"So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light,
Cause, oh they gave me such a fright,
And I will hold on with all of my might,
Just promise me that we'll be alright."


7:30 pm

Fabray Residence

Quinn takes another large gulp out of her favorite mug until there was only a tiny drop left of the amber liquid. She feels the warm, burning sensation of the whiskey slightly tickle the back of her throat, but pays no attention to it. She sets the mug down on the floor and lays down on the bench and continues what she has been doing for the last three hours, numbly gazing at the dark basement ceiling as she tried to gather all of her racing thoughts. They bounced around in her head like a super ball trapped in a small room. From the team to Dani's devastated family then Dani and their unborn baby. She wants to figure out how one investigation that started out so promising could go so wrong? Was there some sort of sign or clue that she missed in her zeal to get as much dirt as possible as Brody in hindsight?

Occasionally, she finds herself gazing over at the spot by the stairs that was once stained in Brody's when she closes her blood shot eyes, she'll hear one of his last taunting sneers.

And you need to kill me to taste the sweetness of revenge.

The senior agent picks up the oval crystal bottle and pours more liquor into the mug. After the chaos surrounding the last few days or so with the funeral topping it all off, she needed to drink as much as her thirty-four year old body would allow. She wanted to forget her week of living hell for a moment. Even if that meant having the hangover to match on Monday morning that no amount of coffee could cure. It was the only thing that she had to look forward to during the silent ride back to the Naval Yard.


4:30pm

The drive back to the Naval Yard had been a lot quieter than it had been on the way there, the senior agent observed as she looked out the window at the greenery around them. She was grateful that Special Agent Schmidt, a technical analyst at NCIS, did not have an inquiring mind like the other members of her team. When she rushed into the black SUV, he hadn't asked why she wanted to leave so soon without anyone fact, the only time she could recall the young agent speaking to her during was when she first got inside of the car and his quiet announcement that they were getting close to the DC area. It gave her a little time to think about it all without having to worry about the rest of the team's constant probing and looks of pity.

Having the team there for them along with Michael and Jesse's words of encouragement, had lifted her mood a little. Even though she would never admit this to any of them, the blond did not know what she would do without her second, slightly dysfunctional, family in her life. She probably would not have been able to get through this horrible week without them looking out for her and working tirelessly throughout the week to find Brody.

When they finally arrived back to the Naval Yard, Quinn nearly leaps out of the SUV. She barely heard the soft spoken condolences Schmidt had offered her as she slammed the door. As fast as her heels would allow, she searched down the seemingly endless row of cars before finally finding her Charger and speeding home. Her normal thirty minute drive from the Yard to their cul de sac, had been cut in half as Quinn found herself going way over the speed limit to get there.

Once she arrived home, Quinn walked through the door and almost tripped over the despondent german shepard laying in the hallway with his head on his paws. She leaned down and scratched behind his black ears, only to receive a quiet whimper in reply. Ever since Dani died, the lively dog's mood seemed to have deteriorated considerably. All the dog does now is sit in the hallway or on the couch, staring restlessly at the front door. The blond

When she steps inside of the room, she sees the three silver paint cans from a few months ago, still sitting in their corner of the room that would have been their nursery. They had bought the paint last year, around the time of Dani's first round of invitro fertilization treatments. Quinn initially wanted to carry their child, but because of her position at NCIS, they decided it would be best if Dani were to carry the first time. She remembers how excited they were for Dani's first round of treatments and how they may have gotten ahead of themselves a little with planning the nursery.

"Whoa,whoa, whoa! What in the world do you think you're doing there McKenzie? You shouldn't lifting anything right now." Quinn said as she rushes over to the brunette, who was wearing her red and gold USC Trojans basketball jersey, topped with a blue Dodger's hat, at the entrance of the room. She takes the cans away from Dani, in spite of her assurance that she could handle it.

She takes the cans once she has the wired handles secured in her hands and takes them over to the corner of the room on the other side of the bed. Once the cans are on the floor, she walks away from them and looks up to find green eyes staring pointedly at her.

"I really wish you wouldn't fuss over me like that Quinn. I'm not pregnant yet. I can carry a couple of paint cans without your help." Dani huffs as she walks over to the cans to bring them back over.

"I know that honey."she replies, walking behind the raven haired beauty, wrapping her arms around her waist. Dani half-heartedly tries to move the blond's arms from around her waist. The senior agent grips her wife tighter and ravishes the brunette's neck with a trail of playful kisses up the crook of her feels Dani playfully slap her forearm but her back a bit further into her stomach. Quinn rests her chin on top of her shoulder and holds her tighter.

They stand there for a moment in silence, reveling the feeling in being in each arms. The couple was elated about the possibility that if all went well with the invitro tomorrow, that they would bebe bringing home a baby in nine months.

"I just want you to be as relaxed as possible before our appointment with tomorrow, that's all." Quinn kisses her cheek and loosens her hold on the brunette. "And last time I checked, lifting paint cans up down the stairs is not exactly conductive to relaxing." she finishes with a cheeky grin on her lips.

Dani manages to get out of her grasp only to turn around and wrap her arms around her neck. She leans in and kisses the senior agent, letting it linger. When Dani tries to come out of the kiss, Quinn playfully tugs on her bottom lip, causing her to giggle, before pulling away and placing her forehead on the woman before her.

"Mmm, do you want to know what would really make me feel relaxed gunny?" Dani purrs seductively into the agent's ear.

"I may have a few ideas in mind."Quinn teases huskily while running her hands slowly down her sides, stopping when her hands reach Dani's hips. She pulls the brunette in closer and kisses her again as her fingers lifting on the hem of her white tank top exposing a sliver of tanned skin. Feeling the brunette in her arms shiver, she decides to tease her wife a bit and runs her fingers along her lower back, slowly making her way up her spine.

"But why don't you enlighten me, probie." Quinn husks in her ear.

Dani tilts her head towards the senior agent's ear, taking it between her glossed lips, causing Quinn to close her eyes and mouth open slightly, moaning at the contact.

"It would really turn me on if you would" Dani whispers as she pulls the blond's head closer. "half of the nursery sky blue and the other half rose pink?" Dani whispers breathily as she nibbles on her ear.

Lost in the trail of kisses the brunette left in her wake, Dani's words don't register with her for a few minutes, as the brunette releases her ear and kisses her way down the right side of her jaw. Dani makes it it to her lips before Quinn realizes what she's said. She moves away from her slightly and looks at the smiling woman before her with a raised eyebrow.

"I've got to hand it to you Danielle, you almost had me." Quinn pants with a lopsided grin. Green eyes look on at her hopefully, waiting for her answer. "But there is no way in hell I am walking into our child's room everyday if half of the room looks like a bottle of Pepto Bismol. Sorry baby, not going to happen."

Dani's smile drops and a pout forms on her lips. She petulantly takes a big step away from the senior agent and crosses her arms.

"Oh come on, Quinn!" Dani said exasperated while Quinn shakes her head at her.

"So it's Quinn now, not gunny or baby?" Quinn teases, trying not to laugh, only to receive a glare from the brunette.

"It's gender neutral and we'll still have time to repaint it after we find out the sex of the baby or after their born if we don't like it." Dani explains.

" Bull. You'll want to change it about a thousand times before the baby is born and I just don't want to go through all of that painting." Quinn counters. Dani looks like she is about to say something else before Quinn stops her. "And if you think for one second I would allow Puckerman or Evans to help out or come within one hundred feet of our house, you have got another thing coming. Besides, what's wrong with the colors we have they're nice."

"If by nice you mean boring."Dani mutters. "Grey, beige and Lopez after a bad weekend vomit green? Do you really want our child to be subjected to that in their first five years of life?"

Quinn laughs while she turns around and walks out of the room into the hallway, leaving a pouting Dani with her arms crossed in the middle of the room.

"What about canary yellow?" Dani shouts, as one last ditch effort to get a little color into their future child's nursery.

Quinn comes back and pops her head back into the doorway, with a few strands of dirty blond hair getting into her face.

" That might work." she says with a smirk before taking her head out of the doorway once again.

Dani is left smiling at the doorway, slowly shaking her head.

"Oh Lucy Quinn Fabray. I hope you never find out how easy you really are." she smugly says to herself.

"I heard that, McKenzie-Fabray!" Quinn shouts from the hallway, listening as Dani's melodious laughter projected throughout the room.

Quinn is brought out of her memory when she feels herself shiver slightly. She looks up to see that she is standing underneath the vent for the air conditioning, noticing that it has just kicked on. She then looks down and sees that she is only clad in her black bra and matching boy shorts. The blond moves over to the black dresser drawer and pulls out her old grey and black USMC sweater with a pair of black leggings. She slips them on quickly and makes her way out of the room, quietly shutting the door on her way out.

