Please read and review! I'll be your best friend! Well, you already are, so I guess you get... chocolate? :) Serena

I stood alone outside the victim's house, where hopefully, a husband would be able to give me some useful information. It was a modest house, two floors, slate gray siding, reddish brown shutters. A large oak front door stood in front of me, stained glass panels decorating the very top. I knocked. "Mr. Madsen? NYPD."

I heard a lock coming undone. The door was opened, and a young man in jeans and a fitted t-shirt stood before me. He was slightly tan, dark hair, had well muscled arms, looked to be in his early twenties, and if I wasn't actually engaged to the sexiest man alive, I may have considered him to be the sexiest man alive. His blue eyes ran up and down my body, not being shy about checking me out. Attention I may have liked months ago now seemed just... rude. And gross. "Lucas Madsen?"

"That's me. What's your name, angel face?" Lucas said in a voice full of swagger, with what I thought was a Minnesota accent. It disgusted me that he was flirting with me, despite the fact that he was married- the gold band on his left hand told me as much.

I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing my last name, but I had to. I purposely held up my badge for his inspection with my left hand, the ring Don gave me sparkling in a noticeable way. "Homicide Detective Jessica Angell," after I gave him a good enough look, I lowered my badge, putting it back in my pocket. "I have a few questions to ask you about Kristen Madsen."

Concern sparked in his eyes. "What happened to Krissie?"

"Do you mind if I come in?"

"Sure," He opened the door wider. The room I was in looked to be a living room, and it was in much better condition than I expected. For some reason, I expected it to be some trashy dump, seeing as how I assumed two kids got married out of college because the girlfriend was knocked up. But the home was very nice, almost sleek and modern. The walls were pristine white, the floors a very, very light colored wood, and the furniture black. It looked like something out of a magazine.

I sat on one of the black couches, and he sat across the matching black coffee table in an armchair.

"What happened to Kris?" he repeated, his voice adamant. His flirtatiousness was gone, replaced with concern.

"When was the last time you saw her?" I asked. I tried not to answer the question they really wanted to know until it was absolutely necessary for them to know.

He leaned back. "Last night. We had a fight, and..." he trailed off, looking into space.

"Mr. Madsen?" I said, trying to get him to refocus. "Any details you have, I need to know."

He looked back at me. "Please tell me what happened to Kris. I need to know."

This was the part of the job that I despised. "We found the body of your wife early this morning. It appears that she was murdered." I watched his expression change from shock- then morph into pain.

"Damn," he whispered hoarsely. "Damn it."

He raised his head, but his eyes were like orbs of pain. Maybe they really had loved each other. "The baby?..."

I swallowed. Be detached, Jess. Be cold. Unfeeling. You have no personal interest. At all. "We are assuming that your baby is dead," I said, my voice betraying me and catching on the word dead.

He took two deep breaths, trying his best to keep himself together. "Assuming?"

"We..." It was my turn to try to calm myself. "We did not find a fetus as the crime scene."

"Oh god," he whispered. "Oh god."

"I'm so sorry. I can only imagine how you feel right now."

He all but ignored my sentiment. He kept his eyes plastered on the ground. "She thought I had an affair with my personal trainer, as cliche as that sounds. But I didn't. I love Kris, thats why we got married. We were both so excited for this baby." He paused, a single tear falling to the wood floor with an ominous plick. "I just can't believe she's gone."

"You know, we can do this another time. I can come back in a few days..."

"No, it's okay. You need it now. I get it." He looked up again, squeezing his eyes shut for a few moments before opening them. "She was raving, and crying, and then she just stormed out. I asked her where she was gonna stay, she just said at a friend's. I didn't want to press the issue, or make her flip out even more. So I just... let her go. And maybe if I hadn't done that she'd still be here."

I put a comforting hand on his arm. "Look, you can't blame yourself. There's nothing you could've done to change things from turning out the way they did."

"Why doesn't it feel that way?"

"It takes time," I told him wisely. And I knew what I was talking about. I stood.

"Do you know who killed her? If it's some crazy drug dealer, she doesn't run with that crowd any more."

"Wait, what?"

"Kris, she used to-" his sentence was cut off by my phone.

"I'm so sorry, I have to take this." I pulled my phone out. Sid Hammerback-ME office. "Angell."

"Hello, Jessica, I have some results on Kristen Madsen that you need. You're with the husband so I figured that you could ask him about it."

"Yep. What've you got?"

"Decreased bones density and other indicators suggest that our victim was a reformed heroine addict."

