Hello Readers! You can thank the nasty little upper respiratory virus known locally as The Crud for this story. I spent two sick days watching lots of Blue Bloods on Thursday and HGTV house-hunting shows on Friday, and the idea for this story was born. Enjoy!


Some dialogue in this chapter taken from the Season One episode, "All That Glitters."


It had been another lively Sunday dinner, full of discussion about eyewitness identification and its role in finding a suspect in the murder of a tourist, and what a criminal looked like, and landing back on Pierre, the unfortunate man identified as the murderer of that tourist. Good points had been made and lessons taught to the younger generation. And then, as usual, Danny and Erin took it too far, and Erin quickly left the table to start cleaning up.

A few minutes later, Frank followed his daughter into the kitchen, hoping to have a conversation with Erin. He knew the recent release on a technicality of a murderer she'd convicted was weighing on her. But there was Danny again, deliberately getting in Erin's way, slamming the cabinet doors, doing anything he could to show that their fight was still ongoing.

"I like these cabinets. They're original to the house. Cool it." Frank ordered.

That put a stop to the cabinet slamming, but not the silent fight. Frank sighed. Maybe it was time for a round of 'Tell Judge Reagan' to settle the argument. "I know you two supposed to be all grown up, but humor me here." He asked both children to explain their positions on Pierre's innocence or guilt.

And once they had both had their say, and Erin had halfway admitted that her desire for Pierre to be guilty was at least partially the result of that other murderer going free, and Danny had sort of admitted that he didn't have evidence to prove any one else was guilty of the tourist's murder, they had come to an agreement. Danny would work to prove that someone else was the murderer, and Erin would hold off on indicting Pierre.

Frank nodded. "Well." Another argument resolved. Although, to judge from the way Danny and Erin were leaning against the kitchen island with their backs to each other, they weren't ready to make nice just yet. So similar to the way they had fought when they were children. Quick to the temper; slow to cool down. Especially during that short time they had been roommates.

Frank picked up his coffee mug. "You know, when Jamie was born, we tried to move you two into the same room. You remember that?"

Danny grinned and glanced backward toward his sister. Of course he remembered that fiasco.

Erin looked down at the floor. "Sort of." Most of what she remembered was fighting with Danny.

"We couldn't afford it, but the very next day your mom and I started looking for a bigger house."

Danny and Erin shared a brief glance. Had it only taken one night for their parents to make that decision?

"True story." Now that those two were on the path to being civil to each other, it was time to check in with the rest of the family. Frank headed out of kitchen before he got roped into helping Erin with the clean-up work.

-BB-BB-

Later that evening, after the family members had left for their own homes and Frank and Henry had settled into their chairs in the living room, Henry looked over at his son. "Francis, there's something I've been meaning to ask you for years. I heard you reminding Erin about sharing a room with Danny. Did you really think those two sharing a small space was going to work?"

Frank smiled slightly. "I didn't, no. Mary thought it might work, or that it might force the two of them to get along. She shared a room with her younger brother, when she was nine and he was seven."

"That would be Brian?"

"Brian. She told me the two of them argued like Danny and Erin, but sharing a space changed their relationship. Made them better siblings. We thought the same thing might happen for our two."

Henry shook his head. "What I would've given to be a fly on the wall when you told them about your plan."

"You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," Frank stated. "That's why we had a pizza dinner that night. We though the news would go over better after their favorite meal…"

TBC