into the house. Honor's father agreed quickly; glad that he would no longer be under an expensive house note. She tried to argue with her father to stay in Texas. She didn't want to leave her school, or all of the friends she had been with since they all started kindergarten. She loved spending time at her grandmother's house over the summer, but she knew she didn't have to stay and would be back with her friends once the school year started.

Honor grew accustomed to the city, but didn't really make friends. The kids in school teased her for her red hair and her freckles, and for her braces and her glasses. She took to reading a lot. She would spend hours at a time sitting on the banks of the Mississippi or in some small café in the Quarter with her nose in a book, living vicariously through the adventures of Sherlock Holmes or King Arthur.

This bookish tendency paid off with outstanding performance in school, and tonight Honor would graduate summa cum laude and third in her class of 650. Her mother had already cried once today (and at least 2 times a day for the past year) before Honor left the house for work this morning. She saw in Honor an opportunity that she never had, and the pride she felt was overwhelming at times. As Honor stepped off the cable car in front of her house, her mother was standing in the front yard. The wrought iron fence surrounding the white double gallery house was decorated with various cardboard 'Congrats Grad!' signs and crepe paper in her school colors. She rolled her eyes and smiled, then started to walk up the sidewalk to the front gate. Her mother swung it open before she could reach it and threw her arms around Honor's neck.

"Honor Marie Deshotels, have I ever told you how proud I am of you." She smiled at her daughter before kissing her on the forehead.

Honor smiled at her mother and responded, "No, Mom. Only three times a day. Four, once I got accepted to Tulane." She threw her arm around her mother's neck and started pulling her toward the house, "C'mon, I gotta get ready."

Honor sat in front of the mirror at the small vanity area in her French Quarter apartment, pulling on her face and making a funny expression. She let go of her face and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Alright kid. You made it through the last five years of med school and you're on your way to becoming the forensic pathologist you've always dreamed of. Katrina was a bitch, but if you can pull yourself back up by your boot straps after her, then you can do anything. So stop worrying about Boston University. They wouldn't take you if they didn't feel you were worthy of studying with them."

She pulled out a tube of lipstick and swiped it on quickly She stood and smoothed the black rayon graduation gown she had on over her best dress, grabbed her purse from the couch in the living room and headed out to the street to catch the cable car to graduation.

Before she even stepped onto the field, Honor could hear her mother screaming like a maniac. Her mother's cries of joy sent a pain through her chest. Her cries reminded Honor of the voice she wasn't hearing along with her mother's. Almost three years previous, when Hurricane Katrina was making a B-line for the Crescent City, Honor's father insisted that she and her mother evacuate to her maternal grandparents house in Tyler, Texas. She reluctantly agreed after her father reassured her he would hold down the fort and call Honor and her mother once things were safe.

No one knew how bad the storm would ultimately be. The images on the news and the reports from the city were absolutely horrifying. After a few days went by with no answer from her father, Honor called their precinct to try and get word on her father and his whereabouts. Things were handled poorly, and Honor and her mother were without news and unable to return to the city for months. When they were finally allowed back in, they went immediately to their precinct. The officer in charge told them that the only thing he could say is that they should consider her father dead. The body had never been recovered, and when the storm surge was sucked back out into the Gulf of Mexico, his body was likely carried on the current out to sea.

Honor shook her head a few times to clear her thoughts and wiped her eyes gently so as not to mess up her makeup. She took a deep breath and put a smile on her face. As the line slowly started to move onto the field her mother came into view. She gave her a wave, and then blew a kiss before taking her seat on the field.

Honor sat on the couch in her apartment on the edge of the Boston University campus idly flipping through television stations. The fall semester had been over for a few weeks now. She had made remarkable grades, and Christmas with her mother had been pleasant as always. Her residency with the Boston morgue was coming along nicely, but she couldn't help feeling bad. Her life had fallen into a boring rut. She had been through a few failed relationships with men that only wanted her for her body. She doubted they would have stayed around long anyway. Who wants to be with a girl that always smells like death?

