-2- Nick and the pictures on her desk
„Rush, Valens, where are you?! Boss wants to talk to you both!"
Nick Vera pushed down his readin' glasses a little bit further deeper down onto his nose.
Yeah, latley he had to wear these damn glasses at work and the harsh comments from the colleagues were down on him.
Kat had been bad enough but now that Lil and Scotty are back at the precinct...
He looked around for them and catched them showin' straight up out of the break room.
Lilly Rush handed her partner a mug of coffee in a causual movement and Scotty was
takin' it while he seemed to be engrossed in a file.
He nodded a little „thanks" to her without usin' words.
„Nice try, Vera, but who are ya tryin' to fool?
Are you sure that you don't need some aid for your ears as well?"
Scotty was laughin', stood up and went around Nicks desk.
Vera got a playful slap on the shoulder which brought his nose very very near to the computer.
„That's better, ya know, this is the right position, Nicky, nearly down on the screen-
The one we all come to love along the last weeks!"
No one who saw them, Lil and Scotty, at least would have noticed something odd in their behavior.
Nobody.. but Nick.
They returned from their little encounter with Rushs sister Christina and now they seriously and sucsessfully did as if nothin' special had happened at all.
They brought Chris down to rehab, her little daughter Alexis „Nellie" lived with the grandparents Paul and Celeste Cooper from now on
and as long as Nick knew her, Lilly's spendin' more time with her „new" family- for the first time in ages- than at the office.
And, almost to much to bear for Nicks curiousity, there was a frame.
A frame on her desk.
A frame with a photo.
A frame with actually livin' people on its photo-
no more cold ones.
Not any longer.
Or so it seemed.
A happily gigglin', gorgeous blonde, lookin' baby, completly dressed in pink, in a park,
on a red picnic blanket in the sunshine under the first green leaves of springtime.
Whoes face was covered in ice-cream and who hold onto two adults
who looked as quite as cheerful about it, grinnin' wildly for the camera, the grand parents in the background.
As much as like the family Lil had always wanted.
Had always wished for.
And longed for.
Okay- once apart from the fact that this was not her own baby girl but her niece.
And not her husband.
But sometimes you'll have to take what life offered to ya face!
They couldn't deceive Nick Vera.
Couldn't fool him.
Not him.
Not any longer.
Now Scotty opened the door to Boss bureau for Lil, one hand on the small of her back,
gently, almost softly, guidin' her through it.
Nick raised up his eyebrows suggestively.
She didn't even flinch at the contact!
If that's not a suprise- the Ice Queen of Homicide, known as Lilly Rush,
bein' comfortable with her partners hands on her !?
Scotty noticed Nicks glare and put on one of his famous, lopsided
Valens-grins for his friend and colleague.
That's the moment Nick recognized the coffee
which's splashed all over the top of the mountain of papers
on his own desk.
„Valens- ya damn dog!"
Nick exclaimed under his breath and tried to wipe away the coffee off of the file in front of him.
Scotty showed him his most smuggish' grin and whispered quietly, almost unhearable,
even if you have the best damn hearin' in the world (so that Lilly won't get it!) :
„No offense, Nicky, but ya earned it, chasin' after me an' Lil like ya did the last days!"
Scotty's quiet, satisfied chuckle was heard and died away behind the closin' doors to
Lieutenant Stillman's office.