The following morning Garret stood at the head of the table in the conference room and distributed cases among his employees the way he did everyday.

"Bug you take Robert Harrison," he said sliding a file down the length of the table. "Nigel, Lauren Walters is waiting for you in trace. Jordan, take Albert Chow and Courtney Chase. That's it for now," he finished, collecting his papers as his staff began to file out of the room.

"Uh, Dr. Macy," Audrey said quickly, jumping up from her chair opposite him, "You didn't give me case for today," she explained as if he had somehow forgotten.

"I know," Garret said simply. He left the conference room and Audrey followed close behind him.

"Well why not?" she asked as they neared his office. Garret turned and snatched her wrist from her side and held it up to her, forcing her to look at the bandaged finger.

"This is why," he explained with a smile. "I can't very well have you doing one handed autopsies can I?" Audrey jerked her hand away and followed him into his office like he knew she would.

"What am I supposed to do all day then?" she asked with the annoyance of a child who had just been told they had to spend the day indoors. He smiled up from his desk.

"How about you get caught up on all the reports you haven't done."

"I've done them all," she protested with her hands on her hips.

Garret laughed at her act. They both knew that even though she had only worked in his morgue two months she was more than a month behind on her paperwork. Garret assumed that for most bosses in most offices in most of the world, such a statistic would be unacceptable, but in his own office it was common. His medical examiners were the some of the best he'd known and Audrey Jackson was no exception. He took their excellence in exchange for having to hassle them to do the part of their job that required them to be still, to sit at a desk and push papers the way he did.

But for Garret, everyday Audrey became more and more than just another medical examiner under his charge. Whether she knew it or not, she had become a reason for him to look forward to long days at the morgue. Although Garret tried everyday to deny his feelings, he knew she had a spark. She ignited within him feelings he didn't think he would ever feel again. He felt it now; that twist in his stomach that made it hard to breathe whenever she was around. She leaned over his desk and finally promised to do her paperwork as long as she and her injured finger could assist on autopsies the following day.

"Fine," Garret relented but insisted that anything that required two hands would be done by someone who had a fully operational pair. Audrey agreed to his terms and headed for the door. She turned back to him a few steps later and flashed him her bandage from across the room.

"How am I supposed to write with this on my finger?" she asked in a final attempt to avoid her overdue reports.

"You're right handed," Garret said without looking up. He was correct, of course. A bandage on her left index finger wouldn't affect her penmanship in the least.

"Crap," she said under her breath as she left. Garret laughed to himself. She obviously hadn't banked on him knowing her handedness but those were just the type of details Garret had picked up on in the two months since Audrey had arrived.

x x x x x

Late that afternoon Garret found himself wandering the halls of the morgue, checking up on his staff. Bug was in trace, hunched over a larvae sample from the jacket of a John Doe that had come in the day before. Nigel stood just over his shoulder, pestering him about something completely irrelevant to the case at hand. They hadn't noticed Garret enter the room and he stood in the shadows of the lab and listened to their banter for a moment with a smile. When Bug threatened to dispose of the larvae in Nigel's coffee the next morning, Garret finally intervened.

"Haven't you got work to do?" he asked Nigel, his tone suggesting that if he didn't, he'd better find some fast. Nigel smiled sheepishly and headed out of the room with a nod. Garret spent a moment more with Bug, asking how close he was to discovering just who John Doe was. When Bug promised he could have the answer by day's end, Garret continued on his tour.

He had been past Audrey's office twice and it had been empty both times. Jordan's office had been empty as well. Of course, finding their offices empty was not unusual, but today Garret sensed that there was something a miss. He stopped by Lily's office and asked if she had seen the other two women. At her suggestion, Garret headed to the closest autopsy room. When the door swung open, he found Jordan and Audrey standing across from each other with a body laid on a slab between them. Each of them held one hand over the corpse and the other behind their back. They both turned to Garret and smiled nervously when he entered.

"What are you two doing?" he asked gruffly.

"Seeing who can suture fastest with one hand," Jordan said casually, as if they did this all the time.

"Why?" Garret asked, immediately regretting the question.

"Because if we did it with two hands, Jordan would have an unfair advantage," Audrey reasoned with a smile. Garret simply stared at them, his mouth slightly agape, somehow not believing that his employees were spending his time this way. He shook his head and laughed through his nose.

"You," he said in the sternest voice he could muster, pointing at Audrey, "paperwork. And you," he continued, turning his attention to Jordan, "behave yourself." With that he turned and left Jordan and Audrey alone. When the door kissed closed he heard them erupt in laughter on the other side. He laughed to himself and kept walking, feeling more like a kindergarten teacher than a medical examiner.

A moment later he heard quick footsteps behind him and before he had a chance to turn and see who they belonged to, Audrey was beside him with her hand clamped on his shoulder.

"Dr. Macy," she asked, "do you think I could skip out early tonight?" Her hand slipped away from his shoulder to her side and Garret immediately found himself missing the warmth that radiated from her touch.

"Skip out early," he repeated, "because you've worked so well today, right?" he asked with a sarcastic smile as he turned into his office and sat behind his desk.

"C'mon," Audrey pleaded, perching herself on the corner of his desk, "it's my niece's sixth birthday. If I show up there empty handed, I'll be a dead woman," she explained. Garret nodded, remembering how his own daughter behaved on birthday's before she learned to at least pretend to be grateful for whatever gifts she received.

"Fine," he said. Audrey's eyebrows shot to her hair line. She obviously hadn't expected him to give in so easily.

"Really?" she asked.

"I had a six year old once," he smiled. "You're right; you're dead if you don't get something good." Audrey's face fell as he explained and Garret wondered what had suddenly changed.

"Had a six year old?" she repeated tentatively, "what happened to her?" Garret laughed out loud at her obvious confusion and sudden uneasiness.

"She turned seven," he said, as if it were the most logical answer in the world. Embarrassed, Audrey slapped her hand to her cheek and shook her head.

"Of course," she blushed. "How old is she now?" she asked after a moment. Garret sighed, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head, trying to remember.

"She's coming up for nineteen," he replied finally, hoping he was right and hadn't somehow forgotten a year. It still felt strange to him that he had a daughter who was old enough to have one of her own. It made him feel old and that was the last thing he wanted to feel.