Episode 12: "A Kiss Before Dying"

Summary: Amy is forced to face her estrangement from her family and her thirty-third birthday when her cousin appeals to her for help as his dying wife reaches the end. Confused over her mother's shock illness, Kari seeks comfort in Alex's arms. Kelly and Joss are frustrated when they encounter a young man who insists on driving despite causing havoc on the roads.

Part 1

The date on the calendar stared back at her, teasing her and taunting her. She had never bothered to celebrate in years gone by and really couldn't see a point in starting now. It was just another day…so why didn't it feel like that?

Amy reached out to the desk calendar, looking over it with a sad half-smile. Even in the Garth days, she hadn't seen much point in celebrating her birthday. All it ever seemed to do was remind her how much of her life she had already wasted. Nothing pleasant, nothing worth celebrating.

Out in the muster room, she could hear her colleagues and their friendly banter. After several weeks, Alex and Mark's promotions had finally come through. It hadn't made a great deal of difference to them, really. Mark was in his office, working away on paperwork of some description as usual, Alex was trying to force Kelly and Joss to finish some report that was way overdue despite their best attempts to delay the process, while Kari had been unusually downcast and upset. She hadn't been quite right since that Takeru Yagami guy had shown up.

PJ entered their office, surprising her with a tender kiss to her cheek. She nearly jumped from her seat, before relaxing at the sight of him offering her a warm mug of coffee. It was finally starting to cool down, something that she was more than happy about after the scorcher of a summer.

"You certainly know the way to a woman's heart!" Amy exclaimed as her smile broadened and she drew in a mouthful of the warm liquid. She watched him as he sat down and quickly busied himself with the pile of paperwork mounting on his desk. Her face fell as he rearranged the pieces of paper time and time again. There was something on his mind. "What's wrong?"

He rose his head, staring thoughtfully at Amy. "Have you gotten in touch with Brendan yet?"

She paused, brushing hair from her face and back behind her ear. "Why do you ask?"

He shrugged, smiling thoughtfully. "Well, you've been here since November now, I was just thinking that you might have gotten in touch."

"Peej," Amy whispered, shaking her head and lowering her gaze to deter the tears from her eyes. As if the stress of her birthday wasn't enough to make her cry. "Last time we saw each other, I made it pretty clear that I hate him."

"I thought you did the same with me, and we've patched that up pretty well," PJ explained, his expression once again becoming serious. Amy began to bite her bottom lip nervously as PJ's words struck up an unpleasant memory in her mind.

She shook her head, busying herself with a report that had been sitting idly on her desk for months. PJ leant over, pointing to the desk calendar with his eyes.

"It's nearly the end of May, Amy," he reminded her softly. "You've been here for about six months now and you still haven't even attempted to make contact…"

"What if he doesn't want me to make contact?" she interrupted, her voice teeming with emotion. Brendan always seemed to bring out her more emotional and unstable side. "I did have his father arrested and charged with paedophilia, you know."

He gently took Amy's hand in his, rubbing it softly. His touch brought a weak smile to Amy's face, instantly brightening her downtrodden features. The moment between them was almost electric, until Amy pulled her hand away. "I ruined Brendan's family, then I pushed him out of my life," she finished firmly. "I can't make things up with him now."

---------------------------------

Alex tore his gaze away from Kelly and Joss, who were still bickering in their usual friendly nature and looked to Kari, who was staring blindly at the computer screen in front of her. He stared at her thoughtfully for a long moment, before climbing to his feet and waving a hand in front of her eyes. It took several passes across her line of vision before she finally seemed to snap to attention, sending a pile of paperwork on the corner of her desk crashing to the floor.

"Shit, Alex," she mumbled, distractedly brushing hair aside as she dropped to her knees to gather the files up in her arms. "Look what you made me do!"

"Sorry," he apologised quietly, motioning towards the mess room, "I think we should talk, Kari."

She shook her head, angrily dumping the paperwork on her desk and turning to him with frustration. "Why?"

"Just come with me," Alex replied, nodding in the vague direction of the mess room. "Please?"

She gave an annoyed roll of her eyes before finally nodding and following Alex along the corridor to the mess room. He ushered her inside, being careful to close the door silently behind him. Kari looked over the mess room, trying to put her flustered mind in some semblance of order. She was failing miserably. Sometimes Alex just didn't know when not to pry.

He turned to her, approaching her slowly, each step cautious and uneasy. "Something's wrong," he observed quietly, in a barely audible voice. "Something's been wrong for weeks now. And you're not leaving this room until you tell me what it is."

Kari felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. She lurched forward, diving for the door, but found Alex grabbing her roughly to stop her from leaving. He wrapped his arms around her waist until she stopped struggling, at which point he released her from his grasp.

"Why are you pushing this so hard?" she asked, trying to stop thoughts of her beloved Okaasan springing to her mind. "Why can't you just leave it alone?"

