Lena sat across the table from a beautiful, intelligent woman, and all she could think about was how Stef might be doing. She had looked awfully pale when Lena had stopped by. She knew Sharon was there to take care of her, but she wondered if Stef might need anything else. Maybe to escape Sharon.

"It's hard when you want something from someone, and they just don't feel the same." Lena suddenly snapped back to attention when she heard those words come out of Aliyah's mouth.

"I'm sorry, what?" Lena's mother would be appalled if she witnessed such a poor display of manners.

"No, I'm sorry. Jenna was kind enough to set me up on this date, but all I've done is talk about the woman I left behind in New Orleans." Aliyah smiled ruefully and leaned back in her chair. "I moved here in part to try to start fresh. We were never going to work out, and if I stayed we'd just keep trying, but I knew we didn't want the same things."

"It's fine," Lena assured the other woman. "It's totally okay. In the interest of full disclosure, I've been thinking about another woman this entire time as well. What a pair we are."

Aliyah laughed. "Oh, good. We can give up the pretense of trying to impress each other - which I've clearly failed at miserably - and just dish about our relationship issues. Tell me all about the woman who's on your mind. It'll take my mind off my own problems."

Lena smiled and took a deep breath. Who better to talk to than a total stranger with similar issues? "Are you sure? Mine's pretty pathetic. It involves a married straight woman with a kid."

"Wow. Definitely more drama than my situation. I'm impressed. Let me hear it."

Stef didn't want to seem nosy - or desperately jealous - so she managed not to ask Lena about her date throughout the next week. She focused on not throwing up anymore and keeping Brandon from picking up any of the swear words her mom had gotten used to using now that she lived alone and apparently had no one to talk to but the sailor version of herself.

But Friday rolled around, and it was movie night, and Stef was trying to figure out the subtlest way to bring it up. Lena didn't mention it at dinner, and Stef found she couldn't concentrate on Die Hard - another of her favorites she was introducing Lena to - due to the thoughts swirling in her head.

What if Lena really liked this woman and started seeing her? Would her girlfriend put a stop to a regular get-together with a friend on a prime date night? Stef realized how sad she would be if she and Lena didn't see each other once a week. It was like she was living a double life. Five days a week she was a full time parent with a stressful job, navigating the land mines of taking care of Brandon and avoiding Mike at the station. Saturday and Sunday she spent time with her parents, tried to catch up on the responsibilities that got away from her during the week, and relaxed as much as she was able.

But Friday nights were special. They were the one time Stef got to be someone other than a mother or a daughter or an estranged wife. She could have fun and be witty and do things she wanted only for herself. And what she wanted was to spend time with Lena, a smart and beautiful woman who -

This was where Stef's thoughts started to short circuit. Her heart beat faster Friday nights; her palms sweat more. In those fleeting hours, Stef allowed herself to forget all her responsibilities and hangups and fears. But they always ended, and in the harsh light of the next morning, Stef remembered how complicated things would be if every day were like Friday.

The movie wound down, and Stef looked at Lena to see what she thought.

"They sure blew up a lot of stuff," was Lena's take.

Stef laughed. Lena was a good sport. But she feared their next movie would be some French documentary with subtitles, just to make up for all the cursing and shooting.

"Speaking of dying hard, my date was a total bust." Lena dropped that bomb like she was Hans Gruber.

Stef attempted to appear casual. "Oh? That's too bad."

"Yeah, it turns out she was still hung up on another woman." Lena didn't seem too broken up about it.

"Hm." Stef wasn't sure what to say next. "My mom liked you." When in doubt, change the subject.

This made Lena inordinately pleased. She couldn't help the big smile that spread across her face. "I liked her too. If I had stayed a little longer, I was pretty sure I could have gotten her to show me all your awkward teenage pictures."

Stef playfully whacked Lena on the shoulder with a couch cushion. "I'll have you know I was never awkward. I just transitioned smoothly from an adorable child to a beautiful adult with no bad perms, braces, or acne. Nope, none of that for me."

Lena gently pushed back, looking into Stef's eyes as they both laughed. "No bad perm, eh? So if I asked Sharon about it she wouldn't contradict you with photographic evidence? I bet your bangs were sky high in high school."

"I admit nothing. What about you? Big hair, bad teeth - what were your ugly ducking years like?" Stef couldn't actually imagine Lena as anything but beautiful, but she certainly wasn't going to say that out loud.

"What a coincidence - I was gorgeous from birth until now. Good genes, I guess."

"Hi, Mommy!" Brandon exclaimed as he ran up the walkway to throw his arms around Stef. Mike hung back a bit, holding Brandon's backpack.

"Hi, sweetie! I missed you! How was your weekend?" Stef kissed the top of her son's head.

