Winnie's running late, has forgotten her wallet and her coffee and is now facing a day without either.

She checks her phone as she's standing on the streetcar, wedged between a man who's all elbows and a kid who seems to have something against taking his backpack off.

Two messages, both from Spike. The first is some garbled mess she can't make out sent way after she fell asleep (she has a very dim recollection of rolling over, looking at her phone and falling back asleep holding it) and the second-well, the second makes her burst out laughing. She gets some filthy looks from the people around her, forces her mouth shut and reads the message again.

'Concert was good - minus the part where Sam and I had to stop a fight. Some guy dropped a beer on the head of the guy in front of him. Guy covered in beer = totally irrational, screaming, etc, ending up leaving. 10 mins before the end the guy who dropped the beer goes "BEST CONCERT EVER. You know what would make it better? Spilling beer on someone!" Hilarious.'

Winnie thinks about the size of the large cups at the ACC and has to smother her giggle again. She runs from the stop all the way to work and is still snickering to herself when she finally gets to sit down.

"What, no coffee this morning?"

She grins, looks up even as she signs in to her computer. "Woke up late. Someone sent me a drunken bbm this morning at 1. Totally disturbed my sleep."

"Yeah, you should ditch that guy," Spike says, grinning and not looking remotely sorry.

"Glad the show was good. Minus the fight."

"You shoulda come."

She wrinkles her nose and says teasingly, "To see some aging rockers in their 60s? Pass."

Spike clutches at his chest melodramatically.

"Hey, are you coming or what?" Sam calls from the entrance to the gym.

Spike rolls his eyes at her. "Duty calls."

Winnie returns his smile, watches him walk away absent-mindedly before shaking her head at herself for being still-tired and a bit dozy and getting down to work. She sees Sarge and Spike speaking later, when they're done their workout and are heading to the locker room to get dressed. Sarge is rolling his eyes but he has a silly grin on his face and Winnie wonders what that's all about before she hears Team Four in her headset asking her a question about former drug busts in a particular four-block radius.

Spike appears out of nowhere, all kevlar and 'Scarlatti' on his uniform, phone in one hand and his face all animated. It makes her breath catch actually, you know, just for a second. He waves at her, heads out to the garage. She's still thinking about that when the rest of the team appears, when Sarge says something about patrolling and it doesn't actually occur to her to ask why Spike left before everyone else.

The Barn gets quiet after that and she has time to read all her emails before she gets up to copy something. When she gets back to her desk, there's an XL triple triple next to her phone and a paper bag sitting on her keyboard, still warm to the touch. She frowns, opens it with the tips of her fingers (it's just, you know, unnamed packages and bomb calls, hay and grass and whatever) but all she smells is warm bread. It's actually a step up from that, thick cut toast slathered with butter and an eco-friendly box filled with eggs (over hard, the only way she'll eat eggs). She stares at it stupidly for a second, at the plastic cutlery wrapped in paper napkins, at the spoon sitting on top of the napkin, at the two single-serve packages of peanut butter. She wonders who here knows she likes to eat peanut butter with a spoon and just like that, the light bulb flickers on.

She sinks into her chair, the thought that how funny it is that someone's thoughtfulness can just totally make your whole day better almost overshadowed by wondering why he would go out of his way. She fiddles with her phone for a second and then sends the message before she can over think it. 'Thanks for that – you're a mind-reader sometimes.'

Her phone lights up almost immediately, Spike telling her not to worry about it and to eat it before it gets cold. She frowns, like how does he know she was already thinking of ways to smuggle ten bucks into his wallet? She puts her phone back down, still thinking about how thoughtful he can be, the thought making her squirm a little. She drinks half her coffee while wondering if she should message him back, nibbling on the ends of her toast, or if she really needs to (she's never gotten all that stuff figured out, like when to stop sending thank you notes, if you're supposed to thank someone for thanking you, probably ends up going too far, still wonders sometimes if he thinks about that night he asked her out, know that he's definitely not still interested).

