AN: Well you're lucky, the muse has been vicious today and has stopped me doing any of the study I meant to!

You benefit from my procrastination though and you have the longest thing outside of a uni assignment that I've ever written. Still no family reaction but the muse hasn't let up yet, so today may even become a triple bill! It is ridiculously long but I just couldn't find a good place to cut it! So enjoy! Reviews are still loved and adored ;)

Previously on Bombshells:

"Consider it done Commissioner, and your detail are ready downstairs sir. We really do need to leave for that meeting now."

And just like that Abigail Baker had her next assignment, integrating sergeant Copter and her and Joe's daughter Maddy into the tight knit Reagan family.

Frank had barely been able to focus all afternoon. His mind had been running and rerunning the conversation that had turned his world inside out. Joe's daughter. Maddy. Madeline Josephine. A very pretty name indeed. Is she like him? Does she look like any of us?

His meeting with the mayor, the fire commissioner and the heads of several of the city's major hospitals had been an absolute chore but he'd managed to force himself to focus enough for most of it so he knew they'd been discussing strategies for the containment of a biological attack on the city. Baker would have taken enough extra notes that he could catch up later that evening.

Baker. How he would have survived the last five years as commissioner without that wonder by his side he honestly had no idea, as far as he was concerned she deserved a medal. The mayor often made comments about trying to entice her away from the police department and into City Hall but Frank knew she wouldn't leave. The mayor only knew one side of the incredible woman. Frank knew her not just as Baker his right hand, but as Detective A. Baker, formidable frauds detective and vice squad member; and as Abigail, one of the kindest, gentlest and most loyal women he had ever had the privilege to call a friend.

When she had first met his family Frank had been surprised at how well she managed to blend in, even dealing with one of his eldest children's abrasive Sunday arguments as easily as she dealt with anything that got sent her way at the office. She'd hit it off so well with Joe that Frank had secretly suspected there may be something between them, and he would not have had a bad word to say about it. And you call yourself a Detective Frank Reagan? Right under your nose for months and you couldn't tell your boy was in love? And now you have to try and explain the whole situation to everyone else.

He realised then just how hard it must have been for the young Met officer to walk into his office that morning. Ever since he'd had Baker call the family telling them to come over that evening he'd been fielding anxious text messages from his children. He'd simply replied telling them that it was not anything life threatening but it was important and he would tell them all tonight. The truth was he couldn't face the idea of telling them each individually, this was something the whole family needed to hear together. No wonder she couldn't stand the thought of having to tell it all twice over.

His thoughts now though were heading a thousand miles away from the stack of paperwork on his desk; he was focussed on the clock in the corner of his office as it ticked inexorably closer to 1800 when he and his detail were leaving to go to the Oak Apartments.

As soon as he had returned to his office after the meeting he had fired up his computer and used it to find out everything the NYPD and the internet in general knew about the Oak Apartments. There had been a domestic call out to the place three years ago which resulted in an assault arrest against a 30 year old male who had tracked down his run away wife and had been intent on bringing her back to their home in Iowa, the man was now serving a five year sentence for grievous domestic assault, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

Just as the young sergeant had said, the childcare arrangements had glowing recommendations, but just to be absolutely certain Frank had run the staff through the NYPD database. They all came back clean except for a night security officer who had a DUI conviction from 10 years ago and a member of the cleaning staff who had been arrested for possession of marijuana in her teens but had no record since. Satisfied that there were no immediate concerns with the place Frank's mind had settled slightly and he had made a sterling effort of working his way steadily through his paperwork. That had lasted until about 1630 when he ran out of urgent paperwork and his mind had begun to drift to his plans for the evening.

A knock on the door shook him from his reverie and he looked up to see Baker standing in the doorway. "It's time for us to go Commissioner. Once we arrive there the detail will fall back to a discrete distance and leave you and the sergeant to your business."

"Thank you Baker." Frank felt a sensation in the pit of his stomach he couldn't remember having since his first tour after he graduated from the academy. He couldn't quite believe that the thought of meeting a three year old girl could give him the same feeling of butterflies that meeting his gruff training officer had given him then.

