A/N: There is a shortage of fluff. I am confident of such. And a smack-down.

Rain: I thought you might lol I love the Tour Guide Barbie thing too...I may have to use that more often. I couldn't think of a proper meeting, so I thought of that one on the fly.

Hey, hey, you and me keep on dancing in the dark

It's been tearing me apart, never knowing what we are

Hey, hey, you and me keep on trying to play it cool

Now it's time to make a move and that's what I'm gonna do

Lay it all down, got something to say, lay it all down, throw your doubt away

Do or die now, step on to the plate, blow the door wide open, light up, up, and away

Let's light up the world tonight, you gotta give up the bark and bite

Glee Cast — Light Up the World (My favorite original Glee song c:)

Don couldn't understand half of the garbled words that came out of his girlfriend's mouth, but two he understood loud and clear.

"Tractor-pull."

What in the hell tractor pulling was, he had no idea.

"No, don't put the hay in the equipment shed, you dingbat. It's gonna wake up Mother Theresa," she muttered, rolling on to her stomach. The black T-shirt he had lent her last night bunched up around her waist, exposing her white panties. Don stifled his laugh and slid out of bed.

"What in the hell is a tractor-pull?" he muttered.

"A popular sport in old times to test endurance of men. You attach a chain to the front of a tractor and try to pull it as far as you can," she popped off. He lifted a lock of her dark hair to see if she was sleeping. Judging by her little snore when she exhaled, it was a good reason to believe that she was.

"Oh. Good to know," he commented. Even in her sleep, his girlfriend was still a know-it-all. "Farm girls," he muttered.

"Hm?" she mumbled. Her sleepy blue eyes were half-open and she stretched out on her back.

"Just talking to myself," he replied, leaning over the bed to kiss her. She returned the kiss and sat up. "You talk in your sleep, you know."

She grinned sheepishly at him. "Yeah, I do. It's a curse, unfortunately."

"You're pretty weird, you know that?" he commented.

"You know life would be boring without me," she declared, swinging her legs to the other side of the bed and stood up. His shirt was horrendously big on her tiny body, but it was still massively hot to see.

"True," he conceded. He allowed his gaze to travel down the length of her slender, toned body. "What are you going to do for the ball in a few days?"

She shrugged and scrounged around on the floor for her jeans. "Try to find some rare disease to get infected with so I don't have the headache of finding a dress," she replied.

"You don't like wearing dresses?" he said, arching his eyebrow. In the three years Don had known Isabella, he had never seen her wear a dress, save for very few occasions.

"I have three older brothers and I grew up on a farm. My entire life, it's been like pulling teeth to get me in a skirt, let alone a dress. I don't like dresses," she responded.

"You could always rent one," he pointed out. She arched her brow.

"Every single female cop and wife of cop is gonna be doing the same thing. It's gonna be a fucking nightmare to get in a dress," she replied. Don grinned from his spot on the bed.

"Well, I have to get a tux," he pointed out. Isabella sighed dreamily.

"What lingerie is to men, tuxedos are to women," she said.

"Damn, I'd love to tap that," Henderson commented, licking his lips when Isabella walked away from Don's desk. "Please tell me you are not letting such a hot specimen of the female persuasion get stuck in the friend-zone."

As strong as the temptation was to boast about his luck in the sack with the most difficult woman on the force, Don held his tongue. "It's my business if I am," he replied.

"I wonder if she takes that take-no-shit attitude to the bedroom," Henderson wondered.

"I wonder if she stops being frigid enough to spread her legs," Thatcher piped up. Don set his jaw, setting his pen down as calmly as he could. He couldn't make comments because he knew they would get back to Isabella. They were keeping it quiet for now, to avoid drama. "What's the matter, Flack? You going all feminist on us?"

"He's not putting her in the friend-zone, she's putting him in there!" Henderson declared. Don rolled his eyes and stood up out of his chair. He needed an oral fixation to keep himself from losing his temper on his friends. That, and he was out of coffee. He stuck a swizzle stick in his mouth and chewed it angrily.

"Who's got you in a tizzy?" Angell asked with amusement from her place next to him. Don gritted his teeth and dumped a packet of sugar in his coffee.

"No one," he growled as he took the swizzle stick out of his mouth and stirred the drink. When the Styrofoam cup capsized, he let out a curse as hot coffee poured across the counter. "Can you get me some napkins?"

Angell handed them to him and helped pat up the mess. "Give it a few days and the guys will back off you. They're like old hens; once there's no gossip, they'll find their next victim," she advised. Don fought his snort. This newbie was giving him advice when she had barely worked there eight months.

"I'll keep that in mind," he muttered in irritation and walked away. He stuck the swizzle stick back in his mouth and he sat back down at his desk to continue paperwork. Recently, he had become meticulous in getting it finished in time. In his line of vision, he saw a white paper cup bearing the green Starbucks symbol being set down in front of him. He lifted his gaze to see Isabella standing in front of him.