The call that comes in isn't the kind that usually worries her. It's a jumper (ok not that she isn't worried about the girl, it's just less worry than when a member of her team has a gun to the head) and it should be straight forward. It should be.

Sarge is negotiating, saying all the right things (Winnie's read all the manuals, all the books, likes to know how things are going to go before they actually get there) but evidently it's not right enough for the vic because she lets go and it's over. The exclamation that Sarge lets out sends a chill up Winnie's spine, makes her freeze for a moment before she pre-empts the things her team is going to need and starts sending out EMS. She can almost see the scene in front of her: it'll be Jules who drops down to check the pulse, who'll shake her head and look away. Winnie sends the coroner too.

She thinks maybe she can read those looks on their faces when they come through the door, all of them slow, all of them quiet. She knew it was a bad idea waking up this morning and this-

Well this just proves it.

She finishes her shift quietly, tells Team Three that Team One's still debriefing and they're going to have to find somewhere else to discuss their tac plans, ignores Gina when she jokingly says that Winnie always favours Team One. Winnie does, it's true. It stopped bothering her a long time ago.

Sid arrives to relieve her and she gets changed slowly, doesn't smile at Jules or Leah when they come in but pats them both on the arm when she's leaving the locker room. Her file is on the edge of the desk when she comes out; bag slung over her shoulder and the door to the room Team One was using open. Sarge is sitting at the head of the table, staring out the window. Everyone else is gone.

She sets the folder in front of him and it takes him a moment to look at her, as if he didn't even notice her come in.

"Thanks."

She twists the strap of her bag in her fingers, forces a smile, wishes she could tell him that it wasn't his fault, thinks it would be overstepping the boundaries between them.

He looks up at her and then back to that spot out his window. "Do you think we did everything we could?"

She follows his gaze, chooses her words carefully. "I think you did."

"Wasn't enough," he says musingly like he's a little lost, like he doesn't understand where they went wrong. Winnie looks at the copies of the transcripts on the table and thinks maybe there's just no answer.

She looks at him steadily. "No, it wasn't. Doesn't mean you didn't do everything you could." It's something her sister's said to her a hundred times, first time she's ever believed it.

He looks back at her again before pulling the file towards himself and opening it. "Have a good night, Winnie." He calls out to her just as she gets to the door. "I didn't know you were a triple triple person."

She stares back at him confused and then shrugs. "Only in an extra large." She thinks of that grin on his face earlier, how he sometimes looks at Spike like a son, wonders what he sees when he looks at her.

He gazes at her for a second and then smiles suddenly. "Hmm. Okay. Bye."

She waves and turns back around, nearly crashes right into Spike who has this look that she doesn't know how to read on his face. He looks at her, eyes searching hers and she feels like it should make her uncomfortable, like she should want to look away, doesn't know what it means when she doesn't.

He smiles suddenly, bright, makes her think of sunrises before she inwardly rolls her eyes at herself. So lame. "Need a ride?"

She smiles back, shakes her head. "I'm good thanks. Have a good night."

She thinks maybe he watches her until she leaves. Doesn't know what to make of it sometimes, thinks that they're friends, but doesn't know if that night maybe a line got crossed without her knowing it.

Maybe.


On her days off, Winnie likes to sleep in, lounge around in her pajamas watching old episodes of The California Raisins, work out and study. In that order. She knows Melanie thinks she's anti-social and maybe she is but it's also been a long time since she had a big pool of friends to choose from. Melanie's bitter about that but Winnie thinks that sometimes, people don't know what to do so they push you away. It's fine, it's not like she's mad, just wishes sometimes that she'd had a better idea of when to get out before things had gone so spectacularly south.

She's contemplating running out to Shoppers for shampoo and wondering if her time would be better spent just turning the old bottle upside down and shaking it, when her phone vibrates.

'Not the same here on your day off'

It's kinda nice to feel like someone at work notices when she's gone (kind of nice to feel that Spike notices when she's gone, she thinks and then immediately stops thinking it)so she writes back, 'haha'. It's not exactly her best work but her phone vibrates again as soon as she's pressed send.