She looked at the clock. The numbers glared back at her telling her it was ten o'clock at night. She wanted to go out, but none of the local bars sounded interesting. No doubt she would walk into one and see one of her "exes," or some random skeez would start trying to flirt and make nice. She really wanted to go somewhere where people didn't really know her, some place exciting. Her mind drifted to a side of town everyone told her to stay away from.

When she spoke with her advisor the first day of classes, she urged Honor to stay away from South Boston. "Southie isn't a place any respectable person goes, especially a pretty young woman like you. Nothing but a bad element there."

This wasn't the last time she heard such talk from people on and around campus, and she knew that a lot of the bodies that had passed through the morgue came from back alleys of South Boston and from the Harbor. And this talk was exactly why she wanted to go there. She was tired of how ordinary her life had become, and she wanted to stir things up. The sense of danger and unpredictability excited her.

She stood from the couch and pulled on her boots and her leather jacket, locked up the door behind her and took the elevator down to the lobby. Her body was on edge with the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She stepped out of the elevator and onto the street and hailed a cab. She climbed in the back of the car and told the driver where she wanted to go. His eyes in the rear view mirror gave her a look of 'Are you crazy lady?' When she just stared back at him, he took off toward the streets of South Boston. She laid her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

"Alright, lady, that'll be $22.53."

Honor pulled $30 from her pocket and handed the money over. "Keep the change."

As she climbed out of the backseat of the cab, the man adjusted his hounds tooth flat cap and called out the door to her. "Hey, lady, be careful out here. This ain't the best place for you to be."

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled back as she slammed the door shut. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as she walked further into the neighborhood. For a while the only sounds around her were her boots pounding the frozen pavement. Suddenly a siren pierced the still air behind her and made her jump as her breath caught in her throat.

"Quit bein' a wimp," she said quietly to herself. She started looking around for a bar or a restaurant, somewhere she could get a drink and get off the streets. She walked a few more blocks past rundown buildings and doors thrown open to the night, revealing men at work on various hard labor projects. As she walked past one building, a man inside wolf whistled at her and his thick Southie accent rang out through the freezing night.

"Hey, beautiful. What's a nice little thing like you doin' down 'ere?"

She kept her eyes on the sidewalk as she quickly walked past. He called out again after she had disappeared out of his line of vision.

"Fine. Didn't wanna fuckin' talk to you anyway."

She noticed lights coming out of windows of what seemed to be a small bar a few hundred yards in front of her. She stopped in the glow cast onto the sidewalk and looked inside. The patrons looked harmless enough. Most were laughing with one another. A few were asleep in booths closer to the back of the bar, and the old man servings drinks looked like he could be someone's grandfather instead of a bartender in South Boston.

She moved towards the door and pulled it open, then pulled open the inner door and stepped into the bar. All of the men in the bar turned and looked at her, and the women with some of them gave her a glare. She crossed to the bar and sat on a stool next to a large man with long hair. She kept her eyes forward as the bartender moved down the bar to serve her.

"C-can I g-g-g-get you s-something, m-m-m…" he shook his head and spit out the last word at her, "miss?"

"Um, may I have a shot of Jameson and a pint of Guinness?"

He nodded and moved back down the bar to pour her drinks. The man sitting next to her turned his head slowly to her. She could feel his eyes on her, but she was scared to turn her face to his. The bartender returned with her drinks. She slid money across the bar to him and told him to keep the change. He smiled his thanks and went about serving the other patrons. She took the shot of Jameson and kept a straight face as she chased it with the Guinness. She could feel the man's eyes on her still. She turned to him slowly; ready to tell him off for staring.

What she found when her eyes fell on him was the exact opposite of what she was expecting. Shining at her through his beard was one of the warmest smiles she had ever seen in her life. The eyes hidden behind the long brown hair that was falling in his face were as kind as his smile was warm. She couldn't help but blush as he continued to look at her in that way.

"Hi…" she said softly.

"Well hi, yourself. The name's Rocco. You?" He raised the eyebrows over his kind eyes, causing his hair to ruffle and fall away from his face. He was rugged, but very handsome and she felt a smile spread across her face.

"My name is Honor. Nice to meet you, Rocco."