1.09 - Different, Not Better

The gang wars heat up. And Noelle is getting close to retirement.

Warning: This chapter ends on a cliffhanger AND I won't be posting the resolution for three weeks. I suck, I know.


There were many things Holly never tired of. She never tired of watching the sunset on the lake by the cabin. She never tired of waking up beside her beautiful wife. She never tired watch her daughter laugh. And especially she never tired of spending a day, elbow deep in the guts of a dead body, determining cause of death, identity, and life.

Today it was bones. Greasy, dead maybe six years, bones of an adult male, middle aged. The wear on his bones indicated he'd been severely overweight, if not obese, most of his life, causing a slight curve to his lower extremities and spinal compression. The latter probably didn't help his scoliosis.

Pitting in the nasal cavities suggested chronic drug use. Interesting. That rarely went hand in hand with excessive weight. Diabetes? Maybe. That was a complicated situation and difficult to tell from bones alone. She sighed and checked the bones.

"Is the femur intact?"

Holly paused and tilted her head. "The first time you watched me work in the lab, did you stare at my ass the whole time?"

"Not the whole time," admitted Gail. "That's the dead guy from the pool removal, right?"

"Indeed." Holly straightened and popped her lower back. "I think you're right about getting tables that elevate."

Gail smiled and picked up the tablet on the counter. "Why a hotel renovates in winter, I'll never know."

"Why my wife is here and not her own office, where she has a case she has been hung up on for the last seven months, I'll never know." Holly picked up the femur and turned it around in her hands. "This case has nothing to do with your department. Your friend Frankie pulled it in."

"I tolerate Anderson," grumbled Gail. "And I can't look at Steve's case anymore, it's giving me a headache."

Holly glanced at her wife. Gail was frustrated about a lot of things at the moment. The last had been the offer to run Fifteen as the Inspector. "Did you turn them down?"

Gail nodded and sat down on a stool, kicking it to spin around. "Maybe I should take the other offer. The big building."

Glancing over again, Holly snorted. "You mean like Boyko and Frank did? You'd be bored, honey. There are no entertaining losers breaking the law in fun ways. Just meetings all day."

Her wife let the spinning stool slowly cease to rotate. "Do you mind that I'll spend my life in Major Crimes?"

"No," said Holly with a smile, putting the femur on the tray.

"Well that was fast." Gail sighed, leaned back, and looked at the ceiling.

Holly shook her head. "My hands are covered in ick, honey, I can't hug you. You have a brilliant mind, no patience for fools, and no capacity for boredom. This is the perfect job for you. High pressure cases, a wide variety of of crimes, everything from inventive criminals, to terrorists, to morons with drugs, to that guy who poisoned the beer at the hockey games."

There was a laugh from her wife. "Okay. The beer was cool."

The beer had been poisoned by tampering with the filters on the beer distributors that the sellers wore when walking up and down the stands. Their poisoner had dipped them into 'sanitization' fluid which was actually not at all. Brilliant. And when Holly's team had taken apart every single piece of the device, Gail's had methodically followed the victims. The most ill were the people in the nosebleed seats, at the back of the rows. The highest concentration of poison was on the nozzle. After that, Gail said it had been easy.

"It was. And it's exactly who and what you are, honey. You are incredibly weird and diverse and eclectic and brilliant. So no, I don't mind if you stay in this for the rest of your life. I think you will be happy and, by extension, so will I."

Gail fell silent. Taking that as a sign, Holly bent her head to her work, bringing the bone over to her smaller table and carefully sawing it open. Marrow. Excellent. She extracted a small amount and labeled it. Then she took slivers of the bones and did the same. Holly fell into the zen of her work, forgetting everything except the bones and the work at hand.

The first time Gail had been in the lab, she'd said she could live there. The quiet, the lack of pressure, the time spent being studious and working slowly and precisely, spoke to the fractured cop. It was a respite from a world of pressure and pain and Pecks. Sometimes Gail liked to sit there and think while Holly worked. She liked to escape. Holly, who rarely tolerated anyone hanging around like that, enjoyed having Gail's presence. Not that she'd tell her wife that, it would just give Gail ideas.

Without a word, Gail waited until Holly had washed up and sent her samples to the labs. She picked up Holly's coat and held it out for her, kissed her cheek, and shrugged into her own winter jacket. Holly closed the door and watched the blonde, hands shoved deep into jacket pockets, head tilted in thought.

She knew better than to interrupt. The thinking process of her wife was not something to cut into. Gail was probably actually thinking about the case that was, ostensibly, Steve's. They walked to Holly's car, Gail getting in and staring blankly out the window.

As she buckled up, Holly cleared her throat. "Honey, where's your car?"

"Home. Relay brought me over." Gail smiled. "Wednesday."

Holly smiled. "You're insane, you know that. Right?"

"Hey, every Wednesday, since the kid's been seven, we go to the batting cages." Gail closed her eyes. "Drive us to the cages, wifey. I'm going to try and solve my case."

"Far be it from me to spare the criminal underbelly," smiled Holly, and she took the long way to the cages, letting Gail have more time to dwell. She pulled up at the parking and spotted their daughter leaning against her motorcycle, talking on her phone. "Oh my god," Holly laugh-snorted.

Gail looked over, startled, and laughed. "Wow. That is the absolute butchest thing I have seen in years."

Vivian had her head slightly down, a thick, black and red riding jacket on, jeans, and boots. The boots matched the ones Gail loved to wear, though they were buckled. The jacket looked like the one Holly wore in college, though all good riding jackets looked similar. The helmet was dangling off a handlebar and Vivian was toying with her scarf.

"I wonder who she's on the phone with," mused Holly as she unbuckled.

"The nurse Rachel set her up with. Beth." Gail was grinning ear to ear. "This is going to be date three."

"Oh, wow. Getting serious, huh?"

"She likes her. Said Beth was funny and smart." Gail tossed her coat into the car. "We should wait till they have sex before we start pressing her to bring Beth over for dinner." Holly swatted Gail's arm and took her hand, walking over to the door and their daughter.

The young cop looked up and smiled at her moms. "Okay, tomorrow's good. I'll meet you there before my shift? Great. Yeah, I can't wait. Have a good night." Vivian hung up. "Not a word, Mom."

Gail snorted. "I didn't say anything!" And yet they all knew she meant Gail with that comment.

"You don't have to," laughed Holly. "You didn't have to wait out here, Viv."

"It's cool," Vivian shrugged.

Holly smiled. "Why aren't you meeting Beth tonight?"

"She's on nights. I'm back on days, so I don't feel so blah. Seriously, I hate night shift." Vivian shook her head. "We're having breakfast tomorrow."

"Fine. I won't say anything." Gail smiled at Holly and kissed her cheek. "Let's go hit shit."

It didn't escape Holly's notice that Gail was watching their kid differently that night. There was a trace of worry coloring the blonde's face, a shadow of doubt. Holly waited until they were in the car to ask. "What's going on?"

Gail chewed her lower lip. "Three Rivers has been buying up guns."

Sometimes Holly thought 'guns and gangs' was just a joke of a name, slapping two alliterative terms together. And then these moments happened. "You're sending the rookies out to ...?"

"Keep watch. They're going to be posted at the least likely warehouses. But." Gail sighed. "When they had me do that as a rookie, Chris got stabbed."

Holly knew that story. Chris had told her. And she knew Gail worried about their kid. "Well. She wants this, Gail. You can't stop her."

"I know," muttered Gail. "I don't like it."

Before she put the car into gear, Holly leaned over the console and touched Gail's face. "Hey." Her wife turned and smiled tiredly. "You're a great cop, honey," whispered Holly, and she kissed her softly. "You're going to keep the kids as safe as you can, tell them what they need to know, and protect all of them. And. You're going to let them do their jobs."

Nodding, Gail returned the kiss. "Thanks."

"Good. Stop stressing." Holly settled back in her seat and shifted into reverse as Gail snorted. "That is really unattractive, the snorting."

"You love me," laughed Gail.

She did, Holly smiled. She did indeed.


As Vivian walked into the locker room, she saw Jenny and Lara being conspiratorial. That was never good. Viv put her bag down and immediately the other women sat down on either side.

"What's her name?" Jenny grinned ear to ear.

"Who?" Vivian blinked and hung up her jacket.

"The cutie who kissed you at the coffee shop?"

Ah crap. "Beth, she's a nurse." Vivian put her bag in her locker, tossing her watch in and changing it for the one she wore on patrol. Gail's 10 year watch was utilitarian and basic, engraved with her name and dates. The twenty year watch was a showpiece and ugly as hell. Holly had laughed about it. But this one, this watch was right for a patrol officer. Vivian ran her thumb over it, in absent memory.

Jenny, on the other hand, was fixed on her subject. "Beth the nurse. Is there a second date?"

Technically it would be the fourth. "Probably. She got paged and said she'd call me later. How the hell did you know anyway?"

The woman smiled and held up her coffee cup. "Dripz is my favorite coffee shop. Did she call you yet?"

Vivian rolled her eyes. "Jesus, it's been an hour. She's still at work. Like we're supposed to be."

"You should text her," Lara decided, and picked up Vivian's phone. "What's your passcode?"

"Fuck no," snarled Vivian, snatching her phone back.

Laughing, Jenny pulled on her belt. "Come on, Peck. She kissed you."

Vivian felt a flush color her neck. That was true. "Why are you obsessing on my date? Don't you have your own to moon over?"

"Aha! I knew it was a date!" Lara grinned.

Rolling her eyes, Vivian started to change into her uniform. "It was a date, yes. I do go on dates."

"You never tell us about them," pointed out Jenny. "I tell you all about mine."

"In excruciating detail," muttered Lara. "But you helped me pick out my dress last week for my date, Viv."

"So?" Vivian blinked at the two women.

Lara groaned. "You know, for someone raised by two women, you fail at girl talk, Peck."

She had to smile. "Moms don't girl talk." Gail certainly never did unless she was being evil and sarcastic. Holly might, but she hated it and called it banal.

"You barely talk," sighed Jenny, dramatically. "How'd you meet her?"

Narrowing her eyes, Vivian asked, "Are you sure this is normal?" Both Jenny and Lara nodded. "Okay... My aunt set us up. Beth's a nurse at St. Pats, and Aunt Rachel works there."

"You let your family set you up?"

