A/N: Greetings once again! So I sort of said this would be up on Friday, but technically I'm only an hour late. Close enough, right? As always, thanks to all my reviewers, readers, followers, favorite-ers, etc. Having you all reading this is pretty much awesome. (Even more so when you review, hint hint.) At least this time I didn't really leave you with a cliffhanger!

Using the bottom of the oversized t-shirt she'd donned over yoga pants to sleep in to prevent her from disturbing any fingerprints on the envelope, George gingerly picked it up by the corner and held it out in front of her, well away from her body.

"HEY! Reaper meeting in the kitchen, NOW!" George shouted before striding quickly into the kitchen where Rube had been typing up reap lists. He looked up at her with a startled look on his face, his fingers still hovering over the keys of his laptop. Seeing the grim expression on her face, he quickly shut the lid of the laptop and looked her over, noticing the envelope as he did so.

"Is that…" he began, dark fury beginning to overtake his eyes.

George placed a calming hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I don't know yet, I haven't opened it. But it is the same kind of envelope, so I'm thinking there's a good chance, yeah."

Roxy burst into the kitchen at a run, making a comical picture with her hair in curlers and her hand hovering over her sidearm which she'd hastily belted over her pajamas. When she saw only George and Rube, she relaxed but raised a questioning eyebrow at her young boss.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

George stared at Roxy's unexpected pajama choice: blue flannel pjs covered in teddy bears. "What the fuck are you wearing?" she questioned as Mason and George came stumbling into the kitchen, hair and clothes slightly awry.

To George's surprise, Roxy looked slightly embarrassed, shifting from foot to foot and crossing her arms over her chest in an attempt to look fierce. "Leave my pajamas out of this, Toilet Seat. What were you screaming about?"

Mason held her by the shoulders as he inspected her for damage but found none. "You alright, Georgie?" he asked to make sure.

George shrugged dismissively. "Fine, fine." She held the envelope aloft. "But this was sitting inside the front door when I came down, and I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't there when we got here."

Roxy turned and headed back up the stairs. The rest of them stared after her in confusion, but when she returned several minutes later with her fingerprinting kit, their puzzled expressions evaporated. She briskly took the envelope from George with a pair of tweezers and got to work dusting for prints. While she worked, the others milled around in anxious silence.

George decided she'd had enough silence and began banging pots around in the kitchen as she heated milk over the stove for hot chocolate and plated slices from the pecan pie they'd brought back from Der Waffle Haus. Roxy was just finishing up when George began handing around plates and mugs.

"Envelope's clean. Should we see what fucked up surprise we have waiting for us tonight?" she asked rhetorically as she pealed back the flap and slid out the envelope's contents.

Instead of a note like they'd expected, four black and white photographs fell into Roxy's latex glove clad hand. The first showed Roxy and George in the cemetery. In the second photo, Daisy and Mason were climbing into George's Mustang outside an apartment building. Rube and a strange man in flannel and ripped jeans stood beside a construction site in the third photograph, and the final picture showed all five of them clustered around Ben's dead body in the alleyway. In each photo, a red circle with a slash through it was drawn over their faces but in the final shot, a big red X covered George's entire body and the words "You were warned" were scrawled in the same red ink across the top of the shot. The red ink stood out in sharp contrast against the grays, blacks and whites of the photos, and George felt a chill run up her spine as she examined the group picture.

Daisy had backed into Mason's chest as she saw what the envelope contained, and the two of them stood close, supporting each other. Roxy sat grim faced next to Rube, her lips pressed into a sharp thin line, her fury practically radiating off of her. George found herself drifting closer to Rube, almost afraid of Roxy in her current mood. This time Rube reached out a calming hand and wrapped his fingers around hers where they hung limply by her side.

In an icy controlled voice, Roxy barked out, "I am going to find the fuckers that are doing this and they are going to fucking pay. Nobody threatens my family." She slammed the pictures down on the table and stood slowly. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go call the fucking police station again and see if anyone's found anything." Then in a softer tone of voice, she said, "George honey, save my pie for me would you?"

Shocked, George just nodded mutely, not sure what to do with Roxy being—dare she say it?—almost affectionate. As Roxy left the room, George sank into her chair, not relinquishing her death grip on Rube's hand. Daisy and Mason sat in the remaining chairs.

"I suppose nobody heard anything when this was delivered?" Rube asked as his thumb brushed calming circles over George's thumb but fury still in his eyes.

In the small voice she used when she was feeling insecure or upset, George just answered, "No." After a beat of silence, she straightened in her chair. "What if a graveling was playing delivery boy for someone? We'd have never heard them creep up and slide it under the door."

Next to her, Daisy slowly nodded. "It's possible. Ray certainly managed to sneak in and out of the house whenever he wanted to. But these pictures… someone was following us. They could be watching us right now."

Beside her, Mason nodded, a dangerous look in his eyes. "Fuckers have probably been watching us since you got that first letter under the door."

Rube shushed them. "Panicking isn't going to get us anywhere. Did you find out anything from the other division leaders about our mysterious dark haired man?"

George frowned. "No, not really," she admitted. "The closest any Seattle reapers come to our description is probably Brian, but he's too young looking for anyone to peg him as mid-30s. But Plague Division isn't back from an out-of-town assignment, so I couldn't check with them."

Rube waved his free hand dismissively. "No, none of them fit that description either; they've all been in town a long time and I know all of them. If someone had said the guy we're looking for was on the heavy side, then there's one or two that might fit, but with them being on assignment and all I think they're safely accounted for."

Mason noticed Daisy starting to nod off over her cocoa and decided she had had enough for one day and led her off to bed, bidding the other two reapers goodnight in a far more somber tone than usual.

