A/N: sorry for the rather long update, my beta reader was taking her sweet time about it. well, enjoy this chapter!

Enmity
Chapter 9: A Swing and a Miss

Daisy fiddled with her keys outside her door. She couldn't believe she had invited him up, but she did and a part of her didn't care about anything else. She opened up her door and said, "Excuse the mess; moving just makes everything chaotic."

Fin nodded and followed her into her apartment. It was small, cluttered with boxes and Fin wanted to call it a fixer-upper, but not even Bob Vila could fix this place up. Not that Fin was one to judge - his apartment was small and cluttered also; only he chose to clutter his apartment with an entertainment center.

Daisy picked up a box off the couch and asked, "Want something to drink? I think I might have some beer."

"Sure."

While Daisy was getting the drinks, Fin started looking around. He spotted a picture frame and picked it up. It was of a Buckingham Palace guard and a group of little children staring up at him in awe. Fin put the picture back and noticed a box on the floor. It had folders and scrapbooks in it, and was labeled something Fin couldn't make out. It started with an 'E,' but was pushed away by Daisy's foot as she held out a beer for Fin.

"Here."

"Thanks," Fin said, taking the beer. "So, I never got to thank you before."

"For what?" Daisy asked, taking a seat on the couch and Fin followed suit.

"For what you did during the interrogation," Fin started.

"Stop, just stop. You don't have to thank me for two reasons. First, you're a fellow cop and cops should stick together, no matter what. Second, well… I shouldn't have hit the guy. That was a mistake on my part."

"How mad was Cragen?"

"Angry enough to put me on desk duty 'till further notice."

Fin nodded empathetically and said, "Guessing from your interrogation skills, I'm going out on a limb saying you used to work undercover and are used to dealing with a perp your own special way."

She stared at him with shock and nodded. "How'd you know?"

"I used to work Narcotics and that was the common interview style after we cornered someone. Also, you walked up to that drug dealer before and managed to fool him into thinking you were a customer without any prompting. Only someone with experience in undercover work could pull that off."

She nodded, saying, "Yeah, I used to work undercover a lot. It's what I lived for. I just thought it was the best thing in the world to wake up and wonder who you would be today."

"Undercover in Narcotics?"

"No, I have never gone undercover for such a long period of time as the detectives in Narcotics do." She paused and a distant smile appeared on her lips. "I remember the first undercover mission I did. I was so green, but everyone was amazed at how well I handled it."

"What was it?"

"A convenience store hold up and we weren't sure if the perps were acting out of a terrorist group, and if they were, we didn't know which one. I had snuck in from the back and was supposed to be a stock girl who was hiding in the supply closet. When I let them catch me in the back I was brought out with the other hostages and was scared out of my mind.

"We had heard a struggle in the store, but we didn't know it was that bad. Everyone was injured. Blood everywhere. The perps had been injured, but nothing too bad besides a little girl who was shot. Gut wound and her blood was just everywhere. I forgot I was there as a stock girl and started applying pressure to the wound. The men holding up the store asked me what the hell I was doing and I told him my mother was nurse and taught me how to care for wounds. I thought he was going to shoot me for sure. Instead, he let me help the girl up and then I had to help everyone else with their injures."

"What happen next?"

"When I was helping one of the perps, he made the mistake of putting his gun down, while the other one was searching the store for an easy way out. I grabbed the gun and forced one guy down. I told the hostages to run out the door and then the police came in and handcuffed the first guy while I went after the second. I chased him out into the back alley, where I was forced to either shoot him or let him escape. I shot him.

"Of course, this just happens to be at the same time the media comes over to the alley. They got great shots of me covered in blood, shooting him. The media then dubbed me, 'Bloody-'"

She stopped and stared at Fin for a moment. She shook her head and grinned slyly at him. "Wow, you're really good," she told him.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"That was really tricky, starting the conversation about work and then getting my to talk about my past." She leaned close to Fin and asked, "Tell me honestly, do you do that for all the detectives or just for the ones you really like?"

"I don't know what you mean," Fin assured her with a mischievous grin.

"All right, Detective, since I told you something about my past, tell me something about yours."

Fin picked up the picture of the guard and asked, "This is Buckingham Palace, right?"

She nodded, inwardly wishing she had left that picture in one of her many boxes as Fin asked, "How long was your stay in London?"

"Gee, I don't really know. It was so amazing that it felt like I had lived there my entire life," she answered him vaguely.

Before Fin could ask about what she meant, her house phone went off. Daisy contemplated answering it, but decided not to since it seemed only telemarketers knew her number. After two rings it switched to her answering machine. Fin heard Daisy's voice say, "Go to hell telemarketers," and then there was a beep.

