Note: In this story the events that transpired on the actual show have no bearing on the mystery person that you will meet at the end; You'll understand once you read the chapter. The story line would be more like six years but mine is between ten and eleven since Bosco dated this woman. Read on.

Friday Fun: Part Three

After Faith left and I was back out on the beat, it occurred to me that I still hadn't got the name of the guy who was takin her out. It bugged me so much that I could hardly concentrate on drivin. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. Was it ever going to end? Was I always gonna be like this when she went out with someone new?

I felt like I was goin crazy from wantin her so much. Even when I was fightin with her it was still a release, a way to let off steam without coming out and saying what I actually felt. It was the silence that really got to me; the way that we could sit and not talk for hours because we were so angry or hurt that neither of us had the energy to open our mouths and say a word. Sometimes I would catch her lookin at me out of the corner of her eye, almost like she wanted to say somethin that would forever change our relationship but as soon as I turned my head in her direction she would look out the window or down at her hands. It seemed that we were never gonna get it right.

I looked at my watch and wondered what she was doin right at that moment. Was she out to dinner? A movie? Was she all wrapped around this new guy? Was he doin what I had wanted to do to her for years, right now, while I was drivin around the city goin nuts? Was she wearin her hair down so that it hung over her shoulders; was it silky and smooth and smelling like oranges or apples or whatever it was the she put in her hair that drove me to drool? Was she wearing the big boots that made me want to drop down to my knees and beg for mercy? It was all to much for me to imagine what she looked like and exactly what she might be doing with her time that didn't include me.

"Ahhhhhh." I growled, clenching my teeth, feeling like I had been punched in the gut. I gripped the steering wheel hard and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It didn't help.

I pulled over and parked beside a hotdog stand, hopin to get a few minutes peace without anyone coming up to me to ask for directions or tellin me that their pet dog was lost and could I help them find it? The sun was just startin to go down; the temperature starting to get a little less hot and humid and I felt like I was boilin inside. What was she doin...

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Sean's number. We were supposed to get together the next day to play basketball and I had forgotten to tell him that I was stuck washing all the squad cars---thanks to Faith. He was a good guy; my best friend and when I was really pissed off or upset we'd always go out for a beer. He'd lean back in the booth and shake his head at me and ask what I'd done this time to make a mess out of my life—or someone elses. I'd always tell him my side of the story and sometimes he'd agree with me; other times he told me what a jerk I was, but he was the only person that I could talk to, besides Faith, who would give me their honest opinion.

One, two, three rings and there was no answer. On the fourth he picked up. "Hallo." He said in his drawl, sounding like he was quite happy.

"Hey, Sean. It's Mo. What's goin on?" I said.

"Oh, hey Boscorelli. What can I do for you?" He said in reply. Then he laughed and it sounded like he covered the phone with his hand and I couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Ah—just wonderin what you're doin later on? Wanna go get a beer or somethin?" I asked, while looking out the window at the passerby's.

He hesitated before replying. "Can't." He said quickly and then he coughed. "I'm kinda busy tonight. How bout tomorrow? After the game?"

I groaned. "Nah. I gotta go in to work for a few hours. I meant to call you but I just didn't get around to it."

He laughed. "Washing the squads, huh?"

"Ya." I said dejectedly. "Well, I'll call you tomorrow anyway." I said, wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my night.

Just then, a call came over the radio. "55-David, Report to Mercy Hospital. Possible rape and assault."

I groaned. "I gotta go Sean. I'll talk to you later." I said and hung up without waiting for him to say good bye.

I tossed the phone on the empty seat beside me and flipped the siren on and headed toward the hospital. The traffic was heavy and not one car wanted to pull over to let me by. It pissed me off to no end. I mean, why have the lights and the sirens in the first place if no one was gonna take notice and pull over like they were supposed to? The only thing worse than the job was the people involved; the stupid ones who always had to ask retarded questions or ended up making the situation worse by stickin their big noses where they weren't needed.