When they were gone, George sighed in frustration. "We need to catch a break on this or it is going to tear us apart. Unless the fucking gravelings do it first." Then she scoffed. "Of course, I could always just start reaping every graveling we see."

She expected Rube to either tuck up one corner of his mouth in a reluctant smile or to start lecturing her on being responsible but instead he stilled even more than usual and resolutely stared at his empty mug instead of meeting her gaze.

Beginning to feel alarmed, George tugged on the hand she still held in her possession. "Alright, spit it out. What's going on in that head of yours, Bossman?"

Switching the direction of his gaze to their interlaced fingers, Rube sighed. George decided that was at least a slight improvement and nudged his shoulder with hers. "Come on. We've always been able to talk. Pretend we're at Der Waffle Haus and you've just ordered me an ice cream or something."

He finally rewarded her with the small smile she'd been desperate to see after the shock of the photos. For some reason, that smile always reassured her that as fucked up as things were, they'd get better because Rube was on her side.

"This isn't easy for me to say, kid," he said apologetically, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

George shrugged. "Well whatever it is, you're making me more nervous by dragging it out. Just say it quick, like ripping off a band-aid."

That earned her a snort of amusement, and George hid a smile behind her hand. "You're something else, Peanut," Rube said ruefully. "The thing is, I made some calls on the way back from Portland. What you said about seeing reapers when you were alive made me suspect something and I wanted to look into it before I mentioned it to you, so don't go ranting and raving about me keeping secrets," he warned her.

"What? Why would you think I would…" Seeing his meaningful look, George snapped her mouth shut. "OK, fine, you know me sooo well. What did you suspect and what'd you find out?"

He tightened his grip on her hand. "Very occasionally, someone will miss their appointment, you know this."

George nodded, trying to prompt him to continue with whatever he was trying to say.

"Well, sometimes when that happens, especially if an appointment gets rescheduled just before a death was originally scheduled, there can be… consequences."

"Consequences," George repeated dryly, still not understanding what the hell he was talking about.

"Yes, smart ass, consequences. Like, say, being able to see gravelings. Maybe even the gravelings sent to arrange their death before being called off."

George's eyes widened. "You think I was supposed to die in that pool?"

"No, Peanut. You died exactly when you were meant to. I wrote out the post-it, remember? What I suspected was that you had a previous appointment that for whatever reason, you missed. And from what you said, it sounded like you just barely missed it. Coming that close to death has been known to make someone more aware of reapers and gravelings. Sometimes people with missed appointments can see right through a reaper's disguise and see them as they really are, sometimes they see gravelings in action. Point being, it seemed like that might explain why you see them so clearly. So I made a few calls to check on my suspicion."

Biting her lip, George stared at him impatiently. "Well?"

"Well," Rube continued, "it turns out I was right. You did have an appointment scheduled. Turns out I've actually written you two post-its, but one wasn't acted on because you didn't die. It was just so long ago I'd forgotten that I'd written the name once before."

As he'd anticipated, George exploded. "What the fuck, Rube? You're telling me I was supposed to die when I was eight and you fucking forgot about it?"

He stood and tugged her by the hand clasped in his into his chest and wrapped his arms securely around her and waited for her breathing to even out some. Then he leaned back. "Yeah, I'm saying I forgot, but I'm not saying you were supposed to die. Why do you think I fucking forgot about it? Because you didn't fucking die. There was no paperwork on you because you were supposed to keep on living. You died at exactly the moment you were meant to die. Fact is, I kind of wonder if you had that close brush with death exactly so that you could be the reaper you are now."

He led her over to the couch and pulled her down next to him, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "Look kid, I'm going to be frank with you. Reapers can't reap gravelings. Gravelings have no soul to pop. They're like reapers, tasked to do a job and virtually indestructible. I think the reason you could was because you had that near brush with death. And to be honest, even I don't know the full extent of what you can do. As far as I could discover, you're the only missed appointment to ever become a reaper."

George scoffed. "Oh great, so now I'm some kind of reaping freak? Of course. Because when have I ever been normal?"

"Hold on just a minute. When exactly did I say you were a freak? I believe I said you can do more than the average reaper. You're special, Georgia. Not a freak, special. And before all this is over, I have a feeling we'll all be very glad that you are."

Whatever response George might have made was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. With a sigh, George stood and strode over to her purse, plucking the phone out and glancing half-angrily at the display. When she read who was calling, the frown smoothed away leaving only curiosity as she answered.

"What, you couldn't got more than an hour without talking to me?" she joked.

"Ha ha, you're a riot, Toilet Seat," Brian responded, the smirk he no doubt was wearing evident in his tone. "No, I remembered somethin' and I thought you might like to know. But if you'd rather finish your comedy act instead, that's fine with me."

"Oh please, just spit it out, you ass," George insisted.

Brian's voice turned serious. "Well, it's just that I had a thought that you may have been over looking. That kid over at the university got killed during a robbery, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, what were they trying to steal? Presumably it was the same people involved in the other deaths. And the kid interrupted them, so they weren't there to kill someone, or at least, weren't just there to kill someone. Maybe if you find out what they needed from the university, you can find out what they're trying to do and who would want to do that."

George groaned. "Oh my God, you're completely right. How the hell did we forget about that? Brian, you just might be a fucking genius. Thanks for the call, I'd better get on this."

"No problem, dead girl. Good luck," he said before disconnecting the call.

George turned and bestowed a huge grin on her former boss. "We just might have gotten our first solid lead."

A/N2: Hey look, we're getting somewhere! Sometimes it just takes an outside observation to put the first piece into place to solve the whole puzzle. And sometimes it isn't nearly that simple. You can probably guess which one is at work here :)