Chapter One:

He hadn't really been surprised when she stopped by and dropped off "a few things" for the wedding. He knew she hated clutter, she hated being alone and despite being a prosecutor, she hated conflict with people she cared about.

He knew from the look on her face what she was looking for from her father as she sat down across from him at the wooden kitchen table. She placed the glass just above the worn surface, swirling its contents around and staring into the glass as if it would offer her some solution or at least solace. Her heart was heavy, she was tired but there was also an element of anger boiling up that she couldn't quite place.

Her father sighed. "Rough week?" was all he asked. She nodded then prepared to unburden herself by taking a deep breath.

Before she could begin he cut her off.

"So which hat am I wearing for this conversation?"

Confusion spread across her face, not because she didn't understand his question, but because he'd never made her choose before. She wanted to just lay it all out with him. The professional changes in her life were supposed to be an improvement but they continued to complicate the relationships she had with the few close people in her life. The personal changes were supposed to be good too - although some could not be shared with her father just yet. That was upsetting. Hadn't she earned the right to be happy too? But, she knew some bridges once burned were harder to rebuild - She and Jack were learning that for themselves and construction would likely be a lengthy process. Her father was usually great at being the "other" man in her life. Sorting through problems, getting to the heart of things and then coming out with her feeling more confident on the other side. His question unsettled her and made her wonder if this too was a change she would need to adapt to.

"I understand you and some of my officers are not seeing eye to eye this week" - he spoke and then he paused to allow her time to accept that he'd called them "his officers". A subtle note of warning about how he felt things had gone. "I hear one of those officers is Eddie"...He paused again to let her pick up the story while he firmly established which hat he was wearing on this issue - Commissioner.

She immediately felt her defenses spring to life. She was supposed to be on the side of the law. Her JOB was to listen to both sides of an issue and figure out how to serve the best interest. If something doesn't sound right to her, there is usually a reason. She needs to trust her gut professionally and it doesn't usually fail her...Usually. She attempted to explain.

"Dad," she began

His eyebrow raised just ever so slightly in a questioning way.

"Commissioner" she adjusted, her tone a little more than slightly annoyed. "I listened to YOUR officers and I didn't think they sounded credible. THAT'S MY JOB. I'm sorry if feelings were hurt but there is no room for bruised egos. If they don't like my decision, too bad." she huffed.

"Are you sure that your decision not to proceed is the one they are taking issue with?" he sharply but calmly responded? "Perhaps your written response is the real issue here. If you expect to have the support and trust of the 35,000 officers in this city, writing an email suggesting they lied to you is not the way to go." He paused letting his words sink in - continuing after he realized they were not. "You have probably not heard the last of that email - are you prepared for that?" The weight of that statement was not lost on her.

"Jamie already tried and like I told him…"

Before she could continue he cut her off. "Do you mean Sergeant Reagan came to you personally, hoping your relationship with him could help cool things down? You seem to have jumped to the conclusion that he said something about it as her fiance."

"Come on Dad, really?" was her retort but she was beginning to accept that she was not the only one with new professional responsibilities. Her father's remark about capitalizing on relationships was part of all of their jobs...and lives. "Regardless of whether he came as her boss or her fiance, he has no right to challenge my decision." she angrily replied.

"I think you know that all of us have disagreed with your decisions in the past, and you with ours. I don't think that's really the issue. If it was any other officers, would you have felt the need to make a value judgement without facts, or would you have just thrown it back and asked for more evidence or witness statements? You CHOSE to make it a personal attack on their credibility. I hope you are prepared for the full result of that action."

The longer the week dragged on the less sure she was. If you had asked her at the time, when her fuse was short and her Irish temper flared, she would have said hell yes, but now...she wasn't entirely sure. She wasn't even sure why it made her so angry. Plenty of times a week she had to navigate through other people's hunches and perspectives to get to the heart of a matter. She was usually able to figure out the real legal issue and stand by it. If a case wasn't prosecutable with the information she had, it was in nobody's best interest to move forward. Even if they didn't want to hear it. Why was this case making her so damn angry and reactive?

"I am" she replied somewhat less sure than before and with no small amount of sadness in her voice. She knew that her father had just established himself firmly on the side of his department and she would need to defend her actions without him to mediate. "And why can't they just leave work at work. They are supposed to be getting ready for their wedding, we all are. Instead everyone is focused on our professional relationships. If you work with family, you need to get a thick skin about that."