I got to Mercy in about twenty minutes, which was terrible considering that I was only about ten blocks away. I pulled up to the Emergency door and parked far enough back to let the EMS through if they had to. I slammed the door and walked inside. Ty and Sully were walking in ahead of me with a perp in handcuffs, his head bleeding profusely down the side of his face.

"What happened to him?" I asked, when I caught up with them.

"Poor guy hit his head on the door of the RMP." Sully said sarcastically. "Bad day to insult an officer of the law. And it looks like it's gonna be a long wait, fella."

"Too bad." I said, walking away from them, seeing Mary at the front desk. She nodded toward me as I approached her.

"Officer Boscorelli. Come right this way." She said, walking around the desk and out into the waiting area.

"Where's Yokas tonight?" She asked, looking over my shoulder.

"Took personal time. Why?" I asked.

"I don't know if you should be the one—" She mumbled, thinking about something.

"What's happening, Mary?" I asked, as I walked beside her. She looked really tired and very upset.

She shook her head. "Ten year old girl came in here about a half hour ago claiming that her step father raped her."

Instantly, my stomach tightened in anticipation. I clenched my jaw and breathed through my nose, hard. I hated these calls worse than any other. The only thing that was more awful than a man beating a woman was people who hurt kids. They were the kind of people that I wish I had permission to beat to death and then toss into the dump, like the garbage they were.

"How old didja say she was?" I asked, hoping I'd heard wrong.

"Ten." Mary said softly. "And she's pretty banged up too." She added, looking at me with sympathy and anger. "Bastard tore her from one end to the other, so I don't think there will be any problem prosecuting him."

I had to suppress the urge to throw up and stopped walking. I leaned back against the cool wall and put my hands over my face for a minute. I wished Faith was with me right about then. She always handled the talking part, or most of it, cause she knew I couldn't handle it.

I breathed heavily through my hands. "Oh, man. Has the mother been notified?" I asked weakly.

"She's on her way here. I had to request that her husband not accompany her. The little girl completely freaked out when I told her that I'd have to call her mother. She said she'd kill herself if he showed up too. But you know what the worst of it was?" She asked.

"There's more?"

" She didn't even ask why we didn't want him here." Mary said, sounding a bit suspicious. " You might want to ask her about that when you see her.'

"What's her name?" I asked, starting to walk toward the room with Mary.

"Lilly Nicholson." She said. "If she can't talk to you then let me know. I"ll call someone else. Maybe a woman officer would be better."

"Okay, thanks." I said, and then took a deep breath and opened the door to the room and stepped inside. The smell of rubbing alcohol, mixed with sterilizing agents filled my nostrils as I pulled the curtain back, revealing a very small, blond girl who was sitting up on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. She wore a blue hospital gown that was pulled tightly against her pale skin.

"Lilly?" I said softly, slowly pulling the curtain back all the way so that I wouldn't scare her.

She looked up at me, her huge blue eyes staring blankly at me, almost as if she were in a trance. She was in shock, I knew that right away, but those blue eyes were haunting and I could tell they knew a million secrets, horrible secrets of which only one was apparent at that moment. She blinked over and over again and I knew she was far, far away within herself where no one could hurt her.

Her eyes would haunt me until the day that I died.

My heart constricted, the agony of what had happened to this innocent girl, almost knocking me down, as I watched her looking at me. God forgive me, but all I could think about at that moment was how much like Faith this child looked. Her blond hair went to the middle of her back the same way Faith's did and for a moment I knew what my own daughter would look like if I had a child with the woman I loved.

This child made me feel paternal in a way that I'd never felt before. Her face cried out to me to help her. To do anything to make it better. It made me feel sick inside, so sick and angry that I could hardly concentrate on asking the important questions that were pertinent right then. All I wanted to do was gather her in my arms and hold her until the pain went away. To make her safe and secure and to let her knew that it would never happen again. But all I could do was take a report. I felt so useless not being able to do more.

