Ross POV

We arrived back in New York on Wednesday, but I decided to take some time. I wasn't motivated to return to the office, and I wasn't completely sure if I ever would be.

Was it possible that I had changed too much?

I wasn't sure, but a couple of days worth of self-analysis proved useful.

Sure, I had changed.

Maybe my priorities were a little different now than they were a year ago. Hell, even a month ago.

But that didn't mean that I couldn't do the job, and do it well. I could insist on a higher caliber of detective in my department.

There wasn't much I could do about the people over me, but I could sure as hell enforce the fact that the people under my command would be worthy of the title of an NYPD detective.

So I went back to work that Friday with a fresh attitude.

And then I met my new detectives.

"Captain Ross!" the D.C. transplant called out to me as I strolled through my squad room early Friday morning.

"Give me ten minutes," I said over my shoulder.

He gave me eight.

"I realize that I have some big shoes to fill. I've heard about Detective Goren, and I want you to know that I'm up to the task."

"Which one?" I asked him without looking up from the messages on my desk.

I'd asked the man for ten minutes, so if he was two minutes early, well then that was his problem not mine.

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Which one?' I asked again more slowly.

I bit back a smile. How much fun had they had at my expense over this? And now here I was, toying with the new guy, in the same manner.

"Which shoes?" he asked in confusion. And this guy was supposed to be a detective?

"To which Detective Goren are you referring?" I inquired as I finally looked up at him. He was a young guy, decent-looking, and most likely an ass-kisser.

I needed to cure him of that. Because I didn't want yes men in my department.

I wanted independent thinkers.

I wanted creative thinkers.

I wanted Gorens.

And then he said just about the worst thing he could've possibly said.

"Oh, that's right! I did hear a rumor about him and his partner carrying on some kind of illicit affair. Good detective or not, it's probably best that he's no longer with the department. Anyone who can't follow basic departmental guidelines..."

"Harker, is it?" I asked loudly, interrupting his diatribe.

"Yes sir."

"Get the hell out of my office."

"Sir?"

"You want to keep working here?" I asked him.

"Yes sir!"

"Then get the hell out of my office right now before I change my mind. Send in Bernard."

Harker quickly departed.

I knew that I'd confused him, but he was really going to stand there and be judgmental about the Gorens?

He didn't know them.

I wasn't going to tolerate any bad-mouthing or gossip-spreading in my house.

They hadn't done anything wrong. For the most part.

I mean, sure, they'd fallen in love.

But like Liz had told me so many, many times – you can't help who you fall in love with.

And they had tried to tell me. I knew they wanted to be honest with me. I just had my head up my ass and couldn't deal with it.

But now I could understand. Now I could empathize. And I wasn't going to put up with some snot-nosed new detective talking down about either one of the Gorens.

"Captain Ross?"

It was Bernard, from the 2-7.

"Come on in."

I watched as Detective Bernard entered my office and closed the door behind him.

He looked a lot more seasoned than Harker, and I'd heard good things about him from Van Buren.

"I heard Lupo got reassigned to Counterterrorism," I began.

I didn't want to be unapproachable. I hadn't meant to get so upset with Harker.

His kowtowing had just touched on a nerve.

"Yes sir. He's going to be leaving at the end of this month, so when my lieutenant said that I'd been selected for this position, I decided to give it a shot."

I figured I would go ahead and throw it all out there. If I wasn't going to like him, I may as well know sooner rather than later.

"You've heard about the detectives you're replacing?" I asked him. I kept my face impassive.

"Yes sir. Top-notch detectives. I'm sure MCS will be hurting for awhile."

"Yes. Yes it will," I agreed.

"I may not have the intellectual background of the one Detective Goren, or the street savvy of the other, but I think I do okay. My record at the 2-7 can back me up on that."

And just like that, I liked him.

"You're going to be the senior partner. Harker is green as far as MCS detectives go. He needs to be taught."

"I've got you covered, Captain."

"He's going to want to follow the book verbatim. I'm sure you've learned how to read between the lines."

"Yes sir."