Only hopefully this meeting went better than that one. It still caused his father much hilarity to recount how a young Trainee Officer F. Reagan, intent on getting off on the best foot, had been considerate enough to bring his new TO a steaming cup of coffee, only to trip over his unlaced boot and pour said steaming cup of coffee all over a shocked Sergeant McElroy! Frank allowed his thoughts to drift as he got into the car, and they made their way towards the Oaks.

*BB*BB*BB*BB*

Ellie made it back to the Oaks at half past one. The trip to Joe's grave had been hard. She hadn't been prepared for just how raw the wound that Joe's death had left in her chest still was. She'd spent almost an hour sitting by his headstone crying and spilling her guts, telling him everything he'd missed in her life; about Maddy, about her promotion to sergeant last year which had come with a transfer to her dream department in the Met, the mounted police.

Joe had been one of only a few people she had confided that dream to, she didn't want the blokes at work thinking she was a girly horse lover (even if a part of her still secretly wished her dad had brought her a pony for her eighth, ninth or tenth birthdays!) She got enough crap on the job because of her size; barely scratching five foot six and built like a pixie was not the ideal body type for a police officer, letting on that she actually enjoyed being a girl sometimes was just asking for more practical jokes and banter to turn her way. Not that she couldn't give as good as she got, but she just preferred to be the one giving it out!

It wasn't the first time she'd talked to Joe since his death. She still, even four years later, spoke to him most nights before she went to sleep. On the best nights those conversations were followed by dreams of her and Joe (and later Maddy had joined them) talking, laughing and living the life that they had spoken so much about. In the beginning waking from those dreams had hurt so much she had cried most mornings when she realised it had been a dream. But the longer it went on the rarer the dreams became and the more she came to treasure them than hate them.

But the dreams weren't her only contact with Joe. Underneath her bed back in London there was a box. It had been a present from her dad for her sixteenth birthday; he had said she was old enough to have secrets, dreams and things which deserved a safe place to be kept secret forever. The box was a solid antique made of cedar and carved on top with the figure of a saint. Her father explained that the cedar was used historically to prevent insects damaging the books and papers that would have been stored inside, and the saint (after some enquiries to the local Catholic church) was St Raymond Nonnatus; patron saint of midwives and obstetricians, he was also the saint invoked when keeping secrets as the patron saint of priests taking confessions.

So her box of secrets had some divine help, and as a teenager it had been full of lists of boys she and her friends had crushes on and places they dreamed of going. It had been where she had stored her application to police training college until she'd had the guts to tell her dad she was joining the Met. And now it was where she kept her letters to Joe. She'd started doing it when he'd moved back to New York, they talked almost every day but she still wrote him a letter every Friday night, she'd spray them with perfume and seal them with a kiss; it was sappy as hell, but it made her smile to think of the traces of her that would still be on the paper when it reached him in New York. She had maintained the tradition after he died, but rather than posting his letters, she would carefully put them in her box of treasures and pray for St Raymond Nonnatus to deliver them to Joe in Heaven, still sealed with a kiss and a spray of perfume.

She had shaken off the lingering sadness as she walked into the lobby of the Oaks and headed to the crèche at the rear with a passing smile to the helpful girl on the front desk. Opening the door of the crèche she peered in to see the small group of children sitting in a circle on the floor obviously playing some kind of game, involving a blindfolded child in the centre and a set of keys that were being passed around the outer circle. She smiled at the younger woman who was running the game with a watchful eye and waited patiently for the game to draw to a close. As the circle broke up a little bundle of energy spotted her at the door and came flying at her like a guided missile.

"MUMMY!" Ellie couldn't help the grin on her face as she bent down and swept up the over-excited little girl in a tight embrace ignoring the brown curls which were tickling her nose.

"Maddy! Have you had a good day?" She braced herself for the torrent of chatter she was about to get.

"It was so much fun Mum, come and meet my new friend Miss Taylor, she's really nice, and this is Michael, he wasn't very nice when I got here this morning but we're friends now, and that's Charlotte but she said I had to call her Charlie because she hates Charlotte like I make people call me Maddy because I don't like Madeline, and we painted pictures this morning Mummy, I painted us in the big plane that we flew through the air in to get here." All of that came flooding out of her little ball of energy in one big breath as Ellie found herself towed towards the young woman, obviously Miss Taylor, who ran the centre.