'The other dispatchers don't think I'm as funny as you do'

She flushes at that, thinks it's a little unfair to Sid and Pete and the rest of them, plus she's always been bad with compliments. She toys with saying thanks but then doesn't end up writing anything back. She feels restless all of a sudden, hopes that it's the fact that she's inside and the sun's shining through the window but thinks it more likely has something to do with Spike that she doesn't want to think about. She takes a shower, puts on makeup and holds up a sweater with the tags still on it to herself, head tilting as she looks at her reflection. It's nice to put something on and think that she looks, you know. Not bad. She doesn't really bother most of the time.

She wanders around Queen for a bit, looks at things she doesn't need to buy, And then, sitting on the patio of a coffee shop, cup in front of her, she pulls out her phone and writes back.

'It's pity, you're not that funny'

He writes back right away. 'Am too. Come out tonight.'

She fidgets with her phone, thinks about what she had planned (like she was going to clean her place, so, nothing).

'Sam, Jules and Leah. Raf's playing. It'll be fun'

So it's not like it would just be the two of them. Not that she thought it would be, he's not like that, wouldn't do that, not after she said no. And he's probably not interested anymore, she reminds herself. It's stupid to feel nervous. Not that she feels nervous, of course not. There's nothing at all to feel nervous about.

'Ok, see you later'

She heads home, futzes around with her textbook and notes and resolutely does not change her hair or her clothes before she leaves. It's not far from where she lives and she thinks about walking for about a second and a half. It's really cold though, all the warmth of earlier gone the second the sun set and she lets out a little sigh of relief when she gets on the streetcar and her ears and nose can start recovering.

She spots Sam as soon as she walks in the door, he's standing up and doing something really weird with two beer bottles, Leah and Spike cracking up and Jules shaking her head at him, a jokingly long-suffering look on her face. He waves her over, climbs over Jules so that there's space on the end.

"You came!" Jules says, grinning and making a face at Sam who has decided to sit right against her, as if there's no space on his other side. He shrugs, smiling. Jules just shakes her head at him, turns back to Winnie. "We should get you a drink."

She grins back at her (Jules has always made her feel comfortable, even when she first met her, like meeting someone she already knew), unwinds her scarf from her neck and slides out of her coat, orders from a guy wearing jeans tighter than hers. Leah's looking at him like he's a chocolate milkshake – she's got a serious sweet tooth. Winnie checks him out from behind smiling, shakes her head as she sits down. Spike catches her eye and makes a face at her, glancing at Leah and then raising an eyebrow.

She lets out a choked laugh at the expression on his face.

"How was work?"

"Long," Leah says, eyes still trained on their server. "How was doing nothing all day?"

"Fantastic, you should try it sometime."

Spike snorts, dimple out in full force. "We missed you."

"We did," Leah nods, eyes still on her prize. "Not the same without you."

Winnie smiles, lets out an 'awww'.

Jules leans over, tells her she likes her sweater. Their server has been roped into conversation by Leah, Winnie's drink in his hand still half-way to the table. Sam's eyebrows are in his hairline, like he can't quite believe what he's hearing. And Spike is-

Staring at her.

He grins, doesn't look away, picks up his drink and climbs over the low table, tells Sam and Jules to shove over. She can't help but smile up at him.

"Sup?"

He snorts at her, like her effort to sound street could be anything other than hilarious. "Nothing. Just thought I was missing out on conversation over there." He shakes his head. "She could eat him for breakfast."

"I think she likes it that way."

He lets out a shout of laughter, looks at Leah who's so consumed in her task, she doesn't even hear him. He turns back to her, grinning and Winnie feels that thing that happens in her stomach whenever he looks at her. She's starting to figure out how to ignore it.

They don't speak while Raf is playing, Spike kind of nodding his head to the music. Winnie can see Sam and Jules whispering to each other, their hands clasped together. Spike leans close to her when the set is over, asks her if she can order him another drink and then disappears to the bathroom. She knows she's watching him and totally perving but she's had two drinks and has always been a really cheap date. She orders another one for Spike and, after a split-second hesitation, another one for herself.