"Anyone except my grandmother," nodded Vivian. "Elaine's really bad at it." And in fact she had suggested maybe she should start finding young ladies for Vivian, which had spurred Vivian into action.

Lara buckled on her belt. "Hell, if Beth doesn't work out, I'll find you some girls who like cops."

Making a face, Jenny shook her head. "Oh please no. No badge bunnies. The guys are bad enough. I can't imagine how the girls are."

"About the same," confirmed Vivian. "Went out with one a couple months ago. Yuck."

"How many dates have you and Beth been on?" Lara buckled her duty belt on.

She was not going to get out of this. "That was the third," sighed Vivian.

"Sleep with her?" Jenny was grinning.

"Okay, no. Hell no. No way, no how are we talking about that." Vivian slammed her locker closed.

Jenny nodded at Lara. "That's a no. She wouldn't be that grumpy if she got laid."

Agreeing, Lara clapped her locker closed. "Truth. Three dates and no sex. Is that normal for two girls?"

"Not me," mused Jenny, studying Vivian. "She's shy. No. She's secretive."

"Okay, Jenny, shut up," scowled Vivian. "Seriously. Knock it off."

Her tone seemed to work and they headed out to Parade. No more digging. They filed into the room and Noelle was sitting at the front. "Okay, kids. Settle down. We've got some news." Dov looked nervous for the first time in a long time. "Welcome back for the new year, everyone. Today is the first day I have you all back, so I want you to know we're going to be making some changes. First. End of the month, Inspector Williams is retiring."

The room fell dead silent. Vivian glanced over at the old guard, where Andy was nervous too. She ran over the chain of command in her head. Gail was the ranking officer after Noelle. It went Noelle, Gail, Steve, Traci, Dov and Chloe (though Chloe had no political aspirations so Vivian didn't ever count her), and then Andy. So, since Gail had too much on her hands as is, it was probably Steve. So why was Dov looking so nervous? Steve liked him.

"Our interim Inspector will be Steven Peck, whom you know from, ah, Guns and Gangs," continued Dov. "Then in spring ... That is when I'll be transferring full time to the Staff Superintendent's team."

Lara and Jenny both elbowed her. "What the hell?" That was Jenny, hissing in her ear.

"Didn't know," Vivian hissed back. "Seriously." Of course, as soon as she said it, a dozen small conversations dropped into place. Dov had been worried about a transfer. His transfer. "McNally's taking over as sarge," she realized, a little horrified.

Well. McNally could do it, she mused, but still. That was weird. She never thought of Andy as being in charge of anything. "Sgt. McNally," Dov noted, looking over at the rookies. "Effective now. Say goodbye to your favorite TO kids." They all broke into applause on cue. "Collins is now lead TO, so complain to him if you don't like your assignments."

That caused general laughter. Andy took the podium. "Okay, folks. Epstein and I will be trading things off for a while. And yes, Duncan, I've got a white shirt. Today, you get to have some experience working with our soon-to-be Division Inspector. Peck?"

Steve smiled and gestured over his shoulder, activating the screen. "Two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."

Behind her, Vivian heard Duncan ask what Italy had to do with anything. She shook her head, as did Andy. "Or in this case, two gangs," Andy explained, tapping the wall and highlighting a face that was weirdly familiar. "Bobby Zanaro. Son of one of the lieutenants of Three Rivers."

"A gang," Steve pointed out. "A gang we took down a quarter century ago. Bobby Jr. goes by the nickname Blue. He's taken back over the gang, restoring them to their former gun running, drug dealing, glory." Steve gestured and Vivian saw he had a clicker in his hand. A woman's face came up on screen. "Dr. Veronica Van Lowe, aka Spikes. She's their resource for the laced marijuana you kids helped us bust last year. Finally, this is Jackie Reynolds, aka Red."

The names all settled in Vivian's head. They'd taken the names from the comic book? How stupid. Chloe, who'd been quietly perched to the side, spoke up. "Red is an accountant who used to work for the Hill gang before she broke off to run, with Hill's permission, about a quarter of the old Rivers territory." Chloe slid off her stool and tapped the screen, a section of the territory going red. "Now it's a third."

Steve tapped Blue and Spikes in turn, lighting up the rest of the area in blue and yellow. "We're splitting you guys up, working with TwentySeven and ThirtyFour. Detectives Swarek and Anderson will be point there, respectively."

"Assignments are on the board," explained Andy. "Serve. Protect." Andy paused and then glanced at the old guard for a moment, before turning to the rookies with a grin. "And don't screw up." She rapped the podium.


They were the old guard, the four of them. Dov and Andy in their white shirts, Gail and Traci in their suits (or as much of one as Gail wore). "Does it feel real?" Traci fixed Andy's collar.

"I feel lazy," admitted Andy, eying her shirt.

"Took ya long enough," agreed Gail, her boots propped up on the coffee table in Dov's office. "Twenty five years to get here."

Dov shoved Gail's feet off the table. "Hey, she's been on more teams than any of us." He grinned. "UC three times. Once for a whole damn year, and she took down the human smuggling ring. Then ... It was drugs for a couple years, that year and a half on vice?"

"Juvenile," Traci chimed in. "K9-"

"Yeah, though that was a total, total failure." Gail grinned. The dog had totally been in charge of Andy that whole time. "Fine, she's done a lot of shit. She's still the last one of us to make sergeant."

Reaching over, Traci held her palm up in Gail's face. "Ignore the Inspector. She's just bragging because she made inspector first. Which is because she totally snipes all the high profile cases, like saving the damn King."

Gail shoved Traci's hand away. "He'd been the prince. And Chloe made sergeant before her! She didn't even get cut loose till-" Traci's hand covered her mouth.

But Andy was laughing. This was the relationship they all had. They gave each other hell, they teased and mocked and harassed. And they were, in the end, friends. Which was still weird to Gail. "I can't believe you turned the job down, Gail," admitted Andy, pulling Traci's hand off her face.

"What? In the Big Building? Please, I'd rather be left for dead in a trunk again." Gail shook her head, ignoring the pained expressions her friends wore from being reminded of Perik. "I really like what I do." And Holly had been right the night before. Too many meetings, too many people, too much non-cop work. She'd be bored.

Dov sat on the coffee table. "Can't spy on your kid from there."

Gail snorted. "You're just jealous my kid's so damn awesome."

"She's a Peck," teased Traci Peck. "We can spy from anywhere." She and Gail high-fived. "It's seriously creepy, Viv being a cop, you know. I feel old."

"I'm younger than my folks were when we started." Gail had done the math a few times. Her parents had been Noelle's age now.

The group took a moment to digest that. Finally Dov said, "I really hope Chris doesn't want to be a cop. It's weird enough seeing Christian every day."

They all agreed to that. "It's not that weird," shrugged Gail. "I mean… I wish she'd stuck with engineering, but the kid wanted this. I'm kind of jealous of her sometimes."

Andy, the other legacy cop, nodded. "You know that's why I never really looked at being a D. I didn't want people to see my dad."

"Oh, no," Gail shook her head. "I could totally be a kick as Superintendent. Don't wanna be. Dov can have that fun."

The man snorted. "I'm going to be the Super's sergeant, Gail."

"And in four years, max, we'll all be talking about how Superintendent Epstein stepped on a booby trap," she quipped.

Laughing, Traci added, "Cracked his back on a horse."

"Failed his recert," teased Andy.

"Out shot all of you at distance," Dov sassed right back.

Andy laughed more. "God, I wonder which one of this class will be the first D."

As one, Traci and Gail replied, "Volk."

Dov jerked his head towards them. "Not like they've thought about it. Christian's going to be the TO, though. He's got the look."

"He's the Oliver. Mostly," agreed Andy.

"No one's Oliver but Oliver," Gail pointed out. "Inspector Shaw. That was funny as hell. Remember how weird he looked in a suit that first week?" That had been the same week Sam had transferred out and Oliver's first appointment was putting Traci as the Homicide Squad lead.

"I wonder who will be our new inspector," mused Traci.

Both Dov and Andy looked surprised. "Steve's not…" Dov looked between the Pecks. "Wow. I thought it was interim because they hadn't finalized things. He's really retiring?"

"Summertime," confirmed Gail. "He's taking a job with our uncle. Sitting on his ass playing in-house security boss." She sighed. Eli had made a great offer that Steve snatched up. She didn't blame him, but she would miss him.

Traci looked happy about it. "He's excited. I think after almost forty years, it's a relief."

That caused a different kind of pause. "Shit, we're old," muttered Andy, stunned. "Do you think we'll all make fifty?"

Dov shook his head. "I don't... You know, this is weird, but I think we'll all tap out before that... Except Gail."

She blinked. "What? Why me?"

"Because you ..." He paused. "I used to think you were just another Peck, a suck up who was just going to bide time until you could be a lazy white shirt." Dov smiled at her as Gail flipped him off. "But I was the white shirt. And you ... You just took this weird left turn and suddenly you're in charge of all this."

Gail shook her head. "I like what I do. And I'm good at it," she added, frowning at them. Everyone was grinning at her. "What?"

"It's like marriage and motherhood defanged her," said Andy in a stage whisper.

"Don't get cocky just because you finally won a shoot, Girl Guide," snarled Gail. "I'm the ice queen of Fifteen and don't you forget it. You all work for me."

"You were saying," laughed Traci. "Come on, we have some crime to solve and those gun shipments aren't going to unstable themselves."

She was right, too. The amount of guns being sold to the two gangs had risen astronomically. Steve had been worried about it and was sure it meant there would be deaths soon. Having read his report, Gail was inclined to believe him. Gangs that didn't normally lean towards guns suddenly arming up was a concern.

"Where are we sending the rookies?" Andy pulled up the report on her laptop. All the fun projection toys were in Gail's office or Parade. Not even Traci had as cool a set up as Gail did. There were perks that came with her job.

"Two warehouses where we just want to monitor," explained Traci. "Half are over watching the Hills, half watching Rivers. Rotate 'em back and forth."

"Meanwhile," picked up Gail. "Fox, Blanchard, and Connor will take care of the real tricky places. Moore's on regular patrol around the bars they frequent."

Dov sighed. "They went fast from spiking each other's drugs to shooting."

Gail shrugged. "They haven't started shooting yet."

"They will." Dov was certain and so was Gail, frankly. "Three cousins, the grandkids of the Zanaros. That's insane."