When the senior agent gets downstairs, she sees that Jethro has made his way onto the living room floor, staring at his paws. She walks up to him and rubs his head.

"You'll be alright buddy. We both will eventually." Quinn tells him softly.

He whimpers quietly before scooting away from her, keeping his eyes on the mahogany floor as the agent sighs sadly. She stares at him for a few minutes more, wishing that there was something that she could do for their beloved six year old dog. She thinks about taking the dog camping or maybe drive down to Virginia Beach to visit Dani out at the farm when they're both feeling up to it.

After a while, Quinn walks away from their mourning dog and makes her way to the basement, leaving the door wide open. She turns on the light at the top of the basement stairs and makes her way down the steps. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, the blond goes over to the Oakwood cabinet her mother left her, in the corner of the room. She searches through the cabinet and finds her black mug facing down on the shelf and the remaining half of a bottle of Russell's best homemade scotch sitting next to it. Quinn had managed to smuggle it out of the house while he left to go set the kitchen timer. Russell had gotten it as a gift from her grandfather on the day he married her mother. It was an old Fabray recipe that was passed on the male Fabrays on their wedding day. Since Russell didn't have any boys, he had passed it along to Adam, Franny's husband, instead on their wedding day. She had hoped that Russell would suck up his pride and continue on the tradition by giving the recipe to herself or Dani when they had gotten married.

Unfortunately for her, that didn't happen. Instead, she had received a letter saying that the recipe belonged to the Fabray family and that she was no longer a part of it.

The senior agent twisted the cap off of the bottle and filled the mug to the brim with amber liquid and takes a large sip out of it afterwards. She had a feeling that she would be tossing the bottle by the end of the night.


7:45pm

Three hours of listening to the air conditioning kick on and off repeatedly along with the occasional honking coming from cars outside while laying on the bench staring up at the grey bricked ceiling, the Quinn begins to feel the effects of the whiskey. She could feel her head begin to spin and blond was sure that if she tried to sit upright, the little breakfast she managed to eat this morning would come back up. Her mouth felt dryer than death valley and she didn't think she could move from this spot if she tried.

The blond agent felt a strange sense of disappointment in herself for not making a bigger dent in the bottle that still had about a quarter of the whiskey left. But she didn't think she could stomach any more than what she's already had. During her days as a jarhead, the blond had been able to drink most of her platoon under the table during their designated nights off. And still be ready lively and ready to go the next morning after. At least after her large cup of black coffee. Now the thought of drinking more than a half a cup of whiskey every other night made the blond's stomach squirm.

Putting an arm underneath her head, the blond looks over to the now spotless ground, where ring of blood around the rouge agent had once been. The strong scent of cooper that permeated throughout the air on Friday after noon and haunted her senses, was now gone. The basement smelled like old moth balls and paint thinner once again.

She commended the crime techs and clean up crew on the nice job they had done with the basement. It was as if no one had been killed in the first place. It had taken them a few hours to pick up Brody's body, take photos of the scene and clean up the pool of blood on the floor. When the investigative team arrived, Quinn was able to get Rachel, who managed to pull herself together long enough to talk to the investigating agents, to corroborate the story that she had come up with.

They told them that Brody had broken into the senior agent's home, intending to kill her and the blond fired the shot that killed him out of self defense. Rachel had heard the noise on her way home from a walk and went to see what the commotion was. By the time the brunette had gotten there, Brody was dead.

Quinn had a feeling that Agent Cornelius, the lead agent on the investigation, didn't buy their story, but he certainly wasn't about to question it. However the rouge agent died, it seemed to be a public service as far as he was concerned. Dani had been a good friend to him and he was glad somewhat glad to see her assassin get his due. He and his team left shortly after questioning the two of them and offered his condolences to Quinn on his way out. She remembers seeing him sitting near the back row with his wife and oldest son in tow at the service this afternoon.

As the throbbing in her head grew, her thoughts begin to drift to the liaison and her young daughter. The brunette had left soon after the CSU team and agents, not saying a word to her. She did see a look of remorse and sorrow in Rachel's eyes as before she turned her head back down. The brunette wouldn't even look at her when she had tried to thank the liaison for having her back. By the time Quinn had found something to say to the grieving officer, her front door had been closed gently. The agent had intended to ask Jesse about Rachel and if she planned on going to meet Brody's father in London, where she was told his body was being taken to first before heading back to Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, with her mind on Dani's wake and funeral, she hadn't had the opportunity to ask him.

Quinn wonders how the brunette was coping with Brody's loss. Even though she hated the guy, she understood that he was also a big part of Rachel's life once. She wondered if the liaison had anyone in the area who would be there for her and the little girl? She was sure that Beth would be too young to remember anything about Brody, so it wouldn't effect her in any way now. But what's going to happen to the toddler when she gets older and notices that he isn't around? What is Rachel going to tell her when Beth will inevitably want to know what happened to him?

The sound of the doorbell and Jethro's barks brings Quinn out of her thoughts. She raises herself from the bench, feeling her vision blur and her head begin to spin. It felt like someone was obnoxiously kicking a soccer ball around while playing the drums and blasting Screamo metal at the same time in her cranium.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to drink this before eating after all. She lays back down on the bench and closes her eyes, hoping that whoever was at the door didn't want anything important. Maybe whoever it was didn't want anything important. Eventually, if she were lucky, they would take the hint and leave her alone.

Unfortunately for the senior agent, luck didn't seem to be on her side tonight. The doorbell chimes loudly again and Jethro's barks grow more agitated. Coupled that with the beginnings of a hangover, it made it practically impossible to ignore either one of them anymore. She begrudgingly lifts herself up and tries to sit up without toppling over. She feels herself wobble a little too far to her left side but manages to catch herself and sit upright once again. The blond stands up from the bench, slowly and makes her way to bottom of the stairs.

Once she gets there, Quinn trudges up each step and keeps her right hand near the wooden railing at all times. She feels herself stumble a bit on a couple of the steps but she is able to make it to the top without falling on her face. When she gets past the hallway, she hears the doorbell ring again.

"Could they please stop with the damn door bell already." she mutters, making her way past the kitchen.

She stops and leans over holding her forehead as she feels the bile trying to make its way up her throat. The short haired blond takes a deep breath in and slowly brings herself back up feeling her stomach gain control of itself.

Quinn gets closer to the door and sees the tan brown dog standing protectively at the door barking. The chime goes off once again and Jethro's barks get louder. She finds herself glaring at the door, preparing to rip into the annoying neighbor on the other side.

"I'm on my way!" Quinn shouts to the increasingly aggravating person on the other side of the door as she lightly pushes Jethro into the living room. As he leaves, the dog makes his way to the living room and climbs onto the couch, continuing his incessant barking.

Neglecting to look through the peephole, Quinn unlocks the top and bottom locks of the door. She takes the lock off of the door knob, turning it afterwards.

"I'm not interested in whatever you're-" Quinn starts to say as she flings the door open.

"Hello, Agent Fabray." a soft voice shyly interrupts her tirade.

"Selling." Quinn finishes, staring at the liaison with a slight frown.

The senior agent looks up, surprised to see the somber brown eyes of Rachel Berry as she holds the giggling toddler on her hip. The brunette had her bangs brushed to the side and had a large green Whole Foods bag in the hand that wasn't holding onto the playful toddler. Quinn noticed that the tanned brunette looked a little paler than she had a few days ago and there were dark circles around her eyes. The confidant bravado the liaison had exuded throughout the investigation seemed to be absent, as she noticed Rachel refusing to look her in the eye and instead focus her attention on the green shopping bag.

The blond attention was then drawn to Rachel's tiny companion. The little blond is playfully reaching for her mother's gold star of David necklace, that slips out of her chubby little fingers, causing her to giggle harder as it falls back into place.

" Berry? How are you?" Quinn asks, slurring her words a bit as she leans back against the door feeling her head spin and wishing that she had grabbed some water before answering the door.

"And what are you and mini Berry doing here in the middle of the night?"

Hearing how bad the NCIS agent sounded causes Rachel finally look up at the blond, giving the NCIS agent a troubled glance.

"We're managing. But Agent Fabray, it's eight o'clock in the evening." Rachel replies, her tone laced with worry. "Are you feeling alright Agent Fabray? Because if you aren't, Beth and I can come back another time when you're feeling better."

"No it's alright Berry, I'm fine. Just a little exhausted after the week from hell" Quinn tiredly chuckles, hoping it would loosen the liaison up a bit. Unfortunately for her, it has the opposite effect and causes Rachel to glance down at her feet guiltily.

