The door to Lt. Reece's office swung open after she'd acknowledged her latest visitor through the glass walls. A stony-faced Dr. Harold Washington stepped inside, closed the door and stood impatiently in front of her desk with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Have a seat, Doctor," Reece invited him.

"I'll stand," he stiffly replied.

Reece shrugged. "Have it your way. This shouldn't take long."

"It had better not. Unlike some others, my desk is weighted down with a heavy caseload," he sarcastically replied.

The insinuation that she may have less to do than he did was not lost on her. And, as usual, when interacting with this particular ME, it piqued her anger. She struggled to maintain her composure, though.

"Dr. Washington," Reece began. "You and I and most anyone else you interact with invariably end up butting heads."

"Your opinion," he tersely replied.

Reece opened her mouth slightly and turned her head away from him but pressed on through her frustration. She returned her gaze to him and said, "The opinions of most but I didn't call you in here to butt heads with you again."

"Called," he scoffed, unfolding his arms. "Ordered me up here as if you'd forgotten that I do not answer to you, Madam." He crossed his arms again and continued to look down his nose at her from his towering height. "Alright. Whether or not we butt heads, as you say, remains to be seen; but just why did you mention my former colleague's name? She's retired for the past nearly ten years."

"You tried to help her, didn't you?" Reece quietly asked him.

"Help her?" he replied, appearing confused at her question.

Reece merely shifted her already tilted head to the other side, raised an eyebrow higher and maintained eye contact with him. She wasn't going to waste words on him or rephrase her question which she knew he already understood.

The usually surly ME released his disdainful stare at her and focused on something on the wall above her head. "You really want to know about that?" he asked in a monotone voice.

"Doctor ... did you or did you not have someone to forge her signature to several autopsy reports several years before she retired in 2010?"

He remained silent.

"I'm sure you're aware that that is illegal, right?" Reece asked.

He turned and walked toward the door while telling her that any further questions could be directed to his attorney.

"There's no need for that, Doctor," she replied. "I just wanted to let you know that it's obvious that you and her assistant were covering for her those last years before her retirement." She watched him as he continued to stare at the door but lowered his outreached hand poised for the doorknob. He shoved both hands into the pockets of his white lab coat and finally turned around and walked back to one of the chairs facing her desk, lowering his long frame into it.

"Why would you do something like that, Harold?" Reece pointedly asked him. They were hardly on a first-name basis but her frustration and curiosity allowed it to just pop out. "Risk exposure and prosecution or worse?"

He pressed a balled up fist against his mouth and then sheltered his eyes with the same hand. Slowly raising his head up and lowering his hand, he kept his eyes lowered, as well. "She was one of the few colleagues who knew me. Really knew me. And treated me like ... " he paused, searching for the right word. "A friend. She was ... she fell ill and was fading fast from cancer. The only thing that could save her, the doctors said, was for her to have a liver transplant." He raised his eyes just a little to the level of her desk. "At her age, she was lucky to finally receive one. But the treatments before that and the medication she had to take after ... "

Reece studied him, realizing that he wasn't going to finish his statement. "You and her assistant ME felt compelled to plug up some holes for her on those reports," she said, finishing his thought for him.

Washington finally raised his eyes up to meet hers. He looked to her like someone who'd been caught with their hand in the cookie jar but was still too unapologetically defiant to feel guilty. He knew that he was caught doing the wrong thing but was thoroughly convinced that he'd done it for the right reasons, therefore, he should have to suffer no consequences.

"What happens now, Lieutenant?" he asked tiredly, brushing a hand over the knee of his pants. "Are you going to dredge all of this sad business up just so you can finally get the satisfaction of seeing me in cuffs? Should I prepare for my mugshot? Don't forget to read me my rights."

"Can it, Harold!" Reece ordered him. "All I want to know is why. Why did you do it? You're not telling me everything." For the first time since she knew him, she was able to, at least in this case, see through that irritated arrogance, that air of superiority he always maintained and see ... what did she see? A man who deep down inside was really a nice guy; hiding under that veil of -

"I don't particularly like people, Lieutenant," he told her matter-of-factly, shattering her latest attempt at analyzing him. "Oh, I don't hate them, just don't have time for all the pettiness, all the little niceties expected of me in order to get anyone to cooperate even minutely with me to get things done. There are no gray areas in life, Lieutenant, only black and white. Right and wrong. I have little tolerance for those who choose to dwell in the gray areas looking for obscure reasons to prolong the agony of decision-making." He paused, crossing his arms again and looking away from her.

"My wife died of liver cancer before she could get a transplant." He spoke just above a whisper making her strain to hear what he was saying. He paused to swallow. "Watching Lorr- Dr. Harper go through the same thing ... " He paused again refusing to fully unmask his emotions. "I uncharacteristically found myself dwelling in one of those gray areas in order to help her maintain her stellar record." He looked up at Reece again and continued. "Guess I didn't do as good a job as I thought."

