Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from The Killing. It's all just for fun.

Spoilers: Season 3, episodes 3 and 4

Linden and Holder are back at the station, searching the police database for Joe Mills. The computers are running slow.

"So what'd you say to Carl, anyway?" Linden asks, referring to the "conversation" during which she'd asked for his help getting information from a source, Reddick had pissed her off and the entire time Holder had said nothing, even after Linden had told Reddick off and then stormed out.

"Nothin." Holder isn't exaggerating, since he had literally not said one word.

"He's gonna hate you," Linden tells him, surprised that he hadn't tried to smooth things over with his partner.

"Not as much as he hates you."

With a sigh Linden says, "I can't guarantee you're gonna make sergeant by working with me." She perches herself on the edge of his desk.

Holder leans back in his chair. "What makes you think I need your help?" Then he pauses, before turning the conversation back to work. "I hate to say it, Linden, but so far none of this porn stuff seems to lead back to Trisha Seward."

"I know." It's been bothering her, in fact. She knows there's something she's missing, and it's driving her a little crazy.

"If Seward didn't kill his wife, we're running out of time to prove it," Holder says, though they both already know it.

Now it's Linden changing the subject. The Seward case is a very sensitive topic with her after everything she went through with it back then. "How we doing on Mills?"

Holder checks the monitor in front of him. "Searching…" he says, drawing out the word as if it were stuck in his mouth. They both look at the computer screen, hoping to find something useful there.

"What's up with that ADA anyway? You two a thing?" Linden's never one to ask about people's personal lives – except when it comes to Holder, in which case she is her usual self – blunt and to the point.

Holder looks up at her. "You jealous?" he asks quietly, playing with the word "jealous," as he utters it in a teasing voice. They both laugh, then look back at the computer screen. Just then the computer beeps, Linden gets off the desk and they look carefully at the screen.

"Son of a bitch!" exclaims Holder. It seems that Joe Mills had been arrested the previous night at "Hotel Mama's," as he's calling it, but had been released six hours ago. It was time to get back to work.

Linden

I really hope Holder's not gonna have to suffer because of how Reddick feels about me. Not that I don't think Holder can take care of himself – he's a big boy and everything – but Reddick is stupid and petty and jealous and that just wouldn't be fair. Holder has worked hard for a year to shake off the stigma he ended up with after working the Rosie Larsen case with me. He's a good cop, despite some questionable decisions in the beginning – God knows I can't criticize anyone else for those. He deserves to succeed.

I wish working with me hadn't been so toxic for him. It seems like it doesn't matter what I do… at the end of the day everything I touch catches fire.

As far as whether I'm jealous of him and that ADA… of course I'm not. He can be with whoever he wants to. It's not like I have any claim to him. We work together – we work really well together, but we're not like that. We're "BFFs" – that stupid phrase – as he would say. We're just… us. That's as much as I want with anyone. It's more than I thought I'd ever have with anyone.

I'm better alone, always have been.

Holder

Can't figure out why Reddick hates Linden so much. Been thinking about it ever since she came back, 'cause it's like he just loves to go on about her. Seems like he wants to prove something to me, prove that he's so much better at the job, better as a partner, better in general… he's not a bad guy, but he's a dumbass, insecure. I mean, as Linden pointed out, he has been a detective for a lotta years without making Sergeant… that's gotta sting a little.

Seems like he's one of those people who's gotta put other people down to make themselves feel big. In some ways I guess Linden's an easy target. The only woman around, clearly has some emotional issues, to put it mildly… and pretty much everyone knows it. Still, there's something that screams asshole about taking advantage of a person's weaknesses like that. Linden doesn't like to let on that it bothers her, other than to dish it right back out to him. She's no pushover. She has her walls built up pretty high, and she does a good job of attacking herself from inside those walls. Still doesn't make it okay for Reddick to do it, though.

…

Linden had demanded to drive. It was the first time that had happened since she came back to work this case with him. Since he brought her back to work the case with him. She was agitated right now, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently.

