Leon did a double take and leaned closer to the screen. He was looking at...what? Lawson had a match for a sibling? A half-brother? In the police database? For shits and giggles, he'd been running matches on the team all month. So far he'd discovered that Stella had several uncles and a cousin in jail, that Dom had multiple family members who were also in the police force, and that Lawson had an undisclosed brother.

It was this last bit of intel that had him scratching his head. Stella wasn't exactly a closed book when it came to the criminal side of her family and Dom was quick to remind everyone that policing was in his blood. But Lawson...Leon was positive that he had never mentioned having any siblings. Grace had siblings, Stella had siblings, Michael had siblings...Leon played back in his mind all his interactions with Lawson and came up empty on the sibling front.

Later that day, with the team in the field, when it was just him and Kerry in the office, he tentatively mentioned Lawson's half brother to her.

"Kerry, did you know Lawson has a brother?"

"Lawson doesn't have a brother." She was flipping through paperwork and didn't look up when she replied.

"Exactly. Except he does." Leon pulled up the match on the screen and waited for Kerry to look over.

"Leon," Kerry sighed his name. She was used to Leon going off on tangents but she really did need to discourage him from using the database for his side projects. "Stop wasting time. Don't you have some work you should be doing?" Kerry glanced up at Leon and raised her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll get back to work in a second. Just come look at this." Leon waved her over to look at his screen.

"Okay. So what am I looking at?" Kerry put her hands on her hips and stood next to Leon, waiting for him to explain himself.

"Christopher Blake." He pointed at the screen. He sounded partly triumphant and partly confused.

Kerry waited for him to continue but he was done.

"Leon, I'm very busy. Just tell me what this means."

"Blake. It's a DNA match and it's the same last name. This is Lawson's half brother!" Leon grinned at Kerry like a cat that just dropped a mouse at his owner's feet.

"Huh." Kerry hadn't known Lawson had any siblings. To be fair, she'd never asked. And he wasn't the sort of man to volunteer personal details. She quickly scanned the information on the screen. "Former CIB. Currently serving in the Navy. Interesting choice." She paused. "Bit of a lateral move, isn't it? CIB to Petty Officer? Why sink all that time into being a cop if you're just going to jump ship?" She shook her head at the unintentional pun. "Does Lawson know?"

"I don't know." Leon shrugged. "But he must know he has a brother...maybe they don't speak any more and that's why Lawson never mentioned him?" Leon was quick to form dramatic theories.

"Look, Leon. I'm sure he knows. But obviously he doesn't want the rest of the team to know, seeing as he's never mentioned it. So let's just keep this between us, yeah? I'll speak with him later." Kerry was intrigued but knew Lawson well enough to be leary of the man's secrets. If Christopher Blake was a known quantity to Lawson, then there was a reason he was never mentioned.

She abruptly spun on her heel and went back to her paperwork. "And Leon?" She turned back to him. "Don't use the database without authorization again."

Leon grimaced and nodded at her. "Yeah, got it. Sorry, Kerry." He punched a few keys and the screen with Christopher Blake's service record turned into a street map of St. Kilda.

"Hey, Lawson?" Kerry had waited all afternoon about whether to bring up the subject of his half brother.

Lawson was taking his bag out of his locker when Kerry entered the room. She stopped behind him and waited for him to turn around.

"What's up, Kerry?" He took his time closing the locker door and turning to face her.

"I'm sure you already know this. But, your brother? Christopher Blake?" She trailed off, not sure what she wanted to say about the matter. She mostly wanted to make sure he knew the man existed so he didn't get blindsided by the information somewhere down the line.

Lawson's face froze in surprise for a moment before he regained control of his expression. Lawson finally corrected her, "Half brother."

"Oh, so you know him? Good. That's good." Kerry was relieved to know that she hadn't just told him something life-altering.

"Well. I know of him," Lawson clarified.

"You haven't met him?" Kerry knew she was pushing it with the personal questions.

"Look, Kerry. I'm busy, okay? You may have noticed," His voice dripped with sarcasm and he waved around them at the TR base, reminding her just what he spent his time doing. "I don't have a lot of time at the end of the day to track down every third cousin who crawls out of the woodwork."

