Disclaimer: All characters seen or mentioned on COLD CASE belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer and are used without permission. Sueing me would be a waste of time, since there's nothing you'd get out of this, because I don't make any money with this story.

If you don't like the idea of Scotty/Lilly, you should definitely leave. No sex, and no romance in this part ... we'll get to that later.

Wow, that many reviews. Ten when I last checked. Thanks a lot for liking my story. I'm afraid there will be not much Lilly/Scotty interaction in the first three chapters, but later on, this will change drastically.

BTW, if someone has information about Scotty's family (Parents still alive? Siblings? Live where?), that would be quite useful. If the series hasn't provided us with that kind of information, I'll make them up, no prob.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep the tone of the story as dark as in the series, since I'm more of a happy person, so – if someone's bothered by that, they should leave. Just FYI. :)

ORPHEUS AND EURYDIKE
No. 2: The New Styx
by Dare

No sleep that night, no sleep at all.

Scotty felt sore, tired and hoarse – maybe it was the flight, maybe the new environment. When he checked his digital clock, the green ciphers said 5:17.

Way to early in the morning. His head fell back to his pillow and he stared at the ceiling. Silently, he counted to three and then, his inner information system told him there was now way he would get any sleep.

Since he hadn't been able to shop for food, or anything else for that matter, he just opened the carton with his showering products and choose one that said:

Anti-hangover gel, the one his mother had brought him over from her trip to Europe three years ago. After showering, brushing his teeth and changing into fresh clothes, he went to his empty desk and pressed the ON-button of his laptop.

His browser loaded and then, his email program.

Surprisingly enough, someone had actually mailed him – and his eyebrows rose several inches, when he saw who it was:

Lilly Rush had mailed him. He doubled-clicked on the blinking icon and read the few lines that had reached him from Philadelphia:

Scotty,

glad you got there in one piece. Vera hopes you don't do anything stupid, since his reputation would suffer too, Stillman wishes you all his best and Jeffries wants you to get a life (in the best way possible).

We're all waiting for sightseeing pictures.

Regards,
Lilly Rush

He smiled and shook his head. Everyone assumed Lilly had some twisted sense of humour, since she smiled a lot and rarely laughed, but sometimes her sense of humour manifested itself in the weirdest kinds of ways.

To get a life. People who did his kinda of job actually didn't have a life – their job was their life and to find someone who understood that was difficult – to say the least.

He decided to answer Lil in the evening, because then he actually was able to tell something – about his new colleagues, his new job. He disconnected the Internet, waited for Windows XP's irritating sound composition that told him the system was logging off and grabbed his shoes and his coat.

Keys? Check. Cell? Check. Carton with all the stuff for my desk? Check. Purse? He turned around. Where is the damn ... ah. Check.

With a last look at his appartement, he closed the door behind him. The staircase was large with ivory-painted walls and wooden stairs. Somewhere came a strange sound – some kind of pawing, scrabbling. When he arrived at the first floor, he noticed over the carton in his hands an old woman, cleaning the stairs with a broom.

"Good morning," Scotty said.

She eyed him suspiciously. "Are you Andrea's new boyfriend?"

Valens stared at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, young man. Are you Andrea's new boyfriend? Because if you are and if you are as rude as her last one – Humphrey, or whatever his name was, I'm warning you --" She waved threateningly with her broom into his direction.

"No, ma'am. I just moved into number 327. My name is Scott Valens, Mrs ...?" he extended his hand.

"It's Miss," the old lady corrected him. The suspicion still had not left her eyes. "Miss Edna McPhee. I am the oldest tenant in this house." She said it in a way as if to announce her status. "It is a quiet and nice house, you know. If you ignore Andrea that is. What do you do, if I may ask you?"

"I'm a detective. I work for the Seattle Police Department," Scotty said and noticed with some relief that the dangerous glint in her eyes started to disappear.

"You catch murderers?" she asked.

"I try, ma'am," Valens answered and suppressed the urge to take a look at his watch.

"Mr. St. Geeslensen lives in number 202. If you have time, maybe you should have a little talk with him, if you know what I mean."

Scotty sighed. Great. Now I've found the catch: the appartement is nice, quiet, not that small, but one of the neighbours is maybe just a little bit mad. "I'm afraid I have to go Miss McPhee. Today is my first day at work and I don't want to be late."

Miss McPhee nodded. "We will have plenty of opportunity to talk when you come back."

I am afraid so. "I'll be looking forward to it. Good day, Miss PcPhee." He almost fled the building.

Seattle Police Station was about fifteen minutes away. On his way he grabbed a coffee and a bagel – and wondered briefly where he could buy a bicycle to simply drive there, but when he noticed the absolutely flawless, if not to say immaculate suit of one of his co-workers who shot him a quite patronizing look, he quickly changed his mind.

