The flight to New York gave her time to think. She was landing at LaGuardia which was kind of a godsend. The flight was delayed getting into the airport due to weather and she had even more time to think. Her plan if you would call it that was to go and see her parents first. She didn't know what to expect when she got there so she would just tell them that she was still alive and that she had aged considerably. Her mother might recognize her but she really wasn't sure about that either. What she is going to do about Rick she hasn't decided yet. She just hopes that he's in a better mood when she does finally see him.

The plane taxied to the terminal and since she did not have anything other than a simple carry on, she was almost the first person to leave the plane.

Taxis were out of the question because they were astronomical in cost. She only has spare $400 to get her back to Manhattan. She sees the shuttle that leaves LaGuardia for downtown and Midtown. The midtown stop is just about where her parents live and she hops on the shuttle making sure she has everything with her.

Forty-five minutes later the shuttle pulls up to 8th Avenue and West 40th Street. She looks up at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and has the feeling of being home again. There's something about the city and the people in it that make her feel this way. She knows that she is less than ten blocks away from her parents and looked uptown. She decided to walk. It's a Sunday and she knows exactly where her mom and dad will be right now.

Xx

"Jo, why aren't you eating?" Jim asks his wife who sits across from him in their favorite diner.

"I'm sorry Jim. I can't do this any longer." Johanna replies.

"Listen I know that it's hard but we've been doing this for the last sixteen years. This is the seventeenth year that she was taken from us."

"I know but each year it gets harder to sit here and remember her."

"I know and I am sorry."

Jim was interrupted finishing his answer by the waitress who had asked him if it would be alright if they wouldn't mind sharing their table with a patron who wanted to eat there. Jim took a look around the diner and found that every table was overflowing with people eating so he agreed after getting a look from his wife saying it was okay. The waitress went back to the counter grabbed a menu and guided a woman who looked to be in her late thirties to early forties back to the table. She took a seat next to Jo and looked at Jim.

"Thank you so much for sharing your table with me. I loved this place when I was younger."

The second she spoke Johanna realized that her voice sounded familiar but she just could not place it so she just watched the woman.

"Where are you from honey?" Johanna asks.

"I lived not far from here. When I was a high schooler my parents took me here almost every Sunday for brunch."

Jim, on the other hand, noticed the look the woman was giving him and was drawn to her facial features. She looked familiar but he couldn't place her either.

"I'm sorry, but I have the feeling that we've met before. Have we?" Jim asked the woman sitting next to his wife.

"I'm not sure. What do you do for a living, sir?" Kate asked.

"I retired from a law firm about three years ago. I was partners with two other lawyers and one of them is sitting right next to you."

Kate realized just how much time had gone by. Her parents had retired from the law firm they started in the mid-eighties. This was going to be hard to explain but she needed to start somewhere.

"No, I'm sure that if we'd met, I would have remembered someone like you."

Johanna was going to go out on a limb here.

"Katie?" she asks with hope in her tone.

Before Johanna finished getting the words out, the woman sitting next to her turned to face her and all she saw was tear tracks running down her cheeks. The second she did look at Johanna, Jim's mind went into overdrive.

"This is impossible! I buried my daughter 17 years ago there's no way that you are her."

"I don't remember where I was for all this time, my mind, believe it or not, is a big blank. All I remember was the party that we went to with my friend Charlotte and Josh."

"You died that night Katie. Josh was too drunk to drive and ended up sliding down an embankment, ejecting Charlotte from the car and killing both of you in the process."

She started remembering some small memories then. The day after they laid her to rest, she remembers her mother crying in their apartment but she doesn't know how she got there to remember that. It's like she was a ghost or something. It only lasted a brief minute or two but now the memory was erased from her mind.

"Mom, dad I remember being in the apartment right after I was buried. I can still hear the argument the two of you had when Josh was tried for driving drunk. He had moved back to New York and was tried for two counts of manslaughter."

Jim looked to his wife with a stunned look on his face. They never told anybody about that argument they had that night in their apartment. So, if this wasn't their daughter how did she know about what they were fighting over that night?

He just looked at her and said one word.

"How?"

"Dad I have no idea how. All I know is that I was drawn to this diner on this day I needed to see the two of you here. There is also something else niggling in the back of my head. It has to do with the Police Department and a certain person. But I'm in the dark as to know who it is because I don't know anybody in the NYPD. But the name Jenny keeps coming up in my head and I don't know why."

"Katie, all I care about is that you're back with us once again."

"I know one way we can settle this once and for all. Joanna are you finished with your meal?" Jim asks.

"I am. What do you have in mind?"

"I'll tell you when we get there." He answered her still skeptical.

Jim settles the bill and they all get up to leave. Once they're out on the sidewalk Jim hails a taxi cab. Instead of giving the address of where he wants to go through the window, he gives the driver the piece of paper with the printed address on it. The ride is uneventful and it lasts thirty minutes. When they pull up to gates everyone gets out as Jim pays the driver. The walk is a short one and Jim and Johanna walk right past where her headstone should be.

"Jo? Where is it?" Jim asks his wife.

"It should be right here Jim. I don't know where it could have gone to. We have walked this way for the last seventeen years it's got to be here somewhere." She replied.

Jim goes back to the path where the headstones start. He knows that her marker should be in row seven the 12th one in. After carefully counting off twelve headstones, he sees the name of a man that he has never heard of. William Robinson. Born 1938 died 1967. Staff Sergeant United States Army. Purple Heart recipient and father of three. His daughter's headstone should be right where this man is residing. But there is nothing to indicate that she was ever here.

He turns to his wife with a confused look and all he sees her doing is nodding her head up and down indicating that this person although older is really their daughter.

Xx

Rick decided after giving this a lot of thought that he would hang up his handcuffs and go out in style. Ryan tried to make him see that leaving was not a wise choice. If anything, he could teach new recruits how to become better at their jobs. What he didn't realize was that Rick was fed up with what was going on in the Department and his life.

His wife had somehow conned her lawyer into getting her out of jail on good behavior. After filing appeals, and her being a model prisoner they let her out. But what she didn't realize was that she would wear an ankle bracelet to account for her whereabouts for her time on parole that would be for three years. But it seems that was the least of Ricks's problems. She filed a lawsuit against him for defamation of character, slander, and the amount of the initial damage caused by the accident she had years ago. He never wanted anything to do with her and now it's back in his lap all over again.

After getting an attorney his lawyer told him that the insurance company had paid off all the damage from the time she had the accident. So, there was nothing there to fight. Nothing was going to happen with the defamation of character lawsuit and the slander suit because the judge would review the case from years ago and find out that she was a habitual trunk drunk back then. He had nothing to worry about.

He thinks about her often and wonders what she is doing now. Did she graduate? Is she out saving the world? He could never find her. It was like she never existed.

Happy New Year to all!