A/N: Please don't forget to leave your review. It's incredibly important to me.

Brenda stood in the kitchen staring at the note Fritz had left for her.

Brenda,

I need time. I will be back for more things in a day or two.

Don't forget to feed Joel.

Fritz

She realized that he had never before left a note for her without signing it with the word "love". She put it down and moved to the closet. Some of his clothes were gone and his small weekend suitcase was also gone. Most of his socks and underwear were missing from his dresser. She went into the bathroom. All of his shaving gear and his toothbrush were also gone.

Dropping onto their bed and curling herself into as tight a ball as she could manage, Brenda felt sick and scared. He had really left this time. He was really gone. They had had fights before. Bad fights. But this one was different. And there was no "love" in his note. Her stomach hurt and she wanted to cry but the tears would not come. Neither would sleep.

"You don't care about me at all, do you? Can you possibly, for one minute, consider what I need? You knew that my orders came personally from Director Walling. Do you have to slit my throat in order to close your case? Do my needs ever penetrate your mind?" he asked in a white heat.

"No, Fritz. Not this time. Don't ask me to make the choice of whether a depraved killer should be put on death row or helpin you with your career. I have to choose to put the killer away. I can never choose your career if it means allowin that monster to do a light sentence and enter the witness protection program. Never."

When he heard that, he just stared at her for a minute. Then he shook his head incredulously, grabbed his car keys and slammed the back door behind him so hard that the glass shattered. But he didn't even turn around to look at the damage he'd caused. He just got into his car and drove off.

Fritz pounded the wheel in anger and frustration. He drove aimlessly trying to give himself time to cool off. But he didn't cool off. Instead he came to a sick realization. "I can't take it any more. This isn't working," he said out loud.

When the implications of the truth he'd just uttered sank in he pulled into a parking lot because he knew he was too emotional to drive. He looked up at the familiar surroundings. The lights pulsed through his being awakening desires long held at bay. They no longer provided the comfort they used to but what they did provide was infinitely more tolerable than the pain he was feeling. So he turned off the engine and went inside.

Brenda stood there for a moment, stunned by his anger. Then she swept up the broken glass and taped up some plastic to seal off the window. Her emotions were as jagged as the shards of glass. When she finished she got out a quart of triple chocolate fudge ice cream from the freezer and sat down at the kitchen table with a spoon in her hand. But she couldn't eat it. She just watched it melt as she justified her actions to Joel.

That night after tossing and turning for hours she finally fell asleep. But she soon awoke with a start. Fritz's side of the bed was empty. She looked at the clock radio. 3:17 AM. "He's not comin home tonight," she admitted to herself. "But where is he?"

The next morning Brenda called the building maintenance manager and asked him to fix the window. She told him that a gust of wind had blown the door shut breaking the glass. "There must have been a flaw in it," she said.

She waited around until Will called wondering where she was. She couldn't stay home any longer. Brenda had been sure that Fritz would come home and, although she hadn't known what she would say to him, she had known she'd probably read him the riot act for not understanding her position and for storming out. But he hadn't come home.

The following day, when she got home from work, she found the note from him on the kitchen table. Brenda was rattled. More rattled than when she'd been confronted by armed criminals. Her hand was shaking as she once again held Fritz's note. "He can't be leavin me. He can't. I'm doin so much better. I thought I was doin so much better."

Brenda had been calling his cell phone repeatedly but it always went right to voice mail so she left messages pleading with him to call her. No return calls. She checked the land line and the answering machine. They both seemed to be working perfectly. She checked her cell phone's battery and saw that it had plenty of power and that she had plenty of bars so she sank down on the couch desperately trying to come up with a plan.

She wanted to try to find him. But she honestly didn't know where to look. "I'll call Jerry," she thought and reached for the phone, "He might know where he is." But she set the phone back back down on the coffee table. "No, Fritz would be even madder if I let his coworkers know we're havin problems." And if she couldn't call Jerry Oakes, she certainly couldn't call Dave Martin. And, for now at least, ambushing him by showing up at the FBI was completely out of the question.

Then she thought about checking hotels but the sheer number of them made the odds of finding him pretty low. Brenda thought about his AA sponsor but didn't even know his name or which meetings Fritz attended.

"Come on, Brenda," she said out loud, "You're supposed to be this big shot Investigator Extraordinaire and you can't even find your own husband?" Actually, she knew that she probably could. But she also knew that he had meant it when he wrote that he needed time. So, as much as she wanted to search for him, she decided that she needed an alternative plan.

That night the duplex was emptier than it had ever been. She left both the front and back door lights on for him. Every time she heard footsteps she ran to look out at the driveway. But they were the footsteps of the neighbors. The sound of cars moving down the street sent her flying to the windows to look out, hoping to see Fritz's car. Lying on the sofa, she thought about taking the rest of his clothes and locking them in the trunk of her car so he couldn't move them out. But she knew that was a bad idea. "There must be somethin I can do," she said out loud, begging her creative mind to come up with something. Anything. Nothing. She felt trapped in the web of her emotions.