"Gangs never make sense," Andy commented. "Did they really kill Anton Hill?"

"Dr. Van Lowe was his doctor." Gail stood up. "Pretty sure." They couldn't know for sure, not without another autopsy, and the Hills were never going to agree to that. "Anton Hill. The motive was funny, you know. His gang took over the power vacuum after Bobby Zanaro was gone." She looked out the windows and over the desks where people were hustling around. People including her daughter, who was in her vest and jacket, pointing at something. Sons and daughters. Parents. That was a thought. "He's still in WitSec," she noted absently.

The others stared at her. "What?" Traci broke the silence first. "Zanaro's in WitSec?"

"Yeah, Ollie and I arrested him... Jesus, I wasn't even dating Holly yet. Anyway, we picked him up and he went into protection. I think he's in Alberta." Gail looked over her shoulder and blinked at her friends. "What? I was just thinking maybe I should try to get the Mounties to talk him into coming here and he could talk down his kid."

Traci looked thoughtful. "That could be interesting. But he may want to team up."

"Yeah, considering he was ousted because of a ploy from the Hills." Gail sighed. "I hate motives like this. Complicated, stupid, revenge plots. Lacing drugs, stealing territory, murder, set ups, buy outs... Honestly, if they could manage to just kill themselves and not hurt any bystanders, I'd be happy to let them shoot it out."

Dov shook his head. "Just when I think she's changed, the Ice Queen comes back and reminds me she doesn't care about the little people." He smiled at her. She smiled back. They were old jokes, old jibes between friends.

But if they could manage to kill themselves and hurt no one else, Gail would be happy indeed.


"Is it weird to ask about your job?" Beth tilted her head as they walked to the gastro pub. The restaurant had been Traci's recommendation when Vivian gave in and asked for date advice. Her aunt was always good with that.

"Uh, provided you're not about to tell me you're into handcuffs, no. I don't think so."

Beth screwed up her face. "Oh god. Someone did?"

"I left without finishing my coffee," Vivian admitted. "Hi. Reservation for Peck." The hostess checked her computer and nodded, gesturing for them to follow.

"Reservations. Smart."

Vivian felt her face heat up. "My … my other aunt said it's really popular on week nights."

Beth grinned at her. "Rachel said you used your resources. I was trying to figure out what that meant."

"Oh, she meant I build a rocket out of junk." Vivian laughed as they followed the hostess to their table.

"A real rocket?"

"Real enough my Mom had to sit me down and explain what the law was about launching homemade rockets." Mostly that had to do with where the rocket might land. It was, for the most part, legal and fine to have done. Holly had been delighted and signed her up for a science club. And Rachel... Well the first rocket had landed on her car, shattering the back window, so she'd been significantly less delighted.

The hostess looked concerned. "Do you... Uh, do you want to make a drink order now?"

"Ice tea, please." Vivian grinned. Poor hostess.

"Same." Beth waited till the hostess left. "She's totally going to tell the waiter we were talking about rockets."

"I should trump that with a bomb story," Vivian said, conspiratorially.

Beth smiled and leaned in. "I had a lizard in a guy's leg once."

It took a moment for the words to arrange themselves properly. "Wait. In the leg?"

"Yeah! This guy had an alligator lizard on his leg, freaked out, and tried to stab it." Beth's eyes lit up and Vivian couldn't help but smile at the story. "And I guess lizards like holes, so it jumped in and got turned around. Every time we tried to pull it out, it bit at us."

The idea was so bizarre, Vivian laughed. "How did you get it out?"

"We called animal control and the woman just let it bite her finger so she could pull it out."

The waiter chose that moment to come by with the drinks. "I'll just give you a minute," he smiled, rushing away the moment the drinks were on the table.

They shared a look and broke out laughing. The rest of their dinner conversation went that way. They both shared a bit of a love for the bizarre and weird. Totally true stories of cops and nurses. As they walked back out into the cold January evening, Beth asked about her current work.

"It's boring. I'm on surveillance, which sounds cool but it means I sit for hours in a car and watch a building no one goes to, in order to make sure no one actually goes there."

"Can't tell me details, huh?" And Beth slipped her arm through Vivian's.

"Uh, no," replied Vivian. She was startled, but not unpleasantly. Beth was warm and funny and smart and soft.

The nurse smiled. "I can only get long sentences out of you if you're talking about work."

Vivian tried not to wince. "I'm not really that interesting."

"A sixteenth generation cop, gay, with two gay moms. Do you have any siblings?"

That was, weirdly, the first time anyone had asked her that. And Vivian didn't really know the answer. Yes. And, at the same time, no. "No," she finally said. But it felt strange. Wrong. Quickly, Vivian deflected. "You?"

"Three brothers. They're all older." Beth sighed. "You're lucky. They're such a pain in the ass." And Beth cheerfully told her about her brothers, how they used to pick on her and tease her. She'd been mad about dolphins as a girl, wanting to be a oceanographer, but her brothers had teased her by squeaking behind her at every opportunity.

It was a struggle to follow the story though. Vivian's brain was stuck on her sort-of lie. A sibling was a strange, nearly ephemeral concept to her, even now. She knew cousins, she had a lot of those thanks to Holly. But a sibling was a strange idea. She'd had one, she didn't now, and Vivian Peck certainly had none. Did saying no devalue the impact her sister had borne? Did it make her less real? Did it erase her?

Kicking herself, Vivian smiled. "That sounds like something my mom, Gail, would do."

"The squeaking?"

"She's a bit of an ass," admitted Vivian, smiling. "And a child."

They had reached the parking lot. "So." Beth let go of Vivian's arm and looked up at her. "I had a really nice time."

"So did I." Vivian scratched the back of her head. Third date. They'd kissed. She leaned forward a little. "I'm still on days."

Beth nodded and smiled at her. "I'm not, but." She bit her lower lip. "I have tonight off. Maybe... I could come over?"

"Ah, I have roommates." Vivian made a face. "Don't know if that's how you want to meet them."

The nurse looked confused for a second. "Oh. No, you know walking in and saying 'Hi, I want to bang your daughter' probably doesn't go over well."

"They wouldn't mind," said Vivian. "My Moms I mean." Beth gave her a dubious look and Vivian sighed. Yeah. That tended to kill things off.

"I would mind," said Beth decisively. "And while I also have a roommate, she's on shift tonight." Beth arched her eyebrows. "You could park your bike in her spot."

A slow grin spread across Vivian's face, warming her up. "I'd like that."

Beth grinned back and reached up, her fingers warm on Vivian's winter chilled cheek, drawing her down the few inches to kiss. "Tell me you have an extra helmet," she said softly.

"I do," Vivian replied, equally softly.

It was a slightly distracting ride to Beth's place, with the nurse's arms snug around her waist, but the parking was underground and dry, apartment was empty of roommates, and the evening was definitely promising. Beth gave her the two-cent tour before leading her down the hall to a small bedroom. It was a small apartment, not that it mattered.

Vivian had the foresight to tell her mothers not to wait up before she'd left for the date. That prompted Gail to teasingly remind her to use protection. Holly rolled her eyes and promised to sit on Gail if she panicked. Given Gail's reaction a few months ago when she'd thought Vivian hadn't come home, it felt wise to warn them. Certainly it didn't bother Vivian that her mothers knew she was hoping to get lucky.

Not that she thought about her mothers much at all for the next while. Beth was pleasantly distracting, in all the good ways. Shorter than Vivian (though at 6'1", who wasn't?), rounder, and softer, Vivian found Beth to be positively delectable.

Beth also fell asleep after, a smile on her face.

Oh, how Vivian envied that. She closed her eyes and tried to relax in Beth's bed, but her body tensed every time sleep tried to wrap it's tendrils around her. Reluctantly, at one, Vivian slid out of the bed and into her clothes. Beth didn't even stir. Leaving a note on the night stand ('Had to leave for early shift. Didn't want to wake you. I'll call you.' - that wasn't needy, right? Or pushy? It was hard to tell sometimes.), Vivian let herself out and went home.


Holly put nicknacks in a box and sighed. Would it feel weird when she retired? Noelle wasn't that much older than she was, all things considered. They had daughters the same age. But here was Noelle, retiring. And Frank would be retired by the end of the year too. They were done.

"Thank you for doing this," said Noelle as she put her things in another box. "Everyone else is useless."

"Gail never helps anyone move," remarked Holly. "She barely helped herself move in with me, or us move in to the house. I think she only helped with the house because Vivian shamed her." The then six year old had frowned deeply and asked Gail if she was hurt.

"Gail is Gail," Noelle said, laughing. "Once she found her groove, she just marched to the beat of her own drummer."

Holly smiled. That was very true. Gail was her own person and liked it that way. And Holly was rather fond of the person whom Gail had become. Funny, smart, goofy, acerbic. Wonderful. A little prone to ignoring their diets, but Gail still had the metabolism of a teenaged boy. "I wish I'd know awkward rookie Gail," said Holly, wistfully.

"Suck up Peck? Nah, she was too bratty, even for you."

"I'd believe it." Holly had heard stories. "She's still pretty bratty and impetuous."

"Very toned down," Noelle said firmly. "Gail used to try so hard to be what she thought she was supposed to be."

That Gail was the one Holly had met. Struggling and failing and miserable and angry and then, all of the sudden, hers. "It worked out in the end."

"It usually does. I don't think any of us saw ourselves where we are, though."

Holly smiled. "I did. I bet Viv does too."

The older woman sighed and glanced out her door. "Your daughter makes me feel old."

"She's excellent at that, isn't she?" Holly grinned. "Liv makes me feel old. She's so energetic." Holly paused. "How's she doing in San Diego?"

"She's loving it. Sends me pictures all winter of the beach." Noelle rolled her eyes. "I'm taking a vacation down there in March."

The idea of spending winter at the beach was interesting. Holly hated the effect the seasons had on her, but she loved the winter. "Think you'll stay in Toronto?"

Noelle looked thoughtful. "Sophie's moving back. My sister is here. Probably. But Frank's family is south and there's that too. We're both going to be retired by end of the month."

And that was an even odder thought. "I think I'd get bored," said Holly, finally. "I mean... I like my job."

"So do I, but I'm tired of it." Noelle put the last of her desk items in the box. "Can you check that drawer?" As Holly did, she asked a simple question. "Don't you get tired?"