"Okay then. Two things," I told him, and it was all I could do to hide my smile. "Keep him in check, and keep me in the loop."

Alex POV

I'd avoided my family for long enough.

Okay, so I hadn't really been avoiding all of them.

Mostly just Cathy.

Since Christmas, my dad had shown that he was going to make an effort, and that was all I could ask of him.

And Cathy was fine with Bobby, so it wasn't that. I just didn't want to hear her moaning about Steve. It had almost been a blessing that I'd been without a cell phone for four days.

I'd lost mine on Monday, and even though we'd gotten back to New York on Wednesday, we didn't immediately shop for new phones.

In fact, we didn't immediately do anything except go home and go to bed. We got into the city around noon, we were in the bed by two, and we didn't go anywhere until eight o'clock Friday morning.

We'd spent over forty glorious hours sleeping and making love. With the exception of Bobby's injured arm, it was almost like our honeymoon all over again.

But all good things have to end at some point.

Friday morning, we met Mike and Carolyn at work. At our new office, which was Mike's old apartment. The two of them worked on cases that had been pending during our nearly week-long absence, but they both insisted that we take some time to get organized.

First thing, I called my dad and agreed to a family dinner on Saturday night. I explained to him that we'd both lost our cell phones, although I didn't mention how, and apologized for my lack of communication.

With that task taken care of, Bobby and I spent an hour or so getting ourselves organized in our new work space, but then we got busy, each of us working on separate cases.

Afterwards, we went out and bought new phones, and then that evening, we had dinner with the Logans and Ross and Rodgers.

It was a debriefing of sorts.

I was surprised to learn that Ross had only gone back to work today. I'd thought he'd be itching to indoctrinate his new detectives.

"Just not the same without us, is it?" Bobby teased in a very Mike-like manner.

I know it was because of their close proximity that Bobby was picking up on some of Mike's mannerisms, but it was strange timing considering his receipt of Mike's blood.

"I needed to get my head in the game," Ross admitted. "A lot has changed recently."

"He's thinking about not going back," Liz spoke up. "I mean, he's back, but maybe not staying."

"What?" I asked quickly.

I watched the exchange between the two of them. A whole conversation without words.

I smiled at how much that used to piss Ross off when me and Bobby did it.

Seemed we were all rubbing off on each other.

"I'm weighing my options," he said carefully.

"Yeah, I heard that you were getting jammed up because one of your detectives quit and took her badge with her," Mike said.

He managed to get through the whole sentence without cracking a smile, but once the words were out, everyone else started laughing.

"Thanks, Carolyn," I said in mock annoyance. "You told Mike?"

"I told Mike," Ross said with a grin. "So you want to fill me in on how you managed to get it off my desk without me seeing you?"

My face flushed immediately despite my specific internal instructions for it to do otherwise.

"Yeah, I would like to hear that," Carolyn added. "I mean, I knew you had it, but you never really said how you got away with stealing it."

"I didn't steal it," I insisted. I looked at Bobby for moral support, and he gave me a nod. "It's mine. How can you steal something that belongs to you?"

"You turned it in," Ross spoke up. "Both of you. On your last Friday, before you left for the bar, you turned in your guns and badges. They were on my desk when you both walked out of my office."

"And then…" Bobby supplied with a grin.

"And then what?" Ross asked. "You two went to your desks and packed up your things. I put your weapons and badges in an envelope to turn in to personnel."

"Uh huh," I said, knowing that now he was replaying the evening in his head.

He was a smart guy. He'd come up with it.

"And then I went to help Jeffries with that interrogation on the Pfister case," he added. I started smiling and nodding my head. "And you went into my office?"

"I…might have…gone to take one more look at it," I admitted.

It was true. I loved my badge.

And I'd busted my ass to get it, so I didn't think that just because I was leaving the department that I should have to give it back.

It wasn't like I was going to use it.

Okay, I wasn't going to use it for purposes other than good…

"You broke into Danny's office?" Liz asked me.

"I didn't break in," I clarified. "The door wasn't locked. I just went in. The envelope was on the desk."

