Beckett stepped from the broad daylight of the park to the subdued illumination of a city apartment. Royce was still beside her, and again she glanced back over her shoulder, but the door was gone.

This place was immediately familiar.

Mom and dad's old apartment, she thought.

Her father had sold this place after Johanna's death, and Beckett hadn't seen it again in all the years since. She knew it had been bought by an elderly couple, but this was clearly another scene from her past.

Photos hung on the wall, and were perched all along the mantlepiece. A videogames console sat beneath the TV in the living room, and a stack of Johanna's work papers sat neatly stacked on the dining table. The clock on the wall indicated that it was past eleven o'clock at night.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, turning to look at Royce. The ghost had wandered across the room and now stood in front of a closed door that Beckett knew connected to the apartment's rear hallway. He turned to face her, and simply nodded in the direction of the door. Without a word, he stepped right through it, vanishing from sight.

Beckett's mouth fell open at the strangeness of the situation, but then she steeled herself and walked across to where Royce had stood a moment before. She took a breath, then stepped forward.

She passed through the door without experiencing any resistance at all. There was a brief flash of darkness, then she saw Royce again. He looked at her with a glint of amusement in his eye.

"Just don't try that at home," he said, then he thought for a moment. "But I guess you're already home, in a way."

He turned and walked down the corridor, stopping in front of a door that made Beckett's pulse quicken.

My room.

Royce looked back at her, shrugged, then stuck his head through the wooden surface, vanishing down to the base of his neck.

Beckett quickly closed the distance between them and grasped his shoulder, pulling him fully back into the corridor.

"What are you doing?" she asked, exasperated.

"Relax," he replied. "You're asleep right now. Take a look."

She looked doubtfully at the door, then back at Royce. He nodded, and she sighed before stepping into the doorframe, her face appearing through the other side of the door, just inside the moderately-sized room.

The lights were off, but the room was bathed in the shifting blueish glow of the TV sitting on top of a chest of drawers next to one of the two windows. The flickering light revealed the sleeping form of a teenaged girl curled on top of the bed, wearing a black turtleneck and red tartan pyjama bottoms. The TV remote was nearby, and so was an open graphic novel.

The Killing Joke, Beckett recognised. It had always been one of her favourites.

Her younger self had hair that reached halfway down her back, with a streak of bright, artificial red running down from one temple. Beckett grinned ruefully at the memory. Her mother had been furious, and her father had been amused.

She glanced around the intimately familiar room, taking in the various items pinned to the walls – a candid group shot of Bon Jovi, a British band's tour poster entitled On Every Street, a photo of Cindy Crawford smoking a cigarette, and even a dramatic, shadowed rendering of the Hal Jordan-era Green Lantern – and she shook her head in wonder.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and she reluctantly stepped back through the solid door and into the hallway.

"This way," Royce said, then he walked down to the end of the corridor, again stopping in front of a door. Her parents' room.

She felt conflicting emotions rise up within her. Trepidation, sadness, curiosity, and a wave of disorientation at the idea of being able to discover something new about a time that was long gone; to see a moment she hadn't experienced, whilst her younger self slept just a few doors away.

Royce stepped wordlessly through the door, and she followed.

The master bedroom was decorated in warm, light shades – delicate blues and yellows. There was a half-height bookshelf beside Johanna's dressing table, and the door to the en suite bathroom was ajar. There was light within, and Beckett could hear the sound of running water.

The bedroom was a cosy space, and the mingled scent of her mother's perfume and her father's aftershave hit her like a physical blow.

Johanna Beckett sat in bed reading a sheaf of papers. They looked like legal documents of some kind, and periodically she would make a note in a spiral-bound notebook that sat atop the duvet.

After a few moments, Jim Beckett stepped out of the en suite, switching off the bathroom light. He stopped in the doorway, looking at his wife with an expression of mixed admiration and apprehension.

