A/N: They couldn't exist in their little bubble forever, hm? :D Something that good is bound to get busted. Also, I'd say it's about time for a Reagan family dinner. As a youngest child myself, I feel for Jamie on the receiving end of the hard time, but you gotta love it. Read on! And thank you!

"Eddie?"

"Erin!"

Jamie hears the exchange on the other side of the kitchen. He holds his breath for a confused moment and then the recognition sets in and suddenly his pulse feels like it's on fire.

He tells himself he misheard, but when he rounds the corner, there was no mistaking his sister there at the threshold of his apartment and that look on her face - a combination of her ever-present judgment but also a twinge of a smirk.

Eddie on the other hand just looks like she wants to dissolve into a puddle, or take her bag of bagels and hide in the bathroom.

"Hey," Jamie manages.

Erin blinks hard and tilts her head. "Hey?"

"Ohmygod," Eddie murmurs as she lets her head drop.

"Ah-" he exhales a nervous laugh and glances between the two women. "What are you… What's, uh-?"

"Well you're not dead," Erin announces. "So that's a relief."

Jamie furrows his brow.

"I've been texting you all morning," she explains. "You, me, Dad? Fishing… Memorial Pier…"

His mouth opens and it takes a second for the realization to surface in his brain. "Oh. That was today."

"Yes! You were supposed to meet us this morning. But when you didn't show, I tried calling, but you didn't answer-"

Jamie looks over his shoulder, scratching the back of his head as he realizes he hasn't even looked at his phone since the night before. Then he meets Eddie's gaze and they stall there for a split second, silently attempting to determine if there's any way they can spin this to make it look innocent. But Jamie knows his sister, and there's no use in even trying to pull one over on her.

"I uh-" He stammers. "I think my phone's on silent, and I didn't... " Finally, he just exhales and apologizes. "I'm sorry."

"Well clearly-" Erin narrows her dark gaze at him, but there's a glittering satisfaction there. "-You were busy."

Eddie hugs her arms tighter around the brown paper bag and clears her throat. "I should go," she offers softly.

"Is Dad pissed?" Jamie wonders.

"Well, he's downstairs with the car," Erin tells him. "Why don't you ask him?"

"Oh!" Eddie utters an uneasy laugh and backs away to go set the food in the kitchen. "Oh great. Well… nice knowing you."

"I'll- I'll just tell him I overslept." he reasons. "It's not a big deal."

Erin's eyebrows lift as she blinks at him. "Um-"

He steps closer to her. "Erin. Don't."

She glances past Jamie's shoulder to see Eddie hightail it away to his bedroom. Then she lowers her voice. "How long has this been going on?"

"What?" He answers innocently.

She sets an unimpressed look on her face and patiently waits for a better explanation.

"It's none of your business," he maintains.

"Oh." She nods as she lifts her phone, glancing down to scan the screen. "None of my business. Got it. Let me just tell Dad you're here, you're alive, you were just having a sleepover with your work partner and you lost track of time-"

"Erin, come on." He knows she wouldn't, but the threat still makes his heart leap into his throat.

She looks at him. "It's my business now. But seriously, I'm calling Dad just to tell him you're here and you're getting ready because if I'm up here too long, he'll probably send security detail up next."

Jamie huffs and turns back into his apartment while Erin makes the call. He runs a hand over his brow, pinching there, then paces back to the kitchen for his coffee cup.

"Hey Dad… yeah, he's here. He forgot and overslept," she mutters as she trails Jamie inside. She looks into the kitchen and their gazes meet as she continues. "I know, it is unlike him…"

He rolls his eyes, sets his mug down and crosses past her to head to his room. Softly, he informs her, "I'm getting dressed" as he holds his hands up in surrender.

"Yeah, he'll be ready. Give us a few minutes," Erin relays to Frank before she hangs up.

Jamie makes his way into his room just as Eddie's hopping into her jeans from the night before. "Eddie, I'm sorry," he mumbles.

"Hey," she lets out a quiet laugh. "Comes with the Reagan territory, I suppose."

"I forgot I made plans with my father to go fishing this morning." He goes to his closet to find something to wear. "I uh-" And then he hesitates with chuckle. "Yeah, it slipped my mind."

"I mean, what am I supposed to do?" She wonders. "Do you have some like, floozy back alley exit door for my walk of shame?"

His laughter rumbles out of him. "Please don't feel like that's what this is."

He fastens his jeans and looks out at Eddie who stands at the mirror over his dresser and threads her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame the blonde waves. Meanwhile, he finds a pair of socks and his running shoes, then sits on the edge of the bed to put them on.

Once they're both ready, Eddie glances back once more to make sure she didn't leave anything, and then they exit the bedroom together.

"Well," Eddie starts, uncomfortably sliding her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "My days with the NYPD were really great. But uh… next time you see me, I'll probably be working as a security guard at a mall in New Jersey or something," she announces airily, masking her embarrassment with a grin.

"Stop, Eddie," Erin sighs her name with sympathy while she leans against the kitchen counter to wait for them. She holds her hands up to prove her honesty. "Look. I won't say a word."

Jamie looks over at her and it only takes a minute before Erin presses her lips together to fight off a smile and she slides her hand over her mouth to cover it.

He exhales heavily. "Erin-"

She shrugs like she can't help herself. "How long, though, Jamie? I mean, what - years you've pulled this off? Since that night you came to talk to me about Eddie at my office-?"

Eddie shoots him a look of confusion. "What?"

"Oh, my god," Jamie murmurs, dragging his fingertips over his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose. "No, not years. Can we go?"

