Captain Flack slowed his quick walk as he exited the precinct, glancing around and almost immediately spotting Adam leaning against the building, his arms crossed protectively over his chest and his eyes cast down.

"So," Captain Flack said, walking up beside him. "You lied to me, kid."

"I what?" Adam asked in confusion. "I don't…"

"You said you couldn't fight," Captain Flack said, leaning against the brick wall, his body language mimicking Adam's.

"When did I…oh, right," Adam nodded. "See, the thing is, I didn't lie. I said I didn't like to fight. That doesn't mean I don't know how to do it if I need to."

"Well, that much is obvious," Captain Flack said. "You'd never know it to look at you, but you throw one hell of a right hook. I'd bet good money you've had training."

"Yeah," Adam nodded. "A little."

"Too bad you don't like it," Captain Flack said. "You could have a lot of talent in those hands, you know."

"I don't want that kind of talent," Adam said resolutely, looking up but avoiding Captain Flack's gaze.

After studying him carefully for a moment, Captain Flack nodded solemnly. "Your father, right?" he asked knowingly.

"How did you…?" Adam stammered in confusion.

"I never bothered tryin' to make detective," Captain Flack said. "Never wanted to; I was damn proud of workin' my streets in my uniform. Don't mean I don't know how to read people, though. Thirty years on these streets, that'll teach you a thing or two. Hell, I can probably read people better those most fancy-pants, smart-ass detectives – my own son included. So, your father?"

"Yeah, my father," Adam nodded.

"Makes sense then, the whole not wanting to fight thing," Captain Flack said. "So why bother to learn in the first place."

Adam sighed and looked back down at the ground. "I have sisters," he said quietly.

"So you said," Captain Flack said, a bit perplexed by this turn of the conversation. "What do they have to do with you learning to fight?"

"My father is…he's…well, a bully, I guess," Adam said. "There was always sort of a rule, unspoken, sure, but a rule – he hit my mother, he hit his girlfriends, he hit me…but he didn't touch them. So when I saw the bruise on Trisha's arm one day, I knew he'd broken the rules. And if I learned one thing from my father, it's that if you break the rules, you should expect to be punished. The next day, I went to the boxing gym down the street from my high school and told them I needed to learn how to fight."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen."

"How does a thirteen year old pay for boxing lessons?" Captain Flack asked curiously.

"I, uh, I stole my mom's drug money stash," Adam said. "About a hundred fifty dollars, I think. I knew she'd think my father had taken it but she'd never say anything to him. That got me my first couple hours; after that, I think the trainers sort of felt sorry for me, so they let me sweep floors, wash towels, sort equipment…any sort of odd jobs they could find in exchange for training me."

"How long did it take?"

"Before what?"

"Before you were ready to fight back," Captain Flack said.

"I was never ready," Adam said with a sigh.

"You never hit back?"

"I did," Adam said. "I wasn't ready, though."

"He just hit you one too many times?" Captain Flack guessed.

"Not me," Adam shook his head. "My sister Lauren, she was in the kitchen, and she spilled ketchup on the floor. I guess he thought she didn't clean it up quickly enough, because when I walked in, he was right about to hit her. It was, uh, sort of like back there with Kevin, actually…I didn't even really think about doing anything. One minute I was standing there, the next he was on the floor against the cabinets. I don't even think I hit him that hard, not really…it was the shock of it, I think."

"Must have felt damn good, though," Captain Flack said.

"No," Adam said, once again shaking his head. "You know what he did? He was happy. The man was happy that I'd fought back. Said he'd been starting to wonder about me, when I was going to man up. Told me he'd been wondering if I was even his, so it was about time I started acting like him. I, uh, I was never one of those kids who knew exactly what they wanted to be when they grew up. The only thing I knew was that I, well, I really didn't want to be like my father."

"So you stopped fighting," Captain Flack filled in.

"Until today, I hadn't really taken a swing since," Adam admitted. "I just, there wasn't a need, because he didn't lay a hand on my sisters after that day. And I, I just can't do that, I can't be him. I can't let myself be him."

"How old was your sister?" Captain Flack asked.

"Lauren?" Adam asked in confusion. "I don't know, I think she was probably five – maybe six, but no, I think she was five."