The next day at work every member of her squad was talking about the fact that she was distracted and unhappy about something. But no one dared ask any questions. Late that afternoon Will came into her office with an annoyed expression. "I thought you promised to tell me if you were moving." His tone was accusatory. When she just looked at him he continued, "I just talked to someone at DOJ who said that Fritz put in for a transfer back to DC."

Brenda struggled to keep her expression neutral. "Will, I haven't heard that anythin is confirmed so I decided it was too soon to say anythin."

"Well, it seems that it's confirmed now. So, can you give me a date?"

"Not yet, I can't. I'm sorry, Will. I promise to tell you as soon as I know more." She hoped her heart wasn't pounding so loudly that Will could hear it. Adrenalin took over so Brenda picked up her purse and left him standing there.

Driving home her mind was racing and, even though she was gripping the wheel, her hands were shaking. "I'm runnin' out of time," she told herself. "I've got to come up with somethin quick." As she approached the duplex she decided on a plan of action. Fritz's car was not in the driveway but, when she entered through the back door, she saw that he had come home, packed some boxes, and stacked them in front of the washing machine. She spun around, locked the door behind her, and backed out of the driveway.

Brenda stopped at the first storage facility she came to and purchased several medium size, sturdy, cardboard boxes. When she got home she checked the closet and Fritz's dresser drawers and the rest of his clothes were gone.

Seeing this made her hurry to set her plan into action. First she sat down at the computer and composed a letter. When the wording finally suited her she printed it off and signed it. As she put it into her purse she said, "This marriage is not over, Fritz. It is not endin without a fight."

Then she made a phone call to an old friend. When that call was ended she assembled several of the cardboard boxes and took them into the bedroom where she packed them with her own clothes and stacked them up in the kitchen.

While she was packing the sound of a car door closing once again sent her to the window. This time when she looked out the window she saw Fritz's car in the driveway. So, with her heart pounding and her whole body shaking, she walked into the kitchen to greet him.

"Hi," she said breathlessly.

"Hi. What is all this?" he asked.

"Those are my clothes," she replied sounding infinitely more calm than she felt.

"Why?" he asked again.

"Because if you're gonna transfer to DC I'm goin too."

"You've quit your job?"

"I have my letter of resignation ready to hand in tomorrow," and she took the letter from her purse and gave it to Fritz to read.

He read it and handed it back to Brenda without saying a word so she continued, "This marriage is not over, Fritz. I won't let it be over. So you have a choice."

"What choice?" he asked quietly.

"You can either take me back to DC with you as your wife or I will move there on my own. I've already called Bill O'Neal and I think I can get a decent job at Metro."

"You're resigning from the LAPD in order to come with me to DC." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, of course. And, if you know what's good for you, you'll take me with you. Because if I have to move on my own, I will become your worst nightmare. I will be the worst stalker you can imagine." She spoke with levels of intensity and desperation that Fritz had never heard before. "And if you're thinkin about movin on with your life, well, you can just forget it. Because I will never give you a divorce. You will never be rid of me."

He moved to her, took her elbow and guided her to the sofa. "Sit down. We need to have a long talk."

Even though she felt like she would shatter, Brenda sat quietly waiting for him to speak. What she heard frightened her and brought tears to her eyes.

"When I left the other night I went to a bar and I ordered a scotch. A double."

"Oh, God. No. Fritzi, you didn't!" She felt she would be sick.

"I sat on the bar stool and just stared at it. Finally I called my sponsor. He was at a birthday party for his mother but he left it and he came right down. We talked for hours. I knew I wasn't ready to come home so he let me sleep on his sofa."

Brenda sighed in relief, "I'm so glad you didn't drink. I don't think I could handle it knowin I drove you back to drinkin again." Fritz saw that she had tears in her eyes.

"No, I didn't. But tell me something, Brenda. If you were at a crime scene and I were to call you and tell you I was in a bar with a drink in front of me, would you leave the crime scene and come to help me?"

Brenda didn't hesitate. "Of course, I would. Why do you doubt that?"

"Because the only thing I ever see from you is 200% devotion to your job. I'm trying to figure out where I fit in. If I fit in. I wish I could be assured that I'm just as important to you as a corpse."

Brenda took his hand in hers, looked at him with tear-filled eyes and spoke with an emotion-filled voice. "You are the most important person in the world to me. No one and nothin is as important as you are."

"Then why can't you stop and consider me when you're working on a case?"

"I'm tryin, Fritzi. Really I am. This last one is the only time in a couple of years that I've ignored what you need. But I had to. I couldn't let that guy off easy. I just couldn't." She continued, "You accused me of slittin your throat. Do you really think that?"