After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Quinn quickly decides to steer the conversation away from the last week and move on to something else.

"You don't have to be so formal Berry. Outside of the Naval Yard or bullpen, you can call me Quinn or Fabray."

"Alright Ag-" Rachel begins nervously but stops when she looks up to see the senior agent glaring at her. "Quinn."

"Better." Quinn says, nodding her head in approval. She crosses her arms over herself and leans against the door.

"So, what are you doing here? I thought you and Beth would be halfway to London by now?" The senior agent looks at the liaison confused.

Rachel sighs and looks down again briefly trying to figure out exactly what to say to the senior agent. She didn't even know what she was doing here if she were being completely honest with herself. One minute, she was running around the kitchen, taking the meat lasagna she had prepared for Beth out of the oven as well as the last batch of papa Leroy's famous 'I'm sorry' sugar cookies. The next minute, after her brief conversation with Jesse in which he told her that Brody's body had arrived at Heathrow on time, she is standing on the doorstep of someone that more than likely hated her's doorstep with an excited Beth, who was just seemed happy to get out of the house past her usual bed time.

Looking up at bloodshot hazel eyes, Rachel smiles at her half-heartedly.

"Well, with everything that's been going on, I realized that Beth and I haven't properly introduced ourselves to the new neighbors. So I figured since you live in this neighborhood too, that I would start with you first." Rachel says nervously, hoping that the senior agent would by it or at least pretend to and not question her about it for now.

Quinn raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the liaison and crosses her arms.

"You realize that there are six houses in between my house and yours that you could have started with?" Quinn asks curiously.

Rachel narrows her eyes at the senior agent challengingly.

"How do you know where I live? I don't recall telling you my house is. For all you know, I could be living right across the street." Rachel says as she turns around and points at the house across the way.

"Seriously?" the senior agent asks, who was torn between being annoyed at the woman in front of her and amused. Rachel nods for her to continue on.

"First of all, Dani and I have lived in this neighborhood for nearly ten years. In all the time that we've lived here nobody, to my knowledge, has moved out. It's always been the Henderson's, the Sanchezes, Colonel Fehey, Mrs. Jackson, Mr. Shaw and the Hummel's. The only person who has moved out is Mr. Shaw because he is moving to Florida to live out the rest of his golden years. Windsurfing with other retirees now that his son's family has moved there."

"Second of all, I was the one who gave Shelby the tip about Mr. Shaw's house. The one you just so happen to move in to, right next to the Hummel's place. She said that she had a friend who was moving to DC and needed a safe area for her and her child." Quinn says with a smirk,watching the brunette become flustered.

"And I know that a lot has happened in the last forty-eight hours, but did you forget that I had Puckerman and Lopez tail you around all day? If I remember correctly, Lopez said something about the troll moving into my neighborhood."

A hint of red blush appears on the liaison's face.

"Point taken." the liaison says a bit embarrassed.

"Now are you going to stop avoiding the question and tell me why you're here and not over there with him." the NCIS agent asks bluntly as the brunette looks over to the side. "Or did you just come over here to try and outsmart a drunk, off duty NCIS agent?"

Not wanting to have this conversation out here, Rachel points towards the inside of the house.

"Is it okay if we talk about this inside? The lasagna and cookies are going to get cold." Rachel asks quietly as she picks up the green bag and shows it to the blond agent.

Quinn studies her for a moment trying to determine whether or not she wants to hear what the brunette has to say or not. There was a part of her that was interested in what the brunette had to say, but at the same time she wasn't. The senior agent wanted to know how much Rachel actually knew of what Brody was doing or how much her father had really told her about the rouge agent. But if this was going to be another non apology from the agencies that she belonged to, then she was going to send the brunette on her way and tell her to wait and meet her at the Naval Yard tomorrow to do it in front of the rest of the team.

Then again, there was something in the liaison's disposition that told her that this was not going to be one of those apologies.

A minute goes by before Quinn finds herself stepping away from the doorway and walks over to the marble island and sitting down in one of the tall barstool chairs, giving Rachel and the excitable toddler silent consent to follow behind her.

The liaison sets her bag on top of the counter top and then tries placing Beth in the unoccupied circular barstool next to Quinn. The little girl's little hands held a vice grip on her necklace. It takes her a couple of minutes to pry the golden star out of her hand, but eventually she succeeds. A small pout appears on the two year old's face and she starts to whimper as her current plaything was taken away as the liaison steps away from her daughter's reach and moves to the other side of the island.

Rachel then takes the tin of lasagna and two plates full of the white frosting 'I'm sorry' cookies and sets them down on the counter.

"The plates are in the cabinet to your left, the one closest by the fridge." Quinn says quietly, not lifting her head up.

Rachel looks away from the bag and over to the resting agent, who had started to massage her temples while keeping her head down on the marble. She can't help but notice and be concerned that the blond looks worse today than when she had walked away from the agent two days ago.

"Thanks." Rachel replies gratefully, as she walks over to the cabinet in question. She pulls out two green plates, one for the senior agent and Beth and sets it in front of the two of them. She reaches into the green bag and pulls out a black spatula. The brunette lifts the aluminum off of the clear, glass pan and cuts two square end piece of the cheesy pasta, placing it on Beth and Quinn's plates respectively.

The mouth watering aroma being emitted from the pasta dish causes Quinn to lift her head up and look at it questioningly as Rachel sits down on the remaining barstool closest to Beth. Her stomach was begging her not to eat anything at all, but the senior agent knew that this could make her hangover less hellish in the morning.

The liaison puts her hand on Beth's fork from her when the two year old happily started stabbing the top layer cheesy layer and her tiny brown eyes lit up in excitement when the tomato sauce gushed out of the large hole. She places the fork back in the two year old's had, facing the four prongs downward and cuts up half of the little girl's piece for her. Once the toddler began to yank Rachel's hand away from the fork, the Mossad operative lets go of it, leaving the girl to it.

Brown eyes look over towards the senior agent, who she noticed hadn't even picked up the fork. She turns toward the blond, who looked as if she were still trying to decide whether or not she wanted to pick up the spatula, and rests her hand on her chin.

"Unfortunately for me, this lasagna isn't very vegetarian friendly." Rachel jokes, noticing the senior agent staring skeptically at the food. "Everything in it is one hundred percent slaughtered cows topped with their milk used to make the cheese. It's safe to say that it's carnivore friendly, Quinn."

Quinn turns her head slowly, mindful of the throbbing in her head, quickly glancing at the liaison and shrugs. She picks up the spatula, cuts a corner piece of the pasta and then puts it on her plate.

"Beth refuses to eat anything without any whole milk or meat in it." Rachel explains. "So far my efforts in introducing her to a vegetarian dietary plan, have thus far, been unsuccessful. She's a full fledge carnivore like her papa Leroy...and her father." The liaison says the last part quietly as she looks down at the granite countertop.

The senior agent's gaze goes from the plate to the brunette, noticing the sudden change in Rachel's demeanor. Quinn didn't know why she cared about what was going on in Rachel's head. Was because ever since the brunette rang her doorbell, she had been the only person not to look at her with pity and instead understanding? Or was it because she felt like she owed the Mossad operative something because she had inadvertently asked the Mossad operative to kill the father of her child in cold blood?

Whatever the reason, Quinn found herself needing to know what Rachel was thinking at the moment and if it had been the same thing she had been thinking whenever she walked past her basement door.

But she wasn't going to pressure the Mossad liaison into talking, at least not at the moment. She would give the brunette some time to get comfortable here before she would bring up the elephant in the room.

Quinn picks up the fork and cuts a piece into the rectangular shaped pasta and places it in her mouth. She feels a spark ignite in her tastebuds as her mouth becomes overwhelmed with flavors of the pasta.

When she is about halfway finished with her piece, Quinn looks up at the Mossad liaison, who is wiping a little red sauce off of Beth's chin.

"Mmm. This is amazing Berry." Quinn complements as she takes another big forkful of her lasagna.

Rachel smiles at the senior agent. "Thanks. The sauce comes from an old Berry family recipe."

"Any chance of you sharing it?" Quinn asks as she stuffs another mouthful of the pasta.

"I could." Rachel says leaning her head on her hand with a smirk. " But I doubt you'd want a pissed Leroy Berry with his old service weapon knocking up your door at 3 am."

The liaison looks over to her daughter, to find the two year old stabbing her food and splattering the red sauce all over the plate.

The blond stops eating for a moment and looks at the brunette agent quizzically. "It's knocking down your door Berry."

"Excuse me?" Rachel asks looking away from the toddler and towards the senior agent.

"You said 'knocking up your door' and the phrase is 'knocking down your door'." the senior agent corrects her and then sets down the fork.