"So you hit a man who was older, bigger and stronger than you," Captain Flack said. "And you did it to protect a little girl who couldn't protect herself."

"I guess so," Adam said.

"Your father, he hit a defenseless little girl with no way to fight back, and he did it for no reason," Captain Flack continued. "That's all I know about the man, but that's enough for me to know that you are definitely not anything like your father, Adam."

Adam sighed, not responding to the suggestion as he leaned his head back against the wall.

"I'm serious, kid," Captain Flack insisted. "If I thought for even one second that you could be that sort of man, do you really think I'd be letting my daughter marry you?"

"Letting her?"

Captain Flack winced slightly as he turned to sheepishly face Samantha, who was standing behind him with her arms crossed over her chest.

"You are damn lucky I'm too freaking tired to even think about that comment right now," Samantha pointed out.

"You ready to go home?" Adam asked, pressing himself away from the wall and taking a step toward her.

"Yeah," Samantha nodded, slipping an arm around his waist. "Can you drive me?"

"Of course," Adam said.

"Do you have to come back?" Samantha asked.

"I'm sorry," Adam said regretfully. "They've got us working doubles since we're understaffed; I tried to switch shifts with the new girl, but she never called back."

"No, no, it's okay," Samantha assured him quickly.

"No, it's not," Adam said. "You shouldn't have to be alone tonight."

"I'm a big girl, Adam, I'll be okay," Samantha said.

"Well, uh, you could stay with me," Captain Flack mumbled nervously.

"What?" Samantha asked in surprise.

"If you wanted, that is, just for the night," Captain Flack quickly clarified. "The house is big, but you know that. Plenty of room if you wanted to stay the night."

Samantha frowned as she considered the offer, looking hesitantly up at Adam, who smiled reassuringly and gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

"Okay," she said finally. "Maybe that could be nice."


Stella quickly bolted her apartment door as it shut behind her, leaning against it and closing her eyes against the world. She'd managed to duck around Flack's question about his sister, chalking it up to him being confused and hearing this wrong, before she'd rapidly excused herself and fled the lab as fast as she could.

She'd left Flack standing there in her office, surely more than a bit confused about her sudden and rushed departure, not to mention her flimsy excuse of an answer to his question. Poor Don, she thought to herself as made her way into the kitchen to put the tea kettle on the stove to boil. So much he still doesn't know.

A sharp knock at the door interrupted her thoughts and she frowned as she tried to figure out who it could possibly be. Glancing through the peephole, her breath hitched in her throat slightly before she quickly pulled open the door.

"Jimmy," she said anxiously, glancing down at her wrinkled shirt and regretting not taking the time to iron it before heading in to work that afternoon.

"Hi," he said, sounding almost as nervous as she did. "I hope I haven't come at a bad time – I know it's late; I could come back in the morning if I…"

"No, no, it's fine," Stella said quickly. "I only just got back from work a few minutes ago. You're not interrupting anything at all."

"Oh," James nodded. "Well, that's good, then."

"Is something wrong?" Stella asked in concern. "Did something happen with Lana?"

"No, no, she's fine," James assured her quickly. "She's been awake a few times, alert and talking; the doctors seem pleased with where she is."

"Good," Stella said with a sigh of relief. "So, um…what exactly are you doing here, Jimmy?"

"Honestly?" James asked. "I'm not entirely certain. I needed to get away from the hospital, so I just got in the car and before I really knew where I was going, I was here."

"Do you, uh, do you want to come in?" Stella asked, unsure what to really say at that point.

"Sure," James nodded, stepping into the apartment and looking around. "This place is nice, Stella."

"Well, it's a far cry from that high rise we had, but it's the best I could do," Stella said.

"No, no, I like it," James assured her. "I do, it's very…I don't know, it's very you, I guess. Not like the high rise, that was a bit impersonal."

"That's because you let your mother hire a decorator for us," Stella pointed out, leading him into the living room and taking a seat on the couch.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," James protested. "We were twenty-one year old kids, what did we know about decorating an apartment? She said it would be tasteful."

"It was," Stella said. "It was the epitome of taste…"

"And boring as hell," James filled in.