"Sealed," he reminded me.

"Yes, it was sealed. So I opened it, and took out my badge and then put everything into a new envelope and sealed that."

"So when I went to personnel to hand it over," Ross filled in. "Then I had to explain why it was only the department-issue weapons and no badges."

"Oh, hey," Bobby said quickly. "I didn't take mine. It was only Alex."

"Thank you, honey, for throwing me under the bus," I told him, although I brought our joined hands to my lips and kissed his knuckles.

A few weeks ago, his denial would've been a major crime, but now that Ross was…well, one of us…it was just funny.

"Yes, well…" Ross began, and then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another badge. Bobby's badge. "I thought you might want to keep yours, too."

Why was it that his simple gesture made me want to cry?

And I don't cry.

But I watched as Bobby let go of my hand and reached across the table to take his badge from Ross.

"I…um…thank you," he said at last.

I could tell that it meant a lot to him, too. Hell, he'd worked hard for that badge just like I had, and just because he hadn't resorted to thievery like I did, didn't mean that he didn't want to keep it. In fact, I felt a little bad for not having stolen it myself.

Although this was going to mean even more to him.

Ross was giving it to him.

And he seemed a little embarrassed by the sentimentality of the gesture, so we were all relieved when the waitress came to bring our drinks. I watched Bobby as he stared at his badge a moment longer before carefully tucking it into his jacket pocket.

"Bobby, if you want to come by the morgue tomorrow, I'll take another look at your arm," Liz told him after she took a sip of her bourbon. "Maybe you can get rid of that sling."

"So soon?" I asked. I wanted him to be done with it, but that artery worried me. I didn't want any more blood loss.

"We'll see," she told me with a nod. And I trusted her to take good care of him.

"I'll come by around eight? Then I can still get to work by nine," Bobby said.

"Work on a Saturday?" Ross asked.

"Well, we were off Wednesday and Thursday," I reminded him.

"Eight o'clock works for me," Liz agreed.

"Anything new from Rhonda?" I asked Mike. He and Carolyn had been quiet for the last few minutes.

"I…actually…did get a text, yes," Mike said reluctantly.

"Were you going to tell us?"

"Hey, we deserve a little bit of down time. I didn't want to jump right into something else."

"What did it say?" Bobby asked.

Mike pulled out his phone and pulled up the message and then handed it to me.

I missed you while you were in Chi-town. I'm glad you're back. But you brought the bitch with you. Give me time, and I'll take care of her.

"Mike!" I said in alarm when I read the blatant threat. I handed the phone to Bobby, who read it and then gave it to Ross. "When did this come in?"

"Earlier today. I was going to tell you guys in the morning."

"You have that alarm system at your house, right?" Ross asked after reading the message.

"Yeah. We haven't been home since this morning, but it was armed when we left."

"Do a sweep when you go in, just to be sure," I told him. "In fact, we'll come with you," I added. "We'll go through it together."

"You don't have to do that," Carolyn spoke up, although it seemed to me that she was off. She wasn't her usual self, and I wondered if this deliberate warning had finally shaken her.

Or was it just that she was angered by it and now more determined? I needed to learn how to read her emotions better. It was new for her to show them, so I still hadn't mastered her tells.

We knew without a doubt that Rhonda had been watching. She knew that they'd gone to Chicago, and she'd decided to target Carolyn. But did she even know who she was? She never mentioned her by name, so maybe she was only watching. But then how did she know that they'd gone to Chicago?

"NYPD's contracted you guys for this case," Ross reminded us. "I know you have other clients, but I'm thinking that maybe this one gets moved to the top of the list."

"He's right," Mike said, looking at Carolyn. "We need to track her down and put her behind bars where she belongs."

"Bars are too good for her. I've got a few other ideas," Carolyn replied smartly.

"Okay, I did not hear you just say that," Ross said.

"Say what?" she asked him sweetly. But she was pissed and it didn't take any kind of special skills to see that.

"Sounds to me like Rhonda just declared war," Bobby spoke up. "Who's in?"

TBC...