The liaison's eyes blinks a couple of times in confusion and then widening.

" My apologizes Quinn.I guess abandoning my routine eight hours of sleep a night regimen the last couple of days, has effected my cognitive abilities more than I anticipated." Rachel giggles half-heartedly.

The senior agent places the fork down for a moment and hesitates before saying anything to the Mossad liaison.

"Would your sleep deprivation be the reason why you're not back in Tel Aviv with Brody?" Quinn asks carefully. She picks up her fork once again and prepares for the blowback.

Rachel freezes and turns her head, her gaze landing on the basement door. Her hand unconsciously feels around her hip for her Sierra, but she remembers that she placed in her gun safe after coming home on Friday.

The brunette starts to hear Brody's voice ringing loudly in her ears.

Rachel turns away from the wall and positions herself in the middle of the entrance of the basement door, waiting for him to make the wrong move. Even though she had been hiding around the corner, the liaison had heard enough of the conversation to know that Brody was for certain, culpable in Agent McKenzie's death.

As soon as he was done with Agent Fabray, she was going to make her way downstairs, hoping to cuff him as quickly as possible without much incident. But from the sounds of where their conversation is headed, Rachel had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that there would be no peaceful resolution with Brody.

"Not at all, Fabray. Rachel was just a pleasant, yet convenient distraction for my father. She is more or less the child he's always wanted more than I could ever be. When she got pregnant a couple of years ago, I saw that as the perfect opportunity to execute my plan, seeing as how he was more concerned about Rachel and Beth's welfares than keeping an eye on my activities." Brody explains causality. "Just like Agent McKenzie's pregnancy was my opportunity to get to you."

The liaison had to bite down on her lip to keep herself from yelling at her former boyfriend. She couldn't believe that the boy that she thought she had loved could be so cold and calculating. He knew that Agent McKenzie was pregnant and killed her anyway without a moment's hesitation. The thought made her sick to her stomach as she started to wonder what else her asset could be capable of.

Rachel found herself raising the Sierra, taking the safety off and aiming it at the back of the rouge agent's head, preparing to take the shot.

"Maybe." Rachel says dismissively, hoping that Quinn will drop the subject for now. Feeling the tension grow in the room, Rachel quickly tries to recover with a joke.

"Or maybe it's the work of a two year old who doesn't quite understand what a hangover is and why mommy needs to sleep a little more."

Rachel chuckles as she strokes the hair of the distracted toddler with a fake smile.

She looks up at the NCIS agent narrowing her eyes at her, as if they were both back in the interrogation room. She sighs and glares pointedly at the agent.

"Brody doesn't need me nor Beth there. He has his father taking care of his funeral arrangements and I'm sure all of his friends, if he still has any left, from the agency will be there to mourn for him. As well as the many women he was sleeping with besides me. Beth shouldn't have to endure a twelve hour flight for nothing." the liaison says coldly.

" Brody was her father, for good or for bad. Don't you think that she should get the opportunity to say goodbye to him?" the blond says causally as she picks up her fork and starts chewing again.

"When was the last time Brody actually acted like her father? Was it before or after he killed four people in cold blood because his father cared more about the job than raising his sociopathic son?" Rachel asks venomously.

"Why do you even care so much Agent Fabray? Weren't you the one who wanted the" Rachel snaps as she brings her hands to cover the oblivious toddler's ears. "-bastard dead? Now that he is you suddenly care about how it'll effect Beth?"

Quinn glares at the brunette.

"Yeah I did and I'm glad that he's dead. Doesn't mean that Beth shouldn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to her father. No matter how crappy he was to the rest of the world, somewhere in his warped mind, he probably cared about Beth even if he couldn't care about you." Quinn replies defensively.

Rachel laughs cynically. "Spare me Fabray, do you honestly believe that? We both know that isn't true."

"The only things Brody was capable of loving or caring about was himself, power and getting back at daddy Xavier. Everything and everyone else were just unfortunate pawns in his endgame. He used his own dead mother as an excuse to exact revenge for his unresolved daddy issues." she rants on angrily.

The liaison takes a deep breath and sighs. The brunette looks down at her newly manicured hands and starts picking at the nails.

"As much as I want to believe that Brody on some level, cared about Beth, deep down I know that he didn't. He just wasn't capable of it." the brunette finishes sardonically.

Sensing that the conversation was over for now and the Mossad operative was not going to say anything more, Quinn nods and turns away from the brunette.

Rachel on the other hand, had found herself thinking about everything that had happen since leaving the senior agent's house. Over the past couple of days, Rachel had not been able to say the former agent's name or think about him without getting angry or feeling the bile rise up her about all of the things that he had done to those people and what he almost did to Quinn, made her feel sick to her stomach. The knowledge that he would have gotten away with it and that the people around her knew what was going on but didn't feel tell her about it. That coupled with the guilt of having five deaths on her conscience, had kept tossing and turning restlessly the last couple of nights.

As the two blondes eat, Rachel glances over to the basement door, remembering the last time she was in Agent Fabray's house.


Friday 5:25pm

Berry Residence

When she found herself in the safety of her new home, Rachel turned around and locked all five of the doors locks. She then leans against the door and reaches into the tight pocket of her skinny jeans and pulls out her white Iphone. She goes into her call log and scrolls down to the second name in the log, the one she seemed to call more frequently than she had in the past. Hiram.

The phone rings three times, which was unusual for an emergency line, before Hiram's secretary finally picks up.

"Hello this Officer Rachel Berry and I need to speak to Deputy Director Berry, it's urgent." Rachel says in Hebrew.

The woman tells her to hold on while she connects her through. The liaison begins tapping her boots nervously onto the hardwood floor. She looks down at her shirt and sees the big, red splotch of blood splattered all over her shirt and nearly loses it again. Rachel was grateful that Beth was staying with Shelby for a little while and the little girl wouldn't have to see her in distress.

It doesn't take long for Hiram to pick up the phone.

"Deputy Director Berry" Hiram said disinterestedly in English, as if he was expecting her call.

" The asset, Agent Weston is Agent in Charge Quinn Fabray of NCIS killed him after he broke into her basement." Rachel says with a little quiver in her voice.

"I know. Director informed me of his death twenty minutes ago as a curiosity call ." Hiram says calmly.

Rachel's eyes squinted a little, questioning why he was taking this so well. She knew that the Director had not liked Brody at all, but she figured that he would be pissed that one of his best assets was now gone.

"He was planning on killing Agent Fabray's team and forcing her to commit suicide afterwards." Rachel says after pausing for a moment, trying to see if she could get a reaction out of him this time. But all she got was silence on his end.

Clenching her phone tighter in her hands, Rachel wondered how much more the Director knew that he was not telling her and for how long he knew.

"Agent Weston was also responsible for the murders of former officer Levena Newborn and her husband an ATF Agent, Ambassador Hellman and NCIS Agent Danielle McKenzie, who was pregnant at the time of her death." She hears him take a deep breath and pause before replying to her again." I'm certain that at least three of those were committed while he was on leave from his assignment."

"Okay."

"He was no longer acting as an agent of Mossad, but as one of Hamas. Brody's plan was to turn on us as soon as he got out of Paris." the liaison says with her voice rising in frustration.

"I know all of this Rachel. I've had my suspicions about Brody and his intentions for a long time." The Director informs her exasperated, wanting to get to the point of this conversation sooner.

Rachel confusion grows at the the blasé attitude that the new Deputy Director was had about their current situation. She was expecting him to be angry and calling for her resignation. She was expecting that he would be calling for Agent Fabray's badge for blatantly disobeying orders or going on a witch hunt for one of his people. But she did not expect him to be this calm and rational about this new information.

Unless he knew everything that Brody was up to all along and they were purposefully keeping her out of the loop.

Those bastards! Rachel thinks herself.

The liaison feels her eyes widen and her hands tremble as she struggles to hold the phone up at the sudden realization. Hiram knew from the very beginning what kind of person Weston was and yet he authorized her to be his handler with Xavier's enthusiastic endorsement. It all began to make sense now.

"You knew." Rachel says definitively as her glare on the hardwood floor harden.

"I know a lot of things Officer Berry." Hiram replies sarcastically.

"I know that one of my best moles is now dead because of a zealous NCIS agent who was looking for blood to spill because she failed to do her job right and protect her team. I know that the only reason why said agent was able to connect those murders to Brody, giving them a reason to execute him, is because they had access to your supposedly confidential logs. Tell me Rachel, do you want to take another stab as to what else I may know, hmm? Because one of those guesses would involve setting one of your own people up to be assassinated!" Hiram finishes bellows angrily.