"I have to admit that was a little extreme. But, yes. At the time I did think it."

"You saw the crime scene photos. Three teenage boys impaled on the wall and their intestines ripped out and danglin on the floor. Do you really think Malverne should get a deal and the witness protection program? Can you honestly tell me that I was wrong? Because I still don't think I was."

"Of course I understand why you want to see Malverne in prison for life..."

"No!" Brenda vehemently corrected him. "I want to see him with a needle in his arm. Not with a new identity and a new house. And I called you when we caught him. I wasn't sneakin behind your back."

"The FBI was not going to offer him the witness protection program. But we need to find out about his accomplices and other possible victims in New Mexico and Arizona," Fritz argued.

"You know that you can debrief him whenever you want."

Fritz looked at her and sighed. "Look, I admit that I overreacted. I'm sorry."

"But?"

"But what?"

"What's the 'but' after the apology?"

"There is none. I'm sorry."

"You're admittin that you overreacted?" When Fritz nodded yes, she asked, "Why?"

"Why am I admitting or why did I overreact?"

"Overreact."

"Why did I overreact?" Fritz let his breath out as he spoke. "Because even though you say now that I am a priority with you, I don't ever see it. And I guess Malverne's arrest was just one more example of me not being important enough to you..."

"Fritz..."

"No. Let me finish. When we got married I knew that you were completely obsessed with your cases and that I came second. But I also knew that you loved me and I honestly thought, in time, that things would at least even out. But they haven't. It's the same thing with every case. And I guess I just snapped. Because I've had enough, Brenda. I'm sick of it."

"Look, I know I get obsessed and I can't think about anythin except solvin crimes and closin my cases. But I'm workin on it. You may not see it but I really am." Despite her efforts to control her emotions Brenda's facade finally cracked and her tears spilled out. "Fritzi, please don't leave me. I couldn't stand it if you left me. I couldn't."

"I don't want to leave you, Brenda. I don't." Fritz handed her his handkerchief and continued. "But something has to change. We have to fix things. There has to be more to our marriage than my helping you with your cases and fantastic sex."

"You packed your clothes," Brenda said quietly but with a tone which made it clear she was contradicting him.

"Yes, I did. But I couldn't make myself take them so I left them here."

Once again Brenda looked at him without speaking.

"When it came right down to it, I couldn't bring myself to leave you without one more try. And I'm not going to leave you. Because, this time at least, I am finally seeing some proof that that you really are at least thinking about putting me first. At least some of the time."

"I put you first more often than you know," Brenda replied, "You just can't see it."

"Well, I'm seeing it now. Those boxes and that letter of resignation give me a glimmer of hope for our marriage."

"I love you with all my heart." Brenda spoke with emotion. "And you are the most important person in my life. I can't believe you doubted that." She gave him a long, loving kiss.

"Come on. Let's go get something to eat. And then we've got a lot of talking and a lot of unpacking to do," Fritz said smiling at her and nodding toward the boxes.

"So we're not movin to DC? What about your transfer?"

"I never put in a formal request for a transfer. I just inquired about a job in DC. That's all."

"Ok, but if you really want to take that job, we'll move."

"No, I don't really want that job. What I want is something to eat, so let's go."

"I bought more boxes for movin. What should we do with them?" Brenda asked.

"Let's put them in the storage building. We don't need them now, but we might someday."

When they were back in the car heading for home, Brenda turned on the radio and scanned the stations. One of the stations was playing a song she loved. So she turned the volume up and looked out through the moon roof as she softly sang along.

They talked as they unpacked their boxes. But before they were done Brenda turned to Fritz and said, "If you want some more of that 'fantastic sex' you prize so highly you'd better make your move soon because it's been a long day."

Fritz grinned and replied, "I love it when you make what I want a priority," and they moved the rest of the boxes off the bed.

That night Brenda clung to Fritz as she slept. Fritz occasionally would try to move out of her grip but she would just move back in and hold him tightly once more. Finally he gave up, whispered "I love you" in her ear, and held her close all night long.

After work the next day, while Brenda was unpacking the last of her boxes, Fritz came through the back door. When she heard him she went into the kitchen to greet him with a kiss.

"What do you have behind your back?" she asked.

"I got the idea from the song we listened to in the car last night," Fritz said as he pulled one hand from behind his back and handed Brenda a broken arrow. Then he brought the other hand around and put a small corked bottle in her other hand.

She looked at the arrow and the bottle and smiled. "A broken arrow and a bottle of rain."

"Yes. Symbols of a peaceful end to our fight and a long, loving marriage."

Her eyes filled with tears. She put them both on the table. "I love my gifts. They're perfect," she whispered as she melted into his arms.

The End

A/N: And now, please review. Thank you.