"Lilly, honey?" I asked again, as I took a step toward the chair that sat beside the bed. "I'm Officer Boscorelli. I"m a policeman and I'm here to help you." I said in my softest voice.

She cringed and held herself tighter, seemingly shrinking inside of herself. She wanted to disappear. She continued to rock back and forth, small whimpering noises, barely audible, coming from within.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, sweetie. I want you to tell me what happened—if you can. If you can't, then don't worry about it right now, but it would really help me if you could tell me who did this to you." I said, sitting down and taking out my notebook and flipping it open. I grabbed a pen from my pocket and bit the cover off and put it in the pocket of my uniform. All the while she stared at me, her eyes watering.

"He did."

"Who did, hon? You have to tell me his name." I said, leaning forward a bit.

She moved as far away from me as she could and narrowed her eyes at me. "You know. You all know." She said accusingly. "And no one does anything to help."

"I don't know. What do you mean, Lilly? How would I know who did this to you?" I asked, getting an even sicker feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"My step-dad. He did this to me." She said, her eyes starting to fill with tears. "You're not going to tell him are you?"

"Lilly, you need to tell me everything you can about him so that I can put him away. The more information you can give me the more I can help you." I said. "Now, when did this happen?"

"Today. Before I went to school."

"Do you know what time it was?"

She tilted her head back, thinking. "It was right after my mommy went to work. He was supposed to take me to school because she had a meeting to go to."

"How did you get here, Lilly?" I asked, looking down at my notepad as I scribbled madly, trying to get everything written down.

"When he dropped me off at school I pretended to go inside and then I took the bus here." She said.

"You know how to get around the city by yourself?" I asked, surprised that a ten year old would be able to find her way.

"You won't tell my step-dad will you?" She asked again, her blue eyes burning into mine, pleading with me to keep her secret.

I didn't know what to say. Honestly, I wanted to go right out and strangle the guy but I knew that he would be notified, starting with me going to get his ass and arresting him. But I couldn't lie to her. I couldn't tell her that he wouldn't find out. He was gonna find out just how much child molesters were hated in the jail system. I'd make sure every perp knew exactly what he'd done.

"Honey, he won't ever touch you again. You've been very brave to come here and tell us about this." I said. "And I'm going to arrest him and put him in jail and he won't ever hurt you again."

"But he will!" She cried out. "He always does! You can't stop him! He knows people and they won't believe me. They never believe." She implored wildly, searching my face to make me understand.

"What do you mean he always does? Has he done this to you before?" I asked, feeling angrier by the second.

She nodded and then bit down on her lower lip. "For a long time." She said, looking away from me. She shivered and rubbed her tiny arms over her legs, trying to warm herself up.

I ran a hand over my mouth and grinded my teeth together, trying to hold myself together for her sake as well as my own. "Okay, this is what we're gonna do." I said, standing up and grabbing a blanket off of the bed and opening it up. "I'm gonna put this blanket over you" I said, advancing toward her and literally dropping it on her lap. I didn't want to get too close and upset her. "And you stay here and warm up a bit. I have to call someone and I'll be right back." I said, stepping back, giving her space.

"You promise?" She asked, snuggling into the blanket and looking up at me, her eyes begging for me to protect her. She wanted to believe in someone and I didn't want to let her down. Come hell or highwater, I was gonna get this bastard and make sure he was punished for what he did. "What if he comes in here?"

I shook my head, venom running through my brain. "No one is coming in here, Lilly. No one but your mother, when she gets here. I'll make sure a Policeman stands outside this door until I come back. Is that okay?"

"Will I have to go home with her?" She asked. "Do I have to go back there?" She asked again, sounding panicky.

I thought for a moment. I knew that there was something deeper going on, something that I knew instinctively wasn't right. She was afraid of her mother and that only happened when a child didn't trust the parent or they knew what was going on and didn't stop it. "I'll try to stop that from happening, but you need to tell me some more information. Can you do that, Lilly?"

"Okay."

"Okay. Now, what's your mother's name?"