"I heard you questioned whether her skin was thick enough for the job." he replied as a statement of fact.

She didn't deny it. So he continued.

"Eddie has been on the job for five years, all of it with Jamie. I would imagine with everything that entails she is plenty tough enough to be a cop." he continued with a strong tone of rebuke. "You do not get to question the competency of my officers." he said with emphasis.

"That's not what I meant. I meant being a REAGAN cop." she tried to explain.

"But it's what you said...so now you are questioning whether she is fit to marry your brother?" he asked incredulously. "I'm not sure which Jamie and Eddie would take more offense to." he sadly stated. "Erin, is there something about the wedding bothering you? Honestly, I don't think Eddie and Jamie are the problem here."

"That's ridiculous," she angrily responded. She finished her drink, stood up and placed it in the sink. "It's late and I have a lot to do tomorrow. I'll see you later." The bitterness in her tone was just simmering below the surface.

As she walked out of the side door, he continued to sit there. This was clearly one of the times his daughter was not seeing the real issue. She needed her mother to say all the hard things, and really get into it with her, then put all the pieces back together with a new perspective. That's how their rebellious, over confident daughter with a rather large chip on her shoulder had become such a strong independent woman, a supportive mother and a prosecutor to be reckoned with. It was a messy journey but Mary had been up to it. Every time he tried to replicate her process, he either made the whole issue worse or "Daddy's Little Girl" ended up playing him like a fiddle. He sighed and missed his wife so achingly that he needed to sit perfectly still to keep from breaking apart. Jamie's wedding, Erin's reaction to her promotion, Danny being Danny...all things that Mary should have been here to enjoy, provide support and navigate with him. Instead, he was an overworked, overwhelmed father whose children were not provided the luxury of being just that. Instead he was their boss, their colleague and sometimes their professional adversary and it sucked. He poured himself another two fingers of whiskey and let the burning feeling spread all the way to the pit in his stomach before he headed upstairs to bed.

Chapter Two:

Driving home she attempted to console herself after unsuccessfully trying to get her father's help. She reminded herself that regardless of how things turn out, it's not like she will be spending a lot of time with Eddie and Jamie other than at Sunday dinners. And after all, if her brothers could master the art of dinners with Jack without any meaningful interactions when they were together, then so could she. Who knows, maybe if things move along a little faster than she was currently letting them with Erin and Jack 2.0, they'd need to do that again too. She chuckled to herself remembering she was planning on buying dad some new steak knives for his birthday, but perhaps she would hold off. There was likely to be a whole lot of tension around the Reagan Sunday dinner table in the upcoming months that even an expensive knife couldn't cut through. She smiled to herself a little bitterly.

Not spending a whole lot of time with Eddie was one thing, but not spending time with Jamie was another. Her heart hurt almost as if she'd been through a breakup. It was silly really, but that's how she felt. Her relationship with her brother had evolved considerably over the years, Jamie had grown from the baby she helped care for, to the teenager who helped her in return when Nikki was small, to her partner at all family functions that required a plus one. They had a special bond that only got closer after her marriage had broken up. Then, he had needed a shoulder to cry on and an ear to talk to when he and Sydney broke up. Through all of the things their mother would have supported him in, Erin filled the void. If she was being completely honest with herself, she liked being a surrogate mother to him. No, she wasn't really old enough, but she had the life experience being 8 years older and was considerably less naive. She liked being the woman in his life who would have to approve anyone else who wanted in. Then again, maybe not she reminded herself. Eddie definitely wasn't on her favorite's list these days and after she and Jamie had talked last, she was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

Once again she could feel the anger boil up again. How dare he call her to task over a work situation, he was acting like an overprotective….Sergeant. The weight of her father's reminder popped back into her head. Would Jamie have brought it up like that to her if it was any other of his officers? She had to admit, knowing Jamie - he probably would.

Remembering her biting comments to her brother made the pit in her stomach grow even larger. She knew she crossed the line. Her mouth sometimes got ahead of her brain when her temper flared. Anthony, her investigator has his own fiery Italian temper. She and Danny were so alike in that way, and he was often her target so it didn't matter as much with him. They would both blow up, and after they calmed down, heat of the moment exchanges were mostly forgotten. Jamie was another story. She knew that the shock that registered on his face after she called Eddie "thin skinned" and suggested she should find another job had long since worn off. She was quite sure the shock had been replaced by anger.