Lawson paused and she could see him clenching the muscles in his jaw as he decided how much to share. "I found out about him when I was putting TR together. I ran matches on everyone to make sure there wouldn't be any surprises. Turns out I was the biggest surprise." Lawson shoved his stuff into his bag and slammed his locker door, turning to face her. "I don't know any more than what was in the database. And no, I haven't gotten around to meeting him yet, since I know that's what you're going to ask next."

Kerry waited to see if he had more to say. He maintained eye contact with her, challenging her to ask more questions.

"Right, right. CIB, though? Seems impressive. Must be a brainy guy, this brother of yours." She noted Lawson's disapproving look. "But, yeah, you're a busy guy. No time for long-lost family members." She grinned at Lawson, fully aware of how easy it was for her to push his buttons. "Anyway. Just making sure you were across the situation."

"I am. Don't worry about it." Lawson tried to stare her down but she was too good at slipping out of his gaze unphased.

"Good. See you tomorrow, yeah?" She was already on her way back to her desk.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." Lawson muttered to the empty room. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled. He was across the situation. His way of dealing with it was to ignore it. Leave it to Kerry to dig around and stir things up.

Lawson stood with his hands planted on the kitchen bench. His gaze was intense and his mouth was set in a straight line, betraying no emotion. Josh was sprawled on the lounge, legs kicked up on the coffee table, unaware of Lawson's expressionless face because his focus was on the television. He held the remote control up in front of him and flipped through the channels so quickly that Lawson didn't understand how he could possibly know what was on before moving to the next channel.

"So what am I supposed to do with this information?" Lawson stared at the back of Josh's head.

"What do you want to do with it?" Josh turned his question back on him. He was always doing that—spinning problems back to Lawson.

"Well, I don't know, Josh. That's why I'm asking you." Lawson turned to his old standby: sarcasm.

The tone of voice caused Josh to finally turn around. He met Lawson's eyes and noted the juxtaposition between his mate's questioning eyes and his mouth set in a grimace. Josh sighed. Lawson's tell was his eyes. His face may look stony, but there was always something in his eyes that let Josh know he was emotionally invested.

"Lawson, look. You've got two options, yeah? You can call him. Or you can ignore it and not call him." Josh shrugged.

Lawson cocked his head, waiting for Josh to keep talking. The two men stared at each other for a few moments.

"That's it? That's your advice? Either 'call him' or 'don't call him'?" Lawson crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels.

"What do you want me to say? You're both adults. It's not going to change anything at this point, is it? You won't be sneaking out of your bedroom window together, getting into schoolyard brawls, dobbing each other in to your folks." Josh watched the muscles in Lawson's jaw shift and knew he was clenching his teeth. He softened his tone. "The problem is: you don't know what you're missing. You basically grew up an only child, yeah?"

"Well, yeah." Lawson admitted. "Turns out I wasn't actually an only child, though."

"Lawson, it's great that you've found out your old man had another son. You've got family now. But you're in your thirties. It's not going to be the same as if you grew up together." Josh was trying not to crush Lawson's hopes but his own experience of having a brother as a kid was irreplaceable. He wasn't convinced that a 30-something stranger could ever fill the role of brother. "I just don't think it's going to be this life-changing moment you want it to be."

Lawson scoffed. "I don't think it's going to be some sort of life-changing moment. I just think it will be nice to talk with someone else who knows what a dickhead my old man was."

"Does he, though?"

"Does he what?"

"Does he know what a dickhead your old man was?" Josh raised his eyebrows at Lawson.

Lawson paused. He hadn't considered that his new-found half brother may not have the same negative opinion of their father. The guy grew up with his mother and couldn't have seen his father more than a few times in twenty years, if ever. Lawson knew this because their father had rarely left Melbourne—had rarely been sober enough to travel.

Josh turned back around to continue searching through the television channels. Lawson walked over and dropped down next to him on the lounge.

"So you don't think I should bother, then?" He watched the television as Josh paused it on a footie match.

"Lawson. I never said that." Josh looked at him until Lawson finally turned to meet his eyes. He raised an eyebrow at Josh and Josh grinned. "Just fucking call him, already."

Lawson shook his head at Josh but grinned back. "Okay, I will. I will fucking call him."

Josh looked back at the match and then held the remote up to change the channel again. Lawson snatched it out of his hand in one quick movement.

"Enough, Josh. We're watching this." He placed the remote on the arm of the sofa and settled back into the cushions.