Reece studied him before saying anything. "Sorry to hear about your wife, Doctor," she quietly told him, genuinely sincere.

It was the first time that he or anyone else had ever spoken of any family for him. She recognized it now, though, the grief. He'd chosen to mask it in his own way. Different from how Jo handled her grief over her deceased husband or how Henry handled his over his wife having left him. She didn't know the full stories behind either of their losses but it was apparent that they chose to bury themselves in their work. Washington had taken another route in that his grief manifested itself in anger. Not wild, rampant, vengeful anger that was dangerous to himself and others; but the cold contained anger at God or the universe for having allowed such a thing to happen to him. And anger toward others who seemed to be dragging their own individual baggage of grief along better than he was. But Jo and Henry, much like Washington, seemed to work hard at maintaining an emotional distance from others. Perhaps, she pondered, they were afraid that they'd actually find happiness in new relationships but that happiness might eventually wipe out memories of their lost loves.

"Thank you," he replied although grudgingly, not used to saying those words to anyone for a long, long time. "I'd appreciate it very much if you would - "

"Not a word of this leaves this office," she interrupted him to assure him. She could see him visibly relax ... well, just a bit. Guess it was asking too much to get a smile out of him, though.

He left his chair and walked over to the door, placing his hand on the doorknob and said, "I suppose this means that you and I will not be butting heads as often whenever our paths cross from now on."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll still be doing that, Doctor," she replied.

Surprised, he snatched his head up to look over at her.

"Just might not hurt as much," she quietly added with a toothy smile. Smile from him in return? No? Guess not, she said to herself. But she did see a softening in those steel-grey eyes before he nodded slightly and left her office.

The entire bullpen had hardly been able to contain their curiosity while Dr. Washington conferred with Lt. Reece in her office. Jo, Henry, and Mike, especially wished to be a fly on the wall during that brief meeting. When Washington walked out of her office, they pretended to busy themselves in paperwork or conversation as he passed by them. Once they heard the ding of the elevator and its doors close, they relaxed. But only momentarily, for they heard Reece calling for Jo, Henry, and Mike to come into her office.

They fully expected (or hoped) that she would give them a blow by blow account of her exchange with Washington but she didn't. Instead, she merely acknowledged that the situation had been dealt with, causing Mike to scratch his head, realizing that he'd been left out of some kind of loop. He raised an eyebrow and cast a suspicious eye in the direction of his two partners, who conspicuously chose to concentrate on the Lieutenant, facing them and leaning against the front edge of her desk.

"I received a call from little Glenda Haley's grandmother this morning," she informed them.

"I do hope that she's still all right," Henry said, not wanting to ask if the girl had lost her sight again.

"Oh, she's fine, according to her grandmother; and making up for lost time being a happy little girl at school and at play," she replied. "Her grandmother wanted to relay a message to all of you, though."

They waited for her to continue but when she didn't, they exchanged a confused look with each other. And even more confusion passed over their faces when Lucas and Delia entered the office.

"Now. We're all here," Reece stated. "Mrs. Haley informed me that little Glenda can still see. She not only regained her sight but has retained her second sight. She hopes that you, Officer Beard, will want to help the girl learn to control her gift as you have your own." Reece tried but failed to hide a widening smile.

"She, uh, also wanted us to know that little Glenda doesn't want us to forget her when it comes time for the wedding."

"Wedding?" Jo asked, her brow creases forming. "What wedding?"

"She didn't say," Reece replied, walking back around her desk to sit in her chair. "Apparently, the images aren't clear enough for her to determine who the bride and groom are going to be. The only clues she has are seeing the outside of this precinct before seeing the couple's feet as they walk down the aisle, and smelling the groom's aftershave." Reece raised her shoulders and lowered them as she took in a deep breath and released it.

"Back to work, you guys," she told them. "We've still got a lot of other cases to solve."

As they filed out of her office and headed back to their work spots, they each processed the clues from little Glenda's vision that pointed to two people in their precinct.

Mike watched a wide-eyed and speechless Lucas and deeply frowning Henry disappear into the elevator. "Um, you know, the kid never met Lucas, did she?" Mike asked, attempting casual.

"And ... ?" Jo replied to his question with a seemingly disinterested question.

"Just sayin' that she had to get a whiff of the Doc's high-priced aftershave, right?" he asked, biting back a laugh.

"Um, I don't know if I remember any of that, Det. Hanson," Jo replied, logging back on to her computer. "But if you are trying to insinuate that - "

"C'mon, Jo, just kiddin'," he laughingly told her. "But, uh, you could do worse." He grinned broader when she gave him a really look. He calmed his features and told her, "Seriously, Jo. Doc's okay. You might wanna think about it."