"Do not try to blame this on me Hiram! Whether you want to believe me or not, I didn't have a choice! They were going to arrest me for treason and take Beth away if I didn't follow their orders!" Rachel shouts back as she moves away from the door.

"Unfortunately for you, they don't see being a mole as an excuse for being a murderer!"

"Do you really think they would have taken the child away from you officer? Even if they had, you should have trusted us to find a way to get the child back to you!"

Taking a deep breath, the liaison calms herself down a little bit.

"Why should I trust you and that man now, father! You placed me as a handler for a cold blooded killer and you want me to trust the two of you to have NCIS give my daughter back with an apology and fruit basket? No way!" Rachel shouts as she moves away from the door. She starts pacing the floor of the entryway.

He doesn't give her a chance to respond and he launches into an explanation.

"He was a valuable asset to Mossad and the CIA. In spite of his many faults, he was the perfect mole. The information that he obtained from Hamas has prevented terrorist attacks against Israel and several other nations." Hiram says diplomatically, causing Rachel's blood to boil over even more. She couldn't believe what she was hearing."Thanks to him, our last couple of joint operations have been-"

"Don't you dare start with the diplomatic song and dance that we feed to the other agencies! He was a double agent, plain and simple! Weston only told us what we wanted to hear! He was planning on screwing Mossad over when the first opportunity arose! If this were any other agent you would have thrown him in jail or gotten rid of him with no questions asked!" Rachel finishes dramatically, throwing her keys onto the countertop.

"Tell me father, why was he special enough for you and Xavier to cover up his crimes?" Rachel snarks.

"Because I know this has nothing to do with being a 'valuable asset' to the agency. You could have trained anyone in Mossad to do the kind of infiltration that Brody was doing and they would have done it better. You could have chosen someone more reliable than he ever was. So why him?" the brunette liaison challenges.

As Rachel waited for a response from the new Deputy Director, she couldn't help the hint of a smile that appeared on her face, as she imagined the kind of snarl her father would have given her if she were there. For once in her thirty years of life, Rachel had gotten the best of the great Hiram Berry. If the circumstances wouldn't have been as dire as they are at the moment the liaison would be celebrating.

The icy tone of the Deputy Director threw any illusions of self congratulatory celebrations out the window.

"Thirty women." Hiram says in a monotone.

"Sir?" Rachel asks confused as to where Hiram was going with this.

"There were thirty of the best women the agency had to offer who wanted the assignment that you were given. They were career driven Mossad agents that have been here for a lot longer than you had. Some of them had even climbed the ranks of the IDF before joining Mossad and whose resumes were far more impressive than a girl whose only experience is working a desk at the CIA!"

"Three of them were summa cum laude's at Oxford, Yale, and Cambridge respectively after they served their mandatory two years. These women had waited patiently and dreamed of the opportunity to help infiltrate Hamas and to have a charge like Brody. They would have done anything and everything to keep that boy focused on the primary objective and made sure that their covers or the covers of their assets weren't compromised. They would have willingly laid down their lives for this agency and have made sacrifices that you could barely dream of making! They wouldn't have squandered away this opportunity to move up like you have, Officer!"

As Rachel was preparing to defend herself, the deputy director stops.

"They would have known that Brody could never be trusted. That he was someone to be disposed of when he was no use to us anymore. They certainly wouldn't have conceived a child with that no good bastard! Hell, they probably would have had the sense enough to use birth control or gotten rid of the child!"

"Did you know that Eli wanted to get rid of me after Xavier and I went over his head and made the decision to appoint you as Brody's charge? He said that you just weren't ready and that you needed more time and more experience in the field before we had you handling an asset. He wanted to have his daughter train with you and maybe you would have been ready in few more years!And you know what I said to him?" Hiram pauses briefly.

Not giving her the opportunity to answer, the director continues on.

"I said that if Rachel had even an ounce of my ambition, relentlessness and persistence, that she would be the only person for this job and would do of your personal history with him, I vouched for you. I assured him that what you lack in experience, you make up for in your ability to pick up any skill that you would need quickly. Xavier and I became personally responsible for you and guaranteed that you would not disappoint this agency or me."he finishes the last sentence softly.

"For once, I guess he was right. You weren't ready for the responsibilities and everything else that this job entails. Maybe I should have picked one of those women instead of you. At least our asset would still be alive then."

Rachel's phone trembled in her hand as she fought to figure out what to say to the director. She was furious at the man's audacity to try and make it seem like she had been the one that had failed the agency. That she was the one who didn't do enough to protect Brody from NCIS when in fact, the brunette had protected him until the end. If anything, it was Xavier and Hiram that should be blaming for the way things had turned out, it should be them. After all, they did breed a monster and didn't expect any blowback from it.

She wanted tell him that she was the one responsible and not Agent Fabray just to rub it in his face. The liaison wanted to say that if she had she known that her bosses had been covering for him all along, that she would have gladly handed them over to NCIS without any remorse. She wanted to defend herself and her professionalism from his attacks. He may have had a say in getting her in with Mossad, but she had ultimately gotten into the CIA through her own merit, not his. She wanted to tell him how he didn't need him to get her internship and that she wouldn't need him when she leaves Mossad. That she and Beth would get along fine without him

She couldn't believe that Hiram would resort to using one of the same tacts that she had witnessed him use on her father Leroy during the many arguments that they had. He probably thought that she was still the twelve year old girl, looking for her daddy's approval. She wanted nothing more than to tell him to get use to disappointment, since he had certainly put her and her father through enough of it during her tumultuous childhood.

But she wouldn't. As much as Rachel wanted to rail against her father, she knew that it would be a fight she would never win. Hiram would wither find another way to make her feel worse than she already did or he would find a reason to stonewall her transfer to NCIS. And it was a complication that she just did not need right now.

So she decides to nod her head and pretend to agree with what he is saying. Then find a way to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

Refusing to let the director know that she was close to breaking down, Rachel bites into her lip.

"Your transfer to NCIS, maybe it's all for the best. You were never the right fit for Mossad anyway." Hiram says after a while. "If you decide to go back to the CIA, they will probably have you demoted or placed on desk duty as a punishment, at least for the time being."

"Whatever you say sir." Rachel says hoarsely. Feeling a couple of tears leak from her eyes, she looks down at the floor. "Director I have to go. Dr. Corcoran should be dropping Beth off soon. She's going with her team to Agent McKenzie's funeral in Virginia Beach and they're leaving tonight."

"That's fine. Send Agent Fabray my sincerest condolences and let her know that I've had flowers sent to the gravesite on my and the agency's behalf the next time you get a chance speak to her." Hiram requests formally.

The liaison hangs up, not bothering to answer him and throws the Iphone to the other side of the room, not carrying if it broke. She stomps through the living room and into the kitchen, making her way over to the stainless steel refrigerator.

Yanking open the door, she pulls out three green bottles of the organic red wine that she had brought the other day and slams the door shut. The brunette then walks out of the kitchen and goes back into the living room. She walks around the back of the black faux leather couch and plops down on the cushions. Rachel pops the cork of the bottle and in a few seconds time, chugs a fourth of the bottle down her throat and then setting the bottle on the glass coffee table. She placed her head in her hands and cried at the mess she found herself in.

Rachel was brought out of her thoughts by a tiny hand pulling on her shirt sleeve. She turns to see the toddler, with her face covered in red sauce. The remaining pasta left on her plate looked as if it had been torn to shreds.

"Are you full sweetie?" Rachel asks as she takes the blue napkin out of the ring.

"Yes mommy, down now?" Beth asks impatiently, trying to wiggle out of the chair.

Rachel picks up the green napkin next to her plate and wipes the little girl's puffy cheeks. Beth moves her head from side to side, trying to keep away from the napkin.

Quinn looks away from her empty plate to watch the mother-daughter exchange.

"Elizabeth Brice Berry, is that how we ask for things?" Rachel asks sternly, watching the little girl lower her head.

"No mommy." Beth shyly replies. The two year old lifts her head up and gives her mother her biggest and brightest smile.

"Down now, please mommy?" the toddler asks again while tilting her head to her right side and folding her hands.

The senior agent smirks at the sight and watched as Rachel playfully roll her eyes. The blond could easily imagine a young Rachel pulling the same stunt on her fathers at that age.

"I guess I can let you down this time." Rachel sighs dramatically. She lifts the little girl in her arms and sets her on her black skirt clad lap. " But stay where I can see you, okay?"

"Yes mommy." Beth says, ready to jump out of her mother's arms.

Rachel gives the toddler a sloppy kiss on her left cheek and blows her a raspberry as the girl giggles heartily. She sets the toddler down on the floor and watches her run off away from the kitchen and into the living room. The brunette then swivels her chair around facing the living room.