"Nicole Nicholson."

"And your step-father's name?"

"Tony Nicholson." I wrote it down on the pad and then looked up at her again.

"Honey, why didn't you tell anyone before?"

"He said he would do it worse the next time if I did and he said he'd kill David."

I felt the bile making its way through my system and up my throat. Worse? What was worse that what he'd done? Killing her?

"Who's David?"

"My little brother. He's four."

"Your brother? Does he do it to David too?"

"No. Just me. Because I'm pretty but I don't want to be pretty anymore." She said, the tears finally falling down her cheeks. "My mom says that I should want to be pretty, like her, but I don't want to."

"Does your mom know what your step dad does to you?" I asked, my voice all but breaking.

She didn't answer. Only stared at me again, her silence confirming my fear. "I'm going to call someone and see what we can do. And while you wait I'm gonna get my friend Ty to stand outside the door and no one will come in. Will that make you feel better?" I asked, hoping that Sully and Davis were still in the waiting room.

She nodded and sank back down on the bed and curled up on her side. "You promise?" She asked again.

"I promise, Lilly. I'll go get him right now." I said, walking toward the door. I went out into the hall and saw Mary talking to a doctor about five feet away. "Mary? Can I see you for a sec?"

She put her finger out toward me, telling me to hold on and turned back to the doctor. I stood my ground, outside the door, afraid that if I went more than a foot that the slimy jag-off would find his way into the room and threaten the girl. Finally, Mary walked toward me.

"Did she talk to you?" She asked, frowning slightly.

"Ya. She did. She said her mother knows about the abuse. She's scared to death that she's gonna have to go home with her tonight. Is there anything we can do to stop the mother from taking her?"

Mary put her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat and sighed. "She said that her mother knows and did nothing about it?"

I nodded.

"Well, I can put a call into child services and see what we can do." She said. "But I gotta tell you that it may take a while."

"Can't we say that she needs to stay in hospital for a few days?"

"I don't know. I'll have to see what happens. We can't keep her here falsely."

"Make it up!" I demanded. "You didn't see the way she looked at me, Mary! She's scared out of her damn mind. Ya gotta find a way."

"Officer—"

"Mary—Please!" I implored, holding my hands out to her. "We gotta find a way to help her or she goes back with that bastard and who knows what he'll do to her. This is the first time she ever told anyone."

She nodded, seeing that I was about to break. "Bosco, why don't you go get a cup of coffee or something. Calm down a bit. The mother is going to be here any minute and you need to stay focused."

"I don't have time for coffee right now, Mary!" I all but shouted. "I have to see if Sully and Ty are still here. I gotta put a call into my Lieu and see if we can go arrest this guy and see if we can get her placed before the mom gets here. But can you stay here in front of her door until I see if Ty will guard it for me?"

She nodded and I was off like a rocket into the waiting room to see if I could find Ty. I scanned the crowd until I saw him standing back to, talking to a tall blond haired officer that I had never seen before. I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Davis, can I talk to you a second?" I asked, interrupting the conversation. The other guy stopped talking and gave me a dirty look. "Davis—it's important."

He turned to me, a quizzical look on his face. "Hey man, I"m talking here. Can it wait a second?" And turned back to his friend.

I tapped on his shoulder again, irritated. "No! It can't wait. I need you to come with me for a minute." I said.

His friend gave me a queer look as Ty turned back to me. "Bosco—I'll be right with you."

I stood back and crossed my arms over my chest. "Ty, I need to talk to you right now. It can't wait."

The blond haired guy gave me the once over and then turned his nose up at me. "Can't you see we're having a conversation, fella?" He said, narrowing his blue eyes at me.

"I don't care, fella." I said staunchly, not movin from my spot. "I need ta talk to him. And it's none of your damn business...so move along."

It was rude, I know, but I needed to talk to Ty right then and there and if the jag-off couldn't understand that, well then too bad for him. The guy didn't give me a good vibe anyway, with his snotty face and his arrogant attitude as he stood there lookin like he owned the world and everythin in it.