"Yes. But that's when I write an article or go speak somewhere." Holly pulled out a stack of files. "Forget something?"

Noelle winced. "My unsolved cases." She took half the stack and flipped through. "They're all dupes, but some of these I should return."

"Are you allowed to keep them?"

Waggling her hand, Noelle made it clear that it was a 'no but yes' kind of answer. "I can be. If Gail or some of the other Inspectors signs off."

That was easily done. "Gail would." To this day, Gail still felt like she owed Noelle and Frank for adopting Sophie. The girl had taken the last name of 'Best' in her early teens. Noelle had mentioned she might after retiring, but everyone at work had known her as Williams, and so she'd kept her maiden name.

"Yeah, she would. Can you put those in the box?"

"Sure." As she put the files in the box, Holly lingered over the last. It had Wanda's name on it and was not a duplicate. They labeled those differently. "Noelle, is this supposed to go back to the lab?"

Noelle looked over, surprised. "Oh that's the DNA results of a gang killing. The courier was supposed to take that."

Holly grinned. "I'll take it back then."

The older woman shook her head. "One day you'll tell me why you and Gail think making jokes about couriers is so damn funny."

Smiling, Holly shook her head. "I can't believe this is it. Your last week." She looked around the office.

"It has to be my last week some time." But Noelle looked a little sad as she closed the last box.

Later, as she walked though the lab, Holly flipped open the report to see where it should go. It was by accident that she actually looked at the results on the page. Two contributors. Both female. One with a familiar result. Weird. Why would that be familiar?

Once, a long time ago, she'd sarcastically asked Gail how good she was at identifying short tandem repeats by hand. As it happened, Holly was very good at it. She'd been doing it more than half her life, after all. Even so, after the millions of lab results, after the billions of tests run, she had no business remembering one specific result. That was Gail's knack.

And yet she knew that weird phenotype. It wasn't rare so much as uncommon, though Holly knew not to tell Gail that semantic as that would just get her wife riled up. Except it was uncommon and Holly had seen it. Recently.

Detouring, Holly went up to her office and pulled up the cases she'd worked on in the last year. Nothing. Holly closed her eyes and tried to visualize the blood. It wasn't a autopsy or a case she'd caught in the last year. She'd been showing it to Swarek. Why? He was related to Gail's case about the Rivers and Hill gangs.

White whale. That's what Andy had said. Anton Hill was Sam's white whale. Hill was dead, which was why his gang was up for grabs and why the Rivers groups were hounding them, playing all sorts of ... It was wrong to say 'tricks' but that's what they were doing. They were playing tricks on each other. Evil, death tricks. But tricks.

Holly tapped the keys and pulled up Anton Hills' file. Heart attack. Probably induced but that wasn't her case and now they would have to exhume. Holly scrolled down and stared at the blood work. Phenotype. She snatched the the report and stared at them in turn. "Fifty percent familial match," she muttered.

The case was for blood found at the site of the Rivers Gang's distribution point. Holly's hand shook as she pulled up the information she had on Bobby Zanaro. This was the longest shot ever. But it was a familiar match. Cousins. Maybe a nephew. Or a niece.

Did they have... She tabbed through every person related to the case before feeling like a moron. Holly picked up her phone and tapped Gail's number.

"Hey, Dr. Hotstuff," said Gail a little saucily.

"Gail, I'm sending you some DNA results. Can you expedite the scan? I need to know who this is."

Gail paused before answering. "You know technically I can't if it's not my case, Holly."

"I think I found Anton Hill's kid. And they're related to the blood you found at the distro point."

The silence this time was poignant. "Holly. Are you serious?"

Holly smiled and hit send on the data. "The blood is also related to Bobby Zanaro, distantly."

Gail sucked in her breath. "You are the world's greatest forensic scientist in the universe, Holly Stewart. How the hell... You know what, tell me tonight. I've got the mail. If I need to, I'll get the fucking Mounties to expedite the shit out of this."

Of course, expedited in reality meant maybe she'd be lucky and get an answer by the morning. If only this was TV, Holly sighed, and filed the report with her own collection related to the Rivers case. Holly had always kept her own copies of weird cases. The stupid head bashed in case was still there.

She let her fingers run over the stack of unsolved cases. One day, when it was her turn to retire, she would have to let these go. But not today.


The thought had stuck with Vivian all day. Actually it had been there since the night before when Beth asked about her family, but her whole shift she'd thought intermittently about it. The rest of the time, Rich teased her for being so tired, and Vivian smiled, remembering the way she'd spent the night.

But still. After shift she skipped drinks with the gang to go home and hunt down her old photos. Vivian scoured the bookshelves in the living room and then her bedroom, but couldn't find the right one. So she went to the source.

"Mom, where'd you put the photo albums?"

Gail blinked and looked up from her laptop. "On the shelf downstairs."

"No, not ours… Uh. Where are the…" Vivian stopped and frowned. "The Green's."

Her mother looked at her for a moment. Gail was thoughtful and curious. "They're in the attic. Southeast corner. All of the… Everything we brought back is there. The albums are in the box labeled pictures, but I think they're mixed in with the framed ones."

Nodding, Vivian felt a little relieved that Gail didn't ask why. "Thanks."

With a return nod, Gail added, "Let me know if you can't find what you're looking for." And with that, the detective went back to her work.

Growing up with that much trust had always felt a little daunting. Like she knew her parents had a copy of the police report in the safe in their office. And Vivian knew that any time she asked, she'd be allowed to see it. They just … They trusted her. They believed in her as a person.

She headed to the attic and walked past the detritus of her childhood. Holly had kept all her sports uniforms (the ones with her name on them at least). Most of her clothes had gone to good will or the random grab bag of clothes the cops kept on hand for people. There were boxes, though, labeled with her name and her age.

Vivian smiled and opened the box from when she was eight and found the second grade section. She flipped through to find the class photo of her, Matty, and Olivia all hamming it up. There was an 'about me' story written in her childish scrawl, that said she was Vivian Green and she had two moms. There wasn't a lot of artwork in the early boxes. As she got older, she started to draw more, though that turned into technical diagrams.

It probably still drove Holly nuts that she was a cop even though she loved the mechanical engineering stuff too. Once Vivian caught wind of her mothers arguing about it. Holly had wanted to push Vivian into sticking with science and Gail said they should let her be who she was. Gail's point, which Vivian had not expected, was that her family forced her to be a cop, and while it worked out, she always wondered if she could have been anything else. Of course, Holly argued that maybe people really did need a bit of a push to see they could be more than just a cop.

That was when Vivian stopped eavesdropping and went out for a run. That kind of an argument was going to be messy and they were going to say the angry, mean, things they didn't really mean at all. But, having seen Aunt BitchTits make a snide blue collar remark at Gail, Vivian knew what came after 'just a cop.' It wasn't worth being around for.

By they time she'd gotten home that afternoon long ago, her mothers had been still grumbly but not arguing anymore.

Since she'd enrolled in the Police Academy, there had been no fights or arguments from anyone. Her job was expected and allowed and supported. Even by Holly. The fact that she had actually gotten a degree in mechanical engineering went a long way to peace in the house. And Vivian did love it. But she didn't want to spend her day behind a computer. That was what it boiled down to. She had to be active to feel like she was being useful.

Vivian made her way through the attic, past the memories of her childhood with Gail and Holly, and delved into the deeper part. There were five boxes. They'd taken three from her grandparents' house. The other two were what social services had collected from her parents' house. Those were the two boxes she was after.

Someone (probably Holly) had carefully stored everything in special kind of box, the sort that wouldn't cause paper to degrade or lose it's ink. Vivian didn't have a single memory of them. She couldn't remember the contents. She wasn't sure she'd ever known them. But she knew that the photos she wanted had to be there.

Running her hand over the top of the box, Vivian careful lifted it off and put it down, sitting cross-legged in front of the box. Atop everything was a piece of paper, folded, with the word 'Inventory' scrawled across it, in Gail's hand.

Of course.

She unfolded the paper and saw an inventory, as precise as the kind she was made to do when it was her turn to work in the evidence room. Vivian smiled and shook her head. Her mothers made a team. Holly would worry about contamination, Gail would worry about it being catalogued properly.

The paper listed a photo album as 'Childhood photos: 3(?) - 6' and another as 'Family: pre-birth - 3(?)' and then a list of framed photos. She hesitated and scanned the list of frames until she saw Kimmy's name.

Kimberly Anne Green.

Because contrary to what she'd told Beth, she did have a sister. Once.

Vivian swallowed and pulled the frame out of it's place to look at. It was a posed photo of Kimmy as a baby. Safe. She smiled and traced her fingers over the fat cheeks and brown curls. Curious, she looked on the list to see if there was one of her, but nothing was listed. Odd. And there were no group family photos of them all, not like this. Maybe this was her maternal grandparents' doing. She'd never known them, but they had known Kimmy.

Putting the frame back, she re-read the list for other photos of her sister. Someone had organized them into a packet, it turned out. Vivian pulled that out and smirked. Gail had written 'Misc. Photos of Kimberly' and nothing more in her distinctive 'work' handwriting (Gail had appalling handwriting). When she opened the packet, the photos were organized by date, mostly. Some were in the wrong order, but as Vivian careful fixed that, she was struck by something.

The only reason she knew they were out of order was because she remembered. The photo of tiny, grumpy, Vivian and not much bigger Kimmy wearing toques was from early spring, not fall, and it was when they'd gone to some small fair. Not in the city. It was just outside. The drive had been nauseating and long. Bumpy, because her father had driven erratically. Vivian had gotten car sick and complained. Her father had smacked the steering wheel and shouted at her.

Vivian sighed and flipped past that photo. She kept flipping, looking for something else. Something happier. Something... There. It was her sister at eight, almost nine, the end of the summer before she died, sitting on the back stairs with an ice cream cone. It was messy, all over her shirt, but Kimmy was laughing. She was on that edge of childhood, that moment where she was starting to look like herself. The roundness was just starting to fade away. Not chubby, and small just like Vivian had been at that age.

It was strange. Vivian was older than her sister. But Kimmy would have been twenty-nine now, had she lived. She would have been the age of Gail when she joined Major Crimes. She would have graduated college, maybe started a family, maybe moved away. Maybe Kimmy would have run away. Maybe they both would have.

