Chapter One: Can't Find The Air

Author's Note: Hello everyone! This is my latest fic for The Night Shift! It's AU and it isn't related to the hospital at all – they're police officers and lawyers (mostly because I recently got completely caught up on Law and Order: SVU). I've been wanting to write something a little different from the show and this is it. I hope you all enjoy. As always, I don't own The Night Shift or any of its characters. The chapter title comes from Barely Breathing by Duncan Sheik and the fic title comes from You by Switchfoot.

"Got any plans for the weekend?" TC asked Jordan, his partner at the San Antonio Police Department, standing up to put on his jacket after the end of a particularly grueling day at the police station.

"Surprisingly, yes," Jordan said, not looking up from her computer screen. "Lots of weekend plans."

"Hot date?"

"Nope, my sister and niece are in town for a few days. So, I'm finishing up all the work I have now and not thinking about it this weekend. It's going to be great." She looked up from her computer and looked at the dark circles under her partner's eyes. "Everything okay with you?"

TC sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Landry has me running back and forth from my apartment to hers with pregnancy food cravings. And we're still in the state of limbo where I don't know if we're together or not together."

"That's why you need to actually talk to her, T." Jordan said, writing something down on a Post-it note. She stuck it to her computer and sighed. "Do something nice for her this weekend. Or let her know that you're all in for the baby."

"See, that's the thing—" TC said as Jordan's phone started to ring.

"Sorry, it's Caroline," she said, looking at the screen. "It shouldn't be too long if you still wanted to talk."

"Nah, it's nothing. Have a good weekend with your sister. I'll see you on Monday." TC turned off his computer and walked towards the doors.

Jordan frowned and answered her phone. "Hey, sis, what's up?"

"Nora and I just landed in San Antonio and we're on the way to your place. Stop working so you can enjoy the weekend with your favorite sister and your favorite niece."

"You are my only sister and Nora's my only niece. I think I'm obligated to say that," Jordan said, standing up to turn her computer off. "And I just finished up working. I'll see you when you get to my place."

"Yay!" Jordan heard her niece, Nora, say in the background of the call.

"Okay, I'm getting on the highway now. I'll see you in fifteen minutes," Caroline said, hanging up her phone.

Jordan smiled to herself as she put her coat on, thinking about everything they were going to do during the weekend.

And the best part was that Jordan didn't have anything to think about the whole time.

"Getting ready to head out?" Jordan heard her boss, Topher say. "Wait, you're actually getting out of here on time for once? When was the last time that happened?"

"I have no clue, but I'm definitely not complaining. Try not to call me in this weekend, my sister and niece are here for the weekend."

"I'll do my best. Have a good weekend," Topher said, smiling at her.

Jordan smiled back and started walking out the door, before getting stopped by one of the guys from the mail room. "This was just dropped off for you," he said, handing her an unmarked envelope.

She frowned and took it, sliding her finger across it. She pulled out a letter and her hands started shaking as soon as she read the contents of the letter. "Hey! Do you know who sent this or who brought it in?"

"No idea. I wasn't the one who processed it."

Jordan felt her shoulders drop and she sighed. "Okay, thanks for your help. Have a good weekend," she said, heading towards her car.

-X-

"So, how's that cute partner of yours at the station doing?" Caroline asked, taking a sip of her wine after Nora had gone to bed.

"Cute partner? Are you talking about TC? Because there's a lot of other adjectives I'd use to describe him before I'd get to cute."

"Oh please, you know you love him. You're just too embarrassed to admit it."

"Caroline, he's my partner. He's, like, way off limits. Besides, he's my best friend and he's about to have a baby. I'm not one to stand in the way of someone's happiness," Jordan said, running a hand through her hair. "Besides, he's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with at work and in my personal life."

"I call bullshit. You are so in love with him. But you are too much of a good girl and a rule follower to do anything about it."

"Mom raised me well," Jordan said, raising her glass to her sister.

"Mom raised you too well. You never had a rebellious stage."