"What's wrong, Linden?" Linden had never been good at hiding her frustration. Holder had noticed that every time they talked to Callie's mom, who they'd just finished questioning again, this time about Joe Mills, Linden came away more and more agitated. Something about the woman was really pushing Linden's buttons.

She didn't answer him right away. They were on their way out to a scene on the road that Skinner had called them to, where some young driver, some kid, may have just seen the a girl fitting Callie's description run out of the woods, run in front of his car and then run back into the woods, with some guy chasing her on foot.

Linden had a particular way she worked a case, and it was clear to Holder that she was still in the "working things out in her head" stage of processing the new information they've been given. He knew that if she didn't talk about whatever was bothering her now, she'd tell him eventually, so he was okay with waiting.

Finally Linden had her thoughts together enough to articulate them. "She insisted her daughter wasn't missing for so long… Until it very well may have been be too late to do anything about it. We could have helped her, found her, if she just would've helped us, and now it's probably too late. How could she not care about where her own daughter was for days? It's so wrong that we should care more about what happened to Callie than her own mother."

Holder exhaled loudly, totally understanding her frustration. Linden had almost lost it when Jack had been missing for one day, and understandably so. In their jobs they saw first-hand the horrible things that happened to kids, even teenagers, every day. He figured that the situation with Callie was hitting a little too close to home for Linden. She took these things personally, she always had, and it made her great at her job. She had this intuition about situations that he'd seen in few people, if anyone, but it also made the job very tough on her.

He didn't disagree with her, either. The way some people acted was sickening, especially how some people treated their kids. No, no one was perfect, least of all him, and he didn't have kids so he couldn't go around judging parents most of the time, but this kinda basic thing – kicking your kid out on the street, being told that your daughter was a prostitute and responding with, "It's a phase, she'll grow out of it," or not having a clue where your teenage daughter had been for days but insisting that she wasn't missing, so that the only people who cared enough to notice that something may have happened to her didn't have a shot at finding her – that was just criminal.

"Yeah, I know," he sighed in agreement.

"What's wrong with people?" she hissed. He just shook his head in silence, gritting his teeth. "I may suck at being a mom, but even I know this kinda shit is wrong," she said quietly.

"We're gonna get the guy," Holder said reassuringly. He had no way of knowing if they'd find Callie – it wasn't looking too good at the moment – but one way or another he had confidence that they'd at least get to the bottom of who was responsible for all these girls going missing. After all, Linden was not one to let a case like this go. She'd fight to the end to get justice.

There was silence for a few minutes as they stared out the window at the scenery going by before their eyes, each lost in thought.

"For what it's worth," Holder began suddenly, pulling Linden out of her thoughts and back to the present, "I don't think you suck at being a mom." Linden scoffed slightly, shaking her head. She was about to present evidence to disprove his assertion, when Holder continued. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you'd win Mother of the Year…" They both chuckled at that. "But we play the cards we're dealt. You got a rough hand, and you've done your best. You both made it this far." Holder hesitated, knowing he was about to broach an even more sensitive topic, then added "Letting Jack go to Chicago doesn't mean you failed at being a mom, Linden. It was what he needed, and you did it even though it hurt you. That don't sound like someone who sucks at being a mom to me."

She inhaled quickly and continued to look straight ahead, thankful for the excuse of keeping her eyes on the road so that she didn't have to meet Holder's gaze. She felt herself blinking rapidly, willing the prickling sensation in her eyes to go away. It almost worked.

"At some point, you gotta forgive yourself, ya know?" he asked simply.

He was watching her, and he knew that she was purposely not looking at him, but that was okay because he could see just from looking at her that she'd heard him. He knew that she had built so many walls to stop herself from getting hurt by people that someone saying something nice almost felt like a different kind of attack. He'd been there, too. It was hard to believe anything good about yourself when you were used to only believing the bad.

Linden's eyes didn't waver from the road ahead, but she nodded slightly and uttered "yeah," in a voice that was barely a whisper. Satisfied that he'd gotten through, Holder's went back to thinking about the case. They were both quiet for the rest of the drive, lost in their thoughts.