He asked his way to his new office and ran into a read-haired young woman who's clothes where neither flawless nor immaculate: a big, brown stain of coffee had coloured her blouse.

"Oh, sorry."

The woman shook her head. "Day started worse," she said. "May I help you?"

"I am Scotty Valens. I'm looking for Jackson Rydell?" he said.

"Oh." The secretary smiled. "You are the new one."

Valens nodded. "Yes, I am the new one."

Her smile grew bigger. "My name is Tess Trudeau. I'm Mr. Rydell's secretary. We talked yesterday on the phone."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Trudeau," Scotty said.

Tess laughed. "Wait until you know me better." She laughed even harder when she saw his expression. "Just kidding. Chief Rydell is in his office. He wants to meet you immediately. It's the red door. And your desk is, erm, second row, the one on the left." She pointed at a door across the office. "And Valens?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck."

This was one big what's-that-supposed-to-mean-morning, he decided when he crossed the bureau, placed the carton in his arms on the empty desk and made his way to Rydell's door. No one seemed to work at this hour – all the chairs and the desks were empty.

Scotty approached the red door, knocked twice, entered – and was met with dozens of stares.

A big conference table was in the middle of the room, every seat was taken and several people stood at the walls. At the end of the table, a man with grey hair and grey, piercing eyes sat.

Scotty knew who he was, even without Tess' involuntarily explanation:

"Here is the file, Chief Rydell," she said, walk to the table and made the file float over to Rydell who caught it with one hand, while his eyes (and those of everyone else in the room) never left him.

"I am Chief Jackson Rydell," the man said. "And I guess you are Scott Valens?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see. This is our Tuesday morning meeting. We have a meeting every Tuesday morning where we use the time to compare notes, so to say," Rydell continued. It was impossible to determine whenever he was angry, annoyed, displeased, pleased. He probably used the same kind of voice to talk about the weather. "This is why we meet half an hour early, Mr. Valens. No one has informed you?"

"Ah, no, sir."

"Consider yourself informed now. Next Tuesday, you will be punctual." His hands lay flat on the file before him. Valens saw something twinkling. "Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Valens said, when he identified the ring on Rydell's finger. An ex-marine of the worst kind. Great.

"Good. Good, good." He nodded. "Everyone else: dismissed."

Chairs were moved and slowly, the room emptied itself.

Rydell waved Valens into his bureau right next to the conference room, where Valens sat down on some chair in front of Rydell's desk.

"I had a little chitchat with your boss, Stillman," Rydell said. "He had nothing but praise for you."

Valens hoped his surprise didn't show.

"And you worked with Lillian Rush, didn't you?" Rydell continued.

"Yes sir."

Rydell nodded. "Impressive young lady. Very passionate. Have never met her, though. Anyway, you will work with Detective Eric Orson. He will be your new partner. He can be difficult, but I'm sure you will be able to handle him. Sharp intellect, but sometimes a little bit too hot-headed and too concerned how he may look like."

The door opened and Tess lead a young man into the room. Scotty sighed. It was Mr. Immaculate-Suit.

"Detective Scotty Valens, Detective Eric Orson."

The way Orson looked made Scotty grin and cringe at the same time: both men shook hands, but Orson tried to keep the contact as short as possible. He would probably wash his hands afterwards.

The telephone rang and Rydell answered it quite gruffly. "Yes?" The his features darkened, as he waved them out of the room. The door closed and the last words Scotty heard from Rydell were: "Yes, dear, I'll be home for dinner."

Then Lilly Rush's ex-partner met Eric Orson's critical gaze. "Did you have breakfast this morning?"

"No, I haven't."

"Good. Me neither." Orson glanced at his watch. "I tell you what: we eat something and I'll tell you everything about my current case – and we set some rules about our 'partnership'."

Scott found himself nodding, while he remembered something strange: Whenever Lilly had talked about their partnership, he liked it, but now, the whole idea of being in 'an partnership' with this man (Orson noticed something, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and removed a non-existent fuzz from his left, black, shiny shoe) made him mentally writhe.

"All right. I just get something to write." He went over to his newly appointed desk, opened his carton – and just stared.

On the writing pad he had put into the carton lay the green cat, made of stone, that used to inhabit his old desk. He just looked at the thing and wondered ... Lilly must have put it in there.

She was the last person he met, but he could not remember when she actually did it. On the other hand – Lilly could do lots of unusual things.

He took the damaged cat carefully and put it into his last drawer, then he took the writing pad and a pen, stared at the drawer for a second and followed Orson, who was careful not to touch anything or anyone, out of the room.

He smiled, thinking about the cat – and felt immediately better.

End part #2

I'm not sure if Lilly we'll be in the next part (maybe in a telephone conversation or something), but we'll definitely see much more of her in Part #4, I promise.

Review please?