The first time Roy sees Kate Beckett, she's just a rookie kid in uniform. The second time, she's walking off the elevator, his elevator, into his precinct, his world.

'Katherine Beckett, sir, reporting to Homicide,' she says, a little surprised to be met by the Captain practically at the door. In truth, Roy was just about to go downstairs for a better cup of coffee, but he leads Beckett into his office anyway, gestures to his free chair.

'Thank you, sir,' she says, but remains standing, stiff and a little awkward, as if she wants to stand to attention like a soldier, but understands how weird that would look.

Roy looks the woman up and down. She's matured since he saw her last, when she was just a big-eyed girl with her hair pulled into a ponytail, her face bare of makeup but painted with a wash of barely-suppressed anguish, a hard set to her mouth. Beckett's mouth is just as hard, but now her eyes are fringed in heavy black mascara, her hair is fashionably short and her clothes make her look less like a cop and more like a high-powered agency rep, all the way down to a pair of stupidly high heels.

'You run in those things?' Roy asks. 'Cause they may have been useful for other reasons in Vice, but Homicide does require you to be able to chase someone.'

'Running is done on the ball of the foot,' she answers, firm but not defensive. 'I had to chase plenty in Vice and I honestly don't think I'm any faster in sneakers.'

He grunts and looks her over once again. She'd be a stunner if she really bothered, but she hasn't. So she doesn't trade on the looks. She doesn't have the air of desperation she'd had back then either, but of course back then he'd caught her doing something she shouldn't. Something she doesn't seem to remember.

'Your mother was murdered.'

She startles a bit, then quickly catches herself. 'Yes.'

'Did they ever find who did it?'

'No, sir.'

'You still sneaking into evidence, reading those files with a flashlight?'

She smiles a little, her eyes really meeting his for the first time. Okay, so she does remember. 'No, sir,' she answers. And then the smile fades a little as she adds, 'My mother's case is cold. It took me awhile but I've learned to accept that.'

It sounds like a line. Like a shrink's line, repeated. He wonders how true it is. Because of course Kate Beckett being here, exactly, and not in some other Homicide unit, is probably no accident. She's clean herself, but Roy caught the faint whiff of corruption that came in with her, the invisible reminder of who he is and what he's done attached like a warning to her personnel file, staring back at him from the top of his desk.

'Sit down, Beckett, you're making me nervous looming over me like that.'

She sits, the faint smile suddenly back, and he wonders if that's exactly what those heels are for. Admiration floods him for a moment, washing away the corruptive stench. Kate Beckett may have come to him by order from way on high, or she may have come by pure unconcerned chance, but she's his now, and that may just be enough to save the both of them if he plays it right.