"Good. We had pasketti for dinner last night. I ate all mine," Brandon reported.

Stef looked up at Mike and raised an eyebrow. "Spaghetti, eh? You cooking now?"

Mike shrugged and walked towards the pair. "The kid can't eat McDonald's all the time. I figured it was time to expand the old repertoire. Mom gave me her recipe and I tried it out. It wasn't half bad, was it B?"

"It was yummy. The brownies were too. Mommy, do you have brownies? I want brownies for dessert tonight."

"Wow, you went all out."

"The brownies were from a mix. Don't give me too much credit. I did bring the leftovers, though, so you can answer yes." Mike smiled. What Stef would have found charming once upon a time only made her cringe internally now. She knew he was on his best behavior with both her and Brandon, and it felt artificial.

"Good news, kiddo, we have brownies."

"Can Daddy stay and eat them with us? He hasn't had dinner yet. Neither have I. What are we having?" Good grief, the kid was obsessed with food. Stef wondered if she should start a grub fund for high school to accompany the college fund she was occasionally able to contribute to.

Stef and Mike exchanged an awkward look. She could tell he wanted to stay, but of course he demurred.

"I don't know, B. I should probably get home soon. Besides, your mom may not have enough for me." Mike ruffled Brandon's hair.

Stef tried not to read into that last sentence. Too many ways to be offended by it. She grit her teeth and smiled at her son, who was looking up at her expectantly. "Of course there's enough food. We're having chicken casserole. Daddy can stay if he wants to."

Unsurprisingly, Mike's hesitance turned to enthusiasm as he followed Brandon inside. "We love your mom's chicken casserole, right buddy?"

Dinner was a stilted affair, with Stef mostly directing her comments and questions to Brandon while deflecting Mike's attempts to reminisce about better days. She found that, although Mike's drinking in the year before their separation was the nominal impetus for their time apart, she didn't look back so fondly on the "good times" that preceded the bad.

Going with the flow was the best description Stef could think of for the path her relationship had taken up to the point she asked Mike to leave. Mike was a nice guy who liked her, so she said yes when he asked her out. They got along fine, so when he proposed she figured it was the right thing to do. If she were totally honest with herself, she'd have to admit she appreciated that having a husband silenced the voice in her head that said people might think a single, female cop must be a lesbian.

The year or so they were married before Stef got pregnant, she mostly kept up with him at parties or went out with her own friends when their schedules didn't align. It didn't bother her her too much when they were apart, even when he forgot to call when he was running late or didn't handle the things he said he would. They didn't fight like her parents had, so she didn't have anything to complain about.

Having a baby kept her right on the 'normal' path she desired, but it woke her up a bit to some of the dissatisfying elements of her relationship with Mike. Despite them having the same job, he used his odd hours as an excuse not to do as much as she thought he should as a parent. Once she stopped going out with him to bars and parties, he stayed later and drank more. Not only was her own social life decimated, but her home life was also deteriorating.

It took Mike driving drunk with Brandon for Stef to finally take control of her life. She could put up with an awful lot, but she couldn't risk her child. Looking back now, she recognized that she wasn't totally satisfied in her marriage, even before the acute issues. But would she have ever done something so drastic as insisting on a separation without that impetus? Was that a sign that things were worth salvaging now that Mike was on a better path or that she should have separated from him sooner?

Trying to end that train of thought, as well as an awkward dinner, Stef announced, "Bath time, young man. If you're quick, we can read three stories before bedtime." She stood up from the table, hoping Mike got the message that the meal - and his visit - was over.

"Is Daddy staying? Can he take me to school in the morning? I want to show him the fire truck picture I drew. Ms. Stein says it's very pressive." Brandon looked up at Stef hopefully.

This time, Mike didn't demur. "Yeah, Stef, can I stay?" His smile was hard to read - was he joking?

Stef decided the best course was to assume he was. "Ha, ha. Have a good night, Mike. See you later. Sorry, B, but Daddy's got to go back to his apartment."

To his credit, Brandon didn't throw a tantrum, but his eyes filled with tears, and his lower lip stuck out. Stef's shoulders sagged. Poor kid - it wasn't his fault he was caught up in being shuttled back and forth between two people who couldn't figure out what they wanted. Mike turned on the puppy dog eyes, as he gave Brandon a hug. Stef shook her head. The thought of sleeping with Mike - even just sleeping - made her stomach feel funny, and not in the good way. Still, seeing her son so sad was devastating.

Steeling her resolve, she put her hand on Brandon's head. "Buddy, Daddy can see your drawing when he picks you up on Friday. I know it's hard to say goodbye to him. You can call him tomorrow night and he can read you a story."