"The coffee here sucks and Jimmy gave me a deal," she said finally. Don felt a smirk tug at his lips. Jimmy from Starbucks hadn't made his crush on her a secret, exactly. He wasn't at all surprised about the deal he had given her.

Don picked up the coffee and took a sip. "Thanks."

Her full lips turned up into a smile. "Don't mention it," she replied. Then her icy gaze flicked about the room. "And I do mean that in a literal sense."

"God, Den, I can never find a good dress!" Isabella lamented as she tried to pull up the zipper of a skin-tight ivory-colored mermaid-style dress. She looked like a ruffled tablecloth in the get-up and she moaned in frustration.

"Let me see the one the saleslady picked out," Denver called from the waiting area. Isabella lifted the skirt and opened the dressing room door. "Oh, I see what you mean. That dress so..."

Denver got cut off by the gushing saleslady. "Oh, honey, you look gorgeous! That dress was made for you!"

With a nearly six hundred-dollar price tag, Isabella could see why the sales rep was pushing the dress on her. She rolled her eyes.

"No, thank you. I'd like to see something else," she replied. The gray-haired woman insisted until Isabella held up her hands. "I said no."

The woman huffed and scurried off to find something else. grumbling something about difficult customers. Isabella smirked and shook her head.

"What do you think?" she asked, exaggerating a model's pose. Denver giggled from her seat on the comfortable-looking bench. "Is it me?"

"Hell, no, it's not you!" she declared. The saleslady came back with her arms full of dresses and ushered Isabella into the dressing room.

"This should do the trick!" she exclaimed, holding up a slinky black halter dress. Isabella's eyebrow raised in intrigue as she slipped it on. It was floor-length and backless, trimmed with rhinestone straps across the back and around the waist. The neckline plunged in a deep V and a slit ran clean up to her thigh, the skirt flowing around her hips.

"Ooh, I like," she said. It was her first grown-up dress, she would admit shamefully. Growing up, she had worn modest party dresses and nothing like this. "But I need my Stacy London out there."

She opened the door and lingered in the doorway. Denver's eyebrows rose and she nodded in approval.

"Well, hello, Detective!" she remarked. Isabella grinned and twirled around, the skirt of the dress flaring out.

"I feel so grown up in this!" she squealed. She stepped off the little pedestal, admiring the feel of the silk against her skin. "Sure isn't proper for a ball."

"Fuck them," Denver responded with a shrug.

Isabella knew she had walked into something tense when she saw Henderson being tossed on the ground. Her hand flew to her throat when she looked up to see her brother, Levi puffing in fury.

"Don't you ever talk about my sister like that again," he snarled. Her brother was a big man, standing around their father's height. Years of playing on the hockey team had given him a ripped physique; he could easily throw a man like Nick Henderson without much effort. "Or any woman."

"Levi, what in the world?" she murmured, stepping over the fallen officer and walking over to him. Levi held up a hand to silence her and she obeyed, pursing her lips. Her gaze darted around the room in disbelief. Henderson scrabbled to his feet, holding his chest.

"It was just talk," he wheezed out. Then Don walked in the room quickly.

"What the hell happened in here?" he demanded. Levi stormed toward Henderson, but Isabella gripped his shirt to hold him back.

"Lasciare," she told him. [Leave it]

"That sick son of a bitch was talking shit about my sister. Someone had to put him in his place," he insisted, lunging against her grip. It was difficult to keep the two men apart.

"You think you can walk around here like God's gift to the NYPD, just because of who your daddy is? Let me tell ya somethin' about your daddy, Pacinos. He was more trouble than he was worth, and he was worthless like his old man," Henderson snapped, rubbing his chest from where the younger man had thrown him. "Women don't got a spot here. All they're good for is spreading their legs to serve the working man."

Isabella spun around, her teeth clenching in fury.

"Isabella, leave it," Don told her. His voice was deathly low and precise, a tone she had never heard from him. "Henderson, don't cause any more trouble than you're worth, or else I'll have you moved to another precinct. You think you can come in here and say stupid shit like that just because you think it's your American right is not okay."

"Pacino, stand down," Scagnetti warned. Brother and sister both turned their heads towards the older man. "I was talking to the brother, little miss."

"You say another thing like that again, Henderson, and I'll gladly call up your sarge and let him know the kind of officer he's supposed to be supervising. You can mess around with the guys, but you cannot disrespect another cop," Don said hotly. Isabella relinquished her grip on her brother and Levi shook off the wrinkles.

"Oh, please, Flack. Don't play Peacemaker Bitch with us, you're no good at it," Henderson started. "These two put together ain't half the cop their old man was."

"And he's ten times the man you'll ever be!" Isabella shot back. Rage boiled in her veins and she could feel her self-control snapping. Don turned around to face her, his voice flat.

"Not helping," he told her. She crossed her arms over her chest, huffing.