"Mummy, this is Miss Taylor, she's really great she helped me paint the birds in my painting," Maddy announced.

"Alison Taylor, nice to meet you Mrs Copter," the young woman held her hand out and Ellie shook it politely.

"It's just Miss, Alison, pleasure to meet you too. Thanks for looking after the energiser bunny all day." The young woman laughed.

"Yes she certainly can keep going! Does she crash and burn at the end of the day?"

"Oh, you have no idea, it's all go from the time she wakes up until her body just shuts down around 7. Then I get to breathe!"

"Well she's been an absolute pleasure to have here today. Will she be back tomorrow?" Ellie looked down at Maddy who had dashed off to start jabbering at a hundred miles an hour with another little girl. At the mention of the next day she had abruptly remembered her plans for the evening and the next day, she felt ill all over again.

"No we have plans tomorrow and we'll play it by ear from then on. Thanks again for having her today." Ellie reached into her bag for her purse and tipped the young woman who looked very happy with the extra cash. She then looked for her little pocket rocket and found her on the other side of the room collecting a painting from a little clothesline on the wall.

"Come on Maddy! Time for us to go." When her little girl returned to her side Ellie reached down and grabbed her hand and began walking towards the door. At the door Maddy stopped, turned around and said goodbye to the entire room, more than half of the kids chorused her farewell back to her and then Maddy was ready for the rest of her day with her Mum.

Ellie had the rest of the afternoon planned. After a quick sit down upstairs where she made herself a cup of tea and gave Maddy a biscuit and a glass of apple juice while being appropriately encouraging of her daughter's artistic talent, even if the birds were almost as big as the plane and she and Maddy had melded into some kind of flesh coloured two headed blob monster looking out of an incredibly out of proportion aeroplane window. She made Maddy tell her the rules, no talking to strangers, no running off on her own and if she did get separated from mummy she was to go up to the first policeman she saw and tell him she had lost her mummy and she had mummy's number in her pocket.

It was something she had drilled into Maddy from the first time they had gone into the city when Maddy was capable of toddling around without holding her hand. Maddy put the laminated piece of bright green paper into her pocket, and Ellie smiled, she could remember writing it the day before they had gone to a teddy bear's picnic in Hyde Park when Maddy was a little over two, it said:

Hi my name is Madeline Josephine Copter, my mummy is a police woman but I've lost her! Her number is 01303892406 please help me find her!

Then she had a horrible thought, Maddy knew what police looked like in London, but here in New York they wore different uniforms! "Maddy, you know mummy's police uniform back home is black?"

Her three year old was looking at her like she was an idiot, "yes Mummy, you wear it all the time!"

"Maddy this is important! You know we got on the plane and we flew here to New York? Well we're in a different place and police here don't look the same. Here the police wear blue, and they have funny looking flat blue hats."

"Why do the police wear different things here Mummy?" The question was innocent enough but like so many other things her daughter had asked her over the years Ellie was left scrambling for an answer.

"Umm… well… they work for different people Mads, so to make sure they don't get mixed up with other police they wear different clothes." Gosh I hope that doesn't confuse things more, I just need her to know that police here wear blue for crying out loud!

"Okay, so if I get lost I find someone wearing blue with a hat like a pancake and give them the card?" Oh to be three, I say flat and the first thing she thinks is pancakes!

"Sounds good sweetheart, let's go!"

As it was she'd been paranoid, Maddy was an angel all afternoon and didn't need to find a policeman with a pancake hat, but Ellie made sure to point out every NYPD cop she saw so that Maddy knew what they looked like just in case! They went to Central Park and spent the afternoon throwing around a ball she'd bought from a small stall and chasing each other playing tag. By the time they jumped in the cab to head back to the hotel Ellie thought she just might have tired Maddy out enough that she'd behave when she got to meet her granddad.

They had dinner in the child friendly restaurant at the hotel and by the time Ellie had two seconds to look at her watch it was already 6.15. The butterflies returned with a vengeance but she squashed them to pay attention to Maddy's chatter about a dog they'd seen chasing it's own tail in the park.

Almost time she thought with more than a tinge of trepidation. Almost time for you to find out who you are my baby girl.