She meets Leah's knowing eyes when she turns back to the table, Leah quirks her lips and then gets up and moves to sit next to her.

"He's cute, right?"

Comparing notes on men (especially men she works with) is really not something Winnie wants to be doing right now. Or ever. She spends a solid minute clearing her throat and then shrugs noncommittally.

Leah looks like she's just struck gold. "I was talking about our server," she says mildly.

"…I knew that."

"So what's your deal with cops?"

Winnie looks at her sharply but Leah has that calm look on her face, really looks interested. "No deal. Why?"

"Don't know that I've ever seen you with one, that's all. It tends to be our entire dating pool."

She lets out a surprised laugh. "Does it?"

Leah shrugs, white teeth gleaming. "Doesn't it? It was firefighters for me first. You know how it is, they're the entire population of people you see. Then they all seemed to get married so cops it is now."

"And how's that going?"

"I think we both know the answer to that one."

They clink glasses. "Well you and the server seem to be getting on pretty well," she says mock-suggestively, snickering when Leah looks up.

"He's 19. Not that I'm complaining. You know. Stamina. But. Probably not exactly a lasting relationship there."

"That what you're after?"

"Isn't everyone?"

Winnie doesn't say anything in response.

"Want to know what I think?"

She glances at her and then looks away, sees Spike on the other side of the room making his way back to them, his face all lit up in the half-light of the lounge.

"I think no relationship is better than a bad relationship." Leah's dark eyes pierce right through her. "Doesn't mean it's a choice to be alone."

Winnie thinks about glasses being thrown, about her things being broken, about how tired it can make you when you want to help someone who doesn't want your help. Doesn't say anything.

She hears Leah let out a soft sigh before a hand squeezes her knee and Leah gets up to move.

"Taking my seat?" Spike sounds so good-natured, so easy-going that Winnie can't help but smile at the sound of his voice. She doesn't try to hide it.

"Would I dare?" Leah laughs. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if your friend Raf can introduce me properly to someone who can help me get home tonight." She wiggles her eyebrows and disappears towards the stage.

Winnie can feel Spike's eyes on her, looks up to meet them. "Having fun?"

"Yeah. Glad I came out."

"Me too."

See, ok, most of the time, she's pretty sure that things are back to the way they were, that he's over whatever it is that made him ask her out. And then sometimes, he looks at her, like he's looking at her now and she thinks maybe it's not quite that cut and dry, like maybe he couldn't just turn off whatever feeling made him do it in the first place. Even more disturbing is the fact that she likes it, a little, likes having him look at her the way he's looking at her right now. It makes her forget about silly things like rules.

Raf leans over the back of the seat, his head right between Sam and Jules.

"HEY!"

A round of hellos and he kisses her on the cheek and Winnie thinks how much it sucks that the SRU can burn out even the brightest people. She glances at the man sitting next to her and hopes that it'll never happen to him.

"How's being back on the beat?"

Raf smiles at her. "Good. I'm happy."

It's good to see him, good to have the team she spent the last year protecting back together just a little and she and Jules are talking about how hard it is to find decent boots when she feels eyes on her, looks up to see Sam, Raf and Spike all looking at her. They all look away as soon as she catches them but it makes her feel like she's got something on her face.

Raf shoots her a quick grin and she resolutely ignores the three of them, has no idea what they're doing and, having spent too much time hiding their practical jokes from the other teams, really doesn't want to know.

Midnight comes fast. Leah's already gone, Raf too, packing up behind the stage. Spike's telling her this ridiculous story about how he once got chased with a butcher knife (and he must have a really short memory because she remembers that call and no way, no how, was it any kind of knife a butcher would use) and she's laughing at his gestures. Jules leans over Spike's shoulder to talk to her, completely interrupting his story.

"I think we're going to go. Sam's hungry."

"Uh, so are you." Sam pops his head out from behind her.

Jules waves her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Are you guys coming?"

"I'm in the middle of a story."

"Please. She already knows that one. And I'm sure she remembers it wasn't a butcher's knife."