It was almost half a minute before Johanna looked up distractedly, and smiled at him before returning her attention to the documents she held.

Beckett frowned, looking first at her father and then at her mother, and finally over towards Royce.

"Is that…?"

Royce nodded.

The Pulgatti case. The case that killed her.

Jim Beckett sighed, then walked over to his side of the bed. He sat down, turning to look at his wife, and again she looked up at him.

"Jim…" she began, but he looked at her earnestly and then it was her turn to sigh.

"I'm worried, Jo," he said. "All this… it's dangerous. Police officers and blackmail. Maybe some things are better left alone."

Johanna's eyes became fierce, glittering in the soft light. She opened her mouth to respond, but Jim held up his hand.

"I know," he said. "The truth matters. And you know I believe it. But this man, he was a mobster – and there are powerful people involved. That's all I'm saying. There are other things to consider besides the truth."

His tone was even and reasonable, but his voice was sad, as if he already knew that his appeal was a lost cause.

"Don't you dare ask me to choose between my family and my–"

"Crusade?" Jim interjected, and Johanna's expression darkened. She glanced in the direction of her daughter's room without even realising she'd done it, and she set the papers down beside her notepad. Beckett winced, recognising her mother's expression as one that she herself often wore.

"Everyone deserves justice, Jim," Johanna said warningly, folding her arms.

Jim stared at his wife for a long moment, then his face softened. He reached out towards her, and after a tense couple of seconds, she unfolded her arms again and took his hand.

"You know I admire the hell out of what you do. It's one of the reasons I love you," he said.

She sighed softly, looking down at her lap for a moment before meeting his gaze again.

"It just scares me," he continued. "The idea that something could happen to you."

Beckett again felt tears rolling down her cheeks.

She moved so she could fully see her father's face, and her heart clenched at the shadow of the man he would become. The lines of tension across his forehead, and a glimpse of the haunted look that would later be his most common expression.

"I love you so much," he said, his voice catching as he reached his other hand up to caress his wife's face.

"Oh, Jim," Johanna replied, leaning into his embrace and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I love you and Katie more than anything in the world. And you know I'm being as careful as I can. This is so important."

Jim Beckett just nodded, angling his face into his wife's neck. "I know," he whispered.

Beckett watched as her father glanced up towards the ceiling and muttered a silent prayer, and her heart broke for him all over again.

She swiped away fresh tears, turning to Royce with a look of abject grief on her face. The ghost stood sombrely just inside the doorway, his ever-changing eyes conveying both sadness and also the burden of some sort of knowledge she could only guess at.

"Please just take me home, Mike," she said, and her voice could have been that of the girl in the room down the hall.

"Soon," he said. "One more stop."

"I don't know what you're trying to tell me with all this!" she cried, her hands clenching into weak fists and then releasing again.

"I know," Royce replied. "But you will. I hope. Come on."

He stepped backwards through the bedroom door into the hallway, and she took a last long look at her parents who were still embracing on the bed, their argument forgotten. Jim had pulled back slightly to look into his wife's eyes, and he lifted a hand to brush away a stray lock of her hair.

"I need you with me on this," Johanna said softly. "Nothing's more important to me than you and our daughter."

"We're here," Jim replied. "Always."

Beckett's eyes widened, and she drew in a sharp breath.

"Time to go, kid," came Royce's voice from nearby, and at last she reluctantly turned away and stepped noiselessly from the room.

Royce stood at the far end of the hallway, beside a section of wall where a family portrait usually hung. Now, though, there was only a rectangle of light stretching from the floor almost all the way to the ceiling, it's glow bathing the walls and floor around it in an eerie, shimmering glow.

"After you," Royce said, and Beckett nodded. She walked slowly towards the latest of these strange doorways through the past, and as she reached it, she thought she could smell the distinctive scent of lilies.

She looked at Royce, but the ghost only stared back at her. There was concern on his face, but also compassion.

She steeled herself, and stepped into the void.