Mike stood up and stepped back, while Brandon transferred his hug to Stef's leg. "Mom's right, Brandon. I'll call you at bedtime tomorrow. Sleep tight."

He turned to go, then turned back around. "Hey, Stef - the Alvarezes are having their usual Christmas party again this year. It's on a Friday night, so I was planning on taking Brandon. He hasn't seen Julio in awhile, and I know they'd love a chance to play together."

"Yeah, sure, of course." Pedro Alvarez had transferred out of their unit a few months ago and she hadn't stayed in touch with him, but he and his wife always threw a fun holiday party, and their six-year-old son was adorable. It was good Mike was still friends with him.

"You think you might want to come?" Mike looked so hopeful. "Things are still so up in the air with Brandon - it would be good to do something familiar that we used to do together. We had so much fun last year."

It was a low blow, but that didn't mean Mike was wrong. Especially around this first holiday season apart, anything they could do to help Brandon was worth it. Hadn't Lena made this very point when they talked at Thanksgiving?

"Yeah, sure. I'll go with you guys. I hate to miss out on Maria's churros." Stef hoped Mike got the message that it wasn't some sort of date.

His smile was wide, though, and Stef cringed internally. Hopefully she'd manage to have fun while navigating the inevitable questions from everyone involved. At least she'd be sending Brandon the message that his parents could still be friends and that he didn't have to pay the price for their issues.

"Awesome. See you Friday. Good night, B."

"Bye, Daddy!"

Stef closed the door behind Mike and sighed. She hoped this wasn't going to be a mistake.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a mistake. Stef had to admit seeing old friends was fun, and Brandon was having a blast playing with the other kids. She had managed to circulate in a different direction from Mike, but she still had to field question after question about their relationship.

"I heard you and Mike split - it's good to see you back together," another concerned colleague commented.

Stef trotted out her pat response for what felt like the tenth time. "We're still separated. We just want to keep things as normal for Brandon as possible."

As she listened to the inevitable reply about how great that was, Stef's eyes drifted across the room. There was Mike, soda in his hand, laughing with his buddies. He looked up at her, and she couldn't take the affection in them. Her feelings for him were mostly positive these days, but they didn't seem to extend beyond friendship and appreciation for him as Brandon's other parent.

So why didn't she tell him the marriage was over - put him out of his misery and at least let him start over? Divorce was so final, and if Stef were being honest with herself, it would mean she had to exit the somewhat safe limbo of not deciding and face the fact that if she were truly single she would have some big decisions to make - decisions about the beautiful woman she usually spent her Fridays with. She felt like she was cheating on Lena when she told her she was going to this party with Mike. Shouldn't she have felt the other way around about her usual time spent with someone who wasn't her spouse?

But it wasn't like Lena had indicated she had interest in Stef beyond friendship. Lena knew Stef was married and had never crossed any lines. A lesbian and a straight woman could just be friends, right? Even if said straight woman wasn't so sure that label applied to her anymore.

Lena had suggested dinner with Jenna, Kelly and Garrett on Friday as a way to take her mind off of Stef, but she couldn't help the visions that popped into her head - visions of the two of them and Brandon sharing a life that looked a lot like what the other couple had. She tried not to mention Stef too much during dinner, but once Garrett went to bed the conversation inevitably turned to her predicament.

"You know how it is when lesbians get crushes on straight girls - you skate closer and closer to the line until it gets weird for the straight girl and she backs off," Kelly commented.

"Yeah, but if she doesn't back off, then you cross the line and then you're all caught up in that first-same-sex-experience nonsense," Jenna added.

Kelly leaned over to refill her wine glass. "Which can be fun, but is more often just messy."

Lena opened her mouth to try to interject something more hopeful, but Jenna jumped in to keep the dire predictions going. "It's such a pain to have to figure out if she's just curious and you're going to get left in the dust as soon as the next cute guy comes along, or if she's really okay with it."

"And even if she is really a lesbian or bi or whatever, that doesn't mean it's smooth sailing. There are all of the coming out issues - is she going to want you to keep things a secret and all that?" Kelly piled on.

Lena finally managed to get in a comment, only because both of the other women took a sip of wine at the same time. "Well, Gretchen was a lesbian, and that still ended in disaster, so pseudo-straight women don't have a monopoly on issues. I know if we got together, Stef would never cheat on me like Gretchen did."

Kelly looked straight into Lena's eyes. "Wouldn't that be exactly what she was doing to her husband if she got together with you?"

Lena had no answer. She wanted to make excuses about how Stef and Mike were separated, and how it was practically the same thing as being divorced, but she knew it wasn't true. If Gretchen's infidelity was so devastating to her, she had to think of Mike and the position she would be putting him in if she pursued Stef in earnest. Who had she become that she would even consider such a thing? Maybe she should stop spending so much time with a married woman.