In the elevator, Henry recognized a familiar scent, bringing him out of his own thoughts of a possible wedding in the future for him and the lovely detective. That is, if he were to believe in little Glenda's vision that the Lieutenant had shared with them. Once he and Lucas were back in the morgue, he paused next to Lucas' workstation and leaned toward him, taking in a huge whiff. Lucas leaned back and away from him, a bit confused.

"Wha-what's, uh, goin' on, Big Guy?" he asked. "I showered. I showered this morning, I promise you. Every morning," he told him.

"No, no, no, Lucas. That's not your usual aftershave I smell on you," Henry said.

"Yeah, uh, well, uh, yeah. I mean, no, it's not. While you were gone I ... kinda missed you so I took to wearing the brand you use." He cleared his throat and waited for Henry's response.

"Do you know what this means?" Henry asked him, his voice resonating just above a growl. Lucas vigorously shook his head from side to side.

"Since one of the clues regarding the mysterious couple in little Glenda's vision of them in a wedding is the groom's aftershave ... " he smiled as Lucas began to understand, too.

"Could mean that it's not just you but either one of us who could bite the dust soon," Lucas said.

"Bite the - ? Lucas, really. You make it sound like a horrible thing," Henry admonished him.

"Look, Doc, you might not mind puttin' a ring on it with Det. Martinez any time soon but Delia and I have just met. I mean, I don't know where this relationship will take us, especially given my sorry win/loss record. The Lonely Hearts Club not only seems to have me down for a lifetime membership, I'm president of my own personal branch!"

"You exaggerate, Lucas," Henry chortled. "Who says that that vision of a beautiful wedding isn't in your future?"

The two traded reasons as to why the other was the more likely groom in the wedding vision. Not that the idea of being so was totally unpleasant to either man, they just each felt that the women who held their affections could do better. Lucas felt that he had less to offer a woman as a life partner than Henry. Henry felt that he knew all too well why a man like Lucas, a mortal man who could grow old with the woman he loved - loved? Where did that come from, Henry thought. Well ... of course, he would have to love Jo if they were to be married ... He shook the improbable thought of them as a couple out of his head for he hadn't shared the greater part of his long story with her.

"Lucas, ah, let's just get back to work," Henry told him. "I'll be in my office working on some reports." He then walked into his office and began doing just that.

Lucas nodded and turned his attention back to his own paperwork wrapped around the latest issue of Slasher magazine.

Both men paused more than once, though, smiling through their own separate daydreams of a possible life with the respective lovely, intelligent, strong women in their lives.

vvvv

Henry's wound healed (normally) and he gradually shared more of his long story with Jo, including how Adam had invaded his life by being his actual stalker. And she was not only keeping his secret, but she was also writing her own chapters in his book of life, earning for herself an eternal bright spot in his heart.

The fact that little Glenda had had a vision of him and his first death made him uncomfortable. Jo and Abe, however, convinced him to sit down and have a talk with her, try to explain things to her the best that he could. Both to his wonder and surprise, she not only accepted the revelation of him being an Immortal but embraced it.

"It's okay, Dr. Henry. We both have a secret that others might not like to know about. It's good to know that you'll be my friend all my life, anyway," she'd told him with a big grin.

He returned her grin and replied, "You can count on me, little one."

Delia's visions of men who resembled him in several different time periods was another thing, though. He wondered how long it would take for her to put two and two together and realize the truth: that he was all of those men in her visions at different times in his long life. Again, Jo and Abe were the ones to comfort him by telling him that they believe he didn't have to worry about Delia. In their opinions, she was a new, true friend who also understood what it was like to harbor a remarkable secret from others for fear of what they might think of her.

And Officer Delia Beard? With Lt. Reece's help, she was eventually able to move from the Tip Hotline to patrol with an actual partner. Whenever she had a ... hunch ... she was sure to share it with either the Lieutenant, Jo, Mike, or Henry. And, of course, there was Lucas, her very special partner outside of the job.

Little Glenda was turning 11 soon and her grandmother was busy planning a birthday party for her at a local Cheesy Chuck's pizza parlor. There would be loud music, colorful balloons and decorations, games, prizes, presents, lots of candy and bad, greasy food, too-syrupy sodas and too-sugary ice cream treats for her and her new friends at school to enjoy. Bad food and pure fun for a few hours. The little girl, growing into a little lady, was overjoyed each day to wake up to a sighted world that helped greatly to offset the weird images that from time to time played across her mind. But she was looking forward to being a flower girl at that wedding she saw. And each time the vision manifested itself, she saw more of the couple. Question was, should she keep them updated or just let events unfold as they would? Anyway, that cake in the vision looked like it was going to be delicious!

vvvv

Author's Note(s):

Omitted is that Abe had also visited little Glenda and her grandmother and caught a reprimand from his father in Chapter 3. After Henry had shared with Abe about the little girl's "prophecy" of a wedding and that it might be either Lucas or him as the groom, Abe reminded his father of his own visit to little Glenda. So ... which of the three men will be the groom?