Instead, Kimmy was nine. Forever. She was always the nine year old who shared her bedroom, who would creep into Vivian's bed to sleep with her when Viv had been little. She'd been the big sister who covered her little sister's ears when their parents had fought.

Vivian sighed and put the other photos back, keeping that one, happy, picture out. She carefully boxed everything back up, placing the inventory note on the top, and closed it, sliding the box back into place. Standing back up, Vivian looked around the attic and spotted a box labeled with the name 'William Peck.'

If anyone understood the ability to love and hate at the same time, it was Gail. Because she'd said, many times, she still loved the parts of her father that had been kind and caring. But Gail hated the man who'd cut her out, and Steve, and was unable to see past his name to love his own children. While Vivian was curious to know what was in that box, what memories Bill saved, it felt like an invasion of privacy to look.

True, her parents knew the secrets of her own past. They probably knew more than she did. But they had a right to look. Bill Peck, all the Pecks, they were her family and maybe she had a right to look, and maybe she had a sense of wonder to know, but more than that, she felt like she had a responsibility not to look without letting her mother know.

Everyone was entitled to their secrets.

As she came back downstairs, the office door was closed and Vivian could just make out the sound of Gail talking about a case. She couldn't ask Gail about a frame, so Vivian went to her room and scrounged about for an empty frame. Finding none, she brought the photo downstairs for a size reference and looked to see if Holly was there.

Her doctor mother was listening to music and dancing a little as she put dishes away. Vivian covered her mouth and smiled as Holly sang along to a disturbingly perky pop song. Off key. Badly. "Oh my god, Mom," she said, laughing.

"Jesus!" Holly startled and dropped a plate, which bounced and skittered across the floor. "The hell! Do you get sneaky creeper lessons at the academy?" Holly pressed a hand to her chest.

Vivian laughed more and picked up the plate. "You are so oblivious when you're concentrating."

"Screw you." But Holly was smiling and blushing. "Thank you," she added, taking the plate and washing it by hand. "What's that?" Holly pointed at Vivian's other hand.

She looked at the photo. "Do we have a frame this size?" It wasn't an answer, she knew that.

Holly looked thoughtful. "Probably in the attic. Did you ask Gail?"

"The office is closed."

Holly made an 'ah' sound. "Sometimes I wonder how we raised such a considerate kid." She tossed her towel onto the counter. "Regular photo. Regular photo. I really can't remember."

Nodding, Vivian realized she'd have to wait. "I'll put it in a book for now. I don't want it to get bent."

That caught Holly's attention. "Huh." Her mother walked over to the bookshelf and picked up a framed photo of herself, Lisa, and Rachel back in college. "Here." She popped the back and took out her photo.

Vivian hesitated. "I ... Um I want it put it in my room, Mom."

"That's fine. I think it's alright if three drunk girls in Florida goes into a scrapbook." Holly looked at it. "Most of college should go in a scrapbook. That was a million years ago." Holly looked fondly at the photo.

Taking the frame, Vivian slipped her photo in and stared at it. "Is this about the charity calendar you did, Miss May?"

Her mother's eyes bugged out. "How the..."

Vivian grinned, impishly. "It's in the office, Mom. I was going to run into it one day. Maybe innocently when I'm looking for your college yearbook? Or that degree you asked me to hang for you? You know the one you had in the green box?" Holly's face paled and then flushed. "After spending a minute trying to figure out why you had porn in there, I saw your name on the back."

Covering her face, Holly groaned. "This must be how Gail felt when you found the vibrator."

She patted her mother's shoulder. "Thanks for the frame."

Truth told, Vivian felt a little bad distracting her mother like that to throw her off the trail of what the photo was, but at the same time she wanted just this moment of privacy. Eventually her mothers would notice the frame on her desk. Vivian put it beside the one of her mothers and her at graduation.

She lay down on her bed and looked at the photos. Besides the framed ones, she had her digital frame that rotated through photos of her family and friends. There was even one of Matty and Tim Gunn. But that night she looked at the old print photo of Kimmy and her ice cream.

That night she thought about being a little sister and being an only child.


It had been a very long time since Gail had seen the photos that were spread on the bed. "Wow. Holly, I'm totally gay." She reached to pick up her favorite from the shoot, a picture of Holly, in the lab coat and her matching bra and pantie set, laughing as she held up a broken high heeled shoe.

There was something about the photo that she loved more than the affected sultriness. It was a moment of Holly, who laughed in awkward moments, and her raw beauty. Gail sighed softly. The laughter and the smile. That's why she loved it. Of course she reveled in Holly's body, but the smile. That make her heart sing.

"I cannot believe that's your favorite," said Holly, putting another stack of photos on the bed.

"I can see you naked whenever I want." Gail collected the soft-core porn photos. "But that smile? That laugh? I can hear it when I see this photo." She smiled. "Why are all your college photos out?"

"Your daughter wanted a frame, so I gave her the one from Florida."

Gail frowned. A frame. And she'd been asking about photos of the Greens earlier. Well if Vivian hadn't told Holly, Gail would keep that secret for now. "So you decided it was time to put drunk college Holly away?"

Her wife blushed. "Well. It was a long time ago."

Putting down the photos, Gail took Holly's hands and tugged her into a hug. "I think you're more beautiful than slutty drunk Holly."

That made Holly laugh, and she pressed her face into Gail's shoulder. "Slutty drunk Holly would have been all over you, you know."

Humming, Gail swayed a little, holding Holly close. "Stupid goth Gail would have been too scared and regretted it all her days." She nearly had avoided Holly after their coat room kiss. That had set so many weird thoughts in motion, including embarrassing dreams, that Gail's world had never been the same. And she didn't want it any other way.

Holly sighed and squeezed Gail tightly. "I feel old."

"You are. So am I." She stroked Holly's hair.

"Your idea of sympathy is pretty piss poor," remarked Holly, dryly.

Gail smiled. "It's better than the alternative." Her wife grunted an agreement. "Want cool science news?"

"Pluto's a planet again?" Holly sounded sad and wistful.

Laughing, Gail let go so she could kiss Holly's nose. "God, I love you, you great big nerd."

Holly wrinkled her nose up. "Damn. I hate that it's not a planet."

"I know, baby." Gail kissed her again. Holly had been despondent the night they'd confirmed the fact that Pluto was a planetoid.

They'd only been friends then, in that strange time after the chemical burn and before Holly's date at the Penny. She'd come over to watch a movie only to find a sobbing Holly at the door. Gail had never done well with crying girls, but there was something about Holly that prompted her to steer the doctor inside and let her wail about how it was really never going to be a planet again.

It was hilarious and tragic at the same time.

It may have been the exact moment she'd fallen in love.

"Okay," said Holly with a deep sigh. "What science coolness do you have?"

"We ID'd the blood sample."

Holly startled and leaned back. "Anton Hill's kid?"

"His daughter. Jackie Reynolds."

Holly's eyes widened. "The granddaughter?" With a smile, Gail nodded. "But... Her cousin might have killed her father..." Again, Gail nodded. "Give me your theory, Peck, I've got to hear this one!"

Letting go, Gail sat on the edge of their bed. "One. Bobby Blue has been trying to rebuild the gang in his father's name. Two. Blue got his cousins Spikes and Red in on it, knowing they too had fathers and grandfathers who were ousted back when the young guns tried to take over, back when I was a Uni." She held up three fingers. "Three. Blue arranged for the Fentanyl laced pot as a way for Spikes to slowly ramp up Anton Hill's chance of a heart attack. Four. Blue had no idea Red was Hill's daughter. Five. Red had been playing them all along, trying to take over for Anton Hill."

Her wife exhaled loudly. "Fentanyl could do that. In high doses, it induces heart attacks."

"See, I listen to you." Gail grinned and Holly gently shoved her head. "Where was I?"

"Australia," said Holly, flatly.

"Six! Guess who's been in charge of the money to get the guns?"

Holly's eyes were bright. "Red. Was she getting guns for both gangs?"

"Even better. She was using the money from the Rivers gang to fund Hill's. They've been pretty low key ever since Swarek started putting heat on 'em." Once Sam had moved to TwentySeven, they'd let him pressure Hill as much as he wanted. Jarvis and Oliver had always been a little more circumspect, but Gail had to admit that Sam had forced them to shut down a lot of their activities.

In a way, their current predicament, a headless chicken, was Sam's fault.

"How the hell did no one catch her?"

"It took a forensic accountant," Gail said smugly. That had been her idea. "We couldn't find anything on the Rivers, but once I had Red pegged as a double dealer, ba-boom, Hill's folks light up like goddamn Christmas. Holly Stewart, your wife is a bad ass."

And Holly giggled. "You're irreplaceable, unredeemable, and unique, Gail." She looped her arms around Gail's neck and shoulders to draw her into a kiss.

There was a knock on their doorframe. Vivian's voice, amused, cut in. "Hey, keep sucking face. I'm heading out."

Gail sighed against Holly's lips. "Have fun with Beth," she told her daughter.

"Have fun with Mom," said Vivian right back, sassy as ever, and she thudded down the stairs.

Gail closed her eyes and leaned against Holly, listening to Vivian's boots on the hardwood. Then the door to the garage. Then the garage door. Then the engine... The garage again. "She was so quiet," said Gail softly.

"She was tiny." Holly shared the same, soft, tone. "Scared. Did not like you having a gun." The arms around her shoulders tightened. "And then she grew up."

"I was mostly thinking she didn't start thudding down the stairs until we moved here."

Holly laughed softly and turned her head to kiss Gail again. "She really likes making noise," said the doctor. "I wonder ..." Holly trailed off and frowned.

Yeah. Had Viv's birth parents made her be quiet? Always they had fear and thoughts about a time they'd never know the truth of. "She's had a weird year."

"And now she has a girlfriend. Kind of." Holly kissed her again and let go. "Did you know she'd seen this calendar?" Picking up her charity calendar, Holly shook it.

Gail blinked. "I did not. How did ... Oh it was in the box, wasn't it?"

Her wife nodded and tossed the calendar into a new box on the bed. "These are going in my closet."

"Oh please!" Gail laughed. "Just put them in the office and label 'em as your college years. She won't snoop." She hopped onto the bed and scooped up the photos from the calendar shoot. "Okay. I have a suggestion. Collage of college."