"That's because when I was 15, Dad died. Mom would have exploded if she had two rebellious daughters living at home." Jordan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "All things considered, I think you and I both turned out pretty well. You're married to a senator, we're both living large in big cities…I think Dad would be proud."

"He'd gloat to everyone about "his girls" and half of what he told people would be highly embellished," Caroline said. "That's what happens when your dad is an author."

Jordan nodded and swirled her drink around. "Hey, Caroline, can you keep a secret?"

"Of course. What's on your mind?"

Jordan took the note out of her back pocket and handed it to her sister. "I got this letter today. And I've been getting one, every Friday, for the last six weeks."

Caroline took the sheet of paper and scanned the letter. "Have you told anyone about this?" she asked, looking at Jordan with her eyebrows raised.

"No one. Not TC, not my boss. I haven't even told Gwen. Just you."

Caroline turned her attention back to the letter and read it again. "Jordan," she said, putting the letter on the table in between them. "I think you have a stalker."

-X-

When TC's phone started to ring in the middle of the night, he didn't even need to look at the caller ID to know who was calling him. Just like she had the last four nights, Landry was calling at exactly three in the morning. "Yeah," he said, trying to wake up a little.

"Hey, I know it's late," Landry said on the other line. "But I'm starving. Do you think you could bring those nachos you brought over the last few nights? With extra jalapeños?"

TC sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah. Just let me get dressed and I'll be on my way. Do you want taco meat or chicken this time?"

Landry was silent for a minute. "Could you do both?"

"Yeah," TC said, sighing again. "I'll be there soon."

Ten minutes later, TC pulled up to the all night stand where he'd been getting Landry her food for the last few nights. "Back again, man?" one of the workers asked, already getting TC's order ready for him.

"What can I say, Landry's been craving the food. And you guys are one of the only places that's open all night around here," TC said, pulling out his wallet to pay.

"It's on the house this time. We'll see you soon," he said, handing TC the nachos.

TC nodded in appreciation before heading back to his car. He got in, set the nachos on the seat beside him and rubbed his eyes, hoping to wake up just a little bit more before going to Landry's.

When he got to her apartment, he walked up to her floor and went to knock on her door, pausing to look in the window that was open. He expected to see Landry half asleep on the couch, just like she'd been the last few nights. Instead, she saw Landry sitting and talking to someone that TC had met briefly when they were still dating. And he definitely didn't like what he saw going on in the apartment.

"Screw it," TC said, walking back towards the stairs. He dumped the nachos in the trashcan before he walked out of the apartment complex.

If Landry wasn't all in, he sure as hell wasn't going to waste his time.

-X-

"So, not that I don't love nearly unexpected visits from you, but this one was fairly short notice," Jordan said that Saturday as her, Caroline and Nora were wandering idly around Target. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. There's just…I found out something about Dad. And I don't know how you're going to take this, especially since I didn't take it very well." Caroline said, taking something off a shelf. "Apparently, Dad had a secret life that we didn't know about."

"Secret life? Caroline, I think you've been watching way too many soap operas. There's no way Dad had a secret life."

"I'm serious, Jordan. When Nick was running for election, one of his campaign workers found out that Dad had been having an affair since I was seven. Long story short, we have this long lost brother living in New York City."

"Long lost brother? You're insane. There's no way Dad cheated on Mom. They were the perfect couple."

"I'm telling you the truth." Caroline sighed and shook her head. "I thought, since you have more access to criminal files than I do, that you could look him up. Find out what you can about him." She fished through her bag and pulled out a small note card with some information on it. "That's all Nick was able to tell me," she said, handing the note card to Jordan.

Jordan looked at the information briefly and sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

-X-

"Why is it that when I left on Friday, you were in that same position?" TC asked, coming into the station the following Monday, seeing Jordan hunched over her computer. "Did you leave the station?"

"I promise you I left. I just had a huge bomb dropped on me and I need to figure out what is going on," Jordan said, typing something quickly into her computer.

"Everything okay?" Drew, one of their fellow officers on TC and Jordan's squad, asked, coming into the station.