She watches her daughter stop in front of the German Shepard and reach out her hand to touch his nose. The dog lifts his head up and looks at the young girl, tilting his head questioningly, nearly made Rachel get out of her seat. The former liaison had one brief interaction with the dog when she was lying in wait in Quinn's guest bedroom. It had taken her a while to get the dog to calm down before Brody showed up and she was concerned at how he was going to react to Beth.

A stuffed Quinn looks over at Rachel and notices the liaison tense up. She copies the brunette and swivels her chair around as well to see what has the young mother concerned. She sees that Rachel's gaze is trained on Jethro.

"Don't worry Berry. Jethro couldn't hurt a fly." Quinn reassuringly tells the young mother.

Rachel turns and looks at the blond in disbelief.

"Based on my experience and what I've from a certain Director, that's not exactly true."

Quinn raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and crosses her arms, knowing who that someone was.

"St. James conveniently left out the part where he threatened to have Jethro euthanized for leaving a special present in his very expensive Salvatore Ferragamo Stefano pebbled black leather oxfords." Quinn said, as a ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. "He was only a puppy after all."

Rachel laughs loudly, for the first time since this ordeal began and shakes her head.

"Aw now that explains it. Poor Jethro, he was only trying to make friend." Rachel says sarcastically.

"Don't feel too bad for him. I'm sure he'll come to a temporary truce with Jesse now that he's going to see him more often." Quinn banters back, making the Mossad liaison laugh a little. "They'll kiss and make up eventually."

They turn back toward the living room and watch as Jethro hesitantly licks the toddler's palm as she starts giggling. She takes her hand back and starts patting the dog's head.

"Doggy! Doggy!" Beth squeals excitedly as she plops down in the spot next to the german shepard. When she stops patting his head, Beth takes both of her hands and goes over the black and brown fur. Jethro responds by nuzzling his nose further into the carpet and starts tapping his tail on the floor.

Rachel looks on and gives a beaming smile at the scene in front of her. She wanted to cry at how at happy and oblivious the little girl seemed to be in spite of everything going on around her. She was almost relieved that the little girl would have little to no memories of her father, so it wouldn't be as traumatizing for her. She wouldn't have to worry about answering questions about how he died until she was much older. Not that she would have been able to give her the answers she was sure Beth would be looking for anyway.

"You know, you're pretty good with her Berry." Quinn says softly, leaning her head on her hand.

Rachel turns quickly towards the senior agent.

"I apologize Quinn, what did you say?" Rachel asks a bit startled.

"I said, you're good with her." Quinn says pointing towards the toddler, who was now leaning against the german shepard's back. "Beth. She's lucky to have you as her mother."

The senior agent looks at the little girl with a longingly. Watching Rachel interact with the dirty blond toddler since their arrival, had made her think about Dani and their unborn baby.

She imagined a little blond and brunette child playing rambunctiously on the carpet with one of Jethro's chew toys, teasing the old german shepard to follow them. While she read on the couch with Dani lying on her chest, playfully telling them to stop messing with Jethro. The senior agent sighs heavily as she realizes that it was just another dream put on hold, thanks to the job.

"Actually, I'm the one that's lucky to have Beth. She's been a welcomed distraction from the rest of the world"

Rachel thought about how Beth's light-hearted, childlike disposition kept her sane and functioning after her mini meltdown friday night.

When Shelby dropped her off, Beth's face was the first one that she saw as her mother announced that she was leaving. The two year old, who apparently hadn't had any sleep since she dropped Beth off with Shelby this afternoon, refused to settle down. So Rachel was forced to carry her upstairs to her mattress in the master bedroom. Since moving to DC, she hadn't had the opportunity to set up her room or assemble Beth's crib. So the little girl has been sleeping on the mattress with her until then.

When she tried to laying the little girl down on the bed, the toddler started to scream and wail. Her cries turn into sniffles for five minutes before the upset toddler is wailing Rachel cradles her a little bit faster, she suddenly realizes why her daughter refuses to go to sleep.

Ever since Beth was born, Rachel would always sing to the little girl to get her to sleep. It didn't matter if the liaison was on assignment at time, whenever she could manage it, she would sing her daughter to sleep. She couldn't believe that she had forgotten to now.

The brunette slows down her rocking and softly begins to sing "Somewhere over the rainbow". Beth's cries suddenly stop and by the time she reaches the second to last verse, the toddler's eyes begin to close droopily.

"Someday I'll wish upon a star,
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That's where you'll find me

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow way up high
And the dream that you dare to, why, oh why can't I? I?"

By the time Rachel is finished, Beth is snoring soundly in her shoulder. She carefully moves the little girl away from her shoulder and gently places her onto the mattress. The toddler then turns her head slightly and puts her thumb in her mouth, without waking. The liaison then places a kiss on her little star's temple before pulling the large comforter onto her and settling into the bed.

The liaison takes a hand and lovingly strokes her daughter's dirty blond locks. Beth may have happened a little sooner than she had planned, but she just couldn't imagine her life without her. Her mind goes back to her conversation with that she had with the new second in command of Mossad. She can't recall the last time civil conversation she's had with him that didn't involve Mossad and his duties there getting in the way. She starts to wonder when the love of his job superseded the love he supposedly had for his family? Did he ever really love her and daddy Leroy at all or were they just another tool to increase his pull in the agency?

A few years ago, the brunette could honestly say that she would have ended up like Director Berry. Constantly climbing the ranks of the Mossad, while still working with the CIA. She estimated that had she managed to stay alive long enough, that she would eventually become director of Mossad. It had been her goal since she decided to leave her Broadway dreams behind. She wasn't

But now as she watches her daughter's chest slowly rise and fall, Rachel couldn't imagine missing a moment of this little girl's life like Director Berry had with her. Mossad hadn't been everything to her like she once thought. She didn't want to die young and leave Beth with her father Leroy. She wanted to be there and every single one of the little girl's firsts. This week and everything that has happened with Brody only solidified her decision to leave Mossad behind in order to have a more nine to five life at NCIS.

She turns over, facing the ceiling and starts thinking about Agent Fabray. She thinks about everything Brody had taken away from her in the span of a week. The thinking about the missed opportunity for the senior agent and agent McKenzie to have moments like this with their own child, unceremoniously stolen from them made her heart break for the stoic agent .

She sees flashes of Agent McKenzie's autopsy photos, as well as the ultrasounds of the fetus suddenly appear on the ceiling. While the senior agent's quiet, yet ominous words of caution during that interrogation replay in her ears. How she could have easily been in Danielle's position had he not needed her for his he could have just as easily killed Beth if Rachel stood in his way. She resisted the urge to turn over and hold onto Beth tighter and never let her go.

When Rachel finally felt her body succumb to the exhaustion of the past week, she silently resolves to do anything in her power to make amends with the senior agent and her team for all of the chaos Brody wrought into their lives. As soon as the blond had gotten back from Virginia Beach, the brunette vowed that she would explain herself and her actions the last few days to the senior agent, hoping that the blond would be able to forgive her one day.

Seeing Beth close her eyes and nuzzle her head further into Jethro's fur, Rachel swivels her chair around until she is facing in direction of the blond agent, who didn't even blink at the intrusion or turn to acknowledge her. Instead, she noticed the quiet blond's eyes staring longing at her now sleeping daughter.

Quinn suddenly steps away from her and walks into the living room until she gets to Jethro and Beth while the liaison follows closely behind her. She lightly pats the german shepard on the head. The blond agent turns around and looks over at the liaison then looks down at the sleeping girl. Rachel nods her head and watches the senior agent cautiously lifts the little girl in her arms and gently sets her at the far right end of the couch. The blond then takes the blue and white stripped Afghan, that was hanging on the back of the couch, and places it over the toddler. She then takes the sides of the afghan and tucks them into the couch, making sure that the toddler was secure on the couch, and she carefully sits down in the middle.

Rachel takes a few tentative steps closer to the rug. She stops when she gets to Jethro, who silently stands up and makes his way over to his owner's feet. Instead of lying down, he sits on his two hind legs and allows the blond to rub his head. After a couple of minutes, Quinn lets go of the dog's head and turns her attention back to the sleeping toddler.

"I never saw myself having kids." Quinn reminisces, breaking the comfortable silence. Hazel eyes look up at Rachel. " After I came out to my parents and they kicked me out, I said I wouldn't have any of my own."

Rachel looks at the senior agent quizzically, surprised at the woman's candidness.

"Why not?"

The senior agent hesitates for a moment as her eyes turn a dark green as a storm of conflicting emotions pass over her. She wasn't used to being this honest with anyone. Especially someone that only a couple of days prior, she considered to be the enemy. Maybe the whiskey was making her soft or she really needed to vent to someone who she thought would understand. Tomorrow, when she's sober, her walls would be back up and in full force.