"Why don't you ruin my whole story, huh?" He gives her a wounded look.

Jules laughs. "Are you coming or what?"

"I dunno," Spike says grudgingly. "What are you going to get?"

"Poutine," Sam butts in. "Obviously."

"Is this going to be like the time you spent fifty bucks on poutine and then dropped half of it in Ed's car?" Spike makes a face.

"It wasn't fifty bucks!"

Jules glances at her. "It was $48.90," she says conspiratorially.

Winnie laughs.

"For fries and gravy?"

"And cheese curds," Sam insists.

They get up, settle their bill, Sam and Spike bickering the whole way about whether cheese curds are worth the money and if the fact that it was duck gravy in the fifty dollar poutine makes a difference. Winnie winds her scarf around her neck, holds up her jacket to slide into it when Spike takes it out of her hands and holds it out for her. She rolls her eyes at him and he rolls his right back at her so she lets him help her into it, shaking her head. He doesn't stop talking to Sam the whole time.

Jules and Sam are up ahead of them, Jules with her hand in the crook of his elbow. Spike glances at her. "They're good together."

"They are." The silence between them is comfortable and Winnie inhales deeply through her nose. "Smells cold."

He laughs, sounds surprised. "Smells that way, huh?"

"It does!"

"Not the reading on the mercury or the fact that it's way past Fall?"

"My way's more accurate," she says grinning.

She steals a few fries out of Spike's bucket, confesses that she would take a few of Sam's but is afraid to lose a finger and makes Jules laugh so hard she nearly snorts gravy out of her nose. Sam shoots her an affronted look and still won't share but Spike leaves her all the ones that aren't drowned in gravy and she can't find a way to move the grin off her face.

Spike insists on taking the bus with her when they're done, even though he doesn't need to, even though it's kinda out of his way, walks her all the way to her door. She feels awkward, like she should hug him or something (what in the fuck even, hug him? What has gotten into her?) but she just waves and then disappears inside.

She thinks about him for a long time though, as she flicks on the tv and then gets ready for bed. Even when she gets under the sheets and turns off her light, she's still thinking about him, wondering what it means that all those things she said about rules and cops and dating suddenly seem really small and unimportant.

When her alarm goes off the next morning, she feels really rested for only having gotten four and a half hours of sleep. She's in a spectacularly good mood, stops for a donut on the way in. Hesitates but then gets Spike a pumpkin spice muffin. He's a total sucker for specialty flavours, even though she's pointed out more than once that they can't be that special if they make them every year.

She runs into him outside the locker room, hands the bag over unceremoniously.

"What is it?"

She shrugs. "Something pumpkin."

And then he gives her that look, the one that usually makes her flush and look away. She doesn't look away this time. "Yum. Thanks." He shoves half of it into his mouth and she rolls her eyes in mock disgust.

"So gross. Anyhow. I'll uh. See you later."

She hears Leah behind her, asking him what he's eating, clearly hears him answer that Winnie brought him a muffin and she feels like maybe she should be embarrassed but she's not. He does a lot of nice things for her. Not that she has to justify it. She glances back anyway. Leah just raises her eyebrows and nods.

Shift is quiet, ends on time. Winnie's glad; she has an online test to get to for one of her courses, still wants to study some more before she takes it. Spike pulls up beside her just as she starts walking, gives her that grin.

"Need a ride?"

She laughs, shakes her head at him.

"Come on," he wheedles. "It'll be quicker. Then you'll have that extra fifteen minutes to read."

Well she can't fault his logic.

She gets in the car, wonders for a second how he always knows what she's got going on in her life and finds that she doesn't want to look away from him. He sings along (really badly) to the radio, trying to make his voice high and raspy like he's Robert Plant and she cracks up at how absolutely atrocious he sounds.

"Could this be the one thing you're bad at?" she asks wheezing through her laughter.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "The one thing eh? Does that mean you think I'm awesome at everything else?"

It should make her flush. It WOULD have made her flush not even a week ago but tonight, she just gazes right back at him. "At the very least, mediocre," she says, feels gratified when he bursts out laughing.