Lawson arrived at the agreed upon pub twenty minutes early. He wished again that he'd been able to convince Josh to join him. But Josh didn't need to be reminded of the hole in his life where his brother should have been. It wouldn't be fair to make Josh watch Lawson gain a brother while his own brother remained forever 15 years old and buried in the family plot.

Lawson made a conscious effort not to chug the Heineken in front of him. He leaned back and crossed his arms. He kept his eyes on the front door. He had memorized the picture of Christopher Blake and knew immediately when his half brother walked into the pub.

Lawson forced himself to stand up and wave him over even though he wanted nothing more than to hide under the table. This could go so wrong: his brother could be a drunk like their old man, could be mean like him, could have the man's short fuse of a temper...or maybe he simply wouldn't like Lawson. The thought of having found a sibling who then wanted nothing to do with him had been buzzing in his head all week.

The other man gave a tentative smile as he walked toward Lawson. Lawson smiled back. He couldn't help it. His half brother had a contagious grin that took over his whole face. Lawson's worries began to drop away as he took in the clean cut appearance of his half brother.

"Christopher," Lawson greeted him with a firm handshake.

"Lawson," Chris shook his hand but then held him by the shoulders and looked him over. Lawson felt self-conscious and gave a nervous chuckle. "Sorry," Chis let go of him, "Guess I'm just excited."

An hour passed in no time. Lawson, usually the first to dive into a research project, had purposefully avoided researching his half brother and only knew the bare facts from his police file. He still remembered the anxiety that had gripped him as he sat alone reading Chris's file. His heart had felt as if it would pound out of his chest. He didn't understand why his father had never mentioned this other son and out of a twisted sense of loyalty to the old man, had decided there must have been a good reason.

Lawson avoided telling Chris the details of what it had been like to grow up alone with their father. Instead he filled him in on his time in the academy, hitting the high points of his school career and police training. Chris told Lawson about his time with CIB and how much he was enjoying his time in the Navy. There was a brief pause that didn't escape Lawson's notice when Chris should have explained his decision to switch from the police to the military. Lawson filed it away as a story to ask about another time.

"I should probably feel badly about it, but I never missed him," Chris said about their father. His mother and step-father had filled his life with love and joy and the loss of his biological father had barely registered.

Lawson didn't know what to say to that. How could he tell Chris that their father was terrible, that he was right for not missing him, that he had lucked out by never knowing the guy? But then, the old man had been the only family Lawson knew. It was the two of them against the world when Lawson was young. As he grew, it became them against each other and against the world. They were adversaries who had somehow ended up in the same tiny one bedroom house. It was too complicated to tell a stranger–even a stranger who was now a brother.

"You're married?" Lawson changed the subject, pointing to Chris's wedding ring. Chris grinned and launched into the story of how he and Sally had met.

Lawson glanced at his watch and realized it was later than he'd thought. He needed to be at work–night shift–in only a few hours.

"You'll have to come up north sometime. Sal would love to meet you. And I'm sure Chloe would be tickled to have an uncle." Chris pulled out his wallet, pleased to have an excuse to show off the wallet sized photo he kept of his daughter.

As Lawson pulled into his parking space at work, he realized he was still smiling. His brother–half brother, he corrected himself–seemed to be a genuinely good guy. Chris was so much more than Lawson had dared to hope for.

In most ways he seemed to be the opposite of their father, but when Chris smiled the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had become pronounced; Lawson's breath had caught in his chest for a moment as a memory of Dad, in a rare good mood, had popped into his head.

He grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and headed into work, feeling lighter than he had in years.

Kerry caught up with him in the parking lot and they entered the building together.

"Senior Sergeant Blake met Petty Officer Blake?" She asked him, sly with her wording, as always.

"I did, yeah."

"And…? Good?" She prodded.

Lawson shot her a grin as he turned into the locker room. She continued down the hall toward her desk, turning to walk backwards as she waited for his answer.

He paused in the doorway and nodded at her. "Yeah, good. Very good."

She returned his grin before disappearing around the corner.

Lawson sighed and opened his locker. He fished out his wallet and removed a small photograph. It was a photo of his brother and his niece–a photo that Chris had brought specifically to give to him. Lawson slid it into the inside corner of his locker door where it stuck fast. There were his father's eyes, repeated on Chris and on Chloe both, smiling back at him.

For the first time since his father's death, so many years ago now, Lawson had a family.