Heroine. Her husband's words played in my mind: If it's some crazy drug dealer, she doesn't run with that crowd any more.

"Okay..." My thoughts were running wild, and we suddenly had dozens of suspects. "Anything else?"

"Not at the moment, but I'll get back to you on that as soon as I can."

"Thanks, Sid." I hung up, replacing the phone in my pocket. "You were saying?" I asked him. I had a feeling he'd been on the brink of telling me what Sid just did.

"Kris got really into heroine in high school. Like, really into it. She stole a lot of her parents money, and ran away from home. She lived with a drug dealer about ten years older than her for a few years. I ran into her near the NYU's campus one day, and we started dating. She told me that she was pregnant and would get clean. She went to rehab and when she came back, she was a totally different person. She started going to classes to get a psycology degree. We bought this house. We got married..." he paused, sighing. "We were so happy."

I was going to have to see Sid about when she stopped using. "I'm really sorry, but I need to leave. Here's my card if you need anything."

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My shift had just ended, and I'd made a stop at a CVS/Pharmacy on my way home. I sent a quick prayer to whoever was listening that I wouldn't see anyone I knew. Despite my fears of seeing people I knew, I needed to know if I was pregnant. I needed to know if I had a little life growing inside me that Don and I had created.

I eagerly paced inside the store, searching through a few aisles before finding the home pregnancy tests. I was actually surprised at how many different brands there were. I pulled a random one off the shelf, hoping it was the right one. I had no idea which one I actually needed- it's not like I actually research this kind of thing. I walked up to the checkout, the teenager giving me a look as she rang up the test.

I just put it in my purse and began walking towards the sliding glass doors when I heard a voice I recognized. "Angell!"

Damn. I turned to the voice of Danny Messer. "Hey, Messer. What're you doing here?"

"Montana sent me out for some Doritos. Apparently, the kind in our apartment aren't good enough for her."

"Hey, don't knock the girl's cravings. You're denying your child food, Messer." I'd briefly seen Lindsay while I was undercover, and she'd been a few months along at the time. She was close to her due date and Lucy would have a baby brother or sister.

He rolled his eyes. "What about you? What are you doing here? Doesn't Don want you attached to his hip or something?"

I gave a dry laugh. "I'm sure he'd love that. I'm actually here to get a prescription filled. Some antibiotic I'm still on," I lied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, then gritting my teeth. I'd always prided myself on being a (mostly) honest person, and I did not like lying.

I checked my phone, willing it to ring. It didn't. 7:36 PM it read. "I'd love to stand here and have some quality girl-talk with you, Messer, but I've got places to be."

"Right. Just be sure to keep it G-rated."

"Right back at you."

I left the store, his laughter behind me.

I arrived back at my apartment a few minutes later, shutting the door a little harder than necessary. I pressed my back against the closed door, before sliding down, knees to my chest. My hands dove into my purse, scrabbling for the test. Once I found it, I hastily threw the bag aside. I ran a finger over the front of the box, tracing the words First Response that were printed in blue, block letters.

I had mixed feelings about this test. If it was negative, then Don and I could just get married without a kid complicating everything at first. I'd heard from family members and friends that babies put major stress on relationships, especially if the pregnancy was not intentional.

But if it was positive, our lives would be chaos. People at the presinct would think we got married just because of the baby, or think I was 'sleeping my way to the top.' I don't know how Danny and Lindsay manage two full-time jobs with little Lucy on their hands, not to mention baby number two on the way. But most of me found the prospect of having a baby exciting. My hand found its way over my deceptively flat stomach. I could have a little Don Flack growing inside me. My lips formed a smile. A perfect baby, part me, part him. I closed my eyes, envisioning him or her. I just hoped he or she would have his blue eyes. Our baby that we created together.

I dropped my purse next to the door, making my way to the bathroom. I carefully opened the box, reading the instructions on the side panel simultaneously. I did everything I had to, then the box told me to wait five minutes. Quite possibly the longest five minutes of my life. I sat on the tiled floor, drawing pictures with my finger, finding patterns in the paint on the wall. After singing most of a song that I only half remembered, five minutes had passed.

I scrambled up off my ass and snatched the pregnancy test sitting nest to the sink. I rested my elbows on the ledge, staying on my knees, afriad that if I stood, I'd fall over.

Because the test was freaking blue.

Blue as the ocean.

No other color could be mistaken.

It wasn't green.

It wasn't purple.

It was blue.

And blue meant positive.