Holly squinted. "Get all the great pics of me and BitchTits and make a giant photo with them to remember my wayward youth?"

"Something like that." She lay back on the bed and flipped through the other photos. "Damn. You know, if I'd seen this porn growing up, I'd have flipped for women way sooner."

Laughing, Holly collected her other photos and put them in the box. "Gail, they're not even soft-core porn. They're pin-ups."

"I'll have you know, I'm a police officer. I had to study porn."

And Holly laughed more. "You studied porn?"

Gail looked up. "Of course I did. How else do you think we know it when we see it?"

Holly stood there looking thoughtful. "Okay, I'll give you that one. So you studied porn and, to your experienced and practiced eye, is that porn?"

She looked at the photos again. "Well. A lot of it depends on intent. Did you intend for it to be titillating, Dr. Stewart? Was your goal to arouse?"

"Is that a legal definition?"

"If they were an accident, or a happy circumstance, they're just photos. But." Gail sighed and flipped to another photo. In this one, Holly was leaning forward with her glasses low on her nose, her cleavage peeking over the microscope, the lab coat pushed up over one hip, showing off lace panties that Holly rarely wore, even back when they'd been dating. It certainly aroused her. "This looks like porn. Intent, result."

The bed dipped and Holly sat on Gail's upper legs. "Result, huh?" Gail looked over the top of the photos at her wife. "But was it my desired result?"

"You want to try and argue the intention here wasn't to turn people on?"

Holly smiled. "Technically it was to make money."

"Uh huh. For money." Gail smirked and flipped to yet another photo. "May I present evidence for my case? Exhibit B." She flashed the photo of Holly adjusting her breasts. "An outtake, she claims."

"I wasn't compensated monetarily for my time," said Holly, and she pushed the photo down with one finger. "Are you going to look at those all night?"

"Well they're really hot, Holly. I mean, you're sexy as hell."

"I could offer an alternative." As Gail looked up to ask what that might be, the words fell out of her brain. Holly was unbuttoning her shirt. Slowly.

Her mouth went dry. Other parts went decidedly not dry. "Hello," said Gail. She looked at the reveal of Holly's bra (more practical and utilitarian than her picture) and compared it to the photo. Okay. Fine. She compared the breasts themselves.

Holly smiled and shrugged her shirt off. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Gail smiled back and put the photos on her nightstand. Reality was so much better than the photos. It wasn't just because she could touch Holly either. She loved how amazing young Holly looked. The perkiness, the shapeliness of her in her twenties and thirties (and forties) was different from the fifties and soon to be sixties. But God. Holly was totally her thing.

Reaching up, Gail tugged Holly by her waist, pulling her down. The result of Holly with her shirt off was better than photos of Holly with her shirt off. Her skin was so much more alive and vibrant than you could capture in a photo. And the fact that detective, crime solving, Gail Peck turned Holly on was one of the best benefits of that gold badge.

A few hours later, Holly was sound asleep and Gail was wired. Not wanting to wake up her wife, Gail curled up with her laptop on the office couch and went over the case notes. She wrote up an idea for Chloe to get her CIs to make Red nervous, and Steve to get his to make the Hills suspect. There were a lot of other smaller cases going on as well. Not all needed her supervision, but she was still expected to know the details on all of them.

The sound of the garage door startled her out of the deep dive into a case about a bribe. A few moments later, a much quieter Vivian came up the stairs. There was a creak of a door and then a shoeless daughter came into the office. "Hey, Mom. Everything okay?"

Gail smiled. "You are a very strange and wonderful child, Viv."

Her daughter screwed up her face. "Mom's dead asleep and you're up working."

And Vivian knew that could mean a few things, one of which being Gail had a nightmare. And if it was that, Vivian often knew, and always would stay up with her. Because that was the kind of child they'd raised. "Nah, I'm just a little wired." Gail closed her laptop. "How was the date?"

Vivian shrugged. "I thought it was going okay." She leaned in the doorway, reminding Gail of her brother and how he would frame a door. Or maybe that was how she looked, and Vivian was mimicking her.

"Okay doesn't sound great."

"I don't think it is. She gave me a look when I left."

Gail glanced at the wall clock. It was two. Then she studied her daughter. "Not spending the night, huh?" Morose, Vivian shook her head. Whatever was going on up in her kid's brain, the girl didn't want to talk about it yet. So Gail smiled and made the offer she'd always made to her child, from the time she'd been six and silent. "Well. If you can't sleep, we can play some Mario Kart."

A slow smile crossed Vivian's face. Relief. It was a familiar moment for them both, clearly. "I call Bowser," she said, turning to go back downstairs.

Some things didn't always need to change.


Ugh.

That was not a great way to start her shift. She'd only had a few hours of sleep anyway, having played Mario Kart with her mother for an hour after getting home. Then she got up and went running with her other mother. Probably not the best choices.

"What's wrong?" Lara glanced over as Vivian tapped on her phone.

"I just got dumped."

The other cop startled. "In a text? Are you sure?"

Vivian nodded. "Pretty sure 'I think we should see other people' is code for 'I'm not that into you.'" She had replied, just asking if Beth wanted to talk about it. The next reply of 'Not really' was fast enough that Vivian was certain she was, once again, single. Ugh was the only possible reaction.

"Seriously? She said that?"

"Yep," said Vivian, and she popped the P loudly like Gail did and like Holly still hated. "Fuck it, I'm ignoring my phone today." Vivian turned the sound off and shoved it in her thigh pocket.

Lara shook her head. "Jesus. I thought maybe dating women would be easier since, you know, you're both women."

Vivian looked out the window of the car. "I don't have a comparison. I went on one date with a boy when I was twelve." Absently, she wondered how he was.

"How'd that work out?"

With a shrug, Vivian pointed out the obvious. "Lesbian."

Her partner laughed. "Fair enough. I guess people are people."

"You sure you're a cop?" Vivian grinned as Lara laughed again. She liked working with Lara. Of all the rookies, she felt like Lara could be a really good friend. Of course she adored Christian, but they were friends of long circumstance and coincidence. In a weird way, they had too much in common.

She did have another good friend. Matty. It was impossible to save someone from a beating and not be his friend forever. But Matty was in New York City, studying at Parson's School for a Design, and dating an opera singer. His dream was to be a costume designer for the opera. His boyfriend, whom Vivian had met over video chat a few times, was totally smitten with Matty, and kept agitating that they should come visit. They talked a lot, but …

It wasn't the same, having one best friend in New York and happily dating, and the other in San Diego. Also happily dating and really not her best friend at all anymore. Apparently Olivia's mother didn't even know, which was all the more galling. Vivian had tried hinting that Olivia was seeing someone and Noelle had just looked confused. A secret boyfriend whom Olivia was serious about, and yet not someone she wanted to tell her parents about.

"People are confusing," she said to Lara.

The other cop nodded. "Sure as hell they are." They rode in silence for a few blocks. "What's it like having parents who are married forever?"

Vivian blinked. "Is that really weird?"

"Yeah. Jenny's parents divorced when she was a kid. Rich's were never married. Christian said his weren't. My mom is my step-mom."

"You do know I was adopted, right?"

"Yeah, and your moms have been married for like a million years."

Okay. That was true. "Twenty." She leaned back and studied the road. "They'll be twenty years this spring."

Lara looked surprised. "No shit? That's amazing."

"I guess it is." Vivian pointed at the light. "Take the next left. There's construction."

"Huzzah for another day sitting and watching an empty building all day." Lara took the turn and then the next and then they parked across the street from the empty warehouse.

"Huzzah," said Vivian. She picked up the car radio. "Dispatch, 1513. On site at warehouse on Kent. Nothing to report." Dropping the radio, she slouched in the seat. "We can't even keep the heat on."

The both hunched into their coats and sighed. "This is so boring. Why did I think being a cop would be cool?"

Vivian grinned. "You watched TV." She blew on her hands and pulled her gloves on. "Mindless procedure is the hallmark of our career."

Lara sighed. "We're on surveillance."

Holding up a finger, Vivian pointed out the obvious. "Of an empty building that isn't even a real target. It's just a satellite location, which means it doesn't matter."

The other cop scowled. "You're ruining my dreams that this will be the real meet point. I mean, Three Rivers owns the building, right?"

"They own a bunch of buildings. We're rookies. We're here to put the pressure on while ETF and the Ds and the experienced cops kick in the real doors in a couple days."

"You sound jealous," said Lara, knowingly.

In truth, Vivian was. She really liked the work that ETF and Sue Tran did. "Gotta walk before we can run, Volk."

"Avoiding the subject."

"Yeah? You taking the courses to be a D now that we're cut loose?"

Lara smirked at Vivian. "You are way too sharp."

"I can smell it on you. Cheap suits. Take out food."

"Oh! And what about you?"

Vivian smiled. "You tell me."

That quieted the other woman for a while. "I think you're a secret adrenaline junkie. And you're going to run into buildings because they make more sense than people. Especially girls who dump you by text."


The first new frame in the bedroom was hilarious and perfect. It was one of the trite frames that held multiple pictures, and Gail had filled it with some of Holly's favorite photos from college. It was a college collage. Just like she'd joked she was going to do. It was beautiful and a wonderful reminder of what she'd been.

But Gail had also put up a collection of photos of herself. Backpacking in Europe, a glamour shot from something or another, and a few goofing around with her friends from Fifteen. It was less college style than Holly's, but Gail hadn't come out of her shell until she was a little older.

Holly ran her fingers over the pictures, hanging now above their dressers, and smiled. Sometimes people asked if Gail was romantic and did things like surprise her with flowers or a special cooked meal. Sometimes Gail did. She loved cooking. But that wasn't romantic to Holly at all. No, romantic wasn't going up to the cabin for a long weekend of enjoying each other and quiet, either.

Romantic was Gail taking an hour or two out of her hectic day, planning a massive gang related op, to make something special for Holly. Romantic was Gail doing this when she was distracted and still thought about Holly.

"You are such a cheese puff, Gail." Holly shook her head, smiling, and turned to strip the sheets off the bed. The towels went into her pile as well, and then she went for the guest room. It was used often enough to justify keeping it as a bedroom. But that meant they had to wash the unused linens once in a while. Holly tossed those sheets and towels into the pile in the hallway and then went into Vivian's room.