"Because…" Alex trailed off, finding himself lost for words. He gestured wildly with a hand as he tried to force the words to come to his mind. "Because…I care about you, Kari. I really do. And I just want to help you with whatever's wrong."

She regarded him with fading suspicion, drawing in a shaky breath. Alex wasn't letting up on her easily, that was for sure.

---------------------------------

"Why do they always send us out on the crap jobs?" Joss demanded, hitting the steering wheel with a hand in frustration. "We're not the dweeby little Probationary Constables anymore. It's just not bloody fair."

Kelly forced a weak laugh at this, stuffing a piece of strawberry-flavoured chewing gum into her mouth in a swift movement that stole Joss' attention from the road briefly.

"Where's mine?" Joss demanded, reaching over for the packet in Kelly's soft, pale hands. She jerked them away from his grasp, poking out her tongue teasingly.

"Get your own, Peroni!" she snapped in reply, her laugh sending tingles of warm and love through Joss' body. The pleasant feeling didn't last long, however, before Kelly's voice rang out, alarmed and frightened. "Look out, Joss!"

He turned back to the road, cursing loudly as he barely managed to steer the patrol car out of the way of an approaching ute. The patrol car spun out of control briefly, before coming to a safe stop just off the side of the country road. The ute's male driver waved a furious fist out of his window at them, causing Joss to grab the steering wheel threateningly.

"Let's get him!" he exclaimed, earning a shake of Kelly's head.

"You're an idiot, Peroni," she told him in frustration, reaching over to take the keys from the ignition. She opened the car door, climbing out and approaching his side of the vehicle. "I'm not getting back in this car with you until I'm in the driver's seat."

"But…but I…" Joss trailed off, his desperate plea for mercy interrupted by the sight of a small black Holden passing them, the P-plate driver behind the wheel zig-zagging over the road in a way that made the pair cringe. "Oh my God…"

Kelly opened Joss' door, leaning over him to undo his seatbelt and forcibly dragging him out of the vehicle. "Come on, Peroni!" she snapped, climbing into the car as a dazed Joss headed around to the passenger side. "We've got to stop that guy before he kills himself and everyone else on the road."

---------------------------------

The buzzer sounded from the reception area, startling each of the officers from their daydreams. Mark stepped out of his office and out in the muster room, raising an eyebrow at the suspicion absence of uniforms. He rolled his eyes as he headed for the door out into the reception area, coming face to face with a man in his thirties, not much older than Amy or Alex.

The man standing opposite looked rather uneasy at the police station, shuffling his weight awkwardly and pulling his old brown jacket tighter around his body. His hair hung messily around his face and his chin exposed the fact that he hadn't shaved in weeks.

"Yes?" Mark asked, approaching the desk cautiously and bracing himself on it as he eyed the man up and down. "Is there anything I could help you with?"

The man didn't reply directly to Mark's question, instead staring at the door back into the muster room as though it may somehow disappear and allow him to see through to the main station. "Is, ah, Amy Fox there?" he asked quietly, his voice unusually quiet and lacking in the strength and resolve that Mark had somehow been expecting.

Mark glanced back to the door briefly, before nodding slowly. "Yes, she is," he replied, turning his gaze back to the man before him. "Who should I say wants to see her?"

"Brendan Maguire," he mumbled, pulling his jacket ever tighter to him. "Tell her that I really need to talk to her. That I really need her right now."

Mark thought over Brendan's words before heading back into the station, closing the door behind him and leaving Brendan alone again with his thoughts.

---------------------------------

Amy let her hand come to rest on the door handle, staring down at it blindly. She didn't quite know why she had told Mark she'd see Brendan, especially after everything that had happened nearly three years ago. She'd turned him away because of things that had happened so long ago now that it was almost like another lifetime. In fact, it really was. She had long stopped blaming him for not saying anything. He'd seen one gesture that really could have been anything. If she hadn't been so emotional and confused about the abuse and everything else at the time, perhaps she would have realised before she had pushed the only family she had left out of her life.

Finally, realising that she was under PJ and Mark's expectant stares, she turned the handle, removing the only barrier that had kept her separate from the man she had grown up with.

Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Brendan. She had been expecting to see him, but not like this. Not the broken man standing on the other side of the counter. He dug his hands into his pockets, gulping down a mouthful of air at the sight of her. She closed the door slowly behind her and headed around to his side of the counter, approaching them until they stood face-to-face just centimetres apart.

"Brendan," she whispered, just as he said her name in a voice just as soft and full of surprise at her presence.

He nodded slowly, glancing briefly to the world beyond the station doors. "Could we please talk?" he asked slowly, as if mentally assuring himself that each word he said wouldn't turn her away as he had the last time they'd been together. She let out a deep breath before nodding, straightening the black jacket of her suit as he led the way out of the station and to the street outside.