Ty turned back to his friend and shook his head. "Sorry Sonny. I'll just be a sec."

Sonny snorted and then waved his hand at me, dismissing me. "Whatever. I've gotta go take care of something anyway." He started to walk away and then turned back and pointed at me. "You aughta learn some manners, man."

"Whatever." I said and turned to Ty, who was looking me, real pissed off.

"What is your problem, man?" He asked, irritated by my rudeness. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Nothing that you can't help with." I said, motioning for him to follow me down the corridor. "You need to stand outside a door for me until I get back from the phone."

"Stand outside a door? For what?"

I sighed, not wanting to get into a full conversation about why. "Can you just do it and I'll tell you later?"

"No. I think you better tell me now before I get real pissed off at you for bein such a jerk." He said, but he followed me anyway.

"Look, there's a little girl in room four-oh-nine and she's been raped by her step-father. I'm gonna call social services but she's scared that he's gonna come through the door or somethin." I explained as we neared her room. "I jus want ya ta stand outside the door until I get back."

He stopped mid-track. "Ten? She's ten?" The expression on his face was a toss-up between horror and disgust. "Did she say who the bastard is?"

"Ya. And he raped her more than once. She told me the mother knows about it but does nothin to stop it. I jus want her to feel safe for once." I said.

He nodded. "Sure thing. I'll be right here. If you see Sully tell him that I'm down here, will ya?"

That was the best thing about Ty Davis; he always wanted to do the right thing. He never complained about doing something as long as it was for the right reason. I was grateful that he didn't want to know any other details. Being Davis, he just wanted to make things right; and I respected the hell out of him for it.

I nodded as I opened the door to the room. "Lilly? It's Officer Boscorelli." I called as I came into the room.

"Lilly, my friend Ty is a police officer and he's gonna stand right outside until I come back, okay?" I asked, as I neared the bed. She was fast asleep curled up in the fetal position. The poor kid was probably exhausted from all she'd been through.

Again I felt a pang of paternal instinct rip through my heart as I watched her. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight, her mouth set into a grimace. Thinking she was cold, I brought the hospital blanket up around her thin shoulders and noticed a huge purplish black bruise on her neck that ran down under the gown. I gingerly lifted the opening and stared down at one of the biggest bruises I'd ever seen and gasped.

Not wanting to disturb her, I set it down and covered my face with my hands for a second. How in God's name could anyone do this to a child? I knew from my own tormented childhood that it took a special kind of monster to inflict those wounds. My own father had beat me and my brother to a pulp for as long as I could remember. It was a nice vacation for him from beatin my ma.

There was a special place reserved in hell for the people who hurt kids; and may they pray to God to be with them because no one else on this earth would be. I seriously doubted that even God would protect the child molesters and the monsters of this world. At least I hoped he wouldn't.

I started to walk around the side of the bed when there was a light knocking at the door and then Ty poked his head through.

"Bos, the mother's here." He said and then rolled his eyes backward. "It's a b-o-a-m." He added, to let me know what kind of personality she seemed to have. "And Bos, you know her."

A b-o-a-m stood for a 'bitch of a mother'. We used this term when we felt that a mother displayed certain nasty qualities from the start. When dealing with child abuse the mother, especially, always had one of two reactions; either they were devastated, crying and terribly distraught, or they were a bitch. The ones who acted bitchy were guaranteed to have known about the abuse before, or they just didn't believe it and generally tended to blame the kids for making up stories.

"Send her in." I said, trying to act a tiny bit professional and more than a little curious as to who this woman was that I knew. I stood to the side of the bed and crossed my arms over my chest.

The door opened immediately and a tall blonde came in wearing a black pantsuit that clung tightly to her shapely body. I stood rooted to my spot as my mouth hung wide open. I could hardly believe my eyes; I hadn't seen this woman for at least ten years and hadn't planned on seeing her ever again.

It was Nicole. My Nicole.