"So, Fin, why are you in SV…" Daisy trailed off when she heard what the person was saying on her answering machine.

"Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" a creepy voice sang softly and slowly into the phone.

Daisy looked terrified. She quickly got up and pulled the plug to her phone, cutting off the strange voice. She turned to Fin, still scared out of her wist and said, "You have to go, I'm sorry, but you need to go now!"

She practically pushed Fin out of her apartment, muttering an apology and bidding him good night. Before Fin could react, he was outside her apartment and heard her locking the door.

"Night," he muttered in utter bewilderment and then walked back to his car.

Daisy plugged the phone back in and stared at it. He would call again, and she would be ready to answer him.

The phone rang, and Daisy picked it up instantly.

"Listen, you sick little freak," Daisy spat in the phone, "If you want me, come get me. My gun and I will be waiting for you."

Daisy woke up for good, from a night of sleeping for twenty minutes and then waking up in a blind panic, almost shooting the first thing she saw. She groggily got up and made herself some tea.

As she took a sip of tea, she scanned her apartment hoping last night was dream. She knew it wasn't. No, nothing in her life ever worked out that simply. If it had been a dream, the red eye on the answering machine wouldn't be staring at her, reminding her that he had come back.

She shuddered involuntarily. A great overwhelming sensation settled in her heart to stay locked in her small apartment and never come out. No one would miss her, that was for sure. She could live as a hermit; just like that lady by the sea had done after her husband was lost. She laughed as she remembered that old lady, and the sensation was gone.

She could never live like that, locked away without a way back to society. She needed to be around people, even people who hated her. She finished her tea and got dressed. She would stay locked away at the precinct, it was safer there anyhow, and there would be people.

Walking to the precinct was unsettling for Daisy. She was constantly looking over her shoulder, trying to catch at glimpse at anyone who didn't look right. She knew she was being paranoid. There was no one following her, it was just her exhausted mind playing tricks on her. Still, she couldn't stop looking over her shoulder.

She turned the corner and was only a few blocks away from the precinct. A part of her wanted to feel relieved knowing she was almost there, but the other part reminded her that being almost there wasn't being there. As she glanced one last time over her shoulder, a hand came out and pulled her into an alleyway. She punched anything in range of her free arm and when that failed to do anything useful she started clawing at the hand. Then, she felt herself being pushed up against a wall, and her left sleeve rolled up. She tried to jerk away, kick the man attacking her, but she couldn't hit him. She felt a needle being pressed against her skin and she successfully hit the attacker in the gut. He jammed the needle into her arm, but not without saying first in a soft, low voice, "Now, now, you like this part. Don't you remember, Angel?"

She remembered now. She remembered it all. She remembered feeling the needle break the thin layer of skin, and how she could hear the sound it made as it broke through her skin, a strange squishing sound, followed by a tingling where the needle had made its deadly hole. She remembered how fast the deadly poison worked; numbing her limbs from working, blurring her eyesight and her heartbeat pounding in her ears, each second growing louder and faster. Then, she remembered the aftermath he had once brought upon her.

He was off her now, letting his poison do his dirty work. He was a massive dark blur to her. Wait, now he was two massive dark blurs to her. Still, one of them had to be him, and chances were pretty good she could shoot the right one. She pulled out her gun, said, "Go to hell," and fired.

Fin dragged his feet into the precinct and went for the coffee that Olivia was near. She smiled at him and said, "You're here early. You beat Munch in."

Fin nodded and poured himself some coffee. Yes, the coffee at the precinct never tasted very good, but caffeine was caffeine to him this early in the morning. After he finished his cup, he felt better, not a lot, but enough to be able to answer when someone spoke to him.

Cragen came out of his office and spotted the only two detectives in the squad room. "Benson, Fin, you're need at St. Mary's now."

Olivia walked up the nurse's desk and introduced herself. "We're the detectives from the Special Victims Unit, you called us in."

The nurse looked at her like she was crazy, blew a bubble with the gum she had been chewing and then called over her shoulder, "Hey Julie, we get an rape victims in?"

"There was that heroin chick that kept saying she need a rape kit done," Julie, a fellow nurse, answered, carrying a box with her. "Here's the crap we confiscated from her, except for the gun. We had to lock that up."

"Why was she carrying a gun?" Olivia asked.

"Probably to shoot her supplier so she didn't have to pay. The gun's been fired recently," the first nurse told them while Julie went through the victim's thing.

She held up a badge and said to the other nurse, "Whoa, Darla, the heroin chick is cop. Think she works in Narcotics?"

"Can I see the badge?" Olivia asked and they handed it over. She looked at it and showed it to Fin gravely. "Daisy Clampett."