"Years?" Eddie arches an eyebrow at Erin. "Not even! Like five minutes."

Jamie cuts a look over to her and tilts his head as if to reason with her that something has been going on for a while longer than that.

She mirrors his expression with a tilt of her head. "I don't mean it like that," she mumbles.

"Okay, look!" Erin speaks up. "I saw nothing, I know nothing. Dad's gonna lose his shit that we made him wait this long, Jamie."

"Alright, fine," he shrugs.

Eddie reaches for her purse near his hallway. "I'll just wait in the stairwell until you guys pull away from the curb or something, because… yeah."

They all head for the door and Jamie turns quickly as Eddie approaches, lingering over her for a moment before he murmurs, "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," she whispers.

His gaze flicks over to the kitchen. "Do you want your bagel?"

She gasps and darts over there before reaching into the bag to pull hers out. "You want yours?"

He laughs. "No. Save mine for later."

"You're gonna be hungry!"

With a smile, he shakes his head as she hurries over and he holds the door while she ducks underneath his arm and they join Erin waiting in the hallway. "I'll survive," he assures her.

"Well hey," Danny announces from his seat across from Jamie at the other end of the dining room table. "I'm just glad no one had to file a missing person's on the kid."

"What is the big deal?" Jamie lifts his shoulders defensively as he cuts into his filet. "I had a late tour, I overslept." He looks over at Erin who lifts her knowing gaze to Danny. "What?"

Erin looks back over at him and shrugs. "What?"

Nicky furrows her brow between them and glances over at her uncle.

"It happens," Frank decides from his position at the head of the table.

"Nah, no, no," Danny gestures with his fork before he stabs a few green beans. "It doesn't happen to Mister Overachiever, here. He's never overslept a day in his life."

"Danny," Jamie looks at him. "Let it go."

"In this family, we answer our phones," Danny says. "Otherwise, we send out a search party."

"Yeah, well you guys found me," Jamie reasons as he reaches for his water glass. "I don't know why you're coming down so hard on me."

"Because I'm not buying your oversleep excuse."

"It's the truth."

"Considering what everyone here does for a living," Henry notes from the other side of Jamie, "This family sure does fly into a panic easily. Your sister called me, she called the lady cop you ride with-"

Jamie turns his head to Erin. "You called Eddie?"

Nicky has to stifle a laugh beside him at the way Henry refers to Jamie's partner.

Erin lifts her shoulders in a blameless shrug. "You guys were on patrol the night before. Technically, she would have been the last person who saw you." Then she narrows her gaze at him, he knows just to make him sweat, and arches a meaningful brow before she closes her mouth around her fork.

"She didn't answer her phone yesterday morning either," Frank adds.

Jamie's eyes dart to him and he swears the room is a hundred degrees. He swallows hard and tells himself not to let the guilt show on his face, but he knows it does. Especially to the eyes at this table. He clears his throat. "You know, it's not unheard of for people to not answer their phones on a Saturday morning."

"You guys are being really weird with Uncle Jamie," Jack speaks up from his end of the table. "I sleep through my phone going off all the time."

"Thank you, Jack," Jamie nods. "I mean, Danny's got a key witness in a cold case who might get deported, and all you guys can talk about is whether or not I slept late yesterday morning."

"You start actin' weird, we're gonna notice, is all I'm saying," Danny muses.

"Yeah?" Jamie's brow creases. "What did you think I was doing exactly?"

The older brother offers a tight-lipped smile across the table. "I'll save my theories."

Jamie averts his eyes to his sister who just lifts her eyebrows innocently and offers a subtle shake of her head. He wants to trust that she didn't say anything, but Erin and Danny have that oldest-half-of-the-siblings bond that he wouldn't put it past her to blurt out to Danny what she saw.

"Were you working undercover?" Sean wonders.

"Maybe he had a girl over," Jack offers, a sly smile on his face.

"Jack-" Linda's voice warns from down the table.

"Maybe it was Eddie," Nicky adds.

"Nicky," Jamie's quick to cut in.

She looks out at the table, mischief in her smile that makes Jamie second guess just how trustworthy Erin really is. All this damn guilt was about to give him a panic attack. "No disrespect," Nicky adds, reasoning aloud, "I know Eddie's a professional. But. You guys are so cute, I seriously don't understand how you work next to her everyday without admitting you love each other."

"Alright, can we just-" Jamie sighs impatiently. "Why are we talking about this? Dad, I thought hassling someone about their… love life was off limits at this table-"

"Love life?" Danny scoffs loudly, turning to Jack to pull an exaggerated face. "So you admit it was your love life that was responsible for your oversleeping."

Jamie looks at his brother, not exactly thrilled with him. Then he glances at his father expecting him to shut this down, only to have Frank raise his eyebrows in anticipation of his answer.

"I never said that."

"You're the one who mentioned your love life."

"I don't know why it's so hard to believe that I would just oversleep, and not hear my phone," Jamie argues. "You act like there was some big scandal about it."

"You act like there's some big scandal."

Jamie lifts his napkin and wipes his mouth. "I'm done talking about this."

"Alright, alright, alright," Danny rattles off, pausing to swallow a bite while both Linda and Henry encourage Danny to ease up. "I'm messing with you. I'll stop. Come on."

Jamie adjusts in his chair and picks up his fork once more. "Why don't you just stick to your theories?" He mumbles, stabbing his potatoes.

Danny chuckles, leaning over to bump Jack's shoulder with his own. "Believe me, I will, kid."