"Russell." Quinn gulps. " I didn't want to become the kind of parent he was. I was afraid that one day, when our baby wasn't a baby anymore, he or she would piss me off and push my buttons the same way I always did to him. And that I would start drinking like he did to deal with it all."

The senior agent closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"Then one day, they would push me too far and all of the pent up resentment would bubble over and I would say or do something so horrible, that it would push our child and Dani away for good. And by the time I had woken up and realize it, they would have already moved on and wouldn't need me in their life anymore."

Rachel's mouth opened a little as she tried to find the right words to say to the senior agent that would console and fix her. But unfortunately, she couldn't because she was stuck in the same limbo with her father just like the senior agent.

"But Dani, she insisted that it wasn't true. That there was no way that someone who cares about people as much as I do, even though I don't show it, could ever be as cruel as Russell was to me. She was confident that our child would turn out okay and that we would do the absolute best that we can for them. I didn't believe her at first, I thought she was just trying to make me feel better." A faint smile appears on the senior agent's face.

"It wasn't until we caught a case, involving a blind girl did I actually start to believe her. Her name was Sandy Watson. Her father, Captain Watson, was being held for ransom. They were going to kill Sandy and her mother unless he had a few million dollars wired to their account. Eventually, they let Sandy go and handed her over to us as a show of faith. Her mother was still held captive though."

"Sandy was a brilliant and brave little girl. She could correctly and exactly tell you what pitch someone was speaking in. She could hear you talking, even if it was just a faint whisper from a few hundred feet away. Although it was a bit of pain in the ass at times." Quinn laughs a little and even gets Rachel to smile a little. She leans back into the couch, playing with some of the white and blue yarn of the afghan, before continuing on.

"Dani took to the little girl immediately. She was so gentle with the girl and they got along so well in the short time that she had spent with her. I think she growled a little when Sandy wanted to hear the video of her mother to try to help us pinpoint her location." Rachel sees a brief flash of pain as Quinn drops the yarn and puts her hands on her legs.

"And when we recovered Sandy's mother and sent them home, I saw how defeated she looked. While we were finishing up the paper work, I noticed that Dani hadn't really spoken to anyone while we were doing reports like she normally would have. And when Puckerman cornered her and asked what was bothering her, she told him that she wanted to be a mother someday, but knew it wouldn't happen as long as she was with me." The senior agent looks down.

"When we were lying in bed that night, with her wrapped tightly in my arms, I told her that I wanted a baby with her, that I was finally ready." the blond agent smiles a little. " I'd never heard anybody scream and cry as loudly as she did that night. I also told her that if I screwed up at this parenting thing, it would be her fault. And you know what she told me?"

Rachel shakes her head and looks down, as she tries to keep the senior agent from seeing her cry.

"She told me that I would never take our kid for granted the same way Russell took me and Franny for granted. That I was nothing like him."Quinn finishes and a couple of tears slowly roll down her eyes then quickly wiping them away.

"I don't know if it was because Dani turned me into this big, old marshmallow, but for some reason that was enough to convince me we could do it. That our kid wouldn't turn into a complete and total basket case like I had."

"I'm so sorry Quinn."Rachel whimpers tearfully, not being able to hold it in anymore. A river of tears rolls down the Mossad liaison's face as she trembles.

Quinn scrunches her face in confusion. She never thought she would see the day where she would witness a Mossad agent breakdown in her living room.

" For what, Berry?"

"For Brody. For interfering with your investigation. For Agent McKenzie and the baby. For my father and his asshole colleague. For everything Quinn, I am so sorry." Rachel confesses, sobbing at every other word.

Quinn glares at the Mossad liaison and abruptly stands up from the couch. She walks over to the brunette, who is trying her best to contain her cries so they don't wake the sleeping toddler. The blond then takes Rachel by her arms and moves her facing towards her.

"Look me Berry." Quinn says quietly, yet as sternly as possible. Rachel just shakes her head downward, closing her eyes and refusing to look at the senior agent.

The blond agent then takes a finger under her chin and gently tilts it forward. "Rachel, look at me."

Rachel reluctantly opens her doe eyes and stares at the senior agent sadly.

"It's alright. You were doing your job and I shouldn't have given you as much crap about it as I did. If Lopez, Evans, Dani, or hell, even Puckerman were in the same position as Brody, I would have fought like hell to protect them too until I knew otherwise. You didn't know what he had done and that's not your fault." Quinn says softly but with conviction and receives a nod from the brunette in return. Assured that Rachel was okay, the senior agent lets go of her arms and takes a step back.

"If you don't mind Agent Fabray, I was wondering if it was alright to hug you?' Rachel asks shyly.

Quinn looks on at the officer, dumbstruck. But if it would ease a bit of the Mossad liaison's guilt and get her to stop crying, then she wouldn't mind the temporary discomfort.

She nods and reluctantly holds her arms out to the brunette and watches as Rachel rushes into them. The liaison then wraps tightly wraps her arms around the senior agent's abdomen. She lightly places her head on the senior agent's shoulder and sobs a little bit more.

The perplexed senior agent stiffly stands there for a moment before loosely placing her arms around the brunette, lightly rubbing her back. They stand there for a few minutes,with the blond whispering consolingly that the liaison would be fine and then Rachel pulls away. She takes one of her her hands and wipes the tears away from both sides of her face.

"I'm sorry, Quinn." Rachel said flustered. "Sometimes I can get a little beside myself."

"It's alright Berry, it happens." Quinn shrugs it off. "I don't want to hear another apology come from those lips. Understand? You're breaking rule number six."

Rachel looks at the senior agent quizzically. "What?"

"Rule number six. Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." Quinn explains as she turns away from leaving the Mossad liaison dumbfounded. After a few moments, Rachel breaks out in a fit of giggles, remembering what a colleague at the CIA mentioned to her about Quinn's rules.

"So, that's actually for real. It's not an urban legend? You really have a list of rules that you make your team live by?" the brunette says laughing. She looks over at the blond to see that she was giving her death glare. The liaison immediately stops laughing and looks down as if she were being scolded.

"Yes I I make sure that my team knows these rules and takes them just as seriously." the senior agent explains pointedly.

"As one of my drill sergeants used to say, 'everyone has to have a code they can live with'. The rules are my code. I have about fifty of them, so far. All members of my team are expected to follow my rules as long as they're working under me."

"I see." Rachel says inquisitively while crossing her arms as Jethro walks over to the senior agent. "Do you have these rules written down in a handbook somewhere?"she takes a couple of steps toward the blond. "And how did you come up with these rules?"

"That Berry-" Rachel takes a couple of steps forward, leaning in closer to hear the story. "is another story for another day." the blond agent finishes mysteriously, taking a step backwards.

She brings the stunned liaison's attention to the toddler sleeping on the couch. "I think you should probably get the little one out of here, it's getting late."

Rachel nods and walks over to Beth. She carefully picks her up, causing the toddler to stir a little and carries her out of the living room. The senior agent follows, making her way into the kitchen and picks up the liaison's bag. She heads over to the door, where the brunette has just

When Rachel steps outside, the senior agent hands her the bag. Quinn then leans on the door and scratches the back of her head a little.

As Rachel tries to take the afghan off of the toddler but the agent takes one of her hands and places it on the liaison's.

"Leave her in it." Quinn insists." Bring it back whenever you feel like it, now that you're my new neighbor." The blond smiles softly at the two as she pulls her her hand away and steps back into her doorway.

Rachel returns the smile with one of her own. "Thank you Quinn, I'll be sure to do that."

"You can bring the plate back whenever as well. No rush." Rachel turns and begins to walk away. Maybe this move wasn't such a bad idea after all. Especially with the elusive Agent Fabray as a neighbor. The brunette thinks to herself as she walks down the walkway, away from the senior agent's house.

"Hey Berry!" Quinn shouts out, causing the brunette liaison to stop and turn around.

"Next time you and mini Berry come over." Rachel nods. "Call first. I don't like surprises."

"Is that another one of your rules?" Rachel asks playfully. She receives a smirk from the blond agent.

"Nope. But if you stick around long enough, you should stop by the bullpen and ask Puckerman why he doesn't pay me anymore surprise home visits." the senior agent says mysteriously before closing the front door.

Rachel looks at the closed door with a confused gaze and then laughs a little at the blond agents antics before she turns back around and makes the short journey back to her house. The only thought running through her mind is how she can't wait to unravel and figure out the mystery that is Agent Quinn Fabray.