They used to always do laundry on Saturdays, but with Vivian's schedule it was getting harder to dedicate a day to clean as a family. Vivian's room showed that more than any other place in the house. The bed was unmade, the desk a mess of whatever she was working on for fun, and her bathroom ... Well.

Holly sighed and folded the quilt, a present from Lily, putting it in the window seat, before stripping the bed, collecting the towels, and tossing all of that into the hallway. She wasn't about to clean her daughter's room. The last thing she wanted was to find her kid's porn or worse. But she was going to leave a note. She looked for a pen and paper and found, instead, a familiar photo frame with an unfamiliar photo of a girl.

It was Vivian, except not Vivian. The face was different. Wider. Softer cheekbones. Curlier hair. Darker skin. Where Vivian had a mere suggestion of First People in her genetics, this girl had a clear certainty. But she looked incredibly like Vivian at about eight years old. The girl was sitting on a step Holly didn't recognized, eating an ice cream cone, smiling. Happy.

The realization that it was Kimberly, Vivian's sister, in the photo hit hard.

Holly had to sit down.

When did that happen? When had this photo appeared? Of course. This was why Vivian had wanted the frame the other day. "Honey," she said softly and picked up the photo.

Vivian had slogged through a pretty tough year. Had she remembered more and not told them? Holly could only remember a few times that Vivian had asked about her old photos or asked to look at them. She'd always seemed so firmly dedicated to shoving her old life away. But here it was on display.

Wiping her eyes, Holly put the frame back. There was nothing she could say about this. She couldn't tell Vivian she'd seen the photo. She didn't know if she should tell Gail. They tried to respect Vivian's privacy like she was anyone else and not someone they worried about and wanted to make life better for.

Something was going on with their daughter. Something was changing, for better or for worse. Beyond just growing up and becoming independent, Vivian was looking at the world different and thinking differently. Slowly, she was stepping away from them and carving out life the way she wanted to live it. Things were going to be different in the end, and Holly just couldn't tell where it would end.

She couldn't answer that right now. All Holly could do was start a load of laundry for her two hard working cops, knowing they'd do the same for her when her cases consumed her.

That's what family did. The little things.


"Dispatch, 1513 on location. Trinidad warehouse. Nothing to report." Rich grumbled as he put the radio back on the hook. "We're not going to be involved in the takedown at all."

Wearily, Vivian repeated the same thing she'd told everyone. "We're rookies, Rich. We're not supposed to be involved in shit like that."

"We haven't even gotten to do undercover work for real!"

That was true. "You really want to prove you can do UC by dressing up like a rent boy?" Rich startled and stared at Vivian. "What? You didn't know that's first? Since no one knows us, we'll get sent out to places and try and catch people. It's a first-run, make sure we can do well outside our comfort zone." She yawned and stretched in the car. After that came being dropped off in the middle of nowhere and making it back with their wits and as much illegal crap as possible. Gail still hated that she hadn't been able to do that.

"Shit. Prostitutes?"

Vivian smiled. "You thought there was something glamorous in UC? After this shit for a week?" She gestured at the boring warehouse in front of them. "We're watching an empty warehouse."

Rich scowled and sulked in his seat like a child. "It doesn't make sense."

"Which part? Hookers or empty buildings?"

Gesturing with both hands at the building, Rich said, "This! Anyone could do it! We're highly trained police officers."

Vivian couldn't stifle her laugh. "No we're not. We're rookies, Rich! We're the 'anyone' of Fifteen. We're the monkeys who do the shitty scut work."

He folded his arms and scowled. "It sucks. I don't like it. They put me in charge of this shit."

That was true. Andy had put Rich in charge of the patrol. His job was to determine when they went on a drive around, when they checked various things, and so on. It wasn't a real 'in charge' deal, they all knew that, but it made him feel better. "You got an idea?"

He didn't answer. Right. Vivian leaned forward and watched the building. Nothing was going on. Nothing was ever going on. Eventually Rich's watch beeped. "Drive around. Go that way," he said and pointed to his right.

"Sure." She started the car and made a slow patrol before returning to their spot. Secluded. A good vantage point. They spent the next three hours in silence. They made the same patrol three times. That was when they both saw something odd.

"Is that 1504?" Rich leaned forward as he asked.

Vivian was staring right at it. "Yeah... It has the dent where C spun out." That had been last week, and was why he was stuck on desk duty. "I can pull in there, it's got enough room for both."

Nodding, Rich sighed. "Fuck, are we at the wrong building?"

"Dispatch would've said," she said, though she was uncertain. Dispatch should have already told them at least that there was someone else around.

Both Lara and Jenny in 1504 were equally confused. "No one said you'd be here too. That's really weird." Jenny reached for the radio in her car.

"Hang on," said Rich. "What if this is a test? McNally's new as the Staff, right? She could be feeling us out. See how we follow directions. How we think independently. Do we make the right decisions?" He pivoted and looked at Vivian. "They do shit like that, right?"

She hesitated. Gail would. Gail would give her enough rope. She always had been the kind of parent who let Vivian find her strengths, make mistakes, learn from them. Everyone was looking at the legacy Peck. "Yes," Vivian said slowly. "They do. Sometimes."

Rich looked excited and that made Jenny and Lara grin. "So this? This is our test. It's gotta be!"

Vivian frowned. "I ... I don't know, Rich."

"Hey, hey, they put me in charge of buildings, right?" When she nodded, he went on. "They didn't do that before."

That was also true. "Okay. Okay, just for a second let's say you're right, Hanford. What do they want us to do? Watch and not trip over our own feet?"

"Watch and be invisible and not trip over our feet." Rich looked around and then darted into their cruiser, pulling up a map. "Okay, I got an idea. Peck, c'mere." He showed her the map and explained his idea for how to patrol without crossing paths or looking too obvious. It was, Vivian had to admit, not stupid. Every second sweep, they'd meet back up here and talk. Keep it off the radios.

And that was how they did it.

They did two sweeps, met up, took turns for lunch, and then two more. They had two more sweeps before shift was over. Two more before freedom. Two more before she just fucking asked Gail if Andy was playing some stupid game.

Which was when they saw someone pull up to the building.

Vivian continued her drive by, casual as if nothing was odd at all. "Don't look," she told Rich. "Look in your side mirror."

Without moving her head, she let her eyes flick left and then up. She could see him clearly in her mirror. Bobby Blue Zanaro Jr. "Is that..."

"Yep. I'm going to lose him when I turn. Can you see him?"

"He went in the building."

Crap. "Okay. We'll be able to see him from our spot. If he goes before then, though, we might miss it."

"Gotta chance it, Peck."

"I'm just saying. I don't like the odds." But she kept the car going as normal, around the block, down, turn, slow for the stop. Check the street... Steal a glance at the parking lot. He was still there. The next turn took the car out of sight for five minutes. Five long minutes. Rich's plan didn't have full coverage of the lot. It was better than one car alone. But.

She pulled into their shared surveillance spot, trusting Jenny was smart enough to do the same.

"Gone." Rich got out of the car as soon as they stopped. "He was still inside when we lost sight. I had maybe ten, thirty more seconds than you did."

Vivian got out of the car and leaned on it. "Four minutes, thirty seconds unaccounted for."

"You sound like a D."

She glanced at him. "I listen." She turned her full attention to the where the car was. The ground was damp from the recent weird thaw they'd had. Much of the snow had melted away. You could hear gravel underfoot. What would that mean? Vivian was still thinking about it when 1504 pulled in.

Rich pounced. "Did you see when he left?"

"Yeah," said Lara, getting out. "When did he go in?" Vivian told her the time. "Okay. He was in for three minutes and maybe twenty seconds? What the hell can you do in three minutes?"

You could do a lot. Rob a bank. Jack a car. Kill someone. Vivian frowned.

Rich, on the other hand, grinned. "Let's find out."

She stated at him. "Are you insane? We call this shit in!"

"Hey. I'm in charge, right?" Rich puffed up his chest and Vivian gagged. But he was. "That was that Blue guy, alone. He went in, he did something, he left. We should check it out."

Vivian hesitated and then frowned more. "We should call it in. We're supposed to be watching, not haring off."

"Do you always do what you're told?"

She frowned more but locked the cruiser and put her keys safely in her pocket. "Fine. But this goes ass end up, you're in charge," she told Rich.

"That's my girl!" He clapped her shoulder. "Volk, Aronson. You guys go around the side. Peck and I will take the door Blue went through."

This felt like a phenomenally bad idea. She checked her gun and pulled out her flashlight. They quietly walked to the door and Rich tried it. Locked. He backed up, as if to kick, and Vivian stayed his hand. "Honestly, you might as well set up a bat signal, idiot."

"You have a better idea?"

Tucking her flashlight under her arm, Vivian pulled out her keys. She picked the bumper that looked closest and slid it in. Calmly she wiggled it and then tapped with the butt of her flashlight. Another wiggle, another tap and then the lock clicked. Smiling, she turned the key and opened the door. "Technology, Hanford."

Rich looked impressed. "That was seriously cool."

"You should see what I can do with an RC car." She tucked the keys away and let Rich go in first. The room was empty but they both drew their guns and carefully swept the area. "Clear." Except for the wood and metal crates. Which didn't make sense. It was supposed to be an empty warehouse.

"Clear," confirmed Rich. The other door opened and they swiveled, but it was Lara and Jenny.

"Door was locked," said Jenny, holding up her picks. "Clear over here too." They all holstered their guns. "I thought this was supposed to be unused."

Rich walked around the boxes. "This is weird." He reached for a box and then hesitated. "What if it's a bomb?"

Vivian tilted her head and squatted by the box. Bomb in a wood box, set to go off when the lid was opened. "He wasn't here long enough to set that up. Takes a couple hours to get it right. And quick and dirty would show signs on the lid." She carefully studied the lid of two boxes. "The metal ones are possible. But those are the size of ammo cases." Feeling the confidence that came with knowledge and experience, Vivian carefully took the lid off.

They all stared. "Holy fuck."

"Mother of god," whispered Lara. "Those are not legal."

Racks and racks of semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons. Vivian looked at the ammo boxes. "Crap on a cracker," she said. They opened another crate and found the same. Slightly different but the same. Jesus. "Uh, this we should call in."

"Ya think?" Rich reached for his radio when they all heard a car pull up on the gravel.

"Shit." Jenny pulled the lid back in place. "Can we make the door?"