But then her self-serving justifications kicked in. It wasn't like Stef had given her any indication that she was interested in her. It was strictly platonic. Lena could handle her feelings for Stef appropriately - it didn't mean they had to stop spending time together.

Both women felt more awkward than they ever had when the Friday before Christmas rolled around a week later. Each had done some soul searching in the two weeks they had been apart, and those thoughts weighed heavily on their minds.

Stef wasn't much of a gift giver, and she had agonized over what to give Lena. Something material seemed too fraught with connotations. Perhaps that was because the material things she considered were things like jewelry. Clearly, she hadn't had enough female friends if she couldn't come up with a better innocuous present.

In the end she settled on something she still thought was lame, but she hoped Lena would appreciate it.

"Good for one sushi dinner with no complaining from Stef," Lena read aloud from the card as they sat together on her couch.

"I know we go to dinner every Friday, but if I'm going to consistently monopolize one of your prime going-out-to-dinner nights, you should at least get to eat what you like sometimes." Stef stumbled through her explanation of her gift. "I mean, I want you to get to do something you enjoy, and I shouldn't hold you back from it."

Lena put her hand on Stef's. "I love it. I can't wait to go with you. This time you don't have to feel obligated to try anything you know you won't like."

Stef smiled. "And you should feel free to order whatever raw squid parts you want, and I won't even make a face."

Lena laughed and pulled out an envelope. "Perhaps after exerting such self-control you'll be ready to use my gift to you." Lena had bought Stef's present before her dinner with Jenna and Kelly, and now she was second-guessing it. She tried to play it off with a joke.

Stef opened the envelope. "Gift certificate for a 60-minute massage at Luna Spa. You think dinner with you will make me tense?"

"I hope not. But with being a cop and a parent and everything, I thought you deserved a chance to relax, even just for an hour." Lena tried really hard not to picture Stef's naked body partially covered by a sheet, prone on a massage table, having oil rubbed into her tired muscles. Yeah, this gift was probably a bad idea.

"You're very kind. Thank you so much." Stef found herself moved by Lena's sentiments. It wasn't like she wanted a bunch of romance, but Mike had never given her anything like this. She was lucky if he remembered flowers on their anniversary. Not that Lena intended anything romantic with her gift.

Clearing her throat, she tried to cover her emotion by changing the subject. "You know, I've never had a massage."

"I hope you like it more than you liked sushi," was Lena's wry reply.

Stef couldn't help laughing, and it broke the tension that had been present all evening. She had to take a moment to get herself back together, and her hysteria had Lena laughing too.

"Maybe you should come with me - show me the ropes like you did with the raw fish." And there was the tension again. Stef looked at Lena, realizing the implications of her statement too late. She might not have had a massage before, but she was pretty sure one didn't wear clothing while partaking.

Lena swallowed hard, the visions she had just dispelled returning. "Uh, yeah, maybe we can have an appointment at the same time or something."

"Or not. Whatever. If we happen to be free. No big deal." That wasn't awkward at all.

"Right. Well, thanks again for the gift." Lena stood and smoothed her skirt.

"Of course. You too." They were at Lena's house, but Stef took that as her cue the evening was over. She hated that she had ruined a lovely moment, but she didn't know how to make things normal again.

"Merry early Christmas." Lena played with her hair, not sure what to do with her hands.

"Same to you. Have fun with your parents." Stef picked up her purse.

"Right. You too. I hope it's better than Thanksgiving."

"I'll have Brandon, so it definitely will be."

"I guess I won't see you again until after New Year's." Three weeks apart sounded interminable.

"Oh, yeah. I had forgotten. You want to get that sushi when you get back?"

"Sounds good."

"Okay, happy holidays and all that." Stef finally moved toward the door, ready to escape whatever twilight zone she had created.

Lena leaned in at that moment, apparently going for a goodbye hug. Her arms went around Stef, who froze momentarily. Lena dropped her arms, afraid she had made Stef even more uncomfortable. Of course, Stef chose that moment to reciprocate the hug. Lena laughed, and Stef let go and stepped back.

"What's with us tonight?" Lena asked, smiling.

Stef smiled back, glad the odd mood had dissipated again. "I don't know. End of the year anxiety?"

"Could be. Things will be back to normal after the holidays are over, right?" Lena wasn't really sure what normal was anymore - this more-than-a-crush on a straight woman situation wasn't sustainable.

"Normal. Right." Stef knew she needed a new definition. The old one included Mike as her husband, and she was more certain every day that wouldn't be part of the definition of normal once she finally resolved their separation. "Good night, Lena."

"Good night, Stef." Lena opened the door and Stef walked through.