Many times she had watched Danny push those same buttons over and over with little reaction on the surface until he finally blew. And when Jamie Reagan boiled over, it was no quick flash. It was a deep, hot anger with a very long memory. She had little doubt Jamie could recall nearly every time that Danny had crossed the line. He didn't exactly hold a grudge once the argument was over, but he never forgot. Once Jamie got angry, really angry, there was no telling how long it would last.

Part of her wanted to rush over and apologize. She knew if she had hurt him, he would accept it and they could move on. The problem was that Jamie wasn't angry at how he had been treated this time. He was angry at how she had treated Eddie and that was much worse. One of her brother's finest qualities was loyalty. No matter how angry Danny ever made him, no matter what the other police officers thought of her father's or her decisions, Jamie never wavered in his loyalty - Even if he agreed. He would defend his family. Now that Eddie was his family she fell under that protective umbrella. Erin had insulted the love of his life, just a few days before the wedding, and she knew she was in deep. She hadn't intended on casting a shadow over their happy event but she did. And maybe it was because they were just so damn happy.

She wasn't exactly sure if she was jealous of Eddie but she knew it was something. Something about how she had become almost a physical part of him since they decided to get together. She had moved right in and they were planning the wedding. If you saw either of them off duty, you saw the other. Thinking back to the way she and Jack had begun their relationship, it had all the same speed but with a lot of overshadowing. Jamie and Eddie had chosen their path. Each step they took toward each other was a conscious effort. Erin and Jack had announced their upcoming marriage along with news of an upcoming baby. The path seemed to appear before them with no real choices to be made. Get married, have a baby, finish law school were all laid out before them with no other options like the exits on a highway. Not that Erin minded the way things turned out. Nikki was her greatest joy. Her relationship with Jack was complicated, but she knew deep down they loved each other. It just would have been nice to have some of the choices her brother had. When she announced her wedding, there were plenty of tears and yelling before everyone calmed down enough to enjoy it. Jack had never really recovered from that entrance into the family. Henry, Danny, Linda and even Frank were completely smitten with Eddie's feisty personality and the obvious love she had for Jamie. Everyone was smitten except Erin. Even Erin wasn't sure why. Loneliness seemed to fill her entire body.

She thought about calling Jack. She knew he would come over. But the baggage she carried about their past did not deserve to be mixed in with this situation. Jack would end up feeling guilty, resentful at her family, and this was not helpful for them. She smiled genuinely for the first time all day when she thought about their restart. He had even been willing to see a counselor together to make sure they were taking things in the right direction. "You will make mistakes this time around," the therapist had assured them, "just make sure they are different ones."

"You can cry on Jack's shoulder later." she told herself. Once this had all blown over, they could dissect the complicated feelings together. Tonight she needed to deal with the problem herself.

She even entertained calling Linda, but her response would most likely mirror Dad's. Linda had been through enough of Erin's battles with Danny and she generally gave him her allegiance. She was a cop's wife through and through. She would surely identify with Eddie being told that her hunch wasn't good enough. Danny had often complained to Linda about that. Except, that wasn't really why Eddie was upset. It was because her account of the incident was questioned not some gut feeling. Erin hadn't really intended to imply she was outright lying but that is how it came out. Even she had to admit it. Her anger had been seething when she wrote the email and everything spiraled from there.

She was finally able to see that her family was moving ahead without her. Nikki was graduating, and living her own life on her own terms. Erin's greatest news, the truth about her and Jack, was the one thing she couldn't share with the people she loved the most...her family, Nikki, Anthony. Her new job was turning out to be polarizing and far less fulfilling that she had anticipated. Linda and Danny were thoroughly enjoying their emptier nest. It was having an invigorating effect on the couple. It seemed like her family was pulling away from her and she was very, very alone.

Erin parked the car, and wearily trudged up the steps to her apartment building. As she leaned against the elevator wall and pushed the button for her floor, she absolutely refused to cry. She entered her apartment and hung up her coat. She just needed a good soak and some sleep. Once she poured herself a glass of wine and filled the tub, her resolve was broken. She sat in the soapy, warm water and wept.