"Unlikely," said Vivian, running the calculation in her head. "They'd see us getting outside. Did you lock the door?"

Jenny nodded. "Yeah, you?"

"Yeah." Vivian looked around, fighting to stay calm. Hide. They had to hide.

Lara was moving to the back. "Boiler room," she said, her voice a low hiss. They scrambled and squeezed in behind the body of a broken ... something. Vivian didn't recognize it. "If it's like last time, it'll be a minute, maybe two."

"Unless he came back 'cause he saw something the first time," Jenny said. She sounded scared. "Jesus. Did we just stumble on to a gang war?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," whispered Rich. "I can't hear them."

They all fell silent, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

"What the hell is all this?" A man was shouting. "Jackie, this is our shipment. This is our gear. What the hell is it doing in a fucking Hill house?" Ours. That made him Blue? Probably.

"You don't know a god damned thing, Bobby." A woman. Angry. "I told you. I'm playing the numbers. That's why you tapped me. I know numbers." That meant she was Jackie 'Red' Reynolds for sure.

A third voice, a woman, cut in. "I told you the guns were a bad idea. We shoulda kept to the drugs."

"Because you know drugs!" Jackie again. "God, Veronica, you are such a tool. Thinking you're all awesome and special 'cause you're a fucking doctor! Jesus, what the fuck kind of nickname is Spikes anyway?"

That sounded like a long standing argument. And it escalated. Craning her neck, Vivian tried to get a good view of them. "Shit," she hissed, watching the guns come out.

Blue had his aimed at Red. "Why did you do it, Jackie? Huh? Ten years I've been planning this shit. Why did you pick them? We're blood."

Jackie's gun was aimed at Blue, as were everyone's from the Hill group. "So are they."

Veronica had no gun. She was staring at Jackie's face intently. "Anton..."

The gun on Jackie's hand wavered. It swung to Veronica and then back again. "Yes."

"Wanna explain that one, Spikes?" Blue shifted his stance. Centering. He was going to kill his cousin.

"You know the answer, Bobby," Veronica said softly. "You looked Anton Hill right in the eyes."

His head snapped to Veronica and then Jackie. Then he stared hard. "You didn't want us to kill him. You let us."

"No. I couldn't stop you, there's a difference, Bobby." She shifted her grip. "He knew, you know. He knew who killed him."

"You told him." Veronica wasn't shocked. She was sad. "Jackie. Why didn't you tell me? I would have..." She trailed off.

"You wouldn't. You couldn't." Jackie shook her head. "Same reason I didn't." Both women looked at Bobby.

Rich tugged her arm and mouthed 'can you hear them?' Vivian nodded and mouthed 'blackmail' back at him. As she turned back, Vivian saw Veronica walk over and stand beside Jackie.

"Bobby, I'm sorry," said Veronica, regretfully. "I never wanted to be a killer." She looked at Jackie. "Blood is thicker than water, Bobby."

"Well. That's just you then, Ronnie." And Bobby Blue's hand twitched and he shot his cousin, Veronica 'Spikes' Van Lowe, in the knee.

All hell broke loose. Both sides screamed at each other. Vivian swore and hunched as small as she could get, hating every inch of her six-one height just then. Behind her, Jenny spoke. "I'm calling this in."

"Wait," said Rich. "I'm in charge!"

Jenny snapped, "Well you're not doing your damn job, Rich!" She thumbed her radio. "4749, 10-33, shots fired. I repeat shots fired."

Vivian closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. They had a whole damn police force at their backs. All they had to do was wait. So what could they do now? They weren't taking fire yet, which meant the gangs were still shooting at each other and not them. Which meant… "Don't shoot back," she said quietly to the others.

"Are you actually insane?" Rich's face was pale.

"Yeah, I also don't want them to realize we're here." Vivian glanced around. "You get that, right? They're not shooting at us."

Jenny hissed. "You're saying we just watch them shoot the hell out of each other and do nothing? We're cops. We're supposed to stop that!"

"Jenny, there are at least twenty of them and four of us. They have automatic weapons. We have 23s. You called it in. Wait for orders." She turned and looked through a small space, trying to get a better view. "Because if they see us, we're dead."


There were perks to being the boss. There were perks to the future. Gail had her computer setup to alert her if anything triggered her complicated set of rules of whatever she was monitoring at the time, leaving her free to think while trusting the computer to ping her when needed.

Today, setup day, was a day she expected to be quiet. The empty warehouses were all being publicly and visibly monitored, flushing out any gang members. Increasing the watch on more places, the pressure on the Rivers was amped up. They'd all be driven to the Upper Don river, their currently HQ, and like a pincer the cops would descend and take them apart.

It was Steve's plan and it was a great one. He'd taken the news that Jackie 'Red' was double dealing surprisingly well. Better than Gail had in a lot of ways. Immediately Steve switched up his plans and got Chloe's UC ops start to shift the priority within a day. They dropped the whole 'cousins revenge' angle, even though they knew that Anton Hill had been the one who suggested the 'young guns' of Three Rivers oust all their older members. Instead they started to feel information, dropping hints that they knew Red was working with the Hills. They suggested to Blue and Spikes' crews that, maybe someone was a spy. Hadn't there been leaked information?

The plan was working perfectly so far. The Rivers Clan tightened up and Blue and Spikes were having 'secret meetings' all the time. Red was starting to notice, and in turn the Hill Gang was tightening ranks.

And the joke was on all of them because the cops had the gun warehouse in their sights.

Neither gang kept the guns at their main locations. Neither were known as gun gangs, as it were, so they had them in warehouses that Red had been in charge of. And Red had been shuffling the weapons back and forth to the point that probably only she really knew what was where. It looked like the Hills had more guns but the Rivers had more bullets.

It was really mind boggling, the levels and layers everyone was up to. Gail had to keep projecting the breakdown onto her wall to keep it straight, which John found hilarious. She was known for being able to keep the tangled motives and plans of criminals clear in her mind, and here Gail was a little swamped. Maybe it was old age. Maybe she was slowing down. Gail didn't think so.

No. She knew what she as doing and how to do it well. She had the plan to gate crash the Rivers/Hill little meeting tomorrow. The meeting where she expected everyone to break out into full blown warfare. And while Sue Tran's ETF nut jobs busted in on the meeting of heavily armed gangs, Fifteen would be picking up the Rivers gun warehouse and TwentySeven (led by Swarek) would grab the one for the Hills.

Of course it wasn't perfect, but, all of it was planned and crafted well. Gail had the utmost confidence in the plan. And none of it was supposed to be happening today. Tomorrow they were going to collect the idiots, go directly to Go, collect $200, and be fucking heroes for the city who never knew it was in danger all along. It was a plan that made her love her job.

So why was her computer pinging her all of the sudden? Why was Upper Don lighting up like a Christmas tree? Why was a kid's voice shouting at Dispatch about…

Gail stared at the radio app on her computer. That was Aronson's voice. Aronson was in Vivian's rookie class, the amusing and kinda slutty one who was also a legacy cop, but didn't tell anyone because her dad had done time for corruption. Jenny Aronson. She'd changed her full name at ten. Or had it changed. Gail remembered her entire jacket in one go.

"What the hell?" She surged to her feet and kicked her door open. "John! Where the hell are the rookies?"

Her sergeant and work husband looked startled. "They're at the warehouse on the Lower Don. What—" John stopped and tapped at his keyboard. "What the hell!? Where the — That's not right!"

"Some one screwed up big time, John. Those kids are at the hotspot! Shots fired. We've got to go now. Get Steve on the line. Go!" Gail turned back without waiting to see if John was in motion — he was, she knew it. She grabbed her gear, suiting up as fast as she could. The rote and rhythm of kitting up calmed her a little. It let her push the panic that her kid was there out of her head.

But then she picked up her vest and she stopped. Gail ran her hand over the front of her vest. This was her new vest, the new liner. They had all gotten new vests that year. When Vivian had gotten hers, her very own with her name stitched on it, she'd brought it to Gail's office and asked her to write something.

It was an idea Gail had gotten from Nick. He'd learned it from the military, writing weird messages. Like she'd seen his once, back when it said "Whatever happens, it was worth it" written down. He'd written that about Andy. The day he wrote that, she dumped him for Sam. And yet he lived with her now in the end. It was, he told Gail recently, all worth it. Everything.

In many ways, Gail had to agree that everything had been worth it. But for her daughter, who had written "Everything good I learned from my Moms" in her's, Gail knew what she had to say. It was four words. Four words that were incredibly Peck, but appropriate none the less. "Know who you are." That was it. Holly hadn't told Gail what she'd written, but Vivian showed her. "Think." That was very Holly.

This new vest of Gail's, though. She'd only worn it a few times, and she'd yet to have her family write in it. The drive to carry a piece of Holly's words around with her all the time seemed less important. Holly was indelibly a part of her now. Everything she was today was touched by Holly, and she didn't feel like a talisman was necessary.

Which meant Gail hadn't written anything either. And right now, for some reason, that felt horribly dangerous. Gail pulled the vest back off and rattled through her drawers. She knew she still had that pen in there somewhere from when Vivian had come in and, when she found it, she shook it hard. The ball rattled in the ink cartridge.

Then she wrote.

Plus Ones Forever.

As the ink dried, Gail texted Holly, letting her know she was going out to handle an incident, and she loved her. Her wife knew what that meant. It had been almost twenty-five years. Holly knew that Gail would only text if she had to go do something possibly dangerous, and it was never to scare her, but always to keep Holly aware.

It was a habit Vivian had picked up on and, before she went off on patrol, always texted her mothers to let them know she loved them. Sometimes Vivian's note was a little sillier (like "You guys were loud last night.") or she'd just use an emoji or two. But that message, that note that she was thinking of them never failed to be sent. Gail wondered when that would change. When would Vivian had someone else she found it more important to text instead of them? Would she?

That thought had to be shelved. Gail had bigger fish to fry, like making sure the rookies were safe and not exactly where she didn't want them to be.

Her phone beeped before she could turn off the sound. It was Holly.

Be safe, honey. I love you.

Gail smiled and shoved the silenced phone into her pocket.

Be safe.

She sure as hell hoped so.


TO BE CONTINUED...

In three weeks. Sorry, but we're going sailing.

The 'Miss May' calendar is a shout out to the fic of that name. I do hat tips like that when I can.