"Not really. Apparently, my dad isn't the person my sister and I thought he was." She looked up from her computer screen and looked at her two coworkers. "I've been a big sister for twenty-three years and I had absolutely no clue.

"That's some heavy stuff," Kenny, Drew's partner on the squad, said when he came into the station. "How'd you find out?"

"Caroline was here for the weekend and she told me. Something about it coming up when Nick was running for the senate." Jordan ran a hand through her hair. "I know nothing about having a brother. All my life, it was me, my sister, my mom and my dad. I never thought he would have this whole secret family."

The three guys shared a look. "We could teach you what it's like to have a brother," Drew said, shrugging his shoulders.

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "Get big sister lessons from the three of you? I don't think so. Besides, I don't really know if I want to make contact with this guy. Think how awkward that would be."

TC opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the door opening, revealing Topher and Scott, the squad's Assistant District Attorney. "I hope you all had a good weekend because we've got ourselves a new case," Topher said, going over to the squad room's main computer to pull something up. "Over the weekend, there were a string of burglaries and homicides within a block of each other. There's a bunch of tips that came in, so Drew and Kenny, you're going to go through them. T, I want you on site, trying to find any witnesses or anyone with any information. Jordan, you go to the morgue and talk to Gwen about the victims. And remember that it isn't social hour," Topher said, giving Jordan a knowing look.

"Yes sir," Jordan said, closing out the open pages where she was investigating her newfound brother. She pushed back her chair and walked out of the squad room, slowing her pace once she was out of sight from the rest of her team.

She heard the door open and turned around to see Scott following her out. "Hey," he said, stopping in front of her. He reached out and took one of her hands and she smiled back.

"Hey yourself," she said, leading them out of the station. "How was your weekend?"

"Same old, same old. How was your weekend with your sister?"

"Interesting, to say the least. I'll fill you in on the details later." Jordan quickly kissed him on the cheek, hoping no one would see her do it. "I should go. I probably have about five dead bodies waiting for me in morgue."

"I have two witnesses I have to prep for court. Any chance you want to switch?"

"Not a chance. I'll see you around," she said, smiling at him before heading out to her car.

-X-

"What do you have for me, Gwen?" Jordan asked, walking into the morgue a few minutes later. "Anything fascinating?"

"Oh, it's always fascinating," Gwen said, smiling at her best friend. "What do you want to know about the victims?"

"Everything you've got," Jordan said, looking at the five bodies lying on the metal tables in the morgue at the hospital.

Gwen sighed and started filling Jordan in on everything that had happened to victims before they met their untimely deaths. And while Jordan should have been paying attention, she couldn't stop her mind from wandering to the two notes that were folded in the back pocket of her pants. One of them was the note card with the name of her brother on it.

The other was her most recent note from her stalker.

"Are you listening to anything I'm saying?" Gwen asked, snapping Jordan out of her thoughts.

"What? Sorry. My mind is off in other places right now. What were you saying?" Jordan asked, turning her attention to one of the victims.

"Everything okay?"

Jordan looked at Gwen and sighed. "Any chance you can keep a secret?"

"Depends on what it's about," she replied, crossing her arms across her chest.

With shaking hands, Jordan pulled the note out of her back pocket. "I think I have a stalker," she said, handing Gwen the note.

Gwen looked at the note, then at Jordan and took off her medical gloves. "A stalker?" she asked, taking the note. She started reading it, her eyes widening the entire time.

-X-

"Hey, Jordan," Topher said when she got back to the squad room. "A package arrived for you while you were at the morgue with Gwen. It's sitting on your desk."

"Thanks, Toph," she said, sitting down at her desk. She looked at the package warily and sighed, grabbing her keys to cut through the packing tape. A stack of photographs slid out and Jordan picked them up, gasping when she saw the first one on top.

It was a photo of her and Scott on one of their first dates.

Jordan quickly flipped through the rest of the photographs, noticing they had to be taken in close range. She stopped when she got to the last one, which was a photo of her, Caroline and Nora from when they went to Target.

Just two days ago.

Jordan saw a sheet of paper had fallen out with the photos and she picked it up with shaking hands.

I'M WATCHING YOU.