3:30 am

Fabray residence

Hazel eyes open up squinting, as she feels something stroking through her hair. She looks down and sees Jethro is sleeping quietly on the floor. She looks up and sees three short, perfectly french manicured nails continuing their motions through her hair. They stop when Quinn opens her eyes fully and sits up on the arm of the couch. The hand slowly moves away from her hair.

"Wake up gunny." Dani says softly as she use her hand and lightly traces along the agent's jawline.

The next thing the senior agent sees is the sparkling green eyes that have made constant appearances in her daydreams and nightmares as of late. She suddenly remembers the last time she saw those eyes, they were a darker and filled with rage as the woman told her that the team would be better off if she killed herself.

She did not respond the raven haired beauty's touch. It startled her to see the eyes before were lighter in color, almost translucent. They seemed calm and serene. The joy and lightheartedness that had been absent from them had now returned. For a moment, Quinn felt like she had her Dani back. So she leaned in and allowed herself to get lost in her touch.

Dani goes on for a few moments more before she stops.

"You were late to my funeral." Dani quietly observes. " Not that it surprises me in the least."

Quinn turns and turns over to get a better look at her. She was wearing a grey sweater vest with a white blouse underneath along with a black pencil skirt. Her make up applied as perfectly as it had been at the funeral home. Her eye make up made her green eyes more vibrant than they normally were. She was also wearing a blue and white ribbon with the matching star dangling from it.

She shakes her head at her wife.

"Although, you would think that you would show a little more decorum for the dead at their funerals at least." Dani teases while putting a hand on her hip making the senior agent laugh loudly.

"Sorry probie, I'm from Ohio. The closest thing I've had to decorum is making sure my church dress was nice and pressed for Sunday ." Quinn tells her quietly."But, I'll try to remember that for the next funeral I go to."

Dani moves away from her and makes her way to the other side of the couch. She moves over to the middle cushion while Quinn moves her feet off of the couch and places them on the floor. The brunette sits down, with her knees as closed together as possible and leans back into the couch.

Once two agents get comfortable on the couch, they spend a long time in silence. Quinn turns her head and stares at the brunette's profile. She takes one of her hands and reaches out for the other woman's, like she had ten years ago when she realized she was falling for the secret service agent while they were undercover. When Dani gives her hand to her, the blond starts rubbing little circles around it.

"Why didn't you tell me-" Quinn asks carefully. She sees Dani's free hand go to her stomach. "About the baby?"

The brunette takes a deep breath before she answers. She stares into the dark and doesn't bother

"You were carrying enough stress on your shoulders, with Brody after he kidnapped me. I figured that adding a pregnancy to the mix would send you over the edge." Dani replies softly. She turns her head facing the senior agent. "I was going tell you as soon as we got back to the naval yard after the shootout. But we both know how that turned out."

Quinn takes a deep breath and gulps hard. " Had I'd known you were pregnant, I would gone to Director Schuester and had her give Brody's case files to another team. You know that right?"

Dani laughs a little. "As sweet as the gesture is, Lucy, we both know that you would have never done that. You probably would have place me on desk duty and had an even tighter protective custody assigned to me. But you would have never given another team the opportunity to bring in Brody."

Quinn starts to interrupt, but Dani places a finger on her lips.

"Because that's who you are, gunny. You never back down from anything no matter what the cost." the brunette tells her with conviction.

She gives the senior agent a few moments to give the opportunity for her words to sink in for the blond. She moves her fingers away from the agent's pouty lips and smiles at her.

" It's part of what makes you extremely sexy yet at the same time very frustrating." Dani jokes. They share a few laughs before the brunette leans in and kisses Quinn soundly on the lips. She pulls away quickly, not giving the senior agent enough time to extend the kiss. Quinn looks away from her wife and stares down at her hands.

"Yeah well, look what good would that have done me? The only thing that mattered to me, outside of the job, you and-" Quinn says, taking her hand and caressing Dani's stomach. " our little bean are gone. A little girl is going to grow up and find out what a monster her father was. And her mother has to live with the guilt of being blind to the truth and killing the father. Was it all really worth it in the end?"

Dani takes one of her hands and places it on the senior agent's back. " Rule number eleven. When the job is done, walk away."

Hazel eyes filled with unshed tears stare at the former agent quizzically.

"It's what you told me after the Watson case. It's what I'm telling you right now, Lucy." Dani instructs her comfortingly. She pulls the blond agent into her.

"Walk away, Quinn. You did your job and caught the bad guy. It may not have turned out the way you wanted, but there's nothing you can do about it now. Leave it all behind now and move on to the next case." the brunette tells her, hoping that the senior agent would understand the double meaning behind her message of comfort.

Quinn lets the tears she refused to shed burst out. She feels herself shaking and her vision blurs as she attempts to regain her composure. She wraps her arms around Dani and places her head into her shoulder.

"But I can't, Danielle." Quinn cries are muffled into the brunette's shoulder. "I can't just let you go. Not like this"

Green eyes look on sympathetically. "I'm afraid you're going to have to, Lucy. You don't have a say in it this time."

"I'm so sorry, Danielle." the senior agent sobs. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more to protect the both of you."

"I know you are gunny. I know." Dani whispers softly into the blond's ear.

An hour later, the senior agent's head is in her wife's lap. The raven haired brunette had let the blond agent cry into her shoulder for a few more minutes until she tired herself out. She then suggested that Quinn lie down again and they have been like this ever since.

" So, what's the deal with my replacement, Officer Rachel Berry?" Dani asks jokingly.

"Nothing. No one will be able to replace you on the team Dani and you know it." Quinn says seriously.

"Still the sweet talker, aren't you Fabray?" Dani bends her head down, briefly kissing the senior agent. When they're done, the brunette leans back into the couch.

"She seems nice, a bit of a fire cracker." the brunette observes.

"She is definitely something else alright." Quinn mutters.

"Her kid is adorable." Dani continues on.

"That she is. Berry is in for a lot of trouble when she gets older."

"And from what I hear, Santana can't stand her." Dani stops stroking the senior agent's hair.

"She's not in Santana's top ten list of favorite people. Then again, I don't think anybody is on that kind list for Lopez." Quinn says while laughing.

"Perfect. It'll keep Lopez on her toes and her ego in check." Dani smiles, imagining all the grief that Agent Berry will give Lopez while she was in town.

Quinn just nods with a smile. She opens her mouth and starts to yawn and her eyes begin to droop close. It was only a matter of time before the senior agent would fall into a deep sleep, the first time since Dani bled out on the roof.

"You're not going to be here when I wake up in the morning, are you?" Quinn asks sleepily.

"Would it make you feel better to know that I wish I were going to be here?" Dani asks, hoping to make the senior agent feel better.

"No, it won't." Quinn says tiredly.

"I thought as much." the brunette says somberly. She leans down and places a kiss on the senior agent's temple. Quinn closes her eyes and let's sleep overcome her.

"I miss you Dani, so much." the blond agent says dreamily. A minute later, the senior agent is fast asleep.


5:30 am

Fabray Residence

Quinn wakes up from her deep sleep to the pitch black darkness of the living room. The warmth that she felt when Dani was with her, was noticeably absent. She lifts her head up slightly and turns to the other end of the couch, hoping to find Dani sitting there once again watching her sleep like she had every morning. She was hoping that this week had been nothing but a dream

Unfortunately, there was no one waiting for her.

Quinn groggily turns over to the inside of the couch, A couple of tears come out of her eyes as she stares at the couch pillows. The senior agent ends up not going back to sleep.

When her phone alarm goes off, she doesn't bother moving to turn it off. She lets it keep going until it shuts off automatically.

At nine am, the senior agent calls Jesse and asks to use the personal time she's had built up for the last nine years. He gives it to her without any hesitation and assures her that the team would be exactly as she left it when she decides to come back. He tells her to take all the time that the senior agent needs to start healing.

When the new director hangs up, with the promise to check in on her after work, Quinn places her head in her hands and cries silently for the rest of the day.

" But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view
And we'll live a long life"


A/N: Hey guys, sorry about the mini hiatus, School, life and writer's block unfortunately got in the way. But I'm back now. Thank you so much for being patient, sticking with this story and leaving comments about it, it's very much appreciated.

Dani's storyline is pretty much wrapped up (she'll be brought back periodically from her on out).The next chapter will fast forward a couple of months after Dani's funeral and the team is getting a new member (five guesses as to who).

The lullaby that Rachel sang to Beth is obviously "Somewhere over the rainbow" as sung by Judy Garland. And the lyrics at the beginning and end of the chapter is "Ghosts that we knew" by Mumford and Sons (really great song btw).

Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank gleefan24 for pointing out some of the missing words in previous chapters. I'll try to replace those if I have time during the weekend.

Thanks again and have a wonderful week. Until next time...