"It was, wasn't it?" Stella laughed. "Do you still live there?"

"No," James shook his head. "I moved back to Mother's about three months after you left; now I've got a place just south of Central Park. That wasn't my apartment, Stella, it was ours. There were too many memories for me to stay."

"Good or bad ones?" Stella asked.

"Both," James said with a wistful smile. "I'll never forget that time you tried to make me a birthday cake…"

James let out an exhausted sigh as he shut the front door of the apartment behind him, slipping out of the suit jacket that had been stifling him for most of the day and setting his briefcase near the door. Stepping into the entryway, he frowned as a burned smell reached his nostrils.

Stopping in the doorway of the kitchen, it wasn't hard to locate the source of the smell. Stella was leaning against the refrigerator, staring at a pan on the opposite counter. The oven door was wide open, a small stream of smoke still pouring out, the contents of the pan charred beyond recognition.

"Stel?" James asked in concern. "What happened?"

"Our oven is defective," Stella said, tossing a dishtowel at the pan. "Your mother bought us a two million dollar apartment with a goddamn malfunctioning oven."

"What we were trying to do?" James asked, barely holding back his laugher as he took in her disheveled hair, the smudges of chocolate along her cheek and the flour handprints all over her jeans.

"I was trying to bake a cake," Stella said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Stella practically shouted, turning to face him as she smacked him on the shoulder. "Because it's your birthday, that's why, you idiot. That's what a fiancée is supposed to do, right? I'm supposed to make you a cake."

"Stella, you don't have to make me a cake," James sighed, smelling the liquor on her breath. "You've been my fiancée for several years, and you've never made me a cake before."

"Before, we were living in the dorms," Stella pointed out. "We didn't even have a kitchen before. And apparently we still don't, because the oven is broken!"

"Are you sure it's the oven?" James asked skeptically. "Because I used it last night and it was fine."

"Are you questioning my baking ability?" Stella asked. "I'm working on my master's degree, I can mix complicated chemical compounds without blowing myself up, I think I can follow the recipe on the back of a stupid Duncan Hines box, Jimmy."

James stared at her for a moment, contemplating what she had just said. When she reached her hand up and ran it through her hair, leaving a slight trail of white flour in her curls, he couldn't hold it in any longer and he burst out laughing.

"You think this is funny?" Stella asked incredulously, near tears as she watched him double over. "Your birthday is ruined now, and you think this is funny?"

"No," James said, gasping for air as he straightened back up. "No, it's just…"

"Just what?" Stella asked.

"You've got flour in your hair, Stella," he pointed out. "And on your jeans…and your shirt…"

"Oh, that's what's funny, is it?" Stella asked, smirking mischievously as she spun around and grabbed something from the counter next to the refrigerator.

"What are you…" James began to ask, stopping abruptly as a handful of flour landed right on his chest, fluttering down and clinging to his tie, his shirt and his black pants. "You didn't…"

"Not so funny now, is it?" Stella asked.

"Oh, it's still funny," James said, reaching behind Stella as she ducked out of the way just in time to miss the flour he'd launched in her direction. Letting out a shriek, she couldn't escape as his arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her slightly as he pulled her back toward him.

"Jimmy!" she shouted, slapping his arm in vain as she struggled to get away. "Put me down!"

Whirling her around so that she was facing him, he grinned as he reached up and wiped a bit of chocolate from her cheek.

"My birthday isn't ruined, baby," he said. "All I need is you."

"I never did figure out what happened to that stupid cake," Stella grumbled, smiling at the memory.

"You had it set at five-fifty instead of three-fifty," James said.

"I what?" Stella asked in confusion. "No, that's impossible, I…oh, right…"

"I smelled the wine on your breath," James said, confirming her suspicion. "You were supposed to be going to meetings."

"I know," Stella said quietly. "Do you ever wonder about it? You know, where we'd be today if I'd been able to stick with it back then?"

James sighed, leaning forward and resting his forearms just above his knees. Slowly, he turned his head to look at Stella.

"Every day," he said.

"Do you think we would have been happy?"

"Yeah, I do," James said.

"Me too," Stella said, smiling softly as the two of them shared a brief glance before both looking away again and letting silence fall over them.